Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations

Organized by the Barnes and the Dallas Museum of Art, Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations surveys the pioneering career of Cecily Brown (British, b. 1969), one of the most celebrated artists working in painting today. Presented in the Roberts Gallery, the exhibition features more than 30 paintings and related drawings that showcase Brown’s subversion of gendered tropes in art history and popular culture.

Themes and Variations sheds light on Brown’s practice and considers her work from a feminist perspective. It reveals how she reclaimed the heroic gestural expression associated with male artists of the abstract expressionist generation—largely out of favor with her peers—to create lush, dynamic paintings that often contain erotic content. Moving between figuration and abstraction, her work explores the power imbalances inherent in voyeurism and sexual violence.

Venues
Dallas Museum of Art (September 29, 2024–February 9, 2025)
Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia (March 9–May 25, 2025)

Exhibition Organization

Cecily Brown: Themes and Variations is co-curated by Simonetta Fraquelli, consultant curator for the Barnes, and Anna Katherine Brodbeck, Hoffman Family Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Dallas Museum of Art.