Lloyd DeWitt – författare

A wide-ranging exploration of art, gastronomy, and national identity in fin-de-siècle France  At the end of the nineteenth century, artists such as Claude Monet, Eva Gonzalès, and Paul Gauguin took as their subject France’s relationship with food. The country’s bountiful agriculture and the skill of its chefs had long helped to define its strength and position on the international stage. This self-image as the world’s culinary capital only grew as the country grappled with war, political instability, imperialism, and industrialization. France’s culinary traditions signaled notions of its refinement, fortitude, and ingenuity, yet they also exposed fractures. From cultivation to consumption, food was central to notions of glory but also to those of collective pain. For artists committed to depicting daily circumstances, food was a natural subject, simultaneously quotidian and indicative of the state of the nation.  Featuring more than one hundred illustrations, Farm to Table showcases representations of sumptuous ingredients and severe privation, bountiful meals and agrarian crises. The works highlight the possibilities and precariousness of France’s colonial and industrial projects; the evolving norms of gender and class; the tenuous relationship between Paris and the provinces; and shifting understandings of science and the environment. Depictions of markets and gardens, farmers, chefs, and restaurants expressed cultural anxieties and aspirations. With essays exploring the economics of wheat growing and the dairy industry, the relationship between food and gender, and the role of colonialism, the catalogue spans the age of Impressionism and provides a new way to consider the era’s depictions of modern life at the intersection of art, food, and social politics.  Published in association with the Chrysler Museum of Art  Exhibition Schedule:  Chrysler Museum of Art(October 11, 2024–January 5, 2025)  Frist Art Museum(January 31–May 4, 2025)  Cincinnati Art Museum(June 13 – September 21, 2025)  Seattle Art Museum(October 23, 2025–January 18, 2026)

An exuberant, radical style, Art Nouveau blithely trampled many of the Victorian Age's orthodoxies of art and design. Exploding age-old strictures with its fanciful approach to furniture, graphic arts, jewellery, architecture and more, Art Nouveau also embraced new technologies and incorporated foreign stylistic flourishes. It was also unabashedly luxurious and sensual. The Triumph of Nature: Art Nouveau from the Chrysler Museum of Art brings together approximately 120 of the finest Art Nouveau treasures from the uncommonly rich holdings of the Chrysler Museum of Art, drawing primarily from the gifts of Walter P. and Jean Chrysler, whose homes were once the havens for these opulent treasures. Designing for a range of clients and settings including domestic interiors, innovative artists such as de Feure, Majorelle, and Galle fashioned their eclectic works to play off each other in harmonious visual arrangements, conceiving of Art Nouveau as an enveloping style. This stunningly illustrated comprehensive volume gathers a profusion of Art Nouveau works and accessories-furniture, paintings, sculpture, mosaics, books, posters, prints, lamps, glass, and other stunning objets d'art- all of them originally designed and coordinated to complement each other in elaborate ensembles. AUTHORS: Lloyd DeWitt is chief curator and Irene Leache Curator of European Art, Chrysler Museum of Art. Carolyn S. Needell is Barry Curator of Glass, Chrysler Museum of Art. Gabriel P. Weisberg is a leading scholar on Art Nouveau, and on nineteenth-century French art. SELLING POINTS: . Features over 150 beautiful and finely crafted examples of Art Nouveau furniture, decorative arts, and graphic arts, all highlights from a remarkable collection . Collection is exceptional for its quality and breadth . All the major figures of this pivotal artistic movement that thrived from the 1880sthrough the First World War are well represented including Hector Guimard, Emile Galle, Louis Majorelle, Alphonse Mucha and many others 197 colour illustrations