Monthly Archives: November 2012

Lecture | Hugh Belsey ‘Gainsborough in Melbourne’

Thomas Gainsborough, An officer of the 4th Regiment of Foot  (c. 1776-1780), National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Felton Bequest, 1922

Gainsborough in Melbourne Hugh Belsey Thomas Gainsborough was the only eighteenth-century British artist to give equal weight to the painting of portraits and landscapes and both are represented in Melbourne. The NGV has the most comprehensive collection of the artist’s work in Australia. Recent research has questioned some of the traditional identities given to the portraits and the seascape is a particularly rare example of his work as a landscapist. Presented by Hugh Belsey, Senior Research Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art in London, who has studied Thomas Gainsborough for over thirty years and is currently writing a catalogue for Yale University Press on Gainsborough’s portraits. Date: Thursday 15 November, 11am Venue: Clemenger BBDO Auditorium, NGV International…

Lecture and Floortalk | ‘The Neo-Impressionists’

Maximilien LUCE French 1858–1941 The port of Saint-Tropez 1893 (Le Port de Saint-Tropez) oil on canvas 73.7 x 91.4 cm  Private collection

The Neo-Impressionists Lecture by Marina Ferreti Bocquillon and floortalk by Anthea Callen Lecture | Enjoy this exclusive opportunity to hear insights by the international guest curator of the exhibition Radiance: The Neo-Impressionists, Marina Ferretti Bocquillon Director scientifique, Musée des impressionisms, Giverny. This lecture is presented in association with Friends of the Gallery Library. Marina Ferretti Bocquillon A specialist in the history of Impressionism and Neo-Impressionism, Marina Ferretti Bocquillon is in charge of Curatorial Direction at the Musée des Impressionnismes (Museum of Impressionisms) in Giverny and also manager of the Signac Archives. She has published numerous essays and books, including Signac aquarelliste [Signac: Watercolours] (Adam Biro, 2001), L’Impressionnisme (Que sais-je, 2004), and Seurat et le dessin néo-impressionniste (Cinq Continents, Musée d’Orsay, 2005).…

EVCS | Angela Hesson ‘Dangerous Ornament: The Feminine Form in Art Nouveau’

Hesson_Dabault_Pendant_1901

Angela Hesson Dangerous Ornament: The Feminine Form in Art Nouveau The decorative arts of the fin-de-siècle were populated by a feminized pantheon of transient, metamorphic figures and forms delicately suspended in moments of transformation. From pin trays to paper knives to poster advertisements, Art Nouveau refashioned the most controversial subjects of Decadence and Aestheticism within the most accessible and domesticated media. While the changing role of women in the literature and so-called fine art of the period has been subject to continued scholarly investigation, the decorative arts have been excluded from the majority of critical accounts, alluded to perfunctorily as reference points for nineteenth-century misogyny or female objectification. This paper will argue, by contrast, that Art Nouveau’s celebration of the…

Art and Art History News | November 3rd

Portrait of Adolf and Catharina Croeser on Oude Delft, Jan Havicksz. Steen, 1655, from Rijksmuseum, Rijkstudio.

Art and Art History News | November 3rd Katrina Grant The Rijksmuseum is the latest museum to make a massive number (125 000 so far) of high quality, zoomable images of its collection available online without any copyright restrictions. The museum is encouraging people to create galleries of their favourite works, print out the images on posters or ‘re-mix’ them to create new art. Looters are stripping ancient sites in Bulgaria - reports suggest that as many as 50 000 people could be involved in daily trasure hunting raids. Ben Eltham in Crikey on the contribution  the arts sector can make to engagement with Asia. One of America’s foremost art critics Dave Hickey says he is walking away from the…

Opportunities | Jobs, Funding, Calls for Papers | November 2nd 2012

Jobs 25 Postdoctoral Research Fellows in subject areas within the Faculties of Science, Humanities, Law, and Social Sciences, University of Stockholm, Sweden. SPecifically for students who gained a degree outside Sweden - deadline December 17, 2012. Curator of Collections, part time, Devonport Regional Gallery - deadline 6th November, 2012. Doctoral or Postdoctoral Position, University of Zurich (part time, must be able to teach in German) - deadline December 3, 2012. Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellowship, The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) - deadline December 1st 2012. Lecturer in Architectural History, Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Edinburgh - deadline 3rd December 2012. Funding Max van Berchem Foundation Grants (must have PhD) for the study of Islamic and Arabic archaeology, history, geography,…

What are you looking at? | Ruth Pullin - Eugene von Guérard’s ‘Mr John King’s station’

Eugene von Guérard Mr John King’s station 1861, Oil on canvas laid on board, 40.7 x 83.9 cm, Private collection, England

A hidden story: Eugene von Guérard’s Mr John King’s station, 1861 Ruth Pullin With the closing of the National Gallery of Victoria’s touring exhibition Eugene von Guérard: nature revealed in Canberra in July of this year it is timely to reconsider rarely seen works in the light of the close analysis made possible by the exhibition. The enigmatic Mr John King’s station 1861 (Fig. 1), not seen in Australia since 1980 and now returned to its private owners in the UK, is a work that, with its inherent ambiguities and seemingly unresolvable questions, invites renewed attention. Nothing is quite as it seems in Mr John King’s station. Conceived within a compositional and ideological framework derived from the classical European landscape…