Santa Barbara Museum of Art : Chateau Mouton Rothschild Artwork on Display

Until March 15 Santa Barbara’s Museum of Art will exhibit a collection of original artworks done for the labels of Chateau Mouton Rothschild, a premiere claret. Featured are the works of some of the world’s most respected artists, such as Picasso, whose design appeared on the 1973 vintage; Chagall, 1970; Dali, 1958; Cocteau, 1947; Motherwell, 1974, and Warhol, 1975.

“Our label art is fast becoming as prominent as our wine,” said Baroness Philippine de Rothschild, who with her celebrated father Baron Philippe de Rothschild is co-owner of the vineyard. “The collection will attempt to show how each artist met our criteria, that is, to convey a sense of quality and distinction establishing continuity and recognition with each year’s vintage. The original paintings will be shown, as well as a series of drawings and sketches, illustrating the various stages in development of the final label. I must add there is no correlation to the quality of the vintage to the efforts of the artist.”

At the opening exhibition, visitors could not contain their curiosity as to how much each artist was paid. “Of course they are paid only in wine, and why not, isn’t art for art?” the baroness said.

Compensation actually consisted of five cases of good years of Mouton wines; that is, wine ready to drink on delivery of the finished label, plus an additional five cases of the specific vintage for which the label was fashioned. The artists have become so identified with “their” vintage that consumers have been known to order a case of the Dali or the Picasso, etc. Like the wines, the labels have developed a following of their own.

Jacob’s Ladder Theme

The latest label design for the vintage of 1984 was done by Yacov Agam, who was born in 1928 at Rishon Letzion, one of Israel’s traditional wine-growing regions planted in the last century with funds supplied by the Rothschilds. Today, Agam resides in Paris, where he designed the ’84 label, which depicts a wide staircase in linear perspective featuring the colors that typify his work.

He described it as an interpretation of Jacob’s Ladder, the biblical stairway to heaven as seen by Jacob in a dream, with the suggestion that to climb the ladder, one must have inspirations of the kind found in the wine.

Art on labels is copied around the world these days, but initially it was a concept started by the baron in 1927 for the vintage of 1924. That label was created by Jean Carlu, an architect and stage designer friend of the baron. In 1918 Carlu lost his right arm, but that apparently did not prevent his achieving popularity as one of France’s best commercial artists and graphic designers.

For Baron Philippe, the Carlu-designed label was supposed to be a beginning and an end to Mouton label artwork. It actually was an updating of the original acquired by Baron Nathanial Rothschild (of the English branch) in May of 1853 when the vineyard, then known as Chateau Brane Mouton, was purchased. Renamed Chateau Mouton Rothschild, it consisted of 86 acres of vines in the township of Pauillac.

Done in a 1920s style, the Carlu label featured Mouton’s ram’s head in black and gray alongside a pale brown chai (cellars) and five arrows indicating the family arms of the five Rothschild brothers who moved from ghetto beginnings in Frankfurt, Germany, to become Europe’s most important bankers during the Napoleonic era.

A Form of Celebration

The label was also a form of celebration, because in 1924 the entire harvest was bottled at the chateau. This launched the era of chateau bottling in Bordeaux as well as a new period of trust between chateau proprietors and the world’s wine lovers. Until then, many chateau wines were sold under the labels of negociants and merchants who purchased the wines for their own account and bottling.

At the time, Mouton was a second-growth claret under Bordeaux’s Grand Cru Classe system established in 1865. It was not changed until 1973 when the chateau was elevated to first-growth status. There has been no other change in the rankings, so 1973 has become a benchmark year, which makes the Picasso label an even greater collector’s item.

For those who knew Baron Philippe, it was no surprise that he would commission art renderings for Mouton labels. As a young man he counted top artists, designers and playwrights as personal friends. It was a surprise, however, to the ever conservative Bordelaise negociants and vintners, who promptly considered the labels as a novelty that would not survive many vintages. For a number of years it seemed they were right, since it was not until 1945 that he commissioned another artist to design a label.

After World War II, Baron Philippe returned with the Allied forces to find Baroness Philippine safe, but his first wife killed in a concentration camp. As a symbolic gesture to the victory and the advent of peace, he asked the artist Philippe Jullian to submit a variety of drawings from which he selected the “V” for victory symbol used by Winston Churchill during World War II.

As it turned out, 1945 became one of Mouton’s finest, perhaps its greatest, wine. On more than one occasion I have heard authorities exclaim its superb concentration of flavors, the likes of which may not be seen again. Indeed, time and time again, in blind tastings it beats the best of clarets, even its superb rival, Chateau Latour, 1945.

Permanent Program

After 1945, the custom of specially designed labels was continued as a permanent annual program. Of great interest is the 1946 label, the first year of peace, produced by Jean Hugo, a descendant of Victor Hugo. He elaborated on the theme of peace by depicting a dove flying over the vineyards with an olive branch, an inspiration from the biblical story of the flood in which the dove returned to the ark with an olive branch in its beak as a symbol of the beginning of peace.

Not all of the labels were made by internationally known painters. John Huston, Hollywood’s celebrated director and actor, designed the 1982 label for one of Mouton’s finest modern vintages. A personal friend of the baron and a frequent guest at Mouton, Huston’s design features the symbolic theme of the ram, apparently caught in a moment of so-called Dionysian exaltation, to which he added the declaration “for my dear friend Philippe in celebration of his 60th harvest at Mouton.”

The Santa Barbara exhibition does not consist merely of labels. Included are original artworks of all the artists who submitted sketches and drawings and a montage of appropriate documents, painting studies, photographs and personal mementos. After Santa Barbara, the exhibition moves to Oklahoma City, San Diego, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, St. Joseph, Mich., and Tacoma, Wash., as part of a three-year tour of the United States under the auspices of the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service.

To heighten the pleasure of a visit to the Santa Barbara Museum, secure a copy of “Mouton Rothschild Paintings for the Labels,” authored by the baroness, who also coordinated the collection. The book is published in hard and soft cover by the New York Graphic Society.

“The Evolution of a California Wine Label,” a companion exhibition, also is on display until March 15. Featuring the work of Sebastian Titus, a Napa Valley-born artist, the exhibition focuses on the development of the Sanford Winery label. Each vintage features a new native wildflower as reproduced from paintings by Titus. Seventy different designs are presented with the original label paintings.

For further information call (805) 963-4364. The hearing impaired can call (805) 963-2240.