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February Issue
2010
Bechtler Museum
of Modern Art has Opened in Charlotte, NC
The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art, located at 420 South Tryon Street, Center City Charlotte, NC, is the second new art venue to open at the Wells Fargo Cultural Campus, which includes the new Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture (formerly the Afro-American Cultural Center). Later this fall an expanded Mint Museum of Art will open at this same location.
The Bechtler Museum of Modern Art is named after the family of Andreas Bechtler, a Charlotte resident and native of Switzerland who assembled and inherited a collection of more than 1,400 artworks created by major figures of 20th-century modernism and donated it to the public trust.
The Bechtler collection comprises artworks by seminal figures such as Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miro, Jean Tinguely, Max Ernst, Andy Warhol, Alexander Calder, Le Corbusier, Sol LeWitt, Edgar Degas, Nicolas de Stael, Barbara Hepworth and Picasso. Only a handful of the artworks in the Bechtler collection have been on public view in the United States. Until now, the collection was privately held by the Bechtler family of Switzerland.
Outside the front entrance to the Museum visitors as well as people driving down South Tryon Street will be greeted by The Firebird, Charlotte's newest work of privately-owned public art. Standing 17-feet 5-inches tall, the sculpture is a whimsical, bird-like creature covered from top to bottom in pieces of mirrored and colored glass. The sculpture was created in 1991 by French-American artist Niki de Saint Phalle (1930-2002). It was purchased by museum patron Andreas Bechtler specifically for placement in front of the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art.
Regular operating hours
are Mon., Wed., Thur., Fri. and Sat., from 10am-5pm; Sun., noon-5pm;
closed Tue. Admission is $8 for adults; $6 for seniors, college
students and educators; $4 for youth (11 to 14) and free for children
(up to 10).
For further information check our NC Institutional Gallery
listings, call the Museum at 704/353-9200 or visit (www.bechtler.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2010 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2010 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.