NASHER SCULPTURE CENTER ANNOUNCES ACQUISITION OF IMPORTANT MATISSE BY THE NASHER COLLECTION
6/16/2003 12:00:00 AM
Strengthening its remarkable holdings of Matisse sculpture, the Nasher Collection recently acquired The Serf (ca. 1900-04), Matisse's earliest sculptural masterwork. The acquisition brings the number of sculptures by Matisse in the Collection to 11, making it one of the most significant concentrations of Matisse sculpture in the world. "This is one of only two images of the male figure that Matisse ever sculpted," explained Raymond Nasher, founding chairman of The Nasher Foundation and Dallas businessman who, with his late wife Patsy, began building their modern sculpture collection in the early 1960s. The Nasher Collection goes on view in October 2003 when the new Nasher Sculpture Center opens to the public in downtown Dallas. Nasher added, "The Serf represents a crucial linkage from Rodin's tradition of dramatic modeling to the advances in modern sculpture during the first decade of the 20th century. It is a key piece for us both art historically and aesthetically."
The Serf (bronze, 36 3/8 x 13 x 12 3/8 in., cast no. 5/10) joins other notable Matisse sculptures already in the Nasher Collection such as Madeleine I, a plaster ca. 1901, Reclining Nude I (Aurora) of 1907, Decorative Figure of 1908, Two Negresses of 1907-08, Large Seated Nude ca.1922-29, Tiari of 1930, and Venus in a Shell II of 1932. The latter works are all bronzes. A significant selection of Matisse sculptures from the Nasher Collection will be included in the first installation at the Nasher Sculpture Center.
The Serf
Matisse had experimented with sculpture in several earlier, smaller works; however, The Serf was by far his most ambitious piece to date, both in terms of its relatively large scale and complexity of handling. "What makes this work so special in Matisse's development," notes Dr. Steven Nash, director of the Nasher Sculpture Center, "is the sudden freedom and energy of modeling it displays. It has a richly modulated, inventive, and often anti-naturalistic treatment of surface and form that relates closely to Matisse's contemporaneous explorations in painting. As at other times in his life, he seems to have turned to sculpture in part to work out problems perplexing him in painting. The addition of this great work to the Nasher Collection shows a commitment not just to building its contemporary holdings but also augmenting its famously deep representation of early modern masterworks." The work previously had been part of the well-known Smooke Collection in Los Angeles. "I've been looking for The Serf for years," states Nasher.
The Nasher Sculpture Center is a new cultural institution dedicated to the public display and study of modern and contemporary sculpture. The $70 million Center is currently under construction on a 2.4-acre site adjacent to the Dallas Museum of Art in the heart of the Dallas Arts District. It will house the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection and is funded entirely by Raymond Nasher through The Nasher Foundation. Renzo Piano, a world-renowned architect and winner of the prestigious Pritzker Prize in 1998, is the architect of the Center's 54,000 square foot building. Piano is working in collaboration with landscape architect Peter Walker on the design of the two-acre sculpture garden.
The public display of their art is a longtime dream of Raymond Nasher and his late wife Patsy, who together formed one of the finest collections of modern and contemporary sculpture in the world. The Nasher Sculpture Center will present rotating exhibitions of works from the Raymond and Patsy Nasher Collection as well as special exhibitions drawn from other museums and private collections. In addition to indoor gallery space, the Center will contain an auditorium, education and research facilities, a café, and a bookstore.
Although Matisse began work on The Serf sometime in 1900, he did not completely finish it until 1903 or 1904 and possibly later. He was well known for pursuing a single sculptural theme over expanded periods, interrupting progress by returning to his paintings and sometimes recording different stages in a theme's history by making successive casts of the changing state of the clay original. In the case of The Serf, a photograph taken around 1904 shows the artist with a plaster version of the composition, one with its arms still intact and generally a more knitted, bumpier surface. It is reported that the arms of the sculpture were broken during transportation of a plaster version to an exhibition, and that Matisse, preferring the clarity of silhouette that resulted, decided permanently to sever the arms just below the shoulders. It is a device the use of a partial figure to substitute for the whole that Matisse learned from Rodin and used again for his contemporaneous Madeleine I, also in the Nasher Collection. Further connections to Rodin, beyond the expressive modeling of physique, are seen in the figure's firmly planted open stance, harking back to poses in such works by Rodin as the famous St. John the Baptist Preaching, and also the fact that he used at the outset an Italian model named Bevilaqua who had previously posed for Rodin.
In the final version of the sculpture that Matisse cast in bronze, the combination of rough, aggressive modeling and the slicing of surface planes with a knife broke radically with conventions of naturalism in 19th-century sculpture and established a signature trait that appeared in many later works by Matisse. This free and expressive modeling of anatomy is also one of the hallmarks of 20th century sculpture. The liberties Matisse takes with The Serf are followed by ever more creative interpretations of the human form by artists such as Picasso, Miró, and De Kooning, all represented in the Nasher Collection.