International Vermeer Events of the Recent Past
On this page are listed exhibitions, conferences, multimedia events and recent publications of the recent past which are closely related to the life and work of Johannes Vermeer.
click here to see Vermeer-related ongoing and upcoming events
be there when it happens... keep track with these excellent online resources
http://www.essentialvermeer.com/b_form.html
Receive news about Vermeer-related events such as exhibitions, publications or multi-media events as well as significant ESSENTIAL VERMEER site updates. Click here to subscribe free of charge.
http://flyingfox.jonathanjanson.com/
Read daily updates about everything Vermeer and related art history subjects.
http://www.euromuse.net/
EUROMUSE.NET is a public access portal giving accurate information on major exhibitions in European museums. Each museum's information is available in the native language and in English. Updating of EUROMUSE.NET is continuous.
http://www.codart.nl/exhibitions/
CODART provides a list of current, upcoming and past Flemish and Dutch related exhibitions and events as well as a wealth of other information indispensable for anyone interested in Dutch and Flemish art. CODART also offers a valuable newsletter.
Vermeer exhbition catalogue
Vermeer’s Women: Secrets and Silence
by Marjorie E. Wieseman, Mr. Wayne Franits & H. Perry Chapman
2011
224 pages, Yale University Press
purchase exhibition catalogue from Fitzwilliam Museum online shop
product description:
Focusing on the extraordinary Lacemaker from the Musée du Louvre, this beautiful book investigates the subtle and enigmatic paintings by Johannes Vermeer that celebrate the intimacy of the Dutch household. Moments frozen in paint that reveal young women sewing, reading or playing musical instruments, captured in Vermeer’s uniquely luminous style, recreate a silent and often mysterious domestic realm, closed to the outside world, and inhabited almost exclusively by women and children.
Three internationally recognized experts in the field explain why women engaged in mundane domestic tasks, or in pleasurable pastimes such as music making, writing letters, or adjusting their toilette, comprise some of the most popular Dutch paintings of the seventeenth century. Among the most intriguing of these compositions are those that consciously avoid any engagement with the viewer. Rather than acknowledging our presence, figures avert their gazes or turn their backs upon us; they stare moodily into space or focus intently on the activities at hand. In viewing these paintings, we have the impression that we have stumbled upon a private world kept hidden from casual regard.
Vermeers Love Letter Travels to the Hermitage
Love Letter by Vermeer. From the collection of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. In the Masterpieces from the World`s Museums
12 October, 2011 - 6 November, 2011
Italian Cabinet (233), New Hermitage
Saint Petersburg, Russia
further information forthcoming...
http://hermitagemuseum.org/html_En/04/hm4_4.html
Vermeer travels to California 
Vermeer's Woman with a Lute of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art will be on temporary loan to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena from July 8 through Sept. 26, 2011.
http://www.nortonsimon.org/vermeer-s-woman-with-a-lute-on-loan-from-the-metropolitan-museum-of-art
Vermeer Lecture
Vermeer’s Women: Discreet Objects of DesireSaturday, July 9, 2011 ( 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.)
Walter Liedtke, Curator of European Paintings, Metropolitan Museum of Art
from the Norton Simon Museum website:
In this lecture, held in conjunction with the loan of Vermeer’s Woman with a Lute from the Metropolitan Museum, Liedtke focuses on the diverse women in Vermeer’s paintings and considers what they meant to the artist, as subjects in Dutch art and society, and as reflections of his distinctive approach to visual experience. It could be said that Vermeer engaged in an intellectual (although strongly felt) voyeurism, since many of his women are idealized objects of male desire, enthralling but beyond reach. The theme was well suited to Vermeer’s style, which defined intimate spaces in mostly optical terms. The viewer is unable to enter the space or touch the objects, but he—and a man is surely assumed—can also not escape the hypnotic vision.
Vermeer Lecture
Vermeer’s Women: Discreet Objects of Desire
Walter Liedtke, (curator of European paintings at the Metropolitan in New York City)
Norton SImon Museum of Art, Pasadena, California
Saturday, July 9, 2011 - 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
drawn from the Norton Simon website:
In this lecture, held in conjunction with the loan of Vermeer’s Woman with a Lute from the Metropolitan Museum, Walter Liedtke, will focus on the diverse women in Vermeer’s paintings and considers what they meant to the artist, as subjects in Dutch art and society, and as reflections of his distinctive approach to visual experience. It could be said that Vermeer engaged in an intellectual (although strongly felt) voyeurism, since many of his women are idealized objects of male desire, enthralling but beyond reach. The theme was well suited to Vermeer’s style, which defined intimate spaces in mostly optical terms. The viewer is unable to enter the space or touch the objects, but he—and a man is surely assumed—can also not escape the hypnotic vision. Held in the Theater.
http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_18437798
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
Vermeer's Geographer Continues Exodus
The Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish Paintings
Toyota Municipal Museum of Aichi
June 11 - August 28
Aichi, Japan
After the exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, Vermeer’s Geographer continues its exodus to Tokyo and Aichi, then further overseas to Wellington, New Zealand and Melbourne, Australia. The Städel Museum in Frankfurt, which is currently closed for full renovation, assures it that all its paintings in the exhibition will be back home for reopening in late 2011 or 2012, in total to seven museums.
http://www.bunkamura.co.jp/english/museum/event/index.html
Vermeer's Geographer Continues Exodus
Heirs’ Claim for Hitler’s Vermeer Painting Is Rejected by Austrian Panel
An Austrian panel has rejected a claim for a Vermeer painting by the heirs of a man who sold it to Adolf Hitler, saying there was no evidence the sale was forced or that the seller was persecuted. Austria’s art restitution panel threw out the argument by the heirs of Jaromir Czernin that Hitler’s acquisition amounted to a “sale under duress” and should be nullified. The panel instead recommended that Austria keeps the painting. “There is no reason to assume that the sale of ‘The Art of Painting’ by Jaromir Czernin to Adolf Hitler was an invalid transaction,” the panel said in a statement on its website.
Something to Smile About
Google has recently added some extremely detailed (and nuanced) digital images of Vermeer’s works in their Google Art Project colection. Enjoy please
The Love Letter
http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/rijks/the-love-letter-44
The Little Street
http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/rijks/view-of-houses-in-delft-known-as-the-little-street-46
The Milkmaid
http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/rijks/the-milkmaid-48
Woman with a Pearl Necklace
http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/gemaldegalerie/young-woman-with-a-pearl-necklace-98
Officer and Laughing Girl
http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/frick/officer-and-laughing-girl-6
The Glass of Wine
http://www.googleartproject.com/museums/gemaldegalerie/the-glass-of-wine-100
Vermeer's Woman Holding a Balance Travels to Munich
Vermeer in Munich: King Max I Joseph of Bavaria as a Collector of Old Masters
Alte Pinakothek
Barer Strasse 27
D-80799 Munich
17 March–19 June 2011
curator: Dr. Marcus Dekiert
from the museum website:
At the beginning of the 19th century, the first king of Bavaria, Max I Joseph (1756–1825), amassed a private art collection of the highest quality. He focused almost exclusively on 17th-century Dutch masters, mostly landscapes and genre paintings. To these he added the works of contemporary painters in Munich who were inspired by such Old Masters. In December 1826, the private royal collection was sold at auction. Some exceptional works were acquired for the state collections; others found their way to the Alte Pinakothek via roundabout routes – as part of Ludwig I’s collection, for example; many are now scattered far afield. From today’s point of view, the greatest loss is a masterpiece by Johannes Vermeer: Woman Holding a Balance of 1664. This exquisite work is returning to Munich from the National Gallery of Art in Washington for a threemonth period. Surrounded by other exceptional paintings from the “Golden Age” – including works by Jacob van Ruisdael, Willem van de Velde the Younger and Philips Wouwerman – it gives visitors the opportunity to discover Max I Joseph of Bavaria as a collector of Old Masters.
Vermeer Travels to Qatar
The Golden Age of Dutch Painting, Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum
Museum of Islamic Art, Doha
11 March – 6 June, 2011
Qatar Museums Authority (QMA) in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, presents The Golden Age of Dutch Painting, Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum, the first major exhibition of Dutch art in the Gulf region. It will take place in the temporary exhibition hall at the Museum of Islamic Art from 11 March – 6 June, 2011.
Forty-four paintings, among the best in the Rijksmuseum’s collection are being loaned to QMA. These paintings give a wide-ranging view of the artists, lifestyle and topography of Holland in the seventeenth century. Included are works of Rembrandt and Vermeer.
http://www.qma.com.qa/eng/index.php/qma/news_item/169
Vermeers Travels Cambridge
Masterpiece a Month: Presiding Genius
Johannes Vermeer - A Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman (The Music Lesson)
March, 2011
The Dulwich Picture Gallery
Vermeer's Music Lesson, too infrequently on public display, will be shown for the month of March at the Dulwich Picture Gallery as a part of the yearly celebration of the Gallery’s bicentenary.
Vermeer Lecture in Edinburg
Vermeer: Being the Viewer
Friday, 18th February 2011, 12.45-1.30pm
National Gallery Complex, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburg
(free, unticketed)
from the gallery website:
Vermeer’s painting is famously hushed. He tried to paint dramatic events, but moved off to conjure real events.
Dr James Lawson, Lecturer in Architectural History at the University of Edinburgh, explores how the observer occupies an increasingly odd position in relation to what is to be seen in Vermeer's paintings.
<http://www.nationalgalleries.org/whatson/calendar/5:367/date/2011-01-24/36/event/20098>
Vermeer conference
The Young Vermeer in Context
5 March 2011, 2pm – 6:30pm
National Gallery of Scotland
The Mound
Edinburgh EH2 2EL
United Kingdom
information form the museum:
The young Vermeer presents a unique opportunity to compare directly the three earliest paintings by Johannes Vermeer. On occasion of this exhibition the National Gallery of Scotland is staging a study afternoon, bringing together a distinguished group of international experts. Focussing on Vermeer’s early career the talks will revisit his start as a history painter and shift to genre painting, his artistic and social environment, and the rediscovery of "Young Vermeer" in the 19th century. The podium will offer the opportunity to get involved and discuss these important paintings with the experts and to discover more about the development of one of the world’s most celebrated artists.
speakers:
- Dr. Albert Blankert, Independent Scholar, The Hague
- Edwin Buijsen, Head of Collections, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague
- Dr. Adriaan E. Waiboer, Curator of Northern European Art, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
podium:
- Professor Christopher Brown, Director, The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
- Professor Gregor J. M. Weber, Head of the Department of Fine Arts, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
moderation:
- Dr Tico Seifert Senior Curator of Northern
European Art, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh
1.30 – 2pm, registration (HLT)
2 – 5pm, study afternoon (HLT)
5 – 6.30pm, Wine reception and private view (NG)
Tickets: £12 (£10 concessions) are available from
the Information Desk at the National Gallery Complex,
or by calling 0131 624 6560, Monday
see museum flyer:
http://www.codart.nl/images/02526_NGS_
TheYoungVermeerInContext%20A5%20Flyer%28Final%29v4.pdf
Vermeer's Music Lesson on Public Display
The Music Lesson is frequently inaccessible to the general public.
It will hang in Buckingham Palace, in the State Apartments picture
gallery for the months of August and September, 2011.
Vermeer Showing
Young Woman Seated at a Virginal on display at the Chrystler Museum of Art
Vermeer's miniscule Young Woman Seated at a Virginal - the only Vermeer in private hands - will be temporarily exhibited at it Chrysler Museum of Art, in Norfolk, Virginia from 1 June 2010 - 1 January 2011. News on programming related to the work will be reported here as they become available.
Vermeer Exhibition Catalogue
The Young Vermeer
by Edwin Buijsen
2010
The exhibition catalogue, with informative text and fine reproductions, delves into the three paintings from the beginning of Vermeer’s artistic career: the Mauritshuis’ Diana and her nymphs of c. 1653-1654, the Christ in the house of Martha and Mary (c. 1655) and the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh, and The Procuress (1656) from the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden.
available at the Mauritshuis online bookshop
http://www.mauritshuis.nl/index.aspx?ChapterID=2424&ContentID=
Special exhibition in Vienna of the "Art of Painting"
Vermeer: The Art of Painting
Kunsthistorisches Museum
Maria Theresien-Platz, Vienna
25 January – 25 April 2010
The Art of Painting has a unique place in Vermeer’s oeuvre. Although it was very likely not executed as a commission, it never left the artist’s studio. Even after Vermeer’s death, which left his family with enormous financial problems, his widow Catharina tried to prevent a sale of this precious painting. Most likely, it was made as a showcase piece to be presented to connoisseurs and potential customers. The exhibition investigates a number of facets of this most complex of Vermeer’s compositions.
Besides extensive technological studies regarding the work’s state of conservation, several central subjects are faced including the complex iconography supported by period documentation. Some of the props in the picture will be on display; a period chandelier, tapestry, wallmap as well as a precise reconstruction of a slashed doublet worn by the painter.
Other questions are investigated as well. Does the painting represent Vermeer’s real studio? What does the painting reveal about Vermeer’s working methods? Which pigments did painter utilized? How was the composition developed? Did the painter make use of optical devices?
Numerous loans from European and American museums and private collections and historical documents from Dutch archives provide a springboard for discovering Vermeer’s masterpiece.
In addition the Kunsthistorisches Museum displays paintings, sculptures and details of films by contemporary artists (George Deem, Maria Lassnig, Peter Greenaway etc.) whose creation were inspired by Vermeer’s Art of Painting.
Art Travel Guide
Art + Travel Europe: Step into the Lives of Five Famous Painters
Museyon Guides
2010
Van Gogh. Munch. VERMEER. Caravaggio. Goya. Five iconic artists whose inspirational works have been obsessed over by art lovers and travelers for years.
Curated by industry experts, Art + Travel Europe is the first guidebook to feature detailed walking tours of the five cities where these artists lived, loved and labored. Readers will discover the sights and stories behind such iconic works as Starry Night and The Scream, go on the run to retrace the steps of Caravaggio in exile, plus much, much more. You know their art; now step into their lives.
Walking tours of five cities as seen through the eyes of five iconic artists: Van Gogh's Arles, Munch's Oslo, Vermeer's Delft, Caravaggio's Rome, Goya's Madrid
Contributors: Kristin Hohenadel (The Los Angeles Times), Lea Feinstein (SF Weekly), Sandra Smallenburg (Arts Editor NRC Handelsblad), George Stolz (ARTnews), Barbie Latza Nadeau (CNN Traveler)
Meticulously researched articles curated by local experts.
Chapters loaded with useful sidebars, travel tips, and suggested itineraries with easy-to-read maps.
Comprehensive index of artworks and museum locations around the globe.
Listings of books, films and music inspired by or about each artis.
Over 100 color photographs.
Appeal for both the armchair traveler as well as the get-up-and-go traveler.
Original cover illustrations by Tiny Inventions.
Click here to purchase at Amazon.com
Vermeer Book
Vermeer (German only)
by Nils von Büttner
2010
Jan Vermeer van Delft had a formative influence over our ideas of the Dutch Golden Age. Yet during his lifetime there were few indications of his later fame. His incomparable genre scenes came to typify his work. Nils Büttner's concise and lively introduction traces the painter's life, presents his work in its historical and social context and explains the pictures' symbolism, still often regarded as mysterious.
Vermeer Lecture
VERMEER, LAIRESSE AND COMPOSITION
lecture by Paul Taylor
4:00 pm - Friday, 5 March 2010
Auditorium of the National Library complex
5 Prins Willem Alexanderhof
The Hague
The Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) aims to spotlight art historians who have conducted pioneering research on Dutch art. The first lecture, entitled Vermeer, Lairesse and Composition, will be given by Dr Paul Taylor, deputy curator of the Photographic Collection at the Warburg Institute in London and a specialist in Dutch seventeenth- and eighteenth-century art and art theory. The text of the Hofstede de Groot Lecture will be published as the first volume in a new series of publications (Waanders Publishers).
Paul Taylor has distinguished himself with his investigation of several key Dutch painting concepts, such as houding, gloe and ‘lakheid, on which he has published various scholarly articles: "The Concept of 'Houding’ in Dutch Art Theory" (1992); "The Glow in Late Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Dutch Paintings" (1998); "Flatness in Dutch Art: Theory and Practice"(2008). By thoroughly analysing these terms, searching for comparable terms in Italian and French writings, and linking them with pictorial aspects of Dutch seventeenth-century painting and drawing, he has singled out in a remarkably original fashion several pictorial qualities that are characteristic of Dutch visual art in the Golden Age.
The Hofstede de Groot Lecture is named after the art historian Cornelis Hofstede de Groot (1863-1930), whose extensive art-historical documentation forms the basis of the RKD collection.
The Hofstede de Groot Lecture will be followed by a reception.
date: Friday, 5 March 2010
time: 4:00 pm (you are welcome as of 3:30pm: tea and coffee will be served)
admission: Free of charge
location: Auditorium of the National Library complex, 5 Prins Willem Alexanderhof, The Hague
official language: English
registration (mandatory): activiteiten@rkd.nl
Art of Painting catalogue on sale
The sumptuous Kunsthistorisches Museum catalogue of the Art of Painting exhibition is currently on sale at the Kunsthistorisches online shop. Other than the extraordinarily fine illustrations this 259- page volume presents excellent essays.
Vermeer: Die Malkunst
exhibition catalog 2010
paperback in German
with English Translations of all essays
price: EUR 29,90
click here for bookshop link
The museum also proposes a number of Vermeer Art of Painting spinoffs like scarfs, shoulder bags, coffee cups, jigsaw puzzles and magnets as well as the more conventional postcards and reproductions.
Vermeer painting restored
Vermeer's Woman in Blue Reading a Letter to be restored
The Rijksmuseum has just announced that as a part of an ambitious conservation program Vermeer’s Woman in Blue Reading a Letter will be thoroughly restored.
Other than Vermeer’s masterwork, other pieces will restored and ready for the 2013 reopening of the Rijksmuseum. They include Six burial figures from the T’ang Dynasty, a mahogany period room from 1748 called The Beuning room, and the Silver table ornament by Jamnitzer which is one of the absolute highlights of the museum’s collection of European silversmither.
from the Rijksmuseum website:
As it is flanked in the exhibition room by Vermeer’s two other masterpieces, The Milkmaid and The Little Street, it is even more noticeable that Woman in Blue Reading a Letter is in distinct need of restoration. The coat of varnish has turned yellow, the blue is worn, the uneven layer of paint is peppered with minor irregularities, the retouches have faded, etc. Precisely that which is so appealing in Vermeer’s paintings – i.e. the bright colours and the incidence of light – is now hidden behind an irregular yellowed layer of varnish.
Vermeer's "Love Letter " Travels to Paris
The Dutch Golden Age: From Rembrandt to Vermeer
October 7, 2009 – February 7, 2010
Pinacothèque de Paris
The Pinacothèque de Paris will host an exhibition will put on an outstanding Dutch works of art, an ensemble of over one hundred and thirty pieces, including about sixty paintings, thirty graphic works, ten etchings as well as ten objects to give an ample representation of carved ivories, tapestries, china, wooden miniatures, silverware, glassworks and furnishings.
Vermeer’s late little Love Letter, will be on display.
Vermeer's Milkmaid exhibited in New York
Vermeer’s Masterpiece,”The Milkmaid”
Sept. 10 - Nov. 29, 2009
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Organized to honor the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s historic voyage to New York from Amsterdam, the show, Sept. 10 through Nov. 29, 2009 will focus on old masters who, like Vermeer, were active in the period of exploration, trade and artistic flowering that occurred during the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century.
documentary of Vermeer
Views on Vermeer: 12 Short Stories
color, HD, 52 min
2009
director - Hans Pool
photography - Hans Pool
screenplay - Koos de Wilt
Youtube.com trailer:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTGXd-wT8_A>
<http://www.koosdewiltconcept.nl/index.php/vermeer-vervolg/>
onsale at: ICARUS FILMS.com
Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) left us a small oeuvre of only 36 paintings. Internationally, the power of his work is now more profound than ever. Blockbuster exhibitions, the novel and movie Girl with a pearl earring caught a broad audience. Millions are touched by his work. What do we see in Vermeer that makes him so contemporary? The dignity of his painted ladies, the cinematic and photographic character of his images, the psychological impact, the serenity or apparent glimpse in our own everyday life? Influential contemporary artists, photographers and opinion leadersunravel the extraordinary and mysterious impact of this 17th-century master in our day and age. A Film by Hans Pool and Koos de Wilt.
interviews with:
Tom Hunter, Alain de Botton, Walter Liedtke, Otto Naumann, Thomas Kaplan, Chuck Close, Philip Steadman, Peter Webber, Erwin Olaf, Joel Meyerowitz, Lawrence Weschler, Tracy Chevalier, Steve McCurry, Arthur K. Wheelock, Jonathan Janson, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Geoffrey Batchen
Vermeer-related publication
Preserving our Heritage: Conservation, Restoration and Technical Research in the Mauritshuis
by Petria Noble, Sabrina Meloni, Carol Pottasch, Peter van der Ploeg. Epco Runia
The Mauritshuis in The Hague is one of the few Dutch museums to have its own restoration workshop. Here in recent years a team of experts have restored top works by Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, Carel Fabritius, Frans Hals, Hans Holbein, Jan Brueghel de Oude, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthonie van Dyck and others.
This book, with an introductory chapter, describes how a painting is made and the types of technical research that can be used. The concise texts and abundant visual material make the book accessible for a wide public.
208 pages
133 colour photographs
30 b&w photographs
http://www.kunstboeken.nl/books.asp?boek=1784&rubriek=
&herkomst=zoekterm%3Dj
Dutch art database
The Montias Database of 17th-Century Dutch Art Inventories
http://research.frick.org/montias/home.php
The Frick Library has provided an invaluable internet interface with the database compiled Montias during his studies. from the Frick website:
The Montias database, compiled by late Yale University Professor John Michael Montias, contains information from 1,280 inventories of goods (paintings, prints, sculpture, furniture, etc.) owned by people living in 17th century Amsterdam. Drawn from the Gemeentearchief (now known as the Stadsarchief), the actual dates of the inventories range from 1597-1681. Nearly half of the inventories were made by the Orphan Chamber for auction purposes, while almost as many were notarial death inventories for estate purposes. The remainder were bankruptcy inventories. The database includes detailed information on the 51,071 individual works of art listed in the inventories. Searches may be performed on specific artists, types of objects (painting, prints, drawings), subject matter etc. There is also extensive information on the owners, as well as on buyers and prices paid when the goods were actually in a sale. While not a complete record of all inventories in Amsterdam during this time period, the database contains a wealth of information that can elucidate patterns of buying, selling, inventorying and collecting art in Holland during the Dutch Golden Age.
Vermeer Blog
The Flying Fox
Jonathan Janson, author of the Essential Vermeer, launches a blog which investigates Vermeer, current events in art history, painting technique and contemporary art.
Click here to access.
The Louvre "Astronomer" Travels to Minneapolis
The Louvre and the Masterpiece
Art, Minneapolis, Minnesota
October 18, 2009 - January 19, 2010
The Louvre and the Masterpiece will explore how the definition of a "masterpiece," as well as taste and connoisseurship, have changed over time. The exhibition will feature ninety-one works of art drawn from all eight of the Musée du Louvre's collection areas, spanning 4,000 years. Paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and drawings will reflect three major themes: the changing historical and cultural definitions of a masterpiece; authenticity and connoisseurship; and the evolution of taste and scholarship. The exhibition is divided into three sections which together explore a range of thematic questions about the concept of a masterpiece. The exhibition includes Vermeer's "Astronomer."
internet:
http://www.artsmia.org/louvre/about.html
New Vermeer painting exhibited in New York
Young Woman Seated at a Virginal at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
January 9 - December, 2009
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
After its zigzag performance, the Young Woman Seated at a Virginal, reattributed in recent times to Vermeer, has bobbed up again in an unexpected place, next to the Woman with a Water Pitcher at the MET.
Vermeer painting exhibited in Canada
The Louvre Museum Exhibition: 17th-Century European Masterpieces.
The Louvre will be sending about 70 artworks to Japan in 2009 for a special exhibition of 17th-century paintings, The Louvre Museum Exhibition: 17th-century European Masterpieces. The exhibition will be held at the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo and the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art and will include Vermeer’s dazzling little Lacemaker.
Vermeer painting exhibited in Amsterdam
Woman Holding a Balance travels to Amsterdam
11 March - 1 June 2009
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
The Washington National Gallery of Art will lend its Woman Holding a Balance to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The work will be displayed next to other superb works by Vermeer in the collection of the Rijksmuseum.
Vermeer painting exhibited in Canada
Vermeer, Rembrandt and the Golden Age of Dutch Art: Masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum
May 9 - September 13, 2009
Vancouver Art Gallery
This exhibition will highlight works of art of the 17th-century Dutch painting masters of the Golden Age. It will feature well over 100 works by many of the most celebrated masters of the period such as Aelbert Cuyp, Gerard Dou, Franz Hals, Rembrandt van Rijn, Jacob van Ruisdael, Gerard ter Borch and Johannes Vermeer, as well as an extraordinary selection of decorative arts, including furniture, silver, glassware, porcelain and textiles.
This exhibition is organized in collaboration with the Rijksmuseum and will include Vermeer’s late masterpiece, The Love Letter.
Dutch landscape exhibition
PRIDE OF PLACE: DUTCH CITYSCAPES OF THE GOLDEN AGE
National Gallery of Art, Washington D. C.
February 1 – May 3, 2009
from the NGA website:
In the 17th century, a new genre of painting—the cityscape—emerged, fostered by the booming economy of the Dutch Republic and its affluent urbanites. Images of towns and cities became expressions of enormous civic pride. This exhibition of some 48 paintings, as well as 23 maps, atlases, illustrated books, and prints, offers a comprehensive survey of the Dutch cityscape, from wide-angle panoramas depicting the urban skyline with its fortifications, windmills, and church steeples, to renderings of daily life along canals, in city streets, and in town squares. Joining Jacob van Ruisdael's celebrated Haarlem with the Bleaching Fields (c. 1670–1675) are works by some 40 Dutch masters. Primarily active in Amsterdam, Delft, and Haarlem, these artists include Gerrit Berckheyde, Aelbert Cuyp, Jan van Goyen, Jan van der Heyden, Pieter de Hooch, Hendrick Vroom, Pieter Saenredam, and Jan Steen.
The exhibition coincides with the 400th anniversary of the Dutch exploration and settlement of the Hudson River Valley.
for further information:
National gallery of Art website
http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/cityscapesinfo.shtm
National Gallery of Art Press page
http://www.nga.gov/press/exh/246/index.shtm
New Yor Times reveiw
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/30/arts/design/30dutc.html
Washington Post reveiw
http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/exhibits/pride-of-place-dutch-
cityscapes-of-the-golden-age,1152731.html#editorial-review
Vermeer Exhibition
West Coast art lovers to see a Vermeer when the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., exhibits “A Lady Writing"
Nov. 7 - Feb. 2, 2009
West Coast art lovers will be offered a rare opportunity to see a Vermeer when the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, Calif., exhibits A Lady Writing, above, from Nov. 7 through Feb. 2, 2009. On loan from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the painting, one of about 35 known works by Vermeer, will come to Pasadena as part of a series of exchanges between the Norton Simon foundations and the National Gallery.
Although the Simon will offer only a single painting, it is planning a complementary series of lectures and other events. Click here for a list of lectures
visit the museum website for further information:
http://www.nortonsimon.org/news.aspx
Vermeer painting exhibited in Atlanta
The Louvre and the Masterpiece
The High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia
October 12, 2008 - September 6, 2009
The Louvre and the Masterpiece will explore how the definition of a "masterpiece," as well as taste and connoisseurship, have changed over time. The exhibition will feature ninety-one works of art drawn from all eight of the Musée du Louvre's collection areas, spanning 4,000 years. Paintings, sculpture, decorative arts, and drawings will reflect three major themes: the changing historical and cultural definitions of a masterpiece; authenticity and connoisseurship; and the evolution of taste and scholarship. The exhibition is divided into three sections which together explore a range of thematic questions about the concept of a masterpiece. The exhibition includes Vermeer's "Astronomer." February 17, 2009 "The Card Shark" by Georges de la Tour arrives to replace Vermeer's "Astronomer."
"The Girl with a Pearl Necklace" Travels to Rome
Rembrandt to Vermeer. Civil Values in 17th Century Flemish and Dutch Painting
Fondazione Roma, Museo del Corso
November 11, 2008 to February 15, 2009
Representing the “Golden Century” of Flemish and Dutch art, the exhibition focuses on the development of the genre of the domestic interior, which was dedicated to family life and reflected the innovative social context and civil values of Holland in the 17th century. The 55 masterpieces on display will enable visitors to learn about the art and culture of Flanders and Holland during their “Golden Century”.
For the first time in Italy, it will finally be possible to admire a large selection of works belonging the world’s most important collection of 17th-century Dutch and Flemish paintings: that of Berlin’ s Gemäldegalerie, which includes masterpieces such as Rembrandt’s The Money Changer and Vermeer’s Woman with a Pearl Necklace.
for more information click here
Vermeer Related Conference at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
VERMEER: TRUE AND FALSE
Grace Rainey Rodgers Auditorium, the Metropolitan Museum of Art
November 14, 2008
Lecture, 6:00 pm
from the Metropolitan Museum of Art website:
Between 1887 and 1917, thirteen paintings by Johannes Vermeer and several works wrongly attributed to him entered American collections. Continuing demand for Vermeer's rare pictures (36 are known today) created a niche market for forgers during the 1920s and 1930s, of whom the most gifted and notorious was the Dutch artist Han van Meegeren, who was active as a forger throughout most of the inter-war period. Metropolitan Museum curator Walter Liedtke (author of a new monograph on Vermeer) and independent scholar Jonathan Lopez (author of a new biography of Van Meegeren) consider the difference between a Vermeer of about 1660 and one of about 1925.
Tickets go on sale on or about September 1 Order online (after Sept. 1) at the Met's website, by phone at (212) 570-3949 by phone at (212) 570-3949, or in person at the Concerts & Lectures box office, located in the Museum's Great Hall, 1000 Fifth Avenue (at 82nd Street).
online tickets:
http://www.metmuseum.org/tickets/calendar/view.asp?id=2532
Vermeer: The Complete Paintings
by Walter Liedtke
2008
The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Han van Meegeren
by Jonathan Lopez
2008
Best remembered for selling a fake Vermeer to Hermann Goering during the Second World War, Han van Meegeren never admitted to creating any fakes dating from before 1937--but there have always been rumors suggesting that his career actually began much earlier than that. Drawing upon three years of archival research conducted in five nations and interviews with the descendants of Van Meegeren’s partners in crime, Jonathan Lopez reveals that Van Meegeren worked virtually his entire adult life turning out bogus old masters for a ring of art-world intriguers operating out of London and Berlin. Major dealers like Sir Joseph Duveen were stung by these forgeries, as was the great Pittsburgh banker Andrew Mellon, who bought two of Van Meegeren's fake Vermeers during the 1920s. As Koen Kleijn of De Groene Amsterdammer has remarked, “The Man Who Made Vermeers shatters the popular image of Han van Meegeren as a lone gunman or picaresque rogue. Jonathan Lopez reveals the master forger as an arch-opportunist, a cunning liar, and a fervent sympathizer of the fascist cause from as early as 1928. Deftly reconstructing an insidious network of illicit trade in the art market's underworld, Lopez allows few reputations to emerge unscathed in this gripping and delicious book.”
About the Author
JONATHAN LOPEZ's writings on art and history appear frequently in Apollo: The International Magazine of Art and Antiques, published in London. The Man Who Made Vermeers grew out of an article that originally appeared in Dutch in De Groene Amsterdammer. Lopez lives with his wife, an art historian and critic, in Manhattan
6 Vermeer's travel to Japan
Vermeer and the Delft Style
Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Ueno-koen
August 2 - December 14, 2008
Vermeer and the Delft Style features 6 rare masterpieces by Johannes Vermeer and other paintings by his contemporaries affording viewers a suggestive glance of Golden Age of Dutch Art. There has been no occasion, where these masterpieces come together in one exhibition ever hosted in Asia and only three of the Vermeer’s have been formally exhibited.The Vermeer paintings included in the exhibition are: The Little Street, Diana and her Companions, The Girl with the Wineglass, Woman with a Lute, Christ in the House of Martha and Mary and the recently re-attributed A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals which is rarely on public view. The exhibition also features the miniscule masterpiece View of Delft by Carel Fabritius, a splendid view of Delft by Van der Heyden and two fine De Hooch’s.
further details:
http://www.tbs.co.jp/vermeer/pr080408-en.pdf
Vermeer Lecture at the Vermeer Centrum, Delft
Thursday, 21 February, 2008, 8 p.m
In a lecture at the Vermeer Center in Delft, Ms Karin H. Jense will explore the musical culture of the 1650s basing her observations of the paintings of Vermeer with musical themes. Period music will also performed allowing the audience to experience the atmosphere of the times and specifically of the compositions of Vermeer.
Ms Jense has studied musical education, harpsichord and choir conducting at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag (Royal Conservatory The Hague) and has been actively engaged as a music lecturer and advisor for thirty years and currently gives regular audio lectures.
For further information:
e-mail:
vriendenvermeer@hetnet.nl
tel.
015 – 256 53 06 (D. Mostert-Bok)
or 06-33704508 (C. J. Oerlemans).
Vermeer's Family Secrets
by Benjam Binstock
2008
Book Description from Amazon.com
Johannes Vermeer, one of the greatest Dutch painters and for some the single greatest painter of all, produced a remarkably small corpus of work. In Vermeer's Family Secrets, Benjamin Binstock revolutionizes how we think about Vermeer's work and life. Vermeer, “the Sphinx of Delft,” is famously a mystery in art: despite the common claim that little is known of his biography, there is in fact an abundance of fascinating information about Vermeer’s life that Binstock brings to bear on Vermeer’s art for the first time; he also offers new interpretations of several key documents pertaining to Vermeer that have been misunderstood. Lavishly illustrated with more than 180 black and white images and more than sixty color plates, the book also includes a remarkable color gatefold spread that presents the entirety of Vermeer's oeuvre arranged in chronological order in 1/20 scale, demonstrating his gradual formal and conceptual development. No book on Vermeer has ever done this kind of visual comparison of his complete output. Like Poe's purloined letter, Vermeer's secrets are sometimes out in the open where everyone can see them. Benjamin Binstock shows us where to look. Piecing together evidence, the tools of art history, and his own intuitive skills, he gives us for the first time a history of Vermeer's work in light of Vermeer's life.
On almost every page of Vermeer's Family Secrets, there is a perception or an adjustment that rethinks what we know about Vermeer, his oeuvre, Dutch painting, and Western Art. Perhaps the most arresting revelation of Vermeer's Family Secrets is the final one: In response to inconsistencies in technique, materials, and artistic level, Binstock posits that several of the paintings accepted as canonical works by Vermeer, are in fact not by Vermeer at all but by his eldest daughter, Maria. How he argues this is one of the book's many pleasures.
© The National Gallery, London. Bought, 1892
Vermeer's Lady Standing at the Virginal part of a special exhibition, Love
Love is in the air at the Laing Art Gallery
Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K.
19 April – 13 July 2008
Love is in the air at the Laing Art Gallery, as flirtation, disappointment and intimacy are among the themes explored in a new exhibition. Love is a new National Gallery touring exhibition, which looks at the ways artists have responded to the pains and pleasures of love over the centuries. It features work by artists including Tracey Emin, David Hockney, Johannes Vermeer (Lady Standing at the Virginal) and Marc Chagall. The Laing’s Marble Hall will also be home to Marc Quinn’s spectacular sculpture, Kiss.
venue:
New Bridge Street, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8AG
U.K.
tel:
(0191) 232 7734
fax:
(0191) 222 0952
open:
Monday to Saturday 10am - 5pm, Sunday 2pm - 5pm, Closed: 25 & 26 December & 1 January.
museum website:
http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/laing
exhibition link:
http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/laing/whatson/details.php?id=E291
Talks programme:
A free programme of talks will take place to accompany the National Gallery touring exhibition, Love. No booking is required.
Wednesday 23 April, 12.30-1pm
Love Relationships, featuring Vermeer, Wright of Derby, Stanley Spencer, and Marc Quinn
With Sarah Richardson, Keeper of Fine Art at the Laing Art Gallery
Wednesday 30 April, 12.30-1pm
Romantic Love, featuring Cranach, Claude, Turner, Chagall, Emin, and Hockney
With Sarah Richardson, Keeper of Fine Art at the Laing Art Gallery
Wednesday 7 May, 12.30-1pm
Pre-Raphaelite Women
With Marie-Therese Mayne, Assistant Keeper of Fine Art at the Laing Art Gallery
Wednesday 14 May, 12.30-1pm
Love: An Artist’s Perspective
With John Dummett, whose installation Full Bloom will be on show at the Laing on the evening of Saturday 17 May.
Wednesday 21 May, 12.30 – 1pm
A Public Display of Affection
With artist Manuel Saiz whose installation Public Display of Affection will be at the Laing from 17-25 May.
Wednesday 28 May, 12.30-1pm
Love Stories
With Chris Bostock, Storyteller.
Wednesday 4 June, 12.30 – 1.15pm
Love is a Mystery
With Serena Cant, Art Historian. Talk in Sign-Supported English.
Wednesday 11 June, 12.30 – 1.15pm
Love in the Giardini: Sophie Calle and Tracey Emin at the Venice Bienalle 2007.
With Peter Quinn, Art Historian.
Wednesday 18 June, 12.30 – 1.15pm
Are These Pictures About Love?
With Paul Usherwood, Art Historian.
Wednesday 25 June, 12.30 – 1.15pm
Happy Ever After
With Serena Cant, Art Historian. Talk in Sign-Supported English.
Vermeer Center Reopens, Delft
Although the newly-built Vermeer Center of Delft was quickly overcome by economic woes, it now seems destined to reopen. On the evening of 11th December, when the citizens of Delft gather in Market Place for the traditional Lichtjesavond ("Lights' evening") the Center will open free of charge to Delft citizens.
From 2nd January 2008 it wi`ll be opened to the public.
The center offers a valid educational starting point for the thousands visitors who flock to Vermeer's native city which, in fact, has not a single original painting by the native artist. Keep in touch with the Center's future by signing up free of the Essential Vermeer Newsletter or by clicking on the Center's website listed below.
Vermeercentrum
Voldersgracht 21
NL 2611 Delft
tel. 015 213 8588
email: info@vermeerdelft.nl
website: http://www.vermeerdelft.nl
Vermeer's Hat: The Seventeenth Century and the Dawn of the Global World
by Timothy Brook
2007
In this impressive and informative work, the artist's origins and home environment are revealed and his paintings are displayed and discussed within the context of time alongside a history of the influences and repercussions of this master's art.
This lavishly illustrated and beautifully bound edition includes reproductions of all of Vermeer's paintings, many of the works of his contemporaries, and documents relating to his life and city, Delft.
In the hands of an award-winning historian, Vermeer’s dazzling paintings become windows that reveal how daily life and thought—from Delft to Beijing—were transformed in the seventeenth century, when the world first became global.
"Vermeer's Hat is a deftly eclectic book, in which Timothy Brook uses details drawn from the great painter's work as a series of entry points to the widest circles of world trade and cultural exchange in the seventeenth century. From the epicenter of Delft, Brook takes his readers on a journey that encompasses Chinese porcelain and beaver pelts, global temperatures and firearms, shipwrecked sailors and their companions, silver mines and Manila galleons. It is a book full of surprising pleasures."- Jonathan Spence, author of The Death of Woman Wang, In Search of Modern China and The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci
Canada's first poet laureate, Bowering is both highly skilled in the formal aspects of poetry and perfectly accessible to the average reader. He is one of those old-school poets whose command of meter makes its employment seem effortless. Although some of his poems are in familiar forms and such self-invented nonce forms as those of the alphabet poems that make up part of this collection, his strong formal sense shines through even in free-verse poems, which never drag or digress but move with unrelenting, though not relentless, certainty. As for the accessibility, he doesn't bow to the fashion of substituting self-disclosure for self-awareness, and his poems are not so private as to be hermetic. In them we follow the recent life events of a man widowed after decades of marriage who finds new love and companionship, who mourns the deaths of friends and colleagues, and who finds life still rich and rewarding in its winter season. A delightful collection that may inspire readers to seek out Bowering's earlier work.
In His Milieu: Essays on Netherlandish Art in Memory of John Michael Montias
edited by Amy Golahny, Mia Mochizuki and Lisa
Vergara
2007
Collected in memory of the Vermeer scholar and Yale economist J. Michael Montias, these essays take into account the latest trends in the field and provide new data on a wide range of topics in Netherlandish art. Themes include the reception of paintings and architecture; art collecting as interpreted through inventories and other documents that reveal modes of display; relationships between patrons and painters; recently found or attributed works of art; artists as teachers; and the art market. Taken together, these focused studies offer fresh perspectives on the historical appreciation and evaluation of art. Drawing upon J.M. Montias’ contribution to art history, these 32 essays present new analyses, attributions, and documents on Netherlandish art and material culture – including the work of Vermeer, Rubens, Rembrandt, van Eyck and others – by internationally known scholars of art history and the economics of art.
Of particular interest are those essays directly related to Vermeer:
1. Albert Blankert, "The Case of Hans van Meegeren's Fake Vermeer 'Supper at Erasmus' Reconsidered"
2. Yoriko Kobayashi-Sato, "Vermeer and the Use of Perspective"
3. Herman Roodenburg, "Visiting Vermeer: Performing Civility"
In April of 1653 Joannis Vermeer married Catharina Bolnes. He was twenty and she, just twenty-one. Their marriage was opposed by her mother and the Catholic church. Vermeer was in the final year of his long apprenticeship and his ideas about art and its meaning were just forming. FAITH is the story of three winter months before that marriage--the most important months of his short life.
author's statement:
The novel, FAITH, started out as a puzzle and grew into something far more comprehensive and profound. My original idea was to write about Vermeer’s wife, Catharina, and her efforts to regain the painting, The Allegory of Art, after his untimely death. To do this, I knew I would have to go back to the beginning and explain how a Protestant innkeeper’s son could meet, love and marry the daughter of a wealthy Catholic woman. Nothing at all is known about these events except that they actually happened. That was the first puzzle. In order to solve it, I would have to connect the young artist to his world: Delft in Holland’s remarkable Golden Age. This led to further puzzles: With whom did he study? Who influenced him? Where did he paint? The list goes on and I was determined to solve these questions in an accurate and probable way. Apart from building a small but comprehensive Vermeer library and spending countless hours on the web, I traveled to Delft (exactly one year ago this month) and walked his streets and ‘felt’ his presence. These impressions, I trust, are captured in the novel.
However, FAITH is not a mere finger exercise in Art History or biography. The people involved in this story were artists, collectors, patrons, agents for powerful corporations, merchants, soldiers and priests, all driven by their personal passions and the heady power of their time. That world and those people form the background for FAITH, but it is a genuine and challenging love story that is at the center of it, as it should be.
In the end, I feel that I succeeded in exploring that world, but at a cost. One novel could not hold it all and do justice to it. FAITH would have to be the first in a series and I knew that I could write them. So, as it turns out, FAITH covers not ‘years’ in Vermeer’s life but only two and a half winter months at the end of 1652. Still, as a single novel, it is complete and all of the elements mentioned above are explored in it. The second novel in the series, FIRE, will cover his marriage, entry into the Guild of Saint Luke, several early paintings including Saint Praxedis and the death of Carel Fabritius. If I live long enough, the other five: LIGHT, IMAGE, DARK, SILENCE and LOSS might also get written. One can only hope.
exceptional loan of the Rrijksmuseum's Milkmaid to Japan
Milkmaid by Vermeer and Dutch Genre Painting - Masterworks from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
September 26 - December 17, 2007
The National Art Center, Tokyo
Johannes Vermeer's The Kitchen Maid, also affectionately known as The Milkmaid, is being loaned temporarily to The National Art Center in Tokyo, Japan, where it will be on display from 26 September until 17 December 2007 as part of the exhibition 'Milkmaid by Vermeer and Dutch Genre Painting'. Dutch Genre Painting from the 17-19 century introduced with 116 masterworks from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, featuring Vermeer's Milkmaid as a centerpiece.
check the special exhibition website (Japanese only)
The National Art Center, Tokyo
September 26 - December 17, 2007
7-22-2 Roppongi Minato-ku
Tokyo, Japan
direct inquiries to:
The National Art Center, Tokyo
7-22-2 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Japan 106-8558
URL http://www.nact.jp
exhibition of a great Dutch still life painter
GEMALTES LICHT: DIE STILLEBEN VON WILLEM KALF (1619-1693) (Painted light: the still-life paintings of Willem Kalf (1619-93))
Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum
Wilhelmstraße 18
D-52070 Aachen
Germany
8 March 2007 – 3 June 2007
from the website of Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen:
Willem Kalf may be the most important painter of still life pictures of the Golden Age. But, oddly enough, he is not that well-known. Kalf was born in 1619 in Rotterdam, and left for Paris at a young age. There, he painted interiors of barns, a theme typical of Rotterdam, which made him famous in Paris. After his return, in 1651, he married a wealthy and literary gifted lady in Hoorn. After which he lived in Amsterdam until his death in 1693.
Here, he painted still life pictures of very valuable objects, that sparkled against a dark background. It is as if the silver goblets and platters, the flashing Venetian glasses and expensive Chinese plates want to enchant the viewer with their mysterious splendor. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen presents Willem Kalf for the first time with thirty paintings, mainly from foreign museums.
catalogue:
Gemaltes Licht: die Stilleben von Willem Kalf (1619-1693)
Includes essays by seven authors
c. 160 pp., with ca. 125 color and 50 black-and-white illustrations
24 x 30 cm, paperbound
Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin
ISBN 3-422-06673-X
tel. +49 241 479 800
fax: +49 241 37075
email: info@suermondt-ludwig-museum.de
venues:
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (25 November 2006-18 February 2007)
Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig Museum (8 March-3 June 2007)
exhibition of a Dutch landscape painter
BRAND! JAN VAN DER HEYDEN, SCHILDER EN UITVINDER (JAN VAN DER HEYDEN- 1637-1712)
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
2 February 2007 – 30 April 2007
curator:
Peter C. Sutton, executive director of the Bruce Museum
In 2007 the Rijksmuseum presents the first monographic exhibition on Jan van der Heyden in the Netherlands since 1937. Van der Heyden was one of the leading 17th-century painters of Dutch cityscapes. He was also fascinated by firefighting and is still remembered to this day by many as the inventor of the fire hose. The Rijksmuseum exhibition focuses on the diversity of Van der Heyden, who became known as the Dutch Leonardo da Vinci. The first part features a selection of sixteen of his finest paintings, on loan from various museums and private collections in Europe and the United States. The second part concentrates on his dramatic sketches and prints of fires in the city. In addition, his famous book on firefighting, published in 1690, is displayed, alongside an early example of his fire hose.
Eye for detail
Jan van der Heyden (Gorinchem 1637-1712 Amsterdam) was one of the leading pioneers of Dutch cityscape painting in the 17th century. His depictions of canals, churches, public squares, castles and courtyards reveal a remarkable eye for detail. He used sharp colours, with subtle nuances of tone and atmosphere to portray these scenes, often creating striking perspective constructions.
Idealized cityscapes
Van der Heyden's paintings were already famous in his own day for their wealth of detail. Despite the apparent natural effect of the depiction, for which he developed innovative techniques, topographical accuracy was not Van der Heyden's primary concern. He often took buildings out of their original setting and placed them in an entirely new context. A composition had above all to convey the atmosphere of the location. As the inventor of the architectural capriccio, a depiction of a fictional location, Van der Heyden was a major precursor of 18th-century Italian vedute artists such as the Venetian Canaletto and Bernardo Bellotto.
Besides cityscapes of Amsterdam and the Rhineland, Van der Heyden also painted landscapes and several still lives, some of which are shown in the exhibition.
catalogue:
Jan van der Heyden (1637 - 1712)
Peter C. Sutton, lead author. Essays: Jonathan Bikker and Arie Wallert. Catalogue entries: Taco Dibbits, Marijn Schapelhouman, and Norbert Middelkoop
250 illustrated pages, including 130 paintings, drawings and figures
New Haven, Yale University Press
venues:
Greenwich, Connecticut, The Bruce Museum (16 September 2006-10 January 2007)
Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum (2 February-30 April 2007)
address:
Rijksmuseum
Postbus 74888
1070 DN Amsterdam
Netherlands
tel. +31 20 674 7000
fax: +31 20 674 7001
email: info@rijksmuseum.nl
exhibition of Vermeer's Lady Seated at the Virginals in Modena, Italy
VERMEER: LA RAGAZZA E I PITORI DI DELFT
Galleria Estense
Modena, Italy
April 15 - July 15, 2006
curator: Bert Meijer
After the Love Letter in Rome, another Vermeer will be traveling to Italy. The London Lady Seated at the Virginals and other paintings from Delft will be exhibited at the Galleria Estense in Modena. The initiative is promoted by the superintendent of the gallery Maria Grazia Bernardini in collaboration with Bert Meijer, noted specialist active in the Dutch Institute of Florence. The exhibit will feature the works of about 25 other Dutch masters in the collections from The Hague, London, Vienna, Amsterdam, Washington, Los Angeles, Boston and Florence. The exhibit will be organized in three sections. The first is dedicated to Delft and its immediate environs. The second presents various facets of daily life of the second half of the 17th century focused around works of Pieter de Hooch. The third section features Vermeer's late Lady Seated at the Virginals with other pictures of analogous theme.
click here for a special exhibit report.
see exhibit website: http://www.vermeermodena.it/home.asp
Vermeer's Love Letter goes to Rome
LA LETTERA D’AMORE” di VERMEER A PALAZZO BARBERINI
Galleria de arte antica de Palazzo Barberini, Rome
April 27 to 18 June, 2006
Vermeer's late Love Letter will be exhibited at Galleria di Arte Antica di Palazzo Barberini from April 26 to the June 27, 2006. The exhibition will be curated by Angela Negro and Anna lo Bianco.
more information at:
http://www.mondomostre.it/
exhibition of the greatest 17th-century Dutch landscape painter
JACOB VAN RUISDAEL: MASTER OF LANDSCAPE
Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London
until 4 June 2006
from the museum's website:
Jacob van Ruisdael was one of the greatest painters of the Golden Age of Dutch painting. He was born into abject poverty in 1628 or 1629 and much of his life is shrouded in mystery. Raised in Haarlem he moved to Amsterdam and died there in 1682. In the course of his life Ruisdael broke with many of the traditions of Dutch painting and became a figure of great influence. He is celebrated for faithfully recording nature while responding to it imaginatively. His works are also considered to be fine meditations on human experience in a world shaped by constant cycles of growth and decay.
Ruisdael's impact can be seen in the Barbizon School of France, the American Hudson River School, and in the work of John Constable, England's own leading landscape painter. To coincide with this exhibition the John Madejski Fine Rooms have been hung with a selection of landscape paintings from the Royal Academy's Permanent Collection. These works can be seen free of charge during Jacob van Ruisdael: Master of Landscape.
catalogue available at Amazon.com
This exhibition has been jointly organized by the Royal Academy of Arts, London, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
exhibition of Dutch painting
THE DUTCH GOLDEN AGE AT THE NATIONALMUSEUM
curator: Görel Cavalli-Björkman
Nationalmuseum
Södra Blasieholmshamnen
22 September 2005 to 8 January 2006
The 'realist' paintings of the 17th-c. Netherlands offer a fascinating experience to visitors to this autumn's major exhibition at the Nationalmuseum devoted to The Dutch Golden Age. Masterpieces by Rembrandt, Frans Hals and their contemporaries will be on show from 22 September 2005.The core of the exhibition is provided by the museum's own collections of Dutch paintings and drawings. These have been enriched by loans from other museums, most notably from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. The exhibition comprises some 300 works presented thematically in four galleries and six smaller rooms.
location:
Nationalmuseum
Södra Blasieholmshamnen
Phone +46 8 5195 4300, fax +46 8 5195 4436
www.nationalmuseum.se
website exhibiton information:
http://www.nationalmuseum.se/NMTemplates/
NMSingleExhibition____3747.aspx
In a study that sweeps from Classical Antiquity to the seventeenth century, Robert D. Huerta explores the common intellectual threads that link the art of Johannes Vermeer to the philosophy of Plato. Examining the work of luminaries such as Plotinus, Nicholas of Cusa, St. Augustine, Ficino, Raphael, Keller, Galileo, Descartes, and Hoydens, Huerta argues that the concurrence of idealism and naturalism in Vermeer's art reflects the Dutch master's assimilation of Platonic and classical ideals, concepts that were part of the Renaissance revival of classical thought. Pursuing a Platonic path, Vermeer used his paintings as a visual dialectic, as part of his program to create a physical instantiation of the Ideal. Illustrated. Robert D. Huerta is an independent historian, focusing on the intersection between art and science during the early modern period.
from Bucknell University website
Carel Fabritius 1622 - 1654
Frederik J. Duparc, et al
2004
exhibiton of Vermeer's contemporary Frans van Mieris
FRANS VAN MIERIS (1635-1681)
Mauritshuis, The Hague
from 1 October 2005 – 22 January 2006
With utmost diligence and patience Van Mieris painted interiors, scenes from daily life and portraits, primarily in a small format. He made likenesses of well-to-do burghers, famous or important residents of Leiden, and self-portraits and portraits of his wife Cunera van der Cock. He also produced a few history pieces and allegorical scenes. The strength of his work lies in his subtle and remarkable painting technique and palette. The way in which he depicted the various fabrics, materials and textures is nothing short of miraculous: an almost perfect miniature rendering of reality.
location:
Mauritshuis
Korte Vijverberg 8
NL-2513 AB The Hague
Netherlands
contact:
T +31 70 302 3456
F +31 70 365 3819
email:
communicatie@mauritshuis.nl
other venue:
National Gallery of Art, Washington (26 February-21 May 2006)
Enchanting The Eye: Dutch Paintings Of The Golden Age
Christopher Lloyd
2005
exhibition with Vermeer's Music Lesson
ENCHANTING THE EYE: DUTCH PAINTERS OF THE GOLDEN AGE
The Royal Collection, Buckingham Palace
11 February - 30 October, 2005
museum info:
The Royal Collection contains one of the world's finest groups of Dutch 17th-c. paintings. Among the most enduringly popular images in Western Art, these pictures have for centuries been admired for their harmonious compositions, close observation of detail, subtle light effects and meticulous finish. The 51 outstanding examples selected for the exhibition embrace genre scenes, portraits, still-lifes, history paintings, landscapes and marinescapes. They include works by the great masters of the period, among them Rembrandt's jewel-like Christ and St Mary Magdalen at the Tomb and his Self-Portrait of 1642, luminous landscapes by Aelbert Cuyp, and Johannes Vermeer's enigmatic A Lady at the Virginals (The Music Lesson).
book tickets online:
https://www.the-royal-collection.com/royaltickets/default.asp
or telephone (+44) (0) 20 7766 7301
Tickets may also be bought in advance from The Queen's Gallery, Buckingham Palace.
web information:
http://194.203.40.17/output/Page1215.asp
exhibition with Vermeer's Love Letter
DUTCH MASTERS FROM THE RIJKSMUSEUM
National Gallery of Victoria
Melbourne, Australia
24 June to 2 October 20 , 2005
museum info:
The most comprehensive display of 17th-c. Dutch masterpieces is on its way to Melbourne for the second exhibition in the Melbourne Winter Masterpieces series.
Following the success of The Impressionists in 2004, Dutch Masters from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam will offer audiences the richest survey of 17 th century Dutch art ever staged in Australia. Opening Friday 24 June, the exhibition brings together more than 100 sumptuous works and decorative objects by great artists such as Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Pieter de Hooch, and Jan Steen.The exhibition includes Vermeer's late masterpiece, The Love Letter.
Victoria Museum home page:
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/dutchmasters/index.html
For information and bookings
phone: + 61 3 8662 1555
email: enquiries@ngv.vic.gov.au
A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue will be available for purchase.
check here for further information on opening time etc.
http://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/whatson/whatson_
eventlist.jsp?locationID=4&eventID=321
exhibition with Vermeer's Art of Painting
VERMEER FROM VIENNA
Mauritshuis, The Hague
25 March - 26 June, 2005
museum info:
Very exceptionally, one of the most celebrated paintings by Vermeer, The Art of Painting, c 1666-8, from the collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna will be on loan for three months. Vermeer’s careful rendering of the details and different surface textures as well as the subtle gradations of light are testimonies to Vermeer’s supreme accomplishments as a painter.
In 1996 the Mauritshuis mounted a survey exhibition of Vermeer’s work. Unfortunately, the condition of The Art of Painting was not good enough to travel to the show. In the meantime, the painting has been restored, and nine years later Vermeer's showpiece can be seen to full advantage in The Hague.
email:
communicatie@mauritshuis.nl
web information:
http://www.mauritshuis.nl/english/index_vermeer_explorer.html
Will Vermeer's Young Woman at the Virginals feel at home in Las Vegas?
according to Arts.telegraph*
...Las Vegas casino owner Steve Wynn is revealed this week as the mystery buyer of Vermeer's A Young Woman Seated at the Virginals at Sotheby's last July for £16.2 million. On Thursday (Arpil 28), he opens Wynn, Las Vegas, a new $2.7 billion resort complete with golf course, lakes, a fake mountain and an art gallery in which the tiny painting will be exhibited. Sotheby's spent years trying to establish that the painting, previously dismissed as a fake, was an original. Even then, not everyone was convinced. After the sale, Sotheby's described the buyer only as "anonymous", but its re-appearance in Las Vegas confirms that it was Wynn who took the gamble.
more about Vermeer's brand new home**
The strip's newest and most expensive casino resort is just days away from opening its doors. Wynn, Las Vegas is a 2.7 billion dollar resort. It will have more than 27-hundred rooms. The resort features a large, man-made mountain in the front of the hotel, with huge waterfalls facing inwards. That structure alone cost an estimated 130-million dollars to build.
Wynn, Las Vegas (the name of the new casino) will also feature a Ferrari-Maserati dealership inside. As for entertainment, Franco Dragone will put on a multi-million water-themed production called "La Reve." The two-thousand-plus theater-in-the-round includes a one-million gallon performance pool that doubles as a stage. Wynn will include 18 new restaurants and bars overseen by celebrity chefs.
* from:
Market news: Vermeer gamble
Arts.telegraph, 25/04/2005
**from:
Wynn, Las Vegas Only A Few Days Away From Opening
April 27, 2005, 07:46 PM
exhibition of Vermeer's contemporary
GERARD TER BORCH
The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA)
Feb. 27– May 22, 2005
(in Detroit this exhibit is organized by George Keyes, DIA chief curator and curator of European paintings)
museum information:
Gerard ter Borch is one of the most celebrated of all seventeenth-century Dutch painters, yet remarkably, no exhibition in the United States has ever focused on his work. To assess his important oeuvre, the American Federation of Arts and the National Gallery of Art are organizing an exhibition of this great master’s paintings. Gerard ter Borch will comprise approximately forty-five paintings, including Ter Borch’s most striking early pictures from the 1630’s, the mid-career genre paintings for which he is most famous, depictions of historical events, and the small and delicate portraits that brought the artist prosperity throughout his professional life.
This exhibition will not only give museum visitors in the United States their first opportunity to see a broad overview of Ter Borch’s work, but will also result in the first major English-language publication on the artist. The exhibition catalogue, to be published by the American Federation of Arts and the National Gallery of Art, will include an essay by Arthur K. Wheelock, Jr, Curator of Northern Baroque Paintings at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, on Ter Borch’s life and work; a study of the modernity of Ter Borch’s paintings by Alison McNeil Kettering, Professor of Art History at Carleton College; and an examination of Ter Borch’s painting technique by Arie Wallert, Conservator of Paintings at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. In addition, each painting in the exhibition will be illustrated and discussed in a separate entry.
location:
Washington DC 20565
USA
T: +1 202 737 4215
E: der-info@nga.gov
other venues:
National Gallery of Art
Constitution Avenue NW
November 7, 2004 - January 30, 2005
Carel Fabritius 1622 - 1654
Frederik J. Duparc, et al
2004
exhibition of Vermeer's contemporary
CAREL FABRITIUS (1622 - 1654): DAS WERK
Staatliches Museum Schwerin, Schwerin
29 January 2005 – 16 May 2005
curators:
Kornelia von Berswordt-Walrabe, Frits Duparc, Peter van der Ploeg, Gero Seelig and Ariane van Suchtelen.
museum press release, January 2005:
In collaboration with the Mauritshuis The Hague, the Staatliches Museum Schwerin for the first time shows the complete known oeuvre of Fabritius, which consists of 14 paintings. His paintings, scattered all over the world, are highlights of the collections of which they are a part. This exhibition affords the singular opportunity of a synopsis of paintings which feature in collections in Boston, Los Angeles, London, Moscow, Warsaw, Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Salzburg, Munich, Hannover, and Schwerin.
Carel Fabritius, a pupil of Rembrandt, was undoubtedly one of the most ingenious and versatile painters of the Dutch 17th century. His work had a decisive influence on Johannes Vermeer, Pieter de Hooch and Emanuel de Witte. The explosion of the municipal arsenal in Delft in 1654 not only took the painter's life but destroyed many of his work as well. Masterpieces such as The Goldfinch, The Sentry and the View in Delft, with a musical instrument seller's stall, rank among the most handsome and famous of Dutch paintings. Fabritius' complete (modest) oeuvre will be brought together in cooperation with the Staatliches Museum in Schwerin.
catalogue:
Almost half of these works have been attributed to Fabritius only after the publication of Christopher Brown’s catalogue raisonée in 1981 and are presented together for the first time in the exhibition catalogue. The catalogue includes a comprehensive essay describing the life and work of the artist, a text on his means of composition as well as entries on every single painting. All paintings are illustrated in full colour. His connection to Rembrandt is assessed and the influence on the Delft School discussed. The book is published in English, German and Dutch.
location:
Staatliches Museum Schwerin
Alter Garten 3
D-19055 Schwerin
Germany
contact:
tel. +49 385 5958 119
fax: +49 385 563 090
email:
info@museum-schwerin.de
exhibition of Dutch trompe-l'oeil painter at the Mauritshuis
THE EYE DECEIVED: TROMPE-L’OEIL PAINTINGS BY CORNELIUS GIJSBRECHTS
Mauritshuis, The Hague
4 February - 15 May, 2005
museum info:
The originally Flemish painter Gysbrechts entered the service of the Danish court in 1668. In the following four years he produced a unique series of trompe-l'oeil paintings for King Frederik III and his successor Christiaan V. While various seventeenth-century artists attempted to paint the odd trompe l'œil representation, Gysbrechts made it his specialty. His partially open wall cabinets, letter racks, turned-back cloths and hunting still lifes ingeniously deceive the viewer's eye.
catalogue available (Dutch only)
email:
communicatie@mauritshuis.nl
web information:
http://www.mauritshuis.nl/english/index_gijsbrechts_explorer.html
exhibition with Vermeer's The Woman with a Lute, A Lady Writing, The Geographer, The Love Letter and The Lacemaker
Der zauber des alltäglichen: Holländische malerei von Adriaen Brouwer bis Johannes Vermeer
(The magic of the ordinary: Dutch painting from Adriaen Brouwer to Johannes Vermeer)
from the museum website:
Elegant ladies in satin dresses, maids in starched bonnets, and pensive scholars in their studies, there is hardly a period we seem to know more about than life in the Golden Age. Yet the well-ordered world of the Dutch burghers has a flip side where the lady of the house is drinking wine in broad daylight and an uncouth peasant is pulling disgusted faces. This exhibition presents the great variety of subjects and meanings of the kind of painting so unsatisfactorily classed as genre painting.
Key works in the collections of the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam, longstanding partner of many successful joint projects, and of the Städel itself form the basis on which a new generic concept is to be developed. Dismissed by contemporary art critics, these works were so popular with audiences at the time that painters even specialised in the production of such art. Well-known artists like Jan Vermeer, Adriaen Brouwer and Jan Steen developed their own styles and storylines, which fascinate viewers to this day and whose comic details charm us into laughter.
Among the painters in the exhibition are: Frans van Mieris, Adriaen Brouwer, Adriaen van Ostade, Gerrit Dou, Gerard ter Borch, Jan Steen, Pieter de Hooch and Gabriel Metsu.
location:
Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie
Dürerstrasse 2
D-60596 Frankfurt am Main
Germany
T: +49 69 605 098 200
F: +49 69 610 163
E: info@staedelmuseum.de
co-organizer:
In collaboration with the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam
click here and visit the exhibition website
Vermeer lecture
THE LIGHT AND SHADE AND THE LADIES: THE QUIET WORLD OF JAN VERMEER
Presented by Barbara Johnston - adjunct professor of art history, Virginia
Commonwealth University
Monday, April 4, 7:30 p.m., Williamsburg Library Theatre, 515 Scotland Street, Williamsburg, Virginia
(USA)
To look at a painting by Jan Vermeer is to enter an enchanted world of silent women and glowing light. The preeminent painter of women in a society fascinated by them, Vermeer's small, intimate paintings have a unique quality that sets them apart from the work of his contemporaries. From the virtuous kitchen maid to the dutiful housewife, Vermeer's women occupy a world of their own, a world of serenity and order that was the ideal of womanhood in 17th-c. Holland. But things are not always as they seem, for Vermeer was a master of subtext, and in each painting, he has given us clues to help us understand the inner life of his ladies. By examining these works, we come to realize that a great deal lies beneath the serene surfaces Vermeer's women present to the world.
This Century Art Gallery and the library continues their popular art-lecture series which is made possible through the Gallery's partnership program with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. A reception provided by This Century Art Gallery will follow.
Book Description from Amazon.com
Since his rediscovery in the later half of the 19th century, Johannes Vermeer (1632–1675) has been one of the most admired and influential European painters. His extremely private life, his supposed use of a camera obscura, and the fact that his teacher remains unidentified have, until recently, encouraged a view of the “Sphinx of Delft” as an isolated genius shrouded in an air of mystery. Walter Liedtke’s new monograph reveals Vermeer’s life to be well-documented and places his work in the context of the Delft school and of Delft society as a whole. Vermeer’s many admirers will relish Liedtke’s exploration of subtleties of meaning and refinements of technique and style. Alongside the most historical approach to Vermeer to date, the annotated color catalogue of Vermeer’s complete paintings reveals a master whose rare sensibility may be described but not explained.
Walter Liedtke is Curator of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. He has written widely on Dutch painting and the Delft school and is the author of fundamental texts including Vermeer and the Delft School (2001).