Quilts in Milwaukee
Press release from the Milwaukee Art Museum:
American Quilts: Selections from the Winterthur Collection
Winterthur Museum, 10 March — 16 September 2007
Saint Louis Art Museum, 2 March — 26 May 2008
Milwaukee Art Museum, 22 May — 6 September 2010
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 9 October 2010 — 2 January 2011
Curated by Linda Eaton of Winterthur Museum
Appliqué counterpane, 1800–25. Cotton, 100 x 92 in. Courtesy, Winterthur, Museum purchase with funds provided by Mr. Samuel Pettit in memory of his wife, Sally Pettit.
One of the world’s finest collections of early American quilts will be on view at the Milwaukee Art Museum May 22 — September 6, 2010. Featuring rare surviving textiles of the late 1700s and early 1800s from Winterthur Museum & Country Estate, Delaware, American Quilts outlines America’s earliest cultural landscape in stunning detail. American Quilts features more than 40 exquisite quilts whose fabric, design, and stitching combine to provide an extraordinary visual experience. These works of art also present a wealth of new information about the lives of their makers and the world around them. Quilts make political statements, celebrate marriages, and document the early global textile trade. Close examination of these quilts show the frugal recycling of a pair of men’s wool breeches, or the special purchase of fashionable and expensive fabrics. The exhibition includes some of the finest and earliest American printed textiles, a quilted Indian palampore, and a kaleidoscopic sunburst quilt featuring over 6,700 pieces of printed cotton.
“At first, fabric itself was a status symbol reflecting wealth and worldliness,” said Mel Buchanan, assistant curator of 20th-century design. “But the technological advances of the Industrial Revolution and the establishment of an American textile industry enabled affordable fabrics to become more widely available. From this array of materials, more women could produce quilts that served as an important part of their personal, family, and community identity in a constantly changing world.”
American Quilts explores how quilts were made to commemorate life-changing events for individuals, families, or entire communities. The rare quilts on view were passed through generations and, in turn, have become beautiful repositories of history and memory that document women’s political, social, and cultural lives in the early American republic. (more…)
At the Getty: The Grand Manner on Paper
Press release from the Getty:
Printing the Grand Manner: Charles Le Brun and Monumental Prints in the Age of Louis XIV
The Getty Research Institute at the Getty Center, Los Angeles, 18 May — 17 October 2010
Gérard Edelinck (1640–1707), after Charles Le Brun (1619–1690), "Queens of Persia at the Feet of Alexander from the Battles of Alexander," ca. 1675 Etching and engraving 26 9/16 x 35 5/16 in. Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, California (2003.PR.42)
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Printing the Grand Manner: Charles Le Brun and Monumental Prints in the Age of Louis XIV explores a little-known facet of late 17th-century reproductive engravings. The exhibition examines the prints’ rich vocabulary and illuminates the context in which they were made between the mid-1660s and the mid-1680s. While it focuses on the relationship between Charles Le Brun (French, 1619–90) and the printmakers who reproduced his compositions, the exhibition also interprets the prints and their inscriptions in light of Le Brun’s ambitions and struggles as a court painter, designer, and print publisher in the highly competitive atmosphere surrounding Louis XIV.
Catalogue by Louis Marchesano and Christian Michel (Getty Research Institute, 2010) ISBN: 978-0892369805, $50
The works in this exhibition and related catalog reproduce Le Brun’s narrative compositions in the Grand Manner, the genre in which a heroic protagonist engages in a morally significant action—a battle to be won, a victory to be celebrated, or a vice to be avoided. By disseminating these subjects in printed form, Le Brun presented to both collectors and artists his mastery of the most complex type of art. In turn, the quality and size of these prints allowed him to demonstrate the unprecedented authority over the fine arts in France.
The eleven large prints featured in Printing the Grand Manner were clearly intended to evoke the grandeur of Le Brun’s large-scale paintings and tapestry designs that illustrate events from the exemplary lives of ancient rulers such as Alexander the Great and Constantine the Great. A prodigious artist and designer, now best known for his work at Versailles, Le Brun was Louis XIV’s principal painter, leader of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture, and director of the huge royal manufactory at the Hôtel des Gobelins, the integrated workshops where hundreds of artists and craftsmen produced the fine objects that gave the age of Louis XIV its veneer of splendor and grandeur.
Gérard Edelinck (1640–1707), after Charles Le Brun (1619–1690), "Queens of Persia at the Feet of Alexander from the Battles of Alexander," detail, ca. 1675
“Le Brun used prints strategically to promote his agenda. Naturally, he wanted the best printmakers to reproduce his compositions and to disseminate them in the best possible light. As a painter and leader of the arts who experienced the power of prints in his own career, he was able to encourage the development of printmaking in France,” says Louis Marchesano, the Getty Research Institute’s curator of prints and drawings. “In retrospect, we know Le Brun’s own interventions in the field of prints paid off because the material and stylistic excellence of the large prints whet the appetites of collectors and critics well into the 19th-century.”
Le Brun was most successful at the height of his power in the 1670s, when he oversaw the publication of the Battles of Alexander, a suite of five images comprising his Persian and Indian campaigns. With his reputation and authority at stake, he convinced the Crown to spare no expense on the quality of the paper and the size of the impressions. Pulled from 15 copper plates, large printed sheets had to be assembled into a suite of five separate images. The Alexander suite was made by two of the best artists at Le Brun’s disposal, Gérard Edelinck and Gérard Audran. Showcasing Audran’s astonishing mixed etching and engraving technique, the four prints by him were judged to be the epitome of printmaking, in part because they appeared to improve upon Le Brun’s original paintings, a rather unusual judgment in favor of prints. (more…)
John Yenn’s Architectural Drawings
In the Library Print Room of the Royal Academy of Arts, there’s currently a lovely small exhibition on display of architectural drawings by John Yenn. The following text is excerpted from the handout and checklist that accompanies the show. The exhibition was selected by Nick Savage, Curator of Prints and Drawings and Head of the Collections. Neil Bingham researched and wrote all catalogue entries. On Tuesday, 1 June, at 3:30, the drawings will be the subject of a Royal Academy Curator’s Talk.
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John Yenn R.A.: Pioneer of the Architectural Exhibition Drawing
Royal Academy of Arts Library, London, 9 March — 9 July 2010
John Yenn RA, "Design for a Doric garden seat pavilion in Surrey: elevation," 1775 © Royal Academy of Arts, London; photographer M. Slingsby
The present exhibition of mostly theoretical, unexecuted architectural designs by John Yenn R.A. (1750-1821) is drawn entirely from the contents of ‘two boxes of watercolour drawings &c.’ presented to the Royal Academy by Mrs. Augusta Thackeray, the architect’s last surviving daughter, on 21 June 1865. On the first occasion that any of them had been exhibited since the eighteenth century (John Yenn, Draughtsman Extraordinary, RIBA Heinz Gallery, 3 September — 19 October 1973), the then Curator of the RIBA Drawings Collection, John Harris, hailed them as ‘supreme examples’ of the genre, ‘excelled by none in the whole history of British architectural rendering’, a revelation which at a stroke evleated their author ‘to the status of the finest draughtsman of the century’. Furthermore, the discovery in many of these ideal designs of a ‘rogue’ architectural imagination at play, mischievously undermining and subverting Palladian orthodoxy, revealed a previously unsuspected originality that seems, for whatever reason, to have evaporated when Yenn came to design real buildings.
Although it is tempting to let Yenn bask in the warmth of this praise, like so much in his career as an architect it is undeniable that everything that is distinctive about his drawings in terms of technique, presentation, and design content . . . is directly attributable to the advanced, continental-based training he had received in the office of his great mentor Sir William Chambers RA (1723-1796) . . . .
Quilts at the V&A
From the V&A’s website:
Quilts: 1700-2010
The Victoria & Albert Museum, London, 20 March — 4 July 2010
Bishops Court quilt, 1690-1700 (V&A no. T.201-1984)
The V&A will present its first ever exhibition of British quilts, with examples dating from 1700 to the present day — a unique opportunity to view the V&A’s unseen quilt collection as well as key national loans. The exhibition will show 65 beautifully crafted quilts, predominantly from the V&A’s own collection but also including a number of important loans and new works by contemporary artists, many of which have been commissioned especially for the show.
Earliest examples include a sumptuous silk and velvet bedcover, with an oral narrative that links it to King Charles II’s visit to an Exeter manor house in the late 17th century. Recent examples will include works by leading artists such as Grayson Perry and Tracey Emin and commissions for the exhibition by a number of contemporary artists including Sue Stockwell and Caren Garfen.
Catalogue by Sue Prichard, ISBN: 978-1851775958 ($60)
The curators have unravelled some of the complex personal narratives and broader historical events documented in the quilts. Examples by both named and unnamed makers will be shown with objects relating to their subject matter and makers including paintings and prints, as well as needlework tools and personal keepsakes. One example is a cot quilt made at Deal castle, displayed for the first time alongside the maker’s diary and portraits of the two grandchildren who slept under it.
There will also be bedcovers that commemorate the lives of prominent figures including Admiral Lord Nelson, Charles II and the Duke of Wellington and important events such as the coronation of Queen Victoria and the Duke of Wellington’s battle at Vittoria. The exhibition will end with Tracey Emin’s To Meet My Past (2002), a confessional installation which follows the tradition of quilts used as vessels for personal and
collective memories. (more…)
‘Plein Air’ Exhibition in Valenciennes
From the exhibition’s website:
Dessins d’Italie, Le XVIIIe siècle: l’expérience du plein air
Le Musée des Beaux-Arts de Valenciennes, 17 March — 14 June 2010
Olivier Lemay, "View of the Villa Negroni"
L’Italie, terre d’inspiration incontestée depuis la Reniassance, où se mêlent et s’entrecroisent les vestiges d’un passé lointain et les traces des génies du Quattro- et du Cinquecento, fut, dans la seconde moitié du XVIII siècle, à l’origine d’une nouvelle revolution artistique. Celle-ci, en modifiant profondément la perception du paysage, bouleversa définitivement l’art moderne. De ce regard renouvelé sur la nature découla un langage pictural inédit, dégagé de toute préoccupation narrative, allégé de tous poncifs historiques. L’étude en plein air, soumise aux variations climatiques, incita les artistes à s’interroger d’abord sur des questions plastiques et chromatiques, à chercher des moyens dévoquer une sensation, une perception fugace, les variations infinies d’une nature qui change au fil des heures. . . (more…)
Exhibition and Conference on Louise Élisabeth of France
Fuochi di gioia e lacrime d’argento: An Exhibition Commemorating Louise Élisabeth of France
on the 250th Anniversary of Her Death
Palazzo Bossi Bocchi, Parma, 11 April — 16 May 2010
Louis-Michel Van Loo, "Louise Élisabeth, Duchess of Parma"
The oldest daughter of King Louis XV, Louise Élisabeth of France (1727-1759) was married in 1739 to Prince Philip of Spain (son of Philip V) at the age of 12 (she gave birth to her first child at 14). Following the War of the Austrian Succession, Philip and Élisabeth became Duke and Duchess of Parma. The exhibition includes a posthumous portrait of Élisabeth painted by Jean-Marc Nattier (now in a private collection), along with the more familiar portrait by Louis-Michel van Loo and a selection of prints and drawings from the Cariparma Foundation.
In addition to the exhibition, in September Parma will host an international conference dedicated to Louise Élisabeth and the first decade of Bourbon rule in Parma from 1749 to 1759. Organized by Professors Charles Mambriani (University of Parma) and Gianfranco Fiaccadori (University of Milan), the conference will explore the deep historical, artistic, and cultural ties between Parma and France.
Richard Wilson Exhibition in New York
From a press release from Richard Feigen:
Richard Wilson and the British Arcadia
Richard L. Feigen & Co., New York, 29 April – 25 June 2010
Richard Wilson, "View of Caernarvon Castle, Wales," 1744-45 (Detroit Institute of Arts)
Richard L. Feigen & Co. will present Richard Wilson and the British Arcadia, a loan exhibition dedicated to the first great British landscape artist, Richard Wilson (c.1713-1782). This will be the first exhibition to be devoted to the artist in North America in over 25 years.
Richard Wilson and the British Arcadia will feature approximately a dozen of the painter’s works from both public and private US collections. One of the highlights of the exhibition will be the great Destruction of the Children of Niobe, the key picture of Wilson’s career and a landmark in the history of British landscape paintings, which is being loaned by the Yale Center for British Art. Also included will be Wilson’s earliest known view of his native Wales, Caernarvon Castle, on loan from the Detroit Institute of Arts, as well as several seminal pictures painted during the artist’s sojourn in Italy, among them, The Temple of Clitumnus from a private US collection.
Wilson’s second English period will be represented by his perhaps most famous landscape, The White Monk, loaned by the Toledo Museum of Art, and a magnificent view of Tivoli from the Kimbell Art Museum. The exhibition will also feature several pictures by some of the seventeenth-century landscape masters whose work influenced Wilson’s. Claude Lorrain’s exquisite Pastoral Landscape, a small copper being lent by the Yale University Art Gallery, and Aelbert Cuyp’s idyllic Landscape with the Flight into Egypt from the Metropolitan Museum will be among the pictures shown in this context.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, to which the distinguished scholar of British art, Andrew Wilton, has contributed the introductory essay. Mr. Wilton is Visiting Research Fellow at Tate Britain, having formerly been Keeper of the British Collection and Curator of the Turner Collection in the Clore Gallery. The most recent of his many publications are Turner in His Time, Turner as Draughtsman, and Five Centuries of British Painting: From Holbein to Hodgkin. All proceeds from the sale of the catalogue will be donated to the Richard Wilson catalogue raisonné project, which is being undertaken by Dr. Paul-Spencer-Longhurst on behalf of the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London, the sister institution to the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven.
Palladio and His Legacy at the Morgan
From The Morgan’s website:
Palladio and His Legacy: A Transatlantic Journey
The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, 2 April — 1 August 2010
Villa Rotunda, from “The Architecture of A. Palladio,” 1715-20 (RIBA Library)
Palladio and His Legacy: A Transatlantic Journey features thirty-one original Palladio drawings from the Royal Institute of British Architects. These exquisite drawings, which were exhibited only once before in America and never in New York, will be on view to the public for the first time in over thirty years. They are being presented with rare architectural texts to illustrate the journey from Italy to North America of Palladio’s design principles of proportion, harmony, and beauty.
Palladio’s work has significantly influenced American architecture from colonial times to the present day. Focusing on the artist’s original drawings and following the trajectory of his ideas, the show also traces the story of American Palladianism. The drawings are supported by numerous architectural models. Three large examples—the Pantheon, Villa Rotunda, and Jefferson’s unrealized design for the White House—programmatically illustrate the journey from Rome to America. Smaller models, along with rare architectural texts and pattern books through which Palladio’s ideas were primarily transmitted, reinforce the themes of the exhibition.
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This book has been written to accompany the exhibition Palladio and His Legacy: A Transatlantic Journey and shows drawings, books and images from the peerless Palladio collections of the Royal Institute of British Architects. It shows how Palladio studied and reinterpreted the architecture of antiquity, how he developed his ideas, how his message spread, and how Palladianism developed and spread across America, where Palladio’s legacy has remained longest and most widespread. Andrea Palladio lived and worked some 500 years ago in the Veneto. Yet his international influence, and particularly his impact on American architecture, has been greater than that of any architect since. Simplicity and proportion formed the basis of his idea of architecture; the villas he created in the Veneto around Venice, together with his writings, which were widely disseminated after his death, have helped shape European and American buildings for more than 400 years.
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As noted by The Art History Newsletter, the exhibition was reviewed in The New York Times by Nicolai Ouroussoff on 8 April 2010. There’s also an interview by Suzanne Stephens and William Hanley at Architectural Record.
The Chapel at Versailles Turns 300
Une Chapelle pour le Roi / A Chapel for the King
Château de Versailles, 20 April — 18 July 2010
To mark the tercentenary of the Royal Chapel, the Château de Versailles is devoting an exhibition that presents the genesis of this building and the highlights of its history. Among the works exhibited, the liturgical furniture donated by Louis XIV to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem will be exceptionally on view to the public. The work was undertaken by Jules Hardouin-Mansart in 1687 and completed in 1710 by Robert de Cotte, and the Royal Chapel of Versailles, a masterpiece of sacred art, became the theatre of the religious ceremonies of the Court. In accordance with the tradition of the Palatine Chapels, it has two levels. The principal gallery, above the entrance, was reserved for the royal family, while the side galleries were for the princes of royal blood and principal dignitaries of the Court; the other faithful were on the ground floor. The organ was placed in the loft over the high altar. Designed by Clicquot, its most famous organist was François Couperin.
The exhibition is divided into four sections:
- An evocation of the first Chapel (1672), a brilliant prefiguration of the definitive building.
- The Chapel of 1682, particularly well known from paintings and engravings because it was the religious building used for the longest time in the reign of Louis XIV. Located on the present site of the Salon d’Hercule, it was the scene of the Court’s religious life until 1710.
- The designing of the definitive Chapel, with drawings and engravings relating to the astonishing project for the dome in the centre of the north wing, up to the final magnificent drawings of the architectural office of Jules Hardouin-Mansart.
- The decor and the furniture of the Chapel when completed in 1710: sketches and preparatory paintings for the sumptuous compositions of La Fosse, Jouvenet and Coypel will be presented alongside drawings of the carved trophies on the ground floor and documents enabling visitors to get a clearer idea of the furniture that has not survived.
To accompany the celebration of this tercentenary, the annexes of the Chapel will be opened for guided visits (in French): the sacristies, the oratory of Madame de Pompadour, as well as the rooms used by the choristers and the members of the King’s orchestra. These preserved annexes will enable visitors to get a glimpse of the conditions of the daily life of the various incumbents of the Royal Chapel during the Ancien Régime.
Houdon Exhibition in Montpellier
From the Musée Fabre’s website:
Jean-Antoine Houdon, la sculpture sensible
Musée Fabre de Montpellier, 17 March — 27 June 2010
Portraitiste à succès, Jean-Antoine Houdon a exécuté les bustes des personnalités les plus éminentes de l’Europe et de l’Amérique des Lumières : Voltaire, Diderot, Buffon, Franklin, Glück, Condorcet, Cagliostro… mais aussi l’impératrice Catherine II de Russie, Louis XVI, Napoléon Ier… On louait ainsi son talent inégalé pour saisir la vie, l’esprit et le caractère de son modèle. Houdon traitait aussi avec virtuosité les sujets religieux, antiques et allégoriques.
Près d’une cinquantaine de pièces sont exposées, dont dix-huit sculptures de Houdon, au premier étage des collections permanentes (salles 19-20-21). Le coeur de cette rétrospective unique est constitué autour de trois chefs-d’oeuvre : les allégories en marbre de l’Hiver, appelé la Frileuse (1783), et de l’Eté (1785) appartenant au musée Fabre, puis sa version en bronze réalisée en 1787 prêtée par le Metropolitan Museum of Art de New York. Ces statues sont parmi les plus célèbres de son temps et révèlent admirablement le passage du Baroque aux Lumières. Un ensemble de sculptures, gravures, peintures de Houdon, Clodion, Greuze… les accompagne pour expliciter ces représentations liées à l’Amour et à la Mort. (more…)
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