A Panorama of Pittsburgh
at the Frick through 10/5
Learn about Pittsburgh's past by viewing more than 130 printed views of the city.
Meissonier masterpiece
now on view at the Frick
1806, Jena is on view at the Frick through May 31, 2009.
This Sunday is
RADical Day at the Frick
Visit the Frick on 10/5 for a full day of activities and fun!
Rob Rogers discusses
political cartooning on 10/12
The Post-Gazette's award-winning editorial cartoonist will discuss his experiences covering the 2008 presidential campaign and conventions.
Music for Exhibitions
begins new season 11/18
Join Katherine Soroka and Chatham Baroque for an evening of memorable music.
View photos from the 2008 H. C. Frick Horseless Carriage Tour
Twenty-six teams of drivers made it a day of fun.
Sign up for the
Frick e-newsletter
Each month, receive the latest information about exhibitions; programs for adults, families, children, and teachers; events; specials at The Café and the Museum Shop; and more.
at the Frick through 10/5
Learn about Pittsburgh's past by viewing more than 130 printed views of the city.
Meissonier masterpiece
now on view at the Frick
1806, Jena is on view at the Frick through May 31, 2009.
This Sunday is
RADical Day at the Frick
Visit the Frick on 10/5 for a full day of activities and fun!
Rob Rogers discusses
political cartooning on 10/12
The Post-Gazette's award-winning editorial cartoonist will discuss his experiences covering the 2008 presidential campaign and conventions.
Music for Exhibitions
begins new season 11/18
Join Katherine Soroka and Chatham Baroque for an evening of memorable music.
View photos from the 2008 H. C. Frick Horseless Carriage Tour
Twenty-six teams of drivers made it a day of fun.
Sign up for the
Frick e-newsletter
Each month, receive the latest information about exhibitions; programs for adults, families, children, and teachers; events; specials at The Café and the Museum Shop; and more.
|
January 5, 2002 - March 3, 2002 |
||||||||||||
|
A major exhibition of 102 drawings and prints from Vienna’s famed Albertina, widely acclaimed as the world’s premier repository of historic graphic art, opens on January 5, 2002, at The Frick Art Museum, Frick Art & Historical Center, in Pittsburgh. Representative of the extraordinary quality and breadth of the collection, Masterworks from the Albertina: Renaissance to Rococo spans 300 years of Western European draftsmanship, from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries, and features drawings by such renowned artists as Dürer, Rembrandt, Rubens, Michelangelo, Raphael, Poussin, and Fragonard. In all, some eighty drawings and twenty-two prints by masters of the German, Dutch, Flemish, Italian, and French schools will be on view. This traveling exhibition will remain at The Frick Art Museum through March 3, 2002. The Albertina, housed in a seventeenth-century Viennese palace and named after its founder, Albert, Duke of Sachsen-Teschen (1738-1822), is especially famed for its extensive collection of Dürer drawings. The present exhibition features three extraordinary works by this Northern Renaissance master, including the celebrated Study of Three Hands, believed to be views of the artist’s left hand. Among the many other highlights are Rembrandt’s Hundred Guilder Print, one of the artist’s most famous and complex etchings; Rubens’ arresting study of his young son Nicolaas; Michelangelo’s Three Men Standing in Mantles, one of the artist’s earliest known drawings; Raphael’s Two Women with Children, a preparatory drawing for one of the artist’s frescoes in the Vatican; landscape drawings by the great sixteenth-century French classicists Poussin and Claude Lorrain; and drawings by Boucher and Fragonard, two supreme exponents of the French Rococo. In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of the various styles, mediums, and techniques of draftsmanship, the selection also demonstrates the differing and important functions of drawings, from rapid “first thoughts” to highly finished works. “Drawings take us into the private creative experience of the artist,” states Danforth P. Fales, acting director of the Frick Art & Historical Center. “And when the artists are of the caliber of Dürer, Michelangelo and Rembrandt, viewing these works is a rare privilege indeed. This exhibition is an extraordinary opportunity to look over the shoulders of these giants of art history as they capture a moment of inspiration, struggle to perfect their craft, pose and solve problems. I am extremely grateful to the Albertina for sharing these unique and fragile works, as well as so many marvelous examples of the sister art of printing. We are especially pleased to present Masterworks from the Albertina: Renaissance to Rococo because it introduces, in such a spectacular way, a special series of international loan exhibitions of master drawings from two other great collections, Rotterdam’s Museum Boijmans van Beuningen and the Danish National Gallery, planned for later this year.” Masterworks from the Albertina: Renaissance to Rococo is drawn from the collection of the Albertina, Vienna. It is organized by the Albertina and ArtReach International. The American tour is organized by ArtReach International. Support for the Pittsburgh exhibition is provided, in part, by the Office of Cultural Tourism and by a grant from the Woodmere Foundation. The works in the exhibition will be grouped by region, reflecting the founding principles of the Albertina collection, which aimed to create holdings representative of all the principal “schools” of European art. German School: Dürer and His Contemporaries The centerpiece of this section is the group of works by the greatest of all Northern Renaissance masters: Albrecht Dürer. Often referred to as “the Leonardo of the North,” the artist is represented by three drawings selected to demonstrate his extraordinary range of techniques and stylistic innovations. The Study with Three Hands (ca. 1494/95) is a prime example of the artist’s skills as a meticulous observer of nature. In Dürer’s Head of an Angel (1506), a calligraphic tour de force in white ink on blue paper, the careful transcription of light falling across the angel’s upturned face and wavy hair reveals the artist’s recent first-hand study of Italian Renaissance art. The influence of Italian draftsmanship is also apparent in his Holy Family (1511). The exhibition also includes approximately a dozen works by Dürer’s contemporaries and followers. Prominent among them is the pioneering landscapist Albrecht Altdorfer, represented by three powerful, imaginative panoramic views of ca. 1520. The group of works by Hans Baldung Grien, one of Dürer’s most gifted and original protégés, includes one of his signature images, Witches’ Sabbath (chiaroscuro woodcut, 1510), a dramatic nocturnal scene of diabolical hags at their cauldron in a forest where trees seem to twist and writhe like serpents. Other important sixteenth-century German masters featured in this section include Hans Sebald Beham, Jörg Breu, and Hans Burgkmair, the artist uncle of Hans Holbein. Dutch and Flemish Schools: Rembrandt, Rubens, and Their Contemporaries Rembrandt, the most renowned of all Dutch masters, is another important strength of the Albertina’s collection, and this section features celebrated examples of his skills both as draftsman and etcher. In two drawings of ca. 1650–51, Farmhouses beside a Canal and Landscape with Windmill and a Country Estate, the artist suggests the majestic sweep of the Dutch countryside with only a few rapid strokes of his pen. The so-called Hundred Guilder Print of 1647–49 (nicknamed for the extraordinarily high price it fetched) is among the artist’s most famous and frequently reproduced etchings. A triumph of technique and emotionalism, it shows Christ preaching to an almost encyclopedic assemblage of humanity—the sick and the lame, children and old men, doubters and the devout. The exhibition also includes two different versions, or “states,” of another of Rembrandt’s most celebrated prints, The Three Crosses (1653), enabling viewers to study his practice of reworking etching plates to create different effects of light and focus. This section also features a number of works by Rembrandt’s important precursors and contemporaries in the field of naturalistic landscape drawing—such as David Vinckboons, Cornelis Heindricksz Vroom, Lambert Doomer, and Jan de Bisschop—as well as prints by the eminent Dutch mannerist Hendrik Goltzius. Peter Paul Rubens, the greatest and most influential of all Northern Baroque artists, is represented by two superb drawings. The Study with Folded Hands, a Female Head, and a Male Head (ca. 1610), a work of his early maturity, is a prime demonstration of the artist’s legendary fluency and sureness of touch. One of the most moving works of the exhibition is Rubens’ Son Nicolaas with a Cap (1625/27). Gazing up pensively, the tousle-headed youth is beautifully rendered with the loving sensitivity of a father. The Italian School: Michelangelo, Raphael, and Later Masters of the Baroque and Rococo It was Italian artists who first established the primacy of drawing as “the soul of all the arts,” and this exhibition includes works by two of that country’s most legendary painters and draftsmen—Michelangelo and Raphael. The drawings by Michelangelo give viewers a fascinating opportunity to study the early and late hand of the master. The first is a double-sided sheet of robed men, standing and kneeling, made around 1496, when the artist was in his early twenties. Carefully carried out in pen-and-ink, with precise cross-hatching and contours, the studies are in all likelihood copies Michelangelo made of figures from a now-lost fresco by the early-Renaissance master Masaccio. Mary with the Dead Christ, a haunting red-chalk drawing of ca. 1530, is distinctly mannerist in feeling. Its sinuous contours and exaggerated musculature recall the powerful but slumbering tomb figures of Night and Day that Michelangelo sculpted for the Medici Chapel. Though authorship of this remarkable sheet has been questioned, many authorities agree that it is by Michelangelo. Raphael, the other titan of Italian High Renaissance art, is represented by two fascinating drawings that reveal his search for—and discovery of—a balance between anatomical accuracy and linear grace. In the first sheet, a study of heads and torsos dated ca. 1508–10, soon after his arrival in Rome, the artist struggles, reworking contours and repeating passages to the side. The second, Two Women with Children (ca. 1514), is a masterful and self-assured study in which Raphael suggests the movement of the women—one kneeling and turning to the left, the other rising and turning to the right—in a series of sweeping and rhythmic curves and counter curves. The drawing is preparatory for a group of figures in The Fire in the Borgo, one of Raphael’s fresco decorations for the Vatican’s Stanze della Segnatura. The legacy of Raphael can be seen in drawings by Giulio Romano and Polidoro da Caravaggio, two of his most gifted pupils; Andrea del Sarto’s red chalk Head of a Bald Old Man (1524–25); and Frederico Barocci’s wonderfully delicate and sensitive Study of a Head for the Christ Child. Guercino’s Saint Dominic Kneeling Before the Madonna with Child (ca. 1618–21) and Annibale Carracci’s Madonna with Child as Patron Saint of Bologna exemplify the power and expressiveness of Italian Baroque draftsmanship, while a delightful group of drawings by Tiepolo embody the ethereal charm and grace of the Venetian rococo. French School: Mannerism, Classicism, and the Rococo The unfailing elegance and assurance of French draftsmanship are celebrated by a selection of works ranging from the late Renaissance through the eighteenth century. The ultra-refined and somewhat surreal style of French mannerism is exemplified in a group of three etchings from the early 1600s by Jacques Bellange (a talented but mysterious figure, reportedly burned at the stake for practicing black magic). Simon Vouet’s powerful chalk Study of a Man Crouching on the Floor (mid-to-late 1630s) heralds the return of a new reverence for the heroic forms and spirit of Roman antiquity. A more idyllic response to the world of the classical past is found in Nicolas Poussin’s View of the Tiber Valley with Ponte Molle (c.1624), a distant view of a Roman aqueduct framed by stately trees. The exhibition also includes two classically inspired views by Poussin’s contemporary Claude Lorrain, perhaps the most famous and influential of all French landscapists. Drawings by François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard epitomize the insouciance, gaiety, and coloristic charm of the French rococo. The exhibition includes Boucher’s Standing Nude Girl, deftly carried out in a combination of red, black, and white chalks; and Fragonard’s delightful Roman Park with Cypresses (1774), in which the Roman countryside becomes a playground for trysting lovers and children. Exhibition Tour and Publication The Frick Art Museum is the opening venue for this traveling exhibition, which will be seen later at The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky (March 19–May 12, 2002), and The Fresno Metropolitan Museum, Fresno, California (May 25–August 3, 2002). Masterworks from the Albertina: Renaissance to Rococo will be accompanied by a 180-page catalogue, featuring full-page color illustrations of all the works with entries by Marie-Louise Sternath, Ph.D., exhibition curator and curator at the Albertina. It will be available at the Museum Shop at the Frick Art & Historical Center. The Albertina The collections of the Albertina began in the 1760s, with the desire of Duke Albert of Sachsen-Teschen to assemble a group of works that would represent the highest achievements in the graphic arts. Albert, the eleventh of the fourteen children of Frederick Augustus II, Prince Elector of Saxony, grew up at the Saxon court in Dresden, where he was surrounded by the superb royal art collection built by his paternal ancestors. After becoming an army officer and introducing himself to the Habsburg royals in Vienna, Albert won the hand of Queen Maria-Theresa’s favorite daughter, Marie-Christine (1742-1798) and later became governor of Hungary and in 1780 of the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium, since 1830). Duke Albert became the High Governor of the Austrian Netherlands in 1781. He remained in Brussels until he and his wife fled to the Imperial Court in Vienna in connection with the French Revolution in 1792. The palace now known as the Albertina was given to the Duke as a gift by Emperor Franz II in 1794. It is estimated that a quarter of Albert’s wealth was spent on his collection of drawings and prints, which, in 1801, was installed in the palace. The Duke’s ample financial means allowed him to acquire entire collections at one time. One of the most spectacular acquisitions was the group of 371 sheets by Dürer that had been assembled by Rudolf II, who ascended to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in 1576. Many of the Fragonards were a gift from Albert’s wife’s sister, Marie Antoinette. At Albert’s death, the collection numbered in excess of 13,000 items. Since then, the holdings of the Albertina have remained intact and continued to grow, despite numerous threats of dissolution and physical destruction. During World War II, the Albertina palace was partially destroyed by bombs. Fortunately, the entire collection of some one million works had been removed to salt mines for safekeeping. Following the war, all were safely returned by American troops and the palace was rebuilt. The Frick Art Museum Part of the Frick Art & Historical Center, The Frick Art Museum contains the fine and decorative art collection of Helen Clay Frick, daughter of Henry Clay Frick. The permanent collection concentrates on Italian Renaissance and French eighteenth-century works. Collection highlights include fourteenth- and fifteenth-century works by Sassetta, Duccio, and Giovanni de Paolo; a portrait by Rubens; a landscape by Boucher; and a devotional altarpiece by Jean Bellegambe. In addition to exhibiting its permanent collection, the Museum has an active program of temporary exhibitions. Masterworks from the Albertina: Renaissance to Rococo initiates a special year-long focus on master drawings and will be followed by Rubens, Jordaens, Van Dyck and their Circle: Flemish Master Drawings from the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen (April 5–June 2, 2002) and Nineteenth and Twentieth-Century French Drawings from the Danish National Gallery (October 19, 2002–January 4, 2003). The Museum is open Tuesday – Saturday, 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., Sunday, 12:00 – 6:00 p.m. Free, docent-led tours of temporary exhibitions are offered Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. The public should call 412-371-0600 for information, or visit the Frick online at www.frickart.org. |
|
|||||||||||
Copyright © 2008, The Frick Art & Historical Center. Click here for our privacy policy.