Dulwich to host major
exhibition of watercolours by John Singer Sargent
In June 2017 Dulwich
Picture Gallery will present the first major UK exhibition of watercolours by
the Anglo-American artist, John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), since 1918.
A key selection of works
from over 30 lenders, including The lady with the umbrella, 1911, on display in
the UK for the first time, will offer an alternative perspective on Sargent,
demonstrating a technical brilliance and striking individuality.
‘Sargent: The
Watercolours’ will bring together 80
works from arguably Sargent’s greatest period of watercolour production between
1900 and 1918. Renowned as the leading portraitist of his generation, Sargent
mastered the medium of watercolour during his painting expeditions to Southern
Europe and the Middle East, where he developed a distinctive way of seeing and
composing. Whilst these watercolours have often been dismissed as simple travel
souvenirs, they were an integral part of Sargent’s artistic production.
Arranged thematically, the
exhibition will showcase Sargent’s landscapes, architectural structures and
figurative scenes. It will draw attention to the most radical aspects of his
oeuvre, in particular his use of the close-up to focus attention on a specific
motif, his unusual use of perspective and the arresting and dynamic poses of his
figures. The show will also serve as a startling reminder of Sargent’s mastery
of the visual complexities of light, the effects of which are present in almost
every one of his works.
Richard Ormond, co-curator
of the exhibition, said:
“In Sargent’s watercolours
we see his zest for life and his pleasure in the act of painting. The fluency
and sensuality of his paint surfaces, and his wonderful command of light, never
cease to astonish us. With this exhibition we hope to demonstrate Sargent’s
mastery of the medium and the scale of his achievement”.
Sargent practiced the art
of watercolour from a young age and continued to use it throughout his career,
his style developing in tandem with his work in oils. By 1900, aged 44 and at
the height of his career, he had grown restless, seeking escape from the
confines of his studio and the pressures of portrait commissions. Working en
plein air, he explored subjects of his own choosing, travelling to remote spots
where he could work undisturbed. For this purpose, he regularly turned to
watercolour, a medium that allowed him to paint, rapidly and without much
preparation, a scene that caught his eye.
The show will open with
some of the best examples of Sargent’s fragments and close-ups. Sargent rarely
painted buildings as complete and coherent entities; his sliced angles and
perspectives and the unorthodox viewpoints require the spectator to imagine
their complete form. In Rome: An Architectural Study, c. 1906-7, Sargent
records a corner of a building, concentrating on the effect of daylight on the
stone using contrasting warm and cool tones. In The Church of Santa Maria della
Salute, Venice, c. 1904-9, the domes of the great church are obscured by the
rigging of ships in the canal so that they become part of a pictorial pattern.
The show will go on to
explore Sargent’s depictions of cities, in particular, his paintings of
everyday life in Venice, which he often captures from canal level - the city
seen from the gondola perspective. Works also depict the less glamorous side
canals, with their narrow passageways, their strange geometries and the
mysterious play of light and shade. Painting some of the most famous sites in
other cities, Sargent only gives a glimpse of their grandeur, concentrating
more on the pattern and form surrounding as in the earlier work,
Constantinople, 1891, in which he depicts a strikingly horizontal view of the
historic center of Istanbul.
After the turn of the
twentieth-century, Sargent painted more landscapes than any other subject. His
scenes are often unconventional, opting for closely cropped details rather than
full, panoramic views. Sargent focused on form and surface pattern,
particularly in his mountain landscapes such as Bed of a Torrent, c. 1904. He
transforms mossy rocks and flowing brooks into a complex arrangement, rejecting
distance and scale. Similar to photographic snapshots, his landscapes, with
their informal compositions and abrupt cropping, capture a moment in time.
The exhibition will
culminate with a selection of Sargent’s figurative paintings, including
depictions of his travel companions, fellow artists and working people as in
Group of Spanish Convalescent Soldiers, c. 1903. In many of these works Sargent
rejects the primacy of the figure. In The lady with the umbrella, 1911, for
example, his subject is foreshortened and contorted, an avoidance of the
obviously pretty and picturesque.
The show will be curated by
Richard Ormond and Elaine Kilmurray, widely accepted as the UK reigning experts
in this field. Richard Ormond is Sargent’s grand-nephew. He was previously
director of the National Maritime Museum, London. Elaine Kilmurray is an art
historian, author and curator. She has worked with Richard on numerous
publications and co-curated exhibitions on Sargent’s work in London,
Washington, D.C., Boston, Ferrara and Los Angeles.
Loans will come from UK
institutions including Tate, The British Museum, The Fitzwilliam, The Imperial
War Museum and The Ashmolean, alongside works rarely seen from numerous private
collections. Key loans will also come from European institutions; Museu de
Montserrat, Abadia de Montserrat, Barcelona; the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian,
Lisbon and the Petit Palais, Musee de Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris.
The exhibition will be
accompanied by a fully illustrated colour exhibition catalogue and will feature
fascinating new research into Sargent’s watercolour oeuvre with lead essays
from the curators.
http://www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk/about/press-media/press-releases/dulwich-to-host-major-exhibition-of-watercolours-by-john-singer-sargent/
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