Cultural Currents: Legion's curator discusses “J. M. W. Turner: Painting Set Free”

A major new exhibition at The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco  this summer features “J. M. W. Turner: Painting Set Free.”

The show at the de Young will be the first major exhibition to survey the achievements of Joseph Mallord William Turner (English, 1775–1851) during his final period of productivity, when many of his most celebrated works were created.

Included are paintings from 1835, when the artist turned 60, through 1850, the year he was last exhibited at the Royal Academy in London.

“Painting Set Free” brings together 65 key oil paintings and watercolors, shedding fresh light on the artist’s life and art by challenging myths, assumptions and interpretations that have grown around his later work. It reveals a painter distinguished by the broad scope of his knowledge and imagination, as well as by his radical and exploratory techniques and uses of materials.

The exhibition also will provide the rare opportunity to see firsthand some of the masterpieces featured in Mike Leigh’s critically acclaimed film “Mr. Turner” (Sony Pictures Classics, 2014).

 “Turner’s late paintings, which include many of his best-known images, are both engaging and enigmatic,” said Esther Bell, curator in charge of European paintings at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. “These astonishing works influenced generations of artists, from Claude Monet to Cy Twombly.”

In an exclusive interview with Bay Crossings, Ms. Bell shared other insights on Turner and the sea.

Bay Crossings: Obviously, Bay Crossings' readers relate to most art with a waterborne theme. What makes Turner's work so powerful in this regard?

Esther Bell: Turner was the master of painting atmosphere: wind, water, fire, light. He was interested in trying to capture the uncapturable through nuanced brushwork and an inventive use of media. And, he does so to masterful effect. The case in point is Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth, where we are transported into a ferocious vortex of water, snow, wind, and terror.

BC: What other works in the De Young's permanent collection would resonate with our readers?

Bell: We hope that our visitors will come to the Legion of Honor to see our permanent collection of European paintings, including works by the artists that inspired Turner: such as those by Claude Lorrain or the Dutch masters. We also have a fantastic exhibition of works on paper by Turner and his contemporaries called “Luminous Worlds: British Works on Paper, 1760-1900” on view until November 29^th.

BC: How should our readers prepare before coming to view this exhibition? 

Bell: There are many excellent books on Turner’s life and career. For a quick read, but excellent overview, I suggest Olivier Meslay’s J.M.W. Turner: The Man Who Set Painting on Fire. For a longer, also excellent read, I also enjoyed Anthony Bailey’s Standing in the Sun: A Life of J.M.W. Turner.

BC: What were the main challenges you faced in putting this exhibition together? Any surprises?

Bell: The exhibition was a joy to work on, and a great privilege—and it didn’t present any glaring challenges. The “surprises” occurred mainly when we uncrated the paintings. . .they were entirely more magnificent and powerful than I had remembered (even from seeing them a matter of weeks earlier). Each work in the exhibition is truly a masterpiece.

BC: The de Young's audio guides are great of course, but do you recommend any particular musical score for this show?

Bell: In Turner’s later career he was compared to Hector Berlioz for his radicalism; I find both artist and composer to be equally compelling in their manner of invention—relative to their day.

Photo caption:

Joseph Mallord William Turner, "The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, October 16, 1834," 1834–1835. Oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art. The John Howard McFadden Collection

Pierre Bonnard: Painting Arcadia

Arcadia – the imaginary idyllic paradise celebrated in ancient rhyme and verse – also became the subject matter for modernist painters in the early 20^th century.

The Fine Arts Museums of SanFrancisco will soon stage Pierre Bonnard: Painting Arcadia at the Legion of Honor. It is the first major international presentation of Pierre Bonnard’s work to be mounted on the West Coast in half a century. The exhibition will feature more than seventy works that span the artist’s complete career, from his early Nabi masterpieces, through his experimental photography, to the late interior scenes for which he is best known.

The exhibition celebrates Bonnard as one of the defining figures of modernism in the transitional period between impressionism and abstraction. Several themes from Bonnard’s career will emerge, including the artist’s great decorative commissions where the natural world merges with the bright colors and light of the South of France, where windows link interior and exterior spaces, and where intimate scenes disclose unexpected phantasmagorical effects.

“Bonnard’s arcadia is filled with poetry, wit, color and warmth,” said Esther Bell, curator in charge of European paintings. “This selection of highlights from his career will make clear the artist’s important role in the history of French modernism.”

Bay Crossings readers will recall that we interviewed Ms. Bell for our column last August when she so successfully mounted the “Turner and the Sea” exhibition.

Among the many significant paintings on view will be Man and Woman (1900, Musée d’Orsay), in which the artist has depicted his lifelong companion and one of his constant subjects, Marthe de Méligny. Also featured will be such masterpieces as The Boxer (Self-Portrait) (1931, Musée d’Orsay) and The Work Table (1926–1937, National Gallery of Art); and decorative panels and screens, including View from Le Cannet (1927, Musée Bonnard) and Pleasure (1906–1910, Musée d’Orsay).

Legion of Honor Presents “The Brothers Le Nain"

The Brothers Le Nain: Painters of 17^th-Century France, is an exhibition containing understated beauty and sensitivity.

This is the first major exhibition in the United States devoted to the Le Nain brothers—Antoine (ca. 1598–1648), Louis (ca. 1600/1605–1648) and Mathieu (ca. 1607–1677). The presentation features more than forty of the brothers’ works to highlight their full artistic production.

Esther Bell, Curator in Charge of European Paintings for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Cultural Currents that she was especially moved by “Peasants Before a House, because it portrays them with such dignity.

“We must remember that during this historical moment there was much more leisure and time to reflect,” she says. “And although the subjects are referred to as ‘peasants,’ they don’t appear to really be that poor. That may because they lead rich spiritual lives and are satisfied with owning a home and having a few nice clothes.”

Max Hollein, the newly-named Director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, praised the show too, noting that the “massive” exhibition catalogue is testimony to how important this show may become.

“The brothers Le Nain have not been the subjects of a major exhibition since 1979, when more than 300,000 visitors first came to celebrate their masterful paintings at the Grand Palais in Paris,” says Hollein, “In fact, San Francisco is one of only nine cities in the United States to boast a public collection with a painting by the brothers.”

The catalogue features more than sixty paintings highlighting the artists’ full range of production, including altarpieces, private devotional paintings, portraits and the poignant images of peasants for which the brothers are best known, this illustrated volume presents new research by leading scholars in the field concerning the authorship, dating and meaning of the works.