Charles Prendergast: In Search of “Innocence”
August 21–November 28, 2010

This exhibition views the artwork of Charles Prendergast, brother of American artist Maurice Prendergast, in the light of the medieval, Indian, folk, and “primitive” art that inspired his career. Steeped in the American arts and crafts movement as a young artist, Prendergast sought to find a style free of western renaissance traditions. In Search of “Innocence” draws together thirty works from across cultures in the museum’s collection to illustrate the ideas that inspired Prendergast’s art. Organized by Nancy Mowll Mathews, Eugénie Prendergast Senior Curator of 19th and 20th Century Art, with Allison Pappas, Graduate Student in the History of Art, Class of 2011.

Posing Beauty in African American Culture
September 11–November 21, 2010

This exhibition explores the contested ways in which African and African American beauty have been represented in historical and contemporary contexts through a diverse range of media including photography, film, video, fashion, advertising, and other forms of popular culture such as music and the Internet. Featuring approximately 84 works drawn from public and private collections, Posing Beauty includes photographs by Carrie Mae Weems, Charles "Teenie" Harris, Eve Arnold, Gary Winogrand, Sheila Pree Bright, Leonard Freed, Renee Cox, Anthony Barboza, Bruce Davidson, Mickalene Thomas, and Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, among others. Posing Beauty in African American Culture is curated by Deborah Willis and organized by Curatorial Assistance, Pasadena, California.