O’Keeffe/Moore

This exhibition closes January 20, 2025, so there’s plenty of time to go see this wonderful display of nature between the American and British artists. Most of O’Keeffe’s works are displayed on the walls as they are paintings—although she did have a few sculptures, one of which is in the exhibition. Aside from the one O’Keeffe sculpture, the rest of the sculptures are made by the British sculptor Henry Moore. 

Like O’Keeffe, they replicate nature, and the MFA compares sculptures to paintings that are similar to each other, like in the right photo with the twisting tan statue compared to the painting behind it. There are plenty of other instances like that throughout, and the MFA brought some of their own works from their collections to aid in the mission of the exhibition, and it helped. 

This exhibition also has a part I am not used to: they replicate the artists’ studios.¹ And to an almost great extent. The Moore replication brought in a saw and little statutes, and they researched what would be appropriate for a 1940’s England art studio. The O’Keeffe replication was also done beautifully, an unfinished painting on an easel, some paints she would have used, and some benches with wood from the Southwestern United States. 

It’s a little trippy—the exhibition’s layout is different from how the museum normally does it, so taking a left where they normally would take a right may scratch some heads, but I figure more people are focused on the art than they are on the layout of the exhibition space. It’s a beautiful show, and O’Keeffe is always a master of the American art scene. I had never heard of Moore, but I’m glad he was included in this show.

Dalí: Disruption and Devotion

Everyone knows Dalí was not normal. He was described as eccentric even by his classmates at school. His art is the same, and it’s evident in this exhibition. The exhibition closed December 1st, so if you didn’t get to see it, I greatly apologize for not bringing it to your attention. There are Dalí paintings scattered all over the U.S. and especially the Northeast, so you can find a bit of chaos wherever you’d like. 

The exhibition itself was amazing. As soon as you walk in, you’re greeted with “The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory,” a follow-up of Dalí’s famous “The Persistence of Memory” which will never leave the Museum of Modern Art. It’s a start to the exhibition in the perfect way: an opening to his own chaos. 

Dalí was a master of surrealism, and his devotion to his craft and to his religion greatly inspired his art, although his art may not be widely accepted by his fellow Christians. The MFA shows this well—displaying some of their own works, a couple of bibles, and Spanish religious artworks. Each section of the exhibition has a piece of Dalí’s own artistry. His love for his predecessors Francisco Goya and Diego Valesquez, for example, or maybe his love for painting not-so-still still lifes. The MFA compares Dalí’s works to the artists he was inspired by, so the viewer can compare. The “still lifes” which are not quite still, like “Eggs on the plate without the plate” (1932), the painting on the left in the middle photo, show a little bit of Dalí’s chaos.

Like most MFA exhibitions, I loved this one. It made me giggle softly to myself as I looked at the tiny self portrait in the corner of “The Ecumenical Council,” but some of his works are philosophical too, like “Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy (The Three Ages)” and are just haunting to look at. 

While Dalí: Disruption and Devotion is closed as of December 1st, the O’Keeffe and Moore show is up through January 20th, so there is plenty of time to go see that, but you do have to buy a separate ticket to go see it as it’s down in the special exhibition gallery!

As for my very special review: I prefer O’Keeffe/Moore over Dalí. While Dalí was great, yes, and it was a whirlwind of learning about him and his chaos, the main exhibition had a cohesive theme. Going into it, I was not expecting the two art styles to go together, but they did. They harmonized naturally to create the theme that the exhibition was made for.

¹ The Sargent exhibition this spring had one too, yes, but it was only the wallpaper.