Edna Andrade: Imagination Is Never Static

Celebrate a 20th-century artist whose innovative abstract drawings and paintings continue to inspire.

Edna Andrade: Imagination Is Never Static offers a new look at the practice of acclaimed artist and educator Edna Andrade (1917–2008). Presenting a selection of drawings recently gifted to the Harvard Art Museums by the artist’s estate, this exhibition emphasizes the central role of drawing as well as interdisciplinary exploration in her art and in modernist movements of the 20th century.

Andrade is best known for her geometric compositions, which were inspired by her interest in studying structures in nature, architecture, astronomy, mathematics, and art history. She carried this same set of wide-ranging inspirations and inquiry to her teaching. Her classroom bridged her own traditional artistic training of drawing from observation and the principles of the Bauhaus school that transformed U.S. arts curricula after faculty émigrés took up leadership positions in art and architecture programs, such as Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Andrade taught courses on color and design at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art and was part of an intellectual salon called Form Forum, which brought mathematicians, artists, architects, and philosophers together in an exchange of ideas. Presented on a university campus, the exhibition explores the way that Andrade used drawing as a process of experimentation, channeling her own multifaceted approach to art and design.

Curated by Mitra Abbaspour, Houghton Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and Head of the Division of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Madeline Murphy Turner, Emily Rauh Pulitzer Curatorial Fellow in Contemporary Drawings; with Bridget Hinz, Senior Curatorial Assistant for Special Exhibitions and Publications.

Edna Andrade: Imagination Is Never Static is made possible through the generosity of the Edna Wright Andrade Charitable Trust, whose extraordinary gift of drawings from across the artist’s career to the Harvard Art Museums demonstrates the Trust’s deep commitment to fostering the study of art for future generations.

Support for this exhibition is provided by the Rosenblatt Fund for Post-War American Art, the Agnes Gund Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art, and the Edna W. Andrade Fund and the Edna Wright Andrade Fund of the Philadelphia Foundation. Related programming is supported by the M. Victor Leventritt Lecture Series Endowment Fund. Modern and contemporary art programs at the Harvard Art Museums are made possible in part by generous support from the Emily Rauh Pulitzer and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art.