Dear Friends,
I hope that you had the opportunity to enjoy our two splendid fall exhibitions, Johan Zoffany RA: Society Observed and Adapting the Eye: An Archive of the British in India, 1770–1830. Johan Zoffany will remain on view through February 12 and will open to the public at the Royal Academy of Arts in London on March 10. Both exhibitions have been well received by many audiences, and have served as superb opportunities for teaching in the galleries.
Our contribution to this year’s exciting university-wide program, Shakespeare at Yale, includes the exhibition “While these visions did appear”: Shakespeare on Canvas, drawn from the Center’s permanent collection of paintings. The exhibition conjures the richness of Shakespeare’s scenes and characters through a range of visual interpretations executed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and focuses particularly on the playwright’s comedies.
On February 1 we open Making History: Antiquaries in Britain, with a lecture by Maurice Howard, Professor of Art History, University of Sussex, and President, Society of Antiquaries of London. Making History offers an extraordinary opportunity to see precious artifacts of international importance collected by the Society, including a remarkable manuscript copy of the Magna Carta. Alongside these treasures from the Society, Elisabeth Fairman, Senior Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Center, has selected associated works from the Center’s collections, as well as from those of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Elizabethan Club of Yale University, the Lewis Walpole Library, and the Yale University Art Gallery. The exhibition has been organized by the Society of Antiquaries of London in association with the Center and the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, where it was on view in autumn 2011.
Art in Focus: Tudor Panel Painting, our sixth annual exhibition by our Student Guides, will open on April 13. Working with the Paintings Conservation Department, the guides are using technical analysis to explore the materials and techniques of Tudor panel painting, and will craft a revealing look at this little-known part of the Center’s collection. The Student Guides’ exhibition has been used as a springboard to launch a collaborative project with the National Portrait Gallery, London, whose Making Art in Tudor Britain is an innovative program of research on early English painting practice. Last October Ian Tyres, a specialist from Sheffield, conducted a dendro-chronological study on twenty of the Center’s early panel paintings. His work enhances our understanding of wood panel sources, construction, and dates of execution; we now are fully embarked on a technical study of our collection.
A second collaborative international project has been inspired by the Wallace Collection Reynolds Conservation Advisory Committee, of which Mark Aronson, Chief Conservator of Paintings, is a member. We also have launched a complementary project looking at Yale’s rich Reynolds holdings that will help to inform us about the artist’s complex painting techniques.
In addition to the paintings, sculpture, drawings, prints, rare books and manuscripts, and library holdings accessible through our online catalogue, I am delighted that the Center has begun to make available records for its exceptional historic frame collection. The Center joins a select group of institutions that have placed information about their frames online, and in the coming months we will continue with this effort until the entire frame collection is represented. Stemming from a complete survey of our frames undertaken by Paul Mitchell, renowned frame historian, this addition to the online catalogue will mark an important step in advancing the study of picture frames.
On April 19, novelist and essayist Amitav Ghosh will present the Andrew Carnduff Ritchie Lecture entitled China and the Making of Modern India, bringing a modern perspective to a region whose historical and cultural significance has been presented eloquently both in Adapting the Eye and Johan Zoffany.
As always, we are indebted to our generous donors and supporters who continue to build on the largess of our founder, Paul Mellon, and to make possible our numerous activities, from acquisitions to research and teaching. In particular, we express our gratitude to Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie for their spectacular gift
of twenty-four striking works by Patrick Caulfield, John Hoyland, Ian Stephenson, and John Walker, many of which were featured in The Independent Eye: Contemporary British Art from the Collection of Samuel and Gabrielle Lurie. The Luries’ present donation is associated with a larger promised gift that will bring their entire collection of British art to the Center. Other recent gifts include George Frederick Watts’ Hope, from Claire and Albert J. Zuckerman, Yale School of Drama MFA 1961, DFA 1962, and James McNeill Whistler’s Green and White–Dieppe, given in memory of John B. Oliver, Yale BA 1941, by his family, and augmenting our small but choice collection of Whistler watercolors. Dorothy C. Weicker has presented us with our first work by Michael Andrews, Shadow (small version), in honor and memory of her parents, Beatrice Trostell and Frederick E. Weicker, Yale BS 1931. A lively drawing of a calvary skirmish by Jan Wyck is among the gifts of Rutgers Barclay, Yale BA 1957, and John D. Viener, Yale BA 1961, has donated an important group of natural history prints. The Kasser/Mochary Family Foundation gift of the Jesus College Quincentennial portfolio includes works by Richard Long, Eduardo Paolozzi, John McLean, and Barry Flanagan, among other modern British artists. Our collection of posters and photographs continues to grow through the generosity of Henry S. Hacker, Yale BA 1965. The Center also has received a painting by Thomas Phillips from Thomas Lowe Hughes, Yale JD 1952, as well as prints, memorabilia, and ephemera from the Hohenzollern-Schalbert-Hughes Collection. The latter are part of a larger gift to Yale; other beneficiaries include the Yale University Art Gallery and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Please visit the Center to enjoy these wonderful additions to our magnificent collections, as well as our full schedule of engaging exhibitions and programs. We look forward to seeing you in the New Year!
Amy Meyers
Director