Through Feb. 21, Williamstown’s Clark Art Institute is displaying 150 pristine works of antiquity, many never before shown publicly, bequeathed to the museum by the philanthropist and collector Aso Tavitian (1940–2020). There were audible gasps from several reporters when they first entered the galleries, given the dramatic atmosphere of perfectly preserved oils from centuries past.
“I love to hear the ahhs and the gasps,” said Lara Yeager-Crasselt. “That’s what we hope for.” She curated the exhibit and was joined in the undertaking by deputy director Esther Bell, recently named as the institute’s new director. Following 10 years of leadership, Olivier Meslay is retiring to his home in Paris.
The collection, begun 22 years ago, includes paintings, marble and brass sculptures, and other objets d’art spanning the 15th through 19th centuries. Tavitian often acquired works by major names such as van Dyck, van Eyck, Bernini, Rubens and Brueghel the Elder. Several of the works displayed are, well, clothing optional. Two paintings by Watteau and Gandolfi, thought to have been lost for centuries to the fogs of history, are now on view. Considered one of the most significant private art assemblages of this century, the collection includes 331 works gifted to the institute. Tavitian, a Stockbridge resident and former institute board member, also endowed the Clark with $45 million for the construction of a new wing devoted to the collection.
“The good thing about this exhibition, I think it reflects Aso’s amazing eye,” Meslay said during the press reception. “He was really open to all sorts of works of art, periods and mediums.”
Tavitian, a native of Bulgaria, came to this country at age 21 and completed a master’s degree at Columbia University. In 1969, he co-founded Syncsort, a software company, and later became its chief executive and major stockholder. The company’s success contributed to an estimated personal wealth of some $3.5 billion, a fairly decent trajectory for a former cab driver. Tavitian created a foundation directed toward the advancement of education and peace and did much to finance educational opportunities for Armenian students as well as other philanthropic work.
This was painted at the height of the tulip mania, when a single bulb could be payment for a house. (Courtesy CAI)
Luminosity
Subtly commanding the first gallery is a small and intricately detailed devotional work by Jan van Eyck dating to 1440. Yeager-Crasselt described “Madonna at the Fountain” as a “jewel-like painting in its size and intimacy.” The work was intended for private reflection, an image inviting viewers to marvel at its tranquility. The image, as well as the other paintings, is in such remarkable condition that it might have been created yesterday.
Nearby there are several oil paintings on copper, including a dreamlike 1595 landscape by Jan Brueghel the Elder. Another image in copper displays a quite drunken Bacchus in celebration with an entire landscape of inebriates stretching from the foreground to the far distance. The technique was popular among 16th-century collectors, Yeager-Crasselt said, because “It glows. It has a luminosity … It’s very precious in its own right and elevates it above canvas or wood.”
Stand several yards away from the images in another gallery, and the paintings appear to be backlit. You’ll find tabletop brass sculptures by the 17th-century Italian Giovanni Susini, whose larger works were frequently commissioned by the Medici Grand Dukes. Here are flawless depictions of David and Goliath and “The Abduction of the Sabine Woman.” Susini’s work was once among the collections of King Louis XIV and can now be found at the Getty Museum and the Louvre.
Yeager-Crasselt said that Tavitian “loved people … He loved faces.” Evident in the collection are numerous portraits, such as one made in 1638 by Anthony van Dyck. The artist was not only famous for popularizing the namesake mini-beard; he was also the first court painter for King Charles I. Van Dyck not only painted but became a lover of Margaret Lemon, whom the curator described as “the most beautiful and dangerous woman in London.” She was also the most painted of any female commoner in the 17th century. Consider her features, which van Dyck delicately captured, and note that standards for beauty have undergone significant changes over the past 388 years.
Nearby is an 1800 self-portrait by Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun, one of only a few women to be enrolled in the French Academy. When the reign of King Louis XVI struck bottom, she fled the country and created the image while in exile. Every brush stroke is concise, even in the complex highlights in her eyes.
“It’s very lively, very engaged,” Bell said. “It’s a painting of great hope and great promise.”
Found treasures
Thought to have been lost forever was Jean-Antoine Watteau’s “The Proud Man,” a petite work of a male figure in an arrogant pose dated to 1715. It’s a faint, atmospheric rendering, and the artist was well-known for the “fete galante” genre of painting. The majority of his works illustrated finely dressed elites at idle play.
It was only during an estate auction in 2010 that Gaetano Gandolfi’s enormous creation of Diana and Callisto resurfaced, thought to be lost for generations. The wall-sized painting was commissioned around 1779 by Nicolay Yusupov, one of Russia’s largest landowners, and depicts a story from Ovid. Callisto betrays Diana and is cast out from a grotto. There are more than a dozen figures in the composition, including despairing angels, yet Bell noted “a calmness and stability” to the work.
“Tavitian had an incredible knack for scooping things up upon discovery,” she continued. “He trained himself as an art historian and followed the market.”
Louis-Leopold Boilly was a master portraitist and an early 19th-century creator of optical illusions. Parisians, for the present-day cost of $360, could have a small portrait painted. There are three dozen renderings here of the 5,000 he created, and they capture the city’s inhabitants, both noble and sketchy.
Tavitian kept these oils in his Stockbridge home and asked guests, in viewing the assortment, with whom they would want to dine.
“It was a fun parlor game,” Bell said. “Some looked like a good time. Others looked grouchy.”
Opposite Boilly are the caricatures of Jean-Pierre Dantan. He was a serious 19th-century sculptor of the intelligentsia, from Beethoven and Berlioz to Balzac. He also created cartoonish statuette renderings of these same people. Hector Berlioz in terra-cotta has an eruption of hair atop a beanpole body. Franz Liszt receives the same treatment, while Niccolo Paganini aims his violin directly at you. There are three dozen of Dantan’s caricatures here, many famous, many obscure.
“It’s surprising and beautiful in the ways that the collection has cohesiveness, in and of itself,” Yeager-Crasselt said of the treasures. “It’s really remarkable. It’s not an easy thing to do. I think it speaks to Tavitian’s love and understanding of art.”
“An Exquisite Eye” continues through Feb. 21.
A multicolored sea serpent greets you at the institute entrance, one of a half dozen outdoor sculptures by artists from around the world. You can hike the woodlands and find sculptures created in ceramics, willow or marble. “Ground/Work” continues through Oct. 12.
At the Lunder Center, the textile creations by the Italian artist Giorgio Griffa are on view. Now 90, Griffa is the subject of his first North American solo show of a man who derives much of his inspiration from Zen Buddhism. His paintings on various kinds of cloth are purposely incomplete, and it may be the first time that artwork at the Clark has been nailed to the wall. “Paths in the Forest” continues until Oct. 12.
The Clark is open Tuesday through Sunday, September through June. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $22 for adults, $20 for seniors ages 65 and up, $10 for ages 18 to 25 and free for anyone under 18 years old.