Art Market Updates

Diego Rivera (1886-1957), Mujer con alcatraces, 1945. Oil on Masonite, 475/8 x 47½ in. Private collection, U.S.A.; courtesy Galeria Interart. © 2022 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F. / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Scott Cramer.

Diego Rivera’s America

On view through July 31, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art presents Diego Rivera’s America, the first major exhibition focused solely on the iconic Mexican artist in more than two decades. The exhibition explores Rivera’s career through more than 130 works, including his drawings, easel paintings, frescoes and more. “The rare presentation reveals the broad range of Rivera’s creativity through a series of thematic sections that bring together more works from this period than have been seen together since the artist’s lifetime,” the museum notes. Diego Rivera’s America is co-organized by Crystal Bridges and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Alexander Calder (1898-1976), Untitled (Latch-Hooked Rug), ca. 1965. Orange, yellow, blue, and black wool, 64 x 81 in. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, Gift of Leslie and Rufus Stillman, 2002.29.1. © 2023 Calder Foundation, New York/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Collection-sharing partnership

The result of a $2 million grant from the Art Bridges Foundation, the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art will share works of art and material culture from its American collections with three partner museums in the American South through the Art Bridges Cohort Program. Over the next three years, colleagues from the Wadsworth Atheneum will curate collaboratively with Columbia Museum of Art in South Carolina, as well as Alabama-based institutions the Mobile Museum of Art and Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, to co-organize a series of traveling exhibitions. Together, the four institutions will be known as the American South Consortium.

Evelyn Hofer (1922-2009), Queensboro Bridge, New York, 1964. Dye transfer print. High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase with funds from Joe Williams and Tede Fleming, 2021.99.

Evelyn Hofer: Eyes on the City

Evelyn Hofer (1922-2009) was a highly innovative photographer whose prolific career spanned five decades. New York Times art critic Hilton Kramer referred to her as “the most famous unknown photographer in America.” While undervalued during her lifetime, Hofer made her greatest impact through a series of photobooks, published throughout the 1960s, devoted to European and American cities, including Florence, London, New York, Washington, D.C., and Dublin, and a book focused on the country of Spain. Evelyn Hofer: Eyes on the City at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia, features more than 100 vintage prints in both black and white and color. This is the artist’s first major museum exhibition in the United States in more than 50 years, and will be on view through August 13.

John Stobart (1929-2023), Busy Day in the East River. Oil on canvas, 26 x 42 in., signed. Courtesy Rehs Galleries, Inc.

Remembering John Stobart

Famed British maritime painter John Stobart, celebrated for his beautiful marine scenes at sea and at historic ports, passed away on March 2 at 93 years old. One of the most celebrated maritime artists of his generation, Stobart was “known for his meticulous attention to detail and incredible ability to capture the atmosphere and mood of historic ports,” according to Rehs Contemporary, which represents the artist’s work. Stobart’s works can be found in the collections of museums, corporations and private collectors around the world.

W.F.K. Travers (1826-1869), Abraham Lincoln, 1865. Oil on canvas. On loan from the Hartley Dodge Foundation, and courtesy of the citizens of the Borough of Madison, New Jersey.

Lincoln portrait

A life-size portrait of Abraham Lincoln by W.F.K. Travers joins the America’s Presidents exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. One of three known, life-size paintings of the 16th president, Travers created the massive 9-foot-tall oil from life in 1865. The historic work comes to the National Portrait Gallery on long-term loan from the Hartley Dodge Foundation, whose founder, Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge, acquired the painting from her family in the 1930s.

People & Places

The Dallas Museum of Art has announced two key curatorial appointments as part of a newly restructured curatorial and research department. Interim chief curator Nicole R. Myers (pictured) has been promoted to the inaugural position of chief curatorial and research officer. Anabelle Gambert-Jouan has been named the Lillian and James H. Clark Assistant Curator of European Art.

Anne-Marie Russell was recently appointed executive director and CEO of the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg. Russell joined the MFA in September of last year as interim executive director.

Phoenix Art Museum has selected Giovana Aviles to serve as the museum’s inaugural Men’s Arts Council Curator of Engagement. The position is endowed by the Men’s Arts Council, a non-profit member organization of Valley philanthropists dedicated to supporting the museum’s community outreach programs through annual giving. Aviles began her new position in March.

Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitney Museum of American Art's Alice Pratt Brown Director, plans to step down at the end of his current contract on October 31, after 20 years in the position. Scott Rothkopf, the Whitney’s current senior deputy director and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator, will become the Alice Pratt Brown Director on November 1.

The McCord Stewart Museum recently announced the appointment of Anne Eschapasse as president and CEO. The new head of the Montreal-based museum assumes her position on April 17.