Through the pairing of the exhibitions Goya: The Disasters of War, and Steve Mumford's War Journals, 2003-2013, the Frist Center for the Visual Arts offers two powerful artistic portrayals of conflict and life in a combat zone. In The Disasters of War, the eminent Spanish painter and printmaker Goya graphically depicts the ravages of war as a means of expressing his horror with humanity's capacity to inflict harm, whereas the contemporary American artist Steve Mumford takes a more journalistic approach to his paintings of 21(st) Century combat. Both exhibitions will be on view in the Frist Center's Upper-Level Galleries from February 28 through June 8, 2014.
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), widely considered the last of the Spanish "old masters" as well as the first modernist, created the eighty prints that comprise The Disasters of War in reaction to the Napoleonic invasion of Spain in the Peninsular War (1808-14) and the ensuing political turmoil. "Unlike previous works of 'war art,' these prints were not commissioned by 'the winner,'" explains Frist Center Curator Katie Delmez. "Therefore, they provide insight into the artist's unbiased private feelings about the historical events, and do not glorify individual leaders. Rather, they are brutally frank reflections of the impact conflicts have on ordinary individuals, soldiers and civilians alike. In this way, Goya can be seen as one of the first truly modern artists."Still relevant after 200 years, the prints have inspired artists from Édouard Manet and Pablo Picasso to Leon Golub and the Chapman brothers; they have been reformatted to serve as a cover for Susan Sontag's book, Regarding the Pain of Others; they appear as illustrations in political commentary. Given their subjects of death, brutality and the impact of war on civilians of all ranks and ages, The Disasters of War are not easy to look at, and have rarely been exhibited in their entirety. "Perhaps because of their criticism of both France and the Spanish crown, or the acknowledgement that such gruesome images would not find buyers, the etchings were not published until 1863, thirty-five years after the Goya's death," says Ms. Delmez. A collaboration of the Pomona College Museum of Art and the University Museums, University of Delaware, this exhibition and the accompanying catalogue present all eighty prints of the first edition from the collection of the Pomona College Museum of Art.Videos