Exhibition | New Orleans, the Founding Era
François Chéreau, Le Missisipi ou la Louisiane dans l’Amérique Septentrionale, ca. 1720, hand-colored engraving (The Historic New Orleans Collection, 1959.210).
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Now on view at THNOC:
New Orleans, the Founding Era
The Historic New Orleans Collection, 27 February — 27 May 2018
Curated by Erin Greenwald
In commemoration of the city’s 300th anniversary in 2018, The Historic New Orleans Collection provides a multifaceted exploration of the city’s first few decades and its earliest inhabitants with New Orleans, the Founding Era, an original exhibition and bilingual companion catalog. The exhibition brings together a vast array of rare artifacts from THNOC’s holdings and from institutions across Europe and North America to tell the stories of the city’s early days, when the city consisted of little more than hastily assembled huts and buildings.
Beginning with the region’s Native American tribes, through the waves of European arrival and the forced migration of enslaved African people, the exhibition reflects on the complicated and often conflicted meanings the settlement’s development held for individuals, empires, and indigenous nations. It features works on paper, ethnographic and archaeological artifacts, scientific and religious instruments, paintings, maps and charts, manuscripts and rare books. These original objects are complemented by large-scale reproductions and interactive items. More than 75 objects are on loan from organizations in Spain, France, Canada, and around the United States. A number of items, like a pair of 18th-century Native American bear-paw moccasins from the Musée du quai Branly in Paris and pieces of 15th-century Mississippian pottery from the University of Mississippi, have rarely traveled beyond their home institutions.
Digital interactives will include a gallery of photographs from archaeological digs at a variety of French Quarter sites, a game quizzing visitors on supplies needed for a new home in the settlement and a 1731 inventory of enslaved Africans and African-descended people living on a West Bank plantation.
Erin Greenwald, ed., New Orleans, the Founding Era / La Nouvelle-Orléans, les années fondatrices, translated by Henry Colomer (New Orleans: The Historic New Orleans Collection, 2018), 176 pages, ISBN 978-0917860744, $50.
The companion catalog—a bilingual edition, in English and French—will feature essays describing the different populations who inhabited precolonial New Orleans and the surrounding areas, as well as the forces driving the settlement’s growth. Essayists include exhibition curator Erin M. Greenwald and historians Emily Clark, Shannon Lee Dawdy, Robbie Ethridge, Gilles-Antoine Langlois, Yevan Terrien, Daniel Usner, and Cécile Vidal. Gérard Araud, ambassador of France to the United States, contributed the book’s foreword.
Erin M. Greenwald is curator of programs at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Formerly, as curator at The Historic New Orleans Collection, she was project director of the National Endowment for the Humanities-funded traveling exhibition Purchased Lives: The American Slave Trade from 1808 to 1865. Greenwald holds a PhD in history from the Ohio State University.
Henry Colomer is a French documentary filmmaker and translator. He has directed some thirty films, including various portraits of artists and writers (L’exilé, Iddu, Ricercar, Vies métalliques), as well as a number of documentaries about the upheavals of the twentieth century (Monte Verità, Sous les drapeaux). Colomer has won several awards (Best Historic Documentary, Festival of History Films, Pessac, 1998, 2008; Focal International Award, London, 2010).
New Book | Cultivating Commerce: Cultures of Botany
From Cambridge UP:
Sarah Easterby-Smith, Cultivating Commerce: Cultures of Botany in Britain and France, 1760–1815 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 252 pages, ISBN: 978-1107126848, $99.
Sarah Easterby-Smith rewrites the histories of botany and horticulture from the perspectives of plant merchants who sold botanical specimens in the decades around 1800. These merchants were not professional botanists, nor were they the social equals of refined amateurs of botany. Nevertheless, they participated in Enlightenment scholarly networks, acting as intermediaries who communicated information and specimens. Thanks to their practical expertise, they also became sources of new knowledge in their own right. Cultivating Commerce argues that these merchants made essential contributions to botanical history, although their relatively humble status means that their contributions have received little sustained attention to date. Exploring how the expert nurseryman emerged as a new social figure in Britain and France, and examining what happened to the elitist, masculine culture of amateur botany when confronted by expanding public participation, Easterby-Smith sheds fresh light on the evolution of transnational Enlightenment networks during the Age of Revolutions.
C O N T E N T S
Figures
Maps
Acknowledgements
Note on the Text
Abbreviations
Introduction: Cultivating Commerce
1 Plant Traders and Expertise
2 Science, Commerce, and Culture
3 Amateur Botany
4 Social Status and the Communication of Knowledge
5 Commerce and Cosmopolitanism
6 Cosmopolitanism under Pressure
Conclusion: Commerce and Cultivation
Bibliography
Index
Exhibition | Shockingly Mad: Henry Fuseli
Henry Fuseli, The Discovery, 1767/69, pen and brown ink and brush and brown wash, over graphite with traces of opaque brown paint, on cream laid paper, tipped onto ivory laid paper, 53 × 66 cm (Art Institute of Chicago, 1956.33). From the AIC notes, “This powerful drawing—a bravura exercise in virtuoso line and tonal washes—illustrates a story from Swiss theologian Ludwig Lavater’s book De Spectris (On Ghosts), published in 1569. It describes a priest who, dressed in a sheet, haunts his wealthy niece who is living in his house, in an attempt to rape her and cheat her of her fortune. Terrified, the niece enlists the aid of a friend who exposes the repentant priest. The curious badminton match visible in the background—not in the story, but added by Fuseli as a critical commentary—is a reference to a proverb composed in Latin by the Dutch poet Jacob Cats (1577–1660): ‘Amor ut pila vices exiget’, ‘Love, like a ball, demands reciprocation’.”
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From the AIC:
Shockingly Mad: Henry Fuseli and the Art of Drawing
Art Institute of Chicago, 18 November 2017 — 1 April 2018
Curated by Kevin Salatino
A witness to political revolutions and radical aesthetic shifts, Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) forged a pictorial sensibility of his own, characterized by anatomical, gestural, and psychological extremes. Bizarre, exaggerated, theatrical, and often melodramatic, his drawings embraced obscure literary and historical subjects intended to elicit profound emotional response.
Fuseli was born in Switzerland but traveled to Germany and Italy early in his career, eventually settling in London, where he played a prominent role in the newly established Royal Academy. While he worked in various media, Fuseli excelled at drawing. This medium was central to his practice, evidenced by the extraordinary number of drawings he made—ranging from quick sketches to watercolors that often exceeded the ambitions of his oil paintings.
The Art Institute is home to a remarkably rich collection of Fuseli’s surviving works, including large-scale drawings; smaller, less-finished sketches; and significant paintings and prints. Shockingly Mad: Henry Fuseli and the Art of Drawing considers drawing as an expressive means unto itself, paralleling the broader arc of Fuseli’s career as writer, painter, critic, and teacher. As comparisons to the work of his contemporaries reveal, Fuseli can be said to have forged a radical new drawing style. With roots in Classical antiquity and Renaissance Italy, Fuseli’s passionate, unrestrained approach reflects the revolutionary spirit of his age, which was marked by social and political upheaval. The Art Institute’s holdings are complemented by a number of important local, national, and international loans, and the exhibition itself is accompanied by the adjacent installation Gods and (Super)heroes: Drawing in an Age of Revolution—a selection of drawings by Jacques-Louis David, Théodore Géricault, Francisco Goya, and others that further contextualizes Fuseli as a draftsman.
Lecture Series | Thinking about Exhibitions
This spring’s public lecture course at the Mellon Centre:
Thinking about Exhibitions: Interpretation, Reconstruction, and Curation
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, Thursdays, 8 March — 12 April 2018 (excluding 29 March)
This five-part lecture course explores an exciting behind-the-scenes look at the research, writing, borrowing, design, and installation processes involved in putting on a major exhibition. Thinking about Exhibitions will use as case studies exhibitions held at major institutions around the world. Viewers can watch the lectures live on our Livestream page. Videos of the lectures will then be made available on our website 24 hours after the lecture.
8 March 2018
Mark Hallett | Looking Back: Three Eighteenth-Century Exhibitions
15 March 2018
Mark Hallett and Christine Riding | Looking Back: Hogarth, 2006–07 (Paris: Musée du Louvre; London: Tate Britain; and Barcelona: Caixa Forum)
22 March 2018
Mark Hallett and Sarah Victoria Turner | Looking Forward: The Great Spectacle: 250 Years of the Summer Exhibition, 2018 (London: Royal Academy)
5 April 2018
Mark Hallett and George Shaw | Looking Forward: George Shaw: A Corner of a Foreign Field, 2018–19 (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art; and Bath: Holburne Museum)
12 April 2018
Looking Back: Curating and Scholarship
The syllabus is available here»
Week One features our Director of Studies, Mark Hallett, discussing the history of exhibitions in Britain and reconstructs three eighteenth-century exhibitions.
Call for Papers | HECAA Session at UAAC, 2018
Thanks to Christina Smylitopoulos, who is again coordinating a HECAA session at this year’s UAAC Conference! Details and a full list of panels (68 in all) are available here»
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Universities Art Association of Canada / l’association d’art des universités du Canada
Department of Fine Arts, University of Waterloo, Ontario, 25–27 October 2018
Proposals due by 1 May 2018
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Jason Paris, November 2011.
HECAA Open Session
The objective of this society is to stimulate, foster, and disseminate knowledge of all aspects of visual culture in the long eighteenth century. This HECAA open session welcomes papers that examine any aspect of art and visual culture from the 1680s to the 1830s. Special consideration will be given to proposals that demonstrate theoretical or methodological innovations. Please email proposals for 20-minute papers (300 words) and a short biography (150 words) to Dr. Christina Smylitopoulos (University of Guelph), csmylito@uoguelph.ca.
Digital History | Fashion History Timeline
From the Fashion History Timeline, a project by FIT’s History of Art Department:
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The Fashion History Timeline is an open-access source for fashion history knowledge, featuring objects and artworks from over a hundred museums and libraries that span the globe. The Timeline website offers well-researched, accessibly written entries on specific artworks, garments and films for those interested in fashion and dress history. Started as a pilot project by Fashion Institute of Technology art history faculty and students in the Fall of 2015, the Timeline aims to be an important contribution to public knowledge of the history of fashion and to serve as a constantly growing and evolving resource not only for students and faculty, but also for the wider world of those interested in fashion and dress history–from the Renaissance scholar to the simply curious.
Tomasso Brothers Fine Art at TEFAF 2018
Giovanni Battista Cipriani, Castor and Pollux, 1783, oil on canvas, 275 × 316cm.
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Tomasso Brothers Fine Art at TEFAF
Maastricht, 8–18 March 2018
Tomasso Brothers Fine Art is pleased to report a number of significant sales at the TEFAF early access day, 8 March 2018, including a large oil on canvas by Giovanni Battista Cipriani (1727–1785) depicting Castor and Pollux that sold to a private collector within moments of the Fair’s opening. The asking price was in the region of 425,000€. This impressive neoclassical work was commissioned in 1783 by George Walpole, 3rd Earl of Orford for the Saloon at Houghton Hall along with two further mythological scenes. It remained in situ at Houghton until well in to the 20th century when it was purchased by The Rt. Hon. John Armar Lowry-Corry, 8th Earl Belmore of Castle Coole, Enniskillen and placed on public display.
The gallery also made an important sale to a new buyer, a private European collector, of a pair of monumental marble lion groups attributed to Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652–1725) and his workshop. Depicting a lion attacking a horse and a lion attacking a bull, the pair was offered for a price in the region of 1.75 million€.
Equestrian Monument of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, marble, after the antique bronze now in the Musei Capitolini (Rome, 18th century).
The works featured by Tomasso Brothers Fine Art at this year’s TEFAF Maastricht are inspired by Rome and classical Italy, dating from the ancient to the neoclassical. Other highlights include:
• The Forbes of Pitsligo Vases in white marble with corresponding plinths, attributed to Lorenzo Bartolini (1777–1850) made in Florence, ca. 1815–1830.
• An imposing Equestrian Monument of Emperor Marcus Aurelius in statuary marble, after the antique bronze now in the Musei Capitolini (Rome, 18th century).
• An exquisite Carrara marble sculpture by Cav. Emanuele Caroni (1826–after 1895) L’Amour Vainqueur de la Force, The Triumph of Love over Strength (Florence, ca. 1867).
Tomasso Brothers’ stand features original wallpaper designed by the gallery in-house. The design was inspired by the roman painted walls discovered in the region of the Bay of Naples, but perhaps most specifically, by a particular wall originating from the Villa di Agrippa Postumus at Boscotrecase (ca. 1st century BC – 1st century AD), which was painted in the ‘Third’ or ‘Ornate’ style of ancient wall fresco design, that flourished during the reign of Augustus. The idea of placing old master paintings and sculptures within a beautiful decorative scheme inspired by discoveries made at Pompeii and Herculaneum is essentially neoclassical in spirit, following the tradition established by the great architects and interior designers of the eighteenth century such as James ‘Athenian’ Stuart (1713–1788) for Spencer House, London (1759); Robert Adam (1728–1792) perhaps most notably at London’s Kenwood House, Osterley Park and Syon House; Joseph Bonomi (1739–1808) for Packington Hall, Warwickshire; and Sir John Soane (1753–1837) for the ‘Council Chamber’ at London’s Guildhall (1777).
Time to Renew Your Membership
Here’s a friendly reminder that HECAA 2018 membership dues are now due! The annual membership runs from 1 March 2018 until 28 February 2019. There are terrific reasons for parting with $30 (or just $5 for students) to support the work of HECAA. The lion’s share of the money that we receive helps fund graduate students and junior scholars, and because HECAA is registered as a 501c3, all donations are tax deductible in the United States. As a member you’ll also be able to vote on officers and proposals that will shape the future of HECAA. So, send in a contribution of $100 or $5. We accept PayPal.
–Christina Lindeman
Call for Papers | CSECS 2018, Niagara Falls
While I rarely re-post Call for Papers, I would note with this year’s CSECS that the deadline has been moved to April 15. There’s still time! –CH
SAHGB Architectural History Workshop, 2018
The Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain
Workshop for Doctoral Students and Early Career Scholars
The Gallery, London, 17 March 2018
The Society is pleased to announce the programme for this year’s Architectural History Workshop on Saturday 17 March 2018 at The Gallery, 70 Cowcross Street, London, EC1 6EL. This is our annual event for Postgraduate Students and Early Career Scholars, convened by the Society’s PhD Scholars, to share and develop their ideas through ‘lightning’ rounds, where contributors are invited to speak for ten minutes either as a short developed paper, discursive ramble, thematic exploration, or any format that explores and presents their PhD research.
The Workshop will also include a Careers in Architectural History Roundtable, featuring Ben Cowell, Director of the Historic Houses Association, and Neal Shasore, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Liverpool School of Architecture. The full programme and registration form can be found on our website. As places are limited, booking is essential. Register online until 10 March 2018.
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