For the first time in a Canadian fine arts museum, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) is showcasing the prints of Alanis Obomsawin, distinguished filmmaker, renowned artist and cultural treasure to all. For nearly 50 years, working primarily with the National Film Board, the Waban-Aki artist has produced outstanding films focusing largely on the legends, experiences, memories and sufferings of her Nation, as well as other Indigenous communities, and their political conflicts with both provincial and federal governments. With a selection of over 40 of Obomsawin’s prints and four printing plates, the exhibition Alanis Obomsawin, Printmaker. An Artist and her Nation: The Waban-Aki Basketmakers of Odanak shows that Obomsawin’s talents extend far beyond movies and music.

Obomsawin has spent much of her life in the Waban-Aki community of Odanak, where she grew up. Her family was dependent upon the traditional practice of basketmaking for financial survival. The people of Odanak continue, with pride in their heritage, to create works with sweet grass and splints of ash trees, and the exhibition includes 12 basketwoven creations by members of the Odanak community.

Since the 1960s, and especially in the early 2000s, Obomsawin has also devoted herself assiduously to printmaking.The artist has an extraordinary sense for colour and its emotive potential, and makes evocative use of exquisite handmade papers.

Some of these prints record her personal dream images. Other works reflect the broader experiences of the Waban-Aki Nation. Of her multiple images of women and their children, she explains, “I did a series of mother and child engravings to honour women, who hold the highest power of all: to give life … In the old days, whether at work or at home, a mother and child were inseparable.”

The exhibition, taking its name from Leeto – a seTswana/Sesotho word which refers to undertaking a journey, explores Nhlengethwa’s ongoing artistic footsteps. Spanning renowned artist Sam Nhlengethwa's print oeuvre from 1978-2018, the underpinning theme of the exhibition is jazz, drawing links between the fluid nature of jazz improvisation and Nhlengethwa’s study of an ever-changing community.

Pablo Picasso’s prolonged engagement with paper is the subject of the groundbreaking exhibition Picasso and Paper, organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in collaboration with the Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Featuring nearly 300 works spanning the artist’s entire career, Picasso on Paper offers new insights into Picasso’s creative spirit and working methods. Nowhere is Picasso’s protean spirit more evident than in his relentless exploration of working on and with paper. He drew incessantly, using many different media—including watercolor, pastel, and gouache—on a broad range of papers. He assembled collages of cut-and-pasted papers; created sculptures from pieces of torn and burnt paper; produced both documentary photographs and manipulated photographs on paper; and spent decades investigating an array of printmaking techniques on paper supports.

Among the exhibition highlights are Femmes à leur toilette (1937–38, Musée national Picasso-Paris), an extraordinary collage (14 1/2 feet wide) of cut-and-pasted papers; outstanding Cubist papiers collés; sketchbooks from the artist’s early to late years, including studies for Les Demoiselles d’Avignon; and constructed paper guitars from the Cubist and Surrealist periods. Visitors will also discover collaborative photograms made with Dora Maar and André Villers, illustrated books, and drawings on a vast range of materials, including newspaper, envelopes, antique laid papers, and personal ephemera.

Presented in a series of chronologically unfolding themes, the works are displayed together with closely related paintings and sculptures to provide a deeper context for understanding their meaning and historical position in Picasso’s art. For example, Picasso’s preparatory studies for his Blue Period masterpiece, La Vie (Life) of 1903 (Cleveland Museum of Art), are presented together with the painting and other works exploring corresponding themes of poverty, despair, and social alienation. In the Cubist section, Picasso’s drawings for Head of a Woman (Fernande) of 1909 (Musée national Picasso-Paris) are joined by the associated bronze sculpture. Newly restored drawings made with colored, felt-tip pens on newsprint for the film Le Mystère Picasso are shown together with the film.

The exhibition is curated by William H. Robinson of the Cleveland Museum of Art; Ann Dumas of the Royal Academy of Arts, London; and Emilia Philippot of the Musée national Picasso-Paris.

Picasso and Paper is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue published by the Royal Academy of Arts. It features essays by distinguished Picasso scholars and leading authorities in various aspects of technical art history, including William H. Robinson of the Cleveland Museum of Art; Ann Dumas of the Royal Academy of Arts; Emilia Philippot of the Musée national Picasso-Paris; and Claustre Rafart Planas of the Museu Picasso, Barcelona. Specific aspects of Picasso’s engagement with paper are addressed by Christopher Lloyd, an expert on Picasso’s drawings; Stephen Coppel, curator of prints and drawings at the British Museum; Violette Andres, photography curator at the Musée national Picasso-Paris; Johan Popelard of the University of Paris; and Emmanuelle Hincelin, a paper conservator with scientific expertise in the types of paper Picasso used at key moments in his career.

Mystical Imprints: Marc Chagall, Ben-Zion, and Ben Shahn presents the print work of three prominent 20th century Jewish artists born in the Russian Empire. Among these seventy pieces are etchings and lithographs from Chagall’s Bible series, Ben-Zion’s full 1980 portfolio The 36 Unknown, Shahn’s iconic The Alphabet of Creation, and more. Organized in partnership with the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library (HMML) at Saint John’s University, the exhibition draws on HMML’s remarkable collection of works on paper. Most of the works in Mystical Imprintshave never been exhibited by HMML before.

The tradition of Jewish mysticism as an inspiration for these artists is at the center of the exhibition, from Ben-Zion’s suffering prophets, to Shahn’s Kabbalah influences, to Chagall’s dreamlike images. As well as tradition, a personal sense of mysticism is evident in each artist’s work. Chagall mixed his Russian childhood, Jewish history, and his own symbology to create works of dense metaphysical imagery. Ben-Zion, to use his own word, “adored” prophets and intimately explored their lives and emotional journeys in his work. Shahn found meaning in the great work of Jewish mysticism, the Kabbalah text the Sefer ha-zohar, and in his own joy in the power of letters and words.

The enduring power of Rembrandt’s art resonates especially strongly in Southern California, home to the third-largest collection of Rembrandt’s paintings in the United States, as well as substantial holdings of drawings and prints. On the occasion of the 350th anniversary of his death, in 1669, local curators will discuss Rembrandt’s versatility and impact in three different media: drawings, paintings, and prints. Getty curator Stephanie Schrader offers insight into Rembrandt’s drawings and his keen interest in the cosmopolitan world around him: from the local Dutch landscape to the splendid clothing, jewelry, and weapons of the Mughal emperors; Getty curator Anne Woollett probes the secrets and celebrity of the painting Rembrandt Laughing, the most recent addition to the regional collection; and Cynthia Burlingham, deputy director of curatorial affairs at the Hammer Museum, together with Jacob Samuel, contemporary master etcher and UCLA faculty, deliberate Rembrandt as an inspirational model for today’s printmakers.

This talk is co-presented with the Consulate General of the Netherlands, who will host a reception following the talk.

Free | Advance ticket required

Please visit the 'External Link' below for more information.

This exhibition features unique prints of extraordinary complexity from this renowned American artist. Marking the artist’s first exhibition dedicated solely to her ambitious printmaking practice, more than 60 works on paper will be displayed across three galleries. Apfelbaum creates worlds of visual wonderment. The artist’s maximalist aesthetic posits a startling idea: Beauty, exuberance, and chromatic energy are conduits to social unity. Her works convey a welcoming space where juxtaposition of seemingly incongruous colors and patterns find shared equilibrium hinting at a society in peace.

The exhibition will highlight a wide-range of Apfelbaum’s printmaking processes with a collection of one-of-a-kind monoprints taking center stage. Her recent Atomic series arose from a process similar to that of her installation works, such as her “fallen paintings” consisting of many dyed fabric components that the artist arranges in situ on the floor. Relatedly, these staggeringly complex print works were created with the assistance of six printmakers who inked hundreds of woodblocks in assorted colors and patterns. The artist then spontaneously placed the blocks in printing jigs to explore different color combinations and compositions. Created quickly, each monoprint serves as a kind of printed sketch, revealing unexpected moments of variation and fluidity.

Apfelbaum has been active since the mid-1980s and is best known for her expansive polychromatic floor-based installations residing somewhere between painting and sculpture. The artist has deployed a wide variety of media—including fabric, paint, dyes, wallpaper, and ceramics—and her sensibility is informed by an encyclopedic knowledge of the applied arts, art history, and popular culture.

Artist Lecture | September 4, 4-5 pm, CUB Auditorium
Reception | September 4, 5-6 pm, Museum Gallery

Apollo 11 landed on the moon fifty years ago. However, neither Jules Verne’s Barbicane nor Hergé’s Tintin stepped out of the spacecraft but people of flesh and blood. What might have taken the magic out of it was in fact the beginning of new dreams and fantasies. The moon’s power to fascinate us has continued undiminished.

The exhibition features pictures of the moon from various epochs. Sometimes they present the moon as the source of light in a nocturnal landscape, sometimes it is allegorical in multiple ways, and sometimes it becomes a sort of anthropomorphic vehicle for conveying own states of mind. Contrary to the sun, the moon represents the night, darkness, things that can’t be explained by rational means, the horrifying, the miraculous, feminine and even healing powers. Among the artists whose works will be on show are Sebald Beham, Balthasar Anton Dunker, Franz Niklaus König, Ernst Kreidolf, Paul Klee, Nell Walden, Meret Oppenheim, Claude Sandoz to name just a few.

"The Early Years of Lithography" presents early nineteenth-century lithographs from the collection of the K. Ubāns Art Reading Room at the National Library of Latvia. The artworks will be complemented by video stories demonstrating the technique and assessing the place that classic lithography holds and its ability to coexist with contemporary technologies.

In addition to lesser-known works, the exhibition also includes masterpieces by renowned artists such as Johann Nepomuk Strixner (1782−1855), Eugène Delacroix (1798−1863), Théodore Géricault (1791−1824). "The Monk’s Head" by artist Wilhelm Reuter (1768−1834)−a unique example of German early lithography and one of the oldest lithographic folios in the Library’s collection−is particularly worth seeing. The collection’s jewel in the crown though is Faust, Wagner, and the Water Dog by Delacroix, which shows Doctor Faust and his assistant Wagner meeting a black dog.

The works selected for the exhibition give an overview of the technical options offered by lithography, and the diversity of its characteristic genres and subjects. These include landscapes with historical and topical motifs, portraits, religious scenes, and illustrations of everyday life. The exhibition also includes caricatures as, in the 19th century, the lithography technique served as one of the leading propagators of criticism of the elite. In many works, romantic imagery stands alongside documentary images and the recording of events.

The NLL's graphic arts collection is one of the largest and most significant foreign print collections in Latvia. The exhibited works are part of a donation of over 10,000 items by the German art historian Peter Böttger, a collection donated to the Library in 2016.

Early twentieth-century American artists sought to provide diverse perspectives on the shifting world around them. With works drawn from local museums and a private collection, True Grit provides a survey of early twentieth-century printmaking together with a complementary selection of photographs from the Getty’s permanent collection. Compelling depictions convey a broad view of American culture that includes dance halls and boxing rings, skyscrapers and subways, parks, and tenement apartments. Using innovative techniques, these American artists captured the gritty world around them and came to terms with modern life.

“Change Agent” highlights June Wayne’s legacy as an artist, printmaker, educator and activist. Wayne refused to follow a signature style, taking on a variety of themes such as personal history, modern science and social issues. In the Dorothy Series, she narrates the life of her mother, a Russian Jewish immigrant and traveling saleswoman for a garter company. In the Stellar Winds and Solar Flares Series, she mines natural phenomena as metaphors for the human condition.

Wayne was a catalyst for the revival of fine art lithography in the United States, a medium which had all but vanished by the 1950s. She championed lithography as an art form as vital as painting after studying the technique in Paris with the printer Marcel Durassier. With a grant from the Ford Foundation, Wayne founded the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles in 1960. The experimental workshop created a pool of printers and apprentices, as artists from across the country were invited to master the process of lithography. Now known as the Tamarind Institute of the University of New Mexico, it continues Wayne’s visionary plan as a major training center for fine art printers.

Along with prints by Wayne, “Change Agent” also features lithographs by internationally-known artists who trained at Tamarind such as Ed Ruscha, Matsumi Kanemitsu and Fritz Scholder. All of the works in the exhibition are drawn from the ASU Art Museum’s Jules Heller Print Study Room, which houses a collection of 6,000 prints from throughout history and around the world.