Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

Exhibitions

Brooklyn Museum Picks Up A Couple Of Rembrandts

Rembrandt-Shaded EyesOn loan, that is — but still.

Brooklyn announced the other day that two paintings by Rembrandt, Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes (1634) and Portrait of Anthonie Coopal (1635), will go on view along with four other seventeenth-century Dutch portraits and genre scenes beginning Mar. 18 in the museum’s Beaux-Arts Court. The six paintings are all on long-term loan from a private New York collection.

That collector, anonymous in the press release, is Thomas Kaplan.

But first, more about the Rembrandts: Both were done when Rembrandt was in his late 20s, and had been suffered through the decades. Self-Portrait with Shaded Eyes had actually been hidden by another portrait.

According to Dr. Ernst van de Wetering, chairman of the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP), “the overpaintings were so old one had to entertain the possibility that they had been done in Rembrandt’s own workshop.” The RRP brought in experts to conduct tests on the portrait’s paint surface and assess whether there might be another composition underneath. Six years and several paint layers later, this long-unknown masterpiece was revealed in 2002.

Portrait of Anthonie Coopal was commissioned by Rembrandt’s new brother-in-law. The artist captured the personality of the ambitious Coopal in the prime of his youth. (A future magistrate and secret agent, Coopal would become one of the most well-connected men in Rembrandt’s Amsterdam circle.) Rembrandt painted his sitter in mid-speech, sporting a broad-brimmed black hat atop long brown locks that cascade onto a fashionable white lace collar.

The Brooklyn owns etchings by Rembrandt, but no paintings. They were shown in full in Rembrandt Etchings from the Museum Collection in 1935. Too long ago.

The museum did not say how long Kaplan has agreed to leave his Rembrandt’s in Brooklyn. When I last did some reporting on Kaplan, a commodities trader, he owned at least six or seven Rembrandts (one source said more), along with many more paintings from that era. He has lent some to the Metropolitan Museum in the past, but I do not know what it there now.

My sources said that Kaplan is passionate about his area of Dutch art and very knowledgeable.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum  

Why Isn’t The Met’s Chinese Exhibition On Its Website?

It was months ago when I first learned that the Metropolitan Museum of Art* was organizing an exhibition from its permanent collection to send to China. It came to pass in February, when Earth, Sea and Sky: Nature in Western Art — Masterpieces from the Metropolitan Museum of Art opened in Beijing, at the National Museum of China.

VanGogh-MetBilled as exploring “the grand theme of nature as it has been depicted by painters, sculptors, and decorative artists in Europe, America, and the Near East, from antiquity to the present day,” the show was something I wanted to see. But the Met organized it with foreign audiences in mind, and has no plans to put these 130 works on view — in this form. Of course, they’ve probably all been on view at various times in their respective departments and probably temporary exhibits, too. Still, I wanted to see the sweep, just as Chinese visitors and before that Japanese visitors are seeing the show. The works sent by the Met

are masterful representations of landscape, flora, and fauna rendered in a wide range of media including painting, ceramics, tapestry, silver, stone, and bronze. Highlights include works by such major artists as Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Monet, Tiffany, Hopper, and Atget, as well as anonymous masters from the ancient and medieval worlds.

They include the van Gogh Cypresses and the Tiffany vase shown here.

So the other evening, at the ADAA Art Show at the Park Avenue Armory, when I ran into a Met official and heard a little about installation differences between New York and China (nothing serious, but one difficulty was resolved by placing plinths under big paintings), I asked the normal question for these days:

Can I see any pictures up on the Met’s website?

I was disappointed to hear “no.” Then I was pleasantly pleased to hear that  my co-conversationalist thought my idea was a good one and said, “we should do that.”

TiffanyVase-MetS/he promised to get pictures from Beijing and get them up there so everyone can see part of this landmark installation.

This was the Met’s first large cultural exchange with China, but there will surely be more. And director Tom Campbell, I understand, will soon be leaving for India, to poke around there at museums and to see what cultural exchanges might be arranged there.

All this is a good thing; I just want to see some of it too — even if only in a manifestation on the web.

So: sometimes the simplest things make great website material. Don’t overlook them.

The New York Times covered the exchange on Jan. 31.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum 

*I consult to a foundation that support the Met

A Rebellious Exhibition At the Delaware Art Museum

3_kasebier-photos-in-nyt_webHere’s a change of pace from my last three posts, about museums.

In the “the more things change” department: The Delaware Art Museum recently opened an exhibition that underscores the verities of the art world — maybe the whole world. Called Gertrude Käsebier’s Photographs of the Eight: Portraits for Promotion, it reveals how those artists used photopgraphic portraits and other media to promote themselves and their groundbreaking 1908 exhibition at MacBeth Gallery.

Of course, it was a different age, and they couldn’t hold a candle to artists like Jeff Koons and Damian Hirst. And they didn’t have powerful dealers like Larry Gagosian and Arne and Marc Glimcher to do it for them.

So the Eight — Robert Henri, John Sloan, William Glackens, George Luks, Arthur B. Davies, Everett Shinn, Ernest Lawson, and Maurice Prendergast — turned to Gertrude Käsebier and asked her to create “emotive and atmospheric portraits,” according to the museum’s press release. They mounted an aggressive year-long effort with the press, and the resulting articles in newspapers and magazines bore headlines like “Secession in Art,” “New York’s Art War and the Eight Rebels” and “A Rebellion in Art.” Käsebier’s portraits provided the illustrations. The articles talked about the Eight’s work and ideas about modern art. As for the show, it ran for 13 days and contained 63 pictures — but it was a watershed.

Kasebier_Sloan_webThe Delaware museum is also home to a large archive whose contents include postcards between the artists, exhibition catalogs, press clippings, and a complete set of Käsebier’s portrait photographs — which are of course being used to tell the story.

Käsebier (1852-1934), the museum says, “bridged the worlds of fine art photography and commercial portraiture, exhibiting her work in galleries while maintaining a portrait studio on Fifth Avenue in New York. She is considered one of the most influential American photographers of the early 20th century and is known for her powerful images of motherhood and portraits of Native Americans.”

Käsebier took up photography in her late thirties while studying portrait painting at the Pratt Institute. She worked with a chemist and a professional photographer to learn the trade and opened a New York studio in 1897. She experimented with different printing techniques and her photographs resembled works of art. Seeking to capture the individuality of each sitter, Käsebier eschewed standard studio props, relying on pose and lighting to convey character. Käsebier also participated in important photography exhibitions at a time when photographers, artists, and critics were arguing for the artistic potential of the medium.

Their composite portrait is above, and at right is one of John Sloan. The Delaware museum was also kind enough to send me a wall text that tells much more of the story, which is available here.

This show, which opened on Feb. 23, runs through July 7. And the museum is presenting a talk tonight and symposium tomorrow on the show.

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the Delaware Art Museum

 

The Tate’s Tanks: Three Steps Forward, Two Back

I was all set to compliment the Tate for creating a new space on YouTube called The Performance Room. It is meant to show performances designed specifically for online viewing, all commissioned, and “the first artistic programme created purely for live web broadcast.” (I’m not sure about that, but that is what the Tate claims.)

Joan Joanas (below) will be starting things off on Feb. 28:

Referencing previous works such as Vertical Roll 1972, in which she performed directly to the camera in her studio, and drawing on mythology, Jonas will create a live tableau using sculptural props, costumes, masks, music, her voice and her students.

joan_jonas_mirror_performanceThat Tate channel has nearly 13,000 subscribers and has had more than 3.2 million viewers for its other videos, which include the Tate’s performances in The Tanks. On Feb. 3, that meant a live, unscripted performance conceived by artist Suzanne Lacy, Silver Action. 

UK-based women who took part in significant activist movements and protests from the 1950s to 80s will share their personal stories in a series of workshops, culminating in a day-long public performance on 3 February. Visitors to The Tanks will hear diverse groups of women engaged in discussion about their experiences and the impact and results of their actions as they walk among them. Live documentation – film, social media and text – will also be projected in real time onto the walls of The Tanks.

You can read more about that here. I saw a video of a previous work by her in the Tanks last fall, and I quite liked it.

But while I was on the subject of the Tanks, I learned that the Tate did it again with regard to an overbearing corporate sponsorship — not just with BP, as I mentioned here. A recent missive from the Tate talks about the BMW Tate Live program, a four-year partnership between BMW and Tate now in its second year that “focuses on live performance and interdisciplinary art both in the gallery and online.” No amount for the gift was specified, and a quick Google search didn’t turn up anything either. Here’s the BMW version of the partnership.

Of course, BMW also forged a deal with the Guggenheim Museum in 2010, putting its name first and foremost on the BMW Guggenheim Lab. That’s a mobile structure, intended as a place to exchange talk (aka ideas), though — and somehow seems less offensive than the Tate deal.

Still, it makes one wonder — are we next going to have the BMW (Fill in an artist’s name)? A piece of conceptual art, sure, and also a very bad idea.

Why is the Tate allowing this, the thin end of the wedge, to use a British phrase? Don’t they have better negotiators in their development department? It’s hard to roll any of these abuses back. They should remember another Britishism, from their own history with the Vikings: Once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Tate

 

Cleveland Museum Expands Quietly To City’s West Side

Transformer Station, a private museum that opened to the public on February 1, has hatched a very exciting plan that will eventually give the Cleveland Museum of Art a branch on the city’s west side.

TransformerStationAn Ohio couple named Fred and Laura Ruth Bidwell bought the station, which was built in 1924 and served as one of sixteen substations of the Cleveland Railway Company until 1949, and in the last couple of years have spent nearly $3 million turning the brick structure, which has 22-foot ceilings in the main hall, into a mini-museum. The station encompasses 7,944 square foot with about 3,500 square feet of gallery space, plus a catering kitchen to support events, concerts and lectures, offices and a library for the Bidwell Foundation. 

The Bidwells have been collecting photography by artists in the beginning or middle of their careers (listed here), the website says, and along with the commissions, they’ll be shown at Transformer Station in two shows a year, lasting about six months in total. The first showing of their art is called Light of Day, and the first special exhibition is called Bridging Cleveland by Vaughn Wascovich, which displays large-scale panoramic images of landmark Cleveland bridges that were commissioned by Bidwell Projects. One more is already planned.

 The Cleveland Museum has committed to program the station during the rest of the year.

What I had not focused on until today, when I read the News section of the Station’s website, is that the Bidwells have pledged to give the station to the Cleveland Museum at some date 15 or 20 years in the future – along with half of their collection, with the rest going to the Akron Art Museum.

Back in January, the Cleveland Plain-Dealer published an article that included this passage:

David Franklin, director of the Cleveland museum, said he’s elated that his institution is breaking out of University Circle for the first time in its 97-year history and that it has its first toehold on the West Side. “It’s terribly exciting,” he said. “I regard it not simply as a satellite, but as a different type of exhibition space that will create a new kind of Cleveland Museum of Art curating.” 

Now that’s exciting.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Transformer Station