Columbia Museum of Art (2/14/2024)

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Today's stop was at the Columbia Museum of Art in the capital of South Carolina. It is notable that 100% of the CMA Collection galleries today include work by women, Black artists, Indigenous artists, LGBTQ+ artists, or other artists of color. The diverse permanent collection is one of the largest and most impressive international collections in the southeast, including many Renaissance and Baroque pieces.

Columbia Museum of Art (founded 1950, building
1998, by Bobby Lyles and Ashby Gressette)

Special Exhibit: Intersections on Main Street: African American Life in Columbia in the Our Story Matters Gallery:

Re-creation of the studio of famed Black
photographer Richard Samuel Roberts

Modjeska Monteith Simkins Swing Coat (by
Patricia A Montgomery, a textile artist who designs these
swing coats to document and celebrate lesser known
women in the Civil Rights movement

Modjeska Monteith Simkins, from Columbia, was involved with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People/NAACP, as well as in African-American public health and social reform.

Dr Martin Luther King, Jr was in Columbia in 1959,
shown here with Dr Charles Gomillion, who was a
professor at the Tuskegee Institute

Dr Gomillion took a case to the Supreme Court in 1960 that resulted in the decision to outlaw gerrymandering as a mechanism for altering boundaries in order to minimize voting strength, thus, disfranchising many people. (What happened to that?!)

In the atrium: Threshold (c 1990, by
Brent Kee Young) has blown glass
cased in clear glass

Chandelier (2010, by Dale Chihuly)

The collection is organized by theme. Gallery 2: Gods and Heroes:

Diana the Huntress (c 1891, by Jean-
Alexander-Jospeh Falguière), where she is
identified by the crescent moon in her hair

General George Washington (1779-1780,
by Charles Willson Peale)

Gallery 3: Visions from Beyond (spiritual):

Illuminated Book of Hours (c 1450-1460, in Belgium)

Gallery 4: Legends:

And here is Diana again (c 1921, by
Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, with Karl Illava) 

Eos (1895, by Mary Evelyn Pickering
De Morgan) depicts the Greek goddess of dawn

Gallery 5: Art and Identity:

Mom, Dad, Worlds Apart (1994, by Sigmund Abeles) shows
the artist's separated parents "sharing" a moment of worship

Man of Knowledge (2004, by Mel Rosas)

Gallery 6: A Collector's Eye (Dr Robert Y Turner):

View of the Flavian Amphitheater, known as the Coliseum
(c 1776, by Giovanni Battista Piranesi)

Virginia Woolf (1939, by Gisèle Freund)

Gallery 7: Vice and Virtue:

The Groom Presenting the Bride to His Mother (c 1680,
by Jacon van Oost, the Younger)

Charity of St Nicholas (c 1580, by Johannes Stradanus)
shows the original St Nick leaving gifts of golden balls
to the destitute family with three daughters to marry

Gallery 8: What Gets on the Walls:

Sofa (1841, by Duncan Phyfe) and the painting
The Three Ages of Man (c 1800-1810, by 
Baron François Gérard and Studio)

The Undiscovered Country (1894, by
Mary Evelyn Pickering De Morgan) based on
Shakespeare's line in Hamlet that
death is an undiscovered country

Gallery 9: Portraiture, Genre, and Still Life:

Bowl of Fruit (undated, by Kari Russell-Pool)

Angela Davis (2017, by Roberto Lugo)

Gallery 10: Still Life in Real Life:

Anchor Hocking Glassware Manhattan Pattern (1938-1943)

Red-figure Kotyle/cup (c 400 BCE, Greek)

Gallery 11: Veils of Atmosphere:

Fragment of an Image (c 1957, by Herman Raymond)
won first place in the Columbia Painting Biennial

The Seine at Giverny (1897, by Claude Monet)

Gallery 12: Sergio Hudson (designer to the stars):

Signature Sergio Hudson Belts (2019-2023);
this accessory sold out after Michelle Obama
wore the belt as part of her ensemble
during the 2021 inauguration

Jacket and Miniskirt Ensemble (2019)
worn by Beyoncé

Gallery 13: Art and Industry:

Clay Cuneiform Tablet (c 12-7C BCE,
Mesopotamia) seen through a magnifying glass

Box [sic] with Lid (c 1925-1926, by Hugo Reinhold & Co,
Bunzlau, Germany, now Boleslawiec, Poland)

Gallery 14: Sergio Hudson:

Illustration (2019, by Justin Gloston) of
custom jumpsuit for Michelle Obama

Saida X: Chrome (2010, by Steven Naifeh)

Gallery 15: Place:

View of the Molo, Venice (c 1730, by
Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto)

Grand Manan (c 1859, by Edward Moran) depicts the
island at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick

Gallery 16: Artistic Interiors of the Late Nineteenth Century:

Chandelier (c 1880-1890, by
the circle of Antonio Salviati)

Peacock Vase (c 1892-1928, by Tiffany Studios)

Gallery 17: Chance in Art:

Cross-ties (Tracks) (1976, by Robert Rauschenberg)

Connecticut Rise (1978, by Lee Hall)

Gallery 18: Home, Work, Play:

Georgia O'Keeffe's Studio, Abiquiu, New Mexico
(1963, by Todd Webb)

Coal Car (1953, by Edmund Yaghjian, Armenian)

Gallery 19: Postwar Experimentation:

V-1952 (1952, by James Brooks); the
artist often soaked paint onto the back
of the canvas before painting the front

Piccadilly (2007, by Lino Tagliapietra)

Gallery 20: Contemporary Art:

Rasoir d'avion No 40 (1971, designed by
Alexander Calder, tapestry created by Atelier Pinton Frères,
an Aubusson Tapestry Factory)

Liberation of Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben (1998,
by Renée Cox); the liberation makes them younger
stronger, and more modern