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September 22, 2006
Dr. Jennifer Tonkovich, Associate Curator, Drawings and Prints, The Morgan Library and Museum, NYC, 9-22-06
During the more than eight years she has been at The Morgan Library and Museum, Dr. Jennifer Tonkovich has participated in the organization and mounting of numerous exhibitions, and has served as curator in charge of several shows, including Pierre Matisse and His Artists (2001), Stuart Davis: Art and Theory, 1920-1931(2002); A Love Affair with Line: Drawings by Al Hirschfeld (2002); From Rembrandt to van Gogh: Three Centuries of Dutch Drawings (2006), and Fragonard and the French Tradition (2006).
Dr. Tonkovich is currently preparing an exhibition of Vincent van Gogh’s letters to his young protégé Emile Bernard for fall 2007. She frequently gives lectures at the Morgan in support of drawings exhibitions, and is active at conferences in her field of 18th-century French drawings, where she most recently presented a paper at Oxford University on drawings for architectural decoration and ornament by Gillot. Among Dr. Tonkovich’s most recent publications are “Claude Gillot’s Designs for Turkish Costumes: Some New Sources”, The Burlington Magazine (April 2005); “Rymsdyk’s Museum: Jan van Rymsdyk as a Collector of Old Master Drawings”, Journal of the History of Collections (December 2005); with Dr. Victoria Kirkham, “How Petrarca Became Boccaccio: A Bronze Portrait Bust from the Morgan Library,” Studi sul Boccaccio (2005); and “A New Album of Theater Drawings by Claude Gillot,” Master Drawings (Winter 2006).
To celebrate the 400th anniversary of the birth of Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn (1606–1669), The Morgan Library & Museum presents highlights from its exceptional collection of Rembrandt etchings. Pierpont Morgan laid the foundation for this collection—the finest in North America—when he acquired his first Rembrandt etchings from Theodore Irwin, Sr., in 1900 and George W. Vanderbilt in 1906. Today the Morgan holds impressions of most of the 300 or so known etchings by Rembrandt as well as multiple, often exceedingly rare impressions of various states. The exhibition showcases some of the most celebrated etchings from the collection along with a few lesser-known and rarely exhibited examples.
Renowned in the history of printmaking, Rembrandt’s etchings are famous for their dramatic intensity, penetrating psychology, and touching humanity. Celebrating his unsurpassed skill and inventiveness as a master storyteller, the exhibition addresses some of the central and often recurring themes of the master’s work, including portraiture, the Bible, scenes from everyday life, the nude, and landscape.
The exhibition is accompanied by a 20-page illustrated publication, Collecting Rembrandt: Etchings from the Morgan, by Dr. Anne Varick Lauder. The essay traces the history of the Morgan’s Rembrandt collection, relating some of the stories behind Pierpont Morgan’s first purchases during the American Gilded Age while also showcasing the institution’s important holdings of Rembrandt etchings.
Posted by David Lemberg at September 22, 2006 06:54 PM Return to ARTSCAPE home page