: Works from the JPMorgan Chase Collection at the Bruce
Museum
The Bruce Museum of Arts and Science will present "Off the Wall:
Works from the JPMorgan Chase Collection," May 15-September 12.
This exhibition presents a rare chance to see selections from the
renowned JPMorgan Chase Art Collection, one of the foremost
corporate art collections, which includes both classic modern as
well as the best contemporary works of art.
The exhibition focuses on the drawings in the collection, which
are especially important not only because they mirror the
collecting focus from its inception in 1959 to the present, but
also because drawing itself has become one of the most
significant means of expression in the late Twentieth Century.
Featured will be approximately 65 two-dimensional and sculptural
works, all defined as drawings and selected from a collection of
more than 20,000 artworks that are installed in JPMorgan Chase
offices worldwide.
The collection was begun in 1959 under the guidance of David
Rockefeller, then president of the bank. Rockefeller notes in his
memoirs that the art program became a powerful expression of the
bank's enlightened role in modern culture. The initial decision
to collect both emerging and midcareer artists was made with the
assistance of a selection committee of five leading museum
directors and curators. Over the years, the committee has
included such illustrious names in the art field as Alfred Barr
and Dorothy Miller of MoMA; Perry Rathbone from Museum of Fine
Arts, Boston; and scholars James Johnson Sweeney and Robert
Rosenblum.
In 1984, more than 1,200 works, approximately one-fifth of the
contemporary collection at the time, were drawings. Today the
larger and more diverse collection includes 4,000 drawings.
Among the best-known artists whose works are on view in the
exhibition are Chuck Close and Andy Warhol. Close's process - the
restriction of his virtuosity within the grid and by a
mind-boggling exactitude of building his work out of small units
- can be seen in "Phil/Fingerprint," which is made of thousands
of individual stamped transfers of Close's fingerprint to the
paper. Close refers, quite humorously, to drawing "by hand" while
refuting the use of hand drawn line.
Warhol created a more mechanized and impersonal result by casting
images on the wall with an opaque projector and tracing them
directly. Warhol's drawing in this exhibition, "Untitled
(Campbell's Tomato Soup)" dates from 1985, two years before his
death, and is a free hand reworking of perhaps his most famous
subject.
The museum is at 1 Museum Drive. Hours are Tuesday through
Saturday, 10 am to 5 pm, Sunday 1 to 5 pm. For information,
203-869-0376 or www.brucemuseum.org
