Winter/Spring 2004 Exhibition Archives: Carnegie Museum of Art

Current
Exhibitions

Upcoming
Exhibitions

Past
Exhibitions

Carnegie
International

Tarnished: The Decline of Family Formality
Through May 14, 2006

Witness to the Fifties: Selections from the Pittsburgh Photographic Library, 1950–1953
Through Feb. 26, 2006

Luke Swank: Modernist Photographer
Through Feb. 5, 2006

Mixed Doubles
Through Jan. 29, 2006

Frank Lloyd Wright: Renewing the Legacy
Through Jan. 15, 2006

Current Exhibitons

Archived Exhibitions

Upcoming Exhibitions

Tarnished: The Decline of Family Formality
Through May 14, 2006
Treasure Room

The rise and fall of silver tea and coffee services and the rituals surrounding them are at the center of Tarnished: The Decline of Family Formality which features 64 objects from 11 tea and coffee services created between 1814 and 1935 from the museum's collection.

In the first half of the 17th century, trade routes to the East regularly brought tea and coffee to the West. By the late 18th century, these beverages and the silver tea and coffee services that were made to serve them were part of a domestic ritual for upper- and socially mobile middle-class families. In addition to tea and coffee pots, the silver service included objects like hot water kettles, creamers, sugar bowls, sugar tongs, and tea strainers. By the mid-20th century, the rising price of silver, growing informality in the Western home, and return of women to the work force, limited the use of the formal serving of tea and coffee to special occasions. Toward the end of the 20th century, silver beverage services were used mainly for sideboard display. Ultimately, fine silver services were packed and stored out of sight, becoming tarnished...a testament to their decline.

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Witness to the Fifties: Selections from the Pittsburgh Photographic Library, 1950–1953
Through February 26, 2006

The Pittsburgh Photographic Library (PPL) is a collection of some 20,000 photographs of the city taken between 1950 and 1954 that can be found in the Pennsylvania Department of Carnegie Library. The PPL project was the brainchild of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, the powerful organization of corporate leaders and politicians that dominated Pittsburgh’s rebirth and redevelopment after World War II. The project’s purpose was to use photography as a vehicle to educate the local community and the nation on the program of civic improvements that came to be known as the Pittsburgh Renaissance.

Roy Stryker, whose work recording the Depression, rural America, and the impact of the oil industry worldwide had made him a dominant figure in documentary photography, was recruited to oversee the project. He arrived in Pittsburgh in July 1950, and established the PPL by recruiting photographers from his earlier projects as well as young artists at the beginning of their careers. He sent them out into the city to record its present and its future, its harsh realities and its aspirations.

The photographs in this exhibition are but a tiny fraction of the thousands of images that make up the PPL. Though few in number, they convey the richness and complexity of the collection. They provide a record of our past, offering a glimpse of the dynamic transformation of Pittsburgh at a critical moment in its development and insight into the lives of its citizens.

The photographs on view in Witness to the Fifties are from the collection of Carnegie Museum of Art and from the University of Pittsburgh Press. Generous support for the exhibition’s presentation in Pittsburgh has been provided by The Fisher Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation. General support for the museum’s exhibition program is provided by The Heinz Endowments, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Allegheny Regional Asset District.

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Luke Swank: Modernist Photographer
Through February 5, 2006

Luke Swank (1890–1944) was one of the pioneers of Modernism in photography. Although well known in the 1930s, after his death he was largely forgotten. Swank became, in effect, a missing modernist. This exhibition establishes his place in the history of photography.

Swank found beauty in the grittiness of the steel industry, explored the behind-the-scenes life of the circus, made portraits, transformed mundane household items and industrial parts into interesting abstract forms, examined historical rural architecture, and in his most mature work, described urban life as only a visual poet could. What makes Swank’s vision unique is the way he combined traditional machine-age and social documentary subject matter with a dramatic and poetic use of light, form, and the picture frame. While his images are crisp and clean, they are less about specifics of place and more about transcendence of place to universality of experience. They offer an extraordinary look at the America of the mid-to-late 1920s, the Depression, and the first half of World War II.

Luke Swank: Modernist Photographer was organized by Carnegie Museum of Art. Howard Bossen, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, served as guest curator. The research for the exhibition and accompanying catalogue was funded through the Intramural Research Grants Program (IRGP) at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan.

The exhibition’s presentation in Pittsburgh has been made possible by the Drue Heinz Trust and the Robert S. Waters Charitable Trust.

General support for the museum’s exhibition program is provided by The Heinz Endowments, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and Allegheny Regional Asset District.

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Mixed Doubles
Through January 29, 2006

Mixed Doubles pairs works from the Carnegie Museum of Art's collection of canonical video works from the 1970s and 1980s with new moving image works by emerging national and international artists. Linked thematically, these juxtapositions allow poetic and formal connections to be drawn between works of different generations that share similar impulses in subject matter, technological innovation, and aesthetic investigation. Five pairs of works are being shown in succession; this fourth installment brings together the work of Bill Viola and collaborative artists Ryoko Aoki and Zon Ito, screening through December.

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Frank Lloyd Wright: Renewing the Legacy
Through January 15, 2006

Frank Lloyd Wright: Renewing the Legacy presents two iconic buildings by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), America's greatest architect and a cultural figure of international significance. The Darwin D. Martin House (1903–1905) in Buffalo, New York, and the H. C. Price Company Office Tower and Apartments (1952–1956) in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, are currently being restored and their legacy reinterpreted in designs for adjacent buildings by contemporary architects.

An important example of Wright's Prairie Style, the Darwin D. Martin House (1903–1905) in Buffalo, New York, dates from the early stages of Wright's remarkably long career. Wright designed furniture and art glass for the principal house, as well as extensive gardens and several satellite buildings. Having suffered years of neglect, including the loss of its gardens, the Martin House is being restored to serve as a significant public attraction by the Buffalo-based firm of Hamilton Houston Lownie Architects.

After an invited competition involving five architectural practices, Toshiko Mori, chair of the Department of Architecture at Harvard, is to construct a visitors' pavilion to one side of the garden. Taking its clues from the rectilinear geometry of the Martin House, Mori's building has a funnel-shaped roof and sheer walls of glass. Mori's winning pavilion is presented alongside the proposals by Brian Healy Architects, Architecture Research Office (ARO), Schwartz/Silver Architects, and Office dA.

The H.C. Price Company Office Tower and Apartments (1952–1956) in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, is one of Wright's last realized works. It is a rare example of an organic high-rise, a small skyscraper structured about a central core: Wright thought of the building as a great tree. Most of the Price Tower has been renovated by New York-based architect Wendy Evans Joseph to function as an elegant boutique hotel–the Inn at Price Tower. Joseph's furnishings, designed to complement Wright's original interiors, are also on view in the exhibition.

Pritzker Prize-winner Zaha Hadid has now been commissioned to design a greatly expanded Price Tower Arts Center at the base of Wright's freestanding tower. The London-based architect extrapolates the geometries of the site to lead visitors into a dynamic, horizontal, glass-roofed interior with terraces that open to views of the 19-story tower.

This exhibition tells the story of two Frank Lloyd Wright masterworks and of new, companion projects by internationally recognized architects inventively responding to Wright's historic legacy.

The programs of the Heinz Architectural Center are made possible by the generosity of the Drue Heinz Trust. Support for the exhibition has been provided by Mellon Financial Corporation. General support for museum programs is provided by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Heinz Endowments, and Allegheny Regional Asset District.

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