Vulnerable
Honoré Daumier, 1850, Musée Des Beaux Arts de Montréal
Claudio Parmiggiani, 1999, Musée Des Beaux Arts de Montréal
Musee des Beaux Arts de Montreal
George Segal
New York 1924 – South Brunswick, New Jersey, 2000
1993
Plaster, wood, acrylic paint, various materials
244 x 363 x 217 cm
Purchase, Horsley and Annie Townsend Bequest, inv. 1994.1a-j
Although its earliest phases have been associated with the Pop Art movement, the work of Segal actually falls within a humanist tradition. His casts of people in everyday environments are intended as a moving commentary on the alienation experienced by human beings. In the early 1980s, Segal dropped colour and realist props from his compositions and began to paint his backgrounds black. "I am looking a lot at Rembrandt, I am looking at Old Master paintings that are really a flat canvas that magically has been painted to resemble a three-dimensional sculpture. And I am trying the reverse. I am making a three-dimensional sculpture to see what happens if I can indicate some of those strange lights and darks that are purely imaginative." First exhibited in 1993 at the Sidney Janis Gallery in New York, this work presents itself simultaneously as a realist scene and as an allegory. Seated in harsh light in a world completely black, her slightly bent back turned towards the viewer, this women is shown at a mundane moment of the day - in her extreme exhaustion, she embodies the weariness of the world.
© The George and Helen Segal Foundation / SODRAC, Montréal / VAGA, New York (2020)
Pierre-Eugène-Émile Hébert, 1828 – 1893, Musé des Beaux Arts de Montréal
Musee des Beaux Arts de Montreal
Paul-Émile Borduas
Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, 1905 – Paris 1960
1941-1946
Oil on canvas
70.7 x 63.5 cm
Gift of Dr. and Mrs. Max Stern, inv. 1979.26
© Estate of Paul-Émile Borduas / SOCAN (2020)
Alberto Giacometti, 1932 (cast 1940), Bronze, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 1976
DIMENSIONS: 9 1/8 x 35 1/16 x 23 5/8 inches (23.2 x 89.1 x 60 cm)
“In a group of works made between 1930 and 1933, Alberto Giacometti used the Surrealist techniques of shocking juxtaposition and the distortion and displacement of anatomical parts to express the fears and urges of the subconscious. The aggressiveness with which the human figure is treated in these fantasies of brutal erotic assault graphically conveys the content. The female, seen in horror and longing as both victim and victimizer of male sexuality, is often a crustacean or insectlike form. Woman with Her Throat Cut is a particularly vicious image: the body is splayed open, disemboweled, arched in a paroxysm of sex and death. Eros and Thanatos, seen here as a single theme, are distinguished and treated separately in two preparatory sketches.
Body parts are translated into schematic abstract forms like those in Cage of 1930–31, which includes the spoon shape of the female torso, the rib and backbone motif, and the pod shape of the phallus. Here a vegetal form resembling the pelvic bone terminates one arm, and a phalluslike spindle, the only movable part, gruesomely anchors the other; the woman’s backbone pins one leg by fusing with it; her slit carotid immobilizes her head. The memory of violence is frozen in the rigidity of rigor mortis. The psychological torment and the sadistic misogyny projected by this sculpture are in startling contrast to the serenity of other contemporaneous pieces by Giacometti, such as Woman Walking.” — Lucy Flint
Salvador Dali
1954
Frida Kahlo, 1944, Naïve Art (Primitivism): Dolores Olmedo Collection, Mexico City, Mexico
Artemisia Gentileschi, 1630-1635
Arnold Böcklin, 1896, Symbolism: Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland
Fuseli
Rembrandt, 1631
Andromeda is Rembrandt's first full length mythological female nude history painting inspired by a story in Ovid's Metamorphoses
Nate Lowman, 2013, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Purchased with funds contributed by David Shuman, 2013
Laced with sardonic humor, Nate Lowman’s paintings, photographs, sculptures, and installations use strategies of aggregation and subtle transformation to unearth narratives buried in our collective psyche. Safe Travels (2013) re-creates nine images from airplane safety guides. Enlarged and stripped of context, the panels are unmoored from their instructional purpose. Images that are meant to do the sober work of preparing passengers for emergencies suddenly appear suffused with unintended humor and suggestions of sexuality and violence. The dishonesty of these calm, idealized images is revealed, as is their ambiguous meaning; Lowman’s arrangement emphasizes the absurdity inherent in sanitized mass visual culture, where real danger or stark reality is often cheerily replaced by more palatable images and stories. Much of Lowman’s work, which includes paintings of smiley faces, bumper stickers, and air fresheners, similarly troubles the seemingly stable and simple meanings of ubiquitous visual signifiers. Lowman is not only interested in cultural semantics, however; he also subtly explores notions of craft. Although even tones and sharp lines give Safe Travels the look of silk screens, they are painstakingly painted by hand. By faithfully re-executing these images in a vaunted artistic medium, Lowman draws attention to the creative work of anonymous graphic artists and the ever-hazy distinction between design and high art.
Goya, 1799, Los Caprichos
Goya, c.1796 - c.1797
James McNeill Whistler, 1857, Realism, Symbolism
Rene Magritte, 1948; Brussels, Belgium, Surrealism
Salvador Dali
1944
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid, Spain
Eugene Delacroix, 1827, Romanticism, Louvre, Paris, France; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, US
Inspired by Lord Byron’s tale of Sardanapalus, the Assyrian king, Delacroix created this massive 12 by 16 foot masterpiece. As the tale goes, once, Sardanapalus learned he was facing military defeat, he ordered all his possessions destroyed, including his many concubines, servants and animals, before he committed suicide. This painting beautifully exemplifies the Romantic themes of bold colors, tragic imagery, and exotic decor. Delacroix used many literary sources as inspiration, including Shakespeare, Goethe and Byron, whom Delacroix largely admired. The Sardanapalus theme also inspired a cantata by Hector Berlioz and an opera by Franz Liszt.
Fuseli
Oskar Kokoschka, 1914, Expressionism
Rene Magritte, 1965, Surrealism
Rene Magritte, 1948; Brussels, Belgium, Surrealism
Pablo Picasso, 1970, Expressionism
José Jiménez Aranda (1837–1903): Museo del Prado
A young, completely nude slave sits on a carpet. The sign hanging from her neck bears a Greek inscription (Rose, 18 years old, on sale for 800 coins) that offers her as merchandise at a market
Goya, 1799
Goya, 1799, Los caprichos
Henri Rousseau, 1910, Naïve Art (Primitivism): Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, NY, US
Goya, 1798-1800
Goya, 1808-1812, Städel, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Henry Fuseli, 1741-1825
Durer, 1498
Durer, 1498
Otto Dix, 1913
Enrique Simonet, 1904
Rembrandt, 1631
Henry Fuseli, 1780, Romanticism
Hiroshi Sugimoto, 1999, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York Commissioned by Deutsche Bank AG in consultation with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin
Kansuke Yamamoto, 1949, Surrealism
SM Sultan, Expressionism, c.1975
Betty Goodwin, 1985
Kathe Kollwitz, 1900, Gift of Dr. Denis M. Shaw and Susan Evans, McMaster Museum of Art
Dimensions: Plate: 23.9 x 63.3 cm (9 3/8 x 24 15/16 in.) Support: 53.8 x 76 cm (21 3/16 x 29 15/16 in.)
Medium: Etching with aquatint and drypoint on paper