RELEASE DATE: SEP 15, 2021
The Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro is excited to announce an exhibition of new works by artist Angela Fraleigh—a stunning new installation inspired by the museum’s history and collections. Splinters of a Secret Sky will be on view October 9 through December 11, 2021.
In Fraleigh’s dynamic, large-scale paintings, female subjects culled from art historical images take on new lives in dreamlike scenes. Throughout art history, women have often been painted as objects for the male gaze. In Fraleigh’s work, however, they converse, engage, and share—existing for themselves and each other rather than a viewer. Fraleigh explains: “Nothing has meaning independent of what we give it. In my work I’m repeatedly asking: Can we reframe the images of the past to change how we see ourselves in the present and create a new future?”
While mining art history broadly, Fraleigh also digs deep into particular stories—often drawing inspiration from specific museum collections. For her Weatherspoon exhibition, she turns to the legacy of Claribel and Etta Cone—the formidable sisters whose transformative gift of artworks helped establish the museum’s collection.
At the turn of the 20th century, the Cone sisters were faithful to tradition in so many ways, yet also defied expectations. While devoted to family and committed to decorum, they sidestepped marriage and motherhood, instead wedding themselves to the intrepid pursuit of art. Financially independent thanks to their family’s successful textile business, they traveled in style to Europe where they spent time in artists’ studios, befriending and supporting two young emerging artists of the avant-garde: Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. From them and others, the Cones amassed a collection of vibrant, daring artworks.
Fraleigh’s new trio of paintings takes visual cues from their stunning collection, including works the sisters gifted to the Weatherspoon and others that they left to the Baltimore Museum of Art. Layering these modernist references with older art historical imagery, Fraleigh conjures a dense tableau blending realism and abstraction—one that celebrates
the sisters’ brilliant artistic eyes and patronage while also embracing the depth and complexity of their lives as a marker of the richness of women’s stories throughout history.
Weatherspoon Curator of Exhibitions, Dr. Emily Stamey, notes that “This exciting new work offers up opportunities to honor and critically explore the lives of these incredible patrons, while also launching out from their legacy to consider a breadth of compelling questions related to the complicated ways in which history is recorded, relayed, and reimagined.”
Angela Fraleigh earned her MFA from Yale University School of Art and her BFA from Boston University. She has had solo shows at the Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE; the Edward Hopper House Museum, Nyack, NY; the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; and the Vanderbilt Mansion, Hyde Park, NY. Her artist residencies include the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha, NE; the Kemper Art Museum, Kansas City, MO; and the Core Program, Glassell School of Art MFAH, Houston, TX. She is currently Associate Professor of Art at Moravian College in Bethlehem, PA.
This exhibition is organized by Dr. Emily Stamey, Weatherspoon Curator of Exhibitions
The Falk Visiting Artist Program is a partnership between the Weatherspoon Art Museum and the UNC Greensboro School of Art.
Image: Angela Fraleigh, Splinters of a secret sky, 2021 (detail). Oil on canvas, individual painting from larger installation, 96 x 72 in. © Angela Fraleigh
Related Public Programming:
Artist Talk: Angela Fraleigh
Thursday, October 21, 7 pm
Join us as artist Angela Fraleigh talks about the breadth of research that goes into all of her paintings, as well as her specific study of the Weatherspoon’s Cone Collection for her newest monumental project.
Guided + Self-Guided Visits
School and community groups are invited to visit the museum on their own or via a docent-led tour. Admission and tours are free. Please contact us at least three weeks in advance to schedule your visit, (336) 334-5770 or weatherspoon@uncg.edu.
About the Weatherspoon Art Museum
Mission
The Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro enriches the lives of diverse individuals and connects multiple communities, both on and off campus, by presenting, interpreting, and collecting modern and contemporary art. In recognizing its paramount role of public service, the Weatherspoon fosters an appreciation of the ability of art to positively impact lives.
History
The Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greensboro was founded by Gregory Ivy in 1941 and is the earliest of any art facilities within the UNC system. The museum was founded as a resource for the campus, community, and region and its early leadership developed an emphasis—maintained to this day—on presenting and acquiring modern and contemporary works of art. A 1950 bequest from the renowned collection of Claribel and Etta Cone, which included prints and bronzes by Henri Matisse and other works on paper by American and European modernists, helped to establish the Weatherspoon’s permanent collection.
In 1989, the museum moved into its present location in The Anne and Benjamin Cone Building designed by the architectural firm Mitchell Giurgula. The museum has six galleries and a sculpture courtyard with over 17,000 square feet of exhibition space. The American Alliance of Museums accredited the Weatherspoon in 1995 and renewed its accreditation in 2005 and 2015.
Collections + Exhibitions
The permanent collection of the Weatherspoon Art Museum is considered to be one of the foremost of its kind in the Southeast. It represents all major art movements from the beginning of the 20th century to the present. Among the nearly 6,200 works in the collection are pieces by such prominent figures as Henry Ossawa Tanner, Edward Weston, Joseph Stella, David Smith, Jackson Pollock, Elizabeth Catlett, Louise Nevelson, Gordon Parks, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Cindy Sherman, Adrian Piper, Betye Saar, Amy Silman, Nick Cave, Jennifer Steinkamp, and Sanford Biggers. The museum regularly lends to major exhibitions nationally and internationally.
The Weatherspoon also is known for its dynamic exhibition program. Through a lively annual calendar of exhibitions and a multi-disciplinary educational program for audiences of all ages, the museum provides an opportunity for visitors to consider artistic, cultural, and social issues of our time—enriching the life of our university, community, and region.
UNC Greensboro
Located in North Carolina’s third largest city, UNC Greensboro is among the most diverse, learner-centered public research universities in the state, with nearly 18,000 students in eight colleges and schools pursuing more than 150 areas of undergraduate and over 200 areas of graduate study. UNCG continues to be recognized nationally for academic excellence, access, and affordability. UNCG is ranked No. 1 most affordable institution in North Carolina for net cost by the N.Y. Times and No. 1 in North Carolina for social mobility by The Wall Street Journal — helping first-generation and lower-income students find paths to prosperity. Designated an Innovation and Economic Prosperity University by the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, UNCG is a community-engaged research institution with a portfolio of more than $67M in research and creative activity. The University’s 1,100 faculty and 1,700 staff help create an annual economic impact for the Piedmont Triad region in excess of $1B. For additional information, please visit uncg.edu and follow UNCG on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Weatherspoon Art Museum
UNC Greensboro
1005 Spring Garden Street
Greensboro, NC 27412, (336) 334-5770, weatherspoon@uncg.edu
For more information or press images, contact:
Loring Mortensen, (336) 256-1451, lamorten@uncg.edu
