Yale University Art Gallery
The Yale University Art Gallery houses a significant and encyclopedic collection of art in several buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Although it embraces all cultures and periods, the gallery emphasizes early Italian painting, African sculpture, modern art; the Yale University Art Gallery is the oldest university art museum in the western hemisphere. The gallery was founded in 1832, when patriot-artist, John Trumbull, donated more than 100 paintings of the American Revolution to Yale College and designed the original Picture Gallery; this building, on the university's Old Campus, was razed in 1901. The gallery's main building was built in 1953, was among the first designed by Louis Kahn, who taught architecture at Yale. A complete renovation, which returned many spaces to Kahn's original vision, was completed in December 2006, by Polshek Partnership Architects; the older Tuscan romanesque portion was built in 1928, was designed by Egerton Swartwout. The Gallery reopened on December 12, 2012, after a 14-year renovation and expansion project at a cost of $135 million.
The expanded space totals 69,975 sq ft. The museum is a member of the North American Reciprocal Museums program. On the second floor was a valuable collection of paintings by John Trumbull of historical events. Among them were his well-known paintings of the Battle of Bunker Hill, Death of Montgomery before Quebec, Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, Declaration of Independence, etc. Trumbull gave the paintings to Yale in consideration of an annuity of $1,000 and subject to the condition that he and his wife should be forever buried beneath the pictures; the Gallery's encyclopedic collections number more than 200,000 objects ranging in date from ancient times to the present day. The permanent collection includes: African Art: over 1000 objects in wood, metal and ceramic. American Decorative Arts: about 18,000 objects in silver, wood and textile with an emphasis on the colonial and early federal periods. American Paintings and Sculpture: over 2,500 paintings, 500 sculptures, 300 miniatures from before the mid-twentieth century including paintings by Benjamin West, John Singleton Copley, Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Church, Frederic Remington, Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, George Bellows, John Singer Sargent, Edwin Austin Abbey, Arthur Dove, Elizabeth Goodridge, Edward Hopper, sculptures by Hezekiah Augur, Hiram Powers, Horatio Greenough, William Henry Rinehart, Chauncey Ives, Alexander Archipenko, Alexander Calder.
Ancient Art: over 13,000 objects from the Near East, Greece and Rome dating from the Neolithic to the early Byzantine. Art of the Ancient Americas: Mayan and Olmec figurines and sculptures. Asian Art Coins and Medals Early European Art Modern and Contemporary Art: including paintings and sculpture by Josef Albers, Edgar Degas, Marcel Duchamp, Alberto Giacometti, Jean Metzinger, Joan Miró, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, Roy Lichtenstein. Prints and PhotographsIn 2005, the museum announced that it had acquired 1,465 gelatin silver prints by the influential American landscape photographer, Robert Adams. In 2009, the museum mounted an exhibition of its extensive collection of Picasso paintings and drawings, in collaboration with the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. For the first time, portions of the Yale University Library's, Gertrude Stein writing archives were displayed next to relevant drawings from Picasso; as an affiliate of Yale University, the gallery maintains a robust roster of education programs for university students, New Haven schools, the general public.
One such program is the Gallery Guide program, founded in 1998, which trains undergraduate students to lead tours at the museum. The Yale Art Gallery charges no admission. Official website
Alexander Carse
Alexander Carse was a Scottish painter known for his scenes of Scottish life. His works include a large canvas of George IV's visit to Leith and three early paintings of football matches. Carse was born in Innerwick in East Lothian to William and Catherine Carse, was baptised early in 1770. Carse started at the Trustees Drawing Academy of Edinburgh in 1801, he was taught by David Allan, a strong influence on his early style. By 1808 he was described as the best painter of village scenes by the Scottish antiquarian the 11th Earl of Buchan. In 1795 Carse painted a group portrait of himself and what are believed to be his sister; the painting shows a painter's room, with his mother reading the Bible to her two children, now adults. This work is in the National Galleries of Scotland collection. By his early thirties Carse was exhibiting paintings in London at the Royal Academy and at the British Institution. In 1812 – the year that he moved to London – Carse exhibited Country Relations, regarded as one of his best works.
For the next eight years he worked hard to establish himself as a competitor to David Wilkie. In 1819 they both painted versions of Allen's Penny Wedding Both paintings were exhibited but it was Wilkie who sold his painting to the Prince Regent. Despite Carse's attempts to take on Wilkie's style his business proved unsustainable and Carse moved back to Scotland. One of his largest and most detailed paintings is of the Royal visit by George IV to Leith in 1822; this was a rare visit by a reigning monarch to Scotland, arranged and organised by Sir Walter Scott. The painting is 5 by 11 feet, contains hundreds of figures and a large number of portraits. From 1810 Carse made three paintings of football matches, which are said to be amongst the earliest pictorial records of the game. Carse is believed to have had two sons, who were both painters: James Howe Carse. William worked in Scotland, whilst James emigrated to South Australia. In the 1830s "Alexander Carse, portrait painter" is listed as living at 68 Abbey Hill, just north-east of Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh.
Carse died in poverty in February 1843, although the precise place and date of his death are unknown. There are numerous paintings by Carse in public collections in Dundee and Edinburgh. Media related to Alexander Carse at Wikimedia Commons 20 paintings by or after Alexander Carse at the Art UK site
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds was an English painter, specialising in portraits. John Russell said, he promoted the "Grand Style" in painting. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, was knighted by George III in 1769. Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723 the third son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, master of the Plympton Free Grammar School in the town, his father had been a fellow of Balliol College, but did not send any of his sons to the university. One of his sisters was Mary Palmer, seven years his senior, author of Devonshire Dialogue, whose fondness for drawing is said to have had much influence on him when a boy. In 1740 she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshua's pupilage, nine years advanced money for his expenses in Italy, his other siblings included Elizabeth Johnson. As a boy, he came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. Reynolds made extracts in his commonplace book from Theophrastus, Seneca, Marcus Antonius, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Alexander Pope, John Dryden, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Aphra Behn, passages on art theory by Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy, André Félibien.
The work that came to have the most influential impact on Reynolds was Jonathan Richardson's An Essay on the Theory of Painting. Reynolds' annotated copy was lost for nearly two hundred years until it appeared in a Cambridge bookshop, inscribed with the signature ‘J. Reynolds Pictor’, is now in the collection of the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Having shown an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson, born in Devon. Hudson had a collection of Old Master drawings, including some by Guercino, of which Reynolds made copies. Although apprenticed to Hudson for four years, Reynolds remained with him only until summer 1743. Having left Hudson, Reynolds worked for some time as a portrait-painter in Plymouth Dock, he returned to London before the end of 1744, but following his father's death in late 1745 he shared a house in Plymouth Dock with his sisters. In 1749, Reynolds met Commodore Augustus Keppel, who invited him to join HMS Centurion, of which he had command, on a voyage to the Mediterranean.
While with the ship he visited Lisbon, Cadiz and Minorca. From Minorca he travelled to Livorno in Italy, to Rome, where he spent two years, studying the Old Masters and acquiring a taste for the "Grand Style". Lord Edgcumbe, who had known Reynolds as a boy and introduced him to Keppel, suggested he should study with Pompeo Batoni, the leading painter in Rome, but Reynolds replied that he had nothing to learn from him. While in Rome he suffered a severe cold, which left him deaf, and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is pictured. Reynolds travelled homeward overland via Florence, Bologna and Paris, he was accompanied by Giuseppe Marchi aged about 17. Apart from a brief interlude in 1770, Marchi remained in Reynolds' employment as a studio assistant for the rest of the artist's career. Following his arrival in England in October 1752, Reynolds spent three months in Devon, before establishing himself in London, where he remained for the rest of his life, he took rooms in St Martin's Lane, before moving to Great Newport Street, his sister Frances acted as his housekeeper.
He achieved success and was prolific. Lord Edgecumbe recommended the Duke of Devonshire and Duke of Grafton to sit for him, other peers followed, including the Duke of Cumberland, third son of George II, in whose portrait, according to Nicholas Penny "bulk is brilliantly converted into power". In 1760 Reynolds moved into a large house, with space to show his works and accommodate his assistants, on the west side of Leicester Fields. Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, Reynolds painted large numbers of smaller works. In the late 1750s, at the height of the social season, he received five or six sitters a day, each for an hour. By 1761 Reynolds could command a fee of 80 guineas for a full-length portrait; the clothing of Reynolds' sitters was painted by either one of his pupils, his studio assistant Giuseppe Marchi, or the specialist drapery painter Peter Toms. James Northcote, his pupil, wrote of this arrangement that "the imitation of particular stuffs is not the work of genius, but is to be acquired by practice, this was what his pupils could do by care and time more than he himself chose to bestow.
Lay figures were used to model the clothes. Reynolds adapted the poses of his subjects from the works of earlier artists, a practice mocked by Nathaniel Hone in a painting called The Conjuror submitted to the Royal Academy exhibition of 1775, now in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland, it shows a figure representing, though not resembling, seated in front of a cascade of prints from which Reynolds had borrowed with varying degrees of subtlety. Although not known principally for his landscapes, Reynolds did paint in this genre, he had an excellent vantage from his house, Wick House, on Richmond Hill, painted the view in about 1780. Reynolds was recognized for his portraits of children, he emphasized the innocence and natural grace of children. His 1788 portrait, Age of Innocence, is his best known character study of a c
1767 in art
Events from the year 1767 in art. March – Giovanni Battista Tiepolo is commissioned to paint seven altarpieces for the Convento de San Pascual, Aranjuez, at this time under construction, by its founder Charles III of Spain. Canaletto spends his last full year painting, in Venice. Francis Cotes – The infant Charlotte, Princess Royal, with her mother, Queen Charlotte Jean-Honoré Fragonard – The Swing David Martin – Benjamin Franklin Richard Paton – The Battle of Cape Passaro, 11 August 1718 Joshua Reynolds – Elizabeth, Lady Amherst Alexander Roslin Double portrait of himself and his wife, painting a portrait of Henrik Peill Portrait of Jean-François Marmontel Johann Zoffany – John, 3rd Duke of Atholl, family January 5 – Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, French painter January 24 – Emanuel Thelning, Swedish-born Finnish painter February 18 – John Glover, English-born Australian landscape painter March 9 – Johan Erik Hedberg, Finnish painter March 17 – Charles Peale Polk, American portrait painter April 10 – William Alexander, English painter and engraver April 11 – Jean-Baptiste Isabey, French painter April 24 – Jacques-Laurent Agasse, Swiss animal and landscape painter date unknown Immanuel Alm, Finnish painter of religious-themed works George Barret, Jr. English landscape painter Edme Bovinet, French engraver Ulrika Melin, textile artist and member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Art George Watson, Scottish portrait painter January 9 – Joseph Ignatz Sadler, Czech fresco painter February 3 – Jacob Folkema, Dutch designer and engraver March 24 – Christian Friedrich Zincke, German miniature painter May 11 – Nicolas Edelinck, French-born engraver, son of Gerard Edelinck June 14 – Antonio Elenetti, Italian painter July 17 – Norbert Grund, Czech painter of the Rococo style August 17 – Gaspare Diziani, Italian Roccoco painter August 28 – Giacomo Ceruti, Italian painter of peasants September 12 – Thomas Smith, landscape painter and father of John Raphael Smith of Derby September 26 – Pietro Antonio Magatti, Italian painter known for paintings and frescoes in his hometown of Milan October 2 – Louise-Magdeleine Horthemels November 6 – Giambattista Pittoni, Italian painter of religious and mythological subjects November 11 – Clemente Ruta, Italian painter specializing in landscapes with pen and watercolor date unknown Ferdinando Porta, Italian painter and engraver Giuseppe Zocchi, Italian veduta painter and printmaker
Benjamin West
Benjamin West was a British North American history painter around and after the time of the American War of Independence and the Seven Years' War. He was the second president of the Royal Academy in London, serving from 1792 to 1805 and 1806 to 1820, he was offered a knighthood by the British Crown, but declined it, believing that he should instead be made a peer. He said that "Art is the representation of human beauty, ideally perfect in design and noble in attitude." West was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania, in a house, now in the borough of Swarthmore on the campus of Swarthmore College, as the tenth child of an innkeeper and his wife. The family moved to Newtown Square, where his father was the proprietor of the Square Tavern, still standing in that town. West told the novelist John Galt, with whom, late in his life, he collaborated on a memoir, The Life and Studies of Benjamin West that, when he was a child, Native Americans showed him how to make paint by mixing some clay from the river bank with bear grease in a pot.
Benjamin West was an autodidact. One day his mother left him alone with his little sister Sally. Benjamin began to paint Sally's portrait; when his mother came home, she noticed the painting, picked it up and said, “Why, it’s Sally!” and kissed him. He noted, "My mother's kiss made me a painter." From 1746 to 1759, West worked in Pennsylvania painting portraits. While West was in Lancaster in 1756, his patron, a gunsmith named William Henry, encouraged him to paint a Death of Socrates based on an engraving in Charles Rollin's Ancient History, his resulting composition, which differs from the source, has been called "the most ambitious and interesting painting produced in colonial America". Dr William Smith the provost of the College of Philadelphia, saw the painting in Henry's house and decided to become West's patron, offering him education and, more connections with wealthy and politically connected Pennsylvanians. During this time West met John Wollaston, a famous painter who had immigrated from London.
West learned Wollaston's techniques for painting the shimmer of silk and satin, adopted some of "his mannerisms, the most prominent of, to give all his subjects large almond-shaped eyes, which clients thought chic". West was a close friend of Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was the godfather of Benjamin. Sponsored by Smith and William Allen reputed to be the wealthiest man in Philadelphia, West traveled to Italy in 1760 in the company of the Scot William Patoun, a painter who became an art collector. In common with many artists and lovers of the fine arts at that time he conducted a Grand Tour. West expanded his repertoire by copying works of Italian painters such as Titian and Raphael direct from the originals. In Rome he met a number of international neo-classical artists including German-born Anton Rafael Mengs, Scottish Gavin Hamilton, Austrian Angelica Kauffman. In August 1763, West arrived in England, on what he intended as a visit on his way back to America. In fact, he never returned to America.
He stayed for a month at Bath with William Allen, in the country, visited his half-brother Thomas West at Reading at the urging of his father. In London he was introduced to his student Joshua Reynolds, he moved into a house in Covent Garden. The first picture he painted in England Angelica and Medora, along with a portrait of General Monckton, his Cymon and Iphigenia, painted in Rome, were shown at the exhibition in Spring Gardens in 1764. In 1765 he married Elizabeth Shewell, an American to whom he became engaged in Philadelphia, at St Martin-in-the-Fields. Dr Markham Headmaster of Westminster School, introduced West to Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, Thomas Newton, Bishop of Bristol, James Johnson, Bishop of Worcester, Robert Hay Drummond, Archbishop of York. All three prelates commissioned work from him. In 1766 West proposed a scheme to decorate St Paul's Cathedral with paintings, it was rejected by the Bishop of London, but his idea of painting an altarpiece for St Stephen Walbrook was accepted.
At around this time he received acclaim for his classical subjects, such as Orestes and Pylades and The Continence of Scipio. Benjamin West was known in England as the "American Raphael", his Raphaelesque painting of Archangel Michael Binding the Devil is in the collection of Trinity College, Cambridge. Drummond tried to raise subscriptions to fund an annuity for West, so that he could give up portraiture and devote himself to more ambitious compositions. Having failed in this, he tried—with greater success—to convince King George III to patronise West. West was soon on good terms with the king, the two men conducted long discussions on the state of art in England, including the idea of the establishment of a Royal Academy; the academy came into being in 1768, with West one of the primary leaders of an opposition group formed out of the existing Society of Artists of Great Britain. Joshua Reynolds was its first president. In a story related by Henry Angelo I in his book of reminiscences, the actor David Garrick, a friend of Angelo's father, the Italian sword master Domenico Angelo, memorably sketched for the teenaged Henry the following exchange: one day the painter Francesco Zuccarelli, on one of his visits to Domenico, got into a dispute with his fellow royal academician Johan Zoffany about the merit of West's 1769 painting The Departure of Regulus, his first
1773 in art
Events from the year 1773 in art. July 25 – Francisco Goya marries Josefa Bayeu. Ulrika Pasch elected in to the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts John Singleton Copley – Portrait of Mrs Winslow François-Hubert Drouais – Portrait of Marie Antoinette Dmitry Levitzky – Portraits of the young ladies of the Smolny Institute in Saint Petersburg Charles Willson Peale – Family Group portrait Sir Joshua Reynolds – Lady Anne Luttrell, The Duchess of Cumberland Joseph Wright of Derby – Earthstopper on the Banks of the Derwent Melchior Wyrsch – Reginald Pole Carew Joseph Vernet – A Shipwreck in Stormy Seas January 5 – Pieter Fontijn, Dutch painter and drawer January 31 – Luigi Pichler, German-Italian artist in engraved gems July 7 – Moses Haughton the younger, English engraver and painter of portrait miniatures December 9 – Marianne Ehrenström, Swedish writer, painter, culture personality, memorialist December 16 – José Aparicio, Spanish painter of the Neoclassic period date unknown Edward Wedlake Brayley, English enameller and writer John Comerford, Irish miniature painter Carl Conjola, German landscape painter Luigi Rados, Italian engraver Naitō Toyomasa, Japanese sculptor of netsuke from Tanba Province February 15 – Anna Maria Barbara Abesch, Swiss reverse glass painter March 1 – Luigi Vanvitelli, Italian engineer and architect March 26 – Johan Ross the Elder, Swedish painter April 20 – Hubert-François Gravelot, French illustrator July 2 – Dirk van der Burg, Dutch artist, landscape painter and watercolourist August 19 – Francesco Zahra, Maltese painter August 30 – Nicolau Nasoni and architect September 13 – Anton Janša, Slovene beekeeper and painter December 4 – Anton Losenko, Ukrainian-Russian Neoclassical painter who specialized in historical subjects and portraits December 22 – Georg Friedrich Strass, Alsatian jeweler and inventor of imitation gemstones and the rhinestone date unknown Gerhard Bockman, Dutch portrait painter and mezzotint engraver Thomas-Joachim Hébert, French ébéniste and furniture designer Jakob Klukstad, Norwegian wood carver and painter Antonio Rossi – Italian painter of the late-Baroque or Rococo period József Lénárd Wéber, Hungarian sculptor Marcos Zapata, Peruvian Quechua painter
1765 in art
Events from the year 1765 in art. June 12 – The death of General John Guise in London activates his 1760 bequest of a large collection of Old Master paintings to his alma mater, Christ Church, where they are assembled in 1767 as the foundation of Christ Church Picture Gallery; the Uffizi in Florence is opened to the public as an art gallery. Irish sculptor Christopher Hewetson and American painter Henry Benbridge arrive in Rome, where Hewetson settles; the Hermitage Museum acquires the art collection of Heinrich von Brühl, including Perseus and Andromeda by Rubens. Francis Cotes – Portrait of Maria Walpole, Countess Waldegrave Nathaniel Dance – William Weddell, The Reverend William Palgrave and Mr Janson in Rome Jean-Honoré Fragonard – The High Priest Coresus Sacrificing Himself to Save Callirhoe Anton Graff – Self-portrait Tilly Kettle – Portrait of Mrs. Yates as Mandane in'The Orphan of China' William Pars – The Parthenon when it contained a mosque Joshua Reynolds Portrait of John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore Robert Clive and his family with an Indian maid George Stubbs – Portrait of a Hunting Tyger Richard Wilson – Lake Avernus I February 21 – Michał Ceptowski, Bavarian born stucco artist who settles and worked in Poland March 3 – Francesco Alberi, Italian painter of historical scenes and frescoes March 7 – Nicéphore Niépce, French inventor and pioneer photographer April 1 – Luigi Schiavonetti, Italian artist May 7 – Giovanni Monti, Italian landscape painter May 13 – Vieira Portuense, Portuguese painter June 10 – Cladius Detlev Fritzsch known as C. D. Fritzsch, Danish flower painter December 3 – Adélaïde Dufrénoy, French poet and painter from Brittany date unknown Pietro Bonato, Italian painter and engraver Edme-François-Étienne Gois, French sculptor Thomas Kirk, British painter and engraver Domenico Vantini, Italian painter specializing in portrait miniatures 1765/1770 – Fryderyk Bauman, Polish architect and sculptor-decorator February 10 – Jean-Baptiste-Henri Deshays, French painter April 15 – Mikhail Lomonosov, Russian polymath, scientist and mosaic artist May – Joseph Badger, American portrait artist July 15 – Charles-André van Loo, French subject painter, a younger brother of Jean-Baptiste van Loo August 1 – Ulla Adlerfelt, Swedish painter and noblewoman August 18 – Jean-Joseph Balechou, French engraver September 5 – Johann Christian Fiedler, German portrait painter October 21 – Giovanni Paolo Pannini or Panini, Italian painter and architect known as one of the vedutisti or veduta or view painters December 5 – Johann Salomon Wahl, German painter who became court painter in Denmark date unknown Pietro Campana, Spanish engraver Giovanni Battista Chiappe, Italian painter of the late-Baroque period Corrado Giaquinto, Italian Rococo painter Ercole Graziani the Younger, Italian painter James MacArdell, Irish engraver of mezzotints Zheng Xie, Chinese painter of orchids and stones.
