“Close to Vermeer” at Billings Farm in Woodstock This Weekend
And more Vermeer online.
In the spring of 2023, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam opened its doors to the largest Vermeer exhibition in history. With loans from across the world, this major retrospective brought together Vermeer’s most famous masterpieces including Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Milkmaid, The Little Street, and Woman Holding a Balance. Tickets sold out almost immediately.
A related industry (films, swag) has been built up around the now-closed (alas) Rijksmuseum exhibition; it is a testament to the excitement that Vermeer still inspires. One example is a documentary, Close to Vermeer by Susan Raes, which tells the story of how the exhibition was put together and the challenges of determining “real” from “doubtful” Vermeer paintings. It’s playing this weekend, December 16 and 17 at 3 p.m. at the Billings Farm and Museum. (See trailer, above). For information and tickets, click here.
“But above all, Close to Vermeer shows the infectious love Vermeer’s art inspires. As one curator lovingly puts it: ‘A good exhibition should change your view of the world. Vermeer can really do that.’”
And closer still: Another film is VERMEER at Rijksmuseum 2023 - Closer To Johannes Vermeer, narrated by British actor Stephen Fry. It’s available online here. I watched the first five minutes and was captivated, particularly so because the beginning focuses on Vermeer’s The Little Street, a (mere) copy of which hangs on one of my upstairs walls (and maybe yours as well). I’ve slotted the entire film in for an hour and a quarter sometime this weekend, probably for when the forecasted rain is doing its very worst.
Sorry you didn’t get to Amsterdam for the exhibition? Me too. For viewing a little closer to home: Three Vermeer paintings (see below for one of them) were loaned to the Rijksmuseum by the Frick Museum in New York City, now under renovation (its temporary home is called Frick Madison) and scheduled to reopen in its original location in late 2024. Perhaps the Vermeers will have found their way home by then. There are five Vermeers at NYC’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
A painting by Vermeer, The Concert, is still missing after the infamous heist at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Fun fact: Its neighbor, the Museum of Fine Arts, has never owned a Vermeer but boasts ownership of Dirck van Baburen’s The Procuress, a painting once owned by Vermeer’s mother-in-law, and which Vermeer incorporated into two paintings, including the now stolen The Concert.
———————————————————
Big news . . . we are moving closer to 2700 Artful subscribers. Thank you! You’re reading Artful, a blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley, and I hope you’ll subscribe (still free) and then share this with your friends and on your social media.
And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.