Peggy Guggenheim. The Last Dogaressa

November 5, 2019, 1:43 pm

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21 September 2019 – 27 January 2020

Peggy Guggenheim Collection 

“It is always assumed that Venice is the ideal place for a honeymoon. This is a grave error. To live in Venice or even to visit it means that you fall in love with the city itself. There is nothing left over in your heart for anyone else.” Peggy Guggenheim, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict Peggy Guggenheim. 

The Last Dogaressa, curated by Karole P . B . Vail , Director of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection , with Gražina Subelytė, Assistant Curator, will be on view at the museum from 21 September 2019 to 27 January 2020. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection thus celebrates the Venetian life of its founder, highlighting the events and the exhibitions that marked the thirty years she spent in Venice, from 1948 to 1979, which proved to be authentic milestones in the history of 20th century art. 

The exhibition focuses on Guggenheim’s collecting after 1948, once she closed her museum/gallery Art of This Century (1942 - 47), left New York, and moved to Venice. More than sixty works by famous and lesser - known artists will be exhibited, including paintings, sculptures, and works on paper selected from those Guggenheim acquired from the late 1940s through 1979, when she passed away. 

 
René Magritte L’impero della luce (L’Empire des lumières) / Empire of Light, 1953–54Olio su tela/ Oil on canvas 195.4 x 131.2 cm Collezione Peggy Guggenheim, Venezia © René MagriOe, by SIAE 2019

Jackson Pollock Alchimia / Alchemy, 1947Olio, piOura d'alluminio, smalto alchidico con sabbia, sassolini, fila9 e bastoncini spezza9 di legno su tela Oil, aluminum, alkyd enamel paint with sand, pebbles, fibers and broken wooden s9cks on canvas 114,6 x 221,3 cm Collezione Peggy Guggenheim, Venezia© Jackson Pollock, by SIAE 2019

Francis Bacon Studio per scimpanzé / Study for Chimpanzee, Marzo / March 1957 Olio e pastello su tela / Oil and pastel on canvas 152,4 x 117 cm Collezione Peggy Guggenheim, Venezia © The Estate of Francis Bacon, by SIAE 2019

The exhibition will offer the rare opportunity to revisit and re - contextualize famous masterpieces such as Empire of L ight ( L’Empire des lumières ) by René Magritte, and Study for Chimpanzee by Francis Bacon , as well as less exhibited works such as René Brô’s Autumn at Courgeron ( L'Automne à Courgeron ) , Gwyther Irwin’s Serendipity 2, Kenzo Okada’s Above the White , and Tomonori Toyofuku’s Drifting No. 2, thus demonstrating Guggenheim’s interest in the art scene beyond Europe or the United States. In addition, a selection of Guggenheim’s scrapbooks will be on display to the public for the first time. These are fascinating albums in which she meticulously collected newspaper articles, photographs, and ephemera covering the various period s of her life revealing new exciting episodes. Simultaneously, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni will display works Guggenheim purchased between 1938, when she opened her first gallery in London, Guggenheim Jeune, and 1947, when she moved to Venice. 

The opportunity to see her collection almost in its entirety, including masterpieces such as the first Box in a Valise (Boîte - en - Valise ), created by Marcel Duchamp especially for Guggenheim in 1941, is not to be missed. The work contains sixty - nine miniature reproductions of famous works by the multifaceted and irreverent French - American artist. It is rarely on view to the public due to its fragility, and it will now be possible to admire it as it has returned to Venice after an important study and conservation campaign. This has been carried out by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure and its conservation laboratories in Florence, and supported by EFG, Institutional Patron of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. 

In 194 8, Guggenheim was invited to exhibit her collection at the 24 th Venice Biennale: it was the first presentation of her collection in Europe after the closure of Art of This Century. Peggy Guggenheim. The Last Dogaressa opens with a tribute to this seminal event: the works of art exhibited in the Greek pavilion were at the time the most contemporary exhibited at the Biennale, most notably those by the young American Abstract Expressionists, which created a sensation . In addition, the exhibition marked Jackson Pollock’s debut in Europe and the first presentation of a new generation of artists who, in the following years, would dominate the international art scene. 

The same works by Arshile Gorky, Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, and Clyfford Still exhibited in 1948 will open the present show. Two important works by Pollock will be on view, including Alchemy and Enchanted Forest , thus paying tribute to his first solo exhibition in Europe, which was organized by Guggenheim in 1950 in the Ala Napoleonica in Piazza San Marco, Venice. Works by Abstract Expressionists will be included side by side works by women abstract artists whom Guggenheim supported and collected, such as Grace Hartigan and Irene Rice Pereira. The work on view by Rice Pereira was included in the solo exhibition Guggenheim dedicated to the artist at Art of This Century in 1944. 

The exhibition continues with a reference to the first show Guggenheim organized at Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in September 1949 , marking this year its 70th anniversary : an exhibition of contemporary sculpture, with works such as Jean Arp’s Head and Shell (Tête et coquille) , the founding work of the collection, Constantin Brancusi’s Bird in Space (L'Oiseau dans l'Espace) , and Alberto Giacometti’s Piazza .

 In the late 1940s , a new phase in Guggenheim’s collecting commenced. This is represented in the exhibition by a series of works by Italian artists who were active at that time: Edmondo Bacci, Piero Dorazio, Tancredi Parmeggiani, and Emilio Vedova. Together with Giuseppe San tomaso, Vedova (his painting Image of Time [Barrier] ( Immagine del tempo [Sbarramento] ), will be on view) was among Guggenheim’s first acquaintances upon her arrival to Venice. Subsequently, in 1951 , the American painter William Congdon introduced Guggenhe im to Tancredi (his Composition ( Composizione ), will be on display). Tancredi was the only artist, other than Pollock, to be put under contract by Guggenheim, who promoted and organized exhibitions of his work, including a solo show in her Venetian residence, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, in 1954. Guggenheim also promoted Bacci in her early years in Venice. She wrote a short but enthusiastic preface in the catalogue of the Venice Biennale whe re he was given a solo gallery in 1958. Bacci’s Event #247 ( Avvenimento #247 ) will be on view. 

During the 1950s, Guggenheim became interested in the art of the CoBrA group, which included artists from Copenhagen, Brussels, and Amsterdam (the acronym derive s from the name of these cities), and contemporary British art. These important interests are represented with works by Pierre Alechinsky, Karel Appel, and Asger Jorn , and British artists Kenneth Armitage, Francis Bacon, Alan Davie, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, and Graham Sutherland. 

In particular, Guggenheim greatly admired and supported Davie’s work, whose Peggy’s Guessing Box will be on view. The collector met him at an exhibition at the Sandri Gallery in Venice in December 1948 : “When I was walking through the Campo Manin, I noticed a very exciting painting in the window of a little art gallery. My first reaction was to take it for a Pollock. I went in and met the ar tist... Though his work was not bought by anyone except me for years, he is one of the best British painters.” (Peggy Guggenheim, Out of This Century: Confessions of an Art Addict , New York: Universe Books, 1979 ). The exhibition also includes highlights o f works of Op and Kinetic art, which piqued Guggenheim ’s interest in the 1960s, by Marina Apollonio, Alberto Biasi, Martha Boto, Franco Costalonga (who recently passed away), Heinz Mack, Manfredo Massironi, and Victor Vasarely. Op artists made use of geometric forms and structures, industrial materials to create optical effects and perceptive illusions; they also exploited the transparent and reflective properties of materials such as aluminium, plastic, and glass. Their objects had a deliberate de - personalized look, in contrast to the emotional visual idiom of Abstract Expressionism. Peggy Guggenheim. 

The Last Dogaressa is accompanied by a new, long - awaited collection publication on the life of Peggy Guggenheimas a collector , patron of arts and gallerist , from the London debut of the Guggenheim Jeune gallery, to the New York years of Art of This Century and her support of Jackson Pollock, to her arrival in Venice, her participation in the 1948 Venice Biennale, and her life at Palazzo Venier dei Leoni. Interviews with Apollonio, Biasi, and Costalonga are not be missed, as well as an essay on Guggenheim’s collecting of works of art from Africa and Oceania. 

( This part of the collection will be investigated further in the upcoming exhibition Migrating Objects , on view as of February 15, 2020.) 

The volume is edited by Karole P. B. Vail, with Vivien Greene, Senior Curator, 19th - and Early 20th - Century Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York , and it present s new research and fresh perspectives by established and emerging scholars Patricia Allmer, David Anfam, Malvina Borgherini, Davide Colombo, Alice Ensabella, Chiara Fabi, Simonetta Fraquelli, Flavia Frigeri, Karen Kurczynski, Ellen McBreen, Antonia Pocock, Chris Stephens, and Grazina Subelyte. The volume is co - published by the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Marsilio Editori.

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Renewing the American Spirit: The Art of the Great Depression

November 5, 2019, 2:19 pm

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Renewing the American Spirit: The Art of the Great Depression explores the physical and social landscape of the United States during the Great Depression through paintings, prints, photographs, and other media. The original exhibition includes a selection of works from the Museum’s excellent collection of WPA art, a recently acquired monumental mural by Gardner Hale, which has not been exhibited publicly since the First President’s bicentennial exhibition in 1932, and several loans from regional institutions.
The exhibition examines the diverse responses of artists to the social upheaval and economic distress that characterized American life in the 1930s. Together, the aesthetically and politically varied works produced in the 1930s paint a revealing portrait of the nation’s evolving psyche as it sought to move ahead through one of the country’s most challenging periods.

This fall, “Renewing the American Spirit: The Art of the Great Depression” explores the physical and social landscape of the United States during the Great Depression through paintings, prints, photographs and other media. This original exhibition includes a selection of works from the Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s excellent collection of WPA art, a recently acquired monumental mural by Gardner Hale, which has not been exhibited publicly since the First President's bicentennial exhibition in 1932, and several loans from regional institutions.
“Renewing the American Spirit” examines the diverse responses of artists to the social upheaval and economic distress that characterized American life in the 1930s. Together, the aesthetically and politically varied works produced in the 1930s paint a revealing portrait of the nation’s evolving psyche as it sought to move ahead through one of the country’s most challenging periods.
“The art of this time period provided artists with relief, documented the social injustices of the time and even functioned as forms of propaganda,” said Michael Anderson, director of curatorial affairs. “‘Renewing the American Spirit’ examines the formation of a new national identity, one that would prove short-lived aesthetically with the rise of the American avant-garde after the end of World War II, but far reaching politically through the creation of the New Deal coalition.”
‘“The Triumph of Washington,’ Gardner Hale’s monumental mural, adds to the Museum’s impressive holdings in Great Depression-era art,” added Anderson. “The painting presents a dynamic and triumphant fictionalized view of the general and head of state, on horseback, amidst flag-bearing soldiers, and in front of a looming twentieth century skyline. We are deeply grateful to D. Wigmore Fine Art for the gift of this major work and excited to include it as a focal point for this new exhibition.”
Gardner Hale was well known for his murals and frescoes in the early 1900s. He had a studio in NYC and was a member of the Architectural League of New York, National Society of Mural Painters, American Federation of Arts, Salons of America and Society of Independent Artists. His work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, Society of Independent Artists and Salons of America.

In addition to the Museum's renowned collection of WPA art and “The Triumph of Washington” by Gardner Hale, the exhibition features key examples of Depression-era Native American art, highlighted by the work of Acee Blue Eagle, and paintings and works on paper by Hans Hofmann, John Steuart Curry, Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton and Milton Avery.


Gifted in 2017 by New York-based gallerist Deedee Wigmore of D. Wigmore Fine Art, Gardner Hale's epic canvas  
 


Triumph of Washington gets a conservation grant just prior to its first public showing since the 1930s. It is now set to star in the Oklahoma City Museum of Art's new exhibition Renewing the American Spirit: The Art of the Great Depression, opening November 2.
Measuring about 14 feet high and 24 feet wide, the 1931 painting was one of the last works by Gardner Hale. The artist died in December 1931 at the age of 37 when his car plunged 500 feet off a cliff near Santa Maria, California.

Hale's massive Washington mural was displayed at the Smithsonian in 1932, and then a previous owner had it rolled up. Eight decades later, the piece will be renewed and on view.
This month, the Oklahoma City Museum of Art was selected as a 2019 Bank of America Art Conservation Project grant recipient to conserve Hale's Triumph of Washington. The grant funding will help preserve the monumental mural for future generations.
This large-scale painting—measuring 165” x 293”—has not been exhibited publicly since George Washington’s Bicentennial exhibition in 1932. Upon unrolling, abrasions and losses to the paint surface, stains, tears to the canvas, and water damage were discovered that require treatment before it can be publicly displayed in the upcoming exhibition Renewing the American Spirit: The Art of the Great Depression.

“The Museum’s holdings in the area of American art of the Great Depression remains one of the strengths of its collection, beginning with twenty-eight works created as part of the W.P.A.’s relief efforts during the second half of the 1930s,” said Dr. Michael Anderson, Interim President and C.E.O. “Completed during the early stages of the Great Depression, Hale’s Triumph of Washington features General Washington on horseback, leading his troops before a modern cityscape. Thanks to Bank of America, the conservation of this work will further a preexisting area of strength in the Museum’s collection—providing new avenues for interpretation of both Washington’s legacy and the role of the arts in the Great Depression.”

On view through April 26, 2020, the exhibition examines the diverse responses of artists to the social upheaval and economic distress that characterized American life in the 1930s. Together, the aesthetically and politically varied works produced in the 1930s paint a revealing portrait of the nation’s evolving psyche as it sought to move ahead through one of the country’s most challenging periods.
The conservation of Triumph of Washington by Gardner Hale is one of 22 Art Conservation Projects announced at this year’s recipient announcement event hosted by Bank of America on October 16 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Recipients in 10 countries and 11 U.S. cities are receiving grant funding through the 2019 Bank of America Art Conservation Project.

Triumph of Washington by Gardner Hale is in select company as a 2019 recipient. The selection of works being recognized as 2019 ACP recipients includes The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh and The Bather by Paul Cezanne – The Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Edith Halpert and the Rise of American Art

November 6, 2019, 4:50 am

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The Jewish Museum, New York
(October 18, 2019–February 9, 2020)

New York's Jewish Museum now presents Edith Halpert and the Rise of American Art, the first exhibition to explore the remarkable career of Edith Gregor Halpert (1900-1970), the influential American art dealer and founder of the Downtown Gallery in New York City. A pioneer in the field and one of New York’s first female art dealers, Halpert propelled American art to the fore at a time when the European avant-garde still enthralled the world. The artists she supported — Stuart Davis, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O'Keeffe, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Ben Shahn, and Charles Sheeler key among them — became icons of American modernism. Halpert also brought vital attention to overlooked nineteenth-century American artists, such as William Michael Harnett, Edward Hicks, and Raphaelle Peale, as well as little-known and anonymous folk artists. With her revolutionary program at the Downtown Gallery, her endless energy, and her extraordinary business acumen, Halpert inspired generations of Americans to value the art of their own country, in their own time.

The exhibition, on view through February 9, 2020, features 100 works of American modern and folk art, including paintings, sculptures, and prints by artists such as Davis, Lawrence, O’Keeffe, Kuniyoshi, Shahn, and Sheeler, as well as Arthur Dove, Elie Nadelman, Max Weber, and Marguerite and William Zorach, among others, and prime examples of American folk art portraits, weathervanes, and trade signs. Along with major artworks that were exhibited at and sold through the Downtown Gallery, highlights from Halpert’s acclaimed personal collection of both modern and folk art, reassembled for the first time since its landmark sale in 1973, are on view.

Born to a Jewish family in Odessa, Russia (now Ukraine), Halpert opened the Downtown Gallery in 1926, at the age of 26, at 113 West 13th Street, the first commercial art space in bohemian Greenwich Village. She deliberately promoted a diverse group of living American artists, fundamentally shifting the public's opinion of whose voices mattered in the art world. Though an outsider in many respects — as a woman, an immigrant, and a Jew — Halpert was, for over 40 years, the country's most resolute champion of its creative potential and the defining authority of the American art landscape. Not only did her trailblazing career pave the way for the next generation of women leaders in the art world, Halpert's inclusive vision continues to inform our understanding of American art today as being pluralistic, generous in its parameters, and infused with idealism.

The Downtown Gallery quickly attracted important clients. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, founder of The Museum of Modern Art, under Halpert’s tutelage became a key patron to many modern artists and later an enthusiastic collector of American folk art. Halpert became an influential advisor to other art patrons who, like Rockefeller, went on to build new museums or donate major collections of American art to public institutions across the country. Halpert’s circle of collectors included Duncan Phillips, founder of the Phillips Collection in Washington, DC; William H. Lane, the great benefactor of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Electra Havemeyer Webb, who established the Shelburne Museum in Vermont.

Although she enjoyed these relationships, Halpert never lost sight of her most important clients: everyday men and women who simply loved art and wanted to live with it. Halpert’s influence, her eye, and her passion for American art became a guiding force in the cultural development of America’s heartland. Her mission, as she saw it, was to bring art within reach of average Americans. Her innovative sales tactics, which included affordable pricing and the option to buy on an installment plan, helped make American art accessible to a new class of collector. American art, she believed, belonged to the American people.

Halpert’s socially progressive values were on full display at her gallery. In addition to regularly presenting work by women, immigrants, and Jewish artists, the Downtown Gallery was the first major mainstream art space in New York City to consistently promote the work of African American artists, including Jacob Lawrence and Horace Pippin. When the Japanese American painter Yasuo Kuniyoshi was classified as an enemy alien during World War II, she mounted a defiant exhibition of his paintings in 1942. Later, as McCarthyism swept the nation, Halpert publicly defended her artists, proclaiming, “Works of art are not a dispensable luxury for any nation. We will have communism in art if Congress can control what we paint, and free and individual expression is stifled.” Her insistence that we support free expression and diversity of opinion, and that these are the defining features of American art and culture, has never been more timely or more relevant.

Almost as stunning as the achievement of her influential 40-year career is the speed with which her contributions have been forgotten. Her name is scarcely recognized today, even among art scholars. That she was a woman may have something to do with this historical erasure; throughout her life she was underestimated by her peers. The way she wielded influence was also a factor. Halpert’s accomplishments were often credited to others, particularly when she worked in tandem with important curators, collectors, and patrons.
Today, the continued strength of the American art market, nearly 100 years after Halpert first opened the Downtown Gallery, is a testament to her extraordinary vision and steadfast belief in the value of American art. But Halpert’s true legacy lies in the dozens of artists she discovered and sustained; in the many women art dealers and curators she inspired; and in the thousands of artworks that found their way through her into American public collections.

Edith Halpert and the Rise of American Art is organized by Rebecca Shaykin, Associate Curator, The Jewish Museum, New York. The exhibition is designed by Leslie Gill Architect (Leslie Gill, Ines Yupanqui). Exhibition graphic design is by pulp, ink. (Beverly Joel), and lighting is by Clint Ross Coller.

A free audio tour includes an introduction by Claudia Gould, Helen Goldsmith Menschel Director, The Jewish Museum; commentary by exhibition curator Rebecca Shaykin; and audio from a 1962-1963 Archives of American Art oral history interview of Edith Halpert. (Audio of wall labels are available online.)

Publication


In conjunction with the exhibition, the Jewish Museum and Yale University Press are publishing a 232-page, hardcover book, Edith Halpert, the Downtown Gallery, and the Rise of American Art, by Rebecca Shaykin with 271 color and black and white illustrations.

Young Rembrandt 1624-1634

November 8, 2019, 12:26 pm

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• Museum De Lakenhal, Oude Singel 32, Leiden, the Netherlands
  2 November 2019 – 9 February 2020
• Ashmolean Museum in Oxford
  27 February - 7 June 2020

From November 2019 to February 2020 Museum De Lakenhal will present the exhibition Young Rembrandt.1624-1634. This will be the first major exhibition exclusively devoted to the early work of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669). Young Rembrandt 1624-1634 will allow visitors to look over the young painter’s shoulder and see how his talent developed and flourished. Almost 400 years after their creation works produced in Leiden by the now internationally famous master will return to the city of his birth. The exhibition consists of approximately 40 paintings, 70 etchings and 10 drawings. Apart from work by Rembrandt there will also be work by, amongst others, Lievens, Lastman and Van Swanenburg. The exhibition has been organised in collaboration with the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, one of the leading museums in the United Kingdom.

Exceptional talent

The Young Rembrandt exhibition will reveal how Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn’s exceptional talent developed in the decade from 1624 to 1634. His work attests to an extraordinary gift, already manifest in the first ten years of his career as an artist. The rapid and spectacular blossoming of his talent in this period can be traced from painting to painting. Rembrandt was a full-blooded explorer and innovator who never opted for well-trodden paths but continually sought new perspectives and opportunities. During these early years Rembrandt laid the foundation for his later work - a foundation which would win him fame and contribute to the character of Dutch painting in the 17th century.

Special loans

Museum De Lakenhal will present a number of works loaned especially to the exhibition from the Netherlands and abroad. One of the special loans is  

 

 

Man in Oriental Costume ('The Noble Slav') (1632), from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York (USA).



 





Another highlight of the exhibition will be the Self-Portrait (ca. 1628) of a young Rembrandt from the collection of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam. The exhibition will also include the two Rembrandt paintings from Museum De Lakenhal’s own collection: Rembrandt’s earliest known work,

A Peddler Selling Spectacles (Allegory of sight) (ca. 1624),


 

1626, Rembrandt. Collection Museum De Lakenhal

and History Painting (1626).

Rembrandt, Interior with Figures, ca. 1627. National Gallery Ireland, Dublin.

Rembrandt, The Abduction of Europe, 1632. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

International collaboration

The Young Rembrandt exhibition is an international collaboration between the Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden and The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The exhibition will be curated by the former director of the Ashmolean Museum, Christopher Brown, an internationally recognized expert on Rembrandt's work; with curator Christiaan Vogelaar of Museum De Lakenhal; and curator An Van Camp of the Ashmolean Museum.

Rembrandt and The Golden Age theme year

2019 will be devoted to Rembrandt. Together with museum partners, Leiden Marketing, Amsterdam Marketing, The Hague Marketing and NBTC Holland Marketing, we shall be commemorating the 350th anniversary of the death of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn with the Rembrandt Year. Museum Het Rembrandthuis will kick off this year in Amsterdam and the Young Rembrandt exhibition in Museum De Lakenhal will form the spectacular conclusion. In addition to this exhibition, special presentations will be held throughout the year, in venues that include the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, Museum Het Rembrandthuis in Amsterdam and the Mauritshuis in The Hague.

Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 12 November

November 8, 2019, 1:54 pm

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Sotheby’s unveiled highlights from their Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art on 12 November in New York. Distinguished by a diverse range of works on offer from private collections and with exceptional provenance exhibited throughout, the 53 lots on offer are on public view in Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries. 



 

Paul Signac, La Corne d'Or (Constantinople), 1907 (detail). Estimate $14/18 million. Courtesy Sotheby's.

Likely the greatest post-1900 work by Paul Signac ever to come on the market, La Corne d'Or (Constantinople) from 1907 is the largest and most striking canvas that the artist painted during his first visit to Istanbul in the spring of that year (estimate $14/18 million). Depicting a lush, textural surface comprised of rectangular brushstrokes, the present work captures the grandeur, history and unique quality of light and color that filled the ancient city.

This historic meeting place of East and West had captivated Signac’s imagination for some time before he finally discovered it for himself while sailing between Naples and Greece. The location inspired twelve paintings, all of which take as their subject the historically significant Golden Horn — a flooded estuary of the Bosphorus near the port of Istanbul. When he painted the current work in 1907, Signac was further developing his artistic style beyond the strict tenets of Divisionism that he had adopted from Georges Seurat in the 1880s. He liberated his color palette, daring to blend the pure pigments seen in earlier works, and broadened his approach while retaining the main characteristics of the style through his pointed application of brushstrokes. This mature style was characterized by a subtle exploration of the nuances of light combined with a chromatic richness that is a key quality of this dazzling canvas.

Gustave Caillebotte, Richard Gallo et son chien Dick, au Petit Gennevilliers. Estimate $14/18 million. Courtesy Sotheby's.

Gustave Caillebotte’s Richard Gallo et son chien Dick, au Petit Gennevilliers leads an ensemble of ten works entitled Property of a Gentleman. Gifted by the artist to Gallo, the present work from 1884 is Caillebotte’s final and most impressive portrait of his dear friend and most frequently painted figural subject, Richard Gallo (estimate $14/18 million).

Appearing in Caillebotte’s work in four large-scale paintings from as early as 1878, Gallo was the Egyptian-born son of a French banker who settled in Paris in 1869 and befriended the artist at school. Gallo would go on to become the editor of the newspaper Le Constitutionnel and maintain his friendship with Caillebotte and his brother Martial for years to follow. While little more is known about Gallo, the frequency with which he is portrayed in Caillebotte’s oeuvre stands as a testament to the pair’s lasting friendship. Richard Gallo et son chien Dick, au Petit Gennevilliers remained in Gallo’s collection until his death, at which time his nephew Maurice Rolland inherited the work. This resplendent and touching portrayal was on extended loan to the National Gallery in London in the early 1990s, as well as on loan to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from 2000-02, and has appeared in numerous international exhibitions since its creation. 

The work also presents one of the finest syntheses of Impressionist techniques and portraiture, capturing the revolutionary artistic spirit of the Impressionists. A seamless blend of the traditional academic genre of landscape and portraiture, the painting embodies the Impressionist exaltation of light, leisure and the fleeting moment, while recalling the Parisian cityscapes of Caillebotte’s earlier career. 


 
The November Evening Sale is led by Claude Monet’s Charing Cross Bridge from 1903 (estimate $20/30 million). Painted during a series of three trips to London from 1899-1901, the canvas is a luminous example from the French painter’s seminal London series and one of the finest pictures from this prolific group ever to appear to auction.

Throughout these works, Monet captured the juxtaposition of the beauty of natural phenomena, such as fog rolling over the Thames, with the industrial development booming in London at the time, epitomized by smoke stacks and steam powered railways. Composed from the vantage point of his room at the Savoy Hotel, Monet found the view particularly advantageous in observing the London landscape and onset of the city’s fog. The mutability of the fog, he discovered, proved to be an apt vehicle for capturing scenes of the same subject matter repeatedly, but with differences in color, touch and lighting.

Having remained in the same family for more than 40 years, the painting leads a group of 16 works from the Klepetar-Fallek Colleciton, to be offered across Sotheby’s Evening and Day Sales of Impressionist & Modern Art this November. The collection was assembled primarily in the 1970s and 1980s by Andrea Klepetar-Fallek and her then-husband Fred Fallek. Ms. Klepetar-Fallek’s extraordinary life story is one of incomparable resilience, independence and optimism – including an escape from Nazi-occupied Vienna, liberation from an Italian concentration camp, and flight from Peronist Argentina.

Charing Cross Bridge comes to auction during a sensational time for Monet’s series pictures: Sotheby’s established a new auction record for the artist when 



Meules from 1890 sold for an astounding $110.7 million during our May Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art in New York. The stunning canvas from Monet’s famed Haystacks series also became both the first work of Impressionist art to exceed $100 million at auction and the 9th most expensive work ever sold at auction. In addition, Sotheby’s offering of Charing Cross Bridge coincides with an exhaustive exhibition of Monet’s paintings, Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature, now on view at the Denver Art Museum through February 2020. Separate release available

The November Sale will offer five works by Pablo Picasso that span 63 years of his prolific career. 

 
The selection is led by Nus from 1934 – a crowning achievement of motion, energy and manipulation of the human form that synthesizes the artist’s groundbreaking achievements of the late 1920s and early 1930 into one colorful, dynamic canvas (estimate $12/18 million).

Here, in the seclusion of his new country home of Boisgeloup, three nude figures leap, dance and intertwine in a semi-abstracted landscape, their biomorphic shapes imbued with fertility, sexuality and grace. The country house, the shape of the nudes, and their light, airy movements are all direct reflections of the developments in Picasso’s work since his first meeting with Marie-Thérèse Walter in 1927, while married to his first wife, Olga Khokhlova. The late 1920s and early 1930s were moments of rapid change in Picasso’s ever-evolving style. Firmly in mid-life, he reinvented himself once again, changing his daily life, his studio setting and his family. Nus is both a perfect example of this defining period and an outlier in the artist’s production. The figures are related to his lover Marie-Thérèse but are also embodiments of acrobats and myths – perhaps a nod to the artist’s fascination with circus performers. Nus captures Picasso at the height of his powers in the 1930s and creates a dazzling allegory of these tumultuous and productive years.

The present work was last offered at auction during Sotheby’s sale of the Evelyn Sharp Collection in November 1997, where it sold for $5.5 million. The painting appears at auction this November on the heels of the celebrated Tate Modern exhibition dedicated to Picasso’s annus mirabilis, The EY Exhibition: Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy, which was on view from March to September 2018.

A rare example from Picasso’s coveted Blue period, Portrait de Lola, soeur de l’artiste is a hauntingly elegant portrayal of the artist’s younger sister, Maria Dolores Ruiz “Lola” Picasso, who was also one of his most favored early subjects (estimate $4/6 million). 



Painted in Barcelona in 1901, Portrait de Lola, soeur de l’artiste comes from a period of great transition for the nineteen-year old Picasso and was likely exhibited in the historic and career-defining Vollard exhibition of that same year. The work also documents a time of crisis in the artist’s personal life. A few months prior to the exhibition, Picasso learned about the suicide of his closest friend Carles Casagemas while away in Madrid. Awash in grief but still obligated to create works for the upcoming exhibition, Picasso headed back to Paris, stopping in Barcelona for about ten days along the way. It is from this dolorous interim that Portrait de Lola, soeur de l’artiste emerges. The tragic loss of Casagemas at this time likely recalled an earlier watershed moment for the artist, the death of Picasso’s youngest sister Conchita in 1895. The successive losses provoked in Picasso a period of deep reflection and resulted in the empathetic and lugubrious works that would define the artist’s iconic Blue Period in the following years.

Portrait de Lola, soeur de l’artist can be traced to a number of prestigious collections. Olivier Sainsère, a prominent politician and patron of the arts, likely acquired the painting from Picasso soon after its creation. Many works owned by Sainsère now enrich the collections of some of the world’s greatest museums, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Louvre Museum and the Musée d’Orsay. Portrait de Lola, soeur de l’artiste later belonged to Mr. & Mrs. Paul Mellon, who are best remembered for their generous philanthropy and acclaimed art collection. 


Sotheby’s has announced that they will present Pablo Picasso’s Nature morte à la tête classique et au bouquet de fleurs as a highlight of their Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 12 November 2019 in New York. Having remained in the same family collection for more than 35 years, this lyrical work on paper from 1933 is among the finest of a small group of highly-worked watercolors and gouaches on this subject that the artist created while on holiday in Cannes with his wife Olga and his young son Paolo.

Held for decades in the collection of the famed Surrealist poet and patron Edward James, the present work eloquently speaks to James’ keen eye for the most ethereal and dreamlike compositions of the avant garde, and beautifully illustrates this tumultuous yet highly prolific period in Picasso’s oeuvre. Sotheby’s had the privilege of offering the present work in December 1982, when it sold for $179,135 during the London sale of Impressionist and Modern Drawings and Watercolours, on offer from the Edward James Foundation. 

Pablo Picasso, Nature morte à la tête classique et au bouquet de fleurs (detail). Estimate: $5/7 million. Courtesy Sotheby's.

Estimated to sell for $5/7 million in the November Evening Sale, Nature morte à la tête classique et au bouquet de fleurs comes to auction on the heels of the celebrated 2018 Tate Modern exhibition, Picasso 1932 – Love, Fame, Tragedy.

Julian Dawes, Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in New York, commented: “We are thrilled to present one of the most exquisite watercolors by Pablo Picasso ever to come on the market. This magnificent work represents the pinnacle of Picasso’s artistic powers: the color is remarkably vibrant and saturated; it exemplifies one of his most celebrated periods, in the 1930s during his entanglement with Marie-Thérèse Walter and the trajectory that she inspired in his art; and is a wondrous encapsulation of his Surrealist period. In addition, the work’s exceptional quality is underscored by its provenance, having once resided in the collection of Edward James – a renowned patron of many Surrealist artists. With many outstanding paintings by Picasso appearing at auction over the past few seasons, it is refreshing to offer an example of his mastery in this intimate medium. It not only speaks to his remarkable prowess and limitless versatility as an artist, but also his capacity to surprise and delight across myriad forms.”

This stunning work will be on view in Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries beginning this Friday, 1 November, alongside the marquee auctions of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary Art. The exhibition marks the first public viewing of the work in the US.

In the spring of 1932, Picasso had retired to the Château de Boisgeloup, his studio-retreat in Normandy, in the company of his new mistress and principal muse, Marie-Thérèse Walter. It was his time spent at Boisgeloup that provided the inspiration for the present work.

During his sojourn in Cannes in the summer of 1933, Picasso did not create a single painting. Instead, his energy focused almost entirely on one of the most accomplished groups of gouaches and watercolors of his entire artistic production. The artist’s personal life was in disarray — his wife Olga was distraught about both his blossoming relationship with Marie-Thérèse and the publication of his former lover, Fernande Olivier’s memoirs which cast Picasso in an unfavorable light— while his professional life, after his first large-scale museum exhibition in 1932, was reaching new heights. Such an unending amount of change, both personal and professional, found its escape with this series of works that live in a dreamlike plane, evoking influences of ethereal classicism and Greek legends such as that of Pygmalion and Persephone.

In the present work, Picasso has subverted the traditional embodied interaction of artist and model— a theme that came to symbolize his own life and work most evocatively — and replaced these lead roles with sculpted avatars. In place of the artist is a large, bearded neoclassical head, while the model is substituted by a bas-relief sculpture affixed to the wall above a bouquet of flowers, echoing the graceful profile of Marie-Thérèse. Haunted by the absence of his mistress who had remained in Paris, Picasso re-created her image from memory.

Picasso’s work of the spring and summer of 1933 is dominated by two male characters, who appear to represent the artist’s alter-ego: the sculptor and the minotaur. Both are central images in the Vollard Suite etchings, commissioned by art dealer Ambroise Vollard in 1927, and published in 1937. The bearded man, as sculptor, appears in a number of these etchings and closely resembles the sculpted male head in the present watercolor. To the right hangs a relief of Marie-Thérèse in profile, which directly related to a relief Picasso had executed in plaster in 1931.

Edward James, a poet and a lifelong collector of art, is particularly remembered for his patronage of Surrealist painters including Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Pavel Tchelitchew, Leonor Fini and Leonora Carrington. James provided studio space for his artist friends to develop their craft during their extended stays at his homes at West Dean and in London. Most importantly, he supported them further through commissions and collaborations, building one of the finest collections of Surrealist art in the world. James owned several notable works by Picasso including other languidly beautiful portrayals of Marie-Thérèse, such as Femme endormie. 

Sotheby’s is presenting five works by René Magritte in the November Evening Sale, underscoring the recent marked demand for the artist’s works, as well as a renewed interest in Surrealism among collectors. In November 2018, Sotheby’s established a new auction record for Magritte, 



when Le Principe du Plaisir from 1937 sold for $28.6 million. The work had once resided in the collection Surrealist patron, Edward James.

 


The group is led by Cosmogonie élémentaire from 1949 – a triumphant example of the artist’s mature oeuvre that combines myriad visual motifs amassed over the course of his career (estimate $6/8 million). Against the recurrent backgrounds of a cubed sky and mountain range, the reclining bilboquet – a chess-like figure frequently depicted in Magritte’s body of work – breathes fire while holding aloft a single leaf, which in itself was the subject of a number of Magritte’s compositions.


The present work first belonged to gallerist Alexander Iolas, who championed the late works of Magritte, Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso among many other artists, and who was instrumental in bringing Surrealism to America. Iolas later sold the work to renowned collector Christophe de Menil, daughter of John and Dominque de Menil who mounted the then-largest exhibition of Magritte’s work in the United States in 1964. The canvas also hung in the de Menil home.



Having remained in the same family collection for nearly 70 years, La Légende des siècles establishes a dialogue between a monumental stone-age chair, presented as a natural phenomenon within a desolate landscape, and a tiny human-made version seated upon it (estimate $4/6 million). A frequent element in Magritte’s iconography, the rock often appears as a giant boulder suspended in mid-air, or as an ordinary element, such as a figure, a landscape or a still-life, fossilized into stone. 

In La Légende des siècles, the gigantic stone chair and the rocks scattered around it imbue the work with a primeval, timeless quality, in stark contrast to the temporary character of the clouds moving across the sky, and in juxtaposing this imagery Magritte subverts the viewer’s perception of the continuity of time and space. Acquired from Magritte in 1951 by Jean Debernardi, a friend of the artist’s brother Raymond Magritte, the work is the third and most complex oil version on this theme that Magritte painted in 1950; the largest of the three versions is in the collection of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh.


 
 
Depicting one of Tamara de Lempicka’s most famed muses and lovers, Rafaëla, La Tunique rose from 1927 presents a rare example of the artist’s full-length figures (estimate $6/8 million).

An alluring representation of Lempicka’s multifaceted work, La Tunique rose presents a rich tableau balanced by piercing lines and sumptuous curves, her radiant figure accentuated by dramatic chiaroscuro and the pop of silky color against swells of sensuous skin. Beyond her fastidious attention to line and composition, Lempicka possessed a talent for portraying women in a sexualized yet empowering way. The artist’s appreciation of the female form and its power also recalls the once-scandalous nudes of Modigliani, whose works presented women in full possession of their sexuality, often with knowing and solicitous gazes that shocked audiences and authorities at the time.


 
On loan to The Metropolitan Museum of Art for the last decade, Tristan Bernard au Vélodrome Buffalo is an exquisite example of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s insightful Parisian scenes and captures a crucial moment in the history of French Modernism (estimate $4/6 million). Painted in 1895, the present work situates the eponymous Tristan Bernard at the helm of the cycling track which he operated from 1892. Bernard first introduced Lautrec to the world of cycling, though the artist was less interested in the sporting aspect than he was in capturing the spirit of the crowd and movement of the riders. Among his myriad careers as a lawyer, journalist and industrialist, Bernard was perhaps most gratified by his role as director during the triumphant early days of cycling in Paris.

The canvas bears all of the hallmarks of Lautrec’s most defining works: radical touches of color and energetic brushwork; the attuned psychological nuances of his subjects as attested by Bernard’s fast gaze and self-assured posture; and the artist’s quintessential encapsulation of the precise time and place in which the work was created. Once in the collection of Bernard himself, the work comes to market for the first time in more than 70 years from an illustrious family collection.  

MAKING VAN GOGH

November 8, 2019, 1:54 pm

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From 23 October 2019 to 16 February 2020, the Städel Museum is devoting an extensive exhibition to the painter Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890). It focuses on the creation of the “legend of Van Gogh” around 1900 as well as his significance to modern art in Germany. Featuring 50 of his key works, it is the most comprehensive presentation in Germany to include works by the painter for nearly 20 years. MAKING VAN GOGH addresses the special role that gallery owners, museums, private collectors and art critics played in Germany in the early twentieth century for the posthumous reception of Van Gogh as the “father of modern art”. Just less than 15 years after his death, in this country Van Gogh was perceived as one of the most important precursor of modern painting. Van Gogh’s life and work attracted broad and lasting public interest. His art was collected in Germany unusually early. By 1914 there was an enormous number of works by Van Gogh, around 150 in total, in private and public German collections. At the same time, German artists began to vigorously examine his works. Van Gogh’s painting became a model and a substantial source of inspiration in particular for the young Expressionists. The emergence of modernism in Germany is hardly conceivable without his art. Van Gogh’s success story is closely connected with the Städel. With the support of the Städelscher Museums-Verein, in 1908 it was one of the first museums to purchase works by the Dutch artist for assembling a modern art collection: the painting   Farmhouse in Nuenen (1885) and the drawing Peasant Woman Planting Potatoes (1885). Three years later, the Portrait of Dr Gachet (1890), one of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings, was bought for the museum’s collection. In three comprehensive chapters, the exhibition deals with the development and impact of the “legend of Van Gogh” in Germany. How did it come about that Van Gogh became so popular especially in Germany? Who championed his oeuvre, and how did artists respond to it? The exhibition presents Van Gogh as a pivotal figure for art of the German avant-garde. It makes an important contribution to understand the development of art in Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century. The Städel unites more than 120 paintings and works on paper in the exhibition. 50 key works by Vincent van Gogh from all of his creative phases constitute the core of the exhibition. On view are outstanding loans from private collections and leading museums world-wide. 70 works by German artists exemplify Van Gogh’s influence and impact on the subsequent generation. These include works by well-known artists such as Max Beckmann, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Alexej von Jawlensky, Paula Modersohn-Becker or Gabriele Münter as well as by others whose artistic positions could be rediscovered, including Peter August Böckstiegel, Theo von Brockhusen, Heinrich Nauen or Elsa Tischner-von Durant. “Whereas today the enthusiasm for Vincent van Gogh may be an almost global phenomenon, more than 100 years ago things still looked very different. Our exhibition throws light on the role that Van Gogh’s reception in early-twentieth-century Germany played in the creation of the “legend of Van Gogh”. Initially, it was primarily thanks to the activities of his sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger that the artist did not disappear into oblivion after his early death. However, soon it was especially gallery owners, artists, collectors and museum directors in Germany, many of them of Jewish origin, who became interested in Van Gogh’s painting and ultimately defended it against nationalist tendencies and political instrumentalization”, remarks Philipp Demandt, the director of the Städel Museum. Sylvia von Metzler, President of the Städelscher Museums-Verein, says about the exhibition: “When the Städelscher Museums-Verein acquired the first works by Vincent van Gogh for the Städel Museum in 1908, this was a courageous and trailblazing decision. Until today both works are still a permanent feature of the museum’s holdings. Without the town’s progressive collector figures, its citizenry and the typical openness with which Frankfurters embraced new artistic currents, the Städel would not have become what it is today. We are delighted that we can now, even more than 100 years later, support this major exhibition devoted to Vincent van Gogh.” “Shortly after his death, Vincent van Gogh became an ‘artist’s artist’, a benchmark for representatives of his profession. However, the public at large thought his art was outlandish, as it could hardly be gauged according to traditional standards. This changed in the early days of the twentieth century concurrent with the Expressionist movements in Germany. Soon after encountering Van Gogh’s works in publications and exhibitions, artists cultivated a particularly intimate relationship with their idol. They orientated themselves towards his impasto application of colour, rhythmic brushwork, rich colour contrast, bold compositions and motifs, as well as his ornamentally vibrant drawings. At the same time, his personal perception of nature and its anti-academic representation played a crucial role”, explains Alexander Eiling, Head of Modern Art, Städel Museum, and curator of the exhibition. “German art history of the twentieth century would have proceeded completely differently without Van Gogh. Artists’ groups such as ‘Die Brücke’ or ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ owe their constitutive stimulus to Van Gogh’s paintings. The aim of our exhibition is to reveal these connections and render visible Van Gogh’s pioneering importance for modern art in Germany”, says Felix Krämer, General Director of the Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf, and curator of the exhibition. EXHIBITION TOUR    The tour extends over 2,000 square metres of exhibition space in the Garden Halls of the Städel Museum and is divided into three chapters: Legend, Influence, and Painting Style. The chapters deal with the origin of the legend surrounding Vincent Van Gogh as a person, with his influence on the German community of artists, and finally with his distinct style of painting, which was so fascinating for numerous artists of subsequent generations. CHAPTER 1: LEGEND  Van Gogh Exhibitions in Germany before the First World War   Ten years after his death, Van Gogh was still unknown in Germany. The first exhibition projects opened in 1901 on the initiative of the Berlin-based art dealer Paul Cassirer. In collaboration with Van Gogh’s sister-in-law and trustee of his estate Johanna van Gogh-Bonger, Cassirer organised traveling exhibitions that were presented at venues in Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, Munich and Frankfurt, among other cities. The first room of the Städel exhibition presents a selection of outstanding works by Van Gogh that were on display in Germany at that time, including The Arlésienne (1888, Musée d’Orsay, Paris), Fishing Boats on the Beach at Les SaintesMaries-de-la-Mer (1888, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam/Vincent van Gogh Foundation) or The Stevedores in Arles (1888, Museo Nacional ThyssenBornemisza). By the First World War, nearly 120 presentations all over the country had featured works by Van Gogh. These activities culminated in the Sonderbund exhibition in Cologne in 1912, where the first five rooms were devoted to Van Gogh and in which more than 125 works were on display. Van Gogh in German Museums    The increasing presence of works by Van Gogh in exhibitions also had an impact on the acquisition policy of German museums. On an international level, these were among the first institutions to buy works by the Dutchman, long before this occurred in France, England and the United States. The Museum Folkwang in Hagen (later in Essen), which was founded by the private collector Ernst Osthaus, broke the first ground. Museums in Bremen, Dresden, Frankfurt, Cologne, Magdeburg, Mannheim, Munich and Szczecin followed. The Städel exhibition brings together representative examples of early acquisitions, including Van Gogh’s Portrait of Armand Roulin (1888, Museum Folkwang, Essen), Roses and Sunflowers (1886, Kunsthalle Mannheim), View of Arles (1889, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen – Neue Pinakothek München) and Still Life with Quinces (1887/88, Albertinum / Galerie Neue Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden). In conservative circles, critical voices against this development were raised early on. In 1911, the Worpswede landscape painter Carl Vinnen initiated a protest pamphlet opposing the acquisition of a Van Gogh painting for the Kunsthalle Bremen. A total of 123 artists criticised the perceived dominant position of French Impressionism in German museum collections and the waste of tax money. Numerous artist, museum directors and critics defended the purchase in a response publication and placed emphasis on the importance of a contemporary international orientation of the acquisition policy of German museums. Van Gogh at the Städel    The first purchase of a Van Gogh painting by a publicly funded museum was made in 1908. With the support of the Städelscher Museums-Verein, the director of the Städel, Georg Swarzenski, acquired the painting Farmhouse in Nuenen (1885) as well as the drawing Peasant Woman Planting Potatoes (1885) for the collection of modern art. This was followed in 1911 by the purchase of the principal work Portrait of Dr Gachet (1890), which became the museum’s showpiece. This last portrait painted by Van Gogh marked the interface between art of the nineteenth century and classic modernism. The National Socialists confiscated the painting in 1937 and sold it on the international art market in exchange for foreign currency. The Städel exhibition presents the empty picture frame, which continues to be in the museum’s depot to this day – the painting itself is part of a private collection and not accessible to the public. On the occasion of the exhibition, the Städel has produced a five-part podcast that traces the turbulent history of the painting. Van Gogh Collectors in Germany Vincent van Gogh’s popularity in Germany is reflected in the large number of private collectors who were already buying his art at an early date. The most important protagonists include Thea and Carl Sternheim, Adolf Rothermund, Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy and Harry Graf Kessler as well as Willy Gretor and Maria Slavona. Several art dealers, such as Alfred Flechtheim and Paul Cassirer, also acquired works for their collections. The exhibition features artworks by Van Gogh that formerly belonged to German collections, such as Farmhouse in Provence (1888, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), The Ravine(Les Peiroulets) (1889, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo)   or The Poplars at Saint-Rémy (1889, The Cleveland Museum of Art). A large proportion of the private collectors came from the educated Jewish middle class, which established modern art in Germany. The inflation of the 1920s, the Great Depression and the persecution and murder of Jewish citizens during the period of National Socialism resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of works by Van Gogh in private German collections, so that today only a handful remain. From Artist to Literary Hero: Julius Meier-Graefe    Prior to the First World War, Van Gogh became a popular topic of conversation among German collectors. The writings of Julius Meier-Graefe made a crucial contribution to this development. The art critic and gallery owner had lived in Paris in the 1890s and noticed how French and Dutch authors turned Van Gogh into an “art apostle” after his death who, following Jesus Christ, lived and suffered for his painting. Meier-Graefe picked up on the incipient myth-making around the artist and processed it for the German public. His three-volume Entwicklungsgeschichte der modernen Kunst (History of the Development of Modern Art, 1904) and the monograph Vincent van Gogh (1910) became bestsellers in Germany. Meier-Graefe gradually embellished his stories about the artist over the years. His two-volume novel Vincent was published in 1921and promoted the formation of the legend around the artist. Forgeries The fact that Van Gogh was one of the most popular artists in Germany before 1914 is also demonstrated by the forgeries that circulated on the art market. The approximately 30 Van Gogh forgeries put into circulation in the 1920s by the gallery owner Otto Wacker resulted in the first art forgery lawsuit in Germany. Numerous experts were also involved. The trial ended with Otto Wacker being sentenced to several years in prison. However, not all forgeries were intended as such, as can be illustrated by the copy of a famous self-portrait by Van Gogh. The painting being presented in the exhibition was created by the young French painter Judith Gérard in 1897. Shortly thereafter, it found its way onto the art market without her knowledge and was sold as a genuine Van Gogh. Her signature had been painted over with a floral decoration. It would be decades before Gérard was able to convince the world that she was the painting’s true author. CHAPTER 2: INFLUENCE  The Simple Life: Peasant Motifs   A large share of Van Gogh’s art addresses rural life and the arduous work of the peasants. His role model was the French painter Jean-François Millet. Van Gogh translated Millet’s motifs into his own pictorial language, whereby he lent them a chromaticity that corresponded with his personal sensitivity. Van Gogh’s paintings in turn impressed numerous artists. They orientated themselves towards him, and at the same time they tried to develop their own signature. The Städel exhibition juxtapose works by Van Gogh, such as   Potato Planting (1884, Von der Heydt-Museum Wuppertal), Two Peasants Digging (1889, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam) or the portrait Augustine Roulin (Rocking a Cradle) (1889, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam) with works by Paula Modersohn-Becker (Woman from the Poorhouse with Glass Globe and Poppies, 1907, Museen Böttcherstraße, Paula Modersohn-Becker Museum, Bremen),   Gabriele Münter Woman from Murnau (Rosalia Leiß), (1909, Schloßmuseum Murnau)   or Heinrich Nauen (Peasant Digging, 1908, Galerie Ludorff, Düsseldorf). Self-Portraits The self-portraits by Van Gogh motivated younger artists to depict themselves in a similar manner. Van Gogh was regarded as a ‘tragic hero’, as a suffering artist who was misunderstood by society and had sacrificed himself for his art. This image strongly appealed to male artists in particular. The exhibition demonstrates this by self-portraits by Cuno Amiet (c.1907), Max Beckmann (1905), Peter August Böckstiegel (1913), Ludwig Meidner (1919) or Heinrich Nauen (1909), among others. Drawings and Reproductions    Van Gogh’s oeuvre consists in large part of drawings. At the beginning of his career, the artist trained primarily by copying original works before venturing his own motifs. In later years, his drawings came to be more closely linked to his painting. They served to prepare a composition or to repeat and condense a motif he had found in a painting. Because there were only limited possibilities available to reproduce works in colour in the early twentieth century, initially it was primarily Van Gogh’s drawings that were illustrated in publications. Their graphically clear structure was particularly well suited for being transferred into line blocks (etchings) and reproduced. Drawings by Van Gogh that appeared in magazines and books supplied German artists with their first illustrative material and inspired them to make their own attempts. In the Städel exhibition, two rooms present a selection of Van Gogh’s drawings, including masterpieces such as Haystacks (1888, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest) and Farmhouse in Provence (1888, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam). Just how differently the German Expressionists reacted to Van Gogh’s vital drawing technique is illustrated in the works by, for example, Fritz Bleyl, Paul Klee, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Wilhelm Morgner and Max Pechstein. “Van Goghiana”   The members of the ‘Die Brücke’ in Dresden dealt with Van Gogh in a particularly vigorous way. They saw works by the artist in an exhibition in Dresden in 1905. For the young students of architecture Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, this experience was at once a revelation and also liberation. Van Gogh’s paintings prompted them to apply paint to the canvas directly out of the tube. From then on, strong contrasts, impasto layers of paint and simplified forms defined their works. In doing so, they wanted to emphasize their direct and unadulterated access to the motif, which no longer orientated itself towards the standards of academic painting.  The fascination with Van Gogh was in part so pronounced that Emil Nolde recommended that his colleagues call themselves “Van Goghiana” instead. However, the artistic reaction of the members of the ‘Die Brücke’ was in some cases highly diverse. While the academically trained painters Max Pechstein and Cuno Amiet scrutinized Van Gogh’s painting and imitated his systematically placed brushstrokes, Erich Heckel and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff dealt with him more freely.  These various approaches are presented in the Städel exhibition, including  Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Fehmarn Houses (1908, Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main)  or Erich Heckel’s House in Dangast (The White House) (1908, Carmen ThyssenBornemisza Collection, on loan to the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid). CHAPTER 3: PAINTING STYLE  Stylistic Pluralism   The third chapter of the exhibition deals with Van Gogh’s distinct painting style. In his short productive period, which encompasses no more than a decade, the artist worked in an extraordinary range of styles. Beginning in the second half of the 1880s, he experimented, in part simultaneously, with the various painting styles of Realism, Impressionism, Pointillism, Cloisonism or Symbolism. These are only some of the kaleidoscope of modern art movements that Van Gogh encountered after his arrival in Paris in 1886. For Van Gogh, the fundamental question was whether his paintings should be planar and form-bound or vibrantly structured and dynamic. He sought his own path between the two. The exhibition presents works by Van Gogh that illustrate this versatility, including, for example, Le Blute-Fin Mill (1886, Museum de Fundatie, Zwolle and Heino/Wijhe, the Netherlands),  Square Saint-Pierre, Paris (1887, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven),  Piles of French Novels (1887, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam/Vincent van Gogh Foundation) or  Poppy Field (1890, Kunstmuseum Den Haag). Structure and surface, rhythm and stasis, impasto and smooth surfaces, subdued coloration and strong colour contrasts encounter one another in Van Gogh’s oeuvre and are coequal means of organizing a painting that are in part used simultaneously. Surface    Subsequent generations of artists made reference to various aspects of Van Gogh’s painting. Those artists in Germany who aimed for a calm pictorial structure while simultaneously enhancing colour, trained themselves based on his planar compositions. The exhibition features works by, among others,  Gabriele Münter (Alley in front of a mountain, 1909, private collection), August Macke (Vegetable Fields, 1911, Kunstmuseum Bonn)  and Felix Nussbaum (Arles sur Rhône Avenue of Tombs, Les Alyscamps, 1929,  Felix-Nussbaum-Haus, Osnabrück) as well as the painting Flowers (1908, private collection) by the largely forgotten painter Elsa Tischner-von Durant.  With Josef Scharl’s Still Life with Candle and Books (1929, Sammlung Henry Nold), the exhibition takes a look at the changed reception of Van Gogh in Germany after the First World War. His emotionalism and expressivity were replaced by an increasingly modest pictorial language. Rhythm and Structure    In the last years of his life, Van Gogh’s impasto style of painting was accompanied by a rhythmical structuring of his works. At the same time, the markedly directional line strokes bordered on ornamental design. The brushwork became an autonomous means of expression and forced the descriptive function of painting into the background. Kurt Badt, who saw a kind of “painting draughtsman” in Van Gogh, described this phenomenon as “expressive linearity taking on with a life of its own”. Line and colour no longer opposed each other as artistic means, but were connected with one another. One room in the Städel exhibition presents a series of examples for how artists made reference to Van Gogh’s style of painting that brought together vitality and structure. These include members of the artists’ groups ‘Die Brücke’ or ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ as well as singular positions such as Christian Rohlfs and Max Beckmann. Furthermore, with the painter Theo von Brockhusen, who has been largely forgotten today, the Städel is presenting an artist that closely followed Van Gogh’s example in terms of motif and style. His adoption of the latter’s specific brushstroke earned him the nickname “von Goghhusen”. “Painter of the Sun”   Van Gogh also made an impression on the German Expressionists with paintings in which the sun stands on the horizon as a blazing fixed star. These depictions were unusual in so far as painters had previously reproduced sunlight for the most part indirectly. By contrast, Van Gogh shifted the sun as a life-giving and hopeful symbol into the centre of his compositions, for instance in Willows at Sunset (1888, KröllerMüller Museum, Otterlo). Moreover, numerous representatives of Expressionism understood Van Gogh’s form of “sun painting” as an apocalyptic symbol. This interpretation, in which Julius Meier-Graefe had a decisive share, fit in with the unsettling times before the First World War; however, it also seemed plausible in the tense political situation of the Weimar Republic.  Explicit reactions to these works by Van Gogh can be found in both phases, such as, for example,  Otto Dix’s Sunrise (1913, Städtische Galerie Dresden – Kunstsammlung, Museen der Stadt Dresden),  Wilhelm Morgner’s The Tree (1911, Museum Wilhelm Morgner, Soest),  Walter Ophey’s River Landscape with Boats and Red Sun (1913/14, Kunstpalast, Düsseldorf),  Max Pechstein’s Rising Sun (1933, Saarlandmuseum – Moderne Galerie, Saarbrücken, Stiftung Saarländischer Kulturbesitz) or Josef Scharl’s Landscape with Three Suns (1925, Kunsthalle Emden – Stiftung Henri und Eske Nannen).

The American Art Fair November 16-19

November 11, 2019, 8:48 am

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The American Art Fair celebrates its twelfth year from November 16-19, 2019 at Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, New York City. The Fair opens American Art Week in New York. Inaugurated in 2008, The American Art Fair is the now the only one that focuses on American 19th and 20th century works and features more than 400 landscapes, portraits, still lifes, studies, and sculpture exhibited by 17 premier specialists.

The Fair’s exhibitors offer works by an exemplary range of American 19th and 20th century artists including Elizabeth Catlett, Doris Lee, and Jane Peterson; Hudson River School painters Jasper Cropsey, Sanford Robinson Gifford and colleagues; Tonalists such as James Whistler and George Inness; American Impressionists including John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase; Ashcan School painters John Sloan, George Luks, William Glackens and others; and Modernists especially Charles Sheeler, Elie Nadelman, Marsden Hartley, Milton Avery, Ben Shahn, and George L. K. Morris.

Continuing as exhibitors are Alexandre Gallery, Avery Galleries, Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts LLC, D. Wigmore Fine Art, Debra Force Fine Art, Inc., Driscoll Babcock Galleries, , Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., Jonathan Boos, Kraushaar Galleries, Inc., Menconi + Schoelkopf, Meredith Ward Fine Art, Questroyal Fine Art, LLC, Taylor|Graham, Thomas Colville Fine Art, and Vose Galleries. Forum Gallery returns this year, and American Illustrators Gallery is exhibiting at the Fair for the first time.

Forum Gallery was founded in New York in 1961 as a gallery of American figurative art and was a founding member of the Art Dealers Association of America in 1962. Among the first artists represented were Raphael Soyer, Chaim Gross, David Levine and Gregory Gillespie. American Illustrators Gallery, established in New York in 1965, specializes in the “Golden Age” of American Illustration, showing the original work of Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish, NC Wyeth, Howard Pyle, and JC Leyendecker among others. Gallery Director Judy Goffman Cutler also co-founded in 1998 the Museum of American Illustration in Newport, RI.

The Fair’s Founder Thomas Colville notes: “As The American Art Fair celebrates its twelfth year, we continue to bring collectors, museum professionals, and the most outstanding dealers in the field together for American Art Week in New York. With their vast experience, extensive expertise, reliable reputations, and personalized services, our exhibitors offer their best works of 19th and 20th century American art. Our three floors of exhibitors and four lectures by prominent scholars and curators combine with other events to produce a celebration attracting visitors from all over the country. The three major auction houses’ American art sales have coalesced around the Fair, solidifying November in New York as the destination for American art.”

“We are an antidote to ‘fair fatigue’ ” comments Catherine Sweeney Singer, Fair Director. “Our focus and ‘niche’ in the art market is our strength. For anyone interested in American art, whether a seasoned collector or just curious, the Fair is a great place to learn--that's why we do not charge admission to the Fair or the special lectures. We encourage students, neighbors, and everyone who can reach the Fair (which is one block from the new Q subway line) to visit and make their own discoveries."

Bonhams American Art sale Tuesday, November 19

November 12, 2019, 9:27 am

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A selection of significant modernist works deaccessioned by The Museum of Modern Art, New York and sold to benefit the acquisitions fund, will lead Bonhams American Art sale in New York on Tuesday, November 19. 

Highlights from The Museum of Modern Art include Birch Grove, Autumn by Marsden Hartley, estimated at $300,000-500,000, and Ordnance Island, Bermuda by Niles Spencer, estimated at $150,000-250,000. 

Additional highlights in the sale span the 19th and 20th century genres of American Art, including works by John Frederick Kensett, William Glackens, Albert Bierstadt, James Buttersworth, and James Bard. 


Marsden Hartley’s (1877-1943) revolutionary vision and painting techniques led him to become one of the most pioneering figures of the American Modernist movement.



Birch Grove, Autumn by Marsden Hartley. Estimate: $300,000-500,000. Photo: Bonhams.

Painted in 1910—a breakthrough year for Hartley– Birch Grove, Autumn is part of a small series of works that included arguably some of the most modern and abstract compositions to have yet been painted in the United States. The previous year, the photographer and gallerist Alfred Stieglitz had offered Hartley a one-man show and encouraged him to develop in a more radical direction. An encounter with the work of Henry Matisse and other artists who had trained in Paris introduced him to avant-garde techniques. The color and directness in Hartley’s work profoundly changed and in the summer through autumn months of 1910, in his home state of Maine, he painted this small series of intimately-sized landscapes that are stylistically bold and vigorous, including Birch Grove, Autumn.

 John Frederick Kensett, 1816-1872, Sunset in the Adirondacks, oil on canvas, painted in 1859. Estimate: $200,000-300,000. Photo: Bonhams.

Additional highlights in the sale include superb 19th century landscapes such as John Frederick Kensett’s Sunset in the Adirondacks, painted in 1859, (estimate: $200,000-300,000) formerly in the collection of the publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, and stands in Kensett's oeuvre as one of the artist's largest and most accomplished works on the subject of the Adirondacks;  and




Albert Bierstadt’s Mount St. Helens, Columbia River, Oregon, painted circa 1889, a superb example of Bierstadt's skill as a landscapist (estimate: $250,000-350,000). This work has been requested for the February 8 to May 17, 2020 exhibition Volcano! Mount St. Helens in Art organized by the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon.

 

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Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art November 11

November 12, 2019, 11:34 am

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Complete results

Prices realized:

 

René Magritte, Le Seize Septembre, $19,570,000

Umberto Boccioni, Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, $16,165,000



Pablo Picasso, Femme dans un fauteuil (Françoise), $13,327,500




Camille Pissarro, Jardin et poulailler chez Octave Mirbeau, Les Damps, $10,263,000

 

Fernand Léger’s La femme et l’enfant, 1921 Not Sold

On November 11, Christie’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art included Fernand Léger’s La femme et l’enfant, 1921 ($8-12 million), which will mark the painting’s first time at auction. La femme et l’enfant is a key work in the series of female figure paintings that Fernand Léger created in early 1921, a strategic campaign that culminated by the end of that year in a pair of masterworks: Le petit déjeuner (formerly in the collection of Burton and Emily Hall Tremaine, sold at Christie's New York, November 5, 1991) and Le grand déjeuner (The Museum of Modern Art, New York). The paintings of one and several characters from 1921 signaled a turning point in the evolution of Léger's work in the years following the end of the First World War. The woman and child presented here, is the largest of the two paintings depicting a mother and young child and bears the designation of the artist “Définitif” on the back.

By 1920, in a reaction to the trauma of the war years, a palliative conservatism had settled on the arts, le rappel à l’ordre—“the call to order.” This revival of the classical, humanist values that had historically informed the Gallic tradition lent a new, retrospective demeanor to the erstwhile, stridently transgressive character of the Paris avant-garde. A return to coherent figuration was fundamental to this endeavor. The Louvre and other museums were taking their master paintings, medieval art, and antiquities out of protective wartime storage and placing them back on view. Renewed exposure to these riches fostered in Léger a more compelling awareness of artistic tradition.
Léger maintained that conventional genre subjects, such as the mother and child, remained viable in a modernist context provided that such content was drawn from contemporary life. In this way he could utilize, transform, and revitalize virtually any pictorial convention he chose to feature, and imbue it with currency and relevance.

In the present La femme et l’enfant, Léger highlighted the fundamental human relationship of a woman caring for her offspring. This theme held special resonance for viewers at that time. An ovular-shaped plant in the background symbolizes reproductive fertility. The woman is attired in tricolor blue, white, and red—she is emblematic of La France. The child, especially if male, had become a key to future national prosperity. The French suffered 1.4 million military casualties during the war; at the signing of the armistice, 40 percent fewer men were available for unmarried women than before the war. The birth rate had dropped to one-third of what it was in 1870.

By 1920, however, veterans had begun to marry; women readily turned to men younger than themselves and would even cross conventional class lines. The birth rate in France soon surpassed pre-war levels. The dynamic, changing panorama of life in contemporary France, from social demographics to economic progress, indeed attested to “an epoch of contrasts,” as Léger proclaimed.

Sotheby’s American Art auction 19 November 2019

November 12, 2019, 11:43 am

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This season’s American Art auction features two important works by Milton Avery from the collection, led by

 

Porch Sitters from 1952 (estimate $2/3 million). Belonging to a remarkably innovative period in Avery’s career, the work depicts Avery’s daughter, March, reading alongside a female companion, likely painted in Woodstock, New York, where the Avery family often spent the summers. Porch Sitters exemplifies the evolution in treatment of color that Avery’s work underwent in the early 1950s, and illustrates the artist’s innovative experiments with the expressive power of color.

 

The collection also offers Milton Avery's Young Musician from 1945, painted when the artist’s mature style had fully emerged (estimate $1.2/1.8 million). Many scholars attribute the Avery’s stylistic developments during this period to his new affiliation with Paul Rosenberg's gallery, as the artist was exposed to the work of artists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, who Rosenberg also represented. In Young Musician, Avery presents the traditional subject of a female figure in repose, accompanied by a mandolin, a guitar and sheet music. In both the subject matter and treatment of his forms, Avery’s admiration for Picasso is fully displayed.



Frederic Edwin Church’s South American Landscape is an important example of his renowned images of the dramatic Ecuadorian countryside (estimate $1.5/2.5 million). Departing from New York City in 1853, Church and fellow landscape painter Cyrus West Field embarked on two trips to Ecuador in 1853 and in 1857 as part of Church’s sweeping exploration of South America. Church was particularly enthralled by the active volcanoes that protruded from the landscape. The present work depicts the momentous Cotopaxi volcano. Soaring 20,000 feet above sea level, Cotopaxi is the highest peak to mark the Andes mountains, and was a geological phenomenon in the 19th century. Here, Church incorporates elements of expansive mountain terrain, lush vegetation and rising palms in order to construct the ideal landscape.

 
 
Executed in 1976, Jamie Wyeth’s Andy Warhol Sitting with Archie (No.9) depicts the iconic American artist and his dog, Archie (estimate $60/80,000). According to art historian David Houston, while Wyeth was working in New York in the 1970s – the epicenter of art, fashion and high society – the artist was introduced to Warhol by photographer and socialite Peter Beard. In 1976, Warhol and Wyeth painted each other's portraits, an arrangement facilitated by Wyeth's friendship with American writer and cultural figure Lincoln Kirstein. Over the next four years, Wyeth enjoyed two extended residencies at the Factory, participated in four exhibitions, and shared an exhibition catalogue with Andy Warhol. This portrait will appear at auction for the first time in over three decades, having remained in the same private collection since 1980.




A selection of works by N.C. Wyeth is led by Ogier and Morgana from 1924 (estimate $400/600,000). Appearing at auction for the first time, the work was originally gifted by the artist to longtime general motors employee William Lewis after he visited Wyeth’s studio in 1926; it has descended through the Lewis family ever since. The painting belongs to a series of 11 works Wyeth created as illustrations for the 1924 edition of Thomas Bulfinch’s Legends of Charlemagne, including the present work. First published in 1863, Legends of Charlemagne recounts the tales and folklore that became associated with Charlemagne, who ruled Europe during the 8th century. Epitomizing Wyeth’s distinct romantic aesthetic, the present work illustrates the story of Ogier the Dane, a legendary knight of Charlemagne's court, and Morgana le Fay, a powerful enchantress who, according to Arthurian legend, served as King Arthur’s magical savior and protector.



Works by Maxfield Parrish are highlighted by Mill Pond from 1945, which ranks among the most recognizable paintings of the artist’s career (estimate $600/800,000). In 1931, at the height of his popularity in America, Parrish issued a statement to the Associated Press announcing his decision to abandon the figurative work that had made him a household name. Four years later in 1935, he signed a contract with Brown & Bigelow to provide illustrations for the company’s popular line of calendars, greeting cards, and playing cards. Of the nearly 100 landscapes that Parrish produced for Brown & Bigelow, Mill Pond was the artist’s most successful.

Georgia O’keeffe’s Anthurium





Georgia O’Keeffe, Anthurium, 1923.  Courtesy Sotheby’s.
 
Throughout her career, Georgia O’Keeffe chose physical objects from nature – trees, flowers, leaves, animal bones, mountains – as subject matter for her work. Painted in 1923, Anthurium not only illustrates her deep admiration of the natural world, but also reveals her intent to distill abstract patterns from these organic sources (estimate $1.5/2.5 million). Reflecting the formal vocabulary O’Keeffe developed as an avant-garde American artist in the early decades of the 20th century, Anthurium masterfully exemplifies the deeply personal synthesis of realism and abstraction that pervades the entirety of her celebrated oeuvre.

Freeman’s American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists auction December 8

November 12, 2019, 12:39 pm

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On December 8, Freeman’s will hold its highly anticipated biannual American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists auction. As ever, the sale will feature works by distinguished American artists including illustrators N.C. Wyethand Norman Rockwell, Hudson River School painters Jasper Cropsey and Louis Rémy Mignot, as well as Philadelphians Mary Cassattand William Glackens. Also on offer will be works by famed Pennsylvania Impressionists Daniel Garber, Fern Coppedge and Edward Redfield.

Sale Highlights



An undeniable frontrunner of the auction will be N.C. Wyeth’s Rebel Jerry and Yankee Jake,(Lot 62; $200,000-300,000) a 1931 oil depicting a ferocious knife fight between two twin brothers. The painting served as an illustration for John Fox, Jr.’s The Little Shepherd from Kingdom Come, a best-selling novel published by the renowned publishing company Charles Scribner’s Sons in 1903. Set in the vast Kentucky mountains during the American Civil War, the oil captures the highly anticipated fight between the Dillon brothers, who grew estranged as one embraced the Union’s side, and the other chose to remain a Rebel and fight alongside the South.



Another notable highlight from the Pennsylvania Impressionists section of the sale is Daniel Garber’s By the River(Lot 138; $200,000-300,000), a dazzling view of the Delaware River executed in 1929. Long unrecorded, the work resurfaces from a collection in Arkansas with a prestigious provenance. It represents a pivotal work for the artist and an importantstylistic change in Garber’s career, marked by a new level of sophistication in his use of color and light, and by a bold taste for highly structured compositions.

Among the many 19th century pieces on offer, the sale will also showcase a sizable section of Modern works from the mid-20thcentury, including a surrealist scene



by Peter Blume (Lot 87; $60,000-100,000), and a portrait of Mercedes Matter by Hans Hoffman, which the artist executed in Gloucester in 1934(Lot 83; $50,000-80,000).

Of particular note amongst several works by Romare Bearden is New York Scenes, a series of 23 watercolors depicting various views of New York City, completed in 1979 for John Cassavetes’ film Gloria.

Other highlights include an imposing view of a sailor by



John George Brown(Lot 24; $15,000-25,000),

 

a quintessential beach scene by Edward Henry Potthast(Lot 45, $30,000-50,000),

 
two exceptional watercolors by Charles Demuth, Cyclamen(Lot 73; $60,000-100,000)

 

 and Zinnias(Lot 74; $60,000-80,000), both from the prominent collection of Philip A. Bruno.

In addition, the sale will feature an oil study for a painting by

 

William Glackens entitled Nude Drying Hair(Lot 33; $15,000-25,000).

Christie’s Latin American Art November Sales NOVEMBER 20, 21

November 12, 2019, 12:49 pm

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Christie’s announces the fall season of Latin American Art with the live auction taking place November 20 and 21 and an online auction running November 16-26. As the only major auction house with dedicated sales in the category, this season offers a comprehensive selection from 17^th and 18^th-century Spanish colonial painting through modern and contemporary masterpieces. Together the sales expect to realize in excess of $25 million. Featured are works from private collections including The James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection, The William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation, The Collection of Dr. Helga Prignitz-Poda, The Collection of Richard L. Weisman, and Divine Splendor: Spanish Colonial Art from The Collection of James Li. Works from the live and online auctions will be on view November 16-20 at Christie’s Rockefeller Plaza.

  FRIDA KAHLO (1907-1954), The Flower Basket, oil on copper, 25 in. (64.1 cm.) copper plate, 31 in. (80 cm.) framed, diameter, Painted in 1941. Estimate: $3,000,000-5,000,000; 

Leading the sale are two stunning works by Frida Kahlo including The Flower Basket (estimate: $3 – 5 million) from The James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection. Painted in 1941, this tondo, or circular-shaped painting on copper, is one of two such still lifes painted by Kahlo in the same year. The pendant work hangs in the Casa Azul, the artist’s museum in Mexico City. First acquired from Kahlo by actress Paulette Goddard — a friend of both the artist and her husband painter Diego Rivera — The Flower Basket has since been privately held and lent for exhibitions on only very limited occasions. This exuberant and colorful painting celebrates Kahlo’s love of nature as well as a particularly happy moment of her life, as she and Rivera had just remarried after a brief divorce.

FRIDA KAHLO (1907-1954), Portrait of a Lady in White, oil on canvas, 46 x 32 in. (118.1 x 81.3 cm.), Painted circa 1929. Estimate: $3,000,000-5,000,000

Rare and never-before offered at auction, Frida Kahlo’sPortrait of a Lady in White (estimate: $3 – 5 million) from The Collection of Dr. Helga Prignitz-Poda, is an outstanding oil on canvas painted around the time of the artist’s marriage to Rivera in 1929. Always held in private collections, this alluring portrait was initially gifted by Kahlo to the esteemed Mexican photographer Lola Álvarez Bravo. It has generally been accepted that the sitter in this elegant portrait was Dorothy Brown Fox, an American friend of the artist. However, recent research suggests that this enigmatic woman may be Elena Boder, a Russian émigré, influential doctor, and high school friend of Kahlo’s.

Christie’s is also honored to offer Property From The William Louis-Dreyfus Foundation, featuring works by the widely-revered Mexican master Francisco Toledo.

 

A standout is El elefante (estimate: $800,000 – 1,200,000), an exceptional painting that showcases the artist’s tremendous skill and unique vision. Proceeds from the sales will benefit the late philanthropist’s eponymous foundation and The Harlem Children's Zone.

 

Fernando Botero (B. 1932), Tablao flamenco, oil on canvas, 79 x 79 in. (201.3 x 202.6 cm.), Painted in 1984. Estimate: $1,500,000-2,000,000; The James and Marilynn Alsdorf Collection,

Another highlight of the sale is Fernando Botero’s Tablao flamenco (estimate: $1.5 – 2 million). Executed in 1984, this work is one of the most important paintings by the artist to come to auction in recent years. Complementing this piece is a robust selection of works by the Colombian master that includes paintings, drawings and exquisite sculptures ranging from tabletop to large-scale.


Additional highlights include and early 1925 composition by Rufino Tamayo, The Family (estimate: $600,000-800,000), Tomás Sánchez’s haunting Orilla con meditador oculto (estimate: $200,000 – 300,000), and an iconic façade painting by Brazilian artist, Alfredo Volpi, Untitled (Fachada) (estimate: $350,000 – 450,000).

Hans Hofmann: The Nature of Abstraction

November 14, 2019, 10:43 am

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Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts 
September 21, 2019–January 6, 2020

Bringing together nearly seventy works spanning the entirety of the artist’s career, this exhibition presents a fresh and eye-opening examination of Hans Hofmann’s prolific and innovative artistic practice. Featuring paintings and works on paper from 1930 through the end of Hofmann’s life in 1966, the exhibition includes numerous masterworks from BAMPFA’s distinguished collection as well as many seldom-seen works from both public and private collections across North America and Europe. The Nature of Abstraction provides new insight into Hofmann’s continuously experimental approach to painting and the expressive potential of color, form, and space, reconnecting many of the artist’s most iconic late-career paintings with dozens of remarkably robust, prescient, and understudied works from the 1930s and 1940s.

Hofmann was a multi-generational synthesis of student, artist, and teacher/mentor, whose singular artistic development and achievement manifested as a unique amalgamation of artistic influences and innovations that bridged two world wars and pan-Atlantic avant-gardes. Hans Hofmann: The Nature of Abstraction offers new audiences the chance to discover this magnificent body of work for the first time, and a fresh opportunity for those already familiar with the artist to experience new revelations across the full arc of his career.

BAMPFA holds the world’s most extensive museum collection of Hofmann’s paintings. In 1963, the German-born, American artist donated to the University of California nearly fifty paintings and a significant cash contribution toward the completion of BAMPFA’s first museum building, which opened in 1970. The artist made this extraordinary gift in recognition of the University’s decisive role in his immigration to America from Germany, allowing him to escape World War II and “start in America as a teacher and artist.”

Hans Hofmann: The Nature of Abstraction is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog from UC Press featuring new scholarly perspectives from the exhibition’s curator Lucinda Barnes, Ellen G. Landau, and Michael Schreyach.

• Painting

  Indian Summer

  Hans Hofmann
  

  1959
  oil on canvas
  60 1/8 x 72 1/4 in.
  BAMPFA, gift of the artist. Photo: Jonathan Bloom © The Regents of the University of California
  
  
• Painting

  Cataclysm (Homage to Howard Putzel)

  Hans Hofmann
  

  1945
  oil and casein on board
  51 3/4 x 48 in.
  private collection. Photo courtesy of Miles McEnery Gallery, New York, NY; with permission of the Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  
  
• Painting

  Goliath

  Hans Hofmann
  

  1960
  oil on canvas
  84 1/8 x 60 in.
  BAMPFA, gift of Hans Hofmann. Photo: Ben Blackwell © The Regents of the University of California
  
  
• Painting

  Morning Mist

  Hans Hofmann
  

  1958
  oil on canvas
  55 1/8 x 40 3/8 in.
  BAMPFA, bequest of the artist. Photo: Ben Blackwell © The Regents of the University of California
  
  
• Painting

  Sparks

  Hans Hofmann
  

  1957
  oil on canvas
  60 x 48 in.
  The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, bequest of Caroline Wiess Law; with permission of the Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  
  
• Painting

  Atelier (Still Life, Table with White Vase)

  Hans Hofmann
  

  1938
  oil on panel
  60 x 48 1/2 in.
  Collection of Mrs. James A. Fisher, Pittsburgh. Photo: Tom Little Photography; with permission of the Renate, Hans & Maria Hofmann Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  
  

  
  

  
  

  
  

Women Artists of the Dutch Golden Age

November 14, 2019, 4:35 pm

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The first exhibition to explore the contributions of women artists during the Dutch Golden Age will be on view at the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) from Oct. 11, 2019, to Jan. 5, 2020. Women Artists of the Dutch Golden Age presents approximately 20 paintings and prints dating from 1610 through 1719 by eight successful artists in the Netherlands during the 17th and early 18th centuries.

Clara Peeters, Still Life of Fish and Cat, after 1620; Oil on panel, 13 1/2 x 18 1/2 in.;

National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

The Netherlands experienced unprecedented economic growth from the late 16th century through the first quarter of the 18th century. A rising middle class of wealthy merchants fueled demand for paintings and prints of still-lifes, portraits, and scenes of everyday life. By some estimates, there was one painter for every 2,000–3,000 inhabitants, a ratio exceeding that of Italy during the same period. While this era has been widely documented and studied, the many women artists who were part of this thriving scene are rarely included in museum exhibitions.

Maria Sibylla Merian, Plate 1 (from Dissertation in Insect Generations and Metamorphosis in Surinam, second edition), 1719; Hand-colored engraving on paper, 20 1/2 x 14 1/2 in.; NMWA, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

In fact, to date, there has never been an exhibition devoted to the Dutch and Flemish women artists of the Golden Age. This is remarkable given the sheer scale of artistic production in the Netherlands during this period. Women artists thrived in this environment. Like those elsewhere in Europe, many Dutch and Flemish women were born into families of artists and received their training from fathers or brothers. However, some took the more traditionally “masculine” route of apprenticing with a recognized master and joining artistic guilds. Considering a group of these women together offers an opportunity to upend common assumptions and uncover surprising connections.

Anna Maria van Schurman, Self-Portrait, 1640; Engraving on paper, 8 1/2 x 6 3/8 in.; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay

Featured artists include:

 

Rachel Ruysch, Roses, Convolvulus, Poppies and Other Flowers in an Urn on a Stone Ledge, ca. late 1680s; Oil on canvas, 42 1/2 x 33 in.; NMWA, Gift of Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay; Photo by Lee Stalsworth

 

 

A Still Life of Lilies, Roses, Iris, Pansies, Columbine, Love-in-a-Mist, Larkspur and other Flowers in a Glass Vase on a Table Top, Flanked by a Rose and a Carnation ca. 1610.

 

Rachel Ruysch (1664–1750), one of the most successful artists of this period, who is regarded as the greatest floral still-life painter of the Golden Age. Her prestigious career lasted a remarkable 70 years, and she sold work to an international circle of patrons.
Judith Leyster (1609–1660), one of the first women admitted to the painter’s guild in Haarlem, where she also took on her own students. A recently rediscovered self-portrait by Leyster is a highlight of the exhibition—it is on public view in the U.S. for the first time.



Clara Peeters (1594–1657?), a pioneer of still-life painting and the only Flemish woman known to have specialized in the genre as early as the first decade of the 17th century. Peeters was the artist who inspired NMWA founder Wilhelmina Cole Holladay to begin collecting work by women artists.
Considered individually, the stories of the women represented in this exhibition reveal that there was not just one path to becoming an artist, nor was there only one model for success. Through a wider view encompassing each artist’s individual struggles and triumphs, a clearer and more nuanced picture of women artists during the Dutch Golden Age comes into focus.

“NMWA’s Women Artists of the Dutch Golden Age—which focuses on women as creators and entrepreneurs rather than primarily the subjects of well-known paintings—is a crucial turning point in righting art historical records,” said NMWA Director Susan Fisher Sterling. “NMWA is committed to presenting exhibitions that challenge traditional views, expand our thinking about art history and rectify omissions of the past.”

Bouguereau & America

November 18, 2019, 1:15 pm

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The San Diego Museum of Art presents the traveling exhibition Bouguereau & America, featuring nearly 40 paintings by the popular French academic artist William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825–1905). On view now through March 15, 2020, this exhibition reexamines the work of this long-neglected artist and allows a view unencumbered by a modernist bias.

Bouguereau & America showcases the master’s traditional use of composition, form and subject matter, bringing to life paintings of goddesses, heroes, shepherdesses and nymphs, including the beloved work The Young Shepherdess (1885), drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition is the first in nearly 30 years to bring together many of the artist’s most important works, including A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros (ca. 1880); Art & Literature (1867); Homer and His Guide (1874); and Washerwomen of Fouesnant (1869).

Beginning from detailed pencil drawings and oil sketches, Bouguereau’s large-scale paintings placed an emphasis on the female body, while capturing the beauty and innocence of each of his subjects – noble peasants, young women and children. American art collectors and society’s wealthiest were drawn to Bouguereau’s style of work for his ability to portray the less fortunate in an idyllic and timeless setting, particularly during the late 1800s through the early 20th century during the rise of industrialization. Due to his remarkable popularity, Bouguereau’s work became fundamental in the formation of many U.S. art museums’ collections.
Despite having been sought after for his flawless technique and sensual themes, Bouguereau’s reputation declined with the introduction of Impressionism – the first modern art movement emphasizing an artist’s use of color, tone and texture and the practice of painting outdoors. Artists rebelled against the strictures and conventions of the academy that embraced Bouguereau, rejecting conventional or allegorical depictions of subject matter in mythological settings. The arc of Bouguereau’s rise and fall serves as a prime example of the power society has in shaping preferences in the art world.


 

 Bouguereau  Virgin of the Angels, 1881: Courtesy of Forest Lawn Memorial-Park Association

“Bouguereau & America showcases the remarkable popularity of one of the greatest artists from the late 19th century,” said Roxana Velásquez, Maruja Baldwin Executive Director of The San Diego Museum of Art. “Ostracized for nearly a century, this exhibition is an opportunity to view Bouguereau with a different lens, reflecting on how the shift in tastes, beliefs, morals, and desires of society shape the path of art.”



A full-color exhibition catalogue published by Yale University Press accompanies the exhibition. 192 pages, 10 x 12
114 color illus.
ISBN: 9780300241358
Hardcover

• William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825–1905), Homer and His Guide (Homère et son guide), 1874. Oil on canvas. Layton Art Collection Inc., Gift of Frederick Layton L1888.5. Photographer credit: Larry Sanders.

 

•  William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825–1905), Dream of Spring, 1901. Oil on canvas. Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Gift of Melvin and Bren Simon 2013.33

 

• William-Adolphe Bouguereau (French, 1825–1905), Washerwomen of Fouesnant, 1869. Oil on canvas. Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester: Bertha Buswell Bequest 55.61.

Bouguereau & America is co-organized by the Memphis Brooks Museum of Art and the Milwaukee Art Museum. Co-curators are Dr. Tanya Paul, Isabel and Alfred Bader Curator of European Art, Milwaukee Art Museum, and Dr. Stanton Thomas, former Curator of European and Decorative Arts, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, now Curator of Collections and Exhibitions, Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, Florida.
At The San Diego Museum of Art, the site curator for Bouguereau & America is Dr. Michael Brown, the Museum’s Curator of European Art.

Catalogue

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Midnight in Paris: Surrealism at the Crossroads, 1929

November 22, 2019, 8:59 am

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The Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida
Nov. 23, 2019, through April 9, 2020

Paris, a timeless city both intellectual and sensuous, was vibrating with the spirit of liberation in 1929. Among those pulsing with the energy and excitement of the era were groundbreaking artists, galvanized to forge vital new creative paths with cultural and political meaning. Midnight in Paris: Surrealism at the Crossroads, 1929, profiles the work, friendship and clashes of more than 20 avant-garde artists of the era, from the painters Salvador Dalí and René Magritte, to sculptors Hans Arp and Alexander Calder, to filmmakers Germaine Dulac and Luis Buñuel. Man Ray, the great American artist, and perhaps the first paparazzo, made splendid photo portraits of these and other Surrealists, turning them into international celebrities.

            “The year 1929 in Paris was one of those rare moments when the artists of the time knew they were reshaping the world,” said Dr. Hank Hine, executive director of The Dalí. “Are we in such a time again? The Dalí Museum invites you to consider this, and to discover the provocative conversations, dreams and friendships among a deeply experimental and influential group of artists who called Paris their creative home.”

            Designed as an inspiring stroll through the streets of Paris, the exhibition evokes concepts of Dream, Desire, Freedom, Love and Revolution, asking visitors to consider some of the thought-provoking questions at the heart of the Surrealist enterprise: Is art obsolete? Are dreams or reality more important to portray? Would painting survive the new experiments with photography, film and collage?

            Among the highlights of Midnight in Paris are the vivid films of four surrealists, Germaine Dulac, Luis Bunuel, Man Ray and Gerhard Richter. The Museum has installed a period theater in the galleries to project its new film shot in St. Petersburg imagining an emotional conversation between Gala Dalí, Dalí’s wife, and André Breton, Surrealism’s founder, as they vie for control of the movement.  

            Organized by The Dalí Museum and the Centre Pompidou, the exhibition includes approximately 65 works in a variety of media drawn largely from the collection of the Musée national d’art moderne in Paris. The exhibition is curated by Dr. William Jeffett, chief curator of special exhibitions at The Dalí Museum, and Didier Ottinger, deputy director of the Musée national d’art moderne at the Centre Pompidou with the collaboration of Marie Sarré.

           Midnight in Paris: Surrealism at the Crossroads, 1929, will be on view Nov. 23, 2019, through April 9, 2020, at The Dalí Museum, the exhibition’s exclusive North American venue.

About The Dalí Museum

            The Dalí Museum, located in the heart of picturesque downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, is home to an unparalleled collection of over 2,400 Salvador Dalí works, including nearly 300 oil paintings, watercolors and drawings, as well as more than 2,100 prints, photographs, posters, textiles, sculptures and objets d’art. The Museum’s nonprofit mission, to care for and share its collection locally and internationally, is grounded by a commitment to education and sustained by a culture of philanthropy.

            The Dalí is recognized internationally by the Michelin Guide with a three-star rating; has been deemed “one of the top buildings to see in your lifetime” by AOL Travel News; and named one of the 10 most interesting museums in the world by Architectural Digest. The building itself is a work of art, with a geodesic glass bubble nicknamed The Enigma, which features 1,062 triangular glass panels, a fitting tribute to Salvador Dalí’s legacy of innovation and transformation. Explore The Dalí anytime with the free Dalí Museum App, available on Google Play and in the App Store. The Dalí Museum is located at One Dalí Boulevard, St. Petersburg, Florida 33701.

             For more information visit TheDali.org.

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Media Contact:

Amber Hendrickson

Blue Water Communications

800-975-3212

amber@bluewatercommunications.biz

Images and credits available here. 

        

          

Joan Miró
(Barcelona, 1893 – Palma di Mallorca, 1983)
Peinture (Painting)
1930
Inv. AM 2853 P
Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne/Centre de creation industrielle
Donated by Mr. Pierre Loeb, 1949
© Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris 2019

 

René Magritte
(Lessines, 1889 – Bruxelles,1967)
Le modèle rouge (The Red Model)
[1935]
Oil on canvas mounted on cardboard
Inv. AM 1975-216
Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne/Centre de creation industrielle
Purchase, 1995
Photo credit : © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI /Dist. RMN-GP
© 2019 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Max Ernst

Max Ernst (Brühl, 1891 – Paris, 1976)
Chimère (Chimera)
[1928]
Oil on canvas
Inv. AM 1983-47
Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne/Centre de creation industrielle
Purchase, 1983
Photo credit : © Adam Rzepka - Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI /Dist. RMN-GP
© 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Salvador Dalí
(Figueras, 1904 – 1989)
Dormeuse, cheval, lion invisibles (Invisible Sleeping Woman, Horse, Lion)
[1930]
Oil on canvas
Inv. AM 1993-26
Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne/Centre de creation industrielle
Donated by the Association Bourdon
Photo credit : © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI /Dist. RMN-GP
©Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí, (ARS), 2019

 

Brassaï (Gyula Halász)
(Brașov, 1899 – Beaulieu-sur-Mer, 1984)
Tour Eiffel (Eiffel Tower)
c.1930-32
Gelatin-silver print
Inv. AM 1997-207
Centre Pompidou, Paris, Musée national d’art moderne/Centre de creation industrielle
Purchase, 1997
Photo credit : © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI /Dist. RMN-GP
© Estate Brassaï - RMN-Grand Palais

*Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945

November 22, 2019, 10:33 am

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Whitney Museum of American Art 

February 17 through May 17, 2020

McNay Art Museum,  San Antonio, Texas

June 25 through October 4, 2020 

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The cultural renaissance that emerged in Mexico in 1920 at the end of that country’s revolution dramatically changed art not just in Mexico but also in the United States. Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945 will explore the profound influence Mexican artists had on the direction American art would take. With approximately 200 works by sixty American and Mexican artists, Vida Americana reorients art history, acknowledging the wide-ranging and profound influence of Mexico’s three leading muralists—José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros—on the style, subject matter, and ideology of art in the United States made between 1925 and 1945. 

Curated by Barbara Haskell, with Marcela Guerrero, assistant curator; Sarah Humphreville, senior curatorial assistant; and Alana Hernandez, former curatorial project assistant, Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945 will be on view at the Whitney from February 17 through May 17, 2020 and will travel to the McNay Art Museum in San Antonio, Texas, where it will be on display from June 25 through October 4, 2020.

By presenting the art of the Mexican muralists alongside that of their American contemporaries, Vida Americana reveals the seismic impact of Mexican art, particularly on those looking for inspiration and models beyond European modernism and the School of Paris. At the same time that American artists and their audiences were grappling with the Great Depression and the economic injustices it exposed, the Mexican artists provided a compelling model for portraying social and political subject matter that was relevant to people’s lives, thereby establishing a new relationship between art and the public. 

Works by both well-known and underrecognized American artists will be exhibited, including Thomas Hart Benton, Elizabeth Catlett, Aaron Douglas, Marion Greenwood, William Gropper, Philip Guston, Eitarō Ishigaki, Jacob Lawrence, Harold Lehman, Fletcher Martin, Isamu Noguchi, Jackson Pollock, Ben Shahn, Thelma Johnson Streat, Charles White, and Hale Woodruff. In addition to Orozco, Rivera, and Siqueiros, other key Mexican artists included in the exhibition include Miguel Covarrubias, María Izquierdo, Frida Kahlo, Mardonio Magaña, Alfredo Ramos Martínez, and Rufino Tamayo. 

This historic exhibition will feature works that have not been exhibited in the United States in decades. Two of Rivera’s 1932 studies for Man at the Crossroads, his destroyed and infamous Rockefeller Center mural, will be lent by the Museo Anahuacalli in Mexico City. 

They also will lend Rivera’s study from his Portrait of America series (c. 1933). 

The Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil will lend several key works by both Orozco and Siqueiros that have never been or are rarely seen in the United States, including 



Orozco’s Christ Destroying His Cross (1931),  

 

Pancho Villa (1931), 


 

and Landscape of Peaks (1943); 


and Siqueiros’s Intertropical (1946), Resurrection (1946), and Cain in the United States (1947). 

Other important Mexican loans include Siqueiros’s Our Present Image (1947) from the Museo de Arte Moderno; 
 

María Izquierdo. My Nieces, 1940. Oil on composition board, 55 1/8 × 39 3/8 in. (140 × 100 cm). Museo Nacional de Arte, INBAL, Mexico City; constitutive collection, 1982 © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SOMAAP, Mexico City. Reproduction authorized by El Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes y Literatura, 2019.

and María Izquierdo’s My Nieces (1940) 



 


and Siqueiros’s Proletarian Mother (1929) from the Museo Nacional de Arte. 

Two paintings by Japanese-born artist Eitarō Ishigaki will also be on loan from Japan’s Museum of Modern Art in Wakayama.

“The panoramic Mexican murals of the post-revolutionary period depicting national history and everyday life used a pictorial vocabulary that was simultaneously modern and distinctly Mexican. Combined with the radical socialist subject matter of the works the Mexican muralists created while living in the United States, their influence on artists in this country was profound,” explained Barbara Haskell, the exhibition’s curator. “Largely excluded from the predominant canonical narrative of modern art that emerged in the United States, the muralists’ legacy and enduring impact shapes a more expansive vision of modernism. By exploring the transformation in artmaking that occurred in the United States as a result of the Mexican influence, while also examining the effect the U.S. had on the muralists’ art, Vida Americana will expand our understanding of the rich cultural exchange between our two countries.”

“Vida Americana is an enormously important undertaking for the Whitney and could not be more timely given its entwined aesthetic and political concerns," said Scott Rothkopf, Senior Deputy Director and Nancy and Steve Crown Family Chief Curator. "It not only represents the culmination of nearly a decade of scholarly research and generous international collaboration but also demonstrates our commitment to presenting a more comprehensive and inclusive view of twentieth-century and contemporary art in the United States.”

The Whitney Museum’s own connection to the Mexican muralists dates back to 1924 when the Museum’s founder Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney presented an exhibition of the work of three Mexican artists—José Clemente Orozco, Luis Hidalgo, and Miguel Covarrubias—at the Whitney Studio Club, organized by artist Alexander Brook. It was Orozco’s first exhibition in the United States. A few years later, in 1926, Orozco also showed watercolors from his House of Tears series at the Studio Club; and the following year Juliana Force, Mrs. Whitney’s executive assistant and future director of the Whitney Museum, provided critical support for Orozco at a time when he desperately needed it by acquiring ten of his drawings. The Mexican muralists had a profound influence on many artists who were mainstays of the Studio Club, and eventually the Whitney Museum, including several American artists featured in Vida Americana, such as Thomas Hart Benton, William Gropper, Isamu Noguchi, and Ben Shahn. Comprised of paintings, portable frescoes, films, sculptures, prints, photographs, and drawings, as well as reproductions of in-situ murals, Vida Americana will be divided into nine thematic sections and will occupy the entirety of the Whitney’s fifth-floor Neil Bluhm Family Galleries. This unprecedented installation, and the catalogue that accompanies it, will provide the first opportunity to reconsider this cultural history, revealing the immense influence of Mexican artists on their American counterparts between 1925 and 1945.

CATALOGUE

 

Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945 will be accompanied by a full-color, 256-page, scholarly catalogue edited by Barbara Haskell. Co-published by the Whitney Museum and Yale University Press, the catalogue will include eleven essays by scholars in the United States and Mexico. Drawing on recent research by the curatorial team at the Whitney and the contributing authors, the publication includes a foundational essay by Haskell and is complemented by a series of insightful contributions from Mark A. Castro, Dafne Cruz Porchini, Renato González Mello, Marcela Guerrero, Andrew Hemingway, Anna Indych-López, Michael K. Schuessler, Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw, ShiPu Wang, and James Wechsler. Also included are 139 color and fifty-seven black and white illustrations, as well as a list of artists included in the exhibition.

Images

Alfredo Ramos Martínez. Calla Lily Vendor (Vendedora de Alcatraces), 1929. Oil on canvas, 45 13/16 × 36 in. (116.3 × 91.4 cm). Private collection. © The Alfredo Ramos Martínez Research Project, reproduced by permission 

Harold Lehman, The Driller (mural, Rikers Island, New York), 1937. Tempera on fiberboard, 92 1/8 × 57 1/8 in. (233.9 × 145 cm). Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC; transfer from the Newark Museum 1966.31.11. © Estate of Harold Lehman. Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC / Art Resource, NY

José Clemente Orozco, Barricade (Barricada), 1931. Oil on canvas, 55 × 45 in. (139.7 × 114.3 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York; given anonymously. © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SOMAAP, Mexico City. Image © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY

Jackson Pollock, Landscape with Steer, c. 1936–37. Lithograph with airbrushed enamel additions, sheet: 16 1/8 × 23 3/8 in. (41 × 59.3 cm); image: 13 13/16 × 18 9/16 in. (35.1 × 47.1 cm). Museum of Modern Art, New York; gift of Lee Krasner Pollock. © 2019 The Pollock-Krasner Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY

 Marion Greenwood. Construction Worker (study for Blueprint for Living, a Federal Art Project mural, Red Hook Community Building, Brooklyn, New York), 1940.

 

 Philip Guston. Bombardment, 1937. Oil on Masonite, diameter: 42 in. (106.7 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art; gift of Musa and Tom Mayer 2011-2-1. © The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy McKee Gallery, New York. 

 

Jacob Lawrence. Panel 3 from The Migration Series, From every Southern town migrants left by the hundreds to travel north.,1940–41. Casein tempera on hardboard
12 × 18 in. (30.5 × 45.7 cm). The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC; acquired 1942. © 2019 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

 

David Alfaro Siqueiros. Zapata, 1931. Oil on canvas, 53 1/4 × 41 5/8 in. (135.2 × 105.7 cm). Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966 66.4605 © 2019 ARS/SOMAAP. Photo by Lee Stalsworth

Diego Rivera. The Uprising. 1931

 

Great Realism & Great Abstraction

November 22, 2019, 10:43 am

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Städel Museum
13 November 2019 to 16 February 2020

"Great realism, great abstraction"– the approximately 1,800, twentieth-century German drawings in the collection of the Städel Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings occupy a realm between these two poles. In the winter of 2019/2020, the museum will show a representative selection of some 100 works mirroring the emphases of the collection that have taken shape over the course of its long history.

The exhibition opens with masterful drawings by Max Beckmann (1884–1950) and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938), which also provide comprehensive insight into the draughtsmanship of the two artists. This is followed by works by members of the artist group “Die Brücke”, including Erich Heckel (1883–1970), Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1884–1976) and Emil Nolde (1867–1956). Following on from Expressionism and its abstracting tendencies, drawings by Rolf Nesch (1893–1975), Werner Gilles (1894–1961) and Ernst Wilhelm Nay (1902–1968) are presented, as are watercolours by Paul Klee (1879–1940), whose works oscillate between a closeness to the subject and abstraction. Also in divided Germany during the post-war period, this preoccupation with the representational and the non-representational was characteristic for many artists. This can be seen in works of the Art Informel movement, as well as in neo-expressionist tendencies and Pop Art, as exemplified by the works of Karl Otto Götz (1914–2017), Joseph Beuys (1921–1986), Gerhard Richter (*1932), Georg Baselitz (*1938), A. R. Penck (1939–2017), Sigmar Polke (1941–2010) and Anselm Kiefer (*1945). The exhibition brings together works by a total of roughly forty artists.

The Exhibition

The roughly one hundred works on view from the twentieth century, supplemented by two paintings, are examined on the basis of various aspects, such as how the artists dealt with reality, how they questioned, further developed or undermined traditional pictorial ideas conveyed at the academies, and last but not least the fundamental significance of drawing within their respective oeuvres. The pencil sketches, brilliantly colourful pastels and aquarelles, and the monumental collages exhibited here also reveal the technical diversity of the medium of drawing, the specific characteristics of which the artists exploited, each in their own way. The drawings are loosely assigned

chronological groups which shed light in different ways on the relationship between closeness to the subject and abstract detachment from the model of nature.

The Expressionists already used drawing as an autonomous art form, but at the same time it remained a medium of experimentation. Both are reflected in the first chapters of the exhibition dedicated to Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Max Beckmann. Shaken by the events of the First World War, Beckmann came to Frankfurt am Main in 1915 and initially withdrew to his private surroundings. He produced studies of the local environment as well as numerous portraits, including an intensive and personal pencil drawing of his close lady friend Fridel Battenberg (1880–1965) from 1916 and a painterly pastel portrait of Marie Swarzenski (1889–1967) from circa 1927. Marie Swarzenski was the wife of Georg Swarzenski (1876–1957), the then director of the Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, whom Beckmann captured shortly before his death in an impressive portrait, a charcoal drawing on blue paper, which can also be seen in the exhibition. These and other works illustrate Beckmann’s keen instinct for his vis-à-vis and the individual use of drawing utensils, and also document Beckmann’s changing formal language. The pre-war compositions are characterised by rounded lines and soft contours. The composition then became stricter, the motifs sharply outlined, revealing angular forms.

For Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, drawing was the “key to his art”. With over 120 drawings by Kirchner, the Städel Museum boasts one of the most important collections of the artist’s drawings in Germany, which is largely due to the donation of works on paper from the estate of the Frankfurt patron of the arts Carl Hagemann (1867–1940) in 1948. One of the masterpieces is the pastel drawing B_e_r_l_i_n_e_r_ _S_t_r_a_ße_n_s_z_e_n_e_ _(Street Scene in Berlin) from 1914. The hasty glances of the two prostitutes depicted, their quick steps and those of the passers-by, define the image: Kirchner was fascinated by people in motion, by the hectic mood of the aspiring metropolis of Berlin, which he translated into striking lines. The reality of people’s lives was the source of his art. He abstracted what he saw by reducing natural forms to the essential.

The close connection between man and nature linked Kirchner and Emil Nolde with each other, even after their time together in the artist group “Die Brücke” (1905–1913). The closeness to nature becomes particularly visible in Nolde’s watercolours, such as V_i_e_r_w_a_l_d_s_t_a_̈t_t_e_r_ _S_e_e_ _(Lake Lucerne) from circa 1930. Here, Nolde transformed the nature he had experienced into a composition of planes with bright, contrasting colours. Control and chance both played a decisive role in the creative process – it was precisely this combination that made the drawing a mirror of the forces acting between man and nature.
 At

the beginning of the twentieth century, August Macke (1887–1914) was also searching for adequate forms of expression for the “tremendous life” that swept over him. In the study Zwei Mädchen (Two Girls) from 1913, which is closely related to the painting of the same name, two young girls are depicted in an urban setting. The lines translate rhythmic impulses, light effects and the ambient sound of the big city into an abstract structure of forms and lend the drawing a dynamic effect. In the 1920s and 1930s, a number of artists developed a strongly abstracted formal vocabulary, often following on from Expressionism. They also turned away from traditional compositional principles taught at the academies and initially tested new means of representation on paper. They abandoned naturalistic depictions and transformed what they had seen and experienced into fundamental pictorial elements such as line and surface, colour and form. Rolf Nesch, Werner Gilles and Ernst Wilhelm Nay worked with two-dimensional colour forms, striking lines and geometric figural depictions and dispensed with an illusionistic representation of depth. These formal tendencies can also be observed in Willi Baumeister’s (1889–1955) Sportler in Ruhe (Athletes Resting) from 1929. Baumeister, however, distinguished himself from Expressionist models and cultivated a more objective means of expression. Nevertheless, the immediate visual experience was the starting point for all of their works, regardless of the artists’ different modes of representation. Their artistic goal was to depict the primal forces of nature, which they perceived as expressions of life and translated into their pictorial compositions – such as Nay into rushing colour gradients, Gilles into clear colours seemingly flooded with sunlight, or Baumeister into relief-like surface structures reminiscent of rock formations.

Two drawings by Paul Klee, who had travelled to Tunisia with August Macke and had been inspired by his impressions on this journey to increasingly abstract compositions, reflect his virtuosity and joy of experimentation in drawing. For Fruchtbares geregelt (Fertile Well-Ordered) from 1933, the artist used a brush and a stamp to press the paint onto the paper. For the late drawing alea jacta from 1940, Klee applied a blend of pigment and glue to a rough paper clearly marked by the signs of the times. He combined abstract signs and expressive field of colour – enigmatic ciphers reminiscent of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s ‘hieroglyphics’ – with a gestural application of paint that already points to the intuitive painting and drawing style of Art Informel.

Drawing served the artists as a means of immediate expression, whether in the trenches of World War I, the boulevards of the awakening metropolis of Berlin or in the midst of the emerging world of consumption and commodities. In this medium, they constructed idealistic life plans, rebelled against established traditions in politics and society, or reflected on decisive events in German history. Because it was the respective context that determined the technique, the works on view will range from simple pencil sketches and miniature-like chalk drawings to vivid pastels and watercolours and even monumental collages.

Max Beckmann’s “Transcendental Objectivity”

Max Beckmann (1884‒1950) was one of the many artists who were deeply affected by the cruelties of World War I. In 1915, certified unfit for military service owing to a physical and mental breakdown, he did not return to his family in Berlin but settled in Frankfurt. In an abrupt departure from his previous artistic work, he developed a new style that is first evident in his drawings. He now sought to capture his motifs directly, without regard for spatial or anatomical correctness. Even the types of lines he drew changed, becoming harder and more prominent. He wanted to reproduce not only what was outwardly visible, but also tensions and forces lying concealed beneath the surface. In his attempt to verbalize his new pictorial language he arrived at the term “transcendental objectivity”.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner From Nature Impression to “Hieroglyph”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) engaged in drawing on a daily basis. Whether he was on the street, in the cinema, at a concert or variety show, studying nudes in the studio or the outdoors, he always had his drawing utensils with him so as to capture what he experienced directly. As he worked in this medium, he reduced natural forms to simple signs conveying their essence – so-called “hieroglyphs”. Yet even if these abstract forms consist of just a few distinct lines, they always retain a certain closeness to reality. To quote the artist himself, his pictures were “not illustrations of certain things or beings, but independent organisms of line, surface and colour that contain the natural forms only to the extent necessary to serve as a key to comprehension”.

German Expressionism – Colour-Form Events

In the years around 1900, a spirit of optimism and new departure prevailed – also in art. In the search for artistic renewal, a great number of often very different avant-gardist currents emerged simultaneously. Young artists joined in associations such as the Brücke or Blauer Reiter and sought adequate means of expressing what August Macke called the “stupendous life” rushing in on them. They turned away from the traditional conceptions of art taught at the academies and, initially on paper, experimented with new modes of depiction. Rejecting naturalistic representation, they translated what they saw and experienced into basic visual elements such as line, surface, colour and form. They no longer modelled bodies to look three-dimensional but worked instead with bold contours and two-dimensional, monochrome zones of colour from palettes that departed from the natural appearance of things. What is more, the artists emphasized the material qualities of their crayons, charcoals, opaque body colours and delicate watercolours and integrated chance into their compositions and application of the paint. In their watercolours, for example, they allowed the paints to spread across the paper uncontrolled, bringing about lively interplays between colour and form: colour-form events.

The catalogue accompanying the exhibition will be the first ever to investigate the Städel Museum’s collection of twentieth-century German drawings on the basis of selected examples.

Gerhard Richter (*1932)
Untitled, 02.11.1989
Lead pencil on white cardboard
210 × 297 mm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
© Gerhard Richter 2019 (27092019)
Photo: © Städel Museum

*Genealogies of Art, or the History of Art as Visual Art

November 22, 2019, 10:44 am

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Museo Picasso Málaga

27th February - 31st May 2020
 

This exhibition brings together a broad selection of artists and auteurs associated with visual thinking, including highly diverse representations of genealogical trees, tables, allegories and diagrams, created from the 15th century until today. Genealogies of Art, or the History of Art as Visual Art is far from being either a group or a thematic exhibition: it is instead an exhibition that looks at forms of visual narration, aiming to offer a range of representations broad enough to complement the standard discursive presentation of art history.

One of these visual representations,

the diagram composed by Alfred H. Barr, Jr. (founder of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1929), for the dust jacket of the exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art (1936), is transferred to the 3D space of the exhibition, replacing the references to artists and movements with similar artworks to those included in the original 1936 exhibition:

Pablo Picasso, Constantin Brancusi, Paul Cézanne, Robert Delaunay, Alberto Giacometti, Juan Gris, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, Franz Marc, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, 

Piet Mondrian, Georges Braque, Paul Klee and Henry Moore are just some of the artists whose work can be seen  at Museo Picasso Málaga. 

Mary Cassatt’s Women

November 28, 2019, 6:41 am

≫ Next: Goya. Drawings. "Only my Strength of Will Remains"

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McNay Museum

October 31, 2019 to February 9, 2020

Image: Mary Cassatt, The Cup of Tea, ca. 1880-81. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, From the Collection of James Stillman, Gift of Dr. Ernest G. Stillman, 1922 (22.16.17). ©️The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Image Source: Art Resource, NY


This fall, McNay visitors will have a special opportunity to view Mary Cassatt’s Impressionist masterpiece The Cup of Tea in Mary Cassatt’s Women. Joined by the McNay’s own suite of Cassatt’s well-known and beloved aquatints and other works on paper, The Cup of Tea is on loan exclusively to the McNay from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Cassatt received critical acclaim for The Cup of Tea in the 1881 Impressionist exhibition.

Mary Cassatt’s Women focuses on the artist’s images of the ordinary and often intimate moments from the daily lives of upper-middle class women like herself—as they care for children, ride the public omnibus, or enjoy the ritual of having tea. What makes Cassatt’s work compelling is how she elevates what could be dismissed as mundane subject matter through her masterful approach to color and composition.