will feature nearly two dozen works, variously on paper, canvas, or wood panel'all selected from the Museum's extensive Russell holdings' demonstrating the artist's exploration of French Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, and other movements of the early twentieth century, when Russell belonged to the avant-garde circle of Leo and Gertrude Stein and studied in the popular Acad??mie Matisse (ca. 1908'1910), in Paris, under the celebrated Fauve ("wild beast") master.



Organized by Gregory Galligan, Ph.D., an independent curator and former director of the Museum's Morgan Russell Archives and Collection Enhancement Project, 2004'2006, the exhibition features the recently uncovered painting, Nude at Sunset, of 1922, an oil-on-panel long hidden from view due to its serving as the reverse side of Russell's historic Study for Synchromy, of 1913. The formerly masked painting was restored to full view by Galligan and Collections Assistant Maryanna Roberts during preparations for this exhibition. The double-sided work will be displayed as a freestanding, "walk-around" object, suggesting Russell's early training in architecture and sculpture, and providing visitors with alternate views demonstrating, in turn, Russell's invention of the abstract school of Synchromism (meaning "with color"), from 1912 to 1914, as well as his subsequent return to figurative painting in the South of France in the company of Amadeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine, and Leo Survage, during World War I'no less throughout Russell's remaining career as an American expatriate working in relative solitude in the French countryside. [ more information ]