Bigger, Better and More Badass: Somerville Theatre to Host 70mm and Widescreen Film Festival

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If you were one of the thousands of people who indulged in Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight at the Somerville Theatre, you’re in for another treat. The beloved Davis Square institution will host its first-ever festival of 70mm and widescreen 35mm films on September 16th through the 25th

Why is 70mm such a big deal, you ask? The format is twice the size of 35mm film and allows for an image that is higher in resolution with crisper details and much, much brighter colors. It’s extremely expensive to make films in 70mm format and not every theatre in the country is outfitted to play them. The Somerville Theatre just happens to be one of the last remaining theaters in the country where 70mm film rules.

Among the films to be screened in 70mm include Lawrence of Arabia, the 1982 film Tron, Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar as well as the 1968 stunner, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some of the 35mm widescreen films on the list include The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur. The festival is packed with gems that ought to be seen in their original 70mm release format, but if you only have time to see one film, make it Walt Disney’s 1959 animated classic Sleeping Beauty—this is one of the rarest opportunities you’ll get to see this film in at its colorful glory.

For more information or a complete listing of films, visit somervilletheatre.com

Brace Yourselves, an Immense Online Resource Dedicated to The Bauhaus Just Launched

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HAM-Bauhaus-Collection-16The Harvard Art Museums announced on Monday that it has created a new and expansive online resource dedicated to the Bauhaus—the most influential design school of the twentieth century. The resource, which allows for unprecedented digital access into one of the first and largest collections of Bauhaus objects and ephemera in the world, is only the beginning in what will culminate in major exhibition at the Harvard Art Museums in 2019, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus.

Founded in 1919 in the city of Weimar, Germany by Walter Gropius, the Bauhaus was in part shaped by the ideas of the Arts and Crafts Movement, but unlike the Arts and Crafts Movement which rejected the machine, the Bauhaus embraced it, blurring the lines between the arts, crafts and technology. The school was forced to shutdown in 1932 by the Nazis, but its legacy is still felt and seen today in the objects in our homes and in the architecture of our cities.

The school’s founder, Walter Gropius fled Nazi Germany and settled in Massachusetts, bringing with him the ideas that made the Bauhaus revolutionary in its time. Gropius joined the faculty at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1937 and went on to establish along with a few of his students, The Architects Collaborative-another influential architecture firm in the Boston area. In the 1930s,  Boston became a hotbed for modernism thanks in part to the many artists and designers associated with the Bauhaus. Many of these artists and designers called the city their home or spent years teaching at Harvard, influencing the next generation of architects and designers.

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Wilhelm Wagenfeld, Coffee and Tea Service: 5-Piece Set, 1924–25. Brass with mercury silvered interiors and ebony fixtures. Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum, Gift of Hanna Lindemann, BR52.22-26. © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Photo: Harvard Art Museums, © President and Fellows of Harvard College.

The new online resource comprises of the Harvard Art Museums’ 32,000+ Bauhaus-related works, an essay on the connections of the Bauhaus and Harvard, an annotated map listing institutions, archives and architectural landmarks associated with the Bauhaus. The online resource also includes a comprehensive list of Bauhaus-related archives and exhibitions held across Harvard, as well as an extensive bibliography on the movement.

It’s okay, go ahead and procrastinate as much as you’d like by browsing this incredible resource on the most influential design school of the twentieth century.

After a Much Awaited Relocation and Expansion, The McMullen Museum of Art Is Set to Reopen This Fall

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McMullen Museum, atrium and entrance

McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Brighton Campus. 2101 Commonwealth Avenue. Photo Courtesy of Gary Wayne Gilbert, Boston College.

This September, after roughly two years of renovation and construction, Boston gears up to celebrate the grand reopening of the McMullen Museum of Art on the Boston College campus in Brighton.

Now housed in a newly renovated and expanded Renaissance Revival style building designed in 1927 by Maginnis and Walsh, the new McMullen Museum of Art will include 30,000 gross-square feet of exhibition space—that’s three times more the space it used to have in its former location also on campus.

Formerly located in a congested corner of Devlin Hall—one of the four original Gothic Revival buildings designed by Maginnis and Walsh on the college’s campus—the McMullen will feature two main galleries on the second floor, a sculpture gallery as well as a smaller gallery on the third. The renovations also include a large rooftop terrace.

LaFarge Windows, McMullen Museum of Art, Brighton Campus, Boston College.

LaFarge Windows, McMullen Museum of Art, Brighton Campus, Boston College. Photo Courtesy of Gary Wayne Gilbert, Boston College.

Opened in 1995 as a teaching museum, the McMullen Museum has organized many critically acclaimed exhibits, including an excellent retrospective on Wilfredo Lam as well as exhibits on Paul Klee, Roberto Matta, Edvard Munch, Sarah Westlake and Jackson Pollock among others. Its most recent tour de force, John La Farge and the Recovery of the Sacred, brought together more than 85 works consisting of paintings, stained glass windows, and works on paper that shed new light one of the most innovative American artists of the 19th century.

La Farge’s astonishing stained glass tryptic of Christ preaching, St. John the Evangelist, and St. Paul, a recent gift to the University from the Vareika Family, will be one of the crowning jewels on view in this newly renovated and expanded building by DiMella Shaffer.

New McMullen Museum spaces at 2101 Commonwealth Avenue, on Brighton Campus.

New McMullen Museum spaces at 2101 Commonwealth Avenue, on Brighton Campus. Photo Courtesy of Gary Wayne Gilbert, Boston College.

New McMullen Museum spaces at 2101 Commonwealth Avenue, on Brighton Campus.

New McMullen Museum spaces at 2101 Commonwealth Avenue, on Brighton Campus. Photo Courtesy of Gary Wayne Gilbert, Boston College.

And as if a “new” museum in a new location wasn’t exciting enough, the McMullen Museum of Art has partnered with Harvard University’s Houghton Library and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum for its inaugural exhibit, Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections. The exhibit, which is being billed as “one of the most important ensembles of illuminated manuscripts anywhere in North America,” will feature different explorations surrounding the creation and study of illuminated manuscripts. It will be on view concurrently at these indtitutions beginning on September 12 until December 11, 2016.

The museum, which has always been free to the public, will also expand its opening hours and relaunch a newly revamped docent program.

So much to look forward to this Fall at Boston College.

Back to New England: Currier Museum of Art Names New Director and CEO

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Alan Chong

Alan Chong, Photo Courtesy of the Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, NH.

The Board of Trustees of the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire has announced the appointment of Alan Chong as its new Director and Chief Executive Officer. An already familiar face to many in New England, Dr. Chong will be the ninth director in the Museum’s 87-year history and comes to the Currier Museum from the Asian Civilisations Museum & the Peranakan Museum in Singapore.

Prior to his tenure at the Asian Civilisations Museum & the Peranakan Museum, Dr. Chong served as the Lia and William Poorvu Curator of the Collection at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, Mass. from 1999 through 2010. While at the Gardner, Dr. Chong curated the critically acclaimed exhibitions Raphael, Cellini, and a Renaissance Banker in 2003; Gondola Days: Isabella Stewart Gardner and the Palazzo Barbaro Circle in 2004 and Journeys East: Isabella Stewart Gardner and Asia in 2009.

A hidden gem in New England, the Currier Museum of Art is home to a spectacular collection of European and American Art as well as the Zimmerman House, the only Frank Lloyd Wright house in New England open to the public. Dr. Chong’s appoinment will continue to elevate the profile of the Currier Museum of Art on a national and international level.

Congratulations, Alan Chong.