Cover of Le Corbusier: An Atlas of Modern Landscapes published by The Museum of Modern Art
As the leader of the International Style, the Swiss-born, Paris-based architect Le Corbusier had the rare opportunity to build on three continents at a time when airplanes were still a new method of transportation.
Cover of the exhibition catalogue Ellsworth Kelly: Chatham Series, published by The Museum of Modern Art
The iconic American artist Ellsworth Kelly celebrated his 90 birthday on May 31, and in his honor, MoMA has reunited the 14 ell-shaped paintings of his seminal Chatham Series for the first time since they were originally exhibited in 1972.
Though it is whimsical to think that the ell-shaped canvases were chosen as an ode to ELLsworth kELLy’s big day, the paintings are considered to be among Kelly’s greatest contributions to abstract art. Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture Ann Temkin details the fascinating story behind the series in MoMA’s new book, Ellsworth Kelly: Chatham Series.
In 1970, Kelly decided to leave New York City, where he had been living and working since the 1950s, for a more rural environment. After a period of exploratory road trips, he settled in Spencertown, two hours north of Manhattan, and established a studio in the nearby town of Chatham. This newfound location proved to be an important influence in Kelly’s artistic development, serving as an inspiration for his work.
Kelly’s studio in Chatham was in a 19th-century brick building featuring nearly 12-foot-tall windows along its upper floor. After spying the striking windows from the sidewalk while exploring the town, Kelly entered the barber shop on the ground floor of the building to inquire about the space and learned that, after stints as an opera house, banquet hall, roller rink, and more, it was functioning as a storage space, holding the town’s Christmas lights. The barber and a neighboring shopkeeper co-owned the space, and they agreed to rent it out to Kelly for $50 a month. The space was far more spacious than any studio Kelly has previous occupied, and the isolated location allowed him to explore his ideas without external influence.
Ellsworth Kelly outside his studio, 13 Main Street, Chatham, 1970
After a year of transforming and customizing the space for his needs, Kelly began work on the first series he would produce there in 1971. Each of the 14 large-scale paintings in the Chatham series are made of two monochromatic canvases that are joined together at a right angle, yet no two are the same, allowing the artist to experiment with color and proportion. Temkins’s essay provides an in-depth exploration of the various aspects of this iconic series, including scale, process, and the reception the Chatham Series received when it was first exhibited to the public at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, in 1972.
Ellsworth Kelly’s studio, Chatham, New York, 1972
The paintings now belong to 14 different collections, but Ellsworth Kelly: Chatham Series brings them back together for the first time since their debut so museumgoers and readers alike can explore one of Kelly’s most significant achievements in its entirety. For more on the series, download a free PDF sample of the exhibition catalogue for an excerpt from the essay. The book also features as essay by the director of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery that accompanied the first exhibition of the series, vibrant reproductions of each of the 14 paintings, additional illustrations including vintage photographs of Kelly’s studio, and much more.
Cover of What is Contemporary Art? A Guide for Kids by Jacky Klein and Suzy Klein, published by The Museum of Modern Art
MoMA’s current exhibition, Claes Oldenburg: The Street and The Store, celebrates the early years of artist Claes Oldenburg’s extraordinary career, when he experimented with painting and sculpture by reworking the stuff of every day into larger than life objects made with unexpected materials.
Taking monumental frescos to a multitouch screen, MoMA’s eBook Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Josè Clemente Orozco offers a fresh exploration of three great figures in the revival of mural painting that brought modern Mexican art to international attention after the Mexican Revolution of 1910–20.
Cover of the exhibition catalogue Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light, published by The Museum of Modern Art
French architect Henri Labrouste (1801–1875) may not be an instantly recognizable name, yet he is one of the most influential precursors of modern architecture. Most well known for two luminous library reading rooms built in Paris in the 1800s, the Bibliothèque nationale de France (1838–50) and the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève (1859–75), Labrouste has been long admired by both modernists and postmodernists for his innovative embrace of then-new technologies, like cast iron and gas lighting.
Cover of the exhibition catalogue Bill Brandt: Shadow & Light, published by The Museum of Modern Art
MoMA’s new book Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light by Sarah Hermanson Meister, curator in the Department of Photography at MoMA, is a fresh look at the work of an iconic British photographer. The exhibition currently on view isn’t the first time MoMA has presented Bill Brandt’s work to the public—the last Brandt retrospective was in 1969. Since then, the Museum’s perspective of Brandt’s work has evolved into a more complete consideration of the nuances and variations in Brandt’s own photo-historical approach.
Brandt’s photography is traditionally presented in thematic groupings at the artist’s own request, but this view alone simplifies a body of work that is multifaceted and far-reaching in style, influence, and subject matter. Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light is the most comprehensive overview of Brandt’s work to date, and it attempts to create a coherent trajectory across five decades of his career.
Beyond the 160 tri-tone reproductions of his photographs, the book features a rich appendix that illuminates different aspects of Brandt’s oeuvre. A section on Brandt’s photo-stories from 1939 to 1945 reproduces spreads from the publications in which they originally appeared, and a detailed survey of his methods for retouching his photos is especially fascinating in today’s world of digital cameras, smart phones, and instant photo filters. Brandt often spoke about how important the retouching process was in his work, and by looking at the various tools and techniques he used to edit and perfect his final images, photo conservator Lee Ann Daffner’s illustrated glossary dives deep into Brandt’s working process. As discussed in a prior INSIDE/OUT post, Dating Brandt, the same negative can look completely different depending on when Brandt retouched it.
Sample of Bill Brandt’s published photo-stories in the exhibition catalogue, Bill Brandt: Shadow & Light. The photo-stories are organized chronologically to suggest the breadth of Brandt’s artwork
I believe this power of seeing the world as fresh and strange lies hidden in every human being. In most of us it is dormant. Yet it is there, even if it is no more than a vague desire, an unsatisfied appetite that cannot discover its own nourishment….This should be the photographer’s aim, for this is the purpose that pictures fulfill in the world as it is to-day. To meet a need that people cannot or will not meet for themselves. We are most of us too busy, too worried, too intent on proving ourselves right, too obsessed with ideas, to stand and stare.
Bill Brandt took the time to “stand and stare” in many different ways. Whether through juxtapositions of class structure, wondrous nudes, inventive portraiture, or unearthly landscapes, Brandt’s far-reaching inspirations and approaches generated arresting imagery that still holds magic and wonder today.
From left: Bill Brandt. Francis Bacon Walking on Primrose Hill, London. 1963. Gelatin silver print, 91⁄4 x 71⁄2″ (23.5 x 19.1 cm). Collection David Dechman and Michel Mercure. © 2013 Bill Brandt Archive Ltd.; Bill Brandt. The Pilgrim’s Way, Kent. 1950. Gelatin silver print, 9 x 75⁄8″ (22.9 x 19.4 cm). EHG. © 2013 Bill Brandt Archive Ltd.
Vincent van Gogh. The Starry Night. 1889. Oil on canvas, 29 x 36 1/4″ (73.7 x 92.1 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest
There is hardly an introduction that does Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night (1889) justice. It is one of the most recognizable and beloved artworks in the world, and for many MoMA visitors, it is the artwork to see—a celebrity perhaps signifying modern art itself. Yet despite its fame, few viewers are likely familiar with the story behind this unlikely masterpiece, one of the many nighttime paintings Van Gogh produced during his stay at a mental hospital in Saint-Rémy, in the south of France.
Now available for the iPad, MoMA’s One on One series offers a sustained meditation on The Starry Night by art historian Richard Thomson that sheds light on the painting and transports readers to the environment in which it was created. In Thomson’s engaging essay filled with vivid visual references and snippets of Van Gogh’s personal correspondences, readers can catch a glimpse of the artist’s complex inner workings and the thought processes that went into creating the nighttime scene.
Screenshots from Van Gogh: The Starry Night
What’s more, Thomson examines the physical circumstances behind The Starry Night, taking readers to the actual place where Van Gogh focused his attentions to the night sky, and highlighting the artist’s technique and style. Thomson also considers other artwork that Van Gogh may have seen at the time, placing The Starry Night in a broader historical context.
For more on The Starry Night, visit the iBookstore to download a free sample, and check out the other One on One series book available for the iPad, Rousseau: The Dream, in which MoMA curator Ann Temkin illuminates Henri Rousseau’s last major painting.
Cover of MoMA Highlights: 350 Works from The Museum of Modern Art, published by The Museum of Modern Art
Although the word “modern” will always spark some debate over its definition, The Museum of Modern Art has been committed since its founding in 1929 to collecting and sharing with the public the most compelling art of our time.
Cover of the exhibition catalogue Wait, Later This Will Be Nothing: Editions by Dieter Roth, published by The Museum of Modern Art
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