More on Mergel going to MFA

From my extended report on ICA curator Jen Mergel (pictured) moving to the MFA:

Each time the museum has hired a new contemporary-art curator, we've been told that it's renewing its commitment to the art of today. This time out, MFA director Malcolm Rogers announced, in a prepared statement, that Mergel's "vision will enable the MFA to reach new audiences as we expand the presence of contemporary art at the museum."

Of course, back in 1998, Cheryl Brutvan arrived from Buffalo's Albright-Knox Art Gallery with similar hopes, following the departure of long-time MFA contemporary curator Trevor Fairbrother. "She has the personality to fit into the team here, and to be a leader in the contemporary-art community," said Rogers at the time.

That didn't pan out. Over the past decade, the MFA has rarely given its contemporary-art curators the space or the backing to present shows as ambitious as the ICA's 2008 Tara Donovan retrospective, which Mergel curated with (Nicholas) Baume. Brutvan ended up producing mainly smallish exhibits in the West Wing's Foster Gallery. The MFA's big surveys of art from the past century — Ansel Adams in 2005, David Hockney in 2006, Edward Hopper in 2007 — were organized by other departments, or by other museums.

In July 2008, Brutvan announced that she would be leaving the MFA, apparently without having another job lined up. In January 2009, she became curator of contemporary art at the Norton Museum of Art in Florida.

"Over the years I've been here, there's been a gradual development of the contemporary programming," Rogers, who has led the MFA since 1994, tells me. "I think over the past few years, the programming has gotten stronger and stronger. But with just the Foster Gallery, we haven't had the space to do things on a grander scale, or even to exhibit our own collection."

Read the rest here.


Previously
Dec. 22, 2009: Mergel leaving ICA for MFA.
Dec. 22, 2009: Mergel departure leaves ICA with one curator.
July 30, 2009: Baume leaving ICA.
Dec. 5, 2008: Brutvan hired by Norton Museum.
July 11, 2008: Brutvan leaving MFA.
Sept. 15, 2007: Saywell named MFA's contemporary art czar. And MFA confirms appointment of Saywell as director of west wing.

2009 New England Art Awards nominees

Here’s the list of all the nominees for this year’s New England Art Awards, a contest organized by The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research to honor the best art made in New England and exhibits organized here in 2009. (More details here.) Thanks to the more than 80 people who made nominations during the two week submission period that ended Sunday night.

Note that this is raw (mostly) unedited data as it was received from anyone who wished to make nominations – and may include spelling and factual errors as well as nominees that aren’t qualified because, for example, they don’t feature local artists or local curators. We’re working with a team of special advisors to cull the nominations into a manageable ballot for voting. And all are welcome to vote once the ballot is ready. Stay tuned.


ARTISTS:

Book:
Art at Colby
michael russem
Blaze (Mari Novotny-Jones)
Mapping Landscapes for Performance as Research (featuring Marilyn Arsem with ima
Gary Duehr's "Think The Worst”
“Ruin” By Brian Vanden Brink
Marek Bennett of Henniker, New Hampshire, for “Breakfast at Mimi’s” and “Nicaragua: Comics Travel Journal”
Stephen R. Bissette (art) and Joseph A. Citro (words) “The Vermont Monster Guide.”
James Sturm of White River Junction, VT, Andrew Arnold and Alexis Frederic-Frost, “Adventures in Cartooning: How to Turn Your Doodles Into Comics”

Career survey:
Robert Indiana & the Star of Hope at Farnsworth Museum
Harold Feinstein: A Retrospective
Harry Callahan at the MFA
David Aronson at Danforth
Gerry Bergstein at Danforth
Sonia Landy Sheridan at Hood Museum of Art
“Tabitha Vevers: Narrative Bodies” at DeCordova
“You Are Here: Linden Frederick, Studies, Paintings,” at Center for Maine Contemporary Art
“Drawings from the Heart: Tomie dePaola Turns 75” at Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art.

Drawing/Printmaking:
Julie Miller at Steven Zevitas Gallery
Ria Brodell “The Handsome & The Holy” at Rotenberg
Steven Locke @ Samson
June August
Andrea Evans , There Is No Place... , SMFA MFA thesis exhibtion and Next Generation 1
Mary O'Malley
Jo Dery at 5 Traverse
Jonathan Bonner “Pooms” at 5 Traverse

Installation:
Georgie Friedman, “Spiraling Water, H20: Film on Water”
jesse kaminsky
The Big Tent %u2013 Yes We Can; Oh Say Can You See, recycled paper, disposable t
Matthew Paul Cleary @ LaMontagne Gallery
Elizabeth Amento, Yeah, I think you should, since we%u2019re here, MFA Thesis Ex
Thomas Stevenson, Untitled, SMFA MFA Thesis Exhibtion
Wade Aaron, A Work In Progress, SMFA MFA Thesis Exhibtion
Jeffu Warmouth “Nourishment” at Art Institute of Boston.
Coil/Recoil by Lisa Greenfield
Starry Night - Lisa Greenfield and Daniel J. van Ackere
Sleep No More\'s war-room by Maria Magdalena Campos Pons and her students
Elaine Bay
Ryan Trecartin and Lizzie Fitch at the Rose Museum, Waltham
Andrew Salomone “Jell-O Head” at Buoy Gallery
Michael Bizon at 5 Traverse and golf course
Rachel Berwick at Brown’s Bell Gallery
Raphael Lyon at Stairwell Gallery
Liz Collins “Doll Cave” at AS220's Project Space
Aaron L. Peterman at Miller Block Gallery.
Douglas Weathersby at Rotenberg
Daniel Phillips: “Tear Down these Walls” at Montserrat

New media:
GJYD “The Creasemaker Sheats by girls jumping your dad”
The First 100 Days (Obama) of PIECE
100 Days Artist Collaborative
Krista Caballero,This Is Not Happening
Melinda Go, This Is Not Happening
Wade Aaron, A Work In Progress, SMFA MFA Thesis Exhibtion
Michael Lewy
"Parse:Visualizing Data That Makes Us Human" at Axiom
Fischli & Weiss the Way Things Go List Center
Georgie Friedman/ Geyser-Cyber Arts
Krzysztof Wodiczko “…Out of Here” at ICA
Raphael Lyon at Stairwell Gallery
Brian Knep “Exempla” at Tufts University
Ann Carlson and Mary Ellen Strom “New Performance Video” at DeCordova

Painting:
Raul Gonzalez – Lookum Here (It Might Could Have Been)
Carianne Mack Garside
Matthew Rich at Samson
David X. Levine
Kelli Thompson, SMFA MFA Exhibtion
Zsuzsanna Szegedi
Donald Shambroom at Yezerski's "Unintended Consequences”
Resa Blatman at Suffolk University Art Gallery
Jeremy Roby
Michael Zachary
Sam Duket
Cristi Rinklin at FP3 Gallery.
Shelley Reed at Clark
Dana Clancy
Hannah Cole
Robert Amesbury
Sand T
Gerry Berenstein at Gallery Naga
Peter Schumann exhibit at BCA and Vermont
Thorpe Feidt: The Alchemist’s Altar, New Paintings from the Ambiguities Series, Montserrat January 2009
"Heroes Stories" By Cullen Washington at Museum of the National Center for Afro-Ameircan Artistss
Lisa Perez at 5 Traverse
Joe Wardwell “Die Young” at LaMontagne
Laurel Sparks “Pleasure Dome” at Howard Yezerski
“You Are Here: Linden Frederick, Studies, Paintings,” at Center for Maine Contemporary Art
Mark Wethli at Icon Contemporary Art Gallery in Brunswick.
Jane Smaldone at Nielsen Gallery.

Performance or spectacle:
Accumulation
Gang Clan Mafia: electron city
The Wed Lock Project
Halloween Iron Pour at the Steel Yard
The Steel Yard Iron Chef Competition
Aaron Stephan “Closer” at Coleman Burke Gallery
21 Gun Salute
Alexia Mellor “This Isn't Happening,” Mills Gallery
Joanne Rice “The Human Cost of War”
William Pope L. at the Carpenter Center
Marta Renzi
"Sleep No More”
Perestroika; 3rd Anniversary Show, Jacques Cabaret, Boston
GJYD performance at MEME
Institute for Infinitely Small Things “Origami Stimulus Package” at Brandeis in April
Andrew Salomone “Jell-O Head” at Buoy Gallery
Bread and Puppet performances in Vermont, at BCA and Spontaneous Celebrations in Boston
Honk Parade
Boston Caribbean Carnival parade

Photography:
Jerry Russo
Isa Leshko
Jessica Somers
John O'Reilly
Bob Raymond at Studio Soto
Harold Feinstein: A Retrospective
Joe Deal New Work at RISD Museum
Pelle Cass in New England Photography Biennial, Danforth Museum
Scott Lapham at 5 Traverse
Nicholas Nixon at Carroll and Sons.
Paul Roustan of East Providence at AS220
Stewart Martin at AS220.

Public exposure:
GJYD “The Creasemaker Sheats by girls jumping your dad”
“Affects of Gravity” at Topsfield Fair by Andi Sutton & Chris Tonelli
Steel Yard Public Projects
Joanne Rice
Protests at Rose Art Museum
Joanne Rice “The Human Cost of War”
Coil/Recoil
Starry Night
Caleb Neelon’s mural at the Tobin School in Boston and his “Imagination Wall” mural at Children’s Hospital Boston.
The Fake Greg Cook on Facebook and YouTube.
Platform 2 “Manifesto! Slam”
China Blue “Aqua Alta” in Mobile Art Project, organized by Viera Levitt.
Boston Police for arrest of Shepard Fairey
Anonymous graffiti artist: spraypainting dollar signs over Shepard Fairey graffiti on AS220’s Mercantile Block building in Providence, May.
Mural of President Barack Obama made from 2,420 dominoes by students at Franklin Avenue Elementary School in Westfield, Mass.
Lydia Stein “HousEARt” mural at 16 Bernon St., Providence.
Somerville Arts Council “Illuminations Tours”


Sculpture:
Danica Phelps
William Pope L. at the Carpenter Center
Joseph Wheelwright
Andrew Mowbray “Platform 1” at DeCordova.
Ellen Wetmore at Boston Sculptors
Judith G. Klausner
Rachel Berwick at Brown’s Bell Gallery
C.W. Roelle's exhibit "Not Just Women In White Dresses" as AS220's Project Space
Hank Gilpin at Gallery NAGA
Aaron T. Stephan at Whitney Art Works, Portland.
Cristin Searles at Bristol Community College’s Grimshaw-Gudewicz Art Gallery.
Jon Laustsen at 5 Traverse
Heide Hatry at Pierre Menard Gallery
Randy Regier "Lost & Found: Anna Isaak and the Cabot Mill" at Coleman Burke Gallery in Brunswick and “Now Your Spacecraft Will Be Your Peace” at SPACE Gallery in Portland.
Darren Foote at Judi Rotenberg Gallery.

Solo show by local artist (or collaborative):
Ria Brodell “The Handsome & The Holy” at Rotenberg
Raul Gonzalez “Lookum Here (It Might Could Have Been)”
Kanarinka: ICA prize
Joe Wardwell “Die Young” at LaMontagne
Bob Raymond at Studio Soto
Revolt 2 Die
The Present Tense
Craig Lupien
Zsuzsanna Szegedi
Anna Hepler “Intricate Universe” at Montserrat
Ria Brodell: Out of the Forest
John O’Reilly
Krzysztof Wodiczko “…Out of Here” at ICA
"The Miracle 5 Present 'Holy GJYDhad!' By Yassy Goldie” at Space 242
Yassy Goldie (Holy GJYDhad) and Venado Negro
Resa Blatman at Suffolk Univ.
Hirokazu Fukawa at Real Art Ways, Hartford
Matthew Rich “Ire and Ice” at Samson
Semi Simple by Sand T at Mazmania Art Gallery in Framingham State College.
Brian Knep “Exempla” at Tufts University
Randy Regier "Lost & Found: Anna Isaak and the Cabot Mill" at Coleman Burke Gallery in Brunswick and “Now Your Spacecraft Will Be Your Peace” at SPACE Gallery in Portland.

Standout work by a local artist in a group show:
Georgie Friedman, “Spiraling Water, H20: Film on Water”
Isa Leshko in “New England Photography Biennial”
Jo Dery at 5 Traverse
Dave Ortega “The Boston Drawing Project 10 years on and going strong”
Raul Gonzalez “Sixth Annual Juried Summer Exhibition” at Tufts
Joe Wardwell at MFA
Matthew Ritch in "Strange Loops" at BCA Mills
Tory Fair in "The Fair Moon Rejoices" at BCA Mills
Alexia Mellor, “This Isn't Happening,” BCA’s Mills Gallery
Andrea Evans, Next Generation 1
John Gonzalez, Next Generation 3
Marc Cote at 2009 Framingham Open Studios
Jessica Somers
Pelle Cass in New England Photography Biennial, Danforth Museum
joe keinberger
Sand T participated in SHOW #54 at SNO in Sydney, Australia
Judith G. Klausner
Jerry Russo
Alexi Antoniadis of Newtonville and Nico Stone of Chelsea in “Salt of the Earth” at Montserrat
David Curcio of Watertown in “Salt of the Earth” at Montserrat

CURATORS:

Concept/theme show:
“H20: Film on Water” curator Cynthia Reeves
Old, Wierd America; DeCordova Museum
Boston Expressionism (Aronson/Schwartz/Bergstein), Katherine French, curator
Leslie K. Brown “Syntax” at PRC
Leslie K. Brown “Keeping Time” at PRC
Megapolis Audio Festival - Justin Grotelueschen, Nick van der Kolk
Helen Molesworth and Claire Grace for “ACT UP” at Harvard
Steven Halpert for “Going Forward, Looking Back,” University of New England, Portland.
Joe Wardwell for “Master of Reality” at Rose
William Stover for “Seeing Songs” at MFA
Shana Dumont for "Fixed Chaos" at Montserrat
Randi Hopkins and Emily Isenberg for "And the fair Moon rejoices” at BCA
“Rockstone and Bootheel” Real Art Ways; curated by Kristina Newman-Scott and Yona Backer
George Fifield et al for Boston Cyberarts Festival 2009
Maya Allison “Pixilerations [V.6]: The Great Disruption” at RISD, 5 Traverse, etc.
Maya Allison “Book as Post Modern Medium” at 5 Traverse
Melody and Witness at GASP
Beyond the Literal at GASP
“Video Art Exhibition” at Gallery Z
James Hull for “Plastic Fantastic” at Laconia Gallery
Britta Konau for “Planes of Abstraction” at Center for Maine Contemporary Art
“Twilight” at Maine College of Art’s Institute of Contemporary Art
Jen Mergel for “Acting Out: Social Experiments in Video” at ICA Boston.
“Inappropriate Covers” at Brown’s Bell Gallery, conceived by Braxton Soderman and Cynthia Lugo and curated by Soderman and Justin Katko.
"Parse:Visualizing Data That Makes Us Human" at Axiom
“The Deceptive Narrative” at Art Institute of Boston.

Group show featuring local artists:
“H20: Film on Water” curator Cynthia Reeves
Megan Dickerson and Jed Speare “Bumpkin Island Art Encampment”
“Add and Subtract” by bkprojects at Gallery Kayafas
Leslie K. Brown “Syntax” at PRC
Leslie K. Brown “Keeping Time” at PRC
CW Roelle, Jill Colinan, Kendra Plumley
Megapolis Audio Festival - Justin Grotelueschen, Nick van der Kolk
Portland Museum of Art Biennial
Steven Halpert for “Going Forward, Looking Back,” University of New England, Portland.
Boston Does Boston III @ Proof
Randi Hopkins and Emily Isenberg for "And the fair Moon rejoices” at BCA
SMFA/Tufts University May thesis exhibtion
“This Is not Happening” at BCA’s Mills
Nick Capasso juror of “Material is Language” at 119 Gallery in Lowell
Leonie Bradbury, Shana Dumont et. al “Salt of the Earth” at Montserrat
“Video Art Exhibition” at Gallery Z
Britta Konau for “Planes of Abstraction” at Center for Maine Contemporary Art
“Boston Does Boston III” at Proof
“Collective Access” at 5 Traverse.

Historical show:
“Art + History” curated by Meg Rotzel and Rosie Branson Gill (may also be Concept) at Nightingale Brown House.
“First Hand: Civil War Era Drawings” at BC, curated by Judith Bookbinder and Sheila Gallagher.
Clifford Ackley for Albrecht Durer at MFA
Helen Molesworth and Claire Grace for “ACT UP” at Harvard
“Hans Hoffman: Circa 1950” at Rose, curated by Michael Rush
Frederick Ilchman for “Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice” at MFA
“Video Art Exhibition” at Gallery Z
"Focus on Four," at the Newport Art Museum
“A Fragile Memory" at the Providence Public Library, organized by Agata Michalowska
"The Brilliant Line," at the RISD Museum, curator Emily Peters
“Jules Aarons: In the Jewish Neighborhoods, 1946-76” at DeCordova
Debra Bricker Balken, independent curator, for “Dove/O’Keefe: Circles of Influence” at Clark Art Institute
“John La Farge” Artistic Genius and Renaissance Man,” William Vareika Fine Arts, Newport.
Judy Goffman Cutler and Laurence S. Cutler for “Norman Rockwell: American Imagist” at National Museum of American Illustration, Newport

Local curator of locally-made art:
Bonnie Bastien and Nova Benway: Berwick AIR residency
Megan Dickerson and Jed Speare “Bumpkin Island Art Encampment”
TT Baum: Effectus performance series
“The Boys of Summer” at Craftland
Steven Halpert for “Going Forward, Looking Back,” University of New England, Portland.
Dina Deitch at DeCordova (Andy Mowbray inaugurats Platform series)
Amy Stacey Curtis: Sort at Montserrat
Daniel Phillips: “Tear Down these Walls” at Montserrat
“Made in Fort Point” shop at Fort Point Artist Community
Trevor Fairbrother for “John O’Reilly: Art from Four Decades” at Howard Yezerski
Katherine French for Boston Expressionism (Aronson/Schwartz/Bergstein) at Danforth
Randi Hopkins for Krzysztof Wodiczko “…Out of Here” at ICA
“Video Art Exhibition” at Gallery Z
"Focus on Four," at the Newport Art Museum
“Salt of the Earth” at Montserrat
James Hull for “Resa Blatman” and “Construction: A Group Exhibition of New Sculpture Made in Boston” at Suffolk University Art Gallery; “Plastic Fantastic” at Laconia Gallery; and “Cristi Rinklin” at FP3 Gallery.
Dina Deitsch for “Carlson/Strom: New Performance Video” at DeCordova.
Nick Capasso for “Tabitha Vevers: Narrative Bodies” at DeCordova
Neal Walsh at AS220
Maya Allison for Pixilerations, book show, AS220 print shop
Harry Callahan at the MFA

Solo show of an artist from Away:
Matthew Day Jackson at MIT
Melanie Smith “Spiral City” at MIT
Jenny Holzer at Montserrat
Damián Ortega curated by Jessica Morgan at ICA
Taro Shinoda's "Lunar Reflections" at Gardner
Jo-Ann Conklin for Kirsten Hassenfeld at Brown’s Bell Gallery
James Hull for Cara Phillips at Suffolk University Art Gallery.
Lalla Essaydi: Les Femmes du Maroc
Jen Mergel for Eileen Quinlan “Momentum 13” at ICA
"Virtuelle Mauer/ReConstructing the Wall" by Teresa Reuter and Tamiko Thiel” at the Goethe-Institut Boston.
“Shepard Fairey: Supply and Demand” at ICA, organized by former ICA curator Emily Moore Brouillet and guest curator Pedro Alonzo.
Alec Soth:NIAGARA
R. Crumb's Underground at MassArt
Marcel Breuer @ RISD

Kenneth Noland has died

"I do not like representation in painting.” – Kenneth Noland

Kenneth Noland, a pioneering Color Field painter of the 1960s, who was known for his signature paintings of targets, chevrons and stripes, died today at his home in Port Clyde, Maine, The New York Times has reported.

Pictured from top to bottom: Kenneth Noland’s painting “Mysteries: Afloat” 2000. And Noland painting circa 1968 (unidentified photographer, from the collection of the Smithsonian’s Archives of American Art).

Urdang Gallery to reopen on Newbury Street

Beth Urdang Gallery, which closed on Boston’s Newbury Street in June 2008, plans to reopen at that same address this Friday, Jan. 8, with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m.

Urdang tells me that she'll occupy the "same space on the mezzanine, new space on the 3rd floor" at 129 Newbury St.

Meanwhile in November, she opened a gallery at 16 Grove St. in Wellesley, Massachusetts, the town she's lived in for 15 years.

Andy Warhol

From my review of "Andy Warhol: A Recent Acquisition Exhibition" at Rhode Island College's Bannister Gallery in Providence:

"I started as a commercial artist, and I want to finish as a business artist," the Pop artist Andy Warhol wrote in 1975. "Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art."

Warhol (1928-1987) was a hit advertising illustrator in the 1950s and then became one of the most influential fine artists of the century with his iconic '60s paintings of soup cans and Marilyn Monroe. In the '70s, he focused on making money by painting portraits of the rich, famous, and powerful. He turned himself into a disco-era John Singer Sargent, averaging 50 to 100 commissions a year.

The beginnings of each portrait were Polaroid snapshots, a selection of which is on view in "Andy Warhol: A Recent Acquisition Exhibition" at Rhode Island College's Bannister Gallery (600 Mount Pleasant Avenue, Providence, through January 8). The 49 photos come from a gift of 159 photos that Warhol Foundation donated to the school last year as part of the foundation's "Photographic Legacy" project, which gave Warhol photos to 183 educational institutions across the country, including the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University.

Read the rest here.

Previously:
"Andy Warhol: Pop Politics" at the Currier Museum of Art in 2008.
Bannister Gallery given 159 Warhol photos in 2008.
Also note that The New England Journal of Aesthetic Research has won a grant from the Warhol Foundation, so I might be biased.

"Andy Warhol: A Recent Acquisition Exhibition" Rhode Island College's Bannister Gallery, 600 Mount Pleasant Avenue, Providence, Dec. 9, 2009, to Jan. 8, 2010.

Pictured from top to bottom: Andy Warhol, John Travolta, undated; Evelyn Kuhn, 1977; Shoes, undated; Pele, 1977; Liza Minelli, undated; Jamie Wyeth, 1976; and Bianca Jagger, 1979, and Farah Diba Pahlavi (Queen of Iran)", 1976.

Wild Leonardo speculation

Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts is not commenting to us on rumors published in The Washington Post that it may have discovered a Leonardo da Vinci in its attic or something. But we’d like to offer our own helpful wild speculation.

Could it be the “Mona Lisa” attributed to Leonardo da Vinci that was loaned to the MFA by John R. Eyre in 1914? (This was apparently a different painting from the Portland Museum of Art's supposed "Mona Lisa." A spokeswoman there tells me, "It was not owned by John R. Eyre that we know of.") Eyre published a book “Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘Mona Lisa’” in 1915 arguing that there are two “Mona Lisa”s.

Or might the newly “discovered” “Leonardo” be a reattribution of another work in the collection? Throwing caution to the wind, we speculate about these three:

“Portrait of a Man” (pictured at left) by Andrea Solario. Because the MFA notes: “Although this portrait resembles works by other Milanese followers of Leonardo da Vinci – notice the delicate gradations of shadow and the application of paint without visible brushstrokes – it may have been painted when Solario was working in Venice.”

“Head of a Youth” (pictured at top) by Lorenzo di Credi. Because he was an associate of Leonardo da Vinci whose work was sometimes inspired by Leonardo. Could this be a case of mixing up the real thing for the follower?

“Virgin and Child” (pictured at left) by Bramantino (Bartolomeo Suardi). Because the December 1913 “Museum of Fine Arts Bulletin” reported that it had acquired this Madonna “attributed to Bartolomeo Suardi. … Specially worthy of notice are the charm of the elegant figure, the picturesqueness of the town in the right background, the delicacy of the river running among the bluish mountains, suggesting already the landscapes of Leonardo da Vinci …”

Note that these works currently are not on view at the MFA. Could the authenticators be in some hidden MFA lab studying one of them for the da Vinci code right now?

Another “Leonardo” in New England?

Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts may be trying to authenticate a “lost” Leonardo da Vinci painting “discovered” in its storage, according to rumors published last week by The Washington Post.

The painting could be the second Leonardo in the United States. The only other authenticated Leonardo is “Ginevra de' Benci” at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. But the MFA’s work – assuming it exists – would definitely be the second disputed Leonardo in New England.

The Portland Museum of Art owns “La Gioconda” (pictured here), which may or may not be Leonardo’s study for the “Mona Lisa.” When the museum last showed “La Gioconda” in 2006, it reported:

“The painting was given to the Portland Museum of Art in 1983 by Henry H. Reichhold, a summer resident of Prouts Neck, Maine, who purchased the work in the 1960s after the death of its European owner. Subsequently, ‘La Gioconda’ was analyzed at the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies at Harvard University. Conservators determined that the painting was executed before 1510—the original Mona Lisa was created between 1503 and 1507—but they were unable to confirm or refute Leonardo’s hand in its creation. However, similarities are remarkable, and the work contains the characteristics of a left-handed brushstroke, consistent with Leonardo’s work as a left-handed artist. Unlike a forgery or counterfeit work, the Museum’s Mona Lisa, on the basis of technical analyses, differs from the original in size, composition of background landscape, and, most notably, the absence of the enigmatic smile–details which suggest an early study rather than a simple reproduction.”

Pictured: Attributed to Leonardo da Vinci (Italy, 1452–1519), "La Gioconda," circa 1510, oil on canvas mounted in wood panel, Portland Museum of Art. Gift of Henry H. Reichhold, 1982.187.