Pilar Ordovas

Last updated

Pilar Ordovas is an art gallery owner who founded her gallery in 2011. She exhibits and deals in 20th-century and contemporary art, presenting a programme of museum-quality shows in London and in New York. [1]

Contents

Pilar Ordovas presents three exhibitions each year in a 2,000sq ft gallery space, located in London at 25 Savile Row, designed by Thomas Croft Architects. [2] In 2015, the gallery inaugurated its overseas presence with a large-scale sculpture exhibition of works by Spanish artist Eduardo Chillida in a double level, 10,000 sq ft space on the corner of Madison Avenue and 52nd St, New York. [3] Ordovas has staged two further exhibitions in New York in the years since and her gallery has a permanent office located in the city.

Museums and institutions

From the inception of her gallery, Pilar Ordovas has worked closely with museums and institutions. The inaugural exhibition, Irrational Marks: Bacon and Rembrandt, presented self-portraits by Francis Bacon alongside Rembrandt's small Self-Portrait with Beret, which was a loan from the Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence and a painting Bacon was fascinated by. [4]

Painting from Life: Carracci Freud, autumn 2012, was curated in collaboration with Dr. Xavier Bray, then Chief Curator of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, and included the loan of a painting by Annibale Carracci from their collection. [5] In 2013, together with the Rijksmuseum, Ordovas staged Raw Truth: Auerbach – Rembrandt, a joint exhibition centred around paintings and etchings by Rembrandt loaned by the Rijksmuseum in conversation with paintings by Frank Auerbach. After its display at Ordovas, London, in autumn 2013, this show went on public display at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. [6]

Pilar Ordovas has also collaborated with PinchukArtCentre, Kiev, Ukraine, [7] the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, NY, USA, [8] the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT, USA, [9] and the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Oslo, Norway. [10]

Artists' estates

Pilar Ordovas has staged a number of exhibitions in collaboration with artists' estates. Calder in India brought together for public display for the first time nine works that the artist made in India in 1955. [11] In 2014, Ordovas presented an exhibition entitled Chillida on Miró, organized in collaboration with the families of the two artists. [12]

For Giacometti Smith, in spring 2016, Ordovas worked closely with the Alberto and Annette Giacometti Foundation and David Smith Estate. [13] Ordovas has also organised a number of exhibitions in collaboration with the estates of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, including the gallery's inaugural exhibition, Irrational Marks: Bacon and Rembrandt, autumn 2011, Girl - Lucian Freud, summer 2015, [14] Self, autumn 2014, [15] Movement and Gravity: Bacon and Rodin in Dialogue, spring 2013, [16] The Big Blue, autumn 2015 [17] and London Painters (November 2017 - January 2018, NY; Feb - April 2018, London). [18]

Pilar Ordovas expanded to the US in 2015. Her inaugural exhibition in New York was a collaboration with the Eduardo Chillida estate. Chillida: Rhythm-Time-Silence featured works rendered in corten steel, granite and alabaster from San Sebastián, Spain, where the artist lived and worked. This was the first major exhibition of the artist's work on US soil for 25 years and introduced a new generation of art lovers and collectors to Chillida's work [19] Following Chillida: Rhythm-Time- Silence in New York, the exhibition travelled to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri (May-December 2017), where seven works by Chillida were presented in the museum's sculpture park, among sculptures by Alexander Calder, Henry Moore and Claes Oldenburg. [20]

Personal

Ordovas married Simon Astaire in 2018, with whom she has a daughter Paloma. [21]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Impasto</span> Painting technique

Impasto is a technique used in painting, where paint is laid on an area of the surface thickly, usually thick enough that the brush or painting-knife strokes are visible. Paint can also be mixed right on the canvas. When dry, impasto provides texture; the paint appears to be coming out of the canvas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Auerbach</span> German-born British painter (1931–2024)

Frank Helmut Auerbach was a German-born British painter. Born in Germany to Jewish parents, he became a naturalised British subject in 1947. He is considered one of the leading names in the School of London, with fellow artists Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, both of whom were early supporters of his work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucian Freud</span> British painter and engraver (1922-2011)

Lucian Michael Freud was a British painter and draughtsman, specialising in figurative art, and is known as one of the foremost 20th-century English portraitists. He was born in Berlin, the son of Jewish architect Ernst L. Freud and the grandson of Sigmund Freud. Freud got his first name "Lucian" from his mother in memory of the ancient writer Lucian of Samosata. His family moved to England in 1933, when he was 10 years old, to escape the rise of Nazism. He became a British naturalized citizen in 1939. From 1942 to 1943 he attended Goldsmiths' College, London. He served at sea with the British Merchant Navy during the Second World War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eduardo Chillida</span> Spanish Basque sculptor (1924–2002)

Eduardo Chillida Juantegui was a Spanish Basque sculptor notable for his abstract works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">R. B. Kitaj</span> American painter (1932–2007)

Ronald Brooks Kitaj was an American artist who spent much of his life in England.


The year 2000 in art involved various significant events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Andrews (artist)</span> British painter (1928–1995)

Michael James Andrews was a British painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Deakin</span> English photographer

John Deakin was an English photographer, best known for his work centred on members of Francis Bacon's Soho inner circle. Bacon based a number of famous paintings on photographs he commissioned from Deakin, including Portrait of Henrietta Moraes, Henrietta Moraes on a Bed and Three Studies of Lucian Freud.

Allin Braund (1915–2004) was an English artist. He was worked in the mediums of oil, watercolour, lithography, stained glass, relief sculpture & sculpture.

Painting the Century: 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900–2000 was an international exhibition held at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2000–2001 that exhibited a painting representing each year of the 20th century. A book of the same name was published by the National Portrait Gallery by Robin Gibson with an introduction by Professor Norbert Lynton that illustrates all works exhibited.

Leon Kossoff was a British figurative painter known for portraits, life drawings and cityscapes of London, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harry Blain</span> British art dealer

Harry Blain is a British art dealer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jake Auerbach</span> British film maker

Jake Auerbach is a British film maker specialising in documentary subjects. Though his films have ranged across the cultural spectrum he is best known for his portraits of artists both contemporary and historical.

Christopher Bramham is a painter from Britain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marlborough Fine Art</span>

Marlborough Fine Art was founded in London in 1946 by Frank Lloyd and Harry Fischer. In 1963, a gallery was opened as Marlborough-Gerson in Manhattan, New York, at the Fuller Building on Madison Avenue and 57th Street, which later relocated in 1971 to its present location, 40 West 57th Street. The gallery operates another New York space on West 25th Street, which opened in 2007. It briefly opened a Lower East Side space on Broome Street.

Celia Paul is an Indian-born British painter, best known for her intense, haunting portraits of her close family and herself. Paul lives and works in London, England.

Harry Diamond was a photographer known for his photographs of artists, jazz musicians, and the East End of London. He was born and worked in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nahem Shoa</span> English painter

Nahem Shoa is a contemporary London painter best known for his series of portraits, collectively called Giant Heads, which were painted at up to 15 times life size. He is also notable for having increased the number of portraits of Black and mixed-race British people on display in British museums. Shoa has won a number of awards and prizes for his work, and serves on The Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery's Contemporary Arts Panel. His work has been exhibited in London's National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Academy as well as at galleries and museums in other parts of the UK.

The School of London was a loose movement of 20th-century painters, based principally in London, who were interested in figurative painting, in contrast to the abstraction, minimalism and conceptualism which were dominant at the time. Painters associated with the School of London included Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, Francis Bacon, Anne Dunn, Lucian Freud, David Hockney, Howard Hodgkin, R. B. Kitaj and Leon Kossoff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piano Nobile</span> Commercial art gallery in London

Piano Nobile is a commercial art gallery in London, England, specialising in twentieth-century British art. It was established by Dr Robert Travers at premises in Richmond in 1985. In 2000, the gallery moved to its current address at 129 Portland Road, London. In 2019, an additional gallery space was acquired at 96 Portland Road. Between 2008 and 2019, the gallery also had an exhibition space at Kings Place in King’s Cross.

References

  1. ↑ Lambirth, Andrew (19 October 2013). "Andrew Lambirth: Emilio Greco's early work is undeniably his best | The Spectator". The Spectator.
  2. ↑ "Booming London". Financial Times.
  3. ↑ "Ordovas Eduardo Chillida Pop-Up -artnet News". artnet News. 15 October 2015.
  4. ↑ Hoyle, Ben (1 October 2011). "Self portraits shine spotlight on Bacon's debt to Rembrandt". The Times.
  5. ↑ "In with the old, in with the new". Financial Times.
  6. ↑ Rothschild, Hannah (30 September 2013). "Frank Auerbach: An interview with one of our greatest living painters".
  7. ↑ Self, exhibition catalogue. ISBN   9780957028791.
  8. ↑ Monochrome, exhibition catalogue. ISBN   978-0-9930843-6-2.
  9. ↑ Artists and Lovers, exhibition catalogue. ISBN   978-0-9930843-5-5.
  10. ↑ London Painters, exhibition catalogue. ISBN   978-0-9930843-9-3.
  11. ↑ Wullschlager, Jackie. "Calder in India". Financial Times.
  12. ↑ Reyburn, Scott (15 June 2014). "The Art Gallery as Destination". The New York Times.
  13. ↑ Rodriguez, Concha. "Los metaleros". ELMUNDO (in Spanish).
  14. ↑ Foulkes, Nick (30 June 2015). "Lucian Freud striking paintings of his wife and muse go on show". Newsweek.
  15. ↑ Davie, William. "Aesthetica Magazine - Self, Ordovas Gallery, London". Aesthetica Magazine.
  16. ↑ Wullschlager, Jackie. "Moore Rodin and Bacon and Rodin in Dialogue". Financial Times.
  17. ↑ Reyburn, Scott (9 October 2015). "Once Subversive, Frieze Opens in a Changing London". The New York Times.
  18. ↑ ""London Painters"". The New Yorker.
  19. ↑ Crow, Kelly (26 October 2015). "Spanish Sculptor Eduardo Chillida Gets a Second Chance". Wall Street Journal.
  20. ↑ "Chillida: Rhythm-Time-Silence | Nelson Atkins". Nelson Atkins.
  21. ↑ Strauss, Alix (18 January 2019). "She Crumbled the Fortress Around His Heart". The New York Times.
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.