Happy Birthday Keith!!!

Today is my big brother's 61st birthday.

Fifty Works for the First State: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection at the Delaware Art Museum

Four Gates for the Good Sea - Lucio Pozzi (Drawing: graphite, crayon and gouache on paper)

Fifty Works for First State: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection, on view from June 19 – August 29, 2010, celebrates a recent gift of art from the renowned collection of Dorothy and Herbert Vogel. Starting in the 1960s, the couple amassed an outstanding collection of more than 4,000 works, staying within a modest budget (he was a postal clerk and she was a librarian) and extraordinary space constraints (a one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan). While they are particularly known for collecting the minimal and conceptual art of Sol LeWitt, Richard Tuttle, and Robert Barry, the Vogels also collected a wide range of post-minimal, figurative, and expressionist work produced between the 1960s and the 1990s.

Untitled: Part 1 - Loren Calaway (Sculpture: wood, brass, cotton cloth and felt)

As part of the Fifty Works for Fifty States program, the Delaware Art Museum received drawings, paintings, sculptures, and collages by 23 artists: Stephen Antonakos, Will Barnett, Robert Barry, Lynda Benglis, Loren Calaway, Michael Vinson Clark (Clark V. Fox), Charles Clough, Kathleen Cooke, Richard Francisco, Don Hazlitt, Stewart Hitch, Tom Holland, Martin Johnson, Ronnie Landfield, Robert Mangold, Lucio Pozzi, Edda Renouf, Judy Rifka, Pat Steir, Donald Sultan, Daryl Trivieri, Richard Tuttle, and Joe Zucker.

Untitled: Study for Mother and Child Reading - Will Barnet (Drawing: charcoal on parchment paper)

Fifty Works for Fifty States was launched by the Vogels and the National Gallery of Art, with support the National Endowment for the Arts and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. This program is distributing 2,500 works from the Vogels’ collection of contemporary art throughout the nation, with 50 works going to a selected institution in each of the 50 states.

Hats - Donald Sultan (Relief Sculpture: graphite, vinyl asbestos tile on wood)

Happy Birthday FLW

Born June 8, 1867 Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 projects, which resulted in more than 500 completed works. Wright promoted organic architecture (exemplified by Fallingwater and Graycliff), was a leader of the Prairie School movement of architecture (exemplified by the Robie House, the Westcott House, and the Darwin D. Martin House), and developed the concept of the Usonian home (exemplified by the Rosenbaum House). His work includes original and innovative examples of many different building types, including offices, churches, schools, skyscrapers, hotels, and museums. Wright also often designed many of the interior elements of his buildings, such as the furniture and stained glass. In the first image above: The Walter Gale House (1893) is Queen Anne in style yet features window bands and a cantilevered porch roof which hint at Wright's developing aesthetics.

Fallingwater

Graycliff

Robie House

Westcott House

All the prime players aim for Travers

Imagine a race with all three Triple Crown race winners -- Super Saver, Lookin At Lucky, and Drosselmeyer. Throw in the second-place finishers from the Kentucky Derby (Ice Box), Preakness (First Dude), and Belmont (Fly Down), and add a late-developing horse such as Trappe Shot, too. What do you have? Quite possibly the Travers Stakes.

This year's Triple Crown series ended on Saturday with no clear-cut leader among the nation's 3-year-old males, a position that was abdicated when Eskendereya, the winner of the Wood Memorial and Fountain of Youth Stakes, was injured prior to the Kentucky Derby and subsequently retired. No one has stepped into fill the void. As of now, though, all the remaining prominent horses in the division are pointing for the Travers on Aug. 28 at Saratoga, making that race, long known as the Mid-Summer Derby, the next best chance for a leader to emerge.

Drosselmeyer, the Belmont winner, and Super Saver, who won the Derby, will both point for the Travers, according to Elliott Walden, the racing manager for Bill Casner and Kenny Troutt's WinStar Farm, which owns both colts. Each horse will have one prep before then.

"We hope one of them ends up being the 3-year-old champion," Walden said. "We've put ourselves in that position going into the second half of the year. We will probably split them for their next race, then get them back together for the Travers and see what happens."

Walden said the obvious Travers preps for both are the Jim Dandy at Saratoga on July 31, and the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth on Aug. 1. Both of those races are at 1 1/8 miles. The Travers is 1 1/4 miles.

Walden called the win by Drosselmeyer, who is trained by Bill Mott, "very satisfying."

"We've had a lot of hopes for him," Walden said. "You get tired of making excuses. He had a great four weeks after the Dwyer. It was the perfect set-up race. He had a big work on Monday. We were hopefully optimistic. We felt like he had it in him. It was nice to see him do it. And it was nice for Billy."

Mott, a Hall of Famer, got his first Triple Crown race win with Drosselmeyer, who gave jockey Mike Smith his first win in the Belmont.

Super Saver, trained by Todd Pletcher, has resumed regular training at Belmont Park. He was kept out of the Belmont after running poorly in the Preakness.

"He's putting weight back on," Walden said. "I think the three races in five weeks got him."

Super Saver was second in the Arkansas Derby in his final prep for the Kentucky Derby.

Walden said that if Super Saver had won the Preakness and been shooting for the Triple Crown in the Belmont, he would have lobbied for WinStar to run Drosselmeyer, too.

"It would have been an interesting debate," Walden said.

WinStar's feat of winning two-thirds of the Triple Crown with different horses was last achieved by W.T. Young's Overbrook Farm in 1996, when Grindstone won the Derby and Editor's Note the Belmont.

As for Lookin At Lucky, he returned to Southern California following the Preakness. His trainer, Bob Baffert, has said that the Haskell is his most likely next start.

As with WinStar, trainer Nick Zito is desirous of splitting up his two colts -- Fly Down and Ice Box -- for their preps for the Travers. Zito on Monday said he believes Ice Box is better suited to the track layout at Monmouth, which is a one-mile oval, like Churchill Downs.

"With him, the Haskell is a good spot. I know Bob," Zito said, referring to owner Robert La Penta, "would like to win the Travers. And our main goal at the end of the year is the Breeders' Cup Classic."

Zito said he would prefer to run Fly Down in the Jim Dandy, but first needed to consult with owner Richard Pell.

"I'd like to go that way," Zito said. "We'll find races. You're not going to run out of good races for good horses."

Zito said Ice Box, who ran poorly as the favorite in the Belmont, displaced his palate while not adjusting to the warm, humid conditions.

"The heat got to him," Zito said. "It was all anxiety. If you can't breathe completely going a mile and a half, you're not going to run. He came back sound."

Zito had a frustrating Triple Crown. In addition to finishing second in the Derby and Belmont, he was third in the Preakness with Jackson Bend.

"With a little bit of luck, we might have won the whole Triple Crown," he said. "But you've got to be happy you have those kinds of horses to run in these types of races."

Another potential starter in the Haskell or Jim Dandy is Trappe Shot, who was an impressive winner of an allowance race on Saturday's undercard. His trainer, Kiaran McLaughlin, said Trappe Shot would run in the Long Branch at Monmouth on July 10 "to see if he can go two turns."

If he can, the Travers would be the goal, McLaughlin said. If not, the seven-furlong King's Bishop would be targeted. Both are Grade 1 races on the same day at Saratoga.

"Our ultimate goal is Aug. 28 at Saratoga," McLaughlin said. "He can run in the Travers or the King's Bishop. Backing up from there, he could run in the Jim Dandy or the Haskell, or the Amsterdam. The Long Branch will tell us if he can't go long. If he can't, we'll back up and point for the King's Bishop, maybe by sprinting in the Amsterdam. He's a very talented horse." JPrivman


Image shown: Saratoga Race Course entrance

And the race unfolds...

Payoffs (based on $2 bets)
Board Bets
7 (Post Position) Drosselmeyer: $28.99 (Win) $11.60 (Place) $7.70 (Show)
5 (Post Position) Fly Down: $6.80 (Place) $5.10 (Show)
11 (Post Position) First Dude: $4.90 (Show)
Exacta
7/5 Drosselmeyer/Fly Down: $144.50
Trifecta
7/5/11 Drosselmeyer/Fly Down/First Dude: $766.00
Superfecta
7/5/11/8 Drosselmeyer/Fly Down/First Dude/Game On Dude: $10,658.00

Order of Finish (Finish - Horse - Post Position - Jockey - Trainer - M/L* - C/L*)
1. Drosselmeyer - 7 - Mike Smith - Bill Mott - 12/1 - 13/1
2. Fly Down - 5 - John Velazquez - Nick Zito - 9/2 - 5/1
3. First Dude - 11 - Ramon Dominguez - Dale Romans - 7/2 - 5/1
4. Game on Dude - 8 - Martin Garcia - Bob Baffert - 10/1 - 17/1
5. Stay Put - 10 - Jamie Theriot - Steve Margolis - 20/1 - 26/1
6. Interactif - 12 - Javier Castellano - Todd Pletcher - 12/1 - 19/1
7. Stately Victor - 9 - Alan Garcia - Mike Maker - 15/1 - 14/1
8. Ice Box - 6 - Jose Lezcano - Nick Zito - 3/1 - 1/2
9. Make Music for Me - 4 - Joel Rosario - Alexis Barba - 10/1 - 12/1
10. Dave in Dixie - 1 - Calvin Borel - John Sadler - 20/1 - 14/1
11. Spangled Star - 2 - Garrett Gomez - Richard Dutrow, Jr. - 20/1 - 23/1
12. Uptowncharlybrown -3 - Rajiv Maragh - Kiaran McLaughlin - 10/1 - 10/1 (actually placed 5th but was DQ'd (disqualified) and placed last by the stewards because he lost his weight pad at the 7/8ths pole)

*M/L = Morning Line Odds
C/L = Closing Line Odds (the horse's betting odds when the race actually started)

A Belmont Breeze salute to the longshots who've won the Belmont Stakes

Let's hope today's Belmont Stakes (otherwise known as "The Test of Champions") winner joins the ranks of the longshot winners below. If the Thoroughbred Racing Gods allow it and it's meant to be it will happen - if not, it won't...

Sarava: 70-1 (2002)

Da'Tara:38-1 (2008)

Birdstone: 36-1 (2004)

Lemon Drop Kid: 29-1 (1999)

Other Notable Longshot Winners - Sherlock: 65-1 (1961); Temperance: 53-1 (1980)

By the by, I got every one of these longshots except Sherlock (I was not betting the Throughbreds in 1961)

The Belmont in Elmont

When most people think of New York they think "The Big Apple".



At the beginning of June this is what I think when I think of New York - the Belmont Stakes in Elmont. On the morrow the last leg of the Triple Crown will be run. With a Belmont Breeze in hand I shall be imploring the Thoroughbred gods to allow the second longest shot on the board to capture the place position and to bring the longest shot on the board to the winner's circle to wear the blanket of white carnations.

Sound, Fury, Post Time

In 1955 William Faulkner (and I'm going to assume that anyone reading this blog is educated enough to know this Nobel Prize-winning novelist and has read at least one of his novels or short stories - if not, for God's sake take an English class, read a book) wrote a piece for Sports Illustrated entitled "Kentucky: May: Saturday." Whilst the piece was about the Kentucky Derby it is applicable to not only the Triple Crown (The Kentucky Derby being the first leg, the Preakness being the second leg and the Belmont Stakes, the third leg) but to thoroughbred racing in general. Below is part of Falkner's piece:

"Once the horse moved man's physical body and his household goods and his articles of commerce from one place to another. Nowadays all it moves is a part or the whole of his bank account, either through betting on it or trying to keep owning and feeding it.

So, in a way, unlike the other animals which he has domesticated--cows and sheep and hogs and chickens and dogs (I don't include cats; man has never tamed cats)--the horse is economically obsolete. Yet it still endures and probably will continue to as long as man himself does, long after the cows and sheep and hogs and chickens, and the dogs which control and protect them, are extinct. Because the other beasts and their guardians merely supply man with food, and someday science will feed him by means of synthetic gases and so eliminate the economic need which they fill. While what the horse supplies to man is something deep and profound in his emotional nature and need.

It will endure and survive until man's own nature changes. Because you can almost count on your thumbs the types and classes of human beings in whose lives and memories and experience and glandular discharge the horse has no place. These will be the ones who don't like to bet on anything which involves the element of chance or skill or the unforeseen. They will be the ones who don't like to watch something in motion, either big or going fast, no matter what it is. They will be the ones who don't like to watch something alive and bigger and stronger than man, under the control of puny man's will doing something which man himself is too weak or too inferior in sight or hearing or speed to do

These will have to exclude even the ones who don't like horses--the ones who would not touch a horse or go near it, who have never mounted one nor ever intend to; who can and do and will risk and lose their shirts on a horse they have never seen.

So some people can bet on a horse without ever seeing one outside a Central Park fiacre or a peddler's van. And perhaps nobody can watch horses running forever, with a mutuel window convenient, without making a bet. But it is possible that some people can and do do this.

So it is not just betting, the chance to prove with money your luck or what you call your judgment, that draws people to horse races. It is much deeper than that. It is a sublimination, a transference: man, with his admiration for speed and strength, physical power far beyond what he himself is capable of, projects his own desire for physical supremacy, victory, onto the agent--the baseball or football team, the prize fighter. Only the horse race is more universal because the brutality of the prize fight is absent, as well as the attenuation of football or baseball--the long time needed for the orgasm of victory to occur, where in the horse race it is a matter of minutes, never over two or three, repeated six or eight or 10 times in one afternoon."

If you want to read the entire piece (and it's worth reading) you can find it online.

Belmont Stakes Post Positions drawn and Morning Line Odds assigned

The final leg (and the longest race at 1 1/2 miles) of the Triple Crown will be run this Saturday. Many feel this is a trainer's race due to the length of said race and the need for the horses to be well conditioned as this will be the only time in their lives they run a race of this length. Let us pray to the racing gods for longshots to come 1-2.

Memorial Day 2010

*The following was first posted 5/31/2009

Today is Memorial Day and I'm thinking of my father. Dad served in both the Korean War and World War II. During his time in the service he not only survived the sinking of a ship, he survived when a gun mount he was in blew up - in fact, of all the men that were in the gun mount at the time only my father and 1 other man survived. When his ship was sinking, after he made sure all his men were safely aboard the life boats Dad went, against everyone's wishes, back onto the sinking ship so that he could retrieve a photograph of my mother as he was determined that said photo would not sink with the ship. Dad was a Navy man and retired as a high ranking Naval officer when I was in the first grade, having served 20 years active duty. He then spent another 5 years in the reserves. After that he had a full civilian career from which he retired.

My father and I were always on different sides of the political fence but I still respect how he served his country. One doesn't have to support a war but one can support the men and women who put their lives on the line for their country. I put my life on the picket lines and carry those scars while my dad put his on the battlefield and carried his scars.

My father was proud of his time in the service and, as he neared his death, he shared with me stories that were beyond the pale. When I was young he told me stories but they were stories that were innocuous. Hearing the more damaged situations broke my heart, knowing that he carried those experiences deep within him. Knowing the horrific experiences he endured gave me some insight into why he had certain outlooks. We can never know what a person truly is until we walk a mile in their moccasins. My father had an extremely difficult life growing up - his mother was not a nurturing person and he suffered the effects of her "issues". He also had some adventures though - he actually ran away to join the circus when he was young and he also played minor league baseball - in fact, he was due to be called up to the "majors" when he joined the Navy.

My father died in late February of 2003. On March 3, 2003 I gave a eulogy at his funeral. My eulogy is shared below:

"(name deleted for privacy) was my father and I loved him. When I think of Dad a myriad of thoughts come to mind and I'd like to share just a few. He played semi-pro baseball as a young man. He had quite a varied life and he was a survivor. He survived a ship that was torpedoed, a gun mount explosion and 2 open-heart surgeries.

Dad was a collector of watches. He had more than 15 and wanted each one of us to have one - as if he knew the importance of marking the time we have on earth and how truly short life is.

Memories of Dad - waking up to the smell of a freshly cut lawn on a summer morning. The smell of chlorine and the sound of water as Dad filled the swimming pool for the first time each summer. Sitting on an old-fashioned ice-cream maker while Dad made ice cream (he always got the "paddle" in the middle with the most concentration of the ice cream because "he did all the work"). How when Dad made pancakes on Saturday mornings he always gave the first one to our dog "Laddie". How he was so sentimental and always cried at television shows like Bonanza and at weddings when Mom would sing. How he always wanted to make sure there was plenty of food for the ducks, geese, squirrels and birds at his and Mom's home. How he liked to decorate the front yard at Christmastime with Christmas lights. How he made several trips to the desert in El Centro to retrieve the Pegasus Horse wood sculpture you've all seen in Mom and Dad's front yard (by the way, he was so concerned about it not incurring any damage during the trip from the West Coast to the East Coast that it was placed in its own crate, wrapped by more packing that any piece of artwork hanging in the Louvre, when he and Mom moved back here to Delaware). Dad wasn't perfect - none of us are - we're all human - but he had his ways and he had a big heart. Above all, he was always worried about the safety of his family.

Those are just some of my memories of Dad. There are so many more I could share but time doesn't allow and my heart needs to keep those memories private. I'd now like to share a poem that I think is germane to this occasion. It's called "The Dash" and reads as follows:

I read of a reverend who stood to speak at the funeral of his friend. He referred to the dates on the tombstone from the beginning...to the end. He noted that first came the date of his birth and spoke of the following date with tears, but he said that what mattered most of all was the dash between those years. For that dash represents all the time that he spent alive on earth...and now only those who loved him know what that little line is worth. For it matters not how much we own; the cars...the house...the cash. What matters is how we live and love and how we spend our dash. So think about this long and hard...are there things you'd like to change? For you never know how much time is left. (You could be at "dash mid-range"). If we could just slow down enough to consider what's true and real and always try to understand how other people feel. And be less quick to anger and show appreciation more and love the people in our lives like we've never loved before. If we treat each other with respect and more often wear a smile, remembering that this special "dash" might only last a little while. So when your eulogy is being read with your life's actions to rehash, would you be proud of the things they say when people recall how you spent your "dash"?

I hope you all know how truly big Dad's life was. He was so very excited every time he spoke of his grandchildren Paul, Christine, Alexander, Channing, Chandler and Dylan. His eyes shone with the love that only comes from a grandfather when he talks about the "babies". Randall and Keith, Dad loved each of us very much and was proud of us. He took joy in the beautiful and gracious adults we've become. Mom, what can I say? You were the love of Dad's life. He was always concerned for your well being and was looking forward to spending many more years with you. You were always in his thoughts.

The best way everyone here today can honor Dad is to live life to the fullest, love to our heart's capacity, and laugh - laugh often.

As for me, I'd like to leave you, the audience, as well as Mom, Randall, Keith, Paul and, most importantly, my father with the following thought. In Shakespeare's play "Hamlet", Horatio, after his friend Hamlet has died, bids him adieu with the following epitaph:
"Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest".

So, Dad, though your physical body "cracked", I too bid you farewell and good night. May flights of angels also sing you to your rest."

Happy Memorial Day, Dad - I love you.


Alexis at the 2010 flag placing ceremony at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery.

On a Day like Today, Westminster's Big Ben Rang for the First Time in London

LONDON.- May 30, 1859.- Big Ben is the nickname for the great bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster in London, and is often extended to refer to the clock or the clock tower as well. Big Ben is the largest four-faced chiming clock and the third-tallest free-standing clock tower in the world. It celebrated its 150th anniversary in May 2009 (the clock itself first ticking on 31 May 1859).

Long-Unseen Painting by Frida Kahlo Tops Latin America Art Auction

A Frida Kahlo portrait of a pre-Hispanic warrior was the top selling work in a sale of Latin American art, which also set five auction records, including one for Mexican artist Jose Clemente Orozco.

The evening auction at Christie's on Wednesday fetched $16.8 million, its strongest Latin American sale in two years.

"It was a sale full of excitement and surprises with world auction records for key Latin American modern and contemporary artists," said Christie's Latin America art chief.

"We were delighted with the runaway success of Frida Kahlo's "Survivor," which fetched $1.1 million against a pre-sale estimate of $100,000-150,000."

He added that the Kahlo work drew bids from as far afield as Europe and Asia.
Orozco's "The City" also sold for $1.1 million. Both artists' work is scarce in international markets since Mexico bars their export under cultural heritage laws.

An added novelty was that "Survivor" disappeared from public view for 72 years before it was put up for sale this year.

The bidding excitement for the Kahlo recalled Christie's May 2008 auction, when the Latin American art market was at its height. At a rapid-fire pace, "Survivor" drew nearly 50 offers, sparking murmurs of amazement among the well-heeled audience.

The palm-sized "Survivor," which has a standing warrior figure at its center, is a rare Kahlo portrait of a pre-Hispanic idol. It shows an abandoned house on a ridge under a sky which churns with blacks, blues, grays and yellows.

Framed as a religious votive offering, "Survivor" symbolizes Kahlo's gratitude for surviving a suicide attempt, according to Christie's. Kahlo had separated from painter husband Diego Rivera after discovering his affair with her sister.

Like Rivera, Orozco was a monumental muralist, who lived in New York during the Depression. "The City" juxtaposes a towering rust-red shell building with portraits of dejected hard-hat workers. They are separated by a suspicious blue-eyed man, portrayed in sharper detail. Typical of the era's affluent, he wears a top hat.



"Un Trou Sur l'Orange," by Venezuelan Jesus Rafael Soto, whose sculptures embed optical illusions to render vibrations, sold for $758,500, also an auction record.


The 1970 work is a web of nylon and metal set in low relief against an orange wood panel with an oval void at its center. The sculpture produces vibrations and dancing patters for viewers walking past.

The sale also set a world record for Mexican Alfonso Michel, whose oil on masonite, "Naturaleza Muerta" (Still Life), fetched $218,500, nearly quadruple the pre-sale estimate.



Another world record was set when Brazilian Beatriz Milhazes's 2001 "O Beijo" or The Kiss, sold for a top price for her work on paper at $110,500.



Chilean Alfredo Jaar's "The More Things Change" also set an auction record for his 1990 work which fetched $60,000. It consists of three double-sided light boxes with color transparencies displaying surf and sky. Each is topped by a mirror in a gilded frame.



Artwork shown (in order of appearance):
Frida Kahlo - "Survivor"
Jose Clemente Orozco - "The City"
Jesus Rafael Soto - "Un Trou Sur l'Orange"
Alfonso Michel - "Naturaleza Muerta"
Beatriz Milhazes - "O Beijo"
Alfredo Jaar - "The More Things Change"

100 Years After Henri Rousseau's Death, the Guggenheim Devotes First In-Depth Exhibition

BILBAO.- One hundred years after the death of the French artist Henri Rousseau (1844–1910), the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is devoting an exhibition to this pioneer of Modernism—the first occasion that Rousseau has been seen in depth in Spain. The exhibition, coinciding with the centenary of the French artist's death in 1910 shows Rousseau's influence on subsequent modernist and avant-garde movements.

Organized by the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in co-operation with the Fondation Beyeler, Henri Rousseau presents a selection of approximately thirty masterpieces that provide a concise overview of the development and diversity of his oeuvre. From his famous jungle paintings in the later stages of his career, to the views of Paris and its environs, figures, portraits, allegories, and genre paintings, the exhibition gives a unique insight into the essential visual world of Rousseau.

A customs official by vocation, Rousseau initially took up painting in his free time and received no formal art training. Many years passed before his art, not academic and long considered naive, found recognition in the Paris art salons.

His importance within art history lies in his groundbreaking compositional mechanisms and painstaking technique, which greatly influenced younger generations of artists. Along with Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin, Rousseau’s visual inventions paved the way for the twentieth-century’s nascent Modernist movement.

A new visual idiom
For his works, which combined highly diverse themes of urbanity and the natural world adapted to his own visual conception, Rousseau mined resources beyond the academic tradition, relying heavily on postcards, photographs, and popular journals. His imaginary dreamlike jungle landscapes also took their inspiration directly from books on botany and his visits to gardens, woods and zoos.

The works included in the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao reveal his unique working method of transferring individual motifs such as leaves and trees, figures, and entire compositional schemes from picture to picture, and combining them to create new visual compositions, painted with a painstaking, naturally refined technique.

Rousseau redefined the picture space by staggering pictorial elements from background to foreground, a method that would later be adopted by the Cubists. This built-up pictorial structure, in the form of painted collage, anticipated the autonomy of the picture plane that would become characteristic of Modernism. Younger artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger, both of whom admired and collected his work, were captivated by his technique.

A tour of the exhibition
Initially, Rousseau painted mostly small-format pictures depicting the French suburbs and the surrounding countryside of his immediate environment. In these landscapes, wilderness is represented by dense wooded areas on the background that the artist used to separate the visual realm by means of either a fence or behind a fortification wall, as in House on the Outskirts of Paris (Maison de la banlieue de Paris, ca. 1905, Carnegie Museum of Art). Gradually, he moved away from this rationally organized civilization toward an unorganized, wild depiction of nature. This passage from the well ordered and familiar to the unknown and alien defined his later work as can be seen in Landscape (Paysage, 1905–10, Philadelphia Museum of Art).



In his famous jungle paintings, Rousseau, who never actually set foot in a jungle, finally succeeded in leaving the sphere of domestication behind for his imaginary wilderness. Now working in a significantly larger format, Rousseau lent these invented landscapes a compelling visual reality. The culmination of the exhibition is formed by a significant assembly of Rousseau’s famous jungle pictures. Of special mention is the monumental painting The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope (Le lion, ayant faim, se jette sur l’antilope , 1895/1905, Fondation Beyeler) included on the occasion of Rousseau’s first appearance at the Salon d’Automne in Paris in 1905. In March 1906, art dealer and collector Ambroise Vollard acquired the sensational painting—the first Rousseau ever to enter the art trade—in which the artist’s talent for creating an imaginary new world comprised of various figures set against a stage like environment are shown.

In addition, the exhibition illustrates Rousseau’s well-documented interest in photography for source material. A few of his compositions, such as Old Junier’s cart (La carriole du père Junier , 1908, Musée l’Orangerie) were definitively based on photographs. In the course of transferring the photographic image to the canvas, he created an entirely new visual world, arranging its elements into another image layer by layer in front of his imaginary camera lens.

Yet for all his reliance on photographic realism, Rousseau always strove to keep the depicted world at a distance. This is especially seen in The Wedding (La noce, 1904–05, Musée l’Orangerie), a large-format painting whose distortions of scale and proportions with respect to the original model are immediately obvious. Indeed, the simultaneity of character and dream in Rousseau’s paintings, the flatness and lack of perspective, and his peculiar manner of lighting the picture plane, with both brilliant sun and shadowless figures, all combine to give his images a highly tuned Surrealist quality.

After the Impressionist painters and the succeeding generation created a new way to look at the visible, Rousseau introduced into his paintings a new approach to imaginative vision. His perception of reality was based primarily on observation, imitation and transformation of the visible. In this way, he taught modern artists how the unknown could be constructed using the building blocks of the known. He established a new logic and mechanics of compositional structure that profoundly affected subsequent generations of artists, most notably the Surrealists Max Ernst and René Magritte.

Many renowned museums and collections in Europe and America have contributed to the success of the exhibition by their generous provision of loans. These include the Musée national de l’Orangerie, the Musée d’Orsay, and the Musée national d’Art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, in Paris; The Mayor Gallery, London; Fondation Beyeler, Riehen/Basel; the Nahmad Collection, Switzerland; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York; the Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts; the National Gallery of Art and the Phillips Collection, in Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; the Kunsthaus Zürich; and a number of private collections.



The first image shown is Maison de la banlieue de Paris (House on the Outskirts of Paris). The second image is Paysage exotique (Exotic Landscape). The last image is Les joueurs de football (The Football Players).