Friday, August 31, 2018

Hot Sun, Late Sun: Van Gogh and Picasso



Since its inauguration in 2014, the Fondation Vincent van Gogh Arles has presented works by the great masters of painting—foremost among them being Vincent van Gogh, whose work underpins the direction of our program. However, while Vincent will be present once again, this upcoming exhibition is driven by the work of another great painter in modern art, Pablo Picasso. 

Pablo Picasso and Vincent van Gogh: an extraordinary dialogue delving into the major influence of the Dutch painter on Picasso, who considered him the “greatest of all”; just this would have sufficed. But Hot Sun, Late Sun is a thematic exhibition, weaving an intricate conversation highlighting the intersections between practices— between Pablo Picasso and Sigmar Polke for one, but also between Alexander Calder, Adolphe Monticelli, Giorgio de Chirico and Vincent van Gogh. Hot Sun, Late Sun will feature a number of rare loans, which we are proud to present to the public  until 28 October 2018.

Vincent van Gogh, Crâne, Paris, mai 1887.jpg 

Vincent van Gogh, Crâne, Paris, mai 1887
Vincent van Gogh, Champ aux meules de blés, 1890.jpg

Vincent van Gogh, Champ aux meules de blés, 1890.
Vincent van Gogh-Moissonenprovence-1888.jpg


Vincent van Gogh-Moissonenprovence-1888

 

Picasso-Têted'hommeauchapeaudepaille,1971© Succession Picasso 2018.jpg

Picasso-Tête d'homme au chapeau de paille, 1971-© Succession Picasso 2018
Picasso-Paysage,1972-© Succession Picasso 2018-HD.jpg
Picasso-Paysage, 1972-© Succession Picasso 2018

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Adolph Gottlieb in Provincetown


From Aug. 31 to Oct. 21, 2018, the Provincetown Art Association and Museum in Provincetown, Mass., will present Adolph Gottlieb in Provincetown, curated by Sanford Hirsch, Executive Director of the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation.

Adolph Gottlieb, Sea and Tide, 1952, oil on canvas, 60 x 72”, ©Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY
Adolph Gottlieb, Sea and Tide, 1952, oil on canvas, 60 x 72”, ©Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY

One of the original Abstract Expressionist artists, Adolph Gottlieb was part of many artists’ groups and associations, some formal and some not. He worked year-round, yet had a longstanding habit of spending summers away from his home in New York City. Early in his career he would travel to Cape Ann to be near his friends Milton and Sally Avery and Mark Rothko and the larger colony of artists in East Gloucester and Rockport.

Adolph Gottlieb (1903-1974)

Imaginary Landscape

Date Created:
1955
Style:
Painting
Medium:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
8" x 10"
Gift from the Richmond Bequest


From 1946 to 1956 Gottlieb spent his summers in Provincetown where he could divide his days between his two great passions – art and sailing. Gottlieb’s practice was to spend mornings in the studio and afternoons on the water. Evenings were spent with friends and colleagues, including Robert Motherwell, Hans Hoffman, Karl Knaths, Weldon Kees and many more.

During his time in Provincetown Gottlieb worked almost exclusively on paper and a few small oils. His studio was too small for large paintings, and the focus on smaller work was part of his summer routine.  The works he created in Provincetown extend from his Pictographs of the 1940s through to the beginnings of what would become his Burst paintings in 1956. Some of the major transitions in his art took place in the studio on Commercial Street, including his plans for the stained glass façade of the Steinberg Center in New York City and an incredibly creative period in 1956 that was part of a major transition year for him.

Gottlieb was fully part of the Provincetown art community during the decade he worked there. He was one of the organizers of Forum 49 and related events, and exhibited many of his works at the fledgling Provincetown Art Association.  At the same time, Gottlieb was also a well-known and respected racer of small sailboats in the waters off the Cape.

Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing


Frist Museum
March 15–May 27, 2019

Dorothea Lange (1895–1965) is recognized as one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century, and her insightful and compassionate work has exerted a profound influence on the development of modern documentary photography. With hardship and human suffering as a consistent theme throughout her career, Lange created arresting portraits with the aim of sparking reform.


This is the first exhibition to examine her work through the lens of social and political activism, presenting iconic photographs from the Great Depression, the grim conditions of incarcerated Japanese Americans during World War II, and inequity in our judicial system in the 1950s. The exhibition encompasses 300 objects, including 130 vintage and modern photographs, proof sheets, letters, a video, and other personal memorabilia.

Organized by the Oakland Museum of California





Dorothea Lange, Crossroads General Store, circa 1938. © The Dorothea Lange Collection, the Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of Paul S. Taylor.





Dorothea Lange,
Crossroads General Store, circa 1938. © The Dorothea Lange
Collection, the Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of Paul
S. Taylor.



 http://museumca.org/sites/default/files/Kern%20Co.%2C%20California%E2%80%94Lettuce%20Strike%2C%201938.jpg

Kern Co. California—Lettuce Strike1938
Dorothea Lange,
Last West, Gas Station, Kern County, California
, 1938. © The Dorothea Lange Collection, the
Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of
Paul S. Taylor.


http://museumca.org/sites/default/files/Migrant%20Mother%2C%20Nipomo%2C%20California%2C%201936_lo-res.jpg
 
Migrant Mother
Dorothea Lange,
Migrant Mother, Nipomo, 1936
. The Dorothea Lange Collection, the
Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of Paul S. Taylor.

http://museumca.org/sites/default/files/One%20Nation%20Indivisible.jpg

One Nation Indivisible
Dorothea Lange,
Pledge of Allegiance
, 1942. © The Dorothea
Lange Collection, the
Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of Paul S. Taylor.

http://museumca.org/sites/default/files/The%20Road%20West%2C%20US%2054%20in%20New%20Mexico%2C%201938.jpg

The Road West
Dorothea Lange,
The Road West, New Mexico, 1938. © The Dorothea Lange Collection,
the Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of Paul S.Taylor.

http://museumca.org/sites/default/files/Shipyard%20Worker%2C%20Richmond%20California%2C%20circa%201943.jpg

Shipyard Worker
Dorothea Lange,
Shipyard Worker, Richmond California,
circa 1943. © The Dorothea Lange Collection, the Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of Paul S.
Taylor.

http://museumca.org/sites/default/files/White%20Angel%20Bread%20Line%2C%20San%20Francisco%2C%201933.jpg

White Angel Bread Line
Dorothea Lange,
White Angel  Bread Line, San Francisco, 1933.
© The Dorothea Lange
Collection, the Oakland Museum of California, City of Oakland. Gift of Paul S. Taylor.

http://museumca.org/sites/default/files/Young%20Man%20at%20Manzanar%20Relocation%20Center%2C%20July%203%2C%201942.jpg

Young Man at Manzanar
Dorothea Lange,
Young Man at Manzanar Relocation Center, 1942. Collection of the
Oakland Museum of California, Gift of Paul S. Taylor.


Also see:

http://arthistorynewsreport.blogspot.com/2017/07/dignity-vs-despair-dorothea-lange-and.html

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

Exhibit dedicated to Louis Comfort Tiffany


The Lyman Allyn Art Museum will open a new permanent exhibit this October, dedicated to life and works of American artist and designer, Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848 – 1933), who was best known for his innovative work with stained glass. The installation will feature three newly conserved stained glass windows which were commissioned in the early 1900s to memorialize loved ones in New London.

The collection, which will showcase never before exhibited objects (many of which came from the artist’s descendants), will illustrate Tiffany’s early career as a painter, then show his work as an interior designer, and tell the story of his innovations and success as a glassmaker. With items both from the museum’s collection and on loan, the exhibit will include nearly 100 pieces of decorative arts and fine arts objects including a range of windows, lamps, paintings, period photographs, furniture, metalworks, glass samples and finished Favrile glass vessels, as well as jewelry and adornments. The works will be displayed in the museum’s Chappell Gallery, a 1,070 square foot space devoted to the artist.

“Louis Comfort Tiffany is known as one of the most creative and versatile artists of his era. This new exhibit, which provides a comprehensive and insightful look at his many works, allows us to tell a rich story about his life and career,” stated Museum Director, Sam Quigley. “We are thrilled to join the ranks of noteworthy institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art,  The Corning Museum of Glass and the Morse Museum in Florida, that offer a focused collection from this very important artist,” he added.

Much of Tiffany’s success was driven by technical innovations in blown and stained glass. As such, the exhibit will present the creativity, history, and artistry that Tiffany and his craftspeople used to create vivid new effects in glass. They made multi-colored iridescent surfaces and deep colors, textures, and other effects to make the glass itself mimic the versatility of a painted canvas. This type of iridescent glass with distinctive coloring in which the color is ingrained in the glass itself became known as Favrile glass. Tiffany patented the process in 1894 and first produced the glass for manufacture in Queens, New York in 1896.

The museum will also provide several short and informative videos which explore Tiffany family history, the patronage of Tiffany windows and the conservation and preservation of the windows installed in the gallery. The videos will be created by Todd Gipstein, an award winning writer, photographer, and producer whose work has been featured in National Geographic.

Following the gala opening of the exhibit on October 20, the museum will launch a lecture series in November, 2018. The series will be kicked off with a presentation focused around Agnes Northrop, a noted independent female designer for Tiffany Studios. The first lecture will be delivered on November 17 by renowned Tiffany expert and author Alice Cooney Frelinghuyse., the Andrew W. and Lulu C. Wang Curator of American Decorative Arts at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

“A wide range of cultural influences informed the art and design of the Gilded Age, bringing objects, designs, and ideas from around the world to America and to this region,” noted Tanya Pohrt, Special Project Curator. “Tiffany’s fascination with the art and culture of the middle east and the far east illustrates the global and cosmopolitan nature of American art and design in this era,” she added.



Some notable pieces to be displayed in the upcoming exhibit include





Dragonfly Lamp, ca. 1906, Tiffany Studios, designed by Clara Driscoll. LAAM Museum purchase, 2017.15
the Dragonfly Lamp, ca 1906. Tiffany Studios, designed by Clara Driscoll,


 

 Louis Comfort Tiffany, New York, Come Unto Me, 1924, Favrile glass; 72” x 76” , photo courtesy of Robert Baldwin.

 as well as two stained glass windows from the Frank Loomis Palmer (1851-1917)  Mausoleum, Cedar Grove Cemetery, New London.

River of Life window, probably J & R Lamb Studios, ca. 1904-1910,







Saint Cecilia, Tiffany Studios, ca. 1917. Loan, Cedar Grove Cemetery, New London.  

and Saint Cecilia window, Tiffany Studios, ca. 1913.


Sugar Bowl with lid, sterling silver, 1928, Tiffany & Company. Loan, private collection.

Vase, early 20th century, Louis Comfort Tiffany. LAAM, Gift of Alfreda Mitchell Bingham Gregor, 1958.2

Today, the Tiffany family name is most commonly associated with Tiffany & Co., a prestigious American luxury jewelry and specialty retailer, founded in New York in 1837 by Louis Comfort’s father, Charles L. Tiffany. By the 1870s and 1880s, Tiffany & Co. was the world's premier source for luxury goods, serving royalty and the wealthy industrialists who led America's Gilded Age. Tiffany’s son, Louis Comfort Tiffany established his own firms specializing in arts and decorative glass. His firm designed interiors and furnishing for many notable clients including President Chester Arthur’s White House and Mark Twain’s mansion. Later following the death of Charles Lewis Tiffany in 1902, the younger Tiffany stepped in, becoming primary shareholder and design director at Tiffany & Co., a title he held until 1919.

About Lyman Allyn Art Museum

The Lyman Allyn Art Museum welcomes visitors from New London, southeastern Connecticut and all over the world. Established in 1926 by a gift from Harriet Allyn in memory of her seafaring father, the Museum opened the doors of its beautiful neo-classical building surrounded by 12 acres of green space in 1932. Today it presents a number of changing exhibitions each year and houses a fascinating collection of over 17,000 objects from ancient times to the present; artworks from Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe, with particularly strong collections of American paintings, decorative arts and Victorian toys and doll houses. Tiffany in New London is part of the museum’s revitalization initiative, which includes the recently completed reinstallation which highlights the Museum’s permanent collection, the replacement of the building’s HVAC system, and future improvements to its 12 acres of green space.

The museum is located at 625 Williams Street, New London, Connecticut, exit 83 off I-95. The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am – 5:00 pm, Sundays 1:00 – 5:00 pm; closed Mondays and major holidays. For more information call 860.443.2545, ext. 2129 or visit us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, or the web at: www.lymanallyn.org.

THE CHARTERHOUSE OF BRUGES:JAN VAN EYCK,PETRUS CHRISTUS,AND JAN VOS


The Frick Collection
September 18, 2018, through January 13, 2019 

For the first time in twenty-four years and only the second timein their history, two masterpieces of early Netherlandish painting commissioned by the Carthusian monk Jan Vos will be reunited in a special exhibition at The Frick Collection. These works—the



Jan van Eyck and Workshop
The Virgin and Child with St. Barbara, St. Elizabeth, and Jan Vos
, ca. 1441–43
Oil on panel
18 5/8 × 24 1/8 inches
The Frick Collection, New York
Photo: Michael Bodycomb

Frick’s Virgin and Child with St. Barbara, St. Elizabeth, and Jan Vos, commissioned from Jan van Eyck and completed by his workshop, and 

 ]

Petrus Christus
The Virgin and Child with St. Barbara and Jan Vos (known as the Exeter Virgin),
ca. 1450
Oil on panel
7 5/8 × 5 ½ inches
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie
The Virgin and Child with St. Barbara and Jan Vos (known as the Exeter Virgin, after its first recorded owner), painted by Petrus Christus and now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin—will be shown with a selection of objects that place them in the rich monastic contextfor which they were created. 

The exhibition pays tribute to Vos as a patron and offers insightinto the role such images played in shaping monastic life in fifteenth-century.

Bruges.The Charterhouse of Bruges: Jan van Eyck, Petrus Christus, and Jan Vos will be on view in the museum’s Cabinet Gallery and is organized by Emma Capron, the Frick’s 2016–18 Anne L. Poulet Curatorial Fellow.

 CARTHUSIAN PATRONAGE IN RENAISSANCEBRUGES 

The Carthusians belonged to one of the most austere monastic orders of the late Middle Ages, removed entirely from the secular worl dand committed to a life of solitude and silence spent mostly within the confines of their cells. These ascetic ideals belied a complex attitude toward ornament and images. While specific images were cited as distracting luxuries in the order’s regulations, others were valued as important tools for meditation, and the Carthusians’monasteries, known as charterhouses, became rich repositories of painted panels, illuminated manuscripts, funerary monuments, altarpieces, and other fine works of art. 

In April 1441, the Carthusian monk Jan Vos was elected prior of the Charterhouse of Genadedal, an important monastery near Bruges that was patronized by the dukes of Burgundy and the city’s foremost patrician families. Soon after his arrival in Bruges, Vos commissioned TheVirgin and Child with St. Barbara, St. Elizabeth,and Jan Vos from Jan van Eyck, who laid out the painting’s composition. Following the artist’s death in June 1441, the panel was completed by an unknown member of his workshop. Several years later, Vos commissioned the closely related Virgin and Child with St. Barbara and Jan Vos from Petrus Christus. 

It was not uncommon for preeminent Netherlandish masters to paint important works for Carthusian monasteries, most famously Rogier van der Weyden, who, around 1455–64, gifted his monumental Crucifixion (now in the collection of El Escorial, Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo, Madrid) to the charterhouse of Scheut near Brussels, and another panel (possibly depicting the Virgin, now lost) to the charterhouse of Herne, where his son was a monk. Genadedal boasted impressive works of artas well. In addition to the Van Eyck Virgin and the Petrus Christus panel, a small choir book from Genadedal is included in the exhibition. 

Single leaf from a 14th-century gradual

Unknown artist, Low Countries
Gradual (song book formerly at Genadedal), 14th century Manuscript
6 5/16 × 4 3/
4 inches
Bibliothèque municipale, Douai


One of the only surviving illustrated manuscripts from the charterhouse, its decoration is worn from generations of monks touching and kissing the holy figures depicted within it. Another outstanding work in the exhibition is associated with Genadedal: 

Image result 

Petrus Christus
Portrait of a Carthusian Lay Brother,
1446
Oil on wood
11 1/2 × 8 1/
2 inches
The Jules Bache Collection, 1949, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Petrus Christus’s Portrait of a Carthusian Lay Brother. Painted in 1446, it probably depicts one of the charterhouse’s membersand is thought to be the earliest surviving portrait of a cleric not depicted in the act of praying. Additional links of patronage tied the charterhouse to Van Eyck and Petrus Christus: for instance, the wealthy merchant Pieter II Adornes,who joined Genadedal in 1454 following the death of his wife, had previously been portrayed by Petrus Christus and had probably commissioned two panels of

The Stigmatization of St. Francis from Van Eyck (identified today as works in the 


Galleria Sabauda in Turin 



and the Philadelphia Museum of Art).  

ABOUT THE PAINTINGS: DEVOTION & COMMEMORATION

Though different in scale, the Frick and Exeter Virgins bear remarkably similar imagery, composition, and fine execution. Both scenes depict Vos being introduced to the Virgin and Child by Saint Barbara, and are set within elaborate porticos opening on a panoramic cityscape; the panels achieve remarkable monumentality while conveying myriad minute details. Kneeling on holy ground removed from the city below, Vos exemplifies the Carthusian ideal of isolation from the world. 

The prior’s choice of patron saints has been connected to his earlier career as a Teutonic Knight, a military religious order that looked after the relics of Elizabeth of Hungary, a noblewoman who renounced worldly goods to devote herself to the poor and who is depicted as a nun in the Frick panel. 

Saint Barbara is shown in both the Frick and Exeter panels with her attribute, the tower where her father imprisoned her to prevent (unsuccessfully) her conversion to Christianity. Barbara was the patron saint of artillerymen and, as such, was especially revered by the Teutonic Knights. The story of her confinement in the tower must have also resonated with the reclusive Carthusians: during the late Middle Ages, charterhouses often were compared to prisons. 

The Virgin features as central object of veneration in both the Frick and Exeter panels, as she does in a diptych and clay tablet (both lost) that Vos is known to have owned. This reflects not only the ubiquity of the Virgin’s cult during the late Middle Ages, but also her importance as patron of the Carthusian order. 

Because of its diminutive size (7 5/8 x 5 1/2 in.), it is probable that the Exeter Virgin served a devotional purpose. As the fourteenth-century Carthusian writer Guillaume d’Ivrée recounted, such images were frequently found in monks’ cells, where they were meant to “excite devotion and imagination, and augment devotional ideas.” 

This is consistent with meditative practices of the period, which relied on physical images to help conjure mental ones. Images provided the crucial first step for this spiritual progress: they helped focus the monks’ minds and allowed them to visualize themselves in the presence of holy beings. 

Looking at his own likeness in the company of the Virgin, Christ, and Saint Barbara would have helped Vos visualize this divine encounter in his mind’s eye. 

This reliance on mental images and visualization is not so different from exercises promoted by mindfulness meditation today. Images were all the more important for an order whose members spent the majority of their time in their cells, in solitary prayer: images, especially ones as rich in detail as the Frick and Exeter Virgins, would have offered endless possibilities for examination, helping to relieve the mental strain of complete isolation. 

The function of the Frick Virgin is more difficult to ascertain. Previous studies have identified it as either a devotional work or an altarpiece. A recent examination of the archives of the Utrecht charterhouse—where Vos took the panel after leaving Bruges in 1450—provides compelling evidence that it had served as his memorial, a type of funerary monument popular in northern Europe during the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Broadly defined, memorials (also called votive tablets or epitaphs) were large painted or sculpted tablets, which depicted a deceased donor being introduced by saints to holy figures—in most cases the Virgin and Child—whose intercession they sought. 

Generally, memorials would be placed above the tomb of the deceased, thus functioning as grave markers. Their frames usually bore an inscription that identified the deceased and petitioned passers-by to pray for the repose of the deceased’s soul. Indeed, during the fifteenth century, prayers from the living were believed to hasten the release of the deceased’s soul from purgatory into heaven, and memorials were created specifically in order to secure suffrages for the dead. 

This was not the first time that Van Eyck was commissioned to paint a memorial: his monumental 

 The Virgin Mary and the child Jesus seated on an elevated throne decorated with biblical figures. To the left is St. Donatian (standing). The panel's donor Joris van der Paele kneels in prayer as St. Donatian stands over him



Virgin and Child with the Canon Joris van der Paele (ca. 1434–36) originally hung in Bruges’ Church of Saint-Donatian, above Van der Paele’s grave. (It is now in the Groeningemuseum in Bruges.) 



(copy after Jan van Eyck's Madonna and Child with a Donor. 172cm x 99cm. before 1757–60.)

Another memorial by the artist, The Virgin and Child with Nicolas van Maelbeke,was completed probably around the time Vos arrived in Bruges. 

 
Copy after Jan van Eyck's Madonna and Child with a Donor. Silverpoint on paper, 13.4 x 10.2 cm. Unknown artist, 15th century, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg.

Although lost, the panel is known through two silver point drawings from about 1445 (now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg and the Albertina, Vienna). The latter, attributed to Petrus Christus, is featured in the exhibition. This composition inspired the Exeter Virgin and shows the impact of Van Eyck’s legacy on the younger painter. 

When Vos began his tenure as prior of Genadedal, he was probably in his fifties, at an age when one usually started planning for death. By then Van Eyck had completed his memorials for Van der Paele and Van Maelbeke, which may have been known by Vos, perhaps prompting him to commission the artist to produce a similar(thoughmore modest) in size memorial for himself. 

In 1443, about two years after the completion of the Frick Virgin, Vos petitioned his acquaintance, Bishop Martin de Blija, to attach to the memorial an indulgence—that is, a grant that promised passers-by a remission of time served in purgatory in exchange for their prayers. 

Specifically, the indulgence guaranteed forty days of pardon to whoever would greet the Virgin in the Frick panel with the Ave Maria, the first line of which, significantly, appears embroidered on the canopy behind the Virgin, suggesting that Vos planned from the onset of the commission to seek an indulgence for the panel. The painting’s imagery thus invited viewers to recite the indulgenced prayer. The indulgence could also be gained by saluting the panel’s images of Saint Barbara or Saint Elizabeth by reciting both the Ave Maria and the Pater Noster. 

Forty-day indulgences were by no means uncommon duringthe late Middle Ages, and they were frequently granted to encourage prayers in front of newly made images. As a spiritual privilege granted to the Carthusians, the indulgence was only valid as long as the image remained within the order. Thus, on the walls of The Frick Collection, the Virgin has lost its supposed power of spiritual remission. 

What prompted Vos to seek an indulgence for his memorial? Effectively, the indulgence made the painting’s beholder a mutually beneficial offer: in addition to benefitting Vos’s soul, the recitation of special prayers in front of 5 the panel would also improve the viewer’s prospects for salvation through the remission offered by the indulgence. Vos thus used the indulgence to call attention to his memorial and incentivize suffrages for his soul among his fellow monks. In procuring the indulgence, Vos transformed the panel into a currency in the economy of salvation that pervaded the era.The Frick and Exeter Virgins survived the destruction of the Bruges and Utrecht charterhouses during the religious wars, in 1578 and 1580 respectively. 

While Vos’s body lies anonymously somewhere beneath the residential buildings that now stand on the site of the Utrecht charterhouse where he died in 1462, his memorial hangs on the walls of The Frick Collection. Venerated today for its artistic qualities rather than as an object that helped one secure salvation,Vos’s memorial has fulfilled its function, though perhaps not in the way that he had anticipated: it has kept alive the memory of this Carthusian monk, whose patronage of Van Eyck and Petrus Christus gave us two masterworks of early Netherlandish painting.  

Image result

Workshop of Jan van Eyck
The Virgin and Child by a Fountain,
ca. 1440
Oil on panel
8 3/8 × 6 3/4 inches
Private collection


PUBLICATION


The exhibition is accompanied by a beautifully illustrated catalogue written by curator Emma Capron with essays by Maryan Ainsworth, Curator of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Till-Holger Borchert, Director of the Bruges Museums. It is published in association with D Giles Limited. Drawing on recent technical examination information and new archival research on the works commissioned by Jan Vos, the volume explores the panels’ creation, patronage, and function in their rich Carthusian context. The book is hardcover, 160 pages, with 85 color illustrations.








Tuesday, August 21, 2018

Book: Jan Baptist Weenix & Jan Weenix: the paintings


Dutch paintings from the 17th Century
 
 
Jan Baptist Weenix & Jan Weenix: the paintings, by Anke A. Van Wagenberg-Ter Hoeven, is the result of art historical research on the work of the 17th-century Dutch artist Jan Baptist Weenix (1621-1659) and his son Jan Weenix (1641-1719). Works by both these artists can be seen in all major museums with holdings of Dutch and Flemish paintings.

 File:Jan Baptist Weenix - The Ford in the River - WGA25522.jpg

Jan Baptist Weenix - The Ford in the River



This book fills a gap in art history and throws new light on the appreciation of Dutch art. Since 2004, hundreds of paintings have been documented as either Weenix I or Weenix II. For centuries, attributions had been confused because of the two artists’ similar subject choices and (at least for a time) similar style. Following the death of his father (and teacher), Jan gradually changed his style to conform to the more courtly taste of the late 17th and early 18th century.

File:Jan Baptist Weenix - Italian Landscape with Horsemen by a Spring - Google Art Project.jpg

Jan Baptist Weenix - Italian Landscape with Horsemen by a Spring


This first ever published monograph on Jan Baptist Weenix and his son Jan Weenix includes over 500 paintings.


 Image result

Jan Weenix (Dutch, Amsterdam ca. 1641?–1719 Amsterdam) Gamepiece with a Dead Heron ("Falconer's Bag") 1695

]

Anke A. Van Wagenberg-Ter Hoeven is Chief Curator at Academy Art Museum, Easton, MD, U.S.A.

800 pages
Two volumes in slipcase
21 x 27 cm
500 illustrations (mostly in colour)
English
ISBN 9789462621596

Sunday, August 19, 2018

Americans Abroad, 1860-1915

 
On August 17, 2018, the Portland Museum of Art (PMA) in Maine opened Americans Abroad, 1860-1915, an exhibition of watercolors, prints, and paintings by American artists who travelled to Europe for training and inspiration in the late 19th century. The exhibition of 24 works by artists such as Mary Cassatt, Winslow Homer, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler, draws from the PMA collection and special loans, and includes rarely seen watercolors by John Singer Sargent, Maurice Prendergast, and more.
File:Winslow Homer - Looking out to Sea, Cullercoats (1882).jpg
Winslow Homer, Looking out to Sea, Cullercoats, 1882.
Bequest of Charles Shipman Payson. Portland Museum of Art

In the decades around 1900, American artists went to Europe in droves, seeking training, inspiration, and patronage in the continent’s grand cities and rural enclaves. From Winslow Homer and James Abbott McNeill Whistler to Florence Robinson and Frederick MacMonnies, these artists reveled in famed art havens such as Paris, London, and Venice. They also explored the varied landscapes and villages from the Southern Alps to England’s Northern Coast. Traversing the continent, they honed their formal techniques across media and benefited from the new opportunities for travel and communication that modernity offered.

 
John Singer Sargent, (United States (b. Italy), 1856 - 1925) The Deck, Venice, circa 1907 Watercolor on paper, 13 1/4 inches Private collection, 11.1995.3

These American artists experienced Europe in distinct ways. Many settled in Paris or London, where Whistler and Mary Cassatt worked among the international avant garde while MacMonnies established himself at the more traditional Salon. Homer made extended trips to France and England, and John Singer Sargent passed the majority of his life travelling broadly across the continent. Like many artists based in Europe, including Edwin Lord Weeks and Henry Ossawa Tanner, Sargent extended his travel to sites in North Africa and the Middle East, many of which were under European colonial control in these years.

Mary Cassatt - Sketch Of Anne And Her Nurse

Mary Cassatt, Anne and Her Nurse
Regardless of the diverse itineraries and experiences, American artists working abroad continually examined the importance of place, focusing on architecture, customs, and the unique qualities of light and landscape. Whether exhibited in Europe or at home, their paintings, sculptures, prints, and watercolors made a lasting impact on the transatlantic story of American art.

Saturday, August 18, 2018

Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature

Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature 
 Denver Art Museum.
October 21, 2019 to February 2, 2020  

Monet: Places.
Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany
February 29 to June 1, 2020 

The Museum Barberini and the Denver Art Museum are currently collaborating on a large-scale Monet retrospective, exploring the role of the places that inspired the artist as well as his approach to rendering their specific topography, atmosphere, and light. 

Denver's presentation of Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature will uncover Claude Monet's (1840– 1926) continuous dialogue with nature and its places through a thematic and chronological arrangement, from the first examples of artworks still indebted to the landscape tradition to the revolutionary compositions and series of his late years.

From February 29 to June 1, 2020, the Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany, will present the co-organized exhibition with the title Monet: Places.

Featuring key loans, the exhibition, at Denver and Potsdam, explores Monet's approach towards the depiction of sites and topographies that influenced his stylistic development, including Paris and London, the Seine villages of Argenteuil, Vétheuil and Giverny, the coasts of Normandy and Brittany as well as Southern travel destinations such as Bordighera, Venice and Antibes. Amongst the show’s many highlights are numerous depictions of Monet’s garden and pond in Giverny, including several variations of his world-famous waterlilies.

[Also on view this year, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (opening Feb. 16) and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth will show Monet: The Late Yearsthe first exhibition in more than 20 years dedicated to the final phase of Monet’s career.]

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the rise of Impressionism dramatically changed the evolution of European landscape painting. One of the movement’s most influential practitioners was Claude Monet, whose exceptionally prolific career spanned more than six decades. Although he was a highly versatile artist, Monet’s key interest lay on depictions of the natural world, characterized by a relentlessly experimental exploration of color, movement, and light. Inspired by the artistic exchange with his colleagues Eugène Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind, Monet’s early Impressionist compositions radicalized the practice of plein-air painting, as he largely rejected the studio in favor of working in open nature and directly in front of the motif.

More than any of his fellow Impressionists, he was deeply attracted to exploring the character of specific sites and locations in situ, from the sundrenched Riviera or the wind-swept, rugged coastline of the Belle-Île in Brittany to the picturesque banks of the river Seine. At the very heart of Monet’s artistic practice lay a keen interest in capturing the impression of a fleeting moment, as he tried to translate the most evanescent effects of the atmosphere into the material structure of paint.

“For me, a landscape does not exist in its own right, since its appearance changes at every moment”, Monet explained in 1891. “But its surroundings bring it to life – the air and light, which vary continually (…). For me, it is only the surrounding atmosphere which gives objects their real value.”

 From his very first documented composition through to the late depictions of his farmhouse and water-garden in Giverny, the show Monet: Places offers a rich overview of his entire career, demonstrating his unique place within the French avantgarde of his time. The show engages with some of the major questions that were already touched upon by the museum’s opening exhibition Impressionism: The Art of Landscape, which attracted over 320,000 visitors in its three-month run in 2017.

Daniel Zamani, curator at the Museum Barberini, explains: “Monet’s career has been the subject of intense scholarly scrutiny, but our focus on the places that inspired him offers new insights into his artistic interests and methods. Our aim is to demonstrate just how significant specific topographies were at key junctures in Monet’s career and to look more deeply into how and why these places influenced his development as a painter.”



Claude Monet, Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge, 1899. Oil paint on canvas; 35 5/8 x 35 5/16 in. Princeton University Art Museum: From the Collection of William Church Osborn, Class of 1883, trustee of Princeton University (1914-1951), president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1941-1947); given by his family, 1972-15. Image courtesy Princeton University Art Museum.

“Water Lilies and Japanese Bridge” (1899),
 


 “The Parc Monceau” (1878),




“Path in the Wheat Fields at Pourville (Chemin dans les blés à Pourville)” (1882) and

Monet - canoaepte01.jpg
Claude Monet, The Canoe on the Epte, about 1890. Oil paint on canvas; 52.55 x 57.5 in (133.5 x 146 cm). Purchase, 1953. Inv. MASP.00092. Collection Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand. Photo by Eduardo Ortega.

“The Canoe on the Epte” (1890).



Monet traveled more extensively than any other impressionist artist in search of new motifs. His journeys to varied places including the rugged Normandy coast, the sunny Mediterranean, London, the Netherlands and Norway inspired artworks that will be featured in the presentation.
The exhibition will uncover Monet's continuous dialogue with nature and its places through a thematic and chronological arrangement, from the first examples of artworks still indebted to the landscape tradition to the revolutionary compositions and series of his late years.

"We're thrilled to organize and present this monumental exhibition, which will provide a new perspective on such a beloved artist," said Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the DAM. "Visitors will gain a better understanding of Monet's creative process and how he distanced himself from conventions associated with the traditional landscape genre of painting."

Drawn from major institutions and collections from across the globe, Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature will include works as early as  

File:Monet, Claude - View At Rouelles, Le Havre (1858).jpg
Claude Monet, View from Rouelles, 1858-61. Oil paint on canvas; 18-1/2 x 25-5/8 in. Marunuma Art Park.
View from Rouelles (Marunuma Art Park, Japan), the first painting Monet exhibited in 1858 when he was 18 years old,

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and as late as The House Seen through the Roses (Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam), a 1926 work completed in Giverny only a few months before Monet’s death.




 
Claude Monet, 1873-74, Boulevard des Capucines, oil on canvas, 80.3 x 60.3 cm, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City.jpg 
 
Claude Monet, Boulevard des Capucines, 1873-1874. Oil paint on canvas; 31-5/8 x 23-3/4 in. (80.3 x 60.3 cm). The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: the Kenneth A. and Helen F. Spencer Foundation Acquisition Fund, F72-35. Photo courtesy Nelson-Atkins Media Services / Jamison Miller.

Other highlights include the Boulevard des Capucines (1873-74) from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art,  


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Claude Monet, Under the Poplars (Sous les Peupliers), 1887. Oil paint on canvas; 28-3/4 x 36-1/4 in. Private collection.

Under the Poplars (1887) from a private collection and 



 

The exhibition also will include six Monet paintings from the DAM collection;




Claude Monet
French, 1840-1926
Waterloo Bridge
1903
Oil paint on canvas
Funds from Helen Dill bequest, 1935.15





Claude Monet
French, 1840-1926
Le Bassin des Nympheas
1904
Oil paint on canvas
Funds from Helen Dill bequest, 1935.14

four of them were part of the Frederic C. Hamilton Collection bequest in 2014:


Artworks by acknowledged mentors such as Eugène Boudin and Johan Barthold Jongkind, from whom Monet learned to capture the impression of fleeting moments en plein air, will also be featured.The presentation of Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature will explore Monet’s continuous interest in capturing the quickly changing atmospheres, the reflective qualities of water and the effects of light, aspects that increasingly led him to work on multiple canvases at once. Additionally, the exhibition will examine the critical shift in Monet’s painting when he began to focus on series of the same subject, including artworks from his series of Haystacks, Poplars, Waterloo Bridge and Water Lilies.


"Throughout his career, Monet was indefatigable in his exploration of the different moods of nature, seeking to capture the spirit of a certain place and translating its truth onto the canvas," said Angelica Daneo, curator of European painting and sculpture at the DAM. "Monet's constant quest for new motifs shows the artist's appreciation for nature's ever-changing and mutable character, not only from place to place, but from moment to moment, a concept that increasingly became the focus of his art."

Claude Monet: The Truth of Nature will also delve into the artist's increasing abandonment of any human presence in the landscapes he created, a testimony to his commitment to isolate himself in nature. This creative process simultaneously established an intimacy with his subject, which culminated later in Giverny, where he created his own motif through meticulous planning, planting and nurturing of his flowers and plants, which he then translated onto the canvas


This landmark exhibition, which will fill three galleries totaling about 20,000 square feet, is organized and curated by the DAM’s Angelica Daneo, Christoph Heinrich and Alexander Penn and Museum Barberini’s Director Ortrud Westheider. Major lenders include the Musée d'Orsay, Paris; Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Art Institute of Chicago and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

A catalog accompanying the exhibition, and published by Prestel Publishing, will include essays by renowned scholars, including Marianne Mathieu, James Rubin, George T.M. Shackelford and Richard Thomson, among others. The publication will be available in The Shop at the Denver Art Museum and through the online shop. A related academic symposium will be held in Potsdam, Germany, in January 2019.

Group tickets and event reservations will go on sale December 17, 2018. Single ticket sales will be announced at a later date.





Claude Monet, The Artist's House at Argenteuil, 1873. Oil paint on canvas; 23-11/16 x 28-7/8 in. (60.2 x 73.3 cm). The Art Institute of Chicago: Mr. and Mrs. Martin A. Ryerson Collection, 1933.1153. Photo credit: The Art Institute of Chicago/Art Resource, NY.
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