MINNEAPOLIS.- Over the course of nearly four decades, Joseph and Deborah Goldyne have developed one of the largest and most diverse private collections of master drawings in the United States. Opening February 10 at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA), this engaging exhibition marks the first public tour showing selections from the Goldyne collection. “Judging by Appearance: Master Drawings from the Collection of Joseph and Deborah Goldyne” presents 100 drawings that range from Old Masters, such as Guercino, Rembrandt, Van Dyck, and Piranesi, to 19th-century artists such as Turner, Corot, Millet, Pissarro, and Degas. The 20th-century selections include works by Matisse, Morandi, Mondrian, Gorky, and Ruscha. “Judging by Appearance” will be on view at the MIA through April 29. This exhibition is organized by the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
One remarkable aspect of the Goldyne collection is its chronological breadth, for it is rare that a single private collection contains both old masterworks and contemporary pieces. For the Goldynes, there are no minor artists, only minor drawings. Their collection comprises works by both illustrious and more obscure names from the annals of art history; the one aspect that unites them is quality. The collection is also significant because it is informed by Joseph Goldyne’s work as an artist in his own right. Goldyne, who lives with his wife in Sonoma, California, earned a bachelor’s degree in art history from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.D. from the University of California, San Francisco, before turning his passion for art into a career. His work spans a variety of media, from monoprints to oil paintings, and can be found in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., and the New York Public Library. Goldyne also holds a master’s degree in art history from Harvard University. He also has served on the Fine Arts Museums’ acquisitions committee since the mid-1970s.
The exhibition is divided into thirteen sections, such as portraits, landscapes, and abstraction, to focus on the Goldynes’ collecting interests. The selection spans works from the Italian and Northern Renaissance, including those by Bernardino Pinturicchio and Jean Clouet, to contemporary works by Ed Ruscha and Joseph Cornell. Among the highlights: · Edgar Degas’s Laura Bellelli (ca. 1858-1859) · Gustav Klimt’s Kneeling Woman (ca. 1912-1913) · Arshile Gorky’s Drawing for Nighttime, Enigma and Nostalgia (1932) · Camille Pissarro’s The Road to Ennery, near Pointoise (1874)
Free Lecture On Sunday, February 25, at 2 p.m., Joseph Goldyne will share his perspectives on collecting and living with exquisite drawings. This lecture is free and open to the public.
Catalogue Published in conjunction with the exhibition, Judging by Appearance: Master Drawings from the Collection of Joseph and Deborah Goldyne is a beautifully illustrated catalogue written by Robert Flynn Johnson, Curator-in-Charge of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and artist and collector Joseph Goldyne.
