Denver Art Museum

Frederic C. Hamilton building at DAM
The North Building at DAM — designed by Gio Ponti in 1971.

The Denver Art Museum — DAM is an art museum located in the Civic Center of Denver, Colorado. The museum is one of the largest art museums between the West Coast and Chicago.[1] It is known for its collection of American Indian art, and its other collections of more than 68,000 diverse works from across the centuries and world.

History of the museum

Duncan Pavilion

The Duncan Pavilion, and North Building, at DAM.

The Duncan Pavilion is a second story addition to the Morgan Wing of the Denver Art Museum, opened in February 2006. It is a link between the new Daniel Liebeskind designed Hamilton Building and the existing art museum buildings, including the famous 1971 Geo Ponti designed North Building tower.

The project's intent included preserving the integrity of the oldest part of the museum, the landmark Morgan Wing of the art museum built in 1954, while providing a significant mechanical upgrade for it.

The Duncan Pavilion's open assembly area receives the pedestrian bridge from the Hamilton Building with a new pedestrian elevator and monumental glass stair linking pedestrian traffic to the existing Signature Gallery on the first floor. The strongly day lighted space provides a sense of transition between the new and old buildings and a resting point. An upgraded extension of the existing freight elevator creates the final link in the system facilitating artwork traffic between the existing and new buildings so the artwork can be received and serviced in the Hamilton Building and transported to and from the Ponti building’s gallery without exiting the protective environment of the museum.

The new rooftop patio provides panoramic city views of the City Capitol, Civic Center Park, Denver Library, Wellington Webb and other buildings as well as the unique view of standing directly under the new Hamilton Building “prow” almost exactly as you exit the building onto the patio, creating a very dramatic effect.

The Frederic C. Hamilton Building — under construction.

Hamilton Building

Architect Daniel Libeskind, architect of the Frederic C. Hamilton Building.

The Frederic C. Hamilton Building holds the Modern and Contemporary art collection, along with the Architecture and Design collection, and Oceanic art collection. The unique building also serves as the main entrance to the rest of the museum complex.[8] This ambitious project doubled the size of the museum, allowing for an expansion of the art on view, inside a bold aesthetic facade.

The complex deconstructivist geometric design of the Hamilton building consists 20 sloping planes, covered in 230,000 square feet of titanium shingles. The angular design juts in many directions, supported by a 2,740-ton structure that contains more than 3,100 pieces of steel. One of the angled elements extends 100 feet (30 m) over the street below. None of the 20 planes is parallel or perpendicular to another.[9]

The design uses many extended angular planes to be reminiscent of the natural landscape. Similar to the peaked roof of the Denver International Airport, the Hamilton building emulates the sharp angles of the nearby Rocky Mountains, as well as the geometric crystals found at the mountains' base near Denver. Daniel Libeskind, architect of the building, said “I was inspired by the light and geology of the Rockies, but most of all by the wide-open faces of the people of Denver.”[10] The titanium panels also reflect the light of the Colorado sunshine.

Context

Regarding the entire design concept, Libeskind commented, “The project is not designed as a standalone building but as part of a composition of public spaces, monuments and gateways in this developing part of the city, contributing to the synergy amongst neighbors large and intimate.”

Libeskind designed a landscaped pedestrian plaza for the DAM complex, which also displays significant works of outdoor sculpture. The works include: 'Scottish Angus Cow and Calf' by Dan Ostermiller, 'Big Sweep' by Coosje van Bruggen and Claes Oldenburg, and 'Denver Monoliths' by Beverly Pepper.[11]

Awards

Because of the distinct configuration of the steel to produce the bold building, the Hamilton Building expansion of the DAM received a Presidential Award of Excellence, from the American Institute of Steel Construction—AISC’s 2007 Innovative Design in Engineering and Architecture with Structural Steel (IDEAS2) awards program. In determining the winning projects, the AISC judges considered each project’s use of structural steel from both an architectural and structural engineering perspective. They emphasized: “Creative solutions to the project’s program requirements; applications of innovative design approaches in areas such as connections, gravity systems, lateral load resisting systems, fire protection, and blast; the aesthetic and visual impact of the project, particularly in the coordination of structural steel elements with other materials; and, the innovative uses of architecturally exposed structural steel and advances in the use of structural steel, either technically or in the architectural expression.”[12]

Architectural reviews

The dramatic design of the Hamilton extension of DAM has received mixed reviews. The architecture critic for the "Los Angeles Times", Christopher Hawthorne, said that "Museum architecture does not always blend cohesively with a great architectural achievement." He reported that “It’s a really stunning piece of architectural sculpture, but the aggressive forms make it a pretty terrible place for showing and looking at art.”[13]

Lewis Sharp (DAM director, 1989-2009) said that one of the most thrilling moments about the Hamilton Building was how the visitors see the artworks within an entirely new, exciting environment as the artists’ work is displayed and hung in over 20 different ways in the dramatic, sloping, obliquely shaped galleries. He adds, “I think you often see things that you had never seen before. It just raises all types of potentially new ways to engage a visitor.”[13] Some visitors and Denver residents appreciate the design, such as the Andresons who said, “We’re in normal looking buildings every single day. It’s just kind of an experience to walk into a room that doesn’t look like rooms that we would normally be in.” Sharp says that is exactly what the museum was looking for in their expansion. He said the museum’s board was seeking the opportunity to draw people to the city by building something radical and spectacular, to capture the attention of people around the country and the world. The Frederic C. Hamilton building does stand out in the Denver cityscape.

Collections

The museum has nine curatorial departments: Architecture, Design & Graphics; Asian Art; Modern and Contemporary; Native arts (American Indian, Oceanic, and African); New World (pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial); painting and sculpture (European and American); Photography; Western Art; and Textile Art.[14]

Architecture, Design, and Graphics

For more than two decades, the Denver Art Museum has made a major commitment to building one of the preeminent modern and contemporary design collections of any comprehensive museum in the United States. The collection has developed outstanding concentrations in areas including Italian design from the 1960s and 1970s, American graphic design from the 1950s to the present day, post-World War II furniture and product design in America and Western Europe, and contemporary Western European and Japanese design. Today, the collection consists of more than 12,000 objects dating from the sixteenth century to the present. [15]

Asian Art

The museum's Asian art Collection, the only such resource in the Rocky Mountain region, includes four main galleries devoted to the arts of India, China, Japan and South—western Asia. Additional galleries offer works of Tibetan art, and from Nepal and Southeast Asia, while thematic galleries display religious art and traditional folk crafts.[16]

Modern and Contemporary Art

The Modern and Contemporary Art Collection contains over 4,500 works of 20th-century art by internationally known and emerging artists, within the Modern & Contemporary Department. The department includes the Herbert Bayer collection and archive, a Bauhaus artistic and scholarly resource, containing some 2,500 items.

The collection contains works by modern artists, including: Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, Henri Matisse, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Man Ray. The collection contains works by contemporary artists, including: Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Robert Motherwell, Damien Hirst, Philip Guston, Knox Martin, Jacobo de la Serna, Dan Flavin, John DeAndrea, Gottfried Helnwein, and Yue Minjun.[17][18] There are also paintings by these Modern painters in this art museum;{Kerry James Marshall},{Robert Arneson},{Kent Monkman}(Artist's Model"),[Mark Bowles}("Intersect").and( Keith Jacobsen)plus Modern creations by (Sandy Skoglund}("Fox Games"),{Jim Dine},and El Anatsui}.

Linda

A notable piece is in the modern and contemporary collection. Linda, by Denver artist John DeAndrea, is a life-size realistic sculpture of a sleeping woman. Made of polyvinyl, the piece is sunlight-sensitive and is shown only for short periods of time.[19]

The Shootout

In 1983 the museum became the home of the controversial pop-art sculpture The Shootout, by Red Grooms. It represents a cowboy and an Indian shooting at one another. The sculpture, now on the roof of the museum restaurant, had been evicted from two other downtown Denver locations after Native American activists protested and threatened to deface the work.[20]

Indigenous Arts

Indigenous peoples art collections include works from the Americas, Oceania, and Africa. Pre-Columbian art is in the New World collection

Native American

The museum's American Indian Art Collection of Native American art has over 16,000 works representing over a hundred First Nations and Native American tribes from across North America. Under the direction of Arnold Ronnebeck, Art Director from 1926–1930, the Denver Art Museum was one of the first museums to use aesthetic quality as the criteria to develop such a collection, and the first fine arts museum in the country to collect American Indian art. The museum exhibits these items as art works, rather than as anthropological artifacts. The range of Native American art styles is reflected in such diverse objects as Northwest Coast art woodcarving, Naskapi painted leather garments, Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) twined weaving, Plains Indian beadwork, Navajo weaving, Puebloan pottery, and Californian basketry.[21] There are also 20th century paintings by Native American painters including Dan Namingha, Kevin Red Star, Kay Walkingstick, and Jaune Quick To See Smith plus sculptural works by Allan Houser, Virgil Ortiz and a creation by Roxanne Swentzell ("Mud Woman Rolls On".)

Oceanic

The Oceanic art collection, on view in the Hamilton Building, includes all major island groups, with particular strength in late 18th and early 19th-century wood carving and painted bark cloth from the islands of Samoa, Tonga and Hawaii. The Melanesian collection consists of masterpieces from Papua New Guinea and New Ireland. The contemporary Oceanic works, including paintings, drawings and prints, add distinction to the collection and demonstrate cultural continuities and innovation in Oceanic artistic traditions.[22]

African

The African art Collection consists of more than 1,000 objects, and focuses on the diverse artistic traditions of Africa, including rare works in sculpture, textiles, jewelry, painting, printmaking, and drawings. Although the strength of the collection is West African art, with emphasis on Yoruba works, there are masterpieces from all regions and mediums of expression including wood, metals, fibers, terracotta and mixed media compositions. The hallmark of the collection includes Contemporary African Art, comprising paintings, sculptures, drawings, videos, and prints from prominent living artists with international reputations. Interactive elements in the gallery include an iPod station with African music selections, an area where to create rubbings using African designs, and a "movie hide-away" for children.[23]

New World Collection

The New World Department has a comprehensive representation of the major stylistic movements from all the geographic areas and cultures of the New World. The New World Collection, comprising over 5,500 objects, is exhibited in a unified presentation of the arts of Latin America. Included are Pre-Columbian masterworks of ceramic, stone, gold, and jade by the indigenous peoples of the Americas. From the Spanish Colonial Period, the collection includes paintings, sculpture, furniture, and silver pieces. There are also Spanish Colonial Period paintings by Miguel Cabrera,Juan Rodriguez Juarez,Luis Nino (Potosi, Bolivia "Our Lady of Victory of Malaga"),Francisco Clapera (Mexico-series of casta paintings) and Gaspar Munoz de Salazar (Mexico-"Mystic Dinner".)

Mayer Center

The Frederick & Jan Mayer Center at the Denver Art Museum is dedicated to increasing awareness and promoting scholarship in the fields of Pre-Columbian and Spanish Colonial art through the New World Collections at DAM. The Mayer Center sponsors annual symposia and publications of their proceedings and additional volumes, research including a resident fellowship program, and periodic study tours to Latin America and Spain. The programming of the Mayer Center is directed by DAM's New World Department.[24]

Pre-Columbian art

The Denver Art Museum's Pre-Columbian art Collection is encyclopedic in breath and depth, and exhibited in an open storage gallery, allowing scholars to view the entire collection. The Pre-Columbian collection represents visual arts by indigenous peoples of the Americas from nearly every major culture in Mesoamerica, Central America, and South America. The collection’s greatest strength is the Mayer Central American collection which includes gold, jade, stone, and earthenware from Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama. Ancient Maya art from southern Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize is especially significant, and contains a large number of very important works. Other significant holdings from Mesoamerica include the Mexican ceramics, Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition, Teotihuacan, and Olmec art collections. South American collections are especially strong in Ecuadorian and Colombian art, and in several of the Peruvian art traditions of Ancient Peru, particularly Moche, Wari, Tiwanaku, and Chimu.[25]

Spanish Colonial art and design

The Spanish Colonial Collection of paintings and furniture is the most comprehensive one in the United States. It is especially strong in paintings from the Viceroyalty of New Spain era (colonial Mexico), largely due to the collecting interests and generosity of the Mayer family. Another area of great strength is the paintings from the Viceroyalty of Peru era (colonial Peru), from the Frank Barrows Freyer Collection. Silver holdings, comprising the Appleman and Stapleton collections, and furniture holdings from all over Latin America represent a comprehensive decorative arts collection. The Anne Evans collection of Spanish Colonial art from the Southwestern United States is yet another significant strength of the collection.[26]

European and American art

The Painting and Sculpture Department is composed of over 3,000 objects, representing American and European painting, sculpture, prints, and drawings, created from the Renaissance to pre-1900s. The European collection is richest in Renaissance art and 19th-century French paintings. The American collection consists of paintings, sculpture, prints, and drawings — representing all major periods in American art before 1945.[27]

Artists represented include Sandro Botticelli, Defendente Ferrari, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Georgia O'Keeffe. Other painters represented include; Jacopo del Casentino ("Madonna and Child"), Bernardo Zenale, Niccolò di Pietro Gerini ("4 Crowned Saints Before Diocletan"), Filippino Lippi, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Berthe Morisot, Max Beckmann, Juan Gris, and Georges Braque. Other painters represented include: Giovanni da Bologna ("Coronation of Virgin"); Giovanni Bonsi ("Madonna and Christ Child With Donor"); Jaime Cirera ("Crucifixion"); Sano di Pietro ("Virgin and Christ Child With Saints"); Giuseppe Arcimboldo ("Summer"); Jan van Scorel ("Portrait of Young Man"); Jan van Goyen ("Dune Landscape"); and Gustave Doré

The Berger Collection
Marguerite of Valois, Queen of Navarre by Nicholas Hilliard, Berger Collection

Works are on view from the Berger Collection, one of the largest private individual collections of British art in the world, with more than 150 pieces by British artists. These include works by Thomas Gainsborough, Edward Lear, and other artists of the English school of painting, that covers a period of six centuries. Other painters represented in the Berger Collection include Hieronymus Custodis, Thomas Hudson("Radcliffe Family"), Robert Peake, William Larkin, and George Romney.

Photography

The Photography Collection, whose photographic works were previously incorporated within the modern and contemporary art collection, and in the Western American art collection, became the separate Photography Department in 2008. The collection includes 19th-century photographs of the American West.[28]

Textile Art

The Department of Textile Art collection ranges from Coptic art and pre-Columbian textiles to contemporary works of art in fiber, overlapping culturally and chronologically with all but the Native American Arts Department. A nationally-recognized collection of American Quilt art and Coverlets, the Julia Wolf Glasser Collection of samplers, and the Charlotte Hill Grant Collection of Chinese Court Costumes, are among the strengths of the department.[29]

Western American Art

The Petrie Institute of Western American Art at the Denver Art Museum was established in 2001 and its mission is to recognize and promote the significance of the West in the larger picture of American cultural development. Through publications, research, symposia, exhibitions, and acquisitions the Petrie Institute strives to bring the Denver Art Museum to the forefront of internationally respected centers of western American art. The collection of American West art includes the masterworks: In the Enemy's Country by Charles M. Russell; The Cheyenne by Frederic Remington; and Long Jakes by Charles Deas. The 19th-century photographs of the West collection is now in the Photography Department.[30]

The Harmsen Collection

Also in 2001, the Western American Art collection was augmented by the Harmsen Foundation's donation of over 700 paintings. The Harmsen Collection contains works by artists and photographers who charted the settling of the American West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The artists represented include: Frederic Remington, Charles M. Russell, Frank E. Schoonover, and Frank Tenney Johnson. The collection also includes works by modern interpreters of American Western art, including: Gerald Curtis Delano, Harvey Dunn, Dan Muller, and Raymond Jonson. There is also an extensive collection of paintings by painters connected with Santa Fe and Taos, New Mexico, in the 20th century, including Joseph Sharp, E. Irving Couse, Oscar Berninghaus, Ernest Blumenschein, Victor Higgins,E.Martin Hennings, William "Buck" Dunton("Black Bears", and Nicolai Fechin.

Selected past exhibitions

Past exhibitions at DAM include:[31]

Education

The museum’s Education Department has emphasized three areas: 1) Research in making museum visits successful and enjoyable; 2) Creation of innovative installed learning materials (e.g., audio tours, labeling, video and reading areas, response journals, and hands-on and art-making areas); and 3) Interactive learning for young people both in school and family groups. Family-friendly programs such as the Just for Fun Family Center, Eye Spy gallery games, the Discovery Library, Kids Corner, and Family Backpacks have been both popular and successful. In particular, the Family Backpack program has been adopted and adapted by other institutions, ranging from the Victoria and Albert Museum to the Henry Ford Museum.[32]

Funding

The museum is run by a non-profit organization separate from the City of Denver. Major funding for the museum is provided by a 0.1% sales tax levied in the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD), which includes seven Colorado counties in the Denver-Aurora metropolitan area.[33] About 60% of this tax is used to provide funding for the Denver Art Museum and three other major science and cultural facilities in Denver, the Denver Botanic Gardens, the Denver Zoo, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. In addition, the museum receives large private donations and loans from private collections. Over the past five years, the Denver Art Museum has averaged 465,000 visitors a year. Total revenues for the Museum in 2003 were $23 million.

References

  1. 1 2 3 denverartmuseum.org: DAM — mission + history . accessed 3.30.2013
  2. ↑ William C. and Kenton Forest. Denver: A pictorial history from frontier camp to Queen City of the Plains. Colorado Railroad Museum, 1993
  3. 1 2 Harris, Neil. "Searching for Form." The First Hundred Years. The Denver Art Museum, 1996
  4. 1 2 3 denverartmuseum.org: DAM — the North Building . accessed 3.30.2013
  5. ↑ Jones, William C. and Kenton Forest. Denver: A pictorial history from frontier camp to Queen City of the Plains. Colorado Railroad Museum, 1993,
  6. ↑ Denver Art Museum. "The Buildings." Denver Art Museum. N.p., 01 2012. Web. 29 Mar 2012. <http://www.denverartmuseum.org/about/the-buildings>.
  7. ↑ AIA.org / Site Objects: Building Information Modeling (pdf)
  8. ↑ Saieh, Nico. "Denver Art Museum/Daniel Libeskind." Arch Daily. N.p., 05 10 2010. Web. 29 Mar 2012. <http://www.archdaily.com/80309/denver-art-museum-daniel-libeskind/>.
  9. ↑ AISC. "Denver Art Museum." Structure. 11 2007: n. page. Web. 29 Mar. 2012. <http://www.structuremag.org/article.aspx?articleID=299>.
  10. ↑ Denver Art Museum. "The Buildings." Denver Art Museum. N.p., 01 2012. Web. 29 Mar 2012. <http://www.denverartmuseum.org/about/the-buildings>
  11. ↑ "Daniel Libeskind, Frederic C. Hamilton Building." Arcspace. N.p., 09 10 2006. Web. 29 Mar 2012. <http://www.arcspace.com/architects/Libeskind/denver2/denver2.html>.
  12. ↑ American Institute of Steel Construction, . "2007 IDEAS2 Awards." Modern Steel Construction. 2007: n. page. Print.
  13. 1 2 Sydell, Laura, perf. "Blancing Form, Function In Museum Architecture." All Things Considered. NPR: 08 12 2008. Radio.
  14. ↑ DAM — Gallery Map: the collections
  15. ↑ DAM — Architecture, Design, and Graphics collection
  16. ↑ DAM — Asian Art Collection
  17. ↑ DAM — Modern and Contemporary Art Collection
  18. ↑ DAM — The Logan Collection of Contemporary Art
  19. ↑ http://denverartmuseum.org/article/conservation-lindas-modern-materials
  20. ↑ Irene Clurman, "Orphan sculpture to find home at art museum," Rocky Mountain News, 12 October 1983, p.6.
  21. ↑ DAM — American Indian Art Collection
  22. ↑ DAM — Oceanic Art
  23. ↑ DAM — African Art Collection
  24. ↑ DAM — Frederick & Jan Mayer Center, New World Department.
  25. ↑ DAM — Pre-Columbian Art Collection
  26. ↑ DAM — Spanish Colonial Collection
  27. ↑ DAM — European and American Art collection
  28. ↑ DAM — Photography Department
  29. ↑ DAM — Department of Textile Art
  30. ↑ DAM — Western American Art
  31. ↑ DAM — Past Exhibitions
  32. ↑ DAM — Kids & Families
  33. ↑ DAM — Scientific and Cultural Facilities District (SCFD) funding

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