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Indepth Arts News:
"Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Twentieth-Century Mexican Art"
2001-03-31 until 2001-06-24
Phoenix Art Museum
Phoenix, AZ,
USA
Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and
Twentieth-Century Mexican Art features 140
paintings, sculptures, drawings and photographs
by many of the preeminent Mexican artists of the
20th century, including Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera,
David Alfaro Siqueiros, Maria Izquierdo, José
Clemente Orozco, Carlos Merida, and Rufino
Tamayo, as well as a number of significant
contemporary figures such as Cisco Jiménez,
Silvia Gruner, Gabriel Orozco, and Francisco
Toledo, one of the most prestigious and original
Mexican artists of the later 20th century. Still life,
portraits and landscapes are special strengths of
the Gelman Collection and this exhibition.
Jacques believed that the collector was not the owner of the work but
was instead its guardian, a simple link in the human chain which allows
the work to survive the long odyssey from the studio to the museum.
- Pierre Schneider
The Gelman collection is widely
regarded as the world's most
significant private holding of 20th
century Mexican art. With works
dating from the 1910s to the
1990s, this exhibition represents
the broad range of artistic
developments and cultural forces
influencing the development of
Mexican Modernism during the
last century -- from early
experiments with European
cubism and surrealism, to
post-revolutionary efforts to
develop an indigenous Mexican
aesthetic, to the diverse styles
and techniques of post-World War
II abstraction and realism.
Phoenix Art Museum is privileged to present this exhibition which offers visitors the
opportunity to see the artworks as the Gelmans intended -- as an integrated whole
reflecting the achievements of individual artists.
Jacques and Natasha Gelman saw art as an
essential means to connect with their time
and culture. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia,
in 1909, Jacques Gelman founded film
distribution companies in France and Mexico
and his fortune was established when he
started representing the popular Mexican
comic actor Mario Moreno, also known as
Cantinflas. In 1941, he married Natasha
Zahalka, a Czech immigrant from Moravia,
and the couple settled in Mexico City. It was
there they began to assemble extraordinary
collections of European and Mexican modern
art.
The Gelmans eventually donated their European paintings to New York’s Metropolitan
Museum. After Jacques Gelman’s death in 1986, his wife continued to collect
contemporary works until her death in 1998. The Gelman Estate retained and
continues to add to the outstanding Mexican collection.
Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and Twentieth-Century Art reflects the personal tastes of
the Gelmans and their passion for Mexican art. The artists whose work they collected
were not only giants of Mexican Modernism, but many also were the couple’s friends.
Several portraits of Natasha Gelman are featured in the exhibition by such preeminent
artists as Diego Rivera, Gunther Gerzso, Frida Kahlo, David Alfaro Siqueiros and
Rufino Tamayo.
Icons of 20th century Mexican art Frida
Kahlo and Diego Rivera are represented
through some of their most famous and
compelling paintings, such as a striking
group of Kahlo’s innovative and symbolic
self-portraits blending traditional Mexican
motifs and Surrealism -- including
Self-Portrait with Monkeys and Diego on
My Mind. Rivera's painting Calla Lily
Vendor, derived from one of his 1920s
mural projects, and his early experiment with
cubism, Última hora, are included.
Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera and
Twentieth-Century Mexican Art: The
Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection
is organized by the Museum of
Contemporary Art, San Diego, the Dallas
Museum of Art, and Phoenix Art Museum in
collaboration with Robert Littman, former
director of the Centro del Arte
Contemporaneo, Mexico. A fully illustrated,
bilingual English/Spanish catalogue
accompanies the exhibition and is available in The Museum Store.
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