Symposium The Courtauld Collection
- Date
- 21 March 2019 – 10am
- Place
- Auditorium
In conjunction with the The Courtauld Collection. A Vision for Impressionism exhibition, four round tables will bring together art historians, curators, critics, experts, and collectors from around the world to discuss the history of the collection and the Courtauld Institute.
The first will examine Samuel Courtauld’s activities in the context of collections and philanthropy in the early twentieth century. French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings, both for his own appreciation but also to educate a wider public.
The second, with Anna Gruetzner Robins and Sylvette Gaudichon, will explore the connections between Impressionism, literary circles, and art criticism in England in relation to the members of the Bloomsbury group, including economist John Maynard Keynes and art historian, painter, and critic Roger Fry.
The third will focus their attention on an artist Samuel Courtauld collected enthusiastically: Paul Cézanne.
The fourth round table will focus on the history of the Courtauld Institute.
Morning
Sylvie Patry
Conservatrice générale du Patrimoine, Sylvie Patry est directrice de la conservation et des collections au musée d’Orsay depuis juillet 2017.
Auparavant, Sylvie Patry a exercé les fonctions de directrice adjointe et conservatrice en chef des Collections, Expositions, Publications et Archives à la Fondation Barnes à Philadelphie, pendant près de deux ans. Cette expérience professionnelle à l’étranger est intervenue après dix ans comme conservatrice, puis conservatrice en chef, au musée d’Orsay où elle était en charge d’une partie des collections de peinture impressionniste et post-impressionniste. Avant de rejoindre le musée d’Orsay, Sylvie Patry avait été conservatrice au Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille (1999-2002), puis pensionnaire à l’Inha (2003-2005) et conservatrice au musée Gustave-Moreau (2003). Elle est spécialiste de la peinture de la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle, et plus particulièrement de l’impressionnisme et du post-impressionnisme, domaine dans lequel elle a participé à des expositions internationales, réalisé des acquisitions, mais également enseigné et mené des publications et des recherches.
Sylvie Patry prépare actuellement en co-commissariat plusieurs expositions sur Monet et le paysage (Tokyo, 2020), les avant-garde suisses (musée d’Orsay, 2020), mais aussi la question méconnue de la décoration impressionniste (musée d’Orsay et National Gallery, 2021).
Anna Gruetzner Robins
Anna Gruetzner Robins est une historienne de l'art canadienne, professeure émérite à l'Université de Reading. Elle est spécialiste de l'art de Walter Sickert au sujet duquel elle a écrit trois livres. Elle a obtenu son bachelor à l'Université de Toronto et sa maîtrise et son doctorat au Courtauld Institute of Art.
Elle a beaucoup écrit sur le modernisme anglo-français, y compris Modern Art in Britain, 1910-1914, 1997, Walter Sickert: The Complete Writings on Art, 2000, Degas, Sickert, Toulouse Lautrec, 2005 et A Fragile Modernism: Whistler and his Impressionist Followers, 2007. Elle contribue de manière importante au catalogue de l'exposition Van Gogh and Britain qui sera au Tate Britain en mars 2019.
Sylvette Gaudichon
Attachée de conservation, chargée des collections et des expositions Arts Appliqués au Musée La Piscine de Roubaix, commissaire de l'exposition Conversation anglaise, le groupe de Bloomsbury
Afternoon
Martin Gayford
Moderator of the third round table
Martin Gayford is the author of biographical studies of Michelangelo, John Constable, Vincent van Gogh and a volume of conversations with David Hockney.
He collaborated with Philippe de Montebello, on Rendez-Vous with Art (2014) a unique mixture of travelogue, art appreciation and dialogue. In 2016 he published A History of Pictures, co-written with David Hockney. He has sat for portraits by both Hockney and Lucian Freud, the latter experience being the subject of Man with a Blue Scarf (2010). His most recent publications are a two-volume study of Freud and a survey of painting in London after the Second World War entitled Modernists and Mavericks.
Walter Feilchenfeldt
Walter Feilchenfeldt began his art career in the mid-1960s in the Impressionist Department at Sotheby’s in London, before entering his family firm, which his father established in 1948 in Zürich as a successor company of Kunstsalon Paul Cassirer in Berlin. Feilchenfeldt senior was a partner of the art dealer Paul Cassirer until 1946 and together they played a significant role in the promotion of Cézanne in Germany.
In addition to his activity as an art dealer, Walter Feilchenfeldt gained a formidable reputation as a Cézanne and van Gogh scholar. He is co-editor of the six Volumes “Kunstsalon Paul Cassirer Berlin – Exhibitions 1898-1914” which published for the first time a great part of Paul Cassirer Archives. The Online version of Cezanne’s entire work - of which he is co-author - is publicly accessible since January 19, Cezanne’s 180th birthday.
Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen
Ernst Vegelin has been Head of the Courtauld Gallery since 2006. He has career has focused on the public value of university museums, such as the Courtauld. Awarded a PhD from the University of London for his study of religious painting and iconoclasm, he has published and curated exhibitions on a subjects ranging from Rubens to Renoir.
Lukas Gloor
Lukas Gloor, born in Basel in 1952, Ph.D. in Art History, based upon a dissertation on the reception of French Impressionism in Switzerland (Von Böcklin zu Cézanne, 1986). Major topics of academic interest and publications have been the history of 20th century collections of Western art and the evolution of taste.
From 1980 to 1987, Lukas Gloor was Assistant at the Swiss Institute for Art Research in Zurich; from 1990 to 1995, he served as a Cultural Attaché at the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York. Since 2002, he is the Director of the Emil Bührle Collection in Zurich, and he is currently preparing the collection's move to the new extension of the Kunsthaus Zurich in 2021.
Bührle Collection
Paul Cézanne's work is of paramount importance for the Emil Bührle Collection. For Bührle, Cézanne was "the greatest and the most trendsetting" of all painters from his period, and he considered the three Cézanne portraits, with the Boy with the Red Waistcoat at its centre, pivotal for his collection. Bührle also succeeded in acquiring works from all different stages of Cézanne's career, allowing thereby to follow the artist's development in its entirety.
Philippe Cezanne
After creating exhibitions in the 1970s with Charles Durand-Ruel (Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris), including Renoir Intime 1969, Claude Monet 1970, and Centenaire de l’Impressionnisme 1874-1974, he became an art expert, a member of the Chambre Syndicale des Experts Français 1972-2000, and was a gallery owner at Le Louvre des Antiquaires 1983-1997.
He has helped organise and promote a number of exhibitions on Paul Cézanne.
He was one of the founders of the Société Paul Cézanne in 1998 and has since continued leading tours and giving presentations on significant Cézanne sites: Atelier des Lauves, Jas de Bouffan, Bibémus Quarries, Château de Vauvenargues (Picasso).
Alixe Bovey
Dr Alixe Bovey is Head of Research at The Courtauld Institute of Art. She is a specialist in the art and culture of the later Middle Ages. She supports all aspects of The Courtauld’s research activity, and is committed to bringing advanced art historical research to a wide public.
Professeur Deborah Swallow
Professor Deborah Swallow is Märit Rausing Director of The Courtauld Institute of Art and Gallery. She is a distinguished expert in Indian art and anthropology.
Under her leadership, The Courtauld has grown as the world’s foremost academic centre for art history, curation, and the conservation of painting, and its Gallery has flourished. Today, she is at the helm of an institution embarking on a landmark transformation project, Courtauld Connects, which will bring to fruition a visionary ambition and broaden the reach of The Courtauld’s unique offering in numerous exciting and timely ways.
The programme
Morning
- 10 a.m. - 11 a.m.
- Collecting Impressionism in the Early 20th Century: Art, Education and Philanthropy - Sylvie Patry, Director of Conservation and Collections at the Musée d'Orsay
- 11 a.m. - 12.30 p.m.
- The links between Impressionism, literacy circles and art criticism in England: Roger Fry and the Bloomsbury Group - Anna Gruetzner Robins Professor Emeritus, University of Reading, UK - Sylvette Gaudichon Collections and exhibitions of applied arts Officer at Musée La Piscine, Roubaix
Afternoon
- 2 p.m. - 3.30 p.m
- Collecting Cezanne, a critical history - Proposed by Daniella Luxembourg; Martin Gayford, moderator; Walter Feilchenfeldt, Art dealer, co-author of the online catalogue raisonné of Cézanne; Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen, Head of the Courtauld Gallery; Lukas Gloor, Head of the Bürhle Collection; Philippe Cézanne, Curator, expert, great-grandson of Paul Cézanne (to be confirmed).
- 3.45 p.m. - 5 p.m.
- The Courtauld Institute : beyond a private collection - Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen, Head of the Courtauld Gallery ; Alixe Bovey, Head of Research of Courtauld Institute of Art - Professor Deborah Swallow, Märit Rausing Director of The Courtauld Institute of Art and Gallery
Relive the symposium
