When 15 Upper East Side galleries open their doors on the evening of October 30 to celebrate October Art Week,
art lovers of all stripes will be treated to an eye-dazzling array of
fine art and jewelry. Organized to coincide with TEFAF New York FALL,
Christie’s Classic Art Week of auctions and selling exhibitions, and the
AADLA Fine Art & Antiques Show, these pre-eminent fine art dealers
add to the week’s exciting round of activities by curating and hosting
special exhibitions—all within walking distance of one another and open
to the public from 5 to 9 p.m.
Here are some of the prime highlights that deserve special attention:
Didier Aaron, Inc., showcases The Grotto of Neptune in Tivoli by
François-Marius Granet, executed in 1810. With the Grotto of Neptune as
his subject, Granet positioned himself below the waterfalls of Tivoli,
and used all his talent to transmit the atmosphere of the setting. 32 East 67th Street
Driscoll Babcock shines a spotlight on Marsden Hartley’s Landscape, No 29,Vence,
a unique and key work from the artist’s embrace—from 1925 to 1927—of
Aix-en-Provence, the land of Cézanne, which was instrumental in the
formulation of his thought, his vision of where he would ultimately have
to go with his being and with his art. 22 East 80TH Street, 2nd floor
At the center of the Christopher Bishop Fine Art show is a newly discovered late Il Guercino drawing called Allegory of Vigilance,
circa 1662. With interesting symbolism—an allegory of martial and
theological vigilance—the figure likely represents Bologna herself,
paralleled with the fierceness of the rooster. 1046 Madison Avenue, 2nd
floor
Pia Gallo Old Master and Modern Prints and Drawings features Roman Countryside with a Bridge and Figures, circa
1638-41, by the Dutch painter Jan Both, a very talented and prolific
Dutch draughtsman, etcher and painter known for his Italianate
landscapes. 19 East 74th Street, at Conner Rosenkranz
Hammer Galleries presents Coastline at Antibes,
1888, a work not seen in public since 1970. Part of the Armand Hammer
Foundation Collection, this late picture has the effect of timeless
idylls, reminiscent of the fêtes champêtres of Fragonard and Watteau. 32 East 67th Street
The Spitzer Renaissance Diamond, Ruby and Enamel Ring from Italy will dazzle the eye at Les Enluminures.
The 16th-century ring epitomizes the grandeur of the best Renaissance
jewelry and is likely to have been made for a princely patron who wished
to be associated with the properties of invincibility, fortitude, and
dignity signified by diamonds. 23 East 73rd Street
Jean Baptiste Camille Corot, "Ville d’Avray—Sur les Hauteurs " circa 1865-70Mark Murray Fine Paintings
At Mark Murray Fine Paintings,Ville d’Avray—Sur les Hauteurs by
Jean Baptiste Camille Corot returns to the market after 30 years. Owned
by Jean-Baptiste Fauré, the famous operatic baritone and avid Corot
collector, the painting depicts two young women conversing with laborers
on the hills above Ville d’Avray with a distant view of Paris on the
horizon. 159 East 63rd Street
At Ambrose Naumann Fine Art,The Share Reserved for Those Who Are Not in the Cheese by Marcel Delmotte, dated 1959, is a wonderful example of the artist’s interest in the surreal and bizarre. 74 East 79th Street, 1D
Pierre Bonnard "Le Cannet," 1941
Jill Newhouse Gallery, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary, will present Le Cannet, by
Pierre Bonnard completed in 1941. An exceptional example of his late
landscapes of the south of France where he lived, this painting captures
the dense, lush foliage, the rich soil and humidity of the south. The
variety of leaves and tones of green contrast with his calm, muted
landscapes of the Seine, north of Paris, which he painted years
earlier. 4 East 81st Street
In their joint exhibition, Richard L. Feigen & Co. withW.M. Brady are featuring a painting by Jacques-Emile Blanche, Autoportrait de l’artiste au salon de musique au Manoir du Tot, Offranville (Self-portrait of the Artist in the Salon du Musique at the Manoir du Tot, Offranville), a depiction of a charming and much loved interior, as well as a self-portrait of the artist at work. 16 East 77th Street
The Child Virgin Spinning by Juan Simón Gutiérrez is one of the showstoppers at Robert Simon Fine Art. The earliest and most elaborate depiction of the Child Virgin Spinning
theme, this beautiful image is representative of the religious culture
in Seville during the Baroque period–at a time of increased devotion to
the cult of the Holy Childhood, most often through painting. 22 East 80th Street, 4th floor
Taking center stage at the Tambaran Gallery is a rare Lega Bwami mask from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 5 East 82nd Street
The AADLA Fine Art & Antiques Show features 25
of the top fine and decorative arts specialists and features an eclectic
array of paintings, furniture, sculpture, tribal art, Native American
art, Asian art, books, and jewelry that span five centuries. Wallace Hall at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, 980 Park Avenue
At Waterhouse and Dodd, Bedroom Face with Blowing Curtain
by Tom Wesselmann re-creates the monumental scale of the advertising
billboards from which the artist derived his iconoclastic iconography
and is one of the largest and most highly worked examples of his metal
cut-outs, and as such is very rare. 15 East 76th Street
Some of the galleries participating
in October Art Week, which runs from October 30 through November 5, are
open to the public during fair hours, including Saturday & Sunday.
For an Art Walk map and each gallery’s hours, visit www.octoberartweek.com
Legion of Honor October 12, 2019 - February 9, 2020
Musées d’Orsay
et de l’Orangerie, Paris March 23 through July 19, 2020,
James
Tissot (1836–1902) was one of the most celebrated French artists during
the 19th century, yet he is less known than many of his contemporaries
today. Presenting new scholarship on the artist’s oeuvre, technique, and
remarkable life, James Tissot: Fashion & Faith provides a
critical reassessment of Tissot through a 21st-century lens. The
exhibition, co-organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and
the Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie, Paris, includes approximately 60
paintings in addition to drawings, prints, photographs, and cloisonné
enamels, demonstrating the breadth of the artist’s skills. The
presentation at the Legion of Honor is the first major international
exhibition on Tissot in two decades and the first ever on the West Coast
of the United States.
“The work of
James Tissot provides a fascinating lens onto society at the dawn of the
modern era. Long recognized as a keen observer of contemporary life and
fashion, this exhibition brings new light to his narrative strengths
and his skill in portraying the emotional and spiritual undercurrents
that exist below surface appearances,” states Thomas P. Campbell,
Director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “Continuing
the Fine Arts Museums’ tradition of contributing original scholarship
around key works in our collection, we are thrilled to introduce the
perspective of this enigmatic, prolific artist in the first exhibition
of his work to take place on the West Coast.”
Tissot’s works have been highly sought after for US collections, and, as such, James Tissot: Fashion & Faith draws
from the rich holdings of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco; the
J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; the National Gallery of Art,
Washington, DC; and numerous private collections, in addition to private
and public collections throughout Europe and Canada, including those of
Tate, London; the Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie; the Petit Palais,
Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris; the Musée d’Arts de Nantes;
the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de
Montréal.
In addition, new findings on Tissot’s materials and painting
technique—resulting from an extensive, unprecedented study of Tissot
paintings and led by the paintings conservation department at the Fine
Arts Museums—are revealed in the exhibition. The study was undertaken in
collaboration with the Northwestern University/ Art Institute of
Chicago Center for Scientific Studies in the Arts (NU-ACCESS) and the
Centre for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France.
Arranged chrono-thematically, James Tissot: Fashion & Faithwill
trace the extraordinary turns of the artist’s life, as he consistently
defied traditional conventions, both professionally and personally. A
Frenchman who started out painting medievalized scenes from history and
literature, Tissot maintained a complicated friendship with mentee Edgar
Degas, went on to adopt an Anglicized version of his name; Jacques, and
spent a decade as an expatriate in London, immersing himself in and
chronicling modern society. For a time, he ventured into a love affair
with the young divorcée Kathleen Newton, who became his model and muse,
but, after her tragic premature death, he returned to Paris and spent
long periods of productive retreat at his family estate in the French
countryside, nurturing a growing, deep commitment to religion.
Tissot’s
career spanned the English Channel, garnering commercial and critical
success both in London and Paris. Though invited by Degas to exhibit
with the Impressionists, Tissot declined. He turned to social events and
balls, painting metropolitan life with great attention to detail,
humor, and pathos. Upon close study, even his most ebullient society
pictures reveal rich and complex commentary on Belle Époque culture,
religion, fashion, and politics.
The exhibition will include many key
modern-life works from his time in London and Paris, such as The Ball on Shipboard (1874), London Visitors (ca. 1874), Holyday (also known as The Picnic; 1876), The Prodigal Son in Modern Life suite (1882), and examples from the La Femme à Paris series (1883–1885).
“James
Tissot was technically gifted across a variety of media and
he experimented with major trends in art, including Aestheticism and
Japonisme, yet his work defies classification and traditional
labels,” notes Melissa Buron, exhibition curator and Director of the Art
Division at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “For the past few
years, my colleagues and I have been on the trail of Tissot,
re-examining works and uncovering previously unpublished information
that provides insight into his career, including his sales notebook (carnet de ventes) and hundreds of photographs. Drawing from our findings, James Tissot: Fashion & Faith provides new perspectives on where and how Tissot should be considered in the 19th-century canon.”
As
was popular during the late 19th century, Tissot dabbled in mysticism
and attended Spiritualist séances.
His famous mezzotint from the Fine
Arts Museums’ collection, The Apparition
(1885), depicts the ghost of Kathleen Newton with a spirit guide as they
reportedly appeared to Tissot during a séance. This work and the
painting on which it is based—long thought to be lost or destroyed until
it was rediscovered in the course of researching this project—are both
on view in the exhibition.
Though less is known about the last two
decades of Tissot’s life, new scholarship has recently shed light on
the final 20 years of his career.
During that time, he made three trips
to the Holy Land and produced hundreds of watercolors to illustrate the
Bible. Wildly popular during Tissot’s lifetime, these religious images
became known as the “Tissot Bible” and have since influenced filmmakers
from D. W. Griffith (Intolerance, 1916) to William Wyler (Ben-Hur, 1959), as well as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas (Raiders of the Lost Ark,
1981). A selection of biblical watercolors have been lent to the
exhibition from the Brooklyn Museum and the Jewish Museum, New York.
Tissot
also utilized the relatively new medium of photography by painting from
photographs and recording many of his works as well as his home,
family, and friends in carefully arranged albums. Photographs from the
Fine Arts Museums’ collection in the exhibition, along with recently
discovered, never-before-published photographs and a sales notebook
published for the first time in the exhibition catalogue, provide a
window into Tissot’s life and career, rendering him an artist worthy of
reexamination in the 21st century.
James Tissot: Fashion & Faith
is on view at the Legion of Honor from October 12, 2019, through
February 9, 2020. The exhibition is organized by Melissa Buron, Director
of the Art Division at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and Paul
Perrin and Marine Kisiel, Curators of Paintings at the Musées d’Orsay
et de l’Orangerie, Paris, where the exhibition will be on view from
March 23 through July 19, 2020, and Cyrille Sciama, Director of Musée
des Impressionnismes Giverny.
James Tissot, "The Ball on Shipboard," ca. 1874. Oil on canvas, 33.125 x 51 in. (84.1 x 129.5 cm). Tate Britain
Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
James
Tissot, French, 1836–1902
La Femme à Paris: The Bridesmaid, ca. 1883-1885. Oil on canvas, 50 x 40
in. (147.3 x 101.6 cm). Leeds Museums and Galleries, LEEAG.PA.1897.0015.
Image provided courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
James
Tissot (1836-1902). "le départ de l'enfant prodigue". Huile sur toile.
1863. Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais.
Image provided courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
James Tissot, French, 1836–1902
"Holyday" (The Picnic) , ca. 1876.
Oil on canvas
Image: 30 x 39 in. (76.2 x 99.4 cm)
Frame: x in. (92.5 x 118.5 cm)
Tate
Image provided courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
James Tissot, On the Thames, about 1876, oil on canvas, collection of the Hepworth Wakefield.
James Tissot, La Femme à Paris: The Shop Girl,
1883–85, oil on canvas, collection of Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto,
gift from Corporations’ Subscription Fund, 1968; Bridgman Images.
Catalogue James Tissot: Fashion & Faith is
accompanied by a 300-page catalogue, published in collaboration with
DelMonico Books / Prestel. Edited by Melissa Buron, the lavishly
illustrated volume spans Tissot’s life and career from his early period
in Nantes to his later years when he made hundreds of religious
illustrations. The catalogue also includes essays that introduce new
scholarship and redefine Tissot’s life and career.
Rembrandt-Velázquez. Dutch & Spanish Masters will present
an outstanding selection of paintings by Dutch and Spanish Masters of
the 17th century, including some of the greatest pieces by, amongst
others, Rembrandt, Velázquez, Murillo, Hals, Zurbarán and Vermeer. In
this exhibition, 60 paintings by Spanish and Dutch masters hang
alongside each other in pairs, resulting in fascinating visual dialogues
on realism and eternity, religion and beauty.
This exhibition is the result of a special partnership
between the Rijksmuseum and the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid,
marking the Year of Rembrandt 2019 and the 200th anniversary of the
Prado.
Religion and Realism
During a time of war and political tension, the Dutch and Spanish
painting traditions approached closer to each other than it is generally
thought. The 17th century has become known as the Golden Age of
painting in both the Netherlands and Spain. It was a period of
tremendous artistic achievement that saw the emergence of two of the
greatest painters in history, Rembrandt and Velázquez, the leading
artists of their respective countries. Both masters worked in a climate
that included many other painters who enjoyed great reputation, such as
Zurbarán and Murillo in Spain, and Vermeer and Frans Hals in the
Netherlands.
Although there was no direct contact between the painters from the
North and South, they show clear similarities, not only in artistic
ambition, but in the impulse towards realism and their illustration of
religious themes.
Display in pairs
In this exhibition, paintings of highly-renowned masters will be
displayed in pairs, combining two works from each country, to explore,
for the first time, the stimulating and often surprising dialogues that
inevitably arise between the works. By pairing the paintings together,
the exhibition sheds light on their common points, although sometimes
the differences might seem stronger than the similarities. Each pair has
a story behind, a specific theme that brings the two paintings
together. A wide variety of themes will be therefore represented: from
concepts such as religion, faith, wealth or love to artistic challenges
such as composition, light and shadow.
Partnership
Rembrandt-Velázquez. Dutch & Spanish Masters has come about through a unique partnership between the Rijksmuseum and Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid.
The exhibition in Madrid titled Velázquez, Rembrandt, Vermeer: Parallel Visions,
which ran to 29 September 2019, was different in form and content from
this exhibition in Amsterdam. The Rijksmuseum loaned a large number of
works to the Prado, including three paintings by Rembrandt.
The Prado
has loaned 14 masterpieces to the Rijksmuseum, including six paintings
by Velázquez. In addition, the exhibition in the Rijksmuseum presents
works from more than 20 other museums and collections from all over the
world, including the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain
and the Netherlands.
Velázquez, View of the Gardens of the Villa Medici, Rome, c. 1630 or c. 1650. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
Velázquez, Self-Portrait, c. 1640. Valencia, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos
Francisco Ribalta, Christ Embracing St Bernard, c. 1625–1627. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
Francisco de Zurbarán, Agnus Dei, 1635–1640. Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado
Francisco de Zurbarán, St Serapion, 1628.
Hartford (CT), Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. The Ella Gallup Sumner
and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund
Johannes Vermeer, View of Houses in Delft, known
as The Little Street, c. 1658. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, gift of H.W.A.
Deterding, London
Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Baret and Golden Chain, 1654. Kassel, Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
Rembrandt, Isaac and Rebecca, known as The
Jewish Bride, c. 1665. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum. on loan from the City of
Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)
Pieter Saenredam, Interior of the St
Odulphuskerk in Assendelft, 1649. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, inv. on loan
from the City of Amsterdam (A. van der Hoop Bequest)
Jan Asselijn, The Threatened Swan, c. 1650. Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum
Curators and design
The exhibition has been curated by Gregor Weber, the head of the
Rijksmuseum’s Fine and Decorative Arts Department, and assistant curator
Cèlia Querol Torelló.
The exhibition design is by the French designer Jean Michel Wilmotte.
Book
In the book published to accompany the exhibition, Rembrandt-Velázquez. Dutch and Spanish Masters,
Gregor J.M. Weber explores the underlying themes of the pairs, Dutch
author Cees Nooteboom takes the reader on an exploration of his memories
of Spain, and Hans den Hartog Jager describes the differences, bust
most importantly, the similarities between two of the greatest painters
of all time. The graphic design is by Irma Boom.
Title: Rembrandt-Velázquez. Dutch and Spanish Masters
Dutch and English edition.
Price: €25.00
ISBN: NL 9789462085282 | ENG 9789462085275
Anthony van Dyck – celebrated all over Europe for his portraits of
the rulers, military commanders, artists, and beauties of his time. He
captured his subjects with unparalleled vitality while also clearly
denoting their status. Yet Van Dyck’s path to fame was not easy: his
artistic beginnings were shaped by the famous Peter Paul Rubens: the
equally admired and almost unassailable role model. Early histories
testify to an intense engagement with Rubens, but also a tough struggle
against his overpowering precedent. It was only in Italy, under the
influence of Venetian painters, of Titian and Tintoretto, that Van Dyck
found his own style. His portraits are marked by a sensitive observation
of personality, which he represented with an equally fine, almost
tactile rendering of fabrics, presented against a backdrop of stately
décor.
This exhibition presents the results of a research project over several
years, exploring in particular the genesis of Van Dyck’s works and his
workshop practice. The Alte Pinakothek’s own Van Dyck collection will be
enriched by international loans, including drawings and oil sketches,
allowing the visitor to follow the artist’s working process.
On 14 November, Phillips will offer Norman Rockwell’s Before the Shot,
marking the first time that a work by the iconic American illustrator
will appear in an Evening Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art,
as well as the first time that one of his paintings will be offered at
Phillips. The work has never before been sold publicly, having remained
in just two families’ collections since it was painted, the first of
which was Rockwell’s own doctor and the model for the painting.
Elizabeth
Goldberg, Senior International Specialist of American Art and Deputy
Chairwoman, Americas, said, “We are honored to introduce Norman
Rockwell’s paintings to Phillips’ auctions by including this masterwork
in our November Evening Sale. While Rockwell has traditionally been
offered in sales of American Art, we are eager to break down the
barriers that separate these collecting categories and reexamine the way
that these different voices of the 20th century are classified. Before the Shot is
one of the most recognizable paintings by one of America’s most iconic
artists. This November, Rockwell’s name will be rightfully positioned
alongside other international 20th and 21st century masters, including
Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Joan Mitchell, and Jean-Michel Basquiat.”
One of Rockwell’s most well-known paintings, Before the Shot is
a nostalgic and humorous reflection of American culture in the 1950s,
elevating the commonplace to the remarkable. Nearly identical to the
version gracing the cover of the March 15, 1958, issue of The Saturday Evening Post,
the picture depicts a child standing on a wooden chair in a doctor’s
office, awaiting an impending shot and uneasily inspecting the diplomas
on the wall as the physician prepares a syringe.
While Before the Shot
betrays a sense of chance encounter, it was actually a picture of much
consideration for Rockwell. Typical of his working process for his most
important paintings, Rockwell painted Before the Shot from a
series of photographs that he directed as scrupulously as one would a
film shoot. The source images were taken inside Dr. Donald Campbell’s
office in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, Rockwell’s home from 1953 until
his death in 1978. Dr. Campbell, Rockwell’s own physician, served as the
model for the doctor, and eight-year-old Eddie Locke, who Rockwell
selected from the lunchroom at Stockbridge Plain Elementary School,
posed as the patient. Locke would later model for Rockwell’s popular
painting The Runaway. The artist’s practice of selecting his
neighbors, instead of professional models, to pose for his paintings
lends his work an authentic sense of Americana and pays homage to the
everyday middle-class existence in post-war America.
The
doctor-patient relationship is one that Rockwell knew intimately; in
addition to his wife’s and his own medical treatments, Rockwell had
three young boys at the time, who no doubt provided him with much
opportunity to study children apprehensively interacting with doctors.
Rockwell gave the completed work to Dr. Campbell, who later sold it to
another family, in whose collection it has remained ever since. For the
past thirteen years, the work was generously on loan to the Norman
Rockwell Museum, where it was enjoyed by countless visitors. The
painting’s power lies in its amusing relatability; as Rockwell has
acknowledged, "I guess everyone has sat in the doctor's office and
examined his diplomas, wondering how good a doctor he was...” It is this
communal experience that makes Before the Shot a hallmark image of American culture, as relevant today as it was in 1958.
ALBERTINA Museum 18 September 2020 until 10 January2021
is honoring Amedeo Modigliani with a comprehensive
presentation to mark the 100th anniversary of his death. Modigliani
(*1884 in Livorno; † 1920 in Paris), who was active as a painter,
draftsman, and sculptor, numbers among the early 20th century’s most
important artists.
Amedeo
Modigliani went to Paris in 1906, a time at which Picasso—having taken
an interest in Iberian and African sculpture—was beginning to work on Les Demoisellesd’Avignon.
This work was to be quite directly influential: it made Picasso famous,
paved the way towards cubism, and made a lasting impression on
Modigliani.
The
ALBERTINA Museum is now placing Modigliani’s enthusiasm for the art of
so-called primitive, prehistoric, and non-European cultures at the
center of attention in dialogue with the oeuvres of Pablo Picasso and
Constantin Brâncuși.
Modigliani Female semi nude 1918
It
was not long, after all, before Picasso and the still-unknown Modigliani
came to admire each other, a feeling of admiration that revolved around
their shared interest in “primitivism.” And it was in the same way that
a mutual body of work in the spirit of so-called primitive art arose in
creative exchange with Constantin Brâncuşi. The works created during
this period of intense dialogue are striking for their shared artistic
vision.
J. Paul Getty Museum October 29, 2019 through May 10, 2020
.
“Je suis paysan paysan” (I am a peasant’s peasant), the
artist Jean-François Millet once declared. Born into a farming family in
northern France, he astonished the Parisian art world with the frank
portrayal of agricultural labor in oil paintings he exhibited at the
semi-annual state-sponsored Salon during the mid-nineteenth century.
Shepherdess
and Her Flock by Jean-François Millet (French, 1814 - 1875) about
1864–1865. Black chalk and pastel, 36.4 × 47.5 cm (14 5/16 × 18 11/16
in.)The J. Paul Getty Museum
To his contemporaries, Millet must have seemed a rather unlikely
figure to revive the use of pastels--dry sticks of vibrant, velvety
color, which had been the medium of choice for aristocratic portraits in
the eighteenth century but had fallen out of fashion around the time of
the French Revolution. Nevertheless, in the 1850s and 1860s, Millet
turned out an important group of pastels, often revisiting in this soft,
powdery medium, the same subjects he had treated in uncompromising oil
paintings.
An intimate, focused exhibition, Peasants in Pastel: Millet and the Pastel Revival
will explore the circumstances of this artist’s turn to pastels around
1860 and will present a selection of work by pastellists from the
subsequent generation who drew inspiration from his example: Camille
Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, Giovanni Segantini, and Leon Lhérmitte.
Millet earned a scholarship to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris but
failed to find his way as an academic artist. In the mid-1840s, he began
to paint scenes of farm workers winnowing grain, tending sheep, and
sowing seed, often at a grand scale conventionally reserved for subjects
from classical mythology or the bible. His oil technique became
increasingly bold, with thick, dark paint applied like “trowel
scrapings,” as one critic put it.
The seeming crudeness of both
Millet’s subject matter and his style shocked contemporary audiences,
who often suspected that he harbored a radical political agenda. But by
the 1850s, his work had nevertheless begun to sell, thanks to an
arrangement with Alfred Sensier, a dealer, critic, and art historian who
provided Millet with materials and a steady income in exchange for his
pictures. Sensier especially admired eighteenth-century pastels, and he
encouraged Millet to produce small, bright, salable works in this
medium. Following Sensier’s advice, the artist saw immediate commercial
results. Eager to corner the market, the collector Emile Gavet
commissioned no fewer than ninety pastels from Millet.
Millet died in 1875, and Gavet
dispersed his vast pastel collection at public auction shortly
thereafter. The critical and commercial success of the venture
encouraged other artists to try their hand at pastels, which quickly
gained widespread acceptance, graduating from a medium used primarily
for sketching purposes to one commonly employed for fully realized,
independent works. Manufacturers of artists’ supplies now offered a wide
range of paper and even canvas supports specially designed for pastels,
and in 1880 the Salon designated a room for work in the medium.
Pastels also played an important
role in the Impressionist movement, which formally launched in 1874 and
helped set the course of European painting for the next quarter century.
Nearly all the key Impressionists experimented with pastels, whose
brilliant colors and potential for bold, graphic handling suited the
daring, independent spirit of the group. Thanks to their portability,
pastels proved useful for working en plein air—outdoors, often in the countryside—as the Impressionist landscape painters preferred to do.
Bringing together pastels by Pissarro, Sisley, and some of their
less-well-known contemporaries --Léon Augustin Lhermitte and Giovanni
Segantini--the exhibition charts Millet’s determining influence on the
generation of pastellists that followed him.
“Pastels, with their velvety sheen and aristocratic associations,
might seem an unlikely choice of medium for the portrayal of rural life
and labor,” said Emily Beeny, associate curator of drawings at the Getty
Museum and curator of the exhibition. “But by exploring the use of
pastels by Millet and his followers, this small, focused exhibition
encourages us all to consider how artists’ choice of medium inflects our
understanding of their subject matter.”
