Making It New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy

Making It New: The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy is the first to explore the pivotal contribution of Gerald and Sara Murphy to twentieth century arts and letters. Gerald Murphy’s seven existing paintings are but one aspect of a project examining the Murphys in the context of the circle of artistic and literary moderns that flourished around them in Paris and the Riviera in the 1920s and 1930s.

Work by the Murphys' circle of friends including Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Juan Gris, Georges Braque, Le Corbusier, Man Ray, Archibald MacLeish, Cole Porter, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, John Dos Passos, Dorothy Parker, Philip Barry, is viewed through the nexus of the Murphys’ artistically adventurous yet gracious milieu. An interdisciplinary enterprise, it presents not only works of art but set and costume decor, photography, music, letters, film, and a rich trove of archival material including home movies and audio reminiscences. Through their famous friendships, the Murphys inspired some of the greatest art and literature of the twentieth century.

Listen to exhibition curator Deborah Rothschild discuss the exhibition.

Making It New
The Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy

Edited by Deborah Rothschild
With an Introductory Essay by Calvin Tomkins

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