Zorn Retrospective

Zorn portraits at the Petit Palais
Photo (c) Lesley Powell 2017

At the risk of having too many posts this year about Anders Zorn, I am compelled to report on the Zorn retrospective now running at the Petit Palais in Paris. In my opinion, this show is unquestionably a WOW. As much as I have admired Zorn's work in books and online, I was not prepared for the impact of seeing them in person. The experience reminded me once again why it is worth the time and effort to visit museums: there is simply no substitute for seeing a work of art in person. Here are some of my takeaways:

Photo courtesy of the Petit Palais

(1) Fantastic job by the museum in staging the exhibit. The lighting, the display rooms, the label copy--everything added up to a wonderful experience. The exhibit was organized into a series of rooms, each of which was decorated to complement the nature of the paintings displayed in it. There were rustic, wooden rooms for the native Scandinavian paintings, and elegant, rich red rooms for the society portraits. There were life-sized photos of the Grand Canal in Venice. It almost made me feel like I was following Zorn in his travels around the world.

"A Portrait of the daughters of Ramon Subercasseaux"
32 x 25 1/2 inches, oil on canvas
Anders Zorn,  1892

(2) Astonishing composition and design by Zorn. Anders Zorn is well known for his bravado brushstrokes and wonderful color work (using a very limited palette, mind you). In viewing the body of work in the exhibit, I was also struck by the range of his compositions. So many of the compositions were startling in their originality and success. I found myself thinking "Who would have thought to design the painting this way, and who could have pulled it off so well??" Two different paintings, each of two young girls, exemplify this daring composition. They are shown just above and below this paragraph.

Les demoiselles Schwartz
37 3/4 x 26 inches, Gouache over black chalk on cardboard
Anders Zorn, 1889

(3) The etchings were as strong as the paintings. Interestingly, many of Zorn's etchings were derived from his paintings. I would have thought that the black and white prints were precursors to the paintings, but I would have been wrong. To quote James Ganz, "Zorn's brilliant handling of the etching needle enabled him to freely translate his colorful brushstrokes into pure chiaroscuro, an essentially binary language of line in which the visual drama is distilled into black and white." 

"The Toast"
Etching
Anders Zorn

"Mrs. Emma Zorn"
Etching
Anders Zorn, 1900

I love the slash-y strokes of Zorn's etching pen, and the way he divided his etchings into areas of light and dark. In the images above, you can see that Zorn often connected the dark areas of the print, and kept them on one side, leaving much of the remainder of the picture frame light or white. Gorgeous and powerful. If you are curious about the etching process, and Zorn's etchings in particular, click here for a great post by the Milwaukee Art Museum.

The retrospective in Paris will continue through December 17, 2017. If you can't make it across the Atlantic, there are several good UTube videos on the Facebook page of the Petit Palais, which you can reach by clicking here. And remember that the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston has a very fine collection of Zorn's work, right here in the USA. Enjoy!

Multi Media Expert

"Maja von Heijne"

Etching, 1911

Anders Zorn

I am very excited about a major retrospective in Paris this fall, featuring one of my favorite artists, Anders Zorn. I have written about Zorn before, but I have not had the opportunity to see many of his works in person. I hope to remedy that soon: I already have my ticket to the retrospective!

"Une Premiere"
Gouache
Anders Zorn, 1888

One thing that fascinates me about master artists is that they seem to delight in many different media. Zorn was no exception to this phenomenon. He was a wonderful watercolorist, as well as a virtuoso painter. He was also known for his talent as a printmaker,

Zorn Palette

I recently posted about the great Swedish painter Anders Zorn. A true virtuoso, Zorn is said to have accomplished all of his work with only four paint colors. Those four colors were a white, a yellow, a red, and a black. They are now known as the "Zorn Palette". Today, there is some difference of opinion as to exactly which of these hues are the ones actually used by Zorn, but most people agree that that they are Flake white, yellow ochre, vermillion (red) and ivory black. 

Painting by Anders Zorn

I am a huge fan of the limited palette. It makes the painter's job both easier and harder, in good ways. It is easier, because over time you come to know the colors extremely well. You

Anders Zorn

Anders Zorn
"Reveil, Boulevard Clichy", 1892
Watercolor, 36 x 24 cm.

He is called "a painter's painter", ranking right up there with John Singer Sargent and Joaquin Sorolla. There's no question that he was a virtuoso artist. But his name is hardly a household name nowadays: Anders Zorn.  So who is this Anders Zorn? Born in 1860, he was a Swede, and one of the most acclaimed portrait painters of the Belle Epoque era. In fact, he and Sargent painted portraits of some of the same glamorous clients.

Anders Zorn
"Isabella Stewart Gardner in Venice", 1894
Oil, 91 x 66 cm.

I first encountered Zorn's work at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It turns out that the Gardner has the finest collection of Zorn's paintings in the United States. I remember to this day how the painting (above) of Isabella Stewart Gardner took my breath away. There is such life in her gestures, and the effect of the light dress against the dark night is so striking. Strong, simple shapes, and  bold gestures. It doesn't get any better than this! (By the way, there's an interesting backstory on this painting, which you can read here.)

Anders Zorn
"Self Portrait with a Model", 1896
Oil on Canvas, 49 x 41.3 cm.

There is so much to say about Zorn, but for this post I will focus on his way he painted whites. His whites are completely astonishing. Whether I am looking at the voluptuous folds of fabrics in the top painting, or the artist's smock in the self-portrait just above, I am amazed. The subtle shifts of color are so sensitively observed. At some level deep inside, I can actually feel the fabric just by looking at the painting. I know whether it is soft or crisp, thick or thin.

Anders Zorn
"Emma Zorn Reading, 1887"
Oil, 40.2 x 60.6 cm.

Zorn's magnificent handling of whites is not limited to fabrics. I love the painting of his wife reading the newspaper, above. There are cool shadows where the paper is shaded, and warm areas where there is some light coming through. Gorgeous! Of course, we can't really see a painting very well from a photo. I'm sad to say that I missed the big Zorn shows in New York and San Francisco over the past few years. That's why I'm especially excited that there is a huge retrospective of Zorn's work scheduled for this fall in Paris. Here's a link to the scoop--and here's hoping that a plane ticket could be in my future!