The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design (RISD Museum) is an
art museum
An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It might be in public or private ownership and may be accessible to all or have restrictions in place. Although primarily co ...
integrated with the
Rhode Island School of Design
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...
, in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...
, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877, and still shares multiple buildings and facilities. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the United States, and has seven curatorial departments.
History and architectural development
The RISD Museum was an integral part of the college from the inception of both in 1877.
Its dual mission was, and remains, to serve as an art museum open to the public, and to serve as a teaching facility for RISD students.
After the Civil War, Rhode Island had emerged as one of the most heavily industrialized states in the country.
Local manufacturers became interested in improving sales of their products through better design, and began to seek out qualified employees with expertise combining artistic and practical knowledge. Even earlier, in 1854, the Rhode Island Art Association had been chartered "to establish in Providence a permanent Art Museum and Gallery of the Arts and Design". However, insufficient funds were available to accomplish this goal until 1877, when the Rhode Island Women's Centennial Commission allocated $1,675 to start the school and its associated museum.
The RISD Museum collection began modestly, with etchings and plaster casts of sculptures and architectural elements. The first public galleries were opened in 1893, in the structure now known as the Waterman Building, which is named after the street where it is located. In 1897, five additional galleries were constructed across the rear of the building as a memorial to Helen Metcalfe, one of RISD's founders. Various members of the Metcalfe family donated to the rapidly growing collection of plaster casts, which numbered almost 500 by the time the collection was dismantled in 1937.
Artworks in other media gradually joined the collection, mostly from donations, since there was little funding for acquisitions.
In 1904, the museum received a major bequest from Charles Pendleton (1846–1904), a collector and dealer in English and American furniture, ceramics, and carpets. Pendleton House (1906) was constructed as a fireproof expansion of the museum, designed to appear as a residential home, and modeled on the donor's actual Federal-era home on Waterman Street. Thus, RISD became the first art museum in the country to devote an entire wing to the decorative arts.
The RISD collections expanded greatly during the prosperous 1920s, when gifts and the growing endowment could fund the purchase of major artworks, as well as physical expansion. In 1924, the Metcalfe Building was added, and in 1926 the Radeke Building was opened. Fronted by a modest-looking street level entry on Benefit Street, the latter new addition was actually a large 6-story structure built onto the side of the steep slope of
College Hill. A central garden court, later named after
Eliza Greene Metcalf Radeke, provided natural light and a view from the art galleries enclosing it on three sides.
During a brief but intense tenure from 1938 to 1941, German refugee
Alexander Dorner
Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history.
Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...
(1893–1957) directed the museum in a transformation from a classics orientation to a more-contemporary focus. He also sought to emphasize unity and multiple cross-connections among the different nationally focused collections, along with a unified presentation of art and design across different media as well.
An influx of European
émigrés during and after World War II strengthened and deepened both curatorial expertise and the growth of the collections.
In the mid-1960s and early 1970s, the collecting of contemporary 20th century art accelerated, aided by funding from the
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
. Another symbolic landmark event was the 1970 ''Raid the Icebox'' exhibition, curated by visiting artist
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
from the museum's extensive storerooms and archives.
A number of significant art and design collections were added to the museum collections, requiring major expansion of physical facilities, as well as visitor accommodations.
In 1993, the Daphne Farago Wing, designed by Tony Atkin and Associates (Philadelphia), added two new galleries for contemporary art, the first major expansion of exhibition space since 1926.
Its new entrance, relocated near the historic Benefit Street entrance, continued traditional upslope access from College Hill, even as the main library, undergrad dormitories, and graduate studios of the college were relocated downslope nearer to the river or in
downtown Providence.
The new building also contains a small coffeeshop/cafe.
In September 2008, a substantial new addition to the RISD Museum and the college was opened to the public. Designed by
Pritzker Prize
The Pritzker Architecture Prize is an international architecture award presented annually "to honor a living architect or architects whose built work demonstrates a combination of those qualities of talent, vision and commitment, which has produ ...
-winning architect
Jose Rafael Moneo of Spain, the Chace Center connects to the third floor of the Radeke Building and the other three older buildings of the museum, via a short glassed-in bridge.
A long, segmented outdoors stairway cuts a perpendicular straight line from Benefit Street to the lower campus, passing directly under the bridge.
The $34 million center was built on a former parking lot in one of the few remaining open spaces near RISD, and it was named in honor of the late Malcolm and Beatrice “Happy” Oenslager Chace, a preservationist who worked to save historic buildings on Benefit Street.
The Chace Center serves as the main entrance to the museum, facing a revitalized riverfront and downtown.
The building initially included a retail shop, as well as an auditorium and exhibition and classroom spaces.
The retail shop was later converted into a staff lounge; the RISD Store is now located on the first floor of the Design Center at 30 North Main Street, just north of the museum entrance. The second floor of the Chace Center contains temporary galleries dedicated to exhibiting artworks by RISD students.
Today, many of RISD Museum's traditional exhibition spaces are still threaded on a linear axis though the four older buildings, and are sometimes confusing for visitors to navigate.
Adding to disorientation, numerous window openings have been bricked over, to better control lighting and to increase display space.
There are six levels of exhibition spaces, but no single building has more than four levels open to the public.
A simplified schematic map is available for visitors to help them with orientation.
There are multiple changes of floor level between buildings,
but ramps and elevators have been installed to greatly improve accessibility. Both museum entrances and all galleries are now wheelchair-accessible.
Collections
General overview
The RISD Museum's collection of about 100,000 objects contains a broad range of works from around the world, including ancient Egypt, Asia, Africa, ancient Greece and Rome, Europe, and the Americas.
Over 2,000 of these artworks are typically on display at any time.
The RISD Museum has a comprehensive online catalog of almost all of its collection, and offers free access to digital images of its
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...
materials.
The collection is managed by seven curatorial departments.
Among the prominent international and American artists represented are
Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
,
Monet,
Manet,
Paul Revere,
Chanel
Chanel ( , ) is a French high-end luxury fashion house founded in 1910 by Coco Chanel in Paris. Chanel specializes in women's ready-to-wear, luxury goods, and accessories and licenses its name and branding to Luxottica for eyewear. Chane ...
,
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
, and
Kara Walker. The collection also features notable works by Rhode Island artists and designers, including 18th-century Newport furniture makers
Goddard and Townsend, and 19th-century Rhode Island painters such as Anglo-American impressionist
John Noble Barlow and portraitist
Gilbert Stuart.
Ancient art
The department of Ancient Art includes bronze figural sculpture and vessels, an exceptional collection of Greek coins (that grew out of the collection donated by
Henry A. Greene), stone sculpture, Greek vases, paintings, and mosaics, a fine collection of Roman jewelry and glass, and teaching examples of
terracottas. A number of objects represent the most outstanding examples in their categories. Among these virtually unique works of art are an Etruscan bronze ''
situla'' (pail), a fifth-century
BCE Greek female head in marble, and a rare Hellenistic bronze
Aphrodite
Aphrodite ( ; grc-gre, Ἀφροδίτη, Aphrodítē; , , ) is an ancient Greek goddess associated with love, lust, beauty, pleasure, passion, and procreation. She was syncretized with the Roman goddess . Aphrodite's major symbols incl ...
. Among the Greek vases are works by some of the major Attic painters, including
Nikosthenes
Nikosthenes was a potter of Greek black- and red-figure pottery in the time window 550–510 BC. He signed as the potter on over 120 black-figure vases, but only nine red-figure. Most of his vases were painted by someone else, called Painter ...
; the
Brygos Painter; the
Providence Painter; and the
Pan, Lewis, and
Reed Painters.
The cornerstone of the museum's Egyptian collection is the
Ptolemaic period coffin and mummy of the priest Nesmin. Among other highlights of the Egyptian collection are a rare
New Kingdom
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator ...
ceramic paint box, a relief fragment from the
temple complex at Karnak, and a first-class collection of
faience
Faience or faïence (; ) is the general English language term for fine tin-glazed pottery. The invention of a white pottery glaze suitable for painted decoration, by the addition of an oxide of tin to the slip of a lead glaze, was a major ...
.
Asian art
The RISD Museum's Asian Art collection contains ceramics, costume, prints, painting, sculpture, and textiles. One of the highlights of the collection is the peerless group of more than 700 19th-century Japanese prints which were collected by
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller
Abigail Greene Aldrich Rockefeller (October 26, 1874 – April 5, 1948) was an American socialite and philanthropist. She was a prominent member of the Rockefeller family through her marriage to financier and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller ...
, considered among the finest assemblages of such work held outside Japan. The Japanese prints are shown, in rotation, in a gallery dedicated to their exhibition. A major attraction is the important 12th-century wooden Buddha Dainich Nyorai, the largest (over tall) historic Japanese wooden sculpture in the United States. The Buddha is on permanent exhibition in its own gallery.
The Japanese textiles are the core and glory of the Asian textile collection. The ''
kesa'', or Buddhist priests' robes, are the most numerous, with 104 examples. The 47 Japanese ''
Noh'' robes, meticulously documented, form a comprehensive collection of nearly every type of costume in use in the Noh drama of 18th- and 19th-century Japan. Their spectacular colors and patterns, embellished with gold and silver, express perfectly the splendor of the traditional and highly stylized Noh theater. The museum's collection of Indian
sari
A sari (sometimes also saree or shari)The name of the garment in various regional languages include:
* as, শাৰী, xārī, translit-std=ISO
* bn, শাড়ি, śāṛi, translit-std=ISO
* gu, સાડી, sāḍī, translit-std ...
s and Chinese ceremonial robes is superb. The Islamic and Indian collections include works of art in all media that celebrate the artistic heritage of the Arab, Indian, Persian, and Turkish cultures.
Contemporary art
Created in 2000, the Department of Contemporary Art oversees an eclectic collection of
painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and a ...
,
sculpture
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable ...
,
video
Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) sy ...
,
mixed media, and
interdisciplinary work, dating from 1960 to the present. In addition, the department regularly organizes exhibitions that highlight important issues, trends and individual explorations in recent art. Represented in the collection are significant paintings by
Richard Anuszkiewicz,
Sam Francis,
David Hockney
David Hockney (born 9 July 1937) is an English painter, draftsman, printmaker, stage designer, and photographer. As an important contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s, he is considered one of the most influential British artists o ...
,
Ellsworth Kelly,
Franz Kline,
Ronnie Landfield
Ronnie Landfield (born January 9, 1947) is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction (related to Postminimalism, Color Field painting, and ...
,
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. ...
,
Robert Mangold
Robert Mangold (born October 12, 1937) is an American minimalist artist. He is also father of film director and screenwriter James Mangold.
Early life and education
Mangold was born in North Tonawanda, New York. His mother, Blanche, was a d ...
,
Agnes Martin,
Joan Mitchell,
Cy Twombly
Edwin Parker "Cy" Twombly Jr. (; April 25, 1928July 5, 2011) was an American painter, sculptor and photographer. He belonged to the generation of Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns.
Twombly is said to have influenced younger artists such as ...
,
Wayne Thiebaud,
Larry Rivers, and
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore the relationsh ...
, among others. The collection also includes important sculptural work by
Richard Artschwager,
Louise Bourgeois,
Louise Nevelson,
Tom Otterness
Tom Otterness (born 1952) is an American sculptor best known as one of America's most prolific public artists. Otterness's works adorn parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and museums around the world, notably in New York City ...
,
Lucas Samaras, and
Robert Wilson. The museum's video collection features experimental works by such pioneers in the field as
Vito Acconci,
Lynda Benglis,
Bruce Nauman,
Martha Rosler,
Richard Serra, and
William Wegman.
The Nancy Sayles Day Collection of Latin American Art includes contemporary paintings by such important artists as Luís Cruz Azaceta,
Fernando Botero
Fernando Botero Angulo (born 19 April 1932) is a Colombian figurative artist and sculptor, born in Medellín. His signature style, also known as "Boterismo", depicts people and figures in large, exaggerated volume, which can represent politic ...
, José Bedia,
Claudio Bravo,
Wifredo Lam
Wifredo Óscar de la Concepción Lam y Castilla (; December 8, 1902 – September 11, 1982), better known as Wifredo Lam, was a Cuban artist who sought to portray and revive the enduring Afro-Cuban spirit and culture. Inspired by and in conta ...
,
Jesús Rafael Soto
Jesús Rafael Soto (June 5, 1923 – January 17, 2005) was a Venezuelan op and kinetic artist, a sculptor and a painter.
His works can be found in the collections of the main museums of the world, including Tate (London), Museum Ludwig (Germany ...
,
Joaquín Torres-García, and
Roberto Matta Echuarren.
The department has a natural and strong connection with Providence's contemporary art community, and numerous RISD faculty and alumni and local artists are represented in the collection. Among them are
Howard Ben Tré, Jonathan Bonner,
Richard Fleischner
Richard Fleischner is a Providence, RI–based environmental artist. Born in New York in 1944, he received a BFA and MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and ...
, Ruth Dealy,
Richard Merkin, Bunny Harvey, and
Merle Temkin
Merle Temkin is a New York City-based painter, sculptor and installation artist, known for vibrant, abstracted paintings based on her own enlarged fingerprint, and earlier site-specific, mirrored installations of the 1980s. Her work has often in ...
.
Costumes and textiles
The RISD Museum has one of the finest collections of historical textiles and items of dress in the US, with a range that spans centuries from at least 1500 BCE to the present, and which includes representative cloth and clothing from many geographic areas. Starting with items such a pair of Native American
moccasin
A moccasin is a shoe, made of deerskin or other soft leather, consisting of a sole (made with leather that has not been "worked") and sides made of one piece of leather, stitched together at the top, and sometimes with a vamp (additional pane ...
s and a Hawaiian
barkcloth acquired in the museum's early history, the collection has grown to include more than 26,000 objects today. The earliest piece in the collection is a fragment from an ancient Egyptian tomb, but a major focus of the department's collecting agenda is the acquisition of contemporary fashion and textiles from all over the world.
The richness of the Costume and Textiles collections extends from examples of
Elizabethan
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...
needlework
Needlework is decorative sewing and textile arts handicrafts. Anything that uses a needle for construction can be called needlework. Needlework may include related textile crafts such as crochet, worked with a hook, or tatting, worked wi ...
,
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
textiles, French printed toile de Jouey,
Navajo
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest fe ...
chief's blankets, and fashions from the most celebrated European and American designers of the 19th and 20th centuries. A world-renowned group of Japanese
Noh theater robes and Buddhist priest robes was donated by Lucy Truman Aldrich, the greatest single donor to the RISD Museum's textile collection.
Decorative arts
The Decorative Arts collection encompasses European and American decorative arts (furniture, silver and other metalwork, wallpaper, ceramics, and glass) from the Medieval period to the present. A major highlight of the department is the Charles L. Pendleton Collection of furniture made by 18th-century Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Newport cabinetmakers. Pendleton House, the "wing" of the museum devoted to the exhibition of decorative arts, exhibits at least six pieces of furniture from the
Goddard and Townsend circle of Newport cabinetmakers, including two of the renowned block-front, carved-shell desks-and-bookcases. Also on view in Pendleton House's period rooms are fine examples of English pottery,
Chinese export porcelain, and a comprehensive survey of Rhode Island silver.
The Harold Brown Collection of French Empire furniture and objects with Napoleonic associations is another highlight of the department's holdings, as is the Lucy Truman Aldrich collection of rare 18th-century European porcelain figures. Some 360 examples of 18th- and early 19th-century French wallpaper from the M. and Mme. Charles Huard collection constitute the backbone of the museum's wallpaper collection, which is among the finest in the world. Many antique examples of wallpaper are now known to contain the poisonous and
carcinogenic
A carcinogen is any substance, radionuclide, or radiation that promotes carcinogenesis (the formation of cancer). This may be due to the ability to damage the genome or to the disruption of cellular metabolic processes. Several radioactive sub ...
element
arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As and atomic number 33. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in combination with sulfur and metals, but also as a pure elemental crystal. Arsenic is a metalloid. It has various allotropes, b ...
, and the RISD Museum has published an article on its hazards and how to handle them.
The museum's collection is particularly strong in the area of 19th-century decorative arts. Important highlights include furniture by the American companies of Vose and Coates,
Herter Brothers, and Alexander Roux; the Englishman
Edward William Godwin (E.W. Godwin); and the French makers Guillaume Beneman and Hugnet Frères. Other highlights of the 19th century are works of art in glass by
Lalique,
Louis Comfort Tiffany, and
Hector Guimard; ceramics by
Wedgwood
Wedgwood is an English fine china, porcelain and luxury accessories manufacturer that was founded on 1 May 1759 by the potter and entrepreneur Josiah Wedgwood and was first incorporated in 1895 as Josiah Wedgwood and Sons Ltd. It was rapid ...
,
Sèvres, and
Royal Doulton; and silver by
Christopher Dresser and
Charles Robert Ashbee. Approximately 2,000 pieces produced by Providence's
Gorham Manufacturing Company from the mid-19th through the mid-20th century are the foundation of a collection of American silverware, which also includes work by colonial silversmiths such as
John Coney,
Paul Revere, and Samuel Casey.
20th-century design in the collection includes furniture by
Alvar Aalto,
Verner Panton,
Josef Hofmann
Josef Casimir Hofmann (originally Józef Kazimierz Hofmann; January 20, 1876February 16, 1957) was a Polish-American pianist, composer, music teacher, and inventor.
Biography
Josef Hofmann was born in Podgórze (a district of Kraków), in Au ...
, and
Charles and Ray Eames; metalwork by
Erik Magnussen; ceramics by
Auguste Delaherche; glass by
Frederick Carder
Frederick Carder (September 18, 1863 – December 10, 1963) was a glassmaker, glass designer, and glass artist who was active in the glass industry in both England and the United States, notably for Stevens & Williams and Steuben, respective ...
; and wallpaper designs by Nancy McClelland,
Alexander Calder, and
Roy Lichtenstein
Roy Fox Lichtenstein (; October 27, 1923 – September 29, 1997) was an American pop artist. During the 1960s, along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and James Rosenquist among others, he became a leading figure in the new art movement. ...
. The mid 20th-century's revived interest in "craft" is represented by the work of
Tage Frid
Tage Frid (30 May 1915 – 4 May 2004) was a Danish-born woodworker, educator and author who influenced the development of the studio furniture movement in the United States. His design work was often in the Danish-modern style, best known for h ...
,
Wharton Esherick,
John Prip
John Axel Prip, also known as Jack Prip (1922–2009), was an American master metalsmith, industrial designer, and educator. He was known for setting standards of excellence in American metalsmithing. His works and designs have become famous for ...
, and
Peter Voulkos
Peter Voulkos (born Panagiotis Harry Voulkos; 29 January 1924 – 16 February 2002) was an American artist of Greek descent. He is known for his abstract expressionist ceramic sculptures, which crossed the traditional divide between ceramic cr ...
. The RISD Museum is a leading collector of American contemporary craft and studio furniture, and many of the artists represented in the collection have ties to the school as alumni, faculty, or both. Among the contemporary craftspeople whose work is in the collection are:
Dale Chihuly,
Michael Glancy,
Akio Takamori,
Kurt Weiser
Kurt Weiser (born 1950 in Lansing, Michigan) is an American ceramicist and professor. His work—explorations of the relationship between man and nature through narratives rendered in vivid color—are described as "Eden-like." His work has often ...
,
Judy Kensley McKie
Judy Kensley McKie (born 1944) is an American artist, furniture designer, and furniture maker. She has been making her signature style of furniture with carved and embellished animal and plant motifs since 1977. She is based in Boston, Massachus ...
,
Jere Osgood Jere Osgood (born 1936) is an American studio furniture maker, and teacher of furniture and woodworking. He taught for many years in the .
Early life and education
Jere Osgood was born in 1936 and raised in Staten Island, New York. He studied ar ...
,
Rosanne Somerson, and Alphonse Mattia.
Painting and sculpture
The Painting and Sculpture collection contains more than 2,500 works of European and American art from the medieval period up through 1960. The
Italian Renaissance
The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
, and
Baroque
The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including ...
periods are represented by the work of
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo,
Lippo Memmi,
Jacopo Sansovino
Jacopo d'Antonio Sansovino (2 July 1486 – 27 November 1570) was an Italian Renaissance sculptor and architect, best known for his works around the Piazza San Marco in Venice. These are crucial works in the history of Venetian Renaissance arc ...
,
Alessandro Magnasco
Alessandro Magnasco (February 4, 1667 – March 12, 1749), also known as il Lissandrino, was an Italian late-Baroque painter active mostly in Milan and Genoa. He is best known for stylized, fantastic, often phantasmagoric genre or landscape sce ...
, and others. The collection also includes major work by such northern European masters as
Tilman Riemenschneider,
Hendrick Goltzius,
Joachim Wtewael,
Salomon van Ruysdael, and Georg Vischer. The 17th- and 18th-century masterpieces include paintings by
Francisco Collantes
Francisco Collantes (1599–1656) was a Spanish Baroque era painter.
Collantes was born in Madrid but sought influence from Jusepe de Ribera and the Neapolitan School. He was also influenced by 16th century Venetian
Venetian often means from o ...
,
Sébastien Bourdon, Gabriel-Jacques de Saint-Aubin,
Nicolas Poussin,
Angelica Kauffman
Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann ( ; 30 October 1741 – 5 November 1807), usually known in English as Angelica Kauffman, was a Swiss Neoclassical painter who had a successful career in London and Rome. Remembered primarily as a history painter, K ...
, and
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds (16 July 1723 – 23 February 1792) was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said he was one of the major European painters of the 18th century. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depend ...
.
Early 19th-century European art is represented by
Thomas Lawrence,
Hubert Robert, Louise-Joséphine Sarazin de Belmont,
Joseph Chinard
Joseph Chinard (Lyon, 12 February 1756 — Lyon 20 June 1813) was a French sculptor who worked in a Neoclassical style that was infused with naturalism and sentiment.
Life
He received his early training in Lyon, as a painter, in the government-s ...
,
Théodore Géricault, and others. The department has excellent examples of
French Impressionism and
Post-Impressionism
Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ...
paintings by such artists as
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bor ...
,
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
,
Edgar Degas,
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
, and
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionism, Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially femininity, feminine sensuality ...
. There is important work by 19th-century French sculptors
Auguste Rodin
François Auguste René Rodin (12 November 184017 November 1917) was a French sculptor, generally considered the founder of modern sculpture. He was schooled traditionally and took a craftsman-like approach to his work. Rodin possessed a uniqu ...
,
Charles Henri Joseph Cordier
Charles Henri Joseph Cordier (19 October 1827 - 30 May 1905) was a French sculptor of ethnographic subjects. He is known for his polychrome sculptures in the later realist phase of Orientalism.
Early life and education
Cordier was born in Cam ...
,
Jules Dalou, and
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. Among the 20th-century European painters in the collection are
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
,
Georges Braque,
Henri Matisse
Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prim ...
,
Raymond Duchamp-Villon
Raymond Duchamp-Villon (5 November 1876 – 9 October 1918) was a French sculptor.
Life and art
Duchamp-Villon was born Pierre-Maurice-Raymond Duchamp in Damville, Eure, in the Normandy region of France, the second son of Eugène and Lucie Duch ...
,
Fernand Léger
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as " tubism") which he gradually modified into a more figurative, p ...
,
Oskar Kokoschka, and
Henri Le Fauconnier.
The 18th- and 19th-century American collection is particularly strong, with important examples by such artists as
John Singleton Copley,
Gilbert Stuart,
Thomas Cole,
Winslow Homer,
William Merritt Chase
William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design. ...
,
Martin Johnson Heade
Martin Johnson Heade (August 11, 1819 – September 4, 1904) was an American painter known for his salt marsh landscapes, seascapes, and depictions of tropical birds (such as hummingbirds), as well as lotus blossoms and other still lifes. His pai ...
,
Mary Cassatt,
John Singer Sargent, and
Edward Mitchell Bannister, an African-American landscapist who spent his career as a painter in Rhode Island.
Significant works by
George Wesley Bellows,
Robert Henri,
Charles Sheeler,
Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish (July 25, 1870 – March 30, 1966) was an American painter and illustrator active in the first half of the 20th century. He is known for his distinctive saturated hues and idealized neo-classical imagery. His career spann ...
,
Georgia O'Keeffe,
John Twachtman
John Henry Twachtman (August 4, 1853 – August 8, 1902) was an American painter best known for his impressionist landscapes, though his painting style varied widely through his career. Art historians consider Twachtman's style of American Impre ...
,
Hans Hofmann,
Paul Manship, and
Nancy Elizabeth Prophet, among others, represent American artistic achievements of the early 20th-century.
File:Bruges Master - Portrait of a Cleric - 45.042 - Rhode Island School of Design Museum.jpg, Bruges Master, ''Portrait of a Cleric'' ()
File:Édouard Manet - Le repos.jpg, Manet, '' Repose'' ()
File:Paul Cézanne - Still Life with Apples - 41.012 - Rhode Island School of Design Museum.jpg, Cézanne, ''Still Life with Apples'' ()
File:Renoir 1880 Young woman reading a Journal.jpg, Renoir, ''Young Woman Reading an Illustrated Journal'' ()
File:Vincent van Gogh - View of Auvers with Church (1890).jpg, Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
, ''View of Auvers with Church'' (1890)
Prints, drawings, and photographs
The Prints, Drawings, and Photographs collection comprises more than 25,000 works dating from the 15th century to the present. The holdings include a large group of
Old Master engraving
Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface by cutting grooves into it with a burin. The result may be a decorated object in itself, as when silver, gold, steel, or glass are engraved, or may provide an in ...
s and
etchings, and particular strengths in prints and drawings of 18th-century Italy, 19th-century France, and 19th- and 20th-century America. The department also holds one of the largest collections of late 18th- and early 19th-century British watercolors in the United States, featuring work by
J.M.W. Turner,
George Chinnery
George Chinnery (; 5 January 1774 – 30 May 1852) was an English painter who spent most of his life in Asia, especially India and southern China.
Early life
Chinnery was born in London, where he studied at the Royal Academy Schools. ...
,
John Sell Cotman
John Sell Cotman (16 May 1782 – 24 July 1842) was an English marine and landscape painter, etcher, illustrator, author and a leading member of the Norwich School of painters.
Born in Norwich, the son of a silk merchant and lace dealer, C ...
,
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of t ...
, and
Thomas Rowlandson
Thomas Rowlandson (; 13 July 175721 April 1827) was an English artist and caricaturist of the Georgian Era, noted for his political satire and social observation. A prolific artist and printmaker, Rowlandson produced both individual social an ...
. The collection of French prints and drawings includes work by
Nicolas Poussin,
Hubert Robert,
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres,
Édouard Manet
Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Bor ...
,
Claude Monet
Oscar-Claude Monet (, , ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of impressionist painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During ...
,
Honoré Daumier
Honoré-Victorin Daumier (; February 26, 1808February 10, 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the second N ...
,
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
,
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
,
Edgar Degas,
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...
, and others.
Notable in the collection of American watercolors and drawings are works by
Benjamin West,
Mary Cassatt,
Thomas Eakins,
Eastman Johnson,
Winslow Homer,
Maurice Prendergast, and
Maxfield Parrish
Maxfield Parrish (July 25, 1870 – March 30, 1966) was an American painter and illustrator active in the first half of the 20th century. He is known for his distinctive saturated hues and idealized neo-classical imagery. His career spann ...
. Among the important 20th-century artists represented in the collection are
Franz Kline,
James Rosenquist,
Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler (December 12, 1928 – December 27, 2011) was an American abstract expressionist painter. She was a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work for over six decades (early 1950s u ...
,
Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell (January 24, 1915 – July 16, 1991) was an American abstract expressionist painter, printmaker, and editor of ''The Dada Painters and Poets: an Anthology''. He was one of the youngest of the New York School, which also inc ...
,
Jennifer Bartlett,
Eric Fischl,
Wayne Thiebaud,
Kara Walker, and
Francesco Clemente. Both the Nancy Sayles Day Collection of Modern Latin American Art and the Richard Brown Baker collection of contemporary British art have depth in works on paper.
The history of the art of the book is represented, in one of its earliest forms, by the ''
Hypnerotomachia Poliphili'' (1499), a masterpiece of Renaissance illumination. In later centuries, work by masters of printing and illustration provides a link between the earliest books and 20th-century "
artists books" that push limits and challenge traditional interpretations of the form. Contemporary works on paper in all media are the fastest growing segment of the collection.
An overview of the
history of photography
The history of photography began in remote antiquity with the discovery of two critical principles: camera obscura image projection and the observation that some substances are visibly altered by exposure to light. There are no artifacts or de ...
is provided by 5,000 photographs, among them significant works by
Gustave Le Gray
Jean-Baptiste Gustave Le Gray (; 30 August 1820 – 30 July 1884)Le Corre, Florence "Translated from the catalogue ''Une visite au camp de Châlons sous le Second Empire: photographies de Messieurs Le Gray, Prévot...'', Paris: musée de l'Armée, ...
,
Julia Margaret Cameron,
Nadar
Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (5 April 1820 – 20 March 1910), known by the pseudonym Nadar, was a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist, balloonist, and proponent of heavier-than-air flight. In 1858, he became the first person ...
,
Frederick Sommer,
Carrie Mae Weems, and the past RISD professors
Aaron Siskind
Aaron Siskind (December 4, 1903 – February 8, 1991) was an American photographer whose work focuses on the details of things, presented as flat surfaces to create a new image independent of the original subject. He was closely involved with, if ...
and
Harry Callahan. The department also oversees the Minskoff Center for Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, which is open to students, faculty, and researchers.
References
External links
RISD Museum website
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Rhode Island School of Design Museum
Art museums and galleries in Rhode Island
Museum
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make th ...
Museums in Providence, Rhode Island
University museums in Rhode Island
Decorative arts museums in the United States
Paintings in Rhode Island
Textile museums in Rhode Island
Asian art museums in the United States
Egyptological collections in the United States
Museums of American art
Museums of ancient Greece in the United States
Museums of ancient Rome in the United States
Art museums established in 1877
1877 establishments in Rhode Island
Art museums established in 2008
Postmodern architecture in the United States
Rafael Moneo buildings