News & Exhibitions
BACK TO THE FUTURE: Young Artists Look To Old Masters
8 October – 8 November 2009
Robilant+Voena / Stair Sainty present ‘BACK TO THE FUTURE: Young Artists look to Old Masters’ this month featuring: Tom Gallant, Sigrid Holmwood, Barnaby Hosking, Graham Little, Justin Coombes, Marta Marce, Paul Morrison, Boo Ritson, Georgia Russell, William Stein, Alexis Marguerite Teplin, Richard Wathen, Mathew Weir and Douglas White alongside Francois Boucher, Pierre-Jacques Volaire, Anne-Louise Girodet-Trioson, Ary Scheffer, Cesare Dandini, Carlo Dolci and other Old Masters.
Curated by Mira Dimitrova and Mercier Kinney, this exhibition brings together the work of younger UK-based artists against that of major Old Masters, to investigate the relationship between the two. Back to the Future looks at a group of emerging UK-based artists, whose work is informed by an awareness of the history of art. Just as Old Masters, and artists such as Turner and Picasso, were acutely aware of their predecessors, so today are many contemporary artists reexamining the past and looking at their own art through a new lens. A current of historical reappraisal, which has been largely absent from the conceptual work in the contemporary art scene, is again emerging today.
Coinciding with Frieze and Zoo art fairs, where most of the artists will also be showing, Back to the Future surveys work that is informed by art historical awareness. The show Works will include paintings, drawings, photography and video work. Some contemporary works were chosen for their clear art historical allusions. The galleries also commissioned 9 new works for the show from contemporary artists whose work struck us as steeped in art history. These artists chose, from dozens of works dating from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, one painting on which to base their new work. The show aims to make the contemporary artists’ dialogue with the past concrete in this way whilst we hoped for a good aesthetic rapport between the old and new works in situ. Tom Gallant worked with Ary Scheffer’s masterpiece ‘Dante and Virgil Encountering The Shades of Francesca and Paolo Di Rimini in the Underworld’, Paul Morrison looked at Volaire’s dramatic ‘Eruption of Vesuvius’. Each of the14 pairings will hang side-by-side in the exhibition. Contrasts may be striking, the exhibition intends to emphasize the cooperative and continued dialogue between the past and present.
“Juxtaposing traditional and contemporary artists is an increasingly popular trend. October 8 sees the London gallery Robilant + Voena unveiling a show in which young British school artists respond to Old Master paintings. Most have been commissioned for the show and include some startling juxtapositions. A dreamy, sensuous piece by Old Master Ary Scheffer has inspired Tom Gallant to make a flowing paper collage like a fluttering of scarves. Paul Morrison has created “Ilex” (2009), a bold silver-on-linen work that reprises the exploding volcano in Pierre-Jacques Volaire’s fiery “Eruption of Vesuvius at Night” (about 1777) and Alexis Teplin’s brightly-coloured oval abstract painting echoes François Boucher’s “Venus Restraining Cupid” (1762). Prices range from £1,800 to £28,000 for the contemporary works, and from £50,000 to £1m for the Old Masters, who include Meissonnier, Carlo Dolci and Nicolas Tournier.” – GEORGINA ADAM in the FINANCIAL TIMES (October 2 2009)
Carl Gustav Carus:
Summer and Fall 2009
Carl Gustav Carus - Natur und Idee
also showing in:
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden, and Staatliche Museen, Berlin
cat. no. 159 (page 172 of the catalogue.)
The National Gallery, Washington DC, Acquires Lévy-Dhurmer
May 2009
The National Gallery has purchased from the gallery Les Calanques, a 1936 pastel by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, for its collection. The pastel is one of four views in a series, each done at a six hour interval over the course of a night; another is in the Musee d'Orsay, Paris. Last year Stair Sainty sold Lévy-Dhurmer's pastel The Dolomites to the Denver Art Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, placed The Wisteria Room, an interior designed and painted by the artist, on exhibition in their 19th Century Galleries.
New Marini And Manzu Sculptures At The New Orleans Museum Of Art
April 2009
The gallery recently placed two sculptures at NOMA. The Marino Marini is in the Norman Gallery, and the Manzu in the Besthoff Sculpture Garden, which is home to 50+ sculptures by artists such as Antoine Bourdelle, Henry Moore, and Louise Bourgeois.
The European Fine Art Fair, 2009
March 13 - 22, 2009
We are, as always, pleased to be exhibiting at TEFAF 2009, Maastricht, and welcome you to the gallery's stand, no. 372. Works there shall include a stunning pastel by Lucien Levy-Dhurmer related to his pastel, and oil, in the Musee d'Orsay, Paris, and a jewel-like Meissonier oil on panel genre painting. Please feel free to contact the gallery should you wish tickets to the fair or have any questions with which we may help you.
Gaspar Van Wittel, (called Vanvitelli): Italian Landscapes
Nov 18 - Dec 18, 2008
Robilant+Voena presents an exhibition of thirty loans from British and Italian private collections, including from Chatsworth, Compton Verney, The Holburne Museum of Art,Bath, Holkham Hall, and Petworth House. This exhibition will include works that have never been on public view and we welcome you to visit the gallery.
The Denver Art Museum Purchases Lucien Levy-Dhurmer Pastel
2008
The Denver Art Museum has added The Dolomites, by Levy-Dhurmer, to its collection. The pastel was last exhibited in 1912, though a related sketch was included in the 1973 exhibition, Autour de Levy-Dhurmer, Grand Palais, Paris.
French Painting 1700 - 1850
June 24 - July 18, 2008
We welcome you to an exhibition of French painting from the 18th and 19th Century, including works by Boucher, David, Michallon, Girodet and Corot.
The European Fine Art Fair, 2008
March 7 - 16, 2008
We are pleased to be exhibiting at TEFAF this year and welcome your visit to the gallery's stand, number 372. Please contact us should you wish tickets or have further questions.
The Palm Beach International Art And Antique Fair
February 1 - 10, 2008
Please join us at this year's art and antique fair.
Old Master Sales Week
December 3 - 7, 2007
Please visit the gallery and view the show 'Caravaggism and the Barqoue in Europe.'
The European Fine Art Fair
March 2007
FREEZE.
October 2006
In answer to London's Frieze Art Fair, in Regent's Park, the gallery presents work by Francis Picabia, Richard Long, Lucio Fontana, Robert Rauschenberg, Vik Muniz, Not Vital and Jeremy Dickinson.
The Biennale Des Antiquaires
September 2006
The European Fine Art Fair
March 2006
The Palm Beach International Art And Antique Fair
2006
The European Fine Art Fair
March 2005
