Museum Minute

This krater is highly decorated with both designs and figural groupings in the Black Figure technique. It is a complicated process, but put simply, the main decorative elements and figures are painted with a slip that turns black in the firing process. On one side, a wedding scene is painted with bride and groom in a four-horse chariot, accompanied by two women attendants and a musician playing a lyre. One of the attendants holds a torch. The other side has a battle scene, two warriors fight over the body of a fallen third. Again, two female attendants look on. Greek Artist (6th century BCE) Black Figure Column Krater, ca. 510-500 BCE Earthenware 14 x 15 ½ x 13 inches Museum purchase with funds from the Volunteer Board Endowment Fund and the Curriculum Support Fund, 1988.6

Emily Kame Kngwarreye was one of the first celebrated female Aboriginal Australian Desert Painters. Entering the national art market well into her seventies, Kngwarreye paved the way for female Aboriginal artists to express women's specific cultural relationship to the Dreaming and their ancestral lands. In My County, Kngwarreye uses a vibrantly colored dotting technique, popularized in Papunya. While only she knows the true stories and secrets that lay hidden within the canvas, all viewers can appreciate My Country for its immensely beautiful and imposing presence. Emily Kame Kngwarreye Indigenous Australian, b. 1910 My Country, 1994 Acrylic on canvas, 150.5 x 485 x 4cm (h x w x d) Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia, Gift of John W. Kluge, 1997 Episode produced by Sydney Pulliam.

Standing at six feet tall, the sculpture “Nullius in Verba III” is intentionally the same height and weight as its sculptor, Steaphan Paton. The metal, diamond-shaped shield, mounted on a long pole, confronts the viewer. The shield’s surface is scratched, evoking the centuries of violence and dispossession faced by Paton’s ancestors. Among closer inspection, however, the sculpture is made from modern materials, asserting that this violence against Indigenous Australians is not an historic anecdote but a contemporary issue.    Steaphan Paton Gunai and Monaro-Ngarigo language groups, Indigenous Australian, b. 1985 Nullius in Verba III, 2019 Etched steel, acrylic paint, nanotech clear sealant  Episode produced by Addie Patrick. 

Miss Rhoda Cranston looks out of her portrait and slightly to her left. Painted by John Singleton Copley around 1756, we see the artist relying on current English traditions of portraiture to establish the status of his subject. Copley studied contemporary portraits in England and Europe available to him in Boston through prints and is learning from them trends in both placement and background as well as the necessity of outfitting his sitters in the latest fashions. John Singleton Copley American, 1738-1815 Portrait of Miss Rhoda Cranston, 1756-58 Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 inches Gift of Mrs. Alan Cunningham 1978.27

In deep reds, pinks, and yellows, Emily Kame Kngwarreye's "Awely" is an embodiment of her connection with her Country. Kngwarreye began painting late in her life, when she was already an elder in her community, Utopia, in Australia’s Northern Territory. The artwork’s title refers to women’s ceremonial knowledge of song, dance, medicine, and designs painted on the body. As Kngwarreye applied heavy blotches of paint to her canvases, she would sing ceremonial songs, replicating the act of painting on skin. In this way, “Awely” is both a painting of Kngwarreye’s homeplace and a conversation with it.   Emily Kame Kngwarreye Anmatyerr language group, Indigenous Australian, c. 1910-1996 Awely, 1992 Acrylic on canvas  Gift of John W. Kluge, 1997  Episode produced by Addie Patrick. 

John Sloan American, 1871-1951 Hell Hole, 1917 Etching and aquatint, 10/10 9 7/16 x 12 3/8 inches Museum Purchase, 1977.5 © Estate of John Sloan/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Hell Hole is a 1917 etching by the American Artist, John Sloan. We see the cramped, claustrophobic interior of bustling bar. We know this is the Golden Swan, frequently referred to by its regulars as the Hell Hole, hence the title of the print. Located at West 4th and 6th Avenue in New York City’s Greenwich Village, the Golden Swan was frequented by both working class patrons and the artists for whom the area became known in the 20th century.

Diane Arbus American, 1923-1971 Lady Bartender At Home with Souvenir Dog, New Orleans, 1964 Gelatin silver print, 7 7/8 x 7 1/8 in. (20 x 18.1 cm) Museum purchase with the Curriculum Support Fund, 1988.7 © Estate of Diane Arbus | Fraenkel Gallery (San Francisco, CA)   A woman wearing a leopard print vest, black turtleneck, and black pants is seated with one leg bent under her on a chair; she has on black, high heel boots. She looks forward, out of the photograph, but not quite directly at the viewer. What is most striking about her appearance, is her hair.  A high, teased white blond  bouffant, bisected by a thick blond braid wrapped around it.

Episode Notes This photograph of gossip columnist Hedda Hopper by Weegee is an example of what he called his distortions. After working as a photojournalist in the gritty Lower East Side of Manhattan in the 1930s and ‘40s, he moved to Hollywood where he began photographing celebrities and experimenting with dark room techniques. Arthur Fellig, known as Weegee American, born Ukraine, 1899-1968 Untitled (Hedda Hopper, Distortion) ca. 1950 Gelatin Silver Print 1995.30.65 Gift of Dr. Revels Cayton ÓWeegee (Arthur Fellig)/International Center of Photography/Getty Images

Episode Notes Though small, this Cypriot rhyton in the form of a bull has a lot of personality.  He’s a favorite with many visitors to The Fralin Museum of Art, particularly our UVA students. A rhyton is a vessel, usually with an animal head or, in this case, a depiction of a whole animal, that is meant to hold liquid for drinking or pouring. This may have been used in funerary rites or in acts of commemoration.   Cypriot Artist Base Ring II Bull Rhyton, ca. 1475 BCE - 1225 BCE Terracotta 3 1/8 x 2 x 4 1/8 in. (8 x 5.1 x 10.5 cm)   Gift of Hon. George C. McGhee 1983.2.54

Episode Notes This powerful self-portrait in The Fralin Museum of Art’s collection is by the French artist, Émilie Charmy. She was influenced by Post-Impressionism and acquainted with the Fauves, both clearly evidenced in her compositional structure, passages of loose brushwork, and choice of strong colors.             Émilie Charmy French, 1878 - 1974 Self-Portrait with an Album, ca. 1907 - 1912 Oil on canvas 45 3/4 x 35 1/16 in. (116.2 x 89.1 cm)   Gift of Pamela K. and William A. Royall, Jr. 2011.17.2 ©Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Episode Notes A solitary figure emerges from an urgent flurry of charcoal lines. Vernon Ah Kee’s “Unwritten” is a potent metaphor for the struggle of indigenous artists to control their identities amid the continuing pressures of racism and colonial oppression. In 2004, Ah Kee began a series of large scale photorealistic charcoal portraits of his family members. These works were based upon ethnographic photos taken by the anthropologist Norman Tyndale on Palm Island during the 1930s. In enlarging these images to an imposing scale, Ah Kee returns power to their gaze, reclaiming the ethnographic photography for those who are once its subjects. Vernon Ah Kee Indigenous Australian, b. 1967  Unwritten, 2011 Charcoal on paper, 29 15/16 x 22 1/16 in. (76.04 x 56.04 cm) Museum purchase from Milani Gallery, 2012

Matthew McLendon is looking at one of his favorite prints in The Fralin Museum of Art’s collection. It’s a woodcut by the German Expressionist artist, Erich Heckel. The title of the print is Reading Aloud (Beim Vorlesen) and it was made in 1914. We know who the figures are. The woman, right hand resting under her chin, elbow on the table, is Erich Heckel’s companion and later wife, the dancer Sidi Riha. She sits shoulder to shoulder with art historian Walter Kasebach, a great advocate for the Die Brücke Artists.Erich Heckel German, 1883-1970 Reading Aloud (Beim Vorlesen), 1914 Woodcut on heavy, gray toned Japanese paper, 11 3/4 x 7 7/8 in. (29.8 x 20 cm) Museum purchase with the Curriculum Support Fund, 2001.14.2 © 2015 Erich Heckel / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst

The Fralin Museum of Art has a strong collection of Indian Painting due to the efforts and long dedication to the museum of Prof. Dan Ehnbom, who is one of the leading specialists in South Asian Painting. Matthew McLendon discusses one of his favorite works from this part of the collection, a leaf from a Rukmini-haran (Abduction of Rukmini) series: Rukmini Adorning Herself Preparing to go to the Temple, ca. 1700-1710 CE.Leaf from a Rukmini-haran (Abduction of Rukmini) series: Rukmini Adorning Herself Preparing to go to the Temple India, Rajasthan, Kota, ca. 1700 – 1710 CE Ink, opaque color, and gold on paper 15 x 11 3/8 in. (38.1 x 28.89 cm) Museum purchase with Curriculum Support Fund, 2008.2

Freshwater Saltwater Weave is a series of glass works by contemporary urban-based Arrernte artist Jenni Kemarre Martiniello. Her works in hot blown glass, coldworked glass and canes are inspired by the aesthetics of Aboriginal woven forms. The works in this exhibition span the last five years and are inspired by dilly bags, eel traps, fish traps, fish baskets, and bicornual baskets. Yellow Rushes Fish Basket  2017  Jenni Kemarre Martiniello  Hot blown and cold worked glass with canes  Purchased with funds provided by Maria T. Kluge, 2019.

Do you need a little tranquility and peace in your life? Join Matthew McLendon as he looks at a beautiful bronze in The Fralin Museum of Art’s collection depicting Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha. Though only 11 inches tall, this work from Ming Dynasty China is exquisitely detailed with a psychological force well beyond its size.Chinese Artist Shakyamuni Xuande Period 1426 - 1435 Gilt bronze 11 x 7 1/4 x 5 in. (27.9 x 18.4 x 12.7 cm) Bequest of Frank Haden Vines 1976.31.6

Perhaps the most famous and well-traveled painting in the museum’s collection, The Natural Bridge by Frederic Edwin Church, is for any Virginian an immediately recognizable scene. Church painted this picture in 1852 based on sketches he made on a trip to Natural Bridge the previous summer with friends Cyrus and Mary Field. Church took precise notes on his sketches of the geological formations as well as the surrounding flora and there is an oft repeated anecdote that Cyrus Field kept a rock fragment from the trip and compared it to the painting for accuracy.Frederic Edwin Church American, 1826-1900 The Natural Bridge, 1852 Oil on canvas 38 x 33 in Gift of Thomas Fortune Ryan, 1912.1

Angelica Kauffmann (Swiss, 1741-1807) was famed throughout England and Europe as a portraitist and painter of Neoclassical scenes. She came to notice in her teens, having traveled and trained with her father, the painter Johann Joseph Kauffman. After moving from Rome to London, she was one of only two women who were founding members of the Royal Academy. In Venus and Adonis, 1786, Kauffmann portrays a moment of quiet intimacy between the goddess and the youth. The tragedy of the story has yet to unfold and seems unimaginable in such an idyllic setting.Angelica Kauffmann Swiss, 1741-1807 Venus and Adonis, 1786 Oil on canvas, 50 ¼ x 36 7/8 inches Museum Purchase with Membership Acquisition Fund, 1976.25

Jack Kelly's Rockhole 1997 90 x 120 cm Queenie McKenzie, indigenous Australian, b. 1915 Natural pigments on canvas Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of the University of Virginia. Gift of Richard Klingler and Jane Slatter, 2019.

Marcel Vertès (1895-1961) moved to Paris during World War I. While living in the Latin Quarter, he distinguished himself as a printmaker, illustrator, and painter, depicting the café culture that surrounded him. Following World War II, he immigrated to the United States where he worked on the 1952 Hollywood film Moulin Rouge, winning two Oscars for best art direction and best costume design. His murals, which he finished before returning to Paris, can still be viewed in the famed Café Carlyle in New York City.Marcel Vertèsb. Hungary, 1895-1961, active in FranceUntitled 4 from the portfolio Dancing, ca. 1920sColor lithograph on wove paper15 x 22-1/8 in. (38.1 x 56.2 cm)Bequest of Buzz Miller. The Alan Groh-Buzz Miller Collection 1999.12.107.e

The German photographer, August Sander (1876-1964), was best known for creating what the Museum of Modern Art, New York has called, “the most ambitious and influential portrait of the people of the 20th century.” His sweeping photographic project, People of the 20th Century (Menschen des 20. Jahrhunderts), is comprised of over 600 photographs divided into seven volumes and nearly 50 portfolios intending to be a comprehensive visual record of the German people. He devoted 40 years of his life to it.August SanderGerman, 1876-1964The Secretary, West German Radio, Cologne, 1931 Gelatin silver print, 10 5/16 x 6 1/2 in.Museum purchase with the Curriculum Support Fund, 1985.18.8 © Die Photographische Sammlung / SK Stiftung Kultur - August Sander Archiv Köln / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York