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Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service

Project Title:

"GREAT ICONS OF THE 20th & 21st CENTURIES" by Sidney Randolph Maurer

Project Description:

Mr. Maurer has painted over 325 portraits of the men and women of his time who, each in their own way, has had a profound impact on the lives of countless others. Scientists, statesmen, actors, artists, musicians, singers and sports figures all experienced some measure of celebrity in their lifetimes, yet all too many have been forgotten, though their influence on our lives is still being felt. How many remember what it was exactly that Madame Curie discovered and what it still means to us today? You may change or add icons as long as the original is still available.

Arts education faces serious challenges nationwide: according to The Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education Network, budget constraints put arts education programs at risk of being reduced or eliminated-- despite countless programs and research that demonstrate the value of arts learning. The Center for Education Policy reported in 2006 that 22 percent of school districts surveyed had reduced instructional time using the arts. Sadly, as school systems across the country face funding challenges and budget cuts, learning programs of this nature are among the first to be axed. Faced with this disturbing national trend, alternative venues must be offered to develop critical alternative art links to enhance students academic and social development.

Presenting the iconic personalities of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in museum settings is an ideal opportunity to address this issue. Not only will it befriend an entire new audience to the wonders of the museum world. It will enhance students academic and social development in an informal setting by introducing them to the iconic figures who shaped their culture, history and environment. Museums are places of signs, symbols, culturally significant artifacts, tools and activities. What better place to engage students with the powerful and strategic messages crafted by the subjects that artist Sidney Maurer so skillfully has portrayed?

Here are the images that we believe many museums would be proud to exhibit for their constituents in each city. 85% of them are 20 x 30 inches in size. All but 3 are painted on plywood; the others are backed foam core. Three of them are 24 x 36 and one is 25 x 40.5. 12 pieces are nicely framed in simple 2 black frames.

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Winston Churchill

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Mohandas Gandhi Martin Luther King

Nelson Mandella

Golda Meir

Ronald Reagan

Charlie Chaplin

Dalai Lama

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Chang Kai-shek

Charles de Gaulle

Charles Lindbergh

Amelia Earhart

Christiaan Barnard, MD

Edward R. Murrow

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Louis Armstrong

Paul Robeson

Albert Einstein

Ted Turner

Alexander Graham Bell

Madame Marie Curie

Sigmund Freud

Thomas Edison

The Wright Brothers

Tony Bennett

Leonard Bernstein

Vladimir Horowitz

George Bernard Shaw

Tennessee Williams

Alfred Hitchcock

Claude Rains

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Woody Allen

Steven Spielberg

Cecil B. DeMille

The Beatles

Audrey Hepburn

Dolly Parton

Diana Ross

Jascha Heifetz

Quincy Jones

Johnny Cash

Mick Jagger Michael Jackson

Neil Diamond

Stevie Wonder

Arthur Rubinstein Bette Davis

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Greta Garbo

Clark Gable & Vivien Leigh

Marilyn Monroe

Elizabeth Taylor

Eleonora Duse

Gregory Peck

Tony Curtis

Humphrey Bogart

Judy Garland

Marcel Marceau

Maria Callas

Milton Berle

Marlene Dietrich

Marlon Brando

Katherine Hepburn

Kirk Douglas

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Laurel & Hardy

Orson Wells

Rudolph Valentino

Sophia Loren

Shirley Temple

Steve McQueen

W.C. Fields

The Marx Brothers

Sidney Potier

Billy Holiday

Edith Piaf

Benny Goodman

Elvis Presley

Ella Fitzgerald

Dizzy Gillespie

George Gershwin

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Jerry Garcia

John Lennon

Jimi Hendrix

Michael Jackson

Babe Ruth

Arnold Palmer

Billie Jean King

Muhammad Ali

Johnny Weissmuller

John Elway

Michael Jordan

Sandy Koufax

Joe Louis

Ted Williams

Willie Mays Satchel Paige

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Salvador Dali

Ernest Hemingway

Pablo Picasso

Georgia OKeeffe

Johnny Depp

Leonardo DiCaprio

Angelina Jolie Al Pacino

Denzel Washington

Christopher Plummer

Morgan Freeman

Robert Redford & Paul Newman

Mikhail Baryshnikov

Peter OToole

Robert De Niro

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Mr. Maurer worked alongside Andy Warhol they both designed and created album covers for RCA Records in the early 1960s. They both used a photographic technique. Andy transferred the B&W images on to silk screens and then added inks to the screens creating various colors and producing colored silk screens. Mr. Maurer, being an easel painter did the following. (I will be paraphrasing Mr. Maurers description to me.) He first blew up the photo to the size of the plywood on which he would gesso as for an oil painting. He then applied powerful glue to the dried gesso, and glued the blown up photo onto the glued plywood permanently setting the paper upon the wood that would last longer and stronger than any oil painting on canvas. Finally, hed then bombard the image completely and change the B&W photo into a unique, original work of art using acrylics, inks, crayons, and any color media he could find to reach the finished quality he wanted.

At a Music Icon exhibit of Mr. Maurers paintings at California State University, Northridge in September, 2010, very few of the students knew or heard of Leonard Bernstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Maria Callas, etc. And at the Screen Actors Guild Foundation in November, 2010, many young actors in attendance did not recognize the portraits of great comedians and performers like Buster Keaton, W.C. Fields, Edward G. Robinson, or Gregory Peck.

What we are proposing is a travelling museum exhibition of 115 Sidney Maurer original paintings of great figures of the 20th and 21st Centuries, each accompanied by a single-sheet thumbnail biography a combination of beautifully rendered art and the historical context in which to view that art. Narrated DVDs covering all the icons will also be produced that can run on a continuous loop at the exhibition and be sold to patrons by the participating museums as well.

Thematically, the use of great art as an educational tool is extremely powerful. The very act of painting a portrait is an effort on the part of the artist to

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memorialize the subject forever, to freeze that subject in a moment in time -- the moment, and the person, in a very real way, live on as long as the painting itself exists.

Is it important for people today to know the history of their own times? Indeed it is, for that knowledge makes life fuller and more interesting.

The paintings themselves are the main attraction beautifully rendered, the portraits are full of color and verve, and the painters deep feelings for each subject. Mr. Maurer began this project in 1997, almost by accident, when he realized that a number of portraits of famous baseball players could be expanded into a body of work memorializing great figures of our times in all walks of life. Years into the project, Maurer faced the tragedy of his own lifetime his eldest son was diagnosed as untreatable, and spent two years dying of pancreatic cancer. It was a period of intense emotional turmoil for the artist grief and rage and sadness. He painted his son during this time, and he used his own broken heart as the stimulus for creating more and more portraits of others whom he deeply respected for their contribution to our lives.

Economic Opportunities:

One of the major opportunities to benefit the museums is the ancillary income that might result in poster sales. There are many possibilities to benefit the museums while exhibiting exciting portraits of special people.

Timeframe and Budget:

Allan Rich is the point man for this project, and having already experienced with SITES an extremely successful partnership on an exhibition of the works of George Hurrell, he expects hell have the same terrific working relationship with the organization on this exhibition of the works of Sidney Maurer. Mr. Rich to this date has raised $15,000.00 to assist in providing some of SITESs budgetary needs in the event this proposal is accepted.

Market:

Anyone from eight to eighty-eight, rich or poor, simple or sophisticated, will be drawn to this exhibition, nationally or internationally. Parents and grandparents will proudly explain to their children and grandchildren all about their favorite icons of the 20th Century and the kids will happily tell the old folks about their favorites of the contemporary stars of their times. All in all it will be a wonderful family event in each venue.