Naked Truth: Approaches to the Body
in Early-20th-Century German-Austrian Art
2015–2016 Arts Council Proposal
R equest to the A rts C ouncil: The Middlebury College Museum
of Art requests $45,000 to publish a fully illustrated catalogue to
accompany the fall 2015 exhibition Naked Truth: Approaches to the Body
in Early Twentieth-Century German-Austrian Art.
A bout this P roposal: In 1899, Gustav Klimt’s painting Nuda Veritas
(Österreichisches Theatermuseum, Vienna) shook up the Austrian
public with what many deem the painter’s most political exploration of
the nude female body. Klimt’s provocative allegory challenged viewers
to consider their own beliefs about the relationship between the nude
(female) body and contemporary morality; this “naked truth” was
shocking. Transcending accusations of “pornography,” Klimt’s work
paved the way for artistic explorations of the nude body as the site
through which questions of freedom, desire, beauty, nature, culture,
power, and their antonyms could be represented and negotiated.
Taking these ideas as one critical point of departure, in the fall of
2015 the Middlebury College Museum of Art will organize the
exhibition Naked Truth: Approaches to the Body in Early-Twentieth-Century
German-Austrian Art. The exhibition will feature approximately fifty
drawings, prints, and paintings by Klimt, Egon Schiele, Otto Dix,
Max Pechstein, and Käthe Kollwitz, among others. These works will
be drawn from the extensive collections of the Sabarsky Foundation,
which has made its resources available to us for this exhibition. The
ultimate goal will be an inquiry into conceptions of the human body
and the manner of its visualization in the period leading up to and
following the First World War, which changed the world’s notions of
flesh and blood forever.
Curated from the Sabarsky Collection, a prestigious art collection from
outside the College, the exhibition will draw upon a broad range of
on-campus resources, expertise, and talent. The co-curators will come
from the Department of German and the Department of History of Art
and Architecture.
Gustav Klimt, Nuda Veritas, 1899
(Österreichisches Theatermuseum, Vienna)
Students and faculty from departments across the campus, as well
as museum studies, art history, studio arts, and history, will use the
exhibition. Under the supervision of the curator of education,
students enrolled in the Museum Assistants Program will lead tours
and offer scholarly talks for their peers, the general public, and for local
schoolchildren. A winter-term musical at the Town Hall Theater, in
collaboration with our music department, will be geared toward an
even broader audience. In fall 2015, the theater department will mount
a production of Spring Awakenings (Frühlings Erwachen), the play by
the German playwright Frank Wedekind, which was launched in 1891
with as much controversy as the Klimt painting from which the
exhibition borrows its title.
The museum has received funding from the Sabarsky Foundation to
cover half of the costs associated with the overall project (shipping,
insurance, installation, and lecture series), which will total approximately $90,000. The catalogue that we seek to publish will be a
substantive, enduring work of scholarship.
Max Pechstein, Am Strand, 1922,
(Sabarsky Collection, New York)
The proposed fully illustrated catalogue would include scholarly essays
by co-curators Bettina Matthias and Eliza Garrison from Middlebury’s
German and art history departments, as well as by Professor James
Van Dyke, University of Missouri, Columbia, a collaboration that will
encourage broad readership. The catalogue’s scope will be modeled
closely on The Art of Devotion: Panel Painting in Early Renaissance Italy,
the Middlebury College Museum of Art catalog that accompanied
the successful 2009 exhibition of the same title.
The entire budget for the Naked Truth exhibition and catalogue amounts
to approximately $90,000. Of that amount, the College seeks the
remaining half, $45,000, through the generosity of the Arts Council.
Respectfully submitted,
Richard Saunders, Director, Middlebury College Museum of Art
Bettina Matthias, Professor, Department of German
Gustav Klimt, Stehender Mädchenakt mit
vorgebeugtem Körper nach links, c.1900
(Sabarsky Collection, New York)
Eliza Garrison, Associate Professor, Department of History of
Art and Architecture
Naked Truth Budget
Guest author essay fee:
$1,000
Photography:$5,000
Editing:$2,500
Design:$5,500
Printing:$31,000
Total cost:
$45,000