“Cézanne and the Modern: Masterpieces of European Art From the Pearlman Collection,” the exhibition opening at the High Museum of Art on Oct. 25, features a grouping of artists whose first names you don’t need when you see their last names: Cézanne, Degas, van Gogh, Manet, Pissarro, Gauguin, Modigliani.
And then there’s Chaïm Soutine.
If his name’s not quite familiar to you, you’re in good company. But this French expressionist painter (1893-1943) was a favorite of the late Henry Pearlman, who amassed this prime collection of modern art that, before this current international tour, had remained at the Princeton University Art Museum since 1976.
In fact, the first major work Pearlman purchased was a Soutine: “View of Céret” (circa 1921-22), a landscape in thickly brush-stroked oils in which the Pyrenean village is rendered virtually unrecognizable.
Still, the powerful piece radiates what David Brenneman, the High Museum’s director of collections and exhibitions and European art curator, believes is some serious post-World War I angst. Brenneman said it’s remarkable that it caught Pearlman’s then-untrained eye in the window of a New York auction house as he was striding down Park Avenue one wintry 1945 day.
Pearlman placed a winning bid of $825 in the Parke-Bernet auction of “Notable Modern French and Other Paintings,” and, with his wife, Rose, was off and running as a collector.
“When I came home in the evenings and saw it, I would get a lift, similar to the experience of listening to a symphony … well known and liked,” he wrote of his Soutine score. “This first pleasant experience with a modern painting started me on a road of adventure … I haven’t spent a boring evening since.”
The High makes “View of Céret” among the first Pearlman Collection pieces visitors will see, right after an introductory 1948 Oskar Kokoschka portrait of the collector.
Pearlman, who founded the Eastern Cold Storage Insulation Corp. in 1919, didn’t have the opportunity to meet Soutine, who died two years before that first purchase. But the collector and the artist had common roots, being born within a couple of years of each other to poor Russian-Jewish parents — Soutine in Belarus, Pearlman in Brooklyn.
Pearlman grew into a serious Soutine collector and acquired many pieces by other makers as he traced the French artist’s early influences.
Pearlman’s adventures in modernism inevitably led him to Cézanne, whom he collected with zest. “Cézanne and the Modern” includes 24 works by the title artist, including 16 fragile and seldom-exhibited watercolors.
The rare opportunity to view a cache of Cézannes will make the High a fall and holiday destination for lovers of impressionist and post-impressionist art, but the museum views this as an opportunity to raise Soutine’s profile, as well. In addition to seven Soutine works included in the touring show, the High is exhibiting five of his “emotionally charged” portraits, as Brenneman terms them, from the Lewis Collection plus a landscape from the museum’s own permanent collection.
"Cézanne and the Modern" runs Oct. 25-Jan. 11 at the High, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-733-4444, www.high.org.
MUSIC
Drumming up interest in Malaysia
Georgia State University’s Rialto Center for the Arts will get the international arts exchange program “Caravanserai: A Place Where Cultures Meet” off with a bang on Oct. 23. Make that many bangs.
“Caravanserai” will launch the first of three presentations in Atlanta with an appearance by the 16-member Malaysian percussion ensemble Diplomats of Drum. With performers drawn from all of Malaysia’s 13 states, the Diplomats blend their country’s traditional melodies and rhythms with instruments and sounds from other nations. The 7 p.m. concert is free.
Launched with support from the Building Bridges program of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for Islamic Art to increase engagement with Muslim culture in the post-9/11 era, “Caravanserai” imports a different part of Islamic culture each arts season. Atlanta is one of four U.S. stops for its 2014-15 tour featuring Malaysia, which also will bring a program of sociopolitical short films titled 15Malaysia from Jan. 29 to 31 and the Wayang Kulit puppet troupe from March 1 to 8.
The Rialto is partnering with the Georgia Humanities Council and the Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta to expand the programming. Diplomats of Drum will give a ticketed performance at Sautee Nacoochee Center near Helen at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 24 ($15; free for 16 and under) and a free performance at Clarkston Community Center at 7 p.m. Oct. 25.
80 Forsyth St. N.W., Atlanta. 404-413-9849, www.rialtocenter.org.
THEATER
‘Lend an Ear’ to vintage radio
The Atlanta Union Radio Players will revive old-time radio shows for its 11h annual “Lend Me an Ear” performance, 7:30 p.m. Oct. 27 at the New American Shakespeare Tavern. The Atlanta Community Food Bank fundraiser will focus on the theme of ticking time, with titles including “Meridian 7-1212,” “Defense Attorney,” “Dead Earnest” and “3 O’Clock.”
499 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. $20 via ear.tix.com. Info: www.acfb.org/events/lend-me-ear.
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