The Barnes Foundation Presents Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations

East Coast premiere of major Cecily Brown mid-career retrospective

March 9–May 25, 2025
Press Preview: Wednesday, March 5, 9:30 am

Philadelphia, PA, December 17, 2024—In spring 2025, the Barnes Foundation will present the East Coast premiere of Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations, a major mid-career retrospective of pioneering British painter Cecily Brown. Co-organized by the Barnes and the Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), this exhibition is the largest presentation of Brown’s work in the US to date and her first solo exhibition in Philadelphia. Co-curated by Simonetta Fraquelli, independent art historian and consultant curator for the Barnes, and Anna Katherine Brodbeck, the Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the DMA, the exhibition spans three decades of Brown’s career, showcasing her subversive reconfiguration of art history and contemporary culture.

On view in the Roberts Gallery from March 9 through May 25, 2025, Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations is sponsored by Comcast NBCUniversal. Additional support is provided by the Forman Family Foundation, Marsha and Jeffrey Perelman, Carlo Bronzini Vender, Anonymous, and other generous individuals.

Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations is the first exhibition to fully explore Cecily Brown’s work through the lens of its groundbreaking reconfiguration of cultural politics. Bringing together more than 30 large-scale paintings and works on paper that highlight Brown’s subversion of gendered tropes in art history and popular culture, the exhibition sheds light on her practice and considers her work from a feminist perspective. The exhibition reveals how she reclaimed the heroic gestural expression associated with an earlier generation of male artists—a style largely out of favor with her peers—to create lush, dynamic, and often erotic paintings. Moving between figuration and abstraction, her work explores the power imbalances inherent in voyeurism and sexual violence.

“In her work, Cecily Brown subverts scenes from centuries-old European paintings and complicates the gendered stereotypes of traditional genres, like those found in the Barnes collection,” says Thom Collins, Neubauer Family Executive Director and President. “We are proud to present the East Coast premiere of this major mid-career retrospective of Cecily Brown, a leading figure in the field of contemporary painting and one of the most celebrated artists working in painting today. This exhibition is aligned with our commitment to presenting the work of remarkable women artists, including groundbreaking contemporary artists like Mickalene Thomas, Lebohang Kganye, and Sue Williamson, and significant but underrecognized women working in the European modernist vanguard of the late 19th and early 20th centuries—like Marie Laurencin, Suzanne Valadon, and Berthe Morisot.”

“Cecily Brown’s art is filled with a sense of vibrancy, vitality, and endless possibilities,” says Fraquelli. “She invites the viewer to explore each work closely, examine every aspect of its surface, and hunt out the imagery, while at the same time to be immersed in its luxurious colors and forms. Brown’s work compels a mode of slow looking—a method inherent in the Barnes’s educational program—in which multiple or entire scenes gradually emerge from her rich and abundant layers of paint. Rather than simply making painting contemporary, she makes it contemporaneous, for we are compelled to participate in the cacophonous actions she portrays.”

“In examining the recurring tropes in Cecily Brown’s paintings, viewers are able to appreciate the artist’s adept ability to reclaim and redefine female subjects,” says Brodbeck. “In her work, Brown continues to challenge artistic conventions and engage audiences with her revisionist approach to the history of art.”

Featuring paintings and works on paper from prominent institutional and private collections, Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations is organized around scenes and motifs prevalent throughout visual culture, including the boudoir, the garden, the hunt, and the shipwreck. Brown’s references range from centuries-old European paintings to contemporary pop songs. She subverts her sources’ messages of male domination over women and the natural world, complicating the gendered stereotypes of traditional genres. Brown continually reexamines art history with contemporary issues in mind while revisiting her own works to generate new compositions.

Exhibition highlights include:

• Girl on a Swing (2004), which complicates the voyeurism on display in rococo-style painting.
• Saboteur Four Times (2019), a large-scale work composed of four canvases, representing Brown’s recent use of digital imagery and reflecting her multifaceted process.
• The Splendid Table (2019–20), a monumental triptych that takes inspiration, in part, from 17th-century Flemish still-life painting.
• Untitled (2023), two new large-scale oil monotypes with hand additions in pastel, exhibited for the first time as part of this exhibition.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Cecily Brown (b. 1969, London; lives and works in New York) is one of the most celebrated artists working in painting today. She first moved to New York in the mid-1990s, following her graduation from the renowned Slade School of Fine Art in London. Since storming the boys’ club of painting that had dominated the New York scene for decades, Brown has defied expectations of what art can be. Her radical artistic approach—which occupies the space between figuration and abstraction—affords near-endless possibilities for interpretation and reinterpretation, with layered brushwork that excavates and overlays cultural references and art historical motifs.

Recent one-person exhibitions include Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2023); Cecily Brown, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2022); The Triumph of Death, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples (2022); Cecily Brown, at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, England (2020–21); Where, When, How Often and with Whom at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, Denmark (2018); If Paradise Were Half as Nice, Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo (2018); and Rehearsal, at the Drawing Center, New York (2016). Her work is included in the public collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the National Gallery of Norway, Oslo; the Tate Gallery, London; and Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland, among others.

ABOUT THE CO-CURATORS
Simonetta Fraquelli, an independent curator specializing in early 20th-century European art, is a consultant curator for the Barnes. Fraquelli began her career at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, where she worked for over 20 years on a range of exhibitions. Since 2006, she has collaborated with several leading European and American museums. In 2016, she curated Picasso: The Great War, Experimentation and Change at the Barnes. In 2017, she co-curated one of the largest exhibitions of Modigliani’s work, Modigliani at Tate, London. She was co-curator of Soutine / de Kooning: Conversations in Paint at the Barnes in 2021 and Modigliani Up Close in 2022. She has published on many artists, including Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and Gino Severini. She holds advanced degrees from the Courtauld Institute, London.

Anna Katherine Brodbeck is Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art. Since joining the DMA in 2017, Brodbeck has curated numerous exhibitions, including He Said / She Said: Contemporary Women Interject; When You See Me: Visibility in Contemporary Art / History; Movement: The Legacy of Kineticism; For a Dreamer of Houses; Jonas Wood; and America Will Be!: Surveying the Contemporary Landscape, as well as the museum’s emerging artist platform series, Concentrations, and its annual mural commission. Prior to joining the DMA, she worked in the curatorial departments at the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Frick Collection, New York. She holds a PhD from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and has published widely in the field of modern and contemporary art.

CATALOGUE
Accompanying the exhibition is a stunning volume that surveys the pioneering career of Cecily Brown (b. 1969), one of the most celebrated artists working in painting today. Edited by co-curators Anna Katherine Brodbeck and Simonetta Fraquelli, with contributions from writer and art critic Aruna D’Souza, the book explores Brown’s process through paintings and drawings that demonstrate both her radical contemporaneity and her keen reassessment of historical precedents such as old master paintings and abstract expressionism, which have been consistent hallmarks of her art. The book’s probing essays look at her practice, investigate the main themes that recur in her work, and consider her art from a feminist perspective.

EXHIBITION ORGANIZATION
Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations is co-curated by Simonetta Fraquelli, consultant curator for the Barnes, and Anna Katherine Brodbeck, Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.

EXHIBITION SPONSORS
Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations at the Barnes is sponsored by Comcast NBCUniversal.

Additional support is provided by the Forman Family Foundation, Marsha and Jeffrey Perelman, Carlo Bronzini Vender, Anonymous, and other generous individuals.

Ongoing funding for exhibitions comes from the Christine and Michael Angelakis Exhibition Fund, the Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Exhibition Fund, the Lois and Julian Brodsky Exhibition Fund, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Christine and George Henisee Exhibition Fund, the Aileen and Brian Roberts Exhibition Fund, and the Tom and Margaret Lehr Whitford Exhibition Fund.

The exhibition publication is made possible with generous support provided by the Lois and Julian Brodsky Publications Fund.

In addition, funding for all exhibitions comes from contributors to the Barnes Foundation Exhibition Fund:

Joan Carter and John Aglialoro, Julia and David Fleischner, Victoria McNeil Le Vine, Leigh and John Middleton, Jeanette and Joe Neubauer

John Alchin and Hal Marryatt, Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz, Lois and Julian Brodsky, N. Judith Broudy, Elaine W. Camarda and A. Morris Williams, Jr., Marianne N. Dean, Eugene and Michelle Dubay, Penelope P. Harris, Jones & Wajahat Family, Lisa D. Kabnick and John H. McFadden, Victor F. Keen and Jeanne Ruddy, Marguerite Lenfest, Maribeth and Steven Lerner, Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation, Hilarie and Mitchell Morgan, The Park Family, Wendy and Mark Rayfield, Anne and Bruce Robinson, Adele K. Schaeffer, Katie and Tony Schaeffer, Donna and Jerry Slipakoff, Dr. and Mrs. Eugene E. Stark, Joan F. Thalheimer, Bruce and Robbi Toll, van Beuren Charitable Foundation, Kirsten White, Randi Zemsky and Bob Lane, Anonymous.

ABOUT THE BARNES FOUNDATION
The Barnes is a nonprofit cultural and educational institution that shares its unparalleled art collection with the public, organizes special exhibitions, and presents programming that fosters new ways of thinking about human creativity. The Barnes collection is displayed in ensembles that integrate art and objects from across cultures and time periods, overturning traditional hierarchies and revealing universal elements of human expression. Home to one of the world’s finest collections of impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern paintings—including the largest groups of paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Cézanne in existence—the Barnes brings together renowned canvases by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, and Vincent van Gogh, alongside African, Asian, ancient, medieval, and Native American art as well as metalwork, furniture, and decorative art.

The Barnes was established by Dr. Albert C. Barnes in 1922 to “promote the advancement of education and the appreciation of the fine arts and horticulture.” A visionary collector and pioneering educator, Dr. Barnes was also a fierce advocate for the civil rights of African Americans, women, and the economically marginalized. Committed to racial equality and social justice, he established a scholarship program to support young Black artists, writers, and musicians who wanted to further their education. Dr. Barnes became actively involved in the Harlem Renaissance, during which he collaborated with philosopher Alain Locke and Charles S. Johnson, the scholar and activist, to promote awareness of the artistic value of African art.

Since moving to Philadelphia in 2012, the Barnes has expanded its commitment to diversity, inclusion, and social justice, teaching visual literacy in groundbreaking ways; investing in original scholarship relating to its collection; and enhancing accessibility throughout every facet of its programs.

The Barnes is situated in Lenapehoking, the ancestral homeland of the Lenape people. Read our Land Acknowledgment. Hours and ticket prices are listed on our website.

ABOUT THE DALLAS MUSEUM OF ART
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an inclusive, welcoming space for everyone to see its global collection of more than 25,000 works spanning 5,000 years of history and a range of world cultures. The DMA is one of the largest art museums in the United States and is located in one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country, with free general admission for all visitors. As an Open Access institution, the DMA offers digital images of all public-domain artworks in its collection for use by the public. The DMA provides educational programming for all ages, from exhibitions and lectures to concerts, literary events and dramatic performances. The museum is open Wednesday through Sunday, 11 am–5 pm, and is always open at dma.org.

Free general admission to the Dallas Museum of Art is funded, in part, by the Robert Gerard Pollock Foundation. Additional support for the museum is provided by generous DMA Members and donors, the Texas Commission on the Arts and the citizens of Dallas through the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION
Deirdre Maher, Director of Communications
215.278.7160, press@barnesfoundation.org
Online press office: barnesfoundation.org/press