Displaying items by tag: Israel Museum

To celebrate its 50th anniversary, the Israel Museum in Jerusalem is hosting a series of shows that pair work from its archeological and fine arts collections with loans from museums across the world, including the British Museum, the Louvre, and the Rijksmuseum. 

On view now through September 20, a loan from the Vatican Library joins together two volumes of Maimonides’ “Mishneh Torah,” an illuminated Hebrew manuscripts dating from the 15th century in Northern Italy, after 200 years apart.

The National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia will be the only U.S. venue to feature Richard Avedon: Family Affairs, from the collection of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. The exhibition, on view from April 1 through August 2, presents a compelling collective historical portrait of American cultural and political life during the late 1960s and 1970s.

Richard Avedon was born to a Jewish family in 1923; his father was a Russian-born immigrant and his mother from New York. Working until his death in 2004, he shaped America’s image of beauty, celebrity, and politics for over a half century. Famous at an early age, he was well-known for challenging conventions and exploring the boundaries between high art and social commentary. Family Affairs features two monumental projects by Avedon, both illustrating his highly innovative approach to portrait photography.

From the collection of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, 140 works by Marc Chagall, one of the best-loved artists of the 20th century, are now in Italy for the first time. So universal as to be known, recognized and loved by everyone, he of all the artists of the last century remained true to himself while going through wars and catastrophes as well as political and technological revolutions. Through drawings, some oil paintings, gouaches, lithographs, etchings and watercolors, the show reveals an artistic vision influenced by Chagallʼs great love for his wife Bella and grief over her early death in 1944. It traces the course of his life and his art, a mixture of the major European traditions, from his original Jewish and Russian culture to the meeting with French avant-garde painting.

Curated by Ronit Sorek and produced by DART Chiostro del Bramante and the Arthemisia Group in collaboration with the Israel Museum under the patronage of Roma Capitale, the exhibition Chagall. Love and Life will be held in the Chiostro del Bramante from March 16 to July 26, 2015.

Two New York philanthropists are donating a major collection of more than 300 ancient Greco-Roman and Near-Eastern glass vessels to The Israel Museum in Jerusalem.

The gift from Robert and Renee Belfer was announced by the museum Wednesday. It comes as the institution celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. An exhibition titled “A Roman Villa — The Belfer Collection” showcasing approximately 100 of the objects will be on view at The Israel Museum from June 5 through Nov. 21.

The collection is “one of the most important private holdings of antiquities anywhere,” museum Director James Snyder said in a telephone interview from Jerusalem.

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, today announced the acquisition of Gustav Klimt’s Die Medizin (Kompositionsentwurf) (1897-1898), the artist’s only remaining oil study for a controversial series of monumental paintings created for the University of Vienna’s Great Hall. Commissioned by Austria’s Ministry of Culture and Education in 1894, Die Medizin is one of three allegorical panels representing the themes of enlightenment Klimt developed for the Great Hall’s ceiling. All three works were later destroyed by retreating German SS forces in May 1945. Blending elements of neo-Baroque and Secessionist aesthetics, the work captures the emergence of Klimt’s iconic style and unconventional treatment of subject matter and themes. Representing a seminal moment in the artist’s development, this acquisition is the first painting by Klimt to enter the collection, joining several works on paper. It is on display in the Museum’s 19th century, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist galleries, within the context of the Museum’s presentation of fine art from the Renaissance through the 20th century.

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) is considered one of the most innovative artists of the early 20th century for his distinct style, which joined gold leaf and ornamentation in rich figurative compositions. In 1897, he became one of the founding members and president of the Vienna Secession, whose aim was to break away from historicism by providing a platform for unconventional young artists through exhibitions and publications.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has launched MetCollects, a new web series that grants visitors first glimpses of the Met’s recent acquisitions. MetCollects will highlight one work each month, selected from the hundreds of pieces that the museum acquires through gifts and purchases each year. Each MetCollects feature will include photography, curatorial commentary, and occasionally, informative videos.

Three MetCollects features are currently available on the museum’s website. The features explore the following recent acquisitions: a multimedia meditation on time and space by the modern artist William Kentridge, an early 19th century portrait by the French painter François Gérard, and the Mishneh Torah by the Master of the Barbo Missal. The Italian manuscript from around 1457 is jointly owned by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and the Met.

Since 2000, the Met has launched a number of web-based initiatives including its Connections series, which offers personal perspectives on works of art in the museum’s collection by 100 members of the museum’s staff, and 82nd and Fifth, which features 100 curators from across the Met who talk about the one work of art from the collection that changed the way they see the world.

To view the MetCollects series click here.

A long-lost impressionist masterpiece by Camille Pissarro will be sold at Sotheby’s London on February 5, 2014. ‘Boulevard Montmartre, Matinée de Printemps’ (1897) is expected to sell for £7 million to £10 million during the auction house’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale.

The painting belonged to the wealthy industrialist Max Silberberg, who amassed a considerable collection of 19th and 20th century artwork by masters such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, and Vincent Van Gogh. Between 1935 and 1937, Nazis forced Silberberg to sell his entire art collection before deporting him and his wife to Auschwitz, where they both perished. Silberberg’s son, Alfred, and his wife, Gerta, survived the Holocaust and fled to England. Following Alfred’s death in 1984, Gerta worked tirelessly to locate her late father-in-law’s collection. ‘Boulevard Montmartre’ was restituted to her in 2000 after having spent many years in the Israel Museum’s collection in Jerusalem. Gerta later loaned the painting back to the museum where it remained on public view until her death earlier this year.

Profits from the sale of the Pissarro painting will support the charitable causes championed by the late Gerta Silberberg.

Earlier this month Italy’s Culture Ministry said that it would delay the loan of Sandro Botticelli’s The Annunciation of San Martino alla Scala (1481) to the Israel Museum because the timing was “not appropriate.” Following the announcement, Israeli Culture Minister Limor Livnat did all she could to assure her Italian counterpart that there was no danger in the artwork going on view in Israel. While many speculated that Italy’s decision to delay the loan was due to conflict in Syria, museum officials claimed that conservation issues were to blame for the near postponement.

Ultimately, on Tuesday, September 17, 2013, the work went on view at the Israel Museum as planned. The Annunciation is a large fresco that was originally painted on a hospital wall in Florence. After suffering significant damage, it was removed in 1920 and transferred to the Uffizi Gallery, where it underwent restoration. James Snyder, the Israel Museum’s director, said that the work has a deep connection to the Holy Land since the annunciation story took place in Nazareth, and “the landscape in the fresco is the landscape of this ancient land.”  

The loan is part of celebrations in honor of Israel’s 65^th anniversary.

Amid Syria fears, Italy’s culture ministry in Rome announced that it will delay its loan of a famous 15^th-century painting by Sandro Botticelli to Israel because the timing is “not appropriate.” The Renaissance masterpiece The Annunciation of San Martino alla Scala was supposed to be sent to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem for inclusion in an exhibition opening on September 17, 2013.

The culture ministry said that it would send another painting of equal cultural and artistic content. The Uffizi Gallery organized the loan as part of celebrations for Israel’s 65^th anniversary.

The Annunciation is a large fresco that was originally painted on a hospital wall in Florence. It was removed in 1920 and transferred to the Uffizi, where it underwent restoration.

On Monday, April 29, 2013 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem announced that they had come together to jointly acquire the Mishneh Torah. A rare 15^th century illuminated Hebrew manuscript, the Mishneh Torah features text from Moses Maimonides, a Jewish writer and philosopher from the Middle Ages. The Met and the Israel Museum have agreed to exhibit the Torah at both institutions on a rotating schedule.

Created in 1457, the Mishneh Torah is the second of a two-volume manuscript and features six large illustrations and 32 smaller images in the style of Northern Italian Renaissance miniature painting. The Vatican owns the first volume of the manuscript. The Mishneh Torah was restored at the Israel Museum’s conservation lab and has been on loan to the institution since 2007.

The Mishneh Torah was to be the leading item at an auction of the collection of Michael and Judy Steinhardt on Monday at Sotheby’s. The manuscript, which was expected to bring between $4.5 million and $6 million at auction, was purchased by the museums before the sale began. Sotheby’s has declined to reveal how much the two institutions paid for the Mishneh Torah.

Michael Steinhardt, a hedge fund manager and philanthropist, and his wife, Judy, have amassed a renowned Judaica collection, which includes silver and decorative objects, textiles, and fine art. Steinhardt said, “The acquisition of this remarkable manuscript by the Israel Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art is poetic given Judy’s and my longstanding involvement with both institutions; it is particularly meaningful that this event marks the first significant collaboration between the two museums.”