Las Vegas Art - Gallery of Fine Art - Bellagio

Located at the heart of the elegant Bellagio Hotel and Casino, Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art (BGFA) is Las Vegas' premier exhibition space - where great art goes on vacation. BGFA is committed to presenting intimate exhibitions featuring works by some of the world's most compelling artists. BGFA exhibitions are organized in partnership with museums and foundations from around the world.

Figuratively Speaking:
   A Survey of the Human Form

On view through January 2011

This engaging survey features more than 40 paintings, photographs and sculpture along with video installations by 29 artists whose traditional and contemporary perspectives on figurative art helped to define the genre in the late 19th, 20th and early 21st centuries.

Featuring works of art from MGM Resorts International's own Fine Art Collection, including some by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Pablo Picasso, Edgar Degas and Fernand Leger, Figuratively Speaking also presents some of the best figurative works from the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego.

"Many of these important works on loan from MCASD are shown together for the first time, and all demonstrate the breadth and depth of the museum's collection," says Hugh M. Davies, The David C. Copley Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. "Spanning more than three decades of figurative expression, these selected works - by such notable artists as Roy Lichtenstein, Bill Viola, Keith Haring, Cindy Sherman, Tony Oursler and Barbara Kruger - use the figure in innovative ways, provoking the most varied of interpretations."

Different schools of modern and contemporary art fall under the heading of figurative art, from Renoir's romantic Impressionistic portraits ("The Sweeper") and Picasso's distorted Cubist figures ("Woman with Beret") to Keith Haring's Pop art drawings ("Elvis Presley" and Chuck Close's contemporary, grid-like paintings ("Paul IV"). Figurative works of art not only depict a real subject, but also reflect the religious, social, political and mythical beliefs of the times.

"The human figure is one of the most frequently depicted subject in art," says MFA Deputy Director Katie Getchell, "and through the expressive images highlighted in this survey, we see how modern and contemporary artists celebrate the vitality and individuality of their subjects."

Pablo Picasso, Woman with Beret (Femme au Beret), 1938, oil on canvas, 18 1/8 x 15 inches, MGM Resorts International Fine Art Collection. © 2010 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

View of Figuratively Speaking: A Survey of the Human Form, 2010 at Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art. Photo: Cashman Productions