September 2021 On-Site Exhibitions and Events Listings for the Cleveland Museum of Art

Press Release

Monday August 30, 2021

Contact the Museum's Media Relations Team:
(216) 707-2261
marketingandcommunications@clevelandart.org

Exhibitions

Final Weeks!
Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889–1900
Through September 19, 2021
The Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Exhibition Hall
The exhibition explores beautiful and enigmatic artworks by four Post-Impressionists active in Paris in the 1890s: Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis and Félix Vallotton. In their work—focusing on images of domestic interiors, family life, music in the home and private gardens—emotion and subjective experience were more important than truth.
Admission to the exhibition is FREE on Wednesdays. Reserve tickets online at cma.org, at the box office or by calling 216-421-7350.
Read The Wall Street Journal review.
Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889–1900 is organized by the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Portland Art Museum.
Follow the CMA on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for more information. A series of weekly photo challenges began July 5.
Tickets
CMA members free; adults $15; seniors and adult groups $10; students and children ages 6 to 17 $8; children under 5 free.
Tickets can be reserved online at cma.org, at the box office or by calling 216-421-7350.
Nabi Parlor Talks
Tuesday to Friday, 10 a.m. to noon, and Wednesday and Friday, 2:30 to 4:30 p.m.
Near the exhibition escalators in the Ames Family Atrium
FREE
Drop in for brief, casual docent-led talks about the exhibition.
Major support is provided by the Florence Gould Foundation. Additional support is provided by Anne H. Weil. Generous support is provided by an anonymous supporter and by Sandra and Richey Smith.
The exhibition catalogue for Private Lives: Home and Family in the Art of the Nabis, Paris, 1889–1900 was produced with the support of the FRench American Museum Exchange (FRAME).
All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Major annual support is provided by the Estate of Dolores B. Comey and Bill and Joyce Litzler, with generous annual funding from Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Ms. Arlene Monroe Holden, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.
Opening This Month!
Collecting Dreams: Odilon Redon
September 19, 2021, to January 23, 2022
Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery
Odilon Redon (1840–1916) was known as “the prince of mysterious dreams” for creating paintings, drawings and prints that blend fantasy, literature and the subconscious. Collecting Dreams: Odilon Redon celebrates the Cleveland Museum of Art’s exceptional holdings by Redon, including the newly acquired charcoal drawing Quasimodo, on view for the first time. The exhibition reveals the legacy of Redon in Cleveland and introduces the phases of his career and work.
All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Generous annual support is provided by Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Anne H. Weil, and the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art.
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.
Rinpa (琳派)
Through October 3, 2021
Kelvin and Eleanor Smith Foundation Japanese Art Galleries | Galleries 235A & B
Rinpa is a style of Japanese art focused on abstracted natural motifs and allusions to classical literature. Coined in the early 1900s, Rinpa means “Rin School,” after painter Ogata Kōrin (1658–1716), whose work was critical to the later transmission of the tradition. This rotation tells the story of later Rinpa style, introducing works by important artists active in the 1700s, 1800s and early 1900s, including Kōrin and his brother Ogata Kenzan (1663–1743); Sakai Hōitsu (1761–1828), the Edo-based (present-day Tokyo) dynamo who revolutionized Rinpa painting; and Kamisaka Sekka (1866–1942), the Kyoto-based master of graphic design who delighted with his prints and drawings.
Interpretation of Materiality: Gold
Through October 25, 2021
Korea Foundation Gallery
This exhibition illuminates how Korean artists from ancient times to the present day creatively used and interpreted gold and its distinctive materiality. One highlight is the 13th-century Buddhist text Avatamsaka Sutra No. 78. Mixed with ink and glue, refined gold powder was applied on the smooth surface of the dark blue, indigo-dyed mulberry paper. In the practice of copying a Buddhist sutra, gold served as the perfect medium to visualize the splendid world of Buddhas and their awakening teachings.
The establishment of this gallery was made possible by the support of the Korea Foundation and the National Museum of Korea, Republic of Korea.
The casework in the Korea Foundation Gallery has been generously funded by the National Museum of Korea, Republic of Korea.
A New York Minute: Street Photography, 1920–1950
Through November 7, 2021
Mark Schwartz and Bettina Katz Photography Gallery
Street photography—spontaneous images of everyday life captured in public places—blossomed in New York City during the first half of the 20th century. This genre of photography was heir to the slightly earlier tradition of urban realism in painting and printmaking, as seen in the complementary exhibition Ashcan School Prints and the American City, 1900–1940, on view in the James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawings Gallery. Both movements turned to depictions of the everyday activities of urban dwellers to explore the radical demographic, social and economic shifts then transforming the city.
All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Major annual support is provided by Bill and Joyce Litzler, with generous annual funding from Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Ms. Arlene Monroe Holden, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.
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.
From Caves to Tombs: Chinese Pictorial Rubbings from Stone Reliefs (從石窟到墓祠—石刻拓片)
Through November 14, 2021
Gallery 240A
The exhibition explores the tradition of making and mounting ink rubbings from stone reliefs, practiced in China at least since the 500s. Before high-resolution color photography was available, life-size rubbings taken from ancient sites and cultural relics in China played an important role as primary source and study material. This display celebrates the recent conservation of two monumental rubbings from the Buddhist caves of Longmen in central China.
Ashcan School Prints and the American City, 1900–1940
Through December 26, 2021
James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawings Gallery
Ashcan School Prints and the American City, 1900–1940 presents prints of city life made by urban realists during a time of rapid demographic, social and economic transformation. With New York City as an epicenter of change—packed with vibrant new communities of immigrants from Europe and Latin American countries, and Black Southerners who had migrated north—artists responded to the everyday lives and experiences of city dwellers, incorporating advertising and mass media techniques into their depictions of the lower classes, immigrants, working women and social elites alike.  
Principal support is provided by the Print Club of Cleveland.
All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Major annual support is provided by Bill and Joyce Litzler, with generous annual funding from Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Ms. Arlene Monroe Holden, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.
Fashioning Identity: Mola Textiles of Panamá
Through January 9, 2022
Arlene M. and Arthur S. Holden Textile Gallery
The exhibition explores the mola, a hand-sewn cotton blouse and a key component of traditional dress among the Guna women of Panamá, as both a cultural marker and the product of an artistic tradition. It demonstrates the important role women artists play in the construction of social identity.
All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Major annual support is provided by the Estate of Dolores B. Comey and Bill and Joyce Litzler, with generous annual funding from Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Ms. Arlene Monroe Holden, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.
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.
Medieval Treasures from Münster Cathedral
Through August 14, 2022
Gallery 115
Gold and silver reliquaries, jeweled crosses, liturgical garments and illuminated manuscripts are among the rare treasures kept in the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Münster, in northwestern Germany. Because the cathedral was the heart of both the diocese and the secular territory of the bishop, many art objects were commissioned for, or gifted to, the cathedral. For the medieval Christian, collections of relics and reliquaries held spiritual power and political clout. Many of Münster’s reliquaries, created between the 1000s and 1500s, were permanently displayed on the altar, while others were brought out only during liturgical celebrations. Medieval Treasures includes eight of these reliquaries.
All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Major annual support is provided by the Estate of Dolores B. Comey and Bill and Joyce Litzler, with generous annual funding from Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Ms. Arlene Monroe Holden, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.
The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.
This exhibition is supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Art of the Islamic World
Gallery 116
Artwork from the Islamic world is as diverse and vibrant as the peoples who produced it. The objects presented in this gallery were created during the 8th through 19th centuries, a period of great cultural and geographic expansion. As a result, these works represent a vast area including Spain, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. While these pieces originate within the Islamic world, they reflect the unique artistic and cultural traditions of disparate regions.
Contemporary Art Reinstallation
Betty and Max Ratner Gallery | Contemporary Corridor 224A
Toby’s Gallery for Contemporary Art | Galleries 229A, 229C
Paula and Eugene Stevens Gallery | Gallery 229B
These galleries fall within the S. Mueller Family Galleries of Contemporary Art.
The reimagined galleries focus on the careers of women artists and artists of color and present fresh conversations among artworks. Spanning the past six decades, the contemporary reinstallation carries forward in time stories whose beginnings are told throughout the CMA’s collection.
The reinstallation of these galleries is made possible with principal support provided by the Sandy and Sally Cutler Strategic Opportunities Fund.
Final Weeks!
CMA at Transformer Station
New Histories, New Futures
Through September 12, 2021
This exhibition centers on three contemporary artists’ engagement with time and historical revisionism. Johnny Coleman (based in Oberlin, Ohio) revitalizes the marginalized history of one family’s journey on the Underground Railroad. His deep archival research on Lee Howard Dobbins, a four-year-old enslaved child whose journey north ended in illness and who was laid to rest in Oberlin in 1853, is the source of an ongoing series of large-scale installations. Antwoine Washington (based in Cleveland, Ohio) paints portraits of his own young family to counteract the stereotype of the absent Black father in a style that pays homage to artists of the Harlem Renaissance. The North Star series by Kambui Olujimi (based in Queens, New York) features paintings and video of weightless, floating Black bodies “freed from the gravity of oppression,” imaging a future in which a politics of resistance can result in true bodily freedom.
All exhibitions at the Cleveland Museum of Art are underwritten by the CMA Fund for Exhibitions. Major annual support is provided by the Estate of Dolores B. Comey and Bill and Joyce Litzler, with generous annual funding from Mr. and Mrs. Walter R. Chapman Jr., the Jeffery Wallace Ellis Trust in memory of Lloyd H. Ellis Jr., Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn, Ms. Arlene Monroe Holden, Eva and Rudolf Linnebach, William S. and Margaret F. Lipscomb, Tim O’Brien and Breck Platner, the Womens Council of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and Claudia Woods and David Osage.
The Cleveland Museum of Art is funded in part by residents of Cuyahoga County through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.
This exhibition is supported in part by the Ohio Arts Council, which receives support from the State of Ohio and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Transformer Station, the CMA’s sister contemporary art museum
1460 West 29th Street
Cleveland, OH 44113
For hours and other information, visit transformerstation.org.

Special On-site Event

Chalk Festival
Saturday, September 11, noon to 5 p.m.
Fine Arts Garden
Enjoy chalk artists and free, live entertainment by musical group Outlaws I & I at the Chalk Festival. Purchase a 12-color box of chalk and chalk your own square for $10 (supplies limited).
New this year!
The community is invited to help featured chalk artist Bruno Casiano make his chalk drawing come alive with color. Meet at the south end of the Fine Arts Garden.
Free to participate.
Learn how to chalk like the pros!
August 28 and 29, 2 to 4 p.m.
The Community Arts Center, 2937 West 25th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113
Free parking in the lot off Castle Ave.
Free drop-in family chalk workshops. Come into the center to pick up supplies, and then head outside to learn chalking techniques and create with master chalk artist Bruno Casiano. All ages, all levels. Free giveaways both days (while supplies last).

On-site Collection Tours

Guided Tours
Tuesday to Sunday, 1 and 1:30 p.m.
FREE; ticket required
Join a public tour to learn new perspectives and enjoy great storytelling about the works in the museum’s collections. Tours depart from the information desk in the Ames Family Atrium. Tickets may be reserved at cma.org or on-site at the ticket desk. Tours are limited to 15 participants per group.

Community Arts Center On-site Activity

Weaving Together—Tejiendo Juntos
All month long, FREE
The Community Arts Center, 2937 West 25th Street, Cleveland, OH 44113
Free parking in the lot off Castle Ave.
Weaving is an art form that is about connection, ancestry and communication. Weaving connects people from cultures and continents all over the world. Drop in for Weaving Together and add to the community weaving. Visitors can also create a mini weaving to take home.
Tejer es una forma de arte que representa conexión, ascendencia y comunicación. El tejido conecta a personas de culturas y continentes de todo el mundo. Únase a nosotros en tejiendo juntos y agregar a nuestra tejiedo communitario. Los visitantes también pueden crear un mini tejido para llevar a casa.

Virtual Event

The Dr. John and Helen Collis Lecture: Viewing Saint Catherine’s Monastery at Sinai
Sunday, September 26, 2021, 2 p.m. (EDT)
Register for the free event
Speaker: Maria Vassilaki, Professor Emerita, Byzantine Art History, University of Thessaly (Volos, Greece), and Member of the Benaki Museum Board of Trustees (Athens, Greece)
Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, associated with well-known events narrated in the Old Testament, became the ultimate locus sanctus (holy place). A fortified monastery built by Emperor Justinian in the mid-sixth century at the foot of Mount Sinai, on the site of Moses’s burning bush, remains intact to this day. In this lecture, Maria Vassilaki investigates how and when the Sinai landscape transformed from a mere background setting into an independent composition.
The annual Dr. John and Helen Collis Lecture brings nationally and internationally recognized experts in the field of art history and archaeology to discuss new scholarship, museum exhibitions and archaeological discoveries. Topics alternate between ancient Greek and Byzantine art every other year.
The annual Dr. John and Helen Collis Lecture is made possible through the Dr. John and Helen Collis Family Endowment. The endowment is the first of its kind at the museum, as it presents an annual lecture dedicated to a particular art historical emphasis. Additional support for this lecture comes from the Hellenic Preservation Society (HPS) of Northeastern Ohio. HPS is a non-profit organization whose focus is to preserve the Hellenic legacy that will promote the Greek experience through education, collection and preservation. Dr. John and Helen Collis are both members of the society.

Additional Information

ARTLENS Gallery—a multifaceted, innovative experience that allows you, your family and friends to look closer, dive deeper and have fun discovering the museum’s collection using award-winning digital technology—is now open.

The museum is gradually reintroducing on-site programs. For a current list of offerings, visit the “Learn” section of the website.

The museum’s hours of operation are Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Wednesday and Friday from 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. The museum is closed on Mondays.