Telfair Museums

The Art of Kahlil Gibran

holly — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:48:17 +0000

This fall, the Telfair’s Kahlil Gibran holdings will make their Jepson Center debut in the Varnedoe and Levitt Galleries. This ever-popular collection of drawings, watercolors, and paintings by the Lebanese-born, visionary artist and writer Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) spans his career—with works from his first major exhibition at photographer Frederick Holland Day’s studio in Boston in 1904 to art created during the last years of his life. In addition to providing a survey of Gibran’s career as a visual artist, the show documents his relationship with his patron Mary Haskell and substantiates his literary career with examples of several drawings and watercolors used as illustrations for sixof his English-written books. The exhibition will also include photographs of Gibran and his New York studio, as well as a portrait of the young artist painted by Lilla Cabot Perry.

Best known for authoring The Prophet, a collection of short, philosophical essays that became one of the top-selling books of the twentieth century, Gibran immigrated to Boston with his family in 1895 at the age of twelve. Through a fortuitous series of events stemming from the recognition of his creative talents at a local settlement house, the aspiring artist met Mary Haskell, the headmaster of a Boston girls’ school. The two formed an important, lifelong relationship that culminated in Haskell’s patronage and provided Gibran with the security to pursue his career. In the mid-twentieth century, Haskell (who became Mary Haskell Minis in 1926) donated her personal holdings of nearly one hundred works of art by Gibran to Telfair Museums, which now possesses the largest collection of Gibran’s artwork in the United States.

Kahlil Gibran, The Summit from Sand and Foam, c. 1925, Watercolor and pencil on paper, 11 x 8 1/2 inches, Telfair Museums, Gift of Mary Haskell Minis, 1950

The South Beheld:Southern Works from the Telfair’s Permanent Collection

holly — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:57:23 +0000

As the oldest public art museum in the South, the Telfair has long collected images of the people, places, and pastimes of this region. While the museum has never dedicated itself solely to collecting art from the South, the Telfair has taken great pride in building prominent holdings of works by artists who lived or worked in Savannah, as well as those operating in other areas of the South. The selection of works on view in these galleries includes pieces by southern artists, as well as images of the citizens and sites important to this region and to Savannah in particular.

Along with significant portraits by Rembrandt Peale of Noble Wimberly Jones, an early and prominent settler of Savannah, and his son George Jones, a number of rarely-displayed miniatures from the Telfair’s collection are on view, presenting figures important to the history of Savannah including the museum’s founder, Mary Telfair, and several of her relatives. The display also includes two notable works by Edward Greene Malbone, one of the most prominent miniaturists of his time. The Telfair’s excellent examples of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century portraits of well-to-do Southerners are offset by twentieth-century images of anonymous or ordinary citizens of Savannah, each of whom have contributed to the community’s ongoing vitality and character.

Urban views of southern cities, and Savannah in particular, are also well-represented, demonstrating the unique appeal and impact of the region’s historic towns and lush natural beauty upon the artistic imagination. Savannah’s once-industrial riverfront, as viewed by artists ranging from the visiting New Yorker Eliot Clark to the beloved native Christopher A.D. Murphy, is repeatedly depicted, as are the city’s architectural monuments and picturesque lanes, nooks, and crannies. The natural beauty of the rural Low Country is represented in works portraying marine views and live oaks dripping with Spanish moss.

The South’s power to captivate contemporary artists is no less strong. Inspired by everything from “shotgun shack” houses to the serene marshes of the Georgia coast, artists have responded with both representational and abstract works that attempt to capture something of the distinctive climate, history, and character of the South.

Anna Heyward Taylor (American, 1879-1956)

July in Charleston, n.d.

Linocut with hand coloring on paper

14 3/4 x 12 7/8 inches

Gift of James R. Bakker in memory of Terry Lowenthal, 1986.11

I Have Marks to Make

holly — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:21:46 +0000

I Have Marks to Make enters its sixteenth year at Telfair Museums, emphasizing the role that visual, language, and performing arts can play in the lives of individuals with disabilities and for those in rehabilitation from injury or illness. Taking place in the second floor education spaces of the Jepson Center, the exhibition will feature work by nearly one hundred artists of all ages.

Artwork is submitted through a variety of community partners, including the Rehabilitation Institute at Memorial University Medical Center; Coastal Center for Developmental Services; St. Joseph’s/Candler Rehabilitation; Life, Inc.; the Savannah Chatham County Schools Department of Exceptional Children; City of Savannah’s Therapeutics Program; the Savannah Speech and Hearing Center; The Savannah Association for the Blind, Inc.; United Cerebral Palsy; and Wesley Community Centers of Savannah, Inc. Many of the pieces featured in the exhibition are produced as part of the Telfair’s Art for All program, which receives project funding from the City of Savannah.

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Related Program
Opening Reception
December 5, 2-5 pm
This afternoon of opening activities includes poetry readings and performances by participants.
Free and open to the public.

Birds in Flight: An Installation by Matt Hebermehl

holly — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 15:16:13 +0000

This fall, the Jepson Center’s Eckburg Atrium will be transformed with an intriguing installation of five suspended, wooden birds created by community artist Matt Hebermehl. Incorporating both personal and public references, Birds in Flight represents strength, energy, and love, while also symbolizing Hebermehl’s journey as a local artist and the collective growth and vitality of Savannah’s contemporary art scene.
Hebermehl’s signature pattern and icon-based work has earned him awards and recognition from a variety of sources such as American Illustration and the Society of Illustrators, New York, and has been exhibited in cities throughout the country, including New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. Several pieces of the artist’s work are held in the Telfair’s permanent collection.
This exhibition is sponsored by Juxtapoz Magazine.

Margaret Brennan Photography Exhibition

holly — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 19:25:51 +0000

The City by Margaret Brennan

Jepson Center
Through October 4, 2010

The imagery of local photographer Margaret Brennan will be on view in the Jepson Center’s Trustees Gallery through October 4. Representing a broad range of subject matter–from lush landscapes to rustic exterior scenes–Brennan’s evocative and technically accomplished works speak to the beauty and mystery inherent in the world around us. Two still lifes featured in the show have been accepted into the collection of the Telfair Museums.

Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography and Paris

kristin — Wed, 26 May 2010 01:02:12 +0000

Twilight Visions explores the city of Paris as the literal and metaphoric base of Surrealism, and examines the revolutionary social, cultural, aesthetic, and political activities and meanings of the movement during the 1920s and 30s. Over 100 works—mainly vintage photographs but also including films, books, and period ephemera—have been selected for their power to suggest the mystery and wonder in the chance encounters experienced by Surrealist writers and artists as they wandered through the labyrinthine streets of Paris.

Artists such as Brassaï (1899-1984), André Kertész (1894-1985), Ilse Bing (1899-1998), Man Ray (1890-1976), and Germaine Krull (1897-1985) photographed the monuments, cafés, dance halls, and streets of Paris as if they were “found objects.” Their psychologically charged photographs reveal the hidden secrets of these commonplace things, exposing the marvelous in the everyday. While some photographs incorporate innovative lighting techniques and unusual camera angles in a documentary style, others show various technical manipulations to disclose the disjunctive character of modern life in Paris.

Although there was no official organization of Surrealist photographers, many of the artists included in this exhibition published their work in the Surrealist journals La Revolution surréaliste, Le Surréalisme au service de la revolution, Documents, and Minotaure. Whether portraying the Eiffel Tower or a disturbingly distorted image of the female body, these artists reveled in paradoxes and contradictions, inspiring a revolutionary consciousness whereby memory, imagination, and reality became indistinguishable.

Twilight Visions: Surrealism, Photography, and Paris was organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, Nashville, Tennessee, with guest curator Therese Lichtenstein, Ph.D.

Local sponsorship provided, in part, by Susan and John Weiss
Media Sponsor: The South Magazine

Header image: André Kertész. Eiffel Tower, 1929. Gelatin-silver print, 9 1/8 in. x 11 ¾ in. Purchase, gift of Mr. Edwynn Houk, Renée & Paul Mansheim, Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Lane Stokes, Jr., Mr. and Mrs. Robert K. Molloy, Mr. Robert McLanahan Smith, III, Mr. and Mrs. Richard M. Waitzer, Mr. Calvin H. Childress, Mr. and Mrs. Howard M. Martinez, Jr., and in memory of Alice R. and Sol B. Frank, Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA. © Estate of André Kertész/Higher Pictures

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Click here to download an audio tour of Twilight Visions created by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.

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Related Programs

Twilight Visions Highlights Tours
June 25-August 13, Fridays at 1 pm
Telfair’s Jepson Center
Join Telfair docents and education staff for lunchtime highlight tours of the Twilight Visions exhibition.

Lecture: “Chez Andre Breton: At the Center of Surrealism”
August 26, 6 pm
Telfair’s Jepson Center
Dr. David Seaman presents a rare inside glimpse into the mind and home of André Breton—the undisputed leader and central figure of Surrealism, known for his energy and successful series of theoretical works, poetry, novels, and anthologies. As with many French art and literary movements, the center of Surrealism was Paris; and there, the center was André Breton’s apartment.

Dr. Seaman is a professor of French at Georgia Southern University and translator of André Breton’s book Martinique: Snake Charmer (2008).

Free to members and with museum admission.

Film Series: Shadows and Light—Surrealism and the Cinematic Canvas
September 28-October 7
Telfair’s Jepson Center and Lucas Theatre

5 Short Surrealist Films
September 28, 8 pm
Lucas Theatre

Menilmontant (1926) by Dimitri Kirsanoff
Shot on location in Paris, this stunningly beautiful, silent film uses no inter-titles – nor does it need any. A touching story of tragedy and redemption between sisters. 37 min.

Brumes d’automne (1928) by Dimitri Kirsanoff
Moody, visual poem by Russian ex-patriot filmmaker in Paris. 12 min.

Vormittagspuk (1928) by Hans Richter
Amusing and playful short film about inanimate objects that tease their human counterparts. The Nazi regime tried to destroy all copies of the print, but one remains. 9 min.

Ballet Mechanique (1924) by Ferdinand Leger
A hypnotic experiment in stop-motion techniques and double-exposure on a moving canvas. 11 min.

Manhatta (1921) by Paul Strand and Charles Scheeler
Another visual poem, this time by photographer Strand and painter Scheeler. Shot entirely on location in New York City, it exposes the unseen serenity of a bustling city. 10 min.

The Adventures of Prince Achmed
September 29, 8 pm
Lucas Theatre
Inspired by the tales from the Arabian Nights, the film tells the story of a wicked sorcerer who tricks Prince Achmed onto a magical flying horse, sending him off to his death in the night. The prince foils the plan and soars into adventures with monsters, demons, scorpions, and witches. This painstakingly-detailed piece of cinema is the earliest feature-length animation film. Director Lotte Reiniger hand-cut hundreds of silhouettes, fitted with wire hinges to creating marionettes and cut from layers of transparent paper to make backgrounds with the illusion of depth.

The Golden Age (Bunuel, Fr, 1930)
September 30, 6 pm
Telfair’s Jepson Center
Luis Buñuel’s first solo feature film combines Surrealism and an anti-bourgeois attitude to shocking effect. This film instigated wild protests worldwide and did not have an official U.S. premiere until 1979. Admission: $5/member, $7/non-member

Port of Shadows
October 1, 8 pm
Lucas Theatre
This is a quintessential example of poetic realism and a classic film from the golden age of French cinema from director Marcel Carne. Down a foggy, desolate road to the port city of Le Havre travels Jean (Jean Gabin), an army deserter looking for another chance to make good on life. Fate, however, has a different plan for him, as acts of both revenge and kindness render him front-page news. Also starring the blue-eyed phenomenon Michèle Morgan in her first major role, and the menacing Michel Simon, Port of Shadows (Le Quai des brumes) starkly portrays an underworld of lonely souls wrestling with their own destinies. So moody and self-defeatist is this film that the failing French government of the late 1930s often pointed to it as the reason the Nazi regime so easily took Paris.

Under the Roofs of Paris (Clair, Fr, 1930)
October 7, 6 pm
Telfair’s Jepson Center
One of the most successful French films of the 1930s, Rene Clair’s early musical is significant for its pioneering use of sound, interesting camerawork, and distinctive portrayal of Paris, seen through the eyes of kindly working-class heroes. Admission: $5/member, $7/non-member

Presented in conjunction with the Lucas Theatre. For more information and tickets, call 525.5050 or visit www.lucastheatre.com.

Ilse Bing. Eiffel Tower, 1934. Gelatin silver print, 8 3/4 x 11 in. Galerie Karsten Greve AG, St. Moritz, Switzerland. © Estate of Ilse Bing/Courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery, New York

No Ordinary Folk: Southern Self-Taught Artists from the Permanent Collection

kristin — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:50:41 +0000

For the first time in eight years, the Telfair presents an exhibition from its growing collection of work by self-taught artists, largely from the southeastern United States. The show features many works acquired in recent years that have never been exhibited. Highlights include newly acquired sculptures by Tennessee folk sculptor Bessie Harvey and a rare, recently discovered work depicting the Savannah riverfront by an African American sailor and artist, William O. Golding. The exhibition will include a wide range of idiosyncratic and inventive drawings, paintings, woodcarvings, and mixed media assemblages from noted folk artists Jimmie Lee Sudduth, Ned Cartledge, Eddie Mumma, R.A. Miller, Ulysses Davis, and others. The Telfair’s folk art collection focuses on Savannah and Georgia, with other works produced in South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida.

Related Programs
Jepson Center

Curator’s Lecture
August 20, 12:30 pm
To augment the exhibition No Ordinary Folk: Southern Self-Taught Art from the Permanent Collection, the Telfair’s senior curator of education, Harry DeLorme, will give a talk on self-taught art covering the gamut from visionary images to personal inventions to political statements. A special guest artist appearance will be announced.

Free to members and with museum admission.

Film: Missing Pieces: Georgia Folk Art
October 22, 12:30 pm
This film from 1976 includes rare interviews with artists including the late Howard Finster and Ulysses Davis. The film is provided by the Georgia Council for the Arts.

Larry Connatser; (American: Georgia, 1938-1996); The Baseball Player in Cracker Park, 1991; Acrylic on wood; 36 x 28 x 11/16 inches; Gift of John D. Feltman, 2005.29.2 © Estate of the artist

Metalpoint Drawings by Dennis Martin

kristin — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:47:36 +0000

Dennis Martin’s photorealistic metalpoint drawings of the human figure are brilliantly crafted, inviting the viewer to look closely at these remarkably lifelike images. Martin, whose work was featured in the Telfair’s 2006 exhibition The Luster of Silver, utilized the tone and delicacy of metalpoint to create exacting, beautifully lit portrayals of his human subjects and imbue them with a timeless quality.

This exhibition is a celebration of the Telfair’s acquisition of a major goldpoint drawing, Girl Laying. One of the largest drawings Martin ever created, Girl Laying was generously donated to the museum by Denise Martin, the artist’s widow. It will be a valuable addition to the Telfair’s fast-growing collection of contemporary figurative work. The new acquisition will be displayed alongside approximately twenty other meticulously crafted metalpoint drawings by Martin.

Dennis Martin (1956-2001) earned his B.F.A. at Southwest Missouri State University and completed further study at Central State University in Oklahoma City. Throughout his lifetime, the artist exhibited extensively in galleries throughout Oklahoma, Missouri, and New York. His work is held in the permanent collections of numerous institutions, including the Arkansas Art Center, the University of Nebraska, and the University of Oklahoma.

Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum

kristin — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:45:02 +0000

This exhibition features key paintings and sculptures by some of the most celbrated artists who came to maturity in the 1950’s.

The William R. Kenan, Jr. Endowment Fund, the C.F. Foundation in Atlanta, and members of the Smithsonian Council for American Art have generously contributed to Modern Masters from the Smithonian American Art Museum.

Hans Hofmann; Fermented Soil, 1965; Oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of S.C. Johnson and Son, Inc.

Philip Juras: The Southern Frontier, Landscapes Inspired by Bartram’s Travels

kristin — Wed, 26 May 2010 00:41:38 +0000

This exhibition explores the ways in which Athens-based landscape painter Philip Juras has been inspired by the work of 18th-century naturalist William Bartram. This series of approximately 50 paintings presents views, some imagined and some factual, of the Southeast in Bartram’s time, before the landscape was irrevocably altered by European settlement.