Picasso and Klee in the Heinz Berggruen Collection @ Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid

Picasso and Klee in the Heinz Berggruen Collection

Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid

28 October 2025 - 1 February 2026

The Museo Nacional Thyssen Bornemisza presents a selection of fifty masterpieces by Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee that belonged to the German dealer and collector Heinz Berggruen and are now part of the holdings of the Museum Berggruen in Berlin. 

In 1950 Heinz Berggruen (Berlin, 1914–Paris, 2007) opened a legendary art gallery in Paris that specialised in modern art and was frequented over the next three decades by a prestigious clientele, including his friend Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza. From 1980 onwards Berggruen focused exclusively on expanding his own select holdings of twentieth-century works, assembling an outstanding collection that was later acquired by the German government in 2000. The establishment of the Museum Berggruen in the Charlottenburg district, as part of the Neue Nationalgalerie of Berlin, marked the fulfilment of the collector’s wish to not only preserve most of the collection intact for posterity but also be able to share it with the public. In a sense his case is similar to that of Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid the previous decade. 

While the building is closed for renovation, the Museum Berggruen has organised several international exhibitions since 2022 in Japan and China and, more recently, Europe to show different aspects of the collection’s highlights. The discourse of the exhibition at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza is a visual and intellectual dialogue between Heinz Berggruen’s two favourite artists: Pablo Picasso and Paul Klee.

MUSEO NACIONAL THYSSEN-BORNEMISZA

Paseo del Prado, 8. 28014, Madrid

www.museothyssen.org

Lynn Gumpert, Grey Art Museum Director to Retire after a Wonderful Work

NYU’s Grey Art Museum Director Lynn Gumpert to Retire

LYNN GUMPERT in the Grey Art Museum’s new galleries 

at 18 Cooper Square for the exhibition 

Americans in Paris: 

Artists Working in Postwar France, 1946–1962 

Photo: Tracey Friedman / NYU

Lynn Gumpert, who has served as director of New York University’s Grey Art Museum since 1997, will retire in mid-April 2025. During her tenure, the museum (formerly the Grey Art Gallery) has presented more than 80 exhibitions focused on a wide range of topics, from abstract art from the Arab world to downtown galleries in New York City, expanded its collection, and moved to a larger and more accessible location at 18 Cooper Square.

As museum director, curator, administrator, and art historian, Lynn Gumpert raised the profile of the Grey by presenting ambitious exhibitions and engaging with faculty and students from across the university. Thanks to a significant gift from donors Dr. James Cottrell and Joseph Lovett, the Grey Art Museum will open the Cottrell-Lovett Study Center, a research space for scholars of all levels that offers access to the museum’s permanent collection of American, modern Asian, and Middle Eastern art.

NYU President Linda G. Mills said, “The Grey has an impact on New York’s cultural life that has far exceeded its size, with wonderful, carefully curated shows that have delighted art lovers and contributed to Greenwich Village’s—and NYU’s—reputation as a center for the arts.  For more than 25 years, Lynn Gumpert has been the Grey’s steward, as well as an exceptional colleague, a curator of groundbreaking exhibitions, and a guardian of the NYU Art Collection. We thank her, and wish her well.”

Provost Gigi Dopico added: “The scholarship that the Grey has generated over nearly half a century is remarkable. With landmark exhibitions, from The Downtown Show in 2006 to Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection in 2019, the Grey exemplifies New York University’s commitment to innovative ways of looking at art.”

Exhibition highlights organized during Lynn Gumpert’s tenure include Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s, Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run-Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965, and Americans in Paris: Artists Working in Postwar France,1946–1962, the critically-acclaimed exhibition that inaugurated the museum’s new location earlier last year.

The Grey Art Museum has also contributed to New York City’s cultural scene by hosting shows that otherwise would not have traveled here. They include The Beautiful Brain: The Drawings of Santiago Ramón y Cajal; Art after Stonewall, 1969–1989; Diane Arbus: Family Albums; and Maya Lin: Topologies.

Lynn Gumpert is co-curator of Make Way for Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde, organized with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and the Musée de l’Orangerie. It opened at the Grey on October 1, 2024 and is accompanied by a book, Berthe Weill: Art Dealer of the Parisian Avant-Garde (Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris/Flammarion). Lynn Gumpert also edited Pow! Right in the Eye, Weill’s 1933 memoir (University of Chicago Press, 2022), and co-edited Americans in Paris (Grey Art Museum, NYU/Hirmer, 2022).

“It’s been an enormous honor and privilege to lead the Grey Art Museum for more than 28 years. Our holdings of modern Iranian, Turkish, and Indian art donated by our founder Abby Weed Grey in 1975 align wonderfully with New York University’s global vision. Likewise, our exceptional holdings of downtown New York School artworks through the 1990s complements NYU’s Special Collections at Bobst Library,” says Lynn Gumpert. “And, with our recent move from Washington Square East to 18 Cooper Square, our renovated facilities are now much more welcoming.”

Prior to joining NYU, Lynn Gumpert served as curator and senior curator at the New Museum of Contemporary Art from 1980–88 and was a consulting curator for The Gallery at Takashimaya from 1992–95. She wrote the first substantial monograph on French artist Christian Boltanski (Flammarion, 1992; 1994), and in 1999, she was honored by the French government with the distinction of the Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Lynn Gumpert earned a BA from the University of California at Berkeley, and an MA in art history from the University of Michigan. A member of the Association of Art Museum Directors, she has served on various boards, including the Hauser & Wirth Institute.

Deputy Director Michèle Wong will be interim director.

GREY ART MUSEUM, New York University 

18 Cooper Square, New York, NY 10003

greyartmuseum.nyu.edu

Mostly New: Selections from the NYU Art Collection @ Grey Art Gallery, New York University

Mostly New: Selections from the NYU Art Collection

Grey Art Gallery, New York University

Through December 17, 2022

Kenji Nakahashi

Time – (A) c. 1980; printed 1985

Gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 in. 

Grey Art Gallery, NYU Art Collection

Anonymous gift, 2021.4.5

Courtesy of the Grey Art Gallery

The Grey Art Gallery at New York University presents Mostly New: Selections from the NYU Art Collection, the museum’s first exhibition since it closed in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The exhibition presents a compelling sampling of the New York University Art Collection, with more than 90 artworks by nearly 60 artists. Curated by the Grey Art Gallery’s Lynn Gumpert and Michèle Wong, the show features recent acquisitions of modern and contemporary art from the Middle East by artists such as Farah Al Qasimi, Shahpour Pouyan, and Parviz Tanavoli and spotlights photography, with works by Harry Callahan, Peter Hujar, and Kenji Nakahashi, among others. Mostly New also debuts a selection of works from the Grey’s newly acquired Cottrell-Lovett Collection, donated by longtime art patrons, social activists, and downtown Manhattan residents Dr. James Cottrell and Mr. Joseph Lovett. Included are paintings and prints by Downtown New York artists such as Donald Baechler, Deborah Kass, and Glenn Ligon. Established in 1958—and stewarded by the Grey Art Gallery since the museum’s opening in 1975—the New York University Art Collection now comprises over 6,000 objects. Following such exhibitions as New York Cool: Painting and Sculpture from the NYU Art Collection (2008), Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952–1965 (2017), and, most recently, Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYU’s Abby Weed Grey Collection (2019), Mostly New offers visitors the opportunity to view never-seen and rarely displayed gems from a landmark academic art collection.

“While the Grey has been closed to the public, our staff has continued to care for and build the NYU Art Collection,” notes Lynn Gumpert, director of the Grey Art Gallery. “As the museum undergoes a major period of transition—thanks to the transformative gift from Joe Lovett and Jim Cottrell—Mostly New offers a fitting opportunity to refocus on the Grey’s core identity as a collecting institution.” Michèle Wong, the Grey’s Associate Director and Head of Collections and Exhibitions, adds, “As a longtime Grey staff member, I relish seeing both newer and older collection works together and on view— and reminding both the university community and our other audiences that the Grey provides a home for art and dialogue on NYU’s campus.” 

Keith Haring

Bill T. Jones, 1984

Color offset lithograph, 35 x 23 in.

Grey Art Gallery, NYU Art Collection

Gift of Denise Green, 2016.9.2

Courtesy of the Grey Art Gallery

Donald Baechler

The Lucky Ring, 2008

Silkscreen on paper, 19 x 14 in. 

Grey Art Gallery, NYU Art Collection 

Gift of Cottrell-Lovett Collection, 2021.5.3

Courtesy of the Grey Art Gallery

Exhibition Overview

Mostly New highlights one of the NYU Art Collection’s strongest components—modern American art from the 1940s to the present, particularly paintings and prints by artists who lived and worked in the rich cultural landscape of downtown New York City. Figurative works by luminaries like Keith Haring and Andy Warhol introduce viewers to other influential figures of the downtown arts scene in the 1980s, such as dancers Bill T. Jones and Jock Soto. Work by artist Donald Baechler, who emerged in the ’80s as part of the East Village creative community alongside the likes of Warhol and Haring, reveals the artist’s interest in formal issues of line, shape, and color. Likewise, Brooklyn-based artist Deborah Kass explores pop culture as it intersects with art history. A late painting by Grace Hartigan, an influential member of the New York School, shows how the artist blended her signature Abstract Expressionist sensibility with a renewed interest in the figure. Influenced by 1960s counterculture and life in her native California, work by Mary Heilmann presents an upbeat, eccentric view of geometric abstraction. While Glenn Ligon is best known for works comprising stenciled fragments of famous texts, a 2004 print presents a more abstract exploration of issues of identity and the Black experience. A rare portrait by photographer Adam Fuss commemorates art patrons Dr. James Cottrell and Joseph Lovett, who maintain vital friendships with artists whose work they collect.

The NYU Art Collection also boasts significant photography holdings. Brooklyn-born photographer Emil Cadoo, who eventually moved to Paris in hopes of escaping racism in the United States, combined images of human and botanical subjects with textured overlays that expressed the subject’s inner psyche. Photojournalist and Lower Manhattan resident Danny Lyon turned his camera toward large-scale demolition projects going on in the neighborhood in the late 1960s. Harry Callahan’s experimental prints represent an important juncture in the history of photography when the creative capacities of the camera were explored. Cindy Sherman assumes a variety of guises for her self-portraits, appropriating characters from well-known stories as well as art history. Like Sherman, drag performance artist and actor Ethyl Eichelberger donned the identities of influential historical figures, as seen in photos by Peter Hujar, a chronicler of downtown New York’s creative vanguard and queer communities during the 1970s and ’80s. Work by Japanese-born New York transplant Kenji Nakahashi reveals the abstract imagery in everyday settings, like city subway stations. Miwa Yanagi applies a more socially conscious eye to the world around her—her series Elevator Girls investigates gender norms for Japanese women in the late 1990s.

Farah Al Qasimi

Living Room Vape, 2017

Archival inkjet print, 26 1/4 x 35 in. 

Grey Art Gallery, NYU Art Collection

Gift of Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi 

on behalf of Barjeel Art Foundation, 2018.1

Courtesy of the Grey Art Gallery

In line with the principles of the museum’s founder, Abby Weed Grey, the Grey Art Gallery also ­­­collects modern and contemporary art from the Middle East. Mostly New particularly highlights work by artists from Iran, where Mrs. Grey traveled eight times in the 1960s and ’70s. Parviz Tanavoli is one of Iran’s foremost sculptors and, through his close friendship with Abby Grey, helped shape the museum’s remarkable holdings. Like his sculptures, Tanavoli’s works on paper utilize motifs from Persian culture, including symbols of folklore and mysticism and objects found in bazaars. A 1965 work by Marcos Grigorian—a pioneering Iranian artist and professor at the University of Tehran—reflects the artist’s preoccupation with earth and mud as artistic medium­, recalling the Iranian desert. Informed by Persian miniature painting, work by Tehran-born artist Shiva Ahmadi features mythical creatures and enthroned figures characterized by ornate patterns, rich textures, and vivid hues. Shahpour Pouyan’s reinterpretation of traditional Persian miniature painting is absent of all figures, drawing attention instead to the landscape and domestic settings. Having moved away from her native Iran as a young child, Samira Abbassy uses her work as a means of exploring her relationship to Iranian culture and broader issues of identity. A photograph by the Emirati-born artist Farah Al Qasimi—donated by the founder of the Sharjah-based Barjeel Art Foundation, who collaborated with the Grey on Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s (2020)—offers viewers a playful glimpse into life in the Persian Gulf.

Mostly New: Selections from the NYU Art Collection is organized by the Grey Art Gallery, New York University, and curated by Lynn Gumpert and Michèle Wong. Generous support is provided by the Grey’s Director’s Circle, Inter/National Council, and Friends; and the Abby Weed Grey Trust.

Related Post: History of the NYU Art Collection

GREY ART GALLERY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 

100 Washington Square East, New York, NY 10003

greyartgallery.nyu.edu

History of the NYU Art Collection, Grey Art Gallery, New York University

History of the NYU Art Collection

The Grey Art Gallery, New York University’s fine arts museum, enables and encourages transformative encounters with works of art. Engaging with challenging issues in the study of material culture, the Grey serves as a museum-laboratory, sparking interdisciplinary scholarship. Uniquely positioned to cultivate visual literacy and critical thinking, the Grey shares NYU’s fundamental commitment as a global research university to advance knowledge of different cultures, contexts, and histories across time. The Grey also fosters experiential learning through its collections and participates in the cultural, intellectual, and environmental spheres of NYU’s Global Network, of New York City, and of the broader world. In 2025 the Grey will celebrate its 50th anniversary.

The creation of the New York University Art Collection was inspired by A.E. Gallatin’s Gallery (later Museum) of Living Art, which opened in 1927 on the same site the Grey currently occupies. As the first institution in the U.S. to exhibit work by living artists—including Picasso, Léger, Mirò, Mondrian, Arp and members of the American Abstract Artists group—Gallatin’s Museum provided an important forum for intellectual and artistic exchange. When the Museum closed in 1942, Professor Howard S. Conant of NYU’s Department of Art Education bemoaned the lack of original art on campus and initiated the NYU Art Collection in 1958. The collection expanded quickly, with many sculptures, drawings, prints, and photographs installed throughout the campus. With a fast-growing academic art collection joining the artistic milieu of Greenwich Village—where New York School artists like Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, and Ad Reinhardt lived and worked alongside NYU’s impressive faculty of artists, art historians, and scholars—NYU continued to play a crucial role in the city’s cultural life.

The university remained without a permanent museum until 1975, when a generous gift from Abby Weed Grey enabled renovation and improvement of the historic space, and the doors reopened as the Grey Art Gallery. This gift, along with the donation of her prescient collection of contemporary art from the Middle East and Asia, greatly augmented the university’s art holdings and provided a space for temporary exhibitions. In 2021 the NYU Art Collection again significantly expanded thanks to a donation of approximately 200 artworks by Downtown New York City artists from the collection of Dr. James Cottrell and Joseph Lovett.

For nearly 50 years, the Grey has produced numerous exhibitions and publications on the NYU Art Collection, including New York Cool (2008), a survey of Lower Manhattan’s disparate art world in the 1950s and early ’60s; Abby Grey and Indian Modernism (2015), which explored the vital art scene that blossomed after Indian independence in 1947; Inventing Downtown (2017), the first show ever to survey this vital period from the vantage point of its artist-run galleries; and Modernisms (2019), an examination of how artists from Iran, Turkey, and India engaged in global discourses around key issues of modernity. 

Source: Grey Art Gallery's Press Release, 2022.

GREY ART GALLERY, NEW YORK UNIVERSITY 

100 Washington Square East, New York, NY 10003

greyartgallery.nyu.edu

Focus Beijing. Collection De Heus-Zomer at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

Focus Beijing

Collection De Heus-Zomer

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam

14 June - 21 September 2014

The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen presents a selection from the collection of Chinese contemporary art amassed by Henk de Heus and his wife Victoria de Heus-Zomer. The couple have been travelling to China regularly since the late nineteen-nineties, buying work by leading artists. This important private collection of contemporary Chinese art has never been exhibited in context before.

Henk de Heus and Victoria de Heus-Zomer’s collection of Chinese art is unique in the Netherlands. Since their first visit to China in 1998 they have been collecting contemporary Chinese art. Underpinning this extraordinary collection is the relationship of trust that the couple has built up with various artists over the years. In dialogue with the collectors, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has selected some twenty artists who represent two generations, and live and work in Beijing. The museum is showing a selection of paintings, photographs and sculptures. The exhibition is the grand finale crowning a series of three exhibitions of works from the De Heus-Zomer Collection.

Current Art from Beijing

‘Focus on Beijing: Collection De Heus-Zomer’ is an exhibition spotlighting a number of prominent artists from Beijing who represent two generations. The first grew up in the nineteen-fifties and sixties. Their works reflects strong political engagement, with allusions to China’s traumatic history and the social and cultural revolution she has undergone in recent decades. Artists like Zhang Dali (Harbin, 1963), Zhang Xiaogang (Kunming, 1958), Hai Bo (Changchun,1962) and Ai Weiwei (Beijing, 1957) represent this generation. The second generation of artists grew up in the nineteen-seventies and eighties, the period of the Chinese open-door policy. Artists like Qiu Xiaofei (Hoerbin, 1977), Wang Guangle (Fujian, 1976) and Liang Yuanwei (Xi’an, 1977) were born at a time when Chinese society was starting to turn more towards the West, a period of strong growth when the effect of market forces was becoming evident. Individuality and intuition are key to their work as artists. They know all about trends in the global art world-much more than that art world knows about developments in contemporary Chinese art.

The De Heus-Zomer Collection

Henk and Victoria de Heus-Zomer have been collecting art since the late nineteen-eighties. When they began, they were looking for things to fill the walls in their house in Barneveld. Over the years the collection grew to become a leading private collection, with numerous masterpieces by artists like Marlene Dumas, René Daniëls, JCJ VanderHeijden, Neo Rauch, Anselm Kiefer and Thomas Struth. Since 2010 they have created three exhibitions of work from the collection: in Singer Laren and last year in Museum Belvédère. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen concludes this trilogy.

Sensory Spaces 4 - Liu Wei

The focus of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s summer programme this year is contemporary Chinese art. To coincide with Focus on Beijing, the Chinese artist Liu Wei has been commissioned by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen to make a site-specific installation for the Sensory Spaces series. In this series an artist is invited to respond to the properties of a particular space-the museum’s Willem van der Vorm Gallery- and manipulate them in an unexpected manner. Liu Wei’s monumental work is a reflection on China’s urbanization.

Focus Bejing - De Heus-Zomer Collection

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam - 2014

English - Chinese exhibition catalogue 

Authors: Feng Boyi, Hans den Hartog Jager, Noor Mertens

Design by Stern / Den Hartog & De Vries

23 x 28 cm - 192 p. - ISBN:978-90-6918-279-7 -Hardcover

Catalogue/ARTtube: Accompanying the exhibition is a publication with contributions by Feng Boyi, Hans den Hartog Jager, Noor Mertens and Sjarel Ex. An ARTtube video is also being developed for the exhibition.

MUSEUM BOIJMANS VAN BEUNINGEN

Museumpark 18-20, 3015 CX Rotterdam

www.boijmans.nl

Japanese Lacquer, Jacqueline Avant Collection at Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas

Gold on Black: Japanese Lacquer from the Jacqueline Avant Collection
Crow Collection of Asian Art, Dallas 
Through September 15, 2013

Showcasing the delicate beauty of Japanese lacquer dating from the early-17th to the early-20th century, Gold on Black: Japanese Lacquer from the Jacqueline Avant Collection on view at the Crow Collection of Asian Art in Dallas, USA, features over 40 Japanese lacquer items that would have been used primarily for arts and entertainment purposes. 

Ancient Japanese Lacquer

Writing Box (suzuribako) with design of Ono no Komachi, Japan, circa 1800. 

Lacquer, gold, silver, carved purple glass, black lacquered metal, gold metal on wood, suzu (tin alloy) rims

Courtesy The Jacqueline Avant Collection, Photograph Susan Einstein, Los Angeles.

Californian Japanese Art Collector Jacqueline Avant’s interest in collecting exquisite lacquer works used for poetry writing, poetry matching games, enjoyment of food or smoking, ceremonial display, wear, or personal care, such as boxes for combs, mirrors, tooth blackening powder, or incense, comprise the majority of the pieces selected for this exhibition. Also on view are boxes to hold objects of religious devotion, such as Buddhist holy texts (sutras), and even weapons for self-defense, including a decorated baton or knife.

“The Japanese have long been attributed with bringing the art of lacquer to its highest technical and aesthetic development,” says Crow Collection of Asian Art Executive Director Amy Lewis Hofland. “However, Japanese lacquer remains a subject rarely presented in American museums. When we learned of these works we knew our audiences would love the beauty and history of this painstakingly refined art form. It is a natural fit for the Crow Collection.”

Many works featured in Gold on Black originated from the dowries of feudal lord families, with family crests recording marriages of power and influence. Others were collected to delight wealthy merchants and reflect their personal tastes in dress and activities, from tea to smoking or composing poetry.

Recent finds suggest that lacquer has been employed in Japan as a protective film for at least 11,000 years. The lacquer is painstakingly harvested from twenty-year-old cultivated urushi trees; each tree is bled for its sap, producing less than a cup of liquid and giving up its life in the process of harvest. The lacquer is then filtered and applied in about thirty thin layers to a paulownia wood or lacquered hemp core. After each layer is polymerized in a humidor and then sanded, the upper layers are sprinkled with gold or silver powders and flecks to create designs. The final coat of clear lacquer is then ground down to reveal the metallic design. The care and skill required for application of both ground lacquer layers and design, and the rarity and expense of materials, meant that lacquer work was the most revered of family treasures in Japan, just as silver would have been in Europe or the Americas.

Hollis Goodall, curator of Japanese art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, selected the works featured in Gold on Black: Japanese Lacquer from the Jacqueline Avant Collection. 

China Through the Lens of John Thomson remains on view along with Peninsulas and Dragon Tails: Southeast Asian Art from the Crow Collection and with the acclaimed collection of Tantric sculpture from Trammell S. Crow’s private collection.

Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art Website: www.crowcollection.org

Collection Jean-Paul Morin, Vente Pierre Bergé & Associés

La première partie de la COLLECTION JEAN-PAUL MORIN consacrée aux voyages est présentée à Drouot par Pierre Bergé & Associés. Mais ce n'est qu'un début puisque cette première vente sera suivie de trois autres au premier semestre 2012.

Cette collection se distingue par son ouverture, sa diversité, sa richesse. Jean-Paul Morin, petit-fils du peintre Jean Sala et fils de médecins parisiens, s’intéresse très tôt aux livres de voyage puis à tous les dérivés liés aux périples : arts premiers, objets insolites, photos d’ethnographie… Jean-Paul Morin est un voyageur infatigable, passionné de découvrir de nouveaux horizons. Il entreprend ainsi de nombreuses expéditions dans l’Antarctique et l’Arctique et parcourt le monde entier,  y compris dans les zones les plus reculées : Malouines, Kerguelen, Spitzberg, Eparses etc… Sa bibliothèque est d’abord celle d’un lecteur et d’un curieux, mais elle est aussi celle d’un bibliophile privilégiant les premières éditions, les tirages sur grand papier ou les exemplaires coloriés.

JOHN WILLIAM LINDT (1845 - 1926)
Femme aborigène, vers 1873
Tirage albuminé d’après un négatif au collodion
H 200 mm L 150 mm
Photo © & Courtesy Pierre Bergé & Associés

Aux livres, manuscrits et cartes, s’ajoute une collection de photographies originales avec plus de 2500 tirages albuminés et argentiques. Rapportée de reportages et missions ethnographiques de la fin du XIXe aux années cinquante, cette collection d’images révèle les visages des ethnies de tous les pays du monde : Australie, Nouvelle-Zélande, Congo, Rwanda, Tchad, Soudan, îles Marquises, Madagascar, Nouvelle-Guinée, Somalie, Thaïlande, Indochine, Siam, Japon, Indonésie, Soudan, Birmanie, Inde, Polynésie, Sénégal, Hawaï, Nouvelle-Calédonie ... Les auteurs de ces photographies

FRANK HURLEY  (1885 - 1962)
Cérémonie aborigène, vers 1920
Tirage argentique d’après un négatif verre
H 450 mm L 342 mm
Photo © & Courtesy Pierre Bergé & Associés

Enfin, prolongement naturel autant que trophées d’une curiosité insatiable, les objets d’ethnographie. C’est encore à un voyage que nous sommes conviés à travers l’ensemble d’objets choisis au gré des coups de cœur de ce bibliophile émérite et grand curieux devant l’éternel. « L’art océanien, c’est le ciel, l’oiseau, le rêve » (André Breton). On pourrait aussi ajouter la mer et surtout la pirogue qui a permis le peuplement de toute l’Océanie à travers les siècles par ces merveilleux argonautes et qui incarne d’une manière si belle, le voyage et l’aventure. Au vu de cette incroyable armada, le plus important ensemble sans doute jamais constitué sur ce thème (près de 80 modèles réduits de pirogues provenant des quatre coins de la si vaste Océanie), il n’est plus qu’à se laisser envoûter pour que « nos âmes rêveuses appareillent pour un ciel lointain ».

Pirogue Buka, archipel des Iles Salomon
L 194 cm P 33 cm
Photo © & Courtesy Pierre Bergé & Associés

La collection est constituée également d’un ensemble important d’œuvres (massues, pagaies, lances, objets cérémoniels…) issues des cultures les plus représentatives de l’art océanien (Papouasie Nouvelle-Guinée, archipel des Salomons et de l’Amirauté) afin de nous permettre de continuer le voyage cette fois-ci sur la terre ferme et se plonger dans l’univers guerrier et artistique de ces cultures lointaines et fascinantes. A noter le pedigree parfois mythique de certains objets et notamment d’un ensemble très conséquent de pièces provenant de l’expédition de la Korrigane, voyage devenu légendaire aux yeux des océanistes passionnés.

Dans sa diversité même, cette collection présente une réelle unité  : celle d’une grande curiosité sur le monde et sur les hommes. Elle reflète la singularité d’un itinéraire professionnel où l’action se nourrit d’une réflexion permanente sur le monde.

Expositions publiques à Drouot Richelieu
Mercredi 2 Novembre de 11 h à 18 h et Jeudi 3 Novembre de 11 h à 18 h
Vente Drouot Richelieu : Vendredi 4 Novembre à 14 h

Experts : Pour les photographies, il s'agit de Renaud Vanuxem, et pour les livres & manuscrits et l'océanographie, il s'agit, respectivement de Serge Kakou et Benoît Forgeot. La scénographie de l'exposition a été confiée à Nathalie Crinière.

Le catalogue de l’exposition est disponible sur le site de Pierre Bergé & Associés : www.pba-auctions.com

MFA Museum of Fine Arts, Boston – The New MFA opens

MFA - Museum of Fine Arts, Boston to open Art of the Americas Wing
and Shapiro Family Courtyard,
designed by Foster + Partners

The highly anticipated wing for the Art of the Americas and Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), will open to the public on Saturday, November 20. In celebration, the Museum is hosting a free Community Day to welcome visitors to see The New MFA. The wing and enclosed courtyard are the focal points of the Museum’s transformational expansion and renovation project, designed by internationally renowned architects Foster + Partners (London). These additions elegantly incorporate a modernist aesthetic into the Museum’s 1909 Beaux Arts building. The MFA’s project represents the most expansive initiative focused on American art and culture happening in the world today. It allows for more than 5,000 works from the Museum’s Art of the Americas collections to be on view, which more than doubles the number previously displayed. Complementing the wing is a soaring glass courtyard—the Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard—one of the most distinctive architectural spaces in Boston, which serves as a dynamic central meeting place within the MFA.

“With the opening of the new wing for the Art of the Americas and the Shapiro Family Courtyard, our vision for The New MFA will be realized. These beautifully designed spaces will enrich the visitor experience and set a dramatic stage for the Museum’s Art of the Americas collections in a unique setting—Boston—where much of this country’s history took shape,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the Museum. “The MFA chose to collaborate with Foster + Partners because of the firm’s unparalleled reputation for space planning and its deep understanding of how to best present the Museum’s great works of art. Foster + Partners has succeeded in not only designing a magnificent addition that is innovative and functional, but also in developing a comprehensive master site plan for the Museum for future generations.”

Foster + Partners, the Pritzker prize-winning international studio for architecture, planning, and design, is led by its founder and chairman, Lord Foster, who supervised the design of the MFA’s expansion and renovation with Spencer de Grey, Senior Partner and Head of Design, and Michael Jones, Partner.

“This has been one of the most fascinating projects—how to combine the constraints of history with a new intervention that will show off the Museum’s extraordinary collection of American Art in a way that will excite, entrance and educate the MFA’s public,” said Spencer de Grey. “Learning from the Museum’s original master plan we have re-addressed the balance of the Museum, creating contemporary spaces for the display of the collection and a new heart for the MFA encapsulated in glass.”

The MFA’s expansion and renovation project will provide additional space for the Museum’s encyclopedic collections, special exhibitions, and educational programs. It increases the building’s total square footage by 28 percent, from 483,447 to 616,937 square feet. The design by Foster + Partners reestablishes the MFA’s important north-south axis envisioned by Guy Lowell, the Museum’s original architect (1870–1927), which brings visitors to the heart of the MFA and improves navigation throughout the building. New landscaping surrounding the Museum’s campus, designed by landscape architects Gustafson Guthrie Nichol Ltd. (Seattle, WA), complements the building. The design, which includes more than 1,000 holly bushes and 50 trees, was inspired by Frederick Law Olmsted’s nearby Back Bay Fens, part of his famed Emerald Necklace.

The 121,307-square-foot wing for the Art of the Americas, located to the east of the Museum along Forsyth Way, features a central glass building flanked by two pavilions of glass and granite, one north and one south. Foster + Partners developed a bespoke, state-of-the-art glazing system for the glass with Seele in Germany and worked with Deer Isle granite from Maine—the same stone used in the MFA’s original building. This dialogue between the old and new is a signature element for which the architects are renowned. The wing’s transparent design makes the Museum more welcoming to the surrounding community, and from the top floors of the four-level building, visitors enjoy a sweeping vista of Boston—from Fenway Park to the Back Bay skyline.

The Art of the Americas Wing contains 53 galleries—totaling 51,338 square feet—which include nine period rooms and four Behind the Scenes galleries. Also featured is the 150-seat Barbara and Theodore Alfond Auditorium—measuring 2,128 square feet—for films, concerts, and lectures, located on the ground level. Adjacent to it are two studio arts classrooms and a seminar room. Additionally, the wing incorporates administrative offices and meeting rooms on the top two levels of the pavilions.

The MFA’s wing offers a broad context for American art, expanding the definition to include works from North, Central, and South America that span the course of three millennia, up to the late 20th century. For the first time since the Museum’s founding in 1870, magnificent works representing all of the Americas are presented together in a wide range of media, including paintings, sculpture, works on paper, furniture, decorative arts, and musical instruments, as well as textiles, fashions, and jewelry.

Galleries are arranged chronologically on the four floors, allowing visitors to travel through time as they rise vertically. They begin on Level LG, which is dedicated to ancient American, Native American, 17th Century, and Maritime Art; Level 1 features 18th-century art of the Colonial Americas and early 19th-century art; Level 2 examines 19th-century and early 20th-century art; and Level 3 presents 20th-century art through the mid 1970s. In the center of each level, large-scale core galleries run along a central spine where key works of art highlight thematic elements of each period. Adding depth and breadth to the broad narratives of these core galleries are additional galleries that run along each side on the north and south.

“The new galleries allow us to present our collections in a variety of ways that highlight different periods, cultures, styles, artists, makers, and themes,” said Elliot Bostwick Davis, the John Moors Cabot Chair of the Art of the Americas Department at the MFA, who led the department’s curatorial staff in the planning and installation of the Museum’s new wing. “We hope visitors will discover a range of objects—whether familiar or entirely new to them—that speak to the breadth, richness, and diversity of artistic expression emanating from the United States and, more broadly, from the Americas.”

The wing was designed specifically around the Museum’s Art of the Americas collections. Many galleries feature walls adorned in rich period colors, sumptuous silk brocades, and imported 18th- and 19th-century wallpapers. Light oak floors from the Pacific Northwest have been used in most of the galleries, and more than 200 climate-controlled display cases made by Goppion of Milan are located throughout the wing. Accommodations have been made for works large and small drawn from the MFA’s Art of the Americas collection. On Level 1, where the ceiling height is 15 feet, a special niche was created above one wall of the New Nation Gallery for The Passage of the Delaware (1819), Thomas Sully’s monumental painting and the first canvas to be hung in the new Art of the Americas Wing. Allowances had to be made for both the painting (measuring 12 feet high and 17 feet wide) and its massive frame. While most of the galleries are 15 feet high, on Level 3 the core galleries have a 21’ 5” glass ceiling (with louvered panels to filter light), which allows for the exhibition of large-scale works.

Many iconic works from the Art of the Americas collection are on view in the galleries, including:

- Goldwork in the Ancient South America Gallery and patterned ceramics by the ancient Mimbres and Anasazi in the Native North America Gallery
- Paul Revere’s historic silver Sons of Liberty Bowl (1768), paired with John Singleton Copley’s portrait (1768) of the silversmith and patriot in the Colonial Boston Gallery
- Winslow Homer’s charming canvas, Boys in a Pasture (1874), in Homer and Eakins: The Civil War Gallery
- More than 40 paintings, watercolors, and drawings by John Singer Sargent, including his masterpiece, The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit (1882), in the Sargent Gallery, paired with the two large Japanese vases pictured in the painting
- A brilliant stained-glass window by Louis Comfort Tiffany, Parakeets and Gold Fish Bowl (about 1893), showcased in the Aesthetic Movement Gallery
- A Folk Art Pictorial quilt (1895-98) sewn by former slave Harriet Powers - Joseph Stella’s spectacular painting Old Brooklyn Bridge (about 1941) in the American Art and Design: The 1920s and 1930s Gallery
- Argentinean artist César Paternosto’s recently acquired bold and vibrant oil Staccato (1965), on view in the Abstraction: A Revolution Gallery

The wing’s nine period rooms (located on Levels LG, 1, and 2) offer full-scale settings illustrating the lifestyles of several prosperous New Englanders in the 17th through 19th centuries, such as two mid 19th-century rooms from the Roswell Gleason House in Dorchester, Massachusetts, installed within the Museum for the first time. The four Behind the Scenes education galleries give visitors a hands-on, insider’s view of the work done by Museum curators and conservators. Digital displays and interactive touch screens in many of the galleries enhance the appreciation of works of art and stylistic periods. In addition, three rotating galleries showcase light-sensitive works—photographs, prints, and textiles—such as images by Edward Weston and Alfred Stieglitz, prints by Mary Cassatt and James Abbott McNeill Whistler, and Colonial Boston embroideries and samplers.

The Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard, a soaring glass structure enclosing one of the Museum’s two courtyards, is adjacent to the Art of the Americas Wing. The spectacular light-filled gathering place, where visitors can meet, relax, and dine in the café, affords year-round enjoyment of the outdoors and also serves as a venue for special events. Measuring 12,184-square feet and 63 feet high, the courtyard is almost entirely composed of double- and triple-glazed glass—504 large panels, totaling 29,550 square feet—supported by a steel frame. Inside the courtyard, ivory “crema luna” limestone from France lines the eastern wall where it meets the Art of the Americas Wing and frames the wing’s “floating” staircase. Kuru Grey granite from Finland is used for the floor. The courtyard offers a link between the Sharf Visitor Center in the heart of the Museum’s historic building, and the new wing for the Art of the Americas to the east. Because of its location within the Museum’s original building, the design for the courtyard incorporates landscaped areas along its north and south perimeters featuring sculpture and plantings.

A new Ann and Graham Gund Gallery for special exhibitions is located below the Shapiro Family Courtyard on Level LG, where it connects to the wing for the Art of Americas. The gallery measures 8,280 square feet and nearly 16 feet high. It incorporates a square, open plan and moveable walls, allowing maximum flexibility for the display of artwork, and features a state-of-the-art lighting system. Adjacent to the gallery is a Museum shop. A wide range of special exhibitions reflecting a variety of cultures and time periods will be presented in the new Gund Gallery. The first exhibition is Fresh Ink: Ten Takes on Contemporary Chinese Tradition (on view November 20, 2010, through February 13, 2011), which offers a dynamic dialogue between masterpieces of the MFA’s collection and newly created works of contemporary Chinese art.

In addition to new construction, the MFA’s expansive building project incorporated significant renovations to the Museum’s historic building, including the State Street Corporation Fenway Entrance to the north and the Huntington Avenue Entrance on the Avenue of the Arts to the south, which reinforced the MFA’s original axis. This enhances the ways visitors encounter the Museum and its encyclopedic collections, and offers a coherent plan for navigation throughout the building. Also renovated were the Jean S. and Frederic A. Sharf Visitor Center, numerous galleries, and conservation labs.

The MFA’s building team, in addition to Foster + Partners, included CBT/Childs Bertman Tseckares Inc., Boston, architect of record, and John Moriarty & Associates, General Contractor, Boston, construction manager. The project, which broke ground in 2005, was supported by a $504 million campaign, which included $345 million for new construction and renovations, and $159 million for endowment of programs and positions, and annual operations. More than 25,000 people contributed to the campaign, which concluded in 2008.

These ambitious expansion and renovation initiatives underscore the MFA’s mission, to make art more accessible and exciting for the more than one million families, school children, college students and adults who come to the Museum each year for inspiration and education, and who value it as a vital community resource. The MFA’s enhancements enrich the experience for visitors from Boston and around the world by offering vibrant new spaces and by showcasing works from all of the Americas in a comprehensive new context. In celebration of The New MFA, a number of special events are planned, beginning with the free Community Day on Saturday, November 20. Those individuals interested in a preview are encouraged to support the MFA by becoming a Member and attend special Members Week activities November 14–19.

ART OF AMERICAS PUBLICATION

 

A NEW WORLD IMAGED  © MFA

In conjunction with the opening of the MFA’s new wing for the Art of the Americas, A New World Imagined: Art of the Americas (MFA Publications, 2010), will be published in November. The book offers a bold new look at the art of the Americas by viewing it through its intersections with the world at large. Taking the vast geography and cultural diversity of the North and South American continents as its starting point, it introduces the ways in which American art, broadly defined, has been shaped both by its encounters with cultures around the globe and by its own past—from the ancient and native populations who first inhabited these territories to the European, Asian, Scandinavian, and Latino émigrés who settled here. Edited by Elliot Bostwick Davis, the John Moors Cabot Chair of the Art of the Americas Department at the MFA, A New World Imagined presents essays by Museum curators who discuss more than 200 works of art from the MFA, including some of its most celebrated paintings, sculpture, and furniture. The 350-page book features approximately 300 color images. By Elliot B. Davis, Dennis Carr, Nonie Gadsden, Cody Hartley, Erica E. Hirshler, Heather Hole, Kelly H. L’Ecuyer, Karen E. Quinn, Dorie Reents-Budet & Gerald W. R. Ward. It is available in hardcover for $60 at the MFA Bookstore and Shop or at mfa.org/publications

Other MFA's related publications

American Painting - MFA Highlights   © MFA

By Elliot B. Davis, Erica E. Hirshler, Janet L. Comey, Karen E. Quinn, Ellen Roberts & Carol Troyen
232 pages. 150 color illustrations

"Over 100 masterworks from 1670 to 1960, by artists as diverse as Sargent, Whistler, Cassatt, Hopper, Gorky, and Pollock. Both a brief history of American painting, from the British colonies to the mid 20th century, and a discussion of its crucial themes, this is a valuable and enjoyable resource."

Native American Art - MFA Highlights   © MFA

By Gerald W. R. Ward, Pamela A. Parmal, Michael Suing, Heather Hole & Jennifer Swope
192 pages. 154 color & 6 b/w illustrations, 1 map

"The collection of Native American artworks is one of the hidden treasures of the MFA, with many of its finest objects seldom displayed to ensure their preservation. This book presents 100 of these little-known works—many published for the first time—ranging from ancient to contemporary, and covering objects from across the North American continent."

American Decorative Arts and Sculpture - MFA Highlights © MFA

By Gerald W. R. Ward, Nonie Gadsden & Kelly H. L’Ecuyer
224 pages. 188 color illustrations

"With over 100 carefully selected masterpieces of furniture, silver, glass, ceramics, coins and medals, basketry, and sculpture, this volume offers a unique window into the beauty and meaning of the decorative arts as they have flourished in the American context, broadly conceived."

Masterpices: Great Paintings of the World in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston  © MFA

Foreword by Malcolm Rogers
224 pages. 170 color illustrations

"Whatever form it takes, the expressiveness and adaptability of paint have stirred artists throughout history. This completely rewritten and redesigned edition of a longstanding favorite presents 150 works by artists from Asia, Europe, and the Americas: delicate Song-dynasty handscrolls, jewel-like images of medieval piety, scenes of mythic drama, austere still lifes, sensitive portraits, grand landscapes, and jarring modern visions. Featuring artists such as Rembrandt, El Greco, Copley, Monet, Sargent, and Picasso, anonymous masters of medieval Europe and Asia, and living painters of uncompromising vision such as Gerhard Richter and David Hockney, Masterpieces is a lavish celebration of the possibilities of paint."

Silver of the Americas, 1600-2000: American Silver in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston  © MFA

Edited by Jeannine Falino & Gerald W. R. Ward
560 pages. over 1,000 duotone illustrations

"Nearly 700 objects from the 17th century to the present, including the Colonial era, Federal period, 19th-century Revival styles, the aesthetic movement, the Arts and Crafts period, and 20th-century modernism."

The MFA Handbook: A Guide to the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston © MFA

By Gilian Shallcross, introduction by Malcolm Rogers
400 pages. Color illustrations throughout

"Featuring more than 500 objects from all times and places (nearly 100 of them new to this edition)—Native American ceramics to European shoes, Egyptian funerary arts to Warhol silkscreens, not to mention the Museum’s world-renowned collections of paintings and sculpture—The MFA Handbook provides a window on works that have surprised, delighted, and inspired visitors since the MFA first opened its doors in 1876."

Director's Choice: A Tour of Masterpices in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston © MFA

By Malcolm Rogers
80 pages. 80 color illustrations

"Discussing some 70 objects from across the MFA’s extensive collections, Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, takes readers on a virtual tour of the Museum’s most outstanding masterworks. The objects presented cover the full range of times and cultures, from Yorumba veranda posts, Mayan drinking vessels, and Asian decorative arts to paintings, sculptures, and prints by the likes of Hopper, Homer, O’Keeffe, Pollock, Rubens, Turner, El Greco, Renoir, and many others."

Invitation to Art: A History of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston  © MFA

By Maureen Melton
96 pages. 60 color & 55 duotone illustrations

"This social and architectural history traces the first 135 years of the MFA, from its beginning as a repository for armor to its current status as a leading arts institution. Informal, anecdotal, and profusely illustrated, Invitation to Art sketches Boston’s transformation from the post-Civil War era to the present, showing how the MFA’s role has changed as a reflection of the times. Illustrated with rare archival documents, this is both an informative history and a delightful souvenir."

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS, BOSTON Avenue of the Arts
465 Huntington Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115-5523, USA
www.mfa.org
Publications are available at www.mfa.org/publications

Art Collection of Max Palevsky Christie's Auctions

Highlights from The Collection of Max Palevsky tour started today at Christie's Paris where it is exhibited through September 21, followed by Christie’s Hong Kong from October 2-6, then to Christie’s London from October 9-14 and finally in Christie’s New York from October 21-27, 2010. 

The Collection of Max Palevsky is a superb group of over 250 works ranging  from Antiquities to those by the most significant artists from the Impressionist and Modern and Post-War and Contemporary periods.  The collection will be offered throughout multiple auctions starting in October 2010 at Christie’s New York and is expected to realize from $53 million to $78 million. 

Short biography of Max PALEVSKY (1924-2010) - Born in Chicago, he was an innovator and forerunner in computers and systems technology. His work continues to influence computing technology today. After serving in World War II, he traveled to New York and became fascinated with an exhibition on modern architecture at the Museum of Modern Art.  It was then that he began to envision what a modern utopia could be.  Palevsky was trained in mathematics and engineering and had a love for the literature of Balzac and Proust. In 1951 Palevsky leapt from a job as a philosophy professor at the University of California, Los Angeles to pursue computers technology, a fledgling field.

“We saw a class of problems that should be solved by computers, but for which no computers were being built.” — Max Palevsky, 1967

He worked early on at firms including Bendix Corporation and Packard Bell Computer Corporation.  In the early 1960s he  was a  proponent of small and medium-size business computers — a market he intuited was neglected by IBM and other leading firms at the time —  and co-founded Scientific Data Systems, which he eventually sold to Xerox in 1969 for close to $1 billion. He helped found Intel Corp. and then exited the corporate world for other endeavors such as film production, then politics supporting Democrats George McGovern, Robert F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Gray Davis. He also invested in a passion of his, Rolling Stone magazine. Palevsky began collecting art later in life, which enriched his homes in Beverly Hills, Malibu and Palm Springs, Calif.

“Max Palevsky’s keen intellect, passion for mathematics, computer systems and philosophy is acutely reflected in the works he collected,” said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s America.  “From Fernand Léger, whose obsession with the machine age echoed Palevsky’s own, to Richard Lindner’s robotic women and Alexander Calder’s riveted steel sculptures, there is a sense of order and symmetry to the collection.  Palevsky’s art collection offers insight to his genius.”

The Collection of Max Palevsky comprises Antiquities, Impressionist and Modern Art, Post-War and Contemporary Art, 20th Century Decorative Arts and Design, Prints and Multiples, Japanese Art, Latin American Art, American Sculpture and  Modern British Art.

Highlights from The Collection of Max Palevsky within Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale to be held on November 3, 2010 in New York, include five works by the French artist Fernand Léger (1881-1955). Most notable is Léger’s La Tasse de Thé 1921 (estimate: $8,000,000-12,000,000), a depiction of a voluptuous curvilinear woman against a geometric background of contrasting forms in primary colors. It belongs to Léger’s pivotal series of the early 1920s, which culminated in his seminal masterpiece Le Grand Déjeuner, on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It is the top lot in the Palevsky collection.  Femme sur fond rouge, femme assise, painted in the 1920s (estimate: $5,000,000-7,000,000) shows Léger in his most daring and reductive style, placing a woman in tones of steely gray and black against a flat crimson background. 

Max Palevsky’s love of Balzac inspired him to collect a series of Auguste Rodin bronzes related to the sculptor's commission for a monument to the author. Balzac étude finale (estimate: $500,000-700,000), depicting the imperious Balzac in costume, is the highlight of the group. Other exciting versions of the Balzac subject will be offered in the following Day Sale on November 4. 

Also a part of the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale is Giorgio Morandi’s poetic Natura Morta (estimate: $700,000-1,000,000), a still life of a carafe and two canisters in muted tones and an Egon Schiele work from 1911, named Liegender Akt mit schwarzen Strumpfen (estimate: $1,000,000- 1,500,000), depicting a nude woman lounging.

For the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening sale to be held on November 10, 2010, at Christie’s Rockefeller Center flagship, the highlights from The Collection of Max Palevsky include: Tableau Noire, a painted steel stabile sculpture completed by Alexander Calder in 1970 (estimate: $2,500,000-3,500,000), four works by Donald Judd including Untitled, 1980, a signature Judd stack comprised of 10 units of stainless steel and red anodized aluminum (estimate: $2,000,000-3,000,000) and Roy Lichtenstein’s Girl in Mirror, 1964 (estimate: $3,000,000-4,000,000) depicting a flaxen-haired woman smiling at her reflection in a hand mirror in porcelain enamel on steel.

Frank Stella’s Telluride, 1960-1961 (estimate: $4,000,000-6,000,000) is a rare and important example from his copper painting series, the majority are in museums and institutions. The T-shaped painting with striations in copper oil paint is a testament to Palevsky’s fondness for symmetry. Four lots by Richard Lindner are also slated to be sold in the Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale. Most notable is West 48th Street, 1964 (estimate: $600,000- 800,000) which shows a woman with breasts exposed wearing a fantastically-harsh metal corset juxtaposed with a ladylike handbag and opera-length gloves.

The standouts in the Antiquities auction on December 10, 2010 include: A Roman Marble Athena, circa 1st-2nd Century A.D. (estimate: $200,000-300,000), A Roman Marble Head of Aphrodite, circa 1st-2nd Century A.D. (estimate: $150,000- 250,000) and A Roman Marble Herm of a Draped Female, circa 1st-2nd century A.D. (estimate: $250,000-350,000).

Palevsky’s collection of Decorative Arts was international, but also focused on the richness of American decorative art in the early 20th century.  Christie’s 20th Century Decorative Arts & Design department will offer several pieces from The Collection of Max Palevsky on December 15th, 2010, including a group of leaded glass windows by the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright, Morris & Co. and Louis Sullivan; works by Tiffany Studios and an enameled silver vase by Archibald Knox for Liberty & Co. (estimate: $70,000-90,000).

On October 26, 2010, Christie’s will offer several works from The Collection of Max Palevsky in the Prints and Multiples Sale in New York.  The key features in that sale are Pablo Picasso, Buste de Femme au Chapeau, 1962 (estimate: $220,000-280,000) as well as several works by Roy Lichtenstein and Richard Lindner.

The Sonnabend Collection, Wexner Center, Colombus - From Pop to Now - Off-site exhibition

From Pop to Now

Wexner Center off-site, Colombus

November 3, 2002 – February 2, 2003

From Pop to Now showcases works from the private collection of gallery owners Ileana and Michael Sonnabend, including such artists as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Gilbert & George, Rona Pondick, Bruce Nauman, Anselm Kiefer, Jeff Koons, Elger Esser, and Christian Boltanski. Nearly 70 works—painting, sculpture, photography, and mixed-media installation—by about 50 artists are on view. Together, this selection sheds light on the intersections of pop, conceptualism, minimalism, postmodernism, and other major experimental art movements of the last century, in a show that is “brimming with important pieces” (The New York Times, June 30, 2002).

From Pop to Now was organized by the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY. The presentation in Columbus coincides with the Wexner Center’s gallery renovations. All exhibitions in the upcoming season will be presented off-site, with three presented in downtown Columbus.

THE SONNABEND COLLECTION

Ileana Sonnabend—who became known in the ’60s as “The Mom of Pop Art”—has been a seminal force in the contemporary art world for 40 years, identifying young, emerging artists and introducing their work to wide audiences in both Europe and the United States. Her enthusiasm for collecting began in the 1950s during her brief marriage to art dealer Leo Castelli, and continued with her marriage to Michael Sonnabend, with whom she ran galleries in Paris and New York. The Sonnabends introduced new American artists—such as Robert Rauschenberg and Dan Flavin—to Europe, and brought European artists to the attention of New York audiences (e.g., Ileana was the first to bring the new German art to New York in the early 1980s). The vast Sonnabend Collection includes contemporary paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and works in new and nontraditional media, collected over the decades.

From Pop to Now is the most comprehensive survey to date of the Sonnabends’ legacy. The exhibition includes key works originally shown at their galleries, along with rarely seen pieces from their private collection. “I’m particularly interested in works that are by now ‘classical’ and still keep their provocation,” Ileana Sonnabend told The New York Times earlier this year. Recently widowed, Sonnabend continues to actively collect.

From Pop to Now premiered at the Tang in June; the Wexner Center marks its first stop on a national tour, and additional venues will be announced.

THE ART

The exhibition features a range of works reflecting the Sonnabends’ taste over the years, including early pop art by then-emerging artists, contemporary photography, and multimedia sculptural works. Major art movements include pop, minimalism, conceptualism, arte povera, and abstract expressionism. The earliest work in the show is from 1956 (a Cy Twombly); the most recent is from 2002 (a chromogenic print by Andrea Robbins and Max Becher).

Among the highlights from the exhibition: Roy Lichtenstein’s Aloha (oil on canvas, 1962), plus three other Lichtensteins; Andy Warhol’s White Brillo Boxes (1964), plus five other Warhols; Jasper Johns’s Figure 8 (1959); Jeff Koons’s stainless steel Rabbit (1986); Bernd and Hilla Becher’s photographs Water Towers (1972); Rona Pondick’s Dog (yellow stainless steel, 2000); Dan Flavin’s “Untitled (To the ‘Innovator’ of Wheeling Peach Blow),” featuring fluorescent lights, from the late 1960s; Sol LeWitt’s Arcs from Four Corners (1971); Gilbert & George’s They (1986); and Bruce Nauman’s neon 

My Name as Though It Were Written on the Surface of the Moon: Bbbbbbbbbbbbrrrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuucccccccccceeeeeeeeee (1967).

EXHIBITION'S LOCATION: The Belmont Building, 330 West Spring Street, Colombus, OH

WEXNER CENTER FOR THE ARTS

THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

1871 North High Street, Columbus, Ohio 43210

www.wexarts.org