scholarly journals Reviving Alexander Calder’s Man-Eater with Pennants: A Technical Examination of the Original Paint Palette

Heritage ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 1920-1937
Author(s):  
Abed Haddad ◽  
Megan Randall ◽  
Lynda Zycherman ◽  
Ana Martins
Keyword(s):  
Cross Sections ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art ◽  
Eds Analysis ◽  
Technical Examination ◽  
Red Lead ◽  
Early Primary ◽  
Titanium White ◽  
The Many ◽  
Color Scheme

Mat-Eater with Pennants, a rarely exhibited sculpture in Alexander Calder’s oeuvre, was commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and installed in 1945. To exhibit the large standing mobile in Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start (2021), the derelict sculpture had to be remediated; this initiated a collaborative investigation with conservation scientists, conservators, curators, and the Calder Foundation into the original paint colors hidden beneath layers of repaint. XRF analysis was carried out to elucidate the paints’ composition, followed by sampling for analysis to assess the paint stratigraphy and binders. Scrapings were analyzed by µ-FTIR and Raman spectroscopies; cross sections were examined with optical microscopy and analyzed with SEM-EDS. Analysis differentiated between the original paints, which contain Prussian blue, parachlor red, chrome yellow, and the many layers of overpaint, which contain titanium white, molybdate orange, a variety of β-Naphthol reds, red lead, and ultramarine. A model for Man-Eater, Mobile with 14 Flags, is also part of the museum’s collection, and was first considered as a point of reference for the original colors. Similar analysis, however, indicates that the maquette was painted after the Man-Eater was first installed, therefore is not representative of the original colors. In addition to investigating an early primary palette for Calder’s outdoor sculptures, this study helped develop the plan for the restoration of the original color scheme of Man-Eater.

scholarly journals Complex Relationships: A Materials Study of Édouard Vuillard’s Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist

Heritage ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 2903-2917
Author(s):  
Abed Haddad ◽  
Diana Hartman ◽  
Ana Martins
Keyword(s):  
Raman Spectroscopy ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art ◽  
Lead White ◽  
Chrome Yellow ◽  
Spectroscopic Analyses ◽  
Red Lead ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Edouard Vuillard

Édouard Vuillard (1868–1949) is well known for his small atmospheric paintings, often portraying his own home and family as the subject matter. Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist (1893) underwent at least one restoration treatment before being acquired by the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in 1934. The painting was treated again in 1954, but no analysis was carried out to understand the artist’s methods and materials at that time. To better understand the choices of Vuillard in Interior, Mother and Sister of the Artist, a comprehensive suite of imaging and spectroscopic analyses was undertaken, including: XRR, UVF and IRR Photography, XRF, Raman spectroscopy and SERS, and µ-FTIR. Statistical analysis on the XRF data using MCR-ALS further revealed some of the intricacies of Vuillard’s technique and color choices, where a large number of pigments were used in designing this intimate composition, including lead white, zinc white, bone black, ochre, umber, vermilion, Geranium lake, red lead, ultramarine, Prussian blue, chrome yellow, chrome orange, zinc yellow, strontium yellow, cadmium yellow, and a chromium oxide green.

Museum of Modern Art

1962 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 35-37
Author(s):  
Eileen Bowser
Keyword(s):  
Modern Art ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art

Ontological Laboratory in the Making: “After Year Zero” and the Resetting of Historical Imagination

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anselm Franke ◽  
Annett Busch ◽  
Katarzyna Bojarska
Keyword(s):  
Modern Art ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art ◽  
Historical Imagination

A conversation between Annett Busch, Anselm Franke, and Katarzyna Bojarska about the exhibition "After Year Zero. Universal Imaginaries - Geographies of Collaboration", shown at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw between June and August 2015.

The Museum of Modern Art, Rio de Janeiro

1956 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Affonso Eduardo Reidy
Keyword(s):  
Rio De Janeiro ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art

Dewey, Adorno, and the Purpose of Art

2017 ◽  
pp. 470-488
Author(s):  
Espen Hammer
Keyword(s):  
Modern Art ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The Many

The chapter focuses on Dewey’s claim that art should be viewed as a model of full, unrestricted human experience. Art, in this sense, is supposed to serve as a cognitive correction of certain key trends in modernity, including the transformation of experience in line with social and scientific requirements of abstraction, quantification, and instrumentality. Drawing on Adorno’s competing account, it is argued that Dewey’s position does not sufficiently grant art autonomy and that modern art, in particular, does not offer a direct alternative to the forms of experiential deformation identified by Dewey. Unlike Dewey, Adorno views art as radically separated from the everyday and able to offer insight only in an indirect, self-negating manner. Despite the many similarities between the two thinkers, the chapter argues that Dewey did not respond with sufficient care to aesthetic modernism, which by and large resisted the organicism he attributes to art in general.

Exhibition 58: Modern Architecture in England, Museum of Modern Art, 1937

2013 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 277-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Powers
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Modern Art ◽  
Modern Architecture ◽  
Museum Of Modern Art ◽  
Multiple Sequence ◽  
Sequence Of Events ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
New Yorkers

Exhibition 58: Modern Architecture in England, held between 10 February and 7 March 1937 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), was a notable event. Amidst claims that ‘England leads the world in modern architectural activity’, the exhibition ‘amazed New Yorkers’ and equally surprised English commentators. However, it has not subsequently received any extended investigation. The present purpose is to look at it as a multiple sequence of events, involving other exhibitions, associated publications and the trajectories of individuals and institutions, through which tensions came to the surface about the definition and direction of Modernism in England and elsewhere. Such an analysis throws new light on issues such as the motives for staging the exhibition, the personnel involved and associated questions relating to the role of émigré architects in Britain and the USA, some of which have been misinterpreted in recent commentaries.Hitchcock's unequivocal claim for the importance of English Modernism at this point still arouses disbelief, and raises a question whether it can be accepted at face value or requires explaining in terms of some other hidden intention.

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