Portrait of Ephraim Bueno
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN
For most artists of the 17th century, the oil painting was the final form of any image. Preparatory sketches, drawings, and small paintings were all standard elements of the process, used to refining the composition and formal elements of a picture before taking oil to panel or canvas. This piece, then, is unusual in the canon of art history - an oil painting with a primary purpose of preparation for an etching, a medium at the time that was just over a century old. Rembrandt’s focus here was on the facial features of his subject and the interplay of light and dark. We can see in his rendering of Ephraim Beuno’s hands and garments, composed with loose, thick brushstrokes, that this work was not intended as a finished piece fit for display. Instead, in the delicate rendering of his facial features and the subtle changes in light, we get an insight into the artist at work, working through specific details ahead of a finer, more exacting work in a different medium. Yet, despite it’s function, the work still contains some of Rembrandt’s magic, capturing emotion, dignity, and humanity in oil.
Rembrandt Van Rijn
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN, c.1647. OIL ON PANEL.
For most artists of the 17th century, the oil painting was the final form of any image. Preparatory sketches, drawings, and small paintings were all standard elements of the process, used to refining the composition and formal elements of a picture before taking oil to panel or canvas. This piece, then, is unusual in the canon of art history - an oil painting with a primary purpose of preparation for an etching, a medium at the time that was just over a century old. Rembrandt’s focus here was on the facial features of his subject and the interplay of light and dark. We can see in his rendering of Ephraim Beuno’s hands and garments, composed with loose, thick brushstrokes, that this work was not intended as a finished piece fit for display. Instead, in the delicate rendering of his facial features and the subtle changes in light, we get an insight into the artist at work, working through specific details ahead of a finer, more exacting work in a different medium. Yet, despite it’s function, the work still contains some of Rembrandt’s magic, capturing emotion, dignity, and humanity in oil.
Madame Monet Embroidering
CLAUDE MONET
For a brief moment, the beauty of domesticity was greater than that of nature. Monet mostly painted outside, bringing his canvas out for long days in the fresh air, working en plein air to capture waterlilies, sunsets, rivers, and fields. The great father of modernism, and the creator of the painting for which Impressionism took its name, wanted to capture the world not as it necessarily was, but as he saw it. Here, however, he brought his easel and brushes inside, and painted this delicate, beautiful work of his wife quietly absorbed in her embroidery loom. Light remains a focus, it ebbs through the large windows and dances off her dress and her face. There is such tenderness in every brush stroke, the whole painting seems to exude a powerful, understated romance. It is not wild with passion or energy, nor is it attempting at objectivity. Instead it is a quiet ode to love and marriage, and to the beauty of co-habitation as Monet saw it.
Claude Monet
CLAUDE MONET, 1875. OIL ON CANVAS.
For a brief moment, the beauty of domesticity was greater than that of nature. Monet mostly painted outside, bringing his canvas out for long days in the fresh air, working en plein air to capture waterlilies, sunsets, rivers, and fields. The great father of modernism, and the creator of the painting for which Impressionism took its name, wanted to capture the world not as it necessarily was, but as he saw it. Here, however, he brought his easel and brushes inside, and painted this delicate, beautiful work of his wife quietly absorbed in her embroidery loom. Light remains a focus, it ebbs through the large windows and dances off her dress and her face. There is such tenderness in every brush stroke, the whole painting seems to exude a powerful, understated romance. It is not wild with passion or energy, nor is it attempting at objectivity. Instead it is a quiet ode to love and marriage, and to the beauty of co-habitation as Monet saw it.
Paris Abstraction
ISAMU NOGUCHI
Born in Los Angeles to a Japanese poet father and am American writer mother, by the age of 24 Isamu Noguchi had lived many lives across multiple continents and found himself apprenticing for the great sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi in Paris. The two could hardly communicate - Noguchi spoke almost no French and Brâncuşi little English - but for two years he learnt from this master of modernism not just how to render wood, stone, and steel, but how to appreciate the ‘value of a moment’. Noguchi would go on to become one of the most significant sculptors and furniture designers of the 20th century, combining a Japanese design aesthetic with a western modernist philosophy, but in the summer of 1927, the young man was learning how to reduce the world to it’s most elegant, pure, and beautiful forms. Brâncuşi’s mastery was in finding the platonic ideal of a given subject, discovering the fewest elements that could be combined to create a truthful likeness and it was this quality that Noguchi was learning from. His drawing here, a medium he felt he lost mastery of as he aged, shows both the influence of his teacher and omens of his career to come.
Isamu Noguchi
ISAMU NOGUCHI, c.1927. WATERCOLOUR, INK, AND GRAPHIC ON PAPER.
Born in Los Angeles to a Japanese poet father and am American writer mother, by the age of 24 Isamu Noguchi had lived many lives across multiple continents and found himself apprenticing for the great sculptor Constantin Brâncuşi in Paris. The two could hardly communicate - Noguchi spoke almost no French and Brâncuşi little English - but for two years he learnt from this master of modernism not just how to render wood, stone, and steel, but how to appreciate the ‘value of a moment’. Noguchi would go on to become one of the most significant sculptors and furniture designers of the 20th century, combining a Japanese design aesthetic with a western modernist philosophy, but in the summer of 1927, the young man was learning how to reduce the world to it’s most elegant, pure, and beautiful forms. Brâncuşi’s mastery was in finding the platonic ideal of a given subject, discovering the fewest elements that could be combined to create a truthful likeness and it was this quality that Noguchi was learning from. His drawing here, a medium he felt he lost mastery of as he aged, shows both the influence of his teacher and omens of his career to come.
The Virgin in Prayer
SASSOFERRATO
In the 17th Century, the Virgin Mary in prayer had come into vogue, aided by the Roman Catholic Reformation that placed personal, solitary worship as one of its central tenets. Wealthy patrons, churches, and religious orders began to collect images of this scene and Sassoferrato, a committed follower of Raphael’s style, became widely regarded as the master of the genre. Looking at this work, one of many that he painted and sold over his life, it is easy to see why. There are no distractions from the subject and the action at hand. The Virgin Mary is framed by a black background, and depicted in three colours: red, blue, and white. He skin is rendered with such exacting delicacy that she seems to come to life, and the lighting offer such clarity as to seem almost hyperreal. For all the technical mastery and compositional genius on show, the star of the work is something far simpler - the Lapus Lazuli blue of her robes. A pigment made from rare stone sourced in contemporary Afghanistan, it brims with life and energy, drawing the eye in and framing the scene with infectious splendour.
Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato
GIOVANNI BATTISTA SALVI DA SASSOFERRATO, c.1645. OIL ON CANVAS.
In the 17th Century, the Virgin Mary in prayer had come into vogue, aided by the Roman Catholic Reformation that placed personal, solitary worship as one of its central tenets. Wealthy patrons, churches, and religious orders began to collect images of this scene and Sassoferrato, a committed follower of Raphael’s style, became widely regarded as the master of the genre. Looking at this work, one of many that he painted and sold over his life, it is easy to see why. There are no distractions from the subject and the action at hand. The Virgin Mary is framed by a black background, and depicted in three colours: red, blue, and white. He skin is rendered with such exacting delicacy that she seems to come to life, and the lighting offer such clarity as to seem almost hyperreal. For all the technical mastery and compositional genius on show, the star of the work is something far simpler - the Lapus Lazuli blue of her robes. A pigment made from rare stone sourced in contemporary Afghanistan, it brims with life and energy, drawing the eye in and framing the scene with infectious splendour.
Keepsake from Corsica
DORA BOTHWELL
A deep, lifelong passion for travel defined Dora Bothwell’s life, far more than her art or relationships. A native San Franciscan, she trained as a dancer while a teenager but, following the death of her father in her early 20s, she used a small inheritance to travel to Samoa where she was adopted by a village chief and his family. There, she learn the Samoan language, dance practices, traditional ceremonies and the artistry of the local textile designers and manufactures. For the two years she spent in Samoa, she developed a visual language and art practice that would stay with her for the rest of her life. Incorporating rigorous training and European avant-garde influences, she made work that spoke to the place she was in with insight and reverence but remained recognisably hers. Her art, then, serves as a kind of scrapbook of her travels, a visual record of the way that movement changed, informed, and inspired her. This ‘Keepsake from Corsica’ immediately conjures blue seas and iridescent shells, and the dance of sunlight as it dapples across the land.
Dora Bothwell
DORA BOTHWELL, 1950. OIL ON CANVAS.
A deep, lifelong passion for travel defined Dora Bothwell’s life, far more than her art or relationships. A native San Franciscan, she trained as a dancer while a teenager but, following the death of her father in her early 20s, she used a small inheritance to travel to Samoa where she was adopted by a village chief and his family. There, she learn the Samoan language, dance practices, traditional ceremonies and the artistry of the local textile designers and manufactures. For the two years she spent in Samoa, she developed a visual language and art practice that would stay with her for the rest of her life. Incorporating rigorous training and European avant-garde influences, she made work that spoke to the place she was in with insight and reverence but remained recognisably hers. Her art, then, serves as a kind of scrapbook of her travels, a visual record of the way that movement changed, informed, and inspired her. This ‘Keepsake from Corsica’ immediately conjures blue seas and iridescent shells, and the dance of sunlight as it dapples across the land.
Arrival of the Normandy Train
CLAUDE MONET
For the last time, Monet lent his brush to the urban, man-made world. Almost every painting Monet was to make after this would be a natural landscape that sung the praises or showcased the power of nature. He had spent the last decade or more paying tribute to a new landscape of Paris, its grand boulevards, metal structures, glass exhibition spaces, and towering bridges, but now all of that modernity had lost its allure. It is fitting, then, that the subject of his swan song to the city and the industrialised world it represented would be this particular train. This was the terminal that linked Paris and Normandy, where Monet honed his en plein air landscapes, and the terminal that took the Impressionists to rural villages north and west of the city to escape and practice. The subject of Monet’s goodbye is the very means of his escape, and he paints it with such tenderness, as it to thank the train itself, or the invention of the steam engine, for what it has provided him: peace, solitude, and a way to connect with himself by connecting to the world around him.
Claude Monet
CLAUDE MONET, 1877. OIL ON CANVAS.
For the last time, Monet lent his brush to the urban, man-made world. Almost every painting Monet was to make after this would be a natural landscape that sung the praises or showcased the power of nature. He had spent the last decade or more paying tribute to the new landscape of Paris, its grand boulevards, metal structures, glass exhibition spaces, and towering bridges but all of that modernity had lost its allure. It is fitting, then, that the subject of his swan song to the city and the industrialised world it represented would be this particular train. This was the terminal that linked Paris and Normandy, where Monet honed his en plein air landscapes, and the terminal that took the Impressionists to rural villages north and west of the city to escape and practice. The subject of Monet’s goodbye is the very means of his escape, and he paints it with such tenderness, as it to thank the train itself, or the invention of the steam engine, for what it has provided him: peace, solitude, and a way to connect with himself by connecting to the world around him.
Inventions of the Monsters
SALVADOR DALI
Spain was in the midst of a civil war, and Salvador Dalí was hiding out in the Semmering mountains near Vienna painting this work, unaware that the city below him was months away from the Anschluss, whereby Nazi Germany was to annexe Austria. “According to Nostradamus the apparition of monsters presages the outbreak of war”, wrote Dalí about this painting, “Horse women equal maternal river monsters. Flaming giraffe equals masculine apocalyptic monster. Cat angel equals divine heterosexual monster. Hourglass equals metaphysical monster. Gala and Dalí equal sentimental monster. The little blue dog is not a true monster.” The canvas is ripe with omens, every inch brings with it foreboding and terror, even in the depiction of the love between the artist and his wife. The great Catalonian, despite his comfort with the subconscious world, was in touch with the frequencies of his culture and in this work he did not invent the monsters, only showed their approach towards a world increasingly willing to have them.
Salvador Dalí
SALVADOR DALÍ, 1937. OIL ON CANVAS.
Spain was in the midst of a civil war, and Salvador Dalí was hiding out in the Semmering mountains near Vienna painting this work, unaware that the city below him was months away from the Anschluss, whereby Nazi Germany was to annexe Austria. “According to Nostradamus the apparition of monsters presages the outbreak of war”, wrote Dalí about this painting, “Horse women equal maternal river monsters. Flaming giraffe equals masculine apocalyptic monster. Cat angel equals divine heterosexual monster. Hourglass equals metaphysical monster. Gala and Dalí equal sentimental monster. The little blue dog is not a true monster.” The canvas is ripe with omens, every inch brings with it foreboding and terror, even in the depiction of the love between the artist and his wife. The great Catalonian, despite his comfort with the subconscious world, was in touch with the frequencies of his culture and in this work he did not invent the monsters, only showed their approach towards a world increasingly willing to have them.
The Fountain
JOHN SINGER SARGENT
John Singer Sargent lived a life of two halves. The first was as a wildly successful portrait artist, amongst the greatest of his generation and celebrated across American high society, who’s inhabitants he most often depicted. He had a natural confidence with the brush, so sure in his hand that he commenced works without pencil sketches and his portraits captured a loose essence with Edwardian luxury, and occasional eroticism. The second was as a landscape artist, rejecting the grandiosity and traditionalism of his portraiture for painting en plein air in a far more impressionist style. 1907, when this work was painted during his travels around Italy, was the exact year of transition between these two movements. One can see in ‘The Fountain’ his internal conflict; the work is both portrait and landscape, painted outside of his friends and frequent travelling companions. They are an epitome of turn of the century decadent luxury and yet the landscape they exist in has a relaxed, definitively impressionist air - on a single canvas we see a collision between worlds, times, and Sargent’s split lives.
John Singer Sargent
JOHN SINGER SARGENT, 1907. OIL ON CANVAS.
John Singer Sargent lived a life of two halves. The first was as a wildly successful portrait artist, amongst the greatest of his generation and celebrated across American high society, who’s inhabitants he most often depicted. He had a natural confidence with the brush, so sure in his hand that he commenced works without pencil sketches and his portraits captured a loose essence with Edwardian luxury, and occasional eroticism. The second was as a landscape artist, rejecting the grandiosity and traditionalism of his portraiture for painting en plein air in a far more impressionist style. 1907, when this work was painted during his travels around Italy, was the exact year of transition between these two movements. One can see in ‘The Fountain’ his internal conflict; the work is both portrait and landscape, painted outside of his friends and frequent travelling companions. They are an epitome of turn of the century decadent luxury and yet the landscape they exist in has a relaxed, definitively impressionist air - on a single canvas we see a collision between worlds, times, and Sargent’s split lives.
The Descent from the Cross
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN
Divine light illuminates the deeply human body of Christ as it twists and contorts in meekness and sorrow. Rembrandt does not shy away from the pain and suffering of the crucifixion, rejecting an idealised image of divinity and instead embracing the unsettling rawness of a tortured death. This sort of depiction was nigh on unprecedented - finding weight and humanity in his lifeless form that had long been shown as beautiful, Rembrandt forces us to reckon with the darkness of Christianity’s foundational tale. His etching is extraordinarily delicate, the interplay of light and shadow impossibly subtle, and compositionally, the brightness guides us towards importance and illuminates Christ and his followers, while the rest remain in the shadows. The figure on the ladder is Rembrandt himself, his features lent to this follower of Christ as if to say that act of creation is akin to that of salvation - he draws a parallel between those who helped Christ of the cross and those who keep him alive through art.
Rembrandt van Rijn
REMBRANDT VAN RIJN, 1633. ETCHING AND BURIN.
Divine light illuminates the deeply human body of Christ as it twists and contorts in meekness and sorrow. Rembrandt does not shy away from the pain and suffering of the crucifixion, rejecting an idealised image of divinity and instead embracing the unsettling rawness of a tortured death. This sort of depiction was nigh on unprecedented - finding weight and humanity in his lifeless form that had long been shown as beautiful, Rembrandt forces us to reckon with the darkness of Christianity’s foundational tale. His etching is extraordinarily delicate, the interplay of light and shadow impossibly subtle, and compositionally, the brightness guides us towards importance and illuminates Christ and his followers, while the rest remain in the shadows. The figure on the ladder is Rembrandt himself, his features lent to this follower of Christ as if to say that act of creation is akin to that of salvation - he draws a parallel between those who helped Christ of the cross and those who keep him alive through art.
Improvisation No. 30 ( Cannons)
VASILY KANDINSKY
Kandinsky wanted to shorten the distance between painter and musician. In his seminal treatise ‘Regarding the Spiritual in Art’, written the year before this work, he wrote that it was music, not painting, that was most readily able to capture and stir the “vibrations of the soul”. For tangible art to reach these heights, it would have to do so in the mode of abstraction. This was, for Kandinsky, the most musical, lyrical, and free form of painterly expression. For four years, he created these series of abstractions, trying to bring his subconscious to canvas with as little dilution or distraction as possible. He saw them as spontaneous expressions of his inner mind, and while the majority of the painting is truly abstract, a firing cannon, falling building, and a crowd appear. These were no less spontaneous than the abstract forms and colors, instead they represented the tangible aspects of the material world that he was grappling with in the moment of creation - here, it is clear that war was on his mind. Kandinsky’s Improvisations are just that: imperfect, free expressions that grasp towards the intangible, searing power of music.
Vasily Kandinsky
VASILY KANDINSKY, 1913. OIL ON CANVAS.
Kandinsky wanted to shorten the distance between painter and musician. In his seminal treatise ‘Regarding the Spiritual in Art’, written the year before this work, he wrote that it was music, not painting, that was most readily able to capture and stir the “vibrations of the soul”. For tangible art to reach these heights, it would have to do so in the mode of abstraction. This was, for Kandinsky, the most musical, lyrical, and free form of painterly expression. For four years, he created these series of abstractions, trying to bring his subconscious to canvas with as little dilution or distraction as possible. He saw them as spontaneous expressions of his inner mind, and while the majority of the painting is truly abstract, a firing cannon, falling building, and a crowd appear. These were no less spontaneous than the abstract forms and colors, instead they represented the tangible aspects of the material world that he was grappling with in the moment of creation - here, it is clear that war was on his mind. Kandinsky’s Improvisations are just that: imperfect, free expressions that grasp towards the intangible, searing power of music.
Melting Point of Ice
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT
Continents collide, antiquity butts up against modernity, and a primal spirituality comes into conflict with an industrialised capitalism. The work of Jean-Michel Basquiat has been explored perhaps as much as any post-war artist, and yet the depth of imagery, allegory, and references in his work continues to reward deep looking. Like few others, he was able to synthesise ideas from different movements, epochs, and civilisations, bringing traditional African art, as visible here in the mask-like face that dominates the top right corner, with a sensibility developed from his time as a graffiti artist, which the tightly coordinated chaos of the composition speaks to, and underpin the entire thing with a profound understanding of art history. Every inch of the canvas of ‘The Melting Point of Snow’ is used deliberately, weaving a tapestry of biblical stories, themes of childhood, and contemporary culture. Through all of it exists a theme of healing, from the Ritalin trademarks and copyrighted drug names, to the description of the Eye of Horus and it’s benefits, and the comforting stuffed toy labelled as non-toxic. The entirety of human history is fair game to Basquiat, and he manages to draw a line between disparate ideas in a single canvas that becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT, 1984. ACRYLIC, OILSTICK, AND SILKSCREEN ON CANVAS
Continents collide, antiquity butts up against modernity, and a primal spirituality comes into conflict with an industrialised capitalism. The work of Jean-Michel Basquiat has been explored perhaps as much as any post-war artist, and yet the depth of imagery, allegory, and references in his work continues to reward deep looking. Like few others, he was able to synthesise ideas from different movements, epochs, and civilisations, bringing traditional African art, as visible here in the mask-like face that dominates the top right corner, with a sensibility developed from his time as a graffiti artist, which the tightly coordinated chaos of the composition speaks to, and underpin the entire thing with a profound understanding of art history. Every inch of the canvas of ‘The Melting Point of Snow’ is used deliberately, weaving a tapestry of biblical stories, themes of childhood, and contemporary culture. Through all of it exists a theme of healing, from the Ritalin trademarks and copyrighted drug names, to the description of the Eye of Horus and it’s benefits, and the comforting stuffed toy labelled as non-toxic. The entirety of human history is fair game to Basquiat, and he manages to draw a line between disparate ideas in a single canvas that becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
Apartment Houses, Paris
JEAN DUBUFFET
In 1923, Jean Dubuffet read ‘Artistry of the Mentally Ill’ and developed a lifelong interest in work made by those with no formal training, suffering from mental illness. But Dubuffet was in no rush, he was a man of curiosity for the first half of his life; an occasional artist, winemaker and scholar, Dubuffet rejected anything that confined him as he strove for knowledge and travelled the world. He immersed himself in the study of noise music, of ancient languages, of lost wisdom and poetry, picking up and putting down the paintbrush every decade or so. But some twenty two years after reading Hans Prizhorn’s book, the eventual progenitor of the art brut (raw art) movement finally formalised those ideas of art made by the alienated and insane and began his life’s practice. He tried to emulate the work of someone expressing pure emotion, however muddled it might be, using only the tools at their disposal. Experimenting with non-traditional new materials, he incorporated mud, sand, gravel, and, notably, plant matter into his compositions. Here, the urban world of Paris reached into the very earth it was built upon, becoming a Frankenstein monster of man and nature.
Jean Dubuffet
JEAN DUBUFFET, 1946. OIL, SAND, AND CHARCOAL ON CANVAS.
In 1923, Jean Dubuffet read ‘Artistry of the Mentally Ill’ and developed a lifelong interest in work made by those with no formal training, suffering from mental illness. But Dubuffet was in no rush, he was a man of curiosity for the first half of his life; an occasional artist, winemaker and scholar, Dubuffet rejected anything that confined him as he strove for knowledge and travelled the world. He immersed himself in the study of noise music, of ancient languages, of lost wisdom and poetry, picking up and putting down the paintbrush every decade or so. But some twenty two years after reading Hans Prizhorn’s book, the eventual progenitor of the art brut (raw art) movement finally formalised those ideas of art made by the alienated and insane and began his life’s practice. He tried to emulate the work of someone expressing pure emotion, however muddled it might be, using only the tools at their disposal. Experimenting with non-traditional new materials, he incorporated mud, sand, gravel, and, notably, plant matter into his compositions. Here, the urban world of Paris reached into the very earth it was built upon, becoming a Frankenstein monster of man and nature.
Anne
LEON KROLL
In his time, Leon Kroll was most known for two things - painterly nudes and heroic landscapes. Part of a group known as ‘The Independents’ headed up by Robert Henri and counting Edward Hopper amongst their ranks, Kroll was quintessentially American in his style. His paintings are figurative, but with the loose and easy brushstrokes that lend them an air of the laissez-faire. The work is bright and pastoral, splitting with his contemporaries who favoured dark and gritty urban scenes. Instead, he renders women with a delicacy and reverence quite unusual for the time, bringing a fauvist palette to something uniquely of it’s era. In his portrait of ‘Anne’, he displays a confidence in his hand, and an ability to capture his subject in a candid moment. She looks away from the viewer, almost knowingly, aware of our gaze and unfazed by the attention. Kroll is relaxed in his style, such that it extends to our feelings towards the painting. We are at ease with Anne, happy to sit in her presence.
Leon Kroll
LEON KROLL, 1930. OIL ON LINEN.
In his time, Leon Kroll was most known for two things - painterly nudes and heroic landscapes. Part of a group known as ‘The Independents’ headed up by Robert Henri and counting Edward Hopper amongst their ranks, Kroll was quintessentially American in his style. His paintings are figurative, but with the loose and easy brushstrokes that lend them an air of the laissez-faire. The work is bright and pastoral, splitting with his contemporaries who favoured dark and gritty urban scenes. Instead, he renders women with a delicacy and reverence quite unusual for the time, bringing a fauvist palette to something uniquely of it’s era. In his portrait of ‘Anne’, he displays a confidence in his hand, and an ability to capture his subject in a candid moment. She looks away from the viewer, almost knowingly, aware of our gaze and unfazed by the attention. Kroll is relaxed in his style, such that it extends to our feelings towards the painting. We are at ease with Anne, happy to sit in her presence.
Landscape with Figures
MARGUERITE ZORACH
Zorach went against the grain every opportunity she could. Born into a well-to-do California, she escaped to Paris as a teenager to stay with a bohemian aunt and found herself at the centre of a new avant-garde movement that was equally enamoured with her as she was with it. She rejected traditional, academic education and even shunned orthodox art school, instead studying a post-impressionist school that allowed her to develop a unique style with little regard for tradition or societal aesthetic norms. It was there that she met her husband William, who was so beguiled by her art that it extended to her. ‘I just couldn't understand why such a nice girl would paint such wild pictures.’, he later said. Her journey back to America took her through her through Egypt, Palestine, India, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Korea, and Japan over the course of seven months, and her exposure to multiple worlds is abundantly clear in this painting. The flat planes speak to traditional Japanese art, while the landscape has hints of India, and the figures are distinctly of the Matisse school. She synthesised place and style into a unique voice that drowned out all others.
Marguerite Zorach
MARGUERITE ZORACH, 1913. GOUACHE AND WATERCOLOR ON SILK.
Zorach went against the grain every opportunity she could. Born into a well-to-do California, she escaped to Paris as a teenager to stay with a bohemian aunt and found herself at the centre of a new avant-garde movement that was equally enamoured with her as she was with it. She rejected traditional, academic education and even shunned orthodox art school, instead studying a post-impressionist school that allowed her to develop a unique style with little regard for tradition or societal aesthetic norms. It was there that she met her husband William, who was so beguiled by her art that it extended to her. ‘I just couldn't understand why such a nice girl would paint such wild pictures.’, he later said. Her journey back to America took her through her through Egypt, Palestine, India, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, China, Korea, and Japan over the course of seven months, and her exposure to multiple worlds is abundantly clear in this painting. The flat planes speak to traditional Japanese art, while the landscape has hints of India, and the figures are distinctly of the Matisse school. She synthesised place and style into a unique voice that drowned out all others.
The Red Armchair
PABLO PICASSO
A portrait of love and deception, Picasso’s ‘The Red Armchair’ features his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter as its sole subject. Part of a series of portraits of her, and in each one her physical form takes on the workings of his mind, distorted and changed to become indicative of his emotions and feelings towards not just her but their relationship in general. She is a vessel for Picasso, and he removes her autonomy in his representations, treating her instead as an extension of himself. Here, he takes the foundations of the Cubist philosophy he developed but applies the work of multiple perspective not to still lives but to a human for nearly the first time. It is fitting that the first subject he painted in this was Walter. Her face is shown in duality, both in profile and front-on so that she becomes an embodiment of the double life that Picasso has been living during their affair. She energised the artist, brought an intensity in his colour and form and marked a significant turning point in his development. In this way, we can read her double face as exemplary of a turning point in Picasso, a move from looking one way to seeing things in a whole new light.
Pablo Picasso
PABLO PICASSO, 1931. OIL AND RIPOLIN ON PANEL.
A portrait of love and deception, Picasso’s ‘The Red Armchair’ features his mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter as its sole subject. Part of a series of portraits of her, and in each one her physical form takes on the workings of his mind, distorted and changed to become indicative of his emotions and feelings towards not just her but their relationship in general. She is a vessel for Picasso, and he removes her autonomy in his representations, treating her instead as an extension of himself. Here, he takes the foundations of the Cubist philosophy he developed but applies the work of multiple perspective not to still lives but to a human for nearly the first time. It is fitting that the first subject he painted in this was Walter. Her face is shown in duality, both in profile and front-on so that she becomes an embodiment of the double life that Picasso has been living during their affair. She energised the artist, brought an intensity in his colour and form and marked a significant turning point in his development. In this way, we can read her double face as exemplary of a turning point in Picasso, a move from looking one way to seeing things in a whole new light.
The Entombment of Christ
CARAVAGGIO
A masterpiece of falling action, the painting moves from hysteria to calm as Christ’s body is lowered. Mary of Cleophas, in the top right, gestures in desperation towards heaven, her upwards eyes filled with longing. Below her, Mary Magdalene’s open palm faces towards Christ, as if pushing him to his resting place and, at the bottom left, Christ’s limp hand touches the burial stone upon which he will be placed. For all of it aesthetic beauty, representational splendour and allegorical brilliance, perhaps most remarkable is that Caravaggio tells the story of Jesus Christ in hand placement alone - mankind comes into contact with heaven, and God comes to touch the earth. This was the altarpiece of a chapel, and each day the priest would offer sacrament in front of it. This action, raising the body and blood of christ upwards, served as a perfect mirror to the entombment happening behind him, imbuing the work and the story with new life and relevance as long as it remains on view.
Caravaggio
CARAVAGGIO, c.1603. OIL ON CANVAS.
A masterpiece of falling action, the painting moves from hysteria to calm as Christ’s body is lowered. Mary of Cleophas, in the top right, gestures in desperation towards heaven, her upwards eyes filled with longing. Below her, Mary Magdalene’s open palm faces towards Christ, as if pushing him to his resting place and, at the bottom left, Christ’s limp hand touches the burial stone upon which he will be placed. For all of it aesthetic beauty, representational splendour and allegorical brilliance, perhaps most remarkable is that Caravaggio tells the story of Jesus Christ in hand placement alone - mankind comes into contact with heaven, and God comes to touch the earth. This was the altarpiece of a chapel, and each day the priest would offer sacrament in front of it. This action, raising the body and blood of christ upwards, served as a perfect mirror to the entombment happening behind him, imbuing the work and the story with new life and relevance as long as it remains on view.
Fishing Boats with Hucksters Bargaining for Fish
J. M. W. TURNER
A child prodigy from a working class family who survived an upbringing of tumult and upheaval to become one of Britain’s most celebrated painters, elevate the art of landscape painting to unseen heights and, ultimately, die alone and in squalor - John Mallord William Turner remains as intriguing, appealing, and enigmatic as ever. He is most known for his paintings of the sea, large scale, vivid, dramatic depictions of naval battles, vessels fighting against the elements, and the violent nature of a nautical life. It has been said that Turner’s paintings capture all that could be said about the sea, and his sweeping scenes play out in visceral detail. Large skies illuminate danger and fury and Turner, like so few others, captured the truthful moods of nature in their wonder and variety. This work is in some ways unusual, there is lightness to it, a drama plays out with low stakes as a bright sky appears through clouds and the sailors are engaged in commerce with a nearby peddler. Yet, behind the sails, a steam boat appears in the distance - the battle depicted here is not one of violence, but of the past reckoning with a fast approaching, modern, industrial future.
J. M. W. Turner
J. M. W. TURNER, c.1838. OIL ON CANVAS.
A child prodigy from a working class family who survived an upbringing of tumult and upheaval to become one of Britain’s most celebrated painters, elevate the art of landscape painting to unseen heights and, ultimately, die alone and in squalor - John Mallord William Turner remains as intriguing, appealing, and enigmatic as ever. He is most known for his paintings of the sea, large scale, vivid, dramatic depictions of naval battles, vessels fighting against the elements, and the violent nature of a nautical life. It has been said that Turner’s paintings capture all that could be said about the sea, and his sweeping scenes play out in visceral detail. Large skies illuminate danger and fury and Turner, like so few others, captured the truthful moods of nature in their wonder and variety. This work is in some ways unusual, there is lightness to it, a drama plays out with low stakes as a bright sky appears through clouds and the sailors are engaged in commerce with a nearby peddler. Yet, behind the sails, a steam boat appears in the distance - the battle depicted here is not one of violence, but of the past reckoning with a fast approaching, modern, industrial future.
Jacques and Berthe Lipchitz
AMEDEO MODIGLIANI
Two friends shared the commonality of context, but a radical difference in philosophy. Amedeo Modigliani and Jacques Lipchitz had arrived in Paris at the same age, and were two young Jewish men frequenting the same literary circles who became very close friends. Lipchitz exemplified a industriousness, working as a sculptor he was exacting and prolific, single-minded in his ambition as he became of Cubism’s most significant sculptors. Modigliani, on the other want, was the archetypal bohemian; a terrible drunk, he lived a fast life of debauchery and worked with speed, looseness, and the confidence of his brilliance. This is a rare work of Modigliani’s, not only for being one of the few double portraits he ever painted in his career, but also for the amount of time he spent on it. Lipchitz had recently come into some money when he commissioned the work of him and his wife from this friend. Modigliani’s charged only ten francs and painted the work in a single sitting. Lipchitz, wanting to help Modigliani financially, encouraged him to keep working on the painting for two weeks, paying him for it, despite Modigliani’s objections. The finished result is a work of delicate, assured beauty, not as loose as most of his canvases but retaining all the disquiet harmony.
Amadeo Modigliani
AMADEO MODIGLIANI, 1916. OIL ON CANVAS.
Two friends shared the commonality of context, but a radical difference in philosophy. Amedeo Modigliani and Jacques Lipchitz had arrived in Paris at the same age, and were two young Jewish men frequenting the same literary circles who became very close friends. Lipchitz exemplified a industriousness, working as a sculptor he was exacting and prolific, single-minded in his ambition as he became of Cubism’s most significant sculptors. Modigliani, on the other want, was the archetypal bohemian; a terrible drunk, he lived a fast life of debauchery and worked with speed, looseness, and the confidence of his brilliance. This is a rare work of Modigliani’s, not only for being one of the few double portraits he ever painted in his career, but also for the amount of time he spent on it. Lipchitz had recently come into some money when he commissioned the work of him and his wife from this friend. Modigliani’s charged only ten francs and painted the work in a single sitting. Lipchitz, wanting to help Modigliani financially, encouraged him to keep working on the painting for two weeks, paying him for it, despite Modigliani’s objections. The finished result is a work of delicate, assured beauty, not as loose as most of his canvases but retaining all the disquiet harmony.
Ravens
MASAHISA FUKASE
Masahisa Fukase desperately sought control. Both the first and second wives of the 'anti-self-portraitist' suffered under his incessant, obsessive documentation of their likenesses. It was only after his second divorce, returning on the mournful JE-train from Tokyo to his hometown of Hokkaido, that Fukase first glimpsed what was to become his defining obsession. Collected first as ‘The Solitude of Ravens’, the original title explains much of Fukase's intention - wallowing in depressive bachelorhood. The photographer spent the next eleven years in his birthplace, spiralling through his ceaseless fascination with its growing population of ‘ravens’. In all fact, the majority of the birds were anything but - for Hokkaido has few raven roosts, outnumbered in their hundreds by the myriad crows. It was the idea of ravens that compelled Fukase; in 1982, his journal read “karasu ni nata (I have become a raven)”.
MASAHISA FUKASE
MASHISA FUKASE, 1977
Masahisa Fukase desperately sought control. Both the first and second wives of the 'anti-self-portraitist' suffered under his incessant, obsessive documentation of their likenesses. It was only after his second divorce, returning on the mournful JE-train from Tokyo to his hometown of Hokkaido, that Fukase first glimpsed what was to become his defining obsession. Collected first as ‘The Solitude of Ravens’, the original title explains much of Fukase's intention - wallowing in depressive bachelorhood. The photographer spent the next eleven years in his birthplace, spiralling through his ceaseless fascination with its growing population of ‘ravens’. In all fact, the majority of the birds were anything but - for Hokkaido has few raven roosts, outnumbered in their hundreds by the myriad crows. It was the idea of ravens that compelled Fukase; in 1982, his journal read “karasu ni nata (I have become a raven)”.
Forest and Sun
MAX ERNST
As a young child, Max Ernst stood in-front of German forests and felt an overwhelming sense of fear and wonder. The wood loomed over him with ‘delight and oppression and what the Romantics called ‘emotion in the face of Nature.’’, said Ernst many years later. He captures this spiritual relationship, one of feeling part of the invisible world that hides within nature, in this painting, produced during one of his most prolific and inspired periods. Using his radical technique of ‘frottage’, whereby he rubbed pencil, charcoal, or pigment creates a relief from natural matter behind the paper. Ernst created a forest out of wood. The effect of petrified trees came from bark itself, folded and adapted to form the shape that Ernst desired. In this way, as much as the painting deals with Ernst’s feelings of smallness in the face of grand nature, it also represents a conquering of the very elements that caused him feelings of such oppression as a child.
Max Ernst
MAX ERNST, 1927. OIL ON CANVAS.
As a young child, Max Ernst stood in-front of German forests and felt an overwhelming sense of fear and wonder. The wood loomed over him with ‘delight and oppression and what the Romantics called ‘emotion in the face of Nature.’’, said Ernst many years later. He captures this spiritual relationship, one of feeling part of the invisible world that hides within nature, in this painting, produced during one of his most prolific and inspired periods. Using his radical technique of ‘frottage’, whereby he rubbed pencil, charcoal, or pigment creates a relief from natural matter behind the paper. Ernst created a forest out of wood. The effect of petrified trees came from bark itself, folded and adapted to form the shape that Ernst desired. In this way, as much as the painting deals with Ernst’s feelings of smallness in the face of grand nature, it also represents a conquering of the very elements that caused him feelings of such oppression as a child.