TRADITION IN TRANSITION: RUSSIAN ICONS IN THE AGE OF THE ROMANOVS

kh/5-5-08

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                        

CONTACT: Kristal J. Hamm,

(405) 325-3178 or khamm@ou.edu
For IA&A: Amanda Cane, (202) 338-0680
or amandac@artsandartists.org


    NORMAN - The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art announces Tradition in Transition: Russian Icons in the Age of the Romanovs, a stunning exhibition of 45 rare icons and oklads (decorative icon covers) from the collection of Hillwood Museum & Gardens. Tradition in Transition will be on view from June 21 through August 31, 2008. A public opening reception will be held on June 20 from 7 to 9 p.m.

    Seven hundred years of virtual isolation came to a halt when Peter the Great commanded the construction of St. Petersburg, the new capital of Russia, on a Baltic shore swamp.  This symbolic action opened the “window on the West,” resulting in an influx of ideas, styles, fashions and ideologies, which altered the very fabric of Russian society and profoundly influenced its most emblematic artistic expression—the religious icon.

    Tradition in Transition is a visual and didactic exploration of iconography in flux.  Icons from this period—vestiges of the Romanov dynasty—were traditionally viewed as inferior to those produced during the medieval period, or “Golden Age.”  This exhibition challenges the popular scholastic view that the icon degenerated during the Romanov period and suggests instead that the rich variety of conflicting styles and ideas revealed in these “late icons” render them equally worthy of critical recognition.

    The exhibition draws from the collection of Marjorie Merriweather Post and her husband, Joseph Davies, who served as U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1937-38. The collection was further enriched with a bequest from Madame Frances Rosso, the American-born wife of Augusto Rosso, the Italian ambassador in Moscow from 1936 to 1940. In 2002, Hillwood acquired on long-term loan the outstanding collection of icons formerly belonging to Laurence A. Steinhardt, U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union in 1939-41, courtesy of the Laurence A. Steinhardt-Sherlock Trust, a Washington, D.C. foundation.

    The exhibition is organized under the curatorial direction of Wendy Salmond, Ph.D., professor of art history at Chapman University in Orange, California, and Hillwood Museum & Gardens and toured in the United States by International Arts & Artists.
 
    Hillwood Museum & Gardens was the Washington residence of Marjorie Merriweather Post (1887-1973), cereal heiress and art collector, from 1955 to 1973. Mrs. Post assembled the most comprehensive collection of Russian imperial art outside of Russia and a world-renowned collection of eighteenth-century French decorative arts. Hillwood is set upon twenty-five acres, twelve of which are enchanting formal gardens, including a Japanese-style garden and a French parterre. Hillwood opened to the public in 1977.
 
    International Arts & Artists in Washington, D.C., is a non-profit arts service organization dedicated to increasing cross-cultural understanding and exposure to the arts internationally, through exhibitions, programs and services to artists, arts institutions and the public. Visit www.artsandartists.org

    The Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art is located at 555 Elm Avenue in Norman, Oklahoma. Admission to the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art is free to all OU students with a current student ID and all museum association members, $5 for adults, $4 for seniors, $3 for children 6 to 17 years of age, $2 for OU faculty/staff, and free for children 5 and under. Admission is free on Tuesdays.  For information and accommodations on the basis of disability, please call (405) 325-4938.

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