March-April 2024 Art Antiques

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F O R C O L L E C T O R S O F T H E F I N E A N D D E C O R AT I V E A R T S

DUTCH ART | UKRAINIAN MODERNISM | CASPAR FRIEDRICH | VERTIGO OF COLOR

Mildred Thompson

march/april 2024

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Visionary Physics

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Mildred Thompson: A visionary abstract painter who used string theory to illuminate

BY WILLIAM CORWIN

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Dutch Masters Dutch Art helps shape the Western World’s view of itself

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BY JAMES D. BALESTRIERI

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The Summer of Color Nine weeks that upended French Art

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BY LILLY WEI

On The Cover: Mildred Thompson, String Theory 6, 1999 Acrylic on vinyl 72 x 50 in [detail] © The Mildred Thompson Estate Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co.

VOLUME XLVII

NUMBER 2

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COL L E CT ION OF SASH A AN D CH AR L IE SE ALY © TH E M ILDRED THOMPS ON ESTATE COU RTESY GALERIE LELO NG & CO. ; M U S EUM OF FI NE ARTS , BO STON, SETH K. SWEETSER FU ND, 41. 935. ; N ATI O NAL GAL LE RY O F ART, WAS HIN GTO N, JO HN HAY W HITNEY COL LECTI ON. © 2 02 3 ARTISTS R IGHTS S OCIETY (A RS ), NEW YORK / ADAGP, PA RIS

the human condition

F I N E J A PA N E S E P R I N T S A N D D R AW I N G S E S TA B L I S H E D 1 9 7 5

Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861) Onoe Kikugorô III as the Spirit of the Cat Stone (detail), 1847

Specialists in YOKAI and YUREI, Magic and Ghosts Asia Week New York March 2024 Exhibition: Supernatural: Cat Demons, Ogres and Shapeshifters Online at www.egenolfgallery.com In person in New York, March 16-17 (See website for details)

New Acquisitions Posted Daily www.egenolfgallery.com Veronica Miller, Owner PO Box 4240 Burbank CA 91503 Tel. 661.821.0256 [email protected]

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Jewelry creator and sculptor Wallace Chan’s Bright Star brooch; an elaborate silverwork nef (c. E D I TO R

1900) from Hanau, Germany.

Lorna Dryden C R E AT I V E D I R E C TO R

IN PERSPECTIVE

Mark Snyder

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C O P Y E D I TO R

More extensive coverage of the best auctions,

Roger Harris

museum exhibitions, and gallery shows from A S S O C I AT E A R T D I R E C TO R

around the country.

Emma C Dryden SENIOR DESIGNER

Christine Snyder

EXHIBITIONS A new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s

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C O N T R I B U T I N G P H OTO G R A P H E R S

National Museum of Asian Art, “Staging the Su-

Randall Cordero Ted Morrison

pernatural: Ghosts and the Theater in Japanese

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Prints” (March 23–October 6, 2024), looks closely

Rebecca Allan Ashley Busby James Balestrieri William Corwin Dian Parker Scarlet Cheng Sarah Bochicchio Elizabeth Pandolfi Lilly Wei Dawnya Bartsch Gabriel Almeida Mario Naves Barbara MacAdam Henry Adams D. Dominick Lombardi Jonathan Kandell Sheila Gibson Stoodley Chris Shields Jonathon Keats Jonathan Lopez Dana Micucci Carter Ratcliff

at the depiction of yūrei in Edo (1615–1868) and later Meiji period (1868–1912) woodblock prints.

“In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in

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Ukraine, 1900–1930s,” is a unique exhibition that traces the development of Modernism and the avant-garde in Ukraine.

The Hamburger Kunsthalle’s “Caspar

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David Friedrich: Art for a New Age” (on view through April 1st) brings together 60 major paintings and over 100 drawings by the artist, an array of works by his contemporaries, as well as compositions by 20th-century artists.

88 RECORD-BREAKER

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Images of a Woman (1966), painted and signed by all four Beatles

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objects of desire

Delicate Flight Over the last 40 years, butterflies have enchanted renowned jewelry creator and sculptor Wallace Chan, leading him to create stunning works of wearable art that are always ready to take flight. The Bright Star brooch—a magnificent butterfly with wings outstretched—is part of Chan’s Forever Dancing series and an outstanding example of his expertise in the production of intricate jewelry confections. Referring to his longstanding fascination with the delicate airborne creatures, Chan recalls that, as a child, he thought of butterflies as “flying colors.” In his endeavors as an artist, nearly all of his butterflies are brooches. In fact, he prefers this form of jewelry, as it allows the wearer to situate the bejeweled papillon in various places, as if the butterfly chose to land at a particular spot at a specific time on a given person’s garment. For the Chinese, in addition to the nearly universal themes of beauty and metamorphosis, the butterfly is a symbol of eternal love. In Chinese literature, the story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai (“The Butterfly Lovers”) offers a Romeo and Juliet-like tale in which the ill-fated lovers live forever in the form of butterflies. Set with brown, orange, and yellow gemstones on a blue-green background, the brooch

and gem carver. The wings feature rock crystal, mother-of-pearl, real butterfly wings, and titanium, all layered in a style of fabrication that is unique to Chan. The butterfly’s body is adorned with large yellow diamonds set in titanium. Chan was among the earliest haute joaillerie artists to use titanium, which weighs less than other metals. By expertly applying high heat it can be anodized to create vibrant colors like the blue-green in the Bright Star ornamental accessory. Moreover, the featherlight quality of the materials allows for a surprisingly large, yet light and wearable, design. The brooch was recently donated to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), and the gift represents the first piece of jewelry by Chan to enter a museum collection in the United States. It will be displayed, along with exquisite pieces of jewelry created by other artists, in “Beyond Brilliance: Highlights from the Jewelry Collection,” which opens on May 18th in the MFA’s newly renovated Rita J. and Stanley H. Kaplan Family Foundation Gallery.

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GIFT OF CHRISTIAN XING AND REX WONG. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION. PHOTOGR APH ©MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON

is comprised of materials, design, and colors that demonstrate Chan’s innovation as an artist

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objects of desire

Silver Sails THIS ELABORATE nef (c. 1900) is a remarkable example of silverwork originating from the famed metalsmithing city of Hanau, Germany. Used to store and serve wine, a decorative vessel of this quality would have been prominently displayed as a centerpiece for a table or sideboard—a conspicuous symbol of its owner’s wealth. Crafted by Hanau smiths J.D. Schleissner & Söhne, the artifact allows wine to be contained in its cargo hold and poured from its bow. Complete with billowing sails, flags, an anchor, and a full crew at work, the ship features both chased and repoussé figures set against a backdrop of aquatic landscapes. The English Royal arms flies proudly from the main sail, a sign that this nef was most likely crafted for someone in the Queen’s service. J.D. Schleissner & Söhne was established by Johann Christian Daniel Schleissner (1793–1862), who was the son of a goldsmith and originally from Augsburg, Germany. He relocated to Hanau in 1816 and the following year opened his own company. He produced items in the Augsburg style and sold them internationally, especially in Russia and France. His firm’s legacy would come to redefine the standards of silver craftsmanship in Hanua. Schleissner’s son, Daniel Philipp August Schleissner (1825–1892), succeeded him and led the effort to have the company specialize in

throughout the late 1800s and into the 20th century at international exhibitions, where the works met with critical acclaim. Even after the younger Schleissner’s death, J.D Schleissner & Söhne maintained its reputation for producing exceptional silverware and continued to provide such graceful items for homes of European nobility. Measuring just over 20 inches in height and 16 inches in width, this rare masterpiece is on display at M.S. Rau in New Orleans.

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COURTESY OF M.S. RAU, NEW ORLEANS

exquisite objets d’art—primarily in antique styles—that were exhibited

objects of desire

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Art-world news and market updates, exhibitions and events.

Wonderful Things

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Washington University. Betsberg painted in a self-defined style, never feeling a need to paint more like her husband or to experiment with more popular abstract modes. She maintained that color was her primary means of communicating her experience. We catch a glimpse of that forthright certainty in Family Portrait (1945). A r thur sit s read i ng i n the foreground, one of their many cats bats at a floral arrangement, and Betsberg stands just behind the vase of f lowers, her unwavering gaze evidence of her self-assuredness.

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In the new catalog, Rice compares the sensations present in Betsberg’s work to the Proustian madeleine. Like the rich memories evoked in a simple taste of that cookie from the past, B e t s b e r g ’s c a n v a s e s “conjure up the smells, sounds, and lushness of [some] wonderful place and time.” Window Looking In (1985) suggests the way in which her work invites us to peer in on her life. Blue Hour I I (1978) composed during a trip to New Orleans is infused with the city’s rich colors transporting us through time and space. Here, Betsberg began the work with an alizarin crimson ground over which she layered thin washes of color. The sparkling surface suggests a dreamy quality that links us, here in the present, to that moment in the past. Of her work, St. Louisbased painter Stephen Shank writes, “Betsberg’s quiet revelations sing about connectedness and meaning.” From quiet, shared moments such as that seen in Sisters (1939) to street scenes from her daily life such as that seen in The Big Stand (1952), Betsberg helps us not just see but feel a connection with her world. Her radiant color palette makes this shared intimacy all the more compelling.

E S TAT E O F A R T H U R O S V E R A N D E R N E S T I N E B E T S B E R G , C O U R T E S Y P H I L I P S L E I N G A L L E R Y ; P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N , C O U R T E S Y P H I L I P S L E I N G A L L E R Y ; P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N , C O U R T E S Y P H I L I P S L E I N G A L L E R Y ; E S TAT E O F A R T H U R O S V E R A N D E R N E S T I N E B E T S B E R G , COURTESY PHILIP SLEIN GALLERY; COLLECTION OF JANICE SMITH AND CLINT ZWEIFEL , COURTESY PHILIP SLEIN GALLERY

I N A N inter view with St . Louis M agazine, Ernestine Betsberg (1909-2007) described her paintings as scenes that “tell you a story of where [she’s] been,” and she insisted, “the world is full of wonderful things.” Over her long career, she set out to paint those wonders, creating extraordinary canvases that capture the ordinary moments of her life. Running through April 20, 2024, Phillip Slein Gallery (St. Louis) will host Ernestine Betsberg: Retrospective. Accompanied by a richly illustrated book with an essay by painter Nancy Newman Rice, the show helps bring attention to this oftenoverlooked champion for the importance of color in the painter’s formal arsenal. Trained at the Art Institute of Chicago, Betsberg spent time in Paris, Rome, New York, and Florida before eventually settling in St. Louis, when her husband, painter Arthur Osver, accepted a teaching position at

IN PERSPECTIVE

P U R C H A S E , M C M I C H A E L C A N A D I A N A R T C O L L EC T I O N , 1 974 ; P U R C H A S E , B M O F I N A N C I A L G R O U P, 2 0 2 0 ; P U R C H A S E , B M O F I N A N C I A L G R O U P, 2 0 2 0

Past Meets Present On view this spring at the Albuquerque Museum, Coast to Coast to Coast: Indigenous Art from the McMichael Canadian Art Collection (January 27-April 21, 2024) will provide visitors with a survey of Canadian Indigenous art. Including historical regalia and objects, the work of 20 th century vanguard artists, and 21 st century work, the exhibition draws upon the diverse holdings of one of Canada’s premier collecting sites for Indigenous art. By exhibiting work of the past alongside the con-

temporary, organizers emphasize both the sheer diversity and continued vitality of Indigenous art forms. Raven Rattle (c. 1860) by Haida artist and carver Charles Edenshaw is an excellent example of traditional formline composition seen in Northwest Coast art. The raven format indicates it would have been used for a chief’s dance regalia. Similar formline compositions appear throughout Cowichan /Sylix painter Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun’s brightly colored landscapes. In New Climate Landscape

( Northwest Coast Climate Change) (2019) the artist’s playful adaptation of these forms image a utopic future and a world no longer suffering from the effects of climate crisis. I n He a d dre ss — S ha d a e (2 019) Wo o d Mountain Lakota photographer Dana Claxton h i g h l i g ht s c o n temporar y I ndigeneity. According to the artist, her subjec t ac ts as a cultural carr i e r. D r ap e d i n the traditional—

beadwork and a Coast Salish woven hat—and the contemporary—pow wow fans and baseball caps—these accumulated accessories show the sitter’s identity as a rich intermix of past and present.

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IN PERSPECTIVE

Enduring Legacy

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around 1600 as a response to the widespread popularity of Chinese blue and white wares. Japanese production coalesced around an influx of Korean potters trained in Chinese techniques and a new porcelain clay source near Arita. By the early 17th century, crumbling stability in China left an opening for a new purveyor of the in-demand ceramics. Despite Edo period restrictions, Japan developed trade

exceptions for Dutch merchants and filled this gap. Eternal Partnership places emphasis on the work of Kon-

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doTakahiro a member of a Kyoto-based family of pioneering potters in the sometsuke technique. The artist will be present in the gallery for special events during Asia Week New York, and his work will also appear in a concurrent exhibition (Porcelain in the Mist: The Kondo Family of Ceramicists) at the Brooklyn Museum. Like his grandfather, father, and uncle before him, Takahiro unites tradition with the new. Known for his distinctive “silver mist” or gintekisai glazing, the surface of his work shimmers with the addition of a platinum, gold, silver, and glass frit amalgam. A cobalt and green-glazed conical bowl on exhibition features a deep indigo surface that glistens as though coated in dew. Other exhibited work s s t re s s t he i n novat ive spi r it

seen in contemporary Japanese clay. Inaba Chikako’s delicate, curled vessels draw inspiration from local vegetation. Takegoshi Jun’s slab-built vase incorporates his signature bird-andflower or kacho motif accomplished in polychrome glazing. Kato Tsubusa’s triangular, jagged sculptural form has a cobalt glaze poured over the surface. Kitaoji Rosanjin creates familiar vessels glazed with calligraphic poetry that appears abstract. The exhibition also includes one of artist Tanaka Yu’s wrapped forms, this one in a bold cobalt rather than her typical turmeric hues.

A L L I M A G E S : P H OTO S B Y R I C H A R D G O O D B O DY. C O U R T E S Y O F J O A N B M I R V I S S LT D .

BLUE AND white ceramics have long been prized, with origins in glazes first developed in Ancient Mesopotamia and vessels produced in China since the Tang dynasty. The format features a cobalt oxide pigment underglaze applied to a white porcelain body. Known in Japan as sometsuke, the approach blends borrowed techniques with uniquely Japanese visual motifs. Eternal Partnership: Japanese Ceramics in Blue/ White, a new exhibition at New York’s Joan B Mirviss LTD will open during Asia Week New York (March 14-22, 2024) and run through April 19, 2024. The exhibition tracks a continued fascination with blue and white modes in the work of over 20 contemporary Japanese clay artists and emphasizes the enduring legacy of this stunning color combination. The work is not a radical rejection of the past but rather an evolution of the tradition. Sometsuke developed

IN PERSPECTIVE

© G RO B GA LLERY; © WI M WEN D ERS / WEN D ERS I M AG E S A N D H OWA R D GREENBERG GALLERY ; © RICHARD TUSCHMAN, COURTESY °CLAIRBYKAHN ; PHOTO: COPYRIGHT THE ARTIST COURTESY OF HULETT COLLECTION

Photo Excellence THE PARK Avenue Armory once again hosts The Photography Show presented by AIPAD April 25-28, 2024. Now in its 43rd year, this year’s exposition features a robust lineup of 79 international dealers. Founded in 1979, AIPAD advocates for ethical standards in collecting and remains committed to excellence in fine art photography while supporting those pushing the boundaries of the medium. This year, Grob Gallery highlights artists from interwar Paris and the “boundless creativity” of the era, including work from Hungarian-born André Kertész. Chez Mondrian (1926) was taken just after the photographer relocated to Paris in the studio of the De

Stijl painter. As Kertész recalled, the painter “simplified, simplified, simplified,” and he tried to capture a similar spirit. Known for his achievements in cinema, Howard Greenberg Gallery brings images by German auteur Wim Wenders. Captured just one year before the release of Paris, Texas, his Old Trappers, San Fernando, California (1983) evokes similar tones of connection and alienation. Among other contemporary practitioners, visitors should be sure to catch work from Richard Tuschman among the offerings from CLAIR by Kahn. Pink Bedroom (Window Seat) (2013) blends traditional techniques and digital editing to cre-

ate dreamy, domestic narratives inspired by the work of Edward Hopper. The Hulett Collection will include work by up-and-

comer Noell Osvald. Untitled #28 (2020) has a compositional sobriety that complements the image’s melancholic tone.

Gary Snyder Fine Art is pleased to have championed Janet Sobel for over twenty years

“Janet Sobel – Wartime” The Ukrainian Museum, New York in 2023

“Janet Sobel – All-Over” The Menil Collection, Texas in 2024

Gary Snyder Fine Art MT [email protected] Q 646 391 0955

Janet Sobel Disappointment, circa 1943, oil and sand on canvas, 26 x 43 inches Exhibited “Janet Sobel”, Puma Gallery, NY 1944 (catalogue #13), and “Janet Sobel – All-Over”, The Menil Collection, TX, 2024

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Thunderstruck PAINTER LOUISA McElwain (1953-2013) will feature in a new retrospective exhibition, Distant Thunder (January 26, 2024-April 20, 2024), at Evoke Contemporary in Santa Fe. Neither realist nor fully abstract, her striking compositions are a sort of visual treatise on both the power of paint and nature. Born in New Hampshire, McElwain trained at the University of Pennsylvania. Like her mentor Neil Welliver, McElwa i n ex plored a st yle that blended color-field abstraction, expressionistderived mark-making, and a direct connection to the landscape. She retreated to rural New Mexico in 1985, and spent her career deeply entranced by her surroundings, searching for some evidence of a divine power outside ourselves. Beyond the powerful feelings and forces that McElwain hoped to approximate, her canvases also serve as evidence of her unique working methods. She spent her career quite literally chasing what

she termed the “evanescent events of Nature.” As weather systems approached or a new day dawned, McElwain often painted on the side of the road, her large canvases attached to a makeshift easel on the back of her white pick-up. She reveled in the experience of painting, preferring large masonry

(2000) sees McElwain evoke the spiky sotol plants and bushy mountain pines that dot her landscape with thick strokes of paint applied with a knife. The canvas is both a stunning topographic study of pigment and a record of the high desert ecosystem. In Ghost Ranch, Shining

wain found solace in the stunning rock formations and surrounding landscape. A kind of sublime awe and transcendent wonder runs through McElwain’s work. Stone Totems (n.d.) shows a series of mesas, clustered like sentinels. Fanfare (2001) shows a massive cumulonim-

trowels attached to long sticks over more traditional tools. For McElwain, each painting was “made in a dance to the tempo of the evolving day.” Out on the roadside, she pushed and pulled viscous paint, exploring what she termed its “velocity” and refusing its capacity solely to describe. Sunlit Hills with Pine Trees

Stone (2001) sunlight glints off towering sandstone cliffs. Here, McElwain capt u res the Piedra Lumbre, or Shining Rock valley, a part of the Ghost Ranch retreat north of Santa Fe. The site was the location of Georgia O’Keeffe’s primary home and studio from t he ea rly 194 0 s u nt i l her death. Like O’Keeffe, McEl-

bus forming over the distant mountains, a pompous prelude to a coming storm. These wonders of creation stare back at us, daring us to imagine the forces of their making. As McElwain once noted of her work, “I want to create paintings that gratif y, nourish, empower, and embrace the divine mysteries.”

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P R O M I S E D G I F T O F LO R N E L A S S I T E R A N D G A R Y F E R R A R O . P G 2 0 2 2 . 5 7. 3 © FUJINO SACHIKO ; PROMISED GIFT OF LORNE LASSITER AND GARY FERRARO. P G 2 0 2 2 . 5 7. 5 ; P R O M I S E D G I F T O F LO R N E L A S S I T E R A N D G A R Y F E R R A R O ; P R O M I S E D G I F T O F LO R N E L A S S I T E R A N D G A R Y F E R R A R O . P G 2 0 2 2 . 5 7. 2

CRAFTED COLLECTION

CRAFT ACROSS Continents — Contemporary Japanese and Western Objects: The Lassiter/Ferraro Collection continues its run at the Mint Museum’s Uptown location in Charlotte, NC through May 5, 2024. The exhibition draws on a recent gift collection from Lorne Lassiter and Gary Ferraro. With special emphasis on Japanese ceramics and bamboo, objects highlight the range of approaches in contemporary craft. Curator Annie Carlano organized the presentation to transport viewers into the collectors’ home, hoping to emphasize “what it’s like to live every day surrounded by art.” Of the Japanese work on view, Honda Shoryu’s intricate, undulating forms stand out. Shadow (2005) utilizes traditional materials— madake (bamboo) and rattan— and the nawame-ami (ropeplaiting) technique to draw in space. Ceramicist Fujino Sachiko originally pursued fashion design before training in clay. The crimped and folded surface of Keisho ’20-2 (2020) evokes her background in textiles as well as natural forms. Other objects on display stress the contemporary potential of age-old techniques Danish glass artist Tobias Møhl marries Venetian glass-blowing with a distinctly Scandinavian aesthetic. Green Glassweaver Vessel (2012) incorporates delicate canework to create deep, blue-green surface pattern. American Rowland Ricketts uses his training in Japanese i nd igo fa r m i n g a nd dyeing to create wallhangings such as Untitled, Noren (2006). The work references Japanese doorway curtains a nd fe at u re s si mple shapes so that you can focus on the rich color derived from his homegrown dyes.

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Auctioning the West RETURNING this spring, the Scottsdale Art Auction presents a diverse array of contemporary and historically important work. Located in the heart of Old Town Scottsdale, the auction will feature two sessions April 13-14, 2024. Widely recognized as the Southwest’s largest and fastest growing auction house, attendees are sure to delight in this year’s offerings, from landscapes and cowboy art to wildlife and sporting art. Artist Frederic Remington helped shape the perception of the West in his work as an illustrator. He first explored sculpture in 1895. His work in bronze shows keen attention to dramatic movement and narrative. The C heyenne (est. $10 0,0 0 0 150,000) depicts a warrior on a galloping mount. Captured mid-stride, the horse seems to float above the plain. The rider grips a spear in one hand and a leather riding quirt in the other. His twisted torso

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trait of an indigenous woman. Her pursed lips and turned head suggest her dismissal of our gaze. Those seeking depictions of the varied Western landscape will not be disappointed in paintings on offer. Swedish emigré Birger Sandzén spent most of his life in Kansas but retreated to the Southwest during summers. Of the region’s mountains, the artist once remarked, “What a paradise for the painter.” The riotous palette of Summer in the Mountains (est. $250,000350,000) is a study in contrasts, his mountains rendered in cool blues and violets while bright orange-red sandstone fills the foreground. Contemporary realist painter Richard S ch m id prov ides a much different view of the West’s mountains in Telluride (est. $60,000-90,000). An icy road marks our descent into the box c a nyo n w h e r e t h e former mining-camp turned resort town is located. Clapboard Victorians line the snowy roadside and wispy clouds sit low in the sky.

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and open mouth suggest pursuit, but it is unclear whether he is the hunter or the hunted. April’s auction will feature several works by members of the Taos Society of

A r tists, including Eanger Irving Couse’s The Sculptor (est. $90,000120,000). Couse studied at the A rt Institute of Chicago, New York’s National Academy of Design, and the Académie Ju l ien i n Pa r is. H is academic training is evident in his attention to naturalism and composition. Kneeling on a pelt, the sculptor, clad only in a breechcloth and leggings, carves pictographs on a wall. Russianborn painter Nicolai Fechin moved to Taos in 1927 just as the Taos Society of Artists disbanded. Still, he was instrumental in helping establish the artist colony, and his former home now serves as the Taos Museu m of A r t. Carmelita (est. $300,000 500,000) is a stunning por-

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Bodymind

COURTESY THE ARTIST AND MCCORMICK GALLERY

WHILE MANY viewers might solely focus on the richly saturated colors layered across Pooja Pittie’s (b. 1977) canvases, the artist insists that process and balance remain the core of her practice. In each painting, Pittie tries to find the sweet spot within a series of contrasts: movement and stillness, control and surrender, messiness and mindfulness. In so doing, her art expresses a kind of visual and autobiographical harmony that reflects but is not solely determined by her life as a person with a disability. A new exhibition, Pooja Pittie: Only in Dark the Light at Chicago’s McCormick Gallery runs March 21, 2024 May 10, 2024 and surveys her recent work. Born and raised in Mumbai, India, Pittie moved to the U. S. in 1999 where she worked as an accountant in Chicago. In 2016, she left that career for art. This shift and her work was predicated—in part— by a progressive muscular disability. According to the artist, she “use[s] painting as a way to

explore the connections between an active mind and an often, slow-moving body.” Pittie begins with an underpainting of thinned acrylics dripped across the surface. The mindful addition of grid-like linework in her recent canvases is an act of exploration. She notes that her process is not one of carefully planned out steps but rather one that values responsiveness. Over the past seven years, her work has used mark-making and color as a means to “capture some of the movement [she loses] as [her] condition progresses.” The visual freneticism and lively sur-

face of a work such as a pink-hued Untitled canvas from 2023 belies the physical challenges in her life. Dripping skeins of paint contrast bands of rhythmic horizontal lines; the overall rosy palette is subtly interjected with white, cool blue, and muddy green. Among her most recent wo r k f ro m 2 0 2 4 , a n astonishing untitled canvas with blue and violet tones stands out. Its gridded surface represents an always thinking, ever busy mind. Since the pandemic, Pittie has also explored fiber-based drawings and soft sculptures

as an expansion of her practice. Her smaller Knitted Vessels (2023) allow for a physical reprieve from the demands of her larger paintings letting her counter the busy movement of the painted surface with work that evokes quiet, stillness. Pit tie ascribes to t h e id e a of “b o d ymind” which rejects the traditional Western assumption that these two—body and m i nd — a re sepa rate entities. Instead, they a re i nterdependent. Her work suggests just that. Each work of art is the result of mind and body in creative resonance.

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All-Over Innovator

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ton Beach where Max ran a facility that manufactured costume-jewelry while Janet raised their five children. Sobel turned to art late, creating her first work around 1940. Her first solo-show

i n 194 4 at P u m a G a l ler y included Burning Bush (1944), which demonstrates her allover approach—a technique where marks extend edge to edge with little emphasis on a compositional center. Its mustard and green ground plane is densely worked with red and blue a reas of paint and webs of black and white drips, which occasionally coalesce into faces—reminiscent of Surrealist automatism. Throughout her body of work, Sobel main-

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tained a connection to figuration. The Menil’s exhibition includes drawings such as an Untitled representation of towering faces rendered in paint and crayon. In such work, she blends her all-over line work with imagery reminiscent of Chagall or folkart with a dist i nc t a rchet y pa l resonance. Reviewers raved about Sobel’s showing at Puma prompting Guggenheim’s aforementioned praise. Sobel showed at Art of This Century in The Women (1945) and again in a 1946 solo exhibition. An astounding Untitled (c. 1946-48) work, now in the Menil’s collection, demonstrates Sobel’s continued evolution. Using enamels from the family’s jewelry business, she added sand to the pigment, creating areas of fine texture amongst the looping skeins of paint. Other pai nt i ngs f rom t he later 1940s document inventive techniques and materials. Painting on glass, tile, cardboard, and more, she utilized a glass pipette to blow paint across the surface other times tilting the support to allow paint to run and dribble. Despite her success, Sobel moved to Plainfield, New Jersey in 1947 and stopped painting soon after

due to an acquired allergy to her paints. In a 1961 revision of his essay American-Type Painting, Clement Greenberg, who had earlier recognized Sobel as one of the original all-over painters, labeled her as a “primitive” and crowned Pollock as the primary innovator. In subsequent decades, her work was largely forgotten. Today, Sobel’s creative legacy finally gets it due at the Menil.

T H E M E N I L C O L L E C T I O N , H O U S T O N , G I F T O F L E O N A R D S O B E L A N D FA M I LY. © J A N E T S O B E L . P H O T O : P A U L H E S T E R ; T H E M E N I L C O L L E C T I O N , H O U S T O N , G I F T O F L E O N A R D S O B E L A N D FA M I LY. © J A N E T S O B E L . P H O T O : J A M E S C R AV E N ; C R Y S TA L B R I D G E S M U S E U M O F A M E R I C A N A R T, B E N T O N V I L L E , A R K A N S A S , 2 0 1 1 . 9 . © J A N E T S O B E L . P H O T O G R A P H Y B Y E D WA R D C . R O B I S O N I I I ; LO S A N G E L E S C O U N T Y M U S E U M O F A R T, A M E R I C A N A R T A C Q U I S I T I O N F U N D . © J A N E T S O B E L . P H OTO : © M U S E U M A S S O C I AT E S / L AC M A

ONCE RECOGNIZED and critically praised, painter Janet Sobel (1893-1968) was lost to history, shockingly unappreciated in the history of American abstraction. Still, collector and gallerist Peggy Guggenheim called her “the best woman painter by far (in America).” Ja n e t S o b e l : A l l Over, a new exhibition exclusively on view th rough August 11, 2024 at H o u s t o n’s M e n i l Museum, rectifies Sobel’s position as a pioneer and explores her brief but mighty career. Born in a shtetl near Kiev, Sobel emigrated to the United States in 1908 with her mother and siblings after her father was killed in a pogrom. Soon after, she married another Ukrainian immigrant, Max Sobel. They eventually settled in Brigh-

IN PERSPECTIVE

R OY B . A N D E D I T H J . S I M P S O N C O L L E C T I O N © D AV I D H O C K N E Y / T Y L E R G R A P H I C S LT D . ; R OY B . A N D E D I T H J . S I M P S O N C O L L EC T I O N © DAV I D H O C K N E Y ; R OY B . A N D E D I T H J . S I M P S O N C O L L EC T I O N © DAV I D H O C K N E Y ; R OY B . A N D E D I T H J . S I M P S O N C O L L EC T I O N © DAV I D H O C K N E Y

Youthful Experimentation THE WORK OF Pop master painter David Hockney has been much celebrated in recent years. A 2017 blockbuster retrospective at Tate Britain remains the institution’s most visited exhibition. In late 2023, London’s National Portrait Gallery featured the now octogenarian artist’s intimate drawings of friends. Yet, little attention has been paid to the artist’s early career. Now on view at the Bruce Museum, Hockney/Origins: Early Works from the Roy B. and Edith J. Simpson Collection examines sixteen rarelyseen works and sheds light on the artist’s development and spirited experimentation in a range of media. Of the longterm loan, patron and Green-

wich native Edith J. Simpson notes, “We never believed it was ours to keep forever, so it gives me great joy to share this special collection.” A Grand Procession of Dignitaries in the Semi-Egyptian Style (1961) is visually distinct from the artist’s later modes and dates from Hockney’s time as a student at London’s Royal College of Art. Here,

the artist responds to the work of one of his early heroes, Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933), who openly addressed homosexual identity. Three towering, costumed forms hide hazy suggestions of three much smaller figures. A likely early commentary on Hockney’s experiences as a gay man, the mask-like faces allude to the presentation of a public self often quite different from our true identity. Hockney made his first trip to California in 1963, spent much of the later 1960s visiting the state, and eventually established a permanent residence in Los Angeles in 1976. His now iconic paintings of swimming pools capture glossy scenes of the always-sunny climes in his adopted home. Swimmer Underwater (Paper Pool 16) (1978) dates from an intense threemonth period when he was introduced to colored paper pulp by printmaker Kenneth Tyler. A c c o rd i n g t o H o c k-

ney, the unfamiliar medium allowed him to approach an oft-depicted subject in a fresh way. A new economy of form smacks of his appreciation for late-Matisse. Another work on view, the stunning, largescale Japanese House and Tree (1978) shows a similar affinity. A Pop translation of the Fauve palette, it also stands as testament to Hockney’s masterful handling of acrylics.

Art Meets Life C O P Y R I G H T: © M A X W E B E R F O U N DAT I O N COURTESY: SCHOELKOPF GALLERY PHOTOGR APHY: OLIVIA DIVECCHIA

In Essays on Art (1916), Max Weber wrote, “Culture will come only when every man will know how to address himself to the inanimate simple things of life.” Across a long career, Weber translated the latest in European abstraction into a uniquely American idiom. Max Weber: Art and Life Are Not Apart, a new exhibition at New York’s Schoelkopf Gallery through April 5, 2024, examines the artist’s approach to the quotidian. In paintings such as The Blue Labeled Bottle (1917-18), Weber did not see his subject as banal, instead relishing the disruption of supposed differences between art and life. Schoelkopf’s new exhibition will likely be the first of many to celebrate Weber’s innovative practice. In Fall 2023, the gallery announced exclusive worldwide representation for the Max Weber Foundation.

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Long Island Connections

Hall became the country’s first multidisciplinary art center, and the museum’s permanent collection now features over 2400 works of art by participants in the local artist colony. From longtime East Hampton residents to others who simply summered in the area, the exhibition knits together work in a range of styles all united by their connection to place. Often remembered as the

“American Monet,” Childe Hassam (18581935) spent the last years of his life in East Hampton. Little Old Cottage, Egypt Lane, East Hampton (1917) is one of several intimate portraits of the area’s quaint homes. W it h it s visible, painterly strokes and spark l i ng, dappled l ig ht t he pa i nting is a prime example of Hassam’s approach to Impressionism. German-born photographer Hans Namuth (1915-1990) is best known for his portraits of artists. The part-time island

Study for RedLamp (1980) is a rumination on the popular and the commercial. The red table lamp and overstuffed recliner smack of middle-class monotony. Miriam Schapiro (19232015) was an early leader in the feminist art movement. Her “femmage” compositions resident first met Jackson Pollock at an opening at Guild Hall in 1950. Soon after he produced over 500 portraits of the painter at work in his East Hampton studio. These now iconic images made Namuth one of the most in-demand portraitists of the era. Elaine and Willem de Kooning (1953), captured in Willem’s studio, is laden with the couple’s fiery personalities and equally turbulent relationship. Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) made Long Island his primary residence in 1970. Rendered in his signature cartoon-style,

integrate traditionally feminine media—fabrics, quilting and handicrafts—to challenge canonical assumptions about high art. Schapiro spent the last several decades of her life in East Hampton. She sourced the materials for work, such as Children of Paradise (1984), from local estate sales and vendors.

G U I L D H A L L P U R C H A S E F U N D, 8 0 . 2 3 ; G I F T O F T H E A R T I S T, 9 0 .1 .1 ; G I F T O F M R S . C H AU N C E Y B . G A R V E R ( I N M E M O R Y O F H E R G R E AT A U N T A N D U N C L E , M R A N D M R S C H I L D E H A S S A M ) , 6 7. 1 ; G I F T O F T H E A R T I S T, 9 6 . 1 8

THE SOCIETY of Four Arts w i l l host G uil d H all : A n Adventure in the Arts (February 10-April 28, 2024). Established in 1931 and located on the East End of Long Island, Guild Hall was the result of philanthropist Mary Woodhouse’s desire to create a meeting space for creatives. Guild

Feminine Force The Ann Norton Sculpture Garden in West Palm

was historically viewed as a physical, masculine

Beach presents The Divine Feminine: Contem-

pursuit, curators Sarah Gavlak and Allison Rad-

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dock emphasize “the divine feminine energy

1, 2024. Set among tropical palms and native

that permeates” selected work and the unique

plants, the show highlights the contributions

approach of each groundbreaking artist. Niki

of internationally recognized sculptors includ-

de Saint Phalle’s Justice (1990) is a small-

ing: Leilah Babirye, Judy Chicago, Ruth Duck-

scale reimagining of a figure from her Tarot

worth, Viola Frey, Katharina Fritsch, Rachel

Garden project in Garavicchio, Italy. It stresses

Hovnanian, Niki de Saint Phalle, Arlene

the deck’s representation of truth, fairness, and

Shechet, and Kiki Smith. While sculpture

the law as a feminine force.

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© N I K I C H A R I TA B L E A R T F O U N DAT I O N AND SALON 94, NEW YORK

porary Women Sculptors, on view through May

ON LOAN FROM THE KIMBELL ART MUSEUM, FORT WORTH, TX ; THE ELLA GALLUP SUMN E R A N D M A R Y C AT L I N S U M N E R C O L L E C T I O N F U N D O N LOA N F R O M WA D S W O R T H AT H E N E U M M U S E U M O F A R T, H A R T F O R D , C T ; G I F T O F T H E K R E S G E F O U N DAT I O N A N D M R S . EDSEL B. FORD, 73. 268 ON LOAN FROM THE DETROIT INSTITUTE OF ARTS, DETROIT

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Dramatic Impact THE TOLEDO Museum of Art offers a rare opportunity to see four works by Baroque master painter Caravaggio. On view through April 14, 2024, The Brilliance of Caravaggio: Four Paintings in Focus brings together four of the only ten works by the artist in U.S. collections, showcasing them with canvases by four of his artistic successors.

Painting during the Counter-Reformation, Caravaggio provided inventive visions of mortal subjects in close encounters with God. His Saint Francis of Assisi in Ecstasy (c. 1595-1596) is a departure from standard treatments, conveying a moment of intimacy as the Seraphim clutches the overwhelmed Saint. In Martha and Mary Magdalene (c. 1598) the

artist shows conversion is possible, even for the sinner. Rendered using his characteristic tenebrism, Mary Magdalen is gloriously illuminated, capturing her redemption. Shown alongside work by Hendrick ter Brugghen and Artemisia Gentileschi respectively, the exhibition emphasizes comparison. O t her pa i r i ngs i nclude Caravaggio’s The Musicians

(1597) and a canvas by Jusepe de Ribera as well as The Cardsharps (c. 1595) and a similar scene by Valentin de Boulougne. By distilling the exhibition to just eight works, viewers can evaluate each artist’s approach as well as shared and appropriated techniques. Each painting feels surprisingly familiar, their dramatic reach still relevant even centuries later.

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Philly Finery

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School of Design for Women (now Moore College of Art and Design); this work shows a bold use of color matched with an interest in joy and leisure. Exhibitor offerings will also not disappoint those seeking art from more established names. Rehs Galleries will showcase Lions at Rest by acclaimed animalière Rosa Bonheur. Like her more wellknown equine paintings, this

nia Academy of Fine Art and taught in Philadelphia. Beginning in the late 1930s, the artist explored the potential for abstract color and shape in compositions such as Time and Space. In the offerings from Hawthorne Fine Art, visitors will find Picnic Scene by self- described, “sometimes Impressionist” Paulette Van Roekens. The painter was a longtime member of the faculty at the Philadelphia

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work draws from direct observation of her wildlife subjects at Paris’ Jardin des Plantes and in her personal menagerie. The booth from Somerville Manning Gallery includes Under The Horse-Chestnut Tree, a tender maternal scene by Impressionist Mary Cassatt rendered in drypoint and aquatint. The artist’s flattened forms and attention to pattern were drawn from her appreciation for Japanese prints. The show will also fea-

ture stunning craftsmanship in decorative objects and furniture. European Decorative Arts Company will bring an Italian Coral, Silver and Lapis Lazuli Devotional Relief made in Trapani and dating from the late Baroque. Once owned by Milanese industrialist and collector Luigi Koelliker, the piece documents Sicilian achievements with coral and smacks of the era’s ornate opulence. Levy Galleries will display a handsome colonial-era Chippendale High Chest of Drawers in walnut. Produced in Pennsylvania around the time of the American Revolution, it includes fanciful hand-carved floral details indicative of the skills of early American artisans.

C O U R T E S Y D I X O N - H A L L F I N E A R T ; C O U R T E S Y L E V Y G A L L E R I E S ; C O U R T E S Y E U R O P E A N D E C O R AT I V E A R T S C O M PA N Y P R O V E NAN C E: LU I G I KO ELLI K ER CO LLEC TI O N ; CO U RTE SY SO M ERVI LLE MAN N I N G GALLERY ; HAW TH O R N E FI N E ART ; R EH S GALLER I E S

THE PHILADELPHIA Show, now in its 62nd year, will once again grace the East Terrace of the Philadelphia Museum of Art from April 25-April 28, 2024. A longtime showcase for American art and antiques, visitors will also find offerings from Europe and Asia among the more than 40 exhibitors. From fine art to ceramics, folk art to jewelry, attendees are sure to discover new treasures. A n event f i r st , organizers will stress their long-standing rel at ion sh ip w it h the city’s museum t h roug h a specia l display in the Early American Wing, featuring objects from the permanent collection originally purchased at The Philadelphia Show. As always, event proceeds will benefit the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s education and outreach programs. T he Philadelphia Show has long welcomed galleries featuring under-represented artists; many booths will also include artists with ties to the city. Dixon-Hall Fine Art will exhibit Morris Blackburn, who trained at the Pennsylva-

COURTESY ONISHI GALLERY

craft mastery ROUGHLY translated as “craft,” kogei refers to traditional Japanese techniques revered for their centuries-old applications. While Western art typically views craft as lesser-than, kogei is venerated. KOGEI and art, a new exhibition at Onishi Gallery sponsored by Nihon Kogeikai (the Japan Kogei Association) runs March 14-22 , 2024 — concurrent with Asia Week New York— and celebrates contemporary masters and up-and-coming artists in the mode. It also marks the launch of a new U.S. non-profit, KOGEI USA, which aims to bring increased awareness to the format. Several exhibition artists hold the title “Living National Treasure,” awarded for mastery in specific cult u r a l fo r m s . N a k a g awa Mamoru (b. 1947) holds the designation for his achievements in zogan (metal-inlay). His work blends traditional ha ndwork w it h contemporary abstraction to create beautiful vessels. Yubae ( S u n se t ’s Glo w) (2013), responds to the Manhattan skyline. Murose Kazumi (b. 1950) received the honorary title in 2008 for maki-e (sprinkled gold on lacquer). His masterful urushi (laquer) boxes, such as the small tea caddy, Shunpu (Spring W i n d ) (2 017 ), s e e k s t o express the format’s capacity for beauty with a scene of birds soaring through a bamboo glen. The exhibition also feat u re s work f rom re c ent innovators. Konno Tomoko explores applications for nerikomi, a means of kneading color into raw porcelain to create a marbleized appearance. Strange objects such as Creature (2017) seem ripped from the pages of science fiction, a colorful, otherworldly organism that is at once beautiful and grotesque. M A R C H /A P R I L

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Documenting the Wild

the first exhibition born from the Carl Rungius Raisonné project, initiated in 2020. To date, director Adam Duncan Harris has catalogued some 1100 works. As with similar projects, Harris notes that a complete database of the artist’s body of work will help assure his legacy and encourage scholarship. The project is set to culminate in a catalogue and exhibit, Rungius Masterworks in 2027-2028. Dr. Harris urges anyone who may own or have information on works by the artist to contact himself or the museum.

Trained at the Berlin Art Academy, Rungius’ first exposure to North American wildlife came during an 1894 trip to visit an uncle in the U.S. He took the young painter on a moose hunt—an animal he would often later paint in work such as Wind River Bugler (1923). Rungius was stunned by the majesty of the American landscape and its animal denizens. Soon after, he established a studio base in New York and spent summers in Wyoming, observing area wildlife. Unlike sporting pictures of the

past, Rungius’ images don’t simply illustrate big game trophies, instead elevating each species. In Old Baldface (c. 1940) a massive grizzly lumbers toward the viewer, calmly picking his way across a rocky path. His unwavering stare suggests the beast’s potential ferocity.

J K M C O L L E C T I O N ® , N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F W I L D L I F E A R T. © E S TAT E O F C A R L R U N G I U S .

A TOURING exhibition aims to bring increased visibility to wildlife painter Carl Rungius (1869-1959) and a project to document his oeuvre. Survival of the Fittest: Envisioning Wildlife and Wilderness with the Big Four, Masterworks from the Rijksmuseum Twenthe and the National Museum of Wildlife Art debuted in May 2023 at the National Museum of Wildlife Art (Jackson Hole, WY) and is currently touring, including a spring stop at the James Museum of Western and Wildlife Art in St. Petersburg, Florida. In addition to work by Rungius, the exhibition centers on the other three members of the Big Fou r: Richard Friese, Bruno Liljefors, and Wilhelm Kuhnert. Survival of the Fittest is

Collecting India

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H OWA R D H O D G K I N CO LLEC TI O N , P U RC H A S E , GIFT OF FLORENCE AND HERBERT IRVING, BY EXCHANGE, 2022, 2022. 242

INDIAN SKIES: The Howard Hodgkin Collection of Indian Court Painting, remains on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through June 9, 2024. Showcasing 84 paintings recently acquired from the collector’s trust, alongside a supplemental loan, the exhibition offers a unique opportunity not only to learn more about India’s rich painting history but also to see through Hodgkin’s eyes. A passionate collector, the British abstract painter selected works for their emotive content, effusive colors, and inventive compositional strategies such as those seen in Maharaja Kirpal Pal of Basohli Smoking (c. 1690). Over five decades, his collection grew to incorporate a range of historical periods, from the 16th to 19th centuries, and important examples in portraiture, devotionals, literary illustration, and observations from the natural world, including several images of elephants—a favorite of Hodgkin.

S A I N T LO U I S A R T M U S E U M , G I F T O F M R . A N D M R S . J O S E P H P U L I T Z E R J R . 2 4 :1 9 6 4 ; © 2 0 2 4 S U C C E S S I O N H . M AT I S S E / A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K ; T H E M O N T R E A L M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , P U R C H A S E , J O H N W. T E M P E S T F U N D 2 0 2 4 . 07 ; © 2 0 2 4 S U C C E S S I O N H . M AT I S S E / A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K ; P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N ; © 2 0 2 4 S U C C E S S I O N H . M AT I S S E / A R T I S T S RIGHTS SOCIET Y (ARS), NEW YORK

Seaside Sensation

MATISSE AND the Sea, running through May 12, 2024 at the Saint Louis Art Museum, offers a new assessment of the artist’s fascination with the ocean in a range of media across five decades of his career. Tracking his travels from the Mediterranean to Polynesia, curators c on side r a ne w t he artist’s formal experimentation and his global influences. Bathers with a Turtle (1907-1908), a l a nd m a rk pa i nting from the SLAM collection, serves as the exhibition’s center. Recognized as a u n ique pivot poi nt in Matisse’s career, it integrates his early rad ic a l color w it h a new simplified approach to composition. Shown in conversation with earl ier work s such a s Collioure (La Moulade) (1906), with it s d appled v is ible strokes of color, the exhibition emphasizes the artist’s evolution. Later canvases, including S e at ed Wo m an , Back Tur n ed to t he O pe n W i n dow (1922), demonstrate his continued connection with scintillating beachfront light and color. The show also addresses these themes in Matisse’s late paper cut-outs, reading his large blue nudes as a continued rumination on the sea motif. Curator Simon Kelly is quick to note that this progression did not happen in a coastal vacuum. The exhibition displays work in tandem with European predecessors such as Cezanne and Gauguin. More importantly, organizers recognize the difficulty of reconciling Matisse’s French colonial underpinnings—acknowledging his appropriation of African and Oceanic techniques by exhibiting his work alongside objects formerly in his private collection. M A R C H /A P R I L

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Diverse Lots nishings inspired by the apple crates he played with as a child. Work from Southwest artists such as Ed Mell, Janet Lippincott, and Fritz Scholder are sure to please. Mell’s stunning Pink Rose (est. $25,000$35,000) recalls O’Keeffe’s oversized blooms and features the painter’s characteristic simplification of nature and his careful attention to color and value. Other major names in modern and contemporar y ar t on offer include Ashcan painter

Everett Shin, Surrealist Joan M iró, and Pop ar tist Mel R a mos. Walking M an I I I (est. $30,000-$50,000) by Bay Area Figurative sculptor Stephen de Staebler has an almost archaeological presence with its cracked, weathered surface meant to stress man’s connection to the earth.

genre. Raiko Conquering the Shuten Doji Demon of Oe Mountain (1864) is a rare find in excellent condition. Splashed across three sheets, we see the horrific Shutendoji engaged on all fronts. At center, the hero Raiko appears in danger of being crushed. His cadre of warriors, with swords raised aloft, add to the tense scene. In other images by Yoshi-

toshi, The Demoness Ibaraki Retrieving her Arm (1889) depic ts a g hastly hag mid-f light. W h i le t he i m a g er y is terrif y i ng, the techniques util i z ed a re a she er delight, including blindprinted texture across her kimono and a gray backg rou nd t h at evoke s su m i brushwork. Songoku (Monkey) and Shi Shi Demon Lion Monster (1865) comes from a series that reimagines the tales of the Monkey King first published in the 16th century. In a design rarely seen at market, Songuku leaps as the lion monster’s eyes tilt up in wary fear of the attack.

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ter glass blowers Rick Ayotte and Paul Stankard. Ayotte’s Red and Yellow Paperweight (1997) (est. $1,000-$2,000) features a charming posy of blooms that vividly preserve nature. T h e au c t i o n w i l l a l s o include furnishings from major names in modern de sig n such a s Gerrit Rietveld, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Isamu Noguchi, and M ies van der Rohe. A set of four Hat Trick Chairs for K n o l l (19 9 0) (e st. $20 0 0 $3000) designed by Frank Gehry come from a line of bentwood fur-

COURTESY LARSON ART AUCTION

Larsen Art Auction will present their spring sale April 20, 2024 at Larsen Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ. A specialist in consignments for over 30 years, this upcoming auction will not disappoint with over 400 diverse lots. Paperweights by important names in glass art will be on offer, including objects from Perthshire Paperweight Company, Saint-Louis, and Whitefriars Glass, as well as mas-

Preternatural Prints E genol f G a l ler y Japa nese Prints will mount Supernatural: Cat Demons, Ogres and Shapeshifters at this year’s Asia Week New York. Selected prints illustrate fantastic yokai and yurei, startling creatures that haunt and excite. Work can be viewed online beginning March 8, 2024; in-person viewing will be available March 16 -17, 2024 at the

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Con rad New York Midtown. The gallery will feature several work by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. Widely viewed as the last great artist of the u k iyo - e, he refused the rise of mass-production printing and created daring imagery that revitalized the

M A R C H /A P R I L 2 0 2 4

IN PERSPECTIVE

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Specters on Stage E DO AN D M E IJ I PRINTMAKE RS CREATE D STRIKING IMAG E S OF G HOSTLY TALE S STAG E D BY K ABU KI AN D NOH PE RFORM E RS B Y A S H L E Y B U S B Y

series One Hundred Noh Plays.

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IN FOLKLORE traditions from around the world, ghost stories serve not only to frighten but also to relay ideas about the human condition. An important component of Japanese mythology, yurei are spirits unable to transition to the afterlife. Trapped in the world of the living, often due to some conflict or trauma that prevented easy passage into the hereafter, tales of yurei have long served as a metaphor for other contemporary concerns. A fascinating new exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art, “Staging the Supernatural: Ghosts and the Theater in Japanese Prints” (March

23–October 6, 2024), looks closely at the depiction of yurei in Edo (1615–1868) and later Meiji period (1868–1912) woodblock prints. Curators trace the relationship between these images and contemporary theatrical productions. In Kabuki and Noh performances, actors brought these ghostly tales to life, and printmakers sought to capture that same magic in their imagery. With the rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate at the beginning of the 17th century, the conservative government ushered in closed borders and the implementation of a rigid class structure, with the elite warrior class empowered over the agrar-

T S U K I O K A K Ō G YO / N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F A S I A N A R T, S M I T H S O N I A N I N S T I T U T I O N , R O B E R T O . M U L L E R C O L L E C T I O N , S 2 0 0 3 . 8 . 2 8 8 4 .

Tsukioka Kōgyo, Shakkyō, from the

U TA G AWA TOYO K U N I I V / N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F A S I A N A R T, S M I T H S O N I A N I N S T I T U T I O N , T H E P E A R L A N D S E Y M O U R M O S K O W I T Z C O L L E C T I O N , S 2 0 2 1 . 5 . 6 1 0 A - C . ; U TA G AWA K U N I YO S H I / N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F A S I A N A R T, S M I T H S O N I A N I N S T I T U T I O N , T H E P E A R L A N D S E Y M O U R M O S K O W I T Z C O L L E C T I O N , S 2 0 2 1 . 5 . 5 6 2 A - C .

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Above: Utagawa Toyokuni IV, Nakamura Shikan IV as Sakata Kintoki and Onoe Baikō (Kakunosuke) as Usui Sadamitsu (R); Sawamura Tanosuke III as Usugumo, Actually the Spirit of a Spider (Jitsu wa kumo no sei) (C); Nakamura Chūtarō as Urabe no Suetake and Ichikawa Kuzō III as Watanabe no Tsuna (L).; Below: Utagawa Kuniyoshi, Scene from a Ghost Story: The Okazaki Cat Demon (Mukashi banashi no tawamure nekomata wo hete koji ni kai wo nasu zu).

ian sector, artisans, and merchants. Ever concerned with maintaining their power and pacifying the masses, the Shogunate set up urban pleasure quarters replete with brothels, tea houses, and theaters as a cultural safety valve in the hope that gratification might distract from rampant political inequality. Printmakers produced ukiyoe images of this “floating world,” referencing contemporary politics, culture, and morals. Introduced during the Edo period, Kabuki theater’s ribald format stood apa r t f rom t rad it iona l modes with its stylized performances and special effects. Given this penchant for trickery, it should come as no surprise that the “ghost play” genre was highly popular among both theater professionals and audiences,

who welcomed the opportunity to thrill or be thrilled. Ryusai Shigeharu’s The Actor Nakamura Utaemon III as Taira no Tomomori (1831) is an excellent demonstration of both the Kabuki adaptation of ghostly tales and the ways in which artists represented supernatural subjects. The print depicts general

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the series One Hundred Noh Plays.; Right: Ryūsai Shigeharu, The Actor Nakamura Utaemon III as Taira no Tomomori.

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Taira no Tomomori, a character in the play Yoshitune and the Thousand Cherry Trees. In this dramatic retelling of a 12th-century war epic, Tomomori fakes his own death rather than succumb to his enemy. In the guise of a ghost, he boards his enemy’s ship but is ultimately slain in a volley of arrows. Shigeharu renders Tomomori against a dark ground typically reserved by printmakers to depict yurei. He wears the blue kumadori makeup used to signal ghosts on the stage. The storyline also imparted messages about power and human folly indicative of contemporary class tensions. Tomomori is ultimately killed by his own pride, slain not by another elite general but a pious warrior monk. Utagawa Kunisada’s Seki Sanjuro II as Kamiya Niemon and Onoe Kikugoro III from Kamigata (Kudari) as the Lantern

Ghost, Applauded throughout the Three Cities (1831) documents the most popular ghost play of the era, Yotsuya Kaidan. In this riveting scene, the chochin nuke or “burst from lantern technique,” is used to wow audiences. In the play, Oiwa is accidentally slain when she discovers her husband’s role in a poisoning that does not kill her but leaves her hideously disfigured. She exacts revenge on her cruel samurai husband, Iemon. Here, the ghost transforms from a flaming paper lantern—a carefully choreographed stage feat involving props, pyrotechnics, and acrobatics to provide the illusion of the floating vengeful woman. The artist, Kunisada, illustrates Oiwa not as a repellent apparition but rather with a careful likeness of the actor who played the vindictive specter.

T S U K I O K A K Ō G YO / N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F A S I A N A R T, S M I T H S O N I A N I N S T I T U T I O N , R O B E R T O . M U L L E R C O L L E C T I O N , S 2 0 0 3 . 8 . 2 8 1 4 . ; R Y Ū S A I S H I G E H A R U / N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F A S I A N A R T, S M I T H S O N I A N I N S T I T U T I O N , T H E A N N E VA N B I E M A C O L L E C T I O N , S 2 0 0 4 . 3 . 2 7 9 .

Left: Tsukioka Kōgyo, Sesshōseki, from

U TA G AWA K U N I S A DA / N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F A S I A N A R T, S M I T H S O N I A N I N S T I T U T I O N , T H E P E A R L A N D S E Y M O U R M O S K O W I T Z C O L L E C T I O N , S 2 0 2 1 . 5 . 4 8 5 .

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Utagawa Kunisada, Nakamura Fukusuke I as Iga no Kotarō Tomoyuki (R) and Nakamura Utaemon IV as the ghost of Iga Shikibunojō Mitsumune.

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In addition to work from the Edo period, the exhibition also features artist Tsukioka Kogyo’s Meiji period prints of Noh theater productions. In contrast to Kabuki, Noh was long viewed as an elite format and originated much earlier in the 14th century. Elaborately masked actors perform and chant, often with slow deliberate movements. Noh productions regularly featured yurei as the main protagonists. Kogyo, born at the start of the Meiji restoration, grew up in a world much different from the preceding Edo period. In a series of sweeping reforms, the newly installed emperor ended feudal military rule and reopened Japan’s borders, ushering in a period of modernization and global interaction. Noh productions were often a part of cultural presentations for foreign attachés. Kogyo regarded Noh productions previously as theatrical performances only available to the elite. He used his prints to

document heritage, to capture the moralizing sentiments imparted in Noh dramas, and to create engaging images of yurei on the stage. His series One Hundred Noh Plays, first released by subscription and then published in two volumes, continues to serve as a critical resource for details pertaining to the era’s Noh dramas. In The ghost of a fisherman (1899) the printmaker depicts the doomed yurei A kogi. I n the play, travelling monks encounter an old angler who tells the tale of Akogi, a man who fished in sacred waters and whose punishment was drowning and an eternity spent in purgatory. The monks quickly realize that their storyteller is in fact the ghost. In the print, the yurei stands against a dark ground—a reference to a storm in the play’s last scenes—that creates an ominous mood for the menacing Akogi. His haunting presence and unblinking stare stand as a testament to his suffering.

T S U K I O K A K Ō G YO / N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F A S I A N A R T, S M I T H S O N I A N I N S T I T U T I O N , R O B E R T O . M U L L E R C O L L E C T I O N , S 2 0 0 3 . 8 . 2 8 9 8

Tsukioka Kōgyo, The ghost of a fisherman.

T S U K I O K A K Ō G YO / N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F A S I A N A R T, S M I T H S O N I A N I N S T I T U T I O N , F R E E R S T U DY C O L L E C T I O N , G I F T O F T H E E M B A S S Y O F J A PA N , WA S H I N G TO N , D . C . , F S C - G R - 4 1 0 .

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Tsukioka Kōgyo, Nue from the series One Hundred Prints of Noh.

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Kamigata (Kudari) as the Lantern Ghost, Applauded throughout the Three Cities (Sanganotsu gohyōban no chōchin no yūrei).; Below: Tsukioka Kōgyo, Tsuchigumo, from Prints of One Hundred Noh Plays (Nōgaku hyakuban).

T he d ipt ych S hakkyo, f rom t he series One Hundred Noh Plays (1922– 1927), shows the final scene of the play Shakkyo (Stone Bridge). In the play a priest comes upon a young boy and a stone bridge. The boy tells him that while he will find the realm of the bodhisattva Manjushri on the other side, no one —not even a holy man— can expect to survive its endless span and surrounding hellscape without purification. The play stands as a reminder that enlightenment is not so easily achieved. Here we see two lion-masked actors, representations of Manjushri’s mounts and the bodhisattva’s proxy, who dance in celebration of the Buddhist promise of nirvana. The brilliant red ground echoes stage lighting meant to dazzle 44

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viewers with the lights of paradise. At the time of their making, contemporary audiences clamored for these stunning images of specters on the stage. Visitors to this new exhibition will certainly be drawn to the exquisite colors, dramatic scenes, and eerie subject matter; however, they may not initially recognize the dense lore and theatrical practices referenced in the imagery. Despite the complexity of the various literary and artistic allusions at the heart of the exhibition, curators and essayists in the supporting catalog have done an excellent job of teasing apart this rich mythology—and visitors, no matter their ability to commune with spirits in their midst, will leave haunted by what they have seen.

U TA G AWA K U N I S A DA / N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F A S I A N A R T, S M I T H S O N I A N I N S T I T U T I O N , T H E P E A R L A N D S E Y M O U R M O S K O W I T Z C O L L E C T I O N , S 2 0 2 1 . 5 . 5 0 5 A - B . ; T S U K I O K A K Ō G YO / N AT I O N A L M U S E U M O F A S I A N A R T, S M I T H S O N I A N I N S T I T U T I O N , R O B E R T O . M U L L E R C O L L E C T I O N , S 2 0 0 3 . 8 . 2 8 4 5 .

Above: Utagawa Kunisada, Seki Sanjūrō II as Kamiya Niemon and Onoe Kikugorō III from

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Ukrainian Modernism A G ROU N DBREAKING EXHIBITION SHOWCASE S TH E EXTR AORDINARY AN D COM PLEX ART OF TH E EARLY 20TH CE NTU RY IN U KR AIN E B Y S A R A H B O C H I C C H I O

Iwan Padalka, Photographer, 1927.

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“I n t he Eye of t he S tor m ,” t hu s , emerged from the dual motivations of reframing European Modernism and safeguarding an essential cultural history. As Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza explains in the catalogue’s foreword, “In times of war, culture becomes a second front.” Acting quickly and with great foresight, she launched Museums for Ukraine, “an initiative from the cultural sector in Europe, to support Ukrainian art and culture.” T h roug h Museu ms for U k rai ne, t he exhibition is taking a European tour; after the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, “In the Eye of the Storm” appeared or will

© N AT I O N A L A R T M U S E U M O F U K R A I N E , N A M U .

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ON NOV EMBER 15, 2022 , a special convoy— carrying dozens of artworks, many from national collections—left Kyiv for Madrid. These artworks were headed towards the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum, the first institution to host “In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900 –1930s,” a unique exhibition that traces the development of Modernism and the avant-garde in Ukraine. Like many exhibitions, “In the Eye of the Storm” shares a lit tle-know n histor y with a broader audience, but this exhibition has an additional aim: to protect these artworks during the ongoing Russian invasion.

© N AT I O N A L A R T M U S E U M O F U K R A I N E , N A M U .

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appear at the Museum Ludwig, Cologne; the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels; the Belvedere Museum, Vienna; and the Royal Academy of Arts, London. To date, “In the Eye of the Storm” is the most comprehensive survey of Ukrainian Modernism, tracing the multiplicity of voices and influences that make this period so ripe for study. The curators, Konstantin Akinsha, Katia Denysova, and Olena Kashuba-Volvach, bring together 70 works that capture the radical cultural identity

of the early decades of the 20th century in Ukraine, without forcing the polyphonous voices to adhere to a single theme. Throughout the exhibition, the curators explore how and why Modernism found its footing in Ukraine at the turn of the 20 th century. At that time, the social and political landscape was rapidly shifting— with threats of radical change linked to the dissolution of the Russian Empire and specific monumental events such as the Russian Revolution, the Ukrainian

Oleksandr Bohomazov, Sharpening the Saws, 1927.

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Below: Davyd Burliuk, Carousel, 1921.

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War of Independence, World War I, and the establishment of Soviet Ukraine. Against this complex backdrop, artists aimed to create a national style through relentless experimentation. Engaging with Fauvism, Cubism, Futurism, Suprematism, and Constructivism (among other movements), these artists produced an extraordinary yet difficult-to-classify body of literature, theater, cinema, and visual art. The search for and controversy around what constituted “Ukrainian s t y l e” l a s t e d i n t o t h e 1 9 2 0 s , particularly heightened after the Ukrainian War of Independence (1917–1921). As Akinsha describes in the catalogue, the modern artistic movements were inherently t r a n s n at io n a l , d e spit e i nt e n s e nationalism generated by the First World Wa r. “T he pa radox was that similar stylistic features were used to visualize different national mythologies from Paris and Berlin to Helsinki and Kyiv,” she explains. “T he U k rai n ia n version of A r t

P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N , O N LOA N TO T H E M U S E U M O F C O N T E M P O R A R Y A R T, O D E S A . ; © N AT I O N A L A R T M U S E U M O F U K R A I N E , N A M U .

Above: Mychajlo Schuk, White and Black, 1912–14.

© N AT I O N A L A R T M U S E U M O F U K R A I N E , N A M U .

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Wsewolod Maksymowytsch, Self-Portrait, 1913.

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triptych “Life”), 1925-27.; Fedir Krychevsky, Love (from triptych “Life”), 1925-27.

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Nouveau was no less of an attempt to find a national artistic form of self-expression.” While developing the Ukrainian Art Nouveau, many artists looked back to older sources, seeking out what felt specific to their own cultural history. Pulling from folk art, medieval mosaics and frescoes, and Ukrainian Baroque, these artists sought to expand the threads that could unite past and future. The brothers Fedir and Vasyl Krychevsky, for example, drew on the line and color from earlier folk traditions and from monumental wall paintings. In the central panel of his triptych Family (1925-27), Fedir Krychevsky depicts four figures piling on top of one another. Their demeanor sits somewhere between a loose embrace, contemplation, and prayer, in a tender, but geometric construction of domestic life. The painting, which appeared in the 1928 Venice Biennale, cultivated a particular acclaim among viewers and the

Italian press. Critics noted that the painting carried “a sincere and convincing archaism,” with echoes of Japonisme and decorativism. Along with introducing artists who are little-known outside Ukraine, the exhibition reevaluates the careers of artists whose legacies have been split between multiple nations, claimed by both the Ukrainian and Russian avant-garde. One such example, Alexandra Exter (née Grigorievitch) led an itinerant life, yet felt particularly tied to her time in Ukraine. She was born in a Polish town in the Russian Empire to parents who were Greek and Belarusian. Following studies in Kyiv, Exter moved to Paris— but she, like many of her artistic peers,

© N AT I O N A L A R T M U S E U M O F U K R A I N E , N A M U . ; © N AT I O N A L A R T M U S E U M O F U K R A I N E , N A M U .

Left to right: Fedir Krychevsky, Family (from

© N AT I O N A L A R T M U S E U M O F U K R A I N E , N A M U .

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became devoted to supporting Ukrainian folk traditions. In Paris, Exter had encountered Fauvism, and she saw in it the same appreciation for color and geometry present in Ukrainian folk art. Her painting Three Female Figures (1909-10) demonstrates how she synthe-

sized tradition with avant-garde techniques. Although the women are faceless, they still have knowable characters, personalities, told through their clear body language and the boldness of the application of paint. About this painting, Denysova writes in the catalogue: “Tension and dramatic effect is

Alexandra Exter, Three Female Figures, 1909-10.

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Civilization. A Fantasy City, 1917.; Vasyl Yermilov, “Avanhard” (“The Avant-Garde”), journal cover design, 1929.; Anatol Petryzkyj, Costume designs for the ballet “Eccentric Dances” at the Moscow Chamber Ballet, 1922.

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achieved through a somewhat geometric application of various shades of blue, redbrown, yellow and white, each accentuating the freshness and richness of the other. Colour becomes the main protagonist.” Exter not only incorporated the ornamental, flat techniques from traditional designs into her own work, but wanted to promote them. With her colleague, Natalia Davydova, she helped to organize the first “South-Russian Exhibition of Applied Arts and Handicrafts” in Kyiv in 1906. The exhibition featured embroideries, ceramics, even an immersive, reconstructed 18th century interior. Other areas of the exhibition explore core communities in Ukraine—always tied to the intense socio-political backdrop—and movements outside painting. These include the Kultur Lige and its Arts Sec-

tion, which aspired to combine Yiddish culture with the European avant-garde. With incredible examples of theatrical design, the curators display how these experimental principles were applied to scenography and film. “In the Eye of the Storm” captures the very slipperiness of national identity—and of claiming association to any artistic movement. In Ukraine, artistic movements did not come and go, but stayed, coexisting to be repurposed, blended, and changed. In any artwork from this period, one sees the influence of any number of -isms. The artists represented in the exhibition—most of whom will be new to viewers—embody a distinctly experimental hybridity. They are united not by technique or style, but by a shared devotion to their practices and a commitment to preserving culture, by way of evolution. “In the Eye of the Storm: Modernism in Ukraine, 1900–1930s” is on view at the Belvedere Museum, Vienna, until June 2, 2024.

© N AT I O N A L A R T M U S E U M O F U K R A I N E , N A M U . ; © N AT I O N A L A R T M U S E U M O F U K R A I N E , N A M U . ; © M U S E U M O F T H E AT R E , M U S I C A N D C I N E M A A R T S O F U K R A I N E .

Clockwise from below: Kostiantyn Piskorskyi,

© N AT I O N A L A R T M U S E U M O F U K R A I N E , N A M U .

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Oleksandr Muraschko, Terrace. Annunciation, 1907-08.

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Art for a New Age TH E SU BLIM E ART OF CASPAR DAVID FRIE DRICH ON TH E 250TH AN NIVE RSARY OF HIS BIRTH BY JAM E S D. BALE STR I E R I

canvas, 96.7 x 126.9 cm.

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ONE OF THREE separate exhibitions in Germany created to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Romantic master Caspar David Friedrich (1774–1840), the Hamburger Kunsthalle’s “Caspar David Friedrich: Art for a New Age” (on view through April 1st) brings together 60 major paintings and over 100 drawings by the artist, an array of works by his contemporaries, as well as compositions by 20th-century artists like Kehinde Wiley and Elina Brotherus whose contributions to the show testify to Friedrich’s ongoing influence. The other two exhibitions assembled this year to commemorate the work of

Friedrich are housed at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and at the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. A single example of Friedrich’s influence, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog (c. 1817) features a man, seen from behind, who seems to contemplate his own insignificance against a limitless, unconquerably forbidding scene that unfolds before him. One of the most copied images of the Romantic movement, the painting would be enough on its own to attract crowds. This Romantic perception of the fragility of humanity, measured against the immensity of the natural world and the antithetical

© HAM B U RG ER K U N S THALLE /B PK , PH OTO: ELK E WA LFO R D.

The Sea of Ice, 1823/24, oil on

S TA AT L I C H E M U S E E N Z U B E R L I N , N AT I O N A L G A L E R I E / F OTO G R A F : J Ö R G P. A N D E R S . ; K U N S T M U S E U M W I N T E R T H U R , S T I F T U N G O S K A R R E I N H A R T © P H OTO : S I K I S E A , Z Ü R I C H , P H I L I P P H I T Z . ; M U S E U M D E R B I L D E N D E N K Ü N S T E L E I PZ I G | M . E H R I T T.

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desire to immerse or even lose one’s self in that immensity, permeates Friedrich’s art. Friedrich came to an understanding of the fleeting impermanence of human life from an early age. His mother and two sisters died when he was young, and at age 13 he watched his younger brother break through the ice of a frozen lake and drown perhaps, it is thought, in an attempt to rescue young Caspar from the same fate. At 16, Friedrich began his studies and was quickly swept up in the nascent Romantic movement, which might be characterized generally as a philosophical turn to the spiritual through the apprehension of nature. The Romantics were proponents of a reaction against the materialism of the Enlightenment of the 18th century, as well as the neoclassical restraint and rigid calculation of that era’s approach to the arts. Where the approach to his art is concerned, of particular interest is the degree —

to which Friedrich’s technique and philosophy complement each other and unite in a style of painting whose influence has reverberated ever since the time of the artist’s adult life. Writing about Friedrich’s technique, Guido Schoenberger, in his essay on the artist for the Encyclopedia of World Art, declared: “Friedrich was basically a draftsman; he gave no evidence of an interest in atmospheric effect even in his paintings, executing foreground and background with equal sharpness and clarity.” Dario Durb«, in a different essay in the Enc yclopedi a — one devoted to the subject of Romanticism— wrote about Friedrich: “His attempt to seize

Clockwise from upper left: Woman at the Window, 1822, oil on canvas, 45 x 32.7 cm.; Chalk Cliffs on Rügen, 1818, oil on canvas, 90 x 70 cm.; Stages of Life, ca. 1834, oil on canvas, 73 x 94 cm.

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oil on canvas, 55 x 71 cm. Below: Bohemian Landscape with Mount Milleschauer, 1808, oil on canvas, 70 x 104 cm.

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the vital principle of each tree, branch, and leaf often produced an almost surrealistic effect because of a sense of the absolute reality of the inner vision.” Friedrich’s “almost surrealist effect” and “inner vision” descend directly in two very different directions: to the Hudson River School and the precise renderings of nature (in which the human is minuscule) in the works of Thomas Cole and Albert Bierstadt; and to the dreamlike precision of surrealism as, say, Salvador Dalí practiced it. Friedrich’s own decree for artists was summarized i n t hese words: “You shall keep holy every pure emotion of your soul; you shall esteem holy every pious presentiment. In an exalted hour it will become visible form and

this form is your work.” Indeed, the commandment might well be a maxim in a surrealist manifesto. But Friedrich’s influence extends beyond well into the 20th century and into our own time. You can trace aspects of magical realism, hyperrealism, Pop Art, and photorealism back to his artistic practice. Of late, a new realism that borders on surrealism seems to hearken back to Friedrich’s discovery of mystery in deliberately heightened depictions of real people and places. For contrast, consider J.M.W. Turner and Thomas Moran as they gave artistic form to the tenets of British art historian and critic John Ruskin. Their work situates mystery and the sublime in misty atmosphere; in Friedrich’s paintings, however, even fog is drawn with a draftsman’s eye and line. Sublime. That single word—sublime— articulates what is perhaps the most important concept related to the Romantic movement. First published in 1757, English intel-

S TA AT L I C H E M U S E E N Z U B E R L I N , A LT E N AT I O N A L G A L E R I E © B P K / N AT I O N A L G A L E R I E , S M B / J Ö R G P. A N D E R S . ; © A L B E R T I N U M | G N M , S TA AT L I C H E K U N S T S A M M L U N G E N D R E S D E N , F OTO : E L K E E S T E L / H A N S - P E T E R K L U T.

Above: Moonrise on the Sea, 1822,

P ER M A N ENT LOA N FRO M TH E S TI F T U N G H A M B U RG ER K U N S TSA M M LU N G EN © S H K /H A M B U RG ER K U N S TH A LLE /B P K , P H OTO: ELK E WA LFO R D.

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Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, c. 1817, oil on canvas, 94.8 x 74.8 cm.

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55 x 71 cm.; Below: Ruins of Eldena Abbey in the Giant Mountains, 1830/34, oil on canvas, 72 x 101 cm.

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lectual Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful separates these two key aesthetic concepts. For Burke, and for the romanticism that was born in no small measure from his treatise, beauty sprang from the emotions we humans feel when we take in harmonious forms. The sublime, on the other hand, names the feeling we get—a feeling born in the emotion of fear— when we confront an ocean, a mountain, or a “sea of fog.” The sublime simultaneously terrifies and attracts us. We want to run from it and, at the same time, immerse ourselves in it.

Thus, the paintings of Friedrich, even when they are of simple landscapes or ostensibly benign scenes, as in Moonrise on the Sea (1822) or Meadows near Greifswald (1821/22), convey a kind of haunting sensation, perhaps the very “presentiment” of which Friedrich spoke. The ships heading out from the harbor in Moonrise over the Sea float on a sheet of ever-diminishing light while the three figures seated on the rocks watch them keenly, as if the vessels might evaporate or, perhaps, never return. At first glance, Meadows near Greifswald appears to be a straightforward depiction of a specific place at dawn or dusk, at a magic hour when lemon yellow light suffuses a pale blue sky. Yet the mirrored congruence between the hedgerow and the sky-

S TA AT L I C H E M U S E E N Z U B E R L I N , N AT I O N A L G A L E R I E / F OTO G R A F : J Ö R G P. A N D E R S . ; S T I F T U N G P O M M E R S C H E S L A N D E S M U S E U M , G R E I F S WA L D .

Above: The Solitary Tree, 1822, oil on canvas,

S TA AT L I C H E M U S E E N Z U B E R L I N , A LT E N AT I O N A L G A L E R I E © B P K / N AT I O N A L G A L E R I E , S M B , L O A N F R O M T H E D E K A B A N K /A N D R E A S K I L G E R . ; S TA AT L I C H E M U S E E N Z U B E R L I N , A LT E N AT I O N A L G A L E R I E © B P K / N AT I O N A L G A L E R I E , S M B /A N D R E A S K I L G E R .

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line—town reflected in hedgerow—suggests that even this neat little burg will one day return to nature. Nature, Friedrich seems to say—with a capital N—is bigger than all our human ambitions and achievements. Finally, crushing a lost ship—perhaps one of those that left the harbor in Moonrise on the Sea —the enormous waveand tide-heaved slabs in The Sea of Ice (1823/24) leave no doubt as to the artist’s faith in the ultimate winner in the battle between nature and humankind. The wreck gives us a sense of the scale of the ice; at first beautiful to our eyes, the scene quickly becomes sublime, that is terrifying and still somehow seductive. We want to be there—as we always do when we look at Friedrich’s paintings— even if it might mean our doom. Sublime.

Above: The Watzmann, 1824/25, oil on canvas, 135 x 170 cm.; Below: The Monk by the Sea, 1808–1810, oil on canvas, 110 x 171.5 cm.

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© T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O .

Mildred Thompson: A visionary abstract painter who used string theory to illuminate the human condition Radiation Explorations 6, 1994, oil on canvas, overall: 97 1⁄2 x 143 5⁄8 in.

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C O L L E C T I O N O F S A S H A A N D C H A R L I E S E A LY © T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E L O N G & C O .

Mildred Thompson’s paintings “were the children of her age,” to paraphrase the famous opening line of Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art (1910): the nuclear age, the space age, as well as the civil rights era. Born in 1936, Thompson grew up at a time when mechanization and scientific innovation achieved a level seemingly capable of anything. Thompson’s mature paintings are large-scale fantastical diagrams of creative and destructive forces, seductive in their rich color and impossible concepts of

space, subtly referencing imagery while engaging with the schools of Neo-Plasticism, Fauvism, and Die Brücke, among others. For the artist, science was a double-edged sword; in her mind, it both defined and narrated the extents of space and time, but simultaneously had the capacity to eradicate all life. Her paintings described these conceptual structures and laws that she studied, a thought space largely off limits to women, lesbians, and even more so to African Americans. Indeed, she trod a path in painting and

By William Corwin Advancing Impulses, 1997, oil on vinyl, 50 x 50 in.

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P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N © T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O .

Untitled, d 1989, watercolor on paper, 9 x 7 1⁄4 in.

© T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O . ; G L E N S TO N E M U S E U M , P OTO M AC , M A R Y L A N D . COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND GALERIE LELONG & CO., NEW YORK . PHOTOGR APH: CHRIS BURKE .

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Above: Music of the Spheres: Mars, 1996, oil on wood, overall: 96 x 144 in. Below: Stele, c. 1963, acrylic on found wood, 38 x 7 3⁄4 x 8 1⁄2 in.

sculpture that mirrored the trajectories of figures like mathematicians Katherine G. Johnson and Dorothy Vaughn, as well as engineer Mary W. Jackson, African American women who were pivotal figures in pushing technology from the theoretical into the real, in their vital roles at NASA. Mildred Thompson resided in that artistic space between recording what was going on around her and approximating something beyond comprehension—the zone of the Visionary. Thompson would title her mature series with the names of concepts that clearly aligned with fundamental concepts in physics, such as Magnetic Fields or Radiation Explorations; or cutting-edge theories, such as String Theory or Hysteresis; or poetical and historical, but archaic scientific sensibilities, possibly even astrological, such as Music of the Spheres. In individual works such as Music of the Spheres: Mercury and Music of the Spheres: Mars (both 1996), Thompson’s dialogue with Kandinsky is clear. He was an artist with whom she felt a deep kinship. In his seminal text mentioned above, he discusses one path of abstraction originating in a hybrid of abstract and figurative forms. While Thompson shares certain aesthetic choices with the great Russian painter, such as color and application of paint, Thompson goes one step further than Kandinsky, employing theoretical diagrams and charts as a “figurative” basis for her canvasses. In Mercury, the viewer seems to be positioned on one sphere, observing the chasm between a red planet and a distant blue one. In between, chains of rough circles, dashes, and solid dots swim in a fluorescent green miasma. Somewhere between MARCH / APRIL

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wood, overall: 96 x 144 in. Below: Radiation Explorations 14, 1994, oil on canvas, overall: 73 1⁄2 x 110 in.

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astrological symbols and streams of particles, the painter hints at an unseen harmony that acts as a connective cosmic tissue. Thompson was born in Jacksonville, Florida, and received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University, where she studied with the artist and art historian James Amos Porter (1905–1970). Porter was a figurative painter and a foundational figure in the movement to codify and empower African American art, authoring Modern Negro Art in 1943. While he was trained in Europe in traditional methods, looking at canonical Western works, Porter emphasized a rejection of overly picturesque approaches to imagery and stressed a focus on previously under-recognized African American painters. Thompson’s own individualistic approach to her subject matter and her determination to eventually pursue her interests in abstraction would have found a nurturing environment at Howard with Porter. In 1956 she received a scholarship to study at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, followed by a

© T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O . ; P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N © T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O .

Above: Music of the Spheres: Mercury, y 1996, oil on

C O L L E C T I O N O F h a l l e y k h a r r i s b u r g A N D M I C H A E L R O S E N F E L D , N E W YO R K © T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O .

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Magnetic Fields 107, 7 1990, oil on canvas, 60 5⁄8 x 50 1⁄2 in.

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Above: Magnetic Fields, 1991, oil on canvas, triptych; overall: 70 1⁄2 x 150 in. Below: String Theory 6, 1999, acrylic on vinyl, 72 x 50 in.

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P R O M I S E D G I F T TO T H E M E N I L C O L L E C T I O N , H O U S TO N , T E X A S © T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O . ; © T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O .

year at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. In 1958, using savings from a summer gig teaching ceramics at Florida A&M University, Thompson sailed to Germany and arrived in Hamburg with a desire to study at the academy; however, she was without a place to live and an acceptance letter. Fortunately, she soon found both and studied at the University of Fine Arts of Hamburg from 1958 to 1961 with the artists Walter Arno, Emil Schumacher, Willem Grimm, and Paul Wunderlich. After studying in Hamburg, Thompson returned to the United States and settled in New York, where she found the art market hostile to black women—despite the fact that she made important sales to the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) of the etchings Love for Sale and Girl with Dolls and Toys (both 1959). The two works display heavy influence from German Expressionism in both subject and rendering, along with, as art historian John J. Curley has pointed out, a reference to Hamburg’s famous red light district, the Reeperbahn, in her depiction of a prostitute. She returned to Germany in 1963 and lived in semi-exile outside the town of Düren until 1975. There she had access to several studios and increasingly pursued a path towards pure abstraction. Thompson’s aesthetic trajectory followed the not unfamiliar path of many other artists from the late 1950s through the mid-1960s. She transitions from a figurative style in search of an authentic source—appropriating references to Beckmann and Grosz—to experiments in Abstract Expressionism. During her sojourn in Düren, Thompson hit upon an almost puzzle-like accretive process that would inform the

© T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O

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Radiation Explorations 12, 1994, oil on canvas, overall: 97 1⁄4 x 107 1⁄5 in.

rest of her life’s artistic accomplishments. She created sculptures and bas-reliefs out of segments of found wood, such as Wood Picture (c. 1971–72) and Stele (c. 1963). The arrangements are not precisely or neatly geometric, but they hint at a regular construction mimicking architecture, heightened by the addition of oil paint, which adds a musical sense of pattern. Stele leans slightly, and its component lengths of wood sometimes form tight seams, but just as often leave gaps that offer a tantalizing view into a dark inner space. Like Louise Nevelson, who also utilized found scraps of wood, Thompson tentatively accepts a kind of universal but inconsistent structure, reflecting the increasingly fractious world of philosophy and theoretical physics that was becoming more prominent in the nuclear age. These works presage Thompson’s

“Thompson’s aesthetic trajectory followed the not unfamiliar path of many other artists from the late 1950s through the mid1960s. She transitions from a figurative style in search of an authentic source ... to experiments in Abstract Expressionism.” MARCH / APRIL

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fascination with magnetic fields and string theory. While concentratedly engaging with solid scientific discoveries, artistically, Thompson was on shaky ground politically. As an African American painter coming up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, there was a focus on liberatory activism. A deeply held belief was that certain methods of depiction, specifically figuration and realism, were most effective in helping to empower the African American viewer. This was an ideology that grew out of the Communist and Socialist movements, and it influenced major figures in midcentury African American art; among them were such individuals as Elizabeth Catlett and her first husband, Charles White, who were both committed Communists. While Communism had toyed with abstraction during the early years of the USSR, it was quickly deemed bourgeois and forbidden. Notables like Matisse, Picasso, and Braque, while often sympathetic to socialist movements, were seen as pawns of the rich, and in progressive African American circles, this translated simply to abstraction being a white art. Many African American painters, Thompson included, as well as Jack Whitten, Frank Bowling, Alma Thomas, and others who took an interest in Abstraction, were framed as collaborating with the status quo. As proof that there’s almost always just as good an argument to the contrary, Lowery Stokes Sims, in her essay on Thompson, An Artist’s Odyssey, cites the 68

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great cultural theorist Alain Locke who felt that Abstraction emerged from Africa and was, thus, an African art form, as the Modernists (Picasso, Braque, Matisse, etc.) had all drawn profound inspiration from African sculpture, decoration, and design. In her mature work, Thompson chose to draw inspiration from the fundamental concepts that govern the function of the universe. String theory, for example, was a school of thought in contemporary physics, arising in the 1960s, which sought to smooth out discrepancies between Einstein’s description of the universe and quantum mechanics. In succeeding decades, it appeared that string theory might be a good candidate for “theory of everything.” Even more appealing to a scientificallyminded abstract painter was that the building blocks of this theory were small sections of undulating lines and similarly wiggly two-dimensional forms. String Theory 6 (1999) is a moderatelysized painting with an imposing energy. A pair of red strands, one an irregular corkscrewing figure and a second smooth curve, ascend vertically and intertwined, climaxing in a white-hot nexus of energy that emanates outward. Behind this form swirl masses of yellow and blue particles moving in different directions and speeds, like a meteorological pressure chart. According to principles of string theory, the fundamental strings connect multiple dimensions and universes and align all the known physical

P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N © T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O . ; P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N © T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O .

Left: Untitled, d 2003, pastel on paper, 11 7⁄8 x 9 in. Right: Hysteresis XII, 1991, oil pastel on paper, 43 x 35 in.

C O L L E C T I O N O F S U S A N A N D M I C H A E L H E R S H F I E L D , D U R H A M , N O R T H C A R O L I N A © T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O . ; © T H E M I L D R E D T H O M P S O N E S TAT E , C O U R T E S Y G A L E R I E L E LO N G & C O .

VisionaryPHYSICS forces. One could easily argue that in String Theory, Thompson saw theoretical physics not just as an intellectual pursuit but as a model for social harmony as well. While in Germany, Thompson traveled in Europe and Africa. During her time abroad, like a scientist—through careful observation—she crafted a political, aesthetic, and social sense of artistic mission. Although she felt that opportunistically grasping at poorly understood signifiers from African culture was “the height of prostitution,” she allowed, in an essay from 1987 (“Memoirs of an Artist”), that “there are recordings in our genes that remember Africa…they will surface and appear without deliberation no matter what we do.” When she returned stateside in 1975, Thompson found a more receptive atmosphere to her work. Her exhibition “Allegro in Spruce” traveled from the Tampa Bay Arts Center in 1975, to the James A. Porter Gallery at Howard University, and to Harvard University in 1977. She was featured in the group show “Impressions/Expressions: Black American Graphics,” in 1979, at the Studio Museum in Harlem. Thompson settled in Atlanta in 1986, where she took on an editorial post and began writing for Art Papers magazine. Her multivalent approach to art and creativity was apparent in this facet of her life as well. Thompson investigated the work of artists with whom she had a lot in common, interviewing contemporaries such

as Emma Amos, Valerie Maynard, and Adrian Piper, in addition to her professor from Howard, the painter Lois Mailou Jones. But she also retained her connection to Germany, interviewing Neo-Expressionists like Salomé and Helmut Middendorf, along with cultural pioneers like polymath Meredith Monk. Magnetic Fields (1991) is a triptych, a diagram of intersecting fields of energy and movement, inscribed in orange and red dashes and ovals against a light ochre background.  It is Thompson’s unifying work because not only does it present a diagram of one of the basic forces, magnetism, which binds all matter, but it also offers a sensuous map of human, particularly feminine, energies as well. In the central panel of the triptych, a mandorla-shaped form seems to emit the flows of electron-like particles that drift in rounded curves to the left and right.  Here the painter is depicting a portal, between her canvas and the wider universe, and the visual vocabulary glorifies both science and femininity.  While Mildred Thompson was a clear devotee of pure abstraction and felt keenly aware that the public did not see her as a political artist, a work such as Magnetic Fields shows with clear and brave strokes that comments on feminism, race, and sexuality were there. Thompson simply felt that we needed to look at her painting with the same dedication with which she conceived it.

Left: Hysteresis III, 1991, pastel on paper, 31 1⁄4 x 26.1 in. Right: Untitled, d 2003, pastel on paper, 11 7⁄8 x 9 in.

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Dutch M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N , P R O M I S E D G I F T O F R O S E - M A R I E A N D E I J K VA N OT T E R LO O , I N S U P P O R T O F T H E C E N T E R F O R N E T H E R L A N D I S H A R T. P H OTO © M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N . ; M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N , B EQ U E S T O F R U T H S . P O L L E N , 2 0 1 3 . 8 2 .

Masters Dutch Art helps shape the Western World’s view of itself

he six themes that comprise Dutch Art in a Global Age: Masterpieces from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, an exhibition on view April 19 th through July 14th at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, convey a complex story of a very small nation-state that grew rapidly into an empire whose reach circumnavigated the globe. It is a story of the transition from a local, feudal, agricultural world to a world based in trade that saw a more open exchange of peoples, goods, and ideas as new avenues to political and economic power. Fleets of merchant ships and investors brought luxury products such as Asian porcelains, textiles, and papers—at great risk and to great profit—to the Netherlands. Yet power came at a significant cost to other peoples across the oceans who were enslaved to provide newly desirable commodities like sugar and tobacco. At the same time, though, the rise of the Dutch Republic and its dominance through the 17th century led to an incredible proliferation of the arts at home, one whose legacy is nowhere more evident than in visual culture. The first line from Christopher D.M. Atkins’s “Centering the Global,” an essay in the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition, paints the picBy James D. ture: “Scholars estimate that as many as five

million paintings were produced in that period, a truly remarkable number for a geographic area that is about the size of the state of Maine.” It’s worth taking a moment to recall how the Dutch Republic came to be. After years of war with their Spanish Hapsburg rulers, who were Catholic, the Northern Netherlands seceded and became the Protestant Dutch Republic. Antwerp had been the center of maritime activity in the Low Countries; however, a Dutch blockade and the promise of new opportunities in Amsterdam, the principal port in the new Dutch Republic, led to a great migration that saw the formation of Jewish and free Black communities as well as socio-economic openings for women. At home, the Dutch Republic established strong Baltic Sea fisheries and transformed the lowland landscape into rich, arable tracts through an ingenious system of dams and dikes that operates to this day. Abroad, the new nation founded two powerful corporations (and, indeed, the very idea of a corporation)—the Dutch East India Company and the West India Company—whose ships plied the seven seas, creating colonies in the Americas, including New York’s predecessor, New Amsterdam, and securing exclusive trading rights with Japan from an island off Balestrieri the city of Nagasaki.

On facing page: Willem Kalf, Still Life with Fruit in a Wanli Bowl, 1664, oil on canvas. Above: Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, Self-Portrait with Saskia, 1636, etching.

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This background is necessary if we are to understand not only the wealth that flowed through the Dutch Republic but also the desires of a new mercantile class that was creating a culture tabula rasa, as it were, free from the weight of hereditary aristocracy. The six themes of the exhibition—The World at Home, The World Beyond, Amsterdam as a Cosmopolitan Hub, Global Citizens, Celebrating the Familiar, and Conspicuous Consumption—all speak to a people and place that were aware of themselves, their newness, and their meteoric rise to power on a stage that was only just becoming truly global. As opposed to earlier European arts that found their highest expressions in religious depictions, the arts of the Dutch Republic 72

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are perhaps the world’s first civic celebrations, celebrations of the “self” of a people. Every work in Dutch Art in a Global Age, instead of saying, “Look to God,” says, “Look at us.” The human supplants the divine. In the arts, portraiture blooms and the selfportrait becomes something between a revelation and an advertisement. “Moreover,” as Atkins continues in his catalogue essay cited above, “Dutch artists developed the independent genres of landscapes, still lifes, and contemporary fictions based on seemingly everyday life.” That Dutch art of this period is still so fascinating to us is, in part, because this notion of civic celebration comes down to us as a chronicle. We continue to learn a great deal about the origins of contemporary Western society from the origin story of the Dutch

M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N , G I F T O F R O S E - M A R I E A N D E I J K VA N OT T E R LO O , I N S U P P O R T O F T H E C E N T E R F O R N E T H E R L A N D I S H A R T, 2 0 2 1 . 7 07. ; M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N , G I F T O F R O S E - M A R I E A N D E I J K VA N OT T E R LO O , I N S U P P O R T O F T H E C E N T E R F O R N E T H E R L A N D I S H A R T. P H OTO © M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N .

Above: Frans Post, Landscape with Ruins in Olinda, 1663, oil on panel. Below: Hendrick Avercamp, Skaters on a Frozen River, r ca. 1610–1615, oil on panel.

M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N , P R O M I S E D G I F T O F R O S E - M A R I E A N D E I J K VA N OT T E R LO O , I N S U P P O R T O F T H E C E N T E R F O R N E T H E R L A N D I S H A R T. P H OTO C O U R T E S Y O F M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N .

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Rachel Ruysch, Still Life with Flowers, 1709, oil on canvas.

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1667–1670, oil on panel. Below: Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn, The Angel Departing from the Family of Tobias, 1641, etching and drypoint.

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Republic and the stupendous number of objects that have survived to tell that story. This is, of course, the time of Vermeer, of Rembrandt, of Frans Hals. It is also the time of the first artists’ ateliers, galleries, and the idea of clients as well as patrons. Imagine artist Maria Schalcken standing in front of Self-Portrait in Her Studio (c. 1680). Imagine her pointing at this painting—of herself, or, perhaps, her “self”—a painting of her pointing at a landscape she is painting. How modern this is! Because we know her name, we are already light years past Virginia Woolf’s assertion that “For most of history, anonymous was a woman.” Schalcken turns to us, throws a look over her shoulder and points to her work, saying, “I did this. Look at it.” But then, also, saying, “I did this. Look at me.” Then, take in the other elements in the painting—the deftly handled draperies, the gossamer lace, shadows, light, flesh tones, volume. The skull and the bust in the background let the viewer know that Schalcken can do still lifes as well, especially the “vanitas” pieces that were so popular at the time. Self-Portrait in Her Studio is both a celebration and an

M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N , P R O M I S E D G I F T O F R O S E - M A R I E A N D E I J K VA N OT T E R LO O , I N S U P P O R T O F T H E C E N T E R F O R N E T H E R L A N D I S H A R T, 7 0 . 2 0 1 8 . ; M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N , K AT H E R I N E E . B U L L A R D F U N D I N M E M O R Y O F F R A N C I S B U L L A R D , 2 0 0 1 . 1 3 9 .

Above: Jan van der Heyden, The Westerkerk, Amsterdam, about

M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N , R O S E - M A R I E A N D E I J K VA N OT T E R LO O C O L L EC T I O N , 3 0 . 2 0 1 9 . ; M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N , P R O M I S E D G I F T O F R O S E - M A R I E A N D E I J K VA N OT T E R LO O , I N S U P P O R T O F T H E C E N T E R F O R N E T H E R L A N D I S H A R T, 5 5 . 2 0 1 8 .

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advertisement. In fact, women artists made names for themselves in the genre of the still life, as evidenced by Rachel Ruysch’s Still Life with Flowers (1709). The still life created interesting challenges for artists, and in this new, human-centered society, the senses came of age. Still life artists sought to show off their ability to paint exotic luxury goods such as the delicate, translucent porcelain in Willem Kalf’s 1664 painting Still Life with Fruit in a Wanli Bowl, which contrasts with the peeled fruit you can almost smell, taste, and feel. In addition to a ready market for still lifes and landscapes, artists like Schalcken and Rembrandt, as well as hosts of others, such as Eglon van der Neer, would have chased and cherished portrait commissions. Van der Neer’s Portrait of a Man and Woman in a Refined Interior (1665–1667) offers insight into the mindset associated with the new wealth in the Dutch Republic. Surrounded by a sumptuous décor—including a textile table covering from the East, gilded panels and alabaster columns on either side of the fireplace, along with a painting that might already have been an “Old

Above: Jan Josephsz. van Goyen, The Beach at Egmond aan Zee, 1653, oil on panel. Below: Esais van de Velde, An Elegant Company in a Garden, 1614, oil on canvas.

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Woman in a Refined Interior, r 1665–1667, oil on panel.; Maria Schalcken, Self-Portrait in Her Studio, ca. 1680, oil on panel.

Master” above the mantel—the couple themselves are dressed in black and white, the colors of Protestant austerity. They are satisfied, yet restrained, letting the room and the objects in it speak for them. But it is in the landscape that the 17th-century Dutch artists made their most lasting impact. Even the very word—“landscape”—has a Dutch etymology that is utterly remarkable, one that writer Robert Macfarlane, in his marvelous book of walks and words, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot (2012), describes beautifully in the following note that appears on Page 255: “‘Landscape’ is a late-sixteenthcentury (1598) anglicization of the Dutch word landschap, which had

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originally meant a ‘unit or tract of land’, but which in the course of the 1500s had become so strongly associated with the Dutch school of landscape painting that at the point of its anglicization its primary meaning was ‘a painterly depiction of scenery’: it was not used to mean physical landscape until 1725.” In other words, our modern term “landscape” referred to art before it described the places art might depict. Amazing. Seen in this way, landscape resides in the imagination—not as a place human beings see, but a place we can yearn for, traverse, lose ourselves in, or, on the other hand, as a place we might transform, subdue, and own. Human beings, thus, project desire onto the natural world, which becomes a medium we sculpt and shape, both in our minds and to our ends. Frans Post’s Landscape with Ruins in Olinda (1663) presents a seemingly tranquil scene of Black women and men on a sugar plantation in Dutch Brazil. The structural ruins themselves were almost certainly left behind by the Portuguese, suggesting the succession of one colonial power over another. The painting’s bucolic appearance, not surprisingly, masks the harsh reality. Cabins in the distance would have housed enslaved Africans who would have faced terrible conditions in the dangerous process of sugar extraction and frequent violence at the hands of overseers. Post’s shaping of the landscape into an Arcadian paradise demonstrates this difference between landscape imagined and landscape in reality.

M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N , G I F T O F R O S E - M A R I E A N D E I J K VA N OT T E R LO O , I N H O N O R O F T H O M A S S . M I C H I E , A N D I N S U P P O R T O F T H E C E N T E R F O R N E T H E R L A N D I S H A R T. P H OTO © M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N . ; M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N , S E T H K . S W E E T S E R F U N D, 41 . 9 3 5 . ; M U S E U M O F F I N E A R T S , B O S TO N , G I F T O F R O S E - M A R I E A N D E I J K VA N OT T E R LO O , I N S U P P O R T O F T H E C E N T E R F O R N E T H E R L A N D I S H A R T. P H OTO © M U S EU M O F FI N E A R T S , B O STO N .

Clockwise from below: Nicolaes Adriaensz de Grebber, Tazze with the four seasons, 1606, silver gilt.; Eglon van der Neer, Portrait of a Man and

M U S EU M O F FI N E A RTS , B OS TO N , WI LLIA M FR A N C I S WA R D EN FU N D. P H OTO © M U S EU M O F FI N E A RTS , B OS TO N . ; M U S EU M O F FI N E ARTS , BOSTO N , ELIZ AB E TH PAR K E FI R E STO N E AN D HARVE Y S . FI R E STO N E , J R . , CO LLEC TIO N , 1 9 93 . 452 A- B .

Dutch Masters

Above: Jacob Isaacksz. van Ruisdael, Rough Sea, ca. 1670, oil on canvas. Below: Hendrik Voet, formerly y about 1700, tortoiseshell, with silver inlay, silver attributed to Julien Berthe, Tea-caddy, mounts; wooden core and inset base.

By contrast, Hendrick Avercamp’s Skaters on a Frozen River (c. 1610–1615) practically inaugurates a sub-genre of genre painting—the skating scene. For all of the various depictions of real places in Dutch landscape, many have a touch of the ideal. Avercamp’s scene, for example, is an amalgam: a made-up place and moment, one that appears to be meant to show the bustle of commerce and leisure in a way that defies the ice and, by extension, nature herself. Of all the marvelous works in the exhibition, Esaias van de Velde’s An Elegant Company in a Garden (1614) epitomizes every theme. Part landscape, part still life, filled with portraits, it is a genre scene in which wealth is both on display and being consumed conspicuously. The partygoers play on and dine on; then they view the splendid objects that have been brought out into the garden for this very occasion. Two or three notice us and look back quite frankly, but with some mischief, while those who serve them do so silently, keeping to themselves. Indeed, it’s a party anyone would want to attend, just as Dutch Art in a Global Age: Masterpieces from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston is an exhibition anyone should want to visit—and savor. MARCH / APRIL

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The Summer of Color

July 1905 in Collioure, a quaint French fishing village sandwiched between the sparkling waters of the Mediterranean and the slopes of the Pyrenees located about half a marathon’s run from Catalonia and the Spanish border. Henri Matisse invited André Derain to meet him (and his family) there. The attraction? An azure sky and a dazzling light that gilded all that it touched: medieval buildings, lush foliage, red rock coves, all. As Derain vividly put it, in a letter to a friend: “The nights are radiant, the days are potent, ferocious, and victorious, the light bears down on all sides with its immense shout of victory.” The two became inseparable for the next nine weeks, churning out—in

It was

prodigious quantities—paintings and drawings of the same sunblasted subjects: boats (so many that it seems they had painted the entire fleet between them), olive trees, the mountains, the sea, portraits of Matisse’s wife Amélie, each other, others. Derain’s portrait of a pensive, bespectacled Matisse is one of the finest that exists of him, a brilliant intertwining of Fauvist aesthetics and penetrating character study.  This was before either of them was assured of more than a footnote in art history, if that. Although they had shown and were well-known among their contemporaries, who knows what might have happened had they not decided to go to Collioure together?

By Lilly Wei André Derain, Mountains at Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas.

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N AT I O N A L G A L L E R Y O F A R T , W A S H I N G T O N , J O H N H AY W H I T N E Y C O L L E C T I O N . © 2 0 2 3 A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W Y O R K / A D A G P, P A R I S .

Nine weeks that upended French Art

André Derain, Henri Matisse, 1905, oil on canvas.

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TAT E , P U R C H A S E D 1 9 5 8 . © 2 0 2 3 A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W Y O R K / A D A G P, P A R I S .

The Summer of Color

Below: André Derain, Sailboats at Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas.

But they did, and because of that the course of French painting shifted, inspired by each other as well as Collioure. Like explorers to uncharted territories, what their eyes saw was a previously undiscovered world of fresh, riotous color. Given its significance for Modernism and its legendary pairing (recalling that of, say, Van Gogh and Gauguin), it is curious that the work from that seminal period has never been shown together in depth. “Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain, and the Origins of Fauvism,” curated by Dita Amory from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Ann Dumas from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is a welcome corrective. The show, a joint endeavor between The Met and the MFAH, debuted in New York this past fall and is on view in Houston from February 25 to May 27, 2024. The exhibition is luminous, consisting of 65 paintings and works 80

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M U S E U M O F M O D E R N A R T, N E W YO R K , T H E P H I L I P L . G O O D W I N C O L L E C T I O N . © 2 0 2 3 A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K /A DAG P, PA R I S . ; P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N . © 2 0 2 3 A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K /A DAG P, PA R I S / P H OTO G R A P H © 2 0 1 1 C H R I S T I E ’ S I M A G E S L I M I T E D .

Above: André Derain, Fishing Boats, Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas.;

P R I V AT E C O L L E C T I O N , C O U R T E S Y O F N E V I L L K E AT I N G P I C T U R E S , L O N D O N . © 2 0 2 3 A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W Y O R K / A D A G P, P A R I S .

The Summer of Color

André Derain, Woman with a Shawl, Madame Matisse in a Kimono, 1905, oil on canvas.

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on paper; most are from those extraordinary weeks in Collioure, the paintings almost evenly distributed between the two artists. The works on paper, however, are almost all by Matisse, the watercolors particularly stunning. It was fascinating to compare the similarities and differences in their brushwork, their choice of colors, how they dealt with light, the points of view they preferred, and so on. Traces of perspective in the many diagonals that Derain used to structure his compositions (as in The Faubourg of Collioure) had all but vanished in Matisse’s work, while Derain went further than Matisse in renouncing pointillism’s mosaic-like system of tiny complementary dots and dashes. But, as the summer advanced, the older artist’s strokes also loosened up, influenced, no doubt, by the proximity of Derain (and the reverse) who claimed to have little use for pointillism. He said, “I’m completely over it and almost never use it anymore…it is detrimental to things that derive their expression from deliberate disharmonies.” Yet that’s not quite true. Some of Derain’s –and Matisse’s—best works here retain divisionism’s dabs of color, although the paint is applied more freely, its effect more 82

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emotive.  Derain, who was impulsive, enthusiastic (but could also be moody, discontented), worked rapidly, with fierce concentration, completing 30 paintings and a cache of drawings and sketches in that time. Afterward, he never returned to Collioure; it had given him—or he had taken—everything from it he needed. In remarks he made to author and art historian Georges Duthuit in 1929, he recalled: “Colors became sticks of dynamite. They were primed to discharge light. It was lovely, this idea, in its freshness, which could be taken well beyond reality.” Matisse progressed more deliberately. His production was mostly made for reference, and many of his creations were rough, unfinished. He went back to Paris with 15 paintings, 40 watercolors, and around 100 drawings, to be reworked. He, unlike Derain, returned to Collioure repeatedly for nearly a decade, often for long stretches of time. It was a place to recharge, singularly important to him as the place that first revealed to him, in a “pure way,” what he wanted to express in his paintings. It revealed color to him, and

M U S É E D ’A R T M O D E R N E , C E N T R E P O M P I D O U , PA R I S . © 2 0 2 3 A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K /A DAG P, PA R I S .

André Derain, The Faubourg of Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas.

N AT I O N A L M U S E U M , S E R B I A . © 2 0 2 3 A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K /A DAG P, PA R I S . ; P R I VAT E C O L L E C T I O N . © 2 0 2 3 A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K /A DAG P, PA R I S .

The Summer of Color

Above: André Derain, The Sailboats at Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas. Below: André Derain, Boats at the Port of Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas.

the extent of its “force.” Upon their return to Paris at the end of the summer, both Matisse and Derain submitted works based on their summer in Collioure to the Salon d’Automne. Established a mere two years earlier, in 1903, it had already become prestigious as an annual showcase for contemporary art, admittance highly competitive. They were both selected (as were Maurice de Vlaminck, Kees van Dongen, Albert Marquet, Charles Camoin, and Jean Puy), to the subsequent outrage and scorn of critics and the public—and the vociferous acclaim from radical, like-minded artists. Christened les Fauves (“the wild beasts”) by Louis Vauxcelles, a journalist, who, it seems,

meant the term to be more descriptive t ha n pejorat ive , referri ng to t he group’s unorthodox, subjective use of dissonant colors that were unshackled from reality. Veering away from truth to representation in favor of truth to painting, the Fauves illustrated Maurice Denis’s pronouncement that a painting, before it was “a war horse, a nude, or an anecdote of some sort—is essentially a flat surface covered with colours assembled in a certain order.” Matisse, the oldest of the group, was deemed its leader (an artistic movement that was short-lived and never formalized) and Derain his most talented disciple, who bore the brunt of the ridicule. But brief as its existence was, its impact was MARCH / APRIL

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profound, Matisse remarking, “Fauve painting is not everything, but it is the foundation of everything.”  In addition to catapulting painting into exciting new terrain, the rewards for Matisse and Derain from their Collioure adventure were immense on a more mundane level, proving that, (almost) always, even bad press is better than no press. Because of the notoriety of the paintings, Matisse met the Steins—Gertrude Gertrude, Leo, Sarah, and Michael. They bought Woman with a Hat, 1905, his now iconic portrait of Mme Matisse, immediately recognizing its importance despite the uniformly harsh judgment of the critics. The Steins introduced him to sisters Claribel and Etta Cone, all of whom would become ardent American supporters and crucial to his career. Derain, also thanks to the scandal of such unorthodox approaches to painting, was taken up by the canny Ambroise Vollard, who would become one of the preeminent dealers of French contemporary art of the period (representing, among others, Van Gogh, Cézanne, and Picasso). Vollard bought all the work in Derain’s studio from the summer and commissioned him to paint a series of views of London, establishing that established his career.  Derain’s reputation is now primarily based on his three years as 84

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a Fauve, although he had a long and successful career. His pictures in this exhibition are knockouts, reinforcing that evaluation, and, because lesser known, his work is the more revelatory. His sense of urgency is contagious, the heat of his palette twirled to high, matching the weather: pure reds, yellows, oranges, and whites. He would often use paint straight from the tube, the effect raw, percussive, startling, new. He drank in Collioure avidly, in great visual gulps, writing to his friend Vlaminck about its “explosion of colors,” how ravishing and overwhelming it was, and how unaccustomed he was to so much sunlight.  One of the highlights of the show is Derain’s The Sailboats at Collioure, a ravishing white-on-white oil in which color and paint have been pared down to a minimum, the primed canvas visible, the staccato, textured brushwork resulting in a shimmered buoyancy so palpable that it is like being there, our eyes squinting against the glare. Fishing Boats, Collioure is another beauty, the assured, arbitrary swipes of red in the foreground is hemmed by greens and blues, with scraps of orange yellows above and around it, the sea depicted in light grey, its scintillating, change-

S TAT E N S M U S E U M F O R K U N S T, C O P E N H A G E N . © 2 0 2 3 S U C C E S S I O N H . M AT I S S E /A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K .

Henri Matisse, Landscape at Collioure (Study for “The Joy of Life”), 1905, oil on canvas.

TAT E , P U R C H A S E D W I T H A S S I S TA N C E F R O M T H E K N A P P I N G F U N D , T H E A R T F U N D , A N D T H E C O N T E M P O R A R Y A R T S O C I E T Y, A N D P R I VAT E S U B S C R I B E R S , 1 9 5 4 . © 2 0 2 3 S U C C E S S I O N H . M AT I S S E / A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K . ; N AT I O N A L G A L L E R Y O F A R T, WA S H I N G TO N , C O L L E C T I O N O F M R . A N D M R S . J O H N H AY W H I T N E Y. © 2 0 2 3 S U C C E S S I O N H . M AT I S S E /A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K . ; M U S E U M O F M O D E R N A R T, N E W YO R K , M R S . J O H N H AY W H I T N E Y B E Q U E S T. © 2 0 2 3 S U C C E S S I O N H . M AT I S S E /A R T I S T S R I G H T S S O C I E T Y ( A R S ) , N E W YO R K .

The Summer of Color

Clockwise from upper left: Henri Matisse, André Derain, 1905, oil on canvas.; Henri Matisse, Open Window, Collioure, 1905, oil on canvas.; Henri Matisse, Study for “Luxe, calme et volupté,” ” 1904, oil on canvas.

able surface captured by an array of broken, pale-hued strokes. In the back-and-forth of their exchange, Derain’s landscapes, such as Mountains at Collioure, assumed, at times, the fluid, allover resolutions of Matisse, discarding diagonals and shadows as both artists strived to eliminate illusionistic depth. Derain’s Woman with a Shawl, Madame Matisse in a Kimono is immensely appealing, if more conventional, except for its treatment of space. The brushy, vibrant patchwork of reds, greens, and blue greens that forms the ground is as active a player as the figure, all parts of the picture plane of nearly equal value. This, too, would become a Matissean axiom, who repeatedly proclaimed that the “entire arrangement of my picture is expressive.” Derain, without doubt, heard him. Matisse, while working with equally intense application, was content to proceed at a slower pace, more interested in testing his perceptions and in refining the relationship of colors to one another and carefully composing his surfaces, his palette cooler, more sophisticated, his colors mixed. Included here is Open Window, Collioure, one of Matisse’s most beloved paintings and a Fauve masterpiece. Overlooking the Mediterranean visible through successive frames, it focuses on the classic motif of the window as a metaphor for the nature of painting and its roles, the motif recurrent in his oeuvre. There is little that is dark or shadowed here. The cascades of pinks, fuchsias, violets, blue-greens, magentas, the bits of yellow, ochre, deep blue, the pale gray-blue and white of the sky, the lightest blue green of the water are elements of a color

scheme characteristic of many of his works at the time (including an intimate, quickly sketched portrait he made of Derain), the rococo lyricism downplaying its formal and conceptual complexities.  So, here comes the sun. If you love summer (and who does not?), you will love this show, offering you, as it does, the gift of perpetual summer, a joyful antidote to all that’s not well with the world right now. Isn’t that also what art should do?

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record-breaker

Images of a Woman (1966) by the Fab Four

C H R I S T I E ’ S I M A G E S LT D . 2 0 2 4

SEQU EST ER ED in luxury hotel rooms with not much to do, The Beatles collaborated on a painting that sold recently for more than $1.7 million at Christie’s in New York, nearly tripling its “high estimate” value of $600,000. T he work , Im ages of a Woman, was painted in the summer of 1966, during a tour organized for The Fab Four in Japan. Holed up for the better part of five days in the Presidential Suite of Tokyo’s Hilton Hotel at the request of local authorities who were concerned for their safety, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison turned to painting as a way to keep busy while in their gilded cage. The evolution of Images of a Woman was famously captured in photos by Robert Whitaker, who joined The Beatles on the tour in Japan. One of Whitaker’s shots shows the four men sitting around a table covered with paper and a large lamp in the middle—the young musicians intently painting in their respective corners of the Japanese paper. Later, when the lamp was removed, a blank circle remained; the circle, which is found at the center of the painting, became the shared area in which Lennon, McCartney, Starr, and Harrison signed their names. According to Whitaker, the four did not discuss what they were creating, and the brightly colored, almost psychedelic, image evolved organically. When The Beatles finished the acrylic-and-watercolor composition, they gave it to the president of the official Beatles Fan Club in Japan, Tetsusaburo Shimoyama. More

than 20 years later, in 1989, record store owner Takao Nishino purchased the painting, eventually selling it via auction in 2012. Considered the only painting signed by all of The Beatles, it remained untitled until the 1980s, when a Japanese journalist said that he could see female-like forms depicted in the abstract composition; soon thereafter, the artwork became known as Images of a Woman. The now-iconic pop-culture painting hit the auction block in February at Christie’s New York as part of the auction house’s “The Exceptional Sale,” ultimately selling to an anonymous buyer.

Offered by: Christie’s New York, February 1, 2024 Estimated at: $400,000—$600,000 Sold for: $1.7 million

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