The Frick Collection members' magazine (Fall 2002)

20 Pages·2002·16.7 MB·English

by  The Frick Collection

Board of Trustees
Helen ClayChace
President
Howard Phipps, [r.
VicePresident
L. F.BokerDoyle
Treasurer
Paul G.Pennoyer,Jr.
Secretary
Peter P.Blanchard III
Margot C.Bogert
1.Townsend Burden III
Walter Joseph Patrick Curley
EmilyT. Frick
Henry ClayFrickII,Chairman Emeritus
Nicholas H.J.Hall, ex officia
Juan Sabater
Melvin R.Seiden
Council of The Prick Collection
Nicholas H.J.Hall
Chairman
JulianAgnew
Irene RooseveltAitken
JeanA.Bonna
W.M.Brady
Jonathan Brown
VivienR.Clark
PeterDuchin
Robert Garrett
Mauro A.Herlitzka
IonLandau
Douglas B.Leeds
Martha Loring, exofficia
DianeAllenNixon
Richard E.Oldenburg
PaulG.Pennoyer,Ir,
Marc Porter
Samuel SachsII,exofficia
MelvinR.Seiden
Deirdre C.Stam
Wynant D.Vanderpoel III
Nina Zilkha
The Frick Collection Hours
10:00 TO6:00 Tuesday through Thursday;
10:00 TO9:00 Fridays; 10:00 TO6:00
Saturdays; 1:00 TO6:00 Sundays; closed
Mondays and holidays
Frick Art Reference Library Hours
10:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday;
9:30 to 1:00 Saturdays; closed Sundays,
holiday weekends, Saturdays in June and
Iuly, and during the month ofAugust
THE FRICK COLLECTION
MEMBERS' MAGAZINE FALL 2002
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
Poussin, Claude, and Their World: Seventeenth-Century
French Drawings from the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris
PAGE 2
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
Masterpieces of European Painting from the Toledo Museum of Art
PAGE 4
HIGHLIGHT FROM THE PERMANENT COLLECTION
Claude Lorrain's Sermon on the Mount
PAGE [)
LIBRARY
Nicholas Lochoff &Helen Clay Frick: Re-creating Lorenzetti's
Madonna and Child with Saint Francis and Saint John
PAGE 10
WAYS TO HELP THE FRICK
Planned Giving: The Frick Collection Founder's Society
PAGE 12
EDUCATION
Students Celebrate Frick Sculpture with Original Artwork and Poetry
PAGE 13
SPECIAL EVENTS
Greuze Opening, Gallery Talks, Panel Discussion
, PAGE 14
PUBLIC SERVICES AND PROGRAMS
Museum Shop, Lectures, Concerts, Education
PAGE 16
ON OUR COVER:
James Tissot (1836-1902),
detail ofLondon \1isitors, 1874,oilon eanvas,
Toledo Museum ofArt,Toledo,Ohio.
Photograph byPhotography Ine.
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
POUSSIN, CLAUDE, AND THEIR WORLD:
SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH DRAWINGS
FROM THE ÉCOLE DES BEAUX-ARTS, PARIS
September 18 through December i, 2002
L
ater this month, The Frick Collection
willpresent sorne seventy drawings by
more than thirty artists, selected from the
outstanding collection ofthe ÉcoleNationale
Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, one of
the world's oldest and most prestigious fine-
arts schools.Founded inthe mid-seventeenth
century as part of the newly established
Académie RoyaledePeinture etdeSculpture,
the École des Beaux-Arts boasts as alumni
many of the greatest names in French art,
induding Fragonard, Ingres,Delacroix,Degas,
Moreau, Monet, Renoir,and Sisley.
The school's first dass wasgivenin front
of a large assembly of students, artists, and
art enthusiasts in February 1648 bythe then
twenty-nine-year-old Charles Le Brun. Its
curriculum was based on the concept of competitions known as the Prix de Rome
modern aesthetic thinking, and its pupils contests. The winners of this competition
studied works ofart from Greek and Roman wereawarded extended staysattheAcadémie
antiquity,worksthat werebelievedtoembody de France in Rome, an affiliated institution
the modern aesthetic. founded during the reign of Louis XIV not
Tofurther encourage the development of onlyto provide training toyoung artists but,
dassical tastes and to givestudents accessto ultimately, to furnish works of art for the
original dassical works of art, the school king's spacious new residence atVersailles.
established in1663 aseriesofrigorous annual Although Henry Clay Frick did not
acquire paintings produced during France's
grand siècle, he had a longtime interest in
ABOVE:
French art. Like many other American
Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), SalomeReceivingthe
HeadofSaintJohntheBaptist, pen and brown ink collectors of his generation, he began by
and brown wash onpaper, mid 1640S.Alldrawings
buying works of the Barbizon School in the
illustrated inthis article arefrom thecollection of
theÉcoleNationale Supérieure desBeaux-Arts, Paris late nineteenth century. During World
War I, he ventured briefly into the area of
RIGl-IT:
Simon Vouet (159°-1649), DrapedWoman, Impressionist painting and also developed a
Pull-Length,LeaningtatheLejt,blackchalkwith
taste for eighteenth-century French art.
white highlights onbrown paper,late1630S
Soon after completing his Fifth Avenue
OPPOSITE PAGE:
Claude Gellée, calledClaude Lorrain (c.1604-1682), residencein1914 inthe styleofaneighteenth-
TheDtsembarkation ofAeneasandHisCompanions century French hôtel particulier, he acquired
inLatium, pen and brown inkand brown washwith
white and pink highlights onbrown paper, 1640-50 Fragonard's extraordinary suite ofpaintings
2 The Prick Collection Members' Magazine
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
The Progress of Love, aswell as outstanding acquired three drawings in superb condition presented by Poussin, Claude, and Their
examples of furniture and decorative art by Claude from a long-lost album of the World will take us further in this direction.
from the periods ofLouisXVand LouisXVI. artist's work, which wasrediscovered in1957. -Samuel Sachs II,Director
Healsobought setsofdecorative panels (The Surprisingly, there is no work in the
Arts and Sciences) and canvases (The Four Frickbythe other French giant ofthe seven-
Seasons) byBoucher. teenth century, Nicolas Poussin, although
Throughout his forty-year collecting his Rape of the Sabines (now in The This exhibition, organized by the École
career,Frick'sinterestsinseventeenth-century Metropolitan Museum of Art) was unsuc- Nationale Supérieure desBeaux-Arts, Paris, is
art remained focused on Holland and, cessfully offered to the Frick in the mid made possible by a generous grant fram the
to a lesser extent, Spain. Nevertheless, since 1940S. Only recently, in the autumn of 1997, Robert Lehman Foundation and through the
his death in 1919, the Trustees have made a did the Collection redress this lack, albeit support of the Fellows of The Frick Collection.
few important acquisitions in seventeenth- temporarily, with the generous loan from The above essaywas adapted from Mr. Sachs's
century French art, most notably in 1960 the Musée du Louvre of Poussin's Arcadian foreword in the catalogue that accompanies
with Claude Lorrain's Sermon on the Mount Shepherds. The magisterial survey of French the exhibition, which is available in the
(see page 8). In 1982 the Collection also seventeenth-century draftsmanship to be Museum Shop.
Fall zooz :3
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
MASTERPIECES O"P EUROPEAN PAINTING
FROM THE TOLEDO MUSEUM OF ART
October 29, 2002, through ]anuary 5, 2003
Our second major exhibition this fall out Europe during his lifetime. Here he preserved inthis circular format, ashapethat
will present an outstanding selec- depicts a biblical subject that was often waspopular forreligiousimagesintended for
tion of works from the Toledo Museum of employed by ltalian painters of the six- private devotional use.
Art, which recently celebrated its centenary. teenth century. Though known for his use Another work by an ltalian artist that
The twelve paintings in the exhibition not of bright colors and dramatic gestures, will be on view is Francesco Primaticcio's
only complement the Frick's holdings in Bassano employs a more subtle color Ulysses and Penelope. The artist's haunting
both scopeand distinction but alsocontinue scheme and natural poses in this work. He and poignant depiction of the reunion of
the Frick's tradition of presenting extraor- depicts the Holy Family in an idyllic land- Penelope and Ulysses after his lengthy
dinary paintings from American collections scape, escaping to Egypt after being warned absence captures the unspoken intimacy
that maybelesswellknown tothe NewYork by an angel about Herod's plan to murder between husband and wife, whose intense
public. While the Toledo collection is con- the Christ Child. Ithasbeen speculated that mutual gazes suggest the years of unex-
sidered encyclopedie, the works that will the three young shepherds accompanying pressed trials and tribulations while apart.
be on view range from paintings of the Mary and Joseph are possibly Ioseph's sons. The sculptural and refined attributes of the
early Italian Renaissance to those of late Also traveling with them are a dog, two figures, depicted in exquisitely muted tones,
nineteenth-century France. cocks (hanging from the foremost shep- are characteristic of the workshop style
One of the highlights of the exhibition herd's stick), two sheep, and an ox. As no at the palace of Fontainebleau, where
is Jacopo Bassano's Flight into Egypt of description of such an elaborate entourage Primaticcio served asFrancis l's Director of
about 1542. Bassano was a master painter is found in the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Works from 1532 until his death in 1570.
whose works werewidely collected through- it is thought that Bassano included it to Ulysses and Penelope isbased on one of the
demonstrate his skill at painting animals frescoes of Primaticcio's masterpiece, the
and other elements of everyday life. Gallery ofUlyssesatFontainebleau (demol-
Piero di Cosimo's Adoration of ished in 1738), which depicted numerous
the Child also incorporates motifs episodes from the Odyssey.
from the story of the Holy Seventeenth-century Dutch portraits
Family's tlight into Egypt, as feature prominently in the Toledo collec-
well as representing one of tion, and one of the finest examples, a
the first depictions of the group portrait byThomas deKeyser,willbe
sleeping Christ Child in on view at the Frick. De Keyser,the leading
Florentine painting. Here portrait painter in Amsterdam prior to the
the Christ Child lays his arrival of Rembrandt in 1631, worked in
head on a bundle of the nearly every type of portrait format pro-
family's belongings, which duced in the Netherlands during the seven-
signifies their tlight, while teenth century. Particularly renowned for
Joseph is shown resting from hisgroup portraits and life-sized works, the
the journey in the background artistwasoftencommissioned bytrade guilds'
to the leftofthe Virgin, near acow governing officerstopaint collectiveportraits
and adonkey drinking from astream. of their board members. One such work,
Theworkisamong the artist's finestand best The Syndics of the Amsterdam Goldsmiths
4 The Frick Collection Members' Magazine
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
Guild of 1627, features four officers, three nineteenth-century France, stilllifepainting placement and shadows of which not only
of whom display the intricate instruments enjoyed a surge of popularity owing to a offset the balance of light on the objects
of their trade. Each looks directly at the revival of interest in Jean-Siméon Chardin, below but alsocontribute to the forcefulness
viewer,with no single head claiming prorni- which in turn precipitated a dynamic mar- and originality of the work.
nence over another. De Keyser highlights ketfor these works throughout Europe. This A detail of a very different painting by
the strongly characterized faces by bathing example by Pissarro is an anomaly in his another French artist of the same period
them in light, ashe does the subjects' hands. oeuvre; it exceedsthe customary scaleofhis appears on this magazine's cover. James
His strong compositional unity along with early still lifes, and the paint is thickly
the engaging gazes and gestures of the sub- applied. Here he uses four horizontal bands
jects are a testament to the artist's accom- to define the surfaces of the wall, panel, ABOVE:
Jacopo Bassano (c.1510-1592), ThePlightintoEgypt,
plishment as a group portrait painter and tabletop, and tablecloth, then roughly paints
c.1542, oilon canvas.Allpaintings illustrated inthis
his subsequent success. against these bands apottery bowl, apples, a article arefrom the collection ofthe Toledo Museum
ofArt,Toledo,Ohio
The Toledo exhibition includes several loaf of bread, a glass, and a carafe of wine.
canvasesbyFrench artists, including Camille Hanging from an unseen hook at the upper OPPOSITE PAGE:
Piero diCosimo (1462-1521), TheAdoration oftheChild,
Pissarro's exceptional Still Life of 1867. In edgeofthe canvas arealadle and spoon, the c.1495-1500, oilonpanel. Photograph byTim Thayer
Fall2002 5
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
Francesco Primaticcio (1504-1570),
Ulysses and Penelope, c.1560, oilon canvas
trees and corresponding angles in the build-
ings' the playofblue inthe rooftops, foliage,
and sky,and apowerful tension between the
surface of the painting and its illusion of
depth. Amargin of space isleft open in the
foreground, aspace where the spectator (and
the artist) might havestood. Although abar-
rier at the entrance of the allée prohibits
accessto the passerby, the eyetravels freely
beyond the impediment into a vibrant yet
orderly pictorial world in which the natural
and manmade harmoniously coexist.
T
he ToledoMuseum ofArtwasfounded
in 1901 by a group of citizens under
the aegis of Edward Drummond Libbey, a
Toledo industrialist whose glass factories
fostered economie and cultural development
in that cityfor generations. LikeHenry Clay
Frick, Libbey amassed an outstanding art
collection during his lifetime, which he
chose to leaveto the public. Upon his death
Tissot's London Visitors of 1874 is a tour de niscent of the work of Degas and Manet, in 1925, he bequeathed numerous paintings
force that isdistinguished among the artist's even though this painting was completed to the nascent museum, including works
numerous depictions of contemporary life two years after the artist left Paris for by Rembrandt, Holbein, Turner, and Con-
in London and Paris. Pairing the austere London, where, for more than a decade, he stable. He further stipulated in his will that
architectural elements of the National produced sorne ofhisbest-known pictures. an annual income from his estate be used
Gallery in Trafalgar Square with the discon- Avenue at Chantilly was painted by Paul for acquisitions, with apercentage reserved
certing gazeof one ofhis subjects, Tissot all Cézanne in 1888 during afive-rnonth stayin for museum operations. Such a magnani-
but precludes the viewer's access into this the villageofChantilly, near Paris,where the mous and practical vision has made possible
popular tourist venue. Notable for its artist found numerous motifs inthe grounds the continuous acquisition of the highest
absence ofwarmth, sentiment, and coherent ofthe famous château. Inthis work from his quality works ofart.
narrative, the sceneremains captivating. The mature period, Cézanne bisects the picture In 1933 Libbey's gift was augmented
strong verticality that echoes inthe columns, plane with a central axis,leading the viewer when Arthur J. Secor,the museum's second
the tower of St. Martin-in -the-Fields, and through a dense stand of trees. The trees president, deeded to the museum his exten-
the three figure groups is offset by the frame segments of humble gabled buildings sive collection of European and Ameri-
woman's umbrella, which points toward the depicted in overlapping planes-a picture can paintings including Barbizon School,
undepicted Nelson's Column. Here Tissot within apicture. The artist creates acohesive Dutch seventeenth-century, and English
makes use of asymmetry in amanner remi- image through hisuseofsloping lines ofthe eighteenth-century works.Whilethemuseum
6 The Prick Collection Members' Magazine
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
founding ofThe FrickCollection arestriking,
so it seems fitting that selections from this
distinguished and noteworthy collection will
be displayed here this fall.-Amy Herman,
Head ofEducation
This exhibition ismade possible by ageneraus
grantfram TheAndrew W.Mellon Foundation
and through the support of the Fellows of The
acquired almost no European paintings opportunity to balance and complement Frick Collection.
during World War II,its1946 purchase of El earlier important acquisitions.
Greco's Agony in the Garden (also included Over the past century, the museum has ABOYE LEFT:
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Avenue atChantilly,
in the upcoming exhibition) inaugurated a become an integral part of the Toledo cul-
1888,oilon canvas
thirty-year period during which time the tural community and, in accordance with its
TOP RIGHT:
collection almost tripled. founder's vision, "afactor and an inspiration Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), StillLite,1867,
oilon canvas
The postwar international art market for allthose things which better civilization
made available numerous European paint- and elevate mankind." Parallels to Henry BOTTOM RIGHT:
Thomas deKeyser (1596/97-1667), TheSyndicsojthe
ings, affording the museum's trustees the ClayFrickand thebeneficence underlying his Amsterdam Goldsmiths Guild,1627,oilon canvas
Fa1l2002 7
PERMANENT COLLECTION
CLAUDE LORRAIN'S
SERMON ON THE MOUNT
It is fitting to consider Claude Lorrain's meandering Jordan River.While aspiring to awayfrom the pastoral toward amore heroic
painting The Sermon on the Mount atthe a certain historical truth, which would vein. As a safeguard against fraud, Claude
same time that Poussin, Claude, and Their have been understood in the seventeenth kept a sketchbook recording his commis-
World opens at The Frick Collection. The and eighteenth centuries as verisimilitude, sions, wellknown asthe Liber Veritatis (now
nine Claude drawings oflandscapes, biblical Claude'svision would strikelatergenerations inthe BritishMuseum), inwhich The Sermon
subjects,and allegories included in the exhi- as both poetic and romantic: John Keats on the Mount isdepicted.
bition should encourage visitors to seekout wrote in an 1818poem, inspired by asimilar One technique of landscape painting is
this masterpiece in the East Gallery. Claude composition, "it doth stand/upon a to have the viewer look down, placing the
The subject of Claude's Sermon on the rock,on the border ofalake,lNested intrees; horizon high up on the canvas. In The
Mount is taken from Matthew, Chapter 5, which allseemto shake...." Sermon on the Mount, however, Claude
the first account in the gospels of Christ's Claude Gellée,known asClaude Lorrain begins lowand projects upwards. He creates
teachings. Inthe center ofawooded hillock, afterthe French province ofhisbirth, settled adramatic sense ofheight for an artist who
Christ is seated, surrounded by his twelve in Rome and lived there until his death in wasmost comfortable onhorizontal canvases.
disciples. On the plain below, the enthralled 1682. He has long been recognized as the Sixpreparatory drawings revealhow hepro-
multitude isgathered, carefully organized to greatest ofallideallandscape artists and the· gressively elevated and centered Mount
lead the eye in an ascending spiral up the inventor of"contemplative landscape paint- Tabor,thereby increasinglyfocusingattention
hill to Christ. The compact composition is ing." His distinctive contribution to the on the central Christ figure. Annotations
bustling with people but remains absolutely genre, ofparticular note considering the rel- also show how Claude carefuIly measured
serene.Incontrast toClaude's oftenobscured ativelylow status of landscape in the evolv- and gauged distances before compressing
figures, here they provide crucial focus and ing French Academy's hierarchy of genres, the space in hisvast landscape.
movement, unified by striking colors and was his use of light as the principal means The provenance of a painting doesn't
atmospheric light. both to unify the composition and illumi- always shed light on its historical apprecia-
One of the largest canvases among nate the natural setting. The Sermon on the tion, nor does the prestige of a previous
Claude's sorne three hundred paintings, The Mount was a particularly important com- owner necessarily add value. Butinthis case,
Sermon on the Mount isunusual among the mission given to hirn in 1656by the Bishop The Sermon on the Mount's journey con-
artist's landscapes for its central dark motif, of Montpellier, François Bosquet, at a time tributes particular cachet. William Beckford
with contrasting light planes of receding when Claude's "grand style" was moving (1760-1844), one of the wealthiest men in
distance on either side (the exact reverse of
his standard practice). Commenting in the
1820Son "the strange and somewhat anom-
alous" landscape, the critic William Hazlitt
observed that itwas"asifthe artist had tried
to contradict hirnself, and yetitisClaude all
over.Nobody but he could paint one single
atom of it."
Claude presents the dominant Mount
Taborbisecting alandscapederived from the
topography ofthe HolyLand,with the Seaof
Galileeon the right, where fishing boats sail,
and the Dead Seaonthe left,flowinginto the
8 The Prick Collection Members' Magazine