Norton Museum's Recognition of Women in Art: In Retrospect -- Select María Berrío works

Yesterday I introduced Norton Museum of Art's Recognition of Women In Art: In Retrospect exhibition and the works of Jenny Saville included therein. Today I turn to the works of María Berrío.

María grew up in Colombia but moved to New York City to complete her Fine Arts education; she now lives and works in the city. Her artwork, according to Norton Museum of Art literature, "reflects on her upbringing and experience through intricate collages which demonstrate the complexity of identity through a multicultural lens." 

According to The Women's Studio:

Berrio’s intricate collage technique animates the works’ surfaces. The images are constructed on very large stretched canvases. Using paper like paint, Berrío lays down narrow strips of cut paper – either painted or printed – to contour a human body or a gnarled tree. She then adds tiny flakes to represent flowers or leaves. She draws in some details such as the faces and hands of the people or the eyes and delicate beak of a bird. The flatness of the surface gives her work a faceted, jewel-like appearance.

The pieces included in the Norton Museum exhibition are The Quiet Undoing (2020), Anemochory (2019), and The Woman in the Dunes (2022).

The Quiet Undoing has a woman with crossed legs reclining in a chair with her posture oriented towards the viewer and with bougainvilleas plastered over the wall behind her. The chair does not seem to be appropriately positioned to support her weight/posture and she is somewhat squeezed into the lower left hand side of the painting so that the bougainvilleas can be the focus. While the scene looks like a painting in this rendition, an in-person view clearly shows the leaves and flowers as collages and the same holds true for the floor tiles.

María Berrío, The Quiet Undoing, 2020

In describing this work, the artist states:

Bougainvillea is one of my favourite flowers. It reminds me of growing up in Colombia, where you can see its splendour everywhere in absurd abundance. One of the reasons I wanted to paint this flower was because of its “paper-like” quality: when I see them, they remind me of the paper I use to create my paintings.

When I imagine this village I am creating, I imagine warm weather, a breeze that carries the smell of the sea. A town where flowers are blooming everywhere, where gorgeous cascades of bougainvillea drift down the walls of homes. Where people sit and wait for the day to pass, where there are no hurries or time constraints, no need to be anywhere, just the need to be present.

That’s where the woman depicted in this painting is. She is sitting and contemplating her present. Her arms and legs are crossed and she seems pensive. The air, I imagine, is heavy, thick with humidity. The bougainvillea behind her is a riotous symbol of life, a life that is blooming, lush and wild, a life which is behind her.

This was the last piece I created for this exhibition. On reflection, I think of this painting as a manifestation of my own hopes and desires: a warm afternoon, a calm atmosphere, a day of contemplation, a day of silence and reflection. The months that have accompanied the making of the works for this show have been full of noise and fear ...This last piece was me trying to take a deep breath, trying to smell the sea, trying to cultivate the same hope, endurance, and adaptation that animate the figures of my work.’ – María Berrío.

María Berrío, Anemochory, 2019

In Anemochory, 

Berrío hints at a desert setting by depicting a dragon blood tree, a species native to the island of Socotra in the Indian Ocean. The inverted quality of its roots suggests an allusion to immigrants. The figures in the painting appear to be in a dreamlike setting, in a state of limbo. One disheveled girl is flopped width-wise on a four-poster bed as though impatiently exhausted by the interminable wait for something interesting to happen. On a nearby chair, her more neatly garbed companion sits gingerly holding a large butterfly, her sidelong gaze betraying wistfulness. Considering Berrío’s interest in depicting displaced immigrant people, Anemochory can be interpreted as a representation of the uncertain yet hopeful pathway people take to migrate, embodied here by the landscape and the actions of the characters, which allude to the idea of waiting for the next step to take in this journey -- Perez Art Museum/Artillery Magazine

The Woman in the Dunes has a woman diagonally arrayed in the painting but, as in the case of The Quiet Undoing, she does not occupy the entire picture frame. Rather, the portion of the painting closest to her seems more formal and business-like than does the upper-right portion. The subject's knees are slightly raised, as is the hem of the pleated skirt, pulled up, as it is, by the subject's right hand. The subject has a somewhat rounded face with the chin twisted to the viewer's left.

María Berrío, The Woman in the Dunes, 2022

A brown briefcase stands on the subject's left side and there appears to be a pair of grey pumps just beyond it. Over towards the hint of a waterline one can see a white picnic bag and sandals, accessories more befitting the locale. My interpretation is of a young woman just about to transition from a hard day at work to the start of a relaxing weekend at the beach.

Norton Museum's Recognition of Women in Art: In Retrospect -- Select Jenny Saville works

 In 2011, West Palm Beach's Norton Museum of Art launched an exhibition series titled Recognition of Art by Women (RAW) "dedicated to honoring a contemporary female painter or sculptor." To date the institution has presented 10 exhibitions in the series and is now running a derivative exhibition called Recognition of Art by Women: In Retrospect which presents a limited selection from nine of the 10 artists showcased so far. I will showcase these selections -- individually -- over the course of the next few weeks beginning herein with Jenny Saville.

In 2011, Saville's self-titled exhibition was the first in the RAW series ad also her first career survey at a North American Museum. Literature accompanying the In Retrospect exhibition describes Saville's work as forging "a bold visual language that unites figuration and abstraction ... Saville's works evoke both sensuality and objectivity through large-scale, intricate paintings. Her subjects are sculptural, influenced by the Old European Masters  who inform her practice."

Her pieces Atonement Studies -- Central Panel (Rosetta) and Mnemosyme 1 were on display at RAW: In Retrospect.

Atonement Studies is a Neo-Expressionism piece. Artnet describes it as depicting a blind woman Saville met while living and working in Palermo, a subjcet the artist calls "the most beautiful woman I have ever photographed." Artnet points to the subject's "tilted head, parted lips, milky eyes and striking bone structure all illuminated by her peachy skin tone and blue-ish shadows as a feat of expressionist glory."

Jenny Saville, Atonement Studies --
Central Panel (Rosetta), 2005 - 06

Saville is an accomplished Draughtsperson. She captures time in this charcoal drawing by including several arms and legs in different locations to show the movement of an energetic child.

Jenny Saville, Mnemosyne 1, 2012

Untitled: An El Anatsui work at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art

I was recently introduced to the works of the Ghanian artist El Anatsui and I shared that moment with my readers. At the time of my introduction to the artist, i found out that one of his pieces was on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. I recently visited that institution to view the installed work.

The Smithsonain piece is titled Untitled and was created in 2009.

El Anutsui, Untitled, 2009

When compared to the Rain has no Father piece on display at the Denver Art Museum, Untitled, is less bounded and is suffused with gold color whereas the former had white/cream as the dominant color effect. The installation orientation differs also with the Denver piece displayed in a more head-on fashion while the Smithsonian piece had a more diagonal orientation.

The artist has emphasized that museum personnel have total control on how the pieces are deployed within their environment and there is evidence of fluidity in the display of the Smithsonian piece. The below is a screen capture from a video describing Untitled and it shows that, sometime in the past, the painting was displayed in a more straightforward fashion.

Screen grab, Untitled

The straigt-on display appears somewhat brooding, ominous, and jowly while the diaganol catches and reflects light more effectively.

The details shown below capture the differences in reclaimed material utilized in the construction of this piece and the amount of labor required to get individual pieces into the desired shape and then bound together into this "fabric."

Untitled, detail

Untitled, detail

Untitled, detail

Untitled, detail

The construction of these El Anatsui pieces are driven by desgin decisions made by the artist but required hours of effort by his team to bring the sheets to a position where they can be manipulated by museum staff into a structure that strikes a chord with the viewing public.

In the Footsteps of Piero della Francesca: The Massachusetts sequel -- Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels (1460 - 70) and Hercules (c. 1470)

In late-November 2025 I embarked on a tour of the cities wherein the Italian painter Piero della Francesca did most of his work and where many of his existing works are still displayed. This tour was titled In the Footsteps of Pierro della Francesca and was led by Learn Italy, a small English tour company. I have previously written about the precipitating factors -- as regards the trip -- as well as our early experiences and will continue to flesh out the entirety of the trip over time. 

I have always assumed that I would see Piero paintings post that trip and made a mental commitment to treat those sightings as sequels. I had sequel-level experiences over the past weekend, encountering both Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels and Hercules.

Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels, Clark Art Institute

My research had identified Clark Institute as home to the Piero work Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels but the town of Williamstown, where it resided. was so far off my beaten path that a special trip would be required. I placed it on the back burner. 

Piero della Francesca, Virgin and
Child Enthroned with Four Angels,
1460 - 1470

This past weekend I went Boston for July 4th festivities and, while there, noticed that Williamstown was slightly less than 3 hours away by car. Further, the museum was open every day of the week. I had a car and made the time, setting off early in the morning so that I could be there when the museum opened.

The Clark Art Institute was founded by Robert Sterling Clark, Yale Engineer and beneficiary of the Singer Sewing Machine fortune. He began collecting art in Paris where he had settled in 1910. He met Francine in Paris and the two were married in 1919. The couple considered a number of locations as potential sites for a museum to display their collection but eventually settled on Williamstown on account of the family's past asociation with Williams College. The Clark Art Institute opened for business in 1955.

The painting under discussion was commissioned by the Gherardi family -- rich merchants in the town of Sansepulcro -- as a devotional object for their private chapel. The painting shows the Virgin Mary and the Christ-child attended by angels. The angel wings are partly visible. The angel in red, according to the literature accompanying the displayed work, directs our attention to the infant reaching for the flower held by the Holy Mother. The angel in white casts a shadow across the base of Mary's throne suggesting that the painting hung to the right of a window.

Detail: Statue-like baby reaching out ...

Detail: ... for flower held by mother

Detail: Top of wings in red. Also note
symmetry in bejeweled v-neck

Detail: Folds in clothing appear as
though carved from stone

Detail: Intricate design details on
capitals and lintels

As is the hallmark of this artist, the painting is immaculately designed and architected: "In this enigmatic painting, the figures seem three-dimensional, like marble statues, and occupy a space inspired by classical architecture."

This was one of Clark's early purchases and eventually reached Williamstown in 1957.

Hercules, Isabella Gardner Museum, Boston

On the day following my visit to Clark Art Institute, I paid a visit to the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum to see the Piero della Francesca work in their collection.

Gardner Museum (museumsofboston.org)

Isabella Stuart Gardner and her husband traveled extensively through Europe and Asia and her experiences sparked a deep interest in arts and culture. She supplemented these experiences with classwork at Harvard where she met Bernard Berenson, her eventual art advisor. "Starting in the 1890s, she and Berenson worked together to assemble one of the most important art collections in the world, acquiring everything from major works of Italian Renaissance art to textiles to Chinese sculpture to French paintings made in the1800s.”

Construction on the museum began in 1899 and was completed in 1901. Installation of her collection took two years, with the museum opening to the public in 1903 under the name Fenway Court.

Hercules is a fresco fragment which was discovered in a room of Piero’s family home in Sansepulcro during the second half of the 18th century. The painting was initially displayed “in the upper corner of a room with the right edge bordering the wall.” Such a placement explicates the steep perspective of the image. The fresco was removed from the wall in the 1860s and did incur some damage during removal and transportation.

Hercules is Piero's only known secular work. Herein, the persona is atypically presented as a youth, with his only attire being a Lion's skin. The tail of the lion is seen between the legs of the subject. Rather than his strength being displayed in musculature, the attire implies that strength through a perceived killing of the Lion (probably with his bare hands), skinning it, and wearing the skin as a trophy.

Piero della Francesca, Hercules, 1470

The fresco was purchased by the Gardner Museum in 1903 from Joseph Linton Smith who had previously purchased it from the Florentine art dealer Elia Volpe. Transit out of Italy was delayed by the Italian Government with export rights finally granted in 1908. The piece was seized by US Customs upon its arrival for payment of duties and taxes. The fresco was released upon payment of said dues and taxes.

While at the Museum I came upon a portrait of Battista Sforza, Countess of Urbino. This was intriguing because I have been in pursuit of the Piero double portrait of her and the Duke for a while but have been unable to locate it on my visits to the Ufizzi. This is a striking facsimile of the portrait but, due to its dating, is a masterful copy of the original,

After Piero della Francesca, Battista Sforza,
Countess of Urbino, Late 18th century

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Encountering these two pieces has lit a fire under me to complete my series on the "In the Footsteps ..." series. I had been slightly overwhelmed by the amount of work required to fully cover the story of The Legend of the True Cross and had tried to everything but; I am now resolved.

My quest to recreate — longitudinally — the 2023 Rijksmuseum Vermeer exhibition

“Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675) did not produce many paintings - probably only two a year on average - yet every one of the works of this Delft master is an extraordinary creation that elicits fascination and wonder. Vermeer takes the viewer into an introvert, tranquil world. In the interiors he painted, light plays in an inimitable way and the use of colour is always startling. Although Vermeer composes his paintings, selects motifs and alters the spaces, he achieves such a degree of illusion that his pictorial world still feels identifiable and familiar some 350 years later.” So says the Foreword to the Catalog that accompanied the Vermeer 2023 exhibition at the Rijksmuseum.

By bringing together 28 of the artists paintings — over three quarters of his surviving oeuvre — the Rijksmuseum exhibition allowed visitors to gain a “better understanding of his art, his considerations, and his decisions.” 

This was the first time in its history that the museum had devoted an exhibition solely to Vermeer and it was its most successful exhibition ever. A total of 650,000 visitors from 113 countries visited the exhibition during its 6-week run from February 10 to June 4, 2023.

The chart below shows Vermeer's oeuvre and the selection displayed at the exhibition. 

Vermeer Oeuvre (Images of the Timeline presented at 
the 2003 Rijksmuseum Vermeer Exhibition)

The timeline was photographed by a friend who had the good fortune to attend. According to the Catalog Editors, the works on the timeline "are presented in chronological order, as far as this is possible based on the mere five paintings that Vermeer himself provided with dates: Saint Praxedis, 1655; The Procuress, 1656; The Art of Painting, 1666 (or 1668); The Astronomer, 1668 and The Geographer, 1669. All of the other paintings are grouped around these, whereby the curators of this exhibition have made use of dates previously posted in the literature."

The paintings with asterisks accompanying their captions were not included in the exhibition, thus arriving at a final total of 28 works shown.

I had secured a ticket to attend the exhibition but personal reasons intervened. Subsequently I made a commitment to visit these pieces in a geographically and temporally unrestricted exhibition hall; that is, wherever they were. My quest has taken me to exhibitions and museum collections and is still ongoing. I recount my progress to date in the following.

Exhibitions

I was able to see some Vermeer pieces at two exhibitions.

Vermeer’s Love Letters at the Frick Collection

In June of 2025 I made my second visit of the year to the Frick Collection (I was there on the re-opening day) to see their exhibition titled Vermeer’s Love Letters. This exhibition featured three of the artist’s paintings — Mistress and the Maid (Frick Collection); The Love Letter (Rijksmuseum); and Woman Writing a Letter with her Maid (National Gallery of Ireland) — which “explore reading, writing, and exchanging letters, popular subjects in the artist’s circle of Dutch painters.” The exhibited pieces center on an interaction between a woman and her maidservant and were here brought together in a single gallery for the first time.

Johannes Vermeer, Mistress and Maid,
ca. 1664 - 1667

Johannes Vermeer, The Love Letter,
ca. 1669 - 1670

Johannes Vermeer, Woman Writing a Letter
with her Maid, ca. 1670 - 1672

From Rembrandt to Vermeer at Amsterdam's H'art Museum

The first recorded mention of Amsterdam dates back to 1275, when it was granted a charter by Count Floris V of Holland. To celebrate its founding 750 years ago, the city hosted a number of events in 2025. One such event was an exhibition of Dutch Masters from the Leiden Collection titled From Rembrandt to Vermeer. The exhibition included 75 works by 27 artists to include the likes of Jan Steen, Ferdinand Bol, and Frans Hals but pride of place went to Rembrandt (18 works — 17 paintings and one drawing — being shown together in Amsterdam for the first time) and Vermeer (his Young Woman Seated at a Virginal is the only Vermeer in private hands).

Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman Seated
at a Virginal, ca. 1670 - 1672

Museums

Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

In August of 2025, I saw five Vermeers at The Met on the 5th and two at the Frick Collection on the 6th. What was amazing was the fact that, at that time, 10 Vermeers were located within 1 mile of each other in NYC: five at the Frick (including the three in the Love Letters exhibition) and five at The Met.

Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a
Water Pitcher, ca. 1662 (The Met)

Johannes Vermeer, Girl Interrupted at her Music,
ca. 1658 -1659 (Frick Collection)

Johannes Vermeer, Officer and Laughing Girl,
ca. 1657 (Frick Collection)

Johannes Vermeer, A Maid Asleep,
ca. 1656 -1657 (The Met)

Johannes Vermeer, Young Woman with a Lute,
ca. 1662 - 1663 (The Met)

Johannes Vermeer, Allegory of the Catholic
Faith, ca. 1670 - 72 (The Met)

Johannes Vermeer, Study of a Young Woman,
ca. 1662 (The Met)

Mauritshuis, Den Haag

Mauritshuis is famous for housing Girl with a Pearl Earring and I was able to see that piece plus two others when I visited there after my trip to the H'art Museum.

Johannes Vermeer, Diana and her Nymphs,
ca. 1655 - 1656

Johannes Vermeer, View of Delft,
ca. 1662

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Pearl Earring,
ca. 1664 - 1667

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

The day following my visit to Mauritshuis, I visited the Rijksmuseum to view its Vermeers. We have already encountered one of their four Vermeers on loan to the Frick Collection for its Love Letters exhibition. The ones on display when i visited were as follows:

Johannes Vermeer, View of Houses in Delft
(The Little Street), ca. 1658

Johannes Vermeer, The Milkmaid,
ca. 1658 - 59

Johannes Vermeer, Woman in Blue
reading a Letter, ca. 1662 - 1664

National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Later in August I visited the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and was able to see the following Vermeer-attributed paintings:

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with the Red Hat,
ca. 1669

Johannes Vermeer, A Lady Writing,
ca. 1665

Johannes Vermeer, Woman holding a
Balance, ca. 1662

I also saw Girl with a Flute, 1669/1675, a painting attributed to Vermeer at the Rijksmuseum exhibition but which, according to the National Gallery, was not painted by that Master’s hand.

Johannes Vermeer, Girl with a Flute,
 1669/1675

According to the National Gallery, “Her pose, expression, clothing, and surroundings resemble those seen in paintings by Johannes Vermeer. In 2020 - 2021, however, a team of National Gallery of Art researchers - curators, conservators, and scientists - determined that Vermeer did not paint Girl with a Flute. The artist who created this work was intimately familiar with Vermeer’s materials and techniques but was unable to match his delicate brushwork.”

National Gallery, London

In December 2024, I saw the two Vermeers in this institution's collection:

Johannes Vermeer, A Young Woman
Seated at a Virginal, ca. 1670 - 1672

Johannes Vermeer, A Young Woman Standing
 at a Virginal, ca. 1670 - 1672

Louvre, Paris

I had to return to the Louvre in order to see its Vermeers as, on the day of my initial visit, they had closed — without notice — the section wherein those paintings were housed. The Lacemaker was included in the Rijksmuseum exhibit but The Astronomer was not.

Johannes Vermeer, The Lacemaker,
ca. 1666 - 1668

Johannes Vermeer, The Astronomer,
ca. 1668

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The Rijksmuseum Vermeer exhibition claimed to have brought together 28 of the artists known works but research conducted by the National Gallery of Art has shown that one of these works -- Girl with a Flute -- is not of the master's hand. The total number of Vermeers in the exhibition, therefore, was 27.

As shown above, I have to date viewed 19 of the 27 Vermeers in the exhibition and 20 of the 28 paintings exhibited. The paintings that were a part of the exhibition, and that I have not yet seen, are:

• Christ in the House of Mary and Martha, ca. 1654 - 1655
• Saint Praxedis, 1655
• The Procuress, 1656
• Girl Reading a Letter at an open Window, ca. 1657 - 1658
• The Glass of Wine, ca. 1659 - 1661
• Woman with a Pearl Necklace, ca. 1662 - 1664
• The Geographer, 1669.

Conversely, I have seen Girl with a Pearl Earring, Girl with a Veil, Young Woman with a Water Pitcher, A Maid Asleep, and The Astronomer, paintings that were not included in the exhibition.

The paintings that I have not yet seen and were not included in the exhibition are:

• Girl with a Wine Glass, ca. 1659 - 1661
• The Music Lesson, ca. 1662 - 1664
• The Concert, ca.. 1662 - 1664
• The Art of Painting, ca. 1666 - 1668.