XL Arts: The Blanton opening
The Permanent Collections
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Perhaps the biggest surprise for visitors to the Blanton Museum of Art will be the sheer scope of art owned by the University of Texas institution. Previously, only a small slice of the collection could be on exhibit. Now, with more than 28,000 square feet reserved for display of the permanent hoard, the Blanton's three major specialties — European paintings and prints, American art since 1900 and Latin American art — can be appreciated at leisure. Here are just three of the more than 600 art works you can visit — and then visit again, growing acquainted with them like good friends.
Helen Frankenthaler's 'Over the Circle' was donated to the museum by writer James Michener.
The museum's Latin American collection includes Francisco Matto's 'Composicion Sobre Fondo Negro (Composition on Black Ground).'
European painting, prints and drawing
While the addition of the Suida-Manning Collection in 1998 exponentially added to the museum's holdings of Renaissance and Baroque paintings, the Blanton's 15,000 prints and drawings have long formed one of the best such gatherings at a U.S. university. Handmade by Renaissance experts such as Rembrandt van Rijn or modern masters such as Pablo Picasso, the Blanton's prints and drawings offer a remarkable overview of the past 500 years of Western art. In 2002, noted art historian and critic Leo Steinberg donated his collection of more than 3,200 prints — one of the best in private hands — further adding to the museum's domain.
In the new building, small thematic exhibitions will rotate every three months so that, over a four- to six-year period, the full range of the prints and drawing can be seen. Among the treasures on display now is "The Martyrdom of Saint Catherine," a woodcut by Albrecht Dürer created in 1497. Widely considered one of the greatest exponents of Northern European Renaissance art, Dürer made considerable advancements in printing technique.
American art
In the past decade the Blanton greatly expanded its collection of American art. Yet one of the museum's earliest recognized strengths was the group of more than 300 mid-20th-century paintings by New York-based artists put together by novelist James Michener and his wife Mari, then donated to the university over a period of several decades.
Some of the most memorable paintings in the Michener Collection showcase the abstract expressionism that percolated in New York beginning in the 1950s and sent shock waves through the art world through spontaneous, vigorous and highly individual styles.
Among the painters who picked up on — and continued — the experiments in abstraction is Helen Frankenthaler. Combining the drip paint technique popularized by Jackson Pollock with her own manner of pulling and staining the canvas, Frankenthaler created splashy, colorful paintings that influenced other artists of her generation.
Michener purchased Frankenthaler's "Over the Circle" — which measures more than 7 feet by 7 feet — from a New York gallery a year after it was painted in 1962. He donated it to UT in 1968.
Latin American art
Back when most museums and art scholars in the U.S. considered Latin American art to be little more than folk craft or colonial oddities, UT's art museum broke ground in the early 1960s with its serious pursuit of art from South and Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. Now, with more than 1,800 artworks, the Blanton's Latin American collection stands as one of the most extensive outside Latin America.
Leading the collecting charge was New York-based collector Barbara Duncan. Thanks to her interest and taste, the Blanton has unusually strong holdings of South American paintings from the middle part of the 20th century. The museum has continued to expand on this type of art.
After living in Europe for more than 40 years, painter Joaquín Torres García (1874-1949) returned to Uruguay in the 1940s and founded Taller Torres-García, an artists' workshop that propagated a style that combined designs from pre-Columbian art with the zoomy geometric of European modernism.
Among the Taller participants was Francisco Matto. His "Composicion Sobre Fondo Negro (Composition on Black Ground)" from 1958 recalls Navajo weaving and Inca stonework, along with an organized grid of primary colors borrowed from mid-century European abstraction. Matto's painting is a recent gift from Houston donors Judy and Charles Tate, who purchased it for the museum last year in Argentina.
jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699
