This exhibition presents the private collection of Henry and Rose Pearlman, which includes an outstanding selection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by artists such as Cézanne, Degas, van Gogh, Manet, Pissarro, Gauguin, and Modigliani.
Cézanne and the Modern: Masterpieces of European Art from the Pearlman Collection
October 25, 2014 – January 11, 2015
Tarascon Stagecoach (La diligence de Tarascon), 1888
Vincent van Gogh
Dutch, 1853-1890
Tarascon Stagecoach (La diligence de Tarascon), 1888
Oil on canvas
Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art MuseumVincent van Gogh described this painting in a letter to his brother, Theo, and drew a small sketch of it at the bottom of the page. He referenced a popular novel by Alphonse Daudet, titled Tartarin de Tarascon (1872), in which a personified stagecoach nostalgically laments the bygone days before it was replaced by the railroad in France. A sense of longing for these days gone by suffuses the painting, which van Gogh made just a few years after the invention of the automobile.
After the Bath: Woman Drying Herself, 1890s
Edgar Degas
French, 1834-1917
After the Bath: Woman Drying Herself, 1890s
Oil on canvas
Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art MuseumThis intimate painting of a woman drying herself after a bath is one of a series created by Degas late in his career. The painting captures Degas’s subject in a contorted pose as she leans over a piece of furniture, perhaps attempting to dry her torso. Her hair is shown falling down the right side of the canvas, painted in broad, confident strokes of dark paint. Traces of fingerprints in the background reveal that Degas used his hands in addition to a brush to apply paint.
Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1904-1906
Paul Cézanne
French, 1839-1906
Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1904-1906
Oil on canvas
Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art MuseumBetween 1904 and 1906 Cézanne painted numerous views of Mont Sainte-Victoire, the imposing mountain that rises in splendid isolation above the plains outside Aix-en-Provence. Nearly all of Cézanne’s views of Mont Sainte-Victoire are horizontal. Here the vertical canvas accommodates a deep landscape of superposed bands; the sky above the mountain is reduced, creating a solidity and stability that suggest this is one of the last views in the series, created when Cézanne had fully mastered the motif.
Still Life with Carafe, Bottle, and Fruit, 1906
Paul Cézanne
French, 1839-1906
Still Life with Carafe, Bottle, and Fruit, 1906
Watercolor and soft graphite on pale buff wove paper
Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art MuseumAt once ephemeral and monumental, this large still life is believed to be one of the final three watercolors made by Cézanne. The transparent and opaque forms in this work dissolve into a web of vibrating lines and overlapping color patches. Rather than indicating definitive shapes, Cézanne gives a sense of the way objects interact with each other and with the space around them. Repeated round forms, in the carafe, the apple, and the cluster of grapes, give the composition a sense of harmony.
Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1904-1906
Paul Cézanne
French, 1839-1906
Mont Sainte-Victoire, 1904-1906
Oil on canvas
Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art MuseumBetween 1904 and 1906 Cézanne painted numerous views of Mont Sainte-Victoire, the imposing mountain that rises in splendid isolation above the plains outside Aix-en-Provence. Nearly all of Cézanne’s views of Mont Sainte-Victoire are horizontal. Here the vertical canvas accommodates a deep landscape of superposed bands; the sky above the mountain is reduced, creating a solidity and stability that suggest this is one of the last views in the series, created when Cézanne had fully mastered the motif.
Trees Forming an Arch, ca. 1904-1905
Paul Cézanne
French, 1839-1906
Trees Forming an Arch, ca. 1904-1905
Watercolor and graphite on buff wove paper
Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art MuseumThis watercolor shows Cézanne’s delicate, harmonious touch in the technically challenging medium of watercolor. Cézanne’s watercolors are not studies for his oil paintings, but rather finished works that he considered equally important. He started with a graphite underdrawing that provided the skeleton for the composition, and then added patches of color on top. These watercolor and graphite components share multiple tasks: denoting lines, establishing volume, and suggesting areas of shadow or airy space. Cézanne used the color of the paper to indicate areas of light and to create contrast with the densely painted sections.
Young Woman in a Round Hat, ca. 1877-1879
Édouard Manet
French, 1832-1883
Young Woman in a Round Hat, ca. 1877-1879
Oil on canvas
Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art MuseumThis unfinished painting, never exhibited in Manet’s lifetime, has provoked speculation as to whether its subject was a friend or a model. She is dressed in a walking suit, and the object she carries has been identified as a parasol, umbrella, or walking stick. The picture epitomizes what the poet and critic Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) considered a defining feature of images of modern life: the changing styles of ladies’ dresses.
Still Life: Apples and Pears in a Round Basket, 1872
Camille Pissarro
French, 1830–1903
Still Life: Apples and Pears in a Round Basket, 1872
Oil on canvas
Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art MuseumOne of Pissarro’s rare still lifes, this work dates from the year after his move to Pontoise, a village north of Paris. Cézanne also moved there in 1872, and the two painters often worked side-by-side outdoors, experimenting with the Impressionist techniques pioneered by some of their friends. Although this still life was painted indoors, it exhibits Pissarro’s use of visible brushstrokes and the colorful cast shadows that are among the hallmarks of the Impressionist style.
The Sacred Grove, 1884
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
French, 1864–1901
The Sacred Grove, 1884
Oil on canvas
Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art MuseumHenri de Toulouse-Lautrec made this monumental painting, a parody of academic artist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes’s The Sacred Grove, as a young student. Lautrec mimics the style of the original allegorical composition, while alterations create biting humor. A clock face appears on the ancient portico, a giant tube of paint is held aloft by one of the Arts, and a circular loaf of bread in the hands of a kneeling youth substitutes for a crown of laurel. Lautrec painted himself standing with his back to the viewer, urinating irreverently on the sacred ground.
Jean Cocteau, 1916
Amedeo Modigliani
Italian, 1884-1920
Jean Cocteau, 1916
Oil on canvas
Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, on long-term loan to the Princeton University Art MuseumIn the spring of 1916, Picasso brought the poet Jean Cocteau to meet the artists and poets who habitually gathered in the Parisian neighborhood of Montparnasse. The Right Bank poet apparently irritated the group of Left Bank friends with his pretentions: the poet Pierre Reverdy recounted later that Cocteau talked incessantly, his voice like the rain beating on the roof, while everyone ignored him. Modigliani and his friend Moïse Kisling both painted Cocteau, and Modigliani’s devastating portrait captures his vanity.
Overview
In the mid-twentieth century, businessman Henry Pearlman, the founder of Eastern Cold Storage Company, assembled an extraordinary collection of European modern art. He was particularly drawn to the work of Paul Cézanne, one of the most pivotal figures in the development of modernism. Pearlman acquired some twenty-four of Cézanne’s paintings, including one of the most significant private holdings of the artist’s watercolors. This exhibition is the first public tour of the Pearlman collection since the 1970s.
The vibrant colors, strong compositions, and bold brushwork of the School of Paris, including Chaïm Soutine and Amedeo Modigliani, reverberate throughout the collection. They accompany works by influential older artists: Édouard Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Camille Pissarro. Henry Pearlman found living with these works of art in both his home and office a transformative experience, which he aimed to share with others by lending his collection. The present international tour of the Pearlman Collection has been organized in this spirit of generosity.
To complement the Pearlman holdings, five portraits by Soutine from a private collection are also on view.
Explore the exhibition further with the mobile-ready website developed by the Princeton University Art Museum. Learn more.
Pearlman
In the early 1940s, Henry Pearlman (1895-1974) purchased a series of early Italian, French, and American paintings which he described as “decorative but neither provocative nor moving.” His approach to collecting underwent a sea change in 1943, after the acquisition of Chaïm Soutine’s View of Céret. The dizzying landscape of houses in a French Pyrénées village with paint, as Pearlman wrote, “slashed on as if by a trowel,” inspired Pearlman to sell his previous acquisitions and dedicate himself to the study and accumulation of modern art.
Pearlman made his fortune through his Eastern Cold Storage Insulation Corporation, which dealt in refrigerated shipping. He applied his business acumen to the art world, and delighted in the strategic buying, selling, and trading of art. Pearlman endeavored to learn as much as he could about the artists whose work he purchased, studying their biographies and making the acquaintance of those who were still alive. He even occasionally traveled to the locations depicted in paintings so as to feel a closer connection to the subject matter. Pearlman collected art for his own edification, but also endeavored to share his collection with the public. In 1976, two years after Pearlman’s death, the collection began its long-term residence at the Princeton University Art Museum, where students and members of the public can enjoy it to this day.
Cézanne
Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) was born in Aix-en-Provence, in southern France, the landscape that became his most frequent subject. In his youth, he defied his banker father’s wishes by leaving the university where he was studying law to become an artist. He showed in two Impressionist Salons before removing his art from public view for decades due to his sensitivity to criticism.
Cézanne once announced that he wished to paint nature as if no one had ever painted it. Indeed, he developed a completely new way of painting, eschewing traditional forms of perspective and laying down paint in parallel patches of color. During his lifetime, Cézanne’s art was controversial because it diverged so drastically from the norm. At the end of his life, however, young artists would visit Cézanne at his home in Aix to learn from him. He became immensely influential – a pivotal artist in the early history of modernism.
The paintings in the Pearlman Collection beautifully show Cézanne’s artistic range. They include a small, intimate portrait of the artist’s son and one of his last views of Mont Sainte-Victoire, the Provençal mountain he revisited many times throughout his career.
Soutine
In addition to the paintings by Chaïm Soutine in the Pearlman Collection, five portraits by the artist from the Lewis Collection are on view. All five depict anonymous subjects, but each is deeply individuated, showing Soutine’s careful observation of the particularities of each person he painted.
Soutine (1893-1943) was born into a poor family in Smilovitchi, Lithuania, and grew up in an Orthodox Jewish community. After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vilna, Soutine moved to Paris and enrolled at the École des Beaux Arts.
Critics and collectors saw Soutine as the artistic successor to Cézanne. Like the older artist, Soutine avoided traditional forms of perspective, especially in his landscapes. Trees and buildings are tipped upward, offering a disorienting view that borders on abstraction. But Soutine’s energetic application of paint stood in contrast to the work of his predecessors. He took advantage of the three-dimensional quality of oil paint, sculpting it on the surface of the canvas in thick strands. After his death, Soutine would serve as a key influence to such important artistic figures as Willem de Kooning, Lucian Freud, and Francis Bacon.