From Rothko to Fontana, an exhibition on the Schulhof collection at the Peggy Guggenheim in Venice. Photos

From January 26 to March 18, 2019, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice presents the exhibition From Gesture to Form. Postwar European and American Art in the Schulhof Collection, curated by Gražina Subelytė, Assistant Curator, and Karole P. B. Vail, director of the Venetian museum.

This is an in-depth look at the Schulhof Collection, consisting of eighty works of European and American art that were added to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation ’s collections in 2012 as a bequest from Hannelore B. Schulhof (1922 2012) and her husband Rudolph B. Schulhof (1912 1999). The exhibition will be an opportunity to see the Schulhof Collection as a whole, with almost all works displayed and arranged on the basis of the formal developments of art in the postwar period, thus following the transitions between movements and styles developing from the end of World War II through the 1980s. Abstract Limmaginary, understood as research on color, form, and space and their interrelationships characterizes the postwar artistic language and becomes the cornerstone of the Schulhof Collection. From Gesture to Form. Postwar European and American Art in the Schulhof Collection also aims to shed light on the history and vision of the Schulhof couple’s collecting, showing how their collection, in crossing oceans and cultures, reflects the polyphony of voices of the multiple artistic trends of the postwar period. Indeed, it is contemporary artists living on both sides of theAtlantic that are the focus of the collection, with equal commitment from beginning to end in the words of Hannelore Schulhof (letter to Wilder Green, director of theAmerican Federation of Arts, New York, April 26, 1984, The Schulhof Collection Archives, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Venice).

Leaving her native Germany at the outbreak of war, Hannelore travels to Brussels, where she is joined by Rudolph Schulhof, of Bohemian descent, to whom she marries. The couple thus left for the United States and in 1940 settled in New York, soon acquiring American citizenship. They began collecting works of art in the late 1940s and four decades later are now known for the great criterion with which they collect. A crucial moment in the history of their collecting is undoubtedly marked by their acquaintance with Justin K. Thannhauser, a famous art dealer whose collection of Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and French Modernist works was later donated to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Thannhauser suggested that the Schulhofs devote themselves to the artistic currents of the day, and so they did, focusing exclusively on acquiring works by living artists.

They collected contemporary European and American art and often befriended the artists whose works they acquired. Beginning with the original core of works belonging toAbstract Expressionism and Informalism, the collection opened up to Minimalism and then toPost-Pictorial Art andConceptual Art. The display at Palazzo Venier dei Leoni will reflect this evolution of an increasingly minimal and refined abstraction. Following styles, themes, and affinities, the notions of gesture, matter, monochrome, sign, grid, hard-edge geometry, and form will be explored.

The exhibition, divided into twelve sections preceded by an introduction, opens with the works of the American Abstract Expressionists, such as Hans Hofmann, Joan Mitchell and Mark Rothko, thus privileging a non-figurative language and a spontaneous and lively brushstroke, and then continues with works by Jasper Johns, Mark Tobey and Cy Twombly, united by the obsessiveiteration of a gesture or a sign on an often monochrome background, which come to evoke lyrical texts enclosed in abstract and visionary spaces.

The itinerary continues with postwar Italian lastrazione with works by major exponents of theInformal such as Afro Basaldella, Alberto Burri and Lucio Fontana. In Italy, questarte progressista developed mainly around the Galleria del Naviglio, founded in Milan in 1946 by Carlo Cardazzo, who became one of the Schulhof couple’s trusted gallerists for Italian art. Unitera room is then dedicated to Jean Dubuffet whose numerous works the Schulhofs collected. The works on display belong both to his early pictorial phase, marked by a primitive, naïve style with thick, rough impasto, and to a later moment, beginning in 1962, with the LHourloupe series, characterized by figures in the colors of white, red, and blue, with thick, fluid black outlines. This is followed by a room devoted to the monochrome grid, with abstract works by Richard Diebenkorn and Agnes Martin, which exude a spiritual aura and share a controlled, monochromatic aesthetic of great serenity.

We continue with the room devoted to Anselm Kiefer and Antoni Tàpies, two artists who react to the war and socio-political tensions of the 20th century by placing lattention on the materiality of their works, and then move on to the theme of the line as the central element that unites the paintings and drawings of the postwar period by artists such as Philip Guston, Hans Hartung, and Brice Marden. This is followed by the sculptures and assemblages of Carl Andre, John Chamberlain, Eduardo Chillida, and Joseph Cornell, made between the 1940s and 1970s, testifying to how postwar European and American sculpture became increasingly experimental and radical. The Schulhofs devotedly collected the work of the Spaniard Chillida, with whom they befriended, and traveled to the Basque region where the artist hails from, becoming among the first to support him in the United States.

A focus is then devoted to the mystical-symbolic forms of the paintings, drawings, and sculptures of Julius Bissier, Alexander Calder, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Adolph Gottlieb, and Ellsworth Kelly. Although each of them took different artistic paths, the visual language of the exhibited works is united by a kind of obsession with forms and colors often characterized by an implicit symbolism or spirituality. It then moves on to address the theme of thephotographic image as a means of experimentation through the works of Andy Warhol and Bernd and Hilla Becher. Finally, the exhibition closes with the works of artists related toPost-Pictorial Abstractionor Minimalism. In 1964, the American art critic Clement Greenberg coined the term “Post-Pictorial Abstraction” in reference to the art born of Abstract Expressionism, which adopts a more rigorous approach to abstraction, tending toward formal clarity, the uniformity of the pictorial surface, and the absence of references and narrative elements, as occurs in the works of Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, and Frank Stella. Minimalism includes artists such as Donald Judd and Robert Ryman, who reduce their works to the essentiality of geometric abstraction and self-referential forms and materials.

From Gesture to Form. Postwar European and American Art in the Schulhof Collection is accompanied by anesaustive publication, edited by Philip Rylands, Director Emeritus of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, with essays by Gražina Subelytė. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection exhibition program is supported by Institutional Patrons EFG and Lavazza, Guggenheim Intrapresæ, and the museum’s Advisory Board. Educational projects related to the exhibition are carried out thanks to the Araldi Guinetti Foundation, Vaduz. Free guided tours of the exhibition are offered daily at 3:30 p.m. upon purchase of a museum admission ticket.

The exhibition is accessed with the museum tour ticket. Open: daily from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. (last admission at 5:30 p.m.). Tickets: full 15 euros, reduced 13 euros (for FAI members, TCI members, COOP members, Alitalia boarding pass holders to/from Venice for a flight up to 7 days before the visit, Cinemapiù card holders), special reduced 9 euros (children from 10 to 18 years old, students up to 26 years old, school groups, UNESCO members, IAA, AIAP, ANISA, Friends of the Museums of Venice, differently abled without accompanying person, journalists, law enforcement, Fidelity Card Holders Teatro Goldoni of Venice or Teatro Verdi of Padua), free for children up to 10 years old, differently abled with accompanying person, members Advisoty Bord, The International Patrons, Guggenheim Circle, Friends of the Collection, members of museums managed by the Solomon R. Foundation. Guggenheim with Membership Card, employees of the Guggenheim Intrapresae, ART PASS members, AAMD, ICOM, ICOMOS, accredited journalists, students of the Venice Academy of Fine Arts and the Venice High School of Art, licensed guides, members of the Golden Keys Association, members of the affiliated museums. For info, visit the Peggy Guggenheim Collection website.

Below are photos of some of the works on view in the exhibition.

Mark Rothko, Untitled (Red) (1968; acrylic on paper mounted on canvas, 83.8 x 65.4 cm; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Collection. Schulhof, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012. / Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012) © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / ARS, New York, by SIAE 2019

Joan Mitchell, Composition (1962; oil on canvas, 146.1 x 114.3 cm; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Collection. Schulhof, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012. / Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012)

Cy Twombly, Untitled (1967; interior oil painting and wax crayon on canvas, 127 x 170.2 cm; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Collection. Schulhof, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012. / Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012) © Cy Twombly Foundation

Lucio Fontana, Spatial Concept (1957; oil, sand and glitter on canvas, 115.6 x 88.9 cm; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Collection. Schulhof, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012. / Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012) © Lucio Fontana Foundation, Milan, by SIAE 2019

Alberto Burri, Bianco B (1965; plastic, acrylic, vinavil, combustion on cellotex, 151.1 x 151.1 cm; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Collection of Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012. / Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012). Palazzo Albizzini Foundation-Burri Collection, Città di Castello © by SIAE 2019

Afro, Yellow Country (1957; oil on canvas, 109.2 x 134.6 cm; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Collection. Schulhof, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012. / Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012) © Afro Basaldella, by SIAE 2019

Jean Dubuffet, Stairway VII (April 27, 1967; vinyl painting on canvas, 149.5 x 132.1 cm; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012. / Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012) © Jean Dubuffet, by SIAE 2019

Anselm Kiefer, Dein goldenes Haar, Margarethe (1981; acrylic, emulsion, charcoal, and straw on canvas, 118 x 145 cm; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Collection. Schulhof, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012. / Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012) © Anselm Kiefer

Giuseppe Capogrossi, Surface 236 (1957; oil on canvas, 96.5 x 71.1 cm; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012. / Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012) © Giuseppe Capogrossi, by SIAE 2019

Ellsworth Kelly, 42nd (1958; oil on canvas, 153.7 x 203.2 cm; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012. / Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012) © Ellsworth Kelly

Andy Warhol, Flowers (1964; acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas, 61 x 61 cm; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Collection. Schulhof, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012. / Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012) © Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, by SIAE 2019

Frank Stella, Gray Mixture (1968-1969; oil on canvas, 175.3 x 175.3 cm; Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Collection. Schulhof, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012. / Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, Hannelore B. and Rudolph B. Schulhof Collection, bequest of Hannelore B. Schulhof, 2012) © Frank Stella, by SIAE 2019

From Rothko to Fontana, an exhibition on the Schulhof collection at the Peggy Guggenheim in Venice. Photos

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