Art Review: ‘Holbein: Capturing Character’ at Morgan Library

The Morgan Library’s new exhibition, Holbein: Capturing Character, is a survey of the work of Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98–1543). Holbein was Henry VIII’s court painter, the best portraitist working in Tudor England, and a crony of Erasmus of Rotterdam and Thomas More to boot. His work is early HD. His crisp, correct likenesses, electric palette, and attention to textiles and jewelry animate the Tudors and their circle. Holbein lived and worked during the hottest days of the Protestant Reformation, painting Tudor luminaries both at the peak and not long before they lost their heads. There’s never been a Holbein exhibition in America. English royalty’s always good for froth and frisson. Then why is the show such a dud?

I’m not saying the exhibition’s not worth seeing if you’re in New York. Simon George, a round portrait from between 1535 and 1540, is lovely. A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling, from the late 1520s, is compellingly odd. The Morgan Library’s divine, and its exhibitions are always designed to perfection. And it’s Holbein, who I don’t think ever had a bad day. Holbein shuttled from painting to book illustration to jewelry design. He’s various, and good at everything. The exhibition is a muddle, and a skimpy one at that. Poor Holbein. It’s his first exhibition in America, done by the Getty and the Morgan Library, both flush with money and talent, and this is what we get?

The Morgan Library’s new exhibition, Holbein: Capturing Character, is a survey of the work of Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98–1543). Holbein was Henry VIII’s court painter, the best portraitist working in Tudor England, and a crony of Erasmus of Rotterdam and Thomas More to boot. His work is early HD. His crisp, correct likenesses, electric palette, and attention to textiles and jewelry animate the Tudors and their circle. Holbein lived and worked during the hottest days of the Protestant Reformation, painting Tudor luminaries both at the peak and not long before they lost their heads. There’s never been a Holbein exhibition in America. English royalty’s always good for froth and frisson. Then why is the show such a dud?

I’m not saying the exhibition’s not worth seeing if you’re in New York. Simon George, a round portrait from between 1535 and 1540, is lovely. A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling, from the late 1520s, is compellingly odd. The Morgan Library’s divine, and its exhibitions are always designed to perfection. And it’s Holbein, who I don’t think ever had a bad day. Holbein shuttled from painting to book illustration to jewelry design. He’s various, and good at everything. The exhibition is a muddle, and a skimpy one at that. Poor Holbein. It’s his first exhibition in America, done by the Getty and the Morgan Library, both flush with money and talent, and this is what we get?