Postdoctoral Fellow Anne Monahan consulted on the development of Horace Pippin: The Way I See It, an upcoming exhibition on self-taught artist Horace Pippin (1888-1946) that opens April 25 at the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania. The first major exhibition of Pippin’s work in over 20 years, the exhibition brings together 65 of Pippin’s works from different stages of his career.
Perhaps you’ve heard our big news of the day: thanks to the skillful work and research of Patricia Favero and colleagues at fellow institutions, a portrait of a man has been identified under Picasso’s The Blue Room (1901) through the use of imaging technology. We’re really proud of Patti’s discovery!
The x-radiograph of The Strongman attests to Daumier’s frequent custom of reworking a composition. A completely different figure wearing a striped jacket and a bicorne (two-cornered hat) lies beneath the man on the far right. In an earlier state, the curtain in the center of the painting was draped lower across the doorway. The bright white in the left half of the x-radiograph indicates the density of the paint in this area and reflects the number of times these passages were reworked.
