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The Naturalist : Timothy Martin

A different way of seeing nature

From March 27th to July 11th 2009
Mona Bismarck Foundation
34 avenue de New York 75116 Paris

The Mona Bismarck Foundation will present, for the first time in France, an exhibition of paintings by American artist Timothy Martin.
Curator of the Exhibition: Kristina Didouan, Mona Bismarck Foundation
Curator for North America: Janis Burenga

On show will be 50 of Martin's oil and gouache paintings, mostly from his musical instrument and furniture series. A classically trained contemporary Americanpainter, dubbed "The Naturalist", Martin is a latter-day Thoreau who uses his paintbrush in homage to the plant and animal world.

Garden Party-Delphinium
© Timothy Martin 2008

A unique style, a different way of seeing nature

Timothy Martin has been many things in his life – art student, teacher, freelance carpenter, home renovator. In all those incarnations he sought his own style and pictorial language. It was an unceasing quest for a manner and a light that were different, a way of seeing that would be both "comforting" and amusing.
He was ultimately to find his way in renditions and compositions that drew on plant and animal life – an astonishing style which borrows from nature to render subjects, or series of subjects, like musical instruments and furniture.
Abass cello with magnolia blossoms filling the instrument's bulbous outline; a sofa artfully constructed of goats and roses – his compositions call to mind the whimsical “composite heads” of the Renaissance painter, Arcimboldo.

Pear Tree Piano
© Timothy Martin 2008

A visual game for the viewer, each form imitates something in nature

“I'm imprinting nature on top of classic form, making people question the origin of that shape.”
In Martin’s multi-layered work, nature irreverently strips objects of their original outer aspects to replace them with its own patterns and parts, each one corresponding closely to the object, theme, or detail that it represents. A Timothy Martin piece is a mise en scène that beckons the spectator closer to reveal not only original arrangements of plant and animal life, but further scenes painted into the very heart of the composition – like the Lilliputian villages and landscapes nestling in baskets and bouquets.

Goats & Roses © Timothy Martin 2008

An American painter in love with nature

Timothy Martin is a nature lover. As a youth, he spent summers at his grandparent’farm in New Jersey. He fondly recalls the joys of tramping the fields and browsing through his grandmother’s seed catalogues. Today, on his century-old farm in Stockton, New Jersey, he has renewed his acquaintance with those once familiar images.
Martin draws on nature as an infinite source of inspiration. In his “laboratory workshop”, his impassioned painter’s eye dissects the shapes of flowers, the anatomy of birds, and the colors of flowers.

Martin studied first in Florence, then at the Art Students League of New York. In 1994, the New Jersey State Council on the Arts awarded him a grant which give him his chance to finally devote himself solely to his art. His big break came when Gene Moore, the visionary Vice President of Tiffany & Co. and father of modern window dressing, chose to exhibit his work in the company’s iconic Manhattan store. (Moore had given Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, and Robert Rauschenberg the same chance at the outset of their careers.) Martin soon won a following and the commissions flowed in. One, in particular, from the legendary piano maker Steinway & Sons, was to paint an actual baby grand piano in the artist’s own inimitable style. The “Summertime Piano” was shown across the United States and is now part of an important private collection.

Timothy Martin’s renown extends beyond the art world. His work has been embraced by the international botanical community, leading to exhibitions at top horticultural events such as the Philadelphia Flower Show, the oldest and largest flower show in the United States, the Macy’s Flower Show in New York City and the Southeastern Flower Show in Atlanta, Georgia.

Mona Bismarck Foundation

Mona Bismarck,

Hôtel Lambert, 1955, photo Cecil Beaton

© Sotheby’s London

The Mona Bismarck Foundation will be mounting the exhibition The Naturalist: Timothy Martin in their Paris Cultural Center located opposite the Eiffel Tower. Created in the 1980s by the American philanthropist, Mona Bismarck, the Mona Bismarck Foundation is an American foundation, registered in the State of New York. The Foundation offers an eclectic program of exhibitions and seminars, traditionally free to the public, focusing on Franco-American cultural exchange and reflecting the late Countess Mona Bismarck’s tastes and interests.

Countess Mona Bismarck,

born in the American tradition

of a southern gentlewoman

Countess Bismarck’s substantial private fortune and her noble title – all might seem far removed from her truly American origins. She was born Mona Strader and grew up, very much in the American tradition of a Southern gentlewoman, on a horse farm in the legendary Kentucky Bluegrass Region. In the 1920’s, she married the American industrialist Harrison Williams, and by the golden decades of the 20’s and 30’s was considered to be one of the most beautiful and elegant women in the world. After the death of Harrison Williams, she married Count Edward Bismarck, grandnephew of Chancellor Otto Bismarck.

An inspiration to all

Her quintessential style was celebrated in a song by Cole Porter, while her physical beauty and elegance captivated painters like Salvador Dali, Leonor Fini, Bernard Boutet de Monvel and photographers Cecil Beaton, Edward Steichen and Horst. Mona Bismarck’s entourage included statesmen and politicians (Presidents Roosevelt and Eisenhower), monarchs and ex-monarchs (the Duke of Windsor, the Shah of Iran and Princess Grace of Monaco), an impressive number of writers and artists (Greta Garbo, Gore Vidal, Cristóbal Balenciaga, Tennessee Williams, Paul Newman, Truman Capote and Erich Remarque).

An out of the ordinary personality…

The past decade has seen a revival of interest in the personality of Mona Bismarck. Renowned fashion photographer and filmmaker, Bruce Weber, has admitted to a fascination with the Countess, devoting pages in his past two books to Mona Bismarck as one of the personalities who stand out as a compelling example of a uniquely American vision. Annette Tapert and Diana Edkins, in The Power of Style: The Women who Defined the Art of Living Well cite Mona Bismarck as one of ten women who mastered the American art of self-invention to reach the status as an arbiter of style. In 2005, the Mona Bismarck Foundation paid special tribute to the Countess with the exhibition Perfection Partagee: Mona Bismarck, Cristobal Balenciaga. The exhibition, mounted by Mona Bismarck’s great friend, the fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy, focused on her sublime elegance and role as a cultural icon of her era.

A passionate horticulturalist

Mona Bismarck
in her Capri garden, 1969

Aside from the elegance, there was an artistic and scientific side of Mona Bismarck seen in her devotion to the gardens in her many residences. The brightest gem in Mona’s residential realm was the property acquired in 1936 on the Isle of Capri, Fortino. More than the house, it was the cultivation of the immense Fortino gardens that engaged Mona’s talents and energy. She could be seen, armed with baskets, shears and seeds, often working a full day on the land. Her “botanical knowledge”, one expert wrote, “was staggering and her green thumb all the more evident on this island where, because of the rocky soil and lack or irrigation, there are usually no gardens”.

She worked side by side with her gardeners almost every day, planting, weeding, fertilizing and arranging her outstanding trees, shrubs, and flowers. Aboat came in daily from the mainland, bringing in fresh water. The parched soil became covered with Mona’s matchless array of flowers, trees and lawns acquiring an international reputation as a horticultural wonder.

A chance to revisit

the magnificent gardens at Fortino

Viburnium Harp
© Timothy Martin 2008

The Mona Bismarck Foundation regularly programs exhibitions introducing emerging American artists to a European audience. In showcasing Timothy Martin’s work, the Foundation will also pay homage to Mona Bismarck’s legendary passion for horticulture and botanical studies. In the words of Foundation President, Mr.Chandra Rajakaruna, “When I saw the juxtaposition of nature and inanimate objects in Martin’s work, I just knew that these paintings would have appealed to the Countess. I felt like we could step into one of Martin’s paintings and be back visiting Mona Bismarck in her magnificent gardens at Fortino.”

See video here

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