FORT WORTH, Texas—The Amon Carter Museum of American Art announces its upcoming fall exhibition schedule. The special exhibition Color! American Photography Transformed is the first-ever survey of fine art color photography’s journey to becoming a fully accepted art form. Other exhibitions on view include photographs of New York City neighborhood life by John Albok, the collection of works that hung in President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy’s Hotel Texas suite during their visit to Fort Worth in 1963 and prints by José Guadalupe Posada. Admission is free to all exhibitions.
Color! American Photography Transformed
October 5, 2013–January 5, 2014
Photographers sought to capture the world’s vast array of color from the medium’s earliest days. When color photography finally became practical with the introduction of the glass-plate Autochrome in 1907, prominent American artists were overjoyed. What they did not foresee, however, was the challenge they would face in how to make color photographs convincingly artful. Thus began a decades-long debate over how color might contribute to photographic art. Color! American Photography Transformed brings visitors into this discussion, revealing through rare vintage prints the surprisingly extensive and diverse ways that photographers incorporated color into their work as they sought to shape a language of creativity. By bringing this tale to the present day for the first time, the exhibition innovatively uncovers the fundamental change that color has brought to how photographers think about their medium—their replacement of a definition of photography as an essentially documentary practice with a new acceptance of the medium as a way to shape and comment on reality.
Often thought of as a recent phenomenon, color photographs were achieved early on, as the exhibition shows with a work made around 1851. Through a wide range of works by established and lesser-known artists, Color! makes clear the surprising breadth and diversity informing creative color photography through the decades leading up to the medium’s full artistic acceptance.
ALSO ON VIEW
John Albok’s Neighborhood
September 21, 2013–February 23, 2014
John Albok (1894–1982) was a tailor by profession but an artist by passion. He emigrated from his native Hungary to New York City in 1921 and immediately became an American citizen. In his free time he photographed the activities of his neighborhood, especially its children. These empathetic depictions of everyday life were his greatest achievements.
Over 60-plus years, Albok made more than 16,000 photographs and exposed dozens of reels of cinematic film. Although the primary viewers of his photographs were his neighbors, the Museum of the City of New York saw the value of his work and awarded him its first, one-person photography exhibition in 1938. In 1982, the museum gave him a full retrospective. Today his photographs can be found in art museums across the United States and Europe. This exhibition of 25 rare vintage photographs by the artist, generously donated to the Amon Carter by his daughter, joins Albok on his walks around his neighborhood.
Hotel Texas: An Art Exhibition for the President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy
October 12, 2013–January 12, 2014
In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Amon Carter will exhibit the works of art installed in the president’s suite at the Hotel Texas during his fateful trip in 1963. The original installation, orchestrated by former Amon Carter Board President Ruth Carter Stevenson (1923–2013) and a small group of Fort Worth art collectors, was created especially for the president and first lady in celebration of their overnight visit and included paintings by Thomas Eakins, Lyonel Feininger, Vincent van Gogh, Marsden Hartley, and Franz Kline, and sculptures by Henry Moore and Pablo Picasso, among others.
The exhibition will reunite for the first time the paintings, sculptures and works on paper, highlighting the diverse and thoughtful installation of artworks brought together for the presidential couple. Hotel Texas will also reveal for the first time the complete story of the presidential suite 850 installation, which until now was overshadowed by the president’s tragic death, and examine the significance of art both to the Kennedys and to the Dallas–Fort Worth communities. It will bring to light related materials, most of which have remained in private collections since 1963, including photographs of the suite prior to the couple’s arrival and documentation relating to the president’s assassination.
Hotel Texas: An Art Exhibition for the President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy is organized by the Dallas Museum of Art, in association with the Amon Carter Museum of American Art, and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, published in association with Yale University Press. Prior to the presentation at the Amon Carter, the exhibition is on view at the DMA from May 26–September 15, 2013.
¡Hombre! Prints by José Guadalupe Posada
October 19, 2013–March 16, 2014
This exhibition commemorates the 100th anniversary of the death of José Guadalupe Posada (1852–1913), one of the key figures in the development of modern Mexican printmaking. Born of humble origins in the city of Aguascalientes, Posada died a well-known man in Mexico City. As a freelance artist, he completed an estimated 15,000 different ephemeral prints for the penny press that documented nearly every facet of Mexican life. ¡Hombre! presents more than 50 of Posada’s depictions of male figures—an amusing array of outlaws, fugitives, demons, lovers, politicians and matadors, as well as the indelible images of the rural heroes known as valientes (brave ones), the popular everyman Don Chepito and the magnificent Calaveras.