The Kimbell Art Museum’s 2022–23 exhibition schedule will showcase Spanish Golden Age paintings, new discoveries in Maya art and an intimate view of a French artist’s creative worlds.
The schedule, announced Tuesday (July 19), will be highlighted by special exhibitions and related programs presented in conjunction with the museum’s 50th anniversary. A digital exhibition and on-site installation will celebrate the museum’s commitment to art, architecture, special exhibitions and the community throughout the anniversary year, which will be celebrated from October 4, 2022, through October 2023.
Highlights of upcoming exhibitions:
Murillo: From Heaven to Earth
September 18, 2022-January 29, 2023
Renzo Piano Pavilion
Murillo: From Heaven to Earth celebrates the genre paintings of one of the most renowned painters of the Spanish Golden age: Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682). While Murillo is primarily known for his religious subject matter, some of his most iconic works depict secular themes. For the first time in Spanish art, ordinary people – beggars, street urchins and flower girls – convey the cultural narratives and written tales of Murillo’s time. Comprising approximately 50 works, the exhibition explores themes of youth and age, comedy, romance and seduction, faith and charity, landscape, portraiture and modern realism.
The exhibition is organized by the Kimbell Art Museum. The curator for the exhibition is Guillaume Kientz, director of the Hispanic Society Museum and Library and former curator of European art at the Kimbell Art Museum.
Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art
May 7-September 3, 2023
Renzo Piano Pavilion
In an exhibition of some 120 rarely seen masterpieces and recent discoveries, Lives of the Gods: Divinity in Maya Art will depict episodes in the life cycle of the gods, from the moment of their birth to resplendent transformations as blossoming flowers or fearsome creatures of the night. Created by masters of the Classic period (A.D. 250–900) in the spectacular royal cities in the tropical forests of what is now Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, these landmark works evoke a world in which the divine, human and natural realms are interrelated and intertwined. Lenders include major museum collections in Europe, Latin America and the United States.
The exhibition is organized by the Kimbell Art Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Jennifer Casler Price, curator of Asian, African and Ancient American art, will serve as the organizing curator at the Kimbell Art Museum.
Bonnard’s Worlds
November 5, 2023-January 28, 2024
Renzo Piano Pavilion
In Bonnard’s Worlds, the Kimbell Art Museum will present its first exhibition dedicated to the works of French painter Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), inspired by its 2018 acquisition of the artist’s Landscape at Le Cannet (1928). The exhibition will explore the sensory realms of experience that fueled the painter’s creative practice, from the most public spaces to the most private. Comprising a careful selection of approximately 70 of Bonnard’s finest works created over the course of his career, Bonnard’s Worlds will reunite some of the artist’s most celebrated works from museums in Europe and the United States, as well as many unfamiliar to the public from worldwide private collections. Governed neither by chronology nor geography, but by measures of intimacy, the exhibition will transport the visitor from the larger realms in which Bonnard lived – the landscapes of Paris, Normandy or the South of France – to the most private interior spaces of his dwellings and of his thoughts.
The exhibition is organized by the Kimbell Art Museum and The Phillips Collection. George T.M. Shackelford, deputy director, Kimbell Art Museum, will serve as the exhibition’s lead curator, in collaboration with Elsa Smithgall, chief curator, The Phillips Collection.
In addition to selections from the Kimbell’s permanent collection on view at the museum’s Louis I. Kahn Building and Renzo Piano Pavilion, two special exhibitions are currently on view:
The Language of Beauty in African Art
Through July 31, 2022 Renzo Piano Pavilion
In an unprecedented presentation of more than 200 objects representing 56 cultures from across Africa, The Language of Beauty in African Art emphasizes concepts of beauty through the languages and perspectives of indigenous African communities. By exploring the original words and local evaluations of beauty associated with traditional or historical works, visitors can discover both their meanings and functions, revealing how art informed and reflected life in sub-Saharan Africa in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This impressive assemblage of captivating masks, powerful figures, masterfully carved sculptures and exquisitely crafted prestige objects is drawn from public and private collections around the world and is presented together for the first time at the Kimbell.
The exhibition was organized by The Art Institute of Chicago. Jennifer Casler Price, curator of Asian, African and Ancient American art, is the organizing curator at the Kimbell Art Museum.
SLAY: Artemisia Gentileschi and Kehinde Wiley
Focus Exhibition through October 9, 2022
Louis I. Kahn Building
The exhibition features women in dramatic acts of courageous defiance and female empowerment as depicted by the celebrated Italian Baroque painter Artemisia Gentileschi and acclaimed American contemporary artist Kehinde Wiley. Realized 400 years apart, the two strikingly different paintings of the same subject, Judith beheading Holofernes, invite discussion about gender, race, violence, oppression and power – issues that have remained relevant from the 17th century to today.
The exhibition is organized by the Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, the North Carolina Museum of Art, the Kimbell Art Museum and The Museum Box. The curator for the exhibition at the Kimbell is Nancy E. Edwards, curator of European art and head of academic services. Admission to the focus exhibition is free.
Information for this article was provided by the Kimbell Art Museum.