Frist Center for the Visual Arts  
 
 
 
  Past Exhibitions 


  Masterpieces of European Painting
from Museo de Arte de Ponce
February 19–May 16, 2010

Ranging in date from the 14th to the early 20th century, iconic works by Francisco de Zurbarán, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Bernardo Strozzi, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti are included in this exhibition.

Learn More...


  U-Ram Choe
New Urban Species
February 19–May 16, 2010

Choe’s kinetic sculptures are made of delicately curved sections of wrought metal, joined together in movable parts that are driven by motors to suggest the autonomic motions of such primitive life forms as plants and single-celled aquatic creatures.

Learn More...


  2010 Mayor's Art Show
March 25–April 8 & April 22–May 6, 2010
Education Corridor, Upper-Level

Come recognize the artistic accomplishments of Metro Nashville Public School students.

Learn More...


  Heroes
Mortals and Myths in Ancient Greece
January 29–April 25, 2010

This exhibition of approximately 100 objects defines various types of ancient Greek heroes between the sixth and first centuries BCE.

Learn More...


  2010 Williamson County Schools Art Show
March 6–21, 2010
Education Corridor, Upper-Level

Emjoy some of the finest artwork created by students in the Williamson County school district.

Learn More...


  2010 Superintendent’s Art Show
Wilson County Schools & Franklin Special School District
February 13 - 28, 2010

The 2010 Superintendent's Art Show features some of the finest artwork created by students.

Learn More...


  Georgia O’Keeffe and Her Times
American Modernism from the Lane Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
October 2, 2009–January 31, 2010

This exhibition showcases the diversity and dynamism of American modernism and features work by O’Keeffe, Arthur G. Dove, Stuart Davis, and more.

Learn More...


  Oliver Herring
Common Threads
October 2, 2009–January 31, 2010

New York-based artist Oliver Herring creates photographs cut into jigsaw puzzle-like shapes and adhered to sculpted figures, lending the uncanny quality of a photograph seen in the round.

Learn More...


  Thomas Hart Benton in Story and Song
October 2, 2009–January 31, 2010

Enjoy a selction of Benton's drawings and watercolors featured in many of beloved author Mark Twain's classic books as well as works on Benton's love of Americana music.

Learn More...


  Twilight Visions
Surrealism, Photography, and Paris
September 10, 2009–January 3, 2010

Twilight Visions celebrates Paris as the literal and metaphoric foundation of Surrealism and includes photographs by such arists as Man Ray, Eugène Atget, Brassaï, and Hans Bellmer.

Learn More...


  Chuck Close Prints
Process and Collaboration
June 26–September 13, 2009
This exhibition is a comprehensive survey of the work of Chuck Close as a printmaker and collaborator with master printers, spanning more than 30 years.Learn More...


  Dean Byington
Terra Incognita
June 26–September 13, 2009
Dean Byington creates large collaged paintings, comprising dense accumulations of imagery as anthropomorphic animals and topographical views of enchanted lands as if seen from a distant mountaintop.
Learn More...


  Museums in the 21st Century
Concepts, Projects, Buildings
May 29–August 23, 2009
This exhibition explores important trends in contemporary museum architecture.Learn More...


  Seeing Ourselves
Photographs of Safe Haven
January 9–August 9, 2009
In April 2008, the Frist Center partnered with Safe Haven Family Shelter to provide an opportunity for cultural enrichment through a community art program offered to its residents.Learn More...


  Medieval Treasures from the Cleveland Museum of Art
February 13–June 7, 2009
The Cleveland Museum of Art possesses one of the finest and most comprehensive collections of early Christian, Byzantine, and medieval European art in the world.Learn More...


  Mike Hoolboom
Imitations of Life
February 13–June 7, 2009
Toronto-based independent filmmaker Mike Hoolboom’s Imitations of Life integrates images drawn from mainstream cinema, newsreels, and science fiction films.Learn More...


  Paint Made Flesh
January 23–May 10, 2009
Paint Made Flesh presents paintings created in Europe and the United States since the 1950s in which a wide range of painterly effects suggest the carnal properties and cultural significance of human flesh and skin.Learn More...


  Williamson County Art Show
February 21-March 8, 2009
Education Corridor, Upper Level
The 2009 Williamson County Art Show features some of the finest artwork created by students in the school district.Learn More...


  Wilson County Schools Superintendent’s Art Show
January 31–February 15, 2009
Education Corridor, Upper Level
The 2009 Superintendent’s Art Show features some of the finest artwork created by students in the Wilson County Schools.Learn More...


  The Best of Photography and Film from the George Eastman House Collection
October 10, 2008–January 25, 2009

Featuring masterpieces of photography and film from throughout history, this exhibition includes  works by  Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Alfred Stieglitz while also presenting various versions of famous photographs.

Learn More...


  Indelible
The Photographs of Lalla Essaydi
October 10, 2008–January 25, 2009
Through her thought-provoking photographs, Moroccan-born artist Lalla Essaydi confronts the issues of confinement and repression experienced by many women in Islamic societies.Learn More...


  Snapshots and the Family Album
More Than Just Memories
October 10, 2008–January 25, 2009
Snapshots and the Family Album: More Than Just Memories includes 64 photographs submitted by Frist Center volunteers featuring amateur photos that document events of everyday life.Learn More...


  Rodin
A Magnificent Obsession, Sculpture from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation
September 12, 2008–January 4, 2009
Rodin is a retrospective of the artist’s career and includes more than 60 bronzes which were for the most part cast posthumously from original wax sculptures created by the artist.Learn More...


  Young Tennessee Artists
2008 Statewide Advanced Placement Studio Art
September 19, 2008–January 4, 2009
This second bi-annual exhibition showcases a selection of the finest artwork created by Tennessee high school students who were enrolled in Advanced Placement Studio Art programs in 2008.Learn More...


  Color as Field
American Painting, 1950–1975
June 20–September 21, 2008
Exemplified in the work of Helen Frankenthaler, Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Mark Rothko, and Frank Stella, the paintings featured in this exhibition constitute one of the crowning achievements of postwar American abstract art.Learn More...


  Shades of Gray
Four Artists of the Southeast
June 20–September 21, 2008
This exhibition will present the works of four Southeastern artists who employ a limited palette of black, white, and gray in exploring ambiguous relationships between figure and ground, as well as reality and the imagination.Learn More...


  The Artist's Voice
An exhibition of Tennessee artists with disabilities
May 16–September 14, 2008
The Frist Center is pleased to announce a statewide exhibition of approximately 40 works by adult artists with disabilities.Learn More...


  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.
Learn More...


  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.

Learn More...


  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...


  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.

Learn More...


  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.

Learn More...


  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...


  Lost Boys of Sudan
A Journey of Hope
January 6 – April 16, 2006
This exhibition features paintings by self-taught artists James Makuac and Bol Biar Aweng, which chronicle their experience as part of the Lost Boys of Sudan.Learn More...


  DEBORAH ASCHHEIM
Neural Architecture
September 23, 2005 - January 8, 2006
California artist Deborah Aschheim’s installation is the latest in a series that she describes as “nervous systems for buildings.” Entitled Neural Architecture, these installations explore the intersection of surveillance electronics, neurobiology, and architecture.
Learn More...


  HUDSON RIVER SCHOOL
Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
September 23, 2005 – January 8, 2006
The Hudson River School is a designation given to artists working between 1825 and 1875 whose paintings convey an immense reverence for nature in all its grandeur. This exhibition includes masterpieces by Cole, Durand, Church, Heade, Cropsey, and others.Learn More...


  Outdoor Classroom
September 23, 2005 - January 8, 2006
The Frist Center for the Visual Arts is partnering with fifth and sixth grade classes at Meigs Magnet Middle School in an interdisciplinary project related to the exhibition Hudson River School: Masterworks of the Wadsworth Antheneum Museum of Art.Learn More...


  MURANO
Glass from the Olnick Spanu Collection
October 15, 2005 – January 29, 2006
This exhibition provides a comprehensive examination of Venetian glass making in the twentieth century. Over 290 works explore the innovative techniques, movements and styles of Italian glass art.
Learn More...


  CUMBERLAND EXPOSURES: STUDENT NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY
August 19, 2005 - December 31, 2005

In collaboration with the Land Trust for Tennessee, Nashville Metro Parks and Recreation and a number of professional photographers, the Frist Center conducted a two-week landscape photography mentorship program for thirty 14- through 18-year-olds.

Learn More...


  THE FRAGILE SPECIES
New Art Nashville
June 17 – September 25, 2005
The Fragile Species: New Art Nashville includes paintings, photographs, sculptures, and video art by 20 artists from the Nashville area whose contemplations on human frailty range from the whimsical and ironic to the poignant and elegiac.Learn More...


  RENAISSANCE TO ROCOCO
Masterpieces from the Collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art
May 20 – August 28, 2005
Spanning the 15th through the 18th centuries, these 60 works by Italian, Spanish, French, English, Dutch and Flemish masters provide a glimpse into the political, religious, and cultural environments that shaped a golden era in the arts in Europe.
Learn More...


  Stylistic Connections: Renaissance to Rococo
May 20 – August 28, 2005

This educational exhibition will explore paintings from three different eras and reinforce concepts emphasized in the Renaissance to Rococo: Masterpieces from the Collection of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art exhibition.

Learn More...


  Community Voices
Frist Center for the Visual Arts and United Way of Metropolitan Nashville Mural Project
April 29 - August 14, 2005
For the past four years, the Frist Center has worked in partnership with United Way of Metropolitan Nashville to implement thirteen mural projects that recognize and honor the rich history and diverse cultural heritage of neighborhoods throughout Nashville.
Learn More...


  MANUEL
Star-Spangled Couture
December 17, 2004 – May 22, 2005
This exhibition includes Manuel's unique performance clothing for such notable stars as Johnny Cash, Marty Stuart and Dolly Parton.  The exhibition’s focus is a series of 50 colorfully decorated jackets, one for each state.
Learn More...


  American Anthem
Masterworks from the American Folk Art Museum
January 21 – May 1, 2005
Including over 130 works, this exhibition is a “song of praise” to the nation, offering insight into American history and culture, and celebrating the spirit of independence and ingenuity that has marked American folk art from colonial days to the present.Learn More...


  REcollection COMMUNITY ART PROJECT
January 21 - May 1, 2005
Education Gallery
The Frist Center has invited the Nashville community to work with resident artist Sherri Warner Hunter, a nationally recognized Tennessee artist whose primary media is found materials, to produce an educational and interactive exhibition for the Center’s Education Gallery.Learn More...


  LINDA HERRITT
TRANSIENT MATERIAL OF THE OBJECTIVE WORLD
January 21 - May 1, 2005
Brooklyn-based sculptor Linda Herritt creates large-scale installations using fabric and other materials that are often suspended from the ceiling in compelling and lyrical arrangements. 
Learn More...


  The 2005 Mayor's Art Show
April 21-May 5, 2005

The Mayor’s Art Show, originally begun in the 1990s under Nashville Mayor Phil Bredesen and his wife, Andrea Conte, has continued under Mayor Bill Purcell.

Learn More...


  LIVING ON
Portraits of Tennessee Survivors and Liberators
February 25 – April 24, 2005
This exhibition documents, through photographs and texts, the lives and stories of approximately 40 survivors of the Holocaust and the soldiers who liberated them at the end of World War II. Focusing on those survivors and liberators who live in Tennessee, the exhibition was organized and funded in part by the Tennessee Holocaust Commission as a means of preserving this important part of history.
Learn More...


  AP Studio Art Exhibition
November 1, 2004 – February 21, 2005
Organized by the College Board, the AP Studio Art program makes it possible for highly motivated high school students to participate in a college-level study of art.Learn More...


  Golden Children
Four Centuries of European Portraits from the Yannik and Ben Jakober Foundation
September 24, 2004 – January 2, 2005
From elegant court portraits of young royalty to charming examples of naive provincial portraiture, Golden Children shows the evolution of the image of childhood in Europe from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Learn More...


  Illusions of Innocence
The Child in Modern Photography
September 24, 2004 – January 2, 2005
This exhibition features 39 modern and contemporary images on the subject of childhood, created by some of the world's most renowned photographers of the past four decades. Learn More...


  Grace Graupe-Pillard
Manipulation / Disintegration
September 24, 2004 – January 2, 2005
Grace Graupe-Pillard's large scale paintings comment on the fragmentation of life for survivors in war-torn countries. Learn More...


  Spirit of a Nation
Highlights from the Hunter Museum of American Art
September 3, 2004 – November 28, 2004
Learn More...


  Marilyn Murphy
Suspended Animation
September 3, 2004 – November 28, 2004
In this mid-career survey, comprised of forty paintings and drawings by Vanderbilt University professor Marilyn Murphy, the artist's subjects - represented with the bland anonymity of advertising art from the 1940s and 50s - are confronted with mysterious forces from nature and from within the repressed self that threaten to disrupt their ordered world. Learn More...


  Red Grooms
Creating the Carousel
May 7, 2004 - October 4, 2004
On view in the Conte Community Arts Gallery, this exhibition shows the development and production of Red Groom's whimsical Tennessee Fox Trot Carousel and includes preparatory drawings, models and casts of elements of the piece. Learn More...


  Red Grooms
Selections from the Graphic Work
June 4, 2004 - September 6, 2004
Featuring the graphic works of the internationally renowned artist Red Grooms, this exhibition reveals, in both two and three dimensions, the breadth of the Nashville-born artist's engaging repertory of colorful character types, funky urban scenery, witty autobiographical narratives, and heroes from the realms of art and history. Learn More...


  Coming Home
American Paintings, 1930-1950, from the Schoen Collection
June 4 - September 5, 2004
The paintings in Coming Home illustrate sweeping social, artistic, and political transformations undergone during two critical decades in American history. Learn More...


  Al Souza
Mx Master
June 4, 2004 – September 5, 2004
Al Souza constructs unrelated pieces and whole sections of jigsaw puzzles into a rich visual stew of popular culture imagery.Learn More...


  The Pre-Raphaelite Dream
Paintings and Drawings from the Tate Collection
May 14, 2004 – August 15, 2004
Hoping to return art to the innocence they associated with the Medieval era, the Pre-Raphaelites attained a vision of feminine beauty, spirituality, and morality that continues to astonish with its clarity and viruosity. Learn More...


  Realms of Faith
Medieval and Byzantine Art from the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore
April 12, 2002 – August 15, 2004
This exhibition presents precious objects in a variety of media from the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, an institution renowned for its rich collections in these areas.Learn More...


  From El Greco to Picasso
European Masterworks from The Phillips Collection
January 31, 2004 - May 16, 2004
This exhibition includes over 50 European modern masterworks by artists such as van Gogh, Cézanne, Monet, Degas, Picasso, Bonnard, Gauguin, and Klee. Learn More...


  Jacob Lawrence
The Migration Series from the Phillips Collection
January 31, 2004 – May 16, 2004
African American master Jacob Lawrence's powerful Migration Series ranks as one of the great visual and social documents of twentieth-century American art. Learn More...


  Delirium
Darren Waterston
January 31, 2004 - May 16, 2004
San Francisco artist Darren Waterston creates luminous paintings that suggest aqueous environments, biological forms, and fanciful motifs adapted from sources in Asian painting and decorative arts. Learn More...


  Nashville's Perspective of the Great Migration
January 31 - May 16, 2004
This educational exhibition explored the role Nashville played during the migration of African Americans from the South to the North during the early years of the 20th century. Learn More...


  Masters of their Craft
Highlights from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
February 27, 2004 – April 25, 2004
Masters of their Craft features works by America's leading crafts artists of the past twenty-five years, including glass artist Dale Chihuly, jeweler Albert Paley, ceramicist Beatrice Wood, and furniture maker Sam Maloof. Learn More...


  How Does Art Shape Your World?
Art Reaches the Depth of Creativity, © 2001 Vincent Hartford
January 9 - April 30, 2004
This exhibition includes fifty works of art created by young people with disabilities.Learn More...


  Icons & Idols
A Photographer's Chronicle of the Arts, 1960-1995
October 24, 2003 – February 1, 2004
This exhibition features photographs of art world luminaries by New York photographer Jack Mitchell, whose works have been published in the New York Times, Village Voice, Life, and myriad other publications. Learn More...


  Aaron Douglas: A Private View
Selections from the Daniels Collection
October 24, 2003 – February 1, 2004
This spotlight exhibition features fifteen works by Harlem Renaissance artist Aaron Douglas, who taught at Fisk University and lived in Nashville from 1939 until his death in 1979. Learn More...


  Art of Tennessee
September 13, 2003 - January 18, 2004
Surveying the history of aesthetic expressions from the earliest native American populations to the most significant artists of our own times, "Art of Tennessee" will include approximately 250 of the most extraordinary examples of paintings, sculptures, furniture, quilts, pottery, silver, maps, and other forms of art created throughout Tennessee or that relate to Tennessee. Learn More...


  Through the Lens
Photography Mentorship Program
July 25, 2003 - January 18, 2004
Students from Wharton Arts Magnet Middle School and Tennessean staff photographers worked together to produce this exhibition highlighting the students' interests and perspectives of Tennessee.Learn More...


  Norman Rockwell Paints the Boy Scouts
November 15, 2003 – January 4, 2004
This selection of five paintings by Norman Rockwell is on loan from the National Scouting Museum in Irving, Texas.  The works span Rockwell's lifetime of involvement with the Boy Scouts.Learn More...


  Bold Improvisation
120 Years of African American Quilts
July 18, 2003 – October 5, 2003
This exhibition provides a fascinating look at the development of African American quilts from the period just after the Civil War to the present. Drawn from the Heffley collection, one of the most comprehensive private collections of African American quilts in the United States.Learn More...


  Empire of the Sultans
Ottoman Art from the Khalili Collection
May 16, 2003 – August 10, 2003
Containing over 200 exquisitely crafted works, ranging from arms and armor to textiles, treasury objects, and manuscripts, this exhibition embraces nearly every aspect of art produced during the Ottoman Empire, which at its zenith spread from Turkey north and west to Europe and south to North Africa. Learn More...


  Alicia Henry
Black and Blue: Recent Works
May 16, 2003 – August 10, 2003
Alicia Henry creates installations consisting of groups—“communities,” says the artist—of masks and figures made from paper and other materials, cut out into various shapes and layered together. Learn More...


  Language of Art and Culture
May 16 - August 10, 2003
In support of the exhibition Empire of the Sultans: Art from the Khalili Collection, AP students from Davidson County public & private schools created the drawings, journals, historical entries and photographs used to form this exhibition.Learn More...


  Women Beyond Borders
March 6, 2003 – July 20, 2003
Women Beyond Borders is a grass-roots collaboration conceived in 1992 in Santa Barbara, California.  To date, the project has involved 500 artists, curators, critics and sponsors in 36 countries. Learn More...


  Real Illusions
Contemporary Art from Nashville Collections
February 21, 2003 – June 22, 2003
With 64 works drawn from local collections, Real Illusions celebrates the quality and diversity of contemporary realist and narrative art in Nashville collections. Learn More...


  Reflections in Black
Smithsonian African American Photography
January 24, 2003 – April 20, 2003
Spanning the years from 1842 to the present, this sweeping exhibition examines the ways that African Americans have used photography as a means of self-definition through the past century and a half.Learn More...


  Fantastic Patterns
Paintings, Sculptures and Wall Hangings by Liz Quisgard
January 24, 2003 - April 20, 2003
New York artist Liz Quisgard is fascinated by the beauty and universality of patterns. Her paintings and sculptures, depicting architectural elements such as doorways, arches, and columns, are completely covered in elaborate geometric decorations.Learn More...


  Stories of the Past and Present
Community Murals
October 4, 2002 – February 25, 2003
The Frist Center and United Way Family Resource Centers worked with local youth to create murals celebrating the rich heritage of four historic Nashville neighborhoods.Learn More...


  Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck, and Their Circle
Flemish Master Drawings from the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
November 26, 2002 – January 26, 2003
From energetic preliminary studies for paintings to highly finished works, drawings provide marvelous insight into artists’ creative processes.Learn More...


  Whistler, Sargent, and Steer
Impressionists in London From Tate Collections
October 11, 2002 – January 5, 2003
Whistler, Sargent, and Steer is an exceptional exhibition of the works of James McNeill Whistler, John Singer Sargent and British Impressionist Philip Wilson Steer, organized exclusively for the Frist Center for the Visual Arts.Learn More...


  James McNeill Whistler
Prosaic Views, Poetic Vision
October 11, 2002 – January 5, 2003
Organized by the University of Michigan Museum of Art, this exhibition brings together 44 of James McNeill Whistler’s lithographs, etchings, drawings and watercolors, to provide an intimate and expanded view of the artist’s work as he explored revolutionary ways of depicting space, form and light.
Learn More...


  Gloria DeArcangelis
Figures and Portraits
October 11, 2002 – January 5, 2003
Seattle artist Gloria DeArcangelis’ portrait and figure subjects are illuminated through a warm and powerful light, which, contrasted with a surrounding atmosphere of deep shadows, lends to them an aura of psychological intensity and genuine human presence.Learn More...


  What's My Line
Exploration of Prints
October 11, 2002 – January 5, 2003

 As a complement to James McNeill Whistler: Prosaic Views, Poetic Vision, Exploration of Prints explains each step of Whistler's printmaking processes, while providing a look at the tools of the trade.

Learn More...


  Animating Stone
Inuit Art from the Davenport Collection
July 26, 2002 – November 3, 2002
For over forty years, Nashvillians Clara and Nelson Davenport have made frequent forays in search of the stone carvings produced by the Inuit people of northern Canada.Learn More...


  Andy Goldsworthy
Mountain and Coast Autumn into Winter
July 26, 2002 – October 27, 2002
British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy ventures into some of the most beautiful and often remote locations on the planet, where he produces, and then photographs, sculptural arrangements of natural materials such as wood, stones, water, dirt, grass, leaves, twigs, snow and ice.Learn More...


  Selections from 1000 Families
Photographs by Uwe Ommer and Family and Friends: Photography from Nashville School of the Arts
April 12, 2002 – September 15, 2002
For four years, German photographer Uwe Ommer traveled the world, creating empathetic photographs of 1,251 families in 130 countries on five continents. The results of his odyssey appear in his book, 1000 Families, published in three languages.
Learn More...


  Vital Forms
American Art and Design in the Atomic Age, 1940 - 1960
June 21, 2002 – September 15, 2002
Organized by the Brooklyn Museum of Art, this exhibition presents an astonishing cross section of the artistic and material culture of America during World War II and the Cold War. Learn More...


  Rie Oishi
June 21, 2002 - September 15, 2002
Japanese artist Rie Oishi, a recent graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, seeks to generate abstraction relating to what she calls "the precarious transitions between signifier and signified, the word and the 'thing,' experience and narrative, idea and object." Learn More...


  Kids Curate 21st-Century Design
June 21 - September 15, 2002
This Education Gallery exhibition was a companion to the Vital Forms: American Art and Design in the Atomic Age, 1940 - 1960 exhibition, on view in the Ingram Gallery.Learn More...


  Treasures from the House of Faberge
Selections from the Forbes Magazine Collection, New York, with Highlights from the New Orleans Museum of Art and The Matilda Geddings Gray Foundation Collection, Courtesy of the New Orleans Museum of Art
April 12, 2002 – July 7, 2002
The House of Fabergé is renowned for the magnificent jewelry and decorative objects it created for the Russian imperial family and wealthy patrons throughout Europe in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Learn More...


  Intimate Worlds
Masterpieces of Indian Paintings from the Alvin O. Bellak Collection
April 12, 2002 – July 7, 2002
Presenting one of the world's finest private collections of Indian miniature paintings, Intimate Worlds includes approximately 90 paintings and drawings created across India from before the rise of Islamic Mughal rule in the north during the 1500s to the heyday of the British Raj in the late 1800s.
Learn More...


  Gregory Barsamian
Recurring Dreams
February 8, 2002 – May 26, 2002
With this sculptural installation, Brooklyn artist Gregory Barsamian creates a visionary realm where elements are trapped in a state of constant transformation - hands become birds, and ghostly figures issue forth from sleeping heads. Learn More...


  From Twilight to Dawn
Postmodern Art from the UBS Paine Webber Art Collection
February 8, 2002 - May 27, 2002
Drawn from the collection of UBS PaineWebber, From Twilight to Dawn concentrates on late 20th- and 21st-century works by such influential modern masters as Jasper Johns, Dan Flavin, Andy Warhol and Chuck Close, as well as works by critically acclaimed post-modernists such as Cindy Sherman, Damien Hirst, Kiki Smith and Lorna Simpson. Learn More...


  Identifying Self
Photography and Sculpture from Community Youth
February 8, 2002 – May 27, 2002
Forty young people from South Inglewood Community Center and Edgehill Center participated in the Frist Center's education outreach program, Identifying Self, during which they explored issues of personal identity and self-worth. Learn More...


  From Post Office to Art Center
A Nashville Landmark in Transition
April 8, 2001 - March 24, 2002
Examines the history of the Frist Center's Art Deco-style building on Broadway and the founding of the Frist Center.Learn More...


  Face to Face
Community Portraits
April 8, 2001 - March 24, 2002
This collection of 54 works of art was created by Nashvillians participating in the Frist Center's community outreach program. Learn More...


  An Enduring Legacy
Art of the Americas from Nashville Collections
April 8, 2001 – March 10, 2002
Presents 145 works of painting, sculpture, photography, furniture and decorative arts from North and South America found in public and private collections throughout Nashville.Learn More...


  Petah Coyne
Fairy Tales
October 1, 2001 – January 13, 2002
The second exhibition in the Gordon Contemporary Artists Project Gallery features works by New York artist Petah Coyne.Learn More...


  Leaves of Gold
Treasures of Manuscript Illumination from Philadelphia Collection
October 1, 2001 – January 6, 2002
Explores the era, before mechanical printing techniques, when artists and scribes labored devotedly to craft intricate illuminated manuscripts by hand. Learn More...


  Tools and Techniques of the Middle Ages
October 1, 2001 – January 6, 2002
The objects included in this exhibition provide insight into the tools, techniques and processes used by medieval artists and artisans to create the artworks in the exhibitions Realms of Faith:  Medieval and Byzantine Art from the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore and Leaves of Gold: Treasures of Manuscript Illumination from Philadelphia Collections.Learn More...


  Modernism & Abstraction
Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art Museum
July 21, 2001 – September 9, 2001
Shows radical transformations of American art in the 20th century by artists including Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, Stuart Davis and Franz Kline.Learn More...


  Simple Expressions
July 21, 2001– September 9, 2001
This exhibition offers a selection of works created by Nashville youth in response to the different artistic influences seen in the exhibition Modernism & Abstraction: Treasures from the Smithsonian American Art MuseumLearn More...


  Michael Aurbach
The Administrator
April 8, 2001 - August 19, 2001
Presents a sculptural tableau in the Contemporary Artists Project Gallery that provides humorous commentary on secrecy and the exercise of power by people in positions of authority.Learn More...


  European Masterworks
Paintings from the Collection of the Art Gallery of Ontario
April 8, 2001 – July 8, 2001
Featured approximately 95 works surveying nearly 600 years of painting by some of Europe's greatest masters, including Tintoretto, Rembrandt, Monet, Degas and Picasso.Learn More...


Exhibitions