New exhibitions at the Hood Museum of Art

Posted 11/26/02 • by Sharon Reed

African textiles & western modernism

Through Jan 19 the Hood Museum of Art is showing The Creative Journey of Nike Davies-Okundaye, a colorful exhibition of textiles by the internationally recognized Nigerian artist.

Trained as weaver, dyer, and batik maker, Davies-Okundaye uses a variety of media to express themes from her own life and from the Yoruba culture into which she was born. She is also the founder and director of the Nike Center for Arts and Culture, which trains young artists in visual, musical, and performing arts. The exhibition began Nov. 16.

Events associated with the exhibition include Yoruba storytelling and dance with the artist and batik workshops for families.

Davies-Okundaye's artistic skills were nurtured by her parents and great-grandmother, who was a cloth weaver, adire maker, and indigo dyer. Her father was a basket weaver, leather worker, and traditional musician. The artist said she prides herself on the development of her own special techniques to make her work unique. Many of her batik compositions are derived from social events in Nigeria as well from dreams and her personal interpretations of Yoruban folktales. Celebrated by The Arts Organization of Nigeria, Davies-Okundaye has made an impact on the international art community through her participation in exhibitions and workshops around the world.

The Creative Journey of Nike Davies-Okundaye is offered in conjunction with the artist's nine-day residency at Dartmouth College that began Nov. 11. Davies-Okundaye's visit included activities sponsored by the departments of history, religion, music and African and African American studies. Her residency was sponsored by the Leslie Humanities Center, the Dickey Center for International Understanding, the Hood Museum of Art, and the Departments of Music and History at Dartmouth. Harrington teaching exhibitions in the Hood Museum of Art are made possible by the Harrington Gallery Fund.

Through March 2003 the Hood Museum of Art is showing The Decade of Modernism: Selected Paintings, Sculptures, and Works on Paper, 1910-1920, an exhibition of 12 significant works by the artists who defined the period of art history we now call modernism.

Aristide Maillol, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Joseph Stella, and Henri Matisse, among others, spearheaded a period of innovation and experimentation in Europe and the United States. These artists strove to create new objects and fresh ways of seeing them through a multiplicity of artistic strategies and modes of expression. The exhibition is on view in the Hood Museum of Art's Lathrop Gallery, on the second floor of the museum.

Two evening programs will explore themes related to the exhibition. On Wednesday, Jan. 29, at 5 p.m., David Getsy, a Mellon Fellow at Dartmouth, will present "Remodeling the Figure: Bodily Transformations in the Work of Maillol, Epstein, Lipchitz, and Laurens." On Wednesday, Feb. 26, at 5:30 p.m., Kenneth Wayne, Curator of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, N.Y., will speak on "The Rise of Modigliani." Both programs are free and open to the public.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) said of his work, "I often hear the word evolution. Repeatedly I am asked to explain how my painting evolved. The art of the Greeks, of the Egyptians ... is not an art of the past; perhaps it is more alive today than it ever was. Art does not evolve by itself, the ideas of people change and with them their mode of expression." Picasso's Guitar on Table, 1912, represents an important movement in modernism known as cubism, which shattered naturalistic forms and space by attempting to represent on a flat surface all aspects of what exists in three dimensions. This work is a highlight of the Hood Museum of Art's permanent collection, exhibited here in the fresh context of modernist art.

Lunia Czechowask with Small Hat, 1919, by Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), is part of the large body of work that the artist painted in his brief life of 36 years. Modigliani achieved an extraordinary range of interpretations of the human face through his distinctive elongations of feature and form. The subject of this portrait, a close friend of the artist, commented that while sitting for Modigliani, "you had the impression that your soul was being dissected, and you had the strange feeling that you were unable to hide your innermost feelings."

Joseph Stella (1877-1946), an Italian-born American artist, experimented with modernist modes of representation as early as 1910, when he developed a very personal cubist style. Initially drawn to industrial themes, he later favored subjects found in nature, especially the tropical flowers and birds he encountered in his frequent travels to Cuba, Barbados, and North Africa. The exotic Dying Lotus, 1920s, is enlivened through vibrant, almost iridescent strokes of color that suggest an emanating force.

Another American artist, William Preston Dickinson (1891-1930), began his training in New York City, but his stay in Paris from 1912 to 1914 acquainted him with cubism, futurism, and synchronism, all modernist inventions. Dickenson firmly believed that technology was beneficial to mankind, and Industrial Landscape (Modern Industry), about 1920, is an exaltation of machine power.

Other artists featured in The Decade of Modernism include Jacob Epstein, Jacques Lipchitz, Henri Laurens, Blanche Lazzell, and Claude Monet.

For information, directions, or to search the collections, visit the museum's website, www.hoodmuseum.dartmouth.edu, or call 646-2808.

- Sharon Reed