Journal of the History of Collections 27 (March 2015)
In addition to the following articles related to the eighteenth century in the current issue of the Journal of the History of Collections , I would draw your attention to Stefan Krmnicek’s article on coins from the Tux Collection and Jessica Priebe’s article on Boucher, both of which have been published online but will also appear as part of forthcoming issues in the coming months. They serves as a useful reminder that with the advantages of digital advance access, ‘current issue’ no longer tells the whole story. –CH
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Stefan Krmnicek, “‘Nummus aliquantulum suspectus’: The Counterfeit Coins of the Tux Collection (1715–1798) at the University of Tübingen,” Journal of the History of Collections, first published online: 8 February 2015.
The coin collection of the Institute of Classical Archaeology at the University of Tübingen contains some fifty counterfeits, imitations and fabrications of ancient coins which can be traced back to the bequest of the Stuttgart senior civil servant (Regierungsrat) Carl Sigmund Tux (1715–1798) at the ducal court of Württemberg. These coins are of particular historical value, for all fabrications in the Tux collection are fixed with a terminus ante quem through the bequest of 1798. A selection of the most interesting counterfeit specimens is presented and discussed against the background of the history of the Tux collection and the early development of numismatics at the University of Tübingen. Additionally, Tux’s descriptions of the counterfeit coins provide first-hand insight into the abilities, knowledge and limitations in ancient numismatics of the most passionate coin collector and leading coin specialist at the ducal court of Württemberg in the Baroque period.
Jessica Priebe, “The Artist as Collector: François Boucher (1703–1770),” Journal of the History of Collections, first published online: 28 January 2015.
The name François Boucher is synonymous with the visual and material culture of luxury in mid eighteenth-century France. His paintings are filled with desirable objects that informed the tastes of collectors. What is less known is that Boucher was a prolific collector of art and nature, with more than 13,000 different objects in his collection at the time of his death in 1770. Despite this, a formal study of his collection is almost entirely absent from the existing field of historical scholarship. This article aims to bring to light Boucher’s activities as a collector, in particular his interest in natural objects for which he was especially well known. It also considers the extent to which Boucher’s passion for collectable objects had an impact on his practice as an artist.
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Journal of the History of Collections 27 (March 2015)
A R T I C L E S
Rachel Finnegan, “The Travels and Curious Collections of Richard Pococke, Bishop of Meath,” pp. 33–48.
This article examines the collecting career of the Revd Richard Pococke (1704–1765), some time Bishop of Ossory and subsequently Bishop of Meath, who travelled extensively in Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean from 1733–41 and accumulated a modest yet important collection of antiquities, coins, medals and natural curiosities. Using evidence from his recently published Grand Tour correspondence, together with other contemporary sources such as letters and sale catalogues, this article considers his foreign travels and mode of collecting and also the scholarly uses to which his foreign collections were put, including his contribution to learned societies, and the publication of his eastern travels.
Leanne Zalewski, “Fine Art for the New World: Thomas Jefferson, Collecting for the Future,” pp. 49–55.
Of Thomas Jefferson’s many accomplishments—President of the United States, co-author of the Declaration of Independence, and founder of the University of Virginia—his art collection fails to top the list. However, Jefferson’s vision for the developing nation involved a strong interest in the arts. As such, he assembled his own art collection and planned an ideal, but ultimately unrealized, sculpture gallery. His collection, neither vast nor impressive, included portraits, busts, engravings, and copies after Old Master paintings. Although it included not a single work of European or American art could be called a masterpiece or canonical work, yet his collection was the first significant art collection in the United States. Why? This article examines the legacy of his trailblazing assemblage through an analysis of his fine art collection both real and ideal within the broader context of the history of collecting in the United States.
Richard Scully, “A Serious Matter: Erwin D. Swann (1906–1973) and the Collection of Caricature and Cartoon,” pp. 111–122.
This paper explores the origins and development of the Swann Collection of Caricature and Cartoon, begun by Erwin D. Swann in 1966, and currently held by the Library of Congress in Washington, dc. One of the world’s few collections dedicated to the preservation of original comic art by caricaturists and cartoonists from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, Swann’s collection also transcends national boundaries, and embraces comic art as one of the ‘universal folk expressions’. An established art collector, Swann sought to give caricature and cartoon the same status as ‘high’ art, and worked hard to achieve this prior to his death in 1973. His work has been continued, and his collection maintained, in subsequent years. A closer investigation of the collection’s genesis, and the intentions of Swann himself, sheds light on the significance of this unique archive, and its utility for the continuing, ‘serious’ scholarship of comic art worldwide.
R E V I E W S
• Elizabeth Williams, Review of Tessa Murdoch and Heike Zech, eds., Going for Gold. Craftsmanship and Collecting of Gold Boxes (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2014), pp. 124–25.
• Tom Stammers, Review of Alexandra Stara, The Museum of French Monuments 1795–1816: ‘Killing Art to Make History’ (Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2013), pp. 125–26.
• Tom Stammers, Review of Andrea Meyer and Bénédicte Savoy, eds., The Museum is Open: Towards a Transnational History of Museums, 1750–1940 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014), pp. 127–28.
• Clare Barlow, Review of Rosie Dias, Exhibiting Englishness: John Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery and the Formation of a National Aesthetic (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2013), pp. 128–29.
Exhibition | On the Road to Italy: Robert to Corot
Now on view at Amiens:
Sur la route d’Italie: Peindre la nature d’Hubert Robert à Corot
Musée d’Art et d’Archéologie d’Évreux, 26 April — 21 September 2014
Musée de Picardie, Amiens 13 February — 31 May 2015
Pour la première fois, la collection de paysages français de l’éditeur Michael Pächt est présentée au public dans une exposition événement organisée en partenariat avec l’Institut national du patrimoine et le musée d’Art et d’Archéologie d’Evreux. Fasciné par le paysage français de la fin du XVIIIe siècle et de la première moitié du XIXe siècle, grand admirateur de Corot, dont il a rassemblé quelques-unes des plus belles pages peintes sur le motif, Michael Pächt a retracé, au gré d’achats guidés par la passion de l’amateur, une chaîne iconographique, stylistique et humaine, dont les relations maître-élève et les amitiés constituent les maillons. Les affinités électives entre artistes, les parentés, les héritages et les ruptures reprennent vie, introduisant le visiteur dans l’intimité qui se crée entre le peintre et la Nature.
D’Hubert Robert à Corot en passant par Michallon, Bidault, Granet et Rousseau, la collection Pächt nous plonge dans la grande aventure de la peinture de plein air à travers les oeuvres de ceux qui firent le voyage en Italie avant de trouver une terre d’élection dans la forêt de Fontainebleau, en Picardie ou dans le Sud de la France. Une centaine d’oeuvres, peintures, dessins, estampes, ainsi que quelques rares clichés-verre de Corot et de Rousseau, viennent animer la Galerie Puvis de Chavannes le temps d’un partage entre un amateur et un public auquel il livre un peu de sa passion.
Paysages français des collections du Musée de Picardie
L’exposition se prolonge avec une sélection de peintures choisies dans les réserves parmi les plus grands chefs-d’oeuvre du musée. Cet accrochage met également à l’honneur les esquisses inédites de Charles Larivière et d’Albert Maignan qui laissèrent de leur séjour en Italie, aux deux extrémités du XIXe siècle, des toiles imprégnées de la lumière du Sud.
Commissariat général
Olivia Voisin, conservateur du patrimoine, chargée du département Beaux-Arts
Florence Calame-Levert, directrice du musée d’Évreux
François Bridey, directeur adjoint du musée d’Évreux
Commissariat scientifique
Gennaro Toscano, directeur du département des conservateurs, Institut national du patrimoine, Paris
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Published by Gourcuff Gradenico and available from Artbooks.com:
Gennaro Toscano, Sur la route d’Italie: Peindre la nature d’Hubert Robert à Corot (Montreuil, Gourcuff Gradenico, 2014), 180 pages, ISBN: 978-2353401789, 29€.
Cet ouvrage présente un ensemble extraordinaire de paysages d’artistes français ayant effectué le voyage en Italie (fin XVIIIe et xixe siècle). Les quelque 26 artistes renommés (Hubert Robert, Granet, Constantin d’Aix, Bertin, Michallon, Corot, Coignet, Rousseau Harpignies…) présents dans la collection ont la caractéristique commune d’avoir peint la nature en plein air en France et en Italie. Montée en partenariat avec l’Institut national du patrimoine (Inp), une exposition se déroulera du 26 avril au 14 septembre 2014 au musée d’Art, Histoire et Archéologie d’Évreux, puis au printemps 2015 au musée de Picardie à Amiens. Cet ensemble de paysages peints en France et en Italie est pour la première fois présenté au public et permet de s’interroger sur la constitution d’une collection particulièrement riche.
En marge de l’exposition, les services de la direction de la culture et de la ville d’Evreux et d’Amiens métropole s’associent pour programmer une «saison italienne». Plusieurs événements verront donc le jour au musée et dans d’autres institutions italiennes, permettant d’explorer la thématique du voyage en Italie ou d’éclairer les relations artistiques entre la France et l’Italie (littérature, Beaux-Arts, musique). Richement illustrée cette publication, solide du point de vue scientifique, s’adresse aussi à un public large et constitue une réflexion sur la peinture de paysage du XVIIIe au xixe siècle.
New Book | Painting 1600–1900: Art and Architecture of Ireland
Distributed by Yale UP:
Nicola Figgis, ed., Painting 1600–1900: Art and Architecture of Ireland (London: The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2014), 600 pages, ISBN: 978-0300179200, $150.
Art and Architecture of Ireland is an authoritative and fully illustrated survey that encompasses the period from the early Middle Ages to the end of the 20th century. The five volumes explore all aspects of Irish art—from high crosses to installation art, from illuminated manuscripts to Georgian houses and Modernist churches, from tapestries and sculptures to oil paintings, photographs and video art. This monumental project provides new insights into every facet of the strength, depth and variety of Ireland’s artistic and architectural heritage.
Painting 1600–1900: Art and Architecture of Ireland
The volume is divided into two sections. The first contains thematic essays, ranging widely from exhibiting practices to the social history of Irish art, revealing how pictures were produced, acquired and traded in Ireland. The varied texts reflect the decision to be inclusive in determining ‘Irishness’—the volume considers painters born in Ireland who spent their careers abroad, as well as visiting artists to Ireland. The second section is devoted to biographical entries, largely based on W.G. Strickland’s biographies of artists (Dublin and London, 1913), but updated to include extensive recent research. More than 300 entries provide information on Irish painters of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a critical period that saw the development of easel painting, patronage, the exploration of antiquarianism and a search for the pictorial expression of national identity. The biographies offer a rich compendium of Irish experience; while some of the artists lived with worldly success and fame, others suffered disappointment and failure. All the entries are based on original research, much of it undertaken in hitherto unexplored archives. It seems appropriate given Ireland’s economic, political and social history, that the story told by this volume is one of exodus, exchange and international endeavour.
Nicola Figgis is a lecturer at the School of Art History and Cultural Policy, University College, Dublin, specialising in 17th–19th-century Irish painting and aspects of the Grand Tour. She is co-author, with Brendan Rooney, of Irish Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland, volume i (2002).
New Book | Sculpture 1600–2000: Art and Architecture of Ireland
Distributed by Yale UP:
Paula Murphy, ed., Sculpture 1600–2000: Art and Architecture of Ireland (London: The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, 2014), 600 pages, ISBN: 978-0300179217, $150.
Art and Architecture of Ireland is an authoritative and fully illustrated survey that encompasses the period from the early Middle Ages to the end of the 20th century. The five volumes explore all aspects of Irish art—from high crosses to installation art, from illuminated manuscripts to Georgian houses and Modernist churches, from tapestries and sculptures to oil paintings, photographs and video art. This monumental project provides new insights into every facet of the strength, depth and variety of Ireland’s artistic and architectural heritage.
Sculpture 1600–2000: Art and Architecture of Ireland
Irish sculptors have made a significant contribution to the development of their art form both within and outside Ireland. This volume affords the unique opportunity to explore four centuries of their work. Biographies of individual artists and analytical assessments are augmented by a series of thematic
essays establishing a context for the practice of sculpture
throughout the country north and south.
Paula Murphy is associate professor at University College Dublin, where she lectures in art history, specializing in art of the modern period. She has a particular interest in sculpture and has published widely on Irish sculpture, notably Nineteenth-Century Irish Sculpture: Native Genius Reaffirmed, published by Yale University Press in 2010.
Exhibition | American Neoclassic Sculpture at the Boston Athenæum
Now on view at the Boston Athenaeum:
American Neoclassic Sculpture at the Boston Athenæum
Boston Athenæum, 26 February — 16 May 2015
Curated by David Dearinger
American Neoclassic Sculpture at the Boston Athenæum, on view at the Boston Athenæum February 26 through May 16, 2015, reveals a collection that is among the oldest and most significant of its kind in the United States, one that helped establish an ‘American taste’ in the visual arts. The exhibition includes more than thirty work: sculptures by the three ‘founders’ of American Neoclassicism—Horatio Greenough (Boston’s first professional sculptor), Thomas Crawford, and Hiram Powers—along with works by their followers, works by such European Neoclassicists as Jean-Antoine Houdon and Bertel Thovaldsen, and marble copies of ancient works including the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Belvedere.
Featured works include Horatio Greenough’s Elizabeth Perkins Cabot (1832–33), Venus Victrix (1837–40), and The Judgment of Paris (1837–40); Thomas Crawford’s Adam and Eve (1855); Bertel Thorvaldsen’s Ganymede and the Eagle (ca. 1830–50); and Jean-Antoine Houdon’s George Washington (ca. 1786). A series of sculpted portraits of Daniel Webster by John Frazee, Hiram Powers, Thomas Ball, and Shobal Vail Clevenger explores the range of treatments, from real to ideal, used in Neoclassic portraiture.
Organized by David Dearinger, the Boston Athenæum’s Susan Morse Hilles Curator of Paintings and Sculpture, American Neoclassic Sculpture is the first time these important works have been shown together. The show presents sculptures, many acquired directly from the artists themselves, that helped establish Neoclassicism as the first ‘national style’ of the young United States. Neoclassic taste, based on the work of ancient Greek and Roman artists, dominated the West starting in the 1750s, after sensational archaeological discoveries at Pompeii, Herculaneum, and elsewhere revealed the styles the ancient Romans favored in vivid detail. It was the latest in a series of classical revivals since the fifth-century fall of Rome. In the young United States, the idealized design language of the classical world seemed the perfect translation of the heady notions of the American Revolution, including the democracy of ancient Greece and the civic virtues of Republican Rome. The proliferation of ancient forms in the United States—columns, capitals, acanthus leaves, imposing pediments, togas (even on George Washington), drapery, idealized faces, and perfect torsos—infused the freshly-minted American republic with the grandeur and gloss of historic destiny.
Almost as soon as it was founded in 1807, the Boston Athenæum began to acquire art along with books and periodicals— slowly at first and then, starting in the 1820s, with increasing vigor. At the same time, the Athenæum and some of its members became major patrons and promoters of American Neoclassic sculptors. “Boston was a particular hotbed of activity,” Dr. Dearinger says of this period. “The city had patrons who were enthusiastic about classical literature and American history. So neoclassical sculpture fit right in. Boston was considered a great place for sculpture. Sculptors came up from New York and New Jersey to meet potential Boston collectors. There was nothing like it anywhere else at the time. “Leading Massachusetts politicians like Charles Sumner and Edward Everett were major patrons, not out of self-interest but as promoters of native-born sculptors and their work,” Dearinger continues. “They supported American sculptors in every way they could, for patriotic reasons, because they felt culture was important to a democratic society and because the work embodied democratic ideals.”
Meanwhile,the Boston Athenæum was commissioning pieces and buying directly from the artists, helping to get things started. Until the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, opened in 1876, the Boston Athenæum served as the city’s only public art museum. The Athenæum featured works by American sculptors in its annual art exhibitions and, by the time of the Civil War, had established a reputation as a leading and reliable supporter of American sculpture. By 1860, the Athenæum owned one of the largest publicly-accessible collections of sculpture in the country. Among those early Athenæum acquisitions were sculptures: free-standing or in relief, made of plaster or marble. They included fine, full-size copies of approved ancient pieces such as the Venus de Medici and the Apollo Belvedere, as well as idealized figures and busts of important historical personages, modeled or carved by leading modern European neoclassicists. Special connections in Europe also helped the Athenæum acquire plaster casts of important ancient works made directly from the originals in European museums and private hands.
With the maturation of sculpture in America beginning in the 1820s, the work of native Neoclassic sculptors began to be represented in the Athenæum’s collection. Eventually, this included important works by the three ‘founders’ of American Neoclassic sculpture, Horatio Greenough (1805–1852), Thomas Crawford (1814–1857), and Hiram Powers (1805–1873), as well as examples by their followers, many of them born in or around Boston: Richard S. Greenough (1819–1904), Thomas R. Gould (1818–1881), Harriet Hosmer (1830–1908), Chauncey B. Ives (1810–1894), and William Wetmore Story (1819–1895). By then, many American sculptors had moved to Italy to live and work in Florence or Rome, where the cost of living was lower and Puritan standards of behavior did not need to be observed. The change also brought the Americans closer to their classical models and to good sources of the best white marble, which was not available in the United States. Connections to Boston, however, remained as strong as ever. “New Englanders in general were better represented on the Grand Tour than other Americans,” Dr. Dearinger says. “In the 1820s, 40s, and 50s, many of these intrepid seekers of culture were publishing travel books. Chapters in them describe visits to American studios in Italy, places which became, eventually, mandatory European tour stops.” Many works were purchased by American collectors right out of those studios. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Marble Faun, written after long sojourns in Florence and Rome, and Henry James’s Roderick Hudson, both describe the lives of American sculptors in Italy.
The installation of American Neoclassic Sculpture includes sections summarizing the ancient roots of Neoclassicism, early European interpretations of it, the rise of Neoclassicism in America, the tension between the classical and the real in portraiture and in images of children, the Neoclassicist’s preference for themes from literature and religion, and the special role that Boston—and the Boston Athenæum—played in the patronage of American sculptors during the first half of the nineteenth century. The installation design also reflects early nineteenth-century ideas of how best to display Neoclassic work. “Deep, deep red or deep, deep blue were considered the best wall colors for setting off white marble works,” Dearinger says. “Sculptors were sometimes involved in designing the settings for their own works in their patrons’ homes and they really cared about it. We know of projects where the artist worked out the light source, chose the deep red fabric rugs, even selected the color of the benches.” The dark blue gallery walls and dramatic lighting of the Athenæum’s installation is designed to suggest those early environments. “If there is an overall theme of this exhibition, it is the fine line between the real and the ideal,” Dearinger concludes. “How does artist address both? In portraiture, a bust must look something like the person portrayed, so how does the artist judge where to stop along the boundary between reality and flattery?. The exhibition also explores how conservative protestant Americans were able to straddle the gap between their Puritan backgrounds and the seductive, sensuous tastes of the ancients.”
The Architectural Drawing: From the Document to the Monument
From the press kit for the art fair:
Salon du Dessin 2015
Palais Brongniart, Paris, 25–30 March 2015 / Symposium, 25–26 March 2015
Created in 1991 by a small group of art dealers, the Salon du dessin is now a leader in its field. A frontrunner for many reasons, the fair possesses all the ingredients of a success story: the exceptional quality of the works selected by the exhibitors, its undeniable commercial dynamism, its capacity to attract the most important collectors and curators from around the world, and its ability to gather together institutions to celebrate drawings. Thanks to its unprecedented position in the art world, the Salon du dessin resolutely pursues its mission, which is to ardently promote the art of drawing. In 2014, 13,000 visitors assembled in the magnificent Palais Brongniart around their shared passion for drawings.
A Showcase for the Drawings of the Bnf
Since its creation in the 17th century the Bibliothèque nationale de france has gathered numerous drawings by renowned architects such as Mansart, Brongniart and Viollet-le-Duc. Gradually enriched throughout the centuries and then inventoried, deciphered and classified, this collection is now ready to be unveiled. The department of Prints and Photographs has selected the most significant sheets, which will be given a preview at the Salon.
The Semaine du Dessin: Uniting Drawing Enthusiasts
From 23rd until 30th March, the most important museums from Paris and its surroundings will open the doors to their graphic art departments, presenting a special display or organising, in conjunction with the Salon, an exhibition on the theme of drawing. In partnership with the City of Paris, more than twenty prestigious institutions will participate in this celebration of drawing in all its forms and from all periods. Among the shows not to be missed is: drawings by the artist Jean Gorin, a native of Nantes and a proponent of neo-plasticism, at the drawings department of the Centre Pompidou; Italian masters from the renaissance from the Städel museum in frankfurt on show at the Custodia Foundation; drawings by the discreet yet prolific painter and decorator Charles Lameire at the musée d’orsay, and the homage given at the musée Carnavalet to “monsieur Barrée, architect and speculator in Enlightenment Paris.”
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International Symposium
The Architectural Drawing: From the Document to the Monument
Le Dessin d’architecture: document ou monument?
Palais Brongniart, Paris, 25–26 March 2015
The Salon has more than a solely commercial dimension. On 25th and 26th March a series of twelve lectures will present the work of a wide range of academics researching the field of architectural drawing. Inaugurated last year under the auspices of Claude Mignot, professor emeritus at the University of Paris Sorbonne, this series of lectures will focus on the topic with a new light: The Architectural Drawing: From the Document to the Monument. The proceedings of the symposium, now a reference, will be published in the fall.
The lectures begin at 2:30pm and conclude at 6:00pm (in the small auditorium). It is free for those visiting the fair, though please note that seating is limited. The fair entrance fee is 15€ and includes a copy of the catalogue.
W E D N E S D A Y , 2 5 M A R C H 2 01 5
Claude Mignot (Professor Emeritus, Paris-Sorbonne University), Introduction
Tim Benton (Professor Emeritus of Art History, the Open University, Milton Keynes), On the Difficult Birth of Le Corbusier’s Project
Guido Beltramini (Director of the Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio), Freedberg’s Question: On the Beauty of the Drawings by Andrea Palladio
Gordon Higgott (Independent Historian, London), Documenting the Design of St Paul’s Cathedral in Drawings and Engravings: The Contribution of Simon Gribelin (1661–1733)
Olivia Horsfall Turner (Curator, Victoria & Albert Museum), Documenting Monuments: Antiquaries and Architectural Drawing in 17th-Century England.
Jérôme de La Gorce (Senior Researcher at the CNRS), A Little-known Project by Servandoni: The Décor of Fireworks for the Birth of a New Heir to the Throne (1732)
Charles Hind (Chief Curator and H. J. Heinz Curator of Drawings, RIBA British Architectural Library), A Classical or Gothic Monument: Proposals for Reconstructing the Houses of Parliament, 1735–1835
T H U R S D A Y , 2 6 M A R C H 2 0 1 5
Emmanuelle Brugerolles (Chief Curator, ENSBA Paris), From Architecture to Document: The Example of Drawings by Jean-Michel Chevotet for l’Architecture Française by Jean Mariette
Basile Baudez (Associate Professor, History of Modern and Contemporary Heritage, University Paris-Sorbonne), On the Use of Tracing Paper in Late 18th-Century Architecture: A Tool for Conception or Memory of Representations
Jean-Philippe Garric (Professor of History of Contemporary Architecture, University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne), The Monument to La Pérouse: To Document Labrouste’s Drawing
Marc Le Cœur (Art Historian, Teacher at the Ecole spéciale d’Architecture), Architects’ Drawings in the Print Department of the BnF: An Exceptional Yet Little-known Collection
Magnus Olausson (Head of Collections and Director of the Swedish National Portrait Gallery, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm), The Architect’s Practice in the Nationalmuseum of Stockholm Collections: Between Dream and Reality
Simon Texier (Professor at the Université de Picardie Jules-Verne), The Technical Drawings of the Perret Brothers: A Way towards the Monument
Call for Papers | Objects in Motion: Material Culture in Transition
From the Call for Papers:
Objects in Motion: Material Culture in Transition
CRASSH, University of Cambridge, 18–20 June 2015
Proposals due by 15 March 2015
Proposals for papers and for visual and performing art are welcome for the three-day interdisciplinary conference Objects in Motion: Material Culture in Transition. The conference is supported by and will be held at the Centre for the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH) at the University of Cambridge on 18–20 June 2015. The deadline for all proposals is 15 March 2015, and registration is expected to open in April 2015.
Objects in Motion will bring together diverse scholars, curators, writers, and artists to discuss material culture in transition. Material objects are produced within specific contexts—geographical, cultural, and temporal. This is true for things as diverse as the Great Sphinx built in Egypt at least 4500 years ago, the Lindisfarne Gospels illuminated in 8th-century Northumbria, a wooden ceremonial mask carved in 19th-century Nigeria, or a mobile phone made in 21st-century China.
What happens when objects such as these transition into other contexts? How are differences in use and meaning negotiated? Sometimes later reinterpretations and reincarnations (including ‘fakes’ and reproductions) incorporate elements of the objects’ original use and meaning, and other times they diverge entirely. This can affect not only the objects themselves but also the knowledge and experiences embedded within or produced by them—as with books, musical recordings, and technologies.
Scholars, curators, writers, and artists from all disciplines are welcome to propose relevant talks. Visual artists (including photographers) are also welcome to propose artwork on the theme to be displayed in the Alison Richard Building. Proposals for performing arts may be made as well, within the constraints of space and time stated below. The papers and art, selected by both CFP and invitation, will be complemented by events at local museums.
These diverse contributions will help to shed light on material culture dynamics which remain highly relevant even today despite the growth of multinational corporations, global communication, and increasing standardisation. They will also foster productive dialogue on different disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to studying and responding to these dynamics.
Guidelines for proposing a paper
Proposals for talks should be emailed to the convenor Dr. Alexi Baker (ab933@cam.ac.uk) by 15 March 2015. They should include a title, an abstract of up to 250 words, a brief biography, contact information, and any institutional affiliations. Scholars at all stages of their careers including independent scholars are encouraged to apply, as are artists and writers who would like offer talks reflecting on the conference theme.
Guidelines for proposing visual or performing arts
Proposals for visual or performing arts which reflect upon the conference theme should be emailed to the convenor Dr. Alexi Baker (ab933@cam.ac.uk) by 15 March 2015. The visual artwork will hang in the ground floor seminar rooms of the Alison Richard Building from the time of the conference until at least October 2015, and must be fitted to the available space and hanging facilities. The artist(s) must be able to transport their works to the Alison Richard Building themselves and to install them with limited assistance from staff. Each piece will need to come fitted with string or hooks on the back so that they can be attached to the hanging rails in the seminar rooms with nylon string. (The type of rails in use can be seen here. Small labels may also be affixed near the artworks using white-tack. Proposals for performing arts will be considered as well as long as they can be staged within the limited space of a seminar room, and have a running time of less than one hour. Possibilities could include for example recitations, musical performances, or self-contained dramatic performances. Proposals for visual or performing arts should consist of:
• Contact information and any institutional affiliations
• Title of the installation or performance
• Description of up to 250 words
• CV and (if available) website of the artist
• Examples of the work of the artist
• Detailed installation or staging requirements
New Book | The Nation’s First Monument
From Ashgate:
Sally Webster, The Nation’s First Monument and the Origins of the American Memorial Tradition: Liberty Enshrined (Aldersthot: Ashgate, 2015), 254 pages, ISBN: 978-1472418999, $105.
The commemorative tradition in early American art is given sustained consideration for the first time in Sally Webster’s fascinating study of public monuments and the construction of an American patronymic tradition. Until now, no attempt has been made to create a coherent early history of the carved symbolic language of American liberty and independence. Establishing as the basis of her discussion the fledgling nation’s first monument, Jean-Jacques Caffiéri’s Monument to General Richard Montgomery (commissioned in January of 1776), Webster builds on the themes of commemoration and national patrimony, ultimately positing that like its instruments of government, America drew from the Enlightenment and its reverence for the classical past. Webster’s study is grounded in the political and social worlds of New York City, moving chronologically from the 1760s to the 1790s, with a concluding chapter considering the monument, which lies just east of Ground Zero, against the backdrop of 9/11. It is an original contribution to historical scholarship in fields ranging from early American art, sculpture, New York history, and the Revolutionary era. A chapter is devoted to the exceptional role of Benjamin Franklin in the commissioning and design of the monument. Webster’s study provides a new focus on New York City as the 18th-century city in which the European tradition of public commemoration was reconstituted as monuments to liberty’s heroes.
Sally Webster is Professor of American Art, Emerita at Lehman College and the Graduate Center, CUNY.
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C O N T E N T S
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 New York’s De Lancey Family and the Origins of the American Memorial Tradition
2 Celebrating the Repeal of the Stamp Act: New York Tributes to William Pitt and George III
3 A Memorial to General Richard Montgomery: Commemorating the Death of an American Hero
4 Benjamin Franklin and the Commission of America’s First Monument
5 New York, Pierre-Charles L’Enfant, and a Monument for America
Bibliography
Index
New Book | Exhibiting Outside the Academy, Salon and Biennial
From Ashgate:
Andrew Graciano, ed., Exhibiting Outside the Academy, Salon and Biennial, 1775–1999: Alternative Venues for Display (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2015), 308 pages, ISBN: 978-1472428271, $120.
In recent years, there has been increasing scholarly interest in the history of museums, academies, and major exhibitions. There has been, however, little to no sustained interest in the histories of alternative exhibitions (single artwork, solo artist, artist-mounted, entrepreneurial, privately funded, ephemeral, etc.) with the notable exception of those publications that deal with situations involving major artists or those who would become so—for example J. L. David’s exhibition of Intervention of the Sabine Women (1799) and The First Impressionist Exhibition of 1874—despite the fact that these sorts of exhibitions and critical scholarship about them have become commonplace (and no less important) in the contemporary art world. The present volume uses and contextualizes eleven case studies to advance some overarching themes and commonalities among alternative exhibitions in the long modern period from the late-eighteenth to the late-twentieth centuries and beyond. These include the issue of control in the interrelation and elision of the roles of artist and curator, and the relationship of such alternative exhibitions to the dominant modes, structures of display and cultural ideology.
Andrew Graciano is Associate Professor of Art History at the
University of South Carolina.
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C O N T E N T S
List of Illustrations
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Alternative Venues, Andrew Graciano
1 Nathaniel Hone’s 1775 Exhibition: The First Single-Artist Retrospective, Konstantinos Stefanis
2 Branding Shakespeare: Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery and the Politics of Display, Heather McPherson
3 Fantasy and Rivalry: Jean-Baptiste Regnault’s Solo Exhibition, Paris 1800, Katie Hanson
4 Rereading ‘Court’ in the Touring Exhibition of Rembrandt Peale’s Court of Death (1820), Tanya Pohrt
5 ‘Plasmati dalle sue mani’: Canova’s Touch and the Gipsoteca of Possagno, Christina Ferando
6 Art History as Spectacle: Blockbuster Exhibitions in 1850s England, Amy M. Von Lintel
7 Merging Form and Formlessness: The 1892 Monotype Exhibition by Edgar Degas, Christine Y. Hahn
8 The Radical Work of Oskar Kokoschka and the Alternative Venues of Die Kunstschauen of 1908–1909, Vienna, Austria, Rosa J.H. Berland
9 Bringing the Boudoir into the Gallery: Florine Stettheimer’s ‘Failed’ Solo Exhibition, Karen Stock
10 Exhibiting the Museum-Function: Marcel Broodthaers and the Musée d’Art Moderne, Département des Aigles, Julian Jason Haladyn
11 Georges Adéagbo: Between Artwork and Exhibition, Kathryn M. Floyd
Epilogue: Control Issues, Andrew Graciano
Select Bibliography
Index
Lecture | Mark Rakatansky on Piranesi and Soane
From The Morgan:
Mark Rakatansky | ‘His Conduct is Mischievous’: Piranesi and Soane
The Morgan Library and Museum, New York, 19 March 2015
Sir John Soane, although an admirer of the graphic works of Piranesi, remarked that his “conduct is mischievous” in his only built work Santa Maria del Priorato. Similar sentiments have been expressed about Soane, particularly in regard to his own House-Museum. Mark Rakatansky (Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, Columbia University) will explore the complex relationship of these two architects and the unsettling ‘mischievous’ engagements of their architecture, drawings, and writings. This lecture is cosponsored by Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation.
The exhibition Piranesi and the Temples of Paestum: Drawings from Sir John Soane’s Museum will be open at 5:30pm for program attendees.
Thursday, March 19, 2015, 6:30pm
Tickets: $15; $10 for Morgan and Sir John Soane’s Museum Members; and free for students with valid ID.
Enfilade 
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