Jewelry, "reform dress," and Klimt at the Neuegalerie, NYC
Today i did some museum wandering, figuring that it might be the last time in a good while i'd have both the free time and the energy (since for the next few weeks, i'll be working at least 6 days a week).
I actually went to two museums--the Neuegalerie Museum for German and Austrian Art and the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum--but i'll split it up and write about each separately. The first one i went to was the Neuegalerie, so i'll cover it first.
They've got an absolutely mindblowing pair of exhibits running right now which complement one another incredibly well--an in-depth exhibition of works by Gustav Klimt, and a display of custom jewelryworks by the Wiener Werkstaette (Vienna Workshops).
The first exhibit is the Werkstaette stuff, in a salon at the top of a sweeping marble staircase. I should note that the Neuegalerie building used to be a private residence, at one point the uptown home of Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, in fact. The opulent interior is largely intact--marble floors, richly paneled and carved wall decor, ornate architectural details, and so forth.
The room in which the jewelry is exhibited is paneled in dark carved wood, and the huge 12' windows are covered with opaque shades, the better to focus attention on the bright pieces displayed against black velvet in several cases throughout the room. Silkscreened onto the windowshades are huge reproductions of period photographs featuring women (mostly Klimt's mistress and sister-in-law, Emilie Floege) wearing the jewelry exhibited, along with Dress Reform Movement fashions. Each installation features not only a piece of jewelry itself, but any ephemera relating to it extant--portraits of the jewelry's owner, design sketches in color pencil of the piece, even invoices with price notations! Brooches, bracelets, pendants, belt buckles, and diadems are displayed, and even some original boxes and a display case from a boutique. In addition to these displays, the gallery also contains a couple of period mirrors designed by the Werkstaette, and a large photograph of the workshop's interior and several artisans at work.
From the Werkstaette gallery, you move into a larger, more well-lit gallery of Klimt paintings, including the famous Adele Bloch-Bauer I. In this room, there were also pieces of decor from the period, including a really excellent 1903 time clock for a tailor's shop adorned with blue glass. The exhibit continued through other rooms and up to the second floor, featuring not only more of Klimt's work--drawings and paintings and studies and quick sketches--but also a vast variety of Klimt ephemera--photographs, postcards, handwritten notes, tickets to exhibitions, posters for art shows, periodicals, you name it. The show includes some of Klimt's "taboo" subjects--erotica drawings, pregnant nudes, lesbian tableaux--and an exact reproduction of the anteroom to his atelier/studio, complete with the actual furniture even and the painting Hope displayed in a corner. I think my two favorite parts were the room devoted to Klimt's artist smocks (indigo dyed ankle-length robes, probably custom-made by the Schwestern Floege Salon) and the recreation of the Beethoven Frieze with preliminary sketches, the frieze itself, and a sound system quietly playing "Ode to Joy." Some of his preliminary sketches even had the color plotting scribbled on them, areas denoted as "blau" (blue), "gelb" (yellow), "schwartz" (black), etc.! Cool.
Both exhibits taken as a whole are an amazing look into Viennese art and design of the time. You can see how the artisans of the Werkstaette were an influence on Klimt and vice versa, how the "dress reform" fashions of the Schwestern Floege Salon show up in Klimt's paintings, and if you are familiar with other artists of the Vienna Secession and the Kunsthalle, you can see how they all aesthetically tie together and play off of one another, all these disciplines from jewelry and fashion design movements to innovations in aesthetic style of painters and lithographers and such. Truly excellent.
Neuegalerie
angel on a church along the Museum Mile
I took this picture for my dad, a chemical engineer
(one of many entrances to Central Park)
view across the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir
i love the luminaires in Central Park
spot the cow skull?
secret gazebo hiding in the vegetation...
the bakery near my house makes these fresh every day
spring festival decor on Ditmars Boulevard
I actually went to two museums--the Neuegalerie Museum for German and Austrian Art and the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum--but i'll split it up and write about each separately. The first one i went to was the Neuegalerie, so i'll cover it first.
They've got an absolutely mindblowing pair of exhibits running right now which complement one another incredibly well--an in-depth exhibition of works by Gustav Klimt, and a display of custom jewelryworks by the Wiener Werkstaette (Vienna Workshops).
The first exhibit is the Werkstaette stuff, in a salon at the top of a sweeping marble staircase. I should note that the Neuegalerie building used to be a private residence, at one point the uptown home of Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, in fact. The opulent interior is largely intact--marble floors, richly paneled and carved wall decor, ornate architectural details, and so forth.
The room in which the jewelry is exhibited is paneled in dark carved wood, and the huge 12' windows are covered with opaque shades, the better to focus attention on the bright pieces displayed against black velvet in several cases throughout the room. Silkscreened onto the windowshades are huge reproductions of period photographs featuring women (mostly Klimt's mistress and sister-in-law, Emilie Floege) wearing the jewelry exhibited, along with Dress Reform Movement fashions. Each installation features not only a piece of jewelry itself, but any ephemera relating to it extant--portraits of the jewelry's owner, design sketches in color pencil of the piece, even invoices with price notations! Brooches, bracelets, pendants, belt buckles, and diadems are displayed, and even some original boxes and a display case from a boutique. In addition to these displays, the gallery also contains a couple of period mirrors designed by the Werkstaette, and a large photograph of the workshop's interior and several artisans at work.
From the Werkstaette gallery, you move into a larger, more well-lit gallery of Klimt paintings, including the famous Adele Bloch-Bauer I. In this room, there were also pieces of decor from the period, including a really excellent 1903 time clock for a tailor's shop adorned with blue glass. The exhibit continued through other rooms and up to the second floor, featuring not only more of Klimt's work--drawings and paintings and studies and quick sketches--but also a vast variety of Klimt ephemera--photographs, postcards, handwritten notes, tickets to exhibitions, posters for art shows, periodicals, you name it. The show includes some of Klimt's "taboo" subjects--erotica drawings, pregnant nudes, lesbian tableaux--and an exact reproduction of the anteroom to his atelier/studio, complete with the actual furniture even and the painting Hope displayed in a corner. I think my two favorite parts were the room devoted to Klimt's artist smocks (indigo dyed ankle-length robes, probably custom-made by the Schwestern Floege Salon) and the recreation of the Beethoven Frieze with preliminary sketches, the frieze itself, and a sound system quietly playing "Ode to Joy." Some of his preliminary sketches even had the color plotting scribbled on them, areas denoted as "blau" (blue), "gelb" (yellow), "schwartz" (black), etc.! Cool.
Both exhibits taken as a whole are an amazing look into Viennese art and design of the time. You can see how the artisans of the Werkstaette were an influence on Klimt and vice versa, how the "dress reform" fashions of the Schwestern Floege Salon show up in Klimt's paintings, and if you are familiar with other artists of the Vienna Secession and the Kunsthalle, you can see how they all aesthetically tie together and play off of one another, all these disciplines from jewelry and fashion design movements to innovations in aesthetic style of painters and lithographers and such. Truly excellent.
Neuegalerie
angel on a church along the Museum Mile
I took this picture for my dad, a chemical engineer
(one of many entrances to Central Park)
view across the Jacqueline Onassis Reservoir
i love the luminaires in Central Park
spot the cow skull?
secret gazebo hiding in the vegetation...
the bakery near my house makes these fresh every day
spring festival decor on Ditmars Boulevard