Date: Fri 19-Feb-1999

Publication: Ant

Author: SHANNO

Quick Words:

Yale-British-Art-Moore-Bacon

Full Text:

Yale Center For British Art Reopens After Major Renovations

(with cuts)

BY S HANNON HICKS

NEW HAVEN, CONN. -- Following more than a year of major work on its building,

the Yale Center for British Art reopened on January 23. The masterpiece

building of the late Yale graduate Louis I. Kahn has been refurbished from

roof to basement floor. (Coincidentally, while the Yale Center was the final

project of the highly-respected American architect, his first major commission

-- the Yale University Art Gallery -- stands across the street.)

While the Yale Center for British Art has undergone a major refurbishment, the

center's directors maintain they have not changed the building; they have

instead returned it to its original state.

All 56 domes on the roof have been lifted off and refitted. A new slope was

added to the building's original flat roof to help create better drainage, and

the mansard style roof was rebuilt to run completely around the building.

Now that what is referred to as "The Year of the Roof" is over, the center's

centerpiece is the fourth floor gallery space. Natural light filters through

the refitted domes, accentuating the painted surfaces of the artworks which

sometimes appear much less flattering under artificial light.

Also on the fourth floor, the space has been reconfigured to allow Malcolm

Warner, the curator of paintings and sculpture, and Julia Marciari Alexander,

the assistant curator, to reinstall the permanent collection with a fresh eye.

The galleries are presenting works by major figures in British painting

including William Hogarth, George Stubbs, Joseph Wright of Derby, J.M.W.

Turner, John Constable and Richard Parkes Bonington. Landscapes, portraits and

conversation pieces, all from the Eighteenth Century, by Sir Joshua Reynolds,

Thomas Gainsborough and Johann Joseph Zoffany are also being highlighted.

During 1998, the curators worked alongside the center's director, Patrick

McCaughey, to redesign the museum's interior walls. Every wall in each of the

public galleries has had its backing boards and linens replaced. The movable

"pogos" will now allow works of art to be arranged in a new and dynamic way.

The Study Gallery has been renamed the Long Gallery. It has been arranged so

that each bay focuses on a particular topic. Additionally, the Founder's Room,

named for benefactor Paul Mellon, has been redesigned to provide a comfortable

and intimate room for special occasions.

Perhaps most dramatically, the two-story Library Court has been rehung to give

the museum's internationally renowned collection of works by George Stubs a

new prominence. "Horse Attacked by a Lion" and "Lion Attacking a Stag" are now

at normal viewing height instead of high over a viewer's head. Monumental

portraits are along the upper levels of the impressive walls, filling the

almost canyon-like space with a sense of awe and power.

In all, the museum houses about 1,500 paintings in its permanent collection,

relating the story of British art since the end of the Middle Ages. The

department of prints and drawings contains a collection of 30,000 prints and

20,000 drawings. The department recently expanded its representation of 20th

Century graphic art including modern printmaking.

Nearly 20,000 volumes relating to the visual arts and cultural life in the

United Kingdom and former British Empire, from the Seventeenth through the end

of the Nineteenth Century, are housed in the department of rare books and

archives. The department also contains a large number of early maps and

atlases.

The center's galleries host the largest collection of British art outside the

United Kingdom. With the opening of the center's doors last weekend, the

public is also seeing featured exhibitions of works by the artists Francis

Bacon, Lucian Freud and Henry Moore. All three shows will continue through

March 21.

The Opening Exhibitions

On January 23, curiosity seekers and art lovers co-mingled throughout the four

floors of the primarily steel and concrete building at 1080 Chapel Street and

High, in the heart of both New Haven and the city's Yale district. Gallery

director Patrick McCaughey began a day of planned programs and lectures

Saturday morning with a tour that began in the bright and airy Entrance Court.

Mr McCaughey began his program on the museum's first floor for his welcoming

remarks and a discussion of the Moore exhibition, which he curated, before

moving the large group up to the third floor for a walk-through of the Bacon

show.

"One of the great tasks of the Yale Center for British Art is to argue the

case for British art," Mr McCaughey said. "We are charged with the task of

stating why British art is important. It's also to say, to remind people, that

British art is not only from the past."

The linking theme of the three primary exhibits the museum is now presenting

-- "Francis Bacon: A Retrospective," "Lucian Freud Etchings from the

PaineWebber Art Collection" and "Henry Moore and the Heroic: A Centenary

Tribute" -- is that the human figure has survived, Mr McCaughey pointed out.

The center's accompanying publications refer to the artists as "the

triumvirate which has dominated postwar British art."

The Yale Center for British Art is honoring Henry Moore (1898-1986) just after

the centenary of the artist's birth. Yale's directors have called Moore "the

single most prominent British artist of the Twentieth Century," backing up

this statement with a presentation of 20 of the artist's celebrated

sculptures. The show follows the development of Moore's work from the 1930s to

the 1970s, and is divided into five sections by decade.

The work of Francis Bacon is not for the weak-at-heart. Traditionally very

large in scale, the works by Bacon (1909-92) offer viewers a look into what

Patrick McCaughey calls "the phantasmagorical realm of the imagination," which

is not necessarily a lovely place to be. Bacon's pieces may be views of the

human figure, but they are not depictions of Man at his best. Even a triptych

of the artist's former friend Lucian Freud (the two men had a falling out a

few years before Bacon's death) does not cast the fellow Brit in a favorable

light.

"You can see sometimes the horrible, cruel laughter from the artist," Mr

McCaughey said.

The Yale Center is offering Americans the first major museum retrospective to

be held in the country since the artist's death seven years ago. The

exhibition presents nearly 70 works by "a gifted portraitist," as Mr McCaughey

described the artist, from rare pre-war work to nine of the large triptychs

that were Bacon's final (and considered by many to be his grandest)

statements. After its presentation in New Haven, the exhibit will be seen in

Minneapolis, San Francisco and Fort Worth, Tex., before the end of the year.

There is one spot on the third floor of the gallery where visitors can stand

and, while looking in one direction, see the aforementioned Freud triptych by

Bacon, and then turn around look directly at Freud's etching, "Self-Portrait:

Reflection." The 1996 etching opens the show, which presents 42 pieces from

the PaineWebber Art Collection.

Like Bacon, Freud chose to use "real" people for his work, which is something

that is picked up by even the most inexperienced viewer. "Freud doesn't

exactly choose supermodels for his etchings," said Scott Wilcox, the Yale

Center's curator of prints and drawings. Mr Wilcox offered a walk-through of

the Freud exhibition Saturday afternoon.

"Male and female, his models are `regular' people, warts and all," Mr Wilcox

continued. The artist may approach his work with an unflinching eye, but the

results are honest etchings of people Freud has some relationship with,

whether family or friend.

Like many of Francis Bacon's art, some of Lucian Freud's works may not be easy

to look at: the nakedness of some of Freud's subjects is not just in the fact

the sitters are unclothed, but also in the straightforwardness viewers must

use to see these people.

Art is not always easy to look at, nor is every piece going to be enjoyed by

every person who comes across it. The fact there are so many genres and even

sub-genres within the art world is one of the most fascinating things about

"art" as a whole.

While not everyone is going to necessarily enjoy the artwork by Bacon, Freud

and Moore, it is fortunate for anyone interested in art of any form that the

Yale Center for British Art is finally open again.

The Yale Center for British Art is open Tuesday through Saturday, 10 am-5 pm;

and Sunday, noon-5 pm. Admission is free. It can be reached by calling

203/432-2800 or 432-2850. Information on the permanent collection, special

exhibitions and programs is available on the Center's Web site, at

www.yale.edu/ycba.