>> Coming up on NYC Arts, a visit to the museum of natural history.

And is revitalized Northwest Coast Hall.

>> The great canoe is the largest of its size remaining in the well.

It shows the coming together of those peoples who in the distant past did not have a friendly relationship with each other.

They reviewed that reconciliation.

-- they renewed that reconciliation.

>> A trip to the kennel club Museum of the dog on Park Avenue.

One of the only museums dedicated solely to the depiction of dogs.

Quest this is possibly one of the greatest collections.

It comprises about 1700 objects.

Paintings, drawings, sculptures, posters.

All variety of things.

All dedicated to the dog.

>> And a look at the American folk Art Museum.

>> The center of the quilt is emblazoned with a large L. Also included is a musical staff and notes.

When Claire and her family made the journey by covered wagon included was her piano.

>> Funding for NYC Arts is made possible by Jody and John Arnhold.

Charles and Valerie.

Elroy and Terry crumpled foundation.

The Nancy side water foundation and Ellen and James S Marcus.

This program is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of social affairs in partnership with the city Council.

Additional funding provided by members of their team and by Swann auction Galleries.

>> We have a different way of looking at auctions, offering vintage books, working to combine knowledge with accessibility.

Whether you are a lifelong correct -- collector or first-time buyer.

Information at Swann Galleries.com.

>> Good evening and welcome to NYC Arts.

I am on location at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich Connecticut.

For over a century, the museum has engaged its visitors by presenting exceptional exhibitions in art, science and the intersections between the two.

The recent major expansion of the building has increased opportunities for special presentations that reflect this relationship.

For three decades, Connecticut was a true international center of innovation and the arts.

A turn-of-the-century landscape painting has bed celebrated elsewhere, the 20th century modernism has gone largely unnoticed.

They were drawn to Connecticut, the sculpture -- sculptor moved to Roxbury at a time when the political climate in Europe was changing.

The Armenian born New York-based painter moved to Roxbury.

Connecticut became a place of exile for a number of surrealist artists from Paris.

The French sculptor and her American husband moved to Easton in 1941.

Members in the forefront were also drawn to Connecticut.

Artists, architects and designers who have studied and taught found their way to America after it live close to the school in 1933.

Among them was the painter Joseph Albers and his wife, textile artist.

They moved to Connecticut in 1950 after they were made share of the design departments at A.L.

school of art.

The exhibition includes Robert Motherwell, -- they all helped to make Connecticut an important place for contemporary art making.

On our program tonight, a visit to the American Museum of Natural History to explore the recently revitalized Northwest Coast Hall.

Located in the oldest gallery in the museum, it shows the creativity of the Pacific Northwest.

Organized as a series of alcoves focused on the artifacts of 10 native nations, the gallery presents more than 1000 restored cultural treasures enlivened with new interpretation.

It features works such as 67.

It was developed with the help of curators from nine indigenous communities.

Peter Whiteley is our guide.

>> My name is Peter.

I am a curator of North American technology here at the Museum of Natural History.

The Northwest Coast Hall goes back to the late 1870's when the first pieces started to come in.

At that time there was a tremendous of people as a result of colonial processes.

Many native people came down on the very small part -- smallpox epidemics.

It is a very oppressive time for native people.

The Canadian government passed the ban in 1884 which prevented people from practicing a great deal of their traditional ceremonial life.

One of the fundamental challenges of renovating the hall was the fact that the collection is an historical collection.

The major part of the collection was completed by the early 20th century.

We have had first Nations people, native people come through for many years and they said you have some wonderful material but it makes us look as though our culture has been gone for a 150 years.

It is not.

We are still here.

That emphasis was certainly front and center for our co-curator and our nine consulting curators.

Who definitely wanted to communicate the idea is reliving cultures.

These historical pieces informed a tradition that is very much practiced in the present.

One of the things we definitely wanted to bring out was this fabulous transformation mask which is the celebration of a particular story of -- He has displeased his father and he is grabbed by this giant octopus who takes him down through the bottom of the undersea world.

He spent four years there and then eventually he comes back to shore guided by killer whales.

And partly transforming into a killer whale himself.

So the transmission process is represented in a variety of masks, here is a sculpin, this large sea creature and then when he gets to a certain phase as it is being danced, the jaws open like that, revealing a see Raven inside.

And that it dances as a see Raven for a certain time and then finally the see Raven's mask is full of seaweed.

That transformation and interrelationships with the supernatural and natural worlds is a key principle of a lot of ceremony all up and down the north coast.

The great canoe is the largest surviving canoe of its size that we know of in the world.

It is 63 feet long and it is made out of a single very large cedar tree and it shows influences there.

The painting on the stern is definitely harder.

It shows the coming together of those peoples who in the distant past did not have a friendly relationship with each other.

In recent years they have renewed their reconciliation.

We are delighted to have them back as a focal element in the alcove that comes from the village.

This is a Chiefs box.

The box represents some of the crests of the chief.

It has a moon phase, a mountain goat, a grizzly bear.

There are no mountain goats and if you see the face, the background is a design very similar to what you see.

The tradition comes from the mainland and so this represents the gift of certain privileges to the chief represented here in the design -- in the design.

This was then traded there.

These are people who speak several different languages.

There are a lot of differences.

That process of exchange represented Northwest culture as a whole.

>> Next, we will visit the American kennel club Museum of the dock located at 101 Park Avenue near Grand Central terminal.

After changing locations several times since its founding in 1982, the Museum found his way back home.

One of the only museums dedicated solely to the depiction of dogs.

Its permanent collection is one of the finest and largest canine related fine art and artifacts in the world.

It comprises paintings, watercolors, drawings, prints, ceramics and the museum celebrates the important role dogs play in society as well as the more personal humans and canine bond.

Here is our guide.

>> The one thing you have to realize is this is possibly one of the greatest collections of dog art in the world.

It comprises about 1700 objects.

Primarily fine art.

Their paintings, drawings, sculptures, ceramics.

All variety of things.

All dedicated to the dog.

We have a robust schedule.

Some that come to mind -- How many good dog artists.

We have had Hollywood dogs.

We have had presidential dogs.

We talk about the different pets and dogs.

Recently, we have dogs of war and peace.

We have a lot of images of dogs showing how they have helped in the battlefield.

Particularly poignant was the wounded warrior dogs.

Artists crafted these allegories reflect in the injuries suffering not only the handlers dogs.

One of the great joys of bringing this museum to New York was the reception we have from the library.

The library is always packed.

We have about 4000 volumes of the KC library.

We not only have a great collection but also state-of-the-art digital and interactive displays.

We took a 10-year-old lab out in a motion capture suit.

All of the motions and reactions are there the way the dog would have done it.

It takes your photograph through -- and through AI it decides what dog you look like.

We have a meet the breeds table.

You can learn about all 200 breeds you KC.

The oldest work here is a 30 million-year-old fossil.

Most of our paintings start around the 16 70's and then go on to today.

They show a variety of different activities.

They show the dogs engaging in them.

Queen Victoria was probably the most important person in the 19th century.

It became very popular to have dogs as pets.

I think the crowd favorite here is a sad painting.

Caesar was in his funeral procession I have nine heads of state.

It shows his dog Caesar beating his head on his master armchair as the arm chair fades in the background.

Another work we have here which is probably one of the greatest ones -- this is a magnificent painting out in the woods.

Light filtering through the trees.

The atmosphere that he brings to is just a stunning work.

They were imported by the West Mr. kennel club in the 19th century.

The popular peace is not a painting but it was actually Queen.

Queen is a carousel dog.

Probably around the 1890's.

I have been looking at a lot of dog paintings throughout my life.

I started looking at dogs differently.

I would see things I didn't see in the dog that the painter was telling me.

All of the sudden I would say this is really the goal of art.

Whether it be a dog painting or a conceptual work, it is can you see the real different lease with the other sides.

He would say I did not really notice that.

>> Now, visited the American folk Art Museum located across from Lincoln Center.

Since 1961, this museum has been celebrating the creativity of artists whose talents had been defined through personal experience rather than through formal artistic training.

It's collection includes more than 8000 works of art from for centuries representing nearly every continent.

>> The American folk Art Museum has one of the most important collections of quilts in the country.

One of our most significant recent acquisitions is a crazy quilt that was made by a woman named Clara Leon.

She was an immigrant from Germany, one of the thousands of Jewish immigrants who came to the United States and the second half of the 19th century.

She landed in New York City, met her husband and then the two of them moved to the new Mexican territories, to Las Vegas, New Mexico.

The quilt that Clara made probably in the 1880's reflects the idiom of the crazy quilt.

This is the kind of construction that was introduced after the American Centennial exposition that introduced Japanese decorative arts to American audiences for the first time.

Women saw porcelain with crackled services and exotic motives like spiderwebs and Porter fans.

They very quickly introduced this new aesthetic into their quilt making, Clara Leon, one of 30 six Jewish families in the Pioneer frontier community of Las Vegas, New Mexico, coming to America without a tradition in quilt making at all interpreted and adapted the crazy quilt to reflect this new aesthetic that was introduced at the Japanese pavilion of the Philadelphia Centennial.

The center of the quilt is emblazoned with a large L for her family name, Leon.

Also included is a musical staff and notes.

This reflects the musical background of her family.

One of the family stories is that when Clara and her family made the journey by covered wagon including -- included onboard the covered wagon was her piano.

Ecstatically, she did something that was unusual.

There is a floral band on each side of the quilt and typically this would be identical top, bottom, left and right.

But she is reflecting the seasons.

Autumn leaves, spring flowers, summer daisies and winter sprays.

Quilts have always been a medium for women to express their own thoughts and their own participation in American life and Clara Leon clearly took that to heart when she decided what motives and techniques were going to be used in her beautiful quilt.

>> And now, another curators choice.

>> I am Lisa small.

I am the senior curator of European art.

I am the curator of the real and imagined European art.

This exhibition brings together real good part of Brooklyn's European collection.

They are both thinking people working with rustic labor.

What is really fascinating about these works is thinking about the ways people at the time interpreted that.

What they thought was really going on in his pains -- paintings and how realistic or not realistic they were perceived to be.

They are showing three women returning home from a long day.

They are kind of softly lit by beautiful glowing twilight and he presents them in a very classical sort of way.

They look like ancient sculptures.

They are all beautifully moving through space.

The idea being that they are content with their life.

They are working the fields every day.

It is a timeless kind of image.

The idea that the French countryside will always be this way and that is fine.

It also shows a shepherd in the field.

There is a timeless sort of sense about it as well but for a number of reasons, many critics at the time felt that he was very harsh in how he was affecting that.

Showing them hunched over, looking like they might revolt at any time which was a real issue in 19th century France.

It is just interesting when you look at this and think about who is collecting these works at the time.

Many of them were industrialists and the event worked and lived in urban environments and they found it very reassuring to see these pictures of people doing labor in the countryside.

It is a really wonderful insight into the 19th century mindset.

>> Next week on NYC Arts.

>> This was one of the most renowned American your list of the 20th century.

She pioneered the modern approach to murals and blended influences such as early Byzantine mosaic, Egyptian wall painting, classical Greek vase painting and Native American beadwork.

She really incorporated vibrant color, scale and ornamental style which were all elements that really became synonymous with Art Deco designs.

>> And a look at a highlighted collection of the American folk Art Museum.

>> Material witness is organized into four thematic areas.

The first theme is from the earth.

This group is a great opportunity to showcase how artisans who worked with the material day in and day out chose to keep working after their workdays were done, creating these end of day objects that have given us -- could be given as tokens of friendship.

>> I hope you enjoyed our program tonight.

Thank you so much for joining us.

I am on location in Greenwich.

Good night.

>> Funding for NYC Arts is made possible by Jody and John Arnhold, the Lewis Sonny Turner fun for dance.

Charles and Valerie diker.

The salary -- Sally Avery arts foundation.

Edward and Terry Krumholz foundation.

The Nancy side one foundation and Ellen and James S Marquez.

This program is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of cultural affairs in partnership with the city Council.

Additional funding divided by members of 13 and by Swan auction Galleries.

>> Swan auction Galleries.

We offer vintage books and fine art since 1941 working to combine knowledge with accessibility.

Whether you are a lifelong collector or first-time buyer looking to sell.

Information at Swan Galleries.com.