~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

A camera obscura is the age-old principle behind that physics-class favorite, the pinhole camera. Let light from a small opening enter a dark space, and an inverted image of what’s on the other side of the opening will be projected within.

Camera obscura pictures make up half of the 36 images in “Behind the Seen: The Photographs of Abelardo Morell,” which runs at the Yale University Art Gallery through Aug. 10. The exhibition is in the way of a homecoming. Morell, who teaches at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, has a master of fine arts degree from Yale. He’ll be artist in residence there this academic year.

Morell’s photos balance austerity and playfullness Mark Feeney Boston Globe 6/20/08

Posted by Chris

The real world: Jerome Liebling’s works celebrate the strength of the everyday Mark Feeney Boston Globe July 13, 2008

“The occasion of the Yale University Art Gallery’s ‘Everyday Monuments: The Photographs of Jerome Liebling’ (not a bad title either) is Yale’s recent purchase of more than 40 Liebling prints. So let’s hear it for pride of ownership.

“Liebling is 84. Looking at the dozen vintage prints at Smith from the late ’40s, one can see how far he’s come as an artist. He was good then - Liebling shot what may be his most famous image, ‘Butterfly Boy,’ in 1949 (it’s in the Yale show) - but his work is so much richer and more variegated now. Getting older is not the same thing as getting wiser. It has been for Liebling, though.”

Posted by: Tanya

In a good article highlighting the growing problem of art theft, Geoffrey Clarfield criticizes what he calls a policy of “appeasement” that encourages crime and manages to throw in a jab at Yale for waiting over a century before returning artifacts stolen from Machu Picchu.

Art owners and museums still pay huge ransoms for stolen art. Our publicly funded museums and private auction houses have encouraged illegal trade by buying imported antiquities and muddling their provenance. Anyone who buys antiquities smuggled out of Iraq is indirectly paying for the civil war there.

In the 1930s, the British had a word for such behaviour, “appeasement.” It would be wise for museums and the public to reject and actively oppose this underground trade and its addiction to paid ransoms.

Stop the appeasement of art and antiques thieves Geoffrey Clarfield Globe and Mail 7/5/08

Posted by Chris

“Viewing at the Royal Academy,” Thomas Rowlandson

Article on “Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art:”

When Watercolor Came Into Its Own BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO New York Times July 6, 2008

“You can see more than 80 watercolors by English artists from the 18th through 19th centuries in a beautiful new show at the Yale Center for British Art, home to one of the world’s greatest collections of British drawings and watercolors. The collection was largely assembled over 15 years, beginning in the early 1960s, by Paul Mellon, the center’s founder and chief benefactor. It now numbers more than 50,000 drawings, watercolors and other works on paper….The works are arranged more or less chronologically to show the evolution of British watercolor painting from mid-18th-century topographical landscapes to a more widespread application and growing sophistication in the 19th century.”

Posted by: Tanya

“In September, Jock Reynolds marks his 10th anniversary as Henry J. Heinz II director of the Yale University Art Gallery. During that time, the collection has more than doubled, to some 190,000 objects. The gallery’s Louis Kahn-designed building reopened in 2006 after a three-year, $44 million renovation. That was part of a 12-year expansion and renovation of the gallery’s overall facilities expected to finish in 2011…..Last week, he spoke with Globe staffer Mark Feeney about the challenges facing Yale and university and college art museums generally. What follows is an edited version of their conversation.”

A Yale museum looks beyond university walls: Director Reynolds revels in all phases of job Boston Globe Mark Feeney July 6, 2008

Posted by: Tanya

Leave Starry-Eyed Glasses At Home Paul Bass, New Haven Independent July 1, 2008

Jennifer Gross, a curator of modern and contemporary art at the Yale Art Gallery “wants to change the way we view Starry Night, and the way we view Van Gogh.

“Gross’s view: The painting represent a mature artist in full command of his work, summoning a lifetime of honed technique to capture the universal emotional depth that accompanies the dark. It’s not about insanity.”

Posted by: Tanya

July is an exciting time to visit the Gallery. Enjoy three photography exhibitions, a special van Gogh installation, and numerous lunchtime talks.

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Images and the Cold War Legacy
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Wednesday 2, 12:20 PM
This gallery talk will be presented by Maria Taroutina, ph.d. candidate, History of Art, Yale University.

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The Little Faces Are the Real Ones: Miniature Masks from West Africa
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Wednesday 9, 12:20 PM
This gallery talk will be presented by Frederick John Lamp, the Frances and Benjamin Benenson Foundation Curator of African Art, Yale University Art Gallery.

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Not Quite Right: The Peculiar in Art
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Friday 11, 3:00 PM
This gallery tour will be given by Elissa Dunn, BK ‘09.

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Film Screening, “Shadow of the House”
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Saturday 12, 2:00 PM
“Shadow of the House” is a documentary film about contemporary photographer Abelardo Morell, followed by a talk with the filmmaker Allie Humenuk. “Behind the Seen: The Photographs of Abelardo Morell” is on view at the Gallery through August 10.

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Behind the Seen: The Photographs of Abelardo Morell
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Wednesday 16, 12:20 PM
This gallery talk will be presented by Christine Paglia, the Florence B. Selden Curatorial Intern, Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, Yale University Art Gallery.

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Not Quite Right: The Peculiar in Art
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Friday 18, 3:00 PM
This gallery tour will be given by Elissa Dunn, BK ‘09.

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Film Screening, “Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh”
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Saturday 19, 2:00 PM
“Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh,” directed by Paul Cox, is shown in conjunction with the Gallery’s presentation of “Van Gogh’s ‘Cypresses’ and ‘The Starry Night’: Visions of Saint-Rémy.”

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The Earliest Italian Painters: Art in the Age of Dante
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Wednesday 23, 12:20 PM
This gallery talk will be presented by Laurence Kanter, the Lionel Goldfrank III Curator of Early European Art, Yale University Art Gallery.

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Film Screening, “Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh”
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Saturday 26, 2:00 PM
“Vincent: The Life and Death of Vincent van Gogh,” directed by Paul Cox, is shown in conjunction with the Gallery’s presentation of “Van Gogh’s ‘Cypresses’ and ‘The Starry Night’: Visions of Saint-Rémy.”

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The Story of Porcelain in East Asia
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Wednesday 30, 12:20 PM
This gallery talk will be presented by David Sensabaugh, the Ruth and Bruce Dayton Curator of Asian Art, Yale University Art Gallery.

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Free and open to the public.
1111 Chapel Street (at York Street), 203.432.0600
http://artgallery.yale.edu

“[Abelardo Morell's] eye-bending work in optics and in the ancient technique of camera obscura, which he renders anew, are featured in an exhibition at Yale University Art Gallery. The exhibit, called ‘Behind the Seen,’ is tripled with ‘Everyday Monuments: The Photographs of Jerome Liebling’ and a kind of joyous inadvertent survey of photography from the mid 19th century to the present, ‘From Any Angle: Photographs from the Collection of Doris Bry.’”

A Triple-Header Celebrates Art Of Light
by Allan Appel | June 26, 2008 New Haven Independent

Posted by: Tanya

The Yale University Art Gallery and the International Festival of Arts and Ideas invite you to attend a gallery tour

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From Any Angle: Photographs from the Collection of Doris Bry
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Saturday, June 28, 4:00 PM

This gallery tour will be presented by Sarah Stolfa, M.F.A. 2008. Stolfa is one of the student curators who organized the exhibition “From Any Angle: Photographs from the Collection of Doris Bry.” This exhibition celebrates the remarkable photography collection of Doris Bry currently on long-term loan to the Gallery. Featured artists include Berenice Abbott, Ansel Adams, Eugène Atget, Walker Evans, Laura Gilpin, and Garry Winogrand, among others.

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Yale University Art Gallery
Free and open to the public.
1111 Chapel Street (at York Street), 203.432.0600
HTTP://ARTGALLERY.YALE.EDU

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Behind the Seen: The Photographs of Abelardo Morell
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Wednesday 25, 12:20 PM

This special gallery talk will be presented by Abelardo Morell, the Happy and Bob Doran Artist in Residence, Yale University Art
Gallery. The exhibition “Behind the Seen: The Photographs of Abelardo Morell” is on view at the Gallery from June 24 to August 10.

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

Abelardo Morell, The Metropolitan Opera: Romeo and Juliet Set, 2005.

“Best known for his extraordinary images of interiors created with the ancient technology of the camera obscura, contemporary artist Abelardo Morell has been actively exploring the photographic medium for the past thirty years. Behind the Seen: The Photographs of Abelardo Morell provides an in-depth look at the role that artworks and monuments play in the artist’s major photographic series. Approximately forty images are on display, featuring Morell’s work in black and white alongside his newest color photographs, and including twenty of the camera obscura images. The exhibition also features a special camera obscura room, which invites visitors to enter the space of one of the artist’s pictures. Morell is the current Happy and Bob Doran Artist in Residence at the Yale University Art Gallery and is creating new work based on the Gallery’s collections. Several recent photographs made at the museum are on view for the first time.”

Exhibition of Photographs by Abelardo Morell Surveys Artist’s Career Art Daily 6/24/08

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.”

‘Starry’-eyed at Yale Gallery
Phyllis A.S. Boros - 06/15/2008 Stamford Advocate

“With a new art installation in ‘an intimate setting’ in New Haven, museum-goers have the opportunity to view three masterpieces by one of the most beloved artists of the modern era.

“For the first time in New England, the Yale University Art Gallery will bring together two major paintings from Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) from two New York museums: ‘Cypresses,’ on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and ‘The Starry Night: Visions of Saint-RŽmy,’ on loan from the Museum of Modern Art.

“The gallery’s own ‘The Night CafŽ’ also will be on view….”

Posted by: Tanya

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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