New Book | Masters of French Painting at the Wadsworth Atheneum
From Giles:
Eric M. Zafran, Masters of French Painting, 1290–1920: At the Wadsworth Atheneum (London: D. Giles, 2012), 288 pages, ISBN: 978-1904832935, £45 / $65.
Masters of French Painting, 1290–1920: At the Wadsworth Atheneum presents over 130 of the most significant works of art from this internationally recognized collection of French paintings and pastels.
As the first public art museum in the U.S., the Wadsworth Atheneum paved the way for encyclopaedic museums across the country. Founded by Daniel Wadsworth, the Atheneum opened in 1844 with 79 paintings and three sculptures, and today holds more than 50,000 works of art. These include great 17th-century religious masterpieces by Poussin and Claude, charming 18th-century genre paintings and portraits by Boucher, Robert, Vigée Lebrun, and Trinquesse, and varied and rich examples from the 19th century, with outstanding works by Géricault, Delacroix, Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, and Toulouse-Lautrec.
Masters of French Painting, 1290–1920 fills a major gap in the museum’s series of titles devoted to its collections. It provides scholars and researchers with an entirely new catalogue, with up-to-date references, provenance, exhibition histories and technical/conservation reports, in addition to insightful art historical commentaries on the paintings. The book also includes an introductory essay on the creation of this remarkable collection by curator Eric M. Zafran.
An exhibition of about 100 highlights of the collection, Medieval to Monet, will be on view at the Wadsworth Atheneum, October 19, 2012 – January 27, 2013
Eric M. Zafran is the Susan Morse Hilles Curator of European Art at the Wadsworth Atheneum, where he has worked since 1997. As curator of European Paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston he wrote volume I of the museum’s Catalogue of French Paintings. He is the author of publications on Rembrandt, Monet, Gauguin, Doré, and Calder.
Call for Papers | Collaborators: Collectors, Critics, and Curators
Collaborators: The Role of Collectors, Critics, Curators in Artistic Practice, ca. 1780-1914
Humanities Research Centre, University of York, 26 June 2013
Proposals due by 26 April 2013
In May 1884 the art critic Marion Harry Spielmann wrote in defence of the often criticised profession of art criticism: “The critic – (I am not now referring to the mere notice writer of daily journalism) – spends his life in devotion not only to art but to artists: and, so far as public recognition is concerned, he reaps his reward in sneers and ‘chaff’: sneers from painters, thoughtless and irresponsible, like Mr Whistler; indifference from others less splenetic and querulous.” Spielmann, a prolific author, editor and arts administrator, was an advocate for and close friend of numerous contemporary artists. Along with the collectors and curators whom he frequently worked with and wrote about, he was an active and influential participant in contemporary art practice in late-Victorian London.
Relationships between artists, collectors, critics and curators are often considered in isolation but rarely in tandem. Drawing upon a diverse range of case studies, covering a variety of local and global contexts, this one day post-graduate workshop aims to unpick consistencies, changes and crossovers in the sometimes fraught but often productive relationships between artists, collectors, critics and curators in the long nineteenth century. By bringing together students, early-career researchers and established academics, we hope the workshop will provide an informal but stimulating forum for conversation, debate and interdisciplinary exchange about the nineteenth-century art world and its constituents.
We invite proposals for twenty-minute papers from postgraduate students, early career researchers and established academics. Papers might explore, but are not limited to, the following topics:
• The advent of professional art critics and curators and its impact on artistic practice
• Patronage and collecting in the long nineteenth century
• Artists as collectors, critics and curators
• The fabrication and decoration of Museum buildings
• Curating contemporary art in the long nineteenth century
• The art press and art publishing
• The Grand Tour/tourists as collectors, critics and curators
• Conversations/collaborations in the studio
• Collectors, critics, curators and local/regional/national identities
• Agency and authorship in artistic practice in the long nineteenth century
• Documents: catalogues, contracts and correspondence
Abstracts of no more than 250 words should be sent to Charlotte Drew (ckd502@york.ac.uk) and Eoin Martin (eoin.martin@warwick.ac.uk) by Friday 26 April. This event is generously supported by the Centre for Modern Studies, University of York.
Chrisman-Campbell, “When Fashion Set Sail” at Worn Through
It’s been too long since I’ve noted offerings at Worn Through, a blog that addresses apparel from an academic perspective. In addition to a Call for Papers for the Annual Meeting of the Costume Society of America (Midwest Region) on the theme of Uncommon Beauty, recent postings include an interesting contribution from Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell on maritime headdresses: “When Fashion Set Sail.” -CH
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Kimberly Chrisman-Campbell, “When Fashion Set Sail,” Worn Through (20 March 2013).
Anonymous, Coëffure à l’Indépendance ou le Triomphe de la liberté, ca. 1778, Musée franco-américain du château de Blérancourt
One of the most iconic images of eighteenth-century extravagance is a fashion plate depicting a lady wearing a miniature ship in her powdered and pomaded hair.
But this much-misunderstood hairstyle was not just an eye-catching novelty. It was one of many ship-shaped headdresses that celebrated specific French naval victories and, more importantly, advertised their wearers’ patriotism and political acumen.
Far from being the whimsical caprice of bored aristocrats, these maritime modes were directly inspired by one of the defining political and philosophical issues of the day: America’s struggle for independence, in which France was a key military and political ally.
The full posting is available here»
Call for Papers | Uncommon Beauty
From The Costume Society of America:
Uncommon Beauty | Annual Meeting of the Costume Society of America, Midwest Region
Chicago, 20-21 September 2013
Proposals due by 10 April 2013
The Midwest Region of the Costume Society of America seeks original presentations on topics of Uncommon Beauty. Potential presenters will respond with topics that emerge from seeing beauty with an open mind and an open eye. This could include inquiry into the urban, the “fringe,” the utilitarian, the ethnic, the diverse, the modern, and the very individual. Topics are generated by interest in current or historical fashion, the body, and garments. Your original as well as your traditional academic approaches to presentation of information and images will create an uncommonly inspiring weekend of inquiry and exchange. Uncommon methods of presentation are encouraged, including poetic and literary elements. Garment makers are welcome to present applied and three-dimensional research.
Topics are also sought for exploration in the Ideas Theater, which will provide an informal venue to engage attendees in lively discussions about issues that matter to you now. Spotlight-worthy submissions may include research dilemmas, teaching methods, interpretive strategies, and theater costume or fashion design processes. Although poster presentations and slideshows will be considered, topic presenters are encouraged to consider hands-on activities, quick surveys or games, dance or role-playing, and other imaginative scenarios to involve participants.
Requirements: Proposals are invited for 20-minute oral presentations and Idea Theater topics. Abstracts must be no longer than two typed, double-spaced pages, including endnotes. The top of the first page should include only the title (no names). All proposals should include a cover page with working title, name, address, telephone number, email address, and professional affiliation. Please identify your proposal as an oral presentation or Idea Theater topic.
The organizers encourage papers from established professionals, early career scholars, independent researchers, garment makers, and students. Please identify student papers on the cover page. Abstracts are due by April 10, 2013, to Jacqueline WayneGuite at csachicago2013@gmail.com. For more information about the symposium, contact Caroline Bellios at csachicago2013@gmail.com.
New Book | Giambattista Crosato: Pittore del Rococò Europeo
From Artbooks.com:
Denis Ton, Giambattista Crosato: Pittore del Rococò Europeo (Verona: Scripta, 2013), 460 pages, ISBN: 9788896162385, $98.
Giambattista Crosato (1697-1758) è stato pittore, frescante e scenografo operoso tra la Serenissima e il Piemonte sabaudo, attivo in alcuni dei luoghi simbolo della civiltà settecentesca europea: dalla palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi, al salone di Ca’ Rezzonico, alle ville venete. Autore di pannelli per boiseries come di grandi cicli ad affresco, Crosato è stato, fra i grandi veneziani di quel tempo, colui che meglio ha saputo interpretare in chiave personale lo stile del rococò internazionale, dialogando parimenti con la cultura piemontese negli anni di Beaumont e Giaquinto e proponendo una pittura “risoluta e bizzarra” – per riprendere le parole dei suoi contemporanei, fra le poche a proporsi quale alternativa alla grande maniera del genio del secolo, Giambattista Tiepolo.
Recreated Ceiling of the Gwoździec Synagogue Unveiled in Warsaw
On Tuesday, 12 March 2013, the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw (scheduled to open next year) unveiled the newly completed replica of the ceiling from the Gwoździec Synagogue, which was lost when the building was destroyed during World War II. According to the website of Hands House Studio, the synagogue was largely constructed between 1700 and 1731, with some older portions dating to the seventeenth century. As reported by the Agence France-Presse (AFP):
Gwoździec Synagogue Re!construction Project.
Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Warschau
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. . . a life-sized replica of the polychrome ceiling of an 18th-century synagogue inspired awe Tuesday [12 March 2013] as it was unveiled in the Polish capital. Covered in richly coloured Old Testament scenes and lushly stylised floral themes, the original ceiling adorned a wooden synagogue in what was the pre-World War II eastern Polish town of Gwozdziec, near what is now Lviv, western Ukraine. Like thousands of other Jewish religious sites, it was destroyed during the war by Nazi Germany. Its modern replica is the centrepiece of the Polish capital’s new Museum of the History of Polish Jews, due to be formally inaugurated April 19, marking the 70th anniversary of the World War II Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Its door will open to the public next year. . . .
The replica was handcrafted from wood using traditional tools and techniques and involved nearly 300 craftspeople and artists from around the globe. The new museum is being built in the heart of the Polish capital on the site of the Jewish ghetto that became a symbol of resistance to Nazi Germany’s efforts to eradicate 1,000 years of Jewish presence in Poland. Designed by Finnish architects Rainer Mahlamaeki and Ilmar Lahdelma, the new museum faces the imposing black-stone Warsaw Ghetto Uprising memorial dedicated to those who perished in the doomed 1943 Jewish revolt against the Nazis. . . .
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Note (added 18 January 2023) — More information on the ceiling is available here with Ariel Fein’s essay for SmartHistory (4 April 2022).
Exhibition | Edges of Books
I regret that notice of this exhibition at RIT’s Cary Graphic Arts Collection slipped by me, but the catalogue is still available. -CH
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Edges of Books
Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, 1 October — 14 December 2012
Edges of Books examines a familiar form from an unfamiliar perspective. When books are on display it is usually their spines, covers, text, or illustrations that are featured. These are the familiar parts of the books—the parts that modern readers have come to interact with the most. Edges of Books takes a different approach, uncovering a tradition that extends back centuries in which the edges of books were important sites for information and decoration. A selection of artifacts from 1518 to the present will inspire visitors to view books in new and exciting ways.
Steven K. Galbraith, Edges of Books: Specimens of Edge Decoration from RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection (Rochester: RIT Press, 2012), 74 pages, ISBN: 978-1933360690, $17.
Steven K. Galbraith is Curator of the Melbert B. Cary, Jr. Graphic Arts Collection. He has a Ph.D. in English Literature from Ohio State University and an M.L.S. from the University at Buffalo. Prior to coming to RIT, he was the Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Books at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. and the Curator of Early Modern Books and Manuscripts at the Ohio State University. He is the author of works on early English printing, English Renaissance literature, rare book librarianship, and book conservation and digitization.
Round Table Session | New Database: Authors Writing on Art in France
Next month at INHA, as noted at Le Blog de l’ApAhAu:
Auteurs d’écrits sur l’art en France, XVIe-XVIIIe siècles
Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris, 4 April 2013
Présentation de la base Auteurs d’écrits sur l’art en France (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles) à l’occasion de sa mise à la disposition de la communauté scientifique par l’intermédiaire de l’application Agorha
L’histoire de l’art s’est constituée en France à partir de discours aux formes, aux intentions et aux constructions multiples dont l’émergence, entre le XVIe et le XVIIIe siècles, a accompagné des pratiques savantes aussi diverses que la création, la collection, l’érudition et la préservation des vestiges du passé. La base de données Auteurs d’écrits sur l’art en France (XVIe-XVIIIe siècles) donne accès à la diversité de ces traditions intellectuelles. Près de 700 notices personnes et 4000 notices bibliographiques composent un répertoire bio-bibliographique introduisant à un vaste corpus d’auteurs et de références telles que recueils biographiques, études antiquaires, littérature de voyage et guides, conférences académiques, textes descriptifs, techniques, théoriques ou critiques. Complément du Dictionnaire critique des historiens de l’art actifs en France de la Révolution à la Première Guerre mondiale, cette nouvelle base de données ne constitue pas seulement un formidable outil documentaire mais dévoile également le processus de construction de la discipline Histoire de l’art comme creuset dans lequel des traditions intellectuelles variées ont fusionné pour donner naissance à un nouveau discours sur l’art passé et présent.
Conference | British Women Travelers in Lyon
Next month at the Musées Gadagne de Lyon, as noted by Hélène Bremer (the programme is available as a PDF here) . . .
Les Voyageuses Britanniques à Lyon
Musées Gadagne de Lyon, 5-6 April 2013
Détail Le pont Morand en aval du quai de Retz et les Brotteaux, aquarelle et gouache, 18e siècle © musées Gadagne / T. O’Neill
Ce séminaire de recherche interdisciplinaire accueillera des anglicistes, des historiens, des géographes, des spécialistes des études de genre et proposera d’analyser un corpus inédit de récits de voyages publiés par des femmes britanniques au cours du « long XVIIIe siècle », ce qui correspond dans l’historiographie britannique à la période qui s’étend entre la « révolution glorieuse » de 1688 et le début du règne de la reine Victoria en 1837.
Partant d’interrogations à la croisée de plusieurs champs disciplinaires, ce séminaire propose d’étudier la place et le rôle de la ville de Lyon dans l’itinéraire des voyageuses britanniques. La démarche sera comparative et envisagera les représentations féminines de la ville de Lyon par rapport à d’autres étapes du Grand Tour mais aussi par rapport à celles que l’on trouve dans les récits masculins. À partir du modèle lyonnais, notre travail s’inscrira dans le sillage d’études récentes sur la féminisation du Grand Tour.
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5 A V R I L 2 0 1 3
14.15 Ouverture du Colloque, Mariaanne Privatsavigny (Directrice du Musée Gadagne) et Isabelle Baudino (ENS de Lyon, LIRE)
14.30 Conférence Inaugurale — Patrick Vincent, (Université de Neufchâtel) Remembering the Mules: Les voyageuses britanniques dans les Alpes
Présidence: Catherine Delmas (Université Grenoble 3)
15.30 Nicolas Bourguinat (Université de Strasbourg), Le séjour de Miss Berry à Lyon
16.00 Nicole Pellegrin (CNRS, ENS), Couples en Voyages: Les Cradocks à Lyon en 1784
16.45 Pause
17.00 Gilles Bertrand (Université Grenoble 2, IUF), Lyon dans le Voyage d’Italie: Tradition consolidée
ou expérience mouvante ( XVIII – début XIX siècle)
17.30 Bernard Gauthiez (Université Lyon 3), L’espace évoqué par les voyageuses anglaises à Lyon, confronté à l’espace réel
20.00 Dîner du colloque
6 A V R I L 2 0 1 3
9.00 Accueil des Participants, Présidence: Gilles Bertrand (Université Grenoble 2, IUF)
9.30 Stephen Bending (University of Southampton), Anne Plumptre, Antoine-François Delandine and the Destruction of Lyons
10.00 Stéphanie Gourdon (Université Lyon 2), Lyon, the Opulent City: La vision politique d’Helen Maria Williams sous la Terreur dans Letters from France
10.45 Pause
11.00 Isabelle Baudino (ENS, LIRE), Lyon: A celebrated place of education
11.30 Tino Gipponi (Fondazione Maria Cosway, Lodi), Maria Cosway a Lione
12.30 Buffet au Café Gadagne, Présidence: Stephen Lloyd (Knowsley Hall)
14.00 Clare Hornsby (Benedictus College), Ellis Cornelia Knight as Artist, Writer and Traveller in Eighteenth-century Italy
14.30 Silvia Blasio (Università di Perugia), L’iconografia di Lione nel’ opera di William Marlow
15.15 Pause
15.30 Freya Gowrley (University of Edinburgh), A Temple to Travel: The grand tour souvenir and the construction of feminine identity in the aesthetic programme of À la Ronde, Devon
16.00 Hannah Sikstrom (University of Oxford), A Quest for Authenticity: The Constructed Identities of British Female Travellers in 19th-Century Italy
Exhibition | British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art
Some of the offerings for those of you who will be in Cleveland next month for ASECS. From the museum’s website:
British Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland Museum of Art, 8 February — 26 May 2013
The British drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Art have received less attention than the renowned Italian and French drawings but are eminently worthy of such. The collection includes works by some of the best-known artists in the history of English art, such as Thomas Gainsborough, William Blake, J. M. W. Turner, and Edward Burne-Jones. Important recent acquisitions include a highly finished wash drawing exemplary of John Flaxman’s neoclassical style, an 18th-century double-portrait in pastel by Daniel Gardner, and a watercolor in pristine condition describing the Surrey countryside at sunset by Samuel Palmer. The exhibition features approximately 50 works from the collection along with a small group of loans from private collections, ranging from the 18th century through the Edwardian period, and will be accompanied by a collection catalogue. This is the inaugural exhibition of a new series exploring highlights from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s collection of drawings.
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From the publisher:
Heather Lemonedes, British Drawings: The Cleveland Museum of Art (London: D. Giles, 2013), 152 pages, 978-1907804229, $45.
This volume, the first in a new series, presents outstanding drawings from the permanent collection of works on paper at the Cleveland Museum of Art. It features 50 highlights, along with a small group of loans from private collections, ranging from the 18th century through to the Edwardian period. Fragile and light sensitive, opportunities to see such treasures are rare and for that reason are all the more to be celebrated. Many are published here for the first time, such as Francis Cotes’s breathtaking portrait of Lady Mary Radcliffe and an exquisite female nude drawn in coloured chalk by William Mulready.
Heather Lemonedes is curator of Drawings at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Prior to her arrival at the museum in 2002, she worked as a specialist in the Print Department at Christie’s, New York and supervised the Print Study Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She was awarded a Samuel H. Kress
Foundation Travel Fellowship in the History of Art for
research on her dissertation, “Paul Gauguin’s Volpini
Suite,” in 2004.
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