A Guide for Educators and Students TABLE of CONTENTS
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The Munich Secession and America A Guide for Educators and Students TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR EDUCATORS GETTING STARTED 3 ABOUT THE FRYE 3 THE MUNICH SECESSION AND AMERICA 4 FOR STUDENTS WELCOME! 5 EXPERIENCING ART AT THE FRYE 5 A LITTLE CONTEXT 6 MAJOR THEMES 8 SELECTED WORKS AND IN-GALLERY DISCUSSION QUESTIONS The Prisoner 9 Picture Book 1 10 Dutch Courtyard 11 Calm before the Storm 12 The Dancer (Tänzerin) Baladine Klossowska 13 The Botanists 14 The Munich Secession and America January 24–April 12, 2009 SKETCH IT! 15 A Guide for Educators and Students BACK AT SCHOOL 15 The Munich Secession and America is organized by the Frye in GLOSSARY 16 collaboration with the Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, and is curated by Frye Foundation Scholar and Director Emerita of the Museum Villa Stuck, Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker. This self-guide was created by Deborah Sepulvida, the Frye’s manager of student and teacher programs, and teaching artist Chelsea Green. FOR EDUCATORS GETTING STARTED This guide includes a variety of materials designed to help educators and students prepare for their visit to the exhibition The Munich Secession and America, which is on view at the Frye Art Museum, January 24–April 12, 2009. Materials include resources and activities for use before, during, and after visits. The goal of this guide is to challenge students to think critically about what they see and to engage in the process of experiencing and discussing art. It is intended to facilitate students’ personal discoveries about art and is aimed at strengthening the skills that allow students to view art independently. Enjoy! ABOUT THE FRYE ART MUSEUM The Frye Art Museum is dedicated to artistic inquiry, a rich visitor experience, and civic responsibility. A primary catalyst for our engagement with contemporary art and artists is the Founding Collection of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century art by Munich- based artists. Admission to the Museum will always be free. Located on Seattle’s First Hill, the Frye Art Museum first opened its doors in 1952 as the legacy of Charles and Emma Frye, prominent early- twentieth-century Seattle business leaders and art collectors. Since that time, works from the Frye Founding Collection of 232 paintings, primarily by Munich-based artists, have continuously been on view. The Museum also hosts notable exhibitions of works by recognized and emerging artists from around the world. The Munich Secession and America is an especially important exhibition for the Museum, as the Frye is perhaps the only American institution whose Founding Collection was dedicated primarily to the artists of the Munich Secession and their predecessors. 3 THE MUNICH SECESSION AND AMERICA was dedicated primarily to the artists of the Munich Secession and The Munich Secession and America marks the first American exhibition their predecessors, the Frye is proud to present seventy exemplary in one hundred years dedicated to the renowned Munich Secession masterpieces produced by artists of the Munich Secession and the movement. This movement laid the foundation for modernism Munich Künstlergenossenschaft during their battle with one another, in twentieth-century art. Drawing on major loans from European and with subsequent Secession movements in Berlin and Vienna, for museums and the extensive holdings of the Frye Founding Collection, artistic supremacy. As The New York Times noted in 1909: “The spectacle this exhibition represents two generations of artists: leading of the young [generation] smiting the old inevitably has its element of Secessionists such as Franz von Stuck, Fritz von Uhde, Ludwig Dill, Max tragedy. …With the field won, however, it is easy to see how the truly Liebermann, and Hugo von Habermann, and artists who preceded great masters among the old had many of the virtues of the young, and them and were active in the rival Munich Artists’ Association, the how finely the best art of the different generations holds together when Künstlergenossenschaft, such as Franz von Lenbach, Friedrich August brought into close juxtaposition.” von Kaulbach, Wilhelm Leibl, and Franz von Defregger. Also included in the exhibition are works by a number of the guest artists who exhibited The Frye is able to present important paintings of the period, many with the Munich Secession: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Nicolai Fechin, of which will be seen for the first time in America, with the generous Théodore Rousseau, Alfred Sisley, and Narcisse Virgilio Diaz de la Peña. support of major museums in Germany such as the Municipal Gallery in the Lenbachhaus, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen (The Bavarian Radically changing the manner in which artworks were presented in State Painting Collections), Neue Pinakothek, and the Museum Villa exhibitions, the Munich Secession illustrated a diversity of avant-garde Stuck in Munich; the Berlinische Galerie and Art Library of the State techniques and philosophies that stunned American audiences when Museums of Berlin; the State Museum Mainz; the Municipal Gallery in exhibited at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in January 1909, Dresden; and the Art Museums of Krefeld: Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, the and in April of the same year at the Art Institute of Chicago. The New Unterberger Collection, and the Sander Collection. The exhibition also York Times praised the exhibition’s “impulsive, energetic, and extremely includes two important loans from the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle. various art” and described it as “a force to be reckoned with,” noting that it showed “how far individualism may be carried.” The Munich Secession and America is organized by the Frye in collaboration with the Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, and is curated by The exhibition at the Frye Art Museum, exactly one hundred years later, Frye Foundation Scholar and Director Emerita of the Museum Villa celebrates the key artistic innovations of the Munich Secessionists: Stuck, Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker. An illustrated 300-page companion Impressionism-Realism-Abstraction in Landscape,Jugendstil or modern catalogue with in-depth articles by leading scholars is available in the style, and Religious Painting-Symbolism-Mythology. It opens with three Museum Store. of the iconic paintings that were shown in the first, sparsely-hung Munich Secession exhibition on June 15, 1893: Max Slevogt’s Wrestling School, Franz von Stuck’s Sin, and Evening Sky by Richard Riemerschmid, which reveals the first stirrings of planar, ornamental Jugendstil. The exhibition galleries of the Munich Secession, in a purpose-built, “modern” building with light-colored walls and a gold geometric frieze designed by Franz von Stuck, astonished audiences of the time. In 1906, the director of Buffalo’s Albright-Knox Art Gallery described seeing exhibitions there: “The general effect of the Secession galleries this year surpasses anything of the kind which the writer hitherto has seen.” As perhaps the only American institution whose Founding Collection 4 FOR STUDENTS WELCOME! The Frye Art Museum is a fifty-six-year-old museum located on First Hill in Seattle. It was founded by Charles and Emma Frye, who were Seattle business leaders and art collectors. The Frye was founded with a collection of paintings by primarily Munich-based artists. Today the Museum exhibits a variety of works from all over the world– both historic and contemporary–inspired by its Founding Collection. The coolest part about the Frye is that it is the only Seattle museum that is totally FREE to visit! EXPERIENCING ART AT THE FRYE Visiting a museum may seem intimidating. It is often quiet and you are almost never allowed to touch anything. The truth is, museums can be exciting and dynamic community spaces that encourage discussion and debate, and may even inspire you to create your own art-works. The key is to enter with an open mind. Be ready to see some things– both old and new–that challenge the way you view the world. You don’t have to be an art history buff–just be ready to learn a little about the context (place and time) the artworks were created in. Most important, have a point of view. Everyone experiences art differently. Take some time with works that draw your attention. Think about what they may be saying to you. Feel free to take notes, sketch what you see, and ask questions. 5 A LITTLE CONTEXT The current exhibition at the Frye Art Museum is titled The Munich Secession and America. Here is a little background information to help prepare you for your visit: Where is Munich anyway? Munich (pronounced mew-nick) is the largest city in Germany. It is EUROPElocated in Bavaria, in the south of Germany near Austria. Munich’s 20 0 20 40 Greenlandpopulation is about twice as large as Seattle’s. At the time of the Munich (DENMARK) Jan May en Ba r e n ts Secession, Munich(NORWAY) and Paris, France, were considered the twoS ea most Hammerfest importantGr e e n l a n dcities for studying, making, and exhibiting art in Europe. S ea Murmansk Den ma r k Tromsø St r a i t Kiruna No r we g i an S ea Wh i t e S ea Arkhangel'sk Reykjavík ICELAND Arctic S Circle ev e D rn v a Luleå i na ya NORWAY Oulu Umeå Lak e FINLAND O ne g a Trondheim 60 Tórshavn 60 Faroe Islands Gu l f (DENMARK) SWEDEN Lak e of Tampere Lado ga 40 B ot h n i a SHETLAND Turku Helsinki Saint Petersburg 20 ISLANDS Gävle l an d Bergen Gu l f of F i n ORKNEY Oslo ALAND RUSSIA Rockall ISLANDS Stockholm ISLANDS Tallinn lga (U.K.) o ESTONIA V HEBRIDES Stavanger Moscow N o r t h Göteborg Aberdeen g e r ra k Gotland LATVIA S k a Ka Riga A t l a n t i c tt e g a Glasgow Ba l t i c S ea t Vitsyebsk Smolensk Edinburgh No r th LITHUANIA O c e a n DENMARK Öland Belfast UNITED S ea Malmö Vilnius Mahilyow Copenhagen D Kaliningrad Minsk n Isle i RUSSIA e of p e Man Bornholm r Dublin Ir is h (U.K.) BELARUS S ea Leeds Gdansk´ Hrodna Manchester Homyel' IRELAND Liverpool Hamburg KINGDOM Brest NETH.