Recent Accessions in European and Graphic Art at The Hood
Curator for European Art before 1800
The Hood Museum is fortunate to possess notable treasures in its print collection and several works of significance in its old master painting collection, but much remains to be done. With the support of several generous alumni and the enthusiasm which seems indigenous to Dartmouth, important inroads have been made in spite of our limited budget. Our concern is to create a broad base of holdings which can serve the teaching needs of the faculty and the visual enrichment of the student body and Upper Valley public, while adhering to high standards of quality. This last concern is critical. The connoisseur's criterion, the selection of works of aesthetic excellence, insures that the visual (and fiscal) investment of the Hood resides in art of enduring significance. More practical concerns of storage space, the objects available, and the art market also contribute to the direction of a collection, but quality even if it means the selection of graphic art over paintings or the reserving of funds against future purchases must remain the foremost consideration.
What follows is a selection of the finest objects of European and graphic art acquired or donated since the opening of the museum.
The earliest of the new acquisitions is an exquisite, small devotional panel of the Madonna and Child attributed to the early Netherlandish Master of the Magdalen Legend, an artist specializing in religious pictures and portraiture from the 1480s to the 1520s. This panel seems to date from the end of the 15th century and is a variant of a type of half-length madonna created at mid-century by Rogier van der Weyden. The painting comes from the distinguished Oppenheimer collection in Europe and was authenticated by no less an authority than the eminent scholar and connoisseur Max Fried- laender, whose enthusiastic letter of attribution, signed and dated in Berlin in 1928, accompanied the picture. It is the first early Netherlandish painting to enter the collection and thus fulfils a critical need for the museum and the faculty.
The Hood possessed no works representing the later Rococo and the advent of neo-classicism in France. The acquisition of a sensational drawing by Prud'hon (1758-1823) is therefore most gratifying. The drawing, executed in black, white and red chalk on unfaded blue paper and set in an original period frame, is a final study for the artist's Diana Imploring Jupiter Not to MakeHer Submit to Hymen, a commission of 1803 presented him for the decoration of the Salle des Antiques at the Louvre by Napoleon. The drawingembodies the final stage in the evolution of the composition, between the painted model and the actual ceiling decoration (both of which survive at the Louvre). The black chalk work reveals the creative mind of the artist as he makes final alterations in the poses of the head and hands of Jupiter and the feet of Diana. The artist Delacroix considered this commission to be Prud'hons consummate work, his most exalted expression of neoclassicism.
Another drawing, acquired in February, is the first work by Jackson Pollock (1912-1956) in the collection. The drawing is among the most important in a group of studies, the so-called "psychoanalytic" series, which Pollock worked on while undergoing Jungian analysis between 1939 and 1940. The sheet is crammed with vigorous, haunting and even brutal images of flayed horses, a human skull (a possible reference to Dartmouth's Orozco mural, which the artist knew and admired), and crucifixion. The sketches refer to an extraordinary range of the artists who contributed to the formulation of Pollock's own artistic identity, including Picasso's Guernica and the works of Gorky, Miro, Arp and Moore. Yet the sheet is not merely a collection of sketches; variously using orangecolored pencil, black pen and ink, and graphite, the artist has orchestrated the studies around the central motif of the flayed horse, and suggests, in a manner foreshadowing his own later paintings, spatial relationships through the interplay of the assertive black ink against the softer pencil work.
The two towering figures of the contemporary German neo-expressionist movement are Anselm Kiefer and Georg Baselitz (b. 1938). A large, powerful woodcut by the latter, Man Reading, of 1982 from an edition limited to 15, is an extraordinary example of his work. The print was put through the press several times in order to build up layers of rich, black ink. Baselitz draws his figurative imagery upside-down, thereby emphasizing the flat, two-dimensional picture plane surface and contributing to the emotional anxiety of the subject matter and our own response to the vibrant, brutal strokes of the carving.
Recent donations to the collection have significantly contributed to the quality and range of our holdings. Our first Hans Baldung Grien woodcut, Christ the Saviour (1519) and other fine prints spanning the 16th through the 20th centuries have been donated to us over the last few months. One of the most exciting gifts was given to us by Dr. Richard Rush, class of '37, and his wife, Julia, who have donated a series of major old master oils which constitute the core of our European painting collection. His most recent and one of his most striking gifts is a work attributed to Bartolomeo Manfredi (1580-1620) a close follower of Caravaggio. The large Arrest of Christ, an imposing example of that influential school of 17th-century-painting, may be the work of one of the most talented and compelling of the French followers of Caravaggio, Nicolas Tournier (1590- 1657). The artist casts the arrest in its nighttime ambience, the lantern selectively lighting the scene, permitting just those salient features to emerge from the darkness which convey the range of personal responses to the betrayal of Christ.
European and American art before 1900 are areas of our collection receiving special attention at the moment. The Hood does not possess, for example, a single major Impressionist oil. In 1987 the museum is mounting a major exhibition with catalog focusing on this area and entitled "Dartmouth Alumni and Friends Collect." The purpose of the exhibition is to provide a forum to present the range and discrimination in connoisseurship of generations of Dartmouth collectors. We are reaching out to collectors to have the opportunity to show the tastes, interest, and care they have brought to their own efforts in collecting in the wonderful gallery space of the new building. Interested alumni and friends should contact me, Barbara MacAdam (curator of American art), or the Director, Jacquelynn Baas.
Master of the Magdalen Legend. Netherlandish,, active c. 1480-1527. Madonna and Child. Oil on panel (38.5 x 28 cm.).Purchased through anonymous funds andthe Robert J. Strasenburgh 1942 Fund.
Pierre Paul Prud'hon. French, 1758-1823. Study for Diana Imploring Jupiter Not to Make Her Submit to Hymen. Black,white and red chalk on blue paper (27.6 x26.9 cm). Acquisition Fund, Cremer Foundation in memory of J. Theodor Cremer,Bertram Geller 1937 Memorial Fund, andWilliam B. and Evelyn A. Jaffe Fund.
The author, who earned his Ph.D. at Har-vard, came to the Hood from The ClevelandMuseum of Art, where he was assistantcurator of prints and drawings.
