A de Menil Gift to France ~ Pollock’s Masterwork Returns to America

Wednesday, 04 July 2007 23:13

Houston, TX - On Thursday, July 19, 2007, at 6 p.m., in conjunction with the exhibition A Modern Patronage, The Menil Collection will host a roundtable discussion of The Deep, one of Jackson Pollock’s most enigmatic works of art. The 1953 painting, given in 1975 by the de Menil family to Paris’s Centre Georges Pompidou, is in Houston as part of the Menil’s special 20^th-anniversary exhibition, which “borrows back” several de Menil gifts to American and French museums.

In a roundtable discussion, four art historians, a painting conservator, and two Houston artists will meet in the museum gallery where The Deep is displayed alongside two other Pollock paintings and two Pollock drawings. The public is invited to observe the discussion, but seating will be limited.

The program grew out of Rice University art historian Marcia Brennan’s belief that The Deep “is THE late Pollock masterwork—exceptionally beautiful and important—and ultimately unique.” Its brief time in Houston provides a rare opportunity for focused scholarly discussion of such a major American painting. The roundtable, entitled “The Depths of The Deep,” will begin with brief comments by each participant: Menil director Josef Helfenstein, on the painting’s history and the Pompidou loan; critic and Texas Christian University art historian Frances Colpitt, on abstraction in American art in 1953; Marcia Brennan, on Pollock’s relation to major critical and stylistic currents; Rice art historian emeritus Bill Camfield, on the gallery’s five Pollocks; Menil chief conservator Brad Epley, on the painting’s structure. Artists Terrell James and Bert L. Long, Jr. will participate in the open discussion to follow.

From its first public viewing at New York’s Sidney Janis Gallery, in 1954, The Deep has been recognized as standing apart from the rest of Pollock’s oeuvre. (“Anomalous” is a frequently-used word.) In 1959, Museum of Modern Art curator Frank O’Hara, who organized the museum’s first Pollock retrospective, called The Deep “a work which contemporary esthetic conjecture had cried out for. . . It is a scornful, technical masterpiece, like the Olympia of Manet. And it is one of the most provocative images of our time, an abyss of glamour encroached upon by a flood of innocence.”

After The Menil Collection exhibition, The Deep is unlikely to be seen again in America (The Pompidou waived its No Loan policy because the painting was originally a gift from the de Menil family). “The Depths of The Deep” roundtable begins promptly at 6 p.m. In addition to the very limited gallery seating, the roundtable will be broadcast on large screens in two adjacent galleries.

All events are to be held at The Menil Collection and are free and open to the public
1515 Sul Ross Houston, Texas 77006
For more information call 713-525-9414 or visit www.menil.org