The Demise of the Corcoran Gallery

My fond memory of time spent in Washington DC’s Corcoran Gallery  becomes more precious today, learning of the venerable institution’s imminent take-over by the National Gallery of Art. I loved wandering the stately Beaux-Arts galleries, absorbing the masterfully executed 19^th century American landscapes in the collection. There was a lot of other work on display, but none of it spoke to me the way the stunning landscapes did ... works by the likes of Albert Bierstadt, Jasper Cropsey, Sanford Gifford, Martin JohnsonHeade and Frederic Edwin Church.  

I especially love Church’s spectacular panoramic Niagara Falls. (I have a small framed reproduction of Niagara Falls, but it comes nowhere near the impact of the 8’-long original!)    

The Corcoran’s world-renowned collection of American art dating from 1718 to 1945 began as the private holdings of William Wilson Corcoran. His initial collection of landscape paintings, genre scenes, portraits, and sculptures has grown to encompass over 500 paintings, 200 sculptures, and 2,400 works on paper. Key 20th-century acquisitions were made beginning in 1907, with the advent of the Corcoran’s Biennial. The collection’s particular strengths include Hudson River School painting, American Impressionism, and early 20th-century realism. 

The Washington Post’s Philip Kennicott says of the decision: “Everything that was darkly whispered about the Corcoran’s board over the past few years has come to pass: After decades of erratic and often incompetent leadership, it has seen the institution through to its demise. They will hand over the art to the National Gallery, which will take the pick of the lot and then distribute the rest through some program yet to be announced.” 

The museum has been grappling with deficits for years. As a private institution, it has been among the few galleries in DC to charge an entry fee, hampering its ability to attract visitors. The debt load is huge, the endowment has shrunk, and the 19th century premises are in need of about $100 million worth of renovation and repairs. 

While there are positives associated with the proposal, it is sad that one of the great 19th-century collections will be dismantled. Although the best work will stay in Washington,  a significant portion will be distributed to art institutions around the country. The Corcoran collection consists of 17,000 works of art valued at $2 billion.  

Earl A. Powell III, director of the National Gallery, described the Corcoran building as having “arguably the most beautiful galleries of any museum in the United States.” He said that the National Gallery needs additional space, and the plan provides the Corcoran site for presenting exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. 

Besides the National Gallery, the deal includes George Washington University, which will take over 124-year-old Corcoran College of Art + Design.  The boards of the three institutions are expected to approve the proposal in April.

Just Opened: Five Notable Exhibits

I've just learned of five newly-opened exhibits that may be of interest:

In The U.S.:

Portland, OR

Venice: The Golden Age of Art and Music

at the Portland Art Museum    (Feb 15 – May 11)

San Francisco, CA

Modern Nature: Georgia O'Keeffe and Lake George

at the de Young    (Feb 15 – May 11)
 

University of Chicago, Chicago, IL   

Performing Images: Opera in Chinese Visual Culture

at the Smart Museum of Art    (Feb 13–June 1)

NYC, NY

A Collective Invention: Photographs at Play  

at the Morgan’s new Department of Photography    (February 14–May 18)

In Europe: 

Madrid, Spain  
Pontormo Drawings

at the Fundacion MAPFRE  Feb 12 -  May 11

Another Way to be a Hero ...

This week marks the 39th anniversary of a theft at Amherst College's Mead Art Museum. 

On the night of February 8, 1975, in response to an anonymous tip received at Massachusetts State Police Barracks in Northampton, Amherst College Police made an alarming discovery: tracking footprints still visible through the new snow, they found a museum window broken, and the room within littered with empty picture frames. Museum staff quickly realized that three Dutch canvases had been removed from the frames and stolen: Hendrick (Cornelisz.) van Vliet's The Interior of the New Church, Delft, Pieter Lastman's St. John the Baptist, and Jan Baptist Lambrechts's Interior with Figures Smoking and Drinking. 

The trail of the stolen paintings soon turned cold . The Mead registered the lost artworks with the Art Dealers Association of America, to alert prospective vendors of their criminal provenance, and Amherst College overhauled the museum's security program and addressed vulnerabilities in the facility. Insurance compensation allowed the college to acquire a "replacement" painting by Van Vliet, Interior of the Nieuwe Kerk, Delft, in 1982. 

Years later, in January 1989, there was a breakthrough in the investigation: during an undercover drug sting in Illinois, police recovered the paintings by Van Vliet and Lastman, which were being offered as collateral in a drug deal. More information appeared in the 2009 best-seller The Art of the Heist: Confessions of a Master Thief, in which the author, Myles J. Connor, Jr., took credit for the Mead heist, describing it as an impulsive change-of-mind, one he made after coming to the Amherst area with plans to rob a bank. 

In the absence of new leads on the whereabouts of the Lambrechts, Mead's Head of Security Heath Cummings set to work scouring museum files and college archives, and conferring with colleagues and experts to assemble as much information as possible on the case. In collaboration with the FBI, the Mead is redoubling its efforts to solve the crime, saying that members of the public have the chance to play an heroic role.  

"I've been researching this case for several years," Cummings said, "trying to clarify the details that have been lost with time. After collecting and reviewing old files, news articles and witness recollection on a nearly forty-year-old case, it is safe to say we have learned all we can about the theft, enough to officially reopen the investigation. Our goal is to discover the fate of the Lambrechts painting, and bring it back home to Amherst College. The prospect of putting it back on display with the other two paintings that were recovered in 1989 is a very exciting one."

The Mead is working with the FBI's Art Crime Team to locate and recover the painting. As part of that effort, the painting has been listed in the National Stolen Art File. Anyone with any information relating to the theft, or to the location of the painting, should contact the FBI at 617-742-5533, or online at https://tips.fbi.gov. 

Who can predict the next lead in the case? Mead officials say, "Perhaps someone reading this announcement holds the clue to solving the Mead's decades-long mystery."  YOU could be a hero!

Miro, Miro, On The Wall ...

In 2008, when the government of Portugal nationalized the BPN Bank it inherited a huge debt as well as a large collection of paintings by Catalan artist Joan Miro.  Now Portugal wants to sell the 85 Miro paintings, valued at more than 36 million euros.   

"It is important to sell these works to reduce the inherited debt of BPN which is more than four billion euro," said Secretary of State for Culture Jorge Barreto Xavier. Although the Portuguese government is strapped for cash these days, this seems to me like a drop in the bucket. I wonder if they are being short-sighted, giving up such a notable collection. 

Apparently there is a contingent in Portugal who also question the wisdom of the sale.  

Although a Portuguese court yesterday rejected a request from the opposition Socialist party for the sale to be halted, hours before the first batch of the paintings was due to go up for sale, Christie's cancelled the auction, saying, “While the recent injunction to stop the sale was not granted, the legal uncertainties created by this ongoing dispute mean that we are not able to safely offer the works for sale.”

It’ll be interesting to see where this ends up … the Joan Miros dispersed, many absorbed into private collections? Or, gracing the walls of one of Lisbon’s art museums?  Or how about a travelling special exhibit of the 85 works while the matter is being endlessly debated?   

Femmes et oiseaux, an oil on canvas painted on 3 January 1968, illustrates one of the most enduring and characteristic themes in Joan Miró’s oeuvre: women and birds. Estimate: £4-7 million.

More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/67960/Christie-s-cancels-sale-of-collection-of-85-works-by-Joan-Miro-over-Portugal-dispute-[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

Above: Femmes et oiseaux, an oil on canvas, 1968, illustrates a characteristic theme in Joan Miró’s oeuvre: women and birds. Christie's estimate: £4-7 million.

More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/67960/Christie-s-cancels-sale-of-collection-of-85-works-by-Joan-Miro-over-Portugal-dispute-[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

Femmes et oiseaux, an oil on canvas painted on 3 January 1968, illustrates one of the most enduring and characteristic themes in Joan Miró’s oeuvre: women and birds. Estimate: £4-7 million.

More Information: http://artdaily.com/news/67960/Christie-s-cancels-sale-of-collection-of-85-works-by-Joan-Miro-over-Portugal-dispute-[/url]
Copyright © artdaily.org

Odilon Redon Exhibit in Basel, Switzerland

The work of Odilon Redon (b. 1840 Bordeaux, d. 1916 Paris) can be roughly divided into two long phases: the “black period” of his early work and the “polychrome period” of his later years.

From about 1870 to 1890 Redon created a considerable number of dark drawings in charcoal, known as Noirs. These depictions of ghostly apparitions and fantastic creatures express his fascination with occult, eerie, and enigmatic phenomena. 

Personally, I’ve never much liked his early work. 

However, Redon's re-evaluation of color in 1889-90 marked a turning point in his career … and in my ability to appreciate his art.

Redon was active at the turn of  the 19th to 20th century, in the nascent years of modernism. One of the main protagonists of French Symbolism, Redon purposely turned away from the “superficial” imitation of nature practiced by the Impressionists. Sculptor Aristide Maillol noted that, “Redon did a great deal for young artists. He showed them the way.” Many artists of the post-impressionist generation saw Redon as a model.

He became known as a sumptuous colourist; Henri Matisse was influenced by Redon’s expressive palette, a fact which we see manifested in Matisse’s own paintings. He was held in high esteen by contemporaries like Cézanne and Gauguin. 

In the famous bouquets of the late phase, brilliant-hued flowers of various sorts are loosely arranged into rich bunches, springing from the vase in a joyous eruption of color and form. Redon transformed proliferating blossoms into a virtual homage to painting: “Art”, Redon once said,” is like a flower which opens freely, outside of all rules....”   

It is these bouquets that I think of when I think of Redon Odilon.  

February 2 - May 18, 2014

Fondation Bayeler, Basel, Switzerland   

Paintings, pastels, drawings, and lithographs borrowed from major museums and private collections worldwide

The exhibition concentrates on Redon’s significance as a forerunner of classical modernism and highlights the avant-garde aspect of his art.

The Many Faces of Georgia O'Keeffe

Anyone who knows me knows I have a thing about religious architecture, so it is no surprise that Church Steeple was one of the works that particularly rang my chimes (pardon the pun) as I mosied through the current exhibit at the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe:  Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico: Architecture, Katsinam, and the Land (through September 11, 2013; then at the Heard Museum in Phoenix, AZ, September 27, 2013 – January 12, 2014).

O'Keeffe's flower images are probably her best-known paintings, but even for those who have a deeper familiarity with her body of work, this show holds some surprises. 


Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) made Northern New Mexico her home for almost 40 years after the death in 1949 of Alfred Stieglitz ... her husband, renowned photographer, and America’s first advocate of modernism in art.  

“When I got to New Mexico [it] was mine", O'Keeffe one said. "As soon as I saw it that was my country. I’d never seen anything like it before, but it fitted to me exactly. It’s something that’s in the air ... The sky is different, the wind is different. I shouldn’t say too much about it because other people may be interested and I don’t want them interested.”

This exhibit illuminates the fact that Northern New Mexico inspired O'Keeffe to paint an extraordinary diversity of subjects including architecture, landscape, and religious arts of the region. Numerous works portraying the churches, crosses, folk art, and representations of Katsinam (carved and painted representations of Hopi and Pueblo spirit beings, often known as katchinas) are in the show, as well as her beloved desert, with its stunning geological formations, that spread out from her doorstep. One awesome landscape is called "My Backyard".


The show includes drawings and paintings of the architecture, landscape, and cultural objects that fascinated O’Keeffe and became part of her artistic practice as she explored a new environment and experimented with new colors, forms, and compositional strategies. And a really special part of the show is the room filled with photographs of Georgia O'Keeffe herself, protraits young and old, in her studio, in her kitchen, in her garden.

 

But wait ... she saw canyons even in Manhattan! 

Vienna's Extraordinary Kunstkammer Reopens

Vienna: The extraordinary Kunstkammer at the Kunsthistorisches Museum has reopened after a decade-long renovation. The Kunstkammer features goldsmith work, bronze, ivory and wood sculptures, and exotic objects such as ostrich eggs, the horn of the legendary unicorn, plus the golden Saliera by Benvenuto Cellini.

Artdaily.org tells us that “The Kunst- und Wunderkammern (arts and natural wonders rooms) of the Renaissance and Baroque periods were encyclopaedic, universal collections that attempted to reflect the entire knowledge of the day. … princes and kings collected exotic and uncommon objects, to which they often ascribed magical powers, such as precious stones, ostrich eggs, coral and shark’s teeth, which were considered to be dragon’s tongues. From these natural products, artists created virtuoso works of art.”

Among the highlights in the Kunstkammer Wien are outstanding works of the goldsmith’s art, including the famous Saliera (salt cellar). This gem was crafted by Benvenuto Cellini in Paris in 1543  for Francis I of France, from models that had been prepared in Rome many years earlier for Cardinal Ippolito d'Este.

Incidentally, if you haven't read it already, I recommend the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini (1500-1571).

New Trend in Curating?

Do I detect a trend in the curating of special exhibits? No longer just "here are the paintings and sculptures" ... instead more exhibits are being curated to show the process by which the paintings and sculptures came to be.

In November I blogged about the Bernini exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum and noted that the array of sketches, clay models and large scale images of the finished sculptures provided "real insight into Bernini’s artistic process from start to finish."

Last week, in writing about the Federico Barocci exhibit at London's National Gallery, I noted that alongside fourteen of his altarpieces and devotional paintings, numerous portraits, and a secular narrative painting, more than 65 preparatory drawings, pastel studies and oil sketches will be on view ... demonstrating "how Barocci’s pictures evolved, showcasing the fertility of his imagination and the diversity of his working methods."

Now I've just learned about an exhibit of Paolo Veronese's work, at the John & Mable Ringling Museum in Sarasota (through April 14th). Virginia Brilliant, Associate Curator for European Art at the Ringling says that she has assembled sketches, completed drawings and the finished paintings to demonstrate "the whole story of how these masterpieces went from the artist's very first doodles -- his first ideas for a composition -- and how he worked those up in to very highly finished drawings" and finally into the sumptuous narrative paintings that he is known for.

Museums are trying to appeal to a broader audience, to attract people who say they don't go to museums because they "don't know anything about art". This type of instructive curatorial approach soothes the insecurities of art-novices.  And, frankly, it can enhance the experience even for those of us who do know something about art! 

The Brilliance and Grace of Federico Barocci

If you will be in London between  February 27 and May 19, 2013, you might want to check out the special exhibit, Barocci: Brilliance and Grace at the National Gallery. 

Dedicated to the art of Federico Barocci (1535-1612), the show will assemble some of his greatest altarpieces and paintings, including his famous Entombment from the seaside town of Senigallia, and Last Supper from Urbino Cathedral, neither of which has ever left Italy before. And from Rome, The Visitation from the Chiesa Nuova and the Institution of the Eucharist from Santa Maria Sopra Minerva will also be displayed.

In total 14 of his most important altarpieces and devotional paintings, four of his finest portraits, and his only secular narrative (Aeneas' Flight from Troy' will be on display. Alongside these, more than 65 preparatory drawings, pastel studies and oil sketches will be on view. His exceptional preparatory drawings will demonstrate how Barocci’s pictures evolved, showcasing the fertility of his imagination and the diversity of his working methods. He was an accomplished and prolific draughtsman, planning every composition with studies in various different media, pioneering numerous techniques long before they became standard artistic practice.   

Barocci was highly esteemed during his lifetime. His work combined the beauty of the High Renaissance with the dynamism of what was to become known as the Baroque. From his earliest work, in the 1550s, he began to challenge convention by positioning his figures in dynamic spatial arrangements, anticipating by almost half a century the innovations of Baroque art. Fascinated by human and animal forms, he fused compositional harmony with a superb sensitivity to color. 

The National Gallery tells us that “Barocci was predominantly a painter of religious subjects, his approach epitomizing the clarity and accessibility required by a Catholic church, then in crisis. Barocci’s unique warmth and humanity transformed familiar gospel stories and more unusual visions into transcendent archetypes with universal appeal.”

Federico Barocci was one of the most talented and innovative artists of late 16th-century Italy. He was born in Urbino, a town that had become one of the great cultural centers of the Renaissance, and was the birthplace of his famous predecessor Raphael, by whom he was much influenced. 

According to Art News, “He emerged as a promising young painter and, in the 1550s, moved to Rome for further study. During a second trip to Rome in the 1560s, Barocci lived and worked with a number of Rome’s leading painters. After participating in a fresco project for Pope Pius IV in the Vatican, he was allegedly poisoned by jealous rivals during a picnic. Suffering severely and in need of recuperation, Barocci returned to Urbino in 1563, where he remained for the rest of his career. 

"When he died in 1612, he was not only among the highest paid painters in Italy, but also one of the most influential. Many of Barocci’s most accomplished works remain in his home region of the Marches, Italy, on the altars for which they were made. Consequently, his name has not acquired the broad recognition of distinguished predecessors such as Raphael and Michelangelo, or successors such as Rubens, who, with other Baroque artists, drew inspiration from his sumptuous color palette, expressive compositions and innovative techniques.”

Attribution Ups Portait's Value Ten-fold!

 Apologies for the very poor quality of this image!  To better see this painting, go to Christie's website.

I was delighted this Fall to take a Renaissance art history course with Prof. Elizabeth Pilliod at Princeton’s Italian club. A very entertaining lecturer, Elizabeth is also the author of  Pontormo, Bronzino, and Allori: A Geneaologyof Florentine Art. 

During our penultimate class she told us about having been asked by Christie’s to write a catalog entry about a Portrait of Francesco I de' Medici that was to go up for auction at their Old Masters and British Paintings Evening Sale in London on Dec. 4th.

Heretofore the painting had long been attributed only to an anonymous 16th century Florentine, but after doing some research, Elizabeth concluded that it was painted by FrancescoMorandini, called il Poppi (Poppi 1544-1597 Florence?). Morandini was a student of and collaborated with the artist and biographer, Giorgio Vasari (1511 – 1574).    

I was fascinated to learn about Elizabeth’s research process and to hear that her attribution of the work to Morandini caused Christie’s to put aside their original sale estimate of around $25,000 in favor of a new estimate of $96,180 - $128,240! Brava!

I went straight home and looked up Christi’s sale catalog to read her essay. Really interesting stuff … right up my alley! Unfortunately, I’m not able to find the pre-sale catalog on-line anymore, but the article is reproduced in the Lot Notes, without the accompanying secondary images, which added dimension to the intriguing tale. 

The sale took place during the ensuing week, and Elizabeth opened our last class by telling us the actual price realized … $253,015 … double the revised estimate ... and ten times the original estimate! Too bad she received a fixed fee for her work – as any honest professional art historian would – rather than a percentage!