Janelle Bradley

Video – The Prevalence of Ritual: Romare Bearden and Legacy

This fall, the Wildenstein Plattner Institute initiated an ongoing partnership with the Romare Bearden Foundation in preparation for the forthcoming Digital Catalogue Raisonne of the artist’s work. On October 27, the WPI hosted a virtual panel that considered the issues involved in maintaining an artist’s legacy, including the importance of archival preservation and the active documentation of the artist’s practice.

The discussion was moderated by Mary Schmidt Campbell, president of Spelman College and author of An American Odyssey: The Life and Work of Romare Bearden. Panelists included Connie Choi from the Studio Museum in Harlem, as well as esteemed artists Jordan Casteel and Grace Lynne Haynes.

Announcing: The Romare Bearden Digital Catalogue Raisonné Project

The Romare Bearden Digital Catalogue Raisonné will be a comprehensive research tool providing access to critical archives and materials documented by the Romare Bearden Foundation to preserve the artist’s legacy.

Image: Printmaker Robert Blackburn and artist Jeanne Moutoussamy inspecting a new group of monotypes in Romare Bearden’s Long Island studio. 1975. Frank Stewart. Courtesy: The Romare Bearden Foundation.

The WPI is pleased to announce a new project in collaboration with the Romare Bearden Foundation. The Romare Bearden Digital Catalogue Raisonne project (RBDCR) will be among the first major digital catalogue raisonnés for an African American artist, and is integral to the WPI’s development. This digital publication will provide scholars, provenance researchers, and the general public with a reliable and comprehensive research tool that will advance the study of the artist’s oeuvre.

The WPI is honored to partner with the Romare Bearden Foundation and play a role in shaping tomorrow’s art historical discourse. This new digital catalogue raisonné project advances the Institute’s mission to support art historical research and provide access to resources that have historically been inaccessible to the wider public. Our goal is for this project to pave the way for new scholarship and to offer a richer understanding of how this important American artist and activist has impacted and continued to shape the cultural landscape.

The WPI is uniquely positioned to leverage technical innovations from some of the most influential leaders in information technology and to offer the best resources and guidance to successfully helm this landmark project. Over the following year, the WPI’s team of archivists and tech specialists will be assessing the Foundation’s archives to map out the scope and execution of the project. More information regarding the progress of this initiative coming soon.

Read the full press release here.

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The Romare Bearden Foundation is the non-profit organization that perpetuates the artistic and intellectual legacy of the artist. Founded in 1990 by the artist’s wife, Nanette Rohan Bearden, the Foundation has produced exhibitions, symposia, publications, and k-12 curriculum based on Bearden’s life and work, and has formed collaborations, educational exchanges, and free public programs based on his ideals.

Call For Papers: Join the WPI at the 109th CAA Annual Conference, Feb. 10-13, 2021

The WPI is pleased to announce its participation in the 109th CAA Annual Conference, taking place February 10-13, 2021 in New York. Join us for a rich discussion led by the WPI’s very own Samantha Rowe, Digital Archivist.

ABSTRACT

PAPER THIN: WALKING THE LINE BETWEEN ART AND EPHEMERA

Photographs, handwritten notes, source materials and other pieces of ephemera have long been collected by museums and archival repositories, yet their status as works of art or archival objects is often open to interpretation. It is thus possible to find the same photograph preserved in both an artist’s personal papers and in a museum registrar’s files. What could at first be considered a conservation issue, however, raises important ontological questions about what distinguishes a work of art from an archival object. This session will address the complex relationship between works of art and archival materials and how the contexts in which they are displayed or conserved can affect their meaning or obscure their nature. Furthermore, this panel will explore how institutions are tackling these points of contention as the field progresses toward the digital realm and virtual exhibitions.

This session invites papers that address such issues, including case studies of archival objects reclassified as art objects, and whether this distinction endures as both museums and archival repositories embrace the digital. Submissions from archivists, librarians, curators, scholars, digital humanists, and artists are all welcome.

All proposals should be submitted at the link below no later than Wednesday, September 16, 2020.

SUBMIT YOUR PROPOSAL

Field of Study:
Theory / Practice: Library and Archival Studies
Theory / Practice: Conservation
Field: Art History
Business of Art: Art Librarianship
Topics: Digital Humanities

Chair: Samantha Rowe, Wildenstein Plattner Institute – samantha.rowe@wpi-art.org

Discussant: Sandrine Canac, Wildenstein Plattner Institute – sandrine.canac@wpi-art.org

First Glimpse Into a Historic Photo Archive

The WPI’s Photothèque Archives is a remarkable collection of over 25,000 black and white photographs originally assembled by the Wildenstein Institute throughout the 20th century. These photographs were intended to facilitate staff research on a variety of art historical subjects, ranging from 13th c. religious relief sculptures to 20th c. artists such as Mikhail Larionov. The WPI is currently processing this sizable collection for public use, and will release three archival seriesin Fall 2020 that will offer researchers a glimpse into this vast trove of photographic information. .

Series 1. Women Artists

The Women artists series contains photographs used by Georges Wildenstein and Marie-Louise Bataille for their 1961 publications, Berthe Morisot: Catalogue des Peintures, Pastels et Aquarelles [Fig. 1]. This series also contains images of works by the renowned Impressionist artist Eva Gonzalès, who died in childbirth at age 34. Other highlights include photographs of works by 18th century artists Anne Rosalie Bocquet Filleul, Marguerite Gérard, and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, as well asreproductions of two of Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun’s sketchbooks, used by the artist while in exile from France after the French Revolution [Fig. 2].

[Fig. 1] Berthe Morisot’s carte de visite portrait by Pierre Petit, date unknown. The Wildenstein Plattner Institute Digital Archives.

[Fig. 2] Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Path and forest, 1801–1802. The Wildenstein Plattner Institute Digital Archives.

Series 2. Exhibitions

The Exhibition series consists of installation photographs of various exhibitions organized by, or with the assistance of, the Wildenstein family between 1945–1962. Two of the four exhibitions represented in this series took place at Georges Wildenstein’s Galerie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

For instance, the 1945 Exposition au profit des enfants sinistrés de Londres [an exhibition to benefit orphans in London] featured paintings by artists including Jacques Villon, Raoul Dufy, and Auguste Chabaud, and was followed by an auction to benefit the orphan children. An article from Le Monde published on May 7, 1945 announced that Mary Soames, Winston Churchill’s youngest daughter, traveled to Paris to attend the auction in a show of support and appreciation for the Galerie des Beaux-Arts’s undertaking. Her visit might have been memorialized in a group photograph that depicts seven guests posing in front of an exhibition wall, with Mary Soames possibly standing on the far right, dressed in a longfur coat [Fig. 3].

[Fig. 3] Group photograph from Exposition au profit des enfants sinistrés de Londres at Galerie des Beaux-Arts, c. 1945. The Wildenstein Plattner Institute Digital Archives.

Series 3. Portfolio of Models

The Portfolio of models for hire is the third and last series of the Photothèque Archives’ inaugural release. The portfolio consists of about a hundred photographs of French working models from the 1940s, showing themin various poses and attitudes. This peculiar group of photographs is accompanied by a booklet with handwritten notes listing the models’ names andoccupations, as well as some of their physical characteristics or personality traits. For instance, Miss Cazamayor was somewhat paradoxically described as being both distinguished and timid [Fig. 4].

[Fig. 4] Miss Cazamayor, c. 1940s. The Wildenstein Plattner Institute Digital Archives.

Most photographs in the Photothèque came with little contextual or explanatory information to document their provenance and purpose. Processing this unusual collection of images required further investigation to assign elemental background information and to provide the public with a more robust set of research material.

More Series will be released as the WPI archivists continue to process the Photothèque over the coming months.. Sign up for the WPI’s newsletter for updates on Digital Archives.

Tom Wesselmann

The WPI is pleased to announce a working partnership with the Estate of Tom Wesselmann to publish the Tom Wesselmann Digital Catalogue Raisonné. Prior to publication of the first installment, which will focus on Wesselmann’s celebrated Great American Nudes series, the WPI will continually update the status of research through an online initiative called the Tom Wesselmann Digital Corpus. Working in close collaboration with the Estate of the artist, the WPI will author a dynamic online publication that will link to digitized material from the artist’s archives.

The WPI will begin accepting submissions for possible inclusion to the Tom Wesselmann Digital Corpus on June 24, 2020. As our team of researchers will initially focus their efforts on examining works from The Great American Nudes series, we will prioritize these works with a limited-time fee-waiver for submission.

Click here to learn more about the Tom Wesselmann Digital Corpus.

Announcing: The Tom Wesselmann Digital Corpus

Image: *Great American Nude 1*, Estate of Tom Wesselmann, New York

A new approach to catalogue raisonné research

The WPI invites you to explore the Tom Wesselmann Digital Corpus: a searchable database of works recorded by the Estate of the Artist that incorporates the WPI’s ongoing research for the forthcoming Tom Wesselmann Digital Catalogue Raisonné.

EXPLORE THE DIGITAL CORPUS

About the Digital Corpus

The Wildenstein Plattner Institute (WPI) is working in close collaboration with the Estate of Tom Wesselmann on the Digital Catalogue Raisonné of the artist’s work. Prior to publication of the first installment, which will focus on Wesselmann’s celebrated Great American Nudes series, the WPI will continually update the status of their research with an online initiative called the Tom Wesselmann Digital Corpus. This advanced searchable database is freely available for public use and will be continually updated as works are vetted and approved by the Wesselmann Catalogue Raisonné Committee.

The Digital Corpus is based on the records of the estate and includes what the artist referred to as “unique major works” and “oil studies.” Drawings and multiples will be added to the corpus at a later date.

Initially, images of these works are presented in black-and-white with title and date. As works are vetted and approved by the Wesselmann committee for inclusion in the catalogue raisonné, the WPI will publish a color photograph and verified cataloguing information.

The Digital Corpus will provide an unprecedented opportunity to navigate the breadth of the artist’s work and to utilize the most up-to-date catalogue raisonné research in real time.

How to submit a research request

If you would like the WPI to confirm that the work in your possession corresponds to the work recorded in the Digital Corpus, we ask that you please submit your work here for vetting by the Wesselmann Committee.

Please note: for a limited time, the WPI will waive submission fees for works from the Great American Nudes series.

Download press release.