Albany Museum of Art
Albany, Georgia
912-439-8400
http://www.albanymuseum.com/index.html
The Human Factor: Figuration
in American Art, 1950 - 1995
The human form has
a long history as measure of our intent. Each age has investigated the body
as an artistic object applying the beliefs and values of their own time.
Until the Abstract Expressionist movement, the human figure had been a dominant
subject in Western art. However in the development of modern art, the image
of man has been transformed, distorted, and has almost disappeared as a
subject in much of the most important artistic expression of the period.
Yet, the last quarter of the 20th century has witnessed a return to the
human figure by many contemporary artists as a valid subject and an important
vehicle for self-discovery and self-definition against the velocity of change
in our world.
Albany Museum of Art will present The Human Factor:
Figuration in American Art, 1950 - 1995, which opens in the Haley Gallery
on December 7, 2000 and runs through February 4, 2001. This selection of
paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings are from the extensive collections
of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery and Sculpture Garden at the University
of Nebraska, Lincoln. Dr. Daniel Siedell, Curator, provides a mini survey
of many aesthetics, issues, and ideas contained within the figurative idiom
of the United States over the past several decades.
The exhibition reflects the change in focus of the human
figure as subject matter in contemporary art from modernist tradition, which
primarily relied upon the sensory and physical properties of form to shift
in sensibility where the human figure functions as a narrative and physiological
vehicle reflecting the human condition within a social and political context.
Each artist uses the human figure as a common vehicle through which they
express personal and aesthetic issues alluding to the human condition of
our time.
Stylistically
these fifty works trace the recurring human imagery in contemporary art
from the painterly tradition of Alice Neel's portraiture to Fairfield Porter's
domestic interiors, to the studio nudes of Philip Pearlstein, to Bay area
figuration of David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, and Manuel Neri. Also included
are the "pop" imagery of Mel Ramos and George Segal, the graffiti
images of Keith Haring, the realism of Alfred Leslie, and the figurative
sculptures of Robert Graham. The pieces range from a later generation of
"new imagists" such as Joel Shapiro and Judith Shea to more recent
content charged figuration of Susan Rothenberg, Robert Longo, and Eric Fischl.
(left: Fairfield Porter, Anne, Lizzie and Katie, oil on canvas, 1958)
The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Nebraska,
Lincoln has organized The Human Factor: Figuration in American Art, 1950
- 1995 with the assistance of Smith Kramer, Inc., a fine art service
company in Kansas City, Missouri. This exhibition will travel to approximately
fifteen museums across the United States over the span of three years.
Read more about the Albany
Museum of Art in Resource
Library Magazine.
Please click on thumbnail images bordered by a red line
to see enlargements.
For further biographical information on selected artists
cited above please see America's Distinguished
Artists, a national registry of historic artists.
This page was originally published in Resource
Library Magazine. Please see Resource Library's Overview section for
more information. rev. 4/6/11
Search Resource
Library for thousands of articles and essays on American art.
Copyright 2011 Traditional Fine Arts Organization, Inc., an Arizona nonprofit corporation. All rights
reserved.
Stylistically
these fifty works trace the recurring human imagery in contemporary art
from the painterly tradition of Alice Neel's portraiture to Fairfield Porter's
domestic interiors, to the studio nudes of Philip Pearlstein, to Bay area
figuration of David Park, Richard Diebenkorn, and Manuel Neri. Also included
are the "pop" imagery of Mel Ramos and George Segal, the graffiti
images of Keith Haring, the realism of Alfred Leslie, and the figurative
sculptures of Robert Graham. The pieces range from a later generation of
"new imagists" such as Joel Shapiro and Judith Shea to more recent
content charged figuration of Susan Rothenberg, Robert Longo, and Eric Fischl.
(left: Fairfield Porter, Anne, Lizzie and Katie, oil on canvas, 1958)