George Grosz, Otto Dix and World War I

Posted on June 5, 2013 by Lisa Small

In my last post, I highlighted several of the many prints in the Brooklyn Museum’s collection that, like those now on view in the Käthe Kollwitz exhibition in the Herstory Gallery of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, were made in response to the horrors of World War I. In this second post, I want to consider a few works by Georg Grosz (German, 1893-1959) and Otto Dix (German, 1891-1960), both of whom volunteered to fight for their country in World War I, influenced in part by national propaganda or leftist dreams that the war would finally and spectacularly doom monarchy and bourgeoisie materialism.

George Grosz (American, born Germany, 1893-1959). For German Right and German Morals (Für Deutsches Recht und Deutsche Sitte), 1919. Lithograph, Sheet: 25 1/16 x 18 5/8 in. (63.7 x 47.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Dr. F. H. Hirschland, 55.165.143

Cynicism and disillusionment with the government and militarism permeates the work of George Grosz, an incisive caricaturist, satirist, and one of the most influential graphic artists to be associated with Expressionism, New Objectivity, and Dada. An ardent communist and supporter of the working class, Grosz expressed his disdain for the right wing capitalist and military ruling classes in a caustic portfolio of lithographs he made after WWI ironically titled God With Us after the nationalistic motto inscribed on every German soldier’s belt buckle. The print For German Right and German Morals (German Soldiers to the Front) (55.165.143) presents five brutish, malevolent, and corrupt specimens of the German military; the squat and thuggish officer in the center, whose holster makes obvious reference to his genitals, crushes a flower under his boot.

And in The Communists Fall and Foreign Exchange Rises (Blood is the Best Sauce)(X1041), another repulsive officer enjoys a genteel meal with a bloated war profiteer, one carving his meat and the other delicately dabbing at a stain on his shirt, while behind them a mob of vicious soldiers wield their bayonets to kill unarmed workers. Grosz based some of these lithographs on drawings he made while a patient in a mental hospital during the war, claiming he wanted to retain “everything that was laughable and grotesque in my environment.” When Grosz exhibited the portfolio at the First International Dada Fair in Berlin in 1920, he was accused, tried, and found guilty of defaming the military. Like Max Beckmann, Grosz would immigrate to the United States, arriving in New York in 1933.

George Grosz (American, born Germany, 1893-1959). The Communists Fall and Foreign Exchange Rises, 1919. Photo-transfer lithograph, Sheet: 18 9/16 x 24 7/8 in. (47.1 x 63.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn Museum Collection, X1041

Otto Dix noted that “War was something horrible, but nonetheless something powerful…Under no circumstances could I miss it!” But the epic destruction and trauma of modern mechanical warfare and its aftermath was soon made starkly apparent to him.

Otto Dix (German, 1891-1969). Card Players (Kartenspieler), 1920. Drypoint on heavy wove paper, Image (Plate): 12 13/16 x 11 1/8 in. (32.5 x 28.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Dr. F.H. Hirschland, 55.165.66. © artist or artist’s estate

After the war, Germany’s streets were filled with one and a half million wounded and crippled soldiers. Dix, who fought as a machine gunner on the Western Front, depicts three such figures in his print Card Players (55.165.66). Here, the war’s capacity for bodily devastation and disintegration is sharply delineated: a mechanical jaw and hand, a patch covering a missing nose, an unseeing glass eye, an ear tube emerging directly from a misshapen skull. Between the three men there is only a single shirt-sleeved and cuff-linked leg; like the other soldier’s mouth it has been repurposed to hold cards. The other prosthetic “legs” and the contraption supporting the torso of the figure on the left are nearly indistinguishable from the chair and table legs. These figures play cards (and smoke cigars!) like they may have done before the war, but in this image of truncated, mechanized men, Dix shows how the war machine remade the world in its own image.

About Lisa Small

Lisa Small joined the Brooklyn Museum in Spring 2011 as Curator of Exhibitions. From 2007 until 2011 she was Curator of Exhibitions at the American Federation of Arts (AFA), coordinating traveling exhibitions such as Turner to Cézanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales, and Gods and Heroes: Masterpieces from the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Prior to joining the AFA, Small was a curator at the Dahesh Museum of Art, where she organized numerous exhibitions, including Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt and Fantasy & Faith: The Art of Gustave Doré. Small has taught art history at Hunter College and Brooklyn College and has been a member of the art history faculty at the School of Visual Arts since 2008. Small earned a B.A. from Colgate University, an M.A. and an M.Phil in Art History from CUNY, and an M.A. in Arts Administration from NYU.

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German Expressionist Prints at the Brooklyn Museum

Posted on May 30, 2013 by Lisa Small

The current exhibition in the Herstory Gallery of the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art features the politically engaged work of early twentieth-century artist Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867-1945).

Käthe Kollwitz (German, 1867–1945). The Mothers (Die Mütter), 1922–23. Woodcut on heavy Japan paper, 18 13/16 x 25 9/16 in. (47.8 x 64.9 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Carll H. de Silver Fund, 44.201.6. © 2012 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bon

She explored the physical and spiritual dimensions of the human condition primarily through printmaking, a populist medium that resonated with German artists eager to renew the tradition of Northern Renaissance masters such as Albrecht Dürer. The powerful black and white woodcuts and lithographs on view, drawn from two of her major print portfolios, War (Kreig) (1922–23) and Death (Tod) (1934–35), are intensely personal yet universal expressions of devastation, loss, and grief made in response to the horrors of World War I and the early years of National Socialism.

Kollwitz’s works are part of the Brooklyn Museum’s significant collection of prints by artists associated with the German Expressionist and New Objectivity movements, such as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, Georg Grosz, and many others.

Max Beckmann (German, 1884-1950). Weeping Woman (Weinende Frau), 1914. Drypoint on heavy wove paper, Image: 9 1/4 x 7 5/16 in. (23.5 x 18.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, By exchange, 38.257. © artist or artist’s estate

The first prints entered the collection in 1937 and were the subject of an exhibition here in 1948, making Brooklyn among the very first major American museums to acquire and present this material (when it was considered contemporary art), a bold move during a period when anti-German sentiment still ran high in the States. The excitement generated by our current presentation of the rarely seen Kollwitz prints seems like a good excuse for a two-part post highlighting some of our other German war-related prints from this era.

Weeping Woman by Max Beckmann (German, 1884-1950) (38.257), who suffered a mental breakdown after serving in the medical corps, depicts a woman bringing a handkerchief to her eyes, which appear black and hollow under a mourning veil. Made in the first year of the war, it is thought to be a portrait of the artist’s mother-in-law who, like Kollwitz, lost her son in battle. Beckmann would immigrate to the United States in 1947 and taught for several years at The Brooklyn Museum Art School (which closed in 1985).

Christian Rohlfs (German, 1849-1939). The Prisoner (Der Gefangene), 1918. Color woodcut in blue and overpainted by the artist, on gray wove paper, Image: 25 x 19 1/2 in. (63.5 x 49.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Carll H. de Silver Fund, 65.161

In Christian Rohlfs’ (German, 1849-1939) woodcut The Prisoner (65.161), the rough wood grain texture and heavy lines that articulate the subject’s gaunt face, tense hands, and emaciated body, convey the physical immediacy and force of the artist’s hand. The figure seems to be less a specific POW intern than a despairing manifestation of spiritual and emotional imprisonment in a desolate postwar landscape.

Ernst Barlach (German, 1870-1938). Kneeling Woman with Dying Child (Kniende Frau mit sterbenden Kind), 1919. Woodcut on laid paper, Image: 9 x 12 5/8 in. (22.9 x 32.1 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Dr. F.H. Hirschland, 55.165.76
Image: overall, 55.165.76_bw_IMLS.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph

Ernst Barlach (German, 1870-1938) was a close friend of Kollwitz and shared with her a preoccupation with universal themes of human existence and tragedy. In his nightmarish woodcut Kneeling Woman with Dying Child (55.165.76), a withered woman attempts to breastfeed a starving infant, their angular figures merging with the surrounding spiky and barren landscape. Although it calls to mind a medieval emblem of Famine, Barlach’s image is rooted in the reality of the food shortages that occurred in rural Germany after the war.

About Lisa Small

Lisa Small joined the Brooklyn Museum in Spring 2011 as Curator of Exhibitions. From 2007 until 2011 she was Curator of Exhibitions at the American Federation of Arts (AFA), coordinating traveling exhibitions such as Turner to Cézanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales, and Gods and Heroes: Masterpieces from the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Prior to joining the AFA, Small was a curator at the Dahesh Museum of Art, where she organized numerous exhibitions, including Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt and Fantasy & Faith: The Art of Gustave Doré. Small has taught art history at Hunter College and Brooklyn College and has been a member of the art history faculty at the School of Visual Arts since 2008. Small earned a B.A. from Colgate University, an M.A. and an M.Phil in Art History from CUNY, and an M.A. in Arts Administration from NYU.

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William Hogarth’s Election series

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Lisa Small

After more than a year of partisanship, pundits, and polls, as well as a seemingly never-ending stream of gaffes, accusations, and distortions, Election Day has finally come and gone. Contemporary satirists had plenty to work with in this presidential campaign (see Barry Blitt’s most recent New Yorker magazine cover cartoon based on a Norman Rockwell painting from our collection), just as artists like James Gillray, Francisco Goya, and Honoré Daumier found inspiration in the politics of their own eras. Rich Aste, our Curator of European Art, reminded me that our print collection contains excellent works by these early giants of political satire, as well as by the artist that influenced all of them: William Hogarth (1697-1764).

Hogarth was an English painter and printmaker who took as his subject no less than the panorama of life in 18^th-century London. From the drawing rooms of the aristocracy to the teeming and raucous city streets, Hogarth trained his critical eye on themes of marriage, adultery, prostitution, religion, disease, poverty, crime, drunkenness, insanity, gambling, commerce, and, of course, politics, creating indelible images that are spiked with humor and pathos, and brimming with narrative details.

For his four Election series prints (published in 1757-58 and based on his paintings dated 1754-55), Hogarth turned his attention from the squalor of urban life to the corruption of the political world. He was inspired by the notorious contest between the liberal Whig party and the conservative Tory party to win Oxfordshire’s parliamentary seats in the General Election of 1754. Set in the fictional country town of ‘Guzzledown,’ Hogarth depicts four stages of an election, each of which is filled with acts of bribery, mayhem, wastefulness, and venality; in short, a catalogue of behaviors and traits associated with winning by any means and at all costs.

William Hogarth. An Election Entertainment.

William Hogarth (British, 1697-1764). An Election Entertainment from "Four Prints of an Election," 1755. Engraving on laid paper, 17 1/8 x 21 15/16 in. (43.5 x 55.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Samuel E. Haslett, 22.1875 Image: overall, 22.1875_bw.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph.

The first scene, An Election Entertainment, presents a boisterous banquet organized by the Whig party in an attempt to wine and dine their way to victory. Deliberately parodying the composition of the Last Supper, Hogarth has squeezed his characters around two tables. The two candidates are seated next to each other at the left, one enduring a kiss from a toothless old woman and the other in the rough grip of two drunken men. At the right the local mayor has collapsed and is being bled after consuming too many oysters. Near him is an election agent who has been struck on the head by a brick thrown through the window by the Tory mob protesting outside.

William Hogarth (British, 1697-1764). Canvassing for Votes, from "Four Prints of an Election," 1755. Engraving Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Samuel E. Haslett, 22.1890 Image: overall, 22.1890_bw.jpg. Photo Indianapolis Museum of Art.

In Canvassing for Votes, the second scene, the action takes place outside the Royal Oak inn, the Tory party headquarters. The inn’s sign has been partly covered by another sign that lampoons the Whig candidate, depicting him as the commedia dell’arte character Punch pushing a wheelbarrow full of coins he’s distributing to voters. Ironically, just beneath this sign stands the Tory candidate buying knick-knacks with which to bribe the girls flirting with him from the inn’s balcony, as well as a farmer being solicited simultaneously by political operatives from both parties.

William Hogarth (British, 1697-1764). The Polling from Four Print of an Election, 1758. Engraving on laid paper, 17 3/16 x 21 15/16 in. (43.7 x 55.8 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Samuel E. Haslett, 22.1892. Photo Indianapolis Museum of Art.

The Polling is the third scene of the series and depicts the varied crowd of voters at the polling stand with the two candidates seated on chairs at the back of the platform beneath their party flags. Each side tries to extract votes from whomever they can, while disputing the other side’s right to do the same. The Tories try to get the vote of a seated man with clearly diminished mental faculties, the Whigs carry up a man in a white shroud who is either dying or already dead, and one of the parties’ lawyers appears to challenge a one-legged veteran’s right to swear his oath with the metal hook that has replaced his hand. In the background, a carriage emblazoned with Britannia’s flag topples over while the two coachmen obliviously play cards, further emphasizing the message that political negligence and mismanagement have imperiled the nation.

William Hogarth (British, 1697-1764). Chairing the Members from Four Prints of an Election, 1758. Engraving on laid paper, 17 3/16 x 21 7/8 in. (43.7 x 55.6 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of Samuel E. Haslett, 22.1891. Photo Indianapolis Museum of Art.

The theme of collapse continues in the riotous final scene, Chairing the Members, which shows the successful Tory candidates triumphantly carried through the streets. Led by a blind fiddler and surrounded by a chaotic crowd of people and animals, the central winner is about to fall as one of his bearers has been inadvertently hit in the head by another brawling supporter.

Although many of the allusions in the Election series prints presuppose an insider’s knowledge of the politics, procedures, and characters of the time, Hogarth’s witty and scathing take on the craziness that can surround the democratic process is timeless.

About Lisa Small

Lisa Small joined the Brooklyn Museum in Spring 2011 as Curator of Exhibitions. From 2007 until 2011 she was Curator of Exhibitions at the American Federation of Arts (AFA), coordinating traveling exhibitions such as Turner to Cézanne: Masterpieces from the Davies Collection, National Museum Wales, and Gods and Heroes: Masterpieces from the École des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Prior to joining the AFA, Small was a curator at the Dahesh Museum of Art, where she organized numerous exhibitions, including Napoleon on the Nile: Soldiers, Artists, and the Rediscovery of Egypt and Fantasy & Faith: The Art of Gustave Doré. Small has taught art history at Hunter College and Brooklyn College and has been a member of the art history faculty at the School of Visual Arts since 2008. Small earned a B.A. from Colgate University, an M.A. and an M.Phil in Art History from CUNY, and an M.A. in Arts Administration from NYU.

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Refining the Russian Collection

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Richard Aste

When I arrived at the Brooklyn Museum in the spring of 2010, I began a careful review of the Russian holdings and within months my colleagues and I identified a core group of avant-garde paintings from 1860-1930, which led to the current installation Russian Modern. During this time, we also identified a painting by Vasily Vereshchagin—one of three in the collection—for deaccession: A Crucifixion in the Time of the Romans.

Vasily Vereshchagin. A Crucifixion in the Time of the Romans

Vasily Vereshchagin, (Russian, 1842-1904). A Crucifixion in the Time of the Romans, 1887. Oil on canvas, 116 x 156 in. (294.6 x 396.2 cm).

Crucifixion by the Romans is a wonderful example of Vereshchagin’s passion for late 19^th-century European academic painting. Theatrically staged in 1^st-century A.D. Jerusalem, the picture is typical of the dramatic historical spectacles—here of capital punishment under the Roman Empire—that wowed period audiences across Europe and America. Today the painting continues to impress the viewer with its monumentality and academic exoticism or Orientalism, which Vereshchagin learned firsthand in Paris from the style’s principal exponent, Jean-Léon Gérôme. In preparation for the painting, Vereshchagin completed a series of architectural and ethnographic studies on site in Palestine; this endowed his work with an awesome sense of realism.

Crucifixion is not, however, an example of Russian avant-garde painting—the focus of Brooklyn’s collection— which in Vereshchagin’s own lifetime meant critical depictions of modern Russian society or Critical Realism. (The Museum owns two iconic Critical Realist paintings by Vereshchagin of the Russo-Turkish War, A Resting Place of Prisoners and The Road of the War Prisoners, both now on view in Russian Modern.) Crucifixion by the Romans is a powerful expression of Vereshchagin’s foray into Orientalism, and as such it merits greater study and exposure than it could get here, where it was last on view in 1932.

Vasily Vereshchagin. The Road of the War Prisoners

Vasily Vereshchagin (Russian, 1842-1904). The Road of the War Prisoners, 1878-1879. Oil on canvas, 71 1/2 x 110 1/2 in. (181.6 x 280.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Lilla Brown in memory of her husband John W. Brown , 06.46

Cultural institutions are evolving, thanks to the constant examination, reassessment, and ultimately refinement of their holdings. When an object enters a museum collection, it is officially accessioned and registered and “deaccessioning” is art-world speak for officially removing an object from the collection. After an object is deaccessioned, it is normally disposed of, most often by transfer to another institution, sale, or trade. This is a normal and, frankly, healthy part of collection management; it allows an institution’s scarce resources to be concentrated on the care of remaining works that continue to fulfill their original purpose to the collection. According to the professional practice guidelines of the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), “deaccessioning and disposal can be a legitimate part of the formation and care of a collection and, if practiced, should be intended to refine and improve the quality and appropriateness of the collection.”

Brooklyn’s Russian collection is first and foremost avant-garde. In evaluating and reconfirming this collection strength, it was determined that Vereshchagin’s Crucifixion was not appropriate for the focus of our holdings. However, only our Board of Trustees can make the decision to deaccession a work from the collection. The Board does this on the recommendation of our Collections Committee, who in turn is presented with a recommendation from the curators and Director. The curator’s recommendation is informed by a careful study of the object in question and its relationship to the collection as a whole. Discussions with scholars, curators, and collectors, in this case of 19th-century Russian painting, further inform the curatorial recommendation. By complying with this rigorous process of checks and balances, we avoid exposing ourselves to unnecessary risk and mismanagement of the collection.

All three Brooklyn paintings by Vereshchagin were included in the artist’s landmark 1891 sale in New York, and all three entered the Museum’s collection in 1906 as gifts—without restrictions—from Mrs. Lilla Brown, who donated them in memory of her husband John W. Brown. In keeping with standard US museum guidelines for deaccessioning, Mr. and Mrs. Brown will be acknowledged on the credit line of any artwork purchased with the proceeds from its sale. At this time the Brooklyn Museum has not identified a specific work of art for acquisition. The decision to sell Crucifixion by the Romans is based principally on the painting’s incongruity with the Museum’s avant-garde Russian holdings.

I welcome your questions about the Museum’s decision to sell this painting.

About Richard Aste

Richard Aste joined the Brooklyn Museum in the spring of 2010 as Curator of European Art. From 2007 until 2010, he was Associate Curator of European Art at Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico. There he organized the exhibitions El Greco to Goya: Masterpieces of Spanish Painting from the Prado and The Journey to Impressionism and co-curated Masterpieces of European Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce and The Age of Rodin. Aste has taught at Hunter College and worked as an Old Master paintings and drawings specialist at Christie’s New York and Rome. He has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues, among them Giulio Romano: Master Designer (Hunter College Art Gallery, New York) and Venus and Love: Michelangelo and the New Ideal of Beauty (Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence). Aste received his B.A. from the University of Michigan, his M.A. from Hunter College, and his M.Phil. from the CUNY Graduate Center, where he is pursuing his Ph.D. As Curator of European Art, he will also oversee the Brooklyn Museum's Spanish colonial collection.

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From Russia—To Brooklyn—With Love

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Richard Aste

The Brooklyn Museum celebrates for the first time in over eighty years its renowned collection of modern Russian paintings with its newest installation, Russian Modern. From its first modern Russian art acquisition in 1906—Vasily Vereshchagin’s raw depictions of the Russo-Turkish War, recently restored and now on view—through solo exhibitions of the art of Boris Anisfeld and Aleksandr Yakovlev and the country’s first major survey of contemporary Russian art in the 1920s, the Museum has been a pioneering institution in the promotion of Russian avant-garde art in America.

Vasily Vereshchagin. A Resting Place of Prisoners

Vasily Vereshchagin (Russian, 1842-1904). A Resting Place of Prisoners, 1878-1879. Oil on canvas, 71 7/8 x 119 1/8 x 2 1/4 in. (182.6 x 302.6 x 5.7 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. Lilla Brown in memory of her husband John W. Brown , 06.45

In 1926, following this series of successful Russian exhibitions, Brooklyn embarked on its most ambitious representation of international (including Russian) modern art to date. International Exhibition of Modern Art, organized by the Société Anonyme and headed by Katherine S. Dreier, Marcel Duchamp, and Wassily Kandinsky, was the U.S.’s first significant show of western modernism since the 1913 Armory Show; among the highlights was Marcel Duchamp’s recently completed The Large Glass, 1915-23 (today Philadelphia Museum of Art). By devoting an entire section of the exhibition to the Russian avant-garde, the curators demonstrated Russia’s integral role in the development of modern art across the globe. Today Russian Modern, which opens fittingly in the Museum’s European gallery, builds on Brooklyn’s proud history of showcasing modern Russian art in a broad international context.

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Aleksandr Yakovlev. Model Washing Her Hair.

Aleksandr Yakovlev (Russian, 1887-1938). Model Washing Her Hair, 1929. Tempera on linen, 21 5/8 x 23 in. (54.9 x 58.4 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Martin Birnbaum, 44.220 © artist or artist's estate

Wassily Kandinsky. Stubborn (Hartnäckig).

Wassily Kandinsky (Russian, 1866-1944). Stubborn (Hartnäckig), 1929. Oil on paperboard, 27 3/4 x 19 1/8in. (70.5 x 48.6cm). Brooklyn Museum, Bequest of William K. Jacobs, Jr., 1992.107.19 © artist or artist's estate

Boris Anisfeld. Clouds over the Black Sea--Crimea

Boris Anisfeld (Russian, 1879-1973). Clouds over the Black Sea--Crimea, 1906. Oil on canvas, 49 1/2 x 56 in. (125.7 x 142.2 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Boris Anisfeld in memory of his wife, 33.416

Boris Grigoriev (Russian, 1886-1939). Old Trombola, 1924. Oil on canvas, 29 x 23 1/2in. (73.7 x 59.7cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Mrs. W. Murray Crane, Morton E. Goldsmith, Boris Grigoriev, and The New Gallery, 25.90. © artist or artist's estate

Russian Modern will feature thirteen paintings (twelve from the Museum’s permanent collection and one from the collection of Jurii Maniichuk and Rose Brady) spanning one hundred years of modern Russian art history. Among the avant-garde painters represented are Vasily Vereshchagin, Boris Anisfeld, Abraham Manievich, Chaim Soutine, Max Weber, Aleksandr Yakovlev, Boris Grigoriev, and Wassily Kandinsky. The paintings range in scale and subject-matter from small cabinet pictures of Russian peasant life to large-scale pacifist paintings of imperial Russian warfare, from abstracted landscapes of Crimea and the Ukraine to classicizing, “return to order” portraits from the years following the first World War.

Russian Modern is now on long-term view in Brooklyn’s third-floor European gallery.

All thirteen paintings are accompanied by wall texts written in both English and Russian. They will remain on long-term view in the Museum’s third-floor European gallery as testaments to our commitment to presenting avant-garde Russian art as a major force in the development of international modernism.

Stay tuned for a post on my collection review of Brooklyn’s Russian holdings, which led to this installation as well as the deaccession of a painting from the permanent collection.

About Richard Aste

Richard Aste joined the Brooklyn Museum in the spring of 2010 as Curator of European Art. From 2007 until 2010, he was Associate Curator of European Art at Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico. There he organized the exhibitions El Greco to Goya: Masterpieces of Spanish Painting from the Prado and The Journey to Impressionism and co-curated Masterpieces of European Painting from Museo de Arte de Ponce and The Age of Rodin. Aste has taught at Hunter College and worked as an Old Master paintings and drawings specialist at Christie’s New York and Rome. He has contributed to numerous exhibition catalogues, among them Giulio Romano: Master Designer (Hunter College Art Gallery, New York) and Venus and Love: Michelangelo and the New Ideal of Beauty (Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence). Aste received his B.A. from the University of Michigan, his M.A. from Hunter College, and his M.Phil. from the CUNY Graduate Center, where he is pursuing his Ph.D. As Curator of European Art, he will also oversee the Brooklyn Museum's Spanish colonial collection.

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