PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Barnes Foundation has reopened with new health and safety protocols for staff and visitors. The Marie Cuttoli: The Modern Thread from Miró to Man Ray exhibition, which opened less than three weeks before the Barnes closed on March 13, has been extended through August 23.
“During the past few uncharted and challenging months, the relevance of museums, as spaces that naturally offer respite, rejuvenation, and educational enrichment, has come into sharper focus,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President. “Our planning for reopening has been thorough, involving many conversations with staff, elected officials, medical professionals, and colleagues at cultural institutions across the city and state, and around the world. We have reimagined every aspect of our operations to prioritize and protect the health and well-being of our staff and visitors, and to ensure a comfortable experience that allows for meaningful and enriching encounters with art. Art possesses the power to transport us and to help us heal. It is with deep gratitude and hope for the future that we reopen our doors and welcome back our treasured community.”
“When we closed our doors on March 13, our major spring exhibition Marie Cuttoli: The Modern Thread from Miró to Man Rayhad been on view for less than three weeks,” says Nancy Ireson, Deputy Director for Collections and Exhibitions & Gund Family Chief Curator. “We are delighted to extend this first major presentation dedicated to Cuttoli, the trailblazing entrepreneur who breathed new life into the tradition of French tapestry and helped redefine what modern art could be in the 20th century, through the summer. We look forward to welcoming our visitors back inside the galleries to experience, firsthand, the unparalleled joys of the Barnes collection and all this remarkable exhibition has to offer.”
Marie Cuttoli: The Modern Thread from Miró to Man Ray
Extended Through August 23, 2020
On view in the Roberts Gallery
Groundbreaking entrepreneur Marie Cuttoli (1879–1973) befriended and collected modern artists including Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and Joan Miró. Living between France and Algeria, she combined her love of Parisian modernism with her passion for the weaving traditions of North Africa by commissioning textile designs from European artists for manufacture in Algeria. As her enterprise flourished and received international acclaim, Cuttoli turned her attention to the exclusive art of tapestry. She persuaded some of the most renowned artists of her time to create designs for the historic tapestry workshops in Aubusson, France, bringing the French tapestry industry into the modern era and contemporary art into mainstream life. Under Cuttoli’s stewardship, designs by artists from Miró to Man Ray appeared in domestic interiors and corporate offices in major cities in the US and Europe.
Curated by associate curator Cindy Kang and presented in the Roberts Gallery, this exhibition traces Marie Cuttoli’s pioneering career and features large-scale tapestries and paintings, drawings, photographs, clothing, rugs, and archival material. Spanning the 1920s through 1950s, the exhibition includes works by Georges Braque, André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Le Corbusier, Natalia Goncharova, Fernand Léger, Jean Lurçat, Man Ray, Louis Marcoussis, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Rouault. By uniting important paintings and drawings with the resulting tapestry, the exhibition shows their true purpose, revealing modernism’s profound dialogue with the decorative arts.
This exhibition holds a special significance at the Barnes; when a selection of the tapestries Cuttoli commissioned toured the US in the 1930s and ’40s, Dr. Albert C. Barnes was one of her most vocal advocates and patrons. The three tapestries he bought after designs by Picasso, Rouault, and Miró form the basis of this exhibition. Among the rich archival materials included in this show is a digitized national radio broadcast of Dr. Barnes speaking about Cuttoli.
