Enfilade

Antonio Carnicero Mancio, The Ascent of a Montgolfier Balloon at Aranjuez, ca. 1784, oil on canvas, 169 × 280 cm
(Madrid: Prado)

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Now on view at the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum:

Goya and the Enlightenment Court / Goya y la corte ilustrada
CaixaForum, Zaragoza, 28 September 2017 — 21 January 2018
Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, 14 February — 28 May 2018

Curated by Manuela Mena and Gudrún Maurer

Having studied in Italy, Francisco de Goya (Fuendetodos, Zaragoza, 1746 – Bordeaux, 1828) moved to Madrid in 1775 and was first employed at the court of Charles III to work on the production of tapestry cartoons on hunting themes for El Escorial. Goya achieved recognition some years later when he was first appointed painter to the King (1786) then First Court Painter (1799). Despite this success at court, Goya maintained his connections with his native Zaragoza, and his correspondence with his childhood friend Martín Zapater offers proof of this ongoing relationship with his circle of friends and relatives while also providing crucial information on the progress of his career. The Prado’s exceptional loan of 13 original letters offers the documentary counterpoint to Goya as court painter and this is in fact the essential argument of the exhibition, which moves between Goya’s success at the courts of Charles III and Charles IV and the persistent echoes of his origins through his continuing contact with those closest to him.

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes, The Grape Harvest, or Autumn, 1786, oil on canvas, 268 × 191 cm (Madrid: Prado).

Co-organised by the Museo Nacional del Prado, Fundación Bancaria “la Caixa” and the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, Goya and the Enlightenment Court will be on display from 14 February until 28 May 2018, having previously been on view at the CaixaForum, Zaragoza. Curated by Manuela B. Mena and Gudrun Maurer, Chief Curator and Curator in the Department of 18th-century Painting and Goya at the Museo del Prado respectively, the exhibition brings together 96 works, many of which (71, of which 52 are oil paintings and the rest documents and examples of the decorative arts) come from the Museo del Prado. The remaining works on display comprise 9 paintings from the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum’s own collection and further loans from the Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico, the Museo de Zaragoza, the Fundación Colección Ibercaja, the Sociedad Ecónomica Aragonesa de Amigos del País and a number of private collections.

In addition to the core group of canvases and cartoons by Goya, the exhibition also features works by other important 18th-century artists such as Luis Paret, Mariano Maella, José del Castillo, Luis Meléndez, Antonio Carnicero and Lorenzo Tiepolo, which together provide a context and also reveal the remarkable originality of Goya’s work. Finally, the exhibition includes examples of the above-mentioned correspondence with Martín Zapater, in addition to miniatures, prints and examples of the decorative arts.

Along with extensive restoration carried out for to this exhibition, the research undertaken has revealed new information, reflected, for example, in the presentation of a new portrait and a miniature of Martín Zapater painted by Goya and by Francisca Ifigenia Meléndez respectively, as well as the attribution to Agustín Esteve of a copy of Goya’s lost portrait of Ramón Pignatelli. Other new discoveries to be seen in Bilbao include the recently restored portrait of Pantaleón Pérez de Nenín and the presentation in context of Luis Paret’s remarkable View of Bermeo, a work recently acquired by the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum.

Major sections of the exhibition address
1  ‘Zaragoza, my heart, Zaragoza, Zaragoza’
2  Goya and Madrid, 1775: Hunting
3  The Enlightenment Court: Meeting Points
4  Friendship and Success
5  Female Refinement in the 18th Century
6  Portraits of Basques and Navarrans

Manuela B. Mena Marqués, Gudrun Maurer, and Virginia Albarrán, Goya y la corte ilustrada (Madrid: Prado, 2018), 216 pages, ISBN: 978 849900 1944, 39€.

From the Massachusetts Historical Society via Kickstarter:

The Massachusetts Historical Society has spent the last two years delving into its collections to uncover stories as told by various examples of clothing, fabric, accoutrements, and associated manuscripts. Through this process, textiles that have largely been divorced from their familial ties have been reunited with family papers. Later this year, we hope to share them with the world through Fashioning the New England Family, a project encompassing a publication, exhibition, and online presentation. But we need your help to bring these stories to life.

What is Fashioning the New England Family?

This is a project that will make accessible the dynamics of fashion, textiles, and costume across the span of our history. The MHS will produce an exhibition and companion volume to fully explore the ways in which the multiple meanings of fashion and fashionable goods are reflected in patterns of consumption and refashioning, recycling, and retaining favorite family pieces.

This is a unique and significant endeavor. Many of the items that will be featured in the project have been out of sight, having never been exhibited for the public or seen in living memory. The publication and exhibition will give scholars, students, and professionals in fields such as fashion, material culture, and history the chance to see these items for the first time; encourage research; and, provide the possibility for new discoveries. For the public, it is an opportunity to view in detail painstaking craftsmanship, discover how examples of material culture relate to significant moments in our history, and learn how garments were used as political statements, projecting an individual’s religion, loyalties, and social status. It may allow some to recognize and appreciate family keepsakes but it will certainly help us all to better understand the messages we may have previously missed in American art and literature. The MHS is dedicated to producing the exhibition, but we need your help to create the companion volume. Our project page will be updated with fun facts, images, and video clips throughout the month of February.

Why Create a Companion Volume?

Planned as a high-quality, full-color publication, this volume will serve both as a record of the exhibition and as a testament to the importance of the textiles and garments it illustrates and describes. The themes and subject matter pursued in the exhibition also provide the frames of reference for the book, which will include a preface by Catherine Allgor, President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and a foreword by Anne E. Bentley, MHS Curator of Art and Artifacts. The primary author of the publication and guest curator of the exhibition is Dr. Kimberly S. Alexander.

What’s in the Budget?

While the entire project will cost around $100,000, we have set a Kickstarter campaign goal of $15,000 to produce the companion volume. We want to provide as many people as possible the opportunity to be part of this project. The companion volume is a natural fit for both the Kickstarter community and our mission to make this project as widely accessible as possible. The companion volume will be a lasting resource, serving as both a record of the exhibition and as a testament to the importance of the textiles and garments it illustrates and describes. We are counting on you and other members of the Kickstarter community to make this publication a reality.

What are the Rewards?

First and foremost—our gratitude! The ability to produce a companion volume remains the primary goal of the Society’s Kickstarter campaign. A gift at any level will go towards helping us bring this project to life. All donations also come with an opportunity to be named and publicly thanked as a Kickstarter backer on the Society’s project page. Donations at $15 and more also receive a set of postcards, exclusive to Kickstarter. A successful campaign also means that backers of the project at $50 or more on Kickstarter will be the first to receive the Fashioning the New England Family companion volume.

Backers of the project at higher levels get even more opportunities to engage with and learn about our textile collection. Be sure to check out the special event invitations, tours, and behind-the-scenes opportunities different rewards offer for supporting this project. If our project is completed and the goal is met, you will be asked to fill out a survey so that we can send you your rewards. The MHS is unable to provide your rewards or recognize any gift you made unless the informational survey is completed. Once rewards are shipped, please allow an additional 4–6 weeks for your reward(s) to ship internationally. Note: we are not responsible for international custom fees.

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About the MHS

Founded in 1791, the Massachusetts Historical Society is an invaluable resource for American history, life, and culture. Its extraordinary collections tell the story of America through millions of rare and unique documents, artifacts, and irreplaceable national treasures. As the nation’s first historical society, the MHS strives to enhance the understanding of our nation’s past and its connection to the present, demonstrating that history is not just a series of events that happened to individuals long ago but is integral to the fabric of our daily lives. Its collections are accessible to anyone with an interest in American history. Beyond research, the MHS offers many ways for the public to enjoy its collections including thought-provoking exhibitions, publications, engaging programs, seminars, and teacher workshops.

From the Art Institute of Chicago:

Mirroring China’s Past: Emperors, Scholars, and Their Bronzes
Art Institute of Chicago, 25 February — 13 May 2018

Curated by Tao Wang

Artist Unknown, Court Beauty, Qing Dynasty, Late Kangxi Reign, between 1709 and 1723 (Beijing: The Palace Museum).

Chinese bronzes of the second and first millennia BC are some of the most distinctive achievements in the history of art. Exquisitely ornamented, these vessels were made to carry sacrificial offerings, to use in burial, or to commemorate family in public ceremonies. When they were found by emperors centuries later, these spiritually significant objects were seen as manifestations of a heavenly mandate on a ruler or dynasty and became prized items in imperial collections. This exhibition—the first to explore how these exquisite objects were collected and conceptualized throughout Chinese history—presents a rare opportunity to experience a large number of these works together in the United States.

Unlike Greek and Roman bronze sculptures of human and animal forms, most objects from Bronze Age China (about 2000–221 BC) were vessels for ritual use. Beginning with the Song dynasty (960–1279), emperors unearthed these symbolic works and began collecting them, considering them to be evidence of their own authority and legitimacy as rulers. Several 18th-century portraits of Emperor Quianlong include his bronze collection, demonstrating how ancient bronzes came to play a critical role in imperial ideology and self-fashioning. In addition to impressive collections, the royal fascination with bronzes led to the creation of numerous reproductions and the meticulous cataloguing of palace holdings. These catalogues are works of art themselves, with beautiful illustrations and detailed descriptions.

From the 12th century onward, scholars and artists also engaged in collecting and understanding ancient bronzes, especially their inscriptions. Unlike emperors, who commonly employed art to promote and implement political and cultural policies, scholars regarded bronzes as material evidence of their efforts to recover and reconstruct the past, and they occasionally exchanged them as tokens of friendship. Today ancient bronzes still occupy a prominent position in Chinese culture—as historical or nostalgic objects and as signifiers of an important cultural heritage that inspires new generations, as seen in the works of contemporary artists on view in this presentation.

Mirroring China’s Past brings together approximately 180 works from the Art Institute of Chicago’s strong holdings and from the Palace Museum in Beijing, the Shanghai Museum, and important museums and private collections in the United States. By providing viewers with a new understanding of ancient bronzes and their significance through time, the exhibition illuminates China’s fascinating history and its evolving present.

The catalogue is distributed by Yale UP:

Tao Wang, ed., with essays by Sarah Allan, Jeffrey Moser, Su Rongyu, Edward L. Shaughnessy, Zhixin Jason Sun, Tao Wang, Zhou Ya, Liu Yu, and Lu Zhang, Mirroring China’s Past: Emperors, Scholars, and Their Bronzes (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2018), 296 pages, ISBN: 9780300228632, $60.

A lavishly illustrated book that offers an in-depth look at the cultural practices surrounding the tradition of collecting ancient bronzes in China during the 18th and 19th centuries.

In ancient China (2000–221 BC) elaborate bronze vessels were used for rituals involving cooking, drinking, and serving food. This fascinating book not only examines the cultural practices surrounding these objects in their original context, but it also provides the first in-depth study tracing the tradition of collecting these bronzes in China. Essays by international experts delve into the concerns of the specialized culture that developed around the vessels and the significant influence this culture, with its emphasis on the concept of antiquity, had on broader Chinese society. While focusing especially on bronze collections of the 18th and 19th centuries, this wide-ranging catalogue also touches on the ways in which contemporary artists continue to respond to the complex legacy of these objects. Packed with stunning photographs of exquisitely crafted vessels, Mirroring China’s Past is an enlightening investigation into how the role of ancient bronzes has evolved throughout Chinese history.

Tao Wang is Pritzker Chair of Asian Art and curator of Chinese art at the Art Institute of Chicago.

From The Frick:

Canova’s George Washington
The Frick Collection, New York, 23 May 2018 — 23 September 2018
Gypsotheca e Museo Antonio Canova, Possagno, 10 November 2018 — 22 April 2019

Curated by Xavier Salomon and Peter Jay Sharp in collaboration with Mario Guderzo

Antonia Canova, George Washington, 1818; Gesso (Possagno: Gypsotheca e Museo Antonio Canova).

In 1816, the North Carolina Senate commissioned a full-length statue of George Washington to stand in the State House in Raleigh. Thomas Jefferson, believing that no American sculptor was up to the task, recommended Antonio Canova (1757–1822), then one of Europe’s most celebrated artists. The first and only work Canova created for America, the statue depicted the nation’s first president in ancient Roman garb, per Jefferson’s urging, drafting his farewell address to the states. It was unveiled to great acclaim in 1821, and people traveled from far and wide to see it. Tragically, only a decade later, a fire swept through the State House, reducing the statue to just a few charred fragments.

Canova’s George Washington examines the history of the artist’s lost masterpiece, probably the least well known of his public monuments. It brings together for the first time Canova’s full-sized preparatory plaster model (which has never left Italy), four preparatory sketches for the sculpture, and related engravings and drawings. The exhibition also includes Thomas Lawrence’s 1816 oil portrait of Canova, which, like the model and several sketches, will be on loan from the Gypsotheca e Museo Antonio Canova in Possagno, Italy, the birthplace of the artist. The exhibition is organized by Xavier F. Salomon, Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, in collaboration with Mario Guderzo, Director of the Gypsotheca e Museo Antonio Canova, the Venice International Foundation, and Friends of Venice Italy Inc. Following its presentation at the Frick, the exhibition will be shown in Italy at the Gypsotheca e Museo Antonio Canova in Possagno in the fall of 2018.

The accompanying catalogue will include correspondence relating to the commission, as well as essays by Salomon, Guderzo, and Guido Beltramini, Director of the Palladio Museum in Vicenza, Italy.

Catalogue details are available here»

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Opening this December at the Petit Palais:

Jean Jacques Lequeu (1757–1826): Builder of Fantasy / Bâtisseur de fantasmes
Petit Palais, Paris, 11 December 2018 — 31 March 2019
Menil Drawing Institute, Houston, 4 October 2019 — 5 January 2020
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 2020

Curated by Laurent Baridon, Jean-Philippe Garric, Martial Guédron, Corinne Le Bitouzé, and Christophe Leribault

Six months before he died impoverished and forgotten, Jean-Jacques Lequeu donated one of the most singular and fascinating graphic oeuvres of his time to the French National Library. The set of several hundred drawings, presented here in its entirety for the first time, is a testimonial to the solitary and obsessive downward spiral of an exceptional artist that goes well beyond the first steps of an architectural career. Using the precise technical tool represented by the geometric working drawing made in wash, which he filled with handwritten notes, Lequeu scrupulously described the monuments and imaginary factories that filled his imaginary landscapes, rather than carrying out projects. But this initiatory journey, which he made without leaving his studio and enriched with figures and narratives from his library, this pathway that led him from temple to bush, from artificial grotto to palace, from kiosk to subterranean labyrinth, resolved itself as a quest to find himself. To see everything and describe it all—systematically, from the animal to the organic, from fantasy and raw sex to the self portrait—became the mission he assigned to himself.

As a typical representative of the artisanal class, who tried, with the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, to rise socially and break free of the world of trades, Lequeu quickly became disenchanted with the new order and the new hierarchies. Lequeu—the child of his century, the century of licentiousness and Anglo-Chinese gardens—nevertheless pursued an entirely free and singular path. Reduced to employment in a subordinate office, ignored by those in place, now far from his roots, but freed of social or academic pressure, he stalked his dreams with the obstinacy of a builder and without compromise.

Curators

Laurent Baridon, Professor at University of Lyon II; Jean-Philippe Garric, Professor at University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne; Martial Guédron, Professor at the University of Strasbourg; Corinne Le Bitouzé, General Curator, Deputy Director of the Department of Prints and Photography at the French National Library; Christophe Leribault, Director of the Petit Palais

Laurent Baridon, et al., Jean-Jacques Lequeu: Batisseur de fantasmes (Paris: Norma, 2018), 176 pages, ISBN: 978-2376660217, $65.

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Note (added 2 January 2018) — The original posting did not include details for the catalogue.

Note (added 23 September 2019) — The posting was updated to include information on the two U.S. venues: the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston and The Morgan Library & Museum in New York.

Now on view at the Fondation Custodia:

The Sublime Landscape: Georges Michel
Monastère Royal de Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse, 6 October 2017 — 7 January 2018
Fondation Custodia / Collection Frits Lugt, Paris, 27 January — 29 April 2018

Curated by Ger Luijten and Magali Briat-Philippe

Admired by Vincent van Gogh, Georges Michel (1763–1843) is held to be the precursor of plein air painting. He was influenced by the painters of the Dutch Golden Age, earning the nickname of ‘the Ruisdael of Montmartre’. Yet today he is not widely known. The Fondation Custodia, in collaboration with the Monastère royal de Brou, is proposing to unveil the artist whose merits were first remarked by the dealer Paul Durand-Rueil in the nineteenth century. The first one-man exhibition for fifty years of the work of Georges Michel will be held from 27 January to 29 April 2018 at 121 rue de Lille, Paris. About fifty paintings and forty drawings—on loan mainly from French private and public collections—will be on show, and the exhibition will include some recent acquisitions by the Fondation Custodia.

Georges Michel was born in Paris in 1763 and died there in 1843 after a remarkable career, whether in real terms or in a mythical post-mortem reconstruction of the life of this allegedly misunderstood artist. The main body of what we know about him comes from the biography written by Alfred Sensier in 1873, compiled from information recounted to him by the artist’s widow. Michel kept his distance from official art circles and only took part in the Salon between 1791—the date when the exhibition first opened its doors to artists who were not members of the former Académie royale—and 1814. His name was not mentioned thereafter until the sale of his work and the contents of his studio a year before his death.

The exhibition at the Fondation Custodia opens with youthful work by the artist, still betraying the influence of the eighteenth-century French landscape tradition as embodied in the art of Lazare Bruandet (1755-1804) or Jean-Louis Demaine (1752–1829), with whom Michel explored the Ile-de-France in search of subjects for sketching. He remained loyal to Paris and the surrounding countryside, claiming that ‘anyone unable to spend a lifetime painting within a range of four leagues is just a blundering fool searching for a mandrake—he will find only a void’. Saint-Denis, Montmartre or La Chapelle, the Buttes-Chaumont and the banks of the Seine, the countryside to the north of Paris offered a variety of hills and plains, dotted with quarries, mills and scattered dwellings.

Georges Michel’s style developed gradually away from the picturesque, anecdotic landscape that was in vogue between 1770 and 1830, achieving a notable originality. His paintings capture, with sincerity and a hint of the romanticism to come, the rural spots threatened with extinction as the villages around Paris began to be subsumed into the capital during the 1860s.

At a period when the painting of the Northern schools was enjoying a revival in France, Georges Michel, according to his widow, carried out some restoration work on Dutch paintings for the influential Paris dealer Jean-Baptiste Pierre Le Brun (1748–1813) and for the Muséum central des Arts (now the Musée du Louvre), at the behest of its director, Dominique Vivant Denon (1747–1825). Even though no trace of this activity can be found in the archives, Michel’s work is incontrovertibly influenced by the masters of the Dutch Golden Age. The exhibition at the Fondation Custodia—one of whose aims is to study the reception of Dutch art in France—takes this opportunity to compare Michel with the predecessors he so admired—and whose work he sometimes copied. From Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/1629–1682) he borrows compositions enlivened by vast, windswept skies, with sometimes a shaft of brilliant sunlight breaking through the clouds. The masterly chiaroscuro in his paintings, however, has its source in the work of Rembrandt (1606–1669). Philips Koninck (1619–1688), whose work in the eighteenth century was sometimes confused with that of Rembrandt, also evidently inspired Michel with his vast landscapes and limitless skies.

The Fondation Custodia, a home for art on paper in Paris, has recently acquired a large number of sheets by Georges Michel. The last section of the exhibition is devoted to these drawings. Michel’s prolific graphic work is characterised by its wide variety of techniques and subjects. The artist excelled in capturing vibrant views of Paris—in black chalk or, less frequently, pen and ink. The topographical nature of these drawings makes identification of the chosen locations simple: the Louvre, the Tuileries, the Jardin des Plantes, the Barrières de Ledoux.

Curators: Ger Luijten, director of the Fondation Custodia; and Magali Briat-Philippe, conservateur, responsable du service des patrimoines, Monastère royal de Brou.

More information, including a selection of images, is available here»

Magali Briat-Philippe and Ger Luijten, eds., Georges Michel: Le paysage sublime (Paris: Fondation Custodia, 2017), 208 pages, ISBN 978 9078655 268, 29€.

Now on at the The Fitzwilliam:

The Object of My Affection: Stories of Love from the Fitzwilliam Collection
The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 30 January — 28 May 2018

Love is very much in the air in this exhibition, which contains objects alive with the range of emotions that it commands: from admiration and affection, joy and passion, longing and despair, to insults, indifference, grief and remembrance. The exhibition showcases the Fitzwilliam Museum’s collection of valentines, which date from the 18th century to the 20th and include a wide variety of sentimental and decorative types as well as comic examples. Alongside the valentines will be an assortment of other objects relating to the theme of love, including posy rings, love tokens, and works by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1882) and James Gillray (1756–1815).

Rebecca Virag, Valentines: Highlights from the Collection at The Fitzwilliam Museum (Cambridge: The Fitzwilliam, 2018), 120 pages, £10.

It is probably a little known fact that the Fitzwilliam Museum has a large collection of around 1,600 valentines, which range in date from the early eighteenth century to the 1920s. The vast majority were left to the Museum in 1928 by mathematician and Fellow of Trinity College, J.W.L. Glaisher. Two more Cambridge alumni, the Rev. Herbert Bull (Trinity) and Sir Stephen Gaselee (King’s) also gave their much smaller collections of valentines to the Museum in 1917 and 1942. The Bull valentines are particularly fascinating as they are rare survivals of mid-eighteenth century silhouette cut-paper work and are unlike anything collected by either Glaisher or Gaselee. The Glaisher collection alone is one of the largest amassed by a single collector currently in a UK public collection.

The Glaisher valentines have not been seen in public since 1995, some twenty-three years ago, and since then the entire valentine collection has been catalogued, researched, photographed, and re-housed. This selection of highlights has been published to coincide with a new display of some of these extraordinary objects as part of the exhibition The Object of my Affection: Stories of Love from the Fitzwilliam Collection.

Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Scene of Contemporary Life: The Picture Show, 1791; pen and brown and black ink and wash over black chalk on paper,  11 5/16 × 16 5/16 inches (New York: Morgan Library & Museum, 2017.253)

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Press release (15 December 2017) for the exhibition now on view at The Clark:

Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, 29 September 2017 — 7 January 2018
The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, 3 February — 22 April 2018

Curated by Jennifer Tonkovich and Jay Clarke

Over the past fifty years, New York art dealer and philanthropist Eugene V. Thaw assembled one of the world’s finest private collections of drawings. The collection, known for its breadth and exceptional quality, charts the high points of drawing from the Renaissance through the twentieth century and features works made by pivotal artists at key moments in the history of the art form. Mr. Thaw donated his collection of more than 400 drawings to the Morgan Library & Museum, New York, which celebrated the gift with the September 2017 opening of Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection, an exhibition that has drawn critical acclaim for the diversity and quality of the works presented. In recognition of Mr. Thaw’s longstanding interest in the Clark Art Institute, Drawn to Greatness will travel to Williamstown for an exclusive presentation at the Clark from February 3 through April 22, 2018. Featuring 150 drawings that tell the story of a visionary collector, the exhibition examines five centuries of western drawing. Sketchbooks belonging to Jackson Pollock, Francisco de Goya, Edgar Degas, and Paul Cézanne and illustrated letters from Vincent van Gogh are among the works exhibited.

“It is an honor for the Clark to have the opportunity to show this exquisite collection in our galleries,” said Olivier Meslay, the Felda and Dena Hardymon Director of the Clark. “The works in this exhibition provide an incredibly rich and remarkable opportunity to consider the art form as practiced by generations of masters. It is one of the most important and impressive drawing exhibitions that has been assembled in decades.”

The exhibition is organized in a series of chronological sections that illustrate key moments in the history of draftsmanship while also highlighting the work of artists whom the Thaws collected in depth, among them Rembrandt van Rijn, Francisco de Goya, Odilon Redon, and Edgar Degas.

“These exceptional drawings, watercolors, and collages exemplify both the eternal power of the drawn line and the innovative genius of the artists who have explored the medium over five centuries,” said Jay A Clarke, Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. “It is a truly spectacular collection of works and I am thrilled to be able to work in collaboration with the Morgan’s curatorial team to bring this show to the Clark.”

The exhibition extends the Institute’s relationship to Mr. Thaw who, in 2016, made a generous gift to create the Eugene V. Thaw Gallery for Works on Paper in the Clark’s Manton Research Center. Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection is organized by the Morgan Library & Museum, New York. The curator of the exhibition at the Morgan is Jennifer Tonkovich, Eugene and Clare Thaw Curator of Drawings and Prints; the curator at the Clark is Jay A. Clarke, Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs. Presentation of Drawn to Greatness at the Clark is made possible by the Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Charitable Trust. Major support is provided by the Fernleigh Foundation in memory of Clare Thaw. This exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.

An exhibition checklist is available here»

Jennifer Tonkovich, ed., Drawn to Greatness: Master Drawings from the Thaw Collection (New York: The Morgan Library & Museum, 2017), 295 pages, ISBN: 978-0875981826, $40.

The catalogue features a series of essays by leading scholars devoted to pivotal moments in the history of drawing. Authors include Jane Shoaf Turner, Head of Rijksprentenkabinet, Amsterdam; Andrew Robison, former Head of Drawings, Prints, and Photographs at the National Gallery of Art; Matthew Hargraves, Chief Curator of Art Collections, Yale Center for British Art; Richard R. Brettell, Chair of Art and Aesthetic Studies, University of Texas at Dallas; Jay A. Clarke, Manton Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, Clark Art Institute; and, of the Morgan Library & Museum, Colin B. Bailey, Director; John Marciari, Curator and Department Head of Drawings and Prints; and Jennifer Tonkovich, Eugene and Clare Thaw Curator.

A selection of programming:

Jennifer Tonkovich | French Artists and Their Models
Sunday, 11 February 2018, 3:00pm

Jennifer Tonkovich, Eugene and Clare Thaw Curator of Drawings at the Morgan Library & Museum, explores how French artists worked with models during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Where did they find their models? What role did the models play in the creative process? How does an individual artist’s approach to the model reveal their broader outlook? A close look at studies by Watteau, Fragonard, Prud’hon, Gericault, Ingres, and Delacroix illuminates the challenges inherent in working from the model.

Matthew Hargraves | Visionaries: Romantic Drawings from the Thaw Collection
Sunday, 15 April 2018, 3:00pm

Drawn to Greatness includes some of Eugene Thaw’s finest Romantic drawings, among them outstanding works of art by William Blake, Caspar David Friedrich, and J.M.W. Turner. This lecture by Matthew Hargraves, chief curator of art collections and head of college information and access at the Yale Center for British Art, focuses on the visionary qualities of these Romantic artists and explores how they abandoned the simple imitation of the natural world to capture truths beyond the reach of the human eye.

From the Capitoline Museum:

The Treasure of Antiquity: Winckelmann and the Capitoline Museum in Eighteenth-Century Rome
Musei Capitolini, Rome, 7 December 2017 — 22 April 2018

Curated by Eloisa Dodero and Claudio Parisi Presicce

Una mostra per celebrare gli anniversari della nascita e della morte del fondatore dell’archeologia moderna, Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768)

La mostra Il Tesoro di Antichità. Winckelmann e il Museo Capitolino nella Roma del Settecento intende celebrare gli importanti anniversari winckelmanniani del 2017 (300 anni dalla nascita) e del 2018 (250 anni dalla morte) e si inserisce nel contesto delle manifestazioni europee coordinate dalla Winckelmann Gesellschaft di Stendal, dall’Istituto Archeologico Germanico di Roma e dai Musei Vaticani. L’esposizione ha una duplice finalità: la prima, offrire ai visitatori il racconto degli anni cruciali che hanno portato, nel dicembre del 1733, all’istituzione del Museo Capitolino, il primo museo pubblico d’Europa, destinato non solo alla conservazione ma anche alla promozione della “magnificenza e splendor di Roma”; la seconda, presentare le sculture capitoline sotto una luce diversa, ovvero attraverso le intuizioni, spesso geniali, del grande Winckelmann.

Arricchita da una selezione di 124 opere e da apparati multimediali realizzati appositamente, il Tesoro di Antichità si sviluppa in tre sedi diverse nell’ottica di una “mostra diffusa”: le Sale Espositive di Palazzo Caffarelli, le Stanze Terrene di Sinistra del Palazzo Nuovo e le Sale museali del Palazzo Nuovo.

Negli anni in cui Winckelmann rivoluziona il modo di studiare le testimonianze del mondo antico dando inizio alla moderna archeologia, il modello di museo pubblico rappresentato dal Museo Capitolino si diffonde rapidamente in tutta Europa, segnando la nascita di modalità del tutto nuove di fruizione dei beni artistici: un Tesoro di Antichità non più concepito come proprietà esclusiva di pochi, ma come luogo destinato all’avanzamento culturale della società.

Eloisa Dodero and Claudio Parisi Presicce, Il Tesoro di Antichità: Winckelmann e il Museo Capitolino nella Roma del Settecento (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2017), 384 pages, ISBN: 978 884923 5371, 35€.

«Vivo come un artista e come tale sono accolto nei luoghi dove ai nella Roma del Settecento giovani è permesso di studiare, come nel Campidoglio. Qui è il Tesoro delle Antichità di Roma e qui ci si può trattenere in tutta libertà dalla mattina alla sera». È il 7 dicembre del 1755 ed è con queste parole che Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717–1768) descrive a un amico la sua prima visita al Museo Capitolino. Negli anni in cui Winckelmann rivoluziona il modo di studiare le testimonianze del mondo antico, il modello di museo pubblico rappresentato dal Museo Capitolino si diffonde in tutta Europa, segnando la nascita di nuove modalità di fruizione dei beni culturali: un «Tesoro di Antichità» non più concepito come proprietà esclusiva di pochi, ma come luogo destinato all’avanzamento culturale della società.

Thomas Gainsborough, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, ca. 1750
(London: National Gallery)

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On view this spring at the Hamburger Kunsthalle:

Thomas Gainsborough: The Modern Landscape / Die moderne Landschaft
Hamburger Kunsthalle, 2 March — 27 May 2018

Curated by Katharina Hoins and Christoph Martin Vogtherr

Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788) was a pioneering artist in the development towards ›modern‹ landscape painting of around 1800. He was mainly perceived as a painter of brilliant society portraits by his contemporaries, although he personally far preferred his landscapes. They reflect the dramatic technological and artistic developments of his time and the growing contradictions in British society. Landscape painting served Gainsborough as a laboratory to transform impressions into innovation. He experimented with colours and techniques, painted on glass and combined natural materials into landscape models. Establishing England as a centre of European landscape painting, he created images of timeless power. Iconic works like Mr and Mrs Andrews will feature in the exhibition. Gainsborough: Modern Landscape is the first exhibition by a German museum devoted to Gainsborough. For a German and an international public it promises the (re-)discovery of an exceptional painter.

M. Bills, B. Gockel, M. Hallett, K. Hoins, R. Jones, J. Karg, S. Pisot, and C. Vogtherr, Thomas Gainsborough: The Modern Landscape (Munich: Hirmer, 2018), 224 pages, ISBN: 978  37774  29977, $65.

Gainsborough himself favoured landscape painting, a field to which he made important contributions, over his well-known portraits. His works are fascinating for their painterly subtlety and technical variation. This volume brings together German and British traditions of viewing, interpreting, and studying Gainsborough. It looks at the connections to the Dutch landscapes, explains Gainsborough’s unusual and experimental techniques from an art technological point of view, and situates his landscapes in the context of the social tensions of early industrialisation.