SAN DIEGO – The San Diego Museum of Art’s current exhibition Cranach to Canaletto: Masterpieces from the Bemberg Foundation will be available to view through September 27.
Organized by the Bemberg Foundation, based at the historic Hotel d’Assezat in Toulouse, France, the Cranach to Canaletto exhibition features more than 80 works produced between 1500 and 1800. This exhibition marks the first time these works have been shown publicly in the U.S. and features some of the biggest names in European painting.
Artists represented include the renowned Venetian painters Jacopo Robusti (Tintoretto); Tiziano Vecellio (Titian); Paolo Veronese; Giovanni Antonio Canal (Canaletto); Giandomenico Tiepolo and Alessandro Longhi; as well as the French artists Jean Clouet; Jean-Marc Nattier; Francois Boucher and Elisabeth-Louise Vigee-Lebrun. It also features the Flemish and Dutch painters Pieter Brueghel The Younger, Jan Van Goyen and Anthony Van Dyck. Four Lucas Cranach the Elder paintings will also be on display, a testament to Bemberg’s appreciation of this seminal figure of the German Renaissance.
Grouped thematically in four sections, Cranach to Canaletto explores themes of portraiture, landscape, mythology and domestic environments with layers of storytelling within each painting. Along the way, issues of perceived beauty, romance, realism and faith are considered. The exhibition space was also created specifically to highlight the collection, including gallery archways inspired by the Hotel d’Assezat architecture, long sightlines and a dramatic, intimate final section.
The exhibition is composed entirely of works from The Bemberg Foundation and is co-curated by Philippe Cros, Director of the Bemberg Foundation, and Michael Brown, Ph.D., Curator of European Art at The San Diego Museum of Art. The exhibition is made possible in collaboration with Manifesto Expo.
Georges Bemberg was an Argentina-born French collector, world traveler and Harvard-trained scholar, who amassed an extraordinary collection of Western art from the end of the Middle Ages to the 20th century. Bemberg’s private collection was preserved through the Foundation, which is currently closed for renovations.
“It is an exceptional and unique opportunity to collaborate with the Bemberg Foundation and bring these magnificent masterpieces from France to the U.S. for the first time in our Cranach to Canaletto exhibition,” said Roxana Velasquez, Maruja Baldwin Executive Director at The San Diego Museum of Art. “This collection is very complementary to our own permanent collection and a true delight for the senses.”
Lucas Cranach the Elder, ‘Portrait of a Young Girl,’ 16th century. Oil on panel. Collection from the Fondation Bemberg. © Fondation Bemberg and RMN.
Visit the San Diego Museum of Art and see its dedicated page for Cranach to Canaletto: Masterpieces from the Bemberg Foundation.