Exhibitions Archive
Selections from the Hood Museum of Art
The Beauty of BronzeBronze—a combination of copper, tin, and small amounts of other metals—has long been prized for its preciousness, endurance, and ability to register fine details and reflect light. It is strong and durable, making it ideal for modeling expressive gestures, yet—in molten form—it is malleable enough to be suitable for creating intricate shapes. The term “bronze” is often used for other metals as well, including brass, which is an alloy of copper and zinc.
There are two basic methods of casting a bronze in order to make multiple versions of the same design. Sand casting—developed in the early nineteenth century in Europe—is a relatively simple and less expensive technique that relies upon disparate molds made of compacted fine-grained sand that allow for easy production and assembly. Traditional lost-wax casting uses wax models in two manners, or methods, both of which date from antiquity. In the “direct” method, the original wax model itself is used (and thereby destroyed); in the “indirect” method, reusable plaster molds are taken from the original wax model.
The medium’s intrinsic tensile strength and ability to render precise features and various surfaces have been applied to a variety of objects, including vessels, implements, portraits, animals, and figurines. The examples on display here document the worldwide attraction to this remarkable material from antiquity to the early twentieth century.
The Art of Fan Tchunpi
Between Tradition and ModernityThe Judith and Joseph Barker Collection of Japanese Prints
The Women of Shin HangaRecent Acquisitions
Japanese Prints in the Hood Museum of ArtThe fifteen prints in this gallery represent the Hood Museum of Art’s ongoing efforts to develop its collection of Japanese woodblock prints as a teaching resource. With publication dates ranging from the 1750s through the 1930s, these prints document several aspects of Japan’s woodblock print culture. This selection features prints in a wide variety of formats representing major print genres including kabuki actor prints (yakusha-e), pictures of fashionable women (bijinga), perspective prints (uki-e), landscape prints (fūkeiga), warrior prints (musha-e), pictures of foreigners residing in Yokohama (Yokohama-e), prints depicting Japan’s late-nineteenth-century modernization (kaika-e), and early-twentieth-century prints (shin hanga).
This summer the museum will showcase the gift to the museum of thirty Japanese and Japanese-inspired contemporary prints, drawings, and ceramics by Joanne and Doug Wise, Class of 1959. This exhibition will be organized by students in Professor Joy Kenseth's History of Museums and Collecting (Art History 82), who will choose the themes and arrange the installation. The course, which was taught during the spring term 2012, looked at the history and evolution of art collecting by both museums curators and private individuals. In keeping with this theme, Joanne Wise presented a talk on the shaping of the present collection to the students in the course.
The installation features work by artists such as Keiko Hara, Hachiro Iizuka, Makato Fujimura, and Yutaka Yoshinaga. Joanne and Doug lived in Japan between 1978 and 1982 and began to collect at that time. Upon moving to Houston, Texas, Joanne began to represent Japanese graphic artists and ceramicists and actively promote their work through a quarterly newsletter and her efforts with the Texas Print Alliance. She states: "The Wise Collection exists to bring people of the world together through greater knowledge and appreciation of Japanese art." The Wises gave a portion of their collection to the museum in 2010, and it has been used ever since for teaching students about Japanese printmaking and drawing.