Philadelphia's surrealism show closes March 2

Enrico Donati, The Evil Eye, 1947, Philadelphia Museum of Art. This is a new addition to the collection and is not as large as it appears here. (See below.) Photo by Patricia Leslie

For all D.C. surrealist fans, the City of Brotherly Love just up the road a bit is well worth a rush trip this weekend to see The Surrealists:  Works from the Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

It closes March 2 which, on the first Sunday of the month,  happens to be "Pay What You Can Day."

It's not a big show, just three galleries, but the art is more than enough to keep your mind occupied long past your exit from the museum.

A better perspective from the floor of Enrico Donati's 1947 The Evil Eye. On the left wall is label copy.  Surrealists were intrigued by "the eye" and often made it their subject, portending more government spying. Would this not make a good illustration for the NSA? Or Google? Photo by Patricia Leslie

Oils, photographs, sculpture, furniture, printed materials, rare books, and clothing, all from the museum's collection, are represented in 100 creations by 50 artists who explore their subconscious minds, dreams, and fears.  They made visual, the unconscious; real, unreality; and they exaggerated. 

Valentine Hugo, Dream Painting (Playing Cards and Lotus Blossoms), 1935, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Curator John Vick led a tour and said the surrealists revolted against traditional names and values and practiced their own personal styles. The movement "about diversity, difference, and individuality," became "a real driving force in Europe" in the 1920s, spanning the aftermath of World War I, the entirety of World War II. and the Spanish Civil War (July, 1936 - April, 1939).

What would a surrealism show be without a Dali? Not a surrealism show.  This is a close-up of Salvador Dali's Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War), 1936, Philadelphia Museum of Art/Photo by Patricia Leslie

Vick said it was Philadelphia's "first exhibition [where] we've been able to feature our surrealism collection in a comprehensive format." 

The show unfolds chronologically and geographically as artists fled Paris and Europe for New York, joining thousands displaced by World War II.

Not all the names are familiar (Pierre Roy, Eli Lotar, Esteban Frances, Wifredo Lam) but most are well known:  Joan Miro, Kay Sage, de Chirico, Giacometti, Max Ernst, and hometown boy, Man Ray. Some of the works have never been shown.

Curator Vick said Picasso never really joined the trend, being "slightly outside" of it, however, two of his are thrown in for good measure (Bullfight, 1934, and Head of a Woman, 1937). (Picasso is a draw.)

Salvador Dali painted Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War) in 1936 when the Spanish Civil War broke out, when he witnessed his country torn apart by bloodshed.  The label quotes him describing  Soft Construction as "a vast human bodybreaking out into monstrous excrescences of arms and legs tearing at one another in a delirium of auto strangulation."  The surrealists were fascinated by and often portrayed the desecration of the human body, especially Dali.  (Who would have known?)

 Salvador Dali, Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War), 1936, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Many consider surrealism art to be anti-feminist.

In her self-portrait, Birthday, named by her future husband, Max Ernst, Dorothea Tanning paints herself as a sex tool, grabbing her skirt, clothed in a robe of human bodies.  Pretty, huh? At the same time she reaches for a door leading to a long hallway of open doors (an escape or a prison?). Her expression exudes self-doubt and sadness.  What do you see?

Dorothea Tanning, Birthday, 1942, Philadelphia Museum of Art.

The show contains violence, including violence against women (I could not locate it or them), torment, self-destruction, and exorcism of demons. 

Maybe it will help exorcise your demons when you see theirs and realize yours aren't so bad, after all.  The artists intended to shock, said Mr. Vick, and they still do today.

When: Now through March 2, 2014.  The museum is open every day except Monday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., and Wednesday and Friday until 8:45 p.m.

 

Where: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia 19130

Admission: "Pay what you wish" on Sunday, March 2.  Customary prices are $20 (adults); $18 (seniors; 65 and over); $14 (students and youth, ages 13-18); free (children, under age 13); and members, no charge.

Getting there from Washington: Train, plane, bus, or car.

 

For more information: 215-763-8100 or visitorservices@philamuseum.org.


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Gauguin, Cezanne, and Matisse only in Philadelphia

Aristide Maillol, The Three Nymphs, 1930-38, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C./Patricia Leslie

An exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art is the only place in the U.S. to see “Arcadia” or “earthly paradise” where, depending upon your mood and acceptance of the surroundings, you may enjoy a stroll through galleries and likely benefit from the emotionally medicinal effects of the exhibition, Gauguin, Cezanne, Matisse: Visions of Arcadia.

(A suggested sub-title for the display is “Naked People in the Woods” which, indeed, mirrors titles of two of the paintings, Three Nudes in the Forest by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Nude in a Wood by Henri Matisse.)

On a press tour, the museum’s senior curator of European painting before 1900, Joseph J. Rishel, teasingly said, for reasons of modesty, he could not tell his audience about certain drawings by Henri Matisse, and he pointed to a wall several feet away where Matisse hung. (By Jove, let’s go take a look! Unfortunately, I was unable to locate any suggestive renderings.) 

Senior Curator of European Painting before 1900, Joseph J. Rishel, talks about Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich's Our Forefathers, c. 1911, Philadelphia Museum of Art/Patricia Leslie

Whatever viewers may find, Philadelphia hosts another blockbuster show which runs through September 3, 2012.

Henri Rousseau, Pablo Picasso, Robert Delaunay, Paul Signac, Nicholas Poussin, Georges Seurat and Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova of Russia, who may be the only female representative, are some of the 27 artists featured in the display of 60 works organized by PMOA from collections around the world.

Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova, Boys Bathing, c. 1910, Museum Wiesbaden, Germany

The exhibition focuses on three large paintings hung together in one gallery which form “the very foundations of modern art,” according to the museum:   Paul Cezanne’s The Large Bathers (1906), Paul Gauguin’s Where Do We Come From? What are We? Where Are We Going? (1897-98) (Question: Do you ask yourself this every day?), and Matisse’s Bathers by a River (1909-17).

According to Curator Rishel, before World War I artists were “fueled by high optimism and sometimes profound unease,” and they “looked inward and toward each other to give creative shape to the common fate of the human condition.”

It is probable that both Cezanne and Matisse saw and/or heard about Gauguin’s Where? What? Where? which may have influenced their own choices for an “earthly paradise.”

It was a time of vast social and technological changes (sound familiar?) and the artists desired a return to a saintly, more simplistic state, a land of make-believe where humans harmonized with nature in Eden-like settings. No rush, no horns, no mean people snapping at you, but tranquility and serenity. Who doesn’t need such an escape? 

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Goatherd of Terni, c. 1871, Philadelphia Museum of Art

This magical, mystery tour of beautiful bodies in peaceful landscapes is a certain prescription for malady.

Henri Edmond Cross, Study for "Faun," 1905-06, Musee de Grenoble, France

Robert Delaunay, The City of Paris, 1910-12, Centre Georges Pompidou, Musee National d'Art Moderne, Paris

Combine a trip to the exhibit with visits to Philadelphia’s newly re-opened Rodin Museum, the new Barnes, and the historic Eastern State Penitentiary, all within walking distance of the PMOA.

And a good place to eat right in the neighborhood is the London Grill at 2301 Fairmount Avenue. It was every bit as good as Fodor's described, with delicious hamburgers and an arugula salad with tomatoes (sub for fries) to die for. Plus homemade beer! What a ride. Right on the way to the prison.

A trip by Amtrak from Washington to Philly is usually always stress-free and economical. And you can take your food, your luggage, your beverages, and bypass the TSA wardens.

Let us go then, you and I, and return to the forest unashamed and welcoming of nature and its bounty, and forget the turmoil which surrounds us daily in the sea of madness.

What:  Gauguin, Cezanne, Matisse:  Visions of Arcadia

When:  Now through September 3, 2012 (open on Labor Day), Tuesday – Sunday, 10 a.m. – 5 p.m. and open late on some Friday nights

Where:  Philadelphia Museum of Art, the landmark on the hill at 26^th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway

Admission (includes audio tour): $25 (adults), $23 (seniors), $20 (students, 13 - 18), $14 (children, 5 – 12), free for children under age 5.  Discounts and private tours are available.  Check here.


For more information: 215-763-8100 and www.philamuseum.org

Aristide Maillol, The Three Nymphs, 1930-38, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C./Patricia Leslie

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'Van Gogh' opens in Philadelphia, the only U.S. venue

Now through May 6, 2012.

Undergrowth with Two Figures, 1890. Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch, 1853 ‑ 1890. Oil on canvas, 19 1/2 x 39 1/4 inches (49.5 x 99.7 cm). Cincinnati Art Museum, Bequest of Mary E. Johnston

For art museums, Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) is a magnet, comparable to The Nutcracker for ballet companies. Expect thousands.

For anyone with the slightest interest in this most famous artist who died at age 37, the Philadelphia Museum of Art exhibition is absolutely “must see.” It stunningly illustrates how the mysterious painter changed the course of modern art.

The show focuses on van Gogh's last four years (1886-1890) beginning with his residency in Paris where he met impressionists whose works affected him so acutely, he changed his brushstrokes and moved to bold colors from the greys and somber hues of paintings he created in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Iris, 1889. Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch, 1853 ‑ 1890. Oil on thinned cardboard, mounted on canvas, 24 1/2 x 19 inches (62.2 x 48.3 cm). National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa

In the first gallery visitors will certainly find a cure for the wintertime blues: Portraits of poppies, irises, roses, zinnias, and sunflowers in bright, happy colors are the theme. (After all, said the museum's senior curator, Joseph J. Rishel, van Gogh was a Dutchman who knew a lot about flowers.) 

From there, guests are introduced to the "Blades of Grass" gallery which focuses on the world under van Gogh's feet, and nature which comforted the artist amidst turmoil. ("I...am always obliged to go and gaze at a blade of grass, a pine-tree branch, an ear of wheat, to calm myself," he wrote his sister in 1889.)

Rain, 1889. Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch, 1853 ‑ 1890. Oil on canvas, 28 7/8 x 36 3/8 inches (73.3 x 92.4 cm). Philadelphia Museum of Art. The Henry P. McIlhenny Collection in memory of Frances P. McIlhenny

Landscapes of Arles, Saint-Remy, and Auvers and their horizons figure prominently in another gallery, followed by hidden forests and sunlit dappled scenes.

Undergrowth, 1887. Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch, 1853 ‑ 1890. Oil on canvas, 13 x 18 1/8 inches (33 x 46 cm); Framed: 20 1/4 x 25 3/8 inches (51.5 x 64.5 cm). Centraal Museum, Utrecht, Netherlands

The infrequent inclusion of people are seen at a distance, none close enough to have facial features for they are not so important here.

One side gallery includes examples of prints from Japan, identical to the hundreds owned by van Gogh and his brother, Theo, pieces which influenced Vincent and show up in his paintings, including the last one in the show, Almond Blossom, created to celebrate the arrival of Theo's son, Vincent's namesake, born January 31, 1890, only a half year before his uncle died.

Philadelphia Museum of Art's Senior Curator of European Painting Before 1900, Joseph J. Rishel, in front of van Gogh's Almond Blossom (1890)/Patricia Leslie

It seems like the show includes more than 40 works, perhaps because of the smart layout.   Many are uncommon paintings, borrowed from private collectors and museums around the world: the Art Institute of Chicago, Baltimore Museum of Art, Basel, Carnegie Museum of Art, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cleveland Museum of Art, Copenhagen, Dallas, Dresden, Geneva, Honolulu, London, Madrid, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musee d’Orsay, St. Louis Art Museum, Stockholm, The Hague, the National Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Phillips Collection, Tokyo, Utrecht, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Zurich, the van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the joint co-organizer of the five-year project, with the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa.

Sun Life Financial and GlaxoSmithKline were major underwriters.

The press preview drew far more representatives than any recent press event, said museum director, Timothy Rub, which leads to expectations of greater than the 300,000 who came for the last van Gogh show at the museum about 10 years ago, and the one before that in the 1970s when 200,000 visited.

Philadelphia will be the season's national art destination, boasted Mr. Rub and Gail Harrity, museum president.

An audio tour included with the entry price expands the van Gogh experience, and movies about van Gogh and lectures complement the presentation on various dates. (Check the schedule here.)

It’s an easy and comfortable day trip to Philadelphia from Union Station on Amtrak (made more pleasant by a 15% van Gogh discount), and early train reservations reduce costs. (For those who have not traveled recently on Amtrak, there is plenty of leg room, no restrictions on taking food and beverages on board, free Wi-Fi, and the best benefit of all: no security checks, hassles, or long line waits.)

Amtrak stops at Philadelphia's 30th Street station where a short taxi ride of less than $10 can carry passengers to the museum. Hotel discount packages are available, too.

Go before crowds make viewing difficult. Or travel to Ottawa beginning May 25 through September 3 where the exhibition moves to the National Gallery of Canada.

A Pair of Shoes, 1887. Vincent Willem van Gogh, Dutch, 1853 ‑ 1890. oil on canvas, 12 7/8 x 16 5/16 inches (32.7 x 41.5 cm). The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection

What: Van Gogh Up Close

When: Now through May 6, 2012, every day except Monday (exceptions: February 20 and April 30), open 11 a.m. – 5 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday, 11 a.m. – 8:45 p.m., Friday, and 10 a.m.- 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday (until 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday beginning April 7 through May 6)

Where: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 26th Street and the Benjamin Franklin Parkway
Philadelphia 19130

Admission: $25 (adults); $22 (seniors; age not specified); $20 (students and youth, ages 13-18); $12 (children, 5-12); and under age 5 and members, no charge.

Getting there from Washington: Amtrak (please see above) or take a bus (not the Chinatown!), car, or plane

Tickets: 215-235-7469 (service charge added) or online

For more information:  215-763-8100 or visitorservices@philamuseum.org.

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Cezanne and The Ballet in Philadelphia

The crowds line several aisleways on both sides of the hall to see Cezanne





The best $200 I’ve ever spent:

An all-day outing with the Smithsonian Associates to see the new Paul Cezanne show at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the ballet, “Cinderella,” performed by the Pennsylvania Ballet at the 150-year-old Academy of Music, “the oldest grand opera house in the United States still used for its original purpose.”

A magnificent day in every way. We went up via chartered bus, leaving from the Air and Space Museum at 6:45 a.m.

The tour leaders were Ursula Rehn Wolfman, a frequent lecturer around town on all things about the arts and literature, and Harvey Walden of the Smithsonian.

The title of the art show is “Cezanne and Beyond,” and its only venue is Philadelphia. You are looking for Mont Sainte-Victoire? I counted eight (and a half; one may have been Mont Sainte-Victoire in the background) and likely missed a couple.

I suppose the words “and Beyond” mean to encompass some of the artists Cezanne influenced for many (!) of their works are in the show, too: Picasso, Matisse, Ellsworth Kelly, Jeff Wall (mind blowing light boxes: the clarity!), Giorgio Morandi, also now appearing at the Phillips. To the unsuspecting “and Beyond” may be even more of an attraction if one knew all the others included.

At times though they can dwarf the master with their own adaptations of Cezanne’s paintings which are juxtaposed after, in-between, and before the followers'. If this makes no sense, please go and see for yourself.

On our visit we had a personal escort to squire us around and give short talks about many of the paintings before we ate a delicious lunch at the Museum with exquisite service.

Our next stop: Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet where many adorable little girls in all their ballet finery breathlessly awaited the performance, too.

It was all enthralling: The dancing, the lighting, the sets, the costuming (on loan from a Texas company, Edward Barnes, one of the dancers told us afterwards in a "private audience"). And the music! Not taped but performed live and in person (ahem) by the ballet company’s own orchestra. Everything merged to make a beautiful production in a glamorous hall. Beatrice Jona Affron was the conductor.

I could have looked much longer at the lovingly rendered coach which was drawn by four “horses” and which did not stay on stage long enough for me to grow weary of it. The step”sisters” (actually males) provided delightful humor with their antics and “gowns.”

If you think for one nanosecond that because the Cezanne show doesn't end until May 17, that the crowds will be smaller now, dream on. We visited on a Saturday morning, and I don't know how the Museum could have crammed more in. At about $24/head, the Museum is raking them in, and that's good, given the state of the arts these days. You go, Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Ballet, never disappointing, thoroughly entertaining and producing beautiful memories, visuals, and sounds of a lovely springtime day in Philadelphia.

Frida Kahlo Exits Philadelphia for San Francisco

Do not ever consider going to a "blockbuster" art show on the last day. The crowds, the lines, the time. Not worth it...uummmm, well, not every time.

Tickets were timed for entry, however, the museum still let in too many people at once, but since it was the end of the show, certainly “something” for viewers “rather than nothing” was welcomed.

On the final day of the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art I took the Chinatown bus (another story) from DC to see Frida. A great, but it seemed, a small, show. Maybe the crowds and the jamming in front of each canvas distorted my impression: that and the tiny size of many of the paintings. Reading about the art beforehand in Hayden Herrera’s splendid biography, Frida, I expected bigger canvasses because they do become, at least to this reader, "bigger than life," like magnets pulling my heartstrings.

With hundreds viewing the paintings in the crowded galleries, it was impossible to stand back and view them, but given the small size of most, it would not have been productive. If you waited, you could get up close which was necessary to see many of the details.


The paintings depict Frida’s short, sad but quite passionate life in chronological arrangement. The largest, "Two Fridas," is huge in comparison and one she painted for a competition. One of the most fascinating, “Suicide of Dorothy Hale," has a gruesome history which Ms. Herrera explains from a description by Claire Booth Luce who commissioned it.

Other notables in the exhibit: "Henry Ford Hospital," "The Broken Column," "Frida and Diego Rivera," "A Few Small Nips," "My Nurse and I," "The Dream," "Without Hope," "Sun and Life," "The Love Embrace of the Universe."

Many small intimate family photographs of Frida and her husband twice, Diego Rivera, which have never been exhibited or published are displayed.

The exhibit includes between 40 and 50 paintings, many self portraits, but where was the "Trotsky" self-portrait owned by the National Museum of Women in the Arts? Did I miss it? The exhibit is the first in the U.S. of Frida Kahlo's art in 15 years.

At the end of the show, guests were “dumped” into a mad Frida retail shop, complete with almost everything one could imagine about, by, and "of" Frida including clothes. The clothes! Magnifico! Many, full length, and all, colorful and stylish in keeping with the star of the show. (Who shares the proceeds with the museum?) Nothing seemed exorbitantly priced. Long lines at the cashiers’ gave one reason not to purchase, especially for those in a hurry.

Anyway, next stop: The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art from June 14 - September 18.

Side bar: I am in love with Philadelphia: The magnificent fountains, the statuary, the Phlash! Bus, the not-to-missed Reading Terminal Market ! Yes, even to return on the smelly, grungy, dirty Chinatown bus which lived up to its horrible reputation with its repugnant mobile restroom and dirty, unkempt waiting rooms with barking Chinese operators who speak, likely, deliberately, incomprehensible English, but the price ($28 RT) and the time (2.5 hours, almost on schedule) are right. Even without Frida, Philadelphia is too good to miss, yes, even on the Chinatown bus.