Come view a spectacular new exhibition now on display at the Frist Art Center.
Drawn from one of the oldest and most significant private collections in Europe, Treasures from the House of Alba: 500 Years of Art and Collecting features works by Goya, Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, and more from the splendid palaces of the Alba dynasty in Spain.
The exhibition brings together more than 130 works of art dating from antiquity to the twentieth century. This is the first major exhibition outside Spain of works from the collection of the House of Alba—a prominent Spanish noble family with ties to the monarchy since the fifteenth century.
Prints and drawings, sculptures, letters, illuminated manuscripts, decorative objects, and tapestries provide further insight into the role of the Alba family in world history.
Highlights include masterpieces of Dutch, Flemish, German, Italian, and Spanish painting, such as Francisco de Goya’s The Duchess of Alba in White and Leonardo Bassano’s recently conserved Forge of Vulcan.
A map by Christopher Columbus will be on display, along with other handwritten documents, including his list of the people who accompanied him on the Santa Maria on his 1492 Journey of Discovery and a drawing of the coastline of La Española (Hispaniola).
Take a special tour led by Trinita Kennedy, Frist Center curator, on Friday, February 25, 2016 at 12 Noon. More than five centuries in the making, the Alba collection is one of the finest private collections in Europe, and is usually kept behind closed doors in three splendid palaces in Spain. Join Trinita Kennedy to find out how this aristocratic family acquired masterpieces such as Francisco Goya’s Duchess of Alba in White, as well as the largest archive of Christopher Columbus documents in the world.
While you are at the Frist, be sure to see the fascinating new exhibition by Guido van der Werve: Nummers 2 6 8 14, also through May 1, 2016, in the Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery. This exhibition presents four films from Guido van der Werve’s Nummers (Numbers) series, which reveal the artist’s interest in wittily subverting relationships between time, nature, culture, and the body. Incorporating a wide range of physical and auditory expressions, from classical music and ballet dancing to long-distance running and swimming, these understated works offer the pleasure of the unexpected.
“Guido van der Werve’s dry humor and obsessive negotiation of challenging, self-imposed situations merges poetry and pathos in unpredictable ways,” says Frist Center Chief Curator Mark Scala. “Being in Nashville, we are especially interested in artists who use music in the crafting of aesthetic experiences. Van der Werve does this with classical music, often of his own composing, providing an almost dreamlike counterpoint to his films.”
The Frist Center for the Visual Arts, located at 919 Broadway, Nashville, Tennessee, 37203, is open Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Thursday & Friday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Sunday from 1:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. For more, go to: www.fristcenter.org.
