Making It New: the Art and Style of Sara and Gerald Murphy August 23, 2008

This exhibition explores the extraordinary lives of Sara and Gerald Murphy and the couple's influence on a remarkable constellation of creative artists that flourished in Paris and the Riviera in the 1920s and 1930s. Friends of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Cole Porter, Dorothy Parker, Alfred Hitchcock, and Fernand Leger, the Murphys strove to make something fine and beautiful of their lives through "living well", creating art, and encouraging artist and writer friends. The result was some of the most noteworthy literature, music, theater, and art of the last century. Often portrayed simply as wealthy patrons, the Murphys in fact improvised their own brand of unconventional modernism that was a source of inspiration to their many talented friends.