the satellite lands

MFAH completes monumental task of erecting historic, 24-foot tall sculpture by star Black artist

The 3-ton, 24-foot-tall Satellite is now in place at the MFAH.

Photo courtesy of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Score another major get for the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The city’s official destination for all things fine arts is now the first museum in America to acquire, install, and showcase for permanent display a globally renowned sculpture by a rising American art star.

Satellite, a towering, 24-foot-high bronze sculpture from noted American artist Simone Leigh, has just been erected at MFAH grounds near the entry plaza of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building for modern and contemporary art.

As CultureMap previously reported, the MFAH released word that it had acquired Leigh's celebrated work that headlined the 59th Venice Biennale last year. Her prominent placement made her the first Black woman to represent the U.S. at what is considered arguably the most important art event in the world.

After that history-making run, Leigh approved a U.S. display of her massive sculpture, making the MFAH piece only the second edition of her work.

A monumental task

In the case of Satellite, the term “monumental” is more than art-speak hyperbole. In order to install the 6,000-pound, MFAH staffers spent months of planning and prepping the site for a day-long installation. As Satellite is comprised of two elements — a torso bearing four supports topped with a disc-like head — the torso was planted into place onto a reinforced, engineered cement slab by a crane operator and then fastened with 16 anchors for ultimate, safe stability.

After the torso base was securely installed, the team of engineers, art handlers, and the aforementioned crane operator gently lowered the massive disc head — measuring 10 feet across and weighing 2,980 pounds — onto the sculpture’s body.

In bringing a 3-ton, 24-foot-high sculpture to public view, Leigh paid homage to myriad, proud Black and African traditions. Meant to evoke a feeling of primal maternity and dignity, Satellite invokes the form of traditional D’mba (or nimba) headdresses carefully crafted by the Guinea’s Baga people, the ceremonial ladles of the Dan peoples, and various, vernacular traditions across the African diaspora, according to press materials.

Big sculpture, bigger issue

More than just a cultural nod, the Satellite monument is a way for Leigh to make a grand statement on an enormous issue: the historically undervalued labor – physical and intellectual – of Black women. For more than 20 years, Leigh has explored ideas of race, beauty, and a sense of community while visiting a wide range of historical periods, regions, and traditions. Notably, many of her works hark to vernacular and hand-made processes from across the African diaspora.

Fittingly, Leigh has been the subject of Leigh a nationally touring retrospective, first at the Venice Biennale and currently at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C.

She has also been seen solo exhibits in notable arenas such as the Guggenheim and New Museums in New York, the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, and many more. She has been featured prominently in a host of collections, including the Whitney and the Guggenheim, in New York, The Art Institute of Chicago, the ICA/Boston, and more.

Space City, a fitting home for a Satellite

Large pieces in big cities are a forte of hers, of sorts: Leigh’s equally mighty sculpture Brick House was installed on New York City’s High Line Plinth from 2019 to 2021. Now, Houston — already home to towering structures, the nation’s most diverse populace, and Johnson Space Center — is a fitting home to her iconic Satellite.

“I am certain that this powerful work will become an iconic presence in front of the Kinder Building, noted Gary Tinterow, MFAH director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair, in a press statement. “It is an honor to be the first U.S. museum to acquire Satellite and install it for permanent display, and we are thrilled to have Simone Leigh represented at the Sarofim Campus, where her extraordinary work is in the company of recent monumental works by Ai Wei-Wei, El Anatsui, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Byung Hoon Choi, Ólafur Elíasson, and Cristina Iglesias.”

MFAH will host two impressive American art exhibits this fall

Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Winslow Homer, Children Playing Under a Gloucester Wharf, 1880.

Houston art lovers can get a glimpse of a couple of impressive exhibits this fall at the MFAH. One is from a private Texas collection of American modernist paintings. The other is a collection of rarely seen Winslow Homer watercolors from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Opening October 25, American Modernism from the Charles Butt Collection marks the first exhibition drawn from the renowned private collection of Texas philanthropist Charles Butt. With some 80 works, including by such iconic artists as Georgia O’Keeffe, Jackson Pollock, and Jacob Lawrence, this landmark presentation highlights a deeply personal collecting vision, offering a fresh perspective on American modernism and illuminating key movements and artistic voices that shaped the course of 20th-century art.

The exhibit’s sections reflect Charles Butt’s lifelong passions, which span a love for the sea, developed over Butt’s childhood spent in Corpus Christi, as well as works showcasing how landscape shaped America’s response to modernism, and how artists subverted landscape conventions to chart more personal journeys. A special section in the Houston presentation will be devoted to seven visionary watercolors by Charles Burchfield.

“Charles Butt is widely known in Texas for his philanthropy and abiding commitment to education,” Gary Tinterow, director and Margaret Alkek Williams chair of the MFAH, said in a statement. “Less known, until now, is his discerning eye and passion for American art, as expressed by some of our most accomplished artists in the 20th century. We are pleased to host his distinguished group of American modernist paintings in Houston, and grateful to the Amon Carter Museum of American Art for organizing the exhibition and this statewide Tour.”

The exhibit runs through January 18, 2027.

Of Light and Air: Winslow Homer in Watercolor from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston opens November 1. This is a once-in-a-generation exhibition showcasing the watercolors of this quintessential New England artist, who captured the fleeting effects of light, atmosphere, and landscape on daily life in America during the transformative decades of the late 19th century. Houston is the only travel venue for this exhibition, following its debut last fall in Boston. The exhibit runs through February 7, 2027 and includes 50 watercolors by the artist, alongside a selection of his oils, drawings, and prints.

“We are thrilled that our colleagues in Boston have consented to share with us their definitive collection of works by Winslow Homer,” said Tinterow. “The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is not only one of the world’s premier art museums, but the longtime steward of the singular legacy of Winslow Homer. As a quintessential New England artist, Homer — much like his exact contemporary Mark Twain — captured life in America as it transformed from an agrarian economy to an industrial powerhouse. Because Homer's light-sensitive works on paper are normally kept in dark storage, this exhibition provides a once-in-a-generation opportunity to see Homer's vision of our country, made visible only in Houston on the occasion of the nation’s semiquincentennial.”

Museum goers will find the exhibit organized chronologically, focusing on major chapters in Homer’s life. The arc demonstrates his evolution as an artist, capturing his fascination with the world around him. Paintings include Leaping Trout, from 1889, his first watercolor to be purchased by any museum, and Driftwood, his last watercolor.

Born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts and originally apprenticed to a print shop, Homer covered the Civil War for Harper’s Weekly as an artist. Working in watercolor in the 1870s, he traveled through the Adirondacks, Massachusetts, Florida, and the Caribbean. He died in 1910, having spent the last decades of his life painting and working in Maine.

These two exhibitions are presented in conjunction with America 250 marking the semiquincentennial of America’s founding with a roster of more than 70 artworks from across its campus and collections that speak to the American experience.

Winslow Homer, Children Playing Under a Gloucester Wharf, 1880.

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