Yale University Art Gallery
The same day my family and I visited the Yale Center for British Art we went to see the Yale University Art Gallery. It was established in 1832, making it the oldest university museum in the New World. They pride themselves on research, teaching and being an asset to both academia and the community. According to their mission statement on their website, The Yale University Art Gallery collects, preserves, studies, and presents art in all media, from all regions of the globe and across time." I had just finished walking through the Yale Center with my family when we ventured across the street. It was still an enjoyable day outside, and when we started to get closer to the entrance, I realized how immense this museum seemed compared to the one we just left. Thankfully, we were given a map by the visitor desk. True to their mission statement, they had artwork on display from all over the world and time periods.
The museum itself is beautifully constructed and designed. Connecticut native John Trumbull sold his art collection to Yale in 1831, and he designed the original museum called The Picture Gallery at Yale, in which the work was displayed. This building will later be demolished and the Street Hall building was constructed in 1866. Currently the oldest section, Street Hall is designed in a neo-Gothic style and resembles a 13th century Venetian palace. The second section called the Old Yale Art Gallery Building built in 1928, connects both the modern side of the museum and the oldest, and is meant to resemble a Tuscan Romanesque building. The newest section is the main building where visitors walk in, and is designed in a modern, contemporary style created by Louis I. Khan in 1953. Coincidentally, he is the same architect who designed the British Art Center across the street. The museum does have such a rich history spanning over 150 years and is an exceptionally beautiful building. We were surprised to see the monument left in the Street Hall section of the museum with the remains of John Trumbull's wife when we got off the elevator.
They currently have two special exhibits called "Gold in America: Artistry, Memory, Power" and "Midcentury Abstraction". I did enjoy the former, because it was fun to see objects related to historical figures and what they meant to them. We started on the top floor and made our way down, stopping along the way to observe how others were interacting with the pieces. It is always fascinating to see where people stop and pause and you wonder what it is that caught their eye. But the floor we spent the most time on was the third, which featured modern and contemporary art and design. Below were some of my favorites from this part of the museum. It's interesting to see the variations of techniques and ideas expressed in artwork from the more modern era.
Girl in White Chemise. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. 1914. Oil on canvas. Contemporary.100 × 120.3 cm (39 3/8 × 47 3/8 in.)
framed: 103 × 122.6 × 4.8 cm (40 9/16 × 48 1/4 × 1 7/8 in.)
First Steps. Pablo Picasso. 1943. Oil on canvas. Cubism. 130.2 × 97.1 cm (51 1/4 × 38 1/4 in.)
framed: 169.2 × 136.2 × 11.4 cm (66 5/8 × 53 5/8 × 4 1/2 in.)
Untitled. Kerry James Marshall. 2009. Acrylic on PVC panel. Contemporary. 61 1/8 × 72 7/8 × 3 7/8 in. (155.3 × 185.1 × 9.8 cm)
Venus. Sir Jacob Epstein. 1917. Marble. Modernist. 235.6 × 43.2 × 82.6 cm, 762.04 kg (92 3/4 × 17 × 32 1/2 in., 1680 lb.)
My favorite piece from the museum was called a contemporary piece called If perhaps by chance I find myself encaged by Sedrick Huckaby. It is a mixture of oil on canvas and a sculpture of oil on CelluClay, created in 2016. It caught my attention right away when I walked into the gallery. It is a depiction of an African American family, torn apart by their father/husband who is incarcerated, or perhaps encaged into a mold that society dictates he is in. It was powerful and profound to see the mother's sadness in her face, and she is disconnected from her children. The children are facing away from each other, with the boy looking towards his father for guidance or love. You feel sad when looking at this piece of work, because we understand it is a statement on society and represents the brokenness of African American families that has existed since our nation's founding. I appreciate the artist's use of making the family members be the focus of the piece, while having the background be a muted gray. There is also texture in this piece, and his other work in general, that makes it feel imperfect and gritty.
Sedrick Huckaby is an American painter and sculptor from Fort Worth, Texas. He is mostly known for his use of thick paint that evokes a sense of quilt-like style art. Upon graduating Boston University with a Fine Arts degree, he completed his Master's in Fine Arts from Yale University in 1999. He currently is an associate professor of painting at the University of Texas Arlington.
When researching this piece, I learned it was part of a collection Huckaby completed in 2016 titled: "Three Forbidden F Words". I understand his spark behind this piece because it focuses on the African American family and their various experiences. The piece that was created directly after this is titled, "Frederick's Family" and is similar in design. Like this piece in study, it is five oil painted canvases depicting individual family members, with a sculpture of a man sitting in the middle. On Hucakby's website they describe his work as, "-paintings and drawings metaphorically express universal themes of faith, family, community, and heritage – with a pictorial aggression that approaches relief sculpture." Those themes are prevalent in If perhaps by chance I find myself encaged. His way of approaching artwork is contemporary, because of the use of paint in his work mixed with different mediums such as canvas, wood, and clay to make his pieces.
Dimensions:93.4 × 105.4 × 25.4 cm (36 3/4 × 41 1/2 × 10 in.)
caged figure: 36.8 × 10 × 10 cm (14 7/16 × 3 15/16 × 3 15/16 in.)
left panel: 24.1 × 12.1 × 2 cm (9 1/2 × 4 3/4 × 13/16 in.)
right panel: 23.8 × 15.4 × 1.4 cm (9 3/8 × 6 1/16 × 9/16 in.)
Yale University Art Gallery was a fun experience, and I believe that because they feature art from all over the world from different time periods, there is something for everyone to enjoy here. I will take more time next time visiting to observe the work here as there really is so much to see and take in. Because of the architecture of the buildings, you really do feel like you are walking through time with the artwork on display.
Citations:
https://artgallery.yale.edu/about-mission
https://huckabystudios.com/body/three-forbidden-f-words/
https://huckabystudios.com/about/sedrick/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedrick_Huckaby
https://artgallery.yale.edu/about/architecture
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Trumbull
Great Ariana... The YAG is such a treasure to have in our midst... and free! It is a mini Metropolitan Museum of Art in that it does have art work from across all of art history right up to the current moment as evidenced by the piece you chose. I found this quote about your piece in Image journal: "Sedrick Huckaby has chosen to make art about a subject—the mass incarceration of black men—which American society has mostly proved incapable of addressing. The power of his accomplishment is perhaps most evident in the incredible subtlety of expression he grants this family. There is no vanity in the three portraits, only character. To the man’s left, his wife, who may be pregnant, stares dead ahead, her eyes defiant. She reaches out to him, but the edge of the canvas cuts off her hand—perhaps an ironic reference to the draconian style of justice favored by proponents of mandatory sentencing. This woman has incurred an unjust punishment through a law that robs her of her husband, the father of her children. But still she reaches for him; the two are linked in a way the man no longer is to his children."
ReplyDeleteHis work is representative in a new interest in figurative painting this century and also keyed into social/political ideas about the human condition in the current age. Nice job, nicely researched, photographed and cited....