Smithsonian Institution

Traveling Exhibition Service

Project Title:
"GREAT ICONS OF THE 20th & 21st CENTURIES" by Sidney Randolph Maurer
Project Description:
Mr. Maurer has painted over 325 portraits of the men and women of his time
who, each in their own way, has had a profound impact on the lives of countless
others. Scientists, statesmen, actors, artists, musicians, singers and sports figures
all experienced some measure of celebrity in their lifetimes, yet all too many have
been forgotten, though their influence on our lives is still being felt. How many
remember what it was exactly that Madame Curie discovered and what it still
means to us today? You may change or add icons as long as the original is still
available.
Arts education faces serious challenges nationwide: according to The
Kennedy Center Alliance for Arts Education Network, budget constraints put arts
education programs at risk of being reduced or eliminated-- despite countless
programs and research that demonstrate the value of arts learning. The Center for
Education Policy reported in 2006 that 22 percent of school districts surveyed had
reduced instructional time using the arts. Sadly, as school systems across the
country face funding challenges and budget cuts, learning programs of this nature
are among the first to be axed. Faced with this disturbing national trend,
alternative venues must be offered to develop critical alternative art links to
enhance students academic and social development.
Presenting the iconic personalities of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
in museum settings is an ideal opportunity to address this issue. Not only will it
befriend an entire new audience to the wonders of the museum world, it will
enhance students academic and social development in an informal setting by
introducing them to the iconic figures who shaped their culture, history and
environment. Museums are places of signs, symbols, culturally significant artifacts,
tools and activities. What better place to engage students with the powerful and
strategic messages crafted by the subjects that artist Sidney Maurer so skillfully has
portrayed?

Here are the images that we believe many museums would be proud to
exhibit for their constituents in each city. 85% of them are 20 x 30 inches in size.
All but 3 are painted on plywood; the others are backed foam core. Three of them
are 24 x 36 and one is 25 x 40.5. 12 pieces are nicely framed in simple 2 black
frames.
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Winston Churchill

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Mohandas Gandhi
Martin Luther King

Ronald Reagan
Nelson Mandella

Dalai Lama

Golda Meir

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Charlie Chaplin

Chang Kai-shek
Charles de Gaulle

Charles Lindbergh

Amelia Earhart

Christiaan Barnard,
MD

Edward R. Murrow

Albert Einstein

Ted Turner

Paul Robeson
Louis Armstrong

Alexander Graham Bell

Madame Marie Curie

Sigmund Freud

Tony Bennett

Leonard Bernstein

The Wright Brothers

Tennessee Williams

Alfred Hitchcock

Thomas Edison

Vladimir Horowitz

Claude Rains

George Bernard Shaw

The Beatles
Woody Allen
Steven Spielberg

Cecil B. DeMille

Jascha Heifetz
Audrey Hepburn
Dolly Parton

Quincy Jones

Diana Ross

Mick Jagger
Johnny Cash

Michael Jackson

Neil Diamond
Stevie Wonder

Arthur Rubinstein

Bette Davis

Greta Garbo

Clark Gable &

Vivien Leigh
Elizabeth Taylor
Marilyn Monroe

Gregory Peck

Humphrey Bogart
Tony Curtis

Eleonora Duse

Judy Garland
Maria Callas

Milton Berle

Marcel Marceau

Marlene Dietrich

Marlon Brando

Kirk Douglas
Katherine Hepburn

Laurel & Hardy

Orson Wells

Rudolph Valentino
Sophia Loren

The Marx Brothers

Steve McQueen
Shirley Temple

W.C. Fields

Benny Goodman
Billy Holiday
Edith Piaf
Sidney Potier

Ella Fitzgerald
George Gershwin
Dizzy Gillespie
Elvis Presley

Michael Jackson
John Lennon
Jimi Hendrix
Jerry Garcia

Billie Jean King

Babe Ruth
Arnold Palmer
Muhammad Ali

John Elway
Michael Jordan

Johnny Weissmuller

Sandy Koufax

Ted Williams
Joe Louis

Willie Mays

Satchel Paige

Ernest Hemingway

Pablo Picasso

Leonardo DiCaprio

Angelina Jolie

Georgia OKeeffe

Salvador Dali

Al Pacino

Johnny Depp

Robert Redford &

Paul Newman
Christopher Plummer

Morgan Freeman

Denzel Washington

Robert De Niro

Peter OToole
Mikhail Baryshnikov

Mr. Maurer worked alongside Andy Warhol they both designed and created
album covers for RCA Records in the early 1960s. They both used a photographic
technique. Andy transferred the B&W images on to silk screens and then added
inks to the screens creating various colors and producing colored silk screens. Mr.
Maurer, being an easel painter did the following. (I will be paraphrasing Mr.
Maurers description to me.) He first blew up the photo to the size of the plywood
on which he would gesso as for an oil painting. He then applied powerful glue to the
dried gesso, and glued the blown up photo onto the glued plywood permanently
setting the paper upon the wood that would last longer and stronger than any oil
painting on canvas. Finally, hed then bombard the image completely and change
the B&W photo into a unique, original work of art using acrylics, inks, crayons, and
any color media he could find to reach the finished quality he wanted.

At a Music Icon exhibit of

Mr. Maurers paintings at
California State University,
Northridge in September, 2010,
very few of the students knew or
heard of Leonard Bernstein,
Vladimir Horowitz, Maria Callas,
etc. And at the Screen Actors
Guild Foundation in November,
2010, many young actors in
attendance did not recognize the
portraits of great comedians and
performers like Buster Keaton,
W.C. Fields, Edward G. Robinson,
or Gregory Peck.
What we are proposing is a
travelling museum exhibition of
115 Sidney Maurer original
paintings of great figures of the 20th
and 21st Centuries, each
accompanied by a single-sheet
thumbnail biography a
combination of beautifully
rendered art and the historical context in which to view that art. Narrated DVDs
covering all the icons will also be produced that can run on a continuous loop at the
exhibition and be sold to patrons by the participating museums as well.
Thematically, the use of great art as an educational tool is extremely
powerful. The very act of painting a portrait is an effort on the part of the artist to

memorialize the subject forever, to freeze that subject in a moment in time -- the
moment, and the person, in a very real way, live on as long as the painting itself
exists.
Is it important for people today to know the history of their own times?
Indeed it is, for that knowledge makes life fuller and more interesting.
The paintings themselves are the main attraction beautifully rendered, the
portraits are full of color and verve, and the painters deep feelings for each subject.
Mr. Maurer began this project in 1997, almost by accident, when he realized that a
number of portraits of famous baseball players could be expanded into a body of
work memorializing great figures of our times in all walks of life. Years into the
project, Maurer faced the tragedy of his own lifetime his eldest son was diagnosed
as untreatable, and spent two years dying of pancreatic cancer. It was a period of
intense emotional turmoil for the artist grief and rage and sadness. He painted his
son during this time, and he used his own broken heart as the stimulus for creating
more and more portraits of others whom he deeply respected for their contribution
to our lives.

Economic Opportunities:
One of the major opportunities to benefit the museums is the ancillary
income that might result in poster sales. There are many possibilities to benefit the
museums while exhibiting exciting portraits of special people.

Timeframe and Budget:

Allan Rich is the point man for this project, and having already experienced
with SITES an extremely successful partnership on an exhibition of the works of
George Hurrell, he expects hell have the same terrific working relationship with the
organization on this exhibition of the works of Sidney Maurer. Mr. Rich to this date
has raised $15,000.00 to assist in providing some of SITESs budgetary needs in the
event this proposal is accepted.

Market:
Anyone from eight to eighty-eight, rich or poor, simple or sophisticated, will
be drawn to this exhibition, nationally or internationally. Parents and grandparents
will proudly explain to their children and grandchildren all about their favorite
icons of the 20th Century and the kids will happily tell the old folks about their
favorites of the contemporary stars of their times. All in all it will be a wonderful
family event in each venue.

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