The Norton Museum of Art will present “A Show of Hands: Photographs and Sculpture from the Buhl Collection” from January 12 through March 25. The exhibition will feature 130 works by 120 artists and photographers from the private collection of businessman and part-time Palm Beach resident Henry M. Buhl. The works, focusing on the human hand as inspiration, will be arranged chronologically with works from 1840 to the present, spanning the history of photography.
Norton Museum photography curator Charles Stainback has adapted this exhibition for the museum by selecting 130 key images from the more than 800 photographs of hands in Buhl’s collection. The inclusion of the recently acquired sculptures of hands, that have never previously been exhibited, will add a new dimension to the presentation. The sculptures cover a broad range of approaches and periods, including such notable artists as Pablo Picasso, Louise Bourgeois, Ann Hamilton, Bruce Nauman and George Segal.
“While the works featured in ‘A Show of Hands’ share a common theme, visitors will be surprised by the diversity of interpretation,” said Stainback.
Buhl began seriously collecting photography 15 years ago with the purchase of one of Alfred Stieglitz’s most famous photographs, “Hands with Thimble,” 1920, for which his wife, Georgia O’Keeffe, was the model. This single image became the cornerstone of the collection and inspired the acquisition of other works by many recognizable names in the history of photography and art as well as lesser-known and emerging artists. To date, the collection includes works by Tina Barney, Diane Arbus, Richard Avedon, John Baldessari, Robert Capa, Gregory Crewdson, Walker Evans, Lee Friedlander, Nan Goldin, Paul McCarthy, Barbara Kruger, Annie Leibovitz, Vik Muniz and Irving Penn.
The earliest work in the exhibition is an 1840 photogenic drawing negative by William Henry Fox Talbot †one of the fathers of the invention of photography. A featured contemporary work is “May Day II,” 1998, a color photograph of fans at a rock concert, that measures 6 by 11 feet, by Andreas Gurskey.
“A Show of Hands” is accompanied by a book published by the Guggenheim Museum, Speaking with Hands: Photographs from the Buhl Collection, which features essays by Jennifer Blessing, Kirsten A. Hoving and Ralph Rugoff.
The Norton Museum of Art is at 1451 South Olive Avenue. For information, 561-832-5196 or www.norton.org .
