Media Contact: (not for publication)
Nancy Netzer, Director
netzer@bc.edu; 617.552.8587
Public Contact:
617.552.8100; artmuseum@bc.edu
mcmullenmuseum.bc.edu
THE McMULLEN MUSEUM OF ART AT BOSTON COLLEGE PRESENTS EXCLUSIVE EXHIBITION:
The Lost Generation: Women Ceramicists and the Cuban Avant-Garde
January 29–June 2, 2024
Most Works Have Never Before Been Displayed in the United States
Chestnut Hill, MA (December 2023)—The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College presents an exclusive exhibition, The Lost Generation: Women Ceramicists and the Cuban Avant-Garde, which examines the participants and artistic output from 1949 to 1959 of the Taller de Santiago de las Vegas, a ceramic workshop on the outskirts of Havana.
The bilingual (English-Spanish) exhibition will be on view in the McMullen Museum’s Daley Family and Monan Galleries from January 29 to June 2, 2024. The majority of the nearly two hundred works on display are from a private collection, and have never before been exhibited in the United States. The exhibition is the first to show how these innovative works by avant-garde women ceramicists influenced other artists of that period whose focus was on more established media. Until now, organizers note, Cuban avant-garde (vanguardia) design has been defined as a male-dominated movement.
“The McMullen is pleased to present The Lost Generation, the seventh exhibition organized as part of its Hispanic Art Initiative, which ventures into the little-explored, women-dominated medium of mid-twentieth-century Cuban artistic ceramics,” said Nancy Netzer, Inaugural Robert L. and Judith T. Winston Director of the McMullen Museum and Professor of Art History.
“Thanks to generous loans from private collectors and galleries, curator Elizabeth Thompson Goizueta [McMullen Museum adjunct curator] has assembled an outstanding selection of ceramics produced in the visionary Dr. Juan Miguel Rodríguez de la Cruz’s Taller de Santiago de las Vegas. Thompson Goizueta has paired the ceramics with paintings and sculptures by Cuba’s second- and third-generation modernists to reveal for the first time how the avant-garde ceramicists’ innovations exerted powerful influence on artists working in more traditional media.”
The Lost Generation: Women Ceramicists and the Cuban Avant-Garde
The exhibition examines the participants and artistic output from 1949 to 1959 of the Taller de Santiago de las Vegas, a ceramic workshop near Havana. A decade of artistic experimentation primarily by little-known women ceramicists had deep reverberations both for the acceptance of ceramics as a fine art form in Cuba and for the symbiotic relationship that flourished between the ceramicists and the painters, largely men, who visited the Taller to learn the craft. The painters in turn applied new techniques and methodologies to their two-dimensional production, which is now regarded as synonymous with the Cuban avant-garde (vanguardia).
Featuring nearly 150 vases, mugs, water jugs, murals, and plates drawn from premier private and gallery collections, The Lost Generation displays for the first time many of the Taller’s finest ceramics in conversation with dozens of paintings and sculptures by Amelia Peláez, René Portocarrero, Wifredo Lam, Luis Martínez Pedro, Mariano Rodríguez, and others. In addition to the ceramics, thirty-seven paintings, three sculptures, and archival materials from the ceramic workshop will be on display.
At the helm of the Taller was physician Juan Miguel Rodríguez de la Cruz, who formed and fired the ceramics and hired mainly women, many of whom were trained at the prestigious Academia San Alejandro and other fine arts schools, to decorate the wares. These ceramicists created their own styles, establishing an artistic movement that garnered national and international recognition.
Among the artists whose work is included are key ceramicists at the Taller; they, along with Rodríguez de la Cruz, welcomed the participation of renowned modernist painters and sculptors, whose pieces are also on display. Represented in the exhibition are also those who worked in the milieu of the Taller. They are: Marta Arjona, Elia Rosa Fernández de Mendía, Mirta García Buch, Aleida González, Rosa Jiménez, María Elena Jubrías, María Pepa Lamarque, Amelia Peláez, Rebeca Robés Massés, Ofelia Sam, Wifredo Arcay, Agustín Cárdenas, Viredo Espinosa, Maximiliano González Olazábal, Julio Herrera Zapata, Wifredo Lam, René Martínez Palenzuela, Luis Martínez Pedro, José María Mijares, Raúl Milián, René Portocarrero, Mariano Rodríguez, Juan Miguel Rodríguez de la Cruz, and Leopoldo Romañach.
“I am honored to be introducing in this exhibition a whole generation of unknown or underrepresented Cuban women ceramic artists,” said curator Elizabeth Thompson Goizueta, adjunct curator at the McMullen and former Boston College faculty member in Hispanic studies. “Their contributions are not limited to Cuba alone but rather are emblematic of the greater international mid-century modernist movement.
“Until now, Cuban avant-garde (vanguardia) design has been exclusively defined as a male-dominated movement. In the twenty-first century, we are finally recognizing the complexity and fullness of our societies and their participants,” she said.
The trajectory of ceramics following the Cuban Revolution of 1959 is also explored in the exhibition. According to organizers, many of those who worked at the Taller went on to found their own independent workshops, furthering the commercialization, and acceptance, of fine art modernist ceramics on the island.
Lenders to the exhibition include a prominent private collection, Cernuda Arte, Latin Art Core, Pan American Art Projects, Silvia and Emilio M. Ortiz, Isaac and Betty Rudman, and several anonymous collectors.
Exhibition Catalogue and Support
The Lost Generation is accompanied by a bilingual catalogue edited by Elizabeth Thompson Goizueta that illustrates each work in the exhibition. With contributions from Roberto Cobas Amate, curator of Cuban avant-garde art and the Wifredo Lam collection at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havana; Alejandro Anreus, a professor of art history and Latin American/Latinx studies, formerly at William Paterson University; Thompson Goizueta; and Carol Damian, an art historian and curator formerly at Florida International University, the volume explores the origins of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art in Cuba, the protagonists of the first two generations of the vanguardia, the importance for Cuban modernism of the women ceramicists’ involvement in the Taller de Santiago de las Vegas, and the stylistic contributions of the women artists.
Organized by the McMullen Museum, The Lost Generation has been curated by Elizabeth Thompson Goizueta and underwritten by Boston College with major support from the Patrons and the Hispanic Art Initiative of the McMullen Museum.
McMullen Museum of Art
The McMullen Museum aims to cultivate learning, celebrate artistic excellence, explore the visual traditions of diverse cultures, and inspire transdisciplinary faculty and student research based on the visual arts. The McMullen offers exhibition-related programs and resources for diverse audiences of all ages on campus, in the Greater Boston area, and beyond.
The Museum mounts exhibitions of international scholarly importance from all periods and cultures of the history of art. In keeping with the University’s central teaching mission, exhibitions are accompanied by academic catalogues and related public programs. The McMullen Museum of Art was named in 1996 for the late BC benefactor, trustee, and art collector John J. McMullen and his wife Jacqueline McMullen. In 2005, the McMullen Family Foundation provided a lead gift to renovate and build an addition to the Museum’s new venue at 2101 Commonwealth Avenue. Designed in 1927 in the Roman Renaissance Revival style by architects Maginnis and Walsh, it originally served as the home of Boston’s cardinal archbishops. The renovation was completed in spring 2016 and opened to the public on September 12, 2016.
Accompanying Free, Public Events
In-person and virtual public programming is planned for the general public and museum Members. For more information, and to sign up for those events that require advance registration, please visit the McMullen Museum Events Calendar. More events will be added leading up to this exhibition; visit the McMullen website and subscribe to the McMullen mailing list for updates.
- Walk + Talk with exhibition curator Elizabeth Thompson Goizueta, Friday, February 2 (noon–1 p.m.)
- Lunar New Year celebration, Saturday, February 10 (noon–3 p.m.)
- In-person docent tours begin Sunday, February 18 (every Sunday, 2–3 p.m.)
- Virtual docent tours
- Boston College Lowell Humanities Series Lecture: Ada Ferrer: Cuba: An American History, March 13 (7 p.m., Gasson Hall room 101)
A forthcoming series of virtual events includes: Publication Highlights by BC and guest scholars, Into the Collection presentations on rarely seen works from the McMullen’s permanent collection, Members’ Crash Courses on art historical movements, and Museum Current lectures with museum leaders and researchers.
[Media Note: A selection of press images and captions is available here. Please email Kate Shugert with questions.]
Additional Digital Resources
Visit McMullen From Home for recordings of all lectures as well as an archive of virtual walkthroughs, digital exhibition catalogues, podcasts, interactive spotlights, and more. View and search the McMullen’s permanent collection database.
McMullen Museum Hours and Tours
Admission is free; wheelchair accessible. Located at 2101 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02135, on BC’s 65-acre Brighton Campus. Hours during this exhibition: Monday–Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday–Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.; the Museum will be closed: March 29, 31, April 15, and May 27, 2024. Contact: artmuseum@bc.edu, 617.552.8587. All events are free. For directions, parking, and program information, visit mcmullenmuseum.bc.edu.