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New
York University Frame Conference
A report by Lynn Roberts
The frame conference, From
Classicism to Expressionism: A Synthetic Approach to the Frame,
organized by Lisa Koenigsberg, was held at New York University
and the Brooklyn Museum of Art from 18 to 20 March 2004. The
standard of the papers was generally high, but some presentations
stood out, either for the enthusiasm of the speaker or for their
contribution to academic debate. One of the most notable examples
of both was Michael D. Hall's riveting lecture, 'Main Street
Profiles: Pictures, Frames and the American Scene'. This delivered
a cataract of 20th-century American frame designs, examining
their physical structure and the influence on their design of
primitive and Oriental art.
Marco Grassi, the conservator
and consultant, gave an intriguing paper on 'Early Renaissance
Looking-Glass Frames', copiously illustrated with examples of
those frames where slots held sliding shutters to cover the glass,
some still retaining their painted shutters. The style of these
small, intimate objects ranged from Classical aedicular to Mannerist,
dying out in the face of the larger Baroque glasses of the 17th
century; the two previous centuries had produced some delightfully
elaborate confections of putti, scutcheons, masks and
crests.
Marilena Mosca's paper, 'Frame
Carvers and Designers in the Medici Workshops', was an extremely
able examination of 17th-century Florentine botteghe and
some of their most notable craftsmen, Il Volterrano, Foggini,
Crosten and Marmi, illustrated with examples of their work and
by designs from the Pitti Palace. These and others will appear
in her book, written with Jennifer Celani, The Medici Frames
(Cornici Medicee), to be published in spring 2005.
New light was shed on Degas and
his frames by Elizabeth Easton of the Brooklyn Museum; she considered
not only the artist's designs in his sketchbooks, but how they
were brought to life by Cluzel, his framemaker, and by the understanding
of his patrons, Mr and Mrs Havemeyer. She also noted that some
of the few painted Degas frames on his work in American collections
contain titanium white in all the various paint strata, thus
dating those paint layers after 1921. Like the Havemeyers, the
American collector Dr Albert C. Barnes was interested in Impressionist
frames, and like them used American-made versions of the artists'
designs, which have previously been regarded as original.
Eva Mendgen spoke on the frames
of Stuck, Klimt, Munch, Kandinsky and Klee, and their relationship
to the exhibitions and interiors where they were displayed, whilst
Richard Ford of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, discussed
the frames of Nolde, Kirchner and Die Brücke. The members
of Die Brücke were interested in the blending of art and
craft, painting and architecture, although Kirchner's 1906 manifesto
advocated smashing all picture frames. Nolde trained as a furniture
maker, and produced his own frames, painting them black and red,
or black and white, to make 'the strongest possible contrast'
with gold French frames. In the 1920s he, like Gauguin, used
'primitive' motifs of animal gods and birds, although he also
incorporated Classical ornament (guilloche and Greek fret), Spanish
motifs and Gothic vines into his designs. His last works were
framed in grey or dark-stained wood, and hung on bright yellow
or blue walls. Schmidt-Rottluff and Kirchner experimented with
finishes; the former used silver, bronze and aluminium; the latter
bronze leaf, benzedrine and wax. Kirchner sought for harmony,
as against Nolde's wish for contrast; many of his frames used
stepped profiles, and were later variously coloured.
Tracy Gill, frame scholar and
consultant, gave a paper on the Aesthetic Movement in late 19th
century America, discussing the frame in both its narrow and
a wider sense, showing Aesthetic interiors and the motifs which
articulated the frames in this style, whilst Susan Larkin spoke
on 'Childe Hassam's Frame Choices', the subject of her essay
in the catalogue of the Hassam exhibition, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, in June 2004. A critic had noted in 1921 that 'Childe
Hassam was most active in designing the frame to fit the picture',
and this paper showed how Hassam manipulated the viewer's perceptions
through the variety of his framing: European and American, new
or old, adopted designs or his own. He admired Whistler for his
art and his approach to display, copying his reeded frames, and
producing a version of Whistler's Lange Leizen frame with
chinoiserie motifs for his own Chinese Merchants (bought
by Whistler's patron, Freer, and now in the Freer Gallery of
Art). From 1912 until his death in 1935 Hassam used the Milch
Gallery framemakers, devising new frame styles with them, which
were often ornamented with foliate swirls and including his initial
'H' carved in cursive script in a circle. These monograms were
generally repeated with varied orientation on the four frame
rails, so the frames could be reused as landscape instead of
portrait, or vice versa. A later aedicular frame, for Greek
Women bringing Fruit to an Altar, was carved with sunflowers
on the pilasters by a William Kirchner, whilst for Colonial
Quilt Hassam used an actual window frame as a setting, mimicking
the painted window within the image.
Nannette Maciejunes of the Columbus
Museum of Art, Ohio, discussed 'American Modernist Artist-Designed
Frames', based on the collection of Ferdinand Howard, an early
20th century businessman. Much of his collection was framed by
Robert Laurent, a sculptor and woodcarver from Brittany, trained
in Paris and Rome; some works were framed by the artist Max Cunie,
who decorated and painted his frames, and others by a framemaker
called Prendergast, who favoured a chunky, hand-crafted style.
Peter Cannon-Brookes spoke illuminatingly
on the Tradescant paintings in the Ashmolean Museum while Tessa
Murdoch of the V & A gave a paper on 'Architect-designed
Frames for the Grand Domestic Interior, 1690-1750'. This covered
the work of the Huguenot Pelletier family for Ralph Montagu at
Boughton House, including carved and gilded furniture and frames,
and amounting to the vast sum of £2,000 by Montagu's death
in 1709. The Pelletiers were succeeded at Montagu House by James
Moore and John Gumley, who also worked for the Royal Family,
the Duke of Buccleugh, Lord Macclesfield, the Earl of Burlington
and at Blenheim Palace; they influenced William Kent's designs
for looking-glasses, just as Flitcroft influenced his Palladian
picture frames.
Other papers covered the structure
of the frame, gilding, the Auricular frame, Spanish frames and
altarpieces, the makers' stamps on 18th-century French frames,
the Italian influence on American frames, and the minimalist
frames of the late 20th century. The conference was attended
by Paul Levy, who was to be created a Cavaliero at the Italian
Embassy in New York for his services in restoring a Renaissance
altarpiece frame to its original church in Italy.
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