New York investment broker Chester Dale’s 1962 bequest made the National Gallery of Art one of the leading repositories in North America of French art of the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries. “From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection,” on view in the Gallery’s West Building January 31⁊uly 31, will bring together 81 of the finest French and American paintings that Dale and his wife Maud, an artist and critic, assembled from the 1920s through the 1950s.
The exhibition and its accompanying book will explore the Dales’ passion and talent for acquiring great art. Many of the works in the show are among the most renowned masterpieces in the history of art, but due to a stipulation in the bequest, may only be seen at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.
“It is impossible to overestimate the transformative impact of the collection of Chester Dale and his wife Maud on the National Gallery of Art,” said Earl A. Powell III, director. “Their legacy has not only enriched the gallery, but the nation as well, by sharing these extraordinary works of French and American art with the American public and the world.”
The exhibition coincides with the gallery’s renovation of the northeast Main Floor galleries, where many of the Dale works are usually displayed chronologically and by artist. The exhibition in the Ground Floor central galleries, however, will be organized thematically for the first time †a nod to the exhibitions dedicated to still lifes, portraiture and other subjects that Maud Dale arranged in New York City during the late 1920s and early 1930s. Viewing the works through the lens of these themes provides a fresh look at the scope of the Dales’ collection.
The first gallery showcases key works by some of the Dales’ favorite artists: Henri Matisse’s “The Plumed Hat,” 1919 †Chester Dale’s first major purchase of French modern art, Auguste Renoir’s “A Girl with a Watering Can,” 1876, Vincent van Gogh’s “Girl in White,” 1890, and Amedeo Modigliani’s “Gypsy Woman with Baby,” 1919.
A section displaying paintings of women includes portraits by Renoir, Mary Cassatt, Edgar Degas, and Pablo Picasso, as well as nudes and studies of the female form by Renoir, Cassatt, Matisse and Gustave Courbet. Portraits of men are also featured, with works by Degas, Picasso, Paul Cézanne and Edouard Vuillard.
A room devoted to landscapes and cityscapes includes two of Claude Monet’s celebrated views of Rouen Cathedral, 1894, George Bellows’ “Blue Morning,” 1909, Eugène Boudin’s “The Beach at Villerville,” 1864, and Robert Henri’s “Snow in New York,” 1902. Another room is dedicated to the genre of still lifes, with examples by Cézanne, Matisse, Georges Braque and Henri Fantin-Latour.
The centerpiece of a gallery devoted to the idea of “monumental modernity” is the rich pairing of two large-scale works by two of the art world’s major figures: Edouard Manet’s “The Old Musician,” 1862, is hung opposite Picasso’s “Family of Saltimbanques,” 1905. The synergy in subject and composition between these two masterworks creates a dramatic pairing. The room also features Paul Gauguin’s “Self-Portrait,” 1889, van Gogh’s La Mousmé, “1888, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s “A Corner of the Moulin de la Galette,” 1892.
Rounding out the exhibition are portraits of the collectors themselves, by four of the key artists whose work they championed. Chester Dale is painted by Salvador Dalí and Diego Rivera; while Maud is depicted by George Bellows and Fernand Léger.
An illustrated catalog will present a study of the collection by curator Kimberly Jones.
The National Gallery of Art is on the National Mall between 3rd and 9th Streets at Constitution Avenue NW. For information, 202-737-4215 or www.nga.gov .
