Pontus Hultén
Encyclopedia
Karl Gunnar Vougt Pontus Hultén (21 June 1924 – 26 October 2006) was a Swedish
art collector and museum director. Pontus Hultén is regarded as one of the most distinguished museum professionals of the twentieth century. He was the pioneering former head of the Museum for modern art
in Stockholm and in the 1970s he was invited to participate in the creation of the Centre Georges Pompidou
in Paris
, where he was its first director in 1974-1981.
; he studied art history at Stockholm University
and during the 1950s he was a curator
at a small art gallery
and also organized film screenings.
In 1958, he curated the exhibition Constructivist Design at Galerie Lambert Weyl, Paris.
, shaping the museum into a powerhouse of modern art. Under Hultén, the Moderna Museet was to be one of the most dynamic contemporary art
institutions of the 1960s. During his tenure, the museum played a seminal role in bridging the gap between Europe and America, staging numerous exhibitions with works by early modern artists like Vincent van Gogh
, modernists Paul Klee
, René Magritte
, Jackson Pollock
and Wassily Kandinsky
, and also Swedish artists including Sven Erixson
, Bror Hjorth
and Sigrid Hjertén
.
Hultén organized theme exhibitions including 4 Americans in 1962 with pop artists Robert Rauschenberg
and Jasper Johns
, as did solo exhibitions with Claes Oldenburg
, Andy Warhol
and Edward Kienholz
. Followed in 1964 by one of the first European surveys of American Pop art. In return, Hultén was invited to curate an exhibition at New York
's Museum of Modern Art
in 1968: his first historical and Interdisciplinary show, it explored the machine in art, photography, and industrial design.
Following Önskemuseet (The Museum of our Wishes) in the winter of 1963-1964, Hultén persuaded the Swedish government a one-time grant of 5 million kronor to help the museum expand its collection with works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
, Max Ernst
, Joan Miró
, Salvador Dalí
, Piet Mondrian
and Pablo Picasso
. The museum won international fame in 1966 with the exhibition SHE – A Cathedral, which consisted of a gigantic sculpture of a reclining woman whose womb was an entrance for visitors who could experience various things inside. The artists behind the work were Niki de Saint Phalle
, Jean Tinguely
and Pontus Hultén himself. The 1968 exhibition Andy Warhol, was Andy Warhol
's first retrospective ever. According to author and art critic Carl-Johan Malmberg, "[Pontus Hultén] understood what good art was way before others did, and was therefore way ahead of his times."
, which opened in 1977, Hultén organized large-scale shows that examined the making of art's history through the links between artistic capitals: Paris-Berlin, Paris-Moscow, Paris-New York, and Paris-Paris included not only art objects that ranged from Constructivist
to Pop
, but films, posters, documentation, and reconstructions of exhibition spaces such as Gertrude Stein
's salon. Multivalent and interdisciplinary, these shows marked a paradigm shift in exhibition making, entering the collective memory of generations of artists, curators, and critic
s as few others have.
and Sam Francis
to establish the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)
. Hultén went to Los Angeles
in 1980, but, after four years of infrequent exhibitions and much fundraising, returned to Europe. In 1984-1990, he was in charge of Palazzo Grassi
in Venice
, and in 1985, he founded, along with Daniel Buren
, Serge Fauchereau, and Sarkis
, the Institut des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastiques in Paris
, which Hultén described as a cross between the Bauhaus
and Black Mountain College
. In 1991-1995, Hultén was the Artistic director of the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle in Bonn
. He later became the director of the Jean Tinguely Museum
in Basel
, where he curated the inaugural exhibition. Of Pontus Hultén, Niki de Saint Phalle
once said, "[he had] the soul of an artist, not of a museum director."
Pontus Hultén is also known for selling forged copies of Andy Warhals boxes, these boxes where copies created around 1990, in the south of Sweden, on the direction of Pontus Hult'en which he later sold for millions, and some were also given (donated) to the Swedish Modern Museum.
These boxes has just recently been declared copies from the Andy Warhols Art Authentification Board.
, Jean Tinguely
, Greg Colson
and Niki de St. Phalle, whose careers he not only followed but shaped from the start. Hultén devoted his life to art and being an avid art collector, he donated his private collection of 700 works to the Moderna Museet in November 2005. One of his requests was that the donated works should not be hung as part of the collection, but should be accessible to the public in a user-friendly viewing storehouse – a typically Hulténesque solution that would give the public the freedom to browse among the masterpieces as in an art library. After retiring, he lived his last years in Paris and in Stockholm where he died.
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
art collector and museum director. Pontus Hultén is regarded as one of the most distinguished museum professionals of the twentieth century. He was the pioneering former head of the Museum for modern art
Moderna Museet
Moderna museet, the Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, Sweden, is a state museum located on the island of Skeppsholmen in central Stockholm, that was first opened in 1958. Its first manager was Pontus Hultén...
in Stockholm and in the 1970s he was invited to participate in the creation of the Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, where he was its first director in 1974-1981.
Biography
Pontus Hultén was born in StockholmStockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
; he studied art history at Stockholm University
Stockholm University
Stockholm University is a state university in Stockholm, Sweden. It has over 28,000 students at four faculties, making it one of the largest universities in Scandinavia. The institution is also frequently regarded as one of the top 100 universities in the world...
and during the 1950s he was a curator
Curator
A curator is a manager or overseer. Traditionally, a curator or keeper of a cultural heritage institution is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and involved with the interpretation of heritage material...
at a small art gallery
Art gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
and also organized film screenings.
In 1958, he curated the exhibition Constructivist Design at Galerie Lambert Weyl, Paris.
Moderna Museet
In 1960, Hultén was named head of the Moderna MuseetModerna Museet
Moderna museet, the Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, Sweden, is a state museum located on the island of Skeppsholmen in central Stockholm, that was first opened in 1958. Its first manager was Pontus Hultén...
, shaping the museum into a powerhouse of modern art. Under Hultén, the Moderna Museet was to be one of the most dynamic contemporary art
Contemporary art
Contemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
institutions of the 1960s. During his tenure, the museum played a seminal role in bridging the gap between Europe and America, staging numerous exhibitions with works by early modern artists like Vincent van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
, modernists Paul Klee
Paul Klee
Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...
, René Magritte
René Magritte
René François Ghislain Magritte[p] was a Belgian surrealist artist. He became well known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images...
, Jackson Pollock
Jackson Pollock
Paul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
and Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
, and also Swedish artists including Sven Erixson
Sven Erixson
-Early life:Sven was born on November 23, 1899 in Tumba, Botkyrka Municipality. Erixson went the long way as an artist. He started as an apprentice to a master painter at age 14 and trained as a professional. Then, he continued his education by studying decorative painting, while he took a drawing...
, Bror Hjorth
Bror Hjorth
Bror Hjorth was a Swedish artist. Hjorth was one of Sweden’s best-known sculptors and painters, and was professor of art at the Royal University College of Fine Arts in Stockholm from 1949 to 1959. On completion of his studies, he lived in Uppsala, where he built his studio home in Kåbo, now the...
and Sigrid Hjertén
Sigrid Hjertén
Sigrid Hjertén , was a Swedish modernist painter. Hjertén is considered a major figure in Swedish modernism. Periodically she was highly productive and she participated in 106 exhibitions...
.
Hultén organized theme exhibitions including 4 Americans in 1962 with pop artists Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...
and Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns
Jasper Johns, Jr. is an American contemporary artist who works primarily in painting and printmaking.-Life:Born in Augusta, Georgia, Jasper Johns spent his early life in Allendale, South Carolina with his paternal grandparents after his parents' marriage failed...
, as did solo exhibitions with Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg
Claes Oldenburg is a Swedish sculptor, best known for his public art installations typically featuring very large replicas of everyday objects...
, Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
and Edward Kienholz
Edward Kienholz
Edward Kienholz was an American installation artist whose work was highly critical of aspects of modern life. From 1972 onwards, he assembled much of his artwork in close collaboration with his artistic partner and wife, Nancy Reddin Kienholz...
. Followed in 1964 by one of the first European surveys of American Pop art. In return, Hultén was invited to curate an exhibition at New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
's Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
in 1968: his first historical and Interdisciplinary show, it explored the machine in art, photography, and industrial design.
Following Önskemuseet (The Museum of our Wishes) in the winter of 1963-1964, Hultén persuaded the Swedish government a one-time grant of 5 million kronor to help the museum expand its collection with works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner was a German expressionist painter and printmaker and one of the founders of the artists group Die Brücke or "The Bridge", a key group leading to the foundation of Expressionism in 20th century art. He volunteered for army service in the First World War, but soon suffered a...
, Max Ernst
Max Ernst
Max Ernst was a German painter, sculptor, graphic artist, and poet. A prolific artist, Ernst was one of the primary pioneers of the Dada movement and Surrealism.-Early life:...
, Joan Miró
Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
, Salvador Dalí
Salvador Dalí
Salvador Domènec Felip Jacint Dalí i Domènech, Marquis de Púbol , commonly known as Salvador Dalí , was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter born in Figueres,Spain....
, Piet Mondrian
Piet Mondrian
Pieter Cornelis "Piet" Mondriaan, after 1906 Mondrian , was a Dutch painter.He was an important contributor to the De Stijl art movement and group, which was founded by Theo van Doesburg. He evolved a non-representational form which he termed Neo-Plasticism...
and Pablo Picasso
Pablo Picasso
Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...
. The museum won international fame in 1966 with the exhibition SHE – A Cathedral, which consisted of a gigantic sculpture of a reclining woman whose womb was an entrance for visitors who could experience various things inside. The artists behind the work were Niki de Saint Phalle
Niki de Saint Phalle
Niki de Saint Phalle, born Catherine-Marie-Agnès-Brandon Fal de Saint Phalle was a French sculptor, painter, and film maker.-The early years:...
, Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
and Pontus Hultén himself. The 1968 exhibition Andy Warhol, was Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol
Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...
's first retrospective ever. According to author and art critic Carl-Johan Malmberg, "[Pontus Hultén] understood what good art was way before others did, and was therefore way ahead of his times."
Centre Pompidou
In 1973, Hultén left Stockholm to enter one of the most significant periods of his career. As founding director of the new museum of modern art at the Centre Georges PompidouCentre Georges Pompidou
Centre Georges Pompidou is a complex in the Beaubourg area of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, near Les Halles, rue Montorgueil and the Marais...
, which opened in 1977, Hultén organized large-scale shows that examined the making of art's history through the links between artistic capitals: Paris-Berlin, Paris-Moscow, Paris-New York, and Paris-Paris included not only art objects that ranged from Constructivist
Constructivism (art)
Constructivism was an artistic and architectural philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th...
to Pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, but films, posters, documentation, and reconstructions of exhibition spaces such as Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein was an American writer, poet and art collector who spent most of her life in France.-Early life:...
's salon. Multivalent and interdisciplinary, these shows marked a paradigm shift in exhibition making, entering the collective memory of generations of artists, curators, and critic
Critic
A critic is anyone who expresses a value judgement. Informally, criticism is a common aspect of all human expression and need not necessarily imply skilled or accurate expressions of judgement. Critical judgements, good or bad, may be positive , negative , or balanced...
s as few others have.
Later career
Hultén's career after Centre Pompidou reflected the same commitment to working closely with artists that has caused so many to remember him fondly. Invited by Robert IrwinRobert Irwin
Robert Irwin may refer to:* Robert Irwin , Canadian politician* Robert Irwin , American installation artist* Robert Irwin , British historian, novelist and writer on Arabic literature...
and Sam Francis
Sam Francis
Samuel Lewis Francis was an American painter and printmaker.-Early life:...
to establish the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles is a contemporary art museum with three locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near Walt Disney Concert Hall...
. Hultén went to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
in 1980, but, after four years of infrequent exhibitions and much fundraising, returned to Europe. In 1984-1990, he was in charge of Palazzo Grassi
Palazzo Grassi
Palazzo Grassi is an edifice in the Venetian Classical style located on the Grand Canal of Venice, northern Italy...
in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, and in 1985, he founded, along with Daniel Buren
Daniel Buren
Daniel Buren is a French conceptual artist.- Work :Sometimes classified as an abstract minimalist Buren is known best for using regular, contrasting maxi stripes to integrate the visual surface and architectural space, notably historical, landmark architecture.Among his chief concerns is the...
, Serge Fauchereau, and Sarkis
Sarkis
Sarkis Zabunyan, known as Sarkis, is a Turkish-born Armenian conceptual artist living in France....
, the Institut des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastiques in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, which Hultén described as a cross between the Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
and Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College
Black Mountain College, a school founded in 1933 in Black Mountain, North Carolina, was a new kind of college in the United States in which the study of art was seen to be central to a liberal arts education, and in which John Dewey's principles of education played a major role...
. In 1991-1995, Hultén was the Artistic director of the Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle in Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
. He later became the director of the Jean Tinguely Museum
Tinguely Museum
The Museum Tinguely is an art museum in Basel, Switzerland that contains a permanent exhibition of the works of Swiss painter and sculptor Jean Tinguely...
in Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
, where he curated the inaugural exhibition. Of Pontus Hultén, Niki de Saint Phalle
Niki de Saint Phalle
Niki de Saint Phalle, born Catherine-Marie-Agnès-Brandon Fal de Saint Phalle was a French sculptor, painter, and film maker.-The early years:...
once said, "[he had] the soul of an artist, not of a museum director."
Pontus Hultén is also known for selling forged copies of Andy Warhals boxes, these boxes where copies created around 1990, in the south of Sweden, on the direction of Pontus Hult'en which he later sold for millions, and some were also given (donated) to the Swedish Modern Museum.
These boxes has just recently been declared copies from the Andy Warhols Art Authentification Board.
Legacy
Pontus Hultén defined the museum as an elastic and open space, hosting a plethora of activities within its walls: lectures, film series, concerts, and debates. Hultén always maintained a very special dialogue with artists, establishing lifelong friendships with Sam FrancisSam Francis
Samuel Lewis Francis was an American painter and printmaker.-Early life:...
, Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely
Jean Tinguely was a Swiss painter and sculptor. He is best known for his sculptural machines or kinetic art, in the Dada tradition; known officially as metamechanics...
, Greg Colson
Greg Colson
Greg Colson is an American artist best known for wall sculptures constructed of salvaged materials. Colson has had solo exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe, including Sperone Westwater , William Griffin Gallery , Galleria Cardi , Kunsthalle Lophem , Konrad Fischer , and the Lannan...
and Niki de St. Phalle, whose careers he not only followed but shaped from the start. Hultén devoted his life to art and being an avid art collector, he donated his private collection of 700 works to the Moderna Museet in November 2005. One of his requests was that the donated works should not be hung as part of the collection, but should be accessible to the public in a user-friendly viewing storehouse – a typically Hulténesque solution that would give the public the freedom to browse among the masterpieces as in an art library. After retiring, he lived his last years in Paris and in Stockholm where he died.
External links
Centre Pompidou: Pontus Hultén : Un esprit libre- Pontus Hulten, 82, Champion of Contemporary Art, Dies, by Roberta Smith, in the New York Times, October 30, 2006
- Pontus Hulten, 82; former MOCA head had global influence on major art venues, by Suzanne Muchnic, in The Los Angeles Times, October 31, 2006
- MP3 lecture by Magnus af Petersens at the MACBA on Pontus Hultén exhibitions, with special emphasis on the sculpture-exhibition "SHE – A Cathedral" (Moderna Museet, 1966) and the "Andy Warhol" retrospective (Moderna Museet, 1968)