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Kimbell Art Museum

The Film “My Architect: A Son’s Journey”

The Kimbell Art Museum presents the film “My Architect: A Son’s Journey” on Sunday, June 1, at 2 p.m., in the Museum auditorium. This free program is approximately two hours long.

Louis I. Kahn’s only son, Nathaniel Kahn, takes viewers on a journey to reconcile the life and work of a father he never knew. Kahn’s mysterious death left behind three families and many questions. Nathaniel explores his father’s monumental creations and his secretive personal life. His journey becomes a universal investigation of identity and a celebration of art and life itself.

For additional information please contact: Jessica Brandrup Smith, (817) 332-8451, ext. 241 jsmith@kimbellmuseum.org or Stefanie Ball-Piwetz, (817) 332-8451, ext. 273 spiwetz@kimbellmuseum.org or log on to www.kimbellart.org

Young Artists’ Workshop With Guest Artist Billy Hassell

The Kimbell Art Museum presents a Young Artists’ Workshop with guest instructor Billy Hassell, a Fort Worth painter recognized for his imaginative renditions of native plants and animals. Open to children ages 12 to 15, the workshop will be held Tuesday, June 10, through Friday, June 13, from 2:00 to 4:30 p.m.

Aspiring young artists will develop their creative skills under Hassell’s direction. These four days of hands-on studio activities will introduce new ways of looking at, talking about, and creating art inspired by the Kimbell’s permanent collection.

A light, midafternoon snack will be provided. The materials fee for the camp is $125 ($100 for Kimbell members). Space is limited. Call 817-332-8451, ext. 297, to register.

Asian Collection Featuring A "Guest Of Honor"

The Kimbell Art Museum will exhibit 54 works from the collection of Asian art, including a "guest of honor," a superb Nepalese gilt-copper sculpture of "Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara," on loan from a private collection, from April 19 through June 1. The statue was produced by the Newars, highly skilled and creative metalsmiths, who were concentrated in the Kathmandu Valley, a flourishing center of Nepalese and Tibetan art. Dating to around the 13th century, this elegant sculpture represents the apogee of the distinctive Newar style in the gracefully swaying pose, the use of semiprecious stones to embellish the crown and jewelry, and the richly gilded finish. Measuring three feet tall, this statue is rare for its large size, the period in which it was created, and for being cast in one piece. It is on view with the Kimbell's early seventh-century Nepalese gilt-copper sculpture, "Standing Buddha Shakyamuni."

Asian art comprises over one-third of the Museum's collection and consists of 122 works, including sculptures, objects, and paintings from China, Korea, Japan, India, the Himalayas, and Southeast Asia. They span a period of nearly two thousand years, beginning with a Chinese bronze bell of the tenth century B.C. and extending to scroll paintings from nineteenth-century Japan. Only a limited number of works from the Museum's collection can be exhibited at any one time. Jennifer Casler Price, curator for Asian and non-Western art at the Kimbell comments: "This is a rare opportunity to view a majority of the treasures of the Asian collection. In particular, the center gallery will be opened up to take advantage of the light from the courtyard and will feature the Museum's renowned collection of Buddhist and Hindu sculpture."

On display will be several celebrated works, including an impressive Gandharan "Standing Bodhisattva," 2nd-3rd century, and the recently restored Cambodian "Harihara," c. A.D. 675-700, considered by many scholars to be one of the finest examples of pre-Khmer sculpture ever produced. The Kimbell's holdings of Japanese secular art consist of ceramics and lacquer, decorative screens, ukiyo-e painting (pictures of the floating world), and works in ink monochrome, the latter epitomized in a Zen painting by Ito Jakuchu, "Two Gibbons Reaching for the Moon." Chinese art is represented in the collection by a full range of media including early ceramics and bronzes, tomb furnishings, decorative porcelains and lacquer, and scroll paintings of Buddhist, Taoist, and court and literati (scholar) subjects. Among these works, the eighth-century "Court Lady" is characteristic of the height of Chinese tomb pottery, while the painted "Bamboo and Rocks," c. 1275, attributed to Tan Zhirui, is a very early example of monochrome-ink landscape painting.

The Impressionists:
Master Paintings from The Art Institute of Chicago


Edgar Degas (French, 1834-1917) Yellow Dancers (In the Wings), 1874/76		Pierre Auguste Renoir (French, 1841-1919) Two Sisters (On the Terrace), 1881

Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926) The Artist's House at Argenteuil, 1873		Claude Monet (French, 1840-1926) On the Bank of the Seine, Bennecourt, 1868

Gustave Caillebotte (French, 1848-1894) Paris Street; Rainy Day, 1877		Paul Gauguin (French, 1848-1903) Why Are You Angry? (No Te Aha Oe Riri), 1896

JUNE 29-NOVEMBER 2, 2008

Some of the most celebrated and iconic works of the great Impressionist painters are coming to the Kimbell Art Museum next summer! The loan of about 90 paintings from Chicago's world-renowned Impressionist collection is possible because of an ambitious reinstallation and expansion project at the Art Institute that includes extensive renovation of the galleries and the construction of a new Modern Wing designed by Renzo Piano-the architect recently chosen by the Kimbell to design its own second building. The Art Institute's Impressionist collection has never before left Chicago in such a large group, and it will be shown exclusively at the Kimbell.

The Impressionists: Master Paintings from The Art Institute of Chicago will be a feast for the eyes more sumptuous than even the great Barnes Collection exhibition, seen at the Kimbell in 1994. It features masterpieces of painting by the world's most beloved artists, including Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec-a succession of geniuses who, through a miracle of history, worked largely in the same country and within the span of a single lifetime. They were painters of modern life who created a more complete and delightful picture of the world in which they lived than any artists before them or since. Carried forward by the so-called "Post-Impressionists"-represented in the exhibition by masterpieces by Cézanne, van Gogh, and Gauguin-the Impressionist movement fostered breathtakingly original pictorial idioms that ushered in the progressive art of the 20th century.

The exhibition will bring to Fort Worth works that have come to define the Impressionist achievement-paintings that will be familiar even to those who have never visited the Art Institute since they have been so widely disseminated through reproductions. They include Paris Street; Rainy Day (1877) by Gustave Caillebotte; 7 Cézannes, including Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair (1893/95) and The Bathers (1899/1904); 6 works by Degas, including Yellow Dancers (In the Wings) (1874/76) and The Millinery Shop (1884/90); 7 Gauguins, including The Arlésiennes (1888) and The Ancestors of Tehamana (1893); 5 van Goghs, including Self-Portrait (1887) and The Bedroom (1889); 7 Manets, including The Races at Longchamp (1866) and Woman Reading (1878/79); 26 Monets, including 6 paintings of wheatstacks, 4 of London, and 3 of water lilies; 12 Renoirs, including Lunch at the Restaurant Fournaise (1875), Acrobats at the Cirque Fernando (1879), and Two Sisters (On the Terrace) (1881); and 3 Toulouse-Lautrecs, including Moulin de la Galette (1889).

Commented Malcolm Warner, the Kimbell's acting director: "The Art Institute's Impressionist collection is truly second to none, and we are honored and excited to be able to show it at the Kimbell. In the beautiful light and noble spaces of Louis Kahn's galleries, every one of these vital paintings will sing out gloriously. It is a great pleasure to be working with our colleagues at the Art Institute, and we take pride in bringing to the Kimbell an exhibition that any museum in the world would covet."

Commented James Cuno, President and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago: "We are thrilled to be collaborating with the Kimbell Art Museum on this exhibition and could not imagine a finer temporary home for these works while their galleries here at the Art Institute are being renovated. The Kimbell is a stunning museum with a first-rate collection, and we know that this exhibition will have a wide and appreciative audience in Fort Worth."

The Art Institute of Chicago's Modern Wing will open in 2009 and be devoted primarily to modern and contemporary art. The movement of the modern and contemporary collections into the new building offers the opportunity to reinstall earlier collections-including the Impressionist paintings-in newly renovated galleries. During the renovation, certain collections are to be moved or put into storage. The temporary relocation of the Impressionist collection created a unique opportunity for the Art Institute's greatest works to be shown outside its own walls, and the Kimbell was able to seize the moment.

Founded in 1879 as both museum and art school, the Art Institute of Chicago is one of the artistic treasure houses of the world. It has an encyclopedic collection of about 250,000 works of art and is the third largest museum in the United States. The Art Institute's Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection has grown since the early 20th century, largely through donations from enlightened Chicago collectors. One of the most remarkable was Bertha Honoré Palmer, wife of Chicago retail tycoon Potter Palmer, who collected with an insatiable appetite for art and was advised by the American artist Mary Cassatt. Many of Palmer's works, including some that will be seen in this exhibition, entered the museum's collection in 1922. These holdings were further enriched in 1926 by the Helen Birch Bartlett Memorial Collection, given by the Chicago artist Frederic Clay Bartlett.

The Impressionists: Master Paintings from The Art Institute of Chicago is organized by the Art Institute of Chicago in collaboration with the Kimbell Art Museum. Promotional support is provided by American Airlines and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Kimbell Acquires Masterpiece Of Dutch Flower Painting

The Kimbell Art Museum announced today the acquisition of a major painting by Jacques de Gheyn II (1565-1629), one of the founders of flower painting in the Netherlands. Vase of Flowers with a Curtain, dated 1615, is one of the artist’s largest known flower paintings, measuring 43 ¼ x 29 ¼ inches (109.8 x 74.5 cm). De Gheyn never sold it and seems to have kept it in his studio as a showpiece—to demonstrate his skills in this relatively novel artistic genre.

Scholars have long recognized Vase of Flowers with a Curtain as a landmark in the history of flower painting even though it was a “lost” work, kept in a British private collection since 1924, never exhibited in public, and known only in the form of old, black-and-white reproductions. Its reappearance and acquisition by a museum is a significant event in the study of Dutch art. The work adds an important new dimension to the Kimbell’s collection, which hitherto lacked an example of Dutch flower painting or still life.

Commented Malcolm Warner, acting director of the Kimbell: “At any given moment there are many fine 17th-century Dutch flower paintings on the art market, most of which represent this particular kind of art perfectly well. The level of skill among its practitioners was so great that frankly it would be difficult to find a bad example. But for the Kimbell’s collection we were looking for one that was not only technically brilliant and representative of the genre but also quite outstanding in some way—a ‘destination’ piece. Highly unusual and maybe even unique in scale for this early date, and remarkable too for its grandeur and theatricality (note the touch of illusionistic showmanship in the painting of the green curtains), the De Gheyn was our answer.”

With much of its vibrant detail obscured under a yellowed and uneven varnish, the painting is currently in need of conservation treatment. This will be carried out over the next three or four months by chief conservator Claire Barry and her staff in the Kimbell’s conservation studio. Most museums prefer to acquire paintings in such an “untouched” state rather than cleaned for the market, trusting in their ability to see through superficial imperfections—and of course in the expertise of their own conservators. Fortunately, the De Gheyn has never fallen victim to overcleaning in the past and retains its thin glazes and fine details, as well as a clear signature and date. Its appearance will improve dramatically when the offending varnish is removed. The Kimbell will put the work on display in its galleries in July.

Jacob de Gheyn II

Jacob de Gheyn was one of the most exceptional draftsmen and printmakers of his generation and admired for his invention and range of subjects. He is also considered one of the fathers of flower painting in the Netherlands. Before turning to flower painting, De Gheyn trained in Haarlem, serving the great painter and printmaker Hendrik Goltzius (1558-1617). Goltzius was instrumental in teaching De Gheyn the art of drawing, and De Gheyn quickly proved himself a serious rival to his slightly older master—especially in the field of printmaking. This all changed in 1595, however, when De Gheyn married the wealthy Eva Stalpaert van der Wiele. She granted him financial security as well as important connections to the Dutch aristocracy. In consequence, he gradually gave up printmaking, focusing on the more dignified profession of painting. The couple was in Leiden between 1596 and 1601 and had moved definitively to The Hague by 1603.

As a painter, De Gheyn left a very small œuvre. Fewer than fifty paintings by him are known or documented, and of these, twenty-some survive today. Among the survivors is his Vanitas Still Life (1603) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. It is widely considered the first vanitas still life in Netherlandish art. He also painted religious, historical, and mythological subjects. Some of his pictures were commissioned by members of the House of Orange Nassau, including Prince Maurits of Orange and Prince Frederik Hendrik.

De Gheyn as Flower Painter

While living in Leiden during the late 1590s, De Gheyn met the French botanist Charles de l’Écluse (1526-1609), known as Carolus Clusius, who was director of the botanical gardens in Leiden. Clusius was one of the first naturalists to study flowers, and it was undoubtedly because of his influence that De Gheyn became attracted to the challenges of depicting flowers. His friend Karel van Mander (1548-1606) also relates that, having trained mainly in the monochromatic techniques of drawing and printmaking, De Gheyn appreciated flower painting because it gave him good practice in painting in colors.

De Gheyn’s earliest independent flower paintings were small and on copper. Van Mander describes “a little pot of flowers from life . . . very precisely executed” that De Gheyn sold to the Amsterdam collector Hendrick van Os. This was reportedly De Gheyn’s first work in oil and, “for a first effort,” writes Van Mander, “wondrous.” In 1604, De Gheyn produced “a larger pot of flowers” that was sent to the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II. This was accompanied by an album of flowers, insects, and animals prepared by De Gheyn that survives in the Institut Néerlandais, Paris. That De Gheyn was one of the most sought-after flower painters of his time is most firmly established by the actions of the Dutch parliament. In 1606, when the French queen, Marie de’ Medici, visited the Dutch Republic, the Dutch parliament could think of no better present for her than one of De Gheyn’s flower paintings, paying the extraordinary sum of 600 guilders.

Only a handful of flower paintings by De Gheyn can be identified today. Two small works on copper, datable to 1602/4, can be linked to the album purchased by Rudolf II: Vase of Flowers (formerly Brian Koetser Gallery, now untraced) and Still Life with Flowers (collection of Teresa Heinz). More ambitious in scale are the floral paintings in the Mauritshuis, The Hague (1612), and in the De Villeneuve Collection (1613). To these can be added the present painting of 1615. Another panel, slightly larger in scale, with an asymmetrical arrangement of flowers in a glass vase and a swathe of drapery—possibly owned by Constantijn Huygens, secretary to Prince Frederik Hendrik, and dating to the 1620s—was last traced to a Dutch private collection; its present whereabouts are unknown.

Vase of Flowers with a Curtain

Vase of Flowers with a Curtain is an exceptionally large flower painting and seems to have held a great personal interest for De Gheyn. He may have produced it on commission, but it is more likely that he conceived it as a demonstration piece, something to advertise his impressive achievements in the field of flower painting. Accordingly, he probably kept the painting with him until his death, bequeathing it to his son, Jacques De Gheyn III. It is known that De Gheyn III owned an impressive flower painting by his father. One rich collector tried to buy it for the amazing amount of a thousand florins. The painting is described in the son’s will as “the large vase of flowers surmounted by lilies, painted by the father.” With no better candidates for this painting than Vase of Flowers with a Curtain, it is widely accepted as the one owned by the son.

The painting is not only remarkable for its size but also for other reasons. The curtain is a novel and dramatic element. It adds the illusion of depth to the scene and, because some pictures were actually hidden behind curtains at this date, must have been intended as an illusionistic trick. Further optical deception is suggested by the flowers themselves, which are painted with the kind of scientific exactitude that De Gheyn must have learned from his botanist friend Clusius. It is important to bear in mind, however, that De Gheyn was happy to sacrifice certain elements of reality in order to achieve a more exciting composition: The vase is implausibly small, and the arrangement is implausibly tall. It is possible that De Gheyn meant to convey a message through the flowers. Those that appear to be withering may suggest the transience of life. In any case, the painting celebrates the wonders of nature.

In his efforts to establish flower painting as an independent genre, De Gheyn was joined at the beginning of the seventeenth century by three notable Netherlandish artists: Ambrosius Bosschaert I (1543–1614), Jan Brueghel I (1568–1625), and Roelandt Savery (1576–1639). There is no apparent link between any of these four artists, and it is generally agreed that they were all producing flower paintings independent of one another. Bosschaert, Brueghel, and Savery were fairly consistent as flower painters. Their flower paintings are usually very intimate and sometimes painted on copper. De Gheyn was one of the earliest flower painters to break from this relatively modest format. With Vase of Flowers with a Curtain, he showed that flower painting offered more exciting possibilities. The work both acknowledges the birth of the genre with its minutely rendered details and announces the future of the genre with its impressive size and theatrical curtain.

After Hours At The Kimbell - With The Joey Carter Trio

Saturday, May 10, 2008 5:30–7:30 p.m.

Listen to great music, enjoy a tour of the permanent collection, and sip a festive cocktail in the beautiful setting of the Kimbell Art Museum at "After Hours at the Kimbell" on Saturday, May 10, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. Gather with friends and meet other art lovers while listening to the sounds of the Joey Carter Trio. Gift giveaways, light hors d'oeuvres, and a cash bar featuring wine, beer, and a unique signature cocktail will also be available.

“After Hours at the Kimbell” is free for Museum members; nonmembers pay $10 at the door. Reservations are not needed.

(Please note: We will not present a June "After Hours" event due to the installation of "The Impressionists: Master Paintings from the Art Institute of Chicago," which opens for members-only Patron Previews on Friday, June 27 (noon-5 p.m.) and Saturday, June 28 (10 a.m.-5 p.m.).

Kimbell Art Museum Introduces Half-price Friday Nights

The Kimbell Art Museum will offer half-price special exhibition admission tickets on Friday nights from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., beginning June 29. This offer will be available during all special exhibitions presented at the Kimbell.

General admission to the Museum’s permanent collection is always free, and Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. will remain half-price exhibition ticket days as well. Friday nights also feature dinner at The Buffet at the Kimbell from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., accompanied by live music. The Museum Shop remains open until the Museum closes.

Kimbell Art Museum Buys Back Restituted Turner Painting

The Kimbell Art Museum announced today that it has repurchased the Joseph Mallord William Turner painting Glaucus and Scylla (1841), which the Museum had returned last year to the heirs of John and Anna Jaffé after an investigation concluded that the painting had been unlawfully seized by the pro-Nazi Vichy regime in France in 1943. The painting was purchased this morning at Christie's, New York, for a hammer price of $5.7 million.

Commented Timothy Potts, director of the Kimbell Art Museum: "This is a wonderful day both for the Jaffé heirs, who have now received compensation for the confiscation of the painting during the Nazi era, and for the Kimbell, which is able to welcome back its most important British painting. Turner's late paintings represent one of the highpoints of European art, and Glaucus and Scylla has all of the expressive tumult and luminosity that you want in his late landscapes. We're planning a big homecoming."

The painting, which had been in the Kimbell's collection since 1966 prior to its restitution last year, shows a mythological scene of unrequited love in which the brilliant setting sun suggests the power of fate. In 2006, in light of the evidence linking the Turner to an unlawful seizure, the Kimbell returned the painting to Alain Monteagle, the representative of the heirs of Anna Jaffé's three nephews and one niece (all now deceased), to whom she bequeathed her property in her will.

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