April 2017 Art News

More than 20 years after the legendary exhibition Johannes Vermeer, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, presents Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry. On view in the West Building from October 22, 2017, through January 21, 2018, the exhibition examines the artistic exchanges among Dutch Golden Age painters from 1650 to 1675, when they reached the height of their technical ability and mastery at depicting domestic life.

This spring, the Philadelphia Museum of Art presents Channeling Nature by Design, an exhibition that explores how designers have incorporated inspiration from the natural world into their work from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. From handmade to machine-made, Channeling Nature by Design offers an in-depth look at the complex and ever-evolving relationship with nature through works that range from the utilitarian to the extravagant.

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco present The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll, an exhilarating exhibition of iconic rock posters, photographs, interactive music and light shows, costumes and textiles, ephemera, and avant-garde films at the de Young.

This summer, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA) will mount the first museum exhibition in over six decades to explore the legacy of Charles Howard, a pivotal figure in the Surrealist and abstract art movements of the mid-twentieth century. Charles Howard: A Margin of Chaos will showcase more than 50 works by the artist, drawn from the collections of many esteemed museums across the country, that chart his affiliations with Surrealism and abstraction, as well as his previously underexplored roots in the Bay Area and its influence on his work.