Dallas Museum of Art

3/9/2017

Rob's favorite painting The Iceberg by Church.

The permanent collection is free but tonight was the sneak preview for the Mexico 1900-1950 Exhibition but it was members only so we bought a membership and we got free parking, two tickets to the Nature in Art exhibition, and a 10% discount to the gift shop. They allow photos (no flash) of most of their collection and I took lots of them.

Art and Nature in the middle ages

From the DMA website:
Spanning the 12th to early 16th centuries, Art and Nature in the Middle Ages explores the diverse modes of expression and variety of representations of nature in European medieval art, whether plant or animal, sacred or profane, real or imagined, highlighting the continuities and changes. The exhibition, featuring work from the Musée de Cluny, Musée national du Moyen Âge, Paris, and on view exclusively at the DMA in the United States, presents more than 100 extraordinary objects, rarely before shown in the United States, that reflect the wide range of styles, techniques, and iconography that flourished during this period. The featured works of art—which include an astonishing array of media, from stained glass windows to illuminated manuscripts—emphasize the fundamental bond between humans and nature, and nature’s constant presence in the immediate environment and spiritual life of men and women in the Middle Ages.

Mexico 1900-1950: Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Jose Clemente Orozco, and the Avant-Garde

From the DMA website:
This major exhibition exploring 50 years of Mexican modern art will make its first and only stop in the US at the Dallas Museum of Art following its successful presentation at the Grand Palais, Paris. Organized in collaboration with the Secretaría de Cultura de México, México 1900–1950: Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco, and the Avant-Garde highlights new narratives in Mexico’s modern art history. This sweeping survey, the result of a combined cultural endeavor between Mexico and France, features almost 200 works of painting, sculpture, photography, drawings, and films that document the country’s artistic Renaissance during the first half of the 20th century. The traveling exhibition showcases the work of titans of Mexican Modernism alongside that of lesser-known pioneers, including a number of rarely seen works by female artists, to reveal the history and development of modern Mexico and its cultural identity. México 1900–1950 showcases how Mexican 20th-century art is both directly linked to the international avant-garde and distinguished by an incredible singularity. The exhibition features work by Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco, Ángel Zárraga, Tina Modotti, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, among others.
México 1900–1950: Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, José Clemente Orozco, and the Avant-Garde will require a $16 special exhibition ticket

Waxed: BAtik from Java

We actually saw the Batik exhibit last and by that time our phones were dead from taking all the photos from earlier, so some of these are straight from the DMA website.

From the DMA website:
Drawn from the DMA’s collection, Waxed: Batik from Java presents a selection of Javanese batik made in the West and Central regions, where the main batik production was centered during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Batik is a wax-resist process for dye-decorating cloth. In Indonesia, batik is especially associated with the island of Java.
The DMA batik collection was established in 1982 with a gift of eight cloths that were collected before 1930. They were donated by Jerry Bywaters, DMA Director from 1946 to 1964, and his wife, Mary, in memory of Paul and Viola van Katwijk. A second installation of these cloths will be presented in March 2017.
Focus Installation
Admission is FREE.

Images:
Woman's Sarong, 1910, Indonesia: Java, Pekalongan, batik on commercial cotton, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Bywaters in memory of Paul and Viola van Katwijk 1982.283;
Wraparound skirt (kain panjang): cloud design (megamendung), c. 1910, Indonesia: Java, Cirebon, handdrawn batik on commercially woven cotton, Dallas Museum of Art, Textile Purchase Fund, 1991.58;
Cap, 20th century, Indonesia, Java, copper, iron, and wax residue, Dallas Museum of Art, Textile Purchase Fund, 2016.12.3;
Headcloth with composite plant design (semen), 1920–1929, Indonesia: Central Java, cotton, batik, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Silas R. Mountsier III from the collection of Nora E. H. Wise and in her honor, 1994.293;
Woman's Kain Panjang (Skirt Cloth), 1930, Indonesia: Java, north coast, batik on commercial cotton, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Jerry Bywaters in memory of Paul and Viola van Katwijk, 1982.284

DMA Uncrated

The link above is to the DMA project in conjunction with UNT students and their professor Lesli Robertson, who went to Java to research how they make traditional batik. They produced the eight samples that hang in the exhibit to demonstrate the stages of waxing and dyeing.