COLLECTION NAME:
University Art Galleries (UMassD)
Record
exhibition_title:
Theatrum Rdo: The Late Work of Richard Winther
exhibition_dates:
November 1, 2008 - January 15, 2009
exhibition_year:
2009; 2008
exhibition_location:
University Art Gallery (UMass Dartmouth Galleries)
exhibition_curator:
Lasse B. Antonsen
exhibition_note:
The Danish artist Richard Winther occupies a unique place in the history of Danish art. As a young man -- shortly after World War II -- he traveled to Paris on a regular basis, visiting artists such as Alberto Giacometti and Man Ray. Although participating in the different movements and events that characterized Denmark and Europe in the 1940s, 50s and early 60s, he maintained a unique and individual take on what art could and should be, always experimenting with a wide range of techniques, including film and music, and always asserting the role of subject matter and storytelling. This exhibition is devoted to his late work. A 2001 dinner with an old artist friend, Jørgen Rømer (who, like Winther, died in 2007) triggered an extensive series of reflections on the passage of time, and on fame, sex, and death. Jørgen Rømer's art is very different from Winther's, representing one of the finest examples of the abstract, tachiste movement in Denmark of the late 1950s and early 60s. By 2001, Rømer's health had deteriorated. Rømer happened to live in Wiedeweltsgade (Wiedewelt Street), named for the 18th century Danish artist, Johannes Widewelt. Wiedewelt is the artist who introduced Neo-Classicism in Denmark in the 18th century after returning from Rome where he had been a close friend of the German art historian Winckelman. Richard Winther's reflections on friendship and art immediately included references to Johannes Wiedewelt, who old, infirm, and basically forgotten, although still a professor at the Danish Academy, drowned late one night in 1802 in the lake at the end of the street where Rømer lived. The theme expanded quickly and includes a range of characters and scenarios. Indeed, Richard Winther freely establishes characters -- real or imaginary -- in his work, that act out scenarios and sometimes, in a dream-like fashion, change into other characters, interacting in new scenarios, always among a variety of props and attributes. The extensive series of work devoted to Wiedewelt can be seen as Winther's own reflection on mortality, love and death. The exhibition includes selected work from other major series that Winther worked on during the same period of time. Richard Winther's style is figurative and expressionistic, and much of it created with cheap and disposable materials. Almost all the small and medium size paintings were painted on corrugated cardboard with discarded wall paint. Richard Winther's work is serious, yet at the same time delightfully funny, with extensive references to literature, myth, art history, and the human comedy. The exhibition, Theatrum Rdo: The Late Work of Richard Winther, features almost 170 large, medium, and small paintings, a selection of large sculptures, and a selection of small ceramic sculptures. All the work was done in the period from 2000 - 2007, the years before the artist's death at age 81. The exhibition also includes two untitled paintings from the year Winther died, providing the viewer an opportunity to see how Richard Winther worked on a large scale with complex imagery and subject matter.
exhibition_genre:
paintings
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copyright notice:
COPYRIGHT NOTIFICATION: Under the direction of the Visual Resource Center digital collections are made available to the UMass Dartmouth campus community for the sole purpose of classroom instruction and study in accordance U.S. Copyright Laws . All other uses are prohibited and are subject to copyright infringements.
artist name:
Winther, Richard
artist_nationality:
Danish
artist_vital dates:
1926 - 2007
artist_biographical note:
"Between June and December 2011 there have been multiple showings of Richard Winther's works. These have been seen at Møstingshus, Clausens Kunshandel, DAMP, ApArt, Fotografisk Center and Tom Cristoffersen.Richard Winther was a student at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts where later he became a professor. He founded Linien II exhibition group with other young artists, initially a spontaneous-abstract style of painting but with time transformed into a geometric-abstract type of movement (http://kunstonline.dk/diverse/ordbog/?id=155). Linien II style falls into the concrete art movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concrete_art). Later on some of Richard Winther's work became intensely abstract and had some of the characteristics of the De Stijl/Konkret Art characteristics. Richard Winther had an intense Lithographic period in the 1950s. As he evolved as a painter, his work shifted focus to the human body.[1] He was a member of Eks-Skolen founded in 1961 by one of his friends, the artist Poul Gernes. There he taught several upcoming artists, including Per Kirkeby(http://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eks-skolen). While always interested in photography, he dedicated a significant part of the 60s to this technique, which he would revisit time after time the following decades including his last years. Richard Winther's work is marked by particular themes such as Heronimous and Syndflod. Many of these themes fit the idea of recycled classicism. Between 1994 and 2007 he took the idea of recycling forward doing much of his pieces in cardboard. He took recycling to another level when taking previous artists's life and works and building further on those personalities. An example of this approach is illustrated by the pieces Winther generated on Wie and Gammel Holtegaard took selected pieces of this effort and enhibited Winther's work on Wie in 2005(http://www.holtegaard.org/side.asp?side=4&id=55&ver=uk&pic=58). Further, Richard Winther took his idea of recycling and applied it to his own work: he revisited many paintings of his as well as his photographic cameras accomplishing an "Rdo Re-do" where Rdo was his latest way of signing his art pieces. Richard Winther received several awards for his work: Eckersberg Medal 1971, Thorvaldsen Medal 1997.[2][3][4] and the Prince Eugen Medal. Richard Winther was also involved in the movie The Wake directed by Michael Kvium and Christian Lemmerz(ref http://www.wake.dk/… he was the character St Patrick. He was a member of the following groups: Arm og Ben, Decembristerne, Linien II and Den Frie. There is a permanent collection of His work at the Silkeborg Kunstmuseum in Denmark, where there will be an exhibition in March 2010 on his photographic works as well as examples of the cameras he built. In the US, The University Art Gallery at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth exhibited some of Richard Winther's work between November 2008 and January 2009. The "Lys over Lolland 2010" exhibition depicted several of Richard Winther's works including paintings that have never been shown publicly until this time and almost unknown plaster based pieces. The pieces shown at this exhibition continue to emphasize the artist's continuous need to experiment and produce radical change in his field of work.
work_title:
[ An installation of Richard Winther paintings]
work_technique:
painting oil
work_date:
ca. 2006
work_note:
Artists probe contemporary issues through traditional methods by Catherine Carter, Standard-Times correspondent, March 02, 2007------ "Yvonne Petkus, a professor from Bowling Green, Ken., expresses her "desire to understand an unknowable something" in five life-size nude self-portraits. The artist depicts herself in "a place of questioning," standing thigh-deep in a vast body of water bounded by heavy horizontal black borders. As the figure reaches out across the waves, she seems to be plumbing the waters for answers in this quest for truth. Her search is not without its scars, as evidenced by the titles, "Collapse" and "Wound. Ms. Petkus paints a thick buildup of multi-colored oil-paint daubs that she compares to the "buildup of experience." The paintings have a heavy coat of varnish that gives them a highly reflective surface, a literal echo of the reflective nature of her subject matter."
work_reference:
Carter , Catherine . Artists probe contemporary issues through traditional methods. , Standard-Times correspondent, March 02, 2007
date_of_ record:
2013
name_cataloger:
BC
[ An installation of Richard Winther paintings]
![[ An installation of Richard Winther paintings]](http://luna.umassd.edu/MediaManager/srvr?mediafile=/Size3/UMASSDVRCVRC-43-NA/1988/08_rwinther_0072_l.jpg)