Dutch masterpieces will meet their matches at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute during Dutch Dialogues.
The exhibit will showcase four iconic works by Vincent van Gogh, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Jean-François Millet. In addition, two portraits by Frans Hals will be reunited for the first time in two centuries, and a work by contemporary Dutch artist Robert Scholte will be juxtaposed with the Clark’s Impressionist paintings. Several fine Seventeenth Century Dutch paintings from the Clark’s permanent collection will also be on view.
“Dutch Dialogues” features works of art linked by a unique “dialogue” allowing visitors to compare masterpieces by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh to works in the Clark’s collection. Van Gogh will meet Renoir when their striking self-portraits are displayed side-by-side in the galleries. Exhibiting the Clark-owned Renoir next to van Gogh’s “Self-Portrait” (Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam) underscores the shared stylistic and psychological relationships between the two artists.
Frans Hals (1582-1666), Portrait of Pieter Jacobsz Olycan, 1639, The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL
The portrait of “Pieter Jacobsz. Olycan” (The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Fla.) and “Maritge Vooght Claesdr., Wife of Pieter Jacobsz. Olycan, Mayor of Haarlem” (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), both painted by Frans Hals in 1639, will once again face each other as Hals had intended.
This husband and wife duo were originally painted as a pair but have been separated at least since the Nineteenth Century. This will be the first time in centuries the two paintings by the Dutch artist will be reunited. Recent conservation of the painting of Maritge Vooght Claesdr. has led to startling surprises, including details that were added well after Hals’s death.