TOLEDO MUSEUM OF ART
The Toledo Museum of Art has announced the following calendar of events. Visitors may call (419) 255-8000 or visit www.toledomuseum.org for more information.
Events:
GlassFest: In the Garden– August 15, Glass Pavilion Grounds – Celebrate the Glass City with family-friendly glass fun at this popular annual event that features delicious summer fare, hands-on activities inspired by the museum’s Georgia and David K. Welles Sculpture Garden, artist demonstrations and a silent auction of glass objects with a garden theme.
Exhibitions:
Out of Sight: Backs, Bottoms and Bases – through August 29, Gallery 18 – This exhibition features works of art with details that are hidden from normal view or that were designed to be deliberately hard to find. Sometimes what is hidden comes as a complete surprise. Don’t miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the surprising sketch on the back of Picasso’s Woman with a Crow.
New Acquisition Fills Gap In Museum Collection
It is a gap in its impressive collection of 17th-century masterworks that the Toledo Museum of Art has been trying to fill for more than 50 years.
A work by Bolognese master Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, commonly known as Guercino (“the squinter”), has been a long-sought-after addition to the TMA collection.
Guercino’s vibrant “Lot and His Daughters,” painted about 1651-52, was acquired by the museum in October 2009. The large painting – approximately 6 by 7 1/2 feet – was unveiled to museum members and the general public on January 22 during ceremony in the museum’s Great Gallery.
“Lot and His Daughters” will temporarily hang in the gallery’s most prominent location, normally reserved for Peter Paul Rubens’ “Crowning of St. Catherine,” which will be relocated to an adjacent wall.
The move will result in several additional works being relocated within the gallery in order to show the new Guercino to its best advantage.
According to Lawrence Nichols, TMA’s William Hutton curator of European and American painting and sculpture before 1900, Guercino is an Italian Baroque painter of the highest rank.
“The quality of the composition and the storytelling power of his ‘Lot and His Daughters,’ is truly masterful,” he said. “The preservation and condition of the canvas are remarkable. The picture radiates and commands one’s attention in the context of our Great Gallery.”
The painting was purchased with funds from the Edward Drummond Libbey Endowment, a fund that is restricted to the purchase of works of art. The painting had been in the hands of a private Italian collector for many years prior to it being offered to the Toledo Museum of Art earlier this year.