Thursday, January 28, 2021

Georg Baselitz: Pivotal Turn

The Metropolitan Museum of Art 

Robert Lehman Wing 

through July 18, 2021

German artist Georg Baselitz and his wife, Elke, have gifted six landmark paintings by the artist to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in honor of its 150th anniversary in 2020. The portraits, made in 1969, are among the first that Baselitz created using the radical strategy of inversion, in which the pictorial motif is literally turned upside down, enabling the artist to focus on painting's possibilities, rather than the image of the sitter in direct relationship to the viewer. The compositional and conceptual conceit of upending the figures fundamentally destabilizes the viewer's perspective, thereby thwarting our ability to firmly identify elements like narrative, content type, and artistic tradition, thus setting Baselitz's works in a category of their own. The six paintings will remain on view in Georg Baselitz: Pivotal Turn in The Met's Robert Lehman Wing through July 18, 2021.
 
"The Met is tremendously grateful to Georg and Elke Baselitz for this very meaningful and significant gift," commented Max Hollein, Marina Kellen French Director of the Museum. "This formative group of early portraits by one of the greatest painters of our time is an important addition to The Met's outstanding collection. In documenting a close group of friends and family, these works manifest a very personal moment, as well as a decisive turn in Baselitz's career. We are thrilled to welcome such exceptional works to The Met!"
 
"Elke and I hold a special place in our hearts for The Met and New York," noted Baselitz. "With the donation, Elke and I also want to express our very special connection to the USA. The country has always been a symbol of freedom for us. It brings tremendous joy and satisfaction knowing that these six works that have remained in our collection and that mark a significant moment in the evolution of my approach to painting will be an integral part of the Museum's historic collection."
"Baselitz's unorthodox strategy of inversion allowed him to set his work beyond the socialist realism of his origins in East Germany but yet in a complicated relationship with the art of capitalist West Germany. Given the flourishing in recent years of figuration, these paintings by Baselitz will hold deep currency for younger generations of artists who, like Baselitz, continue to value America as a symbol of democracy," added Sheena Wagstaff, Leonard A. Lauder Chairman, Modern and Contemporary Art at The Met.
 
Georg Baselitz was born Hans-Georg Kern in 1938 in East Germany, where he began his art studies in 1956 at the Academy of Fine and Applied Art in East Berlin. In 1957, the artist fled for the West, where he changed his surname to Baselitz and entered the Academy of Fine Arts in West Berlin and completed postgraduate studies in 1962. Having grown up in the wake of the devastation of World War II, he was drawn to reckon with that traumatic history in his early paintings, in works from the Heroes and Fracture series, in which bodies appear distorted, morphed, and broken. After a decade of this practice, in 1969, Baselitz reached a critical point in his career as he sought to expunge narrative content and expression from his works in order to focus on painting itself, and he began representing subjects upside down. The approach allowed him to embrace traditional genres that he had previously avoided, including portraiture, nudes, and landscapes, and the approach continues to be of interest to him.
These portraits of the artist's friends and associates in the German art world—the journalist Martin G. Buttig, the gallerists Franz Dahlem and Michael Werner, and the collector Karl Rinn—are deeply personal and have remained in the artist's collection for six decades. The standardized format and similar color palette underscore the artifice of pictorial convention, while the thick brushstrokes and cheap pigments foreground the painterly process. The group, which also includes the first-ever painting of his wife, Elke, provides a rare opportunity to study a pivotal moment of artistic innovation.
 
Georg Baselitz: Pivotal Turn is curated by Brinda Kumar, Assistant Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art. Special thanks to Dita Amory, Curator in Charge, Lehman Collection.

Hockney – Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature

 

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.February 21–June 20, 2021


David Hockney, Under the Trees, Bigger

David Hockney, Under the Trees, Bigger, 2010–11, oil on 20 canvases, David Hockney Inc. © David Hockney / photo: Richard Schmidt









Two visionary artists, separated in time and space, are united by a shared fascination with nature. See the work of David Hockney and Vincent van Gogh side by side in Hockney – Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature.

This exhibition examines the common ground between British artist Hockney (born 1937) and Dutch artist Van Gogh (1853–1890). Both expressed their profound love of nature through brilliant color and the capacity to see the world with fresh eyes. The Joy of Nature reveals Van Gogh’s unmistakable influence on Hockney in a selection of carefully selected landscape paintings and drawings.

Through a bold use of color and experimentation with perspective, each artist crafts a painterly world that is utterly individual and true to themselves, yet offers immense universal appeal. The Joy of Naturebrings together nearly 50 of Hockney’s vibrant works—ranging from intimate sketchbook studies to monumental paintings, as well as his experimental videos and iPad drawings—with 10carefully chosen paintings and drawings by Van Gogh.

Hockney – Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature premiered at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, and the Houston presentation marks the first time the two renowned artists have been paired in an American museum exhibition.


Scenes of New York City: The Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld Collection

 

William James Glackens, Early Spring, Washington Square, ca. 1910. Oil on canvas; 18 x 24 in. (45.7 x 61 cm). New-York Historical Society, Gift of Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld, 2021.1.2




The New-York Historical Society has announced that the first artworks from philanthropists and art collectors Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld’s extraordinary promised gift have joined the Museum’s collection and will go on view beginning February 12. Depicting New York locations still recognizable today, the works include The Boat Harbor (Gowanus Pier), ca. 1888, by William Merritt Chase; Early Spring, Washington Square, ca. 1910, by William James Glackens; 



Foggy NightNew York by George Luks, ca. 1900–1930; and Dredging in the East River, ca. 1879, by John Henry Twachtman. 

The full Hirschfeld collection is slated to be displayed at New-York Historical in fall 2021 in an exhibition featuring a who’s who of 19th- to 21st-century artists, including Isabel Bishop, Christo, Stuart Davis, Willem de Kooning, Keith Haring, Edward Hopper, Jacob Lawrence, Sol Lewitt, Louise Nevelson, Georgia O’Keeffe, Norman Rockwell, Mark Rothko, and Andy Warhol, among others. Scenes of New York City: The Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld Collection—a fully-illustrated, 336 page catalogue—will be co-published by D. Giles Limited in February 2022 to accompany the exhibition.

“What a special way to start the new year as the first works from Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld’s collection go on view at New-York Historical,” said Dr. Louise Mirrer, president and CEO of New-York Historical. “We remain so grateful to Elie and Sarah for their city-centric art gift, and look forward to sharing the entire collection with the public later this year.”

William Merritt Chase, The Boat Harbor (Gowanus Pier), ca. 1888. Oil on panel, 8 1/4 x 13 in. (21 x 33 cm). New-York Historical Society, Gift of Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld, 2021.1.1

“As we get closer to Scenes of New York City opening at New-York Historical in the fall, Sarah and I are delighted to present these first works to the general public,” said Elie Hirschfeld. “These paintings in particular provide a unique glimpse of life in New York City in the late 19th and early 20th century that New Yorkers will still recognize.”

The catalogue, Scenes of New York City: The Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld Collection, features the 130 paintings and works on paper in the collection, capturing iconic views of New York City across a broad range of media. The book includes an interview with Elie Hirschfeld by Wendy N.E. Ikemoto, curator of American Art at New-York Historical, and an essay on the Hirschfeld Collection’s historical significance by Kenneth T. Jackson, Jacques Barzun Professor of History at Columbia University. Catalogue entries on each of the works were written by New-York Historical curators Roberta J.M. Olson, Wendy N.E. Ikemoto, and Marilyn Satin Kushner.

John Henry Twachtman, Dredging in the East River, ca. 1879. Oil on canvas, 12 x 18 in. (30.5 x 45.7 cm). New-York Historical Society, Gift of Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld, 2021.1.4

The Scenes of New York City collection comprises 130 artworks dating from the mid-19th through the 21st-centuries by significant American artists from movements specifically associated with New York City—such as the Ashcan School, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop Art—as well as a roster of leading international artists demonstrating their affinity for the city. 

William James Glackens, whose work Early Spring, Washington Squareis part of the initial gift, was one of the founding members of “The Eight,” the seminal American artist group that became the foundation of the Ashcan School and was committed to an anti-establishment form of art rooted in contemporary urban life. The skills Glackens developed as an artist-reporter—rendering on-the-spot illustrations of breaking news for publications like the New York Herald—helped him to capture everyday metropolitan scenes with the spontaneity aligned with urban realism. The collection of paintings, works on paper, and sculpture includes 113 works by 82 artists not currently represented in New-York Historical’s collection.


Wednesday, January 27, 2021

Swann Galleries February 4: The Artists of the WPA

 




 Reginald Marsh, The Waterfront, New York, oil on canvas, 1943. Estimate $10,000 to $15,000.

On Thursday, February 4 Swann Galleries will offer the auction: The Artists of the WPA. The multi-departmental sale will feature paintings, prints, photographs, posters, books and related ephemera by artists whose careers were sustained by the Works Progress Administration. In the aftermath of the Great Depression, president Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and its related agencies represented an unprecedented investment in art and artists, setting the scene for the twentieth century’s art movements, and establishing the careers of diverse creatives, including women, Black artists, photographers, and muralists.

            The sale includes a run of works that served as studies and preparations for murals. Highlights include: Louise Emerson Ronnebeck’s Singers, tempera and color pencils, circa 1937, a detail of what would have been the right panel for the mural in the Social Security Building in Washington, D.C. ($5,000-8,000); Edward Millman’s Fresco Detail, St. Louis, MO Post Office, tempera on Masonite, 1942 ($3,000-5,000); a 1937 charcoal and white chalk study Horseless Carriage, Study for Mural for James Daugherty’s mural at the Fairfield Court Housing Project in Stamford, CT ($2,000-3,000); and 



Dox Thrash’s Trapper with Coon Skin Cap (Ethan Allen Mural Study), tempera, watercolor and ink with pencil, 1939–40 ($2,000-3,000) are also present.




:Norman Lewis, Comrades, lithograph, 1943. Estimate $5,000 to $7,000.



the waterfront, new york by reginald marsh


            Reginald Marsh’s The Waterfront, New York, a 1943 skyline view ($10,000-15,000), 


Herbert Kruckman’s 1935 oil-on-canvas The Depression and the New Deal, 1935 ($3,000-5,000), and Leon Bibel’s The Flood, 1939 ($4,000-6,000) are among stand out works in oil. 

Prints include the 1929 etching Bread Line by Marsh ($5,000-8,000), as well as the lithographs: Comrades, 1943, by Norman Lewis ($5,000-7,000), Lower Manhattan, 1930, by Howard Cook ($5,000-8,000), and Tree Planting Group, 1937, by Grant Wood ($5,000-8,000).



            The Farm Security Administration employed a number of photographers to document the realities of the depression. Included are Dorothea Lange with Sugar beet lifter in older settler's field, which loosens beets and partially lifts them from ground, Near Ontario, Malheur County, Oregon, ferrotyped silver print, 1939 ($4,000-6,000), and Hoe Culture, Alabama Tenant Farmer near Anniston, silver print, 1936 ($4,000-6,000). 




Walker Evans is present with Country store near Moundville, Alabama, Summer, silver print, 1936, printed 1960s ($6,000-9,000). A select group of 38 vintage silver prints from 1937 to 1942 by John Vachon ($5,000-7,500), and a group of 30 production stills from Pare Lorentz’s 1938 film The River, a documentary film produced by the FSA ($8,000-12,000), make an impression out of the photography offering. Works by Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn, Bernice Abbott, and Marion Post Wolcott round out the selection.

            Many artists were employed to create posters for the New Deal agencies. Vintage poster examples include a series of three designs by Lester Beall—one of the first designers commissioned by the U.S. government to help promote the Rural Electrification Administration. Beall’s It’s Fine For Us, 1939, A Better Home, 1941 ($10,000-15,000, each), and When I Think Back, 1939 ($8,000-12,000) are present. 1939 New York World’s Fair posters include those by Joseph Binder ($2,000-3,000), Albert Staehle ($800-1,200), and John Atherton ($700-1,000). Additional works of note include a run of Indian Court Federal Building designs by Louis B. Siegriest, images by Katherine Milhouse, and Faith In America / Champions of Democracy promoting democracy. 

            Limited previewing (by appointment only) will be available through February 3, to be scheduled directly with a specialist in advance and conforming to strict safety guidelines. Swann Galleries staff will prepare condition reports and provide additional photographs of material on request. Advance order bids can be placed with a specialist for the sale or on Swann’s website, and phone bidding will be available. Live online bidding platforms will be the Swann Galleries App, Invaluable, and Live Auctioneers. The complete catalogue and bidding information is available at www.swanngalleries.com and on the Swann Galleries App.

Creating the American West in Art

 Frist Art Museum

March 5 through June 27, 2021

Thomas Moran. A Snowy Mountain Range (Path of Souls, Idaho), 1896. Oil on canvas, 14 x 27 in. Denver Art Museum: Roath Collection, 2013.109

The Frist Art Museum presents Creating the American West in Art, an exhibition of nearly 80 paintings and sculptures ranging in date from 1822 to 1946 and made by such notable artists as Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, Frederic Remington, Charles Marion Russell, E. Irving Couse, Robert Henri, John Sloan, and Maynard Dixon. Drawn from the Petrie Institute of Western American Art at the Denver Art Museum, the exhibition will be on view at the Frist from March 5 through June 27, 2021.

For many, the words “American West” have long conjured a concept as much as a location. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, depictions of the people, landscapes, and wildlife of the West fostered a sense of American identity that was rooted in a pioneering spirit of adventure and opportunity. This exhibition offers the occasion to explore the nuances of a complex American West, including its often-challenging history—especially regarding the forced displacement of Native Americans—and its vibrant and diverse natural beauty.

E. Martin Hennings. The Rabbit Hunt, ca. 1925. Oil on canvas, 35 1/2 x 39 1/2 in. Denver Art Museum: William Sr. and Dorothy Harmsen Collection, 2001.449. © E. Martin Hennings

“As our vision is to use art to encourage our guests to see the world in new ways, we often collaborate with members of various communities to assist in broadening views of the subject matter,” says Frist Art Museum curator Katie Delmez. In preparation for the fall 2019 presentation of Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists, the Frist worked with members of their local Indigenous community to form an advisory group. “Because Indigenous figures and culture are represented in works of art made by Euro-American artists in Creating the American West in Art, we invited several of our advisers to offer their perspectives on what is depicted,” says Delmez. “In foregrounding Indigenous voices, we hope our guests will consider a more inclusive narrative of the works in this exhibition.”

Most of the artists represented in this exhibition spent years studying in Europe—predominantly Italy, Germany, and France. They returned to the United States, however, determined to distinguish themselves through uniquely American subjects. “Depictions of the West made in an array of styles over the course of 150 plus years crystallized key components of American history and mythology, including the concepts of manifest destiny and American exceptionalism,” says Delmez.

Organized chronologically into five sections, the exhibition begins with a focus on the widespread curiosity about the vast wilderness and its Indigenous inhabitants during the age of artist-explorers.

Maynard Dixon. Wide Lands of the Navajo, 1945. Oil on canvas board, 24 x 38 in. Denver Art Museum: Roath Collection, 2013.100

Figures like Alfred Jacob Miller, who first journeyed westward in 1837, hoped to re-create elements of what he saw for audiences on the East Coast and in Europe. William Jacob Hays, a noted naturalist, was interested in recording the physical characteristics of bison in his 1862 painting Herd of Buffalo, placing his subject in a hazy, otherworldly atmosphere.

The second section analyzes how sublime western landscapes offered hope for national unification after the horrors of the American Civil War. Large-scale paintings by Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran revealed the magnificence of lands seemingly unspoiled by human intrusion. But by the turn of the 20th century, railroads and barbed wire fences had ended the open-range cattle era of the American West. A third grouping in the exhibition considers the nostalgia for and memorialization of a seemingly nobler West seen in works by artists such as Frederic Remington and Charles Marion Russell.

Robert Henri. Tom Po Qui (Water of Antelope Lake/Indian Girl/Romancita), 1914. Oil on canvas, 40 1/2 x 32 1/2 in. Denver Art Museum: William Sr. and Dorothy Harmsen Collection, 2001.461

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

UNITED STATES OF ABSTRACTION. AMERICAN ARTISTS IN FRANCE, 1946-1964

 

Musée d’arts de Nantes, 

12 February – 24 May 2021


1 Musée Fabre, Montpellier, 

3 July – 17 October 2021

 

The Musée d'arts de Nantes and the Musée Fabre in Montpellier are organising an exhibition entitled United States of Abstraction. American Artists in France, 1946-1964.

The role of Paris as the world capital of Western art since the 19th century is well recognised and it is also considered an established fact that the City of Light lost this pre-eminence after World War II to New York. The history of Abstract Expressionism, the New York School and its heroes, Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning among others, thus became the prevailing narrative of art after 1945.

Nevertheless, we also know that many American artists, musicians and writers, both men and women, continued to travel to France to study and create. More than 400 artists in particular made use of the G.I. Bill scholarship between 1944 and 1953, which allowed any veteran to finance their studies, by enrolling at Parisian art schools and academies. The exhibition examines their intense presence and the way in which they contributed to redefining abstract art in France at a time when the world geography of art went through profound changes.

 

Sam Francis, Blue Balls, vers 1961-1962, Stockholm, Moderna Museet © 2020 Sam Francis Foundation, California / ADAGP, Paris, 2020


The exhibition examines their intense presence and the way in which they contributed to redefining abstract art in France at a time when the world geography of art went through profound changes. They came for a range of reasons: the cultural appeal of Paris, its museums and its masters, the draw of Europe, the possibility of creating without any real constraints through grants, the search for greater freedom, the desire to be elsewhere, to be in Paris as if on an island. The exhibition is arranged into three sections. The first section examines works brought together by the critic Michel Tapié, whether in group exhibitions (such as Véhémences Confrontées at the Nina Dausset gallery in 1951, Les Signifiants de l'Informel in 1952 and Un Art Autre at the Studio Facchetti the same year) or in publications from the first half of the 1950s. These events constitute an exciting attempt to bring together a series of abstract works outside of national considerations, but around the ideas of expressivity, gestural and automatic abstract painting. 


Several American painters, Jackson Pollock, Willem De Kooning, Mark Tobey, Claire Falkenstein, Alfonso Ossorio were associated with works by Wols, Jean Dubuffet, Georges Mathieu, Jean-Paul Riopelle. Their works have in common their large scale, floating forms with intense colours. 

 


The second section brings together several abstract colourists, such as Sam Francis, Joan Mitchell, Shirley Jaffe, but also Kimber Smith, Norman Bluhm and Beauford Delaney, who found in France a place of freedom and creativity, without establishing strong links with the artists of the School of Paris, with the exception of the Canadian painter Jean-Paul Riopelle. They claim a form of solitude and use the French capital as a stimulating place for creation but remain nevertheless strangely stateless. Nevertheless, we also know that many American artists, musicians and writers, both men and women, continued to travel to France to study and create. More than 400 artists in particular made use of the G.I. Bill scholarship between 1944 and 1953, which allowed any veteran to finance their studies, by enrolling at Parisian art schools and academies. 


The last section looks at how the artists Ellsworth Kelly, Ralph Coburn, John Youngerman and Robert Breer, in relation to some of their elders such as Jean Arp and Alexander Calder and to some of their contemporaries (François Morellet), profoundly renewed geometric abstraction in post-war Paris. Comprising around one hundred works, paintings and sculptures from European and American public and private collections, the exhibition is enhanced by a wealth of documentation that provides an insight into the period and a catalogue in which French and American specialists retrace a fascinating chapter in the history of artistic exchanges in a new light. 

Monday, January 18, 2021

Sotheby's Global Livestream Auction: 28 January

 


With Sotheby’s poised to re-open the doors once more onto its galleries in New Bond Street in London, this winter season’s series of Old Master and Treasures sales will showcase works by some of history’s most famous artists, including Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt. From paintings to prints, to sculpture and drawings, these artworks will go on view alongside unique and extraordinary objects encapsulating the history of patronage and collecting over the centuries.

Alongside these 700 artworks spanning 800 years, two paintings from our sale of Old Masters in New York in late January 2021 will be unveiled in our London galleries as part of the pre-sale exhibition. Sandro Botticelli’s Young Man Holding a Roundel – the ultimate Renaissance portrait and a true beauty of the ages, and one of the greatest Renaissance paintings remaining in private hands – is estimated to sell in excess of $80 million.



A panel depicting a man with wings sitting in the center of the frame, illuminated by a light source that seems to come from within himself, surrounded by two other travelers, an elderly Abraham and Sarah peeking out of the door of the house
This small oil-on-panel work by Rembrandt, Abraham and the Angels (1646), is expected to sell for upward of $20 million. (Courtesy of Sotheby's)

It will be joined by Abraham and the Angels, a rare biblical scene by Rembrandt measuring just 6½ by 8⅜ inches (16 x 21cm) – a profoundly beautiful, gem-like painting on panel from 1646 that stands among the finest works by the artist ever to come to auction. The masterpiece was studied for months by the late British artist, Lucian Freud, a few years before his death, with the intention of making an etching inspired by the painting. Freud abandoned the print, remarking that he could not improve upon what Rembrandt had done. Last appearing at auction in London in 1848, when it sold for £64, this small-scale masterpiece is now returning to the block with an estimate of $20-30 million.

Wednesday, January 13, 2021

Picasso to Rothko: European and American Masters in Dialogue

 Palm Beach SOTHEBY'S

9—31 January 2021 

A constellation of pivotal artistic and historic moments, this exhibition illuminates the influences that connect these icons of post-war art across the Atlantic. Miró, Dubuffet, and Picasso had a formative impact on many mid-century vanguard American painters. In his early work, Rothko was inspired by the primordial imagery and mystical landscapes of Miró, who in turn saw and admired the New York school following a visit to the United States in 1947. When describing his observations of American painting, Miró explained that, “it showed me the liberties we can take, and how far we could go, beyond the limits. In a sense, it freed me.” This sentiment was similarly felt and adopted by Picasso in his own work. Decades later, Picasso and Dubuffet's primal mark-making and uninhibited artistic approaches left an unmistakable impression on Basquiat, who made frequent visits to galleries and museums to specially study Dubuffet.



Picasso to Rothko: European and American Masters in Dialogue presented by Nahmad at Sotheby’s Palm Beach

9—31 January 2021 • Selling Exhibition • Palm Beach

Spanning decades and continents, this exhibition highlights the nuanced historical and stylistic dialogues between some of the most influential artists of the 20th Century: Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Fernand Léger (1881-1955), Joan Miró (1893-1983), Alexander Calder (1898-1976), Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) Mark Rothko (1903-1970) and Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988).Palm Beach, FL 3348

FERNAND LÉGER'S COMPOSITION AUX TROIS PROFILS, JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT'S UNTITLED , JEAN DUBUFFET'S PERSONNAGE (BUSTE) AND JOAN MIRÓ'S OISEAUX EN FÊTE POUR LE LEVER DU JOUR

Picasso to Rothko: European and American Masters in Dialogue highlights the relationships and interchange of ideas that inspired these artists to create their greatest works. For example, Miró and Calder's legendary friendship was bolstered by a mutual fascination with calligraphic line and biomorphic forms. Léger would often attend Calder’s circus performances in Paris and the two would often walk New York together in search of visual inspiration. Similarly, Picasso and Dubuffet shared an aesthetic language that oscillated between abstraction and figuration. Picasso, Calder, and their mutual friend Miró were aligned by their shared sociopolitical beliefs of the avant-garde. In their most famous coming-together, the three artists captured a crucial moment in European history through their artistic contributions to the 1937 World Fair, communicating the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War to the world.

Revolutionary masters of the 20th Century, this carefully curated selection of paintings and sculptures explores how each artist's personal histories and artistic sensibilities left an indelible mark on one another's practices.