Major exhibition from Vienna celebrates
400th anniversary of Rembrandt’s birth

THE MILWAUKEE ART MUSEUM again this month rises to the top of the art world with an exhibition that can be seen only in Milwaukee – a collection of some of the greatest drawings and paintings ever produced by Netherlandish artists, organized in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt van Rijn’s birth.

Rembrandt and His Time: Masterworks from the Albertina, Vienna, which includes 113 drawings and prints from the Albertina and a number of related paintings, explores the pivotal and influential role of Rembrandt as a draftsman in mid-17th-Century Holland.  Visitors have the unprecedented opportunity to see 27 of Rembrandt’s drawings and prints – the largest number of Rembrandt works ever lent by the Albertina museum, considered one of the world’s largest and most valuable repositories of graphic art.

The exhibition opens Oct. 8 and will remain at the Museum on Milwaukee’s lakefront through Jan. 8, 2006.

Rembrandt is universally accepted as one of the greatest artists of all time, and the works on view demonstrate his exceptional facility as a draftsman with different media.  The exhibition includes iconic images such as Young Woman with a Child in a Harness, Three Studies of an Elephant, and Young Woman at Her Toilet.  Dutch landscape also is represented with such important works as Cottages under a Stormy Sky from the mid-1630s, and View of the Pesthuis from the Ramparts from the late 1640s.

Rembrandt’s Landscape with the Good Samaritan—one of only eight landscapes painted by the artist—has never before traveled to North America.  Lent by the Czartoryski Museum in Poland, this painting belongs to the pivotal midpoint of the artist’s career and provides an excellent point of comparison for the landscape drawings.  Other paintings include works by Philips Koninck, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Willem van de Velde the Younger, and Ludolf Bakhuizen.

Of equal significance are a number of early drawings by Roelant Savery, David Vinckboons, Jacques de Gheyn II, Hendrick Avercamp, Jan van Goyen, and Esaias van de Velde that provide the earliest examples of an emerging naturalism.  Also in the exhibition are works by Rembrandt’s contemporaries, followers, and by later artists whose innovative approach to recording the Dutch world takes the work of Rembrandt a step further.  Those artists include Jan Lievens, Lambert Doomer, Philips Koninck, Nicolaes Maes, Salomon de Bray, Govaert Flinck, and Adriaen van Ostade. Marine themes and Italianate landscapes are also explored as a means of fully explaining Rembrandt’s broad influence.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669)

Rembrandt van Rijn, the most prominent artist of the Golden Age of Dutch art, was a multifaceted painter, draughtsman and etcher.  The son of a prosperous miller, Rembrandt enrolled at Leiden University at 14.  His passion for art soon overtook his scholarly studies, however, and he apprenticed himself to the local figure painter Jacob Isaakz van Swanenburgh for three years before entering the studio of Amsterdam artist Pieter Lastman in 1624.

Rembrandt settled in the bustling city of Amsterdam in 1631 and established a studio, where he hired assistants and educated large numbers of pupils.  He quickly became the most fashionable portrait painter in Amsterdam, presenting his subjects as authentic, real-life characters in intimate settings.  Although he achieved greatest fame during his lifetime for his portraits, Rembrandt had a boundless curiosity and explored a great variety of subjects, including biblical and mythological themes, genre scenes, landscapes, figure and nature studies.

Organization & Sponsors

The exhibition is organized for Milwaukee by the Albertina in Vienna and curated by Marian Bisanz-Prakken, curator of Dutch art at the Albertina.  The exhibition is curated here by Laurie Winters, curator of earlier European art for the Museum.  Wisconsin Energy Foundation and Argosy Foundation are sponsoring the exhibition.

The Milwaukee Art Museum includes the new Santiago Calatrava-designed Quadracci Pavilion, completed in October 2001 and named by Time magazine “Best Design of 2001.”  The Museum is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., except for Thursdays when it remains open until 8 p.m. with the support of the Greater Milwaukee Foundation. Convenient underground parking is available at the Museum.  For more information, visit www.mam.org.