Metamorphosis into Freedom at the Institut Giacometti

On 4 March 2023 I published an article about Metamorphosis into Freedom, the itinerant art exhibition organized by the Knoxville Museum of Art (KMA).

On 29 March 2023, the Institut Giacometti Ecole des Modernités is hosting the organizer of this exhibition, Barbara A. and Bernard E. Bernstein Curator Stephen Wicks, for a virtual presentation of the same name. Wicks will present an overview of Beauford's career and then focus on Beauford's studio practice during and after his move to France.

Blue-Light Abstraction (detail)
(c. 1962) Oil on canvas
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator

Wicks has led KMA's curatorial department for more than twenty-five years. He manages the museum's exhibition program and oversees the development of its collections of East Tennessee-related art and international contemporary art. He was instrumental in helping the KMA build the world’s largest and most comprehensive public collection of Knoxville-born painter Beauford Delaney’s works of art.

In December 2021, I published a two-part article* in which Wicks and Professor Rachel Cohen discuss one of Beauford's portraits of James Baldwin. As part of the conversation, Wicks describes how he found a sketch of Alberto Giacometti in one of Beauford's sketchbooks and mentions that Beauford knew Giacometti. I imagine that Wicks will delve more deeply into the connection between the two men during his presentation.

The Institut Giacometti's Ecole des Modernités is an art history program created to enhance understanding of the decisive period in which Giacometti lived and worked. Invited international art historians and curators present new research that sheds new light on a period of modern art history through the original study of an artist, movement, or context. A large part of the program's focus is on non-French artists who moved to Paris to pursue their work.

The "Metamorphosis into Freedom" conference will be held on March 29 at 12:30 PM Eastern Time / 6:30 PM Paris time. 

To register, click HERE.

*Stephen Wicks and Rachel Cohen Discuss Baldwin Portrait - Part 1 
  Stephen Wicks and Rachel Cohen Discuss Baldwin Portrait - Part 2