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Friday, April 29, 2022
Madelyn Jordon Fine Art is delighted to present Minimal|Maximal April 30 – June 11, 2022.
Thursday, April 28, 2022
Edvard Munch print of Eva Mudocci, featured in The Violin Concert, is available through John Szoke Gallery.
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Fiolinkonserten (Violin Concert)(Woll 243), 1903, lithograph, 18 7/8 x 22 inches |
One of Edvard Munch’s better know portraits is one he did in 1903 of violinist Eva Mudocci. Called The Brooch (W244), we’ve discussed this print before. What’s not as well known is that W244 is the second of three known prints Munch did of Eva Mudocci in that same year. The third, called Salome, is of both Munch and Eva Mudocci’s heads and, in a letter to a friend Eva wrote that the title Salome caused her and Munch to have their “only row.”* The first of the three, Violin Concert (W243), is a lithograph of Eva and Bella Edwards, the pianist who accompanied her on tour. And this is the image that we’ll focus on today.
First, a refresher on Eva Mudocci and her Parisian encounter with Munch: Not falling into the trope of an artist’s muse as simply a symbol of beauty and romantic interest, Mudocci herself was an acclaimed artist. A child prodigy, she began performing in England before expanding her horizons to the rest of Europe, where she met Bella Edwards. The two were enmeshed in the rich arts scene happening in Paris’s Left Bank and together they spent half a decade living, traveling, and performing together.**
It was in 1903, during that tour, that Munch first met the talented violinist. He was quickly drawn to her musical ability and her beauty. Already consumed with busy travel plans for the rest of the year, Munch developed a relationship with Mudocci by corresponding back and forth throughout his travels. In this correspondence, he mentioned that he wanted to do a portrait of her.
His desire to draw her portrait became a reality later that same year when they met in person once again, this time in Berlin. Mudocci and Bella Edwards were staying at the Hotel Sans Souci and, according to art historian Arne Eggum, Munch moved all of his art supplies into their room in preparation to do the portrait. However, it seemingly wasn’t enough to have his lithograph stones and painting materials there, as Munch procrastinated on creating the portrait for so long that the women gave him an ultimatum: create the piece or move the materials out. This clearly was enough to spur Munch into action, as he got to work and created the first lithograph, The Violin Concert. |
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Die Brosche. Eva Mudocci(Woll 244), 1903, lithograph, 23 7/8 x 18 3/8 inches |
Before we dive into the image, it’s important to note a few things. First, that there was much speculation about Eva and Bella’s own relationship, primarily that they were also involved in a romantic relationship with one another. The second thing to remember is Munch’s notoriously complicated relationship with women. His contradicting love and fear of them led to doomed relationships and dark feelings. While he once write, “The woman has inspired many of my best artworks,” he also wrote, “Often I felt the woman stood in the way of my art.”*** In regards to Eva Mudocci, an excerpt from a letter Munch sent to his friend Frederick Delius is likely most telling. He wrote: "But I always have feelings about the enemy – Woman I think you know Eva Mudocci and her friend B. Edvards – they are here – Fraulein Mudocci is wonderfully beautiful and I almost fear falling in love – (one of thousands). What do you think?”
Now back to the lithograph. Munch based the piece on two publicity photographs of Eva and Bella.**** In one, the musicians are mid-performance. In the other, Mudocci wears a white gown and has either already finished the recital or hasn’t started playing yet. Looking closely at W243, it’s interesting to see the different parts of each photograph he opted to incorporate into his own image. While he has Bella Edwards sat at the piano (her black dress blending with the black piano), playing with her back turned from Eva, he decided to portray Eva in the white gown, holding her violin still against her body. Her posture is rigid. She is looking at Bella, who is not looking back at her, almost as though waiting for direction. What’s even more, the expression on her face is stoic. It’s brooding. There is a strained feeling that almost sets an uneasy tone.
In The Brooch, Eva is alone, up close and center. It highlights her beauty and the intricate details of her face. Munch even referred to it once as another “Madonna.” When compared to W243, the stark differences between the two are obvious. So what does that suggest? Maybe Munch wasn’t merely depicting the ending of a music recital. Rather, he was possibly using the scene to project his own personal feelings— maybe his feelings on the relationship between Bella and Eva, maybe his conflicting feelings towards Eva being an independent and talented artist in her own right. Or maybe simply the fear of falling for a woman when his feelings on relationships were filled with such despair.
Munch and Eva continued their relationship until 1908 or 1909, though it was a complicated one. There was a trust and intimacy between them, but also turbulence and a certain level of incapability. Considering the tortured nature of their relationship, perhaps the first depiction Munch ever created of Eva Mudocci— an image that on face value could simply be seen as two women performing music together— contained more foreshadowing than even he knew himself. * Prelinger, Elizabeth, et al. The Symbolist Prints of Edvard Munch: The Vivian and David Campbell Collection: Exhibition. Art Gallery of Ontario, 1996. *** https://www.munchmuseet.no/en/whats-on-arkiv/live-tour-munch-and-the-woman/ |
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41 East 57th Street, Floor 6, New York, NY 10022 212-219-8300 info@johnszoke.com |
    #johnszokegallery#fineartartmagazine#sunstormart |
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale on 18 May to Feature Blue-Chip Masters, Such as Basquiat, Picasso, Frankenthaler, and Rothko, Alongside Works by Wong, BerrÃo, and Weyant!
Phillips’ New York Evening Sale Poised to Become Most Successful Auction in Company History
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale on 18 May to Feature Blue-Chip Masters, Such as Basquiat, Picasso, Frankenthaler, and Rothko, Alongside Works by Wong, BerrÃo, and Weyant.
Phillips is pleased to announce that the full lineup for the New York Evening Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art is now available online. Poised to be the most successful sale in the company’s 226-year history, the auction will be led by titans of Modern and Post-War Art, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, Yves Klein, and Helen Frankenthaler. Featuring a strong Contemporary selection as well, the Evening sale provides a rare opportunity to acquire works by some of the more in-demand artists of today, including Matthew Wong, Amy Sherald, MarÃa BerrÃo, and Anna Weyant. Comprised of 37 lots, the Evening Sale will take place on 18 May at 7pm ET at 432 Park Avenue, following the exhibition, which opens on 30 April.
Jean-Paul Engelen, President, Americas and Worldwide Co-Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, said, “This season, we are proud to present the most ambitious offering of works in Phillips’ history, a testament to the expertise of our international team and the strong, trusted relationships they have within the collecting community. From Mr. Maezawa’s Basquiat, to the Kusama that was originally in the collection of Günther Uecker, to the Klein that was owned by Charles Wilp, to the Frankenthaler that hails directly from the Mayerson Family Collection, the strong provenance of the works in our Evening Sale cannot be overstated and we are honored to have been entrusted with their sale.”
Robert Manley, Deputy Chairman and Worldwide Co-Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, said, “In recent seasons, we’ve seen an expansion of taste in the market. The interest in high-quality, rare-to-market works that extend back into the 20th century is as strong as that for works by artists who are still creating today. Our May Evening Sale celebrates this breadth of demand, bringing together the very best of Modern, Post-War, and Contemporary Art. Helen Frankenthaler’sBlue Dance and Pablo Picasso’s Figures et plante are offered alongside Carmen Herrera’s Basque and auction newcomer Justin Caguiat’s Doll 3 Eros, presenting collectors an unparalleled selection of works across all interests. We look forward to welcoming collectors into our exhibition and saleroom at 432 Park Avenue.”
#phillipsauction#fieartmagazine#sunstormarts
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
ART BRUSSELS | THE HOLE Booth C.91 April 28 - May 1, 2022
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Secure Your Spot Before It's Gone! | The Bronx Museum's 50th Anniversary Gala & Auction - Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Bronx Museum of Art 50 years
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Material Matters: Artistic Labor in Giuseppe Penone's Sculpture Elizabeth Mangini April 30, 2022, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
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ReminderIn the fourth and final installment of our lecture series, The Politics of Labor in Postwar Italian Art, we welcome Elizabeth Mangini, Chair and Associate Professor, History of Art and Visual Culture Program at California College of the Arts. Her talk, Material Matters: Artistic Labor in Giuseppe Penone's Sculpture, draws on her expertise in social and material histories of postwar and contemporary art. This exploration will focus on Giuseppe Penone's work and process, investigating the notion of artistic labor as a reconfigured and often reciprocal relationship between the artist's body and the material world. |
 Design by Waterhouse Cifuentes |
It has been a pleasure to present this series over the past two months. Each scholar provided their insight into how artists of the period challenged traditional methods of production and systems of value, framing their experimentation within the broader socio-political unrest of the period as protests against industrialization, consumerism, and class inequality swept across Italy. Is a sculptor’s work equivalent to the movements of a stream, the force of a storm, or the germination of a plant? Giuseppe Penone’s artworks prompt such questions, exploring the notion of artistic labor as a reconfigured and often reciprocal relationship between the artist's body and the material world. This lecture will explore a selection of the Italian artist’s works, from the late 1960s to the present, in order to understand his repositioning artistic making as a negotiation of forces, rather than domination of raw materials. Some projects propose the artist as a relatively passive force and the material as active one, while others demonstrate an interdependent entanglement. When Penone sculpts a piece of wood to rediscover the form of the tree from which it came, he creates a portal through which viewers can compare familiar experiences of time – such as that which it would take to carve wood by hand – with the vastly expanded temporal frame that characterizes a tree’s organic development. Such projects are rooted in aesthetic concerns, yet they inevitably reflect aspects of the social and intellectual milieu of 1960s-1970s Italy, in which bodies and time figured predominantly in ongoing debates about labor, political power, and human experience. About Elizabeth Mangini Elizabeth Mangini is an art historian specializing in social and material histories of postwar and contemporary art. She regularly contributes to Artforum magazine and has authored essays in several international books, journals, and exhibition catalogues. Her book Seeing Through Closed Eyelids: Giuseppe Penone and the Nature of Sculpture was published by the University of Toronto Press in 2021. Dr. Mangini serves on the editorial board of the Italian contemporary art journal Palinsesti and is a member of the scientific committee of the Mimmo Rotella Institute in Milan. She is an Associate Professor at California College of the Arts in San Francisco, and is the Chair of the History of Art and Visual Culture program there. |
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