Courtauld Gallery

Renoir at the Theatre: Looking at La Loge - OUT OF PRINT

128 pages, paperback, 26 x 216 mm, 80 colour illustrations
PRICE: £20.00
ISBN: 978 1 903470 73 2

 

Out of print in the UK, but still available in the US and Canada. CLICK HERE.

Ernst Vegelin van Claerbergen and Barnaby Wright

Pierre-Auguste Renoir's La Loge (The Theatre Box), 1874, is one of the masterpieces of impressionism and a major highlight of The Courtauld Gallery's collection. Its depiction of an elegant couple on display in a loge epitomizes the Impressionists' interest in the spectacle of modern life. At the heart of the painting is the complex play of gazes enacted by these two figures. In turning away from the performance, Renoir focused instead upon theatre as a social stage where status and relationships were on public display.

This book accompanied an exhibition in celebration of The Courtauld Institute of Art's 75th anniversary which united La Loge for the first time with Renoir's other treatments of the subject and with loge paintings by contemporaries, including Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas. Concentrating on the early years of Impressionism during the 1870s, the book explores how these artists used the loge to capture the excitement and changing nature of fashionable Parisian society. Lavishly produced contemporary journals such as La Mode Illustree included fine hand-coloured engravings showing the latest fashions modelled by elegant ladies in theatre boxes. A rich selection of this little-known graphic material from contemporary Parisian journals, as well as caricatures from the popular press, is also examined.

Accompanied an exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery, London, 21 Feb - 25 May 2008.


Frank Auerbach: The London Building Sites 1952–62

This catalogue accompanied the first exhibition to bring together the seminal group of paintings of London building sites by Frank Auerbach (born 1931). Produced between 1952 and 1962, the paintings are among the most profound responses made by any artist to the post-war urban landscape. These works chart the early development of Auerbach’s remarkable approach to painting, for which he is celebrated as one of Britain’s greatest living artists. More

A Century of Silver: The Courtauld Family of Silversmiths

This book accompanies the new display of the Courtauld family silver collection in the Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, which opened in June 2003. All the silver presented in the book was produced or hallmarked by three generations of the Courtauld family of goldsmiths. More

André Derain: The London Paintings - REPRINT

This is the first publication dedicated to the extraordinary series of paintings of London that André Derain produced at the height of his avant-garde notoriety, having been newly branded a Fauve or 'wild beast' in Paris for his uncompromising use of pure colour. More

The Courtauld Cézannes

The Courtauld Gallery holds the finest group of works by Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) in Britain. This is the catalogue to an exhibition showing the entire collection together for the first time, marking the culmination of The Courtauld Institute of Art’s 75th anniversary. The importance of the collection lies not only in its exceptionally high quality but also in its wide range, with seminal paintings and rarely seen drawings and watercolours from the major periods of the artist’s long career. More

Temptation in Eden: Lucas Cranach's Adam and Eve - OUT OF PRINT

The Courtauld’s Adam and Eve is arguably the most beautiful of Cranach’s fifty or more depictions of this subject. It brilliantly combines devotional meaning with pictorial elegance and invention. This exhibition catalogue explores the making and meaning of this Protestant and courtly masterpiece, and the contexts in which it was made and seen. It will incorporate much conservation and technical research. More

Cézanne's Card Players

AVAILABLE OCTOBER 2010. Paul Cézanne’s famous series of paintings of peasants playing cards has long been considered among his most important and powerful works. The image of seated peasants, still and seeming silent, concentrating on their game of cards, can be seen as the human counterpart to the landscapes of Cézanne’s home countryside, notably Montagne Sainte-Victoire, which held such iconic significance for him. More

Gabriel Münter: The Search for Expressionism - OUT OF PRINT

This is the first book to consider Lewis’s drawing as a distinct contribution to his art, despite the importance he attributed to draughtsmanship. Lewis wrote that the line in drawing was nothing less than “the bone beneath the pulp”. “It is more difficult upon a piece of white paper ... to deceive the expert spectator than it is with a lot of oil paint upon a canvas.” This book traces his drawing from youthful figure studies and portraits to the surreal abstractions and dreamscapes of his later years. More

The Spooner Collection of British Watercolours

The Spooner collection of British watercolours is one of the finest of its kind, featuring all the leading artists of the period 1750–1850. Among the fine sheets included are watercolours of the Lake District by John White Abbott, and rural scenes by several artists – Gainsborough, Turner, Cozens, Rowlandson, Francis Towne, Samuel Palmer. Architecture dominates the setting in works by Girtin, Cotman and Sandby. More

Paths to Fame: Turner's Watercolours from the Courtauld - OUT OF PRINT

This catalogue accompanies an exhibition at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, and The Courtauld Gallery, London, which will be the first full display of the Courtauld’s outstanding collection of watercolours by J.M.W. Turner (1775–1851). The collection spans the artist’s career, ranging from an important early view of the Avon Gorge, Bristol, made when Turner was just sixteen years old, to examples of the monumental highly finished watercolours of his maturity and the celebrated expressive late works. More

The Twentieth Century at the Courtauld

As a result of generous loans of over one hundred outstanding works of art, in 2002 the Courtauld Gallery was able to extend its collection further into the twentieth century. For the first time the Gallery was able to show historically coherent groups of works representing key developments in the art history of the early 20th century. This is the catalogue to the new display. More

Walter Sickert: The Camden Town Nudes - REPRINT

This is the first publication devoted to Walter Sickert’s remarkable group of paintings of female nudes produced in and around Camden Town between 1905 and 1912 and now considered to be among his most important and provocative works. More

Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence: The Courtauld Wedding Chests

Accompanying an exhibition at The Courtauld Gallery, this catalogue explores one of the most important and historically neglected art forms of Renaissance Florence: cassoni – pairs of chests that were lavishly decorated with precious metals and elaborate paintings and were often the most expensive of a whole suite of decorative objects commissioned to celebrate marriage alliances between powerful families. More

Michelangelo's Dream

"The whole thing is a curatorial and scholarly triumph ... the catalogue essays do full justice to the power of Michelangelo's intellect, as well as to hand and eye." (Richard Dorment, Telegraph) Michelangelo's Dream (or Il Sogno) is one of the finest of all Italian Renaissance drawings and is amongst The Courtauld Gallery's greatest treasures. Executed at the height of the artist's career, this magnificent work exemplifies Michelangelo's unrivalled skill as draughtsman and his extraordinary power of invention. More

David Teniers and the Theatre of Painting

This is an overdue investigation into one of the most remarkable artistic enterprises of the seventeenth century, much cited but seldom discussed, David Teniers the Younger’s publication in 1660 of the magnificent Theatrum Pictorium or Theatre of Painting, the first illustrated and printed collection catalogue. More