Dr. Gottlieb Friedrich Reber

Swiss, born Germany, 1880 - 1959

Explore Selected Works

Painted with loose, visible brushstrokes mostly in shades of spring green, sky blue, straw yellow, and ivory white, four couples lock in intense embraces across a landscape in front of a body of water in this nearly square painting. Trees rise up and off the top edges to both sides of the canvas, and a band of green grass runs across the width. Just beyond, a body of pale blue water extends to the horizon, which comes about a quarter of the way up the composition. Off-white clouds swirl against the topaz-blue sky above. Three pairs of people are spaced evenly across the grass, close to us, and the fourth pair are on a steep rise to our right. The people all have pale or slightly peachy skin, and most of them have honey-yellow hair. The painting technique is loose throughout, making many details, especially facial features and some body parts, indistinct. Near the lower left corner, a nude person crouches on the ground with an arm raised overhead while another person, nude except for a few swipes of brick red to suggest a cape, stands above with one arm raised. At the center of the painting, two people with long, blond hair seem to embrace, though the one farther from us is partially or wholly lifted off the ground. To our right, a tanned person kneels over a pale, nude woman with rounded breasts and hips. Their heads blend together, possibly to suggest that they kiss, and one of them has black hair. They hold hands locked overhead. Dark gray strokes nearby in the lower right corner of the painting suggest a dog leaping at this couple. The fourth pair is on a sand-colored rise, about halfway up the right edge of the composition. They are even more loosely painted, but one person seems to grab onto the other as they tip toward the ground or water below.
Paul Cezanne, The Battle of Love, c. 1880, oil on canvas, Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman, 1972.9.2

The Battle of Love

Paul Cezanne · c. 1880 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1972.9.2

Shown from the hips up, a pale-skinned woman wearing a tightly corseted dress looks off to our left in this vertical pastel drawing. The portrait is loosely sketched with blended areas, giving it a soft look. The woman’s body is angled to our left, and her hands touch in front of her lower belly. She looks off with large, wide set, slightly bulging green eyes under dark brows. She has a round face, full pink lips, and the suggestion of a dimple in her chin. Her dark brown hair is pulled up under a gold band, and bangs curl across her forehead. A short, delicate ringlet curls up the nape of her neck. She wears a light-colored, round earring in the ear we see and a string of pearls, which may hold a round jewel that rests in the hollow of her throat. Her dress is powder blue down the front and coffee bean brown to either side and on the sleeves. The edges of the brown sections are lined with flowers drawn loosely in shades of pastel pink, blue, yellow, and green. The low, curving neckline is edged with white ruffles, and the waist is cinched to an almost startling degree. The sleeves come down just past her elbow, and the cuffs are also lined with white ruffles. Long, tan-colored gloves stretch back to the cuffs. The background is fog gray. The artist signed and dated the pastel faintly in the lower left corner, “Manet 1882.”
Edouard Manet, Madame Michel-Lévy, 1882, pastel on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.161

Madame Michel-Lévy

Edouard Manet · 1882 · pastel on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.161

A woman wearing a sheer white blouse, short red and gold vest, and full-legged, patterned pants cinched below the knee lies back and looks at us with hooded eyes in this horizontal painting. Her shoulders lean back against an oversized white pillow, up along the right edge of the composition. Her body tips toward us, and her knees are bent so her feet are together in the lower left corner. Her right arm rests along the side of her body, and she props herself up with her other arm. That hand has a gold band on the ring finger. Her light skin is tinged with green on her face. Her head rolls slightly away from us so she looks down her cheeks at us with slitted, dark eyes through heavily lined lids. She has dark brows, and her rose-red lips are parted. The angle of her head creates a slight double chin. Gold hoops with dangling fringe or chains hang from her ears, and she wears three strands of dark beads around her neck. Her black hair is plaited in a thick braid that comes down over her left shoulder, closer to us. A cap made of gold-colored disks and red fringe sits on the far side of her head. The woman’s clothing is more loosely painted. We may see her breasts and pink nipples through her sheer, silver-gray tunic, which has long, voluminous sleeves. The short, bolero-style vest is strawberry red and gold, with narrow cap sleeves. A sea-blue sash around her waist is striped with overlapping burnt-orange and black lines. Her pants have flaring legs gathered with a button just below her knees. The pattern is of sage-green circles with swipes of rust-red in the center, suggesting flowers and vines against a black background. Her knees are spread open so her feet can barely be contained within the composition. Her teal-green slip-on shoes have the suggestion of flowers painted with dabs of yellow, black, and red, and a pompom atop each toe box. A red and gold cushion sits just beyond her feet. On it is a tray of oranges and an emerald-green jug. The pillow the woman leans on is propped against a short section of wall or piece of furniture painted with a border of roses. The room opens up beyond this, and has a turquoise and brown rug leading back to a cranberry-red sofa, on which a gray piece of fabric has been draped. The wall above is patterned with yellow and green diamonds and pink flowers against a laurel-green background. The artist signed the lower left, “A. Renoir. 70.”
Auguste Renoir, Odalisque, 1870, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.207

Odalisque

Auguste Renoir · 1870 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.207

Geometric and wavy shapes in areas of flat color come together as a person holding a small guitar, sitting on a green chair, in this vertical, abstracted painting. Some of the forms are outlined in black. Two dots and a curving line read as a modern smiley face on the person’s head, but a circle to our left and a tall, long oval to our right could be the eyes. The tall oval has short, cilia-like rays at the top and bottom, perhaps eyelashes. Pointed triangles along the bottom of the head area could be a beard or mustache. A shallow, upside-down, black U over the head is filled in with slate blue, and is presumably a hat. Areas on the torso have black grids creating diamond patterns against tomato red or bright yellow. Another area has vertical red and yellow dashes against a black background. Together they read as a diamond-patterned costume. The guitar is held vertically on the lap. It has an oversized neck vertically striped with black and white, an orange body with slivers of white to our left and black to our right. One hand holds the guitar near the tuning pegs and the other, represented with three wavy lines for fingers, touches the strings below. The chair behind the musician is grass green, and has curving sides and scrolling arms. The background behind the chair has vertical petal-pink and ocean-blue rectangles, against a wall that is off white above and rust brown below. The two zones of the wall are separated by a band with a Greek key pattern in charcoal gray and black. The artist signed and dated the top left corner, “Picasso 24.”
Pablo Picasso, Harlequin Musician, 1924, oil on canvas, Given in loving memory of her husband, Taft Schreiber, by Rita Schreiber, 1989.31.2

Harlequin Musician

Pablo Picasso · 1924 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1989.31.2

Abstracted objects, including a guitar, vase, papers, and playing cards, are gathered on a tabletop in this horizontal still life painting. The objects are made up of areas of mostly flat color and many are outlined in black, creating the impression that the some shapes are two-dimensional and assembled almost like a collage. The brown table has an oval top and a curving pedestal foot. At the center of the jumble on the tabletop, a guitar lies on its side with the neck facing us and reaching to our right. Beneath the black fretboard and neck, the curving form of the guitar is painted tomato red. The upper half is represented by a squared-off brown form. The guitar seems to rest atop or in front of an array of stacked shapes, like splayed pieces of paper, in white, lavender purple, and pale blue. A curving form painted in turquoise to our left seems to be a vase holding a spray of three flowers. The vase is shown against a white square painted with horizontal black lines, like sheet music. A dark gray form at the middle of the table, beneath the guitar, could be the silhouette of a bird facing our left. Just to the right of the bird, a pair of playing cards lie on a blue area. Painted in turquoise against gray, one card has six dots and the other one club. A chair with a curved, arching top and a gray upholstered seat is pulled up to the table to our right. The front left leg is light gray with turned knobs near the foot and halfway up the leg; the right leg is painted black, as if in shadow. Panels of pale tan suggest wainscotting behind the table beneath a pale gray wall across the background. The overall impression of the painting is fragmented as even single objects seem to be broken up into planes and areas of color. The artist signed and underlined his name with red paint in the lower left corner: “Picasso.”
Pablo Picasso, Still Life, 1918, oil on canvas, Chester Dale Collection, 1963.10.195

Still Life

Pablo Picasso · 1918 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1963.10.195

A few pale brown buildings with terracotta red roofs are nestled among hills at the base of a towering, icy-blue mountain in this horizontal landscape painting. Only the pale indigo-violet shadows of the mountain are laid in, leaving the rest as the white of the canvas. The buildings and muted brown hills, blue shadows, and touches of sage green below are loosely painted with visible brushstrokes throughout around more blank areas of canvas.
Paul Cezanne, Montagne Sainte-Victoire, from near Gardanne, c. 1887, oil on canvas, Gift of the W. Averell Harriman Foundation in memory of Marie N. Harriman, 1972.9.4

Montagne Sainte-Victoire, from near Gardanne

Paul Cezanne · c. 1887 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1972.9.4

A row of structures and a massive weeping willow tree line the clay-orange riverbank opposite us in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is painted loosely with long, visible brushstrokes. Taking up much of the right side of the painting, the tree has emerald, moss, fern, and olive-green leaves with brown and purple trunk and roots. It casts long, gently rippling reflections in the water. The structures to our left are enclosed behind a terracotta-colored wall with a square tower. A second segment of wall, to our left, is charcoal gray. Trees grow up behind the structures. The sky above is painted with mingled strokes of lavender purple, baby blue, and white.
Paul Cezanne, Banks of the Seine at Médan, c. 1885/1890, oil on canvas, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Collection, 1970.17.21

Banks of the Seine at Médan

Paul Cezanne · c. 1885/1890 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1970.17.21

Bibliography

1913

  • Waldmann, Emil. "Die Sammlung Reber." Kunst und Künstler XI (1913): 441+.

  • Sonderausstellungen deutscher Privatsammlungen im Städtischen Austellungs-Gebäude auf der Mathildenhöhhe zu Darmstadt II: Gemaelde Sammlung G.F. Reber, Barmen. Intro. by Georg Bierman. Darmstadt, 1913.

1930

  • E., C. "Moderne Sammler Dr. G.F. Reber Lausanne (Anlässlich seines 50. Geburstags)." Weltkunst 4, no. 14 (6 April 1930):10.

1991

  • Kosinski, Dorothy. "G.F. Reber: collector of Cubism." The Burlington Magazine 133 (1991):519

1993

  • Geelhaar, Christian. Picasso: Wegbereiter und Förderer seines Aufsteigs 1899-1939. Zurich, c. 1993: 157-164

2001

  • Kropmanns, Peter and Uwe Fleckner, "Von Kontinentaler Bedeutung: Gottlieb Freidrich Reber und seine Sammlungen," in Die Moderne und ihre Sammler. Berlin, 2001:347-407