The delights and punchy surprises of Max Beckmann in New York

"Max Beckmann in New York," is a terrific unexpected show; see it before it closes on February 20 if you can, Tough and angry, packing a wallop yet somehow packing his images with life without ever breaking any bones

Plenty of shows feel like they are  cooked up by ambitious curators trying to find an angle, any angle, they can sell to a museum director. Not this one. Give or take a wee bit of padding it feels like the real thing. Beckmann and his wife Quappi found their anchor in New York. They'd been looking for one for a very long time.

He was a successful painter in his early fifties when the Nazis denounced Beckmann a degenerate artist. His work was removed from museums, dealers could not handle him. "Departure," above, his first triptych was started in 1933 and finished two years later. In a way it is like a visual, emotional rehearsal for the journey into exile he and his wife began when they set off for Amsterdam in 1937. He wanted to go to the US then but before that could be organized, war was declared and they were forced to stay in Holland. It was only on  November 2, 1949  (after two years teaching art in St. Louis) that they arrived to settle down in New York. "Babylon is a kindergarten by comparison," he said on a brief visit a couple of years before. This was not a criticism. On the contrary. It was just his "kind of thing."

Works managed to get out of Germany. He painted in Holland and St. Louis. Curt Valentin and J.B. Neumann, two German emigre dealers, succeeded in selling his pictures to collectors and museums.

This show is made up of loans from American collections along with works he did after he got to his ultimate home. His time in New York was productive; the works potent.  "Carnival Mask," (left) was painted in 1950; the year he also painted the self portrait in a blue jacket (above it).
 
"Self-Portrait in Blue Jacket," was one of the works exhibited in "American Painting Today," which ran at the Met from December 8, 1950 to February 21, 1951. A couple of days after Christmas Max Beckmann set out from his apartment across Central Park to get his first look at it and the show. He dropped dead of a heart attack on the corner of of West 69th and the Park.

Sabine Rewald, curator of this exhibition, writes that it this  "poignant" fact that inspired her to produce this show. The exhibition is proof that this is so. It is often moving as well as beautiful.

Gilding as Fine Art--about time too

The Frick Collection is staging the first in what will be  a years'- long series of special exhibitions devoted to the decorative arts. Pierre Gouthiere: Virtuoso Gilder at the French Court is sensational and a surprise

. Ornamented French 18th century furniture has begun on a high note--but also one that comes as a surprise at least to the non-expert in modelling, chasing and gilding objets d'art. Highly ornamented, fancy French 18th century furniture and objects always are opulent but most of them seem to inhabit an icy world;  Not here. What a relief and what a roll out of beauties.  Gouthiere was not only the most sought after, he was also the best. His creations commanded higher prices than those offered to most painters and sculptors. Fashions changed. "Off with their heads," was far from enough. Off, also,with their furniture, gardens, their taste.

I confess that while I knew that this stiff is thought to be exquisite I never much cared for it.  Or so I thought. What luck to be in New York to see  Gouthiere revived. Even the candelabra are exciting. The detail below from a pair in the exhibition are like beautiful jewels.  








The textures,light and shadows, the lyrical sweep grab attention and hold it. A treat and a joy. Paddle on over and join the swans in this show. There are a couple of terrific golden camels, too.

TEFAF:: MAASTRICHT OR NEW YORK?

Raining flowers in the Armory

TEFAF is a clunky word to stay but as an acronym it has luster because it stands for The European Fine Art Fair --the greatest art and antiques fair in the Western world. For decades it has taken place in Maastricht, the Netherlands every year in March.  The word "European" in its title is no longer entirely accurate however. Last month it opened its first satellite fair in New York. The US version will be in two parts: Fall, with 94 exhibitors, focuses on art and objects up to 1920; Spring--in May--will show art and objects since. (For reasons not entirely obvious High Jewellery--made today--is included in the Fall offering along with antique jewels that surely fall within its millennia long dateline.)

  I have been going to Maastricht for 12 years; I love it. There are always exciting surprises; there is always treasure to see. I travelled from London where I live to NY, where I am from,  expressly to see how this version would work in my hometown. The answer is it was a big success. The design almost completely transformed the armory into a light, airy and elegant space. The 11 upstairs rooms --some with original panelling--looked terrific and people did not hesitate to climb up to see what the dealers were offering. The presence of a champagne, oyster and salmon bar was also enticing. Axel Vervoordt--one of the dealers--could not have had a more perfect space if he'd built it all from scratch. 

  There were great things to see: The large 1531 map of the then known world (see below) by Visconte Maggiolo at Daniel Crouch Rare Books includes the first known topographical illustration of New York harbour. It has the fantastical, space- and time- travelling wonder of many early maps. Here,  North America for all the details of its eastern coastline is depicted as a long, skinny piece of land snaking its way between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. With a price of $10 million it is said to be the most expensive map offered on the public market. 

  Would I go again?  Yes, if I happened to be in NY when it was. I would not make a special trip. The fair fills two floors of the armory but it is only a third the size of Maastricht in March. With so much more variety there no wonder I like the Dutch version better. Also not surprising: Some of things I liked best in NY I'd already seen in Maastricht earlier this year. 

  This is a great fair for New York and people who can get to it with relative ease. It is the best fair of its type that  the city --and the whole country--has had for years if not forever.  Plenty of dealers say they sold well. Plenty of visitors looked thrilled. All good. I enjoyed it too. But it is March I look forward to. For years my heart has belonged to Maastricht and that has not changed.

This year in Jerusalem

Just go. Jerusalem: 1000-1400  Every People Under Heaven  at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is full of surprises and revelations that often are also beautiful objects and works of art. It turns out to be about as immersive and intense a museum experience as is a visit to that city in Israel-- if you leave out the on-the-spot uneasiness.  (Today, in Jerusalem, there is always the feeling that any minute, by chance, you are going to step on the toes of some religious Jew, Christian or Muslim who live and worship there--and that they are not going to take the injury quietly.) To judge by what I hope will be only the first exposure to this exhibition, visitors to it are engaged with the displays to an exceptional degree. To say that they scrutinize the works is an understatement. People don't just stroll through this one. They plant themselves in front of a case and don't move.  No sooner did I enter than I came upon a vitrine with this ornate parchment map written and drawn in England by Matthew Paris circa 1250.

The man standing in front of it wasn't going to budge so I settled to one side. It was as if he were planning a trip--or reviewing one he'd taken. The fact that the boat might have been different or that he probably had not travelled around the Holy Land by camel made not the slightest difference.  But it was in front of the open Chronicle by Moses Maimonides, the great Jewish philosopher, that I found myself part of a growing group of men, women and youths all discussing the text. First of course came the astonishment that this work written in the twelfth century survives. That any medieval document still exists is noteworthy to be sure. But even a brief consideration of the wanderings and tragedies of Jews in the centuries since makes the continued existence of this work on parchment a marvel. And then there very quickly was the question of its contents.  A woman in her forties began reading out loud from the text. Then one of her two sons--late teenagers I would guess--started amending and correcting. In the back stood dad..All the males wore black hats; pop alone had a beard. Mom's brown hair was a wig. They spoke Yiddish but the text of course was in Hebrew or whatever variant of same Maimonides used. The page on the left included a drawing. It was, I learned from their back and forthing was his reconstruction of the destroyed Temple. The older son began explaining that we were seeing it as from the entrance. Then a smartly dressed woman came along, listened in, read the label and asked: Does this mean that this book was actually written by Maimonides? Group discussion was followed by dispute. Pop who had been silent until now said quietly that he didn't believe it. "It would have been a scroll."  I went off to consult with a curator who was giving a talk nearby. She in turn quickly consulted with someone else/ Yes. Yes. Maimonides was not only the author it is in his own hand.  

From Commentary on the Mishnah

At 5:15 were were told to leave; the Met was closing.  I walked out onto Fifth Avenue still enveloped in ancient Jerusalem and its descendant upstairs. A woman in her twenties stopped to ask directions. She had a French accent. She wore a scarf wrapped to hide her hair. "Where is the memorial to the dead?"she asked.

There are a couple of memorials that might fit the description--the Soldiers and Sailors for instance. But why in the world was she looking for that? I asked for more information. She tried one thing and another and finally, "September 11." 

    The World Trade Center," I told her, "is not near hear." I gave her instructions about how to find the subway station and where to get off. She smiled sweetly and thanked me. The show, precisely what it ought not to be called, goes on.

   

World's apart: Two favorites at London's art fairs

Whew. It's just about over.
For the first weeks of October, art fairs auctions, gallery private views, lectures, conferences, films and museum stacked up like planes waiting to land at Heathrow. Everyone wants to capitalize on the international hordes who come to town for Frieze, the contemporary and cutting- edge art fair. There is more going on than anybody can see or do. I didn't bother trying to "keep up." Enough that I kept awake. I did not go to Frieze this year. This is not because last year it was overwhelming but rather that there was just too little, by a lot. I am told that ideas are what art contemporary art is all about (aka Concept). There didn't seem to be any new ones or even delightful or provocative slightly used ones. So I skipped Frieze and began with  PAD  (Pavilion of Art and Design) in its big white tent in Berkeley Square and then checked out Frieze Masters, the most ambitious because home to high quality, wide ranging dealers in everything from antiquities to modern with objects, photographs, paintings, sculpture, jewels.  It two is in a huge white tent this one not far from the zoo in Regent's Park (I will duck comparisons well maybe not. Frieze fits not so much because of what is for sale but the atmosphere..)  PAD was disappointing. There was too little art and too much not- great French furniture and lighting--just the thing for a desperate interior decorator or his/her client but otherwise boring. However: One object was a honey. If price were not object (I didn't ask but I don't have to to know it is stratospheric), it would now be mine.

  Sitting all by itself in a glass case in the center of the Siegelson stand (high jewellery dealers from NY), was a Cartier Mystery Clock.  Its base is made of green marble--the appropriate color as it happens. A circular, sterling- silver frame is, engraved with the Roman numbers 1 to 12. In between a short lines indicating minutes.  This rings a shallow pool of water on which floats a little turtle. There are no visible minute or second hands; there are no visible clock works. The turtle just floats yet somehow it is not entirely idle; it does manage to tell the time.  This Cartier Turtle Mystery Clock  It was made in Paris around 1927. It has beauty and wit to which is added a dollop of childlike wonder. How is the turtle able to tell the time?  Answer: The water keeps it buoyant while the magnetic hour- hand -- out of sight underneath the silver bottom of the pond--directs its swimming movements.



Frieze Masters gets better and better. There was lots to enjoy yet, here too, a single object stood out--for me. It could not have been from a more different time and place in almost every sense.

Along the width of the back wall of the stand of Tokyo's London Gallery was a gold- leaf, six- fold Japanese screen. In front of it--at its midpoint= was a pedestal on which perched a wood guardian figure holding an elegant, undulating bow. At about two feet tall, he was sculpted from a single hunk of cypress wood during the Heian Period--probably sometime in the 11th century. Probably one of a pair of attendants flanking a Shinto Deity, he does not look in the slightest bit marital.  And yet the intense quiet conveyed by his bearing manages leaves no doubt that in an instant he could pull an arrow from his quiver (it makes no difference at all that is is no longer present) and see off anyone meaning to harm his god. During the Heian Period Nara was the capital of Japan; it is when sculpture in that island country reached its height. By the morning of the fair's opening day this guardian had a new home.

Smoked Olives and Frank Auerbach: Fortnum&Mason meets Modern British Art

A "fun" project art historian Robert Upstone, the curator of Fortnum's s Frank AW16, calls it. He chose sixty works of Modern British art from Frank Cohen's huge, world famous contemporary art collection and scattered them around Fortnum & Mason one of the world's most famous grocery stores. (Also included were Fortnum's less famous departments dedicated to men's and women's fashion, perfumes, skin creams and its several places to eat and drink.)  When short of inspiration, mix up expectations. I mean you never can tell, something might come of it. The result, in the case of this recently opened, month- long display, is that something did not--unless you want to count a few laughs of the snorting kind.
    Admittedly it was a surprise to see the thickly painted "Willesden Junction-Autumn Afternoon" (1971) by Leon Kossoff hanging behind the till in the busy tea department.  As international shoppers queued to pay they had plenty of time to look at the painting hanging just below the "Please Pay Here" sign. Was one of them to be so enthused that the basked of Earl Grey was ditched and the painting wrapped up instead? This was not merely improbable, it was out of the question. None of Mr Cohen's art in Fortnum's is for sale.

    Tracy Emin's neon scribble "I know, I know, I know" looks as fine in the window as it would anywhere. The cheery bright slashes by Howard Hodgkin dotted around the store, ditto.  Frank Auerbach's "Primrose Hill, Summer (1968) does not; the reflections are so strong they image loses its coherence. And whatever possessed Upstone to choose Kossoff's "Outside Kilburn Underground Station,"  (1984) for one of the windows facing onto Piccadilly?
It measures 198x213cm--so tall you have to press your nose against the glass to see the top of the picture. Stand back a foot and its top is lopped off.
 
I get it. This is a fresh approach. Go where shoppers are and open their eyes to ART. Fortnum's has cases filled with delectable fresh foods (and its jars of smoked olives are a treat). But stale stale stale is Fortnum'sx Frank.

Great new Tate; Pity about the art

The Switch House extension to Tate Modern is striking seen from outside and beautiful on the interior. Architects
 Herzog & de Meuron show the influence of Tadao Ando in the use of polished concrete interiors. It is sleek, elegant,a creator of harmony and serenity while casting a faint but perceptible silky glow.  The elongated curving staircases connecting floors are practical in their width and sensuous in their effect. 

Over all there are echoes of ancient Egypt (again something Switch House has in common with Ando's interiors at Naoshima art museums in Japan). There is a hint of mystery but also of comfort. Windows offer views out over London and the river Thames that are part of the pleasure of a visit.  But apart from an eerie, engaging contemporary music performance using newly created instruments (among them a variety of white pots placed on a large low white platform and a Rube Goldberg-like contraption that burst with birdsong), created for the opening as well as  a display of works by Louise Bourgeois--familiar but welcome just the same--the art on view does not even come close to the visual and sensory excitement of the building. I can't say that comes a shock. But it is a happy surprise to have a great new building in London and one that has such potential for day dreaming: The 10th floor is a glass box viewing platform.  I didn't see any seats but may, just as in the Turbine Hall next door, we will all just plunk ourselves down and the floor. 

Two dirty, left- hand gloves with a 4- figure estimate

These paint- smeared mitts did not belong to a one-armed painter.  Nope. It is said they were worn--one at a time to be sure--by Francis Bacon. What is more or anyway apparently equal in importance, is that he is alleged to have worn them while  working on Three Studies of of Lucian Freud. The auction house's press release underscores the importance of this--not by talking about the artistic quality of the triptych -so old fashioned of me to suggest it--but instead highlighting the price the painting sold for at Christie's New York in 2013. That number: $142 million.  It follows, it would seem, that estimate for two of the gloves he is said to have used as close -to -hand paint rags are not even small change.

Oh and these framed relics come with a note from the guy who found them while sifting through the garbage in the studio Bacon was using.  How's that for a classy provenance.


The auction house reports that there is plenty of advance interest in these items that offer the possibility of "insights" into the artist's process. Ha and ha ha.  But the vendor may be the one laughing all the way to the bank  on June 7.

HaaTs off to Makiko Minagawa

photo: Paula Weideger

They are light and soft; spun- silk stained glass. Makiko Minagawa, Director and Textile Designer of HaaT  employes Kyoto masters using traditional techniques that include salt-shrinking.. The resulting fabric is then dyed. Patterns and colors vary but all have a floaty beauty. During a recent London talk by Makiko Minakawa I fell in love with the example below. It somehow brings together clear tropical sea with Chartres windows.. A flat images does not capture the three- dimensional texture of scarves nor the variety of patterns and colors. (For a group portrait, see above.)

Issey Miyake conceives of his design studio as a collaboration. .But because his name and the brand are identical the other team members are unknown to most people.  Any number may have joined and decamped over the years but Makiko Minagawai has been part of Miyake Design Studio since 1971, the start. That year, because of her creative innovations, she was made Textile Director of Issey Miyake.

 Photo: Kei Ogata

By 2000, Makiko launched HaaT her own label within Issey Miyake Inc. (Tokyo has a stand alone Haat shop. In New York and London HaaT is a sold Photo: Kei Ogatawithin the Issey Miyake's flagship stores.)
   Issey Miyake has increasingly applied his imagination and technical daring to the creation of new textures and shapes using polyester and recycled plastics. Makiko Minagawa focuses on pushing the potential of natural fibers--wool, cotton, silk, bamboo--and new ways of  applying traditional hand made techniques--using crafts people around Japan and in India, too. . The scarves are a lovely example of her innovations for Spring 2016. So too is a quite different expression of her gifts: the dress on the right below. It is woven of linen first processed to make it soft. Next the coat dress is dyed using a special kind of Shibori (tie dye) technique. Itajime, the special craft of  resist-dyeing used in the Aichi area of Japan, is a centuries' old technique employed in adding a family crest to a kimono. Here is is used to create yellow moons against the blackest sky. By the end of Makiko Minakawa's talk the London shop had sold out of the one in my size!

Photo: Yusuke Miyazaki
   Of course a dress or scarf is not like a painting but with an artist like this, there are overlaps. It is not necessary to own a piece to enjoy and indeed to be deeply moved by it.