Art History News

Biography

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER was born on Maiden Lane in Covent Garden, London, in 1775 (the actual day is uncertain, but Turner maintained it was Saint George's Day, 23 April), the only son of William Turner and Mary Marshall. His mother, who was mentally unstable, was committed to Bethlem asylum for the insane in 1800, and died in 1804. During his only sister's fatal illness (she died in 1786) Turner was sent to live with his mother's brother in Brentford and attended Brentford Free School; this was his only formal education. His early artistic talent was encouraged by his father, who exhibited his drawings in his shop window (the father remained a devoted supporter and, later, was his son's studio assistant and general factotum until his death in 1829).

In 1789, the year of his first extant sketchbook from nature, Turner entered the Royal Academy Schools, also working at about this time in the studio of the architectural draftsman and topographer Thomas Malton. He exhibited his first watercolor at the Royal Academy in 1790 and his first oil in 1796; thereafter he exhibited nearly every year until a year before his death. He stayed with his father's friend, John Narraway, in Bristol in 1791, and from then on until the end of the Napoleonic Wars made frequent summer sketching tours in various parts of Britain. In 1794 he published his first two engravings, and in 1798 began drawings for The Oxford Almanack. Probably beginning in 1794 he worked for three years at Dr. Monro's evening "academy" in the company of Thomas Girtin, Edward Dayes, and others.

Turner's precocity led to his election as an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1799, and to full Academicianship in 1802. He revered the Academy all his life, was assiduous as a member of the council and hanging committee and as auditor of the accounts, and was proud to be appointed its professor of perspective in 1807, from 1811 until 1828 giving lectures that ranged widely over the problems of landscape painting. He moved from Maiden Lane to lodgings on Harley Street in 1799, opening his own gallery in contiguous premises on Queen Anne Street in 1804; this he enlarged between 1819 and 1822. In 1805 he took a house at Isleworth, keeping a second home on the riverside at intervals for the rest of his life (Upper Mall, Hammersmith, from 1806 to 1811; Sandycombe Lodge, Twickenham, from 1813 to about 1825; Cheyne Walk, from about 1846 onward).

Turner made his first journey abroad in 1802, traveling through France to Switzerland, and studying in the Louvre on his return. In 1817 he visited the Low Countries and subsequently traveled more frequently on the Continent (until 1845), less frequently in the British Isles (until 1831). Between 1819 and 1820 he paid his first visit to Italy, staying principally in Venice and Rome; he revisited Venice in 1833, 1835 (probably), and 1840.

He worked continuously for the publishers of illustrated books; his illustrations appeared at intervals between 1827 and 1835. Turner made his reputation as a topographical watercolorist, sketching from nature, mainly in pencil, the sketches serving as a repository of ideas of which he might make use months or even years afterward. He was determined to raise landscape painting to the level of ideal art, closer in the hierarchy of genres to history painting, and he experimented first in watercolor then in oils with many new techniques.

For some twenty years, from about 1798, he maintained a liaison with Sarah Danby, with whom he had two daughters, but he never married. In old age, following the death of his father and close friends, he became increasingly pessimistic and morose, allowed the house and picture gallery on Queen Anne Street to become dilapidated, and finally lived largely in his cottage on Cheyne Walk, cared for by his housekeeper, Mrs. Booth. There he died on 19 December 1851. He was buried in Saint Paul's Cathedral, London.

Sotheby’s Sale of Important Old Master Paintings January 29 & 30, 2009

A magnificent work by Joseph Mallord William Turner, The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius– is one of the most important oil paintings by the artist remaining in private hands (est. $12/16 million). The work has been in the private collection of prominent fineart dealer Richard L. Feigen for over twenty-five years, and was a highlight of the retrospective of the work of JMW Turner RA presented in 2008 by The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Dallas Museum of Art. The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius is one of only three oil landscapes concerned with ancient Greece painted by Turner, and is one of less than twenty significant paintings by the artist still held in private hands.

Sotheby’s December 5, 2007

“The Graphic Society, 1837 J.M.W. Turner, Bamborough Castle, watercolour, estimate: £1.5–2.5 million*

Sotheby’s offeried the artist’s lost masterpiece, Bamborough Castle, on Wednesday, December 5, 2007. Described by the Graphic Society in 1837 as “one of the finest watercolour-drawings in the world ”this major work looks set to generate huge excitement in the academic and collecting worlds alike. Itis expected to fetch in excess of £1.5 million. Dating from the mid 1830s, Turner’s Bamborough Castlehas spent most of its life to date in the possession of a distinguished private collection and, remarkably, it has not been seen on the open market since 1872 - some 135 years. In 1872 it wassold as part of the Joseph Gillott collection in London and realised £3,309, the highest price ever achieved for a watercolour at the time. The Earl of Dudley was the purchaser on this occasion but later - in about 1890 - the picture passed into the hands of one of the great American collecting families, that of the Vanderbilts.

The Vanderbilt family played a significant role in the history of the United States; they built a shipping and railroad empire during the 19thcentury which made them one of the wealthiest families in the world. Since entering the collection of Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt, the watercolour has passed down through successive generations of the family while the outside world has remained mystified as to its whereabouts. Listed as untraced in Andrew Wilton’s Catalogue of Turner Watercolours published in 1979, the work has not been seen in public since 1889. Perched on an outcrop on the very edge of the North Sea at Bamborough, Northumberland, Bamborough Castle is one of England’s finest castles.

In his watercolour, Turner has chosen to show the castle from its north side, the angle which clearly portrays the height and presence of the castle’s impressive Norman walls. The formidable castle is serenely depicted as the one point of safety in themidst of a charged landscape. In the foreground, awoman and girl appear to cower from the large roiling waves while a ship struggles to reach the security of the land under the great storm clouds. In the 19thcentury the castle had a reputation for being one of the great places of refuge on the British coast during storms for sailors in distress. It actually had rooms within the walls that wereput aside for rescued sailors as well as a marine rescue party that constantly patrolled an eight-mile stretch of the coast north and south of the castle.Turner was a great admirer of such details and hecaptures the castle’s preparations with a rocket launched in the distance and people gathered at the waters-edge, ready to rescue the sailors who are rowing away from their vessel that has struck the massive rocks.

The watercolour, which measures 505x705mm, relates to an earlier pencil drawing of the castle from 1797. The work has all of Turner’s signature elements; his energetic handling of colour which is often applied in rapid scratch-like strokes, or smeared into place with his fingertips, or scratched away with the tip of a brush to reveal the paper beneath.

Henry Wemyss, Head of British Watercolours at Sotheby’s, comments: “This watercolour fully demonstrates the genius of Turner and it’s a real treat to have the privilege of bringing it to sale. Its recent re-discovery after more than a century away from the public eye, alongside its dramatic and powerful British subject, result in an incredibly rare and special work of art. The market in 1872 made it not only the most valuable watercolour, but more expensive than many Turner oils. I think the Graphic Society got it right in 1837 when they described it as ‘one of the finest watercolour-drawingsin the world.’” Research on the painting is still in progress, but it is possible that the work may shed new light on Turner’s working practices. It seems, for instance, that here Turner has backed the sheet of paper with two further laminated sheets – no doubt to strengthen the paper but also, possibly to intensify the colours he used.

JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER, R.A. (1775-1851) is Britain’s greatest watercolourist and the last few years have seen him take centre stage like never before. In July of this year Sotheby’s offered for sale the Ullens Collection, the finest collection of privately-owned Turner watercolours to have come to the market in living memory, which saw the artist’s

Lungernzee realise £3.6 million.

Hot on the heels of this, a major exhibition entitled J.M.W.Turner has just opened at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. This actually follows record new prices in 2006 when one of Turner’s Venice masterpieces sold for $35.8 million in New York while his

The Blue Rigi fetched £5.8 million in London.

Sotheby's 2008

Joseph Mallord William Turner R.A.

LANDSCAPE WITH MILL, DURHAM CATHEDRAL IN THE BACKGROUND

LOT SOLD. 51,650 GBP

Sotheby's 2013

Joseph Mallord William Turner R.A.

HEIDELBERG WITH A RAINBOW

LOT SOLD. 4,562,500 USD

Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

THE MEWSTONE, DEVON

LOT SOLD. 266,500 GBP

Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

BURG ELTZ, GERMANY

LOT SOLD. 98,500 GBP

Joseph Mallord William Turner

THE FIELD OF WATERLOO SEEN FROM HOUGOUMONT

LOT SOLD. 509,000 USD

Sotheby's 2014

Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

ROME, FROM MOUNT AVENTINE

LOT SOLD. 30,322,500 GBP

Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

ETON, FROM THE SLOUGH ROAD

LOT SOLD. 176,500 GBP

Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

LOOKING DOWN THE VAL D’AOSTA TOWARDS AOSTA AND THE PONT SUZA

LOT SOLD. 182,500 GBP

Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

A SWISS LAKE, LUNGERNZEE

LOT SOLD. 266,500 GBP

Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

STUDY OF A CASTLE BY A LAKE - RECTO STUDY OF A CASTLE AND BUILDINGS ON A RIVER - VERSO

LOT SOLD. 302,500 GB

Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

BEECH TREES AT CASSIOBURY PARK, HERTFORDSHIRE

LOT SOLD. 104,500 GBP

National Gallery (Washington, DC)

Turner, Joseph Mallord William
, British, 1775 - 1851
The Junction of the Thames and the Medway
1807
oil on canvas
overall: 108.8 x 143.7 cm (42 13/16 x 56 9/16 in.)
framed: 148 x 180.3 cm (58 1/4 x 71 in.)
Widener Collection
1942.9.87
Turner, Joseph Mallord William
, British, 1775 - 1851
Mortlake Terrace
1827
oil on canvas
overall: 92.1 x 122.2 cm (36 1/4 x 48 1/8 in.)
framed: 111.1 x 143.2 x 9.5 cm (43 3/4 x 56 3/8 x 3 3/4 in.)
Andrew W. Mellon Collection
1937.1.109
Turner, Joseph Mallord William
, British, 1775 - 1851
Rotterdam Ferry-Boat
1833
oil on canvas
overall: 92.3 x 122.5 cm (36 5/16 x 48 1/4 in.)
framed: 115.6 x 146 x 7.6 cm (45 1/2 x 57 1/2 x 3 in.)
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection
1970.17.135
Turner, Joseph Mallord William
, British, 1775 - 1851
Venice: The Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore
1834
oil on canvas
overall: 91.5 x 122 cm (36 x 48 1/16 in.)
framed: 125.7 x 156.5 x 14 cm (49 1/2 x 61 5/8 x 5 1/2 in.)
Widener Collection
1942.9.85
Turner, Joseph Mallord William (painter)
, British, 1775 - 1851
Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Moonlight
1835
oil on canvas
overall: 92.3 x 122.8 cm (36 5/16 x 48 3/8 in.)
framed: 127.6 x 158.1 x 14 cm (50 1/4 x 62 1/4 x 5 1/2 in.)
Widener Collection
1942.9.86
Turner, Joseph Mallord William
, British, 1775 - 1851
The Rape of Proserpine
1839
oil on canvas
overall: 92.6 x 123.7 cm (36 7/16 x 48 11/16 in.)
framed: 124.1 x 154.9 x 10.1 cm (48 7/8 x 61 x 4 in.)
Gift of Mrs. Watson B. Dickerman
1951.18.1
Turner, Joseph Mallord William
, British, 1775 - 1851
The Dogana and Santa Maria della Salute, Venice
1843
oil on canvas
overall: 62 x 93 cm (24 7/16 x 36 5/8 in.)
framed: 86 x 116.5 cm (33 7/8 x 45 7/8 in.)
Given in memory of Governor Alvan T. Fuller by The Fuller Foundation, Inc.
Turner, Joseph Mallord William
, British, 1775 - 1851
The Evening of the Deluge
c. 1843
oil on canvas
overall: 76 x 76 cm (29 15/16 x 29 15/16 in.)
Timken Collection
1960.6.40
Turner, Joseph Mallord William
, British, 1775 - 1851
Approach to Venice
1844
oil on canvas
overall: 62 x 94 cm (24 7/16 x 37 in.)
framed: 88 x 118.4 x 12.4 cm (34 5/8 x 46 5/8 x 4 7/8 in.)
Andrew W. Mellon Collection

Sotheby’s sale of Important Old Master Paintings January 29 & 30, 2009

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes’ Portrait of Prince Alois Wenzel Von Kaunitz-Rietbergdatesto 1815-1817, after the French armies had been ejected from Spain and Goya had been re-instated as the Pintor de Cámara(est. $2.5/3.5 million).

The portrait is painted in Goya’s late style with his subject depicted against a modern gray background, bringing his features and persona to the forefront with no distractions. Prince Kaunitz had learned an appreciation for fine art from the family collection he inherited, and sought Goya, then the most famed artist in Madrid, to paint his portrait during his appointment there as Ambassador from Vienna.

The Prince is skillfully painted with keen attention to his facial features, which portray an air of entitlement, and through which faint remnants of the artist’s preliminary sketches show. The quick strokes suggest that the work may have been painted in a single sitting, and it seems that the work was taken out of Spain to Vienna almost immediately after its completion. The canvas has until recently been undocumented in Goya literature and reappeared only in 1989.

Sotheby's 2013

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

PORTRAIT OF MARIANO GOYA, THE ARTIST'S GRANDSON

Estimate 6,000,000— 8,000,000 USD

Sotheby’s London Sales of Impressionist and Modern Art on 5 & 6 February 2014

FROM GOYA TO PICASSO: WORKS FROM THE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF JAN KRUGIER

Jan Krugier was both a connoisseur of art and humanity and his collection mirrors his lifelong quest for works that involve the viewer both visually and intellectually. Krugier once confessed that looking at drawings helped him overcome demons of the past and Francisco de Goya’s remarkable depiction of a man with a distressed expression entitled

Loco (Madman)would probably have been be one of them (est. £700,000-900,000/$1.2-1.5 million, t). This prodigious drawing – one of four by Goya in the sale - is among the most powerful and extraordinary late works of the painter contained in the “Bordeaux albums”, an ensemble of works drawn during the artist’s exile in France, between 1824 and his death in 1828.

FRANCISCO DE GOYA

YOUNG WOMAN IN WHITE FALLING TO THE GROUND

Lot vendu: 542,500 GBP

JAN KRUGIER: A JOURNEY (1928-2008)

Born into a Jewish art collecting family in Poland in 1928, Jan Krugier was a boy when the Second World War broke out, and was captured by the Nazis while a courier for the Polish resistance in 1943. He escaped from a train to Treblinka and spent about eight months in the forest, until he was found in the snow at the end of 1943. Eventually he endured Treblinka, as well as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dora-Nordhausen and Bergen-Belsen.

After the end of the war, he was the only member of his family to have survived. In 1945 he was taken under the wing of a family in Switzerland, through whom he discovered a new realm of promises. He met the esteemed philosopher Martin Buber in Locarno and elected to pursue painting, enrolling at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Zurich. Art became for him a profound source of inspiration.

In 1947 he moved to Paris and rented Soutine’s studio. He spent summers in the Engadine mountains to paint and on one of thosetrips he met Alberto Giacometti whose studio in Stampa was close to his atelier in Majola. They became friends and when Krugier took a studio at the Cité Falguière in Paris, Giacometti was a frequent visitor and became a valued confidant. After some time Giacometti confessed that he thought painting was too agonizing for Krugier and that he should instead become an advisor and open a gallery as an art dealer. Krugier followed his friend’s encouragement and focused on consulting private Swiss collectors.

In 1962 he opened Galerie Krugier & Cie in Geneva and staged a number of shows with artists including Giacometti, Wifredo Lam, Bram van Velde, Morandi and Calder. He held themed exhibitions such as Metaphysica, Bonjour Monsieur Coubet,Futurism and The Nabis.

With Albert Loeb in 1966 he opened Galerie Loeb and Krugier in New York at 12 East 57thStreet which operated until 1971. In 1972 the Geneva gallery moved location and was renamed Galerie Jan Krugier. By 1983 Krugier had again established a presence in New York, first with an office and then in 1987 with anofficial space, Jan Krugier Gallery at 41 East 57th Street. Over five decades his galleries set a remarkable benchmark and the quality, intelligence, sensitivity and unexpected juxtapositions of the shows they staged became legendary.

Among Krugier’s manifold achievements, his involvement with the work of Pablo Picasso is perhaps the best known. Krugier met the Spanish master when he was himself a young artist: “I was invited to Picasso’s studio...thanks to Spanish friends who had been with me in the concentration camps. But I was so anxious, so nervous. Picasso was very kind with me. He had such a look, such a powerful expression.”

Following Picasso’s death, Marie-Thérèse Walter, the artist’s long-time muse and lover entrusted him with her collection. In the fall of 1973 in Geneva, Krugier organised the first Picasso exhibition after the artist’s passing, showing works belonging to Marie-Thérèse Walter.

In 1976, he became the sole agent for the collection of Picasso’s works inherited by the artist’s granddaughter, Marina. Krugier launched a world tour of the Marina Picasso Collection which travelled to museums in Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne, Zurich, Venice, Tokyo, Melbourne, Sydney and Miami between 1981 and 1986. He also presented the collection in his galleries in New York and Geneva in 1986, 1987 and 1989 and sold a selection of works to benefit the Marina Picasso Foundation.

Over many decades, Jan Krugier was committed to the

highest ideals in the understanding and appreciation of the arts. He and his wife, Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski were equally captivated by Antiquities and Contemporary paintings, Renaissance drawings and Cubist collage, Tribal sculptures and paradigms of the Enlightenment. Jan Krugier was nothing short of a pioneer and many recognised this during his life time. In 1996 he was honored as Commandeur des Arts et des Lettresby France.

Sotheby's 2014

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes

PORTRAIT OF THE PAINTER CESAR ARBASIA, BUST-LENGTH, WITHIN RED CHALK FRAMING LINES

LOT SOLD. 206,500 GBP

Christie's

Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes (Fuendetodos 1746-1828 Bordeaux)
Hutiles trabajos (Useful work)
Pr.£2,281,250($3,650,000)

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes...

Bajan riñendo (They go down quarrelling) or Vision de bajar riñendo (Vision:

PRICE REALIZED

£2,281,250

Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes (Fuendetodos 1746-1828 Bordeaux)
Si yerras los tiros! (If you miss
Pr.£1,517,875($2,308,688)

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828)
Los Proverbios (Delteil 202-219; Harris
Pr.£6,875($10,656)·

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes
Bailando en una cuerda floja
(DisparatePr.£4,000($6,200)·

For Vincent Van Gogh, nature was the defining subject of his art. Over the course of his short but intense working life, Van Gogh studied and depicted nature in all its forms—from the minutia of insects and birds’ nests to the most sweeping of panoramic landscapes—creating a body of work that revolutionized the representation of the natural world at the end of the nineteenth century. Opening on June 14, 2015 and shown exclusively at the Clark Art Institute, Van Gogh and Nature is the first exhibition devoted to the artist’s abiding exploration of nature in all its forms.

Van Gogh’s focus on nature was rooted in his love of the art of his time, both the landscapes created by Barbizon School artists and the highly-keyed, quickly brushed paintings of the Impressionists, but he brought a personal passion and subjective sensibility to his work that continues to enthrall art lovers to this day. Much of the artist’s adult life was devoted to drawing and painting the natural world, yet this fundamental aspect of his work has not previously been the focus of intense study.

Presenting fifty works including iconic paintings such as

1. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, 1889. Oil on canvas, 72.1 x 90.9 cm. The National Gallery, London, bought Courtauld Fund, 1923 Image © The National Gallery, London 2014

2. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), Rain–Auvers, 1890. Oil on canvas, 50.3 x 100.2 cm. Amgueddfa Cymru— National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, Gwendoline Davies Bequest, 1952 © National Museum of Wales

3. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), The Sower, c. 17–28 June 1888. Oil on canvas, 64.2 x 80.3 cm. Kröller- Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands

4. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), Winter Garden, 1883. Pen and brush and ink on paper, 28.6 x 20.6 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation) *Note that credit line must always be adjacent to the work

5. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), Butterflies and Poppies,1890. Oil on canvas, 35 x 25.5 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation) *Note that credit line must always be adjacent to the work

6. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), Hospital at Saint-Rémy, 1889. Oil on canvas, 90 x 71 cm. Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, the Armand Hammer Collection, gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation

7. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), Imperial Crown Fritillaries in a Copper Vase, 1887. Oil on canvas, 73.3 x 60 cm. Musée d'Orsay, Paris, bequest of comte Isaac de Camondo, 1911 Photo: Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY

8. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), Giant Peacock Moth, 1889. Chalk with pen and brush and ink on paper, 16.3 x 24.2 cm. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

9. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), Dandelions, 1889. Oil on canvas, 35.5 x 57 cm. Kunstmuseum Winterthur, donated by Dr Herbert und Charlotte Wolfer-de Armas, 1973 © Schweizerisches Institut für Kunstwissenschaft, Zürich, Lutz Hartmann

10. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), Cypresses, 1889. Oil on canvas, 93.4 x 74 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Rogers Fund, 1949, 49.30 Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY

11. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), The Olive Trees, Saint-Rémy, June–July 1889. Oil on canvas, 72.6 x 91.4 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Mrs. John Hay Whitney Bequest, 1998 Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY

12. Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853–1890), Landscape from Saint-Rémy, 1889. Oil on canvas, 70.5 x 88.5 cm. Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, on long-term deposit from the National Gallery of Denmark, Copenhagen, since 1915 Photo: Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY

the exhibition focuses on Van Gogh the serious artist, not on the mythic “tortured painter” of film and fiction. Van Gogh is presented as a thoughtful and meticulous student of nature who found solace and personal fulfillment in studying and enjoying the natural world.

“We are delighted to have the opportunity to present this unique look at Vincent van Gogh’s life and work. We believe Van Gogh and Nature will resonate strongly with visitors, particularly within the Clark’s transformed campus landscape which is so deeply connected with the beauty of our natural setting, and will invite visitors to contemplate Van Gogh’s experiences while enjoying the beauty of the Berkshires,” said Michael Conforti, the Felda and Dena Hardymon Director of the Clark. “This incredible exhibition is a testament to the power of thought and deed. We are indebted to a brilliant curatorial team headed by our curator at large Richard Kendall and the many lenders to and supporters of the exhibition.”

About the Exhibition

Noted Van Gogh scholars Chris Stolwijk and Sjraar van Heugten joined Clark curator at large Richard Kendall as co-curators of the exhibition. A former curator at Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, Stolwijk is the director of RKD/Netherlands Institute for Art History, while van Heugten, the former head of collections at the Van Gogh Museum, is now an independent curator.

“Van Gogh has long been a subject of great interest to me and I am thrilled to be able to present a fresh view and greater understanding of him to the public,” said Kendall. “Working with these exceptional scholars has been a tremendous experience as we have learned so much about Van Gogh that has been lost in all of the hyperbole about his life and career. This exhibition allows us to clear up many of these misperceptions and helps people to understand Van Gogh in a new light.”

Works included in the exhibition are on loan from many of the most noted collections of the artist’s works, including the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; the Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo; the Museé d’Orsay, Paris; the National Gallery, London; the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen; The Metropolitan Museum, New York; and the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

The curators draw extensively from Van Gogh’s letters and from research into the artist’s deep interest in literature and science to explore the influences and themes that dominate much of his work. From his earliest letters to his last great drawings and paintings, Van Gogh showed an extraordinary fascination with the natural world. Youthful studies of trees, flowers, and heath-land were accompanied by verbal descriptions of the changing seasons, while increasingly ambitious pictures showed many aspects of the Dutch landscape. In 1874 he wrote to his brother Theo: “Always continue walking a lot and loving nature, for that’s the real way to learn to understand art better and better. Painters understand nature and love it, and teach us to see.”

In Van Gogh’s earliest works he depicted Holland as a country with distinctive topography, weather, and flora and fauna. Well educated and with some knowledge of botany and natural history, the artist’s correspondence showed a precocious awareness of bird, flower, tree, and plant species from his immediate environment. The remarkable drawing

Marsh with Water Lillies (1881, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond)

reveals that many of these preoccupations were evident at an early stage.

His travels to England, Belgium, and France brought new encounters with nature and a shift from the biblical perspectives of his youth to modern attitudes influenced by contemporary authors and expanding scientific knowledge. Late in his life, most notably while in Arles and Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh painted elemental landscapes in snow, wind, rain, and sunshine, while making incisive images of insects, leaves, and rocks that reflect his knowledge of museums and illustrated publications.

Van Gogh moved to Paris in early 1886, not only putting Holland behind him but also confronting many of the values and preoccupations of modern Europe. Long familiar with the novels of Zola, Daudet, and the Goncourt brothers, he tackled their city in paint and responded to its curious conjunctions of new and old, the natural and the artificial. Paintings of cultivated flowers, such as Imperial Crown Fritillaries in a Copper Vase (1887, Musée d’Orsay),(above) stood in contrast to depictions of modest blooms picked from parks and building sites. Rather than paint the grand boulevards of Paris, Van Gogh chose the village of Montmartre and other suburban areas, discovering dense thickets in urban parks where—as in

Undergrowth (1887, Centraal Museum, Utrecht)—

sunlight barely reached through the gloom. In his letters of this time, Van Gogh cited such radical thinkers as Jules Michelet and Ernest Renan, while as an artist he explored the daring new approaches to color and landscape pioneered by George Seurat, Émile Bernard, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

The most dramatic shift in Van Gogh’s engagement with nature undoubtedly occurred when he moved to Provence in 1888. Dandelions (1889, Kunstmuseum Winterthur) (above) exemplifies his close study of a subject that inspired a new kind of sustained attention to natural form. Little noticed until now are a number of drawings and other studies from this period that record Van Gogh’s scrutiny of individual flowers, insects, and birds, reminding us of his early education and his enquiring mind. At the other extreme, the artist often emphasized the dramatic rhythms of the landscape itself, in which fields and trees resonate in unison and entire hillsides seem animated. Olive Trees (1889, The Museum of Modern Art, New York), (above) depicting a mountainous landscape, is dominated by such rhythms, its “savage” qualities contrasted with the decadent character of Paris that Van Gogh commented upon in his writings.

Several of these preoccupations continued into the artist’s last months at Auvers, set in the lushness of northwest France. Van Gogh celebrated the fecundity of this new setting and the drama of clouds and rain-filled skies until his final days. During this period the audacity of his compositions was sometimes as extreme as his gestural draftsmanship and his bold approach to color and tonality. Some canvases were dedicated to an expanse of variegated cultivated crops while others, such as

Green Wheat Fields, Auvers (1890, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.)

exclude almost every trace of human culture in favor of light, earth, and natural growth. Painting outdoors every day in all types of weather conditions, Van Gogh’s ambition to create bold, authentic statements about the natural world seems to have been undiminished. In Rain–Auvers (1890, National Museum of Wales, Cardiff)(above), one of several monumental “double square” canvases created in the last weeks before his death, the artist carried his experiments in the presence of nature further than ever, painting earth and sky and the elements themselves.

Van Gogh and Nature also considers the artist’s fascination with nature in a broader perspective by presenting pictures and objects from the Clark’s permanent collection that evoke his wider engagement with nature. Included in the exhibition are

Tulip Fields at Sassenheim (Claude Monet, 1886), which Van Gogh saw on exhibition in 1886;

The Sower (Jean-François Millet, c. 1865);

and prints of natural subjects of the kind he admired such as

Horikiri Iris Garden (Utagawa Hiroshige I, 1857) from the newly acquired Rodbell Family Collection.

Also in the exhibition are the books La vie et l'oeuvre de J.F. Millet by Alfred Sensier (a copy of which Van Gogh owned), and La nature chez elle by Theophile Gautier, which current research has revealed as a source for the artist’s early drawings, as well as copies of popular books that Van Gogh read and valued for their information about the natural world.

Exhibition Catalogue

Van Gogh and Nature is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by curators Richard Kendall, Chris Stolwijk, and Sjraar van Heugten. The catalogue is distributed by the Clark and Yale University Press.

Claude Monet’s Le Parlement, soleil couchant, a magisterial depiction of London’s Gothic Houses of Parliament, as viewed from across the River Thames.Estimated at US$35-45 million

Le Parlement, soleil couchant will be among the top lots of Christie’s Looking Forward to the Past evening auction on May 11, a curated selection of top-quality works that explores the most innovative artists and movements of the20thCentury.

This wonderfully expressive Monet is simply one of the greatest depictions of the Houses of Parliament by the greatest artist of the 19th Century. Moreover, this picture heralds a new age in painting as artists were inspired by Monet to liberate colour and create wonderful abstractions by interpreting real subjects. One could argue that these pictures heralded the end of academic painting as artists were inspired to follow the path of abstraction from 1902 onwards. Monet was the father of modernism”.

Claude Monet’s Le Parlement, soleil couchant remains today one of the most entrancing series to have been composed by the artist duringthe finalphase of his career. Monet’s views of the Thames established a new departure in his work, preparing the ground for his last, mythic feat: the Nymphéas(Water Lilies) series.

Depicting a beautiful sunset over the Houses of Parliament, Le Parlement, soleil couchant belongs to a group of nineteen views that Monet started working on in 1900 and 1901. Le Parlement, soleil couchant and all the other views of Parliament were painted during the late hours of the afternoon and in early evenings. The present work appears to be a fantastical vision: backlit by a luminous pink sky breaching through the crevice sof the clouds, while the ilhouette of Parliament rises like a blue mirage, wavering above the water. Of the series, only five—Soleil couchant included—are still in private collections. The remaining fourteen are part of the collections of some of the world's most important museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Muséed'Orsay in Paris and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

The painting is one of three major works by Monett o feature in Christie’s upcoming Evening Sales in May; the two others come fro the collection of late Goldman Sachs Chairman John Whitehead, a 90-piece collection of classic Impressionist works led by Monet’s Paysage de matin (Giverny), 1888 and Les meules à Giverny, 1885

Mr. Whitehead, who passed away in February, was among the captains of the global finance industry for four decades, having served as Chairman of Goldman Sachs during its critical phase of global expansion. His signature brand of quiet leadership earned him both success and accolades, making him a sought-after leader and an invaluable resource within finance and government sectors, as well as the philanthropic and educational community. He became a key diplomatic figure at the end of the Cold War, serving as Deputy Secretary of State during the Reagan administration, and later as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. He led numerous civic and charitable organizations during his storied career, and in the wake of 9/11, he answered the call to serve as chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, tasked with rebuilding the area around Ground Zero. Throughout his career, he served on a wide range of boards, including Haverford College, the International Rescue Committee, the Boy Scouts of America, and Christie’s own American Advisory Board, among many others.

COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS

Among the star works from the Whitehead Collection to be featured within the May Evening Sale are Amedeo Modigliani’sPortrait deBéatrice Hastings from 1916 (US$7-10million) and Claude Monet’s Paysage de matin (Giverny) (US$6-8million; pictured page one).Together, these works depict the sweeping range of the collection; Modigliani’s portrait representing the dynamism of the European Avant-Garde and Monet’s landscape evoking the purity of French Impressionism with its revelry in light.

Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait de Béatrice Hastings, oil on canvas, 1916. US $7-10million

This dynamic portrait depicts Modigliani’s muse Béatrice Hastings, one of many pen names for South African writer, poet and literary critic, Emily Alice Haigh.
Hastings frequently posed for Modigliani, with whom she shared an apartment in Monteparnasse.
Modigliani used portraiture, especially of those in his immediate circle, as a means to explore an idealised aspect of humanity, an image of internal as well as external likeness.
With its expressive painterly surface, Béatrice Hastings, is in glorious physical condition, giving it the appearance of just having left the easel.

Claude Monet, Paysage de matin (Giverny), oil on canvas, 1888. US $6-8million –

Paysage de matin (Giverny) is a consummate example of the luminescent landscapes completed by Monet during his distinguished middle career.
Monet executed these works by situating himself in the midst of the French countryside with the hopes of encapsulating the light and conditions of a summer day within his canvases. Paysage de matin is an exceptional illustration of Monet’s ability to capture the light effects of his beloved Giverny.
The present work is representative of Monet’s most sought after qualities, contributing to its broad global appeal.

Claude Monet, Les meules à Giverny, 1885

Sotheby’s will offer an outstanding group of six paintings by Claude Monet, spanning the 1870s through the 1910s and including many of his most celebrated subjects: water lilies, Venice, a snowscape, the Seine and the Normandy coast. The works are emerging after significant time spent in their respective private collections, including a prime example of the artist’s iconic Nymphéas (‘Water Lilies’) series that was acquired by its present owner in 1955 (estimate $30–45 million*), and a Venice scene restituted to the son of legendary collector Jakob Goldschmidt in 1960 that is on offer from the collection of his grandson, the late Anthony Goldschmidt (estimate $15–20 million). In total, the six Monet paintings are estimated to achieve in excess of $78 million. Each of the works will be on view in London from 10–14 April, before returning to New York for exhibition on 1 May.

Simon Shaw, Co-Head of Sotheby’s Worldwide Impressionist & Modern Art Department, commented: “The six works by Monet that we are privileged to present this May represent exactly what buyers are seeking at this moment: several of his most famous scenes, emerging from prestigious private collections and completely fresh to the market. We’re undeniably witnessing an exceptional moment for great works by Monet at Sotheby’s. As new generations and new markets rediscover the master, the supply of strong examples remaining in private hands is shrinking fast. The result is fierce competition that leads to the results we have witnessed recently at Sotheby’s.”

Sotheby’s sold 18 works by Monet in 2014, with buyers from the US, UK, Europe, the Middle East and Asia demonstrating the global appeal of his enduring genius in today’s market. The works together achieved a remarkable $190.5 million, led by another example of the Nymphéas paintings (dated to 1906) that sold for $54.1 million – the second-highest price for any work by the artist at auction. Sotheby’s sold five works by Monet in its February 2015 Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art in London, which together totaled $83.8 million. That group was led by Le Grand Canal, another Venice picture that fetched $35.8 million – the current auction record for a Venice scene by the artist.

Nymphéas 1905 Estimate $30–45 million

Monet’s Nymphéas paintings stand as the most celebrated series in Impressionist art. The famous lily pond in the artist’s gardenat Giverny provided the subject matter for most of his major late works, recording the evolution of his style and his constant pictorial innovations. The present example dates from 1905, and has remained in the same distinguished private collection since 1955.

Until Sotheby’s worldwide exhibitions this spring, the painting has not been viewed in public since 1945.

This work was included in the seminal exhibition held at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1909, which Monet titled Les nymphéas, series de paysages d'eau par Claude Monet. The artist insisted on payment for almost all the works to be included in the show, resulting in legendary dealer Durand-Ruel – who did not have the funds to bankroll the whole exhibition – having to acquire the pictures jointly with the Bernheim-Jeune brothers. Monet and the dealers chose 48 canvases, all of the same subject, which were shown in three rooms and drew the attention and admiration of countless collectors.

The first owners of the present Nymphéas were Émil and Alma Staub-Terlinden of Männedorf. Together they amassed one of the finest private collections of Impressionist art in Switzerland, with much of it being purchased over a short period of time around the end of the 1910s. The painting remained in the Staub-Terlinden’s possession for many years, before being acquired by the present owner.

Le Palais Ducal 1908 Estimate $15–20 million

Monet’s spectacular view of the Palazzo Ducale on the Grand Canal belongs to the extraordinary series he completed in the fall of 1908 in Venice. Painted from the south-east vantage of a floating pontoon, the scene depicts the Palace, with its Byzantine fenestrations adorning the façade, alongside the Ponte della Paglia and the prison building on the right. Le Palais Ducal was confiscated from noted collector Jakob Goldschmidt by the National Socialist Government in February 1941. The painting was included in a forced auction of the Goldschmidt collection in September of that year, where it was bought as a present for the Nazi industrialist Dr. Albert Vögler – a former client of Jakob, who owed much of his success to Jakob’s financial genius. In 1960, the picture was reclaimed from Vögler’s heirs by Jakob’s son Erwin Goldschmidt, following 10 years of litigation in Hamburg. It subsequently descended to Erwin’s son Anthony Goldschmidt, who died in 2014. Sotheby’s held the first evening sale in its history in1958, with an auction dedicated to a selection of works that Jakob Goldschmidt had been able to get out of Germany – both through friends, and hidden in the trunk of his car. This landmark sale broke numerous records and ushered in a new era for the Impressionist & Modern art market. As it was restituted in 1960, the present work was not offered as part of this famed sale – as a result, it has never been exhibited publicly until Sotheby’s exhibitions this spring.

Bassin aux nymphéas, les rosiers 1913 Estimate $18–25 million

A vibrant example from 1913, Bassin aux nymphéas, les rosiers represents Monet at the height of his mature style. Here he depicts an arceaux de roses overlooking the tranquil surface of a pond with scattered clusters of water lilies. Monet painted three oils from this precise vantage point, one of which is now housed at the Phoenix Art Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, and the current version is the largest from this series. The work was acquired by its present owner in 1991.

Le Chemin d'Epinay, effet de neige 1875 Estimate $6–8 million

Resplendent with the glimmer and frosty sheen of snow and ice, Le Chemin d'Epinay, effet de neige depicts the trodden road leading into the town of Épinay-sur-Seine on the outskirts of Paris. This picture dates from the height of Monet's involvement with the Impressionists in Paris, when the artist was considered the premier landscape painter of the group – among whom snow scenes (effet de neige) were an important tradition. The present work may have been included in the historic second group showing of the Impressionists in 1876, as both it and a picture currently in the collection of the Albright-Knox Gallery match the description of one listed in the 1876 catalogue. It was acquired by its present owner at a Sotheby’s New York auction in 1984.

La Seine à Vétheuil 1901 Estimate $6–8 million

The small village of Vétheuil is situated along the Seine between the city of Mantes and the town of Vernon, and was home to Monet and his family between 1878 and 1880. This picturesque location was the site of some of Monet’s most successful Impressionist landscapes during this period, and continued to fascinate him well into his later career. Of the 15 paintings from the Vétheuil series, a number are now in the collections of major international museums, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, The Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and The Pushkin Museum in Moscow. The work has remained in the same private collection since 1955, and has never before appeared at auction.

Au Val Saint-Nicolas près Dieppe, matin 1897 Estimate $3–4 million

This dramatic cliff-top view of the Atlantic dates from Monet's painting expedition in Pourville in 1897. These paintings of the Normandy coast were the first works Monet completed after the exhibition of his Rouen Cathedral series, and his concern with capturing the fleeting effects of light and atmosphere and the way they transform a landscape predominates.

Nineteen major paintings lent from the private collection of Thelma and Melvin Lenkin of Chevy Chase, Md.,will be on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum from April17 through Aug.16.

Mary Cassatt’s renowned“Reading ‘Le Figaro’” is joined by major oil paintingsby George Bellows, Martin Johnson Heade, John Singer Sargent, John Sloan,William Glackens, John La Farge, Everett Shinna nd others.

These artworks will bei nstalled on the second-floor galleries of the museum within the chronological flow of the museum’s permanent collection to create a narrative around the excitement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries in America, a“coming-of-age” period inAmerican art.Many of theworks will beon public view for the first time.

Chief Curator Virginia Mecklenburg and Curator Emeritus William Truettner, longtime distinguished scholars of American Art, selected the artworks borrowed from the Lenkin Collection. Paintings by Bellows,Cassatt and Glackens have been featured at retrospectives of those artists, but many of the other paintings have rarely if ever been displayed in public.

Gilded Age expatriate artists such as Sargent and Cassatt pioneered impressionist styles abroad, challenging long-standing practice and rivaling their French counterparts.After 1900, artists on this side of the Atlantic such as Bellows, Glackens, Sloan and Shinn also abandoned traditional studio techniques to portray New York City’s bustling streets and slice-of-life views of parks, shops, bridges and entertainment halls. Together these artists revolutionized American art,liberating it from academic strictures to become a dynamic mirror of life as “The American Century” was beginning.The earliest artworks on loan date to the mid-1870s, when America’s Centennial led to a self-conscious assessment of the country’s cultural achievements and a new ambition for robust artistic expression.

Mary Cassatt’s tribute to her mother–“Reading ‘Le Figaro’” (1877-78)– is a forceful portrait of strong-willed resolve.Cassatt’s portrait is among the most powerful displays of painting technique in her entire oeuvre,

rivaling James McNeill Whistler’s earlier portrait of his mother, titled “Arrangement in Grey and Black”(1871).

The exotic flora and fauna depicted in Martin Johnson Heade’s “White Brazilian Orchid”(ca. 1870)

and “Yellow Orchid and Two Hummingbirds”(ca. 1875–85) signal a new American taste for decorative subjects of elegance and preciousness.

John La Farge’s “Roses in a Shallow Bowl”(1879) conveys the refined aestheticism to which Americans aspired during the Gilded Age.

Works by artists such as Bellows and Sloan, painted neart he turn of the century, focused on urban subjects– immigrant children, construction, shoppers, new wealth, and the see-and-be-seen aspect of city life. These painters embraced a changing world and depicted Americans plunging headlong into the future.

Two of Bellows’ paintings,

“River Rats”(1906)

and “Noon”(1908),

are emblematic of the artist’s affection for the gritty realities of New York’s rapidly developing neighborhoods and their inhabitants. Scrappy-looking children dive off a makeshift dock into the East River near a hillside cleared for tenement construction in River Rats.In Noon, a team of workhorses pullsa wagon loaded with barrels beneath an elevated train as stylishly dressed ladies scurry through the industrial site, showing New York in the midst of rapid transition from slum to a chic urban center.

Similarly, in Sloan’s “Easter Eve”(1907), a fashionable couple buys lilies from a store illuminated by electric lights, a new invention that revolutionized evening shopping and daily life.

“Early in their collecting career, Thelma and Melvin Lenkin took to heart the idea that a truly great artwork must combine superb formal properties of color, composition and brushwork, as well as a passionate intention and vision on the part of the artist,” said Mecklenburg. “They passed over many lesser artworks that were good but not great, waiting for the rare, exceptional opportunity.And they were rewarded for their patience.”

“The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniyoshi” is the first comprehensive overview of the artist’s work by aU.S. museum in more than 65years.The exhibition is a selective survey that will trace Kuniyoshi’s career though 66 of his finest paintings and drawings chosen from leading public and private collections in America and Japan. Most of the works from Japanese collections have not been exhibited in the U.S. for more than 25 years.

“The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniyoshi” is co-curated by Joann Moser, deputy chief curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Tom Wolf, a Kuniyoshi scholar and professor of art history at Bard College.

The exhibition will be on view from April 3 through Aug. 30; he Smithsonian American Art Museumis the only venue.

“Kuniyoshi remains one of our country’s most important and innovativemodern artists, yet his work has not been widely exhibited for decades,”said Betsy Broun, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. ”Kuniyoshi rose to prominence in the New York art world during the 1920s to become one of the most esteemed modernist artists in America between the two world wars, celebrated alongside artists such as Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe and Stuart Davis. During the course of his career his style ranged from deadpan humor toerotic sensuality to deep tragedy.

“The evolution of Kuniyoshi’s art from his slyly humorous works in the 1920s, through his sensual and worldly paintings of the 1930s, to the darker works of his last years is a deeply human story,and the opportunity to see it in all its complexity and visual eloquenceis a rewarding one,” said Wolf. "Kuniyoshi defined himself as an American artist while at the same time remaining very aware that his Japanese origins played an important role in his identity and artistic practices. He drew on American folk art, Japanese design and iconography and European modernism to create a sophisticated, distinctive mode of expression that integrated Eastern and Western styles. His inventive works often included subtle color harmonies, simplified shapes, oddly proportioned figures and an eccentric handling of space and scale."

“Kuniyoshi’s art—subtle and sophisticated, idiosyncratic and unique—defies easy categorization,” said Moser. “His paintings reveal a story of aspirations, disappointments, a striving for meaning and a place as an immigrant in America.”

About the Artist

Kuniyoshi (1889–1953) was a photographer and printmaker as well as a painter. He was born in Japan and came to the United States as a teenager, studying art in New York Cityin the Independent School and the Art Students League.He went on to teach at the Art Students League, to exhibit in prestigious exhibitions in the U.S. and abroad and to win major awards; among numerous other accolades he won first prize at the Carnegie International exhibition in 1944, was honored with the first retrospective exhibition of work by a living artist at the Whitney Museumin 1948 and exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1952.

He was active in politics in New York and was a member of several important artistic circles. His success, however, was shadowed by his immigrant status; though he was thoroughly integrated into American society and considered himself American, immigration law prevented him from becoming a citizen. During WWII Kuniyoshi remained steadfastly loyal to the United States and put his talents to work as a poster artist to support the war effort; despite this, the U.S. government declared him to be an “enemy alien” in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and he faced increasing prejudice and harassment. Kuniyoshi remained active and influential in artist circles and continued to paint and teach until his death in 1953.

Publication

“The Artistic Journey of Yasuo Kuniyoshi” is accompanied by a catalog with an essay on Kuniyoshi by Wolfand an introduction by Broun. It is published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in association with D Giles, Ltd.

From the Washington Post (Excellent review):

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, “Boy Stealing Fruit,” 1923, oil on canvas, Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, Gift of Ferdinand Howald. (Copyright Estate of Yasuo Kuniyoshi/Licensed by VAGA)

...One of many Kuniyoshi quirks is his use of strangely surreal bowls, plates and tabletops to frame the otherwise meticulously rendered objects of still life. In a 1925 drawing, “Orange,” the delicately shaded fruit is rendered off center on a tabletop that on one side is reduced to a single bare line, while on the other is shaded and three-dimensional. Kuniyoshi is a virtuoso at creating dynamic tension between flat and perspectival space, and the effect visually is often rather like the haunting slippage between diatonic and chromatic tonality in the music of the same period...

A 1924 self-portrait greets visitors with a quick blast of the artist’s humor and playful provocation.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, “Self-Portrait as a Photographer,” 1924, oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Bequest of Scofield Thayer. (Metropolitan Museum of Art/Copyright Estate of Yasuo Kuniyoshi/Licensed by VAGA)

This first painting is somewhat out of sequence, but it makes perfect sense as an invitation to explore. It shows the artist working as a photographer, his head draped in a dark cloth. But one arm is also raised like a fencer’s, and the other seems to be holding a sword or epee, if one uses a little imagination to connect the lower edge of a window or picture frame to the painter’s hand. It shows us the artist en garde, taking a playfully defensive stance, engaging the viewer in a back-and-forth of incisive imagery that never quite yields to a lasting or certain interpretation.

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, “Self-Portrait,” 1918, oil on canvas, Fukutake Collection, Okayama, Japan; on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. (Fukutake Collection/Courtesy of Smithsonian American Art Museum)

More images from the exhibition:

Ace, 1952 Oil on canvas 46x 26 3/10 inches Fukutake Collection, Okayama, Japan

Adam and Eve (The Fall of Man), 1922 Oil on canvas 20 x 30inches Private collection

Between Two Worlds, 1939 Oil on canvas 24 x 40 3/16 inches Collection of Gallery Nii, Osaka, Japan

Child Frightened by Water, 1924 Oil on canvas 30 1/8 x 24 1/16 inches Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn 1966

Circus Girl Resting, 1925 Oil on canvas 38 2/5 x 28 1/2 inches Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art Auburn University, Advancing American Art Collection

Daily News, 1935 Oil on canvas 50 x 33 3/16 inches Cincinnati Art Museum The Edwin and Virginia Irwin Memorial 1959

Fakirs,1946 Oil on canvas 50 1/4 x 32 1/4 inches Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation 1986

Fish Kite, 1950 Oil on canvas 30x 49 2/5 inches Fukutake Collection, Okayama, Japan

Forbidden Fruit, 1950 Oil on canvas 32 2/5 x 50 1/5 inches Courtesy of the Syracuse University Art Collection

Girl on a sofa, 1925 Oil on canvas 36 ¾ x 43 inches Collection of the Arizona State University Art Museum

Girl Thinking, 1935Oil on canvas 50 x 40 inches Fukutake Collection, Okayama, Japan

Little Joe with Cow, 1923 Oil on canvas 28x 42 inches Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Bentonville, Arkansas

Rotting on the Shore, 1945 Oil on canvas 46x 36inches Norton Museum of Art

Self-Portrait as a Golf Player,1927 Oil on canvas 50 1/4 x 40 1/4 inches The Museum of Modern Art, New YorkA bby Aldrich Rockefeller Fund 1938

She Walks Among the Ruins, 1945-46 Oil on canvas 43 x 34inches Menard Art Museum, Japan

Somebody Tore My Poster, 1943 Oil on canvas 46 1/16 x 26 3/16 inches Collection of Gallery Nii, Osaka, Japan

Strong Woman with Child, 1925Oilon canvas 57 1/4 x 44 7/8inches Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the Sara Roby Foundation 1986

The Swimmer, about 1924 Oil on canvas 20 1/2x 30 1/2 inches Columbus Museum of Art Ohio, Gift of Ferdinand Howald

Upside Down Table and Mask,1940 Oil on canvas 60 1/5 x 35 1/5 inches Fukutake Collection, Okayama, Japan

Waiting, 1938 Oil on canvas 40 x 31inches Collection of Gallery Nii Osaka, Japan

Watermelon, 1938 Oil on canvas 40 x 56 inches Fukutake Collection, Okayama, Japan

More images:

The 2nd part of Christie’s Impressionist and Modern art sales will take place on a new date, Thursday May 14, with Christie’s traditional Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art, led by two superb examples from the era: Monet’sLes Meules à Giverny ($12-18 million) (below) and Piet Mondrian’sComposition No. III (Composition with Red, Blue, Yellow and Black)($15-25 million; , and anchored by offerings from the Collection of John C. Whitehead, the late former chairman of Goldman Sachs.

COLLECTION HIGHLIGHTS

Among the star works from the Whitehead Collection to be featured within the May Evening Sale are Amedeo Modigliani’sPortrait deBéatrice Hastings from 1916 (US$7-10million) and Claude Monet’s Paysage de matin (Giverny) (US$6-8million;).Together, these works depict the sweeping range of the collection; Modigliani’s portrait representing the dynamism of the European Avant-Garde and Monet’s landscape evoking the purity of French Impressionism with its revelry in light.

Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait de Béatrice Hastings, oil on canvas, 1916. US $7-10million

This dynamic portrait depicts Modigliani’s muse Béatrice Hastings, one of many pen names for South African writer, poet and literary critic, Emily Alice Haigh.
Hastings frequently posed for Modigliani, with whom she shared an apartment in Monteparnasse.
Modigliani used portraiture, especially of those in his immediate circle, as a means to explore an idealised aspect of humanity, an image of internal as well as external likeness.
With its expressive painterly surface, Béatrice Hastings, is in glorious physical condition, giving it the appearance of just having left the easel.

Claude Monet, Paysage de matin (Giverny), oil on canvas, 1888. US $6-8million –

Paysage de matin (Giverny) is a consummate example of the luminescent landscapes completed by Monet during his distinguished middle career.
Monet executed these works by situating himself in the midst of the French countryside with the hopes of encapsulating the light and conditions of a summer day within his canvases. Paysage de matin is an exceptional illustration of Monet’s ability to capture the light effects of his beloved Giverny.
The present work is representative of Monet’s most sought after qualities, contributing to its broad global appeal.

Claude Monet, Les meules à Giverny, 1885

This idyllic, summertime view of the countryside in Giverny where Monet made his home is an important precursor to the iconic Haystacks series of 1890-91. Estimated at US$12-18 million, the painting has never been offered at auction previously, and now is being sold pursuant to a settlement agreement between the consignor and the heirs of René Gimpel, the esteemed French art dealer.

Monet painted Les meules à Giverny during the high summer of 1885, two years after he had moved with his wife and family to the tiny rural hamlet that is now indelibly linked with his name. On this particular day, Monet set off for La Prairie, a vast pasture near his home, with his wife Alice Hoschedé and their three youngest children, all of whom are featured at the left in the finished painting. The scene’s haystacks are the most prominent feature in the landscape; the front face of each haystack is awash in golden light, rendered in vigorous touches of yellow and peach, while the far side has sunken into shades of deep purple and pink.

Adrien Meyer, International Director, Impressionist & Modern Art, remarked:"This magical painting features the rare combination of some of the most iconic subjects by the artist: poplars, haystacks and Alice wandering with her umbrella. At a time of a growing scarcity for legendary subjects by this great master, it is a true event to feature at auction for the very first time such a desirable painting."

Pleased with the success of Les meules à Giverny, as well as three earlier depictions of haystacks Monet completed from nearly the same vantage point the previous summer, Monet would famously return to this motif in 1890, to embark on the iconic Meules series that became of one the crowning achievements of his long career. For Monet, the haystacks were indivisible from his sense of national pride; they represented the local farmers’ livelihood, the fruits of their labors and their hopes for the future. With their exquisitely nuanced description of the fleeting effects of light, the paintings from La Prairie helped Monet re-assert French Impressionism’s vitality at the turn of the century and build new audiences among New World collectors and patrons.

In 1886, Monet’s dealer Paul Durand-Ruel purchased the painting direct from Monet’s studio and brought it to New York soon after his new gallery opened there in 1888. Frank Thomson, a prominent American railroad executive and one of the earliest patrons of Impressionism in Philadelphia, purchased the painting and added it to his growing collection, and passed it on to his daughter upon his death.

By 1931, the painting had passed into the collection of the prominent French dealer René Gimpel, whose Journal d'un collectionneur (The Diary of an Art Dealer) famously chronicles the rise of the modern art market between the two World Wars. A keen observer and a witty, sometimes acerbic writer, Gimpel documented his relationships with cultural luminaries from Picasso to Proust, with competing art dealers, and with American mega-collectors such as Henry Clay Frick, Henry Ford, and John D. Rockefeller. He described visiting the aging Monet at Giverny, where he had the opportunity to admire Les grandes décorations– the massive mural series that took him 10 years to complete – and to purchase paintings directly from the artist’s studio. During WWII, Gimpel and his sons took active part in the Resistance. René was first interned by the Vichy authorities in 1942 for his underground activities, and released in 1943, but then re-arrested by the Germans in July 1944. Much of his collection was lost or sold under duress. In confinement, he taught English to his fellow prisoners in preparation, he said, for the impending liberation; he died, however, at Neuengamme concentration camp before that day could come. After the war, two of Gimpel's sons, Charles and Peter, founded the Gimpel Fils gallery in London, carrying on their father’s celebrated legacy.

Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of the late Dr. Herbert J. Kayden of New York City and his daughter Joelle Kayden, Stanford MBA ’81, of Washington, D.C., the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University now holds one of the largest collections in any museum of the work of Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000). Lawrence is among the most important artists of the 20th century and is a leading voice in the artistic portrayal of the African American experience. Staunch supporters of Stanford and the Cantor’s educational mission, the Kaydens have gifted to the museum an unparalleled collection of 56 works by Lawrence and one by his wife, Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence. The gift is comprised of five paintings, 11 drawings, 39 prints and one illustrated book, all dating between 1943 and 1998 and all given in memory of Dr. Gabrielle H. Reem, who is Herbert Kayden’s wife and Joelle Kayden’s mother.

Jacob Lawrence (U.S.A., 1917–2000), Builders No. 3, 1973. Gouache, tempera and
graphite on paper. Gift of Dr. Herbert J. Kayden and Family in memory of Dr. Gabrielle H.
Reem, 2013.103 © 2015 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

With this addition to its collection, the Cantor is now positioned to be a leading resource for students and scholars to study both Lawrence and the social and political conditions of the historical era in which he produced this important work. While long-term academic and community engagement with the Kayden collection will unfold over many years, in immediate celebration of the gift, the museum is delighted to announce the first ever exhibition of these works together.Promised Land: Jacob Lawrence at the Cantor, A Gift from the Kayden Familyboth honors the Kayden family and marks a revelatory moment in the examination of this great American artist.

Befitting the Kaydens’ entwined commitments to both art and education, the exhibition planning includes a course for undergraduate students at Stanford taught by Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell, the Cantor’s Burton and Deedee McMurtry Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs. This intensive introduction to Lawrence’s career and key aspects of curatorial and art historical practices enabled 12 students to design the gallery layout and write exhibition texts. The resulting installation displays these works together for the first time.

“We feel deeply honored that the Kaydens chose Stanford as the ‘best home’ for the art,” said Cantor Director Connie Wolf. “They decided that the collection could add great value not just for Stanford students and researchers, but for the entire Northern California community as well. With this exhibition and an accompanying publication, we celebrate this generous gift while also providing new insights and perspectives on a great American artist who was such an influential force in 20th-century art.”

Promised Landcharts the evolution of Lawrence’s distinctive and dynamic visual style over six decades. Lawrence’s work offers a sweeping panorama of the black experience in America that includes images of the struggle against slavery, the rise of Harlem as a center of black culture, the contributions African American builders made to the transformation of America’s cities in the first half of the 20th century and meditations on the artist’s creative journey. The works from the Kayden family gifts have never before been the subject of a focused exhibition, and the Cantor Arts Center is the exclusive venue for Promised Land.

The exhibition offers the rare opportunity to examine paintings and drawings from this master draftsman renowned for chronicling the black experience in America. Highlights include the searing Civil-Rights-era canvas

Ordeal of Alice (1963)

and the early Harlem gouache-on-paper painting

At Times It’s Hard to Get a Table in A Pool Room (1943).

The installation demonstrates Lawrence’s gift for observing life and telling a story, whether he was capturing the everyday details of Harlem or reconstructing critical moments in African American history. His bold, abstract yet figurative style—a hybrid European Cubism and early 20th-century Social Realism—is also apparent in the 39 prints, which include a complete set of his first print portfolio,

The Legend of John Brown (1978),

Jacob Lawrence, "And God said 'Let the Earth bring forth grass, trees, fruits, and herbs.'",Eight studies for The Book of Genesis, 1989-90, 8 silk-screen prints on Whatman Print Matt paper, Collection of Alitash Kebede, Los Angeles, CA.

(above: Jacob Lawrence, "And God created all the beasts of the earth", Eight studies for The Book of Genesis, 1989-90, 8 silk-screen prints on Whatman Print Matt paper, Collection of Alitash Kebede, Los Angeles, CA.)

and an artist’s proof edition of Eight Studies for “The Book of Genesis” (1989–1990).

More on the Legend of John Brown graphic series:

Consisting of twenty-two silk-screen prints, the portfolio is based on Lawrence’s same-size gouache paintings from 1941 (owned by the Detroit Institute of Arts) that explore the life of the controversial abolitionist. In 1977, when the paintings had become too fragile for public display and access, the Detroit museum commissioned Lawrence to reproduce them as limited-edition screen-prints. Each painting was originally displayed with the artist’s accompanying text, which builds on the powerful visual narrative. Lawrence’s John Brown series was among the historical epics he produced in the 1930s and 1940s focusing on heroic 19th-century figures like Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass as well as the Great Migration of the early 20th-century.

As Lawrence explained: “The inspiration to paint the Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and John Brown series was motivated by historical events as told to us by the adults of our community . . . the black community. The relating of these events, for many of us, was not only very informative but also most exciting to us, the men and women of these stories were strong, daring and heroic; and therefore we could and did relate to these by means of poetry, song and paint.”

From a review:

Notable pieces include “The Ordeal of Alice,” a wrenching portrait of a young black girl clutching her school books, shot by arrows like Saint Sebastian, a representation of the racial violence surrounding attempts to integrate public schools. In contrast, Lawrence’s beautiful 1977 painting

“University” depicts a utopian mix of races in the hectic rush between college classes. Looking hopefully to the future and respectfully to the past, Lawrence rendered under-appreciated chapters of American history in works like

“The Last Journey,” an illustration of Harriet Tubman’s heroic wagon journeys across the Canadian border.

The Publication

Promised Land is accompanied by a catalogue with essays by eight Stanford faculty members, researchers and curators. With a fresh and interdisciplinary approach, the publication examines major works from the Kayden gifts to illuminate the social and political contexts for their iconography and to explore the artist’s significance to American art. The publication features a biography of Lawrence, seven essays and fully illustrated catalogue entries for all of the works in the collection. Catalogue essays include:

• “An Anatomy of an Artist: Notes on Jacob Lawrence” and “Catalogue” by Elizabeth Kathleen Mitchell, Burton and Deedee McMurtry Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs, Cantor Arts Center
• “The Ordeal of Alice” by Clayborne Carson, Director, Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute; Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor of History, History Department; Member of Academic Council
• “Lawrence’s Plenty” by Alexander Nemerov, Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts and Humanities, Department of Art & Art History
• “Lawrence and History” by James T. Campbell, Edgar E. Robinson Professor in United States History, Department of History
• “Coloring the Whitney” by Richard Meyer, Robert and Ruth Halperin Professor in Art History, Department of Art & Art History
• “Imagining the World of Jacob Lawrence” by Bryan Wolf, Jones Professor of American Art and Culture Emeritus, Department of Art & Art History
• "Images of Higher Learning: Jacob Lawrence’s University" by Harry J. Elam, Jr., Freeman-Thornton Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education; Olive H. Palmer Professor in the Humanities; Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education
• “Moving Forward Together: New York in Transit” by Michele Elam, Professor of English; Olivier Nomellini Family Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, Department of English

Jacob Lawrence

Lawrence, born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in 1917, was active as an artist from his teen years until he died in Seattle, Washington, in 2000. He arrived in Harlem in 1930 and became deeply integrated into its artistic community. He was then employed by the Works Progress Administration in the easel division and the Civilian Conservation Corps, and served in the Coast Guard on the first racially integrated ship in the history of the U.S. Navy.

Lawrence referred to his work as “dynamic cubism,” with its bold colors and shapes. He was strongly impacted by artist and childhood mentor Charles Alston, artist Josef Albers of the Bauhaus and the artists of the Mexican muralist movement. His narrative paintings often reflect his personal experience or depict key moments in African American history, including the accomplishments of people such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and the achievements of the American civil rights movement.

Lawrence was the first African American artist to be represented by a major New York commercial gallery and the first visual artist to receive the Spingarn Medal, the NAACP’s highest honor.

Building on the success of its record-breaking Lucian Freud sale in 2008, Christie‘s is proud to announce the auction of one of Lucian Freud’s most famous and iconic paintings as the highlight of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary sale on May 13.

Benefits Supervisor Resting is regarded as Freud’s ultimate tour de force, a life-size masterwork in the grand historical tradition of the female nude, painted obsessively with intense scrutiny and abiding truth. This bold and extraordinary example of the stark power of Lucian Freud’s realism reveals his unique ability to capture the reality of the human form in all its natural force.

Chosen by Freud as the cover of the definitive monograph about the artist, Benefits Supervisor Resting was included by the artist in every major museum exhibition devoted to Freud, including Tate Britain, London, The Museum of Modern Art, New York and the recent survey The Facts and the Truth: Lucian Freud at the National Portrait Gallery, London. Benefits Supervisor Resting is poised to break the previous auction record for the artist achieved in 2008 with another portrait of the same sitter, Benefits Supervisor Sleeping,which soldfor $33.6 million, setting a record at the time for any living artist.

“Benefits Supervisor Resting is recognized internationally as Freud’s masterpiece and proclaims him as one of the greatest painters of the human form in history alongside Rembrandt and Rubens,” states Brett Gorvy, Chairman and International Head of Post-War and Art at Christie’s. “This painting is a triumph of the human spirit, showcasing Freud's love of the human body. The sitter, Sue Tilley, is calm and confident, relaxed and comfortable in her own skin. She is very much in control, taking on the artist and the viewer. A contemporary take on the Odalisque and the fertility goddess, with her head flung back, she exudes an intriguing ambiguity, implying ecstasy, defiance and the deep exhale of peacefulness. Freud described Sue Tilley as an extremely feminine sitter, and he has painted her with an objectivity and sensuality that is brought alive by the incredible use of brushwork and color harmony. He observed every inch of her with an uncritical eye almost daily for more than 9 months. The surface is amazing and almost sculptural in its layering of color.”

Lying in resplendent repose in the painter’s modest London studio, Lucian Freud’s Benefits Supervisor Resting is regarded as one of the most remarkable paintings of the human figure ever produced. Featuring Sue Tilley, a local government worker from London and one of the artist’s favorite sitters, this extraordinary portrait demonstrates Freud’s mastery of the painterly medium as he records the subtle nuances of Tilley’s figure with astute observation and technical brilliance. Painted over a grueling nine month period in 1994, with Tilley sitting for long hours four or five times a week, this remarkably candid portrait is a stunning essay on Freud’s patient painterly practice, in which he undertakes an exhaustive examination of the human form and renders every curve, fold, blemish and contour of Tilley’s body with deeply evocative force.

Sue Tilley was introduced to Freud by the performance artist and designer, Leigh Bowery, another of Freud’s great subjects. Tilley, the author of Bowery’s biography, was nervous on first meeting Freud but like most of his sitters grew more comfortable and confident as she came to know him. After Freud’s first picture of her, Evening in the Studio of 1993, which was originally to have also included Bowery and for which she was forced to lie on the bare floor in an extremely uncomfortable pose, Freud bought the dilapidated sofa that appears in this painting for her to sit on.

“I am only interested in painting the actual person, in doing a painting of them, not in using them to some ulterior end of art. For me, to use someone doing something not native to them would be wrong. If I am putting someone in a picture I like to feel that they’ve fallen asleep there or they’ve elbowed their way: that way they are there not to make the picture easy on the eye or more pleasant, but they are occupying the space of my picture and I am recording them.”

Freud reworked the traditional theme of the nude, using a strong, uncompromising technique. Presented exposed and naked on a sofa set down on a bare wooden floor, this portrait and interior is both monumental and magnificent. Bruce Bernard, picture editor, photographer and friend of the artist stated: the portraits of Sue Tilley “are major contributions to the sum of Western painting of the nude, and may even put the final stop to the classical tradition.” The undeniable and almost overwhelming physical presence of Tilley’s relaxed and confident naked form demonstrates Freud’s extraordinary depth and apparently infinite richness of stark reality. Going on to state that it is “truthfulness as revealing and intrusive, rather than rhyming and soothing.”

"The task of the artist," Freud once declared, "is to make the human being uncomfortable, and yet we are drawn to a great work of art by involuntary chemistry, like a hound getting a scent; the dog isn't free, it can't do otherwise, it gets the scent and instinct does the rest.”

Biography

Edmund Charles Tarbell was born 26 April 1862 in West Groton, Massachusetts and raised by his grandparents in the Boston suburb of Dorchester. He showed an early aptitude for drawing, studied briefly at the Massachusetts Normal School (1877-1878), and at the age of fifteen was apprenticed at the Forbes Lithographic Company.

After three years at Forbes, Tarbell entered the Boston Museum School where he befriended fellow students Frank W. Benson (1862-1951) and Robert Reid (1862-1929), and studied under Otto Grundmann (1844-1890) and Frederick Crowninshield (1845-1918). In 1884 Tarbell joined Benson and Reid at the Academie Julian in Paris. Among his teachers were Gustave Boulanger (1824-1888), Jules-Joseph Lefebvre (1836-1911), Adolphe William Bouguereau (1825-1888), and the American expatriate William Turner Dannat (1853-1929).

In France Tarbell became aware of the work of the Impressionists and was able to study at length paintings by Old Masters in the collection of the Louvre. Before returning to America, Tarbell and Benson traveled through Italy and England.

Once back in the United States, in 1886, Tarbell took a studio in Boston, but also almost immediately went to New York to seek out William Merritt Chase who was at that time president of the Society of American Artists. Tarbell subsequently became a member of the Society and exhibited with them, and at the National Academy of Design, regularly. From about 1886 to 1888 he earned an income as a magazine illustrator and portraitist.

He married Emeline Arnold Souther in 1888 and soon thereafter began teaching at the Boston Museum School, becoming the head of the painting department there upon the death of Otto Grundmann in 1890. Tarbell taught there for the next twenty-three years. Shortly after a conflict that caused his resignation from the school in 1913, he founded and became president of the Guild of Boston Artists. At this time he was already well-known for his contributions to the Boston art world and for his stature as a member of The Ten, the group of established painters that eventually resigned from the conservative Society of American Artists, holding their own exhibition in 1898.

In 1918 Tarbell was chosen for the directorship of the Corcoran School of Art. He spent about seven years in Washington, D.C., but was abroad for a good part of this time, executing portraits. The United States government commissioned likenesses of President Woodrow Wilson and Marshall Ferdinand Foch (both 1920, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.). By 1926 the artist had retired to his home in New Castle, New Hampshire, where he died in 1938.

During his lifetime Tarbell was a tremendously important influence in for Boston artists. His students, and many of his established colleagues as well, were termed "Tarbellites" and adhered to his program of high standards of execution in painting and drawing, and a preference for genteel subject matter. Their style was acceptable to their upperclass patrons who were grudgingly wooed away from a strict belief in the superiority of European artists, to a new appreciation of native talent. Tarbell's own work was widely exhibited and he was the recipient of numerous awards and medals, including the Thomas B. Clarke prize of the National Academy of Design (1890, 1894, and 1900), Columbian Exposition Medal (1893), and Lippincott Prize, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (1895).
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Tarbell, Edmund Charles: , American, 1862 - 1938

Mother and Mary: 1922; oil on canvas; overall: 112.1 x 127.5 cm (44 1/8 x 50 3/16 in.); framed: 130.8 x 146.1 cm (51 1/2 x 57 1/2 in.); Gift of the Belcher Collection, Stoughton, Massachusetts; 1967.1.1

Christie's

Edmund C. Tarbell (1862-1938)

Hansom Cab in London

PRICE REALIZED

$146,500

Edmund C. Tarbell (1862-1938)
Mercie in Profile
Pr.$80,500

Edmund Tarbell (1862-1938)

Lady in Yellow (Mrs. Codman)

Pr.$72,000

Edmund Charles Tarbell (1862-1938)

Still Life

PRICE REALIZED

$18,750

Bonhams

Edmund Charles Tarbell

(American, 1862-1938)

Still life with flowers and Oriental statue 30 x 25in

US$ 20,000 - 30,000
£14,000 - 21,000

Sotheby's

Edmund Charles Tarbell

NEW CASTLE POPPY

Estimate 250,000— 350,000 USD

Edmund Charles Tarbell

CRIMSON AND GOLD

LOT SOLD. 8,125 USD

Art historians and scientists use imaging methods to virtually "dig" under or scan various layers of paint and pencil. This is how they decipher how a painter went about producing a masterpiece - without harming the original. A comparative study with a Rembrandt van Rijn painting as its subject found that the combined use of three imaging techniques provides valuable complementary information about what lies behind this artwork's complex step-by-step creation. The study, led by Matthias Alfeld of the University of Antwerp in Belgium, is published in Springer's journal Applied Physics A: Materials Science and Processing.

Rembrandt's oil painting Susanna and the Elders is dated and signed 1647. It hangs in the art museum Gemäldegalerie in Berlin, Germany. The painting contains a considerable amount of the artist's changes or so-called pentimenti (from the Italian verb pentire: ''to repent") underneath the current composition. This was revealed in the 1930s when the first X-ray radiography (XRR) was done on it. More hidden details about changes made with pigments other than lead white were discovered when the painting was investigated in 1994 using neutron activation autoradiography (NAAR).

Alfeld's team chose to investigate Susana and the Elders not only because of its clearly visible pentimenti, but also because of its smaller size. Macro-X-ray fluorescence (MA-XRF) scans could thus be done in a single day using an in-house scanner at the museum in Berlin. These were then compared to existing radiographic images of the painting.

All three techniques (the early X-ray radiography, and the later neutron activation autoradiography and the recently developed macro-X-ray fluorescence scans) reveal considerable changes were made to the painting. Alfeld's team found that the images of the elements used which were acquired by X-ray fluorescence scans are the easiest to interpret. This is because most of the individual elements are clearly separated. A broader range of elements can also be studied, compared to using autoradiography. However, X-ray fluorescence scans can only be used to detect bone black on the surface of a painting and not in sub-surface layers, such as is found in hidden sketches.

Autoradiography is a very suitable tool to study pigments such as bone black, umber, copper-based greens and blues, smalt and vermilion, but not for calcium, iron and lead. It is also the only method capable of visualizing phosphorous, present in bone black, in lower paint layers. With X-ray radiography and autoradiography, single brush strokes can be discerned, which helps with the study of the painting technique employed.

"Given the relatively short time and less effort required for investigations using X-ray fluorescence scans, this technique is expected to be applied more frequently in the future than autoradiography," says Alfeld. "However, due to the capability of the latter method to visualize the distribution of certain elements through strongly absorbing covering layers, both methods ultimately provide complementary information. This is especially true for phosphorous, which was found present in the sketching of the painting investigated."

On May 21, as the star lot of its sale of American Art, Christie’s will offer

Two Puritans by Edward Hopper (1882-1967).

Painted in 1945 at the height of Hopper’s career, Two Puritans, one of only three canvases by the artist of that year and the only one in private hands, is estimated to bring in excess of $20 million when it appears at auction for the first time this spring. The painting has been included in nearly every major exhibition and publication on the artist and, most recently was on view in Paris at the Grand Palais, where the Hopper exhibition broke attendance records, proving that the artist has arrived on an international stage.

Elizabeth Beaman, Head of American Art, states; “Edward Hopper's masterwork Two Puritans can be considered at once an intimate and revealing portrait of the artist and his wife, as well as a testament to his dogged dedication to realism in the face of a changing visual world that increasingly championed abstraction. We are privileged to offer this seminal work, which has never appeared at auction before.”

Hopper's oeuvre is defined by what is at first glance a seemingly mundane, American subject yet in each canvas, and perhaps most poignantly in Two Puritans, a complex psychological subtext lies just beneath the surface, betraying the simplicity of the scene. The frisson created in this disconnect between subject and meaning defines his best work and imbues his compositions with an almost haunting permanence, leaving an indelible mark on the mind's eye. This ability to distill time, to freeze a single moment in perpetuity, cemented his legacy and inspired future generations of artists.

Edward Hopper’s choice and earnest representation of commonplace subject matter in works such as Two Puritans set the artist apart from his contemporaries and allowed him to create a new and uniquely American iconography. In Two Puritans and throughout his career, Hopper painted aspects of America that few other artists addressed. He portrayed unromantic visions of life in a broad and increasingly modern style. While Hopper's paintings have formal qualities in common with other Modernists, his art remained steadfastly realist.

EDWARD HOPPER | A MARKET LEADER

In recent seasons, prices for Hopper’s paintings have soared at auction, driven by renewed demand for masterpiece-quality works. In October 2013,

East Wind Over Weehawken

sold for $40,485,000 setting a new world auction record for the artist and in November of 2012,

October on Cape Cod

sold via Christie’s LIVE™ for $9.6 million, setting the world record for an item sold online at any international auction house.

For the first time in Boston, the “most beautiful drawing in the world” and a recently discovered self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) will be displayed. Presented at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), from April 15—June 14, 2015, Leonardo da Vinci and the Idea of Beauty features a number of highly admired drawings by Leonardo.

The exhibition, organized by the Muscarelle Museum of Art, explores the artist’s concept of ideal beauty through 30 drawings and manuscripts by Leonardo, Michelangelo and their followers. Because he left so few paintings, Leonardo’s drawings have been recognized for centuries as the deepest window into the workings of his mind.

One drawing,

Head of a Young Woman (about 1483–85),

has been considered by some to be the “most beautiful drawing in the world,” bringing together his ideal of beauty and convincing naturalism to an astonishing degree.

The Codex on the Flight of Birds (about 1505),

an important loan from the Biblioteca Reale in Turin, features

a newly discovered self-portrait. Identified five years ago, the partially hidden portrait depicts the artist at age 50.

Works on view in the exhibition include a rich and varied selection of loans from Italy—primarily from the Uffizi Museum in Florence and the Biblioteca Reale. On view in the MFA’s Lois and Michael Torf Gallery, the exhibition also includes seven drawings by Michelangelo (1475–1564) and one from his studio, offering a unique opportunity to compare a series of these rivals’ drawings. Through the artists’ works, visitors can see how their ideals of beauty were often polarized, with Michelangelo more concerned with abstract, super-human ideals than the natural world that tantalized Leonardo.

Leonardo’s works represent the culmination of the early Renaissance idea of beauty, and reflect his view that ideal beauty could be observed by study of the most perfect human features. He was the consummate “Renaissance Man,” the painter of the Mona Lisa as well as a scientist—designing flying machines and studying anatomy in intricate detail. Dedicated to Leonardo’s artistic style and philosophy, the exhibition is organized into sections focusing on the “Idea of Beauty”—including old age and youth; “Divine and Worldly Beauty;” and “Science and Anatomy.” Every decade in Leonardo’s career is represented, as well as his influence on his pupils—known as the Leonardeschi—and his greatest rival, Michelangelo.

“This exhibition presents a wonderful opportunity to spend time with a number of rarely displayed works, and to appreciate their timeless appeal,” said Helen Burnham, Pamela and Peter Voss Curator of Prints and Drawings at the MFA. “Leonardo’s drawings offer an intimate view into the workings of his extraordinary mind. They capture our attention with incomparable freshness and immediacy.”

From an early age, Leonardo had the habit of sketching people in profile, observing their faces as they assumed all varieties of appearance and expression. His interest in the craggy imperfections of old age and the loveliness of ideal youth is embodied in the celebrated red chalk drawing,

An Old Man and a Youth Facing One Another (about 1500–1505). The young man may be based on Salai, a servant in the artist’s household who epitomized Leonardo’s notions of beauty. By contrast, the older man is a variation on an imagined warrior who appears often in the artist’s sketches. Working backward from old age to youth, the installation includes drawings by Leonardo and his assistants, as well as examples by Michelangelo and his studio. Two Drapery Studies executed at the very beginning of Leonardo’s career are a highlight of the section, and are among the artist’s greatest accomplishments.

Among a group of drawings depicting “Divine and Worldly Beauty” is Head of a Young Woman (Study for the Angel in the “Virgin of the Rocks”) (about 1483–85) (above). Said to be the most beautiful drawing in the world by art historian Sir Kenneth Clark, the work is a study for the oil painting known as the

Virgin of the Rocks (in the Louvre Museum)

—representing a universally admired example of Leonardo’s ideal of feminine beauty.

Another drawing, A Young Woman (1495–1500), was also once considered to be among Leonardo’s finest works.

The exhibition offers an opportunity to rediscover this enchanting drawing, which in 1880 was one of only two chosen for illustration in a seminal book on the artist. More than a century later it is relatively little known. The section on “Divine and Worldly Beauty” encompasses a number of Leonardo’s depictions of angels, which appear both divine and earthly in the works on view.

The final section, “Science and Anatomy,” includes the famed Codex on the Flight of Birds, which was recently found to contain a partially hidden self-portrait. The discovery was made in 2009 by a team of Italian journalists, imaging technicians and facial surgeons. The face, isolated from the writing, is convincingly similar to a drawing in the collection of the Biblioteca Reale, long believed to represent the artist in distinguished old age. However, much debate surrounds Leonardo studies, and the team’s conclusion has been doubted by a number of scholars. Aside from the self-portrait, the codex itself is an extraordinary compilation of Leonardo’s sketches and thoughts on flight. The topics covered in the work include the aerodynamics of a bird’s ascent and descent, the fluidity of air as it moves over a wing, and the difference between the center of gravity and the center of pressure on the avian form. Displayed in a sealed case and open to the newly discovered self-portrait, the entire codex includes numerous sketches and drawings.

Leonardo’s practice of drawing from life was on the cutting edge of scientific exploration in the Renaissance. Long fascinated by the “similarities of flight of birds, bats, fishes, animals, insects,” Leonardo’s scientific studies also include drawings of horses—animals Leonardo owned, rode, cared for, and sketched throughout his life—and insects.

Two Studies of Insects (Study of a Beetle) (about 1480-1500) and Study of a Dragonfly (about 1505)

were drawn at different points in the artist’s life, but were mounted together on a single sheet by a collector, perhaps in homage to the extraordinary powers of observation captured by the small studies. Two of the prior owners of this drawing—one, Sir Joshua Reynolds, a well-known British artist—left their marks (identifiable stamps) on the sheet, a tradition in the ownership of Old Master drawings.

Within the exhibition, drawings by Michelangelo and his studio—on loan from the Casa Buonarroti, his ancestral property in Florence—are displayed alongside Leonardo’s works. Both artists were fascinated by ideals of beauty, but looked to different sources for inspiration. Michelangelo more readily departed from nature and valued such incalculable qualities as gracefulness, power and drama as much as representation. Michelangelo’s practice of borrowing and exchanging (and improving) conventional forms of anatomy was an integral part of his approach, unlike Leonardo’s closer fidelity to the original natural source.

Michelangelo’s forceful Study of a male nude for the figure of Naason’s Wife in the Sistine Chapel (1511)

is an example of his relative freedom from anatomical exactness—a criterion that Leonardo never fully abandoned. The MFA previously displayed a number of the artist’s drawings in the exhibition Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane, Master Drawings from the Casa Buonarroti in 2013.

The Leonardeschi: Leonardo’s Pupils and Followers

No Leonardo exhibition is complete without including works by his close followers, which are sometimes so close in style and quality to his own that it is difficult to tell them apart. Leonardo encouraged pupils to copy his designs, and he would correct and even rework their drawings. A “Leonardesque” style emerged and was disseminated by his pupils as well as a large group of followers and imitators. Together they’re known as the Leonardeschi, and the exhibition includes an important selection of works associated with them. The drawing

Head of an Old Man (about 1515) could be attributed to Leonardo or Cesare da Sesto—one of the more original members of Leonardo’s circle in Milan. This work may belong to a group by Leonardo depicting a similar-looking elderly man at different stages of maturity, or it may be by Cesare, who executed many drawings and paintings based on Leonardo’s designs.

This history explains some of the difficulty in differentiating Leonardo’s works from those of his followers. It also gives a sense of the group’s priorities—what they valued in the teachings of their master. Leonardo da Vinci and the Idea of Beauty invites visitors to try their hand at attribution, looking for characteristics such as Leonardo’s left-handedness in the works on view.

Italy and the MFA

The exhibition continues the MFA’s ongoing special relationship with Italy. In September 2006, the MFA transferred 13 antiquities to Italy and signed an agreement with the Italian Ministry of Culture, marking the beginning of a new era of cultural exchange. It included the creation of a partnership in which the Italian government would lend significant works from Italy to the MFA’s displays and special exhibitions program and established a process by which the MFA and Italy would exchange information with respect to the Museum’s future acquisitions of Italian antiquities. The partnership also envisaged collaboration in the areas of scholarship, conservation, archaeological investigation and exhibition planning. Other significant loans have included a connoisseurship study of four paintings by, or attributed to, Michelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio (2014);

the Senigallia Madonna by Renaissance master Piero della Francesca (2013);

the Capitoline Brutus, a rare bronze bust of a Roman statesman dating to around 300 B.C. (2013);

and the marble statue Eirene (Goddess of Peace) (2006);

as well as masterpieces lent to the exhibitions Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane, Master Drawings from the Casa Buonarroti (2013);

Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice (2009);

and Aphrodite and the Gods of Love (2011).

18 April – 26 July 2015 Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Universityof East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Francis Bacon and the Masters is a ground-breaking exhibition in which Bacon’s obsession with the art of the past will be brought into full focus. A major body of works by the artist will be juxtaposed with masterpieces by some of the greatest painters and sculptors in the history of art, in a spectacular exploration of Bacon’s working methods and ideas.

Video and lots of images!

The exhibition will include works by Rembrandt, Velazquez, Rodin, Michelangelo, Picasso, Bernini, Cezanne, Titian, Matisse and Van Gogh as well as superb examples of antique Greek, Roman and Egyptian sculpture from the State Hermitage Museum. Many of these works have not travelled to the UK before. The exhibition comes to Norwich following its internationally acclaimed opening at the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, where it marked the culmination of the celebrations forthe 250thanniversary of the Hermitageand concluded the UK/Russia Year of Culture.

The founders of the Centre, Robert and Lisa Sainsbury were important early patrons of Francis Bacon. They purchased their first Bacon painting, Study for a Nude, in 1953, and went on to commission their portraits from him.The thirteen Bacon paintings in the Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection willform the core group of works in the exhibition but they will be joined byimportant loans drawn from public and private collections across Britain and Ireland. In all, more than 3o works by the artistwill be shown. The exhibition will include documentary and archive material, including photographs of Bacon’s studio, palettes, books, catalogues and materials owned by the artistand loaned by Dublin City Gallery, The Hugh Lane. Bacon’s preoccupation with the art of the past is vividly revealed in the material drawn from his studio.The exhibition has been created by a team comprised of guest curator Dr Thierry Morel,curator ofthe Houghton Revisited exhibition in 2014, Lisa Renne from the State Hermitage Museum;and from the Sainsbury Centre, Chief Curator, Amanda Geitner and Calvin Winner, Head of Collections.

Crucifixion, by Francis Bacon, 1933, with The Crucifixion, by Alonso Cano, 1601. Photograph: © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved, DACS 2015 / The State Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg 2014

Devastating review from The Guardian:

Francis Bacon was the divine devil of modern British art, a demon of dark ecstasy. His pummelling of human flesh has a monstrous sensuality, a massive power. Usually, seeing a Bacon, I drink in its perverse colours like blood or wine. At least, I used to. After this exhibition, I don’t know if I can ever take Francis Bacon seriously again.

What a shame. All his life, Bacon looked at and wanted to reinvent the art of the great masters. This show opens with giant photographs of his mad nest of a studio, its paint-stained floor littered with reproductions of works by the art heroes he longed to rival. His paintings of imprisoned popes were inspired by Velázquez’s portrait of Innocent X; his contortions of the human body by Michelangelo’s turbulent statues. It surely makes sense to set Bacon’s paintings side by side with works by the masters he loved.

Yet Bacon and the Masters is a massacre, a cruel exposure, a debacle. Bacon’s paintings are mocked, his talents dwarfed. The jaw-dropping masterpieces by the likes of Picasso, Titian and Rodin that so nearly make this show five-star unmissable also, to my dismay, to my shock, make Bacon seem a small, timebound, fading figure.

Christie's 1999

Biography

Biography

JEAN DUBUFFET, PARIS POLKA

Building Facades

Jean Dubuffet (French, 1901–1985)

Apartment Houses, Paris