Armand Hammer Collection Hits the Road
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| Rembrandt, Juno, about 1662–65. Hammer Museum |
Every two years, Armand Hammer's European paintings are taken off view for the sprawling "Made in L.A." biennial. This year the painting collection is being lent to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "Rembrandt to Van Gogh: Masterpieces from the Armand Hammer Collection" will be on view at MFAH from Oct. 15, 2023 to Jan. 21, 2024.
Houston is the corporate headquarters of Occidental Petroleum, the formerly L.A.-based firm that Hammer helmed from 1957 to his death in 1990. In Hammer's time, the paintings were frequently lent to cities where the oilman had business interests. The MFAH website says the works are being "shown together outside Los Angeles for the very first time in this century."
Not going to Houston is John Singer Sargent's Dr. Pozzi at Home. The society gynecologist's portrait is in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts' "Fashioned by Sargent" (Oct. 8, 2023–Jan. 15, 2024), which travels to Tate Britain (Feb. 22–July 7, 2024).
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| John Singer Sargent, Dr. Pozzi at Home, 1881. Hammer Museum |
Comments
I saw Sargent's "Dr. Pozzi at Home" (1881) when it was lent to the Frick. Mindblowingly beautiful.
Not for nothin', if given the choice, I would pick "Pozzi" over Reynolds’s "Mai" eight days a week.
Sargent's Dr. Pozzi, a surgeon is sheer audacity: "The attention paid to his hands compliments his surgical skill, but also alludes to the sensuality of man who insisted on performing intimate manual examinations of his female patients." - Wikipedia (who know with Wikipedia.) Sargent never exhibited the painting.