<\/p>\n
Fire Escape by Alice Neel is shown right in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
A person looks at the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Flight of the Thielens by Thomas Hart Benton is shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
My Hell-Raising Sea by John Marin is shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
The Red Woodpecker by Charles Burchfield is shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Palisade by Ellsworth Kelly Palisade is shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Alison de Lima Greene, the Isabel Brown Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, talks about the Weehawken Sequences by John Marin in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d in Houston Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Gasoline Pump by Stuart Davis is shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
A person looks at the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
The Wall by Jacob Lawrence is shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Evening Blue byGeorge Bellows is shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Alison de Lima Greene, the Isabel Brown Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, talks about the Gasoline Pump by Stuart Davis in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d in Houston Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Smoking Ships at Sea by Thomas Moran is shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Alison de Lima Greene, the Isabel Brown Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, talks about Third Avenue El by Guy P\u00e8ne du Bois in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d in Houston Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Girls with Red Ribbons by Olga Costa, left, and La Familia by Rufino Tamayo, right, are shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Alison de Lima Greene, the Isabel Brown Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, talks about the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d in Houston Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Cliffs Martha\u2019s Vineyard by Thomas Hart Benton is shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Alison de Lima Greene, the Isabel Brown Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, talks about the woman holding her hat in Along the Road, Bahamas by Winslow Homer in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d in Houston Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Flag I by Jasper Johns is shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Savarin 1-6 by Jasper Johns is shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
Palisade by Ellsworth Kelly Palisade is shown on right in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n
Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n
In bringing \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,<\/a> curators Alison de Lima Greene and Joan Wyatt address a key question: What is \u201cAmerican painting\u201d in its realest form?<\/p>\n As Greene suggests, \u201cAmerican Modernism\u201d tells a very good story. With one or two exceptions, predominantly American artists explore predominantly American themes or scenes which in some way inform the American experience.<\/p>\n The exhibition American is on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) from Oct. 25 through Jan. 18.<\/p>\n The show opens Sunday in the Beck Building. Greene is the Isabel Brown Wilson Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art for MFAH. <\/a>Wyatt has collaborated with Butt\u00a0since 2022,\u00a0managing and curating<\/a> his collection.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Butt is perhaps best known as CEO and chairman of the San Antonio-based H-E-B supermarket chain named for his father, Howard Edward Butt. This seems to be A-okay with him. His privacy was emphasized, and re-emphasized, during a preview of the exhibition.<\/p>\n Little is known, or publicly shared, about the origin of his collection. The same goes for the influences or methods behind his collecting.<\/p>\n \u201c(Winslow) Homer is the starting point of his love of seascapes. Though at the time he began collecting, he could only afford a reproduction,\u201d Greene says. \u201cThe thing about once you become a collector is that people start to reach out to you.\u201d<\/p>\n We do know that many of the artists modern art promoter Alfred Stieglitz chose for his Intimate Gallery in New York ended up in\u00a0the Charles Butt Collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Crescendo (Elektra) by George L. K. Morris is shown in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n Themes emerge throughout ‘American Modernism’ such as the aforementioned seascapes, urban life, American landscapes, geometry, abstraction and jazz. Maybe they\u2019re clues; it\u2019s amusing to consider what Butt\u2019s collection might say about him as a person and art lover.<\/p>\n He plays favorites. There are at least two dozen works by John Marin, mostly of the Maine coastline. Another section is dedicated to Charles Burchfield\u2019s watercolors, too.<\/p>\n Butt\u2019s collection shows off a diverse assortment of predominantly American talent and themes. \u201cSummer at Its Best\u201d (1968) by Alma Thomas, the first Black woman to join the White House\u2019s permanent collection, stands out. Jacob Lawrence\u2019s \u201cThe Wall\u201d (1941) captures the artist\u2019s shock after encountering legally sanctioned segregation in the Jim Crow South for the first time. And\u00a0Rufino Tamayo\u2019s \u201cLa Familia\u201d (1925)\u00a0anchors a wall of familial scenes as a proud display of Indigenous heritage in Mexican culture.<\/p>\n Alison de Lima Greene, the Isabel Brown Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, talks about La Familia by Rufino Tamayo in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d in Houston Thursday, Oct. 22, 2026.<\/p>\n Melissa Phillip\/Houston Chronicle<\/p>\n Nearby, Romare Bearden\u2019s \u201cMama\u2019s Knee\u201d (1971) recasts the Madonna and child as a collage with a jazzy twang.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWe were able to expand the show with additional loans that are only shown in Houston, following the thinking of the original show,\u201d Greene explains.<\/p>\n \u201cAmerican Modernism\u201d is currently on a Texas tour, having previously debuted at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth before stopping\u00a0at the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin. MFAH\u2019s exhibition has 93 works on view; earlier iterations had up to 10 fewer.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a progression from intricate ideas of interiors to a romantic relationship with the adventure of abstraction,\u201d Greene adds.<\/p>\n The first gallery and works visitors encounter are intimate in both scale and depiction of daily life. Winslow Homer painted \u201cAlong the Road, Bahamas\u201d (1885) while traveling through the Caribbean,\u00a0in this case, Jamaica.\u00a0It\u2019s a remarkable watercolor study and sympathetic to its subject, a woman of African descent.\u00a0<\/p>\n Greene notes that watercolor can be unforgiving. One mistake, and the canvas gets thrown out.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Around a corner, she thinks that Georgia O\u2019Keeffe\u2019s \u201cMy Backyard\u201d (1945) will surprise folks. The show used it in its promotional materials. In person, the compressed New Mexico landscape on a petite canvas represents an achievement for the artist.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know she was particularly proud of this painting because she\u2019s making something small as good as something large,\u201d Greene says.<\/p>\n In \u201cAmerican Scenes,\u201d Alice Neal and Guy P\u00e8ne Du Bois transport viewers to a different sort of vastness in New York, where city dwellers live on top of one another.<\/p>\n “American Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection” at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.<\/p>\n Big names such as Mark Rothko, Ellsworth Kelly and Joan Mitchell gather in the final gallery of \u201cAmerican Modernism\u2019s\u201d ‘New Directions.’<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Greene feels that a section of works by Jasper John, including a suite of six lithographs on paper, creates a fitting conclusion to the collection.<\/p>\n \u201cI like the idea of Jasper Johns adding a postscript tension,\u201d she says. \u201cHe ends the show with a pair of flags. For America\u2019s 250th anniversary, it\u2019s the perfect coda. It\u2019s a new question: either\/or?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fire Escape by Alice Neel is shown right in the exhibition \u201cAmerican Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475573,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-475572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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