Page 21 - The MoMA/ Guggenheim issue of World of Art magazine (2001)

Masterpieces and Master Collectors: Impressionist and Early Modern
Paintings from the Guggenheim and Hermitage Museums

The inaugural exhibition at the Guggenheim Hermitage extensive suite of late 19th- and early 20th-century
museum presents a selectio of 45 masterpieces that masterpieces bequeathed to the museum by the
highlights the distinct but highly complementary strengths German-born dealer and collector Justin K. Thannhauser
of these two world-renowned collections, featuring key (1892–1976) and his wife Hilde. many other works in
examples of Impressionism, Post Impressionism, and the exhibition are gifts from Solomon r. Guggenheim’s
early modernism, including paintings by cézanne, chagall, private collection, or museum purchases made under his
Kandinsky, matisse, monet, Picasso, renoir, and van Gogh. auspices. Another painting, Picasso’s The Studio (1928),
comes from The Peggy Guggenheim collection in Venice,
The exhibition traces modernism’s roots in late 19th- Italy. Peggy Guggenheim (1898–1979) was Solomon’s
century France, beginning with claude monet’s lady niece, and she transferred her collection and palazzo
in the Garden (1867), one of the early monuments of in Venice to the Guggenheim Foundation in 1976. In
Impressionistic plein-air painting. A scene of urban leisure addition, important exchanges and outside donations have
by camille Pissarro and portraits by Pierre Auguste rounded out these core contributions to build the current
renoir demonstrate the range of subjects depicted by Guggenheim collection.
this innovative French avant-garde. Post Impressionism most of the Hermitage paintings in the exhibition originally
and early modernism are seen through a selection of belonged in the private holdings of Sergei Shchukin and
paintings that are striking for their daring flatness and Ivan morozov, two prominent russian businessmen who
use of color, including Paul Gauguin’s paintings of Tahiti’s each developed world-class collections of French painting.
exotic “primitives,” and Paul cézanne’s work in landscape,
portraiture, and still life. modernism’s continuation in The exhibition has been organized by lisa dennison,
the hands of the early 20th-century School of Paris can deputy director and chief curator, Solomon r.
be seen in the work of the great colorists Henri matisse Guggenheim museum, New York, and Albert Kostenevich,
and Pierre Bonnard; in fine examples of Pablo Picasso’s curator of modern european Painting, The State Hermitage
painting prior to and during the development of cubism; museum, St. Petersburg.
as well as in cubist works by Picasso’s contemporaries
Fernand léger, robert delaunay, and Frantisek Kupka. The This exhibition is sponsored by INTerroS Holding
exhibition also features paintings by marc chagall, André company.
derain, Franz marc, Amedeo modigliani, Henri rousseau,
louis Valtat, Kees Van dongen, and Vincent van Gogh. The The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated
exhibition ends with the abstraction of Vasily Kandinsky, catalogue with introductions by Thomas Krens, director,
including his great Paris-period painting, dominant curve Solomon r. Guggenheim Foundation, and dr. mikhail
(1936). Piotrovsky, director of The State Hermitage museum; and
narrative texts and historical overviews by lisa dennison
Several of the Guggenheim’s contributions to the and Albert Kostenevich. It will be available for $35
exhibition are part of the Thannhauser collection, an softcover and $45 hardcover.

WORLD of ART 19
WORLD of ART 19