Spaightwood Galleries, Inc.
120 Main Street, PO Box 1193, Upton MA 01568-6193
for questions, E-mail us at sptwd@verizon.net or call 1-800-809-3343 (508-529-2511 in Upton & vicinity).
8 March 2008 to 29 June 2008
This show was born in a discussion about a passage in Sir Philip Sidney's Old Arcadia (1579-80), in which the narrator describes the virtuous and virginal heroine as wearing a dress "so near nakedness that one might well discern part of her perfections, and yet so apparelled as did show that she kept the best store of her beauties to herself; her excellent fair hair drawn up into a net made only of itself (a net indeed to have caught the wildest disposition); her body covered in a light taffeta garment so cut as the wrought smock came through it in many places (enough to have made a very restrained imagination to have thought about what was under it)." One of the thoughts this passage inspired was that essentially women were a mystery to men—including artists: creatures able to tame the wildest and make wild the tamest, perhaps simultaneously! We began to wonder about the traditional disjunctive classification of women as either saints or sluts, a distinction reified in a 1990 show at The National Gallery of Art, Eva / Ave: Women in Renaissance and Baroque Prints by H. Diane Russell. In the passage quoted above from The Old Arcadia, it is not women but the imaginations of men that seem to be the issue. The same situation seems often the case in Renaissance prints and drawings as well. When we see a Susanna or a Bathsheba innocently bathing, a violated Lucrece, or a penitent Mary Magdalene, the mind registers one understanding of the scene even as the imagination is invited to create another. Thus was born a curiosity about the depictions of women in a wide variety of sixteenth and seventeenth-century prints and drawings presenting women in the contexts of biblical history, secular history, mythology, "real life," and life moralized.
This show is the offspring of that curiosity. In an earlier version of this show, we presented works ranging from a series of woodcuts made in Venice about 1500 as illustrations to Ovid's Metamorphoses as well as a later set made after drawings by Hendrik Goltzius about 100 years later; prints taken from two sets illustrating the Heroines of the Old and New Testaments (including Tamar seducing her father-in-law to force him to allow her to marry one of her dead husband's brothers as the law commanded, Rahab, a Canaanite prostitute who shelters Joshua's spies and aids in the fall of her city to the people of Israel, Judith, a virtuous Israelite who seduces an Assyrian general in order to behead him and throw his army into disorder at the discovery of his headless body, and Mary Magdalen, a prostitute who becomes one of the most passionate disciples of Jesus); women depicted as allegorized virtues or vices, and women taken from history or from present-day life.
This time begin with fifteen scenes featuring women acting or suffering from Albrecht Durer's Small Woodcut Passion ranging from the Fall to the Nativity, from the Passion to the Resurrection, and on to Pentecost and the Last Judgment (links to follow soon). We then focus on a number of scenes featuring the Virgin Mary, the Holy Family, with added angels and saints, Magi, and shepherds, including drawings by Paolo Veronese, an anonymous Venetian Birth of the Virgin, and works by Annibale Carracci (a Pentecost clearly based upon Durer's version from the Small Woodcut Passion, Pier Francesco Mola, Simone Cantarini, . a Lamentation in the Style of Federico Zuccaro, and two 17th-century Flemish models for altarpieces. Next come 10 works by (7) or after (3 Madonna's) Dürer. From there we move to a synoptic history from the creation of Adam and Eve to the Last Judgment by artists including Lucas van Leyden (2), Philips Galle, Jan Sadeler (4), and Jan Saenredam (2). After six works by German (Hans Sebald Beham and Georg Pencz) and Netherlandish masters (Master DD) featuring David watching Bathsheba bathe, Esther and Ahasuerias, Lot and his Daughters (2), Judith, and Susanna and the Elders, we focus on the story of Judith in two drawings (Luca Cambiaso and style of Giulio Romano, and 7 prints by Hans Sebald Beham (2), a Raimondi School artist c. 1520 after Mocetto after Mantegna, Parmigianino, Saenredam, Jean Cousin the Younger, and etchings after Domenichino and Guido Reni. The Sacred part of the show ends (mostly) with two drawings (Etienne Parrocel and a 17th-century artist close to Rubens) and an etching (c. 1550) by Giacomo Francia featuring Mary Magdalene, a very powerful Pieta drawn after an engraving by Agostino Carracci after a painting by Veronese as well as works by Lucas van Leyden (a hand-colored impression of one of his large engravings, Golgotha), Dürer (a proof before the 1511 Large Woodcut Passion of the Harrowing of Hell, and a large engraving by Willem van Swanenburgh after Paulus Moreelse' Resurrection.
Most of the rest of the show is devoted to depictions of women in Roman history (Lucretia, Cimon and Pero), allegory (Beham's Melancholia and Iusticia, Pencz' Sloth), and mythology, including drawings of Ceres by Federico Zuccaro, and an anonymous 17th-Century Italian artist, the Rape of Europa, Schiavone's Dido learning of the flight of Aeneas, and engravings by Giorgio Ghisi (4 featuring Venus, Cupid, Vulcan, and Juno), Jan Saenredam (9, all after drawings by Hendrik Goltzius), and a chiaroscuro woodcut by Paulus Moreelse showing Cupid dancing with some nymphs. A few religious old master drawings crept in on the Pagan side as well, including drawings by Abraham Bloemaert (Mary Magdalene), a Bolognese drawing of Lot and his Daughters, Cantarini's St. Apollonia, a drawing of Susannah and the Elders by Bernaert van Orley, and a drawing of Sarah overhearing the angels tell Abraham that she will have a child after an engraving by Jacob Matham after a drawing by his stepfather Hendrik Goltzius. In addition to a Venetian drawing of woman looking over her shoulder and a drawing by Alessandro Casolani featuring studies of reclining women which made one owner of the sheet write "Michelangelo" on the verso, possibly remembering Michelangelo's sculpture of Night in the Medici Chapel in Florence.
There are also several larger pieces on this side of the exhibit, including engravings after Titian's "Venus and Adonis," Michelangelo's "Fall of Phaeton," Aenea Vico's "Battle of the Centaurs and Lapiths" (which is more likely a "Rape of the Sabine Women," Durer's "Hercules conquering the Molionide Twins," and Gianbattista Franco's "Hercules killing Nessus as he tries to abduct Deianeira." Rounding out this second side of the gallery are drawings by Perino del Vaga (Fortitude) and Giulio Romano (Justice). Giulio and Perino were both assistants of Raphael and were working on a room in the Vatican that, according to Vasari, was to contain paintings of Fortitude and Justice. There is also a very beautiful red chalk drawing by Matteo Rosselli of a mother and child asleep in a landscape.
Slightly pushing our boundaries, there are also 5 18th-Century works, an etching of Diana and Endymion by Gerard de Lairesse and 4 red or red and black chalk studies of women by Jean de Neufforge. The show concludes with 14 engravings by Hans (Jan) Collaert after Maarten de Vos of Women of the Old Testament and 2 by Carel de Mallery of Women of the New Testament.
|
 |
|
Spaightwood Galleries was founded in 1980 in Madison Wisconsin by Andy Weiner and Sonja Hansard-Weiner and moved in November 2004 into our beautiful new site in Upton Massachusetts (we are about forty-five minutes west of Boston via the Mass Pike; take the I-495 South Exit, then exit at Exit 21-B Upton; go 5.1 miles directly to the gallery in the former Upton Unitarian Church on the corner of Highway 140 and Maple Ave [click for views of our new home and exhibition space]). Now almost twenty-five years later we have an inventory of over 9800 works, most on paper, ranging from the late fifteenth century to the present. In the days to come we will continue to add pages (currently we have 598) and illustrations (currently over 3000) to this site, but the best way to find out what we have will be to E-mail us (sptwd@verizon.net) or call us for more information (one of the reasons I retired after 35 years at the University of Wisconsin as a Professor of English and an Affiliated Professor of Law was to get caught up; one of the reasons Sonja retired after 28 years at Madison Area Technical College was to make sure I do). By clicking on the link for Recent Exhibitions, you can get a sense of the shows we have put on at the gallery since the end of 2000 when we launched this site. For those who find indexing by show a bit cumbersome to negotiate, we offer a start at a more comprehensive alphabetical listing, divided into artists born before 1800 and those born after. As usual, the presence of a link means you can click through to the image(s) or page(s); the absence of a link indicates that we have not yet photographed the work(s) of that artist in our inventory, but we would be happy to do so on request as time permits. Click for Artists listing. For a profile on Andy and Sonja, the co-owners of Spaightwood Galleries, click here.
Spaightwood presents between four and six shows a year, usually lasting between 6 and 12 weeks. Most of our shows feature works by artists of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, though we also have about 1000 old master prints and drawings in our inventory. In any given year, about 1200 works of art appear on our walls. Our recent shows give a sense of the variety of what we show. In 2007, we began the year with a show featuring the works of Marc Chagall (including about 155 of his prints from 1923 to 1981); for a virtual tour, click here. That show was followed with "Through a Woman's Eyes: Impression through Surrealism, " a show of prints and drawings including works by Eva Gonzales, Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Suzanne Valadon, Nataliya Goncharova, Marie Laurencin, Kathe Kollwitz, Gabriele Munter, Hannah Hoch, Sonia Delaunay, Hilla von Rebay, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Leonor Fini, Frida Kahlo, Dorothea Tanning, Toyen, and Louise Bourgeois. We followed that with a look at "The Art that Hitler hated: Kathe Kollwitz and German Expressionism," featuring 159 prints and drawings, including over forty works by Käthe Kollwitz plus additional works by Ernst Barlach, Otto Dix, Erich Heckel, Hannah Hoch, Karl Hofer, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Oskar Kokoschka, Ludwig Meidner, Gabrielle Munter, Emile Nolde, Max Pechstein, Hilla von Rebay, Rudolf Schlichter, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Georg Tappert. 2007 concluded with Masters of Modernity, our largest show ever featuring a total of 179 works by Picasso (30), Matisse (33), Chagall (52), Kandinsky (10), and Miró (41), plus works by Braque (2), Klee, Leger (6), Giacometti (6), and Magritte. For selections from the show, see: The Figure / Artist and Model / Nature / Nature2 / People / People2 / People3 / Music and Dance / Biblical etchings / Chagall's Lithographs for the Bible / Chagall and Paris.
2006 concluded with a one-person show devoted to the works of Joan Miró, now generally considered by critics to belong with Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall among the makers of modernity, in which we showed 100 original aquatints, drypoints, etchings, linocuts, and lithographs by the great Spanish Master. Preceding that, we presented a sow of works by contemporary American Women artists, featuring works by Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, and many others. Our first show of 2006 featured a large selection of works by Antoni Tapies, whom Robert Motherwell had described shortly before his own untimely demise, as the greatest living artist. Before that, we tried out our new space with our first Massachusetts show which featured about 30 prints by Marc Chagall (most from his 1930-1939 Bible etchings and his 1956 color lithographs on the Bible), 10 drypoints by Mary Cassatt, 10 etchings and lithographs by Kathe Kollwitz, prints by Pierre Alechinsky, Antoni Tapies, Joan Miró, and Jules Olitski, monotypes by Jim Bird and Manel Lledos, drawings and paintings by Gerard Titus-Carmel, Manel Lledos, and Lois Lane. Prior to our move, our very-well reviewed Farewell to Madison show, which was extended several times as work on the renovation of our new Upton space perhaps inevitably took longer than expected, included a changing number of our favorite works and featured prints drawn from our recent acquisition of 100 lithographs and aquatints by Claude Garache as well as a number of recent important acquisitions, including works by Giulio Romano (an early allegorical red chalk drawing of Justice), the only artist Shakespeare ever mentions by name in one of his plays, Rembrandt (four etchings), Eva Gonzales, Manet's only pupil, who died in childbirth at a very early age (An actress with a mask; brush and black ink and wash with white gouache heightening and black chalk on tan wove paper; initialed in chalk upper right recto; signed or inscribed "Eva Gonzalès" verso), as well as recent acquisitions by Motherwell, Tàpies, Miró, Chagall, Alechinsky, and other favorites. For reviews from the Wisconsin State Journal, see here; for a review from The Capital Times, click here; for a farewell interview with former Cap Times Features editor and arts critic Jacob Stockinger, see here.
Preceding that we presented a celebration of the works of Joan Miró, including pochoirs from the early 1930s, his only linocut (from 1938), his first color lithographs, plus drypoints, etchings, aquatints, woodcuts, monoprints, and many other rare and beautiful original prints including a number of large-size lithographs and etchings (three feet x four feet or larger in frames). This show, the next to the last we presented in our Madison Wisconsin gallery before our move to Upton Massachusetts, followed a major exhibition of the works of Marc Chagall, ranging from some of his earliest works (his etchings for Dead Souls, The Fables of LaFontaine, and The Bible, all commissioned by Ambroise Vollard in the 1920s) to a sample of his works in lithography and etchings from the 1950s to the early 1980s. It was preceded by a large selection of drawings ranging from the late fifteenth century to the present which followed our 80th-birthday salute to Antoni Tàpies, Antoni Tàpies at 80: A Retrospective of His Original Prints. Acclaimed by Robert Motherwell as the greatest living European artist, Tàpies’ prints have always been recognized as a major part of his oeuvre, and were celebrated in a retrospective organized by The Museum of Modern Art in 1991 that circulated to a number of museums in the US, Central and South America from 1991 to 1993. Our show included 90 original prints (our inventory includes more than twice as many as were in the show).
Before that we concluded our year of surveys of twentieth-century art movements with a show devoted to Surrealism, Space and Psyche in Play, featuring original prints (and a watercolor) by Leonor Fini, Dorothea Tanning, and Toyen, juxtaposed against a backdrop of works by Jean Arp, Lucien Coutaud, Paul Delvaux, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Stanley William Hayter, Hannah Höch, Paul Klee, Wifredo Lam, Rene Magritte, André Masson, Roberto Matta, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Germaine Richier, Kurt Seligmann, Paul Wunderlich, and others.
It was preceded by Paris and the Spirit of Modernism: Works by Arp, Bissiere, Braque, Calder, Chagall, Sonia Delaunay, Robert Delaunay, Marcel Duchamp, Suzanne Duchamp, Ernst, Giacometti, Goncharova, Hayter, Helion, Larionov, Laurens, Leger, Lipchitz, Magnelli, Masson, Matisse, Miro, Joan Mitchell, Niki de St Phalle, Picasso, Pignon, Tal-Coat, Tinguely, Bram van Velde, Vieira da Silva, Zadkine, and Zao Wou-Ki (17 January–23 March 2003), a follow-up to "Made in France: Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Prints and Drawings" (October 27, 2002–January 12. 2003). These shows followed "The Art that Hitler Hated: Kathe Kollwitz and German Expressionist Printmaking" (July 5-October 20, 2002) and Heroic Poetry: Abstract Art from Miró to the Present: Prints by Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Miró, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, and Antoni Tàpies; prints and multiples by Louise Nevelson, and paintings on paper by Jonna Rae Brinkman.
During the winter of 2001-2002 we presented Images of Women in Old Master Prints and Drawings which explored the varying depictions of women in prints and drawings by a large number of German, Netherlandish, and Italian artists. We also showed Some Light for the Winter of Our Discontent: Etchings and lithographs by Marc Chagall, which ran during the dark days of the year when we, at least, felt a need for cheering up, a need satisfied by the joy and the color of Chagall's works. Pierre Alechinsky: The Year of the Snake: Original Prints and Drawings, ran from 28 September–29 October 2001 and is part of our continuing commitment to the graphic works of the COBRA artists. Prior to that we presented Pop Art in the U.S. and Europe, which featured work by Valerio Adami, Joan Gardy Artigas, Richard Avedon, Enrico Baj, Christo, Robert Cottingham, Allan D'Arcangelo, Jim Dine, David Hockney, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Alex Katz, R. B. Kitaj, Nicholas Krushenick, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Lindner, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Phillips, Mel Ramos, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, George Segal, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Saul Steinberg, Andy Warhol, John Wesley, and Tom Wesselmann.
Immediately preceding that we presented Drawings from the late 15th century to the early 21st, which continues to demonstrate our interest in both old master and modern/contemporary art. For Kevin Lynch's Capital Times review of the show of July 18th, 2001, click here (Cap. Times Review); for Amanda Henry's 8/11/01 review in the Wisconsin State Journal, click here (WSJReview).
Before that, we showed "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters": Durer’s Ship of Fools woodcuts (1494), David Deuchar’s etchings (1786) after Hans Holbein’s Dance of Death, Goya’s Caprichos etchings (1799), John Martin’s Paradise Lost mezzotints (1823-25), and Georges Rouault’s Miserere mixed-media intaglios (1922-1928). We spent the first part of the winter exploring Spain and the Spanish tradition in Modern and contemporary art with two shows, "Some things old, some things new: Paintings on canvas and paper, watercolors and gouaches, monotypes, and etchings by Manel Lledos," and Spain and the Spirit of Modernism: Works by Picasso, Miro, Tapies, Artigas, Lledos.
Over the holidays we exhibited over 130 works by Marc Chagall, The Worlds of Marc Chagall, a show that focused on Chagall's non-biblical etchings and lithographs.
In October 2000, we presented a show of over 100 works (most prints) by women artists of the twentieth century, Womanshow 2000: 30 Years of Collecting 20th-Century Art by Women including Jennifer Bartlett, Lynda Benglis, Louise Bourgeois, Jonna Rae Brinkman, Mary Cassatt, Louisa Chase, Sue Coe, Sonia Delaunay, Leonor Fini, Helen Frankenthaler, Jane Freilicher, Nataliya Goncharova, Nancy Graves, Harmony Hammond, Barbara Hepworth, Hannah Hoch, Margot Humphrey, Savannah Jahrling, Anita Jung, Kathe Köllwitz, Elaine de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Ellen Lanyon, Marie Laurencin, Georgia Marsh, Suzanne McClelland, Phyllis McGibbon, Joan Mitchell, Elizabeth Murray, Judith Murray, Louise Nevelson, Judy Pfaff, Germaine Richier, Dorothea Rockburne, Joan Root, Susan Rothenberg, Betye Saar, Niki de St. Phalle, Hollis Sigler, Kiki Smith, Joan Snyder, Pat Steir, May Stevens, Dorothea Tanning, Lenore Thomas, Toyen, Rose Van Vranken, Susanne Valadon, Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, and Emmi Whitehorse. Women artists have long been of major interest to us (Sonja has been teaching a course on Women in the Arts at the Madison Area Technical College for over 10 years). Also part of that interest is the work of an emerging artist, Jonna Rae Brinkman. During September 2000, we presented an extensive collection of over 100 paintings on canvas and on paper by Jonna Rae Brinkman, who recently finished up her MFA at the Pratt Institute in New York City and is already having some success selling to collectors out of her studio. Brinkman has been showing with Spaightwood for over three years (since finishing her BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she won the Edward Ryerson Award for painting; two of the winners were in our show. Some of our extensive inventory of Brinkman's very affordable paintings on paper and canvas are available on our very large virtual show).
It succeeded a large show (almost 140 works) exploring the prints of the Fauves, Matisse, Rouault, Vlaminck, Camoin, Derain, and one of their important inspirations, Gauguin. This show related to its predecessor as the French version of Expressionism relates to the German; immediately prior to this exhibition, we showed the works of Käthe Kollwitz and of German Expressionist printmakers (including Barlach, Beckmann, Campendonck, Chagall, Corinth, Dix, Felixmuller, Fronius, Grosz, Heckel, Kandinsky, Kirchner, Klee, Kokoschka, Meidner, Nauen, Nolde, Pechstein, Schlichter, Schmidt-Rottluff, Schott, and Wagner). In turn, it succeeded two other shows exploring some of the art movements spawned in the early twentieth century, Abstract art in all of its variety and a show of works by artists of the Dada and Surrealist movements and some of their artistic heirs; before that we showed over 150 works by Marc Chagall and Joan Miró. During the fall of 1999, we showed prints by the French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. Prior to that we featured works by six artists, Jonna Rae Brinkman, Helen Frankenthaler, Joan Mitchell, Louise Nevelson, Rose Van Vranken, and Emmi Whitehorse. Other recent exhibitions included one-person shows devoted to the works of Pierre Alechinsky, Marc Chagall Biblical Art, Joan Miró and the Cosmos, and the French master, Gérard Titus-Carmel; group shows have featured works by Albrecht Dürer, Old Master Drawings and Old Master Prints, and the artists of COBRA.
In addition to the artists listed above, Spaightwood Galleries also has strong collections of the works of Valerio Adami, Karel Appel, Joan Gardy Artigas, Jim Bird, Claude Garache, John Himmelfarb, Käthe Kollwitz, Wifredo Lam, Manel Lledos, Robert Motherwell, Pierre Tal-Coat, Antoni Tàpies, Wayne Taylor, and Bram van Velde. We are interested in Modern and Contemporary works with strong intellectual, emotional, psychological, and spiritual content: expressionism of various sorts, surrealism, COBRA, and various kinds of gestural art are often featured at Spaightwood; artists who have sought to find ways to accommodate the life of the spirit in a materialistic world like Pierre Alechinsky, Marc Chagall, Sam Gilliam, Wassily Kandinsky, Manel Lledos, Joan Miró, Joan Mitchell, Robert Motherwell, Louise Nevelson, Dorothea Tanning, Antoni Tàpies, Gerard Titus-Carmel, and Bram van Velde particularly interest us. The human form is another subject we find endlessly intriguing; works by Joan Gardy Artigas, Ernst Barlach, Claude Garache, Alberto Giacometti, Kathe Kollwitz, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Rouault are among our favorites as well.
Look for pages devoted to all of these artists in the near future. We have a number of pages of special offers on selected works by selected artists, including Pierre Alechinsky, Jennifer Bartlett, Louisa Chase, Eduardo Chillida, Helen Frankenthaler, Claude Garache, Sam Gilliam, Karen Kunc, Jacob Lawrence, Philip Pearlstein, Jean-Paul Riopelle, George Rouault, Hollis Sigler, Joan Snyder, Walter Stein, Antoni Tàpies, and Tom Wesselman; look for specials on Ed Baynard, Richard Bosman, Sandro Chia, Susan Crile, José Luis Cuevas, A. R. Penck, Robert Stackhouse, Pierre Soulages, and Zao Wou-Ki. As final after thoughts, we also introduce our newest grandchild and first granddaughter, Jaiden Ariel Weiner, b. 4/21/05, and our newest granson, Zane Weiner, b. 4/26/08.
|
|
