A unique group of paintings, drawings, and prints, principally by Cezanne, Van Gogh, Pissarro, Monet, and Guillaumin, which were collected by Dr. Paul Gachet and now have their home in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris, are published--many for the first time--in this catalogue that accompanied an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dr. Gachet, a physician, amateur artists, and colorful personality who counted the painters among his friends, comes to life in an essay describing his activities, his cultural milieu, and his relationships with numerous artists. The works themselves, along with copies of the paintings made in Gachet's circle and memorabilia, are fully illustrated and discussed.

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, 1853-1890) believed that drawing was "the root of everything." A self-taught artist, he succeeded, between 1881 and 1890, in developing an inimitable graphic style. This book traces the artist's successive triumphs as a draftsman, first in the Netherlands and later in France, highlighting the diversity of his technical invention and the striking continuity of his vision. Given the pivotal role drawings played in Van Gogh's artistic conception and the rich dialectic they enjoyed with his oil paintings, a small selection of related canvases by the artist is also featured. This book presents approximately 120 works in charcoal, ink, graphite, watercolor, and diluted oils. The authors explore enduring questions that surround Van Gogh's drawings, including their manufacture, artistic precedents, and contribution to Modernism. In addition, the text discusses the significance of the artist's drawing practice to his development as a painter. The essays and entries were painstakingly researched and provide fresh interpretations of the motivating influences that shaped the artist's contributions to the history of drawing. [This book was originally published in 2005 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]


The mystery, color, and magic of the circus was a subject of fascination for European artists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The French Post-Impressionist painter Georges-Pierre Seurat (1859–1891) explored this theme in a number of drawings and sketches, as well as in his 1888 Pointillist masterwork, Circus Sideshow. Drawing connections to Parisian street life, to the works of other artists, and to the broader complexities of modern life, this lively book establishes Circus Sideshow as a pioneering work in the genre of circus-themed art. Lush reproductions of the work are buttressed by images of Seurat’s preparatory drawings and ephemera from circuses and street performances of the time to offer a full understanding of the historical context.


Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press


Exhibition Schedule:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art
(02/15/17–05/29/17)


The text includes a consideration of Gauguin's exotic voyages and their reflections in his art; a history of the reception and appreciation of Gauguin's work on this shore of the Atlantic; and revelations arising from the recent examination of paintings in the Metropolitan Museum's collection. Each of Gauguin's works from these New York collections appears in colour with accompanying commentary.

Nineteenth-century French and English paintings, drawings and oil sketches - works by such artists as Courbet, Constable, Delacroix, Gericault, Corot, Rousseau, Conture and Daubigny - are presented in this book, a documentation of some of the holdings of Karen B. Cohen, a noted New York collector.

The essays in this book focus on Goya's life and work and the history of the Museum's acquisition of his art over the last 125 years.

A handbook on the conservation of works of art in a museum environment.

This book, the catalogue of the first retrospective of the work of the French Neoimpressionist artist Paul Signac to be held in nearly forty years, accompanies the 2001 exhibition organised by the Reunion des Musees Nationaux/Musee d'Orsay, Paris, the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This long overdue tribute to Signac's power of expression and artistic influence features some two hundred paintings, drawings, watercolours, and prints from public and private collections worldwide. Fully illustrated in colour and discussed in individual entries, these works offer an unprecedented overview of Signac's fifty-year career. Signac's artistic development began with the luminous plein air paintings he made in the early 1880s which reveal the lessons he absorbed from Monet, Guillaumin, and other leading Impressionists. From 1884 until 1891 Signac's close association with Georges Seurat encouraged his explorations of colour harmony, contrasts, and Neoimpressionist technique. In the scintillating works of his maturity the rigours of Pointillism gave way to richly patterned, decorative colour surfaces.
In a series of essays the exhibition's curators discuss Signac's richly interesting career from a variety of perspectives. John Leighton, Director of the Van Gogh Museum, provides an introductory essay that chronicles Signac's triumphs as a painter. The well-known Signac scholar Marina Ferretti Bocquillon focuses on Signac's achievements as a draftsman and watercolourist, and Sjraar van Heugten, Chief Curator of the Van Gogh Museum, summarises Signac's activity as a printmaker. Anne Distel, Chief Curator of the Musee d'Orsay, examines Signac's role as a promoter of his own works and those of his colleagues and describes a host of other activities - beyond painting - that engaged Signac's interest. The final essays in this volume shed new light on Signac's appreciation of the works of his predecessors, contemporaries, and followers - as evidenced in his artworks, in his published and unpublished writings, and in his private collection. Susan Alyson Stein, Associate Curator of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, examines the ways Signac understood the genius of such painters as Delacroix, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Bonnard, and Matisse.
Marina Ferretti Bocquillon explores the Signac's role as a collector, providing a wealth of new information about the works he owned by fellow artists. Contributor Kathryn Calley Galitz is Research Associate in the Department of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Lavishly illustrated with comparative and documentary photographs, the volume includes an annotated chronology and a map that pinpoints the sites depicted in Signac's works.

Byzantium

by Helen C. Evans and etc.

Published 11 March 2004
A sequel to the landmark catalogue The Glory of Byzantium, this magnificent book features work from the last golden age of the Byzantine empire. During the last centuries of the "Empire of the Romans", Byzantine artists created exceptional secular and religious works that had an enduring influence on art and culture. In later years, Eastern Christian centres of power emulated and transformed Byzantine artistic styles, the Islamic world adapted motifs drawn from Byzantium's imperial past, and the development of the Renaissance from Italy to the Lowlands was deeply affected by Byzantine artistic and intellectual practices. This spectacular book presents hundreds of objects in all media from the late thirteenth through mid-sixteenth centuries. Featured in full-colour reproductions are sacred icons, luxuriously embroidered silk textiles, richly gilded metalwork, miniature icons of glass, precious metals and gemstone, and elaborately decorated manuscripts. In the accompanying text, renowned scholars discuss the art and investigate the cultural and historical interaction between these major cultures: the Christian and Islamic East and the Latin West.
Continuing the story of the critically acclaimed Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843-1261, this book, the first to focus exclusively on the last centuries of the Byzantine era, is a highly anticipated publication that will not be superceded for generations.

Public Parks, Private Gardens

by Colta Ives

Published 13 March 2018
Masterworks by great Romantic, Impressionist, and early modern artists are presented in relationship to the 19th-century horticultural revolution that transformed the landscape of France

The spectacular transformation of Paris during the 19th century into a city of tree-lined boulevards and public parks both redesigned the capital and inspired the era's great Impressionist artists. The renewed landscape gave crowded, displaced urban dwellers green spaces to enjoy, while suburbanites and country-dwellers began cultivating their own flower gardens. As public engagement with gardening grew, artists increasingly featured flowers and parks in their work.

Public Parks, Private Gardens includes masterworks by artists such as Bonnard, Cassatt, Cezanne, Corot, Daumier, Van Gogh, Manet, Matisse, Monet, and Seurat. Many of these artists were themselves avid gardeners, and they painted parks and gardens as the distinctive scenery of contemporary life. Writing from the perspective of both a distinguished art historian and a trained landscape designer, Colta Ives provides new insights not only into these essential works, but also into this extraordinarily creative period in France's history.