Please join fellow Curator's Circle members for a festive reception to celebrate the opening of The Enduring Mark: Six Centuries of Drawing from the Gray Collection. The exhibition, organized by The Art Institute of Chicago, travelled to New York’s Morgan Library and Museum before coming to BAMPFA. The Enduring Mark features a collection of works on paper representing 600 years of Western art, assembled by one of America’s foremost art dealers and connoisseurs, Richard Gray—along with his wife, art historian Mary L. Gray. The evening will include wine and bites from Babette Cafe, period musical accompaniment, and an exhibition tour led by Lawrence Rinder, BAMPFA director emeritus.

Space is limited, and reservations will be made on a first come, first served basis. Kindly RSVP to Masha Berek at mberek@berkeley.edu by Tuesday, August 3. 

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Over the course of more than fifty years, the Grays sought out works of the highest quality, defined by beauty, visual power, and boldness of execution. While many of the most celebrated names in art history appear throughout the collection—Rubens, Boucher, Canaletto, Tiepolo, Seurat, Van Gogh, Degas, Cézanne, Picasso, Matisse, Pollock, and de Kooning among others—the Grays were less interested in celebrity than in aesthetic power, and many of their drawings bear the names of lesser-known artists, represented by works of exceptional distinction. Geographically, the works span various Italian cities, Holland and Flanders, France, England, Spain, Switzerland, Russia, and America. In this wide-ranging collection there is a consistent focus on representations of the human body, a subject for which the subtle and sensual medium of drawing is especially well-suited. 
                    
The exhibition includes over 80 drawings from the Gray collection, including fifteen extraordinary works that have been generously donated to BAMPFA by Richard and Mary L. Gray. Among the artists included in this donation are Guardi, Tiepolo, Delacroix, Géricault, Gris, Klee, and Miro. Also included are a group of exquisite seventeenth-century Italian red chalk drawings.
                
The Grays were avid connoisseurs and patrons of Chicago’s classical music community, with a particular passion for small chamber ensembles. Richard felt an affinity with this most personal and direct expression of the composer’s hand, as he did with the immediacy of drawing. Richard and Mary’s son Harry Gray and his wife, Katrine, are deeply involved with the Bay Area music community, and bring a rich understanding of the aesthetic and cultural connections between the drawings in the Gray collection and the music of their respective historical periods. The musicians will join us for a tour of the exhibition, performing musical excerpts along the way, with historical and thematic connections to specific works in the collection.

Director Emeritus Lawrence Rinder served as BAMPFA director and chief curator from 2008 to 2020. Prior to that, he was the dean of the College at California College of the Arts in Oakland and San Francisco. Rinder served as curator of contemporary art at the Whitney Museum of American Art where he organized exhibitions including The American Effect, BitStreams, the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and Tim Hawkinson. Prior to the Whitney, Rinder was founding director of the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, in San Francisco, and served as assistant director and curator for twentieth-century art at BAMPFA.

Katherine Kyme, a Grammy nominee, has served as concertmaster and soloist with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra for over three decades. Especially known for her interpretation of classical period repertoire, she led Philharmonia’s string section through a nearly complete cycle of the Haydn Symphonies. Kyme is a founding member of the American Bach Soloists, and she co-founded Cantata Collective, an organization dedicated to providing Bach Cantata performances free to the public.

William Skeen, a Grammy Award nominee, serves as Principal Cellist with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the American Bach Soloists, and Voices of Music. He is a founding member of the New Esterházy Quartet, the Cantata Collective, and La Monica. He has served as continuo cellist and viola da gamba soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Los Angeles Master Chorale, San Diego Opera, Dallas Symphony, and the Orquesta Nacional de México, among others.