The main summer show at Abbot Hall Art Gallery is Ruskin, Turner & the Storm Cloud (12 Jul - 5 Oct 2019). The exhibition will include more than 100 works and stretch across six rooms. It is one of the biggest exhibitions in the UK during the 200th anniversary of John Ruskin’s birth (8 February 1819). Ruskin, Turner & the Storm Cloud will be the first in-depth examination of the relationship between both men, their work, and the impact Ruskin had in highlighting climate change. Image: John Ruskin, Dawn, Coniston, 1873, Watercolour over pencil, Acquired with the support of a V&A Purchase Grant and the Friends of Abbot Hall, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria
Bringing together Victorian and contemporary works of art, the exhibition will demonstrate the unsettling messages underpinning Ruskin’s eye for beauty in the natural world. Ruskin’s anxiety about darkening skies and polluted storm clouds is contrasted with his early interest in Turner’s luminous pictures. The exhibition contains a substantial display of Turner’s watercolours, demonstrating his evolving style, and his creation of highly-finished sample studies of British and alpine landscapes. Lakeland Arts’ The Passage of Mount St Gothard (1804) by Turner will be a key painting on show.
Woman in a Black Pinafore (1911) and Woman Hiding her Face (1912) had once belonged to Grünbaum, who was a popular cabaret performer in Vienna. Throughout his life, he amassed an impressive 499-piece art collection, which included 81 Schiele drawings. During World War II, Grünbaum’s art collection was confiscated and dispersed. He then hid with his wife in Vienna for a few years, but Grünbaum was betrayed. In 1941, he died in the Dachau concentration camp after performing one last time on New Year’s Eve for his fellow-sufferers. “The tragic consequences of the Nazi occupation of Europe on the lives, liberty and property of the Jews continue to confront us today,” commented the judges in their recent ruling. Six years ago, Nagy bought the two drawings and displayed them at the fourth edition of the Salon of Art + Design fair at the Park Avenue Armory. Grünbaum’s heirs, Timothy Reif and David Frankel, managed to track down the drawings to Nagy and blocked him from selling or transferring the works. The London-based art dealer contested this, arguing the drawings were passed to Grünbaum’s sister-in-law, Mathilde Lukacs, when he was detained. Nagy insisted that Lukacs had lawfully sold them to a Swiss dealer following the war, producing signed documents as proof. Despite the documents, in 2018 the court dismissed Nagy’s argument and the decision was unanimously upheld this week. “We reject the notion that a person who signs a power of attorney in a death camp can be said to have executed the document voluntarily,” Judge Ramos wrote. “Moreover, even if Mathilde had possession of Grünbaum’s art collection, possession is not equivalent to legal title.” The Holocaust Expropriated Recovery Act (HEAR) played a crucial role in the resolution of this case. Enacted in 2016, HEAR is a federal law that eased statute-of-limitations restrictions for the recovery of artworks stolen during World War II. Although the Appellate Division judges did not accuse Nagy of any wrongdoing, the holes in his provenance history research were highlighted. Few restitution cases end in a final judgment. This is often due to statutes of limitation, jurisdictional limitations, and the application of law more favourable to current possessors. Tuesday’s ruling, therefore, hails a monumental victory for Grünbaum’s heirs and other descendants seeking the return of Nazi-looted artworks.
Gustave Caillebotte (1848–1894) was one of the central figures of French Impressionism, yet he is among those artists who remain to be discovered today. His fame was initially founded on his role as a patron, and only later did he gain full recognition as a painter.
Caillebotte’s painting “Paris Street; Rainy Day” (“Rue de Paris, temps de pluie”), completed in 1877 and now an icon of Impressionism, is coming to the Alte Nationalgalerie. It is considered one of the artist’s principle works, and is a showpiece of the Art Institute of Chicago. The monumental painting has rarely travelled to Europe in the past, and this will be its very first appearance in Berlin. The fact that “Paris Street, Rainy Day” is being shown here is certain ly a sensation, and results from a unique international cooperation: the Art Institute of Chicago will be loaned Édouard Manet’s “In the Conservatory” for a major monographic exhibition; in return, the Alte Nationalgalerie will be able to show this masterpiece by an artist who is otherwise not represented in their collection. Thereby both German and American audiences will benefit from the unique opportunity to visit exhibitions with rarely available works.
Caillebotte’s groundbreaking piece with its almost life-sized figures and unconventional perspective was presented at the Third Impressionist Exhibition of 1877, and even today it has lost none of its intriguing allure. “Paris Street; Rainy Day” exemplifies both the Impressionists ‘new vision’ and Caillebotte’s adoption of modern urban motifs. Carefully selected studies and preparatory sketches for his principal work allow visitors to the exhibition to better understand this atypical Impressionist 2019s creative process.
Close consideration of Caillebotte’s paintings and painting methods opens new perspectives on French Impressionism. Pure painterly appearance is not paramount in his work – his paintings captivate with bold perspectives and structured pictorial space. The seemingly random framing of the view, and the striking immediacy of the image are what particularly underscore the modernity at play here.
This focussed exhibition in the Alte Nationalgalerie will simultaneously highlight Caillebotte's role as a patron. At only twenty-nine years old in 1877, he was not only the youngest but also the most active member of this group. As a man of considerable wealth, he played a leading role in financing and organising the first group exhibitions. For such occasions he would often lend works – by fellow artists such as Renoir, Manet, Degas, Cezanne and Monet – from his own collection. The tight network of the Impressionists, in whose midst Caillebotte found himself as friend and supporter, will become apparent in this exhibition in the Alte Nationalgalerie.
Berlin’s Lotte Laserstein (1898-1993) was one of the most sensitive portrait painters of the early Modernist period when tradition vied with innovation. By the time she was 30, she was a well-known and successful artist. Her career was brutally ended in 1933.
Berlin’s public museum of modern art, photography and architecture will show 58 works – 48 paintings and 9 drawings – by Laserstein along with documents reflecting her professional heyday in Berlin and her exile in Sweden. The Berlinische Galerie will take over the exhibition Face to Face organised by the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, running there until 17 March. In Berlin, these works by Laserstein will be joined by portraits, landscapes, late works and also other paintings from her artistic environment in the 1920/30s.
Lotte Laserstein had a talent for combining two universes. She played with quotes from art history but also with hallmarks of Post-Impressionism – its flat forms and its brushwork. Laserstein was a gentle, empathetic chronicler of the 1920s and 1930s: she painted women and men of the new era and of every class as naturally as she found them. She used pictorial means to defy contemporary social norms about gender roles.
This volume reintroduces the fascinating work of German-Swedish painter, Lotte Laserstein, who was known for her groundbreaking portraiture in the 1920s and 30s.
After being one of the first women to graduate from Berlin Art Academy in 1927, Lotte Laserstein began making a name for herself in Weimar era Berlin's thriving art scene. She was a remarkable portraitist, capturing everyday citizens of Berlin from motorcyclists to girls playing tennis, to women applying makeup.
This volume features fifty works by Laserstein that show her artistic development during the 1920s and 1930s. She was known for spurning the usual depiction of women and instead portrayed the "New Woman" who embraced fashion and personal freedom. Unfortunately, her career came to an abrupt halt in 1937 when she was forced to flee Nazi Germany for Sweden. She continued to paint in exile, but her work never regained the same intensity or sensitivity as her Berlin portraits and she fell out of the public eye. Laserstein's pieces have recently been rediscovered and this volume aims to bring this long-forgotten artist's works, from the key period in her career, back into the spotlight.
Though the Semper Building will close during the summer and autumn time most of its exposition space, it will still be possible to see important works of art from the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Old Masters Picture Gallery). These include Raphael's "Sistine Madonna" as well as Giorgione's "Sleeping Venus",
The exhibition offers a selection of 100 masterpieces of the collection, which comprise around 3,800 works. In addition, the various schools are shown side by side. The exhibition reflects the taste of the Saxon electors and thus the history of the collection. Many of the works belonged to the Kunstkammer or embellished the apartments of the electoral residence palace before Augustus the Strong set up his first picture gallery in the palace in 1718.
Giorgione, Tizian, Schlummernde Venus, um 1508-10 Gemäldegalerie Alte MeisterVan Eyck
Van Eyck, Dürer, Holbein, Rubens, Rembrandt, Poussin, Claude Lorrain, Murillo - from the early Renaissance to the Enlightenment the visitor can discover the most famous paintings. The combination of these exquisite masterpieces across schools and epochs enables an unique experience of art in a small space until the Semper Building will reopened in full splendor and size in December
Sixtinischen Madonna
One of the most well-known motifs of art history is found in the gallery: the Sistine Madonna by Raphael with its two angels at the bottom. Even 500 years after its creation, it continues to move those who view it and has become part of a visual memory that has long developed a life of its own as a decorative element on umbrellas and refrigerator magnets.
Raffael (Raffaello Santi), Die Sixtinische Madonna (1512/13)
Hans Holbein, Charles de Solier, Sieur de Morette, 1534/35. Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister.
Tweed Museum of Art - University of Minnesota Duluth
January, 2021
The Hillstrom Museum of Art presentsIndustry, Work, Society, and Travails in the Depression Era: American Paintings and Photographs from the Shogren-Meyer Collection, on view from September 9 through November 10.
Industry, Work, Society, and Travails in the Depression Era will feature 95 works of art, mostly dating from the 1930s. Among the photographers represented in the Shogren-Meyer collection and the exhibit based on it are Berenice Abbott, Margaret Bourke-White, Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, and Gordon Parks. Among the painters included are Marvin Cone, John Steuart Curry, Ernest Fiene, Thomas Nagai, and Zoltan Sepeshy.
Collector Daniel Shogren and his wife Susan Meyer have always been fascinated by the 1930s and its art, possibly related to both of them having been interested in history since childhood. Of particular interest to the passionate collectors are American Scene and Regionalist artworks.
Shogren states, "In my career, I have traveled the Midwest and worked in factories where I witnessed today's working men and women. I compare today, where we have full employment and a booming stock market, to the America of the 1920s and 1930s. Are we seeing warning signals, such as climate change and income disparity, that portend a future depression? Susan and I are deeply moved by art from the 30s and how it reflects those times, which remain relevant in 2019. This exhibition is a dream come true for us. We are delighted to share these amazing works of art with the public."
Industry, Work, Society, and Travails in the Depression Era will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue with object texts written by collectors Susan Meyer and Daniel Shogren, Donald Myers (director and chief curator, Hillstrom Museum of Art), and Christian Peterson (independent scholar and former long-time photography curator at the Minneapolis Institute of Art).
The Hillstrom Museum of Art is located in the Jackson Campus Center of Gustavus Adolphus College, 800 West College Avenue, St. Peter, Minnesota.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC September 15, 2019, through January 12, 2020
The National Gallery of Art is pleased to present Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence, the first-ever monographic exhibition in the United States on Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435–1488), the innovative artist, painter, sculptor, and teacher whose pupils included Leonardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, and likely Sandro Botticelli as well. The exhibition examines the wealth and breadth of Verrocchio's extraordinary artistry by bringing together some 50 of his masterpieces in painting, sculpture, and drawing that allow viewers to appreciate how his work in each art form stimulated creativity in the others. Groundbreaking technical research explores Verrocchio's materials and techniques, offering revelations about his artistic choices. Several carefully argued new attributions in different media are proposed in the exhibition.
The sole American venue, Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence will be on view at the National Gallery of Art from September 15, 2019, through January 12, 2020.
Andrea del Verrocchio, Putto with a Dolphin, c. 1465/1480, bronze Museo di Palazzo Vecchio, Florence
As a sculptor, Verrocchio was the most important figure in Renaissance art between Donatello and Michelangelo, making works of unprecedented technical accomplishment and breathtaking naturalism and beauty. As a painter, he formed a direct link in the central chain of Florentine painting between his master, Fra Filippo Lippi, and his own pupil, Leonardo da Vinci. As a draftsman, he was a pivotal figure who explored new media techniques and functions of drawing and profoundly influenced Leonardo, Raphael, and others. As a teacher, he headed a studio that became a kind of laboratory for experimentation and innovation and helped lead to the creation of the High Renaissance in the early 16th century. It is no accident that of the founders of the High Renaissance—Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael—one was the pupil of Verrocchio and the other two were trained by pupils of Verrocchio.
"A 'Renaissance man' in every way, Andrea del Verrocchio was a pioneering, versatile artist whose talents stood out for their brilliance," said Kaywin Feldman, director, National Gallery of Art. "We are grateful to the institutions and private collectors, as well as to the Bank of America and to the Buffy and William Cafritz Family Fund, without whom this exhibition would not be possible." "Verrocchio was a visionary," said Andrew Butterfield, the exhibition curator and an internationally recognized expert on the artist. "He had a restless imagination and a relentless drive to experiment and improve on what he or anyone else had done before. But he was also like the maestro of an orchestra who could bring together many talents and draw forth the best from them. This was one of his secrets as a teacher."
Exhibition Organization The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art in collaboration with the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, and the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, where a different version of the show was on view from March 9–July 14, 2019.
.Andrea del Verrocchio (c. 1435–1488) Verrocchio had the good fortune to be born when the Medici family was rising to dominance in the cultural life of Florence, sparking a massive boom in the patronage of painting, sculpture, and architecture that completely transformed the city. Trained initially as a goldsmith, Verrocchio as a young man also learned to paint and sculpt, probably working with such luminaries as Fra Filippo Lippi, Desiderio da Settignano, and Lorenzo Ghiberti and his workshop. By the time he was about 30 years old, Verrocchio had emerged as a master of the first rank and the Medici began to entrust him to make the most important bronze sculptures in the city: first, around 1465,
a statue of David with the Head of Goliath, made as a kind of complement to or rival of
Donatello's earlier bronze of the same subject; and then in 1467 awarding Verrocchio the most prestigious sculpture commission of late-15th century Florence, the bronze group of
Christ and Saint Thomas for an outdoor niche on Orsanmichele, the church and grain reserve at the center of Florence. Taking 16 years to complete, the sculpture, upon its unveiling in 1483, was declared to be "the most beautiful work there is."
In these years he also began making other celebrated masterpieces, among them the tomb of Giovanni and Piero de' Medici (c. 1469–1473), the Cardinal Niccolò Forteguerri Monument (begun 1476), and the famous
Equestrian Monument to Bartolomeo Colleoni in Venice (begun c. 1479).
Painting was less his principal focus, and yet he was active and innovative in this field as well. His best-known work is his
Baptism of Christ (c. 1472–1474, Gallerie degli Uffizi) made with Leonardo da Vinci, who was still his student and assistant at the time, likely in the early 1470s. Verrocchio generally took a collaborative approach to painting, employing younger masters to execute his pictures from his designs before coming in at the end to put the finishing touches on the works. Among the artists known or believed to have spent time in this capacity are Leonardo, Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi, and others. A collaborative approach to painting in a master's workshop was not new in Renaissance Italy, although Verrocchio seems to have organized this painting production more thoroughly than any other painter before. Verrocchio was highly regarded in his lifetime as a painter, working for the Medici and other discerning patrons, and he was praised by contemporaries as the "spring" from which other painters drank "whatever they have that is good."
His contributions to the history of drawing are especially clear. Trained as both a goldsmith and painter, he united the drawing techniques of the two practices and made something new. His pen and ink drawings have an unprecedented vivacity and freedom, so much so that both Leonardo and Raphael were deeply influenced by them. His black-chalk and charcoal drawings have a new subtlety in the depiction of light and form; they are perhaps the first images in Italian art that unambiguously display sfumato—a kind of smoky effect in shading, which helps to amplify the apparent three-dimensionality of the forms. Sfumato was to become a fundamental component of Leonardo's painting and drawing.
Exhibition Highlights
Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence is the first comprehensive exhibition to present his sculptures, paintings, and drawings together as a group. Driven by a passion for inquiry and innovation, Verrocchio shows the cross-fertilization he embodied through the combination of ideas and practices from the variety of media in which he worked. Among these important groupings of works on view together in the exhibition for the first time are three images of ideal beauty created in different media—
Lady with Flowers (c. 1475) in marble,
and the black-chalk drawing, Head of a Woman with Braided Hair (c. 1475/1478), alongside the Gallery's
Ginevra de' Benci (1474/1478) by Leonardo.
The exhibition brings together Verrocchio's sculptures in a variety of material, including bronze, marble, painted and unpainted terracotta, terra cruda (unbaked clay), plaster, gilded silver, and agate. This presentation allows viewers to see the range not only of Verrocchio's materials but also of his artistic practice, from initial, quick compositional sketches to exquisite completed works.
Among the sculptural masterpieces on view is the celebrated statue David with the Head of Goliath (c. 1465, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence). With its elegant design, tensely graceful movement, and absorbing facial expressions, it may be Verrocchio's earliest statue in bronze and probably was made for Piero de' Medici, the father of Lorenzo the Magnificent.
A core group of Verrocchio's paintings is on view in the same room for the first time in the exhibition, except for the
Madonna di Piazza (1475/1485, Pistoia Cathedral, San Zeno) and the
Baptism of Christ (c. 1468–1475, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence), providing a rare opportunity to see and understand his mastery as never before.
Several of the paintings on view have not traveled to the United States prior to this exhibition, including
Madonna and Child with Two Angels (c. 1470/1474)
and Tobias and the Angel (c. 1470)—both from the National Gallery, London—which show Verrocchio's collaboration with Leonardo and other assistants in his workshop.
Verrocchio's highly personal technique and style of execution in his drawing exemplify the relationship between sculpture and painting and depict his original and experimental combinations of different media. Several preparatory drawings for his sculptures and paintings are on view in the exhibition, including studies of nudes, animals, drapery, and funerary monuments, as well as one of his earliest surviving drawings—Study of the Madonna Adoring the Child (c. 1470).
Technical Study of Verrocchio's Masterpieces Technical research for the exhibition was realized by Gallery conservators Dylan Smith, Robert H. Smith Research Conservator in the department of object conservation, and Elizabeth Walmsley, senior painting conservator, and Gallery scientist John K. Delaney, senior imaging scientist in the scientific research department. They were assisted by a distinguished team of conservators and scientists from various international institutions. Modern methods of analysis allowed the investigations of Verrocchio’s works to take place in advance and at their respective institutions, providing a wealth of new observations that inform and enrich the exhibition and accompanying catalog.
The Gallery's research includes the first comprehensive survey of Verrocchio's bronze sculpture, combining careful visual examination, alloy analysis with portable x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, and x-radiography. In addition to the major bronzes presented in the exhibition, such as David with the Head of Goliath and his Candelabrum (1468–1469), the study considers works that could not be present. Investigation of Verrocchio's Tomb of Cosimo de' Medici (by 1467) and Tomb of Giovanni and Piero de' Medici (c. 1470–1473) in the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence offers new insights into these remarkable multimedia monuments. A new interpretation of the casting technique of Verrocchio's Christ and Saint Thomas from Orsanmichele is also given. Considered together, these new observations offer a clearer understanding of the innovative methods Verrocchio used to design and execute his bronzes, as well as new insights into their chronology, including the proposal of an earlier date for Putto with a Dolphin (c. 1465/1480).
For the exhibition, a select group of Verrocchio's paintings was intensively examined. Noninvasive chemical imaging techniques and point analysis (x-ray fluorescence and multi- and hyperspectral reflectance spectroscopies) were used to confirm Verrocchio's palette and better understand the paint handling and techniques. Two distinct interpretations of the Madonna and Child (c. 1465/1470; c. 1470/1472) from the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin were considered, as well as Tobias and the Angel (c. 1470) from the National Gallery, London—all of which are on view in the exhibition. In addition, the Gallery's advanced high-resolution infrared spectral imaging cameras were used to study Andrea del Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci's Baptism of Christ in the collection of the Gallerie degli Uffizi. The spectral images obtained reveal differences among the figures regarding the paint buildup and use of materials that further our understanding about the working methods of artists in Verrocchio's workshop.
Exhibition Curators
The exhibition is curated by Andrew Butterfield, an internationally recognized historian whose monograph The Sculptures of Andrea del Verrocchio (Yale University Press 1997) won the prestigious Mitchell prize. Collaborators include Gretchen A. Hirschauer, associate curator of Italian and Spanish painting, and Alison Luchs, curator of early European sculpture—both from the National Gallery of Art, Washington; and Lorenza Melli, curator of the Corpus of Italian Drawings 1300–1500/Rome-Munich-Florence, based at the Kunsthistorisches Institut/Max-Planck Institut, Florence. The exhibition was conceived by the late Eleonora Luciano (1963–2017), associate curator of sculpture and decorative arts, National Gallery of Art, and is dedicated to her memory.
The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH
August 18 – November 10, 2019
William McGregor Paxton, Sylvia, Oil on canvas, 49 x 39 1/2 inches.
Opening August 18, an exhibition examines the relationship between these two talented individuals, William McGregor Paxton and Elizabeth Okie Paxton, who were an important part of the Boston School of painters at the turn of the twentieth century. Together their careers spanned almost five decades, and they were married for over forty years. During that time, the Paxtons experienced many changes, both personal and artistic, which affected their careers and which this exhibition aims to document.
William McGregor Paxton, The Breakfast, 1911. Oil on canvas. Private collection
Elizabeth Okie Paxton (1878–1972) is best remembered as a still life painter. She first met William Paxton while still a teen-aged student at the Cowles Art School in Boston. For the next ten years she served as his chief model and muse, letting her own career take a back seat to his. Later she returned to painting, concentrating on intimate still life compositions featuring familiar and readily available objects that she created in her home studio. After her husband’s death in 1941, she once again gave up her own art to focus on promoting his art and legacy. Her work, although included in some previous exhibitions of women painters, has never before been the subject of individual study.
The other half of this marital and artistic partnership was William McGregor Paxton (1869– 1941). Like many of his contemporaries in the Boston School, Paxton had studied abroad and, inspired by the work of seventeenth century Dutch painters, particularly Jan Vermeer, concentrated on creating images of young women in domestic interiors. In his later years, Paxton, skeptical of the modernism that emerged after World War I, became an advocate for the atelier method of artistic study, which he had experienced in Paris with his mentor Jean-Léon Gérôme.
William McGregor Paxton and Elizabeth Okie Paxton: An Artistic Partnership is the first look at the work of William Paxton in nearly four decades, and is the first comprehensive study of Elizabeth Paxton and her career. Through a representative selection of each artist’s paintings, the exhibition examines the Paxtons’ art, their marriage, and their ever-evolving partnership.
This exhibition was organized by Dixon Gallery and Gardens in Memphis, Tennessee.
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (1591–1666), known as Guercino, was arguably the most interesting and diverse draftsman of the Italian Baroque era, a natural virtuoso who created brilliant drawings in a broad range of media. Supreme examples of virtually every genre of drawing produced in seventeenth-century Italy survive from his hand: academic nudes, genre scenes and caricatures, energetic and fluid pen sketches for figures and compositions, highly refined chalk drawings, designs for engravings, and landscapes of many types.The Morgan holds more than thirty-five drawings by Guercino but has never before mounted an exhibition focused on the artist or shown so many of the drawings together.
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Il Guercino (1591–1666),
Vision of St. Philip Neri
Guercino: Virtuoso Draftsman highlights the richness of the Morgan’s collection, and with the addition of a few loans offers an overview of Guercino’s brilliance as a draftsman across a career that spanned half a century.
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino (Italian, 1591–1666) The Triumph of Galatea, 1620s Pen and brown ink, brown wash, squared in black chalk Private collection
Catalogue
By John Marciari
October 2019 Paperback, 210 x 210 mm 80 pages, 60 colour illustrations ISBN: 978-1-911300-69-4
Accompanying an exhibition of drawings by Guercino from the collection of the Morgan Library & Museum, Guercino: Virtuoso Draftsman offers an overview of the artist’s graphic work, ranging from his early genre studies and caricatures, to the dense and dynamic preparatory studies for his paintings, and on to highly finished chalk drawings and landscapes that were ends in themselves.
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino (1591-1666), was arguably the most interesting and diverse draftsman of the Italian Baroque era, a natural virtuoso who created brilliant drawings in a broad range of media. The Morgan owns more than twenty-five works by the artist, and these are the subject of a focused exhibition, supplemented by a handful of loans from public and private New York collections, to be held at the Morgan in the autumn of 2019.
This volume accompanies that exhibition. It includes an introductory essay on Guercino’s work as a draftsman followed by entries on the Guercino drawings in the Morgan’s collection. These include sheets from all moments of the artist’s career. His early awareness of the work of the Carracci in Bologna is documented by figures drawn from everyday life as well as brilliant caricatures; two drawings for Guercino’s own drawing manual are further testament to his interest in questions of academic practice. Following his career, a range of preparatory drawings includes studies made in connection with his earliest altarpieces as well as his mature masterpieces, including multiple studies for several projects, allowing the visitor to see Guercino’s mind at work as he reconsidered his ideas. The Morgan’s holdings also include studies for engravings as well as highly finished landscape and figure drawings that were independent works.
The Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State will open its major special exhibition of the fall season, Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman, on August 24. Featuring nearly eighty objects, including sculptures, paintings, works on paper, and archival materials, this exhibition is the first to reassess Harlem Renaissance artist Augusta Savage’s contributions to art and cultural history in light of her role as an artist-activist. “We are honored to present this major exhibition of the American sculptor Augusta Savage at the Palmer this fall,” said the museum’s director, Erin M. Coe. “We are dedicated to shedding new light on underrepresented artists, and this examination of Savage’s career and achievements is both timely and relevant given the current focus on social activism and the concept of the artist-activist,” she added. A gifted sculptor, Savage (1892–1962) was born in Green Cove Springs, Florida, and later became a significant teacher, leader, and catalyst for change. Overcoming poverty, racism, and sexual discrimination, she became one of this country’s most influential artists of the twentieth century. She played an instrumental role in mentoring many celebrated African American artists, including William Artis, Romare Bearden, Selma Burke, Robert Blackburn, Gwendolyn Knight, Jacob Lawrence, and Norman Lewis, whose works are also included in the exhibition. A prodigious and highly acclaimed artist in her own right, Savage’s art elevated images of Black culture into mainstream America. A central figure in the Harlem Renaissance, she worked with other leaders, writers, musicians, and artists to showcase the contributions of African American culture and was the first Black woman to open her own gallery. As a community organizer and teacher, she provided a bridge between Harlem Renaissance artists and subsequent generations of creative individuals. Augusta Savage: Renaissance Woman is curated by Jeffreen M. Hayes, Ph.D., and organized by the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Sotheby’s Prize. The presentation of the exhibition at the Palmer Museum of Art is supported by the Paul Robeson Cultural Center and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. A fully illustrated companion catalogue reexamines Savage’s place in the history of American sculpture and positions her as a leading figure who broke down the barriers she and her students encountered while seeking to participate fully in the art world. The exhibition is on view at the Palmer Museum of Art through December 8.
In the Hieronymuss Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights" painting (1480-1490 circa) there is some music written on the butt of one of the characters in hell. But how sounds this 15th Century melody? Here is how is the 600-years-old butt music from hell sounds:
Showcasing the breadth of the Brooklyn Museum’s exceptional works on paper collection, Rembrandt to Picasso: Five Centuries of European Works on Paper highlights more than one hundred European prints and drawings, pairing masterworks by renowned artists such as William Blake, Albrecht Dürer, Francisco Goya, and Vincent van Gogh with lesser known, rarely seen drawings, prints, and watercolors. Works on view feature intimate portraits, biting social satire, fantastical visions, vivid landscapes, and more, and are organized into four broad chronological sections spanning the early sixteenth through the early twentieth centuries.
Rembrandt to Picasso: Five Centuries of European Works on Paper is curated by Lisa Small, Senior Curator, European Art, Brooklyn Museum, and is on view from June 21 through October 13, 2019. “There is an intimacy and immediacy to works on paper that seems to bring us nearest to an artist’s vision and process,” explains Lisa Small. “I’m thrilled for our audiences to have close - looking encounters with these highlights from Brooklyn’s extens ive collection of European works on paper, which are rarely exhibited because of light - sensitivity. These prints and drawings are examples of extraordinary technical achievement and vivid artistic experimentation, but they also offer an opportunity to expl ore compelling and provocative themes that continue to resonate today.”
The exhibition begins by exploring the rise of paper and print culture in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. With paper’s increased availability and the advent of printed images — first through woodcuts and engravings, then etchings — it became possible to create multiple images that could be widely circulated and consumed. This gave rise to an expanded market for works on paper and expressive possibilities for artists like Albrecht Dürer, whose technical skill and dramatic manipulation of the medium elevated printmaking to an independent art form.
A series of works by Dürer, including a large - scale, eight - part woodcut print, are on view in this section, alongside works by Rembrandt v an Rijn and Wenceslaus Hollar.
The second section highlights the work of artists who were active during the Enlightenment, an era that embraced intellectual and social reforms over tradition and superstition. Artists in the eighteenth century used print making to offer commentary on the world around them. Two prints by British artist William Hogarth are on view in this section: Gin Lane and Beer Street , both from 1751. Hogarth’s widely distributed satirical engravings memorialized the grim realities of Lon don’s urban poor, and became part of the impetus for reform efforts.
At the turn of the century, artists like Francisco Goya and William Blake began to question Enlightenment ideas of reason and rationalism and instead embraced the subjectivity and emotion of Romanticism, the first major artistic movement of the modern age.
A number of highlights from the Brooklyn Museum’s collection are included here, including
Philipp Otto Runge (German, 1777-1810). Morning (Der Morgen), 1803-1805. Etching on wove paper, Sheet: 28 1/4 x 19 in. (71.8 x 48.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Collection Fund, 38.623.
Philipp Otto Runge (German, 1777-1810). Day (Der Tag), 1803-1805. Black ink etching on moderately thick, slightly textured wove paper, Sheet: 28 3/8 x 18 15/16 in. (72.1 x 48.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Museum Collection Fund, 38.6
and two etchings from Philipp Otto Runge’s rare cycle Times of Day (1803 – 5), which expressed the harmony of the universe through symbolism and allegory.
The exhibition’s final two sections explore the ways in which technical innovations and modern aesthetic movements shaped artists’ work. The late eighteenth century saw the invention of lithography, which allowed artists like Eugène Delacroix, Honoré Daumier, and Théodore Géricault to immediately capture their own drawings in a range of tones and textures.
Later, a revival of the more painterly, stylistic use of etchings encouraged artists such as Camille Corot, Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, and Edgar Degas to use the medium, as well as graphite, watercolor, and pastel, as a vehicle for compositional and technical experimentation.
Delicate works in color appear in this section, including Édouard Manet’s The Equestrienne (L'Amazone) (1875 – 76) and Woman Drying Her Hair (Femme s'essuyant les cheveux) (1889), by Edgar Degas.
Works on view by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, and Paul Cézanne from the late nineteenth century demonstrate a shift from naturalism to a more gestural, expressive aesthetic.
By the early and mid - twentieth century, and shaped by the trauma of a world war, artists like Vasily Kandinsky, Erich Heckel, and Käthe Kollwitz fully embraced this new style of Expressionism and exhibit a more graphic vocabulary of angular, distorted forms to commun cate meaning.
A number of geometric abstract lithographs by El Lissitzky from the series Victory Over the Sun (1923) demonstrate the period’s tensions between pure abstraction and representation. European artists were also influenced by encounters with the artistic style and peoples of Africa and the South Pacific.
Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian Woman (1894) and Emil Nolde’s South Sea (1915) are on view, along with Karl Schmidt - Rottluff’s woodcut of a kneeling woman and Pablo Picasso’s Nude Standing in Profile (1906), an early example of how ancient Iberian art influenced his work.
Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926), Waterloo Bridge, Sunlight Effect (effect de soleil), 1903, oil on canvas. Denver Art Museum collection: funds from Helen Dill bequest, 1935.15.
This exhibition, organized by the Dayton Art Institute, provides a spotlight on Impressionism in France and Claude Monet’s remarkable influence on art. Monet and Impressionism features 13 paintings, with the focal point of the exhibition being a special loan from the Denver Art Museum of Monet’s spectacular painting, Waterloo Bridge (Effect de soleil), 1903. This work demonstrates Monet’s tireless explorations of atmosphere and light. Additional loans include works by Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, Frederick Frieseke, and Henri Matisse. The exhibition also features examples of Impressionist painting from the DAI's collection, including
Neue Galerie New York October 3, 2019- January 13, 2020
In October 2019, Neue Galerie New York will debut “Ernst Ludwig Kirchner,” a major overview of the great German artist’s oeuvre. The presentation will span from 1907 to 1937, presenting several distinct phases associated with the primary cities where he lived and worked: Dresden, Berlin, and Davos. This exhibition is unprecedented in its focus on Kirchner’s revolutionary style, which evolved in relation to his subjects and changing circumstances. Arguably the most outstanding German artist of the early twentieth century, Kirchner occupies a special position in the Neue Galerie collection, and this exhibition pays tribute to his inventive genius.
The show will concentrate on Kirchner’s use of color, demonstrating the exciting dialogue that exists between his works in different media. Far from accepting the traditional hierarchy that placed fine art at the pinnacle of an artist’s achievement, Kirchner compared his activity in these various fields to “a tightly woven, organic fabric, in which process and completion go hand in hand and one aspect drives the other on.” The presentation will unite paintings, decorative works, drawings, and prints, and is comprised of loans from public and private collections worldwide.
"Ernst Ludwig Kirchner" is organized by Neue Galerie New York and co-curated by Jill Lloyd and Janis Staggs.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) Berlin Street Scene, 1913-14 Oil on canvas Neue Galerie New York and Private Collection
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) Tightrope Walk, 1908-10 Oil on canvas Neue Galerie New York
National Portrait Gallery February 28, 2020 - May 31, 2020
Sir William Blake Richmond / John Singer Sargent / c. 1910, Charcoal on paper / Lent by the National Portrait Gallery, London
John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) was one of the greatest portrait artists of his time. While he is best known for his powerful paintings, he largely ceased painting portraits in 1907 and turned instead to charcoal drawings to satisfy portrait commissions. These drawn portraits represent a substantial, yet often overlooked, part of his practice, and they demonstrate the same sense of immediacy, psychological sensitivity, and mastery of chiaroscuro that animate Sargent’s sitters on canvas.
John Singer Sargent,
Sybil Sassoon, later
Marchioness of Chomondeley
, 1912, charcoal
Private Collection
John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal is a long overdue celebration of Sargent’s achievements as a portrait draftsman. Important international loans, from both public and private collections, showcase Sargent’s sitters, many of them famous for their roles in politics, society, and the arts. The exhibition also explores the friendships and the networks of patronage that underpinned Sargent’s practice as a portrait draftsman in Edwardian Britain and Progressive Era America.
John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal is organized by the Morgan Library & Museum, New York and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.
At the height of his success as a portraitist, John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) astonished the transatlantic art world by suddenly abandoning oil painting in 1907. For the rest of his life, he explored likeness and identity through the medium of charcoal, producing several hundred portraits of individuals recognized for their accomplishments in fields such as art, music, literature and theater. “John Singer Sargent: Portraits in Charcoal” will be the first exhibition of Sargent’s portrait drawings in over fifty years. This once-in-a-lifetime assemblage of master drawings—many of them from private collections and rarely exhibited—features compelling depictions of an international network of trailblazing men and women who helped define twentieth-century Anglo-American culture.
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Oct. 26, 2019–Feb. 23, 2020
Indianapolis Museum of Art Oct. 26, 2019–Feb. 23, 2020
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts has announced that Edward Hopper and the American Hotel will premiere at the museum on Oct. 26—the only east coast venue for this major loan exhibition. Showcasing more than 60 of Hopper’s paintings, drawings, watercolors and illustrations, this groundbreaking exhibition offers a rare opportunity to see several of the acclaimed American artist’s most beloved works in person and in a new context. Edward Hopper and the American Hotel represents the first investigation of the artist’s canonical images of hotels, motels and other hospitality settings, thus expanding the terms of alienation and fragmentation in which Hopper’s art is often discussed. Also included are 35 works by American artists that similarly explore the visual culture of hotels, travel and mobility from the early 20th century to the present. Curated by Dr. Leo G. Mazow, VMFA’s Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator of American Art, Edward Hopper and the American Hotel will be on view Oct. 26, 2019–Feb. 23, 2020.
As part of this exhibition, VMFA will recreate Western Motel, one of Hopper’s best-known paintings, as a three-dimensional simulated motel space, giving visitors the chance to “step inside” his work. Through the “Hopper Hotel Experience,” guests will have the opportunity to stay at the museum overnight in a room inspired by Western Motel. There will be a variety of packages available at different price points. Some of the “Hopper Hotel Experience” packages consist of dinner at VMFA’s fine dining restaurant Amuse, a guided tour by the curator and an exhibition catalogue, among other options. Reservation details for the “Hopper Hotel Experience” will be released later this month. This is the first time that VMFA has recreated a work of art in a three-dimensional space and made it available to stay in overnight.
VMFA has had a long relationship with Hopper, starting with his role as chairman of the jury for the museum’s first biennial exhibition in 1938. In 1953, the artist returned to VMFA as a juror for that year’s biennale exhibition. At that time, the museum purchased Hopper’s 1935 painting House at Dusk, which will be on view as part of the exhibition, along with loans from New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art and Metropolitan Museum of Art; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, Spain; and numerous other museums and private collections. Among the private lenders are Grammy-award winning musician Bruce Hornsby and his wife Kathy, who are lending six never-before-exhibited Hopper drawings to the exhibition.
“Each of our curators is tasked with creating exhibitions that provide new narratives about the collection and engage visitors with works of art in a unique way,” says Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Director Alex Nyerges. “We are thrilled that through this historic exhibition, VMFA’s visitors will be able to interact with and learn from extraordinary paintings, drawings and illustrations by Hopper, as well as works by renowned artists such as Richard Caton Woodville, John Singer Sargent, Charles Demuth, Reginald Marsh, Edward Ruscha and Cindy Sherman.”
Edward Hopper and the American Hotel also features selected diaries written by Hopper’s wife and fellow artist, Josephine “Jo” Hopper, which were only recently made available to the public by the Provincetown Art Association and Museum. Jo’s diaries describe not only the drive between their homes in New York and Cape Cod but also their numerous extended road trips throughout the United States and Mexico. Along with her diary entries, the exhibition showcases hotel postcards from the 1920s through the 1950s featuring places that the couple visited together. The postcards and diary entries are rarely seen primary sources that humanize the artist and his wife, providing detailed accounts of their travels in their own words and personal responses to the places they visited, their experiences there and how these trips informed their art.
“Edward Hopper is one the best-known 20th-century American artists, yet the public’s conception of him has largely been filtered through a time-worn biographical formula that explains his art as the product of a sullen, isolated introvert,” says Mazow. “Edward Hopper and the American Hotel endeavors to consider hotels, motels and other transient dwellings as vital subject matter for Hopper and as a framework with which to understand his entire body of work.”
Catalogue
264 pages, 9 1/2 x 11 205 color illus., including 2 removable maps ISBN: 9780300246889 PB-with Flaps
The accompanying 200-page, fully illustrated exhibition catalogue is the first publication to show that the artist and his contemporaries found artistic inspiration and culturally revealing metaphors in the American hotel and related rental lodgings. The catalogue contains critical essays on hotel, motel and allied subject matter in Hopper’s work.
The painter, draftsman, and illustrator Edward Hopper (1882–1967) is one of America’s best-known and most frequently exhibited artists. Hotels, motels, and tourist homes are recurring motifs in his work, along with streets, lighthouses, and gas stations forming a visual vocabulary of transportation infrastructure. In ten essays, this fascinating volume explores Hopper’s lifelong investigation of such spaces, shedding light on both his professional practice and far-reaching changes in transportation and communications, which affected not only work and leisure but also dynamics of race, class, and gender.
Hopper’s covers for the trade journal Hotel Management, in addition to other well-known works, invite reflection on the complicated roles of the nascent New Woman; the erasure of hotel work and workers; contemporary associations of the color white with cleanliness and purity; the watercolors Hopper made from hotel windows and rooftops in Mexico; and the broader context of transportation history. A final section traces journeys that Hopper and his wife, the artist Josephine “Jo” Nivison Hopper, took by car in the 1940s and 1950s; selected correspondence and quotations from Jo’s diaries join reproductions of postcards and ephemera illuminating their—and fellow Americans’—shifting travel habits.
Leo G. Mazow is Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Curator of American Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. His book Thomas Hart Benton and the American Sound won the 2013 Eldredge Prize, awarded by the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In addition to Mazow’s introduction and two essays, the catalogue includes essays by contributing authors Sarah G. Powers, Jason Weems, Carmenita Higginbotham, David Brody, Erika Doss and Kirsten M. Jensen.
Burchfield Penney Art Center, Buffalo, New York August 9–December 1, 2019
Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967), Spring Rain in the Woods, 1950; Watercolor on paper, 30 x 40 inches; Private Collection
Charles E. Burchfield’s landscapes reflect his cinematic vision. During the early twentieth century, when much of American landscape painting reflected pleasant silent scenes, he envisioned artwork that captured nature’s constantly shifting activity. During his art school days, he became fascinated with depicting, within a single artwork, a span of time—not just a solitary moment—as he admired in Chinese scroll paintings dating from centuries earlier. Actively flowing streams or forceful stormy gales bring balmy and bracing weather events to life. Sounds emerge, such as bird calls and insect cacophony, through his invention of a personal visual language of audio-cryptograms to symbolize each distinctive pitch and ricocheting rhythm.
In addition to his finding quintessential representations of months and seasons, Burchfield entered the imaginary realm by foreshadowing the change of seasons. He loved that unpredictable transitional period when the characteristics of one season collide with another, vacillating day to day, week to week, in scenes where the imminent arrival of the next season hovers enticingly in the distance. In drawing and painting both his immediate and memorable experiences, Burchfield hoped others could insert themselves in his biosphere and share his profound love of the natural world.
A Clearing Sky
There are other transitions to consider as well when looking at Burchfield’s life and work. As one would expect from a maturing artist, Burchfield’s methods and style of artmaking transitioned from early, humble renditions of slightly abstracted landscapes to an increasingly complex and thoroughly unique approach to watercolor painting. His late works are rich with symbols, sounds, and visionary elements that reveal his acute intellectual inquiry and a life-long, deep reverence for music.
The exhibition includes a significant number of artworks that have never been shown before at the museum, thanks to generous loans from a private collector, the Malof Family, the Parisi Family, and the DC Moore Gallery and Menconi + Schoelkopf in New York. They will be exhibited with works from the Burchfield Penney Art Center’s collection and the museum’s Charles E. Burchfield Foundation Archives, including studies being shown for the first time since their acquisition in 2006.
Bertoldo di Giovanni, Hercules on Horseback (detail), ca. 1470–75, bronze, Galleria Estense, Modena, Su concessione del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali - Archivio fotografico delle Galleria Estense; photo: Valeria Beltrami
This fall, The Frick Collection presents the first exhibition devoted to the Renaissance sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni (ca. 1440–1491). It shines a long-overdue light on the ingenuity and prominence of the Florentine artist, who was a student of Donatello, a teacher of Michelangelo, a favorite of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and an active collaborator with many other artists. By uniting nearly his entire extant oeuvre—more than twenty statuettes, reliefs, medals, a life-sized statue, and a monumental frieze never before shown outside of Italy—the show demonstrates the artist’s creative process and ingenious design across media, his engaging lyrical style, and especially, the essential role he played in the development of Italian Renaissance sculpture. Indeed, Bertoldo was one of the earliest sculptors since antiquity to create statuettes in bronze, an art form that became ubiquitous in prestigious collections during the fifteenth century and thereafter.
The exhibition was organized by Aimee Ng, Curator; Alexander J. Noelle, Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow; and Xavier F. Salomon, Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, with the assistance of Julia Day, Conservator.
Comments Salomon, “The Frick is the only institution outside of Europe thatowns a statuette by Bertoldo, and we have long desired the opportunity to study and present this artist’s work in great depth. We are thrilled that the resulting monographic display—on view only in New York—will finally bring into focus Bertoldo’s unique position at the heart of the artistic and political landscape of fifteenth-century Florence. Mostappropriately our team has enjoyed working on this project in partnership with that city’s esteemed Museodel Bargello.”
The catalogue that accompanies Bertoldo di Giovanni: The Renaissance of Sculpture in Medici Florence is the most substantial publication ever produced on the artist.
A PIVOTAL FIGURE RECONSIDERED IN HIS OWN LIGHT
Initially, Bertoldo developed his skills under the aegis of Donatello, inheriting his models and, upon the master’s death, completing the pulpits that were commissioned to adorn the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence. Bertoldo went on to gain the life-long patronage and friendship of the state’s de facto ruler, Lorenzo de’ Medici, eventually moving into the Medici palace and creating numerous objects for his patron, some of which were designed as propagandistic tools. Bertoldo was even appointed the custodian and curator of Lorenzo’s famed garden of antiquities near San Marco, where he instructed the gifted pupils studying the relics, one of whom was Michelangelo, whose creative genius flourished under the master’s guidance. His legacy, however, was largely written out of history by Michelangelo, who fashioned his own identity as a self-taught artist divinely blessed with ability.
Michelangelo’s biographers, including the art historian Giorgio Vasari, reduced Bertoldo’s role significantly, mentioning him only in passing while focusing more extensively on the pioneering creativity of Donatello, the magnificent patronage of the Medici family, and the staggering genius of Michelangelo. Modern scholarship, as a result, has largely followed this precedent. The exhibition and catalogue offer a comprehensive exploration of Bertoldo’s work, reconsidering the sculptor’s associations with Donatello, Lorenzo, and Michelangelo, which are central to his narrative. These relationships, however, are reframed, thereby allowing Bertoldo to be appreciated in his own right, his artistic identity no longer overshadowed but, rather, enhanced by his connections to three of the most important figures of the Renaissance.
OBJECTS CHART A CAREER OF COMMISSIONS ACROSS ITALY AND BEYOND
While many of the sculptor’s contemporaries, including Sandro Botticelli and Andrea del Verrocchio, were also frequently patronized by the Medici family, Bertoldo was Lorenzo’sfavorite. By the end of his life, Bertoldo was known as his patron’s “familiar” and traveled with him as part of his retinue—serving as an entertainer, confidant, and designer—and valued for much more than his sculptural output. Hewas granted a place in Lorenzo’s household, eventually dying in the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano before completingthe monumental frieze forits facade. Some of the bronzes on display in the exhibition were originally designed for the Medici palace, commissioned by Lorenzo himself, including the famous Battlerelief(illustrated on page 4). While Lorenzo was Bertoldo’s most illustrious patron, the sculptor received commissions from other leading figures. The Hercules on Horseback statuette for example, was probably cast for Ercole Id’Este, Duke of Ferrara, perhaps in celebration of his marriage to the princess of Naples. The objects included in the exhibition chart Bertoldo’s commissions from Rome to Padua, and even as far afield as Constantinople, revealing his significant network of patrons.
CREATIVE PROCESS REVEALED BY DESIGN ACROSS MANY MEDIA
Bertoldo’s artistic production in wood, metal, and terracotta is reconsidered, exploring the innovation of the sculptor’s work across media revealing both his versatility as well as his ability to create a unified style, mediated through diverse scale, media, and hands. The objects shed light on his creative process—the development of a sculpture from idea to design to production—which has puzzled scholars for the past century. While certain stylistic elements unify his artistic output, the various materials used necessitated different approaches for their fabrication. It is clear, through documents and inscriptions as well as technical analysis conducted for the exhibition, that Bertoldo—not known to have had a workshop of his own—enlisted other artists to help transform his models into artworks. By bringing these sculptures together, the exhibition elucidates hisrole as a designer, modeler, and collaborator.
The majority of Bertoldo’s sculptural production falls into three categories: statuettes, reliefs, and medals. In many media, Bertoldo demonstrated his witty, lyrical style that combined iconographic innovation with the use of motifs from ancient sources. The resulting visual language is both instantly recognizable as an invention by Bertoldo, yet layered with classical resonance.
The Shield Bearer, purchased in 1916 by Henry Clay Frick along with fifty Renaissance bronzes from the holdings of the late J.P. Morgan, is displayed publicly for the first time with its pendant from Vienna’s Liechtenstein: The Princely Collections. Reunited, the two Shield Bearers reveal Bertoldo’s combination ofimagery associated with the fantastical fauns of the Arcadian forest, the ancient hero Hercules, and the medieval fable of the monstrous “wild man.” The two statuettes present multivalent identities, corresponding neither to each other nor to any established iconography, thereby facing the viewer with an intriguing game of identification designed to beguile the learned Renaissance mind.
The Bellerophon Taming Pegasus displays Bertoldo's engagement with antique texts as he transformed the words of the ancient poet Pindar into his own version of the myth. Heralded by modern scholars as one of the most beautiful small bronzes ever produced, the sculpture is signed in Latin “Bertoldo modeled me; Adriano [Fiorentino] cast me.”The bronze is thus a prime example of Bertoldo's artistic collaboration in which he provided the design and model yet other hands physically cast his sculptures. The Bellerophon, when compared to the other five statuettes on view, serves as a cardinal point for examining Bertoldo’s deft detailing of the surfaces of his bronzes, illustrating a consistency of intricate marks that unite the appearance of such works.
The five bronze reliefs displayed in the exhibition include scenes from the life of Christ to mythological festivities. They range in size from diminutive and intimate to the grand, arresting vision of a melee presented in the Battle, Bertoldo’s largest bronze, which, according to modern scholars, is "the most important of [Bertoldo’s] surviving works."
The Battle is an imaginative reconstruction of a severely damaged ancient sarcophagus. He intentionally departed from the traditional depiction of Romans fighting Barbarians, which is clearly delineated on the sarcophagus, and instead fashioned a scene of organized chaos in which the figures attack one another in seemingly endless combinations, with no underlying logic or allegiances. The central figure, adorned with the lion skin and club of Hercules as well as the helmet of Hermes, presents an identity that is as conflated and unclear as the battle itself. Bertoldo conceived of the relief with an unfixed narrative, thereby encouraging discussion amongst the viewers who attempted to discern its subject.
Bertoldo is known to have designed six medals, the prime examples of which are included in the exhibition. All of the medals demonstrate the sculptor's adept ability to present the convincing likeness of the sitter on the obverse accompanied by an inventive allegorical scene or incredibly detailed historical event on the reverse, an impressive feat given the relative nascence of this medium.
The Pazzi Conspiracy medal, however, reveals Bertoldo's ability to revolutionize the art form derived from ancient currency. Unlike any other medal, this work collapses obverse and reverse, fusing portraiture, allegorical figures, and historical depictions together. The medal recounts the attempted coup led by the Pazzi family against the Medici brothers, Lorenzo and Giuliano, in 1478. Each side shows the bust of one brother hovering above his fate during the attack on holy ground in the Florentine cathedral, flanked by allegorical figures that underline the tragedy of Giuliano's murder and the celebration of Lorenzo's deliverance from harm. Commissioned by Lorenzo himself as part of a propagandistic campaign of interrelated artwork and literature, the innovative medal provided a visual component to the commentaries, poems, and elegies produced by the prominent writers in the Medici circle in response to the event. This double-portrait medal, intended to shock, was distributed across Europe to garner support for Florence, which was embroiled in war with the Pope, Rome, and Naples as a result of the assassination.
The largest sculpture Bertoldo designed was the terracotta frieze for the portico of the Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano. Spanning over fifteen meters long and located directly above the main entrance, the frieze originally adorned the facade of Lorenzo's country villa. The monumental frieze is presented in its entirety in the exhibition, marking the first time that all five sections have traveled beyond Tuscany. The narrative divisions align with the architecture of the villa itself, designed by Giuliano da Sangallo, although the precise interpretation of the imagery continues to elude scholars. It is generally assumed that the composition is either an allegory of time or an allegory of the journey of the soul, based on ancient texts. It is almost certain that this complex iconography drawn from antique sources was devised by a humanist in the Medici circle as a celebration of Lorenzo and his personal motto “Time Returns.” Bertoldo would have worked closely with both his patron and the poet who provided the underlying structure of each scene. He also collaborated closely with numerous artisans to produce the frieze itself; while the design of the overall composition ascribes to Bertoldo’s style, the varying execution of the figures indicates that multiple hands were employed to mold, fire, and glaze the terracotta.
Through the reunion and reconsideration of Bertoldo’s oeuvre, this exhibition seeks to redefine the sculptor by celebrating his distinct style and notable achievements, allowing him to step out of the shadow of Donatello, Lorenzo, and Michelangelo. Bertoldo is presented as an active and influential participant at the nexus of art and politics in Florence. He was a pioneer in the new mediums of bronze statuettes and portrait medals, an innovative designer who found inspiration in classical models yet created his own unique iconography, and a collaborative partner who worked for, with, and instructed some of the most important sculptors of both the Early and High Renaissance. The statuettes, reliefs, medals, statue, and frieze on display reveal Bertoldo's striking ingenuity; it is clear why Lorenzo selected the sculptor as his favorite and why his designs were celebrated as “immortal.”
ABOUT THE PUBLICATION
A fully illustratedcatalogue of the exhibition featuring contributions from a team of international scholars, will accompany the exhibition and is available in the museum shop. This book, published in association with D Giles Ltd, London, is by far the most substantial text on Bertoldo ever produced. 300 color illustrations.
Bertoldo di Giovanni Shield Bearer, ca. 1470–80Gilt bronze H 8 7/8 inches The Frick Collection, New York Photo: Michael Bodycomb
Bertoldodi Giovanni Hercules on Horseback, ca. 1470–75BronzeH 10 3/4 inches Galleria Estense, ModenaSu concessione del Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali -Archivio fotografico delle Galleria Estense;photo:Carlo Vannini
Bertoldo di Giovanni and collaborators Frieze for the Portico of the Medici Villa at Poggio a Caiano (detail), ca. 1490 Glazed terracotta22 7/8 x 571 1/4 inches Villa Medicea di Poggio a Caiano, Polo Museale della ToscanaGabinetto Fotografico delle Gallerie degli Uffizi
Bertoldo di GiovanniOrpheus(detail),ca. 1471BronzeH 17 1/8 inchesMuseo Nazionale del Bargello, FlorenceSu concessione del Ministero per i beni e le attività culturali; photo Mauro Magliani
11 S e p t e m b e r 2 0 19 – 2 F e b r u a r y 2 0 2 0
This autumn, Tate Britain will present the largest survey of work by William Blake (1757-1827) in the UK for a generation. A visionary painter, printmaker and poet, Blake created some of the most iconic images in the history of British art and has remained an inspiration to artists, musicians, writers and performers worldwide for over two centuries. This ambitious exhibition will bring together over 300 remarkable and rarely seen works and rediscover Blake as a visual artist for the 21st century. Tate Britain will reimagine the artist’s work as he intended it to be experienced. Blake’s art was a product of his tumultuous times, with revolution, war and progressive politics acting as the crucible of his unique imagination, yet he struggled to be understood and appreciated during his life.
Now renowned as a poet, Blake also had grand ambitions as a visual artist and envisioned vast frescos that were never realised. For the first time,
The Spiritual Form of Nelson Guiding Leviathan c.1805-9
and The Spiritual Form of Pitt Guiding Behemoth c.1805 will be digitally enlarged and projected onto the gallery wall on the huge scale that Blake imagined. The original artworks will be displayed nearby in a restaging of Blake’s ill-fated exhibition of 1809, the artist’s only significant attempt to create a public reputation for himself as a painter. Tate will recreate the domestic room above his family hosiery shop in which the show was held, allowing visitors to encounter the paintings exactly as people did in 1809.
The exhibition will provide a vivid biographical framework in which to consider Blake’s life and work. There will be a focus on London, the city in which he was born and lived for most of his life. The burgeoning metropolis was a constant inspiration for the artist, offering an environment in which harsh realities and pure imagination were woven together. His creative freedom was also dependent on the unwavering support of those closest to him, his friends, family and patrons. Tate will highlight the vital presence of his wife Catherine who offered both practical assistance and became an unacknowledged hand in the production of his engravings and illuminated books. The exhibition will showcase a series of illustrations to
and a copy of the book The complaint, and the consolation Night Thoughts 1797, now thought to be coloured by Catherine. Blake was a staunch defender of the fundamental role of art in society and the importance of artistic freedom. Shaped by his personal struggles in a period of political terror and oppression, his technical innovation, and his political commitment, these beliefs have inspired the generations that followed and remain pertinent today.
William Blake (1757-1827)
'Europe' Plate i: Frontispiece, 'The Ancient of Days'
1827
Etching with ink and watercolour on paper
232 x 120mm
The Whitworth, The University of Manchester
William Blake (1757-1827)
Catherine Blake
1805
Graphite on paper
286 x 221 mm
Tate. Bequeathed by Miss Alice G.E. Carthew 194
William Blake (1757-1827)
Albion Rose
c. 1793
Colour engraving
250 x 211 mm
Courtesy of the Huntington Art Collections
William Blake (1757-1827)
Capaneus the Blasphemer
1824-1827
Pen and ink and watercolour over pencil and black
chalk, with sponging and scratching out
374 x 527 mm
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
William Blake (1757-1827)
The Ghost of a Flea
c.1819
Graphite on paper
200 x 153 mm
Private Collection
William Blake (1757-1827)
Jerusalem, plate 28, proof impression, top design
only
1820
Relief etching with pen and black ink and
watercolour on medium, smooth wove paper
111 x 159 mm
Yale Center for British Art (New Haven, USA)
William Blake, Newton, 1795–c.1805, color print, ink and watercolour on paper, Tate
William Blake (1757-1827)
Pity
c.1795
Colour print, ink and watercolour on paper
425 x 539 m
Tate
Tate Britain’s exhibition will open with Albion Rose c.1793, an exuberant visualisation of the mythical founding of Britain, created in contrast to the commercialisation, austerity and crass populism of the times. A section of the exhibition will also be dedicated to his illuminated books such as Songs of Innocence and of Experience 1794, his central achievement as a radical poet. Additional highlights will include a selection of works from the Royal Collection and some of his best-known paintings including Newton 1795-c.1805 and Ghost of a Flea c.1819-20. This intricate work was inspired by a séance- induced vision and will be shown alongside a rarely seen preliminary sketch. The exhibition will close with The Ancient of Days 1827, a frontispiece for an edition of Europe: A Prophecy , completed only days before the artist’s death.
William Blake will be curated by Martin Myrone, Lead Curator pre-1800 British Art, and Amy Concannon Assistant Curator, British Art 1790-1850. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue from Tate Publishing.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC September 29, 2019 through January 26, 2020
In a major new exhibition opening this fall, the National Gallery of Art will examine the beauty and depth of pastel, tracing its rich history from the Renaissance to the present day. The Touch of Color: Pastels at the National Gallery of Art will feature some 70 exquisite examples drawn entirely from the Gallery’s permanent collection, including many works never before exhibited. The Touch of Color opens on September 29, 2019, and continues through January 26, 2020.
“The Touch of Color is a chance for our visitors to experience the marvelous qualities of pastel in the hands of great artists,” said Kaywin Feldman, director, National Gallery of Art. “The Gallery’s pastel collection is remarkably deep, with nearly every major period in the medium’s long, full history represented. The strength of the collection gives us a rare opportunity to present an exhibition of this scope and significance.”
Exhibition Organization The exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
About the Exhibition The Touch of Color: Pastels at the National Gallery of Art examines how artists through the centuries adopted different techniques and approaches to pastel, experimenting with this colorful and versatile medium to achieve exciting, often unexpected effects. With a single stroke of a pastel stick, the artist applies both color and line. The line can be left intact or smudged to create passages of velvety tone. Finished works range from the richly illusionist pastel “paintings” of the 18th century to the diaphanous sketches and colorful abstractions of the 19th and 20th centuries. The origins of pastel date to the Renaissance and are linked with colored chalk, a naturally occurring substance mined in a limited range of colors. Pastel is formed using powdered pigment and a binding medium. The exhibition opens with a section on this early period, including preparatory sketches by Federico Barocci and Jacopo Bassano who used pastel and colored chalk to plan the distribution of light and color in their studies for oil paintings.
Artists found pastel ideal for depicting the soft textures of human skin and sumptuous fabric. Early 18th-century artists such as Rosalba Carriera used the medium almost entirely for highly finished portraits. Carriera’s studio in Venice became a tourist attraction as aristocrats on the Grand Tour visited to commission portraits or admire the examples on view. Two of her works—Allegory of Painting (1730s) and Sir John Reade, Bart. (1739) are featured in the exhibition.
By the mid-18th century, French pastelists had reached unprecedented levels of technical brilliance. Foremost among them was Maurice-Quentin de La Tour, whose portrayal of his teacher, Claude Dupouche (c. 1739), exemplifies his dazzling skill. La Tour was renowned for his ability to mimic textures ranging from the glint of metal to the glow of satin and for the immediacy of his portraits, which appear to capture his sitters in mid-conversation. Several French women, including Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, followed Rosalba’s example and became successful pastelists.
The craze for pastels spread to Britain where it was fueled by travelers as they arrived home from the Grand Tour with portraits by Rosalba or Hugh Douglas Hamilton, who is represented here by the spectacular full-length Frederick North, Later Fifth Earl of Guilford (1780s). Artists such as John Russell later marketed smaller and more intimate pastels to middle-class patrons. Pastel was perfect for portraits: as a dry medium, it was faster, cleaner, and more portable than oil paint; fewer sittings were required and artist could easily travel to patron. Finished works, their entire surfaces coated with velvety pastel, were considered paintings rather than drawings. Although nearly all pastels from this period are portraits, this section includes a pair of rare still lifes by Antoine Berjon, acquired by the Gallery earlier this year.
Pastel fell out of favor early in the 19th century. When artists returned to it later in the century, they broke with traditional approaches. Among the most influential figures was Jean-François Millet, represented in the exhibition by two drawings from the 1860s. The muted colors and expressive hatching of his pastoral scenes represented a radical departure from the meticulous “paintings” of the previous century. Millet’s work helped to inspire an international pastel revival. Pastel’s immediacy appealed to plein-air artists as well as to the impressionists.
Claude Monet’s Waterloo Bridge (1901) is one of a series made to study the effects of winter fog on the Thames.
Edouard Manet
Madame Michel-Lévy
, 1882
pastel on canvas
overall: 74.2 x 51 cm (29 3/16 x 20 1/16 in.)
framed: 98.4 x 74.3 cm (38 3/4 x 29 1/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale Collection
Edouard Manet used pastel mainly for portraits, such as Madame Michel-Lévy (1882). The Gallery is particularly rich in the works of Edgar Degas, one of the most creative pastelists. Degas experimented with a wide range of wet and dry techniques and sometimes combined pastels with printmaking, as in Café Concert (1876/1877). Among his other works included here is the breathtaking Young Woman Dressing Herself (1885). Mary Cassatt, Camille Pissarro, and Paul Gauguin are all represented in this section of the exhibition.
The dual role of pastel as a medium for both painting and drawing inspired new enthusiasm in the works of American artists of the late 19th century. James McNeill Whistler’s ethereal colored sketches of Venice, such as The Palace; white and pink (1879/1880), show how pastel lends itself well to providing highlights of color to subjects sketched in simple lines of graphite or ink. William Merritt Chase and his followers, in contrast, embraced a more painterly approach.
William Merritt Chase Study of Flesh Color and Gold, 1888 pastel on paper coated with mauve-gray grit (on strainer) overall: 45.7 x 33 cm (18 x 13 in.) National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Raymond J. and Margaret Horowit
In Study of Flesh Color and Gold (1888), Chase took full advantage of the lush texture of pastel by blending it into passages of seamless tone.
By the 20th century pastel had broken free of the expectations of earlier centuries. Artists turned to its intense color and soft opacity in countless different ways. Some 20th-century artists experimented only briefly with pastel before turning to other media, and The Touch of Color includes rare pastels by Käthe Kollwitz, Henri Matisse, and Roy Lichtenstein. Jasper Johns sometimes uses pastel to explore the themes of earlier paintings, as in Untitled (from Untitled 1972) (1975/1976). Finally, in the latest work in the exhibition, Breach (2009), G. Daniel Massad uses this fragile medium to depict crumbling autumn leaves and to evoke his recurring theme of the passage of time.
Exhibition Curators The exhibition is curated by Stacey Sell, associate curator, department of old master drawings, National Gallery of Art, and Kimberly Schenck, head of paper conservation, National Gallery of Art.
Henri Matisse
Woman with Exotic Plant
, c. 1925
pastel on wove paper coated with sawdust
overall: 66.1 x 51.4 cm (26 x 20 1/4 in.)
framed: 90.1 x 76.2 x 8.2 cm (35 1/2 x 30 x 3 1/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Chester Dale Collection
Object ID: 5197-013
Jacopo Bassano
The Mocking of Christ, 1568
colored chalks on blue laid paper
overall: 41.3 x 52.5 cm (16 1/4 x 20 11/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Fund
Everett Shinn
Over the Audience, 1934–1940
pastel on blue laid paper
overall: 28.5 x 37.5 cm (11 1/4 x 14 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Bequest of Julia B. Engel
Object ID: 5197-021
Everett Shinn
Fifth Avenue Bus, 23rd Street and Broadway, 1914
pastel and charcoal on paperboard
overall: 48 x 65 cm (18 7/8 x 25 9/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Bequest of Julia B. Engel
Object ID: 5197-022
Mary Cassatt
The Black Hat, c. 1890
pastel on tan wove paper
overall: 61 x 45.5 cm (24 x 17 15/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
Camille Pissarro
A Peasant Girl in a Straw Hat
, c. 1892
pastel over black chalk on laid paper
overall: 60.4 x 34.8 cm (23 3/4 x 13 11/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Evelyn Stefansson Nef and Mr. and Mrs. James T. Dyke
Object ID: 5197-035
Odilon Redon
Saint George and the Dragon
, 1880s and c. 1892
charcoal and pastel on tan wove paper
overall: 53.7 x 37.5 cm (21 1/8 x 14 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of GTE and the New Century Fund
Object ID: 5197-037
Jean-Baptiste Greuze
The Well-Loved Mother
, 1765
pastel with colored chalks and stumping on light golden-brown laid paper
overall: 44 x 32.2 cm (17 5/16 x 12 11/16 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, New Century Fund
Object ID: 5197-039
John Singleton Copley
John Temple
, 1765
pastel on tan laid paper mounted on canvas (on strainer)
overall: 59.7 x 40 cm (23 1/2 x 15 3/4 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Patrons' Permanent Fund
George Luks
Breadline, 1900
pastel on paperboard
board (sight): 48.26 x 73.66 cm (19 x 29 in.)
National Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran Collection (Estate of Susie Brummer)
This volume features fifty works by Laserstein that show her artistic development during the 1920s and 1930s. She was known for spurning the usual depiction of women and instead portrayed the "New Woman" who embraced fashion and personal freedom. Unfortunately, her career came to an abrupt halt in 1937 when she was forced to flee Nazi Germany for Sweden. She continued to paint in exile, but her work never regained the same intensity or sensitivity as her Berlin portraits and she fell out of the public eye. Laserstein's pieces have recently been rediscovered and this volume aims to bring this long-forgotten artist's works, from the key period in her career, back into the spotlight. 
