Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art to Be Shown Publicly for the First Time at the Harvard University Art Museums
An Exhibition of Works on Paper, Ceramics, and Examples of Persian Lacquer Highlight this Important Gift
CAMBRIDGE, MA (August 19, 2004)-An exhibition focusing on Persian art and reflecting the life and intellectual interests of an important patron of the arts in Boston opened this month at Harvard's Arthur M. Sackler Museum and will be on view through January 2, 2005. Composed entirely of objects gifted by Stanford and Norma Jean Calderwood in 2002, Closely Focused, Intensely Felt: Selections from the Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art includes 46 works and is the first public showing of a substantial number of objects from the Calderwood Collection.
The Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art spans a thousand years and ranges from the lusterwares of 9th-century Iraq to the lacquer wares of 19th-century Iran. Norma Jean Calderwood collected the works over three decades, beginning in the late 1960s. The objects were purchased on the international art market, primarily from dealers in Tehran, London, and Frankfurt. Only one quarter of these works are on view in Closely Focused, Intensely Felt. The objects have been selected to represent the artistic achievements of Persia, the region of the Islamic world most important to the collector. As described in her lectures, "Persia" should be understood to include modern-day Iran and parts of Iraq, Uzbekistan, and Afghanistan.
For centuries before the Islamic conquest, Persian artists produced pictorial representations of their history, religion, and institutions. The place and character of figural art changed radically under Islam, which condemned idolatry and offered little incentive for representational imagery. For religious expression, calligraphy evolved into the major visual art form in the first centuries of the Islamic era (which began in A.D. 622), while pictorial art more commonly adorned secular, utilitarian objects. In later centuries, following the rise of the New Persian literature written in Arabic script, a tradition of manuscript illustration of extraordinary sophistication and refinement developed.
"The Calderwoods have been extraordinarily generous to the Harvard University Art Museums over many years," said Thomas W. Lentz, Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director of the Harvard University Art Museums. "Through their many gifts, including this important collection of Islamic art, we are able to foster Norma Jean's passion for these works by allowing others to study them closely."
Norma Jean Calderwood
"Closely focused, intensely felt" were words that Calderwood used to convey to her students at Boston College the character and appeal of Persian art. The same phrase describes equally well the personal qualities that directed her to devote much of her adult life to studying, teaching, and acquiring Islamic art. After purchasing the first pieces of her collection while on a Museum of Fine Arts tour of Iran in 1968, she began auditing courses at Harvard and then moved to the Ph.D. program in the late 1970s. During this time, Harvard professors and curators shared their expertise with her and helped refine her taste. She then taught Islamic and Asian art at Boston College in the 1980s and 1990s.
"Perhaps the result of Norma Jean Calderwood's years as a graduate student of Islamic art at Harvard University, the collection significantly improves the permanent holdings of Islamic art at the Sackler Museum, in areas where it was weakest, such as ceramics, lacquer, and Persian painting from Shiraz," said Mary McWilliams, the Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art at the Sackler.
Ceramics
The Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art includes ceramics that represent nearly every significant period and technique in Persian pottery from the 9th through the 17th century. Bowl with Hadith Inscriptions and Jug with Kufic Inscription, both from the late 9th to10th century, are excellent examples of the different types of glazing and painting techniques that potters were employing in Iran and Uzbekistan during the Samanid dynasty. Large Dish with Peonies, c. 1475, is one of the rarest ceramics in the collection. It is an example of Timurid blue-on-white ware with a design that was influenced by Chinese patterns from the Ming dynasty, but the use of cobalt on a white ground dates back to 9th-century western Persian potters.
Works on Paper
After acquiring the bulk of her ceramics collection in her first decade of collecting, Calderwood shifted her focus to collecting works on paper, assembling nearly 100 paintings and text folios.
Manuscript paintings from the 14th to the 16th century from the city of Shiraz, Persian miniature paintings, and single-page paintings and drawings from the 16th and 17th centuries make up a large portion of the Calderwood Collection. The decline in demand for luxury manuscripts led artists to produce single-leaf works. Connoisseurs eagerly collected these works of art and bound them into albums along with specimens of calligraphy. Portraiture from the 19th century varied widely, from idealized, life-size oil paintings of monarchs and courtiers to small-scale, naturalistic watercolors that were current at mid-century.
Firdawsi's Shahnama
Around the year 1010 at the court of the Ghaznavid Sultan Mahmud in Afghanistan, Abu'l-Qasim Firdawsi completed a pivotal work of Persian literature, the Shahnama, or Book of Kings. Comprising some 30,000 couplets, this sprawling epic recounts the story of Iran and the Iranian peoples from the mythic dawn of civilization up to the Muslim conquest of the seventh century.
A Shahnama produced for the Safavid ruler Shah Tahmasp (r. 1524-76) ranks as one of the finest products of the royal scriptoria; one painting from this monumental book is Afrasiyab and Siyavush Embrace, c. 1530. One of 14 folios from various Shahnama manuscripts on display in this exhibition is a perfect example of the highly finished and meticulous style that developed under Tahmasp. The Calderwood Collection contains more than 50 paintings and text folios from Shahnama manuscripts. Ranging from the 14th through 17th century, they testify to the epic's wide and enduring appeal and to the extraordinary evolution of Persian painting that occurred during this period.
Lacquer
Works of art created in lacquer peaked in popularity in the 19th century. An extension of the traditional technique of applying opaque watercolor on a miniature scale, Persian lacquer painting appeared as early as the 15th century on utilitarian objects such as book covers. By the 19th century, the technique encompassed a wide repertoire of objects, including doors, mirror cases, and pen boxes such as Haydar 'Ali's Pen Box with Flowers, Birds, and Portraits, 1873. Until the end of the century, most of the artists who signed lacquer objects also painted manuscript illustrations, but it is in lacquer that we find best preserved the cherished qualities of meticulous execution and high finish.
The exhibition results from the first scholarly evaluation of the collection, undertaken by Mary McWilliams with the assistance of Afsaneh Firouz-Ardalan (the department's first Calderwood Intern), Ann B. Goodman (a research volunteer in the department), and Himmet Taskömûr (a Ph.D. candidate in History and Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies). A major scholarly publication of the entire collection is planned for release by the end of 2006.
Support for the exhibition and its accompanying brochure was generously provided by Melvin R. Seiden and the Islamic and Later Indian Art Scholarship Support Fund.
Related Events
Gallery Talks
- Sunday, September 12, 2:00 p.m.
- Saturday, November 6, 11:30 a.m.
- Sunday, December 5, 2:00 p.m.
Arthur M. Sackler Museum
Mary McWilliams, Norma Jean Calderwood Curator of Islamic and Later Indian Art
Thursday, October 14, 5:00-8:00 p.m.
Arthur M. Sackler Museum
Free admission
Join us for a festive evening in celebration of the exhibition Closely Focused, Intensely Felt: Selections from the Norma Jean Calderwood Collection of Islamic Art. At 6 p.m., Priscilla P. Soucek, deputy director and James R. McCredie Professor of Islamic Art, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, will present the annual Norma Jean Calderwood Lecture. The exhibition will be open for viewing from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m., and a reception will follow the lecture.
About the Harvard University Art Museums
The Harvard University Art Museums are one of the world's leading arts institutions, with the Arthur M. Sackler, Busch-Reisinger, and Fogg art museums, the Straus Center for Conservation, and the U.S. headquarters for the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, an excavation project in western Turkey.
The Harvard University Art Museums are distinguished by the range and depth of their collections, their groundbreaking exhibitions, and the original research of their staff. As an integral part of the Harvard 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 exhibitions as well as to enjoy lectures, symposia, and other programs.
For more than a century, the Harvard University Art Museums have been the nation's premier training ground for museum professionals and scholars and are renowned for their role in the development of the discipline of art history in this country.
Location and Hours
The Fogg Art Museum and the Busch-Reisinger Museum are located at 32 Quincy Street in Cambridge. The Arthur M. Sackler Museum is located next door at 485 Broadway. Each Museum is a short walk from the Harvard Square MBTA station.
Hours are Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sunday 1 - 5 p.m.; the Museums are closed on national holidays. Admission is $6.50; $5 for seniors; $5 for students; and free for those under 18 years of age. The Museums are free to everyone Saturday mornings, 10 a.m. - noon. The Harvard University Art Museums receive support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. More detailed information is available at 617-495-9400 or on the Internet at www.artmuseums.harvard.edu.
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For more information on this appointment or the Harvard University Art Museums, please contact:
Matthew Barone
Harvard University Art Museums
tel 617-495-2397; fax 617-496-9762
mbarone@fas.harvard.edu
or
Kim Gilbert/Casey Barber
Resnicow Schroeder Associates
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kgilbert@resnicowschroeder.com
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