Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Artworks

The Frame-Up In California

BB-current frame 2What’s wrong with this picture, at left, of The Blue Boy, Thomas Gainsborough’s 1770 masterpiece?

Nothing perhaps, except that styles change — and sometimes change again, reverting back.

That’s what’s going on right now at the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.  Henry and Arabella Huntington purchased this famous painting in 1921, for the then-record sum of $750,000. But people didn’t like the painting’s “bulky 19th-century frame.” And in 1938, the complaints were wearing down the Huntington’s curator of art collections, Maurice Block. Then,

According to a memo written on May 6 of that year, “We have cut down one of our old frames to put the Blue Boy into it.”

The replacement frame [a blog post by Catherine Hess, the chief curator of European art at the Huntington, says] appears to have been an extra supplied by [Joseph] Duveen and probably had been in storage for some time in the Huntington Art Gallery basement. This frame [i.e., the one in the picture at left] is of the so-called Carlo Maratta type, widely used in England from 1750 through the turn of the 20th century.

Lots of other works in the Huntington’s collection similarly have frames supplied by Duveen.

But the Huntington recently decided to reframe The Blue Boy again.

We first approached Michael Gregory, frame specialist at Arnold Wiggins & Sons in London, a workshop specializing in the adaption and reproduction of antique frames….Noting that the frame aroundThe Blue Boy appeared a bit heavy on the picture, Mr. Gregory suggested several 18th-century English frames as possible replacements. Working with Kevin Salatino, the Hannah and Russel Kully Director of the Art Collections at The Huntington, I helped select a splendid Rococo example that complements the framing of Thomas Lawrence’s Pinkie.

So that’s what is happening now. By the end of next month, Blue Boy will look like the digital mockup below.

BlueBoyNew

So what do you think? Which is best for the Boy?

Photo Credits: Courtesy of The Huntington

Getty Research Gets A Great Gift

Since I love books and I love gardens, I was thrilled to see the announcement yesterday from the Getty Research Institute: Collector Tania Norris, has donated her collection of botanical books, 41 rare specimens that “provide unparalleled insight into the contributions of natural science to visual culture in Europe from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries, while also offering rewards for scholars researching global botanical trade and its influence on Wunderkammer culture from the Renaissance to the baroque period.”

norris_limonAmong the highlights, all quoted from the release:

  • Crispijn van de Passe’s Hortus floridus (The flower garden) from 1614, the first book to employ a protoform of microscopy in the author’s use of magnifying lenses to examine flowers for engraving;
  • Johann Christoph Volkamer’s 1708 book Nürnbergische Hesperides (The garden of Hersperides at Nuremberg), which documents both the introduction of Italian citrus culture to Germany and the ensuing revolution in urban planning as private orchards designed for the cultivation of fruit also began to serve as semipublic parks;
  • a volume of Maria Sibylla Merian’s Der rupsen begin (Birth of the butterfly) from 1717, the first book to depict insect metamorphosis and one of the few surviving copies reputedly hand-colored by Merian’s daughter.

Norris apparently bought the books invididually over the last 30 years from booksellers in the U.S., Europe and Australia. Some have already been on deposit at the GRI; now it will have the whole collection.

Said she: “I never collected expecting anyone else to think my books of interest. But now at the GRI, anyone can view them; some have been or will soon be in exhibitions and programs. More importantly, they will be preserved for generations to come.”

“You don’t need much money, just passion to collect and you just never know what treasures you may have,” she added.

Photo Credit: A page from Volkamer’s book, courtesy of the GRI

 

Pollock: It’s Even More In the Details

The Museum of Modern Art recently finished conservation work on three paintings by Jackson Pollock, and in the process discovered new details in each that show that “The life of the pictures is in the details.” That’s the kicker quote from Jim Coddington, the museum’s chief conservator, taken from an online article in ARTnews.

The story, Fresh Prints: MoMA Washes Pollock’s Hands, discusses work on Number 1A, 1948,  One: Number 31, 1950, and Echo: Number 25, 1951– and, as it turned out, a different discovery was made in each.

blog10_handprint1In Number 1A,

…he applied paint to his palms and pressed them on the surface. Pollock also used his hands to lightly smear color across the painting. He worked some sections with a brush. He dragged pigment directly from a tube to create ribbons of impasto. In between, he dripped and poured paint on the canvas….They were always visible in the top right portion of the canvas [at right] and various other points throughout. With the soot and grime gone, they take a more dominant role, showing how the artist used his own body as a tool to mark his newly horizontal canvases. Now more than ever, the work evokes the walls of a prehistoric cave…

In One: Number 31, 

…they saw how Pollock paid careful attention to small sections of the canvas, with deliberate application of paint, resin, and turpentine. The small marks were clearly calculated—subtle movements at odds with the typical image of the action painter engaged in a rhythmic ritual dance…

And in Echo: Number 25, 

…They knew from recollections of Lee Krasner, Pollock’s widow, that he had squeezed the bulb of a turkey baster to spread enamel paint on the picture. But now they understood better how he used this kitchen tool. The lines represent the points where the baster touched the surface of the picture—suggesting a process more akin to drawing, and even less like a ritual dance.

ARTnews refers readers to posts about the project on MoMA’s blog, calling them “riveting.” I’ve read a few — they are indeed fascinating.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of MoMA

 

Collector To Currier: Take My van Gogh, Please (Temporarily)

vangoghIt’s been a while since I focused on the single-painting exhibitions that I like so much — because they get people to look hard and long and one masterpiece. But I thought I’d shine a little light on a museum that doesn’t get much national attention, the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, N.H., for something similar — a special two-painting loan show.

The key part is that the two paintings include one by van Gogh – Route aux confins de Paris, avec paysan portant la bêche sur l’épaule — or Path on the outskirts of Paris, with a peasant carrying a spade — from 1887. It’s on loan until end-January, along with Renoir’s Femmes dans un Jardin (Women in a Garden), from 1873, thanks to an unnamed collector. They are being hung in the Currier’s European paintings gallery, near its Monet. The Currier doesn’t own a van Gogh or a Renoir. People in the area would have to go to Boston to see the nearest van Gogh.

More details are here in the press release.

renoirSo while this isn’t, strictly speaking, even a two-painting exhibition, you can bet that the Currier will get more visitors, coming especially to see these pictures — which, btw, work well together, don’ t they?

Thanks to the collector, whoever you are.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Currier 

 

 

What Conclusions Can We Draw From ArtPrize?

This weekend, ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Mich., awarded $560,000 in cash to the artists of 16 installations — the end of a 19-day competitive event in which the public visited artworks spread around the city, and voted on those they liked best. 49,078 people voted, casting  446,850 votes — they chose the 10 public awards, 10 artists who together won $360,000. An eight-person panel of art professionals decided six juried award winners totaling $200,000.

Here are the two winners, tops in each contest:

Sleeping Bear Dune Lakeshore

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bunga-Ecosystem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s pretty easy to tell which won the public award and which the professionals’ award, isn’t it? The top, a landscape art quilt called Sleeping Bear Dune Lakeshore by Ann Loveless won the first, and the bottom — one scene from Ecosystem, a site-specific, architectural intervention by Carlos Bunga, pleased the pros.

It happens every year, and ArtPrize has been going since 2009. It’s great, in a way, but it also throws the chasm between the public and the pros into high relief. I wasn’t there, so I can’t comment on these pieces in particular, but it seems to me that there’s work to do on visual literacy — or else the professionals are going to be proven wrong by history.

The public awarded nine other awards — Anni Crouter of Flint, Mich. for Polar Expressed, three separate 48” by 72” polar bear paintings, got $75,000 and Andy Sacksteder, who made  UPLifitng, a bronze sculpture depicting two dancers, will receive $50,000,

And $10,000 each, to:

  • Paul Baliker, Palm Coast, Fl., Dancing with Mother Nature
  • Jason Gamrath, Seattle, Wa., Botanica Exotica a Monumental Collection of the Rare beautiful
  • Benjamin Gazsi, Morgantown, West Va., Earth Giant
  • Robin Protz, New Hartford, Conn., Myth-or-Logic
  • Fraser Smith, St. Pete Beach, Fl., Finding Beauty in Bad Things: Porcelain Vine
  • Michael Gard, SanFrancisco, Ca.,Taking Flight
  • Nick Jakubiak, Battle Creek, Mich., Tired Pandas

Pictures of those entries are here.

The other juried award winners, who each received $20,000, are

  • Kyle Staver, New York, N.Y., Europa and the Flying Fish
  • Cooley / Lewis, Chattanooga, Tenn., Through the Skies for You
  • Shahzia Sikander, New York, N.Y. The Last Post
  • Urban Space J.D. Urban, Brooklyn, N.Y., united.states : an everydaypeople project
  • Greg Bokor, Beverly, Mass., Erase 

Congrats to all.

Photo Credits: Courtesty of ArtPrize