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Gagosian Quarterly

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John Elderfield

John Elderfield

John Elderfield is chief curator emeritus of painting and sculpture at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and was formerly the inaugural Allen R. Adler, Class of 1967, Distinguished Curator and Lecturer at the Princeton University Art Museum. He joined Gagosian in 2012 as a senior curator for special exhibitions.

Anna Weyant, It Must Have Been Love, 2022 (detail)

Seductive Imitation: on Anna Weyant’s Still Lifes

Inspired by Anna Weyant’s still lifes, John Elderfield explores the genre and its relationship with trompe l’oeil techniques, tracking its formal development, as well as the evolving critical receptions it has elicited.

Roy Lichtenstein, Girl with Ball, 1961, oil on canvas, 60 ¼ × 36 ¼ inches (153 × 91.9 cm), The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Gift of Philip Johnson. Artwork © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA/Art Resource, New York

Drift of Dots

In this second installment of a two-part essay, John Elderfield resumes his investigation of the proliferation of dots in modern and contemporary art. Part one addressed how dots have been used to make the surface of a painting disappear. The focus here is on how dots affirm the surface, and on their associations as a result: skin, touch, decoration, disfigurement, or, simply, the labor—or boredom—of producing them.

Pink dots that read "On the dot" in the center of a green dot background

On the Dot

In the first installment of a two-part feature, John Elderfield discusses how dots found a special place in the vocabulary of painting with the work of the French artist Georges Seurat and continue to be used to this day, most famously by Damien Hirst and Yayoi Kusama. Elderfield asks: what is it about dots that attracted modern artists, and what functions do they serve?

Henri Matisse, The Painter’s Family, 1911, oil on canvas, depicting a living-room scene with two boys in red playing chess

T. S. Eliot Meets Henri Matisse

John Elderfield asks: Is it possible that the paths of these two great modernists crossed? An essay by T. S. Eliot of 1919 on a playwright of the seventeenth century surprisingly raises that question; and an investigation of primary materials reveals an unexpected answer.

Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field, 1977, long-term installation, western New Mexico. Artwork © Estate of Walter De Maria. Photo: John Cliett, courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York, and © Estate of Walter De Maria

Light and Lightning: Wonder-Reactions at Walter De Maria’s The Lightning Field

In this second installment of a two-part essay, John Elderfield resumes his investigation of Walter De Maria’s The Lightning Field (1977), focusing this time on how the hope to see lightning there has led to the work’s association with the Romantic conception of the sublime.

Walter De Maria, The Lightning Field, 1977. Entire field from northwest exterior looking southeast, summer 1979

A Day in the Life of The Lightning Field

In the first of a two-part feature, John Elderfield recounts his experiences at The Lightning Field (1977), Walter De Maria’s legendary installation in New Mexico. Elderfield considers how this work requires our constantly finding and losing a sense of symmetry and order in shifting perceptions of space, scale, and distance, as the light changes throughout the day.

François Aubert, The Shirt of the Emperor, Worn during His Execution, 1867, albumen silver print from glass negative, 8 ¾ × 6 ¼ inches (22.2 × 15.8 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gilman Collection, Gift of the Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005

Édouard Manet: Death in the Afternoon

In this second installment of a two-part essay, John Elderfield resumes his investigation of Édouard Manet’s Execution of Maximilian, focusing this time on the political and historical implications of the artist’s formal treatment of real, violent events.

Édouard Manet, The Execution of Maximilian, 1867–68, oil on canvas, 6 feet 4 inches × 9 feet 4 inches (193 × 284 cm). National Gallery, London, Bought 1918.

Édouard Manet: Cut and Paste

In this first installment of a two-part essay, John Elderfield tracks the oscillating states of unification and separation that Édouard Manet’s The Execution of Maximilian has endured since its creation, in 1868.

Henri Matisse, The Music Lesson, 1917, oil on canvas, domestic interior scene of people in the livingroom at the piano, reading chair, and window

Lockdown: Henri Matisse’s Domestic Interiors

John Elderfield reexamines Matisse’s Piano Lesson (1916) and Music Lesson (1917), considering the works’ depictions of domestic space during the tumult of World War I.