Fritz Henle: In Search of Beauty February 3, 2009 - August 2, 2009
This retrospective exhibition celebrates the art of freelance American photographer Fritz Henle (1909-1993). A contributor to such magazines as Life and Harper's Bazaar, Henle's distinctive style was characterized by a unique combination of the realistic and the romantic. This exhibition features a broad range of Henle's work including images of 1930s New York City, Mexico, and Paris; innovative nudes; and portraits of famous personalities. The exhibition will feature approximately 125 vintage and modern prints and numerous artifacts documenting Henle's career.
The exhibition is presented by the Judy and Steven Gluckstern Family through their Lucky Star Foundation and by the Danny and Robin Greenspun Family through their Culture Dog Foundation.
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The Persian Sensation: The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám in the West February 3, 2009 - August 2, 2009
2009 marks the 150th anniversary of Edward FitzGerald's landmark translation of the poetry of the medieval Persian astronomer Omar Khayyám. FitzGerald's work became an unprecedented popular phenomenon in England and America: by the 1930s, the Rubáiyát was by some accounts the most published and translated text in English after Shakespeare and the Bible.
This exhibition draws on the Center's expansive Rubáiyát collections, ranging from Persian manuscripts and miniature editions to parodies and playing cards, to reveal how the Rubáiyát phenomenon constructed an idealized Orient even as Omar Khayyám and his poems helped readers understand their own lives.
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Frida Kahlo, (Mexican, 1907-1954)
Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace
and Hummingbird
Oil on canvas, 61.25 cm x 47 cm
Harry Ransom Center
© 2009 Banco de Mexico Diego Rivera
& Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. Av Cinco de
Mayo No. 2, Col. Centro, Del. Cuauhtemoc
06059, Mexico, DF
Frida Kahlo's Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird May 5, 2009 - January 3, 2010
The Ransom Center celebrates the homecoming of one of its most famous and frequently borrowed art works, the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo's Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940). Since 1990 the painting has been on almost continuous loan, featured in exhibitions at 28 museums in the U. S. and around the world, including Australia, Canada, France, and Spain.
Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) taught herself how to paint after she was severely injured in a bus accident at the age of 18. For Kahlo, painting became an act of cathartic ritual and her symbolic images portray a cycle of pain, death, and rebirth. Kahlo's affair in New York City with her friend, the photographer Nickolas Muray (American, b. Hungary, 1892-1965), and subsequent divorce from the artist Diego Rivera left her heartbroken and lonely, but she produced some of her most powerful and compelling self-portraits during this time period.
Muray purchased the Center's self-portrait from Kahlo to help her during a difficult financial period. It is part of the Nickolas Muray collection of more than 100 works of art, which was acquired by the Center in 1966.
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The Gutenberg Bible
The Gutenberg Bible is the first substantial book printed from movable type on a printing press. The Ransom Center holds one of five complete copies in the United States.
The First Photograph
One of the finest pieces of the Ransom Center's photography collection is the first photograph, which Frenchman Joseph Nicéphore Niépce produced in 1826.
