Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Exhibitions

Painters’ Paintings: Who Owned What When

You never know what might spark the idea for an exhibition, and at the National Gallery in London it was a 2011 gift left to the U.K. by Lucian Freud. He bequeathed a work called Italian Woman by Corot, which he had purchased 10 years earlier “no doubt drawn to its solid brushwork and intense physical presence,” says the NG.

Titian-VendraminFamilyAnd so on June 23, just a few years later, the NG will open Painters’ Paintings: From Freud to Van Dyke, a show of more than eighty works that had once been owned by great painters, either by gift, swap or purchase, works that probably inspired them, paintings they lived with. (The spark also explains the backward chronology of the title.) As the press release says:

This is an exceptional opportunity to glimpse inside the private world of these painters and to understand the motivations of artists as collectors of paintings.

In the release, Anne Robbins, the curator of Painters’ Paintings, explained:

Since its acquisition the painting’s notable provenance has attracted considerable attention – in fact the picture is often appraised in the light of Freud’s own achievements, almost eclipsing the intrinsic merits of Corot’s canvas. It made us start considering questions such as which paintings do artists choose to hang on their own walls? How do the works of art they have in their homes and studios influence their personal creative journeys? What can we learn about painters from their collection of paintings?

As it happened, the NG owns a Titian once owned by Van Dyck (he had 19 Titians at this death, one pictured here), a Rembrandt once in the possession of Reynolds, and a Degas owned by Matisse, among others. Borrow more from private collectors, and voila, what should be a very intriguing exhibition. Many of the works have not been seen publicly for decades.

Works once owned by Degas, a famed collector; Lord Leighton; George Frederic Watts, and Sir Thomas Lawrence will also be on view.

In the catalogue, which extends the scholarship of the show, Robbins related how each work was acquired, sometimes at great cost, and how the artists “used these pictures, extracting their technical secrets and repeatedly appropriating motifs, poses and subject matter.”

I love this idea. This is what art exhibitions should do. More details here.

 

Let’s Change to The Positive At the Met–Something “Divine”

Rama-FootFlash back to 1984, and to this excerpt from an article–no, a brief, really, which in itself says something–in The New York Times:

Also of interest this week: ”The Flame and the Lotus: Indian and Southeast Asian Art From the Kronos Collections” (Metropolitan Museum, Fifth Avenue and 82d Street): Reflecting a rise in collector interest throughout the country, the more ”exotic” art outside the pale of Western civilization is beginning to get its due in American museums. And at the Met, Indian and Southeast Asian art, once neglected, is coming along nicely, thanks partly to its cultivation by Martin Lerner, curator. This, the museum’s first loan exhibition in the field, was borrowed from a collector, Stephen M. Kossak, who with his family has already given the Met significant objects.

The 86 works of painting and sculpture – from India, Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia – form a rambling miscellany, ranging from 1500 B.C. to the late 18th century. If there’s an overall rationale, it’s that the objects were chosen for their esthetic, rather than historical, interest, with an emphasis on spirituality and refinement of craftsmanship. And while not everything here is of equal quality, it is obvious that Mr. Kossak, aided by Mr. Lerner, has a very discriminating eye.

The first loan exhibition in the field! We have come a long way. Today the Met is again the beneficiary of that eye. On June 14, it will open Divine Pleasures: Painting from India’s Rajput Courts—the Kronos Collections, another exhibition made possible by Kossak. These works, nearly 100 of them, are a promised gift to the Met from Kossak and his family.

I tell the story of Kossak and his collecting ways in an article for The Wall Street Journal that was published in the May 31 edition, headlined A Personal Collection Goes Public: Rajput Paintings at the Met.

The Devi, in the Form of Bhadrakali, Adored by the Gods’I have seen many of the works at Kossak’s home and I am eager to see them in an exhibition setting. These works are, as I wrote, “…playful paintings, which were made in the small kingdoms of northern India from the 16th to 19th centuries. Inspired by Hindu myths and poetry, the imaginative, detailed scenes of love and life among the gods are painted on paper in opaque watercolors and ink.” They are not Mughal paintings, which the Met owns many of. These works have more of an indigenous feel, higher coloration–they complement the Met’s holdings of Mughal works.

Regarding the Rajput works, I wrote:

Their vibrant hues—reds, yellows, blues, golds, whites raised to simulate pearls and greens made with beetle-wing casings to sparkle like emeralds—are matched by their colorful titles. They include “Krishna and the Gopas [Cowherds] Huddle in the Rain,” “Krishna Swallows the Forest Fire” and “Rama and Sita in the Forest: A Thorn is Removed From Rama’s Foot” (above right).

Each one, [Kossak] said, was bought because it evoked a visceral emotional response. “It’s lightning-bolt recognition across the board,” he said.

As the former head of the Asia Society Vishakha Desai told me, “The quality is at a very high level and there are only one or two Indian paintings collections like this that have been formed in the last 20 years, formed with the idea of getting absolutely the best.”

I think it will be a treat!

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the WSJ and the Met

I consult to a Foundation that supports the Met.

A Small Museum Focuses On Men

Small museums in this country, and probably everywhere, tend to be ignored. Most lack the kind of art and exhibition program that brings notice beyond their communities. But the Freeport Museum of Art, in northern Illinois, just did something that caught my eye: it organized an exhibition called The Nature of Masculinity. 

Freeport-MasculinityYes, there have been plenty of artists since the beginning of art who have focused on the male body, though a census of art that has gone down in history would probably find more female bodies. But here’s a show, in a small town (population 25,000) that is focused on men now, using the work of five photographers. The description, per the museum website, says:

The Nature of Masculinity explores how media plays a major role in the construction of masculinity, it has become an instructional guide on how society consumes and constructs gender identity. Once considered a one-dimensional concept, masculinity has become consumable through images just as the female form is commoditized in art and advertising, so is the male body. With the increasing acceptance of queer identity within mainstream culture, the definition of masculinity is ever-­‐changing. Gender identity is no longer a simple construction. Instead, masculinity has become a fluid concept, allowing attraction, lust, sexuality, and orientation to become subjective and malleable as individuals begin to construct gender identity for themselves. This exhibition critically examines stereotypes and offers a modern understanding of gender construction, through the photographic medium.

(That’s a direct quote: although the punctuation could use a little help, I did not attempt to fix it.)

What first interested me was not that summary; it was a photo in the local newspaper, The Journal-Standard. It’s something you don’t see all that often, as you can see from the detail I have posted here.

I wonder if this exhibition will attract or repel men. They make up too few of regular museum visitors, observation and studies show.

In some ways, I think many people are tired of viewing art through the gender lens. But maybe this show has found a fresh way to see men.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Journal-Standard

 

Since We’re Voting, There’s This Artistic Conundrum

Lest you think I have no sense of fun from my last post, which chastised the Indianapolis Museum of Art for outsourcing its exhibition planning to the public, I thought I would mention an instance where I think engaging the public is fine.

YoungMan-1497It has been taking place at the Royal Academy since mid-March, in connection with the exhibition, In the Age of Giorgione. The show sounds terrific–you can read this Guardian review of it–and the RA added to it by focusing public attention on a painting that has mystified art historians. Made in the late 1490s,  Portrait of a Young Man has alternately been attributed to Giorgione and to Titian.

So the RA is seeking public opinion in a vote–but not after giving three or four sentences of explanation. I do not know what information has been given in the galleries, because I have not seen the show, but online there’s a wealth of it.

Here, for example, Peter Humfrey makes the case for Giorgione. He talks about line, texture, composition, visage of the youth, and so on–with illustrations for comparison. Paul Joannides argues for Titian, citing the composition, the skill of execution, and so on. You don’t have to be an art historian to read either one.

The RA also posted an article from its magazine headlined The Enigma of Giorgione. It posted another magazine feature–two art historians debating whether attribution matters, and another about other artists in Venice at the time.

Now people have a sense of the artist, the times, and the stakes. Now they might cast informed votes.

At the time of this writing, the vote was… I don’t want to say, but only 2% of the participants voted “neither.” You can go to this link to find out (at the bottom).

Either author, it’s a pretty gorgeous picture.

Photo credit: Courtesy of the RA via The Guardian

 

Explaining Delacroix, Continued

The Delacroix exhibition at the National Gallery in London that I mentioned in my last post was also on view here in the U.S., at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, under the title Delacroix’s Influence: The Rise of Modern Art from Cézanne to van Gogh.  Yesterday, I learned from Patrick Noon, who curated the show there, that the MIA, too, had a video–but it’s just not easy to find on the MIA website.

Fantin-Latour_Homage_to_DelacroixNoon said:

I and two videographers on staff spent four days in Paris shooting the murals in the National Assembly, to which no one ever has access, Saint-Sulpice, and the Louvre. We also visited the Musee Delacroix and gardens and the Dalou memorial in the Luxembourg Gardens. Close to 30 hours of video then reduced to 14 minutes with narration. I felt strongly that such representation was essential for an American audience to fully appreciate the artist’s entire attainment even if the visitors were not experiencing the actual works in situ.

Here is the link; you’ll find the video halfway down the page.

Noon told me that the video in Minneapolis was “intended to be part of the installation, so not a web video per se.” It was online during the show, too, but it’s not easy to find on the website. Even with these directions, I didn’t get it right away:

Exhibitions
Past Exhibitions
DelacroixExhibition Preview (first tab)
Half way down on the page
I didn’t see the tabs right away.

The exhibition ended in Minneapolis on January 10, and Noon said that “Of the 1000 people surveyed as they left the exhibition nearly 90% claimed it was invaluable in understanding the thesis of the exhibition.” That’s a really great result.

On that same web page, at the bottom, I found another interesting didactic.

PNT160493_DelacroixInfoGraphic-large

For someone like me, who will not be able to see this exhibition, these efforts are very cool! At top I have posted Fantin Latour’s Homage to Delacroix.