The Haggin Museum has announced the opening of two incredible exhibitions: African Americans in World War II and Under the Mexican Sky.
Both are on display through May 19, 2024.
African Americans in World War II
Over 2.5 million African Americans served in all service branches, and in all Theaters of Operations during World War II. Despite extensive discrimination and segregation, they met the challenge, persevered, and served with distinction and honor. Many black infantrymen were involved in the war in Europe and the war in the Pacific. In addition, black support of war efforts from the home front was essential to the success of Allied forces.
This exhibition was organized and traveled by the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History, and features approximately 40 photographs highlighting the many contributions and achievements made by African American soldiers during WWII.
Under the Mexican Sky
Mexico City in the 1920s and 1930s was the scene of one of the great artistic flowerings of the twentieth century. Like Paris in the aftermath of World War I, Mexico City after the decade-long Mexican Revolution served as a magnet for international artists and photographers. Foremost among the expatriate photographers was the Los Angelino, Edward Weston, who embedded himself in the artistic milieu surrounding the muralist painters Rivera, Orozco, and Siqueiros.
Weston reinvented his approach to picture-making during his three years in Mexico, 1923 to 1926. The soft-focus painterliness that had characterized his studio portraiture in the ‘teens melted away under the brilliant Mexican sun, to be replaced by crystalline landscapes as well as evocative still lifes that prefigured his later shells and peppers.
Meanwhile, his paramour and protégée, the Italian silent film star Tina Modotti, created photographs that would place her in the pantheon of great photographers of the era.
This exhibition features rare vintage Mexican masterworks by both Weston and Modotti from the 1920s, as well as stellar photographs from the 1930s by New Yorker Paul Strand, Frenchman Henri Cartier-Bresson, and by Mexico’s own self-taught master of the camera, Manuel Álvarez Bravo.
Under the Mexican Sky is organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions, www.art2art.org. All prints are courtesy of the private collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg.
Haggin Museum is a nonprofit art and history museum accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. It is at 1201 N. Pershing Ave., Stockton, and is open to the public Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 5 p.m.; Wednesdays through Fridays from 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. and the first and third Thursdays from 1:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Admission is $8 for adults, $7 for seniors (ages 65 and older), $5 for students and youth (ages 10-17), and free for children under 10, museum members, and on the first Saturday of each month. For more information call 209-940-6300 or visit www.hagginmuseum.org.
