The Age of Impressionism

“The Age of Impressionism” opened at the Kimbell Art Museum on March 11th with a fantastic arrangement of pieces from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute of Williamstown, Massachusetts.  The Clark collection of Impressionist pieces gives any viewer a concise and crisp view into the movement as a whole, and the collection itself is known and recognized around the world.  The Kimbell is the exhibition’s only U.S. stop on its three year tour, with other shows taking place in Italy, Japan, China, the United Kingdom, Canada, France and Spain.  This is quite a treat for the Lone Star state. With over twenty pieces by Renoir, six by Monet, selections by Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Manet, Pissarro, Sisley, Gauguin and other major French painters from the period, the 73 paintings exhibited display masterpieces from the popular Impressionist time period.  The French impressionists are the soul of the Clark collection, which Sterling, the heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune, and his wife Francine, a French actress, began building in the early twentieth century.  The Clarks erected an art museum in 1955 and have expanded the facilities over time.  The Clark is currently undergoing a major expansion by architect Tadao Ando, and while construction is underway a large number of pieces have been lent for the exhibit.

It is a beautiful show, and the best part is that it just keeps on going.  Paintings wrap around and fill the Kimbell’s large exhibition hall, and there is literally a masterpiece around every turn.

“Onions” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir painted 1881 was one gem of the show.  The deliberate and quick brushstrokes from the artist seem to rain down in parallel diagonals and almost collide with the curvature of the onions, garlic and cloth atop the table.  As with most of the paintings in the exhibition, from afar a delicate and moving scene is rendered, but the closer the viewer gets, the more the canvas seems to disintegrate into swaths of color; it is no great mystery these artists and these very works were the inspiration for the pointillist movement that followed.

Another favorite piece by Renoir was “Sunset”, c. 1879.  The oil on canvas measuring 18 by 24 inches pays homage to Claude Monet’s famous 1872 painting “Impression Sunrise”, the painting which lent the movement its name when Parisian art critic Louis Leroy mockingly referred to it with the phrase, 'not a painting, just an impression'.  Like Monet, Renoir’s seascape is a captured moment, an instantaneous impression depicted quickly on the canvas.  With bright and dark blues, subtle yellows and vivid pinks the artist’s hand is evident in every stroke.  As one looks at the piece, it is difficult to comprehend how the colors maintained their clarity and didn't collide into a quagmire of brown or purple.

The piece is a masterful display of layered color and balancing line to create movement; the water moves at the mercy of the wind and current as the sun sets in the background, all targeted around a small black sail boat in the center of the canvas.

The numerous Renoir pieces are almost like a show within a show, clearly giving the viewer an overview of the artist’s evolution from the 1870s to the 1890s.  Be sure to see his “Self Portrait” from 1875 in which the artist portrays himself in a black suit with a fancy colorful collar; the portrait is intense in expression, depiction and emotion.

The show-stealing piece was “Dancers in the Classroom”, 1880 by Edgar Degas.  The oil on canvas measuring 15 ½ by 34 ¾ inches encapsulates Degas as an impressionist.  At first glance the canvas is dark and almost murky, consisting mostly of browns, dark greens and maroon; the hues of a working dance studio before electric lighting.  But as I studied the piece and let my eyes adjust to the canvas, there was nothing dark about it.  It became delicate and bright, with bursts of color and movement.

Degas captured the mood of his subjects.  Each dancer seems to be in her own world as she stretches and practices.  Each is fully engrossed in her own thoughts; none confront the viewer directly.  Amidst the low light of the studio coming in from the windows onto the muted walls and floor, Degas accentuated his subjects and livened his canvas with color; a yellow or orange sash wrapped around a dancer’s waist, red and blue on the folds of a ballerina’s fan, subtle pinks on their legs and the tops of their feet, all make the piece breathe and point to the heart of the artist's pursuit by capturing a momentary impression in time.  This piece alone is worth attending the show.

The landscapes of the movement are powerfully represented with pieces like “The River Oise near Pontoise”, by Camille Pissarro, “Geese in the brook”, and “Tulip Fields at Sassenheim, near Leiden” by Claude Monet and the fantastic “Farm in the Landes” by Théodore Rousseau.  These landscapes are smartly presented at the beginning of the show, allowing the viewer to see them as a breaking out point for the era and artists; they are the kindling which set fire to the movement.

So, do you really need to go see another Impressionist exhibition?  In this case the answer is an absolute resounding Yes, because this isn’t just another show.  The Clark collection includes many well-known masterpieces of Impressionism and this is a rare opportunity to see them in Texas.  The Kimbell exhibition will be running through June 17th, when it will pack up and head to its next stop overseas.  “The Age of Impressionism” is an extraordinary showcase certainly worthy to catch this summer.  Don't miss it!  And plan enough time on your visit to stop by the Amon Carter Museum.  The Amon Carter specializes in American Art and the Clark has loaned four early John Singer Sargent paintings, a rare opportunity to see these pieces locally.

M.P.Callender www.Signet Art.com www.KimbellArt.org

Jean Paul Gaultier at the DMA

Really, in Dallas.

The one they called the enfant terrible of fashion in the 1970's, the guy who gave Madonna the cone bra, one of the most renowned and important fashion designers of the 21st century is having his first exhibition at the Dallas Museum of Art.  The show, which is the first the DMA has held dealing with the art of fashion, began on November 13th and will run until the 12th of February, when it will then pack up and head to the de Young Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

The show, ‘The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk’, celebrates 35 years of Gaultier's designs and displays photographs, sketches, video clips of works from movies and performances highlighting the French designer's collaborations with filmmakers and musicians (The Fifth Element, Lady Gaga, Madonna . . .) and over 140 pieces made throughout his long career.   

For years Gaultier has used his designs to combat and converse with gender and transgender issues, questioning and challenging what is acceptable for men and women to wear outside the safety of their home through androgynous, line-crossing, rule bending styles.

The exhibit features six themed rooms: The Odyssey of Jean Paul Gaultier, Boudoir, Skin Deep, Punk Cancan, Urban Jungle, and Metropolis.  In the first room the viewer is greeted by a mannequin of Jean Paul Gaultier wearing a blue and white striped long-sleeved shirt, standing next to a choir of singing models.

The show utilized holographic projections and voice over technology, which allowed Gaultier himself to introduce the exhibition.  The digitally projected face moves; the eyes scan the room and blink, the eyebrows rise and fall in step with the monologue, and the speech exiting the moving and smiling mouth is the actual voice of the designer.   The mannequins alongside him sing a heavenly ballad and wear lifelike faces animated from projectors hanging from the ceiling.  This aspect of the show is whimsical and fun, adding an extra dimension as the audience walks through the six rooms and meet new vocal and very realistic mannequins; a continual chatter fills the exhibition as the still, Gaultier-clad forms narrate, blow kisses and give a glimpse of the designer's impressive oeuvre.

This is a fantastically unique show.  Gaultier says he doesn't consider his designs to be art, that clothes are meant to be worn, but his global exhibition is making waves.  It is a must see.  There is a mechanized runway where mannequin models "walk" an oval platform, there is an alligator suit, corsets everywhere, photographs by David LaChapelle, clothing from Madonna's 1990 "Blond Ambition" tour, original sketches and drawings.

Really, see this show. M.P.Callender www.SignetArt.com www.Dm-Art.org                         

Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series

The Fort Worth Modern’s current exhibition, Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series, was organized in cooperation with the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, California.  The show displays the largest collection of Diebenkorn pieces to ever be exhibited collectively, over seventy-five prints, drawings and paintings altogether, and is an absolute must see for any fan of the Abstract Expressionist Movement.

The sheer scale of the show allows the viewer the great opportunity to observe the progression of Diebenkorn’s work over his long and successful career.  With the exhibition stretching over two decades of abstract pieces, a clear progression and exploration is chronicled within the artist’s work.  From his earliest Ocean Park pieces to his large abstractions, one is given stepping stones of insight to the ambitious process and subsequent outcomes which have solidified Diebenkorn as a leading figure in the Abstract Expressionist Movement.

Richard Clifford Diebenkorn was born in Portland, Oregon in 1922.  He was two years old when his family moved to San Francisco, California, where he spent the entirety of his youth, later enrolling at Stanford University in 1940.  There he studied art history and studio art under the tutelage of his two academic mentors Daniel Mendelowitz and Victor Arnautoff, both credited with introducing Diebenkorn to American art and European modernism.

Diebenkorn served in the Marine Corps from 1943 to 1945, and was stationed all across the United States.  After his military service he returned to San Francisco in 1946 and enrolled at the California School of Fine Arts, taking advantage of the G.I. bill.  By 1947 he was on staff at the University.  After the second World War, the center of the western art world moved from Paris to New York and Abstract Expressionism rose in prominence.  By this time Diebenkorn had developed his own recognizable style of abstract expressionist painting.

In 1955 Diebenkorn made a conscious shift from the abstract and began working in representational painting, a transition which granted him much success.  Along with a group of other artists who intertwined the figural with the abstract, a group coined the Bay Area Figurative Movement, Diebenkorn had become an important and respected representational painter; producing landscapes, still lifes and figure studies.  These works are notable and well executed pieces loved by many Diebenkorn fans.  They are a dramatic change from his well established early abstract period.  The works from this phase of his artistic progression are only mentioned as historical markers and are not displayed in the show as they are not a part of the Ocean Park Series, his magnum opus.

A word of caution, if you were hoping to see works from Diebenkorn’s representational period, this is not that show.   The Ocean Park Series is exclusively the artist’s abstract expressionist works, his most celebrated and masterful pieces.

Diebenkorn returned to abstraction in 1967 after his family had relocated to the Ocean Park neighborhood of Santa Monica, California.  The resulting canvases were large, usually vertically oriented, with broad swaths of color.  Overall the canvases are soothing.  With a predominately soft and pastel color palette, the pieces are welcoming and calm, their draw invites investigation – their pull requires you to be still and examine – to study.  The smaller works, usually drawings, are not as convivial as the works on canvas.  They are monochromatic, dominated by blacks, grays and muted blues, and they are mechanical; still asking the viewer to inquire and observe, but at their own risk.

As the series of paintings are observed, the artist’s influences are evident and slowly begin to surface.  Piet Mondrian is evoked in the geometric and grid-like breakup of color and shape; Mark Rothko comes forth in the competing masses of color in study with one another; Franz Kline appears in the web of black lines running and colliding across the canvas and in many of his smaller acrylic works, some seeming to pull the viewer deep into a third dimension within the canvas while others lay decidedly flat; Adolph Gottlieb and Robert Motherwell show up in his smaller works and many prints (color aquatints, etchings, lithographs and monotypes) as his determined rigid and linear focus begins to shift into curvilinear free forms.

The Modern is more than an apt setting for such an important display of Diebenkorn’s work as pieces from its permanent collection give an ideal supporting setting and history.  While viewing The Ocean Park paintings one has the opportunity to wander into other areas of the museum and see pieces by artists who were active and producing at the same time Diebenkorn was working on his memorable series.  Directly below the exhibition a Motherwell, a Rothko and a Gottlieb are on display; allowing the works of art to have conversation with one another, to support and debate, to agree and quarrel.

The wide assortment of works from The Ocean Park era are extraordinary examples of Diebenkorn’s ability to utilize line and color to get ‘it right’- as the artist himself said, “The idea is to get everything right- it’s not about color or form or space or line – it’s everything all at once.”

The exhibition will be running at The Modern Museum in Fort Worth until January 15^th, and is a show that shouldn’t be missed.

- M.P.Callender www.SignetArt.com www.TheModern.org

"Whose Art Anyway"- Great Talk with Patricia Meadows

The speaker at last Tuesday’s NTISA meeting was Patricia Meadows.   Patricia has been involved in the art world around Texas for many years.  She was curator of the Hall Art Collection and the Texas Sculpture Garden that was created around Hall Properties in Frisco, TX.   She was founder of the Dallas Visual Art Center, a working space for artists and co-founder of EASL,a charitable organization for emergency financial support of artists.  She has juried countless art shows across the state and given her time and expertise to serve on the Board of Directors of several public art committees.  The room was packed in anticipation of a great talk!

Patricia gave an insightful talk entitled “Whose Art Anyway?” in which she pointed out that the first and foremost (and sometimes the trickiest) job of an appraiser is to correctly identify authorship of a piece of art.    Of course this would be easy if every piece of art bore a clear and legible signature.  But we all know that this is not the case.  Sometimes the piece is signed but completely illegible.  Sometimes the signature is quite clear but research points to no known artist with that name.   So, well-trained art appraisers have always had to rely on years of art historical study, great recall and a well-honed sense of connoisseurship developed by gallery and museum hopping over a period of decades to recognize various artists’ work by their style.

That’s great for the major names and movements of art through the years.   But what about instances where the styles blur together?   Patricia led her talk with the Texas quintessential…the bluebonnet painting.  Since so many of these are formulaic and resemble one another, could you tell a Julian Onderdonk from a Porfirio Salinas, or a Robert Wood, or a W.A. Slaughter?  They all might include a large, prominent oak tree, a ramshackle shed, a winding dirt road, blue sky with cumulus clouds and foreground filled with blue blossoms.   Gratefully, all the artists named above sign their paintings and have legible signatures.

Not so for many contemporary painters and sculptors.  Some only put identifying markings on the verso of canvases because they believe the signature interrupts the artistic statement.   Some also paint on oversize canvases that are cumbersome to remove from the wall for inspection. Patricia pointed out a few of the pitfalls of identifying an artist through his/her style.  Sometimes an artist’s style changes and grows radically as they mature.  Sometimes an artist goes through a period of referencing the work of other artists that have influenced him and the work looks somewhat similar to the referenced artist.  The visuals Ms. Meadows used gave ample proof that there are times when the style of one artist can be very similar to that of another known artist.

What’s an appraiser to do?   I would suggest the following :

• Always ask the owner of the piece for any past sales receipts, provenance and any other printed information on their collection.  This kind of information can speed up research quite a bit and might uncover information that is not available any other way.
• If you don’t recognize a signature, take a really good close-up picture of it so that later research can be conducted.
• Don’t be embarrassed to ask the owner for the artist’s name.   After twenty-five years of appraising art, I still find artists whose work is brand new to me every year.  The thrill of discovery is part of the joy of appraising.
• Consult a colleague!  One of the great advantages of having scads of great appraisers as friends and colleagues is that you can call for help when you need it.   Sometimes another appraiser will recognize the artist instantly and be happy to provide the help for free.  Sometimes they need to do a little digging or will happily do the market research for you and charge you for their time.  The cheapest investment in new learning that I have ever made is done when I pay a colleague to help with an appraisal!

Patricia’s talk was a great reminder of what an appraiser should already know…you cannot appraise until you have correctly identified an item.    I always look forward to NTISA chapter meetings.   Our chapter has been growing strong since the late 1980’s and is made up of some of the best-trained appraisers of personal property in the country.   It’s always a great evening of visiting with friends, networking and learning.   Thanks Patricia Meadows for thought-provoking presentation!

Texas Monthly article names Top Ten Art Pieces in Texas

Jordan Breal's recent article in Texas Monthly, cleverly titled  "Straight From the Art", takes the reader across the rugged Texas landscape to devise a list of the top ten must-see works within our Texas borders.  After interviewing more than sixty experts, including gallery owners, curators, collectors, critics and other in-the-know art enthusiasts, Breal compiled a diverse and wonderful collection highlighting the very best art Texas has to offer. . . well, at least the top ten of the very best.

The Lone Star State has been riding an impressive art boom for the past several years, pointing to renowned exhibitions, rare acquisitions and flourishing new talent progressively becoming more desired.  Breal notes the most significant, ". . . factor in solidifying our artistic standing has been the commitment of our museums and galleries to acquiring and preserving a vast cache of masterpieces," much like the Kimbell's Michelangelo; that is, the earliest known painting of Michelangelo.

Since any 'best of' list is likely to leave off a few favorite pieces, Breal gives a few parameters for her choices in the forward to her article.  A quote by Alison de Lima Greene, a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston since 1984, seems to set the appropriate stage.  "Some of the works that stay with you the most powerfully are those that you don't grasp immediately but that nag you and take time to unroll in your mind.  Good art isn't always about instant gratification."

So, the top ten:

"The Icebergs" by Frederic Edwin Church, Dallas Museum of Art. This five by nine feet canvas was gifted to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1979 just days after it was purchased for the landmark price tag of $2.5 million; an unheard of, and prior to then, unattainable amount for an American painting.

"100 Untitled Works in Mill Aluminum" by Donald Judd, Chinati Foundation, Marfa. With his one hundred aluminum boxes fabricated in his Connecticut workshop, Judd has, ". . .totally changed the relationship of humans and art in the third dimension," according to the director of the Chinati Foundation, Thomas Kellein.

"Vortex" by Richard Serra, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The 67-foot tall sculpture is made up of seven sheets of Cor-ten steel, weighing in at 233 tons.  The piece demands interaction as it pulls the viewer into one of its two openings at the base.  Inside the human element becomes the catalyst for experiencing the art, just as Serra said himself, "The content is you."

"Ladder for Booker T. Washington" by Martin Puryear, Modern art Museum of Fort Worth. The 36-foot ladder was hand carved by Puryear in 1996 from a long ash sapling found at his Hudson Valley home.  The rungs begin at 11 ¼ inches wide at the bottom and the distance between them slowly diminishes as they climb upward, finally narrowing to only 1 ¼ inches at the top, giving the illusion of a much greater height.

"Swimming" by Thomas Eakins, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth.

Purchased from Eakins's widow for $700 in 1925 for the Fort Worth Art Association (now the Modern Art Museum), the oil on canvas later sold for $10 million to the Amon Carter.  The piece is an iconic snapshot of the harsh realism that made Eakins an icon.

"The Cardsharps" by Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth.

Though the painting went missing for over ninety years, only to later be discovered in a private European collection, this genre scene is a milestone in Caravaggio's career as it brought him his first significant patron.  This beautiful portrayal of realism is widely accepted as one of his firsts masterpieces.

"Untitled (Say Goodbye Catullus, to the Shores of Asia Minor)" by Cy Twombly, Menil Collection Houston.

This piece, which has been getting much more attention due to Twombly's recent passing in July at the age of 83, stretches fifty-three feet wide and over thirteen feet tall and was done very late in the artist's career, displaying several of his recognizable trademarks.  His poetic quotations, his use of the monumental to convey space and the fleeting, his sporadic bursts of color and wild scribblings can all be found in this all-encompassing piece.

"Rothko Chapel" by Mark Rothko, Houston.

Initially to be designed by architect Philip Johnson and built at the University of St. John campus, the fourteen huge monochromatic canvases were commissioned specifically for the Catholic chapel.  However, after Rothko and Johnson disagreed on plans, Johnson threw in the towel.  The patrons, John and Dominique de Menil, built the chapel on land they owned in Montrose and the sanctuary is one of the most frequented sites in the state.

"Tending, (Blue)" by James Turrell, Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas. Hidden within a hill in the Nasher's Sculpture garden, this 2003 piece is a color-rich treat to the optics.  Programmed colors of yellow, blue, green and red spread across the smooth ceiling, which has a nine and a half foot square opening, playing tricks on the viewer by making the sky seem closer and the colors appear richer.

"Portrait of a Young Woman" by Rembrandt Van Rijn, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.

This Jane Doe portrait is to Rembrandt what the "Mona Lisa" is to da Vinci.  Painted on an oval wood panel, in an exquisite octagonal frame, the portrait is testament to the artistic and technical genius for which Rembrandt is remembered and renowned.  Purchased in 2004 for approximately $14 million, the piece is only one of two paintings by the artist on permanent view in the state.

There they are.

From the classic and traditional to the contemporary and modern, these ten are some of the very best art Texas has to offer.  Each of them warrants a visit in their own right, each, no doubt, being straight from the art.  Now that Breal has thrown down the gauntlet, it's time to get out and start compiling your own personal "Top Ten" list.

To read Breal's full article, and see images of the selected ten, visit www.TexasMonthly.com; and to read more from Breal, visit her author page.

M.P.Callender www.SignetArt.com