Leonardo da Vinci

2019 prepares a lot of interesting things for art lovers all over the world. Arthive offers you a preview of the major exhibitions, so save the dates to be informed about the main art events of the year!

2019 becomes the magnificent year for the art world to celebrate two memorable dates - the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt death and the 500th anniversary of the death of Leonardo da Vinci. The most significant European and American museums are getting ready for the exciting upcoming exhibitions in 2019 to show the best artworks of the remarkable painters from their collections.




Bill Viola/Michelangelo: Life Death Rebirth
Royal Academy of Arts, London

26 January-31 March

Royal Academy of Arts prepares show with 12 of Viola’s large-scale video installations included as well as 14 works on paper by Michelangelo and the RA’s masterpiece, the unfinished Taddei Tondo: the only sculpture by the artist in a UK collection.

Bill Viola (born 1951) is a contemporary video artist who creates works that combine filmed images and music in what he calls “total environments that envelop the viewer in image and sound.

Left: Bill Viola's video and sound installation Nantes Triptych (1992) © Courtesy of Bill Viola Studio; Photo: Kira Perov

Tintoretto: Artist of Renaissance Venice
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

10 March-7 July

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC will be celebrating the 500th anniversary of the birth of Jacopo Robusti, better known by his “little dyer” nickname as Tintoretto.

Organised in conjunction with the Gallerie dell’Accademia, the exhibition is the first major survey of the artist’s work to have taken place in North America and will include almost 50 paintings as well as works on paper. There will be two complementary exhibitions: Drawing in Tintoretto’s Venice, which will include studies by his predecessors such as Titian and followers such as El Greco; and Venetian Prints in the Time of Tintoretto, which explores the importance of etchings and woodcuts as inspiration as well as a means to chronicle Tintoretto’s paintings.

The earliest documented painting of Tintoretto, "The Contest Between Apollo and Marsyas" (1545) will be presented at the exhibition. It was painted for Pietro Aretino, who, in a public recommendation, noted the speed of it performance and the genius of the artist.



Bauhaus
Various venues

The year 2019 also marks the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus, a revolutionary school of art and design, the influence of which is still being felt today. One of its main principles was the desire for simplicity and functionality. Walter Gropius founded a revolutionary school for artists, architects and industrial designers in the German city of Weimar in 1919. In a period when only the elite could afford the products created by artists, Bauhaus became the ideal of a beautiful and functional design accessible to all.

Don't miss: a list of exhibitions, festivals and other events can be found on the website Bauhaus. Other exhibitions are also planned at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.

Paris always recognizes the role of women in the history of art: Musée d'Orsay, from 19 June to 22 September, honors the impressionist artist Berthe Morisot. The exhibition traces the exceptional career of a painter who, at odds with the practices on her time and her circle, became a key figure of the Parisian avant-garde movement in the late 1860s up until her untimely death in 1895.

Along with this - the riot of color and the northern halftones: two great German expressionists Franz Marc and August Macke at the Musée de l'Orangerie from 6 March to 17 June, and the “Danish Vermeer” Vilhelm Hammershøi at the Musée Jacquemart-André From 14 March to 22 July.

Left: Berthe Morisot. Le Berceau [The Cradle], 1872.

Sorolla: Spanish Master of Light
National Gallery, London
18 March - 7 July

It is a rare opportunity to see the most complete exhibition of Joaquín Sorolla y Bastida's (1863–1923) paintings outside Spain. The first UK exhibition of Spain's Impressionist, Sorolla, in over a century. More than 60 works from private collections and from afar will show the vivid seascapes, garden views, and bather scenes for which the artist is most renowned, portraits, landscapes and genre scenes of Spanish life.

Utrecht, Caravaggio and Europe
Old Pinakothek, Munich
April 17 - July 27

The exhibition Utrecht, Caravaggio and Europe concentrates on Caravaggio’s followers in Europe, and particularly in Utrecht. It would shape the style of many artists from Italy, France, Spain, and the Netherlands. As the exhibition demonstrates, however, young painters differed widely among each other, depending on their cultural background. 

The exhibition, developed in collaboration with the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, shows over 70 of the most beautiful and important works of the leading ‘Caravaggisti’, including paintings by Bartolomeo Manfredi, Jusepe de Ribera, and Valentin de Boulogne. Particularly valuable that Vatican agreed to lend one of Caravaggio's masterpieces for the exhibition, “The Burial of Christ” - a monumental altar measuring more than 3 x 2 meters. This is one of the most important exhibits in the collection of the Vatican Museums, so it is rarely rented.

See also: The Old National Gallery (Alte Nationalgalerie, art gallery on Museum Island in Berlin) from May 17 to September 15, 2019 organizes an exhibition of Gustave Caillebotte's works - not only an artist, but also the painter patron of Impressionists.

The major exhibition 'Hockney – Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature' will feature an eclectic collection of over 120 works by Hockney, one of the most prolific living Pop artists. The show will explore both artists’ fascination with nature, their use of strong colours and their experimentation with perspective, demonstrates the unmistakable influence that Vincent van Gogh had on the work of David Hockney.

The stylised vertical lines of the tree trunks in the latter work by Van Gogh (left) are analogous to the repetitive lines in Hockney’s The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire (2011).

Left: Vincent van Gogh. The Garden of Saint Paul’s Hospital (‘Leaf-Fall’) (1889)

"Van Gogh and Britain" exhibition presents the largest collection of Van Gogh’s paintings in the UK for nearly a decade. This major exhibition brings together 45 his most famous works, such as  Shoes, Starry Night on the Rhône, L'Arlésienne, and two works he made while a patient at the Saint-Paul Asylum, At Eternity’s Gate and Prisoners Exercising. They will be joined by the very rarely lent Sunflowers from London’s National Gallery.

The show reveals how van Gogh was inspired by Britain and how he inspired British artists, including Francis Bacon, David Bomberg, and the young Camden Town painters.

Painted in 1889, Sunflowers is one of Van Gogh’s most famous works. He created a total of five versions. Why did he choose the sunflower, and what did the flower mean to him? What happened to the painting after it left Van Gogh’s studio and are the colours still the same as 130 years ago?

The exhibition Van Gogh and the Sunflowers allows visitors to discover how important the sunflower was to Van Gogh and learn the answers to pressing questions such as how we can best preserve this painting so that it can be enjoyed by generations to come.

Left: Vincent van Gogh. Sunflowers (1889)

Albrecht Dürer
Albertina, Vienna
September 20, 2019 - January 6, 2020

The ALBERTINA Museum holds the largest collection of drawings by Albrecht Dürer, nearly 140 pieces of art. And in this exhibition, which will be rounded out by international loan works, the central focus will be on his drawn oeuvre – which will show itself to be an artistic achievement at least equal to that of his paintings and printed graphic work.

Christof Metzger, chief curator of Vienna’s Albertina, puts forward the revolutionary theory in a major master's exhibition about one of the most famous drawings of all time - "Praying Hands"(1508) by Dürer (left). He argues that the drawing depicts the actual hands of the artist. And this work was not, as has been assumed for centuries, a preparatory drawing for a painted altarpiece, but a finished work made as an advertisement for the master’s talent. 

"Praying Hands" is more widely recognised drawing than any other, with the possible exception of Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man (around 1490).

William Blake: The Artist
Tate Britain, London
September 11, 2019 - February 2, 2020

The most comprehensive survey of William Blake’s work to be held since 2001. The exhibition with around 300 works, including his watercolours, paintings and prints, will provide a comprehensive overview of Blake’s achievements and ambitions across a range of media.

The National Portrait Gallery (London) will host an exhibition dedicated to the contribution of twelve women to the Pre-Raphaelite movement. The exhibition called “Pre-Raphaelite Sisters” will be held from 17 October 17 until 26 January 2020. They pay attention not only to the works of artists like Evelyn de Morgan, but also to images of women like Effie Millais (nee Gray), Elizabeth Siddal and Joanna Wells (nee Boyce). Effie Millais ventured to invalidate the marriage with critic John Ruskin and after the divorce she married to the Pre-Raphaelite artist John Everett Millais. This famous Victorian "love triangle" has been dramatised in plays, films and an opera.

Left: Evelyn de Morgan. Aurora Triumphans, c. 1886.

Leonardo Da Vinci
Musée du Louvre, Paris
24 October-24 February 2020

The Louvre in Paris is working “to gather the greatest number of works by great Leonardo”, according to its director Jean-Luc Martinez, for an “unprecedented” exhibition that will include paintings in the museum’s collection, including La Belle Ferronnière (1490). Just north of Paris, the Domaine de Chantilly is putting one of its star attractions—the Nude Mona Lisa—under the microscope in the hope of answering the age-old question of whose hand created this mysterious Leonardesque drawing.

The Royal Collection, which boasts more than 500 drawings by Leonardo thanks largely to an auspicious acquisition by Charles II, will display 200 sketches at Buckingham Palace in May and 80 sheets at Holyroodhouse in November; 144 drawings from the Queen’s collection will be shown in 12 simultaneous shows of 12 drawings throughout the UK.

2019 promises to be the unbelievable year in the art world. Stay tuned!

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Based on materials from Artnet, the Artnewspaper, official sites of museums, mentioned above.

Title illustration: Detail of "Sewing the Sail" by Joaquín Sorolla.