PRESS
RELEASE – 21 March
2011
Old
Master Prints go on show at IMMA
An exhibition of
Old
Master prints by many of the most famous artists ever to work with
print-making
opens to the public at the Irish
Museum of Modern
Art
(IMMA) on Wednesday 23 March 2011. Works by Albrecht Dürer, Francisco
de
Goya, William Hogarth and Rembrandt van Rijn are all featured in
Old Master Prints: The
Madden
Arnholz Collection, which is drawn from the Madden
Arnholz
Collection. It was donated to the Royal Hospital Kilmainham (RHK) in
1989
by Claire Madden, prior to the opening of the Museum in 1991.
The
exhibition is curated by Janet and John Banville.
The works included in
the
exhibition are by German, Flemish, Dutch and British artists, spanning
the
period between the beginning of the 16th century and the early
20th
century. German printmakers of the Dürer period are well represented,
but
the most comprehensive part of the show is the remarkable group of prints
by,
and after, William Hogarth. While not complete, this is a valuable
group,
with several proofs of Hogarth’s single prints and sequences
of
‘modern moral subjects’ in various states.
William
Hogarth
(1697-1764) was one of England’s
most innovative and versatile artists. His influence was so great
that
the phrase “The Age of Hogarth” is now frequently used to
describe
the first half of the 18th century. Hogarth was renowned
in
particular for his use of satire to comment on the morals of his day.
Many of the subjects he addressed, such as crime, political
corruption,
sexuality, patriotism and charity, gave his work a distinctively
modern
feel. His print series had a sequential character which could be said
to
anticipate the 20th century graphic and comic strip art and
even
film.
Also highlighted in
the
exhibition is the work of Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528).
Born in
Nuremberg, Germany,
he was regarded as one of the greatest artists of the
Northern
Renaissance. He was also a painter, mathematician and theorist.
The
renowned
humanist scholar Erasmus of Rotterdam paid his contemporary Dürer the
highest
compliment, saying that he achieved with his black and white prints what
most
artists could only express in colour. This is evident in the
exhibition
in Dürer’s engraving The Great Horse (1505), where the detail of shadow with
line
and cross-hatching are remarkable.
Another figure whose prints are just as
well
known as his paintings is Dutch artist Rembrandt van Rijn
(1606-1669),
considered one of the greatest painters and printmakers in
European
history. His etching The Great
Jewish
Bride (1635), featured in the show, glistens with light.
The Old Master
prints
were left to Claire Madden in 1982, after the death of her daughter
Étain Madden-Arnholz at
the
age of forty-three. Étain
had been married to Dr. Friedrich ‘Fritz’ Arnholz, to whom
the
Collection belonged, and who died in 1968. He was born in Berlin
in 1897, into a wealthy merchant family and studied medicine.
Graduating
in 1924, he worked as a doctor in his native city until 1939 when,
being
Jewish, he was forced to flee Germany
for Britain –
his
brother was murdered by the Nazis in Auschwitz.
Moving to London,
he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Second World War and
later
set up a private practice in Fulham where he was to work for the rest of
his
life.
In London
in the early 1960s, Arnholz met his future wife, Étain, who was some 30
years
younger. She had been brought up in England
but was born in Ireland
to politically active parents, so she never lost her strong sense of herself
as
an Irish patriot. Étain was a student of philosophy, and Fritz, who
had
studied under Artur Schnabel, was a pianist of professional standard.
Writing on the exhibition, John Banville says that Arnholz even bought
a
Bechstein grand piano with his reparation money from the post-war
German
government. The piano had to be hoisted through the first-floor window
of
his surgery to the amazement of his
neighbours.
Banville goes on to
say
that Fritz was a lifelong collector of books, “how I envied his
first
editions of Rilke and Thomas Mann! – But his first love was for
prints,
especially those of Hogarth and Dürer. However he was no slave
to
reputation and some of the finest things among his collection are the works
by
unknown hands, and it is from these that we have mainly made our choices
for
the present exhibition.” The avid collector, Arnholz built up
a
significant collection both in Britain
and through regular visits to the continent.
“This trove of European art, and craft— Dr Arnholz was as much
a
connoisseur of engraving skills as he was of artistic inspiration—is
a
testament to a remarkable man and his equally remarkable wife,”
says
Banville.
The Madden
Arnholz
Collection was generously donated by Claire Madden to the Royal Hospital
in 1989 in memory of her daughter
and son-in-law. It includes some 1,200 Old Master
prints
– the collection of engravings by Hogarth alone numbers over 500
works
and is among the most comprehensive print collections in existence by
the
artist. The Collection also includes works donated in October 1998
following
Claire Madden’s death. These include a large collection of
books
containing prints by the English printmaker Thomas Bewick and his family,
as
well as unusual versions of the prints on silk and one of
Bewick’s
printing blocks, of which will also be included in the
exhibition.
The
original Madden Arnholz Collection was first shown at the RHK in 1987 before
it
was donated and shown again at IMMA featuring the Hogarth prints in 2007.
This exhibition consists of approximately 35 books from the Thomas
Bewick
collection and 80 Old Master prints.
The exhibition
continues
until 12 June
2011.
Admission
is free.
Opening
hours: Tuesday – Saturday: 10.00am - 5.30pm
except Wednesday: 10.30am
-
5.30pm
Sundays and Bank Holidays: 12noon -
5.30pm
Closed: Mondays and Friday 22
April
For further
information and images please contact
Vanessa Cowley or Patrice
Molloy at Tel: + 353 1 612 9900; Email:
press@imma.ie.
21
March
2011
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