Debbie Millman and Cy Gavin—Ecologies of Painting

Why It Matters

The exhibition demonstrates how historic art can illuminate current environmental challenges, prompting institutions and audiences to view cultural heritage through an ecological lens.

Key Takeaways

• Ecologies of Painting juxtaposes famous and obscure works from 1525‑1775.
• Curators emphasize materiality, climate history, and colonial contexts in landscapes.
• Debbie Millman links garden metaphors to abundance and ecological thinking.
• Cy Gavin’s bird‑watching childhood informs his ecological, temporal painting practice.
• The exhibition challenges viewers to see art as part of living ecosystems.

Summary

The Metropolitan Museum’s new installation “Ecologies of Painting” re‑examines its European paintings collection, pairing celebrated masterpieces with lesser‑known works dating from roughly 1525 to 1775. Curators David Pullins and Anna‑Claire Stinebring frame the show as an experimental “incubator” space, using physical juxtapositions to spark fresh dialogues about nature, materiality, and history. Key insights include a focus on the very substances that compose the paintings—linseed oil, flax linen, and pigment—and how those materials echo ecological cycles. The exhibition anchors itself with Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “Harvesters” and Nicolas Poussin’s “Blind Orion Searching for the Rising Sun,” using them to trace shifting attitudes toward nature, from reverence to domination, while exposing colonial underpinnings in works like Frans Post’s Brazilian landscape. The conversation with designer‑author Debbie Millman and painter Cy Gavin deepens the theme. Millman cites her 2025 “Love Letter to a Garden,” likening seeds to pre‑Big Bang potential, while Gavin recalls his bird‑watching upbringing and how avian observation informs his temporal, landscape‑based canvases. References to Maggie Nelson’s climate essay and the artists’ personal narratives illustrate how past visual vocabularies can address present ecological anxieties. By positioning early modern depictions of nature alongside contemporary ecological concerns, the show argues that art is inseparable from the ecosystems it portrays. It invites museumgoers and scholars to reconsider the role of historical art in climate discourse, suggesting that curatorial practice itself can become a catalyst for interdisciplinary sustainability conversations.

Original Description

Join painter Cy Gavin and designer, author, and podcast host Debbie Millman for a conversation exploring art and nature. Highlighting a new rotation in the European Paintings galleries Ecologies of Painting (Gallery 638), which explores how human and nonhuman histories are intertwined, Gavin and Millman will reflect on the role aesthetics play in defining our understanding of the natural and built environments. Learn more about Gavin's practice and how he creates interpretations of sites that have been shaped over time by human intervention and geological or cosmic phenomena.

Cy Gavin, artist

Debbie Millman, host, Design Matters, and author, Love Letter to a Garden

With an introduction by Anna-Claire Stinebring, Assistant Curator, and David Pullins, Jayne Wrightsman Curator, Department of European Paintings, The Met

This program is made possible by the Pearl Ehrlich Fund and the Sherman Fairchild Foundation.

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