New exhibit explores artist in different light
Sharon Salmon/A&E Editor
Issue date: 12/7/05 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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The Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth will feature French artist Paul Gauguin in the exhibit Gauguin and Impressionism Dec. 18, 2005, through March 26, 2006.
Though Gauguin's works are typically displayed as exemplars of Post-Impressionism, this exhibit focuses on his earlier works from the Impressionist period. It is the first ever comprehensive survey of the influential artist's early career, and the Kimbell is its only American venue.
In a press release, director of the Kimbell Arts Museum Dr. Timothy Potts said, "It is rare today that an exhibition on an artist as well known and as popular as Gauguin can claim to present a largely unknown but central aspect of his achievement. Yet it is just this sort of revelation that Gauguin and Impressionism promises to bring, spotlighting for the first time his critical impact as a painter and sculptor of Impressionism, and bringing together nearly all of the major works he presented in the group's exhibitions."
Gauguin began his much celebrated career while working as a banker-stockbroker, making time to work as an amateur artist on the side. He was an avid collector of art, and many of the pieces from his personal collection extensively inspired his own creations, as did his contemporaries.
In particular, a series of woodcarvings made between 1880 and 1884 are often viewed by scholars as participating in a dialogue with the French painter and sculptor Edward Degas. In these carvings Gauguin experiments with mixed materials, polychromy, and deliberate stylization.
Other pieces in the exhibit draw from more removed sources. The artist's ceramics challenge the decadent eclecticism to which, in his opinion, western potters of the time had stooped. These pieces are inspired not by movements surrounding Gauguin, by instead by Oriental and Pre-columbian pottery. These periods possessed a certain simplicity Gauguin admired greatly.
Some of Gauguin's paintings will also be on display. Nave Nave Mahana (Delightful Day), widely regarded as the most important Gauguin in a French public collection and on loan from the Musée des Beaux Arts de Lyon, is the featured piece. Inspired by the artist's second stay in Tahiti, this masterpiece created in 1896 demonstrates the artist's eventual development into a member of the Post-Impressionist movement.
The majority of the exhibit will feature works from 1875 to 1887, however.
"These years represent Gauguin at his most searching, challenging, and vigorous, responding as he was to the challenge of his fellow Impressionists' innovations," said Potts.
"It is fascinating to see how many of the distinctive qualities of the later Gauguin from the Pacific - including his boldly original approach to composition and his predilection for areas of bright, almost flat, color - emerge already in this period. The exhibition marks a major step forward in scholarship and, equally importantly, does so through an experience that is a rare delight for the eye."
Gauguin and Impressionism was organized by the Kimbell Art Museum and Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen, and curated by Dr. Richard R. Brettell, the Margaret McDermott Distinguished Professor of Art and Aesthetics at University of Texas at Dallas, and Anne-Birgitte Fonsmark, director of Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen.
The museum is open 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday; 12 p.m. - 8 p.m. Friday; and 12 p.m. - 5 p.m. Monday. Admission is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors 60 and older and students with ID, and $8 for children between 6 and 11. Children under 6 are free. Admission prices are half-off on Tuesdays.
Though Gauguin's works are typically displayed as exemplars of Post-Impressionism, this exhibit focuses on his earlier works from the Impressionist period. It is the first ever comprehensive survey of the influential artist's early career, and the Kimbell is its only American venue.
In a press release, director of the Kimbell Arts Museum Dr. Timothy Potts said, "It is rare today that an exhibition on an artist as well known and as popular as Gauguin can claim to present a largely unknown but central aspect of his achievement. Yet it is just this sort of revelation that Gauguin and Impressionism promises to bring, spotlighting for the first time his critical impact as a painter and sculptor of Impressionism, and bringing together nearly all of the major works he presented in the group's exhibitions."
Gauguin began his much celebrated career while working as a banker-stockbroker, making time to work as an amateur artist on the side. He was an avid collector of art, and many of the pieces from his personal collection extensively inspired his own creations, as did his contemporaries.
In particular, a series of woodcarvings made between 1880 and 1884 are often viewed by scholars as participating in a dialogue with the French painter and sculptor Edward Degas. In these carvings Gauguin experiments with mixed materials, polychromy, and deliberate stylization.
Other pieces in the exhibit draw from more removed sources. The artist's ceramics challenge the decadent eclecticism to which, in his opinion, western potters of the time had stooped. These pieces are inspired not by movements surrounding Gauguin, by instead by Oriental and Pre-columbian pottery. These periods possessed a certain simplicity Gauguin admired greatly.
Some of Gauguin's paintings will also be on display. Nave Nave Mahana (Delightful Day), widely regarded as the most important Gauguin in a French public collection and on loan from the Musée des Beaux Arts de Lyon, is the featured piece. Inspired by the artist's second stay in Tahiti, this masterpiece created in 1896 demonstrates the artist's eventual development into a member of the Post-Impressionist movement.
The majority of the exhibit will feature works from 1875 to 1887, however.
"These years represent Gauguin at his most searching, challenging, and vigorous, responding as he was to the challenge of his fellow Impressionists' innovations," said Potts.
"It is fascinating to see how many of the distinctive qualities of the later Gauguin from the Pacific - including his boldly original approach to composition and his predilection for areas of bright, almost flat, color - emerge already in this period. The exhibition marks a major step forward in scholarship and, equally importantly, does so through an experience that is a rare delight for the eye."
Gauguin and Impressionism was organized by the Kimbell Art Museum and Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen, and curated by Dr. Richard R. Brettell, the Margaret McDermott Distinguished Professor of Art and Aesthetics at University of Texas at Dallas, and Anne-Birgitte Fonsmark, director of Ordrupgaard, Copenhagen.
The museum is open 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday; 12 p.m. - 8 p.m. Friday; and 12 p.m. - 5 p.m. Monday. Admission is $12 for adults, $10 for seniors 60 and older and students with ID, and $8 for children between 6 and 11. Children under 6 are free. Admission prices are half-off on Tuesdays.