Fashioned by Sargent
October 8, 2023–January 15, 2024
Special correspondent Jared Bowen of GBH Boston reports for our arts and culture series, CANVAS.
Category Archives: Exhibitions
International Art: Apollo Magazine – December 2023
The rise of the Renaissance woman
Among the art-gallery going public, is anyone still unaware that there have always been women artists, even before the 19th century? Perhaps a few still think that women first picked up their paintbrushes around the time they started campaigning for the vote. Certainly, the further back you go, the more surprising it may seem – given the limitations placed on women – that some were nonetheless able to build successful artistic careers. But beginning in earnest with the National Gallery’s blockbuster Artemisia Gentileschi exhibition of 2019, a flurry of shows has put the names of various Renaissance women in lights. Just this year, we have had ‘Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker’ at the National Gallery of Ireland, ‘Mary Beale: Experimental Secrets’ at Dulwich Picture Gallery, ‘Artemisia Gentileschi: coraggio e passione’ at the Palazzo Ducale in Genoa, and ‘Sofonisba Anguissola: Portraitist of the Renaissance’ at the Rijksmuseum Twenthe in Enschede, to name only a few.
Art: Spirit and Invention – Drawings by Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo
Spirit and Invention: Drawings by Giambattista and Domenico Tiepolo
October 27, 2023 through January 28, 2024
Combining highlights from the Morgan’s collection with carefully selected loans, this exhibition will provide a comprehensive look at the Tiepolos’ work as draftsmen, focusing on the role of drawing in their creative process and the distinct physical and stylistic properties of their graphic work. At the core of the collection and exhibition are substantial groups of Giambattista’s drawings that relate to major ceiling fresco projects of the 1740s and 1750s.
A fresh look at the style, function, and material properties of these working drawings has yielded new insights into their purposes. Most significantly, the exhibition presents for the first time extremely rare pen studies for Tiepolo’s magnum opus, the ceiling fresco above the staircase of the Würzburg Residenz of 1752, and a group of bold sketches newly connected with his ceiling fresco of 1754 at the Venetian church of Santa Maria della Pietà.
Other sections of the exhibition highlight the introduction of Domenico to the family workshop, the exchanges between father and son, and the great series drawings by both: Giambattista’s fantastic heads and figures seen di sotto in su, and Domenico’s drawings of animals, biblical scenes, and contemporary life.
The exhibition will end with a wall including striking examples from Domenico’s late Punchinello series. October 27, 2023 through January 28, 2024
Paris Tours: ‘Artcurial – Old Master Art’ Exhibition
Art Views: The Secrets Of Botticelli’s Drawings
The story is told by Furio Rinaldi, curator of drawings and prints at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Jonathan K. Nelson, art historian at Syracuse University in Florence, and Cecilia Frosinini, art historian at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence. These voices speak in chorus to give us an original narrative that illuminates Botticelli’s life, process, and legacy.
Learn more about the exhibition: https://www.famsf.org/exhibitions/bot…
Botticelli Drawings is the first exhibition ever dedicated to the drawings of Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli (ca. 1445 – 1510). Exploring the foundational role drawing played in Botticelli’s work, the exhibition traces his artistic journey, from studying under maestro Fra Filippo Lippi (c. 1406 – 1469) to leading his own workshop in Florence. Featuring rarely seen and newly attributed works, the exhibition provides insight into the design practice of an artist whose name is synonymous with the Italian Renaissance.
Botticelli’s drawings offer an intimate look into the making of some of his most memorable masterpieces, including Adoration of the Magi (c. 1500), which will be reunited with its preparatory drawing, surviving only in fragments. From Botticelli’s earliest recorded drawings through expressive designs for his final painting, the works on display reveal the artist’s experimental drawing techniques, quest for ideal beauty, and command of the line.
Botticelli Drawings is on view from November 19, 2023 – February 11, 2024.
ART: FIVE ‘MUST-SEE MUSEUM SHOWS’ FOR NOVEMBER 2023
Africa & Byzantium
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
19 November 2023 – 3 March 2024
Bringing together the art and culture of Byzantium and Africa, this ambitious New York exhibition looks in a new way at their importance to the development of the premodern world.
Africa & Byzantium comprises over 200 objects, from frescoes and mosaics to jewelry and manuscripts borrowed from many of the great collections, spanning over ten centuries of complex cultural exchange and influence.
Modigliani: Modern Gazes
Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
24 November 2023 – 17 March 2024
Modigliani: Modern Gazes focuses on the 20th-century Italian artist’s portraits of modern women From bohemian Paris who stare unapologetically at the viewer, defiant and – as the director of the Staatsgalerie, Christiane Lange puts it – “emancipated”.
Works by German-speaking contemporaries Paula Modersohn-Becker, Jeanne Mammen, Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt and Wilhelm Lehmbruck also feature, in a show that places Modigliani in the wider cultural context of the young European avant-garde.
Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper.
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
19 November 2023 – 31 March 2024
Rothko exhibitions have always focused on his canvases but the artist drew no distinction between them and his paintings on paper – some of which were up to seven feet tall.
Forming the basis of Mark Rothko: Paintings on Paper, a ground-breaking show at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, many of the watercolors, acrylics and oil paintings on paper have never been seen before.
Botticelli Drawings
19 November 2023 – 11 February 2024
Legion of Honor, San Francisco
Although his reputation dwindled until the Pre-Raphaelites rediscovered his work in the 19th century, Sandro Botticelli is now one of the most revered of the Renaissance masters.
There has, however, never been a significant exhibition of his drawings so Botticelli Drawings – an admirable and important project – will give us the chance to trace his artistic journey in a more intimate way than ever before.
An Atlas of Es Devlin
Cooper Hewitt, New York
18 November 2023 – 11 August 2024
Devlin is a polymath and then some, with a wide ranging practice that incorporates stage design from La Scala in Milan to the Super Bowl. She is utterly compelling but hard to classify, which is why it is appropriate that Devlin herself will install her 30 year archive.
An Atlas of Es Devlin – featuring over 300 sketches, paintings, cutouts, and maquettes – will also stage a replica of her London studio along with giant film installations, a library programme including collective readings and the chance to participate in a cumulative artwork.
Profiles: American Artist Ed Ruscha – “NOW THEN” Exhibition At MoMA NYC
ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN
Through Jan 13, 2024
Ruscha, now 85, talks with correspondent David Pogue about collecting much of his life’s work into one retrospective; the cryptic nature of many of his paintings; and his use of unusual materials (like chocolate and axle grease).
“I don’t have any Seine River like Monet,” Ed Ruscha once said. “I’ve just got US 66 between Oklahoma and Los Angeles.” ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN will feature over 200 works—in mediums including painting, drawing, prints, photography, artist’s books, film, and installation—that make use of everything from gunpowder to chocolate. Exploring Ruscha’s landmark contributions to postwar American art as well as lesser-known aspects of his more than six-decade career, the exhibition will offer new perspectives on a body of work that has influenced generations of artists, architects, designers, and writers.
In 1956, Ruscha left his hometown of Oklahoma City and drove along interstate highway 66 to study commercial art in Los Angeles, where he drew inspiration from the city’s architecture, colloquial speech, and popular culture. Ruscha has recorded and transformed familiar subjects—whether roadside gasoline stations or the 20th Century Fox logo—often revisiting motifs, sites, or words years later. Tracing shifts in the artist’s means and methods over time, ED RUSCHA / NOW THEN underscores the continuous reinvention that has defined his work.
Art Reviews: Gagosian Quarterly – Winter 2023
A FOREIGNER CALLED PICASSO
Cocurator of the exhibition A Foreigner Called Picasso, at Gagosian, New York, Annie Cohen-Solal writes about the genesis of the project, her commitment to the figure of the outsider, and Picasso’s enduring relevance to matters geopolitical and sociological.
By Annie Cohen-Solal
I have been interested in the issue of immigration ever since I entered the art world. I began my career as an intellectual historian: I was a scholar of Jean-Paul Sartre and wrote his first biography. It was quite unexpected that I would fall into the orbit of the art world, let alone so fast, but two days after I arrived in New York City, in 1989—I had just been nominated cultural counselor to the French Embassy in the United States—I met Leo Castelli at a dinner. Out of the blue, Leo told me, “You don’t look like your predecessors.” (I was the first woman in the position.) “You’ll take New York city by storm and I’ll teach you American art. Come to the gallery tomorrow, I have a show with Roy [Lichtenstein]. Come for the opening and stay for the dinner.”
LEE MILLER AND FRIENDS
The American Surrealist photographer Lee Miller is the subject of the exhibition Seeing Is Believing at Gagosian, New York. Here we present a conversation on the stewardship of Miller’s legacy, her photography and writing from the frontlines of war to the pages of Vogue, and the intertwined lives of her friends, lovers, and the many artists she knew.
Art Exhibitions: ‘Gerhard Richter – Engadin’, Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz Gallery
GERHARD RICHTER
ENGADIN
St. Moritz
16 December 2023 – 13 April 2024
Curated by Dieter Schwarz and presented across three venues in the Upper Engadin—Nietzsche-Haus, the Segantini Museum and Hauser & Wirth St. Moritz—this momentous exhibition is the first to explore Gerhard Richter’s deep connection with the Engadin’s alpine landscape. More than seventy works from museums and private collections—including paintings, overpainted photographs, drawings and objects—are testament to the artist’s fascination with the Upper Engadin. Opening 16 December 2023, ‘Engadin’ will be on view through 13 April 2024.
The work connecting the three exhibition venues is a steel sphere that Richter had produced as an edition, on view at each site. He first presented it at Nietzsche-Haus in 1992, in an exhibition curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist. Each unique sphere bears the name of a mountain in the Upper Engadin. The matte, subtly reflective, almost surreal sphere delicately reflects all that surrounds it. It symbolizes the sublime yet inhospitable manifestations of nature, which are especially conspicuous in the mountains.
St. Moritz – Gerhard Richter – 1992
Kugel III (Piz Fora) [Sphere III (Piz Fora)] – Gerhard Richter – 1992
On view at the Segantini Museum and Hauser & Wirth are paintings that Richter created from photographs taken during his hikes in the Upper Engadin. These works mark a new chapter in his landscape painting—a genre that had always appealed to him for its supposed untimeliness. Richter’s Engadin landscapes are exemplary of the ambiguity in his painting, oscillating between a seductive transfiguration of nature and a reflection of its alienness. Particularly noteworthy is the painting ‘Wasserfall (Waterfall)’ (1997) from Kunst Museum Winterthur, a work that clearly traces Richter’s engagement with 19th-century painting, from romanticism to realism. The artist later overpainted some of the Engadin motifs, including depictions of Piz Materdell and Lake Sils, transforming them into abstract paintings with a melancholic atmosphere that responds to impressions of the landscape.
Art Exhibits: ‘A Foreigner Called Picasso’ (Gagosian)
A FOREIGNER CALLED PICASSO
November 10, 2023–February 10, 2024
Gagosian is pleased to present A Foreigner Called Picasso at its West 21st Street gallery in New York. The exhibition is curated by the eminent writer, biographer, and historian Annie Cohen-Solal together with art historian Vérane Tasseau. It is organized in association with the Musée national Picasso–Paris and the Palais de la Porte Dorée–Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris.
Spanning the entirety of Pablo Picasso’s career in France from 1900 through 1973, the exhibition will feature loans of important works from private and public collections in the United States and Europe. It includes early self-portraits lent by the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as well as Cubist and Surrealist masterpieces from the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel. The iconic sculpture Head of Fernande (1909) will be displayed, as will Man with a Lamb (1943)—Picasso’s forceful response to the aesthetics of Arno Breker (Adolf Hitler’s favorite artist), who exhibited in occupied Paris.
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