Frist Center for the Visual Arts  
 
 
 
  Past Exhibitions 


  Tiffany by Design
May 9–August 24, 2008
 This exhibition of 40 lamps conveys the beauty and complexity of the fabrication processes employed by Tiffany Studios between 1900 and 1918.
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  Sculpture by George Rickey
Through June 2008

The twenty-eight-foot-tall Two Lines Oblique Gyratory II is an elegant composition of linear elements extending diagonally from a central stem, evoking a simple antenna or an austere interpretation of a tree.

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  Monet to Dalí
Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art
February 15–June 1, 2008
This exhibition brings together more than 75 works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including works by Cézanne, Dalí, Degas, Gauguin, Renoir, Seurat, and more.Learn More...


  Angelo Filomeno
Eros and Thanatos
February 15–June 1, 2008
Using luxurious materials and virtuosic craftsmanship, Angelo Filomeno achieves a disarming beauty in his embroidered images of fanged skulls, exploded peacocks, and hovering insects. Learn More...


  Master Art
Learn How to Look at Art in our Education Gallery
February 15–June 1, 2008
Master Art  features three paintings and one sculpture from the Monet to Dalí exhibition and allows visitors to explore what made the featured artists so innovative.Learn More...


  The Legacy of Aaron Douglas
Fisk University Art Faculty
January 11–May 11, 2008
This exhibition celebrates the influence of Aaron Douglas on the art of Nashville and the nation, as seen in works by present and former faculty members of the Fisk University Art Department.Learn More...


  Aaron Douglas
African American Modernist
January 18–April 13, 2008
This is the first touring retrospective of the work of Aaron Douglas and includes approximately 100 paintings, works on paper, and book illustrations from this leading artist of the Harlem Renaissance.Learn More...


  The Société Anonyme
Modernism for America
October 26, 2007–January 27, 2008
The Société Anonyme: Modernism for America presents highlights of European and American art dating primarily from 1920 to 1940 by major artists including Duchamp, Ernst, Stella, Kandinsky, and Klee.Learn More...


  Rosemary Laing
Flight
October 26, 2007–January 27, 2008
Australian artist Rosemary Laing combines photography, performance, and cinema in her carefully composed and highly evocative color photographs.Learn More...


  From Post Office to Art Center
Through January 6, 2008
This panel exhibition outlines the history of the transformation of the Frist Center from a federal post office to Nashville's premier art exhibition center.Learn More...


  Future / Now
Mid-State Art Majors
November 16 – December 31, 2007
This exhibition presents selected works by the next generation of practicing artists, who today are students in college or university programs across Middle Tennessee.Learn More...


  Life's Pleasures
The Ashcan Artists' Brush with Leisure, 1895-1925
August 3–October 28, 2007
The Ashcan painters are thought to depict primarily scenes of the urban life of the lower socio-economic classes. While this is one important aspect of these artists’ work, it is not entirely representative, as Life's Pleasures will illustrate.Learn More...


  Lyrical Traditions
Four Centuries of Chinese Painting from the Papp Collection
June 22 – October 7, 2007
Comprising 60 hand-painted scrolls, hanging scrolls, fans, screens and albums, Lyrical Traditions is drawn from the collection of Phoenix residents Marilyn and Roy Papp.Learn More...


  Whispering Wind
Recent Chinese Photography
June 22 – October 7, 2007
This exhibition, organized by the Frist Center for the Visual Arts, includes works by 21 contemporary artists from China, several of whom live in the West.Learn More...


  Sylvia Hyman
Fictional Clay
June 22 – October 7, 2007
Sylvia Hyman: Fictional Clay presents 24 meticulously crafted trompe l’oeil sculptures created over the last eight years by Nashville’s renowned clay artist.Learn More...


  Jim McGuire
The Nashville Portraits
May 11 – September 9, 2007
This exhibition pays homage to Nashville’s country music heritage through 60 black and white photographs of beloved artists such as Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, Waylon Jennings, and Bill Monroe.Learn More...


  Brushed with Light
Masters of American Watercolor from the Brooklyn Museum
May 4 – July 22, 2007
This chronological survey of American watercolor landscapes begins with precisely painted scenes from late 18th-century New England and concludes with urban images from the mid-20th century.Learn More...


  Matisse, Picasso, and the School of Paris
Masterpieces from the Baltimore Museum of Art
March 2 – June 3, 2007
Consisting of 64 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from the Baltimore Museum of Art’s extensive collection, this rich exhibition explores the work of artists who made Paris the center of modern art and culture from the late 19th century until the outbreak of World War II.Learn More...


  Hiraki Sawa
Going Places Sitting Down
March 2 - June 3, 2007
Video artist Hiraki Sawa creates poetic, ephemeral dreamscapes that focus on making visible the realm of imagination.Learn More...


  A Walk in Paris, ca. 1905
March 2 – June 3, 2007
This engaging Education Gallery exhibition invites viewers to study artists and their communities, using a map to “stroll” through the Parisian neighborhoods of Montparnasse and Montmartre.Learn More...


  Contemporary Cultures
Prints by Antioch High School Students
January 12 - May 6, 2007
Contemporary Cultures includes prints created by Antioch High School students who participated in an after-school printmaking program organized by the Frist Center and held in fall 2006.Learn More...


  Mexico and Modern Printmaking
A Revolution in the Graphic Arts, 1920-1950
February 2 – April 15, 2007
This exhibition examines the vital contributions made by Mexican and foreign-born printmakers working in Mexico, featuring 125 prints and posters by 50 artists, including Diego Rivera, José Clemente Orozco, and David Alfaro Siqueiros.Learn More...


  2007 Mayor's Art Show - Section I
Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools
March 29 – April 12, 2007
The Mayor’s Art Show, which began in the 1990s and has continued under Mayor Bill Purcell, features artwork created by students from Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools.Learn More...


  Superintendent's Art Show
Williamson County Schools
February 10 - March 11, 2007
The 2007 Superintendent’s Art Show features some of the finest artwork created by students in the Williamson County school system.Learn More...


  Bob Trotman
Model Citizens
November 10, 2006 – February 11, 2007
Bob Trotman: Model Citizens is composed of seven carved and painted wood sculptures produced between 2001 and 2005Learn More...


  Extra-Ordinary
The Everyday Object in American Art
November 10, 2006 – February 11, 2007
This exhibition brings together paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, and sculptures from the Whitney Museum of American Art that challenge traditional definitions of art while documenting twentieth-century American culture.Learn More...


  Transformations
November 10, 2006 – February 11, 2007

Enhance your experience after viewing Extra-Ordinary and learn about how transformation is a key element in many of the works in this exhibition from the Whitney Museum of American Art.

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  Bedazzled
5000 Years of Jewelry from the Walters Art Museum
September 15, 2006 – January 14, 2007
This renowned collection contains beautiful examples of craftsmanship ranging from ancient masterpieces produced in the second millennium B.C. to jewelry made in the early twentieth century.Learn More...


  Young Tennessee Artists
2006 Statewide Advanced Placement Studio Art
October 27, 2006 – January 7, 2007
The thirty-one works in this exhibition were chosen to exemplify the best artwork by high school students across Tennessee who participated in the Advanced Placement Studio Art program in 2006.Learn More...


  The Quest for Immortality
Treasures of Ancient Egypt
June 9 – October 8, 2006

The ancient Egyptian concept of the afterlife is dramatically illustrated by The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt.

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  The Pulitzer Prize Photographs
Capture the Moment
June 30 – August 20, 2006
The largest and most comprehensive display of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs ever exhibited in the United States, this exhibition features more than 130 images drawn from each year’s winning entries since the prize was established in 1942.Learn More...


  Magnificent, Marvelous Martelé
American Art Nouveau Silver from the Jolie and Robert Shelton Collection
February 17 – June 11, 2006
Organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Shelton of Lafayette, Louisiana, this exhibition is composed of hand-wrought silver produced by the Gorham Manufacturing Company between 1898 and 1915.Learn More...


  Paths to Impressionism
French and American Landscape Painting from the Worcester Art Museum
February 17 – June 11, 2006
This exhibition traces the stylistic evolution of landscape painting as well as the changing attitude toward nature in the nineteenth century through forty-one works by French and American artists.Learn More...


  THE SPLENDID PALETTE
Painting in France from Monet to Bonnard
May 20, 2005 – April 30, 2006 (closed Jan. 11-18)
This exhibition includes 14 extraordinary paintings by some of the most important masters of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century art, including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, Pierre Bonnard and Odilon Redon.Learn More...


  African Art, African Voices: Long Steps Never Broke a Back
January 27 – April 30, 2006
Drawn primarily from the Seattle Museum of Art’s remarkable African collections, this exhibition, whose title originates in an African parable, highlights the artistic heritage of a number of sub-Saharan cultures.Learn More...


  Hamlett Dobbins: Early Morning Paintings
January 27 – April 30, 2006
The abstract paintings of Memphis artist Hamlett Dobbins contain subtle references to an array of sources that, although familiar to us all, have triggered the artist’s imagination in surprising ways.Learn More...


  Beyond Sight
African Art Touch Gallery
January 27 – April 30, 2006
Visitors with visual impairments will have the opportunity to experience how the sense of touch can enrich their appreciation of art through this exhibit.Learn More...