Théodore Géricault from Private Collections

acknowledgements

To be able to view a group of 25 drawings and small oils by an important artist who died so young is indeed a rare and special event. In 1986 when the gallery was beginning to develop a specialty in 19 th-century French works on paper, I had the good fortune to meet Jacqueline Dubaut, daughter of Pierre Dubaut, the renowned collector of works by Géricault. Thanks to her, I was able to have for sale many drawings and watercolors by the artist, and to mount a small exhibition of Géricault’s works on paper in New York later that year. It was shortly thereafter that I had the further good fortune to meet the dealer Peter Nathan, his daughter Corinne and her husband Arturo Cuéllar. The Nathan family has a long tradition in collecting the works of Géricault. Thanks in large part to these two friendships, the gallery today is able to continue its series of monographic exhibitions, begun in 1983 , with this show of works by Théodore Géricault ( 1794–1824 ), the brilliant and tragic artist whose life and oeuvre has come to symbolize French Romanticism. Géricault drawings have not been exhibited in the United States since the Morgan Library show in 1985 , and an exhibition of the paintings was last held at the Metropolitan Museum in 1989 . I am especially grateful to Amy Kurlander for her research; Christa Savino, gallery director; Cassity Miller, assistant in the gallery; and Lawrence Sunden for his graphic design. Their help has been invaluable and constant. I would also like to thank as well the very generous collectors whose loans were crucial to the exhibition, as well as friends and colleagues who were very helpful in various ways: Fred Bancroft; Jean-Luc Baroni; Frances Beatty, Richard L. Feigen and Assoc.; Bruno Chenique for his continuing study of Géricault’s work; Jasmine Chohan; Karen B. Cohen; Arturo and Corinne Cuéllar; Salomon Cuéllar; Cristina Diaz; Nancy Druckman, Didier Aaron and Co.; Betty and Jean-Marie Eveillard; Thomas and Audrey French; Phillippe Grunchec, whose early studies of the artist were vitally important; Jennifer Jones; Jon and Barbara Landau; Claire Lebeau; Roberta Olson and Alexander Johnson; Bojana Popovic; Michael Rubenstein; Alan Salz; Marjorie Shelley; Dr. Margret Stuffmann; and Andrea Woodner.

— J. N.