R. H. Quaytman in conversation with Joseph Koerner

Since 2001, R.H. Quaytman’s creative project has been guided by a system of her own devising. She conceives her cycles of works in so-called “chapters” in which she scrutinizes selected thematic and formal aspects of painting. For each new “chapter,” Quaytman begins with extensive research, translating her findings into works characterized by a complex web of associations integrating historical and biographical references. The point of departure for her exhibition at the Secession, titled An Evening. Chapter 32, is The Persian Women, a painting by the Flemish artist Otto van Veen (1556–1629) that was recently restored on her initiative. R.H. Quaytman’s works are in the collections of numerous international museums including the MoMA, New York, the Tate, London, and the mumok, Vienna. Recent solo exhibitions of her work were held at Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany, in 2012, at the Renaissance Society, Chicago, in 2013, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in 2015, and at the MoCA, Los Angeles, in 2016. She also contributed work to documenta14 in Kassel and Athens in 2017.

R.H. Quaytman lives and works in New York.

Joseph Leo Koerner is Professor of History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. The son of the Viennese-born painter Henry Koerner, he has written numerous books including The Moment of Self-Portraiture in German Renaissance Art; The Reformation of the Image; Caspar David Friedrich and the Subject of Landscape; and, most recently, Bosch and Bruegel: From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Association. He wrote and presented arts documentaries for the BBC, and, as recipient of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 2009, he is the writer, director, and producer of The Burning Child, a feature-length film documentary about the Viennese Interieur from Otto Wagner to the present day.