The day after the election, I needed to get out of the apartment and get my mind off of the depressing news. There was a special exhibit at the National Museum of Art that sounded interesting, so I took the Metrobus downtown.
The exhibit features paintings from the collection of Henry Pearlman, a New York City businessman who was a leading collector of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. Since his death in 1974, his collection has been in the Museum of Art of Princeton University in New Jersey.
Nine paintings from the Pearlman collection are on loan for this exhibit. The European paintings are paired with contrasting paintings by Mexican artists.
The French impressionist Degas is known for his paintings a ballet dancers, equestrian scenes and also nudes. This work displays his interest in movement and unusual positions.
Paired with the Degas is this painting by Lozano. He was born in Mexico City to a well-to-do family, and briefly had a career as a diplomat. During the Mexican Revolution, because of his father-in-law's role as a counter-revolutionary, he had to go into exile along with his wife and her family. While living in Paris, he met and was influenced by painters such as Matisse and Picasso.
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"Baroque Nude"
Cezanne was one of the most important Post-Impressionist painters. In his later years, from the vantage point of his studio, he painted numerous paintings of this mountain. His style, which features planes of color, was to influence later avant-garde movements including the cubism of Pablo Picasso.
Murillo, who painted under the name of Dr. Atl, mostly painted landscapes of the Mexican countryside, particularly its volcanoes.
The French-British painter, Sisley, may be overshadowed by Monet, but he was one of the first generation of Impressionists. His landscapes are reminiscent of Monet.
Clausell was a lawyer whose political activism against dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz led to several months in prison and several years in exile. But he is best remembered as Mexico's foremost Impressionist landscape painter.
"Young Woman with a Round Hat"
Manet was one of the first painters to portray modern life and was a transitional figure from realism to Impressionism.
Parra's paintings depict the changes in Mexican society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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The Impressionist Pissarro is known for his landscapes and urban scenes. This is one of the very few still lifes that he did.
Montenegro is better known as an illustrator, although he also did canvases and murals. During the Mexican Revolution he went to Paris where he met, among other artists, Pablo Picasso. Although he did not embrace cubism, this still life is reminiscent of Picasso.
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Orozco would go on to become one of the "Big Three" of Mexican muralism. This early watercolor, portraying a scene in a brothel, shows the influence of Toulouse-Lautrec.
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In 1912 the young Rivera moved to Paris where he knew a wide circle of artists including Picasso (he adopted cubism for a while), Mondrian, Chagall and Modigliani. This very large canvas with an urban landscape in the background is a portrait of Best Maugard, a Mexican painter and film director, who was completing his studies in Paris at the time that Rivera was there.
"Tasacon Stagecoach"
