2016.1.6 - Image
2016.1.6 - Image
Collection of the University of Pittsburgh Art Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA. Purchase of Miss Helen Clay Frick
2016.1.6

Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise

circa 1911 – 1948 (Date created)

Pigment
Fresco
Paintings
81.5 in L x 35.375 in W (Image)
Russian;Italian
Painted after Masaccio's Adam and Eve Expelled from Paradise (probably 1425) that was origially located in the Brancacci Chapel in the Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence.
Nicholas Lochoff (d. 1948)/ after/ Masaccio (Florentine, 1401-1428?)/ ADAM AND EVE EXPELLED FROM PARADISE/ Original (probably 1425) in the Brancacci Chapel, Sta. Maria del Carmine, Florence/ Fresco/ Masaccio's techniques shows the roughness and lack of grace that was said by Vasari to be part of his character. Here Adam and Eve walk firmly through the Gate of Paradise into the harsh emptiness beyond, as directed by an angel. They have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, and have learned of their mortality. Masaccio, by using a revolutionary deep shadowing that created mass in the figures, implied that they walk the earth as normal man and woman. Here, the painter's style suited the subject, and gave it life.

The figures of Adam and Eve being driven from the Garden of Eden were painted about 1425 on the upper part of the pilaster at the extreme left wall of the chapel. The gesture of Eve recalls that of the Medici Venus and marks the beginning of the influence of classical sculpture on the art of the Renaissance. The Brancacci Chapel, with its earlier work by Masolino and its completion much later by Filippino Lippi, is a central monument in the development of Italian Renaissance painting (Walter Read Hovey, The Nicholas Lochoff Cloister of The Henry Clay Frick Fine Arts Building, 1965).
In Collection
Purchased by Miss Helen Clay Frick for the University of Pittsburgh (1959-present)
Boris Lochoff (until 1959); By 1917 Lochoff had only finished and sent back to his home country 8 of these paintings. That same year there was a revolution in Russia. Lochoff was therefore stranded in Italy and cut off from the support previously provided by the Moscow Museum of Art. He was forced to sell the remaining paintings to other buyers. These buyers included Harvard University, the Portland Art Museum in Oregon, and the Frick Art Reference Library in New York. After Lochoff's death, Helen Clay Frick, the woman who started the Fine Arts Department at the University of Pittsburgh and donated the Frick Fine Arts building to the University, acquired this collection with the help of critic and connoisseur, Bernard Berenson. She then donated it to the University of Pittsburgh to adorn the walls of this cloister.
Mary Logan Berenson, "A Reconstructor of Old Masterpieces", The American Magazine of Art. (November 1930), pp. 628-638.

Zoa Grace Hawley, "New Life for Old Masters", The Christian Science Monitor, Weekly Magazine section. (October 31, 1934), pp. 8-9; ill. p. 8.

Zoe Grace Hawley, "New Life for Old Masters: Nicholas Lochoff - captures aura of antiquity in exact copies of Italy's fading treasures". (1934)

Edgar Peters Bowron, "European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum". Harvard Art Museums. Cambridge, MA. (1990). pp. 131, not repr.

"[Unidentified article]". Fogg Art Museum Notes. Fogg Art Museum. Cambridge, MA. (February 12, 1921). p.6, repro. b/w.

"A Copy of Gozzoli's Masterpiece". The Harvard Crimson. Cambridge, MA. (February 12, 1921). p.6, repro. b/w.

Mary Logan Berenson. "Preserving the Old Masters by Copying", Transcript (December 31, 1930). p.5, reproduced b/w.

Mary Logan Berenson. "A Reconstructor of Old Masterpieces", The American Magazine of Art. (November 1930). pp. 628-638.

Royal Cortissoz. "Their Appeal to Lovers of our True Tradition". New York Herald Tribune. New York, NY. (March 15, 1931). p.8

Maurice Grosser. "Painter's Progress". C.N. Potter. New York, NY. (1971). Reproduced. p.32, fig. 10.

Edgar Peters Bowron. "European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum". Harvard University Art Museums. Cambridge, MA. (1990). p.110.


Bill Homisak. "Fabulous Renaissance fakes at Frick offer faux fun". Tribune-Review. (August 27, 1989).

Jonathon Keats. "Forged: Why Fakes Are the Great Art of Our Age". Oxford University Press. (2013).
Please note that cataloging is ongoing and that some information may not be complete.

Italians
Renaissance
Cloisters
Architectural decorations and ornaments
Frescoes
Chapels
Florence