View allAll Photos Tagged Signac
Affiche de l'Exposition coloniale, Marseille
1906
Lithographie en couleur
Musée des arts décoratifs
Affiche présentée dans l'exposition "Félix Fénéon (1861-1944). Les arts lointains", au musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris
m.quaibranly.fr/fr/expositions-evenements/au-musee/exposi...
Cette exposition, très érudite, est le premier volet d'un hommage à Félix Fénéon (1861-1944), critique d'art visionnaire, éditeur, marchand d'art, ami de Seurat et de Signac, qui a été l'un des premiers collectionneurs d'art extra-occidental, notamment "d'art nègre" comme on l'appelait à l'époque ou plus généralement d'arts lointains.
Félix Fénéon de Paul Signac (photo dalbera prise lors de l'expo "Être moderne. Le MoMA à Paris à la Fondation Vuitton)
www.flickr.com/photos/dalbera/24697856998/in/album-721576...
Elle sera suivie d'une exposition complémentaire au musée de l'Orangerie dès le 16/10/2019 intitulée "Félix Fénéon. Les temps nouveaux, de Seurat à Matisse", puis d'une exposition regroupant les deux volets au MoMA à New-York.
Commissaires : Isabelle Cahn (musée d'Orsay) et Philippe Peltier (ex-Musée du quai Branly)
He started his education at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts d’Angers, and moved to Paris in 1886. Here, he started studying under Léon Bonnat. Lebasque met Camille Pissarro and Auguste Renoir, who later would have a large impact on his work. Lebasque's vision was colored by his contact with younger painters, especially Edouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, founders of the The Nabis' Group. From his first acquaintance with Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, Lebasque learnt the significance of a color theory. Lebasque was a founding member of the Salon d'Automne in 1903 with his friend Henri Matisse. Two years later a group of artists exhibited there including Georges Rouault, André Derain, Edouard Vuillard and Henri Matisse. His time in South of France would lead to a radical transformation in Lebasque’s paintings, changing his color palette forever. Famed as a painter of 'joy and light', Lebasque is admired for the intimacy of his subject matter and his unique delight in color and form. Other travels included the Vendée, Normandie and Brittany, although Lebasque would always prefer the small idyllic villages of the South of France.
Paul Signac（1863 - 1935）
Watercolour, gouache and black crayon on paper
29 x 44 cm
www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/impressionis...
Estimate : £ 18,000 - £ 25,000
Sold : £ 30,000
Sotheby's
Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
London, 4 Feb 2016
Côte provencale, le four des Maures
« Cross dépeint ici l'un de ses sites préférés de la côte des Maures, aux pieds de l'Esterel : une baie sauvage dont les rivages sont plantés d'arbustes multicolores : « Vous imaginez la gaieté dont nous jouissons par ce ciel pur, le rose attendri des amandiers, le jaune exalté des mimosas se mariant au cobalt de la mer et au bleu émeraude (légèrement) du ciel » écrit-il à Angrand le 31 janvier 1906. (Extrait du site des musées du nord, rédactrice F. Baligand)
webmuseo.com/ws/musenor/app/collection/record/2405?vc=ePk...
Oeuvre Henri-Edmond Cross (1856-1910)
Juin 1906-février 1907
Huile sur toile
Acquisition 1985
Douai, musée de la Chartreuse
Oeuvre présentée dans l'exposition "Signac collectionneur", musée d'Orsay, Paris
www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/expositions/signac-collectionneur-423
Autodidacte, Signac apprend son métier en regardant les œuvres des impressionnistes, en particulier celles de Claude Monet, d'Edgar Degas, de Gustave Caillebotte ou d'Armand Guillaumin qui pour la plupart figurent dans sa collection. Sa première acquisition est un paysage de Paul Cézanne.
Issu d'une famille aisée sans être riche, Signac peut envisager de réunir des œuvres importantes, mais se doit d'être réfléchi dans ses choix. D'emblée, le rôle qu'il joue dans la fondation puis l'organisation du Salon des artistes indépendants, dont il devient président en 1908, le place au carrefour des différentes tendances de l'avant-garde. .. Extrait du site de l'exposition.
Poseuse de face
Oeuvre de Georges Seurat (1859-1891)
1887
huile sur bois
H. 25,0 ; L. 15,8 cm.
musée d'Orsay, Paris, France
Jusqu'en 1947, l'oeuvre a fait partie de la collection Félix Fénéon
L'État français (musée du Jeu de Paume) a acheté cette oeuvre lors de la 2ème vente de la collection en 1947 après la mort de Félix Fénéon en 1944 à la Vallée-aux-loups à Chatenay-Malabry et de son épouse Fanny en 1946 au Plessis-Trévise..
Notice complète de l'oeuvre dans la base des collections du musée d'Orsay (Paris)
www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/collections/catalogue-des-oeuvres/n...
Oeuvre présentée dans l'exposition "Félix Fénéon (1861-1944). Les arts lointains", au musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac, Paris
m.quaibranly.fr/fr/expositions-evenements/au-musee/exposi...
Cette exposition, très érudite, est le premier volet d'un hommage à Félix Fénéon (1861-1944), critique d'art visionnaire, éditeur, marchand d'art, ami de Seurat et de Signac, qui a été l'un des premiers collectionneurs d'art extra-occidental, notamment "d'art nègre" comme on l'appelait à l'époque ou plus généralement d'arts lointains. "Fénéon a défendu une vision décloisonnée de la création au moment du basculement de l'art vers la modernité".
Félix Fénéon de Paul Signac (photo dalbera prise lors de l'expo "Être moderne. Le MoMA à Paris à la Fondation Vuitton)
www.flickr.com/photos/dalbera/24697856998/in/album-721576...
Elle sera suivie d'une exposition complémentaire au musée de l'Orangerie dès le 16/10/2019 intitulée "Félix Fénéon. Les temps nouveaux, de Seurat à Matisse", puis d'une exposition regroupant les deux volets au MoMA à New-York.
Commissaires : Isabelle Cahn (musée d'Orsay) et Philippe Peltier (ex-Musée du quai Branly)
www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/evenements/expositions/hors-les-mur...
Week 8 Sailing Vessels (1136 – 1140) 11/01 – 11/06/2020 ID 1136
Paul Signac French 1863-1935
Antibes, The Pink Cloud, 1916
Oil on canvas
Signac remained committed to Divisionism throughout his career, but the way he applied paint varied greatly. Unlike the brushy dashes and methodical dots of his earlier paintings, on view behind you, here, Signac employs a regularized, rectangular stroke that takes on the quality of a dazzling mosaic. In a 1916 letter to a critic, Signac annotated a sketch of this “portrait of a cloud” to reveal the cloud’s “personalities.” He referred to the vaporous form at upper left as Loïe Fuller—an American dancer who had taken Paris by storm in the 1890s—and pointed out “some Michelangelesque figures” in the dark underside of the cloud at right. The German gunboats in the lower right corner were called “the black squadron.”
Isabelle and Scott Black Collection
From the Placard: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Signac
Le troupeau de moutons, Éragny-sur-Epte
Oeuvre de Camille Pissarro (1830-1903)
1888
Huile sur toile
Collection particulière
Paul Signac rencontre Camille Pissarro, son ainé impressionniste, en 1885 et lui présente Georges Seurat. Camille Pissarro, intéressé par la nouvelle technique pointilliste de Seurat, l'adopte à son tour. Ils exposent ensemble lors de l'exposition impressionniste de 1888.
Oeuvre présentée dans l'exposition "Signac collectionneur", musée d'Orsay, Paris
www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/expositions/signac-collectionneur-423
Autodidacte, Signac apprend son métier en regardant les œuvres des impressionnistes, en particulier celles de Claude Monet, d'Edgar Degas, de Gustave Caillebotte ou d'Armand Guillaumin qui pour la plupart figurent dans sa collection. Sa première acquisition est un paysage de Paul Cézanne.
Issu d'une famille aisée sans être riche, Signac peut envisager de réunir des œuvres importantes, mais se doit d'être réfléchi dans ses choix. D'emblée, le rôle qu'il joue dans la fondation puis l'organisation du Salon des artistes indépendants, dont il devient président en 1908, le place au carrefour des différentes tendances de l'avant-garde. .. Extrait du site de l'exposition.
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 4.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com.
Paul Signac (1863-1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter. Together with Georges Seurat, Signac developed the Pointillism style. He was a passionate sailor, bringing back watercolor sketches of ports and nature from his travels, then turning them into large studio canvases with mosaic-like squares of color. He abandoned the short brushstrokes and intuitive dabs of color of the impressionists for a more exact scientific approach to applying dots with the intention to combine and blend not on the canvas, but in the viewer's eye. We have digitally enhanced some of his landscapes and seascapes, both from sketches and paintings into high resolution quality. They are free to download and use under the CC0 license.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: https://www.rawpixel.com/board/1328402/paul-signac-artworks-i-high-resolution-cc0-paintings-sketches?sort=curated&mode=shop&page=1
Un Dimanche
Oeuvre de Paul SIgnac (1863-1935)
Octobre 1888 - 13 mars 1890
Huile sur toile
Collection particulière
Fénéon s'est intéressé à ce tableau évoquant l'ennui d'un couple appartenant à la classe bougeoise parisienne lors d'un dimanche (Portrait de Signac, par Fénéon, 1890). Il y admirait la construction géométrique comme le travail chromatique et y
voyait un abandon salutaire du récit.
Oeuvre présentée dans l'exposition "Félix Fénéon. Les temps nouveaux, de Seurat à Matisse" au musée de l'Orangerie à Paris
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Aucune exposition n’a encore rendu hommage à Félix Fénéon (1861-1944), acteur majeur de la scène artistique de la fin du XIXe siècle et du tournant du XXe siècle. Le musée de l’Orangerie en association avec le musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac et The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA) propose de célébrer sa personnalité hors du commun, encore injustement méconnue. Extrait du site de l'Exposition "Félix Fénéon. Les temps nouveaux, de Seurat à Matisse" au musée de l'Orangerie à Paris
www.musee-orangerie.fr/fr/evenement/felix-feneon-les-temp...
Ancien village de pêcheurs, joyau de la Côte d'Emeraude et berceau de capitaines au long cours, Saint-Briac a conservé autour de son église (clocher du XVIIe siècle) des quartiers aux ruelles étroites et sinueuses, au charme particulier. Depuis toujours, de grands artistes (tels Signac, Renoir, Nozal ou Bernard) y ont trouvé l'inspiration. Ce site balnéaire est bordé de neuf plages de sable fin et d'un sentier côtier offrant de splendides panoramas (cf. france-voyage.com, merci Frédéric Bourrigaud pour la photo).
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 4.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com.
Paul Signac (1863-1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter. Together with Georges Seurat, Signac developed the Pointillism style. He was a passionate sailor, bringing back watercolor sketches of ports and nature from his travels, then turning them into large studio canvases with mosaic-like squares of color. He abandoned the short brushstrokes and intuitive dabs of color of the impressionists for a more exact scientific approach to applying dots with the intention to combine and blend not on the canvas, but in the viewer's eye. We have digitally enhanced some of his landscapes and seascapes, both from sketches and paintings into high resolution quality. They are free to download and use under the CC0 license.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: https://www.rawpixel.com/board/1328402/paul-signac-artworks-i-high-resolution-cc0-paintings-sketches?sort=curated&mode=shop&page=1
Paul Signac - Railway Junction near Bois-Colombes, 1885 at Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam Netherlands (Museum catalog)
La Albertina es un museo del centro de Viena, Austria. Alberga una de las más extensas colecciones gráficas del mundo con aproximadamente 65 000 dibujos y cerca de un millón de grabados, tanto antiguos como modernos. Sobresalen sus riquísimos fondos de Alberto Durero, de los cuales una selección se expuso en el Museo del Prado en 2005.
La institución debe su nombre a Alberto de Sajonia-Teschen (1738-1822), quien la fundó con su colección.
La Albertina se construyó en una de las últimas secciones que quedaban en pie de las murallas de Viena, el Bastión de Augusto. Originalmente estaba situado en ese lugar el Hofbauamt (Ministerio de Construcción), que había sido construido en la segunda mitad del siglo XVII. En 1745 el edificio fue remodelado por el director del Ministerio, Emanuel Teles Count Silva-Tarouca, para que fuera su palacio. El inmueble fue también conocido como Palais Taroucca.
El edificio fue más tarde ocupado por Alberto de Sajonia-Teschen, que lo utilizó como residencia y más tarde hizo traer su colección desde Bruselas, donde había ejercido como gobernador de los Países Bajos de los Habsburgo. Desafortunadamente, un tercio de la colección se perdió al naufragar el barco que la transportaba. El edificio fue ampliado con el nuevo propósito museal por Louis Montoyer.
La colección había sido empezada por el duque Alberto y el conde Giacomo Durazzo, el embajador austríaco en Venecia.[cita requerida] En 1776 el conde regaló 30 000 obras de arte al duque Alberto y su mujer Marie-Christine. Giacomo Durazzo —hermano de Marcello— dijo que «quería crear una colección para la posteridad que sirviese a propósitos más altos que el resto: la educación y el poder de la moral debe distinguir a esta colección» La colección fue enriquecida por los descendientes de Alberto.
En la década de 1820 el archiduque Carlos de Austria emprendió algunas modificaciones del edificio que afectaron principalmente a la decoración interior.
A principios de 1919 el edificio y la colección pasaron de los Habsburgo a la propiedad de la República de Austria. En 1920 la colección de grabados se unificó con la colección de la antigua biblioteca oficial de la corte (Hofbibliothek). Se le impuso el nombre de Albertina en 1921. En marzo de 1945 la Albertina fue gravemente dañada por los bombardeos. Fue totalmente remodelada en 1998 y está actualmente abierta.
El grueso de la colección lo conforman obras sobre papel: unos 65 000 dibujos (incluyendo también acuarelas) y cerca de un millón de grabados. También se custodian fotografías y planos de arquitectura.
El repertorio de dibujos incluye un núcleo sin parangón de Durero, con unas 120 piezas (Autorretrato a los 13 años, Gran mata de hierba, Liebre joven, vistas de Innsbruck...) así como ejemplos de Pisanello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Miguel Ángel, Rafael, El Bosco (El hombre árbol), Pieter Brueghel el Viejo, Cranach, Federico Barocci, Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Boucher, Fragonard, hasta el impresionismo y movimientos de finales del XIX y buena parte del XX (Renoir, Signac, Cézanne, Klimt, Egon Schiele).
El fondo de grabados es colosal, uno de los más extensos del mundo; arranca en el siglo XV e incluye ejemplos abundantes de Durero, Martin Schongauer, Lucas van Leyden, Marcantonio Raimondi, Francisco de Goya, hasta Pablo Picasso, pop art y autores vivos.
Debido a las exigencias de conservación de todas las obras sobre papel, que es un material muy sensible a la luz y los cambios de humedad, la Albertina solamente expone este tipo de piezas de manera temporal, y basa su exhibición permanente en la Colección Batliner.
Desde 2007, la Albertina alberga en préstamo unas 500 obras (mayormente pinturas) de los siglos XIX y XX, del Impresionismo hasta Alex Katz: la Colección Batliner, reunida desde la década de 1960 por el matrimonio del mismo apellido. Arranca con Claude Monet, Edgar Degas y Paul Cézanne, prosigue con los fovistas Henri Matisse y André Derain, y continúa con Kandinsky, los expresionistas alemanes, la vanguardia rusa y el surrealismo (Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró).
Mención aparte merece Pablo Picasso, con una decena de pinturas y abundantes dibujos y cerámicas en ejemplares únicos; en total el repertorio picassiano alcanza las cuarenta obras.
El arte más reciente queda representado por Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz...
Los almacenes de este museo cuentan con sofisticados sistemas de climatización y de seguridad. Las delicadas obras sobre papel se guardan ordenadas en kilómetros de estanterías a las que no acceden los visitantes. Mediante un sistema informático, un brazo o robot localiza y trae la caja que contiene la obra solicitada. Este sistema permite aprovechar al máximo el espacio, al reducir al mínimo los pasillos; pero en junio de 2009, una fuga de agua cubrió el suelo en varios centímetros y colapsó el sistema informático, obligando a un apresurado desalojo de miles de obras que afortunadamente se solventó sin daños.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertina
The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt (First District) of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well as more modern graphic works, photographs and architectural drawings. Apart from the graphics collection the museum has recently acquired on permanent loan two significant collections of Impressionist and early 20th-century art, some of which will be on permanent display. The museum also houses temporary exhibitions.
The Albertina was erected on one of the last remaining sections of the fortifications of Vienna, the Augustinian Bastion. Originally, the Hofbauamt (Court Construction Office), which had been built in the second half of the 17th century, stood in that location. In 1744 it was refurbished by the director of the Hofbauamt, Emanuel Teles Count Silva-Tarouca, to become his palace; it was therefore also known as Palais Taroucca. The building was later taken over by Duke Albert of Saxen-Teschen who used it as his residence. Albert later brought his graphics collection there from Brussels, where he had acted as the governor of the Habsburg Netherlands. He had the building extended by Louis Montoyer. Since then, the palace has immediately bordered the Hofburg. The collection was expanded by Albert's successors. When his grandson Archduke Albrecht, Duke of Teschen lived there until his death in 1895 it was called the Palais Erzherzog Albrecht.
The collection was created by Duke Albert with the Genoese count Giacomo Durazzo, the Austrian ambassador in Venice. In 1776 the count presented nearly 1,000 pieces of art to the duke and his wife Maria Christina (Maria Theresa's daughter). Count Durazzo, who was the brother of Marcello Durazzo, the Doge of Genoa – "wanted to create a collection for posterity that served higher purposes than all others: education and the power of morality should distinguish his collection...." In the 1820s Archduke Charles, Duke Albert and Maria Christina's foster son, initiated further modifications to the building by Joseph Kornhäusel, which affected mostly its interior decoration. After Archduke Charles, his son Archduke Albert]] then Albrecht's nephew Archduke Friedrich, Duke of Teschen lived in the building.
In early 1919, ownership of both the building and the collection passed from the Habsburgs to the newly founded Republic of Austria. In 1920 the collection of prints and drawings was united with the collection of the former imperial court library. The name Albertina was established in 1921.
In March 1945, the Albertina was heavily damaged by Allied bomb attacks. The building was rebuilt in the years after the war and was completely refurbished and modernized from 1998 to 2003. Modifications of the exterior entrance sequence, including a distinctive roof by Hans Hollein were completed in 2008, when the graphics collection finally reopened. In 2018, the Albertina acquired the Essl Collection of 1,323 contemporary artworks, including pieces by Alex Katz, Cindy Sherman, Georg Baselitz, Hermann Nitsch, and Maria Lassnig.
From March 2020 will begin its existence a new Albertina Modern Museum. The collection of Albertina modern encompasses over 60,000 works by 5,000 artists.
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(c) Dr Stanislav Shmelev
I am absolutely delighted to let you know that my new album, 'ECOSYSTEMS' has just been published: stanislav.photography/ecosystems
It has been presented at the Club of Rome 50th Anniversary meeting, the United Nations COP24 conference on climate change, a large exhibition held at the Mathematical Institute of Oxford University and the Environment Europe Oxford Spring School in Ecological Economics and now at the United Nations World Urban Forum 2020. There are only 450 copies left so you will have to be quick: stanislav.photography/ecosystems
You are most welcome to explore my new website: stanislav.photography/ and a totally new blog: environmenteurope.wordpress.com/
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Matisse painted this oil sketch in the summer of 1904, while working alongside fellow artist Paul Signac on the French Riviera, and he completed the final painting (now at the Musée d'Orsay, Paris) the following winter. Both Signac and Matisse were influenced by the elder painter Paul Cézanne, whose discrete strokes of colour emphasised the materiality of the painted surface over naturalistic illusion. But Matisse went further, using a palette of pure, high-pitched colours (blue, green, yellow, and orange) to render the landscape, and outlining the figures in blue. The painting takes its title from a line by the nineteenth-century poet Charles Baudelaire and shares the poems subject of an escape to an imaginary, tranquil refuge.
[Oil on canvas, 32.7 x 40.6 cm]
gandalfsgallery.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/henri-matisse-stud...
Paul Victor Jules Signac (French: [pɔl siɲak]; 11 November 1863 – 15 August 1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style.
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 4.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com.
Paul Signac (1863-1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter. Together with Georges Seurat, Signac developed the Pointillism style. He was a passionate sailor, bringing back watercolor sketches of ports and nature from his travels, then turning them into large studio canvases with mosaic-like squares of color. He abandoned the short brushstrokes and intuitive dabs of color of the impressionists for a more exact scientific approach to applying dots with the intention to combine and blend not on the canvas, but in the viewer's eye. We have digitally enhanced some of his landscapes and seascapes, both from sketches and paintings into high resolution quality. They are free to download and use under the CC0 license.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: https://www.rawpixel.com/board/1328402/paul-signac-artworks-i-high-resolution-cc0-paintings-sketches?sort=curated&mode=shop&page=1
Paul Signac (1863-1935)
The Road to Gennevilliers
dit aussi Faubourg de Paris (1883)
From the beginning of the 1880s, the young Paul Signac had revealed a taste for urban landscapes, painting views of Montmartre and the Paris suburbs, and in particular Asnières where he lived with his mother. This view of the northern suburb of Paris is an example of this interest, even if the industrialised area is pushed back into the distance, on to the horizon. The wide area given over to the road, the signposts and the few gaunt trees, all describe a landscape entirely shaped by human activity.
In this Road to Gennevilliers, Monet's influence is still visible. Signac had been able to admire works by the Impressionist master in the offices of the review La Vie Moderne in 1880 and during his private exhibition at the Durand-Ruel Gallery in 1883. The composition of the foreground in areas of flat colour is reminiscent of the landscapes Monet painted in the 1870s, particularly during his stay in Argenteuil (1871-1878).
This landscape also has thematic and stylistic affinities with the suburban scenes painted by Sisley, Pissarro and Caillebotte some ten years earlier, making it one of Signac's last, manifestly Impressionist paintings. The following year he started to work with Seurat, and discovered the Divisionist technique that he then adopted definitively.
The demolition worker: detail of a painting by Paul Signac at the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, France.
My museum collection : www.flickr.com/photos/9619972@N08/collections/72157702215...
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 4.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com.
Paul Signac (1863-1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter. Together with Georges Seurat, Signac developed the Pointillism style. He was a passionate sailor, bringing back watercolor sketches of ports and nature from his travels, then turning them into large studio canvases with mosaic-like squares of color. He abandoned the short brushstrokes and intuitive dabs of color of the impressionists for a more exact scientific approach to applying dots with the intention to combine and blend not on the canvas, but in the viewer's eye. We have digitally enhanced some of his landscapes and seascapes, both from sketches and paintings into high resolution quality. They are free to download and use under the CC0 license.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: https://www.rawpixel.com/board/1328402/paul-signac-artworks-i-high-resolution-cc0-paintings-sketches?sort=curated&mode=shop&page=1
Le village de Collioure, la plage et son Église Notre-Dame des Anges sur la Mer.
La ville de Collioure, en catalan Cotlliure, est une commune française, une petite station balnéaire située entre les Pyrénées et la mer Méditerranée sur la Côte Vermeille, à 20 kilomètres de l’Espagne. Collioure se situe dans le département des Pyrénées-Orientales et dans la région Languedoc-Roussillon.
La commune est célèbre pour son site géographique et son patrimoine, qui a séduit de nombreux artistes : Henri Matisse, André Derain, Albert Marquet, Juan Gris, Georges Braque, Picasso, Raoul Dufy, Foujita, Othon Friesz, Paul Signac ...
Details from Courtauld's Gallery, Somerset House, London 18 November 2018. Great art and not so many people you can't get close. A favourite gallery.
'About this work
This is van Gogh’s last view of a plain outside Arles that he often painted since settling in the south of France in 1888. He wrote to the painter Paul Signac ‘everything is small there ... even the mountains, as in certain Japanese landscapes, which is the reason why the subject attracted me.’ The snow-capped peak on the right (a deliberate echo of Mount Fuji in Japan) and blossoming trees create a peaceful atmosphere.'
For more see:- www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/gallery/d0f72cdd.html
La route de Pontoise. L'embranchement de Bois-Colombes (Opus 130)
Oeuvre de Paul SIgnac (1863-1935)
1886
Huile sur toile
Leeds, Leeds Museums and Galleries
Achat à la Redfern Gallery, 1948
La construction remarquable de ce tableau et le travail sur la lumière illustrent le très haut niveau de maitrise atteint par Paul Signac, le co-fondateur avec Seurat de la peinture néo-impressionniste, dont Félix Fénéon a été le découvreur et le collectionneur.
Oeuvre présentée dans l'exposition "Félix Fénéon. Les temps nouveaux, de Seurat à Matisse" au musée de l'Orangerie à Paris
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Aucune exposition n’a encore rendu hommage à Félix Fénéon (1861-1944), acteur majeur de la scène artistique de la fin du XIXe siècle et du tournant du XXe siècle. Le musée de l’Orangerie en association avec le musée du Quai Branly-Jacques Chirac et The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA) propose de célébrer sa personnalité hors du commun, encore injustement méconnue. Extrait du site de l'Exposition "Félix Fénéon. Les temps nouveaux, de Seurat à Matisse" au musée de l'Orangerie à Paris
www.musee-orangerie.fr/fr/evenement/felix-feneon-les-temp...
Pissarro, Camille 1830–1903. – “Les Boulevards, extérieurs, effet de neige”, 1879
Musée Marmottan Monet is located at 2, rue Louis Boilly in the 16th arrondissement of Paris and features over three hundred Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings by Claude Monet, including his 1872 Impression, Sunrise. It is the largest collection of his works.
The museum also contains works by Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Alfred Sisley, Camille Pissarro, Paul Gauguin, Paul Signac, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and others. It also houses the Wildenstein Collection of illuminated manuscripts and the Jules and Paul Marmottan collection of Napoleonic era art and furniture.
Marmottan Museum's fame is the result of a donation in 1966 by Michel Monet, Claude's second son and only heir.
The nearest métro station is La Muette, on line 9.
Pastel sur carton, 54 x 45 cm, 1887, musée Van Gogh, Amsterdam.
Selon l'artiste Paul Signac, Vincent van Gogh passait ses journées au bar, où "les absinthes et les eaux-de-vie se succédaient à un rythme soutenu". Van Gogh lui-même avoua plus tard qu'il était "quasiment alcoolique" à son départ pour Arles. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec avait donc de bonnes raisons de dessiner son ami à une table avec un verre d'absinthe.
Le peintre français rencontra Van Gogh, de onze ans son aîné, dans l'atelier de Fernand Cormon, où ils prenaient tous deux des cours. Ils travaillèrent probablement ensemble intensivement pendant un certain temps, car le style et la technique de leurs peintures de cette période sont très similaires.
Toulouse-Lautrec prit la défense de son ami lors de l'exposition "Les Vingt" à Bruxelles au début de l'année 1890. Van Gogh avait présenté six tableaux, ce qui fit fureur lors du vernissage. Toulouse-Lautrec fut si irrité par certains commentaires négatifs sur l'œuvre de Vincent qu'il faillit se battre avec un autre artiste. Les deux peintres se revoyèrent peut-être une dernière fois quelques mois plus tard, lorsque Van Gogh rendit visite à son frère Théo à Paris, depuis Auvers-sur-Oise, mais on sait peu de choses sur leur amitié (cf. musée Van Gogh d'Amsterdam).
Pour voir le Portrait de Suzanne Valadon de 1885 :
The pointillist technique used in this painting consists of small dotted applications of paint, and is sometimes also described as divisionism. Signac was one of a number of artists and theorists who created a scientific method of separating complex tones into pure colours, applied using identical brushstrokes arranged in a decorative mosaic, which are then combined by the eye when seen from the necessary distance. This landscape was probably composed from drawings and watercolours taken from nature, which was the artist's usual method of work.
[Oil on canvas, 46 x 55 cm]
gandalfsgallery.blogspot.com/2011/08/paul-signac-harbour-...
Avenue Gambetta | Place Auguste Métivier 18/03/2016 15h45
The starting point of the Avenue Gambetta is here on this square called Place Auguste Métivier on the intersection with the Boulevard de Ménilmontant, Boulevard de la République and Rue du Chemin Vert. Métro station Père Lachaise.
Avenue Gambetta
Avenue Gambetta is a 2,280 meters long street in the 20ème arrondissement in the quartier Saint-Fargeau. Named after Léon Gambetta (1838-1882), politician, member of the government of national defense in 1870, Chairman and member of the 20th arrondissement.
Tree-lined avenue Gambetta is formed by four different axes. It starts up-Auguste Métivier at and altidtude of 54 meters, where it rises on the hill of Ménilmontant to the northeast, along the Square Samuel-de-Champlain, towards the place Martin-Nadaud. The avenue is moving then due east and reached the Place Gambetta (87 m). There, the avenue turnes to the northeast, along the town hall of the 20ème arrondissement, Square Edouard Vaillant and Tenon Hospital, and reached Paul Signac places (99 m) and Saint-Fargeau (108 m) where it undergoes its final misalignment. After passing behind the administrative Turrets Centre, headquarters of the DGSE, it borders the Olympic pool Georges-Vallerey and the Square du Docteur-Variot and ends Porte des Lilas to 116 m altitude.
[ Source and more Information: Wikipedia - Avenue Gambetta ]
He started his education at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts d’Angers, and moved to Paris in 1886. Here, he started studying under Léon Bonnat. Lebasque met Camille Pissarro and Auguste Renoir, who later would have a large impact on his work. Lebasque's vision was colored by his contact with younger painters, especially Edouard Vuillard and Pierre Bonnard, founders of the The Nabis' Group. From his first acquaintance with Georges Seurat and Paul Signac, Lebasque learnt the significance of a color theory. Lebasque was a founding member of the Salon d'Automne in 1903 with his friend Henri Matisse. Two years later a group of artists exhibited there including Georges Rouault, André Derain, Edouard Vuillard and Henri Matisse. His time in South of France would lead to a radical transformation in Lebasque’s paintings, changing his color palette forever. Famed as a painter of 'joy and light', Lebasque is admired for the intimacy of his subject matter and his unique delight in color and form. Other travels included the Vendée, Normandie and Brittany, although Lebasque would always prefer the small idyllic villages of the South of France.
La Albertina es un museo del centro de Viena, Austria. Alberga una de las más extensas colecciones gráficas del mundo con aproximadamente 65 000 dibujos y cerca de un millón de grabados, tanto antiguos como modernos. Sobresalen sus riquísimos fondos de Alberto Durero, de los cuales una selección se expuso en el Museo del Prado en 2005.
La institución debe su nombre a Alberto de Sajonia-Teschen (1738-1822), quien la fundó con su colección.
La Albertina se construyó en una de las últimas secciones que quedaban en pie de las murallas de Viena, el Bastión de Augusto. Originalmente estaba situado en ese lugar el Hofbauamt (Ministerio de Construcción), que había sido construido en la segunda mitad del siglo XVII. En 1745 el edificio fue remodelado por el director del Ministerio, Emanuel Teles Count Silva-Tarouca, para que fuera su palacio. El inmueble fue también conocido como Palais Taroucca.
El edificio fue más tarde ocupado por Alberto de Sajonia-Teschen, que lo utilizó como residencia y más tarde hizo traer su colección desde Bruselas, donde había ejercido como gobernador de los Países Bajos de los Habsburgo. Desafortunadamente, un tercio de la colección se perdió al naufragar el barco que la transportaba. El edificio fue ampliado con el nuevo propósito museal por Louis Montoyer.
La colección había sido empezada por el duque Alberto y el conde Giacomo Durazzo, el embajador austríaco en Venecia.[cita requerida] En 1776 el conde regaló 30 000 obras de arte al duque Alberto y su mujer Marie-Christine. Giacomo Durazzo —hermano de Marcello— dijo que «quería crear una colección para la posteridad que sirviese a propósitos más altos que el resto: la educación y el poder de la moral debe distinguir a esta colección» La colección fue enriquecida por los descendientes de Alberto.
En la década de 1820 el archiduque Carlos de Austria emprendió algunas modificaciones del edificio que afectaron principalmente a la decoración interior.
A principios de 1919 el edificio y la colección pasaron de los Habsburgo a la propiedad de la República de Austria. En 1920 la colección de grabados se unificó con la colección de la antigua biblioteca oficial de la corte (Hofbibliothek). Se le impuso el nombre de Albertina en 1921. En marzo de 1945 la Albertina fue gravemente dañada por los bombardeos. Fue totalmente remodelada en 1998 y está actualmente abierta.
El grueso de la colección lo conforman obras sobre papel: unos 65 000 dibujos (incluyendo también acuarelas) y cerca de un millón de grabados. También se custodian fotografías y planos de arquitectura.
El repertorio de dibujos incluye un núcleo sin parangón de Durero, con unas 120 piezas (Autorretrato a los 13 años, Gran mata de hierba, Liebre joven, vistas de Innsbruck...) así como ejemplos de Pisanello, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Leonardo da Vinci, Miguel Ángel, Rafael, El Bosco (El hombre árbol), Pieter Brueghel el Viejo, Cranach, Federico Barocci, Rubens, Van Dyck, Rembrandt, Boucher, Fragonard, hasta el impresionismo y movimientos de finales del XIX y buena parte del XX (Renoir, Signac, Cézanne, Klimt, Egon Schiele).
El fondo de grabados es colosal, uno de los más extensos del mundo; arranca en el siglo XV e incluye ejemplos abundantes de Durero, Martin Schongauer, Lucas van Leyden, Marcantonio Raimondi, Francisco de Goya, hasta Pablo Picasso, pop art y autores vivos.
Debido a las exigencias de conservación de todas las obras sobre papel, que es un material muy sensible a la luz y los cambios de humedad, la Albertina solamente expone este tipo de piezas de manera temporal, y basa su exhibición permanente en la Colección Batliner.
Desde 2007, la Albertina alberga en préstamo unas 500 obras (mayormente pinturas) de los siglos XIX y XX, del Impresionismo hasta Alex Katz: la Colección Batliner, reunida desde la década de 1960 por el matrimonio del mismo apellido. Arranca con Claude Monet, Edgar Degas y Paul Cézanne, prosigue con los fovistas Henri Matisse y André Derain, y continúa con Kandinsky, los expresionistas alemanes, la vanguardia rusa y el surrealismo (Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró).
Mención aparte merece Pablo Picasso, con una decena de pinturas y abundantes dibujos y cerámicas en ejemplares únicos; en total el repertorio picassiano alcanza las cuarenta obras.
El arte más reciente queda representado por Alberto Giacometti, Francis Bacon, Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz...
Los almacenes de este museo cuentan con sofisticados sistemas de climatización y de seguridad. Las delicadas obras sobre papel se guardan ordenadas en kilómetros de estanterías a las que no acceden los visitantes. Mediante un sistema informático, un brazo o robot localiza y trae la caja que contiene la obra solicitada. Este sistema permite aprovechar al máximo el espacio, al reducir al mínimo los pasillos; pero en junio de 2009, una fuga de agua cubrió el suelo en varios centímetros y colapsó el sistema informático, obligando a un apresurado desalojo de miles de obras que afortunadamente se solventó sin daños.
es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertina
The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt (First District) of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well as more modern graphic works, photographs and architectural drawings. Apart from the graphics collection the museum has recently acquired on permanent loan two significant collections of Impressionist and early 20th-century art, some of which will be on permanent display. The museum also houses temporary exhibitions.
The Albertina was erected on one of the last remaining sections of the fortifications of Vienna, the Augustinian Bastion. Originally, the Hofbauamt (Court Construction Office), which had been built in the second half of the 17th century, stood in that location. In 1744 it was refurbished by the director of the Hofbauamt, Emanuel Teles Count Silva-Tarouca, to become his palace; it was therefore also known as Palais Taroucca. The building was later taken over by Duke Albert of Saxen-Teschen who used it as his residence. Albert later brought his graphics collection there from Brussels, where he had acted as the governor of the Habsburg Netherlands. He had the building extended by Louis Montoyer. Since then, the palace has immediately bordered the Hofburg. The collection was expanded by Albert's successors. When his grandson Archduke Albrecht, Duke of Teschen lived there until his death in 1895 it was called the Palais Erzherzog Albrecht.
The collection was created by Duke Albert with the Genoese count Giacomo Durazzo, the Austrian ambassador in Venice. In 1776 the count presented nearly 1,000 pieces of art to the duke and his wife Maria Christina (Maria Theresa's daughter). Count Durazzo, who was the brother of Marcello Durazzo, the Doge of Genoa – "wanted to create a collection for posterity that served higher purposes than all others: education and the power of morality should distinguish his collection...." In the 1820s Archduke Charles, Duke Albert and Maria Christina's foster son, initiated further modifications to the building by Joseph Kornhäusel, which affected mostly its interior decoration. After Archduke Charles, his son Archduke Albert]] then Albrecht's nephew Archduke Friedrich, Duke of Teschen lived in the building.
In early 1919, ownership of both the building and the collection passed from the Habsburgs to the newly founded Republic of Austria. In 1920 the collection of prints and drawings was united with the collection of the former imperial court library. The name Albertina was established in 1921.
In March 1945, the Albertina was heavily damaged by Allied bomb attacks. The building was rebuilt in the years after the war and was completely refurbished and modernized from 1998 to 2003. Modifications of the exterior entrance sequence, including a distinctive roof by Hans Hollein were completed in 2008, when the graphics collection finally reopened. In 2018, the Albertina acquired the Essl Collection of 1,323 contemporary artworks, including pieces by Alex Katz, Cindy Sherman, Georg Baselitz, Hermann Nitsch, and Maria Lassnig.
From March 2020 will begin its existence a new Albertina Modern Museum. The collection of Albertina modern encompasses over 60,000 works by 5,000 artists.
Huile sur toile, 46 x 64 cm, 1884, museo national Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.
Cette étude est restée longtemps dans l'atelier de l'artiste et a été vendue assez tard, probablement dans les années 1920. Il a été signé et daté par l'artiste à cette époque, et porte à tort la date de 1883, détail contredit tant par les archives que par ses qualités stylistiques. Aux couleurs vives, ce tableau est représentatif des œuvres du jeune Signac, peintre "impressionniste" et grand admirateur de Monet. En 1882, ce jeune homme de 17 ans, passionné par la mer et la voile, avait choisi de passer son premier été comme peintre dans le petit port normand de Port-en-Bessin. Il y retourna l'année suivante, puis à nouveau à l'été 1884, où il exécuta pour la troisième fois une série de peintures consacrées aux différents aspects de ce modeste port de pêche. Cette photo appartient à la troisième et dernière série consacrée à Port-en-Bessin. Deux œuvres sur le même sujet peintes l'année précédente ont servi à préparer ce tableau (FC 21 et 25). Mais ici nous voyons pour la première fois, sur le nouveau quai lumineux, les arches vermillon de la halle aux poissons.
En 1884, Signac est encore sous l'influence de Guillaumin, de Caillebotte et surtout de Monet. En effet, une exposition des œuvres de ce dernier, organisée dans les locaux de La Vie moderne en 1880, fut cruciale pour la carrière du jeune artiste. Et son admiration pour Monet s'était ravivée quelques mois auparavant, en mars 1883, à l'occasion de l'exposition boulevard de la Madeleine des œuvres peintes à Varangeville par le père de l'impressionnisme. En cet été 1883, alors que Signac n'a pas encore vingt ans, il se révèle déjà un peintre impressionniste très respectable. Si les vues de mer exécutées à Port-en-Bessin expriment encore son admiration pour ces grands maîtres, elles témoignent aussi de ces qualités qui seront bientôt disciplinées par la méthode néo-impressionniste et détermineront son œuvre future. Ici, l’enthousiasme coloré et la force de son coup de pinceau sont déjà canalisés par l’organisation rigoureuse de la composition. Au premier plan, la nette opposition des zones d'ombre et de lumière exprime déjà son goût pour le contraste. Et les lignes orthogonales marquées : le quai, la vieille tour et les mâts, laissent présager que sa prédilection pour les vues de face caractérisera ses œuvres futures. Quant à son coup de pinceau, long et coloré pour représenter le talus au premier plan, courbé et puissant pour exprimer la force des vagues et des vagues, il traduit toute l'énergie et l'enthousiasme du jeune peintre. Quelques mois plus tôt, Signac s'était lié d'amitié avec Seurat lors de la création du premier Salon des Indépendants, mais l'influence de ce dernier ne se fait pas encore sentir dans la série d'œuvres peintes à Port-en-Bessin. En 1888, suivant probablement les suggestions de Signac, Seurat se rend dans le petit port normand où il peint une magnifique série de vues de mer, dans son cas dans un style strictement néo-impressionniste (cf. Marina Ferretti, musée Thyssen-Bornemisza).
Deux danseuses en maillot (Arlequin et Colombine)
Oeuvre d'Edgar Degas (1834-1917)
1892
Fusain gras sur papier
Collection particulière
Oeuvre présentée dans l'exposition "Signac collectionneur", musée d'Orsay, Paris
www.musee-orsay.fr/fr/expositions/signac-collectionneur-423
Autodidacte, Signac apprend son métier en regardant les œuvres des impressionnistes, en particulier celles de Claude Monet, d'Edgar Degas, de Gustave Caillebotte ou d'Armand Guillaumin qui pour la plupart figurent dans sa collection. Sa première acquisition est un paysage de Paul Cézanne.
Issu d'une famille aisée sans être riche, Signac peut envisager de réunir des œuvres importantes, mais se doit d'être réfléchi dans ses choix. D'emblée, le rôle qu'il joue dans la fondation puis l'organisation du Salon des artistes indépendants, dont il devient président en 1908, le place au carrefour des différentes tendances de l'avant-garde. .. Extrait du site de l'exposition.
"It is this love of true color that makes us paint this way, and not the dot."
It is not color for me and certainly neither the dot. But I have the same insistence and assurance when I make photographs.
‘Van Gogh aan de Seine’, met Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard en Charles Angrand.
"Van Gogh on the Seine," with Vincent van Gogh, Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, Emile Bernard and Charles Angrand.
Free download under CC Attribution (CC BY 4.0). Please credit the artist and rawpixel.com.
Paul Signac (1863-1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter. Together with Georges Seurat, Signac developed the Pointillism style. He was a passionate sailor, bringing back watercolor sketches of ports and nature from his travels, then turning them into large studio canvases with mosaic-like squares of color. He abandoned the short brushstrokes and intuitive dabs of color of the impressionists for a more exact scientific approach to applying dots with the intention to combine and blend not on the canvas, but in the viewer's eye. We have digitally enhanced some of his landscapes and seascapes, both from sketches and paintings into high resolution quality. They are free to download and use under the CC0 license.
Higher resolutions with no attribution required can be downloaded: https://www.rawpixel.com/board/1328402/paul-signac-artworks-i-high-resolution-cc0-paintings-sketches?sort=curated&mode=shop&page=1
Paul Signac（1863 - 1935）
Watercolour and gouache over pencil on paper
29.2 x 43.5 cm
www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2016/impressionis...
Estimate : £ 18,000 - £ 25,000
Sold : £ 40,000
Sotheby's
Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
London, 4 Feb 2016
GRONINGER MUSEUM
Groningen
the Netherlands
The realisation of the present-day Groninger Museum had a lengthy and intensive history before a start was actually made on the spectacular design that still evokes much discussion on modern museum architecture. After years of formulating plans and drawing up sketches, after endless discussions and consultations, the ultimate design by the Italian Alessandro Mendini and the three guest architects Philippe Starck, Michele de Lucchi, and Coop Himmelb[l]au was completed in 1994.
HISTORY IMPULSE
The direct opportunity for this large-scale building project arrived on 28 September 1987 when the N.V. Nederlandse Gas Unie donated 25 million guilders (approx. 11.5 million Euro) for the construction of a new Groninger Museum. This was a godsend to the Museum. The old premises on the Praediniussingel, which had accommodated the Groningen Museum for exactly 100 years, had become far too small. The donation, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Gas Company (in 1988), was greeted with delight. This was the beginning of a project that would last 7 years and would finally be rounded off with the opening of the new Groningen Museum by Queen Beatrix on 29 October 1994.
LOCATION
Having examined all kinds of possible locations, a preparatory committee finally decided in favour of the ‘Zwaaikom’, a broader part of the Verbindings Canal on the southern edge of the inner city. It is a historical location, adjoining the stately 19th-century avenues with the mansions that were built on the site of the old city fortifications. The Verbindings Canal, linking other waterways as the name suggests, occupies the place where the city moat once lay. The main railway station and a ribbon of office blocks dating from the last few decades line the other side of the water. It is a unique location, connecting the station area to the inner city.
Mendini
The decision to appoint Alessandro Mendini, an Italian designer/architect whose work also appears in the Groningen Museum collection, was taken almost immediately. The spirit of the 1980s, a period that is strongly represented in the collection of Modern Art, radiates from his work. With regard to the new building, his vision and working method found a perfect match in the ideas of Frans Haks, the erstwhile Director of the Museum. There was one element in particular that was certain: it had to be an extraordinary building, both inviting and accessible – the Museum’s visiting card.
Mendini, born in 1931, is a versatile man. Besides being an architect, he is also a designer, artist, theorist, and poet. In 1988, the Groninger Museum presented a large-scale retrospective of his activities in which his multifaceted artistry was expressed. Mendini also publishes a great deal, writing columns in international magazines, thus reinforcing his reputation as a theorist of new design.
STARTING POINTS
In 1987, the point of departure for the new Museum was the nature and the character of the various collections that constitute the Groninger Museum: Archaeology and History of Groningen; Applied Art, with the collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain as an important subcollection; Traditional Painting (from approx. 1500 to 1950); and Modern Art (from 1950 until the present). These four completely different collections form the identity of the Museum and, as such, should all be visible in the building, each in its own domain. At the same time, the new building had to be a archetype of developments in art and architecture in the 1980s. As a result, initiating a co-operative effort by various architects and/or designers seemed to be a logical step, so that diverse perspectives could be combined and the separate collections could be appropriately expressed.
DEMANDS AND DESIRES
Mendini was bound by a number of demands from the Municipality. A direct link between the station and the inner city (a bridge for pedestrians and cyclists) had to be included in the design, inland shipping had to be able to pass through the canal, and one had to be able to see the one shore from the other (the so-called ‘transparency’ of the design). Taking these requirements into account, there followed a lengthy planning process in which all kinds of ideas and designs were investigated. The definitive design was approved in November 1990. However, due to an appeal to the Council of State lodged by opponents of the Groninger Museum, it took until April 1992 before construction could actually begin.
MENDINI’S PHILOSOPHY
DESIGN
To what principles does Mendini adhere in this kind of design? He believes that the use of decoration is deeply rooted in humankind and, accordingly, decoration must be the starting point of design. Functionalists dismiss decoration because it draws attention away from the true issue, the function of the building. Their work is sober, with full attention being given to the efficiency of the design. This leads to impersonal mass production, according to opponents. In Mendini’s opinion, people no longer want mass products. People are individuals and need something personal rather than the anonymity of the functional environment. ‘Everyone is different,’ says Mendini, ‘so why shouldn’t an object also be different?’
NO ESTABLISHED NORM
Mendini’s work has a number of striking features. Mendini rejects traditional hierarchies (such as painting being on a higher level than applied art, for example) and a historical division into time and place. In his view, art-historical styles, exotic cultures and kitsch are all equally important.
INTERACTION OF DISCIPLINES
This standpoint gives rise to a second characteristic feature of his work, the interweaving of disciplines. Mendini holds the opinion that there are no boundaries between the various activities in which he is engaged. Theatre, painting, sculpture, architecture, and science can all be used freely and interchangeably. He thinks that any distinction between these disciplines is nonsense. He also believes that everything has already been conceived and applied. As a result, the only way of acting is to employ things in new combinations – it is merely a matter of redesign. Existing designs are subsequently given a new decoration, often originating in a different discipline. Painting is a particularly important source of decoration.
CO-OPERATION
A third distinctive feature of Mendini’s work consists of co-operation with others. He works with contemporary artists, architects and designers in creating furniture, objects, clothes, décors, paintings, theatre performances, ceramics, and jewellery. The yearning to transgress the boundaries of the traditional disciplines tends to mean that Mendini is more engaged as a director and deviser of ideas than as an executor.
DIRECTOR
One of the joint efforts in which Mendini acted as a supervisor was the creation of the series of tea and coffee services for Alessi. In 1980-83, eleven silver tea services were created by the Italian firm Alessi in a very limited edition. Mendini commissioned ten of the most important modern architects, each of whom designed one of the sets. They included Hans Hollein (who also designed the Abteiberg Museum in Mönchengladbach) and Aldo Rossi (the architect of the new Bonnefanten Museum in Maastricht). The assignment was to design a service in which the teapot, milk jug and sugar pot were small buildings on a plaza. Thus arose a series of eleven tea services that belong to
both the history of tea and coffee sets and also to modern design and architecture. In fact, the service project can be regarded as a precursor of the Groninger Museum. Since the beginning of 2002, the Groninger Museum has owned a complete series of these currently famous sets.
A later project by Alessi encompassed 100 porcelain vases. Mendini designed the basic shape and 99 artists and designers from all over the world added decoration. The Groninger Museum has work by many of these artists in its collection. In another project, 33 mirrors for the Glas Company, Mendini supplied the decoration and different designers repeatedly determined the form. The decoration here is a Signac motif, borrowed from a pointillist painting by Paul Signac (end 19th century). This motif, first applied to Proust’s chair (1979) recurs in all kinds of variations in the Interno di un Interno installation, and again in a Swatch watch (Lots of Dots, 1991), the staircase of the Groninger Museum, and on the exterior of the east pavilions. All the above-mentioned designs by Mendini and the guest designers are part of the Groninger Museum collection.
GUEST ARCHITECTS
A number of guest architects were invited to design sections, pavilions, of the new Museum: the Italian designer Michele de Lucchi, Philippe Starck from Paris, and, at a rather late date, the Coop Himmelb(l)au group which has offices in Vienna and Los Angeles. There was also co-operation with Dutch architects and designers, such as the Groningen architects’ office Team 4 (project architect), Albert Geertjes and Geert Koster.
THE BUILDING
Mendini’s basic design consists of three separate, simple and austere building units lying longitudinally in the Verbindings Canal, connected by passageways. These passageways also serve as bridges. A sky-blue lift bridge for cyclists and pedestrians traverses the complex. It not only links the two shores, it is also a section of the route between the station and the inner city. Thus, the Museum has become an entrance gate to the centre.
Each building block has several sections: pavilions that are superposed or juxtaposed. Each pavilion has its own special function and, consistent with this, its own shape, colour and material.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OUTSIDE AND IN
The exterior gives a direct indication that this is a building presenting various forms of art and design. The bridge, marked by a blue, arched gate, also conceals a surprise. When the bridge has been lifted to allow ships to pass, a work of art by Wim Delvoye can be seen on the underside. Magnified Delftware tiles, with apparently 17th-century emblems, refer to the collections of applied art and traditional painting. In contrast, the form is completely modern. The games depicted are not genuine representations but are cartoons thought up by Delvoye and the tiles are actually large stickers.
A sculpture by Mendini graces the centre of the piazza, in front of the entrance. It is an autonomous work, a sofa and also a guide: the ground plan of the Museum is expressed in a vertical form, thus producing a hominoid figure. Looking from the doorway, the red neon ceiling by François Morellet can be seen in the entrance hall. The oval lines of this artwork, specially created for this location, continue the lines of the exterior architecture.
THE CENTRAL PAVILION
The first eye-catcher is, of course, the gold-coloured central tower, which is over 30 metres tall. This tower accommodates the repositories and also the entrance to the Museum. In Mendini’s opinion, the repository, often muffled away in cellars or inconspicuous auxiliary buildings, is the heart of a museum, the treasure chamber in which the most valuable possession, the Museum collection, is kept. For this reason, it has been given a central position and a gold-coloured laminate coating. The tower dazzles in the sunshine and no longer resembles a ship but evokes notions of a church. Mutually identical blocks flank the tower. One is clad in pink concrete slabs, the other in pastel green. The repetition of the squares emphasises the symmetry: laminate, concrete slabs,
small square mosaic stones, and the office windows on the upper floors.
The green part on the south side has large windows. This section accommodates the café-restaurant with its splendid view of the water and passing ships.
THE ENTRANCE HALL
The entrance hall was radically renewed in 2002. On the left-hand side is a large counter with cash registers and a plasma information screen, showing prices and information on current exhibitions. Adjoining this is the entrance to the Museum shop. On the right-hand section of the hall are two smaller counters with screens that provide information on activities in the Museum and cultural-historical information on Groningen, furnished by the Tourist Information Office. The entrance to the café-restaurant lies between these two information points. The hall is open public space and entrance during opening hours is free. The renovation has made the hall more of a meeting place and an information area.
THE CENTRAL STAIRWAY
The spiral stairway is the actual entrance to the Museum and its treasures and is also the central point of orientation. Furthermore, it is also an autonomous work of art. The characteristics of Mendini’s work are again expressed here. The visitor must descend rather than climb the staircase as in almost all other museums (to the ‘higher’ arts). The mosaic stones, applied by Italian craftsmen, are reminiscent of Byzantine mosaics from Ravenna, while the form of the spiral stairway recalls Moorish structures.
Via the stairway, the visitor enters the passages to the exhibition pavilions. Oval exhibition areas, supporting small plazas on the outside, lie between the central section and the exhibition pavilions.
The semicircular windows in the passageways evoke the ambience of a cloister. The dominant colour of the windows, light blue, refers to the water outside and is reflected in the exterior coating where capricious water channels have been applied to the material.
WEST SECTION
West of the central section are two pavilions, one above the other. The lower one, a square slightly tapering towards the top, was originally constructed to house the Archaeology and History of the Town and Province of Groningen collection. This is clearly evident on the exterior of the building: it is clad in red brick, traditionally the most common building material in Groningen. Furthermore, it gives the impression of a fort and calls to mind the roundels of the strongholds that were constructed on this site in the middle of the 17th century. Two lions from the collection, which originated from the Farnsum estate house, guard the fort.
This layout has been consigned to the annals of Groningen history since 1998. The historical layout could no longer satisfy expectations. The recently renovated pavilion currently bears the name ‘Beringer-Hazewinkel Ploeg pavilion’, referring to its new content: a safe home for the Groningen artists’ association De Ploeg and other North European Expressionists. The pavilion was also called after the family Beringer-Hazewinkel that funded the pavilion. The new layout was also made by the Italian Michele de Lucchi (1951), who designed the original pavilion.
BERINGER-HAZEWINKEL PLOEG PAVILION
The Beringer-Hazewinkel Ploeg pavilion consists of a central part, presenting objects from Groningen cultural history, and six rooms for temporary exhibitions of De Ploeg and other expressionists, three on either side, with a connecting zone behind the central area. Through a window, the visitor can gain a glimpse of the Villa Heymans, now a part of Groningen’s architectural history, designed by Berlage and built in the same red brick as the De Ploeg pavilion. Berlage was also the first to formulate a plan to connect the central station with the inner city and, as such, anticipated the function of the present Museum. A striking feature is the vividly coloured walls of the exhibition areas, whose intensity is reinforced by the application of coloured light.
STARCK PAVILION
Above the brick section lies a circular pavilion displaying objects in the Applied Art category. The exterior is clad with aluminium plates upon which vase shapes can be seen in the embossment. Thus, here is also a direct reference to the contents. The building was designed by the French designer Philippe Starck (1949), in close conjunction with Albert Geertjes.
Starck created an illuminated circular showcase for this area, entirely girdling the diagonal interior wall. This showcase presents the internationally renowned collection of porcelain from the Far East, in which the emphasis lies on East-West relations. With the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam, the Princessehof in Leeuwarden and the Gemeente Museum in The Hague, the Groninger Museum has one of the richest collections of Asian ceramics.
The round hall is divided by means of winding curtains. Exceptional arrangements are presented in the spaces that are thus created, where the visitor can concentrate on the porcelain or on other user items such as furniture and Japanese lacquer ware.
The method of presentation is attuned to the nature and special features of the objects. Large artificial fissures have been applied to the concrete floors and walls, resembling the craquelé of porcelain. The lift is bell-shaped and thus refers to applied art and also to Starck’s own designs, such as the cheese rasp/container Mister MeuMeu, dating from 1992, which is a stylised cow’s head. Starck combines form and content in a light-hearted and humorous way. On opening, one of the horns of Mister MeuMeu turns out to be a spoon. A playful element in the applied art pavilion is the aquarium filled with porcelain. It contains some of the famous collection of 'Geldermalsen porcelain', Chinese porcelain from the middle of the 18th century which lay at the bottom of the South China Sea for centuries after the wreck of the VOC ship ‘De Geldermalsen’. Many important pieces were donated to the Groninger Museum after the porcelain had been recovered by Captain Michael Hatcher in 1986. These pieces have again ‘put to sea’ in this pavilion.
The curtains, the splendidly designed showcases, and the remarkable lighting effects collectively produce elegant and alluring spaces that do full justice to the objects. In addition, the curtains have a useful soundproofing effect. A visit to this pavilion resembles a voyage of discovery with all kinds of surprising effects.
The theatrical layout by Philippe Starck is exceptional and original, and commands the attention of the visitor. It is an excellent example of the latest ideas on exhibition layout, where traditional methods of display in a neutral area alternate with exciting arrangements that fire the imagination.
EAST SECTION
MENDINI PAVILIONS
‘Classical’ museum architecture is also represented in the Museum, on the east side of the complex. The lower pavilion (Mendini 0), which is trapeziform, consists of two storeys and was designed entirely – both the interior and the exterior – by Mendini. The pointillist Signac motif on the exterior refers to the interior containing the visual arts. The seven consecutive halls on the ground floor are devoted to temporary exhibitions. Expositions of all kinds and composition are presented here, as long as they fit in with the policy and collection of the Groninger Museum. Recent exhibitions have included Jozef Israëls (1999), Anton Corbijn (2000), ‘Hell and Heaven, the Middle Ages in the North’ by Peter Greenaway (2001), and Ilja Repin (2002).
The spaces on the first floor (Mendini 1) display ever-changing selections from the Museum’s own collection, including objects at the interface of art, architecture and design (Pattern and Decoration, Memphis, Mendini) and, since the end of the 1990s, a sizeable collection of fashion and of staged and documentary photographs. Art from the Museums abundant historical collection is also regularly shown.
CLASSICAL LAYOUT
The largest rectangular area is situated in the middle of the square ground plan, with smaller areas
surrounding it. These, too, are rectangular and differ in size. The various dimensions are necessary because all kinds of art, large and small, must be able to be shown here. The areas are austere and simple and, as a result, have a rather classical appearance. The broad portals, whose metal framing becomes wider towards the bottom, accentuate this. Mendini did not apply the enfilade system, frequently deployed in many museums in the 19th century, in which the portals of consecutive areas lie in line. The further décor of the areas on the ground floor, used for the temporary exhibitions, is dependent on the type of exhibition organised. The colours of the walls, and even of the floors and ceilings, are repeatedly altered.
On the first floor, used for the presentation of Modern Visual Art, each space has its own particular colour, following a colour scheme developed by the Dutch artist Peter Struycken.
Just as in the west pavilions, where ‘traditional’ art objects are displayed in a renewed environment, the classical areas here on the first floor contrast with the modern, often innovative art presented. In Mendini 0, a refuge has been installed where the visitor can relax and look out of the window. As with the other pavilions, there is no daylight here. Mendini 1 accommodates a print gallery, constructed with financial support from the Beringer-Hazewinkel Foundation.
COOP HIMMELB(L)AU PAVILION
The vide with the broad staircase connects the two floors of the Mendini pavilion. The staircase also takes the visitor to the top pavilion, the much-discussed section of the Museum. It was designed by the architects Wolfgang Prix (Vienna, 1942) and the Pole Helmut Swiczinsky (1944), jointly known as Coop Himmelb(l)au. ‘It was as if a bomb had exploded’, said one city resident when the design was published. The capricious pavilion contrasts markedly with the rest of the building, designed by Mendini, with its austere and simple forms.
The first impression of the Coop Himmelb(l)au pavilion is one of randomness and chaos. The structure is comprised of large, double-walled steel plates that alternate with hardened glass at the points where they do not quite meet. The plates, to which the first sketch and a photograph of the design have been applied using tar, are topsy-turvy and even hang over the pavilion underneath at some points.
DECONSTRUCTIVISM
The design is a typical example of the most recent architectural movement, Deconstructivism, in which all architectural traditions are thrown overboard. Traditional constructive elements, such as the wall, floor, window or ceiling, have been torn out of their normal coherence. Thus, a wall can also be a ceiling and a window a floor. According to Prix, the spaces that are created in this way are a result of force fields and movement. ‘Many of the techniques that we use originate from art, such as the adherence to the first sketch and automatic drawing,’ he says. ‘We wish to make use of the subconscious and develop new forms from there. We want to try to bring emotion back into architecture.’
He does not take established values and norms as his starting point but prefers to seize the spirit of the times: fragmentation, chaos, contrast, movement. Another example of deconstructivist architecture is the glass pavilion by Bernard Tschumi at the Hereplein, near the Museum, designed in 19.. for the What a Wonderful World exhibition – music videos in architecture.
Three exhibition areas have been created within the pavilion, separated by indentations and recesses. The walls are made of steel and glass so that daylight can enter at unexpected places. This also contrasts with Mendini’s closed realm. Coop Himmelb(l)au aims to generate ’open architecture', an interaction between inside and out, so that the visitor is regularly surprised by sudden glimpses of the outside world. Paths at different levels ensure that the visitor can view the artworks from all sides: at ground level or from the gantry that cuts through the exhibition area a few metres above the floor. The original idea was to display paintings from the 16th-19th centuries here, to emphasise the contrast. Later, the pavilion came to be used primarily for three-dimensional work, such as exhibitions of the work of the British artist Mark Grinnigen and the American Rona Pondick. The areas here are extremely suitable for large receptions. Even dance parties are held here
occasionally at festive openings. The whole Coop Himmelb(l)au pavilion is a three-dimensional artwork, resting on the pedestal formed by the Mendini volume clad in colourful laminate.
THE MUSEUM AS A WORK OF ART
The new Groninger Museum is not merely a shell to accommodate art, it is a work of art in itself – a principle that is increasingly being applied in modern (museum) architecture elsewhere. In fact, the Museum itself is the most valuable item in the Groninger Museum collection of art. It is a work of art at the heart of the city, traversed by public areas where passers-by are directly confronted by all kinds of artwork. Could it be more inviting?
Source: www.groningermuseum.nl
Photo © Eddy Westveer
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