PEINTURE. ALEX KATZ & FÉLIX VALLOTTON mcb a MUSÉE CANTONAL DES BEAUX-ARTS LAUSANNE 22.3-9.6.2013 Palais de Rumine, Lausanne ma-me 11h-18h, je 11h-20h, ve-di 11h-17h www.mcba.ch Alex Katz, Afternoon, 1993, huile sur toile, 320 x 244 cm, collection de l artiste 2013, ProLitteris, Zurich Design : Pierre Neumann Sérigraphie : Uldry PRESS RELEASE MUSÉE CANTONAL DES BEAUX-ARTS DE LAUSANNE
Lausanne, March 2013 We are pleased to invite you to the press conference of the exhibition On Painting. Alex Katz & Félix Vallotton 22 March - 9 June 2013 on Thursday, 21 March 2013 at 11 am GENERAL INFORMATION Opening reception Curators Media contact Thursday 21 March 2013 at 6.30 pm Bernard Fibicher, director Camille Lévêque-Claudet Loïse Cuendet, loise.cuendet@vd.ch Direct phone number: +41 (0)21 316 34 48 To download press material: www.mcba.ch>press relations Username: mcba-presse Password: gpresse Address Opening hours Admission Access Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne Palais de Rumine, place de la Riponne 6 CH-1014 Lausanne Tel.: +41 (0)21 316 34 45 Fax.: +41 (0)21 316 34 46 info.beaux-arts@vd.ch www.mcba.ch Tuesday to Wednesday: 11 am 6 pm Thursday: 11 am - 8 pm Friday to Sunday: 11 am 5 pm Closed on Monday Good Friday (29 March) and Ascension Day (9 May): 11 am 5 pm Adults: CHF 10. Pensioners, students, apprentices: CHF 8. Under 16: free 1 st Saturday of each month: free Metro M2: station Riponne Maurice Béjart Bus 1/2: stop at Rue Neuve Bus 8: stop at Riponne Page 2
On Painting. Alex Katz & Félix Vallotton 22 March - 9 June 2013 When I showed Alex Katz reproductions of the paintings of Félix Vallotton compared to his own, he kept on exclaiming, But what a wonderful painter! And, with regard to the evident similarities between them, It s incredible! Something passed through the heads of these two artists who came from utterly different eras, cultures and environments in which painting became something of a cosa mentale, that is to say when an idea or pictorial concept takes precedence over the execution or visual result. It goes without saying that neither Katz nor Vallotton are conceptual artists but both subject nature and the human figure to a very particular vision and a manifestly anti-naturalist treatment through the practice of a sort of painting for painting s sake. Both accept that a painting is foremost an assemblage of lines and blocks of colour on a flat surface. Bernard Fibicher, Peinture. Alex Katz & Félix Vallotton, «Deux peintres singuliers la Peinture en commun», published by the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts (Lausanne) and 5 Continents (Milan), 2013. EXHIBITION The Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts will present the art of two painters that one would immediately expect to be quite different: one, a French Swiss born in Lausanne in 1865, and the other, an American who is still very active and has worked in New York and Maine for more than sixty years. On Painting. Alex Katz & Félix Vallotton will be the first museum exhibition in French-speaking Switzerland of the work of Alex Katz. It will present more than 40 works by this major contemporary artist, ranging from the 1950s to the present day. The exhibition will compare the works of the American with 30 or so paintings by Félix Vallotton: this joint presentation will offer a completely new perspective on the astonishing similarity between these two key figures of international painting. Félix Vallotton (1865-1925) is more than ever in the contemporary eye. His work was recently shown at the Kunstmuseum in Berne (Sunsets, 2004/05), the Kunsthaus in Zurich and the Hamburger Kunsthalle (Idyll on the Edge, 2007/08). And in autumn 2013 the Musée d Orsay in Paris will dedicate a large retrospective to his work, the first in the French capital. With more than 500 works (including drawings and prints), the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne holds the largest Vallotton collection in the world. So as to show it off to best effect within its own walls, as it does not currently have the space to present the collection as a whole, the museum has decided to show the Vallotton works side by side with those of one of the best-known American painters. Vallotton s modernity no longer has to be made plain: when shown alongside the work of Alex Katz, it springs to the eye even today. Born in 1927, Alex Katz is a major figure of late 20 th -century American painting. His resolutely figurative art centres on such traditional genres as individual and group portraits, natural and urban landscapes, and floral still-lifes, and in the early 1960s he was associated with Pop Art on account of his very neutral technique that is close to advertising images and cinema stills. Making particular use of a deadpan, detached and often monumental approach, his representations are elaborated Page 3
through the simplification of forms and planes and the reduction of the palette, extending Vallotton s painting to the fringes of abstraction. Of the painters that have inspired Alex Katz, two that stand out are Pierre Bonnard and Jackson Pollock. Félix Vallotton, however, is not on the list nor was his work ever really known by the American. Nevertheless, surprising similarities are apparent between the two artists as their approach is identical: ennoblement through painting. On Painting. Alex Katz & Félix Vallotton contains chapters dedicated to nocturnes, waterscapes (seas, rivers, lakes and their reflections), portraits and nudes. Half of the works by Félix Vallotton to be shown come from the collections of the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts; the other half has been lent from private collections and a few public institutions. Alex Katz was actively involved in the selection of his works and has made available paintings from his private collection, some of which, works on panel in particular, are only rarely seen by the public. The remainder of his works to be shown come from private collections in Germany, Spain and Italy. In parallel, the Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich will be presenting Alex Katz Landscapes (7.03 12.05.2013, www.hauskonstruktiv.ch). PUBLICATION Peinture. Alex Katz & Félix Vallotton Texts by Bernard Fibicher, Catherine Lepdor, Camille Lévêque-Claudet and Eric de Chassey (in French). 104 pages, 24 x 28 cm, 74 colour ills. Published jointly by the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne and 5 Continents, Milan, 2013 Price: CHF 30. / 25. After the exhibition: CHF 35. / 30. Order from the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts Postage and packaging extra EXTRACT FROM THE CATALOG [ ] Alex Katz and Félix Vallotton work in the same field, that of Painting Painting in its noble sense, with a deliberately emphatic capital P to indicate that, through the act of perception, a painting by Katz or Vallotton suggests a reality that lies beyond what is visible on the surface. On the subject of Vallotton s landscapes, Antonin Artaud said that they are not interpretations but equivalences. 1 And, with regard to Katz, the poet Anne Beattie went further, saying In the best of his paintings, what begins as mimesis finally radiates as metaphor. 2 Bernard Fibicher, Peinture. Alex Katz & Félix Vallotton, Deux peintres singuliers la Peinture en commun, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, and 5 Continents (Milan), 2013. 1 Antonin Artaud, Demain, no. 82, 1920, taken from Antonin Artaud, Œuvres complètes, t. II (Paris: Gallimard, 1980), p. 198. 2 Alex Katz by Anne Beattie (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1987), p. 34. Page 4
FÉLIX VALLOTTON ALEX KATZ 1865 Born 28 December in Lausanne 1882 Moved to Paris and studied at the Académie Julian until 1887 1888 Considered emigrating to the USA 1892 Joined the Nabis with Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Ker-Xavier Roussel and Maurice Denis 1900 Naturalised French 1906 First solo exhibition at the galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris 1913 Exhibited three paintings at the Armory Show, New York 1925 Died on 29 December in Paris. Exhibition at the Musée Arlaud, Lausanne 1926 Félix Vallotton: Gedächtnisausstellung, Kunstmuseum Winterthur 1927 Félix Vallotton, Kunsthalle, Berne 1928 Félix Vallotton, Kunsthaus, Zurich 1938 Félix Vallotton, Kunstmuseum, Lucerne 1942 Félix Vallotton, Kunsthalle, Basel 1944 Félix Vallotton, Musée de l Athénée, Geneva 1953 Peintures de Félix Vallotton, 1865-1925, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne 1955 Félix Vallotton, Maison de la pensée française, Paris 1966-67 Vallotton, Musée national d Art moderne, Paris; Palais de Beaux-Arts, Charleroi 1971-73 An Exhibition of Prints and Drawings by Félix Vallotton, organised by the Travelling Exhibition Service of the Smithsonian Institution 1974 Félix Vallotton s Woodcuts, Museum of Modern Art, New York 1978-79 Félix Vallotton: Bilder, Zeichnungen, Graphik, Kunstmuseum, Winterthur; Kunsthalle, Bremen; Kunsthalle, Düsseldorf; Musée du Petit Palais, Paris; Musée Rath, Geneva 1992-93 Félix Vallotton, a Retrospective, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Indianapolis Museum of Arts; Vincent Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne 1995-96 Félix Vallotton, Kunsthalle der Hypo-Kulturstiftung, Munich; Museum Folkwang, Essen 1997-98 Félix Vallotton, Fondation Dina Vierny-Musée Maillol, Paris 2005 Félix Vallotton. Die Sonnenuntergänge/Les couchers de soleil, Kunstmuseum, Berne; Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny 2007 Félix Vallotton, Idylle am Abgrund/Idyll on the Edge, Kunsthaus, Zurich; Hubertus-Wald-Forum in the Hamburger Kunsthalle 2011 Le très singulier Vallotton, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon; Musée Cantini, Marseille 2013-14 Félix Vallotton (1965-1925). Le feu sous la glace, Grand Palais, Paris; Vincent Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum, Tokyo 1927 Born 24 June in Brooklyn, New York 1946-49 Studied at Cooper Union, New York 1949-50 Studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine 1954 First solo exhibition at the Roko Gallery, New York 1968 Moved into his studio in New York 1986 Alex Katz, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 1995 Alex Katz: American Landscape, Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden 1996 Alex Katz, I.V.A.M. Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia; Alex Katz Under the Stars: American Landscapes 1951-1995, Institute for Contemporary Art / P.S.1, New York 1998 Alex Katz: Twenty-Five Years of Painting, The Saatchi Collection, London 1999 Alex Katz, Galleria Civica di Arte Contemporanea, Trento 2000 Regarding Alex Katz, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh 2001 Alex Katz Small Paintings, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Addison Gallery of American Art, Boca Raton, Florida; Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City 2002 Alex Katz In Your Face, Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik, Bonn 2003 Alex Katz Cutouts, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg 2004 Alex Katz: Cartoons and Paintings, Albertina, Vienna 2005 Alex Katz, Centro de Arte Contemporaneo, Malaga; Alex Katz Collages, Colby College Art Museum, Waterville, Maine 2006 Alex Katz in Maine, Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, Maine; Alex Katz in European Collections, Langen Foundation, Neuss; Alex Katz Paints Ada 1957-2005, The Jewish Museum, New York; Alex Katz: Woodcuts and Linocuts, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine 2007 Alex Katz: New York, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin 2009 Alex Katz: An American Way Of Seeing, Sara Hildén Art Museum, Tampere; Musée de Grenoble; Museum Kurhaus Kleve 2010 Alex Katz Portraits, The National Portrait Gallery, London; Alex Katz Prints, Albertina, Vienna; Alex Katz: New Works, Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, Maine; Alex Katz: Prints, Paintings, Cutouts, Kunsthalle Würth, Schwäbisch Hall; Alex Katz, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia 2011 Alex Katz, Museum Ostwall, Dortmund; Alex Katz: Naked Beauty, Kestnergesellschaft Hannover 2012 Alex Katz, Tate St. Ives; Alex Katz, Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg bei Wien 2013 Alex Katz - Landscapes, Haus Konstrutiv, Zurich. Peinture. Alex Katz et Félix Vallotton, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne Page 5
EVENTS THURSDAYS AT THE MCBA Guided tour at 6.30 pm (in French) 18 April 2013, with Bernard Fibicher, director and curator 2 May 2013, with Sandrine Moeschler, museum educator 16 May 2013, with Bernard Fibicher 30 May 2013, with Camille Lévêque-Claudet, curator PAINTING WORKSHOPS Alex, Félix and you (in French) Inspired by two artists separated by almost a century, enjoy yourself mastering colours and framing your subject to create your own painting on canvas. With Isabelle Monnier, painter-plastician Pâkomuzé, Thursday 11 and Friday 12 April 2013, 10 am-12.30 pm (6-9 years), and 2-4.30 pm (10-13 years). CHF 10.- (registration required) FAMILY SUNDAYS Visits for children aged 6 and up with their family (in French) with Sandrine Moeschler Sunday 14 April 2013 and Sunday 9 June 2013, 3 pm IN MUSIC Jazz concert Thursday 25 April 2013 at 8 pm at the Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne In tribute to the music that has influenced Alex Katz since the 1950s and to the theme of the night. To be given in the room where Katz s and Vallotton s nocturnes will be exhibited Tobias Meier (saxophone) Christian Windfeld (percussions) Mattia Magatelli (bass) Free PERSONALISED VISITS For those with learning disabilities, Cristina Oliosi, an art historian and teacher (Centre Pompidou) will give a performance and workshop related to the exhibition Saturday 27 April 2013 at 9 am and 2 pm (duration 2h) (registration required at vaud@proinfirmis.ch or 021 321 34 34) DISCOVERY BOOKLET SCHOOLS Activities in the exhibition, from 7 years, free of charge Guided visits for teachers (in French) with Sandrine Moeschler Wednesday 27 March 2013 at 12.30 and 5 pm Places must be booked beforehand Guided visits for schools Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 9 am Places must be booked 10 days in advance Free PRIVATE GUIDED TOURS Private guided tour (in French, English or German) Available for groups of up to 30 people, upon request CHF 120.- + admission charges Page 6
PRESS IMAGES ALEX KATZ This reproduction authorisation is agreed on the basis of the following conditions: complete and unaltered reproduction of the works. Mention of the names of the authors, title of the works and copyright 2013, ProLitteris, Zurich. Web: Image definition shall not exceed 768x512 pixels and 72 dpi definition. The site must comprise the following notice: All rights reserved. Reproduction and all use of the works other than individual and private consultation are forbidden without prior authorisation. 1. 2 Alex Katz, Sunset 1, 2008, oil on canvas, 274 x 213,5 cm, collection of the artist 2013, ProLitteris, Zurich Félix Vallotton, Soir, Côte de Grâce, 1917, oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm, private collection 3 4 Alex Katz, Blizzard, 1995, oil on canvas, 279,5 x 244 cm, private collection Photo: Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Nora Rupp 2013, ProLitteris, Zurich Félix Vallotton, Les toits, rue Mérimée, vers 1903, oil on canvas, 60 x 42 cm, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, long-term deposit from the collection of Dr M. Bahro, 2007 Photo : Peter Schälchli, Zurich 5 6 Alex Katz, Green Scarf, 1975, oil on canvas, 122 x 152,5 cm, private collection. Photo: Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Nora Rupp 2013, ProLitteris, Zurich Félix Vallotton, Le foulard jaune, 1911, oil on canvas, 101,5 x 81 cm, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Henry Pascal bequest, 1946. Photo: Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Nora Rupp Page 7
PRESS IMAGES ALEX KATZ This reproduction authorisation is agreed on the basis of the following conditions: complete and unaltered reproduction of the works. Mention of the names of the authors, title of the works and copyright 2013, ProLitteris, Zurich. Web: Image definition shall not exceed 768x512 pixels and 72 dpi definition. The site must comprise the following notice: All rights reserved. Reproduction and all use of the works other than individual and private consultation are forbidden without prior authorisation. 7. 8 Alex Katz, Vincent and Vivien, 1987, oil on canvas, 183 x 183 cm, collection of the artist Photo : Paul Takeuchi, New York 2013, ProLitteris, Zurich Félix Vallotton, La chaste Suzanne, 1922, oil on canvas, 54 x 73 cm, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne, acquired with the assistance of the Gottfried Keller Foundation, an exceptional credit by the State of Vaud and a gift by the Friends of the Museum, 1993. Photo: Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Jean- Claude Ducret 9 10 Alex Katz, Study for Alex, 1970, ink on paper, 20,5 x 25,5 cm, collection of the artist 2013, ProLitteris, Zurich Félix Vallotton, Autoportrait, c. 1890, lead pencil on paper, 21,5 x 16,4 cm, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne. Photo: Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Nora Rupp 11 12 Alex Katz, Afternoon, 1993, oil on canvas, 320 x 244 cm, collection of the artist Photo : Paul Takeuchi, New York 2013, ProLitteris, Zurich Félix Vallotton, Autoportrait à la robe de chambre, 1914, oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne. Photo: Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Nora Rupp Page 8