Opening Saturday, May 4, 2019 at the Newfields in Indianapolis, “Life and Legacy: Portraits from the Clowes Collection” features many of the Museum’s most beloved paintings, including Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait, painted when he was 23 years old. The show remains on display in the Allen Whitehill Clowes Special Exhibition Gallery through August 18, 2019.
The exhibition will focus on the history of portraiture, the process of painting a portrait, the various ways in which artists portrayed their subjects and the many functions that portraits served across the centuries. “In our age of digital photography, it’s easy to forget that portraits were once precious objects that were difficult and expensive to make,” said Dr. Kjell Wangensteen, Assistant Curator of European Art and curator of the exhibition. To emphasize the point, visitors to the exhibition will have the opportunity to create their own portraits at a drawing station.
“The more I researched the Clowes Collection, the more it became apparent that each work was uniquely important to Dr. Clowes,” expressed Wangensteen. “Portraits seem to have especially fascinated him, as can be seen from the extraordinary quality of the ones he acquired. So it became clear that a fresh look at this group of works would serve nicely as a kind of ‘portrait’ of Clowes himself.”
For more information and activities surrounding this exhibition, see: https://discovernewfields.org/calendar/clowes-portraits
Editor’s note: Currently on view is “Fashion Redefined: Miyake, Kawakubo, Yamamoto” is an exhibition of contemporary Japanese fashion that celebrates the lasting legacy of these Japanese designers and their impact on the world of fashion in the past 40 years.
