Van Gogh’s Peasant, Andy Warhol, Picasso Top Fall Season
As usual, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art takes center stage this fall season.
Its promising exhibitions include the highly anticipated “Bernini: Sculpting in Clay” (Oct. 3 - Jan. 6), a show of small studies for larger works.
Comprising some 50 masterly terracotta models and approximately 30 drawings from the hand of Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), it will bring us closer -- intimately so -- to the mind, eye and workshop of the greatest of Italian Baroque sculptors.
Among other must-see exhibitions will surely be the Met’s “Matisse: In Search of True Painting” (Dec. 4 - Mar. 17). The show highlights the artist’s dialogue with his own earlier works and focuses on repeated images and themes executed in pairs, trios and series.
Not to be outdone, the Guggenheim Museum is bringing us a show of the other Modern titan, “Picasso Black and White” (Oct. 5 - Jan. 23).
Picasso, especially when compared with Matisse, is often considered primarily a draftsman, or graphic artist.
This 110-work survey of paintings, drawings, prints and sculptures exploring Picasso’s grisailles will remind us that the Spaniard was also one of the most inventive colorists of the 20th century.
Peasant Portrait
Also eagerly awaited are the Museum of Modern Art’s focused survey “Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925” (Dec. 23 - Apr. 15) and “Vincent van Gogh’s ‘Portrait of a Peasant (Patience Escalier)’” (Oct. 30 - Jan. 20) at the Frick Collection.
“Inventing Abstraction” explores the nascent years of European Modernist abstraction, including Robert Delaunay, Kandinsky and Mondrian. With its superb permanent collection from this period, MoMA is the best museum for the job.
The Frick will present but a single portrait of a man wearing a turquoise smock and brilliant-yellow straw hat, shining within a blue field.
What business does a van Gogh have in the Frick? Who cares?
On loan from the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California, the stridently colorful work from 1888 was painted when van Gogh was at the height of his powers.
How enlightening to see van Gogh’s “Peasant” in the company of portraits by El Greco, Ingres, Memling, Rembrandt, Titian and Velazquez.
Master Drawings
The Frick also has the stupendous loan exhibition “Mantegna to Matisse: Master Drawings from The Courtauld Gallery” (Oct. 2 - Jan. 27). This show from London includes works by Leonardo, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Rubens, Seurat, van Gogh and Watteau.
Coups for the Frick, these two shows will bring visitors in droves.
So, too, will the Met’s surefire blockbuster, “Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years” (Sept. 18 - Dec. 31).
The show takes stock of the Pop artist’s continuing influence on contemporary art -- creating malaise is more apt.
Clearly, Warhol is extremely influential, and this exhibition, which likely won’t be much to look at, may prove instructive.
But when “Regarding Warhol” -- trumping both Bernini and Matisse -- leads the fall lineup at the world’s greatest and most powerful museum, it may signal the first real populist downturn since Thomas P. Campbell took over as the Met’s director.
For more information: Metropolitan Museum of Art: http://www.metmuseum.org. Guggenheim Museum: http://www.guggenheim.org. Museum of Modern Art: http://www.moma.org. Frick Collection: http://www.frick.org.
(Lance Esplund is U.S. art critic for Muse, the arts and leisure section of Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
Muse highlights include Rich Jaroslovsky on tech and Jason Harper on cars.
To contact the writer on the story: Lance Esplund, in New York, at lesplund@gmail.com.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Manuela Hoelterhoff at mhoelterhoff@bloomberg.net.
'Michael Jackson and Bubbles'
The Metropolitan Museum of Art via Bloomberg
“Michael Jackson and Bubbles” (1988) by Jeff Koons. The porcelain sculpture, on loan from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, will be among the 100 works by other artists (alongside 45 works by Warhol) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s show “Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years.”
“Michael Jackson and Bubbles” (1988) by Jeff Koons. The porcelain sculpture, on loan from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, will be among the 100 works by other artists (alongside 45 works by Warhol) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s show “Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years.” Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art via Bloomberg
'Big Campbell's Soup Can, 19¢(Beef Noodle)'
The Metropolitan Museum of Art via Bloomberg
“Big Campbell's Soup Can, 19¢(Beef Noodle)” (1962) by Andy Warhol. The acrylic painting is part of the "Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years” (Sept. 18-Dec. 31), an exhibition that takes stock of the Pop artist’s continuing influence on contemporary art.
“Big Campbell's Soup Can, 19¢(Beef Noodle)” (1962) by Andy Warhol. The acrylic painting is part of the "Regarding Warhol: Sixty Artists, Fifty Years” (Sept. 18-Dec. 31), an exhibition that takes stock of the Pop artist’s continuing influence on contemporary art. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art via Bloomberg
'Model for the Lion on the Four Rivers Fountain'
Zeno Colantoni/The Metropolitan Museum of Art via Bloomberg
"Model for the Lion on the Four Rivers Fountain" (c. 1649-50) by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The small terracotta sculpture was part of "Bernini: Sculpting in Clay" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
"Model for the Lion on the Four Rivers Fountain" (c. 1649-50) by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The small terracotta sculpture was part of "Bernini: Sculpting in Clay" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Photographer: Zeno Colantoni/The Metropolitan Museum of Art via Bloomberg
'The Maids of Honor'
Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum via Bloomberg
“The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas, after Velazquez) (Les Menines, vue d’ensemble d’apres Velazquez)” (1957) by Pablo Picasso. This large oil painting is among the Guggenheim Museum’s 110-work survey of the Spaniard’s grisailles in “Picasso: Black and White” (Oct. 5 through Jan. 23, 2013).
“The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas, after Velazquez) (Les Menines, vue d’ensemble d’apres Velazquez)” (1957) by Pablo Picasso. This large oil painting is among the Guggenheim Museum’s 110-work survey of the Spaniard’s grisailles in “Picasso: Black and White” (Oct. 5 through Jan. 23, 2013). Source: Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum via Bloomberg
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