Portland Art Museum & PAM CUT
Are you ready for the holidays? In this lithograph, American artist Adolf Dehn (1895–1968) offers us a view of Christmas Eve in 1931. There are only a few small presents beneath the tree–perhaps a reference to the Great Depression that was seizing the country–but the little fir is covered with lights and ornaments. Two busy… Read more
Dyani White Hawk’s suite Takes Care of Them was inspired by the Lakota practice of four veterans being asked to stand and face each of the four cardinal directions during the wabléniča ceremony, a ritual welcoming adoptees and formerly fostered individuals back into the tribal community. In many Native cultures, veterans are revered as modern-day… Read more
Artist Édouard Vuillard found inspiration from the people closest at hand, as seen in our current special exhibition, Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, 1889–1900. Vuillard’s mother, Madame Marie Vuillard, was a constant in her son’s life and in his art. More than 500 paintings in which she is depicted,… Read more
December 12, 2021, 10 a.m – 5 p.mTickets reservations are available beginning December 8 The Portland Art Museum announced today that it will celebrate its 129th birthday by welcoming all visitors for free on December 12, 2021. The Museum was founded as the Portland Art Association on December 12, 1892, and for well over a… Read more
Emerging Zodiac is an exceptional example of Parkinson’s work and her dedicated interest in the human body in relation to the greater cosmos. The model of the dancing figure is artist Eiko Otake, a movement-based, interdisciplinary artist who has performed several times @picapdx. Inspired by Otake’s movements, Parkinson has documented these performances. Emerging Zodiac is… Read more
Goddesses and Queens Queen Nefertari’s Egypt features many representations of goddesses—from the large sculptures of Sekhmet and Mut in the introductory gallery to small amulets and mirrors decorated with the face of the goddess Hathor. Sometimes ancient Egyptian queens took on the status of goddesses after their deaths, as in the case of Queen Ahmose-Nefertari,… Read more
After resetting the clocks and settling in for a dark winter, I am reminded of the many scenes of lamplight in the exhibition Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, 1889–1900. Families gathered around oil lamps, candles, or the hearth in tenebrous Parisian apartments. Each artist in the exhibition brought a… Read more
When it comes to bats, gremlins, witches, and bogeymen, it is hard to beat the graphic work of Francesco de Goya. In honor of #Halloween, I offer you four prints from our collection acquired in 2019. All four hail from Los Caprichos (Caprices), a series of 80 enigmatic, satirical, and frequently bizarre etchings published in… Read more
Monet’s Waterlilies is, hands down, a visitor favorite. The artist’s garden at his home in Giverny was a large focus of his art for nearly thirty years. It is remarkable to think of sustaining such prolonged interest in a single subject! Yet for Monet, “one instant, one aspect of nature contains it all” as he… Read more
Last week was an exciting week at the museum with artist Lynnette Haozous, and her assistant Andrew Benally, here from Albuquerque, New Mexico. They were on hand to install Into the Sun, her temporary mural in the gallery for our upcoming exhibition, Mesh.” As a muralist, Haozous is often invited to create work that is… Read more