The Cleveland Museum of Art New Exhibition Openings in 2023

CLEVELAND (January 26, 2023)
*Indicates a ticketed exhibition

Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art
Through June 11, 2023
James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawings Gallery | Gallery 101
Images

Drawing transformed radically in 19th-century France, expanding from a means of artistic training to an independent medium with rich potential for exploration and experimentation. This exhibition celebrates the CMA’s internationally recognized holdings of 19th-century French drawings—a cornerstone of its collection since the institution opened in 1916. Over the past century, the CMA has acquired exceptional and diverse sheets—from one with sketches made by a young Edgar Degas during his first trip to Italy to the first drawing by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec to enter an American museum collection.

The approximately 50 featured artworks explore the history of drawing in 19th-century France and chronicle the remarkable role the medium has played at the CMA. Following landmark acquisitions, across a number of decades, by such iconic artists as Honoré Daumier, Berthe Morisot and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, the CMA has continued to enhance and deepen its collection of drawings. The numerous recently acquired works in this exhibition include a luminous colored pencil study by symbolist artist Alexandre Séon and a group of “noir” drawings—named for their use of varied black drawing media—by Henri Fantin-Latour, Albert-Charles Lebourg and Adolphe Appian, among others.

A richly illustrated catalogue—the first to document this collection—accompanies the exhibition, featuring new research on each of the included works and essays by leading scholars in the field.

Principal support is provided by the Getty Foundation as part of The Paper Project initiative. Major support is provided by the Wolfgang Ratjen Foundation, Liechtenstein. Additional support is provided by the Simon Family Foundation, a supporting foundation of the Jewish Federation of Cleveland. 

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder. Major annual support is provided by the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Richard and Dian Disantis, Leigh and Andy Fabens, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Carl T. Jagatich, Cathy Lincoln, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, Michael and Cindy Resch, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, Margaret and Loyal Wilson, and Claudia C. Woods and David A. Osage.

The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England*
February 26 to May 14, 2023
The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall
Images

England under the volatile Tudor dynasty was a thriving home for the arts. An international community of artists and merchants, many of them religious refugees, navigated the high-stakes demands of royal patrons, including England’s first two reigning queens. Against the backdrop of shifting political relationships with mainland Europe, Tudor artistic patronage legitimized, promoted and stabilized a series of tumultuous reigns, from Henry VII’s seizure of the throne in 1485 to the death of his granddaughter Elizabeth I in 1603. The Tudor courts were truly cosmopolitan, boasting the work of Florentine sculptors, German painters, Flemish weavers and Europe’s best armorers, goldsmiths and printers, while also contributing to the emergence of a distinctly English style.

This exhibition traces the transformation of the arts in Tudor England through more than 80 objects—including iconic portraits, spectacular tapestries, manuscripts, sculpture and armor—from both the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collection and international lenders.

A catalogue accompanies the exhibition.

The exhibition is organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in collaboration with the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF). It is on view at the Met from October 10, 2022, to January 8, 2023, and at FAMSF from June 24, 2023, to September 24, 2023.

The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England is made possible with support from Viia R. Beechler, Carl M. Jenks, Patty and Rodger Kowall, and Robert and TuYa Shwab. 

This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. 

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder and by the late Roy L. Williams. Major annual support is provided by the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Richard and Dian Disantis, Leigh and Andy Fabens, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Carl T. Jagatich, Cathy Lincoln, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, Michael and Cindy Resch, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, Margaret and Loyal Wilson, and Claudia C. Woods and David A. Osage.

Riemenschneider and Late Medieval Alabaster
March 26 to July 23, 2023
Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery | Gallery 010
Images

Alabaster was prized for its luster and capacity for fine details from the 14th to the 16th century particularly in Germany, the Netherlands, France and Spain. The gleaming stone was used for altarpieces and small sculptures, as well as for the tombs of wealthy princes. Despite the rich corpus of surviving works, medieval alabaster sculpture from continental Europe has not yet been highlighted by museums in Europe and North America.

This exhibition seeks to shed light on this important yet understudied topic by gathering some of the most extraordinary surviving examples of alabaster works made in Europe during the late Middle Ages. The majority of objects on view are from the CMA’s collection and allow insight into the production of alabaster sculptures in this period. Loans from North American museums complement the exhibition.

The centerpiece of the show is the CMA’s masterpiece by Tilman Riemenschneider, Saint Jerome and the Lion, produced for the Benedictine abbey church of Saint Peter in Erfurt, Germany, depicting a legend in which Jerome gently removes a thorn from a lion’s paw. The CMA’s exhibition reunites Saint Jerome with another Riemenschneider work from the same church in Erfurt, an alabaster statuette titled Virgin Mary of the Annunciation, in the collection of the Musée du Louvre. These works are exceptionally rare, as they are two of only a few extant alabaster sculptures produced by Riemenschneider; Saint Jerome and the Lion is the only work in alabaster by Riemenschneider in an American museum. One of the most prolific late Gothic sculptors, Riemenschneider is renowned for his technical virtuosity and ability to convincingly portray human emotion in his elegant sculptures of religious figures. Saint Jerome and the Lion and the Louvre’s Virgin Mary exemplify Riemenschneider’s artistic ability, as well as the refinement that can be achieved with alabaster by virtue of the medium’s softness.

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder and by the late Roy L. Williams. Major annual support is provided by the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Richard and Dian Disantis, Leigh and Andy Fabens, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Carl T. Jagatich, Cathy Lincoln, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, Michael and Cindy Resch, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, Margaret and Loyal Wilson, and Claudia C. Woods and David A. Osage.

The exhibition catalogue for Riemenschneider and Late Medieval Alabaster was made possible with support from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

This exhibition was supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Egyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession
April 1, 2023, to January 28, 2024
Arlene M. and Arthur S. Holden Textile Gallery | Gallery 234 | Gallery 107
Images

Egyptian art has long served, and continues to serve, as a primary inspiration for fashion designers, solidifying the legacy of Egyptomania—the influence of the art of ancient Egypt. This exhibition brings together around 50 objects that explore the influence of Egyptomania in fashion by juxtaposing contemporary fashion and jewelry loaned from around the world with fine and decorative artworks from the CMA collection. Egyptomania: Fashion’s Conflicted Obsession examines designers’ interpretations of themes such as Egyptian dress, funerary process and religion that shape our contemporary perceptions of ancient Egyptian culture.

The complex history of European imperialism in Egypt, which dates back to the ages of the Greeks and Romans, has made Egyptomania in European and American art controversial. After a lull in diplomatic European interactions with Egypt from the Middle Ages to the 18th century, the 1798 invasion of the country by the French army, led by Napoleon Bonaparte, reinvigorated European and American interest in ancient Egyptian art and culture.

European archeological expeditions throughout the 19th and 20th centuries sent back massive amounts of Egyptian art to European and American museums, rousing a recurring interest in its forms in decorative arts, architecture, and fashion. After the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamun’s tomb, fashion’s leading minds, from Paul Poiret to accessory enterprises like Cartier, fiercely embraced ancient Egyptian art as inspiration, making Egyptomania a staple design element. Since then, interest in ancient Egyptian culture has expanded rapidly across media, particularly platforms adjacent to the fashion industry. The exhibition also displays videos of runway shows that demonstrate fashion’s continued discourse with Egyptian art. 

Numerous questions raised by the intersection between Egyptomania and fashion in today’s social climate are also examined in the exhibition. Dialogues about cultural appropriation, ancient Egypt’s place in African history and Black empowerment continue to bubble to the surface, critiquing fashion’s conflicted obsession with Egyptian art.

Generous support is provided by Maison Yeya.

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder and by the late Roy L. Williams. Major annual support is provided by the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Richard and Dian Disantis, Leigh and Andy Fabens, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Carl T. Jagatich, Cathy Lincoln, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Bill and Joyce Litzler, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, Michael and Cindy Resch, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, and Margaret and Loyal Wilson. 

The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

This exhibition was supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur
June 11 to September 10, 2023
The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Gallery
Images

Around 1700, artists in Udaipur (a court in northwest India) began creating immersive paintings that convey the mood (bhava) of the city’s palaces, lakes and mountains. These large paintings and their emphasis on lived experience have never been the focus of an exhibition. With dazzling paintings on paper and cloth—many on public view for the first time—A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur reveals how artists visualized emotions, depicted places, celebrated water resources and fostered personal bonds over 200 years in the rapidly changing political and cultural landscapes of early modern South Asia.

The exhibition is organized as a journey that begins at Udaipur’s center and continues outward: first to the city, then to the countryside, and finally to the cosmos.

A Splendid Land: Paintings from Royal Udaipur is organized by the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, in collaboration with the City Palace Museum, Udaipur, administered by the Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation.

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by Michael Frank and the late Pat Snyder and by the late Roy L. Williams. Major annual support is provided by the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Cynthia and Dale Brogan, Dr. Ben and Julia Brouhard, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., Richard and Dian Disantis, Leigh and Andy Fabens, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Carl T. Jagatich, Cathy Lincoln, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Carl and Lu Anne Morrison, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, Henry Ott-Hansen, the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation, and Margaret and Loyal Wilson.

The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

This exhibition was supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.

China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta*
September 10, 2023, to January 7, 2024
The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall
Images

China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta will be the first exhibition in the West that focuses on the artistic production and cultural impact of a region located in the coastal area south of the Yangzi River.

Called Jiangnan, this region has throughout large parts of its history been one of the wealthiest, most populous and fertile lands. For millennia it has been an area of rich agriculture, extensive trade and influential artistic production. Art from Jiangnan—home to such great cities as Hangzhou, Suzhou and Nanjing, as well as to hilly picturesque landscapes stretched along rivers and lakes—has defined the image of traditional China for the world. 

The exhibition features about 200 objects from Neolithic times to the 18th century, ranging from jade, silk, prints and paintings to porcelain, lacquer and bamboo carvings. Jiangnan’s lush, green scenery inspired artists to conceive it as heaven on earth. Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta will explore how this region gained a leading role in China’s artistic production and how it succeeded in setting cultural standards. This international exhibition will present works of art from private and public collections and museums in the United States, Europe, China and Japan.

Principal support is provided by June and Simon K. C. Li and the MCH Foundation. Major support is provided by the American Friends of the Shanghai Museum. Generous support is provided by an anonymous supporter and the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation. Additional support is provided by the Blakemore Foundation and Zheng He Management Group. 

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by the late Roy L. Williams. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Brenda and Marshall Brown, Leigh and Andy Fabens, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Cathy Lincoln, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, and the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation. 

The exhibition catalogue for China’s Southern Paradise: Treasures from the Lower Yangzi Delta was produced with the generous support of the MCH Foundation. 

Degas and the Laundress: Women, Work, and Impressionism in Late Nineteenth-Century Paris*
October 8, 2023, to January 14, 2024
The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Gallery
Images

This groundbreaking exhibition is the first to explore Impressionist artist Edgar Degas’s representations of Parisian laundresses. These working-class women were a visible presence in the city, washing and ironing in shops open to the street or carrying heavy baskets of clothing. Their job was among the most difficult and poorly paid at the time, forcing some laundresses to supplement their income through prostitution. The industry fascinated Degas throughout his long career, beginning in the 1850s and continuing until his final decade of work. He created about 30 depictions of laundresses, united for the first time in this exhibition. The artworks from this series—revolutionary in their emphasis on women’s work, the strenuousness of such labor and social class—were featured in Degas’s earliest and most significant exhibitions, where they were praised by critics as epitomizing modernity.

Degas and the Laundress contextualizes these works with paintings, drawings, and prints of the same subject by the artist’s contemporaries—including Gustave Caillebotte, Berthe Morisot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec—as well as painters that he influenced and was influenced by, from Honoré Daumier to Pablo Picasso. It also presents ephemera, such as posters, photographs and books, that reveals the widespread interest that Parisians of all social classes had in the topic of laundresses during the late 1800s.

The exhibition is accompanied by an interdisciplinary, richly illustrated publication featuring thematic essays by scholars of art history, literature and history.

This exhibition is made possible with support from FRench American Museum Exchange (FRAME) and Mr. and Mrs. Frank H. Porter Jr.

All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Principal annual support is provided by the late Roy L. Williams. Generous annual support is provided by an anonymous supporter, the late Dick Blum and Harriet Warm, Gary and Katy Brahler, Leigh and Andy Fabens, Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, William J. and Katherine T. O’Neill, and the Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation. 

Additional Information

The CDC updated its guidelines regarding the need to wear face coverings in public settings for protection against COVID-19. The CMA recommends but no longer requires visitors to wear a face covering inside the building.

The CMA’s current hours of operation are Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. The museum is closed Mondays. Updated hours will be announced as decided. Visit cma.org to stay up to date on this information.