French Oil Sketches

Credits

History of the Collection In 2000 with the generous support of the Ahmanson Foundation, LACMA acquired forty-six of the finest examples from the important collection of 300 French oil sketches assembled over a thirty-year period by Dr. Andrew S. Ciechanowiecki, the now retired director of Heim Gallery in London. LACMA’s Chief Curator of European Art, J. Patrice Marandel, who first published the collection in 1975, made the selection based on the aesthetic quality, historical importance and relevance of the works to the collection of French paintings already in the museum, including an additional seven French oil sketches. Originally published in 1975 in the catalogue of a traveling exhibition by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, French Oil Sketches from an English Collection: Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries, the sketches were subsequently included in French Oil Sketches and the French Academic Tradition, published by the American Federation of Arts to accompany a traveling exhibition of the Ciechanowiecki collection of oil sketches in 1994-95 and republished in 2003 as French Oil Sketches from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 17th century – 19th Century, the catalogue of an exhibition at the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska. The present online catalogue, made possible by the generosity of the Kress Foundation, updates and expands the previous research on a group of paintings selected from the collection to illustrate the various ways in which sketches were used.

Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the Kress Foundation for their support of the research, writing and presentation of the present online catalogue, French Oil Sketches.

Executive Producer
Renée Montgomery, Assistant Director, Collections Management and Information J. Patrice Marandel, Chief Curator, European Art

Senior Producer
Diana Folsom, Manager, Art and Education Systems, Collections Management and Information

Author and Managing Curator
Amy L. Walsh, Consulting Curator of European Paintings

Web Designer
Ann Zumwinkle of Zumwinkle.com Assisted by John Marchena and Douglas Bland.

Software Designer
Stephen Toney of Systemsplanning.com created the MWebTM software

Editor
Dianne Woo

Technical Producers
Delfin Magpantay, Database Manager and Systems Administrator, Collections Management and Information Robyn Sanford, Database Manager/Systems Administrator/Trainer, Collections Management and Information Stephanie Kowalicz, Intern, Collections Management and Information

Rights and Reproductions
Cheryle T. Robertson, Manager, Rights and Reproductions

Photographic Services
Peter Brenner, Supervising Photographer Solomon Terringer, Digital Archive Manager

Administrative Assistance
Melissa Pope, Curatorial Administrator, European Paintings and Sculpture Lindsey Rossi, Administrative Assistant, Collections Management and Information