Last weekend to see 'Gauguin to Picasso' at the Phillips

Emil Nolde (1867-1956) Gentleman and a Lady (Lady with a Fur), 1918, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

Sunday will be the last day at the Phillips Collection to see 61 works hanging together for the first time in the U.S. 

The art comes from the Kunstmuseum Basel in Switzerland and the private collections of Karl Im Obersteg (1883-1969) and Rudolf Staechelin (1881-1946) who acquired stunning impressionist, post-impressionist, and modern paintings (1870-1939) early on by artists of Russian, Swiss, French, German, and Dutch heritages. 

Dorothy Kosinski, the director of the Phillips, is a Swiss citizen whose friendship with those in Switzerland was key to bringing the masterpieces to Washington.  

Im Obersteg and Staechelin were contemporary collectors of Duncan Phillips (1886-1966), the founder of the Phillips, all of whom saw talent and treasure in the pieces of post-war and modern translations.

 Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) NAFEA faaipoipo (When Will You Marry Me?), 1892, The Rudolph Staechelin Collection 

Who but Picasso painted this nude below?  An abstraction of a model fondles a pillow.  It's one of four Picassos in the exhibition.

Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) Sleeping Nude, 1934, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

Below is a self portrait done by the Russian expressionist, Alexej von Jawlensky who was influenced by the mysticism of the Eastern Orthodox Church and his belief that "art is a longing for God." During World War I he joined other avant-garde artists in Switzerland where he met Im Obersteg, and the two became lifelong friends.

Alexej von Jawlensky (1864-1941) Self-Portrait, 1911, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

Alexej von Jawlensky  (1864-1941) Still Life, 1915, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

Ferdinand Hodler rendered more than 100 works devoted to his companion, Valentine Godel-Darel, as she coped with illness.  He called her "a Byzantine Empress in the mosaics at Ravenna," and destroyed many he made of her because they did not "represent what I have seen."   

Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) The Patient, November, 1914, The Rudolph Staechelin Collection

Marc Chagall's three 1914 "monumental" rabbi paintings are in the show, including the one below.  The label copy notes his works show the influences of his Jewish Russian heritage and his training in Paris. (Who can deny their past?) The outbreak of World War I prolonged a trip Chagall made to his homeland (of what is now Belarus), giving him opportunities to meet rabbis and beggars invited into his family's home.  Here Chagall combined them into one personality. A self-portrait he made, also in 1914, is pictured further below.

Marc Chagall (1887-1985) Jew in Black and White, 1914, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) The Garden of Daubigny July, 1890, The Rudolph Staechelin Collection

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) Red Roof by the Water, 1885, The Rudolph Staechelin Collection

Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) Portrait of Regina Morgeron, 1911, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

In the self-portrait below, the label copy says Marc Chagall combined Cubism and Orphism to paint himself (in 1914 at the outbreak of World War) as though looking in a mirror. Years later after the Nazis called his work "degenerate," the artist fled to New York in 1941 where he met a dealer who sold one of Chagall's works to Duncan Phillips, the host of one of the first Chagall shows in the U.S.

Marc Chagall (1887-1985) Self-Portrait, 1914, Im Obersteg Foundation, permanent loan to the Kunstmuseum Basel

Also on the walls at the Phillips are works by Camille Pissarro, Cuno Amiet, Paul Cezanne, Andre Derain, Wassily Kandinsky, Edouard Manet, and Amedeo Modigliani.

And Claude Monet, Odilon Redon, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Georges Rouault, Chaim Soutine, Maurice Utrillo, Suzanne Valadon (Utrillo's mother), and Maurice de Vlaminck.

For more enjoyment of the show, a catalogue and audio cellphone tour are available.

The paintings pictured above are the ones which had the most impact on me, whether it was subject, colors, perspectives, mood, emotions, or eye contact (!), but the names of the artists had no bearing on my choices.  How do they strike you?  Go and see, and please write soon. 

What: Gauguin to Picasso:  Masterworks from Switzerland -  The Staechelin and Im Obersteg Collections

When: Now through January 10, 2016, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., and Sunday, 12 - 7 p.m.


Where: The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St., N.W. at Q St., Washington, D.C. 20009

Tickets: $12, $10 for students and those over 62, free for members and for children 18 and under.

Metro Station: Dupont Circle (Q Street exit. Turn left and walk one block.)

For more information: 202-387-2151

Patricialesli@gmail.com

Modern artists pictured at Sofitel Hotel

 

A sideways look at Salvador Dali in 1965 at Cadaques, Spain by Tony Saulnier, Paris Match

A series of 30 photographs of modern day artists at work, including Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Rene Magritte, and Jeff Koons, are on view at the Sofitel Hotel near Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C.

The pictures in Revealed come from the periodical, Paris Match, and were selected by Picasso's grandson, Oliver Widmaier Picasso, an audiovisual media producer based in Paris, who was not available for the Washington opening.

In 1959 Kees Van Dongen sketched an unknown starlet, Brigitte Bardot, in Paris/Izis, Paris Match

A smart, 28-page guide which includes anecdotes and quotes from some of the artists accompanies the show. 

Raoul Dufy at his home in Perpignan, France, 1949/Izis, Paris Match

Henri Matisse is seen shortly before he died, in his hotel apartment, bedridden and drawing religious subjects on the wall with a long instrument.  When he was unable to hold paint brushes, he used scissors to cut up paper and pinned the pieces to the wall.  "Scissors can be more evocative than pencils," the guide quotes Matisse.

And Picasso: "To my sadness and perhaps to my joy, my work is shaped by my love affairs."  Picasso did not try to hide any of his lovers from the others, cruelly reading many of their letters to his ladies-in-waiting, the guide says.

Guests at the Sofitel opening of Revealed, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

Some of the other pictured artists in the exhibition are Pierre Soulages, Marc Chagall, Jean Cocteau, and Francis Bacon. None of the 30 artists are women.

Sofitel's Dominique Colliat helped assemble the presentation, which launched at Sofitel in New York, and is also scheduled for Sofitels in Beverly Hills, Chicago, and Quebec.

Revealed at Sofitel Hotel, Washington, D.C./Photo by Patricia Leslie

What:  Revealed, 30 photographs of modern artists from the collection of Paris Match

When:  Now through October 31, 2014

Where: Sofitel Hotel, 806 15th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20005

Admission: No charge

For more information:  202-730-8800

Metro Station:  McPherson Square 

patricialesli@gmail.com



 

The National Gallery of Art opens 'triple header'

Pablo Picasso, Head of a Woman, 1921, pastel, Fondation Beyeler, Basil


Two new exhibitions and newly refurbished galleries were unveiled in the West Building at the National Gallery of Art over the weekend and its director, Earl A. Powell,III, called them "a triple play."

They are:

* The opening of the renovated 19th-century French galleries on the main floor

* Picasso's Drawings, 1890–1921: Reinventing Tradition through May 6, 2012 on the ground floor (near the 7th Street entrance)

* The Baroque Genius of Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione prints and drawings through July 8, 2012 on the ground floor (also near the 7th Street entrance)

After a two-year makeover, the French impressionism and post-impressionism galleries are now open, and many of the masterpieces which hung in the Chester Dale Collection up for two years on the ground floor which recently ended and you feared you would never see them again are here: Manet, Cezanne, Courbet, Cassatt, Morisot, Renoir, van Gogh, Degas, Gauguin, Monet, Toulouse-Lautrec, and finally, Picasso, are some of the artists. The way some of them are hung now, they can have "conversations" with each other, according to the Gallery's Mary Morton, head of French paintings.

The Monet gallery in the renovated French galleries at the National Gallery of Art.  It is the smallest of the new 14 galleries, good for "quiet contemplation," said Mary Morton, French painting curator and head/Patricia Leslie

On Sunday she spoke about the new show to several hundred people in the packed East Building auditorium.  Earlier in the week Dr. Morton called the Chester Dale Collection "one of the greatest of its kind in the country, if not the world."

Director Powell said the completion of the 14 French galleries ends 10 years of renovation at the West Building which is now "completely open again."

Gustave Caillebotte, Skiffs, 1877, collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

The 55 or so Picasso drawings, pastels, watercolors, and collages are much, much more than what visitors may expect.  The show is a history of early Picasso art including his earliest work, Hercules (age 9), and displays his first three decades of drawings in  chronological arrangement.

More than half the works come from private collections, most of which Gallery visitors will never see again. On an energetic flight through the exhibition, Curator Andrew Robison enthusiastically described them, pointing out one wall in the third gallery where three of four works are private. 

In the third gallery of the Picasso exhibition, three of these four paintings are from private collections/Patricia Leslie

The exhibition presages the Picasso masterpieces to come. Art education was important to the youthful Picasso whose father was a painter.

The 17th century drawings are detailed pen and ink scenes by the Italian baroque master, Castiglione, and his contemporaries and followers. Whether or not visitors are "churchy," the meticulous etchings and finest of pen strokes of many Biblical scenes will produce deep appreciation for this fine art where close-up inspection is permitted.

Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, The Flight into Egypt, 1647/1649, etching, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

Pietro Testa, The Infant Christ at the Foot of the Cross, 1635/1637, etching,  National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

The Frick Collection in New York and the National Gallery of Art organized the Picasso show for which the Hearst Foundation, Inc. is a major sponsor.

In celebration of the exhibitions, the National Gallery of Art is hosting talks, concerts and films. See the schedule here. 

When: Open daily from 10 a.m.- 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and 11 a.m.- 6 p.m., Sunday

Where: The West Building of the National Gallery of Art between 4th and 7th streets along Constitution Avenue

How much: No charge

Metro station(s): Archives, Judiciary Square, Federal Triangle, or L'Enfant Plaza and/or ride the Circulator bus with stops at the West Building

For more information: 202-737-4215  or click here

patricialesliexam@gmail.com