Imagine viewing a painting without actually seeing it.
Imagine landscapes, portraits, and scenes that you can see through touch and feel.
For some museum patrons, this is the reality. And with help from sculptor and Colorado Center for the Blind art teacher Ann Cunningham, the Denver Art Museum has made huge strides in making art accessible to patrons who are blind and visually impaired.
Cunningham began as a sculptor with a special interest in low-relief. This is when a sculpture is carved out of a slab and emanates from the slab.
The Denver Art Museum is brimming with new exhibitions this summer. On July 10 we invited the media to see a sneak peek of Beyond Pop Art: A Tom Wesselmann Retrospective, opening July 13. Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the DAM, Claire Wesselmann, the late artist’s model and muse, and Tom Wesselmann’s studio manager, Jeffrey Sturges, led the tour through the exhibition.
This summer the Denver Art Museum will showcase the work of artist Tom Wesselmann, who is best known for his role in the development of pop art in the 1960s. Beyond Pop Art: A Tom Wesselmann Retrospective follows the evolution of the artist’s work through the course of four decades. This five-part blog series is designed to complement the exhibition by calling out five defining moments that shaped Wesselmann’s approach to artmaking.
Note: Check out summer activities at the Denver Art Museum to inspire you and your family and use the hashtag #FunAtTheDAM to show off your creations.
Not long after the opening of the Denver Art Museum’s exhibition Passport to Paris Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the DAM, received an unusual package. The last thing he expected to find inside of the manila envelope was a priceless piece of art.
Fascinated by science and technology, Lucio Fontana refused to think of science and art as two distinct entities. First known for his sculptures, it wasn’t until 1949, at the age of 48, that Fontana explored the style of 'spatial concepts' that he is most well-known for today. From that time on, Fontana began using “concetto spaziale” (spatial concepts) accompanied by a secondary, or more referential word or term. These 2-D pieces were characterized by holes, slashes, or cuts through the canvas surface.
“I tried to keep the paint as good as it was in the can.” American artist Frank Stella first gained the attention of the art world with his “Black Paintings,” which he created between 1958 and 1960. The compositions of these paintings fall into one of two groups: the earlier paintings are rectilinear and the later ones are based on a diamond pattern. Stella began these “Black Paintings” by drawing lines with pencil and ruler, the black stripes were then painted by hand without the use of any tape or other straight-line assistance.
Born in Barcelona in 1893, Joan Miró began sketching as a child, filling notebooks with his landscapes drawings. Sadly, in 1910 he was forced by his father to give up art altogether and thus stopped attending classes at the art academy La Llotja and became a clerk at a pharmacy instead. However, by 1911 he decided to go against family wishes and paint full-time. As a struggling artist, Miró was under such severe financial hardship that he would often go without eating for a day. However, in Miró’s eyes this was not a bad thing.
Note: Helen Frankenthaler is one of the artists featured in Women of Abstract Expressionism, which will be on view at the Denver Art Museum June 12-September 25, 2016. This blog was originally published for the Modern Masters exhibition.
The DAM is publishing a blog series that will highlight some of the artists whose work is in Modern Masters: 20th Century Icons from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. We will share a little about the artist’s biography and inspiration, and details about a key artwork in the exhibition. Check back to learn more about some of the superstars of modern art whose work is on view in Modern Masters.
For Wassily Kandinsky, music and color were inextricably tied to one another. So clear was this relationship that Kandinsky associated each note with an exact hue. He once said, “the sound of colors is so definite that it would be hard to find anyone who would express bright yellow with bass notes or dark lake with treble.”
Boulder niche perfumer Dawn Spencer Hurwitz of DSH Perfumes is becoming somewhat of a creative fixture at the Denver Art Museum. She’s taken inspiration from various exhibitions and programs to develop custom-made perfumes that relate to the works of art on view. For Passport to Paris, she crafted nine signature scents based on drawings and paintings from all three exhibitions. I spent some time sniffing my way through each scent in the Court to Café gift shop, and marveled at the variety of aromas that announced themselves to my nose.
Linda Aguilar is not a typical basket maker. Her horsehair baskets combine traditional Chumash Indian basketry techniques with non-traditional materials. Think bingo chips, beads and sequins, and even bits and pieces of credit cards. Actually, nothing about Linda is typical. Not the way she learned to weave, her teaching style, or her apple pie—all of which are extraordinary.