Lecture on Guillaume Lethière
September 18 2024
Video: The Clark Institute
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I failed to spot that the The Clark Institute have published this free lecture on Guillaume Lethière on their YouTube channel in August. The lecture gives an introduction to the artist and their ongoing exhibition which closes on 14th October 2024.
Revolution at the Musée Carnavalet
September 18 2024
Picture: Musée Carnavalet
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée Carnavalet in Paris will be opening an exhibition dedicated to 'Year II' of the French Revolution.
According the museum's website:
1789, the year of the Storming of the Bastille and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, is often considered to be the glorious year of the Revolution and even to embody the French Revolution in its entirety. It is the year during which Paris established itself as the capital of the Enlightenment and Revolutions.
But compared to the clarity of “89”, “93” appears much darker and thornier. As it was just coming to an end, this long political year spanning from the spring of 1793 to the summer of 1794 had already found a name: the “Terror”. Fabricated for political reasons, the word points to the authoritarian transition that the republican regime had undergone. And yet, the years 1793-1794 are also the years that some, confident in their ability to reinvent history, called “Year II”: a year defined by its breaking with the past and its revitalising of revolutionary utopias.
The exhibition is a collection of more than 250 works of all kinds: paintings, sculptures, objects of decorative arts, historical and memorial objects, wallpaper, posters, pieces of furniture… And all translate collective histories and incredible individual fates.
These varied objects reveal a context imbued with collective fears and state violence, but also with extraordinary daily activities, feasts, and celebrations.
The display will run from 16th October 2024 until 16th February 2025.
Picasso acquired by Pinakothek der Moderne
September 18 2024
Picture: deeds.news
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich have acquired Pablo Picasso's Femme au violon. Painted in 1911, the work is celebrated as being created at the pinacle of the artist's cubist period. The work has been on loan to various institutions in Germany before an effort was made, with the assistance of various funds, to acquire it.
Here's the painting's full provenance, as supplied by the press article linked above:
Provenance of the painting: earliest 1911-1912 Daniel Henry Kahnweiler, Paris; 1912 Alfred Flechtheim, Düsseldorf; latest 1913 to at least 1917 Franz Kluxen, Münster and Boldixum; at least 1920 to at least 1922 Max Leon Flemming, Hamburg; 1927 Galerie M. Goldschmidt & Co, Frankfurt am Main (on commission); no earlier than 1927, no later than 1931 to 1942 Hermann Lange, Krefeld / Berlin; 1942 to 1964 Marie Lange, Krefeld; since 1964 private collection; 1994 to 2004 on loan from private ownership to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Neue Nationalgalerie; 2004 on loan from private ownership to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Museum Berggruen; since 2014 on loan from private ownership to the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Sammlung Moderne Kunst in der Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
The Legacy of Vesuvius at the Meadows Museum
September 18 2024
Picture: Meadows Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Meadows Museum in Dallas have just opened a new exhibition dedicated to the theme of The Legacy of Vesuvius: Bourbon Discoveries on the Bay of Naples.
According to their website:
The Legacy of Vesuvius: Bourbon Discoveries on the Bay of Naples will reveal the slippage between the ancient and modern during the reigns of these royal tastemakers. Through an eighteenth-century lens, Vesuvius’s volatility read as romantic; in its shadows the Bourbons financed excavations at the Roman sites of Pompeii and Herculaneum, the fruits of which both fueled and supplied demand for all things antique. Royal collections incorporated many of these artifacts, which were sometimes creatively manipulated to better suit eighteenth-century taste. New objects inspired by recently unearthed ancient art were also produced, contributing to the widespread popularity of neoclassicism. The Bay of Naples, itself a protagonist in this story, became a vital hub for artistic production, scientific exploration, and tourism during the eighteenth century.
The show will run until 5th January 2025.
Digitising the Firmian Collection
September 17 2024
Picture: CODART
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
CODART (the international network of curators of Dutch and Flemish art) have published a fascinating feature on the ongoing digitisation and research of the Firmian Collection of prints kept in the Capodimonte Museum in Naples. The collection was gifted to the Italian state in 1864 and is kept in the same mahogany cabinet which accompanied the gift. The article is well worth a read.
Munnings Film
September 17 2024
Video: National Sporting Library and Museum, Virginia, USA
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Sporting Library and Museum, Virginia, and the art historian Christopher Garibaldi have teamed up to create this video documentary on aspects relating to the art and life of Sir Alfred Munnings for the Art History Festival 2024. This film also contains presentations by Marcia Whiting, Curatorial Associate, Munnings Art Museum, and Claudia Pfeiffer, George L. Ohrstrom, Jr. Deputy Director & Head Curator.
Lecture: The Rough and the Smooth in 17th-century Dutch Painting
September 17 2024
Picture: vmfa.museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Virginia Museum of Fine Art will be hosting and livestreaming their inaugural Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III Lecture on 25th September 2024. This year it will fall to Dr. Ronni Baer, distinguished Curator and Lecturer at the Princeton University Art Museum, to present on the subject of The Rough and the Smooth in 17th-century Dutch Painting. More details, including timings, via the link above.
Assistant Professor Job in Massachusetts
September 17 2024
Picture: Mount Holyoke College
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts are hiring an Assistant Professor of Art History and Architectural Studies.
According to the job description:
he Mount Holyoke College Department of Art History and Architectural Studies invites applications for an art or architectural historian of the late antique and medieval Mediterranean world for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor to begin July 1, 2025. We are especially interested in candidates whose research and teaching are concerned with aspects of globalism and cultural connections. The teaching load is four courses per year, comprising a general survey, upper-level courses, and advanced seminars in the candidate's area of expertise.
Applications must be in by 1st December 2024 and no salary has been indicated.
Il Cinquecento a Ferrara
September 16 2024
Picture: ferraratoday.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A new exhibition focusing on the art of Il Cinquecento in Ferrara will be opening at the Palazzo dei Diamanti on 12th October 2024. With around 220 works on display, the exhibition will draw particular focus on the likes of Mazzolino, Ortolano, Garofalo and Dosso Dossi. The show will then run until 16th February 2025.
French Pictures at Witt Library Website Live!
September 16 2024
Picture: courtauld.ac.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Exciting news that the Courtauld Institute have published the French boxes of the Witt Library on their new photographic collections website.
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I've been planning a blog about some of my online Witt researches in the near future. It really is a brilliant resource, albeit a slightly fiddly one at times considering the layout of the site. I'm sure it will become easier with time and transform the way picture research is done.
Bruno Liljefors - Wild Sweden at the Petit Palais
September 16 2024
Picture: Petit Palais
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Petit Palais in Paris will be opening a new exhibition next month dedicated to Sweden's foremost painter of animals, Bruno Liljefors (1860-1939).
According to the museum's website:
Less known than his peers, Bruno Liljefors was nevertheless an important figure on the Scandinavian arts scene in the late-nineteenth century. By showing his work for the first time to the French public, the Petit Palais seeks to highlight his pictorial skill and Liljefors’ original contribution to the construction of the imaginative repertoire of Swedish nature.
This unique exhibition features an ensemble of some one hundred pieces, including paintings, drawings, and photographs from the collections of Swedish museums like the Nationalmuseum of Stockholm—partner of the exhibition—the Thiel Gallery, and Gothenburg Museum, as well as numerous private collections.
The show will run from 1st October 2024 until 16th February 2025.
BIAF 2024
September 16 2024
Picture: Galerie Canesso
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Biennale Internazionale dell'Antiquariato di Firenze (BIAF) will be opening to the public next Saturday. It appears that this year's edition is set to be bigger than ever, with around 14 galleries making their first appearance at the fair. One of the works that has been widely used to promote the fair is Galerie Canesso's Madonna and Child by Bronzino, a painting which pays homage to Donatello's 'Dudley Madonna' in the V&A. Head over the fair's Instagram page to watch a video on the painting.
The art fair will run from 28th October until 6th October.
Applications open for Slade Professorship of Fine Art
September 16 2024
Picture: jobs.ac.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The University of Cambridge is hiring for the Slade Professorship of Fine Art from 2025-26 to 2029-30.
According to the job description:
The Slade Professorship of Fine Art was established in 1869 as the result of a generous bequest in the will of Felix Slade. A list of former holders of the Professorship in the past forty years is attached at the end of these further particulars. It is the intention of the Board of Electors to elect a Professor for each of the academic years 2025-26 to 2029-30.
The duty of the Professor is to deliver a series of public lectures as well as seminar classes on aspects of the History, Theory and Practice of Fine Arts (which can include architecture). It is expected that the lectures will form part of a new scholarly project and that they will not have been given in the same format elsewhere (or published) before they are given in Cambridge. The lectures must be given in Full Term and are open free of charge to all members of the University.
The job comes with an annual salary of £79,792 and applications must be in by 9th October 2024.
Good luck if you're applying!
AIL Gainsboroughs on Display at No.1 Royal Crescent
September 16 2024
Picture: No.1 Royal Crescent
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
No.1 Royal Crescent in Bath, run by the Bath Preservation Trust, have just displayed four recently acquired paintings by Thomas Gainsborough. The portraits of the Tugwell family, who were middle-class manufacturers from a small West Country town, were painted by the artist around the year 1760. The works were acquired through the Acceptance in Lieu Scheme (AIL), via the auctioneers Duke's, and settled £88,125 worth of tax.
According to the article linked above:
Senior curator for Bath Preservation Trust Dr Amy Frost said: "The portraits are remarkable for capturing two generations of a manufacturing family." [...]
"When I opened the email saying 'Do you want four Gainsborough portraits?' my first reaction was to ask: 'Is this real?' especially as it then said 'as a gift'.
"We're a small museum, and a gift like this can be revolutionary in terms of the quality of what we display," said Ms Frost.
Van Gogh at The National Gallery
September 16 2024
Video: Euronews
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery in London have just opened their latest Van Gogh blockbuster entitled Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers. The reviews thus far have been rather positive, so, it looks like one not to be missed!
The show will run until 19th January 2024.
Joslyn Art Museum Reopens with newly acquired Sirani
September 13 2024
Picture: Joslyn Art Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Joslyn Art Museum in Nebraska reopened earlier this month after a grand reinstallation and renovation project. They've celebrated the reopening by highlighting their recent acquisitions, which includes this Portrait of Signora Ortensia Leoni Cordini as Saint Dorothy by Elisabetta Sirani. The painting was acquired from the New York dealer Robert Simon last year.
Iolo Williams Collection at Olympia Auctions
September 13 2024
Picture: Olympia Auctions
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Olympia Auctions in West London will be offering 88 fine drawings and watercolours from the collection of Iolo Williams (1890-1962) on 2nd October 2024. Williams was a great scholar on the subject of watercolours and this sale is a homage to this passion.
According to the auction house:
Having been kept safely - in storage boxes under a bed - this will be their [the lots offered] first appearance on the market for more than 60 years and in some cases much longer.
Iolo Williams was a museums and art critic for The Times from 1936 onwards and an avid collector. Born in Middlesborough, he lived in Hindhead in his youth and latterly in Kew, south-west of London, and formed his collection from the 1930’s to the 1950’s when unidentified drawings could be picked up for a modest price from dealers and auctions. Through diligent research, he identified many works as being by leading exponents of the golden age of British drawings and watercolours: artists such as Thomas Girtin, Richard Wilson, William Payne, John Varley and Paul Sandby. He also discovered and put on record other artists about whom little was then known.
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With such tempting estimates, there has probably never been a better time to get collecting in this field. As a quick plug, I discussed this subject (alongside many others) in a long-format podcast I recorded with Dr David Bellingham earlier in the summer.
Sleeper Alert!
September 13 2024
Picture: Gorringe's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A reader has kindly been in touch with news that this nude study soared past its modest £60 - £80 estimate at Gorringe's this week to achieve an impressive £38,000. The painting's description in the online catalogue was 'Impasto oil on board, Abstract composition, Nude art school study (believed to be Slade)'. I wonder what the consignor thought after hearing the result!
Coming Soon: Caillebotte Painting Men
September 11 2024
Picture: Musée d'Orsay
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Musée d'Orsay will be opening their latest exhibition next month dedicated to Gustave Caillebotte's paintings of men.
According to the museum's website:
The exhibition on show at the Musée d'Orsay in autumn 2024 focuses on Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) and his predilection for masculine forms and portraits of men, and seeks to examine this artist's profoundly radical modernity through the lens of art history's changing perspective on 19th-century forms of masculinity.
In a desire to produce a new, authentic form of art, Caillebotte took his subjects from his surroundings (Haussmann's Paris, the country houses around the capital), his male acquaintances (his brothers, the workers employed by his family, his boating friends), and ultimately from his own life. In response to the realist movement, he introduced new figures into his paintings: an urban worker, a man on a balcony, a sportsman, and even an intimate portrait of a male nude at his 'toilette'. In an era when virility and republican fraternity prevailed, but traditional masculinity was also in crisis for the first time, these new, powerful images challenged the established order, both social and sexual. Beyond his own identity - that of a young rich Parisian bachelor - Caillebotte also brought profound questions into the male condition at the heart of Impressionism and Modernism.
The show will run from 8th October 2024 until 9th January 2025.
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Is it just me, or have French museums been creating some brilliant exhibition posters recently?
Symposium on 'Two Women Wearing Cosmetic Patches'
September 11 2024
Picture: YCBA
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Yale Center for British Art will be hosting a symposium on 27th September 2024 on the subject of A Puritan Picture: Vanity, Morality, and Race in Seventeenth-Century Britain. The focus will of course be research into Compton Verney's newly acquired Two Women Wearing Cosmetic Patches, which regular readers of this blog will remember.
Here's a brief list of the presentations and speakers:
Opening Talk — A Painter for a Puritan Picture? - Edward Town
Panel I — Women, Dress, and Morality - Chair: Elizabeth Cleland alongside Jennifer Wu and Jemma Field.
Panel II — Bodies and Voices - Chair: Patricia Fumerton alongside Haijiao Wang, Todd Simmons, Jane Partner and Katherine Aske.
Keynote — Cosmetics and Cultures of Beauty - Chair: Erin Griffey alongside Jill Burkeand Evelyn Welch.
Closing Discussion — Exhibiting the Painting - Chair: Edward Town alongside Oli McCall and Jane Simpkiss.
It appears that the symposium might be free to attend in-person and online. Click on the link to find details for registration.
