The Denver Art Museum takes a wide-ranging look at textiles from pre-Columbian weavings to modern fiber art, Navajo blankets to an examination of clothing in art and photography in the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles.

Taking visitors on a journey through the artist’s imagination, Nick Cave: Sojourn will feature approximately 40 new artworks including more than 20 new Soundsuits. Cave’s multi-sensory, immersive installation will transport visitors to a magical world of color, texture, sound, and movement.

In the exhibition, visitors will see a passageway constructed of thousands of buttons; large-scale, sculptural objects made out of found objects; more than 20 new Soundsuits; and new short films.

Mark Rothko in the 1940s traces the development of Rothko’s work during the most critical decade of his career.  In the early ’40s, Rothko rejected realism and began a series of abstract works meant to evoke classical myth; in the late ’40s he created his first color field paintings, the works on which his stature as one of the most famous American painters of the post-war period rests.

En español

Cover Story is the heart of the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles. Featured in the inaugural show for the new textile art galleries, the objects in Cover Story mirror the diverse geographical areas and range of textiles found in the Denver Art Museum's permanent collection.

While Navajo artists have been creating eye catching textiles since the late 1600s, the middle of the 1800s saw an explosion of color & design elaboration. This exhibition will present about 50 of the greatest examples of Navajo design expression.

Red, White and Bold: Masterworks of Navajo Design, 1840-1870 is part of the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles.

Charles Partridge Adams was a Colorado landscape painter active during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Rocky Mountain Majesty: The Paintings of Charles Partridge Adams marks the first time that Adams’ paintings will be displayed together at a major art museum; and the Denver Art Museum will be the sole venue for this important exhibition that highlights his greatest paintings of Colorado.

Western Duds explores the importance of textiles in the colorful history of the American West. The exhibition highlights four paintings paired with the uniquely western textiles they portray and celebrates western clothing and accessories as sources of artistic inspiration.

Western Duds is part of the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles.

The use of resist-dye techniques is found in many Asian countries. This exhibition highlights eye-dazzling textiles from various cultural traditions, including weavings from Uzbekistan and Japan. Several of the garments in the exhibition are made with ikat—fabrics with patterns created by dyeing the threads before they are woven into cloth.

Irresistible: Multicolored Textiles from Asia is part of the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles.

The Denver Art Museum takes a wide-ranging look at textiles from pre-Columbian weavings to modern fiber art, Navajo blankets to an examination of clothing in art and photography in the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles.

Taking visitors on a journey through the artist’s imagination, Nick Cave: Sojourn will feature approximately 40 new artworks including more than 20 new Soundsuits. Cave’s multi-sensory, immersive installation will transport visitors to a magical world of color, texture, sound, and movement.

In the exhibition, visitors will see a passageway constructed of thousands of buttons; large-scale, sculptural objects made out of found objects; more than 20 new Soundsuits; and new short films.

Denver-based painter Rick Dula, who photographed the Hamilton Building throughout its construction, created hyper-realist painting A Moment in Time: Here in 2009. It appears to peel back the interior walls of the building to expose its steel girders and underpinnings, and reveals the angular skeleton of the structure, which opened in 2006.

Popular with museum members and volunteers, the artwork originally was on view in 2009 and 2010 in the exhibition Embrace!

See Dula and his team create the artwork on-site in the 10-minute timelapse video below.

En español

Cover Story is the heart of the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles. Featured in the inaugural show for the new textile art galleries, the objects in Cover Story mirror the diverse geographical areas and range of textiles found in the Denver Art Museum's permanent collection.

While Navajo artists have been creating eye catching textiles since the late 1600s, the middle of the 1800s saw an explosion of color & design elaboration. This exhibition will present about 50 of the greatest examples of Navajo design expression.

Red, White and Bold: Masterworks of Navajo Design, 1840-1870 is part of the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles.

This exhibition provides a rare opportunity to view original works on paper alongside Czech-born Jacqueline Groag's lively, bold designs for furnishing textiles, dress fabrics, laminates and other decorative surfaces.

Pattern Play: The Contemporary Designs of Jacqueline Groag is part of the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles.

From recycled plastics and bound clothing to woven silks and charred tree limbs, Material World illustrates the wide range of materials and techniques used by contemporary artists.

Material World is part of the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles.

A selection of more than 30 drawings and sculptures by Denver-based artist Bruce Price will be featured in our works-on-paper gallery.

Bruce Price: Works on Paper, 2007–2012 is part of the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles.

Drawing from the Denver Art Museum’s extensive Spanish colonial art collection, Fashion Fusion looks at the influence textile motif’s have had on other artistic mediums.

Fashion Fusion: Native Textiles in Spanish Colonial Art is part of the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles.

This exhibition will feature the work of two twentieth-century photographers, August Sander and Seydou Keïta, whose work documented transformations in their respective countries through portraiture of everyday citizens.

Common Threads: Portraits by August Sander & Seydou Keïta is part of the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles.

A collaboration between artists Annica Cuppetelli and Cristobal Mendoza, Cuppetelli and Mendoza: Transposition is a site-specific installation that explores the intersection between traditional craft and digital technology. The artwork consists of elastic ropes that are illuminated by software driven video projections.

Transposition is part of the campus-wide exhibition Spun: Adventures in Textiles.

Mark Rothko in the 1940s traces the development of Rothko’s work during the most critical decade of his career.  In the early ’40s, Rothko rejected realism and began a series of abstract works meant to evoke classical myth; in the late ’40s he created his first color field paintings, the works on which his stature as one of the most famous American painters of the post-war period rests.

Herbert Bayer 1900 to 1928: The Bauhaus and Pre-Bauhaus Years is the first in a chronological series of exhibitions that trace Bayer’s development from his earliest days in Austria through his years in the United States. Bayer was first a student and later a master (teacher) at the Bauhaus, generally regarded as the most important school of art and design of the 20th century. In Colorado, Bayer is best known as the designer of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, where he was able to apply the Bauhaus concept of “total design” across the Institute campus.

To coincide with the opening of the much-anticipated Clyfford Still Museum, the department of Modern and Contemporary Art will present a selection of paintings and drawings from its collection of some 20 works by abstract expressionist painter Robert Motherwell. This extraordinary collection spans the artist’s career from 1944 to 1990 and includes masterpieces such as the artist’s last Elegy to the Spanish Republic.

Motherwell's works-on-paper artworks will go off view after May 27, 2012, while the paintings will continue to be on view into 2013. 

In conjunction with Nick Cave: Sojourn, contemporary artist Nick Cave has transformed Precourt Discovery Hall into a whimsical, interactive environment for family visitors. Come play and watch as Cave’s Soundsuits spring to life through movement and dance. Then decorate the figures in the installation with colorful felt shapes and animals to complete the artist’s imaginative creations.

The Roath Collection includes more than 100 works ranging in date from the 1870s to the 1970s with a focus on art of the American Southwest. With iconic works from nearly every artist associated with the Taos Society of Artists, this collection is one of the best groups of Western American art in private hands. The collection also includes major works by Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington and Henry Farny, to name a few. The museum has selected 65 works that will be displayed in the permanent galleries for Western American art.

The 30 artworks in this exhibition reveal the versatility of lacquer as a media used by Japanese artists to create containers, trays, plaques, braziers, and screens. A wide range of techniques are represented to demonstrate how lacquer was used during the last century to create objects of enduring beauty. The selected artworks reflect the changing styles and tastes of successive generations of lacquer artists who produced designs based on plants, animals, and other elements of nature.

Following nearly one year of conservation treatment, an Italian masterwork discovered in the Denver Art Museum storage is on view. Since spring 2012, we have been writing updates about behind-the-scenes discoveries and decisions related to the restoration.

Nampeyo: Excellence by Name is on view in the American Indian art galleries. Nampeyo is recognized as one of the greatest ceramicists of the 20th century. This exhibition traces the full spectrum of the famed Hopi artist’s career, highlighting key elements of her innovative forms and designs and the work of successive generations of her family.

Experience one of the world's premier collections of Native American art. Reopened on January 30, 2011, our remodeled galleries of American Indian and Northwest Coast art focus on artists and their creations, revealing the hand and eye of each individual artist.