PROGRAMS AND EVENTS

• No programs or events are planned for this day

ON EXHIBIT

• Lifelines—Forms and Themes of Art Nouveau from the Morse Collection

  Art Nouveau was an art phenomenon that found enthusiastic support virtually everywhere in Europe and, to a lesser extent, in America from roughly 1895 to 1915. It touched art and architecture, as well as ceramics, furniture, and the other decorative arts. In French, Art Nouveau literally means “new art,” and at the turn of the 20th century, this new art looked different, felt different, and reflected different values and ideas. Today it still feels new. Art Nouveau artists sought to fundamentally change the look of the objects we use in our lives. In their work, line frequently seems driven by its own internal life force—swirling and whipping, swerving and curving, creeping along one minute then racing forward the next. In this exhibition of objects from its collection, the Morse explores the hyper-organic line of Art Nouveau as it communicates the style’s major themes of nature, femininity, and metamorphosis. The works, a number never before exhibited, are certain to both enlighten and delight.

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• Vignette: The Art of Fountain Pens

  Before the electronic stylus and tablet, before the laser printer, before fiber- and ceramic-tipped pens and even before the ballpoint, fountain pens were everyone’s writing instrument. Developed in the late 19th century, fountain pens—the kind filled from a bottle of ink—were ingenious, often beautifully designed and handcrafted, and ubiquitous until the 1970s. Today, though still used by a few, they are collected and cherished as little works of art. In this vignette, the Morse presents a gift to the collection of fountain pens dating from 1875 to 1975, giving these beautiful, functional objects much-deserved attention.

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• Focus Exhibition: Lockwood De Forest’s The Wreck

  The Wreck, an 1880 oil painting by American artist and decorator Lockwood de Forest (1850–1932), depicts five Bedouins riding their camels across a distant horizon and in the foreground, the skeletal remains of a camel—the wreck of the painting’s title. A recent bequest from the estate of de Forest’s great-granddaughter, this 36-by-48-inch Orientalist picture is on view for the first time after extensive conservation.

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