Surprises await visitors to the RISD Museum in its exhibition “The Art of French Wallpaper Design.” Organized by curator Emily Banas, it explores the vibrant designs that adorned Europeans’ walls in the 1700s and 1800s.

“The Art of French Wallpaper Design”
Rhode Island School of Design Museum
risdmuseum.org
through May 11, 2025

On view are more than 100 rare samples of salvaged wallpapers, borders, fragments, and design drawings, all revealing their creators’ innovations and technical skill. Accompanied by a digital publication, this project celebrates the foresight of Charles and Frances Wilson Huard, who assembled this collection in the 1920s and ’30s.

The online catalogue notes that “in the past, much like today, wallpaper designs typically reflected what was in vogue, so once papers were out of fashion, they were removed or pasted over. It is therefore not surprising that examples of historical wallpapers are few and far between, particularly those in good condition. To assemble a comprehensive collection today would be a difficult undertaking.”

The Flagler Museum is presenting “The Ethereal Worlds of Maxfield Parrish,” an exhibition of 25 works demonstrating the genius of the Philadelphia-born master (1870–1966) whose paintings evoke a dreamlike world that hovers between reality and reverie. Parrish was a leading figure in the Golden Age of American Illustration, whose approximately 900 commissions for advertisements, magazines, books, stage sets, murals, stationery, and children’s books made him world-famous. By 1925, one out of every four households in America possessed reproductions of his art in some form.

On view this season are artworks featuring his highly saturated colors (especially the distinctive “Parrish Blue”) and lustrous glazing techniques. The compositions often depict figures in lush landscapes that are both romantic and fantastical, often with a neoclassical flourish.

Originally named “Whitehall,” the Flagler Museum was built by the real estate developer Henry Flagler at the heart of his most prestigious creation, Palm Beach, Florida. It is a highly appropriate venue for this exhibition as its heyday overlapped with Parrish’s. When it was completed in 1902, the house was hailed by the New York Herald as “more wonderful than any palace in Europe, grander and more magnificent than any other private dwelling in the world.” Parrish often depicted such grand, idealized buildings, too.

Details at a Glance:
“The Ethereal Worlds of Maxfield Parrish”
Flagler Museum, Palm Beach, Florida
flaglermuseum.us
Through April 20, 2025

The Asheville Art Museum is presenting “Asheville Strong: Celebrating Art and Community After Hurricane Helene,” a poignant and inspiring exhibition on view February 13–May 5, 2025, in the Appleby Foundation Exhibition Hall. This non-juried exhibition showcases the works of artists from the Helene-affected Appalachia region, celebrating their resilience, creativity, and strength while highlighting the power of art to inspire and bring communities together.

The Museum issued an open call for artist submissions, collaborating with local and regional arts networks to reach artists from the Southern Appalachian community impacted by Hurricane Helene. The response was overwhelmingly positive, with over 150 submissions showcasing a diverse range of works.

“Hurricane Helene was devastating for everyone, and as a public-serving arts institution, we really wanted to recognize the impact the storm had on artists,” said Jessica Orzulak, Associate Curator and Manager of Curatorial Affairs. “Artists are an integral to the bedrock of our communities in WNC. Our goal has been to create space for impacted artists to showcase their work to a broad public, opportunities for artists to connect with each other and collectors, and a means for us all to join together in a collective act of resilience.”

Asheville Strong features a variety of mediums, including painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, and photography. Each work is accompanied by the artist’s information, allowing viewers to connect and learn more about the creators. For more information, please visit www.ashevilleart.org.

Blanche Lazzell Art on View > “Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist,” the first major exhibition in nearly two decades devoted to this artist, will soon grace the Bruce Museum. On view will be more than 60 paintings, prints, and other works on paper, most characterized by Lazzell’s bold colors and flattened forms.

At a Glance:
“Blanche Lazzell: Becoming an American Modernist”
Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut
brucemuseum.org
February 6–April 27, 2025

Blanche Lazzell (1878–1956) moved from her native West Virginia to New York City, Paris, and Provincetown, Massachusetts. Her experiences enabled her to infuse American art with European modernism, and she is best remembered for experimenting with the white-line block technique, producing more than 100 such woodcuts. By cutting a design into a soft block of wood, then inking and transferring its individual sections one by one, Lazzell produced prints with translucent colors floating within the white boundaries left by her incised lines. At the Bruce, visitors will be invited to test Lazzell’s techniques in an adjacent interactive space.

Organized by the Art Museum of West Virginia University, this touring exhibition has been coordinated at the Bruce by Jordan Hillman. She has assembled a complementary display of paintings from the Bruce’s rich collection. Titled “Nature’s Impressions: The Modernist Landscape,” it reveals how late 19th-century American artists’ responses to nature were informed by both avant-garde experimentation and the particularities of place.

View more art museum announcements here at FineArtConnoisseur.com.

Lyman Allyn Art Museum has announced the opening of “Thuan Vu: Kintsugi in the New World,” an exhibition featuring a dynamic series of paintings from New Haven artist Thuan Vu. Drawn from both his Kintsugi flower series and The New World series, these paintings reflect the Japanese philosophy of placing value on that which has been broken and repaired, whether it be an object, community, or person. His paintings offer a revised sense of wholeness and beauty even in the face of fracture and confusion. This exhibition is on view January 18 through March 30, 2025.

As a Vietnamese refugee, Vu’s work is about finding a sense of wholeness and beauty in our divided selves, our fractured country, and our complicated world. “For the past 10 years, I’ve made a series of paintings called The New World, which abstractly reimagines the sensations felt by my parents when they fled Vietnam during the war and settled in America with seven of their eight children,” says Vu. “These completely imaginary landscapes tap into a refugee’s feelings of hope, joy, and confusion—but these feelings are universal. Framed by nature, the painting’s offer a space for the viewer’s mind to search, discover, and breathe in a space to call home.”

Vu’s most recent Kintsugi series utilizes the Japanese practice/philosophy of repairing broken pottery by rejoining the pieces together using gold. The newly repaired piece, proudly showing its golden scars, is seen as more beautiful for showing its history, resiliency, and its ability to be transformed from trauma. Using this mending philosophy, Vu reflects on wholeness as it relates to his identity and asks, “How do we find beauty and grace in times of fracture and disruption? Can the process of recovery, discovery, and growth—with its infinite complications—be seen as beautiful and valuable?”

“This exhibition offers a profound reflection on resilience and transformation,” said Museum Director Sam Quigley. “Vu invites us to consider the often-overlooked grace in our own fractures—be they physical, emotional, or psychological. In these striking paintings, the act of repair becomes a powerful metaphor for healing, identity, and belonging.”

“Kintsugi in the New World” represents a reflection on belonging in one’s skin and in the world. It is not only a celebration of beauty in imperfection, but a poignant meditation on the process of becoming whole, even amidst life’s most challenging disruptions.

“In my work, I use nature as both a mirror and window to communicate who I am, where I’ve come from, and how I experience our world,” Vu said. “The majesty and poetry of nature is a reflection of my emotional landscape while providing a canvas on which to dream and reflect.”

For more details, please visit the Lyman Allyn Art Museum online at lymanallyn.org.

The Farnsworth Art Museum has announced a significant addition to its collection: “Spring Landscape at Kuerners,” a captivating oil painting by Andrew Wyeth, created circa 1934. This remarkable acquisition, crafted during Wyeth’s early formative years as he embarked on his artistic journey, was made possible by philanthropists Sasha and Edward P. Bass of Fort Worth, Texas, who have deep ties to New England and a longstanding appreciation for Wyeth’s work.

More from the museum:

“This acquisition enriches the Farnsworth’s narrative of Andrew Wyeth, allowing the museum to tell a fuller story of the artist, beginning at a remarkably young age,” Christopher J. Brownawell, Executive Director of the Farnsworth, notes. “This painting invites visitors to explore the early inspirations that shaped Wyeth’s legendary career.”

“Spring Landscape at Kuerners” showcases one of Wyeth’s most beloved subjects: the Kuerner farm in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. Wyeth reminisced about the farm, saying, “Some of my earliest watercolors were done there. I had an urge to paint it when I was about ten years old. It never became a conscious effort; then, all of a sudden, I’ll have a strong compulsion to go back.” Completed around the age of 20, this painting reflects the profound influence of Wyeth’s father, the celebrated illustrator N.C. Wyeth.

“We are very fortunate to have found this remarkable Andrew Wyeth painting and to have had the opportunity to facilitate the Farnsworth acquiring it,” Edward Bass said. “Bringing it into the Farnsworth’s Wyeth collection adds one more thread in the multigenerational tale of this remarkable family of true American artists.”

The Basses are passionate art patrons and dedicated advocates for conservation and the environment. Edward P. Bass has played pivotal roles in various initiatives, including the rebuilding and expansion of the Peabody Museum at Yale. He is the director emeritus of the World Wildlife Fund. He also co-founded the transformative Biosphere 2 project in Arizona, and his contributions to urban revitalization in Fort Worth have received national acclaim.

The unveiling of “Spring Landscape at Kuerners” is poised to be a highlight of the upcoming exhibition “Home Places: Andrew Wyeth in Chadds Ford,” running from April 5 to October 19, 2025. This exhibition will spotlight Wyeth’s enduring fascination with a small group of historic homes in his birthplace, revealing how he found beauty and meaning in the weathered structures often overlooked amid gentrification.

As Wyeth eloquently stated, “You can be in a place for years and years and not see something, and then when it dawns, all sorts of nuggets of richness start popping all over the place.”

The Asheville Art Museum has announced the opening of “American Made: Paintings and Sculpture from the DeMell Jacobsen Collection,” which was initially scheduled for October 17 but briefly delayed due to Tropical Storm Helene. “American Made” is on view now through February 10, 2025.

From the museum:

With more than 80 paintings and sculptures, American Made traces the evolution of American art from the colonial era to the early 20th century, bringing together masterpieces from the renowned DeMell Jacobsen Collection.

Highlights of American Made include:

• Striking portraits by artists such as Benjamin West, Thomas Sully, and Sarah Miriam Peale.
• Majestic landscapes by Thomas Cole, Asher B. Durand, and Jasper Francis Cropsey.
• Still lifes by Severin Roesen, Charles Ethan Porter, and Adelaide Coburn Palmer.

Additionally, visitors will encounter captivating genre scenes and works by artists who traveled to Europe, including Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, and Childe Hassam. This remarkable exhibition unites some of the best of American art history in a single collection, that have been on view at institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

For more information, please visit www.ashevilleart.org.

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View more art museum announcements here at FineArtConnoisseur.com.

On View through January 26, 2025:
The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition
The Brooklyn Museum, NY
www.brooklynmuseum.org

“Attending the opening, walking through the museum and viewing all the artists’ work with my family, colleagues, friends, and fellow art lovers last weekend, was incredible,” said participating artist Sharon Sprung. “Brooklyn is home. Visit the exhibition soon. It’s a must-see.”

From the museum:

Uniting more than 200 artists, this major group show highlights the remarkable creativity and diversity of Brooklyn’s populace. The exhibition kicks off our 200th anniversary celebration and carries on the Brooklyn Museum’s tradition of amplifying voices from every corner of our community.

Spotlighting artists who have lived or maintained a studio in Brooklyn during the last five years (2019–24), “The Brooklyn Artists Exhibition” honors the borough’s dynamic present, storied past, and bright future.

Selected by a committee led by esteemed artists Jeffrey Gibson, Vik Muniz, Mickalene Thomas, and Fred Tomaselli, participants represent a full range of disciplines, from drawing and painting to sculpture, video, installation, and beyond. Their creations tackle themes that resonate on both local and global levels—migration and memory, identity and history, uncertainty and turbulence, healing and joy. Together these works capture the vibrancy of both Brooklyn and its artists, who are bound by deep-rooted connections and a shared love of this singular place.

Before you visit, take a virtual tour of the exhibition to get acquainted with the featured artists and their contributions.

Plus, check out highlights and reflections from selected artists in the digital guide on Bloomberg Connects.

The Ogunquit Museum of American Art is breaking new ground with its exhibition “Domestic Modernism: Russell Cheney and Mid-Century American Painting.” The project examines the artist Russell Cheney (1881–1945) and his relationship with his partner, the influential literary historian and critic F.O. Matthiessen (1902–1950).

At a Glance:

“Domestic Modernism: Russell Cheney and Mid-Century American Painting”
Ogunquit Museum of American Art
Ogunquit, Maine
ogunquitmuseum.org
through November 17, 2024

Produced in collaboration with Vanderbilt University, it seeks to marshal the term “domestic” to reframe Cheney’s work within the arc of American modernism.

First, this word points to small-scale, figurative artworks that have generally been overlooked by scholars and collectors in favor of the larger, more gestural pronouncements of abstract expressionism.

Second, “domestic” denotes the importance of the specific setting for Cheney’s artistry, the house in Kittery Point, Maine, he shared with Matthiessen.

By placing Cheney in these contexts, the exhibition and its accompanying catalogue are helping to broaden our understanding of 20th-century art.

Opening a window into the rich history, culture and landscapes of the Southwest, the Briscoe Western Art Museum is proud to host “Storytellers: Narrative Art and the West,” an exhibition that reveals the breadth of narrative art produced in the Southwest from the early twentieth century to today.

The exhibition features more than 70 remarkable works curated from the prestigious collections of the New Mexico Museum of Art, the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, the Briscoe and private lenders. “Storytellers: Narrative Art and the West” is on view through January 19, 2025, and is included with museum admission.

A narrative work of art is one that tells a story of a particular moment, or moments, in time. Narratives are often used to illustrate historical events, legends, traditions, myths, fables and religious ceremonies. The exhibition explores the many ways artists have told stories about the Southwest in their art including religious, migratory, historical and rural subjects.

“Narrative art tells a story. It can illustrate historic events or bring the imagination to life. The traditions of storytelling in the Southwest go back to ancient times and the Indigenous populations of the region,” explains Liz Jackson, President and CEO of the Briscoe Western Art Museum. “From the simple carved forms of Helen Cordero to the narrative realism of Martin Grelle and Navajo artist Ed Natiya, the exhibition celebrates the intricate tapestry of the American Southwest’s artistic heritage. We’re proud to share these works and the stories they tell.”

The exhibition explores the various ways artists have told stories about the Southwest in their work, including illustrations of historic events such as Diego Romero’s image of the Pueblo Revolt, and paintings of local religious ceremonies such as William Penhallow Henderson’s “Holy Week in New Mexico” and ruminations on spiritual traditions as in Partocinio Barela’s “Last Supper,” as well as reflections on modern art and iconic images of the West inspired by pop culture, including Andy Warhol’s “Geronimo” and Billy Schenck’s “Cliff.”

The range of artists and the stylistic variation represented in “Storytellers: Narrative Art and the West” offer a variety of lenses, allowing audiences to engage with the region’s complex and evolving history and culture. Storytellers showcases the talents of renowned artists like Fritz Scholder, Gerald Cassidy, Alan Houser and Henry Balink, who bring diverse perspectives on cowboy, Native, and Spanish cultures, alongside works by Frederic Remington, Andy Warhol, Logan Maxwell Hagege, Martin Grelle and Mark Maggiori.

For more information, please visit the museum website at briscoemuseum.org.

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