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Fanciful Flourishes
Closed August 21, 1994
Italian Drawings from the Armand Hammer Collection
Closed May 8, 1994
Drawn with brown ink and shaded with tan washes on cream-white paper, two bearded men wearing robes, with a smaller, nude, winged boy between them, fill this vertical drawing. At the center top of the paper, the angel faces us, gazing down to our left with open mouth and eyebrows drawn together. He has curly hair and lifts his muscular right arm, on our left, with his index finger pointed upward. Crosshatched lines define his body, and quick, curved lines shade his outstretched wings. To our right, one man stands with his body facing the center of the sheet but he turns his head to look up off the top right corner. He has curling hair, a wide mustache, and perhaps a goatee, though his chin is partially hidden by a dark spot on the paper. He has broad shoulders, a thick neck, large hands, and a hint of a muscular leg under his flowing, voluminous robes. He holds a flat, oblong object, possibly a stone tablet, perched on his slightly bent left knee. Seated to our left, the other man faces and looks at us. He also grasps a flat, tablet-like object but holds it up, braced on his right thigh, to our left, and points to it with his other hand. This man also is solidly built and swathed in robes, with a hood over his curly hair. He leans forward, knees apart, and stares out with his brows deeply furrowed. His downturned mouth is set in a bushy, curly beard. Near the bottom of the picture, the bare feet of the two men emerge from the folds of their robes. Touches of white washes on the folds of the robes create a sense of light coming from above and to our right, and charcoal lines reinforce the shadows. A grid is lightly drawn in red chalk lines over the composition. A black stamp in the lower left has the letters “E.C” and another at the center reads, “H de T. STAT.”
John Singleton Copley's Watson and the Shark
Closed April 11, 1993
We look onto the side of a rowboat crowded with nine men trying to save a pale, nude young man who flails in the water in front of us as a shark approaches, mouth agape, from our right in this horizontal painting. In the water, the man floats with his chest facing the sky, his right arm overhead and the other stretched out by his side. Extending to our left, his left leg is bent and the right leg is straight, disappearing below the knee. His long blond hair swirls in the water and he arches his back, his wide-open eyes looking toward the shark behind him. To our right, the shark rolls up out of the water with its gaping jaws showing rows of pointed teeth. In the boat, eight of the men have light or tanned complexions, and one man has dark brown skin. The man with brown skin stands at the back center of the boat, and he holds one end of a rope, which falls across the boat and around the upper arm of the man in the water. Another man stands at the stern of the boat, to our right, poised with a long, hooked harpoon over the side of the boat, ready to strike the shark. His long dark hair blows back and he wears a navy-blue jacket with brass buttons, white breeches, blue stockings, and his shoes have silver buckles. Two other men wearing white shirts with blousy sleeves lean over the side of the boat, bracing each other as they reach toward the man in the water. An older, balding man holds the shirt and body of one of this pair and looks on, his mouth open. The other men hold long oars and look into the water with furrowed brows. The tip of a shark’s tail slices through the water to our right of the boat, near the right edge of the canvas. Along the horizon line, which comes three-quarters of the way up the composition, buildings and tall spires line the harbor. The masts of boats at port creates a row of crosses against the light blue sky. Steely gray clouds sweep across the upper left corner of the canvas and the sky lightens to pale, butter yellow at the horizon.
Guercino: Master Painter of the Baroque
Closed May 17, 1992
A nude woman with pale pink skin reclines under cream-white sheets in a bed as she reaches for the cloak of a man with light skin standing in front of the bed, who leans away with arms raised in this horizontal painting. The mattress runs along the bottom edge of the canvas, and the man is shown from the knees up. The woman’s bare torso faces us, hips stacked, as she turns her face to our right in profile, looking at the man. She props her body up with her right elbow, to our left, on a mauve-pink pillow. With that hand, she clutches the end of the man’s royal-blue cloak. With her other hand, she reaches with palm up across the body of the man toward his face. Her strawberry-blond hair is pulled back under a muted red ribbon, woven with pearls, and gathered at the nape of her neck. Soft curls frame her forehead and temple. A teardrop pearl earring dangles from her right earlobe. Her nose is long and slender, and her small, pale peach lips are slightly parted. The man’s body is angled toward the woman, to our left, but he twists and leans away, to our right. With elbow raised, he grips her extended forearm with his right hand, to our left. He raises his other arm with his palm out. He looks up with brown eyes under raised brows. His mouth is open and his head tipped sharply away from the woman so his chin-length, wavy, brown hair hangs by his face. He wears an ochre-yellow, thigh-length tunic over a white shirt. A thin olive-colored belt is tied in a bow at his waist. His vivid blue cloak wraps over his right upper arm, farther from us, around his torso and hips, and is pulled by the woman. Rose-pink, shiny curtains frame the scene in the upper corners, and beyond, the background is swallowed in shadow.
Circa 1492
Art in the Age of Exploration
Closed January 12, 1992
This print shows a medieval town surrounded by green trees and tall, jagged gray rocks. The horizon is high in the image, with a tan-colored sky meeting green rolling hills in the distance. Closest to us, there are clusters of buildings enclosed by stone walls, with tall bridges leading over a wide river in the bottom left. The roofs of the structures are painted in bright colors, predominantly red and blue, standing out against the natural greens of the surrounding foliage and the beige stone buildings. Winding tan roads lead through the town, passing by more structures with pointed towers. Larger castles and rock formations are in the background, with tall towers and turrets. There is a strip of blue at the very top of the sky, and above the top edge of the print is a line of text.
Matisse in Morocco
Closed June 3, 1990
Fields of elephant gray, coral orange, and turquoise surround a fan-like, abstracted palm frond near the center of this vertical, abstract painting. The fronds of the palm radiate like a starburst against unpainted, cream-white canvas. Three black, vertical bands spaced behind the palm suggest tree trunks, with the rightmost trunk dotted with spring green, perhaps representing moss or the leaves of a vine. The fields of gray to either side of the frond, the turquoise areas below the gray, and the coral at the bottom center are painted with visible brushstrokes, creating a mottled effect. Rounded turquoise forms above the gray are silhouetted against a field of pale blue, perhaps representing the sky along the top edge. A few pointed, oval leaves painted spring green with black outlines dip into the scene from the top of the composition. The artist signed the work in dark green paint in the lower right: “Henri-Matisse.”
Genre Drawings from the Armand Hammer Collection
Closed May 12, 1991
The image depicts a woman standing on the left side, facing slightly towards the left with one hand outstretched towards a child standing next to her. A dog is also present. The woman is wearing a long dress and a hat. On the right side, multiple people are gathered around a bed. Two women are seated on the bed, one holding a baby. Another child and an adult male are leaning on the bed, while another figure stands in the background holding a child. The background appears to be indoors, with a large piece of furniture casting shadows.
Gardens on Paper
Closed July 2, 1990
The image shows a park filled with people, viewed from slightly above. Trees, a building with a dome, and figures in warm earthy tones with hints of purple and pink are in the scene. Dynamic brushstrokes emphasize flowing lines. Closest to the viewer are people in elegant attire, some talking or walking. In the background, white sailboats are on a water body.
Still Lifes of the Golden Age
Closed September 10, 1989
Fruit, flowers, birds, small animals, insects, and fish are piled in and set around a woven basket in woodland setting in this vertical still life painting. The color palette is dominated by rich colors of emerald and pine green, plum purple, butter yellow, and pumpkin orange, with touches of silver and robin’s egg blue. The scene is lit strongly from our left, and the background is swallowed in shadow. The wicker basket with its tall, arched handle has been set before a rough-hewn, stone archway. Birds perch in the tree branches above the basket and on the handle. The fruit in the basket includes green, red, and purple grapes, peaches, plums, oranges, and yellow pears. Tendrils of wheat wind through the fruit and leaves, and around the handle. Green, striped gourds sit to our left next to a cantaloupe at the foot of the basket. Green frogs, a living and a dead lizard, a caterpillar, snail, and insects sit, lie, or move on the dirt ground around the gourds and melon. To our right, about a third of the way up the composition, worms spill out of a wooden box from which hang several fishing lines holding silvery fish. A small, ivory-white butterfly with black markings and a patch of vivid orange on each wing sits on the lid of the box. Above the box of bait, a nest with four cream-white eggs is tucked among the branches of a hibiscus plant with pale blue, flaring blossoms. A mossy, narrow oak tree trunk bearing acorns rises behind the basket, in front of the stone arch, and off the top edge of the painting. A fishing rod and a cylindrical wooden case painted golden yellow with rust-red designs are propped at the back of the basket. Dark silhouettes of cattails, rocks, and frogs are shown around a pool of water in the lower left corner.
American Naive Paintings from the National Gallery of Art
Closed December 31, 1989
This painting depicts a coastal scene with a perspective from the water. There are dark, billowing gray clouds above the horizon, and the sky is pale orange. Below, large sailboats are on the dark water, as well as some smaller rowboats and a few pieces of driftwood. The water reflects the ships and the colors of the sky. On the left is a low stone building on a bit of green land, and there is a green hill in the distance on the right, covered with houses and small buildings.
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