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Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Woman with Mustard Pot, 1910, oil on canvas, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag |
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Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), The Bathers, c. 1890, oil on canvas, 28 x 44 cm, Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence. |
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Dunes Close to Domburg, 1910, oil on canvas, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Apple Tree in Flower, 1912, oil on canvas, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Desnudo sobre un divan (Nude on a Divan), 1960, oil on canvas, 89 x 115,5 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Still Life with Large Wine Bottle, 1959, oil on canvas, 89 x 116 cm, National Modern Art Museum, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Flawed Vase, Sugar Bowl and Apples, 1890-1893, oil on canvas, Musée National de l'Orangerie, collection Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume, Paris.
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Maison Maria with a view of Château Noir, c. 1895, oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm, Kimbell Art Museum, Forth Worth.
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), La Montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1888, oil on canvas, 83 x 72 cm, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Purchased with the generous support of the VVHK. |
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag Cézanne is considered the "father of modern art." Ironically, the painter who frequently found himself turned down for the Paris salons is now regarded as one of the most important artists of his day. Picasso and Mondrian followed his lead and the three of them were responsible for perhaps the most decisive development in art history: the inception of abstract art. These three artists are now the subject of a major international exhibition opening this autumn at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. The exhibits will reveal in spectacular fashion how advances in painting suddenly gathered pace around 1900. The result is a thrilling story that takes the viewer from the sumptuous palette of Cézanne via the brilliantly coloured — and sometimes humorous — paintings of Picasso to the extremely subtle compositions of Mondrian. No other artist of the late 19th century had a heavier and more lasting influence on his successors than Paul Cézanne: with his subtle sense of colour and daring compositions, he broke a lance for future generations. Now, for the first time in half a century, paintings by the French master will once again be on show in the Netherlands. They will include the sensual, world-famous Bathers and the Provençal landscapes featuring Mont Sainte-Victoire, near the small village of Vauvenargues. From the time he arrived in Paris, when he was barely twenty, right to the end of his life, Pablo Picasso hugely admired Cézanne. He liked to regard himself as the older man’s (artistic) heir and was so keen to follow in his footsteps that he eventually took up residence in the Château de Vauvenargues, at the very foot of Mont Sainte-Victoire. He wanted not just to follow in Cézanne’s footsteps in an artistic sense, but actually to occupy the same physical landscape as him. Later still, it was there that Picasso was interred after his death in 1973. Mondrian’s quest for the ideal work of art was virtually concurrent with Picasso’s experiments. Although he emerged from the Dutch tradition at a time when the Hague School was the height of fashion, he had been interested in international developments in painting from an early age. His earliest ideas about Cubism were derived from the press. It took an exhibition about Cubism held in the Stedelijk Museum in 1911 to open his eyes once and for all. It was only then that he saw what Cubism was really about and that he discovered the line that began with Cézanne and continued through Picasso’s work. Mondrian decided to visit Paris to witness contemporary developments in art at first hand. What he saw there took him a step closer to the essence of colour and form. This will be the first time that Mondrian’s relationship with Picasso and Cézanne is examined in such detail. The Gemeentemuseum offers a unique insight into the evolution of modern Western art — an evolution in which each of these three great painters played a pioneering role. With outstanding items on loan from around the world — from Washington (The National Gallery of Art), New York (The Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art) and Paris (Centre Georges Pompidou) — this promises to be a show of exceptional quality. The exhibition is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue containing contributions (in Dutch) by Elizabeth Cowling, Hans Janssen, Franz-W. Kaiser, Brigitte Leal, Sylvie Patin, Anne Roquebert and Benno Tempel.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Two Standing Female Nudes, 1908, oil on marouflaged cardboard, 41 x 33 cm, private collection.
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), The Large Nude, 1912, oil on canvas, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Composition Trees 2, 1912-1913, oil on canvas, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Harlequin, 1888-1890, oil on canvas, 101 x 65 cm, National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Harlequin, Céret, 1913, oil on canvas, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. |
Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Still Life with Ginger Jar 1, 1911, oil on canvas, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. |
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Portrait of Madame Cézanne, 1885-1887, oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm, Musée Granet |
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Vlaho Bukovac, Young Patrician Woman, 1890, oil on canvas, 1310 x 970 mm, Collection Moderna galerija, Zagreb. |
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Vlaho Bukovac, Portrait of Miss Berger, 1897, oil on canvas, 850 x 1100 mm, Collection Moderna galerija, Zagreb. |
Vlaho Bukovac, Japanese Woman, 1898, oil on canvas, 410 x 323 mm, Moderna galerija, Zagreb.
Vlaho Bukovac, Magdalena I (Wroeging), 1898, olieverf op doek, 1380 x 530 mm, Collectie Moderna galerija, Zagreb |
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag He was born in Cavtat, Croatia, lived in America, Paris, Zagreb and Prague, and spent extended periods in England and Vienna. Wherever talented painter Vlaho Bukovac (1855-1922) settled, he soon enjoyed fame and recognition. He staged successful exhibitions at several Paris Salons, the first Vienna Secession exhibition, the second and fourth Venice Biennale and the Paris World Exposition in 1900. This winter, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag is to stage a major retrospective of the glittering career of this versatile painter, whose work has never before been shown in the Netherlands. Vlaho Bukovac’s life reads like a boy’s adventure story. In his youth, his life took him to many places, and he did a huge variety of jobs, including deckhand, photographer’s assistant and even waiter. Once his unique talent for painting became apparent, however, he was soon able to live from portrait painting, and he was one of the few Croatian artists to study at the École des Beaux Arts under the famous Alexandre Cabanel. He was 22 at the time, and this marked the beginning of a sparkling career. The 1882 Salon was a triumph for Bukovac. He showed La Grande Iza, a nude portrait of a coquettish Parisian woman, the heroine of a popular novel. This sensual, flesh-and-blood woman drew so much admiration that newspaper vendors cried his name on the boulevards of Paris. Bukovac’s success was not limited to France. He also managed to break through in Britain, with the help of Vicars Brothers of London. Although, with his mastery of academic painting, Bukovac was a highly valued member of the official art establishment, he was also inspired by modern Impressionist artists who showed in small galleries. That influence can be seen in the expressive touch and Pointillist technique he gradually adopted. Besides landscapes, Bukovac painted portraits. He constantly discovered new possibilities in the genre, having models pose in costume, alone, naked or in groups, and in everyday, allegorical, symbolic or religious settings. He succeeded in depicting people as they really were. Lovers, friends, acquaintances, public figures or himself: every time he managed to expose the personality in the painting. Character, origin, age, status and state of health are all seen in his portraits. Throughout his wanderings and his extended stay in Paris, the land of his birth continued to draw Bukovac. In 1893 his dream of breathing new life into the cultural scene in Croatia took him to Zagreb. He managed to persuade other successful artists to re-establish themselves in their home country, too, creating an active, flourishing cultural centre from which Bukovac also benefited. The group he gathered around him, with their sunny paintings depicting Mediterranean subjects, soon became known abroad as "The Colourful School of Zagreb." In 1894 Bukovac produced the large painting Gundulic’s Dream, based on the epic patriotic poem Osman by Ivan Gundulic, which describes the contrasts between Christianity and Islam, and Eastern and Western Europe — an issue that was as topical then as it is today. This established his name both at home and throughout Europe, thanks to the painting’s success at the Venice Biennale. Having illustrated the "nation’s favourite song," he soon came to be regarded as the pride of Croatia. The exhibition is accompanied by a lavishly illustrated catalogue with contributions by Bukovac expert Igor Zidi? (€ 29,95). The exhibition has been organised in close collaboration with the Moderna Gallerija and with the financial support by Privredna Banka Zagreb and the Croatian Ministry of Culture.
Vlaho Bukovac, Self-Portrait with a Sports Hat, 1914, oil on cardboard, 459 x383 mm, Collection Moderna galerija, Zagreb.
Vlaho Bukovac, Adio!, 1903, oil on canvas, 1200 x 800 mm, Umjetni?ka galerija, Dubrovnik. |
Vlaho Bukovac, Gunduli? imagining "Osman", 1894, oil on canvas, 1850 x 3100 mm, Moderna galerija, Zagreb. |
Vlaho Bukovac, Portrait of Gustav Pongratz, 1893, oil on canvas, Private Collection, Zagreb. |
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Carl Andre (1935), Weir, cedarwood, 1983, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. |
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Ben Akkerman (1920), untitled, 1960, 34,8 x 24,9 cm, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. |
Paul Gabri?l (1828-1903), The Kamperveenderij: Zwijnsleger near Grafhorst, ca. 1888-1889, oil on canvas, collection Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.
Louis Gabriel Eugène Isabey (1803-1886), Bluffs at the Norman Coast, oil on paper on canvas, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.
Claude Monet (1840-1926), Quay near the Louvre, oil on canvas, ca. 1867, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.
Claude Monet (1840-1926), Wisteria, oil on canvas, ca. 1925, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. |
Gemeentemuseum Brightly-coloured, atmospheric, wild, pleasant, flat, hilly, figurative, abstract, two and three dimensional: landscapes take all kinds of forms in modern art. From works packed with drama and emotion in the Romantic period to the abstract canvases of the 1960s, and the land artists, who used the physical landscape to create works of art. The exhibition Over the horizon shows how the portrayal of landscapes has changed over the last two centuries, and how these changes exemplify notions of art and the representation of reality in a particular era. During the Romantic period, menacing skies or sunny meadows provided a setting for religious, nationalistic or mythological depictions, with the atmosphere of the landscape reflecting the scene portrayed on the canvas. The Hague-born artist Wijnand Nuijen for instance used extremely dark blues and purples to lend power to his dramatic seascapes. Besides showcasing famous nineteenth-century Dutch painters like Nuijen and Jongkind, Over the horizon also includes work by their French and English contemporaries Louis Eugène Isabey and Richard Bonnington. The exhibition is to some extent chronological, tracing a line from the Romantic era to the Impressionism of Monet, as represented by Quai du Louvre, in which the city is depicted as a landscape with a horizon and cloudy skies, without focus on details or events. Yet Over the horizon also creates interesting juxtapositions, by contrasting works of art from different periods: the 19th-century painter J.H. Weissenbruch is for example hung alongside the modern artist Jan Andriesse. In the early twentieth century, Piet Mondrian painted a number of sun-drenched luminist dunescapes, experimenting with ways of depicting light, both above the horizon and reflected in the sea. Artists like René Daniëls and J.C.J. Vanderheyden take a more conceptual approach to landscapes, which they tend to interpret in terms of "space." Take Vanderheyden’s two semicircular depictions of the sky and the sun, which create an exhilarating image of boundless space. Richard Long literally integrated the landscape in a work of art, by creating an installation of hundreds of sticks to be arranged on a floor. The landscape is thus at one and the same time origin and part of this piece — which was specially created for the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. It is through this mix of styles that we make the stirring journey from Romantic painting via Impressionism and abstract art to conceptual art, and this idiosyncratic approach gives the exhibition its unusual diversity and power. Thus the theme of Over the horizon is a multilayered one: literally, it concerns the grandeur of landscapes in art, while conceptually, it has to do with the way in which a landscape — or rather physical reality — is distorted or manipulated so as to skew the viewer’s perception of reality. The exhibition will also show some of the museum’s latest acquisitions for the first time. |
Piet Mondriaan (1872-1944), Sea toward Sunset, 1909, oil on cardboard, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. |
Johannes Tavenraat (1809-1881), View of the River Rhine, 1845, oil on canvas, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. |
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Holger Niehaus, Untitled, 2008, 94 x 65 cm. Courtesy Van Zoetendaal Gallery. |
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Holger Niehaus, Untitled, 2004, 142 x 69 cm. Courtesy Van Zoetendaal Gallery. |
Holger Niehaus, Untitled, 2006, 202 x 167 cm. Courtesy Van Zoetendaal Gallery.
Holger Niehaus, Untitled, 2006, 197 x 156 cm. Courtesy Van Zoetendaal Gallery. |
Gemeentemuseum Holger Niehaus (b. Nordhorn, Germany, 1975) takes us to a strange world, where plants, fruit and animals congregate in serene still-lifes. Niehaus masterfully interweaves the traditional still-life with minimalist forms, so that every photograph requires a second glance to see what is actually there. It then becomes clear that the objects have been attacked with an apple corer, paint or scissors. This young photographer’s first solo exhibition also includes his choice of pieces from the Gemeentemuseum’s extensive collection that have inspired his own work. Holger Niehaus’ photographs are based on the classic still-life. By manipulating the subject or the photograph, however, Niehaus ensures that it fits into his perfectible world. In interfering with the subject — be it a plant, animal or something else — Niehaus destroys characteristic features of the original, preventing us from looking at the photographs in a ‘normal’ way. And although his actions betray his love of manipulation, there is also a cruel side to it. Everything we think we see is contradicted by what we actually see. The artist literally peels off a layer and exposes the fruit: he conjures up a little world behind which lie hours spent working away at the subject, a search for a dream world where the goal is aimless perfection. This first retrospective of the work of photographer Holger Niehaus is being shown at the Gemeentemuseum rather than The Hague Museum of Photography because of the classical basis of his work and its kinship with painting, as reflected in his compositions and his use of colour. Gemeentemuseum Den Haag asked Niehaus to make a selection from its own collection, an artist’s choice of works with which he feels an affinity. This close collaboration is also reflected in the photograph Niehaus produced specially for the exhibition in a series of 100, which visitors can purchase at the museum shop. Holger Niehaus studied at the AKI Academy of Art and Design in Enschede, and since graduating in 2002 has exhibited his work in Amsterdam, Berlin, Hamburg and Paris. His photographs have also been published in the NRC Handelsblad newspaper, Kunstbeeld and several international art journals. The exhibition and accompanying publication were produced in collaboration with Van Zoetendaal Gallery.
Holger Niehaus, Untitled, 2006, 115 x 87 cm. Courtesy Van Zoetendaal Gallery. |
Holger Niehaus, Untitled, 2000, 63 x 88 cm. Courtesy Van Zoetendaal Gallery. |
Holger Niehaus, Untitled, 2005, 27 x 22 cm. Courtesy Van Zoetendaal Gallery. |
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Léopold Rabus, Neige et renard (Snow and fox), 2007, oil on canvas, 240 x 380 cm, Museum of Old and New Art, Hobart, Australia, courtesy Galerie ADLER, Frankfurt. |
Léopold Rabus, Le Point d’Eau (The standpipe), 2008, oil on canvas, 240 x 300 cm, courtesy Galerie ADLER, Frankfurt.
Léopold Rabus, La Maison des Oiseaux (The house of birds), 2005, mixed technique on canvas, 190 x 230 cm, Gemeentemuseum Den Haag.
Léopold Rabus, La bergère et le bucheron (The shepherd and the lumberjack), 2006, oil on canvas, 200 x 240 cm, Art Collection of Julius Baer, courtesy Artrepco Gallery, Zurich. |
GEM Museum The human figures depicted by the Swiss artist Léopold Rabus (1977) are ill-fated, gruesome, awkward or crazy, but always humorous. Against the backdrop of an realistically rendered woodland scene and toadstools, a deserted shed or wooden house in the forest, he paints people from his immediate surroundings: Neuchâtel. His work, which is permeated with (black) humour, is akin to that of artists such as the German Jonathan Meese and the American Paul McCarthy. With the first solo museum exhibition of Rabus’s work, GEM is continuing its tradition of prominent exhibitions of contemporary art. The adjacent Gemeentemuseum already owns two monumental paintings by Rabus. They are part of the contemporary art collection that also includes paintings by Daniel Richter, Mattias Weischer, Michael Raedecker and Tjebbe Beekman. Rabus takes local traditions and customs as his point of reference, and depicts them as something to laugh at. His rendering of a hunting scene, for example, is not a heroic scene but a tragicomic spectacle of two ugly hunters with horns and guns, accompanied by a pack of dogs that are busy tearing apart a fox. Today, it seems that everyone wants to broaden their horizons and see everything of the world, but not Rabus. What fascinates him is the local context, the traditions of his home. But those traditions are disappearing. In Neuchâtel, among other places, it used to be the custom to collect hair from the head of a deceased loved one and make it into a flower composition. Now, by contrast, that tradition is regarded as very strange – morbid, even. For Rabus, traditions like this are intimate and moving. The tradition inspired him to produce a woodland house that at first glance looks perfectly normal, but is actually covered entirely with human hair! Whereas the setting, landscape or background of his bizarre works are often rendered in a realistic manner, Rabus’s human figures are caricatures whose heads are out of proportion to their small bodies. The figures have milk-white skin and dark eyes that are averted from the viewer. They give the impression of bungling antiheroes and are depicted in locations such as abandoned basements, woods, but also in teenagers’ rooms or on farms, where the artist creates an uneasy atmosphere. There is a sense of futility about them; they are engaged in everyday activities that are not worth bothering about. |
Léopold Rabus, La mise en terre du renard (The burial of the fox), 2007, oil on canvas, 270 x 380 cm (diptych, 270 x 190 cm each), Gemeentemuseum Den Haag. |
