Art History News

Biography - Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, New York, New York

By Chelsea DeLay

Max Kuehne was born in Halle, Germany on November 7, 1880. His family immigrated to the United States in 1894 and settled in Flushing, New York. Growing up, Kuehne led an active lifestyle and enjoyed many outdoor activities; Richard, the artist’s son, fondly reminisced on his father’s boyhood years, describing, “whatever job he held was somehow always terminated by the advent of summer when the water was warm and there was swimming from the East River piers, rowing races on the Hudson, bicycle races at the Hippodrome, or sailing in Flushing Bay on Long Island Sound.”

It was not until he was twenty-seven years old that he began to formally pursue a career in art; despite such a late start, Kuehne was fortunate to study under William Merritt Chase and Kenneth Hayes Miller at the New York School of Art in New York City, and later became a pupil of the renowned Ashcan leader Robert Henri. They instilled in Kuehne the values and methods of both Impressionism and Realism, which formed the foundation for his future career as an artist.

In 1910, Kuehne sought inspiration overseas and traveled to Europe, where he bicycled through Germany, England, France, Belgium, and Holland, often accompanied by his close friend and colleague Ernest Lawson.

After returning to New York City the following year, Kuehne set up a studio in Greenwich Village, where he became friends with neighboring artists that included Guy Pène du Bois, William Glackens, William Zorach, and Maurice and Charles Prendergast. The next four years were spent producing urban scenes depicting the downtown life and painting along the East River and its bridges.

During the summer of 1912, a pivotal shift in Kuehne’s career began when he visited Gloucester, Massachusetts, which resulted in a body of work described as “some of his most successful pictures, paintings full of sunlight…[which revealed] the fact that he was becoming a colourist of considerable distinction.”(3) From these early harbor scenes, a clear understanding of subject matter and brighter color palette began to emerge—characteristics which were further developed during a trip to England in 1913 when he painted rocky seascapes of Cornwall. After spending a year working along the Cornish coast, Kuehne moved to Spain and fell in love with the country’s landscape and culture.

The city of Granada became his home for the next three years, where he reconnected with Ernest Lawson, who was also painting in the country at the time. Kuehne absorbed elements of Lawson’s style while the two spent time together in Spain, and incorporated his romantic approach into sober nocturne scenes and mysterious, moonlit landscapes.

In 1918, after he returned to the United States, Kuehne spent the summer in Cape Ann, Massachusetts, where, beginning in 1920, he would return every summer. He eventually established a studio in Rockport, a coastal town that inspired luminous marine scenes and dramatic landscapes that are considered some of Kuehne’s best works. Two years passed after his stateside return before the allure of Spain drew him back to the country for a second time in 1920, and once more for a third visit in 1922. He returned again in 1923, after which he spent a brief time in Paris; the pictures painted that year demonstrate a unique brilliancy and looser handling than his usual technique.

The artist enjoyed the patronage of several notable collectors of his time, including Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney, Juliana Force (the founding director of the Whitney Museum of American Art), noted critic and collector A. E. Gallatin, Archer Huntington, Duncan and Marjorie Phillips, and Dr. Albert Barnes of the Barnes Foundation. Kuehne’s works were widely displayed throughout his career, including exhibitions held by the Carnegie Institute, The Art Institute of Chicago, Worcester Art Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Society of Independent Artists, and Whitney Museum of American Art, to name a few. During the Depression, Kuehne expanded his career into the realm of decorative arts. He became quite skilled in the art of frame making, crafting expertly designed, carved, and gilded frames for not only his work, but also Maurice Prendergast, Charles Sheeler, and Ernest Lawson.

Examples of Kuehne’s work are included in prominent museum collections including those of The Barnes Foundation, Brooklyn Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and Whitney Museum of American Art.

Chronology

1880 Born in Halle, Germany
1894 Moves to Flushing, New York
1907 Begins formal training at the New York School of Art, studies under William Merritt Chase and Kenneth Hayes Miller
1908 Enrolls at the National Academy of Design
1909–10 Studies at the William Merritt Chase School with Chase and Miller, enrolls in night classes taught by Robert Henri
1910 Spends the year abroad studying works in principal galleries in England, France, Germany, Holland, and Belgium
1911 Opens studio in Rockport, Massachusetts
1912 Spends the summer in Gloucester, Massachusetts
1913 Travels to England, spends time painting along the coast of Cornwall
1914–ca. 1917 Visits Spain for the first time and ends up living there for three years, spends eighteen months residing in Granada
1918 Returns to the United States, travels to Gloucester, Maine in the summer
1919 Spends the summer in Maine, paints in Bar Harbor and Rockport
1920 Returns to Spain in July
1921 Spends the summer working in Rockport, Massachusetts
1922 Returns to Spain
1923 Returns to Spain for the last time, spends summer and autumn in Paris
1925 Takes up residence in Rockport, Massachusetts
1940 Five etchings used as illustrations in James B. Connolly’s The Port of Gloucester; joins the Rockport Art Association

Exhibitions

1912–37 Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., biennials (6 times)
1917 Society of Independent Artists, New York, New York
1918–41 Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York
1919 Jesup Memorial Library, Bar Harbor, Maine, solo exhibition
1920 Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan
1921 C.W. Kraushaar Art Galleries, New York, New York, solo exhibition
The Whitney Studio Club, New York, New York
Architectural League, New York, New York
1925 Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
1926 Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, prize
1927, 1929–30 Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
1930 Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts
1930–35 Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
1935–37 Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois
1968 Hirschl & Adler, New York, New York
1972 Hirschl & Adler, New York, New York, solo exhibition
1998 R.H. Love Galleries, Chicago, Illinois, solo exhibition
2001 Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York, New York, solo exhibition
2011 High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia

Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, New York, New York

Max Kuehne (1880–1968)
Annisquam Regatta
Oil on board
11 15/16 x 21 5/16 inches
Signed lower right: Kuehne

Max Kuehne (1880–1968)
Across the Hudson
Oil on canvas laid down on board
24 x 30 inches
Signed lower left: Kuehne; inscribed on verso: Across the Hudson / Max Kuehne

The Hispanic Society of America

Max Kuehne, Segovia Cathedral, 1916,
Oil on panel 12.5 x 15.7; A241

Skinner

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) Rockport Harbor

Auction:: American & European Works of Art - May 29, 2015
Estimate:: $15,000 - $25,000

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) In the Harbor, Provincetown

Auction: American & European Works of Art - Sep 24, 2010

Sold for:

$4,148

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) Smith's Pier-Provincetown

Auction:

Discovery - Apr 14, 2010

Sold for:

$2,370

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) Street Scene, Rockport, Mass.

Auction:: American & European Works of Art - Mar 07, 2008
Sold for:: $1,185

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) Town Square

Auction:: American & European Works of Art - Mar 07, 2008
Sold for:: $1,067

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) Fishing Wharf, Gloucester

Auction:: Sale #2366 - May 18, 2007
Sold for:: $1,645

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) Pigeon Cove, Rockport

Auction:: Sale #2366 - May 18, 2007
Sold for:: $1,645

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) On the Water

Auction:

American & European Works of Art - Sep 16, 2005

Lot:

645

Sold for:

$3,055

Christie's

Max Kuehne (1880-1968)
Wall Street Ferry
Pr.$13,750

Max Kuehne (1880-1968)

Fishing Sheds, Provincetown

PRICE REALIZED

$8,125

RoGallery

Artist: Max Kuehne, German/American (1880 - 1968)

Title: Untitled - Lakeside Houses Year: circa 1960 Medium: Double-Sided Watercolor, signed l.r. Size: 15 in. x 19.5 in. (38.1 cm x 49.53 cm) Price: $1800

Don Barese Fine Art and Antiques

Max Kuehne

(1880-1968)

Brookylyn Bridge

7" x 9" Oil on Board

1920s

Max Kuehne

(1880-1968)

Washington Square, NYC

7" x 9" Oil on Board

1920s

CGFA

Main Street in Gloucester

This spring, the Addison Gallery of American Art, located on the campus of Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, will present Alfred Maurer: At the Vanguard of Modernism, a comprehensive exhibition celebrating the American painter’s singular accomplishments and invaluable contributions to American art in the early twentieth century. After securing a place as one of the most accomplished late nineteenth-century American figurative artists, Maurer (1868-1932) went on to join the ranks of the avant-garde.

From his cross-fertilization of Fauvism between French and American circles to his exploration of abstraction in his late radical works, Maurer proved to be a formidable creative force in expanding the potential for artistic expression in American art. Alfred Maurer opens will be on view through July 31.

Following its run at the Addison, the exhibition will travel to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas,where it will be on view October 10, 2015–January 4, 2016.

“All phases of Maurer’s artistic career are covered in this groundbreaking exhibition, which features his fin-de-siècle figure paintings, scenes of contemporary leisure, Fauvist works, landscapes and florals, heads and figures, still lifes, and late abstractions, including the Addison’s own Still Life with Pears,” Susan Faxon, the Addison’s Associate Director and Curator of Art Before 1950, notes. “While Maurer is often characterized as a painter of divergent, seemingly contradictory aesthetics, this careful study of his oeuvre reveals steady interest in thematic ideas as well as formal experimentation with color, form, and abstraction.

”With an intimate knowledge of the most current French art and friendships with key vanguard American art figures, Maurer was positioned at the nexus of new ideas about art. He left New York for Paris to study in 1897 and remained there until the outbreak of World War I. While abroad, he became an intimate of Leo and Gertrude Stein’s circle of creative luminaries. Through his involvement with the Steins, Maurer became one of the first Americans to experience the work of Henri Matisse, as well as Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, and Pablo Picasso, among others.

He in turn played a key role in introducing fellow Americans to their vanguard artistic salon, which was brimming with progressive art and ideas. Maurer continued to bridge French and American Modernism through the sophisticated Fauve work he was producing and exhibiting in Paris as early as 1906.

Witness to and participant in the development of revolutionary artistic ideas, he was perfectly poised to elucidate others in their quest for knowledge of the latest artistic developments. This included such important collectors as Dr. Albert C. Barnes, for whom Maurer served as an agent while Barnes was building his remarkable collection of twentieth-century masterpieces.

Maurer proved to be an invaluable contact for other pioneering American figures of the day as well, including Walt Kuhn, Walter Pach, and Arthur B. Davies, who, in the early 1910s,assembled the pivotal exhibition commonly known as the Armory Show.

Following his return from Paris, Maurer moved in the most current art sets in New York, sustaining close friendships with individuals who were committed to changing the direction of American painting. In his quest to forge new paths, Maurer produced some of the most advanced and adventurous workby an American in the first half of the twentieth century.

“The pioneering spirit of American Modernism is crystallized in Maurer’s late Cubist paintings, a body of work rich with pictorial possibilities. This is avirtual treasure trove of American art that turns a lens on theart of innovation and expression in the modern age,”Dr. Stacey B. Epstein, the exhibition’s curator, adds.

Alfred Maurer: At the Vanguard of Modernismis accompanied by a fully illustrated exhibition catalogue that documents many of Maurer’s most accomplished works and includes a comprehensive examination of Maurer and his cultural context by Epstein, whose thorough and original research sets Maurer in his rightful place within American Modernism. This impressive catalogue is the first published since 1973 to focus solely on Maurer’s work.

From the Wall Street Journal (images added):

... The first and largest room establishes Maurer as an accomplished Realist, incorporating elements of Manet, Whistler, Chase and John Singer Sargent.

Paintings here include the award-winning “

An Arrangement” (1901)

—a dark, moody portrait of a woman seated on a tilted floor—exciting for two Chinese vases, which feel whiplashed into being.

Typically, Maurer’s figures seem locked into place, as if he were nailing down all the details. In

“At the Shore” (1901),

calligraphically rendered children—secondary characters—are the most believable and satisfying.

Unusual here is Maurer’s assured, luminous gem

“Rockaway Beach with Pier” (c. 1901).

Its cursory forms—fluid surf, sand, boats, bathers and sky—suffused in blue light, magically coalesce...

In “Young Woman in Kimono” (c. 1901),

in which a brilliant blood-red overpowers a sea of earth tones, Maurer’s color seems to be attempting to break free, to take flight.

And in the loosely handled, standing life-size portrait “Jeanne” (c. 1904),

the woman, cigarette in hand, snidely glares at the viewer. Her tilted hat swoops like a bird. The next two galleries bustle with Fauvist landscapes, portraits and still lifes from 1907-14. Ecstatic, reborn, Maurer emulates Matisse, Maurice de Vlaminck and André Derain. Entering these galleries is like walking into a hothouse. In the best works here—including

“Fauve Landscape with Train” (c. 1907),

“Landscape with Trees” (1909),

“Autumn” (c. 1912)

and a series of “Fauve Landscapes” (c. 1908-12)—Maurer thinks, and breathes, in color....

Swiss Art

Rediscovered Symbolist work by Ferdinand Hodler

On 26 June Koller will bring to auction one of Ferdinand Hodler’s major Symbolist works, “Urkraft”. This impressive figure painting was created in the first half of 1909 and takes up the then-revolutionary theme of the “Lebensreform” cult of the body. The work was formerly acquired directly from the artist by the German philosopher and collector Eberhard Griesebach (1880-1945) and in 1942 it entered a Swiss collection. From there, it will now be offered for the first time on the art market. This well-documented painting is estimated to achieve CHF 400 000 to 500 000.

An additional top lot is presented by a rare large-format painting by August Giacometti. The 113×150 cm “Marseille II” from 1930 is impressive not only in size, but also through its captivating play of Mediterranean colours. It is estimated at CHF 350 000 and 450 000.

Impressionist and Modern Art

An important painting by Chagall and three Renoirs

From the “painter poet” Marc Chagall comes “La famille du pêcheur”, an oil painting composed of shades of deep blue. Produced in 1968, it has been exhibited in major Chagall retrospectives such as at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow in 1987, at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Turin in 2004 and at the Museum of Art in Seoul. It will now be presented at Koller with an estimate of CHF 2.5 to 3 million.

Three paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir will lead the selection of Impressionist works offered in the auction.

“La Bergère” was created by the master in c.1902 and is presen-ted with an estimate of CHF 1 to 1.5 million.

“Baigneuse assise, de dos”

and “Bouquet d’anémones”

both originate from 1917, and thus from the late works produced by the artist. They are estimated at CHF 180 000 to 250 000 and CHF 250 000 to 350 000.

The auction will additionally feature a pencil drawing “Nu couché” by Pablo Picasso from the period between 1942 and 1944, estimated at CHF 180 000 to 240 000, and an ink drawing “Tête de jeune fille” by Henri Matisse from 1950, estimated at CHF 240 000 to 300 000.

PostWar & Contemporary

Botero’s “Mother and Child” The particularly impressive top lots of the Post War and Contemporary auction include Fernando Botero’s oil painting “Mother and Child” from 2003, showing a toddler sitting on his mother’s lap. Like many of Botero’s works, this one also presents rounded bodies with exaggerated proportions, developed out of the glorification of sensuality and life. The work is estimated at CHF 340 000 to 400 000.

Important rare works in this auction additionally include an abstracted landscape created in 1963 by Jean Fautrier in shaded whites and reds briskly applied in broad impasto brushstrokes, estimated at CHF 115 000 to 130 000,

as well as Hans Hartung’s large-format oil painting “T1958-18”, with its swinging serrated forms lending the picture a sense of dynamic energy, estimated at CHF 325 000 to 380 000.

Modern and Contemporary Prints

Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso and Andy Warhol

The selection of modern prints offered in the auction includes a beautiful etching by Paul Klee. This 15×17 cm work “Komiker” from 1904 is presented with an estimate of CHF 40 000 to 50 000.

Estimated at CHF 40 000 to 60 000, a complete portfolio of “Portraits imaginaires” by Pablo Picasso with 29 signed and dated colour lithographs after the painting series from 1969 will also be offered in the auction, in addition to the portrait “Jeune fille inspirée par Cranach”, estimated at CHF 30 000 to 40 000.

Top lots of the contemporary prints include Andy Warhol’s colour silkscreen of a Goethe portrait. It was inspired by J.H.W. Tischbein’s painting “Goethe in der römischen Campagna” which he had seen during a visit to the Städel Museum in Frankfurt. It is estimated at CHF 35 000 to 45 000

The first solo presentation of artist Frida Kahlo’s work in New York City in more than 10 years, FRIDA KAHLO: Art, Garden, Life, focuses on the artist’s engagement with nature in her native country of Mexico, as seen in her garden and decoration of her home,
as well as her complex use of plant imagery in her painting. On view from May 16 through November 1, 2015, The New York Botanical Garden’s exhibition is the first to focus exclusively on Kahlo’s intense interest in the botanical world.

Guest curated by distinguished art historian and specialist in Mexican art, Adriana Zavala, Ph.D., the exhibition transforms many of The New York Botanical Garden’s spaces and gardens. It reimagines Kahlo’s studio and garden at the Casa Azul (Blue House) in the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory and includes a rare display of more than a dozen original paintings and drawings on view in the LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s Art Gallery.

Accompanying programs invite visitors to learn about Kahlo’s Mexico in new ways through poetry, lectures, Mexican-inspired shopping and dining experiences, and hands-on activities for kids. Bilingual texts in English and Spanish provide historical and cultural background, with photos of the garden as it appeared during Kahlo’s lifetime.

THE GARDEN AND STUDIO AT THE CASA AZUL: CONSERVATORY EXHIBITION

The landmark Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at The New York Botanical Garden comes alive with the colors and textures of Frida Kahlo’s Mexico. Visitors entering the exhibition view a reimagined version of Kahlo’s garden at the Casa Azul (Blue House), today the Museo Frida Kahlo, the artist’s lifelong home outside of Mexico City, which she transformed with traditional Mexican folk-
art objects, colonial-era art, religious ex-voto paintings, and native Mexican plants.

Passing through the indigo-blue walls with embellishments in sienna and green, visitors stroll along paths lined with flowers, showcasing a variety of important garden plants from Mexico. A scale version of the pyramid at the Casa Azul—originally created to display pre-Hispanic art collected by Kahlo’s husband, famed muralist Diego Rivera—showcases traditional terra-cotta pots filled with Mexican cacti and succulents.

A niche adjacent to the pyramid contains a desk and easel, reminding visitors that Kahlo’s work in her studio was intertwined with her life in her garden. Visitors to the Conservatory experience the Casa Azul as an expression of Kahlo’s deep connection to the natural world and to Mexico.

KAHLO’S WORKS ON VIEW: ART GALLERY EXHIBITION

The LuEsther T. Mertz Library’s Art Gallery at the Garden exhibits 14 of Kahlo’s paintings and works on paper—many borrowed from private collections—highlighting the artist’s use of botanical imagery in her work. Focusing on her lesser-known yet equally spectacular still lifes, as well as works that engage nature in unusually symbolic ways, this grouping of artworks includes

Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940);

Flower of Life (1944);

Still Life with Parrot and Flag (1951);

and Self-Portrait Inside a Sunflower (1954).

The Art Gallery exhibition, curated by Dr. Zavala, introduces visitors to the importance of plants and nature in Kahlo’s paintings and her life.

Also on view are large-scale photographs of Kahlo and the Casa Azul’s garden, which are complemented by photographs of Kahlo taken by photographers and friends such as Nickolas Muray.

From a review in The Guardian:

Plant experts at the Botanical Garden have made some new historical discoveries in Kahlo’s art, noting an accurate rendering of a cotyledon, part of the embryo within a plant’s seed, in

The Dream, 1932.

Kahlo created this work when she was pregnant and living in Detroit, drawing herself asleep in bed with her long hair forming roots in the earth. “It’s a quite surrealistic drawing, and I’d never even noticed the cotyledon,” Zavala says. “It reaffirms our hypothesis – Kahlo worked carefully from source material, as well as from her imagination. She had countless books about plants in her collection and she collected various specimens. She even tucked miniature bouquets of flowers throughout the pages of a copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass.”

One of the most important paintings in the show is

Kahlo’s 1931 portrait of botanist inventor Luther Burbank, who is credited with developing more than 800 varieties of plants. Kahlo paints him sprouting from the ground, a plant in his hand and his bottom half depicted as a tree. The painting can be read politically, Zavala says: “This work was at the top of my list, not only because of its subject matter but because Kahlo creates an extraordinary human/plant hybrid – it reflects her thinking and beliefs in 1931, a time when the mixing of species was anathema in places like Germany.”

Christie’s has announced details of the Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art sale which will take place on 16 June 2015. The auction presents stellar examples of 19^th and 20^th century British painting including James (Jacques) Joseph Tissot’sLes Demoiselles de Province,which has remained unseen for over a century (estimate: £1.2–1.8 million,)

Other revered artists of the Victorian and Edwardian eras include Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, Alfred James Munningsand E.J. Poynter. The sale comprises a beautiful private collection of Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian drawings and paintings, led by one of eight works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Beatrice: A Portrait of Jane Morris (estimate: £700,000-£1 million). There are a rich array of opportunities for new and established collectors alike to acquire works at a wide range of price points, with estimates starting from £1,000 to £1.2 million.

”

Leading the sale is Tissot’s Les Demoiselles de Province, astriking example of the artist’s painterly talent and gentle humour that gained him international renown and popularity. Tissot created a series of compositions focusing on women’s daily lives, and this painting is one of a series entitled ‘Parisian Women’ (1883–1885). This museum-quality work captures the uncertainty of three beautifully dressed daughters as they arrive too early for a reception, gathering around their father who looks overawed. Les Demoiselles de Province is in its original frame and is offered in remarkable condition.

See interesting article here for more background on Tissot’s La Femme à Paris series and this painting.

Building on the success of the auction in June 2014, when Christie’s set a world record for William Holman Hunt (1827–1910) at auction, the sale will feature The Birthday (estimate: £600,000–800,000). Hunt gave this painting to the sitter, and it has come by descent in the family to the present owner. The sitter is Hunt’s sister-in-law Edith Waugh, who is seen holding presents she was given on her twenty-first birthday. It was begun in the aftermath of her eldest sister Fanny’s death. Hunt married Fanny in 1865, but tragically died after less than a year of marriage. While painting Edith, Hunt became aware that she had been in love with him for some years. The painting is full of symbolic connotations that represent the emerging love between artist and sitter, who won through against all the odds and eventually married in 1875.

When John Everett Millais (1829–1896) painted Pensive in 1893 he was the most acclaimed artist in Britain(estimate: £600,000–800,000). Millais exhibited the present work at the Royal Academy that spring and received high praise. This work explores three roots of late-19^th century artistic production: Georgian portraiture, the Victorian predilection for images of children, and the handling and style of the Aesthetic Movement. Millais was also interested in psychology and here he has given the little girl a real sense of inner life, beauty and innocence.

This sale will also feature a coastal scene by Philip Wilson Streer, Yachts at Cowes (Summer at Cowes) (estimate: £250,000–350,000). Steer was considered the new standard-bearer for the avant-garde, as he embraced modern painting and impressionism. The brushstrokes of the present work echo ‘classic’ impressionist canvases by Monet and Sisley. Steer enjoyed observing holiday-makers watching the off-shore excitement during the annual yacht racing at Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) formed an abiding love for and fascination with Venice, which informed his depictions of the mysterious floating city for over thirty years. Gondoliers, Venice is a vibrant and dynamic example of the Venice Sargent painted during his almost annual visits from 1898 to 1913 and serves as a window into the life and travels of one of the most celebrated artists of the 19^th and 20^th centuries (estimate: £120,000–180,000). The present work was dedicated to Paolo Tosti (1846–1916), Italian tenor and composer, and given to him by Sargent. It was then in the collection of Samuel Joseph.

This sale comprises four works by Sir Alfred James Munnings (1878–1959), including The artist painting on Exmoor (estimate: £30,000–50,000). The dramatic and distinctive landscapes around Exmoor provided the subject matter for many of the artist’s paintings. This oil is a rare self portrait of Munnings at work, epitomising his love of plein air painting. It was executed soon after he had been elected President of the Royal Academy. Further works by Munnings to be offered include Hop Pickers Returning (estimate: £80,000–120,000) and Saddling (estimate: £150,000–250,000).

The three principle founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Rossetti, Hunt and Millais, are all well represented in this sale.

Rossetti’s A Christmas Carol is a highly finished drawing with excellent provenance (estimate: £250,000–350,000). The present work is related to a painting of the same date (1867), which holds the world record for the artist at auction. The model for A Christmas Carol was Ellen Smith, a laundry girl, and, like so many of the models who passed through Rossetti’s doors, of equivocal virtue. There is a pencil study for the painting in the British Museum, and this present work is often described as a ‘finished study’, implying that it was the definitive rendering of the subject before Rossetti embarked on the painting itself.

This sale includes a watercolour by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1833–1898), titled Viridis of Milan (estimate: £80,000 – 120,000). Still in its original frame, this work has come to the market for the first time having once been owned by the painter George Price Boyce, and thence by descent to the current owner. It depicts Viridis Visconti (1451–1414), an Italian noblewoman who married Leopold III, Duke of Austria. This work exemplifies Burne-Jones’s interest in the Italian Renaissance as the pose of the sitter, her costume, and the interior behind her are all reminiscent of the work of Titian. It was conceived as part of a series of ‘harmonies’, paintings of unrelated subjects, linked through an exploration of colour, which Burne-Jones painted in the early years of the 1860s.

A PRIVATE COLLECTION OF PRE-RAPHAELITE AND VICTORIAN ART

Offered as part of this sale is a beautiful collection featuring 45 works, some of which have not been seen for decades. Leading the collection is one of eight works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), Beatrice: A Portrait of Jane Morris (estimate: £700,000-£1 million,).

Harriet Drummond, International Head of British Drawings & Watercolours, Christie’s: “Christie's is delighted to be handling this important and breath-takingly beautiful collection of paintings and drawings brought together by a couple of anglophile art lovers, who combined their passion for the aesthetic of the Victorian Period with the discerning eye of the connoisseur collector. It is the art of this Victorian era celebrating beauty through its depiction of largely female figures, from the monumentality of ‘Desdemona’ to the intimacy of ‘Fanny Cornforth, asleep on a chaise-longue’ that so strongly influenced our idea of beauty today.”

With the recent re-emergence of interest in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, led by Tate’s Pre-Raphaelites: Victorian Avant-Garde exhibition in 2012, this collection represents many of the ‘Stunners’ who inspired their paintings and made their work truly ‘romantic’, including eight beguiling works by Rossetti. The fine selection of works on paper is led by Rossetti’s impressive life-size study for the protagonist in

Desdemona’s Death Song (estimate: £500,000-800,000, ). Modelled by Alexa Wilding, the composition is based on Shakespeare’s Othello, and shows the hauntingly beautiful Desdemona preparing for bed on the fatal night she is murdered by her estranged husband. These women informed the paintings they modelled for and introduced a new concept of female beauty to the Victorian public. It is the art of this period – startling realism, intimacy and feminine beauty – that indelibly defines our images of nineteenth-century England, and transformed British art forever.

A ‘Stunner’ who proved irresistible to Rossetti, and dominated the artist’s imagination in the early and mid-1860s, was Fanny Cornforth (1835-1906). After an exhausting day of modelling,

Fanny Cornforth, asleep on a chaise-longue shows her resting between sittings and provides an insight into Rossetti’s domestic arrangements in Chelsea, where Fanny had been installed as his housekeeper (estimate: £120,000-180,000). This captivating drawing has formed part of the world’s most renowned collections, given by Rossetti to his friend, patron and fellow artist G.P. Boyce in 1862, it has since belonged to four well-known connoisseurs: Herbert Horne, Edward Marsh, Sir Brinsley Ford, and the novelist Sir Hugh Walpole.

It is clear that the two collectors have focused on drawings, most of which exemplify the romance, imagination, and soul of the Pre-Raphaelites, their contemporaries and the artists they influenced. Alongside the seven drawings by Rossetti himself, are three by Edward Burne-Jones, four by Simeon Solomon, two by Frederick Sandys, and an example by Charles Fairfax Murray, Evelyn De Morgan and Emma Sandys.

Proud Maisie by Sandys is one of the artist’s most popular subjects and this present composition is charged with sexual tension and raw emotion (estimate: £50,000-70,000ft). The model for Proud Maisie was Mary Emma Jones, an actress who had ten children with Sandys and was his principal muse, inspiring countless works which celebrate her distinctive profile and luxuriant tresses.

Three of the Pre-Raphaelites’ contemporaries who celebrated classicism – Frederic Leighton, E.J. Poynter, and William Blake Richmond – are also present.

Poynter’s painting of Judith (estimate: £80,000-120,000) depicts the story when the Hebrew heroine saves her people by seducing and beheading Holofernes. Exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1881 and still in the original tabernacle frame, it is a magnificent study of character and intent, this painting has not been on the market for three decades.

Exhibition Dates: June 30–October 4, 2015

Throughout his career, the celebrated American painter John Singer Sargent created portraits of artists, writers, actors, and musicians, many of whom were his close friends. Because these works were rarely commissioned, he was free to create images that were more radical than those he created for paying clients. He often posed these sitters informally—in the act of painting, singing, or performing, for example. Together, the portraits constitute a group of experimental paintings and drawings—some of them highly charged, others sensual, and some of them intimate, witty, or idiosyncratic. Opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 30, the exhibition Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends will bring together about 90 of these distinctive portraits. It will also explore in depth the friendships between Sargent and those who posed for him as well as the significance of these relationships to his life and art.

The exhibition is organized by the National Portrait Gallery, London in collaboration with The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends challenges the conventional view that Sargent was essentially a bravura portraitist to high society. In fact Sargent’s affiliations place him in the vanguard of contemporary movements in the arts, music, literature, and theatre. The individuals seen through Sargent’s eyes represent a range of leading figures in the creative arts of the time, including artists such as

Claude Monet

and Auguste Rodin;

writers such as

Robert Louis Stevenson,

Henry James,

and Judith Gautier;

and the actress Ellen Terry.

The exhibition also includes less-familiar associates, such as the painters Jane and Wilfrid de Glehn, who accompanied Sargent on his sketching expeditions through Europe, and Ambrogio Raffele, a painter and a frequent model in the artist’s Alpine studies.

The exhibition also explores Sargent’s relationships with influential patrons and collectors. Lasting friendships with

the aesthete Dr. Pozzi,

artist-turned-industrialist Charles Deering,

writer Édouard Pailleron and his family,

and Boston collector Isabella Stewart Gardner

connected the painter to the avant-garde international art world and yielded some of his most daring, provocative, and intimate images. Sargent conspired with these sophisticated patrons to create unique, innovative likenesses.

Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends will provide an exceptional opportunity to see the wonderfully eccentric portrait of Gardner—one which has rarely left the Gardner Museum—in the context of Sargent’s relationships with other Boston friends.

Multiple yet diverse portraits of the same sitter will allow an in-depth exploration not only of Sargent’s relationships but also of his extraordinary talent and range as an artist. The exhibition will bring together paintings that have seldom or never been shown together. Both of Sargent’s portraits of the enigmatic Robert Louis Stevenson will be included. Claude Monet will be represented by a bust-length portrait and a striking plein-air composition showing him painting out-of-doors.

The great Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry will be shown in both a vivid sketch of her performing and a captivating formal portrait. Sargent’s three portraits of the Pailleron family will also be reunited.

The exhibition will feature key paintings from the Metropolitan’s Sargent collection, which is one of the finest in the world. Sargent’s talent as a draftsman and a watercolorist will be showcased through an installation of about 20 works on paper from the American Wing to complement themes of the exhibition.

The exhibition will be organized chronologically according to the sequence of places where Sargent worked and formed artistic relationships during his cosmopolitan career: Paris, London, the English countryside; the United States, especially Boston and New York; Italy; the Alps; and other locales in Europe.

Credits

Richard Ormond CBE has curated the exhibition with advice from H. Barbara Weinberg, the Metropolitan Museum’s Curator Emerita of American Paintings and Sculpture and a Sargent scholar. It is curated in New York by Elizabeth Kornhauser, the Alice Pratt Brown Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture, and Stephanie Herdrich, Assistant Research Curator, both of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s American Wing. Exhibition design is by Brian Butterfield, Senior Exhibition Designer; graphics are by Morton Lebigre, Graphic Designer; and lighting is by Clint Ross Coller and Richard Lichte, Lighting Design Managers, all of the Museum’s Design Department.

Richard Ormond CBE is an art historian and the former Director of the National Maritime Museum from 1986–2000 and formerly Head of the Picture Department from 1983. He was the Nineteenth Century Curator and latterly the Deputy Director of the National Portrait Gallery from 1975 until 1983. Ormond is a Victorian painting specialist and the author of books on Sargent and Lord Leighton, and is co-author of the Sargent catalogue raisonné.

On Sunday, May 31st Philbrook opened a new exhibition that brings together work from some of the most prominent European artists of the late nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries including Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), Henri Matisse (1869-1954), and Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) among others. The Figure Examined: Masterworks from the Kasser Mochary Art Foundation includes over 100 artists’ depictions of the human form spanning 150 years of art history. Curated by Angela Novacek, Deputy Director, Kasser Mochary Art Foundation; Julie Sasse, PhD, Chief Curator and Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, Tucson Museum of Art; and Joanne Stuhr, Curator, Kasser Mochary Art Foundation, this exhibition remains on view at Philbrook Museum of Art through September 13, 2015 under the leadership of coordinating curator, Sarah Lees, PhD, Ruth G. Hardman Curator of European Art with Philbrook.

This original exhibition focuses on the human figure, one of the most universal subjects in art. Some of the earliest people carved simple human shapes out of stone, which inaugurated a tradition in many cultures that placed representations of men and women at the center of artistic production for hundreds of years. In the early twentieth century, when avant-garde practices such as Cubsim and Surrealism challenged or overturned longstanding Western traditions of content and composition, the human body nonetheless persisted in art, if in a fragmented or distorted form.

The Figure Examined traces social ideals, artistic movements, and experimentation with media through the dynamic mid-twentieth century, a period that was at times were nothing short of revolutionary, through the work of artists like Joan Miró (1893-1983) and Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), among others.

Artists have chosen the human body as a subject because of the wide range of ideas it can communicate in an immediately recognizable way. These concepts include the expression of individual personality, or a generalized type or symbol; the presentation of a figure in a narrative; a performer of work or leisure; or an embodiment of intimacy or solitude. The artists can also include explorations of the way a body moves, takes up space, or simply exists unadorned – beautifully, powerfully, and vulnerably naked. With works organized not by artist name or chronology but by the ways in which artists have depicted human form, The Figure Examined explores each of these themes through six sections: Motion, Balance, Stillness; Advancing the Story; At Work, At Leisure; Intimacy and Solitude; Unveiled; and Portraits and Types.

“By presenting such a universal subject,” remarks Dr. Lees, “the exhibition allows viewers to make connections between works of art that are often separated by historical or geographical boundaries. Parallels as well as striking differences in form and meaning emerge clearly from these unexpected juxtapositions.”

The inspiration for bringing these works together sprang from the passion and vision of Elisabeth and Alexander Kasser. Elisabeth and Alexander Kasser settled in Montclair, New Jersey after World War II when they left their native Hungary. Their love of art grew out of early experiences and they began actively forming the collection in the 1960s. Through engagement with art and friendships with many of the artists whose work they ultimately collected, the Kassers assembled a group of primarily European paintings, sculptures, and works on paper dating from the late nineteenth through mid-twentieth centuries. The New Jersey-based Kasser Mochary Art Foundation, founded in 1968 by Elisabeth and Alexander Kasser along with their children Mary Kasser Mochary and Michael Kasser, supports and promotes appreciation for the fine arts through original exhibitions and long-term loans to institutions, including Philbrook.

Encompassing a variety of media including painting, sculpture, and works on paper, The Figure Examined showcases how artists can interpret the human form in both diverging and complementary ways. Visitors will see Auguste Rodin’s powerful studies of the expressive potential of the human form in both

L’Éternelle idole, the work against which the Kassers measured all their acquisitions, as well as Adam, a work that has met Philbrook guests at its main entrance since first loaned by the Kassers in 1990.

In Fernando Botero’s (b. 1932) Hombre a caballo, visitors will discover a heroically proportioned yet whimsical horseman balanced in motion. Picasso’s etching of figures points to both classical models and personal themes, while the work of Paul Signac showcases his utopian vision of men and women in harmony at work and play.

IN THIS EXHIBITION:

Signac, Paul (French, 1863 – 1935) Au Temps d’harmonie; l’âge d’or n’est pas dans le passé, il est dans l’avenir (reprise)> / In the Time of Harmony; the Golden Age is Not Passed, it is Still to Come (reprise), 1896. Oil on canvas 25.75 x 31.875”

Mary Cassatt, Portrait of Katherine Kelso Cassatt, c. 1905, oil on canvas. Collection of the Kasser Mochary Art Foundation

Sisley, Alfred (British, 1839 – 1899; resided France) Paysage aux environs de Moret / Landscape near Moret, 1880 Oil on canvas 25.675 x 21.25”

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, La Femme à la draperie / Draped Woman, c. 1908, oil on canvas. Collection of the Kasser Mochary Art Foundation

Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de (French, 1864 – 1901) La Loge au mascaron doré / Loge with a Gilded Mascaron, 1893 Lithograph on paper. Edition of 100. Frame: 21.75 x 17” Sight Size: 15.25 x 10.75”

Celestin Pallya, Marktszene IV / Market Scene IV, late 19th-earth 20th Century, oil on board. Collection of the Kasser Mochary Art Foundation

Auguste Rodin, Adam, 1881; cast 1970. Bronze. 8/12 77.5 x 29.875 x 30.25”

Picasso

Artists in this exhibition include:

Mary Cassatt, Lynn Chadwick, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, Jóseph Csáky, Salvador Dali, Honore Daumier, Giorgio de Chirico, Edgar Degas, Eugene Delacroix, Raoul Dufy, Paul Gauguin, Alberto Giacometti, Francisco Goya, Oskar Kokoschka, Jacques Lipchitz, Edouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Amedeo Modigliani, Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Diego Rivera, Auguste Rodin, Egon Schiele, Paul Signac, Alfred Sisley, Henri de Toulouse-Laurtrec, Andy Warhol, Max Weber, and more

About Philbrook:

Rooted in the beauty and architecture of an historic home gifted by the Phillips family 75 years ago, Philbrook Museum of Art has grown to become one of the preeminent art museums across the central United States located in Tulsa, Okla. Highlights of the Museum’s permanent collection include Renaissance and Baroque paintings from the Kress Foundation, American portraiture and landscape, one of the greatest surveys of Native American art anywhere, and growing modern and contemporary collections. The Philbrook main campus spans 23 acres of grounds and formal gardens, and features an historic home displaying the museum’s permanent collection, as well as an architectural addition with auditorium, restaurant, library, and education studios. Philbrook Downtown, a satellite location in Tulsa’s Brady Arts District, showcases Philbrook’s modern and contemporary art collections, as well as the Eugene B. Adkins Collection and Study Center of Native American art.

Interesting discussion of this exhibition

Venues:

Monet and American Impressionism was on view from Feb. 3, 2015 to May 24, 2015 at the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida

Hunter Museum of American Art in Chattanooga, Tennessee from June 25, 2015 through Sept. 20, 2015

Telfair Museums in Savannah, Georgia from Oct. 16, 2015 through Jan. 24, 2016.

Monet and American Impressionism displays works by more than twenty American artists who launched a new way of painting in response to the influence of Monet and French Impressionism. In the late 19th century, these artists adapted the innovations of French Impressionism, and ultimately paved the way to its place as one of the most enduring styles in the history of American art. In addition to four paintings by Monet, the exhibition will present nearly fifty paintings and thirty prints dated between 1882 and 1920 by many of the leading figures in American Impressionism, such as Mary Cassatt, William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalf, Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman, and J. Alden Weir.

The exhibition will be organized along five thematic groupings:

 The Allure of Giverny features the Harn Museum’s Giverny landscapes by
Claude Monet (Champ d’avoine)
and Theodore Robinson (Afternoon Shadows)
alongside loaned works by artists who were active in Giverny between 1887 and 1919, including Theodore Butler, Frederick Frieseke, Willard Metcalf, and Lilla Cabot Perry. These works explore relationships between the United States and France during the period and the American fascination with French art and culture.
 A Country Retreat examines how American artists adapted Impressionist approaches to their paintings of distinctly American landscapes. This section will include the Harn’s landscapes by Childe Hassam, alongside loaned works by Monet and American artists John Leslie Breck, William Merritt Chase, Willard Metcalf, Edward Redfield, and John Twachtman.
 The Vibrance of Urbanism features works by Monet that demonstrate the Impressionists’ interest in depicting scenes of modern life in the city.
Frederick Childe Hassam (1859-1935), French Tea Garden (also known as The Terra-Cuite Tea Set), 1910, oil on canvas, signed and dated at lower right, 35 x 40-1/2 inches, Gift of the Benwood Foundation, 1976.3.13

(Hunter Museum of American Art)
This section presents works by William Glackens, Childe Hassam, Jonas Lie, Gari Melchers, and Maurice Prendergast whose dynamic urban subjects celebrate the dynamism and unique character of major American cities.
 The Comfort of Home presents domestic interiors and gardens—spaces in which women play a central role.
Frederick Carl Frieseke (American, 1874-1939)The Garden Umbrella, by 1910
Oil on canvas
32 x 32 in.
Telfair Museums, Bequest of Elizabeth Millar (Mrs. Bernice Frost) Bullard, 1942.7
Richard Emil Miller (American, 1875-1943)
La Toilette, C. 1914
Oil on canvas, 40 x 32 ½ in. (101.6 x 82.6 cm)
The Columbus Museum, Georgia, Museum purchase made possible by Mrs. J.B. Knight, Jr., in memory of her husband
Here, Monet’s influence can been seen in the work of American artists including Mary Cassatt, Joseph De Camp, Frederick Frieseke, Gari Melchers, Richard Miller, Edmund Tarbell, and Helen Maria Turner. Two impressionistically modeled bronzes by sculptor Bessie Potter Vonnoh are displayed in conjunction with these paintings of domestic subjects
. A Graphic Legacy addresses how American artists such as Frank Benson, Cassatt, Hassam, Prendergast, and J. Alden Weir translated Impressionist color and light into the print medium. These artists created etchings, drypoints, lithographs and monotypes as an outlet for fresh, creative expression and a means to expand their audience to the art-loving middle class.

Monet and American Impressionism is organized by the Harn Museum of Art in partnership with the Telfair Museums and the Hunter Museum of American Art and is curated by Dulce Román, Curator of Modern Art at the Harn Museum.

“This exhibition grew out of two important works in the Harn’s own collection, Champ d’avoine (Oat Field) by Monet, and Afternoon Shadows by Theodore Robinson, which were donated by our longtime supporters Michael and Donna Singer. The juxtaposition of these paintings prompted our curiosity about the development of Impressionism in America,” said Harn Museum of Art Director Rebecca Nagy. “In addition to featuring works from the Harn’s collections, we are thrilled to bring together important loans from more than twenty-five institutions, including the National Gallery of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Terra Foundation for American Art, and Brooklyn Museum to generate a strong dialogue about techniques, composition and subject matter.”

A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition and will include essays by Harn Museum curator Dulce Román, Nancy Mowll Mathews, and Telfair Museums curator Courtney A. McNeil. In addition, shorter essays by University of Florida faculty address the artistic, cultural and historical context of American Impressionism from interdisciplinary perspectives in the fields of art history, American history, French literatures, English, women’s studies, and sociology.

Freeman's Jun 7 2015

Freeman'sis offering two outstanding works by Pennsylvania Impressionist Edward Willis Redfield depicting scenes of Centre Bridge in the upcoming auction American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists.

When Edward Willis Redfield and his family settled in the charming environs of Centre Bridge, Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Delaware River in 1898, he surely could not have known that in doing so he was laying the foundation for one of the great American Art colonies—the "New Hope School."

As a plein air artist—one who paints outside in the elements, rather than in the studio—he soon became a familiar figure in the vicinity, trudging through the snow to set up a canvas (often by strapping it to a tree), energetically capturing the landscape in front of him with his vigorously bold brushwork and rich impasto. Redfield’s charismatic presence soon attracted many other artists to the area, including George Sotter, Fern Coppedge, John Folinsbee, Daniel Garber, Harry Leith-Ross, and Kenneth Nunamaker, many of whom were directly influenced either by Redfield’s work or his methods. Collectively, these artists became known as the “Pennsylvania Impressionists” and their work, Redfield’s in particular, was celebrated as the embodiment of a uniquely American vision. At the time, the noted painter and critic, Guy Pene du Bois, described it as “our first truly national expression.”

The town of Centre Bridge (the Anglicized spelling is traditional) was integral to both Redfield’s life and practice. The two paintings to be offered in Freeman’s June 7th auction American Art & Pennsylvania Impressionists depict views of the town, but from different times in its history. In

EDWARD WILLIS REDFIELD (AMERICAN 1869-1965) "THE ROAD TO CENTRE BRIDGE" . Signed 'E.W. Redfield' bottom left, oil on canvas. 38 x 50 in. (96.5 x 127cm). Estimate $150,000-250,000

The Road to Centre Bridge, one can see the eponymous original wooden bridge in the distance. During a thunderstorm on the night of July 22, 1923, lightning struck the 112 year-old bridge causing it to ignite. Redfield was driving home with his family when he saw the blaze in the distance. Fearing that it was his house, on fire, he sped homewards only to realize—presumably with a measure of relief—that it was, in fact, the adjacent bridge. Redfield and his family gathered together with many other spectators including his fellow artist, William Lathrop, on the river bank to witness the inferno and the firefighters’ frantic efforts to extinguish it. Redfield later remarked, “Lathrop said it was a pity it couldn’t be painted. So I took out an envelope and made some notes and painted all the next day. The following day, I painted it again.” This painting,

The Fire at Centre Bridge, believed to be one of the only ones created entirely in his studio from memory, is widely considered to be one of his best and is a highlight of the collection in the Michener Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, where it was presented as a partial gift by the Laurent Redfield family.

EDWARD WILLIS REDFIELD (AMERICAN 1869-1965) "CENTRE BRIDGE". Signed 'E.W. Redfield' bottom right, oil on canvas. 32 x 40 in. (81.3 x 101.6cm). Estimate $120,000-180,000

Centre Bridge, an evocative winter scene, depicts the current bridge which was completed in 1926 and built upon the remaining piers and abutments of the original. Both paintings come with an impeccable provenance.

The Road to Centre Bridge formed part of the artist’s estate and was chosen by his son, Laurent, following a drawing of lots within the family to determine ownership. Centre Bridge was subsequently acquired by Laurent’s wife, Dorothy, and each work has since descended through the family to the current owners, the artist’s great grand-children. As one present family member pointed out, their grandmother at one time had paintings of “the bridge before, during, and after the fire.” Together, these works are a splendid testament to the artist’s creative powers and his love of the Centre Bridge area which he called his home.

Sotheby's 2007

Edward W. Redfield
1869-1965

LUMBERVILLE HILLS

LOT SOLD. 337,000 USD

Sotheby's 2013

Edward Willis Redfield
1869 - 1965

HILLS OF POINT PLEASANT

LOT SOLD. 245,000 USD

Sotheby's 2014

Edward Willis Redfield

WINTER SPORTS

LOT SOLD. 106,250 USD

Edward Willis Redfield

FROSTY MORNING

LOT SOLD. 149,000 USD

Sotheby's 2015

Edward Willis Redfield

SPRING BOUQUET

LOT SOLD. 162,500 USD

Christie's 2015

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)

The Rock Garden, Monhegan Island, Maine

Est. $400,000 - $600,000

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)

Plum Blossoms

Est. $250,000 - $350,000

Christie's 2014

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)

The Village Store

Pr.$269,000

Christie's 2013

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)
Hillside and Valley, Point Pleasant
Pr.$363,750

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)
Center Bridge Farm
Pr.$269,000

Christie's 2012

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)
Spring at Point Pleasant
Pr.$374,500

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)
February
Pr.$230,500

Christie's 2011

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)

Woodland Brook

Pr.$434,500

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)

Spring Landscape

Pr.$242,500

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)

Melting Snows

Pr.$362,500

2010

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)
Panther Hollow, Pittsburgh
Pr.$362,500

Christie's 2009

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)

Horse and Sleigh Days

Pr.$494,500

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)
Christmas Morning
Pr.$230,500

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)
Carversville Farm
Pr.$116,500

Christie's 2008

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)

Spring in the Harbor

Pr.$260,500

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)

When Spring Comes

Pr.$146,500

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)

Forest Interior

Pr.$56,250

Christie's 2007

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)

The Bowdoin, Monhegan Island

Pr.$193,000

Christie's 2006

Edward Willis Redfield (1869-1965)

Spring at Point Pleasant on the Delaware River

Pr.$744,000

Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in London on 23 June will present the market with a further array of 52 highly covetable works to inspire collectors worldwide. Building on the deep international bidding also witnessed in the strong February London sales, this auction meets current tastes and demand with a curated group of captivating works full of passion and vitality by the trailblazers of late 19^th and 20^th century art, from Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso Alfred Sisley and Auguste Rodin to Marc Chagall, Kees van Dongen, Franz Marc, Paul Signac, René Magritte and Joan Miró. Comprising many key works dating from critical points in the oeuvres of the respective artists, estimates range from £250,000 up to £9 million. Select highlights from the sale will go on view for the first time between 12 and 16 June during Christie’s free five-day public exhibition ‘Christie’s Curates: Past Perfect/Future Present’, a celebration of creativity which launches the summer season.

Offered from a Private European Collection, Iris mauves, 1914-1917, by Claude Monet (1840-1926) dates from the artist’s first concerted campaign of work on the most ambitious undertaking of his career: the Grandes decorations (estimate: £6-9 million). An ensemble of twenty-two mural-sized canvases totalling more than ninety metres in length, Monet completed the group just months before he passed away, donating them to the French state (Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris). The Grandes decorations were the culmination of a complex series of around two hundred and fifty canvases that constitute some of the most innovative and influential works of his entire oeuvre. One of just twenty views that Monet painted of irises on the banks of the lily pond, Iris mauves boasts the same monumental scale and free, daring handling as the final murals and may well have been conceived as part of the decorative ensemble, which underwent repeated revisions during the decade that Monet worked on it.

A painting rarely seen within Alfred Sisley’s (1839-1899) oeuvre, Le potager, has resided in just two private collections since it was painted in 1872 (estimate: £1.5-2 million). Unseen in public for over half a century, it is coming to auction for the first time in over 80 years having passed by descent from the present owner’s grandfather. Sisley’s depictions of the rural, French countryside occupy an important position in the early development of Impressionism and Le potager dates from a decisive year in his career during which he left Paris and his Impressionist style emerged. At the beginning of the 1870s, Sisley, along with Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro, was drawn to the small riverside towns and villages of the Île-de-France, finding a wealth of inspiration in the meeting of open, unspoiled nature, and increasingly cultivated and inhabited land. With bright, harmonious colour, varied brushstrokes and bold contrasts of light and shade, Le potager demonstrates the new artistic vocabulary that Sisley and his Impressionist colleagues employed, imbuing their paintings with an innovative vitality and spontaneity, characteristics that became the abiding principles of the Impressionist movement.

Painted on 14 December 1969, Tête by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) depicts a youthful masculine portrait – an alter ego of the artist’s late work (estimate: £4.8-6.5 million). His costume places him back in the 17^th century, among Picasso’s mousquetaires, inspired by his idols Rubens, Rembrandt and Van Dyck, although his floppy straw hat recalls the portraits of Picasso’s admired predecessor Vincent van Gogh. Under the title Buste d'homme, this work was included in the last major lifetime exhibition of Picasso’s work, held in May-October 1970 at the Palais des Papes in Avignon. The artist was nearing his 90^th birthday, and was still painting non-stop. This show, often referred to as Avignon I, was devoted entirely to his recent work, comprising 167 oils and 45 drawings he had done between the beginning of January 1969 and the end of January 1970. The paintings in both this and a later Avignon exhibition are the final fruit of Picasso’s ongoing dialogues with past masters.

Painted from 1959 to 1960, Bouquet près de la fenêtre by Marc Chagall (1887-1985) has been identified as one of the finest flower paintings of this period by the author of the artist’s definitive biography and catalogue raisonné, Franz Meyer (estimate: £2.5 – 3.5 million). Acquired by the family of the present owner 35 years ago from Galerie Maeght in Paris, this monumental work presents the themes that dominated Marc Chagall’s painting throughout his career: romance, memory and nostalgia. Filled with light and colour, Bouquet près de la fenêtre reflects the peaceful Mediterranean idyll that was Chagall’s life at this time. Chagall had first introduced floral still-lifes in his paintings in the mid-1920s, having returned to France from his native Russia in 1923. He developed a new feeling for nature, and was particularly enchanted by flowers as the embodiment of the French landscape. Flowers also served as a potent symbol of love in Chagall’s work; the present work celebrates his love for Valentina or ‘Vava’ Brodsky, his second wife and last great love. Arranged like fragments of a dream, the various motifs of Bouquet près de la fenêtre appear as figments of Chagall’s imagination, memories from the artist’s past, and images of his present life, creating a new, fantastical reality.

Anita en almée by Kees van Dongen (1877-1968), painted in 1908, is a highly charged, sensuous celebration of the Parisian demi-monde in the first decade of the 20^th century, with echoes of French Orientalist painting (estimate: £4-7 million). The artist’s subjects in the years before the First World War confront, provoke, titillate and lure the viewer into their space. No other modern painter in Paris at the time made his pictures as heatedly and blatantly sexual as Van Dongen, who executed his sensational subjects in a riot of violent colours. A self-taught artist, Van Dongen independently arrived at Fauvism in 1905. He stirred up a volatile mixture of strident colour and vigorously rendered painterly forms and unlike other painters of the Fauve circle, he unabashedly indulged his taste for the demi-monde of Montmartre.

Appearing at auction for the very first time and dating from 1911, the year when Franz Marc (1880-1916) truly articulated his artistic vision, Gemsen encapsulates the ideas and stylistic tendencies that were at the very core of the artist’s aesthetic endeavours (estimate: £1.8-2.5 million). Marc sought to create an image of the world in harmony, as a holistic and abstract spiritual entity. This approach led to increasingly abstracted elements in Marc’s art, starting from 1911 when he founded Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) with Kandinsky. Not only are the geometric shapes of the mountains in the present work abstract, but crucially also the colours – the green chamois, blue mountains, purple clouds. Blue held a particularly strong meaning to Marc, with blue mountains often appearing in his work as symbols of his spiritual aspirations. Coming from a distinguished private collection, this work presents collectors with the unique opportunity to purchase a piece by Franz Marc from what was arguably the most formative year of his career. Christie’s set the world record price for a work on paper by the artist in the February 2015 London Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale when Springendes Pferd, 1913, by Franz Marc (1880-1916) sold for £2,546,500 against an estimate of £1.5 to £2 million, far surpassing the previous record of £936,500 which was set in 1997.

With a kaleidoscopic array of vibrant colour, Marseille, le port, 1934, by Paul Signac (1863-1935) is an exuberant painting that bursts with radiant light and movement (estimate: £2-3 million). Depicting one of Signac’s favourite subjects, a maritime scene, this painting captures the bustling port of Marseille. Signac depicted the harbours of France with an unfaltering enthusiasm in the later phase of his career, a pursuit that enabled him to combine his two greatest passions: painting and sailing. A
keen yachtsman, Signac savoured the mix of boats, water and people that populated the ports of towns and cities from Saint-Tropez, to Venice and Constantinople. Marseille, le port is an exultant culmination of Signac’s lifelong exploration into colour and composition.

Offered from a European Private Collection, Le baiser, circa 1957, a gouache on paper by René Magritte (1898-1967), presents one of Magritte’s most poetic subjects: the oiseau de ciel, or ‘Sky-Bird’ (estimate: £1.2-1.8 million). This work presents the viewer with a rare and yet greatly celebrated motif that first entered his oeuvre in1940 in

Le retour, now in the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique.

The ‘Sky-Bird’ would come to gain international recognition in part through the later adoption by the Belgian national air carrier, Sabena, of a variant of this theme. In the case of the Sabena image, entitled

L'oiseau de ciel

and painted in 1966, the silhouette of a bird was shown filled with a cloudy, day-lit sky against a dark background, whereas in Le baiser, created roughly a decade earlier, Magritte has shown the silhouette as a pool of star-speck led night sky against the backdrop of day, with the sea and a beach underneath.

Le baiser, circa 1957, is one of four works by Magritte in the sale, which also includes

La grande marée, circa 1957 (estimate: £600,000 – 900,000)

and Le chant d'amour, circa 1962 (estimate: £300,000-500,000)

which are both offered from a distinguished private Belgian Collection, as well as

L'art de la conversation, 1955, (estimate: £300,000-500,000).

which is being sold from a private American Collection The market for works by Magritte is particularly strong with Christie’s selling all nine examples offered last February in London, which constituted the most extraordinary and extensive selection of works by the artist to come to the market since the landmark Harry Torczyner sale in 1998 at Christie’s New York.

La tige de la fleur rouge pousse vers la lune(The Stem of the Red Flower Grows Toward the Moon) by Joan Miró (1893-1983) was painted in 1952, a pivotal year in the artist’s oeuvre when he created some of his most revolutionary and acclaimed pictures (estimate: £3.5-4.5 million). Miró has combined his elegant, often delicate symbols and signs with a more brutal gesturality that reflects the developments occurring in the avant garde at the time, such as Abstract Expressionism, which Miró’s works had helped to spur into existence. It was one of 60 paintings exhibited in New York at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in 1953. The exhibition catalogue’s preface by James Johnson Sweeney
focused largely on Miró’s playfulness, which is demonstrated in the techniques used and the subject matter of this work. There is a primal energy that is perfectly suited to the seeming savagery of the main figure dominating the composition, which is rendered with incredible gusto. This period of Miró’s work was very influential on artists such as Adolph Gottlieb and Jackson Pollock, whom Miró had met when he first travelled to the United States in 1947.

THE PROPERTY OF THE MUSÉE RODIN, PARIS
Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) Aphrodite, grand modèle (£600,000-800,000). © Christie’s Images Limited 2015

Almost two meters tall, Aphrodite by Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) is the first bronze of the subject to have been cast in the present size; it is offered from The Musée Rodin, Paris (estimate: £600,000 – 800,000). The mould, lost and only rediscovered by the Musée Rodin in 2014, had been used by the artist, a century earlier, to create a large plaster cast of the subject for the actress and director of the Renaissance theatre Cora Laparcerie’s 1914 staging of Aphrodite, a play adapted from a homonymous novel by Pierre Louÿs. Instead of sculpting a new work, Rodin searched his studio for a suitable previous model that, under a different title, could acquire a novel, unexpected meaning. The small nude he selected, conceived more than a decade earlier, was promptly enlarged twice by Henri Lebossé to a magnificent 77.1/2 in. (197 cm.) and finally cast in plaster, the same size as the present bronze. On the opening night of Aphrodite, the theatre curtains revealed Rodin’s sculpture, adorned with flowers, its stark white silhouette ‘dancing’ against the contrasting backdrop of a black marble temple. George Grappe, a former curator of the Musée Rodin in Paris, believes that the model for Aphrodite was originally conceived by Rodin during his work on the Porte de l’Enfer, the monumental decorative door the artist was asked to produce in 1880 for a planned - though never realised - new Museum of Decorative Arts. Born as a damned soul and later redeemed as the goddess of love and chastity, Aphrodite constitutes a fascinating, ultimate testimony to the art of one of the greatest sculptors of the turn of the century. Cast in 2014, this work is the first and presently only extant example.

Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 24th June 2015

Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 24th June 2015 will feature Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère of 1881 by Édouard Manet, estimated at £15-20 million/ $23-30.7 million / €21-28 million depicting one of the artist’s most celebrated and iconic subjects.

In his celebrated evocation of the Folies-Bergère scene Édouard Manet produced from an everyday setting an iconic image of modern Paris. This is one of only two paintings by Manet of the Folies-Bergère - the other housed at the Courtauld Gallery in London –and therefore the only version remaining in private hands.

The painting remained in the artist’s personal collection up until his death, after which his famed dealer Paul Durand-Ruel was able to procure the work. The painting was shown to the public in 1905 in the now legendary exhibition at the Grafton Galleries, London, which introduced the British public to Impressionism. Testament to its outstanding quality, it has since been exhibited extensively internationally; reflecting its importance and provenance Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère most recently featured as one of the highlights of the National Gallery’s blockbuster exhibition in London Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art Market-a high note upon which the show ended. The painting will be on view at Sotheby’s in London from 19th –24th June 2015.

The Evolution of Manet’s Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère

Manet turned to the theme of bars and café-concerts in the late 1870s as inspiration for his paintings, which reached a climax in the subject depicted in Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère.

His celebrated large-scale oil of the same title, exhibited at the Salon of 1882 and now in the collection of the Courtauld Gallery, London, is considered the crowning achievement of Manet’s career. While the two related paintings share the same subject and a similar composition, the artist’s stylistic approach to painting them differed significantly.

Unlike the painting in the Courtauld, this smaller, earlier painting (47 by 56cm) displays a remarkable vivacity and immediacy in the artist's depiction of his subject, and is executed with quick, spontaneous brushstrokes that remained barely altered as Manet developed the composition. In the mid-1980s X-ray-based research revealed further differences in approach and techniques employed.

Interestingly, beneath the surface of the Courtauld painting lies a composition that resembles the earlier painting much more closely. Manet initially transferred the composition of the earlier work to the larger canvas, and over a longer period of time made numerous changes that led to the final image: he enlarged the figure of the barmaid and depicted her in the center of the composition frontally, replacing her clasped arms with straight ones and moving the barmaid’s reflected image to a less logical position on the right, whereas the image of her male companion was moved further up into the top right corner. In the process Manet substituted the immediacy of the earlier painting -in which reality is transcribed with a wonderful vibrancy and freedom -for a composition in which the reflections of the two figures become picturesque but implausible.

The Subject of Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère

The Folies-Bergère, a Parisian variety theatre, was opened in 1869 on the rue Richer. It offered a combination of pantomime, ballet, acrobatics and music, with many bars “tended by charming girls whose playful glances and delightful smiles attract a swarm of customers”, according toone contemporary account. Manet made various sketches there, and the painting to be offered was based on an ink sketch depicting a barmaid engaged in a conversation with a man, both figures reflected in the mirror behind her.

Previous ownership Le Bar aux Folies-Bergère remained with the artist until his death when it was inherited by his widow, Suzanne Manet (née Leenhoff). It was subsequently given to Edmond Bazire, a friend of Manet’s who had written the first monograph on the artist’s work in 1884. The painting was eventually procured by Paul Durand-Ruel from whom the renowned Viennese art collector Dr Hermann Eissler acquiredthe painting. In 1926 Franz Koenigs, one of the leading collectors of his day, bought the work through the Amsterdam branch of Paul Cassirer's dealership, which had it on consignment from the estate of Dr Eissler's brother Dr Gottfried Eissler. While much of Koenigs’ collection is now housed in Rotterdam's Museum Boymans, this painting by Manet remained in the family’s own personal collection until 1994 when it was last sold at Sotheby’s London for £4.4 million. It was later acquired by the present owner.
_______________________________________________________________

Gustav Klimt’s extraordinarily beautiful and captivating portrait Bildnis Gertrud Loew of 1902 will be offered for sale in the 24^th June Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale following a settlement between the Felsöványi family and The Gustav Klimt | Wien 1900-Privatstiftung (Klimt Foundation).

The painting (est. £12-18 million / $18.5-27.7 million / €16.8-25.3 million) depicts the ethereal figure of Gertrud Loew, later known by her married name Gertha Felsöványi, a member of fin-de-siècle Viennese society, wreathed in diaphanous folds of gossamer fabric.

Helena Newman, Sotheby’s Co-Head of Impressionist & Modern Art Worldwide said: “Gustav Klimt’s exquisite and ingenious representations of women have led him tobecome the most celebrated painter of the female portrait of the early 20th Century. Bildnis Gertrud Loew, froma crucial period in the artist’s career, isone of his finest portraits to appear at auctionin over twenty years.”

Gertrud Felsöványi’s granddaughter, commenting on behalf of the family heirs, said:

“This portrait portrays the brave and determined nature of my grandmother. Her strength of character and beauty lives on in this visual embodiment. My father, Anthony Felsöványi, last saw this painting in June 1938 when he left the family home for the last time to depart for America. At that time my grandmother had been advised to leave her family home to live in a less grand home to try to avoid the attention of the Nazis, given her Jewish ancestry. Eventually, under duress, in 1939 she left Vienna altogether to join my father in America, having left all of her belongings behind -including this painting. Her home had been taken over as a Nazi headquarters and she had left her valuable belongings with friends and acquaintances. After the war, she never returned to Vienna. Only my father’s sister did, with the hope of retrieving some of their belongings, but to no avail. My father said that my grandmother never again mentioned the painting or the valuable belongings she had left behind.“My father recalled that throughout his childhood the painting was displayed in the entrance hall of their family home. It was displayed prominently on a stand rather than hung on the wall, and faced out to the gardens. After he had left Vienna, my father hung a reproduction of the Klimt portrait of his mother in his home in America. While sadly my father is no longer alive, having died two years ago aged ninety-eight, this settlement would have meant a great deal to him, as it does to me and the other family heirs with whom this settlement has been agreed. Before his death my father had wanted to thank Mrs Ucicky for her longstanding desire to work towards this settlement, and our family wishes to thank her as well as the researchers and others involved in bringing about this resolution.”

Bildnis Gertrud Loew was commissioned by Gertrud’s father Dr Anton Loew, at the time one of the most celebrated physicians in Vienna. The Loew family lived in a palatial residence adjoining the Sanitorium Loew –the largest and grandest private sanatorium in Vienna where a number of important fin-de-siècle figures were treated, including Gustav Mahler and Gustav Klimt, as well as Ludwig Wittgenstein. The success of the Sanitorium enabled Anton Loew to acquire some of the greatest masterpieces of the time, including

Ferdinand Hodler’s Der Auserwählte (now in the Kunstmuseum, Bern)

and a further important work by Gustav Klimt, Judith I (now housed in the Belvedere, Vienna).

He had also commissioned the artist Koloman Moser to design Gertrud and her first husband’s apartment in the Wiener Werkstätte style, but following Anton’s death Gertrud moved back to the family’s residence where she continued to run the Sanatorium. When the Nazis arrived in Vienna she came under increasing pressure due to her Jewish ancestry, and in early 1939 reluctantly agreed to leave Vienna for exile in the United States, leaving the entire Felsöványi art collection behind. When Gertrud’s daughter, Maria, returned to Vienna after the war to reclaim her family’s property she discovered that it had all been sold by her mother’s friend –herself under duress by persecution -and the Felsöványi family was not able to retrieve a single work of art. Untraceable by the Felsöványi family,by then Bildnis Gertrud Loew had been acquired by Gustav Ucicky, one of Gustav Klimt’s sons by Maria Ucicka who had modelled for the artist. Gustav Ucicky was a film director who rose to prominence during the Weimar Republic. He acquired a considerable number of works by his father, which he left to his wife Ursula after his death in 1961. In 2013 Ursula Ucicky established Gustav Klimt | Wien 1900-Privatstiftungwhich houses this collection of works and is also a non-profit cultural, art historical, scientific and educational centre. In addition to aiming to preserve and research the life and oeuvre of Gustav Klimt,Ursula Ucicky wished to research the history of the acquisition of the artworks in the collection, enlisting notable provenance experts to carry out the research. Following extensive research, a settlement between the Felsöványi family and the Klimt Foundation was reached under the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art and an agreement that Bildnis Gertrud Loew will be offered for sale.

Gertha Felsöványi

Gertrud Loew, known as Gertha, was nineteen years old when she was painted by Gustav Klimt in 1902. Dr Anton Loew had become one of the first benefactors of the Secession movement, co-sponsoring the building of the Secession, and in addition to works by Klimt, Hodler and Segantini, he collected antiques, baroque and renaissance art. In 1903 Gertha married Hans Eisler von Terramare in the Minoritenkirchein Vienna. After the early death of the couple’s only daughter Gertrude, the marriage fell apart. Gertha moved back into the family residence next to the Sanitorium and took over the running of the Sanatorium after Dr Anton Loew’s death in 1907. In 1912 she married the Hungarian industrialist Elemér Baruch von Felsöványi with whom she had three children. In November 1923 her husband caught pneumonia returning from a nightclub without an overcoat and died a few days later.

When the Nazis arrived in Vienna, Gertha was encouraged by her lawyer to leave her home and move into more modest accommodation, and then under increasing duress she reluctantly left in 1939, entrusting her artworks to a friend for safekeeping. Although her son Anthony was already living in America, Gertha was denied an entry visa and was not allowed to disembark when she docked in New York harbour; it was only through the intercession of Eleanor Roosevelt that she was allowed a day pass to spend Christmas 1939 with her son. She continued her journey to Colombia and spent time as a French teacher in Barranquilla while she waited for the grant of a US visa. In June 1940 she arrived in the USA where she started a new life, working nightshifts. When Gertha’s daughter Maria returned to Vienna after the war to reclaim her family’s property she discovered the fate of her family’s collection. Having learned about the losses of her father’s legacy, Gertha Felsöványi never returned to Austria. She died in Menlo Park, California in March 1964 at the age of 80.

A Portrait Painter of International Acclaim

Bildnis Gertrud Loew was exhibited on numerous occasions during the artist’s lifetime, both in Austria and Germany.The portrait was first exhibited in the Wiener Secession's Klimt exhibition in 1903 where it was reviewed by the great Viennese art critic,Ludwig von Hevesi, and describedas ‘. . .the most sweet-scented poetry the palette is able to create.’

Klimt’s foundation of the Secession and its association with private supporters allowed him to cultivate prospective commissions as well as exhibitions on a large scale, in amanner rarely afforded to artists before him. The growth of private patronage from the haute-bourgeoisie was needed to replace the large-scale commissions from the State and city of Vienna which previously supported many of Austria’s artists. Klimt’s portraits were much in demand and he rapidly became the highest-paid artist in Vienna. His popularity and status led to a number of prominent exhibitions –not least the Kollektiv Ausstellung Gustav Klimt at the 1903-04 Secession –but also to a market for reproductions of his best works. In 1908 the art dealer H. O. Miethke, of the eponymous gallery, initiated the creation of a series of 50 lithographs of Klimt’s finest work, simply entitled Das Werk Gustav Klimts.

The present work was chosen alongside several of the great Golden period works, as well as a selection of landscapes, portraits and allegorical works. It was this collection of prints that helped the artist to gain an international reputation, and Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria was the first person to purchase a folio set.

The Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut, presents a summer exhibition that honors Connecticut and New York’s contributions to the history of maritime travel and trade with the exhibition, All the Sea Knows: Marine Art from the Museum of the City of New York. On view June 6 through September 20, 2015, All the Sea Knows combines paintings and decorative arts objects from MCNY’s remarkable yet seldom-exhibited maritime art collection with paintings and artifacts drawn from the Florence Griswold Museum’s collection. The exhibition takes its name from Carl Sandburg’s poem “Sea-Wash,” and juxtaposes works of art with salient passages from literature to convey the many and varied ways that Americans have embraced the sea.

All the Sea Knows features works by famed nineteenth-century American painters James Bard, James Edward Buttersworth, Thomas Chambers, Edward Moran, Fitz Henry Lane, and many others. Brought together, these paintings reveal the genre of marine art to be as varied as landscape painting.

Co-curated by FGM Curators Amy Kurtz Lansing and Benjamin Colman, All the Sea Knows touches upon broad themes of American life. The marine art and artifacts reveal the economic and social transformation of America in the nineteenth century—a society assuming its place in a wider world, assimilating industrial technology in the transition from sail to steam, and tells the story of packet shipping through portraits of its ships and captains.

Close Ties between New York and Old Lyme

A special gallery in All the Sea Knows will unite for the first time a group of related paintings from the collections of both museums depicting ships that sailed for the Black X Line from New York to London. Along with a number of prominent mariners from Old Lyme, Conn., Florence Griswold’s father Captain Robert Harper Griswold enjoyed an illustrious career as a captain of several Black X Line ships. All the Sea Knows will also debut a series of letters to Captain Griswold from his wife, Helen Powers Griswold. The intimate correspondence provides insight into the lives of sea captains and those left behind, as well as conveying how the shipping industry affected the entire shoreline community. “When we first began discussing this exhibition with MCNY’s Director Susan Henshaw Jones, I was thrilled to realize that our collections had complementary pieces that, if brought together, could tell the fascinating story of just how closely Old Lyme and New York were connected by commerce and trade in the nineteenth century,” noted FGM Director Jeff Andersen. “This is just one of the revelations of this exhibition,” he added.

America’s Emergence as a Global Economic Power

Clipper Ship Sweepstakes painting (1853) by Fitz Hugh Lane at Museum of the City

So-called “packet” ships such as the Toronto and the Sweepstakes (in paintings by J. Macarthy and Fitz Henry Lane) linked America to Europe and the Far East. Sailing set routes on a schedule, they moved not only goods, but also people and information in the form of newspapers and letters. The packet trade provided essential links between far-flung ports in the early years of a globally connected world.

All the Sea Knows provides a glimpse into the waves of immigration that America experienced in the mid-19th century. Packet ships, including those depicted in this exhibition’s portraits of Black X Line ships, carried settlers in search of farmland in the American West.

Edward Moran, Enlightening the World (The Unveiling of the Statue of Liberty), 1886. Oil on canvas, 49 1/2 x 39 inches. Museum of the City of New York

Edward Moran’s Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World, showing the monument’s dedication in New York Harbor, celebrates the connection between immigration and the vitality of American values. America’s expanding population matched the expansion of its territorial footprint. The exhibition draws attention to nineteenth-century views of American imperialism through paintings such as

Fred Pansing’s panorama, Sampson and Schley Leading the Fleet into N.Y. Harbor, August 20, 1898, which depicts the fanfare following the United States’ victory in the Spanish-American War.

From Sail to Steam

The middle section of the exhibition documents the transition from sailing ships to steam powered vessels, which changed the ways people, ideas, and goods traveled over the course of the nineteenth century. At the start of the nineteenth century, nautical trading routes that brought agricultural goods from the interior of the continent to the coast by a network of newly-constructed canals and rivers, and then on to the international market by sailing vessels, created immense prosperity in major ports like New York.

Steamer Mary Powell, “Queen of the Hudson,” built in 1861

James Bard, Mary Powell, 1861

Steam power transformed river and coastal travel from an arduous undertaking with unpredictable timing into a comfortable and pleasant event. Riverboats like the Mary Powell, decked out with playful fittings in the latest styles, made scenic travel accessible for the flourishing middle class in rapidly growing cities. Two portraits of the newly-christened Mary Powell, affectionately dubbed the “Queen of the Hudson,” as well as a scale model commemorate the ship’s popularity in her 1860s heyday.

By the time Samuel Ward Stanton painted her portrait in 1910, the age of the Hudson River steamboats was quickly ending, as rail travel became a faster and less expensive alternative. So beloved was the ship that when it was sold for scrap in 1919, The New York Times ran an obituary reporting, “the news caused many heart twinges throughout the Hudson Valley.”

When steam proliferated for coastal and river travel, the captains of American industry and finance rediscovered sailing as a leisure activity. Luxuriously appointed yachts were built in the United States as early as the eighteenth century, but never in significant numbers until the second half of the nineteenth century, when a group of yachtsmen in New York established clubs and prestigious races. Sailing, once a necessity of daily life on the coast, became a competitive hobby for the wealthiest Americans as steamships and trains took the place of masted ships for travel.

James Edward Buttersworth,Yacht Race off Fort Wadsworth, ca. 1870. Oil on board, 9 1/4 x 12 1/4 inches. Museum of the City of New York

James Edward Buttersworth’s Yacht Race Off Fort Wadsworth captures the excitement of the newly popular sport.

Connecticut and Transatlantic Shipping

Connecticut’s coastal towns played a key role in international commerce through the captains who made their home there when not traversing the globe aboard packet ships. Two of the most prominent lines were associated with members of Connecticut’s Griswold family, including the Black X Line, for which Captain Robert Harper Griswold, father of Lyme Art Colony innkeeper Florence Griswold, sailed. Captains were celebrated for their prowess as navigators and commanders, attaining celebrity for their feats of speed, daring, and bravery. Both entrepreneurs and hosts, they shepherded across the inhospitable Atlantic valuable cargo and people ranging from elite cabin passengers to emigrants in steerage. Portraits of ships and captains tell the story of the Black X Line and packet shipping. A unique collection of letters written by Helen Powers Griswold to her husband Captain Robert Griswold will be shared publicly for the first time, both online and within the exhibition. These personal accounts capture the texture of life ashore, in which women raised families and managed households during the absence of their mariner spouses at sea.

Visitors to the exhibition are invited to step away from the main gallery and enjoy a selection of seascapes from the Museum’s collection that will be on display in the upstairs of the historic Florence Griswold House. All the Sea Knows is the latest in a series of collection-sharing exhibitions that the Museum has undertaken successfully with such museums as the Portland (ME) Museum of Art, the Albany Institute of History & Art, and most recently, the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, New York.

Florence Griswold Museum Today

Founded in 1936, the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme is a center for American art accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. In the early years of the twentieth century, the Museum’s site and grounds served as the center for the Lyme Art Colony, one of America’s most famous art colonies. The recipient of a Trip Advisor 2014 Certificate of Excellence, the Florence Griswold Museum has been called a “Giverny in Connecticut” by the Wall Street Journal, and a “must-see” by the Boston Globe. With an eye toward the integration of art, history and landscape in all that it does, the Museum has spent the last decade redefining itself as a central part of community life with an award-winning exhibition gallery for its collections and a thorough reinterpretation of its landmark Florence Griswold House as a boardinghouse for artists, c. 1910. Visit www.FlorenceGriswoldMuseum.org for more information, including history, events and hours of operation.

Christie's 2015

Springendes Pferd, 1913, by Franz Marc (1880-1916) sold for £2,546,500 against an estimate of £1.5 to £2 million, far surpassing the previous record of £936,500 which was set in 1997.

Christie's 2014

Franz Marc (1880-1916)
Kinderbild (Katze hinter einem Baum)
Pr.£6,242,500($10,624,735)

Franz Marc (1880-1916)
Drei Pferde mit abstrakten Formen
Pr.£302,500($513,040)

Christie's 2013

Franz Marc (1880-1916)
Abstraktes Aquarell II
Pr.$437,000

Sotheby's 2007

Franz Marc

DER WASSERFALL (FRAUEN UNTER EINEM WASSERFALL) THE WATERFALL (WOMEN UNDER A WATERFALL)

LOT SOLD. 20,201,000 USD

Sotheby's 2008

Franz Marc

WEIDENDE PFERDE III (GRAZING HORSES III)

LOT SOLD. 12,340,500 GBP

Sotheby's 2010

Franz Marc

WÄSCHERIN MIT KIND (WASHERWOMAN WITH CHILD)

LOT SOLD. 260,500 USD

Sotheby's 2014

Franz Marc

ABSTRAKTES AQUARELL I (ABSTRACT WATERCOLOUR I)

LOT SOLD. 40,000 GBP

Andrew Wyeth’s quintessential Master Bedroom will be on display in The Wyeths: America Reflected.
Required Photo Credit (must be printed adjacent to photo): MASTER BEDROOM, 1965 watercolor © Andrew Wyeth. Private Collection. Note to Editors: Additional images for promotional use are available on request.

Heritage Museums & Gardens, Cape Cod’s premier cultural and educational institution, is pleased to announce Summer 2015’s must-see art exhibition, The Wyeths: America Reflected.

The exhibit, which will run from June 6- September 27, 2015, showcases the art of three generations of the acclaimed family of painters – Andrew Wyeth; his father, N.C.; and his son, Jamie. In particular, this exhibit will focus on quintessential American themes, the meaning of America, the significance of place and family, and the role of storytelling in art. The exhibit of over 45 paintings and drawings includes rarely seen works on loan from private collectors.

N.C. Wyeth was commissioned to do a series of sixteen works that would illustrate Brander Matthews’ 1922 book, Poems of American Patriotism published in New York by Charles Scribner’s Sons. The volume contained some of the country’s best-known verses on iconic episodes in American history:

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride,” Oliver Wendell Holmes’ “Grandmother’s Story of Bunker Hill Battle,”

John Greenleaf Whittier’s “Barbara Frietchie,” and

Walt Whitman’s “O Captain! My Captain!” among many others.

Also included were paintings of

John Burns of Gettysburg,

The Picket Guard,

Nathan Hale,

George Washington,

Warren's Address,

The Old Continentals,

and WashingtonServing Liberty.

With his keen sense of the dramatic moment and masterful technique, Wyeth captured these episodes in the large-scale oil paintings he did as models for the book illustrations. The paintings were donated in 1923 to The Hill School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. (More images from the book here.)

From there, landscapes by Andrew Wyeth will speak to the importance of place, both on land and at sea, in the formation of American identity. Lastly, evocative and provocative images by Jamie Wyeth will examine seminal figures of our times and the allure of mystery and mortality in American culture.

The exhibition will be as much about the trio of artists themselves as their respective works of art.
The Wyeths: America Reflected will be accompanied by photographs of each artist, an introductory text that sets out the parameters of the exhibition, text panels for each artist with biographical and thematic information, and individual annotated labels.

From a review :

The Andrew Wyeth paintings displayed here beautifully depict these muted traits. His watercolor “House Flag” is full of mystery; one could look all day and still not know the answer to the mystery of this clapboard building topped by a black flag snapping in the wind. The sky is all whites and grays – and who is standing near the window looking out from a lamplit room? What kind of storm is brewing?

One painting, titled “Puddle,” shows a massive tree with black branches reaching out from behind a building, and the accompanying text quotes the artist’s son Jamie, who describes Andrew’s style: “A real foreboding; suppressed violence, that’s the strength. … My father’s stuff is terrifying.”

A few of Andrew’s early works form an intriguing contrast – before he got his penchant for the cool and somber, he completed several successful early paintings, one of which, “The Lobsterman,” is full of vibrant ocean blues and swelling waves. Andrew himself said they were full of “swish and swash.”

...Jamie has painted many portraits, including likenesses of John F. Kennedy, Rudolph Nureyev and Andy Warhol. He was commissioned to complete the “Man of the Year” cover of President Jimmy Carter for “Time” magazine in 1977. The show also contains two superb pencil sketches he completed as part of a large commission for “Harper’s” magazine, documenting the infamous Watergate hearings of 1973, when no photographs were allowed during the courtroom proceedings.

BELLOTTO, RUBENS, GAINSBOROUGH, GUARDI &

BREUGHEL THE YOUNGER

Including Property from The Alfred Beit Foundation

Lead Christie’s Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale,

London, 9 July 2015

Christie’s Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale in London on Thursday 9 July will offer an exceptional selection of pictures from private collections, with emphasis on rarity, importance and provenance. Many of the highlights in the sale have not been seen on the market for generations. The sale is led by a masterpiece by Bernardo Bellotto (1721-1780), Dresden from the right bank of the Elbe above the Augustus Bridge, one of the last great views of the city by this artist still remaining in private hands (estimate: £8-12 million).

The sale also includes six carefully selected paintings from The Alfred Beit Foundation with two superb panels by Rubens - Head of a bearded man (estimate: £2-3 million), and Venusand Jupiter (estimate: £1.2-1.8 million); and one of the greatest Kermesse scenes by David Teniers the Younger (estimate: £1.2-1.8 million).

Other sale highlights are a portrait of Sir Richard Brooke, 5th Bt. by Thomas Gainsborough, which has never been on the market before (estimate: £2-3 million); the most important oil by Richard Parkes Bonington to come to the market in a generation, A coastal landscape with fisherfolk (estimate: £2-3 million); four major works by Pieter Brueghel the Younger,featuring one of his rarest and most original compositions, The Kermesse of Saint George (estimate: £2.5-3.5 million); and seven Dutch paintings from the Cunningham collection, led by an exquisite Still-Life by Jan Davidsz. de Heem (estimate: £1.5-2.5 million).

Other notable works which are at auction for the first time include: Christ on the Cross by El Greco and studio (estimate: £1-1.5 million), Hermes entertained by Calypso by Jacob Jordaens (estimate: £600,000 - 800,000), Ruins of the old church at Muiderberg by Jacob van Ruisdael (estimate: £500,000-800,000), and a sublime, signed view of Venice by Francesco Guardi The Grand Canal, Venice, with San Simeone Piccolo (estimate: £1-1.5 million). A re-discovered panel by Jean-Antoine Watteau, La Lorgneuse, previously believed to be lost, will also be offered (estimate: £300,000-500,000).

This auction, together with the Day Sale on 10 July and the Old Master & British Drawings & Watercolours sale on 7 July, are all part of London Art Week 2015 (3 to 10 July), which highlights the exceptional riches and unparalleled expertise available within Mayfair and St. James’s.

BERNARDO BELLOTTO

Dresden from the right bank of the Elbe above the Augustus Bridge is a masterpiece of Bernardo Bellotto’s full maturity (estimate: £8-12 million). An artist of precocious talent, Bellotto emerged from the shadow of his uncle, Canaletto, to become one of the most skilful view painters of his time. His renditions of Dresden, Vienna, Munich and Warsaw were the defining records of four of the major capitals of northern Europe in the mid-eighteenth century and have a distinguished place in the development of European topographical painting. Bellotto’s early renown led to him being called to Dresden in 1747 to work for Friedrich-August II, Elector of Saxony, where he undertook a series of views of the city during the height of its powers, in the mid-eighteenth century.

This picture, one of the most remarkable views by the artist to appear on the market in recent times, is a variant of

the very first view of Dresden that Bellotto executed for the Elector. It acted as a great showcase for his talent, exemplifying a method based on the highest levels of exactitude and topographical accuracy. Offered from the Property of a Private European Collector, the painting depicts some of the greatest civic and religious buildings that made up the so-called Brühlsche Terrasse that ran along the Elbe at the time, with the domed Frauenkirche rising up to the left, next to the Brühl Library and the Fürstenburg Palace. The promenade was devastated during the Second World War, but has largely been rebuilt. Painted in circa 1751-53, this view of Dresdenis distinguished from Bellotto’s two earlier pictures of the same subject in its atmospheric tone, cooler palette and the wonderful reflections in the river. It is a picture of outstanding refinement and precision, without any loss of spontaneity, presenting one of Europe’s great cities in all its splendour.

THE ALFRED BEIT FOUNDATION

The group of paintings that will be auctioned is led by two magnificent works on panel by SirPeter Paul Rubens, Head of a bearded man (estimate: £2-3 million) and Venus and Jupiter (estimate: £1.2-1.8 million).

The group also includesone of the most celebrated Kermessescenes byDavid Teniers the Younger (estimate: £1.2-1.8million), a rare religious work by Adriaen van Ostade,Adoration of the Shepherds(estimate: £600,000-800,000),and a pair of Venetian views by Francesco Guardi (estimate: £300,000-500,000).

RUBENS

The works being offered are led by two superb studies by Sir Peter Paul Rubens, one of the greatest geniuses of the Baroque. Executed with exceptional verve and sensitivity, the

Head of a bearded man, in three-quarter-profile, is an outstanding example of Rubens’s ad vivum portraits( estimate: £2-3 million). Painted circa 1620 on a composite panel, which was typical for studies of this type, it shows the artist’s remarkable skill in modelling features and expressing character with a singular spontaneity and bravura.

The second of the studies, painted on a similar scale but completed at a slightly earlier date, is a beautiful model for Venus and Jupiter,demonstrating Rubens’s masterful delicacy of touch and fluency in execution (estimate: £1.2-1.8 million). Illustrating a story from the first book of the Aeneid, it forms part of a series on the story of Aeneas that Rubens began at some point after 1602. The picture has a particularly distinguished provenance prior to entering the Beit Collection: itf ormed part of the collection of Sir Joshua Reynolds, before being sold in the Reynolds sale at Christie’s in March 1795, and later passing to the Earls of Darnley at Cobham Hall, who owned masterpieces by Titian and Veronese.

DAVID TENIERS THE YOUNGER

The Beit Kermesse by David Teniers the Younger has long been heralded as one of the jewels in his oeuvre (estimate: £1.2-1.8 million). Dating to the 1640s, when he was at the peak of his fame, it is one of the most successful treatments of the artist’s most popular subject, and the only one to be painted on copper. Populated with a great array of characters, it excels in its depiction of anecdotal detail and incident. Its enormous appeal is evident in its stellar provenance, passing successively through some of the greatest French Old Master collections of the 18thand early 19th century, from the Marquis de Brunoy, to Antoine Dutarte, Lucien Bonaparte and the Comte de Pourtales, prior to being acquiredby Alfred Beit (1853-1906) in 1895.

ADRIAEN VAN OSTADE

Adriaen van Ostade’s small scale and wonderfully intimate Adoration of the Shepherds was executed at the very height of his career in 1667 (estimate: £600,000-800,000). It is exceptional in the oeuvreof the artist, being a rare staging of a religious subject, where genre scenes otherwise dominate. It was exhibited in the renowned Art Treasures exhibition in Manchester in 1857, and it too has fine provenance, having once been part of the collection of the Hesse-Kassels, one of Germany’s most prominent families, before being owned by Empress Josephine. This work, like that by Teniers the Younger, was purchased by Alfred Beit (1853-1906) in 1895.

FRANCESCO GUARDI

Dating to Francesco Guardi’s full maturity, the pair of Venetian views are a spirited and characteristically atmospheric treatment of one of Guardi’smost popular and enduring pairings, showing two of the most celebrated sights of Venice: the

Piazza San Marco looking towards the Basilica,

and the Piazzetta,

flanked by two of the great secular buildings of the city, the medieval Doges’ Palace on the left and Sansovino's Libreria on the right (estimate: £300,000-500,000). Painted in afternoon light, on a small format, they are fine examples of Guardi’s late work.

THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH

Only seen in public on one previous occasion, when it was exhibited in 1876, the Portrait of Sir Richard Brooke, 5th Bt. (1753-1795) by Thomas Gainsborough, R.A. (1727-1788) has descended through the family of the sitter to the present owner (estimate: £2-3 million). The picture will be included in Hugh Belsey’s forthcoming catalogue raisonné of Gainsborough’s portraits, having never previously been published in any of the monographs written on the artist. Sir Richard is understood to have commissioned the work shortly after he inherited the title and family estates in Cheshire from his father in July 1781. Refined and elegant, the portrait is a superb example of Gainsborough’s bravura draughtsmanship, and presents Sir Richard as the epitome of the sophisticated country gentleman.

RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON

Constituting the grandest statement in oil by Richard Parkes Bonington to appear at auction in a generation, and one of the last on this scale to remain in private hands, A coastal landscape with fisherfolk, a beached boat beyond was painted at the height of the artist’s career (estimate: £2-3 million). It displays Bonington’s virtuoso handling of the brush and the subtle observation of light and atmosphere that he had first mastered as a water colourist. The picture belongs to a group of coastal scenes that were celebrated during Bonington’s lifetime and have captivated artists and collectors ever since. These are considered to be among the most beautiful of the romantic period and led Edith Wharton, the American novelist, to write in 1910 that ‘surely he was the Keats of painting.’ The picture reveals the undeniable influence of Turner, whose landscapes Bonington would have seen on his trip from Paris to London in 1825. The following year, 1826, in which the present picture is thought to have been executed, was a key date in Bonington’s tragically short career, marking his debut, to great acclaim, at the British Institution in London; his works were soon much in demand from many of the great Whig patrons of the day, including John Russell, 6^th Duke of Bedford, Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3^rd Marquess of Lansdowne, and Robert, 2^nd Earl Grosvenor. This picture was acquired by Henry Wellesley (1773-1847), later Lord Cowley, the younger brother of Arthur Wellesley, 1^st Duke of Wellington, who served as ambassador at Paris.

GUARDI – A NEW ADDITION TO HIS OEUVRE

The Grand Canal, Venice, with San Simeone Piccoloby Francesco Guardi (estimate: £1-1.5 million). Previously unrecorded, this exquisite canvas is an important discovery, exemplifying the captivating, atmospheric qualities for which Francesco Guardi is most renowned. It has been in the possession of the present European family for more than a century and is signed prominently on the left. Datable to the 1770s, the picture is a work of Guardi’s full maturity, when his mastery of vedute painting in Venice was unrivalled. The view is taken from a bustling stretch of the Grand Canal, near to the church of the Scalzi, then the main route into the city from the mainland. Though the present-day scene is somewhat changed, the vibrancy of Guardi’s view is immediately recognisable. He renders the tranquil, shimmering beauty of the city with an incomparable touch, a superb addition to the oeuvre of one of the greatest of view painters.

FOUR MAJOR WORKS BY PIETER BREUGHEL THE YOUNGER

The sale presents an exceptional selection of four major works by Pieter Brueghel the Younger.

The Kermesse of Saint George (estimate: £2.5-3.5 million) is one of his rarest and most original inventions, entirely independent from any of his father’s works and more accomplished than any of his other original compositions. Including this picture, only four securely autograph versions are known. Georges Marlier, the pioneering Breughel scholar, dated the picture to before 1626-28. He praised it for brilliantly affirming the younger Brueghel’s personality, calling it ‘one hundred percent “Breughelian”, not only for the dramatic rhythms that pervade it, but also in the stylisation of the figures and in the colour harmonies. While maintaining the continuity of Pieter the Elder’s art through these themes, his son Pieter gives rein to his own particular vigour, his own taste for anecdote and his own mastery of his profession that is equal to those of the greatest artists.’

From a European Private Collection, The Birdtrap (estimate: £2-3 million) is a superbly preserved example, painted on a single panel, of what is arguably the Brueghel dynasty’s most iconic invention, and one of the most enduringly popular images in Western art. The Birdtrap is a composition of distinctive poetic beauty: in a hilly landscape, blanketed with snow, a merry band of country folk are skating, curling, playing skittles and hockey on a frozen river, in apparently carefree fashion. Yet there are hidden perils, serving as pertinent reminders of the precariousness and transience of life itself: the fishing hole in the centre of the frozen river is a sign of the dangers that lurk beneath the light-hearted pleasures of the Flemish winter; and to the right of the composition birds surround the eponymous trap, seemingly oblivious to its imminent threat. In this remarkable work, executed with poise and great delicacy, Brueghel delivers a message of lasting poignancy about the fickleness and uncertainty of life.

The other works include The Wedding Feast, which is offered from the property of a European Family(estimate: £1.5-2.5 million). The Wedding Feast is not only one of the most iconic images in the Brueghel canon, it is one of the most famous banquet scenes in the history of Western art by virtue of the prototype, the masterpiece

Peasant Wedding by Pieter Bruegel the Elder now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. The picture offered for sale is one of only four recorded autograph versions by Brueghel the Younger and this will be the first to come to the market since the late 1970s. And the final picture by Brueghel the Younger comes from The Cunningham Collection,

The Outdoor Wedding Dance, dated 1621 (estimate: £1.2-1.8 million).

MORE PROPERTY FROM THE CUNNINGHAM COLLECTION

The superb collection of Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings formed by Philip Tracy Cunningham and his wife Lizanne is a remarkable testimony to their passion for the arts and for the Dutch Golden Age in particular. The pictures being offered exemplify the Cunningham’s keen appreciation for condition and quality. Following three lots from the collection which were sold at Christie’s New York in June, the London sale will offer seven stellar Dutch paintings that have been on view at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. for the past fifteen years. The group is led by an exquisite still-life by Jan Davidsz. de Heem (1606-1684), Grapes, peaches, blackberries, oysters, hazelnuts, and wine in façon-de-Venise glasses on a partially draped stone ledge with a snail, butterfly, and a bee (estimate: £1.5-2.5 million). The other works include a beautifully preserved example of Willem van de Velde II’s treatments of atmospheric Calms(estimate: £600-800,000), The Wedding Dance by Pieter Brueghel II, and cabinet pictures by Dirck van Delen, Jan van Goyen and Nicolaes Berchem.

Fighting History celebrates the enduring significance and emotional power of British history painting through the ages, from 18th century history paintings by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) and Benjamin West (1738-1820) to 20th century and contemporary pieces by Richard Hamilton (1922-2011) and Jeremy Deller (b.1966). Juxtaposing work from different periods, the exhibition explores how artists have reacted to historical events, and how they capture and interpret the past.

Often vast in scale, history paintings engage with important narratives from the past, from scripture and from current affairs. Some scenes protest against state oppression, while others move the viewer with depictions of heroic acts, tragic deaths and plights of individuals swept up in events beyond their control.

Amy Robsart exhibited in 1877 by William Frederick Yeames (1835-1918), which has been newly conserved for this exhibition, casts a spotlight on a historical mystery (Amy Dudley, born Robsart, (7 June 1532 – 8 September 1560) was the first wife of Lord Robert Dudley, favorite of Elizabeth I of England. She is primarily known for her death by falling down a flight of stairs, the circumstances of which have often been regarded as suspicious.)

while John Minton’s (1917-1957) The Death of Nelson 1952 offers a tender perspective on the death of one of England’s greatest naval commanders.

During the 18th century history painting was deemed the pinnacle of an academic painter’s achievements. These paintings traditionally depicted a serious narrative with moral overtones, seen in

John Singleton Copley’s The Collapse of the Earl of Chatham in the House of Lords, 7 July, 1778 1779-80. (It depicts the collapse of William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham on 7 April 1778, during a debate in the House of Lords on the American War of Independence. Chatham is surrounded by peers of the realm, and the painting contains fifty-five portraits.)

The way history was presented in these works was not a precise description of events, but aimed more towards the Italian istoria– a narrative that pleased the eye and stimulated the mind.

While some conventional accounts suggest that history painting died off in the 19th century, this exhibition shows the continuing vibrancy of the genre, as new artists have engaged with its traditions to confront modern tragedies and dilemmas.

Jeremy Deller’s The Battle of Orgreave 2001, a re-enactment of the 1984 clash between miners and police in South Yorkshire, is also featured. Comprising a film, map, miner’s jacket and shield amongst other things, the room immerses visitors in a pivotal moment in the history of the miners’ strike.

In addition, Malcom Morley’s triptych Trafalgar-Waterloo 2013 venerates Admiral Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington, who are separated by a cannon based on one from the HMS Victory protruding from the canvas in the central panel.

The exhibition also compares traditional and contemporary renderings of historical events from scripture, literature and the classical world. There is a room dedicated to interpretations of the Deluge – the biblical flood that symbolises both the end and the beginning of history – including

JMW Turner’s (1775-1851) The Deluge 1805

and Winifred Knights’ (1899-1947) The Deluge 1920, which contains unmistakeable references to the former.

There is also a section focusing on depictions of antiquity, seen in works such as

Sir Edward Poynter’s (1836-1919) A Visit to Aesculapis 1880

and James Barry’s (1741-1806) King Lear Weeping over the Dead Body of Cordelia 1786-8,

which frames the Shakespearian tragedy in a scene of ancient Britain.

From Ancient Rome to the Poll Tax Riots, Fighting History looks at how artists have transformed significant events into paintings that encourage us to reflect on our own place in history. Itis curated by Greg Sullivan, Curator British Art 1750-1830, Tate Britain with assistance from Assistant Curator Clare Barlow. The exhibition is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue with contributions from Dexter Dalwood and a programme of talks and events in the gallery.

From a review in The Telgraph:

A new exhibition seeks to show us, however, that Britain has had a rich, alternative tradition of history painting – one that persists to this day. Among the earliest paintings on view is

Gavin Hamilton’s Agrippina Landing at Brindisium with the Ashes of Germanicus, from 1765. Like many pictures of that time, it drew on prevailing Neoclassical trends and harks back to Greco-Roman antiquity...

Alas, one of the landmark works of British history painting, 1770’s The Death of General Wolfe by Benjamin West, isn’t on show. West, pretty much without precedent, chose to capture events of recent history (the heroic fall of General James Wolfe at the Battle of Quebec 11 years earlier) and use contemporary dress...

In 1981’s The Citizen, his image of a hunger-striking IRA prisoner, Richard Hamilton broke new ground. Not just in using a television documentary as his source, but in offering a bearded, barefoot subject of pathos – à la Christ. This is history painting where the artist seems openly to be questioning official government policy of his day (here, Mrs Thatcher’s hard line against hunger-strikers).

Dexter Dalwood, in turn, plays fast and loose with history in Poll Tax Riots, as if suggesting history is unique to each and every one of us in these less deferential times. His reimagining of the Trafalgar Square protests of 1990 includes chunks of the Berlin Wall and a section of Gerhard Richter’s painting Dutch Sea Battle. This is Dalwood’s own, very personal vision of the past.

The Dresden Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Picture Gallery of Old Masters) enjoys a special position within Europe’s museum scene. This arises both from its rich collection and from its legendary history dating back to the eighteenth century. In the space of half a century, Augustus the Strong and his son Augustus III skilfully amassed a unique collection that still defines the gallery to this day. From 11 June to 8 November 2015, the exhibition
REMBRANDT - TITIAN - BELLOTTO
SPIRIT AND SPLENDOUR OF THE DRESDEN PICTURE GALLERY
at the Winter Palace will showcase masterpieces by Rembrandt, Titian, Guido Reni, Antoine Watteau, and many other artists, illustrating the passionate collecting of the electors of Saxony and kings of Poland. In addition, much to the admiration of contemporaries, in 1745 one hundred works were acquired from the Duke of Modena, Francesco III d’Este. A selection of these also feature in the Vienna show, including paintings by Carracci, Guercino, and Velázquez. Furthermore, the exhibition showcases works by outstanding personalities from the Dresden court, including the vedute painter Bernardo Bellotto.

The development of the Picture Gallery in the eighteenth century has been divided into seven chapters, tracing its evolution into an enlightened centre of education and exchange. The royal collection’s prestige is demonstrated by important history paintings, landscapes, still lifes, and portraits. In the economic and cultural heyday known as the Augustan Age, many building projects and the expansion of the royal collections served to demonstrate the new power of the Dresden court. Thus, the reigns of Augustus the Strong and his son marked a significant expansion of the collection.

The gallery’s outstanding quality is largely thanks to the efforts of art experts and agents, who amassed a large and internationally acclaimed selection of works. In addition, important artists like Bernardo Bellotto or Conte Pietro Antonio Rotari, were summoned to the court of Saxony, transforming Dresden into one of the Holy Roman Empire’s centres of art.

The exhibition sheds light on the foundation and evolution of the collection in the Baroque period and the Enlightenment. Groups of works relating to the Polish-Saxon court, a wellspring of art patronage, and to the Dresden Art Academy provide an insight into the historical context in which the collection flourished.

“The exhibition focuses on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the magnificent Baroque period and the early Enlightenment. The Belvedere is showing the exhibition Rembrandt – Titian – Bellotto: Spirit and Splendour of the Dresden Picture Gallery at the Winter Palace of Prince Eugene who was amassing his art treasures from many different countries at the same time as Augustus II and Augustus III. The show will therefore transform the Winter Palace into an encounter between international art connoisseurs from the Baroque period,” said Agnes Husslein-Arco, Director of the Belvedere.

The Dresden Gemäldegalerie (Picture Gallery)

Dresden’s Gallery of Old Masters is one of Europe’s outstanding museums. This stems from both the collection itself, which includes masterpieces like Raphael’s Sistine Madonna and Jan Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter, and from the long history of the gallery that was already in its prime during the Baroque era. In 2013 a renovation programme was launched in the gallery space designed by architect Gottfried Semper, thus opening the door for about one hundred treasures to go on tour and convey a compelling impression of this collection and its history.

“I am delighted to think that these touring Old Masters, destined for Munich, Groningen, and Vienna, have been brought together, guided by the notion of exchange in Europe. The ninety- nine works convey an impression to visitors in southern Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria of the riches housed in the centuries-old Dresden Gemäldesammlung and the epochs, masters, and focuses this collection contains,” stated the curator of the Dresden Picture Gallery, Maike Hohn.

Paintings belonging to the electors of Saxony can be traced back to the Renaissance, but it was under Augustus the Strong (1670–1733) and especially his son Augustus III (1696–1763) that the Picture Gallery truly flourished. They acquired paintings by masters from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries through middlemen based in different countries. In around 1745, for example, they were admired for their purchase of one hundred works from the Duke of Modena, Francesco III.

“Of course they did not limit themselves to paintings but also collected Kunstkammer objects – think of the treasures in the famous Grünes Gewölbe – sculptures, and antiquities,” Belvedere curator Georg Lechner explained. “And there is an important link with Prince Eugene, whose former palace is where the exhibition is being held. Soon after the prince’s death in 1736, Augustus III acquired three classical statues – the famous Herculaneum Women – from his heir. This passionate art connoisseur evidently knew only too well where the best art treasures were to be found,” Georg Lechner continues.

The exhibition examines different subjects in order to explore the Dresden Gallery from various angles. These include the Saxon court as a wellspring of art patronage, the importance of the Dresden Art Academy, and a focus on genres such as portrait, landscape, and still life. One important aspect is the scholar Johann Joachim Winckelmann’s interest in the collection. During his Dresden years he would have witnessed its constant expansion and changing presentations. A selection of important works that Winckelmann could have seen on his many visits to the gallery will also be on show in Vienna.

Tiziano Vecellio, called Titian, Portrait of a Lady in White, about 1555

Oil on canvas
102 x 86 cm

Anthonis van Dyck, Saint Hieronymus, about 1620

Oil on canvas
195 x 215 cm

These include Titian’s Portrait of a Lady in White (Girl with Fan) and Anthony van Dyck’s depiction of Saint Hieronymus as well as works by Guido Reni

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Ganymede in the Claws of the Eagle, 1635

Oil on canvas
177 x 129 cm

and Rembrandt’s Ganymede in the Talons of the Eagle.

Links between Dresden and Vienna

One of the objects in the exhibition is a Southern Landscape with Waterfall and this is of particular interest with regard to links between Dresden and Vienna. It is by the painter Joseph Roos (1726–1805), who was from a widely dispersed artist family. Born in Vienna, he moved to Dresden early in his career where he later became court painter and ultimately even academy professor. He had become a member of the academy in 1764 and this required him to present a reception piece – as was usual in Vienna as well. It was not until 1780, following many promptings, that he finally submitted a painting. By that time he was back in Vienna, where in 1772 he had been appointed Director of the Imperial Gallery and tasked with its transfer from the Stallburg to the Upper Belvedere.

Portraiture

Portraiture became established as an independent genre during the Renaissance when representing the individual emerged as a growing priority. It promoted verisimilitude in portraying the sitter while at the same time demonstrating status or a certain ideal of beauty. Tronies (Dutch for head, face) were a special type of character portrait. These head or bust portrayals were not intended to be identifiable individuals. The main aim of tronies was to capture a specific human expression and not to represent a certain personality. Works by Jan Lievens and Jacob Adriaensz. Backer demonstrate the flourishing of this type of portrait in Holland during the first half of the seventeenth century.

A further type of portrayal is revealed in the varie teste from the eighteenth century by the painter Conte Pietro Antonio Rotari. These heads have interesting facial features and a broad range of expressions in a repeated, set format. They are devised as a series and can be combined in a multitude of different ways.

Splendour and Transience – Still Life

Still lifes can be traced back to the murals of classical antiquity with their true-to-life paintings of food and vessels. Examples exist in details from the Middle Ages as well, such as deceptively real sacrament niches as part of the decoration of church buildings. It was not until the end of the sixteenth century, however, that still life became established as an independent genre whereupon it soon flourished. Although these paintings were extremely popular among collectors, the genre was not regarded very highly in theoretical art writings because the artistic invention required in history painting enjoyed greater esteem than painting from nature.

Most still lifes in the Dresden Picture Gallery are by Dutch and Flemish artists. It is remarkable that the majority of these paintings were already part of the collection in the early eighteenth century.

The Dresden Kunstakademie (Art Academy)

Since the late seventeenth century, various schools of drawing and painting had existed in Dresden before the academy was founded in 1764, then known as the “Haupt-Kunst- Akademie.” Although some very renowned artists were often at the helm of these earlier institutions, they did not exert much influence on the development of local talent. It was only with the foundation of the academy that an institution was established for training artists that still exists today, albeit by another name.
In the political situation after the Seven Years’ War, priorities at the academy shifted. Its aim was no longer to train court artists but to cultivate the arts in order to provide a boost for the economy. Under the new Director Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn, famous teachers were engaged for the various genres of history, portrait, and landscape painting, and also architecture. With their theoretical and practical input they provided new and important inspiration.

The Dresden Art Academy was one of many new foundations in the German imperial cities that came about with the revival of the academic theories in the second half of the eighteenth century.
An exhibition of the Staatliche Kunstsammlung Dresden in collaboration with the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere.

Bernardo Bellotto, Dresden from the Right Bank of the Elbe above the Augustus Bridge, 1747

Oil on canvas
132 x 236 cm

Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto, The Grande Canal in Venice near Rialto Bridge to the North, 1725/26

Oil on canvas
148.5 x 195.9 cm

Annibale Carracci, The Genius of Fame, 1588/89

Oil on canvas
174 x 114 cm

Pietro Antonio Graf Rotari, Man With Fur Hat, Lifting His Right Index Finger, undated

Oil on canvas
35 x 43.5 cm

Carlo Dolci Herodias‘ Daughter, undated

Oil on canvas
95.5 x 80.5 cm

Johann Alexander Thiele, View of Dresden with Augustus Bridge, 1746

Oil on canvas
104 x 153 cm

Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellée), Landscape showing the flight to Egypt, 1647

Oil on canvas
102 x 134 cm

Antoine Watteau, The Festival of Love, about 1718/19

Oil on canvas
61 x 75 cm

Cornelis de Heem, A Lobster, Fruit and Flowers, undated

Oil on canvas
40 x 52.5 cm

Diego Velázquez, Portrait of a Santiago Knight (Francisco de Andrade Leitão?), about or after 1635

Oil on canvas
67.3 x 56 cm

Agostino Carracci, Portrait of a Boy, about 1590

Oil on canvas
65 x 48.5 cm

From 10 June to 6 September 2015 ‒ in its bicentennial year “200 Years Städel” ‒ Frankfurt’s Städel Museum will be presenting prints by the English painter, engraver and etcher William Hogarth (1697‒1764).

Altogether seventy works including the famous printmaking series A Harlot’s Progress (1732), A Rake’s Progress (1735) and Marriage à la Mode (1745) will be on view in the exhibition hall of the Department of Prints and Drawings. These visual novels from the Städel holdings take the fashions, vices and downsides of modern life in the London metropolis as their themes. Hogarth conceived of his artworks as printed theatre of his times and with them he laid the cornerstone for socio-critical caricature in England. The prints owe their special quality to the keen powers of perception and caustic humour of an artist who contributed so greatly to shaping the image of his era that it is still referred to as “Hogarth’s England” today. Executed during Johann Friedrich Städel’s lifetime, the engravings are among the Städel’s oldest holdings and mirror the critical spirit inherent to this institution since its founding.

William Hogarth was born in London in 1697. In keeping with an early eighteenth-century fashion, his father Richard opened a coffee house at which only Latin was spoken. The business failed, and Richard Hogarth had to serve five years in London’s notorious Fleet Prison for failure to pay his debts. As was usual at the time, his wife and children had to accompany him. In 1713, after his father’s release, William Hogarth began an apprenticeship as a silver engraver where he also learned the rudiments of the complex techniques of intaglio printing ‒ engraving and etching.

Following his seven-year training, he went into business for himself as an engraver and attended the privately run St Martin’s Lane Academy, an art school in London, to acquire the art of painting. In 1724 he also became a member of the academy of royal court painter James Thornhill (1675‒1734), whose daughter Jane he married in 1729. It was not with his paintings, however, that Hogarth achieved a breakthrough with the public, but with the prints made after his works on canvas. With the series A Harlot’s Progress, produced in the early 1730s, he founded a new genre he later dubbed modern moral subjects. Hogarth conceived of these subjects as contemporary, moral-didactic history scenes. He thus took a stand against the hierarchization of the visual arts, a firmly entrenched principle of academy doctrine which granted classical history painting pride of place.

With his printmaking works, he succeeded in creating a new, up-to-date genre based on the keen observation of reality. In 1755 Hogarth was elected to the Royal Society of Arts, which he quit again just two years later on account of artistic and personal differences. His appointment as royal court painter followed in 1757, but never led to any commissions. The final years of the artist’s life were overshadowed by bitter disputes between himself and his critics. A stroke in 1763 left Hogarth severely handicapped and he died the following year in his home in Leicester Fields, a district of London.

The presentation in the exhibition gallery of the Department of Prints and Drawings focuses primarily on those of William Hogarth’s printmaking series that earned him international fame: A Harlot’s Progress, A Rake’s Progress und Marriage à la Mode. There is a very simple reason for the fact that his works on paper secured him a place in art history: prints can be circulated far better than paintings. It was by these means that the artist reached the enlightened and educated public of his day in large numbers.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), A Harlot's Progress, Plate 2, 1732

Already the first edition of A Harlot’s Progress (1732) comprised 1,240 sold copies. In six episodes, this series describes the rise and fall of a young woman who has come from the country to the city to find work. To earn a living she ends up as a prostitute and lands in prison as a result. The final scene shows the wretched funeral of the protagonist, whose life has already come to an end at the age of twenty-three. Hogarth had numerous real and literary models to look to for his creation of this figure. Inspired by his great interest in the social characterization of his time, he directed his critical, ironical gaze to all strata of society, from the highest nobility to the most abject circumstances. The sick and needy of all generations formed the downside of the economic boom enjoyed by the colonial and commercial metropolis and its many profiteers.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), A Rake's Progress, Plate 3 (The Rake at the Rose Tavern), 1735

William Hogarth (1697-1764), A Rake's Progress, Plate 8 (The Rake in Bedlam), 1735

In his second series, A Rake’s Progress (1735), consisting of eight prints, Hogarth tells the story of the social decline of Tom Rakewell, who brainlessly squanders his inheritance and is thrown first into debtors’ prison and then the madhouse. Rakewell’s incarceration on grounds of indebtedness is reminiscent of the artist’s own biography. Entirely unlike his father, however, William Hogarth was an excellent businessman and very clever at taking advantage of the London press ‒ which was flourishing in his day ‒ and its public impact for his own purposes. In newspapers such as the London Daily Post, the General Advertiser or the London Journal he published announcements of his prints and advertised them for subscription.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), The Marriage Settlement, 1745 (engraved by G. J.-B. Scotin)

Hogarth borrowed the title of his third major series, published in 1745, from a comedy by John Dryden (1631‒1700). Marriage à la Mode is about an espousal arranged by the two spouses’ fathers. Neither the bride nor the groom is the least bit interested in the other, both amuse themselves on the side, and the situation comes to a dramatic conclusion. Hogarth’s protagonists feign innocence and practise deception, abandon themselves to their passions and founder on their false ideals. Looking to true stories for orientation and integrating well-known persons and recognizable sites, he warned his public of the dangers of modern life ‒ dangers still very real today.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Beer Street, 1751

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Gin Lane, 1751

In 1751, with his popular prints Beer Street and Gin Lane, he supported a public campaign against the excessive consumption of gin. The former scene presents the enjoyment of beer as healthy and beneficial in contrast to the destructive effects of gin portrayed in the latter.

From mid century onward, in addition to socio-critical themes Hogarth also devoted himself to matters of national and political relevance, which represent a further focus of the exhibition. In several works, the artist addressed the relationship between France and England, which were at war.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), The Gate of Calais, or O the Roast Beef of Old England, 1749 (engraved in collaboration with C. Mosley)

The Gate of Calais (1748) was his response to his arrest on suspicion of espionage during one of his trips to France. In 1756, in The Invasion, he again caricatured the French as grotesque, haggard figures who are after the tasty beer and luscious roast beef of the English. Some fifteen years later, in the print The Times, Plate 1 (1762), Hogarth made an urgent appeal for the cessation of the Seven Years’ War.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Analysis of Beauty, Plate 1, 1753

In 1753, Hogarth published his own art-theoretical deliberations in the book The Analysis of Beauty. In it he concerned himself with the foundations of visual-artistic production and particularly the matter of how to achieve beauty and grace. Hogarth considered the study of nature to be the key to beauty. He called upon his readers to perceive the objects of nature with their own eyes and judge them according to rational criteria. The German writer Christlob Mylius (1722–1754) was in London when Hogarth’s Analysis came out, and he translated it into German the very next year. Johann Friedrich Städel had a copy of this translation in his library, and it will be on display in the show.

The exhibition “Vices of Life. The Prints of William Hogarth” will be accompanied by a catalogue. Following its presentation at the Städel Museum, the show will be on view at Neuhardenberg Castle.

William Hogarth (1697-1764), The Laughing Audience, 1733

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Before, 1736

William Hogarth (1697-1764), After, 1736

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Martin Folkes, 1742

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Garrick in the Character of Richard III, 1746 (engraved in collaboration with C. Grignion)

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Moses brought to Pharaoh's Daughter, 1752 (engraved in collaboration with L. Sullivan)

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Canvassing for Votes, 1757 (engraved by G. Grignion)

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Chairing the Members, 1758 (engraved in collaboration with F. Aviline)

William Hogarth (1697-1764), John Wilkes Esq., 1763

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Hogarth Painting the Comic Muse, 1764

William Hogarth (1697-1764), Tailpiece, or The Bathos, 1764

William Hogarth (1697-1764), The Times, Plate 1

From 11 March to 28 June 2015, Frankfurt’s Städel Museum is presenting a major exhibition on “Monet and the Birth of Impressionism”.

One hundred masterworks from the world’s most prominent painting collections will shed light on the beginnings of the Impressionist movement in the years from the early 1860s to 1880. World-famous loans will be on view, for example

Monet’s La Grenouillère (1869) from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art,

his Boulevard des Capucines (1873) from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City,

and The Luncheon: decorative panel (ca. 1873)

and Camille on Her Deathbed (1879),

both from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.

The exhibition, which will be one of the highlights of the ¨200 Years Städel¨ anniversary programme, inquires into how Impressionism came about and the extent to which this approach to painting manifests contemporary visual experience. In addition to some fifty paintings by Claude Monet, works by numerous other Impressionists will also be on display, including important examples by Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley. The anniversary exhibition bears a direct connection to the history of the Städel Museum’s own holdings: as early as the beginning of the twentieth century, then director Georg Swarzenski (1876–1957) came out passionately in favour of acquiring French painting ‒ which now represents one of the chief focuses of the museum’s collection.

In conjunction with the show, a catalogue is being published by Prestel Verlag in German and English. In addition to numerous essays, it will present the results of in-depth technological examinations of all the Impressionist works in the Städel holdings, carried out in preparation for the exhibition. An audio guide of the show recorded by actress Diane Kruger will also be available. The free Digitorial moreover offers interested visitors a means of acquainting themselves with the exhibition contents before coming to the museum (monet.staedelmuseum.de).

“Works from the early days of Impressionism are rare and precious. All the more delighted are we that we have been able to realize such a complex and spectacular special exhibition as a prelude to our anniversary year, and have the opportunity to present loans from all over the world side by side with central works from the Städel collection. The exhibition and research project will undoubtedly be yet another highlight in the Städel’s two-hundred-year history”, comments Max Hollein, the director of the Städel Museum.

Taking as its point of departure Claude Monet’s painting The Luncheon (1868/69) ‒ a key work of early Impressionism that the Städel is fortunate enough to have in its holdings ‒ and the museum’s superb collection of early Impressionist works by Auguste Renoir, Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Alfred Sisley and Paul Cézanne, the exhibition will show how the Impressionists found their way to the dissolution and dematerialization of their pictorial motifs. From a multifaceted perspective, the visitors will learn about the various conditions that led to the birth of Impressionism and the radical change that came about in the relationship between pictorial content and form in the paintings produced by this important movement. Impressionism challenged the visual habits of the time in a completely new way ‒ and met with a wide variety of responses, as is evidenced by contemporary caricatures to be presented alongside works of Impressionist painting and photography.

“Our show revolves around the beginnings of the Impressionist movement. The Städel collection provides a foundation upon which we can ask how it was possible for Impressionism to emerge within just a few years. This exhibition focuses on the development of Impressionism from its inception to 1880”, remarks curator Felix Krämer, the head of the collection of modern art at the Städel Museum.

The nineteenth century was a time of upheavals and a wide variety of developments all taking place at the same time ‒ developments that also left their mark on the paintings of the Impressionists. Increasing industrialization brought about a change in the relationship between man and nature, but also that between work and leisure time. Technical progress led to a general acceleration of life. The visual experience of the big city and the spread of new media such as photography also had a decisive impact on the works of the period’s artists. The main protagonist and continual point of reference in the exhibition is Claude Monet. Among the artists of his time, Monet played a pioneering role in the growing popularity of open-air painting. In his œuvre, the formal innovations of Impressionism ‒ the clearly recognizable brushstroke and the rapid, sketchy painting style ‒ are particularly prominent. And his work also exemplifies another phenomenon that applies to the art of the Impressionists in general: they increasingly abandoned large-scale figural compositions in favour of smaller landscape scenes.

A circular tour of the exhibition

Part I of the exhibition

Arranged in chronological order, the presentation spreads out on both floors of the exhibition annex. A prologue in the first room on the ground floor is dedicated to the artists whom the Impressionists looked to as examples, such as the representatives of the “School of Barbizon” in whose work the predilection for landscape scenes, the tendency towards a sketchy manner of painting and the departure from academic tradition are all manifest. Here key compositions by Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, Gustave Courbet, Charles-François Daubigny, Eugène Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind are on view.

After the prologue, the first main section of the show retraces the development of early Impressionist art in the period from 1864 to approximately 1870/71. It begins with a selection of paintings executed in the Forest of Fontainebleau. This is where the members of the “Barbizon School” worked on their open-air studies. Following in the footsteps of the painters they admired, Monet and his artist friends Frédéric Bazille, Pissarro, Renoir and Sisley also visited the Fontainebleau woods to paint. This section of the show is flanked by a photo gallery devoted to the theme of nature in the photography of the period, and shedding light on the concurrence of painting and photography activities in the Forest of Fontainebleau.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, Paris transformed from a city still shaped by medieval structures to a modern metropolis characterized by large squares and wide boulevards and considered very progressive. Monet also devoted himself to the motif of the public urban space in these years. His first endeavours to come to terms with the theme of the city are already perceivable in the following room of the show. Here the significance of Édouard Manet for Monet also becomes evident. At the time, Manet was regarded as the major talent of the avant-garde, and younger artists looked to him for orientation.

The exhibition features Manet’s large-scale painting

The Universal Exhibition of Paris 1867 (Nasjonalgalleriet, Oslo). Yet Monet was also concerned with depicting the urban realm:

The Quai du Louvre of 1867 (Gemeentemuseum, The Hague) shows the view from the balcony of the famous museum: it was not the Old Masters in the Louvre galleries that interested him, but the view of the everyday present outside. At the same time, he and his colleagues continued to paint landscapes and seascapes, several of which are likewise on view in this room.

The rear section of the ground floor concentrates on the years from 1868 to the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71. The key work here is the painting

The Luncheon (1868/69) belonging to the Städel (above). The depiction of the home of a couple without a marriage licence and with an illegitimate child was a deliberate provocation and a critique on prevailing conventions. It was moreover the first time an artist had represented a private interior on such a large scale. Measuring 2.31 x 1.51 metres, the work was refused by the Salon jury, as was the depiction of La Grenouillère (1869) Monet had likewise submitted.

This rejection led to the artist’s break with the Paris Salon and a radical reorientation in his art: The Luncheon is the last of his large-scale figural paintings and marks his departure from Manet as an artistic reference. The fact that Monet presented this painting at the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874, when it was already five years old, testifies to the significance it nevertheless held for him. It was the largest work in the 1874 show. Scenes of the Franco-Prussian War are not to be found in the Impressionist paintings of this period. Most of the works were executed in exile, among them Monet’s Dutch landscape views. This section is enhanced by a photo gallery shedding light on the discrepancy between the political situation and the cheerful Impressionist pictorial motifs of these years.

Part II of the exhibition

The second part of the exhibition follows the further development of Monet’s œuvre and those of other Impressionists from 1872 to 1880 ‒ i.e. to the phase in which the subordination of the pictorial subject to atmospheric phenomena reached a climax. Upon entering the suite of galleries on the upper level, the beholder encounters another Monet painting:

The Luncheon: Decorative Panel (above) dating from 1873 (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), with which the artist reacted to his Frankfurt Luncheon. The work aptly demonstrates the shift of interest that had come about in his art: the focus was no longer on the human being and the interior but on nature and atmosphere. The dark shades of the predecessor painting make way for flickering dabs of paint applied to the canvas unmixed. Monet now concentrated primarily on reproducing light and colour and conveying a certain mood. In these paintings the visitor witnesses the increasing dissolution of form that took place in this phase of Impressionism. Monet presented this work along with the depiction of La Grenouillère at the second Impressionist exhibition in 1876.

The painting The Boulevard des Capucines of 1873 (Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City) (above) on display in this room is representative of Monet’s depictions of Paris. The pedestrians on the street have been recorded sketchily, with rapid brushstrokes, as an anonymous mass. Here the artist has masterfully captured the constant state of unrest and motion in the city with painterly means, and it is a work that already met with great admiration in his lifetime. The subsequent section of the show features landscape depictions and leisure-time scenes of the years 1873 to 1878, works that address man’s changing relationship to nature.

As illustrated, for example, by Monet’s painting

Claude Monet (1840-1926), Summer (Meadow at Bezons), 1874

Summer of 1874 (Alte Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), the great outdoors gained importance in this period as a place of recreation and recuperation for the modern city dweller. In the main room on this floor, the focus is on the Parisian metropolis and motifs of urban life as depicted in paintings by Degas, Morisot, Renoir and others. In Monet’s railway station scenes the increasing dissolution of the scenery brought about by the sketchy, diffuse application of the paint is clearly evident.

Claude Monet (1840–1926), Exterior of Saint-Lazare Station (The Signal), 1877

At the centre of his 1877 work Exterior of Saint-Lazare Station (The Signal) of 1877 (Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum Hannover), a large traffic signal blocks the view. The grounds of the railway behind it are blurred, and reminiscent of a landscape seen from a train window during fast travel on what was then a brand new means of transport. The steam of the engine also prevents us from taking in the entire scene. Obstructions to sight have thus been elevated to the status of pictorial motifs as the actual subject recedes ever further into the background. At the same time, the artist has assigned special importance to atmospheric qualities. This section is accompanied by a gallery showcasing contemporary caricatures on Impressionism. In the last room on the upper level, we see how the phenomenon of the pictorial subject’s disintegration has been taken to the farthest extreme and the intrinsic value of colour has come to the fore, for example in Monet’s painting

Vétheuil in the Fog of 1879 (Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris).

Finally, an “epilogue” assembles a number of characteristic works of Monet’s late phase that serve as particularly good illustrations of the development to the nearly complete loss of the pictorial subject.

Claude Monet (1840–1926), Rouen Cathedral: The Portal, Morning Effect, 1893-1894

In the four paintings from the Rouen Cathedral series (Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel; Museum Folkwang, Essen; Klassik Stiftung Weimar; private collection) executed in 1892‒94 and depictions of London bridges likewise dating from this period (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Indianapolis Museum of Art, private collection), no more than an inkling of the built structures has remained; they appear almost entirely immaterial. Instead, the representation of light and atmosphere dominates the compositions.

More works from the exhibition:

Claude Monet (1840-1926), Hôtel des Roches Noires, Trouville, 1870

Claude Monet (1840-1926), The Chailly Road through the Forest of Fontainebleau, 1865

Claude Monet (1840-1926), Jar of Peaches, c. 1866

Claude Monet (1840-1926), Saint-Lazare Station, Arrival of the Normandy Train, 1877

Auguste Renoir (1894-1979), Woman with a Parasol in a Garden, 1875

Anonym (?), Montmartre, 1870

Amédée Charles Henri de Noé (1819-1879), Madame! Cela ne serait pas prudent. Retirez-vous!, 1877

Amédée Charles Henri de Noé (1819-1879), M. Manet liu-même, pris d´une crise de nerfs la vue de la peinture indépendante, 1879

Edgar Degas (1834-1917), Orchestra Musicians, 1872

Antoine Chintreuil (1814-1873), Landscape with Sunlight and Rainclouds, 1870

Berthe Morisot (1841–1895), Eugène Manet on the Isle of Wight, 1875

Alfred Sisley (1839–1899), The Seine at Bougival in winter, 1872

Camille Pissarro (1831–1903), The Quai du Pothuis, Pontoise, 1868

Jules Andrieu (1838–1884), Ruins of the Paris Cummune, 1871. The Hôtel de Ville after Fire, 4th arrondissement, Paris, 1871

Anthony van Dyck(1599–1641), one of the most celebrated and influential portraitists of all time enjoyed an international career that took him from his native Flanders to Italy, France, and, ultimately, the court of Charles I in London. Van Dyck’s supremely elegant manner and convincing evocation of a sitter’s inner life—whether real or imagined—made him the favorite portraitist of many of the most powerful and interesting figures of the seventeenth century.

This is the most comprehensive exhibition ever organized on Van Dyck’s activity and process as a portraitist and the first major exhibition on the artist to be held in the United States in over twenty years. Through approximately one hundred works, the exhibition explores the astounding versatility and inventiveness of a portrait specialist, the stylistic development of a draftsman and painter, and the efficiency and genius of an artist in action.

Lenders include the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the British Museum and National Gallery in London, the Prado Museum in Madrid, and major private collectors such as the Duke of Devonshire and the Duke of Buccleuch.

Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture is organized by Stijn Alsteens, curator of Northern European drawings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Adam Eaker, Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow at The Frick Collection. The exhibition catalogue, copublished with Yale University Press,features contributions by the curators as well as An Van Camp, British Museum; Bert Watteeuw, Rubenianum, Antwerp;and Xavier F. Salomon, The Frick Collection.

The opening section of the exhibition pays special attention to the artist’s working method as recorded in drawings and oil sketches, which grant insight into the moments when he captured a sitter’s likeness and formed the idea for a portrait’s composition. Van Dyck’s virtuosic technique can be seen as much in these preparatory works as in his finished paintings. In a number of cases, the exhibition will reunite for the first time preparatory works with the paintings for which they were made, tracing the evolution of Van Dyck’s pictorial ideas. A small group of unfinished paintings will further illuminate his working method tracing his steps as he made preliminary sketches of apose on paper to working on the canvas itself.

The exhibition includes a number of prints, in which Van Dyck was able to experiment with a medium that suited his artistic temperament, while at the same time enabling a wider dissemination of his most successful likenesses. A highlight of the show will be an installation of works from Van Dyck’s so-called Iconography, a series of portraits of eminent contemporaries, among them fellow artists Inigo Jones and Orazio Gentileschi. Prints from the series and one of the earliest surviving bound albums of the Iconography will be displayed in the main-floor Cabinet, while the downstairs galleries will contain many of the celebrated drawings and grisailles with which Van Dyck prepared this magnum opus.

Also in the downstairs galleries, a small group of drawings by the artist’s contemporaries, including work by his teacher Peter Paul Rubens, will illuminate his artistic lineage andthe uniqueness of his approach to portraiture. Each of the drawings in this group has been at some previous time attributed to Van Dyck; at the same time, a few drawings in the exhibition and catalogue will be newly exhibited as works by Van Dyck.

In providing a compelling argument about the distinctiveness of Van Dyck’s approach to portrait drawings, the exhibition will make a lasting contribution to connoisseurship on the artist.The exhibition will culminate with a selection of more than twenty of Van Dyck’s greatest painted portraits displayed in the Oval Room and East Gallery. These include masterpieces from the Frick’s permanent collection that have been off view for several years and will now be placed in the context of iconic loans from European and American collections. Also in this group will be a selection of lesser-known portraits of extremely high quality from American private and public collections that have not appeared in previous exhibitions on Van Dyck.

This exhibition finds a particularly appropriate home at The Frick Collection, which houses two of the acknowledged masterpieces of the artist’s early career: the portraits of the animal painter Frans Snyders and his wife, Margareta de Vos. The exhibition will offer the chance to reconsider Henry Clay Frick’s acquisition of portraits by Van Dyck, and the broader appeal of the artist to collectors duringthe Gilded Age. This and other themes will be explored in a scholarly catalogue, a lecture series, a symposium, and a study day held in conjunction with the exhibition.

IMAGE LIST

Anthony van Dyck (1599 – 1641) Frans Snyders , ca

1620 Oil on canvas The Frick Collection, New York

Anthony van Dyck (1599 – 1641) Margareta Snyders , ca

1620 Oil on canvas The Frick Collection, New York

Anthony van Dyck (1599 – 1641) Self - Portrait , ca

1620 – 21 Oil on canvas The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Anthony van Dyck (1599 – 1641) Portrait of a Genoese Noblewoman (detail) , 1622 – 27
Oil on canvas The Frick Collection, New York

Anthony van Dyck (1599 – 1641) Sir John Suckling , 1632 - 41 Oil on canvas The Frick Collection, New York

Anthony van D yck (1599 – 1641) James, Seventh Earl of Derby, His Lady and Child , 1632 - 41 Oil on canvas The Frick Collection, New York

Anthony van Dyck (1599 – 1641) A Brussels magistrate looking to the right , ca

1634 – 1635 Oil on canvas Private collection, New York

Anthony van Dyck (1599 – 1641) Lady Anne Carey, later Countess of Clanbrassil , 1636 Oil on canvas The Frick Collection, New York

Anthony van Dyck (1599 – 1641) Nicolaes Rockox , 1636 Oil on panel Private collection

Anthony van Dyck (1599 – 1641) Princess Elizabeth and Princess Anne, 1637 Oil on canvas Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Max Kuehne

Biography - Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, New York, New York

Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, New York, New York

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) Rockport Harbor

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) In the Harbor, Provincetown

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) Smith's Pier-Provincetown

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) Street Scene, Rockport, Mass.

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) Town Square

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) Fishing Wharf, Gloucester

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) Pigeon Cove, Rockport

Max Kuehne (American, 1880-1968) On the Water

ALFRED MAURER: AT THE VANGUARD OF MODERNISM ON VIEW AT THE ADDISON GALLERY THIS SPRING

WORKS BY MARC CHAGALL, PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR, FERDINAND HODLER AND FERNANDO BOTERO AT KOLLER ZURICH AUCTION June 26

FRIDA KAHLO: Art, Garden, Life: The New York Botanical Garden

Tissot, Rossetti, Holman Hunt And Millais at Christie’s London on 16 June 2015

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Opening on June 30: Sargent: Portraits of Artists and Friends

The Figure Examined: Masterworks from the Kasser Mochary Art Foundation: Picasso, Matisse, Rodin, Dalí, Botero

Monet and American Impressionism

Edward Willis Redfield

Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in London on 23 June: Monet, Picasso, Sisley, Chagall, van Dongen, Marc, Signac, Magritte, Miro

Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 24th June 2015 : Manet and Klimt

All the Sea Knows: Marine Art from the Museum of the City of New York: Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, CT

Franz Marc

THREE GENERATIONS OF WYETH FAMILY ART TO BE SUMMER SHOWCASE AT HERITAGE MUSEUMS & GARDENS

BELLOTTO, RUBENS, GAINSBOROUGH, GUARDI & BREUGHEL THE YOUNGER: Christie’s, 9 July 2015

Fighting History 9 June – 13 September 2015 Tate Britain: John Singleton Copley and Benjamin West

REMBRANDT - TITIAN - BELLOTTO SPIRIT AND SPLENDOUR OF THE DRESDEN PICTURE GALLERY

Vices of Life. The Prints of William Hogarth

“Monet and the Birth of Impressionism” at Frankfurt’s Städel Museum

THE FRICK COLLECTION - Van Dyck: The Anatomy of Portraiture March 2, 2016, through June 5, 2016