Do you want to see an entire figure constructed from soda bottle caps? Is a paper covered in tiny doll heads — and skulls — right up your alley? Perhaps a painting of a dinosaur that counts cornmeal as a medium ignites your imagination. If you are fascinated by strange, charming, colorful and profound artwork, the Cincinnati Art Museum’s new exhibition, “Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection,” is the perfect show for you.
The collection comes courtesy of Richard “Dick” Rosenthal, a well-established and generous arts patron. Rosenthal and his late wife, Lois, began collecting work by self-taught artists in the early 1990s. Thirty-eight pieces from that collection, selected by Rosenthal, his family and art museum staff, are featured in “Creating Connections.”
“I believe all people who create any kind of art want it to live in perpetuity,” Rosenthal says. “The showing of the art is important to me because they (the artists) want their art to be seen.”
“Creating Connections” includes artwork that will be integrated into the museum’s permanent collection as part of a promised bequest made by Rosenthal. A fully illustrated catalog published by the art museum, in association with D. Giles Ltd., accompanies the show.
“The collection is a very personal work of art itself,” says Dr. Julie Aronson, curator of American paintings, sculpture and drawings. “Dick is very conscious about collecting things that would have an important role in a museum.”
When visiting “Creating Connections,” art museum guests will have the pleasure of viewing work created by artists from Japan, India, Great Britain and across Europe, along with several pieces from the southern region of the United States. Even a few Ohio-based artists are featured, such as William Hawkins (1895-1990) from Columbus and Mary K. Borkowski (1916-2008), a needlework artist who grew up on a farm near Dayton.
The common denominator for the collection is that the artists were all self-taught.
“The ‘Creating Connections’ exhibition is very affirming in that anyone can create artwork,” Aronson says. “Our guests can relate to the experiences of the artists. It’s diverse in the kind of expression they’ll see.”
Aronson notes that the artists’ stories are just as compelling as their work. Many created their art under challenging circumstances and had to rely on found materials, such as wood scraps, sticks, chain-link fencing, soda cans, rocks, cardboard and housepaint, to bring their visions to life. Despite these struggles, making art helped the artists develop an identity and feel anchored to the world.
“There are no inhibitions to the art they make … very little that’s subtle. You catch the message very quickly,” Rosenthal says.
Rosenthal and Aronson hope “Creating Connections” will expand guests’ ideas of what constitutes a museum-quality piece of art and provide greater appreciation for the work of self-taught artists.
“I want visitors to recognize the legitimacy of this genre (self-taught art),” Rosenthal says. “It also will mean different things to different people … I want them to hear the message. I hope they will say, ‘I didn’t think about a certain topic being presented in that way before, and now I do.’”
“Creating Connections: Self-Taught Artists in the Rosenthal Collection” is sponsored by Veritable and runs through October 8. Admission is free. General admission to the Cincinnati Art Museum is also free. No ticket is required.
Want to see “Creating Connections’” strange, charming, colorful and profound artwork for yourself? Call 513-721-ARTS (2787) or visit cincinnatiartmuseum.org for more information.