Honoré Daumier and La Maison Aubert:
Political and Social Satire in Paris

19th Century Galleries
Mar 01, 2008 - Jun 01, 2008

To celebrate the bicentennial of the birth of the gifted 19th-century artist Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) the Zimmerli Art Museum has organized an exhibition featuring Daumier’s major prints and rare sculptures to emphasize the mastery of this skillful caricaturist of the July Monarchy (1830-1848) and the Second Empire (1852-1870).

The exhibition will feature Daumier’s most subversive works, which include the portrait-caricature series of The Celebrities of the Juste-Milieu (1832-35), comprised of 36 painted clay busts of politicians and other personalities of the July Monarchy. The Zimmerli Art Museum is the only American institution to own a complete set of this exceedingly rare series made from the original works now housed in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

These quickly modeled busts were kept in the workshop of publisher Charles Philipon’s La Maison Aubert,where artists referred to them to create politically charged lithographs. The series will be displayed vis-à-vis their lithographic counterparts to illustrate a still unique commission in the history of art: a series of three-dimensional statuettes made solely to be used as visual references for two-dimensional artworks.

Examples of Daumier’s non-political genre scenes, created primarily from the 1840s to the 1860s, will also be included. Daumier, an acute observer of the newly powerful bourgeoisie, recorded societal changes--ranging from fashionable pastimes of swimming and ice-skating to the new modes of transportation changing Parisian life--with verve, humor and poignancy.

The Florence Gould Foundation provided generous funding support towards the realization of this important Daumier exhibition and its accompanying catalogue, authored by Florence Quideau and Edouard Papet.

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.

From Here to the Horizon:
American Landscape Prints from Whistler to Celmins

The David and Ruth Robinson Eisenberg Gallery
Feb 16, 2008 - Jul 31, 2008

This American print survey presents more than a century of panoramic vistas featuring the horizon – the great demarcation between earth and sky, world and universe. Sweeping landscape views have inspired a wonder for nature and the immensity of world, as well as, perhaps, a wish to reach new levels (or horizons) of attainment. This exhibition will explore how different graphic artists have represented the topography of places nearby and faraway, real or imagined, whether dramatic wilderness, coastal scenes, rural settings, or places on the periphery of inhabited communities.

J.A.M. Whistler and Vija Celmins each depict a body of water in an evocative way, yet each artist’s approach is different. For his etching of the Venice lagoon, Whistler made a few wispy lines to suggest expanses of water and sky. Celmins’s lithograph of a section of the ocean’s surface is almost photo-realistic in detail, prompting simultaneous contemplation of the specific and the timeless, the finite and the infinite. This exhibition also includes early twentieth-century prints by John Taylor Arms, Gustave Baumann, Kerr Eby, Frances Gearhart, Childe Hassam, Paul Landacre, Blanche Lazzell, Grant Wood, and many others. Among the contemporary artists represented are John Beerman, Richard Bosman, April Gornick, Michael Mazur, Susan Shatter, and Altoon Sultan, as well as other examples from the Zimmerli’s Rutgers Archives for Printmaking Studios.

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.

Ways and Means: How Illustrators Plan a Picture Book

Roger Duvoisin Gallery
Feb 16, 2008 - Jul 20, 2008

Selected original illustrations with preparatory materials such as thumbnail sketches, storyboards, dummy books, trial layouts, character studies, research materials, preliminary sketches, and media trials, explore illustrators’ ways and means of planning a picture book.

Artists will include Robert Bender, Roger Duvoisin, Kimberly Bulcken Root, Jean and Mou-Sien Tseng, and Erika Weihs.

Hands-on activities are available for visitors in the gallery.

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.

Painting for the Grave:
The Early Work of Boris Sveshnikov

DuBrow Gallery
Apr 06, 2008 - Oct 12, 2008

This show focuses on oil paintings and drawings produced between 1940 and 1961 by the Soviet artist Boris Petrovich Sveshnikov (1927-1998). During this period Sveshnikov developed his signature idiosyncratic style and produced a large number of his most intense artworks. All works in the exhibition are part of the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union.

In 1946, when the nineteen-year-old artist was still pursuing a degree at the Moscow Institute of Applied and Decorative Arts, a false accusation of terrorist activity was leveled against him; it completely changed his life. Like millions of other innocent Soviet citizens, Sveshnikov was incarcerated, denied a fair trial and sent to one of Gulag labor camps where he remained until 1954. During the final years of his imprisonment, Sveshnikov was transferred from Ukhtizhmlag (Komi Autonomous Republic) to the Vetlosian camp, where he served as an indoor night watchman in a carpentry workshop. The nature of this position gave the artist an opportunity to produce a number of drawings in pencil and ink on paper that today comprise an important part of this exhibition and the Dodge collection.

Following his incarceration, Sveshnikov continued to work in his peculiar style of fantastic realism. Despite the fact that Sveshnikov is considered a powerful exponent of Russian nonconformist art, the artist never perceived himself as a dissident. On the contrary, Sveshnikov’s production is highly personal and apolitical. As the artist once stated: “what I painted at home I did for myself… All of my works are dedicated to the grave.”

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.

Art for the Dance:
Russian Costume and Stage Designs from the Riabov Collection

Lower Dodge Galleries (front)
Feb 02, 2008 - Jul 31, 2008

This exhibition takes advantage of the Zimmerli’s deep holdings of Russian art created for theater and dance. Russian theatrical design flourished at the end of the 19th century, but acquired international scope and recognition with the Ballets Russes at the beginning of the 20th century. The Ballets Russes, an enterprise launched by impresario Sergei Diaghilev in 1909 in Paris, became a true revelation for the Western public. Exotic themes, bright colors, daring decorations, splendid costumes and powerful choreography provoked a revolution in taste and fashion, not only affecting the theater but also the era’s general lifestyle.

A great part of the success of the Ballets Russes must be attributed to the artists who designed the sets and costumes. Very knowledgeable about the visual arts, Diaghilev invited the finest artists of his time to create the costumes and stage designs for his ballets. He collaborated largely with the artists from the Mir Iskusstva (World of Art) group, in which Diaghilev himself participated. The exhibition features works by such Mir Iskusstva artists as the group’s leader Aleksander Benois, Leon Bakst, and Konstantin Korovin. Diaghilev also invited artists of a more radical avant-garde approach, such as Natalia Goncharova.

The Ballets Russes paved the way for daring experiments in Russian avant-garde theater, as represented in this exhibition by Aleksandra Exter’s designs. It also helped to establish a powerful tradition of progressive and internationalist costume and stage design in the West. After the Russian Revolution, the Ballets Russes settled in Monte-Carlo and hired both Western European and Russian émigré artists, and many of the latter went on to work for large European theatrical companies. Mstislav Dobuzhinsky and Leon Zack, for example, designed for Grand Opéra in Paris and La Scala. Some of the artists, such as Sergei Soudeikin, traveled to the United States and designed for Broadway shows and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, bringing the traditions of Russian stage design to America.

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.

Russian Dance:
Selections from the Donation of Herbert and Ruth Schimmel

Russian Special Exhibition Gallery
Feb 02, 2008 - Jul 31, 2008

The Silver Age of Russian culture, which spans the 1890s to the 1920s, saw extraordinary developments in Russian literary, musical and visual arts. This flowering of creativity also included the art of dance, which achieved unparalleled mastery in 20th century Russia. The period included legendary dancers such as Nijinksy, Karsavina, Pavlova and Spessiva, as well as innovative choreographers such as Fokine, Massine, Balanchine and Nijinska. But Russian dance of the modernist period also attracted the era’s most gifted musicians and visual artists, including Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Leon Bakst and Alexandre Benois. It was the impresario Serge Diaghilev who brought together the multiple talents of the era to create the Ballets Russes, which shocked and delighted audiences in Western Europe and the Americas.

The Herbert and Ruth Schimmel Collection at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum is a precious resource for the study of early 20th century Russian dance. Through the collection’s rare books, programs, journals, photography and artwork, scholars and the general public may reconstruct the exciting world of modernist Russian dance. This exhibition will offer a tantalizing selection of the collection’s extraordinary holdings, including original programs from the Ballets Russes and its successor, The Ballets Russes de Monte Carlo. Other gems include rare and lavishly illustrated albums commemorating outstanding Russian ballerinas; sensual stage and costume designs; portfolios of drawings devoted to Nijinsky; posters and even videos of contemporary recreations of daring Diaghilev-era ballets, including the erotic Afternoon of a Faun.

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.

New Narratives: Contemporary Art from India

Apr 12, 2008 - Jul 31, 2008

This exhibition will be the first in the United States to include only very recent works of art that come directly from the studios of contemporary artists in India, as well as from private collections and galleries in the United States and India. Approximately 50 by fifteen artists have been selected to represent art-making in India today. In addition to paintings and sculptures, a section will be devoted to new media art, including installations and video. The title “New Narratives” refers the continuation of narration as a connective thread that binds contemporary artists to the rich Indian tradition of story-telling. The exhibition will be presented jointly at the Zimmerli Art Museum and the galleries at the Mason Gross School of the Arts.

Admission:
$3.00 per person for adults who are not members of the museum. Entrance to the museum is free at all times for members, all children under 18, and Rutgers University students, faculty, and staff with a valid I.D. In addition, the first Sunday of each month will be free to all.

Peter & the Wolf — Princeton Symphony Orchestra

The Nature of Music
Sunday, May 18, 2008 at 3:00 PM
Location: State Theatre
Tickets: P $35.00; A $30.00; B $25.00; C $15.00

This charming program introduces young children to the symphony orchestra through music inspired by the natural world. In Prokofiev’s perennial favorite, Peter and The Wolf (with a special guest narrator), individual instruments get to shine as they imitate Bird, Duck, Cat, Wolf, and the other characters in the story. The concert includes a demonstration of the instruments and their families, plus shorter works by Beethoven, Debussy, Vivaldi, and Johann Strauss that evoke birds, animals, the seasons, and the weather.

Sunday Vespers & Recital Series
Jan Piet Kniff, organ, New York, NY

Sung Vespers each Sunday evening at 6 o’clock followed by a free, 40-minute recital at 6:30

Christ Church has a long history of music making. The parish acquired its first pipe organ in 1788 and the first choir was formed in the late 1820s. Professional musicians have served the parish since the early nineteenth century.

In 2001, Christ Church celebrated the arrival of a new mechanical action pipe organ built by Richards, Fowkes and Company of Ooltewah, Tennessee, the firm’s opus 12. The organ has been widely acclaimed as one of the finest new handcrafted pipe organs in the northeast. A compact disc recording of the new organ by acclaimed Dutch organist Aart Bergwerff titled Bach in the New World is available from Raven Records (OAR-760).