Exhibition Archives Winter/Spring 2006

Fierce Friends: Artists & Animals, 1750–1900
March 26–August 27, 2006
Heinz Galleries

In the 18th and 19th centuries, modern theories of evolution and the proliferation of machines elevated animals to a new status in religion, philosophy, and the arts. This exhibition, co-organized by Carnegie Museum of Art and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, explores the ways that artists of the period addressed the issue of humanity’s relationship with nature as exemplified through our treatment of animals. Through paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and photographs, the exhibition shows how the visual arts drew upon science, natural history, and literature about animals, and how those fields, in turn, were shaped, inspired, or influenced by the work of artists. Designed to create visual juxtapositions that suprise, delight, and provoke, the exhibition presents great paintings and sculptures next to fossils, specimens of taxidermy, ground plans of zoological gardens, illustrated books, bird cages, and steam engines.

Major support for the Pittsburgh presentation of Fierce Friends: Artists and Animals, 1750-1900 has been provided by the Richard King Mellon Foundation. This exhibition was financed in part by a grant from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Department of Community and Economic Development. Additional support has been provided by the Henry L. Hillman Fund, The Fellows and The Associates of Carnegie Museum of Art, the Scaife Family Foundation, the Beal Publication Fund, and the Scaife Family Foundation Fund for Children's Publications. Fierce Friends: Artists and Animals, 1750-1900 is the opening venue for Pittsburgh Roars, a celebration of the region's arts, culture, and family attractions.

Click to hear selections from Fierce Friends audio tour:

• Paul Meyerheim: The Jealous Linoness
• Vincent van Gogh: Great Peacock Moth and Crab on its Back
• Edwin Landseer: Man Proposes, God Disposes

An Antenna Audio Tour

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Documenting Our Past: The Teenie Harris Archive Project, Part Two
February 18–July 30, 2006
Forum Gallery

Charles “Teenie” Harris photographed the events and daily life in Pittsburgh’s African American community between 1936 and 1975 for the Pittsburgh Courier, one of the nation's most influential Black newspapers. In 2001, Carnegie Museum of Art acquired Harris’ archive of nearly 80,000 photographic negatives, few of which are titled and dated. With Part II of the Teenie Harris Archive Project, the museum once again is asking members of the community who are familiar with the history of the era to help identify the people, places, and events taking place in the approximately 300 digital prints and thousands of online and bound images, most of which have not been on view before. Visitors are encouraged to complete printed questionnaires on-site. The gathered information will then be entered into the Museum's collections database and will be available on-line in the future.

Vintage prints and negatives in the Teenie Harris Archive were acquired with funds provided by the Heinz Family Fund and by gifts of the artist and the Harris Estate. General support for museum programs is provided by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Heinz Endowments, and Allegheny County Regional Asset District. Cataloging and scanning of the Teenie Harris Archive is supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant To Preserve and Create Access to Humanities Collections.

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The Impressionist Era: Works on Paper from the Collection
March 11–June 18, 2006
Works on Paper Gallery

TThe rebellious spirit of Impressionism versus academic art and new approaches to constructing images had an enormous impact on art world practices and trends that reverberates to this day. This exhibition of prints and drawings from the museum's collection highlights the Impressionist era between 1860 and the turn-of-the-century, when artistic interest in various traditional printmaking techniques was revived and put to use in new and experimental ways. Corot, Millet, Manet, Tissot, Cassatt, Degas, Pissarro, Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vuillard are just some of the artists whose works are on view.

Generous support for the exhibition has been provided by TIAA-CREF.

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Barns of Western Pennsylvania: Vernacular to Spectacular
February 4–May 28, 2006
Heinz Architectural Center

Despite rampant suburban sprawl in Western Pennsylvania, twenty-nine of the thirty-three counties in this half of the state are classified as rural, and agriculture remains a leading industry. Barns are thus an important component of this region’s landscape, as well as extremely evocative icons in the popular mind. This exhibition traces the development of barns in the region from the late 18th century to the present through an exploration of their forms, functions, technological evolution, and role as barometers of change in the agrarian economy.

The Heinz Architectural Center’s first exhibition to focus on a single vernacular building type, Barns of Western Pennsylvania: Vernacular to Spectacular presents a wide variety of objects to reveal the complexity of a deceptively straightforward building form. Models, photographs, barn-building tools, examples of barn decoration, replicas of the intricate joinery that account for the remarkable stability of barns, farm journals, and architectural pattern books are among the artifacts that document barns’ evolution from simple log structures to the large, often stately edifices that continue to be significant landmarks on the rural scene. The exhibition also demonstrates the ways in which this everyday building type recently has been adapted and transformed for non-agricultural uses, thus linking tradition to the contemporary.

The programs of the Heinz Architectural Center are made possible by the generosity of the Drue Heinz Trust. General support for museum programs is provided by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and The Heinz Endowments.

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