Art Of The Day Weekly
#252 - from 29 March 2012 to 4 April 2012
Leonidas Giannakopoulos, Untitled (fly), 2011. Ink on paper, 23x25 cm. Courtesy Galerie Elika, Athens (Drawing Now 2012, Carrousel du Louvre, Paris)
IN THE AIR
Paris, world capital of drawing
Everyone knows Paris plays a role in tribal art, in books or photography. Here we have the proof that drawing is one of the strong points of the French capital. Following the Salon du dessin, a pioneer event created in 1991 and which has been set up since 2004 at the Palais-Brongniart, others have gradually been added to rendez-vous in the same spirit, some of them closely connected (like the Semaine du dessin, a series of exhibitions and demonstrations in the museums) or other times completely independent. Among them there are other fairs defined as “satellites”, focused on contemporary production, like Drawing Now at the Carrousel du Louvre (82 galleries for this 6th edition) or Chic Dessin at the Atelier Richelieu. To reinforce the program, auction houses also take part in this movement by reinforcing their sales with beautiful sheets. It is often said that drawings are a good launching pad for beginner collectors. This saying is mostly proven in times of crisis …
• Salon du dessin at the Palais-Brongniart, 28 March - 2 April 2012
• Drawing Now, salon du dessin contemporain at the Carrousel du Louvre, 29 March - 1st April 2012
• Chic Dessin at the Atelier Richelieu, 30 March – 1st April 2012
• The FID (Foire internationale du dessin) has become totally virtual this year.
• Auction Dessins anciens et du XIXe siècle at Christie’s 29 March 2012
• Auction Dessins anciens at Millon & Associés, 2 April 2012
EXHIBITIONS
Leonardo da Vinci, Study for St Anne, the Madonna and Child, and the Lamb.Circa 1500-1501. Lead pencil, pen and ink, with two different brown inks. Venice, Gallerie dell’Accademia, n.230 © SSPSAE e per il polo museale della città di Venezia e dei comuni della gronda lagunare, Venice.
Leonardo and the mysteries of Saint Anne
PARIS – Following his large exhibition at the National Gallery, Leonardo is back in full force. This time, it is the restoration of one of his masterpieces, Saint Anne from the Louvre, that is the reason for bringing together nearly130 works (among which is the newly found Mona Lisa from the Prado). There is still a lot to be decrypted! Who commissioned him? François I or a noble Florentine? What is the history of this painting and why did the Saint-John the Baptist, present on the Burlington House card, disappear and leave his place to the Christ like lamb? We can add one more element to this list of mysteries, Freud’s intervention and his vision of a vulture in the Virgin’s blue shawl, proof he said of Leonardo’s homosexuality… Preparatory sketches as well as works – from Metsys to Redon – inspired from this endless composition (that started in the beginning of the XVIth century, Leonardo brought it to France and left it unfinished when he died in 519) complete the exhibition, all in honor of an idea incarnated in the drawing…
• La Sainte Anne, l’ultime chef-d’œuvre de Léonard de Vinci at the musée du Louvre, 29 March - 25 June 2012.
These exhibitions are also opening...
BASEL - Renoir. Entre bohème et bourgeoisie presents at the Kunstmuseum the painter’s younger years. 1st April -12 August 2012.
GRENOBLE – A loan from the Die Brücke museum in Berlin allows the museum in Grenoble to present a large retrospective of this movement that preceded Expressionism. Du 30 mars au 17 juin 2012.
LONDON – The Victoria & Albert Museum gives a presentation on English creativity after WW II in British Design 1948-2012. 31 March -12 August 2012.
MADRID – The Museo nacional de Cataluña draws up an assessment of international gothic art in Cataluña 1400. 29 March -15 July 2012.
SAINT PAUL DE VENCE –The Fondation Maeght presents a Tuscan alter ego, the Collection Gori, that celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. 31 March - 10 June 2012.
AUCTIONS
Henri Martin, Clémence Isaure, 1895, oil on canvas slightly arched, wooden frame with gold stuc, signed and dated at borttom right, 67x55 cm. Collection Paul Riff. Estimate: €35.000 /€50.000 €. Courtesy Carole Jézéquel - Rennes Enchères.
The trove of Henri Martin
RENNES - Henri Martin (1860-1943) is an artist often present in auctions, particularly I Anglo-Saxon countries where most of the records for his work have been set, among them the highest bid for Pergola à l’automne, €740 000 at Sotheby’s in London in 2007. That is why it is such a surprise to see him up for sale in Brittany, and more so with a series of 42 paintings! This nearly miraculous discovery is owed to Carole Jézéquel, an auctioneer in Rennes during an expertise. These paintings were inherited by the current owners some thirty years ago but had practically been abandoned since, and were part of the collection of a magistrate, Paul Riff (president of the Court of Appeals of Douai) and have kept the original large Art nouveau frames. As they have never been exhibited they are very “fresh” and therefore should tempt foreign clients with a range of estimates both large and restrained (between €2500 and €160 000).
Collection Paul Riff 1st April at Rennes Enchères
ARTIST OF THE WEEK
Yvan Salomone, Une caravane, 2001, watercolor on paper, 104 x 145 cm. Courtesy galerieofmarseille
Yvan Salomone, the real color of watercolors
He claims the use of watercolors, an “old fashioned” technique, to represent the world. It was thus that Yvan Salomone participated in the project of artistic accompaniment of the third tramline in Paris by drawing scenes during the construction, and then transcribed them in large formats (104 x 145 cm). Whether it is seascapes of ports in Brittany (the artist was born in Saint-Malo in 1957 and still works there), caravans in poor areas, silos, carcasses of abandoned buildings, temporary construction site buildings, cranes or rails, these are all the neglected –and despised - dimensions of reality that attract him. He transforms them through games with colors, a little like topographer artists or painters of battles used to give their vision, that lasts longer because it is “built”, in other words organized in a hierarchy, allowing himself to take out details, accessories, a game with hazy views and shadows.
• Yvan Salomone is represented by galerieofmarseille, to be seen at Drawing Now
OPENINGS OF THE WEEK
BOOKS
Black Hugo
Like Soulages! The color black had an indescribable attraction on Victor Hugo. He liked the ink he used for writing as much as the one that allowed him to do wash drawings that fascinated the Surrealists, in their rush to see in him the pioneer of automatic writing. The thesis of the book, due to a great specialist of Sade, is that black is the instrument that allowed him to present all his obsessions – his fight against poverty, the death penalty, the exile imposed by Little Napoleon as of 1852, his madness, his solitude… This ink, these shadows also allowed him to immortalize his trips, based on little stains: Burg, the dilapidated castles, the lighthouse of Casquets and of course Hauteville House in Guernesey. Photographs by Edmond Bacot in 1862 show a house in the color of a sepulcher…
•
Les arcs-en-ciel du noir : Victor Hugo, par Annie Le Brun, Gallimard, 2012, 160 p., 19 €.
IN BRIEF
EUROPE – The Journées européennes des métiers d’art (European days of art professions) will held from 30 March to 1st April in France, Switzerland, Spain and Italy.
PARIS – Art Paris, the fair of modern and contemporary art, will be held at the Grand Palais from 29 March to 1st April 2012.
PARIS – The Cornette de Saint Cyr Auction house organizes 14 sales (of which art of the XXth century, decoration and collections including the one of Fernand Meyssonnier, one of the last French headsmen) from 1 to 5 April at the hôtel Salomon de Rothschild.