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The Frick Collection members' magazine (Fall 2002) PDF

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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

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