Curule: Ancient Design in
American Federal Furniture
August 5, 2003–January 4, 2004

This exhibition explores the sources of inspiration for the classical revival furniture that used the sella curulis, or folding stool, as a prototype. Chairs, settees, and a stool are augmented with design books and ancient images. Accompanied by an illustrated catalogue.

Organized by David L. Barquist, Acting Curator of American Decorative Arts, and Ethan W. Lasser, the Henry S. McNeil Graduate Research Assistant. Supported by Friends of American Art at Yale.

Modern Bronze:
Masterworks from a Private Collection
February 18–May 18, 2003

A group of bronze sculptures by Jean (Hans) Arp, Max Ernst, Alberto Giacometti, Henri Matisse, Isamu Noguchi, and Auguste Rodin, among others, lent by a private collector.

Organized by Susan Greenberg, Assistant Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
The Once and Future Art Gallery:
Renewing Yale’s Oldest Museum
January 21–May 18, 2003

An exhibition of historic and contemporary architectural drawings and photographs that looks backward and forward at the structures that have housed this teaching museum’s ever-growing collections since it opened in 1832. The exhibition commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Louis I. Kahn building and marks the launch of its complete refurbishing. A special issue of the Yale University Art Gallery Bulletin devoted to the architectural history of the museum accompanies the exhibition.

Organized by Susan B. Matheson, the Molly and Walter Bareiss Curator of Ancient Art, and Suzanne Boorsch, Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.
Degas: Defining the Modernist Edge
January 14–May 18, 2003

An exhibition of paintings, etchings, drawings, and bronze and wax sculptures, selected from the permanent collection, of such modern subjects as ballet dancers, bathers, and horse races. Through his unique use of cropping, his recycling of anatomical and compositional forms as vocabulary for larger scenes, and his reapplication of traditional drawing and sculpting techniques in ways that challenge traditional artistic practice, Degas’s work defined the edge of modernism in visual culture. Accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with contributions by Jennifer Gross, Aruna de Souza, Susan Greenberg, Richard Kendall, and Edgar Mendhall.

Organized by Jennifer Gross, the Seymour H. Knox, Jr., Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. Supported by The Robert Lehman Foundation.