Art

The Getty Museum in Brentwood puts one of its newest stellar acquisitions on a pedestal when the great 12th century German illuminated manuscript “The Stammheim Missal” is the focus of a new installation (July 21-Oct. 18). The brilliantly painted and gilded book, which includes choir chants and prayers for Mass, will be accompanied by a selection of the Getty’s other manuscripts from Germany and central Europe.

In the 1920s, W.E.B. DuBois, Alain L. Locke and other black intellectuals began to promote an active role for artists in the new society they hoped to create. Although the result has usually been thought of as a literary movement, with adjuncts in music and theater, “Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance,” a traveling show coming to the L.A. County Museum of Art (July 26-Oct. 19), will examine how painting, sculpture and graphics fit into the larger mix.

Also at LACMA, one of the most peculiar--and gifted--figures of early 20th century American Modernism is the subject of “Arthur Dove: A Retrospective” (July 30-Oct. 5), which brings together some 70 paintings, drawings and collages by a pioneer of abstraction.