Kwabena Slaughter, Oh Very Yes!, details at inch 584, 410 and 118, 2008, 35mm slide filmstrip on light-box, Collection of the artist

NEW/NOW: Kwabena Slaughter
Jan. 29 - Apr. 25, 2010
Opening Reception
6-6:30 p.m. Friday, Feb. 5, 2010

Regarding cameras and photographs as cultural artifacts, Kwabena Slaughter’s work asks: “what would photography look like if it had grown out of a different aesthetic tradition?”

Slaughter deconstructs the popular photographic image bearing strong visual similarity to western paintings by utilizing an entire roll of film to create one distorted photograph. “Before the invention of photography, and the movie camera, the scroll was the way to depict a narrative that was taking place over time. A unique quality of the scroll is that all the scenes exist in one unbroken image. I have been trying to recover this unified presentation through photography.”

A specially adapted camera is utilized to shoot unto rolls of color slide-film; there are no breaks in the frames and the ensuing panoramic effect, at times 100-feet long, is horizontally displayed on a light-box. "Dancing with Woman in Red” depicts a couple dancing across a 648 inch by 10 inch, 35 mm filmstrip. Whereas the typical photo can only suggest movement over time, the couple in Slaughter’s piece surge through the extended filmstrip, actually illustrating a temporal narrative through the observable movement of the dancers in the flowing elongation and surreal distortion of the couple’s features as they wind about the film.

The NEW/NOW Series is made possible by the generous support of Marzena and Greg Silpe.

Community Threads
Gee’s Bend and Mazloomi Quilts Come to the NBMAA
through Feb. 28, 2010

Celebrating the stunning artistic output of the famous women of Gee’s Bend, Alabama and that of one of the most influential African-American quilting artists of the twenty-first century, Carolyn L. Mazloomi, the NBMAA is proud to display through February 28, 2010 Red, Yellow, Green, an original Gee’s Bend quilt, and All That Jazz, #2 by Dr. Mazloomi. These and several dozen other quilts from the historic to the contemporary will be on display throughout Greater Hartford as part of “Community Threads” a community-wide program sponsored by Community Health Services of Hartford with over 16 partnering venues participating. Click here to learn more!

As part of this program and inspired by the ideas of community, health and wellness, the NBMAA this winter will be constructing a quilt representing our city, state and all the people that make the NBMAA such a great destination. With the guidance of MetLife Artist-in-Residence Loretta Eason, visitors of all ages will create unique patches which will be assembled by Eason into a quilt that will be unveiled at the NBMAA’s annual Juneteenth Celebration on Friday, June 18, 2010.

NBMAA Events with Quilt-Making Sessions:
Monday, Jan. 18, 2010 – Martin Luther King, Jr.
Community Day; 1-3 p.m. [free]
Friday, Feb. 5, 2010 - First Friday; 6-7:30 p.m. [fee]
Friday, Feb. 19, 2010 - Art Adventures
(children and families); 10:30 a.m.-noon [fee]
Sunday, Feb. 21, 2010 - Black History Month Celebration; 2-4 p.m. [free]

A nearly pristine example of a chair made in the 1870s; made of maple and wool with dark stain and varnish, Miller Collection

A nesting carrier made from maple with pine or cherry bottoms reflects the Shakers near obsession with order, Miller Collection

Inspired Innovations:
A Celebration of Shaker Ingenuity
Jan. 16 - Apr. 11, 2010
Opening Reception
5:30-7 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010

Prepare to be inspired by the inspired innovations of the Shakers, on view in the McKernan Gallery beginning January 16 through April 11, 2010. Curated by West Hartford, Connecticut Shaker scholar M. Stephen Miller, Inspired Innovations: A Celebration of Shaker Ingenuity. The exhibition, organized into 12 Zones of Innovation and with three rooms resembling traditional Shaker quarters, will showcase some 350 objects spanning over 200 years from 1800 to 2000. A testament to the durability, practicality, and simplicity of Shaker ingenuity, with a focus on functionality, each piece is gracefully formed with a genuine devotion to ones craft that reflects the words of Shaker founder, Mother Ann: "labor to make the way of God your own; let it be your inheritance, your treasure, your occupation, your daily calling.

The exhibition is accompanied by a just-published book by Miller, with essays by twelve acclaimed Shaker scholars and more than 390 full-color images. An all-day symposium is planned for January 25th featuring four Shaker experts on topics ranging from innovations in use of space, how women fit into the Shaker world and how Shakers are relevant to us today. Several other lectures and book signings are scheduled.

This exhibition in presented with the support of the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund through the recommendation of the William Hirsh Helfand Fund, M. Stephen Miller and an anonymous donor.

Two special tour dates with M. Stephen Miller
Tuesday, Mar. 9 and Wednesday Mar. 24 at 10 a.m.

Book Signing:
M. Stephen Miller: Inspired Innovations A Celebration of Shaker Ingenuity
Wednesday Jan. 20 at 1 p.m.
Monday Jan. 25 at 1 p.m.
Wednesday Feb. 2 at 1 p.m.
Tuesday Mar. 9 at 10 a.m.
Wednesday Mar. 10 at 1 p.m.
Thursday Mar. 11 at 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday Mar. 24 at 10 a.m.
Thursday Mar. 25 at 1 p.m.
Wednesday Apr. 7 at 1 p.m.
Thursday Apr. 8 at 5:30 p.m.

John Haberle, The Challenge, c. 1890, oil on canvas, 21.875 x 15.2", Thomas Colville Fine Art

John Haberle, Torn in Transit, 1890-95, oil on canvas, 13.4375 x 17", Collection of the Brandywine River Museum

John Haberle: American Master of Illusion
Dec. 11, 2009 - Mar. 14, 2010
Opening Reception
5:30-7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009

Combining a masterful technique with sly, witty historical and personal reference to American life from 1870 to 1910, today John Haberle is considered one of the most accomplished American trompe l’oeil painters.

Alluding to the moral and political issues of the time in the NBMAA’s Time and Eternity, Haberle juxtaposes objects of the temporal world, such as a pocket watch, playing cards and rosary beads with a newspaper clipping that references Robert G. Ingersoll, a lecturer who was tried for blasphemy because of his unorthodox views on slavery and the Bible. The slight but ingenious details make each of Haberle’s paintings exceedingly complex.

Haberle’s precise, trompe l’oeil paintings were well recognized about a decade during his lifetime. Afterward, he faded into obscurity but was rediscovered in 1949 by American scholar Alfred Frankenstein.

Along with Time and Eternity and the museum's own Haberle works, the NBMAA exhibition includes approximately 20 paintings and drawings on loan from museums from across the country.

Supplementing the exhibit is a catalog created by art historian and curator Gertrude Grace Sill entitled John Haberle: American Master of Illusion. Based primarily on new research gathered by Sill through forgotten Haberle archives and interviews with Haberle descendants, both the exhibition and catalog will be the first complete study devoted to Haberle. The exhibition will travel to Chadds Ford, PA, and Portland, ME.

The exhibition and catalog are presented with the support of Furthermore: a program of the J.M. Kaplan Fund, The David T. Langrock Foundation, The Henry Luce Foundation and the Wyeth Foundation for American Art.

Frederic Edwin Church, The Parthenon, 1871, oil on canvas, 44.5 x 72.625", The Metropolitan Museum of Art

George Inness, Delaware Water Gap, 1861, oil on canvas, 36 x 50.25", The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hudson River Paintings from
the Metropolitan Museum of Art
March 13, 2009 - Sept. 2010

Large-scale and dynamic describe the selections from the Metropolitan Museum of Art's American Paintings and Sculpture Department collections which will be on view in the Henry and Sharon Martin gallery through Sept. 2010. “I believe you will be astonished by their beauty and significance,” says Director Douglas Hyland.

The Metropolitan’s loan includes masterpieces by Hudson River School artists Frederic Church (1826-1900), Asher B. Durand (1796-1886), George Inness (1825-1894) and John Frederick Kensett (1816-1872).

The Hudson River School artists traveled out of crowded, industrialized cities to the Hudson River, as well as abroad and into the West, to capture images of nature untouched by man. Church’s The Parthenon, 1871, a six-foot wide masterpiece, was painted after the artist visited Greece, where he had the opportunity to make many studies and oil sketches.Their punctiliously accurate works sought to pay tribute to the innate beauty of the American landscape, as well as to serve as an instrument for spiritual contemplation.

The Hudson River School paintings included in the exhibit are Church’s The Parthenon, Durand’s High Point: Shandaken Mountains, Inness’s Delaware Water Gap, and Kensett’s Sunset on the Sea, Hudson River Scene and Eaton’s Neck, Long Island, all of which impeccably capture the veracity of American landscapes.

Accompanying the selection of Hudson River School paintings is the masterpiece Harvest Scene, by Winslow Homer (1836-1910), the leading 19th-century genre painter.

The Museum is most grateful to Board of Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to Kevin Avery, associate curator, Department of American Paintings and Sculpture and the entire American department at the Metropolitan for their support in arranging this significant loan. The exhibition is presented with the support of members of the NBMAA Executive Committee: Kathryn Cox, John Rathgeber, Henry Martin, Timothy McLaughlin, Linda Tomasso and Kimberly Zeytoonjian.

Lisa Hoke, The Gravity of Color, New Britain, 2008, installation, Stephen B. Lawrence Fund and the Edwin Austin Abbey Mural Fund of the National Academy of Design

Lisa Hoke, The Gravity of Color, New Britain (detail)

Hoke is a 2008 recipient of a fellowship sponsored by the Edwin Austin Abbey Endowment at the National Academy Museum and School of Fine Arts. More than 50 artists from throughout the U.S. submitted proposals for the project, coordinated in conjunction with NBMAA Director Douglas Hyland. A panel of six judges reviewed applications for the project, including three Museum representatives -- Hyland, NBMAA Chairman Timothy McLaughlin and Trustee Linda Cheverton-Wick.

Hoke’s work will replace The Eye, an installation created by Stephen Hendee in 2006 for the opening of the Chase Family Building.

Hoke is known for the innovative use of “found” materials in her work. Her NBMAA installation will be created with clear plastic cups coated with vibrantly colored paints, as well as new and vintage opaque paper cups found through a variety of sources.

Each of thousands of cups will be attached to Museum walls with a grommet, or glued, creating a breathtaking, jewel-like visual impact with swirls of color and texture. During her installation, Hoke will work with several assistants to choreograph the work from the wall at the top of the staircase, around the windows and up the inner wall next to the staircase as it extends to the second floor.

Hoke’s installation, like Stephen Hendee’s work The Eye, is a temporary piece which will be replaced in two to five years by another commissioned work of art. Hoke has created similar installations for other U.S. museums.