Moshe Rosenthalis in his studio

We’re excited to announce our upcoming Rosenthalis show will be taking place on Saturday, November 26th! We will be featuring never-before-seen works from the family’s private collection. A great variety of artwork by Rosenthalis will be on display, everything from charming pen and inks to grand oils on canvas as well as sculptures.  You can R.S.V.P for this must-see opening by clicking here. Feel free to bring along family and friends!

James Tissot, Kate Newton, and her children Violet and Cecil

Even a brief look into the life of celebrated artist James Tissot will reveal a figure named Kathleen Newton. Ms. Newton was the model for many of Tissot’s masterpieces, and it is evident that he had a great admiration for her. But who was she? To Tissot, Kathleen “Kate” Newton was an indispensable companion and constant source of inspiration. The two led a somewhat scandalous life together for their time, a life ending in untimely tragedy.

James Tissot was born in Nantes, France in 1836. When he was 20 years old, he moved to Paris to study art at the celebrated École des Beaux Arts, where he befriended such masters as Whistler and Degas. After studying in France he moved to London, where he spent most of the rest of his life.

James Tissot

Tissot’s keen business sense coupled with his natural artistic talent propelled him to the forefront of the London art scene. It is there that he met the ravishing Irish beauty Kathleen Newton sometime in the 1870s. Almost 20 years younger than Tissot, young Kate was already plagued with scandal due to her status as a single (divorced) mother. At the age of 16 her father arranged for her to be married to a surgeon named Isaac Newton. On her voyage to be married to Isaac she met a Captain Palliser, who quickly became enamored of her and is believed to be the father of Kate’s first child, Violet. Being a religious Catholic, Kate sought counsel from her confessor who advised her to tell Isaac about her relations with Captain Palliser. After Kate revealed to Isaac what had happened between her and the Captain, he immediately sent her away with no money and divorced her. Captain Pelliser agreed to pay for her return to London under the condition that she be his mistress, which she accepted. She gave birth to their daughter Violet in December of 1871 at the age of 17, but she never married Captain Palliser. After Violet’s birth, Kate moved in with her sister Polly in St. John’s Wood. James Tissot also lived in St. John’s Wood, and although it is unclear exactly how he and Kate met, it is known that she lived with him for some time.

Tissot, "Le Banc de jardin" mezzotint depicting Kate with her niece and children, Violet and Cecil.

In March of 1876 Kate gave birth to her second child, a boy named Cecil Ashburnham who is widely regarded to be Tissot’s son. Tissot’s relationship with Kate was looked down upon by many in their society, however he remained committed to her at the expense of his popularity. Tissot reportedly described their life together as “domestic bliss” and most consider Kate to have been the love of his life.

Tissot, "The Hammock" with Kate as the model

Sadly she contracted tuberculosis and, unable to bear the pain inflicted upon Tissot by her declining health, she decided to end her own life in November of 1882 at the age of 28. It is said that Tissot remained by her coffin for 4 days and within a week left his home in St. John’s Wood permanently. Tissot never fully recovered from his loss, and became very spiritual in the time after Kate’s death. He attempted to contact Kate through seances, and created a work entitled “Apparition Medianimique” which depicts Kate with her spiritual guide.

Tissot, "Apparition Medianimique"

Tissot lived and continued to produce work  until 1902, when he passed away in France.

All artwork featured in this entry is available at Zygman Voss Gallery.

"La répétition de ballet"

We have a gorgeous oil painting in the gallery by Swiss painter Richard Ranft. Born in 1862, Ranft began his studies in Switzerland where he was a student of Eugène Sordet and Gustave Courbet. Ranft primarily worked and lived in Paris, starting his painting career with landscape and human figure studies. The majority of his work was produced around 1900, printed in small editions of 25 or 50 by the Delâtre workshop and published by Edmund Sagot. As a member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Ranft took part in the exhibitions organized by this group.

Dupré is widely considered to be one of the most important and influential 19th century French landscape artists from the Barbizon school. Naturally, we were interested in returning the painting to its original condition. Prior to cleaning, the whole painting had a dark, yellow tint. The conservation process involves carefully removing the old varnish off the surface of the painting and applying a new varnish to protect it. Varnish is a final layer applied to a painting after it’s finished and completely dry. It’s used to protect the painting from dirt, dust, and pollutants. Varnish also evens out the finish of a painting, making it all equally glossy or matte. Over time, oil paintings tend to darken because of the accumulation of dirt from the environment on the protective varnish layer. Our Dupré looks simply stunning after the conservation process; the previously darkened colors have been brought back to life. If kept in a proper environment, the painting should not need cleaning for another century or more.

Here’s how it looks cleaned and framed:

"Casanova"

We are pleased to have several works here by the wonderful French artist Louis Icart. Icart was born September 12th in Toulouse, France in the late 1800′s (there is some dispute over the exact year, it has been listed as 1880, 1888, and 1890.) He was the first born child in his family, who affectionately called him “Helli” after his initials L.I. He began drawing at an early age, and was always interested in fashion. He moved to Paris in 1907 and started painting, drawing, and etching. Icart fought in World War I and continued to produce work during this time. Icart is considered to be one of the biggest names of the Art Deco movement, a term popularized after the Paris Exposition des Arts Decoratifs in 1925.

"Ballerina"

Icart was an artist with a zest for living and a love for his beautiful wife, Fanny, his biggest and most consistent inspiration. Icart’s works, the coquette and demoiselle, have a care-free attitude. The prices of his rare masterpieces have escalated sharply in recent years, as collectors vie for and covet their pieces. This is largely due to a broader appreciation for and scarcity of the works. Their appeal is broad and many collectors seeks to capture the allure of Icart’s languid ladies, while others crave the “joie de vivre” and motion as depicted by the leaping hounds and windblown demoiselles.

Icart was not limited to expressing himself with etchings; he also did pastels and sketches, as well as oils. Many who have formed an appreciation for his etchings are unaware of his wonderful oil paintings. The oils are post-impressionistic and bathed in deep, fiery colors of the Romantic Period. They offer an entirely different feeling with their short, quick brush strokes. Although few have had an opportunity in the past to view these striking works, serious art collectors today realize their importance and expression as only Icart could calculatingly portray.

After Icart’s death in 1950, his adoring wife carried out his personal affairs and the promotion of his works, until her own death in 1971.

"Soir de Paris" (sold)

Purgatory, Canto 5 "Virgil's Admonishment"

In 1951, Salvador Dali was commissioned to create illustrations for Dante’s “La Commedia Divina” (The Divine Comedy) in celebration of Dante’s 700th birthday. There are 100 works, divided into “Heaven”, “Hell”, and “Purgatory”, each one representing a canto from Dante’s epic poem. We are very excited to have 9 of them on display here at the gallery. They are all very beautiful and unique, we invite you to visit and see for yourself!

We have just acquired two new Miro’s – one lithograph and one etching & aquatint. Please stop by the gallery to view these beautiful pieces of artwork in person.

Joan Miro was the greatest abstract Surrealist of the 20th century. Most identifiable are his classic-period biomorphic abstractions in primary colors, outlined in black, and preserved on muted fields of brown, gray, or blue. These zany, spiky, see-dazed expressions seem allusive to the vagaries of sex, love, conflict, pursuit and escape – as if viewed in a Petri dish for gargantuan’ pleasure.

Throughout his life, Miro remained true to the basic Surrealist principle of releasing the creative forces of the unconscious mind from control by logic and reason, rejecting traditional devices of pictorial representation and composition, and fusing the spontaneous expressions of a logical fantasy with the reality of experience into a higher reality of pictorial creation.

Miro’s work, however, has attained a stature that precludes mere categorization as Surrealist, for his work also contains elements of Primitivism, personal mythology, magic, and innovations in abstraction that make it unclassifiable.

If you were unable to attend the show, we have all the Maitres posted on our website for your viewing pleasure. The exhibition will be hung in its entirety through the end of the month.

Here is a small sampling of our gallery walls – Please stop by to view them in person!

We hope to see you there! RSVP from our website http://www.zygmanvossgallery.com/event.php?eventID=8&rsvp=y