HARVARD UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUMS TO PRESENT SIX EXHIBITIONS
SHOWCASING A DECADE OF COLLECTING

Exhibitions Highlight Important Gifts and Acquisitions That Enhance the Unparalleled Collections of the Nation’s Leading Teaching and Research Museum

Cambridge, MA – February 15, 2000 -- Beginning in March 2000, the Harvard University Art Museums will embark on a series of exhibitions showcasing a decade of additions to the collections. Encompassing more than 475 works, the exhibitions will feature masterpieces of Asian and Islamic art, old master and contemporary prints and drawings, paintings, sculptures, calligraphy, and photographs, covering virtually every area of the institution’s collecting, from ancient to contemporary art, and offering a rare examination of the collecting practices of the nation’s leading teaching and research museum.

"As a teaching institution, we continue to build our collections to provide enhanced instruction and foster research for students and scholars," said James Cuno, the Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums. "Our unparalleled collections are the foundation from which we build our numerous research, publication, exhibition, and education programs. They are also the legacy we leave to future generations of students and scholars, at Harvard and beyond. The Art Museums have been very fortunate to receive a significant number of gifts, including over 100 old master drawings from the George and Maida Abrams Collection and more than 300 works from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection of Indian and Islamic Art, and also to have the opportunity to acquire important prints such as Rembrandt’s Hog and Rauschenberg’s Booster. These gifts and acquisitions continue the tradition of the Art Museums’ extensive network of friends, faculty, and alumni helping to deepen and expand our collections – from Curator Emeritus Cary Welch and longtime supporters George and Maida Abrams to colleagues and collectors who wish to help us advance our collections-based teaching and research initiatives – and we are very pleased to have the opportunity to showcase these important new additions."

The six exhibitions will open in succession beginning in March 2000 and will be held throughout the three museums – the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Fogg Art Museum.

Asian Art
A Decade of Collecting: Asian Acquisitions, 1990-1999, will be on view March 11- September 24, 2000, at Harvard’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum. This exciting installation will showcase about one quarter of the 400-plus works acquired by the Department of Asian Art over the past 10 years. It will include representative examples from three large and important collections: the Mr. and Mrs. Gregory Henderson Collection of Korean Ceramics (acquired by the museum in 1991), the Nelson Goodman Collection of Korean Paintings (acquired in 1994), and the Elaine Ehrenkranz Collection of Japanese Lacquer Boxes (acquired in 1996), three major acquisitions that raised Harvard to preeminence in those respective fields. Other magnificent gifts, bequests, and purchases--works of Chinese, Korean, and Japanese painting, Chinese and Korean ceramics, two very important Chinese Buddhist sculptures, and a Korean textile--will be featured, showing the broad range and impressive depth of the Sackler's recent acquisitions. In addition, two recently reattributed works (a rare Chinese porcelain of the Chenghua period, 1465-1487, and a recently conserved Japanese album of painting and calligraphy dating to 1509) will be featured, showing how recent scholarship has elevated choice works from Harvard's Asian collection. These many acquisitions and discoveries have enhanced the museum's teaching mission by providing ample high-quality material for display and study.

The Arthur M. Sackler Museum at Harvard houses superb collections of Asian art. Among its treasures are the world's finest collections of archaic Chinese jades and Japanese surimono (private, luxury-edition woodblock prints), as well as outstanding holdings of Chinese bronzes, ceremonial weapons, and Buddhist cave-temple sculpture; Chinese and Korean ceramics; Japanese woodblock prints, calligraphy, narrative paintings, and lacquer boxes; and Southeast-Asian illuminated manuscripts.

Prints and Drawings
A Decade of Collecting: Recent Acquisitions of Prints and Drawings will be split into two parallel parts. Works dating from 1480–1940 will be shown March 25 – June 18, 2000, in the Fogg Art Museum; Works dating from 1940–Present will be shown June 3–August 27, 2000, in the Arthur M. Sackler Museum. These exhibitions will showcase a wide array of important works. The drawings component will include selections from the Maida and George Abrams Collection of 17th-century Dutch drawings. This major 1999 gift includes masterpieces by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Rembrandt van Rijn, Hendrick Goltzius and Jacques de Gheyn II, and made the Fogg Art Museum’s collection of Dutch drawings the most comprehensive in the U.S. The late Lois Orswell gave and bequeathed modern and postwar masterpieces by Georges Seurat, Pablo Picasso, Arshile Gorky, David Smith, Franz Kline, and Willem de Kooning, among others, selections of which will also be presented. The prints component of the exhibitions will highlight works acquired through the Margaret Fisher Fund, which was endowed to support the acquisition of modern and contemporary works, as well as works acquired through a fund endowed by an anonymous donor to support acquisitions of works older than 150 years. These two funds continue to help the Print Department fill specific gaps in the collection, and works including Rembrandt’s Hog and Rauschenberg’s Booster will be presented to highlight these acquisitions.

The Harvard University Art Museums’ print collection is the largest and best of any university collection in this country. It is particularly strong in old master etchings, engravings, and woodcuts, with extensive representation of masters such as the early Italian engravers, Schongauer, Dürer, Rembrandt, Ostade, Castiglione, Ribera, Testa, Canaletto, and Goya. It also encompasses one of the best collections in the country of reproductive engravings of the 16th to 19th centuries.

The drawings collection is among the most important collections in this country and is the finest and most comprehensive of any university art museum in the U.S. Unusual in its breadth and depth, it combines major masterpieces from the American and principal European schools with large numbers of works of secondary and tertiary significance. A balanced representation of the art of many periods and schools greatly enhances the teaching and research potential of the collection.

The Busch-Reisinger Museum
A Decade of Collecting: Recent Acquisitions by the Busch-Reisinger Museum will be on view April 15 – July 9, 2000. Since moving to Werner Otto Hall in 1991, the Busch-Reisinger Museum has added nearly 2,000 works to its collection, and the exhibition will showcase works from this extraordinarily rich range of recent acquisitions. Highlights will include Composition with Blue, Black, Yellow and Red (1922), the Museum’s first painting by one of the century’s greatest masters of geometric abstraction, Piet Mondrian (Dutch, 1872–1944), and an exceptionally well-preserved example of the artist’s "classic" period, clearly showing Mondrian’s painterly sensibility. Along with two galleries of recently acquired works of art and design by such artists as Joseph Hoffmann, Georg Baselitz, Edvard Munch, Marcel Breuer, and Bernhard and Anna Blume, the Museum will also be showcasing groups of works by artists it has collected in significant depth, including Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Max Beckmann, Andor Weininger, John Heartfield, and Lovis Corinth.

The Busch-Reisinger Museum is devoted to the art of the German-speaking countries and related cultures of central and northern Europe. Its collections of German Expressionism, Vienna Secession art, 1920s abstraction, and works by Joseph Beuys rank among the finest in the United States. The Museum has significant holdings of the work of artists associated with the Bauhaus, including the archives of the celebrated architect Walter Gropius. It also houses important collections of late-medieval, Renaissance, and baroque sculpture, 16th-century paintings, and porcelain.

Photography
A Decade of Collecting: Recent Acquisitions of Photography, April 29 – July 23, 2000, Fogg Art Museum, will showcase examples of photographs that date from the invention of the medium to the present. These include such important 19th-century works as Louis Armand Hippolyte Fizeau’s photogravure after a daguerreotype View of the Rooftops of Paris, ca. 1841–42, acquired through the Kate, Maurice R. and Melvin R. Seiden Purchase Fund for Photographs, as well as Henry Peach Robinson’s Sombody’s Coming, 1861, and Edgar Degas’s Self-portrait in the Library, 1895, both acquired through the Richard and Ronay Menschel Fund for the Acquisition of Photographs. Also shown will be Edward Steichen’s evocative palladian print of his second wife, Dana Steichen, 1923, a gift of Joanna T. Steichen. The installation will feature stunning examples of European and American modern photography by Harry Callahan, Max Ernst, Dora Maar, Oscar Nerlinger, Edward Weston, Theodore Roszak, Aaron Siskind, David Smith, and Ralston Crawford. In accord with the Department of Photographs’ 30-year commitment to contemporary photography, important works by James Casebere, John Coplans, Anna Bella Geiger, Nan Goldin, Seydou Keita, David Levinthal, Barbara Norfleet, Nick Nixon, Gary Schneider, and Deanne Sokolin will be highlighted.

The Fogg Museum’s photograph collection comprises nearly 9000 images, over 4,000 of which are by Ben Shahn. The Ben Shahn collection, a gift of the artist’s widow in 1970, is the primary collection of his photographic oeuvre. Other significant holdings include more than 400 "imperial" size photographic portraits by Mathew B. Brady, and major strengths in the works of Ansel Adams, Sarah Choate Sears, Edward Steichen, and Aaron Siskind. A collection of broad scope and significant importance, its particular strengths are in 20th-century American and contemporary photography, with an emphasis on diverse and alternative photographic processes.

Islamic and Later Indian Art
A Decade of Collecting: Recent Acquisitions of Islamic and Later Indian Art, June 8 – September 3, 2000, Arthur M. Sackler Museum, will showcase a number of important works of art from the Stuart Cary Welch Collection. Welch, a Harvard alumnus and Curator Emeritus of the Art Museums, gave more than 300 works from his collection of Indian and Islamic Art, considered one of the finest and most comprehensive private collections of this type. With this gift, the Museum’s collection of Islamic and later Indian art stands as one of the foremost in the United States. Among the most important works to be presented is a bifolio from a famous manuscript produced in Safavid Iran, the Divan (Collected Works) of Hafiz, ca. 1525. The bifolio features the painting Scandal in a Mosque, signed by Shaykh Zada. With its beautifully balanced composition, meticulous detail, and brilliant finish, this painting is considered Shaykh Zada’s masterpiece. Also from the Welch collection is a splendid and powerful painting, Bhoj Singh of Bundi Slays a Lion. Attributed to the Kotah Master, the painting was produced in one of the Rajput states of India and is datable to ca. 1725.
The permanent collection of the Department of Islamic and Later Indian Art consists primarily of works of art on paper from Iran, India, and Turkey. The Indian material includes both Islamic and non-Islamic works. Other important holdings include carpets from Iran, Turkey, and the Caucasus, and ceramics from Iran and Turkey.

In quality, the Art Museums’ holdings of Persian paintings and drawings from the 14th through 17th centuries rank alongside those of the British Library, the British Museum, and the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Harvard’s collection of paintings from the great Mongol Shahnama (Book of Kings) is unrivaled. The collection is also rich in works of art from the Mughal and Rajput courts of India.

Harvard University Art Museums
The Harvard University Art Museums is one of the leading arts institutions in the United States and the world. It is distinguished by the range and depth of its collections, its groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of its staff. For more than a century, it has been the nation’s premier training ground for museum professionals and scholars and is renowned for its seminal and ongoing role in the development of the discipline of art history in this country.

The three Harvard University art museums—the Fogg Art Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum—are all outstanding institutions in their respective fields. The Fogg also houses the Straus Center for Conservation, a leader in the research and development of scientific and technology-based analysis of art. The 150,000 objects in the Art Museums’ collections range in date from ancient times to the present and come from Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Each Museum also has an active program of special exhibitions that promotes new scholarship in its areas of focus.

As an integral component of the Harvard University community, the Art Museums serve as a resource for all students, adding a special dimension to their areas of study and to their lives at and after Harvard. The Museums welcome the public to experience the collections and special exhibitions as well as to enjoy lectures, symposia, and other programs.

The collections are divided among ten curatorial areas (Ancient and Byzantine Art and Numismatics; Architecture and Design; Asian Art; Busch-Reisinger Museum; Drawings; Islamic and Later Indian Art; Modern and Contemporary Art; Paintings, Sculpture and Decorative Arts; Prints; and Photographs) and are encyclopedic within those areas. Developed with an emphasis on their value for teaching and research, these holdings are a uniquely broad and rich resource that is continually enhanced through gifts and acquisitions. Together, the holdings of the three museums comprise one of the finest university art collections in the world, with resources rivaling those of many major public museums.

The Art Museums are open Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m., and Sunday, 1:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m. Closed national holidays. Admission is $5.00; $4.00 for senior citizens; $3.00 for students; free under 18 and for individuals on Saturdays until noon and all day on Wednesdays.

For general information, please call (617) 495-9400. All groups of 7 or more must schedule in advance; please call (617) 496-8576. Web site: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu. The Harvard University Art Museums are supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.