Houston The Museum of Fine Arts
Description: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
 
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
1001 Bissonnet St
Houston
TX
77005
United States of America
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Description: The Glassell Collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston: Masterworks of...
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00243
One of the world's top hundred art collectors, Alfred C. Glassell, Jr. (1913–2008), was fascinated by gold, but not for its monetary value. Glassell valued instead the spiritual significance that gold held in many ancient cultures, particularly those of Africa, South America, and Indonesia. Over the years, he acquired an astonishing number of artworks, assembling the largest privately held collection of Pre-Columbian gold. From 1997 to 2004, Glassell donated works of African and Indonesian gold to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Upon his death in 2008, he bequeathed his collection of Pre-Columbian gold to the museum. 

Masterworks of Pre-Columbian, Indonesian, and African Gold explores two hundred of these dazzling works, many published here for the first time. Spanning from 2000 B.C. to A.D. 1600, these precious objects reflect a variety of cultures, such as the Calima, Quimbaya, Sicán, Moché, and Coclé, and a range of geographic locations, from Mexico to Argentina and from Africa to Indonesia. The book offers fresh insights into the enduring appeal of gold and its artistic manifestations in diverse cultures.

*This eBooks is available exclusively on the A&AePortal*
Print publication date March 2012 (out of print)
Print ISBN 9780300175950
EISBN 9780300260809
Illustrations 224
Print Status out of print
Description: Writing the Word of God: Calligraphy and the Qurʾan
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00180
The art of Islamic calligraphy developed from the 7th to the 14th century, beginning in western Arabia, spreading south to Yemen and north to the Near East, and continuing east and west to Iran, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain. This book demonstrates the breadth and beauty of Islamic calligraphy across centuries and continents, as seen in rare early folios of the Qur’an.

Noted scholar David J. Roxburgh begins by discussing the Qur’an, which Muslims believe to be the written record of a series of divinely inspired revelations to the Prophet Muhammad. He then analyzes Kufic script, the preeminent vehicle for writing early manuscripts of the Qur’an; reforms of calligraphy in the 10th century; and the great master Islamic calligraphers, in particular Yaqut al-Musta‘simi. The images of folios and bifolios validate Roxburgh’s conclusion that “the miracle of the text of the Qur’an found its equal in the technical mastery of the calligrapher’s practice, a miracle in its own right.”
Print publication date October 2008 (out of print)
Print ISBN 9780300142006
EISBN 9780300247978
Illustrations 23
Print Status out of print
Description: Resisting Categories: Latin American and/or Latino?
https://doi.org/10.37862/aaeportal.00102
This first volume of the Critical Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art series published by the International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, presents 168 crucial texts written by influential artists, critics, curators, journalists, and intellectuals whose writings shed light on questions relating to what it means to be "Latin American" and/or "Latino."

Reinforced within a critical framework, the documents address converging issues, including: the construct of "Latin-ness" itself; the persistent longing for a continental identity; notions of Pan–Latin Americanism; the emergence of collections and exhibitions devoted specifically to "Latin American” or "Latino" art; and multicultural critiques of Latin American and Latino essentialism. The selected documents, many of which have never before been published in English, span from the late fifteenth century to the present day. They encompass key protagonists of this comprehensive history as well as unfamiliar figures, revealing previously unknown facets of the questions and issues at play. The book series complements the thousands of seminal documents now available through the ICAA Documents of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art digital archive. Together they establish a much-needed intellectual foundation for the exhibition, collection, and interpretation of art produced in Latin America and among Latino populations in the United States.
Author
Print publication date April 2012 (in print)
Print ISBN 9780300146974
EISBN 9780300246117
Print Status in print