The European Art Society was established in 2001 to further awareness and appreciation of thirteenth-century to early twentieth-century painting, sculpture, and works on paper. The group is devoted to the continued growth and development of the Museum’s collection, and to educating its members about European art in general, and the Museum’s collection specifically. Regular European Art Society events include the annual dinner, when members vote for an acquisition for the permanent collection; sneak previews and curator-led tours of all European art exhibitions and gallery reinstallations; enlightening connoisseurship sessions with leading experts; lunchtime lectures; and domestic and international travel opportunities.
ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP:
$500 per member
$250 per junior member (under 40)
Cocktails & Connoisseurship
Thursday, May 30, 2013, 5:30-7pm
Private home
Armin Kunz, Director of C.G. Boerner, NY, will hold a connoisseurship session on Old Master prints and drawings. Bring your own, or come see what he brings from New York. Armin will provide insight into purchasing trends and developing a collection of your own.
10th Annual EAS Dinner
April 17, 2013
The European Art Society has more than 70 members whose dues support a purchase for the collection. At this exciting and festive annual dinner, a spirited voting takes place when members have an opportunity to voice their opinions and decide which of several works - brought in from all over the world – will be the next significant addition to the Museum’s collection.
This year the European Art Society made possible the acquisition of a painting by the distinguished French artist, Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña titled The Shepherd and his Flock, ca. 1860s. Diaz had a notable career as a landscape artist, and this richly painted mature canvas with its expressive brushwork and dramatic lighting explores the romantic power of nature. The atmospheric painting strategically deepens the BMA’s collection of mid-nineteenth-century landscapes, particularly in relation to our Corot masterpiece, as both artists were associated with the same school called the Barbizon painters, after the French village where they gathered. Come visit the two paintings hanging together in the Nineteenth-Century Gallery.
In celebration of the European Art Society’s 10th annual dinner, the group also paused to pay tribute to the Museum’s growing collection of Old Master paintings, sculpture, and works on paper, and the instrumental role that the EAS and its members have played in that growth.
Cocktails & Connoisseurship
March 28, 2013
Private home in Forest Park
Thomas Deans, of the eponymously named gallery in Atlanta, brought 18th-c. British drawings and watercolors for the group to view and discuss.
Lunch and Learn with Prof. Tanja Jones, Assistant Professor of Art History, University of Alabama: "Ursula and Her Sisters: The Birmingham Museum's Female Saint (c. 1500) in Context"
February 19, 2012
Dr. Jones identified the museum's nearly life-sized polychrome wood sculpture of a Female Saint (c. 1500) with late medieval reliquaries dedicated to St. Ursula and the 11,000 virgins with whom, tradition held, she was martyred at Cologne. The Birmingham Female Saint is identified as a particularly fascinating example for representing a blend of full-sized sculpture and two reliquary types, the body-part reliquary and the worn reliquary pendant.
Gallery Tour
December 5, 2012
Curator Jeannine O’Grody and art historian Amanda Schedler led EAS members on a hunt for rarely seen prints and drawings in the Dutch, English, French, and 19th-century galleries. Afterward, members gatherd for lunch in the Café.
Library and Libations
October 4, 2012, in the Museum's Clarence B. Hanson, Jr. Library
EAS members enjoyed a sneak peek at how their 2009 EAS dinner vote transformed the Museum’s Clarence B. Hanson, Jr. Library. Librarian Tatum Preston and curator Jeannine O’Grody highlighted the library’s significant holdings on European art while everyone enjoyed wine and light snacks.
Lunch and Learn: Cooking and Eating in Renaissance Italy: From Kitchen to Table with Professor Katherine McIver
September 19, 2012
In this lively Lunch and learn, EAS members learned where people ate their meals and where and how meals were prepared in Renaissance Italy. Prof. McIver presened a picture of the dining experience, from food preparation to the final presentation.
All of the European Art Society membership dues support a purchase for the collection. The group holds an annual dinner in April when members vote on the acquisition. This exciting and festive event gives members a chance to voice their opinions and to celebrate the Museum’s growing collection of Old Master paintings, sculpture, and works on paper.
The group has purchased the following works for the Museum:
2004
The Finding of Moses
Cornelis van Poelenburgh, Dutch, (1594/95 - 1667)
Mid-seventeenth century
oil on copper
7 1/8 x 9 7/8 in. (18.1 x 25.1 cm)
Museum purchase with funds provided by the European Art Society
Considered the most important painter of the first generation of Dutch Italianate artists, Poelenburgh excelled at painting female nudes within biblical or mythological scenes set in Italianate landscapes bathed in warm southern light. Accordingly, although the title of our painting is "The Finding of Moses," clearly the subject is secondary to the depiction of the nudes in an Arcadian landscape with a panoramic view to the golden horizon. Poelenburgh lived in Italy from 1617-26 and was active both in Rome and in the Medici court in Florence. His paintings were among the most prized by the classically educated aristocracy of northern Europe.
2005
Saint Elizabeth of Hungary
Master i e, Germany, Colmar? (active 1480 - 1500)
End of the 15th century
engraving (single state)
8 1/2 x 5 9/16 in. (21.6 x 14.1 cm)
Museum purchase with funds provided by the European Art Society
The artist's name is derived from the inscribed monograph found on one of the fifty-five engravings attributed to this artist. Little is known of him, other than that he was a follower of the great early German engraver, Martin Schongauer (about 1450-1491).
This is an extremely rare print; only nine known impressions exist. An impression is a single printing from a plate. All of the prints by the Master i e are engravings. In this process the grooves that will hold the ink are cut into the copper or zinc plate with a sharp-pointed instrument called a burin. The strength of the line may be increased by cutting deeper into the plate. The elegant, controlled lines of this strong impression give the image its powerful simplicity.
2007
A Wooded Landscape with a Bacchic Scene
Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes, France, (1750 - 1819)
About 1810
oil on panel
15 15/16 x 21 7/8 in. (40.5 x 55.5 cm)
Museum purchase with funds provided by the European Art Society and Patty McDonald
This painting was made at an important time in the history of landscape painting. The artist, Valenciennes, was a leading proponent in the movement to elevate the significance and appreciation of landscape painting among artistic circles and the general public. Valenciennes's carefully ordered paintings reveal a commitment to the classical landscapes from centuries earlier. This painting is considered classicizing because it is organized with distinctly receding planes: there is a foreground, middle ground, and background, with the scale of the figures diminishing sharply to lead the viewer's eye to the indistinct hills in the distance. Also, the figures at the right probably depict a scene from the writings of the ancient Roman poet, Virgil. Soon after Valenciennes, landscape painters in nineteenth-century France became less influenced by the past, and more concerned with evoking a mood, thought, or impression.
