Thank You, Sheena Wagstaff

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

I was saddened to hear that Sheena Wagstaff stepped down as Leonard A. Lauder Chair of Modern & Contemporary Art at The Met (TM) last week. At least it was, apparently, by her choice, after a battle with long covid1.

Among many highlights I list below, perhaps this was THE highlight of Sheena Wagstaff’s tenure at The Met- The Met Breuer’s lobby seen on the day it opened, Met Member’s Preview, March 8, 2016, 10 days before it opened to the public, with banners for the now legendary shows it opened with.

There is no other person I have singled out for praise in the NYC Art world over the 7 years of NHNYC.com more than I have Sheena Wagstaff. Appointed January 10, 2012, in 2016, I called her the “Person of the Year” in NYC Art. Over her decade at the helm of M & C, she mounted quite a few memorable shows, a number of important shows, and some that are now legendary, at The Met Breuer, and at the 1000 Fifth Avenue Mothership. 

As it turns out, I was there on The Met Breuer’s Opening Day in March, 2016 and it’s closing day in March, 2020, and wrote about both.

The Met Breuer was established to be The Met’s “Modern &. Contemporary outpost” while the M & C wing at 1000 Fifth Avenue was undergoing renovations. Due to the economic situation the renovation was cancelled. The Met Breuer went on for 4 years, about half the originally announced duration, until The Met made a deal with The Frick to take over their Breuer Building lease. After TMB, Sheena Wagstaff continued mounting shows at 1000 Fifth Avenue, including more major & memorable shows. As I write this, two of her shows are up, and maybe there will be more that have already been in the works to come.

In her honor, I revisit some of the memorable shows I’ve seen with links to those I’ve written about, mounted during Sheena Wagstaff’s tenure at The Met-

Opening The Met Breuer

The Artist seen on an iPad at the show.

Nasreen Mohamedand here. To this day, the only show I’ve written about twice.

“Welcome to the future,” I captioned this Photo in the piece. Unfinished on Opening Day of The Met Breuer. Member’s Preview, March 8, 2016

Unfinished: Thoughts Left Visible – Along with Nasreen Mohamedi, the two shows that opened The Met Breuer, March, 2016.

diane arbus in the beginning, 2016 – A brilliant installation of Ms. Arbus’s little known early work, included a Portrait of my late friend, Storme DeLaverie, that she told me Ms. Arbus took, but I’d never seen.

Lygia Pape, Tetia 1, C, 1976-2004, Golden thread, nails, wood, lighting, a work that wonderfully characterized the ephemeral nature of Ms. Pape’s work in a show remembered for its endless variety and surprise. Seen at Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms, her first major show in a US museum in June, 2017.

Lygia Pape: A Multitude of Forms, 2017

Having one of the biggest jobs in the entire Art world, I can’t begin to imagine how busy Sheena Wagstaff was. But, here she is looking at a very large work by Ursula von Rydingsvard at Galerie Lelong & Co., April, 2018. She still took the time to make the rounds of the galleries and see shows, as I came across her doing, as I was, here.

NYC Art Shows, 2016: Sheena Wagstaff Rules The Waves – My look at Art in NYC in 2016.

The opening galley of Mastry.

Kerry James Marshall: Mastry , 2017- Perhaps the most important show mounted during the run of the The Met Breuer.

Marsden Hartley, Smelt Brook Falls, 1937

Marsden Hartley”s Maine, 2017– A somewhat mythical Artist got an overdue close look.

Installation view of the first gallery.

Jack Whitten: Odyssey, 2018 – Jack Whitten lived, worked and died without anyone knowing he had ALSO created a large body of Sculpture. And, it was every bit as compelling as his wonderful Painting.

Delirious: Art At The Limit Of Reason, 2017

Edvard Munch: Between the Clock & the Bed 2017 – In my view, though not large, a brilliant show.

Everything is Connected: Art and Conspiracy, 2018

The crowd in the packed first galley struggling to see the blockbuster David Hockney show 2 days before it closed, February 23, 2018.

David Hockney, 2018. Back over at 1000 Fifth Avenue, it still boggles my mind that it was only one of FIVE major shows up at The Met at the same time. Four of them within feet of each other with the once-in-a-lifetime Michelangelo: Divine Designer & Draftsman right behind that rear wall seen above.

The under-known Thornton Dial, 1928-2016, had a few pieces in it, including History Refused to Die, 2004, center.

History Refused to Die: Hightlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift, 2018, at 1000 Fifth Avenue. What a great, small, show this was!

Very, very few got to see this. Seen here on its very last day, March 12, 2020. Installation view of the lobby on the 4th floor.

Gerhard Richter: Painting After All, 2020- A brilliantly selected, concise, overview of his long and productive career, which I saw on its last day, the final day The Met Breuer was open.

Home is a Foreign Place, one of the 3 shows that closed TMB, drawn from recent additions to the Permanent Collection showed how far The Met’s collection of M&C has come. Seen on its final day- March 12, 2020.

Home Is A Foreign Place, 2020. The last show I saw at The Met Breuer, which I saw after seeing the Richter show.

The Met Breuer closed, permanently as it turned out, right after I left the Richter show. My look back at it is here and here.

Standing in the covid line, keeping my distance, waiting to be allowed in. Still, it was just so great to be back home again, and it was well worth the inconveniences.

Alice Neel: People Come First, 2021- The first Met blockbuster after it reopened, I saw it as The Met’s love letter to the people of NYC.Epic Abstraction, 2018- Date – A show that’s been up for quite a while and has evolved over its run. Still as compelling in 2022 as it was when it opened.

Louise Bourgeois: Paintings, 2022 – Absolutely terrific. Nothing short of a revelation.

And there were the Roof Garden Commissions by-

Alex Da Corte 2021

Hector Zamora 2020

Alicja Kwade 2019

Huma Bhabha 2018

Adrian Villar Rojas 2017

Cornelia Parker 2016

Pierre Huyghe 2015

Imran Qureshi 2013

Dan Graham 2014

And the Facade Commissions-

Carol Bove 2021

Wangechi Mutu 2020

Before she came to The Met, Sheena Wagstaff was chief curator of the Tate, London. During her time there she mounted a wonderful Edward Hopper show that’s only known to us on this side of the pond through the fine catalog she edited for the show. I hoped she would give us a Hopper show, which didn’t happen. But, when she reinstalled The Met’s M&C galleries she gave Hopper’s The Lighthouse at Two Lights, 1929, pride of place. This was a marvelous choice, in my view, serving as a reminder of a work that has been a bit forgotten after becoming iconic and appearing on a US Postage Stamp in 1970,  Seen in 2018. The galleries have been rehung since.

Along with ALL of this, Sheena Wagstaff oversaw the reinstallation of the M & C galleries at 1000 Fifth Avenue, next to the installation of two galleries devoted to Thomas Hart Benton’s America Today murals and associated works (to the right of the Hopper in the Photo above) which The Met received as a gift shortly after Sheena came on board.

The late Sam Giliiam, 1933-2022, gifted this work, Carousel State, 1968, to The Met in 2018. He was honored by The Museum in 2017. Seen in Epic Abstraction in its current inkcaratnion, July, 2, 2022.

Currently, there are  two shows up as I write this Ms. Wagstaff was involved with- Epic Abstraction and Louise Bourgeois: Paintings. Both are excellent, the Bourgeois, a revelation. There may be more coming along that she was involved with, in addition to the Hew Locke: Gilt Facade Commission scheduled to open in September. 

Sheena Wagstaff before she spoke at the Nasreen Mohamedi Symposium at The Met in 2016. Right after she did, she happened to sit next to me.

I met Ms. Wagstaff, once, when she happened to sit down next to me at the Nasreen Mohamedi Symposium at The Met in 2016. Such was her passion for Nasreen, I learned in the show, that she traveled to India and visited places where Nasreen lived and sought out the site of her unmarked grave. After the symposium ended, I introduced myself to her and thanked her for the Nasreen Mohamedi show. I told her what a powerful impact discovering Nasreen in her show had on me (to this day, the only show I’ve devoted two pieces to). She responded asking me about one word I had chosen in expressing that, and immediately suggested a clarification. I came away feeling I had just spoken to one of the smartest people I’d ever met.

Sheena Wagstaff breaks through. Chelsea, April, 2018.

In 2018, I accidentally ran across her when we were both out seeing shows in Chelsea. The Whitestone Gallery had installed a piece over the entrance to their Gutai Art Association show that appeared as it it had been broken through, requiring visitors to walk through it to enter. I stood in the lobby watching visitors navigating this and snapping photos as they tried to “break through to the other side.” When I got home, I realized that one of those visitors was Sheena Wagstaff! I didn’t recognize her from the back. Now, this Photo speaks to me of her breaking through barriers while she was at The Met. Her shows were about inclusion, and breaking barriers, if nothing else.

Thank you, Sheena, so very much- for all of it.

Julie Mehretu, Conversion (S.M. del Popolo/After C.), 2019-20, just one of the countless pieces to enter The Met’s permanent collection of M & C Art during Sheena Wagstaff’s tenure, one of the last pieces in the most recent incarnation of her Epic Abstraction show, seen on July 2, 2022, the week before she left.

Her Met legacy will live on both in the shows she’s facilitated and the Art she has helped bring into the collection. In my opinion, her’s will be a tough act to follow at The Met. The Museum has been compared to an aircraft carrier. Given its four-city-block size, it’s bigger than one. Turning this ship is a MASSIVE undertaking, which is why I used the sea-faring analogy in my 2016 Sheena Wagstaff “Rules The Waves” piece. She has managed to turn the Met’s M & C exhibitions, and more importantly, its permanent collection, in the direction of inclusion. Whoever comes next is a very critical choice given that AND that the M & C wing is about to undertake is long-awaited remodeling. 

Though The Met is probably casting a very wide net for that person, here in NYC, it seems to me that now might be the time to see if Massimilliano Gioni might be interested in the position. He’s done a terrific job as Artistic Director at the New Museum. I’m saying nothing against them in suggesting him. 

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Thank U” by Alanis Morissette from Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, 1998, about which Alanis said, “Basically, I had never stopped in my whole life, hadn’t taken a long breath, and I took a year and a half off and basically learned how to do that…” I hope Ms. Wagstaff is now able to take a long breath. Somehow, I doubt she will.

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Gerhard Richter’s Met Blockbuster: Open For Just 9 Days!

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

UPDATE- July 16, 2020- The Met now lists Gerhard Richter: Painting After All on its “Past Exhibitions” page1, meaning it will NOT reopen!

After checking every day, the show appeared on the “Past Exhibitions” page on July 17th. I’ve enlarged the date section for legibility and added the red text…My original look at the show follows-

What if they mounted a blockbuster and nobody got to see it? 

Ahhhh….A major show covering TWO whole museum floors with about 100 Paintings? My idea of heaven…

As I write this in early June, 2020 what is known is that Gerhard Richter: Painting After All will be remembered as the last major show to be mounted at The Met Breuer (TMB) before The Met’s lease on the Marcel Breuer’s Madison Ave at East 75th Street building ends in July and The Frick Collection moves in while the renovations of their 1 East 70th Street home take place. What’s still unknown is how long the show ran for. It opened on March 4th, then “temporarily closed” after I saw it on March 12th, due to the coronavirus shutdown. That’s all of NINE days! The Met’s site says “Closing Date To Be Announced” on its listing, but what are their options for reopening it? With The Met’s lease on the Breuer Building ending in July, reopening it there would seem to have to come in June, which we are half-way through. On May 19th, Met CEO Daniel Weiss said that The Met “hoped” to reopen on August 15th, “or a few weeks later.” His announcement made no mention of TMB, but that timeframe would seem to rule out a TMB reopening. Moving it to 1000 Fifth Avenue might seem to be an option, terms of loans and space requirements for shows previously planned permitting. That might also put any number of employees at risk of the virus, though. Then, there’s this-

The X Factor. The show’s listing in the coming attractions section of MOCA’s site with a start date of August 15th.

This show was scheduled to open at MOCA, LA, on August 15th. So, there remains a chance Gerhard Richter: Painting After All (GR:PAA, henceforthwon’t reopen in NYC. IF that does come to pass, its 9 day run will be the shortest for a major show at a major museum here in my memory. That would be a shame considering the last major Gerhard Richter show in NYC was 20 years ago, a chance missed to assess how his older work looks now and see his more recent work. I started looking closely at Mr. Richter shortly after that NYC show, so in the past 20 years I’ve seen his gallery shows (of mostly new and recent work), but I’ve never seen 100 of his Paintings in one place. Being that Mr. Richter is 88, this may be the last major show of his work during his lifetime. The Artist did not attend the opening, though members of his family did, I was told by Met staffers.

Installation view, showing part of Strip, 2013, in the final gallery, seen on March 12th- hours before the show “temporarily closed.”

SPOILER ALERT! Since The Met’s site still says “Closing Date to be Announced” for this show, my hunch is that they will find a way to reopen it, especially because The Met originated GR:PAA (which is co-curated by Met Modern & Contemporary Art Chairman Sheena Wagstaff), and so has a sizable investment in it. My bet is that they will get an extension on the Breuer lease and use that to give this show a proper run, and The Met Breuer the fitting end I think it deserves. So, if you don’t want a peek at it yet, you may want to wait before proceeding. This piece will still be here when it doesn’t reopen! In which case, you’ll have to go to L.A. to see it, and I will be among the very few to have seen it here.

Installation view of the lobby on the 3rd floor, the concluding floor of the show. Surprisingly for a show called “Painting After All,”  works in glass greet the visitor on both floors. Mirror, 1986, shown here, right.

Installed on the 3rd and 4th floors of the Breuer, and beginning on 4, GR:PAA is not a retrospective and not a “greatest hits.” It lies somewhere between the two. It covers the whole of his career and juxtaposes many very familiar works, alongside some that are barely known to many here. I can’t help but wonder about the Artist’s involvement in GR:PAA, because the selection and arrangement of it has a bold feel to it. For a show that covers such a long period of time, it also has a bit of a sparseness, the work is not crowded together. Each piece has space to breathe. In the documentary Gerhard Richter: Painting, the Artist and his staff are shown using mockups of exhibition spaces and miniatures of each Painting as they work out and assess the placement of each. It’s hard for me to think that something similar didn’t take place with GR:PAA, though Ms. Wagstaff and her staff have repeatedly shown they are more than capable of mounting extraordinary shows without the Artist’s involvement, so in wondering, I mean to take nothing away from their achievement here, which is yet another Met Breuer show that will live on in memory and in discussion. Here, you have a major, living Artist. If you can get his involvement in your show, why wouldn’t you use it2? Whatever the case is, the selection and arrangement of the work take GR:PAA to another level.

“Art requires freedom…in dictatorships there is no art, not even bad art.” Gerhard Richter.

He would know. Gerhard Richter has lived in two countries where there was no freedom. He was born in Dresden in 1932, 11 months BEFORE Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany. His father was drafted into the Wehrmacht in 1938 and sent to the horror of the Eastern Front. The elder Richter didn’t return to Germany until 1946. Gerhard finished growing up in East Germany before managing a crafty defection to West Germany in 1961. He’s lived in Nazi Germany, Communist East Germany, West Germany and (the Federal Republic of) Germany in his lifetime.

Table, item #1 in the Gerhard Richter Catalogue Raisonne, though not his first work. In the Catalogue, this is listed under “Household Icons” in the “Photo Paintings” section of his site, yet, with its abstract elements it seems to straddle the fence between the two categories of Paintings his work is broken down into there.

These experiences have continually informed his work3 be it in the people, places and things he’s encountered in them, or in things that went on while he was living there that he didn’t personally encounter (like the Holocaust) in a career that is closing in on 60 years. Officially, the first work listed in his Catalogue Raisonne (CR 1), Table, is dated 1962, 58 years ago. Among works that pre-date Table are a Mural he Painted in 1955, and the work Elbe, included in this show in a Print version, was created in 1957.

September, 2005, Oil on canvas, 20 1/2 x 28 3/8 inches. Painted four years after 9/11, it’s one of the more haunting works done relating to the tragedy I’ve seen, perhaps because it mimics the view I had of 9/11 from my window. Placed in the show’s first gallery, it greeted this viewer like a cold smack in the face. It’s also the only work that references NYC in the show. Mounted on the same wall with Table, it’s another work that abstracts reality, from 40+ years later, reinforcing the fact that Photographs have been one source of Mr. Richter’s Paintings for at least 5o years.

In the intervening years, Gerhard Richter’s work has been marked by a variety in output that has ranged from Prints, Drawings, Artist’s Books, Sculptures, Films and Paintings. On his website, his Paintings are broken down into two main groups- “Photo Paintings” (further broken down to 36 categories!), and “Abstracts” (in 8 groups by date and 6 other groups).

Self-Portrait, 1996, Oil on linen, 20 1/16 x 18 1/8 inches. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at Gerhard Richter’s work. Now, his Photo-Paintings, to use his term, like this one, look fresher to me than I had remembered and fresher than a number of his Abstracts.

“To talk about painting is not only difficult but perhaps pointless, too. You can only express in words what words are capable of expressing, what language can communicate.
Painting has nothing to do with that.” Gerhard Richter, 1966, quoted in the Documentary Gerhard Richter Painting.

Eight Student Nurses, 1966, Oil on canvas, refers to the mass murder of 8 young women by Richard Speck in Chicago, 1966. These are from his Grays, which evoke the effect of black & white Photographs.

As I walked through Painting After All, I was struck by how fresh the Photo Paintings looked…

S. with Child, 1995, (both)

which I didn’t get from a number of the Abstracts.

Seven Abstract Paintings, 2016, Oil on wood, each 15 3/4 x 11 13/16 inches. In these later abstractions, it looks like the Artist is using other techniques besides only the “squeegee” to modify the paint he had applied.

Part of the latter feeling may stem from the discovery that the late Jack Whitten had been extensively mining the squeegee technique Mr. Richter’s Abstracts are known for a full decade before he did. I’ve seen reference to Mr. Whitten using a squeegee in 19694, but he may have started before that5. The earliest Gerhard Richter squeegee work I seem to be able to find is from the mid 1980s.

Jack Whitten, Siberian Salt Grinder, 1974, Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, seen at MoMA in 2019.

Still, some of the Abstracts did stand out.

Three of the six Cage Paintings, 2006, each Oil on canvas, 9 1/2 feet square, which get their own room, the other three facing these.

The legendary Cage Paintings were much more stunning in person than in the book of the same name, especially in a group of all six of them, set off in a central gallery of their own on the 4th floor. Seeing them, and being able to be able to walk right up to them and see the details of their layers was one of the highlights of the show.

Four Birkenau Paintings, 2014, Oil on canvas, each 8′ 6 3/8 x 78 3/4 inches faced four Prints made from them in the next to last room of the show.

The other highlight, among the Abstracts, and of the whole exhibition, was the chance to see his recent Birkenau series of Paintings and the Prints he made after them. Installed in the show’s penultimate room along with the only four existing Photographs taken by Sondernkommandos surreptitiously in the titular Nazi Birkenau death camp, Gerhard Richter had wanted for decades to do something regarding the Holocaust. He originally started by using the Photographs as the basis for his work, but soon started over from scratch, abstractly. The results are remarkable and unforgettable. They, literally, drip with pain, bloodshed and horror.

4,900 Colors, 2007, Enamel paint on aluminum.

And there were other “kinds” of abstractions, like 4,900 Colors…

Strip, 2013, Inkget print on fine art paper between acrylic and aluminum.

And Strip, 2013.

Strip began here. Abstract Painting, 1990, seen on the 4th floor, was digitally manipulated in Photoshop hundreds, maybe thousands of times until the thin bands of color we see in Strip are achieved. These would have to be magnified to see an actual image.

This version of Strip, seen in the show’s last gallery on the 3rd floor, began life as Abstract Painting, 1990, seen on the 4th floor. The process Mr. Richter used to create the works in his Strip series is outlined in the Artist’s book, Patterns, in which he took his Abstract Painting (CR: 724-4) and manipulated it in Photoshop, using a mirroring process, he then repeated over and over until the results were reduced to the fine lines of color seen in Strip.

My results after Step 1.

Using his process, I took Abstract Painting, 1990, which I just showed, and began to create my own Strip from it.

My results after Step 2.

I got to the third stage.

My results after Step 3.

Already you can see where this is going, given a few hundred, or more, steps. Even these preliminary results made me feel that this exercise was fascinatingly making some sort of order out of the seeming “chaos” of abstraction.

Installation view of the 4th floor, with the lobby, where the show begins to the right.

Or course, it will be a long time before the final assessment of Gerhard Richter’s work is done, and hopefully, a long time before he stops creating it.

Early, and recent work. Here, early, Four Panes of Glass, 1967 in front of Elbe, 1957/2012, along the back wall, Originally paint roller on paper, 1957, eprinted as inkjet prints in 2012.

“In 2020, art can be made from literally anything. So why still paint?” Met Museum Primer for GR:PAA

Recent. Installation view showing House of Cards (5 Panes), 2020, Glass and steel, the most recent work in the show. That’s the view across Madison Avenue coming in through Marcel Breuer’s window to the left, reflected in the glass.

Though works in other medium are included, as seen above, even with these forays, his Painting have continued, and continued to be the main focus of his work. Highlights from many of the major categories of Painting that Mr. Richter has worked in are included, including his hugely influential landscapes, like Seascape, 1975.

Seascape, 1975, Oil on canvas, 78 3/4 inches by 9 feet 10 1/8 inches. I was stopped by this work when I came across it.  It spoke to me of so much going on at that moment- the looming covid shutdown, which would begin for Art in NYC a few hours later, and along with it, the status of this show. How the world would be different after…Are the clouds clearing, or is a storm coming? Is that light a dawn, or a sunset?

For me, the title Gerhard Richter: Painting After All  has multiple meanings. It can be read as a statement that Gerhard Richter has continued to Paint, or gone back to Painting, after exploring other mediums, his entire career. It can also be read as a statement about all the tumult that has gone on in the Arts over his lifetime, during which time Painting has received unprecedented challenges from Photography and other mediums which have attempted to take it’s prime place among the visual Arts. Regardless of how I, or anyone, feels about a work here or there, the one thing that remains is that Gerhard Richter has consistently shown what Painting can do, what it’s capable of giving us, that other mediums can’t- including Photography, to this point. In doing so, he has set signposts for other Painters to follow to continue to mine what Painting is uniquely capable of.

It can, also, be read as a statement about the survival, and ongoing importance of Painting. After all.

Particularly after my 3+ year immersion in Modern & Contemporary Photography, I’ll go with that one.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is the album Richter 858 by Bill Frisell, that was originally released along with a volume of Gerhard Richter’s Abstract Pictures 858-1 through 858-8. In 2005, then rereleased on Soundlines.

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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  1. Here
  2. This is probably discussed and clarified in the show’s catalog. Due to the shutdown, which has closed all bookstores, I have not seen the catalog. I may update/correct this when I do.
  3. In works in the show, like Uncle Rudi and others, and work that are not here, like the intriguing October 18, 1977 series.
  4. Here
  5. In his remarkable book, Notes From The Woodshed, Mr. Whitten, a master woodworker, writes about  the making of the tools he used to make them- “The Developer” he called a large one.

Vincent van Gogh- Home, At Last

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Vincent van Gogh spent his life looking…for things he never found. Detail of his  Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat, 1887. All works shown were seen at The Met and are oil on canvas. Click any Photo for full size.

While a reported 1,000,000 visitors have been busy seeing Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination on The Met’s 1st floor, downstairs in the Costume Institute, and uptown at The Cloisters1, many visitors may have missed the fact that there is big news upstairs at 1000 Fifth Avenue. I’m not talking about the skylight renovation project, which is ongoing, and which has thrown the European Paintings galleries into a bit of temporary chaos. I’m talking about the fact that happy times have again returned to Gallery 825 near the southern wall of the Museum in the European Paintings galleries on the second floor, where The Met has reunited, what for me, has long been one of the glories of it’s collection, 10 of its Paintings by Vincent van Gogh, now that all of their Paintings by the beloved Artist have returned from loans.

HOW great is it to be able to walk into a room and see THIS? For me, it’s one of the great joys of life in NYC. One part of the newly reinstalled Gallery 825 showing 9 of the 10 Van Goghs in this room. #10 is on the other side of the Self-Portrait with Straw Hat in the vitrine. This shot was available for literally one second over 3 visits and the 3 hours I spent here recently.

A further 6 are adjacent to them in Gallery 822, making 16 of the 18 oil on canvas Paintings they own by my count on view at the moment.

1,500+ visits in I rarely pay attention to gallery # signs. You really can’t go wrong in The Museum. I always just wander and enjoy being surprised. For those with limited time, yes, it might be best to have a plan. Or? Just wander.

Of the 6 or 7 million folks who visit The Museum from all over the world, I’m sure seeing these works is on the lists of many. I made a visit to see their reinstallation, which puzzles me is some regards, and I had a revelation that caused me to make 2 return trips solely to further study what I found.

Also in Gallery 825, opposite the Van Goghs seen above, is a beautiful selection of work by his friend, Paul Gauguin, with works by Pointillists, including George Seurat, and a Rousseau, filling out the room. Seeing the Gauguin, I was struck by the thought that they have, and will, spend much more time together in this room than he and Vincent did in real life, a bit of a poignant reminder of the temporary nature of all of Vincent’s relationships and friendships, besides that with his younger brother, Theo (which did have some lapses, due to disagreements).

Across from Vincent in Gallery 825, is a corner of Paintings, an amazing sculpture(!) and a wood carving(!) by his friend, Paul Gauguin.

Regarding the installation of the Van Goghs in Gallery 825, two caveats. First, the works at each end of the wall are a bit difficult to see due to the placing of the guard rope. It’s worse for the smaller work on the left, Peasant Woman Cooking by a Fireplace, 1885, than it is for the larger work, First Steps, after Millet, 1890 at the other end.

Peasant Woman Cooking by a Fireplace, 1885, left, Sunflowers, 1887, right.

Regardless? My rule of thumb is this- “If THIS was your ONLY Painting by Vincent van Gogh- Would you hang it like THIS?”

First Steps, after Millet, 1890, quite popular with visitors, is a bit hard to see. When you stand near that post, you’ll understand what I mean. Rousseau’s The Repast of the Lion, 1907, is hung on the wall, right. It may have been interesting for visitors if The Met hung one of the 6 oil Paintings they own by Van Gogh’s cousin Anton Mauve (1838-1888), his only teacher (for a short time), here. Rousseau is far more popular.

This may, or may not, be a function of the fact that gallery space in the European Paintings Galleries is a bit scarce right now due to the skylight renovations. It pains me to no end there are only THREE Rembrandts on view at the moment!, so it’s great timing that at least the Van Goghs have been reunited.

The other caveat is in seeing the work on the front of Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat, 1887, The Potato Peeler, 1885. It’s a work from his earlier, “dark,” period and due to the glare from the lights, is very hard to see due to the reflections on the vitrine they’re in. It probably needs a vitrine with self-contained lighting on each side, which may not be practical due to conservation issues. It’s so darkly Painted it makes me wonder how popular Vincent would be now if he had continued Painting with this palette for the rest of his career.

The Potato Peeler, 1885, with Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat, 1887, on it’s back. Yes, Vincent was so poor, he had to use the other, unprimed, raw side of his canvases, in this case to Paint the astonishing Self-Portrait. Admittedly, a very difficult piece to light, particularly in a vitrine. A better view is here.

Coincidentally to the return of the Van Goghs, I’ve been absolutely lost in Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith’s, 2011 Van Gogh: The Life, as riveting a 976 page biography as I’ve ever read. Messers Naifeh and Smith, coming off the Pulitzer Prize for their Jackson Pollock biography, spent ten years in painstaking international research, with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, tapping into 100 years of Van Gogh research, a wealth of previously unmined sources (including hundreds of unpublished family correspondences), and of course, Vincent’s justly famous letters, themselves fresh off the completion of the 15 year Van Gogh Letters Project, which, with the Van Gogh Museum, revisited every existing letter written by or received by Vincent. The results were published in 2014 in a 6 volume profusely illustrated (Vincent’s letters contain many drawings and illustrations) and completely annotated hardcover set, Vincent van Gogh: The Complete Letters, that clocks in at 33 pounds (only a few left- hurry! See BookMarks at the end), or the entire corpus is now available for free online!! Van Gogh: The Life, is so big, Naifeh and Smith have created a website to contain the full versions of the book’s extensive footnotes, picture galleries and an extensive bibliography. Their book has been called, “The definitive biography for decades to come,” by Leo Jansen, curator, the Van Gogh Museum, and co-editor of Vincent van Gogh: The Complete Letters.

It’s about time! It’s hard to think of any other Artist born after 1850 who’s life (and death) is shrouded in myth, fantasy and fiction more than Vincent van Gogh’s has been.

Cypresses, June, 1889

Vincent van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, exactly a year after Vincent van Gogh died. His parents had a son, who they named Vincent, who was stillborn in 1852, and laid to rest under a marker inscribed “Vincent van Gogh.” His mother, Anna Carbentus, “never understood her eldest son…As time passed, she liked him less and less. Incomprehension gave way to impatience, impatience to shame, and shame to anger. By the time he was an adult, she had all but given up hope for him. She dismissed his religious and artistic ambitions as ‘futureless wanderings’ and compared his errant life to a death in the family. She accused him of intentionally inflicting ‘pain and misery’ on his parents. She systematically discarded any Paintings and Drawings that he left at home as if disposing of rubbish…She outlived Vincent by 17 years. Even after his death, when fame belatedly found him, she never regretted or amended her verdict that his art was ‘ridiculous2.'”

Yikes! WHAT can you possibly say to that? Still? As late as 1888, 2 years before he died, THIS is how he longed to see her- with an approving smile for him. Something he probably had to imagine. His father, Dorus, a Parson, was left to try and intermediate, but more often then not, having his own passionately held ideas and beliefs, that rarely seemed to coincide with his eldest son’s, met with little success.

Vincent van Gogh, First Steps, after Millet, Oil on canvas, 1890. It’s hard not to see Vincent’s yearning for family in this scene. Here, the subjects are, ironically and fittingly, frozen in time- forever apart. Painted after an original chalk and pastel Drawing by Jean-Francois Millet (1814-1875, one of Vincent’s biggest influences), because, he said, Millet “had no time to Paint them in oils3.” The compositional changes he made to the original are fascinating.

To say that Vincent wound up pining for the love of his family his entire life, that he never received to the extent it was “enough” for him, would be a huge understatement. At 11, they dropped him off on the steps of a boarding school 13 miles away from the home he longed to be in and said goodbye to him. It was an “abandonment,” his term, he never got over. At one point, he wrote about his parents, “(They) cannot feel for or sympathize with me.””(They) completely lack warm, live sympathy.” “They are creating a desert around themselves.””(They) have hardened their hearts.””(They) are harder than stone.””When I’m at home, I have a lonesome, empty feeling4.” For the rest of his life, which would largely be lived away from home, he valued nothing more than trying to win back their love, or, failing this, to find a surrogate family to fill this need, which he never did for long. Vincent’s two attempts at a relationship (the word “romantic” doesn’t seem appropriate), first to a widowed cousin, the second to a prostitute pregnant with someone else’s child, that he hoped would lead to marriage and thereby family stability, ended in humiliation. The closest he ever got to having a lasting friendship was, mostly at a distance, with his younger brother Theo.

While living this loveless, largely friendless life he went from one utter failed attempt at a job or career to another, until, finally, in August, 1880, he turned to becoming an Artist as a last resort. A month short of ten years later, in July, 1890, he would be dead. He was just 37 years old. In August, 1882, he wrote about having a feeling that he would not live long-

“I would like to leave some memento in the form of Drawings and Paintings…I have to accomplish in a few years something full of heart and love, and do it with a will. Should I live longer, so much better, but I put that out of my mind. Something must be accomplished in these few years5.”

 

Sunflowers, 1887. About as “alive” as still life gets. It positively bursts with so much energy you might think it was on fire if it wasn’t titled.

In his short Artistic career, he would leave about 2,100 Artworks, including an astonishing 860 oil Paintings, and those letters. His contemporary, Claude Monet, was born 13 years before him, in 1840, and died 36 years after him, in 1926, outliving him by almost 50 years to age 86. If Vincent had lived to be 86, he would have passed in 1939. IF he had been as productive for those 50 years as he was in his first 10? He would have left us 10,500 Artworks, including 4,300 oil Paintings! But, given how hard his life was to that point and the wear and tear it took on him, and that he had what were, possibly, both diagnosed and undiagnosed illnesses6, it was probably a very long shot, at best, he ever had a realistic chance of making it to 86.

Irises, 1890, the last year of Vincent’s life. The “pale” background seems very unusual for Vincent, though it offsets the Irises wonderfully.

I was one of the millions who grew up with Irving Stone’s Lust for Life. Reading it as a teenager, I naively took it as fact, not realizing there was such a thing as a “fictionalized biography.” Irving Stone set out to make biography as exciting as dime store novels. He did this to Michelangelo, too, with The Agony and the Ecstasy. In both instances, Art lovers are left to dig on their own in the historical record for the facts. Often overlooked by those who think Lust is a “biography” is the section of “Notes” warning the reader that he had to concoct scenes. Writing 40 years after Vincent passed, he never knew him. Making matters worse, he seems to have relied on people who weren’t there for “information” on key scenes, like his death. The resulting Film of the same name brought all of this to countless millions more. After reading Lust, I was compelled to dig deeper, to get “closer” to Vincent. I was given a 3 volume older edition of his Complete Letters, which is way more compelling than any novel (even one, like Mr. Stone’s that draws on them), and now with Van Gogh: The Life, the background has been filled in with 100 years of verifiable research. There’s no longer any need for fiction-  The real story is a way better page turner! If you love his work, dig deeper into his life and you’ll be rewarded by getting closer to the Artist. Reading Vincent’s letters, and now The Life, what comes consistently across to me is his LOVE for Life. When I look at his Art, I see an Artist who loves what he sees and wants to preserve it with pen or paint. Even during his earlier period when he Painted very poor farmers and others in a very dark palette. He Paints them to honor their work and their lives.

Peasant Woman Cooking by a Fireplace, 1885. The Photo is distorted because, as I said, it must be seen at an angle.

At The Met, seeing these works together again, I was struck by how very different they are. Though they were Painted over less than 8 full years, they’re different one from the next. They’re different from virtually everything else of their time.

Vincent desperately wanted to be a portraitist. He (over)spent much of his limited budget on models, but, as in so many other things, he was his own worst enemy in that he began Painting from life before he finished his studies, according to his Cousin Mauve, and others. The results are often a bit “rough,” but just as often surprisingly poignant and unique, particularly in his Self-Portraits, which he did so many of when he lacked for other sitters. It’s hard for me to look at any of Vincent’s portraits and not think that he was really Painting himself, particularly when he Paints people he barely knows. Here, it’s hard not to see another instance of his longing for family and domesticity. La Berceuse (Woman Rocking A Cradle; Augustine-Alex Pellicot Roulin), 1889 (who he knew better than most), It’s an image of home and family he Painted to hang in the famous Yellow House he briefly shared with Gauguin. If that string she’s holding wasn’t tethered to the cradle, she might be floating away like the flowers in the background almost appear to be.

His portraits look like no one else’s. Ditto his landscapes7, his interiors and still lifes. The same can be said for his Drawings, which were unforgettably seen in The Met’s landmark Vincent van Gogh: The Drawings show in 2005. And, they’re different from what’s come since. His work set the stage for what is called Expressionism, though no one else seems to have directly pursued his stylistic innovations, like his use of wavy lines to depict nature.

Meanwhile, Wheatfield with Cypresses, 1889, gets it’s own wall in Gallery 822.

Who else Paints like this?

This is all the more remarkable when you consider how little training in Drawing & Painting Vincent received, which, beyond his own studies of Charles Bargue’s legendary Drawing Course,and other texts, amounted to a month with his cousin, Painter Anton Mauve, and some classes, including a short-lived enrollment in Paris classes that were also attended by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. Much of the rest can be attributed to talent, though part of the individuality in his Art can be attributed to isolation, I think. He worked most of his entire 10 year career by himself, with only occasional company or interaction with other Artists, though he voraciously and passionately looked at Art for most of his life, even long before he was an Artist. He assimilated all that he saw, felt it deeply and thought about it continually, yet he was able to create Art in his own style that, while partially based in Millet, he continually evolved. So much so that no two of these 16 works (in both galleries) are really in the same style, there are differences between each and every one of them. Most unique of all, to my eyes, is the Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat. Though at first glance it looks to be “classically pointillistic,” it’s not. Only Vincent achieves a somewhat similar effect with lines instead of dots. The results are something else entirely.

Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat, 1887, one of my personal favorite works in entirety of The Met, Painted on the raw, unprimed side of the canvas, (as you can see in the detail posted at the beginning), which adds to the unique texture of the work. Painting on this side can cause conservation problems, though it looks good for 131 years old. I’ve looked at it countless times over a few decades now and every time I see it, I marvel at it’s unique way of seeing the world.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so.

Midway through my visit, I stood away from the Van Goghs taking in the whole group. As I stood there, I noticed people posing for pictures with Vincent’s Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat.

People from who knows where.

That day, I was in the middle of the section of his biography where he desperately tries to see the object of his love, his widowed cousin, 35 year old mother of one, Kee Vos, who had adamantly rejected his proposal of marriage in August, 1881, with the infamous words, “Never, no, never!” (Vincent was 28). Not one to give up, EVER, he relentlessly pursued the matter, finally traveling to see her that November, only to find her absent. “At one point, he put his hand over a gas-lamp flame and demanded, ‘Let me see her for as long as I can keep my hand in this flame.’ Someone eventually blew out the lamp, but weeks later his burned flesh was visible from a distance8.” The longing and the emotional scars remianed for the rest of his life.

In the long, beautiful, letter he wrote to Theo after this event (Letter #193, December 23, 1881), showing every ounce of his talent as a writer, after a long summary of the event, he said, “I can’t live without love, without a woman. I wouldn’t care a fig for life if there wasn’t something infinite, something deep, something real. I will not, I may not live without love. I’m only human, and a human with passions at that, I need a woman or I’ll freeze or turn to stone, or anyway be overwhelmed.”

128 years after his death on July 29, 1890, I couldn’t help but notice that there were no shortage of women who wanted a picture with him. Many of them had, no doubt, traveled quite long distances, themselves, to get one.

Then, I started to notice whole families posing with his Self-portrait.

Hmmm…

I did a quick mental scan of the building. I can’t think of another work in the entire Museum that families pose in front of for a group self-portrait (feel free to let me know if you can).

Vincent, calmly looking out at us for all time behind glass, while I wonder, “What would you be feeling right now?”

Maybe it doesn’t happen often? I decided to go back 2 more times to see. Each time, the same thing happened- more families from all over the world, convened in front of one of my very favorite Paintings in The Museum, Vincent’s Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat.

Why?

I didn’t ask, so I still don’t know.

Standing there during one visit the thought suddenly occurred to me- IF I was somehow permitted to be allowed to bring back any one person from the dead, that person would be Vincent van Gogh. (Hey, in your imagination, you’re free to do whatever you want, too.)

Why Vincent?

Smiling, while I had a tear in my eye.

Because for his entire life, Vincent wanted little else more than to be loved by his family. Failing to get that, he started looking for surrogate families that would accept him, but these situations didn’t last long. Here, 128 years after he passed away, all these families have come who knows how far, and in the midst of the The Met’s 4 NYC blocks full of the greatest Art created by man and womankind, they feel compelled to gather as a group for a picture, AND INCLUDE HIM. Realizing this, I came close to being overcome.

I would just love to be able to stand there next to him and watch his reaction.

As close as I’ll ever get to knowing what it felt like to sit next to Vincent van Gogh. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh, Paris, 1887, Colored chalk on cardboard. Vincent and Toulouse-Lautrec were friends for a time while taking classes. They routinely ended their day in a bar. Here, in this marvelous, and incredibly rare side view of the Artist, no doubt Drawn from life, he shows Vincent with an absinthe glass in front of him. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

Today, Vincent van Gogh is, very probably, the world’s most beloved Artist. For this almost entirely self-taught Artist, who was a virtual beginner at 28 years old, to create what he did in 10 years, in almost total isolation and become what he is now, is possibly the most astounding story in Western Art. The fact that his life was lived with so much hardship, suffering, loneliness and lack of acceptance serves to add even more layers to a hard to believe story. So, I would love to travel the world with him as he sees how millions of people around the world react to his Art today.

Would he be completely overwhelmed by all of this if he were to see it now? More than likely, it would be too much for him to grasp all at once. It would be for anyone.

I’ll never know.

There’s another question this “revelation” raised. Why? As in “WHY does his work speak to so many people?”

I think it’s because Van Gogh, throughout his life, in each different path he tried, what he sought, along with trying to win the love of his family, was to be consoled. This word comes up so often in Van Gogh: The Life that I started noting each instance. It’s continual and central to things that were important to him. He sought it in his efforts to become a Preacher. In his attempts at love. But, throughout his life he made Drawings and he collected prints (at one time, his collection of prints numbered over 1,000) that he continually rotated on his walls- before and during his Art career. He went to see Art in museums and galleries. Though they found his Paintings “unsaleable,” his extended family were part owners of one of the biggest Art Galleries in Europe9, where he worked for a few years. Looking back, one can see that throughout his life, even before he became a Painter, he had a passion for Art. He found consolation in Art.

“In Vincent’s reality, images evoked emotions. Born into a family and an era awash in sentimentality, Vincent looked to images not just to be instructed and inspired, but, most of all, to be moved.
Art should be ‘personal and intimate,’ he said, and concern itself with ‘what touches us as human beings10.'”

I think it’s, perhaps, the main reason he became an Artist- because Art offered consolation, and as Naifeh and Smith say, “No one needed consolation more than Vincent did.”

128 years later, his Art has consoled countless millions of Art lovers and continues to every day.

Vincent has found a loving family. At long last.


BookMarks-

The Van Gogh monograph section at the legendary Strand Bookstore.

Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith’s, 2011 Van Gogh: The Life is compelling reading for anyone interested in Vincent van Gogh, or Art history. It’s written in a way that seems to have an Art audience in mind, with frequent digressions into matters like Art he was looking at, thinking about, hanging on his walls, what he was reading, as well as details about the materials he was using. The book is, perhaps, most widely known for it’s “Appendix A: A Note on Vincent’s Fatal Wounding,” separate from their main narrative, in which the authors make their case for believing that Vincent DID NOT commit suicide!, but rather was the victim of a homicide, accidental homicide, or an accident! As I said in the piece, the Appendix aside, the reason to read Van Gogh: The Life is that it’s built on extensive research bringing to bear the fruits of 100 years of Van Gogh scholarship that ends the need to rely on fictionalized accounts.

Vincent van Gogh: The Letters: The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition (Vol. 1-6), in 6 volumes that weighs 33 pounds is the current “definitive” edition. Published for the USA by Thames & Hudson, the hardcover box set currently lists at $650.00. As I mentioned in the piece, the entire corpus of Vincent’s Letter has been made available, for FREE, online. While the books look like they would be easier to use in some ways, the internet site is easier to use in others. For those wanting something a bit more shelf and wallet friendly, Ever Yours: The Essential Letters, by the same team and published by Yale University Press in 2014, contains 265 letters over 784 pages, a concise version that is far less expensive. Older editions of Vincent’s Letters are far cheaper in printed editions than the new, 6 volume edition, though not as complete, lacking the 4,300 illustrations, annotations, supplementary texts and newly discovered letters the new complete edition has.

Taschen’s Van Gogh: The Complete Paintings by Metzger & Walther has been released in a few sizes over the years, including a “small” version (5.5 x 8 by 2 inches and 2.8 pounds) that has sat on my night table for a good while. Generally, I prefer the largest size of Taschen’s Paintings books (because they give as close to a life size reproduction as possible, sometimes larger), but since they’ve never issued an XL size of this (probably because it would be XXL), I use this small one to explore his work, then look elsewhere for larger images of pieces I want to study closer. It’s very good for getting an overview and for seeing his progression during each period. At 19.95 list, with 774 pages and countless color illustrations, it’s one of the better deals in current Art books. Just remember- this current edition is small. It does exist in larger versions (including a few that are 2 volumes in a slip case) that are now out of print, but not expensive. With continued controversy about real and fake Van Goghs (akin to his countryman, Rembrandt), I hope the Van Gogh Museum will issue a definitive (for the moment) Catalogue Raisonne of his all of Paintings & Drawings, but nothing has been announced as far as I know11. So, in the meantime, the Taschen book remains the best place to start looking at Vincent’s work, in my view. The Van Gogh Museum has digitized much of it’s world leading collection of the works Vincent sent to Theo, who died a skance 6 months after Vincent, that were preserved by Theo’s wife, Johanna van Gogh-Bonger (who the world of Van Gogh lovers owe an incalculable debt to for saving and promoting his work, and for preserving, compiling and first publishing their letters, and to their son Vincent Willem van Gogh, who established the foundation which led to the creation of the Museum), so those works, including their 200 Paintings, may be seen and studied there.

Out of print, but not expensive, is Vincent Van Gogh: The Drawings (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series), the catalog for The Met’s 2005 show of the same name mounted in conjunction with the Van Gogh Museum. The Met has made it available as a pdf for free here. I recommend it for Artists and Art Students interested in Drawing. Largely a self-taught draftsman (he studied Charles Bargue’s legendary Drawing Course on his own), Van Gogh’s Drawings reveal the limitations of his education (as do his Paintings), but do not get enough credit for their uniqueness and daring, in my view. The Charles Bargue: Drawing Course is something anyone interested in studying a “traditional/classical” method of Drawing, largely from casts, should check out, particularly if you, like Vincent, lack a teacher. Naifeh and Smith recount that Vincent didn’t complete his studies of Bargue due to an impatience to begin Drawing from life, which others told him he was not ready for. They may have had a point, but it’s also another reason his work looks like no one else’s.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “I’ve Been Waiting For You,” by another iconic individualist, Neil Young. It was memorably covered by yet another one- David Bowie, on Heathen in 2002. Yes, I resisted the obvious “Home At Last,” by Steely Dan.

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  1. My friend, the fashion guru extraordinaire, Magda, wrote an excellent piece on the Cloisters part of the show, here.
  2. Van Gogh: The Life, P32. Page numbers refer to the eBook edition, which has 1574 pages.
  3. Van Gogh in Saint-Remy and Auvers, Met Museum, P.173
  4. Van Gogh: The Life, P.409 eBook edition
  5. Van Gogh: The Life, P.569 eBook edition
  6. //ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.159.4.519
  7. Personally, I don’t see Vincent in the work of Edvard Munch (1863-1944), even in The Scream, as some do.
  8.  Van Gogh: The Life, P.415 eBook Edition.
  9. His uncle Cor, one of the officers of the firm did commission 19 Drawings from him, in two purchases. By the way, Vincent did sell more than one Painting during his lifetime. The exact number he sold is not known.
  10. Van Gogh: The Life, P.475 eBook edition
  11. The Van Gogh Museum has been producing catalogs of the Paintings & Drawings in it’s collection. At the moment the complete Drawings have been published in 4 volumes and 2 of the 3 volumes of the complete Paintings in it’s collection have been published.

Thomas Cole- Ahead of His Time. And Ours

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*unless otherwise credited)

And then? There is beauty… 

The entrance. Not seen to the right, an intro video narrated by none other than Sting. Click any Photo for full size.

With all the recent talk about the Art world loving “ugly” Art, including Painting1, along came The Met’s Thomas Cole’s Journey: Atlantic Crossings. It’s an homage to “beautiful” Painting- to American Landscape Painting, to the birth of the Hudson River School that Mr. Cole is often credited with being a co-founder of (the first Art movement to form in America), and, it’s a testament to some very great Painters who expressed their passionate love of nature and it’s beauty on canvas and paper. Tucked away in galleries in the back of the first floor of the renovated American Wing, it was fitting that it was installed as close to the (man-made) natural glory of Central Park as is possible in American Wing. After closing at The Met on May 13th, it’s now been reinstalled, and added to, at London’s National Gallery, where it’s called Thomas Cole: Eden to Empire.

A hard act to follow. This is how the show begins- with a text intro accompanied by TWO amazing works by no less than JMW Turner.

The beauty it contains is (at least) three fold. First, there is the beauty of Thomas Cole’s Painting. We get to watch the Artist develop over time and travels, from his native England (where he was born in 1801), to America after his family emigrates here in 1818, to return trips to England and on to Italy, until he finds his voice, a voice that resonates as powerfully today as it ever has. Proof of that can be seen in expected and unexpected places, ranging from his direct disciples to contemporary masters, like Ed Ruscha and Rod Penner. Since influence is a continuum, we also get to see work by other Artists who influenced Thomas Cole, and who he learned from. This second kind of beauty, in the form of beautiful works by these influences and contemporaries, who’s presence caught me completely by surprise in the show. In fact, as soon as I entered, I was immediately bowled over by not one but two masterpieces by no less than the man many consider to be THE supreme landscapist, JMW Turner. And? There would be more!

Talk about setting the bar high.

J.M.W. Turner, Leeds, 1816, Watercolor, scraping out, pen and ink on paper. “One of the earliest and most sophisticated depictions of an industrial city, ‘Leeds’ was painted when Cole was 15 years old and living 60 miles away in Chorley, another center of textile production. Turner…chronicles the pollution and chaos of the growing city,” paraphrasing the wall card.

J.M.W. Turner, Dudley, Worcestershire, 1832, Watercolor and body color on paper. “Dudley lies in ‘the Black Country,’ an area characterized by smoke and soot from hundreds of forges, furnaces and hearths. Topographical features present a sharp contrast of ancient and modern: on top of the hill, the ruins of Dudley Castle, echoed by the recently rebuilt neo-Gothic tower of Saint Thomas’s Church, allude to the town’s history, while industrial mills vent dark smoke into the air in the foreground. The scene offered Turner the opportunity for a meditation on change over time, and for a solemn commentary on the industrial sublime.” Per the wall card, paraphrased.

Staggered, but not felled, by these bodyblows, my head cleared long enough to think about how Turner brilliantly uses two different styles sixteen years apart to convey similar messages. Whereas his later works strike us now as almost “impressionistic,” here he’s showing us real scenes. Already a lot to take in, I was ready to go home. Ah, but fear not. The “star” of our show would not be eclipsed. Thomas Cole hit the ground running.

View of Round-Top in the Catskill Mountains, 1827, Oil on panel. Cole discovered the Catskills in 1825, and he was about 26 when he Painted this masterful mix of landscape, realism and the sublime, as it was called at the time, in an American setting. This breathtaking vista was  one of his favorite spots.

The third kind of beauty on view is the beauty of nature that all of the works on view- by Cole, Turner, John Trumbull, Claude Lorrain, John Constable, John Martin, and the others included depict. The works included focus on natural beauty, what man has done with and to that natural beauty, and the possible ramifications of that.

The Garden of Eden, 1828, Oil on Canvas. Thomas Cole, the “romantic” is on view here, though in the service of the “message,” or “warning,” of paradise about to be lost. A theme that will recur.

The Hudson River School spent decades in eclipse in the 20th century as abstraction took center stage, but they’ve never failed to influence Artists, and their “popularity” has seemed to be on the upturn over the past 20 years. Upstairs in the American Wing, The Met’s Hudson River School permanent galleries are one of the lesser known glories of The Museum, judging by the fact that I’ve yet to see them crowded. While Art history has moved on, giving us countless styles, schools and movements since, no where else can the glories of original America be seen (pre-landscape Photography). Though the names of many of the places they Painted are familiar we longer can largely not recognize them. Beyond that, the Hudson River School includes some of the great Artists in 19th Century Painting. While they have enjoyed a “cult” following lo these many years, it’s high time they gain the wider acceptance and appreciation their work deserves. There’s no better place to start that than with a closer look at Thomas Cole.

View on the Catskill- Early Autumn, 1836-37, Oil on canvas.

Thomas Cole, who was born in England and emigrated to the U.S. in 1818, was 28 when he met JMW Turner on a return visit to London after a decade here. He visited Turner’s Gallery2. There, he saw, and was deeply impressed by, Turner’s Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps. The Met’s wall card tells us Thomas Cole was not taken with Turner’s later work.

JMW Turner, Snow Storm: Hannibal and His Army Crossing the Alps, 1812, Oil on canvas.

At London’s newly opened National Gallery, he discovered Claude Lorrain and John Constable’s Hadleigh Castle, which haunted him for the rest of his life. He and Constable became friends.

John Constable, Hadleigh Castle, The Mouth of the Thames-Morning after a Stormy Night, 1829, Oil on canvas

In 1831, he went to Italy, where he painted this-

Aqueduct near Rome, 1832, Oil on canvas. Intriguingly, both of these work show ruins, in this case, that left by a great empire.

In Aqueduct near Rome, 1832, we see the ruins of a once great civilization, seen by Cole during his Italian trip and Painted from sketches he made of it. Among the ruins, we see a shepherd and his flock, a human skull, reminders of the passing of time and life going on. Looking at it in hindsight, it’s hard not to see it as something of a precursor for his masterwork, the 5 Painting series, The Course of Empire, 1934-36, the inclusion of which, on loan from the New York Historical Society, is one of the highlights of the show. Originally intended to hang over and around a fireplace by the gent who commissioned them, they seem much better hung as they are here, in a semi circular row where the endless detail in each can be better considered and appreciated. Interestingly, the largest of the five, designed to go in the center directly over the fireplace surrounded by the other four in vertical rows of 2 on each side, may well be the least “important.” At least, that’s a Met curator who spoke about the show in the galleries said.

Course of Empire, 1834-36, The rise and fall of civilization as seen from the same place. Notice the same distinctive mountain peak appearing in each Painting.

From The Course of Empire – The Savage State, 1834

From The Course of Empire – The Arcadian or Pastoral State, 1934.

Detail. In the center foreground, the Artist has included a Self-Portrait as a young man, Drawing, also showing the place of Art in this “ideal” world.

From The Course of Empire – The Consumation of Empire, 1836.

From The Course of Empire – Destruction, 1836.

From The Course of Empire – Desolation, 1836.

After Thomas Cole died in 1848, he was remembered by a number of Artists, including Frederic Church and Asher Durand, but his influence is ongoing. The London reinstallation of this show, at the National Gallery, is accompanied by a show of the work of the American Artist, Ed Ruscha, one of the most influential Artists of our time, who personally installed his own renowned Course of Empire series in a dialogue with one of his great influences. Mr. Ruscha traveled to NYC to speak about Thomas Cole at The Met on April 8th, and that fascinating conversation may be seen and heard here. In it, he speaks about visiting the New York Historical Society (“and not MoMA”) during his visits to the City because he wanted to see Cole’s The Course of Empire, who own the series, repeatedly.

Ed Ruscha, Jet Baby, 2011, lithograph. *Photo by Hamilton Press.

Many of Mr. Ruscha’s recent Paintings and prints have featured a mountain peak, often in snow, a constant reminder of the beauty and wonder of nature that was so close to Thomas Cole’s heart, and possibly a reference to the peak that recurs in each work of Cole’s The Course of Empire series. At The Met, Mr. Ruscha spoke about his love of nature in terms reminiscent of Thomas Cole. It speaks volumes that Mr. Ruscha would go to such lengths to bring Thomas Cole to a wider audience. But, he’s not alone. The string of Artists who’s work would seem to bear at least some debt to Thomas Cole is a very long one. Then there’s the line of Artist’s who’s work contrasts with Thomas Cole’s as they show us what man has done to the landscape in the years since, as he saw this beginning to happen in View from Mount Holyoke, 1836, below.

View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm- The Oxbow, 1836, Oil on canvas.

Landscape Painting was joined by Landscape Photography, from about the 1850’s culminating in the work of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston in the first half of the 20th century. They were followed by Stephen Shore3, Lewis Baltz, Robert Adams, Joe Deal and others who were given a landmark show in 1975-76 at the George Eastman House, Rochester, called New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape. The show’s theme was that the American landscape was no longer what it once was in the days of Ansel Adams,  Weston and Cole, that industrialization, commercialization and development had changed the landscape, and so, this new generation of Artists were bent on depicting the American Landscape they saw all around them.

Sketch for View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm (The Oxbow), 1936. Thomas Cole masterfully lays out his conception of the composition with a remarkable sparseness of brushstrokes, which only seems to lack the self portrait he included in the final masterpiece seen above. Instead, there is what appears to be a female figure to the lower right. Though in it’s permanent collection, I’ve never seen this remarkable 5 1/2 by 9 1 /2 inch Sketch on display in The Met before.

Painters, too, were hard at work doing the same thing- Painting the world they saw around them. Thomas Eakins painted the encroachment of the industrial world in The Champion Single Sculls (Max Schmitt in a Single Scull, 1871. In the 20th Century, the Regionalists, including Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood did their best to focus on the beauty of nature and the American Landscape, but even in their work, the modern world is encroaching. This was all presaged in Thomas Cole’s View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm- The Oxbow, 1836, in which the Artist shows us undeveloped land, left, developed land to the right, as he, himself, looks back at the viewer from a crevice right in the lower center, a man caught between the past, the present and the future. In this work he gives us at least the first two installments of The Course of Empire, and, with his turned look at the viewer seems to be directly asking us “Whither to from here?”

“Nature has spread for us a rich and delightful banquet.
Shall we turn from it?
We are still in Eden;
the wall that shuts us out of the garden is our own ignorance and folly.”
(Quotes by Thomas Cole from the introductory video.)

Thomas Cole’s Sketch Box, with added Italianate landscape, perhaps used for the Sketch, above.

The “Ash Can” School painted the harsh reality of American urban life as it rapidly expanded. Meanwhile, Georgia O’Keefe and Charles Sheeler were two Artists who walked the line between the traditionalists and the modern world, with the former gradually disappearing in Sheeler’s work (as both a Photographer and a Painter) as time went on, while Ms. O’Keefe added abstraction to her images of the natural world, while also Painting the city. Edward Hopper lived in both worlds for most of his life, splitting time between Manhattan and Maine. Hopper has been followed by Richard Estes, who also splits his time between Manhattan and Maine, and like Hopper, paints works that show the beauty of nature, in one thread, and the extremes of human development in his Paintings and “Urban Landscape” print series. 

John Salt, Red Mailbox #2, 2015, Casein on linen, seen at Meisel Gallery, 2018.

Along with Mr. Estes, other Painters, including John Salt and Rod Penner, like Thomas Cole, were born elsewhere, yet give us landscape Paintings of contemporary American scenes, as do many Photographers, including Catherine Opie, below, while others, including Emmet Gowin, Edward Burtynsky and David Maisel, have taken to the air to create works based on some of the most extreme uses man has made of the earth…so far.

Catherine Opie, Untitled #7 (1999), 1999, C-print, seen at Lehmann Maupin, 2018.

David Maisel, Termiinal Mirage 2, 2003, seen at Yancey Richardson Gallery. An aerial shot taken at the Great Salt Lake. The Artist calls the appeal of works like this “the apocalyptic sublime.”

Whether they have been influenced by Thomas Cole, or their work stands in contrast to his, somewhere in all of it lies a message (intentional or not) that is not all that dissimilar to that of Thomas Cole in one of the stages of The Course of Empire. The overriding question becomes- Which stage are we in?

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Message in a Bottle,” by Sting and the Police.

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  1. Like this piece in the New York Times
  2. George Jones Interior of Turner’s Gallery: The Artist Showing His Works, 1852, Oil on millboard, is here in this show on loan from the Ashmolean. My Photo of it appears in my Post on Ellen Harvey’s recent shows since her wonderful work, Arcadia is somewhat based on it. It may be seen here.
  3. The only one to show color work.

What The Met Is Wearing To It’s Gala

“I would go out tonight
But I haven’t got a stitch to wear”*

Sorry. I care not one iota for “celebrities,” but I do care deeply about my second home, 1000 Fifth Avenue, NYC, aka The Metropolitan Museum of Art. So, while the rest of the world is ooohhhhinng and ahhhhhing over who’s wearing what (or not wearing what), I’m much more interested in what the building is “wearing” to tonite’s “Met Gala,” formally called the “Costume Institute Gala.” So? I thought I’d give you a look at it during the last moments the public was allowed in late Sunday, May 6th, as preparations for what is still widely called “the fashion event of the year” were winding up. The Met was closed today to allow for finishing touches…you know…nails and hair…

I don’t plan on covering this year’s Met Fashion Show, “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and The Catholic Imagination.” I’ll leave that to my friend, the incomparable Magda. But, wow, the signage sure strikes me as being “loaded.” Click any Photo for full size.

After 1,600 visits these past 15 years, I still get goose bumps when I turn the corner and see this in front of me. Oh, look! They finally built me an apartment out front! Yes, the satellite trucks were there 24 hours before “opening step off.”

The view of the world famous stairs under the tent.

The view in Gallery 300, just south of the Grand Staircase, (aka Byzantium South). Yes, the “real” outfits are being hidden, but I do love how carefully so many of them are draped. Well? It’s The Met.

Gallery 304- Medieval Europe, with the figures going all the way back into the next galleries.

Gallery 305- Medieval Sculpture Hall. The Met’s famous Christmas Tree is installed right in front of the Spanish Choir Screen. The figures go all the way back, almost to the Robert Lehman Collection.

Alexander McQueen, partially seen in Gallery 306- Medieval Treasury.

The American Wing Courtyard seems to be the focal point of the evening’s festivities.

The riser with the chairs is over what is now the American Wing Courtyard Cafe. Before that, it used to be a Sculpture Court. I spent countless hours Drawing here in the ever-changing light, with Central Park to the immediate right, often spending Friday nights, Saturday and Sunday here. The Sculpture has been moved to the center of the Courtyard, or upstairs in the remodeled American Wing.

Looking towards the center of the Courtyard from the American Wing.

Gallery 305 Medieval Sculpture Hall

Gallery 300 now closed.

Gallery 301- Late Roman

Exiting the building at closing heading north.

As always, watch out for the fashion police! Even the concrete blocks were protected with shrink-wrap.

I wonder how many Gala attendees will opt to head to “Bar & Grille,” instead.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “This Charming Man,” by Morrissey and Johnny Marr from “The Smiths,” 1984.

On The Fence, #19 . The Met Gala Edition”

This Post is dedicated to MQD and NSS.

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I can no longer fund it myself. More on why here.
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Thank you, Kenn.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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…And Here’s How It Looked Monday Evening

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You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

The Greatest German Reality Show Star, circa 1700

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

“My mama told me when I was young
We are all born superstars”*

Portrait of Matthias Buchinger, 1705

However you were born, the odds are you were more naturally capable right out of the box than Matthias Buchinger, who’s birth left him without hands or feet, and who stood a total of 29 inches (74cm) high. Yet, none of that stopped him from rising to the level of being called “The Greatest Living German” in 1726. Pretty darn lofty, for anyone. A Special Exhibition, Wordplay: Matthias Buchinger’s Drawings from the Collection of Ricky Jay, currently at The Met shows that, astoundingly, he nonetheless proves the equal of just about any other Artist in the entire Metropolitan Museum when it comes to technical proficiency. It will, also, give you pause for thought the next time you feel “incapable.”

When you do? Consider this- Many of the works he created, which are now rare, but astutely collected by Master Magician, Ricky Jay over the past 30 years, are tiny to begin with. Add to this that Matthias Buchinger (MB) was so adept at holding his pen between his “stumps” he was able to write forwards, backwards, upside down or in the most minute sizes possible to the extent that he created drawings out of minuscule words, an Art called Micrography. A close up look at one small portrait of him reveals that his hair is made up of nothing but very tiny words- a couple Psalms and the Lord’s Prayer.  The entire show probably takes up 400 square feet- not even big for a gallery show. Yet rarely will you find so much packed into each square inch.

An index-finger sized rendering of The 10 Commandments by Mr. Buchinger is so small I couldn’t read it with the magnifier.

While his Art is being honored in this show, as amazing as it is, it barely scratches the surface of what MB was capable of.

Buchinger surrounded by depictions of some of his skills.

He made his living touring Europe demonstrating the full range of his talents to the high & mighty as well as the common folk, in magic, calligraphy, making miniatures in bottles(!), threading a needle, loading a gun, shaving himself, playing music (he created some of his own instruments), playing games, among other things. Oh, and he was married 4 times and fathered 11 to 14 children!1

The second floor Drawings gallery, where the show is installed, is one of the must-see spaces in The Met. Shows change every 6-8 weeks here giving The Museum a chance to show off its extraordinary collection. Still, out of all the wonders I’ve seen in this space the past 14 years, I haven’t seen anything more consistently amazing than Wordplay.

I know what you’re thinking- today’s so-called “reailty” show stars wouldn’t even be good enough to apprentice on MB’s show!

Coat of Arms, 1738, Pen and ink on vellum, the last known work by Matthias Buchinger includes a self-portrait and autobiographical paragraph in the lower margin. Bear in mind this entire work is about letter size.

“I’m beautiful in my way,
‘Cause God makes no mistakes
I’m on the right track, baby
I was born this way”*

Was he the greatest disabled Artist of all time? I have no idea. I’ve been blown away by the work of Chuck Close (brilliant before his brain aneurysm, continually evolving in ever new ways since), and Hendrik Goltzius, a Graphic Artist possibly on par with Durer despite having a severely deformed drawing hand, among others, and they are all beacons of what the human spirit is capable of, in the Arts as in so many other aspects of life. Yet, I can’t say I’ve seen anything quite like that of the Art of the “Little Man of Nuremberg,”

R-E-S-P-E-C-T. The Greatest German Living, a poem to Buchinger, 1726

“Don’t hide yourself in regret
Just love yourself and you’re set
I’m on the right track, baby
I was born this way, born this way”*

MB was, however, forced to turn to being a carnival side show act to gain appreciation for his abilities as an Artist as well as his many other skills, and to survive. The show includes a few works by other Artists of the same era who were also born without hands or feet, who made their living in the same manner. A “broadside” poster announcing the appearance of one is on view. MB would demonstrate his writing talents for show attendees for a fee and some of these souvenirs are on view here. (The Portrait of him surrounded by depictions of his skills bears his hand written inscriptions on the bottom margin.) Invariably, he always proceeds his signature with “Born without hands or feet…”

A portrait of Thomas Inglefield, also born without hands or feet, shows how Mr. Buchinger may have worked his magic.

Seeing all of this, and a smidgen of what life may have been like for these Artists in the 18th Century, it’s hard not think about the bigger picture.

Anonymous, Portrait of Johanna Sophia Liebschern, ca.1780-90 the so-called “Fusskunstlerin,” or foot artist, as the piece is inscribed. It goes on to say, “she has no arms but is able to use knife, fork, and spoon with her left foot and feed herself, (and) is able to prettily write, sew, draw, cut a quill pen, load and shoot a pistol.” Like MB, Ms. Liebschern enjoyed considerable fame in her time, both voyeuristic and scientific.

“There’s nothin’ wrong with lovin’ who you are
She said, ’cause He made you perfect, babe
So hold your head up,
girl and you’ll go far”*

Thankfully, for the disabled, to my mind THE most overlooked group in our society, things seem to have gotten a little better. But, what do I know. I asked Magdalena Truchan, Fashion Guru, Designer, Artist and Blogger Extraordinaire over at her must read Blog, prettycripple.com, that very question- “Have things gotten better for disabled Artists?” She told me-

“I think lots of things have gotten better for disabled artists. They can make a living online as well and the world gets to see what they offer. There are so many groups out there that I come across who help disabled people. I read these things and smile. They have a better networking system today and while discrimination still exists people in the US don’t treat disabled people as lepers. Same in Europe. Life must have been hell for disabled people until the 70s in this country. Also, because of the the “bullying” problem for all people, now people are standing up to them and outing them on social media. So now it is un-PC to bully people. We have a long way to go but at least people have another avenue to voice themselves. You also see more disabled models and actors now. Although some disabled people on TV are not legit cripples. They are able bodied and stuck in chairs which sucks, but at least they are portraying disabled people.”

While it’s good to hear that, so much remains to be done for the disabled. I can’t help but wonder if part of the root of the cause of this slow progress might be that able-bodied people are secretly terrified of becoming disabled.? Even in this very show, the work is hung too high for wheelchair visitors to see, and though magnifying glasses are thankfully on hand, unless you are a bit over 6 feet tall, the higher works will still remain unavailable for close study, as you can see below. It must be a very frustrating experience for the disabled to come to this show. On the one hand they’ll be as impressed as anyone else by the work, but (unnecessarily) frustrated by the experience. What kind of message does this send?

The show is hung for the average size, or taller, standing adult.

That being said, this show is, also, a fascinating insight into the wondrous collection of Ricky Jay, renowned as the greatest living Sleight-of-Hand Artist and historian of its related arts, and who says that MB is “my flat-out favorite. I’ve been collecting materials on him for 30 years.2” Mr. Jay is someone who has spent his entire life mastering his craft, that way a great Painter or Musician does, all the while thoroughly exploring its history, researching its forgotten Masters, collecting rare books, artifacts and works of Art they created. This show is, therefore, is something of a byproduct of how he became who he is today. From what is on view here, the man has superb taste and a most discerning eye.

Be careful, Mr. Bond, or Ricky will turn your gun into a rabbit! Yes, that's the inimitable Ricky Jay in "Tomorrow Never Dies."

Be careful, Mr. Bond, or Ricky will turn your gun into a rabbit! Yes, that’s the inimitable Ricky Jay in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies.

It leaves me eager to see more of his collection, so I hope it marks the beginning of a relationship between TM and the inimitable Mr. Jay. For more on him, check out the two excellent documentaries, Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay, which airs as part of PBS’ American Masters series, and, Hustlers, Hoaxters, Pranksters And Ricky Jay, here on youtube.

Isle of View. Untitled by Rachel Harrison from her Perth Amboy Show at MoMA. Does Art Have to be this hard to see?

While “Wordplay” is a shining example of attention being paid to an extraordinary and overlooked Artist- disabled, or not, in a show that will inspire all, it’s one thing to honor this Artist, it’s another to make it largely inaccessible to disabled visitors. I’m not sure that helps inspire other disabled Artists, or disabled people, and that’s a shame. (Luckily, however, the excellent catalog for the show, by Mr. Jay, features beautiful, clear and full size reproductions of many of the works on display, along with Mr. Jay’s one-0f-a-kind insights. I found I could see the works better in the book than by actually looking at the real thing). It says to me that The Met’s interest here lies in the Art itself, and while I understand that, I think they missed a chance to include more of the Art going public, namely the group that includes these wonderful Artists, themselves.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is”Born This Way,” by Lady Gaga, written by NYC’s own Stefani Germanotta, Jeppe Laursen, Fernando Garibay and Paul Blair, from the album of the same title and published by Sony ATV Music Publishing, Warner Chappell Music Inc. and Universal Music Publishing.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. Ok..ok…I’ll insert the famous Groucho Marx joke- “I like my cigar, too, but I take it out once in a while.” Sorry.
  2. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/ricky-jay-collection/3649/