Edmund de Waal (1964 - ), on living in an old country I (one of a set), 2019,
porcelain, steel, gold, alabaster, aluminum, and plexiglass,
23 5/8 × 35 7/16 × 12 5/8 in. (65.09 x 90.01 x 32.07 cm),
on view in the Dining Room of The Frick Collection
in the exhibition Elective Affinities: Edmund de Waal at The Frick Collection,
May 30 - November 17, 2019
© Edmund de Waal. Courtesy the artist and The Frick Collection
Photo: Christopher Burke
The British artist and writer Edmund de Waal (1964 - ) is probably best known for his successful memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes: a Hidden Inheritance. He is, however, an acclaimed ceramicist creating fine pottery typically in porcelain with celadon glazes. His latest work has shifted away from individual wares to a presentation of groups of vessels, containers and box-like elements made from porcelain and other materials. He calls these installations.
De Waal has created such works for historic collections such as Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, England and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. For these installations, he takes into account the particular collection, the building where it is housed, the room or gallery space, the light and the objects where his art will be placed. His work enters into a conversation with their environment. They cause viewers to pause and engender moments of reflection.
The artist's invitation to make works expressly for The Frick Collection mark his first site-specific installations outside of Europe. These installations, nine in all, are now on view at the Frick in the exhibition, Elective Affinities: Edmund de Waal at The Frick Collection.
When de Waal speaks about Henry Clay Frick (1849 - 1919) he compares what the industrialist had accomplished to alchemy. Frick made wealth out of steel, forming the U. S. Steel Corporation, and turned wealth into art. De Waal performs a sort of alchemy too. He takes clay and transforms it into porcelain which the artist refers to as "white gold." Although porcelain is by far the artist's favorite medium, valued for its durability and delicacy, he also works with gold, steel, alabaster, aluminum and plexiglass. The artist employed steel in all the Frick installations because of its association with Frick. De Waal's artworks are of a quiet and unobtrusive nature. They can be easily overlooked yet once noticed, they are intriguing.
The artist had spent five months at the museum thinking about his installations. He chose locations near paintings that had particular meaning for him. In the Frick Dining Room filled with 18th-century aristocratic portraiture, de Waal created two pieces, on living in an old country I & II. These he placed on the marble tops of pier tables beneath adjacent portraits by Thomas Gainsborough (1727 - 1788) of Mrs. Peter William Baker, 1781 and The Hon. Frances Duncombe, c. 1777. Frick acquired them in 1917 and 1911 respectively.
The installation on living in an old country I & II consists of rectangle receptacles of white-painted steel and thin sheets of white and golden porcelain within a white-framed vitrine. In the exhibition's catalogue, Charlotte Vignon, the curator of the show and the Curator of Decorative Arts at the Frick, notes that the thin ceramic sheets that lean on the white-painted steel receptacles give the appearance of book pages supported by closed books. All elements rest in vitrines which have bases of thick plexiglass partially covered by a fine alabaster tablet. Gold components pick up the gilt frames of Gainsborough's canvases while the book-like pieces reflect the paintings' rectangular shape and vertical orientation.
Viewed from above and sideways, the marble of the tables' tops is seen through the clear installations' plinths. Thus, the swirls and veins of the grayish-colored marble become part of the artwork. Bending down, looking ahead through the plexiglass the room's decorative walls enter into the composition.
In each vitrine, broken fragments of white porcelain with words on them and gold shards are placed in a small box. The words are from the poems of Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) that the artist wrote on porcelain prior to breakage. He chose Dickinson, he had explained,
because of the strength of her poetry which could stand up to a "...Gainsborough girl." The whole evokes a sense of books, writing, creating and collecting.
De Waal called the Dining Room an "... extraordinary fantasy of the English country house...." For him, it signified entitlement, ownership and, he said, "...it makes me want to break things." Although evoking the 18th century, the furnishings were made by a prominent English decorator about 1913 - 14. This included the console tables on which de Waal's works sit.
The light-filled West Vestibule is hung with The Four Seasons, a series of paintings by François Boucher (1703–1770). They were made for Madame de Pompadour (1721 - 1764), the official mistress of Louis XV of France (1710 - 1774), in 1755. Frick acquired them in 1916. Autumn and Winter flank an ornate commode, c. 1710, with later alterations, attributed to André-Charles Boulle (1642–1732), the illustrious French cabinetmaker known for his inlay craftsmanship. This chest of drawers, purchased in 1915, is the platform for de Waal's set of five sculptures, steel light I-V.
These are heavy works of steel, porcelain and gold. They are the only Frick installation without an enclosing vitrine. Containers and flat components are colored in blacks, grays, gray-blues and gold. As natural light comes through the western glass door leading to the Frick's Central Park facing garden, the installation's forms, tints and textures appear to change. Black here is never true black. Cylinder-formed porcelain vessels, each differentiated and individualized, and steel strips, some gilded, are set on black steel square blocks. The strips, cut to a sixteenth of an inch, lean against the vase-like containers that seem to await some floral arrangement from the nearby garden. De Waal's work holds its own and draws viewers to the substantial gilt bronze decorated commode and the Boucher oils with their golden frames.
The Frick's Fragonard Room is named after the painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732 - 1806) whose series of paintings The Progress of Love now adorn the room's walls. The Pursuit, The Meeting, The Lover Crowned and Love Letters (1771 - 72), were made for Madame du Barry (1743 - 1793), the last mistress of Louis XV. She had rejected them for some unknown reason. Twenty years later, Fragonard installed the turned-down panels along with additional ones in a cousin's villa in southern France. Frick purchased all the paintings in 1915. They form a delightful setting for the room's furnishings which include furniture embellished with a variety of woods, marble and gilded sculptural mounts as well as Sèvres and Chinese porcelains, objects of gilt-bronze and an eighteenth-century clock by Jean-Baptiste Lepaute, the clockmaker of King Louis XVI (1754 - 1793), with terra-cotta sculptures by the prominent Prix de Rome winning sculptor Clodion (French, 1738–1814).
De Waal responded to the room with the installation, on an archaic torso of Apollo. This is his first ever golden vitrine, a gilded steel frame which rests on a deep plexiglass plinth. Inside there are two stacks of celadon porcelain bowls, one with three and the other with two dishes. The stacks are set on two white-colored steel pedestals. Shards of gold are settled in the top bowl of the lower two-dish stack. The higher rectangular base of the three-dish stack contains pieces of porcelain which can be seen only from a side view of the installation. The five bowls could, perhaps, refer to the five main paintings of the room: the four du Barry paintings mentioned above and Reverie. The porcelain bowls, one on top of another, also suggest a kind of intimacy, a sort of cuddling reflecting the paintings' love theme.
The artist placed the installation on the marble top of a grand mahogany commode attributed to Jean-Henri Riesener (German, 1734–1806). Riesener was a renowned cabinetmaker in Paris during the Louis XVI period. He was cabinetmaker to the king and a favorite of Marie Antoinette (1755 - 1793), wife of King Louis XVI and the last queen of France before the revolution. The commode was probably made to exhibit collections of precious porcelain or lacquer. Crowning Riesener's work is the central superbly sculptured gilt-bronze head of Apollo surrounded by laurel leaves and sun rays. The installation's coloring and clear base through which can be seen, here again, the marble surface of the furniture beneath and the wall beyond, makes the piece appear to float and vanish into its surroundings.
The West Gallery contains Spanish, Dutch and Flemish Old Master paintings, Renaissance furniture and bronze sculptures of the sixteenth- through eighteenth-centuries. Of much importance for de Waal is The Forge (c. 1817), by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746–1828). It shows three laborers working around an anvil on a red-hot piece of metal. The sturdy, muscular smith with his back to viewers raises his sledgehammer above his head. He is just about to bring it down on the molten metal sheet held in place with tongs by the worker opposite him. The image brings back the theme of steel and the meaning it holds in the context of the Frick.
The artist related that you could hear the hammer coming down on the metal creating a forceful, rhythmic aural experience. He said it set up the repetitive beat of his installations.
De Waal explains that he listens to music all the time. He talks about the interest he has in the sounds of the different materials he uses saying "...porcelain does sound incredibly beautiful as does steel...." He described something akin to a form of synesthesia. When he is in different rooms filled with art, the room or specific works will conjure up particular musical pieces. In the West Gallery, de Waal said he heard in his mind, among other music, the Goldberg Variations (1741) by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750).
De Waal made two installations for the West Gallery, from darkness to darkness (near the west end of the room) and noontime and dawntime (near the east end of the room). He installed them on two grand Renaissance-style tables across the room from one another. They works dominated by black steel with some components in black porcelain, relate to the tones of the art in the gallery.
Elements in the vitrines vary in height and width. Read from left to right or right to left, they create an up and down movement of a certain pace and, as such, may be seen as some form of three-dimensional musical notation. Depending on the angle of sight, the glass of the vitrines reflects the viewer and surroundings or appears to disappear. When it is reflective, the surroundings and viewers become part of the artworks. When it is not visible, the black metal frame sets the installations' steel and porcelain pieces apart and outlines artworks within the gallery. It becomes another framework to view the Frick collection.
De Waal's installations will slow you down as you connect them with the objects on view, the rooms, the lighting and space. This slowing down while observing is exactly the artist's intention.
Note: Please do not forget to pick up the free exhibition guide available at the admission and information desks.
The artist's invitation to make works expressly for The Frick Collection mark his first site-specific installations outside of Europe. These installations, nine in all, are now on view at the Frick in the exhibition, Elective Affinities: Edmund de Waal at The Frick Collection.
When de Waal speaks about Henry Clay Frick (1849 - 1919) he compares what the industrialist had accomplished to alchemy. Frick made wealth out of steel, forming the U. S. Steel Corporation, and turned wealth into art. De Waal performs a sort of alchemy too. He takes clay and transforms it into porcelain which the artist refers to as "white gold." Although porcelain is by far the artist's favorite medium, valued for its durability and delicacy, he also works with gold, steel, alabaster, aluminum and plexiglass. The artist employed steel in all the Frick installations because of its association with Frick. De Waal's artworks are of a quiet and unobtrusive nature. They can be easily overlooked yet once noticed, they are intriguing.
The artist had spent five months at the museum thinking about his installations. He chose locations near paintings that had particular meaning for him. In the Frick Dining Room filled with 18th-century aristocratic portraiture, de Waal created two pieces, on living in an old country I & II. These he placed on the marble tops of pier tables beneath adjacent portraits by Thomas Gainsborough (1727 - 1788) of Mrs. Peter William Baker, 1781 and The Hon. Frances Duncombe, c. 1777. Frick acquired them in 1917 and 1911 respectively.
The installation on living in an old country I & II consists of rectangle receptacles of white-painted steel and thin sheets of white and golden porcelain within a white-framed vitrine. In the exhibition's catalogue, Charlotte Vignon, the curator of the show and the Curator of Decorative Arts at the Frick, notes that the thin ceramic sheets that lean on the white-painted steel receptacles give the appearance of book pages supported by closed books. All elements rest in vitrines which have bases of thick plexiglass partially covered by a fine alabaster tablet. Gold components pick up the gilt frames of Gainsborough's canvases while the book-like pieces reflect the paintings' rectangular shape and vertical orientation.
Viewed from above and sideways, the marble of the tables' tops is seen through the clear installations' plinths. Thus, the swirls and veins of the grayish-colored marble become part of the artwork. Bending down, looking ahead through the plexiglass the room's decorative walls enter into the composition.
In each vitrine, broken fragments of white porcelain with words on them and gold shards are placed in a small box. The words are from the poems of Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886) that the artist wrote on porcelain prior to breakage. He chose Dickinson, he had explained,
because of the strength of her poetry which could stand up to a "...Gainsborough girl." The whole evokes a sense of books, writing, creating and collecting.
De Waal called the Dining Room an "... extraordinary fantasy of the English country house...." For him, it signified entitlement, ownership and, he said, "...it makes me want to break things." Although evoking the 18th century, the furnishings were made by a prominent English decorator about 1913 - 14. This included the console tables on which de Waal's works sit.
Edmund de Waal (1964 - ), steel light I-V, 2019,
porcelain, steel, and gold,
14 3/16 × 6 5/16 × 7 1/16 in. (36.04 x 16.03 x 17.94 cm),
porcelain, steel, and gold,
14 3/16 × 6 5/16 × 7 1/16 in. (36.04 x 16.03 x 17.94 cm),
on view in the West Vestibule of The Frick Collection
in the exhibition Elective Affinities: Edmund de Waal at The Frick Collection,
May 30 - November 17, 2019
© Edmund de Waal. Courtesy the artist and The Frick Collection
Photo: Christopher Burke
The light-filled West Vestibule is hung with The Four Seasons, a series of paintings by François Boucher (1703–1770). They were made for Madame de Pompadour (1721 - 1764), the official mistress of Louis XV of France (1710 - 1774), in 1755. Frick acquired them in 1916. Autumn and Winter flank an ornate commode, c. 1710, with later alterations, attributed to André-Charles Boulle (1642–1732), the illustrious French cabinetmaker known for his inlay craftsmanship. This chest of drawers, purchased in 1915, is the platform for de Waal's set of five sculptures, steel light I-V.
These are heavy works of steel, porcelain and gold. They are the only Frick installation without an enclosing vitrine. Containers and flat components are colored in blacks, grays, gray-blues and gold. As natural light comes through the western glass door leading to the Frick's Central Park facing garden, the installation's forms, tints and textures appear to change. Black here is never true black. Cylinder-formed porcelain vessels, each differentiated and individualized, and steel strips, some gilded, are set on black steel square blocks. The strips, cut to a sixteenth of an inch, lean against the vase-like containers that seem to await some floral arrangement from the nearby garden. De Waal's work holds its own and draws viewers to the substantial gilt bronze decorated commode and the Boucher oils with their golden frames.
Edmund de Waal (1964 - ), on an archaic torso of Apollo, 2019,
porcelain, steel, gold, alabaster, aluminum, and plexiglass,
22 7/16 × 17 5/16 × 11 13/16 in. (56.99 x 43.97 x 30.00 cm)
porcelain, steel, gold, alabaster, aluminum, and plexiglass,
22 7/16 × 17 5/16 × 11 13/16 in. (56.99 x 43.97 x 30.00 cm)
on view in the Fragonard Room of The Frick Collection
in the exhibition Elective Affinities: Edmund de Waal at The Frick Collection,
May 30 - November 17, 2019
© Edmund de Waal. Courtesy the artist and The Frick Collection
Photo: Christopher Burke
The Frick's Fragonard Room is named after the painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732 - 1806) whose series of paintings The Progress of Love now adorn the room's walls. The Pursuit, The Meeting, The Lover Crowned and Love Letters (1771 - 72), were made for Madame du Barry (1743 - 1793), the last mistress of Louis XV. She had rejected them for some unknown reason. Twenty years later, Fragonard installed the turned-down panels along with additional ones in a cousin's villa in southern France. Frick purchased all the paintings in 1915. They form a delightful setting for the room's furnishings which include furniture embellished with a variety of woods, marble and gilded sculptural mounts as well as Sèvres and Chinese porcelains, objects of gilt-bronze and an eighteenth-century clock by Jean-Baptiste Lepaute, the clockmaker of King Louis XVI (1754 - 1793), with terra-cotta sculptures by the prominent Prix de Rome winning sculptor Clodion (French, 1738–1814).
De Waal responded to the room with the installation, on an archaic torso of Apollo. This is his first ever golden vitrine, a gilded steel frame which rests on a deep plexiglass plinth. Inside there are two stacks of celadon porcelain bowls, one with three and the other with two dishes. The stacks are set on two white-colored steel pedestals. Shards of gold are settled in the top bowl of the lower two-dish stack. The higher rectangular base of the three-dish stack contains pieces of porcelain which can be seen only from a side view of the installation. The five bowls could, perhaps, refer to the five main paintings of the room: the four du Barry paintings mentioned above and Reverie. The porcelain bowls, one on top of another, also suggest a kind of intimacy, a sort of cuddling reflecting the paintings' love theme.
The artist placed the installation on the marble top of a grand mahogany commode attributed to Jean-Henri Riesener (German, 1734–1806). Riesener was a renowned cabinetmaker in Paris during the Louis XVI period. He was cabinetmaker to the king and a favorite of Marie Antoinette (1755 - 1793), wife of King Louis XVI and the last queen of France before the revolution. The commode was probably made to exhibit collections of precious porcelain or lacquer. Crowning Riesener's work is the central superbly sculptured gilt-bronze head of Apollo surrounded by laurel leaves and sun rays. The installation's coloring and clear base through which can be seen, here again, the marble surface of the furniture beneath and the wall beyond, makes the piece appear to float and vanish into its surroundings.
Edmund de Waal (1964 - ), noontime and dawntime, 2019,
porcelain, steel, and plexiglass,
33 7/16 × 65 3/4 × 18 7/8 in. (84.93 x 167.00 x 47.94 cm)
Far table: from darkness to darkness, 2019,
porcelain, steel, and plexiglass,
33 7/16 × 65 3/4 × 18 7/8 in. (84.93 x 167.00 x 47.94 cm)
porcelain, steel, and plexiglass,
33 7/16 × 65 3/4 × 18 7/8 in. (84.93 x 167.00 x 47.94 cm)
Far table: from darkness to darkness, 2019,
porcelain, steel, and plexiglass,
33 7/16 × 65 3/4 × 18 7/8 in. (84.93 x 167.00 x 47.94 cm)
on view in the West Gallery of The Frick Collection,
in the exhibition Elective Affinities: Edmund de Waal at The Frick Collection,
May 30 - November 17, 2019.
© Edmund de Waal. Courtesy the artist and The Frick Collection
Photo: Christopher Burke
The artist related that you could hear the hammer coming down on the metal creating a forceful, rhythmic aural experience. He said it set up the repetitive beat of his installations.
De Waal explains that he listens to music all the time. He talks about the interest he has in the sounds of the different materials he uses saying "...porcelain does sound incredibly beautiful as does steel...." He described something akin to a form of synesthesia. When he is in different rooms filled with art, the room or specific works will conjure up particular musical pieces. In the West Gallery, de Waal said he heard in his mind, among other music, the Goldberg Variations (1741) by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750).
Edmund de Waal (1964 - ), from darkness to darkness, 2019,
porcelain, steel, and plexiglass,
33 7/16 × 65 3/4 × 18 7/8 in. (84.93 x 167.00 x 47.94 cm)
porcelain, steel, and plexiglass,
33 7/16 × 65 3/4 × 18 7/8 in. (84.93 x 167.00 x 47.94 cm)
on view in the West Gallery of The Frick Collection,
in the exhibition Elective Affinities: Edmund de Waal at The Frick Collection,
May 30 - November 17, 2019.
© Edmund de Waal. Courtesy the artist and The Frick Collection
Photo: Christopher Burke
De Waal made two installations for the West Gallery, from darkness to darkness (near the west end of the room) and noontime and dawntime (near the east end of the room). He installed them on two grand Renaissance-style tables across the room from one another. They works dominated by black steel with some components in black porcelain, relate to the tones of the art in the gallery.
Elements in the vitrines vary in height and width. Read from left to right or right to left, they create an up and down movement of a certain pace and, as such, may be seen as some form of three-dimensional musical notation. Depending on the angle of sight, the glass of the vitrines reflects the viewer and surroundings or appears to disappear. When it is reflective, the surroundings and viewers become part of the artworks. When it is not visible, the black metal frame sets the installations' steel and porcelain pieces apart and outlines artworks within the gallery. It becomes another framework to view the Frick collection.
De Waal's installations will slow you down as you connect them with the objects on view, the rooms, the lighting and space. This slowing down while observing is exactly the artist's intention.
Note: Please do not forget to pick up the free exhibition guide available at the admission and information desks.
Elective Affinities: Edmund de Waal at The Frick Collection
May 30 - November 17, 2019
1 East 70th Street, Manhattan
Tuesday through Saturday,
10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Sundays, 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
First Fridays:
On the first Friday of the month
(except January and September)
the museum is open until 9:00 p.m.
Closed Mondays and holidays.
Check The Frick Collection Web site for holiday and limited hours schedule.
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