This exhibition is no longer on view at the National Gallery. Please follow the links below for related online resources or visit our current exhibitions schedule.
This
exhibition is the first in the United States of the work of Adriaen
Coorte (c.1660-after 1707), a remarkable still-life painter who
lived in Middelburg in the Netherlands in the late 17th and early
18th centuries. Celebrating the National Gallery of Art's acquisition
of its first painting by him Still
Life with Asparagus and Red Currants (1696), the exhibition
presented some fifteen of the artist's outstanding works.
Little is known about Coorte's life, and he went largely unrecognized until he was rediscovered by a Dutch art historian in the 1950s. Coorte's compositions generally consist of a few still-life objects against a dark background. Whether his focus was a bowl of cherries, an arrangement of exotic shells, or a bunch of asparagus, he imbued his scenes with a haunting timelessness. Today he is recognized as a gifted and original master, one whose spare and carefully balanced compositions are highly prized by both public and private collectors.
