Harry Viehman
Palazzo Farnese
India ink and Japanese wash on paper, 1910
25 x 13 inches

September 10, 2004 – December 18, 2004

Architecture’s classical vocabulary has persisted ever since it fueled the Italian Renaissance. The legacy of Rome is still very much on view in the ancient cities of the world, many of which began their long lives as Roman outposts.

A fusion of Greek, Macedonian, Etruscan and Egyptian influences, classical Roman architecture has left civilization the grandest blueprint for how the world should look. Railroad stations have been constructed to duplicate the great Baths of Caracalla, banks were built to resemble temples and in creating Chicago’s 1893 Columbian Exposition, architects emulated a Rome inflated to an even grander scale.

Alex Fradkin Pantheon, Rome Gelatin-silver print, 1999 20 x 24 inches

Gilbert Gorski S. Maria di Loreto, Rome Watercolor and pen and ink, 1988 11 x 14 inches

Giambattista Piranesi’s 18th Century etchings of Rome popularized the classical look for the construction of hundreds of Europe’s stately mansions. Paris was reconstructed in the 19th Century to become a modern Rome as gigantic triumphal arches were built for the glorification of Napolean.

ArchiTech Gallery has assembled original etchings by Piranesi and other 18th Century artists. Contemporary artist, Gilbert Gorski, perhaps the finest precisionist renderer for architectural firms today, presents his studies of the Eternal City today and recreations of ancient Rome. His watercolors counterpoint those by impressionist, Elizabeth Ockwell, whose modern interpretations of Baroque and Neo-classical structures join her own take on the work of Piranesi.

Harry Viehman Roman Doric order India ink on paper, 1910 20 x 15 inches

F. Polanzani Giambattista Piranesi Portrait for Antichitta Romane Etching, 1750 18 x 13 inches

Notes on the Exhibition:

I’ve been wanting to visit Rome for years and have often thought it slightly embarrassing that I’d never been there. I have a number of books on Greek and Roman architecture I’d barely cracked. But since I opened the gallery, there’s never been a two week stretch for a trip to Europe.

So since I couldn’t make it in the foreseeable future, it seemed that the next best thing would be to use it as the subject of a show. I owned a few great 18th century Piranesi etchings as well as Ecole-type renderings of Roman building details. And since nearly all my preparation time leading up to exhibitions is filled with homework, why not kill two birds?

Gilbert Gorski Forum Romanum Watercolor, 1988 18 x 24 inches

Elizabeth Ockwell St. Ivo, Rome Watercolor and pen and ink, 2000 18 x 24 inches

Elizabeth Ockwell had brought me a couple of recent watercolors she’d done of Bernini sculptures and Borromini’s most spectacular church, St. Ivo’s. And Alex Fradkin had sent me large photographs he took of the dome of the Pantheon. Certainly, I’ve seen other galleries produce shows with a lot less. Rome it was.

I wanted to mix it with Burnham buildings whose plans I own, so the show became "Rome and the Classical Legacy."

I called Gil Gorski, one of architecture’s best contemporary renderers. He’d sent me a postcard with a painting he’d done of the Forum as he imagined it existed after the empire but before it became a ruin. He brought in that watercolor along with dozens he’d done when he studied there in the late eighties.

When everything was installed, all the modern watercolors by Gorski and Ockwell, the Ecole studies of 1910 and the Piranesis became so compelling and looked so good that I forgot about the Burnham & Company plans. The only thing of Burnham’s that I showed was his bronze head of Caesar. He had kept it on his desk until he died in 1912. I don’t plan to sell it.