Exhibition dates: October 23, 2003-January 25, 2004
Exhibition location: Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Exhibition Hall
Press preview: Monday, October 20, 10:00 a.m. – noon
Two hundred nineteen works by leading 19th-century American, British, and French artists from the legendary collection formed by Grenville L. Winthop (1864-1943) will go on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 23, 2003. The exhibition, which marks the first time the collection has traveled since its bequest to Harvard in 1943, features paintings, drawings, and sculptures by more than 50 artists, including William Blake, Edward Burne-Jones, Jacques-Louis David, Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Géricault, Winslow Homer, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Gustave Moreau, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Singer Sargent, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University will remain on view at the Metropolitan through January 25, 2004.
The exhibition is made possible in part by the Janice H. Levin Fund.
The exhibition was organized by the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in collaboration with Ville de Lyon, Musée des Beaux-Arts and Réunion des musées nationaux, the National Gallery, London, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
In 1943 Grenville Lindall Winthrop bequeathed his entire collection of more than 4,000 works of art to his alma mater, Harvard College. During his life, he almost never lent objects from his collection to museums, and in keeping with his wishes, the works have always been at Harvard, available to students and scholars, rather than on loan to other institutions. Now, for the first time, a selection of 19th-century Western European and American paintings, drawings, and sculpture from the Winthrop collection are being exhibited outside of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Over the course of four and a half decades, Winthrop assembled objects from almost every culture and historical period. In particular, no other collector could claim the depth of Winthrop's reach in both French and British art together. Rather than purchase already-formed collections of drawings, Winthrop was a pioneer in establishing a collection of works on paper, piece by piece.
Winthrop acquired more works by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres than any other private collector of his day. The exhibition at the Metropolitan will include 34 of Winthrop's Ingres, including Raphael and the Fornarina (1814) and Odalisque with the Slave (ca. 1837-40), as well as a number of drawn and painted portraits. Other important French works include Jacques-Louis David's Study for "The Oath of the Tennis Court" (1790-91), documenting one of the defining moments of the French Revolution. Also by David is the 1817 portrait of his friend and fellow revolutionary Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, and sketchbooks containing more than 100 studies for David's monumental Coronation of Napoleon I (Le Sacre).
Works by the French Romantic painters include Théodore Géricault's Cattle Market (1817) and Postillion at the Door of an Inn (1822-23) and Eugène Delacroix's A Turk Surrenders to a Greek Horseman (1856). In addition to paintings by many of the leading French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, the exhibition features eleven sculptures by Auguste Rodin
Dante Gabriel Rossetti's The Blessed Damozel (1871-78) and a selection of Edward Burne-Jones's watercolors, Days of Creation (1875-76), are among the important group of paintings and drawings by the British Pre-Raphaelites. Winthrop assembled one of the finest collections of works by William Blake, represented here by one of artist's rare oil paintings, Christ Blessing (ca. 1810), as well as by pages from his celebrated Book of Job (1821).
A great admirer of the progressive artists of 19th-century America, Winthrop owned a group of watercolors by Winslow Homer that includes Mink Pond (1891) and Adirondack Lake (1892). The expatriate American artists John Singer Sargent and James Abbott McNeill Whistler are represented in his collection as well; the former by five pictures, the latter by eight, including a shimmering Nocturne in Blue and Silver (ca. 1871-72).
A Private Passion debuted at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, in the spring of 2003. It then traveled to the National Gallery, London, before its appearance at the Metropolitan Museum.
The exhibition was organized by an international committee of curators
coordinated by Stephan Wolohojian, Curator of Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums. The
exhibition will be installed at the Metropolitan by Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Curator of 19th-Century European Painting, with the assistance of Rebecca A. Rabinow, Assistant Research Curator.
Stephan Wolohojian edited the fully illustrated catalogue, which contains contributions by more than 60 specialists. The catalogue is published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press. It is available in both hardcover ($75) and paperback ($50) editions in the Museum's book shop.
The exhibition catalogue is made possible by the Samuel I. Newhouse Foundation Inc. and the Doris Duke Fund for Publications.
A variety of educational programs will be offered in conjunction with the exhibition, including lectures and gallery talks.
An Audio Guide of the exhibition will be available. The fee for rentals will be $5.00 for members of the Museum, $6.00 for non-members, and $4.00 for children under 12.
The Audio Guide program is sponsored by Bloomberg.
The exhibition will be featured on the Museum's Web site, www.metmuseum.org.
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