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January 18, 2008|Volume 36, Number 15


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This pastel engraving titled "Tête de Flore (Head of Flora)" (circa 1769) is among the works on view in the Yale University Art Gallery's next exhibition.



The color printmaking revolution
is highlighted in new exhibition

Images created during one of the most groundbreaking periods in the history of color printmaking will be featured in a new exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery.

“Colorful Impressions: The Printmaking Revolution in 18th-Century France,” which opens on Tuesday, Jan. 29, showcases works that were made during a period when newly invented engraving and etching methods were joined with novel ways of printing a single image from multiple plates. The revolution in printmaking meant that, for the first time, full-color prints could be created from the three basic colors — red, yellow and blue — plus black. Within a few decades, thousands of images were produced, including some of the most complex color prints ever made.

Organized by the National Gallery of Art, the gallery’s presentation of “Colorful Impressions” includes over 100 images, many of which are presented in multiple impressions or alongside related drawings. Among the artists whose designs were reproduced by printmakers are some of the most famous of the 18th century, including Jean-Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Hubert Robert.

The ability to create multiple reproductions of a painting or drawing allowed the middle class to be able to afford the “same” works of art as their aristocratic counterparts, note the exhibit organizers. This burgeoning print market included a wide variety of subjects, portraits, landscapes, allegories and genre scenes, as well as more mundane items such as travel illustrations, textile and wallpaper motifs, maps and button covers.

Most of the works in the exhibition reflect “the carefree spirit of the ancien régime — an era of self-indulgence among the upper classes before the French Revolution of 1789,” organizers say, but the exhibition also evokes the gradually changing spirit of 18th-century France during this time.

Highlights of the exhibition include Jakob Christoffel Le Blon’s color mezzotint portrait of Louis XV (1739) and four color proofs from his “Portrait of Anthony van Dyck”; Jacques-Fabien Gautier Dagoty’s “anatomical angel”; Louis-Marin Bonnet’s pastel-manner “Téte de Flore” (“Head of Flora,” 1769), in five different impressions, and his so-called “English prints” — partially printed with gold leaf; 10 progressive proofs for Charles-Melchior Descourtis’ “Noce de village” (“Village Wedding,” 1785) and 10 prints by Philibert-Louis Debucourt, considered the last of the great color printmakers.

About two-thirds of the objects on display belong to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The rest are lent from the family collection of Yale alumnus Ivan E. Phillips ’56.

“Colorful Impressions” will be on view through May 4. Special events being offered in conjunction with the exhibition include free gallery talks on Feb. 19, 26 and 27. On Tuesday, Feb. 12, at 4 p.m. Alicia Weisberg-Roberts, a postdoctoral research associate at the Yale Center for British Art, will present a talk titled “Reproducing the Rococo.” Kristel Smentek, adjunct professor in the history of decorative arts and design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, will discuss “Selling Color Prints in 18th-Century Paris” on Tuesday, Feb. 19, at 4 p.m. The following week, Stéphane Roy, postdoctoral research associate at the Yale Center for British Art, will discuss “France and England Showing Their Colors: Rivalry, Emulation and Printmaking Innovation in the 18th Century” at 4 p.m. The following day, at 12:20 p.m., Margaret Morgan Grasselli, curator of Old Master drawings at the National Gallery, will speak on “True Colors: Genius and Invention in French Printmaking in the 18th Century.”

The presentation of “Colorful Impressions” at the Yale Art Gallery was organized by Suzanne Boorsch, the Robert L. Solley Curator of Prints, Drawings and Photographs. The exhibit was supported by an endowment made possible by a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.

The Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., is open to the public free of charge Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (Thursdays until 8 p.m. Sept.-June); and Sunday, 1-5 p.m. For more information, visit http://artgallery.yale.edu or call (203) 432-0600.


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