HOUSTON, TX.- Rarely seen outside of Los Angeles, 46 paintings and works on paper from the renowned collection of the Hammer Museum at UCLA will tour to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, from October 15, 2023 through January 21, 2024. Major works of art from across four centuries will be presented in an exhibition that reflects the collecting interests of the L.A. museum’s founder, collector Armand Hammer, through outstanding examples of European art dating from the Renaissance to the early 20th century, with additional important works by American artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

“Armand Hammer had a fascinating career as a businessman and art collector that spanned most of the 20th century,” commented Gary Tinterow, Director, the Margaret Alkek Williams Chair, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. “The museum he founded in Los Angeles boasts some of the most important European and American paintings among all the museums in the country. We are pleased to present to our audiences the highlights of that collection, shown together outside Los Angeles for the very first time in this century.” The collection assembled by Armand Hammer (1898–1990) provides a remarkable survey of European and American art.

Highlights from the exhibition include: Titian, Portrait of a Man in Armor (c. 1530), a remarkable portrayal by the leading painter of 16th-century Venice, epitomizing Titian’s gift for capturing not only the essence of a sitter’s personality but the sumptuous textures of garments and ornament.

Titian, Portrait of a Man in Armor, c. 1530, oil on canvas, the Armand Hammer Collection, gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Juno (c. 1662–65), the most commanding of a group of female subjects that Rembrandt undertook in his later years, this imposing portrait of Juno, the wife of Jupiter, who is associated with marriage and wealth, is accompanied by a second Rembrandt portrait.

Rembrandt van Rijn, Juno, c. 1662–65, oil on canvas, the Armand Hammer Collection, gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

19th-century French Barbizon School, Symbolist, and Realist Painting

Works by luminaries of 19th-century French painting, including: Jean Millet, founder of the Barbizon School and chronicler of rural life; Camille Corot, whose poetic, hazy landscapes of light and water convey his nostalgic impressions of favorite sites in Italy and France; Gustave Moreau, known for his meticulously painted, mystical fantasies; and Honoré Daumier, famed for his caustic social critiques caricaturing all levels of French society.

Gustave Moreau, Salomé Dancing before Herod, 1874-76. Oil on canvas, the Armand Hammer Collection, gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Painting

Paintings and works on paper by Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec all feature in this section of the exhibition, as well as three works by Vincent van Gogh, including his iconic 1889 view, through a stand of pine trees, of the hospital at Saint-Rémy, where he painted some of his greatest and best-known works.

 Paul Cézanne, Boy Resting, ca. 1887, oil on canvas, the Armand Hammer Collection, gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles.

Vincent van Gogh, Hospital at Saint-Rémy, 1889, oil on canvas, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, the Armand Hammer Collection, gift of the Armand Hammer Foundation.

18th- and 19th-Century American Painting 

Portraits by essential figures in the history of American art, including Gilbert Stuart and Thomas Eakins, will also travel to Houston.