When the 2004-05 Carnegie International is unveiled Saturday, visitors will once again be left to ponder the significance -- present and future -- of the 38 artists and their works represented in various media. Here's a subjective and whirlwind tour -- with emphasis on the most memorable participants -- of the previous Internationals, dating back 108 years.

   

International scene

The 2004-05 Carnegie International makes its public debut Saturday and Carnegie Museum of Art will be hopping -- with performance artists, art lovers and local and out-of-town VIPs.

The Western Hemisphere's Queen Mary 2 of visual art exhibitions, the International was first held in 1896 -- one year after the Venice Biennale was instituted -- and this is its 54th installation. Curator Laura Hoptman selected the 38 established and emerging artists for the exhibition during three years of global travel. The approximately 500 artworks that will be displayed employ a variety of media including painting, drawing, sculpture, video, film, photography, ceramics, animation, comics and performance art.

Three of the senior artists -- Lee Bontecou, of Orbisonia, Huntingdon County; Robert Crumb, of Sauve, France; and the late Mangelos (1921-87) -- have been given solo exhibitions within the larger show.

-- Mary Thomas, Post-Gazette art critic

   

1896: First Annual Exhibition opens in what are now Carnegie Library's Music and Art rooms; 312 paintings from England, France, Germany, Scotland and the United States. First medal: Sir John Lavery's stilted portrait "Lady in Brown," whereabouts now unknown. Winslow Homer's "The Wreck" wins medal, joins Carnegie collection. James Whistler's "Portrait in Black: Senor Pablo de Sarasate," virtuoso violinist, 1884, is first Whistler acquired by an American museum.

1897-1905: Annual exhibitions. In 1902, for the first and only time, the exhibition consists entirely of loaned works -- paintings spanning a 300-year period.

1906: No exhibition, as the show awaits a museum addition on Forbes Avenue.

1907: Henri La Touche's large bonbon "The Bath" (owned by the University Club) takes first medal; Thomas Eakins' "Prof. Leslie Miller," second medal. Henry O. Tanner's "Christ at the Home of Mary and Martha" purchased.

1908: Thomas Dewing's "The Necklace," now at the National Gallery of Art, takes first medal.

1909: Purchase of "Portrait of Mrs. Chase," by frequent juror William Merritt Chase.

1910: Sir William Orpen's "Portrait of the Artist (Myself and Venus)," originally "Me and Venus," referring to cast in painting, wins first medal and is purchased.

1911: Pittsburgh-born and frequent juror John White Alexander takes first medal for "Sunlight," Art Institute of Chicago.

1913: Three ho-hum purchases from this annual are later deaccessioned (removed for the purpose of selling).

1914-19: World War I interrupts annuals.

1920: Five Auguste Rodin sculptures and John Singer Sargent's "Venetian Interior" purchased. Also Claude Monet's "Water Lilies Beneath the Bridge," 1899 (deaccessioned, 1951). Show's European section travels for first time to many other American museums. The show (or parts of it) tours intermittently through 1982.

1921: Director John W. Beatty organizes 20th International (his last) with Homer Saint-Gaudens.

1922: Three purchases, one by first medalist John Lavery; they are later deaccessioned.

1923: Arthur B. Davies wins first medal; Eugene Speicher, second; Pierre Bonnard, third; Maurice Denis, honorable mention.

1924: Malcolm Parcell of Washington, Pa., takes honorable mention, popular prize. (The popular prize was determined by a poll of exhibition visitors.)

1925: Parcell again wins popular prize.

1927: Henri Matisse's "Still Life" wins first prize; G. David Thompson gives John Kane's "Scene from the Scottish Highlands" to the Carnegie.

1928: Andre Derain's "Still Life" wins first prize and is purchased.

1929: William J. Glackens' "Bathers, Isle Adam" wins second prize.

1930: Pablo Picasso's "Mme. Picasso," private collection, receives first prize. Matisse is one of six jurors.

1931: International has record 496 paintings; Philadelphian Franklin C. Watkins' "Suicide in Costume" stirs public debate.

1932: Depression curtails show.

1933: Exhibited are 351 paintings; no purchases.

1934: Public reacts skeptically to controversial first prize-winner Peter Blume's surrealistic "South of Scranton," now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Its dreamlike quality, with figures of men floating in the air, made it harder to grasp.

1935: Carnegie buys Leon Kroll's "Morning on the Cape"; Maurice de Vlaminck's still life "Flowers" wins Garden Club Prize, an award long since discontinued.

1936: Kroll's "The Road From the Cove" wins first prize; Pierre Bonnard, second prize.

1937: Georges Braque's "The Yellow Cloth (The Yellow Tablecloth)," private collection, wins first prize; Pittsburgh modernists mourn that it wasn't purchased here.

1938: Carnegie buys James Ensor's "The Tribulations of St. Anthony," 1894, and popular prize, Frederick J. Waugh's "Pounding Surf"; latter deaccessioned, 1954.

1939: Carnegie buys Georges Rouault's "The Old King," for years its most borrowed work. Popular prize: Luigi Luccioni's "Ethel Waters."

1940-49: "Painting in the United States," nine shows of 330 or more works, replace International during World War II and after. Organized by Saint-Gaudens, who enters service, and curator John O'Connor Jr. Andrew Wyeth wins second prize with "Christina Olsen," 1948.

1950: International resumes. Jacques Villon's "The Thresher" wins first prize; Priscilla Roberts' ultra-realist "Self-Portrait," third prize; Peter Blume's "The Rock," popular prize.

1952: Gordon Bailey Washburn's first International, with 305 paintings from 24 countries, five from Latin America, leans toward abstraction. Ben Nicholson, first prize; Marcel Gromaire, second; Rufino Tamayo, third.

1955: 328 paintings from 23 countries. G. David Thompson one of five jurors, plus artists Ben Shahn and the curiously named Afro, an Italian artist who latched onto that name long before it became synonymous with a hairstyle.

1958: 367 paintings, 127 sculptures. Jurors include Marcel Duchamp and actor/art enthusiast Vincent Price. Leon A. Arkus mounts concurrent "Retrospective Exhibition of Paintings From Previous Internationals," 95 paintings. Antoni Tapies wins first prize for marble dust painting. It later falls off substrate; Tapies repairs it. G. David Thompson gives Henry Moore's "Reclining Figure" (second-prize sculpture) to Carnegie and Alexander Calder's "Pittsburgh" mobile (first-prize sculpture) to Pittsburgh International Airport.

1961: 329 paintings, 116 sculptures from 29 countries. Seven solo shows by Pierre Alechinsky, Reg Butler, Alan Davie, Richard Diebenkorn, Grace Hartigan, Carl-Henning Pedersen, David Smith add 56 paintings, 22 sculptures. Mark Tobey, first-prize painting; Alberto Giacometti, first-prize sculpture; Carnegie acquires both.

1964: Gustave von Groschwitz organizes 292 paintings, 109 sculptures from 35 countries. Six equal cash awards given this year. Carnegie acquires Jean Arp's "Sculpture Classique," paintings by Antonio Saura, Pierre Soulages.

1967: Von Groschwitz organizes 221 paintings, 108 sculptures. Among those winning awards are Joseph Albers, Francis Bacon, Joan Miro and Victor Vasarely. Louise Nevelson one of three jurors.

1970: Leon A. Arkus selects 267 paintings and sculptures from 26 countries, including Russia, Ukraine. No prizes.

1977-79: Arkus institutes Pittsburgh International Series: Pierre Alechinsky, 134 works (1977); Eduardo Chillida, 67 sculptures; Willem de Kooning, 164 paintings, 34 drawings, 25 sculptures (1979).

1982: Regular exhibition restored, renamed Carnegie International. Invited critics denounce works curator Gene Baro selects for director John R. Lane. No prizes. Show, rejected by two Australian museums, travels to Seattle.

1985: Curator John Caldwell and director John R. Lane organize 137 works from six countries. Richard Serra and Anselm Kiefer share Carnegie Prize. Their works join Carnegie.

1988: Curator Caldwell solos on 114 works from 11 countries. German sculptor Rebecca Horn wins Carnegie Prize for environmental installation, "The Hydra Forest."

1991: Curator Mark Francis and arts writer Lynne Cooke select 219 works geared to Carnegie museum, library resources. Ann Hamilton's environment installation is a hit. On Kawara's painting series wins Carnegie Prize. Four or more site-specific works appear around city.

1995: Curator Richard Armstrong organizes 215 works from 16 countries. Prize-winners: American sculptor Richard Artschwager, German painter Sigmar Polke.

1999: Curator Madeleine Grynsztejn selects 41 artists and paintings, sculpture, photography, mixed media, film and video installations from around globe. Dates: Nov. 6, 1999, to March 26, 2000.

2000: Total attendance for the International was 151,230 (the number includes visitors to the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, which shares admissions desks with the art museum). When attendance at special events was factored in, the total was more than 160,000.

2004: Curator Laura Hoptman selects 38 established and emerging artists from five continents. Their diverse work includes paintings, drawings, sculpture, photography, film and video. Dates: Oct. 9, 2004, to March 20, 2005.

First Published: October 8, 2004, 4:00 a.m.