Past Exhibition

The Folding Image

A screen made up of five tall, rectangular panels, set side by side and each surrounded by a gold frame, is painted as a single scene showing a tree-lined sidewalk curving around a park in a city. The scene is loosely painted with short, rounded brushstrokes. The top two-thirds to three-quarters of most of the panels are filled with the lime and olive-green leaves of the trees that line the sidewalk and park. In the leftmost panel, the sidewalk and road lead back to a row of caramel-brown building façades. The sidewalk is pale taupe, and the street is painted with dashes of the same taupe against terracotta brown, suggesting cobblestones. Spindly trees are spaced in a row along the sidewalk in round holes covered with smoke-gray metal grates. A black fence, painted with thin, sometimes broken black lines encloses the park beyond, which has a path around plantings and the vivid green lawn. Touches of pink on a sage-green tree to our left in the park suggest flowers. A gray statue on a high plinth is partially lost in the break between the two rightmost panels. Men, women, and children, painted with a few strokes of black, gray, or marine or periwinkle blue, walk along the sidewalk and the garden path, or sit at the base of the fence or on benches spaced along the sidewalk. The women seem to wear long dresses and the men dark clothing and hats. Two carriages are pulled up on the street near a lamp post alongside the sidewalk near the lower left. In the leftmost panel, horse-drawn carriages move along the road leading back to the buildings, and more people seem to be gathered on the sidewalk near the left edge of the panel in the distance. The artist signed the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “E. Vuillard.” The panels of the screen have been set up so the panels rest on a platform or on the floor in a shallow zig-zag pattern, in a room with an off white wall and bisque-brown molding along the floor.
Edouard Vuillard, Place Vintimille, 1911, five-panel screen, distemper on paper laid down on canvas, Gift of Enid A. Haupt, 1998.47.1-5

Details

  • Dates

    -

  • Locations

    East Building, Concourse Level
A screen made up of five tall, rectangular panels, set side by side and each surrounded by a gold frame, is painted as a single scene showing a tree-lined sidewalk curving around a park in a city. The scene is loosely painted with short, rounded brushstrokes. The top two-thirds to three-quarters of most of the panels are filled with the lime and olive-green leaves of the trees that line the sidewalk and park. In the leftmost panel, the sidewalk and road lead back to a row of caramel-brown building façades. The sidewalk is pale taupe, and the street is painted with dashes of the same taupe against terracotta brown, suggesting cobblestones. Spindly trees are spaced in a row along the sidewalk in round holes covered with smoke-gray metal grates. A black fence, painted with thin, sometimes broken black lines encloses the park beyond, which has a path around plantings and the vivid green lawn. Touches of pink on a sage-green tree to our left in the park suggest flowers. A gray statue on a high plinth is partially lost in the break between the two rightmost panels. Men, women, and children, painted with a few strokes of black, gray, or marine or periwinkle blue, walk along the sidewalk and the garden path, or sit at the base of the fence or on benches spaced along the sidewalk. The women seem to wear long dresses and the men dark clothing and hats. Two carriages are pulled up on the street near a lamp post alongside the sidewalk near the lower left. In the leftmost panel, horse-drawn carriages move along the road leading back to the buildings, and more people seem to be gathered on the sidewalk near the left edge of the panel in the distance. The artist signed the work with brown paint in the lower right corner: “E. Vuillard.” The panels of the screen have been set up so the panels rest on a platform or on the floor in a shallow zig-zag pattern, in a room with an off white wall and bisque-brown molding along the floor.
Edouard Vuillard, Place Vintimille, 1911, five-panel screen, distemper on paper laid down on canvas, Gift of Enid A. Haupt, 1998.47.1-5

Overview: 43 folding screens designed by European and American artists from about 1870 to the present were on view. The exhibition was organized by Michael Komanecky of Yale University and by Virginia Butera, following a theme they had pursued since serving as National Endowment interns at the Philadelphia Museum in 1978.

Organization: The exhibition was coordinated at the Gallery by Linda Ayres. Gaillard Ravenel and Mark Leithauser designed the exhibition, and Gordon Anson designed the lighting for the National Gallery.

Sponsor: The exhibition was supported by contributions from Bankers Trust Company and Goldman, Sachs and Co. The catalogue was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Attendance: 300,837

Catalog: The Folding Image: Screens by Western Artists of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, by Michael Komanecky and Virginia Fabbri Butera. New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1984.

Other Venues:

  • Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, 10/11/1984–01/06/1985

You may also like

Exhibition:  Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985

Exhibition:  The Stars We Do Not See: Australian Indigenous Art