Francis Bacon: Paintings from The Estate, 1980-1991 at Faggionato, London

Francis Bacon 

Paintings from The Estate, 1980-1991
Faggionato Fine Arts, London 

25 June - 26 August 1999

Faggionato Fine Arts, the European and UK representatives of The Estate of Francis Bacon, has selected 8 pictures from the Estate (five of which have never been shown), that span the last 11 years of Francis Bacon’s career.

“Our decision to show this particular period of Bacon’s work was to illustrate how, to the last, he never became complacent. He continually pushed the boundaries, both in the way he painted and the toughness of the subject matter. In two of the works on show, Study from the Human Body 1987, there is a brutal focus on the male genitalia and Painting 1980 depicts three men with a shotgun which according to John Edwards was inspired following an incident with the notorious Kray twins”. -- Gérard Faggionato.

However in contrast to the work in the sixties and seventies, his portrayal of the human body in these late years takes on a celebratory form. His lines have a sculptural edge to them and his figures, rather than appearing grotesque and animalistic, become icons, reminiscent of classical Greek sculptures. The powerfully muscled male torso, in Study from the Human Body 1987 and the thigh and lower leg depicted in Study from the Human Body 1991, (painted a year before his death), show the delicacy of the paint and the elegance of the long straight lines, a feature that becomes a signature of the later works.

It is as if the inner torment in Francis Bacon has subsided, and has been replaced with a certain lyricism. The works in the show illustrate how in the last ten years Bacon keeps detail to a minimum; everything is pared down, leaving a highly stylised, and simple grandeur as in Portrait of John Edwards, 1988.

Francis Bacon painted few landscapes devoid of any human or animal presence, however the show also includes two ‘urban landscapes’ – Blood on Pavement, circa 1988, relating to the now well known anecdotal story told by John Edwards, of the blood left on a pavement after a club brawl. Possibly the most unusual of all the works in the show is Street Scene with Car in Distance, circa 1988 - depicting a car speeding down an American highway .

FRANCIS BACON, FAGGIONATO’s EXHIBITION CATALOGUE

Supporting the exhibition is a 48 page colour catalogue with a text, “Points of Reference, Francis Bacon and Photography”, by the leading photography historian and critic MARTIN HARRISON, whose recent books include David Bailey, Archive One and Young Meteors: British Photojournalism 1957-1965.

FRANCIS BACON

Paintings from The Estate, 1980 - 1991

Works by Francis Bacon © The Estate of Francis Bacon

Exhibition catalogue cover image courtesy of Faggionato Fine Arts, London

FAGGIONATO FINE ARTS, LONDON
49 Albemarle Street, London W1S 4JR

Duane Michals. Mots et images, Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa

Duane Michals. Mots et images 

Musée des beaux-arts du Canada, Ottawa 

25 juin - 12 septembre 1999 

Le Musée des beaux-arts du Canada présente Duane Michals. Mots et images, une importante exposition de 200 œuvres photographiques. Organisée et mise en tournée par le Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, cette exposition est veillée par le conservateur invité Marco Livingstone, établi à Londres. Ce dernier a conçu la grande rétrospective de l'œuvre de Duane Michals, qui a circulé dans plusieurs musées et galeries d'Angleterre en 1984 et 1985. Il est également l'auteur du livre The Essential Duane Michals, publié en 1997.

« Nous sommes heureux de reconnaître la contribution majeure de cet artiste hautement novateur et très admiré », de déclarer Pierre Théberge, directeur du Musée des beaux-arts du Canada. « En repoussant les frontières traditionnelles de la pratique photographique, Duane Michals a réussi à produire un corpus original et inspirant. »

Né en Pennsylvanie en 1932, DUANE MICHALS prend ses premières photos en amateur lors d'un voyage en Union soviétique en 1958. Il s'installe à New York à la fin des années 1950 et, malgré son manque de formation, il travaille comme photographe professionnel dans le monde des affaires et de la mode. Des magazines comme Vogue, Esquire et Mademoiselle, ainsi que le New York Times publient ses photos. Sa première exposition a lieu à l'Underground Gallery en 1963, et une autre au Musée d'art moderne de New York en 1970. Depuis, il expose régulièrement dans les musées et galeries des États-Unis et de l'Europe, et lors de nombreuses manifestations internationales.

Intéressé aux multiples possibilités qu'offre la photographie, cet artiste autodidacte exprime ses idées et ses émotions par des thèmes tels l'esprit, la mort, le désir, les relations humaines, la politique, l'imagination, le temps et la mémoire. Réalité et imagination s'entremêlent dans ses œuvres. « Je crois dans l'invisible », déclare-t-il. « Je ne crois pas au visible... La vérité pour moi, c'est l'intuition, l'imagination. » Grand admirateur de l'artiste René Magritte qu'il rencontre en 1965 et dont il fait plusieurs portraits, Duane Michals crée des séquences photographiques qui rappellent la complexité et les qualités oniriques du surréalisme. Comprenant jusqu'à vingt photos, ses séquences lui permettent d'échapper aux limites d'une seule image et de laisser son imagination errer librement. Cette démarche novatrice influencera grandement d'autres photographes.

Pour renforcer les idées exprimées par ses images photographiques, Duane Michals commence en 1966 à intégrer des titres manuscrits à ses œuvres et, plus tard, des commentaires, des textes poétiques, des dessins et même des touches de peinture. Comme le suggère le titre de l'exposition, Duane Michals. Mots et images, celle-ci porte principalement sur la relation entre image et texte, une caractéristique de plus en plus marquante de son art.

L'exposition propose des œuvres de trois séries complétées par Duane Michals vers le milieu des années 1990, soit Salute, Walt Whitman (1996), Questions and Answers (1994) et Upside Down, Inside Out and Backwards (1993). En introduction, on trouvera également des photos et des écrits remontant aux années 1970 et qui illustrent la cohérence et l'interconnexion thématiques des diverses séries.

Source : MBAC

Musée des beaux-arts du Canada 

www.beaux-arts.ca

Maxfield Parrish, 1870-1966 - Retrospective Exhibition

Maxfield Parrish, 1870-1966

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia

June 19 - October 3, 1999 

The Currier Gallery of Art, Manchester, NH 

November 6, 1999 - January 23 

Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY

February 19 - April 30, 2000 

Brooklyn Museum of Art

May 26 - August 6, 2000 

Maxfield Parrish, 1870-1966 is the first major critical retrospective devoted to one of the most popular artists of this century. Comprising over 100 paintings, drawings, prints, models, photographs, and ephemera, the exhibition is organized by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and The American Federation of Arts.

Sylvia Yount, Chief Curator, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, arranged the exhibition chronologically, highlighting the various phases of MaxParrish's prolific 70-year career, to examine the artist's reputation among colleagues, critics, and the public, within the context of American culture. The exhibition considers Parrish's historical importance, his enduring influence, and provides a critical reappraisal of the artist's work after his death.

Frederick Maxfield Parrish was born into Philadelphia's Quaker elite and encouraged from childhood to develop his talent by his father, Stephen (1848-1938), an acclaimed etcher and landscape painter. A student at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts from 1892 to 1894, Parrish came of age during a time when there was a flowering of artistic practices, including painting, sculpture, and the graphic arts as well as decorative arts, architecture, and landscape design. In her essay in the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, Dr. Yount writes, "Encompassing both the Aesthetic and Arts and Crafts movements, this phenomenon [the so-called American Renaissance] challenged traditional artistic hierarchies of fine and applied arts, reconsidered the relationship between amateur and professional, and prompted a great deal of experimentation and collaboration in the art world. That Parrish's expansive artistic sensibility found expression in all these forms throughout his career marks him as an exemplary product of his age."

Designing magazine covers and posters, he illustrated books by L. Frank Baum and Kenneth Grahame, and a cover for a book by Edith Wharton. Iconic works, such as Princess Parizade Bringing Home the Singing Tree (1906), reveal his remarkable narrative skills and craftsmanship. School Days (Alphabet) (1909) and The Idiot (1910), commissioned by Collier's magazine, showcase his ingenious manipulation of formal layering and optical effects.

His lifelong interest in architecture, the decorative arts, and the theater informed his art. Although he frequently worked with amateur groups creating backdrops and set designs, his last known involvement with professional theater was a production of Snow White, for which he created the free-standing Gnome (c. 1916).

The 1920s witnessed an explosion of popular culture, from comic strips to jazz, and an accord between "low" and "high" art forms. This was a period of artistic experimentation in which Parrish achieved great success with his dream worlds and fantastical images of exotic and erotic innocence, typified by Interlude (The Lute Players) (1922). In 1925, three of his best-known paintings, including Daybreak (1922), sold for ten thousand dollars each, setting a record at the time for a living American artist.

Maxfield Parrish's fame continued to advance as his color reproductions were mass-produced and broadly circulated. He saw himself as a "public" artist and worked diligently to democratize art. Soon, his girls on rocks bathed in golden light, breathtaking landscapes, and images of youthful abandon were ubiquitous in American households. In 1936, Time magazine commented on his extraordinary public recognition with the report, "as far as the sale of expensive color reproductions is concerned, the three most popular artists in the world are van Gogh, Cézanne, and Maxfield Parrish."

From the 1930s and 1940s and until his death, his sole interest was in landscape painting, his first love. (His last figurative composition was a caricature of himself, Jack Frost, in 1936.) He focused on two distinctive regions associated with national authenticity, New England and the Southwest, to create a visual definition of American quintessence and a pairing of the Old World with the New.

Maxfield Parrish's posthumous revival occurred during the decade of Pop Art and the current postmodern period. According Dr. Yount, Parrish endures as "a Peter Pan figure in the art world–captivating the 'young at heart' of all ages."

PUBLICATION - In conjunction with the exhibition, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Harry N. Abrams, Inc. published Maxfield Parrish, 1870-1966. This richly illustrated catalogue addresses the artist's place in the history of American art and culture, challenging the artistic boundaries of "high" and "low" art. Dr. Yount's lead essay examines the enormous popularity of Parrish's work during his lifetime and today. Mark F. Bockrath, Paintings Conservator, the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum, discusses the working methods and techniques used by the artist. 160 pages, 9 x 12", 81 color illustrations.

AMERICAN FEDERATION OF ARTS

41 East 65th Street, New York, NY 10021

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