Rescheduled from 2020, the new exhibition, focusing on the influence of Spanish art and culture on American painting in the decades around the dawn of the 20th century will now open at Milwaukee Art Museum on June 11.
“Americans in Spain: Painting and Travel, 1820–1920," co-organized with the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia, includes works by American painters who studied the Old Masters at Madrid’s Prado Museum: Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Robert Henri and John Singer Sargent.
The show amasses more than 100 paintings, photographs and prints and is on view through Oct. 3.
Among the highlights are a newly discovered Cassatt painting in a private collection in Madrid that has never been shown in the U.S., a loan from Paris' Musee d’Orsay of Sargent’s “Carmencita,” and a series of Old Masters works – on loan from the Prado – often copied by American painters.
“It’s difficult to overstate the importance that Spanish culture had on artists from the United States at the time, and we’re delighted to share this significant moment and its art with a wider public,” said Brandon Ruud, Abert Family Curator of American Art, Milwaukee Art Museum.
“Travel and tourism played such an integral role in shaping the lives and work of some of the nation’s most famous painters. The exhibition and the accompanying interactive Artist-Travelers Project website and app make it uniquely possible for people to visit sites throughout Spain while exploring the art in the Museum or from the comfort of their own homes.”
The exhibition has an accompanying mobile app that contains audio descriptions in both English and Spanish for a number of the show’s works. It can be downloaded at the Apple and Google Play app stores.
“International travel and exchange have always been central to the history of American art,” said Corey Piper, Brock Curator of American Art, Chrysler Museum of Art.
“At a time when tourism and movement have been disrupted throughout the world, this exhibition explores a vibrant and significant moment in American painting, spurred by artists who traveled back and forth between Spain and the United States.”
A full-color catalog, is available in hardcover and softcover via Yale University Press, and can be purchased from the Museum Store.
You can find related programming information here.
“The story of this often overlooked aspect of art history is one we were in a good position to tell,” said Marcelle Polednik, Ph.D., Donna and Donald Baumgartner director at the Milwaukee Art Museum.
“Having the Chrysler Museum join us as a partner has been invaluable in strengthening the project.”
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
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