Newsletter
T H E PR IN T, D R AW IN G & P H O T O G R A P H S O C I E T Y O F T H E B A LT I M O R E M U S E U M O F A RT
VOLUME 35
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NUMBER 1
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SPRING 2016
GIFTS FOR A NEW CENTURY
The New Arrivals exhibition celebrates
the success of the BMA’s Campaign
for Art by showcasing some of the
more than 3,500 gifts, promised gifts,
bequests, and purchases of art added
to the Museum’s collection. 3
ALSO INSIDE
© ALINE FELDMAN. PHOTO: MITRO HOOD
PRESIDENT’S LETTER 2
W H E N P H O T O G R A P H S TA C K L E A R T H I S T O R Y 6
THE DIRECTOR’S COLLECTION 10
E VA N L I N D Q U I S T 1 4
TA M I N G T H E G A R R E T T C O L L E C T I O N 2 0
BROOMBERG & CHANARIN: OPTICS & CONFLICT 24
G E O R G E A L O Y S I U S L U C A S, A B A LT I M O R E A N I N P A R I S 2 8
Aline Feldman (American, born 1928)
Night Grid, 2009
Color white line woodcut
Sheet: 1011 x 659 mm. (39 13/16 x 25 15/16 in.)
Gift of the Artist
BMA 2011.77
PRESIDENT’S LETTER
Dear Members of the Print, Drawing & Photograph Society,
It is heartening to be writing a letter for our spring Newsletter as I am surrounded by almost
30 inches of snow!
As I reflect back on this year so far, I know so many of you enjoyed our opening reception
featuring the exhibitions Photographs from the O’Neil Collection and Late 20th-Century
Photographs from Russia & Belarus. The tours given by curators Kristen Hileman and Rena
Hoisington were wonderful, and everyone so enjoyed mixing and mingling afterwards at
the reception.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Spring 2016
PRESIDENT
Susan Weiss
VICE PRESIDENT
Francine Krumholz
TREASURER
Karen Fowler
SECRETARY
Suzanne Hill
IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENT
As always, the NYC day trip to the IFPDA print fair was a special treat, this year made even
better by the visit to The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University to receive
a special tour of the exhibition Rembrandt’s Changing Impressions.
Judith Tobin
NEWSLETTER EDITOR
Scott Ponemone
HIGHER EDUCATION LIAISON
Many of us also attended the very interesting talk by artist George Walker (the subject of a
fall Newsletter article) hosted by Scott Ponemone at his home.
In December we were treated to an enthusiastic tour of the exhibition Matisse Prints and
Drawings by Interim Co-Director Jay Fisher. We are so fortunate to be the recipient of many
works from the Matisse heirs with many thanks to Jay for nurturing that relationship.
Now we look forward to the balance of the season: our ever-popular Winter Seminar Series,
this year focusing on George A. Lucas; our spring collector visit; and finally our Annual
Meeting in June.
2
This will be my last letter as president of our group. I have been proud and honored to serve
as President. Every aspect of this post has been wonderful, from working with the dedicated
board members and talented Newsletter staff to learning from the superb curatorial staff
of the PDP department. I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: I especially love the
camaraderie of our group. It is such a pleasure every time we get together. I know we will
all be well served when Francine Krumholz steps up to assume the position of our next
president.
Enjoy this Newsletter! You’ll find interesting articles with important information regarding
upcoming events.
Lisa Shifren
MEMBERS
Miriam Arenberg
Darnell Burfoot
Evelyn Cogswell
Betsy Cumming
Jo Helman
Trudi Ludwig Johnson
Judith Katz
Alison Morgan
BMA ADVISORS
Rena M. Hoisington
Jay Fisher
NEWSLETTER STAFF
EDITOR
Scott Ponemone
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Amy Beverungen
Evelyn Cogswell
Amy Huntoon
Ursula West Minervini
Nancy Patz
EDITORIAL ADVISOR
Sincerely,
Susan Weiss, President
Print, Drawing & Photograph Society
The Baltimore Museum of Art
Rena Hoisington
CURATORIAL ASSISTANT
Morgan Dowty
DESIGN
Nicole Clark, Stanton Design
The Print, Drawing & Photograph
Society Newsletter is a project
undertaken by the Society for the
use of its members. Articles are
submitted by Society members,
Museum staff, or guest authors as
individual expressions of opinion
and do not necessarily represent the
views of The Baltimore Museum
of Art or of the membership as
a whole.
GIFTS OF ART FOR
A NEW CENTURY
PHOTO: MITRO HOOD
James McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903)
Nocturne, 1879-1880
From the portfolio Twelve Etchings of Venice
(First Venice Set)
Etching and drypoint
Sheet: 202 x 297 mm. (7 15/16 x 11 11/16 in.)
Plate: 199 x 292 mm. (7 13/16 x 11 1/2 in.)
Given in Memory of Edward Bruce Baetjer
BMA 2011.322
N E W A R R I VA L S : G I F T S O F A RT F O R A N E W C E N T U RY
NEW ARRIVALS:
3
monumental exhibition has opened at The
Baltimore Museum of Art. New arrivals to
the Museum's collection—including gifts,
promised gifts, bequests, and purchases made with
newly donated funds from the last ten years—are
being exhibited with related works in the permanent
collection in a large-scale show entitled New Arrivals:
Gifts of Art for a New Century (through May 8). The
exhibition celebrates the Museum's Campaign for
Art, which welcomed over 3,500 objects into
the collection. The exhibition demonstrates the
flourishing of each department's collections while
highlighting the ways in which they have evolved.
With such a bountiful display of the breadth, depth,
and variation of the BMA's collection, New Arrivals:
Gifts of Art for a New Century pays homage to the
individuals who have contributed so greatly to the
A
Museum over the years. Speaking through objects,
the exhibition tells a story of how the BMA's
collection has grown since its founding in 1914
and signals where the Museum is headed in the
21st century.
With over 200 objects on view, the exhibition invites
viewers to see the ways that objects from all of
the Museum's departments correlate through
meaningful object pairings. A 20th-century Ishungu
(a culture group located in South Africa) snuff
container fashioned from gourd, brass, and iron will
be posed with a 19th-century French snuff box made
from gold, enamel, diamonds, and porcelain. Such
a pairing elicits a bond between different regions
and time periods and invites viewers to analyze
variations in cultural style.
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
BY AMY BEVERUNGEN
N E W A R R I VA L S : G I F T S O F A RT F O R A N E W C E N T U RY
In addition to cross-cultural juxtapositions, the
exhibition will also pair pieces by artists who work
in various media. Two sculptures by Alexander
Calder will be displayed with a brush and tusche
lithograph by the artist, which he created as a
poster for an exhibition of his work. In this 1956
lithograph, Calder, the viewer can see the way
the artist’s iconic sense of form and composition
carries over into the two-dimensional plane.
A print and a drawing from Bruce Nauman's
Violins/Violence series will be included in the
exhibition. They correspond to the large-scale
neon piece that illuminates the exterior of the
BMA's east wing at night.
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Lovers of works on paper will be elated to see the
scope of prints, drawings, and photographs on
view in this exhibition. Of special note is a recent
acquisition of a variation of James McNeill
Whistler's Nocturne print, which recently joined
three long-term holdings of impressions of the
piece. With all four unique variations on display,
viewers may closely inspect the changes that
Whistler made to this fine print of a ship crossing
a lagoon in 19th-century Venice (see page 3).
On view for the first time, six prints from Gustav
Wolf's portfolio entitled World will be included in
the exhibition. (For more information on the series,
see the Fall 2015 Newsletter.) The portfolio was
acquired through the generosity of PDPS. Woodcut
enthusiasts will especially enjoy World and its
variety of woodcut techniques applied brilliantly
in this dynamic series. New acquisitions of
photography will also be presented in the show.
Three of Edward Burtynsky's powerful, large-scale
chromogenic color prints of the post-industrial
landscape are on display in conjunction with early
20th-century photographic works that explore
human and nature relationships, as in Anne W.
Brigman's elegant photographs of the nude form
embedded in the natural landscape.
PHOTO: MITRO HOOD
Recent acquisitions add new meaning to many
of the BMA's long-term holdings. A 2008 gift of a
75-sheet sketchbook by Benjamin West offers a
look into the artist's style and process. It adds
perspective to existing holdings of West's work,
including The Death of Aaron, a masterful graphite
drawing with ink and watercolor wash that will be
on display with the sketchbook in the exhibition.
Benjamin West (American, 1738-1820)
Expressive Male Head, c. 1760-1792
Graphite from a sketchbook containing 75 sheets with drawings
Sheet: 115 x 184 mm. (4 1/2 x 7 1/4 in.)
Gift of the Stiles E. Tuttle Memorial Trust, the Marion Tuttle Colwill Charitable Trust,
and Stiles Tuttle Colwill, Lutherville, Maryland, in Memory of Marion Tuttle Colwill
BMA 2008.277.1
Another recent gift adds a different perspective
to existing work in the Museum, in a more literal
sense. A 1915 Pierre Bonnard painting from the
Cone Collection, titled Woman with a Basket of
Fruit, is a Post-Impressionist painting of a lady with
fruit from a slightly raised point of view. A recent
gift to the Museum was another Bonnard painting
from 1924 titled Basket of Fruit, which depicts the
same green-striped basket but from a frontal stilllife perspective. Displayed together, the viewer can
see the way the artist’s style evolved through the
years, with the basket serving as a recurring motif.
It is rewarding to see how recent acquisitions have
In tandem with New Arrivals: Gifts of Art for a
New Century is New Arrivals: Maryland Artists,
an exhibition of recent acquisitions of art by
Marylanders. This companion show offers a look at
recent acquisitions of works by Maryland artists,
showing how local artists are represented in the
larger context of the Museum. Of particular note is
a color woodblock print depicting an urban night
scene titled Night Grid (2009) by Columbia artist
Aline Feldman (see cover). Her single-woodblock
technique and the aerial perspective are evidence
of the artist’s experience working with Japanese
printmaker Unichi Hiratsuka. Feldman also uses
the “white-line method” of delineating shapes in her
piece, applying a soft-edged geometric structure
that interplays with visible wood grain. The piece is
a harmonic combination of historic printmaking
techniques and the artist’s unique style, fitting nicely
into the collection of works on paper at the BMA.
Another noteworthy piece is a delicate watercolor
rendering of stacked rocks titled Balance of
Consequence (2007) by Baltimore artist Christine
Neill, who studied with Grace Hartigan at the
Maryland Institute College of Art. The weight and
firmness of the geological subject is offset by
the soft watercolor tones, as well as the delicate
alignment of the rocks. The piece produces a
sensitive balance and shows the artist’s proficiency
in the watercolor medium.
Both New Arrivals exhibitions provide an exciting
look at what the Museum has become and give
inspiring thoughts as to how it will continue to grow.
N E W A R R I VA L S : G I F T S O F A RT F O R A N E W C E N T U RY
allowed the collection to flourish in significant (and
sometimes playful) ways.
Christine Neill (American, born 1947)
Balance of Consequence, 2007
Watercolor over graphite
Sheet: 762 x 559 mm. (30 x 22 in.)
Gift of Judith Tobin and Jeffrey Lindemuth, Baltimore
BMA 2013.103
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
© CHRISTINE NEILL. PHOTO: MITRO HOOD
5
W H E N P H O T O G R A P H S TA C K L E A R T H I S T O R Y
WHEN
COURTESY ANDRES SERRANO
6
PHOTOGRAPHS
TACKLE
ART HISTORY
Andres Serrano (American, born 1950)
Black Supper, 1990, printed 1992
Silver dye bleach print (Ilfochrome), silicone, plexiglass, wood frame
5 panel piece, each frame: 45 1/16 x 32 11/16 in. (1144 x 830 mm.)
The William G. Baker, Jr. Memorial Fund, and Dr. Max Stern Trust Fund
BMA 1993.20a-e.
BY AMY HUNTOON
ere is a simple concept: pair four
contemporary photographic works with four
masterpiece paintings that inspired the
photographers. This disarmingly straightforward
premise underlies On Paper: Picturing Painting,
an exhibition set to open March 30 and remain
on view until October 23 in the On Paper Gallery.
The photographic works challenge the viewer to
contemplate how photography can simultaneously
show both continuity and rupture with art history,
according to Kristen Hileman, Senior Curator
of Contemporary Art and Department Head.
In mounting this show her goal is to feature
contemporary works from the BMA’s photography
collection and, by referencing art history, encourage
H
viewers to see contemporary art in dialogue with
historical subjects and practices.
Walking into the gallery that normally displays
smaller works on paper and seeing only four large
works installed with dramatic lighting will jolt the
viewer to consider how large-scale photographs
have a physical impact that rivals contemporary
paintings. The large size is only the beginning of the
comparison. While the subject matter references
famous art historical masterworks, each of these
four works reinvestigates and reimagines its subject.
Andres Serrano’s Black Supper references The Last
Supper (1990), famously painted by Leonardo da
Vinci in 1495-98 as a fresco in the refectory of
the monastery Santa Marie delle Grazie in Milan.
W H E N P H O T O G R A P H S TA C K L E A R T H I S T O R Y
However, Serrano’s modern work barely reveals the
faces of Christ and his disciples. He spray-painted
small plaster models of Leonardo’s figures black and
submerged them in water.* He then photographed
the figures and created a five-panel work mounted
in a wood frame with plexiglass glazing. The large
work—each panel almost 3 x 4 feet—creates an
imposing presence. This construction of a serial
image also recalls the Andy Warhol 1986 painting
The Last Supper that hangs in the Caplan Gallery in
the Museum’s Contemporary Wing.
Serrano achieved quite a bit of notoriety for his
photograph Piss Christ (1987) that featured a small
plastic statue of Christ submerged in a glass of the
artist’s urine. In a 1989 New York Times review
of this work, critic Michael Brenson suggests that
the use of the photographic medium frees the
artist to reconsider traditional religious imagery
in a new way. While examining Serrano's series
of Cibachrome photographs of iconic objects
submerged in bodily fluids, Brenson commented:
"You cannot consider the content of Mr. Serrano's
work without considering his attitude toward
photography. It is the photograph that breaks
through convention, that makes the search possible
and that enables the artist to sort out what he likes
and does not like in religion and art.”
Rineke Dijkstra (Dutch, born 1959)
Hel. Poland, August 12, 1998, 1998
Chromogenic color print
Sheet: 1451 x 1171 mm. (57 1/8 x 46 1/8 in.)
Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Fund
BMA 2001.22
*Robert Hobbs, Andres Serrano: Works 1983-1993, Philadelphia: Institute
Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 1994.
(http://www.roberthobbs.net/book_files/Andres_Serrano_The_Body_Politic.pdf)
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
A different dialogue about women in art history
is introduced by Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les
Trois Femmes Noires (2010), the staged group
photograph by Mickalene Thomas. This provocative
image presents three black female figures in the
© RINEKE DIJKSTRA
Drawing also from the Renaissance period for
inspiration is the large portrait by Rineke Dijkstra
entitled Hel. Poland, August 12, 1998. Kristen
Hileman described this portrait as a “tender image
… the preteen girl on the beach is confident
and vulnerable.” She stands in a pronounced
contrapposto position with the waves behind her.
This pose suggests to Hileman that Dijkstra was
thinking about Sandro Botticelli’s Birth of Venus
(1482-85) when she took this photo. According to
Hileman, the photographer, by classicizing the
young girl, connects contemporary preteens with
historical concepts of beauty. Considering this art
historical context perhaps will open a new door
for the viewer’s appreciation of contemporary art.
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© MICKALENE THOMAS, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND LEHMANN MAUPIN GALLERY, NEW YORK
W H E N P H O T O G R A P H S TA C K L E A R T H I S T O R Y
8
Mickalene Thomas (American, born 1971)
Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires, 2010
Chromogenic color print
Sheet: 1219 x 1524 mm. (48 x 60 in.)
Frame: 1333.5 x 1625.6 x 57 mm. (52 1/2 x 64 x 2 1/4 in.)
Collectors Circle Fund for Art by African Americans, and Roger M. Dalsheimer
Photograph Acquisitions Endowment
BMA 2010.36
pose made famous by Edouard Manet’s painting of a
picnic in a woodland setting. The white nude female
in Manet’s work is absent here. Instead the three
clothed black women strike poses similar to the
men in Manet’s work. Hileman commented that
these figures reference race, identity, and gender
and speak to the existence of strong, black female
figures in art. Thomas, who has made many
paintings that portray black women, examines
femininity, beauty, race, sexuality, and gender
in her artwork. By revisiting an iconic subject from
an Impressionist painter who was regarded as
revolutionary in his era, Thomas continues the
revolutionary spirit by reimagining the woodland
picnic and offering an empowering image of black
women to contemporary audiences.
The most hand-worked of the four photographic
images on display is Large Blue Film Picasso (198889) by the Starn Twins. It offers another opportunity
to engage with painting but in a very literal way. As
Hileman discussed this work, she explained that it is
“one medium investigating another” and described
this work as “sculptural because of the collage
elements.” Presented in a large frame that divides
the image in half, the two female figures are
photographic versions of Picasso’s Two Seated
Nudes. The photographic images of the figures,
held in place with wood, tape, and plexiglass,
Visit the BMA On Paper Gallery. Consider how
contemporary artists use art historical masterpieces
for inspiration. These artists have a way of working
that is ahistorical. They have reinvented the wheel in
new and provocative ways. By reimagining famous
painting subjects as photographs, such as creating
The Last Supper as a serial panel work or peopling
the iconic Le déjeuner sur l'herbe with contemporary
black women, these works make a claim for the
importance of photography. While painting has
a longer history and for centuries was the most
celebrated art form, these contemporary photographs,
in a subtly subversive way, make a case for
photography as the more relevant art form.
W H E N P H O T O G R A P H S TA C K L E A R T H I S T O R Y
resemble two puzzle pieces that neatly fit together.
And ironically, because photography is a medium
that produces multiples, the handcrafted assembly
makes this work unique. It references earlier
historical approaches to art making that required
hours of thought and skilled work with materials
to produce a unique image. Since making this
photographic work in the 1980s, Mike and Doug
Starn’s practice has evolved into sculpture. In 2010
their Big Bambú: You Can't, You Don't, and You Won't
Stop—a monumental bamboo structure measuring
100 feet long, 50 feet wide, and 50 feet high—took
the form of a cresting wave and bridged realms of
sculpture, architecture, and performance. It was
installed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a
site-specific installation for The Iris and B. Gerald
Cantor Roof Garden.
Starn Twins ((Mike and Doug Starn, American, born 1961))
Large Blue Film Picasso, 1988-1989
Toned Ortho film photographic paper, plexiglas, glue, tape and wood
2592 x 2643 mm. (102 x 104 in.)
Frederick R. Weisman Contemporary Art Acquisitions Endowment
BMA 1989.52
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
COURTESY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
9
THE DIRECTOR’S COLLECTION
THE DIRECTOR’S
COLLECTION
PDPS TOUR COMING THIS SPRING
PHOTO: SCOTT PONEMONE
10
BY NANCY PATZ
W
hat music do you imagine pianist Leon
Fleisher listens to at breakfast?
What books do you think poet John Barth has on
his night table?
It could include almost anything, I figured. After
all, Doreen has many areas of expertise. She’d
supervised the renovation and reinstallation of the
Cone, Jacobs, Contemporary and American galleries,
as well the expanded African and Asian Galleries.
And what of Doreen Bolger, recently retired Director
of The Baltimore Museum of Art, former Director of
The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD)Museum,
former Curator of American Painting and Sculpture at
The Metropolitan Museum of Art? What kind of art do
you imagine she has in her house?
She’d co-curated a big exhibition at the Met called
In Pursuit of Beauty: Americans and the Aesthetic
Movement. And she’s well known for her
enthusiastic encouragement of local artists.
Who knew what kind of art I’d find inside!
As I stood at the back gate of Doreen’s St. Paul Street
home, I was about to find out.
A natural and joyous coming-together of all the
above—that’s what I found. “William Morris
wallpapers everywhere,” Doreen said. “It’s fun
There on a small wall are two pieces: a glowing
yellow/orange/red many-layered pressed paper print
by Joyce Scott (with just a few jewels) and a square
American flag-like print by Sam Gilliam. Worked into
the Gilliam’s red and white stripes are purple and
yellow. “I think the American flag should include
more colors,” Doreen said.
Those two colorful pieces are the exceptions. All the
other artworks on the living room walls are black and
white: drawings, etchings, lithographs—each one
marvelously different from the others. (“I like black
and white very much….” said Doreen.)
PHOTO: SCOTT PONEMONE
• In one cluster of small works, three pen-and-ink
figure drawings by Larry Scott in one frame–
Three pen-and-ink figure drawings by Larry Scott
drawings in which the spare wash and line leave
so much unsaid.
THE DIRECTOR’S COLLECTION
On the bold floral designs of the long dining room
wall two bright orange wood beams diagonally join
in a shallow wide “V” with a flat black shield shape
above them. This stunning wall sculpture by
Baltimore artist Hermonie Only both stops one in
one’s tracks and dramatically points the way to the
living room where strong color continues.
“I like black and white
very much….”
• An almost photographic, exacting, tall, flat
painting in grays by Hermonie Only—a corner
of a building? So quiet, so sure.
• A powerful small pencil portrait of Theodore
Roosevelt by Matt Freel. Above the loose,
beautiful drawing Freel has written things
Roosevelt said or wrote, combining soft gray
calligraphy with the soft gray drawing and
plenty of white space to contemplate both.
Across the room is a monumental, knock-out print of
a raven by Gaia (Andrew Pisacane) which the artist
made to sell to benefit the Poe House. Above it hangs
a small ink drawing that demands close inspection.
Timothy Horjus has combined a very wet and washy
upper section with one lone, angular, hard-edged
line in the bottom section. Very intriguing indeed.
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THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
to decorate from the William Morris palette.”
Sometimes in bold floral patterns, sometimes
in quieter patterns, but yes, William Morris is
everywhere, providing a rich, warm, yellow/orange/
green background to the contemporary art—the
wonderfully diverse contemporary art—displayed
against it.
PHOTO: SCOTT PONEMONE
THE DIRECTOR’S COLLECTION
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David Macaulay charcoal drawing of an almost breathing dragon and a
small, tall house in the corner.
Another strong Gaia hangs over the mantel—this
one a powerful mixed-media hand holding a bird.
The bird and the hand look blackly etched against
a palette-knifey oil or acrylic textured background
of whites.
Above a curvy Art Nouveau-style chest hangs a
large, freely drawn David Macaulay charcoal of an
almost breathing dragon and a small, tall house in
the corner. (This is the same David Macaulay who
wrote and illustrated such architecturally precise
books as Castle, Underground and The Way Things
Work.) Doreen met the artist when he was on the
RISD faculty, and the house in the drawing reminds
her of her own house in Providence.
In stark contrast to the looseness of the dragon
drawing is Brendan Sullivan’s strong vertical
announcement: On a white ground, bold black letters
say SOME THINGS GOTTA END SOME TIME. One must
stop and think about the message here.
And then there’s the sculpture: a few pieces as
diverse as the art on the walls:
• A woman seen from the rear, about a foot-and-a
half tall, modeled in clay and baked. Jessica
Broad’s seductive figure stands on the mantel,
leaning against the mirror.
• Shaun Flynn’s wooden hexagonal sculpture on
the floor has a smaller hexagonal sculpture
inside. Doreen comments on “the unexpectedness
of finding this [open, contemporary] piece in this
historical place”—a reference to the fact that the
house was built in 1872.
daughter and her friend. Doreen mentioned that
while “aesthetically the painting is about pattern,”
it’s also an extraordinary likeness. She added that
she enjoys seeing her daughter first thing in the
morning.
The draperies on all the windows were made by
Doreen herself, and indeed, they do drape beautifully,
in long, soft peach, Art Nouveau-like folds. Doreen
said she’s often sewn her curtains, that “they’re
easy to make,” and some of them in this house
were created for previous houses.
At our last stop, in the master bathroom, a Matt
Bovie collage of cut-up fabric patterns is the perfect
partner to the patterns of Doreen’s beaded necklaces,
hung on a few big nails and sorted by color.
Walking up the steep stairway was a feast. Stacked
above each other and filling the high walls were
many works in many media. I longed to linger. The
dominant image was a tall, tall portrait of Doreen’s
tall son on blue by MICA-trained artist and gallerist
Brooks Kossover.
And in Doreen’s bedroom: A stunning big colorful
double portrait by Erin Fitzpatrick of Doreen’s
Doreen soon will be donating some of these
paintings, drawings, and prints by African
American artists to the Reginald F. Lewis Museum.
THE DIRECTOR’S COLLECTION
• There’s also a tall, three-part, walk-through,
white-frame Gothic window that the artist Ben
Briere came and placed himself. It’s slightly
askew, so one looks simultaneously through it
and the real glass window out onto St. Paul Street.
Which means that her collection will be changing.
I noticed a few wrapped rectangles standing
around in corners, and “there are other things at
the framer’s,” she said.
I hope she invites me back.
Print of a raven by Gaia (Andrew Pisacane)
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
PHOTO: SCOTT PONEMONE
13
E VA N L I N D Q U I S T
EVAN
LINDQUIST
AN ENGRAVER’S ENGRAVER
BY SCOTT PONEMONE
few years back. Then after I friended him on
Facebook earlier this year, I saw his post of an
image of the Hayter portrait. That's when I first
contacted him directly. …”
Yes, what attracted Shafer to Lindquist was his
engraved portrait of Hayter, the subject of her
planned 2018 BMA exhibition and catalogue—a
quest that started to take shape after the BMA
acquired an Atelier 17 print in 2007. His 2015
engraving of Hayter is part on his continuing
series of engravings of engravers that began in
2006 and now numbers, by my count, 17 images.
PHOTO: SHARON LINDQ UIST, 2015
14
Evan Lindquist
INTRODUCTION
While scanning the horizon for all things Hayter—
that’s printmaker and Atelier 17 founder Stanley
William Hayter (1901-1988)—Ann Shafer’s radar
locked on Evan Lindquist. What attracted Shafer,
BMA Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings &
Photographs, was not so much Lindquist’s 40-year
tenure as an art, printmaking, and drawing professor
at Arkansas State University nor his appointment as
Arkansas’s first Artist Laureate (2013-17).
“I can’t recall the context in which I first saw his
work,” Shafer said via email, “but I remember posting
his engraving Knight, Bird & Burin to my Tumblr a
Thanks to Shafer’s online monitoring of Lindquist’s
series of portraits, the Museum purchased his
SW Hayter Engraves War last year. Asked why she
would want to include a portrait of Hayter in the
BMA collection, Shafer said, “I am pleased to be able
to show the extension of Hayter's legacy all the way
up to the present day.”
As a thank-you for the BMA purchase, Lindquist
made a gift of his 2009 engraving Gabor Peterdi
Engraves a Still Life. His generosity inspired me
to contact him and seek out an email interview, to
which he quickly agreed.
INTERVIEW
Evan Lindquist certainly didn’t retire from printmaking
when he retired from ASU in 2003. His series of
engraver portraits is a testament to that. Over his
career he has had more than 60 solo exhibitions and
has received more than 80 awards in about 300
What made you even interested in printmaking?
Who introduced you to engraving?
In my November 2015 email interview, I worked
chronologically from his early influences to his
philosophy about engraving, to his schooling,
and to his current series of engraved portraits.
During my earliest years my father would bring
home drawing materials, scraps, from his lumber
yard, for example, old wallpaper sample books and
lumber crayons. I made prints with dozens of castoff
rubber stamps and a stamp pad. When I reached the
fourth grade in Emporia, Kansas, our art teacher
introduced us to linoleum block prints, and I was in
love with printmaking. In college [Emporia State
University, Emporia, KS], Norman R. Eppink and
J. Warren Brinkman encouraged my interest in
printmaking and introduced me to engraving. I read
two books on the subject, S.W. Hayter's New Ways
of Gravure, and Jules Heller's Printmaking Today.
He had wanted to be an artist, but the Great
Depression and World War II restrained his passion.
… His penmanship often consisted of calligraphic
lines, flowing curves, and bold shades. Before
I could read or write, I would lie on the floor and
emulate those lines, but mine were just childish
scrawls in crayon which I tried to perfect. Later
I moved on to making those lines with ink pens.
Years later, copperplate engraving was the answer
to creating elegant lines. …
Calligraphy appears to be a dance of arm
movement and hand pressure, while engraving
requires the burin-holding hand to remain all but
motionless. What type of struggle was it for you
to bring the elegance of calligraphy to the copper
plate? What mental adaptation was required to
go from one medium to the other?
There are many expert engravers whose creative
work results in beautiful calligraphy. I am not one of
them. Engraving is my way of creating a new “vista"
—an environment that appears and surrounds me
as I create it.
In the act of engraving, my eyes are close to the
copperplate. My entire field of vision is a vista. I play
within that environment. A struggle ensues between
what I want to do as an artist and what I can do
through burin-handling skill. If I were to rely on skill
alone, the vista would appear cold and dead or in
chaos. It is an important balance to maintain. I tried
to present that feeling of adventure in my YouTube
video Evan Lindquist Engraves Martin Schöngauer.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRFq5Y74TwY]
The burin is a natural tool for making calligraphic
lines, and I use it in a way that emphasizes its
natural characteristics. Thus, my images make use
of calligraphic qualities that would be impossible to
duplicate through any other medium or technique.
I understand one of your teachers was the
engraver Mauricio Lasansky. Tell me about
learning from him. What technical lessons did
he provide? What mental lessons—apropos to
engraving—did he offer?
Sharon [Lindquist’s wife] and I moved to Iowa City in
July 1960. She had taken an art teaching position in
the public schools. I bought a copper plate, studied
the Hayter and Heller books, and began cutting a
surrealist image into the plate. After a month of
cutting, I walked into Lasansky's first day of class
[at the University of Iowa] and showed him my
plate. He ran his fingers over the cuts and studied
them closely. He asked some questions, now
forgotten in the excitement of meeting the maestro.
He turned and called out: “Jack, Virginia!” Two
teaching assistants appeared. He pointed to me and
told them in his soft, heavily-accented voice: "Make
this boy a printer." That was my personal invitation
into the Iowa Print Group, and I was officially a
printmaking major. …
Every student was different, and the Maestro dealt
with each of us through private critiques. He might
suggest that one student should try something, but
recommend completely different ideas to the next
student. There were also a few full-class critiques
for anyone who wanted to sit in. During my years at
Iowa it was an open classroom for students of all
levels, and we learned from everyone.
The Maestro would choose prints to send to various
national exhibitions, and an assistant would cut the
15
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
How important was your father's interest in
calligraphy to your attachment to engraving?
E VA N L I N D Q U I S T
competitive exhibitions. His prints can be found
in over 70 public institutions.
In your rules (in the 2010 Charles Kaufman article
for the Society of American Graphic Artists) you
say: "Only a few lines should call attention to
themselves and be recognizable as ‘calligraphic
lines.’ " Yet some of your images emphasize
calligraphic lines—like the recent tree prints.
Why is that?
E VA N L I N D Q U I S T
mats and package everything for entering the
competitions. This routine provided a few lines
on our individual résumés and helped establish
professional practices among the students.
Tell me about your set of rules for making
an engraving.
My "rules" are a combination of instinct and
experience—perhaps meaningful only to myself.
My goal is to keep from getting into a rut. I know
what has worked for me in the past, and lots of
things didn't work. But rules should be broken.
Break any rule and it may provide variety to the
work process and remind me that I should consider
alternatives to the rule. The most important rule is
that I must embrace failure as part of a creative
process. In other words, try something that might
not work, and then enjoy figuring out how to use
any unintended result.
My personal definition of a calligraphic line is any
line that stands out and shouts: "Look at me. I’m
beautiful!" But how many "beautiful" lines would
it take to throw a composition into chaos? A few
calligraphic lines might strengthen and support
each other, but too many of these lines would fight
each other for your attention, becoming ridiculous
or chaotic.
An example that illustrates this is my engraving, Tree
(2014). A Japanese maple tree in front of my studio
was the inspiration. In the first state of the print,
© EVAN LINDQ UIST / VAGA, NY
© EVAN LINDQ UIST / VAGA, NY
16
Evan Lindquist, American, born 1936
Tree, 2014, ed. 25
Burin engraving.
Image size: 10 x 6.1 inches.
Paper: Rives BFK
(LEFT) Tree, state I, unique proof, and (RIGHT) Tree, state IV (finished state)
The finished state of Tree shows hundreds of new
lines—straight lines, not calligraphic—that work in
groups. Collectively, they describe shape, value, and
space, organizing the earlier chaos into forms that
suggest foliage. Each clump is enriched by a bold
calligraphic line lending rhythmic character to the
composition.
E VA N L I N D Q U I S T
every line has strong calligraphic qualities. The lines
in the trunk are closely related, working together as
a unit, forming a unique linear shape. In contrast,
the foliage is a chaotic mess—too many lines, each
begging for attention.
But it took many years before I could settle on a plan
that would have continuity. A tentative step into the
series was Knight, Bird & Burin (2006). This led to
Albrecht Dürer Engraves His Initials (2008), which
seemed to be a good entry into a new series. Dürer
was followed by Claude Mellan Engraves a SelfPortrait (2008). I saw potential for more old masters.
This example demonstrates that engraving a plate
is a continuum. I begin each project with simple
steps, then climb upward as the next step pops
into my mind.
Tell me about your series of engravings on
engravers: why, when and how it began, who
was chosen and why.
S.W. Hayter attempted to revitalize engraving by
teaching it to many important "new masters,” such
as Gabor Peterdi, Mauricio Lasansky, and others,
at his Atelier 17 in Paris and New York.
About 1980, I complimented Warrington Colescott on
his series of prints called The History of Printmaking.
Warrington said, "Why don't you do the same thing
for engraving?" Yes! That's what I wanted to do!
Evan Lindquist (American, born 1936)
SW Hayter Engraves War, 2015
Engraving; printed in black (intaglio)
Sheet: 388 x 310 mm. (15 1/4 x 12 3/16 in.)
Plate: 278 x 207 mm. (10 15/16 x 8 1/8 in.)
Purchased as the gift of an Anonymous Donor
BMA 2015.173
A recent print in the series is SW Hayter Engraves
War (2015). Hayter had been taught to engrave
copper plates by Jozef Hecht, a Polish engraver.
During the Spanish Civil War, Hayter produced prints
to raise funds for the Republican war effort opposing
the Nationalists, but after the bombing of Guérnica in
1939, the forces of Francisco Franco, supported by
Hitler, took over the government of Spain. Nazis took
control of France. In 1939, Hayter moved his Atelier
17 to New York City and taught many contemporary
artists to engrave. Hayter is best known for many
technical print innovations, but my engraving is
17
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
Rather than considering engraving to be a "lost art,”
I considered it to be a "forgotten art." The postwar
crop of printmaking teachers simply "forgot" how
to teach engraving to younger generations. Even
worse, the entire concept of printmaking was being
regarded as an inferior form of art. Few contemporaries
seemed to understand complex creative processes.
Newer and faster processes took the place of
engraving in art studios and classrooms.
© 2015, EVAN LINDQ UIST / VAGA, NY. PHOTO: MITRO HOOD
When I became interested in engraving in the 1950s,
I was not yet aware that the history of engraving
consisted of life stories of some old master engravers.
I discovered that much of the information about
them had been forgotten. Indeed, by mid-20th
century, the entire medium of engraving was often
dismissed as a "lost art." I was determined to "find"
it for myself.
© 2015, EVAN LINDQ UIST / VAGA, NY. PHOTO: MITRO HOOD
E VA N L I N D Q U I S T
18
Evan Lindquist (American, born 1936)
Gabor Peterdi Engraves a Still Life, 2009
Engraving; printed in black (intaglio)
Sheet: 369 x 299 mm. (14 1/2 x 11 3/4 in.)
Plate: 266 x 195 mm. (10 1/2 x 7 11/16 in.)
Gift of the Artist
BMA 2015.174
focused upon his humanitarian war effort on behalf
of the people of Spain.
A print closely related is Gabor Peterdi Engraves a
Still Life (2009). This great Hungarian printmaker
fled to America, became an American soldier and
returned to Europe with U.S. forces. Peterdi was
influenced by the horrors of Nazi atrocities when
he engraved his biting satire, Still Life in Germany
(1946). In the depressingly chaotic lines of the
dark background in my engraving, I've woven
"1938" and "1946", referring to Peterdi's years of
despair and horror.
The most recent print in the series is Mauricio
Lasansky Teaches Me to Engrave (2015), a
composite of memories. At this point it is the only
one in the series that includes a medium other
than burin engraving. In this print I've incorporated
some small areas of drypoint—scratching into the
surface with the point of a needle. The Maestro
encouraged experimenting with a variety of
processes to find new approaches to technical or
aesthetic problems. I show him as he describes
to me the importance of both the scraper and
burin in the process of engraving—try anything
with burin and scraper.
He had a love for fine, traditional, old presses,
and every discussion of print aesthetics always
included "print quality,” how well the plate was
printed, how the press was used, how the paper
was prepared, how the ink was ground and applied.
Yes, we ground our own ink from dry pigments.
I've alluded to all of these memories in my print
by showing the presses.
E VA N L I N D Q U I S T
Every critique with Lasansky would relate to the Old
Master printmakers. The two bulls are reminiscent
of Goya, whose legacy was nearly always brought
into a critique and seemed always appropriate as
an exemplar. There were framed Goya prints in the
studio. Goya was never forgotten, but conversations
also included Rembrandt, Picasso, Tiepolo, and other
masters.
It is significant that the bulls are on the left side of
the Maestro's head. He often said that, no matter
what he might be doing, the upper left side of his
brain was always thinking about his current project.
What are your current print projects?
For my next engraving I agreed to begin a selfportrait for a museum exhibition next year. Early in
the year I'll also begin background research on my
next Old Master engraver. I always seek new ideas.
What has been the advantage of concentrating
on one particular medium over so many years?
Why are you still in love with engraving?
This is what I was meant to do. It is what I do best.
While engraving I find myself within the copper plate.
Each time I work with the burin, it is a new adventure.
ONLINE
Lindquist website: http://evanlindquist.com
Evan Lindquist article by Charles Kaufman:
http://evanlindquist.com/about/article-kaufman.html
Engraving links including YouTube videos on
Lindquist website:
http://evanlindquist.com/about/burin.html
19
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
© EVAN LINDQ UIST / VAGA, NY
Evan Lindquist, American, born 1936
Mauricio Lasansky Teaches Me to Engrave, 2015, ed. 25
Burin engraving with drypoint.
Image size: 13 x 11.3 inches.
Paper: Rives BFK
TA M I N G T H E G A R R E T T C O L L E C T I O N
TAMING THE
PHOTOS: RENA HOISINGTON
20
GARRETT
COLLECTION
Figure 1
Collector Mark of James Lawrence Claghorn (1817-1884)
Figure 2
Collector Mark of Thomas Harrison Garrett (1849-1888)
BY RENA HOISINGTON, SENIOR CURATOR OF PRINTS, DRAWINGS & PHOTOGRAPHS AND DEPARTMENT HEAD
ith 20,000 prints the Garrett Collection
constitutes the backbone of the print
collection at The Baltimore Museum of Art.
The collection was initially formed by the Philadelphian
James Lawrence Claghorn (1817-1884), a banker
and president of the Pennsylvania Academy of the
Fine Arts. Claghorn began acquiring prints in the
late 1840s. His goal was to assemble a survey of
Western printmaking—a collection of European and
American prints ranging from the late 15th to the late
19th centuries. His collector’s stamp, usually printed
in red ink, comprises his initials encircled with the
Latin words insperata floruit (“it has flourished
beyond expectation”) [Fig. 1]. What an appropriate
motto for a collection of such extraordinary art
historical breadth!
W
At the time of his death there was great concern as
to what would happen to his collection. Fortunately
for Baltimore it was purchased en masse by Thomas
Harrison Garrett (1849-1888), a prominent banker
whose family owned the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad.
Garrett began adding to the collection—his stamp
comprises his initials, printed in blue [Fig. 2]—and
made arrangements, with his curator John Wesley
Murray Lee, to build at Evergreen (his home) a print
room modeled on the famous Kupferstich-Kabinett
of Dresden, Germany. He also lent prints from
his collection to three exhibitions at the Peabody
Institute: the first, in January 1886, was a survey of
the history of printmaking; the second, in October
1886, was an in-depth examination of the etchings
of Rembrandt and the engravings of Johann Georg
TA M I N G T H E G A R R E T T C O L L E C T I O N
PHOTO: RENA HOISINGTON
Figure 3
Cataloguing Card for the BMA’s impression of Rembrandt’s drypoint The Three Crosses from the Garrett Collection
(BMA 1946.112.7853)
In 1930, under the guidance of Adelyn Breeskin, the
Museum’s newly-appointed and first Curator of Prints
and Drawings, the Garrett family placed the entire
print collection on loan at the Museum, formally
giving it in 1946. The Garrett prints have been
inventoried and catalogued through numerous
campaigns over the decades, the most extensive
of which was undertaken in the 1930s. During
this time orange index cards were typed up with
cataloguing information for each print [Fig. 3]: artist
name, nationality, and dates; title; date; medium;
inscriptions, watermarks, and collector marks; and
portfolio number. (Like many print collections at
the time, the Garrett prints were initially stored
in portfolios, and then over the years they were
transferred to acid-free folders and stored in
solander boxes and flat file drawers.) For decades
these orange cards have been our main—and only
substantial—record of the Garrett prints. The
wooden card catalogue drawers in which they are
stored in the Department are well worn from years of
use; the cards themselves bear annotations made by
generations of curatorial staff. But this cataloguing
initiative, like those that followed it, was inevitably
incomplete. In particular, there were large numbers
of reproductive prints (prints made after the works
of other artists) that were not even assigned
accession numbers, much less catalogued.
Our recent success in applying for and receiving a
federal grant from the Institute for Museum and
Library Services (IMLS) to fund the work of Nicole
Simpson, Project Cataloguer for the Lucas Collection
(described in the spring 2014 issue of the PDPS
Newsletter), encouraged us to apply for comparable
funding to support the cataloguing of the Garrett
prints. Given the size of this collection, however, we
decided it would make more sense to tackle this
project in three stages or sections, divided according
to nationality: Northern European prints; British and
American prints; and French, Italian, and Spanish
prints, as well as prints from other European
countries.
We began with the Northern European prints,
which are arguably the most important part of the
collection, including deep holdings of prints by
Albrecht Dürer, Hendrick Goltzius, Rembrandt van
21
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
Wille; and the third, in February 1888, was a
comparative study of the printmaking techniques
of engraving, etching, and mezzotint. Garrett’s
ambitious plans for the collection were cut short,
however, by his untimely death in June 1888 in a
yachting accident.
We learned that we were the fortunate recipients of
a second Collections Stewardship Grant from IMLS
in the fall of 2014. We advertised the position and
received a large number of applications, but Joanna
Karlgaard’s application stood out for a number of
reasons. There is, for starters, Joanna’s extensive
knowledge of the history of art, and especially the
history of printmaking, culled from her education.
Joanna has her BA in the History of Art from Mary
Washington College in Fredericksburg, VA; her MA
in Museum Studies from Syracuse University; and
her PhD in the History of Art from the University of
Bristol in England, where she wrote her dissertation
“Frederick Sandys and Victorian Illustration.” Then
there is Joanna’s impressive range of curatorial
experience from several museums, including her
position as a Curatorial Assistant at the Fogg Art
Museum at Harvard from 2006 to 2008 where
she worked with Susan Dackerman, including her
involvement in the planning stages of Susan’s 2011
exhibition Prints and the Pursuit of Knowledge in
Early Modern Europe. Before that Joanna worked as
a Research Assistant at the Museum of Fine Arts in
Boston from 1998 to 2004, where she researched
and catalogued the 1000+ prints in the Hartley
Collection of Victorian Illustration, as well as assisted
with various aspects of numerous exhibitions,
including Cliff Ackley’s 2003-2004 traveling
exhibition Rembrandt’s Journey: Painter, Draftsman,
Etcher. In fact Joanna co-authored, with Tom
Rassieur, the chronology of the artist’s life that
appeared in the accompanying catalogue.
PHOTO: MORGAN DOWTY
TA M I N G T H E G A R R E T T C O L L E C T I O N
22
Rijn, and Johann Georg Wille. This part of the
collection has inspired extensive scholarship on the
part of the Museum’s curators, particularly Susan
Dackerman, and paper conservators Elmer Eusman,
Kimberly Schenck, and Tom Primeau. (Special
mention should also be made of the scholarship of
Walter S. Melion, a long-time professor in the History
of Art Department at Johns Hopkins University.)
Northern European prints from the Garrett Collection
have also been included in numerous exhibitions
here and at other North American art institutions.
Those of you who joined our day-trip to New York
last November will remember the loans we made
to Robert Fucci’s incredible Rembrandt’s Changing
Impressions exhibition at the Miriam and Ira D.
Wallach Art Gallery at Columbia University.
Figure 4
Joanna Karlgaard
catalogues prints in the
Kress Study Room
She began working in the BMA Department of Prints,
Drawings & Photographs as the Project Cataloguer
for Northern European Prints in the Garrett Collection
in December 2014 [Fig. 4]. She is inventorying,
cataloguing, and researching more than 8,000 prints
by Dutch, Flemish, German, and Belgian artists in
the Garrett Collection. (Indeed it is hard to believe
that Joanna is already halfway through her two-year
cataloguing project, having tackled almost all of
the German prints!) Joanna’s meticulous, thorough,
and sustained attention to these prints has been
invaluable. Thanks to her work, every Northern
European Garrett print will have an accession
number, in-depth cataloguing, and an up-to-date
location. There is also much in the way of new
information with regard to printers and publishers.
Joanna has made great strides in identifying and
cataloguing the collector’s marks that appear on the
reverse side of many of these sheets. As of early
December, Joanna has identified and recorded 83
different collector’s marks on 214 prints—these 83
stamps are in addition to the Claghorn and Garrett
stamps, mentioned earlier, which appear on the
majority of prints in the collection. She is always
cross-referencing this information in our database
with that of the Frits Lugt database of collector
marks (http://www.marquesdecollections.fr/). The
gathering of this provenance information enables us
to gain a better understanding of how Claghorn and
Garrett formed this collection. It is also, in the case
TA M I N G T H E G A R R E T T C O L L E C T I O N
PHOTO: MITRO HOOD
PHOTO: MITRO HOOD
of prints that only have Garrett’s stamp on the verso,
the main way for us to determine which prints
Garrett acquired for the collection. Joanna’s list
includes 10 impressions by Dürer, all of which have
the Garrett stamp along with the stamp of Walter
Francis, 5th Duke of Buccleuch (Lugt 402), including
Saint Christopher and Saint Philip (Figures 5 & 6).
more about Claghorn and Garrett’s collecting
strategies, and to think more generally about the
formation and organization of such large print
collections in the 19th century.”
For Joanna it has been a pleasure and a process of
discovery working through the Garrett German
prints. “Working with the Garrett collection has been
a wonderful experience. My first year of the project
has focused on cataloguing the German prints.
I have been busily studying and documenting the
exceptional range of the collection’s holdings. Of
course, this includes prints by many well-known
artists such as Albrecht Dürer, Daniel Hopfer, and
Martin Schongauer. But one aspect of the project
that has been particularly interesting to me is
working with the lesser-known material, for example,
the collection’s 19th-century German etchings such
as those by Ludwig Emil Grimm (younger brother of
the famous authors Jacob and Wilhelm) [Figure 7].
This project has given me an opportunity to learn
23
Figure 7
Ludwig Emil Grimm (German, 1790-1863)
The Song of Bettine von Arnim, 1819
Etching and drypoint
Sheet: 160 x 197 mm. (6 5/16 x 7 3/4 in.)
Plate: 85 x 127 mm. (3 3/8 x 5 in.)
Garrett Collection
BMA 1946.112.2064
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
Figure 6
Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528)
Saint Philip, 1526
Engraving
Sheet (trimmed within platemark): 122 x 76 mm. (4 13/16 x 3 in.)
Garrett Collection
BMA 1946.112.5752
PHOTO: MITRO HOOD
Figure 5
Albrecht Dürer (German, 1471-1528)
Saint Christopher, 1521
Engraving
Sheet: 121 x 77 mm. (4 3/4 x 3 1/16 in.)
Plate: 118 x 74 mm. (4 5/8 x 2 15/16 in.)
Garrett Collection
BMA 1946.112.5761
BROOMBERG & CHANARIN: OPTICS & CONFLICT
BROOMBERG & CHANARIN:
OPTICS &
CONFLICT
PHOTO: BASIL DAVIDSON
24
Adam Broomberg (right)
and Oliver Chanarin are
known collectively as
Broomberg & Chanarin.
BY URSULA WEST MINERVINI
A
dam Broomberg (b. 1970, Johannesburg,
South Africa) and Oliver Chanarin (b. 1971,
London, UK) are artistic collaborators living
and working in London. Both trained and began
their careers as relatively traditional documentary
photographers. However, in the course of their work
they became concerned with the uneven balance
of power between photographer and subject. They
also began to question the relationship between
documentary photography and human suffering. As
the artists describe it, “Photography, if you think of it
as a person, is fascinated by suffering and is drawn
to the sights of suffering … wherever violent things
happen, photography is there. Photography wants
to witness that.”* With this disturbing notion in
mind, their current work frequently aims to subvert
authority and has come to embrace a variety of
media in addition to photography. Broomberg &
Chanarin confront weighty issues with compelling
imagery and an undercurrent of mischief. Their
*All quotes are from a video created by The Centre for Contemporary Art
Ujazdowski Castle in conjunction with the artists’ 2015 exhibition, Rudiments.
For me, the most immediately accessible works in
this exhibition are a series of large photographs.
These sharply focused black-and-white images pair
amorphous boulder-like masses with pristine, sharpedged prisms. Knowing nothing of what is depicted
here, the viewer makes visual comparisons between
coarse, age-worn masses and unblemished
crystalline forms. However, the message of the work
shifts and deepens when the identities of these
objects are revealed. What seem to be boulders are
actually fused bullets recovered from Civil War
battlefields. They were formed as the result of a rare
occurrence: two bullets colliding in midair. Poetically
imagined, this collision may have spared the lives of
two soldiers. There is a sense of the miraculous but
also of brutality in seeing these bits of lead forcibly
melded. In contrast, the prisms are painstakingly
manufactured optical components used in gun
sights. While the Civil War battles that produced the
melded bullets were fought at close range, in modern
warfare optical tools have assisted soldiers in
distancing themselves from their targets physically,
and perhaps emotionally. Seen in this context, the
sharp-edged prisms seem cold and dangerous.
25
In contrast to the hyper reality of these photographs
is an enigmatic series of small copper plates
titled The Behavior and Misbehavior of Light. In
COURTESY THE ARTISTS AND LISSON GALLERY, LONDON
COURTESY THE ARTISTS AND LISSON GALLERY, LONDON
As I write this article at the end of 2015, the work to
be displayed is still overseas, and I have not yet had
the opportunity to view any of it first hand. However,
Ann Shafer generously shared her writing on the
exhibition and provided images and other resources.
While the visual presence of the work provides
ample substance for the viewer to react purely to
what they see before them, Broomberg & Chanarin’s
work is most meaningful when the historical
background of the objects they present is shared.
The importance that the artists place on sharing this
information is illustrated by their website, which is
quite extensive and provides detailed historical and
political context for their work. Though the issues
explored through their work are complex, the artists
BROOMBERG & CHANARIN: OPTICS & CONFLICT
From April 13 to September 11 a recent body of work
by Broomberg & Chanarin will be featured at The
Baltimore Museum of Art. The exhibition, Front Room:
Broomberg & Chanarin, is curated by Ann Shafer,
Associate Curator of Prints, Drawings & Photographs.
This is the first solo exhibition of works by
Broomberg & Chanarin in the United States. It
includes photographs, incised copper plates,
sculpture, and a short film. Viewed in combination,
these works deal with a dense web of ideas that
centers on themes of war and militarism.
are generous both in sharing information and in
leaving space for the viewer to form independent
conclusions.
Broomberg & Chanarin (Adam Broomberg, South African,
born 1970; Oliver Chanarin, British, born 1971)
Untitled (Fused Bullets 2), 2015
C-type print
70 1/2 x 88 1/2 in
Broomberg & Chanarin (Adam Broomberg, South African,
born 1970; Oliver Chanarin, British, born 1971)
Untitled (Prism 2), 2015
C-type print
70 1/2 x 88 1/2 in
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
process begins with conversation and extensive
research, which is combined with first hand
experience, investigation, and openness to chance
discoveries.
BROOMBERG & CHANARIN: OPTICS & CONFLICT
photographs of the installed exhibition at the Ujazdowski
Castle in Warsaw they appear as a row of small black
rectangles, lacking the immediate visual allure of the
large photographs. The plates have been covered in
beeswax and then held over a flame to darken the
surface with soot (a traditional method of preparing
a copper plate for etching). Simple geometric diagrams
have been incised through the wax and soot to
reveal the bright copper below. If the plates were to
be etched, they would be placed in an acid bath that
would bite lines into the copper. The plates could
then be cleaned and used to produce intaglio prints.
However, the artists have stopped at the incised
lines, leaving the plates at a fragile stage where
careless handling could easily damage or destroy
the imagery.
Conceptual links between these objects and the
large photographs emerge when they are given a
historical context. The images on the plates recreate
diagrams of prisms and lenses produced by the
Zeiss Ikon factory in Dresden, Germany. As famously
described in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel SlaughterhouseFive, allied forces firebombed Dresden during World
War II. Central sections of the city were utterly
destroyed, and many citizens were killed. Dresden
contained no notable military presence, though the
Zeiss Ikon factory produced optical equipment used
by the German military. After the war, Zeiss materials
COURTESY OF THE ARTISTS AND LISSON GALLERY, LONDON
26
were seized and used by Russia, and they now
belong to the archive of the Leica factory. Seen in
relation to the attack on Dresden, the smoked
surface of the copper plates evokes the flames
and ash of a firebombed city, the immediacy and
damage of war. The fragile images themselves
depict a technology of delicate precision that
enabled violence to be carried out from a distance.
And, while Zeiss lenses are associated with
weaponry, Zeiss and Leica are also names familiar
to photographers. The Zeiss diagrams inscribed
on the copper plates call to mind links between
photographic and military technologies.
While the large photographs and incised copper
plates refer primarily to the tools and technologies
of warfare, Broomberg & Chanarin also investigate
human experience of militarism and violence
through two archetypes, the drummer boy and the
bouffon. In a military practice that lasted into the
19th century, children as young as seven were
enlisted to serve as drummer boys. The drummer
played a critical role in battlefield communication,
using different drumming patterns to signal military
commands. Symbolically, the drummer boy
represents childlike innocence in the midst of war.
(In early military conflicts tradition held that the
drummer boy would be spared when possible.)
However, drummers also served to enforce military
Broomberg & Chanarin
(Adam Broomberg, South African,
born 1970; Oliver Chanarin,
British, born 1971)
Drummer Boys (68 total)
Installation view of in the exhibition
Rudiments, 2015
Center for Contemporary Art,
Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw
Broomberg & Chanarin created visual hybrids of
drummer boy and bouffon by modifying collectible
figurines of drummer boys. These idealized figurines
are distorted and concealed under lumpy white clay
that echos the bouffon’s padded costume. The figure
of the bouffon is isolated for closer attention in a
series of twenty-two 8x10 inch photographs, titled
The Follies. These images, featuring the performer
and her costume, display another aspect of this
character. While the modified drummer figurines
turned bouffons are clumsy yet playful, in The Follies
the bouffon evokes a sense of beauty, discomfort
and pathos. The figure is isolated in the corner
of a paneled room, her head and face are always
concealed, and her body is wrapped, draped and
Although Broomberg & Chanarin’s work is blatantly
political and content rich, it also leaves space for
viewers to draw their own conclusions. The work is
so varied and the web of historical facts, references,
and associations offered and implied is so complex
that the paths available for interpreting the work
remain broad. In viewing their work I felt that rather
than being lectured to, I was invited to enter a
conversation. Describing an exhibition of their work
at The Centre for Contemporary Art Ujazdowski
Castle, Broomberg & Chanarin explain, “We do begin
with research, that’s where we start. And we begin
with narratives, we’re very interested in history, but
because there’s two of us, we can’t just kinda pick up
a camera and go and snap, snap, snap. We have to
have a conversation about it.” They continue, “Our
work begins with a conversation and it ends with
something like what’s in that room, but how we get
from the beginning to the end is a total mystery.”
RESOURCES AND REFERENCES
In addition to Ann Shafer’s writing for the exhibition,
a number of sources were extremely helpful in
composing this article. A few are listed below:
Broomberg & Chanarin’s website:
http://www.broombergchanarin.com/
COMEDY AND PAIN: Adam Broomberg and
Oliver Chanarin talk to Kaja Pawelek
http://broombergchanarin.com/text/comedyand-pain/
Video produced by The Centre for Contemporary
Art Ujazdowski Castle in conjunction with
Broomberg and Chanarin’s Rudiments:
https://youtu.be/qp6HDgXfB6s
BROOMBERG & CHANARIN: OPTICS & CONFLICT
While the drummer boy seems to support the status
quo, representing both order and innocence, the
bouffon, a mocking clown or jester, is a disruptive
force that mimics, amplifies and distorts elements of
his or her society. To explore the contrast between
these archetypes, Broomberg & Chanarin brought
them into collision. The artists gained access to an
English military camp on the outskirts of Liverpool
and gathered material for a short film, titled
Rudiments. Rudiments are basic drumming patterns,
which are repeated and combined to create more
complex percussive sequences. In common speech
we also understand rudiments to be fundamental
elements or principles. At this military camp,
children and adolescents practice the percussive
rudiments used in military drumming. More broadly,
they are also indoctrinated in the rudiments of
military discipline. The film includes documentary
footage of camp activities as well as scenes staged
by the artists in collaboration with the young cadets.
Broomberg & Chanarin introduced an anarchic
element in the form of a bouffon. Wearing a bulbous,
body-distorting costume the bouffon observes and
mocks the highly regimented world of the military
camp. Her improvised performance, which is often
vulgar and sexually suggestive, seems particularly
disruptive in a military camp populated by children,
but also it calls into question the official activities
being performed.
contorted. Often it is hard to tell if one is viewing a
body at all. Visually the artists intended these
photographs to echo Hans Bellmer’s 1934
photographic series The Doll (Die Puppe), which,
among other things, was made in opposition to
German fascism. They also relate the jumbling of
body parts in their photographic study of the bouffon
to prints by Francisco de Goya. Their title is borrowed
from The Follies (Los Disparates), Goya’s disturbing
and enigmatic series of etchings made between
1815 and 1823.
27
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
discipline and convey a sense of the army’s might.
The sound of a drumroll can provoke anticipation,
induce fear, create order, or drown out dissent.
G E O R G E A L O Y S I U S L U C A S, A B A LT I M O R E A N I N P A R I S
GEORGE ALOYSIUS LUCAS,
A BALTIMOREAN
IN PARIS
PHOTO: MITRO HOOD
28
Eugène Jose Macedo de Carvalho (French, 1854-1928)
Portrait of George A. Lucas, 1880
Pen and black ink over graphite
Sheet: 283 x 250 mm. (11 1/8 x 9 13/16 in.)
The George A. Lucas Collection, purchased with funds from the State of Maryland,
Laurence and Stella Bendann Fund, and contributions from individuals, foundations,
and corporations throughout the Baltimore community
BMA 1996.48.15167
The presentations by Mazaroff (February 27) and
Simpson (March 5) will be based on very different
points of view and experiences. Mazaroff, whose
book Henry Walters and Bernard Berenson: Collectors
and Connoisseurs was published in 2010, has
recently completed a book manuscript on Lucas and
his art collection. He will present an overview of his
biographical research revealing some truly exciting
information about Lucas’s life and regarding the fate
of his collection following his death in 1909. “My
book, which I have entitled Saving Lucas,” Mazaroff
says, “is not strictly a biography of Lucas. Following
Lucas’ death, his enormous collection had a life of
its own. My book is intended to provide a cultural
history of the Lucas collection—how it was acquired
and cared for by Lucas during the 19th century and
how it survived and shaped the culture of Baltimore
during the 20th century.”
Simpson is an art historian and the Project
Cataloguer of the George A. Lucas Collection at the
BMA. She formerly worked with the Samuel Putnam
Avery Collection as a Print Specialist at The New York
Public Library. She will explain the unique aspects
of the BMA’s collection and of Lucas’s Parisian
collecting practices. Simpson says, “The George A.
Lucas Collection is well-known in the field of 19thcentury printmaking, and its superb reputation drew
me to the position in Baltimore. I have been delighted
by the intimate connection I feel with Lucas as I
have been cataloguing the collection. Going through
the more than 15,000 prints box by box, I witness
firsthand his extraordinary connoisseurship skills
and the personal relationships he had with artists
and dealers.”
Art lovers may dream about what it would have been
like to live in Paris during the second half of the 19th
century. Many books, both fiction and nonfiction,
have been written about that period. Lucas lived that
dream. When he journeyed to Paris in 1857 at the
age of 33, he was neither an artist nor a collector,
but very quickly he began to appreciate the richness
of the opportunities at hand. Lucas was a gentleman
of independent means, but he was not wealthy.
Mazaroff, in his soon-to-be-published book Saving
Lucas, tells of the serendipitous events that helped
Lucas to become a much trusted agent for a long list
of wealthy collectors, including William and Henry
Walters, Samuel Putnam Avery, William Wilson
Corcoran, and William Henry Vanderbilt. His clients
were purchasing French paintings by the most
respected artists of the time. The paintings were
priced well out of Lucas’s range, but prints by the
same artists were quite affordable.
It was a time of renewed interest in printmaking and
collecting. Maxime Lalanne’s A Treatise on Etching
was published in 1855, with a second edition
in 1878. The pre-Impressionists were painting
landscapes and also making etchings in the village
of Barbizon. Prints became available by JeanBaptiste-Camille Corot, Charles-François Daubigny,
Johan Barthold Jongkind, Jean-François Millet
and Théodore Rousseau. Lithography and transfer
lithography were coming into favor by Honoré
Daumier, Paul Gavarni, Ignace-Henri-Jean-Théodore
Fantin-Latour and their followers. In addition, there
was a revival of the woodcut. Furthermore, prints
were being produced by many other important
artists including Édouard Manet, Mary Cassatt,
G E O R G E A L O Y S I U S L U C A S, A B A LT I M O R E A N I N P A R I S
W
hat do we know about George A. Lucas?
If you ask some young people, as I did
recently, whether they have heard of
George Lucas, you could get a response such as:
“Sure, he made all the Star Wars movies.” And then if
you ask whether they have heard of the other George
Lucas—George Aloysius Lucas, who lived during the
19th century—you may get a bewildered “huh?” for
an answer. But most members of the Print, Drawing
& Photograph Society of The Baltimore Museum
of Art are very familiar with his name. We certainly
have heard of the Lucas Collection, and we have
seen exhibitions that include works from it. There is,
however, still much to be learned. Fortunately the
PDPS winter seminar series this year has Lucas as
its focus, with Stanley (Stan) Mazaroff and Nicole
Simpson as our presenters. Both are Lucas experts
and have truly interesting information to share.
29
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
BY EVELYN COGSWELL
G E O R G E A L O Y S I U S L U C A S, A B A LT I M O R E A N I N P A R I S
James A. McNeill Whistler, Charles Meryon, Félix
Buhot, Félix Bracquemond, and Auguste Lepère. Print
dealers such as Paul Durand-Ruel and Alfred Cadart
held popular openings. Art auctions were highly
publicized and well attended, and publications
such as Henri Beraldi’s Les Graveurs du XIXe Siècle
included original prints.
“Going through the more
than 15,000 prints
box by box,
I witness firsthand his
extraordinary
connoisseurship skills
and the personal
relationships he had with
artists and dealers.”
30
Americans during this period were very impressed
with all things French and especially French art. One
of Lucas’s clients was the very well-respected art
dealer, Samuel Putnam Avery, who had a highly
regarded gallery in New York. Avery’s personal
collection, which he later donated to The New York
Public Library, consisted of some 18,000 works
obtained through Lucas. Through her university
studies in Chicago and New York, Simpson acquired
a strong knowledge of the art of this period, and
from her work with the NYPL’s Avery Collection she
became very familiar with the name George Lucas.
At the seminar she will be talking about the BMA’s
collection and about some of the discoveries
she has made during her work with the objects
accumulated by Lucas and now at the BMA.
There is an exciting history surrounding the Lucas
Collection. The journey from Parisian artists’ studios
to Baltimore and eventually the BMA was not an
easy one. In Paris, the collection miraculously
survived a terrible fire in Lucas’s apartment that
tragically claimed the life of his mistress. Lucas was
well aware of the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 and
wanted to make sure his collection would be safe.
After his death in 1909 and the settlement of various
legal issues, the collection was shipped to Baltimore
under the watchful eye of Henry Walters, with whom
Lucas had discussed the deposition of the collection.
Lucas actually gave the collection to Henry Walters,
but both men had agreed that the collection should
be given to the Maryland Institute, should that be
possible. The original MICA building downtown had
burned in the Baltimore Fire, but the new building on
Mt. Royal Avenue had been built to be fireproof.
At MICA the collection suffered neglect due to the
lack of a properly guarded space. In 1933 most of
the collection, including the prints and drawings but
not all the paintings, was transferred to the new BMA
building in Wyman Park, where the collection could
be properly cared for and made available to the
public. Eventually all of the paintings, except a small
group assigned to the Walters, came to the BMA.
In the early 1990s the Trustees at MICA made the
decision to sell the collection in order to strengthen
its small endowment. There were substantial
disagreements among MICA, the Walters, and the
BMA over the potential sale of this great collection,
which had been left by Lucas to benefit the citizens
of Baltimore. The collection received more attention
than it had ever known. A legal solution was found,
including a major grant from the State of Maryland
that enabled the BMA to mount a successful
campaign to raise funds for the purchase of the
collection. In April of 1998 the PDS Newsletter Vol. XV,
No.2 reported that members of the Print and Drawing
Society raised more than $100,000 toward the
acquisition of the collection. In addition, the Walters
was able to purchase the paintings and sculptures
it had had on loan for many years. MICA was able to
add substantial funds to its endowment, ensuring
a flourishing future. The BMA’s collection was
immeasurably advanced by the acquisition of this
remarkable collection of nearly 20,000 prints,
drawings, sculptures, paintings, and photographs.
The Lucas Collection contains a variety of objects
in addition to prints, drawings, and paintings.
Fortunately, Lucas was very organized in his daily
life. He kept a voluminous diary, and while it records
Regardless of what you know about George A. Lucas,
there is much more worth learning. The seminars
will reinforce our present knowledge and shed much
new light on this amazing collector and his (now
our) collection.
G E O R G E A L O Y S I U S L U C A S, A B A LT I M O R E A N I N P A R I S
many of these items on firm paper. As part of her
work Simpson is creating a list of all of these related
pieces as well as a large number of books from
Lucas’ library.
31
Léon Bonnat (French, 1833-1922)
Portrait of George Aloysius Lucas
Oil on canvas, 1885
H: 50 13/16 x W: 36 7/16 in. (129 x 92.5 cm);
framed: H: 64 1/2 x W: 49 3/4 x D: 4 1/2 in.
(163.8 x 126.4 x 11.4 cm)
Walters Art Museum, 37.759
THE PRIN T, D RAWIN G & PHOTOGRAPH SOCIETY OF THE BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
no juicy scenarios, it does give us a picture of his
collecting habits. It tells of visits to artists’ studios,
auctions, and galleries, and it documents interactions
with artists and clients. He was deliberate in his
collecting as well. He often collected many variations
of the same work, including its progressive states as
well as changes of paper or ink color. Related to the
prints, he collected newspaper clippings, catalogues,
photographs, artists’ letters, and even the envelopes
they came in. For preservation purposes he mounted
The Baltimore Museum of Art
10 Art Museum Drive
Baltimore, MD 21218-3898
PDPS EVENTS THIS SPRING
WINTER SEMINAR SERIES
Saturday, February 27 - Stanley Mazaroff
Saturday, March 5 - Nicole Simpson
Join Lucas Biographer Stanley Mazaroff and Lucas Cataloguer
Nicole Simpson for talks focusing on the life and print collection
of George A. Lucas.
MUSEUM TOUR
Wednesday, April 6
Rena Hoisington and Jay Fisher will give a tour of New Arrivals:
Gifts of Art for a New Century.
COLLECTOR’S VISIT
Sunday, April 17
PDPS is invited to view the collection of Doreen Bolger.
ANNUAL MEETING
Sunday, June 5
Rena Hoisington will give a lecture on the Garrett Collection,
followed by a reception in Gertrude’s restaurant.
Invitations with detailed information will be sent in advance
of each program.
MEMBERSHIP HOTLINE
Join the The Print, Drawing & Photograph Society today to
participate in the exciting events listed to the left. Baltimore
Museum of Art members can join PDPS quickly by calling the
Membership Hotline at 443-573-1800.
Or you can join online at:
http://www.artbma.org/members/index.html
Annual PDPS membership levels:
*$60 Single
*$85 Dual
*$125 Support
*$200 Patron
Additional contributions can be made for PDPS acquisitions
or for PDPS student scholarships.
PDPS membership and contributions are 100% tax deductible.