Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres / Ellsworth Kelly

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres / Ellsworth Kelly serves as the exhibition catalog to the French Academy of Rome – Villa Medici exhibition of the same name, which will open in June 2010. Neither the exhibition, nor the catalog try to compare the styles or formal qualities, but rather seek to understand what links the work of this American artist when he lived in Paris and the French painter whose work inspired academicism and many innovations in modern art. The catalog presents the never before seen works of Ellsworth Kelly along with a selection of Ingres’ drawings and paintings. The exhibition was jointly conceived by Kelly and Eric de Chassey, the director of the French Academy in Rome, and curated in a fashion that supports the visitor’s vision. The catalog reflects the visual juxtaposition between the artists’ respective works and the way that the memory of one influences the way in which the viewer understands the other. This beautiful and unique exhibition captures the connection between line and form and the duality between fragmentation and unity in both artists’ work. The catalog reflects the striking visual efficiency of the exhibition, while maintaining the individual readability of each work for an exceptional presentation of art across time and space. The catalog will include critical texts in three languages (French, Italian, and English) by Eric de Chassey and Whitney curator Carter Foster.\n\nBorn in Pittsburgh, Éric de Chassey has been a professor of art history at the Université François-Rabelais di Tours since 1999 and a member of the Institut Universitaire de France since 2004. He has published books, essays, and catalogs on art from the Twentieth and Twenty-first century, in particular on abstraction, Matisse, American art and photography. In addition he has curated numerous shows in France and abroad. Mr. de Chassey was nominated as the director of the French Academy in Rome – Villa Medici, September 7, 2009.\n\nCarter Foster graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree in art history from the University of Georgia and earned his Master’s degree in 1991 from Brown University. After holding positions at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the New York Public Library, he joined the staff of the drawing department at the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1996 and became its chief in 2002. While there, he co-curated the first major exhibition of Cleveland’s drawing collection which toured to Houston and New York City among other places, and co-authored the accompanying catalogue.Mr. Foster joined the Whitney in 2004.