Splash

Scenes of people bathing and swimming in lakes, streams, and the open sea have long appealed to artists and their audiences. For centuries, the subject offered artists both an opportunity to showcase their talent for rendering the natural world and an excuse to portray the human body in varying degrees of undress.

This installation of prints, drawings, and photographs is inspired by Paul Cézanne’s The Large Bathers (Gallery 264) and his revolutionary approach to this time-honored theme. Moving away from the naturalistic landscapes and classically idealized bodies of their predecessors, the artists in this installation similarly play with form and space to push the boundaries of representation. Graciela Iturbide’s photograph of children tumbling in the sand on the first day of summer, Doris Lee’s lithograph of jubilant freshwater bathers, and images of buzzing New Jersey beaches bring the delights of gathering by the water to life.