John Marin's Full Moon Over the City, No. 1

 

Schoelkopf Gallery is pleased to share the details on John Marin's Full Moon Over the City, No. 1, executed in 1949. Full Moon Over the City, No. 1 belongs to a pair of paintings John Marin produced in 1949 of a New York City night scene. The present work is the first of only two examples of this subject Marin painted that year and likely served as Marin's model in developing the second version of the composition, Full Moon Over the City, No. 2. Notably, he used experimental tools such as syringes to create varied textures across the surface of this work.

John Marin, Full Moon Over the City, No. 1, 1949, Oil on canvas, 22⅛ x 28⅛ inches

In the foreground, a dense field of deconstructed shapes evokes urban buildings, while thin calligraphic lines suggest a bridge. Across the river, these same thin lines and rust-colored geometric forms create a visual echo of the emerging New York City skyline. The low-hanging blood moon, which occurs during a lunar eclipse, is reminiscent of the striking black suns in Manhattan Marin painted in the late 1920s and early 1930s during his iconic New York period. Full Moon Over the City, No. 1 also recalls the vivid red moon and gesturally rendered river in  Claude Monet's celebrated Impression, soleil levant (1872; Musée Marmottan Monet), the namesake of the Impressionist movement. Full Moon Over the City, No. 1 reveals Marin's important position in the evolution of modernism as both rooted in the approach of one of the earliest and most lauded modern masters and also as a distinct synthesis of the post-war moment in New York.

Manet/Degas

     Musée d'Orsay 

    March 28 to July 23, 2023

The Met Fifth Avenue September 24, 2023–January 7, 2024

Some 160 paintings and works on paper, including rarely loaned masterpieces, will illuminate the friendship and rivalry between these two giants of 19th-century French art

Manet/Degas examines one of the most significant artistic dialogues in the genesis of modern art. Born only two years apart, Édouard Manet (1832–1883) and Edgar Degas (1834–1917) were friends, rivals, and, at times, antagonists whose work shaped the development of modernist painting in France. By examining the ways in which their careers intersected and presenting their work side by side, this exhibition investigates how their artistic objectives and approaches both overlapped and diverged. Through 160 paintings and works on paper, Manet/Degas takes a fresh look at the interactions of these two artists in the context of the family relationships, friendships, intellectual circles, and sociopolitical events that influenced their artistic and professional choices, deepening our understanding of a key moment in 19th-century French art history. The exhibition is organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie, Paris. Highlights among the loans to the exhibition include  Manet’s groundbreaking Olympia, which will travel to the United States for the first time in the work’s history, as well as  Degas’s recently conserved Family Portrait (The Bellelli Family) from the Musée d’Orsay. Four drawings of Manet by Degas—two from the Musée d’Orsay and two from The Met—will be reunited with rare, related etchings.  They will be displayed alongside  Degas’s Monsieur and Madame Édouard Manet (Municipal Museum of Kitakyushu), a gift to the sitters that Manet later slashed, thus marking an initial point of rupture.  Integral pairings of works by the two artists that showcase their treatment of similar subjects from modern life include  Degas’s In a Café (The Absinthe Drinker) (Musée d’Orsay)  and Manet’s Plum Brandy (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), as well as  Manet’s The Races at Longchamp (Art Institute of Chicago)  and Degas’s Racehorses before the Stands (Musée d’Orsay).  The exhibition features many works formerly in Degas’s collection, including  Manet’s The Execution of Maximilian (The National Gallery, London), which was methodically reassembled by Degas after it had been cut into pieces and dispersed following Manet’s death. Stephan Wolohojian, exhibition co-curator and the John Pope-Hennessy Curator in Charge of the Department of European Paintings, said, “While little written correspondence between Manet and Degas survives, their artistic output speaks volumes about how these major artists defined themselves with and against each other. This expansive dossier exhibition is a unique chance to assess their fascinating relationship through a dialogue between their work.” Ashley Dunn, exhibition co-curator and Associate Curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints, added: “Works on paper are integral to their story as the two artists purportedly met in the Louvre, where Degas was working on an etching after a painting attributed to Velázquez, a work that Manet also copied. The exhibition presents an exciting opportunity to evaluate how Manet and Degas worked differently across media.” Credits and Related Content Manet/Degas is co-curated by Stephan Wolohojian (John Pope-Hennessy Curator in Charge of the Department of European Paintings, The Met) and Ashley Dunn (Associate Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Met), in collaboration with Laurence des Cars (President-Director, Musée du Louvre), Isolde Pludermacher (Chief Curator of Painting at the Musée d'Orsay), and Stéphane Guégan (Scientific Advisor to the President of the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée de l'Orangerie). A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition. Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press, Manet/Degas is the first book to consider their careers in parallel, investigates how their objectives overlapped, diverged, and shaped each other’s artistic choices.  Enlivened by archival correspondence and records of firsthand accounts, essays by American and French scholars take a fresh look at the artists’ family relationships, literary friendships, and interconnected social and intellectual circles in Paris; explore their complex depictions of race and class; discuss their political views in the context of wars in France and the United States; compare their artistic practices; and examine how Degas built his personal collection of works by Manet after his friend’s premature death. An illustrated biographical chronology charts their intersecting lives and careers. This lavishly illustrated, in-depth study offers an opportunity to reevaluate some of the most canonical French artworks of the nineteenth century, including Manet’s Olympia, Degas’s The Absinthe Drinker, and other masterworks.

Salvador Dalí: The Image Disappears,

Art Institute of Chicago

February 18 through June 12, 2023

Salvador Dalí. Apparition of Face and Fruit Dish on a Beach, 1938. © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2022. Photo by Allen Phillips/Wadsworth Atheneum

Salvador Dalí: The Image Disappears, explores the pivotal decade of the 1930s, when Salvador Dalí emerged as the inventor of his own personal brand of Surrealism. This installation of 50 paintings, sculptures, drawings, collages, along with a rich selection of books and ephemera—on view from February 18 through June 12, 2023—considers Dalí’s work in light of two defining, if contradictory, impulses: an immense desire for visibility and the urge to disappear.

The Art Institute first exhibited the work of Salvador Dalí in 1933, as the artist was emerging as a one-man artistic phenomenon with his own personal brand of Surrealism. The museum acquired a Dalí painting shortly thereafter, becoming one of the first cultural institutions anywhere in the world to do so. In the nearly 90 years since, the Art Institute’s unparalleled commitment to collecting Dalí has resulted in holdings of more than three dozen of his creations across mediums. But until now, the museum has never mounted an exhibition solely focused on Dali’s work. 

Caitlin Haskell, Gary C. and Frances Comer Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, and Director, Ray Johnson Collection and Research shares, “The Art Institute was among the first museums to display Dali’s work, and for us it’s been a thrill to organize his first solo exhibition at the museum, building on icons we know well and setting them in context with pinnacle works from around the world.” 

 Featuring icons of the Art Institute’s Surrealism collections alongside extremely rare loans from leading public and private collections in Europe and the US, the exhibition explores a series of “disappearing acts” undertaken by the artist at the height of his fame. Additionally, new technical analysis undertaken for this exhibition illuminates further hidden imagery within Dalí’s works that offer meditations on his wry and sophisticated approach to art making.

“Dalí trusted that the public would be receptive to his challenging and unusual imagery, and we hope that this exhibition will welcome visitors to see his signature motifs with fresh eyes,” remarks Jennifer Cohen, curator of provenance and research. 

The exhibition is curated by Caitlin Haskell, Gary C. and Frances Comer Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, and Director, Ray Johnson Collection and Research, and Jennifer Cohen, curator of provenance and research, Director’s Office.

IMAGES

Salvador Dalí. Morphological Echo, 1936. Collection of The Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL (USA); Gift of A. Reynolds & Eleanor Morse, 2007.16. © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2022

Salvador Dalí. A Chemist Lifting with Extreme Precaution the Cuticle of a Grand Piano, 1936. The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph R. Shapiro, 1996.390. © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2022

Salvador Dalí. Mae West’s Face Which May Be Used as a Surrealist Apartment, 1934–35. The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Mrs. Charles B. Goodspeed, 1949.517. © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2022

Salvador Dalí. Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms the Skins of an Orchestra, 1936. Collection of The Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, FL (USA); Gift of A. Reynolds & Eleanor Morse, 2000.24. © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2022

Salvador Dalí. Venus de Milo with Drawers, 1936. The Art Institute of Chicago, Through prior gift of Mrs. Gilbert W. Chapman, 2005.424. © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2022

Salvador Dalí. Untitled (Dream of Venus), 1939. The Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph R. Shapiro, 1987.318. © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, 2023

Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde: The Modern Landscape

 Art Institute of Chicago

(May 14–September 4, 2023)

 

Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

(October 13, 2023–January 14, 2024)

Vincent van Gogh. Fishing in Spring, the Pont de Clichy (Asnières), 1887. The Art Institute of Chicago, gift of Charles Deering McCormick, Brooks McCormick, and the Estate of Roger McCormick.

During an intensely creative period between 1882 and 1890, Vincent van Gogh and other notable Post-Impressionists found new inspiration in the changing landscape just outside of Paris. On view at the Art Institute of Chicago May 14 through September 4, 2023, Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde: The Modern Landscape brings together more than 75 paintings and drawings from this formative period by Van Gogh as well as Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard, and Charles Angrand, shedding new light on their boundary-pushing techniques and illuminating the power of place to shape artistic identities. 

Long a popular spot for leisure activities, the area along the Seine River underwent a period of rapid development toward the end of the 19th century, as coal, gas, and manufacturing facilities appeared along the skyline. The tensions between recreation and industry visible in the landscapes of Asnières and other nearby locales attracted Van Gogh and his contemporaries, igniting their creativity and prompting them to develop new ways of recording what they saw. As Van Gogh remarked in a letter shortly before his arrival in Paris, “the bringing together of extremes—the countryside as a whole and the bustle here [in the city]—gives me new ideas.”

Each artist explored the use of discrete brushstrokes and strong colors in innovative ways, in turn developing novel styles of painting. As Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Eleanor Wood Prince Associate Curator, Painting and Sculpture of Europe, remarks, “The pioneering work by Seurat, Signac, Bernard, and Angrand in the northwestern suburbs of Paris prompted many artists, including Van Gogh, to rethink the possibilities of painting. It was here, in this location and in conjunction with these artists, that he learned to energize his brushstroke and to ‘see color’, both important contributions to his rapid development as an artist.” 

The more than 75 works in this revelatory presentation include many from private collections that are rarely displayed. Twenty-five works are by Van Gogh, including paintings from three triptychs that will be shown together for the first time. 

Van Gogh and the Avant-Garde: The Modern Landscape is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

This exhibition is curated by Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Eleanor Wood Prince Associate Curator, Painting and Sculpture of Europe, at the Art Institute of Chicago, and Bregje Gerritse, researcher at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, with the assistance of Jena K. Carvana, curatorial associate in Painting and Sculpture of Europe at the Art Institute of Chicago. 

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with essays by the curators and other noted scholars, an examination of the innovative portrayals of industry and leisure created by five avant-garde artists working at Asnières in the late nineteenth century, From 1881 to 1890, Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard, and Charles Angrand chose Asnières, a suburb of Paris, as a site of artistic experimentation. Located on the Seine, Asnières became a popular destination for Parisians thanks to aquatic sports and festivals starting in the 1850s, facilitated by the arrival of new train stations and bridges earlier in the century. This convenient new transportation system had beckoned Parisians to more distant destinations like Argenteuil and Bougival, resulting in the river scenes depicted by Impressionists like Monet and Renoir. At the same time, the idyllic landscape of Asnières increasingly contrasted with the factories appearing on the opposite side of the river. Homing in on the tensions between leisure and work, the avant-garde artists at Asnières sought to capture the feeling of this starkly modern landscape by developing innovative motifs, styles, and techniques that pushed their work in new directions. Offering an unprecedented in-depth look at the work produced by the artists at Asnières, this handsomely illustrated volume includes scholarly essays on each of the artists as well as a map detailing the locations where the artists painted.

IMAGES

Vincent van Gogh. The Restaurant Rispal at Asnières, 1887. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Gift of Henry W. and Marion H. Bloch, 2015.13.10. Photo courtesy Nelson-Atkins Media Services, Jamison Miller.

Vincent van Gogh. Factories at Clichy, 1887. Saint Louis Art Museum, Funds given by Mrs. Mark C. Steinberg by exchange 579:1958.

Emile Bernard. Iron Bridges at Asnières, 1887. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Grace Rainey Rogers Fund, 1962.

Charles Angrand. The Seine at Courbevoie: La Grande Jatte, 1888. Larock-Granoff Collection.

Paul Signac. Gasometers at Clichy, 1886. National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1948.

Vincent van Gogh. Exterior of a Restaurant in Asnières, May–June 1887. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

Paul Signac. The Junction at Bois-Colombes (Opus no. 130), 1886. Leeds City Art Galleries.

Georges Seurat. The Seine at Courbevoie, 1885. Private collection.

Vincent van Gogh. A Woman Walking in a Garden, 1887. Private collection.