Leonardo Da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan

9 November 2011 – 5 February 2012 Sainsbury Wing and Sunley Room Admission free

Sponsored by Credit Suisse

'Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan' is the most complete display of Leonardo’s rare surviving paintings ever held. This unprecedented exhibition – the first of its kind anywhere in the world – brings together sensational international loans never before seen in the UK, including 'La Belle Ferronière' (Musée du Louvre, Paris), the 'Madonna Litta' (Hermitage, Saint Petersburg) and 'Saint Jerome' (Pinacoteca Vaticana, Rome).

While numerous exhibitions have looked at Leonardo da Vinci as an inventor, scientist or draughtsman, this is the first to be dedicated to his aims and techniques as a painter. Inspired by the recently restored painting, 'The Virgin of the Rocks', this exhibition focuses on Leonardo as an artist and in particular on the work he produced during his career as court painter to Duke Lodovico Sforza in Milan in the late 1480s and 1490s.

Benefiting from his salaried position, Leonardo had the freedom to explore ways of perceiving and recording human proportion, expression and anatomy and the myriad forms of plants and animals. These investigations fed into his extraordinary paintings: marvellous combinations of the real and the ideal, the natural and the divine.

Featuring the finest paintings and drawings by Leonardo and his followers, the exhibition examines Leonardo’s pursuit for perfection in his representation of the human form. As a painter, he aimed to convince viewers of the reality of what they were seeing while still aspiring to create ideals of beauty – particularly in his exquisite portraits – and, in his religious works, to convey a sense of awe-inspiring mystery.

The final part of the exhibition features a near-contemporary, full-scale copy of Leonardo’s famous 'Last Supper', on loan from the Royal Academy. Seen alongside all the surviving preparatory drawings made by Leonardo for the 'Last Supper', visitors will discover how such a large-scale painting was designed and executed.

For press information and images, please contact the press office at [email protected] or 020 7747 2865

For public information, please contact 020 7747 2885 or [email protected] Frederick Cayley Robinson: Acts of Mercy

14 July – 17 October 2010 Sunley Room

Supported by the Wellcome Trust

Frederick Cayley Robinson (1862–1927) is one of the most distinctive yet elusive British painters of the early 20th century. This will be the first exhibition of his work to be shown in the United Kingdom for over 30 years.

The four central paintings on display are the summation of Cayley Robinson’s artistic ambition. Executed between 1916 and 1920, his masterpiece, 'Acts of Mercy', comprises four large-scale allegorical works commissioned to adorn the new Middlesex Hospital, rebuilt between 1928 and 1935. Combining modernity with tradition to remarkable effect, the artist emulates the spiritual integrity and methods of the Old Masters he encountered in the National Gallery.

Alongside Cayley Robinson’s modern works, National Gallery paintings by Piero della Francesca (The Baptism of Christ , 1450s), (Four Scenes from the Early Life of Saint Zenobius , about 1500) and Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes (Summer , before 1873) will be shown. … All four works were displayed in the entrance hall of Middlesex Hospital until 2007. Subsequently purchased by the Wellcome Trust, they are normally on public display in the Wellcome Library in Euston, London. After this recent sale, the exhibition offers the chance to reassess Cayley Robinson and his stature, and also track the wide range of sources from which his work derives. … Cayley Robinson’s pictures are almost always of people; denizens of a silent, timeless world. A frequent theme is the care for the young and the old. Essentially a British Symbolist, Robinson created a striking variety of moods and atmosphere in his paintings to evoke complex emotional responses. His work characteristically incorporates a rich variety of altruism and , but often meaning is reserved, or implicit, creating an aura of mystery or ambiguity. There are symbolic allusions but no clear-cut messages. The exhibition celebrates a British heritage success and provides a timely opportunity to re-examine a little- known yet highly distinctive artist who now seems to stand outside the main developments of British art. Taking the form of a modern allegory or history painting, 'Acts of Mercy' memorably explores the positive forces of the human spirit in the face of destruction. …

Press view : 13 July 2010, 10.30am–1.30pm Open to public : 14 July – 17 October 2010 Daily 10am – 6pm, Friday until 9pm Last admission 5.15pm (8.15pm Friday) Admission Free

Summation > summary Denizens > citizens

The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian completed 1475, and Piero del Pollaiuolo

Medium and support: Oil on poplar Dimensions: 291.5 x 202.6 cm Acquisition credit: Bought, 1857 Inventory number: NG292 Location in Gallery: Room 57

The Florentine brothers Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo were born some 10 years apart and started on different paths. Piero trained as a painter, perhaps with Andrea dal Castagno. Antonio is usually considered the greater artist; he developed design skills which were the basis of the painting and sculpture for which he was famous.

Antonio had his own workshop by 1459 and styled himself painter and sculptor. He was, and remains, famous for his work in other media such as designs for embroidery, engraving and enamel-work. His engraving of the 'Battle of the Ten Nudes' was the largest and most influential print of the 15th century, providing models of the male body in action. (…)

The picture is composed symmetrically to tell the story taken from the 'Golden Legend' of Saint Sebastian who was sentenced to death on being discovered a Christian. He was bound to a stake and shot with arrows. Here, the six archers have three basic poses, turned through space and seen from different angles. This helps produce the three-dimensional solidity of each figure and together they define the foreground space.

The Pollaiuolo brothers were sculptors, and may have made statuettes of the archers. The male nude is central to this picture and the figures - like the landscape - have been studied from life. A number of life drawings by the Pollaiuolo brothers have survived.

The landscape takes about a third of the background of 'The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian'. It is remarkable in its rendering of the glimmering river Arno and fading horizon. The tonal changes which occur over the receding landscape have been achieved by the use of oil paint.

The painting was placed in an oratory, built by the Pucci family in the 1450s, in the key Florentine church of the Servite order, SS. Annunziata. The Pucci family were Florentine bankers and were on close terms with the Medici family.

Roy Lichtenstein Retrospective On View at National Gallery of Art, Washington October 14, 2012–January 13, 2013

Roy Lichtenstein, Look Mickey , 1961 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Roy and Dorothy Lichtenstein in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art

Washington, DC—Pop art was defined, refined, and ultimately blown wide open by American artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923–1997). In the first major exhibition since his death, Roy Lichtenstein: A Retrospective will include more than 100 of the artist's greatest paintings from all periods of his career, along with a selection of related drawings and sculptures. On view in the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from October 14, 2012, through January 13, 2013, the exhibition presents Lichtenstein's legacy, including the classic early pop paintings based on advertisements and comic-book, his versions of paintings by the modern masters, and series including Brushstrokes, Mirrors, Artist's Studios, Nudes, and Landscapes in a Chinese Style.

Over the course of his career, Lichtenstein's work has been the subject of more than 240 solo exhibitions, the last full survey having been organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1993. (…)

The exhibition will be arranged chronologically and thematically, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of Lichtenstein's work. (…)

Early Pop: After completing several canvases with identifiable comic-book characters, Lichtenstein moved on to subject matter taken from other forms of printed media, including advertisements, telephone books, and catalogues. Rendered with a limited palette (red, yellow, black, and white), Keds (1961) depicts a larger-than-life pair of sneakers from a Sears, Roebuck, & Co. advertisement; and Cup of Coffee (1961) and Hot Dog with Mustard (1963) are idealized versions of their real-life counterparts. (…)

Published by the Art Institute of Chicago, the 368-page fully illustrated exhibition catalogue will become a landmark of scholarship on the artist. Nine essays by leading critics and scholars, accompanied by photographs of the artist and his seminal exhibitions, examine the various styles and subjects featured in paintings created throughout his lifetime.

Albert Gleizes Woman with Animals (Madame Raymond Duchamp Villon) , completed by February 1914 Oil on canvas, 196.4 x 114.1 cm Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice 76.2553 PG 17

Albert Gleizes was born in Paris on December 8, 1881. (…) With several friends, including the writer René Arcos, Gleizes founded the Abbaye de Créteil outside Paris in 1906. This community of artists and writers scorned bourgeois society and sought to create a nonallegorical, epic art based on modern themes. The Abbaye closed in 1908 due to financial difficulties.

As in a number of his other paintings of this period, Albert Gleizes depicts a domestic interior scene in a self-consciously “modern” style. Here the seated woman is the wife of the sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon. She is portrayed as the epitome of bourgeois complacency , in a large armchair, with her dog and two cats, wedding band, and string of beads . Typically Cubist elements are the fusion of figure and ground , the frontal, centralized pose, the multiple views of the sitter’s face, the brushstrokes defining and shading planes, and the patterning of areas to resemble collage. Futurist devices are the repetition of form to describe movement (the dog’s wagging tail) and planar intersections meant to express notions of the dynamic interpenetration of matter and atmosphere.

To Scorn: disprezzare, denigrare self-consciously: consapevole complacency: compiacimento, compiacenza beads: perle ground: sfondo to patterning: modellare, decorare, disegnare > creare wagging: scodinzolante meant to express: utilizzate per …, allo scopo di …, fatte per … matter: material

The Sleeping Model, 1853 Oil on canvas, 632 X 728 mm Given by William Powell Frith, R.A., accepted 1853 03/837 Female artists' models were regarded as morally suspect in the Victorian period, even those who posed fully clothed. Securing suitable sitters was often difficult for artists, and they frequently resorted to persuading attractive shop-girls and other poorly paid women to sit for them. In his autobiography William Powell Frith described discovering the orange-seller who posed for this picture: "Being in the habit of keeping my eyes pretty well open as I walked along the streets, they were one day gratified by the sight of an orange-girl of a rare type of rustic beauty. Her smile as she had offered her oranges was very bewitching, (…)." (…) Frith encountered many problems when he asked the orange-seller to visit his studio. Firstly, as a devout Catholic she insisted that he gained permission from her priest. (…) Secondly, not being a professional model, she kept snoozing during sittings and the intended picture of a laughing model became 'The Sleeping Model'. In the painting the perplexed artist is shown trying to make the best of a bad situation when his exhausted model is reduced to a mere studio prop. Her lifeless figure is echoed by the stuffed dummy, which has collapsed into the arms of an equally inanimate suit of armour. Frith's preparatory study for this picture may suggest his frustrations - the orange-seller's is sketched four times with varied expressions. However these repeated drawings convey an interest in modern-life subjects and physiognomy (…).

Prop: accessorio dummy : manichino suit of armour: armatura

Giorgione and Titian

Portrait of a Venetian Gentleman , c. 1510 oil on canvas

Framed: 108 x 93.7 x 8.6 cm (42 1/2 x 36 7/8 x 3 3/8 in.) Samuel H. Kress Collection 1939.1.258 On View

Inscription lower center on parapet: VVO

The expression of calculating, almost cruel, appraisal—amplified by his closed fist—gives this man an aggressive air, but we do not know his identity. The inscription on the parapet does not help. These letters, VVO , have been interpreted as a form of the Latin vivo (in life). This would suggest that the portrait was painted from life and that it confers on both subject and painter a measure of immortality. It may more likely, however, be an abbreviation of a humanist motto, perhaps virtus vincit omnia (virtue conquers all).

Like other paintings associated with Giorgione, this one presents difficulties of attribution. Both Titian and Sebastiano are known to have completed works that remained unfinished when Giorgione died prematurely in his early thirties. (It was said that Giorgione contracted the plague from his mistress.) A second hand seems to be at work in this painting. The portrait's format, with subject glancing sidelong at the viewer from behind a parapet, was developed by Giorgione, and the soft, shadowy gradations of tone also recall his style. However, its aggressive mood points to a painter with a bolder brush and more active, worldly outlook, like Titian.

Exhibition History

1920 Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1920, unnumbered catalogue. 1924 Loan Exhibition of Important Early Italian Paintings in the Possession of Notable American Collectors, Duveen Brothers, New York, 1924, no. 44, as by Titian (no. 47, as Portrait of a Merchant in illustrated 1926 version of catalogue).

Provenance Robert P. Nichols, London. William Graham [1817-1885], London; (his estate sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 2-3 and 8-10 April 1886, 5th day, no. 450, as Portrait of a Lawyer ); (Colnaghi's, London and New York). Henry Doetsch, London; (his sale, Christie's, London, 22 June 1895, no. 48, as Licinio). […] sold 1937 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York; gift 1939 to NGA.

Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Painting Issued April 2014 30 April – 21 September 2014 Sunley Room Admission free

This spring, the National Gallery presents the first exhibition in Britain to explore the role of architecture in Italian Renaissance painting of the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries.

Domenico Veneziano, ‘Saint Zenobius Bishop of restores to life a widow's son in Borgo degli Albizzi, Florence', about 1442-1448 © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting aims to increase visitors' appreciation and understanding of some of the most beautiful and architectonic paintings by Italian masters such as Duccio, Botticelli, Crivelli and their contemporaries. Visitors will be encouraged to look in new ways at buildings depicted in paintings, and to investigate how artists invented imagined spaces that transcended the reality of bricks, mortar and marble. With a record-breaking six million visits during 2013, the National Gallery remains committed to researching and showcasing its extraordinarily rich permanent collection. As a result of the research partnership between the National Gallery and the University of York, this exhibition offers a fresh interpretation of some of the National Gallery’s own Italian Renaissance collection. […] In Renaissance Italy, art and architecture were closely interconnected and the boundaries between all the arts were fluid. An important reason for this was that there was no specific educational programme or apprenticeship for architects. The Florentine architect Brunelleschi, for example, trained as a goldsmith, whileMichelangelo was a painter and sculptor before he designed buildings. […] Caroline Campbell, Curator of Italian Paintings Before 1500 at the National Gallery, said:

''This exhibition provides a wonderful opportunity to think about how pictures can achieve an architectural sort of beauty. We can look beyond perspective to appreciate the imagined and fantastical spaces created by architecture. And how the sense of mass, scale and three-dimensionality introduced by buildings changes the balance and feel of a painting.''

[…]

Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting is also an online catalogue produced by the National Gallery to accompany the exhibition. Nicholas Penny, Director of the National Gallery, said:

''I am delighted that this catalogue will be permanently accessible on the National Gallery website, where it can be read and enjoyed by a very wide audience.''

Building the Picture: Architecture in Italian Renaissance Painting is curated by Dr. Amanda Lillie, Reader in History of Art at the University of York; and Caroline Campbell, Curator of Italian Paintings before 1500; with Alasdair Flint, CDA PHD student, University of York/National Gallery.

[…] Dates and opening hours Press View: 29 April 2014 Open to public: 30 April 2014 Daily 10am–6pm (last admission 5pm) Fridays 10am–9pm (last admission 8.15pm)

San Zenobius Vescovo di Firenze resuscita il figlio di una vedova a Borgo degli Albizzi, Firenze > Miracolo di San Zanobi