European and American Selections MATTHEWS GALLERY
European and American Selections This inaugural exhibition presents a group of drawings, paintings, prints and sculpture by major European and American artists. There is a connection between many of these artists that can be traced from Paris to New York to Santa Fe. Several American artists of the late 19th and early 20th century went to France to study and learn more about the newly emerging art forms and then returned with that knowledge to the US. Many early Santa Fe artists were from the eastern US and were influenced by the tumultuous artistic and cultural events taking place in Europe. The artists in this exhibition represent the diversity of styles and the range of expression that marked the monumental artistic achievements of the 20th century. Special thanks to co-curator ThÊrèse O’Gorman for her assistance with this exhibition. With deepest gratitude to my wife Linda Matthews for all her enthusiasm and support. - Lawrence Matthews, Santa Fe, November 2010
Gustave Doré (1832 - 1883) Cavalier Abreuvant Son Cheval, 1879, watercolor, 9.25 x 13.25 inches Provenance Private collection, New York Gustave Doré was born in Strasbourg and at age five he was already creating accomplished drawings. When he turned 12 he began to carve in stone. His first illustrated story was published at the age of fifteen. Doré began work as a literary illustrator in Paris and his commissions include works by Rabelais, Balzac, Milton and Dante. In 1853 Doré was asked to illustrate the works of Lord Byron. This commission was followed by additional work for British publishers, including a new illustrated English Bible. In 1863, he illustrated a French edition of Cervantes's Don Quixote, and his illustrations of the knight and his squire Sancho Panza have become so familiar that they have influenced subsequent readers, artists, and stage and film directors' ideas of the physical "look" of the two characters. Doré also illustrated an oversized edition of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven". Later works by Doré include Coleridge's “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, Milton's “Paradise Lost”, Tennyson's “The Idylls of the King”, and “The Divine Comedy”.
Camille Pissarro (1830 - 1903) Jeune Femme AllongĂŠe, circa 1883-85, graphite, 11 x 18 inches Provenance Private collection, Paris Private collection, New York Literature To be included in the catalogue raisonnĂŠ of works on paper by Dr. Joachim Pissarro. A photo certificate has been issued by Lionel Pissarro. Camille Pissarro painted urban and rural life in France. Many of his works portray peasants and laborers with whom he empathized and admired for their work ethic . Paul Cezanne and Paul Gauguin considered him a mentor and he made significant contributions to the theories underlying Impressionism. His work was exhibited at all of the Impressionist exhibitions and he is considered a founder of the Impressionist movement.
Léon Lhermitte (1844 - 1925) Le Labourage, 1886, charcoal, 14.25 x 10.50 inches Provenance Private collection, New York Literature Monique Le Pelly Fonteny, Léon Augustin Lhermitte, Paris, 1991, pp. 458-459, no. 770, illustrated Léon Lhermitte was born in Mont-Saint-Père, and was known primarily known for his portrayal of French rural scenes. He studied under Lecoq de Boisbaudran and gained prominence following the Paris Salon of 1864. Among his awards for artistic achievement are the French Legion of Honour in 1884 and the Grand Prize at the Exposition Universelle in 1889. No less an admirer than Vincent Van Gogh wrote about Lhermitte “If every month Le Monde Illustré published one of his compositions ... it would be a great pleasure for me to be able to follow it. It is certain that for years I have not seen anything as beautiful as this scene by Lhermitte ... I am too preoccupied by Lhermitte this evening to be able to talk of other things.” The artist’s works are included in the permanent collections of museums throughout the world including, New York’s Metropolitan Museum, the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
Mary Cassatt (1844 - 1926) Head of Baby With Finger in Mouth (George Fiske Hammond), circa 1898, pastel, 18 x 14 inches Provenance The artist, until 1926 Mathilde Vallet, Paris, 1927 [Sale: Hotel Drouot, Paris, 1931, Dessins, Pastels, Peintures, Etudes par Mary Cassatt Collection Mathilde X] Galerie Jacques Dubourg, Paris Regina Slatkin, New York Carole Slatkin, New York, 1970, by descent [David Tunick, Inc., New York] Private collection, New York, 2005 Exhibition Paris, Galerie Jacques Dubourg, 1961, illustrated Washington D.C., National Collection of fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution, Mary Cassatt Pastels and Color Prints, February 24 - April 30, 1978, no. 24, p.33, illustrated Literature Adelyn Dohme Breeskin, Mary Cassatt: A Catalog Raisonné of the Oils, Pastels Watercolors and Drawings (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1970), p. 140, no. 320, illustrated This pastel will be included in the newly revised Catalogue Raisonné of Mary Cassatt’s work. Mary Cassatt was commissioned to do this portrait by Mr. and Mrs Gardiner Greene Hammond, Jr. upon the recommendation of John Singer Sargent.
André Lhote (1885 - 1962) Portrait de Jeanne, 1908, oil on paper mounted on canvas, 22 x 15.5 inches Provenance [Soufer Gallery, New York] Private collection, New York Literature Dominique Bermann and Jean François Aittouarés, Catalogue Raisonné de l’Oeuvre peint d’Andre Lhote André Lhote’s artist education began at the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux, his hometown, where he studied decorative sculpture until 1904. He soon began to study painting and abandoned the decorative arts when he fell under the spell of artists including Cezanne and Gauguin. He moved to Paris in 1906 and had his first solo exhibition in 1910. His early work was influenced by Fauvism but he eventually moved closer to a Cubist style. He fought in World War I, was discharged in 1917 and in 1918 he became a co-founder of the Nouvelle Revue Francaise, which was an influential art journal. Lhote was also an educator and taught at the Académie Notre-Dame and other Paris art schools before founding his own school in Montparnasse in 1922. The artist’s works are included in the permanent collections of museums throughout the world including, the Hermitage, St. Petersburg and the Tate Gallery, London.
AndrĂŠ Lhote (1885 - 1962) Nu La Femme Penche, 1911, graphite, 18 x 14 inches Provenance [Soufer Gallery, New York] Private collection, New York This drawing by AndrĂŠ Lhote clearly shows the influence of Cubism on his emerging style. It is interesting to note however that the Cubist tendency is restrained and Lhote has integrated the Cubist vocabulary with a more classically representational style.
Amedeo Modigliani (1884 - 1920) Portrait de Sola, circa 1918/1919, graphite, 17 x 10 inches Provenance Collection Mme. Huguette Berés, Paris Collection Franco Russoli Private collection, New York Literature Franco Russoli, Modigliani, Drawings and Sketches (New York, NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1969), p. 140, no. 320, illustrated This drawing has been authenticated by the Archives Legales Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Modigliani was born in Livorno, Italy. He studied art in Florence and Venice and moved to Paris in 1906 and became friends with Max Jacob, André Salmon, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Pablo Picasso. Though he flirted with Cubism, Modigliani’s work evolved into a unique and distinct style characterized by the elongated figure. In this drawing, the sureness of the artist’s touch is evident in the bold deft lines that compose the subject’s clothes, arms and hands. It is almost as if the artist is carving the figure rather than merely drawing it. While Modigliani’s personal life was dramatic and tragic, as episodes of ill health beginning in childhood continued and he fell into dissolution, his talent never abandoned him. This drawing was completed only one or two years before his death.
Fernand Léger (1881 - 1955) Composition aux Deux Personnages, 1920, lithograph, 13.5 x 11 inches Provenance [William Weston Gallery, London] Private collection, New York Literature Lawrence Saphire, Fernand Léger: the Complete Graphic Work, (New York, NY: Blue Moon Press, 1978) Fernand Léger was a French painter, sculptor, and filmmaker who along with Braque and Picasso was involved in the development of Cubism. His work eventually evolved into a more personal approach to the genre using some of its’ fundamental aspects but with simplified forms and bold primary colors. Some art historians consider him to be a forerunner of the Pop Art movement of the 1960’s. This original lithograph was completed by Léger in 1920. His signature appears in blue ink, lower right. It is from the edition of 125 impressions, published by Kiepenheuer, Weimar for the fourth ‘Die Schaffenden’ album. This lithograph is rarely found in such a strong impression. This is Léger’s second work in a fine art print medium and considered to be one of the most important graphic works of later Cubism.
Gino Severini (1883 - 1966) Pierrot, circa 1922-24, charcoal, 19 x 15.5 inches Provenance The Severini Family, Rome [R.S. Johnson Fine Art, Chicago] Private collection, New York Madame Gina Severini has verified the authenticity of this work. Exhibition Chicago, R. S. Johnson Fine Art, Fragonard to Feininger, no. 43 and illustrated on page 75 of the catalogue Literature Piero Pacini, reference no. 47 Gino Severini, (Paris: MusÊe National dArt Moderne, 1967), p. 24, no. 57 Gino Severini was born in Cortona, Italy and spent most of his life divided between Paris and Rome. He was one of the founders of the Futurist art movement and a noted art theoritician. He did this drawing after he abandoned Futurism and began working in a neo-classical style often using figurative subjects from the commedia dell’arte. It is a study for one of the figures in his painting, The Two Polichinelles which was exhibited in the Municipal Museum in the Hague in 1967. This drawing is also a direct study for his painting, Pierrot Musician of 1924 which is in the collection of the Boymans-Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam.
Beulah Stevenson (1895 - 1965) Flowers In A White Dish, 1923, oil on canvas, 23 x 16 inches Provenance Private collection, Idaho Beulah Stevenson was born in 1895 in Brooklyn Heights, New York, where she lived and worked throughout her life. She studied at the Pratt Institute, the Art Student's League with John Sloan, and in Provincetown with Hans Hoffman. Stevenson had exhibitions at the Santa Fe Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago as well as abroad in Paris and London. Her work is included in numerous museum and public collections including the New York Public Library, the Brooklyn Museum and the Library of Congress. Stevenson’s subjects were diverse and included views of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Santa Fe as well as modernist still lifes such as this painting.
Joseph Stella (1877 - 1946) The Artist’s Wife, 1924-25, pencil with watercolor, 14 x 10.75 inches Provenance Private collection, New York Joseph Stella was born in Muro Lucano, Italy and emigrated to the United States in 1896, where he lived in New York throughout his life. He studied at the Art Student’s League and the New York School of Art under William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri. He exhibited work at the 1913 Armory show in New York and is associated with the American Precisionism and American Futurism movements. Stella’s work is in many musem collections including the Art Institute of Chicago; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Washington D.C.; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City.
Käthe Kollwitz (1867 - 1945) Beggar Woman and Child, circa 1924, charcoal, 24.5 x 18 inches Provenance Private collection, New York Käthe Kollwitz was born in Königsberg in the Province of Prussia (now known as Kalingrad, Russia). When she was twelve she began art studies there and continued them later at an art school in Berlin. In 1891 she married Karl Kollwitz who was a doctor whose practice tended to the poor in Berlin. She became acquainted with many of her husband’s patients and began to empathize with their plight. For the rest of her life the subject of her art were the peasants, laborers and workers that were marginalized by society. She wrote of her art: The motifs I was able to select from this milieu (the workers' lives) offered me, in a simple and forthright way, what I discovered to be beautiful.... People from the bourgeois sphere were altogether without appeal or interest. All middle-class life seemed pedantic to me. On the other hand, I felt the proletariat had guts. It was not until much later...when I got to know the women who would come to my husband for help, and incidentally also to me, that I was powerfully moved by the fate of the proletariat and everything connected with its way of life.... But what I would like to emphasize once more is that compassion and commiseration were at first of very little importance in attracting me to the representation of proletarian life; what mattered was simply that I found it beautiful. Today there are two museums devoted to her work, the Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Köln and the Käthe Kollwitz Museum, Berlin.
Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954) Ulysses: Episode of Nausicae, 1935, etching, 11 x 9 inches Provenance Private collection, Philadelphia Literature Duthuit 236 Henri Matisse was an enthusiastic and prolific printmaker as well as a painter and sculptor. Matisse was commissioned to do this etching for an edition of James Joyce’s epic book, Ulysses but neglected to read Joyce’s masterpiece. Instead he based his illustrations on the classic Greek tale of the Odyssey although Joyce’s tale takes place during a single day in Dublin. The scene depicted in this etching is when Ulysses, after years at sea, has been shipwrecked and washed up on an island. He falls into a deep sleep and is awakened by a princess and her handmaidens who have come down to the sea to bathe. The princess takes Ulysses to her father the king, who helps him return to his home in Ithaca and to his wife Penelope.
Francoise Gilot (b. 1921), Self Portrait, 1946, pencil on paper, 25 x 20 inches Provenance Collection of the artist [Elkon Gallery, New York] Private collection, New York Francoise Gilot was born at Neuilly-sur-Seine, France. After studying English literature at Cambridge University and then studying to become an attorney, she found that art was her true calling. When she was an art student and only 21 (1942) she met Pablo Picasso who was 61. She had two children with Picasso, Claude and Paloma. Her relationship with him ended in 1953 but she continued to make art, raised their children and later wrote a best-selling book titled Life with Picasso. Her work is characterized by sure and even draughtsmanship. She currently lives in New York and Paris and continues to exhibit her work in venues throughout the world.
Emil Bisttram (1844 - 1926) Space Abstraction, 1941, oil on canvas, 89.375 x 79.375 inches Provenance Private collection, Idaho Emil Bisttram was born in Hungary and moved with his family to New York when he was eleven years old. He had a difficult young life growing up in the poorer areas of the city. He was also involved in some of the street gang wars that took place in New York and was known to be a fierce fighter. Along the way he discovered his talent for art and studied at the National Academy of Art and Design, Cooper Union, Parsons, and The Art Student's League. After school he taught for a while and in 1930 visited Taos, New Mexico which would eventually become his permanent home. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1931 and went to Mexico to study mural painting with Diego Rivera. He made several mural paintings in government buildings across the US. He was a prolific painter throughout his life depicting Native American scenes, landscapes, portraits and abstractions. He also continued to teach art throughout his life. This painting is believed to be one of the largest he ever painted. The geometric symbols in the painting refer to Bisttram’s beliefs about the origin and nature of the universe.
Charles Burchfield (1893 - 1967) Autumn Study, n.d., pencil on paper, 13.5 x 19.5 inches Provenance Private collection, New York Charles Burchfield was born in Ashtabula, Ohio but lived most of his life near Buffalo, New York. Burchfield’s work is characterized by his very singular approach that portrays nature in a stylized, angular and often dreamlike or hallucinatory manner. A lot of his work concerns the industrialization of rural America and his drawings and paintings of seemingly mundane scenes, often ones he viewed outside the window of his home. these works sometimes have an eery or unsettling quality as if nature itself is revolting against the onslaught of modernization. Burchfield’s work is undergoing a rediscovery of sorts lately exemplified by the Whitney Museum’s 2010 exhibition, Heat Waves in a Swamp: The Paintings of Charles Burchfield. His art is held in the permanent collections of many major American museums including the Metropolitan Museum, New York, the Museum of Modern Art, New York and the Smithsonian, Washington, DC. The Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, New York is dedicated to his life’s work.
Gustave Baumann (1881 - 1971) Hopi Corn, 1944, woodcut, 9.125 x 8.875 inches Provenance Private collection, Santa Fe Gustave Baumann moved to the United States from Germany with his family when he was ten. He began making color woodcuts when he was 27 years old after having returned to Germany to study traditional methods of wood block printing. In 1918 he moved to Santa Fe where he remained the rest of his life. His work depicted Southwest scenes, landscapes and gardens. His work has been exhibited extensively including at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and the New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe.
Arnaldo Pomodoro (b. 1926) Untitled, 1962, bronze and wood, 15.25 x 13.75 inches Provenance [Peter Findlay Gallery, New York] Private collection, New York Arnaldo Pomodoro was born in Morciano, Romagna, Italy. His sculpture was shown for the first time in 1955 at a gallery in Milan. In 1963 he was awarded the International Sculpture Prize in the S達o Paulo Bienal in Brazil and there was a solo exhibition of his work at the Vienice Biennale in 1964. He has taught at the University of California, Berkeley and has completed large outdoor commissions pieces throughout the world as well as creating production designs for theatre and opera productions. He has work in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC and at the Vatican. He currently lives in Milan.
Lynn Chadwick (1914 - 2003) Diamond, 1970, bronze, 29.5 x 7 x 7.5 inches Provenance Private collection, New York Literature Dennis Farr and Eva Chadwick, Lynn Chadwick Sculptor, With a Complete Illustrated Catalogue 1947-1988, (Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1992), p. 240, no. 596, illustrated Lynn Chadwick is an internationally acclaimed sculptor who was born in London. He originally trained as an architectural draftsman but began sculpting during the 1940’s. In 1952 he exhibited at the Venice Biennale and won the International Prize for Sculpture in 1956. His work is in the collection of the Tate Gallery, London.
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