Last Saturday, I visited Michigan's Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (www.kiarts.org) to see the closing exhibit (Feb. 8, 2009) "Spared From the Storm", a collection of 89 masterworks from the New Orleans Museum of Art. It was my first visit to the museum and I was impressed. Free parking was across the street and the staff was helpful and pleasant. (I was told the exhibition catalog was a dissappointment as it had artwork that didn't come to Kalamazoo.)
After watching a ten minute video by the curators (interesting details about the museum and its employees surviving the recent infamous hurricane Katrina), I went searching for one of the exhibit's highlights: Elisabeth Louise Vigee Le Brun's "Portrait of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France" (1788). The curator said that Ms. Vignee-Le Brun carried the painting when she left France in order to have an example of her work. Thinking it was small, I quickly wandered through the three rooms of the exhibit but I didn't see it. When I went to ask a docent at the museum's lobby, I suddenly found it and I couldn't believe that I missed it when I entered the museum. The painting with its massive, ornate frame is probably eleven feet tall! (The actual painting's dimensions are 109.5 x 75.5 inches.) I'll have to check my book on Vignee-Le Brun to see what it says about the painting... From the book by Gita May Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun - The Odyssey of an Artist in an Age Of Revolution, on page 40, a similar if not the same painting is described, "en robe de velours bleu". The author says she's holding a book in her left-hand (the painting I saw has the book in her right-hand) but the rest of the description depicts the painting like the one in the exhibit. (One of my major complaints of art books is that some of them do not include the dimensions of the artwork.)
After that, I wandered through the three rooms devoted to the exhibit. The curators said one of the New Orleans Museum's mission is to collect French paintings, keeping with the flavor of its city's heritage. The exhibit did have a good balance of French and non-French artists. The first room had pre-Impressionist and earlier paintings. Since I favor portraits, I zoomed in on a painting, "Portrait of Louis XIV" by Claude Lefebvre (1670). I'm not aware of the artist, however, I am acquainted with the that era's style of meticulously rendering details.
I move onto the next room that had the 1800's paintings and portraits. I stayed longer in this room, to study the portraits. There was a Franz Xaver Winterhalter - "Young Woman in a Ball Gown" (1850), which was very gracious in its large oval frame. Excitingly, nearby was a William-Adolphe Bouguereau - "Whisperings of Love" (1889); and oh, his cool light on the warm skin technique was delightful. On a nearby wall, was a Robert Henri - "The Blue Kimono" (1909). I think I've read his book, The Art Spirit, more than once and now I finally see his work. It seemed to be more about the kimono than the woman wearing it and although painterly, the colors were a bit too drab.
Next to it was my favorite of the exhibit: John Singer Sargent's "Mrs. Asher Wertheimer" (1898). Many of Sargent's oil portraits have a dark background, however this one was a refreshingly light. The pearls were dabs of paint and the lace was indicated but not labored. I got up close to see the face and noticed his technique of using warm and cool colors to model the face all the while keeping the values close. Wonderful. I checked my book at home about this painting. From Richard Ormond's John Singer Sargent, Portrait of the 1890's, the portrait of Mrs. Asher Wertheimer was painted as a companion to her husband's more famous painting in celebration of their silver wedding anniversary. Her painting feels of silver. (Check on line for her husband's painting, Asher Wertheimer by Sargent at www.artrenewal.com.)
There were other Impressionists in the room, such as pals Sisley, Monet (a pale lavender winter scene and not quite his best house/landscape painting), and Pissaro (a most delicious sunset painting). The Impressionist Manet came to New Orleans to visit relatives and painted one painting, which was on exhibit. Again, another large, dark painting and seemingly unfinished out towards the edges; however, his subject, a relative going blind was painted so astutely but delicately. I could only glance at the sculptures in the exhibit, such as a large Rodin's standing nude man because my allotted excursion time was quickly running out.
The last room had the Post-Impressionists up to modern times. I recognized many from my painting trip to southern France a few years ago. (While there, I visited the artist museums of Picasso, Leger, Miro, and Matisse and it was good to see these masters in the exhibit.) Rounding it out, there were examples of Pollock and Stella among other abstract and modern artists. Judging from the exhibit, the New Orleans Museum of Art has an excellant representation of masterworks.
I quickly explored the permanent collection downstairs and the two gift shops (one for the exhibit). Overall a good museum and one to return to with more time to devote to savoring good art.
