The Wolfsonian-FIU

August 30, 2023–May 25, 2025

The Big World: Alternative Landscapes in the Modern Era

The Big World, focusing on depictions of the land in The Wolfsonian’s collection, challenges expectations of landscape art as it goes beyond bucolic scenes to reveal changing vistas of the modern era rendered in paintings, the decorative arts, and even a grand piano. The exhibition charts a course through the end of the 19th century and into the first half of the 20th, outlining the story of global growth and shifting ideas about the world around us—from pristine nature, to its radical alteration in modern urban and industrial centers, to panoramas ruined by war and environmental disregard.

Ongoing

Harry Clarke and the Geneva Window

Widely regarded as his most important and controversial commission, Harry Clarke’s stained-glass masterpiece, the Geneva Window, is again on view at The Wolfsonian–FIU. An internationally renowned Irish artist, Clarke was commissioned in 1926 by the newly independent Irish Free State to create a window as a gift to the League of Nations in Geneva. The completed window was, however, rejected—labeled too provocative and “unrepresentative” of the Irish people. This new installation sheds light on the life and times of Harry Clarke, the stories behind the window, and the consequences of cultural censorship.

February 21–September 29, 2024

What’s on the Menu: Destination Dining

Leisure dining flourished from the 1920s onward, not only on land, but also at sea and in the air, a result of rising incomes among an increasingly urban and mobile population. Restaurants in popular tourist destinations and in the trains, ships, and airplanes that carried travelers seized on advances in printing, designing an array of souvenirs and other cheaply produced takeaways touting exclusivity, ethnic cuisine, or a view of exciting corners of the world. What’s on the Menu: Destination Dining explores such ephemera, including decorative menus and other items from ocean liner restaurants, railroad dining cars, in-flight dinner services, and hotels and eateries in cities like New York, New Orleans, and Miami Beach.

April 25–September 29, 2024

Smoke Signals: Cigar Cutters and Masculine Values

As the popularity of cigars boomed on both sides of the Atlantic in the late 19th century, manufacturers began marketing a new device to support this habit: cutters designed to snip off the end of a cigar before lighting. Not just utilitarian tools, many cigar cutters were elaborate decorative and figural objects intended for display, serving as personal emblems for the men who used them. Smoke Signals features cutters in many forms—hunting dogs, champagne bottles, pistols, and more—as well as complementary materials from The Wolfsonian’s collection. Together, these items offer an unusual window into the broader masculine culture around cigar smoking, from social ambition to attitudes about women.