International Art News

George Segal, Three People on Four Benches, 1980. Bronze and steel. Martin Z. Margulies Collection. Image © The George and Helen Segal Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY.

March 31 – September 9, 2012 – Tampa Museum of Art
Many leading artists of the 20th century went to great lengths to replace the representational with the abstract. But some artists found it difficult to rid their works of all traces of the real, and in particular, the figure. Masterworks of 20th Century Sculpture from the Martin Z. Margulies Collection allows a thoughtful consideration of the tension between the abstract and the representational that dominated 20th century aesthetic concerns.

An abiding fascination with the figure unites the works in the exhibition. While many modern artists abandoned the figure as inspiration, these seven artists made use of the figure (human and otherwise), even as the final work sometimes barely resembles the figure in reality. In the straightforward works by Willem de Kooning (Seated Woman on Bench), George Segal (Three People on Four Benches), Louise Nevelson (Dancing Woman), Manuel Neri (Untitled), and Deborah Butterfield (Jerusalem Horse), the form remains readily identifiable. With works by Joan Miro (Oiseau) and Isamu Noguchi (Figure and Judith), however, the work is more abstracted, but the referent is still the figure.

In this exhibition, our third partnership with the Martin Z. Margulies Collection in Miami, the Museum has selected key works from the latter half of the 20th century that pay tribute to the fascination with the natural form. The Margulies Collection is known for its extensive sculpture collection that contains some of the best examples of post-World War II movements in Europe and the United States.

Museum Hours

Marc Chagall (Witebsk 1887 - 1985 St. Paul de Vence) ohne Titel in "Dessins pour la Bible" Verve (Nr. 37-38) Farbkreidezeichnung und Tusche 1960 35,5 x 50,5 cm sign. dat. bez.

Untill November 26, 2011 – Galerie Boisserée
Marc Chagall was a Russian-French artist associated with several major artistic styles and one of the most successful artists of the 20th century. He was an early modernist, and created works in virtually every artistic medium, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints.

Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as “the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century.” According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be “the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists.” For decades, he had also been respected as the world’s preeminent Jewish artist. Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra.

Before World War I, he traveled between St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his idea of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent the wartime years in Soviet Belarus, becoming one of the country’s most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avante-garde, initiating the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris during 1922.

Marc Chagall (Witebsk 1887 - 1985 St. Paul de Vence) "Les fleurs rouges" (Die roten Blumen) Farblithographie 1973 76 x 56 cm Abb. 60 x 43 cm sign. num. Auflage ca. 64 Exemplare Mourlot 705

He had two basic reputations, writes Lewis: as a pioneer of modernism and as a major Jewish artist. He experienced modernism’s “golden age” in Paris, where he synthesized the art forms of Cubism, Symbolism, and Fauvism, and the influence of Fauvism gave rise to Surrealism. Yet throughout these phases of his style, he remained most emphatically a Jewish artist, whose work was one long dreamy reverie of life in his native village of Vitebsk. When Matisse dies, Pablo Picasso remarked during the 1950s, “Chagall will be the only painter left who understands what colour really is.”

Galerie Hours

Willem de Kooning. Pink Angels. c. 1945. Oil and charcoal on canvas, 52 x 40" (132.1 x 101.6 cm). Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles. © 2011 The Willem de Kooning Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

From September 18, 2011 to January 9, 2012 – The Museum of Modern Art
This is the first major museum exhibition devoted to the full scope of the career of Willem de Kooning, widely considered to be among the most important and prolific artists of the 20th century. The exhibition, which will only be seen at MoMA, presents an unparalleled opportunity to study the artist’s development over nearly seven decades, beginning with his early academic works, made in Holland before he moved to the United States in 1926, and concluding with his final, sparely abstract paintings of the late 1980s. Bringing together nearly 200 works from public and private collections, the exhibition will occupy the Museum’s entire sixth-floor gallery space, totaling approximately 17,000 square feet.

Representing nearly every type of work de Kooning made, in both technique and subject matter, this retrospective includes paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints. Among these are the artist’s most famous, landmark paintings—among them Pink Angels (1945), Excavation (1950), and the celebrated third Woman series (1950–53)—plus in-depth presentations of all his most important series, ranging from his figurative paintings of the early 1940s to the breakthrough black-and-white compositions of 1948–49, and from the urban abstractions of the mid 1950s to the artist’s return to figuration in the 1960s, and the large gestural abstractions of the following decade. Also included is de Kooning’s famous yet largely unseen theatrical backdrop, the 17-foot-square Labyrinth (1946).

Museum Hours

Louise Bourgeois. Arch of Hysteria (Arco de histeria), 1993. Bronce, pátina pulida, pieza colgante. 83,8 x 101,6 x 58,4 cm. Cortesía de Cheim & Read y Hauser & Wirth. Fotografía: Allan Finkelman

Until June 19, 2011 – Fundación Proa
Fundacion Proa presents for the first time in Latin America the greatest exhibit of work by Louise Bourgeois: the return of the repressed. Bourgeois, one of the most well known artists of the 20th century, was born in Paris in 1911 and traveled and lived in the United States from 1938 until her final days in 2010.

The exhibition opens with the famous spider Maman (1999) displayed in the entrance to Proa, and in the interior rooms display a collection of 86 pieces. Her first sculptures, in which the spiral appears along with various forms and figures that figure prominently in her work, include the Arch of Hysteria, 1993; Spider, 1997, and the emblematic installations Red Room (Parents), 1994, and The Destruction of the Father, 1974. A solid and extensive collection of drawings and sculptures highlight Bourgeois’ radical thoughts and reflections on love: filial, parental, familiar—love itself.

The pieces are a testament to the impact of psychoanalysis on the artist’s thoughts and reveal how her dialogue with this discourse created an emotional universe involving the complexities, conflicts, and subtleties of contemporary life. The interior world, family relationships, the role of the father, the mother, the daughter, and the wife are treated in a singular and personal manner, converting Bourgeois into an icon of the most transcendental themes of the twentieth century.

Her famous hanging pieces, pendants on a string, show the fragility, the delicacy of the events, demonstrating the ambivalence between the exterior world and the interior world of the subject.

Louse Bourgeois: the return of the repressed, curated by Philip Larratt-Smith, is organized in conjunction with the Louise Bourgeois Studio in New York and the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in Sao Pablo, Brazil, and is supported by Tenaris, both for its presentation in Argentina and its tour in Rio de Janeiro and San Pablo.

Foundation Hours

22 December 2010 – 27 March 2011 – Altar of Peace Museum (Museo dell’Ara Pacis)
On display are about 130 paintings and drawings, some of them previously unseen, coming from private collections, from the Musée National d’Art Moderne Centre Georges Pompidou and the Musée National Marc Chagall in Nice.

Belarusian  French artist, associated with several key art movements and was one of the most successful artists of the 20th century. He created unique works in virtually every artistic medium, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints. Chagall’s haunting, exuberant, and poetic images have wide appeal, with art critic Robert Hughes referring to him as “the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century.”

As a pioneer of modernism and one of the greatest figurative artists of the 20th century, Chagall achieved fame and fortune, and over the course of a long career created some of the best-known paintings of our time. According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be “the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists.” For decades he “had also been respected as the world’s preeminent Jewish artist.” Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the United Nations, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including the ceiling for the Paris Opéra.

His most vital work was made on the eve of World War I, when he traveled between St. Petersburg, Paris, and Berlin. During this period he created his own mixture and style of modern art based on his visions of Eastern European Jewish folk culture. He spent his wartime years in Russia, becoming one the country’s most distinguished artists and a member of the modernist avante-garde, founding the Vitebsk Arts College before leaving again for Paris in 1922.

Museum Hours