Skip to main content

From Munch, Monet and Matisse to Picasso, Picabia and Popists: the Louis Vuitton Foundation has them all




The Fondation Louis Vuitton (the Louis Vuitton Foundation), opened in October 2014, presents a selection of major 20th century works, loans from prestigious galleries in Russia, America, Europe, Australia, and of course France. The exhibition called Keys to a passion, from April 1 to July 6, 2015, is organized in four sequences: Subjective Expressionism, Contemplative, Popist, and Music.

The Subjective Expressionism sequence shows works on life, death, anguish, and solitude by Kazamir Malevich  (1879-1935), Edvard Munch (1863-1944), Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), Otto Dix (1891-1969), and Helene Schjerfbeck (1862-1946). The top photograph is Kasimir Malevich's Complex Feeling or Bust with a Yellow Shirt (1932). 

Otto Dix’s Portrait of the Dancer Anita Berber (1925) from the Sammlung Landesbank Baden-Wurttemberg Art Museum in Stuttgart, Germany, shows the 26-year-old dancer from Leipzig.


The Portrait of Jean Genet (1954-55) by Alberto Giacometti from the Pompidou Centre National Museum of Modern Art in Paris, France, is of the French novelist in a light grey suit.


Heavily protected behind sheet glass is Edvard Munch’s iconic The Scream (1893? 1910?) from the Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway. It is probably one of the most recognized paintings in art history along with the Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa (1517). Munch painted four versions of the picture on cardboard. Two of them are drawn with pastel, whereas the other two are painted. The one exhibited at the Fondation Louis Vuitton is painted with broad sweeping brushstrokes.


The Contemplative sequence displays works on nature by Claude Monet (1840-1926), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931), Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), Emil Nolde (1867-1956), Constantin Brancusi (1876-1957), Mark Rothko (1903-1970), Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973).

Claude Monet’s Blue Waterlilies (1916-19) from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris is a good choice for the contemplative section. Monet was 75 years old when he painted this work.


The full title of Piet Mondrian’s Dune III (1909) is Pointillist Dune Study, Crest at Centre, painted during his experimental period. It is on loan from the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague in The Netherlands.


Emil Nold’s Twilight (1916) from the Art Museum in Basel, Switzerland, is of the low coastline of the North Sea where Denmark meets Germany, where he lived.


The Pablo Picasso painting Woman with Yellow Hair (1931) is from the Guggenheim Museum in New York, and was painted in Paris. The woman in the painting is 17-year-old Marie-Therese Walter, whom he painted many times.


The Popist sequence focuses on themes of vitality, energy, and progress by Robert Delaunay (1885-1979), Fernand Leger (1881-1955), and Francis Picabia (1879-1953).

The Cardiff Team by Robert Delaunay (1912-13) is from the Musee d’Art modern de la Ville, Paris, and depicts the Welsh football team in Paris with a mixture of cubism and French motif.


The exhibit has a series of five works by artist Francis Picabia. The two photographs below show parts of the painting Woman with Bulldog (1941-42) that uses a technique called photographic and cinematographic realism.



The Music sequence contains works by Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), Frantisek Kupka (1871-1957), and Gino Severini (1883-1966).


The large oil painting, The Dance (1909-10), by Henri Matisse depicts the music theme, a common theme in his works, and is quite commanding in the last sequence of the exhibition.




 

MARTINA NICOLLS

MartinaNicollsWebsite

 

Martinasblogs

Publications

Facebook

Paris Website

Animal Website

Flower Website

SUBSCRIBE TO MARTINA NICOLLS FOR NEWS AND UPDATES 

 

MARTINA NICOLLS  is an international human rights-based consultant in education, healing and wellbeing, peace and stabilization, foreign aid audits and evaluations, and the author  of: The Paris Residences of James Joyce  (2020), Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2016 update on Rike Park, Tbilisi: from construction to busy park

From a flat patch of uninteresting dirt, Rike Park in Tbilisi, Georgia, has transformed in four years (from 2014-2016) into a busy park full of trees, flower beds, sculptures, fountains, and events. Rike (Rikhe) Park is on the left bank of the Mt’k’vari River (the Kura River) near the Old City of Tbilisi. The Peace Bridge links the right bank to Rike Park. Rike Park is below the hillside Presidential Palace and, via cable car, it is the starting point for the ride to Sololaki Ridge (with the Narikala Fortress and the Mother of Georgia statue). The glass box-shaped cable car terminus was opened on 23 June 2012, and since then the park has continually developed into a ‘people’s park’ where people can walk around, eat at the nearby restaurants, sit next to the statue of American president Ronald Reagan, climb the steps to Avlabari district, and access the sights of Meidan Square, the Peace Bridge, the Metekhi Church, the Old City, the waterfall, the sulphur baths, and t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The acacia thorn trees of Kenya

There are nearly 800 species of acacia trees in the world, and most don’t have thorns. The famous "whistling thorn tree" and the Umbrella Thorn tree of Kenya are species of acacia that do have thorns, or spines. Giraffes and other herbivores normally eat thorny acacia foliage, but leave the whistling thorn alone. Usually spines are no deterrent to giraffes. Their long tongues are adapted to strip the leaves from the branches despite the thorns. The thorny acacia like dry and hot conditions. The thorns typically occur in pairs and are 5-8 centimetres (2-3 inches) long. Spines can be straight or curved depending on the species. MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom (2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Suda...
1 comment
Read more

Hop on hop off bus tourism comes to Tbilisi, Georgia

City Sightseeing buses have arrived in Tbilisi. The iconic red double-decker buses, a feature of many cities around the world since the company was established in Seville, Spain in 1999, is now in six continents and almost 100 cities. The company established its Tbilisi business in November 2013, with its operations commencing in February 2014. The 90-minute tour stops at 11 major locations in Tbilisi (with 2 to 5 minute waiting times at each location): the Old City (where it commences), Freedom Square, Rose Revolution Square, Marjanishvili Square, the Dry Bridge, Konka, Avlabari, Metekhi, Akhundov Museum, the Sulfur Baths, and European Square. Passengers can hop off at any stop and see the sights, hopping back onto the next bus at any time. Alternatively, passengers can remain on the bus for the whole tour and take photographs when the bus stops at each location. There are one day (24-hour) passes (for 35 lari – about $20) and 48-hour passes for 55 lari, with family d...
2 comments
Read more