HOUSTON, TEXAS.- The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston presents “The Heroic Century: The Museum of Modern Art Masterpieces, 200 Paintings and Sculptures,” on view through January 4, 2004. The Heroic Century: The Museum of Modern Art Masterpieces, 200 Paintings and Sculptures, an exhibition of unsurpassed examples of modern and contemporary art drawn from the renowned collection of the New York museum, premiers at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, its only U.S. venue. Among the icons included in the show are Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night (1889), Claude Monet’s monumental triptych Water Lilies (c. 1920), and Salvador Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory (1931). The exhibition was organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York while MoMA’s midtown Manhattan building is closed for new construction and renovation. John Elderfield, chief curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture at MoMA, is the curator for this exhibition. Barry Walker, curator of 20th century art and prints and drawings at the MFAH, is coordinating the exhibition in Houston. The Heroic Century will be on view in galleries on two levels in the Audrey Jones Beck Building, 5601 Main Street, through January 4, 2004. It travels to the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, the only other venue, in February 2004. Major corporate sponsorship is provided by UBS.
Virtually every significant Western art movement of the 20th century is represented in the exhibition: post-Impressionism, Symbolism, Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, American Pop Art, Minimalism, and Post-Minimalism. The breadth of the exhibition gives museum visitors the unique opportunity to experience a chronological history of modern art through the display of the era’s finest examples from MoMA, described by New York Times art critic Michael Kimmelman as “the world’s premier collection of modern painting and sculpture.”
Works in the show, ranging in date from 1885 to 1998, are presented in eight major sections. The first five focus primarily on European painting; in the last three, the emphasis shifts to America. A number of artists are represented in depth. There are 15 works by Henri Matisse ranging from 1905 to 1927, considered the artist’s best period; 12 by Pablo Picasso, spanning his Blue and Rose periods, Cubism, Neo-Classicism, to his late-middle phase; and multiple works by Alberto Giacometti, Vasily Kandinsky, Willem de Kooning, and Jackson Pollock. Individual highlights include Constantin Brancusi’s bronze, Bird in Space (1928), Edward Hopper’s Gas (1940), Jasper Johns’s Map (1961), and Joan Miró’s Hirondelle/Amour (1933-34).
“The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston is honored to be the only U.S. location for this magnificent exhibition,” said Peter C. Marzio, director, MFAH. “The holdings of The Museum of Modern Art are unrivaled. This exhibition is clearly a shining moment in the history of the MFAH and its presentation of modern art.”
When The Museum of Modern Art opened in 1929, it was the first institution to devote itself to the collection and display of the art of its own time. Its goal then, as it is now, was to assemble the preeminent collection of modern art in all of its forms: painting and sculpture, film and video, photography, architecture and design, prints and illustrated books, and drawings. Those media represent the curatorial disciplines of the museum today. The Heroic Century focuses on the painting and sculpture collection for which MoMA is best known.
Glenn D. Lowry, director, The Museum of Modern Art, stated, “We are delighted that these iconic works from our collection will reach new audiences at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. As a result of the ongoing renovation and construction project at our midtown Manhattan building, we are enjoying the rare opportunity to share highlights of our collection, providing exciting new contexts to view modern and contemporary art.”
“This exhibition tells the great story of modern art, and will undoubtedly inspire viewers to consider, and perhaps to argue about, the relationships between various works and movements,” Walker said.
“The Heroic Century represents a selection of more than two hundred works that not only reflect the range and strength of MoMA’s collection, but also form a cogent overview of modern art since 1880,” said Elderfield.
“UBS is pleased to support the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and to serve as the lead sponsor for this outstanding exhibition,” said Mark B. Sutton, president of UBS Financial Services Inc. “UBS and The Museum of Modern Art have a long and successful relationship, and we are delighted to help bring some of the museum’s most important works to Houston, a key market for UBS’s wealth management business.”
The most recent work in the exhibition, Cai Guo-Qiang’s Borrowing Your Enemy’s Arrows (1998), a 60-foot wood boat riddled with arrows, will be suspended above the antiquities in the Beck Building atrium, allowing it to be viewed from all angles, and grandly announcing the exhibition’s presence. Among the works adding to the enticement in the orientation gallery will be Picasso’s Rose period icon, Boy Leading a Horse (1906), and Matisse’s Dance (First Version) (1909).
Post-Impressionism, Symbolism, and Fauvism - The first part of the exhibition proper covers post-Impressionism, early Symbolism, Fauvism, and late Symbolism. Post-Impressionism offerings recall MoMA’s inaugural exhibition of 1929, Van Gogh, Seurat, Gauguin, Cézanne, 1885-1894. Works presented include van Gogh’s The Starry Night and its companion, The Olive Trees (1889). Highlights of early Symbolism include Edvard Munch’s The Storm (1893) and Henri Rousseau’s The Dream (1910). Works by Matisse and Georges Braque, the two greatest practitioners of the short-lived Fauvism movement, are featured. Late Symbolism offerings include Kandinsky’s four large panels of 1914 representing the seasons and Monet’s triptych, Water Lilies, whose three panels are each 6 1/2 by 14 feet.
Matisse and Picasso - The next grouping focuses on works by Matisse and Picasso, two of the most influential artists of the 20th century. MoMA is famous for its collection of works by these men, who admired and competed with one another throughout their careers, and eventually came to support one another. Among the works in the Matisse section are Goldfish and Palette (1914) and five progressive sculptures of a woman’s head, dating from 1910-1916, each titled Jeannette. The Picasso section includes the artist’s great Cubist painting, Three Musicians (1921), and his brilliant Girl Before a Mirror (1932).
Cubism, Futurism, Brancusi, Abstract Art, and Modernists - The third area of the exhibition examines some of the most radical movements of the 20th century. Cubist highlights include Braque’s Man with a Guitar (1911-12), Picasso’s Ma Jolie (1911-12), Marc Chagall’s I and the Village (1911), and Fernand Léger’s Three Women (1921). Futurism, the Italian response to Cubism, emphasizing the speed and movement of the machine age, features works by Umberto Boccioni. A special section concentrates on the accomplishment of Brancusi, including his Endless Column (1918) in oak. Abstract art is examined in the radical simplification of 20th-century Russian and Bauhaus avant-garde, the geometric abstraction of Piet Mondrian, and international artists influenced by Mondrian. A grouping of American Modernists contains one painting each by Stuart Davis, Gerald Murphy, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Patrick Henry Bruce.
Fantastic Art, Dada, and Surrealism - The fourth part of the exhibition revisits Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism, a landmark exhibition that MoMA mounted in 1936. The Two Fantasts section consists of four paintings each by Giorgio de Chirico and Paul Klee. Among the Dada works are Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel (1951, after lost original of 1913) in which the artist mounted a bicycle wheel on an ordinary kitchen stool. Besides Dalí’s The Persistence of Memory, Surrealism offerings include Miró’s Person Throwing a Stone (1926), Giacometti’s Woman with Her Throat Cut (1932), and Meret Oppenheim’s Object (Dejeuner en Fourrure) (1936), a fur-covered cup, saucer, and spoon.
New Images of Man: Figurative Sculpture and Painting - Demonstrating that the path of Modernism has many twistings and turnings, the fifth section presents selections of representational art that co-existed with more abstract imagery in the Modernist period. Auguste Rodin’s massive bronze Monument to Balzac (1898) and Picasso’s whimsical She-Goat (1950) are among the sculptures. The painting section includes Max Beckmann’s triptych Departure (1932-33), Pierre Bonnard’s Nude in Bathroom (1932), Balthus’s The Street (1933), and three works by Hopper: House by the Railroad (1925), New York Movie (1939), and Gas (1940).
The New American Painting - Part six focuses on Abstract Expressionism, the first American art movement to gain international recognition and respect. Internationally acknowledged masterworks in this part of the exhibition include de Kooning’s Woman, I (1950-52), Pollock’s Number I (1948), Mark Rothko’s Horizontals, White over Darks (1961), and Robert Motherwell’s Elegy to the Spanish Republic, 54 (1957-61). The section also features major works by Arshile Gorky, Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Franz Kline, and David Smith.
This section also examines the generation of artists who came to maturity just after the peak of Abstract Expressionism. Some like Helen Frankenthaler, built on Abstract Expressionism. Others, like Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, returned to recognizable images. Works shown include Frankenthaler’s stain painting Jacob’s Ladder (1957), Alejandro Otero’s Colorrhythm, I (1955), and Rauschenberg’s First Landing Jump (1961).
American Pop Art and Minimalism - American Pop Art and Minimalist painting and sculpture are examined in the seventh section. Among the Pop Art offerings are major works by Andy Warhol, including S&H Green Stamps (1962), Roy Lichtenstein’s Girl with Ball (1961), and Claes Oldenburg’s Floor Cake (Giant Piece of Cake) (1962). Among the Minimalist paintings are iconic works by Frank Stella, The Marriage of Reason and Squalor, II (1959), and Agnes Martin, Red Bird (1964). A radical re-examination of sculpture occurred during this period, resulting in such works as Dan Flavin’s fluorescent light sculpture, Untitled (To the innovator of Wheeling Peachblow) (1968) and Carl Andre’s floor piece, 144 Lead Square (1969).
Guston, Richter, and Large Works - The exhibition concludes with a representational sampling of work created after Pop Art in the period that is termed post-Modern. Philip Guston’s importance is underlined by the inclusion of five paintings from his late period in which he returned to figuration, working in a cartoon-like style that still has influence on today’s artists. Contemporary German artist Gerhard Richter’s suite of 15 paintings, October 18, 1977, installed as one unit, concerns the fate of Germany’s political radicals, the Baader-Meinhof group, and represents the resurgence of European art in the 1980s. A dramatic example of Conceptualism is “Untitled” (1991) by Cuban artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres. “Untitled” represents the viewpoint that the artist’s creation can be an idea rather than a concrete object. For Gonzalez-Torres, the work exists only when it’s placed on at least six billboards in the same city at the same time, as it will be in Houston. A 10-by-22-foot version of the image is part of the museum installation.
Sponsorship - Generous support for this exhibition is provided by: Caroline Wiess Law, The Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston Endowment Inc., James A. Elkins, Jr. in honor of Caroline Wiess Law, Continental Airlines, Lee and Joe Jamail, Sotheby’s, Judy and Charles Tate, Mr. And Mrs. Alfred C. Glassell, Jr., and Isabel B. and Wallace S. Wilson. Additional support is provided by Halliburton, Mr. and Mrs. Meredith J. Long, Mr. Fayez Sarofim, HP, Burlington Resources, Karen and Eric Pulaski, Minnette and Jerome Robinson, Leslie and Jack Blanton, Jr., and Anne Lamkin Kinder. Major corporate sponsorship is provided by UBS.
Special Museum Shop/Exhibition Catalogue - A special retail shop is planned for the exhibition. It will feature an array of merchandise related to the MoMA collection for both children and adults. A fully illustrated catalogue, Visions of Modern Art: Painting and Sculpture from The Museum of Modern Art, accompanies the exhibition. Elderfield wrote the introduction to the 344-page volume, which features an anthology of texts drawn from the museum’s archives and publications, from the 1929 first loan exhibition catalogue by Alfred H. Barr, Jr., to the 2002 Richter catalogue by former MoMA Senior Curator Robert Storr, now the Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. The book also includes essays introducing each of the eight sections of the exhibition. The catalogue will be available for $40 in softcover and $65 in hardcover at the MFAH Shops. To place an order, or for more information about the exhibition shop, call 713-629-7360.
