COLUMBUS, OHIO.- The Columbus Museum of Art presents today “Not-So-Basic BLACK: Powerful Presence in 20th-Century DRESS,” on view through January 4, 2004. Curated by Adjunct Curator of Design Charles Kleibacker, the 65 garments in this exhibition explore the drama, versatility and practicality of BLACK as the best in design. To underscore the history, embellishments, details, and engineering involved in creating twentieth century dress, this exhibition highlights everything from suits from Balenciaga to dramatic coats and capes to the electrifying long dresses of Givenchy and Chanel. Current prestigious New York designers Isabel Toledo, Eric Gaskins and Chado-Ralph Rucci also provide exquisite pieces. Other couture and ready-to-wear designers included in the exhibition are Norell, Galanos, Trigère, Adrian, Grès, Tappé, Schiaparelli, Mugler, Valentino and Randolph Duke for Halston. Support provided by The Carlisle Collection, New York; Sessions Society; Mellon Private Wealth Management; Cordelia Robinson.

As Gertrude Stein remarked, the Columbus Museum of Art houses an outstanding collection of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American and European modern art. This collection includes major works by Monet, Matisse, Picasso, Renoir, Hopper and O’Keeffe and other spectacular examples of Impressionism, German Expressionism, and Cubism. Also recognized for extraordinary regional collections, the Museum boasts the largest public collection of woodcarvings by Columbus folk artist Elijah Pierce as well as the world’s largest repository of paintings and lithographs by Columbus native George Bellows, who is widely regarded as the finest American artist of his generation. In 2001 in a watershed event in the growth of the Museum’s holdings in photography, a significant collection entitled The Photo League was acquired, which consists of 170 photographs by 69 artists including Berenice Abbott, W. Eugene Smith and Weegee.
The Museum also hosts a continuous program of national and international traveling exhibitions. Recent noteworthy exhibitions organized by the Museum include Symphonic Poem: The Art of Aminah Robinson, the 2003 winner of the Greater Columbus Arts Council’s Award for Artistic Excellence and Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland, chosen by the U.S. State Department as one of only three Millennium projects to tour outside the United States to help promote political, economic and cultural ties and exchanges.