Beauty, Passion & Bliss:
19th Century Masterworks from the Dahesh Museum of Art
Huth, Boeing, and Salmon Galleries
March 27 – July 3, 2022
Chevaillier (French, 19th-20th century), Room I at the Luxembourg, ca. 1903–10, oil on Canvas, 21 1/4 x 25 1/2 in. © Dahesh Museum of Art
Lecture & Preview Reception with Art Historian David Farmer
Paris & Antwerp: Two Transformative Art Academies
Saturday, March 26 | 6 – 8 p.m.
Tickets available Monday, March 7
Members: $50 | Non-Members: $75
Luigi Bazzani (Italian, 1836–1927), A Pompeian Interior, 1882, oil on panel, 28 1/4 x 22 in. © Dahesh Museum of Art
Drawn from the rich collections of the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York City, Beauty, Passion & Bliss features an outstanding selection of paintings and sculptures that embody the 19th-century European academic tradition. Originating in 16th-century Italy, this tradition was based on learning to draw the human figure, and in adhering to principals of ideal beauty epitomized by Classical and Renaissance art.
The exhibition features a surprisingly wide range of themes and styles. There are historical, religious, and mythological paintings, considered the highest form of art, as well as examples of the ways in which historical themes were transformed into intimate, detailed genre scenes that, along with landscapes and idealized rustic subjects, appealed to wealthy and middle-class European and American collectors. Also well-represented is Orientalism — highly popular images of the Middle East and North Africa that freely commingled reality and fantasy. Organized by the Dahesh Museum of Art, New York, NY.
About David Farmer
David Farmer is currently Director of Exhibitions at the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York City; he was Founding Director of that institution from 1993 to 2002, when he retired to Maine full time, then returned to his current position in 2009. He began his career as an art museum professional in 1962, including positions at the Wadsworth Atheneum, Worcester Art Museum, Harvard’s Busch-Reisinger Museum, The Art Institute of Chicago, Birmingham Museum of Art and the University Art Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Academic positions include teaching art history and museum studies at Clark University, Worcester; University of Alabama, Birmingham; University of California, Santa Barbara; Pratt Institute; and New York University. He currently teaches at the University College Rockland, Maine, a local center of the University of Maine Augusta. In 2007, he was Interim President & CEO of the Center for Maine Contemporary Art for 9 months and served on the board of the General Henry Knox Museum in Thomaston, ME, 2008-2017.
Thank you, Sponsors!
Presenting Sponsor:
The Jurenko Foundation
Sponsors:
Alabama Public Radio
Haws, Minkinow, Kyser, and Crunkleton Endowment
The Estate of Penny Bashore
Virginia and Parker Griffith
Suzanne O’Connor
Additional Support:
Alabama State Council on the Arts
Huntsville Museum of Art Guild
Patsy and John Shields
Middie Thompson and Family
Media Sponsor:
In-Kind Sponsor:
