Marsden Hartley, Indian Fantasy, 1914, oil on

canvas, 46 11/16 x 39 5/16 in., Purchased with

funds from the State of North Carolina

While living as an expatriate in Berlin, Marsden Hartley conceived a series of paintings exploring

“the idea of America.” However, the series he imagined was no pictorial “America the Beautiful.”

Hartley despised modern industrial society, its greed, violence, and divorce from nature. For

Hartley the cure for a decadent civilization was to be found in the rapturous embrace of Native

American culture. Indian Fantasy is just that, a romantic fantasy upon a Native American theme.

Here Hartley conjures a redemptive vision of earthly and spiritual peace, all the more poignant

for being painted just before the outbreak of World War I.

Giotto di Bondone and assistants, The “Peruzzi Altarpiece,” circa 1310–15, tempera and gold leaf

on panel, Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

The Florentine painter Giotto is unquestionably one of the most influential artists who ever lived.

In his day he was credited with changing the course of painting from the artificial and flat

Byzantine style to one based more on the study of nature. Giotto was the first painter to infuse

his art with humanity, to individualize his figures, endowing them with a believable bulk and

weight and expressive gestures and features. His unprecedented approach laid the foundation

for Italian Renaissance art.

The inclusion of St. John the Evangelist, St. John the Baptist, and St. Francis of Assisi (the

female figure is the Virgin Mary) has led to the hypothesis that the altarpiece may have been

painted for the Peruzzi family chapel, dedicated to St. John the Baptist and St. John the

Evangelist in the Franciscan church of S. Croce in Florence. The panels make up one of the few

complete altarpieces by Giotto and his workshop that have survived.

Mexican, Chiapas state, Maya culture, Ball

Court Marker, circa 550–850, limestone, 23

1/8 x 24 in., Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon

Hanes

This marker may have been placed in the playing alley for use in the Mesoamerican ballgame.

The outer band has scrolls pointing to each of the four cardinal directions, separated by Caban

glyphs, symbols of the earth. A Maya ballplayer squats in the center, wearing a wide beltlike

yoke and holding what appears to be the game ball in his left hand and the decapitated head of

the Jester God in his right hand. The ballplayer’s solar headdress identifies him as one of the

hero twins from the Maya epic the Popol Vuh, in his aspect as the sun god. Part of the Popol Vuh

discusses vanquishing death, represented by the lords of the underworld, and the means to

achieving everlasting life.

Ellsworth Kelly, Blue Panel, 1980, oil on canvas, 109

1/2 x 95 in., Promised gift of Mary and Jim Patton, ©

Ellsworth Kelly

Ellsworth Kelly reduces art to an essential geometric form to create an object that queries the

definition of art and art making. His panel paintings are never just simple forms—the geometry

is always skewed or irregular—and the shapes are inspired by chance encounters with the

everyday world: an open door or window, a shadow cast by a tree, the spaces between things.

In Kelly’s hands, a painting becomes a sculptural form with volume and substance, and the

architectural space around it becomes part of the work. As he explains, “By removing the

content from my work, I shifted the visual reality of painting to include the space around it.” His

shaped, monochromatic canvases distill painting to pure abstraction, immersing the viewer in a

visceral and voluptuous field of color.

Fakeye came from a long line of Yoruba wood carvers. After a three-year apprenticeship with a

master sculptor in Nigeria, he studied and taught in Europe and the United States. Beginning in

1978 he taught at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, for thirty years. As a student

in France, he experimented with stone carving but eventually decided to focus on his personal

interpretation of the techniques and styles of traditional Yoruba wood carving.

The artist carved these monumental veranda posts (NCMA 2001.9.1, 2001.9.2, and 2001.9.3)

for a cultural center in the city of Ibadan, Nigeria, but the building project was canceled and the

commission for a series of posts withdrawn. At that time Fakeye had completed three of the

eight posts he envisioned. They portray (in order): a priestess of Oshun and priest of Ogun, a

priest of Shango and bata drummer, and a divination priest (babalawo) and drummer.

Lamidi Olonade Fakeye, Veranda Post

with Priest of Shango and Bata

Drummer, 1984, iroko wood, H. 104

1/2 x W. 10 1/8 x D. 9 5/8in.,

Purchased with funds from the North

Carolina State Art Society (Robert F.

Phifer Bequest)

Kongo peoples, Yombe subgroup, DRC, Oath-Taking

and Healing Figure (Nkisi N'kondi), 20th century,

wood, metal, mirror, cloth, string, and quills, H. 14

3/4 x W. 7 1/2 x D. 6 1/2 in., Gift of Mr. and Mrs.

Gordon Hanes

This nkisi n’kondi figure was carved by a sculptor and completed by a ritual practitioner, who

added powerful ingredients (such as medicinal herbs, blood, or soil from a sacred place) to the

receptacle on the figure’s stomach. This cylindrical container is sealed with a mirror, which

recalls the reflective surface of a river in which spirits dwell, and so refers to spiritual powers

within the figure. The figure once belonged to a ritual practitioner, who would have used it when

clients sought advice on personal matters such as illness, or judgments on legal matters, such

as real estate transactions. The nails and spikes driven into the image on these occasions

activated its power and also solemnized oaths sworn before it by the practitioner’s clients.

Hans Mielich, Portrait of a Man, 1543, oil on panel, 25

1/2 x 19 in., Purchased with funds from the State of

North Carolina

Looking all of his sixty-two years, the sitter in this portrait by Hans Mielich would probably feel

comfortable among the lower classes that were soon to become popular subjects in the art of

northern Europe. He wears the simple clothing of a laborer or craftsman, including an apron, cap

with ear flaps, and a thin leather belt. His appearance is in marked contrast to the more

traditional portrait type that had developed during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (as seen

in the more refined and formal portrait by Anthonis Mor, also in the Museum's collection). A

possible reason for the execution of such a down-to-earth portrait is that the sitter may have

been a friend of the painter.

Jan Miense Molenaer, The Dentist, 1629,

oil on cradled panel, 23 1/8 x 31 9/16

in., Purchased with funds from the State

of North Carolina

The elevation of scenes of daily life as subjects worthy of artistic interest is primarily a

phenomenon of the early seventeenth century. It was in Haarlem, Molenaer’s hometown, that

many innovations in subject matter first took hold in seventeenth-century Dutch art.

Interestingly, these changes occurred at the same moment when the young Dutch Republic

began to assert its importance on the world stage through commerce.

One of the earliest dated pictures by Molenaer, The Dentist points to his probable training in the

workshops of both Frans and Dirck Hals. In comparable works by Frans Hals, the figures’

animated actions and lively expressions both engage and amuse the viewer. Molenaer’s

grimacing young patient makes a similar impression, enhanced, at least in the eyes of the

Protestant Dutch, by his misplaced trust in the rosary he clutches. His prayers seem to have

little effect on the pain he suffers at the hand of the fancifully dressed dentist. Dentists, who

were routinely portrayed as quacks during the period, had a reputation for extracting money as

well as teeth from unsuspecting patients.

Molenaer was a prolific and imaginative artist whose works vary greatly in quality and style.

Among the diverse subjects he painted are peasant scenes, proverbs and allegories, portraits,

religious narratives, and elegant merry companies. In many respects, he was the true

predecessor of Jan Steen. By 1636, the year he married the painter Judith Leyster and moved to

Amsterdam, he had become a mature and respected master, living up to the promise evident in

The Dentist.

Govert Flinck, The Return of the

Prodigal Son, circa 1640–42, oil on

canvas, 52 11/16 x 67 3/8 in.,

Purchased with funds from the State

of North Carolina

In this composition inspired by a Rembrandt etching of 1636, Govert Flinck adopted the style

and palette of his former master. The earthy colors and broadly applied brushstrokes are

qualities associated with Rembrandt, as is the strong interaction between the protagonists.

However, Flinck seldom achieved the emotional intensity of his master. Shortly after completing

The Return of the Prodigal Son, Flinck abandoned this Rembrandtesque manner, adopting

instead the more elegant and colorful style found in portraits by Anthony van Dyck and his Dutch

followers. Thereafter, Flinck became one of the leading painters in Amsterdam. When

commissions for the city’s new town hall were awarded in the 1650s, it was Flinck, not

Rembrandt, who received the lion’s share of the work. Unfortunately, Flinck died in 1660 before

most of these commissions could be completed.

The story of the prodigal son, based on a parable of Jesus recorded in the Gospel of Luke

(15:11–32), had been a popular subject for sixteenth-century Northern artists. They almost

invariably chose to represent the colorful and erotic episode of the prodigal son wasting his

inheritance in the company of harlots. Flinck, like Rembrandt before him, instead chose to depict

the moment of reconciliation and forgiveness between the father and his repentant son who had

“squandered his property in dissolute living” (Luke 15:13). Symbolizing the reconciliation

between a merciful God and a repentant sinner, this moment captures the spiritual message of

the biblical parable.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Panama Dancers,

1910–11, oil on canvas, 19 7/8 x 19 7/8 in.,

Bequest of W. R. Valentiner

Kirchner was drawn into the raucous bohemia of Berlin cabarets peopled by outcasts, misfits,

and petty criminals. There amid the raucous music, cheap liquor, and tobacco, Kirchner found

himself as an artist. He also discovered one of his greatest subjects. Many modern artists have

been attracted to the dance. In the dancer’s rhythmic movements, artists found an apt

metaphor for personal freedom: sensual, ecstatic, and defiantly individual. Recent scholarship

has identified the Panama Dancers as a touring African American dance troupe, here performing

a cakewalk, a prancing promenade wildly popular in early vaudeville shows. In a burlesque of

polite society, the couples stroll arm in arm, the ladies squired by dapper “gents.” Kirchner

obviously relishes the scandalousness and plays it for all its worth, flouting all rules of

refinement. Imagine how a proper German art patron of 1910 would have reacted to this

painting.

Romare Bearden, New Orleans:

Ragging Home, 1974, collage of

plain, printed, and painted

papers, with acrylic, lacquer,

graphite, and marker, mounted

on Masonite panel, 36 1/8 x 48

in., Purchased with funds from the

State of North Carolina and

various donors, by exchange, ©

Romare Bearden

Foundation/Licensed by VAGA,

New York, NY

This work is from a series entitled Of the Blues, in which Romare Beaden meditates upon the

evolution of African American music from the street bands of New Orleans to the jazz clubs of

Harlem. Freely working with collage and paint, the artist sought to visualize the distinctive

soundscapes of the music.

Joel Elias Shapiro, Untitled, 1989–90, cast bronze, H.

101 1/2 x W. 42 x C. 78 in., Purchased with funds

from various donors, by exchange, © Joel

Shapiro/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Beginning in the 1960s many sculptors sought to purify the art object, stripping it of what they

felt to be the distractions of content. They aggressively pared down the object to its essential

structure. A classic example of this so-called minimalism is Ronald Bladen's monumental Three

Elements on the Museum's front lawn. However, once art was reduced to basics, artists had to

face the question of what to do next. Joel Shapiro offers a compelling solution. He reworks the

spare geometric vocabulary of minimalism, creating intriguing, ambiguous forms that engage

the viewer's memory and imagination. Although without a suggestive title, this sculpture refers

unmistakably to the human body: a skater perhaps, or a dancer alighting on point.

Lorna Simpson, Vantage

Point, 1991, gelatin-silver

prints, plastic plaques, 50 x

70 in., Purchased with

funds from the North

Carolina Museum of Art

Foundation, Art Trust Fund,

© Lorna Simpson

In Vantage Point, Simpson juxtaposes her own verso portrait with that of a face mask, alluding

to an African heritage without declaring it. She presents each image out of context: both are

disembodied from the parts that complete them-the woman's face and lower body lie outside our

view; the mask is detached from the full masquerade ensemble that defines and activates its

power.

This suggests the artist's tenuous connection to the continent from which she is separated in

time and space, and poses the question of how one does, or does not, have access to their

individual life histories. The simple terms inside and out frame the questions evoked by the

juxtaposition: the relationship between public bodies and private selves, heritage and lived

experience, and the viewers' complicity in constructing who, and what, we see.

Lalla Essaydi, Silence of Thought #2,

2003; printed 2008, chromogenic

print mounted between Plexiglas and

cintra, 41 x 51 in., Purchased with

funds from the Art Trust Fund

Endowment, © Lalla

Essaydi/Courtesy Edwynn Houk

Gallery, New York

Lalla Essaydi is best known for her photographs of women clothed in expansive swaths of cloth

inscribed with volumes of handwritten calligraphic script recounting the artist’s personal

experiences. Moroccan-born Essaydi believes her work—autobiographical writings inscribed on

women’s bodies and cloth and captured through photography—would not have been possible

had she stayed in Morocco and Saudi Arabia. She says, “In a sense I am a Western artist,

making art in a style I was unable to use in my home country . . . I want to combine all these

elements in order to engage the whole problem of myself as other.”

This in itself is a subversive act, since calligraphy is an expressive form traditionally reserved for

men in Arabic cultures. Even more, the writing is applied in henna, a dye associated with

women’s adornment rather than calligraphy, learning, or meaningful narrative. Even her choice

of surfaces on which to write, cloth and skin, challenge convention.

Silence of Thought #2 captures the subject in private, at rest in the peace of her own feminine

space. By incorporating Orientalist and feminist themes, as well as woman’s relationship to

spaces, Essaydi speaks to the boundaries of Muslim female identity, while inscribing these

spaces with a feminine voice through her text.