Art of the 20th Century: A Modern Art Reinstallation

February 20, 2010

The reconfiguration and reinstallation of the permanent collection that began last year in the second-floor galleries now continues with the ground-floor galleries dedicated to American and Modern Art.

The reinstallation will return to view many works that have been out of sight for months or even years. Notable examples include paintings by Joaquín Sorolla, Stuart Davis, and Frank Stella, which will be juxtaposed with masterworks already on view. Rather than a traditional survey in which artists are divided into national schools, the new display combines artists from Europe, the United States, and Latin America to highlight the international aspect of Modernism, and in doing so, to showcase the special strengths of the Museum’s collection of twentieth-century art.

In the years just after 1910, avant-garde artists in Europe and the Americas rallied under the banner of expressive freedom. With independence from established institutions, they began simultaneously to explore new uses of color and the even more radical concept of purely abstract painting. Adding to this transatlantic transmission of ideas was an unprecedented internationalism. The dawn of a new era of travel and communication found Mexican modernist Diego Rivera keeping company with the Spaniard Pablo Picasso in Paris, even as war and suffering swelled the ranks of European artists emigrating to the United States.

The 2009–10 exhibition program at the Museum includes shows such as Picasso, Miró, Calder; American Artists from the Russian Empire; and Joaquín Torres-García: Constructing Abstraction with Wood, all of which demonstrate the global nature of modern art. The Museum’s newly installed permanent collection galleries will now reflect that same broad view.