The pair of Hals portraits hanging in Mr Albada Jelgersma's home. Frans Hals (1580/5-1666), Portrait of a Gentleman, Aged 37 and Portrait of a Lady, Aged 36, 1637. Oil on canvas, (both) 36⅝ x 27 in (93 x 68.5 cm). Estimate £8,000,000-12,000,000. Offered in The Eric Albada Jelgersma Collection Old Masters Evening Sale on 6 December 2018, as part of Classic Week, at Christie’s in London
While the paintings were on loan to The Fogg Museum at Harvard University, the renowned Hals scholar Seymour Slive observed that they are ‘outstanding, superlative works… in a near miraculous state of preservation.’ Their exceptional condition means that Hals’ fluid brushwork and subtly toned palette can be clearly appreciated.
An ‘imagined’ illustration of Eric Albada Jelgersma (1939-2018) surrounded by his collection
Eric Albada Jelgersma (1939-2018) was just one of several illustrious owners of the Hals pictures, which are said to be the finest pair of portraits by the artist remaining in private hands. During the 19th century they belonged to the family of Count de Thiènnes, who lived in Castle Rumbeke, one of the oldest renaissance castles in Belgium. In the 20th century they passed through the hands of Canadian railroad magnate and pioneering Impressionist collector William Cornelius Van Horne and the American diplomat J. William Middendorf II, before Jelgersma acquired them in 1996 from Robert Noortman, the Dutch art dealer and decade-long director of TEFAF art fair.
At that time Albada Jelgersma, a businessman from the south of Holland who had amassed a fortune in the supermarket wholesale industry, was well on his way to establishing his reputation as a connoisseur of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish masterpieces, acquiring works that covered each genre of Golden Age painting.
Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) An Extensive Wooded Landscape, 1610. Oil on copper. 20¾ x 28½ in (52.7 x 72.4 cm). Estimate: £3,00,000-5,000,000. Offered in The Eric Albada Jelgersma Collection Old Masters Evening Sale on 6 December 2018 at Christie’s in London
Mr Albada Jelgersma’s collection also includes one of the largest landscapes Jan Brueghel the Elder ever painted on copper (above), and important genre paintings by Gerard Ter Borch, Michiel van Musscher and Dirck Hals, as well as Merry Company, a scene of three young revellers by Judith Leyster (below). This particularly rare work by the greatest female painter of the Dutch Golden Age was painted in 1629 when the artist was just 20 years old, and demonstrates her precocious talent.
Judith Leyster (1609-1660), Merry Company. Oil on canvas. 29⅜ x 24⅞ in (74.5 x 63.2 cm). Estimate: £1,500,000-2,000,000. Offered in The Eric Albada Jelgersma Collection Old Masters Evening Sale on 6 December 2018 at Christie’s in London
Other notable highlights include Anthony van Dyck’s monumental painting of Venus and Adonis (below), which is a rare disguised double-portrait of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, and his wife Katherine Manners, as the characters from Classical mythology. Painted in 1620, most probably to celebrate the couple's marriage, then rediscovered in 1990, the canvas is one of only three works datable to Van Dyck’s first trip to England — and the only one still in a private collection.
Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), Venus and Adonis. Oil on canvas. 87¾ x 64⅛ in (222.9 x 163 cm). Estimate: £2,500,000-3,000,000. Offered in The Eric Albada Jelgersma Collection Old Masters Evening Sale on 6 December 2018 at Christie’s in London
In addition, the evening sale features a selection of still life paintings, including a small-scale masterpiece by Ambrosuis Bosschaert the Elder and a monumental Frans Snyders canvas (below).
Frans Snyders (1579-1657), Larder. Oil on canvas. 66⅝ x 93⅛ in (169.2 x 236.5 cm). Estimate: £1,000,000-1,500,000. Offered in The Eric Albada Jelgersma Collection Old Masters Evening Sale on 6
Portrait of Princess Mary (1631–1660), daughter of King Charles I of England, full-length, in a pink dress decorated with silver embroidery and ribbons by Sir Anthony van Dyck, 1641, will be offered from a Distinguished Private Collection in Christie’s Old Masters Evening Sale on 6 December, during Christie’s Classic Week (estimate: £5,000,000-8,000,000). Commissioned to celebrate the crucial alliance between the British crown and the House of Orange, this intimate ad vivum (from life) portrait of Princess Mary, the finest portrait of the type, is remarkable for its royal provenance, the superb quality of its draughtsmanship and its exceptional condition. It is one of the most important European Royal Portraits to come to auction for a generation.
The painting will go on public view for the first time, ahead of the auction, at Christie’s Shanghai on 19 until 21 September, later touring to New York where it will be on public view from 25 to 30 October and to Hong Kong between 23 and 26 November, ahead of the pre-sale public exhibition in London from 1 to 6 December.
John Stainton, Deputy Chairman, Old Master Paintings, Christie’s EMERI:
“This beautifully-preserved full-length portrait of Princess Mary, eldest daughter of King Charles I of England, and future mother of King William III of England, was one of the last commissions executed by van Dyck, in the summer of 1641, only months before the artist’s premature death at the age of forty-two. It bears many of the hallmarks of his remarkable genius – in the subtle rendering of the sitter’s physiognomy, the masterful depiction of the shimmering drapery, the brilliance of the palette, and the assured draughtsmanship and deft handling of the paint. A work of the finest quality, it represents the culmination of all that van Dyck had learnt from his master, Peter Paul Rubens, and from his Venetian predecessors, notably Titian. By developing his own distinctive style of portraiture, characterised by a calm authority and supreme elegance, van Dyck both revolutionised portraiture in Europe and left a legacy for future generations of artists from Gainsborough and Lawrence, to Sargent and Freud.”
ROYAL PROVENANCE:
Identified by Sir Oliver Millar as one of two portraits commissioned from van Dyck for the court at The Hague, this painting would originally have formed part of the prestigious collection of the Princes of Orange, Stadtholders of the United Provenances of the Netherlands. It would likely have been displayed in one of their principal palaces, possibly at Binnenhof Palace in The Hague, where Princess Mary lived with her husband William, alongside works by many of the principal Dutch and Flemish painters of the seventeenth century.
VAN DYCK IN ENGLAND:
In July 1632, van Dyck was appointed ‘Principal Painter in Ordinary to their Majesties’ by King Charles I of England. A passionate collector and patron, the King had long hoped to attract a painter of such exceptional status and renown to his service, and found in van Dyck an artist not only capable of fulfilling his desire for magnificent portraits and paintings, but also one who shared his tastes, especially for Venetian pictures. The style, refinement and brilliance of van Dyck’s portraits was unprecedented in England; the artist instilled in his sitters a new sense of vitality and movement and his bravura technique allowed him to enliven the entire surface of his works with light, assured dashes of paint, as exemplified in the present portrait.
PRINCESS MARY AS SITTER:
Van Dyck first painted the sitter in the weeks immediately following his arrival in London in 1632, when the young Princess Royal was shown with her parents, King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria, and elder brother, the future King Charles II. The monumental group portrait, known as ‘The Greate Peece’, dominated the King’s Long Gallery in the Palace of Whitehall (The Royal Collection). The earliest single portraits of Princess Mary, which show her full-length in a blue dress, with her hands linked together across her stomach – a pose that echoes van Dyck’s earlier portraits of her mother – were painted in or before 1637, and are now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and at Hampton Court. Four years later, she sat again to van Dyck with her fifteen-year-old husband, Prince William of Orange, for the double portrait now in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, as well as for the present work.
JEWELS AND ATTIRE:
In both the present work and in the Rijksmuseum double portrait, Mary is shown wearing her wedding ring and the large diamond brooch given to her by her husband on 3 May 1641, the day after their marriage. Her spectacular coral gown, decorated with silver thread trim along its border, is thought to be similar to that worn for her wedding, rather than the cloth of silver-gold she wears in the Rijksmuseum picture. The apparent weight of the fabric, falling in broad, heavy folds, along with the bright highlights along the creases, suggest the fabric may have been cloth of silver. Shimmering highlights, applied in swift, cross-hatched strokes, were used as a form of shorthand by artists, mimicking the lustre of metallic threads as the textile caught the light. In accordance with the fashion of the period, her gown is open down the front, revealing a stiffened stomacher across the chest and a matching skirt beneath. The ribbons, which would at one time have been functional, lacing the skirt and stomacher to the bodice, were applied purely as adornment. One ribbon, however has been pinned or stitched flat to disguise the seam between the bodice and skirt. Details such as the Princess’s brooch, the string of pearls and ribbons on her shimmering dress are rendered with remarkable precision and delicacy, characteristics that defined the artist’s finest late works.
Princess Mary was born on 4 November 1631 at St. James’s Palace, the eldest daughter of King Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria. She was baptized on the same day by William Laud, Bishop of London. On 2 May 1641, at the age of nine, she was married to William II, son of Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange and Amalia von Solms, at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall Palace. Mary remained in England for a year after the marriage, eventually following her husband to Holland in 1642, accompanied by her mother and a train of four hundred courtiers.
In March 1647, William II succeeded his father as Stadholder of the Dutch Republic and Mary became Princess of Orange. Her new position at court, however, caused conflict with her mother-in-law. The ill health which Frederick Henry had suffered between 1640 and his death in 1647 had meant that Amalia had effectively ruled as Regent and Stadtholder during this time. Mary’s appearance at court seems to have represented something of a challenge to her mother-in-law, with one of Mary’s ladies allegedly saying that ‘it was time the princess should run the country’, since Amalia had done so for so long.
In November 1650, following his failed attempt to capture Amsterdam from his political opponents, William II died of smallpox. Eight days later, Mary gave birth to a son, the future William III of England. His baptism saw the rivalry between Mary and Amalia erupt once again: despite Mary’s desire to christen her child Charles, in honour of her father, Amalia insisted that he be called William. Mary’s position in Holland became increasingly precarious during her widowhood. She was obliged to share the guardianship of her infant son and the Regency of Holland with Amalia, and her uncle-in-law Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg.
Amalia was reported to be ‘hateful of all things English’ and Mary’s continuous support of the Royalist cause in England provoked considerable hostility at court. This was no doubt exacerbated by her brothers, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, who had come to The Hague in 1648 and 1649, where they borrowed large sums of money from her husband. Indeed, after the Anglo-Dutch war, which had begun in 1652, was concluded by a peace treaty in May 1654, all ‘enemies’ of Parliamentarian England were banned from the Netherlands, thus forbidding Mary to welcome her brothers on Dutch soil again.
After the Restoration of Charles II to the English throne in 1660, Mary’s position changed dramatically for the better in the Netherlands. She returned to her homeland in September of Charles’ coronation year, where, after a short illness with smallpox, she died at Whitehall on 24 December.
On November 15, Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale will be highlighted by Francis Bacon’s Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing (estimate: $14-18 million). This coveted painting comes from the Collection of S.I. Newhouse, one of the greatest connoisseur art collectors of the 20th Century revered for his innate ability to recognize and acquire only pinnacle works: those that most fully embody the unique vision of their respective makers at the height of their power. Having only had two owners in its 49-year history, counting the artist’s sister, Ianthe Bacon, and Mr. Newhouse, Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing is now being offered at auction for the very first time.
Alex Rotter, Chairman, Post-War and Contemporary Art, continued: “Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing presents a striking closeup of Bacon’s iconic muse, which focuses not on her face, but the complexity of her psychological state. The artist’s incomparable ability to convey emotions with tangible poignance is on full display in this picture, making it a sure masterpiece within his oeuvre.” Bacon’s Study of Henrietta Moraes
Laughing magnetizes the viewer’s attention in part through the powerful mystery of his sitter’s equivocally closed eyes. The artist did not approach the empty canvas without an idea of what he wanted to paint, but the feelings he wanted to express – about himself, his subject, life, and death – would have been exceptionally difficult to express in paint without his astonishing dexterity and passionate conviction. Often unwell or anxious, Bacon worked alone in his studio, wrestling with his subject matter and the monumental task of capturing the poignancy of mortality in two dimensions. His inspiration, energy, and exhilaration resulted in Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing.
Henrietta Moraes was born Audrey Wendy Abbott, in Simla, India, in 1931. Raised mainly by an abusive grandmother, she never saw her father, who served in the Indian Air Force and deserted the family when her mother was pregnant. In escaping a troubled childhood, Moraes drifted into the London Soho milieu inhabited by Bacon, and modelled for artists. She was thirty-eight when Bacon painted Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing, with several suicide attempts and three failed marriages behind her. Moraes typified Bacon’s ideal woman-friend – sexually uninhibited, unconventional, spirited if vulnerable, gregarious, and a serious drinker. For her part, Moraes regarded Bacon as a prophet, principally because his paintings of her lying on a bed with a syringe in her arm had foretold the drug addiction to which she later succumbed. Bacon painted Moraes at least twenty-three times (counting each triptych as one work) between 1959 and 1969 but ceased to do so thereafter: Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing was the final named portrait of her.
The present painting was known formerly as Study of Henrietta Moraes, 1969; it was exhibited under that title in Bacon’s major retrospectives at the Grand Palais, Paris, in 1971, and at the Tate Gallery in 1985. Beyond identifying body positions (‘Seated’, ‘Lying’, ‘Reclining’) in his paintings, Bacon never appended adjectives to their titles, hoping to discourage anecdotal and narrative interpretations. He reportedly regretted adding the word ‘Laughing’ to the title of his final painting of Moraes and had Marlborough Fine Art remove it from the work’s official title.
Moraes’s laugh can definitely be described as enigmatic (her expression invites comparison with a smile), an indication that Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa was in the back of Bacon’s mind. The sitter’s neckline, too, is similar to that of La Gioconda. Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing also has affinities with Picasso’s portrait of Dora Maar, Femme assise, robe bleue, 1939, wherein the sitter’s ‘smile’ has also been compared with that of the Mona Lisa. Bacon was probably aware of the coincidence that Maar’s first name was actually Henriette. These correlations, even if speculative, are particularly compelling in the context of Bacon’s theoretical discourse with Picasso.
Bacon, who was not close to his family, was very fond of his sister, Ianthe. And while Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing was likely intended for the artist’s 1971 retrospective at the Grand Palais, Paris, it was also a gift to Ianthe, whom he had visited in South Africa soon after completing the painting – a gesture that gives this work additional special status. The satisfaction that the exhibition at the Grand Palais gave Bacon was intensified by the fact that he was only the second artist to receive the honor in his lifetime; the first was Picasso, in 1966-67. The Paris exhibition was an occasion that manifestly provided the incentive for Bacon to excel, not least in terms of his continuing conversation with Picasso’s art. Ultimately, Picasso was the one twentieth-century artist Bacon respected, and against whom he measured himself.
Such were the risks Bacon took, technically as well as conceptually, that it was inevitable not all his paintings would succeed or ‘come off’, as he put it. He approached the blank canvas with a mixture of confidence and apprehension, and however strong his conviction may have been at the moment he began to apply the paint, he would recount – almost with surprise, as if he had been assisted by a miracle of outside intervention – that certain paintings had ‘come off’. He was referring to the gamble he took in the act of painting, one that relied, as he habitually insisted, on ‘chance’ or ‘accident’. His risk paid off with Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing.
On a canvas of relatively small dimensions such as this, the breadth and vigor of the paintwork on his large canvases would have been inappropriately over-scaled. Yet the brushstrokes conspicuously exhibit energy and dynamism, evinced in the blending and smearing of paint across the ‘nose’ and the virtuoso application of wet pigment pressed onto fabric above the teeth and across the left eye, a non-signifying, anti-verisimilitude strategy. The flickering paint simultaneously evokes the aura of a vivid memory – contemplative, almost melancholic – and a factual presence: Study of Henrietta Moraes Laughing is metaphorically alive, before us.
Two portraits of Charles I’s eldest children - the eleven year- old Prince of Wales, (later King Charles II), and his nine year- old sister Mary, the Princess Royal, (later, the mother of the future king, William III) will be among the highlight s of Sotheby’s London Old Master Evening sale on 5 December.
Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Portrait of Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange, 1641 Oil on canvas Estimate: £ 600,000 - 800,000
Sir Anthony Van Dyck, Portrait of Charles II, when Prince of Wales , 1641 Oil on canvas Estimate: £2 -3 million
Among the very last works that Van Dyck painted for his royal patron, these charming, beautifully preserved portraits have been in the same private collection for nearly a century, and come fresh to market with a combined estimate of £2.6 million – 3.8 mil lion. Conceived and executed in the summer of 1641, months before the artist’ s death in December the same year, it is possible that they are the portraits of the Prince and the Princess recorded as being among the possession s left in the artist’s studio in Blackfriars on his death. Epitomising the extraordinary skill which V an Dyck brought to child portraiture, a genre in which he had excelled ever since his early years in Genoa, both works provide a penetrating likeness of the royal children at a time when their world , and the Stuart monarchy , was on the brink of collapse. Alex Bell, Sotheby’s Co -Chairman of Old Master Paintings , said: “ Van Dyck was responsible for creating the enduring image s of Charles I and his court, and in these exceptionally well -pre served portraits of his two eldest children we see the artist use his painterly skill to acknowledge both the youth and the status of his royal subjects. The tumultuous history of the Stuart court has always captured people’s imagination and with the addit ional interest sparked by the fascinating exhibitions in London this year, it is particularly timely for these royal portraits, which are extremely rare to the market, to come up for sale.’ Appointed ‘Principal Painter in Ordinary to Their Majesties ’ in 1632, Van Dyck created numerous portraits of Charles I, his wife Henrietta Maria, and their children, many of which still remain in the British Royal Collection. Depicting his sitters with a relaxed elega nce and understated authority, V an Dyck ’s sophisticated style d ominated English portraiture until t he end of the 18 th century. Portraying the eldest child of Charles I , the Portrait of Charles II, when Prince of Wales (estimate: £2- 3 million) is a unique likeness of the young prince and one of t he finest royal portraits of Van Dyck’s late career. Depicting the future heir to the throne standing in armour with the ribbon of the Garter, with his left hand resting on the hilt of his sword and his right on the head of a stick, this portrait mark s a d istinct shift in the representation of the young Prince. Moving away from the celebrated child portraits painted alongside his siblings, th e portrait exudes a more martial and adult gravitas , both in accoutrements and bearing.
It is not known when the king gave the commission to paint such an important portrait of the Prince of Wales but the painting can probably be associated with a payment for the Prince’s barge, which on 9 August 1641 had ‘caryd his highness from Lambeth to Whithall and from thence to Sr Anthonye Vandickes and back again .’
Although he was still very young, the Prince of Wales accompanied his father, Charles I, at the outbreak of the English Civil War, and was present at the battle of Edgehill in 1642. When by 1646 it was clear that his father was losing the war, Charles was made to flee England and take refuge on the continent. Following the king’s execution, Charles lead a number of unsuccessful campaigns to recover his throne.
Following the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658 and the reformed parliament’s decision to restore the monarchy, Charles returned to England in 1660 as King Charles II.
Painted shortly after her marriage to Prince Willem of Orange, the Portrait of Mary, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange (estimate: £600,000 – 800,000), is the last of the artist’s likenesses of the young princess. t is one of three versions of the design , all most likely to have been painted in the summer of 1641. Mary is depicted wearing a fine orange silk dre ss edged with lace tied with blue ribb on, and both her wedding ring and the large diamond brooch given to her by her husband the day after their wedding on 2 April 1641.
By this date Van Dyck was probably too unwell to finish the picture himself for it seems probable the painting of the Princess’ costume was entrusted to his studio. Following her marriage aged just nine years old, the Princess remained in London until February 1642, when she travelled with her mother to Holland to join her husband . She returned to England at the Restoration but died shortly thereafter. Her son, Willem III of Orange, later succeeded her brother Charles II and was crowned King William III of England in 1689.
Otto Mueller, Self Portrait with Pentagram, around 1924
From Berlin to Wrocław: for the first time an exhibition addresses the huge artistic influence of Die Brücke painter and German expressionist Otto Mueller (1874–1930). As a mentor for a younger generation, he taught for more than 10 years at the State Academy of Fine Arts and Crafts in Wrocław, which in the 1920s was regarded as one of Europe’s most progressive art schools. Here, the various movements in painting at the time were seen as equals: Académie Matisse, Expressionism, New Objectivity and Bauhaus. Otto Mueller, who was nonconformist, charismatic and enthusiastic about ideas of freedom, had significant influence on the local art scene. The brilliance of his work in Wrocław – enhanced and intensified by his artistic network – extends into post-war modernism. This exhibition will for the first time draw greater attention to an important joint chapter in German-Polish art history.
The Lamp implies that although Olga was chatelaine of Boisgeloup, Marie-Thérèse, wreathed in tendrils of philodendron, was queen of the sculpture studio’—John Richardson
PABLO PICASSO, La Lampe, oil on canvas, Painted in Boisgeloup, 21 January-8 June 1931, $25,000,000-35,000,000.
Christie’s will offer Pablo Picasso’s La Lampe, 1931 ($25-35 million) as a central highlight of its Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on 11 November in New York. The golden light from the lamp’s scarlet flame bares a closely guarded secret, known in early 1931 to only a few of Pablo Picasso’s closest friends and his trusted chauffeur. Disenchanted with his wife Olga, indeed, having fallen far out of love from her and the haute bourgeois life-style that she relished, Picasso had been clandestinely seeing, for more than four and a half years, a lovely blonde mistress 28 years his junior. La Lampe shines on the image of Marie-Thérèse Walter, whom Picasso showcased here—in a large, elaborately orchestrated painting, as today one may instantly recognize her—for the first time.
Max Carter, Head of Department, Impressionist and Modern Art, Christie’s New York, remarked: “During the early 1930s, Picasso’s towering achievements as both painter and sculptor arguably reached their greatest height and in La Lampe we have one of their most vital and outstanding expressions.” Tan Bo, Director, Impressionist and Modern Art, Christie’s Beijing, continued: “With La Lampe touring to Hong Kong from October 22nd-25th, this masterpiece will once again be on view to the public in Asia after 37 years, where it has not been seen since its first appearance at the Picasso Intime exhibition in Hong Kong and Seibu in 1981.”
Picasso painted in La Lampe the pinnacle of Marie-Thérèse, transforming her sweet, compliant nature and striking physicality into the image of a goddess, his idolized muse, in the form of a head modeled in lily-white plaster, appropriately textured in thickly impastoed oil paint, with the lamp’s yellow light doubling as her distinctive blonde hair. This head and bust rest upon a cloth-covered wooden table, which mimics the appearance of a dark dress with a leaf-form collar showing a tasteful hint of décolletage. The artist depicted Marie-Thérèse’s profile, dominated by her Grecian nose, firmly contoured chin, and modish carré plongeant hair style, from a half-dozen such volumetric heads and reliefs, which he began modeling in the spring of 1931.
La Lampe was shown in Picasso’s celebrated retrospective at the Grande Salle of the Galeries Georges Petit, together with fourteen of the 1932 paintings that featured Marie-Thérèse, including
Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,
Le Rêve,
and Jeune fille devant un miroir.
One may presume that by this time Olga was aware her husband had taken a lover; after viewing the 1932 show, she might more clearly but distressfully imagine the young Woman’s appearance, and even recognize her, if perchance they crossed paths.
With the addition of two hundred watercolors, drawings, and prints, the Galeries Georges Petit exhibition moved largely intact in September to the Kunsthaus Zürich, thus allowing this venue the honor of having mounted Picasso’s first museum retrospective. Wilhelm Hartmann, the Kunsthaus director, installed the works in a chronological presentation, making it a model for all future comprehensive Picasso shows. La Lampe and Nude, Green Leaves and Bust, together with other recent Marie-Thérèse paintings seen in Paris, also traveled to Zürich. The exhibition was a success, and had to be extended another two weeks to accommodate the record attendance.
Nearly fifty years later, La Lampe again featured as one of the highlights of Picasso’s landmark retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1980.
50 masterpieces from the world-renowned collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, following their presentation at Palazzo Reale in Milan.
Claude Monet, Japanese Footbridge, Giverny, 1895, oil on canvas, 78.7x97.8 Gift of F. Otto Haas, and partial gift of the reserved life interest of Carole Haas Gravagno, 1993-151-2.
The exhibition spans a period of 90 years of artistic development, from the late 19th to the 20th century, including canonical artists of European art such as Pierre Bonnard, Constantin Brancusi, Georges Braque, Mary Cassatt, Paul Cézanne, Salvador Dalí, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, van Gogh, Juan Gris, Vasily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Édouard Manet, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Camille Pissarro, and Auguste Renoir.
Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Camille Roulin, 1888, oil on canvas, 43.2x34.9. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Rodolphe Meyer de Schauensee, 1973-129-1.
This exhibition was organized by the Arkansas Arts Center
John Marin, American (Rutherford, New Jersey, 1870 – 1953, Cape Split, Maine), Ramapo Mountains, 1945, watercolor and graphite on textured watercolor paper, 15 1/4 x 19 3/4 in., Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection: Gift of Norma B. Marin. 2013.018.243
Featuring never-before-exhibited drawings and watercolors from the Arkansas Arts Center Collection, Becoming John Marin: Modernist at Work explores the artist’s transformation from intuitive draftsman to innovative watercolorist and etcher. This revelatory new look at Marin’s work affords a unique opportunity to see finished watercolors, etchings and oil paintings reunited with the sketches on which they were based for the first time outside the artist’s studio.
John Marin, American (Rutherford, New Jersey, 1870 – 1953, Cape Split, Maine), On Mount Desert, Maine, 1920, watercolor over graphite on textured watercolor paper, 14 x 16 ¾ in., Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection: Gift of Norma B. Marin. 2013.018.142
As the second largest repository of John Marin works in the world, the Arkansas Arts Center’s 290-work collection is surpassed only by that of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Becoming John Marin: Modernist at Work features 79 works from this exceptional collection, donated to the Arts Center by the artist’s daughter-in-law, Norma Marin, in 2013, and recently conserved with support from The Henry Luce Foundation, Luce Fund in American Art. They will be shown alongside 33 distinguished Marin works loaned by outstanding public and private collections, including Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Colby College Museum of Art, and the Phillips Collection, among others. Beginning with his 1909 debut exhibition of watercolors at Alfred Stieglitz's 291 Gallery in New York, until his death in 1953, Marin was a major force among the cutting-edge modern artists who gathered around Stieglitz. The artist was best known for his lively, idiosyncratic watercolors, etchings and oil paintings of the disparate worlds of gritty New York City and coastal Maine. In 1948, a Look magazine survey of museum directors, curators, and art critics selected Marin as the greatest painter in America. But Marin's early years had not foreshadowed any such recognition. Until age 40, he was unsure of how he wanted to make his living. The young Marin shifted between working for a wholesale notions house, training and working as an architect in his native New Jersey, and attending the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and later the Art Students League in New York. From 1905 to 1909, he lived in Paris and made picturesque etchings of European architecture for the tourist trade. But one overriding passion was always there for Marin – drawing. He said, "I just drew. I drew every chance I got." While in Paris, Marin was discovered by Edward Steichen, photographer and talent scout for Alfred Stieglitz. Settling in New York, Marin showed work annually at Stieglitz’s galleries – 291, The Intimate Gallery, and An American Place. Stieglitz became Marin's dealer, promoter, mentor and friend. Marin's drawings occasionally appeared in exhibitions, but most were informal, private documents made for his own creative purposes. In rural places, where he could work undisturbed and simply make a watercolor on the spot without a preparatory sketch, he made few drawings. But on the teeming sidewalks of New York, he often drew on inexpensive 8-by-10 inch writing pads the artist could afford to buy in large numbers. Marin accumulated piles of sketchbooks that he consulted as sources for finished works he made in his studio. Marin – who was trained as an architect – made unexpectedly precise drawings of Manhattan’s towering skyscrapers and bridges. Other drawings were experiments in visually fragmenting forms to create expressive modernist compositions. But most of Marin's New York drawings were quick, vigorous notations recording the forces and motions he felt in the buildings and figures around him. He caught fleeting glimpses of rushed pedestrians or flying trapeze artists performing under the big top. The exhibition also follows the artist to lesser-known places – the cliffs outside New York City known as the Palisades – and to lesser-known subjects – portraits of friends and family and charming drawings of zoo and circus animals.
John Marin, American (Rutherford, New Jersey, 1870 –1953, Cape Split, Maine), Nymphs and Sea, 1941, watercolor and charcoal over graphite on hot-pressed light rag paper, 7 1/2 x 9 1/2 in., Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection: Gift of Norma B. Marin. 2013.018.001
John Marin, American (Rutherford, New Jersey, 1870 – 1953, Cape Split, Maine), Woolworth Building Under Construction, 1912, watercolor and graphite on textured watercolor paper, 19 5/8 x 15 3/8 in., Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection: Gift of Norma B. Marin. 2013.018.011
John Marin, American (Rutherford, New Jersey, 1870 – 1953, Cape Split, Maine), Blue Shark, 1922, watercolor and charcoal on heavy textured watercolor paper, 12 1/8 x 16 1/8 in., Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection: Gift of Norma B. Marin. 2013.018.085
John Marin, American (Rutherford, New Jersey, 1870 – 1953, Cape Split, Maine), Manhattan Skyline from the River, 1909-1912, watercolor over graphite on textured watercolor paper, 11 1/2 x 12 3/4 in.,
John Marin, American (Rutherford, New Jersey, 1870 – 1953, Cape Split, Maine), Buildings, Downtown New York, circa 1925, watercolor and graphite on paperboard, 6 x 5 in., Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection: Gift of Norma B. Marin. 2013.018.163
John Marin, American (Rutherford, New Jersey, 1870 – 1953, Cape Split, Maine), Municipal Building, Manhattan, 1912, graphite on paper, 10 x 8 in., Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection: Gift of Norma B. Marin. 2013.018.273
John Marin, American (Rutherford, New Jersey, 1870 – 1953, Cape Split, Maine), Woolworth Building under Construction, 1912, graphite on paper, 10 x 8 in., Arkansas Arts Center
Three years after the gallery’s first exhibition of portraits by the American painter Alice Neel (1900—1984), Xavier Hufkens is delighted to present a different facet of her oeuvre: the landscapes, still lifes and portraits that she made in the rural surroundings of Spring Lake and Vermont. The paintings provide an intimate insight into the artist’s personal world and reveal the delight she took in the simple pleasures of life, away from the daily grind of New York.
Alice Neel is considered to be one of the greatest chroniclers of 20th-century America, a story that is brought to life through the magnificent portraits she executed in Spanish Harlem and the Upper West Side of New York City. From intellectuals to next-door neighbours, and from fellow artists to single mothers, Neel painted people from all walks of life. Active for over fifty years, her legacy is an oeuvre that is as historically illuminating and socially engaged as it is autobiographical.
Selected by Jeremy Lewison, advisor to the Estate of Alice Neel, this exhibition reveals the way in which she viewed her own intimate world. In contrast to the portraits that Neel painted in New York, most of which are set indoors, the works painted in Spring Lake and Vermont are filled with light, lush vegetation and a sense of openness. Often executed during holidays and weekends, they speak not just of a change of scenery but also of mood: the struggles and vicissitudes of city life give way to an altogether simpler and more rustic existence.
Neel’s love of the countryside can be traced back to 1934, when she rented a house with her mother on the New Jersey shore. The year after, she bought a modest cottage in Spring Lake, a short drive or train ride from New York. When residing in the city, Neel was almost spoilt for choice in terms of sitters, but her time at the cottage inevitably brought her family into closer focus.
Alice Neel (1900-1984), Ginny and Elizabeth, 1976. Oil on canvas, 112,1 x 81,8 cm. Photo: HV-studio, Brussels. Courtesy: the Estate of Alice Neel and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels.
She frequently painted her sons, Richard and Hartley, and when they married and had families of their own, she also painted her daughters-in-law and grandchildren: Richard married Nancy (their daughters are Olivia, twins Antonia and Alexandra, and Victoria) and Hartley married Ginny (their children are Elizabeth and Andrew). Later still, when Hartley accepted a job in Vermont and moved into a farmhouse, his mother was a frequent visitor.
Alice Neel (1900-1984), Vermont, 1971. Oil on canvas, 106,7 x 117,2 cm. Photo: HV-studio, Brussels. Courtesy: the Estate of Alice Neel and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels.
From 1973 onwards, and despite it being a five-hour drive from New York, the property became one of her favourite places to stay. Vermont was close to Neel’s heart for another reason: it was also where, in her seventies, she finally acquired a ‘room of her own’. Needing to care for her children and unable to afford a separate studio in New York, she had always painted in her apartment. In Vermont, however, the artist was able to convert one of the farm’s outbuildings into a dedicated workspace.
Yet in spite of the obvious joy that radiates from these canvases, there is a singular absence, as evidenced by the haunting portrait Memories(1981). Painted three years before Neel’s death, it depicts Isabetta (1928-1982), her second and only surviving daughter by her husband, the Cuban artist Carlos Enriquez; their firstborn, Santilliana, had died aged one in 1927. After Enriquez took eighteen-month-old Isabetta to Havana, Neel suffered a nervous breakdown and would not see her daughter for another four years.
When they did meet again, Neel painted Isabetta(1934), a startling portrait that captures all the conflicting emotions of this distressing episode. Memories (1981) is a late recalling of this encounter and the portrait that memorialised it, to which the artist was deeply attached. Isabetta’s confrontational pose suggests an ambivalent relationship between mother and daughter, although her nakedness implies intimacy and trust.
The origins of Neel’s life-long fascination with maternity, children and the female condition, subjects that she always tackled with unflinching honesty, can be found in her own difficult experiences as a young mother and artist. Neel acknowledged the importance of Cézanne as well as artists of the Northern European tradition and her adherence to an unashamedly figurative idiom meant she was frequently out of step with the prevailing currents. However, Neel is internationally recognised today as one of the most accomplished and original painters of her generation who extended the life of the figurative tradition in a period of high abstraction.
Alice Neel was born in Philadelphia in 1900 and died in New York in 1984. Posthumous solo exhibitions of her work include: Painter of Modern Life, Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles, Arles, France (2017); Collector of Souls, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague, The Netherlands and the Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, Germany (2016-17); The Subject and Me, The Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland (2016) and Painter of Modern Life, Ateneum Art Museum, Helsinki, Finland (2016). She has twice been the subject of retrospectives at the Whitney Museum of American Art, first in 1974 and posthumously in 2000.
Alice Neel is represented in many major museum collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Tate, London, UK and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Above: George Forster, Still Life with Fruit and Nest, 1869. Oil on panel, 16 ½ × 12 ½ in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
The Crocker Art Museum has announced the October 28 opening of “American Beauty and Bounty,” an exhibition of 19th-century American paintings that are as treasured for their aesthetic as for their national importance.
The exhibition features 27 works from an iconic, private collection of pastoral landscapes, masterfully painted still lifes, and narrative genre scenes (depictions of daily life) that, when shown together, provide unique perspectives of a peaceful and hopeful nation during a period of economic growth, the American Civil War, and the late 19th century. Collectively, the paintings communicate a spirit of American optimism, of transcendental wonderment in nature, of national abundance, and of nostalgia for ways of life that were passing into history even as the scenes were being painted.
Highlighted in the exhibition are some of the most noteworthy Hudson River School artists — landscape painters centered around New York City who are renowned for their depictions of the Hudson River Valley and diverse locales beyond the region.
All of the paintings in the exhibition are promised gifts to the Crocker by Southern California collectors Judith and Steaven Jones. The gift constitutes the most important gift of American art from outside the state to ever come to the Museum.
“This gift is transformative on national level,” says the Museum’s director and CEO, Lial Jones. “While the Crocker is known for its signature collection of California art, and many of the works in the Museum’s holdings help to tell the story of American art as a whole, the gift of the Judith and Steaven Jones Collection reflects our commitment to the diversity of art created across the United States.”
THE COLLECTORS, THE ART, AND THE ARTISTS Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones began to acquire 19th-century American paintings in the late 1970s, focusing on their shared love of historic American art. They set a time frame of 1803 to 1875, and sought out landscapes that, before widespread photography, recorded a serene and bucolic nation on the cusp of great change, just prior to the Industrial Revolution.
“Not only do the paintings celebrate nature with topographical accuracy, but they also moralize, induce piety, and appeal to viewers’ sense of nationalism by what they include as well as what they leave out,” says the Museum's chief curator and associate director, Scott A. Shields.“ Asher B. Durand, for instance, believed that art should be representative, not just imitative, meaning that it has to satisfy the mind.” Including Durand, the collection features work by 10 key landscape painters associated with the Hudson River School’s first and second generations: Thomas Doughty, Albert Bierstadt, Alfred Thompson Bricher, Jasper Cropsey, Sanford Robinson Gifford, William Hart, John Frederick Kensett, William Trost Richards, and Worthington Whittredge.
Also featured are domestic scenes known as “genre paintings,” works of art that reflect a cultural shift when artists and the public became more interested in depictions of daily life. Artists represented include Thomas Hicks, Eastman Johnson, Jervis McEntee, and Enoch Wood Perry. “As with landscapes, genre paintings had the potential to moralize, induce piety or patriotism, and evoke nostalgia,” says Shields. “Following the Civil War, genre scenes also helped unite the country by reminding viewers of shared experiences.”
While the five still lifes in “American Beauty and Bounty” were later additions to the Joneses’ collection, they are among the couple’s most cherished. The works by Severin Roesen, George Forster, John Francis, William Harnett, and Claude Raguet Hirst are highly detailed and technically polished, but the artists also communicate through a masterful selection and combination of objects.
As Judith and Steaven Jones searched for an institution that would preserve their collection for future generations, they selected the Crocker upon a recommendation by Bruce Robertson, former curator of American art at LACMA and esteemed professor of American Art at the University of California, Santa Barbara. After selecting the Crocker, the Joneses added a California scene to the group, “A Golden Summer Day Near Oakland” by Albert Bierstadt, an artist who worked in both the East and West. With the addition of this painting, the Jones Collection is connected directly with that started by Sacramento’s Crocker family.
Wrote the Joneses in a catalogue that accompanies the Crocker exhibition, “It is the oldest museum west of the Mississippi, is located in our state capital, and, consequently, has a steady stream of visitors. We are delighted beyond words that the Crocker Art Museum is where our carefully selected, long-enjoyed paintings will reside.”
Albert Bierstadt, A Golden Summer Day near Oakland, c. 1873. Oil on paper on Masonite, 16 9⁄16 × 22 ¼ in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
Alfred Thompson Bricher, Autumnal Landscape, 1866. Oil on board, 8 11 ⁄16 ×185 ⁄16 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
Alfred Thompson Bricher, Long Island Sound, c. 1875. Watercolor, 20 ×6 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
Jasper Cropsey, Eagle Cliff, New Hampshire, 1872. Oil on canvas, 12 ×20 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
Asher B. Durand, Pastoral Landscape, 1866. Oil on canvas, 18 ¾×29 1 ⁄16 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
John Francis, Still Life with Currants, c. 1870. Oil on canvas, 12 ×14 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
Sanford Robinson Gifford, Lake Champlain, 1860. Oil on canvas, 5 ¼×9 ½in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
William M. Hart, Coast of Maine, 1868. Oil on canvas, 15 ×24 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
Claude Raguet Hirst, Still Life with Book and Pipe, c. 1890. Oil on canvas, 11 ½×15 ½in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
John Wesley Jarvis, Portrait of Henry Clay, 1814. Oil on canvas, 30 ×25 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
Eastman Johnson, At the Maple Sugar Camp, c. 1860s. Oil on canvas, 12 ½×15 ½in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
John Frederick Kensett, School’s Out, 1850. Oil on canvas, 18 x 30 in. Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
Jervis McEntee, Sitting by the Fire, 1865. Oil on canvas, 15 ×12 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
Enoch Wood Perry, Jr., Ice Skating Party, c. 1870. Oil on canvas, 20 ×15 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
William Trost Richards, Delaware River Valley, 1864. Oil on canvas, 18 ×24 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection
Severin Roesen, Still Life with Fruit and Wine, 1862. Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 in. Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
Russell Smith, Silver Lake with Indian Tepee, 1867. Oil on canvas, 12 ×18 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
Worthington Whittredge, Barn Interior, c. 1852. Oil on canvas, 12 ×9 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
Worthington Whittredge, Ducks on a Pond, 1864. Oil on canvas, 15 ×24 in., Crocker Art Museum, Judith G. and Steaven K. Jones Collection.
This exhibition is organized and curated by the Crocker's associate director and chief curator, Scott A. Shields. A full-color, hard copy catalogue accompanies the exhibition and is available at the Crocker Art Museum Store.
ABOUT THE MUSEUMThrough engaging, innovative, and life-changing interactions with art, the Crocker Art Museum provides meaningful opportunities for people of divergent backgrounds to find common ground. Founded as a public/private partnership in 1885, the Crocker features the world’s foremost display of California art and is renowned for its holdings of master drawings and international ceramics, as well as European, Asian, African, and Oceanic art. The Crocker serves as the primary regional resource for the study and appreciation of fine art and offers a diverse spectrum of exhibitions, events, and programs to deepen visitor’s understanding of art, including films, concerts, studio classes, lectures, and an array of activities for families and children. More information about exhibits and programs can be found at crockerart.org
In the second half of the nineteenth-century, three generations of young, rebellious artists and designers revolutionized the visual arts in Britain by engaging with and challenging the new industrial world around them. The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, William Morris and his associates, and the champions of the Arts & Crafts Movement offered a radical artistic and social vision whose inspiration was in the pre-industrial past. Their work deeply influenced visual culture in Britain and beyond. Organized from the outstanding collection of the city of Birmingham, United Kingdom, Victorian Radicals will bring together an extensive array of works—many of which have never been exhibited outside the UK—to illuminate this dynamic period of British art.
Featuring works by pioneering artists including Ford Madox Brown, Edward Burne-Jones, William Holman Hunt, John Everett Millais, William Morris, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Elizabeth Siddall, Victorian Radicals will represent the spectrum of avant-garde practices of the Victorian era, emphasizing the response of Britain’s first modern art movement to the unfettered industrialization of the period. These artists’ attention to detail, use of vibrant colors, and engagement with both literary themes and contemporary life will be illustrated through a selection of paintings, drawings, and watercolors presented alongside outstanding examples of decorative arts.
The Death of Chatterton is an oil painting on canvas, by the English Pre-Raphaelite painter Henry Wallis, now in Tate Britain, London. Two smaller versions, sketches or replicas, are held by the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and the Yale Center for British Art.Wikipedia
The exhibition explores the ideas that preoccupied artists and critics at the time—the relationship between art and nature, questions of class and gender identity, the value of the handmade versus machine production, and the search for beauty in an age of industry—issues that remain relevant and actively debated today. OKCMOA is proud to be the first museum to present this traveling exhibition of exceptional historical and visual richness.
Although the word "Victorian" connotes a kind of dry propriety, the artists working in the Victorian era were anything but. Starting with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and lasting through the dawn of the 20th century, the era's painters, writers, and designers challenged every prevailing belief about art and its purpose. The full spectrum of the Victorian avant-garde is in magnificent display in this book that features nearly 150 works drawn from the city of Birmingham's unparalleled collection. Characterized by attention to detail, vibrant colors, and engagement with literary themes and daily life, the paintings, works on paper, and decorative objects featured reveal the myriad ways Victorian artists and artisans made sense of a rapidly changing world. Perceptive essays and the latest scholarship illuminate the issues these artists contended with, including the relationship to art and nature, questions of class and gender identity, the value of handmade versus machine production, and the search for beauty in an age of industry. Designed to reflect the tactile nature of the work and featuring typography inspired by the Victorian era, this beautiful volume is as fresh and bold as the visionaries it celebrates.
Copublished by the American Federation of Arts and DelMonico Books
Museo Picasso Málaga’s exhibition Picasso’s South. Andalusian References takes a look at the history of Spanish art by displaying works by Picasso alongside valuable archaeological artefacts and paintings by great masters such as Zurbarán, Velázquez, Murillo, Goya, María Blanchard and Juan Gris, amongst others. This ambitious show moves from Iberian art through Classical Antiquity, and ends with the modern art of Picasso’s own contemporaries.
Picasso’s South. Andalusian References provides a synthesis of Spanish art history, displaying works by Pablo Picasso alongside valuable archaeological artefacts and paintings by great Spanish masters, in an ambitious show that moves from Iberian art through Classical Antiquity, the Baroque, and ends when the Malaga-born artist had become a guiding figure to his contemporaries and the protagonist of an essential chapter in Spanish modern art.
This exhibition explores the intellectual journey that Picasso made from south to north, using the symbolic heritage of his homeland to return somehow to his point of departure. It focuses on the profound imprint that Mediterranean culture left upon Picasso’s work and sets up a dialogue between a selection of works from his various creative periods and examples of Spain’s rich historic and artistic heritage, of which he was a great connoisseur.
One of the aims of Picasso’s South. Andalusian References is to illustrate how the visual nature of his work bears features and qualities such as austerity and loss of faith that are akin to those in Spain’s own collective memory. These features are both tangible in the nation’s artistic heritage and present in the emotional expression of a people who have, artistically, been constructing a cultural identity over many centuries. In the specific case of Andalusia, it is clearly that of a melting-pot of three different cultures. The exhibition is part of the international Picasso-Méditerranée Project led by Musée national Picasso-Paris and is sponsored by Fundación Unicaja.
The masters and the maestro
For the curator of the exhibition, José Lebrero Stals, Picasso was additive, cyclical, and loyal to the memory of an iconography that he appropriated by incorporating it into the very act of demonstrating his own alterity. He turned art history into his own personal “other story”. Lebrero Stals explains that the exhibition “constructs a game of double correspondence between an outstanding selection of works produced by Picasso over a period spanning seven decades, and the two-and-a-half-millennia history of Spain’s heritage, looked at in a different way”.
The exhibition brings together a total of 204 pieces, with paintings, sculptures, drawings and graphic works by Pablo Picasso seen alongside an major collection of archaeological artefacts from the Iberian and Phoenician cultures and the Greco-Roman period, as well as paintings, engravings and polychrome sculptures by great masters of Spanish art such as Juan Sánchez Cotán, Juan van der Hamen, Francisco de Zurbarán, Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Alonso Cano, Antonio de Pereda, Bartolomé E. Murillo, Pedro de Camprobín, Juan de Zurbarán, Pedro de Mena, Luis E. Meléndez and Francisco de Goya.
To conclude this historical journey, the exhibition inverts the roles, showing us a Picasso with the authority to take his own turn at influencing new Spanish art. The guitar acts as the thread linking works by his contemporaries María Blanchard, Juan Gris, Moreno Villa, Manuel Ángeles Ortiz and Ismael González de la Serna, in which the instrument is the iconographic motif. The exhibition even ends with music: Manuel de Falla’s Three Cornered Hat (Le Tricorne), a ballet set in Spain that premiered in London in 1919, with the collaboration of Pablo Picasso, who designed the set and costumes, and whose sketches are also on display in the exhibition.
Picasso and the south
Picasso’s influence and contribution to the history of 20th-century western art is undeniable. It all began in the maritime city of Málaga, where he was born at the end of the 19th century and where, precociously early, he began a long artistic career that covered eight decades, and ended with similar creative exuberance beside the Mediterranean, on France’s Côte d’Azur.
The exhibition uses several premises to support the idea that Picasso never ceased to be interested in the origins and traditions of painting, in much the same way as his migrancy bound him emotionally to his homeland, never shedding his loyalty to his cultural ties: Málaga, Andalusia and Spain were all part of his “southernness”, and not just in artistic terms.
The influence of the Mediterranean, the magical gaze, the portrait throughout history, the Classics, the depiction of life and death in the Baroque period, the pietá, archetypes and rituals… These are just some of the arguments for examining subjects that formed part of Picasso’s iconography, such as the bullfight, still-life, vanitas paintings, motherhood and rituals, or his pictorial affinity with the masters of the Spanish Baroque, and which reveal diverse aspects of his strong identification with Spain’s artistic heritage and the novel way in which he interpreted it.
The call of the South is also apparent in Picasso’s poetry. These free-flowing, spontaneous texts, which he worked upon for two decades as from 1935, contain numerous references to the South. A selection of these poems is also on display in the exhibition and they bear strong testimony to Pablo Picasso’s Spanish identity. Finally, visitors will be able to listen to Picasso’s voice, thanks to two interviews that a Spanish journalist recorded for Radio Paris in Vallauris for the artist’s 80th birthday.
. Catalogue
Museo Picasso Málaga has published a catalogue, El sur de Picasso, containing an introduction by José Lebrero and republished essays by Robert Rosenblum, James Johnson Sweeney, Lisa Florman, Esteban Casado Alcalde, Francisco Calvo Serraller, William Rubin, Antonio Bonet Correa and André Breton, amongst others. The fully illustrated 400-page catalogue is available in both Spanish and English.
This year is the 450th anniversary of the outbreak of the Eighty Years’ War, and to mark the event the Rijksmuseum is holding an exhibition entitled '80 Years’ War. The Birth of the Netherlands'. From 12 October 2018 to 20 January 2019, satirical cartoons, items of clothing, weapons and paintings by Bruegel, Rubens and Ter Borch will be our ‘eyewitnesses’, telling the story of how the Dutch nation was born.
In a contemporary exhibition created by the Flemish stage designer Roel van Berckelaer, the Rijksmuseum will show how the 80 Years’ War changed and shaped the Netherlands, and how this conflict gave the southern Netherlands, now Belgium, a distinct character. 80 Years’ War is the first major exhibition to encompass the entire conflict and place it in its international context. It raises many issues – such as religious freedom, self-determination, terror and persecution – that remain highly topical today.
National memory
All Dutch schoolchildren learn about the Eighty Years’ War, which lasted from 1568 to 1648. The conflict began with the Dutch Revolt, led by William of Orange, against Philip II of Spain. Events such as the Great Iconoclasm (beeldenstorm), the Twelve Years’ Truce, the Relief of Leiden and the Battle of Nieuwpoort are all part of the Dutch national memory. But how were these events connected? Why was this war fought? Why is this period still so important to the Netherlands? Nowadays, few people know the answers to these questions.
Core values
What began as a domestic uprising against the established authorities of King and Church grew into a war between two states: the Netherlands and Spain. It was a conflict that had global repercussions. What had once been a single nation split in two, forming what we now know as the Netherlands and Belgium. Once the war was over, the two nations followed very different paths. It was thanks in part to the 80 Years’ War that the northern part, the Netherlands, became a prosperous world power. These developments and their consequences for north and south alike are central to the exhibition, which offers plenty of space for diverse perspectives. The question that echoes throughout the exhibition is this: What is the legacy of this period in today’s world? The Netherlands owes its very existence to this war, and the revolt that sparked it was driven by core values and ideas about tolerance, protest, self-determination and freedom – none of which have lost their relevance.
Objects as eyewitnesses
80 Years’ War presents 200 artworks and objects that each played a role in the conflict. They were ‘eyewitnesses’ to what took place. Visitors to the exhibition will see propaganda, triumphalist artworks, victims of the Great Iconoclasm, cultural expressions of victory and defeat, and moving personal recollections. The artworks on display include paintings by Bruegel, Rubens and Ter Borch, depictions of William of Orange and Admiral Piet Hein, large tapestries depicting battles and sieges, weapons and important historical documents such as the treaties the Pacification of Ghent and the 1648 Peace of Münster, which brought the war to an end at last.
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Militia Company of District II under the Command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq, Known as the ‘Night Watch’, 1642. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. On loan from the City of AmsterdamJohannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid, c. 1660. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt
Book
The Rijksmuseum, NTR and Uitgeverij Atlas Contact have joined forces for the richly illustrated book 80 Years’ War. The Birth of the Netherlands in which author Gijs van der Ham, senior curator of history at the Rijksmuseum, uses artworks and objects from the exhibition to trace the course of the war. This narrative is interspersed with personal stories from the NTR television series that forge a link to the present day, alongside essays by Judith Pollmann, Peter Vandermeersch and others. Available from 2018 in the Rijksmuseum shop, online at http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/shop and in bookshops.
Website: 80jaaroorlog.nl
Throughout the year, various activities will be taking place around the Netherlands focusing on the 80 Years’ War. Information about all these activities can be found at 80jaaroorlog.nl, the website developed by NTR and the Rijksmuseum in collaboration with Dordrechts Museum, the National Military Museum en Prinsenhof. The website takes the form of an interactive map with historical locations and ongoing exhibitions and events. Visitors will find all the information they need to find the 80 Years’ War events, whether nearby or around the country.
Extra activities connected to the exhibition
This autumn, secondary school and college students will be able to join two guided tours and watch the play De vergeten zoon van Willem van Oranje (The forgotten son of William of Orange), performed by Tafel van Vijf theatre company. This programme forms a complement to the school curriculum. The Rijksmuseum is also working with Instituto Cervantes, Amerpodia and other organisations on a programme of debates, films and lectures that connect historical and topical themes. Further information will be published as it becomes available at https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en/80-years-war.
The exhibition 80 Years’ War. The Birth of the Netherlands has been made possible by the Mondriaan Fund and the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science.
Dulwich Picture Gallery In autumn 2018, Dulwich Picture Gallery will present Ribera: Art of Violence, the first UK show dedicated to the Spanish Baroque painter, draughtsman and printmaker Jusepe de Ribera (1591–1652), bringing together his most sensational and shocking works. A selection of eight monumental canvases will be displayed alongside exceptional drawings and prints exploring the powerful theme of violence in Ribera’s art. Showcasing 45 works, the exhibition will be arranged thematically, examining his arresting depictions of saintly martyrdom and mythological violence, skin and the five senses, crime and punishment, and the bound male figure. Many of the works will be loaned from major European and North American institutions, on view in the UK for the first time. Ribera (also known as lo Spagnoletto or ‘the little Spaniard’) has long been celebrated for his depictions of human suffering, a popular subject for artists during the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Born in Játiva, Valencia, Ribera spent most of his career in Naples, southern Italy, where he influenced many Neapolitan masters including Salvator Rosa and Luca Giordano. He is often regarded as the heir to Caravaggio for his dramatic use of light and shadow, and his practice of painting directly from the live model. This exhibition will assess Ribera’s paintings, prints and drawings of violent subjects, which are often shocking and grotesque in their realism. It will demonstrate how his images of bodies in pain are neither the product of his supposed sadism nor the expression of a purely aesthetic interest, but rather involve a complex artistic, religious and cultural engagement in the depiction of bodily suffering. The show will open with a room of religious violence, investigating Ribera’s depictions of the martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, who was flayed alive for his Christian faith. One of Ribera’s favoured subjects, Bartholomew was a common figure in southern European Baroque art, which aimed to reach out to the spectator and inspire devotion in post-Reformation Italy and Spain.
Jusepe de Ribera, Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew , 1624, Etching with engraving, Print Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations .
Highlights will include three versions of Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew spanning Ribera’s career, which reveal the evolution of the artist’s style and his hyper-realistic treatment of a shocking theme. Throughout the exhibition, a selection of prints and drawings will illuminate Ribera’s mastery of composition, gesture and expression, with works ranging from anatomical figure studies to inquisition scenes of the strappado (punishment by hanging from the wrists). A room dedicated to skin and the five senses will celebrate Ribera as a graphic artist, with studies of eyes, ears, noses and mouths displayed alongside images of Bartholomew flayed alive. A central theme is how Ribera broke new ground by capturing human suffering in his depictions of the male figure. The twisted pose of the male body in such drawings as Man Tied to a Tree (mid 1620s) from the Musée du Louvre, Paris, comprise a principal focus of Ribera’s works on paper, which vary from abbreviated preparatory studies for paintings and prints, to more elaborate sketches and independent sheets.
The exhibition will conclude with a room dedicated to one monumental painting, Apollo and Marsyas (1637), on loan from Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples, and the grand finale to the show. Paralleling Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, this painting – the tour de force of Ribera’s career – portrays Apollo flaying Marsyas alive as punishment for losing a musical competition. The painting encapsulates the argument of the exhibition, for it demonstrates the violent outcome of artistic rivalry and the visceral convergence of the senses, as the ripping of skin is experienced through the intersections of sight, touch and sound. Ribera: Art of Violence is curated by Dr Xavier Bray, Director, The Wallace Collection, former Chief Curator, Dulwich Picture Gallery and curator of the 2009 exhibition The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600–1700 (National Gallery, London), and Dr Edward Payne, Head Curator: Spanish Art, The Auckland Project, County Durham, contributor to the catalogue raisonné of Ribera’s drawings (2016) and author of a PhD thesis on the theme of violence in Ribera’s art (2012). Loans have been secured from a number of national and international institutions including the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona; Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao; Galleria Palatina, Palazzo Pitti, Florence; Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid; Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Musée du Louvre, Paris; Rhode Island School of Design.
Jusepe de Ribera , Inquisition Scene , after 1635 , Pen and brown ink with wash , 20.6 x 16.5 cm , Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design , Providence, Museum Works of Art Fund 56.060 . Photo : Erik Gould, courtesy of the Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence .
Classical antiquity.
Idealised male bodies were considered the pinnacle of artistic production in art academies, notably the Accademia di San Luca in Rome, of which Ribera became a member in 1613. Pursuing the challenge of representing the human form, Ribera found inspiration in both the Classical ideal and in the real appearance of his live models to create hermits, martyrs and mythological figures.
Crucifixion of Saint Peter , mid-1620s
Jusepe de Ribera, “Study for Martyrdom of St. Sebastian” (c. 1626), red chalk on paper, William Lowe Bryan Memorial, Indiana University Art Museum
The apostle Peter was crucified upside down, having considered himself unworthy of suffering as Christ had done. Subtly executed in red wash and red chalk, this sheet depicts the preparations before Peter’s crucifixion. Running a rope through a split in the wood, the executioners have created an inventive pulley system to raise the saint’s body on the cross. Realising the composition as a whole, the artist combines highly finished figures with barely suggested ones. It is the most complete of Ribera’s three drawings of this subject. Masterfully executed in ink and wash, this drawing is a variation on the theme of Saint Peter’s crucifixion. Ribera’s skillful handling of wash creates a dramatic contrast of light and shadow, and his deft pen strokes describe form and texture. The focus of this sheet is on the physical effort required to hoist the saint on the cross, which is raised at a steeper angle than in the other drawings of this subject, displayed nearby.
Study for the Crucifixion of Saint Peter , mid-1620s Pen and brown ink The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Rogers Fund, 1919 This summary sketch of the crucifixion of Saint Peter was rapidly conceived. The saint’ s left arm is incomplete, while the profile of his legs has been corrected. Ribera likely drew from a live model posed on the ground to depict Peter at an angle, and without his executioners. Ribera scribbled his monogram and initial on the sheet. The various letter ‘Js’ stand for ‘Jusepe’, while the elaborate letter ‘E’ may refer to the artist’s Spanish nationality (español). In the lower right corner he also doodled a scorpion (escorpión in Spanish), a creature traditionally associated with treachery due to the sting in its tail. This may allude to Peter, who denied his knowledge of Jesus three times before Christ’s crucifixion.
SAINT SEBASTIAN, MARTYR AND MODEL Saint Sebastian was a subject that fascinated Ribera throughout his career. A young Roman soldier sentenced to death in the 4th century for his conversion to Christianity, Sebastian was initially shot with arrows and left for dead. He made a miraculous recovery, only to be martyred at a later date when he was beaten to death. Sebastian’s recovery caused him to be invoked as a protector during outbreaks of plague, whose symptoms include multiple swellings beneath the skin, notably under the armpits. Ribera made more than a dozen drawings, numerous paintings and one print of the subject. These images typically represent the saint with his armpit exposed, revealing his vulnerability. Collectively, they document and narrate pivotal moments in the legend of the saint: from preparing Sebastian for martyrdom, to shooting him with arrows, to tending his wounds.
Saint Sebastian Tended by the Holy Women , c. 1620–23 Violence is both evoked and suppressed in this painting. The holy women tend to the reclining Sebastian, removing the arrows which pierce his body. Two angels bearing a crown and palm leaf, symbols of martyrdom, hover above the group. The painting contrasts with Ribera’s representations of Saint Bartholomew flayed alive: the subject here is healing rather than martyrdom, the flawless skin of the young Sebastian rather than the wrinkled flesh of the elderly Bartholomew. Ribera explores the tensions between the saint’s elegant pose and the pain implicit in the scene.
A youthful figure is seen frontally with both arms extended, as if tied by invisible cords, his head thrown back. While the figure is neither bound by ropes nor shot with arrows, his exposed armpits support his identification as Saint Sebastian. By focusing on the moment before his first attempted execution (the saint was fully martyred by being beaten to death), Ribera explores the saint’s physical vulnerability as he pleas to heaven for help.
Pen and brown ink Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford, Oxford Saint Sebastian being Tied to a Tree , late 1620s
A kneeling man binds Sebastian’s legs in preparation for his martyrdom. Tilting his head towards the spectator, the saint raises his right arm in the air and points down with his left. Given the sketchy nature of the sheet, which is characteristic of Ribera’s preparatory drawings, this work may be a preliminary study for a lost painting by the artist. Red chalk Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton Gift of Frank Jewett Mather Jr
Saint Sebastian Tied to a Tree , c. 1627–30 Subtly rendered and starkly illuminated, Sebastian gazes up to the divine light that bathes his body. Rather than focusing on narrative, Ribera has created an iconic image of the bound figure. The use of red chalk accented with brown ink is unique among Ribera’s representations of the saint, demonstrating the artist’s abilities in combining media to suggest different textures. Notably, the top of the blasted tree trunk, executed solely in ink, evokes rough bark, while the skin of the saint, rendered in red chalk, appears smooth and soft. Red chalk with pen and brown ink The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland Delia E. Holden Fund, 1997.53
Saint Sebastian , second half of the 1630s Once attributed to Ribera’s contemporary Salvator Rosa (hence the inscription), this drawing of Saint Sebastian’s martyrdom is the most explicit of the group displayed here. The saint’s arms are bound above his head while one of the arrows piercing his body has gone straight through the flesh to lodge itself into the tree. Sebastian’s body cuts diagonally across the page, mirroring the tree trunk to which he is tied. Although it appears simple, the drawing’s sophisticated execution reveals the complexity of Ribera’s explorations of the bound figure. Pen, brown ink and brown wash Kupferstich-Kabinett, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
Old Man Tied to a Tree and a Young Man Defecating , late 1620s The identity of the bound figure in this drawing is unclear, as Ribera was primarily concerned with exploring the contorted and restrained male body. Ribera creates a visual parallel between the figure and the tree: his torso resembles the trunk and his limbs echo the branch. The position of the central figure is difficult, if not anatomically impossible to recreate in reality, and the artist has exaggerated the proportions of the body, elongating the saint’s extended arm and leg. One of the most intriguing aspects of the sheet is the ambiguous r elationship between Wall Labels the bound man and the defecating figure at the foot of the tree. Proverbial language may provide a context for interpreting this drawing: one Spanish proverb runs, ‘Dung is no saint, but where it falls it works miracles’. Red chalk The Courtauld Gallery, London, The Samuel Courtauld Trust
Man Bound to a Tree , mid-1620s Arms crossed and raised above his head, this figure twists in an elegant snake-like curve and seems to float on the page. His identity is ambiguous: the str etched, youthful body evokes Saint Sebastian, while the satirical, grimacing expression suggests something sinister. Typically, Ribera creates a visual parallel between the body of the figure and the form of the tree, whose gnarled trunk extends into sinewy limbs. One of Ribera’s most refined drawings, this sheet demonstrates the artist’s virtuoso handling of red chalk and innovative treatment of the bound man theme. Red chalk Musée du Louvre, Département des arts graphiques, Paris
Etching The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1953
A Winged Putto Flogging a Satyr Tied to a Tree , early 1620s A satyr – half man, half goat – is here portrayed with his arms bound to a tree trunk. He turns to face a winged child, who plunges towards him headfirst, menacingly raising a whip. The child is Cupid, Roman god of love, intent on chastising a lustful satyr who r epresents animal passion. The image of a bound satyr resonates closely with Ribera’s painting of the ill-fated Marsyas, on view in the final room.
MYTHOLOGICAL VIOLENCE
Jusepe de Ribera , Apollo and Marsyas , 1637 , Oil on canvas , 182 x 23 2 c m, Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimonte, Naples . Photo : Museo e Real Bosco di Capodimo nte on kind concession from the "Ministero dei beni e delle attività culturali e del turismo
The painting displayed in this room depicts one of the most violent stories from Classical mythology: the myth of Apollo and Marsyas.The foolish satyr Marsyas challenged Apollo, god of music and the arts, to a musical contest. The satyr was a skilled musician, but the god inevitably triumphed. In one version of the myth, Apollo sang while plucking the strings of his lyre; in another version, he played his instrument upside down. Marsyas lost the competition, as he could not replicate the god’s performances with his aulos, a wind instrument similar to a flute. Apollo’s prize was to punish Marsyas by flaying him alive. Ribera’s depiction of the story draws inspiration from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. As the torture began, the satyr cried, ‘Why do you tear me from myself?’ and screamed, ‘Oh, I repent! Oh, a flute is not worth such price!’ But the god did not forgive the satyr, and the flaying continued until Marsyas was ‘all one wound’. As the satyr’s blood flowed everywhere, the creatures of the woods wept for their unfortunate friend. Apollo and Marsyas ,
1637 The unfortunate satyr Marsyas stares out helplessly at the spectator as the god Apollo, unnervingly serene, flays the satyr’s hide with his hands. Visible in the foreground is a Baroque instrument similar to a violin, depicted instead of the lyre used in Classical antiquity. Marsyas’ flute, here a panpipe, hangs from a tree branch. Ribera has used the story of musical rivalry between the satyr and the god to create a painting with many layers of meaning. Beyond representing a scene of extreme violence, this work warns against the dangers of hubris, the foolish arrogance that led Marsyas to challenge Apollo to a musical contest. No mortal artist, no matter how skilled, should ever dare to compete with a god. Yet the work is also a commentary on artistic practice itself, on the status of the arts and the potential for painting and sculpture to imitate reality. Athletic and pale, Apollo recalls the sculptures of Classical antiquity, like the marble bust on display in the first room. In Ribera’s paintings of the martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, the head of Apollo is not triumphant but overturned. In contrast, here Apollo seems to dominate Marsyas, as if sculpture had won the contest. Yet, this scene is represented through the art of painting. Perhaps Ribera is suggesting that painting and sculpture are not merely rivals, like the god and satyr, but companions.
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas May 25-Sept. 9, 2019
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Charles Willson Peale. The Artist in His Museum. 1822.Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Gift of Mrs. Sarah Harrison (The Joseph Harrison, Jr. Collection), 1878.1.2.
Significance: The story of our changing relationship with the natural world will be comprehensively told through this groundbreaking exhibition encompassing three centuries of American art. Nature’s Nation: American Art and Environment presents more than 120 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, photographs, videos and works of decorative art, from the colonial period to the present, exploring for the first time how American artists of different traditions and backgrounds have both reflected and shaped environmental understanding while contributing to the development of a modern ecological consciousness. The result is a major reinterpretation of American art that examines both iconic masterpieces and rarely seen objects through a lens uniting art historical interpretation with environmental history, scientific analysis and the dynamic field of ecocriticism.
Content: This sweeping exhibition engages a wide range of genres and historical contexts – from colonial furniture to the art of Jeffersonian natural science, from Hudson River landscape painting to Native American basketry, from Dust Bowl regionalism to modernist abstraction and postwar environmental activism – highlighting the evolving ecological implications of subjects and contexts of creation as well as artistic materials and techniques.
The exhibition presents works by more than 100 artists, including John James Audubon, George Bellows, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Cole, Thomas Eakins, Theaster Gates, Winslow Homer, Louisa Keyser, Dorothea Lange, Ana Mendieta, Thomas Moran, Isamu Noguchi, Georgia O’Keeffe, Maya Lin, Frederick Law Olmsted, Charles Willson Peale, Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Alexis Rockman, Robert Smithson, Carleton Watkins and Andrew Wyeth.
John James Audubon, American, 1785–1851, "Carolina Parakeet," in The Birds of America, plate 26, 1827–38. [Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Firestone Library, Princeton
Curators: Karl Kusserow, the John Wilmerding curator of American art at the Princeton University Art Museum; and Alan C. Braddock, the Ralph H. Wark associate professor of art history and American studies at the College of William and Mary
Publication: A major 448-page catalogue, published by the Princeton University Art Museum and distributed by Yale University Press, accompanies the exhibition. In addition to essays by the curators, it features contributions by 13 distinguished scholars and artists in a variety of fields, including art historians Rachael DeLue and Robin Kelsey, artists Mark Dion and Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, and environmental theorists Timothy Morton and Rob Nixon.
After its launch at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main, the exhibition will travel to the Berlinische Galerie, where it will be complemented with, among others, works created by Lotte Laserstein while in exile.
From 19 September 2018 to 17 March 2019, the Städel Museum in Frankfurt am Main presents a comprehensive solo exhibition with works by the painter Lotte Laserstein (1898–1993). Laserstein’s oeuvre is one of the great recent art historical rediscoveries and features sensitive and compelling portraits from the final years of the Weimar Republic. The exhibition builds upon works from the collection of the Städel Museum, which in the past few years was successful in acquiring important works by the artist, including the paintings Russian Girl with Compact from 1928 (above)
and Boy with Kasper Puppet (Wolfgang Karger) from 1933. With approximately forty paintings and drawings, the exhibition focusses on Laserstein’s artistic development. Emphasis is placed on works from the 1920s and 30s, which mark the peak of her artistic work. “Lotte Laserstein. Face to Face” is the artist’s first solo exhibition in Germany outside of Berlin.
“The child portrait Boy with Kasper Puppet (Wolfgang Karger) was the first new acquisition since my appointment as Director of the Städel Museum, and the work of Lotte Laserstein in general has accompanied me both personally and professionally for many years. I am thus all the more pleased that our exhibition will provide an opportunity to take a fresh look at the work of this important painter and introduce her to a wider audience,” Städel director Philipp Demandt comments on this exhibition project which he initiated.
The painter Lotte Laserstein made a name for herself in the pulsating city of Berlin during the Weimar Republic more than anything else through portraits of her contemporaries. In her paintings, the artist depicted the life in Berlin that surrounded her, focusing on representations of the so-called “New Woman” and captured her pictorial motifs from a decidedly female perspective. She participated in numerous exhibitions and competitions and was highly praised by art critics.
Following this early recognition, however, her career ended abruptly: Due to the political conditions under National Socialism, the painter, who was a baptised Christian but declared Jewish due to her grandparents, was increasingly excluded from the public cultural scene. In 1937, she managed to leave Germany and emigrate to Sweden, where, however, she was not able to recapture her early success. Cut off from the international art scene, her work faded to a large extent from public view. It was not until 2010 that Laserstein once again became the focus of attention with the purchase of one of her major works by the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Evening over Potsdam from 1930, which is also included in the Frankfurt exhibition.
“Lotte Laserstein shares the fate of many of her contemporaries, who began to build a reputation during the Weimar Republic, but whose artistic careers were severely curtailed by the Nazi system. She can be included among the so-called “Lost Generation”, since her realistically painted images were neglected by post-war research orientated toward the avant-garde. It is only since the 1990s that this extraordinary artist has received belated recognition, to which our exhibition can make a crucial contribution”, the curators of the exhibition, Alexander Eiling and Elena Schroll, emphasise.
Style and Motifs
Laserstein’s paintings stand in close stylistic proximity to the New Objectivity, but they do not quite fit into this art historical category. Although there are similarities to this art movement in terms of subject matter and attitude in the painter’s works, Laserstein’s style of painting is neither objectively undercooled nor socially critical, as is typical of the New Objectivity. Her painting style always remains realistic, with a partially late-Impressionistic, loose brushstroke and a carefully composed pictorial composition. Overall, the influence of her academic education – to which women had only just begun to gain access – is clearly recognisable in her works, which is why her style can be described as academic realism. Although traditional with regard to technique, her pictures were of great topicality in terms of content.
Lotte Laserstein’s favoured subject is the human being in all its many facets, which is why she devoted herself primarily to portraiture. In her portraits, she brilliantly depicts the people of the interwar period, such as in '
Lotte Laserstein (1898-1993), Girl Lying on Blue, ca. 1931
Girl Lying on Blue (1931)
Lotte Laserstein (1898-1993), Mongolian, ca. 1927
or The Mongolian (1927), whereby her works are characterised by sobriety, modernity and psychological depth. In her oeuvre, there are also motifs that speak of the enthusiasm of the time for technology and sports, although these are much fewer in number.
In her portraits, Laserstein paints types from modern everyday life: athletic women, young girls putting on make-up, a motorcyclist in full gear and fashionably dressed city dwellers. The artist plays with quotes from art history and often incorporates reflections and duplications of figures. She frequently paints complex compositions, in which she also depicts herself painting in the studio to refer to her role as an academically trained artist. Furthermore, with her fashionably dressed protagonists, Laserstein drafts a type of emancipated urban woman who moves freely and confidently in the public sphere without male accompaniment. This contemporary image of the “New Woman” is of particular interest to her. Portraits of women thus comprise the greater part of her artistic production, and rarely does she paint portraits of men.
Her Model Traute Rose
In addition to herself and professional models at the academy, Laserstein repeatedly portrays her long-time muse and friend Gertrud Rose (née Süssenbach), called Traute, who embodies the type of the “New Woman” as it was downright propagated in the media during the interwar years, and is thus an ideal model. Rose – like Laserstein herself – corresponds to the ideal of the times: an androgynous, athletic, emancipated young lady with bob and loose-fitting clothes. In her portraits, Rose appears as a tennis player, occasionally in double portraits alongside the artist or as a nude model in the context of the studio. In contrast to conventional representations of female models by male artists, in which the woman becomes an objectified vis-à-vis of the painter, Laserstein’s paintings testify to the close relationship between the two friends, which was based on trust and equality.
This is particularly evident in At the Mirror (1930/31)
Lotte Laserstein (1898-1993), In my Studio, 1928
and In My Studio (1928), in which Rose is depicted nude and Laserstein in the role of the painter. Especially these nudes have repeatedly led to the assumption among scholars of a homosexual love relationship between the two women, for which there are, however, no biographical indications. Laserstein maintained a close, lifelong friendship with Traute Rose, who remained in Germany, and the two corresponded extensively during the artist’s time in Sweden.
Biographical Details
Lotte Laserstein, born in East Prussia in 1898, grew up in a bourgeois environment. After the premature death of her father, her mother moved with her and her younger sister Käte to their widowed grandmother in Gdansk. She received her first drawing lessons in 1908 from her aunt Elsa Birnbaum, who ran a private painting school. From 1921 to 1927, she attended the Berlin Academy of Fine Arts, where she was one of the first women to complete her master studies. Through her participation in the spring exhibition of the Prussian Academy of Arts in 1928, she received widespread recognition and sold her first work to a public institution, namely the Berlin City Council.
The painting In the Tavern (1927) was later confiscated as “degenerate art” within the context of National Socialist propaganda.
Since the late 1920s, Laserstein participated regularly in various exhibitions. She soon succeeded in building a reputation, and the arts pages and critics wrote downright eulogistically about her art. In 1928, Laserstein participated in the competition “The Most Beautiful German Portrait of a Woman”, organized by the cosmetics company Elida in cooperation with the Reich Association of Visual Artists. Out of the 365 works submitted, the painting Russian Girl with Compact, (above) now in the collection of the Städel Museum, was nominated for the final round and exhibited together with twenty-five works by almost exclusively male artists in the prestigious gallery of Fritz Gurlitt in Berlin, where her first solo exhibition also took place in 1931.
After the seizure of power by the National Socialists, Laserstein’s nascent career ended abruptly. She was dismissed from the board of the Association of Berlin Women Artists and was only able to exhibit in 1935 within the frameworks of the Kulturbund Deutscher Juden (Cultural League of German Jews). The small painting school, which she had run for financial security since 1927, was also forced to close. Political restrictions made her living and working conditions increasingly difficult. An exhibition in the Galerie Moderne in Stockholm in 1937 offered her the opportunity to leave Germany. Although Laserstein remained extremely productive in Swedish exile and made her living through commissioned work, she was unable to recapture her early success, and her work largely disappeared from public perception.
In Germany, Laserstein was rediscovered in 2003 through the exhibition “Lotte Laserstein. My Only Reality”, curated by Anna-Carola Krausse for Das verborgene Museum in cooperation with the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin in the Museum Ephraim-Palais. In 2010, the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, with the support of the Cultural Foundation of the German Federal States, acquired Laserstein’s monumental key work
Lotte Laserstein in front of her painting „Evening over Potsdam“, undated
Lotte Laserstein (1898–1993) Evening over Potsdam, 1930. Oil on panel, 111 x 205,7 cm. Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Evening over Potsdam from 1930.
Lotte Laserstein (1898-1993), Woman in Blue with Veiled Hat, ca. 1939
Lotte Laserstein (1898-1993), Russian Girl, ca. 1928
Lotte Laserstein (1898-1993), Mackie Messer an Me, ca. 1932
Lotte Laserstein (1898-1993), Self-Portrait in the Studio Friedrichsruher Straße, ca. 1927
Lotte Laserstein (1898-1993), Tennis Player, 1929
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Prestel Verlag, with a foreword by Philipp Demandt and a preface by Thomas Köhler. The catalogue provides an introduction to Laserstein’s art by Alexander Eiling. Elena Schroll examines the painter as part of the “Lost Generation”, Annelie Lütgens compares Laserstein’s portraits with works by other women artists of her time, and the Laserstein expert Anna-Carola Krausse analyses the reinterpretation of traditional motifs by the artist. The catalogue also includes contributions by Kristin Schroeder, Kristina Lemke, Maureen Ogrocki, Philipp von Wehrden and Valentina Bay, who investigate Laserstein’s nudes, her exile in Sweden and her artistic marketing strategies.
Catalogue: The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Prestel Verlag with 192 pages and 159 colour illustrations. With contributions by Valentina Bay, Alexander Eiling, Anna-Carola Krausse, Kristina Lemke, Annelie Lütgens, Maureen Ogrocki, Kristin Schroeder, Elena Schroll and Philipp von Wehrden. German / English. 39.90 € (museum edition).
Drawing inspiration from classical sculpture and the study of the live model, Renaissance artists made the nude central to their art, creating lifelike, vibrant, and varied representations of the human body. This transformative moment is one that would shape the course of European art history and resonate through the present day.
On view at the J. Paul Getty Museum October 30, 2018 through January 27, 2019, The Renaissance Nude traces the rise of the nude over the course of a century with masterpieces made in Italy, France, Germany, and the Netherlands, from the early 15th to the early 16th century.
“Since the Renaissance, the nude has a central preoccupation of European Art. Yet until now no museum has undertaken a comprehensive examination of where and how the nude obtained its pre-eminent place in art practice and history,” says Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “In bringing together some of the greatest examples of Renaissance art from major European and American collections, the exhibition explores the various aspects of this enduring and captivating subject, allowing visitors an unprecedented opportunity to immerse themselves in one of Western art’s richest and most innovative traditions.”
Featuring more than 100 works in a variety of media, the exhibition casts its net widely. Painting and sculpture feature prominently, but so do drawings, illuminated manuscripts, and prints.
The exhibition looks not only at the centers most often associated with the Renaissance nude – such as Florence, Venice, Rome and Nuremberg – but also Paris, Bruges, and lesser known centers of northern Europe. Artists represented include Leonardo da Vinci (Italian, 1452-1519), Raphael (Italian, 1483-1520), Michelangelo (Italian, 1475-1564), Titian (Italian, 1487-1576), Giovanni Bellini (Italian, about 1431/1436 – 1516), Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528), Lucas Cranach the Elder (German, 1472-1553), Jean Fouquet (French, born about 1415-1420, died before 1481), Jan Gossart (Netherlandish, about 1478-1532), Hans Memling (Netherlandish, about 1440-1494), and many others.
“In taking a broad view, this exhibition embraces the tremendous variety of nudes in the Renaissance across subjects, functions, media, and regions, tracing numerous strands of development, some familiar and enduring, some parallel but separate, and others short-lived but prophetic,” said lead exhibition curator Thomas Kren.
The Renaissance Nude is organized around five major themes: Christian Culture, Humanist Culture, Artistic Theory and Practice, the Abject Body, and the Nude in Personal Iconography. Within this framework, the exhibition looks at how artists across Europe approached particular subjects and themes, ranging from the body of Christ and St. Sebastian to the nude in the landscape to Venus, the power of women, and male sexuality. For example, no figure from ancient art and literature held more appeal for Renaissance artists than Venus, the Roman goddess of Love. By the 1520s, major artists in nearly every corner of Europe were representing her in different media. The very different paintings by Titian and Gossart in the exhibition emphasize the goddess’s beauty and charm; both also have sophisticated intellectual underpinnings in classical narratives that underscore the brilliance of each artist in making these sensual figures at once meaningful and alluring for the viewer.
The exhibition also draws upon recent scholarship that reexamines controversies around the nude, including the complex and varied reactions to individual works. For example, the show opens with a section on the nude in Christian art that establishes a broader cultural framework than humanist culture. The first image visitors will encounter is Cranach’s Adam and Eve, a narrative of the Fall of Man from the Hebrew and Christian books of Genesis that establishes bodily shame as originating in human history. In this way, the exhibition and accompanying catalogue explore the way not only humanist culture, new artistic attitudes, and spiritual beliefs shaped the appearance, meaning, and reception of the nude and continue to do so on our own time.
The Renaissance Nude also examines the relative prominence of male and female nudes at this time. Whereas female nudes by Titian, Giorgione, and Correggio (ill.), all represented in the exhibition, helped make the female nude one of the most popular themes in European art, the exhibition shows that in Italy, especially in the fifteenth century, the male nude was pre-eminent. As Italian artists from the 1460s began to be trained in drawing from live models, who for many decades were only male, the male nude became the most important subject for demonstrating skill in depicting the human figure.
For example, Antonio Pollaiuolo’s large engraving from the 1470s, Battle of the Nudes,in which ten naked male figures are displayed in various postures, became famous throughout Europe. Reputed to be one of the first artists to dissect corpses for study, Pollaiuolo was painstaking in his rendition of the male form.
Meanwhile, Saint Sebastian, always shown unclothed as he suffers the arrows of his persecution, was invoked for protection from the plague; its frequent recurrences created a large demand for images of Sebastian across Europe. As depictions by Donatello, Cima da Conegliano, and Martin Schongauer in the exhibition demonstrate, the subject offered an unparalleled opportunity to display mastery of the male form in a range of media.
The exhibition explores not only the very different notions of ideal beauty represented in Renaissance art but also the interest that artists often had in other types of unclothed bodies, including the ascetic, the emotionally distraught, and the aged. Donatello’s St. Jerome in Penitence, 1454-55, represents in wood a life-size sculpture of the nude saint scourging himself with a rock, his body showing the results of his denial of worldly pleasures, including conventional sustenance, and of exposure to the hardships of the desert in his pursuit of spiritual truths.
By contrast, The Discovery of Honey, a painting by Piero di Cosimo from about 1499, is a bawdy classical scene that depicts Bacchus and his entourage of satyrs and maenads drunkenly stealing honey from a hive in a dead tree.
The exhibition is curated by Thomas Kren, with Jill Burke and Stephen J. Campbell and with the assistance of Andrea Herrera and Thomas de Pasquale.
In conjunction with the exhibition, Getty Publications has released the book The Renaissance Nude edited by Kren with Burke and Campbell. The 400-page book features more than 200 full-color illustrations and contributions from the world’s leading scholars, including the curators. The first scholarly monograph to focus on the inception of the Italian Renaissance nude, this lively study subverts the idea that the nude in this period was a triumph of classical revival. Looking again at familiar (even overly familiar) images by artists such as Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Titian, this book investigates the nude as a tool of colonialism and conquest, as a means of asserting the superiority of men to women, and of naturalizing power differentials by entrenching them in a fixed set of ideas about the body and its representation. Jill Burke uses new research on Renaissance sexual practices, material culture, and the history of medicine to contextualize the era’s fascination with nakedness and the body in both art and life. The Italian Renaissance Nude invites readers to consider these celebrated nudes from beyond an aesthetic perspective—to consider why they were painted, whose gaze the images were created for, and how these artworks were used.
Following its presentation at the Getty, the exhibition will travel to the Royal Academy of Art in London where it will be on view March 3 through June 2, 2019.
UPPER: Giovanni Battista Cima da Conegliano,Italian (Venetian), about 1459/1460?–1517/1518, Saint Sebastian, 1500–1502, Oil on wood, Unframed: 116.5 x 47 cm (45 7/8 x 18 1/2 in.), Strasbourg, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Photo: M. Bertola
MIDDLE: Titian (Tiziano Vecellio), Italian, about 1487–1576, Venus Rising from the Sea, 1520, Oil on canvas, Unframed: 75.8 x 57.6 cm (29 13/16 x 22 11/16 in.)Framed: 103 x 84.7 cm (40 9/16 x 33 3/8 in.) National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh Accepted in lieu of Inheritance Tax by HM Government (hybrid arrangement) and allocated to the Scottish National Gallery, with additional funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Art Fund (with a contribution from the Wolfson Foundation), and the Scottish Executive, 2003
LOWER: Lucas Cranach the Elder,German, 1472–1553, Adam and Eve, about 1510.Oil and tempera on limewood. Unframed: 59 x 44 cm (23 1/4 x 17 5/16 in.). Image courtesy of the Muzeum Narodowego w Warszawie Muzeum Narodow
Gauguin & Laval in Martinique is the first ever exhibition devoted to a crucial, but up until now neglected period in the artistic career of Paul Gauguin: the four months that he spent in Martinique in 1887, together with Charles Laval. The colourful, innovative artworks that the two friends created on the island proved to have a huge impact on their artistic development and future careers.
Gauguin & Laval in Martinique unites a large number of the paintings, drawings and sketches that the two French artists created on the Caribbean island for the first time. Many of the loans are part of private collections and are otherwise rarely exhibited or published, if ever at all. The Van Gogh Museum is home to several significant works by Gauguin and Laval from their Martinican period. Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo made the initial acquisitions for this collection as early as 1887.
As a part of the exhibition, contemporary artist Jean-François Boclé (1971, Martinique) reflects on the artists’ perceptions of the island with a unique installation.
In search of new art
In 1887, Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) and his lesser-known friend Charles Laval (1861-1894) travelled to Martinique. They hoped to swap what they considered to be the mondaine Parisian life for unspoilt surroundings, and craved a simpler, freer way of life. The two artists were looking for new motifs and inspiration to give their art fresh direction.
On the Caribbean island, far from the French mainland, Gauguin and Laval found subjects for new, ‘exotic’ paintings. They drew and painted the island and its people in warm colours, while developing their own styles. They experimented using bold lines, simplified areas of colour and complex compositions. Gauguin composed paintings from elements of sketches and other paintings, which he subsequently forged into new compositions.
In the four months that Gauguin stayed in Martinique and the little under a year that Laval was on the island, the two artists produced more than 20 oil paintings and many more drawings, sketches and elaborate pastel and chalk works.
Back in Paris
Very soon after returning from Martinique, Gauguin met Vincent and Theo van Gogh. The brothers were so impressed by the innovative paintings and drawings that Gauguin had created on the island, that they directly purchased the most important work from the series,
Paul Gauguin (1848 - 1903), Martinique, 1887
oil on canvas, 86 cm x 116 cm Credits Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
The Mango Trees, Martinique, for 400 francs: their most expensive ever purchase ever.
This sale was of notable significance to Gauguin and his career. Theo van Gogh later purchased another of Gauguin’s drawings (Head of a Woman from Martinique) and became his regular art dealer, going on to play a considerable role in the promotion of Gauguin’s work.
The brothers added a second painting, On the Banks of the River, Martinique, to their collection in exchange for two of Vincent van Gogh’s Parisian still lifes of sunflowers. Vincent van Gogh was extremely enthusiastic about Gauguin’s works, praising them as ‘high poetry’. The two paintings and the drawing acquired by the Van Gogh brothers have always been in the collection of the family and subsequently, the museum.
A unique exhibition
While Gauguin and Laval’s stay in Martinique marked a crucial phase in their careers and influenced their future oeuvre, this period has always been neglected; an exhibition has never before been devoted to this subject.
Gauguin & Laval in Martinique is the first time that a large number of the paintings, drawings and sketches by the artists are being united. Many of the loans are in private collections and are otherwise rarely, or never, exhibited in public – let alone in the Netherlands – or depicted in publications. The exhibition features a total of 81 artworks, 65 of which are on loan from collections in 12 different countries. 16 works from the Van Gogh Museum collection are included in the exhibition.
Gauguin used three sketchbooks in Martinique. Over the years, the sketchbooks were dismantled and the sheets found their way into private and museum collections all around the world. Many of the sheets are now being put on public display for the first time: a large number of sheets from the three sketchbooks were traced and united especially for Gauguin & Laval in Martinique.
Paul Gauguin, 'Martinican Women', 1887, Pencil, black chalk and pastel on paper, 49 × 63.5 cm, private collection
Never before have so many sketches by Gauguin been displayed together. It is also the first time that The Mango Trees, Martinique is being united with its large, elaborate preparatory study in pastel.
Publication
A catalogue accompanies the exhibition, written by Maite van Dijk and Joost van der Hoeven, featuring contributions from Sylvie Crussard and Karen Rechnitzer Pope. The catalogue offers a comprehensive overview of the works that Gauguin and Laval created in Martinique, alongside detailed essays.
Following on from the exhibition (the first time that a large number of the Martinican works are being put on display together), further technical examination and international expert meetings, an academic publication will be produced. This publication will unite all of the available knowledge and expertise on the subject from various perspectives and disciplines. The book is expected to be published in 2020.
Paul Gauguin, 'Martinique Landscape', 1887, Oil on canvas, 117 x 89,8 cm, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinbrugh,, presented by Sir Alexander Maitland in memory of his wife Rosalind 1960
New Orleans Museum of Art October 26, 2018 through January 27, 2019
In celebration of the city of New Orleans’ Tricentennial in 2018, the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) will present The Orléans Collection, an exhibition of selections from the magnificent collection of the city’s namesake, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (1674-1723). Universally praised during his lifetime, the exceptional collection was comprised of some of the most important works in the history of art. On view from October 26, 2018 through January 27, 2019, The Orléans Collection will bring together, for the first time, a selection of masterpieces from institutions such as the National Gallery of London, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and the National Gallery of Scotland to tell the story of the collection’s formation, its reputation, and its impact in early 18th century Paris.
“Renowned at the time of the founding of the City of New Orleans, The Orléans Collection celebrates the artistic sensibilities of Philippe II,” said Susan Taylor, the Montine McDaniel Freeman Director of NOMA. “His legacy is his patronage of the arts: architecture, painting, music, dance and theatre. As an institution that is committed to celebrating all of the arts, it is fitting that NOMA takes on this project during New Orleans’ Tricentennial.”
The Orléans Collection situates Philippe II as the preeminent collector of his time. The astounding number of paintings recorded at the time of the Duke’s death—772—demonstrate the scope of his collection, which remained in his family for two generations until its sale in London in the 1790s during the French Revolution. Its dispersal represents a watershed event in the history of collecting, and contributed to the formation of Europe’s first public museums, among them, the National Gallery of London.
“A unique strength of our subject is the quality and breadth of Philippe II’s collection itself, which will offer visitors an overview of European art, from Venice and Rome to The Netherlands and France,” said Vanessa Schmid, NOMA’s Senior Research Curator for European Art.
Featured Themes
The Orléans Collection will explore aspects of Philippe II’s collection through four guiding themes: the Duke’s residence, the Palais Royal, and its grand redecoration as a center for the arts and exchange in Paris; the diplomatic and personal display of the collection in public and private spaces; the Duke of Orléans’ personal taste and psychology as a collector, and the fame and impact the collection had for visitors, contemporary artists, and collectors in Paris.
Upon the death of Louis XIV in 1715, Philippe II served as the regent of France until the young heir Louis XV came of age. After two generations of court life focused at Versailles, Philippe II’s eight-year regency represented an important shift of French social and cultural life back to Paris around the newly flourishing neighborhood on the Right Bank surrounding the Duke’s Palais-Royal.
The Duke had a remarkably developed sense of style, which is evident through his favorite paintings, and works by his court painter, Antoine Coypel, who is featured in the exhibition. He was most passionate about Renaissance Florentine and Venetian art, which hung in his grand gallery. He was also France’s first great collector of Dutch and Flemish art, which he displayed in the intimate setting of his private apartments. The installation will evoke the more coveted spaces of the Palais Royal, where many of the Duke’s notorious parties took place.
Philippe II cultivated a cosmopolitan circle and worked with agents and friends to acquire paintings. He sought to build a princely collection of international reputation, and visitors to the Palace wrote with awe of the sheer number of pictures and their sumptuous display. In 1721, the Duke’s important purchase of the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden brought over 100 masterpieces to Paris and was announced in the first Parisian art review. The collection included treasures from the Habsburg collections commissioned by Philip II of Spain, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and Rudolf II in Vienna. He purchased many other paintings, which came from European monarchs, played an important role in projecting a public image of nobility.
The final theme considers the impact of Philippe II’s collection in Paris for collectors and artists. Visitors and early guidebooks attest to the public orientation of the collection at the Palais Royal and the unique status of this princely collection as neither truly of the crown nor truly private. Many well-known French artists like Boucher and Natoire studied the collection and reinterpreted its famous paintings to the modern style.
Exhibition Catalogue
Offering opportunities for new scholarship, NOMA’s exhibition is the first time this subject has been undertaken. The exhibition will be accompanied by a full color 300-page scholarly catalogue, by project director Vanessa Schmid, NOMA’s Senior Research Curator for European Art. The catalogue will present new research and serve as a lasting resource for scholars and the general public alike. Contributors include leading scholars in the fields represented in the collection. Essay and discussion topics include: Philippe d’Orléans: Absolute Regent by historian Alexandre Duplet; Philippe II’s Collection by Françoise Madrus, The Louvre Museum; Antoine Coypel and the Regent by Nicole Garnier, Musée Condé; The Le Brun of Architecture: Gilles-Marie Oppenord at the Palais-Royal by Jean-François Bédard, Syracuse University; Venetian Art at the Palais Royal by Xavier Salomon, The Frick Collection; The Emergence of the Bolognese School by Rachel McGarry, Minneapolis Institute of Art; The Palais-Royal and Contemporary Art in Paris by Kelsey Brosnan, New Orleans Museum of Art; and The Orléans Phenomenon in Great Britain and an appendix tracing the Duke’s paintings to their current locations, both by J. Armstrong-Totten, formerly of the Getty’s Project for the Study of Provenance.
Giorgio Vasari (Italian, 1511–1574), Six Tuscan Poets, 1544, Oil on panel, 52 x 51 5/8 in., Minneapolis Institute of Art
Guido Reni (Italian, 1575-1642), The Meeting of David and Abigail, ca. 1615–1620, Oil on canvas, 61 1/4 x 64 1/2 in., Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia, Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
Francesco Albani (Italian, 1578-1660), Saint John the Baptist Seated in the Wilderness, c. 1603, Oil on copper, 19 3/8 x 14 5/8 in., The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, The State Art Museum of Florida, Florida State University, Sarasota, Bequest of John Ringling
Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594-1665), Ecstasy of Saint Paul, 1643, Oil on panel, 16 3/8 x 11 7/8 in., The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the State Art Museum of Florida, Florida State University, Sarasota, Museum purchase
Bartolomé Bermejo was one of the most fascinating figures within Spanish art of the second half of the 15th century. Bringing together a remarkable group of paintings from Spanish, European and American museums, the Prado is able to present this survey exhibition, which has been organized with the collaboration of the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya and, for the first time, allows for an appreciation of the technical virtuosity and distinctive visual universe of this Cordovan painter active in the Kingdom of Aragon.
The Prado Museum is organising this exhibition devoted to the work of Bartolomé Bermejo in collaboration with the Catalonia National Art Museum. The painter from Cordoba was one of the most fascinating figures on the artistic scene in the second half of the 15th century. This anthological exhibition will be held thanks to the bringing together of a remarkable series of paintings from Spanish, European and American art institutions. The exhibition will offer the possibility to admire the artist’s pictorial mastery to the fullest for the first time ever.
His technical virtuosity and suggestive visual universe are two of the aspects that define Bartolomé Bermejo. Born in Cordoba, the painter developed his professional activity in the Kingdom of Aragon.
Saint Dominic of Silos Enthroned as a Bishop,
Resurrection
and Christ’s Descent into Limbo were some of his best known works. The first of them is conserved in the Prado Museum and the other two paintings form part of the catalogue of the Catalonia National Art Museum.
Christie’s announced a prestigious collection of Hudson River School paintings from the Collection of Kevin and Barrie Landry will be offered in the American Art sale on November 20 in New York. One of the finest groupings of Hudson River School artists to appear on the market in decades, all sale proceeds will benefit philanthropies that support the global refugee crisis, UNICEF USA, RefugePoint, and The Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. Inspired by their love for America the couple were drawn to the Hudson River School artists who celebrated nature, discovery, exploration and patriotism. Artists include Frederic Edwin Church, Asher Brown Durand, George Henry Durrie, Sanford Robinson Gifford, David Johnson and John Kensett, among others. Comprised of 13 lots, the collection is expected to realize in excess of $2,000,000.
Barrie Landry remarks, “For both Kevin and me, these paintings represent love letters to our country, honoring rugged individualism and the beauty of place. Kevin was a patriot whose favorite holiday was the 4th of July. As such, Kevin was particularly attracted to this period of art because of its emphasis on the natural beauty of the landscape and man’s relationship to it.” Speaking about the decision to donate auction proceeds to support the global refugee crisis, Barrie continues, “Our country was founded on the principle of E pluribus Unum, out of many one. Our country’s diversity and welcoming of others has made us strong and will continue to make America strong.”
A highlight of the collection is a tour de force of 19th century American art, On Otter Creek by Frederic Edwin Church, the leading American painter of his day (estimate: $400,000-600,000). In this bucolic scene set against a dramatic backdrop of towering hills, a covered bridge at center of the composition is the only sign of human intervention, conveying the central motif of the Hudson River School movement on the sublimity of nature.
Another leading work is John Frederick Kensett’sDuck Hunter, First Beach, Newport, Rhode Island created in 1859 during a pivotal period in the artist’s painting style that demonstrated a transition from the traditional Hudson River School aesthetic to a modern Luminist treatment of light and form, which resulted in a spontaneous yet highly finished canvas painted directly from nature (estimate: $200,000-300,000). Additional top lots include Haymaking by Asher Brown Durand (estimate: $250,000-350,000), Tropical Landscape by Louis Rémy Mignot (estimate: $150,000-250,000), and Lake Winnipesaukee by Sanford Robinson Gifford (estimate: $200,000-300,000).
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