January 13, 1999
The Frick Deposition: Gerard David’s Innovations on a Traditional Theme
Maryan W. Ainsworth, Metropolitan Museum of Art
A key work of the artist’s mature phase, the Frick Deposition exemplifies David’s departure from the norm in both technique and presentation. A closer look at this work in the context of David’s oeuvre reveals the subtlety of his progressive tendencies and the power of his new expression.
February 10, 1999
Madame de Pompadour, Her Tastes and Her Time
Clare Le Corbeiller, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson entered the world of the French court as Madame de Pompadour in 1745. What was the artistic climate, and how did she influence it?
March 24, 1999
Madame de Pompadour—Images of a Mistress
Humphrey Wine, The National Gallery, London
This talk explored the questions: Who was Madame de Pompadour? What did she look like? And how was she depicted by Drouais and other artists?
April 27, 1999
Pierpont Morgan as Collector, and Ex-Morgan Objects
in The Frick Collection
Jean Strouse, Author
The award-winning writer Jean Strouse draws from her just-published biography of J. Pierpont Morgan, America’s preeminent financier and one if its leading art collectors. Ms. Strouse examined the nature and development of Morgan’s interest in art, with special emphasis on the many important objects that came into the Frick’s holdings from Morgan’s estate. Among the paintings are works by Constable and Rembrandt, as well as the remarkable set of panels by Jean-Honoré Fragonard that occupies the gallery now named after the artist. Also celebrated at the Frick are notable enamels, furnishings, porcelains, and Renaissance bronze sculptures once owned by Morgan.
Jean Strouse won the Bancroft Prize for her biography of Alice James. Early reviews of Morgan: American Financier offer unmitigated praise of this landmark work. Signed copies were available for sale in the Museum Shop following the lecture.
April 7, 1999
Italian Drawings in the National Gallery of Canada:
The Building of a Collection
David Franklin, National Gallery of Canada
The National Gallery of Canada owns over 250 Italian drawings, making its holdings the largest in Canada. This lecture traced the formation and development of that collection, from the first acquisitions in 1911 until the present, while touching on the role of the surprisingly few curators and connoisseurs who helped create it. Particularly outstanding sheets were examined in some detail, including works by Parmigianino, Bandinelli, Vasari, and members of the Carraci, Tiepolo, and Gandolfi families.
May 19, 1999
The Medieval Housebook and the Art of Illustration
Timothy B. Husband, Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Cloisters
The lecture focused on secular illustration, upon which the fame of the Medieval Housebook rests. It included a discussion of the various hands involved—with emphasis on the Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet—and how a workshop that produced such a manuscript would have functioned.
June 9, 1999
Attacking the Bullfight: Manet and Spain
Juliet Wilson-Bareau, Independent Scholar
Manet’s Incident in a Bullfight, a painting he sent to the Salon of 1864, where it was mocked by the critics and public, survives only in the form of two fragments, cut from the original canvas by the artist. This talk explored the significance of Manet’s decision to present such a subject in a major exhibition. It retraced, with the help of scientific evidence, the complex stages in the picture’s execution, dismemberment, and repainting that resulted in two independent masterpieces: the celebrated Dead Toreador in the National Gallery of Art and the lesser-known Bullfight in The Frick Collection.
October 27, 1999
Edgar Munhall Lecture Series
To mark his retirement at the end of 1999, these talks were given in honor of Edgar Munhall, Curator of The Frick Collection from 1965 to 1999.
The Frick and the Getty
John Walsh, Director, The J. Paul Getty Museum
The Getty Museum attempts to provide, in a brand-new setting, something of The Frick Collection’s combination of delight and serious purpose. This lecture explores the two institutions’ parallels, connections, and differences, few of which are accidental.
This series was generously underwritten by Diane Allen Nixon.
November 10, 1999
Parisian Perspectives: Whistler, Fantin, and Montesquiou
Nigel Thorp, Director, Centre for Whistler Studies, University of Glasgow
The lecture looked at Whistler's response to the Paris art world in his early years and again at the height of his fame. It discussed his friendship with Henri Fantin-Latour in the 1860s and with Comte Robert de Montesquiou in the the 1890s and considered how they reflect the development of his artistic vision.
November 13, 1999
Watteau and His World: French Drawing from 1700 to 1750 —
A Symposium
This symposium, offered in conjunction with the American Federation of Arts exhibition Watteau and His World, was held at The Frick Collection on Saturday, November 13, 1999. The program featured four eminent scholars who discussed various perspectives of Watteau's life and art, eighteenth-century French culture, and issues in drawings conservation.
Featured in the program was Alan P. Wintermute, guest curator and Senior Specialist of Old Master Paintings at Christie's, who offered an overview of the exhibition and served as a respondent; Thomas Crow, Chair, Department of History of Art, Yale University, who spoke about painters and public life in eighteenth-century Paris; Marjorie Shelley, Sherman Fairchild Conservator in Charge, Conservation Department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, who addressed aspects of conservation of Old Master drawings; and Robert Darnton, Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of European History, Princeton University, who spoke on music in eighteenth-century Paris.
December 15, 1999
The Wallace Collection: Past, Present, and Future
Rosalind P. Savill, Director, The Wallace Collection
It has long been believed that Henry Clay Frick was inspired by London’s Wallace Collection when he established his own museum in New York. The speaker traced the history of this spectacular collection which has so many parallels with the Frick.
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