Monday, July 31, 2017

Otto Dix: The Evil Eye


Tate Liverpool
Until 15 Oct 2017

Tate Liverpool presents the faces of Germany between the two World Wars seen through the eyes of painter Otto Dix (1891–1969) and photographer August Sander (1876–1964). Portraying a Nation: Germany 1919–1933 brings together two artists whose works document the glamour and misery of the Weimar Republic, a time of radical extremes and political and economic upheaval.


Portraying a Nation, which exhibits Dix and Sander as a pair for the first time, reflects a pivotal point in Germany’s history, as it introduced democratic rule in the aftermath of the First World War. The period was one of experimentation and innovation across the visual arts, during which both artists were concerned with representing the extremes of society, from the flourishing cabaret culture to intense poverty and civilian rebellions.


Featuring more than 300 paintings, drawings, prints and photographs, Portraying a Nation unites two complementary exhibitions. Otto Dix: The Evil Eye explores Dix’s harshly realistic depictions of German society and the brutality of war, while ARTIST ROOMS: August Sander presents photographs from Sander’s best known series People of the Twentieth Century, from the ARTIST ROOMS collection of international modern and contemporary art.


The exhibition focuses on the evolution of Dix’s work during his years in Düsseldorf, from 1922 to 1925, when he became one of the foremost New Objectivity painters, a movement exploring a new style of artistic representation following the First World War. 

 

Dix’s paintings are vitriolic reflections on German society, commenting on the country’s stark divisions. His work represents the people who made up these contradictions in society with highlights including 

 


Otto Dix, 1891–1969
Hugo Erfurth with Dog 1926
(Bildnis des Fotografen Hugo Erfurth mit Hund) 1926
Tempera and oil paint on panel
800 x 1000 mm
Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
© DACS 2017. Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

Portrait of the Photographer Hugo Erfurth with Dog 1923, 

Otto Dix, 1891-1969
Self-Portrait with Easel 1926
(Selbstbildnis mit Staffelei) 1926
800 x 550 mm
Leopold-Hoesch-Museum & Papiermuseum, Düren
© DACS 2017. Leopold-Hoesch-Museum & Papiermuseum Düren. Photo: Peter Hinschläger.

Self-Portrait with Easel 1926, 

as well as a large group of lesser known watercolours. 

 

 Buried Alive

 

 Gas Victims

 

Soldier's grave between the lines

Wounded Soldier 

 

Machine Gunners Advancing

 

Mealtime in the Trenches


Dix’s The War 1924 will also form a key element of the exhibition, a series of 50 etchings made as a reaction to and representation of the profound effect of his personal experiences of fighting in the First World War.


Portraying a Nation: Germany 1919–1933 is made up of Otto Dix: The Evil Eye, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf. 


Otto Dix: The Evil Eye is curated by Dr Susanne Meyer-Büser, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Francesco Manacorda, Artistic Director and Lauren Barnes, Assistant Curator, Tate Liverpool. 

 






Otto Dix, 1891-1969
Butterfly 1922
(Schmetterling) 1922
Graphite on found paper
217 x 135 mm
Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf
© DACS 2017. Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf.
ensure that all works that are provided are shown in full, with no overprinting or manipulation.


Otto Dix, 1891-1969
Argentinian Venomous Scorpion 1922
(Argentinischer Gift-Skorpion) 1922
Graphite on found paper
134 x 217 mm
Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf
© DACS 2017. Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf.





Otto Dix, 1891–1969
Reclining Woman on a Leopard Skin 1927
(Liegende auf Leopardenfell) 1927
Oil paint on panel
680 x 980 mm
© DACS 2017. Collection of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University. Gift of Samuel A. Berger; 55.031.



Otto Dix, 1891-1969
Giant Snake 1922
(Riesenschlange) 1922
Graphite on found paper
135 x 217 mm
Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf
© DACS 2017. Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf.




Otto Dix, 1891-1969
Mask Fish 1922
(Maskenfisch) 1922
Graphite on found paper
217 x 135 mm
Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf
© DACS 2017. Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf.




Otto Dix, 1891-1969
Tibetan Turkey Vulture 1922
(Tibetanischer Truthahngeier) 1922
Graphite on found paper
135 x 217 mm
Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf
© DACS 2017. Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf.


Otto Dix, 1891-1969
Vulture Skull 1922
(Totenkopfgeier) 1922
Graphite on found paper
217 x 135 mm
Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf 
© DACS 2017. Galerie Remmert und Barth, Düsseldorf.

Friday, July 28, 2017

Richard Gerstl



Neue Galerie New York
June 29-September 25, 2017
http://www.neuegalerie.org/content/richard-gerstl#3395



Richard Gerstl
Semi-Nude Self-Portrait
1902-04Oil on canvas Leopold Museum, Vienna

Richard Gerstl
Grinzing 1907


 

 

 


Neue Galerie New York is presenting "Richard Gerstl," the first museum retrospective in the United States devoted to the work of the Austrian Expressionist (1883-1908). This exhibition is co-organized with the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, and will be on view at the Neue Galerie through September 25, 2017.

Gerstl was an extremely original artist whose psychologically intense figure paintings and landscapes constitute a radically unorthodox oeuvre that defied the reigning concepts of style and beauty during his time. The longstanding secrecy surrounding Gerstl’s dramatic and untimely suicide at the age of 25, and the scandalous love affair that preceded his death, only further magnify the legend that has grown around this lesser known, but influential member of Vienna’s artistic avant-garde at the turn of the twentieth century.

The show is organized by Expressionist scholar Jill Lloyd, who has assembled several important exhibitions for the Neue Galerie, including "Van Gogh and Expressionism" in 2007, "Ferdinand Hodler: View to Infinity" in 2012, and "Munch and Expressionism" in 2016.

Approximately 55 paintings and works on paper are on display, including portraits, frontal nude figures, highly gestural group portraits, landscapes, and comparative works by Gerstl’s artistic contemporaries. A special gallery is devoted to Gerstl’s relationship with the leading Austrian composer Arnold Schönberg; the artist’s friendship with Schönberg abruptly ended in 1908 upon the disclosure of the love affair between Gerstl and Schönberg’s wife Mathilde. Although Gerstl’s extant body of work comprises only approximately 90 works, his groundbreaking style is central to the development of the Expressionist movement of fin-de-siècle Vienna.

A fully illustrated catalogue, published by Hirmer, accompanies the exhibition featuring contributions by leading scholars in the field, including Raymond Coffer, Jane Kallir, Diethard Leopold, Jill Lloyd, Ingrid Pfeiffer, Maria Sitte, and Karol Winiarczyk.

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Manet to Cézanne: Impressionist Drawings

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam
27 May to 17 September 2017


Auguste Renoir, Two women, walking to the right, c. 1890, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (former collection Koenigs)




Edgar Degas, Nude study of jockey on horseback, seen on the back, 1834 – 1917, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (former Collection Koenigs)



Paul Cézanne, Rooftops of l’Estaque, c. 1878 – 1882, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (former collection Koenigs)
 
 
 
Edgar Degas, Dancer with Contrabass, 1880, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam. Legacy Vitale Bloch 1976
 
 
 
Georges Pierre Seurat, Landscape at Sunset, c. 1882 - 1883, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
 
 
 
Edouard Manet, Study with five prunes, 1880, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Former Collection Koenigs.

The Impressionists, whose loose brushstrokes, bright colours and light effects brought about a revolution in painting around 1870, were also extremely innovative draughtsmen.  The medium lent itself to fleeting impressions of the landscape and urban life far better than paint – chalk and watercolours are quicker to use than oils. This summer Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen presents a magnificent selection of Impressionist drawings from its own collection.
The Impressionists usually used soft drawing materials to create a painterly result. Degas, Pissarro and Renoir often worked with chalk and pastel, Seurat had a distinct preference for conté chalk and Cézanne was an outstanding watercolourist. The Impressionists were not so fond of pen or hard pencil, which in their view defined shapes too sharply. The granular texture of chalk leaves the paper partially exposed, so that light is captured in the drawing. The use of loose and multiple outlines suggests movement in time.

Continuing Source of Inspiration

The Impressionists staged their own exhibitions because their innovative works were usually not accepted for the official exhibitions of the Paris Salon. There were always drawings in the eight group exhibitions mounted between 1874 and 1886 – around forty percent of the works exhibited, far more than were on display in the Salon. Thanks to the Impressionists, drawing, traditionally a part of academic training, also became a medium of the avant-garde. Their swift method – drawing against time – and the materials they used created a new freedom in art, which was of great significance to later generations of artists, from Picasso, for whom Cézanne and Degas were important examples, to Richard Serra, whose drawings attest to his admiration for Seurat.

Impressionism is an elastic concept. Most of the artists represented here took part in the group exhibitions staged between 1874 and 1886. Also there were Seurat and Signac, who were soon dubbed Neo-Impressionists, and Cézanne and Gauguin, whose work is regarded today as Post-Impressionist, like that of Toulouse-Lautrec. These late nineteenth-century trends were not about impressions of perceived reality. Compared with the original Impressionists, these later artists took a more conceptual approach, with greater structure and abstraction.

Impressionist Drawings from the Boijmans Collection
 

The museum has an important collection of drawings and a sizeable collection of prints in which the way art has evolved from the Middle Ages to the present day is clear to see. In the collection there are works by such masters as Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn, Antonio Pisanello and Jean Antoine Watteau, and the museum also has a notable collection of Impressionist prints and drawings by many other artists. The thirty-four exhibited works are a selection from this collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist drawings. Among the highlights are five drawings by Manet, four by Degas, four by Renoir, four by Cézanne, three by Toulouse-Lautrec and one by Seurat. Most of them come from the former Koenigs Collection.

Impressionists in London, French Artists in Exile (1870-1904)

Tate Britain, Linbury Galleries
2 November 2017 – 7 May 2018
 
This autumn, Tate Britain will bring together over 100 beautiful works by Monet, Tissot, Pissarro and others in the first large-scale exhibition to chart the stories of French artists who sought refuge in Britain during the Franco-Prussian War. The EY Exhibition: Impressionists in London, French Artists in Exile (1870-1904) will map the artistic networks they built in Britain, consider the aesthetic impact London had on the artists’ work, and present instantly recognisable views of the city as seen through French eyes.

Claude Monet (1840 – 1926) Leicester Square  1901 Oil paint on canvas 805 x 648 mm Coll. Fondation Jean et Suzanne Planque (in deposit at Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence) Photo: © Luc Chessex

Claude Monet (1840 – 1926) Leicester Square 1901 Oil paint on canvas 805 x 648 mm Coll. Fondation Jean et Suzanne Planque (in deposit at Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence) Photo: © Luc Chessex

The EY Exhibition: Impressionists in London will look at French painters’ keen observations of British culture and social life, which were notably different to the café culture found in Paris.

Camille Pissarro (1830 – 1903) Saint Anne’s Church at Kew, London 1892 Oil paint on canvas 548 x 460 mm Private collection

Camille Pissarro (1830 – 1903) Saint Anne’s Church at Kew, London 1892 Oil paint on canvas 548 x 460 mm Private collection

 Camille Pissarro, Kew Green 1892


Camille Pissarro (1830 – 1903)
Kew Green
1892
Oil paint on canvas
460 x 550 mm
Musee d’Orsay (Paris, France)

Evocative depictions of figures enjoying London parks such as Pissarro’s Kew Green 1892 will be shown, that were in stark contrast to formal French gardens where walking on the grass was prohibited.


Scenes of regattas fringed with bunting as painted by Alfred Sisley and


James Tissot (1836-1902) The Ball on Shipboard c.1874 Oil paint on canvas 1012 x 1476 x 115 mm Tate. Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1937

James Tissot (1836-1902) The Ball on Shipboard c.1874 Oil paint on canvas 1012 x 1476 x 115 mm Tate. Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest 1937

James Tissot in The Ball on Shipboard c.1874 will also be shown, demonstrating how British social codes and traditions captured the imagination of the Impressionists at the time.
While in London, French artists gravitated towards notable figures who would help them develop their careers and provide them with financial support. The exhibition will look at the mentorship Monet received from Charles-François Daubigny and consider the significant role of opera singer and art patron Jean-Baptiste Faure – works that he owned including



Sisley’s Molesey Weir, Hampton Court, Morning 1874 will be displayed. One of the most influential figures to be celebrated will be art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who first met Monet and Pissarro in London during their exile in 1870-71. Durand-Ruel purchased over 5000 Impressionist works over his lifetime which, in Monet’s own words, saved them from starving.
Part of the exhibition will examine the central role of Alphonse Legros in French émigré networks. As Professor of Fine Art at the Slade School in London from 1876 to 1893, he made a dynamic impact on British art education both as a painter and etcher, and exerted a decisive influence on the representation of peasant life as can be seen in  



The Tinker 1874.

He introduced his patrons Constantine Alexander Ionides and George Howard, 9th Earl of Carlisle, to sculptor Aimé-Jules Dalou who then, together with fellow sculptor and émigré Edouard Lantéri, shaped British institutions by changing the way modelling was taught. Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux’s sojourns in London, which he initially planned in order to stay close to his great patron, the exiled Emperor Napoleon III, will also be examined.

 
Camille Pissarro (1830 – 1903), Charing Cross Bridge, 1890. Oil paint on canvas, 600 x 924 mm. National Gallery of Art (Washington, USA)


The final and largest section of the exhibition will be dedicated to representations of the Thames. 



 Claude Monet The Houses of Parliament Sunset



The Houses of Parliament With the Sun 1904 
 
 
Houses of Parliament, Effect of Sunlight in the Fog, 1904 

 Claude Monet  Houses of Parliament at Sunset, 1903 



Claude Monet (1840-1926) Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect 1903 Oil paint on canvas 813 x 921 mm Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York


Claude Monet The Houses of Parliament (Effect of Fog) 
 
 

Claude Monet Houses of Parliament, London, Sun Breaking Through, 1904 
 
  Claude Monet Houses of Parliament, Fog Effect



Claude Monet Houses of Parliament, London 1905 (50 Kb); Oil on canvas, 81 x 92 cm (31 7/8 x 36 1/4 in); Musee Marmottan, Paris

 

Claude Monet, Houses of Parliament, Sunlight Effect, 1903
Featuring a group of Monet’s Houses of Parliament series, this room will examine how depictions of the Thames and London developed into a key theme in French art.

A selection of André Derain’s paintings of London landmarks, which answer directly to Monet’s, will demonstrate the continuity of this motif in art history.  The show will conclude with the Entente Cordiale – a formal pact of peace and unity between Britain and France – which, in the case of Monet in particular, coincided with the culmination of an artistic project which started in 1870.
The EY Exhibition: Impressionists in London, French Artists in Exile (1870-1904) will be curated by Dr Caroline Corbeau-Parsons in collaboration with the Petit Palais and Paris Musées. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue and a programme of talks and events in the gallery.

Alfred Stieglitz and Modern America


Museum of Fine Arts, Boston 
July 22–November 5, 2017

This exhibition presents a selection of the MFA’s exceptional holdings of works by Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946), the great American impresario of photography at the turn of the 20th century. Featuring 36 photographs, the exhibition showcases fine examples of his New York views, portraits and photographs that Stieglitz took at his family’s country home at Lake George.


  Alfred Stieglitz's “The Terminal”1893

Alfred Stieglitz “The Steerage” 1907

Alfred Stieglitz “From the Shelton, Looking West,” 1934
 
The New York views reveal the artist’s lifelong interest in the urban city, from his early explorations of the picturesque effects of rain, snow and nightfall to later ones that focus on the inherent geometry of modernity’s rising architectural structures.


 Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O’Keeffe: A Portrait (4), 1918. Photograph, gelatin silver print. The Alfred Stieglitz Collection—Gift of the Georgia O’Keeffe Foundation, Sophie M. Friedman Fund and Lucy Dalbiac Luard Fund.


The portraits include 10 images from Stieglitz’s magnificent extended series of images of his wife, the celebrated painter Georgia O’Keeffe—a “portrait in time” that reflects his ideals of modern womanhood and is evocative of their close relationship. These portraits are accompanied by additional images of members of his family and friends.

The Lake George photographs include, in addition to views of the family property, a sequence of the mystical cloud studies that Stieglitz called “equivalents,” which explore the interpretation of inner states of being.

Many of the photographs on view were donated by Stieglitz to the MFA in 1924—making it one of the first museums in the US to collect photography as fine art. Enhanced by an additional gift from O’Keeffe in 1950, the MFA’s Stieglitz holdings form an outstanding survey of the photographer’s career, as well as the cornerstone of the Museum’s photography collection.

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

'Something Resembling Truth': Major Jasper Johns Retrospective


Royal Academy of Arts, London

Sep. 23 through Dec. 10, 2017 

 

The Broad, Los Angeles

Feb. 10, 2018 through May 13, 2018

Jasper Johns, Flag, 1967, encaustic and collage on canvas (three panels), 33 1/2 x 56 1/4 in., Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.  The Eli and Edythe L.  Broad Collection
Jasper Johns, Flag, 1967, encaustic and collage on canvas (three panels), 33 1/2 x 56 1/4 in., Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Collection

Artist Jasper Johns (b. 1930), who rose to prominence with his paintings of flags, targets and other familiar objects, will be the sole subject of a special exhibition at LA's The Broad in early 2018.

Johns’ 60-year career of work will be presented in the most comprehensive survey in the U.S. in two decades. Jasper Johns: ‘Something Resembling Truth’ is the first major survey of the artist’s work to be shown in Los Angeles, and will be on view at The Broad Feb. 10, 2018 through May 13, 2018.

A collaboration with the Royal Academy, London, Jasper Johns: ‘Something Resembling Truth’ will feature more than 100 of the artist’s most iconic and significant paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings, many never before exhibited in Los Angeles. With loans from international public and private collections, including significant works from the Broad collection, the exhibition will trace the evolution of the artist’s six-decade career through a series of thematic chapters.

The exhibition encompasses the full range of Johns’ materials, motifs and techniques—including his unique use of encaustic (heated beeswax) and foundmaterial collage in paintings—and the innovations he has achieved in sculpture and the graphic arts by expanding the possibilities of traditional media.

Johns’ use of accessible images will be thoroughly examined, seen continually transformed through the artist’s engagement with a wide range of human experiences. In a departure from a retrospective approach, Johns’ artistic achievements will be illuminated through the juxtaposition of early and late works throughout the exhibition.

One of the most influential and important living artists to emerge in the 20th century, and one of America’s great living artists, Johns has been seminal to the Broad collection. His work emerged with and has influenced numerous other collection artists represented in depth, including Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol, Bruce Nauman, Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari and Sherrie Levine.

Organized by the Royal Academy of Arts, London in collaboration with The Broad, Jasper Johns: ‘Something Resembling Truth’ is curated by Edith Devaney, contemporary curator at the Royal Academy, and independent curator Dr. Roberta Bernstein, author of Jasper Johns’ Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings and Sculpture, who has written and lectured extensively on contemporary artists including Johns, Ellsworth Kelly and Robert Rauschenberg. Heyler and Associate Curator Ed Schad are host curators at The Broad.

The exhibition title is taken from a 2006 interview, in which Johns said, “Yet, one hopes for something resembling truth, some sense of life, even of grace, to flicker, at least, in the work.”
At The Broad, Jasper Johns: ‘Something Resembling Truth’ will begin with an entire gallery devoted to Johns’ complex treatment of the American flag, arguably his best-known image, deployed famously at the outset of his career in the 1950s as testing ground for a new direction for 20th century art, and for decades afterward, as an enduring, compelling and everevolving subject evoking a variety of social meanings.

The exhibition will reveal the continuities and changes in Johns’ work throughout his career. His use of accessible and familiar motifs established a new vocabulary in painting as early as the 1950s—his treatment of iconography and the appropriation of objects and symbols made the familiar seem unknown through the distinctive, complex textures of his works. Through his groundbreaking paintings and sculptures, Johns charted a radical new course in an art world that had previously been dominated by Abstract Expressionism.

In the 1960s he added devices within his works, including studio objects, imprints and casts of the human figure, while works from the 1970s are dominated by abstract ‘crosshatchings.’ During this time Johns began to explore printmaking and is now one of the most celebrated printmakers today.

His work continued to evolve throughout the 1980s, as he introduced a variety of images that engaged with themes involving memory, sexuality and the contemplation of mortality. From this time, Johns increasingly incorporated tracings and details of works by other artists, such as Matthias Grünewald, Pablo Picasso and Edvard Munch.

The works of the 1990s built on the increasing complexity of subject and reference, and by the early 2000s Johns had embarked on the pared down and more conceptual Catenary series which, along with other recent works, shows the rich productivity and vitality of this late phase of his career.

Jasper Johns: ‘Something Resembling Truth’ brings together artworks that rarely travel, including significant loans from the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Art Institute, Chicago; the Menil Collection, Houston; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Tate, London; the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In addition, the artist has generously loaned a number of his works to the exhibition.

Works exclusive to The Broad’s presentation of the exhibition include




Three Flags, 1958 (The Whitney Museum of Art, New York)



and In memory of my feelings, Frank O’Hara, 1995 (Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago).


Other highlights include



Jasper Johns, Target, 1961. Encaustic and collage on canvas. 167.6 x 167.6 cm. The Art Institute of Chicago © Jasper Johns / Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Photo: © 2017. The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY / Scala, Florence
Flag, 1958 (private collection);



0 Through 9, 1961 (private collection);



Periscope (Hart Crane), 1963 (The Menil Collection on Loan from the Artist);


Jasper Johns, Between the Clock and the Bed, 1981

Between the Clock and the Bed, 1981 (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C);



Ventriloquist, 1983 (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston);



 Summer, 1985 (Museum of Modern Art, New York);



and Bridge, 1997 (private collection).

Jasper Johns: ‘Something Resembling Truth’ will be accompanied by an exhibition catalogue featuring writings by the curators Devaney and Bernstein, as well as essays from curator and critic Robert Storr, art historian Hiroko Ikegami and writer Morgan Meis. The contributing authors will discuss Johns’ extensive body of work from viewpoints of literature, contemporary culture and international significance. The exhibition debuts at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, from Sep. 23 through Dec. 10, 2017.