The M.T. Abraham Foundation (MTA Foundation) is a non-profit cultural institution, which is part of the Israeli M.T. Abraham Group. Its headquarters are in Tel Aviv, Israel, and its part of the collection is on permanent display in Mostar. Its stated intent is to promote public appreciation of the most important styles of Modernism: Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism, Cubo-Futurism, Futurism, Constructivism and Suprematism by collecting pieces that can be loaned "for the sole purpose of display and study by public institutions,"[1] and to present most effectively the first half of the 20th century, a period that saw revolutionary tendencies shape the art scene.
Through its publishing department, the Foundation promotes, publishes and facilitates research related to its collection. It also supports discussions on the artistic trends that shaped fine art from the 19th to the 21st century.
In June 2019 the foundation pledged a donation from its collection to the State Hermitage Museum in Russia valued at 7 million (USD). This donation consisted of paintings and sculptures by the Russian artist Vladimir Sterligov,[2] and the French impressionist, Edgar Degas.[3]
History
The Foundation was founded by the M.T. Abraham Group in 2004 as a non-profit organization. Its President in Amir Gross Kabiri. It is based in Geneva, Switzerland, with head offices in Tel Aviv, Israel.[1]
Mission
Exhibitions
Roberto Matta, Three Figures, 1958c., displayed during an exhibition by MTA foundation.
The Foundation's stated mission is promoting public appreciation of European, Russian and American Modernism. It has a loan program which makes works available for public exhibition at accredited institutions.[1]
In May 2022, The Hub of Fine Arts was opened in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as part of the M.T. Abraham Group, where a part of the MTA Foundation's collection is on permanent display.
Education
The Foundation’s educational mission is fostering "exhibitions that will encourage an appreciation and understanding of art, its history, context and meaning." Exhibitions sponsored by the foundation are accompanied by educational programs for children and young adults, which are held by artists, educators, and other art professionals. Special emphasis is placed on various educational programs, which besides encouraging creativity and freedom of expression, also foster an understanding of the characteristics of stylistic movements and familiarization with the works of the artists whose artworks are part of the Foundation’s collection.
The Foundation also provides support for young artists and students in Judaic studies.[1]
Publishing
Through its publishing department, the Foundation publicizes and facilitates research related to its permanent collection.
In 2013, the Foundation's publishing department published “Selling Russia’s Treasures”, the story of the sale of Russian national art treasures confiscated from the tsarist royal family, the church, private individuals, and museums in the Soviet Union.[4][5]
As part of "Tel Aviv Days in St. Petersburg," a cultural event under the auspices of the Israeli General Consulate in St. Petersburg and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Foundation helped organize an international exhibition at the State Hermitage Museum titled "White City - Bauhaus Architecture in Tel Aviv," which portrays the city's urban and architectural heritage.[6]
The Foundation subsequently published White City – Bauhaus Architecture in Tel Aviv.[7] The same year they published Lissitzky– Kabakov, Utopia and Reality at the Hermitage Museum and at the Multimedia Art Museum in Moscow.[8][9]
The Foundation owns a complete collection of 74 bronze sculptures by French Impressionist Edgar Degas, including a cast of "The Little Dancer Aged Fourteen." According to a number of experts, following criticism of his first sculpture "Little Dancer," Degas had privately accumulated casts for sculptures that were only discovered after his death. They feature dancers, horses, bathers, etc.[11][12] Apart from the MTA Foundation, as of 2010, only four museums worldwide have near-complete collections.[13][14][11]
"The Little Dancer" from "The Complete Sculptures of Edgar Degas" collection on display.
The foundation is the owner of the painting "Annie Bjarne (1919)" by Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920). Modigliani met the woman Annie Bjarne through a mutual friend at the Café de la Rotonde in the Montparnasse Quarter in Paris and he asked her to pose for him, which she did in his apartment located above the cult café. The canvas properties suggest that this painting was part of a canvas cluster which produced 4 paintings. In addition, this painting has a provenance which bears witness to both its enormous significance and the great interest it has garnered among renown art collectors and art institutions worldwide.[15] The painting has also been the subject of dozens of critical studies and has been included in numerous publications on the art of Amedeo Modigliani.[16]
In November 2009, the foundation began touring its Degas collection around the world under the name "The Complete Sculptures of Edgar Degas."[17] It first spent five months[18] at the Herakleidon Museum in Athens,[12] marking the first time the sculptures were exhibited in Greece.[18] By March 2010[19] the sculptures moved to the Tel Aviv Art Museum in Israel.[20][21][22][23][24] In September 2010 the exhibition opened for two months[14][25] at the National Art Gallery in Sofia, Bulgaria.[26][27] It also appeared at the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno.[28][29] All the exhibitions were supported by the French Institute and the local French embassies.[30][31][32] Workshops for children always accompanied the exhibitions.[1][33] The complete set of Edgar Degas worldwide exhibition tour supported by the Institut de France.
In December 2013, the State Hermitage Museum presented the exhibition “Edgar Degas - Figures in Motion” to highlight the importance of Edgar Degas’s bronze sculptures and to place them in the proper historical context of modern masterpieces. The entire collection of 74 bronze sculptures was on loan to the museum for two years, courtesy of the MTA Foundation.
In May 2022, The Hub of Fine Arts was opened in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, by the M.T. Abraham Group and the MTA Foundation as part of their ongoing support aimed at promoting understanding and appreciation of fine art. The Hub of Fine Arts exhibits part of the MTA Foundation collection. Amir Gross Kabiri, the founder and owner of The Hub of Fine Arts, revealed: “As part of my strategic decision to deepen M.T.A. Group’s involvement and operation in the Balkans and specifically in Bosnia and Herzegovina, I have been spending most of my time in recent years in this region. During this time, I have gotten to know the people, their dedication, drive and work ethics and I have great belief in the potential and future of this country. It was only natural for me then, to extend our Group's activities to the fields of art, culture and education, as I have always believed that it is the way to create strong connections between different people and cultures. I am excited to share my passion for art through an art collection of 100 works, displayed at The Hub of Fine Arts, with local art lovers and visitors from all over the world.”[34]
Conference
In May 2012, the foundation lent several Degas bronzes to an exhibition of posthumous bronzes linked to an International colloquium titled "Posthumous bronze in law and art history" held at the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.
The subject of Colloquium were 20th century bronze casts by Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, Constantin Brâncuși, Alexander Archipenko, Salvador Dalí, and other artists. The colloquium examined the legal and artistic problems surrounding what are termed posthumous bronzes - cast bronze sculptures made after the artisan's death. According to State Hermitage Museum General Director Mikhail Piotrovsky, "The world is full of bronze sculptures by famous artists which have been made either with or without the approval of their heirs. This all creates serious problems in the art market, confusing prices. Exhibitions are held of copies which pretend to be cultural events." The views and conclusions of the conference was published in December 2012.[35]
The foundation took part in International Competition “Worlds of El Lissitzky”, an architectural concept of the symbolic object of Novosibirsk city environment dedicated to Russian Avant-garde. Organizers of the Competition Siberian Center for Contemporary Art.[36]
Still Life with Flowers and Butterfly (1919) by Heinrich Nauen
Related Research Articles
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts is the largest museum of European art in Moscow. located in Volkhonka street, just opposite the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. The International musical festival Sviatoslav Richter's December nights has been held in the Pushkin Museum since 1981.
Edgar Degas was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings.
Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko was a Ukrainian-American avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist, active in France and the United States. He was one of the first to apply the principles of Cubism to architecture, analyzing human figure into geometrical forms.
Tel Aviv Museum of Art is an art museum in Tel Aviv, Israel. The museum is dedicated to the preservation and display of modern and contemporary art from Israel and around the world.
The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Arts District. The new building was designed by Edward Larrabee Barnes and John MY Lee Associates, the 2007 winner of the American Institute of Architects Gold Medal. The construction of the building spanned in stages over a decade.
The Guggenheim Hermitage Museum was a museum owned and originally operated by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. It was located in The Venetian resort on the Las Vegas Strip, and operated from October 7, 2001 to May 11, 2008.
The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer is a sculpture begun c. 1880 by Edgar Degas of a young student of the Paris Opera Ballet dance school, a Belgian named Marie van Goethem.
The New Orleans Museum of Art is the oldest fine arts museum in the city of New Orleans. It is situated within City Park, a short distance from the intersection of Carrollton Avenue and Esplanade Avenue, and near the terminus of the "Canal Street - City Park" streetcar line. It was established in 1911 as the Delgado Museum of Art.
Avraham Ofek was a multidisciplinary Israeli artist.
Micha Ullman is an Israeli sculptor and professor of art.
Richard Erdman is an American artist living and working in Williston, Vermont, and Carrara, Italy. Primarily working in marble and bronze abstract sculpture, Erdman's prolific body of work ranges from intimately sized maquettes to the largest sculpture ever carved from a single block of travertine. His works belong to collections in 52 countries across 6 continents, including the United Nations, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Princeton University, the Rockefeller Collection, and many others. Erdman specializes in collaborating with esteemed architectural firms for custom commissions, and has partnered with Antonio Citterio, Richard Meier & Partners, Enzo Enea, and Whipple Russell, among others.
Amir Gross Kabiri is an Israeli businessman, philanthropist, industrialist, publisher, and art collector. He is the chairman of the M.T. Abraham Group, CEO & Founder of Aluminij Industries, and best known as the owner of The Art Newspaper Israel, President of the M.T. Abraham Foundation, Member at the Board of Patrons of the Conference of European Rabbis, and the President of the Hermitage Museum Foundation Israel.
Matthew Joseph Williams Drutt is an American curator and writer who specializes in modern and contemporary art and design. Based in New York, he has owned and operated his independent consulting practice Drutt Creative Arts Management (DCAM) since 2013l. He is currently working with the Lee Ufan Foundation in Arles on an exhibition of non-objective art foor Fall 2024. More recently, he worked with the Nationalmuseum Stockholm on an exhibition and publication of modern and contemporary American crafts gifted from artists and collectors in the United States to the museum, originally organized by his mother, Helen Drutt. He has worked more recently with the Eckbo Foundation in Oslo on the first major monograph of Thorwald Hellesen published in English and Norwegian in by Arnoldsche Art Publishers. He is currently also developing several other titles with the publisher. Formerly, he worked with the Beyeler Foundation in Switzerland (2013–2016) and the State Hermitage Museum in Russia (2013–2014), consulting on exhibitions, publications, and collections. He continues to serve as an Advisory Curator to the Hermitage Museum Foundation Israel. In 2006, the French Government awarded him the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and in 2003, his exhibition Kazimir Malevich: Suprematism won Best Monographic Exhibition Organized Nationally from the International Association of Art Critics.
Dalit L. Durst, is an author, translator, curator and art historian of both Israeli and French nationality. Former chief curator at the M.T. Abraham Foundation and head of the Cultural Exchange and Academic Department at the Hermitage Foundation Israel, she has curated exhibitions in Europe, dedicated to the sculpture of Edgar Degas. In December 2013 she co-curated the exhibition "Edgar Degas: Figures in Motion" at The State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 2016 she curated an exhibition of Degas' 74 bronze sculptures at MGM Art Space in Macau. Lahav-Durst works with a broad range of artists. Fluent in multiple languages, she has co-authored and translated over 15 books.
Janice H. Levin (1913–2001) was an American businesswoman and philanthropist and art collector from New York City. She was a patron of the ballet and collected mostly French impressionist paintings. She was a supporter of higher education as well as charities in Israel. She donated many of her paintings to museums.
Nira Pereg is an Israeli artist.
Jacques Émile Édouard Brandon was a French artist who is known especially for his paintings of Jewish themes. Most sources list his place of birth as Paris, although some say Bordeaux or Lisbon. He signed his paintings "Ed. Brandon," and his full name commonly is given as Jacques Émile Édouard Brandon, but also as Jacob Émile Édouard Péreira Brandon.
Suzanne Landau is an Israeli art museum curator. She was appointed the Director and Chief Curator of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in August 2012. She had previously been Curator of Contemporary Art at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem starting 1982 and its Chief Curator of Fine Arts there from 1998. Since her appointment in Tel Aviv, she has organized for the museum the Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Acquisition Committee for Israeli Art.
The M.T. Abraham group is an Israeli conglomerate headquartered in Tel Aviv. The group's portfolio consists of aluminium manufacturing, renewable energy, infrastructure development, real estate, commodities trading, logistics, and cultural investments. The group also runs the non-profit art institution M.T. Abraham Foundation.
References
1 2 3 4 5 "Home". M.T. Abraham Center for the Visual Arts. Archived from the original on December 6, 2011. Retrieved December 10, 2011.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
