Tweed Museum of Art : Portrait, Identity, Culture

PORTRAIT, IDENTITY, CULTURE

Across Time, Space and Meaning:

Selections from the Collection

Through August 10, 2008

Reception, Gallery Talk and Activities: Sunday, October 28, 2007,1–4pm

This exhibition assembles over seventy artworks from the Tweed Museum of Art permanent collection and works on loan to the museum around the theme of portraiture. Created between 1500 and 2007, these paintings, sculptures, photographs and works on paper chronicle significant changes in what portraiture has and does mean to us. Once primarily an indicator of status, religious and nationalistic identity, and a marker of historical events intended primarily to instruct and promote specific ideologies, portraits and images of self and others now ask us to consider a wide range of psychological, spiritual, and political information, including narratives of personal and collective experience. Included in the exhibition are works on loan to the Tweed Museum of Art from the collections of the St. Louis Historical Society, and from the Richard and Dorothy Rawlings Nelson Collection of American Indian Art.

The Tweed Museum of Art maintains a collection of 6,000 historical and contemporary artworks, providing access to hundreds of portrait-related images. The George P. Tweed Memorial Collection, donated to the University of Minnesota Duluth between 1950 and 1970 by his widow, Alice Tweed Tuohy, includes figurative paintings and sculptures from Europe and America, which ground the exhibition in traditional notions of portraiture. After its formation in 1950 and its move to the UMD campus in 1958, the Tweed Museum’s role as a regional center for art education inspired the development and expansion of collections and exhibitions to include modern and contemporary art as well. In recent years, collecting efforts have focused on art that reflects the character of the region, the strengths of the core collections, and the nature of global contemporary art.

For more information, view an article on Portrait, Identity, Culture in Traditional Fine Art Organization's Resource Library.


PORTRAIT, IDENTITY, CULTURE Across Time, Space and Meaning: Selections from the Collection Through August 10, 2008 Reception, Gallery Talk and Activities: Sunday, October 28, 2007,1–4pm This exhibition assembles over seventy artworks from the Tweed Museum of Art permanent collection and works on loan to the museum around the theme of portraiture. Created between 1500 and 2007, these paintings, sculptures, photographs and works on paper chronicle significant changes in what portraiture has and does mean to us. Once primarily an indicator of status, religious and nationalistic identity, and a marker of historical events intended primarily to instruct and promote specific ideologies, portraits and images of self and others now ask us to consider a wide range of psychological, spiritual, and political information, including narratives of personal and collective experience. Included in the exhibition are works on loan to the Tweed Museum of Art from the collections of the St. Louis Historical Society, and from the Richard and Dorothy Rawlings Nelson Collection of American Indian Art. The Tweed Museum of Art maintains a collection of 6,000 historical and contemporary artworks, providing access to hundreds of portrait-related images. The George P. Tweed Memorial Collection, donated to the University of Minnesota Duluth between 1950 and 1970 by his widow, Alice Tweed Tuohy, includes figurative paintings and sculptures from Europe and America, which ground the exhibition in traditional notions of portraiture. After its formation in 1950 and its move to the UMD campus in 1958, the Tweed Museum’s role as a regional center for art education inspired the development and expansion of collections and exhibitions to include modern and contemporary art as well. In recent years, collecting efforts have focused on art that reflects the character of the region, the strengths of the core collections, and the nature of global contemporary art. For more information, view an article on Portrait, Identity, Culture in Traditional Fine Art Organization's Resource Library. Jean-Francois Millet, The Diggers, c. 1850 – 55 Gift of Mrs. George P. Tweed