Milwaukee Art Museum Exhibition Marks 400th Anniversary Of Rembrandt's Birth

MILWAUKEE, WIS.

:The Milwaukee Art Museum will present some of the greatest drawings and paintings ever produced by Netherlandish artists in the exhibition "Rembrandt and His Time: Masterworks from the Albertina, Vienna." Including 112 drawings and prints from the Albertina and a number of related paintings, the exhibition on view from October 8 to January 8, explores the pivotal and influential role of Rembrandt as a draftsman in mid Seventeenth Century Holland.

Visitors have the unprecedented opportunity to see 27 of Rembrandt's drawings and prints - the largest number of Rembrandt works ever lent by the Albertina. The exhibition is organized in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of Rembrandt's birth in 2006; Milwaukee is the only venue.

Rembrandt is universally accepted as one of the greatest artists of all time, and the works on view demonstrate his exceptional facility as a draftsman with different media. The exhibition includes iconic images such as "Young Woman with a Child in a Harness," "Three Studies of an Elephant" and "Young Woman at Her Toilet." Dutch landscape is also represented with such important works as "Cottages under a Stormy Sky" from the mid 1630s and "View of the Pesthuis from the Ramparts" from the late 1640s.

Rembrandt's "Landscape with the Good Samaritan" - one of only eight landscapes painted by the artist - has never before traveled to North America. Lent by the Czartoryski Museum in Poland, this painting belongs to the pivotal midpoint of the artist's career and provides an excellent point of comparison for the landscape drawings. Other paintings include works by Philips Koninck, Gerbrand van den Eeckhout, Willem van de Velde the Younger and Ludolf Bakhuizen.

Equally significant are a number of early drawings by Roelant Savery, David Vinckboons, Jacques de Gheyn II, Hendrick Avercamp, Jan van Goyen and Esaias van de Velde that provide the earliest examples of an emerging naturalism. There are also works by Rembrandt's contemporaries, followers and by later artists whose innovative approach to recording the Dutch world takes the work of Rembrandt a step further. These artists include Jan Lievens, Lambert Doomer, Philips Koninck, Nicolaes Maes, Salomon de Bray, Govaert Flinck and Adriaen van Ostade. Marine themes and Italianate landscapes are also explored as a means of fully explaining Rembrandt's broad influence.

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669), the most prominent artist of the Golden Age of Dutch art, was a multifaceted painter, draughtsman and etcher. The son of a prosperous miller, Rembrandt enrolled at Leiden University at age 14. His passion for art soon overtook his scholarly studies; however, he apprenticed himself to the local figure painter Jacob Isaakz van Swanenburgh for three years before entering the studio of Amsterdam artist Pieter Lastman in 1624.

Rembrandt settled in Amsterdam in 1631 and established a studio, where he hired assistants and educated large numbers of pupils. He quickly became the most fashionable portrait painter in Amsterdam, presenting his subjects as authentic, real-life characters in intimate settings. Although he achieved greatest fame during his lifetime for his portraits, Rembrandt had a boundless curiosity and explored a great variety of subjects, including biblical and mythological themes, genre scenes, landscapes, figure and nature studies.

Rembrandt excelled as an etcher and draughtsman. His drawings were often produced in series as a way to familiarize himself with his subjects and range from intimate, human observations of daily life to stormy landscapes, to monumental and complex scenes from the imagination. A prodigious worker, Rembrandt continued to create paintings, drawings and etchings until his death in 1669.

The Milwaukee Art Museum is at 700 North Art Museum drive. For information, 414-224-3200 or www.mam.org.