Paradise Regained - German Expressionism
ARKEN Museum of Modern Art´s autumn exhibition is about dreams of paradise and urban ennui. It shows the visions of 13 of the best German expressionists, visions of a life in harmony with nature, away from the trammels of civilization. Among the artists are Emil Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Franz Marc. Only a few of the 115 works in the exhibition have previously been exhibited in Denmark. Early German expressionism has given us some of the most colourful and positive works of art ever. Bathers and lush countryside, life in rural areas and in distant exotic lands as well as in the hectic metropolis were depicted by the artists in forceful explosions of colour. [ read more ] >>
Paradise Regained - German Expressionism >>
ARKEN Museum of Modern Art - Web site >>

Modigliani: Beyond the Myth
Amedeo Modigliani (1884--1920) is one of the greatest-and most misunderstood-artists of the twentieth century. His incisive portraits, erotically charged nudes, beautiful drawings, and primitivistic sculpture have been admired for decades. Modigliani's work, however, has typically been examined in the limited context of his so-called "bohemian," anti-intellectual lifestyle. This groundbreaking book revises this approach toward Modigliani's art, presenting a convincing revisionist examination of the unique historical, social, religious, and cultural significance of his oeuvre. Modigliani: Beyond the Myth looks at the artist and his art from a variety of important perspectives: his proud heritage as a Sephardic Jew, whose spirituality embraced non-Western, classical, and Christian iconography while retaining his own ethnic identity; his critical engagement with the dialogues of the most radical of his avant-garde contemporaries (Picasso, Chaim Soutine, Henri Matisse, and Brancusi); the influence of tribal art and Judaism on his portraiture; the representation of the female nude in his works from a feminist cultural perspective; and the remarkable reception of his work in Italy during his lifetime. Lavishly illustrated and including a detailed chronology of his life, this fascinating book situates Modigliani anew in the history of twentieth-century art.
Modigliani: Beyond the Myth Yale University Press >>
Jewish Museum - Web site >>

Gauguin Tahiti
Paul Gauguin’s years in Tahiti produced his most powerful and mysterious canvases, full of brilliant color and exotic subjects. This international exhibition traces Gauguin’s career from his departure for Tahiti, his “studio of the tropics” in 1891, until his death in the remote Marquesa Islands in 1903. This dazzling exhibition received rave reviews in Paris. Don’t miss your chance to see “Gauguin Tahiti” at its only U.S. stop—at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
The life of Paul Gauguin is one of the richest and most mythic in the history of Western art. A banker and "Sunday painter," he left behind family and homeland and sailed to the South Seas, seeking a life "in ecstasy, in peace, and for art." Gauguin Tahiti, the first major retrospective of the artist's work in fifteen years, offers an in-depth study of the fabled Polynesian years that have so defined our image of the painter. Alongside essays by leading American and French critics on every aspect of Gauguin's art, from the legendary canvases to his sculptures, ceramics, and innovative graphic works, are discussions of the Polynesian society, culture, and religion that helped shape them; an in-depth biographical narrative of the artist's life, with the many epiphanies, frustrations, and discoveries that make his time in the South Seas one of the most mythologically potent episodes in the history of Western art; and a chronicle of his changing fortunes in the century since his death. At the center of it all is Gauguin's 1897 masterpiece, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?, the summation and crowning glory of his mature career, presented with unprecedented depth and authority. Over one hundred years later, Gauguin remains one of the most enigmatic and attractive figures of 19th-century art, the very pivot of modernism, and Gauguin Tahiti finally portrays this crucial period of his life in all its color and drama. You know that I have Indian blood, Inca blood in me, and it's reflected in everything I do. It's the basis of my personality; I try to confront rotten civilization with something more natural, based on savagery. --Paul Gauguin
Gauguin Tahiti MFA Publications >>
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston - Web site >>