Press Releases

Greenwich, CT – Chalk & Vermilion Fine Arts has loaned “La Magie Noire”, an original gouache on paper by eminent Belgian Surrealist, René Magritte, to the Shirn Kunstalle Museum in Frankfurt, Germany, for an exhibition devoted exclusively to his Période-Vache (Cow-Period). The exhibition begins on October 30, 2008 and will continue until January 4, 2009.

A little-known experimental phase in 1948, The Periode-Vache, represents the stage during which Magritte created paintings and gouaches that differed dramatically from his characteristic style. Painting in a swift and aggressive manner over a period of just a few weeks, Magritte created a total of thirty untypical originals that caused outrage among Parisians at the time. By deliberately producing these unexpectedly “bad” works, the artist was intentionally provoking an attack on the Parisian audience as well as reflecting on his own work and painting in general.

The Frankfurt exhibition represents the first occasion that works from the Période Vache will be
displayed together outside France. In reviewing art from the last thirty years, “this concentrated presentation throws a new, surprising light on an outstanding 20th century artist.”

The Shirn Kunstalle is one of Europe’s most renowned institutions. Under the directorship of Max Hoellein, the museum has been known for presenting explosive and topical aspects of artistic works in a concise language. Since 1986, it has held more than 180 exhibitions dedicated to Art Nouveau, Expressionism, Dada, Surrealism, Women Impressionists and photography.

Chalk & Vermilion Fine Arts has also loaned important works by artists such as Marc Chagall, Sam Francis, Pablo Picasso, René Magritte, Andy Warhol, George Tooker, and Jean Dubuffet to major museums worldwide, including the Whitney Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Museu Picasso in Barcelona, the Pompidou in Paris, the Royal Museum of Brussels and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark, Kunstsammlung Nordrhien-Westfalen in Germany, The National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo and the Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art.

Also one of America’s foremost publishers of contemporary fine art prints and sculpture, Chalk & Vermilion Fine Arts, represents a number of today’s most popular artists from around the world, such as Erté, Liudmila Kondakova, Robert Deyber, Felix Mas, Kerry Hallam and Fanny Brennan among others

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