Whistler Lithographs, Other Exhibitions,

At Wadsworth Atheneum

HARTFORD — The celebrated master painter and etcher James McNeill Whistler (1834-1903) created more than 175 inventive and poetic lithographs during his lifetime. For only a few more weeks, 87 of these rarely seen prints belonging to collector Steven Block will be on view at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. “The Lithographs of James McNeill Whistler” is open to March 4 at the museum at 600 Main Street in Connecticut’s capitol city.

Whistler began to experiment with lithography — the process of printing an image from a smooth stone onto paper – in 1878 or 1879, but produced the majority of his lithographs late in his career, from 1887 to 1896. In every medium, Whistler’s primary concern was a delicate exploration of line, form and harmonious tonal effects. It is therefore not surprising that the artist, who frequently titled his works “Arrangements,” “Symphonies,” “Nocturnes,” or “Harmonies,” often referred to his understated, atmospheric lithographs as “Songs on Stone.”

Whistler’s lithographs encompass a wide variety of subjects, from intimate figure studies and portraits of family and friends and vignettes of tradesmen’s shops to views of the Thames and its bridges, London street scenes, and the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.

Although Whistler in his day was acclaimed as a leading figure in the revival of lithography, his lithographs had been overlooked until recently. In 1998 the Art Institute of Chicago published a comprehensive catalogue of Whistler’s lithographs, the first to appear since 1905.

Since 1978, Steven Block has been selectively amassing the largest private collection of Whistler lithographs extant.

“The Lithographs of James McNeill Whistler from the Steven Block Collection” was organized by the Trust for Museum Exhibitions, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit museum service organization. The in-house curator is Cynthia Roman, associate curator of European art.

A 96-page softbound catalogue with 90 black and white illustrations, three color plates, a forward by Mr Block and an introduction by Nesta R. Spink is available in The Museum Shop for $18.50.

The Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art is open Tuesday through Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm; and on the first Thursday of most months until 8 pm.

Admission is $7 adults; $5 students with ID and senior citizens; $3 for ages 6 to 17; and members and children under 6 are admitted free. Admission is free all day Thursday and before noon on Saturday for individual visitors. Discounted admission fees apply for groups of ten or more visitors with reservations. There are separate admission fees for special exhibitions that include general admission.

Gauguin’s “Nirvana”

In addition to the Whistler show, Wadsworth Atheneum has a number of exhibitions also currently on view.

The museum is the only venue for the special exhibition “Gauguin’s ‘Nirvana’: Painters at Le Pouldu, 1889-90.” Perpetually seeking isolated unspoiled locations where he could pursue his art, Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) found a temporary refuge in Le Pouldu, a rustic fishing village in Brittany. He worked there in 1889 and 1890 and was joined by several followers, most notably the Dutch painter Jacob Isaac Meyer de Haan, who is the subject of a Gauguin painting in the collection of the Wadsworth.

“Gauguin’s ‘Nirvana’: Painters at Le Pouldu, 1889-90,” on view until April 29, is an assemblage of more than 40 interrelated paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture by Gauguin, de Haan and others from collections around the world.

Gauguin and his circle were fond of Brittany, but by the late 19th Century their favored spot, Pont-Aven, had become too popular with tourists and other painters. So Gauguin and his newfound confidante, disciple and patron, Meyer de Haan (1852-1895), lodged at an inn at Le Pouldu. With de Haan paying the bills, the two artists worked side by side creating images of themselves, one another, still lifes and the surrounding landscapes.

The two also decorated the inn’s dining room with murals, paintings and wooden sculptures, occasionally with help from the artists Paul Sérusier (1864-1927) and Charles Filiger (1863-1928).

Like Gauguin, de Haan had abandoned a business career to immerse himself in art, but the bond they shared was also intellectual and philosophical. Gauguin’s portraits of de Haan attest to the friends’ common interests as well as Gauguin’s mixed feelings of admiration, gratitude, envy and rivalry toward de Haan.

“Gauguin respected de Haan’s intellectual gifts, but initially underestimated his hunch-backed friend’s appeal to the opposite sex,” said exhibition curator Eric M. Zafran, the curator of European painting and sculpture at Wadsworth Atheneum.

“Inexplicably, at least to Gauguin, their pretty innkeeper Marie-Jeanne Henry, known locally as Marie Poupée, or Marie the doll, rejected his advances but had an affair with de Haan. Gauguin’s fascination with de Haan’s carnality as well as his erudition is expressed in a remarkable series of paintings and sculptures,” Mr Zafran continued.

Gauguin’s portrait of de Haan (circa 1889-90) in the Wadsworth collection, inscribed “Nirvana,” shows the redheaded Dutchman with a demonic, mask-like face with pointed eyes, ear and beard, and holding a coiling golden snake which forms the G of the painter’s signature. In the background are two female nudes, each referring to slightly earlier paintings by Gauguin — “Life and Death” and “In the Waves.”

De Haan’s stooped posture, satyr-like face, and red hair and beard, as well as his books on the table in the painting —  Thomas Carlisle’s Sartor Resartus and John Milton’s Paradise Lost — are emphasized in another portrait in a private collection promosed to the Museum of Modern Art.

Gauguin returned to Paris in 1890. He hoped that de Haan would accompany him to Tahiti (and continue to provide financial support), but the sickly Dutchman’s family, who controlled the purse strings, refused permission.

Before Gauguin departed for the South Pacific in April 1891, however, his memories of de Haan and Brittany fueld the painting of “The Loss of Virginity”(1890-91; in the collection of Chrysler Museum, Norfolk). In that work, a fox, defined by Gauguin as an Indian symbol of perversity and a clear allusion to de Haan, possessively perches on the shoulder of a reclining nude.

Although de Haan died in 1895 at age 43, he lived on vividly in Gauguin’s imagination. He reappeared in both a woodcut made in Tahiti, and more importantly, as a figure leering at two Polynesian beauties in one of Gauguin’s last major paintings, “Primitive Tales,” done in Havana in 1902.

“Seen together, these startling works and others illuminate the significance of Gauguin’s encounter with Meyer de Haan, which resulted in their collaboration on the inn’s décor and side-by-side studies of still lifes and landscapes,” said Mr Zafran. “They also offer new insight into the Wadsworth Atheneum’s masterpieces.

“Most interesting is that ‘Nirvana’ was left by Gauguin in the keeping of Spanish sculptor Paco Durrio, later a good friend of the young Picasso who was obviously influenced by the ‘modern’ and primivtive qualities of Gauguin,” Mr Zafran continued.

A 160-page catalogue with more than 75 color images, 20 black-and-white illustrations, three essays and a technical study of Gauguin’s “Nirvana” painting has been published by Wadsworth Atheneum with Yale University Press.

The Fecund Deployment

Of ASingle Idea

In “Sol Lewitt: Incomplete Open Cubes,” the museum is offering the public the first exhibition devoted to a landmark in conceptual art. Hartford also represents the debut of the traveling exhibition which, after it closes in Connecticut on April 29, will be presented in Waterville, Me. (July 8 to August 26), Cleveland (September 23 to December 30), and Scottsdale, Ariz. (January 18 to April 14, 2002).

Made in 1974, “Variations on an Incomplete Open Cube” examines all 122 possible configurations of a 12-edged cube. It begins with the three-edged minimum that suggests the volume of an open cube, expands to 32 eight-part variations, and culminates in an 11-part variation. (Twelve edges, of course, would complete the cube.)

“‘Incomplete Open Cubes’ exemplifies the astonishingly fecund deployment of a single idea to become ‘a machine that makes the art,’” said Nicholas Baume, the Emily Hall Tremaine curator of contemporary art. Mr Baume organized the LeWitt exhibition. “The translation of the same idea into different media is another key aspect of the work,” he continued.

At the Wadsworth, 30 of the 122 white-painted aluminum structures from LeWitt’s series have been installed in the Old Master galleries of European and American art in order to stimulate comparisons with art and architecture of earlier times. The small-scale versions of the series and LeWitt’s accompanying works on paper are on view in the museum’s Matrix gallery.

Accompanying the exhibition is a 116-page catalogue with 40 color and 40 black-and-white illustrations along with essays by Mr Baume, Jonathan Flatley and Pamela M. Lee

AGift Of Simplicity

“Simple Forms For Modern Life: Shaker Furniture from the Mary Grace Carpenter Collection” is on view until May 6. The Carpenter collection arrived at the Wadsworth in 1999 as a gift from the Connecticut-based collector and decorative arts historian Charles H. Carpenter, Jr, in memory of his wife. The exhibition marks the museum’s first public display of a generous and important addition to its holdings of American decorative arts.

Among its items on view is a Shaker sewing desk constructed by the noted cabinetmaker Elder Henry Green dating to about 1875; six rocking chairs and a side chair from Mount Lebanon, N.Y.; a rocking butter churn, a chest and cupboard, desk and table, a washstand and toilet, and three oval boxes.

The objects were made between 1875 to 1900 from maple, pine, cherry and butternut woods. Because the Carpenters collected contemporary American art by leading painters, and such art surrounded the Shaker furniture when it was in the Carpenter home, the collection on display at the Wadsworth is being displayed with color field paintings from the museum’s permanent collection of 20th Century art. The installation not only points to the Carpenters’ aesthetic, but also to an interpretation of Shaker furniture as proto-modern American design.

(On Saturday, March 10, at 11 am, William Moore, the director of Enfield Shaker Museum in New Hampshire, will offer a talk related to the exhibition, which is included with general museum admission. The museum will host “Shaker Secrets,” a hands-on workshop for children and their parents, on Saturday, April 28, from 10 am to noon. Registration is required; call 860/278-2670 extension 3049.)

Photography From

The Collections

In the hands of contemporary artists, the camera has become more than an unblinking captor and objective recorder of “truth.” “Snap! Photography from the Collections,” on view to October 7, explores photography from the 1930s to the present day through a diverse selection of approximately 70 works.

Encompassing black and white color prints, collages, silkscreens, photo-derived paintings and videos, the exhibition is arranged according to five broad themes: the human figure, landscape and cityscape, domesticity and interiors, transformation, and pictures with words.

“Photography has become a medium that is a malleable and free as a paint brush to canvas,” said Judy Kim, the assistant curator of contemporary art, who organized the exhibition.

“The five groupings in this show stretch the definition of photography and its techniques,” Ms Kim continued. “For instance, Thomas Demand’s 1998 ‘Rasen’ in the landscape/cityscape category appears to be a close-up of a green lawn, but in fact it’s a photograph of green fabric that he has cut to resemble blades of grass. We say a picture is worth a thousand words, so why are artists like Barbara Kruger, Hans Haacke and Donald Moffett combining text with an image?”

Artists represented in the exhibition include John Coplans, Andrea Fraser, Hans Haacke, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ana Mandieta, Donald Moffett, Cady Noland, Lorraine O’Grady, Robert Rauschenberg, Thomas Ruff, Jörg Sasse, Cindy Sherman, Doug and Mike Starn, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Andy Warhol, Carrie Mae Weems and James Welling.