International Art News

Rembrandt van Rijn, Portrait of the Artist, c. 1665, oil on canvas, Kenwood House, English Heritage, Iveagh Bequest.

From June 3, 2012 to Sept 3, 2012 – The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Rembrandt, Van Dyck, Gainsborough: The Treasures of Kenwood House, London showcases 48 masterpieces from the collection known as the Iveagh Bequest. These magnificent paintings reside at Kenwood House, a neoclassical villa in London, and they make their U.S. debut at the MFAH.

Thomas Gainsborough, Mary, Countess Howe, c. 1764, oil on canvas, Kenwood House, English Heritage, Iveagh Bequest

Donated by Edward Cecil Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh (1847–1927) and heir to the world’s most successful brewery, the collection was shaped by the tastes of the Belle Epoque—Europe’s equivalent to America’s Gilded Age—when the earl shared the cultural stage and art market with other industry titans such as the Rothschilds, J. Pierpont Morgan, and Henry Clay Frick. Acquired mainly from 1887 to 1891, the earl’s purchases reveal a taste for the portraiture, landscape, and 17th-century Dutch and Flemish works typically found in English aristocratic collections. In addition to the masterworks from the Iveagh Bequest, the exhibition includes several works acquired specifically for Kenwood.

Anthony van Dyck, Princess Henrietta of Lorraine Attended by a Page, 1634, oil on canvas, Kenwood House, English Heritage, Iveagh Bequest. Courtesy American Federation of Arts

The MFAH presentation is the first stop on a limited, four-venue U.S. tour that provides a rare opportunity for visitors to view superb paintings that have never before traveled outside the United Kingdom. The highly acclaimed works on view represent the greatest artists of their periods, from Rembrandt van Rijn, Thomas Gainsborough, and Anthony van Dyck to Frans Hals, Joshua Reynolds, and J. M. W. Turner.

Joseph Mallord William Turner, A Coast Scene with Fisherman Hauling a Boat Ashore ("The Iveagh Sea-Piece"), c. 1803–04, oil on canvas, Kenwood House, English Heritage, Iveagh Bequest.

The Museum of Fine Arts

Claude Monet (1840-1926) »London, Houses of Parliament. Burst of Sunlight in the Fog«, 1904, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Bequest of Count Isaac de Camondo, 1911, © RMN (Musée d'Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski

Until 28 May 2012 – The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart
The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart will present approximately seventy late works – some quite large in scale – by William Turner, Claude Monet and Cy Twombly. The outstanding loans will serve to illuminate similarities and interrelationships between the works and exemplify their common characteristics.

Cy Twombly »Quattro Stagioni« (A Painting in Four Parts), 1993-1995, Part II: Estate, Tate, Purchased with assistance from the American Fund for the Tate Gallery and Tate Members 2002, Tate, London 2011, © Cy Twombly Foundation

The Staatsgalerie will be the only venue in Germany to show the outstanding late works of three of the greatest painters of the last two centuries. The exhibition will not only unite works by William Turner, Claude Monet and the late Cy Twombly, but also offer the visitors new perspectives on the art of each, in and of itself.

In his landscapes and seascapes, the English painter William Turner (1775–1851) developed an abstract pictorial language which was adopted by the Impressionists.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) »War. The exile and the Rock Limpet«, exh. 1842 Tate. Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856, © Tate, London 2011

Claude Monet (1840–1926) translated the motifs of that harbinger of abstraction into series with differing light atmospheres. With Cy Twombly (1928–2011) the exhibition will extend the spectrum to encompass the present: an important of exponent of Abstract Expressionism, the American developed the poetic pictorial language further in his monumental paintings.

Museum Hours

Joseph Mallord William Turner, 'Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Night', 1835. Image courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Widener Collection 1942.9.86

From March 14 to June 5, 2012 – The National Gallery
The National Gallery’s spring exhibition, Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude, is the first major presentation of Claude’s influence on Turner. Turner’s daring free painting technique and radical approach created a revolution in painting at the beginning of the 19th century. The inspiration for these dramatic developments was the 17th-century artist Claude’s mastery of light on canvas. This exhibition tells the story behind Turner’s inspiration and the revolutionary works that went on to inspire future generations of artists.

The show reveals how Turner’s life-long desire to absorb all he could from the Old Master lay at the heart of his work. From the Roman Campagna-inspired views of the Thames Valley to paintings of the emerging industrial landscape, ‘Keelmen Heaving in Coals by Night’ (1835, National Gallery of Art, Washington), the exhibition demonstrates Turner’s skill at recreating gleaming light and atmosphere.

Turner’s first experience of the work of Claude had an immediate and lasting impact on the artist. A contemporary remarked that, ‘Turner was awkward, agitated and burst into tears’ on seeing Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba (1648, The National Gallery). The combination of natural detail and ethereal effect in masterpieces such as ‘Landscape with the Arrival of Aeneas before the City of Pallenteum’ (1675, National Trust’s Anglesey Abbey) proved irresistible. He was captivated with Claude’s ability to depict light in landscape and praised his work as ‘pure as Italian air’.

The exhibition focuses on the major Claude-inspired themes that run through Turner’s career and that on occasion shocked and dazzled audiences of his day: the evocation of light and air in landscape, the effect of light upon water and his often radical reworking of contemporary scenes. The exhibition brings together a rich variety of media such as large majestic oils on canvas, mezzotints, etchings, watercolours and works in gouache, and displays of leaves from Turner’s pocket sketchbooks that show intimate drawings in pen, pencil and ink on paper, rarely on public display.

Joseph Mallord William Turner - Venice: The Giudecca Canal, Looking towards Fusina at Sunset 1840 - Pencil, watercolour and crayon on paper support: 221 x 323 mm - Tate 2012 - Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856.

The importance of the sea to Britain’s identity is another crucial theme of Turner’s work and Claude’s harbour scenes exerted a powerful hold on his imagination, as shown in works including ‘Le Havre: Sunset in the Port’, (about 1832, Tate) and East Cowes, the Seat of J. Nash, Esq. (about 1827–30, Victoria and Albert Museum). The exhibition includes a selection of Turner’s most spectacular watercolours from the 1840s which depict the unique character of Venetian light.

On his death – and linking himself to Claude for posterity – Turner left the National Gallery Dido building Carthage (1815) and Sun rising through Vapour: Fishermen cleaning and selling Fish (before 1807) on condition that they were hung between two pictures by Claude, which he named as ‘The Seaport’ (Seaport with the Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba, 1648) and ‘The Mill’ (Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, 1648). The exhibition sheds light on this relationship through photographs, letters and works that tell the story behind the Turner Bequest and its importance in the history of the National Gallery.

‘Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude’ unites works from Tate, The Holkham Estate and art galleries and museums around the United Kingdom including Glasgow Museums, Walker Art Gallery Liverpool and Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, as well as works from the United States. The exhibition has been organised in collaboration with Tate Britain. It has been conceived, and works have been selected, by Ian Warrell, Curator of 18th- and 19th-Century British Art at Tate Britain and known internationally as a leading expert on the subject. The National Gallery curator is Susan Foister.

Gallery Hours

William Turner, (1775-1851) The Harbour of Brest : The Quayside and Château, vers 1827 Huile sur toile, H.172,7-L.223,5 cm Londres, Tate ©Tate London , 2010

From April 1st to August 31st 2011 – Quimper Museum of Fine Arts
From Turner to Monet, the Discovery of Brittany by the Landscape Artists of the 19th century
Quimper Museum of Fine Arts acquirred in 2009 and 2010, two paintings: Louise Josephine Sarazin de Belmont, View of St. Pol de Leon (1837), and Jules Coignet, The Oak in the dolmen Forest Dark Forest (1836). These works were previously unknown in the history of painting inspired by Britany. Their rediscovery has established two new milestones in the history of landscape in Brittany between Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot.

This prompted to reconsider this period, particularly the movement of artists across Brittany, the choice of sites and themes, and developments during the nineteenth century.

This exhibition, for the first time, puts into perspective, the discovery of Brittany by the landscape artists of the nineteenth century.

From the first coming artists in the late eighteenth century to the new experiments at the dawn of the twentieth century, all were split between the romantic and idyllic visions or between the countryside and the coast. 1863, date of arrival of the railway at the end of the peninsula, is a major break: Brittany is popular in Parisian studios, artists flock, some are grouped in colonies, others prefer to be isolated and explore new places and invent new topics.

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