Art for the Cure

at Phoenix Art Museum

What does it take to change the world? Maybe we don't ask this question enough. But we all know people who are making a difference and we all can draw inspiration from those brave enough to ask. When I met Nancy G. Brinker, former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary and founder of Susan G. Komen for the Cure, I quickly found myself in an intense conversation with her about precisely this challenge. We were introduced through a mutual friend and art collector who knew of Nancy's growing passion for Hungarian art.

I wasn't sure what to expect as I arrived at her lovely home, but within minutes we began walking through her house, talking about the paintings and drawings she'd started collecting only a few years earlier. As our conversation continued, we spoke of lives lived in public service, her achievements in Hungary and eventually an idea that comes to life this fall at Phoenix Art Museum: Art for the Cure: Hungarian Modernism from the Nancy G. Brinker Collection.

Launched in late 2006, Art for the Cure is an ongoing Susan G. Komen for the Cure endeavor that presents the great works in Brinker's Collection to a world audience. The exhibit also increases breast health awareness and helps raise vital funds to support national and international breast cancer outreach and education efforts. The Phoenix event is unique in that it coincides with the 2008 Susan G. Komen Phoenix Race for the Cure, which will be held at the State Capitol District on Sunday, October 12. The Art for the Cure exhibit encompasses selections from the Brinker Collection that capture a specific time period-the heyday of the modernist spirit.

The Emergence of Modernism

In the early decades of the 20th century, Hungary's best artists worked both at home and abroad alongside Paul Cézanne, Pablo Picasso, Oscar Kokoshka and other great artists. One, Lázló Moholy-Nagy, was a central faculty member of the Bauhaus, an avant-garde art and design school in Germany. Others traveled to Paris, Berlin, Rome and even New York as they pushed themselves to learn, grow and achieve.

All of these artists were engaged in the major social and political debates of the time: the role of government in society, the injustice of war, the pressures put on communities by the dawn of the industrial age, the nature of national and ethnic traditions in contemporary life, and the potential for art to be a major vehicle for change. This dynamic intellectual climate was called then, as it is now, Modernism.

Phoenix Art Museum is fortunate to have a solid collection of early 20th century art. By combining works from our collection with the loan of more than two dozen paintings and works on papers from the Brinker Collection, we will be able to share the marvelous story of the emergence of Modernism in the visual arts, and so much more.

Art for the Cure: Hungarian Modernism from the Nancy G. Brinker Collection will be on display from August 30 through October 26 at the Orne Lewis Gallery at Phoenix Art Museum. In addition to this being the first time the art of Hungary's avant-garde artists is the focus of a special exhibition at Phoenix Art Museum, Art for the Cure creates an opportunity to unite people with a passion for art with those who want to make a global difference in the fight against breast cancer.

On Sunday, October 12, join nearly 39,000 people in the 16th annual Susan G. Komen Phoenix Race for the Cure. The largest 5K event in Arizona, the 2007 Komen Phoenix Race for the Cure raised more than $1.9 million to fund and support the fight against breast cancer. During the month of October-National Breast Cancer Awareness Month-the Phoenix Art Museum will donate 10 percent of all net profits to the Phoenix Affiliate of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

Even in a time of struggle, we can look to art to bring people together, to shrink the distances between our point of view and the enormity of our interconnected world. In the sadness and fear of a looming threat like breast cancer, we can band together to make a difference. This fall, I encourage you to walk, run or visit. You may just discover something about yourself, your community and your world in the process.

Tom Loughman is the Curator of European Art for the Phoenix Art Museum.