Enfilade

Press release (23 January 2017) from the CMA:

The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) has announced the appointment of Emily J. Peters as Curator of Prints and Drawings. The museum’s renowned collection of prints and drawings, ranging from the Renaissance to the early 21st century, is distinguished by the quality and rarity of its holdings. Peters’s appointment follows an international search. She will assume her responsibilities at the CMA in April.

“Emily is an exceptional curator with a remarkable eye and creative approach. Her range of expertise and scholarly interests—which span five centuries and a panoply of graphic mediums—are admirable. We very much look forward to having Emily as a colleague in Cleveland,” said Director William M. Griswold.

As Curator of Prints and Drawings, Peters will oversee the care and development of the collection, working closely with the Director and Chief Curator on the identification and acquisition of works of art to augment the collection. Together with an Assistant or Associate Curator of Prints and Drawings—who will be appointed later this year—Peters will be responsible for exhibitions in the James and Hanna Bartlett Prints and Drawings Galleries; she will also curate special exhibitions in the Smith Foundation Hall and Gallery that highlight all aspects of European and American graphic art. Peters will also develop interpretive and didactic materials designed to appeal to broad audiences, helping to deepen visitors’ appreciation and understanding of graphic art.

The collections for which Peters will be responsible span more than 500 years of artistic production throughout Europe and the United States. Consisting of approximately 22,000 prints and 4,000 drawings, the collection is internationally known for its rarity and high quality. Areas of particular strength include Italian Renaissance drawings by Michelangelo and Raphael as well as a strong group of engravings and woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer. Highlights of the 17th century include drawings and a range of etched subjects by Rembrandt van Rijn, while an impressive group of early lithographs and celebrated drawings by Ingres and Degas stand out among the 19th-century holdings. The drawings collection is admired for watercolors by Blake, Turner and Palmer, and for luminous pastels by Cassatt and Redon. Among the highlights of modernism is a group of more than 50 German Expressionist prints and drawings by Miró, Picasso, and Winslow Homer.

“I am honored to be joining the Cleveland Museum of Art at this exciting time,” said Peters. “Cleveland’s collection of prints and drawings is one of the finest in the United States, and I have long admired its many treasures as well as the important exhibitions and acquisitions presented by my predecessors at the museum. I look forward to thinking about new ways to present the collection and to working with my colleagues to augment its holdings in keeping with the CMA’s rich history of collecting. I am particularly looking forward to getting to know the vibrant community of prints and drawings supporters in Cleveland via the Print Club and the Painting and Drawing Society.”

Peters brings more than a decade of curatorial work and museum experience to the CMA. In 2005, she joined the curatorial team at the RISD Museum as Assistant Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs; in 2008, she was promoted to Associate Curator. A specialist of 15th- and 16th-century Netherlandish prints and drawings, Peters has mounted at RISD such diverse exhibitions as Design and Description: Renaissance and Baroque Drawings (2006); Urban America, 1930–1970 (2007); The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver 1480–1650 (2009); and The Festive City (2014); and Landscape and Leisure: 19th-Century American Drawings from the Collection (2015). Along with organizing exhibitions, Peters has collaborated closely with her curatorial colleagues at RISD in planning the reinstallation of the museum’s European galleries, set to open in the fall of 2017.

In addition to her curatorial work, Peters has extensive experience teaching. While at the RISD Museum, she has worked closely with professors and students at Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University, collaborating with professors on exhibitions and publications and supervising undergraduate and graduate students who research the museum’s collection and curate exhibitions. Peters has also taught art history at Rhode Island College and the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Peters’s scholarship has been widely praised. Her exhibition catalogue The Brilliant Line: Following the Early Modern Engraver 1480–1650 (2009) received a first-place award from the New England Museum Association, and her catalogue essay, “Systems and Swells: The Collective Lineage of Engraved Lines” was deemed runner-up for essay of the year by the Association of Art Museum Curators. Research for The Brilliant Line was funded by grants from the Samuel Kress Foundation, the International Fine Prints Dealers Association, and the Foundation for the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works. Peters has authored numerous scholarly articles including “Processional Print Series in Antwerp during the Dutch Revolt,” Print Quarterly 32 (September 2015): 259–70; “Treasures from the Vault: Leaf e from the Biblia Pauperum, ca. 1460s,” in Art in Print 3 (November/December 2013): 28–31; and “Printing Ritual: The Performance of Community in Christopher Plantin’s La Joyeuse & Magnifique Entrée de Monseigneur Francoys . . . d’Anjou (Antwerp, 1592)” Renaissance Quarterly 61 (2008): 61–2.

Holding a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara, Peters has been the recipient of several fellowships from institutions including the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at UCSB, the Belgian American Educational Foundation, and the American Association of Netherlandic Studies. In 2002–03, she was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship for dissertation research in Antwerp. Emily J. Peters will be moving to Cleveland with her family.

Pierre Henri de Valenciennes, View of the Roman Campagna near Subiaco, ca.1782
(Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 7359)

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Press release (January 2017) from Sweden’s Nationalmuseum:

Sweden’s Nationalmuseum has acquired three landscape studies from Italy in oil by Pierre Henri de Valenciennes and Simon Denis. Views of Rome and the surrounding countryside have a distinguished pedigree. For a long time, they remained true to the 17th-century landscape ideal and were painted in the studio. Valenciennes and Denis broke new ground by making sketches in oil, often on paper, on location. The light and weather conditions were as important as the subject, so the works were produced quickly. Despite being preparatory studies, these oil sketches laid the foundations for much of the 19th-century’s plein air painting.

Simon Denis, Study of the Roman Campagna, ca. 1800 (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 7336).

Pierre Henri de Valenciennes (1750–1819) is considered a pioneer who had a major influence on French art as both a theorist and a teacher. He was elected to the academy of fine arts in Paris in 1787, and served as professor of perspective theory from 1812 onward. Élémens de perspective pratique à l’usage des artistes (1800), his treatise on practical landscape painting with a focus on perspective, was particularly significant. Eventually his efforts led the academy to establish a dedicated prize for historical landscape painting. The recently acquired View of the Roman Campagna near Subiaco shows Valenciennes’s skill in capturing the lighting conditions and cloud shadows through brushwork that is both sensitive and vivid. The painting depicts the movement of the wind and its effects rather more than the landscape itself. Oil sketches of this kind, painted on location, differ radically from the works Valenciennes created in his studio. The latter portray an idealised version of nature, with scenes from classical mythology, but thanks to the introduction of oil sketches to the process, the lighting and colouring are markedly different from those seen in 17th-century landscape painting.

Simon Denis, The Waterfall in Neptune’s Grotto at Tivoli, ca. 1790 (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 7358).

Simon Denis (1755–1813), a native of Antwerp, travelled via Paris to Italy, where he stayed for the rest of his life. Long overlooked, Denis was rediscovered in 1992 when a large number of his oil sketches were put up for sale. These had been passed down through generations of the artist’s descendants, so had stayed out of the public eye. His technique is reminiscent of Valenciennes, with similarly economical brushwork and a focus on the lighting and weather conditions. Unlike the idealised landscapes, the oil sketches portray nature as changeable, which the recently acquired pieces exemplify superbly. The view of the Roman Campagna, in particular, shows Denis’s skill in capturing atmospheric phenomena with great simplicity. The results are magnificent and the effect almost illusory. The smaller oil sketch depicts Neptune’s Grotto at Tivoli. With masterful simplicity, Denis captures the play of light in the waterfall and the foliage in the foreground contrasted with the dark cliff. The work appears to have been painted in haste, with thinly applied colours that dried rapidly, allowing the artist to move on to the next layer. A crouching figure at lower right serves to illustrate the scale of the subject.

When Nationalmuseum reopens after renovations, these three new acquisitions will enable the museum to better chart the beginnings of plein air painting. This would not have been possible without the generous support of the Wiros Fund, the Sophia Giesecke Fund, and the Hedda and N D Qvist Memorial Fund. Nationalmuseum has no budget of its own for new acquisitions, but relies on gifting and financial support from private funds and foundations to enhance its collections of fine art and craft.

Press release (13 January 2017) from the V&A:

The V&A Trustees have today appointed Dr Tristram Hunt as the new Director of the V&A. Hunt has served as Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent Central since 2010 and was previously the Shadow Secretary of State and Shadow Minister for Education. A historian, politician, writer, and broadcaster, Hunt is an expert on the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with a particular focus on Victorian urban history. He is the author of several books, including The English Civil War: At First Hand and most recently Ten Cities That Made An Empire. A regular history broadcaster on BBC and Channel 4, Hunt has made more than a dozen series on subjects including Elgar and Empire, Isaac Newton, and the English Civil War. Hunt lectures on modern British history at Queen Mary University of London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a founder of the Stoke-on-Trent Literary Festival and a Patron of the British Ceramics Biennial, and was previously a Trustee of both the Heritage Lottery Fund and the National Heritage Memorial Fund, and a Curator of the Mayor of London’s History Festival.

Hunt’s support of the ceramics industry, together with the Art Fund, played an important role in saving the Wedgwood Collection in 2014. The collection was gifted to the V&A and is on long-term loan to the Wedgwood Museum in Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent. He brings widespread expertise across education, industry, and politics to the V&A and a keen awareness of the important role of major public institutions in the UK, having been at the forefront of political, cultural and public life for the last decade. Hunt’s appointment has been confirmed by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, and he will join the Museum in the coming months.

Announcing the appointment, V&A Chairman Nicholas Coleridge said: “On behalf of the Trustees, I am delighted to announce the appointment of Dr Tristram Hunt as Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum. He has a highly compelling mixture of experience across public life, the arts, history, education and academia, and knows our collections well from his writing and broadcasting. In addition, he is an informed and articulate leader and communicator on numerous facets of culture, both historic and contemporary, and I greatly look forward to working with him at the V&A.”

Dr Tristram Hunt said: “I am delighted and honoured to have been appointed Director of the V&A. I have loved the V&A since I was a boy, and today it is a global leader in its unrivalled collections, special exhibitions, academic research, and visitor experience. It is a moment of transformation and renewal for the V&A, with the upcoming opening of the new Exhibition Road entrance and new sites and galleries in Dundee, China, and Stratford. I am particularly pleased that, through the V&A ownership of the Wedgwood Collection, my passion for education in Stoke-on-Trent can continue. The combination of the power of the collections and expertise of an inspirational team is what makes the V&A the world’s greatest museum of art, design, and performance. I am honoured to take on this exciting opportunity.”

Hunt has a First Class degree in history from the University of Cambridge (1995), before serving as an Exchange Fellow at The University of Chicago (1996). Hunt also has a PhD from the University of Cambridge on “Civil Thought in Britain, 1820–1860.” He has lectured on British and international culture at the Centre for European Studies, University of California, Berkeley; the Centre for European Studies at Harvard; Princeton University; and the National University of Singapore.

After working on the 1997 General Election campaign, he became a Special Adviser to Science Minister Lord Sainsbury (1997–2000), Associate Fellow at the Centre for History and Economics, King’s College, Cambridge and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Between 2001 and 2010, Hunt combined his post as Senior Lecturer in British History at Queen Mary, University of London with work as a history broadcaster, presenting over fifteen radio and television programmes for the BBC and Channel 4 on subjects including Elgar and Empire, Isaac Newton, and the English Civil War. In addition to making regular contributions to The Guardian and The Observer, he is also the author of The English Civil War: At First Hand (2002), Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City (2004), and the award-winning biography, The Frock-coated Communist: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels (2009), and Ten Cities That Made an Empire (2014). During this period, Hunt also served as a Trustee of the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the Heritage Lottery Fund, and the Centre for Cities think-tank.

Since entering Parliament, Hunt has focused on educational excellence, the regeneration needs of Stoke-on-Trent, the ceramics industry, and energy intensive sector. He is a Trustee of the History of Parliament Trust and fellow of the Royal Historical Society. From October 2013 until September 2015, Hunt served as Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary focusing on developing Labour’s policy on teachers’ professional development, vocational education and early years education.

One of 2016’s notable acquisitions; press release (July 2016) from the Science Museum:

Alexander Cumming, George III Mahogany Longcase Barograph Regulator, London, 1766, with a case likely by Thomas Chippendale (London: Science Museum).

A rare Georgian clock, capable of recording changes in air pressure and used at the dawn of climate science, has been acquired for the nation by the Science Museum. The acquisition of this exceptional clock was made possible by a grant from Art Fund and was purchased through Sotheby’s. Dated 1766, the barograph clock is one of only four of its type that highly-regarded London clockmaker Alexander Cumming is known to have constructed. It was used by renowned meteorologist Luke Howard to conduct some of the world’s first urban climate studies.

Following Cumming’s death in 1814, Luke Howard purchased the clock and used it for observations of atmospheric pressure at his homes in London and Ackworth, a crucial project in the emergence of climate science. The data from the barograph traces, accompanied by notes on global weather events and descriptions of the clock, were published in the book Barometrographia in 1847. Howard’s life’s work has earned him the nickname ‘the father of scientific meteorology’.

Inside the imposing 7ft 2in-high decorated case, thought to be made by famed London cabinet maker Thomas Chippendale, is a barograph mechanism used for measuring air pressure. The barograph comprises two tubes of mercury in which a float rises and falls as atmospheric pressure changes. This data is recorded on the clock dial, which rotates once a year. A fine example of the technical innovations of the Georgian period, the clock was designed by Cumming using ideas first outlined by Royal Society founding member Robert Hooke. It has featured in previous exhibitions at the Science Museum as a loan and curators are now planning a permanent display.

Ian Blatchford, Director of the Science Museum Group, said of the acquisition “Nothing beats the marriage of an exquisite object and an enquiring mind. We are delighted to have been able to save the barograph clock so that we can share the story of Luke Howard’s contribution to climate science with future generations.”

During the Georgian period, scientific practice was often presented in public as a high-status activity expressed through ornately decorated and very finely constructed instruments such as this, and in fact the first barograph clock that Cumming constructed was commissioned by King George III as a prime example of his pursuit of Enlightenment.

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MFA staff members install Benjamin West’s large painting Devout Men Taking the Body of Saint Stephen (1776) in the Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Gallery. Fidelity Investments chairman Edward ‘Ned’ Johnson III acquired the painting in 2014 for $2.9million from St. Stephen Walbrook (the export license was issued in March of that year). He donated it, anonymously, to the MFA in 2015 in honor of Malcolm Rogers to celebrate the museum director’s twenty years of leadership. Details and more on Johnson’s collections are available from Beth Healy’s article, “The Quiet Man of Boston’s Art Scene,” in The Boston Globe (22 August 2015).

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From the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (via Art Daily), and good timing: it’s St Stephen’s Day! . . .

The recently acquired Devout Men Taking the Body of Saint Stephen (1776) by Benjamin West (1738–1820) is one of the largest paintings in the MFA’s collection—together with its towering frame, it measures more than 18 1/2 feet tall. Over the past two years, the monumental altarpiece was treated in the Conservation in Action studio, where Museum visitors were able to witness the gradual process of cleaning and restoring the work. The painting and its original gilded wood frame, which was also conserved, are now reunited as the dramatic centerpiece of a new installation that explores how 18th-century artworks and artists traveled across both intellectual and geographical borders.

Thomas Malton (1748–1804), St Stephen Walbrook, London, watercolour over pencil, 26 × 18 inches (London: Lowell Libson LTD). West’s painting is visible at the altar.

West was the first American-born painter to study abroad, second president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and painter to the English king. Devout Men Taking Away the Body of Saint Stephen, among the largest works he ever produced, was commissioned for London’s St. Stephen’s Walbrook, a church designed by Christopher Wren, and showcases West’s profound understanding of Italian Renaissance art. Italy likewise held special allure for well-to-do travelers on the Grand Tour, such as the American couple in John Singleton Copley’s portrait of Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Izard (1775), painted in Rome. Meanwhile, Italian painters ventured abroad as well—the gallery includes Canaletto’s Bacino di San Marco, Venice (about 1738), a trademark view of his home city, and Capriccio: A Sluice on a River with a Chapel (1754), painted in England, where he spent nine years catering to an enthusiastic clientele. Adding to the rich mix of works by American, English, and Italian painters are sculpture and decorative arts by French and German artists.

The 18th century was a cosmopolitan age. Artists and patrons traveled widely: in pursuit of artistic training or opportunity, political service, or social refinement. And as people moved, so too did ideas, styles, and tastes, in art and beyond. Across Europe (and America), Italy held special allure: artists traveled there to absorb its millennia of artistic traditions, as did well-heeled visitors on the Grand Tour. The fashion for Italian art was especially strong in England, where American-born painter Benjamin West created this towering altarpiece, influenced by his study of Renaissance masters Titian and Raphael. Italian artists also often ventured abroad. Canaletto, famous for his view paintings of his home city of Venice, spent nearly a decade in England, catering to an enthusiastic clientele.

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Press release (21 December 2016) from the Rijskmuseum (as announced by The Burlington Magazine via Twitter, the magazine will publish an article on the painting in February).

Jean-Etienne Liotard, A Dutch Girl at Breakfast, ca. 1756–57, oil on canvas, 47 × 39 cm (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum).

The British government today granted an export license for the painting A Dutch Girl at Breakfast by Jean-Etienne Liotard, which the Rijksmuseum has recently purchased from a private collection in which it had remained for more than 240 years. The painting is an intimate ode to Dutch Golden Age painting. The peripatetic Genevan pastellist Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702–1789) created the work in the style of Dutch seventeenth-century masters during a long sojourn in Holland around 1756. As one of his few oil-paintings, A Dutch Girl at Breakfast is an important addition to the famous group of pastels by Liotard that have been in the Rijksmuseum since 1885. This stunning new acquisition will be shown in the Rijksmuseum’s Gallery of Honour from mid-January.

Taco Dibbits, General Director of the Rijksmuseum, states: “A Dutch Girl at Breakfast radiates the same atmosphere of peace and simplicity as Vermeer’s Milkmaid. In this sensitive representation, the painter allows us to get very close to his subject. As the girl carefully opens the tap of the coffee-pot, she won’t allow herself to be disturbed by the millions of visitors who will come to see her. We are extremely grateful to the funds and private donors who made it possible to acquire this masterpiece for The Netherlands.”

With the support of the BankGiro Loterij, Rembrandt Association through its ‘Nationaal Fonds Kunstbezit’, Mondriaan Fund, VSBfonds, Rijksmuseum Fonds, and many private donors, the Rijksmuseum was able to purchase this work at auction in London for nearly €5.2 million (commission included) [Sotheby’s London, Old Masters Evening Sale (6 July 2016), Sale L16033, Lot #36].

A Dutch Girl at Breakfast is one of Jean-Etienne Liotard’s most beautiful works. In it, he reveals himself as one of the earliest eighteenth-century artists from abroad to put his fascination with Dutch painting of the seventeenth century into practice. On this small canvas (47 × 39 cm) he portrays a young woman sitting in a typically Dutch interior. All the characteristics of Dutch seventeenth-century ‘genre’ are present: the everyday scene, the intimate ambiance, the sober colours, the sophisticated rendering of textures, and the painted church-interior in the background. Nevertheless the furnishings and tableware are all from Liotard’s own time. The mise-en-scène is strongly reminiscent of the well-known interiors of his predecessors Johannes Vermeer, Gerard Dou, and Frans van Mieris.

After long sojourns in Vienna, Paris, and London—where he enjoyed great success as a portraitist—Liotard travelled to Holland in 1755 to pursue this lucrative career. A Dutch Girl at Breakfast was clearly inspired by his experiences in the country. As a connoisseur of Dutch Golden Age painting, he also managed to assemble a collection of over 60 works by Old Masters. In 1756 at Amsterdam he married Marie Fargues, born and bred in Holland but a Huguenot like himself. His splendid pastel portrait of her is in the Rijksmuseum’s collection. Their eldest son later settled in Amsterdam, bringing many of this father’s works with him.

Eighteenth-century European painting is not particularly well represented in the Netherlands. The subject of this painting, the way it is presented, and the work’s close historical connection with the Netherlands will give iconic status to A Dutch Girl at Breakfast within the Dutch national collections. After its presentation in the Gallery of Honour it will take pride of place in the Rijksmuseum galleries for the arts of the eighteenth century. It will also be reunited there with the remarkable group of Liotard’s pastels donated by his Dutch descendants at the end of the nineteenth century. Only some 30 oil paintings by Liotard are known—as opposed to 540 pastels. Genre pieces by him are even scarcer, though this is a type of art for which he is well known, especially in works such as The Belle Chocolatière at Dresden. With this acquisition, the Rijksmuseum’s representation of Liotard’s oeuvre has been considerably strengthened.

Liotard appears to have kept the A Dutch Girl at Breakfast for himself until 1774, when he included it in a sale of his collection in London. It was bought there by his principal British patron, the 2nd Earl of Bessborough (1704–1793), with whose descendants it has remained until now.

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And if the acquisition weren’t enough reason by itself to visit the Rijksmuseum, there’s also the news that RIJKS, the Rijksmuseum restaurant led by chef Joris Bijdendijk, has just been awarded a Michelin star, as announced during the launch of the Dutch edition of Michelin’s 2017 hotel-and-restaurant guide in Amsterdam.

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As reported by Lorena Muñoz-Alonso for ArtNet News (21 December 2016) . . .

On Tuesday, Pope Francis announced that the new director of the Vatican Museums will be the Italian art historian Barbara Jatta. This is a momentous occasion as it marks the first time in history that a woman will helm the art institution, one of the most important in the art world. The new director will take up the post in January 1, 2017, succeeding Antonio Paolucci, an art historian and former Italian culture minister who’s held the position since 2007. Previously to this appointment, Jatta worked at the Vatican Library, overseeing its collection of prints . . .

The full article is available here»

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Hannah McGivern and Arianna Antoniutti report on Jatta’s appointment for The Art Newspaper (21 December 2016)

Born in Rome, Jatta worked as conservator and cataloguer for Italy’s Istituto Nazionale per la Grafica (national institute for graphic arts) from 1981 to 1996. She has been in charge of the Vatican Library’s works on paper since 1996, with responsibility for its exhibitions, acquisitions and archives. Jatta has also published extensively on the Vatican’s prints and drawings collections, including the first catalogue of drawings by Bernini and his school in 2015.

Her appointment anticipates the reopening of the Vatican Museums’ New Wing (Braccio Nuovo) on 22 December. Commissioned by Pope Pius VII, the 19th-century gallery was designed by the sculptor Antonio Canova to house the repatriated papal collections of classical sculpture, which had been plundered by Napoleon during his Italian campaign . . .

The full article is available here»

Press release (15 December 2016) from The Cleveland Museum of Art:

The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) has announced the appointment of Marjorie E. (Betsy) Wieseman as the Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos Jr. Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture, 1500–1800. The museum’s collection of Old Master European paintings and sculpture is of international importance, ranging from works created in the early years of the Renaissance through the Rococo period. Wieseman’s appointment follows an international search. She will assume her responsibilities at the CMA sometime this spring.

“Betsy is an extraordinarily accomplished and productive curator and an elegant writer. The exhibitions she has curated for the National Gallery, London, have been celebrated for their scholarship, sensitivity, and beauty,” said Director William Griswold.

As Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture, 1500–1800, Wieseman will oversee the care and development of the collection and work closely with the Director and Chief Curator on the identification and acquisition of artworks to augment the collection. She will oversee special exhibitions exploring all aspects of European painting and sculpture from 1500 to 1800. The collections for which Wieseman will be responsible span three hundred years of artistic production throughout Europe and encompass paintings on panel and canvas and sculpture in wood, terracotta, bronze, and marble. Areas of particular strength are the museum’s Italian and Spanish Baroque paintings and German and Austrian Baroque sculpture. The collection also has a number of internationally significant Italian Renaissance paintings and French and Flemish paintings of the 16th and 17th centuries. The museum’s holdings of portrait miniatures are among the most outstanding in the world.

“I am thrilled to have been chosen to be the next Paul J. and Edith Ingalls Vignos Jr. Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture, 1500–1800. I look forward to working with my new colleagues at the CMA to share the museum’s world-class collection with even wider audiences. The collection offers an endless source of inspiration, and I am honored to have the opportunity to bring these beautiful works to life for museum visitors,” said Betsy Wieseman.

Wieseman brings more than twenty-five years of curatorial work and museum experience to the CMA. She has been Curator of Dutch Paintings, 1600–1800, at the National Gallery, London, since 2006; 17th- and 18th-century Flemish paintings were added to her purview in 2012. At the National Gallery she curated and co-curated acclaimed exhibitions such as Dutch Flowers (2016); Rembrandt: The Late Works (2014–15); Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure (2013); Close Examinations: Fakes, Mistakes, and Discoveries (2010); and Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals (2007). Also, while at the National Gallery, she curated an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge: Vermeer’s Women: Secrets and Silence (2011–12).

Before moving to London, Wieseman held curatorial positions in two Ohio museums. As Curator of European Paintings and Sculpture at the Cincinnati Art Museum, she curated a wide variety of exhibitions including Perfect Likeness: European and American Portrait Miniatures from the Cincinnati Art Museum (2006); Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches by Peter Paul Rubens (Bruce Museum of Arts and Science, Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive, and Cincinnati Art Museum, 2004); and A Brush with Nature: The Gere Collection of Landscape Oil Sketches (2003). As Curator of Western Art before 1850 at the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, she spearheaded projects that focused on her area of specialization—17th-century Dutch painting—as well as working on exhibitions that featured (among other topics) American landscapes, German Expressionist paintings, and portrait miniatures.

Wieseman is a prolific scholar. Recent work has included contributions to numerous exhibition catalogues including: Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry (Musée du Louvre, Paris; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; and National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 2017); Beyond Caravaggio (The National Gallery, London; National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin; and The Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 2016); and Vermeer and Rembrandt: The Masters of the 17th Century Dutch Golden Age (Kyoto, and Tokyo: Mori Arts Centre Gallery and Fukushima Prefectural Museum of Art, 2016). Among her many other contributions to the literature on 17th-century Dutch art are essays such as “A Courtly Art Comes to The Hague: Portrait Miniatures at the Court of Elizabeth of Bohemia,” in Face Book: Studies on Dutch and Flemish Portraiture of the 16th–18th Centuries, edited by Edwin Buijsen, Charles Dumas, and Volker Manuth (Leiden: Primavera Pers, 2012); “Rembrandt’s Portrait(s?) of Frederick Rihel,” National Gallery Technical Bulletin 31 (2010); and “Paper Trails: Drawing in the Work of Caspar Netscher, his Pupils and Followers,” in Collected Opinions: Essays on Netherlandish Art in Honour of Alfred Bader, edited by Volker Manuth and Axel Rüger (London: Holberton, 2004).

Holding a PhD from Columbia University, Wieseman has been the recipient of numerous awards including a Robert H. and Clarice Smith Fellowship from CASVA, a Theodore Rousseau Fellowship from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, as well as a Fulbright Grant for Graduate Study Abroad.

Betsy Wieseman will be moving to Cleveland with her husband, Allen Wright.

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