Carnegie Museum of Art: Special Exhibition

"Andrey Avinoff: In Pursuit of Beauty"

There were six special exhibitions at the Carnegie Museum of Art this past week. I managed to visit four of them. The most important of which was probably the Pittsburgh Biennial. Biennial exhibits are designed to showcase new artists, which by definition no matter how old their works means contemporary and usually avant garde. The avant gardier the better. It's as much about being noticed as it is about being good. A mon avis Pittsburgh's Biennial offers nothing that the world can't live without.

The most interesting special exhibition was that of the works of Andrey Avinoff titled "In Pursuit of Beauty."

Andrey Avinoff, c. 1905 -1915 (age 24?)

Avinoff was an immigrant from the Ukraine of Russian heritage, amateur botanist, entomologist by degree, believer in mysticism, lover of men (a close friend of Alfred Kinsey to whom he confided and to whom was given much of his homoerotic art), a keen watercolorist/professional illustrator, and, as fate would have it, the director of the Carnegie Museum from 1926 to 1946.

The exhibit came with a warning to those with children of it's adult content, which quickly became apparent as I entered the exhibit from the end which was resplendent with male nudity and in a couple of cases homoerotic imagery. Other themes included botanical and lepidopterological images, mystic religious ideas, and landscapes and interiors. No child warning needed here with these simple yet exquisite examples.

Tibet: Camp Scene in the Karakoram at the Foot of the Mountain, 1912
graphite and watercolor on paper

Self-Portrait with Butterfly Eye, c. 1945
graphite on fragment of envelope