Ongoing and Upcoming International Vermeer and Vermeer-related Events

Essential Vermeer Website Addition

Vermeer Exhibitions: 1838 - 2013

A complete sortable list of past, ongoing and future Vermeer exhibitions. To sort all 193 exhibitons by date, city, country or number of Vermeer pictures displayed, click the table's headers.

Vermeer painting goes to Detroit

Detroit Institute of Art
August 8 - Labour Day (about), 2012

On loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance will take center stage in a tightly focused exhibition, flanked by two similarly intimate scenes painted by Gerard ter Borch and Pieter de Hooch, two of Vermeer's contemporaries and stars of the DIA's Dutch collection. The painting is the first Vermeer to visit Detroit in probably 65 years.

Vermeer and Dutch painting exhibition in Rome, Italy

Vermeer. Il secolo d’oro dell’arte olandese (in italiano)
(Vermeer and the Golden Age of Dutch Art)
Scuderie del Quirinale
Rome, Italy
1 ottobre 2012 – 20 gennaio 2013

from the exhibition website:
Vermeer and the Golden Age of Dutch Art is the first large-scale exhibition dedicated to one of the foremost Dutch painters of the seventeen century, and perhaps one of the general  public’s most beloved artists.

Organized by the Azienda Speciale Palaexpo and co-porduced with MondoMostre, the exhibition is curated by Arthur K. Wheelock, Curator of Northern Baroque Paintings - National Gallery of Art in Washington, Walter Liedtke, Curator of European Paintings Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and Sandrina Bandera, Soprintendente per il Patrimonio Artistico Storico, Artistico ed Etnoantopologico di Milano.

Other than a number of select masterworks by Vermeer, many paintings by the key protagonists  of the seventeenth-century Dutch genre school  will be on display.

(Vermeer paintings to be announced.)

Vermeer contemporary Michiel van Musscher commemorated at the Van Loon Musuem in Amsterdam

Michiel van Musscher: the opulence of the Golden Age
9 March – 10 June 2012
Museum van Loon, Amsterdam

While Vermeer lovers might remember Michiel Van Musscher’s emulation of Vermeer’s Art of Painting, perhaps only a few have given this lesser-known seventeenth-century Dutch painter the full attention he deserves.  To rectify the situation, on March 9, 2012 the Museum Van Loon opened an exhibition Michiel van Musscher (1645 -1705) the Wealth of the Golden Age, the very  first exhibition dedicated to this talented artist.

By the end of the seventeenth century, Van Musscher had become a successful portraitist. While visiting the capital in 1687, Swedish architect Nicodemus Tessin deemed him the very best Amsterdam painter for small portraits. He is noted for having portrayed the exuberant lifestyle of the Dutch elite and the wealth of the Golden Age with  great pictorial quality and richness in detail. His portraits are painted in the tradition of Netscher and Van Mieris although it is clear that he had seen and drawn inspiration from Vermeer as well for a few of his own compositions. Among his sitters was Tsar Peter the Great.

The exhibition counts not only his more famous paintings from Dutch collections and the Van Loon Museum itself, but also a significant number of paintings from private collections and international museums. The exhibition is a tribute to the work of Van Musscher and visualizes the latter days of the Dutch Golden Age.

catalogue avaliable at: info@museumvanloon.nl

museum page: http://www.museumvanloon.nl/eng/home-volg.php?item=item20120309154511.php

Rijksmuseum publishes new bulletin with two articles on Vermeer's newly restored Woman in Blue Reading a Letter

The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 2012 - 1

"The restoration of Woman in Blue Reading a Letter by Johannes Vermeer"s
by IGE VERSLYPE

"A Question of Framing: On Vermeer’s Woman in Blue Reading a Letter"
by GREGOR J.M. WEBER

to order, click here: http://www.rijksmuseum.nl/lezen?lang=en

Rijksmuseum sends Vermeer's Love Letter to Turkey for the first time

Where Darkness Meets Light...Rembrandt & his Contemporaries
Sakip Sabanci Museum in Istanbul
21 February - 10 June 2012

from artdaily.com:
For the first time, the Rijksmuseum is organising an exhibition on the Dutch Golden Age in Turkey, including five paintings by Rembrandt and Love Letter by Vermeer. Over 100 masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum collection will be on display in Sakip Sabanci Museum in Istanbul from 21 February to 10 June 2012. The exhibition is part of the festivities marking 400 years of diplomatic relations between Turkey and the Netherlands.

The exhibition showcases the rich and varied nature of 17th-century Dutch art and history, telling the story of the power and majesty of the young Dutch Republic in the Golden Age through a selection of 111 paintings, drawings, prints and applied art in the form of carpets, ceramics, silverware and glassware. The exhibits include landscapes by Jan van Goyen, Jacob van Ruisdael and Aelbert Cuyp, still lives by Pieter Claesz and Adriaen Coorte, genre pieces by Gerard ter Borch, Gabriël Metsu and Pieter de Hooch, and jocular scenes by Jan Steen and Adriaen van Ostade. Two portraits by Frans Hals will also be on display, alongside several cityscapes by Gerrit Berckheyde and two pen paintings by Willem van de Velde de Oude.

The highlights of the exhibition are The Love Letter(1669-1670) by Johannes Vermeer and no fewer than five paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn : Portrait of Haesje van Cleyburgh (1634), Still life with peacocks (c. 1639) and Portrait of Dr Ephraïm Bueno (1645-47), The music lesson (1626) and Joseph recounting his dreams (1633).

museum website:
http://muze.sabanciuniv.edu/page/where-darkness-meets-light

Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring & the Diana and her Companions go to Japan in 2012

Masterpieces from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum
June 30-Sept. 17, 2012
http://www.asahi.com/mauritshuis2012/

This exhibition will mark the reopening of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, which has been closed for renovations for two years.

This show will feature Vermeer's masterpiece Girl with a Pearl Earring and the early Diana and her Companions while many other masterpieces are already on display at a separate Vermeer show (continuing through March 14) at Tokyo's Bunkamura.

video presentation :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZalFLhX0_o0

Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring in the United States in 2013

Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis (35 works)
de Young - San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts
San Francisco
Jan 26 - June 2, 2013

Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis (35 works)
High Museum of Art
Atlanta
June 22 - Sept. 29, 2013

Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting from the Mauritshuis
(10 works)
Frick Collection
New York
Oct. 22, 2013 - Jan 12, 2014

press release:
Masterpieces from the Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis will be exhibited at three museums in the United States from January 2013 to January 2014. The Mauritshuis has agreed to send more than thirty works to the de Young/Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta; the tour will finish with a smaller selection at The Frick Collection in New York. Among the paintings going on tour are the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer and The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius, neither of which will have been seen by American audiences in ten years. Furthermore, this is the first occasion since the mid-1980s that a substantial group of works from the Mauritshuis has come to the United States. The decision to organize a major international travelling exhibition of a select group of paintings from the museum’s rich collection was prompted by the large-scale renovations to its premises, which will be finished in 2014.

Vermeer’s Late Young Woman Seated at a Virginal exhibited in Oxford

Ashmolean Museum of Art, Oxford
Jan. 23 - Sept., 2012

http://www.ashmolean.org/news/?id=171

Vermeer’s Early Christ in the House of Martha and Mary to be exhibited in Italy

Da Vermeer a Kandinsky. Capolavori dai musei del mondo a Rimini
Jan. 21 - June 3, 2012

Castel Sismondo
Piazza Malatesta
47900 Rimini, Italy

http://www.lineadombra.it/da-vermeer-a-kandinsky/la-mostra

Vermeer’s Guitar Player to be exhibited at the London National Gallery in 2012.

With the closure of the Kenwood House for urgent restoration in 2012, the museum was posed with the dilemma of what to do with their masterpieces. The Kenwood has just announced that Vermeer’s Guitar Player will be displayed at the National Gallery in London. The exquisite work, never before relined, will also be examined by the National Gallery's conservation department. Keeping it in storage was ruled out because it was the most costly alternative. Dates to be announced.

New image of Vermeer's recently restored Woman in Blue Reading a Letter

click here to access high resolution image

The Rijksmuseum has updated their hi-res image of the Woman in Blue Reading a Letter after its recent restoration. At first sight it looks a bit disjointed as pictures always do after restoration. The whole much cooler in hue now the long winding scarf-like piece of cloth on the table, once fairly muddled, can be made out a bit better recalling a similar scarf-like object that drapes down in the Art of Painting. The figure has gained much force and now stands out of the picture more than it did before the dark, yellow varnish was removed. The painting now appears to have greater spatial resonance and sense of volume.

Some color can be made out in the map as well as a few topographical features which had been overpainted. A row of discreet brass buttons with tiny highlights now run along the side of the foreground chair which had been completely obscured by retouches.

Gangsters and Vermeer: Will we ever see Vermeer's stolen Concert again? Perhaps yes.

drawn from the THE SACRAMENTO BEE.
http://www.sacbee.com/2011/06/24/3725190/can-whitey-bulger-help-solve-biggest.html

With the arrest Wednesday of notorious Boston crime boss James "Whitey" Bulger, many in the art world are now asking: Could it provide a break in the greatest art heist in American history which included Vermeer's Concert ? Rumors have long swirled that Bulger, the head of the city's powerful Irish-American mob at the time, may have played a role - or must have known who did. Some have speculated that he stashed the stolen masterpieces away to use as a "get-out-of-jail-free card" if he was ever caught. Others think he sent the paintings to allies in the Irish Republican Army to use as a bargaining chip. The Gardner Museum had no comment Thursday on the arrest other than a Tweet saying, "Until a recovery is made, our work continues." Many who have studied the case are similarly skeptical about Bulger's direct involvement. Last year, investigators in the Gardner case said there was no evidence in the mountains of wiretaps and other records to link Bulger to the crime.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2011/06/what-does-whitey-bulger-know-about-the-1990-gardner-museum-art-heist.html

Essential Vermeer Attempts Facebook

Essential Vermer: Facebook

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Essential-Vermeer/133691276693957

What does the global social network Facebook have to do with Vermeer? At first glance very little. Take a look at many of the art institutions’ Facebook pages that tend to be one-way monologues with insignificant interaction. People's comments really don't seem to matter.

And yet the chance to bring the Vermeer community a bit closer might be worth a try. I have found Facebook surprisingly efficient for diffusing news rapidly and opening  lines of quick, two-way communication.

So what can you do? Have a look, leave a comment and keep on coming I'll keep on plugging away for a year or so - the time necessary to evaluate any web initiative - and see if a marriage between social networking and art history makes any sense.