Speed to the Speed of a Jet with Peter Paul” galloped back into storage, but a different self-portrait by the Paradise Garden visionary is now part of a new selection of portraits, alongside images by Alice Neel, Beauford Delaney, Paul Cadmus and others. In another corner themed around “play and care,” one of Nellie Mae Rowe’s hand-sewn dolls joins a drawing by Rowe entitled “I Am Own My Way I Jest Stop to Rest a Little While.” “With the re-envisioning of this space, something I’m really looking forward to is moving away from a classical, chronological display into intimate groupings with thematic conversations between works,” says Hill. One such conversation is how various mid-century artists responded to the trauma of war and engaged with different political and social environments. Ralston Crawford’s painting “Test Able,” for example, takes its title from the first detonations of nuclear devices that followed the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. Woody Crumbo, a Potawatomi artist, dancer and flutist, used his artwork to promote and preserve Native American history and culture. These wide perspectives contextualize what artists were trying to contend with through their work.
Made with FlippingBook Ebook Creator