NMA Docent Depot

Coffin of the Lady of the House, Weretwahset, Reinscribed for Bensuipet..., Ca. 1292-1190, B.C.E.

2011-06-16T15:13:00.000-07:00

A typical coffin set would have included a coffin lid and a separate mummy board. In the original coffin set for Weretwahset the lid and board were combined. Generally, the lid would have been decorated to present the body of the deceased to the god Osiris, but in this example Weretwahse wears a dress that she would have worn in life. About two hundred years after Weretwahset died, this coffin was reused by someone named Bensuipet. Bensuipet added the mask and body cover, and erased Weretwahse’s name from the coffin in order to add her own.

Edward Bleiberg on the Oldest Work in To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum

2011-06-16T10:31:00.000-07:00

Female Figure
From Ma'mariya. Predynastic Period, Naqada IIa (circa 3500-3400 B.C.). Terracotta, painted.

Zahi Hawass on King Tut: The Boy King's Treasures (New Kingdom)

2011-06-16T10:27:00.000-07:00

Docent Note: Egyptian Cosmetics and Hygiene, To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum

2011-06-15T12:23:00.000-07:00

by Joan Elder

Egyptian Cosmetics
Cosmetics, discovered in tombs and on the bodies of both men and women, have been found dating back to 4,000 B.C. They served ornamental as well as spiritual and medicinal purposes.

Implements: Combs, hairpins, mirrors, makeup boxes/pots/bowls, tubes for kohl, applicators, etc.

Ingredients: Most cosmetics were mixed in fats, oils (especially from nuts), bees wax and similar compounds. The minerals used were from a variety of colored earth, stones and ores. Costly lapis lazuli and malachite were imported. Some ingredients were questionable, such as fly dung. Oils were used, with or without added ingredients, to protect the skin and to treat skin diseases.

The rich employed "face painters" to apply their makeup. They did not like dark skin, which was natural to them, and often used white foundation. There were special anti-aging creams, oil based with various infusions from plant materials. Most Egyptians didn't live much past their 40's, but their skin tended to wrinkle from the sun.

Eyes: The most widely used eye makeup was kohl, a compound of galena, a grey lead sulfide ore, combined with soot, burnt almonds and other ingredients. Black eye liner protected from glare. Also used was a green makeup madefrom imported malachite. Unadorned eyes were considered vulnerable to the evil eye. The adorned eye was also believed sacred to the gods.
Lips/Cheeks: Lips were colored blue-black or red. Red ochre for rouge.
Feet, hands and nails: Evidence of henna, a plant-derived dye used today on hair and skin, was discovered in tombs in about 1500 B.C. It was used to tint the nails and also to adorn the feet of royalty with various designs.

Egyptian Hygiene [Source: Herodotus, a Greek historian who lived in the fifth century B.C.]

Bathing: The rich bathed often; we don't really know too much about the poorer classes, but there were canals and, of course, the Nile, where one might bathe. One had to watch for crocodiles. Those who did bathe used natron for soap or a paste of ash or clay mixed with oils. A papyrus from 1500 B.C. tell of mixing vegetable oils with alkaline salts to cure and/or prevent skin diseases.

Most people walked barefoot and floors of homes were compacted dirt. Many homes had foot baths and some of the rich actually had bathtubs. Wash basins were commonplace. There would often be a jug of salt solutions nearby for cleansing as well as sand for scouring. Herodotus claimed that most people washed upon arising as well as before and after meals. Lice were a problem and the entire body was often shaved. Oils were also used to kill body lice. Physician's recipes for deodorants have been found. One recommends mixing incense, myrrh, lettuce and fruit of the n(?) plant and rubbing it all over the body.

Herodotus also tells us that the white linen garments commonly worn were carefully washed and bleached in the sun.

Incense and Perfumes
The Egyptians loved pleasant smells which they associated with the gods. Perfumes were a large export item. They were oil based and scented with roots, spices such as cinnamon, flowers and bitter almond. Balls of perfumed wax were sometimes worn on women's heads and allowed to melt in the heat. Incense was widely used, mostly frankincense, myrrh and fragrant woods.

Tour Framework: To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum Tour Framework

2011-06-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

Sarcophagus Lids for Pa-di-Djehuti and Pa-di-Inpu, ca. 305-30 B.C.E.
These two large stone sarcophagus lids were made for a wealthy royal scribe and priest named Pa-di-Inpu and his son Pa-di-Djehuti. They are examples of the expensive tomb equipment we expect for all Egyptians. Yet only a limited group of people could afford burial in such elaborate stone coffins. Members of less-wealthy families made coffins from low-quality wood or even terracotta.

Pa-di-Djehuti: the Limestone sarcophagus lid of a man with wig and false beard has three vertical registers of hieroglyphs running down the front of the piece. The translation of these is as follows: “Royal scribe, accountant of all things, scribe of Anubis of Hiffonon. Thatpe-her (?) son of the royal scribe of the books of the temple of Hiffonon Pedi-Anubis, born of a priestess of Uazit of Hiffonon Set-ari-ban”.

Sarcophagus Lid for Pa-di-Inpu: a limestone sarcophagus lid of a man with a wig and beard. Three vertical registers of hieroglyphs run down the lower front. The translation is “Royal scribe, accountant of all things, priest of Hathor of Hebenis (the XVIth Nome of Upper Egypt), scribe of Anubis of Hiffonon (XVIIIth Nome of Upper Egypt), Pedi-Anubis, son of the Royal scribe, Pedi-Anubis born of a priestess of Uazit of Hiffonon Thet.”

Pyramidion of a Woman, ca. 1185-718 B.C.E.
Reliefs on four sides of this small pyramid from a woman’s tomb depict basic aspects of Egyptian belief. The deceased worships Osiris in the niche and Re on the back, the two major gods connected to the afterlife. On the right side, a human-headed bird representing the ba-soul, which travels outside the tomb, perches on a djed-pillar, a symbol of rebirth. The deceased is followed by two demigods. On the left side, the gods Horus and Thoth perform part of the funeral purification ritual on the deceased’s mummy.

Anthropoid Coffin of the Servant of the Great Place, Teti, ca. 1339-1307 B.C.E.
Egyptians after the New Kingdom desired coffins representing them as Osiris. This coffin was made for Teti, a “Servant of the Great Place.” This title was used by artisans who painted tombs in the Valley of the Kings and lived in Deir el-Medina. As a middle-class artisan, Teti paid nearly a year’s salary for a coffin of this quality. He was able to use five different paint colors to decorate his wooden coffin, including blue, yellow, red, black, and white. The yellow background paint with red streaks is used to imitate the gilded coffins of the wealthy.

Seated Statue of the Superintendent of the Granary Irukaptah, 2425-2350 B.C.E.
This statue functioned as a place for Irukaptah—also known as Kenu, a fifth dynasty dignitary—to receive offerings from this world to convey to the next world. The Egyptians believed that the ka-soul could inhabit a statue like this. Scenes of offering carved on the sides of this chair show men offering fowl, linen, and food in containers. On the back, two women offer objects in a chest and perhaps bread. These scenes substitute for or augment scenes of offerings that were carved on the walls of the tomb. Irukaptah was titled “Master Butcher of the Great House King’s Wab Priest.” His tomb near Saqqara is known widely as the “Butcher’s Tomb.”

Triad of Isis, the Child Horus, and Nepthys, 305-30 B.C.E.
After Osiris went to the afterlife, Isis raised her son Horus with the help of her sister Nephthys. Isis hid her son from his jealous uncle Seth, who had killed Osiris and taken the throne of Egypt from him. Amulets like this were placed on the lower torso of the mummy and protected the deceased as Isis and Nephthys protected Horus.

Statue of Horus as a Child, 664-332 B.C.E.
Horus grew up to challenge his uncle Seth, who had taken the throne from Osiris. A human child who wore this amulet received the protection that Isis had given to the child Horus. Such amulets continued to be worn after death.

Mummiform Figure of Osiris, 664-332 B.C.E.
The inscription identifies this figure as Osiris. He wears the crown of ostrich feathers, a sun-disk, and the ram’s horns that identify him as a king. Yet he is also in the form of a mummy with the curled beard worn by the dead. The figure stands on a hollow base in which a papyrus with a spell written on it was stored.

Relief with Netherworld Deities, ca. 1332 – 1250 B.C.E.
This relief carving is from the tomb of Yepu, an high official of ancient Egypt. The carving illustrates Spell 145 from The Book of the Dead when the deceased approaches the guardian deities of the fourth and sixth gates of the netherworld. The words inscribed on the carving were to be recited upon reaching the gates. A wealthy individual in ancient Egypt would have made sure to incorporate spells into many different forms so that he or she would remember all of them upon reaching the netherworld. In addition to this relief carving, which would have been affixed to his tomb’s wall, Yepu also likely had a papyrus version of The Book of the Dead.

Sheet from an Amduat: What is in the Netherworld, 945-712 B.C.E.
The Amduat—also known as The Book of the Dead—included spells that a deceased person would need to know and recite to speed his or her journey into the afterlife. This copy was made for a high-ranking priest of the god Amun. Most remaining examples of The Book of the Dead are only partially intact. This sheet contains Spell 15, which includes writing that gives the genealogy of the deceased and the name of the god Re-Har-akhty-Atum.

Gaming Board Inscribed for Amenhotep III, 1390-1353 B.C.E.
This board and gaming pieces were used to play a game the ancient Egyptians called senet—which loosely translates to “passing.” The game was played by two people, each of whom used seven game pieces to advance, jump over their opponent’s pieces, and eventually remove their pieces from the board. The first player to remove all of their game pieces won rebirth into the afterlife. Game boards such as this were used for over three thousand years in Egypt and were often included in tombs.

Block Statue of Padimahes
This statue of Padimahes would have been placed in a temple after his death. It is believed that his forward gaze was directed towards a temple procession. Padimahes’s ba-soul—the part of the human soul that remains with the body of the deceased after death, but which can travel in the mortal world and the afterlife—would have been able to share in the offerings made to the god in the temple, but would have then returned to the tomb.

Block Statue of Nesthoth, 305-30 B.C.E.
Nesthoth was named to honor the god Thoth. The baboon wearing the moon-disk, carved on his lower legs, is a symbol of Thoth.

Elaborately Painted Shroud of Neferhotep, Son of Herrotiou
This shroud for the mummy of Neferhotep was likely made during a time of Roman rule in Egypt, and thus it has Roman stylistic influences. The shroud bears a Roman-style portrait, similar to the panel portrait found on Demetrios’s mummy seen nearby in this gallery. Neferhotep’s mummy would have been less expensive, however, because the portrait was painted directly on the shroud instead of on a wooden panel, and because it was made with tempera paint instead of encaustic paints. When this shroud was excavated by French Egyptologist Bernard Bruyère in 1948, parts of it were missing. The darkened parts of the ultraviolet photograph reproduced here show areas of restoration undertaken around 1970.

Image of Ba-bird on a Footpiece from a Coffin, ca. 945-712 B.C.E.
The human-headed bird represents the ba-soul, part of the Egyptian soul that could leave the tomb and travel both in this world and in the afterlife. The ancient Egyptians recited spells to ensure that the ba returned to the mummy from its various journeys to maintain the proper burial.

Statuette of a Standing Hippopotamus, ca. 1938 -1539, B.C.E.
In ancient Egypt, Seth was disliked because he killed his brother, king Osiris, and then claimed the throne. Seth became known as the god of chaos and was often represented by the symbol of a hippopotamus. In an Egyptian tomb, negative forces were controlled by including a statue of a hippopotamus with broken legs. The lotus flowers on the sides of the hippopotamus signify how the animal might have appeared as if it were standing in the Nile River among natural vegetation.

Mummy of a Dog, Mummified Dog
Sometimes very wealthy ancient Egyptians chose to mummify their pets. Most often, however, such animal mummies were offerings to the gods. The animals mummified represented a god or goddess, such as the cat belonging to the goddess Bastet or the ibis belonging to the god Thoth. Some animal mummies contained a papyrus with a request to the god written on it.

The Mummy of Demtri[o]s, 95 – 100, C.E.
With Roman stylistic influences, this mummy of a wealthy Greek person known as Demetrios was likely made during a time when the Romans ruled Egypt. Made with expensive imported materials, it reveals the wealth of the deceased. A linen shroud is wrapped on top of this mummy’s bandages and painted with red pigment imported from Spain. The face of Demetrios is depicted in Roman-style on a wooden panel using pigments and encaustic. Artists also used gold leaf to incorporate divine Egyptian symbols, the name of the deceased, and his age (59 years) at the time of death. Researchers recently used a medical imaging method known as a CT scan to x-ray this mummy, revealing that Demetrios suffered from gallstones during his lifetime.

Headrest with Two Images of the God Bes
Headrests like this were used to support the heads of living persons while sleeping, but they are also found supporting heads of the deceased inside coffins. This headrest was likely made for a tomb because an offering prayer is inscribed on the supporting column. The prayer on the headrest also could have been added after the death of its owner.

Canopic Jars (Jackal, Hawk, Human, Baboon)
Canopic jars were used by ancient Egyptians to store mummified internal organs. Each organ was kept in a separate jar and preserved for the afterlife. Such jars first appeared in the royal tomb of Hetepheres, the mother of Khufu and builder of the Great Pyramid. The canopic jars seen here, however, were typical of those used by the middle-class. These more affordable jars were “dummies,” whose vessels were never hollowed out to actually hold organs, yet were sill included in the tomb of the deceased.

Panel from the Coffin of a Woman
This coffin is decorated with hieroglyphic texts invoking both national gods and the local gods of Asyut. A stand with five jars of oil, a bed with seven linen bags of materials for mummification, a mirror, and a pair ofsandals are all depicted on the coffin’s side, magically ensuring their presence in the tomb and with the deceased forever.

Standing Figure of Bes
Bes was the deity who protected women in childbirth and children during life and in the tomb. The god Bes had the face and tail of a lion, the legs of a dwarf, and a feathered headdress. Just as he protected the act of birth in the living world, he also aided rebirth into the next world. Bes amulets were made from many different materials, but the most prized were gold.

Statuette of Sennefer,ca. 1938-1837 B.C.E; Statuette of a Striding Man, ca. 2288-2170, B.C.E.
Carved from a softer, and therefore lower-grade limestone, these sculptures reveals less detail than some of those carved of harder limestone, diorite, or granite nearby. Though nearly all ancient Egyptian statues were painted, the paint on these statuettes hides the lower-grade stone used.

Coffin of the Lady of the House, Weretwahset, Reinscribed…
A typical coffin set would have included a coffin lid and a separate mummy board. In the original coffin set for Weretwahset the lid and board were combined. Generally, the lid would have been decorated to present the body of the deceased to the god Osiris, but in this example Weretwahse wears a dress that she would have worn in life. About two hundred years after Weretwahset died, this coffin was reused by someone named Bensuipet. Bensuipet added the mask and body cover, and erased Weretwahse’s name from the coffin in order to add her own.

Mummy Caronnage of a Woman, ca. 1st century C.E.
Head and Chest from a Sarcophagus, 4th century C.E.
These mummy covers convey the extremes between wealth and poverty in Roman Egypt. The professionally crafted, gilded, and inlaid mummy cartonnage was for a woman whose life and death were spent in luxury. In contrast, the hand-modeled and simply painted terracotta mask was probably fashioned by the woman it represented or a family member of the deceased. While both covers protected each mummy adequately, the different materials demonstrate how different social classes prepared the necessary objects for the next world.

Seated Statuette of Si-Hathor, ca. 1818-1630 B.C.E.
This statuette combines the seated image of the deceased with the base where the inscription would normally be carved (as in Seated Statuette of Sekhemka shown nearby). Here, the artist carved the offering prayer directly onto Si-Hathor’s garment, a solution that saved on the amount of stone to be purchased.

The Meaning of Amulets
Amulets were small objects worn by the living or attached to a mummy after death as a means of protection. Depending on what one could afford, amulets were made from either gold, precious stones, or simple ceramic faience.

The following kinds of amulets are in this exhibition:

Ba Amulets
These amulets were placed on the chest of the mummy. They ensured the return of the ba-soul, which could travel from the tomb to the world of the living and to the afterlife. Though the mummy was the ba’s home, The Book of the Dead suggests that Egyptians feared the ba might not always return. They believed that ba amulets could substitute for the true ba. These types of amulets were made from precious gemstones such as lapis lazuli, as well as less-expensive materials such as faience and glass.

Bes Amulets
These amulets were worn suspended from a chain around the neck. Bes was the deity who protected women in childbirth and children during life and in the tomb. The god Bes had the face and tail of a lion, the legs of a dwarf, and a feathered headdress. Just as he protected the act of birth in the living world, he also aided rebirth into the next world. Bes amulets were made from many different materials, but the most prized were gold.

Wadjet or Eye Amulets
Ancient Egyptians believed the moon to be the eye of the god Horus, represented symbolically by the wadjet-eye commonly depicted on amulets. Just as the moon waxes and wanes, the eye of Horus can be injured and healed. The wadjet-eye is probably the most common amulet, and was made from almost all materials.

Djed Amulets
The Book of the Dead refers to the djed as the backbone of the god Osiris, which allows him to rise up in the afterlife. The djed symbol may have originally come from the form of a tree trunk that was elevated during Osiris’s ceremony of resurrection. The hieroglyph on a djed translates to “enduring.”

Hollow Cylindrical Amulets
Amulets like this were suspended from a cord and worn around the neck. They contained a piece of papyrus with a written spell that offered protection to women and children. They are known only from the Middle and New Kingdoms and belonged to royalty and high-ranking members of society.

Heart Scarabs
Heart scarabs were placed over a mummy’s heart in the tomb. They were a specialized type of amulet shaped like a dung beetle. These beetles were known for pushing small pellets of dung, which reminded ancient Egyptians of how the sun god Re travelled across the sky. Heart scarabs were inscribed with a spell from The Book of the Dead imploring the heart not to testify against the deceased at the judgment of the dead.

Nefertum Amulets
Nefertum was the son of the great gods of Memphis, Ptah and Sekhmet. These three gods formed an alternative divine family parallel to Osiris, Isis, and Horus. Like the amulets of Horus, those of Nefertum were worn to protect young people in this life and the next.

Tyt Amulets
The Book of the Dead instructed ancient Egyptians to place a red jasper tyt amulet on the neck of the mummy. Shaped like the goddess Isis’ belt, the amulet guaranteed that she would protect the mummy.

Materials
Ancient Egyptians worked with gold and semiprecious stones mined in the deserts east of the Nile River in a place they called Nubia—present-day Sudan. Nub was the ancient Egyptian word for gold.
Ancient Egyptians made many objects using faience—a non-clay ceramic material made from crushed quartz and sand. Although many faience objects were reproduced in large quantities, sometimes extremely high quality pieces (such as this one) were made.

Figure of Pataikos, ca. 664-30 B.C.E.
In this amulet, the dwarf god Pataikos strangles snakes while standing on two crocodiles. A scarab rests on his head. Pataikos is flanked by Isis and Nephthys—the wife and sister of Osiris. This amulet would have been worn on a cord around the neck to protect the deceased from snakes and crocodiles in the afterlife. The name Pataikos refers to a protective god (or perhaps a whole group of related gods) in the form of a dwarf. Representations of Pataikos appear on amulets worn around the neck. The god is usually depicted with a bald head on which a scarab can be seen. Sometimes he has a falcon's head. He is often standing on crocodiles and holding other dangerous animals such as snakes in his hands. As far as attributes and function are concerned, he may be compared to the god Horus as depicted on magical stelae from the Late Period. Pataikos appears frequently from the New Kingdom on, but similar figures from the Old Kingdom may perhaps already be depictions of the god. The name Pataikos was introduced by the Greek writer Herodotus. He relates that in the temple of Memphis there was a statue of the god Ptah in the form of a dwarf, an image so remarkable that it provoked the mockery of the Persian king Cambyses. Herodotus compared the statue with a protective statuette in the shape of a dwarf that he knew from Phoenicia. He also records that Pataikos was regarded as the son of Ptah. We do indeed have representations of Pataikos from the Late Period whose texts identify him as Ptah or Ptah-Sokar. We also find Pataikos depicted together with Sakhmet or Nefertem, two gods who formed the triad of Memphis along with Ptah.

Shabties
Shabties were magical figures that people took with them in their tombs that would do work when they arrived in the next world. Shabties were made from stone, wood, faience, and (rarely) metal, depending on the tomb owner’s priorities. Amunemhet had a small number of very fine shabties, including the painted stone example shown here and a wooden example seen nearby.

Outer Sarcophagus of the Royal Prince, Count of Thebes, Pa-seba-khai-en-ipet, ca. 1075-945 B.C.E.
Ancient Egyptian elites eventually stopped building elaborate tombs and instead painted their coffins with scenes normally reserved for tomb walls. This outer coffin for the Royal Prince shows multiple scenes of the gods worshiped by the deceased. The coffin presents the deceased as Osiris and illustrates the many gods he will encounter in the afterlife. This coffin has been damaged but left unrepaired in order to show how it was made. Beneath the damaged paint, small pieces of wood were pinned together with wooden pegs. Artists then plastered and painted the surface to make it appear smooth.

Docent Note: A Very Very Brief Egyptian Timeline, To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum

2011-06-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

by Kathleen Durham

“Egypt is a gift of the Nile.”

– Herodotus, 450 BCE

Egypt is a desert country with only a tiny percentage of habitable land. The Nile River, beginning in the highlands of Central Africa, flows north for over 4,000 miles to the Mediterranean Sea. Its yearly flooding determined the patterns of the lives of the ancient Egyptians. The floodwaters receded between November and March, leaving rich silt ideal for planting. Around 7,000 years ago settlements rose up along the banks of the Nile. Eventually canals and terraces were built to use the water more effectively. The ancient Egyptians felt that the river was a gift of the gods, but since they made no distinction between river and god, they used the word Hapy (Hapi) to mean the river, the flood and the God of the Nile. They grew crops, especially wheat and barley, and raised livestock. Eventually Egypt divided into two parts. The South was known as Upper Egypt, and the Northern Delta of the Nile, where it meets the Mediterranean Sea, was called Lower Egypt. In what is now known as the Early Dynastic Period (3000-2675 BCE) the first Pharaoh, Narmer, (or Menes) unified Upper and Lower Egypt.

EARLY DYNASTIC PERIOD (3000-2675 BCE) Unification of Upper and Lower Egypt. First Pharaoh Narmer. Brick tombs. Capital Memphis.

OLD KINGDOM (2675-2170 BCE) Pyramid Age, Giza, Sphinx, Saqqara, Cheops. Toward end of period Nile failed to flood for several years. Just one of the factors leading to dissolution of central government.

FIRST INTERMEDIATE PERIOD (2170-2008 BCE) Central government dissolved. Last days of royal house in Memphis, rivals in Herakleopolis and Thebes.

MIDDLE KINGDOM (2008-1630 BCE) Central government renewed in 11th Dynasty, Mentuhotep II, capital Thebes.

SECOND INTERMEDIATE PERIOD (1650-1550 BCE) Foreigners (Hyksos) dominant in Lower Egypt (Delta), local princes in Thebes.

NEW KINGDOM (1550-1075 BCE) Egypt expands into Syria, Euphrates. Amun is national god. Temples at Luxor, Karnak, rock tombs in Valley of the Kings. Under Amenhotep II and III kingdom and culture at its peak. Amenhotep IV changed religion to worship god Aten, changed own name to Akhenaten, built capital at Tel-el Amarna, married to Nefertiti. On Akhenaten’s death, Tutankhamun restored old gods. In 19th and 20th Dynasties there were 11 Pharaohs named Ramesses. Ramesses II built great temples Abu Simbel, Karnak.

THIRD INTERMEDIATE PERIOD (1075-656 BCE) Foreign rulers from Libya, Nubia.

LATE PERIOD (664-332 BCE) Foreign rule by Persians, Libyans, Ethiopians, alternated with Egyptian rule.

PTOLEMAIC PERIOD (332-30 BCE) Alexander the Greek conquers Egypt, establishes great center of learning at Alexandria. On his death his general, Ptolemy, takes over. Dynasty continues until Cleopatra’s death in 30 BCE.

ROMAN PERIOD (30 BCE-395 CE) Egypt is a Roman Province

BYZANTINE ERA (395-642 CE)

ARABIC_MUSLIM (642- to present) Byzantines expelled, Egypt was a province of caliphate

Docent Note: A Glossary of Terms, To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum

2011-06-14T09:59:00.000-07:00

by Kathleen Durham

AMDUAT A New Kingdom funerary text which names the friends and allies to be found in each of the twelve hours of the night. It translates as “That which is in the Underworld”, and serves as a guide for the soul.

AMULET A small sculptured object which can be worn as a charm, but more importantly, is bound into the wrappings of a mummy. The ankh, wadjet-eye, tyt, Bes, scarab are some of the amulets which are placed on the mummy to heal and protect.

ANTHROPOID COFFIN A coffin shaped like a human being with an idealized portrait of the deceased with wig or headdress. Often richly decorated with scenes of the afterlife and the gods. The coffin would be placed in one or more protective sarcophagi.

BALDACHIN A canopy placed over a sacred or honorific place, such as a throne or altar

BOOK OF THE DEAD Compilations of various spells, prayers and incantations to help the soul of the deceased navigate past dangers in the netherworld. Originally they were chiseled onto walls of royal tombs, but eventually they were made available to well-off people in the form of papyri. These scrolls were often rolled up and placed between the legs of the mummy.

CALCITE A crystalline form of limestone used in sculpture.

CANOPIC JARS Four jars, often of calcite, used to store internal organs removed from the deceased in the mummification process. The jar with a jackal head stopper stored the stomach, a baboon stored the lungs, a falcon the intestines, and a human the liver. They were often called the Four Sons of Horus.

CARTONNAGE Linen soaked in plaster, modeled and painted to create mummy masks.

CHERT A compact rock consisting of a microcrystalline quartz.

CROOK AND FLAIL Osiris and the Pharaohs are generally shown with a shepherd’s crook to show that he is shepherd of his people, and a flail, a hinged tool used for harvesting grains, to signify Pharaoh’s role as provider for his people.

DESCRIPTION DE L’EGYPTE A 20-volume work developed by a corps of artists, technicians, geographers and architects brought by Napoleon in 1798. Still used today as reference and especially for those monuments and artifacts which have been destroyed.

DJED COLUMN A column with a wide base and four horizontal bands at the top. It is said to represent the backbone of Osiris. It stands for stability and strength. Often painted on the inside of coffins where body would lie. As an amulet it is placed on the throat of the deceased. Also associated with the creator god Ptah, ‘the Noble Djed’.

DUAT The Egyptian Land of the Dead. Regarded as similar to Egypt in climate and nature. Duat is located under the earth. At night the Duat is illuminated by the Sun God Re as he travels through.

ENCAUSTIC A painting technique using pigments mixed with hot wax as a medium. Popular in Egypt, Greece and Rome. (See mummy Demetrios)

ENNEAD A Greek word for a group of nine gods—Atum, Shu, Tefnut, Geb, Nut, Osiris, Nephthys, Isis, Seth.

FAIENCE A glazed ceramic technique that produces a smooth, lustrous, impenetrable texture. A fairly inexpensive way to produce quantities of beads or shabtys.

FALSE DOOR A stone imitation of a real door which only the deceased could use. They alone could ‘walk through’ the false door to receive the offerings left for them. As time went on, it was possible that priests and family could forget to leave offerings. For this reason the doors were often carved with depictions of food offerings.

FUNERAL PROCESS A series of rituals including, processions, incantations, dances, animal sacrifice. The process begins with the delivery of the corpse to the Hall of Embalming and ends with the final ceremony in the tomb. The body was carried on a boat in a canal or on land on a sledge, accompanied by professional mourners and priests. The coffin was shaded with a baldachin. After the seventy day mummification process, the funeral procession visited ritual stations on the way to the tomb. At the tomb the ritual Opening of the Mouth was performed (see Peseh-Kef below), the canopic jars and furniture were brought in, the tomb was sealed and offerings were left for the deceased.

HEART The heart was the only major organ which was left in the body during the mummification process. The brain was taken out and thrown away, and the major organs were stored in canopic jars. It was believed that the heart had knowledge and emotion. In the afterlife the heart was weighed against a feather to determine the fate of the deceased. Inscriptions were written on scarab amulets placed on the body, asking that the heart not testify against the deceased!

KOHL Finely ground antimony sulfate, a black powder used as eyeliner for men and women. Some say it was to avoid glare of the sun or to ward off infection.

MASTABA A flat-topped one-story structure with sloping sides over an underground tomb.

NATRON A natural salt that occurs in a dried lake bed in the delta, today called Wadi Natrun. Primarily sodium chloride, but about 17% sodium bicarbonate. It absorbs the body fluids in the mummification process, resulting after around 40 days in a stable shell no longer affected by decay.

OFFERING TABLE Food and drink and other offerings were placed on tables or stands for the deceased by priests and/or family. Even a sacred mummified bull would have an offering table!

PARTS OF THE BODY A living body is known as a khat, a dead body is a sah. The parts of the person aside from the body itself are: the ka: a spirit double, born when the person is formed on the potter’s wheel. The ba, was in the form of a human-headed bird which could travel in and out of the tomb and could consume offerings. The person’s shadow and his name combined with the ba and the ka to make a perfect spirit, known as the akh, for the life in the next world.

PESEH-KEF A ritual implement used in a crucial step of the funerary process, the Opening of the Mouth. When the coffin arrives at the tomb, it is held upright while an officiating priest, usually in an Anubis jackal mask, touches the tool to the mouth and other parts of the body to ‘reanimate’ it in the afterlife.

PHARAOH In New Kingdom Thutmose III was first to refer to himself as ‘Pharaoh’, a term that means ‘great house’.

PYRAMIDION A pyramid-shaped block set as the finishing element on an obelisk or a column, or as an independent tomb sculpture.

SARCOPHAGUS The outer rectangular or oval stone container in which a coffin and mummy were placed. Less expensive sarcophagi could be of wood, terra cotta or wicker.

SCARAB Named for a beetle which pushes around a ball of dung containing its eggs. When the eggs hatched, the Egyptians thought it was spontaneous generation, and likened it to the appearance of the sun at sunrise. Also known as Khapri (Khepri).

SENET A very popular board game with thirty squares and pawns in various shapes. The rules are unknown, but it is believed that the goal was to reach the end of the board and the Kingdom of Osiris.

SHABTY (also Ushabty) A mummiform statuette placed in tombs to perform work on behalf of deceased in the afterlife. Often there were thousands in a wealthy tomb. An ideal was to have 365 shabtiess, plus 36 more to serve as overseers. A less wealthy person could have 40 shabties, 30 to do the work and 10 to supervise.

SISTRUM An ancient Egyptian percussion instrument with a loop of metal set in a handle, fitted with loose crossbars which make noise when shaken.

STEATITE Soapstone, a form of compressed talc. Often used as a base for faience.

STELA A stone slab placed vertically, a monument. Generally incised with inscriptions and reliefs. Used originally in First Dynasty, to individualize a tomb with the name of the deceased.

TEKENU A bundle carried on a funerary sledge or barque, resembling a wrapped body. Sometimes it is covered with an animal skin, sometimes wrapped in linen and bound with red cord. It may represent a fetus being reborn in next world.

TERRA COTTA A medium made from clay fired over low heat and sometimes left unglazed.

TYT Often translated as welfare, eternal life, resurrection. Associated most with Isis. It resembles a knot used to secure garments of the gods. As early as Third Dynasty it appears with ankh and djed column. Also known as Blood of Isis, used as a funerary amulet of red stone or glass.

WADJET EYE In the shape of a human eye with falcon markings. It represents the eye of the god Horus which was torn out by the god Seth and was restored by Thoth (or Isis). It is used in amulets to represent healing. In the mummification process it is placed in the mummy wrappings over the site of the incision, to heal it. It is often painted on coffins as a protection, but also so the deceased can see out.

Docent Note: A Partial List of Egyptian Gods, To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum

2011-06-14T09:48:00.000-07:00

By Kathleen Durham

Note: Listed here are only gods who are mentioned in the exhibition catalog. There were hundreds of gods in ancient Egypt, some local, some universal. There were various creation myths, and sometimes gods changed forms and/or merged with other gods. But there was a remarkable consistency over all those centuries, so that we see the same gods depicted in funerary art from the beginning through to Roman times. Since many of the gods developed from animals, many are shown as animals, or with animal heads. Anubis, the jackal-headed god of funerary matters, is thought to have taken that form because jackals were always seen around burial sites. The hippo is seen as a benign female god as Taweret, and as a god of Chaos in the person of Seth.

AMMIT – Devourer of hearts judged to be wicked in underworld—can take form of crocodile, hippo and/or leopard.
AMUN -- The hidden God, at one point considered King of Gods—sometimes merges with Re, becomes very powerful. Represents air. Temple at Thebes.
ANUBIS -- Jackal-headed god of mummification, and of judgment in underworld. Said to have helped Isis reassemble and bind together the parts of Osiris’ body.
APOPHIS -- Terrible creature who menaces Re on his trip through the underworld. Can take form of dragon, snake, cat.
ATEN -- During reign of Akhtenaten he was made King of Gods, the only god. Generally represented by a sun disc with rays ending in hands. When Tutankhamen became King, he restored the old gods.
ATUM -- Primeval creator god. Arose from the waters of Chaos and created the first gods, Shu and Tefnut. Merges with Re at sunset, representing the setting sun. Known then as ‘He who is Completed’.
BES -- Dwarf god, one of several variations, perhaps associated with Pataikos. Sometimes has lion’s ear and tail. Is always ugly, in order to frighten spirits which threaten homes. Protector of households, childbirth. Very popular amulet.
GEB -- Earth God, always pictured lying down, as the Earth, with his sister-wife Nut arched over him as the sky. Egyptians believed earthquakes were his laughter.
HAPY (HAPI) -- God of Nile. He is the river, the flood and the god. Represented as a man with a little pot belly and plants on his head.
HATHOR -- Goddess of love, fertility, joy, music. Shown as a cow, or woman with cow’s ears and horns, with a sun disk. Known as ‘Mistress of the West’, welcoming the dead into the next life.
HORUS -- Falcon-headed god of the sky and sun. Son of Isis and Osiris. Horus means ‘He who is from above’. Became king after defeating uncle Seth. Throughout Egyptian history is the protector of kings. It was thought that each Pharaoh was the living Horus.
ISIS -- Wife of Osiris, mother of Horus. Goddess of healing, magic, marriage, motherhood. Her crown is usually a throne to show she was mother to a king. Often shown with Horus on her lap (because her lap is the first throne he sat on). She is sometimes shown with wings.
KEBEHSENEUF -- Funerary god, associated with falcons and canopic jars. His is used for storing intestines. A son of Horus.
KHAPRI (KHEPRI) -- Scarab beetle, or man with beetle head, rising sun. This is the name Re takes when he re-appears from the underworld at sunrise. It means ‘he who is coming into being. Connected with scarab because that beetle pushed around a ball of dung filled with its eggs, like sun coming up.
KHNUM -- Ram or ram-headed man. One of the creator gods. He molded people on a pottery wheel.
MAAT -- Goddess of truth and justice. She is present at judging of souls in the underworld. Single feather headdress. Heart is weighed with her feather.
MONT (MONTU) -- God of war, valor. Falcon head, sun disk and double plumes. Associated with cult of Buchis (bull which was venerated, mummified).
NEFERTEM -- God in form of a man with lotus headdress. He is personification of lotus which keeps sun god Re alive with its fragrance.
NEITH -- Goddess of hunting and war. Shown as a woman with red crown.
NEPHTHYS -- Daughter of Geb and Nut, sister of Osiris and Isis, sister-wife to Seth. Headdress has her name in hieroglyphics. Sometimes shown with wings.
NUT -- Goddess of Sky, mother of Osiris, Isis, Seth and Nephthys. Shown as a naked woman arched over the reclining body of her brother-husband Geb (Earth).
OSIRIS -- King of Netherworld, God of Re-birth. Son of Geb and Nut, husband-brother to Isis. Father of Horus. Was king of Egypt until killed by brother Seth. After his body was put back together by Isis he became king of the netherworld. Shown as a mummy with green face, atef crown (a combination of the hedjet, the white crown of Upper Egypt, with ostrich plumes). Carries crook, flail.
PATAIKOS -- A dwarf protector of household, similar to Bes. Has scarab on head, he strangles snakes, stands on crocodiles. Often seen with Isis and Nephthys.
PTAH -- Creator god, Memphis. Father of Pataikos.
RE (RA) -- Sun god. Creator god. Hawk head with sun disk. Has seventy-five names. Binds together the darkness and light with his 24 hour journey through the sky and the underworld. Merges at times with Atum, Amun and Horus.
SETH -- God of Chaos. Son of Geb and Nut. Brother of Osiris and Isis, brother-husband to Nephthys. Sometimes shown as a hippo, but more often as a ‘Seth animal’, an undetermined animal with a long snout. Was King, defeated by Horus, now defends Re in the underworld.
SHU -- God of Air, father of Osiris, Isis, Nephthys and Seth.
SOBEK -- Crocodile or Crocodile-headed man. River god.
TAWERET -- Hippo goddess. Patron of household and childbirth.
TEFNUT -- Goddess of Moisture, mother of Geb and Nut. Cobra or lion head.
THOTH -- Ibis-headed (sometimes baboon), holding a writing palette. Scribe of Gods. Recorder of judgment in netherworld, also connected to the Moon. Egyptians thought that he gave them the gift of hieroglyphic writing. He restored Horus’ eye after Seth tore it out.

To Live Forever: Egyptian Treasures from the Brooklyn Museum Introduction and Text Panels

2011-06-14T09:44:00.000-07:00

Introduction
Two of the main ancient Egyptian cultural beliefs that have endured for thousands of years are a belief in the afterlife, and the view that death was an enemy that could be vanquished. To Live Forever features objects that illustrate a range of strategies the ancient Egyptians developed to defeat death, including mummification and various rituals performed in the tomb. The exhibition contains funeral equipment used by the rich, the middle class, and the poor, and also reveals what the Egyptians believed they would find in the next world. The economics of the funeral are examined, including how the poor tried to imitate the costly appearance of the grave goods of the rich in order to ensure a better place in the afterlife.

Specially-designed interpretation for this exhibition acknowledges the recent political revolution in Egypt and includes speculative conjecture from best-selling science fiction author Bruce Sterling, accompanied by an 80-foot panoramic mural depicting a possible future Egypt. In much the same way that the antiquities on display offer only traces of historical evidence helping us to understand Egypt’s past, Sterling’s contribution and the accompanying mural illustrates one of many possible outcomes for the future of this dynamic and rapidly-changing country.

Orientation
The exhibition fills the third floor feature gallery, and is organized broadly around the themes of Beliefs about the Afterlife: Osiris and Re; Preparing a Mummy; Furnishing a Tomb on a Budget; and The Funeral Ceremony (see associated text panels below).

Text Panels: Main Text
This exhibition explores ancient Egyptian beliefs about life, death, and the afterlife. Featuring mummies, statuary, sarcophagi, coffins, gold jewelry, and elegantly-crafted vessels, it includes fine examples of Egyptian artistic and cultural heritage. Taken together, the objects and artifacts illustrate funerary beliefs and customs practiced by ancient Egyptians—from various social classes—for nearly four thousand years.

Regardless of socioeconomic class, ancient Egyptians believed in life after death. Many practical considerations had to be accounted for when preparing a body for burial and the afterlife. What if one did not have access to elaborate materials or valuable gold? What if only simple stone or inexpensive wood were available? This exhibition sheds light on the disparity between ancient Egyptian social classes and reveals how different groups of people employed creative methods to defeat death and, ultimately, to live forever.

Specially designed interpretation for this exhibition acknowledges the recent sociopolitical revolution in Egypt and the surrounding desert region. It includes speculative commentary from best-selling science fiction author and futurist Bruce Sterling, accompanied by an 80-foot panoramic mural sketching how an Egypt of tomorrow might look. In the same way that the antiquities on display offer only traces of historical evidence that help us to understand and imagine Egypt’s distant past, Sterling’s contribution and the accompanying mural suggest that there are many possibilities for the future of this dynamic and rapidly-changing culture and region.

Beliefs about the Afterlife: Osiris and Re
Ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife are based on the story of Osiris, who along with his wife Isis, were Egypt’s first beloved rulers. Legend holds that Osiris had a jealous brother named Seth, who trapped his brother Osiris in a coffin designed precisely to the dimensions of his body. Seth and his accomplices threw the box into the Nile River and drowned Osiris, leaving Seth to claim the throne. Isis retrieved her husband’s body, however, and magically revived him—just long enough to conceive a child named Horus. Isis built temples for Osiris where she placed offerings that he could retrieve in the afterlife—establishing the precursor of the tomb. Osiris became king of the afterlife, while Isis raised their son Horus, who eventually defeated his uncle Seth and became king of Egypt. The tale of Osiris and Isis became a touchstone for all ancient Egyptians, who wanted to vanquish death by achieving rebirth in the afterlife—just like Osiris.
The sun god Re was one of the most important gods in the ancient Egyptian belief system. In the daytime world of the living, ancient Egyptians believed that Re traveled in a boat through the sky—from east to west at sunset. Re entered the afterlife upon reaching the western sky, and then traveled eastward through the underworld at night. While Re traveled through the underworld he was continually attacked by the dragon-like demon Apophis. Only during the fifth hour of his journey through the underworld was Re safe in the realm of Osiris. After twelve hours in the underworld, Re was reborn on the eastern horizon of the mortal world. Many of the decorations found in royal tombs and depicted on papyrus reveal that ancient Egyptians hoped to travel with Re in his boat after their own mortal passing.

Preparing a Mummy
To ensure eternal life, ancient Egyptians believed that the body had to be preserved. Three different mummification processes were available depending on the budget of the deceased person. These methods were described by the Greek historian Herodotus, who visited Egypt in the fifth century B.C.E.

The most expensive preservation option involved surgical removal of the brain and internal organs. The deceased was then embalmed using natron, a naturally occurring salt that dehydrated the body in about seventy days. Priests then poured an expensive combination of imported and domestic resins into the body, which ensured that it would remain waterproof and resistant to damage from microorganisms and insects. The body was then wrapped in linen and placed in a coffin in preparation for the funeral service.

A less expensive method for mummification utilized an injection of cedar resin into the body that liquefied the internal organs, which were then drained from the corpse. The body was embalmed with natron and wrapped in linen. Finally, the least costly method for preparing a body involved basic cleansing of the internal organs by the embalmers. The organs were left inside the body. Herodotus gives no further details regarding this least-expensive method.

Furnishing a Tomb on a Budget
Furnishing a tomb was the biggest expense an ancient Egyptian would incur during his or her lifetime. A coffin alone might cost an entire year’s salary. For individuals of a certain socioeconomic status tombs were sometimes built as small, freestanding buildings or excavated into the side of a mountain. If only limited funds were available, graves were dug into the desert sand. Depending on one’s socioeconomic status, there were four strategies for furnishing a tomb on a budget: they could substitute, imitate, combine, or reuse materials.

In many instances, individuals with limited resources substituted inexpensive materials for precious ones typically used by wealthier classes. In place of gold or rare stones, they might use faience, a non-clay ceramic material made from sand. Alternatively, terracotta might take the place of stone. Sometimes colored paints were used to emulate expensive decorations found on more elaborate objects. For instance, a terracotta jar might be painted to imitate a more costly granite vessel, or a terracotta mummy mask could be painted yellow to imitate gold.

A traditional coffin set usually consisted of a lid and a mummy board that could be quite expensive. The board, situated inside the coffin, was a life-sized figure of the deceased dressed in everyday clothing placed atop the actual mummy. It was easy enough, however, to combine the traditional mummy board decoration with the lid to save money. Another cost-saving approach was introduced toward the end of the New Kingdom in 1070 B.C.E., when the government began allowing tomb objects to be recycled. Reusing objects involved removing the name of the previous owner and inscribing the object for a new user. Coffins, statues, and shabties (funeral figurines) could all be reused.

The Funeral Ceremony
While much is known about the funeral ceremonies of wealthy ancient Egyptians, scholars depend on physical evidence and objects found in graves to reconstruct the rituals of most citizens. What scholars do know is that it ancient Egyptians—regardless of their class status—desired to make the journey to the afterlife and to live there for eternity.

The ancient Egyptian funeral consisted of a series of rituals based on the tale of Osiris, the legendary king who died and was then reborn into the afterlife. Typical funeral customs included dance, music, animal sacrifice, recitation, and ritualized mourning along a route that led from the embalming house to the tomb. Tombs helped the deceased person to achieve rebirth in the afterlife. In addition to the mummified remains of the dead, tombs contained objects that were intended to be used in the next life. Men were often buried with weapons, while women were accompanied by mirrors, cosmetic containers, and grooming accessories. Coffins, statues, shabties (funeral figurines), and vessels for food and drink were also placed in the tomb for use in the next world.

During the funeral service, living persons would make offerings of food, clothing, or other necessities to be consumed or used in the afterlife. Such offerings were sometimes depicted in images on the walls of tombs. The final funeral ritual performed at the tomb was the “opening of the mouth.” This procedure symbolically activated the mummy, allowing it to see, hear, and enjoy the offerings made by the priests during the funeral ritual before it was finally positioned in the tomb.

How to Cuddle with an Elephant Seal

2011-01-19T09:16:00.000-08:00

Docent Kate Fotopolous found this video in a search related to the Joan Myers Wondrous Cold exhibition. An entertaining look at some of the residents of the globe's arctic regions. Thanks, Kate!

Did You Know? :: Jean-Michel Basquiat, "Flash in Naples," 1983

2010-07-30T13:17:00.000-07:00

Jean-Michel Basquiat was an artist from Brooklyn, New York. He was born December 22, 1960; he died August 12, 1988, after a short but meteoric career during which his work was popularized and made famous in part by his associations with Andy Warhol, Al Diaz, Julian Schnabel and the musical performer Madonna.

As a child, Basquiat showed an affinity and skill for drawing, and was encouraged to create art by his mother, who was Puerto Rican by descent, and his father, who is of Haitian descent. As a result, Basquiat was fluent in Spanish, French and English from an early age.

In late 1977, while a student at City-As-School high school in Brooklyn, Basquiat and his friend Al Diaz started spray-painting graffiti art on buildings in lower Manhattan, adding the signature of "SAMO". The graphics were messages such as "Plush safe he think.. SAMO" and "SAMO as an escape clause". In December 1978, the Village Voice published an article about the writings. The SAMO project ended with the epitaph "SAMO IS DEAD" written on the walls of SoHo buildings.

Basquiat dropped out of high school in September 1978, at the beginning of his senior year. He decided to leave his home and began living with friends, earning money by selling T-shirts and postcards on Manhattan's streets, and working in the Unique Clothing Warehouse on Broadway. By 1979, Basquiat had appeared on Glenn O'Brien's live public-access cable show TV Party. In the late 1970s, Basquiat formed a band called Gray with Vincent Gallo, Shannon Dawson, Michael Holman, Nick Taylor, Wayne Clifford. Gray performed at nightclubs such as Max's Kansas City, CBGB, Hurrahs, and the Mudd Club. Basquiat starred in an underground film Downtown 81 which featured some of Gray's recordings on its soundtrack. He also appeared in Blondie's video "Rapture" as a club disc jockey.

In June 1980, Basquiat participated in The Times Square Show, a multi-artist exhibition, sponsored by Collaborative Projects Incorporated (Colab) and Fashion Moda. In 1981, Rene Ricard published "The Radiant Child" in Artforum magazine, which brought Basquiat to the attention of the wider art world.

In late 1981 he joined the Annina Nosei gallery in SoHo. By 1982, Basquiat was showing regularly, and alongside Julian Schnabel, David Salle, Francesco Clemente and Enzo Cucchi, became part of what was called the Neo-expressionist movement. He was represented in Los Angeles by the Larry Gagosian gallery, and in Europe by Bruno Bischofberger. He started dating then-aspiring performer Madonna in autumn 1982. That same year, Basquiat met Andy Warhol, with whom he collaborated in 1984-1986. He was also briefly involved with artist David Bowes. Basquiat worked on his paintings in Armani suits and often appeared in public in these same paint-splattered $1000 suits.

By the mid 1980s, he had left Annina Nosei gallery, and was showing in the famous Mary Boone gallery in SoHo. On February 10, 1985, Basquiat appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in a feature entitled "New Art, New Money: The Marketing of an American Artist". He was a phenomenally successful artist in this period, but increasing drug use began to interfere with his personal relationships. After Andy Warhol's death in 1987, Basquiat became increasingly isolated, and his drug use and depression increased. After attempting to quit heroin use during a trip to Hawaii, Basquiat died of a heroin overdose in his New York studio on August 12, 1988, at the age of 27.

Selected Bibliography

Deitch J, Cortez D, and O’Brien, Glen. Jean-Michel Basquiat: 1981: the Studio of the Street, Charta, 2007.

Fretz, Eric. Jean-Michel Basquiat: A Biography. Greenwood Press, 2010.

Hoban, Phoebe. Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art (2nd ed.), Penguin Books, 2004.

Marshall, Richard. Jean-Michel Basquiat, Abrams / Whit

ney Museum of American Art. (Catalog for 1992 Whitney retrospective, out of print).

Marshall, Richard. Jean-Michel Basquiat: In World Only. Cheim & Read, 2005.

Marenzi, Luca. Jean-Michel Basquiat. Charta, 1999.

Mayer, Marc, Hoffman Fred, et al. Basquiat, Merrell Publishers / Brooklyn Museum, 2005.

McCluskey, Danny. "Jean-Michel Basquiat: Art Capitalism Mascot or Radiant Child?” Cameron, 2009.

Tate, Greg. Flyboy in the Buttermilk. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

Thompson, Margot. American Graffiti, Parkstone Press, 2009

Looking at Flash in Naples

Ask guests what they see in the mixed media piece Flash in Naples.
Ask guests if they know who the Flash character was. Ask guests what they think about comic book art.
Explain that the Flash is a name shared by several fictional comic book superheroes from the DC Comics universe. Created by writer Gardner Fox and artist Harry Lampert, the original Flash first appeared in Flash Comics #1 (January 1940). Nicknamed the Scarlet Speedster, all incarnations of the Flash possess "super-speed", including the ability to run and move extremely fast, use superhuman reflexes and seemingly violate certain laws of physics.
Explain that Basquiat was fascinated by symbols, Roman mythology, comics, and numerous other narrative references.
Writer, curator and gallerist Fred Hoffman called Basquiat’s work “a rich compendium of figurative imagery and references” with “an array of specific textual references to Greek mythology, Roman history, African tribal culture, systems of monetary exchange, and natural commodities, as well as states of health and wellbeing.”
Explain that the neo-expressionist movement in contemporary art was influenced by Pop Art of the 1960s, and formed in reaction to the late 1970s fascination with conceptual and minimalist art.

Did You Know? :: Pablo Picasso, "Musical Instruments and Fruit Bowl on a Pedestal," 1913

2010-07-30T13:06:00.000-07:00

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Clito Ruiz y Picasso, known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso, was born October 25, 1881; he died April 8, 1973.

Pablo Picasso, Musical Instruments and Fruit Bowl on a Pedestal, Fall 1913. Oil on canvas, 39 1/2 x 32 inches. Private Collection. © 2010 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Picasso was baptized Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Crispiniano de la Santísima Trinidad, a series of names honoring various saints and relatives. Added to these were Ruiz and Picasso, for his father and mother, respectively, as per Spanish law. Born in the city of Málaga in the Andalusian region of Spain, he was the first child of Don José Ruiz y Blasco (1838–1913) and María Picasso y López. Picasso’s family was middle-class; his father was also a painter who specialized in naturalistic depictions of birds and other game. For most of his life Ruiz was a professor of art at the School of Crafts and a curator of a local museum. Ruiz’s ancestors were minor aristocrats.

The Blue Period (1901–1904) consists of somber paintings rendered in shades of blue and blue-green, only occasionally warmed by other colors. This period’s starting point is uncertain; it may have begun in Spain in the spring of 1901, or in Paris in the second half of the year. Many paintings of gaunt mothers with children date from this period. In his austere use of color and sometimes doleful subject matter—prostitutes and beggars are frequent subjects—Picasso was influenced by a trip through Spain and by the suicide of his friend Carlos Casagemas.

The Rose Period (1904–1906) is characterized by a more cheery style with orange and pink colors, and featuring many circus people, acrobats and harlequins known in France as saltimbanques. The harlequin, a comedic character usually depicted in checkered patterned clothing, became a personal symbol for Picasso. Picasso met Fernande Olivier, a model for sculptors and artists, in Paris in 1904, and many of these paintings are influenced by his warm relationship with her, in addition to his increased exposure to French painting. The generally upbeat and optimistic mood of paintings in this period is reminiscent of the 1899–1901 period (i.e. just prior to the Blue Period) and 1904 can be considered a transition year between the two periods.

Cubism

Arguably the seminal art movement of the twentieth century, cubism enjoyed only about 12-14 years of prominence before the events of World War I and its aftermath helped to extinguish the avant-garde spirit that brought Cubism into being.

Works in several different cubist styles (see below) are marked by visual abstraction, obfuscation, temporal disorientation, avant-gardist rejections of past values, and the breakdown of class and art hierarchies such as “fine” and “folk” art.

It is hard to overstate the extent to which Cubism developed in a period of rapid change and impending war, shaped by a coalition of artists committed to an idealistic conception of society opposed to war.

Cubism is generally broken into two categories, Analytic Cubism and Synthetic Cubism (see below). However, the two were not distinct movements so much as an evolution of the experimentation of the avant-garde style.

1907-1909 was a period of intense interest in all things “primitive,” especially children’s art, and art from the so-called “primitive cultures” of Africa, Oceania, and indigenous cultures, to which the Primitivist Modernists attributed an authenticity of vision and spontaneity of expression that they felt had been eroded from the contemporary styles of their art forms.

Between 1909-1912 Cubism was widely explored, and the avant-garde experimenters revolted against nineteenth-century academic techniques of perpectival illusionism and the related assumption that a painting must represent a single moment in time and be seen from a fixed point in space (or, for that matter, depict a single position in space). The works of this period experiment with multiple viewpoints, distortions of form, ambiguous spatial relations in part in response to new theories about space and time being developed concurrently.

1907-1914 Cubism has a kind of cultural-political motivation in its subversion of nineteenth-century academic art styles, as well as the development of a kind of French artistic nationalism following the success of cubism.

1912-1914 is the period during which Cubism explodes conceptions of art beyond painting, and reaches into fields of design, architecture, and beyond, through the advent of collage and assemblage sculpture. Collage represented another rejection of academic tradition (oil on canvas) and assemblage problematized traditional sculpture by exploding the dichotomy between “high” and “vernacular” art through the use of everyday materials.

Analytic Cubism (1909–1912) is a style of painting Picasso developed along with Georges Braque using monochrome brownish and neutral colors. Both artists took apart objects and “analyzed” them in terms of their shapes. Picasso and Braque’s paintings at this time have many similarities. Synthetic cubism (1912–1919) was a further development of the genre, in which cut paper fragments—often wallpaper or portions of newspaper pages—were pasted into compositions, marking the first use of collage in fine art.

Analytic Cubism is one of the two major branches of the artistic movement of Cubism, and was developed between 1908 and 1912. In contrast to Synthetic Cubism, Analytic cubists "analyzed" natural forms and reduced the forms into basic geometric parts on the two-dimensional picture plane. Color was almost non-existent except for the use of a monochromatic scheme that often included grey, blue and ochre. Instead of an emphasis on color, Analytic cubists focused on forms like the cylinder, sphere and the cone to represent the natural world.

During this movement, the works produced by Picasso and Braque shared stylistic similarities. Both Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque moved toward abstraction, leaving only enough signs of the real world to supply a tension between the reality outside the painting and the complicated meditations on visual language within the frame.

In Paris in 1907 a major museum retrospective exhibition of the work of Paul Cézanne opened shortly after his death. The exhibition was enormously influential in establishing Cézanne as an important painter whose ideas were particularly resonant among young artists in Paris. Both Picasso and Braque found the inspiration for Cubism from Paul Cézanne, who said to observe and learn to see and treat nature as if it were composed of basic shapes like cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones. Some believe that the roots of cubism are to be found in the two distinct tendencies of Cézanne's later work: firstly to break the painted surface into small multifaceted areas of paint, thereby emphasizing the plural viewpoint given by binocular vision; and secondly, his interest in the simplification of natural forms into cylinders, spheres, and cones. However, the cubists explored this concept further than Cézanne; they represented all the surfaces of depicted objects in a single picture plane, as if the objects had had all their faces visible at the same time. This new kind of depiction revolutionized the way in which objects could be visualized in painting and art.

Synthetic Cubism was the second main movement within Cubism that was developed by Picasso, Braque, Juan Gris and others between 1912 and 1919. Synthetic cubism is characterized by the introduction of different textures, surfaces, collage elements, papier collé and a large variety of merged subject matter. It was the beginning of collage materials being introduced as an important ingredient of fine art work.

Considered the first work of this new style was Pablo Picasso's "Still Life with Chair-caning" (1911–1912), which includes oil cloth that was printed to look like chair-caning pasted onto an oval canvas, with text; and rope framing the whole picture. At the upper left are the letters "JOU", which appear in many cubist paintings and refers to the news-paper titled "Le Journal.” Newspaper clippings, sheet music, and like items were also included in the collages. Whereas Analytic Cubism was an analysis of the subjects (pulling them apart into planes), Synthetic Cubism is more of a pushing of several objects together. Less pure than Analytic Cubism, Synthetic Cubism has fewer planar shifts (or schematism), and less shading, creating flatter space.

Thinking about the Altered Landscape

2010-07-30T13:04:00.000-07:00

Patricia Nelson Limerick’s essay in NMA’s 1999 book The Altered Landscape considers the meaning of the word ‘altered’ as it is used to describe the work of the ‘New Topographics’ artists and their followers. Limerick is an accomplished writer and historian who deals with issues of the American West. About ‘altered’ she writes:

“This flexible and hardworking word supplies three rich meanings for the price of one. After two hundred years of American colonization, the West has indeed been altered, in the sense of changed, made different, modified. In cheerful and positive terms, it has been reshaped and resewn in order to make a better fit for the needs and habits of the humans who have colonized it. And in the glummest of terms, the West has been castrated, neutered, and robbed of its power.”

Limerick looks at the validity of all three definitions and leaves the answers to the viewer. She asks, “Can one celebrate and admire these photographers and still find much of their work irritating? You bet! A photograph can attract and still scrape and scratch at the viewer’s mind.” She points out that this work can irritate us because it doesn’t come with packaged answers. We have to figure it out ourselves – ultimately a satisfying task! And she believes that whatever the passion and convictions a photographer may have, “taking a photograph requires the photographer to calm down, think, plan, and hold still – a discipline, regrettably, forced on few other professions.”

She talks about walls of buildings – “the most easily recognized lines between the human sphere and the natural sphere” – and how the different photographers consider them. She talks about light: “And light, artificial light, just as much as natural light, is a wonder and a miracle, as a number of these photographs remind us. Over the last century, night has been transformed; starlight and moonlight may hold onto a magic that a light bulb will not match, but starlight and moonlight nonetheless dim when they compete with the radiance of electrical light. Lewis Baltz’s photograph of a construction site at night returns us to the familiar slippage of the border between inside and outside and suggests that anything may happen in this luminous place; a prophet might come upon a vision; hope might get a new life; a new life might be conceived and born. Of course, it is a construction site; of course it is an artifact of the despoliation of a more-or-less intact Western landscape; of course it is an imposition of sovereign, arrogant human will on the earth. The house is also quite a beautiful arrangement of line and light.”

“ The West has been altered, adapted to a better fit with human activity, and one element of that adaptation is that the nights are a lot brighter. It is a great deal easier after sunset to read, write, cook, sew, and look at one another than it was a century ago, to spend the evening watching TV or using a computer. Dams, coal-fired plants, and nuclear power plants made this possible. And now some people tap into these omnipresent power lines, turn on their computers, and write impassioned denunciations of the injuries inflicted on the West by the production of cheap electrical power.” But as a counterpoint to that she points out that, “All the exercises of power recorded in these photographs, exercises in earth-moving, dam building, house-constructing, road making, and power distributing have trashed landscapes that someone loved.”

Limerick feels that whether or not we are religious, we do subscribe to the story of the loss of Eden; as if we, through our relentless development, have lots our chance to live in Paradise. “By altering the Western landscape, by neutering it and stripping it of its power, we arranged for our departure from Eden. Americans themselves barred their own way back to Eden, and barred it not with a dramatic flaming sword, but with the sheer prosaic passage of time and the even more prosaic development of business and real estate. We locked the door back to Eden – not with swords, cherubim, and many-headed beasts, but with subdivisions, parking lots, commercial shopping strips, dams, highway interchanges and power lines.”

She speaks of some of the Altered Landscape photographs that depict places where nature truly has been savaged by development. And yet she reminds us that Nineteenth-Century America, with its civil wars, slavery, mistreatment of Native Americans and widespread poverty was not a paradise. “The great consolation of the historian’s life comes in the dozens of reminders that the past holds no golden age. Life today is a mess. Fortunately, life in the past was also a mess...Let me put this gently; those who see in the desecration of Western nature a ratification of the legend of the Fall, those who think that we are now living in desperate and declined times, would find some relief for their terrible sense of loss if they put down the newspaper and read a little history.”

Limerick speaks of two Wests: “ the out-of-doors, wide-open-spaced, dirt-dominated rural West, and the enclosed-spaced, walled-off, indoors, asphalt-covered urban West.” They are “trying, not very successfully, to work out a virtually agreeable zoning code. The loudest voices from the rural West ask for the freedom to make a living from the land; they demand their right to continue to practice ‘traditional’ land uses that are, in fact, barely a century old. The most audible requests from the city, meanwhile, ask for the rural West to be defined primarily as a place for urbanites to drive, hike, ski, ride mountain bikes, camp, romp, stay in bed-and-breakfasts, admire views, and recover from the pressures of life in the city. She points out that so many in the cities never consider where their food comes from, where their lumber comes from, or how it is that heat and light appear in their homes. “There is a chance that these fine-tuned urbanites would starve, or freeze, or spend their evenings in the dark if they succeeded in imposing their standards on rural America.”

Lastly, Limerick writes about aerial photography which shows “the surface of the planet as a canvas marked by geological and biological forces and by acts of the human will. Viewed from the vantage point of the sky, the transformation of the world by patterns of electric light at night leaves one stunned and speechless. Viewed from above, roads become hieroglyphics carved into the earth. In their arbitrariness and cryptic logic the roads become riddles in dirt.”

“The photographs in the Altered Landscape collection permit us to respond to ourselves, and to the messages we have marked into the earth. The photographers themselves do not pose a detached and omniscient group of observers. They admit, instead, to being part of the species that does both the looking and the marking.”

--Kathleen Durham

Did You Know? Tim Hawkinson: Totem

2010-05-25T14:55:00.000-07:00

BIOGRAPHY
Tim Hawkinson was born in 1960 in San Francisco. He graduated from Cal State San Jose and later earned his MFA from UCLA. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles. A twenty-year survey of his work was shown at the Whitney and then again at LACMA in 2005. Hawkinson’s work consists of drawings, prints, and photo-collages; however, he is most recognized for his sculptural creations. Hawkinson’s human-centric sculptures are often abstracted representations of his own body and usually incorporate homemade mechanical inventions in their creation and/or completion. His sculptures range greatly in size from his two inch sculpture of a bird skeleton made from his own fingernails to the stadium-sized installation at MassMOCA (and later at the Getty) of “Überorgan” – a fully automated bagpipe-like creation of inflated plastic sheeting resembling internal organs that emit an original groaning musical compilation.

Überorgan, 2000

Bird, 1997

Hawkinson’s work has a distinct handmade quality. He works with ordinary materials in unusual ways. He is known for his simple mechanical innovations in the creations of his sculptures. In his sculpture Signature Chair (1993) Hawkinson used a repurposed record player to create a machine that would automatically crank out copies of his signature. In Hawkinson’s intestine-like drawing Wall Chart of World History from Earliest Times to the Present (1997) he created a drawing tool using a basic drill with a pen attachment to create his large-scale linear drawing.

TOTEM, 2009

Hawkinson uses recognizable, ordinary, scavenged, personal and or collected materials to create his extraordinary sculptures. In Totem you will notice the forms of various plastic bottles and containers. The fountain we have on display at the Museum was based on a 2007 collaged sculpture of the same name made of string, plastic containers and papier mache. The Totem (2009) fountain on display is one of an edition of four. The one at the Nevada Museum of Art is the first installation of the piece. It is here on loan from the Pace Wildenstein Gallery in New York.

TRADITIONAL TOTEM POLES

Totem poles are attributed to the indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest Coast and are traditionally carved from cedar. Totems vary greatly in subject matter but were traditionally used to illustrate local legends, family lineage, notable happenings or personal tributes.

TOUR FRAMEWORK

Ask visitors to think about this sculpture without the water. How does the water change the way we interpret the sculpture?

Ask visitors to think of the storytelling aspects of traditional totems and to create a story about Hawkinson’s modern Totem.

Ask visitors to think about the relationship between Native American cultural traditions and land use and water use conflicts and how this might relate to Hawkinson’s sculpture.

Ask visitors to think how this sculpture might relate to modern-day issues of consumption and waste.

Views from China: Yang Yongliang and the Modern Metropolis

2010-04-28T10:58:00.000-07:00

Did You Know? :: Views from China: Yang Yongliang and the Modern Metropolis

Yang Yongliang, Viridescence, Stock World, 2009. Inkjet print on paper, 16 x47 inches. Courtesy of the artist and LIMN Gallery, San Francisco.

Main Text
Upon first glance, Yang Yongliang’s photographs appear as dreamlike Chinese paintings, not unlike the traditional Chinese art he studied extensively as a student at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Upon closer inspection, however, one finds that his works are cleverly crafted from montaged digital photographs of China’s bustling cities—and then manipulated into haunting imaginary landscapes that critique China’s rapidly developing built environment.

Born in 1980, Yongliang is a resident of Shanghai, China, who depends heavily on a camera and a laptop computer to make his art. Using only these tools—and a knowledge of traditional Chinese painting—Yongliang invents urban scenes that depict skyscrapers under construction, freeway systems, electrical power plants, and bustling urban corridors. His compositions reveal the impacts of technological progress that China has undergone over past decades.

Between the years 1966 and 1976, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, the nation of China experienced a period of political instability. During this time, artistic production came under strict government supervision. Yongliang is among a generation of young artists who came of age after the Chinese Cultural Revolution, and therefore embraces a level of artistic freedom that is not common among earlier generations of Chinese artists. This is Yongliang’s first solo museum exhibition in the United States.

Traditional Chinese Scroll Painting

Handscrolls provide a continuous horizontal surface of silk or paper on which to develop a composition. Though often displayed in their entirety in museums, traditional handscrolls are meant to be viewed by only one or two people and unrolled from right to left two or three feet at a time. In this way, the viewer may "travel" through a story or landscape that conveys a progression of time. Separate papers containing titles or colophons may also be attached and the complete scroll mounted with silk boards. A wooden dowel is attached on the left end of the scroll and a semicircular rod at the other end. After viewing, the scroll is rolled up around the dowel from left to right and secured with ties.

Hanging scrolls provide the artist with a vertical format for an image. The painting surface of paper or silk is mounted with decorative silk borders. A wooden rod is attached at the bottom to give the scroll the necessary weight to hang smoothly on a wall, as well as a means of being rolled up for storage. A thin wooden strip with a cord is attached at the top for hanging the scroll. The composition of a hanging scroll usually places the foreground at the bottom of the scroll with the middle and far distances moving upward toward the top of the scroll. Hanging scrolls are displayed only for short periods of time and are then rolled up from bottom to top and secured with ties for storage.

Scholar Officials Chinese painters and calligraphers were often members of an educated class of men. Their formal education in classic Chinese literary, historical, and philosophical texts, as well as in the history of Chinese calligraphy, painting and music, was considered essential for a cultured man. Their knowledge was highly respected in Chinese society. An educated man's responsibility was to use his knowledge to serve his ruler, the emperor, and to improve society. By the beginning of the Song dynasty (960–1279), scholars or educated men were generally required to pass a series of difficult exams to serve in the government.

Seals are impressions made from carved stones or other media pressed into a thick, red, oil-based paste. They are affixed to a document, painting, or calligraphy to certify authorship or ownership. Since artists and writers typically used several names throughout their lives, they had several seals inscribed with their given names, artistic names, the names of their studios, and, possibly, an identifying literary expression. Usually rectangular or round, seal designs are cut into materials such as jade, ivory, and soapstone. If the characters are incised, they will appear white in the impression; if carved in relief, they will appear red. The script often used for seals derives from an ancient script, known as "seal script," used during the late Zhou (ca. 1050–256 B.C.) and Qin (221–206 B.C.) dynasties.

Yin and Yang constitute an ancient, fundamental concept that describes the underlying nature and order within the universe. The interaction between these two polar, yet complementary, opposites can be seen in nature: the darkness of night leads to the brightness of day. Yin is associated with darkness, softness, water, passivity, the moon, the feminine, and the earth. Yang is associated with brightness, activity, the masculine, the sun, fire, and the sky.

Gee's Bend and Printmaking @ Paulson Bott Press

2010-02-17T10:13:00.000-08:00

Click here for a short video about Gee's Bend at Paulson Bott Press

Click here for a short video about intaglio printmaking at Paulson Bott Press

Click here for a short demonstration of the intaglio printmaking process at Paulson Bott Press

For a Little Fun...

2010-02-12T13:17:00.000-08:00

Did You Know :: Penelope Gottlieb: No $ Down

2010-02-12T10:34:00.000-08:00

Penelope Gottlieb: No $ Down

Introduction

Penelope Gottlieb was born in Los Angeles and grew up next to the infamous housing development, Mt. Olympus. She received her BFA from Art Center College of Design and her MFA from UC – Santa Barbara. Her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries as well as the Krannert Art Museum. Her work is represented in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 21c Museum, the Drawing Center New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, and numerous corporate collections, including the Fannie Mae Corporation.

Text Panel
For nearly a decade, Penelope Gottlieb has worked to produce a series of drawings that examine the archetypal American dream of home ownership, while also exploring the idea of the house as a status symbol, marker of class identity, and focal point of desire. In NO $ DOWN, Gottlieb’s colored-pencil drawings catalogue frontal views of popular domestic architecture. From storybook homes and tract houses to traditional bungalows and numerous other architectural styles, Gottlieb offers an artistic response to the complex and evolving narrative of real estate in America.

To create her drawings, Gottlieb scours newspaper ads and real estate magazines, seizing on small photographs of houses, which become the inspiration for her finely-detailed, monochromatic renderings—some of which are based on advertisements published in Reno-area newspapers that Gottlieb collected during a recent trip to northern Nevada. Once Gottlieb completes a work, she matches it with a vintage “fixer-upper” frame, which she then elaborately “refurbishes” and paints to match the correlating drawing. This process wryly mimics the act of “flipping” houses that was common during the real estate boom of the last decade.

Gottlieb’s installation of No $ Down also includes a selection of white-washed furniture based on interiors from popular television sitcoms such as The Beverly Hillbillies and The Jeffersons. Both of these television programs implicitly linked class status with home ownership, and Gottlieb’s inclusion of these items draws attention to that complex phenomenon. Contemporary perceptions of home ownership, Gottlieb acknowledges, have changed dramatically over the past year due to America’s economic downturn. On a final wall of the gallery, Gottlieb hangs a wall of souvenir glass plates, each imprinted with an image of a single family home. These delicate plates encourage viewers to reflect on the American Dream of home ownership—a dream that has recently proven to be more fragile than ever.

Tour Framework

Ask guests (especially children!) to find a drawing of a house that reminds them of their own home or the home of someone they know.

Ask guests to look at the titles of the works—where do the titles of Penelope Gottlieb’s works come from?

Explain that Gottlieb’s drawings consider the implications of the housing boom, banking fiascos, and history of the idea of the American Dream of home ownership.

Explain that although resonant because of their subject matter in today’s economy, the works are also related to art historical precedents, including photorealism and especially the paintings of Robert Bechtle; later painting by artists such as Darlene Campbell and Salomón Huerta; and the photography of such artists as Joe Deal, Henry Wessel, Rondal Partridge, Robert Adams, Robert Isaacs, Robert Dawson, Laurie Brown, Fandra Chang and Jeff Brouws.

Ask guests about how they think the dream of home ownership is tied to the “American Dream.”

Ask guests about their thoughts regarding the current economic downturn and how the spate of home foreclosures in Nevada is effecting the “American Dream” and the “dream of home ownership.”

Docent Note: A Timeline for Raphael's Life

2010-02-12T10:20:00.000-08:00

A Timeline for Raphael

1483 – Raphael is born in Urbino, Northeastern Italy, on Good Friday.. His father, Giovanni Santi, is an artist and poet attached to the very sophisticated court there.

1491 – His mother dies

1494 – His father dies. Raphael is apprenticed to Perugino at some point in his teens.

1495 (Leonardo da Vinci completes Last Supper, Michelangelo completes Pieta)

1499 – (Michelangelo completes Vatican Pieta)

1500 – At 17, Raphael is a master in his own right. Does commissions and collaborations in Perugia, Siena, Citta di Castello

1503-6 – (Leonardo - Mona Lisa).

1504 – Raphael moves to Florence. (Michelangelo installs David )

1505-7 – Raphael works in Florence and Perugia

1506 (Pope Julius II hires Bramante to rebuild Saint Peter’s)

1508 –Raphael moves to Rome, starts work on frescos for the Vatican Stanze (rooms) for Pope Julius II. (Michelangelo starts on the Sistine Ceiling)

1509- (Albrecht Durer does woodcut of Christ Driving the Moneychangers from the Temple)

1510 – Raphael meets Agostino Chigi who will commission architectural projects as well as painting.

1512 – Raphael does Portrait of Julius II and the Sistine Madonna

1513 –Pope Julius II dies, is replaced by Leo X, a Medici

1514 – Raphael works on Stanze, appointed architect of Saint Peter’s on Bramante’s death, does private architectural work

1514-15 –Raphael does portraits of Castiglione, La Velata,

1515- Raphael is appointed by Pope to oversee all archaeological excavations, and to use what he wants in the restoration of St Peter’s

1517- Martin Luther posts his Theses in reaction to the excessive amounts Pope was levying ( through indulgences), to pay for restoration of St Peter’s – start of Reformation!

1518 –Raphael works on plans for St. Peter’s with asst architect Sangallo. Raphael does a portrait of Pope Leo X. He is by this time running a large workshop with many artists.

1518-19 –Raphael paints La Fornarina

1519 – Leonardo dies in France

1520 – Raphael, works on panel of Transfiguration. He dies on Good Friday, April 6. His fiancee, Maria Bibbiena, preceded him in death earlier this year. They are both buried in the Pantheon. His leaves money for the woman who was said to be his true love (and maybe his wife?) – Margherita Luti, known as the Fornarina, (the baker’s daughter). In August of this year a woman of the same name, listed as a widow, enters the protection of the convent of S. Apollonia

1550 – Vasari writes the first true art history, The Lives of the Artists, and is thus Raphael’s first biographer.

1564 – Michelangelo dies.

-- Kathleen Durham

Docent Note: Getting to Know La Velata

2010-02-12T10:17:00.000-08:00

Getting to Know La Velata

Suppose someone finds a picture of you 500 years from now. What could they figure out about you? This picture is almost 500 years old. It is a portrait . Do you know what a portrait is? Let’s try to figure out something about this lady. She is called La Velata, which means ‘The Veiled One’, and sometimes she is called Incognita, the ‘Unknown One’..

What can you tell us about her?

Who painted her?

Where did they live? Where is that?

Did they have electric lights? TV? Computers?

How old is she?

Is she wealthy, or poor? Why?

Why do you think she is wearing a veil?

How much of her can we see?

Does she look happy?

What words would you use to describe her?

Why do you think she had her portrait made?

Do you think she has a job?

Would she wear those clothes to work?

Do you think she ever wore jeans?

Why is this painting special?

Have you ever had a portrait made?

Did you wear something special?

Can a photograph be a portrait?

-- Kathleen Durham

Docent Note: La Velata

2010-02-12T09:47:00.000-08:00

LA VELATA

We have only one painting to consider here, but it is probably Raphael’s crowning achievement in the field of portraiture. Raphael was known in the 1500s as he is today for the beauty of the madonnas he painted. He often spoke of an ideal conception of beauty that he used in his earlier madonnas. While in Florence he perfected ‘sfumato’, that soft smoky transition between colors that was developed by Leonardo. In another nod to Leonardo, Raphael began to do his portraits in half-length, which shows the sitter’s hands, instead of the old bust-length style. Once in Rome his portraits (and madonnas) reached a new level. They were no longer paintings of what people looked like. They were paintings that showed the inner essence of the sitter. Notable among these was the portrait of his friend Baldassare Castiglione, the painting that so impressed Rembrandt. The quiet direct gaze of the courtier, the soft colors and transitions, and the amazing fabrics – all worked together to set a new standard for portraiture.

The same year Raphael painted La Velata. Almost five hundred years later we can feel her warm gaze, and marvel at the perfectly modelled face and neck, the colors of her skin. We see her exactly as Raphael did. What amazing care he gave to her clothing! Julia Addison, a Victorian writer, felt that La Velata is holding her loose bodice with one hand, as if it were being removed. The texture of the flimsy gathered chemisette contrasts with the crisp damask of the slashed sleeve with its gold lining and trim, and with the long sheer veil. So much tender detail!

So who is she? Most people believe she is Raphael’s long-time lover, his true love, Margherita Luti, also known as the ‘Fornarina’,( the baker’s daughter.). Raphael was engaged for years to Maria Bibbiena, a niece of a Cardinal, but this portrait is not of Maria. There is no doubt that Raphael was fond of women. Giorgio Vasari, his first biographer, felt that Raphael’s early death came from an excess of romantic activity!

Raphael always put off his marriage to Maria. There is speculation that because of her uncle Cardinal Bibbiena, it would not have been wise politically for Raphael to break off the engagement. At any rate, Maria died in 1520 shortly before Raphael himself. In his will he specified that he should be buried with Maria at the Pantheon, but he also left an amount of money to Margherita. Several months after Raphael’s death, a woman who called herself ‘ Margherita Luti, widow’, entered the convent of S. Appollonia

Many critics believe that it is obvious from the depth of feeling in the portrait of La Velata that she was indeed Raphael’s true love. A German scholar, Oskar Fischel, called it a “commission of his (Raphael’s) own, in the midst of the great frescoes and orders for altarpieces.......a love-prompted improvisation”. There are those who feel that he was secretly married to Margherita Luti. Some say that since La Velata wears a veil as married Roman women did, that she could even be the new wife of his patron Agostino Chigi. Others say that he painted his love with a veil because they were married!

Whoever she was, Raphael used her face for the Sistine Madonna and for the Madonna of the Chair. In another portrait, La Fornarina, Raphael painted a woman who resembles La Velata. But here she wears nothing but a flimsy veil covering the lower half of her body. On her arm is a band with his name on it, and in her hair is a jeweled pearl ornament which appears to be the same jewel that La Velata wears. Recent cleaning has revealed a ring on her finger, setting off another round of speculation about the possibility that Raphael was secretly married to Margherita. It appears that no one will ever know the truth about La Velata’s identity. But does it matter? A Victorian poet, William Allen Butler, wrote a long poem about La Incognita (The Unknown One), another title often used then for La Velata. Here are the first few lines:

“Long has the summer sunlight shone
on the fair form, the quaint costume;
Yet, nameless still, she sits, unknown,
A lady in her youthful bloom.

Fairer for this! No shadows cast
Their blight upon her perfect lot,
Whate’er her future or her past
In this bright monument matters not.

La Velata remains a favorite at the art-filled Pitti Palace. It is such a privilege for us to be able to see her here, all by herself.

Raphael’s influence has continued through the years. We know, of course, that he influenced Rembrandt. The ongoing delicious gossip about La Velata/La Fornarina inspired Ingres to do a painting showing Margherita Luti on Raphael’s lap in front of an easel with the portrait of La Fornarina. Raphael was hugely popular in the Victorian era – much more so than his contemporaries, Leonardo and Michelangelo. The Victorians idolized him -Whittier, Browning, Butler, and Longfellow wrote poems about him, and engravings of Raphael’s paintings were everywhere. Manet used figures taken directly from an engraving after Raphael for his famous Dejeuner. And Picasso revived the mystery by drawing Raphael and his lover, with the Pope watching, and Michelangelo under the bed!

For a large part of the Twentieth Century Raphael was marginalized, probably as a result of way too many bad reproductions of his work, along with renewed interest in Michelangelo and Leonardo. But in recent years there has been renewed scholarly respect and popular interest in his work. A drawing of Raphael’s just sold at auction for the highest price ever paid for a work on paper.

--Kathleen Durham

Docent Note: Raphael and the Renaissance

2010-02-12T09:44:00.000-08:00

RAPHAEL AND THE RENAISSANCE

Art historians will forever argue about when the Renaissance began, and exactly what it was. They are all in agreement, however, about its culmination in the ‘High Renaissance’, a period beginning about 1495 and ending roughly with Raphael’s death in 1520. The three stellar artists of the High Renaissance were Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael. (Michelangelo outlived Raphael by forty-four years, but the work of his later years changed in style and is not properly classified as ‘Renaissance’ but rather as Mannerism.)

So what does this term meaning ‘re-birth’ say to us? Many feel that this period began with Giotto (1267-1337) who brought life to painting with figures who had weight, and movement and real emotion. And his contemporary Duccio, in Siena (1278-1319), changed traditional stylized Byzantine painting into an Italian Gothic form with movement and real narrative. But it was not until the 1400s in Florence that these innovations flowered into an amazing period of growth in art and literature. In art, with Masaccio, Donatello, Lippi, Gozzoli, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, to name just a few, there was a new interest in naturalism, in perspective, in how to depict a figure in real space, and in the classical models of Greece and Rome. This period from 1420 to 1500 is generally known as the Early Renaissance.

So – Leonardo was born in 1452, Michelangelo in 1475, and Raphael in 1483 in Urbino. Raphael’s father was a poet and painter and was connected to the court of Urbino. Both of Raphael’s parents died when he was very young, and he was apprenticed as a teenager to Perugino, a painter of exquisite altarpieces. Raphael learned his style, as was the custom then, and executed many commissions with other painters and on his own. By the time he was seventeen, he was a master in his own right. In 1504 he moved to Florence, where he saw the work of Leonardo and Michelangelo. He must have known how difficult it would be to reach their levels of knowledge and powerful work. But he did just that. His career spanned only twenty years, but in that time he was able to assimilate the best of his contemporaries’ work and form his own distinct style.

In 1508 he moved to Rome and began to work for Pope Julius II, painting the walls of the Vatican Stanze (rooms). The paintings on these walls are a testament to Raphael’s achievement of perfect form and composition, the hallmarks of the High Renaissance . In these paintings one sees his ability to combine a large number of beautifully painted figures harmoniously, in a believable space, so that it is as pleasing to view the entire composition as it is to examine the beautiful details. If he had done just one of these frescoes – The School of Athens, for example, it alone would have earned him the right to be named in the same breath as Leonardo and Michelangelo.

In the next twelve years, until his death at 37, he continued to do frescoes for the Popes, but was also a portrait painter, an architect, and an archaeologist. He had been given a Papal commission to restore Saint Peter’s, and was also named archaeologist in charge of Roman excavations. And, unlike Leonardo and Michelangelo, he was able to transcend the position of artist as craftsman, and move freely as an equal in the Vatican court and social circles. He was apparently universally loved and appreciated. His first biographer, Giorgio Vasari, wrote: “As excellent as he was graceful, Raphael was modest and good...in Raphael the rarest qualities of the heart shown forth.”

When he died in 1520, The Transfiguration, his last panel painting, was displayed at his funeral, and he was buried in the Pantheon, a signal honor.

--Kathleen Durham

Raphael: The Woman with the Veil Tour Blueprint

2010-02-12T09:32:00.000-08:00

January 9 – March 21, 2010

Introduction

The exhibition of Raphael: The Woman with the Veil is presented by the E.L. Wiegand Foundation’s Arte Italia, organized by the Portland Art Museum, the Nevada Museum of Art, and the Milwaukee Art Museum and supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. This exhibition was made possible by the Foundation for Italian Art and Culture (FIAC).

FIAC

The Foundation for Italian Art and Culture, FIAC, is a non-profit organization established in New York City in 2003. FIAC's main purpose is to promote the knowledge and the appreciation of the Italian cultural and artistic traditions from the classical period to modern times in the United States, working closely with the Italian Ministry of Culture to accomplish this mission. In addition to sponsoring its own programs and exhibitions, FIAC acts as an intermediary between Italy and the United States to facilitate exchanges between American and Italian institutions.

Arte ITALIA

Founded in 2008, Arte ITALIA promotes the exploration and conservation of Italian culture, including innovative exhibitions of classic Italian art and culinary programs showcasing visiting regional Italian chefs. Arte ITALIA is located in the historic Joseph Giraud House at 442 Flint on the northeast corner of California Avenue. The historic house, built in 1914, was designed by Nevada’s premier architect Frederic De Longchamps and was recently remodeled to share Italy’s rich culture with visitors.

The presentation of Raphael: The Woman with the Veil represents Arte ITALIA’s first major collaboration with the Nevada Museum of Art and serves as a model for the type of joint programming that will elevate the level of cultural life in northern Nevada. Given its historical and cultural significance, and the fact that the renowned painting has rarely left Italy, its exhibition in Reno presents a unique opportunity for the public to see, experience, and learn from a masterpiece that fully captures the ideals of Italy’s Renaissance.

Please visit Arte ITALIA to further explore the life and work of Raphael. Walking directions are available on the gallery brochure, and can also be obtained at the Main Admissions Desk. For more information about Arte ITALIA, please visit arteitaliausa.org.

Docents: Those of you leading public tours on Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays: Please conclude your tour of The Woman with the Veil by offering to guide your tour goers to Arte Italia physically. If they wish not to go at the time you offer, please encourage visitors to make the short walk down California Avenue to the home of Arte Italia in the historic Giraud House at 442 Flint Street.

Text Panels

Who Was Raphael?

In his own time and afterward, Raphael was considered one of the greatest painters who ever lived, and the rival and equal of his contemporaries Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. He was born in 1483 in Urbino, a city famous for its rich artistic, intellectual, literary, and musical culture. Raphael studied first under his father, Giovanni Santi, a painter and poet in the court of Urbino’s ruler, and then with the city’s leading painter, Perugino. By 1504, Raphael had settled in Florence, where, like many others, he came under the influence of Leonardo da Vinci. His reputation grew, and in 1508, Raphael was summoned to Rome by Pope Julius II to decorate the Stanze della Segnatura, a suite of private rooms belonging to the Pope. He was soon put in charge of all papal projects involving architecture, painting, decoration, and the preservation of antiquities. In Rome, Raphael’s art attracted international esteem and demanded extraordinary prices. While living there, he also completed remarkable portraits of the people surrounding the papal court. It was in this later period that he painted La Velata.

During his lifetime, Raphael was tremendously successful and deeply admired. There are many reasons for this, including his profound abilities as a draftsman and “composer” of pictorial elements; his ease at adapting to and assimilating new styles and innovations; his ambition and productivity; and his intellectualism and social skills. Unlike most painters at the time, Raphael wrote sonnets and befriended intellectuals, poets, and writers. These talents coincided with new ideas at the time concerning the role and status of artists, who were no longer viewed simply as trained craftsmen, but rather as professionals in their field. Raphael’s sudden death in 1520, at the age of 37, was said to have “plunged into grief the entire papal court.”

Was She Raphael’s Mistress?

The renowned Italian biographer of artists Giorgio Vasari, who lived two generations after Raphael’s La Velata was made, claimed that the model for the painting was Raphael’s mistress. That opinion stems from the demure eroticism of the portrait and from its likeness to another famous painting by Raphael, La Fornarina, made between 1518 and 1520, which almost certainly does represent the artist’s lover.

Raphael’s La Fornarina shows a woman, nearly nude except for a turban and a diaphanous veil, sitting in a grove of myrtle and laurel trees, which were well-known symbols of sexual desire. On her left arm she wears a type of band usually found on ancient statues of Venus. The band is prominently inscribed with Raphael’s name, suggesting an intimacy between the artist and sitter. But the question of whether the models for La Velata and La Fornarina are the same woman is not easily answered since the two were painted in very different manners. Whereas La Fornarina is filled with details that signal the woman’s relationship with Raphael, La Velata seems to obscure precise identification.

Almost three hundred years later, the famous French artist, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, further perpetuated rumors about Raphael’s amorous affair with La Fornarina. Ingres’ 1814 painting, Raphael and La Fornarina, depicts Raphael and his mistress embracing during a studio modeling session, while a drawing of his muse rests on an easel nearby.

Raphael’s Portraits

It is possible that the woman in Raphael’s La Velata may not represent a specific person at all, but instead an ideal one. Painted portraits in the Renaissance were not always concerned with achieving the true likeness of a person. Like other artists of his time, Raphael believed the painter’s role was not merely to imitate the world as it appeared, but rather to transform and idealize reality using skill and intellect. This idea had a long history, particularly when it came to portraying women. Renaissance painters and poets alike sought to outdo each other when creating—in paint or in words—the most affecting images of beautiful women. Another of Raphael’s well-known portraits embodying the qualities of Renaissance-era portraiture is that of Maddalena Doni (1506), which depicts a recently wedded bride adorned with jewelry and clothing that establishes her social status.

In seeking to capture with paint the “essence” of female beauty, Raphael’s portraits owe much to Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting Mona Lisa (1503-1506), which Raphael almost certainly saw and studied. Look closely at the two paintings. In La Velata, Raphael assimilated the Mona Lisa’s pose: including her direct, intimate gaze, and the expressive placement of her hands. All of these details contribute to our sense of her vivid “presence” and her complex inner life. Thus, regardless of who the model for La Velata was, through Raphael’s discerning eye and brush she has been made to embody and bring to life an ideal of female beauty.

The Italian Renaissance

Often considered one of the greatest eras of cultural achievement, the Italian Renaissance (spanning from about the late 1200s to 1600) was characterized by heightened intellectual endeavor, increased private and papal cultural patronage, and innovations in the fields of poetry, literature, philosophy, science, architecture, music, and the fine arts. The word Renaissance (rinasciamento in Italian) translates to “rebirth,” which at the time signaled a renewed interest and commitment to the study of the culture, arts, and humanist philosophy that had earlier emerged during classical antiquity. Although the Renaissance influence spanned throughout Europe, in Italy, the cultural resurgence was centered in the northern region of Tuscany and was eventually felt widely in Rome.

The Italian Renaissance movement in fine art is most often associated with three men—Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael—who espoused painting and sculptural techniques emphasizing the idealized human form, the creation of three-dimensional perspective, and balanced spatial harmony. During this period, these artists enjoyed commissions from some of Italy’s wealthiest clients—including the Medici family of Florence and later the papacy of the Roman Catholic Church. Although the Medici family, did not originally commission Raphael to paint La Velata, the painting eventually fell into their hands when its original owner Marquis Matteo Botti failed to pay his debts. Since that time, it has been housed at the famous Palazzo Pitti—a vast Renaissance palace in Florence that was once the primary home of the Medici family and the majority of their Renaissance treasures.

The Frame

The study of picture frames in general, and of Renaissance frames in particular, is a discipline in its infancy. Historic frames have always been the poor cousins of important collections of paintings and drawings. Throughout most of the modern era, original frames were discarded whenever a painting changed ownership, and a new frame more suitable to the work of art's new surroundings was provided. Only in the late nineteenth century did museums and private collectors develop an interest in historical authenticity that extended to frames as well as to the objects they contained. By that time, frames more than one or two hundred years old had grown exceedingly rare.

The elaborate frame that encases La Velata actually has a long and interesting history. The painting had for many years been in the collection of the Italian merchant Marquis Matteo Botti, but when Botti failed to pay his debts to his lenders, the Medici Family of Florence stepped in and paid them for him---in exchange for his entire art collection. In 1620, the Medici Family commissioned a craftsman to make this frame for La Velata. Each side of the ornate gold frame is decorated with carved griffins—legendary creatures portrayed with a lion’s body and eagle’s head and wings. The frame also has two hinges on its right side that are still used when the painting is on permanent display at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. The hinges allow the painting to be opened like a cabinet for exposure to nearby natural light, thereby allowing copyists a better view of the painting.

Orientation

Europe in the Sixteenth Century

Social, intellectual, and religious unrest transformed European culture in the sixteenth century. Nearly continuous warfare pocked the European continent, and factions and rulers of numerous nation-states vied for power, land, and resources of all kinds, especially economic ones. Advances in cartography, astronomy and navigation led the way in the early period of what we now know as the scientific revolution. The advent of the printing press just a few decades earlier provided an enormous boost to the power of the written word and the advance of literacy and knowledge. The Habsburg (Holy Roman) Empire was widely acknowledged as the greatest power in Europe, if not the world, and yet shifting alliances, diplomatic efforts and military force changed the landscape frequently. The Church was an important player in this scene, wielding power, diplomacy, and military strength of its own. Indulgences (relief from punishment of sins, followed by absolution and forgiveness of sins for the insurance of salvation) were a common practice of the Church for centuries. The popularization that indulgences could be offered in exchange for financial contributions to the Church during the reign of Pope Julius II, Raphael’s patron, became one of the first targets of those within the established Church who began to seek internal reform, later known as the leaders of the Reformation.

Italy in the 16th Century: The High Renaissance

Conceptions of the Renaissance vary widely. This is partly because it represents the burgeoning of so many different areas of knowledge historically, and because it represents such a wide-ranging and complex cultural phenomenon. Thus, it can’t really be unanimously defined. More agreement exists about the Italian High Renaissance, which is said to have begun in the 1490s and lasted until the Sack of Rome in 1527 by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. It is sometimes referred to as the “High Renaissance,” “Imperial Style,” and the “classical phase” of the Renaissance. Ultimately, this style of art—characterized by the advancement of oil as a medium in painting, superseding tempera, as well as a greater understanding of anatomy, Medieval and Renaissance Humanism, and ancient classical art—spread across the rest of Europe (as evidenced by, for example, Rembrandt van Rijn’s collecting Italian Renaissance artworks personally). Another development the Italian High Renaissance is recognized for is the invention of both chiaroscuro (the use of light and dark contrast to create and intensify senses of volume and drama in two-dimensional art) and sfumato (generally, in painting, a lightly tinted varnish used to thinly cover an entire painting, creating a kind of smoky haze that was believed to mimic the quality and effects of light at dusk, the most highly prized light).

Raphael

Born in 1483 in Urbino (northeastern Italy), Raphael arrived in Florence (north-central Italy) in 1504/05, having studied in Perugia (central Italy) under the famed painter Perugino. Raphael became successful very quickly, partly as a result of his widely-admired depictions of the Virgin and Child *(remember that at this time, art as we might conceive it was largely the realm of the Church, though private collecting basically started during the Renaissance). In 1508, Raphael left Florence for Rome, where Pope Julius II put him to work painting his private papal apartments, including the library, or Stanza della Segnatura, one of Raphel’s most famed bodies of work. Raphael continued to work for the successor to Julius II, Pope Leo X, as director of archaeological and architectural projects in Rome. Leo X was a member of the of Medici family, the members of which came to possess The Woman with the Veil in the seventeenth century.

Tour Framework and Questions

Subject

Who do you think this person in the portrait was?

How old is she?

Can you tell when she lived?

Does anything that the person is wearing give you any clues?

Besides the person himself/herself, are there any other objects in the portrait that give the viewer any clues? (objects that the person is holding, objects that are in the background, props such as chairs, tables, etc.)

Does the way the person is standing or sitting tell you anything about them?

Who, What, When, Where and Why

What does the picture tell you about the time that the subject lived?

What country might it have been painted in?

Who do you think it might have been painted for?

Do you think this is a portrait of someone who paid to have their portrait made, or she a person close to the artist?

What do you think makes this portrait unique?

Feelings and Emotions

How does the portrait make you feel?

What about this portrait interests you? Why?

How do you think the artist felt about the person he/she painted?

How do you think the person in the picture is feeling or what is their mood? How can you tell?

Composition

How has the artist arranged the portrait?

Do you think the woman posed for this portrait, or do you think the artist might have imagined her?

Where is the person looking (at the viewer, away, at something else)?

What does the background and the objects in the background of the picture tell us?

How much space has the artist left around the person and how is it used?

What view of the person is pictured? 3/4 view? Full frontal? Profile? Full body? Waist view?

Style of the Portrait

Is the portrait realistic (looks absolutely real) or are there abstracted or idealized elements (the artist was thinking about something real, but altered the visual reality of the subject in some way)?

Elements and Principles: Shape, Line and Space

What shapes can you see in this portrait? What shapes do you think Raphael used to create it?

Are the lines in the portrait straight or curved? Geometric? Organic?

How often does the artist repeat certain colors or shapes within the portrait?

What colors does Raphael use most prominently? Least? Are the colors light or dark? What effect(s) does this choice of colors, tints, and shades have on your perception of the painting and the sitter?

Monsters and Maidens: Amphora Pottery of the Art Nouveau Era Tour Blueprint

2009-12-16T11:25:00.001-08:00

Exhibition Dates: November 1, 2009-April 11, 2010

Introduction
Between 1892 and 1918 the Amphora Pottery Company manufactured thousands of remarkably imaginative and delicately crafted ceramic vessels in its workshop in Teplitz, Austria. From snarling dragons and sea creatures to medieval maidens and lily pads, the wares of the Amphora pottery makers were influenced by artistic and literary movements ranging from Symbolism and Secessionism to Art Nouveau.

Amphora came about as the result of a rare combination of historical and political events. By the late nineteenth century, the country of Bohemia had become part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, leading to an influx of German immigrants. This skilled workforce, combined with Bohemia’s Celtic origins, thousand-year history, and rich culture fueled a creative synergy that led to the birth of the Amphora Company. The firm was established by Alfred Stellmacher in 1860, who was later joined by partners Eduard Stellmacher, Hans and Carl Riessner, Rudolf Kessel, and Ernst Wahliss.

Popularity of Amphora Pottery soared in the late nineteenth century. This was particularly the case in the United States, where world’s fairs and expositions offered increased access to international products, and a burgeoning advertising industry drove demand for innovative art objects. American industrial expansion during this period led to increased wealth and prosperity and the subsequent rise of the middle class. Increasingly, it was this class that purchased decorative pottery to embellish the interiors of their homes.

Like other firms of the period, such as Tiffany Studios, that produced decorative art, Amphora objects remained in private homes until future generations decided to part with them. It is surprising, then, to learn that given the popularity of Amphora during the late nineteenth century, this unique—and sometimes bizarre—form of pottery remains relatively unknown today, except for by a handful of collectors. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to view examples from one of the world’s finest Amphora Pottery collections.
By 1850, with rich deposits of exceptional kaolin clay and a large body of skilled workers, Vienna and Western Bohemia were producing huge quantities of exceptional porcelain wares. Teplitz, the home of the Amphora Company, and possibly as many as thirty other pottery companies in the year 1900, was a small picturesque village in northwest Bohemia—now part of the Czech Republic. In 1900 it was considered a tourist destination and visited by well-known figures such as Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who came to visit the city’s legendary hot springs and baths.

To make Amphora Pottery, a die—or model—must first be carved from modeling clay with knives and scrapers and polished with abrasive rags to make the clay smooth. The model is placed in a high-temperature oven and fired. After it is removed from the oven, the die is used to make a plaster-of-Paris cast. Refined clay would then be swirled about in this cast until it was one-half inch thick. After the refined clay was dry, the cast was removed, additional detailed carving was undertaken, and the model was ready for decorating with colored glazes. The final piece was then subjected to many additional firings depending on the melting temperatures of the glazes.

Female faces were a popular motif in Amphora pottery. Many portrait pieces were influenced by themes and motifs from Symbolist myths, literature, and religion, in which women were portrayed as idealized and magical nymphs, dancers, and virgins. The Amphora Company is known for its respectful portrayal of the female figure from the very start. This comparison shows a photograph of the young model Evelyn Nesbit that her promoter Sanford White used to promote her modeling career. Amphora produced a line of vases using this image of Nesbit.

Amphora Influences
Amphora pottery designs are influenced by such varying art, design, and cultural movements as Rococo, Symbolism, Japonisme, the Vienna Secession, the Pre-Raphaelites, and even the Arts and Crafts Movement and William Morris. Such influences can be seen in the decorative motifs of many of the pieces in the gallery: insects, flowers, female figures, bats,

Labels
1. Figural Ewer, before 1892
2. Vase, circa 1892
3. Untitled, circa 1894
Alfred Stellmacher, often considered the father of Amphora Pottery arrived on the scene in Bohemia around 1860. Many of his earliest pottery designs show influences of the Rococo and Victorian eras, characterized by unrestrained playful and frilly floral motifs. Japanese influences—often referred to as the japonesque—were also prevalent during the early years for the Amphora Company. The objects in this display case represent early Amphora Pottery samples pre-dating the rise of the Art Nouveau style.

1. Western “Cave Dragon” planter, circa 1900
2. Western Dragon vase, circa 1900
3. Venom-spitting Dragon vase, circa 1900
4. Mini-dragon, Salamander, circa 1900
5. Pterodactyl, circa 1900
At the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris, the Amphora Company introduced new models that mostly included dragons, animals, bats, and beasts. Dragons—the notorious reptilian creatures with bulky, scaly bodies and wings that were long written about in mythology—were among the most popular animal-like forms depicted in pottery. Western dragons, such as those on view in this display case, were characterized by wedge-shaped heads, four feet, and enormous claws. They were depicted in various colors. These fantastical and bizarre animal representations were precursors to the Grotesque genre that characterized German art of the period 1920—1933.

1. Octopus and Crab Vase, circa 1900
2. Mini-monster vase, circa 1900
3. Untitled, circa 1900
“Monsters” from the sea—such as squid, octopus, and crab—were popular motifs for vases that were eagerly sought by collectors enamored with dragon-type imagery.

Spider Woman, circa 1900
Among the most sought-after of Amphora portrait pieces, this rare Spider Woman vase depicts woman with closed eyes and long golden tresses, whose face is framed with a butterfly headdress, golden crown, and a spider web. Four opals have been affixed to further ornament the piece. Compare the Spider Lady from 1900 to the decoration of a vase made with the same mold (above right) to see how both the designer and the chosen materials were crucial to the final outcome of an object.

Summer Queen, circa 1894
Summer Queen is from one of the most well-known lines of Amphora Pottery in the Art Nouveau style. The falcon, long a symbol for intelligence and pride, appears in Arthurian Legends, Irish myths, and the Old Norse Edda. Compare the profile of the woman on the vase to the print by famed Art Nouveau artist Alphonse Mucha (right). Although the profile format is similar, Mucha’s portrait is soft and feminine, while Amphora’s presentation of the woman with a falcon headdress is samurai-like and serious.

Vide Poche (sundries tray), circa 1898-99
One favorite Art Nouveau theme was the figure of a woman with flowers. Around 1900, artists Alphonse Mucha and Jules Cheret helped to popularize the “flower ladies” theme—known at the time as femme fleur—in widely-distributed posters and advertisements. The maiden depicted on this object emerges from a lily pad colored with the green glaze that became known as the signature color of the Amphora Company.

Women in the Storm, circa 1900
In Art Nouveau design, women were often depicted in peril, as the imagery on this vase suggests. A similar motif was employed by Austrian Symbolist painter Gustav Klimt in his 1902 Beethoven Frieze (detail at left).

Vase, circa 1900
From 1897-1899, the Amphora Company was at the height of its Art Nouveau production. This vase displays rich colors and exotic water lilies with sinuous handles based on a form designed by Paul Dachsel, one of the partners in the Amphora Company.

Semiramis/The Moth Series, circa 1900
The name Semiramis was given to this series of vases by critics in the early 1900s who associated its ornamentation with Semiramis, the Queen of Assyria. Although collectors have referred to the pieces as “moth vases” for decades, the insects depicted are actually butterflies. German journal articles and reviews from the period always referred to them as schmetterling—which translates to butterfly.

These vases are affixed with gres bijous—porcelain jewels—that were fabricated using clay, glazed with different colors, and then fired before they were cemented into place.

Pelican Planter, circa 1900
This planter, adorned with three birds, provides a fine example of the gres bijou—or porcelain jewelry—technique employed by the Amphora Company. In an effort to add nuance to pottery designs, the company adopted a technique invented by French goldsmith Rene Lalique that used materials such as pearls, ivory, and diamonds to embellish objects. The Amphora Company fabricated faux-porcelain jewels in clay, glazed them, and fired them before affixing them to finished pottery pieces.

Bat Planter, circa 1900
The Bat Planter is one of the rarest and most ambitious objects made by the Amphora Company due to its large size and the intricacy of its design and ornamentation. Advertisements for the Bat Planter (left) appeared in many German-language magazines around 1905. Only four examples of this piece are known to remain in the world—one of which is in the National Museum in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

The display of pottery from Austrian firms in the nineteenth-century world fairs marked the entry of Amphora into the American pottery market. In the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, the Amphora Company displayed a remarkable selection of unusual wares. Amphora was also presented at the 1895 California Midwinter International Exposition held in San Francisco (seen in the adjacent wall mural). During that era, a great deal of Amphora pottery was sold and distributed to collectors throughout the United States. The Amphora Company’s American distributor was Bawo and Dotter in New York City.

Tour Framework

Ask guests what kinds of responses the Amphora pottery provokes in them.

Explain that Amphora Pottery is an important but under-recognized body of ceramic art from the period at the very end of the nineteenth century and the very early years of the twentieth century.

Ask guests what kinds of motifs they see in the work.

Explain that Amphora pottery is famed for its motifs of animals, feminine figures (maidens), and dragons (monsters).

Explain that the pottery is also deeply influenced by the rise of Japonisme, a nineteenth-century development beginning in the 1860s that lead to a meteoric rise in all things Japanese—especially in fine and decorative art. Japanese art was exhibited at the London International Exhibition (1862), the Paris Exhibition Universelle (1867), the Vienna Universal Exhibition (1873), and very widely throughout Europe after 1880.

Explain that it was the Worlds’ Fairs, in part, that lead to the rise of Art Nouveau, in general, and to Amphora pottery, in particular, at its height.

Explain that The Worlds’ Columbian Exhibition in Chicago (1893) and the Worlds’ Fair Exhibition Universelle in Paris (1900) both offered enormous numbers of people exposure to Amphora pottery, helping to cement the reputation of the company in the realm of art nouveau.

Rembrandt: The Embrace of Darkness and Light Tour Blueprint

2009-12-16T09:07:00.000-08:00

Exhibition Dates: November 7-January 18, 2010

Introduction
Rembrandt: The Embrace of Darkness and Light consists of over one hundred prints made by Rembrandt van Rijn between the years 1627 and 1660, roughly. It is organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Nagoya/Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Major sponsorship of the exhibition is provided by Goldcorp. Additional educational programming support is provided by AT&T Nevada. Additional funding provided by Heidi Loeb, the Nevada Arts Council, a state agency, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency.

Text Panels
Main
In the world of art, the name of Rembrandt (1606–1669) has unparalleled power and appeal. As a painter, he stood at the pinnacle of seventeenth-century European art and dominated the Dutch Golden Age. With a rare genius for psychological insight, he revealed, as had few painters before him, the complexity of the human spirit and the triumph and tragedy of the human condition. But Rembrandt achieved comparable renown in his lifetime for his artistry in an altogether different medium, that of printmaking. Indeed, he numbers among the few great artists to devote nearly equal energy to painting and printmaking. In his thirty-five years of printmaking activity, he worked almost 290 copper plates. Made by means of etching, drypoint, and, to a lesser degree, engraving, his prints brought him international fame and sometimes wealth—and he is hailed by many today as the greatest etcher of all time.

Rembrandt: The Embrace of Darkness and Light features nearly 120 of the artist’s etchings from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The exhibition charts the entire course of Rembrandt’s printmaking career, from the drama and technical prowess of his impatient youth and the unrivaled mastery of his maturity, to the quiet mystery and poetry of his old age. Blessed with an incomparable technical genius and a deep empathy for his fellow men, Rembrandt changed forever the look and feel of the graphic arts. As this exhibition reveals, Rembrandt was an artist who saw himself and his world clearly and directly and conveyed all of it, eloquently, in the dramatic dialogue of darkness and light.

The Young, Ambitious Artist
Rembrandt’s early artistic career unfolded in his hometown of Leiden, Holland, where in about 1626, he produced his first prints. Beginning in 1631, he spent increasing amounts of time in Amsterdam, Europe’s most vibrant commercial center. He went into business there with the art dealer Hendrick Uylenburgh, who provided him with a studio, lodgings, and introductions to patrons. He soon became Amsterdam’s most popular portrait painter, receiving royal commissions from the governor, or Stadhouder, of the Netherlands, Frederik Hendrik. Meanwhile, he entered into collaborative printmaking projects with the Leiden printmaker Johannes van Vliet. In 1634, Rembrandt married Uylenburgh’s cousin Saskia and established his own studio. In both his early paintings and prints, he perfected a High Baroque style marked by heightened emotion and the dramatic use of chiaroscuro (the juxtaposition of intensely lighted and deeply shadowed forms).

Already in his first years as a printmaker, Rembrandt embraced a wide range of subjects, from lofty biblical and mythological themes to portraits and earthy images of everyday life. (In 1641, he added landscapes to his repertoire.) He suffused all of these images with a deep respect and empathy for the human condition.

Young and ambitious, Rembrandt knew that making prints was his means of entry into collections all over Europe. By printing etchings in quantity, he could widely disseminate his artistic inventions, and his prints rapidly found an international following, including markets in France and Italy. Prints also provided Rembrandt with income. Once he had etched a plate, impressions could be printed and sold for many years.

The Artist Obsessed with Fame
By the end of the 1630s, Rembrandt was famous, wealthy, and living like a gentleman. In 1639, he received a major commission for a group portrait of a militia troop, now known as The Night Watch. That same year he bought a large house in Amsterdam with space for his many students. He set up a printmaking studio in it and—avid collector that he was—arranged his own growing collection of art, natural specimens, and curiosities from cultures the world over. In 1641 Saskia gave birth to their beloved son Titus. Despite his successes, sorrow entered Rembrandt’s life in 1642, when Saskia died after a long illness. Thereafter his personal life became increasingly problematic and out-of-step with conventional Dutch society. After Saskia’s death, a widow, Geertje Dircx, arrived to serve as Titus’s nurse and soon became Rembrandt’s mistress. In time, Rembrandt redirected his affections toward a young maid, Hendrickje Stoffels, resulting in lawsuits that led him to have Geertje institutionalized. Rembrandt’s financial situation also worsened. During the 1640s he spent ruinous sums of money on his house and collections. At the same time, his income declined as important patrons, troubled by his lifestyle, started to avoid him. Shifts in the art market also took their toll. Rembrandt’s students became his competitors, some working in his somber style, others adopting the lighter courtly manner popularized by the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck. In the face of his many troubles, Rembrandt’s prints only became more masterful, as his technical achievements deepened and his comprehension of the human heart and spirit became ever more profound.

The Mature Artist
For Rembrandt the 1650s were years of unrelenting personal and financial crisis. In 1649, he stopped paying his mortgage. In 1654, the Dutch Reformed Church excommunicated Rembrandt’s mistress Hendrickje Stoffels for being pregnant and unmarried. Two years later, on the day before his fiftieth birthday, Rembrandt filed for bankruptcy. His goods were sold in a series of auctions lasting three years. Among his personal items inventoried at the time were albums, folders, and baskets of prints by other artists, which he had lovingly collected at great cost over the preceding decades. In 1658 he stopped producing prints in quantity. Perhaps lacking a printing press, he would etch only four more plates before his death in 1669 at age sixty-three.

Despite the gloom of his final period, Rembrandt continued to produce masterpieces. Indeed, his troubles seemed only to deepen the emotional resonance of his later prints, culminating in a series of etchings that serve as intense reveries on life’s most vital forces. Rembrandt’s technical experiments and achievements also heightened the poetry of his later work. Through the special inking of individual impressions from his copper plates and his use of different papers, the artist attained a new range of atmospheric subtlety and emotional nuance as he explored the many possibilities inherent in a single image. One need only compare the two impressions of The Entombment and of Christ Preaching, on view in this gallery, to sense the extraordinary variety of tone and mood that the artist teased out of mere ink and paper.

Rembrandt and the Art of Printmaking
Etching
Rembrandt approached etching with an extraordinary freedom and spontaneity, treating varnished copper plates like sheets of paper on which he rapidly sketched his designs. He quickly discovered he could make finer lines than he could with a pen and explored darkness with inks blacker than any painting.

To produce an etching, an artist first coats a copper plate with an acid-resistant coating such as wax or varnish. This layer is called a ground, and the artist uses a needle to scratch through it, exposing the copper as he draws the lines of his design. The plate is then exposed to acid, which eats away or “bites” at the copper where the needle has exposed it. Through biting, the lines become actual grooves in the surface of the plate. The ground is then removed and the copper plate inked and wiped clean, leaving ink only in the grooves.

To print the plate’s design, a press forces dampened paper down into the grooves of the plate to pick up the ink. When peeled away from the plate, the paper reveals a print in mirror image of the inked design. The plate can then be inked and printed again.

Drypoint
About 1640, Rembrandt explored a new dimension in his printmaking as he made expanded use of the drypoint technique to enhance the shading of his etchings and add even richer atmospheric and tonal effects. Rembrandt quickly became a master of the drypoint technique, achieving a visual range and level of optical nuance and subtlety that few artists have come close to rivaling.

With drypoint the artist scratches directly into the copper plate. As his needle incises the plate, it raises up ridges of fine metal fragments, called “burr,” along the edges of the furrows. The ink caught in the burr creates a blurred and velvety effect when printed.

Rembrandt’s Studio: A Cabinet of Curiosities
Throughout his artistic career, Rembrandt established and worked in many different studios. This loosely-interpreted re-creation of Rembrandt’s studio is from a period in the artist’s life during which he had achieved great wealth from his wife Saskia’s dowry and the sale of his artwork.

Along with the tools needed for making art, Rembrandt’s studio was filled with an astonishing collection of objects, including antiquities, stuffed animals, armor, marble busts, coins, shells, and coral. The variety of objects in his kunstcaemer—also known as a cabinet of curiosities—is testimony to the significance of the Age of Exploration and to Rembrandt’s inquisitive nature and success as an artist.

The Dutch Gable
The design of the faux architectural structure in the gallery is loosely based on seventeenth-century Dutch architecture that incorporated a feature known as a Dutch Gable. Typically a decorative convention, a Dutch Gable is one whose sides have a shape made from two curves with a pediment at the top. Use of Dutch Gables first emerged during the Renaissance, and were eventually absorbed into the Baroque Style.

Tour Framework
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606-1669. RvR was born on or about July 15, 1606. However, several public records indicate discrepancies in Rembrandt’s own hand that suggest he may have been born in 1605 or 1607. Rembrandt’s parents were the miller Harmen Gerritsz. Van Rijn (1567-1630) and the baker’s daughter Deeltgen Willemsdr. Van Zuytbrouck (c. 1568-1640). He was the ninth of ten children, three of whom died in infancy. While his elder brothers entered the family trades, Rembrandt was given an education that would have enabled him to work outside of these constraints—he chose, however, to leave his education behind and apprentice to Jacob Isaacsz. van Swanenburg in Leiden and later (c. 1625) to Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam.

The Netherlands
In 1600 the Dutch Republic was an opaque, complex system of local and regional governing bodies, which Rembrandt both carefully and at times carelessly navigated.
RvR’s hometown of Leiden was proud of its history (bloody, in relation to independence from Spanish rule); its University and its textile manufacturing. Leiden was associated with perseverance, bravery, and victory (following the 1574 battle of the 80 Years’ War).

The Work
Rembrandt scholars are an argumentative bunch: they agree, generally, however, on the attribution to Rembrandt of 285 etchings, 875 (of 1,595) drawings, and 250 (of 400) paintings. RvR, like Caravaggio, was said “to respect no master but Nature”—but he had extensive collections of Italian art and some of his own countrymen as well, including as many as 9,000 works on paper in his studio by the time of his bankruptcy in 1656. In an inventory of his studio created that year, Rembrandt listed eight paintings by or after six different sixteenth-century Italian painters. RvR’s highly conscious use of dark and light in constructing compositions was inspired by Caravaggio’s (1571-1610) Madonna of the Rosary, even though he hadn’t studied Caravaggio except through his contemporaries’ distillations of Caravaggio’s style.

Antwerp Master Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) would have been the only other impressor besides Lucas van Leyden and Maarten van Heemskerck. RvR identifid with Peter Paul Rubens, but also competed with him. RvR was also, interestingly, fascinated by miniature paintings of Mughal court of India—and as it turns out, it was in the Mughal Courts of India that the Hooka or Hookah was invented, and why one is included in Colin’s recreation of Rembrandt’s studio.

Themes
Art and Faith
When Rembrandt’s grandparents were born in the 1530s, the art world of Leiden was by and large an adjunct to church life. Workshops of stained-glass artists, weavers of textiles and tapestries, sculptors in wood and stone, gold- and silversmiths, cabinetmakers and of course painters found the largest market for their skills in the church and its donors. Art itself was sacred, finding its meaning in Catholic dogma, ritual and spirituality. Artists were hired explicators of these values. On August 26, 1566, however, all changed--a day of iconoclasm in Leiden, changed the art market in the city (and throughout the country) overnight.

As far as is known, not a single painting or print by Rembrandt was painted for a church or placed in one in his lifetime. In the era of the Reformation, then, the Catholic church and liturgy had claimed a position of intermediary between people and the Bible (because of Latin’s prominence in the liturgy), direct connection to the Bible became increasingly important to Protestants—and the narratives of its contents were represented in art, which Protestants still collected widely, perhaps even more so than in the pre-Reformation era, as did Catholics and Jews.

In addition to faith, the theme of people and God is omnipresent in Rembrandt’s work, as it is in the work of many Renaissance artists. For example, in many of the biblical prints, including one of the most important, The Descent from the Cross, is a figure that is based on Rembrandt’s own image (see the man on the ladder). RvR could have ben a relative if not a member of the Holy Family. In his imagination he lived with Mary, Joseph, and Jesus all his life, from his first etchings to his final paintings. Although he painted one group family portrait, but repeatedly created images of families from scripture. Themes of the nativity, the adoration of the shepherds, the adoration of the Magi,, the circumcision, the presentation in the Temple, the angel appearing to Joseph in a dream, the fight into Egypt, Christ’s many ministries, and many more are very common. The Hundred Guilder print, or Christ among the sick, allowing the children to come to him, is based on Chapter 19 of the Gospel according to St. Matthew.

Family, Loved Ones, Households
Saskia Uylenburgh shared Rembrandt’s life for nearly ten—wonderfully happy and bitterly sad—years. She and RvR lost three children before the age of 2 months before their fourth child, Titus, survived to adulthood. However, Saskia herself died after Titus was barely nine months old. Female figures resembling Saskia in RvR’s work are prominent in this period of 1634-1642. Rembrandt was 36 years old, Saskia 30, when she died.

In 1649, Hendrickje Stoffels, a 23-year-old maid, moved into Rembrandt’s home, where he, aged 43, was already engaged in an affair with another household servant, Geertge Dircx, who eventually was locked in a penal institution.

Hendrickje was RvR’s common-law wife, as he would have had to pay a large party of what he was worth to Saskia’s family, and to his own, upon remarriage.

Hendrickje gave RvR everything, had a daughter named Cornelia, and then she too died, from an outbreak of plague, in 1663, aged 37.

Craft
Drawing
RvR made thousands of drawings using Quill pens; Reed pens; Ink and ink wash (applied with brushes, as opposed to pens) of two kinds: bistre (made from chimney root) and iron gall ink (made with iron sulfate and the insect-derived galls of oak, oak-apple and pistachio trees). He rarely used black, or India ink, except in replicating the Mughal drawings he acquired. He occasionally used white opaque watercolor, but frequently relied on black chalk, charcoal, red chalk, and occasionally a medium known as silverpoint. NOTE THAT RvR DID NOT USE lead pencil, white chalk, crayon or watercolor.

Etching
All the prints attributed to Rembrandt are intaglio prints printed from a metal plate.
81 of Rembrandt’s copperplates have survived. He used hammers and burnishers to re-work areas he had already incised but found unsatisfactory. Primarily he used copper plates. Artists, including RvR, would frequently print multiple plates at the same time, cutting the full sheets into their individual prints to get more money out of each pull of the press, which is why many of the prints in this exhibition are so small, and without much paper border.

Rembrandt used his own recipe for the ground he applied to the plate: “half an ounce of Expoltum [asphaltum] burnt of Amber, one ounce of Virgins’ wax, [and] half an once of Mastick,” to be mashed, heated and mixed with water into a ball, then to be melted onto the (not too hot) plate. This would have been known as a soft ground. He used a different ground if he was working the plate multiple times as in the case of Angel Appearing to the shepherds. He needed a transparent ground, called stopping out varnish, for which he had another recipe: “white turpentine oil, add half as much turpentine, put together in a glass bottle, bottle in pure water, boil water for half an hour.” By 1655, he was rarely using a ground at all…ever, and instead working more directly on the plate using the technique of drypoint. RvR utilized the additional intaglio printmaking medium of engraving, but only as an addendum to etching and drypoint.

Chiaroscuro
This method of creating strong contrasts between light and dark grew out of the Renaissance, technically, but had important roots in ancient Greek and Byzantine art. For RvR, it was said, “…so broad was his palette of light and dark, which covers the entire spectrum…Rembrandt does not draw surface compositions in light and dark; he molds them spatially. He was practically a sculptor in light and dark.” In his work, in particular, note the implementation of dark foreground figures against lighter backgrounds, as well as figurative shadows that help to convey a sense of movement or motion, and which help to heighten the illusion of depth. RvR’s play with darkness and light is an application of chiaroscuro as a device for composing in dark and light. This principle, turned into a trademark in early seventeenth-century Italy by Elsheimer and Caravaggio, was available to all seventeenth-century artists and was applied in one form or another by most. Rembrandt practiced a pronouncedly spatial variety of chiaroscuro. He uses it as an organizational device less on the picture plan than in the picture space.

Rembrandt’s Studio
Rembrandt’s studios were in his home. He had an “art room” that would have been for entertaining customers. Upstairs in his home were two studios, one smaller and one larger, as well as a “studio storage space” on the upper floor.

The Studio was a working studio—he taught fairly large numbers of apprentices there, as well as using it for the creation of his own work and storage of his enormous collections. (See notes about the Cabinet of Curiosities.)

Non Finito
Rembrandt was able to project what looked like completely detailed representations with mixed and sometimes minimal means. Regularly, however, he stopped short of that point, leaving the viewer with a work of art that is not a convincing image of reality. In doing so, he goes beyond the ideal of illusion as the ultimate aim of art…Rembrandt printed such impressions of many of his etchings while working, but rather than throw them away when he had used them to move on to the next stage, he created a saleable group of prints, turning them into a “state.” In other words, he assigned artistic and commercial value to these images as they appear, in all their apparent incompleteness. For this reason, they must be regarded as full-fledged creations by Rembrandt and not simply as unfinished works. Were it not for the actual images, this is a practice that might seem considerably more modern than we might associate with RvR’s time.

Rembrandt’s Livelihood
As a member of the Amsterdam guild of St. Luke, Rembrandt was bound by certain non-competition stipulations. In his early years in the city, this will not have bothered him. In his good years, Rembrandt’s high-priced sales and purchases had a buoyant effect on the art market. When the tide turned, his insolvency depressed it. He began to lose everything in the 1650s as a result of many factors.

Over his career, RvR earned an average of 270 guilders for paintings, with a median of 90 guilders…the average income at the time for professional workers might have been 500 guilders (maybe $12,000 of today’s American money). RvR averaged about 2,000 guilders income annually through his lifetime—but this was not evenly distributed, remember.

Prints were less expensive—one to eight stuivers (and there were 20 stuivers to the guilder). Christ Among the Sick, however, is colloquially called “The Hundred-Guilder Print.” It may or may not have actually sold for such a sum—as RvR, like many artists, was good at spinning tales of his own successes. Of interest with the etched portraits that were commissioned—sometimes the price included the plate in the sale to the commissioner.

Rembrandt also made considerable income from tuition fees paid by students apprenticing in his studio. His contemporaries event complained because in good years he made as much as 2,000 guilders in tuition expenses alone.

RvR had some investments as well, but not many. Those he had were in the stocks of the imperial powers of the Dutch West India Company and other Dutch trading companies. All began to change, however, with the downturn resulting from the First English War of 1651-54. In fact, Dutch art would never really recover completely from the effects of this.

Rembrandt, Reading and Writing
Classical texts of all kinds were widely available in Dutch in the 1600s. After his major commissioned paintings of the late 1630s, Rembrandt had written to the commissioner of the works: “The greatest and the most natural (e)motion has been expressed.”: consternation has existed for centuries over the meaning—is it physical movement or the power to move the viewer’s emotions that he means? Rembrandt was, like many in the Renaissance, familiar with a great deal of ancient Greek and Roman writing. Of particular interest was the work of the rhetorician QUINTILIAN, who formulates the rhetorical conviction that the orator who wants to move his public should first be moved himself. Of interest: REMBRANDT INCLUDES HIMSELF IN THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS TO APPEAL TO THIS RHETORICAL STRATEGY: HE”S THERE, SO ARE WE.

Reading and writing, and their affiliated instruments—namely books, pens, and paper—figure prominently in RvR’s work. He was praised and discussed by more poets and playwrights than any other Dutch artist of his day. His closest personal friend was probably the poet Jeremias de Decker, who wrote about Rembrandt’s ability to bring the words of the Bible to life through his art.

Landscape
Two-thirds of all of Rembrandt’s landscapes were made in just seven years, between 1649 and 1655. Rembrandt’s style of landscape, however, changed the course of Dutch landscape art for centuries: picturesque decay, dilapidation, ruins, and farmhouses in disrepair, to name a few elements. Rembrandt’s landscapes are not frequently natural scenes alone, either—they are almost always inhabited landscapes, with evidence of peoples’ use of the land almost always present.

People
Medea: Or the Marriage of Jason and Creusa
Inscription reads: “Creus’ and Iason here plight their toth to one another:
Medea, Iason’s wife, unworthily shunted off to the side, is infuriated by sorrow; she is driven by vengeance. Alas! Infidelity, how dearly are you paid!"

Rembrandt’s and his contemporary Jan Six, who wrote a play about Medea, altered the representation of Medea from the standard negative ones of the myth involving her.
RvR found street merchants of significant interest in the 1630s: rat poison and pancake peddling that appear to be lively scenes of daily life; they are carefully composed scenes, however, based on preceding imagery.

Beggars become an important precursor to his Christian imagery later in his career, and change the nature of Dutch art’s representations and treatment of the dispossessed.
The Flight into Egypt (1627) also represents the most deeply dispossessed: Joseph, Mary and the baby Christ.

Himself
RvR created images of himself in the guise of or closely related to the artist Lucas van Leyden (a close friend); Peter Paul Rubens; the poet Ludovico Ariosto; military men; cavaliers; burghers; officials; industrialists; as a participant in a martyrdom; as Christ himself in a scene of the Crucifixion; to exotic personages; to character types and beggars. He seems to look into the mirror repeatedly and see not just himself but also reflections of others.

Conclusion
RvR is one of the seminal figures in the history of art. He changed the course of Dutch art, particularly in his landscapes, and employed the techniques of chiaroscuro in ways that affected artists’ use of the technique for generations after him. He brought its use into the realm of the creation of space in the picture, not just compositional elements of light and dark—that is, his use of chiaroscuro, largely through the printmaking techniques of drypoint, etching, and surface wiping create the illusion of space and in many cases movement in his pictures, whereas before his perfection of these techniques, the effects of chiaroscuro were more limited to the composition of the image and the surface treatment of the image.
RvR had an extraordinary life, and he also suffered greatly. His work and life represent the apex of the Dutch Age of Exploration and Dutch art, but the end of his career and life also signify a shift in the prominence of Dutch art and empire after the 1650s.

Carleton Watkins :: Yosemite Photographs

2009-07-29T15:49:00.000-07:00

Did You Know :: Carleton Watkins’ Yosemite Photographs

Carleton Watkins (1829–1916) had virtually no practical photography experience during the Civil War, as did many of his contemporaries. In 1851, when he was twenty-one, Watkins left Oneonta, New York, for California, following the example of Collis P. Huntington, another Oneonta native who had moved to California to make his fortune. After a stint in Huntington's store in Sacramento, Watkins moved to San Francisco, where he chanced into an apprenticeship with the daguerreotypist Robert Vance. By 1858, Watkins had established an independent practice, photographing mining operations and land claims for financiers who were building their careers in the lap of the new state.

Watkins and his contemporaries Charles Leander Weed and Eadweard Muybridge labored under difficult conditions to produce enormous photographs of Yosemite that pushed the technological limits of the medium and mirrored the scale of the place beginning in the 1860s and continuing into the 1890s.

In 1861 Carleton Watkins made history when he hauled a huge box camera—custom-designed around the glass-plate negatives needed for large prints—into Yosemite. Once a shot was framed, the plate was coated with a light-sensitive emulsion, then exposed and developed on-site in a dark tent. It was a grueling process, in which a drop of sweat or a stray insect could ruin the image and hours of work. Watkins’s 1861 photographs were among the first in the world to be considered landscape art. Three years later, Weed took his own mammoth plate camera to Yosemite, but Watkins’s main competitor was Eadweard Muybridge. Often composed like landscape paintings, Muybridge’s Yosemite photographs differed stylistically from Watkins’s classically structured works. Muybridge also signed his negatives to avoid the piracy that plagued Watkins, whose prints were reissued without credit to the photographer. Together, these three men transformed photography as an art form and inspired generations of artists. Their legacy persists in Yosemite, which remains among the most photographed landscapes in the world.

In 1861, Watkins traveled with one of his patrons, Trenor Park, entrepreneur of the Mariposa gold mine, on a family excursion to Yosemite. Unknown to white settlers until 1849, the valley was twenty hours by stage and mule from San Francisco. But word spread fast at the Mariposa mine, and by 1858 there were land claims, a better road, and tourists enough to support a hotel. In 1859, Charles Leander Weed photographed the valley, and by 1861 Easterners had come to know of the awe-inspiring site from articles in the Boston Evening Transcript, written by the Unitarian minister Thomas Starr King.

The 30 mammoth-plate (18x22 inches) and 100 stereo views that Watkins took in Yosemite in 1861 were among the first photographs of the valley sent back east. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Ralph Waldo Emerson received copies through Starr King, and in 1862 the photographs excited further interest when they were exhibited at Goupil's New York gallery. It was partly on their evidence that President Lincoln signed a bill in 1864 declaring the valley inviolate and leading the way to the National Parks system.

Watkins combined a mastery of the difficult wet-plate negative process with a rigorous sense of pictorial structure. For large-format landscape work such as he produced in Yosemite, the physical demands of this process were great. Since there was as yet no practical means of enlarging, Watkins’ glass negatives had to be as large as he wished the prints to be, and his camera large enough to accommodate them. Furthermore, the glass negatives had to be coated, exposed, and developed while the collodion remained tacky, requiring the photographer to transport a traveling darkroom as he explored the rugged terrain of the American West.

Relevant Vocabulary

Mammoth Plate an oversize glass plate used to make a negative image in nineteenth-century photography

Albumen Print a photographic print made on paper coated with albumen (egg white)

Ambrotype a mid-nineteenth-century photographic type in which a positive image was recorded on collodion wet plate.

Daguerreotype an early photographic type in which an image is recorded on highly polished piece of metal coated with a light sensitive emulsion. Daguerreotypes were one-of-a-kind images that could not be reproduced.

Wet Collodion a nineteenth-century photographic type in which a piece of plate glass was coated with a silver halide emulsion and placed in a camera while still wet. A latent image was recorded, and then the wet plate was developed, fixed, and varnished to create a glass negative for production of stereograph and mammoth plate photographs.

Silver Gelatin Print the most common form of twentieth-century black-and-white photographic print, in which a piece of paper is coated with a light-sensitive silver gelatin emulsion

Stereograph a popular nineteenth-century photograph in which two small, side-by-side images made using a special twin lens camera create the illusion of a three dimensional scene.

Sublime a historical, philosophical, literary, and art idea that contributed to Romanticism the notion of a greatness with which nothing else can be compared and which is beyond all possibility of calculation, measurement or imitation. This greatness is often used when referring to nature and its vastness.

Romanticism an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated around the middle of the 18th century in Western Europe, during the Industrial Revolution. It was partly a revolt against aristocratic, social, and political norms of the Enlightenment period and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature in art and literature.

Framework

Explain to guests that the first Euro-Americans to see the Yosemite region were probably part of the Walker party in 1833, but the first official entrants were part of the Mariposa Battalion, who, in 1851, were sent to forcibly remove the Indian inhabitants of Yosemite after the discovery of gold on John C. Frémont’s ranch in the Mariposa/Bear Valley area of the Sierra Nevada foothills. Shortly thereafter, in 1855, publisher James Mason Hutchings entered Yosemite with a party of men, including Thomas A. Ayres, who created the first drawing of Yosemite Falls ever made.

Explain that the three most significant of Yosemite’s nineteenth-century photographers—Charles Leander Weed, Carleton E. Watkins, and Eadweard J. Muybridge—all created photographs of Yosemite from glass negatives, using the wet plate collodion process, and printing them on paper using the albumen process. All three men were famed for their mammoth plates, unusually large, plate glass negatives designed to capture the large sweeping vistas of Yosemite (and other western sites). However, all three men also created numerous stereographs or stereoviews. These much smaller, side-by-side images were popular for armchair travelers after their invention in the 1840s, and they were comparatively inexpensive, which made them an increasingly popular tourist souvenir commemorating a visit to a wondrous place like Yosemite.

Explain that publisher and entrepreneur James Mason Hutchings made another visit to Yosemite in June, 1859, this time with photographer Charles Weed, rather than a painter or drawer, as he had in 1855 with Thomas Ayres. This was in part because Ayres’ drawings and lithographs, which had been published in Hutchings’ California Magazine in 1855, were deemed by readers to be fanciful—and Hutchings needed to prove that Yosemite Falls were indeed as dramatic as they had been earlier represented.

Explain that Weed took the first photograph of Yosemite in 1859, an imperial-sized (10x14-inch) salt print of Yosemite Falls. During this first visit, he made twenty imperial prints, and forty stereograph views of Yosemite, beginning what would become Later, in 1863/1864, Weed returned with a camera capable of holding 17x22-inch mammoth plates. Gold-toned albumen prints, a new technology that hadn’t been available in 1859, were made of these later negatives, which were richer and clearer than the earlier imperial salt prints.

Explain that all of Watkins’ photographs included in the exhibition are mammoth plate albumen prints from 1861-1865. He made his first visit to Yosemite in 1861, two years after Weed’s first visit, and three years before Weed’s second visit. This enabled him to make a name for himself as a Yosemite photographer, as his 18x22-inch mammoth plate images were very well received by the public, and by scientists such as Josiah D. Whitney, William Henry Brewer, and Clarence King. In a game of one-upsmanship, Charles Weed returned to the valley in 1864, and Watkins returned in 1865 with an even bigger camera with a higher quality lens.

Explain that the wet plate collodion process was an extraordinarily labor intensive photographic process. The artist would have to work quickly. First he had to clean a sheet of plate glass perfectly, removing any dust, lint, streaks, and so forth. Second, in the darkness of a tent, he coated the plate in a viscous, light-sensitive mixture of chemicals called collodion. Third, while the plate was still wet with collodion, the photographer would place the plate in a light-proof plate holder, slip it into the enormous cabinet of the large-format view camera, and remove a lens cap or board from the front of the lens or the front of the plate holder (he would have already trained and focused his lens on his subject), and make an exposure of a few seconds. The lens cap or board would be replaced, and the still-wet plate taken back to the dark tent, and developed, fixed, and varnished using a number of different chemical solutions.

The prints were made from the glass negatives (the negative-making process is described above) and then printed on albumen-coated paper. Photographic chemicals, namely silver salts, had to be bound to paper using albumen, or egg whites. The albumen printing process included the following steps: first, a piece of paper is coated with an emulsion of egg white (albumen) and table salt (sodium chloride), then dried. The albumen seals the paper and creates a slightly glossy surface. Second, the paper is dipped in a solution of silver nitrate and water, rendering the surface light-sensitive. Third, the paper is dried in total darkness. Fourth, the dried, prepared paper is placed in a frame in direct contact under a negative, often a glass negative with collodion emulsion, and exposed to light until the image achieves the desired level of darkness. Fifth, a bath of sodium thiosulfate fixes the print’s exposure, preventing further darkening. Finally, optional gold or selenium toning improves the photograph’s tone and stabilizes it against fading (e.g. the Weed photograph from 1864).

Explain to guests that Watkins and his contemporaries created both mammoth plate photographs and smaller stereoviews. Like their painter counterparts, the photographers sold their mammoth plate prints to discerning collectors, often wealthy patrons including the likes of Leland Stanford and Collis P. Huntington, and their smaller stereoviews to tourists and armchair travelers elsewhere in the country.

An Interview with John Baldessari

2009-07-14T08:45:00.000-07:00

For a lovely introduction to John Baldessari's thinking, you can read a wonderful interview with artist John Baldessari from 2004, originally published in Artnet, for a sense of his personality, artistic sensibility, and interest in contemporary ideas...

For some further information, read the biographical essays associated with the Magical Secrets: A Printmaking Community website.

Mary Snowden: Levittown

2009-06-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

Levittown
2001
Painting on panel
Collection of the Nevada Museum of Art, Gift of the artist

Levittown, New York, a tract-home development built upon 1,200 acres of potato fields in 1947, has long been considered the quintessential postwar American suburb.
While similar subdivisions were constructed in hundreds of thousands of towns and cities across America, Levittown remains a meaningful reference for contemporary artists commenting on the influence that suburbs have had on the American psyche.

Mary Snowden nostalgically recalls the postwar era in her painting Levittown, which features an American GI and his aproned wife parachuting to their new life of domestic bliss. An anonymous landscape of single-family detached houses stretches long into the horizon. These mass-produced houses functioned as more than basic shelters for veterans and their families; they also became status symbols that embodied conventional domesticity, the nuclear family, and homeownership— all of which became inextricably linked to the American Dream.

Faces: Chuck Close and Contemporary Portraiture Tour Blueprint

2009-06-30T10:09:00.000-07:00

Introduction
Faces: Chuck Close and Contemporary Portraiture features artworks selected from the San Francisco collection of Doris and Donald Fisher, founders of the GAP Corporation. The works in the exhibition reflect the Fishers’ interest in collecting a broadly representative body of contemporary art of the highest quality—so much so that they are currently in negotiations to build a new museum on the Presidio in San Francisco to be called CAMP (Contemporary Art Museum of the Presidio).

The artworks selected for this exhibition represent just a fraction of the Fishers’ extensive collection of contemporary art; here viewers’ attention is focused on contemporary expressions of ideas about portraiture, raising new questions about one of the oldest genres of art in the historical periods (the oldest extant portrait to date is approximately 27,000 years old in southwestern France).

This exhibition is generously sponsored by International Game Technology with additional support from the Portrait Society of Reno.

Text Panels

FACES: Chuck Close and Contemporary Portraiture
Portraiture is one of art’s oldest genres, with roots tracing back to the ancient Egyptian era. Defined as a painting, photograph, or sculpture in which the human face is depicted, a traditional portrait aims to capture a human likeness—sometimes in an idealized manner and at other times with stark accuracy.

Beginning in the twentieth century, however, many artists began to challenge the conventions of the genre. Does a portrait need a human face to be considered valid? Can a portrait be employed as part of a larger social or political message? The contemporary artists in this exhibition are noted for the innovative ways they explore the answers to these questions. Whether examining issues related to history and popular culture, or investigating personal identity and autobiography, the artworks in this exhibition are as varied and diverse as the artists who made them.

Chuck Close
A leading figure in contemporary American art since the 1970s, Chuck Close is celebrated for his successful efforts to reinvigorate the field of modern portraiture. Best known for the monumental faces he has painted, photographed, printed, and most recently woven into tapestries, Close developed a formal methodology based on color and structural analysis that radically departs from traditional modes of portraiture. The process of making these large-scale works is labor intensive—taking anywhere from four months to two years to complete a painting—and requires collaboration from a range of assistants.

Chuck Close Tapestries
Chuck Close's tapestries were woven in collaboration with Magnolia Editions, a fine art studio in Oakland, California. Magnolia Editions' innovative approach to the time-honored medium of tapestry brings together a printmaker's eye for color and a scientist's attention to accuracy to create Jacquard weavings using electronic and digital technologies ordinarily limited to industrial production.

Proprietary color matching techniques developed by Magnolia Editions were used to create sophisticated digital weave files that were then sent to a small, family-owned
mill in Belgium that owns a customized, seven-foot-wide loom. Each pixel of the weave file represents a weave structure (a combination of colored threads); thus, each weave structure results in a unique color. As the tapestries are woven directly from a computer reading the weave file—with no interference or mediation from weavers—the artist maintains complete control over the final work.

Close's tapestries are woven from scans of daguerreotype portraits of the artist's friends and contemporaries, including Philip Glass, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, and Kate Moss.

• Philip Glass is an American music composer. He is a prolific music writer, having written three Oscar-winning scores for films.

• Lorna Simpson is an important African American artist. In a 2007 Artinfo interview, she interestingly said with regard to self-portraiture: “I do not appear in any of my work. I think maybe there are elements to it and moments to it that I use from my own personal experience, but that, in and of itself, is not so important as what the work is trying to say about either the way we interpret experience or the way we interpret things about identity.”

• Kiki Smith is an American artist best known for her sculpture, although she works in many media. Her work focuses on issues related to gender and identity. She is a member of the artist collaborative known as Colab.

• Kate Moss is an English supermodel.

• Jacquard tapestries refer to tapestries woven on Jacquard looms, invented by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1801.

James
2002
Polaroid Polacolor photograph, masking tape, pencil and ink on mounted Foamcore

To make a painting, Chuck Close begins with a photograph of the person he wants to depict—in this case the artist James Siena. Close overlays the photograph with a hand-drawn grid, and then he draws a second grid on a large canvas. Then, he fills each square on the canvas with rings of colors that—when viewed from a distance—appear as an average hue. When seen up close, the gridded squares appear similar to computer-generated pixels, but when seen from afar the overall face emerges clearly.

Cindy Sherman
Untitled #97, 98, 99, 100
1982
Color coupler prints

This series of self-portraits, sometimes referred to as the Pink Robe series, is Cindy Sherman’s follow-up to her legendary Untitled Film Stills produced in the late 1970s. In these images, Sherman says she was “thinking of the idea of the centerfold model. The pictures were meant to look like a model just after she’d been photographed for a centerfold.” By completely concealing herself with a pink chenille robe and directing her gaze forcefully towards the viewer, Sherman aims to frustrate—both psychologically and emotionally—anyone who approaches the photograph. Unlike traditional centerfold photographs that typically objectify the female body, Sherman used techniques to subvert the vulnerability of the female model, allowing her to resist exploitation.

• Ask guests to consider the differences between a self-portrait and a portrait—aside from the obvious, are there conceptual or methodological differences between a portrait of oneself and a portrait of someone else?

• Explain that a central question about portraits has centered on whether the images are more like mirrors reflecting the viewer’s interests/needs/desires on the sitter, or whether they are more like windows revealing the identity of the sitter.

• Explain that Cindy Sherman’s work poses significant challenges to this question, as for her most famous series of portraits, Untitled Film Stills, she dresses up as numerous female characters from film and popular culture and photographs herself. These images are thus not self-portraits in any strict sense of the word.

• Ask guests to think about how women are or have been represented in different kinds of media. What kinds of stereotypes of women exist as a result of media portrayals?

• Ask guests to consider why or how they think that Sherman’s work might ask us to engage with such questions.

Andy Warhol
One of the most influential and provocative artists of the twentieth century, Andy Warhol looked to images of American popular culture, fame, stardom and glamour to create some of the most iconic and defining portraits of our time. Throughout his career Warhol captured faces ranging from those of musicians and movie stars to political figures—including Marilyn Monroe, Jacqueline Kennedy, Mick Jagger, and Dolly Parton.

[I did find this wonderful quotation from an interview with Tyson Meade in 2001 for Interview magazine:

Dolly: “He was the only person I’ve met that’s weirder than me, that dressed worse and looked stranger. And didn’t care, just like me. I would always ask him, “What do you look like under that wig?”, and he’d reply, “What do you look like under that one?” I’d say, “Well, you’ll never know,” and he’d say, “Well, you’ll never know!”] –KD

Gerhard Richter
German artist Gerhard Richter is best known for oscillating between abstraction and representational imagery using a variety of media ranging from oils and watercolor to overpainted photographs. In the early 1990s, Richter created a series of mirror paintings using blood-red, color-coated glass that reflects whatever comes before it—whether it be the paintings hanging opposite it in the gallery or museum visitors walking in front of it. In undertaking this series of mirrors, Richter joined a centuries-old conversation in the field of Western art about whether artworks actually depict an authentic reality. Richter once noted that a mirror painting, “is the only picture that always looks different. And perhaps there's an allusion somewhere to the fact that every picture is a mirror.”

[Gerhard Richter was born in 1932 in Eastern Germany. He emigrated in 1961. His training had been in orthodox Communist-bloc Realist painting. He soon made a name for himself with three different types of work, uniquely his own: schematic, Minimalist abstracts; splashy, messy abstracts; and finely painted soft-focus photographic imagery–the latter his best-known work. In this show he has painted a mirror blood red so that the viewer can be the subject of the portrait.] –KD

• Ask guests to consider why a piece called Mirror Painting (Blood Red)—essentially an abstract piece—would be included in a portraiture exhibition.

• Ask guests what does a mirror require them to do?

Richard Artschwager
Richard Artschwager came of age at the height of the Pop Art movement in New York during the late 1950s; he also saw the emergence of Photorealist painting over the next decade. Like the Pop artists, Artschwager often looked to popular magazines and well-known personalities as subjects for his paintings—such as this portrait of beloved Manhattan art gallery owner Holly Solomon. With a background in commercial production (Artschwager also managed a furniture factory in New York for nearly ten years), he was introduced to mass-produced materials such as Celotex, onto which he painted this portrait.

[Artschwager was born in Washington, DC in 1923 but was raised in New Mexico. He received a BFA from Cornell University in 1948, his schooling having been interrupted by a tour in the US army in World War II. Through his long career as a sculptor and painter he has resisted categorization. In a 1988 review of an Artschwager retrospective Roberta Smith of the New York Times says: “Throughout the 1960s, his idiosyncratic, multi-faceted work hovered in the vicinity of Pop, Minimalism and Photo-Realism without ever requesting permission to land. A master of the reconstructed readymade, an assiduous manipulator of appropriated images, forms and uningratiating, non-art materials (often within the same hybridized painting-sculpture), Mr. Artschwager established himself as a free agent, a jack-of-all-trades.”

In this portrait of Holly Solomon, a prominent New York art collector/dealer, Artschwager chose to use his favorite painting surface -- a canvas-weave vinyl called Celotex. He is known for these paintings on Celotex as well as for abstracted furniture forms and faux-wood painting on countless surfaces.] –KD

Joel Sternfeld
Joel Sternfeld has been praised for his efforts to carry on the venerable documentary tradition of compiling a collective portrait of America. Similar projects were undertaken by photographers such as Walker Evans in the 1930s and Robert Frank two decades later. In 2001, Sternfeld published Stranger Passing, a series of sixty portraits that he took of Americans he encountered during his cross-country trips. The title Stranger Passing refers to Walt Whitman’s poem, “To a Stranger,” from Leaves of Grass:

Passing stranger! you do not know
How longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking,
Or she I was seeking
(It comes to me as a dream)

I have somewhere surely
Lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall'd as we flit by each other,
Fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,

You grew up with me,
Were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become
not yours only nor left my body mine only,

You give me the pleasure of your eyes,
face, flesh as we pass,
You take of my beard, breast, hands,
in return,

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you
when I sit alone or wake at night, alone
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again

I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

[Joel Sternfeld was born in New York City in 1944. He earned a BFA from Dartmouth and began working with color photography in the 1970s, having been drawn to it through his interest in the color theory of Josef Albers. He uses an 8 x 10” camera, enabling him to achieve crisp detail. His subjects are found everywhere in the country, doing, for the most part, everyday things. His goal has been to search out a collective American identity. He labels each large color portrait with great detail, sometimes ironic, often poignant.] –KD

Günther Forg
German-born artist Günther Forg works in a wide variety of media. Claiming unlimited freedom in his art production, he treats materials in unconventional ways and quotes art-historical precedents as he wishes. Often associated with Minimalism because of his frequent use of the color gray and the simplicity of his compositions, Forg is also sometimes compared to an Abstract Expressionist painter because of his bold brushstrokes. This work also includes one of Forg’s large-scale photographs.

Sophie Calle
With the zeal of an investigator and the obsession of a voyeur, French artist Sophie Calle probes the border between public and private in her own life and the lives of others. In her series of Autobiographical Stories, Calle looks to her own past for incidents with deep psychological resonance. By recounting a memory about her own bed—and the man who later killed himself in it—she suggests that portraits of personal objects can convey powerful truths in the same way that human portraits do.

[Sophie Calle was born in France in 1953. She is described variously as a photographer, writer, videographer, Conceptual artist and an installation artist. With a cool documentary style Calle explores the interface of our private selves and public lives. She often orchestrates what she films. She has filmed people (friends, acquaintances) sleeping in her bed. She has followed strangers and recorded all they do in a day. She has hired a detective to follow her and record what she does (unbeknownst to her). She admits to being a voyeur, of other people’s lives and of her own.

Her work in the late 1980s, Autobiographical Stories, deals with memories of her past. The Bed, the photograph in this show, deals with a story from her life. Her parents had rented out her room after she had left home. The renter set himself on fire in the bed she had slept in for seventeen years. Calle photographed from an upper storey window the ruined, discarded mattress on the ground below. One critic, discussing the Autobiographical Stories series, states: “Despite its deep psychological resonance, the self-revealing aspect of Autobiographical Stories is tempered by a cool and distanced sensibility.”] --KD

Jim Dine
Jim Dine’s The Yellow Painting asks us to consider whether a human face is necessary for a painting to be considered a portrait. Dine is often associated with the 1960s Pop Art movement because he frequently incorporated common everyday objects into his work. Unlike many Pop artists, however, Dine developed a personal, symbolic language over the years and his work frequently makes autobiographical references. In The Yellow Painting, Dine affixes his own tools—including bolt-cutters, pliers, and brushes—to the canvas, implying that these instruments might stand in for himself.

[Jim Dine was born in 1935 in Cincinnati, Ohio. He studied art at the Boston School of
Applied Arts and received a BFA from Ohio University. He moved to New York in 1959 and was soon involved with the artists who were moving away from abstract impressionism and moving toward the creation of Pop Art. But Dine’s work is far more personal than that of most Pop artists. As a child Dine was fascinated with the racks of tools in his family’s hardware store, and these tools became a frequent personal motif in his work, along with artists’ tools and domestic objects. In The Yellow Painting in this show we see (maybe) bolt cutters, a monkey wrench, a kitchen knife, pliers, a stencil brush. Is it a self-portrait? A reviewer on Encarta states: “Dine’s tool drawings from the 70s are among his most subtle, characteristic and moving images.”

Dine’s body of work includes drawing, painting, sculpture, ‘happenings’, collage and assemblage.] –KD

• Ask guests to think about portraits (or self portraits) for a moment. What do they think? Can a group of objects such as a number of tools stand in for the portrait of a person and still be considered a portrait?

• Ask guests to consider what they would include in a self-portrait to represent themselves in a way similar to how Dine has done so in The Yellow Painting.

Sam Taylor-Wood
British artist Sam Taylor-Wood looks to Bram Stoker’s 1897 Victorian novel Dracula as inspiration for this series of self-portraits. In these photographs, Taylor-Wood presents herself in a range of poses that refer to a scene in the novel when Lucy—Dracula’s young, barely-clothed victim—is left alone on a chair as the vampire’s silhouette flees the room.

In Taylor-Wood’s images, Dracula’s silhouette is nowhere to be seen—not even his chair casts a shadow. Rather, we see a young woman who has been liberated from the constraints of Victorian society and enjoys unrestrained freedom. Her prominent shadow suggests that she has control of the situation.

[Sam Taylor-Wood was born in London in 1967. She is known as a Conceptual artist, a photographer, a singer, and a creator of multi-screen video works. White Cube, the gallery that represents her, had the following statement about these photographs, which they referred to as self-portraits: The Bram Stoker’s Chair series are “...conscious acts of self-iconoclasm in which the artist’s face (and fame) is obliterated, either by being draped with her hair or else masked by a trailing arm. These mark a departure from the trials of the emotional self towards physical trials of the body.”

“Taylor-Wood’s Bram Stoker’s Chair is so called because the chair in question, which magically supports her contortions in each photograph, casts no shadow. She has been trussed up by a bondage expert in constrictive harnesses and hung from wires attached to the ceiling for hours on end while performing her poses. The final images of seemingly effortless acrobatics were heavily doctored using computer manipulation, releasing her body from the bondage and supporting cables to float freely in midair.”] –KD

Shirin Neshat
For Iranian-born artist Shirin Neshat, who now lives and works in New York City, photography is a medium that allows her to explore Islamic traditions, gender roles, and the complexities of the contemporary Muslim world. Neshat’s work is concerned with the opposition that exists between man and woman in traditional Islamic society. In her large-scale arresting portraits, she demystifies Islamic women by unveiling their faces and presenting them as self-assured, dignified individuals.

[Shirin Neshat was born in 1957 in pre-revolutionary Iran. Her parents prided themselves on being ‘Westernized’ and encouraged their daughters to go out into the world. Neshat studied in Los Angeles, at Dominican College in the San Francisco Bay Area, and received her MFA from UC Berkeley.

Neshat works as a photographer and video artist. She draws upon her conflicting feelings and nostalgia for her Iranian heritage as she explores Islam and gender roles. She is best known for her Women of Allah series—stunning, huge photographs of traditionally garbed Iranian women with flowing Persian calligraphy overlaying their faces. Her videos, often on two screens with the viewer standing between them, have won awards world-wide and caused controversy in conservative Islamic societies.]
–KD

John Baldessari
John Baldessari is a conceptual artist who has spent his career challenging the highly theoretical orientation of Conceptual art. In many ways he can be compared to Ed Ruscha—they share a low-key sense of humor—taking the seriousness out of the holy grail of Conceptualism. He is also compared to the French Dadaist Duchamp, as he uses his own art to question the nature of art itself. Duchamp believed that art should appeal to the intellect rather than the senses. His “readymades” were ordinary objects turned into art objects, e.g. The Fountain.

For Baldessari, the qualities of photographs have little was an art object but is a convenient mechanical tool. However in spite of this, he has been a great mentor and teacher in Southern California helping to emphasize a concern for content over a concern for pictorial issues.

In Perrier with Figures we see three images, a green bottle (Perrier), a larger and central image of a couple with their faces blocked out by circles, and a third image of a couple interacting with each other as in conversation. The piece begs the question. Why is this piece in a Portrait exhibit? Why are the faces blocked out? Is this a portrait or is it asking us, as the viewers, to look deeper into the meaning and the relationship between the three images. Or is it just Baldessari having a little fun at our expense? –JN

• Ask guests to consider how Neshat depicts the people in her photographs. What do the photographs convey about the people she chooses to photograph?

• Ask guests to consider how Neshat’s photographs might challenge conventional images of Iranian cultures prominent in western media?

• Explain that Her work refers to the social, cultural and religious codes of Muslim societies and the complexity of certain dichotomies, such as man and woman. Neshat often emphasizes this theme with the technique of showing two or more coordinated films concurrently, creating stark visual contrasts through such motifs as light and dark, black and white, male and female.

• Explain that Neshat tries to address the social, political and psychological dimensions of women's experience in contemporary Islamic societies. Although Neshat actively resists stereotypical representations of Islam, her artistic objectives are not explicitly polemical. Rather, her work recognizes the complex intellectual and religious forces shaping the identity of Muslim women throughout the world.

Additional Tour/Discussion Suggestions
• Explain that Close began his career shortly after graduating from the Yale University art department, an important influence on his development as an artist in the mid-1960s.

• Explain that Close’s first major work, Big Nude, 1964, was an enormous full-length portrait of a nude female model. Close was unhappy with the result, and focused his efforts on tightly cropped faces, or “heads” as he calls them himself.

• Explain that Close is very interested in the tension between the order of the grid system he uses to paint his large canvases and the organic shapes of his sitters.

• Explain that Close admired the work of Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Franz Kline.

• Explain that a ruptured artery within his spinal column led to his permanent paralysis in 1988.

• Ask guests to look at the large painting called James. Ask guests to consider how they think Close painted it.

• Explain that, as in many of his paintings, prints, and drawings, James is created from a photographic “maquette,” an image over which Close creates a grid that eventually helps him to transfer the image to a much larger surface.

• Explain to guests the Jacquard tapestries are computer-guided textile weavings that depict images taken from digital image files based on daguerreotypes Close has made of his friends and peers.

“Painting is the most magical of mediums. The transcendence is truly amazing to me every time I go to a museum and I see how somebody figured another way to rub colored dirt on a flat surface and make space where there is no space or make you think of a life experience.”
--Chuck Close

Frank Stella, "Agua Caliente"

2009-04-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

FRANK STELLA

Agua Caliente
Print, Silkscreen, 1972

Frank Stella is one of America’s leading contemporary artists. He was a pioneer of the Minimalist art movement of the 1960s, a type of art that stressed the reduction of the image to its most basic elements of color, shape, and design. Minimalists strove to create artwork that was devoid of symbolism, representation, or opinion. Stella is famous for saying “What you see is what you get”. In the 1970s he deviated from Minimalist designs to incorporate sculpture as a third dimension in his work. By the 1990s he had progressed toward more complex imagery, creating elaborate, vivid works that paid homage to his extensive cultural and literary knowledge.. Stella’s abstract prints in lithography, screen printing, etching, and offset lithography ( a technique he introduced) have had a strong impact on printmaking as art.

Frank Stella was born in Malden, Mass, in 1936. He studied painting at the Phillips Academy in Andover and later at Princeton University. He moved to New York City in 1958 and has spent most of his life living and working in the city, though his art projects have taken him around the globe. He has done large scale outdoor sculpture, mural projects, and has done architectural designs for pavilions and museums. He did set design for dancer Merce Cunningham for the musical Pajama Game. He is a printmaker of the subjects and styles of his paintings. His series called “Indian Bird” is derived from one of his favorite pastimes, bird watching. He has won numerous awards, grants, and honors and has taught and lectured at universities and museums in America and abroad. Never one to rest on his laurels, Frank Stella is constantly evolving, changing, and responding to the world around him.

This biographical information is from several internet sites including AskART, Art Cellar Exchange, MetroArtWork, Hollis Taggart Galleries and Answers.com.

Submitted by Lois Smalley

Hans Meyer-Kassel, "Nevada Landscape"

2009-04-03T10:31:00.001-07:00

HANS MEYER-KASSEL

Nevada Landscape
Oil on canvas, 1945

From the Nevada Historical Quarterly, by Jeff Nicholson:

"Hans Meyer-Kassel, a native of Germany, arrived in Nevada in 1937 at the age of 65. Prior to his moving to Nevada, he had enjoyed success and honors as an artist in Germany and had exhibited throughout Europe. Born Hans Meyer in 1872, he studied art at the University of Munich, choosing portraiture as his field of art. At the age of nineteen he was already welcoming clients to his first professional studio and received many important commissions in the years following. He became a professor at Germany’s Royal Academy of Art and was a founding member of the International Art Society of Munich. In recognition of his early achievements, his native city, following longstanding tradition, bestowed upon him the high honor of adding its name, Kassel, to his."

"A classically trained and accomplished painter, Meyer-Kassel produced a steady stream of landscapes, still lifes, nautical scenes, and portraits. In Nevada he had studios in Genoa, Reno, and Carson City. During the 1940s he did portraits of four of Nevada’s past governors as well as several Nevada dignitaries. Working in oils, pastels and tempera, he was a prolific artist and many of his works are in public and private collections throughout Nevada. Hans Meyer-Kassel maintained his vigorous painting until the last day of his life in 1952, when he simply laid down his brushes for an afternoon nap and never awoke."

Robert Swain Gifford, "Landscape with Cattle"

2009-04-03T10:28:00.000-07:00

ROBERT SWAIN GIFFORD

Landscape with Cattle
Etching, 1888

Robert Swain Gifford was born in 1840 on Naushon Island, Massachusetts. He studied art with a Dutch artist, Albert Van Beest, in Bedford. In the early 1860s he had studios in New York and Massachusetts. By 1866 he had made New York City his permanent home, although he returned regularly to Massachusetts and other parts of New England to sketch and paint. In 1869 he traveled and sketched extensively in the Western States. In 1870 he began a series of trips to Europe and the Middle East. He was especially taken with the work of the Barbizon artists, especially those whose work he saw on a trip to Marseilles. Peter Bermingham in American Art in the Barbizon Mood, (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1975) notes the change in Gifford’s style as a result of that exposure to the different palettes of some European artists: “...after that his style evolved from an overblown romanticism,....to stark, simpler compositions, wide spacious vistas, and, most typically, a cold, somber mood drawn from the barren dunes and rugged cedars of the New England coast.”

In 1877 Gifford began teaching at Cooper Union School in New York City. He remained there for thirty years, the last nine years as director. He helped establish the New York Etching Club in 1877 and was a founding member of the American Society of Painters in Watercolors. He won medals at Expositions in Philadelphia, Buffalo, Charleston, and Paris. He was a friend of Thomas and Mary Moran, both accomplished etchers. His work is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Smithsonian American Art Museum. He died in New York City in 1905.

-- Kathleen Durham

Harold Joe Waldrum, "Morning Light"

2009-04-03T10:25:00.001-07:00

HAROLD JOE WALDRUM

Morning Light
Aquatint etching, 1991

Joe Waldrum is best known for his paintings, aquatint etchings, and linocuts of the adobe churches and mud-hewn moradas of New Mexico. His color-saturated paintings have minimal lines, but he has mastered the use of light and shadow to portray these sacred places. For several years Waldrum made his “window series:, which were works with the “painting as a window” type of composition. Just as Matisse, Magritte, and other artists have been drawn to that format, so was Waldrum. The churches of New Mexico proved to be a passionate subject for him as he depicted the spiritual and mysterious aspects of these earthy structures in his works.

Harold Joe Waldrum was born in Savoy, Texas on August 23, 1934. He earned a college degree in music from Western State College in Gunnison, Colorado, and a master’s degree in studio painting from Fort Hays State College in Kansas. Waldrum taught art and music in the public schools of Kansas for sixteen years. In 1970 he moved to the hill country of Texas and then in 1971 to Santa Fe, New Mexico. After he killed a man during a break-in in his studio, Waldrum moved to New York for a time to escape the man’s angry relatives. By 1979 he had returned to New Mexico and began painting the churches. He lived on a remote ranch and raised mules. In 1994 Waldrum had a book published with provocative essays, photographs of his “Mountain Ranch” mules, and color reproductions of his work. Joe Waldrum died in 2003 in his beloved New Mexico.

Quotes from the artist:
“There is a beautiful place in the United States of America. It is in northern New Mexico between the two mountain ranges. This place is called “The Cradle”. Its people, the land, and its elements are special and peculiar. I find the genius of this place reflected in the churches”.

“When my analyst in New York identified me as socially schizophrenic, I felt better knowing that my malady had a name; and when I first saw the mountain range of the thieves...I felt better knowing there was a place for the socially schizophrenic to live.”

This information compiled from articles from Artspace Quarterly, the online gallery of Rio Bravo Fine Arts, and the online archives of AskART.

-- Lois Smalley

Harold Lukens Doolittle, Morning in Yosemite

2009-04-03T10:23:00.001-07:00

HAROLD LUKENS DOOLITTLE

Morning in Yosemite
Aquatint (no date)

Harold Doolittle (1883-1974) was an etcher, furniture maker, and civil engineer from Southern California. Though he worked in all the graphic processes including photography and collotype, he is most known for his beautiful aquatints. Doolittle was an inventive man who built his own press and mezzotint rocker, and preferred to make his own linen paper.

Doolittle was born in Pasadena and studied at Cornell University and Throop Polytechnic Institute, now known as Caltech. He worked for many years as chief design engineer for the Southern California Edison Company.

He served as President of the California Print Makers in the 1940s and 1950s. Other memberships that he held included Pasadena Society of Artists, Society of American Graphic Artists, and several chapters of the Society of Etchers. Doolittle is represented in the Library of Congress, California State Library, and public libraries of the cities of New York and Los Angeles.

This biographical info provided online by two galleries representing Doolittle’s works: The Blue Heron Gallery and the Annex Galleries.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

William Dassonville, Yosemite Valley

2009-04-03T10:20:00.001-07:00

WILLIAM DASSONVILLE

Yosemite Valley
Photograph, Platinum Print, 1906

The following is from the book Dassonville, with a biographical essay by Peter Palmquist.

William Dassonville’s photographic legacy is considerable, including an outstanding body of fine photographs in the pictorialist tradition. During his lifetime his photographs were widely published and he won numerous prizes and honors. He was an innovative craftsman and self-taught chemist, a perfectionist who developed and marketed his own line of photgraphic printing paper: Charcoal Black.

Born in Sacramento, CA, in 1879, William Dassonville was given a camera as a youth and made photos of his friends and relatives. In 1900 he opened a portrait studio in San Francisco, and about that time he joined the California Camera Club. In addition to portraits he did landscapes and seascapes. His favorite areas to photograph included Yosemite, the High Sierra, the Pacific Coast around Monterey and Carmel, and Marin County north of San Francisco. Dassonville exhibited at the San Francisco Photography Salons of 1901, 1902, and 1903. His works traveled the nation with the American Photography Salon. In 1906 the San Francisco earthquake and fire destroyed his studio and all negatives of his pre-1906 work were lost, but he continued to exhibit his photographs. By 1910 his portrait business had grown and he had many customers of significant financial means. When World War I caused a critical shortage of platinum printing papers which Dassonville’s work depended on, he began to experiment with a silver bromide emulsion to coat high quality paper. This led to his Charcoal Black paper and in 1924 he sold his portrait studio to concentrate on the manufacture and marketing of Charcoal Black. He had good success with this as it was popular with photographers such as Ansel Adams. In 1941, at age 62, Dassonville sold the business. He continued to be active in photography, and worked as a medical photographer at Stanford University’s Hospital in San Francisco. William Dassonville died July 15, 1957, in San Francisco.

-- Lois Smalley

Jeff Nicholson, Sunset Down South

2009-04-03T10:19:00.001-07:00

JEFF NICHOLSON

July Down South
Oil on canvas, 1979

Jeff Nicholson has been painting landscapes for 35 years, working primarily in oil and watercolor, making art that captures the beauty of Nevada and the Great Basin. He has been described as the “consummate Nevada realist painter”, and his works are in several permanent collections, including the Nevada Museum of Art, the University of Nevada Reno, and the Governor’s Mansion in Carson City.

Nicholson was born in 1947 in Arcata, moved to Reno in 1962, and graduated from Reno High School in 1966. He attended the University of Nevada Reno, completing his studies there in 1978. Nicholson has been involved in art-related employment for many years; he served as a draughtsman in the U.S. Army in the Panama Canal Zone (1967-68), and has worked as a commercial silkscreener and layout artist. He has taught art at Truckee Meadows College and is founder and co-owner of Great Basin Gallery in Carson City. Over the years his art has been exhibited at several Reno and Carson City galleries, and the Nevada Museum of Art has twice honored him with one-man shows. Nicholson states the inspiration for his art is drawn from noted artists Maynard Dixon, Robert Caples, and Craig Sheppard.

Quote from the Artist (from the late 1970s):

“I’d like to pay tribute to Maynard Dixon, whose works I have studied so intensely. One day I hope it can be said that I accomplished as much in capturing that mystical, spiritual quality of the high desert as he did.”

Biographical information from Scenic Nevada.org and Renown Health Center Online Art Gallery.

--Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley

Frank de Haven, Sunset Landscape

2009-04-03T10:13:00.003-07:00

FRANK DE HAVEN

Sunset Landscape
Oil on canvas, 1910

Frank DeHaven was born in Bluffton, Indiana (date unknown). He came to New York in 1886 and studied with George Henry Smillie. He was one of several artists who painted shoreline scenes on Long Island and in Massachusetts. In his father’s obituary in 1915 there were flowery descriptions of the rest of the family. Frank DeHaven was described as “the well-known landscape painter of New York City”. In another amazing passage the unknown author states: “It is not surprising to find latter-day Hudson River School influences, and an intense Barbizon, or more specifically, Tonalist sensibility in much of DeHaven’s work.” DeHaven was also known as an accomplished violin maker. He and his wife traveled extensively through the United States always searching for new places to paint.

--Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley

Edwin M. Dawes, Fields of May

2009-04-03T10:13:00.001-07:00

EDWIN M. DAWES
1872-1945

Fields of May
Oil on canvas, ca. 1915

Edwin Dawes was born in Boone, Iowa in 1872. He studied art in Pennsylvania with William Lathrop and the New Hope school of American Barbizon painters. He supported himself as a sign painter in Minneapolis for several years, but continued to paint and study art in his spare time. He exhibited with the Minneapolis Artists’ League and his work was shown at the 1913 Chicago Art Institute show.

In 1914 Dawes moved West, traveling and painting in Montana, Arizona, Missouri and Nevada. He worked for the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company, painting the Grand Canyon and Glacier National Park. He settled in California in 1915, but left frequently to explore mining possibilities in gold and silver. He lived for a time in Fallon and in Reno. Dawes died in Los Angeles in 1945.

--Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley

Suzanne Kanatsiz, Ceremonial Cloak II

2009-04-03T06:36:00.000-07:00

SUZANNE KANATSIZ

Ceremonial Cloak II
Mixed Media, 1994

Suzanne Kanatsiz works in sculpture, installation, and drawing. Her forms are wide-ranging; relief panels, earthworks, steel sculptures, and more. Her experimental and conceptual work makes use of diverse combinations of organic and manufactured/machined materials. Many of these works have primitive features, and are created via slow, laborious processes. Concentric rings, circles, and spheres done in repetition are prominent in her designs. Ceremonial Cloak is an example of that type of work. The principal material of the cloak is from pine cones, which were an important part of the Washoe Paiute Indian culture, and the pattern of the piece is repetitive and concentric. It was made during a time when Kanatsiz was living in Nevada.

Born in Detroit, Suzanne Kanatsiz grew up in San Diego and earned a BFA in painting from San Diego State University on 1984 and an MFA in sculpture from San Jose State University in 1988. Arabic text has long been a part of her work due to her Turkish heritage; Kanatsiz is one of two daughters born to an American mother and a Turkish father. She has lived and traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East, including a teaching appointment at Sabanci University in Istanbul. She has also traveled to Australia, Canada, Mexico, Scotland, Korea, and other places in order to observe/learn the culture of the native peoples of the region and incorporate that into her artwork. She has taught sculpture at the University of Nevada Reno and at Weber State University in Utah. She currently lives in Ogden with her husband and son.

Quotes from an interview by a writer and friend of hers, Jordan Clary:

Question by Clary: “A lot of your art seems to be inspired by tribal societies. What is it about that that you try to convey with your work?”

Kanatsiz: “Indigenous peoples had a highly sophisticated relationship to the arts and its transformative powers. I am interested in imbuing that power in my work. Also different landscapes reflect my inner landscape. I love the ancient feel of a dry desert, the expansiveness of that is powerful.”

Information from “A” Gallery of Salt Lake City, The Utah Artists Project, and artist-at-large.com interview, 2007.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Mildred Bryan Brooks, Twilight

2009-04-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

MILDRED BRYAN BROOKS
1901-1995

Twilight
Etching, 20th Century

Mildred Brooks was born in Missouri and came with her family to Long Beach, California in 1907 when she was six years old. She graduated with honors from USC. She went on to study at Otis and Chouinard Art Institutes. Her teachers/mentors were Tolles Chamberlin (also in this show), and Arthur Millier, who steered her toward printmaking, with an emphasis on etching. She began her career designing Christmas cards but soon acquired her own printing press and began working on her own. She taught at Stickley Art School in Pasadena, the Los Angeles Art Institute, and Pomona College. Her work won awards nationally, including one from the Chicago Society of Etchers – their first ever awarded to a woman or a Westerner! During the Depression she was able to support her family completely with her printmaking. She is best known for her etchings of trees.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

William Franklin Jackson, Untitled (Landscape)

2009-04-03T06:33:00.000-07:00

WILLIAM FRANKLIN JACKSON
1850-1936

Untitled (landscape)
Oil on linen, 1920-late 1930s

William Jackson was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa. His family came to Sacramento by covered wagon in 1863. He went to San Francisco to study art at the San Francisco School of Design with Virgil Williams and Benoni Irwin. He kept a studio in San Francisco until 1880 when he moved back permanently to Sacramento.

Jackson was a plein air painter known for depicting rolling hills, spring wildflowers and vistas of the American River and Donner Lake. He was a close friend of the painter William Keith. He won gold medals wherever his work was shown.

Jackson is perhaps best known for his role at the Crocker Art Museum. When the Crocker family deeded their art gallery/home to the City of Sacramento in 1884, Jackson became curator and director of the art school. He worked there for fifty-two years, until his death in 1936.

--Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley

Trude Hanscom, "The Tempest"

2009-04-02T22:42:00.000-07:00

TRUDE HANSCOM

The Tempest
Drypoint, 1952

Trude Hanscom was known primarily as a graphic artist who practiced her art in California. She was born Gertrude Fandrich in Oil City, PA on December 6, 1890.
She grew up in Waterloo, NY, and studied art at Syracuse University. About 1930 she moved to California, where she married Charles Hanscom. Her etchings, aquatints, and drypoints depict southern California landscapes. She did a series of works on Los Angeles’ Chinatown, and drew portraits and Indian genre scenes during trips to New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. She sketched Mexican children on frequent visits there. Trude Hanscom studied art at many schools in California, including Scripps College, Claremont, Otis Art Institute, and several universities in the Los Angeles area. While working on her own art, Hanscom taught art to private students and in the public schools of Alhambra, Glendale and San Gabriel. She exhibited works in galleries and shows including the Golden Gate International Exposition, Society of American Etchers in New York, the Royal Academy in London, and various art venues in California. In 1965 she received an honorary life membership in the Society of American Graphic Artists. Trude Hanscom died in a Santa Barbara retirement home on June 7, 1975.

Biographical information is from AskART and The Annex Galleries, online.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Mary Frances Wildman, "Sierra Juniper"

2009-04-02T22:39:00.001-07:00

MARY FRANCES WILDMAN
1899-1967

Sierra Juniper
Etching, 1937

Mary F. Wildman was born October 10, 1899, in Indianapolis. She lived in Philadelphia and then moved to Los Angeles to study art at Otis Art Institute. In the 1930s she moved to Palo Alto and earned her Ph.D. from Stanford University. She was active as an artist in California, and her etching subjects were of the High Sierra, Fallen Leaf Lake, and landscapes around the Stanford area. Wildman exhibited at galleries in San Francisco and Los Angeles and held memberships in several artists’ clubs, including the Palo Alto Art Club, Society of Etchers, and Philadelphia Print Club. She died on the Monterey peninsula on April 27, 1967.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Ruth Doris Swett, "Carolina Long Leafed Pines"

2009-04-02T22:36:00.000-07:00

RUTH DORIS SWETT

Carolina Long Leafed Pines
Drypoint, 1938

Ruth Doris Swett was an artist who was active during the 1930s making drypoint and etchings. She was a native of Southern Pines, North Carolina, and much of her work involved the pine needle motif. In December 1941 the local newspaper of Southern Pines, The Pilot, reported that its new nameplate was designed by Ruth Doris Swett from her original drawing of pine needles, a compass, and a map of Moore County.

Not much is know about Swett but Who Was Who in American Art, by Peter Hastings Falk, lists her as an etcher born in 1901 in North Carolina and notes that she had studied at Chouinard Art Institute in California. The Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue has three prints by Swett: Florida Pine, The Lone Palm, and Long Leaf Pine, all of which were done in the 1930s.

--Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley

F. Tolles Chamberlin, "Near Pasadena"

2009-04-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

F. TOLLES CHAMBERLIN
1873-1961

Near Pasadena
Drypoint, 1947

Tolles Chamberlin was born in San Francisco but spent much of his youth in Vermont and Connecticut. His first art lessons were with Dwight Tryon at the Wadsworth Atheneum. In New Rochelle he became proficient at watercolor renderings for a landscape architect. He continued this work in New York City and attended night classes at the Art Students League. He won a four year scholarship to study in Rome. On his return to New York he taught for several years at the Beaux Arts School of Design.

In 1919 Tolles and his family moved to Pasadena. He taught at the Otis Art Institute and later co-founded the Chouinard Art Institute. He also taught watercolor rendering at the USC School of Architecture. He worked in pastels, oil, watercolor, sculpture, drawing and etching. He may be best known, however, as an extremely gifted and influential teacher. (One of his pupils is Mildred Brooks, also in this show). Tolles died in Los Angeles in 1961.

--Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley

Arthur A. Hoeber, "Early Evening"

2009-04-02T22:31:00.001-07:00

ARTHUR A. HOEBER
1854-1950

Early Evening
Oil on linen, 1910

Arthur Hoeber was born in 1854 in New York City. He studied at the Art Students League under Beckwith. Later he went to Paris to study at the Ecole des Beaux Arts under Gerome. His work was so highly thought of in Paris that he was juried into the 1882 Salon. His favorite subjects were tidal wetlands in Cape Cod, New Jersey , and Long Island. He belonged to the New Jersey art colony in Nutley. He is generally considered a Tonalist.

Hoeber is best known as a writer. He was art critic for the New York Times and the New York Globe and wrote several books. He died in Nutley, NJ in 1950.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Alfred Heber Hutty, "An Avenue of Oaks"

2009-04-02T22:29:00.001-07:00

ALFRED HEBER HUTTY
1877(8)-1954(8)

An Avenue of Oaks
Etching, 20th Century

Alfred Hutty was born and educated in Michigan, but he spent his adult life going between Woodstock, NY and Charleston, S.C. He moved to New York to work as a stained glass window designer for Tiffany Glass studios. He studied painting at the Art Students League with L. Birge Harrison (represented in our Wiegand collection), and soon became deeply involved with the Woodstock art colony. He and his wife moved to Charleston in 1919, and it was there that he became enthralled with etching. He set up a print studio there and went on to win nationwide awards for his etching. He was the first American to be elected to the British Society of Graphic Arts, and was a founding member of the Charleston Etchers Club. In Art and Artists of the South Boyd Sanders wrote “Hutty adapted readily to his new mode of expression...the rapid certainty of his bitten lines and the rich bloom and shimmer of his drypoints authoritatively declare his mastery of the medium.” He continued to work in oils and mural painting in addition to his etchings. Hutty returned to his home in Woodstock every summer until his death in the 1950s.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Arthur Merton Hazard, Untitled (Mt. Whitney)

2009-04-02T22:26:00.001-07:00

ARTHUR MERTON HAZARD
1872-1930

Untitled (Mt. Whitney)
Oil on canvas, 1927

Arthur Hazard was born in Bridgewater, Mass. He studied in Boston, Cincinnati, and Paris, with Frank Duveneck, the tonalist Joseph deCamp, and Henri Blanc. He spent most of his life in Boston where he was known for his superb portraits of Boston socialites and dignitaries., as well as his World War I paintings. Late in life he moved to California for his health. In Hollywood he continued to do portraits. But California also provided him with a new landscape, and he delighted in painting desert flowers and landscapes. His work is represented in the National American Art Museum, the Amon Carter, the Red Cross Museum, the California Historical Society and the Nevada Museum of Art.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

William S. Rice, "California Live Oak"

2009-04-02T22:23:00.000-07:00

WILLIAM S. RICE
1873-1963

California Live Oak
Etching, undated

William Rice was born in Pennsylvania and studied at the Pennsylvania School of Industrial Art and the Drexel Institute in Philadelphia. In 1900 he moved to California and became Supervisor of Art in the Public Schools. He moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1910, where he taught high school and college level art courses for thirty-six years. He was a talented artist in the Craftsman tradition, working in watercolor and oil, ceramics, copper and wood, but printmaking was his special skill. He mastered all its forms, and was best known for colored woodcuts (influenced by Japanese prints), and drypoints. He wrote three books on printmaking, and his work was exhibited widely, including a one-man show at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor. Rice’s art work is represented in the National American Art Museum and the Library of Congress.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Carl Henrik Jonnevold

2009-04-02T22:20:00.001-07:00

CARL HENRIK JONNEVOLD
1856-1955

Untitled (landscape)
Oil on canvas, undated

Carl Jonnevold was born in Norway and came to the United States in his twenties. He painted all around the Northwest until 1887 when he settled in San Francisco. He had no formal art education. In his early fifties he visited Paris where he was drawn to the Barbizon painters’ subdued palettes. His California landscapes from that time on showed this influence. His preference was to paint in late afternoon for the subtle effect of the shadows.
By 1930 he was in deep financial trouble. After a violent dispute with his landlord which resulted in a two month jail sentence, he disappeared from San Francisco. He lived in obscurity for the next twenty-five years. He died at the age of ninety-nine.

--Lois Smalley and Kathleen Durham

Wim Wenders, "Meteorite Crater, West Australia"

2009-04-02T21:55:00.000-07:00

Meteorite Crater, West Australia
Large Scale Aerial Photograph, 1988

Wim Wenders is known internationally as a film maker from Germany. By way of scouting via small aircraft for movie set locations for his films, his photographs of these sites eventually led to museum exhibits of his very large scale (typically over fifteen feet in length) aerial photography. A major photographic survey of his “Pictures from the Surface of the Earth” has toured museums world wide since 2001. Meteorite Crater was shot in West Australia on just such a scouting expedition. Difficult to reach by car, Meteorite Crater was on a map of Australia in a remote area west of Alice Springs. Wenders discovered the place on an aerial location survey, circled the enormous crater, landed on the dust strip next to it, and walked for an hour to get into the middle of the giant circle. Wenders claimed the aerial photograph documented the site as a meteorite crater. However, controversy surrounded the artist’s naming of the site. Apparently, the crater wasn’t created by a meteorite: it’s a naturally occurring bowl-shaped depression of land in the earth.

Ernst Wilhelm Wenders was born in Dusseldorf, Germany in 1945. Wenders studied medicine (1963-64), and philosophy (1964-65), before interrupting his academic studies to became a painter in 1966. By 1967 he was working as a film critic and producing several short films, and this continued until the 1980s. In 19882 he moved to New York and has since then become involved in producing and directly hundreds of films through various cinema companies. Two of his best known films are Wings of Desire and The Buena Vista Social Club. He currently lives in Los Angeles and Berlin with his wife, Donata, a photographer.

Quote by the artist: (from Wenders’ official website)
“Bigger is never better per se, nor more beautiful. But some of these landscapes and places that I photographed deserved nothing else but the biggest possible prints. I was limited by the size of the photo paper, otherwise, I would have gone even bigger. To understand these places, you have to immerse yourself in them.”

--Lois Smalley

January 27 Docent Meeting Canceled

2009-01-16T12:12:00.000-08:00

I learned that the art trip to the Crocker Art Museum that has been scheduled for some time, and which I understand at least 10 docents are signed up to participate in, conflicts directly with the time and date of our next docent meeting on the 27th of January.

Because of this, I think it’s best if we cancel the meeting altogether, as trying to reschedule it will not get us

very far. Please do note, however, that the training content that we would have addressed on the 27th is important – we’ll need to address it on the regular training day on February 9, in addition to the content planned for that day already.

Thanks so much—enjoy the trip to Sacramento, those of you who are going.

Did You Know :: Jamie Brunson

2008-12-16T13:26:00.000-08:00

Jamie Brunson :

Studied at the California College of the Arts (BFA, 1978), and at Mills College (MFA, 1983).
Produced pattern-based paintings from 1995-2004 that were inspired by ornamental motifs she had seen in her travels to ancient historic and religious sites around the world, and by her kundalini meditation practice.
Teaches painting at the San Francisco Art Institute and at San Francisco State University.
Works also as a writer and critic, and has published essays in Artweek, Art Issues, and Artspace.
Works also as a curator, having organized exhibitions of West Coast pattern-based painting that opened at the Mills College Art Museum in Oakland, CA, in 2001.
Fascinated by global religious traditions. In fact, the title of her work in our collection, Krishna Lila, refers to the devotional music of Hindu India. The Sanskrit word for Krishna, krsna, means “black,” “dark,” or “dark blue”—the color of the piece.
Encourages contemplation and spiritual reflection. She is interested in both the spiritual implications of patterns as well as the role they play in cultural transmission.

Of special note:
Nevada Museum of Art Volunteer Meg Watson made the Brunson acquisition possible, in memory of her mother.

Did You Know :: Joan Mitchell

2008-12-16T13:20:00.001-08:00

Joan Mitchell:
• Born February 12, 1925, in Chicago, Illinois.
• Considered a “second generation” Abstract Expressionist, along with Lee Krasner and Helen Frankenthaler.
• Studied at Smith College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia University, and in the studio of Hans Hofmann (as did Lee Krasner). However, despite her interest in Hofmann’s teaching, she was put off by his brusque manner, which included such practices as erasing and re-drawing students’ drawings while they worked.
• Influenced by Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, and Henri Matisse. In fact, much of her career was spent living in France, and for a time in a house and studio adjacent to where Monet himself painted in Giverny.
• Married briefly to Barney Rosset, an American publisher, before beginning a long and tumultuous relationship with Jean-Paul Riopelle, an Abstract Expressionist painter and sculptor from Quebec.
• Split her time between New York City, the heart of the American-born Abstract Expressionist movement, and France.
• Included landscapes and bridges as common abstracted elements in her paintings, reflecting her interest in the beautiful French landscapes she loved, and the Brooklyn Bridge, below which her American studio and home was located.
• Worked in extremely large scale—and multi-panel paintings became very common in her work, all of which relied on stylistic elements that included the use of long, curvilinear strokes and broad stains of color, often on unprimed canvas.
• Died in 1992, leaving in her estate support for future artists through the Joan Mitchell Foundation, which awarded Reno artist Michael Sarich an “emerging artist” award in 2008.

Did You Know :: Lee Krasner

2008-12-16T13:13:00.000-08:00

Lee Krasner was:
• Born October 27, 1908, to a Russian Jewish immigrant family.
• Studied at the Cooper Union, the Art Students League of New York, and the National Academy of Design.
• Employed by the Public Works of Art Project in 1934, the first New Deal art program, and relied upon the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project until the program ended in 1943.
• Studied in the studio of renowned “first generation” Abstract Expressionist painter Hans Hofmann from 1937-1940. This experience profoundly altered her art: from a figurative, representational style to a geometrically-inspired, Cubist-influenced, expression. In one of his critiques of her work, Hofmann reportedly exclaimed “this painting is so good it could have been painted by a man.” She never forgot the experience.
• Met her more famous husband, Jackson Pollock, in 1941, though they had an informal encounter years earlier, in 1936, at a Federal Art Project party.
• Deeply appreciated the work of Mondrian and Matisse.
• Worked in collage, and also cut her paintings and studies into pieces to create them. Partly because of this working style, scholars believe that only 599 of her paintings exist today.
• In 1956, returned to a style that included figurative elements, though now more abstract than in her early career, in which human, animal, and especially plant forms are prominent.
• Vision and Revision are two constant themes in her work, connecting to cycles of life in nature.
• Died in 1984, shortly before the first full retrospective exhibition of her work opened at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In MoMA’s history, she is still one of just four women to have a solo retrospective exhibition ever.

Katie Holten Review in Circa

2008-11-07T06:34:00.000-08:00

Another Katie Holten exhibition similar to our Atlas of Memory exhibition has been recently reviewed in the magazine Circa. Clicking on the image of the article above will open the article up at a readable size in a new window.

Tour and Workshop Needs

2008-11-03T16:03:00.000-08:00

We're experiencing a bit of a pinch with some docent tours and workshops this week that I hope some of you might be able to help us with.

We've had a couple of docents who've had to remove themselves from tours and workshops this week due to health concerns or work conflicts. If anyone can step in to help with the following on short notice, I'd appreciate it.

1) We have one tour and two workshops that need to be covered on Wednesday, November 5 for a mixed group of Florence Drake Elementary School 4th/5th graders (tour at 10:15, workshops at 11:15).

2) We have need for one tour at 10:15 on Thursday, November 6 for a group of Bud Beasley Elementary School 1st graders

3) We need two workshops for a group of Gardnerville Elementary School 6th graders at 11:30 am (please note the 11:30 workshop time, rather than 11:15, due to their long drive).

4) Public tours on Saturday and Sunday, November 8th and 9th are all still in need of a docent's adoption.

Let me or Rosalind (who will be back in the office on Election Day) know if you can help with any of these impending needs.

Many thanks,

Colin

Long May She Wave: A Graphic History of the American Flag, October 25, 2008-February 22, 2009

2008-10-19T11:06:00.000-07:00

The catalog accompanying the exhibition Long May She Wave: A Graphic History of the American Flag is a beautiful book, containing images of most of the objects that will be displayed in the Nevada Museum of Art exhibition of the same name. It does, however, contain little in the form of text--historical information, for example, is limited to names and dates.

Flag: An American Biography sits at the other end of the spectrum: little in the form of images, even for illustration purposes, but rich in historical information and context regarding the development of the American flag as on object of national significance over the last two centuries plus.

If not in the museum store, they're to be easily found online at www.amazon.com and through Sundance Books, Barnes & Noble, or Borders.

Docent Training Canceled

2008-10-13T07:32:00.001-07:00

Please note that I need to cancel Docent Training for Monday, October 13, 2008. Training for Long May She Wave: A Graphic History of the American Flag will begin with Kit Hinrichs' walk-through of the exhibition on Friday morning, October 24, beginning at 10:00 a.m., and continuing with tour and workshop training following the walk-through. Thank you--apologies for the inconvenience.

Chris Drury: Mushrooms | Clouds Tour Blueprint

2008-08-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

August 9 – October 5, 2008

Introduction

The exhibition Chris Drury: Mushrooms | Clouds consists of three major sculpture installations, five video works, three mixed media installation pieces, and several photographs. The exhibition is easily one of the most ambitious in the museum’s history—the majority of the works included in it are original commissions for the exhibition itself, never seen anywhere before. Additionally, as the first major museum exhibition of artist Chris Drury’s work, what people see in the gallery over the next two months represents a major commitment to a mid-career artist’s work, and a major investment in the ideas underlying the museum’s art and environment mission. The exhibition is presented as part of the NMA’s Art + Environment exhibition series, and will serve as the backdrop to the Art + Environment Conference in October.

The exhibition is supported by the Nevada Commission on Tourism and the FOR-SITE Foundation in Nevada City, California, directly, as well as by the founder of FOR-SITE, Cheryl Haines. A beautiful book documenting the exhibition and artwork will be co-published by the Nevada Museum of Art and the Center for American Places, with international distribution by the University of Chicago Press, in summer 2009.

Wall Texts

One of Great Britain’s most prolific and respected Conceptual artists, Chris Drury investigates themes related to the environment, emphasizing cycles of destruction and regeneration in nature—and the ways that humans affect these processes. In all of his creative pursuits, Drury embraces metaphor and analogy as tools for layering multiple meanings within the objects he creates. From mushroom spore prints to a sculpture in the form of a nuclear mushroom cloud, and videos that explore the cloud-like properties of water and smoke, Drury makes visible the subtle connections between the realms of science, culture, history, and politics.

For over four decades, the American West has been a destination for countless artists seeking direct interaction with the environment. Drury, who was born in Sri Lanka and now lives in Great Britain, brings international perspective to topics ranging from land and water appropriation to nuclear testing in the American West. Devoted to a creative methodology that is driven by experimentation, communication, and physical interaction with place, Drury’s research into the unique geography and environments of our region offer significant insights into issues that also have global relevance.

Mushrooms | Clouds, Drury’s first major museum exhibition in the United States, includes artworks drawn from the artist’s ongoing Mushrooms and Clouds series, as well as multiple new artworks commissioned in collaboration with organizations based throughout Nevada and California—including the Desert Research Institute, the FOR-SITE Foundation, and the Pyramid Lake Museum/Visitors’ Center. The development of this burgeoning interdisciplinary network—an ongoing initiative of the Nevada Museum of Art—provides resources and tools to artists for the development of new works that engage audiences in contemporary discourse on issues related to the environment that are both timely and timeless.

Cloud Pool Chamber

Made from diseased logs felled at Donner Memorial State Park near Truckee, Cloud Pool Chamber was first installed in a wooded ravine adjacent to granite boulders and towering oak trees in Nevada City, California. Located nearby were numerous Native American mortar stones used by indigenous Maidu peoples to grind acorns into flour. Recognizing that humans have long made marks on the Earth in an ongoing effort to survive—whether in the form of grinding stones used for daily sustenance or nuclear craters resultant from military defense testing—Drury hand-carved a crater in a large granite stone and placed it beneath the opening of the Cloud Pool Chamber. He then filled it daily with a tea made from acorns that reflected passing clouds overhead. Drury’s videos, based on the cratered granite stone and the indigenous mortar stones, are on view in the nearby video gallery.

In June 2008, Cloud Pool Chamber was transported to its current site on the roof of the Nevada Museum of Art, where a hand-carved granite stone is filled daily with ink-colored water that reflects the dramatic cloud formations passing over the Museum.

Winnemucca Whirlwind

In May 2008, Chris Drury began the labor-intensive process of etching a large-scale whirlwind drawing onto the alkali surface of Winnemucca Dry Lake, near the border of land owned by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, 35 miles northeast of Reno. Drury worked for over fifteen hours by the light of a full moon to complete the drawing, whose spiraling whirlwind form—a symbol used for centuries by cultures to denote vital energy—is nearly 300 feet in diameter. Winnemucca Whirlwind refers to the complex history of land and water appropriation in the American West, as well as to the historical and enduring impulse of human cultures to use symbolic markings to convey meaning.

Archaeological evidence reveals that Native Americans inhabited the Winnemucca Lake region as far back as 8-10,000 years ago. Once a lush, marshy wetlands area and an important ecological and recreational resource (see image below), Winnemucca Lake became less accessible when the boundaries of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation were enforced by the U.S. Government in 1858—exactly 150 years ago. Further drastic impacts to Winnemucca Lake began in 1903, when it dried up due to the Newlands Reclamation Project that diverted Truckee River waters away for agricultural uses. In essence, these actions destroyed the lake’s natural function, and transformed a thriving ecosystem into a vast and seemingly-empty expanse. Given the possibility that cultural or human remains might be unearthed near the surface of the “empty” lake during Drury’s art-making process, an archaeological observer representing the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe was present for the duration of the project.

Although Drury had obtained permission to create Winnemucca Whirlwind within the boundaries of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Reservation, he chose instead to undertake the installation on restricted BLM land in an effort to “symbolically re-claim” the land for Native Americans and to metaphorically convey the political and cultural whirlwind Native Americans have been embroiled in over the past century. Drury purposely designed the piece so that it is best viewed from land located on the Reservation, while it is nearly invisible from the nearby public highway. Winnemucca Whirlwind was never intended to be a permanent sculpture, and due to recent rains, the cycle of nature has again re-claimed the surface of the alkali lakebed.

This artwork was commissioned in collaboration with the Pyramid Lake Museum/Visitors Center, Nixon, NV.

Destroying Angel

Chris Drury’s Destroying Angel sculpture encourages viewers to thoughtfully consider the similarities and differences between natural flow processes in plants, animals, and other scientific phenomena. As the shape of Drury’s sculpture suggests, the form of a three-dimensional living mushroom echoes the flow patterns of liquids and gasses as they might appear in streams, clouds, ocean currents, and smoke. Similar vortex-like flow patterns are present in biological structures such as the heart, the fibers of the eye’s retina, fingerprints, and the bony structure of the nose. All of these forms are echoed in Drury’s Destroying Angel mushroom sculpture that slowly unfurls into the shape of a nuclear mushroom cloud.

Drury created this large-sale sculpture using sagebrush collected from the Great Basin. The hardy ubiquitous plant—found throughout the American West—has long been associated with cleansing and purification rituals of many Native American cultures. When burned, the plant releases a distinct and intense odor that travels through the air as smoke. All columns of rising smoke—whether produced during a sage burning ritual or a nuclear explosion—exhibit similar patterns of flow. Drury’s video titled Shattered Peace, Broken Promises, on view in a nearby gallery, reveals the violent impact of an explosion on a peaceful stream of smoke that rises from a burning sage bundle.

By titling this sculpture Destroying Angel, which refers to a deadly mushroom Amanita virosa, Drury suggests that beauty and death are intimately connected.

Touching the Eye of the Storm

This interactive community artwork is presented in conjunction with British artist Chris Drury’s feature exhibition Mushrooms|Clouds, now on view in the third floor Feature Gallery. Touching the Eye of the Storm was inspired by a large-scale drawing, called Winnemucca Whirlwind, that Drury recently completed on the alkali surface of Winnemucca Dry Lake, 35 miles northeast of Reno. It is also closely related to many of the other artworks on view in the exhibition upstairs.

Using soil pigments collected from the Great Basin, Nevada Museum of Art guests are invited to add their thumbprints to this large community artwork designed by Drury in the shape of a spiraling whirlwind. The symbolic spiral marking—often associated with a flow of vital energy—has been re-interpreted for centuries by various cultures. The spiral also appears in the natural flow of liquids and gasses in streams, clouds, ocean currents, and smoke, as well as in biological structures such as the heart, the eye’s retina, and fingerprints.

In all of his creative pursuits, Drury embraces metaphor and analogy as tools for layering interpreting multiple meanings layered within the plants, animals, and objects he encounters—and the artworks that he makes. By leaving your mark on the wall of the Museum, you are now an integral part of this creative process.

Life in the Field of Death II and 559 Shelter Stones

These two major artworks relate directly to the legacy of nuclear testing in the American West and its impact on the desert landscape and ecosystems of the Nevada Test Site, located just one hour north of Las Vegas. With cooperation from scientists at the Desert Research Institute, Drury translated the genetic code of a living organism known as Microcoleus Vaginata that was found living in the irradiated soil of the Nevada Test Site—one of the most abused nuclear landscapes in the world. In the artwork titled Life in the Field of Death, Drury stenciled 559 letters from the organism’s partial DNA gene sequence onto the gallery wall using soil pigments gathered at the Test Site. The rectangular letter-block forms are intended to mimic the shapes of gravestones, reminding viewers that life continues to subsist in places that are often considered lifeless.

In a second large-scale sculpture, 559 Shelter Stones, Drury used stones gathered near Pyramid Lake, Nevada to create a shelter made from 559 pieces of shale—echoing the number of genes in the Microcoleus Vaginatus gene sequence found at the Test Site. Throughout his career, Drury has constructed hundreds of shelters, suggesting the ongoing human impulse to seek safety and protection using natural resources and materials. An image below depicts a rarely-seen indigenous Paiute log structure that still exists within the boundaries of the Test Site, even though indigenous peoples are no longer permitted on the land.

In each of these large-scale artworks, Drury reminds viewers that life persists, even in unlikely or seemingly impossible environments.

Life in the Field of Death was commissioned in collaboration with the Desert Research Institute.

Orientation

You’ll find most of the exhibition in the third floor feature gallery, where two of the three major sculpture installations can be found, along with all of the video and installation works, save for Cloud Pool Chamber (Rooftop) and Touching the Eye of the Storm (Admission Desk).

Relevant Vocabulary

Land Art beginning in the 1960s, any of a number of movements away from “establishment” art in the gallery world and toward a radical revision of how and where art gets made, exhibited, and viewed; landscape and the art object are inextricably linked in most land artists’ work.

Zen a distinct school of Buddhist practice marked by meditative focus on dharma practice and experiential wisdom rather than religious texts or theoretical knowledge.

Amanita virosa (Destroying Angel) one of several species of poisonous mushrooms in a family of mushrooms called Amanita, frequently occurring in Europe, and which resembles a variety of edible mushrooms. Can be deadly.

Microcoleus vaginatus an organism found in irradiated soil on the Nevada Test Site—basically a terrestrial algae.

Trinity (nuclear test) the first nuclear test, July 16, 1945, White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. The test preceded the Little Boy and Fat Man bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, respectively, in August 1945.

Mushroom Spore Print mushrooms reproduce by means of spores, an evolutionarily ancient strategy for survival. Every species of mushroom yields a unique pattern of its spores. Scientists collect the “print” of the spores on glass slides for study.

Gene sequence the sequence of genes containing the genetic material for an organism.

Big Ideas Central to
Chris Drury: Mushrooms | Clouds

Metaphors lie at the heart of every one of Chris Drury’s works, based on the idea that an implied or direct comparison of one thing to another yields multiple new meanings. So, for example, metaphors help us understand Destroying Angel Trinity in multiple ways: 1) as a representational object, Destroying Angel is a specific kind of poisonous mushroom; the name Destroying Angel offers a religious connotation; the word Trinity in the title yields another religious connotation; the shape of a mushroom spore print suggests traditional Hindu, Buddhist, and Mesoamerican mandalas; mushrooms connote nuclear imagery; the word Trinity also refers directly to the name of the first nuclear test ever.

Life | Death | Regeneration | Recycling

the cycles of life and death, destruction and regeneration are central to natural processes, one of the main areas of Drury’s interests; mushrooms, a subject that he has focused on for thirty years, are among the world’s best recyclers

Nuclear | Mushrooms | Clouds | Life

Drury’s fascination with natural processes also yields his interest in the relationship of mushrooms to death and to life—they can be poisonous agents of death, as well as life sustaining food sources for people; clouds, likewise, are lifegiving sources of water, except in the case of nuclear mushroom clouds.

Life in a Lifeless Place | Microcosm <--> Macrocosm Drury began wondering about this when he worked in the British Antarctic Survey’s Artists and Writers program, but the interest continued when the opportunity to work in a nuclear landscape presented itself. Can life exist in a lifeless place?, Drury wonders.

Local Issues | Places | History as Drury’s works are made of local materials, they are also references to local issues: 559 Shelter Stones, for example, refers to the issues tied up in Nevada’s nuclear legacy; Winnemucca Whirlwind references more directly land and water use in Nevada, and the effects this history has had on members of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe.

Open Installation | Community Involvement because of his interest in natural processes, Drury wanted to reveal the process of installation of the exhibition to make the exhibition’s inner workings visible in much the same way that he attempts to “reveal” the nature of nature, the nature of community and collaboration.

Tour Framework

Invite guests to the museum and to the exhibition, being sure to thank them for coming.

Explain that artist Chris Drury is British, and that he comes from Sussex, in southeastern England.

Ask guests whether they think art might be able to help them better understand the histories of the places in which they live or those they visit. What kinds of responses do you get? Be sure to acknowledge the response by repeating it back to the person offering it, and so others can hear.

Ask guests whether they have previously seen Cloud Pool Chamber on the NMA rooftop.

Explain that if time permits, the tour will include a visit to see it, but if time is short, that people should be sure to see the sculpture on the rooftop.

Explain that Chris Drury is considered a Conceptual artist and a Land or Earth artist, and that this means, first, that Drury’s artwork is as much about the many ideas that the objects represent as the objects themselves. For example, Cloud Pool Chamber, depicted in the large photo mural near the gallery’s entrance, is as much about the place in which it was built near Nevada City and the history of the Maidu people who inhabited the area there as it is about the sculpture itself. This is a hard point to understand, but for Drury, the “art” is not in the final object that we see installed on the rooftop, but that the “art” lies in the process through which the object was produced, the idea that lead to the project, and the collaboration that was required of a number of people to produce the object. His works are also considered to be a type of Land Art, because of the their site-specific nature and their use of natural materials. For example, Cloud Pool Chamber is made from diseased Lodgepole logs at Donner Memorial State Park and a granite boulder from the northern Sierra Nevada range near there, and it was originally conceived for a specific site on the grounds of the FOR-SITE Foundation, near Nevada City, California, which he chose specifically because of its proximity to water and to several ancient grinding rocks created by Maidu people for crushing acorns into flour.

Explain that Drury sees his works as art on multiple levels. Take Cloud Pool Chamber as an example. First, there is the object itself. In the case of Cloud Pool Chamber, the object was a site-specific sculptural installation at the FOR-SITE Foundation near Nevada City, California. There is then a photograph documenting the site-specific installation of it there. For Cloud Pool Chamber, then, there is another layer, because it is a site-specific sculptural installation on the NMA rooftop, where it is very different from what it had been at FOR-SITE. Lastly, as an installation piece that can be physically entered, each individual person’s experience is different, and the experience of each individual is its own artwork in Drury’s view.

Explain that Drury is very interested in local issues and places, which is partly why he created the landscape-sized drawing called Winnemucca Whirlwind on the Winnemucca Dry Lake bed.

Explain that before 1858, and more generally before the Gold Rush, Indian people in Nevada lived very differently. After 1858, reservation boundaries were enforced, effectively reducing the lands available to Indian people. After the turn of the twentieth century, the Newlands Project redirected waters bound for Pyramid and Winnemucca Lakes to Fallon and Fernley agricultural uses. Within 20 years, Winnemucca Lake dried up to the basin we know today.
Explain that the whirlwind pattern of Winnemucca Whirlwind is an ancient pattern representing life, energy, power, and positive energy, and that it is also similar to the mandalas of Hindu, Buddhist, and Mesoamerican cultural traditions.

Explain that Drury is interested in the history of the Paiutes’ use of Winnemucca Lake: prior to 1905, it was a rich fishing and hunting area. Drury’s drawing references the appropriation of Native American lands, the human destruction of ecosystems such as Winnemucca Lake, and the rich history of the whirlwind pattern.

Ask guests about what a metaphor is.

Explain that a metaphor is often a tool shared by artists of all kinds, writers, painters, and so on, to make direct or implied comparisons between to unrelated objects or ideas. Whereas a simile usually contains the words like or as, as in “My love is like a red, red rose,” metaphors often rely on direct comparisons, as in Pablo Picasso’s statement that “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” When he says this, he doesn’t mean that art literally washes dust away, does he? No. But he means it metaphorically. In Drury’s works, some of the pieces do represent literal objects: Destroying Angel Trinity and Destroying Angel both represent real, recognizable things, for example. But the works also convey meaning metaphorically: at one and the same time, Destroying Angel conveys metaphorical meanings about death and life, nuclear mushroom clouds, religious traditions, Native American cultural traditions, and much more. So at the same time, the sculpture is “about” nuclear mushroom clouds (because it resembles them) and the cleansing spiritual power of sage burning during a Native American smudge ceremony (because it is made from sage bundles).

Ask guests what other kinds of metaphors they perceive in Destroying Angel.

Ask guests to look at the grid of spore prints near the entrance wall.

Explain that Drury has been working with mushrooms as a subject for more than thirty years.

Explain that a spore print is a scientific tool used to identify different species of mushrooms. When you remove the stem from a mushroom cap, and leave the cap to sit overnight on a sheet of paper or a glass slide, the cap will drop its spores onto the paper or slide in a unique pattern. Each spore print is unique to a specific species of mushroom. Drury has worked with spore prints for a long time because they are capable of representing multiple levels of information. For example, not only do the spore prints directly represent a specific species of mushroom recognizable to trained eyes (that is, they are representational), but they also connote many other kinds of ideas through metaphor: the spore prints suggest ideas about mushrooms as recyclers of soil, ideas about mushrooms as both food and poison, about mushrooms as the image that comes to mind when people think of nuclear, etc. They also resemble the subsidence craters on the Nevada Test Site, and, specifically, spores are reproductive structures designed for dispersal and extended survival in unfavorable conditions, a lá the Nevada Test Site.

Ask guests to consider Life in a Field of Death I and II.

Explain that these works connect Drury’s interest in the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm, and are related to Drury’s question regarding the possibility of life in a lifeless place.

Explain that, with the assistance of the Desert Research Institute, Drury learned of an organism called Microcoleus vaginatus—one of the few organisms known to survive in the irradiated soils of the Nevada Test Site. The organism’s DNA has been partially gene sequenced—a list of letters representing this sequence is stenciled on the west wall of the feature gallery using decontaminated soil-based pigment—Life in a Field of Death II.

Explain that another piece, 559 Shelter Stones, is an additional reference to the Nevada Test Site. The piece references this place and ideas about it through metaphors of shelter. In an ironic reference the piece recalls the significance of nuclear fallout shelters in the mid-twentieth century. Yet it also references life, in the sense that shelter is one of the universal human necessities for survival.

Explain that Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes refers to the same kinds of metaphors that the other spore prints reference. Additionally, however, its form is directly related to the mushroom metaphors of recycling and regeneration.

Explain that the pigment used in the coloration of D2D, A2A is two-layered. The first layer consists of dust recycled from the NMA’s ventilation ducts, which is essentially lint, skin cells, and the other detritus of the community of visitors who visit the museum. The next layer of color is made from charcoal made from the burned off-cuts of the Lodgepole logs used to construct Cloud Pool Chamber. Thus, Dust to Dust, Ashes to Ashes is both metaphorically and actually about the idea that mushrooms are agents of recycling and regeneration.

Explain that Drury also makes video works that pertain to the same metaphorical ideas, many of which are directly connected to the physical objects in the gallery.

Explain that Shattered Peace, Broken Promises, for example, is a video capturing the image of a rising wisp of smoke. The video captures the smoke rising from a burning bundle of sage (suggesting the spiritual, cleansing properties of the Native American smudge ceremony). Suddenly, a violent sound (caused by a sledge hammer hitting the outside of the metal container in which the filming took place), disrupts the gently rising wisp of smoke. The reference is to the history of treaties being broken between Anglos and Indians in the nineteenth century in particular.

Chris Drury's "Cloud Pool Chamber"

2008-08-11T05:35:00.000-07:00

Humans have relied upon natural materials and environmental resources to sustain and shelter themselves for millennia. With this in mind, Chris Drury began construction of Cloud Pool Chamber in the Sierra Nevada foothills in May 2008—a project supported by the Nevada Museum of Art and the FOR-SITE Foundation, an artist residency program based in Nevada City, California. Drury designed the structure, giving special attention to the historical and cultural significance of the site where it would be placed, as well as the materials from which it would be built.
Made from diseased logs felled at Donner Memorial State Park near Truckee, Cloud Pool Chamber was first installed in a wooded ravine adjacent to granite boulders and towering oak trees in Nevada City, California. Located nearby were numerous Native American mortar stones used by indigenous Maidu peoples to grind acorns into flour. Recognizing that humans have long made marks on the Earth in an ongoing effort to survive—whether in the form of grinding stones used for daily sustenance or nuclear craters resultant from military defense testing—Drury hand-carved a crater in a large granite stone and placed it beneath the opening of the Cloud Pool Chamber. He then filled it daily with a tea made from acorns that reflected passing clouds overhead. Drury’s videos, based on the cratered granite stone and the indigenous mortar stones, are on view in the nearby video gallery.
In June 2008, Cloud Pool Chamber was transported to its current site on the roof of the Nevada Museum of Art, where a hand-carved granite stone is filled daily with ink-colored water that reflects the dramatic cloud formations passing over the Museum.

Camas Lillies

2008-06-03T09:02:00.000-07:00

Dear docents,

For all of you who love Monet and who enjoy hiking in the Sierra, there is a spectacular place to visit--Sagehen Creek Meadows. Thanks to all the rain we have had lately, the Camas Lillies are in full bloom in the Sierra. Camas Lily flowers are such a deep blue-purple, and they grow in such masses on a wet meadow, that they look like a pond or lake. A hike toward that meadow is so enchanting that you feel like being in a Monet painting.

Take I-80 west to Truckee. Follow Hwy 89 north for approximately 7.5. miles. You will see some cars parked in the valley next to a creek on the right side. This is the trailhead for the Sagehen creek hike. Follow the trail (about 45 minutes) until you see a body of water. The trail will bend to the right and you will find a 'bridge' to cross the creek. To your right you will see the meadow of Camas lillies.

Let me know if you need more directions, Erika

Love Letters

2008-05-23T14:31:00.000-07:00

Dear Docents--

A fresh batch of love letters to you all has arrived--they're now living in the volunteer room, if you'd like to read them. Double Diamond Elementary School was very pleased with their visit!!

Cheers,
Colin

A + E Conference :: Fritz Haeg

2008-05-23T10:15:00.000-07:00

For those of you interested in the upcoming Art + Environment Conference, to be held here at NMA October 2-4, 2008, you might find these two short video pieces about the work of artist Fritz Haeg interesting. Haeg is an artist and architect based in Los Angeles who will be presenting at the conference--his most recent work at the Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial is the focus of the two pieces included here.

Phyllis Shafer :: Hope Valley Morning

2008-05-15T21:21:00.001-07:00

Hope Valley Morning, 2007
Oil on Canvas
Collection of the NMA; Gift of Friends and Family of Phil Miller

Hope Valley, located south of Lake Tahoe off State Route 88, is the setting for this plein air landscape painting painted by Phyllis Shafer. But Shafer doesn’t just paint the landscape as it appears to most of us; she paints an arrangement of swirls and squiggles in a rainbow of colors that nearly jump off the canvas. She states that she is especially interested in doing compositional arrangements that juxtapose high altitude vistas with the intimate microcosm of the flora and fauna—for her, the ‘rhythms of nature.’

Phyllis Shafer has lived in several places but each move has brought her closer to nature and farther from the urban setting. She grew up in Buffalo, New York, studied at Empire State College and State University of New York. Shafer received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of California, Berkeley, and exhibited her work and taught part-time in the Bay Area. She now lives and teaches at Lake Tahoe.

Shafer states: “I’m definitely interested in the high desert and the alpine, high-altitude landscapes. I really want to capture the feeling of the space. I want to feel it. I want to smell it. I want to have the sun moving while I’m trying to catch it.”

Research note prepared by Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley.

Just for Fun

2008-05-13T22:09:00.000-07:00

Just because I think the jellyfish are amazing, and so beautiful. I thought some of you might be interested, too.

NOTES FROM PHYLLIS SHAFER’S ART BITE (informal!)

2008-05-12T21:28:00.000-07:00

Hope Valley Morning, 2007
oil on canvas
(c) Phyllis Shafer

Of her commission to do a painting of Yosemite in the Fall of 2004 for the Yosemite show at the Autry the NMA, artist Phyllis Shafer has said, "I felt Bierstadt on my back, but I was honored, and felt very positive, that it was a challenge." She adds that as busy as Yosemite Valley is, you can’t diminish the grandeur, the sense of being enveloped, cradled. She describes the fronds in the foreground of the painting, drooping from the snow. "I love the gesture of these things in the foreground. I’m a foreground fanatic. I luxuriate in the textures and colors of the foreground."

When asked if her work is meant to proselytize for conservation, Shafer explains that she would rather volunteer to help directly in conservation, and just enjoy her painting for itself. Her initial response to the gesture of the land is to dance. She says the rhythm and movement and vibrations affect her style. "I'm looking at landscapes emotionally – I crank them up, the colors also."

She starts very broadly, very loosely. She ends up with about twenty layers of paint. After seeing the size of some of the paintings in the Yosemite show Shafer explained that she would like to learn to paint bigger, and "lose those tiny brushes."

She often torques the perspective so you can feel the periphery. When you're actually there you're aware of everything. Your eye connects colors in their saturated and muted forms.
She mixes burnt sienna and ultramarine to make a dark paint for her background. She takes a rag and spreads it out on the canvas. Since she paints outdoors she wants to do away with the glare from a white canvas. She does a 'take-away' drawing with stiff brushes and then she extends her palette. She says she creates a cartoonish flattening of forms, but she really wants that rhythm. She says she can’t make a horizontal line (contrast that with Maynard Dixon across from her!). "You develop your own language to tell your story." She says it's all there in the field--probably 2/3 of her time on a painting, and then in her studio she does the other third focusing in. At one point she said, "I never want to put a structure in."

Research note prepared by Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley.

Docent Note :: Jenga in Frank Lloyd Wright

2008-05-05T10:01:00.000-07:00

Submitted by Merry Mathers:

Terry Boyd and I were talking about kid tours through FLW; she suggested utilizing blocks to build a structure. The only blocks I have are Jenga -- a game that starts with a stack of blocks (layers of three blocks placed perpendicularly to the next three to create a tower about 18 tiers high). The object of the game is to remove one block at a time to see how many can be removed, yet leave the tower standing. Before entering the exhibit the kids and I sat outside the title wall and started deconstructing blocks instead of building with them. Serendipitously, cantilevered terraces appeared by pulling blocks out partially; windows of light opened; walls were partially removed without effecting the soundness of the tower. Lots of dialogue ensued: extending living space outward, allowing light and nature inside. Once inside the exhibit a child noted that our tower looked a lot like FLW's floor lamp. Jenga is on Colin's desk if anyone wants to try it; there should be enough blocks to split them two or even three ways.

Frank Lloyd Wright and the House Beautiful Tour Blueprint

2008-04-30T15:57:00.001-07:00

through July 20, 2008

Introduction
Frank Lloyd Wright and the House Beautiful is primarily an exhibition of Wright’s interior, furniture, and textile designs, as well as some of his drawings of architectural plans and elevations, custom and production furniture, and interior views of his houses. The exhibition was curated by Dr. Virginia Terry Boyd, Professor of Design Studies at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Brooks Pfieffer, Director of the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives was also deeply involved in the project. The exhibition is circulated by International Arts & Artists, and comes to the NMA by way of the Naples Museum of Art (Florida), Boise Art Museum (Idaho), Columbia Museum of Art (South Carolina), and the Philbrook Museum of Art (Oklahoma), among others.

Among other objects in the exhibition, you’ll find chairs, lamps, tables, drawings, screens, windows, and textiles spanning a remarkably long architectural career of seventy + years, most of which are couched in the idea of the House Beautiful--a concept about architecture and, more importantly, about how to live—that was central to Wright’s work, although he did not coin the phrase. Its philosophical roots lay in nineteenth-century housing and social reform in an era of tenements and slums in rapidly industrializing cities following the onslaught of the Industrial Revolution. The basic idea, foundational to the aesthetic philosophy of John Ruskin and William Morris’s Arts and Crafts Movement, was that the “quality of life could be improved by reshaping the material physical environment”—that the nature of the environment had a profound effect on the individual’s social, moral, and cultural values.

This exhibition is presented as part of the NMA’s Art + Environment exhibition series, an initiative that brings community, artists, and scholars together to explore the interactions between people and their environments.

Wall Texts
FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AND THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL
The phrase “House Beautiful” came into use at the end of the nineteenth century as part of a design and social reform movement. The philosophy reflected a belief that quality of life could be improved through the design of material environments—from cities to houses to table settings. With respect to the home, “House Beautiful” implied not simply artistic goals, but a broader moral connotation that the home was a source of cultural and ethical values, a place where individuals became productive citizens contributing to the betterment of a democratic society.

Throughout his life, Frank Lloyd Wright was guided by a central motivating force: that architecture was about creating a way to live. He once said, “A building is not just a place to be. It is a way to be.” Wright’s residential architecture, in particular, was the laboratory for realizing—in form—a uniquely American “way to be,” which, over time, would become a “lifestyle.”

This exhibition presents three ways in which Wright translated his ideas about how to live into the design of houses. First, he introduced a new approach to the allocation of space, emphasizing a main living area. Second, he developed a style to express the modern era. Last, he worked to make his ideas and designs available to average Americans. Whether creating tables or textiles, Frank Lloyd Wright considered it his mission to provide a “House Beautiful” for every American.

A MODERN HOUSE FOR AMERICA
Frank Lloyd Wright believed that Americans deserved a unique style of architecture, not one based on European precedents. He felt that design should reflect individual freedom and the increasingly informal, modern American lifestyle of the early twentieth century. Consistent with America’s vision of a democratic society, Wright imagined a house that liberated, rather than constrained, those who lived in it.

Wright proposed innovations such as removing attics and basements, and reducing the size of less frequently used rooms in order to focus and expand the common living area of the home. This meant removing walls deemed unnecessary in order to open up interior spaces—thereby creating one, continuous room that served multiple functions and changed throughout the course of the day and life of the family. Floor-to-ceiling walls of glass and exterior terracing diminished the visual and physical barriers between interior space and the surrounding landscape. These innovative changes created a house with a single, expansive “space for living.”

AN ORGANIC APPROACH
Creating a “House Beautiful” required establishing an underlying unity and order in the material environment. Frank Lloyd Wright described this sense of harmony as an organic approach to the design and use of houses. He gave physical form to this idea by emphasizing the inherent character of materials—their linear quality, texture, and natural patterns. Wright’s notion of organic ornamentation did not simply adapt natural images; rather, it expressed his sense of the relationship between the fundamental structure and visual appearance of forms in nature.

All of Wright’s work—from drawings to completed buildings to furnishings—shows a consistent visual character based on ruler-straight lines that move the eye through the object or space. Resulting patterns convey the Modern world through abstract geometric motifs and compositions. Regardless of scale, the consistency of Wright’s approach assured that a single, integrated vision governed the entire project.

A HOUSE FOR EVERYONE
Frank Lloyd Wright is most well-known for his custom-designed houses for wealthy or adventurous clients. Yet throughout his career he also remained committed to designing housing for the average person of “Usonia”—the term he used for the United States. Wright experimented with several ways to extend his ideas about organic architecture to mass audiences; the Usonian house was one such attempt. He developed plans and a construction process that, ideally, clients could implement themselves. Furthermore, he introduced and promoted his ideas through the popular press, built exhibition houses, and designed manufactured, prefabricated homes. Wright also understood that the closest most people would come to obtaining an organic “House Beautiful” was by outfitting an existing home with his furniture, textiles, wallpapers, carpets, and paints. All such products were coordinated so that a consumer could customize a space according to Wright’s principles for creating a unified, organic whole.

PROMOTION IN POPULAR MEDIA
Like all accomplished architects, Frank Lloyd Wright knew that success was as much dependent upon vigorous promotion of his work as it was on the work itself. To firmly establish his approach to residential architecture, Wright needed to address potential clients using a means of communication with which they were familiar.

The popular press was one avenue Wright used to deliver his products to a mass audience. In the early twentieth century, women’s and lifestyle magazines such as Ladies’ Home Journal, House Beautiful and Life were widely read. They often included articles describing current issues of the day that affected the middle class—such as trends in home design. Frank Lloyd Wright entered numerous architectural design competitions sponsored by these magazines, and his ideas were frequently featured in their pages.

OPPORTUNITIES TO EXPERIENCE A HOUSE BEAUTIFUL
Every house that Frank Lloyd Wright built was a way to publicize his work. However, only a limited number of people had access to these private homes. Therefore, Wright used a range of methods to expose larger numbers of people to his principles of organic architecture. One approach was to create prefabricated structures—such as the American System-Built Houses—intended to reduce the cost of expensive skilled labor, yet control the quality of the design and construction. Another means of disseminating his ideas was the production of a series of exhibition houses that provided access to hundreds of visitors. Although temporary, these houses made it possible for people to imagine the experience of living in a house designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

TEXTILES AND WALLPAPERS BY F. SCHUMACHER AND COMPANY
In 1954, Frank Lloyd Wright submitted a number of textile and wallpaper design ideas to F. Schumacher and Company, a production firm that had previous experience collaborating with designers. Several of Wright’s ideas were selected and adapted for production—supplemented by additional colors and designs that filled out the product line. Over time the line evolved, with the last new fabrics added in 1960 and all of the products gradually phasing out by 1972. In 1986, the company introduced a second line called “The Frank Lloyd Wright Collection,” which remains in production today.

Fabrics were important to Wright’s vision of a “House Beautiful.” When large-scale textiles were hung to cover entire walls, their patterns created an illusion of “opening up” the confining walls in the room. The complex designs and fabric colors also conveyed the visual richness of Wright’s custom houses, echoing the lush materials, light screens, and the unique carpets used in these structures.

FURNITURE BY HERITAGE-HENREDON
Frank Lloyd Wright recognized that not all people could build their own homes, so he designed “organic ornaments” to improve already-existing houses. These objects represented a fundamental change in the way Wright approached furnishings: rather than serve as integral components of a custom-designed home, these mass-produced pieces were freestanding objects that created an organic space on their own. Wright submitted designs for three furniture lines to the Heritage-Henredon company, elements of which were integrated into the company’s final “Taliesin Line.” This group of 66 pieces included a dining set, side tables, chairs, upholstered seats, and modular cabinets. The modular pieces, a new idea at the time, gave Wright the means to develop standardized furnishings that could be personalized through unique configurations for different situations.

Lackluster sales of this furniture might have been due, in part, to the uniqueness of the products at the time. Additionally, the modular pieces required considerable skill to combine effectively, and the individual objects were virtually impossible to coordinate with other furnishings. Nonetheless, these products foreshadowed the modular furniture systems that were still to come.

Orientation
You’ll find the exhibition installed in the third floor Feature Gallery South. The exhibition is roughly chronological in its layout, and it invites you to meander through the gallery, looking at the evolution of Wright’s work over the course of his remarkable seventy-year career as an architect and designer. A clear delineation occurs midway through the exhibition that represents a shift in Wright’s work—one in which he moved away from more formal, expensive, and individually unique designs of everything from landscapes to tableware, and towards well-designed objects for production on a much wider, and therefore affordable, scale.

Wright Houses
Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio, Oak Park, Illinois (1889-1898)
Edward C. Waller House, River Forest, Illinois (1899)
B. Harley Bradley House, Kankakee, Illinois (1900)
Hillside Home School, Spring Green, Wisconsin (1902)
Susan Lawrence Dana House, Springfield, Illinois (1902)
Edward C. Waller House, River Forest, Wisconsin (1902)
Darwin D. Martin House, Buffalo, New York (1905)
William R. Heath House, Buffalo, New York (1905)
C. Thaxter Shaw House, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (1906)
J. Kibben Ingalls House, River Forest, Illinois (1908)
Frederick Robie House, Chicago, Illinois (1909)
Taliesin I, Spring Green, Wisconsin (1911-1914)
Avery Coonley Kindergarten, Riverside, Illinois (1912)
Taliesin II, Spring Green, Wisconsin (1915-1925)
Henry Allen House, Wichita, Kansas (1915)
Imperial Hotel, Tokyo, Japan (1915)
Mabel & Charles Ennis House, Los Angeles, California (1923)
Taliesin III, Spring Green, Wisconsin (1925-1937)
Broadacre City (unrealized, 1935)
Taliesin West, Scottsdale, Arizona (1937-1950s)
Lloyd Lewis House, Libertyville, Illinois (1939)
Bernard Schwartz House, Two Rivers, Wisconsin (1939)
David Wright House, Phoenix, Arizona (1950)
Guggenheim Museum, New York City, New York (1953)

Vocabulary
Perspective Drawing – a drawing that uses one- or two points on a line to convey the illusion of three dimensional space on a two-dimensional surface
Plan – a “bird’s eye” view of the layout of a house; a map of the rooms of a house as seen from above
Section – a “cutaway” or “dollhouse” view of the layout of a house; a map of a house plan illustrating the view through the walls at how space is organized.
Elevation – an architectural drawing of a building that depicts an exterior view of the side of the structure, e.g., the north elevation or the southeast elevation.

Tour Framework

Ask guests to look closely at the title wall of the exhibition, and to describe what kind of ideas, feelings, or senses of Frank Lloyd Wright’s work it conveys. Craftsmanship? Japanese influences? Warmth? What else? Why? What comes to mind when you think “Frank Lloyd Wright”? Why?

Explain that the House Beautiful is a concept with historical roots in the nineteenth century that strongly influenced Wright’s design philosophy over most of his life. Following the rapid industrialization and mechanization of large cities around the western world in the nineteenth century, large numbers of poor, working, and middle class people were more or less forced to live in squalid conditions in tenement projects and slums. First in England, and later in the U.S., opposition to these living conditions increased as a result of treatises by Thomas Carlyle and John Ruskin. As Boyd explains: “For them the improvement of the aesthetic and cultural milieu was an essential part of broader social reform. Ruskin discussed the relation between architecture and the moral good, even suggesting that particular architectural features such as hearths, overhanging roofs and steep gables represented Christian moral values such as trust and devotion. As leader of the Arts and Crafts Movement, William Morris emphasized a relationship between the aesthetic environment and an individual’s quality of life; a supportive environment could inspire the initiative and educational activity necessary to achieve a better life.” (41)

Explain to guests that there are many ways to understand the historical trajectory of Wright’s development as a designer, but that in many ways, it can best be understood by the eras of his architectural designs for his own family’s life: Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio in Oak Park, Illinois (1889-1909); Taliesin I (1911-1914); Taliesin II (1915-1925); Talisein III (1925-1937+); and Taliesin West (1937-1959). Be sure to emphasize, however, that this is not an exhibition about his architecture, per se, but an exhibition about his concept for the house beautiful.

Point guests’ attention to the window from the Darwin D. Martin House (Buffalo, NY: 1905) mounted in the title wall. Explain that early in his career, during the Oak Park era, Wright was learning architecture from two mentors, and designing homes that were moving out of the staid Victorian traditions of the time. This window illustrates Wright’s lifelong interest in the patterns underlying nature, and the quality of the colored and leaded glass illustrates Wright’s concern for craftsmanship. Additionally, the window shows Wright’s interest in Universal design, as he designed not only the home’s structure, but also its windows.

Invite guests to look at the Dining and Living Area drawings of the C. Thaxter Shaw House (Montreal, Quebec: 1906).

Explain that the drawings are interior architectural views of the Shaw House that convey the illusion of three dimensions through the use of two-point perspective. This common drawing style allows architects to help clients understand their plans for a given space.

Invite guests to examine the group of furniture objects, including two pieces from the Oak Park, Illinois, Frank Lloyd Wright home and studio, and one each from the Avery Coonley Kindergarten and Hillside Home School.

Ask guests to describe the shapes, materials, and styles of the chairs. What kinds of shapes and forms does Wright use to craft the chairs? Do these chairs seem more formal or more informal? Why?

Explain that Wright’s work evolved throughout his career. His early home and furniture designs were not traditional—they often raised eyebrows, actually—but to our eyes today they do seem much more “traditional.” Look closely at the Frank Lloyd Wright Studio Side Chair (Oak Park, IL.: 1895), for example. Yet it also conveys some of his revolutionary ideas in its form: he was most famous for removing walls from the interior spaces of homes, and instead relying on furniture to help convey a sense of space. He often used high back chairs to do this. So, while this might be a very traditional-looking chair, it also represents the seed of revolutionary thoughts by a young architect.

Ask guests to look at the Enclosed Chair from the FLW Studio on the higher pedestal nearby (Oak Park, IL.:1895). If the chair were a purely three-dimensional form, what would it be? Essentially, the enclosed chair is an experiment in reductive sculpture. What has he removed from the cube to create this chair?

Ask guests how many of them have or, more importantly, use a formal dining room in their own homes. How about a library? The nearby Edward C. Waller House Library Table and Susan Lawrence Dana House Hanging Lamp (1902) reflect a time of a still-very-traditional turn of the century. The library table was designed for a very specified use in a very specified room—before the advent of more common spaces in his house designs. Likewise, the lamp was designed for a formal dining room in the Dana House, which Wright moved away from after the 1930s.

Point guests’ attention to the Japanese Print Table nearby. Here again we see a piece from early in Wright’s career (1898) that represents a custom design, a formal purpose (the display of a single Japanese print at a time), and clients of means. And yet the table also indicates some of FLW’s interest in modularity: the table has hinges and can be completely closed for storage, taking up a fraction of the space it does when open.

Explain that Wright’s nearby designs for side and coffee tables (1943) and for the David Wright House armchair (1950) illustrate some of the shifts in culture that FLW used his design savvy to meet. The tables and armchair are much less formal, much simpler, and they reflect a significant shift in the way people were living their lives from just two or three decades before. The small tables could be moved and grouped for the user’s needs, and even the fact of the upholstery on the David Wright chair suggests a less formal sitting area than was customary in the early part of FLW’s career.

Explain to guests that the J. Kibben Ingalls House light screen mounted in the nearby wall (River Forest, IL.: 1908) begins to illustrate some of the concerns that would preoccupy FLW for the remainder of his career: how to blur the boundaries between inside and out, and how to make a home’s design organic, of its place, not on its place. Note the details of small pieces of colored glass in the design, and the strictly geometric and quite linear components of this particular design.

Ask guests to consider again FLW’s sculptural and geometric design work by looking at the Taliesin Barrel Chair (1936). Like the earlier Enclosed Chair, the Taliesin Barrel Chair is an experiment in reductive, geometric design: a cylinder that has been cut away by the designer’s hand to reveal a more beautiful form.

Explain to guests that one of the great tragedies of our American architectural heritage is that many of FLW’s buildings have been demolished, both here at home, and abroad. The silver tureen on display was a design for the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, Japan (1915). Sadly, like others of FLW’s designs, the Imperial Hotel was demolished in 1968--this after it had survived the 1923 Tokyo earthquake when not much else did. Note the specific and formal use of the tureen, and the geometric decoration in the handles.

Explain to guests the basic principle of universal design. When he could, FLW designed not only the plans, sections, and elevations of his houses, but also the ways in which the houses fit into the landscape, all the way down to the linens on the tables, the windows in the walls, the carpets on the floor, and the utensils on the counter—epitomizing the idea of custom home design. Nearby, several windows and light screens indicate FLW’s continued interest in breaking down the barriers between inside and outside, and in the geometry of design. The Francis W. Little House (Deep Haven, MN.: 1912) is very much in a lush setting, and FLW wanted to emphasize this with the windows. The nearby Avery Coonley Kindergarten windows (Riverside, IL.: 1912) illustrate FLW’s interest in another geometry—that of the circle. In his later work FLW created designs based on a single geometric shape that became the underlying design principle for the whole project—the David Wright House, like the Guggenheim Museum, was based on the circle, for example.

Explain that the B. Harley Bradley House Dining Chair (Kankakee, IL.: 1900) reiterates FLW’s interest in furniture-as-architecture. The high back of these chairs at a formal dining table within a large, open Wright-designed space helped to create a sense of a room-within-a-room in his design for the home. The open floor plans that he favored left large amounts of open space; the design of the chairs helped to create the feeling of a smaller space around the group of seated diners.

Explain that the designs for the Frederick Robie House (Chicago, IL.: 1908) Wall Sconce and Chest of Drawers, along with the William R. Heath House (Buffalo, NY.: 1905) Hanging Lamp nearby are again examples of fine, hand-crafted, custom-made pieces for the well-to-do clients who commissioned FLW to design their homes. The pieces are made from high quality quarter-sawn solid oak; in comparison, some of the furniture around the corner is made with plywood—a new material in the 1930s—and FLW begins to experiment with furniture designs that met the changing needs of contemporary American families, e.g., moveable coffee tables functioning as alternative dining tables for the increasingly informal lifestyles of Americans at mid-century.

Explain that Taliesin, FLW’s cherished home and studio in Spring Green, Wisconsin, burned almost entirely to the ground on two different occasions. Taliesien I (1911-1914) was lit afire by a disgruntled employee, who killed FLW’s mistress and four others. Taliesin II (1915-1925) caught fire in a 1925 lightning storm, and burned the house, but not FLW’s studio. He began work on the third iteration of Taliesin “III” in 1925, for which he created the nearby designs for the Taliesin III Lamp (1949) and Low-Back Music Chair (1943). Wright began construction on Taliesin West (Scottsdale, AZ.) in 1937.

Explain to guests that these pieces allowed FLW to experiment with simpler, more modular, and more affordable designs for Americans, especially following World War II.

Explain that as a result of the strong influence of the social reform tendencies of the Arts and Crafts Movement, FLW always believed in the democracy of design—the idea that everyone deserved good design, a well-built and well-designed home, and that such environments had a profound impact on the strength and qualities of peoples’ character. However, this was at odds with his chosen career path, as only the wealthy, generally, could afford architecturally unique homes or furniture. As FLW grew older and more well-established, he began to design for the middle and working classes, in addition to his wealthier clients.

Ask guests to look at the Bernard Schwartz House (Two Rivers, WI.: 1939). How is it different from some of the other windows or screens they have seen in the exhibition?

Explain that, as plywood was invented and becoming widely used, FLW used it to frame his windows, making the patterns in his screens not with expensive lead, but with punctuated holes cut into the plywood. His use of clear and translucent glass as opposed to colored glass made them more affordable as well.

Encourage guests to look closely at the Heritage-Henredon Taliesin Line drawings of furniture on the west (curved) wall of the gallery, and at the Scott Radio Cabinet Project drawing (1941).

Ask guests what they think the drawings might illustrate about Americans’ changing needs for furniture in the middle of the twentieth century.

Explain that the rapid technological changes in America, which included the advent of in-home radios and then television sets, required new furniture designs, and increasingly informal lifestyles added to the need for revolutionary new designs, of which FLW’s of the 1940s are examples.

Encourage guests to note the draftsmanship of the drawings in comparison to the sketchier drawings of the figures and forms with which he was experimenting.

Encourage guests to look closely at the images of FLW’s carpet designs for the David Wright House (Phoenix, AZ.: 1950) and for the Gillin House (1950).

Explain that FLW’s overall designs for these two projects began with one primary geometric shape: the circle and the triangle, respectively. Every component of the design of each structure was couched in the principles of the shape. For example, the circular carpet pattern echoed the forms of the David Wright House, which was circular in plan, and which shares traits with the much larger design of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, which was constructed just three years later.

Explain that, beginning in the 1950s, FLW began to design furniture, textiles, and even pre-fabricated “System-Built” houses that could be mass-produced and made widely available to a much larger audience.

Explain that FLW, like many talented artists and architects, was an inveterate self-promoter. It was said that “he could smell a potential client” at some distance, and he worked very hard to promote his design work by entering competitions hosted by such popular magazines of the day as House Beautiful and Ladies’ Home Journal. This was also how word about his Usonian and System-Built houses could be promoted to millions of people.

Explain that commissions from the F. Schumacher Co., for example, led FLW to design a variety of textile designs—some less expensive printed cotton and linen, for example, and some more expensive woven boucle damask and silk fabrics as well.

Explain that while FLW was working to plan the Guggenheim in New York, FLW constructed a model home of his System-Built Usonian house on the very site where the Guggenheim now stands, so that a wide audience could see what he was designing “for the masses.”

Explain that Usonian was the name FLW gave to the houses he designed with the hopes of providing more affordable, yet still-well-designed, housing to a large portion of Americans. It was an abbreviation of what he thought the country ought to be called—the United States of North America.

Ask guests if they think well-designed objects are important to them. Why? Would they be more important if they were more affordable?

Conclusion
Frank Lloyd Wright and the House Beautiful will, we hope, lead people to understand a number of things. First, that FLW had an extraordinarily wide reach as a designer and architect across seven decades of the twentieth century. Second, that the importance that FLW placed on design for everyone, not just the wealthy, is part of the design history of the U.S., which is often overlooked. Third, that companies like Target, which tout their affordable, well-designed objects for everyday use are not the first to do so. Fourth, that FLW was in many ways a visionary practitioner of architecture and design, predicting by half a century some of the conversations taking place to day about the need for affordable, beautiful, well-designed, and well-constructed housing. And perhaps most importantly, that FLW, one of the most important architects of the twentieth century, was a person concerned with not only the buildings in which we live and how they should fit in and not on the landscape, but how to live well within their walls.

Chuck Forsman

2008-03-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

Feather River, 1992
Oil on panel
Collection of the NMA, Gift of Volunteers in Art

Feather River, a frequently exhibited piece in the Sierra Nevada | Great Basin Collection, seems to be a favorite of museum visitors. Perhaps it is the unique way that Forsman has painted the river in golden colors with contrasting grey rocks, or the way he has allowed the composition to “spill over” and become part of the frame of the painting.

Chuck Forsman was born in Nampa, Idaho, in 1944, and received his BA and his MFA in 1971 at the University of California. He has studied at Pasadena College and at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. He has had more than forty solo exhibitions since 1971, and his work is in the permanent collections of many museums throughout the western United States as well as New York. His most well known project is Arrested Rivers (1994), which focused on the subject of dams and water control in the west. Our painting, Feather River, is a part of that project; it depicts the Feather River Dam, built in 1961. The wall text notes that local Native American tribes criticized the dam project because the proposed spillway would submerge a number of pre-historic Maidu burial sites.

Forsman has also done a book of photography, Western Rider, published in 2004. Based in the Denver, Colorado area, Forsman is Professor of Fine Arts and Painting at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

Research note prepared by Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley.

Albert Sheldon Pennoyer

2008-03-21T13:54:00.000-07:00

Bucking Snow in the Sierras
c. 1940’s
Oil on canvas
Collection of the NMA, Gift of Ella Savitt

Born in Oakland, California in 1888, Albert Sheldon Pennoyer was raised in nearby Berkeley, where he studied at the University of California for a year, before moving to Paris to study architecture at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. There he realized that his true interest lay in painting. He gave up his studies and returned to the U.S. when WWI began. He had homes on the East Coast in New York City and Litchfield, Connecticut, but spent almost equal time in California. He had a small studio cabin at his brother’s home at Lake Tahoe, and ventured forth from there to explore the Sierra, Virginia City, and Pyramid Lake. He is especially well known for his winter scenes, as well as his railroad images. He was the author/illustrator of two books, This Was California (1938), and Locomotives in our Lives (1954). He was equally proficient in oils, gouache, and pastels. Pennoyer died in an automobile accident in Madrid in 1957.

The NMA’s painting, Bucking Snow in the Sierras, shows steam engines clearing snow from the tracks near Donner Pass. More recently trains have been equipped with rotary plows that shoot the snow off to the sides. From what we have learned, this painting depicts the old method of bucking snow, which involved a steam locomotive with a wedge plow. The engine would get a running start and slam through the snow. The train also carried men who would jump out and shovel snow. Some of the snow was melted to produce more steam power for the locomotives. There appear to be four engines in the painting, and it always yields a great conversation with guests. Someday a docent will be lucky enough to have an old railroad man on a tour to tell us how it was firsthand!

Research note prepared by Kathleen Durham and Lois Smalley.