Displaying items by tag: pastels

He is one of the great draftsmen of the impressionist era, acclaimed for strongly structured compositions and a masterful use of line. But when Edgar Degas discovered the printmaking technique known as monotype, everything changed.

As a major exhibition due to open at the Museum of Modern Art next spring reveals, he became much looser and more improvisational in his working methods. He regularly mixed printmaking with other media, like pastel. And he expanded past the subjects for which he is best known—dancers and scenes of modern life—to include risqué brothel scenes and landscapes verging on abstraction.

Jonathan Green, director of London's Richard Green Gallery, hit the proverbial dealer's jackpot when he unwittingly purchased three pastels by Claude Monet at a Parisian auction in 2014 for the price of two.

After returning home, Green noticed that there was something fastened to the back of one of the two rare studies of skies that he had bought for an undisclosed sum—it turned out to be another pastel which depicts a jetty and a lighthouse at Le Havre in Normandy, where the legendary artist grew up.

The Albertina Museum in Vienna, Austria is hosting an exhibition of 19^th-century graphic works, on loan from Paris’ Musée d’Orsay.

The exhibition includes pastels by Edgar Degas, Georges Seurat, and Odilon Redon; gouaches by Honoré Daumier and Gustave Moreau; watercolors by Paul Cézanne, along with works by other artists of the period. The exhibition encompasses a broad range of artistic movements and styles.

In the world of art with paintings by Monet and Rembrandt, and sculpture by Michelangelo and Rodin, drawings sometimes play second fiddle.

Grand Rapids Art Museum hopes to show that's not really the case with a major exhibition of works on paper from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

Drawings, watercolors and pastels from artists such as Picasso, Van Gogh and Jasper Johns go on display this fall in the exhibition titled "Marks of Genius: 100 Extraordinary Drawings from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts."

Like perfect pitch in music, drawing remains the skill by which artistic talent is measured.

Minneapolis Institute of Arts visitors can see how 100 different artists have drawn over the past 500 years and then step into the museum’s own studio and try their hand at sketching a still life, the human figure, or whatever springs to mind. The museum has even unearthed some plaster casts of antique sculpture that can be copied, as students once did in art school.

The DIY room is the playful wrap-up to “Marks of Genius: 100 Extraordinary Drawings,” an important show of impressively varied drawings, watercolors and pastels from the museum’s collection. Running through Sept. 21, the exhibit anticipates the museum’s 100th birthday next year and will travel to museums in Grand Rapids, Mich.; Raleigh, N.C., and Omaha after it closes in Minneapolis.

Scott Schaefer, the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Senior Curator of Paintings, will retire on January 21, 2014. Schaefer joined the Getty in 1999 after stints at Sotheby’s, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Schaefer, who helmed the Getty’s Paintings department for four years, helped the museum acquire a total of 70 paintings and pastels and five sculptures. Among the most important recent acquisitions are the Getty’s first paintings by Paul Gauguin, J.M.W. Turner’s Modern Rome, and a rare self-portrait by Rembrandt.

Timothy Potts, the Getty’s director, said, “Through his acquisitions, Scott has made an impact on every one of the Museum’s paintings galleries and, in particular, transformed our eighteenth-century French collection. We will miss his discerning eye, keen intelligence and above all his unswerving commitment to the Museum.”

On March 8, 2013 the New-York Historical Society will launch Audubon’s Aviary: The Complete Flock (Parts I-III). The three-part exhibition, which will be on view for three years, celebrates the 150^th anniversary of the Society’s purchase of John James Audubon’s (1785-1851) avian watercolors. The exhibition coincides with the release of the book Audubon Aviary: The Original Watercolors for ‘The Birds of America,’ which was published by the New-York Historical Society and Skira Rizzoli Publishing.

 Audubon’s Aviary: Part I of the Complete Flock will run from March 8-May 19, 2013 and offers patrons a rare glimpse into Audubon’s earlier years. A self-taught artist, this segment of the exhibition explores how Audubon developed his unmatched style and his use of experimental media. The exhibition will include a selection of rare, early pastels on loan from the Houghton Library of Harvard University and the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de la Rochelle in France. Part I will also feature 220 of Audubon’s avian watercolors including the first 175 models engraved in The Birds of America.  

Between the exhibition’s three parts, the Historical Society will present all 474 avian watercolors in its collection. The preparatory watercolor models for the seminal The Birds of America (1927-38) will appear alongside progressive media installations that aim to reinforce the connection between art and nature.

Manet: Portraying Life opens on January 26, 2013 at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The first exhibition to focus solely on French Impressionist Edouard Manet’s (1832-1883) portraits, Portraying Life has already sold more advanced tickets than the museum’s blockbuster Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) exhibition in 2010. Certain timed ticket entrances have sold out entirely.

The show, which took six years to organize, spans Manet’s entire career and features works from Europe, Asia, and the United States. Portraying Life is comprised of 50 paintings and a few pastels and includes portraits of Manet’s favorite sitters such as his wife, Suzanne Leenhoff (1829-1906), and luminaries from the time period including Antonin Proust (1832-1905) and Émile Zola (1840-1902). Manet, who often painted family, friends, and important political as well as artistic figures, invigorated scenes of everyday life with his modern and progressive approach to portraiture.

While Portraying Manet is expected to be a hit show, there has been a hiccup in plans. London’s snowy weather has left one painting stranded in Brazil’s São Paulo airport; the portrait of Mademoiselle Marie Lefébure is awaiting flight clearance before it can be exhibited at the Royal Academy. Sadly, the painting was not present at the press preview on January 22, 2013, which included VIP guests, patrons, and sponsors. Officials hope the work will arrive in time for exhibition’s public opening on Saturday.

Manet: Portraying Life will be on view through April 14, 2013.