MoMA
Posts tagged ‘Andre Breton’
December 17, 2009  |  Artists, Collection & Exhibitions
A Surrealist Sketchbook: Enrico Donati
Enrico Donati, American, born Italy. 1909-2008. Untitled (Sketchbook). c. 1944. Ink on paper ( three details shown), 10 x 8" (25.4 x 20.3 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Adele Donati. © The Museum of Modern Art, New York

Enrico Donati. Untitled (Sketchbook). c. 1944. Ink on paper (three details shown), 10 x 8" (25.4 x 20.3 cm). The Museum of Modern Art. Gift of Adele Donati. © 2009 The Museum of Modern Art

One of the little-known highlights in the collection of the Department of Drawings is our vast array of artists’ sketchbooks, which range from intimate diaristic notations and markings, to explicit studies for complete works in other mediums, to accomplished works unto themselves, rendered as carefully and thoughtfully as paintings, for example, of the same subject matter.

This past May we received, as a gift, an outstanding example of an artist’s sketchbook. Enrico Donati, who passed away last year at the age of 99, was considered to be “the last of the Surrealists.” His wife, Adele Donati, approached the Museum about donating one of his sketchbooks to the collection.

December 3, 2009  |  Artists, Collection & Exhibitions
A Close Look: Frida Kahlo’s Fulang-Chang and I
Frida Kahlo. Fulang-Chang and I. 1937

Frida Kahlo. Fulang-Chang and I. 1937

When curators Leah Dickerman, Luis Pérez-Oramas, and I began to discuss our plans for creating a new gallery dedicated to Mexican Modernist art made in the 1930s and 1940s—which opened in May of this year—Frida Kahlo’s Fulang-Chang and I was one of the works we were determined to include. We were intent not only to show the painting, but also to display it alongside the mirror that Kahlo made to accompany it, for reasons I’ll elaborate on a bit later.