Norton’s ‘Artists in Motion’ brings rare masterpieces to Florida for the first time

From Paris to South Florida, the latest exhibition at the Norton Museum of Art in West Palm Beach features works that have traveled the world — and are making their first visit to the Sunshine State.

The aptly titled “Artists in Motion: Impressionist and Modern Masterpieces from the Pearlman Collection,” opened Saturday and will be on view through Feb. 18.

It features nearly 40 works from the collection of Henry Pearlman, who loaned the entire collection to the Princeton University Art Museum. The collection continues to be managed by the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation.

Among the pieces on display are paintings, watercolors and sculptures by artists including Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, édouard Manet, Amedeo Modigliani, Camille Pissarro, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Cha?m Soutine.

To the foundation’s knowledge, this is the first time the works in the collection have been displayed in Florida, Daniel Pearlman — Henry Pearlman’s grandson — told a crowd of patrons during an event at the Norton on Thursday night.

The opening day coincided with the museum’s Nuesta Cultura Community Day, which offered free admission for all attendees, a celebration of Hispanic culture and Spanish-language tours in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.

“We haven’t hosted an expansive exhibition of this genre of art for almost a decade, and we are delighted to offer a complimentary admission day and share this remarkable exhibition with our entire community,” said Ghislain d'Humières, the Norton Museum’s director and chief executive.

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Before entering the space where the collection is displayed, a map introduces visitors to the many geographical points from which artists included in the exhibition converged on Paris.

“The center of the art world,” said Anke Van Wagenberg, the Harold and Anne Berkley Smith senior curator of American and European art for the Norton. “This is where they came from.” She gestured to points on the map, which covers a wall at the exhibition’s entrance. Italy, Greece, Brazil, Chile, Poland, Belarus, Spain and the United States are among the countries represented.

Almost all artists — primarily Impressionist and Post-Impressionist — knew each other, Van Wagenberg said.

A very large picture of one of the paintings in the collection, van Gogh’s “Tarascon Stagecoach,” greets visitors. It features a stagecoach in the south of France in a testament to the nostalgia the artist felt for simpler times. The Norton’s staff used a close-up of the wagon’s wheel for the sticker that shows security a visitor has paid the extra $5 to enter the “Artists in Motion” exhibition, Van Wagenberg said.

Van Gogh painted “Tarascon Stagecoach” in 1888 to impress Gauguin, another artist featured in the collection, who was going to visit van Gogh, Van Wagenberg said.

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“We’ve used it as our signature image for the show,” she said.

It serves as an apt representation of the themes of movement and migration, because the painting itself — while showing a stagecoach, a mode of transportation — truly has traveled the world, Van Wagenberg said.

“This painting was lost for a long time,” she said. “It was rediscovered by Mr. Pearlman.”

The collector knew about the painting because van Gogh had sketched it at the bottom of a letter to his brother, Van Wagenberg said. Pearlman was able to track it down: The painting had first been sold to an art dealer in Italy after van Gogh’s death. It then was sold to a family in Uruguay. From there, it traveled to Argentina.

From there, an art dealer who knew Pearlman was looking for a van Gogh made the final connection, and the painting made its way to the United States.

“What a journey,” Van Wagenberg said.

Many of the works in the exhibition are by the Post-Impressionist Cézanne, for whom Pearlman had a particular fondness.

“I think he appreciated the artist as a key figure in history,” Van Wagenberg said. “Even (Pablo) Picasso said, ‘Cézanne was the father of us all.’”

Within his paintings there are small cubist, block-like forms, she said. This is particularly visible in a selection of watercolors on paper by Cézanne.

The watercolors are among six works on paper that are carefully displayed, given the sensitivity of paper to light exposure, Van Wagenberg said.

“I’m thrilled to have these,” she said of the paper works by Cézanne. The show traveled to the Norton from the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the drawings will need to “rest” for six months to a year after “Artists in Motion,” meaning they are pulled from rotation to preserve the quality of the paper, she said. “Works of paper can only take so much light for so long,” Van Wagenberg said.

Pearlman was a very conscientious collector, she said. While he wasn’t tremendously wealthy, on the scale of a Rockefeller, he was judicious with his money and careful about the pieces he chose for his collection, Van Wagenberg said.

That collection began on a snowy day on Park Avenue in New York City in 1945, when Pearlman saw the painting “View of Céret” by Cha?m Soutine in an auction house window.

“He put in a bid, and he won the bid,” Van Wagenberg said. “Then he became a collector.”

Pearlman endeavored to know as much about the artists as he could. He preferred to interview them personally, but with some already dead, he instead would interview their subjects, Van Wagenberg said.

Pearlman shares many characteristics with Ralph Norton, the museum’s founder, she said. “Artists in Motion” forms an excellent complement to some of the pieces in the Norton’s permanent collection because of that, she noted.

“They were collecting at the same time,” she said. “I like to fantasize that they may have known each other, and maybe they were at the same auctions at some point.”

Both were emphatic about collecting pieces they liked, and both shared a passion for accessibility — making their collections available for viewing by the public, Van Wagenberg said.

“Mr. Pearlman was all about sharing his collection,” she said. “He loaned out frequently to museums, and that’s another strong parallel between him and Norton.”

The catalog for the exhibition is digital. There are two stations in the gallery where the catalog can be viewed. It is available in English and Spanish. Visitors also may scan a QR code to view the catalog on their phones.

If you go:

What: “Artists in Motion: Impressionist and Modern Masterpieces from the Pearlman Collection”

Where: Norton Museum of Art, 1450 S. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach

When: Through Feb. 18 during regular museum hours, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday

Cost: $5 in addition to museum admission, which is free for members, $18 for general admission, $15 for ages 60 and older, $5 for students with a valid ID and free for children ages 12 and younger

Information: 561-832-5196, www.norton.org

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: New Norton exhibit features works by van Gogh, Gauguin, other masters