CLEVELAND, OHIO – The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) will host “Modern American Masters: Highlights from the Gill and Tommy LiPuma Collection,” an exhibition highlighting the private collection of Cleveland native and Grammy Award-winning record producer Tommy LiPuma.
The exhibition will feature 24 selected works by leading American artists of the Twentieth Century collected by LiPuma and his wife Gill since the 1970s. The show will open March 28, and remain on view through July 18.
Admission to this exhibition and the museum is free. The exhibition will also include a separate area featuring LiPuma’s achievements from his four decades in the music industry – including album covers, gold records, personal photographs and one of his Grammy Awards.
Reflecting the personal taste of a man who has a deep passion for experimental American modernism, the LiPuma collection features works spanning the years 1906-1946, concentrating in some depth on four artists, Alfred Maurer (1868-1932), Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), John Marin (1870-1953) and Arnold Friedman (1879-1946). This exhibition will include works by these artists as well as John Graham (1996-1961), Patrick Henry Bruce (1881-1936) and Arthur Dove (1880-1946).
The exhibition will include three paintings by Maurer that LiPuma recently donated to the museum; Maurer was one of the first American artists to incorporate avant-garde styles into his own work.
LiPuma demonstrates his independent spirit as a collector through superb selection of paintings by Arnold Friedman, an artist not commonly acknowledged in histories of American art. Friedman worked for the post office and did not start formal art training until the age of 32. Although he studied under Robert Henri (1865-1929) at the Art Students League, Friedman developed his own, highly independent style that combines brilliant color with unusual textural effects. At times his paintings verge toward complete abstraction.
Other highlights to this collection include three paintings by Hartley, who began studying art by attending classes at the Cleveland School of Art in 1893. A tormented loner, Hartley was one of the first American artists to discover avant-garde art on trips to Paris and Berlin.
“Burchfield to Schreckengost”
In conjunction with “Modern American Masters,” the Cleveland Museum of Art will host “Burchfield to Schreckengost: Cleveland Art of the Jazz Age,” March 28 to July 18. Admission to this exhibition is also free. Cleveland artists from the early Twentieth Century were among the first to embrace the new spirit of the Jazz Age, with its emphasis on innovation, experimentation and freedom of expression. Artists working in a wide variety of media accepted the challenge of finding new forms of expression equivalent to the realities of life in the world of fast cars, soaring skyscrapers and improvised music. Their lively, energetic styles seemed to mirror society’s infatuation with youth, speed, motion pictures and airplanes.
This exhibition features approximately 66 works (paintings, sculptures, photographs and decorative arts) produced between 1914 and 1941 by leading Cleveland artists of the period, including Charles Burchfield (1893-1967), Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971), William Sommer (1867-1949) and Viktor Schreckengost (born 1906).
The Tri-C JazzFest’s 25th anniversary (April 14-25) includes special performances saluting jazz legends Horace Silver and Tommy LiPuma. For information on these events, 216-987-4400, or www.tricjazzfest.com.
The Cleveland Museum of Art is in University Circle, 11150 East Boulevard. Its permanent collection spans 6,000 years. For information, 888-CMA-0033.
