European Print Makers
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Lafayette Library, Wonders of the World Lecture October 14, 2015 A Fine Line The Dr. Maurice Alberti Print Collection of European and American Masters (b12/29/29-d11/1/12) *All works belong to the Collection of the Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art Dr. Maurice Alberti, Saint Mary’s College class of 1951, grew up in Oakland, CA. He attended Catholic schools where he developed a love of science. He eventually became a dentist. In addition to dentistry, Dr. Alberti had a passion for art. He was an avid print collector, establishing Malbert Fine Arts in 1974, buying and selling fine prints as a private dealer. He co- founded Prints Chicago, an annual print fair bringing together dealers from throughout the U.S. and overseas. Finally, he gave St. Mary's his vast print collection of museum quality American and European Prints to establish the Maurice A. Alberti Print Collection and Art Library at the Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art. The collection consists of master works on paper by leading Impressionists, Expressionists, Fauvists and Cubists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. European Print Makers Francisco Goya El Amor y la Muerte, 1799 Etching and aquatint Goya was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker who lived from 1746 -1828. He was regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. He was court painter to the Spanish Crown. Through his works he was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era. The subversive imaginative element in his art, as well as his bold handling of paint, provided a model for the work of artists of later generations. Los Caprichos are a set of 80 prints published as an album in 1799. The prints were an artistic experiment: a medium for Goya's condemnation of the universal follies and foolishness in the Spanish society. He speaks against the ignorance and inabilities of the various members of the ruling class, pedagogical short-comings, marital mistakes and the decline of rationality. The informal style, as well as the depiction of contemporary society found in Caprichos, makes them (and Goya himself) a precursor to the modernist movement almost a century later. Pierre Auguste Renoir Danse a la Campagne, Dance in the Country, 1890 Renoir was a leading French painter who lived from 1841-1919 and was instrumental in the development of the Impressionist style. This piece is recorded as only the second etching Renoir created. There are earlier paintings and drawings of this subject. The models were Renoir's brother, Edmond, and a woman in his art circle. As a young boy Renoir worked in a porcelain factory where his drawing talents led to his being chosen to paint designs on fine china. During those early years, he often visited the Louvre to study the French master painters. Although Renoir first started exhibiting paintings at the Paris Salon in 1864, he received little recognition partly as a result of the turmoil of the Franco-Prussian War. The Paris Salon beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts and between 1748 and 1890 it was the greatest annual or biennial art event in the Western world. Renoir joined forces with Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, and several other artists to mount the first Impressionist exhibition in April 1874. Critical response to the exhibition was largely unfavorable. Edouardo Vuillard La Naissance d’Annette, 1894 Color lithograph Edouardo Vuillard Interieur a la Suspension (Interior with Ceiling Lamp), 1899 Color lithograph Vuillard lived from 1868 –1940 in Paris. In the 1890s, Vuillard was a member of a Parisian group of avant-garde artists known as Les Nabis or “prophets” in Hebrew and Arabic, a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists inspired by Gauguin. Among them were Pierre Bonnard, and Maurice Denis. During his Nabi period, Vuillard produced some of his best-known artworks: paintings of friends and family in warm interiors filled with patterned wallpapers, draperies, carpets, and clothing. Pierre Bonnard Untitled, 1895 Lithograph Pierre Bonnard Femme Debout Sansa Baignoire, 1925 Lithograph, Ed. 100 Pierre Bonnard Le Bain, 1925 Lithograph, Ed. 525 Pierre Bonnard, who lived from 1867 –1947, was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of the Post-Impressionist group of avant-garde painters previously mentioned, Les Nabis. Bonnard preferred to work from memory, using drawings and photographs and his notes on color and mood. His works are often characterized by a dreamlike quality. He said of the subjects he painted "I go back and look at them. I take notes. Then I go home. And before I start painting I reflect, I dream." He worked on numerous canvases simultaneously, which he tacked onto the walls of his small studio. In this way he could more freely determine the shape of a painting; "It would bother me if my canvases were stretched onto a frame. I never know in advance what dimensions I am going to choose." Although Bonnard avoided public attention, his work sold well during his life. Maurice Denis L’Enfant Couronnant Sa Mere, 1930 Color lithograph, Maurice Denis (1870 –1943) was a French painter and writer, and was also a member of Les Nabis movement. And his theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art. Maurice Denis was born in the Normandy region of France which influenced his depictions of Waters and coastlines which would remain his favorite subject matter throughout his career. In addition to this he also drew on material from the Bible. For such an avant-garde figure, Denis had a surprisingly broad religious streak, writing in his notebook at age fifteen, "Yes, it's necessary that I am a Christian painter, that I celebrate all the miracles of Christianity, I feel it's necessary." Maurice attended both the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian. At the Académie, he met painters Bonnard and Vuillard they formed Les Nabis. They chose "Nabi"—Hebrew for "Prophet"—because they understood they would be creating new forms of expression. The subjects of his mature works include landscapes and figure studies, particularly of mother and child. Denis founded The Ateliers d'Art Sacré (Studios of Sacred Art) in 1919 after World War I as part of a broad movement in Europe to reconcile the church with modern civilization. The Studio created art for churches, particularly those devastated by the war. Denis said that he was against academic art because it sacrificed emotion to convention and artifice Georges Rouault Ballerine, 1926-27 (Ref. Chapon/Rouault 205) Lithograph Georges Rouault La Mort l’a Pris Comme Il Sortait, (Death Took Him as he Rose from his Bed of Nettles), 1922-26 Lithograph Rouault was a French painter whose work is often associated with Fauvism and Expressionism. Rouault was born in Paris into a poor family. His mother encouraged his love for the arts, and in 1885 at fourteen he embarked on an apprenticeship as a glass painter and restorer. This early experience as a glass painter has been suggested as a likely source of the heavy black contouring and glowing colors, likened to leaded glass, which characterize Rouault's mature painting style. In 1891, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts, the official art school of France. Rouault met Henri Matisse and through this friendship he was introduced to the movement of Fauvism. Fauvism is the style of les Fauves ("the wild beasts"), a loose group of early twentieth-century Modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong color over the representational or realistic values retained by Impressionism. In 1907, Rouault commenced a series of paintings dedicated to courts, clowns and prostitutes. These paintings are interpreted as moral and social criticism. He became attracted to Spiritualism and later dedicated himself to religious subjects. Rouault died in Paris in 1958. These prints were published by Ambroise Vollard. Ambroise Vollard, (1866–1939), was the legendary art dealer, patron, and publisher who put modern art on the map by launching the careers of some of its most major figures. The first major show he sold out of was work by Manet which he acquired from his widow. Most likely as a result of this exhibition Vollard met Renoir and Degas, and he began dealing the works of both artists. This period witnessed the rise of the commercial dealer. Throughout the 1890s and early 1900s, Vollard exhibited and sold works by Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Picasso, and others, defining his position as a dealer in avant-garde art and shaping the reputations of those artists. Jacques Villon Monsieur Duchamp, 1962 Color aquatint and drypoint with lithographic elements, Ed. 125 (Ref. Ginestet/Pouillon A118) Villon was a French Cubist painter and printmaker. Born Gaston Duchamp he adopted the pseudonym of Jacques Villon as a tribute to the French medieval poet François Villon. He came from a prosperous and artistically inclined family. In 1894, he and his brother Raymond moved to Montmartre in Paris. There, he studied law at the University of Paris but received his father's permission to study art on the condition that he continue studying law. Villon lost interest in the pursuit of a legal career, and for the next 10 years he worked in graphic media, contributing cartoons and illustrations to Parisian newspapers as well as drawing color posters. In 1903 he helped organize the drawing section of the first Salon d'Automne in Paris. His first works were influenced by Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, but later he participated in the fauvist, Cubist, and abstract impressionist movements. In 1913, Villon created seven large drypoints in which forms break into shaded pyramidal planes.