July 3 Through September 2,1968 the Metropolitan Museum of Art
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I JULY 3 THROUGH SEPTEMBER 2,1968 THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART FOREWORD Every July for the past fourteen summers the Metropolitan Museum has presented a summer loan exhibition of paintings culled from the private collections of New Yorkers. Year after year the show is so spectacularly good, the quality of the works of art shown is soconsistently high, that after nearly a decade and a half one has to conclude that the wealth of material in private collections must indeed be well-nigh inex haustible. What has grown into a major annual exhibition actually began in a small way when the Curator of European Paintings, thinking to plug temporarily some of the gaps in the Museum's collection of late nineteenth- century French paintings persuaded a handful of collectors to lend their impressionist and post-impressionist works. The Museum's own holdings have grown brilliantly since then, and so, I might add, have those of the private individual. In a continuing effort to show new things, each year the list of lenders increased and the range of works of art chosen grew wider. The show, we realized this year, had acquired such a unique character of its own that we gave it a proper title, "New York Collects," strung a banner across the building's facade to announce its opening, and prepared this special checklist which is the bare skeleton for what we hope will be a full catalogue to the show in 1969. There are 273 works this year: 240 paintings, 24 watercolors and nine pieces of sculpture that comprise the largest and most varied show ever held. There are examples of almost every major artist from Corot and Manet in the mid-nineteenth century to Larry Poons and Frank Stella in the present. There are 23 pictures by Monet, 20 by Pissarro, 16 by Renoir, 1G&311 15 by Cezanne (not including a cache of 12 watercolors), 13 by Picasso, 10 by Bonnard, seven by Manet and six each by Degas and Braque. There is an entire gallery devoted to late 19th and early 20th century American painters, among them Glackens, Hassam, Prendergast and Sargent. In another, such contemporaries as Hans Hofmann, Jasper Johns, Mark di Suvero are included in the show for the first time. Of the 60 collectors whose works make up the exhibition, over 20 are lending for the first time. And amazingly, almost two thirds of these objects have never been seen before at the Metropolitan, and many never publicly exhibited anywhere in the country. As I toured the galleries the day before the show opened, I was struck as I always am by the sureness of taste, the informed vision that lay behind the acquisition of so great a number of these works. There is one magnificent picture after another, and in showing them in our galleries we in effect invite the collector's eye to act as a foil to our own. There is a subliminal interplay between their works of art and the Museum's that is valuable, fruitful and exciting. It is a kind of visual dialogue among peers and we would all be the poorer without it. Among those who worked on the exhibition, I particularly want to thank Guy-Philippe de Montebello, Associate Curator of European Paintings, for his great efforts in organizing and hanging the exhibition, and for his preparation of biographies of each artist and the detailed check list of their works. And thanks are due, of course, to the collectors themselves. No other city, it seems certain to me, could produce year after year from its own resources, such an ever-changing array of sheer masterpieces. Long may New York collect. Thomas P. F. Hoving Director PAINTINGS APPEL, KAREL (DUTCH, 1921- ) Born in Amsterdam in 1921, Appel studied at the Rijksakademie from 1940 to 1943. In 1948 he was a founding member of the "Cobra" group with which he exhibited from 1949 to 1951. He now works and lives in Paris. Appel's work typifies the "Cobra" group's trust in the evocative force of pure color and automistic handling of paint to release images from the subconscious. Apparition Nocturne oil on canvas, 31 1/2 x 25 3/4 signed and dated, 1949 Lent through the courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Yves Truffert BALTHUS (FRENCH, 1903- ) While Balthus, now President of the French Academy in Rome, insists on clear and recognizable images in his canvases, the content of his art is highly abstract and subjective, filled with suggestions of his own disquieting dreams. The Cup of Coffee oil on canvas, 63 1/2 x 51 1/4 signed and dated, 1959/60 Lent by Sheldon H. Solow BELLOWS, GEORGE (AMERICAN, 1882-1925) Bellows began as a student of Robert Henri in 1904 and readily accepted his teacher's tenet that the subject matter provided by New York City was all an artist needed for material. Using a rich palette like Henri's, Bellows portrayed his people lounging in the parks, standing in bars, or fight ing in the ring, as well as posing calmly for their portraits. Dimensions are given in inches, unless otherwise stated height before width. -1 - BELLOWS, GEORGE (AMERICAN, 1882-1925) Cont'd. Swans in Central Park oil on canvas, 18 1/4 x 21 signed, 1906 Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz BENSON, FRANK W. (AMERICAN, 1862-1951) Benson was born in Massachusetts and received training at the Boston Museum School before studying in Paris with Boulanger and Lefebvre. He taught painting in Maine and then at the Museum School for many years. His pictures, generally of sporting scenes or out-door figure groups, are characterized by light and sunny tones. Summer Day oil on canvas, 36 1/8 x 32 1/8 signed, about 1912 Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz BERNARD, EMILE (FRENCH, 1868-1941) Bernard, who was a poet and critic as well as a painter, studied art briefly in Paris in the studio of Cormon. In the late eighties, at Pont Aven in Brittany, he developed a technique based on stained glass painting, and with Gauguin laid the foundations of the movement that came to be known as Symbolism. In his later work Bernard surprisingly, returned to Neo-Classicism. His writings are one of the major sources for the study of Post-Impres sionism. Breton Women on a Cliff, oil on canvas, 35 x 45 3/4 Lent Anonymously BLUM, ROBERT (AMERICAN, 1857-1903) Blum received his early training as a lithographer in Cincinnati and Chicago, and later settled in New York, working as a magazine illustrator. Subsequently he absorbed -2- BLUM, ROBERT (AMERICAN, 1857-1903) Cont'd. a variety of styles, including those of Fortuny and the Art Nouveau, and drew upon his wide European and Asian travels for lively subject matter. Blum was recog nized in his time as one of America's cleverest draughtsmen. Circus Ring at Night oi I on canvas, 13 x 17 1/2 signed, 1895/1900 Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Raymond J. Horowitz BOGGS, FRANK (AMERICAN, 1855-1926) Boggs was trained in Paris by the conservative painter Gerome, but the major influences on his mature work were Jongkind and the Dutch marine painters of the 17th cen tury. Using a free semi-impressionist technique, Boggs specialized in painting shipping and street scenes, many of them located in and around Paris. 7. Paris Street Scene oil on canvas, 48 x 60 signed and dated, 1893 Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Altschul BONNARD, PIERRE (FRENCH, 1867-1947) Along with Edouard Vuillard, Bonnard belonged to a loosely organized circle of painters who called themselves 'Nabis.' These painters held as their aim the expression of meaning and emotion through color in a way that should be symbolic but at the same time more direct and less literary than the "Symbolism" of Gauguin. Although Bonnard's method of painting is based on Impressionism, his compositions often bring to mind in their unorthodox arrangements the works of Henri Matisse. After the Bath oil on canvas, 33 3/4 x 26 signed, 1928 Lent by Mrs. Leon Fromer -3- BONNARD, PIERRE (FRENCH, 1867-1947) Cont'd. 9. La Grande Vue de Vernon oil on canvas, 42 1/4 x 51 5/8 signed, 1929 Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Alex M. Lewyt 10. After Lunch in Vernon oil on canvas, 19 1/2 x 25 1/4 signed, 1912 Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Paul Sampliner 11. In the April Sun oil on canvas, 44 x 29 signed, 1919 Lent by Mr. and Mrs. David T. Schiff 12. Basket of Fruit oil on canvas, 20 1/8 x 23 3/4 signed, 1925 Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Donald S. Stralem 13. Portrait of the Artist oil on canvas, 21 3/4x18 1/4 signed, 1945 Lent by Mr. and Mrs. Donald S. Stralem 14. Flowers oil on canvas, 22 1/2 x 17 1/2 signed, 1921 Lent by Ian Woodner 15. Flowers in a Pitcher oil on canvas, 26 1/4 x 22 signed Lent Anonymously 16. The Checkered Tablecloth oil on canvas, 20 1/2 x 26 1/2 signed Lent Anonymously -4- BONNARD, PIERRE (FRENCH, 1867-1947) Cont'd. 17. The Dining Room oil on canvas, 23 3/4 x 22 1/2 signed, 1924 Lent Anonymously BRAQUE, GEORGES (FRENCH, 1882-1963) Braque began his career as a Fauve, working in the manner of Matisse and Derain, but by 1908 he came under the influence of Cezanne's most formal and geometrical pictures. Together with Picasso, Braque invented the Cubist style, which led to some of the first truly abstract paintings of the twentieth century.