Contemplating Character: Portrait Drawings & Oil Sketches from Jacques-Louis David to Lucian Freud, continues its national museum tour with a presentation at William King Museum of Art through July 30.
Contemplating Character, which features 80 works, explores the evolution of portraiture from the end of the 18th century until the present. In contrast to portraits near the end of the eighteenth century that were tired flattery of the rich and powerful, invigorating new movements of Neoclassicism, Romanticism and Realism took hold of art at the end of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth century, the result of a desire for a sense of “unvarnished truth” and a more honest and gritty incisiveness of depiction. By the twentieth century, the hallmark of the portrait was individuality; that is, the character, or sense of “personality” was primary, whether stylistically Post-Impressionist, Expressionist, Surrealist, or Realist.
This exhibition showcases 80 rare portrait drawings and oil sketches, ranging from a late 18th century work by Jacques Louis David to works by Lucian Freud, and including many other remarkable works: a French revolutionary’s portrait of George Washington all of one half inch in height; an unusual caricature of Charles Garnier (1825-1898), the famed architect of the Paris Opera; an English portrait miniature circa 1810 depicting a single eye; a self-portrait reflection in a glass by Auguste-Hilaire Leveille; and a self-portrait by an artist born without arms, Louis-Joseph-Cesar Ducomet (French 1806-1856)!
Learn more about the exhibition online at williamkingmuseum.org
This exhibition is part of the McGlothlin Exhibition Series.
The exhibition is organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, in association with Denenberg Fine Arts, West Hollywood.
