PHOENIX (July 16, 2025) – This summer, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) presents the Southwest premiere of Florentine Baroque: The Haukohl Collection, showcasing a superlative collection of historically significant works from 17^th– and 18^th-century Florence that are rarely seen outside of Italy. The exhibition features gilded paintings and delicate sculptures that demonstrate the distinctive Florentine Baroque style, known for its poetic and colorful symbolism. Drawn from The Haukohl Collection, works feature dramatic and vibrant depictions of religious, classical, mythological, and allegorical narratives. The first exhibition of its kind in Arizona, Florentine Baroque is an unprecedented opportunity for regional audiences to unravel the legacy of many important Florentine artists of the period who contributed to the Tuscan city’s cultural legacy, most notably supported by the Medici Grand Dukes. Florentine Baroque: The Haukohl Collection will be on view at PhxArt from August 28, 2025 – July 26, 2026. 

“Phoenix Art Museum is excited to present the Arizona and Southwest premiere of Florentine Baroque: The Haukohl Collection,’” said Jeremy Mikolajczak, the Museum’s Sybil Harrington Director and CEO. “This exhibition offers a unique opportunity for our audiences to explore works from a specific place and art historical period that are not prominently represented in the Phoenix Art Museum Collection. Additionally, it is the only chance to view these stunning sculptures, paintings, and more in the Southwest. We are grateful to Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl for his partnership in bringing this collection to our visitors.”

Florentine Baroque: The Haukohl Collection showcases more than 30 examples of large- and small-scale works from some of the most prominent artist families in Italy. Featuring work by Florentine artists who lived and produced across Europe, the collection was assembled over more than 40 years by Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl, a Houston-based art collector and co-founder of the Medici Archive Project. The exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum uncovers the splendor and significance of the Florentine Baroque art movement. Visitors to the exhibition will discover how Florentine Baroque works unite influences of Florentine tradition with Renaissance sensibilities, yielding a style that is at once sensuous and poetic. The rare display of works also provides the opportunity to examine the legacy of the House of Medici. The Medici Bank was founded in 1397 and for hundreds of years was the largest bank in Europe. The renowned Italian banking family eventually became one of the most influential families in European history, serving as the de facto rulers of the Republic of Florence through their financial patronage of advancements in art, banking, and architecture before taking political office in the 16^th century. The family’s lineage also includes four popes, thirteen cardinals, and various bishops. 

Florentine Baroque is organized into three distinct thematic sections. Faith, Strength, and Courage features depictions of Biblical narratives and religious figures that reference the dominant Catholic faith in Florence as well as the Renaissance interest in humanism, a classical movement that emphasized human values. Sacred Beauty, Fierce Devotion showcases portraits of saints, but unlike previous generations of artists, works by featured 17^th-century painters represent these pious figures as distinctly human rather than divine, with naturalistic forms, expressions, and mannerisms. Finally, Allegory, Gods, and Heroes presents mythological and allegorical figures and stories that reflect the intellectual, artistic, and moral ideals of the time, which was characterized by significant advancements in music, philosophy, science, and all the humanities. Undergirding each section is the marked influence of the Medici Grand Dukes of Florence, whose patronage of the arts fostered a wide range of artists in Italy and across Europe, including Leonardo Da Vinci, Raphael, and Donatello, among many other notable artists.

“The Haukohl Philanthropies are thrilled to be working with the experienced curatorial and management team of Phoenix Art Museum. We are delighted to loan the Medici Collection to the Museum for one year and work with the Arizona community to offer a wide range of special programs,” said Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl, co-founder of the Medici Archive Project. “The exhibition is dedicated in honor of my late cousin, Dr. Howard Somers Conant, Chair of the Art Department of New York University and later, Head of the Department of Art at the University of Arizona.” 

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated 288-page catalogue, Beyond the Medici: The Haukohl Family Collection, which will be available for purchase in The Museum Store with editions in English, German, and Italian. The publication features paintings, drawings, textiles, and sculpture in the collection that document the Medici patronage and artists of the period. Particular attention is paid to the Dandini Family of painters—Cesare, Vincenzo, and Pier—each reviewed in depth along with a generous bibliography. Essays by Drs. Eike Schmidt, James Bradburn, Federico Berti, Fabio Sottili, and Francesco Scasciamacchia address a broad overview of collecting and history of the period.

Throughout the run of the exhibition, the Museum will host dynamic programs to provide deeper historical and social context to the featured artworks. The calendar of events includes:

August 27 | 10 am – 8 pm 
Members-Only Preview Day
PhxArt Members enjoy exclusive access to the exhibition before it opens to the public, with Docent presentations throughout the day. Member RSVP only.

September 4 | 10:30 – 11 am
Storytime in the Gallery 
Designed for the Museum’s youngest visitors (ages 0-5), this edition of Storytime will feature a book and art-making activity inspired by the Florentine Baroque art movement. Tickets available here.

September 6, 13, 20, 27 | 11 am – 3 pm
Create Playdate
Create Playdate offers young artists a variety of hands-on maker experiences every Saturday with the Museum’s mobile, in-gallery art cart. Throughout the month of September, discover themed activities inspired by the groundbreaking exhibition. No RSVP required.

December 18 | 6 – 7 pm
SOUNDCHECK
This holiday season, enjoy a live music performance in the Museum’s picturesque Dorrance Sculpture Garden inspired by Florentine Baroque: The Haukohl Collection. SOUNDCHECK is the Museum’s new live-music series that brings popular local + regional acts to the Museum for raw, unmissable performances in our gallery spaces. Performer information and tickets forthcoming.

January 28 | 6 – 7 pm 
Carved Splendors: Florentine Baroque Frames at the Medici Court 
Hosted by FOCUS on European Art in partnership with Phoenix Art Museum, hear from Dr. Davide Gasparotto, Senior Curator of Paintings at the Getty Museum, who will discuss the gilded frames of the Florentine Baroque. Tickets forthcoming.

February 4 | 5 – 8 pm
Lemon Library Book Club + Lecture
Inspired by Florentine Baroque: The Haukohl Collection, join Lemon Art Research Librarian Jesse Lopez for a book club discussion and lecture focused on The Beauty and the Terror by Catherine Fletcher. Book selection and tickets forthcoming. 

April 3 | 5 – 8 pm  
First Friday  
Enjoy exhibition tours, art-making activities, and more, all with pay-what-you-wish admission to the entire Museum, including Florentine Baroque: The Haukohl Collection. Tickets forthcoming.

To receive high-resolution photography for Florentine Baroque: The Haukohl Collection, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at press@phxart.org and samantha.andreacchi@phxart.org. 

About the Exhibition

Florentine Baroque: The Haukohl Collection is organized by Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl with the generous support of Haukohl Philanthropies. Its presentation at Phoenix Art Museum is coordinated by Rachel Sadvary Zebro, Associate Curator of Collections. It is made possible by Joanna and Mick Levin. All exhibitions at Phoenix Art Museum are underwritten by the Phoenix Art Museum Exhibition Excellence Fund, founded by The Opatrny Family Foundation with additional major support provided by Joan Cremin.

Admission is free for Museum Members; youth aged 5 and younger; and Maricopa County Community Colleges students. Entrance into the exhibition is included in general admission for the public. Visitors may also enjoy reduced admission to the exhibition during voluntary-donation times on Wednesdays from 3 – 8 pm, made possible by SRP and City of Phoenix, and First Fridays from 5 – 8 pm, made possible by APS and Lexus. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see phxart.org/visit/.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum (PhxArt) has engaged millions of visitors with the art and fashion of our region and world. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, PhxArt creates spaces of exchange and belonging for all audiences through dynamic exhibitions, collections, and art experiences. Each year, more than 250,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions, as well as the Museum’s collection of more than 21,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern, and contemporary art and fashion. The Museum also presents vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona in Tucson and is home to The Gene and Cathy Lemon Art Research Library, The Thorne Miniature Rooms, The Ullman Center for the Art of Philip C. Curtis, and Arizona Costume Institute (ACI). For the community, PhxArt hosts lectures, live performances, outstanding examples of global cinema, arts-education workshops, family-focused programs, and more. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880. 

About Sir Mark Fehrs Haukohl and The Haukohl Philanthropies

Sir Mark is a collector and philanthropist residing in Houston, Texas. He is Chairman of the Board of The Vero Group, a Family Office. Sir Mark is an experienced Wall Street investor having previously been Managing Director of Salomon Smith Barney in New York. He is co-founder of The Medici Archive Project of Florence, Italy. The Haukohl Family Philanthropies, whose objective is to advance art education for underserved audiences, have underwritten numerous acquisitions and exhibitions at the J. Paul Getty Museum of Los Angeles, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Arp Museum in Banhof Rolandseck of Remagen, Germany and the BOZAR in Brussels, to name only a few.

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PHOENIX (December 16, 2020) – From January 2 through April 25, 2021, Phoenix Art Museum will present a new selection of long-term loans in the exhibition Out of Print: Innovations of 19^th– and 20^th-Century Printmaking from the Collection of Phoenix Art Museum and the Schorr Collection. Featuring more than 50 individual works spanning 200 years by both European and American artists, the exhibition will feature some of the most revered names in art history, including Paul Cézanne, Edvard Munch, Paul Klee, Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, and many others. Out of Print includes long-term loans from the U.K.-based Schorr Collection, amassed by collectors David and Hannah Lewis, who previously lent a number of Old-Master paintings to the Museum beginning in 2017. The exhibition will also showcase works from the Museum’s own American and European art collections to reveal the 19^th-century rebirth of printmaking as an art form, while underscoring the important contributions and role of women artists in that history.

“We are excited to present works on paper from the renowned Schorr Collection—all of which will be on view in Arizona for the first time—to our audiences in the upcoming exhibition Out of Print: Innovations of 19^th– and 20^th-Century Printmaking from the Collection of Phoenix Art Museum and the Schorr Collection,” said Tim Rodgers, PhD, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “We are grateful to the Lewis family, who established the Schorr Collection more than four decades ago with the goal of increasing access to Old-Master paintings and unique works of European art, including these prints. In addition, we thank our generous local donors who have entrusted outstanding works of American and European art to Phoenix Art Museum, many of which will be placed in conversation with works from the Schorr Collection beginning this January.”

In 2017, Phoenix Art Museum became the proud recipient of long-term loans from the Schorr Collection. Considered one of the most important collections of Old-Master and 19^th-century paintings in the world, the Schorr Collection was established by U.K.-based collectors David and Hannah Lewis and includes more than 400 works, including tender 15th-century devotional images, 19th-century French Impressionist landscapes, works by 20th-century Modern Masters, and a wide selection of prints. The collection is named in honor of the family of Hannah Lewis, many of whom were murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust; Hannah Lewis is herself a Holocaust survivor. The Lewis family often loans artworks from their collection on a long-term basis to museums all over the world, including those in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, in an effort to increase access to these outstanding paintings, prints, and more across diverse cultures.

Presented in the Museum’s Harnett Gallery, Out of Print presents prints from the Schorr Collection, on view in Arizona for the first time, alongside works on paper from the Museum’s own collection of more than 20,000 objects to explore the history of printmaking in Europe and the United States, with a particular focus on the 19^th– and 20^th-centuries. Works on loan from the Schorr Collection include those by Paul Cézanne, Edvard Munch, Jean-François Millet, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and others, while prints from the Museum’s American and European art collections include those by Paul Klee, Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, Käthe Kollwitz, Mary Cassatt, and more, many of which have never before been exhibited. The dialogue between these collections will help to broaden viewers’ understanding of the history of printmaking, highlighting its transformation from a utilitarian process into a form of artistic expression.

“The first mass-produced metal prints and woodcut prints on paper originated in the 15th century in Germany, and the process was considered a reproductive art form to bring art to the widest possible audience through early devotional woodcuts, playing cards, books, and engraved plates that were collected and shared among the masses,” said Rachel Sadvary Zebro, assistant curator at Phoenix Art Museum who curated Out of Print. “Then in the 19th century, avant-garde artists reclaimed the process of printmaking as they openly rejected academic, classical styles of painting. By creating original printed designs and compositions with formal, distinctive qualities similar to paintings and drawings, these artists, building upon earlier generations of printmakers, made printmaking into a legitimate form of art itself.”

In addition to exploring the evolution of printmaking, Out of Print also underscores the role women artists have played in that history, particularly over the past two centuries. The majority of works by American artists in the exhibition were created by women, including Käthe Kollwitz, Clare Leighton, Lee Bontecou, and Isabel Bishop. Out of Print also features work by Mary Nimmo Moran, the wife of Hudson River School painter and printmaker Thomas Moran, who began her work in printmaking as a hobby while she traveled across the United States with her husband as he painted vast American landscapes. The exhibition also features works by Mary Cassatt, who made her first prints in the late 1870s. Despite the often placid, domestic nature of her subjects, Cassatt, who was invited to join the Impressionist group by Edgar Degas, was fearless in her approach to printmaking, experimenting with a wide variety of materials to create stunning color prints of technical mastery.

Out of Print culminates with etchings and lithographs by contemporary artists such as Maria Baca, Raymond Saunders, and Fritz Scholder. By including these works alongside historical examples, the exhibition illuminates how the art of printmaking continues to evolve into the present day.

About the Exhibition

Out of Print: Innovations of 19^th– and 20^th-Century Printmaking from the Collection of Phoenix Art Museum and the Schorr Collection will be on view from January 2 through April 25, 2021 in the Lila and Joel Harnett Gallery. It is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and was made possible through the generosity of David and Hannah Lewis. The long-term loan of the Schorr Collection was made possible through the generous support of Friends of European Art, a former support group of Phoenix Art Museum; Nancy R. Hanley Eriksson; and Mary and Bill Way. For more information visit phxart.org/exhibition/out-of-print/.

Admission is free for Museum Members; veterans and active-duty military; and youth 5 and younger. Entrance to the exhibition is included in general admission for the general public. During voluntary-donation times, the exhibition is offered to the general public with pay-what-you-wish admission. Voluntary-donation times include Wednesdays from 3 – 7 pm and the first Friday of each month from 3 – 7 pm. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, seephxart.org/visit/.

To request more information, interviews, and high-resolution photography, contact the Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.307.2003 or samantha.andreacchi@phxart.org.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Since 1959, Phoenix Art Museum has provided millions of guests with access to world-class art and experiences in an effort to ignite imaginations, create meaningful connections, and serve as a brave space for all people who wish to experience the transformative power of art. Located in Phoenix’s Central Corridor, the Museum is a vibrant destination for the visual arts and the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Each year, more than 300,000 guests engage with critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions and the Museum’s collection of more than 20,000 works of American and Western American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed for visitors of all ages, along with vibrant photography exhibitions made possible through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visit phxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

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PHOENIX (November 9, 2018) Phoenix Art Museum will present Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place, the first Islamic art exhibition at the Museum in more than two decades, from January 26 to May 26, 2019 in the Art of Asia galleries. The comprehensive exhibition, organized by the Newark Museum, will feature more than 100 artworks, including hand-written texts, ceramics, textiles, jewelry, photographs, and paintings, from across centuries and from nearly every continent, with the exception of Antarctica. Unlike previous national and international exhibitions on Islamic art, Wondrous Worlds is organized around the Five Pillars of Islam instead of geography, time period, or material, offering a fresh perspective on a vast artistic genre.

“We are delighted to host Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place,” said Amada Cruz, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “This exhibition offers a unique and comprehensive view of Islamic art, and we are excited to share these extraordinary works with our community.”

Curated by a team led by Katherine Anne Paul, PhD, curator of the arts of Asia at Newark Museum, the exhibition is structured around the Five Pillars of Islam, considered the core beliefs and practices of the world’s second largest religion. The Five Pillars are shahada (declaration of faith), salat (five daily prayers), zakat (almsgiving, or charity), sawm (fasting for Ramadan), and hajj (pilgrimage to Mecca). Each section of the exhibition showcases a range of objects from various countries and centuries, including works created in the service of Islam by Muslim artists for Muslim patrons, items created for purposes that are not explicitly religious, and objects by non-Muslim artists created for both Muslim and non-Muslim patrons. Featured works include books of poetry, woven prayer rugs depicting paradise, inscribed coffee pots, game boards, and musical instruments. These traditional examples of Islamic art are displayed alongside contemporary works, such as calligraphic Sufi poems and sculpture, to demonstrate how artists today continue to explore the intersection between art and Islam.

“Islam connected cultures across the Middle East, the Mediterranean world and as far as China; through travel, trade and faith,” said Janet Baker, Curator of Asian Art. “Its impact on the intellectual and scientific worlds was vast and long-lasting.”

By presenting Islamic artworks that span centuries and continents within the context of the Five Pillars, Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place provides Museum guests with the opportunity to experience the living legacy of Islamic art through an in-depth examination of the global reach of Islam and its rich artistic tradition. Over the course of the exhibition, the Museum will present various public programs inspired by the exhibition, such as public lectures featuring local Muslim leaders and family-friendly activities in the galleries, to help build awareness and engage the community in conversation about Islam and Islamic art, now the world’s fastest growing religion.

About the Exhibition

Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place will be on view from January 26 through May 26 in the Art of Asia galleries. The exhibition is organized by the Newark Museum. Its premiere at Phoenix Art Museum is made possible through the generosity of donors to the Museum’s annual fund. For more details about the exhibition, please visit http://www.phxart.org/exhibition/WondrousWorlds.

This special engagement exhibition is free for Museum Members, and for veterans, active-duty, and retired military and youth aged 5 and under.

General admission:

$23 — Adults

$20 — Senior Citizens (Ages 65+)

$18 — Students (with ID)

$14 — Children (Ages 6-17)

All special exhibitions are included with general admission. During voluntary-donation, free-access times when general admission is free of charge, admission to Teotihuacan is $5. Voluntary donation, free-access times include Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, the first Fridays of every month from 6 – 10 pm, and the second Sunday of each month from noon – 5pm. For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, please see bit.ly/VisitPhxArt.

To request interviews and high-resolution photography, contact the Marketing and Communications Office of Phoenix Art Museum at 602.257.2105 or margaree.bigler@phxart.org.

Exhibition Programs

Circles Opening |Thursday, January 24, 6 pm 

Members of the Circles of Support of Phoenix Art Museum enjoy hors d’oeuvres, live music, and remarks from Janet Baker, PhD, the Museum’s curator of Asian art, followed by an exclusive preview of the exhibition. See more information as it becomes available here.

Members Opening Reception

January 26, 9:30 am to noon

Members are invited to view the exhibition early and to enter through Greenbaum or Palette. Only Palette, Steele Gallery, and the Museum store will be open. See more information as it becomes available here.

First Friday | Friday, February 1, 6 – 10 pm

Join us on First Friday to experience Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place and in-gallery programs inspired by the exhibition. This event is open to the public with voluntary-donation admission. See phxart.org/events/calendar for event information.

Discount Tire Family Free Sunday

Sunday, February 10, noon – 5 pm

Don’t miss Wondrous Worlds: Art & Islam Through Time & Place during voluntary-donation times on the second Sunday of each month! Guests will also enjoy exciting activities, scavenger hunts, live performances, story time, free tours, and more. See phxart.org/events/calendar for updates as information becomes available.

Getting to Know American Muslims and Their Faith   |  Saturday March 2, 2 pm

See phxart.org/events/calendar for event information as it becomes available.

Family Workshop

Saturday March 30, 10:30 am and 2 pm

Youth ages 4 to 7 are welcome to participate from 10:30am to noon and ages 8 to 12 from 2 to 4pm in the Education Studio. See phxart.org/events/calendar for event and ticketing information.

Muslim Contributions to Civilization – Art and Architecture  |  Saturday April 6, 2 pm

See phxart.org/events/calendar for event information as it becomes available.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Phoenix Art Museum has provided access to visual arts and educational programs in Arizona for nearly 60 years and is the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions are shown alongside the Museum’s permanent collection of more than 19,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents festivals, a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed to enlighten, entertain, and stimulate visitors of all ages. Visitors also enjoy vibrant photography exhibitions through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visitphxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

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PHOENIX (June 8, 2018) – Beginning on July 7, Phoenix Art Museum presents In the Company of Women: Women Artists from the Collection, an exhibition of nearly 50 twentieth- and 21st-century artworks from the Museum’s holdings. In an era of such contemporary phenomena as the #MeToo movement, this exhibition showcases an array of styles and media, with works on view by Frida Kahlo, Georgia O’Keeffe, Faith Ringgold, Erica Deeman, Daniela Rossell, and many others, as an engagement with feminist scholarship that, for decades, has aimed to provide a more complete history of artistic production. In the Company of Women creates a new context for some of the Museum’s most iconic pieces, prompting conversations about gender inequality, the systematic exclusion of women from mainstream art circles, and the idea that artistic production must be understood in the context of society at large. In the Company of Women also aims to encourage conversation about the presence of works by women in the Museum’s collections and exhibitions, as well as the institution’s commitment to proactively addressing these issues. The exhibition will open on Friday, July 6 at
6 pm for First Friday festivities, and will be on view July 7 through August 12 in the Museum’s Steele Gallery.

“We are excited to celebrate the iconic pieces featured in In the Company of Women,” said Amada Cruz, the Sybil Harrington Director and CEO of Phoenix Art Museum. “This exhibition casts these works in an engaging new light, reminding us that museums are meant to be a place where all perspectives are considered meaningful. We look forward to sharing these beloved works with new and seasoned visitors alike.”

In the Company of Women was inspired in part by the 1976 Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) exhibition Women Artists: 1550-1950, the first large-scale museum exhibition in the United States exclusively featuring women artists. Curated by renowned art historians Ann Sutherland Harris and Linda Nochlin, Women Artists was revolutionary in the way it utilized the museum setting to explore barriers that women artists have historically faced. For example, from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries, women were barred from studying the nude model, which formed the basis for academic training and representation, despite women’s bodies often serving as the objects of artistic representation and consumption.

Today, work by women artists makes up only 3-5% of major museum collections in the United States and Europe, and of 590 major exhibitions by nearly 70 institutions in the United States from 2007-2013, only 27% were devoted to women artists. In the Company of Women seeks to bring these facts to the forefront while also shedding light on how some of the Museum’s most beloved collection items are by women artists. Among them are Frida Kahlo’s The Suicide of Dorothy Hale, a graphic depiction of death that, in a similar vein to many of Kahlo’s famous self-portraits, demands that its viewer acknowledge a female subject in acute physical and psychological pain; Faith Ringgold’s The Bitter Nest, Part 1: Love in the School Yard, a narrative quilt that exemplifies the artist’s lifelong and fervent commitment to African-American history, civil rights, and the ideas of family and roots through quilt-making and genre painting; and Marguerite Zorach’s Deer in the Forest (1914), a recent acquisition of the Museum by an under-recognized painter who, in her time, was one of the earliest innovators of American modernist painting thanks to her use of intense color and dynamic composition.

“As Phoenix Art Museum’s curatorial department continues to expand and diversify its curatorial exhibition and collecting program, it is important to acknowledge that we are empowered as an institution to oversee and correct the gender imbalance in our programming in a deeply impactful way,” said Gilbert Vicario, the Selig Family Chief Curator.

“Exhibitions like In the Company of Women provide us with the opportunity to talk about reinforced assumptions that pervade everyday life, such as the idea that women are objects of representation rather than active producers of art and history, or the fact that the work of women is often presented in opposition to the ideas of creativity and high culture,” said Rachel Zebro, the Museum’s curatorial associate of modern and contemporary art, and the exhibition’s curator. “Art helps us to challenge these norms and expectations, and in using this series of familiar works from our own collection, we can share these ideas in a tangible way.”

Additionally, In the Company of Women calls attention to a number of the Museum’s recent solo exhibitions by women artists, including Valeska Soares, Betsy Schneider, Iris van Herpen, Sheila Pepe, Magdalena Fernández, Patricia Sannit, and Saskia Jordá. These instances of visibility for works by women artists provoke questions such as: What does the increase in institutional representation of women mean, and how will it be sustained? Why is it important? What is the impact on museums and audiences? In the Company of Women encourages visitors to contemplate this and future exhibitions from new angles, all in an effort to question and transform perspectives on what is considered great art, and why.

About the Exhibition

In the Company of Women will be on view from July 7 through August 12 in Steele Gallery. This exhibition is organized by Phoenix Art Museum and is made possible through the generosity of donors to the Museum’s annual fund. For more details about the exhibition, please visit phxart.org/exhibition/inthecompanyofwomen.

Admission is free for Museum Members; veterans, active-duty and retired military personnel, and their families; Maricopa Community College students, staff, and faculty (with ID); and youth aged 5 and under. Entrance to the exhibition is included in general admission for the general public. During voluntary-donation times, the exhibition is offered free to the general public. Voluntary-donation times include Wednesdays from 3 – 9 pm, the first Fridays of every month from 6 – 10 pm, and the second weekend of each month (Saturday from 10am – 5pm and Sunday from Noon – 5pm). For a full breakdown of general admission prices and hours, see bit.ly/VisitPhxArt.

To request interviews and high-resolution photography, contact Phoenix Art Museum’s Marketing and Communications Office, at 602.257.2105 or email margaree.bigler@phxart.org.

Related Programs

First Friday

July 6 | 6 – 10 pm

Celebrate the special First-Friday exhibition preview of In the Company of Women on July 6! Experience performances and activities led by Phoenix-based women artists and groups, including:

• Live music by Las Chollas Peligrosas,

• Hands-on activity with Melissa Waddell,

• Subaquatic living installation by Allyson Yoder with live music by Malta,

• Sonic Textile durational performance by Kristen Miologos,

• Nerd Nite PHX,

• Women’s Social Club organized by DiRTYOGA,

• and more!

This is a free event open during the public during Pay-What-You-Wish hours at the Museum. Please check phxart.org/events/calendar for updates.

About Phoenix Art Museum

Phoenix Art Museum has provided access to visual arts and educational programs in Arizona for more than 50 years and is the largest art museum in the southwestern United States. Critically acclaimed national and international exhibitions are shown alongside the Museum’s permanent collection of more than 19,000 works of American, Asian, European, Latin American, modern and contemporary art, and fashion design. The Museum also presents festivals, a comprehensive film program, live performances, and educational programs designed to enlighten, entertain, and stimulate visitors of all ages. Visitors also enjoy vibrant photography exhibitions through the Museum’s landmark partnership with the Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona. To learn more about Phoenix Art Museum, visitphxart.org, or call 602.257.1880.

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