Columbia Museum of Art exhibits 'Turner to Cézanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection'

Written by Leonard Gardiner Tuesday, 23 November 2010 20:05

COLUMBIA, SC - National Museum Wales, known for having one of the finest Impressionist art collections in Europe, is sending to the U.S. highlights from its remarkable Davies Collection, an extraordinary group of 19th- and early 20th-century paintings that is renowned for its beauty and quality. These works, which helped shape the course of Western art, were assembled between 1908 and 1923 by sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies. The exhibition will travel to only five venues and the Columbia Museum of Art is the opening venue. On view through June 7, 2009.

The collection is exceptionally strong in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works and includes masterpieces by, among others, Cézanne, Corot, van Gogh, Monet, Daumier, Manet, Millet, Pissarro, Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Turner and Whistler. Turner to Cézanne features 53 stunning works of art, seen together in the United States for the first time. Some highlights of the exhibition are Renoir’s famous La Parisienne, which was included in the first show of Impressionism in 1874, a Monet Water Lilies, and van Gogh’s panoramic Rain–Auvers, painted during the last week of the artist’s life.

Karen Brosius, Columbia Museum of Art’s executive director says, “The Museum is delighted to bring this important and unprecedented exhibition to Columbia, giving visitors from around the Southeast the chance to see incredibly beautiful works of art by some of the world’s greatest Impressionist and Post-Impressionist artists for the first time. We are grateful to National Museum Wales for sharing their superb collection, and to the Blanchard Family for making this exhibition possible in Columbia.”

Drawn from the Davies sisters’ legacy by guest curator Oliver Fairclough, Turner to Cézanne features 47 paintings and six important works on paper. By exploring the development of the collection, the exhibition reveals the crosscurrents between artists and movements that propelled 19th-century painting forward from the romantic naturalism of Turner to the Post-Impressionism of Cézanne. “The result,” said Julia Brown, Director of the American Federation of Arts, “will be a visually stunning survey of the evolution of modern art through key examples of the stylistic innovations that shaped the art of the 19th century.”

Turner to Cézanne begins with late works by the British master J.M.W. Turner. Two important late oils, Morning after the Wreck (ca. 1840) and The Storm (ca. 1840–45), plus four watercolors, presage modern painting with their emphasis on loose, painterly brushwork, first-hand observation, and atmospheric effects. In his willingness to break with the mandates of mimesis, or exact copying of nature, Turner’s approach was nothing short of revolutionary. In The Storm, for instance, parts of the canvas are virtually non-representational. Instead, brush-strokes and the effects of light and color combine to evoke the sense of a tempest at sea. This groundbreaking method would later have a tremendous impact on the Impressionists, particularly on Monet, who studied Turner’s work during sojourns in London. The influence of Turner is readily apparent in Charing Cross Bridge (1902), one of the three canvases by Monet in the exhibition. As the French artist studied the color and light effects in the work of the British painter, his own brushstroke became increasingly fractured and his palette more tonal.

The exhibition includes several Post-Impressionist works, including paintings by Cézanne and van Gogh. In 1918, Gwendoline Davies bought Cézanne’s Provençal Landscape (ca. 1879) and The François Zola Dam (ca. 1877–88), one of Cézanne’s most admired paintings. A few years later, she acquired van Gogh’s magnificent Rain–Auvers (1890). This evocative image, which dates to the last week of the artist’s life, conveys a sense of solitude through its open, panoramic composition.

The Davies sisters initially favored Turner, Barbizon landscapes, and academic genre paintings such as Meissonier’s Innocents and Card Sharpers (1861), but they moved toward increasingly progressive art. In 1912, Gwendoline purchased Jean-François Millet’s unfinished Winter: The Faggot Gatherers (1868–75), a haunting image of Norman peasants. Winter underscores the many radical changes – including a new appreciation of the creative act itself and an elevation of scenes of modern life from secondary to primary importance – that propelled French art toward Impressionism and Post-Impressionism.

The clear connections among the various works acquired by the Davies sisters, particularly the inclusion of British artists such as Matthew Smith and Robert Bevan, whose work responds to French modernism, suggest an astute and informed understanding of 19th-century painting. From their prescient acquisition of the late Turners to major purchases of Cézanne and van Gogh, it is clear that they thoroughly investigated the major movements of the time. By focusing on the evolution of their magnificent collection, particularly the manner in which the paintings in it work as counterpoints to each other, Turner to Cézanne offers a richly compelling survey of the art of the 19th century.

Visit the Columbia Museum of Art at : www.columbiamuseum.org/