Traveling Exhibition

- Introduction Illustrated List
- Statement by Curator Robert Flynn Johnson -
- Installation Images St. Peteresburg Museum of Fine Arts -

- Installation Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis, TN - 
- Review from ArtDaily - Review Tampa Bay Times -
- Exhibition Info -Schedule -


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CONTEMPLATING CHARACTER
Portrait Drawings & Oil Sketches from
Jacques-Louis David to Lucian Freud

Jacques-Louis David
Aubrey Beardsley
Alphonse de Labroue
Alfred Hitchcock
Lucian Freud
Anonymous
DeWitt Hardy
Guillaume-Benjamin-Amand Duchenne
Andre Gill
Louis Lafitte
Francis Danby
Pierre Bonnard
Clotilde
Martin-Pregnard
Edgar Degas

"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not the sitter “
                                                                                  
  - Oscar Wilde

"To me art's subject is the human clay, and landscape but a background to a torso. All Cézanne's "Apples" I would give away for one small Goya or a Daumier."
                                                                                      -W. H. Auden

Great portraiture is not, as some may presume, simply the result of an artist’s skill rendering a likeness. Rather, as is evident in this assemblage of eighty works, great portraiture can explore “character” and meet the challenge of capturing the “soul” beneath surface appearance going well beyond delineating physiognomy realistically.

Exploring the evolution of portraiture from the end of the eighteenth century to the present, “Contemplating Character” places the work of 80 international artists according to a set of unifying themes, rather than chronological order.

The exhibition consists of highlights from the personal collection of Robert Flynn Johnson, curator emeritus, The Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the result of four decades of collecting in the singular genre of portraiture on a scholar's salary. Johnson says “Buying major examples of major artists was impossible, and I relished the hunt for examples displaying skill and imagination without concern for name recognition or price."  

"The artist does not draw what he sees, but what he must make others see."                                    
                                                                                          -Edgar Degas

 



Installation, Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, Florida, October, 2015

CONTEMPLATING CHARACTER
Portrait Drawings & Oil Sketches from
Jacques-Louis David to Lucian Freud


A New Updated Traveling Exhibition in 2022
Organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions
in association with Denenberg Fine Arts

The exhibition, CONTEMPLATING CHARACTER: Portrait Drawings & Oil Sketches from Jacques-Louis David to Lucian Freud, is now available for circulation to museums worldwide.The exhibition premiered at the Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, Florida in 2015, followed by exhibition at the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts, Florida, in February, 2016, and the Dixon Gardens and Gallery in 2018. It will be presented at the Society of the Four Arts, Palm Beach, FL in February 2023. The original drawing exhibition has now been reduced in size and cost and is available for scheduling throught 2025.

CONTEMPLATING CHARACTER explores the evolution of portraiture from the end of the 18th century until the present. In contrast to portraits near the end of the eighteenth century that were tired flattery of the rich and powerful, invigorating new movements of Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism took hold of art at the end of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century, the result of a desire for a sense of "unvarnished truth" and a more honest and gritty incisiveness of depiction. By the twentieth century, the hallmark of the portrait was individuality; that is, the character, or sense of “personality” was primary, whether stylistically Post-Impressionist, Expressionist, Surrealist, or Realist.

One of the primary drivers of this shift was the invention of photography in the late 1830s freeing creative artists from the need to provide a mere likeness—as Paul Delaroche remarked in response to the invention of photography, “From today, painting is dead.” He was wrong, of course.


Installation, Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis, TN, 2018

The competition and challenge of photography actually freed artists from the chore of representation, allowing imagination to rule.  This exhibition demonstrates this evolution with stunning examples. 80 rare portrait drawings and oil sketches are featured, ranging from a late 18th century work by Jacques Louis David to two works by Lucian Freud, and including many other remarkable works: a French revolutionary’s portrait of George Washington all of one half inch in height; an unusual caricature of Charles Garnier (1825-1898,) the famed architect of the Paris Opera; an English portrait miniature circa 1810 depicting a single eye; a self-portrait reflection in a glass by Auguste-Hilaire Leveille; and a self-portrait by an artist born without arms, Louis-Joseph-Cesar Ducomet (French 1806-1856)!


Installation, Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, Florida, October, 2015

The collection shows remarkable strength in self-portraits, ranging from the sober to the irreverent,  including works such as Alfred Hitchcock’s famous profile seen by millions introducing the television series “Alfred Hitchcock Presents" (1955—1962) and Aubrey Beardsley’s decadent India ink portrait of Oscar Wilde.

The catalog does not publish the works chronologically, but inventively places them into seven coherent sections by theme:

[1] ARTIST SELF-PORTRAITS - including Gustave Dore, Richard (“Mad”) Dadd, Adolf von Menzel, Roderic O'Conor, Antonio Mancini, Edouard Vuillard, Leon Spillaert , Frank Brangwyn, Dora Maar, David Levine, and Alfred Hitchcock.

[2] PORTRAITS OF ARTISTS - Portratis of Jacques-Louis David by Delafontaine and Isabey; Henry Fuseli by William Etty; William Blake by George Richmond;  Samuel Palmer by John Linnel; John Ruskin by Samuel Laurence;  Odilon Redon by Claude-Emile Schuffenecker;  Alfred von Menzel by William Rothenstein; Max Klinger by Emil Orlik;  and Thomas Eakins by Mrs. Palmer

[3] FAMILY - Portraits of wives, lovers, children, close friends including Sir Thomas Lawrence, John Linnell, Francis Danby, Adolf von Menzel, Edward Burne Jones, George Bellows, and Lucien Freud

[4] UNKNOWN SITTERS AS SUBJECTS – Sitters of intense visual interest including works by Louis-Léopold Boilly, Théodore Chasseriau, William Mulready, Richard Dadd ,and Adolf von Menzel.

[5] DRAMA AND IMAGINATION - Imagery including “Ossian” by Baron Gerard and Girodet; an "eye" miniature circa 1820; 9 silhouettes by Auguste Edouart of the evangelist Charles Simeon preaching (like a stop action movie!); 27 portrait sketches on a single page by Richard Dadd; Nicholas Sternberg’s 1927 drawing of a morphine addict shooting up; and two amazing drawings by R. Crumb

[6] REPOSE and ENDINGS- Individuals sleeping, including works by William Henry Hunt, Hans Bellmer, and Lucian Freud; a haunting Carpeaux self-portrait the year of his death, and a single anonymous drawing of a corpse.

All of the works are drawn from the collection of esteemed curator, Robert Flynn Johnson, Curator Emeritus, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

A hard-bound 160 page full color catalogue for the exhibition featuring an essay by Robert F. Johnson has been publshed and is available for sale.

A gallery guide, labels and text panel documents are provided for printing.

The exhibition is organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, in association with Denenberg Fine Arts, West Hollywood.

For more Information and to reserve dates please contact: Jeffrey Landau, Director, info@a-r-t.com or call 310 397 3098

 

CONTEMPLATING CHARACTER

Exhibition Information


Contents:
81 works in various mediums and superbly framed,
often in period frames

Text panels and label copy

Lecturer:
Curator, Robert Flynn Johnson is available for public lectures,
radio and television appearances,
and educational programs for students

Space required:
200-300 running feet approximately

Publications:
A catalogue and gallery guide

Loan Fee:
Upon Request (dependent on length of exhibition)

Museum responsibility:

Shipping & Insurance
Museum lighting levels and Security

Contact:

Landau Traveling Exhibitions

310 397 3098

info@a-r-t.com


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Prior Exhibition Schedule

2015
Lowe Art Museum, Coral Gables, FL

2016
St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg, FL

2018
Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis, TN

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Current Schedule
as of 10/24/23

2023

February 4 - April 2, 2023
Society of the Four Arts
Palm Beach, FL

April 27 - July 30
Willima King Museum of Art
Abingdon, VA

2024

OPEN

2025

OPEN

2026

OPEN

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CONTEMPLATING CHARACTER


Curator Statement
by
Robert Flynn Johnson

This exhibition of portrait drawings and oil sketches bridges nearly two and a half centuries. Portraiture is not restricted, as some might think, simply to an artist’s skill in rendering a likeness--far from it. Simple replication is not all that difficult—witness street artists of limited talent plying their trade in major cities around the world. Rather, this assemblage has been brought together to explore ‘character,’ not just physiognomy.

George H. Gould wrote,“character...is the action or reaction of personality against circumstance, not under or dominated by circumstance. To have character is to control circumstance.” 2

The challenge of any truly successful portrait is to capture the soul beneath the surface of an individual’s appearance. Works are extremely varied that result from the collaboration of an artist who contemplates his sitter’s character and the subject/the sitter who exhibits it, displaying a wide variety of expression from beauty and dignity, to wit, satire, profound sadness, and even the macabre. This exhibition attempts to broadly answer the questions raised by the concept of contemplation of character as portraiture.

Thus, an expansionist sensibility has consistently informed my selections, including, for example, three portraits represented only by hands. Portraiture can be numbingly boring—best-forgotten renditions of bank presidents, college professors, and politicians, endless limpid depictions of generations of relatives no family member wants to inherit. But portraiture is also capable of producing the most transformative, emotionally sublime, and deeply moving images in all art.

Consider our intense devotion to Leonardo’s Mona Lisa, Rembrandt’ Titus, Vermeer’s Girl with the Pearl Earring, or Picasso’s Dora Maar. Apparently the art market concurs—eight of the ten most expensive works ever sold are some form of portraiture.

As a collector of portraits for nearly fifty years my focus has evolved. I have often said "the things I can afford I do not want, and the things I want I cannot afford." But when my desire for ownership and my financial ability coincide, a work enters the collection. In the early days I asked a dealer why a strikingly beautiful portrait drawing I had just purchased was so reasonably priced. Sighing, he told me, "in general collectors avoid portraiture unless the sitter is an exalted personage." He continued, "It is a very undervalued area of collecting."

I went away quietly savoring this moment--I had discovered a future collecting path focused on portraiture, and in particular the varied media of works on paper that offered a wealth of fine art that I could afford. The results of this journey are present in this exhibition.

I heeded the words of my late friend, the artist R.B. Kitaj, who wrote, "Don't listen to the fools who say that pictures of people can be of no consequence, or that painting is dead. There is much to be done." 3

There are no portraits in the exhibition by Ingres, Delacroix, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Picasso, Matisse, or Giacometti, not out of a lack of respect; on the contrary, acquisition of major works by such artists was my mission for the museums where I worked as a curator of graphic art for forty years. My collection is that of a scholar, acquired on a scholar's salary, and limited because of professional responsibilities. I relished the hunt for portraits that showed skill and imagination, and had no concern for name recognition or price, two artificial parameters that drive too much of the art market.

Rather than a simple chronological arrangement of the exhibition I have arranged the works into sections as follows to provide the viewer with innovative and sometimes provocative visual juxtapositions:

1. Self Portraits
2. Portraits of artists
3. Family
4. Unknown Sitters as Subjects
5. Drama and Imagination
6. Repose and Endings

I am eclectic in my taste for art, and have a wide appreciation of it in all its expressions--I honestly enjoy and respect narrative and religious art, landscape, still life, and abstraction. In the end, however, I am personally and fervently drawn to the vast variety of depictions of human beings in all their grandeur, helplessness, pride, and vulnerability. Every drawing in this exhibition has moved me deeply in some human way.

When an artist friend explained his work he replied, "I'd be a poor father indeed if I had to speak for my children." I feel much the same about this collection of drawings passionately acquired over the many years, a feeling eloquently captured  by W.H. Auden when he wrote, “To me art's subject is the human clay, and landscape but a background to a torso. All Cézanne's apples I would give away for one small Goya or a Daumier. 4

Robert Flynn Johnson
Curator Emeritus
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts

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Review--The Tampa News:

The First Art Newspaper on the Net--Established in 1996

Exhibition at Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg
spotlights compelling portraits

Contemplating Character: Portrait Drawings & Oil Sketches from
Jacques-Louis David to Lucian Freud
is the most expansive exhibition of portraits ever presented at the  Museum of Fine Arts--It opens on Saturday, February 13, and continues through Sunday, May 29.

This fascinating exhibition features 152 rare portrait drawings and oil sketches from the late eighteenth into the twenty-first century, with most from the nineteenth. Artists from 15 countries are represented, with a large number from France and England.

Lucian Freud, one of our time’s most provocative portrait painters and the grandson of the pioneering psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, once noted: “I’ve always wanted to create drama in my pictures, which is why I paint people. It’s people who have brought drama to pictures from the beginning. The simplest human gestures tell stories.”

The works are drawn from the remarkable collection of Robert Flynn Johnson, Curator Emeritus, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. He has written: “I am fervently drawn to the vast variety of depictions of human beings in their  grandeur, helplessness, pride, and vulnerability. Every drawing in this exhibition has moved me deeply in some way, and it is both my conviction and hope that individuals who view this exhibition will make a similar connection and feel the presence of the personalities represented who have been drawn and painted over the last two centuries.”

In addition to David and Freud, Mr. Johnson has selected such noted artists as Théodore Rousseau, Edgar Degas, Édouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard, Elie Nadelman, Frank Stella, and George Bellows, to name a few. Four drawings are by Adolf von Menzel, whose name may be unfamiliar to many Americans. He was one of Germany’s most admired artists working in the nineteenth century. Degas called him “the greatest living master.”

In an expressive drawing, Menzel treats his right hand as a portrait, which he drew with his left. Maximilien Luce, imprisoned for his anarchist political views, depicts his hand pressing against the wall of Mazas Prison. Brassaï focuses on The Hands of Matilda, Paris 5 April 1949.

All challenge our conception of the portrait. So, too, do Henry-Bonaventure Monnier’s watercolor, Self-Portrait Dressed as a Woman (1869), Aubrey Vincent Beardsley’s fanciful caricature of presumably the writer Oscar Wilde (1892), and Charles Henry Sims’ modernistic Self-Portrait in Distress (about 1928). Not surprising for a curator, Mr. Johnson was drawn to artist self-portraits and portraits of artists. One of the former is by Dora Maar, a talented artist who shared a decade with Pablo Picasso. She sliced her self-portrait in two, a strong visual suggesting mental turmoil. Another is Sir Alfred Hitchcock’s unmistakable Self-Portrait Profile (around 1960), which introduced his popular TV series Alfred Hitchcock Presents to millions of Americans.

There are two portraits of Jacques-Louis David, one while he was in prison. A supporter of the French Revolution, David was imprisoned after the fall of Robespierre and later found favor with Napoleon. There are others of the English Romantic poet-artist William Blake, American author Washington Irving, influential British critic-artist John Ruskin, French symbolist Odilon Redon, and the great American realist Thomas Eakins in silhouette.

The exhibition has many other gems, including a miniature portrait of George Washington (around 1795) by an anonymous artist and Bonnard’s Crying Woman (about 1890-1895), created in a flowing, seemingly spontaneous line. There are even drawings by the American cartoonist Robert Crumb, who developed a cult following for his countercultural comic books like Weirdo and who later received museum exhibitions.

A host of works capture family members, friends, and lovers in tender moments, and a number resonate with paintings in the Museum’s collection. Contemplating Character was organized by Mr. Johnson with Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, California, in association with Denenberg Fine Arts, West Hollywood, California.

_______________________________________________________________________

- Introduction Illustrated List
- Introduction by Curator Robert Flynn Johnson --
- Installation Images St. Peteresburg Museum of Fine Arts -

- Installation Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis, TN - 
- Review from ArtDaily - Review Tampa Bay Times -
- Exhibition Info -Schedule -

- Back to Top -


310-397-3098
info@a-r-t.com