~Yale Arts Library Blog~

Image Courtesy of English Heritage, Kenwood House, London

Sometimes a single picture can make all your prejudices fall in a heap. If you occasionally succumb to the idea, for instance, that English painting has little to offer before the ascendancy of Constable and Turner, or that the 18th century - give or take a few Frenchies like Watteau and Chardin - was a frivolous and formulaic period, put such thoughts on hold as you take a trip here to see “Joseph Wright of Derby in Liverpool,” a superb exhibition at the Yale Center for British Art.

Tricks of the light at Yale Sebastian Smee Boston Globe 6/19/08

Posted by Chris

“Light, temperature and air pollution can wreck works of art. How do museums protect and preserve artistic and historic artifacts for the ages? It’s a complicated field, including everything from studying the chemical makeup of paints to optimizing the temperature, humidity and lighting conditions in museum galleries. Timothy P. Whalen, director of the Getty Conservation Institute, and James Druzik, senior scientist at the Getty Conservation Institute, talk about the fine art of art preservation.”

How to Make a Painting Last Forever “Talk of the Nation,” June 20, 2008 NPR

Posted by: Tanya

Image: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art ArtDaily.org

“In a period of little over fifteen years, beginning in the early 1960s, Mr. Mellon assembled one of the world’s greatest collections of British drawings and watercolors. As part of his extensive collecting, he purchased several distinguished private collections of British watercolors, enriching and expanding them with astute purchases reflecting his own taste… Through his beneficent gift of his collection to Yale, the Center houses more than 50,000 drawings, watercolors, and printsthe largest and most representative collection of British art on paper outside the United Kingdom.”

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“One of the Prizes from Athens”: A Panathenaic Amphora by the Kleophrades Painter
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Wednesday 18, 12:20 PM

This free gallery talk will be presented by Lisa R. Brody, Associate Curator of Ancient Art, Yale University Art Gallery.

PLUS!! For details on guided tours by Gallery Guides and museum docents, please visit our online calendar at http://artgallery.yale.edu

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“Van Gogh’s Cypresses and The Starry Night: Visions of Saint-Rémy”
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Two of Vincent van Gogh’s most renowned paintings, “Cypresses” (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) and “The Starry Night” (Museum of Modern Art, New York) will be presented side by side for the first time in New England. The installation will be on view from June 15-September 7.

To ensure a leisurely viewing, obtain your free timed tickets online at http://artgallery.yale.edu. Tickets are available now.

Image: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

Robert Rauschenberg, Titan of American Art, Is Dead at 82 Michael Kimmelman NYT 5/14/08

Photos of last week’s MFA Painting Thesis show are up at the main Art School Gallery website.

Photos from the MFA Sculpture 3 show are up on the Archives page.

Posted by: Tanya

Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art

“It’s one of the finest collections of modern art anywhere in the world, but you won’t find it in New York or Paris. Dozens of works by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock — together valued at roughly $3 billion — are locked in a basement in Tehran.”

Inside Iran’s Billion-Dollar Art Basement Lara Setrakian ABCNews 3/1/08

View much of the collection here via the official page of Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary Art and read about it on wikipedia.

Also, check out Yale University Library’s Near East Collection as well as this article about increasing the visibility of the Art Gallery’s collection.

Plus, The World’s 50 Best Works of Art (and how to see them).

Posted by Chris

An exhibit of works in the color gray by Jasper Johns is currently on display at the Met in New York City. Johns once claimed gray to be his favorite color, which should be incentive enough to check out this show. The Met’s website includes images from the exhibit, too. Robert Storr, the Dean of the Yale School of Art, said the following about John in a recent New York Times article on Johns:

“Without question he’s one of the most important painters of his generation … He put bits and pieces of painting and conceptual practice together in a way that nobody has done.”

Jasper Johns: Gray is on display until May 4.

Posted by: Ian

Elizabeth Murray in 1998 with one of her New York subway murals, at the 59th Street and Lexington Avenue station in Manhattan. G. Paul Burnett/New York Times

The painter Elizabeth Murray died over the weekend, she was 66. Murray pushed the boundaries of painting at a time, 1970s, when painting was no longer popular amongst the art world cognoscenti. She is also one of the few female artists to receive a full-career retrospective at MoMA.

Roberta Smith. “Elizabeth Murray, 66, Artist of Vivid Forms, Dies.” New York Times. August 13, 2007.

PBS art:21 website about Murray

Posted by: Ian M.

image: Librado Romero/The New York Times 

Two new exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art mark Frank Stella’s first solo showing at the esteemed New York museum.

The first exhibit entitled “Frank Stella: Painting Into Architecture” will highlight the artist’s architectural ventures, while another will use to the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden to showcase some of the Stella’s abstract sculpture (pictured above).

See a large collection of Stella’s work here.

Posted by Chris