Gauguin and the Impressionists: Masterpieces of the Ordrupgaard Collection.

Video:

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/video-inside-the-exhibition-gauguin-and-the-impressionists

Article with images:

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/manet-morisot-10-impressionist-paintings-coming-to-the-uk

Details:

https://artdaily.cc/news/127214/Royal-Academy-of-Arts-opens--Gauguin-and-the-Impressionists--Masterpieces-from-the-Ordrupgaard-Collection-#.XzFOrtXwZoE

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

We present the video on Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 1925–1945 at the Whitney Museum in New York. The exhibition questions the historiography that demonstrates the impact that the leading Mexican muralists, José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiros, had on the artistic practices on American art.

The Monet Show Must Go On — With an Array of Online Features From MFA Boston

Claude Monet, “Grainstack (Sunset),” 1891. Oil on canvas. Juliana Cheney Edwards.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Nineteenth-century Bostonians were on the cutting edge of collecting when the innovative works of French Impressionists burst on the scene. One of the largest holdings of Claude Monet’s (1840–1926) work outside France, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) acquired dozens of his Impressionist masterpieces that came to reside in the city when Monet's landscapes caught the eye of local collectors during the artist's lifetime. 

To celebrate the museum’s 150th anniversary, the MFA planned this spring to showcase its renowned collection of 35 Monet paintings for the first time all together in 25 years. When the global health crisis shuttered doors in March, the exhibition, Monet and Boston: Lasting Impression, was postponed for in-person viewing and pivoted online with enhanced features.

Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926) "Grand Canal, Venice" (1908). Oil on canvas. Bequest of Alexander Cochrane.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Virtual visitors can view a video talk from associate curator of European paintings Katie Hanson or browse a slideshow previewof artworks. Take in the art online while you enjoy music both inspired by Monet and originating in his era with classical violinist Lilit Hartunian. There is also a Spotify playlist curated by songwriter and musician Barrie.

End the virtual visit by taking a Monet home: download a Zoom meeting background of Grainstack (Sunset); Antibes (Afternoon Effect); Morning on the Seine, near Giverny, and more. 

An exhibition catalogue is available.

Sotheby’s Evening Sale on 28 July,

UNSEEN WORKS OF THE EUROPEAN AVANT-GARDE

Over 40 Paintings, Sculpture & Works on Paper Led by a Rare Cubist Work by Léger & an Intimate Picasso Portrait of his Secret Lover Marie-Thérèse Pablo Picasso | Fernand Léger | Alberto Giacometti | Wassily Kandinsky | Lyonel Feininger | August Macke | Alexej von Jawlensky | Jacques Lipchitz | Marc Chagall | Henry Moore | Henri Laurens | Jean Arp | Albert Gleizes

Helena Newman, Worldwide Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Department, said:

“Put together with passion and enjoyed over many years, this private collection encapsulates exactly what collectors long for – quality and rarity in works that can be, and have been, lived with and loved. Unified by the breadth and depth of art from across Europe, it offers seldom seen works from the pinnacle of the Avant-Garde, from the figurative to the abstract. At its core is an exceptionally beautiful 1931 portrait of Picasso’s lover, Marie-Thérèse, an intimate glimpse into their early days together when the love between the artist and his most important muse was still a secret from the world.” 

The first decades of the twentieth century would change the course of art history for ever. This treasure-trove from a private collection – little known and rarely seen – spans the remarkable period, telling its story through the leading protagonists, from Fernand Léger, Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti to Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger and Alexej von Jawlensky. Travelling across the continent, the works emphasise the crosscurrents and connections that united Europe, from France to Germany to Britain. Viewed together, dialogues emerge about the human form and experience, and the balance between figuration and abstraction.

Eighteen works will be offered in the cross-category Evening Sale on 28 July, in which exceptional examples of Old Masters – including one of the last self-portraits by Rembrandt in private hands – Impressionist and Modern art, Modern British and Contemporary art will be presented together for the first time.

A further twenty-four works from this collection will be offered in the Impressionist & Modern Art Online sale, open for bidding from 20 – 27 July. Prior to the sales, the works will go on public view in Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries from 13 July.

ARTISTS IN LOVE

Pablo Picasso, Femme endormie, 1931, charcoal on primed canvas (est. £6,000,000 – 9,000,000)

Unseen since 1986 ‘We joked and laughed together, so happy with our secret…You know what it’s like to be truly in love…Then, love is all you need’ – Marie-Thérèse Unseen since it was acquired by the owners in 1986 from Galerie Beyeler in Basel, and appearing at auction for the very first time, this tender, intimate portrait of Picasso’s golden muse – Marie-Thérèse Walter – was kept by the artist all his life, testament to its personal nature and the intimacy of the moment captured between them. Dating to February 1931, the work depicts a private moment at the very height of their love, when their allconsuming relationship was still a secret to society. The softness of the black charcoal lines accentuates Marie-Thérèse’s sensuality, with a gentleness that is rarely seen in Picasso’s other portraits.

This fully figurative style was used only occasionally by the artist, when depicting those most important to him. Here, with her features not abstracted, we see Marie-Thérèse absolutely as Picasso did, sitting by her side while she fell asleep. Beyond this, the rare use of charcoal on canvas as opposed to paper suggests that he wanted to immortalise her and the moment. It was just a year later that Picasso revealed Marie-Thérèse’s truly pervasive presence in his art, and this famed moment was recently celebrated in an acclaimed ‘1932’ exhibition that travelled from Musée Picasso in Paris to the Tate Modern in London. Across both sales, seven works by the artist span his career from 1905 to 1969, charting Picasso’s unending exploration of the human form as he constantly experimented with different media.

Marc Chagall, La branche de gui or Le rêve, 1928, gouache, black chalk and pencil on paper (est. £700,000 – 900,000)

Unseen since 1985 In this beautiful and tender evocation of Chagall’s most beloved subject matter, his wife Bella, the artist depicts himself presenting her with a branch of mistletoe, a symbol of long life and health. The joyous work was painted in the 1920s, a happy and peaceful time for the family, and as they travelled through France his works became increasingly brilliant and luminous. Having never previously been offered at auction, it will go on public view for the first time since it was exhibited in 1985.

A CUBIST VISION

Fernand Léger, Nature morte, 1914, oil on burlap (est. £8,000,000 – 12,000,000)

Unseen since 1983 This radical painting is from Léger’s Cubist period, in which he developed his celebrated Contrastes de formes series over the course of 1913 and 1914, the majority of which are now in major museums around the world. Working in Paris in the context of Picasso and Braque’s revolutionary development of Cubism, Léger developed his own unique style, which integrated colour and abstracted forms. Composed of boldly outlined, overlapping shapes and coloured with strong tones of reds, blues, yellows and greens, these works represent the artist’s ultimate Cubist vision. This dynamic example has never been at auction and hasremained unseen since it was last exhibited in 1983, two years after it was acquired.

GERMAN MODERNISM: DER BLAUE REITER TO BAUHAUS

Wassily Kandinsky, Murnau, Schloss und Kirche II (Murnau - Castle and Church II), oil on board, 1909 (est. £1,000,000 – 1,500,000)

Unseen since 1998 Pairing luminescent blue and white with bright yellow and orange, this key painting from Kandinsky’s highly transformative period spent in the bucolic surrounds of Southern Germany is an evocative example of the artist’s theory and work. The artist’s experiments led to the creation of a new type of painting notable for its bold expression and purity, paving the way for his ultimate venture into abstraction – one of the most important contributions to twentieth-century art. During his time in Murnau, colour became disassociated from representational form and turned into an autonomous force for the first time in his work, each shade able to invoke a certain strong emotion. The sale will also offer a watercolour by Kandinsky from circa 1914-15 (est. £600,000 – 800,000), when the outbreak of the First World War forced the artist to leave Germany and return to his native Moscow. The tumultuous political and social events led to a shift in his working methods, as he increasingly began to concentrate on works on paper to intensify the exploration of form and colour that had been trigged by his stay in Murnau.

Lyonel Feininger,  Zottelstedt II (Town Hall II), 1927, oil on canvas (est. £2,000,000 – 3,000,000)

Unseen since 1978 Unseen since 1974, Zottelstedt I pushes the boundaries of painterly exploration. The iridescent work draws on the innovations of Cubism and Italian Futurism, blending Expressionist colours with the planes of Cubo-Futurism. Marked by this powerful infusion of light and colour, it stands as an important work from a key period in Feininger’s oeuvre.

The sale will offer two further paintings by the artist, Regentag an der See (Rainy Day by the Sea) from 1914 (est. £700,000 – 900,000) and Lastträger am Meeresstrand (I) (Beachcombers by the Sea (I)) from 1920 (est. £700,000 – 900,000).

Alongside working at the Bauhaus, where he was an artist in residence, Feininger had been a member of Die Blaue Reiter, together with Kandinsky, Jawlensky and Macke, all of whom are represented in the collection. Among the highlights is a bright oil on canvas study from Macke's celebrated Schaufenster series, which depicts figures looking into the windows of fashion boutiques and hat shops.

MODERN SCULPTURE

Alberto Giacometti, Femme debout, 1958, bronze (est. £4,000,000 – 6,000,000)

Unseen since 1986 The female figure is a subject that appears throughout Giacometti’s œuvre. Following the war, Giacometti, like many of his contemporaries, began to explore the ideas of Existentialism, resulting in a series of highly stylised sculptures where the form is reduced to its absolute essence. Conceived in 1956-57 and cast the following year, at the height of Giacometti’s international acclaim, this piece is exactly contemporaneous with the artist’s celebrated series Femmes de Venise, which made their debut at the Venice Biennale of 1956. Belonging to an edition of 8 bronzes, others of which are in museum collections including Paris’ Centre Pompidou, this work has never previously been at auction.

Further sculptures offered from the collection include works by Jacques Lipchitz, Henry Moore, Henri Laurens and Jean Arp.

Sotheby’s AMERICAN ART 26 June

FEATURING:

Thomas Hart Benton’s Noon

Featured in the Artist’s First Major Retrospective in New York in 1939

Estimate $700,000/1 Million

*Leading a Selection of Works on Offer from The Collection of Marylou Whitney*

Augustus Saint-Gaudens’s Reduction of the Large-Scale Abraham Lincoln Monument Designed to Adorn Chicago’s Lincoln Park

Estimate $600/900,000

American Impressionist Works from a Pennsylvania Collection:

Mary Cassatt’s Pastel on Paper from 1909 Portraying Motherhood

Estimate $400/600,000

**

Childe Hassam’s Promenade – Winter, New York from 1895,

Depicting an Elegant Woman Navigating a Manhattan Sidewalk on a Winter Day

Estimate $400/600,000

N.C. Wyeth’s Ayrton’s Fight with the Pirates

An Illustration for the 1918 Edition of Jules Verne’s novel L'Île mystérieuse (The Mysterious Island)

Estimate $200/300,000

Georgia O’Keeffe’s New Mexico Landscape and Sand Hills

On offer in The Ginny Williams Collection Evening Sale on 29 June

Estimate $800,000/1.2 million

LIVE AUCTION ON 26 JUNE

AT SOTHEBY’S NEW YORK

THOMAS HART BENTON, NOON

This June marks the return of live auctions to Sotheby’s New York, following the state’s Stay-at-Home order due to the spread of COVID-19. Remote bidding will be available in advance and during the auction via sothebys.com and on Sotheby’s app, as well as by phone with Sotheby’s specialists in the salesroom. All works are now on exhibition in our New York galleries, which are open by appointment only.

The sale features two works from the Collection of Marylou Whitney, a generous philanthropist, arts patron and thoroughbred breeder. Through her marriage to Cornelius Vanderbilt “Sonny” Whitney, Mrs. Whitney developed a lifelong passion for thoroughbred horse racing, and the couple produced over 175 stakes winners on the C.V. Whitney farm in Lexington, Kentucky (now Gainesway Farm). After Sonny’s death in 1992, Marylou established her own eponymous stables, and enjoyed enormous success with Bird Town, who won the Kentucky Oaks in 2003 and Birdstone, who won the Belmont Stakes and the Travers Stakes in 2004.

The couple’s passion for horses is highlighted throughout their collection, including Thomas Hart Benton’s Noon – a dynamic painting executed in 1939, which was featured in Benton’s first major retrospective in New York later that year (estimate $700,000/1 million). Praised as a resounding success, the exhibition garnered significant attention from a variety of New York collectors, including Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney. Whitney purchased Noon from the retrospective, and it has remained in the family’s collection ever since. Enchanted by America and its offerings, Benton began traveling through the South and the Midwest in the late 1920s and immersing himself in the culture of rural America. In celebrating the American way of life, Benton was sympathetic in his portrayal of farmers and field workers, favoring the themes of dedication and hard work. Noonexemplifies Benton’s ability to capture what he saw as the simplicity and dignity of everyday life.

SCULPTURE BY AUGUSTUS SAINT-GAUDENS

The most celebrated American sculptor of his day, Augustus Saint-Gaudens originally created Abraham Lincoln: The Man (Standing Lincoln) (estimate $600/900,000) as a larger-than-life work to adorn Chicago’s Lincoln Park. Saint-Gaudens was awarded the commission in 1883, largely due to the success and popularity of his earlier Civil War-related projects such as the Farragut Monument in Madison Square Park and the Sherman Monument in Grand Army Plaza, both in New York. The Lincoln Park monument was formally dedicated in October 1887 to great critical and popular acclaim.

Beginning in 1910, the artist’s widow, Augusta, authorized the casting of commercial-sized reductions of the original monument. The reductions of Lincoln: The Man, of which the present work is one, stand at 40 ½ inches high and were cast in an edition of approximately 17. Other examples are found in the collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, the Detroit Institute of Art and the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

AMERICAN IMPRESSIONIST WORKS FROM A PENNSYLVANIA COLLECTION

The auction features an exceptional group of Impressionist works on offer from a private Pennsylvania collection, including Mary Cassatt’s Mother in Purple Holding Her Child from 1909, a pastel on paper portraying motherhood – the artist’s favored subject (estimate $400/600,000). The carefully defined figures’ faces in the composition contrasts with the expressive application of pigment Cassatt uses in the background, instilling the work with an air of immediacy and spontaneity that suggests it was conceived from direct observation.

The collection also features Childe Hassam’s Promenade – Winter, New York from 1895, which depicts an elegant woman navigating a Manhattan sidewalk on a blustery and grey wintry day (estimate $400/600,000). In December 1889, after returning home from a three year stay in Paris, Hassam left his hometown of Boston where he had previously established himself as an artist and settled with his wife in New York City, considered at that time to be America’s burgeoning artistic and cultural epicenter. Fascinated by the energy and unique character of the bustling metropolis, Hassam utilized the city’s streets, parks and people as subjects for his oil paintings, watercolors, and pastels.

TELL ME A STORY: THE ART OF AMERICAN ILLUSTRATION

The June auction will feature a curated section of American Illustration, anchored with works by Maxfield Parrish, Joseph Christian Leyendecker and more. Entitled Tell Me a Story: The Art of American Illustration, the group seeks to explore the critical importance illustration played in 19th and 20th century American Art, and in the careers of these beloved artists whose imaginative voices defined a generation of American advertising and material culture, and who continue to resonate with audiences today. The group features N.C. Wyeth’s Ayrton’s Fight with the Piratesfrom 1918 – the height of the period known as the Golden Age of Illustration (estimate $200/300,000). The present work is one of 17 examples by Wyeth painted to illustrate a 1918 edition of Jules Verne’s 1874 novel L'Île mystérieuse (The Mysterious Island), a cross-over sequel to Verne’s famous Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Ayrton’s Fight with the Pirates depicts a climactic moment in the tale when Tom Ayrton – having just been found also shipwrecked on a nearby island by the protagonists – is kidnapped by pirates.

GEORGIA O’KEEFFE’S NEW MEXICO LANDSCAPE AND SAND HILLS

On offer in The Ginny Williams Collection Evening Sale on 29 June @ 6:30PM EDT

Georgia O’Keeffe’s New Mexico Landscape and Sand Hills from 1930 will be presented in The Ginny Williams Collection Evening Sale on 29 June. The work examines the rolling hills that prominently feature in O’Keeffe’s first depictions of New Mexico, and documents the artist’s distinctive approach to landscape painting (estimate $800,000/1.2 million). The summer of 1929 marked a turning point in O’Keeffe’s life and work when she visited Taos, New Mexico for the first time. O’Keeffe embraced the western sojourn as a welcome reprieve after living in New York in the preceding period, and her work that followed instantly shifted from the linear, metropolitan compositions of the late 1920s to the natural forms of the Southwestern desert. O’Keeffe was profoundly inspired by the region, which can be measured by the volume of paintings she executed in Taos and Ghost Ranch, and through her ability to capture the spirit of this unique environment.

Turner, paintings and watercolours. TATE’s Collections

Musée Jacquemart-André

13 March - 20 July 2020

In 2020, the Musée Jacquemart-André will present a retrospective of the oeuvre of Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851). Undoubtedly the greatest representative of the golden age of English watercolours, he experimented with the effects of light and transparency on English landscapes and the Venetian lagoons. Celebrated by his contemporaries, he still has many admirers.

Thanks to exceptional loans from the Tate Britain in London, which houses the largest collection of Turner’s works in the world, the Musée Jacquemart-André will hold an exhibition of sixty watercolours and ten oil paintings, some of which have never been exhibited in France.

Apart from his finished works intended for sale, Turner kept a considerable collection of works for himself, which were kept in his house and studio. With their unique qualities, these sketches, which were more expressive and experimental, were certainly closer to nature than those he painted for the public. In 1856, after the artist’s death, an enormous collection of works was bequeathed to the British nation, comprising many oil paintings, unfinishe studies, and sketches, as well as thousands of works executed on paper: watercolours, drawings, and sketchbooks. 

The writer John Ruskin, who was one of the first to study the entire bequest, observed that Turner had executed most of these works for his ‘own pleasure and delight’. Now held in the Tate Britain, the collection highlights the incredible modernity of the great Romantic painter. The exhibition will display part of this private collection, which provides illuminating perspectives about Turner’s mindset, imagination, and private works.

This monograph portrays the young Turner, who came from relatively humble beginnings. First self-taught, he works with an architect, takes courses in perspective and topography, then enters at the Royal Academy school at the age of fourteen. Insatiable traveller, he gradually freed himself from the conventions of the pictorial genre and developed his own technique.

A chronological itinerary enables visitors to discover every phase of his artistic development: from his youthful works—which attest to a certain topographical realism—to his mature works, which were more radical and accomplished, as fascinating experiments with light and colour.

Displayed in this exhibition alongside various finished watercolours and oil paintings to illustrate their influence on Turner’s public pictures, these highly personal works are as fresh and spontaneous as they were when first set them down on paper.

M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Jumièges, c.1832, Gouache and watercolour on paper, 13,9 x 19,1 cm, Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

Undoubtedly the greatest representative of the golden age of English watercolours, he experimented with the effects of light and transparency on English landscapes and the Venetian lagoons. Celebrated by his contemporaries, he still has many admirers. 

Apart from his finished works intended for sale, Turner kept a considerable collection of works for himself, which were kept in his house and studio. With their unique qualities, these sketches, which were more expressive and experimental, were certainly closer to nature than those he painted for the public. In 1856, after the artist’s death, an enormous collection of works was bequeathed to the British nation, comprising many oil paintings, unfinished studies, and sketches, as well as thousands of works executed on paper: watercolours, drawings, and sketchbooks. 

The writer John Ruskin, who was one of the first to study the entire bequest, observed that Turner had executed most of these works for his ‘own pleasure and delight’. Now held in the Tate Britain, the collection highlights the incredible modernity of the great Romantic painter. 

This monograph portrays the young Turner, who came from relatively humble beginnings. First self-taught, he works with an architect, takes courses in perspective and topography, then enters at the Royal Academy school at the age of fourteen. Insatiable traveller, he gradually freed himself from the conventions of the pictorial genre and developed his own technique. A chronological itinerary enables visitors to discover every phase of his artistic development: from his youthful works—which attest to a certain topographical realism—to his mature works, which were more radical and accomplished, as fascinating experiments with light and colour. Displayed in this exhibition alongside various finished watercolours and oil paintings to illustrate their influence on Turner’s public pictures, these highly personal works are as fresh and spontaneous as they were when first set them down on paper. 

Curatorship: David Blayney Brown, Senior Curator of nineteenth-century British art at the Tate Britain in London. Pierre Curie, Curator at the Musée Jacquemart-André. 

J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Venice, the Piazzetta with the Ceremony of the Doge Marrying the Sea, c.1835, oil on canvas, 91,4 x 121,9 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

Although Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851) passed into posterity for his dynamic oil paintings, attesting to his boldness and artistic sensibility, it is sometimes overlooked that this incredible colourist first became famous for his watercolours. An insatiable experimenter, throughout his career he explored every possibility of this medium, which was in its golden age at that time in England, creating innovative and subtle visual effects. More than a medium, watercolour was a veritable field of exploration to which he devoted himself with great mastery over the years and during his many travels. After travelling around Great Britain, he set off to explore the Continent. With just a few brushstrokes he was capable of capturing on paper splendid views of the most beautiful landscapes in France, Germany, Switzerland, and above all Italy, whose unique light he depicted better than any other. But it was in Margate, a small British seaside town he loved dearly, that he painted the skies he considered ‘the loveliest in all Europe’: he executed many studies in which the sea and the sky were blended together with infinite coloured variations. 

Culturespaces is proud to present at the Musée Jacquemart-André a fabulous selection of works from Turner’s studio collection, which is now held at the Tate Britain. These private and experimental works, which, in the words of the writer John Ruskin, were made for Turner’s ‘own pleasure’, will be displayed alongside several oil paintings. The dialogue between the watercolours and oil paintings, and between sketches and finished works, will shed light on the artist’s visionary quest to represent colour and light. 

ITINERARY OF THE EXHIBITION 

SECTION 1. FROM ARCHITECTURE TO LANDSCAPES: THE EARLY WORKS 

Turner’s early landscape and architectural studies advanced rapidly. A student at the Royal Academy, Turner also developed his talent as a draughtsman by working under various architects. He soon acquired the habit of making summer tours with his sketchbooks, in search of subjects to inspire fresh work for Royal Academy exhibitions or to fulfil commissions. Venturing further from London year by year, he explored the south and west of England, Wales, and the increasingly dramatic terrain of the north of Britain, such as the Scottish Highlands. The British empire extended over the whole globe, but war with France prevented overseas tours. During this period, there was a patriotic element to British artist’s depiction of their heritage and landscapes. Turner’s work was much sought after by collectors, such as the antiquarian Sir Richard Colt Hoare of Stourhead and the immensely wealthy William Beckford of Fonthill Abbey. 

J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), View in the Avon Gorge, 1791, Pen and ink and watercolour on paper, 23,1 x 29,4 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

SECTION 2. NATURE AND THE IDEAL: ENGLAND, C.1805-1815 

The short peace between England and France (1802-1803), concluded at Amiens, enabled Turner to discover the grandeur of the Swiss Alps and study works by the Old Masters in the Louvre. But continental Europe was once more inaccessible until Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, so Turner continued to explore England, notably in connection with commissions for watercolours that were copied as engravings for Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England and, later, the History of Richmondshire. These projects brought his work to a wider audience. Turner decided to open his own London gallery in 1804 for annual one-man exhibitions, showing works on paper and oil paintings. In the following year, he lived for a while beside the Thames in the countryside west of London, sailing on the river and sometimes painting in watercolours directly from nature. 

In 1807, he was elected Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, and continued to produce original watercolour compositions. He also sought to strengthen his standing as a landscape theorist through his ambitious Liber Studiorum (‘Book of Studies’) prints, published between 1807 and 1819. Based on watercolour designs, the Liber demonstrated categories of landscape ranging from the naturalistic to the ideal: ‘Architectural’, ‘Historical’, ‘Marine’, ‘Mountainous’, ‘Pastoral’, and ‘Elevated Pastoral’. An important source of inspiration, the Liber Veritatis, engraved from the landscape drawings of Claude Lorrain (1600-1682), influenced Turner’s work throughout his career. 

1. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), The River Thames near Isleworth: Punt and Barges in the Foreground, 1805, graphite and watercolour on paper, 25,8 x 36,5 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

2. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), View of Richmond Hill and Bridge, exhibited 1808, Oil paint on canvas, 91,4 x 121,9 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 1 2 10 Press kit - Turner, paintings and watercolours. 

SECTION 3. TURNER’S DISCOVERY OF EUROPE: 1815-1830 

With lasting peace in Europe, Turner travelled in 1817 through Belgium, the Netherlands, and the German Rhineland. Many Continental tours followed over nearly thirty years, often in mountainous regions or along major rivers. Late in his career, in 1819-1820, he spent six months on a ‘Grand Tour’ in Italy, mainly in Rome studying the classical monuments, art, and antiquities, with visits to Naples and Venice. This extended time in the south is often considered a key period in Turner’s career, making a lasting impact on his already increasingly strong treatment of light and colour. In 1828, he sojourned again in Rome for several months, where he exhibited paintings executed there. In addition to his Continental tours, Turner continued to explore England. Remaining in constant demand from print publishers, Turner made drawings for the series ‘Marine Views’ and The Rivers of England and The Ports of England. He explored national life and character in the major sequence of Picturesque Views in England and Wales (engraved between 1827 and 1838).

1. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Scarborough, vers 1825, Watercolour and graphite on paper, 15,7 x 22,5 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate

2. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Venice : San Giorgio Maggiore – Early Morning, 1819, Watercolour on paper, 22,3 x 28,7 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), A Villa. Moon- Light (A Villa on the Night of a Festa di Ballo), for Samuel Rogers’s ‘Italy’, c.1826–1827, Pen and ink, graphite and watercolour on paper, 24,6 x 30,9 cm, Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

SECTION 4. TURNER’S TRAVELS: 1830-1840 

In the 1820s, Turner travelled through France along the Seine River and toured through Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany. In the following decade, he continued his European travels. During this period, he depicted the landscapes, towns, and cities in watercolour and gouache on the tinted papers he carried in bundles along with conventional sketchbooks. 

His Views of the River Loire and Seine were engraved in a smaller format for three travel books published between 1833 and 1835, entitled Wanderings by the Loire and Wanderings by the Seine, which were advertised as Turner’s Annual Tour. Some of these views were executed using initial pencil outlines, presumably drawn from direct observation. Turner’s watercolours were in fact rarely made outdoors because it took up too much time: he preferred to add the details and colours afterwards, perhaps in an inn that evening, or back in London. However, there may be exceptions among the 1836 Alpine views in France, Switzerland, and the Val d’Aosta, as a companion reported him working in watercolour in the open air. 

In 1818, he was for the first time commissioned to illustrate the writings of the poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott with minutely detailed watercolours for commercial editions. Turner subsequently illustrated numerous works, including the poems of Samuel Rogers, which were enhanced by Turner’s vivid imagery. 

J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Dinant, Bouvignes and Crèvecoeur: Sunset, c.1839, gouache and watercolour on paper, 13,6 x 18,8 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

2. . J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), The Vision of Columbus, from Samuel Rogers’s Poems 1835, c.1830–1832, graphite and watercolour on paper, 23,2 x 31 cm, Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

 SECTION 5. LIGHT AND COLOUR 

Turner’s watercolour practice sometimes involved detailed colour studies on the same scale as his finished works. Even when working on his compositions, he was reported as saying that he ‘has no settled process but drives the colours about till he has expressed the ideas in his mind’. Many of the sheets generally called ‘colour beginnings’, executed from the late 1810s onwards, have survived. Such freely handled colour studies were counterparts to the detailed sketchbook drawings which were his key sources. The ‘colour beginnings’ he painted in the studio based on his drawings enabled him to reintroduce light and colour, combining his incredible visual memory, imagination, and unmatched technical mastery. Broad washes of strong colour are often detectable beneath the delicate surface finish of completed watercolours. There are parallels in Turner’s oil painting practice, as he sometimes applied a unifying web of detail to a largely unfinished composition during the ‘varnishing days’ before Royal Academy exhibitions. To modern viewers, the ‘colour beginnings’ may appear to be complete representations of mood and atmosphere in their own right. The fact that Turner retained so many suggests that he too may have derived aesthetic satisfaction from these private experiments. 

J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), An Idealised Italianate Landscape with Trees above a Lake or Bay, Lit by a Low Sun, c.1828–1829, watercolour on paper, 31,2 x 43,9 cm, Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), The Golden Bough, exhibited 1834, oil paint on canvas, 104,1 x 163,8 cm, Tate, Presented by Robert Vernon 1847, Photo © Tate 

SECTION 6. ARTISTIC SENSIBILITY 

Turner often stayed on the estate that belonged to his patron, Lord Egremont, at Petworth in Sussex, where he relaxed and made intimate watercolour studies of the house and its inhabitants. These works with their light strokes reflect the extensive expressiveness of the artist who enjoyed experimenting, both in terms of the choice of motifs and the materials he used. Also presented in this room are a palette and a pigment cabinet, which belonged to Turner and which directly attest to his bold use of colour, and, in particular, his frequent use of primary colours-red, yellow, and blue. His preference for bright colours became more pronounced in his later works. 

J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Lake Geneva, with the Dent d’Oche, from above Lausanne ,1841, graphite and watercolour on paper, 23,5 x 33,8 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

SECTION 7. MASTER AND MAGICIAN: THE LATE WORKS 

During the last decade of his career, up to the mid 1840s, Turner executed some of his finest watercolours. Produced during a period in which there was a change in taste and in his clientele, in terms of class, they were no longer produced for exhibitions or publishers, but for a small group of collectors and avant-garde admirers. As the pressure of major engraving commissions decreased, Turner’s output of private works became more prolific. He rediscovered the pleasure of painting without the need to draw a preparatory drawing. A third and final trip to Venice in 1840 inspired a whole series of watercolours and several canvases showing the city at all times of the day and night. The interplay of light and reflections across the lagoon often dissolves the architectural forms in washes of translucent colour. A Venetian oil painting prompted one critic to proclaim Turner a ‘magician’, with ‘command over the spirits of Earth, Air, Fire and Water’. Such elemental combinations were developed on summer tours to the Alps between 1841 and 1844. They evoke the simplified masses of mountains catching the fleeting dawn or sunset across mirror-like lakes. 

J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), The Artist and his Admirers, 1827, Watercolour and bodycolour on paper, 13,8 x 19 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 18 

SECTION 8. HAND AND HEART: THE LAST WORKS 

After more than half a century of work and travel, Turner’s health began to decline as he reached the age of seventy. He made two last brief visits to northern France and the coast of Normandy in 1845, ‘looking out for storms and shipwrecks’. He produced translucent studies in which the sea or shore merges into the sky. Very similar to the works he produced for his own pleasure for many years, they bear no clue as to the date or place of their execution, but are nonetheless boldly and skilfully executed. In the last years of his life, Turner was a regular visitor to the English seaside town of Margate, overlooking the uninterrupted horizon of the Thames as it flowed into the open sea beneath skies he considered ‘the loveliest in all Europe’. Many studies of the sun and clouds made there or elsewhere dispense with coastal features entirely, becoming light-filled meditations on the observer’s relationship with the world beyond. A similar approach seems to have been adopted for the preparatory work for the oil paintings that Turner produced during this period, both conceptually and formally. His style became more expressive, the paint was applied with more impasto, and the figurative compositions were replaced by canvases that were more suggestive than descriptive, based on a subtle treatment of light, colour, and atmospheric effects. The creation of subtle visual effects through the dissolution of form, which is primarily visible in his marine pictures, is also visible in the last canvases that the artist exhibited to the public at the Royal Academy in 1850. Turner passed away the following year, leaving behind an exceptionally rich and diverse collection of works. 

1 .J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Venice Quay, Ducal Palace, exhibited 1844, oil on canvas, 62,2 x 92,7 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate

 2. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Ehrenbreitstein with a Rainbow, 1840, graphite, watercolour and gouache on paper, 14,1 x 19,3 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), The Visit to the Tomb, exhibited 1850, oil on canvas, 91,4 x 121,9 cm, Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate

TURNER (1775–1851): KEY DATES 

Circa 23 April 1775: Joseph Mallord William Turner is born in London. 1789: He attends the Royal Academy, while working with architects and architectural draughtsmen, including Thomas Malton, whom he later describes as ‘my real master’. Before 1794: He attends the evening courses run by Dr Thomas Monro at his ‘Academy’, where he copies the works of other artists. As of 1790: He exhibits his watercolours at the Royal Academy, and eventually he submits his first oil colour— entitled Fishermen at Sea—in 1796. As of the mid 1790s: Turner adopts a routine that he will follow almost all his life: he travels in the summer and works in his studio during the winter months, using his outdoor drawings as the basis for his studio works. He is soon supported and sought after by collectors such as Richard Colt Hoare, William Beckford of Fonthill Abbey, and the Duke of Bridgewater. 1799: Elected an associate member of the Royal Academy and an Academician in 1802, he is considered a prodigious artist destined to become the foremost painter of his generation. 1802: During the Peace of Amiens, Turner travels to the Swiss Alps, and stays in Pairs, where is able to study the old master works in the Louvre. 1804: Turner opens his own gallery, where he exhibits his paper works and smaller and more intimate paintings than the pictures submitted to the Royal Academy. These exhibitions attract many collectors, including Walter Fawkes and George Wyndham, the third Count of Egremont. Turner’s sponsors invite him to their estates at Farnley Hall in Yorkshire and Petworth in Sussex, sites where the artist can relax and paint his intimate coloured studies. His watercolours evoke with verve life in the manors and the high society the painter frequents. As of 1806: Turner draws up a classification of the history and practice of landscape painting —from mountains to seascapes, and natural to idealised landscapes—and demonstrates his mastery of the various categories in a series of original engravings, the Liber Studiorum (‘Book of Studies’), whose title is inspired by Claude Lorrain’s Liber Veritatis. 1807: He is appointed Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy, where he begins to teach in 1811 after several years of research and preparation. His courses and his Liber highlight his talent as a teacher and attest, with the works exhibited in his gallery and elsewhere, to his exceptional vigour and determination to make an impact on the general public. 1810, 1811, and 1813: Aside from his travels in Sussex, Kent (1810), and the West Country (1811), the 1813 trip provides Turner with the subject matter for his book, Picturesque Views on the Southern Coast of England. This is the first major series of topographical subjects engraved after his watercolours. These engravings, which provide a wonderful record and representations of contemporary life, with its industries and leisure activities, are a vivid depiction of England at the beginning of the nineteenth century. 1815: His gallery welcomes, amongst other famous visitors, the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova, who considers Turner a great genius. 1817: With lasting peace in Europe, Turner is able to visit Holland and Belgium. During this period, several exhibitions are held in his honour in the properties of his collectors and at the Royal Academy. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Venice : Looking across the Lagoon at Sunset, 1840, watercolour on paper, 24,4 x 30,4 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 22 Press kit - Turner, paintings and watercolours. TATE’s Collections Press kit - Musée Jacquemart-André 23 1818: He inaugurates a topographic and literary vein when he visits Scotland to illustrate Walter Scott’s Provincial Antiquities and Picturesque Scenery of Scotland. In the following years, he continues this approach when he illustrates the poetry of Lord Byron, Samuel Rogers, Thomas Campbell, and Thomas Moore, as well as certain of John Milton’s poetic works. 1819: Turner’s first trip to Italy, one of the most important and decisive of his career. He stays in Venice, Rome, and Naples. 1821–1832: He visits France, where he explores the banks of the Seine and the Loire. 1828: His second trip to Italy. He lives in Rome, where he paints and exhibits new works. 1829: His father passes away in September. This is followed by the loss of his friend Thomas Lawrence, who had described Turner as ‘indisputably the finest landscape painter in Europe.’ 1833–1835: He goes on long trips to Europe. During this time, he publishes three volumes of engravings entitled Wanderings by the River Loire and Wanderings by the Seine, which were generically published under the title of ‘Turner’s Annual Tour’. 1841–1844: Turner’s visit to Switzerland is a fresh source of inspiration. Turner often represents the country’s scenery in his paintings, reflecting the cosmopolitan and European aspect if his mature works, as well as his consummate technical mastery. 1843: Ruskin publishes the first volume of his book Modern Painters and places Turner at the head of these artists. He becomes the standard bearer for a new generation of admirers of Turner, who praise the modernity of his works. Their enthusiasm for his watercolours and oils is a renewed source of inspiration for Turner, which is a driving force until the end of his life. 1845: Turner acts as interim president of the Royal Academy. 1848: For the first time since 1824, Turner presents no work in the Royal Academy. The same year, he adds a codicil to his will that mentions a ‘bequest’ and proposes a biennial display of his finished works. 1849–1850: Turner’s health rapidly deteriorates and he exhibits his works for the last time at the Royal Academy in 1850. He is now living as a recluse, especially during his stays in Margate, where Mrs Booth, his companion since 1833, looks after him. 19 December 1851: Turner passes away. He is buried on 30 December in the crypt of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, next to Sir Joshua Reynolds and Sir Thomas Lawrence, in accordance with his wish to be buried alongside his ‘Brothers in Art’.

J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Sunset, c.1845, watercolour on paper, 24 x 31,5 cm, Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 24 Press kit - Turner, paintings and watercolours. 

1. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), View in the Avon Gorge, 1791, Pen and ink and watercolour on paper, 23,1 x 29,4 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

2. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), The River Thames near Isleworth: Punt and Barges in the Foreground, 1805, graphite and watercolour on paper, 25,8 x 36,5 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

3. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), View of Richmond Hill and Bridge, exhibited 1808, Oil paint on canvas, 91,4 x 121,9 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

4. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Venice : San Giorgio Maggiore – Early Morning, 1819, Watercolour on paper, 22,3 x 28,7 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

5. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Scarborough, vers 1825, Watercolour and graphite on paper, 15,7 x 22,5 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

6. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), A Villa. Moon- Light (A Villa on the Night of a Festa di Ballo), for Samuel Rogers’s ‘Italy’, c.1826–1827, Pen and ink, graphite and watercolour on paper, 24,6 x 30,9 cm, Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

7. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), The Vision of Columbus, from Samuel Rogers’s Poems 1835, c.1830–1832, graphite and watercolour on paper, 23,2 x 31 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

8. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Jumièges, c.1832, Gouache and watercolour on paper, 13,9 x 19,1 cm, Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

9. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), The Golden Bough, exhibited 1834, oil paint on canvas, 104,1 x 163,8 cm, Tate, Presented by Robert Vernon 1847, Photo © Tate 

10. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), An Idealised Italianate Landscape with Trees above a Lake or Bay, Lit by a Low Sun, c.1828–1829, watercolour on paper, 31,2 x 43,9 cm, Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 

11. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Durham Cathedral: The Interior, Looking East along the South Aisle, 1797-1798, graphite, watercolour and gouache on paper, 75,8 x 57,9 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

 12. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Dinant, Bouvignes and Crèvecoeur: Sunset, c.1839, gouache and watercolour on paper, 13,6 x 18,8 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 13. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), The Artist and his Admirers, 1827, Watercolour and bodycolour on paper, 13,8 x 19 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 14. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Venice : Looking across the Lagoon at Sunset, 1840, watercolour on paper, 24,4 x 30,4 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 15. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Venice Quay, Ducal Palace, exhibited 1844, oil on canvas, 62,2 x 92,7 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 13 15 16 18 12 16. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Lake Geneva, with the Dent d’Oche, from above Lausanne ,1841, graphite and watercolour on paper, 23,5 x 33,8 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 17. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Ehrenbreitstein with a Rainbow, 1840, graphite, watercolour and gouache on paper, 14,1 x 19,3 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 18. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Venice, the Piazzetta with the Ceremony of the Doge Marrying the Sea, c.1835, oil on canvas, 91,4 x 121,9 cm Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 19. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), Sunset, c.1845, watercolour on paper, 24 x 31,5 cm, Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 20. J. M. W. Turner (1775 – 1851), The Visit to the Tomb, exhibited 1850, oil on canvas, 91,4 x 121,9 cm, Tate, Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, Photo © Tate 13 14 17 20 34 Press kit - Turner, paintings and watercolours. TATE’s Collections Press kit - Musée Jacquemart-André 35 ADDRESS Musée Jacquemart-André 158 boulevard Haussmann, 75008 Paris Métro: Lignes 9 et 13, stations Saint-Augustin, Miromesnil or Saint-Philippe-du-Roule RER: Ligne A, station Charles de Gaulle-Étoile Bus: Lignes 22, 43, 52, 54, 28, 80, 83, 84, 93 OPENINGS 13 March - 20 July 2020 Everyday from 10 am to 6 pm. Late openings on Mondays untill 8.30 pm during exhibition. THE CAFÉ JACQUEMART-ANDRÉ The café is opened from Monday to Friday from 11.45 am to 5.30 pm (untill 7 pm on Monday during exhibitions) and from 11 am to 5.30 pm on Sunday for brunch (until 2.30 pm). RATES Full rate: €15 Senior rate: €14 (+ de 65 ans) Reduced rate: €12 Youth rate: €9,5 (7-25 years old) Offer for families: €43 (2 adults and 2 youngs) Free under 7 PRESS CONTACT Damien Laval, Claudine Colin Communication damien@claudinecolin.com T. +33(0)1 42 72 60 01 / 06 07 09 66 59 WEB www.musee-jacquemart-andre.com #JacquemartAndre PRACTICAL INFORMATION THE CATALOGUE To complement the exhibition, Culturespaces and Fonds Mercator are publishing a 176 -page catalogue that includes the works presented in the exhibition. On sale for €35 in the musée Jacquemart-André’s cultural gift shop and online: www.boutique-culturespaces.com. A SPECIAL EDITION OF CONNAISSANCE DES ARTS The special edition of Connaissance des Arts provides a very interesting overview of the exhibition. On sale in the musée Jacquemart-André’s cultural gift shop and online: www.boutique-culturespaces.com. THE JOURNAL DE L’EXPO - BEAUX-ARTS MAGAZINE The ‘Journal de l’expo’ Beaux Arts magazine presents the works of the exhibition. On sale in the musée Jacquemart-André’s cultural gift shop. THE GUIDED TOUR FOR SMARTPHONE AND TABLET This application, which is available in French and English, enables you to discover the finest works in the exhibition thanks to around twenty audio commentaries and the xhibition preview THE GUIDE AUDIO An audio guide with a selection of major works is available in two languages (French and English) at a cost of €3. THE ACTIVITY BOOK FOR YOUNG CHILDREN Given freely to each child (7–12 years old) who visits the exhibition, this activity book provides a guide that enables youngsters to observe, in an entertaining way, the major works in the exhibition by solving various puzzles. AROUND THE EXHIBITION #JacquemartAndre Avec le soutien du PARTNERS 158 bd. Haussmann - 75008 Paris Ouvert tous les jours, de 10h à 18h Late openings on Mondays untill 8.30 pm www.musee-jacquemart-andre.com #JacquemartAndre PRESS CONTACT Claudine Colin Communication Damien Laval damien@claudinecolin.com T. +33(0)1 42 72 60 01