Issue 4, Spirituality - Fall 2015

THE
MUSEUM
O F
FINE ARTS,
HOUSTON
MAGAZINE
Spirituality

THE
MUSEUM
O F
FINE ARTS,
HOUSTON
MAGAZINE
02 Welcome
05 Backstory
15 Object Lesson
16 In the Mix
Spirituality
Issue 4 / 2015
21 Up Close
24 Portfolio
34 Series
38 Profile
42 Surfacing
45 Five Minutes With
46 Exhibition Funders
47 Credits
48 Coming Soon

Works by Mark Rothko:
A Testament to Humanism and Spirituality
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is the sole U.S. venue to present Mark Rothko:
A Retrospective, a definitive exhibition that draws on the unrivaled holdings of the
National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., as well as Houston’s superb collections.
One of the foremost figures of the Abstract Expressionist vanguard, Mark Rothko
(1903–1970) embraced the possibility of beauty in pure abstraction and gave a new
voice to American art. In a remarkable career that spanned the most troubled years of
the 20th century, Rothko explored both the tragic and the sublime. The more than 60
paintings on view reveal Rothko at his most daring and experimental, as well as at his
most assured and declarative. These works remain a testament to the deep humanism,
unmatched passion, and spirituality that Rothko brought to modern painting.
90 1/8 x 44 1/8”

G A R Y T I N T E R O W , D I R E C T O R
Spirituality
W E L C O M E
02
72 1/4 x 60 1/8”
Inspiration is a critical component of all the arts, and the human quest for transcending the limitations
of earthly existence inspired some of the earliest surviving works of art: once food, fertility, and safety are
assured, society and its artists often seek to connect with a higher authority. The experience of spirituality
is close to universal, a factor that perhaps explains the crossover appeal of works of art from one culture to
another. The focus on spirituality in this issue of h gives me the special opportunity to highlight some of my
favorite works of art here in Houston.
Rogier van der Weyden’s Virgin and Child could easily rank among our most rare and beautiful European
paintings. Working in late-medieval Brussels, at the dawn of oil painting in Europe, Rogier has captured one
of the most-tender moments of human experience, the unself-conscious unity of mother and child, while
delighting in the inexplicable marvel of infancy: Rogier’s articulation of the Christ Child’s toes and fingers was
obviously the result of careful observation. Yet an ineffable quality—translucent skin, gossamer hair, ageless
beauty, mysteriously hooded eyes—lifts the scene out of the mundane and elevates the figures to a superhuman
level, eliciting our wonder and awe.
Wonder and awe have always informed my experience of much of Mark Rothko’s work. His mysterious
painterly effects inevitably prompt questions: how did he make his paintings glow and vibrate; how could he
make dark passages luminous; how could he envelop the viewer with no more than paint on canvas? Answers
to these questions can be found in Mark Rothko: A Retrospective, where, in 60 paintings, the artist’s lifelong
quest for spiritual transcendence and earthly beauty is laid out with great sensitivity and compelling logic. As
the largest retrospective of Rothko’s work in nearly 20 years, and the first in Houston since 1979, it is, literally,
a must-see exhibition.
Concurrently, Roman Vishniac Rediscovered shows the different life journey of another Russian Jewish artist,
one who, staying in Europe through the 1930s, witnessed the tragic genocide that Mark Rothko escaped, the
systematic destruction of a people for their ethnic identity and spiritual beliefs. Yet, for all the loss and pain
that Vishniac caught with his camera, he also documented the new lives and culture created by those that
survived in adopted countries. It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine Rothko making his art in his native
Lithuania; both exhibitions celebrate the possibilities that America afforded its immigrants.
Cai Guo-Qiang is also an American immigrant, but he has become a citizen of the world while remaining close
to his Chinese roots. Merging traditional motifs of Chinese ink painting with the traditional Chinese expression
of fireworks, Cai has created a novel art form unique to himself. His unearthly, environmental installation at the
Museum of Fine Arts, Odyssey, may soon be seen as his Rothko Chapel, and it—in only five years since the
Museum’s commission—has already become a place of pilgrimage.
Yours sincerely,

The Seagram Murals
Mark Rothko was invited by the Bronfman family in 1958 to create a mural cycle for the Four Seasons restaurant in their recently completed
Seagram Building. The architect of the building was Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who designed the Museum’s Caroline Wiess Law Building,
inaugurated in 1954. Rothko accepted the Seagram commission and painted numerous studies and variations for this project. He ultimately
declined to deliver any finished paintings, because he believed that his work would only be seen as wall decorations in a restaurant. Among the
four Seagram Mural variations on view in Mark Rothko: A Retrospective is this mural-scale Untitled (Seagram Mural Sketch), from 1959.
03

04
Power Hungry
The Habsburgs demonstrated their prowess not only as monarchs but also as
preeminent art collectors in Europe from the 15th through the early 20th centuries.

Mark Rothko: A Retrospective is on view through January 24, 2016,
in the Brown Foundation Galleries of the Audrey Jones Beck Building.
M A R K R O T H K O
The Search
for Spiritual
Transcendence
B A C K S T O R Y
By Althea Ruoppo, curatorial assistant for contemporary art and special projects at the Museum.
05
Mood Poem
Mark Rothko’s earliest paintings from
the 1930s include this scene of a city
street, in which the artist hauntingly
conveys the loneliness and isolation
of the urban environment.
The Rothko Chapel, Mark Rothko’s most accessible and enduring public statement,
has profoundly shaped the landscape of American art. In 1964, Rothko’s magisterial
cycle of paintings was first commissioned for the proposed chapel by the visionary
patrons John and Dominique de Menil. Rothko devoted two years to this project,
completing the final canvases in 1967. Dedicated on February 27, 1971, a year after
the artist’s death, and now a sacred place for all, The Rothko Chapel has welcomed
both Houstonians and visitors from across the globe for almost 45 years.
The Rothko Chapel can be understood as Rothko’s most deeply felt expression of
belief and as a testament of the doubts that he harbored as well. Rothko frequently
spoke about his work in terms of the transcendental and the sublime, and in a conversation
with author Selden Rodman in 1956, he observed: “I’m interested only in
expressing basic human emotions—tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on—and the fact
that lots of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that
I communicate those basic human emotions. . . . The people who weep before my
pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them.”
Mark Rothko: A Retrospective enables us to revisit and deepen our understanding
of Rothko’s search for religious experience and spiritual transcendence. The exhibition
gathers together more than 60 paintings, many of which remained in the artist’s
personal collection throughout his life. Essentially Rothko’s Rothkos, this survey
includes some of his most radical and intensely beautiful paintings, works that both
embrace and challenge viewers today.
36 x 21 7/8”

BACKSTORY
06
22 1/4 x 30 1/4”
Early Years: From the Object to the Dream
Born in the city of Dvinsk (then part of the Russian Empire’s Pale of Settlement,
now Daugavpils, Latvia), Rothko was raised in an observant Jewish
household and a climate of harsh anti-Semitism. At age 10 he immigrated
to the United States, where his family settled in Portland, Oregon. Entering
Yale University on a scholarship in 1921, Rothko was again confronted by
religious discrimination, which prompted him to leave college after his
second year and move to New York. There he soon discovered art, and
during the span of a career that would last five decades, he became an
eloquent advocate of the idea that painting could represent the full range
of human experience. “Art to me is an anecdote of the spirit,” he wrote in a
personal statement for an exhibition in 1945, “and the only means of making
concrete the purpose of its varied quickness and stillness.”
As early as the 1930s Rothko began to explore ways to produce an
art form that would capture the complexities of the human condition. His
haunting pictures of city streets and subway platforms are mood poems
as much as immediate impressions of the loneliness and isolation commonly
experienced in the urban environment. With the onset of World
War II, he found in Greek mythology a more potent means of addressing
the horror of the present day. Rothko, who had read Plato and Aeschylus,
as well as Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, explained his use of
the myths of antiquity in a radio broadcast in 1943, stating that they offered
“eternal . . . symbols of man’s primitive fears and motivations [whose implications]
we must re-describe through our own experience [and which
express] to us something real and existing in ourselves.” Like many
American artists of his generation, Rothko had also adopted Surrealism’s
use of automatic drawing in the mid-1940s as a more direct pathway to
the unconscious and the universality of existence.

Automatic Entry
Rothko used automatic drawing in the mid-1940s
as a means to tap the unconscious.
07

BACKSTORY
08
61.6 x 69.7”
25.7 x 16”
72.44 x 36.4
Signature Style
Rothko’s Multiforms of the late 1940s gave way to his classic paintings of the 1950s, in
which ethereal, horizontal bands of color are arranged in vertical tiers. With these purely abstract
works, Rothko succeeded in conveying meaning and eliciting profound emotional responses.

Mark Rothko: A Retrospective is on view through January 24, 2016,
in the Brown Foundation Galleries of the Audrey Jones Beck Building.
Into Abstraction
A new current swept the American scene after World War II,
as a generation of artists began to emerge with increasingly
shared goals, giving rise to a fresh understanding of abstract
painting. During this period, Rothko formed particularly important
friendships with Barnett Newman, Clyfford Still, and Robert
Motherwell, artists who, along with Jackson Pollock, Willem
de Kooning, and Franz Kline, would soon come to be known as
Abstract Expressionists.
In late 1946 Rothko gave up almost all reference to the
figure as he used color and form alone to penetrate the heart
of a deeply felt emotional world. In works collectively known
as Multiforms (1946–49), his canvases became increasingly
monumental and dramatic presences, in which amorphous
shapes with indistinct edges appear to hover unanchored
against the neutral ground. Rothko thinned his oil pigments so
that they could be applied in almost transparent layers, one
over another, making it possible to achieve a new chromatic
vibrancy. At the same time, he increasingly used brilliant reds,
oranges, and yellows that stand out in vivid contrast against
cooler tones. And as Rothko eliminated references to the natural
world, breaking away from implied meaning and content,
he also relinquished all descriptive titles. “The familiar identity
of things has to be pulverized in order to destroy the finite associations
with which our society increasingly enshrouds every
aspect of our environment,” he declared in a 1947 essay that
was published in the sole issue of Possibilities.
Paring down his compositions still further in 1949, Rothko
achieved what came to be known as his signature, or classic,
style: ethereal, horizontal bands of color arranged in vertical
tiers. Deceptively simple in format and technique, Rothko’s
classic paintings assert the power of purely abstract art to
convey meaning and to elicit an emotional response. In 1954,
the critic Hubert Crehan called Rothko’s paintings “walls of
light,” observing that they distilled what could be described as
the terrible beauty of the atomic age, satisfying “the modern
sensibility’s need for its own authentic spiritual experience.”
B A C K S T O R Y
09
53 1/8 x 46 5/8”
44 1/4 x 37 3/8”

10
Commissions and Late Paintings
By the end of the 1950s, Rothko largely abandoned the luminous color
fields that had brought him international recognition. With his work
now avidly sought by collectors, he was approached in 1958 by the
Bronfman family to create a mural cycle for the Four Seasons restaurant
in their recently completed Seagram Building, designed by Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe. Rothko accepted the commission, and over the following
year he painted numerous studies and variations for this project.
He ultimately declined to deliver any finished paintings as he came to
feel that his work would only be seen as wall decorations. Four of the
Seagram Mural variations are included in the present retrospective,
including Untitled (Seagram Mural Sketch), 1959, illustrated on these
two pages. Measuring 6 feet high and more than 14 feet wide, Rothko’s
monumental canvas features two open squares that may allude to
windows or portals. These mysterious, seemingly penetrable spaces—
painted in blazing orange-reds against a wine-colored ground—are
both inviting and foreboding.
The 1960s witnessed a major simplification of Rothko’s style. From
1961 through 1963 he produced about a dozen canvases that bring
together dark, somber colors and bright, exuberant bands. Stripping

B A C K S T O R Y
11
71 7/8 x 177 1/4””
away color and layers of paint did not make his paintings any less expressive,
however. In No. 14 (Painting), 1961, olive-brown and slate-gray
tones are punctuated by a fiery crimson blazoned across the top. Purchased
by the Museum under the leadership of then-Director James
Johnson Sweeney, in 1967, the same year that Rothko completed the
chapel commission, the work is all the more dramatic and radiant for its
rejection of aesthetically pleasing color harmonies.
Rothko further restricted his palette in the mid-1960s as he began
to tackle the de Menils’ Houston commission. He painted a series of
monochromatic works that have come to be known as the Blackforms,
a prelude to what are now called the Chapel paintings. At first glance,
these dark canvases appear to be almost solid black, absent of all color.
Christopher Rothko, the artist’s son, has described such paintings in
terms of their “reflectivity,” and, indeed, these works reward extended
and close looking, and in time the nuanced proportions and color harmonies
are revealed.
Rothko’s final works, brown and gray paintings on canvas and on
paper, are an important departure from the Chapel paintings. Using
acrylic paints and working on a more intimate scale, Rothko allowed
gesture and dramatic contrast back into his compositions. In works

BACKSTORY
12
69 5/8 x 62 1/8”
such as Untitled (1969), the dark, matte upper zone stands out
against the turbulent brushwork of the lower rectangle, whose
sensuous surface draws in the viewer. Although the more
opaque top portion of the work adds to its overall perception
of flatness, the layered depth of the lower slate-gray section
suggests new strata and complexity.
Such layering epitomizes what Rothko had long considered
to be the “simple expression of the complex thought,” first
championed as early as 1943 in his and fellow artist Adolph
Gottlieb’s joint manifesto on art that was published in The New
York Times. With an unwavering commitment, Rothko progressively
simplified his works to ensure far-reaching impact. “The
progression of a painter’s work, as it travels in time from point
to point, will be toward clarity: toward the elimination of all
obstacles between the painter and the idea, and between the
idea and the observer,” Rothko stated in the October 1949
issue of The Tiger’s Eye. “To achieve this clarity is, inevitably, to
be understood.” As Rothko moved from concrete form to pure
expression, from the finite to the infinite, his paintings became
increasingly articulate and formally refined. Perhaps his greatest
achievement was his use of abstract means to engage the
viewer at a basic human level, creating the necessary conditions
for what he described in 1947 as a “revelation” of the self.
92 7/8 x 80”
Completing the Search
For Rothko, a painting was complete when it revealed the
viewer’s internal struggles and offered surprising means
through which one could then both confront and resolve these
conflicts. His work is remarkable for its ability to transcend
belief itself, unique in its ability to stir the hearts and minds of
people of all faiths or even of people who do not subscribe
to a particular faith. By not imposing a specific experience
on the viewer, Rothko’s paintings create a common ground.
Although his career tragically ended too early in 1970, Rothko
succeeded in developing a universal language, an art form that
could resonate with aspects of the collective inner psyche. His
search for spiritual transcendence was complete.

Mark Rothko: A Retrospective is on view through January 24, 2016,
in the Brown Foundation Galleries of the Audrey Jones Beck Building.
13
Radiant Expression
Although Rothko stripped away color and layers of paint in No. 14 (Painting), opposite,
from 1961, this work is no less expressive or radiant than his classic paintings.

14

This exquisite work, among the top 100 highlights of the Museum’s permanent collection,
is on view in the European Art Galleries in the Audrey Jones Beck Building.
R O G I E R V A N D E R W E Y D E N ’ S V I R G I N A N D C H I L D
Iconic
Devotional
Painting
Legendary Source
A model for Rogier van der Weyden’s
composition is The Cambrai Madonna,
an often-copied Italo-Byzantine icon
from around 1340. Legend held that it
was painted by Saint Luke himself.
One of the most important artists of 15th-century Europe, Rogier van der Weyden is renowned for
the dramatic power and emotional intensity of his paintings, which exerted a tremendous influence
on Netherlandish and German art for several generations. Rogier is believed to have studied in the
workshop of Robert Campin, a master painter working near Brussels.
Rogier was living in Brussels by 1435, and he eventually established a workshop with numerous
assistants and pupils, fulfilling commissions for large and impressive devotional images as well as
distinguished portraits. His expressive style was in contrast to the more reserved works of his older
contemporary, Jan van Eyck.
Rogier van der Weyden’s Virgin and Child is one of the supreme highlights of the collection of the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Mary and Christ are in a tender embrace, yet there is eloquent tension
in the Christ Child’s twisting body and flexed feet. Rogier has avoided the use of halos or other
secondary symbolism, allowing him to emphasize the personal relationship between the two subjects.
The artist’s strong sense of design is evident in the simple geometric planes and volumes, creating an
engaging composition that embodies dignity and elegance.
By the 1450s, when Virgin and Child was probably painted, Rogier was responding to a growing
taste for small devotional panels, particularly for half-length representations of Mary and the Christ
Child. The motif of the Christ Child pressing his cheek to that of his mother is derived from a famous
Italo-Byzantine icon of the Madonna and Child that came to the cathedral of Cambrai, France, in
1452. Numerous miracles were attributed to the icon, and it became a highly popular model for
private devotional art.
O B J E C T L E S S O N
15
12 5/8 x 9”
Focus on the Virgin and Child
1. The painting’s small dimensions indicate that it was likely intended for personal devotions.
There was a growing taste for small devotional panels in the mid-15th century.
2. The Virgin’s broad forehead and narrow, heavily lidded eyes show a similarity in style to
Rogier’s other late works and help establish the painting’s date as after 1454.
3. The motif of the Christ Child pressing his cheek to his mother’s originated with an earlier,
influential Italo-Byzantine icon known as The Cambrai Madonna.
4. The expressive tension in the Christ Child’s hands and feet is a hallmark of Rogier’s style.
5. The work was painted in the newly refined technique of oil on panel, perfected by early
Netherlandish painters in the early 15th century.

R O M A N V I S H N I A C R E D I S C O V E R E D
Enduring Spirit
16
Lively Spirits
From 1935 to 1938, Roman Vishniac made numerous trips to the city of Mukacevo
(in present-day Ukraine), known for its yeshivot (Jewish religious schools). This bustling
and vibrant street scene communicates the vitality and liveliness of the students.

T
The exhibition Roman Vishniac Rediscovered is on view through
January 3, 2016, on the lower level of the Audrey Jones Beck Building.
Throughout his life, the Russian-born
photographer Roman Vishniac (1897–
1990) was interested in biology and in his
Jewish ancestry. He pursued both with
the camera, resulting in two very
different bodies of work that testify to
the beauty found in the enduring spirit
of the Jewish people as well as in the
natural world.
When he was just seven years old,
Vishniac began using a microscope to
photograph magnified views of insects
and other living specimens that he
collected. Due to mounting anti-Semitism,
his family fled Russia for Berlin in 1918,
and Vishniac followed in 1920.
I N T H E M I X
17
6 1/2 x 10”

I N T H E M I X
18
12 x 12”
7 x 5”
11 x 10”
In the subsequent years, Vishniac turned his lens on city street
scenes. In 1935, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
hired him to photograph Jewish communities being
aided by relief organizations throughout Eastern Europe, an
assignment that lasted until 1938. His images from this decade
show Jewish community life in engaging photographs that
capture a Jewish soup kitchen in Berlin, smiling schoolchildren
in the Ukraine, and industrious youths building a school in the
Netherlands, among others.
Ultimately, Hitler’s rise to power in the 1930s would have dire
consequences for these communities. “My friends assured me
that Hitler’s talk was sheer bombast,” Vishniac reported. “But
I replied that he would not hesitate to exterminate those people
when he got around to it. And who was there to defend them?
I knew I could be of little help, but I decided that, as a Jew, it
was my duty to my ancestors, who grew up among the very
people who were being threatened, to preserve—in pictures,
at least—a world that might soon cease to exist.”
Under the Nazi regime, life became increasingly difficult for
Vishniac’s family, and he immigrated to the United States in 1940,
settling in New York City. He was able to save his negatives
taken in Eastern Europe by entrusting them to his friend Walter
Bierer, who brought them to the United States in 1942. Although
Vishniac began exhibiting and publishing the photographs on
their return, many of these images remained unknown until
after his death.
In New York, Vishniac continued photographing local
Jewish communities, as seen in his image in the exhibition of
boys exercising in a Jewish community center in Brooklyn.
After the war, in 1947, he returned to Berlin to document camps
for displaced persons, and also captured images of Holocaust
survivors and buildings reduced to rubble from bombing.
Throughout this time, Vishniac continued to pursue his
scientific endeavors. He made great strides in photomicroscopy
(photographing through a microscope), and his color
images of the 1950s through the late 1970s reveal a fascinating
world, such as the view from a firefly’s eye, and the
structure of crystals and microbes at extremely close range.
“In nature every bit of life is lovely. And the more magnification
we use, the more details are brought out, perfectly formed, like
endless sets of boxes within boxes,” he remarked. “Nature,
God, or whatever you want to call the creator of the Universe
comes through the microscope clearly and strongly.”

The Spirit of Industry
At the Werkdorp Nieuwesluis in
the Netherlands, young German
Jews awaiting immigration visas
were trained in construction and
other skills that might be needed
in Palestine and other countries.
Vishniac, who documented these
activities, portrayed his subjects
as heroic and industrious.
19

20

These two works are featured in Pleasure and Piety, the first exhibition
devoted to the late-Renaissance artist Joachim Wtewael, on view through
January 31, 2016, in the Audrey Jones Beck Building.
T H E A R T O F J O A C H I M W T E W A E L
Painting the
Sacred and
the Profane
U P C L O S E
A great master of the Dutch Golden Age, the late-Renaissance
artist Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638) was a remarkable storyteller.
Wtewael (pronounced Oo-te-vall) was adept at painting
a wide range of subjects. The recurring themes in his work of
“pleasure” and “piety” are evident in his religious and mythological
scenes, such as The Annunciation to the Shepherds
and Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan.
Wtewael depicted many biblical and mythological subjects
that were well known and familiar to viewers of his day—
but that may no longer be readily recognizable to a broad
audience. Some of his narratives are so complex that even the
main characters can be difficult to identify. These compositions
reward a closer look.
In the monumentally scaled The Annunciation to the Shepherds,
the artist portrays the moment described in the Bible
(Luke 2:8–14) when dark clouds of the night sky slit with the
“brightness of God” shine on a group of eight shepherds
below, some of whom are still asleep. An angel tells the frightened
shepherds that a Savior, Christ, was born.
21
66 1/4 x 53 1/2”
An angel appears in the night sky
and tells the frightened shepherds
that Christ was born, and “suddenly
there was with the angel a multitude
of the heavenly army, praising God”
(Luke 2:13).
A man at the center looks up
in astonishment.
A woman shields her eyes against
the light of God shining through the
parting dark clouds.
Although the scene is populated
by shepherds, the sheep are visible
only in the background. The foreground
features a ram, a goat, and
a cow, as well as two dogs looking
up at the angel.

U P C L O S E
22
8 x 6 1/4”

Wtewael embraced the popular international art movement
known as Mannerism, characterized by extreme refinement,
artifice, and elegant distortion. His works are marked by brilliant
colors, dense and sophisticated compositions, and highly
stylized figures and poses, though always with touches of
carefully observed details. These characteristics can be seen
in Mars and Venus Surprised by Vulcan.
Based on a story from Greco-Roman mythology related
in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, this painting presents a striking
contrast to the pious subject and monumental scale of The
Annunciation to the Shepherds. The erotic composition featuring
Mars and Venus was painted on a small copperplate
that could be locked in a cabinet or drawer, and brought out
in private to show visitors who would appreciate such a scene.
The subject of the painting tells of the adulterous affair
between Mars, god of war, and Venus, goddess of love. Vulcan,
Venus’s husband and the god of fire, took revenge by ensnaring
the couple mid-embrace in a sumptuously draped bed, making
them the laughingstock of the other gods and goddesses.
Mars and Venus are caught
in the act of lovemaking.
Apollo raises the bed curtain to
expose the adulterous couple.
Venus’s spouse Vulcan, in the right
foreground and trampling Mars’s
cast-off armor, is holding a thin
bronze net that he fashioned to
ensnare the adulterous couple.
Vulcan is seen again through
an opening in the bed curtain,
in an earlier scene from the
story when he forged the net
in his blacksmith shop.
23
Cupid, Venus’s son, aims his
arrow at Apollo.
In the upper right are the gods
Jupiter with his thunderbolt and
Saturn with his scythe; and Diana,
goddess of the moon, with her
crescent headdress.
Adept Painter
A painter of inventive and complex
scenes, Joachim Wtewael
was as adept at interpreting
sacred stories from the Bible as
he was at illustrating profane tales
from Greco-Roman mythology.

P O R T F O L I O
24
38 3/8 x 98”
A C R O S S T H E C O L L E C T I O N S
The Life of the Spirit
John Biggers (1924–2001), who painted Jubilee: Ghana Harvest Festival, illustrated on these two pages, once wrote that “the role
of art is to express the triumph of the human spirit over the mundane and the material.” The works gathered together in this section
of h Magazine speak to spirituality as articulated by various artists across the globe.

1959–63
John Biggers embraced mural painting as a means of expressing his cultural
heritage. In the 1940s, he developed a new painting style that was rooted in the
Mexican mural movement and in the 1930s murals commissioned by the U.S.
government as part of the Federal Arts Project. Biggers, who in 1949 became
chair of the art department at Texas Southern University in Houston, became the
region’s most eloquent chronicler of the changing identity of African Americans.
In this painting, he depicts the annual harvest festival in Ghana, which he had
observed on his travels to Africa and which affirms the cycles of life.
25

26
1472
In the sixth century, Buddhism came to Japan, where its
iconography continued to evolve. An inscription found on the
back of this head records that the sculpture was made for
the Daisan-ji Buddhist temple on Shikoku Island, Japan. The
Amida (Buddha of Infinite Light) is depicted in a meditative
pose. Amida presides over the western paradise, where the
souls of the devout are reborn after death. The urna, or “third
eye,” on the forehead symbolizes divine wisdom.

P O R T F O L I O
27
21 x 17 3/4 x 16 1/8”
45 x 15 x 11 3/4”
10 1/2 x 5 x 5 1/2”
618–906
This fierce winged beast with three-colored (sancai) glaze was
made in northern China during the Tang dynasty (618–907). The
guardian figure was one of a pair of sculptures placed within the
underground tombs of high-ranking government officials so as
to protect the deceased from evil spirits.
19th Century
This rare Kuyu head portrays a moment of transcendence when the power of the spirit realm
enters a worldly vessel. The masterful artist conveyed this awakening by contrasting the
almond-shaped eyes narrowed in a state of trance with the open mouth that bares finely
pointed teeth. The forces of the supernatural world join the natural world during important
ceremonies. These forces can then affect the outcomes of human lives.

FINAL CORR COMPMFAH–ISSUE4_INTERIOR.RD2A.INDD
P O R T F O L I O
28
11 1/4 x 11 3/8 x 2 3/8”
1 1/8 x 1 3/8 x 3/8”
10 5/8 x 10 1/2 x 7/8”
17th Century
Emeralds were believed to combine beneficial influences in the gem lore of India.
This magnificent emerald is appropriately engraved on the front in fine naskhi
script with chapter 2 from the Qur’an, verse 255 (The Throne verse; Ayat al-
Kursi), which was believed to protect and avert the wearer from evil. The Throne
verse describes God’s power over the universe, and is one of the most broadly
memorized and studied verses in the Qur’an.
16th Century
This circular Ottoman tile bearing a calligraphic inscription highlights one of
the Five Pillars of Islam, the foundation for Muslim life. The inscription is the
shahada, which states: “La ilaha illallah wa Muhammad rasul Allah” (There
is no god but God and Muhammad is His messenger.). This affirmation of
faith declares belief in the oneness of God and acceptance of Muhammad
as his prophet.

1318 AD
Muslims believe that the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam, was revealed to Muhammad and later
compiled in a manuscript after his death. The Qur’an is written and recited in Arabic, regardless
of a Muslim’s maternal tongue. This magnificent copy of the Qur’an from Morocco is a rare survival
with a colophon identifying the patron and date of production. Many Qur’ans from North Africa
and Spain are copied in the distinctive Maghribi script, named after this region of western Islamic
lands. Penned on parchment—a favored medium for Qur’anic manuscripts made in this area—this
work displays an elaborate program of illumination used to highlight the internal divisions of the
religious text.
29
67 3/4 x 49 1/4”
Late 16th Century
Individual prayer carpets are pointed toward Mecca and help focus a follower’s prayers. This
elegant example features a mihrab-shaped niche and mosque lamp. The symbolic meaning
of such lamps, especially ones represented in niches, references the Qur’an, chapter 24
[Chapter of Light], part of verse 35, where God is seen as the light of the heavens and the earth.
The carpet pattern demonstrates the skills of the master weavers who followed the imperial
atelier designs featuring the Ottoman floral repertoire with roses, tulips, carnations, and
hyacinths amid saz leaves enclosing lotus blossoms alternating with eight-petal rosettes.

30
1938
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) began her artistic career in
Texas and continued on to New Mexico, where her experience
of living in the desert Southwest informed her paintings.
Here, in Red Hill and White Shell, she magnifies the simple
form of the nautilus shell and juxtaposes it boldly against the
colorful landscape seen in the distance. In doing so, O’Keeffe
transforms the ordinary into something abstract and that
also speaks to the spiritual majesty and mysteries of life.
1910–25
The word “kachina” means “spirit being.” The Hopi and other
Pueblo tribes believe that kachinas are supernatural beings
who embody the spirits of living things, inanimate objects,
and ancestors, and who can intercede with the gods on
their behalf. Kachina effigies such as this one were hung in
homes to bring blessings upon the household and to instruct
children. This figure represents Crow Mother, the mother of
all kachinas, who leads initiation rites for children.

P O R T F O L I O
31
30 x 36 1/2”
15 x 8 1/2 x 4 1/8”
37 1/8 x 42 1/2”
1912
Wassily Kandinsky believed that it was the task of the artist to transcend the material world, and
that abstract painting allowed both artist and viewer the most direct access to the spiritual realm.
In 1912 he published a treatise Concerning the Spirtual in Art, declaring, “Religion, in the sense of awe,
is present in all true art.” The improvisatory nature of Sketch 160A masks its dramatic content. Taking
inspiration from the Book of Revelations, Kandinsky depicted the Horsemen of the Apocalypse riding
across an abstract landscape, one that seems to erupt with an ecstatic energy.

32

P O R T F O L I O
33
20 1/4 x 19 1/2”
1938
In the 1930s, photographer Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) worked for
the Farm Security Administration to document America’s heartlands.
By 1938, the town of Dixon, South Dakota, once a destination for
homesteaders, had been hard hit by drought and grasshopper
infestations. Churches had served as the heart of the community,
as well as spiritual sanctuaries amid the hardships. Of differing
denominations (Catholic, Lutheran, and Baptist), these churches
demonstrate American optimism and the right to freedom of religion.

34
Reality Check
For her Pinturas móviles [Mobile Paintings] series of video
installations, Venezuelan artist Magdalena Fernández was
influenced by the work of Piet Mondrian, who once wrote:
“To approach the spiritual in art, one will make as little use as
possible of reality, because reality is opposed to the spiritual.”

Magdalena Fernández’s 2iPM009 will be installed in Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America,
on view from November 22, 2015, to February 28, 2016, in the Upper Brown Pavilion of the Caroline Wiess Law Building.
S E R I E S
35
13 3/8 x 11 1/2”
M A G D A L E N A F E R N Á N D E Z ’ S 2 i P M 0 0 9
Simulating
the Spiritual

SERIES
36
9 x 7 3/4”
In 2003, Venezuelan artist Magdalena Fernández (born 1964) continued
her long-term exploration of and dialogue with the complicated history
of geometric abstraction. In particular, with her Pinturas móviles
[Mobile Paintings] series of video installations, she engaged with the
work of Piet Mondrian, one of the earliest and most influential practitioners
of this form of abstraction. For her video 2iPM009, Fernández,
who is interested in the relationship between nature and geometry,
creates an immersive experience within a darkened room where the
viewer is partially surrounded by large screens upon which pinpoints
of light gradually become more and more visible. The light fluidly
transforms and multiplies into intersecting vertical and horizontal
lines, at times evoking a star-filled sky and thoughts of the universe,
the unknowable, and the infinite. This process is then reversed, as the
forms ultimately recede into dots of light, and, for a moment, a black
screen. The video runs in a one-minute, fifty-three-second loop, and
the cyclical aspects of the experience parallel and inspire reflections
on nature’s cycles.
For Fernández, who was also influenced by the important legacy of
Kinetic art in Venezuela, abstraction, geometry, and nature cannot be
expressed in two-dimensional or static terms. Instead, she animates
her series of so-called mobile paintings, creating a mesmerizing
experience by drawing on a number of elements, including evolving
(and then devolving) patterns, changing light, and sound. 2iPM009
is not simply a video—it is a multidimensional, multisensory, layered
experience, perfectly choreographed to also surround the viewer with
natural sounds—raindrops that gradually intensify into a thunderous
tropical storm, paralleling the speed and intensification of the visual
transformations of the light forms on the screens. The soundtrack of
the escalating storm also operates in a cyclical way: as the lines and
dots of light begin to disappear, the sounds are similarly muted, culminating
with the momentary intersection of silence and visual absence.
For an instant, the viewer—whose presence is critical to the unfolding
of the sights and sounds of 2iPM009—is psychologically and, in
some respects, physically enthralled and transported. The gallery walls

37
disappear, and the disorientation that is often a natural byproduct
of being enveloped by darkness, especially in an unfamiliar space
while inundated by unexpected sounds, underscores the moment.
Fernández simulates for her audience a temporary state that transcends
the physical and appears to provide a wormhole of sorts into
the metaphysical or spiritual in the sense that the work encourages
viewers to exit their realities—to lose themselves in the darkness, to
achieve a forgetting of the physical and material that is often the prerequisite
to any spiritual experience.
However, it is important to recognize that Fernández is a contemporary
artist working in the age of virtual realities, and so any connection
with the metaphysical or spiritual facilitated by her installations is
necessarily also virtual and, in part, digitally simulated using technology.
Even the nomenclature of her works suggests the influence of the
digital age: the title 2iPM009, for example, is part of a code system she
developed wherein “2” refers to the installation number; “iPM” to the
referenced artist (“installation Piet Mondrian”) who inspired the work;
and “009” indicates the year it was created (2009). Moreover, Fernández
also devises ways to digitally process her interest in elements from
nature: the “natural” sounds of the thunderstorm have been carefully
composed and are performed by the Slovenian choir Perpetuum
Jazzile, whose members were directed to use their bodies—to snap
their fingers, jump on floorboards, slap their hands on their knees, and
so on—to create the illusion of rain and thunder.
When considered in these terms, it becomes clear that 2iPM009
is certainly part theater, and that the viewer plays a dual role as an
audience member and as an actor. Yet, ironically, the work’s theatrical
aspects and the simulation of reality and spirituality do not
diminish the experience or make it inauthentic. Indeed, Fernández’s
contemporary viewers, just like her works and the artist herself, are
expressions of a time in which the boundaries among the real, the virtual,
and even the spiritual can be made perpetually—by each and
every one of us—to dissolve, to be synthesized and re-synthesized,
and then to dissolve again.

P R O F I L E
38
Overall
(four walls-42 panels):
120 x 1944”
C A I G U O - Q I A N G ’ S O D Y S S E Y
A Spiritual Journey

Odyssey is on view in the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Arts of China Gallery in the Caroline Wiess Law Building.
.
Masterful Effects
The precise, carefully planned effects
that Cai Guo-Qiang achieved in Odyssey
are almost inconceivable given the
uncontrollable material of gunpowder
and the aggressive act of an explosion.
39
This fall, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, will celebrate the five-year anniversary of one of the most
magnificent, transformative commissions in its long history: Odyssey, by Cai Guo-Qiang.
Cai (born 1957) is recognized across the globe for creating impactful events—from orchestrating the
spectacular fireworks at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics to recently executing Sky Ladder,
a pyrotechnic-based artwork, at Huiyu Island Harbor, Quanzhou, Fujian. For the Museum, Cai created a
contemplative, almost mystical environment in the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Arts of China Gallery. In

40
this gallery, Cai’s massive gunpowder installation piece cradles historical
and contemporary objects from Asia. Amid the swirling mists, majestic
mountain peaks, and lush flora of Odyssey, the artist has initiated a
dialogue that transcends time.
Cai was especially inspired by Chinese ink painting, looking to Huang
Gongwang’s Living in the Fuchun Mountain as an example of the free
spirit, and also the expressive quality, that he sought to embody in his
contemporary work. Cai set as his primary challenge that of exploring
aspects of traditional Chinese painting through the use of gunpowder,
with which he had experimented previously and successfully. By choosing
gunpowder, a material that is typically uncontrollable, Cai was able
to paint a monumental landscape with a carefully controlled explosion.
Fast ignition around the panels of the drawing enabled the artist to
achieve a complete explosion within only two seconds. Cai also placed
meal powder, a type of gunpowder that generates a lot of smoke, outside
the drawing to create the effect of the clouds and fog. Extraordinary
forethought, extensive planning, intense preparation, and meticulous
execution with more than 100 assistants and Museum volunteers all
contributed to the masterpiece that is Odyssey.
Cai has written that selecting a title for his work did not come immediately
or easily to mind. He eventually landed on Odyssey, because
“it not only symbolizes the voyage that Chinese culture has taken from
antiquity to modern times, but it also shows the ancient Chinese literati’s
journeys of the mind between heaven and earth. It removes us from the
materialism, the hustle and the bustle of modern civilization, and allows
us to seek self-exile, to wander aimlessly and embark on a spiritual
odyssey of our own.”
A complete statement by the artist is among the highlights of the
new book Cai Guo-Guong: Odyssey, published by the Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston. The richly illustrated publication includes specially
commissioned photography that documents Cai’s creative process,
the gunpowder explosion, and ultimately the installation of Odyssey at the
Museum. The book was made possible by the generous support of
Anne and Albert Chao.
Quick on the Draw
The fast ignition of gunpowder around
the panels of the drawing resulted in a
quick explosion.

P R O F I L E
41

G R U P O M O N D O N G O ’ S C A L A V E R A S [ S K U L L S ]
A Memento Mori for
Contemporary Life
S U R F A C I N G
42
79 x 78 .3/4 x 3 3/4”
The Latin expression memento mori can be translated as “remember to die,” or, less literally, as “remember that you, too,
will die.” Beginning in the Middle Ages and with the spread of Christianity, Western artists and writers became increasingly
interested in exploring the implications of the warning to humankind encapsulated by the Latin phrase. Memento mori
became associated with an important iconographic tradition in the history of art (and literature), for which certain symbols,
often skulls, were used to remind viewers of their mortality and of the transience of earthly or material concerns.
When Grupo Mondongo, the Argentinean collective consisting of the artists Manuel Mendanha (born 1976) and
Juliana Laffitte (born 1974), began to create the Calavera [Skull] series (2009–13), which comprises twelve imposing,
extremely large plasticine reliefs of skulls imbedded with a plethora of images from art history, popular and
consumer culture, and world events, the group added its voice to this centuries-old discourse.
Moreover, just as Grupo Mondongo layered and juxtaposed images as diverse as Leonardo’s Last Supper, the White
House, Charles Darwin, Charlie Chaplin, and elements from the video game Pac-Man, among many others, the collective
also blended the skull’s connection to the memento mori tradition with the symbol’s significance in Latin American cultures,
where, for example, skulls are prominently displayed and incorporated in annual Día de los muertos (Day of the Dead) rituals.
Grupo Mondongo’s Mendanha explains, “The Skull is a powerful, meaningful symbol in our society. . . . It represents the
imago mundi [the model of the world as it looks or seems] of our overwhelming electronic culture where language has
imploded into image. . . . The skull has become a space in which we can think about our history or . . . rhetorically about the
future of our race.”
The Calaveras are designed to provoke reflection and debate, prompting us to consider who we are and were, what we
value and have valued, and how our actions and desires impact the world around us. Bombarding the viewer with seemingly
endless and ostensibly unconnected visual stimuli, these works concern themselves with the contemporary proliferation,
manipulation, and consumption of images among relatively privileged groups, which are partly defined by unbridled
consumption of all things—of images, information, objects, and even food.
Around the skulls, the monochromatic Pac-Man video-game icon and its ghostlike nemeses hover and recall the roles
they played in the iconic 1980s video game, where they alternated between threatening to devour or being devoured. Like
the skulls themselves, these figures represent humankind and its earthly appetites, while also signaling that, at any given
moment, the game can change and, eventually, end. The pursuer/consumer will inevitably become the pursued and the
consumed. Like all memento mori in the history of art, these figures unnerve us with the reminder that death will ultimately
consume us all.
A Timely Reminder
The Calavera series by Grupo Mondongo
recalls the long tradition of memento
mori in the history of art, for which certain
iconic symbols, such as skulls, were used
to remind viewers of their own mortality.

Grupo Mondongo’s Calavera 3 [Skull 3] and Calavera 4 [Skull 4] will be exhibited in Contingent Beauty:
Contemporary Art from Latin America, on view from November 22, 2015, to February 28, 2016,
in the Upper Brown Pavilion of the Caroline Wiess Law Building.
43

44
Image
To Come

Christopher
Rothko
A U T H O R A N D C H A I R M A N O F
T H E B O A R D O F D I R E C T O R S
O F T H E R O T H K O C H A P E L , H O U S T O N
Q&A
Christopher Rothko has contributed a major essay, “Mark
Rothko: The Mastery of the ’60s,” to Mark Rothko: An Essential
Reader, recently published by the Museum and on sale now at
The MFA Shop. The following responses are excerpted from
this essay, which provides rare insights into his father’s creative
processes as well as timely observations on viewers’ interactions
with Rothko’s paintings from the 1950s and the 1960s.
Meet Christopher Rothko following his conversation with
Museum Director Gary Tinterow on Monday, November 16,
at 6:30 p.m. To reserve tickets for this special event, go to
mfah.org/conversations. Mr. Rothko’s new monograph on his
father, Mark Rothko: From the Inside Out, will be available for
purchase that evening.
Do you find that certain works by Mark Rothko are the
most appealing to the general viewer?
Based on the scope of retrospective exhibitions, loan requests,
and proposals for reproductions that I receive, the 1950s
paintings (by which I really mean 1949 through 1957) still
predominate. It is hard to fight the allure of color, and, given
the vibrancy of my father’s palette in that seminal decade,
I do not intend to do so.
You write about the paintings of the 1960s—actually
1958 through 1967—presenting a different experience
to the viewer. What distinguishes Rothko’s canvases
from this period?
Their drama is of the slow-burn variety, particularly when
compared with the quicksilver color juxtapositions and the
sheer candlepower of many works from the 1950s. By the
1960s, Rothko felt he no longer needed to solicit his viewer and
insisted, rather, that the viewer come to his work on his terms.
Is there also a marked distinction in sensibility between the
paintings created in the 1950s and the 1960s?
Yes, the sensibility manifested by the 1960s works is notably different. Some
find them signposts of depression, and others of simply a turn inward.
Some find their emotional range limited, and others find them deeply spiritual.
Whatever one’s response, the difference is both real and intentional, and
much of it stems from new emphases in the way my father was handling
his media.
If you were asked to choose the most moving works from your father’s
career, which paintings would you cite?
I would choose the dozen or so canvases from 1961 through 1963, painted
in profoundly deep browns, slate blues, charcoals, and blacks. Deeply
meditative and utterly still, their somber calm is then violated by a small
but brilliant band of color above—crimson, royal blue, sun-infused orange,
buttercream. These bands are at once a microclimate within the composition
and a source of warmth that transforms the entire painting. Nothing in
a Rothko painting exists on its own—all details are subsumed into a whole.
Given that your father’s works continuously inspire awe and engage
the viewer, how do you respond to some observations that his
Rothko Chapel paintings—created in 1966–67—banish all traces
of emotion?
As my father began to explore routes to create a meditative environment
for his chapel in Houston, he stripped away the last trappings of beauty and
seduction, seeking to remove all distractions from the ruminative task at
hand. It is not that these paintings banish emotion—far from it. They simply
do not impose any of their own. If they elicit feelings from the viewer, then the
conversation will be that much more human, but the viewer must bring those
feelings to the exchange.
F I V E M I N U T E S W I T H
45

E X H I B I T I O N F U N D E R S
Mark Rothko: A Retrospective
The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC,
and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. This exhibition is supported by an
indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
Lead corporate sponsor:
Pleasure and Piety: The Art of
Joachim Wtewael (1566–1638)
This exhibition is organized by the Centraal Museum Utrecht;
the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; the Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston; and the Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation.
An indemnity has been granted by the Federal Council on the Arts
and the Humanities.
Generous funding is provided by:
Sotheby’s
Norton Rose Fulbright
Oliver Wyman
Robert Lehman Foundation
Mr. and Mrs. Rodney Margolis
Generous funding is provided by:
Contingent Beauty: Contemporary
Art from Latin America
Official Media Partner:
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
46
Lead corporate sponsor:
Roman Vishniac Rediscovered
This exhibition is organized by the International Center of Photography.
It is made possible with support from the National Endowment for
the Arts.
Sculpted in Steel: Art Deco
Automobiles and Motorcycles,
1929–1940
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
Generous funding is provided by:
The David Berg Foundation
Barbara and Gerry Hines
Shirley Toomim
Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff
Additional generous funding is provided by Bruce Stein Family/Triple S Steel; Rolaine
and Morrie Abramson; Joan and Stanford Alexander; Nancy Beren and Larry Jefferson;
Jerry and Nanette Finger Family; Barbara and Michael Gamson; Joyce Z. Greenberg;
Barbara and Charles Hurwitz; Joan and Marvin Kaplan; Ann and Stephen Kaufman;
Helaine and David Lane; Susan and Jack Lapin; Rochelle and Max Levit; Mrs. Joan
Schnitzer Levy; Barbara and Barry Lewis; Suzanne Miller; Ms. Joan Morgenstern; Paula
and Irving Pozmantier; Herman Proler; Minnette Robinson; Leslie and Russ Robinson;
Regina Rogers in honor of Stefi Altman; The Lester and Sue Smith Foundation; Sugar
Land Skeeters; Mr. and Mrs. Conrad Weil, Jr.; Erla and Harry Zuber; and additional
supporters of the exhibition.
Lead foundation underwriting is provided by:
The Hamill Foundation
Additional generous funding is provided by:
Norton Rose Fulbright
High Society: The Portraits of
Franz X. Winterhalter
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
the Städtische Museen Freiburg, and the Musée du Château de
Compiègne.
Lead foundation underwriting is provided by:
Kinder Foundation

C R E D I T S
For all illustrations of artworks by Mark Rothko
that are published in this issue of h Magazine:
Artworks on canvas by Mark Rothko © 1998
by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko
PAGE 1
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1949, oil on canvas,
National Gallery of Art, Washington,
Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.,
1986.43.158.
PAGE 3
Mark Rothko, Untitled (Seagram Mural Sketch),
1959, oil and acrylic on canvas, National Gallery
of Art, Washington, Gift of The Mark Rothko
Foundation, Inc., 1985.38.2.
Mark Rothko: The Search
for Spiritual Transcendence
PAGE 4
Mark Rothko, Street Scene, 1936/1937, oil on
canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington,
Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.,
1986.43.45.
PAGES 6–7
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1945, oil on canvas,
National Gallery of Art, Washington,
Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.,
1986.43.88.
PAGE 8
Mark Rothko, No. 9, 1948, oil and mixed media
on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington,
Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.,
1986.43.143
PAGES 8–9
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1951, oil on canvas,
National Gallery of Art, Washington,
Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.,
1986.43.157.
PAGES 10–11
Mark Rothko, Untitled (Seagram Mural Sketch),
1959, oil and mixed media on canvas,
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of The
Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., 1986.43.156.
PAGES 12–13
Mark Rothko, No. 14 (Painting), 1961, oil on canvas,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum
purchase, 67.19.
PAGES 13
Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1969, acrylic on canvas,
National Gallery of Art, Washington,
Gift of The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc.,
1986.43.163.
Iconic Devotional Painting
PAGE 14
Rogier van der Weyden, Virgin and Child, after
1454, oil on wood, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, the Edith A. and Percy S. Straus
Collection, 44.535.
PAGE 15
Italo-Byzantine, The Cambrai Madonna, c. 1340,
tempera on panel, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de
Grâce de Cambrai, France.
Enduring Spirit
PAGE 16
Roman Vishniac, [Jewish schoolchildren,
Mukacevo], c. 1935–38, gelatin silver print.
© Mara Vishniac Kohn, courtesy International
Center of Photography
PAGE 18
Top: Roman Vishniac, [Boy standing on a
mountain of rubble, Berlin], 1947, inkjet print.
© Mara Vishniac Kohn, courtesy International
Center of Photography;
Bottom: Roman Vishniac, [Preparing food in a
Jewish soup kitchen, Berlin], mid- to late 1930s,
gelatin silver print. © Mara Vishniac Kohn,
courtesy International Center of Photography
PAGE 19
Roman Vishniac, [Jewish youth building a
school and foundry while learning construction
techniques, Werkdorp Nieuwesluis,
Wieringermeer, the Netherlands], c. 1938,
gelatin silver print. © Mara Vishniac Kohn,
courtesy International Center of Photography
Painting the Sacred
and the Profane
PAGE 20
Joachim Wtewael, The Annunciation to the
Shepherds, 1606, oil on canvas,
Sarah Campbell Blaffer Foundation, Houston.
PAGE 22
Joachim Wtewael, Mars and Venus Surprised
by Vulcan, 1604–8, oil on copper, the
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
PAGE 23
Joachim Wtewael, Self-Portrait, 1601,
oil on panel, Centraal Museum Utrecht
The Life of the Spirit
PAGES 24–25
John Biggers, Jubilee: Ghana Harvest Festival,
1959–63, tempera and acrylic on canvas, the
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase
funded by Duke Energy, 85.3. © John T. Biggers
Estate / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY,
www.vagarights.com
PAGE 26
Koei (Unkei IX), active 15th century, Muromachi
period, 1392–1573, Amida, 1472, carved wood with
traces of polychrome, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, museum purchase funded by the Brown
Foundation Accessions Endowment Fund, 92.193.
PAGE 27
Left: Chinese, Tang dynasty, 618–906, Earth
Spirit, earthenware with three-color glaze,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, museum
purchase funded by the Brown Foundation
Accessions Endowment Fund, 98.254.
Right: Kuyu peoples, Kouyou River, Republic of
Congo, Head, 19th century, wood, the Museum of
Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by
the Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. Accessions Endowment
Fund, 2015.11.
PAGES 28–29
Top: Morocco, Commissioned by Abu Talib
b. al-Shaykh Abu’l-Faris ’Abd al-’Aziz b. Sa’id bin
Isma’il bin’Abd al-’Aziz bin Sa’id al-Juhani Qur’ an,
Manuscript in Maghribi script, end of Rabi’ al-
Awwal, 718 H (1318 AD), ink, colors and gold on
parchment, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
gift of the Honorable and Mrs. Hushang Ansary,
with additional funds provided by the Brown
Foundation Accessions Endowment Fund and
the Alice Pratt Brown Museum Fund, 2007.1303.
PAGE 28
Left: India, Mughal dominions or Deccan,
Emerald inscribed with the Throne Verse from
the Qur’an, 17th century, 85.6 carats, The
al-Sabah Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah,
Kuwait, Inv. no. LNS 1766 J.
Right: Syria, Damascus (Ottoman), Calligraphic
Tile, 16th century, stonepaste; polychrome
painted under a transparent glaze, the Museum
of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded
by the 2013 Arts of the Islamic World Gala,
2013.64.
PAGE 29
Turkey (Istanbul or Bursa), Prayer Carpet, late
16th century, silk, cotton, and wool, The al-Sabah
Collection, Dar al-Athar al-Islamiyyah, Kuwait,
Inv. no. LNS 29 R.
PAGE 30
Top: Georgia O’Keeffe, Red Hill and White Shell,
1938, oil on canvas, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, gift of Isabel B. Wilson in memory of
her mother, Alice Pratt Brown, 91.2027.
© 2015 Georgia O’Keeffe Museum /
Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Bottom: Hopi, Crow Mother (Angwunasomtaqa)
Kachina, 1910–25, wood, paint, wool yarn,
and string, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
gift of Miss Ima Hogg, 44.370.
PAGES 30–31
Wassily Kandinsky, Sketch 160A, 1912, oil on canvas,
the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
gift of Audrey Jones Beck, 74.140. © 2015 Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
PAGES 32–33
Dorothea Lange, Freedom of Religion: Three
Denominations (Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist
Churches) on the Great Plains, Dixon, Near Winner,
South Dakota, 1938, gelatin silver print, the Museum
of Fine Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded
by the Brown Foundation Accessions Endowment
Fund, the Manfred Heiting Collection, 2002.1506.
Simulating the Spiritual
PAGES 34–35, 36–37
Magdalena Fernández, 2iPM009, from the series
Pinturas móviles [Mobile Paintings], 2009,
edition 2/3 + 2 AP, video installation with sound,
1 minute 56 seconds; digital animation by Marcelo
D’Orazio; sound effect of rain, corporal percussion
courtesy of Perpetuum Jazzile, the Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston, museum purchase funded by the
Caribbean Art Fund and the Caroline Wiess Law
Accessions Endowment Fund, 2012.84.
© Magdalena Fernández. Photos courtesy of Haus
Konstruktiv and the artist. Photos by A. Burger
A Spiritual Journey
PAGES 38–39, 40–41
Pages 38–39: Cai Guo-Qiang in the Museum’s
Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Arts of China Gallery,
where Odyssey is installed; pages 40–41: the
moment of the gunpowder’s explosion.
Photos by I-Hua Lee and Cai Studio.
Cai Guo-Qiang, Odyssey, October 6, 2010,
gunpowder and pigment on paper, mounted on
wood as a 42-panel screen, the Museum of Fine
Arts, Houston, museum commission with funds
provided by the Caroline Wiess Law Accessions
Endowment Fund, and the Chao Family in honor
of Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao, with additional
funds from Friends of Asian Art 2010.
© Cai Guo-Qiang
A Memento Mori for
Contemporary Life
PAGES 42–43
Grupo Mondongo, Calavera 4 [Skull 4], 2009–10,
plasticine on wood, the Museum of Fine Arts,
Houston, museum purchase funded by the
Latin Maecenas, 2011.541. © Grupo Mondongo
Photo by Gustavo Sosa Pinilla
Q&A with Christopher Rothko
PAGE 44
Christopher Rothko in the galleries of Mark Rothko:
A Retrospective. Photo by Thomas R. DuBrock
High Style
PAGES 48
Tatra, Czech, est. 1897, T97, 1938, collection of
the Lane Motor Museum, Nashville. Photo by
Peter Harholdt
47

S P R I N G 2 0 1 6
High Style
C O M I N G S O O N
48
Visitors to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, this spring will be
delighted to discover an assemblage of sleekly sculpted Art Deco
automobiles and motorcycles, as well as galleries filled with magnificent
19th-century portraits of European monarchs and society figures.
High style comes to the MFAH by way of two unprecedented
exhibitions. Opening first, on February 21, 2016, is Sculpted in Steel:
Art Deco Automobiles and Motorcyles, 1929–1940. This exhibition
features 14 automobiles that spectacularly express the Art Deco
aesthetic, beginning with a 1929 Bugatti Type 46 Semi-Profile Coupe.
Included in the exhibition are three custom motorcycles from this
influential period in 20th-century design.
Next, opening on April 17, 2016, is the international loan exhibition
High Society: The Portraits of Franz X. Winterhalter. The German-born
Winterhalter (1805–1873) was the most renowned portraitist of the
courts of Europe during his day. He expertly captured the refinement
and opulence of his aristocratic sitters. Soon after his appointment as
the de facto court painter to King Louis-Philippe, Winterhalter became
in demand globally.
Yet in Paris, during the Second Empire (1852–1871), Winterhalter hit
his mark. He painted supremely fashionable portraits, just when he was
reaching the height of his artistic powers. Numerous exquisite paintings
that symbolize the entire era will be shown at the Museum.
76 3/4 x 67 3/4”
Road Attraction
Known for their innovative engineering
and high quality, the Tatra vehicles
from Czechoslovakia are striking and
consummately modern. This T97 model,
made in 1938, is a perfect manifestation
of streamlined design.

THE
MUSEUM
O F
FINE ARTS,
HOUSTON
MAGAZINE
Spirituality
Issue 4 / 2015
P. O. Box 6826, Houston, TX 77265-6826
© 2015 by The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
PUBLISHER IN CHIEF
Diane Lovejoy
EDITORS
Heather Brand, Michelle Dugan, Melina Kervandjian,
and Christine Waller Manca
GRAPHIC DESIGN
Pentagram Design: DJ Stout, Julie Savasky,
and Carla Delgado
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston:
Phenon Finley-Smiley
PRINTING
CPY Printing
The paper used in the printing of this magazine was
produced from well-managed, independently certified
forests and contains 10% PCW.
MUSEUM LOCATIONS
The Audrey Jones Beck Building
5601 Main Street
The Caroline Wiess Law Building
1001 Bissonnet Street
The Lillie and Hugh Roy Cullen
Sculpture Garden
Montrose Boulevard at Bissonnet Street
The Glassell School of Art
2450 Holcombe Boulevard, Suite 2-25G, 713-639-7500
The Glassell Junior School
5100 Montrose Boulevard, 713-639-7700
MFAH Visitors Center and Parking Garage
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Bayou Bend Collection and Gardens
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Rienzi
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