C. D. Dickerson III

The Lone Star State is home to a dazzling array of world-class artworks, many in private collections and rarely exhibited. Reflecting the Kimbell Art Museum’s own collecting strengths, this book focuses on the art of Europe and the ancient Mediterranean from about 700 B.C. to around 1950. Over 40 prominent collections are featured along with works that have been given to museums in Texas or have left the state through gift or sale. Among the artists included are Thomas Gainsborough, Paul Gauguin, Guercino, Henri Matisse, Piet Mondrian, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Vincent van Gogh. The distinguished scholar Richard R. Brettell contributes a comprehensive essay on the importance of private collecting in Texas.

Richard R. Brettell and C. D. Dickerson III

Fort Worth and New Haven: Kimbell Art Museum and Yale University Press, 2009.

Hardcover: 456 pages

ISBN: 978-0300144949

The brilliantly expressive clay models created by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) as "sketches" for his works in marble offer extraordinary insights into his creative imagination. Although long admired, the terracotta models have never been the subject of detailed examination. This publication presents a wealth of new discoveries (including evidence of the artist's fingerprints imprinted on the clay), resolving lingering issues of attribution while giving readers a vivid sense of how the artist and his assistants fulfilled a steady stream of monumental commissions. Essays describe Bernini's education as a modeler; his approach to preparatory drawings; his use of assistants; and the response to his models by 17th-century collectors. Extensive research by conservators and art historians explores the different types of models created in Bernini's workshop. Richly illustrated, Bernini transforms our understanding of the sculptor and his distinctive and fascinating working methods.

C. D. Dickerson III, Anthony Sigel, and Ian Wardropper

New York and New Haven: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2012.

Hardcover: 432 pages

ISBN: 978-0300185003

In France in the 17th century, the brothers Antoine (c. 1598–1648), Louis (c. 1600/1605–1648), and Mathieu (1607–1677) Le Nain painted images of everyday life for which they became posthumously famous. They are celebrated for their depictions of middle-class leisure activities, and particularly for their representations of peasant families, who gaze out at the viewer. The uncompromising naturalism of these compositions, along with their oddly suspended action, imparts a sense of dignity to their subjects.
 
Featuring more than sixty paintings highlighting the artists’ full range of production, including altarpieces, private devotional paintings, portraits, and the poignant images of peasants for which the brothers are best known, this generously illustrated volume presents new research concerning the authorship, dating, and meaning of the works by well-known scholars in the field. Also groundbreaking are the results of a technical study of the paintings, which constitutes a major contribution to the scholarship on the Le Nain brothers.

C. D. Dickerson III and Esther Bell

San Francisco and New Haven: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Yale University Press, 2016.

Hardcover: 472 pages

ISBN: 978-0300218886

The Kimbell presepe showcases a form of art that flourished in Naples in the eighteenth century and today seems almost inseparable form the celebration of Christmas: the arrangement of movable figures, animals, and props to represent the scene in the stable at Bethlehem after the birth of Christ.  It comprises some seventy eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century pieces, drawn from some of the greatest Neapolitan collections and placed in a re-creation of a traditional Nativity setting, complete with crumbling Roman arch.  This book commemorates the event with lavish illustrations and essays by leading authorities that explain why the presepe tradition took such strong root in eighteenth-century Naples.

C. D. Dickerson III and Sabina de Cavi

Fort Worth: Kimbell Art Museum, 2008.

Softcover: 118 pages

ISBN: 978-0-912804-49-1

Born in Bologna, Annibale Carracci (1564–1609) was one of the most revolutionary artists of the late Renaissance. Even before turning twenty, he rebelled against convention by investing his art with a sense of naturalism uncommon to paintings of the period. His early painting The Butcher’s Shop, a cherished work in the Kimbell Art Museum’s collection, marks the beginning of Carracci’s artistic journey and remains one of his most powerfully naturalistic works.

This fascinating study explores the origins and significance of The Butcher’s Shop, placing it within the artist’s own career as well as the broader context of Italian painting. Detailing the uniqueness and vitality of Carracci’s style, C. D. Dickerson emphasizes the remarkable plein-air quality of the painting and explains how Carracci may have achieved this utterly novel effect, though in fact executing the work indoors in his studio.  He also sets Carracci’s work in the tradition of butcher’s shop paintings in Renaissance Italy, analyzes the painting in relation to the reality of the occupation at the time, and investigates where in Bologna such a butcher’s shop might have stood.

C. D. Dickerson III

Fort Worth and New Haven: Kimbell Art Museum and Yale University Press, 2010.

Paperpack: 100 pages

ISBN: 978-0300166408

In 18th-century Europe, while the old order reveled in the luxurious excesses of the Rococo style and the Enlightenment sowed the seeds of revolution, the shapeshifting libertine Giacomo Casanova seduced his way across the continent. Although notorious for the scores of amorous conquests he recorded in his remarkably frank memoirs, Casanova was just as practiced at charming his way into the most elite social circles, through an inimitable mix of literary ambition, improvisational genius and outright fraud. In his travels across Europe and through every level of society from the theatrical demimonde to royal courts, he was also seduced by the visual splendors he encountered.

This volume accompanies the first major art exhibition outside Europe to lavishly recreate Casanova’s visual world, from his birthplace of Venice, city of masquerades, to the cultural capitals of Paris and London and the outposts of Eastern Europe. Summoning up the people he met and the cityscapes, highways, salons, theaters, masked balls, boudoirs, gambling halls and dining rooms he frequented, it provides a survey of important works of 18th-century European art by masters such as Canaletto, Fragonard, Boucher, Houdon and Hogarth, along with exquisite decorative arts objects.

Twelve essays by prominent scholars illuminate multiple facets of Casanova’s world as reflected in the arts of his time, providing a fascinating grand tour of Europe conducted by a quintessential figure of the 18th century as well as a splendid visual display of the spirit of the age.

Frederick Ilchman, Thomas Michie, C. D. Dickerson III, and Esther Bell

Catalogue by Frederick Ilchman, Thomas Michie, C. D. Dickerson III, and Esther Bell. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2017.

Hardcover: 344 pages

ISBN: 978-0878468423

Alonso Berruguete (c. 1488–1561) revolutionized the arts of Renaissance Spain with a dramatic style of sculpture that reflected the decade or more he had spent in Italy while young. Trained as a painter, he traveled to Italy around 1506, where he interacted with Michelangelo and other leading artists. In 1518, he returned to Spain and was appointed court painter to the new king, Charles I. Eventually, he made his way to Valladolid, where he shifted his focus to sculpture, opening a large workshop that produced breathtaking multistory altarpieces (retablos) decorated with sculptures in painted wood.

This handsomely illustrated catalogue is the first in English to treat Berruguete’s art and career comprehensively. It follows his career from his beginnings in Castile to his final years in Toledo, where he produced his last great work, the marble tomb of Cardinal Juan de Tavera. Enriching the chronological narrative are discussions of important aspects of Berruguete’s life and practice: his complicated relationship with social status and wealth; his activity as a draftsman and use of prints; how he worked with his many assistants to create his wood sculptures; and his legacy as an artist.

C. D. Dickerson II and Mark McDonald

Washington, Dallas, Madrid and New York, and New Haven: National Gallery of Art, Meadows Museum, SMU, Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica / Center for Spain in America, and Yale University Press, 2019.

Hardcover: 244 pages

ISBN: 978-0300248319