Exhibition | Isabelle de Borchgrave
From The Frick Pittsburgh:
Isabelle de Borchgrave: Fashioning Art from Paper
Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, 15 October 2017 — 7 January 2018
The Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, 27 January — 15 April 2018
Oklahoma City Museum of Art, 16 June — 9 September 2018
The Frick Art Museum, Pittsburgh, 13 October 2018 — 6 January 2019
The Baker Museum, Artis, Naples, February — May 2019
Curated by Dennita Sewell
Isabelle de Borchgrave, Banyan and Waistcoat, 1998; inspired by a banyan and waistcoat ca. 1730 worn by Peter the Great of Russia.
Co-organized by the Frick in collaboration with four other American museums, this major exhibition presents the full breadth of de Borchgrave’s exploration of historical costume through contemporary paper sculpture. If you’ve never seen the artist’s work, you will be delighted by these breathtaking, life-size renditions of historic clothing created completely from artfully painted, pleated, crumpled, and manipulated paper.
From replicas of Renaissance Italian gowns to recreations of the fantastical modernist costumes of the Ballet Russes, Isabelle de Borchgrave’s work is meticulously crafted and astonishingly beautiful. The artist’s interest in creating paper costumes was sparked by a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1994, where she found herself inspired by the historic costumes on display. Back in her studio, she began to experiment with creating renditions of the pieces in paper. Since then, de Borchgrave’s paper costumes have been featured in major exhibitions around the world.
This immersive exhibition celebrates the breadth of de Borchgrave’s work with costume and fashion history and is designed to introduce her work to a wider audience. De Borchgrave’s paper sculptures are masterpieces of trompe l’oeil—even upon close inspection it is often difficult to discern that the costumes are made of paper. At the Frick, de Borchgrave’s work will be exhibited throughout the museum, creating a dialogue with the museum’s collection. Joining the exhibition will be the Frick’s recently commissioned piece inspired by one of our best-known masterpieces—Peter Paul Rubens’ Portrait of Charlotte- Marguerite de Montmorency, Princess of Condé.
The exhibition will include examples from all the artist’s major series, beginning with her exploration of 300 years of fashion history in the works created for Papiers à la Mode. The works from her Splendors of the Medici series are inspired by Italian Renaissance costumes portrayed in Old Master paintings. Her next series, The World of Mariano Fortuny explored the work of the iconoclastic Spanish fashion designer, famously based in Venice, and her most recent series, Les Ballet Russes features fantastical modernist costumes designed by artists like Picasso, Bakst, and Matisse. The Frick’s recent commission will be the only new piece included in the exhibition. A fully illustrated color catalogue accompanies the exhibition.
Research Lunch | Wolf Burchard on Italian Royal Furniture
From the PMC:
Wolf Burchard, Italian Royal Furniture at Attingham Park
Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, 2 October 2018
Attingham Park, Shropshire was home to eight generations of the Berwick family, before it was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1947. Its collection comprises a remarkable assemblage of early 19th-century Italian gilt-wood furniture, acquired by William Noel Hill, 3rd Lord Berwick during his diplomatic missions in Sardinia, Turin, and Naples between 1808 and 1833. The pièce de résistance of his furniture is a neo-classical daybed, which—for generations— was thought to have belonged to Caroline Murat, sister of Napoleon. New research, however, reveals that it actually belonged to Maria Theresa, Queen of Sardinia and niece of Marie Antoinette of France. Wolf Burchard’s lecture disentangles the fascinating history of Maria Theresa’s furniture—which is associated with two palazzi in Milan and Genoa as well as the leading architects of the day, Giocondo Albertolli and Carlo Randoni—and how it came to Attingham.
The Fellows Lunches are a series of free lunchtime research talks given by recipients of Paul Mellon Centre Fellowships and Grants. All are welcome, but please book a ticket in advance. 1:00–2:00pm, Seminar Room, Paul Mellon Centre.
Wolf Burchard is Furniture Research Curator at the National Trust. In 2015, the Trust’s Furniture Research and Cataloguing Project received generous funding from the Paul Mellon Centre and the Royal Oak Foundation. Burchard was previously Curatorial Assistant at the Royal Collection Trust from 2009 to 2014. He studied history of art and architecture at the universities of Tübingen, Vienna and the Courtauld Institute of Art, from which he holds an MA and PhD. He is the author of The Sovereign Artist: Charles Le Brun and the Image of Louis XIV (Paul Holberton Publishing 2016), publishes and regularly lectures on the art and architectural patronage at the British, French and German courts; he is on the board of trustees of the Georgian Group and the Furniture History Society as well as on the vetting panels of TEFAF Maastricht and New York, and Masterpiece Art Fair.
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