About
Gagosian is pleased to present a pair of major exhibitions, curated by John Elderfield and Peter Galassi, devoted to images of artists’ studios, in paintings and in photographs. The subject of the artist’s studio in works of art is a very large one with a long history: the spaces where art is made, and the means by which it is made in that space, have proved fascinating to both its creators and its viewers. The aim of this pair of exhibitions is to explore important themes in the development of the subject within these two mediums.
Curated by John Elderfield, Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, In the Studio: Paintings, on view at 522 West 21st Street, spans from the mid-sixteenth through the late twentieth centuries and includes over fifty paintings and works on paper by nearly forty artists. The earliest and longest standing motifs—the painter at the easel, pedagogical scenes, and images of artists and models—can be observed in works by Wilhelm Bendz, Honoré Daumier, Thomas Eakins, Lucian Freud, Jean-Léon Gérôme, William Hogarth, Henri Matisse, and Pablo Picasso. Focus on the appearance of the studio itself, which came later in the history, is represented here in paintings by Constantin Brancusi, Alberto Giacometti, Louis Moeller, and Alfred Stevens. Fictional or imaginary studios, a popular subject beginning at the end of the nineteenth century, include canvases by James Ensor, Jacek Malczewski, and Diego Rivera. Emphasis on artists’ materials can be traced from eighteenth-century works by Jean-Baptiste Siméon Chardin to nineteenth-century works by Carl Gustav Carus and Adolph von Menzel, through postwar American artists Jim Dine, Philip Guston, and Jasper Johns. Representations of the wall of the studio, illustrating both the artist’s own work and that of others, were also prevalent in the postwar period, as seen here in paintings by Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Larry Rivers.
Several paintings in this exhibition have not previously been seen in New York, including Jacek Malczewski’s Melancholia (1890–94, Muzeum Narodowe, Poznań, Poland) and Diego Rivera’s The Painter’s Studio (1954, Acervo Patrimonial, Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, Mexico City). A pair of paintings by Picasso, both titled L’Atelier (1927–28, on loan from the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice), have never been exhibited together in the United States.
Curated by Peter Galassi, former Chief Curator of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, In the Studio: Photographs, on view at 980 Madison Avenue, includes nearly 150 photographs by over fifty artists—spanning from the origin of the medium to the late twentieth century—and is divided into three particularly rich themes within the broader subject of images of the artist’s studio. The first of these identifies the studio as an arena for “Pose and Persona,” an artificial zone for the display of the body, and includes works by artists ranging from Eadweard Muybridge, Brassaï, and Walker Evans to Richard Avedon, Lee Friedlander, and Cindy Sherman. The nudes and portraits assembled here are exemplary because they acknowledge the role of the setting, accentuate the deliberateness of a pose, or highlight the purposeful enactment of a persona. In the second section, “Four Studios,” in-depth selections of photographs by Constantin Brancusi, André Kertész (photographing Piet Mondrian’s Paris studio), Lucas Samaras, and Josef Sudek show the studio as a total aesthetic environment. For these photographers (as well as for Mondrian), the studio was home as well as workplace and became an all-encompassing aesthetic environment—an embodiment of a unique artistic identity and perhaps an instrument for realizing it. In the third and final section, “An Embarrassment of Images,” photographs by John O’Reilly, Robert Rauschenberg, Weegee, and others engage the studio wall as a site for the accumulation and display of images.
In the Studio: John Elderfield and Peter Galassi
Curators John Elderfield and Peter Galassi discuss their major exhibitions In the Studio: Paintings and In the Studio: Photographs.
Behind the Art
A Foreigner Called Picasso
Join president of the Picasso Museum, Paris, Cécile Debray; curator, writer, biographer, and historian Annie Cohen-Solal; art historian Vérane Tasseau; and Gagosian director Serena Cattaneo Adorno as they discuss A Foreigner Called Picasso. Organized in association with the Musée national Picasso–Paris and the Palais de la Porte Dorée–Musée national de l’histoire de l’immigration, Paris, the exhibition reframes our perception of Picasso and focuses on his status as a permanent foreigner in France.
A Foreigner Called Picasso
Cocurator of the exhibition A Foreigner Called Picasso, at Gagosian, New York, Annie Cohen-Solal writes about the genesis of the project, her commitment to the figure of the outsider, and Picasso’s enduring relevance to matters geopolitical and sociological.
In Conversation
Irving Blum and Dorothy Lichtenstein
In celebration of the centenary of Roy Lichtenstein’s birth, Irving Blum and Dorothy Lichtenstein sat down to discuss the artist’s life and legacy, and the exhibition Lichtenstein Remembered curated by Blum at Gagosian, New York.
In Conversation
Daniel Belasco and Scott Rothkopf on Roy Lichtenstein
Gagosian and the Art Students League of New York hosted a conversation on Roy Lichtenstein with Daniel Belasco, executive director of the Al Held Foundation, and Scott Rothkopf, senior deputy director and chief curator of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Organized in celebration of the centenary of the artist’s birth and moderated by Alison McDonald, chief creative officer at Gagosian, the discussion highlights multiple perspectives on Lichtenstein’s decades-long career, during which he helped originate the Pop art movement. The talk coincides with Lichtenstein Remembered, curated by Irving Blum and on view at Gagosian, New York, through October 21.
Roy and Irving
Actor and art collector Steve Martin reflects on the friendship and professional partnership between Roy Lichtenstein and art dealer Irving Blum.