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One of Denmark’s most celebrated painters, Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916) painted close acquaintances, landscapes, and subdued interiors. This exhibition will be the first comprehensive survey in Japan of Hammershøi and the masters of Danish modern art. Besides works by Hammershøi, visitors can look forward to seeing many of the finest paintings by his contemporaries.
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The third exhibition of the Ueno Artist Project, which showcases select artists now working in art groups, will take the theme "Children," a attractive motif that has long fascinated artists. The exhibition will explore a range of images held of children.
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This project, operated in conjunction with Tokyo University of the Arts, is aimed at fostering an active, open art community with the Museum as a central stage. The project is led by art communicators (“Tobira”), who are given responsibility for growing a community.
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A program linking all 9 cultural facilities in Ueno Park to support children in their "museum debut." The program provides a "flat" learning environment where adults and children learn on an equal basis. Through experiences of seeing, listening, and speaking, children come to understand the fun and excitement of visiting an art museum.
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
The Theatre Box
1874
© Courtauld Gallery (The Samuel Courtauld Trust)
A scene of exuberant 19th-century Paris, depicting a woman in an elegant dress and man in formal attire, seated in a theater box. The woman—modeled by Nini, one of Renoir’s favorite models—wears a dress and jewelry befitting a married lady of high status. But is she perhaps a fashion-conscious woman of the upper-classes? Or even a cocotte (courtesan)? Opinions abounded when the painting debuted. The woman, it appears, is well conscious of being observed from the other boxes, while the man trains his opera glasses elsewhere in the audience. The painting received praise when exhibited at the First Impressionist Exhibition in 1874.
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Edgar Degas
Two Dancers on a Stage
1874
© Courtauld Gallery (The Samuel Courtauld Trust)
Degas—the painter of ballerinas. From their costumes, these dancers are probably performing in the Ballet des Roses as an interlude in the Mozart opera, “Don Giovanni.” The two are viewed from above, as if from a theater box. They converge with the stage sets in the densely painted upper right, leaving a large expanse of floor in the foreground—a boldly innovative composition showing the influence of Japanese art. A third dancer is deliberately cut off on the far left to create the impression of a briefly glimpsed moment—Degas’ trademark.
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Edouard Manet
A Bar at the Folies-Bergère
1882
© Courtauld Gallery (The Samuel Courtauld Trust)
A masterpiece of Manet’s late years exhibited at the Salon in 1882, the year before he died. The Follies-Bergère was a popular Paris music hall with a colorful program of song and dance that included acrobatics—a fragment of which is visible in the upper left. The artist has rendered the customers and bustling air of the hall with rapid brushstrokes while minutely depicting the liquor bottles and oranges on the marble counter in the foreground. The work, regarded as the culmination of Manet’s career, unifies the crowded hall reflected in the mirror, the main figure, and the still life with unsurpassed technique.
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Claude Monet
Antibes
1888
© Courtauld Gallery (The Samuel Courtauld Trust)
A founder of Impressionist painting, Monet continually sought to capture the changing light. How did the atmosphere of the Mediterranean Sea in Antibes, southern France, strike his eye during his stay there in 1888? “What I bring back from here will be sweetness itself, white, pink, and blue, all enveloped in a magical air” (letter to Alice Hoschedé, February 3, 1888). This letter written at Antibes conveys Monet’s fascination with the colors and luminescence of the southern coast, so unlike Paris or Normandy. The foliage of the pine tree, reaching across the foreground, makes us feel the “beautiful air” between it and the distant Estérel mountains.
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Paul Cezanne
The Card Players
Circa 1892-1896
© Courtauld Gallery (The Samuel Courtauld Trust)
Cezanne began painting farm workers playing cards around 1890, producing five canvases on this subject. The men, even while facing each other, appear immersed in silent thought. As with Mont Sainte-Victoire near his home town, which he painted repeatedly, Cezanne has used solid forms and precise structure to capture his subject, people rooted in land and tradition. The man on the far left is also the sitter for Man with a Pipe (Circa 1892-1896), another Cezanne work displayed in this exhibition.
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Paul Gauguin
Nevermore
1897
© Courtauld Gallery (The Samuel Courtauld Trust)
Gauguin first visited Tahiti in his 43rd year, desiring a simple, primitive lifestyle far from modern, urbanized Paris. He painted this work during his second stay in Tahiti. Using clear, somber colors, Gauguin sought to express “a certain long-lost barbarian luxury.” The reclining nude was a traditional motif of Western art, yet Gauguin, with a young Tahitian woman as a model, here uses it to construct a decorative space. The two figures and the bird in the window, whose relationship with the woman has never been clarified, bring the painting a sense of mystery.
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