Julia Friedman :: JuliaFriedman.org

On “A ‘new’ Vermeer in Dresden”

Posted on May 22, 2019, 12:31 PM, by jfriedman, under Johannes Vermeer.

My latest article for The New Criterion explores how one of Vermeer’s iconic paintings known for its minimalist subtlety, was, in fact, didactic and obvious. The “Girl Reading a Letter At an Open Window,” now in Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, originally contained an image of a giant Cupid painting on the back wall. The Cupid was overpainted after Vermeer’s death, adding to the mystery of the subject matter. Now the work is undergoing restoration to its original, unambiguously campy love-story state.

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Tags: Art History, conservation, cupid, iconography, Johannes Vermeer, painting, punctum, School of Delft, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, studium, visual poetry

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Over the past seven years Wayne Thiebaud has made dozens of paintings, drawings, and etchings of clowns. Like much of his work, this latest series is in a sense autobiographical. During his boyhood in Long Beach he looked forward to the visits of a traveling Ringling Brothers circus and sometimes helped out behind the scenes in exchange for tickets. The costumes, faces, and antics of the clowns were the beginning of a lifelong fascination for him. The clown series is its culmination, in which the now 100-year-old artist revisits those early memories. In December 2019 Wayne Thiebaud unveiled a selection from his clown series at the San Francisco gallery founded by his son, Paul Thiebaud. The Laguna Art Museum exhibition will be a version of the Paul Thiebaud Gallery exhibition, featuring more than forty works. Fully illustrated with 56 artwork reproductions. Essay by Dr. Julia Friedman. Interview with the artist by Janet Bishop, the Thomas Weisel Family Chief Curator and Curator of Painting and Sculpture at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Hardcover: 100 pages; ISBN-10: 0578798573ISBN-13: 978-0578798578
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On “A ‘new’ Vermeer in Dresden”

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