The Lone Star State is home to a dazzling array of world-class artworks, many in private collections and rarely exhibited. Reflecting the Kimbell Art Museum’s own collecting strengths, this book focuses on the art of Europe and the ancient Mediterranean from about 700 B.C. to around 1950. Over 40 prominent collections are featured along with works that have been given to museums in Texas or have left the state through gift or sale. Among the artists included are Thomas Gainsborough, Paul Gauguin, Guercino, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Vincent van Gogh. The distinguished scholar Richard R. Brettell contributes a comprehensive essay on the importance of private collecting in Texas.

From the Private Collections of Texas: European Art, Ancient to Modern

Arts & Photography

Brettell, Richard R.

Dickerson III, C. D.

History & Criticism

Kimbell Art Museum

Born in Bologna, Annibale Carracci (1564–1609) was one of the most revolutionary artists of the late Renaissance. Even before turning twenty, he rebelled against convention by investing his art with a sense of naturalism uncommon to paintings of the period. His early painting The Butcher’s Shop, a cherished work in the Kimbell Art Museum’s collection, marks the beginning of Carracci’s artistic journey and remains one of his most powerfully naturalistic works. This fascinating study explores the origins and significance of The Butcher’s Shop, placing it within the artist’s own career as well as the broader context of Italian painting. Detailing the uniqueness and vitality of Carracci’s style, C. D. Dickerson emphasizes the remarkable plein-air quality of the painting and explains how Carracci may have achieved this utterly novel effect, though in fact executing the work indoors in his studio.  He also sets Carracci’s work in the tradition of butcher’s shop paintings in Renaissance Italy, analyzes the painting in relation to the reality of the occupation at the time, and investigates where in Bologna such a butcher’s shop might have stood.

Raw Painting: "The Butcher's Shop" by Annibale Carracci (Kimbell Masterpiece Series)

A beautiful volume that brings to light the forgotten Le Nain brothers, a trio of 17th-century French master painters who specialized in portraiture, religious subjects, and scenes of everyday peasant life In France in the 17th century, the brothers Antoine (c. 1598–1648), Louis (c. 1600/1605–1648), and Mathieu (1607–1677) Le Nain painted images of everyday life for which they became posthumously famous. They are celebrated for their depictions of middle-class leisure activities, and particularly for their representations of peasant families, who gaze out at the viewer. The uncompromising naturalism of these compositions, along with their oddly suspended action, imparts a sense of dignity to their subjects. Featuring more than sixty paintings highlighting the artists’ full range of production, including altarpieces, private devotional paintings, portraits, and the poignant images of peasants for which the brothers are best known, this generously illustrated volume presents new research concerning the authorship, dating, and meaning of the works by well-known scholars in the field. Also groundbreaking are the results of a technical study of the paintings, which constitutes a major contribution to the scholarship on the Le Nain brothers.

The Brothers Le Nain: Painters of Seventeenth-Century France

Bell, Esther

Yale University Press

The first comprehensive account in English of Renaissance Spain’s preeminent sculptor Alonso Berruguete (c. 1488–1561) revolutionized the arts of Renaissance Spain with a dramatic style of sculpture that reflected the decade or more he had spent in Italy while young. Trained as a painter, he traveled to Italy around 1506, where he interacted with Michelangelo and other leading artists. In 1518, he returned to Spain and was appointed court painter to the new king, Charles I. Eventually, he made his way to Valladolid, where he shifted his focus to sculpture, opening a large workshop that produced breathtaking multistory altarpieces (retablos) decorated with sculptures in painted wood. This handsomely illustrated catalogue is the first in English to treat Berruguete’s art and career comprehensively. It follows his career from his beginnings in Castile to his final years in Toledo, where he produced his last great work, the marble tomb of Cardinal Juan de Tavera. Enriching the chronological narrative are discussions of important aspects of Berruguete’s life and practice: his complicated relationship with social status and wealth; his activity as a draftsman and use of prints; how he worked with his many assistants to create his wood sculptures; and his legacy as an artist.

Alonso Berruguete: First Sculptor of Renaissance Spain

McDonald, Mark

The first book-length examination of the clay models and creative process of the preeminent neoclassical sculptor Antonio Canova The most celebrated sculptor of the neoclassical age, Antonio Canova (1757-1822) established himself as the preeminent artist of his time with his funerary monuments and meticulously carved marbles on classical themes. Although his idealized and sensual sculptures are widely known, this is the first book devoted entirely to the brilliantly expressive clay models that he made in preparation for his marble sculptures. Only sixty-five of his terracotta models survive today. Extraordinarily modern in their boldness, the models retain the touch of the artist's hand and yield a revelatory glimpse into Canova's imaginative and technical process. The authors, with expertise in art history and conservation, examine Canova's techniques for making terracotta models, including how he used clay to develop full-scale models that his assistants copied in marble, and his practice of gifting his models to friends. <div> Distributed for the National Gallery of Art, Washington</div> <div> Exhibition Schedule: National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (June 11-October 9, 2023) Art Institute of Chicago (November 19, 2023-March 18, 2024) &nbsp;</div>

Canova: Sketching in Clay

Bowyer, Emerson

Individual Artists

National Gallery Washington