Museum of Fine Arts . St. Petersburg, Florida . Exhibitions

The Museum of Fine Arts has the only comprehensive art collection, extending from antiquity to the present, on the Florida west coast. See outstanding works of art in galleries designed for leisurely reflection. In the meantime, please enjoy an online preview of our collection.

	Ben Tarin (American, 1907-1983) Rise of Hitler (1937) Gouache Collection of Robert C. and Elizabeth B. Sanchez

Turmoil and Triumph: American Works on Paper from the World War II Era
April 17-August 15

Drawn from the collection of Robert C. and Elizabeth B. Sanchez, Turmoil and Triumph features over 70 prints, drawings, watercolors, and posters by more than 50 artists working between 1935 and 1945. This dynamic exhibition captures in graphic form pressing social issues and events of the years leading up to and during WWII. A number of the works also show Americans going about their daily lives, with the war nearly always on their mind.

Among the artists represented are John Sloan, Thomas Hart Benton, Howard Cook, Robert Gwathmey, Helen West Heller, Rockwell Kent, Joseph Meert, and Mitchell Siporin. The Sanchez Collection also contains significant prints from the exhibition America in the War, sponsored by Artists for Victory, which opened in October 1943 at 26 American museums simultaneously. This group includes works by Letterio Calapei, Sam Greenburg, Gwathmey, Jolan Gross-Bettelheim, and J. Jay McVicker. Several large-scale posters are also featured, including those designed by Ben Shahn and Norman Rockwell.

This exhibition is diverse in style, media, and approach: from more regionalist printmaking to highly abstract poster design, from modernist experimentation to surrealistic imagery. Many of the artists’ names are not well known today, but their powerful works and innovative artistic vocabulary continue to engage us. Turmoil and Triumph is both visually dramatic and historically rich.

James McNeill Whistler
American (1834–1903)
Bibi Valentin, 1859
Drypoint on paper
Gift of Yvonne B. Edmonds 2008.19.2

Whistler, Hassam, and the Etching Revival
April 17–August 15, 2010

The Etching Revival (1850–1930) occurred in reaction to lithography, wood engraving, and steel engraving that dominated graphic output at this time. Etching was seen as less industrial and more creative, fitting for the modern painter’s efforts. James McNeill Whistler numbered among a small group of artists who revived the seventeenth-century art of etching in the 1850s. His etchings were instantly praised for their innovative qualities, and his experimentation with line. Childe Hassam, known for his tranquil portrayals of Long Island, captured the essence of Impressionism in his etchings. He embraced light and shadow, creating landscapes that expressed an awareness of time and place with an elegant, intimate quality. This exhibition, through generous loans and the Museum’s holdings of prints, will expand an understanding of this highly complex and cosmopolitan period when painters put down their brushes to pick up the etching needle. Artists include Whistler, Hassam, Anders Zorn, James Ensor, and Joseph Pennell.

©Len Prince
Len Prince (American, b. 1953)
Untitled, Plate 140, 2006
Gelatin silver print
23 ¾ x 21 ¼"
Gift of William K. Zewadski 2009.46

Changing Identities: The Len Prince Photographs of Jessie Mann
June 5-September 26

Len Prince is celebrated for glamorous portraits of Hollywood stars and sleek advertisements for Cartier and Estée Lauder. In 2001 he met a self-possessed young woman, Jessie Mann, who had practically grown up in front of the camera. Sally Mann’s nude photographs of her children, including Jessie, created great controversy, igniting debate over child exploitation, censorship, and the nature of art.

By the end of Prince’s first session photographing the adult Jessie, she had become his muse. What followed was a five-year collaboration exploring archetype, transformation, and identity. These have become some of Prince’s most accomplished and respected photographs.

Prince and Mann make compelling images that reference paintings, famous photographs, historical figures, and mythology. They have been inspired by Ingres’ sumptuous Grand Odalisque, May Ray’s solarized image of Lee Miller, and Robert Mapplethorpe’s self- portrait in leather chaps, among other images. While these photographs can be disturbing and stark, they are often beautiful and fascinating. Theatrical and seductive, these unforgettable images explore the relationship between viewer, subject, and artist by examining personae and their meaning, as well as the very nature of the self.

Arthur Tress (American, born 1940)
Hockey Player, N.Y. (1972)
Gelatin silver print
Gift of Carol A. Upham

A Passion for Photography: Selections from the Carol A. Upham Donation
June 5-September 26

Carol A. Upham has been instrumental in making the Museum’s collection of photography one of the finest in Florida. This select exhibition features approximately 30 from her gift in 2009 of 58 photographs by many of the twentieth-century’s leading figures.

Edward Curtis, Walker Evans, W. Eugene Smith, Joel Sternfeld, Arthur Tress, and Sally Mann are represented by telling works. Mann’s poignant image of an adolescent girl, an untitled work from the series At Twelve, is her first to enter the collection, as is Arthur Tress’ Hockey Player, which reveals his fascination with fantasy and dreams. Prints by artists working after 1975, a gap in the MFA’s holdings, are also part of Mrs. Upham’s most recent gift. Among these significant artists are Birney Imes, Catherine Wagner, and Linda Robbenholt. Mrs. Upham’s love of the American landscape, especially of the West, is demonstrated by the photographs of Don Worth, Alan Ross, and John Sexton. Striking images of Florida by Clyde Butcher and Woody Walters are also on view.

Throughout the years, Mrs. Upham, herself a photographer and a former gallery owner, has donated some of the Museum’s most cherished images. To enhance the collection and to bring together others interested in the medium, Mrs. Upham served as the MFA’s first President of the Friends of Photography. She joined the Board of Trustees in 1980 and served as Treasurer and Vice President, before becoming President in 1998. The Museum’s history could not be written without a lengthy chapter devoted to her dedication and service, as well as to her passion for photography. As this exhibition indicates, that chapter is still being written.

James Allen Company (British)
Teapot (about 1850)
Pewter
The Lewis M. Andrews Jr. Collection

A Different Luster: Pewter from the Andrews Collection
Ongoing
The Kathryn B. Stenquist Gallery

A Different Luster features a selection of some of the finest pieces of pewter from the collection of the late Lewis M. Andrews Jr. These impressive holdings of 148 pieces from around the world started as a pair of teapots purchased from a New York antique dealer in 1970.

The more than 30 works in this exhibition include beautiful British teapots from the early nineteenth century; a simple, yet elegant haystack measure from Ireland (around 1740); and a French charger awarded as a royal prize in 1815 presumably by King Louis XVIII.

THE APHRODITE PAINTER, Paestan, South Italy, RED-FIGURE KRATER (WINE MIXING VESSEL), c. 340-330 BC, Ceramic. From the Collection of William Knight Zewadski

Theater in Ancient Art: The William Knight Zewadski Collection
Ongoing

This exhibition of approximately 50 antiquities, dating from the sixth century B.C. to the fourth century A.D., celebrates the theater tradition in Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art and culture. The artworks recreate a theatrical experience that was communal, often celebratory, and sometimes erotic. Found here are not only large-scale vases with finely executed paintings, but also objects used in daily life such as oil lamps, loom weights, and a theater ticket. Highlights include the Calyx Krater—depicting Orestes, his sister Electra, and Apollo, the god of Delphi—and two vessels by the Darius Painter, considered the most erudite and important artist of Apulian pottery (present-day southern Italy). These holdings, on extended loan to the Museum by trustee William Knight Zewadski, comprise one of the most comprehensive American collections of its kind and rival similar groupings in the Getty Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Please Note: Additional exhibitions are in the development stage. Exhibitions may be subject to change.

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2009 Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg, Florida