Exhibition: ‘Caring for William Hunter’s Prints’
From the Hunterian:
Past, Present and Future: Caring for William Hunter’s Prints
Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, 2 October 2010 — 21 June 2011
"Portraits de Nanteuil" volumes 1 & 2
This new display highlights a current Hunterian project on the Hunter volumes of prints. They consist largely of portraits of past celebrities and prints of paintings and drawings by Old Masters, including Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael and Rembrandt. An award from Museums Galleries Scotland has enabled conservation of some of the volumes, the cataloguing and digitizing of all and a research program carried out in collaboration with the University’s History of Art department.
Joanne Orr, CEO of Museums Galleries Scotland, said: “Museums Galleries Scotland investment to Scotland’s Recognised Collections of National Significance aims to enhance the overall visitor experience. Providing new opportunities to explore and enjoy Scotland’s top collections is a key focus and this exhibition is a excellent example of how this is happening. What goes on behind the scenes is as important as what visitors see ‘on stage’ when they arrive – this is a rare chance to get up close and personal to the fascinating work of curators.”
This work has provided valuable new information on Hunter’s motivations for collecting such volumes and on his close relationships with leading contemporary artists.
Exhibition: Canaletto in Washington
Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals
National Gallery, London, 13 October 2010 — 16 January 2011
National Gallery, Washington D.C., 20 February — 30 May 2011
Canaletto, "The Square of Saint Mark's, Venice," 1742/1744 (DC: National Gallery, Gift of Mrs. Barbara Hutton 1945.15.3)
As the Canaletto exhibition opens in Washington, it will be introduced with a lecture by Charles Beddington (guest curator) and David Alan Brown (curator of Italian and Spanish paintings, National Gallery of Art). The show runs through the end of May.
Additional information is available here»
Exhibition: ‘Georgian Faces’ of Dorset Couny
Press release from the Dorset County Museum:
Georgian Faces: Portrait of a County
Dorset County Museum, Dorchester, 15 January — 30 April 2011
Curated by Gwen Yarker
William Hogarth, "Portrait of Thomas Coombes, a Dorset Boatman Aged 108," 1742
Georgian Faces: Portrait of a County includes over sixty, mostly previously unseen, portraits of the people who shaped Dorset during the eighteenth century. The catalyst for the exhibition was provided by the Museum’s recent acquisition of George Romney’s Portrait of the Reverend Thomas Rackett as a Young Boy, a purchase made possible by the generosity of the Art Fund, HLF South West and local support. For the past year, curator Gwen Yarker (formerly of the National Maritime Museum) has been selecting portraits for the exhibition from all over Dorset and further afield. Some paintings are on loan from national institutions, but the majority have come from private collections. The exhibition shows portraits by many of the important portrait artists of the eighteenth century, including Sir Joshua Reynolds, George Romney, Thomas Gainsborough and Allan Ramsay. The exhibition also throws a spotlight on Thomas Beach, who was born at Milton Abbas, Dorset, trained with Reynolds and worked as a portrait painter in London, Bath and the West Country. The exhibition will provide the first opportunity for William Hogarth’s Portrait of Thomas Coombes, a Dorset Boatman Aged 108 to be exhibited for over 100 years. Hogarth’s father-in-law, the famous decorative painter Sir James Thornhill, was a native of the county who retired to Dorset in the 1720s.
George III visited Weymouth for his health following his first attack of porphyria. From 1789 to 1805 he regularly stayed in the town essentially requiring the court to relocate to the Dorset coast every year. From the 1790s the threat of invasion meant a local volunteer force was created. Portraits of several of its officers painted by Dorset-born Thomas Beach, feature in the exhibition. Georgian Faces also includes a series of cut-out silhouettes produced by George III’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth, during her friendship with local diarist and botanist Mary Frampton.
Portraits of Poole’s merchant princes reveal the riches gained from cod fishing and fur trading with Newfoundland. A highlight is Thomas Frye’s unpublished Portrait of Sir Peter Thompson, now in Poole Museum. The portrait of this rich merchant came to light when Gwen Yarker was cataloguing in Dorset for the Public Catalogue Foundation.
The exhibition shows that Dorset was not an isolated rural county, but that many of its residents, especially the Reverend Thomas Rackett and his circle, brought the latest thinking, ideas and intellectual developments in London to rural centres such as Blandford. They in turn returned to the capital with their local discourses in natural philosophy, antiquarianism and archaeology.
Exhibition: French Drawings at The Morgan in the Fall
From The Morgan:
David, Delacroix, and Revolutionary France: Drawings from the Louvre
The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, 23 September — 31 December 2011
Curated by Louis-Antoine Prat
This exhibition features the first-ever U.S. showing of some of finest French drawings from the Louvre, covering a period between 1789 and 1848 when France experienced a tremendous political, social, and cultural upheaval. Some 75 drawings by such artists as Jacques-Louis David, J. A. D. Ingres, Eugène Delacroix, J. B. C. Corot, Théodore Gericault, Pierre Paul Prud’hon, and their contemporaries, will be presented. The exhibition will be organized chronologically, with large groups of works by David, Ingres, and Delacroix, serving as major focal points.
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“In the Drawing Room,” a profile by Martin Bailey of curator and collector Louis-Antoine Prat appeared in the September issue of The Art Newspaper (published online on 20 September). Prat is also curating the upcoming Watteau exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Exhibition: Tools and Locks in Berlin
From the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin website:
Fine Craftsmen’s Tools and Locks from Three Centuries
Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts), Köpenick Palace, Berlin, 8 January — 15 May 2011
The Museum of Decorative Arts has in its collection numerous magnificent handcrafted works, the products of all manner of trades and crafts, ranging from the middle ages to the present day. However, the tools once used by craftsmen are also often themselves very sophisticated in design. The spectrum of objects on display here ranges from decorated tools once in everyday use up to splendid tools that were hardly ever used, including mere copies of devices, as seen in the symbol of a particular guild or in model tools.
This small exhibition in the museum’s foyer presents a selection of these kinds of ‘fine’ tools, dating from the 16th to the 18th century, found in the museum’s storerooms. Due to the disappearance of many traditional crafts and techniques, often little is known today of their insignia and original functions. This is the case, for instance, in the tap and dies used to cut wooden screws, the cooper’s bung borer, or the quill cutter. The original function of other implements, however, are obvious to us through their form, such as measuring tape, a cobbler’s foot measure or scissor-shaped snuffers; while folding yardsticks, planes and thimbles are still in use today and virtually unchanged in design. Locks and keys are also objects that very often bear such intricate designs that they are raised from being merely functional objects and become valid symbols of the aesthetic sentiment of the age in which they were created.
Exhibition: The Tragic Muse in Chicago
From the Smart:
The Tragic Muse: Art and Emotion, 1700-1900
Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, 10 February — 5 June 2011
Curated by Anne Leonard
Noël Hallé, detail of "Joseph Accused by Potiphar’s Wife," c. 1740–44 (Chicago: Smart Museum of Art)
Art is often appreciated for its ability to delight our eyes and refresh our minds. But it can also serve as a powerful vehicle for exploring darker emotions, such as fear, sadness, and grief. And while these themes have a history dating back to the ancients, the ways in which they have been represented in art has changed dramatically over time.
This exhibition examines two centuries of works intertwined with emotion—from the sacrifice of classical heroines to the grief of ordinary people, from martyred saints to actors in tragic roles—and explores how art’s cathartic power grows or fades for new generations of viewers. With over forty paintings, sculptures, and prints, The Tragic Muse combines works from the Smart’s collection—both long-held treasures and new acquisitions—with important loans from the Art Institute of Chicago, Milwaukee Art Museum, National Gallery of Art, and Tate. Together with an accompanying catalogue, the exhibition draws on the scholarship of University of Chicago faculty to offer fresh insight into the visual representation of tragedy and art’s power to express and elicit intense emotions.
This exhibition is one in a series of projects at the Smart Museum of Art supported by an endowment from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation that fosters interdisciplinary use of the Museum’s collections by University of Chicago faculty and students in both courses and special exhibitions. The Tragic Muse exhibition catalogue has received additional grant support from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
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Anne Leonard with contributions by Joyce Suechen Cheng, Glenn W. Most, Erin Nerstad, Sarah Nooter, and Thomas Pavel, The Tragic Muse: Art and Emotion, 1700-1900, exhibition catalogue (Chicago: Smart Museum of Art, 2011), 128 pages, ISBN: 9780935573497, $30.
Published to coincide with the Smart Museum of Art’s exhibition The Tragic Muse, the publication draws on the work of several distinguished scholars to examine the richly varied representation of tragedy in the European artistic tradition over the course of two centuries. This catalogue is generously illustrated with full-color reproductions of all the works contained in the exhibition, and the fascinating contributions offer new insights into the approaches taken by the visual arts, as well as literature and drama, in expressing and eliciting strong emotions.
Exhibition: Baroque Ivory at the Court of Vienna
From the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung:
Ivory: Baroque Splendor at the Viennese Court / Elfenbein: Barocke Pracht am Wiener Hof
Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Frankfurt am Main, 3 February — 26 June 2011
Curated by Maraike Bückling and Sabine Haag
Ignaz Bendl (1682–1730) "Medaillon commemorating the erection of the mercy columm," ca. 1692
Ivory has been one of the most popular materials since ancient times. Its origins in unknown faraway lands and its rarity account for its costliness. It was particularly the Baroque era that had an extraordinarily high demand for ivory. In the seventeenth century, ivory work reached its culmination in Vienna in the days of Prince Karl Eusebius of Liechtenstein and Emperor Leopold I. The shimmering appearance of the polished material served princely-imperial claims to prestige, as its possession testified to its owners’ power and wealth. The exhibition Ivory: Baroque Splendor at the Court of Vienna, presented in the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung from February 3 to June 26, 2011, will focus on this heyday of ivory art. It will feature thirty-six splendid, virtuoso carvings impressively documenting the artisans’ great skill, among them masterly executed statuettes, pitchers, goblets, tankards, and bowls of ivory, objects created for display in so-called cabinets of curiosities and not intended for any practical use. The show comprises works by the most famous ivory artists of the Baroque period, such as Adam Lenckhardt, Johann Caspar Schenck, and Matthias Steinl. It was prepared together with the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, whose world-renowned Cabinet of Wonders is closed for the time being because of comprehensive restoration measures. This presented the Liebieghaus with the unique opportunity to show a high-caliber selection of masterpieces from the Kunstkammer of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Frankfurt before the items will be on display again on a permanent basis in Vienna after the Cabinet’s reopening in late 2012. Eight additional high-carat loans come from the Reiner Winkler Collection.
Matthias Steinl (1643/44–1727) "Allegory of the Elements of Water and Air," ca. 1688
Matthias Steinl (1643/44–1727) "Allegory of the Elements of Water and Air," ca. 1688
In Ancient Greece, Phidias already created large statues of gods whose skin was executed in ivory, and the Bible describes Solomon’s throne as made up of ivory parts. It was above all in the Middle Ages and in the Baroque era that ivory was held in high esteem as a material. The great demand finally resulted in the emergence of new ports of entry in the seventeenth century; both the East India Company and the West India Company furthered the transport of African ivory in particular. The concentration on necessarily small-format ivory works fit in well with the fact that there were hardly any or no commissions at all conferred for large-size church or palace interiors during the Thirty Years’ War and the plague epidemics. Sculptors and their clients increasingly or entirely dedicated themselves to small mobile sculptures.
In the Renaissance and Mannerist periods, bronze was preferred for small sculptures. Yet, ivory outstripped the material in the course of the seventeenth century. People appreciated its combination of elasticity and hardness, as well as its gleaming transparency and delicate veining resembling the tone of flesh. The heyday of the production of ivory works in the seventeenth century was based on sixteenthcentury ivory turnery, on such early examples as those by the Master of the Furies. Besides the major bourgeois towns, the secular and ecclesiastical capitals became centers of ivory production from about 1650 on – a development that did not come to an end before the early eighteenth century. Ivory carvers were to be found mainly in Munich and Augsburg, but also in Schwäbisch Hall, Ulm, Mechlin, Amsterdam, Dresden, and Düsseldorf. (more…)
Exhibition: 300 Years of Exuberant Menswear
Press release from the Philadelphia Museum of Art:
The Peacock Male: Exuberance and Extremes in Masculine Dress
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 22 January — June 2011
Curated by Kristina Haugland
This lively exhibition contradicts the notion of men’s apparel as staid and restrained, especially when compared to women’s fashions. The Peacock Male: Exuberance and Extremes in Masculine Dress, drawn primarily from the Museum’s collection of Western fashion, examines 300 years of men’s sartorial display and includes flamboyant clothing as well as colorful accessories. It will be on view from January 22 through June 2011. “It’s a pleasure to be able to look at men’s clothing from a different perspective, as it is a subject that is often overlooked, even though menswear is now so creative and diverse,” said Kristina Haugland, Associate Curator of Costume and Textiles and Supervising Curator for the Study Room and Academic Relations. “Most people are surprised to find just how eye-catching men sought to be in the past, sporting extravagant floral embroidery, feathers, and flashy patterns. The exhibition is a great chance to show the wild side of masculine wear, from fur-crested helmets to high-tech sneakers.”
The exhibition opens with a look at the rich clothing worn by the eighteenth-century elite, from lavishly embroidered suits to zigzag-patterned silk stockings. During the nineteenth century, menswear tended to be sober by comparison, but could be accented with colorful accessories such as waistcoats, slippers or suspenders. Thematic sections in the exhibition highlight those occasions when even the most reserved man could don eye-catching clothes. A section dedicated to men’s costumes includes a star-spangled “Uncle Sam” outfit from the early twentieth century, a fuchsia silk satin fancy-dress ensemble from the late nineteenth century, and two mummers’ costumes – an English example from 1829 and a “Handsome Costume” made for Philadelphia’s famous parade in the 1990s, which represents a resplendent peacock with a ten-foot-wide tail. (more…)
Conference at Tate Britain: ‘British Art 1660-1735, Close Readings’
From the University of York:
British Art 1660-1735: Close Readings
Tate Britain, 20 May 2011
Sir Godfrey Kneller, "The Harvey Family," 1721 (Tate Britain)
This conference will showcase some of the latest scholarship on art and artists in this dynamic period. Focusing on the detailed study of works of art, the event is designed to open up new perspectives on their place within British culture. This is the second of a series of major scholarly events hosted by the AHRC-supported research project Court, Country, City: British Art 1660-1735. This three-year project runs from October 2009 to September 2012, and is led by Professor Mark Hallett of the University of York and Professor Nigel Llewellyn and Dr Martin Myrone of Tate Britain.
- Anthony Geraghty (University of York), Robert Streeter at the Sheldonian
- Helen Pierce (University of Aberdeen), Francis Barlow: The political animal
- Christine Stevenson (Courtauld Institute), Court, city, cosmos: meditations of London’s second Royal Exchange
- Sarah Monks (University of East Anglia), Drawing fire: the van de Veldes, and the imagery and implications of late Stuart naval conflict
- Jacqueline Riding (University of York), Joseph Highmore’s ‘David Le Marchand’ and the search for Kneller’s heir
- Mark Hallett (University of York), Genres and Transformations: Reflections on the first ‘Court, Country, City’ display
The conference is free, but you must register to attend. Please email Clare Bond, at cecs1@york.ac.uk, or write to the Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies, University of York, The King’s Manor, Exhibition Square, York Y01 7EP, with your name, address, and affiliation, if any.
There will be an opportunity at lunch time to see the Court, Country, City Display in Room 3 (see below).
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Court, Country, City: British Art 1660-1735
Tate Britain, November 2010 — November 2011
Edward Collier, "Still Life," 1699 (Tate Britain)
This display introduces a major new research project, Court, Country, City: British Art 1660-1735, which will explore how the visual arts developed in these years. The period 1660-1735 was a dramatic time. Many people’s lives were transformed by the restoration of the monarchy, the establishment of a modern economy and government, and the expansion of global trade and empire. In art historical terms, the period covers the time between the appointment of Peter Lely as court painter to Charles II, and the emergence of a new form of modern British art with Hogarth and the St Martin’s Lane Academy in the 1730s.
The ways in which art was commissioned, practiced, viewed and experienced changed dramatically over these decades, as the balance of power between the Court (centred on the monarch), the Country (the land-owning elite) and the City (the urban middle class) shifted. The display divides paintings into groups according to genre – history, portraiture, landscape and still life. These groups may suggest how the
styles and forms of art changed between 1660 and 1735.
The research team would welcome your comments about the works of art you see here, and what you think they tell us about this key period of British history. Please send comments to cccresearch@tate.org.uk. The display can be seen in Room 3, Tate Britain, London, from November 2010 to November 2011.
Additional information and links to the images included in each genre are available here»
Royal Academy of Arts: Object of the Month, Kauffman’s ‘Design’
From the Royal Academy of Arts in London:
Royal Academy of Arts, Object of the Month — January 2011
Angelica Kauffman, Design, oil on canvas, 1778-80
Angelica Kauffman RA, "Design," oil on canvas, 1778-80 ©Royal Academy of Arts, London
. . . This painting is part of a set of the four ‘Elements of Art’ represented by female allegories of Invention, Composition, Design and Colour which were commissioned by the Royal Academy in 1778 to decorate the ceiling of the Academy’s new Council Chamber in Somerset House. The present painting shows the figure of Design as an imposing allegorical female dressed in white and pale red with a purple mantle, seated beside two Roman columns. The figure is copying a fragment of an Antique male nude statue, commonly called the Belvedere torso. The original statue was first documented in Rome in the 1430s and is now in the Vatican Museum, Rome. However a cast of this torso was in the Royal Academy’s collection at the time of Kauffman’s commission and was for the use of the students of the Royal Academy Schools.
This composition alludes to one of the cornerstones of artistic academic training at that period which focused on proportion, scale and form based on antique prototypes. This training was also echoed in Kauffman’s own study, which was based on copying Antique statues and the Renaissance great masters. . . .
The full essay is available here»
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Usually on display in the Front Hall of the Royal Academy, the painting can be seen until 6 March 2011 in the exhibition, Rome and Antiquity: Reality and Vision in the Eighteenth Century at the Museo of the Fondazione Roma.
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