Ode to a
collection
Carnegie Museum of Art’s far-reaching
and ever-growing collections are a
testament to the museum’s broad view
of the world of art.
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CARNEGIE
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BY CHRISTINE H. O’TOOLE
W
▼
hen a cast of Alberto Giacometti’s Walking Man I
strolled out of a Sotheby’s auction in London earlier
this year, a whopping $104.3 million strolled in. The
then record-breaking selling price for a work of art was a timely
reminder of not only the stratospheric heights that auction prices
have reached but also the prescient eye of Carnegie Museum of Art
curators, who snagged the bronze cast’s brother—one of only six
created by the Swiss sculptor—after its exhibition at the 1961
Carnegie International.
World-class, brooding, iconic, modern, and, in the words of
noted author and Pittsburgh native Annie Dillard, “in spirit and in
form a dissected nerve”—the work on display in gallery 13 of the
museum’s Scaife Galleries embodies the
strengths of a collection that continues to
inspire first-time visitors, longtime fans,
and international art enthusiasts. (It’s
worth noting that Walking Man I isn’t
the only Giacometti the museum owns;
currently not on view is a smaller 1950
sculpture, Four Figures on a Pedestal, and
two oil-on-canvas paintings.)
Strengths in half a dozen areas—
American art from the mid-19th
century to the present; French
Impressionist and Post-Impressionist
paintings; significant late 20th- and early
21st-century works; European and
American decorative arts from the late
17th century to the present; and architectural drawings and models—define the
museum’s diverse and distinguished
collection. Also of note are holdings in
photography, film and video, and
Japanese prints. Of its highlights, the
most widely recognized may be the
museum’s Impressionist paintings, permanently on view in the Scaife Galleries.
“A few key works were bought early—an [Alfred] Sisley and a
[Camille] Pissarro in the 1890s, and the Cassatt in the 1920s,” says
Louise Lippincott, the museum’s curator of fine arts. Mary Cassatt,
creator of Young Women Picking Fruit, was the only American of
her day invited to exhibit with the French Impressionists. The
native Pittsburgher also participated in 18 Carnegie Internationals
between 1899 and 1926.
“The second acquisition campaign came in the late 1960s and
early ’70s,” Lippincott notes. “Most of the famous ones came then:
Monet’s Water Lilies, Van Gogh’s Wheat Fields, and the like. Almost
all were acquired with funds from Sarah Mellon Scaife, who also
gave us the Scaife building.”
Mary Cassatt, Young
Women Picking Fruit,
1891, Patrons Art Fund
Alberto Giacometti’s Walking Man I (center)
has been a museum highlight since 1961.
PHOTO: TOM LITTLE
(continued)
© 2010 Succession Giacometti / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
© 2010 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
CARNEGIE
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23
Starting With The Classics
“The quieter works deserve attention.”
Longtime docents like Marilyn Finberg, who
lead daily tours of the museum’s collection
and changing exhibitions, say most first-time
visitors arrive armed with a list of must-see
works. “Any of the well-known Impressionist
paintings,” she says, “and the Jackson Pollock
and [Willem] de Kooning. The names that
people know.” But Finberg adds that newcomers quickly discover the depth of the
museum’s collection.
“They’re pleasantly surprised, especially
by the 20th-century art. And most don’t
know about the Hall of Architecture,” she
notes, which is home to life-sized plaster recreations of some of the world’s great historic
architecture, including the largest architectural cast ever made: the west portal of the
Benedictine abbey of St.-Gilles-du-Gard.
The hall’s impressive collection of architectural and sculptural casts is one of the three
largest in the world.
- LOUISE LIPPINCOTT, CURATOR OF FINE ARTS
site-specific work, created for the 1988
Carnegie International, brings an authentic
American note to a hall that was modeled on
the Parthenon, the ancient temple of Athena
in Greece.
In her own work in a wide range of media,
Samuels often inscribes text on surfaces, and
she connects to Baumgarten’s runic pattern.
“The fact that there are some characters that
you recognize draws you to it. And it’s so perfectly integrated into the room. Instead of seeing it at eye level, you have to lift your head.
And I like the blue [letters]—it’s an alphabet
that reads like the sky.”
Celebrating Genius Among Us
PHOTO: TOM LITTLE
The Hall of Architecture boasts the third largest
collection of architectural casts in the world.
Finberg often begins her tours on the
museum’s ground floor in the Halls of
Sculpture and Architecture, where what she
calls “the classics” lay the foundation for the
art that lies ahead.
“It’s the Grand Tour, as it were,” notes
Finberg. “We walk from ancient Greece to
Rome to medieval France, and people are
totally blown away by the spaces.”
Diane Samuels, a local artist with an
international reach who has exhibited work
as part of the museum’s ongoing Forum
series, often follows suit, beginning many of
her visits in the Hall of Sculpture. Gesturing
far above the classical sculptures, she points
to The Tongue of the Cherokee, an installation
in which German conceptual artist Lothar
Baumgarten inscribed the characters of the
first written Native American language on
the room’s glass skylights. She notes that the
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For Samuels, a Long Island native and
Carnegie Mellon University graduate who
spent countless student hours sketching within
its walls, the Hall of Architecture is another
beloved friend. “It’s all eyeball scale,” she says.
“I love the chewed edges of the pillars, and the
little faces” in the ornately carved baptistery
doors. She likens the casts to the prehistoric
fish fossils in the Museum of Natural History,
another favorite on her frequent visits: “You
can stare at them for a long time,” she says.
Samuels fondly recalls Leon Arkus, director
of Carnegie Museum of Art from 1968 to
1980, who mentored her as a student and
often strolled the galleries with her. “He’d
circle a room and, suddenly, he’d be pulled
to one work like a magnet.”
It was Arkus who introduced Samuels to
paintings in the collection by American artists
such as Pittsburgher John Kane (the subject of
an Arkus book) and Arthur G. Dove. Dove’s
works, specifically Huntington Harbor II on
view in gallery 11, interest Samuels. “They’re
just teeny pictures with simple shapes,” she
notes, “made from sand and wood chips. The
crudeness is pretty fabulous.”
Kane, now a widely collected modernist
master, was an untrained Pittsburgh carpenter
when his first work was accepted to the
Carnegie International in 1927. “Genius has
been discovered!” reported the Pittsburgh Press
at the news of the jury’s decision. The museum’s collection of paintings by Kane, the
largest in the world, underscores the importance of Carnegie Internationals in building the
permanent collection. More than 300 works
have entered the museum’s holdings by way of
the International over the past century.
The very first International, in 1896, set the
standard for world-class collecting at Carnegie
Museum of Art. Pieces shown and purchased
by Andrew Carnegie that year included a
pair of famous American paintings: Winslow
Homer’s The Wreck and James Abbott
McNeill Whistler’s Arrangement in Black:
Portrait of Señor Pablo de Sarasate, the first
work by the artist bought by an American
museum. It was just as cutting-edge in its day
as the museum’s most recent acquisition,
Haegue Yang’s Series of Vulnerable
Arrangements–Domestics of Community, a
room-sized installation by the Korean artist
who exhibited in Life on Mars, the 2008
Carnegie International.
The Unexpected
Carnegie’s ambition to collect the “old masters
of tomorrow” put modernism in the museum’s DNA, and the contemporary collections
have long been the beneficiary of new works
acquired after Carnegie Internationals. But
other acquisitions have joined the collections
in some surprising ways, and Marilyn Finberg
enjoys sharing some of the more interesting
stories with visitors.
Pausing by The Nativity, an 1888 canvas
by Edward Burne-Jones, Finberg points out
the unusual expressions of its subjects:
Instead of seeming joyful, they are beautifully
restrained and sad. As she describes the
solemn, even somber, scene, she adds that
the acquisition of the work was actually the
happy result of a visit to the museum by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, a well-known
collector of pre-Raphaelite art. After viewing
the museum’s holdings by Burne-Jones and
other members of the Victorian group of
artists, he offered in 1997 to sell his painting
to the museum.
The following year, the museum unveiled
another glittering jewel of its collection: the
gilded panels of The Chariot of Aurora, a stunning Art Deco wall relief designed for the
Grand Salon of the Normandie, the most
glamorous ocean liner of the 1930s. Donated
to the Museum of Art in 1993 by Frederick
Koch and unveiled after painstaking conservation in 1998, the magnificent work “put the
museum’s Art Deco collection firmly on the
map,” said Louise Lippincott at the time.
Finberg adds a postscript to the grand
Normandie saga: the story of the gilded and
red lacquer doors that followed the panels to
the museum. After the Normandie was taken
out of commission in 1941, all the lacquer
decorations from the Grand Salon were
removed to storage. In 1949, The Chariot of
Aurora was re-hung on another French liner,
the Ile de France, which required replacing the
two gilded and red lacquer doors with eight
THE FAMOUS AND NOT-SO-FAMOUS
Vincent van Gogh, Wheat Fields after the Rain
(The Plain of Auvers), 1890, Acquired through
the generosity of the Sarah Mellon Scaife Family
▼
additional relief panels. Eventually, the doors
migrated to Mr. Chow’s, a landmark Chinese
restaurant in Manhattan. Upon hearing of Koch’s
gift to Carnegie Museum of Art, Mr. Chow himself donated the set to the museum, where they
complete the famous installation.
The Experts’ Picks
John Singer Sargent, Venetian
Interior, c. 1880–1882, Purchase
▼
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, The Nativity,
1888, Heinz Family Fund
▼
Aimé-Jules Dalou, Dorothy Heseltine,
1874, Given anonymously in honor
of the late Adolph W. Schmidt
▼
▼
The Scaife Galleries’ lesser-known works are as
familiar as its marquee pieces to Lippincott, and
no less important. The curator’s expertise in 18thand 19th-century European art, displayed in
blockbuster exhibitions such as Fierce Friends:
Artists & Animals, 1750–1900 and Light! The
Industrial Age, 1750–1900, gives her a special
appreciation for subtle period works that flank the
famed Monets, Pissarros, and Van Goghs.
“The quieter works deserve attention,” she
says. “[François Joseph] Bosio’s Henri IV as a
Child is rare. It’s very unusual,” she notes. “It’s a
statue of a nine-year-old boy, on an original
pedestal, that was made by a woman artist
(Félicie de Fauveau).” She likens another sculpture, the 1874 Dorothy Heseltine, to “what Renoir
did with paint.” Lippincott notes that the French
terracotta bust by Aimé-Jules Dalou complements
the collection’s strong Impressionist paintings. She
also admires the simplicity of Glass of Water and
Coffee Pot, a 1761 composition by Jean-Siméon
Chardin—“really superb,” she comments.
Lynn Zelevansky, The Henry J. Heinz II
Director of Carnegie Museum of Art, looks at the
same piece through the lens of a contemporary
curator, yet she agrees wholeheartedly. “There’s
something so modern in its simplicity,” she
marvels. Another piece that draws in both
experts is John Singer Sargent’s Venetian Interior
of c. 1880–1882, a somber rendition of a darkened room. “I love the floating rectangles,” says
Zelevansky. “It’s very abstract.”
Soon after arriving at Carnegie
Museum of Art, Zelevansky took on
the daunting task of choosing
standouts from the museum’s
collections when she agreed to
select 37 pieces for a book entitled Director’s Choice. Part of a
series from Scala Publishers
that features the collections
of the world’s top museums,
Zelevansky’s contribution,
to be published in November, forced her to
cull from the museum’s
masterworks.
“I would have preferred to do it a year
later,” she says with a laugh.
Arthur G. Dove, Huntington
Harbor II, c. 1926, Bequest of
Mr. and Mrs. James H. Beal
(continued)
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Both Whistler’s Arrangement in Black and
Sargent’s Venetian Interior made her list,
along with photography by Charles “Teenie”
Harris, Eugene Smith, and Duane Michals.
Zelevansky’s inclusion of three photographers
who took Pittsburgh as a subject is a definite
nod to the museum’s strength in that medium.
Popular with local visitors, the photographic
works also inspire other artists.
Inspiring Images
▼
Carlo Bugatti, Cobra chair, 1902,
Berdan Memorial Trust Fund, Helen
Johnston Acquistion Fund, and
Decorative Arts Purchase Fund.
© 2010 Artists Rights Society
(ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
Photo: Peter Harholdt
▼
Charles “Teenie” Harris, Four
women on a porch swing,
1945, Second Century
Acquisition Fund and gift of
Milton and Nancy Washington
Haegue Yang, Series of Vulnerable
Arrangements–Domestics of Community, 2009,
A. W. Mellon Acquisition Endowment Fund.
Photo: Tom Little
▼
Dylan Vitone, a 31-year-old documentary
photographer who was named Pittsburgh
Center for the Arts 2009 Emerging Artist of
the Year, had never heard of photojournalist
Teenie Harris when he first visited the museum
in 2004. Harris’ vivid, fluid style, honed over a
50-year career, struck an immediate chord.
“It was jaw-dropping,” Vitone says, simply.
“The thoroughness of the documentation—
for decades he was documenting the evolution
of the community. To have all of that in one
place, so easy to access, it’s phenomenal. And I
love that the museum is working so hard to
identify the subjects of Harris’ photos. [Few of
the photographs were titled or captioned
when the museum purchased the Teenie
Harris Archive, numbering some 80,000
prints and negatives, in 2001.]
It’s idealistic, but the fact is
that museums are often seen
as elitist. This says we really
care about the history; these people
are important.”
Vitone, whose panoramic images
of Pittsburgh life are also part of the
museum’s collection, is equally
inspired by Smith and Michals.
Smith “puts the pressure on,” he
says admiringly. “How to show a
new angle, how to do it in a new
way. He was very aware of that.”
Vitone is drawn to Michals’ combination of writing and photography. “His
ability to piece together these images to tell
these stories affects a lot of people, and not
just photographers—the whole art world.
“Landing his archive here, instead of
MoMA or the Met, is quite an impressive feat.”
“I just love it”
Another one of Zelevansky’s Director’s Choice
picks is an eye-popping Op Art canvas in
black and white—Bridget Riley’s Veil, which is
not currently on view but will grace the book’s
cover. Perhaps her most unexpected choice is
on display in the newly reopened Ailsa Mellon
Bruce Galleries, home to the museum’s decorative arts and design collection. A modest
pillar-molded pitcher, likely made in
Pittsburgh in the mid-19th century, evokes
the city’s expertise in glass-making.
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Zelevansky found plenty more to admire in
the newly reimagined galleries—from the 1825
parlor set from PicNic, a Greek revival mansion
in Stanton Heights built by William Croghan,
to Carlo Bugatti’s Cobra Chair, a daringly
curved form covered in vellum and decorated
with delicate dragonflies. Decades ahead of its
time, the work is “very advanced,” she says,
then shrugs. “But that’s intellectual. I just love
it.” Pointing to an 1810 French Creil earthenware serving piece, with a graceful dragon’s head
arched as a handle, she confesses, “I don’t own a
sauceboat—but I’d like that.”
Of the museum’s contemporary collection,
Zelvansky is particularly excited about what she
has to choose from for her book assignment.
“From the 1980s onward, the collection is
daring, and it shines,” she writes in her introduction to Director’s Choice.
One work that made the cut is Rachel
Harrison’s 2002 mixed-media sculpture, Utopia,
which the museum acquired following the
artist’s participation in the 2004 Carnegie
International. It comprises a tiny figure perched
on the mass of the sculpture, but depending on
the viewer’s vantage point, notes Zelevansky,
the figure appears triumphant as he stands on
a ledge of a great mountain, or the mountain
resembles a shrouded figure holding the man
in her hands.
Anselm Kiefer’s Midgard, a wall-sized canvas
in thickly textured paint spatters, is one contemporary gem that has slowly drawn in docent
Marilyn Finberg, despite her initial aversion.
The 1985 work interprets a Nordic myth of a
serpent that spreads chaos during an apocalyptic
battle. Embedded with straw, lead, and dirt, “it
is repellent,” admits Finberg, “but I could look
at this for a long time. The use of paint and
canvas creates such a mood.”
Diane Samuels has become a fan of Bruce
Nauman’s enigmatic black-and-white videos
Slow Angle Walk and Bouncing in the Corner
No. 1, in which the artist slowly thumps and
stalks across the screen. “They’re funny,” she
says of the works. “There’s a level of humor
that’s unexpected.” But what to make of the
tangled yarn, aluminum blinds, fish grills, and
Mardi Gras ornaments of Haegue Yang’s Series
of Vulnerable Arrangements? “It’s puzzling. It’s
not something I love,” she admits. “But it is
intriguing.” (See page 10 for more on this
new acquisition.)
Yang’s installation is a half-century younger
than Giacometti’s celebrated sculpture. But the
two adventurous works from opposite sides of
the world, displayed just a few galleries apart,
seem to frame nicely Carnegie Museum of Art’s
view of its collections over its 115-year history:
wide-open, at times challenging, and always
forward-thinking. ■