Enfilade

From the press release (20 August 2021) . . .

Imperfect History: Curating the Graphics Arts Collection at Benjamin Franklin’s Public Library
The Library Company of Philadelphia, 20 September 2021 — 8 April 2022

Curated by Erika Piola and Sarah Weatherwax

New exhibition reveals visual cues of bigotry and inequality over hundreds of years in America.

At a time when Americans are constantly bombarded with graphics, some with hidden meanings, our ability to interpret visuals has taken on new urgency. Imperfect History: Curating the Graphics Arts Collection at Benjamin Franklin’s Public Library is a new exhibit designed to help us read between the lines of popular graphics. Drawing from a collection of extraordinary breadth spanning 300 years, Imperfect History showcases hidden and rare items, the unseen stories of everyday people, and the prejudices and preconceptions of different time periods. It’s a visual time machine of the good, the bad, and the ugly of American culture.

“The point is not to take things at face value,” said Michael Barsanti, the Edwin Wolf 2nd Director of the Library Company. “Inequalities and prejudices have existed in plain view for centuries. We just need to look for the clues in visual materials. Our hope is that this exhibition will help teach the public to understand racist, sexist, and other biased imagery in popular culture today and throughout history, in an effort to mitigate bigotry.”

Items glorifying white men, stereotyping African Americans, satirizing feminism, and representing economic disparities will be on display. So too will ‘imperfect’ works that would never see the light of day in a fine arts exhibit, but that offer important lessons in how people lived, what they cared about and what they really thought.

“We want to help patrons understand American history through graphic materials,” notes co-curator Erika Piola, Director of the Visual Culture Program. “These are images created and seen by everyday people. They were collected by the son of a Library Company librarian, hung on the walls of American homes, were saved in scrapbooks, and mailed to the dwellings of average citizens.”

Included in the exhibition are an ink blotter with female nudes on lettuce, a promotional item never seen before publicly. There are rare items such as a print of an enslaved teen with vitiligo who was exploited as a sideshow curiosity and a lithograph of living and dead all-white male Masons described as the “wise and good among mankind.”

Among the exhibition’s five areas is the ‘Imperfection Section’ with items that have been altered, suffered age deterioration, damage, have artistic errors, or inscriptions. “We want people to appreciate that just because items like photographs, prints and sketches might be damaged, it doesn’t make them any less important to future generations,” says Piola.

Co-curator Sarah Weatherwax, Senior Curator of Graphic Arts notes, “Benjamin Franklin founded the Library Company to prepare colonists for citizenship by giving them access to books. But today, being an engaged citizen requires us to look beyond text and also focus on visuals, to understand nuance and context.”

The Imperfect History project includes an exhibition, publication, digital catalog, a visual literacy workshop, a one-day symposium, and a curatorial fellowship. It is in commemoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Graphic Arts Department.

Digital Catalog
The digital catalog creatively demonstrates multiple viewpoints through descriptions of the same visual material written by four guest catalogers from different fields. The exhibition publication is an illustrated catalog providing an overview of the history of graphics collecting at the Library Company as well as narratives and a case study of the relationships between American art history, visual culture and literacy, race, gender, and Philadelphia imagery and image makers.

Visual Literacy Workshop: Urban In-sights
A select group of historians, curators, and other professionals from around the U.S. gathered virtually at the end of June for a workshop designed to enhance participants’ ability to ‘read’ and analyze graphic materials. In addition to historical context, they learned about different graphic processes, and how to conduct primary and secondary research using graphic materials.

Symposium: Collecting, Curating, and Consuming American Popular Graphic Arts Yesterday and Today
The one-day symposium scheduled for 25 March 2022 will examine the changing and innovative trends in how popular graphics are curated, interpreted, used and understood by those who produced, viewed, and consumed them.

Curatorial Fellowship
Imperfect History included a 20-month fellowship providing an aspiring graphics curator with practical career training.

Support for Imperfect History is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, Walter J. Miller Trust, Center for American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Jay Robert Stiefel, and Terra Foundation for American Art.

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About the Library Company of Philadelphia

Established in 1731 by Benjamin Franklin, the Library Company of Philadelphia was founded as the first public library with the mission of putting books in the hands of ‘ordinary citizens’. It is the oldest cultural institution in America, the Nation’s first Library of Congress, and the largest lending library through the Civil War.

Today, the Library Company is an independent research library and educational institution specializing in American and global history from the 17th through the early 20th centuries. With one of the world’s largest holdings of early Americana, the Library Company also has close to one million pieces in their collections that relate to African American history, economic and women’s history, the history of medicine, and visual culture. The Library Company promotes access to these collections through fellowships, exhibitions, programs, and online resources.

The holdings of over 100,000 items in the Graphic Arts Collection comprise one of the few public collections in the United States specializing in historical American popular graphics from the 17th century through the early 20th century. The works represent the multiple perspectives and aesthetic senses of their creators, while they also serve as material documents of the culture, politics, and economics in which they were produced and consumed.

From Jaime Eguiguren Art & Antiques:

Discovering Viceregal Latin American Treasures
Colnaghi, New York and London, 2 July — 10 September 2021
Jaime Eguiguren Art & Antiques, Montevideo, Uruguay, 2 July — 10 December 2021

Jaime Eguiguren Art & Antiques and Colnaghi gallery are delighted to announce Discovering Viceregal Latin American Treasures, a survey exhibition that brings together more than a hundred works of art from the Viceregal period. The presentation takes place virtually and is supported by the publication of a printed exhibition catalogue, which will be the most in-depth publication on Viceregal art ever printed. The Old Master works in the exhibition date from the 16th to 18th century and include paintings, sculptures, silver, barniz de pasto (lacquer-like resin), ceramics, and furniture.

Discovering Viceregal Latin American Treasures, with essays by Pablo F. Amador Marrero, Alejandro Antuñano, Gonzalo Eguiguren Pazzi, Jaime Eguiguren, Cristina Esteras Martín, Sofía Fernández Lázaro, Concha García Sáiz, Jorge González Matarraz, Nuria Lázaro Milla, Yaiza A. Pérez Carracedo, Héctor San José, Dorie Reent (London: Colnaghi, 2021), 344 pages, ISBN: 978-8409304752.

Looking ahead to next year at SLAM (the catalogue is available now) . . .

Paintings on Stone: Science and the Sacred, 1530–1800
Saint Louis Art Museum, 20 February — 15 May 2022

Curated by Judith Mann

In 2000 the Saint Louis Art Museum purchased Cavaliere d’Arpino’s Perseus Rescuing Andromeda (ca. 1593–94), an exceptional painting on lapis lazuli. The acquisition of the small, stunning work of art spurred extensive research that culminates in Paintings on Stone: Science and the Sacred 1530–1800, the first systematic examination of the pan-European practice of this unusual and little-studied artistic tradition.

By 1530 Italian artists had begun to paint portraits and sacred images on stone. At first artists used slate and marble. By the last decades of the sixteenth century, the repertoire expanded, eventually including alabaster, lapis lazuli, onyx, jasper, agate, and amethyst. In addition to demonstrating the beauty of these works, Paintings on Stone explains why artists began using stone supports and the role that stone played in the meaning of these endeavors. Bringing together more than 90 examples by 58 artists, the exhibition represents major centers of stone painting and features 34 different stones, nearly the full range that were used. The exhibition is curated by Judith W. Mann, curator of European art to 1800.

Judith W. Mann, ed., Paintings on Stone: Science and the Sacred, 1530–1800 (Munich: Hirmer Publishers, 2021), 320 pages, ISBN: 978-3777435565, $50.

Paintings on Stone examines a fascinating tradition long overlooked by art historians—stone surfaces used to create stunning portraits, mythological scenes, and sacred images. Written by an international team of scholars, the catalogue reveals the significance of these paintings, their complex meanings, and their technical virtuosity. Using a technique perfected by Sebastiano del Piombo (1485–1547), sixteenth-century Italian artists created compositions using stone surfaces in place of panel or canvas. The practice of using stone supports continued to engage European artists and patrons well into the eighteenth century. This volume reveals the beauty of these works and examines the complexity of using materials such as slate, marble, alabaster, lapis lazuli, and amethyst. Illustrated with more than one hundred examples, and with essays on topics ranging from importing stone to its relationship to alchemy, Paintings on Stone will become the essential reference on this little-studied practice.

From the press release (18 May 2021) for the exhibition now on view at the NGV (with lots of interesting online features) . . .

Goya: Drawings from the Prado Museum
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 24 June — 3 October 2021

The world-exclusive exhibition Goya: Drawings from the Prado Museum features more than 160 works on paper by Francisco Goya (1746–1828), celebrating the artist’s extraordinary draughtsmanship and imagination. Considered to be one of the first truly modern artists, Goya produced humorous and critical images of Spanish society that comment on gender relationships, social inequality, and violence, as well as visions of fantastic creatures.

Goya: Drawings from the Prado Museum is the first major presentation of Goya’s work at the NGV in more than 20 years and features 44 drawings on loan from the Prado Museum, the largest group of Goya’s drawings ever seen in Australia. Ranging from bold ink drawings to delicate red chalk sketches, the drawings on display have been selected by the Prado especially for this NGV presentation. Highlights include examples from the artist’s earliest albums of social satires, preparatory drawings for his iconic print series, through to pages from the late albums, which contain some of Goya’s most complex and surreal images. This rich and diverse selection of drawings showcases the breadth of Goya’s drawing practice, as well as offering a rare insight into the artist’s image-making process.

Francisco Goya, This is how useful men usually end up, 1814–23, wash, brush, bistre on laid paper (Madrid: Prado).

Following a near-fatal illness in 1792, which left him profoundly deaf, Goya turned to drawing to record his private thoughts, visions, and dreams and continued this practice until the end of his life. In eight private albums, as well as in single sheet drawings, he gave expression to a vision of humanity that had no equivalent in the art of his day. Highlight works include This is how useful men usually end up (1814–23), a moving commentary on the consequences of poverty and war, and Literate animal (1824–28), a satirical image of an educated animal, which Goya drew in the last years of his life.

The works drawn from the Prado collection have been complemented by more than 120 etchings from Goya’s renowned print series: the Caprichos (1797–98), which satirised vices and follies in Spanish society; The Disasters of War (1810–15), based on the atrocities of the war and famine that followed the Napoleonic invasion of Spain in 1808; Tauromaquia (1815–16) on the subject of bullfighting; and the enigmatic Disparates (c. 1815–19), made during the reign of Ferdinand VII, whose suppression of civil liberties affected the lives of many intellectuals and reformers, including Goya and his friends. The prints are drawn from the NGV Collection with fifteen works on loan from the Art Gallery of South Australia. Goya’s most famous etching, The sleep of reason produces monsters, a striking composition of the sleeping artist haunted by monstrous apparitions, is also featured in the exhibition.

The exhibition is structured chronologically and thematically around recurring themes in Goya’s art, many of which are as relevant today as they were in Goya’s time: the relationship between men and women; the condemnation of ignorance and religious zeal; the exploration of violence and its consequences; and the device of the nightmare or dream to critique social and political realities.

Tony Ellwood AM, Director of the National Gallery of Victoria, said: “All aspects of society came under Goya’s critical eye—from education and marriage, to social justice and power relationships. Audiences to this exhibition will be astonished by the contemporary relevance of this exhibition and the universal themes that underpin the works of this celebrated Spanish artist.”

“The NGV has a longstanding relationship with the Prado Museum in Madrid, a cultural partnership which has resulted in the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces exhibition Italian Masterpieces from Spain’s Royal Court, as well as the NGV’s commitment to sharing its significant collection of William Blake watercolours with Spanish audiences in the near future. We are indebted to the Prado Museum for generously lending these important Goya drawings. Without their continued support and commitment to this cultural exchange between Europe and Australia, a presentation of this significance would not be possible,” said Ellwood.

Francisco de Goya y Lucientes was the most celebrated artist of his time in Spain. He was court painter to four monarchs and lived through the turbulent events of the French occupation, the subsequent Peninsular War, and the Inquisition. He moved in elite circles and painted portraits of statesmen, aristocrats, influential writers, and intellectuals. His friendships with liberals sharpened Goya’s political awareness and social conscience, which was particularly evident in his drawings and prints.

Goya: Drawings from the Prado Museum (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2021), 360 pages, ISBN: 978-1925432862, $70 (AUD). With contributions by José Manuel Matilla, Manuela Mena Marqués, Mark McDonald, Phillip Adams, Eric Campbell, Michael Christoforidis, Gideon Haigh, Adrian Martin, Richard Read, and Colm Tóibín, as well as NGV curators.

Pueblo de Teotenango, en el valle de Matalcingo, en Nueva España / Town of Teotenango, in the Matalcingo Valley, in New Spain, detail
(Seville: Archivo General de Indias, MP-MEXICO,33). More information is available here.

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Opening this fall at the Prado (with the English description from Spain.info). . .

Tornaviaje: Arte Iberoamericano en España / Tornaviaje: Ibero-American Art in Spain
Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, 5 October 2021 — 13 February 2022

Curated by Rafael López Guzmán, with Jaime Cuadriello and Pablo F. Amador

This exhibition at the Prado Museum brings together around a hundred works of art that arrived in Europe from the Americas during the Modern Era. Most of them are housed in cultural and religious institutions, or are in private collections, mainly in Spain. Return Journey is divided into four sections. The first, ‘Geography, Conquest, and Society’, looks at the concept of cultural landscape within the geographical framework of the Americas, the Spanish conquest, and the peoples who lived there during the Modern Era. The second, ‘The Pantheon of the Americas: Religious Exchanges’, addresses religious beliefs, in both the Iberian Peninsula and in the Americas, how they have impacted each other, and the resulting fusions. Visitors will find oil paintings, sculptures, and drawings from important centres of production in Lima, Alto Perú, Puebla de los Ángeles and Ciudad de México, together with works by renowned Spanish painters such as Murillo. The third section, ‘Art Journeys’, presents a wide range of household and religious artefacts; and the fourth, ‘Impronta Indiana’, brings together a series of works that reflect the artistic materiality of Spanish America throughout the Modern Era.

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El tornaviaje o viaje de regreso que da título a esta exposición nos permite valorar las obras de arte que llegaron desde América a España y, por extensión, a Europa durante la Edad Moderna.

La finalidad de esta muestra es visibilizar, a través de aproximadamente un centenar de obras, este rico patrimonio que, proveniente del Nuevo Mundo, se conserva en instituciones culturales, espacios religiosos o colecciones particulares, principalmente en España. Estos objetos, llegados en distintos momentos de la historia, forman parte de nuestro patrimonio histórico y cultural, sin que, a veces, reconozcamos las razones de su presencia.

La muestra se organiza en cuatro grandes secciones. La primera de ellas, ‘Geografía, Conquista y Sociedad’, gira en torno al concepto de paisaje cultural, dándose cita en el mismo la geografía de América, la conquista y las gentes que habitaron estos territorios durante la Edad Moderna. De esta forma, en esta sección, conviven obras de carácter religioso, aportes cristianos que justificaban la conquista, con valores estéticos indudables, a las que se unen vistas de ciudades en las que la traza urbana y el mercado con los productos de la tierra configuraron un paisaje sin igual. Espacios por donde deambulan y se desarrollan los distintos estamentos sociales, representados en cuadros de familias nobiliarias, eclesiásticos, virreyes y, claro está, indígenas, también con sus diferencias estamentales, que nos hablan de esa sociedad diversa.

Quizás el Biombo de la Conquista de México y La muy noble y leal ciudad de México resume con sus dos caras el concepto de esta sección, reproduciendo la conquista de Tenochtitlán, por un lado, y la ciudad de México, por el otro, habitada por más de doscientos personajes, representando el momento histórico constitutivo de América y la vitalidad de la capital novohispana y, por extensión, de las grandes ciudades capitales del nuevo continente.

Juan Patricio Morlete Ruiz (1713–1772), San José y el Niño / St Joseph with the Child Jesus (Church of Santa María la Real, or San Agustín of Badajoz, Spain).

La segunda sección, ‘El panteón americano. Devociones de ida y vuelta’, reúne una exquisita selección de óleos, esculturas y dibujos que tienen como objetivo analizar las devociones religiosas, tanto americanas como peninsulares, así como sus intercambios e hibridaciones. El visitante podrá entender el viaje y la transferencia de las imágenes de devoción, merced al patrocino de los indianos y de algunos virreyes, que reintegraron a sus lugares de origen parte de una memoria compartida; sobre todo, de sus experiencias de fe vividas desde ultramar. Quedará también patente en esta sección el constante envío de obras de pintura “fina” de los más afamados centros de producción de Lima, el Alto Perú, Puebla de los Ángeles o la Ciudad de México, así como obras realizadas en España, por importantes pintores como Murillo, que ejemplifican el impacto de los imaginarios americanos que formaron parte de la propaganda devocional y de los procesos de santificación.

La tercera sección, ‘Las travesías del arte’, se centra en uno de los intercambios comerciales con valores artísticos más fecundos como serían los objetos de ajuar que cruzaron el Atlántico con destino a los lugares más variopintos. Mobiliario diverso para el viaje o para las salas de las residencias dialogan con una nutrida selección de objetos de ajuar, domésticos y religiosos, que pretende cubrir un amplio abanico de tipologías, permitiendo mostrar físicamente el concepto de “tesoro” que asociamos con los objetos llegados de Indias. Los indianos, emigrantes enriquecidos en el nuevo mundo, son ese hilo que hilvana las lejanas tierras de donde proceden estos objetos con un crisol de pueblos y ciudades españolas.

La cuarta y última sección, ‘Impronta indiana’, reunirá un corpus de obras que, pese a su disparidad, se interrelacionan al ser referentes y reflejos de la materialidad artística hispanoamericana a lo largo de la Edad Moderna. Tendremos la ocasión de entender cómo la larga tradición artística prehispánica se adapta a las nuevas exigencias de los reinos hispánicos. Cómo leen los maestros artesanos indígenas las indicaciones y demandas de la nueva sociedad y cómo, a su vez, integran lenguajes y simbología de su propia cultura, permitiendo en su conjunto valorar la riqueza del patrimonio que llegado de América fue integrándose y moldeando, cambiando sin rupturas, la cultura de la península ibérica y, también, la europea; asumiendo América como parte de nuestra identidad.

Las investigaciones que han conducido a la concreción de este proyecto se reflejarán también en un catálogo que acompañará a la exposición.

El proyecto está comisariado por Rafael López Guzmán, Catedrático de Historia del Arte Iberoamericano en la Universidad de Granada, y cuenta con la colaboración de varios especialistas en cultura visual del periodo virreinal en América.

Rafael López Guzmán, Adrián Contreras-Guerrero, Gloria Espinosa, Jaime Cuadriello, and Pablo F. Amador, Return Journey: Art of the Americas in Spain (Madrid: Prado, 2021), 304 pages, ISBN: 978-8484805632, 32€. Also available in Spanish and Castellano editions.

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Note (added 4 October 2021) — The posting was updated to include a revised English title, identification of the exhibition’s curators, and details for the catalogue.

Note (added 14 October 2021) — The press release (in English) is available via Art Daily.