Exhibitions

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Exhibitions

Artists in Their Studios
Images from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art
September 13 - November 23, 2008

Artists in Their Studios features 55 vintage photographs of American artists in their studios. From the sumptuously furnished studios of the late nineteenth century to the austere workrooms of the present day, studio spaces have played a dynamic role in the history of American art - not simply reflecting aesthetic visions, but informing them. This look at artists in their studios, through photographs and documents from the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art, offers a behind-the-scenes view into the life of American artists - their methods and materials, aesthetic influences, artistic personae, and social worlds.

At Left: George Grey Barnard (1863–1938) works on his colossal plaster head Lincoln in Thought, ca. 1916. Ida Tarbell, a Lincoln biographer, watches at the right. Photograph by Underwood & Underwood. George Grey Barnard papers, 1884–1963. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Artists in Their Studios Related Events

Wednesday Film Series

All Wednesday films will be shown in the Pavilion @ 1 pm and are included in the price of admission. Free for Friends of Belmont and UMW staff and students.

Wednesday, October 22
Painters Painting:  The New York Art Scene (1973) NR



This interview-based documentary is a survey of artists and their art from the period of Abstract Expressionism, through Hard Edge and Color Field painting to Pop Art. The viewer may learn as much about the artist from each one's studio, where the conversations take place, as from anything that is said. Among the featured painters are William de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Barnett Newman, Hans Hoffman, Jules Olitski, Philip Pavia, Larry Poons, Robert Motherwell, and Kenneth Noland.
116 minutes

Wednesday, October 29
Jackson Pollock: Love and Death on Long Island (1999) NR


Through interviews and archival footage, the filmmakers explore Pollock's struggle to perfect his abstract painting style and his subsequent notoriety as one of America's most celebrated painters. The film also covers the artist's battles with alcoholism and insecurity before his death in 1956.
46 minutes

Wednesday, November 5
William Merritt Chase at Shinnecock, (2000) NR


Shinnecock, New York, in 1891 was the site of an important development in American art. There, William Merritt Chase established the nation's first outdoor summer school of painting. Chase's works, tours of his house and studio, period photographs, and scenes of Shinnecock's natural beauty tell the story behind Chase's fruitful artistic endeavor.
25 minutes

Mobile By Alexander Calder  (2000) NR


The first work placed in the National Gallery's East Building was the last major piece by Alexander Calder, the inventor of the mobile as an art form. Mobile: By Alexander Calder takes viewers behind the scenes as Calder, architect I.M. Pei, artist/engineer Paul Matisse, and museum officials meet the challenges of building this complex work.
24 minutes

Wednesday, November 12
Andy Warhol - The Complete Picture (2002) NR

Campbell's soup cans, drug addicts-turned-celebrities and a Day-Glo Marilyn Monroe: these are some of the groundbreaking images from Andy Warhol's artistic vision. This program offers the definitive look at the life and creative world of a revolutionary who influenced the 20th century in everything from painting to film to music. Capturing the essence of Warhol's strobe-lit, amphetamine- fueled 60s "scene" are rare audiotapes and films from the Warhol Foundation Archives and recollections of friends and colleagues like Debbie Harry and Dennis Hopper. Enter Warhol's fabulous inner circle, where both high and lowbrow converge beneath the banner of celebrity and everyone gets to be famous for fifteen minutes.
104 minutes

Film Festival
Sunday, October 26th 1-5 pm

The Film Festival will take place in the Pavilion and is included in the price of admission. Free for Friends of Belmont and UMW staff/students. See above for film descriptions.

1 pm    “Painters Painting:  The New York Art Scene” (1973) NR 116 minutes
3 pm    “William Merritt Chase at Shinnecock” (2000) NR 25 minutes
4 pm    “John Singer Sargent: Outside the Frame” (2000) NR 57 minutes

Film Festival
Sunday, November 16th 1-5 pm

The Film Festival will take place in the Pavilion and is included in the price of admission. Free for Friends of Belmont and UMW staff/students.

1 pm    “Andy Warhol - The Complete Picture” (2002) NR 104 minutes
3 pm    “Mobile By Alexander Calder” (2000) NR 24 minutes
4 pm    “Jackson Pollock: Love and Death on Long Island” (1999) NR 46 minutes

Upcoming

Winter 2009 Spotlight Exhibition
Featuring The Unpretentious Garden by Gari Melchers, on loan from the Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia,
January 14 through April 15, 2009

The Unpretentious Garden, painted around 1910, pictures the artist’s wife in the lush backyard of their home in Holland. It is a sunny, impressionist landscape expressing the happy tranquility of the artist’s domestic life. No wonder The Unpretentious Garden is the most reproduced image by Gari Melchers. The painting appears at Gari Melchers Home and Studio for the first time and in the company of other examples painted by Melchers during the Dutch interlude of his career.

Painting Highlights from the House
January 14 through February 28, 2009

While the house is closed for repairs, many of Gari and Corinne Melchers’ favorite paintings from their personal collection will be displayed in the studio. This gives audiences an opportunity to closely inspect pictures that are often difficult to view in the house setting. The scope of the couple’s collection is broad and eclectic, including everything from the old masters to the work of Melchers’ European and American contemporaries.

Picturing Health: Norman Rockwell and the Art of Illustration
Organized by the Norman Rockwell Museum
October 31, 2009- January 31, 2010

The central theme of Picturing Health is, naturally, health and well-being as depicted in art. It explores the doctor/patient relationship, physical fitness, and health and healing through the beloved narratives of Norman Rockwell produced for the Lambert, Upjohn and American Optical Companies in the last century, and now owned by the Pfizer Collection.  In addition to the eleven outstanding original canvases by Rockwell are featured 14 of today’s preeminent illustrators for the pages of Healthy Living, Men’s Health, Newsweek, The New York Times and The New Yorker. Their imagery presents a contemporary perspective on many of the same health-related subjects explored nearly 50 years earlier by Rockwell.