Renoir, Impressionism, and Full-Length Painting
February 7, 2012, through May 13, 2012
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919), La Promenade, 1875–76, oil on canvas, 67 x 42 5/8 inches, The Frick Collection, New York, photo: Michael Bodycomb |
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In early 2012, The Frick Collection will present an exhibition of nine iconic Impressionist paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, offering the first comprehensive study of the artist's engagement with the full-length format, which was associated with the official Paris Salon in the decade that saw the emergence of a fully fledged Impressionist aesthetic. The project was inspired by La Promenade of 1875–76, the most significant Impressionist work in the Frick's permanent collection. It explores Renoir's portraits and subject pictures of this type from the mid-1870s to mid-1880s. Intended for public display, these vertical grand-scale canvases are among the artist's most daring and ambitious presentations of contemporary subjects and are today considered masterpieces of Impressionism. On view only at the Frick, Renoir, Impressionism, and the Full-Length Format is a landmark exhibition, bringing together, with the Frick painting, several beloved masterpieces from around the world. Works on loan from international institutions are La Parisienne (1874) from the National Museum of Art, Cardiff; The Umbrellas (c. 1881 and 1885) from The National Gallery, London (first time since 1886 on view in the United States); and Dance in the City and Dance in the Country (1882–83) from the Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Works on loan from American institutions are The Dancer (1874) from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Madame Henriot "en travesti" (1875–76) from the Columbus Museum of Art; Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (1879) from the Art Institute of Chicago; and Dance at Bougival (1882–83) from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The exhibition will be shown in the Frick's East Gallery. Renoir, Impressionism, and the Full-Length Painting is being organized by Colin B. Bailey, the Frick's Associate Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator.
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Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) The Umbrellas, c. 1881 and 1885 Oil on canvas 71 x 45 inches The National Gallery, London Photo: © The National Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY |
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The exhibition and accompanying catalogue will offer fresh insights into Renoir's complex ambitions, when as a young artist, he submitted works to both the avant-garde Impressionist exhibitions and the official Salon. While painting in the new Impressionist style, Renoir remained uniquely committed to the full-length format — a traditional type eschewed by most of his fellow Impressionists. The project draws on contemporary criticism, literature, and archival documents to explore the motivation behind Renoir's full-length figure paintings as well as their reception by critics, peers, and the public. Technical studies of the canvases themselves will also shed new light on the artist's working methods. The juxtaposition of these full-length works of women will bring the glamour of the Belle Époque vividly to life. This format, which bears striking similarities to contemporary fashion plates, afforded Renoir the perfect opportunity to devote himself not only to his sitters, but to the finest details of their dress. The exhibition and accompanying catalogue explore the rich variety of Renoir's painterly technique — the sheer virtuosity of his brushwork in creating silk, lace, mink, and taffeta — as well as the social significance of the garments themselves. From shimmering ball gowns to sumptuous furs, from chic Parisian day dresses to glamorous theatrical costumes, the nine paintings capture the fashions of Renoir's Paris.
Principal funding for the exhibition is provided by The Florence Gould Foundation and Michel David-Weill.
Additional support is generously provided by The Philip and Janice Levin Foundation, The Grand Marnier Foundation, and the Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation.
Corporate support is provided by Fiduciary Trust Company International.
The exhibition is also supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
A Passion for Drawings: Charles Ryskamp's Bequest to The Frick Collection
February 14, 2012, through April 8, 2012
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Pierre-Joseph Redouté (1759–1840), Plum Branches Intertwined, 1802–4, watercolor on vellum, 12 1/2 x 10 1/3 inches, The Frick Collection, bequest of Charles Ryskamp; photo: Michael Bodycomb |
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In late 2010 a generous bequest of ten drawings was made to the Frick by the estate of its former Director Charles Ryskamp. During his tenure at the museum, Ryskamp — an avid collector of works on paper and a champion of connoisseurship — strongly promoted drawings exhibitions and the estabishment of additional room for their display in the Cabinet gallery. Appropriately, that will be the setting for the spring 2012 presentation of the ten works from the Charles Ryskamp bequest, their first showing at the institution.
The drawings were chosen out of Ryskamp's extensive collection by Director Anne L. Poulet, Associate Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Colin B. Bailey, and Senior Curator Susan Galassi. Three of them, by artists also acquired by Henry Clay Frick, complement oil paintings in the museum's collection — a landscape in pencil by Pierre-Étienne-Théodore Rousseau, an early academic nude by Edgar Degas, and a pen-and-ink character study by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Seven others — including Pierre-Joseph Redouté's 1802 watercolor of plums and an undated gouache and watercolor of otter hounds by the Victorian master Sir Edwin Landseer — were selected for their quality and art historical significance, testifying to Charles Ryskamp's particular interest in French and British art of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The other artists represented in the bequest are Eugène Delacroix, George Stubbs, Henry Fuseli, William Blake, and Sir David Wilkie. The drawings will be on view in the Cabinet gallery from February 14 through April 8, 2012.
Antico: The Golden Age of Renaissance Bronzes
May 1, 2012, through July 29, 2012
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Pier Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, called Antico (c. 1460–1528), Apollo Belvedere, c. 1490, copper with partial fire gilding and silvering; base of bronze, 16 1/4 inches without base, Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung, Frankfurt |
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Antico: The Golden Age of Renaissance Bronzes is the first monographic exhibition in the United States dedicated to Jacopo Alari Bonacolsi, known as Antico (c. 1455–1528). As sculptor to the Gonzaga courts at Mantua and in northern Italy, Antico earned his name, "the antique one," for his creation in the classical style of statuettes, reliefs, and busts that are distinguished by their opulence and beauty. Using inventive and highly refined techniques, Antico lavishly gilded, silvered, and patinated his works, elevating his bronze sculptures to the status of the ancient precious objects that were avidly collected by his Gonzaga patrons. Splendid and timeless, Antico's works represent a sophisticated court style and have always been exclusive and rare. Today fewer than fifty of his bronzes are known. Dispersed among museums in Europe and America, almost thirty-five of them will come together in this unprecedented presentation.
The exhibition aims to shed light on the master's transformative contribution to this art form, incorporating the results of newly performed technical research to answer questions about the dating of Antico's works, his technique, and his development as an innovative artist. Jointly organized by the National Gallery of Art and The Frick Collection, the exhibition opens in the fall of 2011 in Washington, D.C., before traveling to New York City the following spring. The exhibition is curated by Eleonora Luciano, Associate Curator of Sculpture at the National Gallery of Art, in collaboration with Denise Allen, Curator at The Frick Collection. The accompanying catalogue is written by an international team of scholars including Eleonora Luciano, Denise Allen, and Claudia Kryza-Gersch, Curator of Italian Sculpture at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. It will be the first independent monograph in English to focus on the artist and the first comprehensive presentation of his works in color.
The exhibition in New York is made possible, in part, by The Christian Humann Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Jeremiah M. Bogert, Mr. and Mrs. J. Tomilson Hill III, The Peter Jay Sharp Foundation, the Robert H. Smith Family Foundation, the Thaw Charitable Trust, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
Mantegna to Matisse: Master Drawings from the Courtauld Gallery
October 2, 2012, through January 27, 2013
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Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640), Helena Fourment, c. 1630, black, red, and white chalk and pen and ink, 24 x 21 1/2 inches; The Courtauld Gallery (Samuel Courtauld Trust) |
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In keeping with its tradition of exhibiting masterworks from collections outside of New York, the Frick will present fifty-eight drawings from The Courtauld Gallery, London. This exhibition marks the first time that so many of the principal drawings in The Courtauld's renowned collection — one of Britain's most important — have been made available for loan. The prized sheets represent a survey of the extraordinary draftsmanship of Italian, Dutch, Flemish, German, Spanish, British, and French artists active between the late Middle Ages and the early twentieth century. The survey features works executed in a range of drawing techniques and styles and for a variety of purposes, including preliminary sketches, practice studies, aide-mémoires, designs for other artworks, and finished pictures meant to be appreciated as independent works of art. Among the artists in the Frick's exhibition will be Andrea Mantegna, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Peter Paul Rubens, Jusepe de Ribera, Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn, Jean-Antoine Watteau, Charles-Joseph Natoire, Thomas Gainsborough, Francisco Goya y Lucientes, Joseph Mallord William Turner, Théodore Géricault, Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso.
The exhibition is organized by Colin B. Bailey, the Frick's Associate Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator, and Stephanie Buck, Martin Halusa Curator of Drawings at The Courtauld Gallery. The show, which is accompanied by a scholarly catalogue, opens at The Courtauld Gallery, running from June 14, 2012, through September 9, 2012. It will travel to New York that October and will be a highlight of the Frick's fall exhibition program.
Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces from the Mauritshuis
October 22, 2013, through January 12, 2014
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Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), Girl with a Pearl Earring, c. 1665, oil on canvas, 44.5 x 39 cm, Mauritshuis, The Hague |
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The Frick Collection is pleased to announce that in the fall of 2013, it will be the final venue of an American tour of paintings from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague. This prestigious Dutch museum, which has not lent a large body of works from its holdings in nearly thirty years, is undergoing an extensive two-year renovation that makes this opportunity possible. Between January 2013 and January 2014, the Mauritshuis will send thirty-five paintings to the United States, following two stops at Japanese institutions. The American exhibition opens next winter at de Young/Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, traveling on to the High Museum of Art in Atlanta for the summer of 2013. A smaller selection of ten masterpieces will be on view at The Frick Collection in New York from October 22, 2013, through January 12, 2014. Among the works going on tour are the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer and The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius, neither of which will have been seen by American audiences in ten years. Emilie Gordenker, Director of the Mauritshuis, comments, “We are delighted to have three excellent museums as partners for our U.S. tour. This agreement allows us to present our collection on both the west and east coasts of the United States, in large as well as more intimate venues.”
The New York presentation will be coordinated by Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Colin B. Bailey and Assistant Curator Margaret Iacono. Continuing in the Frick’s tradition of presenting masterpieces from acclaimed museums not easily accessible to the New York public, this exhibition follows on three acclaimed shows of similar size that drew, respectively, upon works from the Toledo Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the Norton Simon Museum. The Frick’s Mauritshuis exhibition, to be shown in the Oval Room, primarily features works by artists collected by founder Henry Clay Frick, such as Vermeer, Rembrandt, Hals, and van Ruisdael, but is complementary in its inclusion of work by Steen and Fabritius.
The ten paintings coming to the Frick, all highlights of the Mauritshuis collection, represent the range of subject matter and technique prevalent in seventeenth-century painting in The Netherlands. They are Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, c. 1665; Rembrandt van Rijn’s Simeon’s Song of Praise, 1631, and his Portrait of an Elderly Man, 1667; Frans Hals’s pendant portraits of Jacob Olycan (1596–1638) and Aletta Hanemans (1606–1653), both painted in 1625; Carel Fabritius’s The Goldfinch, 1654; Gerard ter Borch’s Woman Writing a Letter, c. 1655; Jan Steen’s Girl Eating Oysters, c. 1658–60, and ‘The Way you Hear It, Is the Way You Sing It’, c. 1665; and Jacob van Ruisdael’s View of Haarlem with Bleaching Grounds, c. 1670–75.
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