Archives for December 2011

The Staedel Museum in Frankfurt just announced a big catch: it has purchased a famed image of Pope Julius II by Raphael and his workshop, a “new” picture, but one known by two other versions in renowned collections — the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Uffizi in Florence. It is one of Raphael’s most famous images.

The Staedel’s version has been out of public view, though in its announcement the Staedel traced ownership back to 1905 — that is when it was auctioned at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris, part of the Bercioux collection.

A private collector purchased the painting and, the Staedel says, “it then made its way from Paris to New York by 1909, and returned to Europe in 1914. In 2007, following further changes of ownership, it was auctioned at the Dorotheum in Vienna as a work by an imitator of Raphael. There it was purchased by the private Ellermann collection, from which the Städel had the fortune of purchasing it at a price substantially below market value thanks to the good will of the seller. The conjectured provenance of the painting before this thread is taken up in 1905 leads back to the family of Julius II himself.”

Of course, no one knows for sure, but the Staedel says it will research the pre-1905 provenance in time for an exhibition titled “Raphael and the Portrait of Julius II: Pictorial Propaganda of a Renaissance Pope” scheduled for November 2012 to February 2013.

Frankly, I’d like to know who owned the work in New York, too, and gave it up…

The exhibit will also compare the Staedel portrait with the more well-known ones in London and Florence.

In the meantime, the Staedel plans to unveil its new treasure in its new Old Master galleries, which are set to open on Dec. 15 after a 14-month refurbishment.

Read more in the press release.

This is a  boon to those galleries, which recently “lost” a wonderful Holbein that had been on loan to those Old Master galleries from the Hesse family. They sold it to billionaire Reinhold Wuerth.

UPDATE: Just ask, and the Staedel answers. In response to my wondering about the picture’s presence in New York, the press office sent this New York Times article:

1910 NYTimes Claims to have found a rare Raphael here 15 Mai 1910.pdf

1910 NYTimes-Artikel Arthur Dawson Thinks.pdf

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Staedel Museum

 

Usually when I write a post like yesterday’s, about the RAW program at the Norton Museum of Art, some reader, or more than one, writes that women artists should stand on their own merit, and that the system isn’t biased against them. I think history proves them wrong. But I also think that there can be more argument about the current situation.

The male-female divide isn’t the only one that affects an artist’s success. It also matters where you live. If it’s a small country in terms of population, it’s hard to get attention beyond your borders. Think about it.

So I found it interesting that a Moroccan named Hicham Daoudi, the managing director of Art Holding Morocco, has taken matters into his hands, starting a promotional program for artists from his home country. In October, 2010, he started the first international Marrakech art fair, held at the Es Saadi Palace hotel, which included 31 galleries — 19 from Europe, mostly French, ten from northern Africa and two from the Middle East — according to The Art Newspaper. The second edition took place in October with 48 galleries (right), and the 2012 fair dates have been set.

More recently, I read that Daoudi has given the Pompidou Center in Paris a three-year €450,000 grant (€150,000 a year) that must be spent on art by Moroccan artists. He was reportedly thinking about making a similar, but smaller grant (€100,000 a year) to a South African museum for the same reason.

On my trip to an arts forum sponsored by the Palazzo Strozzo Foundation in Florence last month, I met an artist from Morocco, and asked him about it. He dismissed the gesture as more about Daoudi, who he said was trying to enhance the value of his own art holdings, than about Moroccan artists.

Could be. But what’s wrong with trying to raise the profile of artists from your country? Whatever his motive, is Daoudi doing a bad thing? I don’t think so; he’s not choosing the artists, or their works, just their nationality.

The Moroccan artists likened Daoudi’s move to affirmative action, and said he’d rather make it on his own. Still, I had to wonder: he had managed, somehow, to make it into the European market. Would he have felt the same if he were working and showing only at home? 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Marrakech Art Fair

 

 

Last Wednesday, coinciding with the opening of Art Basel Miami Beach, the nearby Norton Museum of Art (in West Palm Beach) opened an exhibition of paintings by Jenny Saville. Saville first earned notice in the 1990s as a Young British Artist as part of Charles Saatchi’s Sensation show, but this is her first survey at an American museum.

The Saville show is noteworthy for another reason: it’s the first in the Norton’s RAW series. RAW stands for Recognition of Art by Women, and it’s funded by the Leonard and Sophie Davis Fund/MLDauray Arts Initiative “to discover, highlight, showcase and promote living women artists.”

The series title is apropos — Saville’s works, too, could be described as raw. As the Norton says,

Her monumental compositions of the female form were unromantic and suggested the reality of weight, flesh and blood. Initially restricted to a feminist critique Saville’s skill and compositions have evolved. She continues to paint luscious canvases that reveal that her subject has always been the medium of painting itself. Taking on the challenge of the history of modern painting through the tradition of classical figure painting her contribution is the subject of this exhibition.

The exhibit — from early career paintings and drawings to never-before-seen, new work, including a series of works on paper inspired by a preparatory drawing by Leonardo — is designed to display Saville’s evolution. Her works, often a comment on mortality, are not, shall we say, pretty. They at, at times, difficult to view. This show will challenge the Norton audience, and that will be interesting to watch.

The Davis Fund donated $1.5 million to finance RAW last May. Through 2016, the Norton will organize an annual exhibition featuring living women artists.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Norton Museum of Art

 

Just announced: the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has chosen Gary Tinterow, longtime curator at the Metropolitan Museum, as its new director — replacing the late Peter Marzio.

Here’s a link to the news, and here’s one to my last post on the subject.

The New York Times now has the story as well.

And here is the link to the museum’s press release.

Tinterow’s move will be good for both museums.

 

 

Beginning today, the Cincinnati Art Museum is letting everything show — a slight exaggeration.

The museum’s collection comprises about 60,000 objects, spanning six millenia, and like most museums, it keeps most of those works in storage.

But it’s pulling more of them out now, some 1,733 pieces, and cramming them into 10,000 sq ft of gallery space. About 85% were not on view before, and many have never been on view. They’ll be displayed, often, in open storage – on shipping crates, on racks, and in storage cabinets, adapted for visitation. At least one gallery is hung salon-style, with paintings floor to ceiling.

Throughout the whole museum, only about 6% of the collection is usually on view — that is, 3,600 pieces, including antiquities, decorative design, paintings, textiles, and prints — items from Greek lions to Native American art (maybe this shell mask, from Tennessee, unknown date?) to fine silver — and “all reflect[ing] the very best of art history,” the museum touts. By comparison, one of the museum’s wings normally shows about 400 objects in 18,000 sq. ft. (according to Wikipedia; I could not obtain a better number). This display will show depth as well as breadth. For example, in place of the six Japanese tea pots and saki bottles normally on view, there will now be more than 100.

Called 6,000 Years, the exhibition will be expanded in the spring, doubling the number of objects on display, according to the press office.

Aaron Betsky, the museum’s director, noted in a press release that “we felt it was time to start bringing some of these great images and objects out. Other art museums have open storage facilities, but we believe that none of them have made the art this accessible. We wanted them to be as easy to see as possible…”

At a time when museums have fewer resources to organize scholarly exhibitions, this is a good tactic. It will remain on view, with some rotation, through 2013.

I recently praised the Cincinnati Art Museum for its new “taste of” gallery, as well for “discovering,” in its storerooms, a musical instrument collection, but I have also criticized its Wedded Perfection exhibit of wedding apparel and its show of circus posters. The first two were the most recent, so I’m hoping the CAM is on an upward trend.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Cincinnati Art Museum