Harvard’s Busch-Reisinger Museum to Present Exhibition of Franz Marc’s Horse Paintings

Franz Marc: Horses Is First U.S. Exhibition Devoted to Marc in Over 20 Years

Cambridge, MA – August 17, 2000 – Harvard’s Busch-Reisinger Museum will present an exhibition offering an intimate look at Franz Marc’s (1880-1916) paintings of horses. Franz Marc: Horses brings together a selection of major works by this German Expressionist master in a special installation that explores the artist’s commitment to the spiritual intensity of color in interpreting the natural world. Opening at the Busch-Reisinger Museum on September 29, Franz Marc: Horses is the first exclusive presentation of Marc’s work in the United States in over 20 years. The exhibition will remain on view through March 18, 2001.

This concentrated group of six masterworks focuses on the canonical painting The Red Horses (1911), a promised gift currently on long-term loan to the Busch-Reisinger Museum. Other works included in the exhibition are Small Blue Horses (1912) and Small Yellow Horses (1911) from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Large Blue Horses (1912) from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, and two highly significant later paintings from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Stables and The Poor Country of Tyrol, both from 1913. Franz Marc: Horses follows a major presentation of the artist’s work on this theme by the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.

As a complement to Franz Marc: Horses, the Busch-Reisinger Museum will present the exhibition The Blue Rider Artists: Works on Paper from the Busch-Reisinger Museum and Other Harvard Collections (December 23,2000-March 18, 2001). Both exhibitions are organized by Peter Nisbet, Daimler-Benz Curator of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, with the assistance of Tawney Becker, curatorial assistant, and Tanja Maka, 1999-2001 Michalke Curatorial Intern.

"Franz Marc: Horses will bring these extraordinary paintings together for the first time in the U.S., allowing us to study and appreciate the resonance between Marc's provocative subject matter and abstract use of color," said James Cuno, the Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums. "The Art Museums have a history of providing a platform for scholarship associated with this important artist; in 1941, the Busch-Reisinger Museum hosted the first exhibition in the U.S. devoted to Marc's work. Franz Marc: Horses offers an opportunity for careful examination of a subject that illuminates key aspects of Marc's aesthetic style and artistic evolution. We are grateful to the Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum for generously supporting this project."

Franz Marc dedicated a major part of his tragically short life to painting animals, and his mystical depictions of horses today count among the icons of classic modernism. Franz Marc: Horses explores how this cofounder of the Munich-based expressionist Blue Rider group created visionary images evoking his understanding of the pureness and innocence of the animal world. The visitor will also have a sense of the trend toward abstraction in Marc’s work in the years before the outbreak of the First World War, during which the artist was then killed. The complementary exhibition The Blue Rider Artists puts Marc’s Horses and the greater body of his work into the context of a major movement born in part from his personal artistic motivation.

In conjunction with Franz Marc: Horses, the Busch-Reisinger Museum will publish the English translation of the catalogue for the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart exhibition, with Hatje Cantz Publishers. The catalogue will present major contributions to scholarship on Marc and German Expressionism, including nearly 230 illustrations.

"Franz Marc: Horses, complemented by The Blue Rider Artists, promises to deepen our appreciation for Marc’s mastery of vibrant color and rhythmic composition as seen in the larger context of German Expressionism," said Nisbet. "We are delighted to have this unique opportunity to present Franz Marc: Horses and a number of important works by Blue Rider artists in the galleries simultaneously, which will allow viewers to increase their understanding of this pivotal movement in twentieth-century art."

The Blue Rider Artists: Works on Paper from the Busch-Reisinger Museum and Other Harvard Collections

Through groundbreaking exploration of color and form, artists associated with the 1912 publication The Blue Rider sought to free artistic expression from the constraints of tradition and to tap more directly into the human psyche and spirit.

Opening on December 23, 2000, The Blue Rider Artists: Works on Paper from the Busch-Reisinger Museum and other Harvard Collections presents the University’s strengths in holdings of works by Marc and this influential group of artists. The exhibition includes works by Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, August Macke, Heinrich Campendonk, Alexei von Jawlensky, and Alfred Kubin, and brings together important works that have not been exhibited at the Art Museums as an independent group since 1955. These works on paper offer insight into the artists’ processes as they develop their ideas in watercolor, gouache, oil, graphite, and ink. Prints such as woodcuts, etchings, drypoints, and lithographs, as well as printed books, including the almanac The Blue Rider (1912), will also be shown. Of special interest will be the display of the results of the technical, archival, and art-historical research into the Museum's fascinatingly enigmatic Winter Landscape of 1910-1911, traditionally attributed to Kandinsky. This research has been carried out by Friederike Zimmern, an intern in the Museums’ Straus Center for Conservation. The exhibition will remain on view through March 18, 2001.

Harvard University Art Museums
The Harvard University Art Museums is one of the leading arts institutions in the United States and the world. It is distinguished by the range and depth of its collections, its groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of its staff. For more than a century, it has been the nation’s premier training ground for museum professionals and scholars and is renowned for its seminal and ongoing role in the development of the discipline of art history in this country.

The three art museums at Harvard – the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Fogg Art Museum – are all outstanding institutions in their respective fields. The Fogg also houses the Straus Center for Conservation, long a leader in the research and development of scientific and technology-based analysis of art. The 150,000 objects in the art museums’ collections range in date from ancient times to the present and come from Europe, North America, North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Each museum also has an active program of special exhibitions that promotes new scholarship in its areas of focus. As an integral component of the Harvard University community, the three art museums serve as a resource for all students, adding a special dimension to their areas of study. The public is welcome to experience the collections and special exhibitions as well as to enjoy lectures, symposia, and other programs in the various museums.

The collections are divided among ten curatorial areas: Ancient and Byzantine Art and Numismatics; Architecture and Design; Asian Art; Busch-Reisinger Museum; Drawings; Islamic and Later Indian Art; Modern and Contemporary Art; Paintings, Sculpture and Decorative Arts; Prints; and Photographs. Developed with an emphasis on their value for teaching and research, these holdings are a uniquely broad and rich resource that is continually enhanced through gifts and acquisitions. Together, the holdings of the three museums comprise one of the finest university art collections in the world, with resources rivaling those of many major public museums.

The Straus Center for Conservation is the oldest fine arts conservation treatment, research, and training facility in the United States. The Center specializes in the conservation of paintings, sculpture, decorative objects, historic and archaeological artifacts, and works of art on paper. Its team members are pioneers in developing new applications of digital imaging in conservation. The Center’s state-of-the-art facilities support a broad range of analytical services.

All three art museums are open Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m., and Sunday, 1–5 p.m., and are closed on national holidays. Admission is $5.00; $4.00 for senior citizens; $3.00 for students; free under 18 and for all individuals on Saturdays until noon and all day on Wednesdays.

For general information, call 617-495-9400 or visit www.artmuseums.harvard.edu. All groups of seven or more must schedule in advance by calling 617-496-8576. The Harvard University Art Museums receives support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council.