From the late 17th century until the 1820s, vast profits from ranching and tropical crops turned Spanish American elites from cities in the Caribbean basin into some of the wealthiest people in the New World. The production and trading of religious art during this period was centered on high-end pieces for churches, the local nobility, and wealthy individuals; their fine craftsmanship rivaled that of luxury goods imported from Europe.
Through 57 paintings, sculpture, silver pieces, furniture, and other decorative objects, this exhibition showcases a wide range of artistic production. It offers an exceptional opportunity to learn more about the daily life and religious practices of colonial Latin America and sheds light on the nature of commercial exchange in the region.
"A Shared Legacy: FOLK ART IN AMERICA" highlights art created by artists in rural areas in New England, the Midwest, and the South between 1800 and 1925 - artists who did not always adhere to the academic models that established artistic taste in urban centers of the East Coast. Included are portraits; vivid still life, landscape, and allegorical paintings; commercial and highly personal sculpture; and distinctice examples of furniture from the German-American community. More than 60 works, including paintings on canvas, panel, and paper by some of the most admired 19th-century American painters; sculpture; and examples of American furniture and other household objects, exemplify the breadth of American creative expression during a period of enormous political, social, and cultural change in the United States.
The first exhibition held outside Tokyo dedicated to Japanese Art Deco, "DECO JAPAN" provides dramatic examples of the spectacular craftsmanship and sophisticated design long associated with Japan and conveys the complex social and cultural tensions during the Taishô and early Shôwa epochs (1912-1945). In these pre-war and war eras, artists and patrons created a Japanese modernism that signaled simultaneously the nation's unique history and cosmopolitanism. The vitality of the era is further expressed through the theme of the moga, or modern girl, the emblem of contemporary urban chic that flowered along with the Art Deco style in the 1920's and 1930's.