From Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics at ISAW

From Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics Institute for the Study of the Ancient World

February 12, 2015 to June 7, 2015

Reviewed by Ed Voves

When visiting art exhibitions, one should always expect the unexpected. Unfamiliar masterpieces and unconventional exhibit presentations can transform our vision of humanity. 

Exhibitions ought to challenge our long-term assumptions about art, make us comprehend the inner dynamics of works of art, as well as their surface attributes. In fact there should be a little box at the end of each exhibit where we can dispose of our preconceptions like the ID tags that we discard when leaving museums.

The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World (ISAW) in New York City does not provide a little box for ID tags, as its exhibits are free. Preconceptions don’t last very long in its galleries. Old, threadbare ideas are the only form of ancient history you will not find here.

From Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics is the latest exhibition at the ISAW. Fifty art works from ancient Mesopotamia are integrated with vintage photos and documents from two major archaeological expeditions during the 1920's and 1930's. These artifacts are expertly displayed in a way that recalls the 2011 ISAW exhibit Edge of Empires, which detailed the excavation of the Roman city in Syria, Dura-Europos, during the inter-war years.

Standing Male Worshiper, ca. 2900–2600 B.C.

The major innovation of From Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics is the inclusion of several masterpieces of modern art.  This is a first for ISAW and not as surprising as it might initially seem. These works, created by Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti and Willem de Kooning were all influenced by the objects unearthed at the celebrated "digs" in Iraq during the period between the two world wars. 

Henry Moore, Half Figure II, 1929

The curators of From Ancient to Modern took the even bolder step of widening the scope of the exhibit to include art by contemporary artists. These works by Jananne al-Ani and Michael Rakowitz underscore the human tragedy of recent wars in Iraq and the tragic looting of the National Museum of Iraq in 2003.

With this deeply moving exhibition, Jennifer Chi, ISAW’s Director of Exhibitions, and Professor Pedro Azara, of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, have powerfully asserted a visionary role for art in articulating the values of human society.

All this in two moderately-sized galleries at 15 E. 84th Street in NYC!

History begins at Sumer in Mesopotamia, as the famous book by Samuel Noah Kramer declared. But archaeological ventures to Mesopotamia got a late start, at least in comparison with expeditions to Egypt. The reasons for this are complex. But the discovery of the treasure-filled tomb of Tutankhamun in November 1922, which sparked world-wide Egyptomania, spurred two major efforts to uncover the buried past of Mesopotamia.

Leonard Woolley Waxing a Skeleton for Removal, Ur, ca. 1929-1930

The first of these was a joint British Museum/University of Pennsylvania partnership which focused on the site of Ur in southern Iraq. Ur of the Chaldees was the birthplace of the Biblical patriarch, Abraham. The great British archaeologist, Leonard Woolley, led a series of "campaigns" to Ur starting in 1922 and lasting until 1934. 

The second mission to Mesopotamia was the Iraq Expedition of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. From 1930 to 1937, a distinguished Dutch archaeologist, Henri Frankfort, brought a well-organized team of scholars to the Diyala River valley. A tributary flowing from the north into the Tigris River, the Diyala River had previously been thought to be too far from the main centers of early Sumerian civilization along the Euphrates River to yield much of interest. The methodical Frankfort disproved such speculations with history-changing finds on a very big scale.

The military terminology of archaeology this period is not coincidental. As the superb companion volume to the ISAW exhibit makes clear, Woolley's excavations had the direct support of the British Army and Colonial Office which dominated Iraq in the years following World War I. Frankfort's "campaigns" in the more remote Diyala region benefited too from the prestige and power of Western colonialism.

The ISAW exhibit is subtitled Archaeology and Aesthetics. As well as being an accomplished archeologist with recent fieldwork (done under dangerous circumstances) in Iraq, Professor Azara is a noted authority on aesthetics. The way that human beings perceive art and then conceptualize it in terms of personal experience or societal influences is of vast significance.

Such aesthetic concerns are often ignored or treated as rarefied, elitist ideals. The ISAW exhibit proves that prejudice towards deep thinking about art is totally wide of the mark. Aesthetics, as the companion volume notes, is a vital mode of critical thinking. Aesthetics enables us to judge and to transform objects and images "with meaning, into windows to the world or to ourselves."

Aesthetics, from time to time, need a little help from the Publicity Department. The discoveries at Ur were a notable example of this interaction.

The ISAW exhibit deals with the savvy manipulation of the media culture of the 1920's and 1930's by Leonard Woolley and his fashion-conscious wife, Katherine. Woolley's PR efforts were rewarded by the discovery in 1927 of the glittering diadem of Queen Puabi and a mass of other jewels and golden accoutrements, dating from 2500 to 2300 BC, at Ur. It was an archaeological coup to rival the treasure of Tutankhamun. 

Puabi's headdress and cloak, ca. 2500–2300 B.C.

Woolley left no publicity venue untapped. From color photography supplements in the Sunday newspapers of the era to travelling exhibits of the Ur treasures, Woolley kept the Mesopotamian discoveries before the public eye. I was particularly struck by the catalog of a special display, Exhibits from the Royal Tombs of Ur of the Chaldees, held in 1934 at the Strawbridge and Clothier department store in Philadelphia! 

Female Worshipper, ca. 2700-2500 B.C.

The enjoyable and fascinating array of ancient art works and publicity documents related to Ur in the ISAW exhibit naturally command our interest. But Henri Frankfort's discoveries at the Diyala River excavations were hugely significant as well. These statues or votive images were initially characterized in some quarters as "idols." Many questions were raised whether these unsettling objects were art works at all. 

I am planning a separate post on Art Eyewitness to review the companion volume to From Ancient to Modern and will discuss this theme in more detail. For now, it is enough to note that Henry Moore and Willem de Kooning were moved by these ancient sculptures to create new art works of their own.

Cover of catalogue, Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics

It is in the second of the ISAW galleries that I wish to linger for there the contemporary works by Michael Rakowitz and Jananne al-Ani are presented. Rakowitz's family is of Iraqi-Jewish heritage and al-Ani was born in Kirkuk, Iraq. Both of these artists now live and work in the West, but the history of Iraq, ancient and modern, is woven into their work with the thread of memory.

Rakowitz recreated objects looted from the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad in 2003. Troops from the U.S. and coalition forces were posted nearby but failed or were not ordered to intervene to stop the vandalism. Rakowitz used cheap disposable materials from recycled milk cartoons and cigarette packs to recreate these lost art works in order to emphasize how a nation’s culture can be treated as "disposable."

Given the recent adulation for the "Monuments Men," who saved thousands of art works from the Nazis, the looting of the National Museum of Iraq is inexplicable. The failure of Allied troops to protect the cultural heritage of Iraq raises troubling questions about the level of Western commitment to the people of Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations. The team that Woolley led to Ur during the 1920's brought some of the most precious art works of Mesopotamia to the collections of the British Museum and to the University of Pennsylvania Museum. But the ancient art that was excavated and placed in the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad was shrugged-off in 2003.

Whatever the reason for this appalling blunder, Rakowitz's installation does not let the Western powers off the hook of collective responsibility.  Jananne al-Ani, with her photographic and multi-media work, likewise presents challenging, critical images relating to Iraq’s agony. 

Jananne al-Ani, Untitled, May 1991 [Gulf War Work]

Untitled May 1991 [Gulf War Work] is on display at the ISAW. It is a deceptively simple piece, with a grid of twenty images arranged on a wall in the manner of a family photo gallery. One of the rows indeed shows photos of al-Ani's family. The top row shows images of treasures from the National Museum of Iraq and a depiction of Queen Puabi wearing her fabled golden diadem. There is a row of portraits of Iraqi women with haunted or grief-stricken eyes. Any of these women could be a latter-day Puabi, fit to wear her golden diadem.

These photographs are followed in the bottom row by images of war.

Jananne al-Ani's Untitled May 1991 is the kind of art work that I referred to at the beginning of this review. It is the unexpected work that forces you to question your preconceptions. It struck me with particular force.

During the Gulf War years, I worked as a news research librarian for the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News. One of my tasks was to retrieve and index the stream of Associated Press photos as they were digitally transmitted. Particularly during the 2003 Gulf War "campaign," marked as it was by the prolonged bombardment of Baghdad, I was sickened by many of the incoming images. The AP pictures of dead and mangled civilians, particularly children, were horrific. Very few of these were selected to appear in Western newspapers.

Jananne al-Ani's Untitled May 1991 brought the memories of these terrifying pictures flooding back to me. The “disposable” sculptures of Michael Rakowitz reinforced the effect.  I was not prepared for art work like this at the ISAW exhibit. I'm still looking for a box big enough to discard my preconceptions.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved 

Images Courtesy of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York City.

Introductory Image

Detail of Puabi’s headdress, apple clusters with large bales, ca. 2500–2300 B.C., Ur, Gold, Lapis Lazuli, Bitumen, L. 88 cm,  Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the Museum of the University of  Pennsylvania, 8th season, 1929-1930. University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology (B16684.1) © Bruce White

Standing Male Worshiper, ca. 2900–2600 B.C., Early Dynastic I-II period of Mesopotamia, Eshnunna (modern Tell Asmar). Gypsum alabaster, shell, black limestone, bitumen, 11 5/8 x 5 1/8 x 3 7/8 in. (29.5 x 12.9 x 10 cm)  The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1940(40.156)  Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

Henry Moore, Half Figure II. Cast concrete, H. 39.4 cm, W. 23 cm; D. 17 cm, 1929. The Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, SCVA: UEA 79 © Robert and Lisa Sainsbury Collection, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, UK

Leonard Woolley Waxing a Skeleton for Removal, Ur,  Photograph,  ca. 1929-1930 Courtesy of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (191485) © Courtesy of Penn Museum

Puabi's headdress and cloak, ca. 2500–2300 B.C., Ur, Tomb PG 800, Gold, Lapis Lazuli, Carnelian and various stones,  (Hair Ring), B17709 (Wreath), B16693 (Decorative Comb), B17710 (Wreath), B17711 (Wreath), B17711A (Hair Ribbon), B17712A, B (Earrings), 98-9-9A, B (Hair Rings), B17708 (Frontlet), B16694 (Necklace), 83-7-1.1–83-7-1.89 (Cloak). Joint Expedition of the British Museum and of the Museum of the University of  Pennsylvania, 6th season, 1927-1928.University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archeology and Anthropology © Bruce White

Female Worshipper, ca. 2700-2500 B.C., Tell Asmar, Khafajah,(Sin Temple IX) Iraq, Gypsum, shell, H, 36.1 cm, W, 13.5 cm,D. 7.1 cm, Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago, 1930-1937  (A12412)  Image © Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago

Cover of the exhibit catalogue, Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics, published by Princeton University Press. Cover illustration by Michael Rakowitz from his installation   The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist” (Recovered, Missing, Stolen) (2003) 

Jananne al-Ani, Untitled, May 1991 [Gulf War Work]. Silver gelatin prints on paper, 20 units: H. 20 cm; W. 20 cm (each), 1991. Courtesy of the artist. IWM: ART 16417 © Courtesy of Jananne al-Ani Estate and the Imperial War Museums

Pennsylvania German Fraktur at the Philadelphia Museum of Art

Drawn with Spirit: 
Pennsylvania German Fraktur from the Joan and Victor Johnson Collection

February 1–April 26, 2015

Philadelphia Museum of Art, Perelman Building

Reviewed by Ed Voves

This Valentine's Day, the best place to look for hearts and flowers is the Philadelphia Museum of Art.  There you will see wonderful examples of the American folk art genre known as fraktur. 

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is hosting an amazing exhibition, Drawn with Spirit: Pennsylvania German Fraktur from the Joan and Victor Johnson Collection.

One of the objects on display really stands out in terms of the Valentine's Day theme. This is an example of scherenschnitte, the Pennsylvania German - "Pennsylvania Dutch" - word for scissors-created "cutwork." The amount of skill, patience and affection that went into the creation of this love note over two and a half centuries ago totally dissolves the arbitrary boundaries between art or craft.

That is true of almost of the works on view in Drawn with Spirit. The exhibition presents the collection of a husband-wife team, Joan and Victor Johnson, who, for nearly a half-century, amassed a jaw-dropping array of fraktur. Folk art it is, but it's great art as well.

Fraktur refers to a form of lettering, "broken" or fractured, first developed during the 1500's. This distinctive calligraphy was embellished  with water color depictions of daily life and visionary spirituality.

Fraktur was most prevalent in southern Germany and parts of central Europe such as Moravia in the Czech Republic which then had a significant number of German-speaking citizens. These regions, devastated by the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), sent a stream of immigrants  during the 1700's to the refuge of William Penn's Quaker colony, Pennsylvania.

This work of "Valentine" fraktur is dated May 22,1754, a little late in the year for a formal Valentine's Day greeting. It is instead a liebesbrief or love letter, shared by a courting couple as they explored the path to marriage.

The ornate calligraphy of fraktur was often surrounded by a thick growth of flowers and vines, bewildering flocks of birds and animals and fantastical creatures, partly human and part-bird or part-fish.

The androgynous angels circling the border of this liebesbrief are pretty ominous-looking. They certainly aren't Victorian cupids. Nor do they have a “come hither” gleam in their eyes.

Fraktur long retained the cultural ambiance of the German-speaking world of the seventeenth century. The small Pietist religious groups which came to Pennsylvania established communities like the Ephrata Cloister that were located away from the mainstream of English-speaking culture. The distinctive nature of fraktur artworks, many of which served as personal or family documents, helped their owners preserve their Germanic identity.

These Pietist groups - Mennonites, the Moravian Brethren, the Schwenkfelders – had many unique features to their religious devotions, some of which did not fit comfortably within the framework of major Christian denominations. One of these involved letters reputedly written by God himself – in German, with fraktur decoration – and sent to earth for the instruction of the faithful. These were known as “letters from heaven” or Himmelsbrief.

A much more common use of fraktur was for creating birth and baptismal certificates. Known as Geburts und Taufschein, these documents were required by the governments of the German states and the Holy Roman Empire to identify new-born children. The English colonies, especially in the frontier country, were much more slipshod with record keeping. But the Pennsylvania Germans maintained this Old World tradition in their new surroundings.

Birth and Baptismal Certificate for Anna Maria Oberle, 1798

A particularly good example of this form of fraktur in the Johnson Collection is the Birth and Baptismal Certificate for Anna Maria Oberle. Created around 1798, the certificate is believed to have been the work of Johannes Ernst Spangenberg, (c. 1755 ‑ 1814).

In this document, the September 19, 1798 birth of Anna Maria Oberle in Northhampton County, Pennsylvania, is duly noted. Spangenberg depicted well-dressed couples, accompanied by musicians and leaping dogs, celebrating the event. In a particularly evocative touch, he portrayed a man and woman, perhaps baby Anna Maria's parents, relaxing in chairs decorated with human faces.

The festivities at the bottom of the certificate appear under a blessing invoked for Anna  Maria's future welfare. This charming expression rhymes in the original German:

Gott geb ihr Gluck und segen  Gesundheit allerwegen                                                       ihr schutz woll Jesus seyn, und Jesum zum Trost allein

(God give her happiness and blessing; good health at all times                                           Her protection shall be Jesus and Jesus her comfort alone)

A particularly interesting feature of this blessing is that it was used a decade earlier in another birth and baptismal certificate that was almost certainly the work of Johannes Spangenberg. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has this fraktur work in its collection. It documents the birth of Cathrina Seiffert, July 10, 1789, also in Northampton County, Pennsylvania.

Birth and Baptismal Certificate of Cathrina Seiffert (detail), 1789, Metropolitan Museum

Note how the Gluck und segen blessings are placed within heart motif designs in the Metropolitan Museum piece. Fraktur artists like Spangenberg may have utilized standard blessings and iconography. But one of the most significant features of fraktur was its emphasis on the individuality of the person being celebrated.

Fraktur continued to be created up until the era of World War II, by which time museums and private collectors began to acquire it for their collections. During the nineteenth century, the distinctive Germanic "old world" traits of fraktur gradually gave way to include some American themes. However, there was never a chance of mistaking the Pennsylvania German origins of the fraktur artists.

The Johnson collection, which has been generously pledged to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, contains several works by the Sussel‑Washington Artist. A particular motif of this anonymous creator involved equestrian portraits of colonial gentlemen and ladies. They are sometimes identified with "Genneral Waschington" and his wife. One suspects that nobody, then or since, ever thought that Martha Washington ever looked like the red-cheeked rider below. 

Drawing of Woman on Horseback, c. 1775

I don't think many people ever confused the Sussel-Washington artist's depiction of a doe-eyed, humpbacked quadruped (below) with a real camel, either. There was a circus troop traveling about the newly independent United States and the Sussel-Washington artist may have seen or heard about the camel that appeared in the show. 

Drawing of a Camel, c. 1775.

The Sussel-Washington artist chose to make the outward reality of life in America conform to the inner vision which he (or she) shared with other fraktur artists. This is not just a matter of personal preference or an early version of "my way." Instead, beneath the surface of this cheerful creature, there is a very powerful life-force at work.

"Out of Many - One" is the political motto of the United States. It is not the cultural maxim for American society. Diversity, not uniformity, has been the hallmark of art in the United States. 

The Pennsylvania German artists who developed fraktur over the course of two centuries can thus be recognized as pioneers of a multi-ethnic society where art can be created from many points of view and be appreciated and cherished by all.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved 

Images Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Introductory Image                                                                                                         Cutwork Valentine, May 22, 1754. Artist/maker unknown, American, Pennsylvania German?. Watercolor and ink on laid paper, Diameter: 12 1/2 inches (31.8 cm). Promised gift of Joan and Victor Johnson.

Birth and Baptismal Certificate for Anna Maria Oberle (born September 19, 1798), c. 1798. Attributed to Johannes Ernst Spangenberg, American, c. 1755 ‑ 1814. Watercolor and ink on laid paper, 13 1/8 × 16 1/4 inches (33.3 × 41.3 cm). Promised gift of Joan and Victor Johnson.

Birth and Baptismal Certificate of Cathrina Seiffert (detail), 1789. Likely created by Johannes Ernst Spangenberg, American, c. 1755 ‑ 1814. Ink and watercolor on paper,  17 x 13 1/2 in. (43.2 x 34.3 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art,  Gift of Mrs. Robert W. de Forest, 1933 (34.100.62) Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

Drawing of Woman on Horseback, c. 1775. Attributed to the Sussel‑Washington Artist, American, active 1760 ‑ 1785. Watercolor and ink on laid paper, 8 × 6 3/8 inches (20.3 × 16.2 cm). Promised gift of Joan and Victor Johnson

Drawing of a Camel, c. 1775. Attributed to the Sussel‑Washington Artist, American, active 1760 ‑ 1785. Watercolor and ink on laid paper, 4 1/4 × 3 1/2 inches (10.8 × 8.9 cm). Promised gift of Joan and Victor Johnson

Art Eyewitness Close-up: The Fall of Icarus by Henri Matisse

The Fall of Icarus by Henri Matisse 

By Ed Voves

The Fall of Icarus by Henri Matisse (1869-1954) is an example of the paper cut-outs or gouaches découpés that figured so prominently during the last decade of Matisse's life. I have selected this wonderful work of art for the first of a new series of short, focused essays in Art Eyewitness. 

I also hope to encourage art lovers to make their way to the Museum of Modern Art in New York to see the exhibit Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs before it closes on February 10. It is truly a "once-in-a-lifetime" exhibition.

The Fall of Icarus was not the first time that Matisse created cut-outs. Earlier, he made cut-outs to help him prepare the composition of the mural The Dance which he painted for Dr. Albert Barnes during the early 1930's. But when Matisse took a pair of scissors in hand and created The Fall of Icarus in 1943, the very idea of planning any large-scale works in the future must have seemed very problematic.

As years go, 1943 was a terrible one. Although it was apparent that Hitler was not going to conquer the world, it was not clear if he could be stopped from destroying it - starting with France. 

Matisse, who had barely survived cancer surgery in 1941, was confined to a wheelchair, no longer able to stand before an easel. But just as an illness in 1890 had occasioned his first bed-ridden efforts to paint pictures, so his precarious medical condition in 1943 led him to launch into the new venture of gouaches découpés.

Matisse in front of gouache-painted papers.

Apart from the brilliant color of The Fall of Icarus, the first thing that impresses me is how utterly different Matisse's handling of the subject was from the versions of earlier artists. This is true whether one compares it to Bruegel's ironic scene, where the farmhands fail to notice Icarus drowning in the sea, or more melodramatic versions from the Baroque era replete with melting wax, shredding feathers and a doomed youth plunging earthward.                                                                                                                                                           
Matisse's Icarus looks like he has been shot and is reeling backward. There is a famous - and terrifying - photograph of a French soldier being struck by a bullet in the 1916 battle of Verdun. Was Matisse thinking of this photo from the first "war to end all wars" or contemporary scenes from the second?

According to Hilary Spurling, Matisse's biographer, the writer Louis Aragon saw the work soon after it was created. He noted that Matisse said that the splashes of yellow surrounding Icarus "- suns  or stars if you want to be mythological - were exploding shells in 1943."

The Fall of Icarus, however, has a resonance far beyond the war years. By thrusting Icarus in our faces, Matisse banished mythology from the work and made the scene part of our "here and now" reality. Icarus expires before our eyes and Matisse won't let us turn away. 

This is a scene of reckoning. Matisse requires our verdict. Do we value glory like Icarus or survival? 

Matisse chose survival. But it was not a case of picking flight over fight. Matisse refused offers of refuge in America during the dark days of 1940. Though initially safe in the unoccupied south of France, the situation had changed by 1943. Matisse created The Fall of Icarus while German troops were stationed in the very building that he lived in. The cut-out was an act of defiance, an artist's statement on the coming fall of the Third Reich.

Once peace returned, The Fall of Icarus also marked the beginning of a new phase in Matisse's career. In 1945, a lithograph of the work was used as an illustration in the fine art magazine Verve and two years later a similar version appeared as plate VIII in Jazz, the stunning, limited edition book that Matisse created for his publisher, Tériade.

The Fall of Icarus has lost none of its emotion-shaping power.

The Fall of Icarus (detail)

How moving it was to stand before The Fall of Icarus at the MOMA exhibition. How poignant is the sight of the very pins inserted by Matisse to hold the pieces of painted paper together to create this masterpiece. How life affirming - ironically - is this depiction of the dying fall of Icarus.

As power-mad despots tore civilization apart in 1943, Henri Matisse took hold of a pair of scissors, a sheaf of colored papers, a handful of pins and started to put the world of beauty back together again.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved

Images Courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
Introductory image:                                                                                                                                                        
Henri Matisse (French, 1869-1954). The Fall of Icarus (La Chute d’Icare), 1943. Gouache on paper, cut and pasted, and pins. 13 2/4 x 10 5/8” (35 x 27 cm). Private collection. © 2015 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Matisse in front of gouache-painted papers, Hôtel Régina, Nice. Photo: Lydia Delectorskaya. © 2014 Succession H. Matisse

Art Eyewitness Essay: Discovering Impressionism

Discovering Impressionism:

Paul Durand-Ruel, Theophile Thoré and the New Painting

By Ed Voves

It is impossible to predict what will be the most influential or most innovative art exhibition for the coming year. It's a safe bet, however, that the big Impressionist exhibit honoring Paul Durand-Ruel will be in the running.

Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922) was the art impresario who discovered Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro while they were refugees in London during the War of 1870-71. Durand-Ruel went on to market the work of the "New Painters” until the once-derided Impressionists were a global art phenomenon. 

Over the course of his long career, Durand-Ruel bought and sold the work of the Impressionists. Often nobody else was doing so and early sales ventures were failures. Durand-Ruel came close to bankruptcy on several occasions. In 1886, the tide turned when a New York exhibition caught the attention of American art enthusiasts.

Dornac, Photograph of Paul Durand-Ruel in His Gallery, about 1910

“At last the Impressionist masters triumphed …," Durand-Ruel later declared. "My madness had been wisdom. To think that, had I passed away at sixty, I would have died debt-ridden and bankrupt, surrounded by a wealth of underrated treasures.”

Amazingly, this is the first museum exhibition to highlight the pivotal role of Durand-Ruel in the saga of Impressionism.

The Durand-Ruel exhibit is in its final weeks in Paris at the Musée du Luxembourg. Then Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel will appear at the National Gallery in London from March 4 to May 13, 2015. The exhibition travels to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, June 18 to September 13. The Philadelphia exhibit will be entitled Discovering Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the New Painting.

One of my favorite paintings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art appears in the exhibits: Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Portrait of Mademoiselle Legrand. The little girl, Adelphine Legrand, was eight years old when Renoir painted her. It was 1875, the year after the first Impressionist exhibition when profits were meager and criticism was harsh. Renoir needed the money that portrait painting offered.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Mademoiselle Legrand, 1875 (detail)

Portrait of Mademoiselle Legrand is more than a wonderful work of art - though it certainly is that. This marvelous painting is a link back in time from the Impressionists to the Dutch Golden Age of the 1600's.

There are many reasons for the tremendous – if not immediate – impact of Impressionist paintings. Durand-Ruel's  business acumen and risk-taking courage are certainly primary factors. But I think there is another element to this success story, rooted in an earlier school of art that shared many of the same concerns and strengths of the Impressionists.

Old Master art of the seventeenth century was accorded the highest prestige by the Academic art establishment of the nineteenth century. Praise was heaped upon Rembrandt and Rubens and new techniques in painting were frowned upon.  

Yet, just a few years before Durand-Ruel began selling Impressionist works, the French art critic, Theophile Thoré, rediscovered the paintings of Jan Vermeer and Frans Hals. Thoré showed that these forgotten Dutch masters of genre and portraiture had explored themes and techniques that the Impressionists would shortly embrace.

Thoré (1807-1869) was a left-wing journalist whose newspaper was banned during the 1848 Revolution. He went into exile to Belgium after the liberal revolts failed. Thoré had already discovered the almost totally forgotten Vermeer on an earlier visit to Holland in 1842 and during his years in exile, 1849-1859, he continued researching the Dutch Golden Age. 

There were political reasons, as well as artistic ones, motivating Thoré. Holland was governed by a republican government during its Golden Age. Thoré, writing under the pseudonym of Willem Bürger, was able to skewer the despotic regime of Napoleon III by extolling the amazing cultural achievements of the Dutch Republic during the 1600s.

Thoré succeeded in rescuing Vermeer and Frans Hals from lingering under the shadow of Rembrandt. In 1869, the Louvre received a huge bequest of Dutch paintings collected by Louis La Caze, a doctor who shared Thoré's enthusiasm for Dutch painting. Hals' smiling Gypsy Girl was one of the major paintings of the bequest and is now an iconic work in the collection of the Louvre.

Sadly, Thoré died the same year as the La Caze bequest. The torch, however, had been passed. Many of the young painters who would form the Impressionist circle were left-wing in political temperament. These “New Painters” eagerly embraced the portraits of the Dutch middle and working class by Hals.

Frans Hals (1580-1666) impressed the artists of the Impressionist era with the spontaneity and simplicity of his technique. Hals was born in Antwerp but had fled the advance of the Spanish armies determined to crush Protestant dissent in the Low Countries. Hals’s immigrant status lends a certain degree of poignancy to the way that he chose the plain folk of Holland as the favorite subject of his art.

The source of Hals’s manner of painting is more of a mystery. The Baroque era valued minute attention to texture and detail. Hals, however,  paid little attention to either. Instead, he created a technique that used the effect of light to delineate the essential form and the inner character of his subject. Hals painted portraits to register from across a room – just as people are viewed in real life. It was a style all his own.

Hals brilliantly captured every possible emotion at one time or another on his canvases. From the smug arrogance of his famous (and misnamed) Laughing Cavalier in the Wallace Collection in London to the look of spiritual fervor on the face of St. John the Evangelist at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, Hals evoked the entire spectrum of human feeling.

Frans Hals, Saint John the Evangelist, 1625 - 1628

Hals’ grasp of human nature has not passed without critical comment. Like 1950’s Cinemascope movies, his range is often said to be "wide but not deep." But if you look closely enough, especially at the children he painted, you will see real psychological insight.

Frans Hals, Saint John the Evangelist, detail

Has there ever been a better depiction of youthful character in the making than Hals’ painting, Boy Reading? This is thought to be a portrait of his son Nicolaes Hals (1628-1686), who later became an accomplished landscape painter. Boy Reading is a wonderful counterpart to Renoir’s Mademoiselle Legrand. Both paintings depict young people striving to be grown-up. Nicolaes and Adelphine, across the divide of two centuries, are shown growing into the persons they will become.

Hals, as befitted a Dutch painter of his sober-dressed countrymen, was accomplished in handling black paint. Nicolaes is in bathed in sunlight in Boy Reading and this meant the use of subtle gradations of black and gray color to convey the parts of his garments reflecting the light or residing in shadow. 

Frans Hals, Boy Reading, between 1597 and 1666

My wife successfully faced a similar challenge, a couple of years ago, when she painted three black-garbed figures emerging into sunlight. I learned from observation of her successful efforts that the level of skill needed to bring this task to fulfillment is very great.

Hals was so far ahead of his time in technique that he could train no students to manipulate paint in the quick, fluid strokes that he used so brilliantly. He had to wait until the Impressionists to find worthy successors.

Does that mean that Hals was the first Impressionist? Was Hals the “inventor” of Impressionism?

Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet and Vincent van Gogh were vocal in their high regard for Hals. Each had a very different style and objections can be made to including them among the ranks of the Impressionists. Indeed all of the Impressionists were supreme individualists and there was no signature Impressionist style.

There was an affinity, however, between the Impressionists and the Dutch painters rediscovered by Thoré. A brief comparison between Hals and Renoir is worthy of consideration.

I think an instinctive comradeship existed between Renoir and Hals. Rather than a close study of Hals by Renoir, it was a case of two great portrait painters sharing insights across the centuries.

Between 1875 and 1890, Renoir was the leading Impressionist portrait painter. His style and achievements bear comparison with Hals, as can be seen with Mademoiselle Legrand. Many – but not all – of his portraits have the same austere, uncluttered backgrounds of Hals’s work. The essential character of Renoir’s protagonists make their presence felt in a crowded room just as they do in a work by Frans Hals.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Dance at Bougival, 1883

Frans Hals, Young Man and Woman in an Inn, 1623

Later, when rheumatoid arthritis began to grip Renoir’s body and a desire to explore eighteenth century classicism dominated his artistic goals, Renoir's career took a different turn. But In 1910, Renoir summoned up all his old skill to paint one last, magnificent portrait with echoes of the influence of Frans Hals. Significantly, the portrait was of Paul Durand-Ruel.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Paul Durand-Ruel, 1910

Durand-Ruel was well aware of the social factors and influences at work in the world at large. It was a nineteenth century middle class world that Durand-Ruel had to coax and entice to buy Impressionist art.  This liberal, progressive society shared many affinities with the Dutch during their seventeenth century "Golden Age." It says a lot that Durand-Ruel found many of the most enthusiastic buyers for Impressionist art in the United States, which had embraced the Dutch Republic as one of its models during the 1800's.

Interestingly, one of the first French  patrons of Impressionist art was Victor Chocquet, who typified the middle class patrons of art of the Belle Epoque in France. The Oskar Reinhart Collection, located in Winterthur, Switzerland, is mounting an exhibition, Victor Chocquet, Art Collector and Friend of the Impressionists, set to run from  February 21 to June 7, 2015. This exhibit will make a fine counterpoint to the Durand-Ruel exhibitions.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Portrait of Victor Chocquet, 1876

A customs official, Victor Chocquet (1821-91) used his limited financial resources to purchase Impressionist paintings, including a matching pair of portraits of himself and his wife by Renoir. He was among the first art patrons to grasp the genius of Cezanne, whom he personally befriended. By the time of his death, Chocquet had amassed sixty paintings, of which thirty-five were by Cezanne. 

Chocquet's collection was impressive for an individual, but it could only make a small impact compared to Durand-Ruel's efforts. Between 1891 and 1922,  Durand-Ruel bought around twelve thousand Impressionist paintings, including more than one thousand by Monet. These he then offered for sale in his galleries and in special exhibits such as in 1905 at London's Grafton Galleries.  

“Without him”,  Monet said of Durand-Ruel, “we wouldn’t have survived.”

If there was an Impressionist “brand” then it was Durand-Ruel who "invented" it.  But the source of Impressionist success was the same as it had been in the Dutch Golden Age:  the market for art among the upwardly mobile middle class.  People like Victor Chocquet and the parents of Mademoiselle Legrand bought paintings that reflected their lives, their dreams, their achievements and their aspirations. 

Such is the foundation of all great art.

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved 

Introductory Image:                                                                                                         Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841–1919) Portrait of Mademoiselle Legrand, Oil on canvas, 32 x 23 1/2 inches (81.3 x 59.7 cm), 1875. Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Henry P. McIlhenny Collection in memory of Frances P. McIlhenny, 1986, (1986-26-28)  Image: © The Philadelphia Museum of Art

Dornac (Paul François Arnold Cardon) (French,1859-1941) Photograph of Paul Durand-Ruel in His Gallery, about 1910. Archives Durand-Ruel. Image © Archives Durand-Ruel © Durand-Ruel & Cie

Frans Hals (Dutch, 1582/83–1666) Saint John the Evangelist, Oil on canvas,  27 9/16 x 21 5/8 in.,1625 - 1628, J. Paul Getty Museum (97.PA.48) Image: © The J. Paul Getty Trust

Frans Hals (Dutch,  1582/83–1666) Boy Reading,  Oil on canvas, 29.9 × 24.8 in., (76 × 63 cm), between 1597 and 1666. The Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’ in Winterthur,Switzerland. Image provided by the Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002, and Wikipedia Images.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841–1919) Dance at Bougival, Oil on canvas,                   71 5/8 x 38 5/8 in. (181.9 x 98.1 cm), 1883. Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Picture Fund purchase,(37.375 )Image: © The Boston Museum of Fine Arts  

Frans Hals (Dutch, 1582/83–1666) Young Man and Woman in an Inn ("Yonker Ramp and His Sweetheart"), Oil on canvas, 41 1/2 x 31 1/4 in. (105.4 x 79.4 cm), 1623. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913, (14.40.602) Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841–1919) Portrait of Paul Durand-Ruel, Oil on Canvas,  25.6 × 21.7 inches (65 × 55 cm), 1910. Private collection. Image © Archives Durand-Ruel © Durand-Ruel & Cie

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841–1919) Portrait of Victor Chocquet, Oil on Canvas, 46 x 36 cm,  1876. The Oskar Reinhart Collection ‘Am Römerholz’ in Winterthur,Switzerland. Image provided  by The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002 and Wikipedia Images.

Art Eyewitness Looks at The Art Scene in 2014

A Look at The Art Scene in 2014

By Ed Voves

It is encouraging to reflect upon the art scene in 2014. Some of the concerns raised at the end of 2013 have been answered in very positive and encouraging ways. 

The demands of the Marketplace did not inhibit the mission of art museums to preserve and present classic  art while fostering new visions of creative expression. Bad money did not drive out good art - so far.

I picked a couple of images to symbolize the art scene during 2014. I chose Wall Street, New York, a 1915 photo by Paul Strand, whose tremendous range as a photographer was celebrated by a huge exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. My second choice was Returning Home, by the Chinese artist, Shitao (1642-1707), displayed in an equally vast exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum. The Art of the Chinese Album remains on view through March 29, 2015.

The two pictures show the ying yang of the art world. Art as reality. Art as refuge. We need  both.

Paul Strand,Wall Street, New York, 1915

Strand's platinum print of people hurrying to work past the J.P. Morgan building in New York City shows the "rat race" world that most of us inhabit or feel we do.  The pedestrians in Wall Street are dwarfed by the huge, darkened windows of the Morgan building. The windows loom over them like monstrous examples of Kazimir Malevich’s 1915 painting, Black Square.  

Shitao's depiction of a solitary boatman navigating his way homeward is equally evocative. Shitao (1642-1707) was one of the group of artists known Ming Loyalists because of their continued support for the Ming Dynasty after it fell from power in 1644. Less complimentary was the other name of this group, yimin or "left-over" subjects. 

Shitao, Returning Home, 1695

The boatman is almost certainly intended as an autobiographical image of Shitao. He had courted favor with the conquering Qing Dynasty from Manchuria, but then gave up in disgust. Shitao returned to creating images in the traditional style of Chinese art.

Landscape painting in China, of which Shitao was a master, stressed idealized depictions of the countryside. Yet Shitao was not creating a fantasy world. 

Returning Home is one of twelve images in a 1695 album by Shitao. Expansive landscapes alternate with  realistic“close-ups" of a single tree branch or a small bed of flowers in this carefully preserved book of images. Shitao's boatman is trying to escape the oppression of the soulless "grind" of existence as presented in Strand's Wall Street, but his refuge is still very much in the real world.

Art as window of reality and as a site of refuge scored a major triumph during 2014. The Detroit Institute of Art was "given up for dead" in the final months of 2013. Many of its greatest works were slated for the auction block to help bail-out bankrupt Detroit.

This suicidal sale of the treasures of the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA) did not take place. 

Thanks to an ambitious fundraising effort spearheaded by the DIA itself, the integrity of the museum's collection was preserved and Detroit's financial hemorrhage was "stitched in time." A staggering $800 million was raised by the DIA, including $330 million from the Ford Foundation, the Knight Foundation and seven other philanthropic institutions.

Darren Walker, President of the Ford Foundation, was quoted in the New York Times, stating that the DIA-lead rescue of Detroit was “unprecedented and monumental for philanthropies to undertake this kind of initiative.”  

Mr. Walker concluded that “if there was ever a time when philanthropy should step up, this is it.” 

Vincent van Gogh, Self Portrait, 1887

By stepping-up, the DIA prevented a precedent-setting auction of Van Gogh's straw-hatted Self Portrait and other iconic works. This "monumental" success saved other American museums from facing the same grim prospect every time the credit rating of their city takes a hit. 

The Detroit institute of Art's triumph was counterbalanced by the Delaware Art Museum's travail. The Delaware Museum sold two extremely valuable art works to help dig itself out of massive debt incurred by its renovation plans undertaken back in 2001 to a tune of $32.5 million. That was before 9/11 and the 2007-2008 financial debacle. In response to the  auctioning of the two art pieces, the Delaware Art Museum’s accredited status was suspended by the American Alliance of Museums for “direct violation of museum standards and ethics.”

Art institutions, by the standards of the American Alliance of Museums, are only permitted to sell works of art to finance the purchase of new ones. But U.S. museums constantly engage in renovation and expansion of their buildings to stay competitive. Those with deep pockets like the Metropolitan Museum and MOMA usually can ride out financial down-turns. But smaller institutions have shallow pockets. The ominous threat of Stand's Wall Street affects them too.

Having its accreditation suspended means that the Delaware Art Museum is barred from participating in special exhibitions. Could not the American Alliance of Museums have arranged several exhibitions to help fund the debt payments of the Delaware Art Museum?  
That is particularly worthy of consideration because 2014 proved to be a very good year for special exhibitions. These displays are a type of secular liturgy where persons of good heart can join together to celebrate the shared genius of humankind. Why not use them to help museums in need or for other worthy social causes?

In terms of big, inspirational exhibits during 2014, I feel compelled to give first prize to the Metropolitan Museum’s Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 5th to 8th Century.  

Buddha Offering Protection,Pre-Angkor period, 6th century

Lost Kingdoms was curated by John Guy, one of the greatest scholars of Asian art alive today. This profoundly moving exhibition displayed 160 sculptures from museums in Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, and Myanmar, as well as Europe and the U.S. These Buddhist and Hindu sculptures evoked such a degree of spirituality in the Metropolitan’s galleries that the exhibition seemed more of a religious event than a display of art.

Lost Kingdoms and another magnificent exhibition of Asian art, Treasures from Korea: Arts and Culture of the Joseon Dynasty, 1392-1910, also underscore the role of special exhibits in promoting new insights into art history.

A lot of art has not made it into the textbooks. Frequently, the achievements of small or remotely located nations are overshadowed by those of neighboring empires.  Korea is a perfect illustration of this theme. 

Karma Mirror and Stand, 19th century.

Treasures from Korea premiered in Philadelphia in the spring of 2014 before traveling to Los Angeles and Houston. The exhibit shows that Korea served as much more than a cultural bridge between China and Japan. It also developed its own distinctive art forms, most of which reflected the creative tension between the Confucian ethos of the Joseon court and the Buddhist religion of the people.

Two other major international exhibitions scored huge successes during 2014. The themes of Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs and Rembrandt: the Late Works took Old Master art to a new dimension. The elderly Matisse and Rembrandt created some of their greatest works while coping with the physical and financial adversities old age.

I was struck by a photo of Matisse in the exhibit (now at MOMA until February 10) cutting out strips of colored paper for one of his collages. Look at the trance-like intensity in Matisse's eyes and compare that with the inward focus of An Old Woman Reading, painted by Rembrandt in 1655.  In both cases, you can see the torch of art being kindled for the coming generations.

Henri Matisse, c. 1946-47

Rembrandt, An Old Woman Reading, 1655

These Big Art Shows also registered impressive statistics which helps insure that more exhibitions will follow.

Tate Modern proudly proclaimed Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs as the most visited exhibition in its history with 562,622 visitors. This surpassed even the landmark Matisse-Picasso exhibition of 2002, with an attendance of 467,166. I have fond memories of visiting Matisse-Picasso at MOMA's temporary quarters in Queens on a snowy April day in 2003. Matisse: The Cut-Outs is a worthy successor.

Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs at The Museum of Modern Art

If great exhibitions like these reside in your memory, they also can confound one's expectations.

Tate Britain's Kenneth Clark: Looking for Civilization exhibition detailed the pivotal role of Lord Clark, who revitalized the National Gallery in London prior to World War II and pioneered art documentaries on television with Civilization in 1969. The exhibit was filled with masterpieces  that Clark had collected, works by Turner and Seurat, as well as British artists of the 1930's and 40's like Henry Moore and  John Piper. The exhibition, which ran from May to August 2014, was visited by a meager 31,343 art lovers. 

There really is no accounting for taste. But fortunately, art museums don't always think about attendance when planning exhibits. In the case of the Metropolitan Museum, the curators of Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire really were thinking "outside the box."

 Death Becomes Her at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

What might seem to be a display of mannequins wearing black and gray dresses is actually a fascinating examination of the way that Western societies dealt with loss and sorrow during the Victorian era through the end of World War I. The test of a great exhibition, however, is whether you take insights and emotions with you after you leave the gallery. In the case of Death Becomes Her, I had only taken a few steps away from the exhibit, when I had an experience approaching an epiphany. 

Death Becomes Her is on view in the Costume Institute at the Met. To reach its ground floor rooms, you have to travel through the Ancient Egyptian galleries. 

One of the art works on display in Death Becomes Her is Portrait of Catherine Lorillard. This portrait was pointed in oil on silk and embroidered with silk around 1810. Catherine Lorillard was born in 1792 to a prominent New York family. She died in her teens and a haunting memorial portrait was created in her honor. 

Details of Catherine Lorillard  & Young Woman with a Gilded Wreath 

On the way out of the Met, my wife Anne and I passed by an old favorite of mine in the Egyptian galleries, Portrait of a Young Woman with a Gilded Wreath. We were stopped in our tracks. 

Here was the memorial image of another young woman, painted in love and remembrance. In the case of this unnamed, second century A.D. Egyptian woman, this portrait, painted with encaustic wax was intended to accompany her into eternity. It is presently on display in a glass case in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But at that moment of recognition, she and Catherine Lorillard were united in the empathy of two art-loving fellow human beings living in the twenty-first century.

This is a form of eternity and one which may be found by all people in the realm of art.

A new year dawns with hope. 2015 is here! In with the New and the Old Masters, too!

***
Text: Copyright of Ed Voves, all rights reserved 

Introductory Image:                                                                                                         Henri Matisse (French, 1869–1954) Christmas Eve (Nuit de Noël), Maquette for stained-glass window (realized 1952) Gouache on paper, cut and pasted, mounted on board, 107 x 53 1/2" (271.8 x 135.9cm), 1952. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Time Inc., 1953 

Paul Strand (American, 1890 - 1976) Wall Street, New York, 1915 (negative); 1915 (print). Platinum print, Image: 9 3/4 × 12 11/16 inches (24.8 × 32.2 cm), Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Paul Strand Retrospective Collection, 1915-1975, gift of the estate of Paul Strand, 1980 © Paul Strand Archive/Aperture Foundation

Shitao (Chinese, 1642–1707) Returning Home, Album of twelve leaves; ink and color on paper, Image (each): 6 1/2 × 4 1/8 in. (16.5 × 10.5 cm) Each leaf with painting: 8 5/16 × 5 5/16 in. (21.1 × 13.5 cm) Each double leaf unfolded: 8 5/16 × 10 5/8 in. (21.1 × 27 cm), ca. 1695.  From the P. Y. and Kinmay W. Tang Family, Gift of Wen and Constance Fong, in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Dillon, 1976 (1976.280a–n) Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

Vincent Willem van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890) Self Portrait, Oil on artist board, mounted to wood panel, Framed: 20 1/2 x17 x2 3/4 in. (52.1 x43.2 x7 cm.) Unframed: 13 3/4 x 10 1/2 in. (34.9 x 26.7 cm), 1887. City of Detroit Purchase (22.13) Detroit Institute of Art .  Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Buddha Offering Protection, Southern Cambodia, Pre-Angkor period, second half of the 6th century Sandstone with traces of lacquer and gilding. Lent by National Museum of Cambodia, Phnom Penh (Ka.1731), courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, in conjunction with the Lost Kingdoms: Hindu-Buddhist Sculpture of Early Southeast Asia, 5th to 8th Century, exhibition.

Karma Mirror and Stand, 19th century. Wood with painted decoration, 38 11/16 x 14 5/16 inches (98.2 x 36.4 cm), 19th century. National Museum of Korea, Seoul, courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in conjunction with the Treasures from Korea: Arts and Culture of the Joseon Dynasty, 1392-1910, exhibition.

Matisse at Villa le Rêve, Vence, c. 1946-47. La Biennale di Venezia – Archivio Storico delle Arti Contemporanee. Photo by Interfoto, courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art, New York City, in conjunction with the Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs exhibition.

Rembrandt (Dutch 1607–1669) An Old Woman Reading, Oil on canvas, 79.5 × 66 cm, 1655. The Buccleuch Collection 144 © By kind permission of the Duke of Buccleuch & Queensberry KBE, courtesy of the National Gallery, London, in conjunction with the Rembrandt: the Late Works exhibition.

Installation view of Henri Matisse: The Cut-Outs at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (October 12, 2014-February 10, 2015). Photo by Jonathan Muzikar. © 2014 The Museum of Modern Art

Gallery view of Death Becomes Her: A Century of Mourning Attire at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (October 21, 2014-February 1, 2015). © 2014 The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Unknown Artist Portrait of Catherine Lorillard (detail),  Silk ground cloth, painted with oil and embroidered with silk, 20 3/4 x 18 in. (52.7 x 45.7 cm), ca. 1810. The Metropolitan Museum of Art,  Purchase, Friends of the American Wing Fund, The Masinter Family Foundation Gift, and funds from various donors, 1999, (1999.144) Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 

Portrait of a Young Woman with a Gilded Wreath (detail), Encaustic, wood, gold leaf, H. 36.5 x W. 17.8 cm (14 3/8 x 7 in.),  Roman Period, Egypt,  A.D. 120–140. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1909, (09.181.7)  Image: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York