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Contact: Mike Horyczun For Immediate Release

Director of Public Relations February 7, 2011

(203) 413-16735

Human Connections: Figural Art from the Bruce Museum Collection
February 12, 2011 – June 5, 2011


Bruce Museum, 1 Museum Drive, Greenwich, CT 06830


James Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836-1902)
Admiring a Portfolio, c.1883
Pastel on linen, 23 ½ x 29 in.
Bruce Museum Collection

The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, CT is pleased to announce its new exhibition, Human Connections: Figural Art from the Bruce Museum, opening Saturday, February 12, 2011, and on view through June 5, 2011. Drawn from the Bruce Museum’s permanent collection, the exhibition explores a variety of approaches to the human figure, from illusionistic portraits and classical nudes to timeless abstractions of the human form. The show is curated by Julie Barry, the Bruce Museum’s Zvi Grunberg Resident Intern for 2010-2011, and supported by the Charles M. and Deborah G. Royce Exhibition Fund.

The human figure – the most direct means by which art can address the human condition – has been a constant and enduring theme in art since prehistoric times. Some of the earliest known drawings and sculptures depict the human form. As society has evolved, the figure has maintained its prominent role in artistic expression. Artists from every age have investigated and interpreted the figure, applying the beliefs and values of their own time.

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Figural art encompasses an exciting range of possibilities; it can depict the likeness of a specific person, express powerful emotions, or even tell a story. Human Connections showcases a broad selection of figural works from the Bruce Museum’s permanent collection, including paintings, sculptures, photographs, and works on paper. These works represent an array of stylistic approaches and span a period of two thousand years, from a first century BC Roman marble to the Pop Art portraits of Alex Katz and beyond. The exhibition includes works by Auguste Rodin, James Jacques Joseph Tissot, William Merritt Chase, George Wesley Bellows, Gaston Lachaise, Milton Avery, Lester Johnson, and Romare Bearden, among others.

Eschewing traditional frameworks that organize works by chronology, style, or medium, Human Connections is instead organized around a number of key themes in figural art: Portraiture; The Nude; The Figure in Motion; Expressive Body Language; Narrative and Genre; and Artistic Innovation. These thematic groupings offer the opportunity to compare and contrast works of different styles, movements, and mediums, such as Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion, Plate 163 (1887) and Lester Johnson’s Crowd of Men (1967). While both of these works depict the figure in motion, they do so using vastly different styles and mediums. Muybridge’s nineteenth-century photographic study of motion documents sequential views of a man in the act of jumping. He freezes the figure in mid-action, capturing on film what is otherwise imperceptible to the human eye. Meanwhile Johnson’s expressive, gestural street scene seems alive with movement. His figures crowd the drawing’s foreground, teeming with unbridled energy.

Such juxtapositions highlight the diversity of figural art, while also revealing the shared themes and connections that cut across the divisions. While varied in their stylistic approaches, the works in Human Connections: Figural Art from the Bruce Museum Collection demonstrate the enduring interest in the human figure across time and place.

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The Bruce Museum is located at 1 Museum Drive in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA. General admission is $7 for adults, $6 for seniors and students, and free for children under five and Bruce Museum members. Free admission to all on Tuesdays. The Museum is located near Interstate-95, Exit 3, and a short walk from the Greenwich, CT, train station. Museum hours are: Tuesday through Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sunday 1 p.m. to 5 p.m., and closed Mondays and major holidays. Groups of eight or more require advance reservations. Museum exhibition tours are held Fridays at 12:30 p.m. Free, on-site parking is available. The Bruce Museum is accessible to individuals with disabilities. For information, call the Bruce Museum at (203) 869-0376, or visit the Bruce Museum website at www.brucemuseum.org.

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