Edgar Degas French, 1834–1917 Woman Arranging Her Hair Ca
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Edgar Degas French, 1834–1917 Woman Arranging her Hair ca. 1892, cast 1924 Bronze McNay Art Museum, Mary and Sylvan Lang Collection, 1975.61 In this bronze sculpture, Edgar Degas presents a nude woman, her body leaned forward and face obscured as she styles her hair. The composition of the figure is similar to those found in his paintings of women bathing. The artist displays a greater interest in the curves of the body and actions of the model than in capturing her personality or identity. More so than his posed representations of dancers, the nude served throughout Degas’ life as a subject for exploring new ideas and styles. French Moderns McNay labels_separate format.indd 1 2/27/2017 11:18:51 AM Fernand Léger French, 1881–1955 The Orange Vase 1946 Oil on canvas McNay Art Museum, Gift of Mary and Sylvan Lang, 1972.43 Using bold colors and strong black outlines, Fernand Léger includes in this still life an orange vase and an abstracted bowl of fruit. A leaf floats between the two, but all other elements, including the background, are abstracted beyond recognition. Léger created the painting later in his life when his interests shifted toward more figurative and simplified forms. He abandoned Cubism as well as Tubism, his iconic style that explored cylindrical forms and mechanization, though strong shapes and a similar color palette remained. French Moderns McNay labels_separate format.indd 2 2/27/2017 11:18:51 AM Pablo Picasso Spanish, 1881–1973 Reclining Woman 1932 Oil on canvas McNay Art Museum, Jeanne and Irving Mathews Collection, 2011.181 The languid and curvaceous form of a nude woman painted in soft purples and greens dominates this canvas. Behind her, sharp green peaks rise towards a blue sky. This sensuous nude was part of a series of miniature works Pablo Picasso painted as studies for his erotic female figures of 1932. By the 1930s, Picasso had left behind Cubism and began to explore Surrealism. A hybrid of both styles can be seen in this work. French Moderns McNay labels_separate format.indd 3 2/27/2017 11:18:51 AM Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec French, 1864–1901 Portrait of Madame Leclercq 1892 Gouache on board McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay, 1950.83 Primarily known for his posters for the Moulin Rouge in Paris and drawings of cabaret dancers, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec also painted portraits of Parisian artists and writers. The subject here is the wife of Paul Leclercq, a poet and founding member of Parisian art and literature magazine, La Revue Blanche. Lautrec paints Madame Leclercq with the loose, sketchy brushstrokes that are common in his paintings and reminiscent of his drawings. Shown from the shoulders up, Leclercq’s top is unfinished, and the raw yellow artist/academic board, a cheap support popular at the time, is visible behind the artist’s abstract rendering of wallpaper. Though considered naturally beautiful by many, including Lautrec, Leclercq’s vanity annoyed the artist and created tension during the completion of the portrait commission. French Moderns McNay labels_separate format.indd 4 2/27/2017 11:18:51 AM Paul Gauguin French, 1848–1903 Portrait of the Artist with the Idol ca. 1893 Oil on canvas McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay, 1950.46 In this self-portrait, the French Post- Impressionist master Paul Gauguin gazes directly out at the viewer with his chin thoughtfully perched on his hand. A Polynesian idol resembling the Tahitian goddess of rebirth, Hina, similarly peers out from the far right corner. Gauguin’s striped shirt and polka-dot tie represent his bohemian identity. After leaving Paris and a career as a stockbroker in pursuit of painting, he traveled to Martinique, Tahiti, and the Marquesas Islands to escape what he called “everything that is artificial and conventional in European society.” The painting captures the artist’s efforts to present himself as an artistic genius and god-like creator—a self-proclaimed primitive “savage” living amongst the natives in an unspoiled paradise. French Moderns McNay labels_separate format.indd 5 2/27/2017 11:18:51 AM Odilon Redon French, 1840–1916 Profile and Flowers ca. 1893 Oil on canvas McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay, 1950.117 The year Odilon Redon completed Profile and Flowers, he was no longer interested in portraiture and began calling his images with figures “meditations.” The dream-like aspect of this pastel is one of Redon’s many trademarks: soft lines, background dotted with nameless flowers, a bouquet, and the suggestion of a halo in reference to Renaissance Madonnas. Few details appear in the face of this woman who exists only in the artist’s imagination. Identifiable flowers mingle with fantastical ones whose colors add to the beauty of the composition. French Moderns McNay labels_separate format.indd 6 2/27/2017 11:18:51 AM Georges Braque French, 1882–1963 Still Life with Pipe 1930 Oil on canvas McNay Art Museum, Mary and Sylvan Lang Collection, 1975.23 With a grey and black pipe set on a table alongside an abstracted plate of grapes, Still Life with Pipe illustrates Georges Braque’s increasing interest in organic forms. He combined this pursuit with formal Cubist ideas of overlapping planes and multi-point perspective. The artist obsessively explored the genre of still life painting from the late 1920s through World War II, investigating the nature of perception through the world of everyday objects. Here, the artist collapsed a three- dimensional scene onto a two-dimensional surface, flattening the composition. French Moderns McNay labels_separate format.indd 7 2/27/2017 11:18:51 AM Auguste Rodin French, 1840–1917 Pierre de Wissant 1887, cast 1987 Bronze Private collection Auguste Rodin’s expressive, emotional, and vulnerable rendering of Pierre de Wissant depicts a body wringing in grief. Pierre’s left leg turns uncomfortably inward, his toes curling as if in pain, and he raises his hand to shield his face. Wissant was one of six leading citizens of Calais (a port town in northern France) who agreed to surrender their lives in exchange for King Edward III’s merciful treatment of the French city. Rodin captured genuine expressions of emotion in this work commissioned for a monument to honor the lives almost sacrificed in order to end a year-long standoff during the Hundred Years War (1337-1453). French Moderns McNay labels_separate format.indd 8 2/27/2017 11:18:51 AM Aristide Maillol French, 1861–1944 The Nymph 1930 Bronze McNay Art Museum, Gift of Emily Wells Brown in memory of H. Lutcher Brown and F. Lutcher Brown, 1975.17 The Nymph is a single figure study for the central figure of the group, The Three Nymphs, completed in 1937. The robust nude stands solidly on her right leg, with the left foot slightly behind and raised as if walking, an arrangement which gives a gentle movement to the stance. The full torso turns slightly on its axis, further suggesting motion. The large, swelling forms of the figure flow smoothly onto one another on clear, untroubled surfaces. Aristide Maillol, briefly a student of Jean- Léon Gérôme (whose work is on view in this exhibition) at the Paris École des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in 1887, became known for sculptures like The Nymph that express the living model from which they are formed, not a coldly abstract ideal. French Moderns McNay labels_separate format.indd 9 2/27/2017 11:18:51 AM Raoul Dufy French, 1877–1953 Seated Woman–Rosalie 1929 Oil on canvas McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay, 1950.39 Raoul Dufy’s Seated Woman–Rosalie depicts a young woman with pale pink skin and bright red lips, her body folded inward as she sits upon a loosely-rendered Turkish rug. Blue dominates the background, recalling the Fauvist style of artist Henri Matisse (whose paintings are on view in this exhibition). Most well-known for his paintings of horse races and regattas, Dufy also painted numerous studies of nude women. His models were curvaceous women with generous hips, offering wonderful opportunities for the study of flesh. French Moderns McNay labels_separate format.indd 10 2/27/2017 11:18:51 AM Vincent van Gogh Dutch, 1853–1890 Women Crossing the Fields 1890 Oil on paper McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay, 1950.49 Completed in the last year of his life, Women Crossing the Fields shows Vincent van Gogh’s continued interest in color and agriculture. The straight rows of the potato fields give way to his characteristic turbulent lines. Two women, one in white and the other in an orange-dotted blue dress, walk across the fields with a house and blue hills visible in the background. The idyllic scene echoes the artist’s words to his brother, Theo, in June, 1873: “Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more.” Marion Koogler McNay purchased this oil on paper from Chester Johnson Galleries in Chicago in 1934, making it the first van Gogh in a private collection west of the Mississippi. French Moderns McNay labels_separate format.indd 11 2/27/2017 11:18:51 AM Camille Pissarro French, 1830–1903 Haymakers Resting 1891 Oil on canvas McNay Art Museum, Bequest of Marion Koogler McNay, 1950.115 Monumental figures set against a high horizon line distinguish Camille Pissarro’s outdoor scenes from other Impressionist paintings in this section. The Pointillist brush work here reveals the influence of the Neo-Impressionists. Pissarro’s women relax and reflect, illustrating the painter’s belief that peasant life held the basis for a harmonious, rational, and humane society.