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OBSESSIONS. DECORATION. SALIENT FACTS. 20 T he name Fortuny is forever linked to the lapidary fabrics of the Venetian textile house founded by Mariano Fortuny. But few outside the field of European art know about the designer's father, 19th-century Spanish painter Mariano Fortuny y Marsal (1838 – 1874). Expect that to change this month when SMU's Meadows Museum mounts a look at one of the most influential artists of his time. Featuring 70 works by 23 talents, the exhibition rounds up seminal canvases by Fortuny — including the Meadows' proto-Impressionist masterpiece Beach at Portici (1874), which stole the show at the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, and the frothy The Choice of a Model, from the same period, on loan from the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. — alongside canvases, watercolors, and drawings by contemporaries who fell under Fortuny's spell or shared affinities, including John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase, James Tissot, Alfred Stevens, Jean-Léon Gérôme, and Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier. Meadows curator Amanda W. Dotseth notes that Fortuny was one of the best- selling artists of his time, and although he died at age 36, his works would later inspire generations of artists, from Vincent van Gogh to Dalí and Picasso. "Fortuny: Friends and Followers," February 3 – June 2, at the Meadows Museum, SMU; meadowsmuseumdallas. org. Catherine D. Anspon SPANISH MASTER REDISCOVERED: PROTO-IMPRESSIONIST AT THE MEADOWS M AC Daddy + DAF 11: It's 10 weeks and counting to Thursday, A p r i l 1 1 , when Dallas Art Fair Preview Gala unfurls its 11th year. It's an event that defines spring in the Texas museum and collecting world — and lures national and international exhibitors as well as collectors from both coasts and across the pond. Just in time for the crescendo of Dallas Art Fair, The MAC unveils two gleaming new gallery spaces, adding 2,500 square to its footprint at the historic Ford auto dealership turned nonprofit art space at 1503 South Ervay in the Cedars. Filling the new galleries is a pair of topical exhibitions. "Independence" features Texas artists with Dallas connections whose practices are loosely threaded together by issues of history and society, the body, gender, identity, environmental ART NOTES concerns, and consumer societies. Viewers will be familiar with Helen Altman (represented by recent lyrical chalkboards) and Letitia Huckaby (photo-based work that employ textiles from the past). These talents are joined by Liss LaFleur, whose conceptual media relating to queerness includes glass vessels filled with gelatin (also showcased at Galleri Urbane through February 16); Alicia Eggert, informed by signage and advertising; and Leslie Martinez, whose work exists between painting and sculpture, addressing dis- belonging, the border, and queerness. All five make for a grand, thoughtful group debut at this new iteration of The MAC. Paired with this prescient show is "Working Groups" by interdisciplinary types Carolyn Sortor and Michael A. Morris, who metaphorically reclaim libraries lost during the Occupy camps that sprung up in NYC and across the U.S. in 2011, at the height of the Occupy movement (both exhibitions through February 23). Catherine D. Anspon COURTESY THE ARTIST AND LILIANA BLOCH GALLERY Letitia Huckaby's Sugar and Spice, 2018, at The MAC Mariano Fortuny y Marsal's Beach at Portici, 1874, at the Meadows Museum Mariano Fortuny y Marsal, circa 1871, from The Stewart Album, 1860-1890 Mariano Fortuny y Marsal's The Choice of a Model, 1868–1874, at the Meadows Museum CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: COLLECTION THE MEADOWS MUSEUM, SMU, PHOTO ROBERT LAPRELLE; COLLECTION THE MEADOWS MUSEUM, SMU, PHOTO MICHAEL BODYCOMB; COLLECTION NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART, WASHINGTON, D.C.