Connections Gallery

Charles Sheeler: Across Media is the first exhibition to focus exclusively on the complex, often paradoxical, relationships between photography, film, drawing, printmaking, and painting that were central to Sheeler's art. The exhibition features approximately 50 works and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring three essays: a brief introductory overview of the Sheeler literature, a detailed analysis of the artist's mediums and working methods, and a discussion of how those findings suggest new approaches to interpreting Sheeler's work.

In her recent work, Deborah Oropallo (b. 1954) deconstructs and enhances images to investigate the seduction and power that is evoked by gesture and pose. Oropallo layers images of contemporary women in provocative costumes, borrowed from the Internet, with images of men from 17th- and 18th-century portrait paintings, including several from the collection of the Fine Arts Museums. These traditional portraits were often contrived to convey not merely a likeness of the sitter, but also a sense of his importance and authority.

Enrico Donati (b. 1909) is perhaps the last living Surrealist artist closely associated with the movement’s acknowledged leader, André Breton. He was a key figure in the community of European expatriate artists in World War II–era New York. This exhibition recreates the extraordinary assemblage of objects in the artist’s New York studio.