Graphic Eloquence: American Modernism on Paper from the Collection of Michael T. Ricker Through September 4, 2022
Jane Manus, Undaunted August 20, 2022 — February 12, 2023
American modernism in the visual arts has garnered sustained interest among scholars and general audiences in recent years, though typically with a focus on modernist painting.
Jane Manus has been making bold abstract sculptural statements throughout an extraordinarily productive five-decade career.
This exhibition seeks to expand that narrow emphasis, high- lighting an array of techniques and a range of artists who ex- plored modernism’s myriad forms through paper-based media. “Graphic Eloquence” consists of approximately 150 works by 70 artists selected from a single private collection, many of which are promised gifts to the museum. Artists working in modernist modes shared challenges regardless of loca- tion, and the exhibition brings out these commonalities as it focuses on regional centers that embraced and supported modernist trends. Many of the works in the exhibition employ lesser-known artistic media, from casein and cellocut to pas- tel and pochoir. Unlike more exclusive accounts of modernist painting, the story of modernist works on paper provides a broader, more democratic view of American modernism that highlights the contributions of many lesser-known artists to this important 20th-century history. A substantial catalogue published by the museum accompanies the exhibition and is available in the Museum Shop.
This exhibition consists of five of her sculptures, ranging in height from 6 feet to 24 feet, all made of welded aluminum and on display in the Jane and Harry Willson Sculpture Garden. Manus’ vocabulary is reminiscent of geometric sculptors such as Mark di Suvero, Tony Smith, and Joel Shapiro, but her interpretations feel lighter on their feet. Her work was on display at the Georgia Museum of Art in 1996 as part of the celebrations surrounding the opening of the University of Georgia’s Performing and Visual Arts Complex, and her wall sculpture greets visitors to the museum, but these works are all more recent. A selection of maquettes shows the artist’s process and enables the viewer to grasp the entirety of her work in a way that can be difficult at full scale.
Curator: Jeffrey Richmond-Moll, curator of American art
Curators: Annelies Mondi, deputy director, and William U. Eiland, director
Werner Drewes (American, b. Germany, 1899 – 1985), “Black Curve on Yellow Horizontally Connected,” 1938. Color woodcut, ed. 2/1-XX, 5 3/4 × 8 inches. Promised gift of Michael T. Ricker. Permission of Karen E.D. Seibert of the Werner Drewes Estate, DrewesFineArt.com.
Jane Manus, “Bravo,” 2015. Welded and painted aluminum, 72 × 48 × 24 inches. Collection of the artist.
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