Museum of Modern Art loans works to Lincoln museum for exhibition

At first glance, paintings in Sheldon Museum of Art’s latest exhibit are colorful but complicated. To truly enjoy Grace Hartigan’s work, curators said viewers need to take the time to look closer.

“She wanted us to spend time with the work,” said Jared Ledesma, curator with the North Carolina Museum of Art and the one who put together the collection. “She wanted us to find certain aspects of the work. There are certain images that kind of float out in midair that are really interesting.”

The "Grace Hartigan: The Gift of Attention" exhibit is making its third and final stop in Lincoln after a U.S. tour. The exhibit opened at the North Carolina museum, which put it together, and made a stop at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine.

Pieces included in the collection are on loan from from the Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Hartigan’s paintings, which were created over the course of the 20th century, are predominantly abstract impressionism. The exhibit features works from 1952 to 1968.

“On the one hand, she was painting through abstraction, through pictures that don't really mirror the real world,” Ledesma said. “But then on the other hand, she was interested in kind of embedding imagery into her paintings that do come from the real world, and that's kind of where our show takes its inspiration.”

Hartigan lived the majority of her life in New York City, but Christian Wurst, curator with the Sheldon Museum of Art, said her work brings a unique perspective to Nebraskans who choose to learn more about her work and life.

“Hartigan was inspired by what was around her,” Wurst said. “She painted them through the act of looking throughout her neighborhood.”

Wurst said while the Sheldon has previously lent out works to the MoMA, it’s uncommon for museum to reciprocate. Moreover, this is the first time a collection of Hartigan’s work has been shown in the state.

Throughout the course of her career, Hartigan drew inspiration not just from the world around her, but from other artists, writers and poets.

“This exhibition really highlights how (Hartigan’s) relationships really helped her career, and she helped theirs,” Wurst said. “It highlights the important idea of relationships with other people, and to lift up people that you care about.”

The exhibit opened Saturday and is on display until Jan. 3.