The Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes

April 23, 2014, 6:44 am

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In 2009 the Peabody Essex Museum presented The Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes, 70 works by Dutch masters of maritime art working in the time of Rembrandt and Vermeer. Painted during the peak years of Dutch artistic achievement between 1600 and 1700, these superlative, emotional works are the first in which European artists realistically depicted natural settings, rendering coastal atmospheres with great focus and virtuosic technique. Artists such as Jacob van Ruisdael, Jan Porcellis, Simon de Vlieger and Ludolf Backhuysen were masters of air, light and water, and used their prodigious talent to convey a world of political allegory and mystical allusion on canvas.

Nothing matches the sea as a subject for its versatility, its many moods, and the endlessly intriguing optical effects of water and light. Dutch masters of paint and color attracted to the seascape developed novel approaches to composition and technique. The methods pioneered by the artists in this exhibition traveled well, spreading from the Netherlands to England, the rest of Europe, and ultimately to the Americas, serving as the foundation for the many examples of maritime paintings in the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum. Fittingly, the Museum was the only U.S. venue for this exhibition, originating from the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, UK.

The Sea – A New Subject

With works celebrating Dutch trade and commemorating military victories, the seascape became a popular genre serving the tastes of a prosperous Dutch Republic. Aristocratic patrons and wealthy burghers commissioned works intended for intimate viewing and public display.

A Sea of Symbols

The sea and the vessels traversing it bore rich meaning for Flemish and Dutch artists, who voraciously mined the visual vocabulary offered by maritime subjects. A ship could represent the progress of an individual soul or the unified destiny of a nation with equal impact. Storms and shipwrecks supplied ample drama in the form of obvious danger from greater powers, as in

Seascape with Sailors Sheltering from a Rainstorm by Bonaventura Peeters the Elder,

while half-hidden rocks and submerged sea creatures suggested mystery, uncertainty or the realm of the supernatural. Military assertions and ecclesiastical refuge took geological forms that clearly communicated the artist’s position — or that of his patron — on Dutch political or spiritual life.

Vistas of the Netherlands

As the Dutch emerged as a world military and economic presence, they projected an increasingly consistent image of their country and lifestyle through their art. Luminous streams of sunlight amid atmospheric clouds characterize a typical lowland sky. Coastal cities as depicted by Abraham Storck were recognizable to 17th-century inhabitants and represented the general nature of Dutch life at the time, rather than resorting to biblical allusions or historical conventions.

Far Horizons

National exploration and expansion enlivened Dutch painting, fueling a particular desire for Scandinavian and Mediterranean scenes. Commercial relationships ultimately altered Dutch taste and imagination with fir trees and glaciers from the North, and idealized monuments and ruins from the South. Art aficionados would be familiar with such Italian settings, and the very sight of them evoked pleasure, elegance and exoticism. The sun-suffused A Spanish Three-Decker at Anchor off Naples by Abraham Willaerts breezily captures Mediterranean light and atmosphere and would have deftly transported Dutch viewers abroad.

Patronage, Battles and the Exotic

The inspiration of military might in Golden Age painting cannot be overstated. Netherlandish forces were unabashed in their celebration of naval victories and heroes. Pictures such as A Dutch Settlement in India, Probably Surat by Ludolf Backhuysen were commissioned by Dutch provincial potentates, cities or by the admirals themselves. Artists often accompanied the fleet to commemorate battles, at times compressing various episodes of a naval event into a single scene, bringing all of the pictorial power of war and seascape to bear. The interplay of gun smoke, fire and water tested the limits of artistic technique and infused every painting with potency and true bravado.


From an excellent review: (images added)

In many of these we see the Dutch taking pride at the boldness of seafaring men:

Andries van ­Eertvelt's moonlit "Embarkation of Spanish Troops" (1630s) bustles with swashbuckling activity and operatic lighting...

At the other end of the spectrum, works such as

Porcellis's "Dutch Ships in a Gale" capture the fragility of all that oak, hemp and canvas—here the wind-lashed sails of a foundering merchant vessel look like shredded silk. The symbolism of the sea and of shipwrecks is explored in fascinating detail. On one hand, we can read such works as the anonymous

"Wreck of the Amsterdam"

and Jan Blanckerhoff's "Shipwreck Off a Rocky Coast" (c. 1660) as allegories warning of disaster when the "ship of state" is manned by a shipload of fools..

There is also a vivid dialectic between the representation of North Sea light and the miracle of Mediterranean light that many of these artists discovered when they went to Italy. The ravishing sunset of

Hendrik van Minderhout's "Italianate Harbour Scene" (1670) echoes the gilded luminescence of Claude Lorrain's Italian seaports, while the yellows, pinks and veiled quality of

 

Pieter van den Velde's "Ships at Anchor Off a Mediterranean Harbor" (1680s)

strikingly anticipate Turner's magical hand.

In works such as

Eertvelt's "Dutch Ships Sailing Off a Rocky Shore" (1610-15),

the scrupulous depiction of ­multitudinous figures clambering about the decks and rigging—each face painted with an individuality of expression—conveys not only the relative insignificance of these crews and vessels against the challenging forces of nature, but also the sheer number of able seamen needed to sail these doughty ships..

Then there are those magnificent "sea fights," in which the actions depicted often depended on what the Dutch or English patron wished to memorialize. Painted around 1670,

Storck's "The Royal Prince and Other Vessels at the Four Days' Battle, 1-4 June 1666"

records the only genuine Dutch victory during the Second Anglo-Dutch War and boasts a wonderful visual rhythm of masts and sails against a counterpoint of clouds and waves. Likewise, the elder

Van de Velde's "Battle of ­Scheveningen" (1655),

based on his own eyewitness sketches, combines action that occurred at different times into one virtuoso scene of Dutch triumph.

From another excellent review (images added)

This well-produced show presents 72 paintings by about three dozen of the genre’s most esteemed practitioners. It was organized by the National Maritime Museum, in Greenwich, England, where it appeared under the title “Turmoil and Tranquillity: The Sea Through the Eyes of Dutch and Flemish Masters, 1550-1700.”

Nautical history buffs will be in heaven. Many paintings document — or, more accurately, recreate and commemorate — major events in maritime warfare. Some of these are spectacular. Painted in 1687,

Willem van de Velde the Younger’s “Gouden Leeuw at the Battle of the Texel, 21 August 1673” shows nearly a dozen battleships deployed across a 10-foot-wide canvas. Viewed from the rear with sunlight brightening its full set of sails, the majestic Gouden Leeuw (Golden Lion) has cannon smoke billowing from both sides. Black haze fills the canvas’s right side, and other ships engage one other in the murky distance. Usually made on commission, pictures of this sort represented victories at sea. They were a form of patriotic propaganda...

The catalog entry for Jan Peeters’s “Ships and a Galley Wrecked on a Rocky Coast,” a turbulent scene that includes a fortress on a distant cliff, notes, “The castle, strong, fortified and built high up on the rocks, represents protection, as well as the belief and hope placed in God.”

More images from the exhibition:

"The Darsena delle Galere and Castello Nuovo at Naples," 1703, by Caspar van Wittel. Photo: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, United Kingdom

"A Dutch Ferry Boat before a Breeze," late 1640s, by Simon De Vlieger, Photo: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, United Kingdom

"Fishermen on Shore Hauling in their Nets," circa 1640, Julius Porcellis. Photo: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, United Kingdom

"The Port of Genoa," circa 1660, by Adriaen Van Der Cabel. Photo: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, United Kingdom

"Mediterranean Harbour Scene with the Saint Jean Cathedral at Lyons," 1660, by Jan Abrahamsz Beerstraten. Photo: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, United Kingdom

Jan Peeters, 'Ships and a Gallery Wrecked on a Rocky Coast'. Photo: Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum

Jan van de Cappelle, 'A Calm Sea with a Jetty and Ships'. Photo: Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum

A Spanish Three-Decker at Anchor off Naples, 1669, Abraham Willaerts. Oil on canvas, 865 x 545mm ©  National Maritime  Museum

Italianate Harbour Scene with the Monument of Ferdinand de’ Medici at Leghorn, 1670, Hendrik van Minderhout. Oil on canvas, 1475 x 2615mm ©  National Maritime  Museum

The Merchant Shipping Anchorage off Texel Island with Oude Schild in the Distance, 1665. Ludolf Backhuysen. Oil on canvas. 1065 x 1650mm. Provenance: Caird Collection, 1937, BHCO916 (p.74) ©  National Maritime  Museum

"Dutch Ships in a Gale," circa 1620 by Jan Porcellis. Photo: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, United Kingdom

The Wreck of the Amsterdam, c.1630. Anonymous. Oil on canvas, 1257 x 1778mm. Provenance: Palmer Collection, BHCO724 (p.70) ©  National Maritime  Museum,
Seascape with Sailors Sheltering from a Rainstorm, c. 1640 ©  National Maritime  Museum,

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Habsburg Splendor: Masterpieces from Vienna’s Imperial Collections

April 23, 2014, 8:01 am

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In 2015, a major American collaboration will bring masterworks amassed by one of the longest-reigning European dynasties to the United States. Habsburg Splendor: Masterpieces from Vienna’s Imperial Collections showcases masterpieces and rare objects from the collection of the Habsburg Dynasty—the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire and other powerful rulers who commissioned extraordinary artworks now in the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The exhibition, largely composed of works that have never traveled outside of Austria, will be on view at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA); the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH); and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.

Debuting in Minneapolis in February 2015 before traveling to Houston and Atlanta, Habsburg Splendor: Masterpieces from Vienna’s Imperial Collections explores the dramatic rise and fall of the Habsburgs’ global empire, from their political ascendance in the late Middle Ages to the height of their power in the 16th and 17th centuries, the expansion of the dynasty in the 18th and 19th centuries to its end in 1918 with the conclusion of World War I. The 93 artworks and artifacts that tell the story include arms and armor, sculpture, Greek and Roman antiquities, court costumes, carriages, decorative-art objects, and paintings by such masters as Correggio, Giorgione, Rubens, Tintoretto, Titian, and Velázquez. Key masterpieces that have never before traveled to the United States include:

• The Crowning with Thorns (c. 1602/04) by Caravaggio

• A portrait of Jane Seymour (1536), Queen of England and third wife to Henry VIII, by Hans Holbein the Younger

• Jupiter and Io (c. 1530/32) by Correggio

Habsburg Splendor: Masterpieces from Vienna’s Imperial Collections is organized by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

The exhibition will be on view in Minneapolis from February 15 to May 10, 2015; Houston from June 14 to September 13, 2015; and Atlanta from October 18, 2015, to January 17, 2016.

“The exhibition grew out of a visit to the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s famed Kunstkammer Wien, a veritable treasure box of masterworks and one of Europe’s great cultural gems,” explained Michael E. Shapiro, the Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr. Director of the High. “The Kunstkammer only recently reopened after a nine-year renovation that hid the majority of the art from public view. For American audiences, this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to peek inside the chambers of one of the most important imperial art collections in the world.”

“Habsburg Splendor is an unprecedented presentation and wide-ranging survey of the Habsburg Dynasty, a true visual feast,” said Kaywin Feldman, director and president of the MIA and hosting curator. “By bringing together the Habsburgs’ paintings, decorative arts, costumes and armor, we can give our visitors a rich, tangible and fascinating sense of the lives and legacies of these important European rulers who shaped world history.”

“We’re thrilled to be collaborating with our partner institutions in Minneapolis and Atlanta to bring to our audiences so many extraordinary masterpieces of European art,” said Gary Tinterow, director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. “The selection of paintings—by Giorgione, Titian, Correggio, Arcimboldo, Rubens and Velázquez, among others—is simply staggering. And, I know our visitors will be captivated by the carriages, armor, liveried horses and pomp of the court costumes.”

“We’re delighted to share our Museum´s unique wonders with our American friends,” added Dr. Sabine Haag, general director of Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien. “The exhibition will show the extraordinary wide range of the Habsburgs’ collections, including masterpieces of Roman antiquity, medieval armory, early modern painting and craftwork, as well as gorgeous carriages and clothing. We hope this will inspire visitors to make the trip to Vienna to see the collection in person and to discover even more of our treasure.”

Habsburg Splendor: Masterpieces from Vienna’s Imperial Collections chronicles the Habsburgs’ story in three chapters, each featuring a three-dimensional “tableau”—a display of objects from the Habsburgs’ opulent court ceremonies—as context for the other works on view.

DAWN OF THE DYNASTY

The first section features objects commissioned or collected by the Habsburgs from the 13th through the 16th centuries. In this late medieval/early Renaissance period, Habsburg rulers staged elaborate commemorative celebrations to demonstrate power and to establish their legitimacy to rule, a tradition that flourished during the reigns of Maximilian I and his heirs. Works from this era—including sabres and armor, tapestries, Roman cameos and large-scale paintings—illustrate the significance of war and patronage in expanding Habsburg influence and prestige.

Tableau: Suits of armor displayed on horseback, and jousting weapons from a royal tournament.

Highlights include:

• Armor of Emperor Maximilian I (c. 1492) made by Lorenz Helmschmid

• Bronze bust of Emperor Charles V (c. 1555) by Leone Leoni

• A rock crystal goblet made for Emperor Frederick III (1400–1450)

GOLDEN AGE

The second and largest section of the exhibition highlights the apex of Habsburg rule, the Baroque Age of the 17th and 18th centuries. The dynasty used religion, works of art and court festivities to propagate its self-image and claim to rule during this politically tumultuous time. Paintings by Europe’s leading artists demonstrate the wealth and taste of the Habsburg rulers, while crucifixes wrought in precious metals and gems, as well as sumptuous ecclesiastical vestments, reflect the emperor’s role as defender of the Catholic faith.

Tableau: A procession featuring a Baroque ceremonial carriage and sleigh, with carvings by master craftsman Balthasar Ferdinand Moll.

Highlights include:

• An ivory tankard (1642) by Hans Jacob Bachmann

• Infanta Maria Teresa (1652–53), a portrait of the daughter of Philip IV of Spain and eventual wife of Louis XIV of France, by Velázquez

• An alchemical medal (1677), illustrated with portraits in relief of the Habsburgs, by Johann Permann

TWILIGHT OF THE EMPIRE

The exhibition concludes with works from the early 19th century, when the fall of the Holy Roman Empire gave rise to the hereditary Austrian Empire—a transition from the ancien régime to a modern state in which merit determined distinction and advancement. Franz Joseph, who would reign longer than any previous Habsburg, saw the growth of nationalism and ultimately ruled over a dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary. As heir to the Habsburg legacy—and in the spirit of public education and enrichment—he founded the Kunsthistorisches Museum in 1891. Reflecting the modernization of the Habsburg administration, the exhibition ends with a spectacular display of official court uniforms and dresses.

Tableau: Uniforms and women’s gowns from the court of Franz Joseph.

Highlights include:

• Campaign uniform of Franz Joseph (1907)

• A velvet dress made for Empress Elisabeth (c. 1860/65)

• An evening gown made for Princess Kinsky (c. 1905)

• Ceremonial dress of Crown Prince Otto for the Hungarian Coronation (1916)

More images:

The Three Philosophers by Giorgione

Year	c. 1505–1509
Type	Oil on canvas
Dimensions	123 cm × 144 cm (48 in × 57 in)
Location	Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Fire, 1566, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

 

Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Fire, 1566, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. 

 

More here:http://www.chron.com/entertainment/arts-theater/article/In-all-their-Splendor-MFAH-to-show-Habsburg-5410403.php

The exhibition is curated by Dr. Monica Kurzel-Runtscheiner, director of the Imperial Carriage Museum, Vienna. The hosting curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts is Kaywin Feldman, director. At the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the lead hosting curator is Dr. David Bomford, director of conservation; his curatorial team comprises Dr. Helga Aurisch, curator, European art, and Christine Gervais, associate curator, decorative arts and Rienzi. At the High Museum of Art, the hosting curator is Dr. David A. Brenneman, director of collections and exhibitions and Frances B. Bunzl Family Curator of European art.

A full-color catalogue is being published by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, with essays by Dr. Monica Kurzel-Runtscheiner, director of the Imperial Carriage Museum, Vienna; Dr. Franz Pichorner, deputy director, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; and Dr. Stefan Krause, curator of arms and armor, Kunsthistorisches Museum. Additionally, a virtual exhibition of additional pieces will be viewable online, deepening the visitor experience and providing further opportunities for the public to engage with the art and its history.

A Brief History of the Habsburgs

The noble House of Habsburg rose to prominence in the late Middle Ages through strategic marriages, political alliances and conquest. In 1273, count Rudolph IV gained control of Germany as King of the Romans, and Habsburg domains continued to grow leading up to Pope Nicholas V’s coronation of Frederick III as Holy Roman Emperor in 1452. Under Frederick’s son Maximilian I and his successor, Charles V, the Habsburgs achieved world-power status, assuming the title of emperor without papal consent and enfolding Spain and Burgundy into the Habsburg-controlled territories. The dynasty split into Spanish and Austrian branches shortly thereafter, and in the 17th and 18th centuries the male lines died out, resulting in the loss of Spain.

In 1740, Maria Theresa—the sole female Habsburg ruler, who reigned for a remarkable 40 years—seized control of the Austrian line to become the final ruler of the House of Habsburg. The early 19th century witnessed the final demise of the Holy Roman Empire and the establishment of the main Habsburg line’s successors: the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. A hundred years later, in 1916, Emperor Charles I inherited a dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy upon the death of longtime Emperor Franz Joseph. More than 600 years of Habsburg sovereignty came to an end in 1918 with the close of World War I.

High Museum of Art

The High is the leading art museum in the southeastern U.S. With more than 14,000 works of art in its permanent collection, the High Museum of Art has an extensive anthology of 19th- and 20th-century American and decorative art; significant holdings of European paintings; a growing collection of African- American art; and burgeoning collections of modern and contemporary art, photography, folk art and African art. The High is also dedicated to supporting and collecting works by Southern artists. For more information about the High, visit www.high.org

Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Home to more than 85,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) inspires wonder, spurs creativity and nourishes the imagination. With extraordinary exhibitions and one of the finest wide-ranging art collections in the country—Rembrandt to van Gogh, Monet to Matisse, Asian to African—the MIA links the past to the present, enables global conversations and offers an exceptional setting for inspiration. The 2013 fiscal year marked the highest attendance—679,357 visitors—in the nearly 100-year history of the MIA. For more information, visit www.artsmia.org

Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Founded in 1900, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is among the 10 largest art museums in the United States. Located in the heart of Houston’s Museum District, the Museum comprises two gallery buildings, a sculpture garden, theater, two art schools and two libraries, with two house museums for American and European decorative arts nearby. The encyclopedic collection numbers some 65,000 works and embraces the art of antiquity to the present. The Museum’s collection of some 30,000 photographs spanning the full history of the medium is internationally renowned. For more information, visit www.mfah.org

Kunsthistorisches Museum

The Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien is one of the foremost museums in the world, with rich holdings comprising artworks from seven millennia, from Ancient Egypt to the late 18th century. The collections of Renaissance and Baroque art are of particular importance. The Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien’s extensive holdings are on show at different locations: the main building on Ringstrasse houses the Picture Gallery, Kunstkammer Wien, the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities, the Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection and the Coin Collection. Other collections of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien are housed in the Neue Burg (i.e. the Collection of Historical Musical Instruments, the Collection of Arms and Armour and the Ephesus Museum), in Hofburg Palace (the Treasury), and in Schönbrunn Palace (the Collection of Historical Carriages). The collections on show at Ambras Castle in Innsbruck are also part of the holdings of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien.

Cubism Beyond Borders

April 23, 2014, 8:13 am

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In a special investigation of the far-reaching influence and wide-ranging interpretations of Cubism in the early twentieth century, the Blanton Museum of Art, Austin, Texas, brought together iconic works from France, the Americas, and Eastern Europe in Cubism Beyond Borders, on view August 31- December 8, 2013.

The exhibition featured paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from the Blanton’s collection by Pablo Picasso, Albert Gleizes, Max Weber, Arshile Gorky, Alexander Archipenko, and others, as well as Diego Rivera’s Still Life with Gray Bowl (1915), (below) on loan from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library.

In the first decades of the 1900s, Paris was considered the capital of artistic innovation, with many young artists visiting, moving to, or studying in the city. Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque’s development of Cubism between 1907 and 1914 reverberated throughout Paris’s annual salons, where the revolutionary new style found an international audience of artists. Picasso and Braque never codified their innovations, and Cubism thus remained an evolving and open-ended challenge to the traditions of form and space in painting to which artists from around the world were eager to respond.



Rivera’s Still Life with Gray Bowl

exemplifies one such response. Painted while the Mexican artist mingled with the avant-garde in Paris, Still Life with Gray Bowl represents Rivera’s remarkably innovative approach to the Cubist vocabulary.

Arshile Gorky’s Composition with Vegetables (circa 1928)

and Albert Gleizes’s The Cubist Composition: Madonna and Child (1928)

were among other highlights of the exhibition, and further demonstrate Cubism’s broad geographic scope and variety of palettes and interpretations. While Gleizes worked at the forefront of so-called “Salon” Cubism in Paris as one of the movement’s principal theorists and populizers, Gorky, an Armenian immigrant to America, voraciously studied Cubism from afar through reproductions in art magazines and visits to Albert Eugene Gallatin’s visionary collection of modern European art, the Gallery of Living Art, then housed at New York University.

Likewise, Ukrainian artist Alexander Archipenko, residing in Paris and Nice, introduced a Cubist spatial sensibility to sculpture in works such as Egyptian Motif (1917), also featured in the exhibition.

Extending the international dialogue examined in the Blanton’s America/Americas installation – a grouping of twentieth-century works from the museum’s permanent collection created in North, South, and Central America - Cubism Beyond Borders sparks new conversations about the ways in which Cubism defied tradition, transcended national borders, and continually captivates the global imagination.

More images from the exhibition:

Earl Horter, Manhattan Night, c. 1932

Max Weber, New York at Night, 1915

Paul Klee Fulfillment in the Late Work

April 23, 2014, 9:17 am

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From August 10 to November 9, 2003 the Fondation Beyeler presented a comprehensive review of the late work of Paul Klee. Beginning with the exquisitely colored pointillism of the Düsseldorf years (1931-32), through Klee’s emigration to Switzerland in 1933 as a result of the Nazi takeover, to the artist’s death in 1940, the exhibition represents every facet of this rich and productive final phase of his career.

The exhibition was conceived in collaboration with the Sprengel Museum, Hanover. It resulted from a need felt by both of our institutions, each harboring a significant Klee collection, to convey a valid picture of the rich and varied development of the work created by this German artist who chose exile in his homeland during the Third Reich.

The exhibition focused on a great overarching theme which holds significance not only for the art of the past but for modernism as well – that of the “late work”. We should recall that it was the major late work of artists of the waning nineteenth century – Cézanne, van Gogh, Monet – that provided crucial impulses to modern art. When in the second third of the twentieth century a few major representatives of the ever-young avant-garde themselves suddenly faced the “last things”, the ultimate questions of existence, remarkable turns often resulted. There emerged aesthetic idioms of great compellingness: the precursors of the “modern late work.” Those of especially outstanding quality included, apart from Matisse’s, the late work of Klee, which at the same time represented one of the earliest “stocktakings” in modern art.

After a long, successful teaching career at the Bauhaus, in Weimar and Dessau, Klee was offered a professorship at the Düsseldorf Academy. This marked the beginning of his renowned “pointillist” phase, in which his colorism reached an apex of subtlety and concision. Yet this superb, finely articulated style found an abrupt end when, after the Nazis came to power, Klee was suspended from his post in April 1933. In December of that year he emigrated to Bern, the city of his boyhood and youth, which from then on he would seldom leave. With an impressive artistic effort Klee now abandoned the dreamworld of the Düsseldorf period for a visual language that was harsh, conden-sed, as if in reaction to injury. The pulsating, mythically evocative patterns of the pointillist phase gave way to the scars of a perception under duress. This break could be traced in the exhibition, at those points where major works of the Düsseldorf years are confronted with those from the fateful year 1933 and thereafter

(e.g. Head of a Martyr, 1933).

The next ceasura came in 1935. Klee fell seriously ill. His continually worsening symptoms would be diagnosed posthumously as incurable progressive scleroderma, or harding of the skin. From that point on, every painting could be considered as belonging to an emerging late work. At first, Klee’s creative powers collapsed – only 25 works were done in that especially difficult year of 1936. The exhibition brought together a number of key works of the two years 1935 and 1936, in which the Europe-wide political catastrophe was followed by Klee’s private tragedy.

Two aspects of the year 1936 deserve emphasis: on the one hand, we find a renewed interest in the constructing of forms, of the kind especially characteristic of the earlier Bauhaus years. The often fragile, intertwined graphic traces of the 1920s congealed into fields of meaning of a new poignancy. Examples are the threatening black arrow lying heavy on the lineatures of the

Affected Town,

or the black Gate to the Depth suddenly opening in a field of colored rectangles. On the other hand, suggestions of those black barlike lines began to appear

(After the Flood),

which, in conjunction with luminous colored grounds, would become characteristic of the final phases, from 1937 onwards.

A good three-fourths of the works on view originate from the years 1937-40, in which Klee’s style experienced a final condensation and his productivity peaked (1253 works in 1939 alone). The year 1937 had already brought a marked increase. Klee’s condition stabilized, and encouraged the vision of a new, fragile freedom sub specie aeternitatis. By this time the late style, with its dark lines and bars on a colored ground, was coming to complete maturity. In a sense, it showed Klee translating the mobility and ease of drawing into the more permanent terms of the painted image. Some of his lines began to suggest figures, others remained largely abstract, while still others developed into symbols and signs with potential linguistic reference or fraught with encoded meaning. Klee’s paintings and drawings now reflected a subtle interplay between an evocation of the condition humaine in all its ridiculousness, wisdom and tragedy, and metaphysical aspects of existence that remain inaccessible to the intellect.

The following years brought a further, surprising increase in Klee’s production. In 1938, especially, he executed many large-format paintings – including the largest he had ever done. This was the period of full maturity within the late work. The exhibition included several of these outstanding works, which also hold a place of prominence in the oeuvre as a whole

( 

Forest Witches, 

The Grey Man

 and the Coast, Rich Harbour).

With consummate sovereignty the artist now began to address the great subjects of mythology, man’s inner journey, and the role of the artist as a mediator be-tween aesthetic form and the elemental forces of being.

Following the great, “symphonic” major works, the year 1939 was marked especially by a feverish drawing activity. This included an intensive concern with a special category of mediating beings – the angels. These are represented in the exhibition above all by one of those sequences of drawings which were characteristic of Klee’s final years.

If the years 1938 and 1939 brought an emotionally moving unfolding of a final abundance, the year 1940 stood under the sign of the irrevocably approaching “ultimate things.” Using an often dramatically heightened palette, Klee now evoked insights into the dark realm of transition.

Death and Fire,

Going Next Door,

and Boat Trip in Darkness

show, each in its own way, this aspect of the final, merciless engima that stood between the fatally ill artist and release. The exhibition closed with three of the famous works from the estate which Klee left untitled, but which have become known by such telling titles as


Captive (Figure of This World/Next World), 

Last Still-Life,

and The Angel of Death.

All in all, the present exhibition provided an unprecedented insight into this late work, one of the first and most compelling in all of modernism. While other recent exhibitions of artists’ late oeuvres have tended to focus on some special facet of technique or on the production of a single year, the Fondation Beyeler exhibition gave the first review of Klee’s late work in all its breadth to have been seen for many years. Yet the emphasis, as rarely in the past decades, was purposely not placed on the frequently exhibited drawings, but on the paintings and major colored works on paper of this period. Still, the drawings were represented as well, in the form of selected sheets and series.

The exhibition brought together major loans from some of the finest Klee collections in Europe and the U.S. Foremost among these are the Paul-Klee-Stiftung in Bern, and the family collections of Livia Klee and Alexander Klee. Major works have also generously been made available by The Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum, New York; the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; the Sprengel Museum, Hanover; the Öffentliche Kunstsammlung, Basel; the Emanuel-Hoffmann-Stiftung; the Kunsthaus, Zurich; and further public and private lenders.

A catalogue was published in a bilingual edition (German and English) by Benteli Verlag, Bern. It includes essays by Matthias Bärmann, Ernst Beyeler and Ulrich Krempel, as well as a chronology by Stefan Frey. Approx. 200 pages with approx. 100 full-color illustrations.




From an excellent review of new Klee exhibition:

Opened Mountain, 1914 (detail). Photograph: Private collection

A work like Opened Mountain may have its origin in complex chromatic rhythms, but soaring above the method is the stupendous vision of intersecting light beams, or veins of precious minerals, in vermilion, gold and indigo – a wonderful party going on inside a sullen black crag.

 

They're Biting, 1920: ‘a fishing trip that hinges on a single imbalance’. Photograph: Tate

Father and son have cast their line from the bank, and contained in that marvellous arc are the sun, a boat, the water, the distant landscape and Klee's own signature, like a tiny insect alighting on the page, with the lugubrious fish hanging dumb-mouthed below. What a serene scene, what a perfect catch – except that an exclamation mark dangles before the fish by way of kindly warning.

Fish are emblematic in Klee's art. One looks into his pictures as into an aquarium where the world is weightless, delicate, translucent and free, and time seems quite irrelevant.The clock submerged in Fish Magic, one of the show's most famous works, points uselessly to nine while the glittering creatures drift unhurriedly around it and strange discs glow in the dark like planets.

The rhythms of the cosmos are no more or less significant to the fish than the hours of the human clock.

More images:

Harmony of the Northern Flora

 More reviews of new Klee exhibition:


http://article.wn.com/view/2013/10/20/Paul_Klee_Making_Visible_review/

Pride of Place: Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age

April 23, 2014, 12:09 pm

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The Mauritshuis : 11 October 2008 - 11 January 2009

Interest in urban development was just as great in the seventeenth century as it is now. New ramparts were raised outside the city gates, squares and market places emerged, streets were laid and canals dug; in short, cities gained ever more ground. Many painters were captivated by the burgeoning metropolis, which became a new and appealing subject. Jan van der Heyden and Gerrit Berckheyde were the most consistent and best known practitioners of this genre. They depicted Amsterdam and Haarlem many times over. Landscape painters, such as Jacob van Ruisdael, Jan van Goyen and Aelbert Cuyp, also turned their hands to cityscapes.

Vermeer’s masterful

View of Delft,

one of the most impressive paintings in the Mauritshuis’s permanent collection, was the highlight of the exhibition. Among the cities ‘portrayed’ in the seventeenth century, and also on view in the exhibition, were Dordrecht, Hoorn, Nijmegen, Middelburg and The Hague.

Pride of Place was organized jointly with the National Gallery of Art in Washington were it was also on view.

Growth Spurt

In the course of the Golden Age, the Northern Netherlands evolved into a flourishing nation of traders. This resulted in social urbanisation. Cities were subject to an enormous growth spurt because of an increasing average life expectancy, a rising birth rate and the waves of immigrants flooding the mercantile nation. The population grew so exponentially and rapidly that cities were forced to expand beyond their walls.

Dutch Prosperity

Holland was by far the most urbanised region of the Lowlands, as is clearly evident in the many cityscapes of Haarlem, Delft and Amsterdam. Not only did these cities rank among the largest and most prosperous in the Golden Age, they were also among the most frequently portrayed. Amsterdam led the way, growing into a port and trading centre of international stature in the seventeenth century. Built in 1648, the Town Hall (the present Palace on Dam Square) is a commanding symbol of this rising prosperity. At the time, this phenomenal building was even considered the ‘eighth wonder of the world’, reason enough for Gerrit Berckheyde and Jan van der Heyden to memorialise it on numerous occasions.

Early Cityscapes

Cityscapes from the beginning of the seventeenth century often show cities in silhouette. This was related to the genre’s origin, which was closely related to the advent of cartography in the sixteenth century. Cartographers generally embellished their maps with the ‘skylines’ of cities, so-called profile views, which early cityscapes strongly resemble. A broad view of a city from outside its walls makes it seem part of the surrounding landscape with polders or stretches of water. This view must have tempted landscape painters to depict the city as well. For example, Salomon van Ruysdael presented Nijmegen gracefully merging into the landscape of the typical Waal River in his

View of the Valkhof.

A Bird’s Eye View of Amsterdam

One of the most spectacular cityscapes in the exhibition is the

Bird’s Eye View of Amsterdam (c. 1660) by Jan Christiaen Micker.

It shows the city from an elevated vantage point, which strikes a familiar note to us in the twenty-first century, since it resembles an aerial photograph. The painting is a copy of the very earliest bird’s eye perspective of Amsterdam made by the cartographer Cornelis Anthonisz in 1538. The city is depicted with the IJ River at the north and, curiously, the south at the top. Micker depicted shadows cast by the dark clouds playing over the sun-drenched city below. We look down at Amsterdam before its first expansions. The city’s former layout can still be discerned today in its ground plan.

Artful Deception

A cityscape can be understood as a type of ‘city marketing’ of the time. It presented a ‘portrait’ of the city and expressed a sense of civic pride. Characteristic monuments and occasionally new buildings were meticulously recorded in paint. Artists, though, did not always adhere to reality, and sometimes devised creative ways of showing off their city to best advantage. Accordingly, the most important structures, such as churches and towers were frequently depicted larger than life. That a topographically correct rendering was not always crucial for the successful presentation of a city is particularly clear in Vermeer’s View of Delft. In his renowned painting, Vermeer strategically placed the most important buildings in his native city closer to one another than they actually were.

More images from the exhibition:

Gerrit Berckheyde
The Zijlpoort in Haarlem, c. 1670
oil on canvas
89.5 x 151 cm (35 1/4 x 59 7/16 in.)
Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

Jacob van Ruisdael
Haarlem with the Bleaching Fields (c. 1670–1675) 

Gerrit Berckheyde (Dutch, 1638–1698), A Hunting Party near the Hofvijver in The Hague, c. 1690
oil on canvas, 58 x 68.5 cm (22 13/16 x 26 15/16 in.), Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague

The Hague, the seat of government in the Dutch Republic, remains the political center of the Netherlands even though Amsterdam is the nation's capital. A sense of The Hague's 17th-century courtly life—princes, high-ranking officials, and foreign envoys all resided there—is evident in Berckheyde's scene of an elegant party departing on a falcon hunt. The Dutch parliament still meets in the governmental buildings lining the pond in Berckheyde's composition


Adriaen van de Venne (Dutch, 1589–1662), Middelburg with the Departure of a Dignitary, 1615
oil on panel, 64 x 134 cm (26 3/16 x 52 3/4 in.), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam


Salomon van Ruysdael (Dutch, 1600/1603–1670), The Valkhof at Nijmegen, 1652
oil on panel, 69.9 x 92.1 cm (27 1/2 x 36 1/4 in.), The Ivor Collection

Jan van der Heyden (Dutch, 1637–1712), The Keizersgracht and the Westerkerk in Amsterdam, c. 1667–1670
oil on panel, 54 x 63 cm (21 1/4 x 24 13/16 in.), Eijk and Rose-Marie van Otterloo Collection

Completed in 1638, the Westerkerk stood between the Keizersgracht (the Emperor's Canal) and the Prinsengracht (the Prince's Canal). It was intended not only as a neighborhood church for the inhabitants of the elegant canal-side houses, but also as the principal Protestant church of the city. The church tower is still the tallest in Amsterdam.

Pieter Saenredam (Dutch, 1597–1665), The Old Town Hall of Amsterdam, 1657
oil on panel, 65.5 x 84.5 cm (25 13/16 x 33 1/4 in.), Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, on loan from the City of Amsterdam

From an interesting review:

In reviewing the exhibition currently at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C., Pride of Place: Dutch Cityscapes of the Golden Age, Blacke Gopnik writes in his Washington Post article The ‘Golden’ Compass that contemporary viewers may not know how to correctly look at classic Dutch landscapes and cityscapes.

He suggests that this is more than having a background knowledge of the artists or particular paintings, and in fact has to do with physical proximity to the painting, a reference to a kind of “sweet spot” from which the painting was intended to be seen, particularly in terms of being close enough to the image for it to fill a significant part of your visual field; but also, in some cases, requiring a vantage point from one side or the other.

A case in point is

Daniel Vosmaer’s Delft from an Imaginary Loggia, (image above, top) which looks “off” at first, but apparently resolves into a strikingly naturalistic scene when viewed from a position close to the bottom left of the painting. Some are more natural seeming in appearance when seen from a distance or in reproduction, like Adriaensz Berckheyde’s The Grote or St. Bavokerk in Haarlem (image above, bottom), but still evidently reveal their full force only when seen up close.

Catalogue

The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue with contributions by Ariane van Suchtelen, Arthur Wheelock and others, and an introductory essay by Boudewijn Bakker. This accessible publication includes colour illustrations of and entries on all the exhibited paintings. The catalogue is preceded by two essays elucidating urban development in the Northern Netherlands and the cityscape as an artistic genre.

Dürer, Michelangelo, Rubens: The 100 Masterworks of the Albertina

April 23, 2014, 12:46 pm

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Albertina, Vienna, 14 March — 29 June 2014

The exhibit Dürer, Michelangelo, Rubens: The 100 Masterworks of the Albertina for the first time shows around 100 top-class masterpieces from the collection of the Albertina in the context of the chequered and exciting life story of its founders, Prince Albert of Saxony, Duke of Teschen and Archduchess Marie Christine. The large-scale presentation unites the highlights of the collection, from Michelangelo through Rembrandt and Rubens to Caspar David Friedrich. The centrepiece of the Albertina, Dürer’s famous Young Hare, is now once again accessible to an interested public in the context of this exhibit after a decade-long period of grace.

The time span documented by the large-scale exhibit extends from 1738 to 1822: from the age of the courtly Baroque under Maria Theresia and the Enlightenment under Joseph II, through the premodern period and the years of the revolutions in America and Europe to the Biedermeier period of the Vormärz (the years leading up to the revolutions of 1848 in Germany) following the Vienna Congress.  The stations in life of the founders of the collection, Prince Albert of Saxony, Duke of Teschen and Archduchess Marie Christine, including Dresden, Rome, Paris, Brussels and Vienna, present the leading centres of art and politics, and in the process provide insight into the multi-layered networks of collectors and art dealers, the feudal life of the European aristocracy, as well as the political and intellectual reorientation under the auspices of the Enlightenment.

Loans from throughout the world supplement the holdings of the Albertina in this presentation and convey a poignant picture of the circumstances and the passion for collecting of the namesake of the Albertina. A splendid service, as well as paintings and busts of the Duke and his wife, but also other important documents of the time, such as the hat of Napoleon, worn by him at the Battle of Eylau, originate from, among other sources, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the Vatican and various private collections.

Albrecht Dürer

Hare, 1502

Watercolour, bodycolours, heightened with opaque white

© Albertina, Vienna

Friedrich Heinrich Füger

Albert and Maria Christina Presenting Pictures of Their Relatives in Italy to Their Family, 1776

Distemper on parchment

Belvedere, Vienna

Alexandre Roslin

Archduchess Maria Christina, 1778

Oil on canvas

Albertina, Vienna (Dauerleihgabe der Oesterreichischen Nationalbank)

Anonymous

Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen with the Map of the Battle of Maxen, 1777

Oil on canvas

Albertina, Vienna (Dauerleihgabe des Kunsthistorischen Museums Wien, Gemäldegalerie)

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Male Nude Seen From the Back With a Flag Staff, ca. 1504

Black chalk, heightened in white

© Albertina, Vienna

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Study of a Seated Young Man and Two Studies of the Right Arm, (Recto), around 1511

Red chalk, heightened with white

© Albertina, Vienna

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Big fish eat little fish, 1556

Pen and brush in grey and black, transfer lines

Albertina, Vienna

Peter Paul Rubens

Nicholas Rubens with Coral Necklace, ca. 1619

Black and red chalks, heightened in white

© Albertina, Vienna

Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Painter and the Patron, around 1565

Pen with brown ink

Albertina, Vienna

Albrecht Dürer

Praying Hands, 1508

Brush, gray and white ink, gray wash, on blue prepared paper

Albertina, Vienna

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn

An Elephant, 1637

Black chalk

Albertina, Vienna

Leonardo da Vinci

Half-Length Figure of an Apostle, 1493-1495

Silverpoint, pen and brown ink on blue prepared paper

Albertina, Vienna

Peter Paul Rubens

Ruben’s daughter Clara Serena, 1623

Black and red chalk, heightened with white chalk

Albertina, Vienna

Jakob von Alt

Duke Albert’s Palace on the Augustine Bastion, 1816

Pen, watercolor

© Albertina, Vienna

Dutch Portraits The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals

April 26, 2014, 7:07 am

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In the autumn of 2007 the Mauritshuis presented a large survey exhibition of one of the most fascinating phenomena in the history of Western art: Dutch seventeenth-century portraiture. Nowhere else were so many portraits painted of burghers from all walks of life. Amazingly, the last exhibition devoted to this subject took place more than 50 years ago. With approximately 60 masterpieces, the exhibition afforded a magisterial overview of seventeenth-century portraiture. The two grand masters of the genre are Rembrandt and Frans Hals, both of whom are represented by at least eight masterpieces each. In addition, one or more works by some 25 other masters were also on view. The number of talented painters in the Northern Netherlands in the seventeenth century was unparalleled.

The exhibitionwas jointly organised with the National Gallery in London, where it was on view in the summer of 2007. The loans come from more than 30 different museums and private collections in Europe and the United States. Particularly important lenders are the Royal Collection in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Alte Pinakothek in Munich, the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the Gemäldegalerie in Kassel.

Timeless

Portraits have been painted since time immemorial. A growing interest in painted portraits on the part of the Dutch began to emerge around 1400. At the beginning of the seventeenth century citizens gained ever more power and influence, whereby their interest in luxury products also grew. Our ancestors were justly proud of their accomplishments and gladly and repeatedly had their likeness painted. Therefore, it is not surprising that portraiture became the most widely practiced artistic genre in the Northern Netherlands in the seventeenth century. One or more portraits were found in many households. Painters such as Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Thomas de Keyser, Johannes Verspronck and Nicolaes Maes were granted the commissions and fared well.

Best foot forward

Portraits were always painted on commission. Often the sitters’ names are still known to us today, and we have information about them. Moreover, much can be discerned in the paintings themselves. The clothing, jewellery, and hair styles all indicate how fashionable or wealthy the person portrayed was. A confident gaze, a bold pose, a roguish smile or a striking goatee all express something about an individual’s personality or character, while an attribute or a coat of arms discloses more about the sitter’s background or profession. And this is what continues to engage us now. Who exactly are we face to face with? Obviously, people wanted to show their best side in a portrait. Rembrandt’s phenomenal Portrait of an old man from 1667, however, constitutes an exception to this rule. We see a slumped over, informally dressed man who seems unaware of the painter observing him. Despite having been made centuries ago some paintings make a very contemporary impression. They could almost be the faces of people you might encounter at any street corner on any given day.

Precious memories

The reasons for commissioning a portrait in the seventeenth century actually differ very little from those today. Still now, and perhaps even more so, we have portraits made of ourselves, the people we love and our children either to hang at home or to give as presents. A painted or photographed portrait is a precious keepsake of a person, a special moment or a specific phase in one’s life, but chiefly a sign of love and appreciation. In the seventeenth century an important appointment often called for the making of an individual or a group portrait. However, portraits were not just about enhancing one’s standing or status. Women and children were also recorded on canvas in intimate ‘family snapshots’. Naturally, a marriage was a festive occasion for ordering a (double) portrait. Group portraits were less private in character and generally made to mark the entrance of a new board of regents of a charitable institution, guild or other governing body.

Alone, the two of us, or everybody

A fine example of an individual portrait is

Hals’ 1645 Portrait of Willem Coymans 

in the National Gallery of Art in Washington. His likeness is, as it were, a snapshot of a moment in time in the life of a young merchant, who - with his long, loose and curly hair - reflects the elegant nonchalance of the fashion of the new generation.

Portraits of married couples or of a family were often produced as pendants, two paintings next to one another. A lovely example of this is the

early portrait pair from 1602 of a couple from Hoorn and their children by Jan Claesz:

 

Portrait of Albert Sonck and his Son Frans

Portrait of Lysbeth Walichsdr and her Daughter Elisabeth

A double portrait represented an additional challenge to the portraitist. One of the most successful compositions in this genre is the

1633 Double portrait of Jan Rijcksen and his wife Griet Jans by Rembrandt

in the Royal Collection in London. Wonderfully depicted here is the moment when the shipbuilder looks up at his wife while she hands him a letter.

Family portraits (for instance, by Jan Molenaer) are particularly valuable and interesting because they afford a glimpse into how wealthy individuals decorated their homes in the seventeenth century. Portraits of children, like those by Jacob Cuyp, Jan Steen and Salomon de Bray are not only touching but also reveal something about the position of children at the time as well as the relationship between parents and children.

A clear development can be traced in group portraiture. In early such portraits, the sitters are positioned next to and above one another in a rather static fashion. In this respect, Rembrandt’s earliest group portrait,

The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Nicolaes Tulp from 1632

is quite innovative. This masterpiece instantly catapulted him to the top of his profession making him the most desirable portraitist in the Dutch Republic.

Regent pieces are group portraits of governors of charitable institutions (hospitals, orphanages, or almshouses) that were hung in public places in the seventeenth century. These perfectly illustrate the organised nature of society in The Netherlands, evidencing concern and care for one’s fellow man and the formal structures of the various institutions.

The regents and regentesses of the

Amsterdam Crossbowmen’s Civic Guard (Bartholomeus van der Helst)

and of the

Haarlem St Elizabeth Hospital (Frans Hals),

 among others, were on view at the exhibition.

Catalogue

Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals is written by Rudi Ekkart and Quentin Buvelot, with contributions by Marieke de Winkel, Axel Rüger, Peter van der Ploeg, Ariane van Suchtelen and Lea van der Vinde. In this accessible publication all of the paintings on view are illustrated in colour and provided with an explanation. This is preceded by three richly illustrated essays treating the development of the painted portrait in the Northern Netherlands and aspects of the clothing and fashions depicted in the paintings.

WORKS FROM THE NATIONAL GALLERIES OF SCOTLAND

April 26, 2014, 7:48 am

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In November, The Frick Collection will be first venue to present a touring group of masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland. The ten paintings to be featured in New York―among them a Botticelli never before on public view in the United States and John Singer Sargent’s iconic portrait of Lady Agnew―will travel on in 2015 with forty-five additional works to the de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. The tour brings to all three cities ten of the greatest paintings from the Scottish National Gallery, works that were chosen specifically to complement the permanent collections of the three American venues. The exhibitions in San Francisco and Fort Worth also draw upon the collections of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, the three institutions that comprise the Edinburgh sites of the National Galleries of Scotland.

The paintings on view at the Frick―from November 5, 2014, through February 1, 2015―will be 

Sandro Botticelli’s The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child (c. 1485);  (below)

El Greco’s Allegory (Fábula) (1585‒95); 

Diego Velázquez’s An Old Woman Cooking Eggs (1618); (below)

 Jean-Antoine Watteau’s Fêtes Vénitiennes (1718‒19);  (below)

Thomas Gainsborough’s Landscape with a View of a Distant Village (late 1740s or early 1750s); 

Allan Ramsay’s The Artist’s Wife: Margaret Lindsay of Evelick (1758‒60); (below)

Sir Joshua Reynolds’ The Ladies Waldegrave (1780); 

Sir Henry Raeburn’s Colonel Alastair Ranaldson Macdonell of Glengarry (1812); 

 

John Constable’s The Vale of Dedham (1826); 

and John Singer Sargent’s Lady Agnew of Lochnaw (1892).  (below)

The Frick exhibition, titled Masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery  is coordinated by Senior Curator Susan Grace Galassi and will be accompanied by a series of public programs and events. A fully illustrated catalogue will include entries on each of the paintings written by the curators of the Scottish National Gallery, as well as an introductory essay by Director Michael Clarke that provides an overview of the exhibition and the institution. Support for the presentation in New York is generously provided by The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, The Christian Humann Foundation, and †Walter and Vera Eberstadt.

ABOUT THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL GALLERY

Founded in 1850, the Scottish National Gallery is widely regarded as one of the finest museums in the world, distinguished both for the quality and for the significance of its holdings. Its collection ranges from the fourteenth to early twentieth century and includes paintings, prints, drawings, and sculpture. The institution’s holdings encompass works by the greatest names in Western art, including Botticelli, Titian, El Greco, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Rubens, Watteau, Tiepolo and many of the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. The Gallery also contains the most comprehensive collection of Scottish art from the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, with masterpieces by such well-known figures as Ramsay, Raeburn, and Wilkie.

REMARKABLE RANGE OF OLD MASTER WORKS

The Frick Collection is pleased to present, for the first time in its galleries, a painting by Florentine master Sandro Botticelli—the serenely beautiful 

Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child . 

Botticelli, best known for his famed  

Primavera  

and 

Birth of Venus  

(both in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence), 

most likely completed this intimate, contemplative image of the Virgin and Child for display in a domestic setting, perhaps a private chapel or study. Though the composition is based on a type developed by Botticelli’s teacher, Filippo Lippi, it is unusual in that it depicts the Christ child sleeping, his closed eyes and supine body possibly intended to foreshadow his eventual death. The picture is rare among Botticelli’s works in that it is painted on canvas, a support which had only recently come into use in Italy. The painting has been in Scotland for more than a hundred and fifty years, taken there by Lord Elcho in the nineteenth century and remaining in his ancestral home until 1999, when it was sold by his descendants to the Scottish National Gallery. The exhibition of Botticelli’s masterpiece at the Frick, de Young, and Kimbell, marks the first time that this work has ever been on public view in the United States.

A striking early painting by Diego Velázquez,

 An Old Woman Cooking Eggs (1618),

 is one of a small group of bodegones (kitchen scenes) painted by the artist in his native Seville before he moved to the court of Philip IV in Madrid in 1623. Velázquez’s confident handling of the subject is remarkable when one considers he was only eighteen or nineteen years old at the time the canvas was executed. The virtuosity with which he represents a range of textures―glistening silverware, semi-translucent egg whites, rustic earthenware―is matched by his sensitivity to expression, as displayed in the quizzical face of the boy and the stern, wizened features of the old woman. Visitors will have the opportunity to compare this early genre scene with one of Velázquez’s later, official court portraits—the Frick’s own 

 

King Philip IV of Spain (1644),

 on display in the West Gallery. In this royal portrait, the artist maintains the mastery of light and shadow evident in his earlier work while achieving the spontaneous, open brushwork associated with his maturity.

All three American institutions on this tour are celebrated for the richness of their French eighteenth-century holdings. The Frick is well known, for example, for its Fragonard and Boucher rooms as well as Jean-Antoine Watteau’s early military scene

The Portal of Valenciennes (1709‒10). 

The exhibition brings to New York a later example from Watteau’s oeuvre of fête galante paintings,  

Fêtes Vénitiennes of 1718‒19, 

last seen in the United States a decade ago. 

In his mature paintings, Watteau often returns to the theme of the Garden of Love, and Fêtes Vénitiennes is typical of these scenes; fancifully dressed figures flirt, chat, and dance in a frothy landscape, all beneath the watchful eye of a seemingly animated garden sculpture. The painting’s composition suggests the shallow stage of a theatre, and, indeed, the scene may be inspired by the early eighteenth-century ballet-opera Les Festes Vénitiennes. The work is unusual among Watteau’s images of pleasure-seekers in that several of the figures may actually be intended as portraits. The male dancer in exotic garb at left represents the Flemish painter Nicolas Vleughels (with whom Watteau lodged at this time), and the somewhat somber musician at right is said to depict Watteau himself.

The renowned Scottish master Allan Ramsay is included in the exhibition with a tender portrait of his second wife,  
 

Margaret Lindsay of Evelick. 

This sensitive study may have been painted to mark the birth of the couple’s second daughter, Charlotte, in 1758. The painting hung in the artist’s London home, and Ramsay’s treatment of the subject evokes the quotidian pleasures of domestic life―through Margaret Ramsay’s informal pose, the delicately rendered still life of roses, and the warm-hued light that falls on his wife’s face and lace mantle. Six years before the portrait was painted, the couple had eloped in Edinburgh without the consent of the bride’s parents, who disapproved of Ramsay’s lower social station. Nothing about Ramsay’s portrait suggests discord, however; rather, the work appears suffused with an affectionate bond between sitter and artist.

The exhibition concludes with John Singer Sargent’s  
 

Lady Agnew of Lochnaw 

providing a fitting note with which to celebrate this Scottish-American collaboration. Andrew Noel Agnew, a barrister who had inherited the baronetcy and estates of Lochnaw in Galloway, commissioned this painting of his young wife, Gertrude Vernon (1865‒1932), in 1892. It was exhibited at London’s Royal Academy in 1898 and made Sargent’s name as one of the most fashionable portrait painters of Edwardian society, while also establishing Lady Agnew’s reputation as a society beauty. With the bravura brushwork characteristic of his art, Sargent captures Lady Agnew’s penetrating gaze and the delicate play of light and shadow across her shimmering ensemble of white and lilac. Though Henry Clay Frick acquired numerous works by another American expatriate and society portraitist—James McNeill Whistler—he never added a portrait by Sargent to his collection. 

Two works by Whistler on display in the permanent galleries―

Symphony in Flesh Colour and Pink: Portrait of Mrs. Frances Leyland (1871‒74) 

 

and Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux (1881‒82) 

―will provide fascinating counterpoints to Sargent’s masterpiece, which was last exhibited in the United States more than fifteen years ago.

U.S. TOUR VENUE INFORMATION:

The Frick Collection, New York (10 paintings)

DATES: November 5, 2014, through February 1, 2015

TITLE: Masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery

de Young, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (55 paintings)

DATES: March 7, 2015, through May 31, 2015

TITLE: Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland

Kimbell Art Museum, Ft. Worth (55 paintings)

DATES: June 28, 2015, through September 20, 2015

TITLE: Botticelli to Braque: Masterpieces from the National Galleries of Scotland

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Max Weber: Bringing Paris to New York

April 26, 2014, 8:55 am

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The Baltimore Museum of Art organized a focus exhibition on one of the most influential American artists of the 20th century. Max Weber: Bringing Paris to New York presented nearly 40 paintings, prints, and drawings by Weber, Matisse, and other artists who influenced Weber to transform his painting style from traditional to avant-garde.

On view March 3 – June 23, 2013, the exhibition included many works loaned by the estate of Max Weber and other public and private collections as well as major works by Weber and Matisse from the BMA’s collection.

The exhibition was guest curated by Weber scholar Percy North, Professor of Art and Coordinator of Art History at Montgomery College in Rockville, Maryland, and Adjunct Professor of Liberal Studies at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

Weber began his three-year sojourn in Paris in 1905, and his studies with Matisse and friendships with Pablo Picasso and Henri Rousseau inspired him to develop a personal style that evoked the energy, dynamism, and technological advancements of the early 20th century. Outstanding paintings from this pivotal phase of Weber’s career include

My Studio in Paris (1907),

a glimpse of his private world in Europe and the beginning of Matisse’s influence;

The Apollo in Matisse’s Studio (1908),

demonstrating why he was one of the best students in Matisse’s class;

and Burlesque #2 (Vaudeville) (1909),

a combination of fauvist and cubist influences.

The exhibition also brought together for the first time

Matisse’s Blue Nude (1907)

and Weber’s Figure Study (1911),

a direct response to Matisse and Picasso;

and both the painting and watercolor study for Interior of the Fourth Dimension (1913), a cubo-futurist depiction of New York.

Through the artworks he brought back from Paris, Weber also became one of the first to introduce examples of Modernism in the United States. Some of the works in the exhibition by other artists from Weber’s own collection wereStill Life (1908), the first painting by Picasso to enter the U.S.;
Study for View of Malakoff, Outskirts of Paris (1908) an important painting given by Rousseau that Weber loaned to the seminal 1913 modern art exhibition at the New York Armory; and Reclining Nude (1907), a ceramic tile painted by Matisse that includes a figure reminiscent of the Blue Nude.

Additional highlights included an abstract sculpture and woodcut by Weber, and a selection of never-before exhibited drawings.

ARTIST BACKGROUND

Weber in Paris

Russian-born Max Weber had begun a career as an art teacher when his artistic aspirations led him to Paris in 1905. For three years, Weber immersed himself in the European avant-garde art world, attending exhibitions and visiting Gertrude and Leo Stein’s legendary Saturday soirées where he encountered paintings and drawings by Paul Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso. Although he enrolled in classes at the Académie Julian, Weber sought more innovative training and became one of the founding members of Matisse’s class in 1908.

Weber in New York, Baltimore, and Beyond

Max Weber, New York at Night, 1915

When Weber returned to the United States in 1909, he was dismayed that the exciting new art he had seen in Paris was virtually unknown in America. He introduced his cubist-inspired paintings in Younger American Painters, a ground-breaking exhibition at Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery 291, and was vilified in the press. Weber began to gain acceptance a few years later when he received a solo exhibition at the Newark Museum in 1913. After a successful show at New York’s Print Gallery in 1915, Weber was invited to present the same exhibition at the Jones Galleries in Baltimore, which became his first solo exhibition outside of the New York area. A news clipping called it “the most exciting art event of the season” and said that crowds were “flocking to see it.” Feature articles appeared in the Baltimore Sun and Baltimore Evening News, and reviews were more sympathetic than those in New York. Weber’s reputation grew with subsequent exhibitions in the U.S. and Europe, and in 1930 he became the first American artist to receive a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In the 1940s, his work was introduced to households across the country through features in Life, Time, and The Saturday Evening Post.

Weber at the BMA

Weber was invited by The Baltimore Museum of Art in 1942 to be a juror for an exhibition and also received a small solo show at the museum, Paintings by Max Weber. He returned to the BMA as a juror in 1948, the same year he was selected as one of the best artists in the country by a poll of art professionals in Look magazine. On a trip to Washington D.C. in 1958, Weber visited the Cone Collection at the BMA and raved to his wife about Cézanne’s painting Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from the Bibémus Quarry (c. 1897). His work was eventually eclipsed by the growing popularity of Abstract Expressionism, especially after the 1960 Venice Biennale organized by BMA Director Adelyn Breeskin. Weber died the following year.


From an outstanding review : (images added)

But it is really Weber’s own work that is the star of this show. The pieces in this first room primarily help prepare us for what will come. We see his transition from a diligent draftsman in an early nude drawing to a modernist in the school of Matisse. “Apollo in Matisse’s Studio” presents a statue of Apollo seen from the rear, the white marble of the god’s body alight with fauvist pinks and greens and a portrait of Matisse himself, drawn in quick, simple lines that demolish the shaded labor of the earlier drawing.

The exhibit’s second room, containing the works completed after Weber returned to New York, is the truly essential part of this exhibition, and one we are lucky to have.

Weber’s “The Bathers” from 1909 shares qualities with outdoor female nudes by Matisse, Cézanne, and Picasso, but in my opinion Weber’s women by the sea are superior to all but Cézanne’s. The flesh of the woman in the foreground is succulent—both lean and plump—and exquisitely rendered as she looks out onto the swiftly shifting sails in the sea.

“Avoirdupois,” the sole example of analytical cubism in Weber’s oeuvre, is not as great as Picasso’s and Braque’s definitive cubist works, but it is nevertheless a fascinating piece that could withstand hours of contemplation. Rendered in the beige, browns, and grays that define Picasso’s work of this period, Weber’s piece functions almost as a Monty Python-esque art machine. It’s discordant and dissolving planes overlap in space and time to create a sense of a cranking, weighing motion. The exhibit’s curator and perhaps the world’s only expert on Weber, Percy North also points out that the piece is a joke. The French word printed on the canvas, avoirdupis, refers to a scale, and in the left-hand side of the canvas, we find a bowl of what appear to be peas, pois, being weighed.

This piece alone would be worth traveling some distance to see, but “Interior of the Fourth Dimension” is the one truly monumental piece in the show. In this work—represented here both as an oil painting and a watercolor study, never before seen together—Weber combines cubist and futurist techniques to try to create a “fourth dimension” (the subject of the essay that influenced Apollinaire as well). In the center, we see a bulbous curve rendered with the Braque-like gray and beige desecration of the Impressionist daub, while on either end cool blue-gray towers of colliding spatial planes rise vertiginously toward the center.

Do yourself a favor and don’t just look at this painting head-on. Position yourself to the right of the painting so you can get it at an angle, and the space suddenly opens up and overwhelms you, revealing the painting’s subject—the dynamism of New York City.

From another excellent review (images added) :

The exhibition brings together for the first time Matisse’s notorious “Blue Nude,” 1907, which Leo Stein loaned to the Armory Show and is now in the BMA’s Cone Collection, and Weber’s “Figure Study,” 1911, a direct response to Matisse — and Picasso. A provocatively posed form similar to “Blue Nude” figures prominently in Weber’s “The Bathers,” whose brazen nudes and rugged sensuality call to mind both Matisse’s and Cezanne’s paintings on the same subject. It is a “European-inspired mélange combining the primitivizing impulse of Rousseau and Picasso with the Fauvist coloring and joie-de-vivre sensuality of Matisse,” observes North....

Weber’s still lifes demonstrate the constant invention and reinvention that was his hallmark. An early “Still Life” on view, with bananas, apples and ceramics from a titled perspective, is very much like the Picasso still life he brought back from Paris, “but Weber’s painting is richer in color and heavier in texture, creating a more tactile visual experience,” writes North in the exhibition brochure.

By 1911–1912, Weber began to incorporate Cubist devices into a number of works, although others were essentially primitive or Expressionist. Alfred Stieglitz mounted a Weber show in 1911, and Weber’s solo exhibition at the Newark Museum in 1913 was the first accorded to a Modern artist in an American museum.

For the next few years the Cubist manner predominated, but Weber also assimilated aspects of Futurism into a colorful and dynamic style best remembered today for

“Chinese Restaurant”

and “Rush Hour, New York,”

both 1915, abstract paintings that captured the kinetic energy and fast-moving life of Gotham. (The latter may have been created in response to Marcel Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase,” the sensation of the 1913 Armory Show.) As art historian Matthew Baigell has observed, “In contrast with the static nudes and amiable landscapes of his Cezannesque-Cubist work, these paintings exulted in the dynamism of modern life” in New York City.

Another notable Cubist-Futurist work, “Interior of the Fourth Dimension,” an expressively fragmented urban abstraction, suggests both the towering skyline of Manhattan and the hustle, bustle and commotion of life in the big city. Weber described the fourth dimension as “The consciousness of a great and overwhelming sense of space-magnitude in all directions at one time… It arouses imagination and stirs emotion. It is the immensity of all things.”

Catalogue



Essay by Percy North

Paperback, 36 p., 20 color illus.

Sotheby’s to Present Three Masterworks by Pieter Brueghel the Younger

April 28, 2014, 9:15 am

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This summer, Sotheby’s London will present a remarkable group of Flemish Old Master paintings from the Coppée Collection. Assembled by the Belgian industrialist Evence Coppée III (1882-1945) in the 1920s, this outstanding collection comprised almost exclusively 16th and 17th century works, with an emphasis on the works of Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564-1637/8) and the Brueghel family. Of the paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Younger that Baron Coppée collected, three of the best will feature in the sale, including an imposing landscape with the Crucifixion, an Outdoor Wedding Dance, recognised as one of the most popular works in the artist’s oeuvre, and a splendidly evocative Winter Landscape. The selection also encompasses impressive paintings resulting from a collaboration between Jan Brueghel the Younger and artists such as Frans Francken the Younger and Hendrik van Balen the Elder, as well as works from the North Netherlandish School and the School of Northern France.

Passed on by direct descent from Baron Coppée, these works have not appeared on the market for almost a century. They will be auctioned as part of a group of 19 paintings from the Coppée Collection in Sotheby’s London Old Master sales on 9 and 10 July 2014.

Talking about the forthcoming sale, George Gordon, Sotheby’s Co-Chairman, Old Master Paintings, Worldwide commented:  

“The Coppée collection was one of the first and finest collections of paintings by Pieter Brueghel the Younger and his family. Three paintings by the artist spearhead the group of Flemish paintings in our July sale, and each one is outstanding. The Bird Trap was one of Brueghel's most popular compositions in his own day and remains so now. It is a beautifully preserved crystalline evocation of a Flemish village on a freezing cold day, painted at a time when winter was just starting to be appreciated for its beauty and not merely feared. The Outdoor Wedding Dance, presents an entirely different facet of Brueghel's art: an intense composition of swirling inebriated peasant wedding guests dancing to the raucous Flemish bagpipes, the bride looking bemused in the centre of it all. The greatest of the three Brueghels however is the moving, monumental depiction of Calvary from 1615, a rare work that is in the spirit of his father's paintings of fifty years before, but reveals an unambiguously stark view of a cruel world, its vegetation parched, its massed rocky outcrops overbearingly threatening”.

Pieter Brueghel the Younger who had been overlooked by previous generations of scholars and collectors until after the First World War occupied a special place in Baron Coppée’s heart. This fascination was perhaps not only due to the collector’s keen interest in Flemish Old Masters but also to the resonance of Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s works with the traumatic memories of the Great War. The three compositions to be sold in July are illustrative of the artist’s powerful depictions of the tragedy of the human condition, seen through his sympathetic eyes. They also count among the rarest and most popular works in the Flemish painter’s oeuvre. 

 

Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Calvary, 1615, oil on oak panel, 99.9 by 147.5 cm.; 39⅜ by 58 in. (est. £ 3-4 million)

In this huge and deeply moving painting Pieter Brueghel sets out the scene of Christ’s crucifixion as narrated by the Gospels. Realised in 1615, this oil on oak panel ranks among the rarest of all Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s compositions. It is one of only two signed works which deal with the subject of the Crucifixion. Only four certainly autograph versions of this precise composition are known, and Calvary is by common consent the finest (est. £3-4 million/ €3,650,000-4,860,000/ $5,020,000-6,690,000). 

Pieter Brueghel the Younger, The Outdoor Wedding Dance,

Oil on oak panel, 41.6 by 62 cm.; 16⅜ by 24⅜ in. (est. £1-1.5 million)

The Outdoor Wedding Dance belongs to a series of pictures painted by the Brueghels which depict different episodes during a wedding day - a tradition founded by Pieter Bruegel the Elder whose Wedding Banquet of 1568 (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum) (below) is undoubtedly the most famous example. The present work has long been recognised as one of the most popular works in Pieter Brueghel the Younger’s oeuvre and Georges Marlier, the great scholar of Flemish art, went so far as to describe this painting as “one of the most popular of all subjects in Flemish painting at the beginning of the seventeenth century”1. With over sixty known versions on the subject, the Coppée version - most likely executed in the 1610s - is one of the finest to have survived, and remains in a remarkable state of preservation (est. £1-1.5 million/ €1,220,000-1,830,000/ $1,680,000-2,510,000). 

Winter landscape with a bird trap

This painting is not only one of the best loved of all the inventions of the Brueghel dynasty, but in its beautiful depiction of a winter’s day, also one of the most enduring images in Western art. It owes its fame to its extraordinary evocation of the atmosphere of a cold winter’s day. It is one of only eight panels which have the distinction of being both signed and dated. Painted in 1626, it is the latest in date of those so far known (est. £1-1.5 million/ € 1,220,000-1,830,000/ $1,680,000-2,510,000). 

Also see:

Pieter Bruegel the Elder The Wedding Dance in the open air

 Pieter Bruegel the Elder  Wedding Banquet of 1568 (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum)

Nice write-up

Works by Picasso Spanning 7 Decades, Led by Tête de Marie-Thérèse (Estimate $15/20 Million)

April 28, 2014, 11:03 am

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Sotheby’s spring Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art will be held in New York on 7 May 2014. It will offer an impressive selection of 14 works by Pablo Picasso, with examples reaching across his remarkable career – from an early drawing dated to 1900, through a late oil painting from 1969. 

The group features 

Tête de Marie- Thérèse from 1932, 

a radiant example of his paintings depicting his beloved mistress of the early 1930s (est. $15/20 million). The present example may be counted among the most painterly and expressive of these pictures, created when Marie- Thérèse was firmly at the center of Picasso's artistic universe. Tête de Marie-Thérèse was part of Jacqueline Picasso’s private collection of paintings, drawings and sculptures that her late husband had bequeathed her. Jacqueline generously gifted this work to William Rubin, director of prestigious department of painting and sculpture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

Le Sauvetage

represents the largest and most highly developed treatment of a theme which emerged from Pablo Picasso’s memories of the summer spent at the beach with his young mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, at Dinard in 1928 (est. $14/18 million).  The dramatic scene depicts a drowned woman being rescued, inspired perhaps by an event in which Marie Thérèse participated or reported to Picasso, while figures swim and play on the beach. The exuberant and dream-like quality of the composition is heightened by the saturated pigments, independent planes of color and the fantastical cavorting bathers that swirl around the center of the canvas. Le Sauvetage last appeared at auction at Sotheby’s New York in 2004, when it was acquired by the present owners – prior to that sale, it had remained in another European private collection for 40 years.




Also see 

Le Sauvetage (1932)
Also in the sale:

PABLO PICASSO PORTRAIT DE MARIE-THÉRÈSE
Estimate   3,000,000 — 4,000,000

PABLO PICASSO

BOUQUET

Estimate  2,500,000 — 3,500,000

PABLO PICASSO

GUITARE, VERRE, BOUTEILLE DE VIEUX MARC

Estimate  5,000,000 — 7,000,000

PABLO PICASSO

FEMME DANS UN ROCKING-CHAIR

Estimate  2,000,000 — 3,000,000 

 

PABLO PICASSO

FEMME ASSISE DANS UN FAUTEUIL, BUSTE

Estimate  7,000,000 — 9,000,000

Sotheby's May 7 2014 Sale: Monet and Matisse, Degas and Renoir

April 28, 2014, 12:03 pm

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Sotheby’s spring Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art will be held in New York on 7 May 2014. It will include art by Monet and Matisse, Degas and Renoir.

CLAUDE MONET IN THE GARDEN, BY THE SEA AND IN THE CITY

The Evening Sale will offer three impressive canvases by Impressionist master Claude Monet, including 

Le pont japonais

which he painted at Giverny from 1918–24 (est. $12/18 million). Monet’s spectacular images of the Japanese bridge spanning the lily pond of his lush garden are among the most recognizable images of 20th century art. These pictures capture the mystique of the meticulously-landscaped environment that served as Monet’s inspiration during his later career. The present picture, which is one of the most richly painted in the series, can be seen in a photograph of the artist’s Giverny studio, where it hangs in completion among other notable examples of the artist’s late production.

Monet’s Sur la falaise à Pourville

– on offer from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, sold to benefit its acquisitions fund – was one of the first major Impressionist landscapes to arrive in the United States (est. $5/7 million). The picture was purchased shortly after its completion in 1882 by the artist’s Parisian dealer Durand-Ruel, who was instrumental in establishing Monet’s reputation throughout Europe and abroad. In 1886, the work was acquired by William H. Fuller, the director of the National Wallpaper Company and a devoted early collector of Monet’s art, who organized the first American exhibition of the artist’s paintings at the Union Club in New York in 1891. This show effectively introduced Monet to an American audience which would include some of his most important patrons.

Also in the sale:


 

CLAUDE MONET

CATHÉDRALE DE ROUEN

Estimate  2,000,000 — 3,000,000 

Henri Matisse


 

Henri Matisse’s La Séance du matin (est. $20/30 million) 

depicts the artist’s studio assistant Henriette Darricarrère, whose own interest in painting he encouraged by offering her lessons during their working time together. In another version of this same subject, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Matisse depicts a nude model alongside the studious painter. The present composition instead features Henriette alone, completely absorbed in her own work. The canvas boasts all of the elements of the artist's most desirable Nice-period paintings, with its colorful patterning and gleaming white highlights, and has gone on to become one of Matisse's most beloved canvases from this period.

HENRI MATISSE LA FEMME EN JAUNE
Estimate   9,000,000 — 15,000,000

is another exceptional portrait from the artist’s early Nice-period.

 Degas and Renoir

EDGAR DEGAS LA CONVERSATION
Estimate   3,500,000 — 5,000,000

EDGAR DEGAS DEUX DANSEUSES ASSISES
Estimate   3,000,000 — 5,000,000

PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR LA TOILETTE
Estimate   4,000,000 — 6,000,000 

PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR TULIPES
Estimate   1,500,000 — 2,000,000

A NATIONWIDE CELEBRATION OF AMERICAN MASTERWORKS: Vote for your favorites

May 1, 2014, 11:40 am

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Art Everywhere U.S. will make temporary use of up to 50,000 advertising displays nationwide to display American masterworks. The largely outdoor sites—which include billboards, bus shelters, trains, and buses—will feature large-scale reproductions of iconic works from the Whitney’s collection as well as selections from four other institutions: the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art. 

Of the 100 works submitted by these museums, half will be selected for display in August curated with the help of a public, online vote.

Polls are open through May 7, and the works chosen will be announced in June. Vote now!

My votes: 

Both Members of This Club, 1909

George Bellows 

National Gallery of Art

 

           

Cliff Dwellers, 1913

 George Bellows

Los Angeles County Museum of Art 

Painting, Number 5, 1914-15

Marsden Hartley

 Whitney Museum of American Art

Allies Day, May 1917, 1917

Childe Hassam
National Gallery of Art

My Egypt, 1927

Charles Demuth
Whitney Museum of American Art 

 

  

House and Street, 1931

Stuart Davis
Whitney Museum of American Art 

 

Classic Landscape, 1931

Charles Sheeler
National Gallery of Art

Angel's Flight, 1931 

Millard Sheets 

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The Brooklyn Bridge: Variation on an Old Theme, 1939 

Joseph Stella  

Whitney Museum of American Art

 

Nightlife, 1943

Archibald J. Motley, Jr.
© 2009 The Art Institute of Chicago 

Poker Night (from A Streetcar Named Desire), 1948
Thomas Hart Benton
Whitney Museum 

More American Masterpieces - Vote!

May 3, 2014, 5:56 am

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Cast Your Vote

Illustrations are not to scale. Click each illustration to view an enlarged version of the artwork.


Cast your votes below. Look at each piece carefully and choose your 10 favorite pieces of art. Then come back tomorrow and vote again, and again. Every person gets up to 10 votes every day through May 7, 2014.

Once tallied, your votes will inform the final selection of 50 works featured as the Art Everywhere US campaign for the entire month of August 2014.

Today I voted for 10 more masterpieces.

Here are some of the ones I voted for:

Watson and the Shark, 1778

John Singleton Copley

National Gallery of Art

The Icebergs, 1861

Frederic Edwin Church
Dallas Museum of Art

 

 

Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl, 1862

James McNeill Whistler
National Gallery of Art

Noontide in Late May, 1917

Charles Burchfield

Whitney Museum of American Art

 

Razor, 1924

Gerald Murphy
Dallas Museum of Art

Early Sunday Morning, 1930

Edward Hopper
Whitney Museum of American Art 

Nighthawks, 1942

Edward Hopper
The Art Institute of Chicago

War Series: The Letter, 1946
Jacob Lawrence
Whitney Museum of American Art

The Subway, 1950

George Tooker
Whitney Museum of American Art 

Three Flags, 1958

Jasper Johns
Whitney Museum of American Art 

American Legends: From Calder to O’Keeffe

May 3, 2014, 6:36 am

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Thirteen early to mid-century American artists who forged distinctly modern styles are the subjects of American Legends: From Calder to O’Keeffe, through Oct 19, 2014 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Drawing from the Whitney’s permanent collection, the year-long show features iconic as well as lesser known works by Alexander Calder, Stuart Davis, Burgoyne Diller, William Eggleston, Morris Graves, Edward Hopper, Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Jacob Lawrence, Roy Lichtenstein, Elie Nadelman, Alice Neel, and Georgia O’Keeffe. One. Curator Barbara Haskell has organized the museum’s holdings of each of these artists’ work into small-scale retrospectives.

Many of the works included will be on view for the first time in years; others, such as Hopper’s A Woman in the Sun, Calder’s Circus, Jacob Lawrence’s War Series, and Georgia O’Keeffe’s Summer Days, are cornerstones of the Whitney’s collection.

For aspiring young painters and sculptors in America, traveling to Europe and assimilating European styles was considered integral to becoming a modern artist. By the turn of the twentieth century, with America’s emergence as an international power, the nation’s artists began to reassess their earlier dependence on Europe in favor of creating independent styles, inspired by American subjects and forms of expression. Two clear movements dominated art in the first half of the twentieth century: realism and modernism.

“Despite their seemingly antithetical styles and subject matter, the two groups shared a determination to portray their intense connection to American subjects,” Haskell explains. “Together, they charted a new direction in American art and, in the process, redefined the relationship between art and modern life.”

By featuring realists, such as Hopper and Burchfield, alongside modernists, such as Bluemner and Stella, American Legends: From Calder to O’Keeffe represents the vitality and diversity of early twentieth-century American art. The Whitney has a long and proud history of supporting this work, as evidenced by the depth of its holdings of the eighteen artists in this exhibition.


Images and Credits


Stuart Davis

Stuart Davis
Egg Beater No.1, 1927
Oil on canvas
29 3/16 x 36 3/16 in. (74.1 x 91.9 cm)
Gift of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney 31.169

Stuart Davis
Place Pasdeloup, 1928
Oil on canvas
36 3/8 x 29 in. (92.4 x 73.7 cm)
Gift of Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney 31.170

Stuart Davis
Early American Landscape, 1925
Oil on canvas
19 3/16 x 22 3/16 in. (48.7 x 56.4 cm)
Gift of Juliana Force 31.1

Stuart Davis
House and Street, 1931
Oil on canvas
26 1/8 x 42 1/8 in. (66.4 x 107 cm)
Purchase 41.3

Stuart Davis
Owh! In San Paõ, 1951
Oil on canvas
52 3/16 x 42 in. (132.6 x 106.7 cm)
Purchase 52.2

Stuart Davis
The Paris Bit, 1959
Oil on canvas
46 1/8 x 60 1/16 in. (117.2 x 152.6 cm)
Purchase, with funds from the Friends of the Whitney
Museum of American Art 59.38a-b



William Eggleston

William Eggleston
Untitled (Bathroom with Pink Curtain, Cuba), 2007,
printed 2009
Inkjet print
22 x 28 in. (55.9 x 71.1 cm)
Purchase, with funds from Marcia Dunn and Jonathan
Sobel Foundation 2010.160



Morris Graves

Morris Graves
Flight of Plover, 1955
Oil on canvas mounted on composition board
36 1/8 x 48 1/8 in. (91.8 x 122.2 cm)
Purchase, with funds from Mr. and Mrs. Roy R.
Neuberger 56.4

Morris Graves
Bird in the Spirit, c. 1940-41
Opaque watercolor on paper
21 3/8 x 41 3/4 in. (54.3 x 106 cm)
Purchase, with funds from the Friends of the Whitney
Museum of American Art 59.9

Morris Graves
In the Night, 1943
Transparent and opaque watercolor on paper mounted
on board
26 1/8 x 38 1/4 in. (66.4 x 97.2 cm)
Gift of Mrs. Robert M. Benjamin 84.74


Edward Hopper

 

Edward Hopper
Early Sunday Morning, 1930
Oil on canvas
35 3/16 x 60 in. (89.4 x 152.4 cm)
Purchase, with funds from Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney
31.426

Edward Hopper
Second Story Sunlight, 1960
Oil on canvas
40 3/16 x 50 1/8 in. (102.1 x 127.3 cm)
Purchase, with funds from the Friends of the Whitney
Museum of American Art 60.54

Edward Hopper
South Carolina Morning, 1955
Oil on canvas
30 3/8 x 40 1/4 in. (77.2 x 102.2 cm)
Given in memory of Otto L. Spaeth by his Family 67.13

Edward Hopper
Self-Portrait, 1925-1930
Oil on canvas
25 3/8 x 20 3/8 in. (64.5 x 51.8 cm)
Josephine N. Hopper Bequest 70.1165
On view May 2013 to Oct. 2014

Edward Hopper
Le Parc de Saint-Cloud, 1907
Oil on canvas
23 3/4 x 28 15/16 in. (60.3 x 73.5 cm)
Josephine N. Hopper Bequest 70.1180

Edward Hopper
Railroad Crossing, 1922-1923
Oil on canvas
29 7/16 x 40 1/16 in. (74.8 x 101.8 cm)
Josephine N. Hopper Bequest 70.1189

Edward Hopper
New York Interior, c. 1921
Oil on canvas
24 5/16 x 29 3/8 in. (61.8 x 74.6 cm)
Josephine N. Hopper Bequest 70.1200

Edward Hopper
Small Town Station, 1918-1920
Oil on canvas
26 1/4 x 38 5/16 in. (66.7 x 97.3 cm)
Josephine N. Hopper Bequest 70.1209


Jasper Johns

Jasper Johns
White Target, 1957
Encaustic and oil on canvas
30 x 30 in. (76.2 x 76.2 cm)
Purchase 71.211

Jasper Johns
Three Flags, 1958
Encaustic on canvas
30 5/8 x 45 1/2 x 4 5/8 in. (77.8 x 115.6 x 11.7 cm)
50th Anniversary Gift of the Gilman Foundation, Inc.,
The Lauder Foundation, A. Alfred Taubman, Laura-Lee
Whittier Woods, and purchase 80.32

Jasper Johns
Savarin Poster, 1977
Lithograph with graphite pencil, ballpoint pen, and wax
crayon
47 7/8 x 31 5/8 in. (121.6 x 80.3 cm)
Gift of the artist 2001.310.9



Jacob Lawrence

 

Jacob Lawrence
War Series: Prayer, 1947
Egg tempera on composition board
16 1/8 x 20 1/4 in. (41 x 51.4 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Neuberger 51.6

Jacob Lawrence
War Series: Shipping Out, 1947
Egg tempera on composition board
20 1/4 x 16 1/16 in. (51.4 x 40.8 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Neuberger 51.7

Jacob Lawrence
War Series: Another Patrol, 1946
Egg tempera on composition board
16 1/8 x 20 1/4 in. (41 x 51.4 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Neuberger 51.8

Jacob Lawrence
War Series: Alert, 1947
Egg tempera on composition board
20 1/4 x 16 1/8 in. (51.4 x 41 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Neuberger 51.9a-b

Jacob Lawrence
War Series: The Letter, 1946
Egg tempera on composition board
20 1/4 x 16 1/8 in. (51.4 x 41 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Neuberger 51.11

Jacob Lawrence
War Series: Beachhead, 1947
Egg tempera on composition board
15 7/8 x 20 1/16 in. (40.3 x 51 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Neuberger 51.13



Jacob Lawrence
War Series: Going Home, 1947
Egg tempera on composition board
16 1/8 x 20 3/16 in. (41 x 51.3 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Neuberger 51.17a-b





Jacob Lawrence
War Series: Reported Missing, 1947
Egg tempera on composition board
15 7/8 x 20 1/16 in. (40.3 x 51 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Neuberger 51.18





Jacob Lawrence
War Series: Victory, 1947
Egg tempera on composition board
20 1/4 x 16 3/16 in. (51.4 x 41.1 cm)
Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy R. Neuberger 51.19





Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein
Salute to Aviation, 1968
Screenprint
46 1/8 x 25 in. (117.2 x 63.5 cm)
Purchase 70.26





Roy Lichtenstein
Still Life with Crystal Bowl, 1972
Oil and acrylic on canvas
52 x 42 in. (132.1 x 106.7 cm)
Purchase, with funds from Frances and Sydney Lewis
77.64

Roy Lichtenstein
Bathroom, 1961
Oil on canvas
45 3/4 x 69 3/8 in. (116.2 x 176.2 cm)
Gift of The American Contemporary Art Foundation,
Inc., Leonard A. Lauder, President 2002.253





Roy Lichtenstein
Girl in Window (Study for World’s Fair Mural), 1963
Oil and acrylic on canvas
68 1/8 x 56 in. (173 x 142.2 cm)
Gift of The American Contemporary Art Foundation,
Inc., Leonard A. Lauder, President 2002.254


Alice Neel

Alice Neel
The Soyer Brothers, 1973
Oil on canvas
59 15/16 x 46 3/16 in. (152.2 x 117.3 cm)
Purchase, with funds from Arthur M. Bullowa, Sydney
Duffy, Stewart R. Mott and Edward Rosenthal 74.77





Alice Neel
John Perreault, 1972
Oil on linen
38 x 63 7/8 in. (96.5 x 162.2 cm)
Gift of anonymous donors 76.26





Alice Neel
Andy Warhol, 1970
Oil and acrylic on linen
60 x 40 in. (152.4 x 101.6 cm)
Gift of Timothy Collins 80.52

Alice Neel
Pat Whalen, 1935
Oil, ink, and newspaper on canvas
27 1/8 x 23 1/8 in. (68.9 x 58.7 cm)
Gift of Dr. Hartley Neel 81.12

Alice Neel
Blanche Angel Pregnant, 1937
Pastel on paper
26 x 20 1/2 in. (66 x 52.1 cm)
Purchase, with funds from the Drawing Committee
87.53




Georgia O’Keeffe

 

Georgia O’Keeffe
The Mountain, New Mexico, 1931
Oil on canvas
30 1/16 x 36 1/8 in. (76.4 x 91.8 cm)
Purchase 32.14

Georgia O’Keeffe
The White Calico Flower, 1931
Oil on canvas
30 3/16 x 36 3/16 in. (76.7 x 91.9 cm)
Purchase 32.26

Georgia O’Keeffe
Abstraction, 1926
Oil on canvas
30 3/16 x 18 1/4 in. (76.7 x 46.4 cm)
Purchase 58.43

Georgia O’Keeffe
It Was Blue and Green, 1960
Oil on linen
30 1/8 x 40 in. (76.5 x 101.6 cm)
Lawrence H. Bloedel Bequest 77.1.37

Georgia O’Keeffe
Black and White, 1930
Oil on canvas
36 x 24 1/8 in. (91.4 x 61.3 cm)
50th Anniversary Gift of Mr. and Mrs. R. Crosby Kemper
81.9

Georgia O’Keeffe
Flower Abstraction, 1924
Oil on canvas
48 1/8 x 30 in. (122.2 x 76.2 cm)
50th Anniversary Gift of Sandra Payson 85.47


















Georgia O’Keeffe
Music—Pink and Blue II, 1919
Oil on canvas
35 x 29 15/16 in. (88.9 x 76 cm)
Gift of Emily Fisher Landau in honor of Tom Armstrong
91.90

Georgia O’Keeffe
Summer Days, 1936
Oil on canvas
36 1/8 x 30 1/8 in. (91.8 x 76.5 cm)
Gift of Calvin Klein 94.171

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William Hogarth: Proceed with Caution

May 3, 2014, 6:43 am

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The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas at Austin presented a selection of prints by William Hogarth, a celebrated English satirist. William Hogarth: Proceed with Caution, on view October 6, 2012 – January 13, 2013, brought together a selection of the artist’s most important eighteenth-century series including

Marriage à la Mode, 

A Rake’s Progress, 

and Industry and Idleness.

In this exceptional display representing the breadth and dynamism of the artist’s oeuvre, the exhibition imparts a broad understanding of Hogarth’s overarching messages.

William Hogarth (1697-1764) stood at the center of a rich tradition of political and social satire in the first half of eighteenth-century England. Inspired by a period of economic turmoil and social unrest, Hogarth’s exquisitely detailed etchings and engravings function as cautionary tales for his fellow Londoners. His multi-layered, visual narratives unravel stories of virtue and vice; they highlight integrity and merit as a means toward tremendous honor and riches, and emphasize corruption as a path leading to dreadful consequences and disgrace. Hogarth’s critique of contemporary society provides a glimpse into the complexities of life in eighteenth-century London – complexities that strangely mirror those in present-day.

“Hogarth’s message is as valid today as it was over 250 years ago. Today’s society strives to instill the same ethical principles that Hogarth examined in his works,” suggestedCatherine Zinser, Blanton curatorial associate and curator of the exhibition. “This exhibition presents an extraordinary opportunity to see a selection of the artist’s major series, each intended to evoke several layers of society.”

In a fine example of symbolic storytelling, Marriage à la Mode, Hogarth challenges the notion that the wealthy lead virtuous lives. A six-plate progression allows viewers to witness the disintegration of an arranged marriage as a young couple indulges in numerous vices, from gambling and drinking to extramarital affairs. When the husband catches his wife in the midst of an affair, he tries to defend his honor only to die at the hand of his wife’s lover who later hangs for the crime. In the series’ final scene, the widow poisons herself in a fit of grief. Evidence that disease has passed to the next generation is seen in the blemishes of the couple’s young daughter, now an orphan. Hogarth hired French engravers to craft the prints on view in the exhibition, modeled after the artist’s painting series of the same name.

Similar accounts of woe are illustrated in Hogarth’s The Four Stages of Cruelty and A Rake’s Progress, also on view.

Painting the Comic Muse, 1758
Etching and engraving, Paulson 204, fifth state of seven
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2846




Beer Street, 1751
Etching and engraving, Paulson 185, third state of four
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2005.166




Gin Lane, 1751
Etching and engraving, Paulson 186, third state of four
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2005.167




The First Stage of Cruelty, from The Four Stages of Cruelty, 1751
Etching with engraving, Paulson 187, first state of two
Archer M. Huntington Museum Fund, 1991.156




The Second Stage of Cruelty, from The Four Stages of Cruelty, 1751
Etching with engraving, Paulson 188, first state of two
Archer M. Huntington Museum Fund, 1991.157




Cruelty in Perfection, from The Four Stages of Cruelty, 1751
Etching with engraving, Paulson 189, only state
Archer M. Huntington Museum Fund, 1991.155




The Reward of Cruelty, from The Four Stages of Cruelty, 1751
Etching with engraving, Paulson 190, third state of four
Archer M. Huntington Museum Fund, 1991.158




The Fellow 'Prentices at their Looms, plate I from Industry and Idleness, 1747
Etching and engraving, Paulson 168, second state of two
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2847.1/12




The Industrious 'Prentice Performing the Duty of a Christian, plate II from Industry and
Idleness, 1747
Etching and engraving, Paulson 169, second state of two
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2847.2/12




The Idle 'Prentice at Play in the Church Yard, plate III from Industry and Idleness, 1747
Etching and engraving, Paulson 170, second state of two
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2847.3/12




The Industrious 'Prentice a Favourite and Entrusted by his Master, plate IV from
Industry and Idleness, 1747
Etching and engraving, Paulson 171, second state of two
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2847.4/12




The Idle 'Prentice Turned Away and Sent to Sea, plate V from Industry and Idleness,
1747
Etching and engraving, Paulson 172, third state of three
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2847.5/12




The Industrious 'Prentice Out of His Time and Married to His Master's Daughter, plate
VI from Industry and Idleness, 1747
Etching and engraving, Paulson 173, fourth state of five
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2847.6/12




The Idle 'Prentice Returned from Sea and in a Garret with a Common Prostitute, plate
VII from Industry and Idleness, 1747
Etching and engraving, Paulson 174, second state of two
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2847.7/12




The Industrious 'Prentice Grown Rich and Sheriff of London, plate VIII from Industry
and Idleness, 1747
Etching and engraving, Paulson 175, second state of two
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2847.8/12




The Idle 'Prentice Betrayed by His Whore and Taken in a Night Cellar with His
Accomplice, plate IX from Industry and Idleness, 1747
Etching and engraving, Paulson 176, third state of four
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2847.9/12

The Industrious 'Prentice Alderman of London, the Idle One Brought Before Him &
Impeached by His Accomplice, plate X from Industry and Idleness, 1747
Etching and engraving, Paulson 177, second state of two
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2847.10/12

The Idle 'Prentice Executed at Tyburn, plate XI from Industry and Idleness, 1747
Etching and engraving, Paulson 178, third state of three
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2847.11/12




The Industrious 'Prentice Lord Mayor of London, plate XII from Industry and Idleness,
1747
Etching and engraving, Paulson 179, third state of three
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2002.2847.12/12
Gérard Jean-Baptiste Scotin II
Paris, 1698–after 1755
The Marriage Settlement, plate I from Marriage à la Mode, 1745, after



Etching and engraving, Paulson 158, sixth state of eight
The Teaching Collection of Marvin Vexler, '48, 1997.45.1/6
Bernard Baron
Paris, 1696–London, circa 1766
The Tête à Tête, plate II from Marriage à la Mode, 1745, after



Etching and engraving, Paulson 159, fourth state of five
The Teaching Collection of Marvin Vexler, '48, 1997.45.2/6
Bernard Baron
Paris, 1696–London, circa 1766
The Inspection, plate III from Marriage à la Mode, 1745, after



Etching and engraving, Paulson 160, second state of three
The Teaching Collection of Marvin Vexler, '48, 1997.45.3/6
Simon Francis Ravenet, the elder
Paris, 1706–London, 1774
The Toilette, plate IV from Marriage à la Mode, 1745, after



Etching and engraving, Paulson 161, fourth state of four
The Teaching Collection of Marvin Vexler, '48, 1997.45.4/6
Simon Francis Ravenet, the elder
Paris, 1706–London, 1774
The Bagnio, plate V from Marriage à la Mode, 1745, after



Etching and engraving, Paulson 162, fourth state of five
The Teaching Collection of Marvin Vexler, '48, 1997.45.5/6
Gérard Jean-Baptiste Scotin II
Paris, 1698– after 1755
The Lady’s Death, plate VI from Marriage à la Mode, 1745, after



Etching and engraving, Paulson 163, third state of three
The Teaching Collection of Marvin Vexler, '48, 1997.45.6/6




The Heir, plate I from A Rake’s Progress, 1735
Etching and engraving, Paulson 132, third state of three
The Karen G. and Dr. Elgin W. Ware, Jr. Collection, 2004.147.1/8




The Levée, plate II from A Rake’s Progress, 1735
Etching and engraving, Paulson 133, fourth state of four
The Karen G. and Dr. Elgin W. Ware, Jr. Collection, 2004.147.2/8




The Orgy, plate III from A Rake’s Progress, 1735
Etching and engraving, Paulson 134, third state of three
The Karen G. and Dr. Elgin W. Ware, Jr. Collection, 2004.147.3/8




The Arrest, plate IV from A Rake’s Progress, 1735
Etching and engraving, Paulson 135, first state of three
Jack S. Blanton Curatorial Endowment Fund, 2004.148




The Marriage, plate V from A Rake’s Progress, 1735
Etching and engraving, Paulson 136, third state of three
The Karen G. and Dr. Elgin W. Ware, Jr. Collection, 2004.147.5/8




The Gaming House, plate VI from A Rake’s Progress, 1735
Etching and engraving, Paulson 137, second state of three
The Karen G. and Dr. Elgin W. Ware, Jr. Collection, 2004.147.6/8

The Prison, plate VII from A Rake’s Progress, 1735
Etching and engraving, Paulson 138, fourth state of four
The Karen G. and Dr. Elgin W. Ware, Jr. Collection, 2004.147.7/8

The Madhouse, plate VIII from A Rake’s Progress, 1735
Etching and engraving, Paulson 139, second state of three
The Karen G. and Dr. Elgin W. Ware, Jr. Collection, 2004.147.8/8

Turner and Venice

May 3, 2014, 6:50 am

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Museo Correr, Venice
From September 4, 2004 to January 23, 2005

Organised by Musei Civici Veneziani and the Tate Britain, the exhibition was curated by Ian Warrell, Collections Curator at Tate, and produced in collaboration with Venezia Musei.

The exhibition brought together around 120 works (oil paintings, watercolours, as well as prints, maps and Turner’s Venice sketchbooks) that chart the intense relation between the great English artist and Venice, which he visited at various times between 1819 and 1840.The works dedicated to Venice exemplify especially important aspects of Turner’s art – in particular, his handling of light. Some of them being exhibited to the public for the first time, they offer one the chance to chart the development of the artist’s own personal poetics. The exhibition also provides an opportunity to compare Turner’s work with that of artists who were important points for reference for him – for example, Canaletto, Marlow, Caffi and Doyle.

This was the first major exhibition devoted to JMW Turner’s trips to Venice. It spanned the twenty years between Turner’s first visit to Venice in 1819, when he was already forty-four, and his last in 1840.

Even among Venice’s many distinguished artistic visitors, Turner remains one of the few to find a true echo of his own sensibility in the unique qualities of this sublime floating city. His career was remarkable for its successes and its innovations, yet his images of Venice were quickly recognised by their first viewers as some of his most magical, luminous works. Turner’s vision remains as vital today, expressing as it does the often inchoate and funereal qualities of the Venetian experience.

The exhibition was organised in collaboration with Tate Britain , where it was shown during the autumn of 2003. Most of the works come from Turner’s own bequest, which was reunited in the Clore Gallery at the Millbank branch of the Tate in 1987 (the watercolours had were stored at the British Museum between 1929 and 1986). The Bequest contains all the works found in Turner’s studio after his death: some 300 oil paintings; plus all his watercolours and sketchbooks, which amount to more than 20,000 sheets of paper. It is only in the last thirty years that the full range of this material has received serious scholarly study, and as a result some works are only now being exhibited for the first time. During this period the Tate has mounted a long series of exhibitions exploring the diverse interests reflected in Turner’s output, charting his fascination with poetry, perspective and print-making, as well as his endless wanderings in Britain and on the Continent.

Works in the exhibition:

Antonio Canal know as Canaletto (1697 - 1768), Grand Canal from Ca' Balbi towards Rialto (1720 - 1723)

J.W.Turner, Venice, the Piazzetta with the Ceremony of the Doge Marrying the Sea, 1835 ca.

J.W.Turner, The Piazzetta and the Doge's palace from the Bacino, 1840 ca.

J.W.Turner, The Porta della Carta, Doge's Palace, 1840 ca.

J.W.Turner, Venice: An Imaginary View of the Arsenale, 1840 ca.

 

 
J.W.Turner, San Marco and the Piazzetta, with San Giorgio Maggiore; night, 1840

J.W.Turner, Venice at Sunrise from the Hotel Europa, with the Campanile of San Marco, 1840

J.W.Turner, The Upper End of the Grand Canal, with San Simeone Piccolo; Dusk, 1840

JMW Turner, San Giorgio Maggiore at Sunset, from the Hotel Europa, 1840

JMW Turner, The Dogana, San Giorgio, Zitelle, from the Steps of the Europa

JMW Turner, The Giudecca Canal, looking towards Fusina at Sunset

JMW Turner, The Sun of Venice going to Sea

JMW Turner, Venice – Maria della Salute

JMW Turner, Returning from the Ball [St Martha]

JMW Turner, Fishermen on the Lagoon, Moonlight



Turner’s images of Venice are one of the most important aspects of his work as a mature artist. Although he spent comparatively little time there (less than four weeks in all during three visits) he built a very close association with the city, attracted partly by its literary and historical associations and the reputation of its painters, and partly by its own unique beauties. Paintings of the sea and the effects of light on water had always been important to Turner, so it was perhaps inevitable that he should be attracted by the city’s celebrated light, the result of its dramatic setting on a series of islands in the middle of a saltwater lagoon. Most of the works in this exhibition come from the artist’s own immense bequest, housed at Tate Britain, London. Very little of this material had been exhibited during Turner’s lifetime, and the majority of it was undoubtedly unfinished by the standards of the period, allowing us to savour Turner’s private reactions to his subject. The paintings he showed at the Royal Academy grew out of a profound enthusiasm for the city, and its enchantments cast a spell over his art for the last twenty years of his working life.

The exhibition introduces here the variety of images which formed Turner’s ideas of Venice before he set out on his first visit in 1819. Above all, it was the work of Antonio Canaletto (1697-1768) which enabled Turner’s generation to feel they knew the city well even before they arrived. Turner, like so many other visitors, would have known Canaletto’s work mainly through engraved reproductions, especially a set by Antonio Visentini, published in 1735-42, focused on the Grand Canal, with other plates devoted to the city’s churches and public spaces. Turner acknowledged his debt to Canaletto in his first painting of Venice, which shows ‘Canaletti’ working (improbably) in the open air at his easel. But Turner never allowed himself to be constrained by Canaletto’s example; he absorbed principles from the earlier artist but, especially in his later work, he was concerned to produce something quite different. Canaletto’s example can also be felt in the works of other British artists of the period, including William Marlow and Richard Parkes Bonington, who exhibited in both Paris and London. Marlow’s painting provides an instructive example of the ways in which London and Venice were seen as related commercial centres at the end of the 18th century.

Turner made three visits to Venice during the course of about twenty years:

1819: 8-13 September; stayed at the Albergo Leon Bianco
1833: from 9 September for about a week; stayed at the Hotel Europa in the Ca’Giustinian
1840: 20 August – 3 September; stayed again at the Hotel Europa.

It was Turner’s habit to sketch principally in pencil, especially if his time was limited (he claimed he could make fifteen pencil sketches in the time taken to produce one watercolour). This explains his somewhat cursory response to Venice in 1819, when he painted only four watercolours, though these brilliantly distil the effect of morning sunlight across the Bacino. Similarly the 1833 visit is documented almost exclusively in his sketchbooks, though some of the colour studies made on sheets of grey paper are likely to date from this visit, as they set out compositions which he later reworked as oil paintings.

The final visit of 1840 was his longest and, therefore, his most productive stay in Venice. Turner’s contemporaries were well aware of his love of Venice; he exhibited as many as twenty-five oil paintings of the city between 1833 and 1846. But the true strength of his fascination only became known after his death. Ten sketchbooks, containing many hundreds of Venetian scenes, were found in his studio, as well as a large group of watercolours. These remain the most compelling evidence of Turner’s personal vision of the city.

TURNER AND THE LITERARY VISION OF VENICE

If Canaletto was one of the most powerful influences on Turner’s ideas about Venice, he was equally moulded by a number of literary sources. Above all Shakespeare’s Venetian plays – The Merchant of Venice and Othello – and Byron’s poems and verse-dramas. These works inevitably permeate Turner’s paintings and watercolours of the city.

The final part of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage was published in 1818, just as Turner’s interest in the art, history and landscape of Italy was at its most intense. The poem may well have contributed to his determination to visit Venice for the first time. Turner’s reputation was founded partly on his images of picturesque ruins, so Byron’s evocation of Venice as a city still beautiful, though ‘Her palaces are crumbling to the shore’, must have had an especially strong appeal.

In the 1820s, Turner produced two sets of book illustrations for the poetry of Samuel Rogers. These were immensely popular in the nineteenth century, introducing his work to several generations, including the young John Ruskin.

TURNER AND VENETIAN PAINTING: RELIGIOUS AND MYTHOLOGICAL SUBJECTS

When Turner began his career, in the 1790s, the London art world was entranced by the beauties of Venetian painting. The Peace of Amiens in 1802 marked a temporary halt in the war between Britain and France, making travel to the Continent possible. Turner went to Paris to study in the Louvre, which at the time housed many works of art appropriated by Napoleon’s troops. Some of these were taken from Venice itself, including works by Veronese, Titian and Tintoretto. Turner admired paintings which showed how landscape could play a vital role in the action of a painting, rather than merely providing a background setting. He was particularly impressed by Titian’s ‘colour and pathos of effect’, and attempted to assimilate the lessons of the master in his own pictures.

The exhibition focused now more closely on Turner’s work, arranged to take you on a trip through the city, starting here with the monuments at its heart, in the Piazza San Marco, and its adjacent Piazzetta. Dominating these spaces are the Doge’s Palace, the Campanile, the highest bell-tower in Venice, and the Basilica of San Marco. The palace had been the city hall and courthouse as well as the residence of the Doge, the head of the Venetian state. The Basilica had once been the Doge’s private chapel, but in 1807 Napoleon made it the city’s cathedral. Many found its mixture of architectural styles incomprehensible: the poet Thomas Moore described it as ‘barbaric’. But Turner studied the outside during his first visit to Venice, and on later trips used dark brown paper to suggest the gloom of the interior and heighten the glinting of the mosaics.

In the 18th century Canaletto’s images had contributed to a prevailing preference for the city seen in sparkling sunlight. But as its palaces crumbled and its canals became choked with weeds, poets such as Thomas Moore began to suggest that Venice became magical only when the ‘dimness of the light’ masked its decay. Turner only publicly exhibited one painting of Venice at night. His contemporaries were unaware of the large group of studies he had made principally for his own use, showing the city’s transformation by moonlight. Few of the drawings and watercolours shown here were considered worthy of being exhibited in public until relatively recently.

During his final stay in Venice Turner seems to have used his rooms in the Hotel Europa as a temporary studio. The building is not the same as that which now houses the Hotel Europe e Regina (where Monet stayed), but lies closer to the mouth of the Grand Canal in the Ca’Giustinian, just behind San Moise. Turner’s windows looked out in one direction towards the Campanile of San Marco to the east, while from the top of the building he could look down across the canal to the Dogano and the Salute. The backs of several of these studies are annotated with notes by Turner that testify to his excitement in being the temporary possessor of these views.

Ippolito Caffi (Belluno, 1809 – waters around Vis, Croatia 1866) was born in Belluno in 1809. He attended the Fine Arts Academy in Venice where he studied historic painting and Canaletto’s view paintings. A great innovator of Venetian view painting, he traveled extensively throughout Italy and sojourned from 1832 to 1836 in Rome, a point of convergence of landscape painters from all over Europe. Here, Caffi executed his splendid renditions of the ancient ruins, achieving exceptional results. This period was followed by travels in the Middle East and Greece and, in 1848, involvement in the uprisings of the Risorgimento, which would cause Caffi to spend several years in exile. During this time, he exhibited his work at The Great Exhibition in London in 1851. Upon his return to Venice in 1857, Caffi resumed painting with fresh enthusiasm, making effective use of colour and light in a series of images destined to become his most famous: serenades on the Grand Canal, S.Giorgio Maggiore, and the Venetian carnival, in which Caffi reveals his deep fascination with subdued light and nighttime scenes. The works included in the exhibit convey this expressive research.

Turner devoted a whole sketchbook to a survey of the entire length of the canal. Other watercolours focus on the areas near the two hotels where he was based during his three visits: around the Rialto Bridge and along the Canal’s last great curve to the Dogano (or Customs House). As well as working from a boat, Turner painted some of his watercolours from the landing stages on the Canal. His views of the final stretch are dominated by the church of Santa Maria della Salute, its domes transformed by the afternoon sunlight and shadows.

The Giudecca Canal separates the city from the homonym island. Turner had ventured briefly onto the Giudecca during his first visit to Venice, though he had only got as far as the church of the Redentore (Redeemer), designed by Palladio in the 16th century. It was not until his final visit, in 1840, that Turner really began to appreciate the spectacular views across to the heart of the city that the area offered. Earlier artists had largely neglected the Giudecca Canal, so Turner made the most of the opportunity to present the city’s familiar landmarks in striking new ways. Directly opposite the Doge’s Palace, at the east of the Giudecca, lies the island of San Giorgio Maggiore. Its buildings were largely conceived by the architect Andrea Palladio in the mid-16th century. Most striking is the church of San Giorgio Maggiore. Its campanile and dome appear repeatedly in Turner’s watercolours, viewed at times from the quays and canals of the city, but also seen from the water. He seems to have been particularly fascinated by the play of light on the brick and marble surfaces of the island’s buildings. Turner’s dedication put other artists to shame. William Callow admitted feeling guilty that he was lying around smoking in a gondola late one evening when he saw Turner in another gondola, still sketching San Giorgio.

The Riva degli Schiavoni offers spectacular views of the Bacino di San Marco – St Mark’s Basin – and the city’s most famous buildings. It had once been the commerical heart of the city; ships from all over the world anchored here when Venice was at the height of its power as a trading centre. But by Turner’s day the volume of shipping had shrunk significantly and many mid-nineteenth century viewers could compare contemporary views of the Bacino with the vibrancy shown in Canaletto’s paintings a century or so earlier: Turner tended instead to focus on smaller craft, gondolas or the local fishing boats known as ‘bragozzi’.

Byron described Venice as a jewel rising out of the sea, but surprisingly few artists tried to show its isolated setting in the vast expanses of the Lagoon. Turner seems to have been alone in developing a fascination for the profile of the city seen from the surrounding waters. His last images show it as a glittering silhouette, touched by the light of dawn or sunset. Some show arrivals or departures: we seem to be either approaching Venice with anticipation, or leaving it, watching it melt into the distance. The works in this final section were produced during the last ten years of Turner’s life. They divided the critics. Many who admitted to being entranced by his ‘beautiful and fantastic play of colours’ were disconcerted by the difficulty of making out forms and shapes. Several of these pictures remained unsold in Turner’s Gallery at his death. But seen here, as the climax of the exhibition, they show Turner maintaining to the end his determination to find new perspectives from which to challenge and enchant the viewer.

Sandro Botticell at the Städel Museum

May 3, 2014, 7:15 am

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The Städel Museum hosted an exhibition on Sandro Botticelli (1444/45–1510) from 13 November 2009 to 28 February 2010. Taking the artist’s monumental  

Idealized Portrait of a Lady, 

 one of the Städel Museum collection’s highlights, as its starting point, the exhibition presented numerous works from all productive periods of this great master of the Renaissance in Italy about 500 years after his day of death (17 May 1510).

The exhibition opened with portraits and allegorical paintings that illustrate the degree of sophistication with which Botticelli drew on this highly developed genre and enriched it with new impulses. While the second section centered on his famous mythological representations of goddesses and heroines of virtue, the third part iwa dedicated to his abundant religious oeuvre.

With a total of more than forty works by Botticelli and his workshop, the show presented a comprehensive selection of his work surviving worldwide. Forty further exhibits, among them works by such contemporaries as Andrea del Verrocchio, Filippino Lippi, and Antonio del Pollaiuolo, will allow to understand Botticelli’s precious creations in the historical context of their genesis.

The presentation was supported by outstanding loans from the most important collections of paintings in Europe and the United States. These include the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery London, the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, and the Old Masters Picture Gallery in Dresden, as well as the Metropolitan Museum in New York and the National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Sandro Botticelli’s painting has become a landmark of Italian Renaissance. The delicate beauty, elegant grace, and unique charm of his frequently melancholic figures make his work the epitome of Florentine painting in the Golden Age of Medici rule under Lorenzo the Magnificent. Initially trained as a goldsmith and then apprenticed to Fra Filippo Lippi, Sandro Botticelli soon ranked among the most successful painters in Florence in the second half of the quattrocento next to Verrocchio, Ghirlandaio, and the Pollaiuolo brothers. From 1470 on, he received prestigious public commissions and established himself as a painter of large altarpieces. 

Throughout his life, Botticelli was in the ruling Medici family’s and their supporters’ good graces. Fulfilling their wishes for innovative decorative paintings, the master could not only rely on his personal knowledge of Florentine traditions and of ancient art, but also on definite suggestions and concepts from the circle of humanists gathered around Lorenzo de’ Medici. Held in equally high esteem as both a panel and a fresco painter, Botticelli enjoyed a high standing beyond his native Florence and was thus one of theartists summoned to decorate the walls of the Sistine Chapel in Rome by Pope Sixtus IV in 1481. It was particularly his much-discussed late work that brought out the characteristic features of his original style in an extreme manner.

Guided by the art of drawing – the exhibition includedan outstanding selection of preparatory sketches – Botticelli followed his penchant for presenting his figures with sharp contours, strong movements, and abundant gestures, grounding his compositions on textures of lines and surfaces rather than on spaces and volumes. In this respect, his painting had already stood out against his competitors’ works and current theoretical demands in his early years.

The starting point and center of the cross-genre exhibition was provided by a main work from the collection of the Städel Museum not only very well known in Frankfurt: the master’s idealized portrait of a young lady, who is probably to be identified with Simonetta Vespucci, the beloved jousting tournament lady of Lorenzo’s brother Giuliano de’ Medici. This portrait is less aimed at a true-to-life likeness of the subject than at the ideal of a woman characterized by perfect beauty and equally perfect virtuousness, an ideal also reflected in the poetry of that time. Such an ideal defines itself not least through its rapport with antiquity: thus, the beautiful female wears a piece of jewelry round her neck which is obviously based on an ancient cameo showing Apollo and Marsyas, which wasalso be on display in the exhibition.

In the Städel Museum, 

Botticelli’s famous portrait of Giuliano from the National Gallery of Art in Washington 

offered itself for comparison with his beloved Simonetta’s likeness. Both paintings make up the center of the first part of the presentation, which is devoted to Botticelli’s art of portraiture and, drawing on prominent examples, illustrates the interplay between social norm and artistic form as well as the different genre conventions of the male and the female portrait.

The second section of the exhibition dealt with Botticelli’s mythological pictures, which number among the artist’s most original creations. The Uffizi Gallery in Florence, which safeguards the most comprehensive and significant collection of works by the artist in the world, supported the exhibition in Frankfurt with one of its most popular works among others loans: the famous  

Pallas and the Centaur, 

 one of Botticelli’s monumental mythological paintings, to be seen in the context of Medicean self-presentation. 

Together with Botticelli’s 

Primavera,  

it once adorned the walls of a bedchamber in a Florentine palace owned by the family of bankers. We see Pallas taming the wild centaur indulging in his passions through her wisdom and virtue. The control and cultivation of emotions was a central issue in ancient philosophy and – combined with Christian thought – of the Renaissance, too; among the painters of the time, Botticelli offered himself as a congenial interpreter for such subjects. The political dimension and the reference to the patron family are symbolically present in the form of two intertwined diamond rings on Pallas’s gown, which were an emblem of the Medici family. 

Another great female figure featuring in the Florentine artist’s oeuvre is the goddess Venus. His life-size 

Venus from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin 

is a repetition of the central figure of (the unloanable) 

 

Birth of Venus in the Uffizi Gallery, 

which he isolated from the context of the scene and set off against a black background. This work is one of the first monumental nudes of postancient painting.

The third and last section of the exhibition was devoted to Botticelli’s religious pictures. Next to his portraits and mythological works, Botticelli has owed his continuing fame to his Madonnas. According to theological thinking, Mary stands out as the ideal woman among the saints: she is the most virtuous and the most beautiful female, the bride of the Song of Songs. Besides many other works spanning from Botticelli’s earliest works still revealing the influence of his teacher Fra Filippo Lippi to examples of his late style, the exhibition in Frankfurt shows one of the artist’s most beautiful Madonnas:  

The Virgin Adoring the Sleeping Christ Child.  

The Madonna’s physiognomy of this painting from the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, whose brilliant colorfulness has only been uncovered through restorative measures some years ago, is rendered in the vein of the same female model which the painter developed for his idealized portraits and pictures of ancient goddesses. This chapter also includes a number of narrative pictures, such as a removed Annunciation fresco once to be found in the vestibule of the hospital of San Martino alla Scala in Florence and preserved in the Uffizi Gallery today. Not only the enormous size of the fresco (243 x 550 cm), but also its qualities as a painting testify to Botticelli’s extraordinary importance in this medium. Four panels depicting scenes from the life of St. Zenobius, an early bishop and patron of Florence, offer a further highlight, with which the exhibition ends. Usually scattered to museums in London, Dresden, and New York, they have been brought together for the first time in Frankfurt again. Ranking not only among his most significant late works, but also among his very last, the panels are to be considered as Botticelli’s legacy as an artist.

Curator: Dr. Andreas Schumacher (Städel Museum)

Research assistants: Gabriel Dette M.A. and Dr. Bastian Eclercy (Städel Museum)

Exhibition architecture: Nikolaus Hirsch & Michel Müller Architekten, Michiko Bach

Catalogue: 

On the occasion of the exhibition, a comprehensive catalogue edited by Andreas Schumacher and comprising an introduction by Max Hollein and texts by Cristina Acidini, Gabriel Dette, Bastian Eclercy, Hans Körner, Lorenza Melli, Ulrich Rehm, Volker Reinhardt, Anna Rühl, and Andreas Schumacher was published by Hatje Cantz. German and English editions.

Norman Rockwell’s America

May 6, 2014, 12:05 pm

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Boy Graduate
Norman Rockwell, 1959, oil on canvas

Two Children Praying
Norman Rockwell, 1954, oil on canvas

 Bridge Game - The Bid
Norman Rockwell, 1948, oil on canvas




After shattering attendance records with its debut in England, Norman Rockwell’s America, a comprehensive exhibition of the legendary illustrator’s 60-year career, opens at the Birmingham Museum of Art on September 16, 2012.

Featuring more than 52 original paintings and all 323 vintage Saturday Evening Post covers, the exhibition visually chronicles the evolving landscape of American culture and society from 1916-1969 and is one of the largest Rockwell exhibitions to ever travel. Rockwell’s six-decade career depicts one of the most eventful periods in American history, spanning four wars, the Great Depression, the space race, and the Civil Rights Movement. Organized by the National Museum of American Illustration in Newport, Rhode Island, the exhibition premiered to critical and popular acclaim at London’s Dulwich Picture Gallery in December 2010.

Norman Rockwell’s career as an illustrator began in 1912, at the age of 18, when he published his first works. That same year, he was hired as a staff artist for Boys’ Life, the official publication of the Boy Scouts of America. He soon became the magazine’s art editor, a position he held for three years. While Rockwell’s relationship with the Boy Scouts continued long after his departure, it was his work with the Saturday Evening Post that made him a household name. With his first Post cover published in 1916, Rockwell often used his friends, family members and even himself as models for his work. He usually worked from reference photographs staged in his studio, and created scenes depicting everyday American life based on his own experience.

Although often remembered for his nostalgic approach to American daily life, Rockwell also seriously addressed major social issues of the time in some of his later work.

The Problem We All Live With showcases the courage of a young black girl led by US Marshals on her walk to school on the first day of desegregation. The original painting recently hung in the West Wing of the White House at the personal request of President Obama.

Rockwell’s exploration of such controversial topics was a radical departure from the generally positive and frequently humorous scenes he was known for in his Saturday Evening Post days.

As a painter, Rockwell mastered a wide variety of techniques, and showed strong interest in art history, sometimes emulating the work of the Old Masters, and even showing an interest in Modern artists such as Piet Mondrian and Jackson Pollock.

ROCKWELL, MORAN LEAD CHRISTIE’S SALE OF AMERICAN ART ON MAY 22

May 6, 2014, 12:24 pm

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Christie’s spring sale of American Art on May 22 will offer total of 172 lots, with outstanding works of from a range of styles and genres, including Illustration, Modernism, Western Art, Nineteenth Century and American Impressionism.  This fantastic array of masterworks is led by Norman Rockwell’s The Rookie (Red Sox Locker Room) and Thomas Moran’s The Grand Canyon of the Colorado.  

The Rookie illustration ©SEPS. Used with permission from Curtis Licensing, Indianapolis, Indiana. All Rights Reserved

The Rookie (Red Sox Locker Room) by Norman Rockwell, which has never been offered at auction, was painted in 1957 for the March 2^nd cover of The Saturday Evening Post and has remained in the same private collection for nearly thirty years.   It has been publicly exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston twice–once in 2005 and again in 2008–following World Series victories by the Red Sox. 

The work was painted in 1957 for the March 2nd cover of The Saturday Evening Post and has remained in the same private collection for nearly thirty years. It has been publicly exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston twice–once in 2005 and again in 2008–following World Series victories by the Red Sox. Estimated at $20-30 million, The Rookie (Red Sox Locker Room) marks the highest estimate ever for Norman Rockwell at auction.

Norman Rockwell’s covers for The Saturday Evening Post during the 1950s reflected the direction of editor Ben Hibbs, who strove to make the magazine more current to increase circulation. Nothing could be a more popular subject to an American audience than baseball and no player other than Ted Williams, “The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived” was commanding more attention at the time, on the eve of his retirement from baseball. Rockwell conceived this cover at least 9 months in advance of its publication date on March 2nd, 1957, just in time for the start of spring training for the Red Sox.

Over the summer of 1956, he convinced team management to send four players from the starting lineup up to Rockwell’s hometown, Stockbridge, Massachusetts, deep in Red Sox country. Pitcher Frank Sullivan, right fielder Jackie Jensen, catcher Sammy White all posed for the painting. Williams was either unable or unwilling to make the trip and Rockwell captured his likeness from his trading card, and other photographs. Rockwell traveled to Sarasota to take pictures of the Red Sox spring training stadium and locker room. The palm trees which sway in the window indicate the location. The Rookie (Red Sox Locker Room) depicts an intimate scene during spring training; an awkward newcomer is juxtaposed with the confident stances of the seasoned players, making the rookie’s anxiety all the more apparent and endearing. 

In addition to The Rookie (Red Sox Locker Room), ten other works by Norman Rockwell will be offered in the sale, including

The Collector (estimate: $700,000-1,000,000),

Boy Graduate (estimate: $2,000,000-3,000,000)

and Willie Gillis in Church (estimate: $2,000,000-3,000,000).

Christie’s sale of American Art on May 22 will feature Thomas Moran’s (1837-1926) magnificent large-scale painting The Grand Canyon of the Colorado. Painted in 1904, the work is one of Moran’s most ambitious oils of the subject from the period. This canvas presents an awe-inspiring panorama and manifests Moran’s romantic and inspirational vision of the American West. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado, which has been exhibited at both the Royal Academy in London and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., has not been offered for sale in over two decades. At $8-12 million, this is the highest pre-sale estimate assigned to a work by Thomas Moran at auction, reflecting the superb quality and rarity of this masterwork.

Moran first visited the Grand Canyon in 1873 as part of John Wesley Powell’s expedition. The artist eagerly accepted Powell’s invitation to join the excursion, as he was planning a pendant for his painting  

 

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, 

which Congress had purchased for the Capitol the previous year. Moran was immediately captivated by the unique and dramatic light, color and topography of the Grand Canyon and later wrote, “Of all places on earth the great canyon of Arizona is the most inspiring in its pictorial possibilities.”

The Grand Canyon of the Colorado is a masterwork of Moran's mature style and represents the artist at the height of his abilities. Although he visited the Grand Canyon many times and created multiple of images of the geologic wonder over the course of five decades, few are as richly complex or as monumental in scale as this painting, which captures the sublime beauty of the area in its expanse of rugged peaks and atmospheric valleys. Throughout, he employs his characteristic keen attention to light, color, and detail and the high vantage point underscores the vastness of the Canyon. Moran studied at a time when the strict realist theories of John Ruskin were lauded and, though adhering to the auspices of precise geologic transcription, it is evident that he was far more interested in capturing and conveying the emotional effect the landscape inspired.

The current world auction record for a work by Thomas Moran is 

Green River of Wyoming,

which sold at Christie’s in 2008 for $17.7 million, against a pre-sale estimate of $3.5-5 million. In addition to setting a record for the artist, it also set the record price for any 19th century work of American Art at auction.

Another view of the Gran Canyon by Moren: