Saturday, November 22, 2014

10 a.m. (prompt!)

“Spectacular Rubens:  The Triumph of the Eucharest”

Tapestries at The J. Paul Getty Museum

with 
Ann T. Woollett, Curator and Acting Head of the Paintings Department,
and

Charissa Bremer-David, Curator, Sculpture and Decorative Arts Department
 

        In the early 1620s Peter Paul Rubens designed a series of monumental tapestries, The Triumph of the Eucharist, for the governor-general of the Netherlands, the Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia. This exhibition reunites several of Rubens's exuberant preparatory oil sketches for this commission with four of the corresponding tapestries from the Madrid church for which they were made. Vivid and dynamic, the Eucharist series reveals the enormous powers of invention of a brilliant artist who helped define the Baroque.  Together, the sumptuous tapestries formed a complex illusionistic decoration. They decorated the convent church on important occasions marked by elaborate ceremony, and may occasionally have hung on the exterior of the building. Rubens drew on a wide range of classical and Christian iconography, and traditional allegories of good versus evil. Powerful figures in motion, rich color, and playful illusions abound, as Rubens created different levels of reality to engage and delight the observer.

       Spectacular Rubens features six Rubens oil sketches, among the most beautiful of their kind, recently conserved at the Museo del Prado with the support of a grant from the Getty.   Our exclusive TMA/SC gallery tour will be led by Anne T. Woollett, Curator and Acting Head of the Paintings Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum, where she specializes in Northern painting before 1700, and Charissa Bremer-David, Curator, Sculpture and Decorative Arts Department.

        Charissa Bremer-David joined the J. Paul Getty Museum in 1981. She received her BA in Art History from UC, Santa Barbara, and her MA in Modern European History from UCLA.  She has written extensively on the Museum’s decorative arts collection.  In the last several years she has collaborated on several important exhibitions, and is presently preparing a major loan exhibition for late 2015, which will feature fifteen tapestries from the historic collection of the French King Louis XIV.  Anne T. Woollett is Curator and Acting Head of the Paintings Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum, where she specializes in Northern painting before 1700.  She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2004, and has lectured and published on sixteenth and seventeenth- century Flemish and Dutch painting, as well as organized several exhibitions at the Getty Center,

The J. Paul Getty Museum at The Getty Center

1200 North Sepulveda Blvd.  Los Angeles, CA 90049

*Meet at the Museum Information Desk, Main Entry Hall 

ADMISSION to the gallery tour is by RESERVATION TO TMA/SC ONLY!  This program is limited to 40 reserved TMA/SC members and guests, first come/first served.  The museum will distribute only 40 special headphones in order to hear the curators in the gallery.  To make a reservation, please respond to cherihunter@earthlink.net

TMA/SC  Members:  Gratis      Guests: $10

Plan to arrive at the Getty parking garage by 9:30 a.m., in order to find parking, ride the tram up to the Museum, and walk to the main entry hall.  BE AWARE that at the beginning of the morning, there may be lines at the lower tram station. If you are not with the group in the main hall by 10 a.m., we will assume you have made other arrangements for the day and proceed to the gallery without you.   

PARKING:  There is no admission charge for visiting the museum, put parking is $15 per car (no matter how many riders there are.)  We suggest that you try to carpool.  A good place to rendezvous and park for carpooling is on Church Lane, at Sunset Blvd. just West of the 405 Freeway.  Go south on Church Lane from Sunset to the first street and find parking.  Be sure your fellow carpoolers want to stay at the Getty for the same length of time as you do.  If you have time, pay for your parking at a machine near the elevators BEFORE you take the tram up the hill.  You will need to take your parking ticket with you.