Museum Talks | Washington, DC #12 Philadelphia Museum of Art

For this Museum Talk, Villa Albertine DC was honored to present Sasha Suda, the George D. Widener Director and CEO of Philadelphia Museum of Art, Jennifer A. Thompson, the Gloria and Jack Drosdick Curator of European Painting and Sculpture and Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection, and Matthew Affron, the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art, to present the European collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and discuss the exhibition “Matisse in the 1930s”.

Philadelphia Museum of Art

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is one of the country’s oldest public art museums. Their landmark main building houses one of the most comprehensive collections in the country, featuring some of the greatest gatherings of American, Asian, and European art anywhere. They have the world’s largest Marcel Duchamp collection as well as superb Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, including important works by Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, and Van Gogh.

Matisse in the 1930s is organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris; and the Musée Matisse Nice.

In Philadelphia, the exhibition is made possible by the Annenberg Foundation Fund for Major Exhibitions, The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation, The Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Gloria and Jack Drosdick Fund for Special Exhibitions, the Harriet and Ronald Lassin Fund for Special Exhibitions, the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Fund for Exhibitions, Mr. and Mrs. William C. Buck, Mr. and Mrs. Christopher H. Gadsden, Mrs. Henry F. Harris, Independence Blue Cross, the Robert Lehman Foundation, The Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation, Barbara A. Podell and Mark G. Singer, Katie and Tony Schaeffer, Robbi and Bruce Toll, Constance and Sankey Williams, and other generous donors.

Sasha Suda, the George D. Widener Director and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Sasha Suda was appointed in June 2022 and began her tenure in September. She brings new generation leadership to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and believes that the visual arts have the power to connect the past to the present and that they can help us to forge a more inspiring, creative, and equitable future.

Jennifer A. Thompson, the Gloria and Jack Drosdick Curator of European Painting and Sculpture and Curator of the John G. Johnson Collection

Jennifer Thompson is Head of the European Painting and Sculpture Department at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Since joining the department in 1999, she has played an essential role in interpreting, displaying, and developing the museum’s collections of European art. She has published widely and curated many notable exhibitions, including: “The Impressionist’s Eye” (2019); and “Old Masters Now: Celebrating the Johnson Collection” (2017).

Matthew Affron, the Muriel and Philip Berman Curator of Modern Art

Since coming to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2013, Affron has been curator or co-curator of exhibitions including Matisse in the 1930s (traveling to the Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris and the Musée Matisse Nice in 2022-23), The Essential Duchamp (which traveled to the Tokyo National Museum, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney, in 2018–19). He also serves as project director for the Duchamp Research Portal, an online platform that aggregates digitized archive holdings and museum collections related to Marcel Duchamp. He has contributed essays in exhibition catalogues and edited volumes dealing with many aspects of Cubism, abstract art, Surrealism, and other aspects of modern art.

Image credit: Henri Matisse, “The Conversation”, 1938, 18 3/8 × 21 3/4 inches, oil on canvas. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. © 2022 Succession H. Matisse/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.