Current Exhibitions at Norton Museum of Art are some of the best proposals to stay art-savvy in West Palm Beach. There has been a handful of art shows lately that give our city a bit of cultural uplift and these are three stellar exhibits at the Norton worth visiting this season.
O’Keeffe, Stettheimer, Torr, Zorach: Women Modernists in New York
On View February 18 – May 15, 2016
Norton Museum of Art explores Women’s contributions to modernism presenting the first exhibition to examine the art and careers of modernists Georgia O’Keeffe, Florine Stettheimer, Helen Torr, and Marguerite Zorach in parallel.The exhibition reveals how each of these women sought recognition as artists in their own right, and how their identity as women shaped the circumstances under which they worked, the forms their art took, and the way their work was interpreted—and often discounted.
All four women lived and worked in New York between about 1910 and 1935. Zorach and Stettheimer were particularly close friends, and Zorach drew Stettheimer several times. Zorach and O’Keeffe attended Stettheimer’s avant-garde salon, and O’Keeffe eventually gave Stettheimer’s eulogy at her funeral. Helen Torr was more isolated, but knew O’Keeffe well, and O’Keeffe admired Torr’s work. Torr also likely knew Stettheimer and Zorach
Still/Moving: Photographs and Video Art from the DeWoody Collection
On View through May 15, 2016
Businesswoman, philanthropist, and Norton supporter Beth Rudin DeWoody is a collector of contemporary art who is as voracious as she is thoughtful. The exhibition, Still/Moving: Photographs and Video Art from the DeWoody Collection, comprises more than 200 works from her collection of photography- and videobased art of more than 3,000 works. And that is part of a wide-ranging contemporary art collection of more than an estimated 10,000 works she has discerningly gathered since the 1970s.
While her overall collection is primarily contemporary, when it comes to photographs, works from the late 19th century share wall space with those from the 21st. Early 20th-century fashion and celebrity photography, which have formed the basis for much of the most inventive ideas of portraiture and narrative, are an important part of the collection. Works that straddle the worlds of architecture and conceptual art are evident in images by German husband-and-wife team Bernd and Hilla Becher as well as in the ground-breaking photography book, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, by West Coast artist Ed Ruscha.
The collection also includes many portraits and self-portraits by photographers, including British fashion photographer Cecil Beaton, American Cindy Sherman, and Chinese conceptual artist Tseng Kwong Chi. DeWoody’s tastes also include classic imagery from photographers Irving Penn, Andre Kertesz, Edward Weston, and Richard Avedon, yet also embrace the more-nuanced use of contemporary photo imagery by artists including Marco Brambilia, Tim Hailand, and Susan Anderson.
More current exhibitions at Norton Museum of Art also featuring Njideka Akunyili Crosby as the 2016 RAW Artist
The Norton Museum of Art will present the work of Njideka Akunyili Crosby in the 2016 Recognition of Art by Women (RAW) exhibition. The exhibit will be the first survey exhibition of the Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist’s work. The exhibition features 16 large-scale, new and recent mixed-media works comprised of painted and collaged elements. The Norton’s Recognition of Art by Women (RAW) program, made possible by the Leonard and Sophie Davis/MLDauray Arts Initiative, highlights and promotes living women artists working in painting and sculpture.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby was born in Enugu, Nigeria, Akunyili Crosby spent her formative years in Nigeria before traveling to the United States in 1999 to continue her education. She attended Swarthmore College, earning a BA degree with Honors in Biology and Studio Art. Deciding against a medical career, the chosen path of her parents and siblings, Akunyili Crosby pursued painting, completing a Post-Baccalaureate at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 2006 before earning her MFA degree from Yale University in 2011. She is the recipient of the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize in 2015 and the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s James Dicke Contemporary Art Prize in 2014.
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The Norton Museum of Art is recognized for its distinguished holdings in American, European, and Chinese art, and a continually expanding presence for Photography and Contemporary art. Its masterpieces of 19th century and 20th century European painting and sculpture include works by Brancusi, Gauguin, Matisse, and Picasso, and American works by Stuart Davis, Hopper, O’Keeffe, Pollock, and Sheeler.
Visit the Norton’s special exhibitions and attend its lectures, tours, and programs for adults and children throughout the year. For more information on current events and upcoming exhibitions at Norton Museum of Art, visit www.norton.org
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