(New York, New York – January 14) Legacy for the Future: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is the Winter Antiques Show’s 2016 loan exhibition on view from January 22-31 at the Park Avenue Armory. The loan exhibition celebrates the collections of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut, which recently completed a major renovation and reinstallation, restoring nearly 60,000 square feet of gallery space to its historic splendor. Works by Ellsworth Kelly, Thomas Sully, Giorgio de Chirico, Franz Kline, Artemisia Gentileschi, Marcel Breuer, Alexander Calder, Frederic Edwin Church, William Howard, and Florine Stettheimer along with exemplary selections from the Museum’s collections of American and European decorative arts are among the nearly forty objects on loan.

Complementing the loan exhibition is a six-part lecture series presented by the Museum’s curators: MATRIX Mash-Up: Contemporary Artists and the Wadsworth Atheneum’s Collections; The Atheneum Goes for Baroque: In the Vanguard of Collecting Italian Baroque Paintings; Benefactors and Their Buildings: The Distinctive Architecture of the Wadsworth Atheneum; Nature Made Strange: Inventing the American Landscape; and

Cellophane, Spectacle, and Sex: The Theatrical Impulse in American Art (see below and www.winterantiqesshow.com for dates and details). The lectures and the Winter Antiques Show’s loan exhibition are sponsored for the second year by Bessemer Trust.

Founded in 1842 by arts patron Daniel Wadsworth, the Wadsworth Atheneum has served as a pioneering force in the art world since its opening in 1844—three decades before the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The original Gothic Revival building has been joined by groundbreaking examples of Beaux-Arts, International Style, and Brutalist design, all forward-thinking in the history of museum architecture. As the oldest continuously operating public art museum in the United States, the Wadsworth Atheneum set a standard for encyclopedic museums across the country and boasts a rich legacy of innovations: it was the first museum in the nation to acquire works by Caravaggio, Frederic Church, Joseph Cornell, Salvador Dalí, Piet Mondrian, and Joan Miró, and the first to organize major surveys of works by Italian Baroque masters, the Surrealists, and Pablo Picasso. The loan exhibition focuses on major periods in the development of the museum and its collection, with special attention to works from the collections of Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Wallace Nutting as well as the influence of pioneering director A. Everett (Chick) Austin Jr., all of which shaped the character of this unique and vital institution.  

Loan Exhibition Lecture Series

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will present a six-part lecture series during the Winter Antiques Show. Lectures are held in the Board of Officers Room; admission is complimentary for Show ticketholders; seating is on a first-come basis.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 23

MATRIX Mash-Up: Contemporary Artists and the Wadsworth Atheneum’s Collections

Patricia Hickson

Emily Hall Tremaine Curator of Contemporary Art

Contemporary artists are typically well educated on the history of art. In fact, many create work in direct response to important works in storied collections like the Wadsworth Atheneum’s. MATRIX, the museum’s project-based series of solo exhibitions of contemporary art since 1975, has featured numerous artists who have been inspired to build exhibitions in dialogue with its art collections. Recent MATRIX artists―including Justin Lowe, Rashaad Newsome, Jan Tichy, Allison Schulnik, Mark Bradford, and Mark Dion―have created some of these memorable “site-specific” exhibition projects.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 24

The Atheneum Goes for Baroque: In the Vanguard of Collecting Italian Baroque Paintings

Oliver Tostmann

Susan Morse Hilles Curator of European Art

The Wadsworth Atheneum boasts some of the finest Baroque paintings in America. Its collection was established under the directorship of A. Everett “Chick” Austin, Jr. during the 1930s, when dramatic Baroque art was deeply unpopular in America. Henceforth, the Atheneum took the lead in collecting Italian Baroque paintings and acquired numerous masterpieces by Caravaggio, Zurbarán, and Poussin. This tradition continues today, with the recent acquisition of a self-portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi, and can be admired in the museum’s freshly reinstalled European galleries.  

MONDAY, JANUARY 25

“Wisdom Begins in Wonder”: The Cabinet of Art & Curiosity

Linda Roth

Senior Curator and Charles C. and Eleanor Lamont Cunningham Curator of European Decorative Arts

Early Cabinets of Art and Curiosity were places of study, filled with art and marvels that represented the search for universal knowledge in celebration of God’s creation. This talk will introduce the audience to traditional European Cabinets of Art and Curiosity and to the wondrous and weird objects the Wadsworth Atheneum has accumulated during its 174-year history.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 26

Benefactors and Their Buildings: The Distinctive Architecture of the Wadsworth Atheneum

Eugene Gaddis

William G. Delana Archivist and Curator of the Austin House

The Wadsworth Atheneum is an ensemble of five strikingly different, yet harmoniously connected buildings. Each was the result of a benefactor whose generosity and vision allowed the institution to grow and to thrive. The Gothic Revival Atheneum opened in 1844; the Tudor Revival Colt Memorial in 1910; the Beaux-Arts Morgan Memorial in 1910 and 1915; the Avery Memorial in 1934, whose radical International Style was designed by the director, Chick Austin; and the Brutalist Goodwin Building in 1969. This story will introduce you to the colorful personalities of the benefactors and the architecture of the museum they helped to create.   

THURSDAY, JANUARY 28

Nature Made Strange:  Inventing the American Landscape

Erin Monroe

The Robert H. Schutz, Jr. Assistant Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture

The texture and tenor of both rural and urban environments have inspired American artists, from Frederic Church to John Henry Twachtman to Andrew Wyeth. Drawing from the Wadsworth Atheneum’s renowned collection of American art, this talk will explore how “real” sights—Niagara Falls, the coast of Maine, the Brooklyn Bridge—have been rendered unfamiliar through the manipulation of color, scale, perspective, and elements of abstraction. The artists’ imagination and subjectivity imbue these landscapes with a strange, dreamlike quality that captivates viewers.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 29

Cellophane, Spectacle, and Sex: The Theatrical Impulse in American Art

Robin Jaffee Frank, Ph.D.

Chief Curator and Krieble Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture

In 1934, Florine Stettheimer dissolved scenic conventions with her cellophane backdrop for the world premiere of the Gertrude Stein-Virgil Thomson opera Four Saints in Three Acts at the Wadsworth Atheneum. Explore the theatrical impulse through paintings, sculpture, and costumes from the museum’s collection of American art. From suggestive rock formations in a nineteenth-century landscape by Thomas Cole to overtly risqué subjects by twentieth-century artists Alexander Calder, Charles Demuth, and Reginald Marsh, the notion of performance abounds. Dramatic costumes further reveal a spirit of playfulness and romance.

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About the Winter Antiques Show

The Winter Antiques Show celebrates its 62nd year as America’s most distinguished art and design fair, with 73 specialists in American, English, European, and Asian fine and decorative arts exhibiting ancient through museum-worth contemporary objects from Antiquity through the 1960s, all vetted for authenticity. The net proceeds from the Show benefit East Side House Settlement (ESHS), which provides access to quality education and technology training as gateways out of poverty to students in the South Bronx, one of the nation's poorest congressional districts. The goal of ESHS is to help motivated students graduate from high school, enroll in college, and build the skills necessary to secure good jobs. In 2016, ESHS celebrates its 125th year.

About the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

Founded in 1842, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is the oldest public art museum in the United States. The museum’s nearly 50,000 works of art span 5,000 years, from Greek and Roman antiquities to the first museum collection of American contemporary art.

The museum’s five connected buildings—representing architectural styles from Gothic Revival to modern International Style—are located at 600 Main Street in Hartford, Conn. Hours: Wed – Fri: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Sat & Sun: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.; Admission: $5 – $10; discounts for members, students and seniors. Free admission 4 – 5 p.m. Public phone: (860) 278-2670; website: www.thewadsworth.org.