Norton Simon MuseumPasadena, Los Angeles, California

First created. 10 December 2010. Version 2.0 – 12 May 2016. London. Jerry TseAll rights reserved. Available free for non-commercial and non-profit use only

Auguste Rodin

On arrival visitors are greeted by to well-known sculptures by Auguste Rodin.

On the left is The Burghers of Calais (1897), it is a sculpture of 6 Calais townspeople who offered their lives to save their fellow citizens.

On the right is the French novelist literate giant, Balzac who wrote about complex, morally ambiguous and fully human characters.

The Sculpture Garden

The Sculpture Garden

The Painting Galleries

Medieval

Madonna and Child. c1340. Tempera on panel. Paolo Veneziano. Italian.

He has been called “the most important Venetian painter of the 14th century”. Note that baby Jesus looks more a small man than a baby.

Med

ieva

l

Hig

h R

enai

ssan

ce

This Botticelli’s painting needs restoration, with its primer showing through giving the painting a greenish appearance. On the right show what the painting maybe like.

High Renaissance

St Benedict and Apollonia. c1483. Oil on panel. Filippino Lippi. Italian.

High Renaissance

St Paul and Frediano. c1483. Oil on panel. Filippino Lippi. Italian.

Filippino Lippi is the illegitimate son of the painter Fra Filippo Lippi, who may have trained Sandro Botticelli .

High Renaissance

Madonna and Child with Book. 1502-03. Oil on panel. Sanzio Raffaello (Raphael). Italian.

Raffaello was well-known for painting Madonna and Child. In his earlier years, he painted a stream of Madonna and Child. His Madonna and Child paintings were well loved, as he painted the affection between Madonna and the baby Jesus.

German Renaissance

Adam and Eve. c1530. Oil on panel. Lucas Cranach the Elder German.

Lucas Cranach the Elder was a German Renaissance painter and a friend of Martin Luther.

Ger

man

Ren

aiss

ance

This German Mona Lisa was painted at least 25 years after Leonardo’s Mona Lisa.

BaroqueBaroque

Baroque

Rubens was a wealthy Flemish diplomat, popular with nobility and art collectors. He was well-known for his mythological and allegorical subjects.

Dutch Golden Age

Dutch Golden Age

Rembrandt was an icon of 17C, Dutch Golden Age.

Dutch Portraitist

Frans Hals was, one of the best portrait painters of the 17C.

Dutch Golden Age

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ch G

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Dut

ch G

olde

n A

ge A masterpiece by Jan Steen

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Spanish Painting

Quite unusual to find an early 17C still-life by a well-known Spanish master.

Spanish Romaticism

Goya was a painter of the Enlightenment era. He was known for his paintings on the horror of the French conquest of Spain.

Italian Veduta

Luca Carlevarijs was the first to popularize the Italian Veduta paintings (views of Venice). This movement is well represented in the gallery by the additional paintings by Canaletto and Guardi.

Italian Veduta

Italian Veduta

Ital

ian

Roc

oco

Fre

nch

Land

scap

e

French Still life Genre

French Rococo Portrait

French Landscape

An unusual painting by Corot, who normally painted just landscape.

Fre

nch

Rea

lism

Also an unusual painting by Courbet, who led the 19C Realist movement in France.

Impressionist

Monet, the founder of French Impressionism.

Impr

essi

onis

t

A very large and impressive painting by Edouard Manet. “The Ragpicker” is a group of 7 monumental paintings of a single figures. This painting was inspired by Velazquez‘s “Philosophers”.

Ragpicker. C1865-70. Oil on canvas. 195x131 cm. Edouard Manet. French.

The painting was based on the idea that poverty and wisdom are linked. Beggars, ragpickers, drunks and peasants were often featured as characters in both literature and paintings.

Impressionist

A different style of painting normally associated with Renoir.

French Impressionist

Impressionist

Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. 1878-81. Bronze. Edgar Degas.

French.

Impressionist

Works of Degas are well represented in the museum.

Impr

essi

onis

t

Post Impressionist Only three years separates between the two portraits.

Mod

ern

Woman in a Moorish Costume (Detail). 1869. Oil on canvas. Frederic Bazille. Spanish.

Modern

Modern

Bust of a Woman. 1923. Oil with black chalk on canvas. Pablo Picasso. Spanish.

Modern

The Asian Art Galleries

Buddha Shakyamuni. c1100. Granite. Tamil Nadu, India.

Asian Art

Asian Art

Buddhist Goddess Tara. c1300. Gilded copper inlaid with semiprecious stones and pigments. Nepal or Tibet

All rights reserved. Available free for non-commercial and non-profit use only

Music – Sacrifice, written by Elton John.

The End

‘Esc’ to end. History of the museum, the collection and the founder to follow.

American Museums of Arts

Norton Simon, the founder and collectorA daring shrewd art collector

Norton Simon is known as a successful businessman. At the age of 24, he made his first major business venture by investing in a bankrupt orange juice bottling plant, on which he built his business empire. From there he was involved in a string of businesses including, Hunts Food, Canadian Dry, Max Factor Cosmetics and Avis Car Rental.

Norton Simon was passionate for the visual arts and embarked a journey to collect the finest works of art. It is amazing that any individual, can collect so much and so comprehensively, so recently and in such a short time.

Norton Simon was born in 1907, Portland, Oregon. He died in 1993 in Beverly Hills, aged 86.

“ I followed the road with unknown end. I go where the going looks best.” [1953]

The history of the museum.

Norton Simon started collecting seriously in 1964, when he purchased the entire European collection of the Duveen Brothers.

Today, his collection on European paintings is broadly based and methodological. The collection covers the whole span of European painting developments from the early Renaissance to modern days. All the mainstream movements are represented by works from the masters. However, one noticeable absence are paintings from America. In 1970s the collection started to include Asian Arts. Today, there are some 4,000 works in the collection.

On European paintings the collection would comprement to that of the more well-known Paul Getty Museum. It must rank as one of the best if not the best on the west coast of America.

The European Painting collection

In 1974 Norton Simon agreed to take over the Pasadena Art Museum, giving his collection a permanent home. In 1995, the museum began a major renovation and design. It also included a new theatre.