Exhibition | Titian to Canaletto: Drawing in Venice
Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto (1697‒1768), An Island in the Lagoon, pen, brown ink with grey wash over ruled pencil lines on blue paper, 20 x 27.9 cm (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Press release (28 August 2015) for the exhibition opening this week at the Ashmolean:
Titian to Canaletto: Drawing in Venice
Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford, 15 October 2015 — 10 January 2016
Curated by Catherine Whistler
Featuring a hundred drawings from the Uffizi, the Ashmolean, and Christ Church, Oxford, Titian to Canaletto is a groundbreaking exhibition based on new research. Venetian art has long been associated with brilliant colours and free brushwork, but drawing has been written out of its history. This exhibition highlights the significance of drawing as a concept and as a practice in the artistic life of Venice. It reveals the variety of purposes and techniques in drawing from Bellini, Titian and Tintoretto to Tiepolo and Canaletto. In a parallel exhibition, Jenny Saville Drawing, one of the UK’s most celebrated contemporary artists, Jenny Saville, has produced new work on paper and canvas in response to the Venetian Old Masters.
Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1682‒1754), Head of a Youth, black and white chalks on brownish paper, 31.5 x 29.9 cm (Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford)
Putting the words ‘drawing’ and ‘Venice’ together seems paradoxical. Writing on Venetian art has located creativity and artistic ambition in painting above all, emphasizing the materiality and sensuous effects achieved by Venetian artists. The intellectual and reflective qualities encapsulated in drawing are seen as irrelevant in the artistic world of Venice. The idea that Venetian artists did not use or value drawing was articulated in Florence, in Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists of 1568. Vasari’s influential statements were repeated and elaborated by later writers, so that in 1770s London, Joshua Reynolds confidently asserted that artists in Venice did not care about drawing with all of its virtues of discrimination and judgement, and that they went straight to working with brushes on canvas. This potent literary tradition had a major impact on the survival of drawings.
Titian to Canaletto presents new research which traces continuities in Venetian drawing over three centuries, from around 1500 to the foundation of the first academy of art in Venice in 1750. The exhibition emphasizes the role of drawing from sculpture and from life in the education and identities of Venetian artists, and it reveals tensions between theory and practice in the activities of artists and of collectors. Venetian artists used drawing for innovating and experimenting, or as a tool for research and observation; a variety of drawings were made and admired as works of art in their own right. The exhibition poses questions about the survival and value of drawings: does the fact that we have so few by Titian mean that he did not draw? Why were many Venetian drawings thought unworthy of collecting?
Ironically, while the story that Venetian artists did not respect drawing was first told in Florence, one of the world’s great collections of Venetian drawings is held at the Uffizi where many drawings were acquired in the mid-seventeenth century for Leopoldo de’Medici. Not only are there masterpieces by Carpaccio, Bassano, Titian and Tintoretto, and high-quality works by lesser-known seventeenth- century artists, there are also drawings that reveal early attitudes to collecting and connoisseurship. The Uffizi will also lend drawings by Tiepolo that have never been shown before, to be grouped with the Ashmolean’s own superb collection. Pioneering collectors in England owned Venetian drawings, and loans of important works by Veronese and Tintoretto will come from the intact early eighteenth-century collection at Christ Church, Oxford, together with the extraordinary Portrait of a man, by Giovanni Bellini.
Dr Catherine Whistler, Keeper of the Department of Western Art, Ashmolean Museum, and curator of the exhibition, says: “The beauty and visual impact of these drawings speak eloquently of the importance of drawing in Venice. We hope this exhibition will challenge traditional views of Venetian art and provoke new thinking on some of the greatest names in Italian art from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century.”
Dr Alexander Sturgis, Director of the Ashmolean, says: “The Ashmolean is bringing to a close its year of drawings exhibitions with this landmark show. Titian to Canaletto includes some of the Ashmolean’s greatest treasures, brought together with examples from two of the world’s finest collections of Old Master drawings—that of the Uffizi and the Christ Church Picture Gallery. Many of the works in the exhibition have not been displayed in public since the 1950s. The captivating beauty of these drawings is evident in the response they have elicited from one of this country’s most distinguished contemporary artists, Jenny Saville, who has produced a new body of work inspired by pieces in the exhibition and her enduring love of Venetian art.”
In Jenny Saville Drawing, Jenny Saville will present a body of drawings, including several new and unseen works in a dedicated exhibition space that accompanies Titian to Canaletto: Drawing in Venice. The rich material and gestural qualities of Venetian drawings have been an inspiration for the thoughtful yet visceral works on paper and canvas that will be on view. For Jenny Saville, the blurred or grainy charcoal marks and the agile, robust pen lines of Venetian artists such as Titian or Palma Giovane become catalysts for exploring the nature and power of drawing, in new, highly charged works of art.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
The catalogue is distributed by ACC:
Catherine Whistler, ed., Drawing in Venice: Titian to Canaletto (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum/ Woodstocker Books, 2015), 256 pages, ISBN: 978-1854442994, $45.
Featuring over a hundred drawings from the outstanding collections of graphic art at the Uffizi, Florence, and the Ashmolean, and Christ Church, Oxford, Drawing in Venice is based on ground-breaking new research and accompanies an Ashmolean-Uffizi collaborative exhibition (2015–16) which traces continuities in Venetian drawing over three centuries, from around 1500 down to the foundation of the first academy of art in Venice in 1750.
Venetian art has long been associated with brilliant colours and free brushwork, but drawing has been written out of its history. This book highlights the significance of drawing as a concept and as a practice in the artistic life of Venice. It reveals the variety of aims, purposes, and techniques in drawing through the works of the Venetian Renaissance masters Giovanni Bellini, Titian, and Tintoretto to those of the great eighteenth-century artists, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and Canaletto.
Dr Catherine Whistler is Keeper of the Western Art Department at the Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Her previous publications include Michelangelo and Raphael Drawings (1990); Drawings by the Carracci from British Collections (joint author, 1996); Opulence and Devotion: Brazilian Baroque Art (2001); and Graceful and True: Drawings in Florence c.1600 (joint author, 2003).
C O N T E N T S
Essays
1 Catherine Whistler, Drawing in Venice from Titian to Canaletto: Practice and Perception
2 Giorgio Marini, Disegni a stampa: Drawing Practice and Printmaking in Venice from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries
3 Marzia Faietti, Giorgio Vasari’s ‘Life of Titian’: Critical Misinterpretations and Preconceptions Concerning Venetian Drawing
4 Jacqueline Thalmann, General John Guise and His Collection of Venetian Drawings
Catalogue Entries
Glossary of Materials and Techniques of Drawing
Artists’ Biographies
Bibliography
New Book | Eternity’s Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake
From Yale UP:
Leo Damrosch, Eternity’s Sunrise: The Imaginative World of William Blake (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 344 pages, ISBN: 978-0300200676, $30.
William Blake (1757–1827), overlooked in his time, remains an enigmatic figure to contemporary readers despite his near canonical status. Out of a wounding sense of alienation and dividedness he created a profoundly original symbolic language, in which words and images unite in a unique interpretation of self and society. He was a counterculture prophet whose art still challenges us to think afresh about almost every aspect of experience—social, political, philosophical, religious, erotic, and aesthetic. He believed that we live in the midst of Eternity here and now, and that if we could open our consciousness to the fullness of being, it would be like experiencing a sunrise that never ends.
Following Blake’s life from beginning to end, acclaimed biographer Leo Damrosch draws extensively on Blake’s poems, his paintings, and his etchings and engravings to offer this generously illustrated account of Blake the man and his vision of our world. The author’s goal is to inspire the reader with the passion he has for his subject, achieving the imaginative response that Blake himself sought to excite. The book is an invitation to understanding and enjoyment, an invitation to appreciate Blake’s imaginative world and, in so doing, to open the doors of our perception.
Leo Damrosch is Research Professor of Literature, Harvard University. His previous books include Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius, a National Book Award finalist; Tocqueville’s Discovery of America; and Jonathan Swift: His Life and His World, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography. He lives in Newton, MA.
AIC Director Douglas Druick Announces Retirement
Douglas Druick, photo by Robert Carl
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Press release from the Art Institute of Chicago, via ArtDaily (8 October 2015). . .
Douglas Druick, President and Eloise W. Martin Director announced today his plans to retire from the Art Institute of Chicago. An internationally recognized scholar and curator who joined the Art Institute in 1985, during his distinguished 30 years of service Druick chaired two of the museum’s eleven curatorial departments and led the institution as its president and director since 2011, overseeing many milestones in the museum’s illustrious history.
“Douglas is one of the most respected, thoughtful, and innovative museum leaders in the world. He has made extraordinary contributions to the development of the Art Institute—ushering the museum into the digital age, achieving an unparalleled ranking among the world’s top three museums on TripAdvisor for three years running, and managing the largest gift of art since the museum’s founding with the contemporary works from Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson,” said Bob Levy, Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago. “Douglas’s initiatives to place a stronger emphasis than ever before on visitor access and engagement, and to champion global diversity as it is reflected in the museum’s audiences, collections, and programs, will only continue to advance the Art Institute’s global reach and reputation for excellence.”
“It has been my honor to serve as the Art Institute’s president and director,” said Druick. “I have been deeply proud to lead one of the finest museums in the world, and to work for three decades with an exceptional cadre of remarkably talented museum colleagues. It is my hope that together we have ensured a solid footing for the Art Institute to continue to grow stronger and more vibrant, financially stable and internationally renowned, with a future filled with more opportunities than challenges.”
Under Druick’s leadership, since 2011, the Art Institute has offered more than 100 internationally recognized and innovative exhibitions that have inspired and educated millions of visitors who count on the museum to encourage the individual experience of exceptional works of art. During Druick’s tenure, the museum achieved-and continues to record-the highest attendance numbers in its history. He managed the largest gift of art to the Art Institute since its founding, in the generous and extraordinary collection of Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson, affirming the museum’s legacy as an international leader in contemporary art and realizing the promise of the Modern Wing.
Druick’s commitment to bring the museum fully into the digital age-overseeing a comprehensive plan to install wireless internet in the galleries and public spaces, launching a pioneering Online Scholarly Catalogue Initiative, and recalibrating the museum’s culture to prioritize visitor access and engagement-has ensured the Art Institute’s continued preeminence as one of the world’s most exceptional museums.
Druick noted, “The next chapter in the life and legacy of the Art Institute hinges on an all-important five to seven year endeavor to realize the museum’s long range plan that I believe requires uninterrupted leadership. I will retire with confidence, knowing that the foundation for the museum’s future is firmly in place and that we will energetically pursue our ambitious vision. For decades, the Art Institute’s life has been my own, but I need now to draw a distinction between my professional and personal life. I am doing so to realize long held plans with my partner and frequent collaborator Peter Zegers to actively pursue new directions and experiences together, here and abroad.”
Douglas Druick, 70, received a B.A. in English and Philosophy from McGill University in Montreal in 1966, and an M.A. in English from the University of Toronto in 1967. In 1972, he received his M.Phil. in the History of Art from Yale University, followed by his Ph.D., also from Yale, in 1979. From 1973 to 1984, Druick was the Curator of European and American Prints at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.
He first came to the Art Institute in 1985 as the Chair and Prince Trust Curator of Prints and Drawings. Four years later, in 1989, he also became the Searle Curator of European Painting at the Art Institute. In 2006, while remaining the Chair of the Department of Prints and Drawings, he was named the Chair of the Department of Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture, deftly stewarding the Art Institute’s renowned Impressionist, Post-Impressionist, and Modern collections.
As chair of two of the museum’s largest departments Druick oversaw the acquisition of thousands of notable prints and drawings of all schools and many important European paintings, both building on the collections’ strengths and expanding the geographical representation of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art.
During his tenure at the Art Institute, Druick conceived and organized or contributed to some of the most significant exhibitions in the museum’s history. These exhibitions include Odilon Redon: Prince of Dreams, 1840–1916 (1994); Gustave Caillebotte: Urban Impressionist (1994) with Gloria Groom; Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South (2001) with Peter Zegers; Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde (2006) with Gloria Groom; and, in contemporary art, Jasper Johns: Gray (2007) with James Rondeau-named ‘Best Monographic Museum Show Nationally’ by the American section of the International Art Critics Association.
Druick has published and lectured extensively, with 15 exhibition catalogues to his credit, numerous essays and articles, and talks and lectures from Vienna to London and from Amsterdam to San Francisco.
He has been awarded many professional honors and has served on various advisory councils and boards, including as the Chairman of the Arts and Artifacts Indemnity Advisory Panel, National Endowment for the Arts (2002–2004); a Founding Board Member of the Association of Art Museum Curators (2002–2008); and the National Committee for the History of Art (2003–2009). The Government of France named him an ‘Officier des Arts et Lettres’ in 2012, and he was elected as a Fellow to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2013.
Douglas Druick will remain fully engaged in his duties as President and Eloise W. Martin Director until his successor has been appointed and installed. The Board of Trustees of the Art Institute of Chicago deeply respects and has enormous gratitude for Druick’s service and his stewardship of the museum, and will begin the important work to formulate an approach to his succession.
New Book | Fashion Plates: 150 Years of Style
Due out next month from Yale UP:
April Calahan, edited by Karen Trivette Cannell, with a foreword by Anna Sui, Fashion Plates: 150 Years of Style (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), 440 pages, ISBN: 978-0300212266, $150.
Prior to the invention of photography, European and American magazines used colorful prints to depict the latest fashion trends. These illustrations, known as ‘fashion plates’, conveyed the cutting-edge styles embraced by the fashion-conscious elite and proved inspirational to the upwardly mobile. Fashion Plates: 150 Years of Style is a comprehensive survey containing 200 fashion plates, many reproduced at actual size, from publications dating from 1778 to the early 20th century.
A number of these charming illustrations are extremely rare, and have not appeared in print since their publication in the periodicals in which they first ran. Organized chronologically and featuring both men’s and women’s garments, these lively and colorful vignettes not only are beautiful, but also clearly illustrate the evolution of fashion over time. Many of the plates were produced by important artists of the day, including Léon Bakst, George Barbier, and Georges Lepape. With texts by April Calahan on the social, political, and economic significance of fashion and its industries, and a foreword by award-winning fashion designer Anna Sui, this exquisite slipcased publication fills an important gap in the literature on the history of fashion and provides an entertaining historical overview for the general reader.
April Calahan is a fashion historian, writer and art appraiser, as well as special collections associate at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. Karen Trivette Cannell is assistant professor and head of special collections and the archive at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York. Anna Sui is a fashion designer living in New York City.
Exhibition | Collecting the Arts of Mexico
Now on view at The Met:
Collecting the Arts of Mexico
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 17 July 2015 — 7 August 2016
Nicolás Enríquez, The Virgin of Guadalupe with the Four Apparitions (detail), 1773, oil on copper, 56.5 x 41.9 cm (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2014.173)
In 1911, Emily Johnston de Forest gave her collection of pottery from Mexico to the Metropolitan Museum. Calling it ‘Mexican maiolica’, she highlighted its importance as a North American artistic achievement. De Forest was the daughter of the Museum’s first president and, with her husband, Robert, a founder of The American Wing. The De Forests envisioned building a collection of Mexican art, and, even though their ambitions were frustrated at the time, the foundational gift of more than one hundred pieces of pottery anchors the Met’s holdings. Today, more than a century later, their vision resonates as the Museum commits to collecting and exhibiting not just the arts of Mexico, but all of Latin America. This exhibition highlights the early contributions of the De Forests and others, and presents recent additions to the collection for the first time.
Learn more about five paintings by Nicolas Enriquez (1704–1790) featured in this exhibition on MetCollects.
Exhibition | The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals
Marcantonio Chiarini and Giacomo-Maria Giovannini, Disegni del convito fatto dall’illustrissimo signor senatore Francesco Ratta all’illustrissimo publico, eccelsi signori anziani and altra nobilità: terminando il svo confalonierato li 28. febraro 1693 (The Getty Museum). More information is available here.
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
The Edible Monument revisits the exhibition mounted at the Getty in 2000, with the publication this fall of an accompanying catalogue.
The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals
The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, 13 October 2015 — 23 March 2016
Detroit Institute of Arts, 16 December 2016 — 16 April 2017
Curated by Marica Reed
Elaborate artworks made of food were created for royal court and civic celebrations in early modern Europe. Like today’s Rose Bowl Parade on New Year’s Day or Mardi Gras just before Lent, festivals were times for exuberant parties. Public celebrations and street parades featured large-scale edible monuments made of breads, cheeses, and meats. At court festivals, banquet settings and dessert buffets displayed magnificent table monuments with heraldic and emblematic themes made of sugar, flowers, and fruit. This exhibition, drawn from the Getty Research Institute’s Festival Collection, features rare books and prints, including early cookbooks and serving manuals that illustrate the methods and materials for making edible monuments.
Edited by Marcia Reed with contributions by Charissa Bremer-David, Joseph Imorde, Marcia Reed, and Anne Willan, The Edible Monument: The Art of Food for Festivals (Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2015), 192 pages, ISBN 978-1-60606-454-2, $35.
The Edible Monument considers the elaborate architecture, sculpture, and floats made of food that were designed for court and civic celebrations in early modern Europe. These include popular festivals such as Carnival and the Italian Cuccagna. Like illuminations and fireworks, ephemeral artworks made of food were not well documented and were challenging to describe because they were perishable and thus quickly consumed or destroyed. In times before photography and cookbooks, there were neither literary models nor a repertoire of conventional images for how food and its preparation should be explained or depicted. Although made for consumption, food could also be a work of art, both as a special attraction and as an expression of power. Formal occasions and spontaneous celebrations drew communities together, while special foods and seasonal menus revived ancient legends, evoking memories and recalling shared histories, values, and tastes. Drawing on books, prints, and scrolls that document festival arts, elaborate banquets, and street feasts, the essays in this volume examine the mythic themes and personas employed to honor and celebrate rulers; the methods, materials, and wares used to prepare, depict, and serve food; and how foods such as sugar were transformed to express political goals or accomplishments.
Marcia Reed is chief curator at the Getty Research Institute. She is coeditor of China on Paper (Getty Publications, 2007).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
C O N T E N T S
Acknowledgments
1 Marcia Reed—Food, Memory, and Taste
2 Marica Reed—Court and Civic Festivals
3 Marcia Reed—Feasting in the Streets: Carnivals and the Cuccagna
4 Joseph Imorde—Edible Prestige
5 Charissa Bremer-David—Of Cauliflower and Crayfish: Serving Vessels to Awaken the Palate
6 Anne Willan—Behind the Scenes
Contributors
Illustration Credits
Index
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Note (added 2 November 2016) — The DIA venue was not included in the original posting.
Smithsonian American Art Museum Fellowships, 2016–17
Smithsonian American Art Museum Fellowships, 2016–17
Applications due by 1 December 2015
The Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) and its Renwick Gallery invite applications for research fellowships in the art, craft, and visual culture of the United States. Fellowships are residential and support full-time independent and dissertation research.
Each scholar is provided a carrel in SAAM’s Fellowship Office, situated across the street from the museum. Available research resources there include a 180,000-volume library that specializes in American art, history, and biography; the Archives of American Art; the graphics collections of SAAM and the National Portrait Gallery; the Joseph Cornell Study Center; and the Nam June Paik Archive, as well as a variety of image collections and research databases. During their stay at SAAM, scholars will be part of one of the nation’s oldest and most distinguished fellowship programs in American art and will have the opportunity to attend a wide variety of lectures, symposia, and professional workshops. Short research trips are also possible.
Qualifications and Selection
Predoctoral applicants must have completed coursework and preliminary examinations for their doctoral degree and must be engaged in dissertation research. Postdoctoral fellowships are available to support specific research projects by scholars who have earned a PhD or equivalent. Senior fellowships are intended for scholars with a distinguished publication record who have held their doctoral degree for more than seven years or who possess a commensurate record of professional accomplishment at the time of application.
Applications will be evaluated on the quality of the proposed research project and the applicant’s academic standing, scholarly qualifications, and experience. The project’s compatibility with Smithsonian collections, facilities, staff, and programs will also be considered. A committee of curators and historians will review the proposals.
Fellowships
SAAM hosts fellows supported by the Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program and also offers the following named fellowships:
The Joe and Wanda Corn Fellowship is endowed by their former students Mike Wilkins and Sheila Duignan and supports scholars whose research interests span American art and American history. The recipient will be jointly appointed at SAAM and NMAH (National Museum of American History) and will draw on the resources of both museums.
The Douglass Foundation Fellowship in American Art is given for predoctoral research in American art.
The Patricia and Phillip Frost Fellowship is offered to support research in American art and visual culture.
The George Gurney Fellowship funds a one- to three-month research appointment in American art, preferably sculpture, in honor of the distinguished career of SAAM’s former curator of sculpture.
The James Renwick Fellowship in American Craft is available for research in American studio crafts or decorative arts from the nineteenth century to the present.
The Sara Roby Fellowship in Twentieth-Century American Realism is awarded to a scholar whose research topic is in the area of American realism.
The Joshua C. Taylor Fellowship is supported by alumni and friends of the fellowship program.
The Terra Foundation Fellowships in American Art seek to foster a cross-cultural dialogue about the history of the art of the United States up to 1980. Three twelve-month fellowships will be awarded annually, one each at the predoctoral, postdoctoral, and senior levels, to scholars from abroad who are researching American art or to U.S. scholars who are investigating international contexts for American art.
The William H. Truettner Fellowship supports one to three months of research, in recognition of Mr. Truettner’s career of nearly fifty years as a curator of painting and sculpture at SAAM.
The Wyeth Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship is awarded for the advancement and completion of a doctoral dissertation that concerns the study, appreciation, and recognition of excellence in all aspects of American art.
Support
The stipend for a one-year predoctoral fellowship is $32,700 plus research and travel allowances. The stipend for a one-year postdoctoral or senior fellowship is $48,000 plus research and travel allowances. The standard term of residency is twelve months, but shorter terms will be considered; stipends are prorated for periods of less than twelve months.
Applicants are encouraged to share their research proposals with potential Smithsonian advisors before submitting applications. For research consultation, contact Amelia Goerlitz at GoerlitzA@si.edu or Emily D. Shapiro at ShapiroED@si.edu.
For Applications or General Information
Call SAAM’s Fellowship Office at (202) 633-8353 or e-mail AmericanArtFellowships@si.edu. A link to the online application for the Smithsonian Institution Fellowship Program can be accessed via our website. Applicants should propose a primary advisor/supervisor from SAAM to be eligible for a fellowship at this unit. Only one application is necessary; applicants will automatically be considered for all relevant awards. December 1, 2015, is the application deadline for fellowships that begin on or after June 1, 2016. Awards are based on merit. Fellowships are open to all qualified persons regardless of race, color, religion, gender, national origin, age, sexual orientation, or condition of handicap. The Smithsonian Institution’s Office of International Relations will assist with arranging J-1 exchange visas for fellowship recipients who require them. For other Smithsonian opportunities, visit the Smithsonian Office of Fellowships and Internships webpage or e-mail siofi@si.edu.
Exhibition | In Pursuit of Antiquity
William Chambers, Presentation drawing showing a perspective view of an unexecuted design for a Mausoleum
for Frederick, Prince of Wales, initialed and dated 1751, Pencil, pen and ink, and watercolour, 490 x 705 mm
(London: Sir John Soane’s Museum)
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
Press release (17 August 2015) from Berlin’s Museum for Architectural Drawing:
In Pursuit of Antiquity: Drawings by the Giants of British Neo-Classicism
Auf den Spuren der Antike: Meisterzeichnungen des britischen Neoklassizismus
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London, 1 February — 1 June 2008
Museum für Architekturzeichnung, Berlin, 3 October 2015 — 14 February 2016
Curated by Jeremy Musson
Important architectural drawings held by Sir John Soane’s Museum, one of the most significant collections of its kind in Great Britain, form a new temporary exhibition at the Museum for Architectural Drawing in Berlin. In Pursuit of Antiquity: Drawings from the Giants of British Neo-Classicism illustrates the ambition of leading British architects of the late 18th century who strove to create new architecture in the Classical tradition that could compete—in terms of public works, private houses, mausolea, interior detail and even furnishings—with the glories of the ancient world. Illustrating this central theme, some of the finest drawings and designs by Sir John Soane himself, Robert Adam, George Dance the Younger, Sir William Chambers, and James Wyatt are being shown for the first time in Germany.
In Pursuit of Antiquity is curated by architectural historian and author Jeremy Musson and was originally shown at Sir John Soane’s Museum in 2008. Musson’s selection from the Museum’s unrivalled collection includes an astonishingly detailed cutaway drawing of Holy Trinity Marylebone, one of Soane’s three neo-classical churches. Such designs are a reminder of the passionate belief held by Soane and his architectural contemporaries that the quality of a society could be judged by its public buildings. London was then the centre of the largest empire since Rome, and the exhibition includes Soane’s design for two huge triumphal arches (celebrating Waterloo and Trafalgar) at each end of Downing Street. The deliberate association of ancient and modern empires is clear.
Alongside designs for monumental public architecture, In Pursuit of Antiquity also includes more intimate details, such as chimneypieces and domestic furniture, whose Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman nuances reflect aspirations for the birth of a new golden age. The exhibition focuses on ancient Rome and its great monuments as a source of inspiration to the architectural students of the 18th and 19th centuries who exhaustively measured, studied, surveyed, and, above all, drew these structures as part of their education. The exhibition also explores the idea of an architectural drawing—from sketch to final presentation. Drawings by French and Italian artists such as Percier, Clérisseau, and the great Piranesi, all represented in Soane’s collection, illustrate the links between these architects and British architects.
Often described as ‘the father of modern architecture’, Sir John Soane (1753–1837) brought together a magnificent collection of architectural drawings intended to provide exemplars for himself, his sons, and his assistants. It was to be a source of reference, inspiration, ideas, and comparison and later became a key aspect of his conscious creation of a museum collection. Today, the outstanding drawings held at Sir John Soane’s Museum stand alongside the collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects as the two pre-eminent collections of architectural drawings in the country.
Jeremy Musson is an architectural historian, broadcaster and author. He is the author of The Drawing Room: Country House Design and Decoration (2014), English Country House Interiors (2011), How to Read a Country House (2006), and series editor of books published from the archive of Country Life, including The Regency Country House and The Country Houses of Adam. He also contributes to The British Art Journal and The Georgian Group Journal . He lectures regularly, including for the University of Cambridge, the Attingham Summer School, and the Royal Oak. Born in London in 1965, Musson lives in Cambridge with his family.
Exhibition | The Fabric of India
I noted this exhibition last fall, but it’s worth following up now that the show is on view at the V&A (3 October 2015 — 10 January 2016). The press release is available as a PDF file here, with information on the catalogue included below. –CH
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From the V&A shop:
Rosemary Crill, The Fabric of India (London: V&A Publishing, 2015), 240 pages, ISBN: 978-1851778539, £30 / $60.
This is the first truly comprehensive book on Indian textiles, featuring stunning examples from all over the country. Lavishly illustrated, it begins with an in-depth exploration of the different materials, techniques, and dyeing processes used in the creation of these sumptuous fabrics before exploring the central importance of cloth to Indian life and culture from ancient times to the present day. Special features focus on objects of historical importance, including a Kashmir map shawl, Tipu Sultan’s tent, and a remarkable 18th-century temple hanging from South India.
While many are familiar with Mughal velvets, western-market chintzes, or rural embroideries, for example, this book will surprise, inspire, delight, and inform with an extraordinary range of material, much of it new. Along with presenting great historical masterpieces, the importance and variety of the basic fibers—silk, cotton, wool—from which Indian textiles are traditionally made is emphasized, and the remarkable techniques of weaving, printing, dyeing, and embroidery that have made them prized across the world are illustrated in specially taken photographs.
VMFA Acquires Royal Portrait by Benjamin West
Benjamin West, Portrait of Prince William and his Elder Sister, Princess Sophia, 1779, oil on canvas, 61 x 85 inches
(Richmond: VMFA).
◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊
From the VMFA press release (1 October 2015) . . .
At the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, an important work by American painter Benjamin West was recently installed in the McGlothlin American Galleries. The portrait was acquired during the June 18 meeting of the VMFA Board of Trustees and is among the most valuable acquisitions in VMFA history.
Benjamin West, known as the ‘father of American painting’, was at one point the most prominent painter in the British Empire. He served as President of the Royal Academy, History Painter to the King, and Surveyor of the King’s Pictures until his death in 1820. While in London, he also mentored American artists Charles Wilson Peale, Gilbert Stuart, and John Trumball—each of whom is represented in VMFA’s American Galleries. This is one of six group portraits commissioned by King George III during the American Revolution. Intended as a gift for the king’s brother, HRH Prince William Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Edinburgh, it is the only one of the six outside the Royal Collection. Descended in the family of George III, whose daughter HRH Princess Mary wed the sitter, Prince William, the painting celebrates the king’s protection of his niece and nephew at a moment during their father’s ill-health. In acknowledgement of the king’s generosity, the children and father—symbolized by the robe and crown—signal their obedience to the king, symbolized by the lion. This patriarchal narrative of duty and protection served a dual purpose as wartime propaganda. As the king served to protect his subjects, so his subjects—the colonists—owed their obedience to the king.
The acquisition of Portrait of Prince William and his Elder Sister, Princess Sophia was made possible by the J. Harwood and Louise B. Cochrane Fund for American Art. Since 1988, this permanent endowment has provided support for the acquisition of historic American paintings, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts, ca. 1700–1945, including those native to Virginia. It has been funded with outright gifts, 220 parcels of real estate in Manchester, and their former home and farm in Hanover County. Proceeds from the sales of the real estate have been added to the Cochrane endowment principal. The endowment is now nearly 30 years old and has underwritten 79 important American acquisitions
Enfilade 
leave a comment