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Expanding Access to American Art
Marsden Hartley, Give Us This Day, 1938
Njideka Akunyili Crosby, I Refuse to Be Invisible, 2010
Terry Adkins, Native Son (Circus), 2015
We provide financial and strategic support to get art out of storage and into communities.
Norman Wilfred Lewis, Untitled (Subway Station), 1945
Sanford Robinson Gifford, Twilight in the Adirondacks, 1862
The Art Bridges Collection
Loans from the Art Bridges collection are available to museums committed to providing greater access for all communities.
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by Judy Chicago
View Big Blue Pink
from 1971
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by T.C. Cannon
View Grandmother Gestating Father and the Washita River Runs Ribbon-Like
from 1975
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by John Frederick Kensett
View Beacon Rock, Newport
from 1863
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by Keith Haring
View Self Portrait
from 1985
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by Rachel Rose
View Lake Valley
from 2016
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by Bill Viola
View Moving Stillness: Mount Rainier, 1979
from 1979
Art Imitates Life: George L. K. Morris
American artist #GeorgeLovettKingslandMorris began championing abstraction in the United States in the 1930s when regionalism and American Scene painting dominated the cultural landscape. As seen in these images, Morris was deeply influenced by European painters like Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso, and George Braque after traveling to France in 1929. His 1943 painting “Munition Factory,” for example—part of the #ArtBridges collection—shows how his work’s content remained American at its core while adopting the abstract aesthetic of Europe at the time. In the painting, the artist presents a Cubist-inspired take on the American factories that manufactured bombs, guns, and ammunition during World War II.
Pictured here: Morris' home, which he shared with his wife, Suzy Frelinghuysen. The design of the house was also influenced by Morris’ time in Paris and is considered to be the first modern home in New England.
This 1938 #MarsdenHartley painting is one of his most referential works. 🔎 Let’s take a moment to study the details and to learn more:
‣ The work’s title “Give Us This Day” is a reference to “The Lord’s prayer,” the most common prayer recited by Christians.
‣ The fish are a nod to the common use of fish as symbols of Christ.
‣ The seagulls are a riff on traditional depictions of the Holy Spirit as a dove.
Painted near the end of his life when he returned to his native state of Maine, the work's many references, its methodical symmetry (a departure from most of the artist’s work), and its Regionalist focus seem to indicate a return to home that may be as spiritual as it was literal.
Perhaps Hartley was following his own words from 1921, when he wrote the book “Adventures in the Arts” and mused that, “Art, like life, has had to begin all over again, for the very end of the world had been made visible at last.”
Learn more about this painting and others in the #ArtBridges collection on our website—link in profile.
Our Local Access initiative has landed at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History!
#Repost @MoahLancaster: Currently at #MoahLancaster, #GoldenHour California Photography from the @LACMA collection including work by #WillieRobertMiddlebrook. #LocalAccess funded by @ArtBridgesFoundation virtual tour available at LancasterMoah.org #ArtBridges
For artist #MarkBradford, his mother’s beauty salon in South Central L.A. was always a place of creativity, community, and empowerment. The artist spent most of his free time during childhood in the salon and eventually became a hairdresser there as well. When he started attending art school at nearly age 30, he was very excited by Feminist and Modernist art. He also knew he was a creative person himself but hadn’t found his own artistic voice yet.
Then one evening, after a long day of hairdressing, he had his first great moment of inspiration: he noticed the beautiful translucent quality of the tissue-like “end papers” used to protect hair while being permed.
"I learned my own way of constructing paintings through the End Papers,” the artist says, “how to create space, how to use color. And how to provide a new kind of content. They were the beginning for me."
Learn more about the artist's process and his 2016 work “Thelxiepeia” from the #ArtBridges collection by visiting the link in our bio.
Opening next month at the Peoria Riverfront Museum: "American Verses: Terry Adkins, Mark Bradford & Kerry James Marshall." ⠀
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Over on the @riverfrontmuseum Instagram today, the museum spotlights American artist and art professor #KerryJamesMarshall.
“The Southside Chicago resident taught painting at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Art and Design from 1993 to 2006. His childhood in Birmingham and South Central Los Angeles in the Watts neighborhood during the Civil Rights movement imbued him with a sense of social responsibility that has influenced his work, which can also be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), National Gallery of Art, Art Institute of Chicago and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and many others.⠀
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The yearlong exhibition features seminal works by celebrated contemporary Black American artists Terry Adkins, Mark Bradford and Kerry James Marshall from the collections of Art Bridges and Crystal Bridges. These chosen works inform the traditions of painting and sculpture by channeling a variety of literary references.⠀
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The Peoria presentation has been made possible by @artbridgesfoundation, @crystalbridgesmuseum & Visionary Society.” #ArtBridges
Through February 21 at @ritcityartspace: “Untitled” (L.A.), an installation by the late #FelixGonzalezTorres (1957-1996).
This piece is jointly owned by #ArtBridges and @crystalbridgesmuseum. Visit the link in our bio to learn more about how we travel works like this one to parter institutions across the country.
📷: Photo by John Aäsp
Art Bridges' support has enabled us to experiment with using touchscreen technology to deliver information and engage visitors in the gallery.
Adam Thomas, Curator of American Art
Palmer Museum of Art
