While a boy growing up in Europe, Dr. Herbert Schaefer began collecting what he describes as "minor, but not uninteresting" works of art, including drawings, woodcuts and paintings. In the final days of World War II, all of the works he had collected over the years were dispersed or destroyed, but his desire to own art was not squelched. Beginning in the 1960s, together with his wife, Monika, Schaefer began collecting again, and the couple has since assembled a a private collection of artworks spanning eight centuries.
Much of their collection is on view in the Yale University Art Gallery's newest exhibit, "Saints, Sinners and Scenery: European Genre and Landscape Paintings from the Collection of Dr. Herbert and Monika Schaefer." Comprised primarily of Dutch and Flemish works from the 16th and 17th centuries, the exhibit includes 35 oil paintings and one charcoal study. The focus of the exhibit is a large group of Netherlandish landscapes and religious and genre paintings by widely recognized masters.
"Dr. and Mrs. Schaefer first lent the Yale Art Gallery a group of paintings from the extraordinary collection in 1981," notes Helen A. Cooper, the Holcombe T. Green Curator of American Paintings and Sculpture and acting director of the gallery. "Since then, their ongoing loans have been invaluable in supplementing our permanent collection and have greatly enriched the experience of both casual visitors and scholars. We are delighted to celebrate the Schaefers' singular generosity with this special exhibition, bringing together much of their collection."
Among the Netherlandish works on view are pastoral and river views by Pieter de Neyn, Meindert Hobbema and Nicholas Berchem, as well as Egbert van der Poel's topographic painting of Delft during the 1654 explosion of the powder magazine, which killed hundreds of people, including the artist's daughter. Earlier paintings with religious themes include "Deposition" by Cornelis Engebrechtsz.
Also featured in the exhibit are a group of genre paintings, such as "The Brothel" by an artist known as the Brunswick Monagrammist, "Peasant's Fun" and "The Quack at Work in a Barn," by Pieter Quast, and a portrait of a jester by 16th-century Tyrolean artist Angrer Master.
In the brochure that accompanies "Saints, Sinners, and Scenery," Joachim Pissarro, the Seymour H. Knox, Jr. Curator of European and Contemporary Art and organizer of the exhibition, considers the influence that Netherlandish genre painters had on later generations of artists. "Certainly the introduction of genre painting in 18th-century France, and of parody and satirical art in Britain, owed a great deal to the Dutch examples of the previous century," he writes.
The exhibit will be on view through Aug. 30. Schaefer's catalogue of his collection, fully illustrated in color and edited by Lesley Baier, is available in hardcover at the museum shop for $4.95.
The Yale University Art Gallery, located on the corner of Chapel and
York streets, is open to the public, free of charge, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Tuesday-Saturday and 1-6 p.m. on Sunday. A museum entrance for persons
using wheelchairs is located at 201 York St. For further information about
wheelchair access, call 432-0606. For general information, call 432-0600.
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