This post is an advertorial written by an organization that serves the museum field. The views, opinions, and positions expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of AAM or its employees.
At Art Bridges Foundation, we pride ourselves on making great American art accessible to museums across the country.
Your museum could be big or small. Near a metropolitan hub or in a small town. Art Bridges is here to get outstanding works of American art out of storage and into your community.
With a growing network of over 220 museums of all sizes and locations, Art Bridges provides financial and strategic support for traveling exhibitions, loans from the Art Bridges Collection and other institutions, and programs designed to educate, inspire, and deepen engagement with local audiences.
Skip over related stories to continue reading articleThe Art Bridges Collection represents an expanding vision of American art from the nineteenth century to present day and encompasses multiple media and voices, including works from artists like Henry Ossawa Tanner, Barkley L. Hendricks, Cindy Sherman, Elizabeth Catlett, Kay WalkingStick, Ana Mendieta, and Mark Bradford, among others.
Our collection continues to grow, bringing in new artists and outstanding art.
Check out these works by Martin Wong, Helen Torr, George Morrison, Grace Hartigan, and Joan Mitchell, which are currently available for loan!
Martin Wong–Persuit (El Que Gane Pierde–He Who Wins Looses):
Painted while living in New York’s Lower East Side, Persuit (El Que Gane Pierde – He Who Wins Looses) reflects the artist’s affinity for the real and the imagined. Aged brick buildings and maps of the night sky often occupy Wong’s nocturnes. Obsessive detail of chain-link gates and illuminated windows meet sidewalk drama. A runaway figure darts to the street corner while looking back at their surroundings. A faux wood frame encases the scene, frozen in place by a night sky of charted stars.
Wong remarked, “Basically I am a Chinese landscape painter. If you look at the Chinese landscapes in the museum, they have writing in the sky. They write a poem in the sky and so do I.”
Joined by constellations in the sky, Wong’s landscapes exist as memories of a distant time and place. Let your visitors appreciate the beauty and power of his work, courtesy of Art Bridges.
Helen Torr–Self-Portrait:
Self-Portrait is one of three known self-portraits by painter Helen Torr. Of the three, the present work was the only one left undated. Painted in shades of green and blue, the artist’s face emotes a sense of subtle vulnerability. She stares directly at the viewer, emerging from a dark abstracted background.
Torr produced creative works such as paintings, charcoal drawings, and mixed media collage, beginning in the early 1900s. Her production ceased after the death of her husband and fellow artist Arthur Dove in 1946. And yet, through it all, Torr, Dove, and their friend Georgia O’Keeffe helped create what we think of as American Modernism, and we see that in Self-Portrait.
Uncompromisingly honest, Torr shows us the woman nicknamed “Reds” in her natural state, and all the turmoil within. Imagine that raw emotion on your museum walls.
George Morrison–Collage X: Landscape:
An Ojibwe artist from northern Minnesota, Morrison looked to make what he considered “paintings made from wood” with his collage series, as you can see with Collage X: Landscape.
A master of painting, carving, and woodwork, Morrison often combined the three to great effect.
He frequently used driftwood, or found wood, in his work because it carried a connection to both earth and water.
The first recipient of the Eiteljorg Museum’s Fellowship for Native American Fine Art Master Artist Award, Morrison’s work has appeared in venues from the Seattle Art Museum to the Whitney to the White House.
Grace Hartigan–Fantasy for Legs and Feet:
Bridging figuration and abstraction, Grace Hartigan’s Fantasy for Legs and Feet reflects a transition in the artist’s career. Hartigan wrote: “I want an art that is not ‘abstract’ and not ‘realistic.’”
While scholars often consider Hartigan part of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists, she embraced the rise of Pop Art in the early 1960s, and Fantasy for Legs and Feet is part of a larger series of works from this era that both replicate and oppose abstraction.
In this work, a mosaic of vivid jewel tones and textural shapes form detached human limbs while a face emerges from the composition.
This figurative imagery is embedded into hallmark techniques of line and color used by Abstract Expressionists. Hartigan refuses to be limited by the mid-century canon in this ironic disruption.
Partner with us to showcase this striking and important work at your museum!
Joan Mitchell–Allo, Amelie:
Inspired by the birth of a friend’s granddaughter, Allo, Amelie is a terrific example of Joan Mitchell’s love and commitment to light and color in her late 1960s and early 1970s work.
In the exhibition catalog for the Whitney Museum’s 2002 Mitchell exhibition, Jane Livingston proclaimed, “In terms of sheer largeness of vision, of solving painterly problems with an almost incredible audacity, these oversize pictures from the 1970s have few rivals in all of modern American painting. … These works mark Mitchell’s ascendancy to a level that few artists have attained, an achievement that would set the stage for her work to come.”
Mitchell’s embrace of clear form and figure, while still drawing attention to the painting’s negative space, gives her work a singular style. As she put it, “I don’t set out to achieve a specific thing, perhaps to catch a motion or to catch a feeling. Call it layer painting, gestural painting, easel painting or whatever you want. I paint oil on canvas – without an easel. … I try to eliminate clichés, extraneous material. I try to make it exact. My painting is not an allegory or a story. It is more of a poem.”
Bring this inspiring visual poem to your museum by partnering with Art Bridges today!
If you’d like to see these artists or others in your museum, please contact us through our website – artbridgesfoundation.org.
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