Tehran museum loans Van Dongen painting to Dutch show

Source: Mehr News Agency

Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMCA) has agreed to loan a painting by Dutch artist Kees Van Dongen (1877-1968) to the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

Trinidad Fernandez -1907 by Kees Van Dongen Oil on Canvas 82 cm x 100 cm Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Iran

The painting, named "Trinidad Fernandez" (1907), was loaned at the request of the museum in Rotterdam, and the return of masterpiece back to the country has been guaranteed by the Dutch Embassy in Tehran, TMCA Public Relations Office reported on Thursday.

The museum has arranged the exhibition "All eyes on Kees van Dongen" in September, showcasing some eighty masterpieces by the renowned painter Kees van Dongen.

The exhibit will open on September 18 and will run for four months until January 23, 2011.

No fewer than sixty paintings and a selection of drawings, ceramics, posters and photographs are being flown over from leading international collections especially for the exhibition. They are coming from as far away as Iran, New York, Monaco, Geneva and Moscow.

Cornelis Theodorus Maria van Dongen was born on January 26, 1877 in Delfshaven, near Rotterdam. At the age of fifteen, Kees began drawing lessons at what is now the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam.

Van Dongen blossomed in Paris, becoming a celebrated artist. The left-wing illustrator's success came through his association with Fauvism, the first major avant-garde movement. Van Dongen was notorious for his contemporary use of color, paint and electric light and almost as much for his lifestyle. His lavish studio parties in the 1920s and 30s were attended by film stars, famous politicians and artists.

What Andy Warhol was to New York in the 1960s, Kees van Dongen was to the Paris of the 1920s - a society artist and Bohemian who brought added color and excitement to the city.

... Payvand News - 08/13/10 ... --