From April 22 to October 23, 2016, t he Guggenheim Museum Bilbao presents Windows on the City: The School of Paris, 1900 –1945, an exhibition of
more than 50 masterpieces from
the collection of the Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum in New York. This exhibition is the first since the renewal of the management agreement with the Guggenheim
Foundation, signed in December
2014 and valid for 20 years. The agreement provides
for a range of new initiatives that will broaden the partnership and emphasizes the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum’s
commitment to present an
exhibition of key, iconic works
from its collection every two
years at the Guggenheim Museum
Bilbao.
Windows on the City: The School of Paris, 1900 –1945 includes some of
the most influential paintings and sculptures of the last century, created by artists such as Constantin
Brancusi, Georges Braque, Robert Delaunay, Amedeo Modigliani, and Pablo Picasso. In the early twentieth century, Paris was the capital of the avant-garde. Artists from around the world settled in the City of Light, where they
created new forms of art and literature and responded to the rapid economic, social, and technological
developments that were fundamentally transforming city life. It was in Paris that Picasso and Braque radically overturned the conventions of
painting, Delaunay composed harmonious
visions of color, Kandinsky
pursued new directions in abstraction, and Brancusi reimagined how sculptures could be present in space.
The title of the
exhibition, which refers to a
series by Delaunay, illustrates how the modern city became a backdrop
and an inspiration for artistic
production. Spanning from the
first years of the twentieth century through World War II , the exhibition charts the key movements of modernism —from Cubism to Orphism to Surrealism—and the artists who came to be known as the École de Paris (School of Paris).
Among the masterpieces featured
are
Picasso’s Le Moulin de la Galette (1900,
Modigliani’s Nude (1917),
and Marc Chagall’s Green Violinist (1923 –24).
Though diverse, the artistic visions represented in this exhibition manifest a common impulse to eschew conservative aesthetics and transform perceptions of everyday life in a modern city. The rise of Fascism and the occupation of France during World War II ultimately ended the School of Paris, as the artists who had once sought political, spiritual, and creative refuge in the city were forced to leave.
A tour through the exhibition
Cubism was one of the most important artistic innovations that emerged in Paris in the first half of the twentieth century. This revolutionary approach to painting, developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque between 1907 and 1914, challenged the conventions of visual art and the very nature of representation. This gallery includes key works that exemplify Analytic Cubism, an intellectual style in which form and space are “broken down ;”
Braque’s Piano and Mandola (1909–10)
and Picasso’s Bottles and Glasses (1911–12)
feature many characteristics of this approach, including a muted palette. While still recognizable in these paintings, object are fractured into multiple planes, as is the background.
In the years leading up to and following World War I, artists used the visual vocabulary of Cubism to achieve various ends, such as exploring pure abstraction and modern science, and infusing contemporary experience with the spirituality of folk traditions.
Robert Delaunay
Red Eiffel Tower (La tour rouge), 1911–12
Oil on canvas
125 x 90.3 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, 46.1036
Robert Delaunay
Circular Forms (Formes circulaires), 1930
Oil on canvas
128.9 x 194.9 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, 49.1184
Robert Delaunay’s depictions of Parisian life and landmarks, are exemplified in works such as Red Eiffel Tower (1911- 12), while his later abstract painting, Circular Forms (1930) showcases his interest in contemporary developments in optics.
In this gallery, visitors can also observe Green Violinist (1923) (above) by Russian artist Marc Chagall, who produced this painting upon his return to Paris after having spent much of World War I in his home country. The work merges the Cubist fragmentation of space with colorful imagery inspired by Russian and Jewish folklore, conveying the artist’s nostalgia for the religious festivals and popular celebrations of his youth.
The work of Constantin Brancusi, who traveled from his native Romania to settle in Paris in 1904, rejects the theatrical, narrative impulse of much nineteenth century sculpture in favor of radically simplified, abstract forms and the unadorned presentation of wood, metal, and other materials. Brancusi never identified the specific sources or meanings of his works, but The Sorceress (1916–24) might relate to a supernatural figure from Romanian legends.
Gallery 307
After the First World War, Paris once again became a center of cultural production. During that time, the adherents of Surrealism—a movement inaugurated with André Breton’s 1924 manifesto —were also counted as part of the School of Paris. Drawing on the theories of Sigmund Freud, these writers and artists attempted to articulate and give form to repressed desires, dream imagery, and other elements of the unconscious. Some, like Yves Tanguy juxtaposed incongruous images and objects; others, like Jean Arp and Joan Miró, experimented with automatism, creating drawings without a premeditated composition or subject in order to bypass the conscious mind. Infl uenced by Arp and Miró, American sculptor Alexander Calder created a language of movement and balance with his famous mobiles and wire sculptures including Romulus and Remus (1928).
Vasily Kandinsky, who made significant advances in abstract painting while living in Germany and Russia during the 1910s and ‘20s, settled in Paris in 1934. In his works from this period, including
Yellow Painting (1938) and
Around the Circle (1940),
Kandinsky combines free-playing forms similar to those from his earliest abstractions with the more geometric and biomorphic shapes he developed while teaching at the Bauhaus.
Didaktika
The exhibition includes an educational
area that aims to transport visitors to turn-of-the -century Paris through a “time tunnel” that provides a historical, political, economic, and social context of the time. An icon of modernity and the avant -garde, Paris is, in a way, a co-star of the exhibition. Focusing on four
major expositions that
took place in Paris during the
first half of the twentieth century — the 1900 Universal Exposition, the 1925 International Exposition of Modern
Industrial and Decorative Arts, the 1931 International Colonial Exhibition, and the 1937 International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life —the contents of the Didaktika are presented through texts, large photomurals, videos, and audio recordings that
evoke the vibrancy of the City of Light.
Picasso’s Le Moulin de la Galette (1900,
Modigliani’s Nude (1917),
and Marc Chagall’s Green Violinist (1923 –24).
Though diverse, the artistic visions represented in this exhibition manifest a common impulse to eschew conservative aesthetics and transform perceptions of everyday life in a modern city. The rise of Fascism and the occupation of France during World War II ultimately ended the School of Paris, as the artists who had once sought political, spiritual, and creative refuge in the city were forced to leave.
A tour through the exhibition
Cubism was one of the most important artistic innovations that emerged in Paris in the first half of the twentieth century. This revolutionary approach to painting, developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque between 1907 and 1914, challenged the conventions of visual art and the very nature of representation. This gallery includes key works that exemplify Analytic Cubism, an intellectual style in which form and space are “broken down ;”
Braque’s Piano and Mandola (1909–10)
and Picasso’s Bottles and Glasses (1911–12)
feature many characteristics of this approach, including a muted palette. While still recognizable in these paintings, object are fractured into multiple planes, as is the background.
In the years leading up to and following World War I, artists used the visual vocabulary of Cubism to achieve various ends, such as exploring pure abstraction and modern science, and infusing contemporary experience with the spirituality of folk traditions.
Robert Delaunay
Red Eiffel Tower (La tour rouge), 1911–12
Oil on canvas
125 x 90.3 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, 46.1036
Robert Delaunay
Circular Forms (Formes circulaires), 1930
Oil on canvas
128.9 x 194.9 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, 49.1184
Robert Delaunay’s depictions of Parisian life and landmarks, are exemplified in works such as Red Eiffel Tower (1911- 12), while his later abstract painting, Circular Forms (1930) showcases his interest in contemporary developments in optics.
In this gallery, visitors can also observe Green Violinist (1923) (above) by Russian artist Marc Chagall, who produced this painting upon his return to Paris after having spent much of World War I in his home country. The work merges the Cubist fragmentation of space with colorful imagery inspired by Russian and Jewish folklore, conveying the artist’s nostalgia for the religious festivals and popular celebrations of his youth.
The work of Constantin Brancusi, who traveled from his native Romania to settle in Paris in 1904, rejects the theatrical, narrative impulse of much nineteenth century sculpture in favor of radically simplified, abstract forms and the unadorned presentation of wood, metal, and other materials. Brancusi never identified the specific sources or meanings of his works, but The Sorceress (1916–24) might relate to a supernatural figure from Romanian legends.
Gallery 307
After the First World War, Paris once again became a center of cultural production. During that time, the adherents of Surrealism—a movement inaugurated with André Breton’s 1924 manifesto —were also counted as part of the School of Paris. Drawing on the theories of Sigmund Freud, these writers and artists attempted to articulate and give form to repressed desires, dream imagery, and other elements of the unconscious. Some, like Yves Tanguy juxtaposed incongruous images and objects; others, like Jean Arp and Joan Miró, experimented with automatism, creating drawings without a premeditated composition or subject in order to bypass the conscious mind. Infl uenced by Arp and Miró, American sculptor Alexander Calder created a language of movement and balance with his famous mobiles and wire sculptures including Romulus and Remus (1928).
Vasily Kandinsky, who made significant advances in abstract painting while living in Germany and Russia during the 1910s and ‘20s, settled in Paris in 1934. In his works from this period, including
Yellow Painting (1938) and
Around the Circle (1940),
Kandinsky combines free-playing forms similar to those from his earliest abstractions with the more geometric and biomorphic shapes he developed while teaching at the Bauhaus.
Didaktika
Georges Braque
Violin and Palette (Violon et palette), September 1, 1909Oil on canvas
91.7 x 42.8 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 54.1412 © VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
Marc Chagall
The Soldier Drinks (Le soldat boit), 1911–12
Oil on canvas
109.2 x 94.6 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, 49.1211
© VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
Juan Gris
Newspaper and Fruit Dish (Journal et compotier), March 1916
Oil on canvas
46 x 37.8 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, By gift, Estate of Katherine S. Dreier, 53.1341
Vasily Kandinsky
Around the Circle (Autour du cercle), May–August 1940
Oil and enamel on canvas
96.8 x 146 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, 49.1222
© VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
,_oil_on_burlap,_128.6_x_95.9_cm,_Solomon_R._Guggenheim_Museum,_New_York,_Solomon_R._Guggenheim.jpg)
Fernand Léger
Nude Model in the Studio (Le modèle nu dans l'atelier), 1912–13
Oil on burlap
128.6 x 95.9 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, 49.1193
© VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
Joan Miró
Landscape (The Hare) (Paysage [Le lièvre]), autumn 1927 Oil on canvas
129.6 x 194.6 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 57.1459
© 2016 Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Amedeo Modigliani
Nude (Nu), 1917
Oil on canvas
73 x 116.7 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection, By gift, 41.535
Piet Mondrian
Still Life with Gingerpot II (Stilleven met gemberpot II), 1911–12 Oil on canvas
91.5 x 120 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, L294.76
© 2007 Mondrian / Holtzman Trust
Pablo Picasso
Le Moulin de la Galette, autumn 1900
Oil on canvas
88.2 x 115.5 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York,
Thannhauser Collection, Gift, Justin K. Thannhauser, 78.2514.34 © Sucesión Pablo Picasso. VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
Pablo Picasso
Carafe, Jug and Fruit Bowl (Carafon, pot et compotier), summer 1909
Oil on canvas
71.8 x 64.6 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Solomon R. Guggenheim Founding Collection,
By gift, 37.536
© Sucesión Pablo Picasso. VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
Pablo Picasso
Mandolin and Guitar (Mandoline et guitare), 1924
Oil with sand on canvas
140.7 x 200.3 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York 53.1358 © Sucesión Pablo Picasso. VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
Yves Tanguy
There, Motion Has Not Yet Ceased (Là ne finit pas encore le mouvement), 1945 Oil on canvas
71.1 x 55.5 cm
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Bequest, Richard S. Zeisler, 2007.47 © 2016 Estate of Yves Tanguy / VEGAP, Bilbao, 2016
