The McMullen Family Gallery
The McMullen Family Gallery is customarilly dedicated to changing selections of American art from the mid-eighteenth century through the end of the nineteenth century. Arranged in a general chronological order, the installation traces the development of American art from its emergence in the Colonial period, when there were no art schools or museums, to the American Renaissance era, when American visual culture flourished both at home and abroad. Throughout this century and a half, American artists were greatly influenced by European sources; at the same time they developed a distinctly independent national culture.
The McMullen Family Gallery will re-open on September 24th with the permanent collection exhibition What is Portraiture?.
What is Portraiture? .jpg)
Opens September 24, 2010
The works in this permanent collection exhibition were selected to challenge and extend conventional concepts of portraiture. A portrait is usually considered to be an artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant in order to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the sitter who is shown in a still position. Although a number of the works on view focus on a single person in stasis, others feature multiple figures in action. Furthermore, historical, modern, and contemporary American and Native American works in a variety of mediums are organized into several broad thematic sections. Portraits of artists, heroes, leaders, and thinkers are differentiated from other images of men and women. Portrayals of children constitute another group and complement a section celebrating a sense of interconnectedness as found in relationships between friends, family, and community members. The usual definition of portraiture is particularly extended in the final section of this exhibition, featuring works with multiple figures that address a significant range of historical and religious subjects.
Gail Stavitsky, Chief Curator & Twig Johnson, Senior Curator Emerita of Native American Art
All Museum programs are made possible, in part, by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Vance Wall Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Museum Members.
Image: Alice Neel (1900-84) Isabel Bishop, 1974 Oil on canvas frame: 46 x 32 x 2 in. (116.8 x 81.3 x 5.1 cm) painting: 44 x 30 in. (111.8 x 76.2 cm) Museum purchase; National Endowment for the Arts Museum Purchase Plan, Montclair Art Museum 1977.43 AA Q2.2
If you are planning a special visit to see a particular piece of artwork at MAM, please call ahead to confirm the object is on display in our galleries. Works are sometimes on loan for exhibitions at other museums, or may have been taken down temporarily for conservation and gallery rotations. Phone (973) 746-5555.
