A Conversation about Cubism and Trompe l'Oeil with Co-Curator Elizabeth Cowling and Beth Gersh-Nesic, May 25 on Zoom

 

Cubism and the Trompe L’Oeil with Elizabeth Cowling and Beth Gersh-Nesic (in English)

May 25 @ 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm EDT

|FREE

Thursday, May 25, 2023
11am PT / 12pm MT / 1pm CT / 2pm ET
Federation of Alliances Françaises USA
In English

Please join us for a conversation with co-curator of  Cubism and the Trompe L’Oeil Tradition, and one of the world’s leading experts on Picasso, Elizabeth Cowling, Professor Emerita, Edinburgh University, and art historian Beth S. Gersh-Nesic, whose translations of André Salmon’s art criticism touch on this aspect of Picasso’s work.  They will discuss how this exhibition came about, from concept to installation, and the various themes presented in the exhibition which help us understand the relationship between Cubism and trompe l’oeil still life paintings and decoration. They will also discuss how this exhibition relates to Dr. Cowling’s extensive body of work on Picasso.

Elizabeth Cowling is Professor Emerita in the History of Art and Honorary Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She has published widely on European Modernism and specialised in the work of Picasso. Publications include Picasso: Style and Meaning (2002), Visiting Picasso: The Notebooks and Letters of Roland Penrose (2006), and Picasso Portraits (2016).  She has co-curated major exhibitions, including Dada and Surrealism Reviewed (ACGB, 1978), On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, De Chirico and the New Classicism, 1910-1930 (Tate, 1990), Picasso: Sculptor/Painter (Tate, 1994), Matisse Picasso (Tate; Grand Palais, Paris; MOMA, New York, 2002-3), and Picasso Looks at Degas (Clark Art Institute, Williamstown; Museum Picasso, Barcelona, 2010-11).  Cubism and the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition, which she curated with Emily Braun, ran at the Metropolitan Museum, New York, between October 2022 and January 2023.

Dr. Gersh-Nesic specializes in the history of Cubism and the Cubist critics, most notably the poet/critic André Salmon who published the first history of Cubism in his book La Jeune Peinture française (1912). This exhibition illustrates his chapter on collage in La Jeune Sculpture française (written in 1914 and published in 1919, after World War I).  Dr. Gersh-Nesic translated both books, published together in André Salmon on French Modern Art (Cambridge University Press, 2005).  A revised translation of La Jeune Peinture française is now available in Pablo Picasso, André Salmon and “Young French Painting” (Za Mir Press, 2022), which  features an introduction by renowned Salmon expert Dr. Jacqueline Gojard,  Professor Emeritus of Literature, University of Paris III (Sorbonne Nouvelle), and her numerous additions to Dr. Gersh-Nesic’s original annotations.  Their previous collaboration focusses on the relationship between Picasso and Salmon: Pablo Picasso and André Salmon: The Painter, the Poet, and the Portraits (Za Mir Press, 2019).

Above image:
Juan Gris, Spanish, Madrid 1887–1927 Boulogne-sur-Seine
Still Life with a Guitar, 1913
Oil on canvas 26 × 39 1/2 in. (66 × 100.3 cm)
Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, 1998
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

This event will be in English and is on Zoom and free for all Alliance Française members, AATF members, and invited guests of the presenters or publicist. Non-members or persons who have no AF chapter nearby can purchase tickets ($10). Please click here to register.