Seattle Art Museum announces two new and important 17th-Century European acquisitions

SEATTLE, WA.- The Seattle Art Museum announced today that it has acquired two new important paintings for the European collection. Both of these works of art are fractional gifts to the museum from local collector and SAM Trustee Barney A. Ebsworth. Francisco Zurbarán’s (Spanish, 1598-1664) The Flight into Egypt (late 1630’s) addresses events following the birth of Jesus. Philippe de Champaigne’s (French, 1602-74) The Visitation (1643) is one of four paintings devoted to the Virgin Mary that were created for the family [...]

Seattle Art Museum is the only U.S. venue for Gauguin and Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise

SEATTLE, WA.- Seattle Art Museum will present the only United States stop for Gauguin and Polynesia: An Elusive Paradise, a landmark show highlighting the complex relationship between Paul Gauguin’s work and the art and culture of Polynesia. The exhibition, on view February 9 through April 29, 2012, includes about 50 of Gauguin’s brilliantly hued paintings, sculptures and works on paper, which are displayed alongside 60 major examples of Polynesian sculpture that fueled his search for the exotic. Organized by the Art Centre [...]

Thomas Moran’s Masterpiece “Green River Cliffs, Wyoming” Acquired by National Gallery of Art

WASHINGTON, DC.- The National Gallery of Art, Washington, recently acquired American painter Thomas Moran’s Green River Cliffs, Wyoming, 1881, a gift of the Milligan and Thomson Families. It was ten years after his first trip west in 1871 that Moran completed the most stunning of all his Green River paintings. The dramatic landscape is presented in a special installation on the main floor of the West Building from March 4 through June 26, 2011. “The National Gallery of Art has [...]

Seattle Art Museum’s Picasso Exhibition Surpasses 400,000 Visitors, Breaks Record

SEATTLE, WA.- Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris has broken SAM’s record for the most popular exhibition in the history of the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) downtown, attracting more than 400,000 visitors and boosting its membership to an all time high during its showing in Seattle, October 8, 2010 through January 17, 2011. More than 400,00 visitors, including students with school groups from throughout Washington state and beyond, toured the exhibition of more than 150 paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints [...]

Mesmerizing Photographs Explore the Intricacies of Memory at the Seattle Art Museum

SEATTLE, WA.- From September 4, 2010, through February 13, 2011, the Seattle Art Museum will present the exhibition Amy Blakemore: Photographs, 1988-2008. Ranging from black-and-white street photographs from the late 1980s to recent portraits and landscapes, the exhibition brings together nearly 40 photographs in a twenty-year survey of the Houston, Texas-based artist’s work. Amy Blakemore, Three Girls, 1988. Gelatin silver photograph, 15 x 15in. Courtesy of the artist and Inman Gallery, Houston. © Amy Blakemore Originally rooted in traditions of [...]

Marlo Pascual and Sergej Jensen Open Solo Exhibitions at Aspen Art Museum

ASPEN, CO.- The Aspen Art Museum’s third Jane and Marc Nathanson Distinguished Artist in Residence is New York-based artist Marlo Pascual. Pascual combines glamorous photographs of women from the 1940s and 50s with found objects and light sources to create brooding, psychologically charged work. Pascual’s elegant installations and theatrical lighting—varying from old lamps and candlelight to fluorescents and colored theater gels—animate the women in the photographs, enacting the dramatic potential frozen in the still frames of a bygone era. The [...]

Economy Could Take Toll on Commissioned US Artwork

NEW YORK (REUTERS).- Economic woes have pinched the pockets of wealthy art patrons, but artists who rely on those commissions say they are surviving, albeit with more specialized works and smaller payoffs. In a time of tight budgets, commissioning a work of art for commercial or corporate spaces like Rockefeller Center must dovetail with a company’s marketing strategy and promote its public image, not just soothe charitable urges. “They’re still doing it, but the commissions are smaller. There’s no question,” [...]

Seattle Art Museum to Close for Two Weeks to Balance Budget

SEATTLE, WA.- Today the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) has announced a series of measures aimed at cutting expenses and achieving a balanced budget for the forthcoming fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2010. Immediate reductions to staffing levels, other compensation-related expenses, and a two-week furlough and museum closure will be implemented as parts of successive, institution-wide efforts to create lasting financial stability at the 77-year old art museum. These measures have been designed to minimally impact SAM’s commitment to provide [...]

Works by Andy Warhol on View at the Seattle Art Museum

SEATTLE, WA.- Works by Andy Warhol, arguably one of the most influential artists of the second half of the 20th century, are on view at the Seattle Art Museum. World renowned for his iconic large scale paintings and prints, such as his Campbell’s Soup Cans of 1962, and “mass produced” portraits of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley, Warhol also produced a large body of photographs and films that explore powerful themes and seem to offer personal glimpses [...]

Seattle Art Museum Exhibition Explores the Life and Work of Kurt Cobain

SEATTLE, WA.- Grunge music is about as universally synonymous with modern-day Seattle as Starbucks and Microsoft, and no band symbolizes this movement more readily than Nirvana. The late Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain is easily the most recognizable icon from this period, famous for his heart wrenching lyrics, aggressive left-handed guitar playing, scraggly blond locks and premature demise. Cobain’s life and untimely death resonated with a generation of young people around the world like few artists of recent memory, symbolizing [...]

Gagosian Exhibition Focuses on Lichtenstein’s Still Life Paintings, Sculptures and Drawings 1972-1980s

NEW YORK, NY.- Gagosian Gallery presents “Roy Lichtenstein: Still Lifes,” the first exhibition devoted solely to Lichtenstein’s still life paintings, sculptures and drawings, which span from 1972 through the early 1980s. Although Lichtenstein will always be synonymous with Pop Art, he continued to make inventive new work for almost three decades beyond the 1960s, during which he had become famous for his distinctive use of popular cartoon images and commercial painting style. Beginning in 1972, he began to work on [...]

Michael Darling is Named New Chief Curator of MCA Chicago

CHICAGO, IL.- Madeleine Grynsztejn, Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, announced today that Michael Darling has been appointed the new James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator, concluding a comprehensive international search. Darling is currently the Jon and Mary Shirley Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) and plans to assume his new responsibilities at the MCA on July 12, 2010. “Michael Darling is the perfect creative leader to evolve the MCA as [...]

Exhibition of Picasso Masterpieces Coming to Seattle this Fall

SEATTLE, WA.- The Seattle Art Museum (SAM) is proud to announce that it will present “Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris”, an extraordinary exhibition of the work of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). This landmark project is scheduled to be on view at SAM Downtown from October 8, 2010 through January 9, 2011. The exhibition will present iconic works from virtually every phase of Picasso’s legendary career. Drawn from the collection of the Musée National Picasso in Paris, the largest [...]

Unique Opportunities to Learn About Calder and Michelangelo

SEATTLE, WA.- It’s not too late for visitors to the Seattle Art Museum to get to know its two special exhibitions in unique depth. Engaging talks by some of the most respected experts on Alexander Calder and Michelangelo will reveal new information about these behemoths of the art world during lectures on January 14 and January 15, 2010, in conjunction with the exhibitions Alexander Calder: A Balancing Act and Michelangelo Public and Private: Drawings for the Sistine Chapel and Other [...]

Nordstrom Announces Plans to Lease Space at Seattle Art Museum Building

SEATTLE, WA.- Nordstrom, Inc. announced today it has signed a Letter of Intent to lease approximately 265,000 square feet of space in the combined Russell Investments Center / Seattle Art Museum (SAM) building in downtown Seattle, of which approximately 182,000 square feet is from SAM and approximately 83,000 square feet is from Russell Investments Center. The Letter of Intent is to lease floors 7 through 12 and part of floor 5, with an option to lease additional space in the [...]

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