The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts to host Tom Wesselmann Retrospective

Written by Maurice Pettusier Saturday, 14 April 2012 22:47

Montral, Canada.- The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is proud to present "Tom Wesselmann: A Retrospective", on view at the museum from May 18th through October 7th. Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004) was one of the greatest American Pop artists. Famous from the early 1960s for his “Great American Nude” series and still lifes, since his death he is nonetheless the only one of his contemporaries associated with that seminal twentieth-century art movement who has not yet had a major exhibition devoted to his work. A single survey exhibition of the artist’s work was mounted in Japan in 1993 and travelled to Europe the following year. "Tom Wesselmann: A Retrospective" will show the evolution in the work of this artist, whose focus on the process of stylization casts him as an heir to such great French masters as Ingres and Matisse. His interpretation of the history of art and the definition of genres led him, along with Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, to invent a new, Pop, aesthetic. The exhibition will bring together some 150 works – seventy-five paintings, plus plastic bas-reliefs, cut-outs and polychrome wood sculptures, a number of them very large – representing the artist’s most significant series, as well as seventy-five preliminary drawings and maquettes. Archival materials (photographs, letters, books and magazines, billboards and so on) will further enhance the presentation.

Through major works, some of which have never before been exhibited, the retrospective  will endeavour to demonstrate the historical significance and contemporary relevance of this great American master. It will feature loans from various leading public and private collections, as well as from the artist’s estate. The exhibition has been organized by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, with the collaboration of the Estate of Tom Wesselmann, New York. Most people are aware of Tom Wesselmann’s brilliant career as a painter. However, amongst many other things, he was also a devoted fan of country music and a prolific songwriter in that musical genre. Music was not simply a hobby for Tom Wesselmann, but another creative outlet, and he put all his energy into it. By the end of his life, he had written over 400 songs, a number of which were recorded. One of his compositions, “I Love Doing Texas with You,” sung by Kevin Trainor, even gained a certain amount of notoriety by being included on the soundtrack for the Ang Lee film  Brokeback Mountain. Given the place that music now occupies at the Museum, some of Tom Wesselmann’s musical works will also be showcased in the exhibition.


Organized chronologically, the exhibition will examine all the series that made the artist famous. When he began to create art in the 1950s, Wesselmann simultaneously explored abstract collage comprising found pieces of paper and the art of the nude, where the influence of Matisse is evident. This section of the exhibition will include abstract and figurative works from this time, many of which have never been seen publicly, or even appeared in publications. Wesselmann decided very early in his career to investigate – indeed, reinvent – the traditional painting genres of the nude, still life and landscape, which were then considered moribund. Beginning with collages, he incorporated all sorts of  materials in his work: pieces of advertising billboards, plastic flowers, televisions, and neons, as well as reproductions of paintings he liked, in particular by Matisse, Picasso and Mondrian. This section will present major works from the “Great American Nude,” “Still Life,” “Bathroom Collage” and “Seascape” series that made his name as an artist. Wesselmann was interested in the issues of form and scale: the form of his works followed that of the subjects he painted. His investigations also led him to use the negative space of cut-out forms as an element in his compositions. Many monumental works from the series “Mouths,” “Smokers,” “Bedroom Paintings” and “Drop-Outs,” as well as Still Life No. 60 and Still Life No. 61, will be on view in this part of the exhibition. In the early 1980s, Wesselmann conceived the idea of creating metal line drawings, as if the lines drawn on a piece of paper could be picked up and placed directly on a wall. This section opens with an introduction to the artist’s working methods in his studio, the preparations that preceded the execution of every work, and the laser steel-cutting technique he invented and used to reinterpret landscapes, still lifes and nudes. It will also contain a group of small preliminary maquettes that have never been shown before.

A master draftsman, Wesselmann kept the drawings behind all the various series and periods in his work. In addition to an extraordinary sureness of line, they demonstrate the artist’s tireless creativity. This part of the exhibition will feature a wide array of his drawings, on paper and canvas, or in the form of maquettes, life-size or in miniature. Whether studies for works or carefree jottings, most of them will be on view for the very first time. In the final years of his life, Wesselmann executed both figurative and abstract works. Sharing the space in this gallery will be examples from his “Sunset Nude” and “Abstraction” series, painted when the artist was aware his end was near. Also on display here will be Exhibition Detail, an installation in which he placed two of his last pieces, an abstract composition and a nude, side by side. Tom Wesselmann was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1931. After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in psychology, he decided to pursue a career in cartooning. Following graduation from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, Wesselmann moved to New York City to study at the Cooper Union, receiving a diploma from that institution in 1959. Creating collages and assemblages that incorporated ordinary objects and images from the world of advertising, he became one of the leaders in the Pop Art movement of the 1960s in the United States. In the 1970s, Wesselmann continued to explore the ideas and techniques that had appealed to him in the previous decade. After writing a 1980 autobiography documenting the evolution of his art, he carried on with his investigation of shaped canvases and executed his first laser-cut metal works. He expanded on those themes in the 1990s and early 2000s, creating abstract three-dimensional pictures that brought him back to his artistic starting point. In the final years of his life, he returned to depicting the female form, with the “Sunset Nude” series of paintings. Tom Wesselmann died in New York City on December 17, 2004.


The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has one of the highest attendance rates among Canadian museums. Every  year, 700,000 people visit its unique encyclopedic collection (free of charge) and its original temporary exhibitions, which combine artistic disciplines (fine arts, music, film, fashion, design) and feature innovative exhibition designs. It conceives, produces and circulates many of its exhibitions across Europe and North America. It is also one of Canada’s leading publishers of bilingual art books, which are  distributed worldwide. Over 100,000 families and school groups take part in its educational, cultural and community-oriented programmes each year. The fall of 2011 saw the opening of a fourth pavilion at the Museum – the Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion of Quebec and Canadian Art – and a 444-seat concert venue – Bourgie Hall – housing an outstanding collection of Tiffany stained glass windows. This expansion also brought about the reinstallation of the Museum’s rich holdings in its other three pavilions, which house the World Cultures, Middle Ages to Modern Art, and Decorative Arts and Design collections. Music is now an integral part of the Museum, providing another perspective on the visual arts, through musical audioguides and other innovative activities. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.mmfa.qc.ca