Muses of the Avant Garde: Sara and Gerald Murphy and their Circle

FAIN: MI-50020-06

Presidents and Trustees of Williams College (Williamstown, MA 01267-2600)
Deborah M. Rothschild (Project Director: February 2006 to December 2008)

Implementation of a traveling exhibition with a catalog and a public symposium about a remarkable American couple living well in France in the 1920s-30s, who influenced the trans-Atlantic exchange of ideas about modern art and music.

"Muses of the Avante-Garde: Sara and Gerald Murphy and their Circle" is an exhibition with accompanying programs and catalogue that will open the Williams College Museum of Art in July 2007 and then travel to the Yale University Art Gallery and Dallas Museum of Art in 2008. This interdisciplinary exhibition will convey Gerald and Sara Murphy's gift for weaving brilliant innovators of diverse backgrounds, nationalities, and talents into the distinctive fabric of their everyday life, an intertwining that promoted Euro-American dialogue so important to the development of modern culture as we know it. The exhibition will feature over 100 works of art, many examples of literature, dance, music, film, design, costume, and ballet sets and a rich treasure trove of ephemera such as letters, photographs, home movies, and audio reminiscences.