Dr And Mrs Alfred Bader Collection

The Bader Collection stands among the great private collections of its kind in the world. For the past 40 years Dr. Alfred Bader of Milwaukee has donated works to the Agnes Etherington Art Centre at his Canadian alma mater, Queens University, where the entire Bader Collection will be housed . This extraordinary collection demonstrates a rich interplay of interests and insights, at the same time drawing back the curtain on the motivations and principles behind these remarkable acquisitions, whose history dates back to 1950. This scholarly publication presents 200 Dutch and Flemish Baroque paintings that form the collections focus. Exhaustively researched, the richly illustrated entries present each painting in detail. An introductory essay explores the life of this remarkable collector and the motivations that drive his pursuit of the art of the Age of Rembrandt with such passion and insight.

De Witt offers a detailed biography based on a thorough review of the documentary evidence. He traces Van Noordt's origins back to a prominent musical family, details his artistic development under the guidance of prominent Amsterdam painter Jacob Adriaensz Backer, and reveals his synthesis of the styles of the two dominant Netherlandish artists, Rubens and Rembrandt. Using a systematic analysis of technique, manner, and approach to form, de Witt proves that over half the paintings and drawings presently attributed to Van Noordt are not his work - virtually recasting the accomplishments of an artist whose vibrant, often daring works challenge our concept of seventeenth-century Dutch art.

The Paintings of Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588-1629), is the first major study of this important early seventeenth-century master since Benedict Nicolson's classic monograph of 1958. It comprises two chapters that explore ter Brugghen's development as an artist and the reception of his work among contemporaries, followed by a truly monumental catalogue raisonné of ter Brugghen's 89 authentic paintings, 54 pictures associated with the artist and/or his workshop, 141 rejected works, 42 lost works, and lastly, 10 drawings that have been linked to ter Brugghen directly or related to his paintings. Already celebrated during his lifetime, and avidly collected by elite cognescenti in the Dutch Republic and abroad, ter Brugghen executed a dazzling variety of paintings, ranging from Bible subjects and saints, to fascinating mythological images, as well as scenes of daily life, including musicians. Although his knowledge of paintings by Caravaggio that he had seen during his early sojourn in Rome always remained acute, these experiences were continually tempered by his awareness of older Northern European artistic traditions and conventions, with the result that ter Brugghen created pictures whose subject matter and style are fascinating, and at times, unique. Until his untimely death in August of 2003, Leonard J. Slatkes was Distinguished Professor of Art History at Queens College of the City University of New York, NY. He was an internationally renowned expert on the art of the Dutch Caravaggisti, to whom he had devoted many essays, books, and exhibition catalogues. Slatkes had begun conducting research on ter Brugghen's paintings in the 1960's, with the expectation of eventually publishing a new monograph on the artist. Wayne Franits, a former student of Slatkes's, is currently Professor of Fine Arts at Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY. He has authored numerous publications on seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish art.