Exhibition Archives Winter/Spring 1999

Zigzags and Speed Stripes:
The Art Deco Style
November 7, 1998–March 28, 1999
Heinz Architectural Center

Art Deco was an exuberant, colorful, eclectic style of the 1920s and 1930s that was applied to everything from tea services to skyscrapers, from fashion design to movie sets. Brought to wide public attention at the World's Fair in Paris in 1925, Art Deco rapidly became popular in the United States, from the angular, geometrical style of the 1920s through the aerodynamic style of the 1930s. Newly commissioned photograph of Art Deco buildings in Pittsburgh are featured.

Top

Recent Acquisitions: Works on Paper
January 16–April 11, 1999

Over the past several years, the Museum's collection of works on paper-prints, drawings, and photographs-has been enriched through an active acquisition program, as well as by generous gifts. This exhibition features the most significant additions to the Museum's collections of old master prints, modern European and American drawings and prints, architectural drawings, and contemporary art.

Top

Robert Grosvenor, Andreas Gursky, John Wesley:
February 20–May 19, 1999
Forum Gallery

Forum: Robert Grosvenor, Andreas Gursky, John Wesley is an exhibition of sculpture, photographs and paintings organized by Contemporary Art Curatorial Assistant, Alyson Baker. There is, among the varied mediums in this exhibition, a shared a vocabulary, an aesthetic born of the space-both physical and psychic-located in the expanse between the urban and the rural. This is a place in the modern landscape that is defined by human occupation and inscribed with divisions and boundaries wrought by post-industrial production and commerce; for these artists, it is a compelling source of visual raw material and psychological and social metaphor.

Top

The Figure in Wedgwood:
Basalt and Jasper Treasures from New England Collections
March 27–June 27, 1999
Treasure Room

This exhibition focuses on the human figure in over forty eighteenth- to twentieth-century Wedgwood basalt and jasper ceramic wares on loan from the finest private collections in New England. Found on such ornamental objects as cameos, vases, and plaques, the human figure may appear as part of the object's outward form, as a handle, for instance, or as applied decoration. Portrait medallions and busts were other ways of presenting the human figure. Historical and mythological figures and well-known personalities of the day are depicted on many of these objects.

The Figure in Wedgwood was organized in honor of the 44th Wedgwood International Seminar, which will be held April 14-18, 1999, at the Carnegie Museum of Art.

Top

Merchant Prince and Master Builder: Edgar J. Kaufmann and Frank Lloyd Wright
April 10–Oct 3, 1999
Heinz Architectural Center

The exhibition explores one of the most remarkable architect/client relationships in the history of American architecture. This relationship, based on a belief in the power of design to transform the lives of those it touched, was shared by Pittsburgh department store owner and civic leader Edgar J. Kaufmann, Sr., and Frank Lloyd Wright. Together, they produced Fallingwater, one of the icons of twentieth-century architecture. Kaufmann and his son, Edgar Kaufmann, Jr. subsequently commissioned more than a dozen other projects from Wright, including several of his most visionary designs. All these projects will be presented in the exhibition using original drawings, many being shown for the first time.

Merchant Prince and Master Builder: Edgar J. Kaufmann and Frank Lloyd Wright was organized by the Carnegie Museum of Art's Heinz Architectural Center in cooperation with The Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, Scottsdale, Arizona. Support for the exhibition has been provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Additional support has been provided by Kaufmann's, A Division of the May Department Stores Company, and The Alexander C. and Tillie S. Speyer Foundation. The programs of the Heinz Architectural Center are made possible by the generous support of the Drue Heinz Trust.

Top

The Other Nineteenth Century: European Prints and Drawings
April 17–August 15, 1999
Scaife Galleries

While famous artists such as Degas and van Gogh made drawings and prints, this exhibition brings together works on paper from the museum's collection by European artists who, though less well known today, were popular and successful in their own time. New printmaking techniques such as cliche-verre, a hybrid form of printmaking and photography, and early examples of lithography by artists such as Richard Parkes Bonington and Achille Devria are featured.

Top