Modernism from the National Gallery of Art in De Young Museum, San Francisco

Last weekend, I visited De Young Museum to see the special exhibit: Modernism from the National Gallery of Art: The Robert & Jane Meyerhoff Collection.







The exhibition included many important modern masters, with works in the styles ranging from almost realism to schematic abstract and cartoonish.

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To me, the most astonishing offering was a series of paintings by Barnett Newman, titled The Stations of the Cross: Lema Sabachthani, created from 1958 to 1966. Spartan and aesthetically pleasing, the group paintings had an otherworldly beauty and spirituality.  The scope of the paintings was vast; and despite the long period of the creation, this series never veered away from the clearly defined concept, and these canvases could be appreciated individually or as a whole:



 













Similarly, I found this Rothko's abstract piece, in very subdued palettes, exceedingly beautiful.  It surely made a stark contrast to his more vibrantly painted pieces, particularly his red and purple pieces.  It is a very meditative piece:




Untitled, 1969, Mark Rothko

The Bradley Walker Tomlin painting was definitely vibrantly colorful and also amazingly beautiful, and even orderly, despite the deceptive chaos:


Maneuver for Position, 1947, Bradley Walker Tomlin

Hans Hoffmann's piece included was a typical Hofmann - strong color contrasts, geometric pattens seemed ever moving on the canvas. Very dynamic:




Autumn Gold and detail, 1957, Hans Hofmann

Other pieces with similar complexities and contrasts are these pieces below, in turn subtle, bold, schematic, and chaotic:


Essex and Hester (Red), 1958, Grace Hartigan


Desert Landscape, 1951, William Baziotes


Perilous Night, 1982, Jasper Johns


Souvenirs, 1980-84, Howard Hodgkin

The following group included the most representative and visually complex offerings, intricate in patterns and meanings:


La round des images, 1977, Jean Dubuffet


Saigon, Minnesota, 1985, Eric Fischl


Archive, 1963, Robert Rauschenberg


Courtroom, 1970, Philip Guston

The following group paintings were the most schematic and purely abstract, and some of them were quite lovely, such as those by Ad Reinhardt:


Graphics Tablet, 1998, Terry Winters


Picasso's Skull, 1989-90, Brice Marden




Untitled (Yellow and White), Untitled (Red and Gray), 1950, Ad Reinhardt


1951-N, 1951, Clyfford Still


Study for Homage to the Square_ Light Rising, 1950, altered 1959, Josef Albers


First Theme, 1964, Burgoyne Diller


Untitled #2, 1981, Agnes Martin

And lastly, there were some Roy Lichtenstein's cartoonish paintings - certainly there was no denying that there was some beauty in them, but they just didn't speak to me, as to some other absorbed patrons:


Painting with Statue of Liberty, 1983, Roy Lichtenstein


Entablature, 1974, Roy Lichtenstein

The exhibit was in the Herbst Special Exhibition Galleries of De Young Museum and it ran from June 7, 2014 to October 12, 2014.  Highly recommended.





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