HARVARD UNIVERSITY ART MUSEUMS TO PRESENT LANDMARK EXHIBITION OF PIET MONDRIAN’S TRANSATLANTIC WORKS

"Mondrian: The Transatlantic Paintings" Is Result of Collaboration between the Fogg Art Museum and the Straus Center for Conservation

Exhibition Brings Together Works from Major American and European Collections, Including the Museum of Modern Art, The Tate Modern, and the Kimbell Art Museum

Cambridge, MA—July 12, 2000—The Harvard University Art Museums will present a groundbreaking exhibition exploring the "transatlantic" works of Piet Mondrian (Dutch, 1872–1944). Mondrian: The Transatlantic Paintings focuses on a series of seventeen works created in Europe and finished in America during the artist’s final years. The exhibition is the culmination of extensive technical research on these paintings and the revisions that Mondrian made to them, and provides valuable insight into his working process. The project also encompasses multimedia kiosks in the exhibition, a web site, a scholarly catalogue, and educational programming both for scholars and the general public, all of which will advance the understanding and appreciation of one of the leading abstract artists of the twentieth century.

Drawing upon public and private collections in Europe and America, the exhibition will unite for the first time fifteen of Mondrian’s seventeen transatlantic paintings, including works from the Museum of Modern Art, The Tate Modern, The Phillips Collection, and the Kimbell Art Museum. Harry Cooper, associate curator of modern art at Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum, and Ron Spronk, associate curator for research at Harvard’s Straus Center for Conservation, are the principal scholars and organizers of the project. Mondrian: The Transatlantic Paintings will be on view April 28–July 22, 2001 in the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard, before traveling to the Dallas Art Museum in the fall. The exhibition is supported in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

"Mondrian: The Transatlantic Paintings is the result of an important collaboration between the Fogg and the Straus Center. As a leading teaching institution and a major center for conservation, the Art Museums have long been committed to the integration of art historical and conservation research," said James Cuno, the Elizabeth and John Moors Cabot Director. "This project will provide a model for collaboration between curators, technical art historians, and conservators and will stimulate new thinking about integrating technical information into the aesthetic experience of exhibitions."

In 1938, Mondrian fled Paris, his home of twenty years, and moved to London before settling in New York in 1940, where he lived until his death in 1944. On arriving in New York, he began revising many of the paintings—some previously exhibited—that he had brought with him. He added lines and blocks of color in order to complicate and enliven the compositions—to give them "more boogie-woogie," as he put it, referring to his latest musical enthusiasm. He inscribed the paintings with double dates to emphasize the singular importance of the revisions.

"These works reveal a significant change in Mondrian’s artistic vocabulary, and there are various frameworks for considering them," noted Cooper. "They can be viewed as unique documents of the ‘intellectual migration’ from Europe to America around World War II; as the means by which Mondrian dealt with his displacement and exile; and as important traces of the ongoing artistic dialogue between painting and music, or between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture. However, any interpretation requires detailed knowledge of the revisions the artist made to the works, and this collaboration with the Straus Center has provided important new information on Mondrian’s working process as well as a platform for new art historical interpretation."

In some cases, the first (European) version was recorded through photographs, and in others, no records exist. This makes the series as a whole ideally suited to the kind of technical research—including X-radiography, ultraviolet and infrared imaging, microscopic observation, and pigment sampling and analysis—that has become an increasingly important part of art historical investigation. These technical documents were digitized and overlaid for further study, an innovative manner of examining such material that was developed in the Straus Center. Such in-depth analyses have more typically been applied to old master paintings, which generally lend themselves to the process because they were made in layers, from underdrawing to varnished surface.

"By methodically applying this kind of technical examination to modern paintings, the project breaks new scholarly ground for the enhanced study and understanding of modern art," added Spronk. "A major goal is to present the results in a way that illuminates the technical groundwork of the paintings without detracting from their aesthetic impact. An important premise for the project is that the appreciation of art can be enhanced by information about its creation when such information is presented in a way that is accessible but unobtrusive.

"The paintings will be installed in one gallery with interactive kiosks providing access to the research findings. The kiosks will allow visitors to take a virtual "tour" of the paintings, layer by layer, and will also integrate ancillary materials, including archival photos of the artist and his studios, as well as additional critical interpretations of the work. A similar "tour" will also be available through the web site.

A scholarly catalogue will accompany the exhibition, with full-color illustrations, detailed entries, and digitized technical imaging of the works, including X-radiographs, ultraviolet and infrared images, microphotographs, and cross sections of paint layers. Essays by Spronk and Cooper will present, respectively, the technical findings themselves, and their effects on broader historical and critical consideration of Mondrian’s late works.

There will also be a major scholarly symposium on the technical examination of modern art. Among the speakers will be the world’s leading Mondrian experts as well as other eminent conservators and scholars in the field of modern art.

This exhibition was organized by the Fogg Art Museum and the Straus Center for Conservation of the Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts. This exhibition has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, and by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and Humanities. Additional funding has been provided by Frances and John Bowes, the European Friends of the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Emily Rauh Pulitzer, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, and the Walter & Franziska Petschek Charitable Trust, in honor of Seymour Slive.

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 Harvard University Art Museums – the Fogg Art Museum, the Busch-Reisinger Museum, and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum – are all outstanding institutions in their respective fields. The Fogg also houses the Straus Center for Conservation, 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 Art Museums serve as a resource for all students, adding a special dimension to their areas of study and to their lives at and after Harvard. The Art Museums welcome the public to experience the collections and special exhibitions as well as to enjoy lectures, symposia, and other programs.

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) and are encyclopedic within those areas. 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 is also fully equipped to support state-of-the-art facilities with a comprehensive range of analytical services.

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For general information, please call (617) 495-9400. All groups of 7 or more must schedule in advance; please call (617) 496-8576. Web site: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu. The Harvard University Art Museums are supported in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.