The Halff Collection
February 3 – May 9, 2010
We are pleased to begin the new year with a remarkable private collection of American paintings of the Impressionist era formed by San Antonians Marie and Hugh Halff. The 26 paintings in their collection are notable for both their range and quality and include superb examples by leading masters of the period from the 1870s to 1930.
The Halffs have been extraordinarily generous for many years in lending individual works to important exhibitions of American art at leading museums across the country and abroad. Therefore it is particularly exciting for the McNay to be able to show their entire collection this winter in the beautiful light of the Stieren Center.
The exhibition catalogue An Impressionist Sensibility:
The Halff Collection by Eleanor Jones Harvey is available at the Museum Store. $45.00/$40.50 for members
Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845-1945
February 3 – May 9, 2010
Pictorialism was simultaneously a movement, a philosophy, an aesthetic, and a style, resulting in some of the most spectacular photographs in the history of the medium. Drawn from the rich collections of the George Eastman House, TruthBeauty shows the rise of Pictorialism in the late 19th century from a desire to elevate photography to an art form equal to drawing and painting, and extends the historical period generally associated with it by including its influential precursors, its persistent practitioners, and its seminal effect on photographic modernism.
The depth of the Eastman House collections also provides a rare opportunity to examine the signature printing processes used by Pictorialists. Multiple unique prints made from single negatives by photographers such as Paul L. Anderson, Alvin Langdon Coburn, and Gertrude Kasebier invite a comparison of works in gelatin silver, gum bichromate, and platinum.
TruthBeauty is a smaller version of the exhibition of the same name produced by Vancouver Art Gallery. Both versions were curated by George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film.
As of November 4, 2009, funding at the McNay is generously provided by the William and Salome Scanlan Foundation and the G. A. C. Halff Foundation.
A richly illustrated 160-page color catalogue, TruthBeauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845-1945, edited by Thomas Padon, is available at the Museum Store. $60.00/$54.00 for members
at the McNay
February 3 – May 16, 2010
This exhibition was organized by the McNay Art Museum. Funding is provided by the Elizabeth Huth Coates Exhibition Endowment and the Endowment Fund for Exhibitions. Drawn entirely from the McNay’s collection, this exhibition of 20 prints and drawings complements An Impressionist Sensibility: The Halff Collection. Included are prints and drawings by American artists represented in the Halff Collection as well as some of their French contemporaries and precedents. Late 19th-century French and American printmaking has long been one of the areas of collection strength at the McNay and this exhibition is a great opportunity to see some of our masterpieces, including graphic art by Americans Mary Cassatt, Childe Hassam, Maurice Prendergast, and John Singer Sargent. Additionally, wonderful and rarely seen prints by Edgar Degas, Jean-Louis Forain, and Edouard Manet illustrate the origins and development of French Impressionism.
This exhibition was organized by the McNay Art Museum.
Funding is provided by the Elizabeth Huth Coates Exhibition
Endowment and the Endowment Fund for Exhibitions.
of Prints and Drawings
January 20 – March 14, 2010
In the early 1990s the McNay assessed its print and drawing collection to determine its strengths. Several areas stood out qualitatively and quantitatively: 19th-century French and American prints, 20th-century American prints and watercolors, German Expressionist prints, modern Mexican printmaking, and post-1960 American graphics. Recognizing the importance of these collection areas led to the adoption of an accessions policy of adding to existing strength. In the past 15 or so years, the collection has grown by more than a third following this policy. This exhibition, including 36 prints and drawings, illustrates the dynamic growth of the collection in just the past three years.
The exhibition features some especially noteworthy acquisitions of contemporary Texas art, including a preparatory drawing and two major lithographs by Luis Jimenez and a group of promised gifts from Marvin Watson, formerly the director of the Watson de-Nagy Gallery in Houston. Also on view for the first time is a suite of lithographs by the American conceptual artist Fred Sandback. Other artists represented in the exhibition are Burgoyne Diller, Leopoldo Mendez, James Siena, and Anders Zorn.
