Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a French painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramist, and writer, whose work has been primarily associated with the Post-Impressionist and Symbolist movements. He was also an influential practitioner of wood engraving and woodcuts as art forms. While only moderately successful during his lifetime, Gauguin has since been recognized for his experimental use of color and Synthetist style that were distinct from Impressionism.
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. The institution was conceived in 1929 by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan. Initially located in the Heckscher Building on Fifth Avenue, it opened just days after the Wall Street Crash. The museum, America's first devoted exclusively to modern art, was led by A. Conger Goodyear as president and Abby Rockefeller as treasurer, with Alfred H. Barr Jr. as its first director. Under Barr's leadership, the museum's collection rapidly expanded, beginning with an inaugural exhibition of works by European modernists. Despite financial challenges, including opposition from John D. Rockefeller Jr., the museum moved to several temporary locations in its early years, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. eventually donated the land for its permanent site.
The Scream is a composition created by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893. The Norwegian name of the piece is Skrik (Scream), and the German title under which it was first exhibited is Der Schrei der Natur. The agonized face in the painting has become one of the most iconic images in art, seen as symbolizing the anxiety of the human condition. Munch's work, including The Scream, had a formative influence on the Expressionist movement.
William Samuel Paley was an American businessman, primarily involved in the media, and best known as the chief executive who built the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) from a small radio network into one of the foremost radio and television network operations in the United States. He was awarded the Carlos Manuel de Cespedes National Order of Merit by the Cuban government in recognition of his efforts to foster greater understanding between the peoples of Cuba and the United States of America.
David Rockefeller was an American economist and investment banker who served as chairman and chief executive of Chase Manhattan Corporation. He was the oldest living member of the third generation of the Rockefeller family, and family patriarch from 2004 until his death in 2017. Rockefeller was the fifth son and youngest child of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, and a grandson of John D. Rockefeller and Laura Spelman Rockefeller.
The Courtauld Gallery is an art museum in Somerset House, on the Strand in central London. It houses the collection of The Samuel Courtauld Trust and operates as an integral part of The Courtauld Institute of Art.
Events from the year 2000 in art.
James David Brooks was an American Abstract Expressionist, muralist, abstract painter, art teacher, and winner of the Logan Medal of the Arts.
L'Arlésienne, L'Arlésienne : Madame Ginoux, or Portrait of Madame Ginoux is the title given to a group of six similar paintings by Vincent van Gogh, painted in Arles, November 1888, and in Saint-Rémy, February 1890. L'Arlésienne means literally "the woman from Arles".
Mary Quinn Sullivan, born Mary Josephine Quinn, was a pioneering collector of European and American modern and contemporary art and gallerist, and a founding trustee of the Museum of Modern Art, which opened in rented space in New York City in November 1929. She also led a small group of Indianapolis, Indiana, art patrons who called themselves the Gamboliers and between 1928 and 1934 selected artworks of for the group that brought some of the first modern and contemporary works to the collections of the John Herron Art Institute, which later became the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Mary and Cornelius J. Sullivan, her husband, amassed a significant private collection of art during the 1920s and 1930s that included Modigliani's Sculptured Head of a Woman, Paul Cézanne's Madame Cézanne, Georges Rouault's Crucifixion, and a Hepplewhite desk that once belonged to Edgar Degas, as well as works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh, Pierre Bonnard, Pablo Picasso, and others.
Oviri is an 1894 ceramic sculpture by the French artist Paul Gauguin. In Tahitian mythology, Oviri was the goddess of mourning and is shown with long pale hair and wild eyes, smothering a wolf with her feet while clutching a cub in her arms. Art historians have presented multiple interpretations—usually that Gauguin intended it as an epithet to reinforce his self-image as a "civilised savage". Tahitian goddesses of her era had passed from folk memory by 1894, yet Gauguin romanticises the island's past as he reaches towards more ancient sources, including an Assyrian relief of a "master of animals" type, and Majapahit mummies. Other possible influences include preserved skulls from the Marquesas Islands, figures found at Borobudur, and a 9th-century Mahayana Buddhist temple in central Java.
Lizzie Plummer Bliss, known as Lillie P. Bliss, was an American art collector and patron. At the beginning of the 20th century, she was one of the leading collectors of modern art in New York. One of the lenders to the landmark Armory Show in 1913, she also contributed to other exhibitions concerned with raising public awareness of modern art. In 1929, she played an essential role in the founding of the Museum of Modern Art. After her death, 150 works of art from her collection served as a foundation to the museum and formed the basis of the in-house collection. These included works by artists such as Paul Cézanne, Georges Seurat, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani.
Spirit of the Dead Watching (Manao tupapau) is an 1892 oil on burlap canvas painting by Paul Gauguin, depicting a nude Tahitian girl lying on her stomach. An old woman is seated behind her. Gauguin said the title may refer to either the girl imagining the ghost, or the ghost imagining her.
Fruits on a Table or Still Life with Apples and Grapes is a still life painting by French artist Paul Gauguin painted in 1889. It was one of two works stolen from the private collection of Terence F. Kennedy in London in June 1970 and recovered by the Carabinieri in Italy in April 2014.
Soyez amoureuses vous serez heureuses is a bas-relief wood panel carved and polychromed by French artist Paul Gauguin in the autumn of 1889. Gauguin depicts himself in the upper right, sucking his thumb and grasping the hand of the fleshy nude woman, a Polynesian or African, who seems to recoil in fear.
Arii Matamoe or The Royal End is a painting on coarse cloth by the French artist Paul Gauguin, created in 1892 during the painter's first visit to Tahiti. It depicts a man's severed head on a pillow, displayed before mourners, and although it did not depict a common or contemporary Tahitian mourning ritual, may have been inspired by the death of Pōmare V in 1891 shortly after Gauguin's arrival. A curator for the J. Paul Getty Museum suggested Gauguin likely painted the canvas "to shock Parisians" upon his expected return to the city.
The year 2018 in art involves various significant events.
Young Girl with a Flower Basket is a 1905 oil on canvas painting by Pablo Picasso from his Rose Period. The painting depicts a Parisian street girl, named "Linda", whose fate is unknown. It was painted at a key phase in Picasso's life, as he made the transition from an impoverished bohemian at the start of 1905 to a successful artist by the end of 1906. The painting is listed as one of the most expensive paintings, after achieving a price of $115 million when it was sold at Christie's on 8 May 2018. It is currently the fourth highest selling painting by Picasso.
The Rivals is a 1931 oil-on-canvas painting by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera (1886–1957). It was commissioned by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the leading personage behind the inception of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Rivera created the work while on the ship SS Moro en route from Mexico to New York City. The picture portrays "Las Velas", a festival held in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, a fete in honor of local patron saints and of the abundance of spring.
