Impressionism: Paintings From The Clark at MMFA

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

October 13, 2012 - January 20, 2013


The Montreal Museum of fine Arts (MMFA) was provided with the opportunity to host for 100 days the French impressionists' masterpieces from The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute at Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA. The visitors have a unique occasion to see closely works by Bonnard, Corot, Cassatt, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Millet, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley and Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir.

If you love Degas you will see two of his great works on display. Both show dancers either practicing in a class or assuming dancing poses. The lightness and elegance of the  composition and form is remarkable, and the dancers' portrayal both on canvas or as a sculpture work are superb.

Renoir is represented by an outstanding group of twenty-one canvases, more numerous collection of works than that of any other impressionist painter on display at MMFA. 

Among them are two of Renoir's self-portraits. One he painted when he was 55 years old. But by far the more remarkable one, seen to the left, he did at about age 34. This self-portrait was one of the 17 works exhibited by Renoir at the second Impressionist exhibition in April 1876. It is a miracle this painting survived at all, since Renoir originally discarded it. Here is the story in his own words : "I had thrown it in a rubbish bin, but since [the collector Victor] Crocquet asked me to let him take it, I had to agree, even thought I was sorry it was not better than it was." It is remarkable that Renoir at that time still was not able to judge positively the briskness and freshness of the brush strokes used in making this self-portrait, the overall sincerity and forcefulness of the image, as well as of his facial expression.

Above are two magnificent female portraits by Renoir of which he was a real master. Both portray a sitter busy with a traditional domestic occupation. The one to the right has a bright red hat. Renoir had several hats at his studio and liked painting women wearing hats. 

Of the 39 paintings by Renoir in the Sterling Clark's possession the one above was by far his favourite. It was painted during Renoir's stay in Naples in late 1881.

The exhibition also presents a number of remarkable works by Claude Monet. They are the type of paintings one would imagine right away when the term Impressionism is used.
        

The Clark Impressionist exhibition at MMFA also features several Camille Pissarro's painting. See one just above on the right and two below.

I will conclude with a painting by Berthe Morisot, one of the female impressionist painters who is now acquiring an international acclaim. This painting was shown at the 1886 Impressionist exhibition. The painting, for which Morisot used one of her favourite model, captures a private moment of a respectable young woman.

Click on images to enlarge them.

To find out more about this exhibition and the opening hours, visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts website.

You can purchase the exhibition catalogue at the Museum's Boutique and Store.

Salon des métiers d'art 2012

Salon des métiers d'art

Salon des métiers d'art is a Montreal's annual show always held at Place Bonaventure. This year it will be open to public between December 7-22, 2012. Although it is mostly what French refer to as 'artisanat' and English as arts and crafts show, this year it also features some works of a considerable artistic merit.

This year the Salon also pays a special tribute to Ronald Labelle, a Quebec artist who works with glass but also uses mixed media. He is characterised by a diversity of techniques and materials.

You can see photos of his three works presented at the Salon at the top of this article, and also one of his other works just below.

Images of two other works of special artistic interest are shown below. The one to the left is presented by the Centre de Ceramique Bonsecours, and the other one to the right by the Institute des métiers d'art, CEGEP du Vieux Montreal.

You can find more about the Salon des métiers d'art 2012 and its opening hours by visiting the Salon's website.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Collection, Volume II

Decorative Arts and Design
  Le Salon du Livre de Montréal

On November 15, 2012, at Le Salon du Livre de Montréal, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) has launched its Decorative Arts and Design book. This is the Volume II of their The Montreal Museum of Fine Art's Collection project. The book is of a large format (25 x 35 cm) and comprises 400 pages and 750 colour illustrations.

The book features some 750 works from the Museum's collection of over 15,000 decorative arts and design pieces. Forty experts have written essays and other various entries in the book. The book's graphic design was entrusted to the Orangetango agency. It will be distributed internationally by Les Editions de La Martinière (in French) and Abrams (in English).

The book was self-published by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. MMFA is actually one of Canada's  leading publishers of art books with its own booth at Le Salon du livre de Montréal, where the Volume I of the same MMFA collection entitled Quebec and Canadian Art was also available to visitors for purchase. All together there will be 4 volumes in this MMFA book project. Volume III will have the title Cultures of the World and Fine Arts and will cover the museum's non-Canadian works. Volume IV will be Graphic Arts and Photography, The Michal and Renata Hornstein Collection of Old Masters, though I am not sure whether this would be its final title.

The just-launched Volume II - Decorative Arts and Design book - provides an overview of the MMFA's international collection which was founded almost 100 years ago in 1916 by F. Cleveland Morgan and was augmented in 2000 by a generous donation by Liliane Stuart of over 6,000 works of 20th century design.

Rather than subdivide the book into such categories as furniture, dinnerware and glassware, etc., under the initiative of the museum's director Natalie Bondil the book was subdivided into these 7 distinct sections: wood, paper, glass, ceramics,  metal, fibre, plastic and composite materials.

Below are photographs of some of the book's pages. This will give you an idea of the book's scope and beauty.

The book can be purchased at the MMFA's boutique and store.

To read more about the Salon du Livre de Montréal and to see pictures of this immensely popular and huge Montreal's book fair, visit the article about it my blog Now Event.

World Press Photo 12

The World Press Photo exhibition is being held at the Marché

Bonsecours in Old Montreal between September 7 - 30, 2012. The same collection of the photographs is also currently exhibited in Saint Petersbourg, Russia.

To the left is my photo of the original by  Damir Sagolj, Bosnia and Gecegovina, from Reuters Agency. It won the 1^st Price in the category Daily Life Singles. A portrait of North Korean Founder, Kim Il-sung, known as the “Great Leader”, decorates a building in the country’s capital Pyongyang. The photo has an amazing composition of drab, lifeless building blocks, with no light in any of the windows, but with only one little bright spot in the midst of the masonry - the portrait of the first North Korean leader. This photo speaks volumes about North Korea as it portrays the  gloomy reality of the everyday living of its citizens.

The display to the left is dedicated to the last year's tsunami in Japan. These are photos by Yasuyoshi Chiba, Japan, Agence France-Press, who won the 1^st Prize in the People in the News Stories category. 

The next two photos are also about the Japan's tsunami. They were made by Koichiro Tezuka, Japan, from Mainichi Shimbun. That plane the photographer was on was sent to investigate the extend of the damage done by the earthquake that preceded the tsunami. When Koichiro Tezuka saw the unexpected tsunami rolling towards the coastline, he was horrified, yet had the presence of the mind and spirit to shoot these dramatic photos.

To the left are the photos of a natural wonder - a cave so huge and tall, that it can accommodate inside an entire New York city block of buildings 40 stories high. The photos were taken by Carsten Peter, Germany, National Geographic magazine, and won the 2^nd Prize in Nature Stories category. The name of the cave is Hang Son Dooing, and it is located in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park in Vietnam. It is believed by many to be the largest cave on Earth. It is more than 4 kilometers long, with the continuous passage as wide as 90 meters, and in places more than 180 meters high. This cave is part of a system of 150 or so caves, many still not surveyed, located under the Annamite Mountains. Some of its stalagmites stretch for over half of kilometer. If you right click once on the picture, you will see a photo-gallery of all the photos in this post in a much larger format. Then you will be able to perceive extremely small people in the center of the left photo, which will give you a visual clue of how immense this cave is.

These sport photos are by Adam Pretty, Australia, Getty Images. They have won the 2nd Prize in the Sport Stories category. The photos were shot at the 14^th FiNA World Aquatics Championships in Shanghai, China, in July 2011.

My pictures of all the above photo-displays at World Press Photo 12 do not render the originals a full justice. To see the originals directly, in person, is a unique experience, which I would highly recommend to the readers of this post. For more information about the exhibition visit the World Press Photo Montreal website.

The Etruscans – An Ancient Italian Civilization

The Etruscans
June 20 to November 25, 2012

Pointe-à-Callière, the Montréal Museum of Archaeology and History, generally referred to as PAC Museum, is holding a world exclusive exhibition of Etruscan artefacts  It features over 200 objects belonging to our common world heritage, bearing witness to the many facets of this ancient civilization. Exhibits include jewellery, bowls, chalices, vases, sculptures, figurines, large murals, architectural elements and ornamentation, funeral urns, amphorae, and other works of art, grouped together under various themes. In addition to their priceless historical value and significance, they also posses a great deal of aesthetic beauty.

Who were the Etruscans? A visitor to the PAC Museum will be able to have a glance at some members of these ancient people in the very last room of the exhibition. A unique display of sculptured portraits excavated from Etruscan burial places awaits there, as seen in the photo just above and two images below.

The two heads below of an older man and a young woman were modelled in clay - terracotta with care and delicacy, making them life-like. 

Many theories have been put forward about the origins of the Etruscans They spoke a language that did not resemble other Italic languages. It is speculated that they might have came from the ancient Mesopotamia region, and/or some of them might have arrived from Northern Europe. A large map in the first exhibition room shows the possible migration routes before they firmly established themselves in ancient Italy.

The Etruscan civilization developed between the 9th and 1st centuries BC. Their territory was known as Etruria. It was renamed to Tuscany in the late Middle Ages. To the left you can see a PAC Museum's exhibition hall with Etruria landscape, the present day Tuscany, with several large, everyday use pottery pieces in the middle. The exhibition also presents other food vessels as those, for instance, shown in the following two pictures.

The ornate terracotta vessels, used for food and in celebratory ceremonies, are not the only objects that speak about the Etruscan way of life. Of great interest are also colourful images traced from frescoes.

                                       
Those are remarkable. They are life-size copies of wall frescoes discovered inside the Tomb of the Trinclinium, Tarquinia, dated around 470 BC. The copies were made by Carlo Raspi in 1832. He used pen and watercolour in tracing paper. A number of his works are currently on display at PAC Museum. They line the walls of one of the exhibition halls. They not only contribute to the overall aesthetic value of all the exhibited items in that room, but also most directly point to the spirit of the people and their 'joie de vivre'. 

This current Etruscan exhibition at the PAC Museum is quite remarkable. I urge everybody to visit it. Your knowledge about our common cultural roots will increase tremendously, and you will start appreciating this ancient people who preceded us so long ago. You will also be able to see a very new pavilion, Mariners’ House, that PAC Museum has just inaugurated with this new The Etruscans exhibition.

To find out more about this exhibition, visit the Museum's website.

It is interesting to note that Etruscans called themselves Rasenna. There is some evidence they might have even founded Rome. The very first Roman emperors were actually Etruscans. You can read more about them in this Wikipedia entry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etruscan_civilization


List of Photos as they appear in the text

1. The Etruscans – An Ancient Italian Civilization, Official Poster, PAC Museum, Montreal, 2012, Image courtesy of PAC Museum.

2. Men and Women from Etruria, Terracota, PAC Museum, Montreal, 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova.

3. Head of an older man, Terracota, Cerveteri, probably late 2^nd – 1^st quarter of 1^st century BC, Vatican Museum, Vatican City, PAC Museum, 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova.

4. Portrait of a young woman, Terracota, Caere, Vignali, 1^st half of 3^rd century BC, Vatican Museum, Vatican City, PAC Museum 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova.

5. Etruria-Tuscany landscape, Exhibition Hall, PAC Museum, 2012, Image courtesy of PAC Museum.

6. Olla for wine and water, dark red impasto, Tarquinia, Boccharis Tomb, 700-690 BC, National Archeological Museum, Tarquinia, PAC Museum, 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova.

7. Food Storage Vessel, red impasto, painted decoration, Caere, 2^nd half of 7^th century BC, Musée du Louvre, PAC Museum 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova.

8. and 9. Copy of an Etruscan fresco, Pen and watercolour on tracing paper, Carlo Raspi, 1832, Tomb of the Trinclinium, Tarquinia, about 470 BC, PAC Museum, 2012, Image courtesy of PAC Museum.

10. Horsemen, Copy of an Etruscan fresco, Pen and watercolour on tracing paper, Carlo Raspi, 1832, Tomb of the Trinclinium, Tarquinia, about 470 BC, PAC Museum, 2012,  Photo by Nadia Slejskova.

11. Female head, Terracotta, Etruria, 400-200 BC, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, PAC Museum 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova. 

12. Copy of an Etruscan fresco, Pen and watercolour on tracing paper, Carlo Raspi, 1832, Tomb of the Trinclinium, Tarquinia, about 470 BC, PAC Museum, 2012, Image courtesy of PAC Museum.

13. Gold jewelry, 7^th century BC, National Archeological Museum, Florence, PAC Museum, Montreal, 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova.

Tom Wesselmann: Beyond Pop Art

Tom Wesselmann

May 19 - October 7, 2012

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is hosting the first ever North American retrospective of the American Pop artist Tom Wesselmann, consisting of about 180 of his works, some of which were never exhibited before. Most prominent are seventy-five paintings and earliest metal pieces produced by laser steel-cutting. Of great interest are also his preliminary drawings and maquettes as well as some thirty archival documents such as photographs, letters, billboards, etc. After this exhibition ends in October 2012, it will travel to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond where it will open to the public in the spring of 2013.

This exhibition presents Wesselmann’s most significant series: Great American Nudes, Still Lives, Smokers, Bathtub Collages and Seascapes. The two works just above demonstrate the elegance and simplicity, and even sensuality with which Wesselmann often handled his creative imagery.


Here are two Seascape paintings. In the one just to the left, the Sky - the nurturer of all - is reaching towards the Earth below. A symbolic image of dove could be discerned, with a beak and a head on the left, and an upward wing extended towards the sky on the right.

In the painting below it, and just to the left from this text, a human being is reaching towards the sky and above the clouds. In both painting the sea water is not blue, but almost a green of the grass. Thus this colour not only seems to represent the water, but also grass, both being the part of the Earth's landscape.

Do these two paintings project some spiritual concerns Wesselmann might have harboured? Apparently, at the time he was producing this work (according to his wife Claire Wesselmann, present at the press conference at the inauguration of this exhibition) her husband was writing Haiku style poems. Haiku is traditionally a very short Japanese poetry, involving a juxtaposition of images. Through very laconic means, a very profound and even spiritual meaning is achieved. These two Seascape paintings of Wesselman definitely seam to be "Haiku" paintings, where with very few elements and colours, a poetic visual effect and a profound meaning is achieved.

Early in his career, Tom Wesselmann began to investigate and reinvent traditional genres like the nude, still life and landscape. Beginning with collages, he incorporated a diverse array of materials in his work: advertising billboards, plastic flowers, television sets and neon signs. The photo to the left and above shows a collage-painting with the typical period domestic items which, when properly arranged, create the illusion of "art" of the everyday life. The objects are taken out of the realm of the mundane and are imparted an aesthetic value, thus catapulting them from the everyday drudgery into a seemingly sublime sphere.

The photo on the left is an example of a Wesselmann’s invention of steel line drawings. The idea was to take a pencil drawing from his sketchbook, to “detach” it from the paper, and place it directly on the wall.

Wesselmann had a keen appreciation for the art history. He also incorporated a number of reproductions of paintings he liked in his work, for instance by Matisse, Picasso and Mondrian. In addition, he also incorporated all sort of materials. This new understanding and the definition of genres led him, along with Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, to invent a new Pop aesthetic.  He was especially preoccupied with form and the relationship of shapes to each other. He also used strong undiluted colours, making striking aesthetic and content statements when playing with the tension between colour and shape.

Below is a view of one of the MMFA Exhibition Halls with three  magnificent paintings by Tom Wesellmann.

Click on images to enlarge them.

List of Photos as they appear in the text:

1. Tom Wesselmann, Still Life No. 53, 1964, Painted molded plastic, Mugrabi Collection, MMFA Retrospective 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova

2. Tom Wesselmann, Still Life No. 60, 1973, Oil on canvas, New York, Estate of Tom Wesselmann, MMFA Retrospective 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova

3. Tom Wesselman, Smoker No. 1, 1967, Oon shaped canvas, in two parts, New York, The Museum of Modern Art Susan Morse Hilles Fund, 1968, MMFA Retrospective 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova

4. Tom Wesselmann, Smoking Cigarette No. 2, 1980, Oil on wood and masonite, 173.9 x 200.6 x 45.7 cm, New York, The Estate of Tom Wesselmann, MMFA Retrospective 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova

5. Tom Wesselmann, Seascape No. 24, 1967, Oil on shaped canvas, New York, The Estate of Tom Wesselmann, MMFA 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova

6. Tom Wesselmann, Seascape No. 22, 1967, Oil on shaped canvas, New York, The Estate of Tom Wesselman, MMFA Retrospective 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova

7. Tom Wesselmann, Still Life No. 30,  Oil, enamel and synthetic polymer paint on composition board with collage of printed advertisements, plastic flowers, refrigerator door, plastic replicas of 7-up bottles, glazed and framed color reproduction, and stumped metal, New York, The Museum of Modern Art,  MMFA Retrospective 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova

8. Tom Wesselman, Still Life with Two Matisses (Portraits), 1990/1992, Alkyd oil on cut-out aluminum,  New York, The Estate of Tom Wesselman, MMFA Retrospective 2012, Photo by Nadia Slejskova

9. Tom Wesselmann, Sunset Nude with Wesselman, 2003, Oil on canvas, Huston, Sandders Collection, MMFA Retrospective 2012,  Photo by Nadia Slejskova

10. Tom Wesselmann's Retrospective, Exhibition Hall, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2012,  Photo by Nadia Slejskova

You can purchase the exhibition catalogue at the Museum's Boutique and Store.