Montclair Art Museum’s biggest blockbuster ever, Cezanne and American Modernism, blew the lid off previous exhibition records, according to marketing director Michael Gillespie. “Attendance broke 30,000 during the 100-day show, which is amazing when you consider the previous record-breaker was 12,000 visitors over a period of six months during the Super Hero exhibit. Another 10,000 visitors participated in special tours and art school programs related to the Cezanne show,” Gillespie added.
What do those attendance numbers mean financially for MAM? “Museums don’t really make money on exhibitions, but I can tell you Cezanne really helped MAM’s operating budget. For instance we were able to bring our staff back to work full time, from four days a week. We were able to reinstate “Free Fridays” every first Friday of the month,” says Gillespie. (The first Free Friday is March 5.)
If you missed Cezanne, you can see the exhibit, now on tour, at the Baltimore Art Museum and then goes to the Phoenix Art Museum. A show of such magnitude – 10 years in the making – is a hard act to follow, but Gillespie says the museum staff is discussing what the next big show will be…and are planning for two years or so away. (Feel free to chime in on what you’d like to see…)
MAM’s next exhibition, “A Force for Change, African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund,” opens to the public this Sunday, Feb. 7. It is the first exhibition to explore the artistic legacy of the Julius Rosenwald Fund, created in 1917 by Sears CEO and philanthropist Julius Rosenwald (1862-1932). The fellowship program awarded stipends to hundreds of African American artists, writers, teachers, and scholars, as well as white southerners with an interest in race relations.
Designed to spend itself out of existence after its founder’s death, the exhibition explores the artistic products of that support, featuring over 60 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper by 22 Rosenwald Fellows.
During a time when segregation was a fact of American life, Julius Rosenwald saw racism as an indictment of our entire society. The work encouraged by his philanthropy promoted new images of African Americans, boldly helping to pave the way for equal participation by African Americans in American life. A Force for Change showcases this vital work.
Among the impressive list of Rosenwald Fellows were some of the leading artists of the decades between the two world wars, and the work they produced with Rosenwald support was made under conditions of exceptional artistic security and freedom. The work of these artists, such as Elizabeth Catlett, Eldzier Cortor, Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, Gordon Parks, Marion Perkins, Rose Piper, Augusta Savage, and Charles White, is the focus of A Force for Change.
The exhibition also presents archival footage of performances by two world-renowned dancers who were Rosenwald Fellows, Katherine Dunham and Pearl Primus, as well as an original short documentary film about Julius Rosenwald and the Fellowship Program.
The list of Rosenwald Fellows includes some of the most influential writers and intellectuals in 20th-century America–including James Baldwin, Allison Davis, W. E. B.
Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, E. Franklin Frazier, Langston Hughes, and Zora Neale Hurston–
and the film provides background about the foundation’s support of their endeavors.
The show runs from February 7 through July 25, 2010. For more information and a schedule of related programs, check MAM’s website, or click here.
It was a darned good exhibit. Kudos.