“Only a handful of artists have become so iconic that we refer to them by one name, and few have been hailed with more superlatives than Rembrandt,” says Michael Brand, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. “I am pleased that the Getty Museum is organizing this remarkable exhibition that is based on decades of research by leading scholars-bringing to Los Angeles Rembrandt’s finest drawings from around the world.”

From the time of his early success in Leiden and Amsterdam, Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) maintained one of the most active studios of the 17^th century-with more than 50 artists in his employ during its nearly 40 years of operation. Drawing played a key role in the studio and Rembrandt taught his pupils to draw in his manner. With so many talented students working in close proximity to the master-drawing the same subject matter in exercises and sketching from the same nude figures-it’s not surprising that authorship sometimes became unclear.  Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference will give visitors a glimpse into Rembrandt’s studio through closely related works by the artist and his pupils that have been gathered from collections around the world.

Over the past three decades, a generation of international scholars has been steadily working to establish new, more systematic criteria for determining the authenticity of Rembrandt drawings and to define the styles of his pupils and followers. As a result of this far-reaching scholarship and methodical connoisseurship, the individual styles of many pupils have been more clearly identified and numerous works previously attributed to Rembrandt have been re-assigned to his students.

The exhibition consists of a series of carefully chosen pairings of many of Rembrandt’s most famous drawings alongside comparable works by his pupils, including Govaert Flinck, Ferdinand Bol, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Carel Fabritius, and Nicolaes Maes. This comparative presentation of drawings will not only help visitors distinguish the various styles through active looking, but, in some cases, they will feel as though they are witnessing the inner-workings of the studio.

More than 90 drawings are being generously lent to the Getty by 37 institutions, including the British Museum, London; the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; the Musée du Louvre, Paris; the Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin; the Sépmüvészeti Muzéum, Budapest; the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Morgan Library, New York; and several private collections in Europe and America. The exhibition will also include six drawings from the Getty’s own collection.

Drawings by Rembrandt and His Pupils: Telling the Difference is organized by the J. Paul Getty Museum and curated by Lee Hendrix, senior curator of Drawings at the J. Paul Getty Museum and Peter Schatborn, emeritus head of the Rijksprentenkabinet of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The exhibition will also be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue, which will distill recent, voluminous scholarship into a concise, accessible, and visually stunning book. The catalogue is being prepared by an international team of experts-Dr. Holm Bevers, curator of Netherlandish Drawings of the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett and Dr. William Robinson, George and Maida Abrams Curator of Drawings, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard, as well as Hendrix and Schatborn. Due to the importance of the loans and the light sensitivity of drawings, this landmark exhibition will take place only at the Getty.

Related Virtual Exhibition

Rembrandt in Southern California
www.rembrandtinsocal.org

A virtual exhibition of paintings by Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606-1669), Rembrandt in Southern California is a dedicated website comprised of 14 paintings that are on view in five Southern California museums.  The website is the product of a groundbreaking collaboration between the J. Paul Getty Museum, the Hammer Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in Los Angeles; the Norton Simon Museum of Art in Pasadena; and the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego, all working in concert. Unlike the limited duration of the average museum loan exhibition, this collective exhibition continues indefinitely, on view in the “greater museum of Southern California.”

Veronese (Paolo Caliari) was born in Verona in 1528. In the 1550s he moved to Venice, where he soon received a large number of commissions from churches or the Doge’s Palace, thereby overshadowing Tintoretto. He apparently became Titian’s protégé or even a pawn in his rivalry with Tintoretto.

These three painters were to rub shoulders for over thirty years, and after Titian’s death in 1576, the other two would continue their mutual confrontation for another dozen years. Though rivals, they also influenced and inspired one another. For each artist, the others’ work was a stimulus that demanded a response. Their contribution to artistic revival was huge in their use of oil on canvas, their focus on “color” as opposed to “line”, and the emergence of easel painting that was to transform not only Venetian art but also the whole of European painting itself.

Artistic competitiveness was not merely a Venetian phenomenon as it was already to be found a few decades earlier in Rome, Florence, and other major cities. Yet in the case of Venice, it did not lead to aesthetic degradation but rather to emulation and a profusion of ideas. Commissions from private sources, churches, and institutions, as well as from foreign clients, poured in. Venetian society did not bestow its favors upon one particular artist but maintained a sense of harmony by sharing out official commissions among an unequaled pool of painters. The paintings’ format and the fact that they were painted on canvas made them very popular and many amateurs collected their works. A host of critics would hold forth upon each artist’s latest offerings, and the general public could compare their work, talent, and progress.

Various artistic contests gave a clearer picture of how rivalry among artists was a vital source of artistic revival and creation. Patrons would ask artists to design a very thorough introductory drawing (a modello) on a predetermined subject, whether for the Sala Grande of the Libreria Marciana, for the Sala dell’Albergo of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, for the Marzeri altar in the church of San Giuliano, or for the Grand Council chamber of the Doge’s Palace; a painted modello was apparently required only in the case of the competition to design the “Paradise” fresco for the Grand Council chamber of the Doge’s Palace.

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Realism- Sorolla ties himself to the rich Spanish naturalist tradition when he represents daily life generating a work that is characterized by its nationalism very similar to Velázquez’. Landscape- Plein air painting was a necessity and a vital philosophy for Sorolla. It is an essential genre from which the renovation of painting started off in the last decades of the 19th-century.

Joaquín Sorolla was the eldest child born to a tradesman, also named Joaquín, and his wife, Concepción Bastida. His sister, Concha, was born a year later. In August 1865 both children were orphaned when their parents died, possibly from cholera. They were thereafter cared for by their maternal aunt and uncle.

He received his initial art education, at the age of fourteen, in his native town, and then under a succession of teachers including Cayetano Capuz, Salustiano Asenjo. At the age of eighteen he traveled to Madrid, vigorously studying master paintings in the Museo del Prado. After completing his military service, at twenty-two Sorolla obtained a grant which enabled a four year term to study painting in Rome, Italy, where he was welcomed by and found stability in the example of F. Pradilla, the director of the Spanish Academy in Rome. A long sojourn to Paris in 1885 provided his first exposure to modern painting; of special influence were exhibitions of Jules Bastien-Lepage and Adolf von Menzel. Back in Rome he studied with José Benlliure, Emilio Sala, and José Villegas.

His first striking success was achieved with “Another Marguerite” (1892), which was awarded a gold medal at the National Exhibition in Madrid, then first prize at the Chicago International Exhibition, where it was acquired and subsequently donated to the Washington University Museum in St. Louis, Missouri. He soon rose to general fame and became the acknowledged head of the modern Spanish school of painting. His picture “The Return from Fishing” (1894) was much admired at the Paris Salon and was acquired by the state for the Musée du Luxembourg. It indicated the direction of his mature output.

An even greater turning point in Sorolla’s career was marked by the painting and exhibition of “Sad Inheritance” (1899), an extremely large canvas, highly finished for public consideration. The subject was a depiction of crippled children bathing at the sea in Valencia, under the supervision of a monk. The painting earned Sorolla his greatest official recognition, the Grand Prix and a medal of honour at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, and the medal of honor at the National Exhibition in Madrid in 1901.

With this painting Sorolla ceased his career as a salon artist, and never returned to a theme of such overt social consciousness. At the same time, a series of preparatory oil sketches for “Sad Inheritance” were painted with the greatest luminosity and bravura, and foretold an increasing interest in shimmering light and of a medium deftly handled. Sorolla thought well enough of these sketches that he presented two of them as gifts to American artists; one to John Singer Sargent, the other to William Merritt Chase.

The exhibit at the Paris Universal Exposition of 1900 won him a medal of honor and his nomination as Knight of the Legion of Honor; within the next few years Sorolla was honored as a member of the Fine Art Academies of Paris, Lisbon, and Valencia, and as a Favorite Son of Valencia.

A special exhibition of his works–figure subjects, landscapes and portraits–at the Galeries Georges Petit in Paris in 1906 eclipsed all his earlier successes and led to his appointment as Officer of the Legion of Honour. The show included nearly 500 works, early paintings as well as recent sun-drenched beach scenes, landscapes, and portraits, a productivity which amazed critics and was a financial triumph. Though subsequent large-scale exhibitions in Germany and London were greeted with more restraint, while in England in 1908 Sorolla met Archer Milton Huntington, who made him a member of The Hispanic Society of America in New York City, and invited him to exhibit there in 1909. The exhibition was comprised of 356 paintings, 195 of which sold. Sorolla spent five months in America and painted more than twenty portraits.

Although formal portraiture was not Sorolla’s genre of preference, because it tended to restrict his creative appetites and could reflect his lack of interest in his subjects, the acceptance of portrait commissions proved profitable, and the portrayal of his family was irresistible. Sometimes the influence of Velázquez was uppermost, as in “My Family” (1901), a reference to “Las Meninas” which grouped his wife and children in the foreground, the painter reflected, at work, in a distant mirror. At other times the desire to compete with his friend John Singer Sargent was evident, as in Portrait of “Mrs. Ira Nelson Morris and Her Children”, (1911). A series of portraits produced in the United States in 1909, commissioned through the Hispanic Society of America, was capped by the “Portrait of Mr.Taft”, President of the United States, painted at the White House, and suggestive of convivial sessions between painter and president.

The appearance of sunlight could be counted on to rouse his interest, and it was outdoors where he found his ideal portrait settings. Thus, not only did his daughter pose standing in a sun-dappled landscape for “María at La Granja” (1907), but so did Spanish royalty, for the “Portrait of King Alfonso XIII in a Hussar’s Uniform” (1907). For Portrait of “Mr. Louis Comfort Tiffany” (1911), the American artist posed seated at his easel in his Long Island garden, surrounded by extravagant flowers. The conceit reaches its high point in “My Wife and Daughters in the Garden” (1910), in which the idea of traditional portraiture gives way to the sheer fluid delight of a painting constructed with thick passages of color, Sorolla’s love of family and sunlight merged.

Early in 1911 Sorolla visited the United States for a second time, and exhibited 161 new paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago. Later that year Sorolla met Archer M. Huntington in Paris and signed a contract to paint a series of oils on life in Spain. The canvases, to be installed in the Hispanic Society of America, would range from 12 to 14 feet in height, and total 227 feet in length. There would be fourteen large panels in all. The major commission of his career, it would dominate the later years of Sorolla’s life.

Huntington had envisioned the work depicting a history of Spain, but the painter preferred the less specific ‘Vision of Spain’, eventually opting for a representation of the regions of the Iberian Peninsula, and calling it The Provinces of Spain. Despite the immensity of the canvases, Sorolla painted all but one en plein air, and travelled to specific locales to paint them: Navarre, Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, Elche, Seville, Andalusia, Extremadura, Galicia, Guipuzcoa, Castile, Leon, and Ayamonte, at each site painting models posed in local costume. Each painting celebrated the landscape and culture of its region, panoramas composed of throngs of laborers and locals. By 1917 he was, by his own admission, exhausted. He completed the final panel by the middle of 1919.

Sorolla suffered a stroke in 1920, while painting a portrait in his garden in Madrid. Paralyzed for over three years, he died in 1923. The room housing the Provinces at the Hispanic Society of America opened to the public in 1926. After his death, Sorolla’s widow left many of his paintings to the Spanish public. The paintings eventually formed the collection that is now known as the Museo Sorolla, which was the artist’s house in Madrid. The museum opened in 1932.

Sorolla’s work is represented in museums throughout Spain, Europe, and America, and in many private collections in Europe and America. In 1933, J. Paul Getty purchased ten Impressionist beach scenes done by Sorolla, several of which are now housed in the J. Paul Getty Museum. In 2007, many of his works were exhibited at the Petit Palais in Paris, France, alongside those of John Singer Sargent, a contemporary who painted in a similar style. In 2009 there is a special exhibition of his works at the Prado in Madrid, Spain. Visit : http://museosorolla.mcu.es/

Conceived as a counterpoint to the current exhibition also on view, George Segal: Street Scenes, New York, New York: The 20th Century features over 50 paintings, photographs, sculptures and works on paper that capture New York’s unique metropolitan sphere and the human interaction with it. The artistic interpretations and documentations of this remarkable city range in style and date from Childe Hassam’s American Impressionism to Edward Hopper’s American Scene Painting and Edward Steichen’s Tonalist Photographs to the large-scale Contemporary photographs of Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao.

The imagery in New York, New York is centered on some of the most notable and beloved features of the city which can be seen in each of the five themes. “On the Waterfront” pairs the docks and shipping industry, as seen in Andreas Feininger’s 1940 photograph of the Brooklyn Bridge, with views of the Hudson, while “Avenues and Streets” transports the viewer to the sidewalks of New York, from Wall Street to Fifth Avenue. Central Park, the most visited city park in America, is prominently represented throughout “In the Park,” with examples such as a bronze head of Alice by José de Creeft from the famous Alice in Wonderland sculpture.

“On the Town” features some of the seemingly endless possibilities for entertainment in the city, such as an art opening by William Gropper featuring brightly colored, fashionable people who are not looking at the art—typical of his social realist style of depicting the hypocrisies of the classes. Finally, “Tall Buildings” highlights the very core of New York, the steel and stone of its buildings, uniquely portrayed by Stuart Davis’ New York Mural which has at its center the newly constructed engineering marvel, the Empire State Building.

The Norton Museum of Art is a major cultural attraction in Florida. The Museum is internationally known for its distinguished permanent collection featuring American Art, Chinese Art, Contemporary Art, European Art and Photography. Provenance Research is an on-going activity of the Curatorial staff. From its founding the Norton has been famous for its masterpieces of 19th century and 20th century painting and sculpture by European artists such as Brancusi, Gauguin, Matisse, Miró, Monet, Picasso and by Americans such as Davis, Hassam, Hopper, Manship, O’Keeffe, Pollock and Sheeler. View special exhibitions and attend lectures and exhibition programs for both children and adults. Visit : www.norton.org/

Gauguin encouraged his growing interest in decorative art, an interest that led Maillol to take up tapestry design. In 1893 Maillol opened a tapestry workshop in Banyuls, producing works whose high technical and aesthetic quality gained him recognition for renewing this art form in France. He began making small terracotta sculptures in 1895, and within a few years his concentration on sculpture led to the abandonment of his work in tapestry.

The subject of nearly all of Maillol’s mature work is the female body, treated with a classical emphasis on stable forms. The figurative style of his large bronzes is perceived as an important precursor to the greater simplifications of Henry Moore and Alberto Giacometti, and his serene classicism set a standard for European (and American) figure sculpture until the end of World War II.

He died in Banyuls at the age of eighty-three, in an automobile accident. While driving home during a thunderstorm, the car in which he was a passenger skidded off the road and rolled over. A large collection of Maillol’s work is maintained at the Musée Maillol in Paris, which was established by Dina Vierny, Maillol’s model and platonic companion during the last 10 years of his life. His home a few kilometers outside Banyuls, also the site of his final resting place, has been turned into a museum where a number of his works and sketches are displayed.

Three of his bronzes grace the grand staircase of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City: “Summer” (1910-11), “Venus Without Arms” (1920), and “Kneeling Woman: Monument to Debussy” (1950-55). The third is the artist’s only reference to music, created for a monument at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Claude Debussy’s birthplace.

Maillol “spoke Catalan, wore traditional espadrilles, a sash and a barretina (the traditional Catalan cap), he danced sardanes” and he openly proclaimed his Catalan identity: “I consider Catalonia my true homeland”.

The Fundació Caixa de Catalunya is located in Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Milà, better known as “La Pedrera.” La Pedrera is much more than home to a cultural center — it’s one of the city’s modern architectural masterpieces. La Pedrera means “the Quarry.” Casa Milà took on this nickname for its uneven grey stone exterior, originally an insult at the time of its completion (1910); now an affectionate moniker. The attic floor of La Pedrera is dedicated to promoting Gaudí heritage. It’s an interactive space that recounts the artist’s life, philosophy and architectural methodology. On the floors below, you’ll also find an early 20th century Barcelona flat recreated. After all, Casa Milá was originally designed to be a modern apartment building, and this “Piso de la Pedrera” serves as a fascinating window into Barcelona bourgeois life at the time of the structure’s creation.

La Pedrera also contains an auditorium and reading rooms that hold a steady stream of activities like concerts, educational workshops and film series, in accordance with Caixa de Catalunya’s mission to ‘foster and develop Barcelona culture.’  Visit : http://www.lapedreraeducacio.org/