Art World Report

THEODORE MENDEZ. Paintings from the late 1950s & early 1960s

2010-01-31T10:00:00.000-08:00

LONDON: Whitfield Fine Art is pleased to present an exhibition of early abstract paintings by 20th Century British artist Theo Mendez 3-26 FEBRUARY 2010

The exhibition is a critical reassessment of this talented artist’s early abstract work. During the 1950s he exhibited first at the Redfern Gallery in 1954; would later show his textile designs at the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1956; and in the same year went on to win the Design Award at the Manchester Colour, Design & Style Centre. He studied first at Camberwell College of Arts in 1950, when the likes of Terry Frost, Howard Hodgkin, Euan Uglow, Bernard Dunstan and Gillian Ayres were all contemporaries.

Mendez returned to take up a teaching post at Camberwell in 1958, the same year as Frank Auerbach would start his time on the staff. They would be colleagues until 1965, when Auerbach left his post, and Mendez continued to teach full-time, later becoming Head of the Textile Department from 1976 until his retirement in 1984.

Exhibition of 200 Images Lead Viewers through the Key Stages of Robert Capa's Career

2009-07-03T02:22:00.001-07:00

Robert Capa, Barcelona or its vicinity, August 1936. Loyalist militiamen. © International Center of Photography, New York.

BUDAPEST.- “The precocious Budapest teenager who would eventually become known to the world as Robert Capa did not aspire to be a photographer. He wanted to be a writer – a reporter and a novelist.” (Richard Whelan) Capa’s evolution into a press photographer and war reporter (all the while entertaining the idea of filmmaking) was fundamentally determined by history, as well as by factors like the accelerated technical developments in photography, the changes in the printed picture press in the 1920s as a result of the influence of motion pictures, as well as the increasingly refined techniques and strategies of photographers.

Capa distinguished himself among the ranks of war reporters who thought, – with the visual appearance of magazine pages already in mind –, in series of images that rolled like film footage, and who had the courage and the ability to “get in close” and show aspects of war and fighting on the front lines in a form that had hitherto been impossible, partly due to technological limitations and partly because of the restrictions of censorship.

Capa worked for a number of US and European agencies; his photo reports appeared in the columns of such publications as Vu, Regards, Ce Soir, Life, Picture Post, Collier’s and Illustrated. At the same time, in addition to his work as a photo correspondent, being one of the founders of the Magnum photo agency (1947), educating and supporting young photographers were of primary importance to him.

Following his death in 1954, his brother Cornell Capa, in addition to his own work as press photographer, strove to preserve and introduce to the world the oeuvre of his brother and his colleagues. As a first step, he expanded the International Fund for Concerned Photography, which he had co-founded with others in 1956. Then, in 1974, he established the International Center of Photography (ICP) –, one of the world’s most prominent institutions of photography, simultaneously a museum, a school and an archive – with himself as director.

Between 1990 and 1992, Cornell Capa and Richard Whelan looked through Capa’s more than seventy thousand photos and chose 937 of them, the most outstanding photos of his oeuvre from 1932 to 1954, to represent the cornerstones of his life’s work and his career as a press photographer.

In 1995, from the 937 negatives that had been selected, three identical, excellent quality series were produced using traditional photographic technique. These consisted of 40x50 cm enlargements and marked with Robert Capa’s embossed seal. It was determined that no additional series could be made after this time. Of the three series, one remained in New York, the second one found a home in the Fuji Art Museum of Tokyo, and the third set was purchased by the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and added to the Historical Photo Collection of the Hungarian National Museum.

Besides the 937 photographs that constitute what is known as the “Definitive Collection”, the Hungarian National Museum also acquired 48 original Robert Capa vintage copies dating back to the same time.

The backbone of the exhibition consists of selected groups of photographs. The more than 200 images lead viewers through the key stages of Robert Capa’s career as war correspondent through highlighted themes of his oeuvre, in chronological order.

The exhibition starts off with Budapest – presenting family photos, portraits and other documents – and moves on to the first serious commission in Berlin (the series on the speech given by the exiled Lev Trotsky in 1932, in Copenhagen) and the difficulties of the Paris years. Then we arrive to the most definitive stage in the oeuvre, the three-year period (1936–1939) spent photographing the Spanish Civil War and the Second Sino-Japanese War, during which Endre Friedmann / André Friedmann became Robert Capa, one of the most famous war press photographers in the world. Next we see the seats of world war operations: photos capturing the North African, Southern Italian and Sicilian fronts as well as the Normandy Landing on June 6, 1944. The “D-Day” series, which also served as inspiration to film director Steven Spielberg, is followed by images documenting the denigration of the French women who collaborated with the Germans and the liberation of Paris. The sequence of wartime photographs ends with images of the Ardennes Offensive and the advances of the Allied Forces. Capa’s post-world war work is represented by his reports on the establishment of the State of Israel and the associated conflicts, the immigrants and the refugees, as well as the material from his journey to the Soviet Union with John Steinbeck in 1947 and the photos of his 1948–1949 trip around Eastern Europe, which also include some Budapest shots. The chronological sequence ends with Capa’s photographs of Indochina and the photos taken on May 25, 1954, immediately preceding his death.

A separate section is devoted to the photographic documents of his social life, which became inextricably intertwined with his work as press photographer. His portraits which were taken in parallel with his war reports capture people that were important to him – colleagues, friends and lovers – as well as many prominent figures of the era, including Pablo Picasso, Ingrid Bergman, John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway.

The exhibition was organized by the Hungarian National Museum, Budapest

Leonardo da Vinci Puzzle Examined by Research and Exhibition of Budapest Horse at National Gallery

2009-07-03T02:10:00.000-07:00

Cast from model by or after Leonardo da Vinci, Italian (Italian, 1452 - 1519) Rearing Horse, 16th century or later, copper-tin alloy with lead (bronze) overall: H 24 x W 15 x L 28 cm (H 9 7/16 x W 5 7/8 x L 11 in.) Szépmüvészeti Múzeum (Museum of Fine Arts), Budapest.

WASHINGTON, DC.- The Rearing Horse and Mounted Warrior, a bronze statuette from the Museum of Fine Arts (Szépművészeti Múzeum), Budapest, is the focus of recent technical examinations by National Gallery of Art conservators and is also the centerpiece of a small exhibition, The Budapest Horse: A Leonardo da Vinci Puzzle. On view from July 3 through September 7, 2009, in the Gallery's West Building Sculpture Galleries, the intriguing work is joined by two additional bronze horses and two warriors associated with Leonardo da Vinci from international collections, along with two Renaissance bronze horses by known masters for comparison. Illustrative panels present evidence related to the works' origins, including reproductions of drawings by Leonardo, x-radiographs, and computer models.

The similarities of the Budapest horse to Leonardo's drawings led to the first attribution to him in 1916. New technical evidence gathered from both the Rearing Horse and its accompanying Mounted Rider suggests that the cast could date from as early as the 16th century, although possibly some years after Leonardo's death in 1519. No scientific data were discovered that rule out an early casting date, but the origins of the clay or wax models from which the horse and its rider were cast remain a mystery.

"At the request of the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, the National Gallery of Art is pleased to include the study of the Budapest horse's origins in its ongoing Renaissance Bronze Research Project," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "We are grateful to Robert H. Smith and to the government of Hungary for making possible this rare opportunity to study and exhibit these bronzes together."

"The exhibition reflects an extraordinary moment of cross-cultural collaboration and new scholarship and a fabled Italian sculpture from a renowned Hungarian collection is now on view in one of America's finest museums," said László Jakab Orsós, the director of the Hungarian Cultural Center, New York. "We are so pleased to include the Budapest Horse as part of the Extremely Hungary festival."

Damien Hirst Refuses to Become Royal Academician at the Royal Academy of Arts

2009-07-02T02:20:00.000-07:00

British artist Damien Hirst poses beside his work of art 'The Incredible Journey' at Sotheby's in London on Monday, September 8. Photo: EFE / Andy Rain.

LONDON.- British artist Damien Hirst has turned down an offer to become a Royal Academician at the Royal Academy in London, an institution that was founded in 1768 by King George III.

The refusal was revealed by Secretary and Chief Executive Dr Charles Saumarez Smith CBE, who told the Evening Standard that he does not know the reasons of this decision.

Other contemporary artists, such as Tracey Emin, who made her dirty bed an artistic installation, have accepted to become a Royal Academician.

According to Saumarez Smith, there are artists who have accepted the invitation and others that have not, some of these are: Lucian Freud, Howard Hodgkin and Paula Rego.

Some artists who were formed in the 50s and 60s believed that the Royal Academy had become obsolete, but that has changed and the newer generations have supported the Academy.

Membership of the Royal Academy is made up of up to 80 practising artists, each elected by ballot of the General Assembly of the Royal Academy, and known individually as Royal Academicians (R.A.). The Royal Academy is governed by these Royal Academicians.

All RAs are entitled to exhibit up to six works in the annual Summer Exhibition. They also have the opportunity to exhibit their work in small exhibitions held in the Friends' Room and are occasionally invited to hold major exhibitions in the Sackler Galleries. Many Academicians are involved in teaching in the Schools and giving lectures as part of the Royal Academy Education Programme.

Christie's Auction of Post-War and Contemporary Art in London Realises $31.8 Million

2009-07-02T02:17:00.001-07:00

Richard Prince (B. 1949), Country Nurse, signed, titled and dated `R. Prince 2003 Country Nurse’ (on the overlap) inkjet print and acrylic on canvas 79 ½ x 52 1/4in. Executed in 2003. Estimate: £1,500,000-2,000,000. Sold: £1,721,250 / $2,869,324 / €2,032,796. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd. 2009.

LONDON.-Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction took place this evening and realised £19,063,350 / $31,778,604 / €22,513,816 selling 88% by lot and 86% by value.

Francis Outred, International Director and Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie’s Europe: ‘We are delighted with the results of our sales tonight which continued the trend of strong sold rates seen in the first 6 months of this year at our international auctions. This evening, an active market saw 86% of lots find buyers in a sale that achieved strong prices - in particular, the outstanding result for Peter Doig's ‘Night Playground’, which made the second highest price ever achieved for the artist at just over £3 million. What was most interesting was that 80% of works sold within or above their pre-sale estimates, and that we welcomed bids from a significant number of new collectors.’

The top price was paid for Night Playground by Peter Doig (b.1959), 1997/98, an exemplary large scale painting described by the artist as one of his own favourites. It was offered at auction for the first time and realised £3,009,250 / $5,016,420 / €3,553,924, the second highest price for the artist at auction (estimate: £1.5 million to £2 million). A particularly rare urban view, the painting shows night falling on a city playground and portrays the contrast between nature and the man-made. At this evening’s auction, 4 works of art sold for over £1 million / 11 for over $1 million, and buyers (by lot / by origin) were 65% UK and Europe, 29% Americas and 6% Asia.

Further highlights of the sale:

· Country Nurse, 2003, by Richard Prince (b.1949), one of the largest works created for the artist’s celebrated and highly coveted Nurse series, sold for £1,721,250 / $2,869,324 / €2,032,796. For the Nurse series, Prince mined his own extensive collection of trashy romance novels from the 1950s and 1960s, lifting the protagonists and titles from their lurid covers and immersing them in layers of pigment. An exploration of female stereotypes, the series was subject to great attention in 2003 when Prince photographed Kate Moss for W magazine in front of one of his pictures while she was wearing a suggestive nurse’s outfit.

· 1025 Farben (1025 Colours) by Gerhard Richter (b.1932) realised £1,385,250 / $2,309,212 / €1,635,980, and was offered at auction for the first time having been in the ownership of the present European owner since 1974, the year in which it was painted. From a series considered to coincide with the most fruitful period in the artist’s career, the work sold this evening is from the last and most accomplished group of colour charts which he painted.

· The auction offered 3 works by Jeff Koons (b. 1955) which represented three distinctive moments from the artist’s career, and all of which were offered at auction for the first time. Moustache, 2003, from the artist’s Popeye series sold this evening for £1,105,250 / $1,842,452 / €1,305,300. Flowers, 1986, from the artist’s Statuary series which also included his masterpiece, Rabbit, sold for £337,250 / $562,196 / €398,292; and Walrus (Blue), executed in 1999, sold for £361,250 / $602,204 / €426,636.

· Untitled, by Cy Twombly (b.1928) realised £802,850 / $1,338,351 / €948,166, exceeding its pre-sale estimate of £500,000 to £700,000. This important work was executed in 1961, a watershed year in the artist’s career during which he created a number of masterpieces including the Ferragosto series which was recently united in an exhibition dedicated to the artist at Tate Modern last year.

· Rosso Gilera 60 1232 Rosso Guzzi 60 1305 by Alighiero Boetti (1940-1994) sold for £713,250 / $1,188,988 / €842,348 against a pre-sale estimate of £280,000 to £350,000 setting a record price for the artist at auction. Further artist records were established by Transiente by Julie Mehretu (b.1970) which realized £229,250 / $382,160 / €270,744; and Golden Independent Heart, 2004, a 4.5 metre tall, rotating heart made of plastic cutlery by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos (b.1971) whose work has never before been offered at an international auction and which sold for £163,250 / $272,138 / €192,798 (estimate: £80,000 to £120,000).

Jeff Koons Presents Works from his Popeye Series at the Serpentine Gallery in London

2009-07-01T09:02:00.001-07:00

LONDON.- The Serpentine Gallery presents an exhibition of the work of the celebrated American artist Jeff Koons. This will be England’s first ever major survey of Koons’s work in a public gallery.

For his exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, Jeff Koons presents works from his Popeye series, which he began in 2002. The works incorporate some of Koons’s signature ideas and motifs, including surreal combinations of everyday objects, cartoon imagery, art-historical references and children’s toys.

The sculptures on show continue Koons’s interest in casting inflatable toys. Those typically used by children in a swimming pool are cast in aluminium, their surfaces painted to bear an uncanny resemblance to the original objects. Koons has used inflatables in his work since the late 1970s. He further develops his use of cast inflatables in the Popeye series by juxtaposing these replica ready-mades with unaltered everyday objects, such as chairs or rubbish bins. The paintings in the series are complex and layered compositions that combine disparate images both found and created by Koons, including images of the sculptures in the series.

Featuring loans from both public and private collections, the exhibition also includes works that have never been shown publicly before. The immediately recognisable figures of Popeye and Olive Oyl are central in the series and they appear in several prominent works within the exhibition. One of the most iconic American cartoon characters, Popeye was conceived 80 years ago this year in 1929 when the Great Depression was taking hold. In Popeye’s early years, the cartoon addressed the hardships and injustices of the time and, in this current period of economic recession, he is a fitting character to rediscover and explore.

Working in thematic series since the early 1980s, Koons has explored notions of consumerism, taste, banality, childhood and sexuality. He is known for his meticulously fabricated works that draw on a variety of objects and images from American and consumer culture.

Jeff Koons first exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery in 1991 as part of the group show Objects for the Ideal Home: The Legacy of Pop Art. His work also appeared in the exhibition Give and Take that was organised by the Serpentine Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum in 2000, and as part of In the darkest hour there may be light – works from Damien Hirst’s murderme collection at the Serpentine in 2006.

Koons took part in a headline event in the Serpentine Gallery’s summer events programme, Park Nights, in 2006. He appeared as part of a panel discussion involving Hans Ulrich Obrist and Rem Koolhaas, the architect of that year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion. Koons also contributed to Hans Ulrich Obrist’s recent book Formulas for Now, which was presented at the Serpentine Gallery Experiment Marathon in 2007.

Jeff Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania, 1955. His work has been widely exhibited internationally. His most recent solo exhibitions include presentations at the Château de Versailles, France; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; and Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, all in 2008. Koons lives and works in New York.

Jeff Koons: Popeye Series is curated by Julia Peyton-Jones, Director, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Co-Director, and Kathryn Rattee, Curator, Serpentine Gallery.

Santiago Calatrava to Design Cornerstone for USF Polytechnic's New Campus

2009-06-22T03:42:00.000-07:00

Santiago Calatrava to design USF Polytechnic's New Campus. Photo: EFE / Queen Sofía Spanish Institute.

LAKELAND, FL.- The University of South Florida Polytechnic has commissioned the acclaimed architectural firm Santiago Calatrava/Festina Lente Services (FL), Inc. to design the first building for the school's new campus in Lakeland, Fla., and update the campus master plan, USF President Dr. Judy Genshaft announced.

Santiago Calatrava will design the 100,000 net square foot USFP Science & Technology building, which will sit on the northernmost corner of the campus at the intersection of Interstate 4 and the Polk Parkway. The Science & Technology building will be the cornerstone of the new campus, and will establish the design scheme for all buildings within phase I of the campus master plan. Groundbreaking is expected late this year, with a scheduled opening in late summer 2012.

Calatrava is best known for his celebrated designs of bridges, transportation centers and cultural institutes throughout the world. The USF Polytechnic facility will be his first design in the southeastern United States.

Almost 70 years ago, legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright made his mark on Lakeland with the Annie Pfieffer Chapel, the first of 10 structures he designed for Florida Southern College and a recent addition to the World Heritage List. With today's announcement, the once-sleepy orange grove town -- now at the center of Florida's High Tech Corridor - will again be home to internationally acclaimed architecture.

The Calatrava commission follows a Florida Chamber of Commerce statewide voter survey that showed support for directing more of the state's economic resources to fostering talent, rather than relying on tourism and in-migration for economic development. USF Polytechnic, designated Florida's only polytechnic in 2008, focuses on hands-on learning that cultivates skills in the applied arts and sciences, business and education.

Whitfield Fine Art opens spectacular show

2009-06-22T03:39:00.001-07:00

LONDON: 22 June - 17 July 2009

Whitfield Fine Art's forthcoming Old Master exhibition has an exceptional group of paintings from the Florentine High Renaissance, one of the most creative moments in the Italian art history and one which had an impact far afield. It is one of a series of exhibition put on during Master Paintings Week (4-10th July 2009)

The leading highlight will be the comparison between three newly cleaned masterpieces by Andrea Del Sarto and his pupils Jacopo Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino painted within a few years of each other.

The Andrea Del Sarto “Madonna and Child with St. John” was rediscovered ten years ago, but only in late 2008 was it cleaned and parts of the painting revealed to be completely overpainted in the 18th or 19th century. It has now has it been fully restored, revealed to be in excellent condition and infrared reflectograms have uncovered fascinating underdrawing present on the panel under the paint surface. It is priced at £7.25 million

Painted around the same time, Jacopo Pontormo’s “Holy Family with St John”, was painted as he was in Andrea del Sarto’s studio but as he was beginning to take his first commissions as an artist in his own right. Inspired directly by Andrea del Sarto’s early work of 1513, this panel has been cleaned especially for this exhibition.

We shall be showing two other works by pupils of Andrea del Sarto. The first is by Rosso Fiorentino - so named for his red hair - who also painted the most entrancing Madonnas, and it is fascinating to have his “Holy Family with Saints Joseph, Anne and John the Baptist” as a foil to the Del Sarto and Pontormo, all probably painted within a few years of each other.

To be able to hang these three works together, nearly five hundred years after they had such a close connection, is a fascinating and unique comparison.

THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Also exhibited is a beautiful panel by Correggio. The Head of the Saviour has recently been the only work not from a major institution in the landmark retrospective held in Parma that closed in January 2009, where it hung next to the celebrated altarpiece called Il Giorno and the Vergine della Scodella. Exceptionally rare and beautiful, it is a real coup to have secured it for this exhibition.

The gem like Madonna by Albertino Piazza Da Lodi was painted around 1515 under the strong influence of Leonardo. It was once owned by Marchesa Casati (1881-1957), a spectacular social figure, painted and photographed by many leading artists of her time, and associated with several outstanding dress designers and jewellers. She knew, entertained and was entertained by many of the most gifted people of her time, including Nijinsky, Picasso, Colette and Chanel. Her affair with the Italian Nationalist writer Gabrielle d'Annunzio was widely publicised. The substantial fortune she inherited was not enough to finance the Marchesa's tastes.

THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

The seventeenth century in the exhibition is represented by pictures whose unfamiliarity is matched by their force of presence.

Sir Anthony Van Dyck’s Head of an Old Man, painted in the first Antwerp period, has hardly been seen in the last generation, having been in a private collection in Belgium for the last 40 years. Recorded in a 1660s Gallery Interior by David Teniers the Younger, now at Schleissheim, it is a picture that may even have come from the collection of Charles Ist at its dispersal after the King’s execution in 1649. It is a work that is not a portrait, but more of a character study, in the line of Annibale Carracci’s penetrating studies, where the artist was able not only to grasp the outward appearance but also the inner soul of the man. It is priced at £1.1 Million

The whole-length portrait by Simon Vouet, also painted during his Italian years. It is extraordinary because although Vouet’s initial reputation, and his ease of travel to centres like London, Venice and Constantinople, was based on his facility with portraiture, for which he continued to be in demand in Rome and Genoa, there are singularly few instances of survival of this genre, mostly limited to head and shoulders likenesses.

Colombian Museum Hosts Largest Exhibition Ever in Latin America of Andy Warhol's Works

2009-06-22T03:19:00.001-07:00

Several people observe "Mao" made by Andy Warhol in 1972 at the exhibition "Mister América" which opened in Colombia. Photo: EFE/Leonardo Muñoz

BOGOTA.- The exhibition, organized by Museo de Arte del Banco de la República in conjunction with the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and curated by Philip Larratt-Smith, offers a complete panorama of the work of this fertile artist and it is the largest exhibition ever organized in a Latin American museum. The list of works of art comprises 26 paintings, 57 silk screens, 39 photographs and 2 installations (‘Silver Clouds’ and ‘Cow wallpaper’). Fourteen of his films will also be screened at the Fundación Gilberto Alzate Avendaño.

Andy Warhol, Mr. America explores all aspects and periods from this multi-facetic production from this artist, with a particular emphasis in the period between 1961 and 1968.

It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American products such as Campbell's Soup Cans from the Campbell Soup Company and Coca-Cola bottles, as well as paintings of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Troy Donahue, and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "The Factory," his studio during these years, and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He began producing prints using the silkscreen method. His work became popular and controversial.

Among the imagery tackled by Warhol were dollar bills, celebrities and brand name products. He also used as imagery for his paintings newspaper headlines of photographs of mushroom clouds, electric chairs, and police dogs attacking civil rights protesters. Warhol also used Coca Cola bottles as subject matter for paintings.

New York's Museum of Modern Art hosted a Symposium on pop art in December 1962 during which artists like Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were scandalized by Warhol's open embrace of market culture. This symposium set the tone for Warhol's reception. Throughout the decade it became more and more clear that there had been a profound change in the culture of the art world, and that Warhol was at the center of that shift.

A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit The American Supermarket, a show held in Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical U.S. small supermarket environment, except that everything in it from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc. were created by six prominent pop artists of the time including the controversial (and like-minded) Billy Apple, Mary Inman, and Robert Watts. Warhol's painting of a can of Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for $6. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what is art.

As an advertisement illustrator in the 1950s, Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career; in the 1960s, however, this was particularly true. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga. Malanga assisted the artist with producing silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at "The Factory", Warhol's aluminum foil-and-silver-paint-lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol's Factory crowd included Freddie Herko, Ondine, Ronald Tavel, Mary Woronov, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin (from whom he apparently got the idea to tape record his phone conversations).

During the 60s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "Superstars", including Edie Sedgwick, Viva, and Ultra Violet. These people all participated in the Factory films, and some, like Berlin, remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer John Giorno and film-maker Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this period.

Over 120 Van Gogh Letters Will Be On View at Van Gogh Museum's Rietveld Building

2009-06-19T03:28:00.000-07:00

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), The Sower, 1888, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, (Vincent van Gogh Foundation).

AMSTERDAM.-Over 120 rarely exhibited letters by and to Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) will be on show Landmark exhibition to celebrate the publication of the new edition of the letters.

From 9 October 2009 to 3 January 2010 the Van Gogh Museum’s Rietveld building will be devoted to the letters of Vincent van Gogh. In the exhibition Van Gogh's letters: The artist speaks, some 120 original letters will be exhibited alongside the works that Van Gogh was writing about. The important documents are seldom or never on show to the public due to their extreme fragility and sensitivity to light. The combination of more than 340 works, from the rich collection of the Van Gogh Museum, including paintings, drawings, letters and letter sketches offers a multifaceted and penetrating view of Van Gogh as letter writer and as artist. Especially for this exhibition the Van Gogh Museum has been granted the exclusive loan of three special letters from Vincent van Gogh to the artist Emile Bernard (1868 -1941) from the Morgan Library & Museum in New York. The exhibition is being staged by the Van Gogh Museum to mark the launch of the new international edition of the complete correspondence of Vincent van Gogh. This scholarly edition, which will be published both in book form and digitally, is the culmination of 15 years of research into the letters by the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Art and Sciences (KNAW).

'There are so many people, especially among our pals, who imagine that words are nothing. On the contrary, don't you think, it's as interesting and as difficult to say a thing well as to paint a thing'. Vincent van Gogh to Emile Bernard, 19 April 1888

Van Gogh's letters: The artist speaks - The exhibition offers a unique opportunity to compare the sketches in the letters to the paintings and drawings on which they are based. Van Gogh's own writing and his intimate sketches allow the visitor to look over the artist's shoulder, as it were. Never before have we been able to come so close to Van Gogh as an artist and as a person. The visitor is witness to his dreams and disappointments, friendships and fights, the battle against his illness and his all-consuming passion to create art able to withstand the test of time. Quotations from his letters guide the visitor through his paintings and those of his contemporaries, offering insights into Van Gogh’s views on art and the role of the artist. By far the most of the letters are addressed to his younger brother Theo, who supported him morally and financially during the ten years of his artistic career. As such the close bond between the brothers is one of the exhibition’s important themes. Vincent viewed his artistic vocation as a joint venture and apprised Theo of all his plans and all the developments in his art. The fifteen years of research into the letters by the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute – KNAW has yielded a more rounded, comprehensive and nuanced image of Vincent van Gogh. Rather than a deranged genius, the artist is revealed as a determined and forceful personality, able to express with compelling force the subjects occupying his mind.

Vincent van Gogh - The Letters. The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) not only bequeathed to the world a large number of fine paintings and drawings, but he also left behind one of the most fascinating bodies of artistic correspondence that we know. Over 800 of the 902 letters known to have been written by and to Van Gogh are kept in the Van Gogh Museum. Over the last fifteen years all the letters have been subjected to rigorous examination by specialists of the Van Gogh Museum and the Huygens Institute - KNAW. The result is a scholary edition, which will be published both in book form and digitally.

Book edition - Vincent van Gogh - The Letters. The Complete Illustrated and Annotated Edition contains all the letters - complete with explanatory notes and for the first time reproductions of the more than 2,000 works of art mentioned in the correspondence as well as reproduction of the letters which contain sketches. The letters have been included in their original form without embellishment, rephrasing, adaptation or excision of passages, newly transcribed and translated.
Edited by Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker. Design: Wim Crouwel. Published by the Van Gogh Museum, the Huygens Institute - KNAW and the Mercator Fund. International co-editions with Thames & Hudson, Actes Sud and Amsterdam University Press. Six volumes in a box, hardcover, 2,180 pages, circa 4,300 illustrations, in English, Dutch and French.

Web edition - Coinciding with the book edition is the launch of the website www.vangoghletters.org. The website comprises all 902 letters by and to Van Gogh in the languages in which they were originally written (Dutch and French) and furnished with the English translation. The letters are accompanied by images of the manuscripts together with the annotations and the illustrations of the works of art referred to in the correspondence. The web edition furthermore offers extensive search facilities and is freely accessible from 8 October 2009.

Benefactors: The Van Gogh Museum would like to thank the Turing Foundation, the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, the International Music and Art Foundation, Linea d’Ombra and the Vincent van Gogh Foundation – which has given the vast majority of the letters on long-term loan to the museum – for their exceedingly generous financial support. The contribution and expertise of Metamorfoze, the National Programme for the Conservation of Heritage on Paper, enabled us to record the entire letters collection digitally. In addition the Letters project was made possible with the aid of the Orentreich Family Foundation and donations by Shigeru Myojin and Sherif Nadar, as well as by Ernst Nijkerk, in memory of Inge Nijkerk – von der Laden.

Three Paintings Top the Million Dollar Mark at Heffel's $11.3 Million Spring Auction

2009-06-19T03:23:00.000-07:00

Lot # 137, Thomas John (Tom) Thomson, Birches and Cedar, Fall. Courtesy of heffel.com.

VANCOUVER, BC.- Heffel Fine Art Auction House set a new record sale price tonight when a rare Emily Carr painting sold for $2,164,500 in the second session of Heffel’s Live Spring Auction. Wind in the Treetops, a 36-1/2 x 21-1/4 inch oil on canvas, circa 1936-1939, is from the most sought-after period in Carr’s career – the mature period of the 1930s. Heffel Fine Art Auction House has previously sold two Carr paintings for more than $1-million and is the only auction house to reach that price point for her works. This ranks as the fourth highest priced painting in Canadian history.

“We were very fortunate to have a mature period Carr canvas of this calibre in our sale,” says Robert Heffel, principal of Heffel Fine Art Auction House. “A painting from this period is one of the rarest treasures in Canadian art, so it is not surprising we shattered the previous Carr record by $1 million.”

Tonight’s sale result of $11.3-million was well past the $6 - $9-million presale estimate for Heffel’s two sessions. The Canadian Post-War & Contemporary Art, which commenced at 4 p.m. PST, had sales totalling $4.7-million. The second session of Fine Canadian Art began at 7 p.m. PST and had a sales total of $6.6-million. Both sessions were held before a crowd of 300 people at Vancouver’s new Convention Centre overlooking Coal Harbour.

Tom Thomson’s Birches and Cedar, Fall was another highlight, selling for $1,404,000 – well above its estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. The oil on panel, circa 1915, is embossed with the Thomson estate stamp and highlights the ever-changing fall landscape of the Ontario woods.

During the second session a record was set when John William Beatty’s Canoe Lake, Algonquin Park sold for $222,300. Beatty strongly influenced Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven in its early days.

Three other Emily Carr lots showed well in the second session. A Forest Clearing, a colourful oil from 1935 sold for $187,200; Shore and Forest (Cordova Bay) sold for $128,700; andTangle, a 1937 oil on board forest scene also sold for $128,700.

“The Fine Canadian Art session was one of our finest collections of artwork to date, featuring a number of Group of Seven canvases and an exceptional Carr work,” says David Heffel, president of Heffel Fine Art Auction House. “Once again, we were delighted to see consistently strong bidding throughout both sales.”

Highpoints in the first session included the sale of Jean-Paul Riopelle’s Jouet, a drip painting that sold for $1,170,000. Jouet; Thomson’s Birches and Cedar, Fall; and Carr’s Wind in the Tree Tops are the only three paintings to sell for over $1-million in the entire spring 2009 auction season. Alexander Colville’s Coastal Figure was also among the first session’s top selling paintings, with a sale price of $526,500.

In the two sessions, 21 paintings exceeded the $100,000 mark and 15 records were set.

The complete list of the top 10 paintings from the two sales and the list of new Canadian fine art records follows below. High resolution images of the top paintings in the auction are cleared for media use and can be downloaded from the newsroom page of www.heffel.com.

In total, the Spring Auction featured 159 Canadian works. Information on the pieces and artists can also be found at www.heffel.com.

Top Ten Paintings Sold – Heffel Fine Art’s two sessions – June 17, 2009
Below is a list of the top 10 highest selling paintings from Heffel Fine Art’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Auction and the Fine Canadian Art Auction combined. All prices include the 17 per cent buyers premium added to the hammer price.

Dutch Queen and Russian President to Open New Hermitage Amsterdam Museum

2009-06-19T03:22:00.001-07:00

A man contemplates some of tha paintings at the Hermitage Amsterdam museum. EFE/Koen Suyk.

AMSTERDAM.- Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and the President of the Russian Federation, Mr. Dmitry Medvedev, will attend opening celebrations of the Hermitage Amsterdam museum on the evening of Friday, June 19, one day prior to the public opening of the museum on June 20, 2009. Other members of the Dutch Royal family expected to attend include Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Maxima. The Hermitage Amsterdam opens with the dazzling exhibition, “At the Russian Court: Palace and Protocol in the 19th Century.”

The Hermitage Amsterdam is the first branch of the magnificent Russian State Museum Hermitage in St. Petersburg. The Hermitage Amsterdam will organize temporary exhibitions chosen from the collections of the Hermitage and other Russian museums. The opening exhibition will feature more than 1,800 objects to tell the story about the court life of Russian tsars, including the Romanov throne, jewelry by Fabergé, gala dresses and the last tsarina’s grand piano.

The museum is housed in the monumental 17th-century building Amstelhof, a historic building off the Amstel River in Amsterdam which has undergone nearly $50 million in renovations in preparation of the opening of the museum. The Hermitage Amsterdam’s 9,000 m2 (nearly 96,000 square feet) consists of two large galleries, cabinets, an old chapel, regents’ rooms and an enclosed garden. The building also contains a study centre, a restaurant, shops and the Hermitage for Children center.

From June 20th 2009, 10 a.m., a major new European cultural destination, the greatly expanded Hermitage Amsterdam, will welcome visitors to its elegantly restored 17th-century building in the historic heart of Amsterdam. Founded to bring the richness and grandeur of Russia’s artistic heritage to one of the West’s most charming capitals, this independent cultural institution will inaugurate its spacious new home — ten times the size of the previous building — with the exhibition At the Russian Court, a dazzling display of more than 1,800 treasures from the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.

Hermitage Amsterdam is the only dedicated, independently managed venue in the West of St Petersburg’s magnificent State Hermitage Museum. At the Russian Court — a scholarly researched exploration of the opulent material culture, elaborate social hierarchy and richly layered traditions of the Tsarist court at its height in the 19th century — will remain on show from June 20th in the new institution until January 31st 2010. Hermitage Amsterdam will then stage two large-scale, temporary exhibitions each year, drawing on the encyclopaedic collections and unparalleled scholarship of Russia’s museums to offer cultural riches that would otherwise be unavailable in Amsterdam.

Art Teacher Wins BP Portrait Award with Painting of Twilight Daughter

2009-06-18T08:56:00.000-07:00

Tom by Michael Gaskell. ©Michael Gaskell.

LONDON.- On Tuesday 16 June 2009 the winner of the BP Portrait Award 2009 was announced by Sebastian Faulks at the National Portrait Gallery. In a record-breaking year for entries the prestigious first prize was won by 44-year-old Surrey artist Peter Monkman. His winning portrait, Changeling 2, is part of a series of portraits of his daughter, Anna, at different stages of her life. Peter wins £25,000 and a commission, at the National Portrait Gallery Trustees' discretion, worth £4,000.

The second prize of £8,000 goes to Michael Gaskell for Tom and the third prize of £6,000 goes to Annalisa Avancini for Manuel.

There is, also for the third time, the BP Young Artist Award of £5,000 for the work of an entrant aged between 18 and 30. This has been won by Mark Jameson for Benfica Blue.

Peter Monkman (b.1964) for Changeling 2 (oil on canvas, 1220 x 900 mm) was shortlisted for the first time this year, having been included in the BP Portrait Award exhibition in 1999, 2001 and 2003. Currently Director of Art at Charterhouse School, Surrey, Monkman, 44, studied visual arts at the University of Lancaster, John Moores University Liverpool and the University of London. The shortlisted portrait is part of a series of portraits of his daughter exploring the concept of the changeling, a child substituted for another by stealth, often with an elf. 'I challenge the fixed notion of an idealised image of childhood and substitute it for a more unsettling, complex, representation that exists in its own right as a painting.' The initial ideas for this portrait came from photographic studies of Anna playing in woods in Brittany where the light had a magical quality.

Second Prize: Michael Gaskell (b.1963) for Tom (egg tempera on board, 270 x 210 mm). Michael Gaskell lives in Sheffield and won Second Prize in the BP Portrait Award previously in 2003 and was commended in both 2001 and 1999. He studied at St Helen's College of Art and Design and Coventry Polytechnic and has been exhibiting his work for over twenty years. The shortlisted portrait is of his son, Tom, who was 17 at the time of the first sitting. 'He was at the period in adolescence between boy and manhood and fleetingly suspended between both.' Gaskell continued to work on the portrait over the next two years. 'In spirit my painting owes most to Botticelli's Portrait of a Young Man which is its primary inspiration and a painting I've always loved. The pose itself is more reminiscent of a number of portraits by Holbein, an artist I greatly admire.'

Third Prize: Annalisa Avancini (b.1973 ) for Manuel (oil on board, 1000 x 800). Annalisa, 35, is a painter and design teacher from Italy who studied at the Arts High School of Trento and the Marangoni Institute in Milan. This was the third time that Avancini had painted Manuel, 31. She says, 'His eclectic personality is what attracts me. His story shines through his face. Despite his young age his life is rich in experience.' Avancini started this most recent portrait last summer, attracted by the contrast between Manuel's expression, the battered chair and the sunlight coming in through the window. Avancini's work has been exhibited in numerous exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States and she won First Prize in both the 1st Contemporary Art Show 2006 at the Museum of the Americas, Miami and the Painting Prize for Young Artists 2007 at the Verona Fine Art Society.

Young Artist Award: Mark Jameson (b.1979) for Benfica Blue (oil and acrylic on canvas, 1220 x 762 mm). Mark Jameson, 29, painted his award winning portrait of his sister, Lyndsey, in less than a month. The sittings took place at his parent's house in County Durham. He says, 'It was my intention to capture aspects of the subject's persona, but also to convey this in a modern and relevant way. That said the acrid colours and an informal composition contribute to an accessible and honest account. This piece is not to my mind entirely finished. I hope that perhaps its technical shortcomings are in keeping with the character of the piece.' Since graduating from Sunderland University with a degree in Fine Art in 2003, Jameson has acquired a handful of commissions through local art dealers and hopes to be able to become a full time artist in the future.

In addition, The BP Travel Award 2009 winner was also announced last night. Isobel Peachey wins for her proposal to travel to Belgium and Switzerland to sketch and paint portraits of those taking part in historical re-enactments. She will visit The Company of Saynt George, a Swiss group re-enacting the history of a small artillery company from the 15th Century at the Castle of Lenzburg, near Zurich, and The Napoleonic Association who portray the life of a military encampment near Antwerp in Belgium. Peachey hopes to capture the unique mix of history, culture, authentic settings and the participants' passionate involvement in recreating the past. She receives a bursary of £5,000 to travel and paint portraits for display in next year's BP Portrait Award exhibition.

The work of the BP Travel Award 2008 winner Emmanouil Bitsakis will be on display at this year's exhibition. Bitsakis travelled to north-west China to paint portraits of the minority Uigur people who are a far eastern branch of the extended family of Turkic peoples. The Uigur are culturally distinct from the majority Han Chinese and alongside their religion of Islam, their music and dance idiom, 'Muqam' is the core of their identity and culture.

Indian Art Achieves 2,067,400 Pounds and Exceeds Pre-Sale Expectations at Sotheby's London

2009-06-18T08:55:00.000-07:00

Orange Head by Francis Newton Souza (lot 62) saw strong competition from a number of buyers before selling to a US Private Collector for £403,250 / $658,628 – more than three times the presale high estimate (est: £80,000-120,000). Photo: Sotheby's.

LONDON.- Sotheby's annual sale of Indian Art in London, which took place yesterday, realised a total of £2,067,400 / US$3,376,684, a sum in excess of pre-sale expectations (the pre-sale estimate for the sale was £1,193,500-1,754,000). The sale - which brought to the market a fine assortment of works by leading Modern and Contemporary Indian artists as well as rare and important Indian Miniatures - was 69% sold-by-lot and 88% sold-by-value and established a new auction record for the Bengali artist Jogen Chowdhury as well as a new auction record for a work on paper by a Post-Independence Indian artist. Francis Newton Souza’s Orange Head and Jogen Chowdhury’s Day Dreaming sparked the most spirited bidding-battles of the day and were the top-selling lots of the sale.

Commenting after the sale, Zara Porter-Hill, Director and Head of Indian Art at Sotheby’s, said: “By choosing desirable works by leading artists at appropriate pricing levels, we assembled a sale that we knew would appeal to buyers in the current market, and the competitive and lively bidding that we witnessed throughout the sale, principally from private collectors, ratified our strategy. Many exciting results were seen today sending a very positive and encouraging message to this market. We were particularly thrilled to have had the privilege of bringing the Jogen Chowdhury to auction this summer; it’s such a rare painting of exceptional quality and the price it achieved today is testament to this. We are also delighted that our top-selling Souza achieved the highest price of the summer auction series of Indian Art at any auction house.”

Among the notable highlights of today’s sale were:

Orange Head by Francis Newton Souza
Orange Head by Francis Newton Souza (lot 62) saw strong competition from a number of buyers before selling to a US Private Collector for £403,250 / $658,628 – more than three times the presale high estimate (est: £80,000-120,000). This price represents the highest price of the summer auction series of Indian Art at any auction house.

Day Dreaming by Jogen Chowdhury
Jogen Chowdhury’s ink and pastel composition Day Dreaming (lot 59) graced the cover of the sale catalogue and was greatly admired during its pre-sale exhibition. Having never before appeared at auction and indicative of its desirability, the work was the subject of a heated bidding-battle between multiple bidders, which resulted in the price soaring well above the pre-sale estimate of £80,000-120,000. The picture was eventually purchased by a US Private Collector for £373,250 / US$609,629, establishing a new record for the artist at auction by a significant margin (almost double the previous auction record for the artist of US$324,114) and also a new auction record for a work on paper by a Post-Independence Indian artist. The work, which highlights the artist’s graceful and distinctive style of fluid lines and simple forms defined by crosshatching, was exhibited at the Sao Paulo Biennale in 1979 – the year it was executed – and it is one of the largest works of its kind by Chowdhury to ever come to the market.

Untitled by Manjit Bawa
An Untitled painting by Manjit Bawa, which featured on the front cover of the first ever issue of Art India in 1996, sold to an Indian Private Collector for £85,250 / $139,239, handsomely within presale expectations (pre-sale estimate was £70,000-100,000). The painting was previously offered in the sale of Contemporary Indian Paintings from the Chester and Davida Herwitz Charitable Trust at Sotheby’s New York in 1996.

Maqbool Fida Husain
Works by Maqbool Fida Husain were also highly sought-after today with five of the seven works offered achieving prices in excess of their pre-sale high estimates. The solid results highlight the particularly strong demand for Husain works from the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s.

Study Cites Columbia Museum of Art Generates More than $23 Million in Economic Activity

2009-06-18T08:54:00.000-07:00

Museum 18th Century Gallery.

COLUMBIA, SC.- The Columbia Museum of Art conducted an economic impact study with Miley, Gallo & Associates, one of the Southeast’s leading economic and financial consulting firms. Analysis shows that the Columbia Museum of Art and the spending by museum visitors generated more than $23 million in economic activity in the Columbia Metropolitan area in 2008, up significantly from $9,700,000 in 2005.

The analysis provided by Dr. Harry Miley uses impact models generated by the IMPLAN modeling system. IMPLAN is a nationally recognized system of local economic models that are specifically designed to represent a local economy such as the Columbia metropolitan area.

Museum executive director Karen Brosius said, "This study shows without a doubt that the Columbia Museum of Art is a great investment for the city and county. Additionally, the study goes on to note the educational benefits of the Museum for the citizens of the Midlands."

In addition to the money generated, the Museum stimulates directly and indirectly more than 370 jobs in the Columbia area in a variety of business sectors. The Museum serves an average of 10,700 people per month through its programs, events and outreach activities, and brings a growing and significant number of visitors to downtown and Main Street. Overnight visitors spend $8.2 million in Columbia directly on lodging, retail and restaurant/bar expenditures.

The study shows that the Museum, in addition to its art exhibitions and public programs, serves the Columbia community in a variety of ways:

• The Museum is a major component of the downtown economy because it buys goods and services from many businesses in Columbia. The operating expenditures for fiscal year 2008 were $3,347,960, the majority of which were spent in the local economy.

• The Museum Shop is a downtown retail establishment serving patrons and featuring products not only related to the Museum, but museums from around the world and area artists. Since 2005, Museum shop sales have increased by 30% from $116,115 to $150,844 in 2008.

• The Museum is a major contributor to downtown Columbia tourism. Attendance and outreach is over 128,000 people per year with 54% from areas outside Richland County and 16% outside of South Carolina in 2008. According to the Travel Industry Association of America, cultural tourists spend 1/3 more on their visits than leisure travelers.

• The Museum provides quality arts education, which helps to ensure that Columbia's children receive a comprehensive arts education. Research has proven that children engaged in the arts have better overall academic results.

• The Museum serves as a venue for local events. The Museum can accommodate parties from 10 – 1,200 people. In 2007 and 2008, the Museum hosted 30,000 people at rental events.

• Finally, the Museum is the cultural anchor of the revitalization of downtown Columbia. Since the Museum moved to the corner of Main and Hampton Street in 1998, there has been a strong influx of new businesses that are locating downtown, existing tenants are renewing their leases and a number of new office towers, luxury condos and apartments are being built in the downtown area where hundreds of people now live.

The City of Columbia and Richland County each provide about 19% of the Museum’s annual operating budget through hospitality tax revenues. The study shows that both the City of Columbia and Richland County receive $32 in economic impact for each dollar they invest in the Museum. Over the past four years, the Museum has significantly expanded private support, which provides the remaining 62% of funding through donations from individuals, sponsorships, grants from foundations and earned income areas such as admissions and shop sales.

A survey done by the South Carolina Arts Commission indicated that 99% of CEO’s state that the availability of cultural activities is an important consideration when choosing a new location (http://www.state.sc.us/arts). Currently, Columbia is competing with other South Carolina cities to lure the best businesses and the brightest workforce. As the largest art museum in the state, with the most significant international collection and exhibition program, the Columbia Museum of Art is fast becoming the leading art museum in the region and a must-see destination for tourists around the southeast.

Exhibition Showing the Techniques Used by Julio Gonzalez Opens at Fundacion Picasso

2009-06-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

View of the exhibition at Fundacion Picasso in Malaga.

MALAGA.- This exhibition is comprised of approximately fifty pieces drawn from a collection of the artists' 400 works in the IVAM (Valencian Institute of Modern Art) in Spain that illuminates the artistic career of Julio Gonzalez (1876-1942), one of the most influential and inspirational Modern sculptors. González was a pioneer in fusing Cubism and industrial ironworking by creating welded open linear structures in iron, bronze and silver that evoke a primordial, totemic and playful feel. Between 1928-1931 he gave lessons in metalworking to Pablo Picasso and served as source of inspiration for artists such as Anthony Caro, Melvin Edwards, Mark di Suvero, Richard Stankiewicz, and David Smith, who called González "the father of all iron sculpture."

Though González was one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, he is one of the least known. This exhibition brings to light how González revolutionized the use of welded iron as a medium that initiated a new language in sculpture, and it is the first showing of his work in the region. Works from the important collections of IVAM will be featured that include bronze and iron sculpture reliefs, handcrafted jewelry and figurative drawings.

The relationship between Julio González and Pablo Picasso has been one of the most fertile circumstances in 20th century art. For the former it was a fundamental stimulus which permitted him to progress quickly along the experimental path he had begun to tread with his first works and brought him into contact with the cubist constructions that Picasso had made out of sheet metal, cardboard or wood.

For his part, González contributed his experience in metal forging, which was to pave the way for a new sculptural language that he himself would define with the well-known expression “drawing in space”.

Born in Barcelona, as a young man he worked with his older brother, Joan, in his father’s metal smith workshop. Both brothers took evening classes in art at the Escuela de Bellas Artes. In the late 1890s Julio began to visit Els Quatre Gats, a Barcelona café, where he first met Pablo Picasso. He left Spain in 1900 and moved to Paris, never to return to his homeland.

In Paris he associated with the Spanish circle of artists of Montmartre, including Pablo Gargallo, Juan Gris and Max Jacob. In 1918, he developed an interest in the artistic possibilities of welding, after learning the technique whilst working in the Renault factory at Boulogne-Billancourt. This technique would subsequently become his principal contribution to sculpture. In 1920 he renewed his acquaintance with Picasso, for whom he later provided technical assistance in executing sculptures in iron, participating to Picasso's researches on analytic cubism. He also forged the infrastructures of Constantin Brâncuşi's plasters. In the winter of 1927-28, he showed Picasso how to use oxy-fuel welding and cutting. From October 1928 till 1932, both men worked together — and in 1932, González was the only artist with whom Picasso shared his own personal art carnet [1]. At fifty years old, himself influenced by Picasso, González deeply changed his style, exchanging bronze for iron, and volumes for lines.

In 1937 he contributed to the Spanish Pavilion at the World Fair in Paris (La Monserrat, standing near Guernica), and to Cubism and Abstract Art at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. That same year he moved to Arcueil, near Paris, where he died in 1942.

Bilbao Fine Arts Museum Opens Exhibition on the Splendor of the Renaissance in Aragon

2009-06-17T01:36:00.000-07:00

Damián Forment, Piedad, c. 1522 - 1525. Alabastro policromado, 40 x 50 x 20 cm. Obispado de Huesca (Catedral de Huesca. Retablo de Santa Ana, la Virgen y el Niño).

BILBAO.- An exhibition of more than one hundred works illustrates how art evolved in Aragon from the Gothic style favoured in the 15th century to the splendour of the Renaissance in the 16th century.

Section one of the show includes a small but valuable selection of works that reflect the influence of the international Gothic style and models from Flemish art. One outstanding sculpture is Pere Joan’s Guardian angel in polychromed alabaster—an essential material in Gothic and Renaissance sculpture in Aragon. In painting, the panels Martyrdom of St. Engracia by Bartolomé Bermejo, in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum collection, the Descent attributed to Bartolomé Bermejo, in tandem with his disciple Martín Bernat, and The retable of the Holy Cross of Blesa, by Miguel Ximénez and Martín Bernat, are three fine examples of the heights these maestros were capable of.

The second section begins with a group of works that evidence the transition from the Gothic scheme of things to Renaissance ideals in a synthesis of the Flemish and Italian idioms. Contributions from the Museum of Zaragoza collection mean that the superb sculptor Damián Forment, one of the great figures of the Spanish Renaissance, is the artist best represented here. Particularly interesting are the St. Onuphrius and two Virtues, all in alabaster. In the early decades of the 16th century, the large group of sculptures by Forment and his disciples, together with others by contemporaries like Frenchman Gabriel Joly, the Italian Juan de Moreto and Aragon-born Gil Morlanes the Younger, consolidated the new style of the golden age of art in Aragon. Mostly executed in wood and alabaster, the sculptures and reliefs are generally polychromed pieces taken from retables. They undoubtedly set the standards and guidelines for the following generation.

Accompanying them are several works by the painter Jerónimo Cósida, one of the finest artists in Aragon at the time. After some early works influenced by Raphael, Cósida’s Italianate style was particularly appreciated for its beautiful use of colour and the delicate modelling of the figures. Two Italian artists, Tomás Peliguet and Pietro Morone, well acquainted with the works of both Raphael and Michelangelo, introduced full-blown Renaissance forms in painting in Aragon through their contributions to retables and mural painting projects.

From 1570 on, the Rome-inspired new classicism appeared in the late stage of sculpture in Aragon. A major figure here was Basque sculptor Juan de Anchieta, who, in his monument entitled Christ for the church of the Hospital de Gracia and his Calvary, in the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum collection, synthesized the treatment of the nude as developed by Michelangelo with the emotional expressionism of Juan de Juni. Anchieta was an excellent maestro in the carvings for Christ Crucified, which ushered in the shift in the models used for this iconography in art in Aragon.

The interest of Martín de Gurrea y Aragón, Duke of Villahermosa, in the genre of the portrait is typical of Renaissance civilization. Highly cultured, a collector of antiquities and paintings, in his time in the Low Countries, Villahermosa persuaded painters Paul Scheppers and Roland de Moys to work for him in Aragon. The works of these two Flemish artists, who had previously visited Italy, signalled the main guidelines for painting in Aragon as the Renaissance drew to a close.

Selected Works from the Francois Pinault Collection on View at Palais des Arts in Dinard

2009-06-16T01:59:00.000-07:00

Yan Pei-Ming, Portrait de Giacometti, 2007. Oil on canvas, 350 x 350 cm.Courtesy Galleria Massimo De Carlo. Photo: André Morin © Yan Pei-Ming, ADAGP, Paris, 2009.

DINARD.- François Pinault accepted Dinard’s offer to present a selection of artworks from his collection at the Palais des Arts with much enthusiasm. This initiative fits perfectly with his involvement in contemporary art in favour of travelling exhibitions, which ultimate aim is to share his passion with a large public.

After major exhibitions in Lille (Passage du Temps, 2007-2008) and Moscow (Un Certain Etat du Monde ? 2009), it is now Dinard’s turn to play host to the collection. This exhibition shows François Pinault attachment to the region of his birth, Brittany.

François Pinault’s curator Caroline Bourgeois is in charge of the exhibition. Through her selection of (most representative) works from the Collection, she leads the public into the collector’s atypical and bold steps, while making them see through his eyes : breaking with trends and established values, and showing interest in the most visionnary – and sometimes puzzling – artistic creations. « It is also the portrait of a true enthusiast, whose profoundness shows in his collection» says Caroline Bourgeois.

The exhibition puts the emphasis on four main aspects of contemporary art history:

> works stemming from a concept, (ie the minimalist movement, which favours the idea to the expression)

> art history being revisited and reinterpreted by contemporary artists

> popular, mass culture icons and items turning into art

> artists sharing their original views on our contemporary world (through such topics as consumers’ society, search for utopia, wars…)

The Dinard exhibition offers to mirror contemporary obsessions through eye opening and conscience awakening works of art.

1: Concepts & artworks: Josef Albers, Dan Flavin, Agnes Martin, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, Lee Ufan and Pierre Soulages

2: History revisited: Charles Matton, Takashi Murakami, Paul McCarthy and Yan Pei Ming.

3: Pop culture and mythologie: Martial Raysse

4: From consumers’ society to the search for utopia :
- Introduction : Ed Ruscha.
- Consumers’ society/war/rebellion: Adel Abdessemed, Andreas Gurski, Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Wall, Jiechang Yang, Chen Zhen.
- Cities : Subodh Gupta, Mike Kelley, Bharti Kher, Takashi Murakami, Julie Mehretu, Luc Tuymans.
- Fears and phobias : Maurizio Cattelan, Paul Fryer, Damien Hirst, Claude Levêque, Yan Pei Ming, Andres Serrano.

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller Retrospective Opens at The Belvedere

2009-06-15T05:57:00.001-07:00

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, At the Blacksmith’s Workshop, 1854. Oil on wood, 58 x 45,5 cm. Private collection.

VIENNA.- Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (1793 – 1865) was one of the most important Austrian painters of the Biedermeier period. Whether it was the conquest of the landscape and thus the convincing rendering of closeness or distance, the accurate characterisation of the human face, the detailed and refined description of textures, or the depiction of rural everyday life: his works – brilliant, explanatory, moralising, and socially critical – influenced a whole generation of artists. Being an advocate of natural observation and plein air painting, as well as a critic of academic painting, Waldmüller was far ahead of his time.

The Belvedere accommodates the Waldmüller Archive and owns the most comprehensive collections of his works worldwide. In this retrospective, comprising some 120 works, masterpieces from the Belvedere’s holdings will be complemented by loans from national and international collections. Several paintings that were thought to be lost will be presented to the public for the first time.

Apart from his meticulous bent for observation, Waldmüller is also esteemed for his knowledge of nature, his taste for detail, his treatment of light and his talent as a colorist. A key figure in Austrian painting, who taught for a number of years at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and then pursued a career mainly as a portrait artist, Waldmüller was a leading representative of the Biedermeier style. Examples of this influence include his landscapes and scenes of everyday life, celebrating the materialistic values, refinement and elegance of the bourgeoisie of the time, but also his portraits and still lifes. A proponent of realism and exactitude, Waldmüller paints landscapes without any mythological embellishments, dramatization or other ornamentation.

This exhibition traces Waldmüller’s entire artistic career, his rigorous realism in the depiction of a society transformed by the upheavals of 1848—aristocrats, bourgeoisie and peasants are featured together in these paintings—his modernity and his keen interest in photography (which played a central role in his life work). The exhibition also underscores Waldmüller as a key influence on the Pre-Raphaelite painters in England who, in the middle of the 19th century, favored greater spontaneity in their art and a stronger connection with nature, as well as his impact, in the early 20th century, on the artists of the Secession movement who sought, particularly in Austria and Germany, to react against official art.

Long Lines Form Outside Museum to See Secret Art Show: Banksy Versus Bristol Museum

2009-06-15T05:53:00.000-07:00

The Banksy UK Summer show features more than 100 works of art, including animatronics and installations. Photo: EFE/ Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery.

BRISTOL.- Bristol's City Museum & Art Gallery presents a unique collaboration between the city's foremost cultural institution and one of the region's most infamous artists.

Banksy has gained notoriety in recent years by using stencils to paint images on a diverse array of outdoor locations. This is the first exhibition in a three storey Edwardian museum.

Throughout the summer, visitors will find some unusual specimens amongst the museum's permanent collection - a stonehenge made from portable toilets greets visitors on arrival, a burnt out ice cream van now replaces the enquiries desk and the life size historic biplane suspended from the ceiling now provides refuge for a Guantanamo bay escapee. Banksy has filled the museum with his own wry take on classical art.

The Banksy UK Summer show features more than 100 works of art, including animatronics and installations; it is his largest exhibition yet, featuring 78 new works. Reaction to the show was positive, with large numbers of visitors have come to Bristol to see it. Long lines have formed outside of the museum of up to one hour.

"This is the first show I've ever done where taxpayers' money is being used to hang my pictures up rather than scrape them off," Banksy was quoted by the BBC as saying. "This show is my vision of the future."

Banksy is a pseudo-anonymous English graffiti artist. He is believed to be a native of Yate, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol and to have been born in 1974, but there is substantial public uncertainty about his identity and personal and biographical details. According to Tristan Manco, Banksy "was born in 1974 and raised in Bristol, England. The son of a photocopier technician, he trained as a butcher but became involved in graffiti during the great Bristol aerosol boom of the late 1980s." His artworks are often satirical pieces of art on topics such as politics, culture, and ethics. His street art, which combines graffiti writing with a distinctive stencilling technique, is similar to Blek le Rat, who began to work with stencils in 1981 in Paris and members of the anarcho-punk band Crass who maintained a graffiti stencil campaign on the London Tube System in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His art has appeared in cities around the world. Banksy's work was born out of the Bristol underground scene which involved collaborations between artists and musicians.

Banksy does not sell photos of street graffiti or mount exhibitions of screenprints in commercial galleries. Art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell his street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder.

Francesca Leone (Italy) - "Beyond Their Gaze" at Moscow Museum of Modern Art

2009-06-12T01:26:00.001-07:00

Francesca Leone, Senza Titolo, 2006, 130 x 175cm, olio

MOSCOW.- Moscow Museum of Modern Art opens the first Russian personal exhibition of Francesca Leone, the artists which picturesque canvas take a special place in actual Italian art. The project "Beyond the gaze" will present to the spectator nearby 30 large-sized pictorial works amazing even tempted public by carefulness of the technique, the concentrated sensibleness of chromatic transitions and extreme refinement of experiences in a combination to the force of a visual spell. The exhibition is dated for display of the film of Sergio Leone restored by director Martin Scorsese within the Moscow international film festival.

Francesca Leone was born in Rome in a creative and versatile family: her father, Sergio Leone was the outstanding film director removing Robert De Niro, Clint Eastwood and Ennio Morricone, Francesca’s mother was the famous ballerina, the grandmother – the actress. Since her birth Francesca has been allocated by a deep, spontaneous emotionality which has expressed in her pictorial works.

In the beginning of her creative way Francesca Leone studied and reinterpreted art experience of futurists: J. Severirni, U. Boccioni, C. Carra, J. Balla. The enamourment of futurism was reflected on the works of the artist – for her creativity are characteristic energetical compositions where figures movements are shown in a dynamic stream of time, where prevail flashing forms zigzags, oblique lines, where movement is transferred by imposing of consecutive phases to one image —by so-called principle of simultaneity. This “close- dynamic” art principle is reflected in her huge portraits, like they are piling on the spectator and not holding in canvas borders.

Despite the obvious narrative and the coloristic dramatic nature of her works, Francesca Leone tells the story, which is made not by events, but thoughts. The artist has chosen a theme of the picturesque matter formed and transformed in front of the eyes of the spectator. As the image cannot or should not be allocated by a static, which would has fixed it once and forever. The deep sense of Francesca’s works is concealed in the metamorphoses of the matter symbolizing a condition of human existence in a labyrinth of a city and intimacy of the house.

Characters of pictorial works of Francesca Leone are distinguished by the highest concentration of pressure which generates ideas and actions. The theme of the city and loneliness is represented in her portraits, heroes, thoughts and actions. Francesca Leone introduces in hyperrealism sensual, emotional measurement and creates magnificent pictures on execution which can be defined as classical works of the big style – but it is the modern classics, the classics of our time.

Rare Works by Goya, Fragonard, David and Turner at Sotheby's July Old Master Paintings

2009-06-12T01:17:00.000-07:00

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes, An Equestrian Portrait of Manuel Godoy, Duque de la Alcudia, oil on canvas, estimate: £2.5-3.5 million. Photo: Sotheby's.

LONDON.- Sotheby's forthcoming sales of Old Master Paintings and Drawings to take place in London on Wednesday, July 8 and Thursday, July 9, 2009 will bring to the market a superb selection of rare works by renowned French, Spanish, Dutch, Flemish, Italian and British Old Masters as well as a single-owner sale of Renaissance and Baroque masterworks from the collection of Barbara Piasecka Johnson. Among the artists to feature in the Old Master Paintings Evening Sale are Daddi, Dell’Abate, Metsu, Guercino, Zurbarán, Guardi, Fragonard and Goya and the 48 lots have an estimate in the region of £24 million. A large proportion of the works come to the market with exemplary provenance, having either been in private collections for many years or actually never having been offered at auction before. The centrepiece of the Old Master Drawings sale will be a long-lost masterpiece by Jacques-Louis David, which has not been seen in public since it was exhibited in Brussels in 1925.

National Gallery Announces The Sacred Made Real: Spanish Painting and Sculpture 1600-1700

2009-06-11T01:14:00.001-07:00

Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664), Virgin of the Misericordia, 1634 © Photo Imagen M.A.S. Courtesy of Museo de Bellas Artes, Seville.

LONDON.- Created to shock the senses and stir the soul… 'The Sacred Made Real' presents a landmark reappraisal of religious art from the Spanish Golden Age. Paintings including masterpieces by Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Zurbarán are displayed for the very first time alongside Spain’s remarkable ‘polychrome’ (painted) sculptures.

While the religious paintings of Velázquez and Zurbarán are relatively well known, the polychrome sculptures which also emerged from 17th-century Spain have never been the subjects of a major exhibition. Still passionately venerated in monasteries, churches and processions across the Iberian Peninsula, very few of these sculptures have ever been exhibited overseas.

During the Spanish Counter-Reformation, religious patrons, particularly the Dominican, Carthusian and Franciscan orders, challenged painters and sculptors to bring the sacred to life, to inspire both Christian devotion and the emulation of the saints. The exhibition brings together some of the finest depictions of key Christian themes including the Passion of Christ, the Immaculate Conception and the portrayal of saints, notably Pedro de Mena’s austere rendition of Saint Francis Standing in Meditation, 1663, which has never before left the sacristy of Toledo Cathedral.

By installing 16 polychrome sculptures and 16 paintings side-by-side, the exhibition aims to show that the ‘hyperrealistic’ approach of painters such as Velázquez and Zurbarán was clearly informed by their familiarity – and in some cases direct involvement – with sculpture.

Last seen in Europe over 50 years ago and a crucial loan to the exhibition, Zurbarán’s masterpiece, 'The Crucifixion', 1627 (Art Institute of Chicago) achieves an astonishing sculptural illusion on canvas. When seen in close proximity with Juan Martínez Montañés’ polychrome sculpture of 1617 (Church of the Convent of Santo Ángel, Seville), these two art forms begin an intense natural dialogue.

In Seville, Francisco Pacheco taught Velázquez, later his son-in-law, and a generation of artists the skill of painting sculpture as an integral element of their training. Pacheco himself painted the flesh tones and drapery of exquisite wooden sculptures carved by fellow Andalucian, Montañés, known by his contemporaries as ‘the god of wood’. Among the most important examples is their life-size 'Saint Francis Borgia Meditating on a Skull', 1624 (Church of the Anunciación, Seville University) commissioned by the Jesuits to celebrate his beatification that year. Another highlight of the exhibition is the fascinating juxtaposition of Velázquez’s 'The Immaculate Conception', 1618–19 (National Gallery, London) with Montañés’s exquisite polychrome sculpture of the same subject, about 1620 (Seville University).

To obtain even greater realism, some sculptors such as Pedro de Mena and Gregorio Fernández introduced glass eyes and tears as well as ivory teeth into their sculptures. Fernández’s astonishingly realistic 'Dead Christ', 1625–30 (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid; on long term loan to the Museo Nacional Colegio de San Gregorio, Valladolid) incorporates the bark of a cork tree to simulate the effect of coagulated blood, and bull’s horn for Christ’s fingernails. It was fully intended that believers should feel truly in the presence of the dead Christ.

During 'Semana Santa' (‘Holy Week’), some 17th-century polychrome sculptures are still carried through the streets by religious confraternities, particularly in Seville, Granada and Valladolid, the most important centres of this art. During the evening of Palm Sunday, Seville’s Archicofradía del Cristo del Amor (‘Confraternity of the Christ of Love’) process a life-size sculpture of the Crucifixion by Juan de Mesa. The exhibition features a smaller version of this work, about 1621, which although non-processional, plays a vital role in the pastoral life of the confraternity.

While sometimes deeply unsettling, depictions of Christ’s suffering or indeed Juan de Mesa’s 'Decapitated Head of Saint John the Baptist', about 1620 (Seville Cathedral) are also exquisitely finished. When depicting the saints, sculptors and polychromers combined their skills to achieve maximum facial expressiveness. Alonso Cano’s life-size head of Saint John of God, 1655 (Museo de Bellas Artes, Granada), which has never left Spain before, depicts with astonishing sensitivity the compassionate expression of Granada’s patron saint.

Zurbarán’s heightened illusionism, in particular his handling of fabric, shows an acute understanding and appreciation of sculpture. Once in British collections and now returning to the UK for the first time in over 50 years, 'Saint Serapion', 1628 (Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT), is among the artist’s greatest achievements. The saint’s voluminous white habit cascades with astonishingly rendered crevasses of deep shadow. Here, Zurbarán demonstrates that painting can indeed achieve the same disconcerting realism as sculpture.

The religious art of 17th-century Spain pursued a quest for realism with uncompromising zeal and genius. Far from being separate, this exhibition proposes that the arts of painting and sculpture were intricately linked and interdependent.

Kresge Art Museum Acquires Significant 17th Century Dutch Painting

2009-06-11T01:12:00.000-07:00

Jan van Goyen (Dutch, 1596-1656), An Estuary with Row and Sail Boats, late 1640s, oil on panel, 14 x 12-3/4 inches, Kresge Art Museum, Michigan State University, MSU purchase, funded by the Emma Grace Holmes Endowment, 2009.20

EAST LANSING, MI.- Kresge Art Museum announced a major new acquisition of a marinescape by Jan van Goyen, one of the greatest 17th century Dutch landscape painters. An Estuary with Row and Sail Boats, from the late 1640s, was called a “connoisseur’s gem” by writer Souren Melikian in the International Herald Tribune.

Van Goyen became a master at rendering his native sea and sky in various weather conditions. By 1640, he preferred to represent foul weather as he did in this painting with choppy seas and roiling clouds. Like other Dutch painters at this time, his palette became almost monochrome. With this tonal way of painting restricted to brown, grey and umber with a few highlights of white, he conveys the moisture-laden atmosphere. This painting is a quintessential Dutch view of land and sea. The audacious low horizon, flat land, and vast sky make it feel modern.

Van Goyen’s painting takes it place among the growing Dutch 17th century collection of the Kresge Art Museum. Director Susan J. Bandes saw the painting at TEFAF, the international art fair in Maastricht, the Netherlands in March and says, “I had been looking for a painting by van Goyen for several years and this is amongst the most beautiful and exciting examples I have seen on the market. It is in wonderful condition and you can still see the swift impressionistic strokes of paint that quickly capture the fleeting weather conditions. Most of the composition is sky, which prefigures paintings done centuries later.”

One of six Dutch paintings added to the museum collection in the past five years, it represents the interest in naturalism and pride in one’s surroundings typical of paintings at the time. The viewpoint is as if the artist and viewer are drifting inside a boat capturing the fleeting scene. Van Goyen often made drawings as he traversed the rivers and lakes of the Dutch Republic in a small boat. These drawings provided him with a large repertoire of motifs that he later worked up in finished compositions in his studio.

An Estuary with Row and Sail Boats will be on display through July 31, 2009, when the museum closes for summer recess. The museum reopens on September 8, 2009.

Picasso, Monet and Giacometti, Lead Sotheby's Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art

2009-06-10T06:43:00.000-07:00

Claude Monet, Route de Giverny en hiver, 1885. Estimate: £3-4 million, Photo: Sotheby's.

LONDON.- Sotheby's forthcoming sale of Impressionist & Modern Art on the evening of Wednesday, June 24, 2009 will be led by rare works by Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

Pablo Picasso’s Homme à l’épée, a striking and monumental depiction of a musketeer from the artist’s late oeuvre, will be one of the centre-pieces of the sale with an estimate of £6-8 million. The vividly coloured painting dates from July 1969 and is one of his most important and iconic subjects of this period.

Throughout his career Picasso projected the different sides of his own identity in a number of ways and the musketeer was one of the most celebrated subjects and guises of his latter years. It was a theme which saw him align himself with the iconography so frequently used by great Old Master painters such as Rembrandt and Velázquez and hence merge his own personal history with the cultural heritage of the Western artistic tradition. In Homme à l’épée Picasso depicts a nobleman from the Spanish Golden Age, gaudily dressed and sporting a cloak and big black hat.

Talking about the painting, Helena Newman, Director of the Evening Sale and Vice Chairman of the Impressionist & Modern Art department, Sotheby’s Worldwide, said: “Following the widely acclaimed exhibitions Picasso et les maîtres at the Grand Palais in Paris and more recently Picasso: Challenging the Past at the National Gallery in London – the latter of which closed its doors to the public on June 7 – we’re delighted to be including Homme à l’épée from 1969 as one of the highlights of our forthcoming sale of Impressionist and Modern Art. This powerful, museum-quality painting, which has never before been at auction, comes to the market at a time when the interest in and assessment of Picasso’s late oeuvre has never been stronger.”

Picasso pared down his style in the final years of his career and painted works on a grand scale in bold, spontaneous brushstrokes - Homme à l’épée measures 146 by 114cm - and focuses on the elements of himself that fascinated and preoccupied him. Picasso captured these elements with a contemporary style and his own unique sense of wit. Homme à l’épée starred in the seminal exhibition of the artist’s work at the Palais des Papes in Avignon in 1970 and was selected for the poster advertising the exhibition.

Picasso will also be represented by his monumental nude entitled Nu debout from 1968, estimated at £3-4 million, which has been in the same private collection for over 35 years. This painting belongs to a series of major works that he undertook on the theme of the female nude in the late 1960s. Distinguished by their larger than-life format and stunning display of painterly virtuosity, the figures depicted in this series have drawn comparison to his early masterpiece Demoiselles d'Avignon of 1907.

In this work Picasso takes as his muse and model the woman he loves and who lives with him, Jacqueline, the final love of his life whom he married in 1961. Although she did not pose for this or other works, features such as her almond-shaped eyes and strong nose are clearly distinguishable in Nu debout. The love that Picasso felt for his wife is reflected in the passionate vitality and excitement radiating from the present work. Her monumentality and her frontal pose confronting the viewer convey a universality and eternal presence, identifying Jacqueline as the ultimate feminine representation. The artist’s creative energy at this time - when he was in his late 80s - was remarkable, and the present work is a striking example of the breath-taking flood of invention and fantastic vitality that characterised Picasso's late years.

A group of works by Alberto Giacometti from a private European collection will be a further notable highlight. This group which has a combined low estimate of £4.2 million, is led by Buste de Diego (Aménophis), an iconic sculpture of the artist’s younger brother, estimated at £2-3 million. This work depicts Diego, whose slender head emerges from a voluminous bust, a style typical of many of the portrayals of Diego by his brother after World War II. A further Giacometti work is Diego (Tête au col roulé), estimated at £1–1.5 million and dating from the early 1950s, a painted plaster sculpture that merges his talents as both a painter and a sculptor. Another bronze from the group is an impressive bust of Giacometti’s wife entitled Buste d’Annette VII, which belongs to a series of sculptures characterised by a delicate rendering of Annette’s distinctive features. A slender neck supports a raised head, large eyes, pointed nose and delicate chin. Estimated at £1.2–1.8 million, this work is one of only two casts of Buste d’Annette VII, with the other in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco.

Among a strong group of Impressionist works is a prime example of Claude Monet's winter landscapes, an oil on canvas entitled Route de Giverny en hiver. Dating from 1885 and estimated at £3-4 million, this classic Impressionist scene depicts the snow-covered road leading to the town of Giverny, where the artist lived at the time and where he painted some of his most celebrated works. Inspired by heavy snowfall in 1885, Monet immediately started painting the newly transformed landscape and the present work is a quintessential example of his rendering of the differing effects of light on snow.

A rare painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec from circa 1888 is inspired by the celebrated Cirque Fernando in Montmartre, a favourite haunt of the artist and his contemporaries. The painting - entitled Au cirque: dans les coulisses - is estimated at £2-3 million. Toulouse-Lautrec was known for capturing scenes from popular culture and the night life of turn-of-the-century Paris. As such he frequented the circus and these visits inspired a number of paintings and drawings around this time; unlike many of these works however, Au cirque: dans les coulisses focuses on a small group off-stage rather than capturing the full colourful performance. The grisaille technique, with contrasts between the light and dark grey tones, creates a sense of energy that adds to the dynamism of this classic Toulouse-Lautrec painting.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s oil on canvas Nature morte, fleurs et fruits, estimated at £1.8–2.5 million, is a vivid depiction of gladioli and lilies bursting from their vase and surrounded by succulent fruit. The painting dates from the prime of Renoir’s career in the late 1880s and exemplifies the Impressionist techniques of rendering light and shadow that Renoir and Monet introduced at Impressionist group exhibitions in Paris. The distinctive majolica vase reappears in the artist’s celebrated painting Jeunes filles au piano of 1892 which is today in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The sale will also include a rare view of Constantinople by Paul Signac of 1907, a unique life-size stone carving by Barbara Hepworth and notable works by Joan Miró and René Magritte.

Picasso Drawings Valued at $9.8 Million and $14 Million Stolen from Paris Museum

2009-06-10T06:35:00.000-07:00

Picasso at the Grimaldi Museum. Photo: EFE.

PARIS.- (EFE) A sketchbook containing drawings by Spanish artist Pablo Picasso valued at between 7 million and 10 million euros ($9.8 million and $14 million) was stolen from the Picasso Museum in Paris, police told Efe Tuesday.

The sketchbook contains about 30 drawings and was stolen either on Monday or Tuesday, during which time the museum was closed to the general public, without any break-in being registered at the museum, which is located in a 17th century baroque palace, police said.

Museum workers discovered the theft when they were making an inventory.

The sketchbook was seen Monday in the glass case in which it is displayed but on Tuesday it was not there, police said.

The glass display case was locked but no specific tool was required to open it, the Culture Ministry said.

Beside the case where the sketchbook was are drawings done in lead pencil on paper by Picasso in two phases, between 1917 and 1918 and between 1923 and 1924, the Culture Ministry said.

The sketchbook contained 33 drawings collected in a 16x24 centimeter (6.3x9.5 inches) format and its cover has the inscription "Album" in gilded letters, the ministry said.

The museum was open on Tuesday in a special arrangement for residents of District 3 in Paris invited to the facility by its mayor.

The Picasso Museum is being remodeled and so the most important works housed there have been loaned to other institutions with the twofold aim of facilitating the refurbishing work and financing it.

This is the latest robbery of works by the Malaga-born painter and follows one in February 2007 when thieves removed from the Paris home of Diana Widmaier-Picasso, a granddaughter of the artist, two of his works valued at some 50 million euros ($70 million).

The paintings, "Maya and the Doll" and "Portrait of Jacqueline," were of a Picasso daughter and of his second and last wife, police said.

The painting of his daughter, Maya, was done in 1938 and shows the 3-year-old girl in a blue dress holding a doll. The only information released about the portrait of Jacqueline was the dimensions.

The paintings were stolen from the home of Picasso's granddaughter in the exclusive 7th arrondissement of Paris.

Marina Picasso, another of the painter's granddaughters, had 15 pictures stolen from her house at Cannes on Nov. 5, 1989, but the works were found four days later.

In January 2004, a Picasso still life was taken from the Georges Pompidou Museum in Paris, only to be found three months later.

But the most important theft in France goes back to 1976, when 118 Picasso works were stolen from the Avignon Museum.

Other robberies of Picasso artworks have occurred in Zurich, London and Rio de Janeiro in 1994, 1997 and 2006, respectively.

In the first, almost 20 canvases disappeared from an art gallery; in the second, a man made off with a "Head of a Woman" sculpture, which was later recovered; and in the third, four paintings were stolen. EFE

Saint Louis Art Museum Transforms Gallery into a Painting Conservation Lab for Exhibition

2009-06-10T06:29:00.000-07:00

François-André Vincent, French, 1746–1816; Arria and Poetus, 1784; oil on canvas; 39 3/4 x 48 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Funds given by Mr. and Mrs. John Peters MacCarthy, Director’s Discretionary Fund, funds given by Christian B. Peper, and gift of Mr. Horace Morison by exchange 27:2008

SAINT LOUIS, MO.- This summer, the Saint Louis Art Museum will transform one of its main level galleries into a painting conservation lab for Reviving Antiquity: Restoring Hubert Robert’s Views of Ancient Ruins.

Beginning June 10, Paintings Conservator Mark Bockrath of West Chester, Pa., will clean and restore three large 18th-century landscapes by the French painter Hubert Robert (1733–1808). The three paintings—The Obelisk, The Ruin and Fantastic View of Tivoli—are part of four landscapes commissioned during the 1780s by unknown Russian clients.

Museum visitors may recall that the group of four Robert paintings hung for many years in the corners of Grigg Gallery. Ever since the reinstallation of Grigg Gallery in 2006, the paintings have been in storage, awaiting conservation.

In 1996, Museum Paintings Conservator Paul Haner cleaned and inpainted one of the four (The Column). The Column is currently on loan to the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, where it is on view as part of the Pulitzer’s current exhibition, Ideal (Dis-) Placements: Old Masters at the Pulitzer.

Kustodiev Painting Sells for 2.8 Million Pounds, Almost Three Times its Low Estimate

2009-06-09T02:25:00.001-07:00

This evening’s top-selling lot was Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev’s (1878-1927) oil on canvas The Village Fair.

LONDON.- Tonight, Sotheby’s London biannual Russian Art Evening Auction achieved the solid total of £7,906,050 ($12,546,901), within its pre-sale auction estimate of £6,740,000-9,920,000, and was very well-attended. The sale was 63% sold by lot and 73.3% by value, and saw new auction records established for four Russian artists: Isaak Brodsky, Boris Kustodiev, Konstantin Kryzhitsky and Vladimir Lebedev.

Commenting on this evening’s sale, Jo Vickery, Senior Director and Head of the Russian Art Department in London, said: “Tonight’s sale was the first test of the Russian Art Market at Sotheby’s in London this year and we are extremely encouraged by the results established. The prices realised for the rediscovered painting by Brodsky and the work by Kustodiev, both of which set new auction records, demonstrate that the buyers and bidders in this adjusted market are prepared to compete hard for high-quality works that are fresh to the market and rare. This evening’s sale has provided us with valuable information about the Russian art scene in the recalibrated market and we very much look forward to the sales of Russian Art that follow at Sotheby’s this week.”

Auction Highlights:
This evening’s top-selling lot was Boris Mikhailovich Kustodiev’s (1878-1927) oil on canvas The Village Fair, signed and dated 1920. After several minutes of spirited bidding the painting sold for the extraordinary sum of £2,841,250 ($4,509,064) – almost three times the pre-sale estimate of £1-1.5 million – to a round of applause. The work, which had come from a private French collection, is typical of Kustodiev’s idyllic depictions of the Russian provinces and exemplary of the artist’s ability to convey the sounds as well as the sights of provincial Russia.

The recently rediscovered painting, Nanny with Children by acclaimed Russian artist Isaak Izrailevich Brodsky (1883-1939), dated 1912, was also highly sought-after and established a new record for the artist at auction. Four bidders competed for the painting for more than five minutes until it finally sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for the remarkable sum of £937,250 ($1,487,416), over three times its pre-sale low estimate (Est. £300,000-500,000). Nanny with Children, which has been considered lost for almost a century, came from a private collection in Italy where it had remained since the 1950s and is a superb example from one of the most important cycles in the artist’s pre-revolutionary oeuvre.

The third highest price achieved this evening was established for Nikolai Konstantinovich Roerich’s (1874-1947) The Treasure, which brought £702,050 ($1,114,153) - more than double its pre-sale low estimate. The work came from a private US collection and was estimated at £300,000-500,000.

A further auction record was established for the artist Konstantin Yakovlevich Kryzhitsky (1858-1911), when his oil on canvas Landscape commanded £289,250 ($459,040), over three times its pre-sale high estimate of £80,000 and a sum well in excess of the previous auction record for Kryzhitsky of £53,000. The painting, property from a private South American collection, depicts the Russian landscape and is an outstanding example of paintings in this genre that celebrate the epic dimensions and perception of Russia’s vast expanse.

The Colefax Collection brought a combined total of £374,500 ($594,332) and both Sergei Arsenevich Vinogradov’s Lady in an Interior and Mikhail Vasilievich Nesterov’s A Lonely Woman achieved prices in excess of their pre-sale high estimates: Lady in an Interior, which dates from 1924 and was one of the first paintings that Vinogradov executed in the flat he and his wife rented in Riga’s city centre, sold for £217,250 ($344,776), while Nesterov’s A Lonely Woman from 1922 realised £157,250 ($249,556).

Exhibition Captures the Dramatic Transformation of Paris During the Rise and Fall of Napoleon III

2009-06-09T02:20:00.000-07:00

Hippolyte-Auguste Collard (French, 1811–1887), The Hôtel de Ville, Paris, 1871. Albumen silver print from glass negative. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959 (59.600.59)

NEW YORK, NY.- During the reign of Emperor Napoleon III, the narrow streets and medieval buildings of Paris gave way to the broad boulevards and grand public works that still define the urban landscape of the French capital. Napoleon III and Paris, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from June 9 through September 7, 2009, portrays the quickly changing cityscape of Second Empire Paris through a presentation of 40 photographs and 13 works in other media, all drawn from the permanent collection. Spanning the period from 1851 to 1871, the installation begins with a photographic introduction to Napoleon III and his family, then traces the radical transformation of the city under the emperor and his master urban planner Baron Haussmann, and concludes with depictions of the ruins of Paris in the aftermath of the Commune. Many of the works in the installation are by the preeminent photographers of the period, including Gustave Le Gray, Charles Marville, Edouard Baldus, Louis-Émile Durandelle, Alphonse Liébert, and Pierre-Ambrose Richebourg.

"The period in which modern Paris took shape—the 1850s and 1860s—coincides with the high point of French photography," noted Malcolm Daniel, Curator in Charge of the Department of Photographs. "Many of the period's greatest photographers found their most compelling subject matter literally at their doorstep in the dramatic transformation of Paris."

The Imperial Family
The exhibition begins with an introduction to the Imperial family. Nephew of Napoleon I, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was elected president of the French Second Republic after the Revolution of 1848 and the abdication of King Louis-Philippe. In 1851, Louis-Napoleon staged a coup d'état and seized dictatorial powers; one year later, he dissolved the Republic and established the Second Empire, taking the title Emperor Napoleon III.

This first section of the exhibition includes portraits of Louis-Napoleon in 1852 and Empress Eugénie in 1855 by Gustave Le Gray—the central figure in French photography of the 1850s—and a touching and unique portrait of the empress and her six-year-old son by Benjamin Delessert from 1862. A sculpted bust of the emperor by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and a painting of the empress by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, also from the collection, are featured as well.

Napoleon III's ascension to power paralleled a dramatic flourishing of photography in France: the rise of paper photography over daguerreotypy; the development of new processes, including glass negatives; and the establishment of photographic societies, publications, and annual salons. Photographers also enjoyed direct encouragement from the emperor and his government in the form of commissions to record historic architecture and new construction, appointments as "official photographer" for the City of Paris or for specific public works, and purchases of photographs for imperial residences and municipal libraries.

Old Paris
Under Napoleon III and his prefect of the Seine, Baron Haussmann, Paris took the shape that is so familiar to us today. The grands boulevards, the limestone apartment buildings, and the public parks that form our image of Paris are largely the result of Napoleon III's rebuilding of the capital in the 1850s and 1860s. The modern city came at a cost, however; historic buildings and whole neighborhoods were razed to make way for broad thoroughfares and grand public works. This profound transformation of the landscape of Paris provided subject matter for many of the period's greatest photographers. Key among them was Charles Marville, official photographer to the City of Paris, who was commissioned to record the older areas of the capital that were slated for demolition. These photographs of a Paris that has long since disappeared are accompanied by contemporaneous etchings by Charles Meryon and Maxime Lalanne.

Napoleon III's Modern Paris
Although designed in part to ease military movement through the city and to prevent revolutionaries from barricading narrow streets, Napoleon III's urban plan was also geared toward making Paris a safer, healthier, and more modern city through the construction of new boulevards, bridges, hospitals, parks, waterworks, and sewers, and the installation of thousands of gas street lamps.

The desire of a ruler to leave his mark on the city played a role as well. The grandest of Napoleon III's building projects was the "New Louvre," designed to connect the Louvre and Tuileries Palaces. Edouard Baldus, the official photographer for the project, made thousands of photographs on site, ranging from documentation of every piece of ornamentation to large-format photographs of the completed pavilions. Assembled into lavish albums, Baldus's photographs of the project were presented by the emperor to the reigning sovereigns of Europe. This section of the installation also includes Louis-Émile Durandelle's photographs of the Paris Opera (1858–1875); views of the restoration of Notre Dame and the Tour Saint-Jacques; and images of industrial progress.

The Ruins of Paris
The Second Empire collapsed in 1870, after Napoleon III and his army suffered a swift defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. From March to May 1871 the Paris Commune, a newly established left-wing local government, battled National forces for control of the capital. A rare photograph by Pierre-Ambroise Richebourg in the exhibition shows a spy's-eye view of barricades erected in the streets of Paris during the Commune. However, the majority of the photographs in this section—by Alphonse Liebert, Charles Soulier, Franck, and others—depict the ruins of Paris in the months after the defeat of the Commune. Along with the destruction wrought by the battling forces in the environs of Paris, the capital itself suffered from self-inflicted wounds as Communards set fire to the Paris City Hall and the Tuileries Palace, among many other government buildings, and, in an act of anti-Bonapartist symbolism, pulled down the Vendôme Column with its crowning statue of the first Emperor Napoleon.

Napoleon III and Paris is organized by Malcolm Daniel.

Metropolitan Museum of Art to Show Michelangelo's First Painting, The Torment of Saint Anthony

2009-06-08T01:59:00.001-07:00

Left: Infrared reflectogram mosaic of Michelangelo, The Torment of Saint Anthony, c. 1487–88. Oil and tempera on panel, 18 1/2 x 13 1/4 in. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Photograph courtesy of the Paintings Conservation Department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Right: X-radiograph of Michelangelo, The Torment of Saint Anthony, c. 1487–88. Oil and tempera on panel, 18 1/2 x 13 1/4 in. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. Photograph courtesy of the Paintings Conservation Department, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

NEW YORK, NY.- Michelangelo's First Painting, a special exhibition beginning June 16 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, will present The Torment of Saint Anthony, the first known painting by Michelangelo Buonarroti (Florence 1475- Rome 1564), believed to have been created when he was 12 or 13 years old. Recently acquired by the Kimbell Art Museum, the painting has undergone conservation and technical examination at the Metropolitan Museum. Michelangelo's First Painting will run through September 7, after which the panel will return to the Kimbell Art Museum for display as part of its permanent collection.

Today, many people think of Michelangelo as a sculptor, but he received his early training as a painter, in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449-1494), a leading master in Florence. It was only in about 1490, following this apprenticeship, that he learned to carve marble. Michelangelo's biographers – Giorgio Vasari (1511- 1574) and Ascanio Condivi (1525-1574) – tell us that, aside from some drawings, his first work was a painted copy after a well-known engraving by Martin Schongauer (1448-1491) showing Saint Anthony tormented by demons. To give his monsters greater veracity, Michelangelo went to the fish market to study the colors and scales of the fish. Made about 1487-88 under the guidance of his friend and fellow pupil Francesco Granacci, Michelangelo's painting was much admired – it was even said to have incited Ghirlandaio's envy.

Keith Christiansen, the Jayne Wrightsman Curator of European Paintings at the Metropolitan Museum, who analyzed The Torment of Saint Anthony and organized this exhibition, concludes: "The case for this panel being the one described by Condivi is exceptionally strong . . . and given what we know, the burden of proof that it is NOT the picture described by Condivi is with those who would deny it."

Michelangelo's First Painting will showcase recent technical examinations and scholarly analyses that identify it as the painting described by Michelangelo's biographers. Though it has been known to scholars since the 1830s, when it was purchased in Pisa by a French sculptor, it has not always received proper attention. Accumulations of discolored varnish and disfiguring overpaints had obscured the qualities of the picture's masterful execution and remarkable color palette. A careful cleaning, carried out by Michael Gallagher, the Metropolitan Museum's Conservator in Charge of Paintings Conservation, transformed the painting, while infrared reflectography revealed how the artist modified and elaborated on Schongauer's composition.

In addition to The Torment of Saint Anthony, this small, focused exhibition will include works from the Metropolitan Museum's collection such as Madonna and Child and Triptych with the Crucifixion by Francesco Granacci (1469-1543); and Portrait of Michelangelo by Daniele da Volterra (1509-1566), a faithful follower of the master. Also on view will be a facsimile of the aforementioned Schongauer engraving, Saint Anthony Tormented by Demons.

The Torment of Saint Anthony is the first painting by Michelangelo Buonarroti to enter an American collection, and one of only four known easel paintings generally believed to be by him. The others are the Doni Tondo in Florence's Uffizi Gallery and two unfinished paintings in London's National Gallery, The Manchester Madonna and The Entombment.

Sorolla's Recently Re-discovered Painting Leads Sotheby's 19th Century European Paintings Sale

2009-06-08T01:28:00.000-07:00

Joaquín Sorolla, Niña entrando en el baño (The Bathing Hour), 86 by 106 cm. Sold for: £1,665,250. Photo: Sotheby's.

LONDON.- Sotheby's sale of 19th Century European Paintings at Sotheby’s in London (featuring German, Austrian and Central European Paintings, The Orientalist Sale, Spanish Paintings and The Scandinavian Sale) realised a strong total of £8,382,550 / €9,688,559 against a pre-sale estimate of £6,480,000-9,572,000. The sale was 75% sold-by-lot and 89% sold-by-value.

Highlights of the sale were:

The German, Austrian and Central European Paintings, which performed exceptionally well, realising a combined total of £2.8 million, well in excess of the group’s pre-sale high estimate. The 45 lots were 87% sold-by-lot and 97% sold-by-value and Albin Egger-Lienz’s rare and important re-discovered Die Lebensalter (The Ages of Life) was the top lot of the group when it was sold to an Austrian private collector for £361,250.

Joaquin Sorolla’s recently re-discovered Nina Entrando en el Bano (The Bathing Hour) spearheaded the Spanish works on offer and was also the top-selling lot of the day; it sold to a US private collector for £1,665,250, one of the highest prices achieved for a work by the Spanish artist at auction in recent years.

A group of five works by the Danish artist Vilhelm Hammershøi was the undoubted highlight of the Scandinavian offerings and it brought a collective total of £297,650, a figure comfortably over the pre-sale low estimate for the group of £245,000. The Scandinavian section of the sale totalled £1,093,850 and was 83% sold-by-lot and 94% sold-by-value.

Adrian Biddell, Head of 19th Century European Pictures at Sotheby’s London, and Claude Piening, Senior Director in 19th Century European Pictures at Sotheby’s, commented after the sale: “We were delighted that we were able to source some first-class property for this sale by leading names in the various regional European markets and that a large proportion of the sale was from private collections. What we saw today is that the desire for exceptional art remains as strong as ever. Competition for works of all levels and from all schools was extremely healthy, resulting in a very solid sold-by-lot rate of 75% - one of our highest sold-by-lot rates for many years. Dealers as well as private collectors were out in force today and were keen to secure the rare opportunities on offer, attracted by the strength of the Euro. These results give us many positive messages on all levels, and they once again re-affirm our belief that focusing on local markets across Europe and selling internationally is a proven and successful strategy.”

Whitfield Fine Art exhibits Renaissance Masterpieces

2009-06-06T02:12:00.001-07:00

LONDON: Whitfield Fine Art announces a major exhibition featuring three Florentine Renaissance Masterpieces dating from the second decade on the 16th century.

The exhibition has an exceptional group of paintings from the Florentine High Renaissance, one of the most creative moments in the Italian art history and one which had an impact far afield.

The leading highlight will be the comparison between three newly cleaned masterpieces by Andrea Del Sarto and his pupils Jacopo Pontormo and Rosso Fiorentino painted within a few years of each other.

The Andrea Del Sarto “Madonna and Child with St. John” was rediscovered ten years ago, but only in late 2008 was it cleaned and parts of the painting revealed to be completely overpainted in the 18th or 19th century. It has now has it been fully restored, revealed to be in excellent condition and infrared reflectograms have uncovered fascinating underdrawing present on the panel under the paint surface.

Painted around the same time, Jacopo Pontormo’s “Holy Family with St John”, was painted as he was in Andrea del Sarto’s studio but as he was beginning to take his first commissions as an artist in his own right. Inspired directly by Andrea del Sarto’s early work of 1513, this panel has been cleaned especially for this exhibition.

We shall be showing two other works by pupils of Andrea del Sarto. The first is by Rosso Fiorentino - so named for his red hair - who also painted the most entrancing Madonnas, and it is fascinating to have his “Holy Family with Saints Joseph, Anne and John the Baptist” as a foil to the Del Sarto and Pontormo, all probably painted within a few years of each other.

The exhibition also features works by Simon Vouet, Anthony Van Dyck, Correggio and Parmigianino.

Old Master in a Modern Light. 22 June -17 July 2009. Whitfield Fine Art, 23 Dering Street, London W1S 1AW T:+44 20 7355 0040 whitfieldfineart.com

Old Masters and 19th Century Art Sale Realizes $6.4 Million at Christie's N.Y.

2009-06-05T01:49:00.000-07:00

James Jacques Joseph Tissot (Nantes 1836-1902 Doubs), The Japanese Scroll, signed 'J. J. Tissot.' (lower right), oil on panel, 15¼ x 22½ in. (38.7 x 57.2 cm.). Image C. Christie's Images Ltd. 2009.

NEW YORK.- The Old Masters and 19th Century Art sale realized $6,486,150/ £4,053,843/ €4,632,964 at Christie’s and was 86% sold by value and 72% sold by lot.

The top price of $722,500/£451,562/ €516,071 was achieved for two works: The Japanese Scroll by James Jacques Joseph Tissot (1836-1902) and La Leçon Difficile by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905).

Ben Hall, Head of Department, and James Hastie, Specialist, Old Masters and 19th Century Art, comment: “As the inaugural sale for the newly amalgamated Old Masters and 19th Century Art Department, today’s results present a solid first step for our new sales strategy. We witnessed cross-over buying between clients of Old Masters and 19th Century art which yielded very encouraging sell-through rates of 72% by lot and 86% by value. American, British and French buyers were particularly active, and we were delighted to welcome a number of new collectors into this broader collecting field. Among the top results, we are especially pleased with Le Miroir de Scey-en-Varais by Gustave Courbet, and A gentleman in his study, attributed to the Circle of Quentin Massys, both of which soared beyond their pre-sale estimates. We now look forward to our London sale in July and our flagship New York sale in January.”

Getty Museum Displays Two Exceptional Rembrandt Loans

2009-06-04T03:00:00.001-07:00

Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669) and School of Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn (Dutch, 1606-1669), Saint Bavo, about 1662-1665. Oil on canvas. Framed: 138 X 119 X 10 cm. L.2008.46. Goteborgs Konstmuseum, Goteborg, Sweden, 698

LOS ANGELES, CA.- The J. Paul Getty Museum has put on view this week Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn’s Saint Bavo in its East Pavilion paintings galleries at the Getty Center . The work, on loan from the Göteborgs Konstmuseum in Sweden , will be the first time it has been publicly displayed since its restoration at the Getty.

Saint Bavo, which will be on view until November 29th, will be placed near the Getty’s own Rembrandt painting of St. Bartholomew. Both paintings were last seen together in the Getty’s 2005 Rembrandt’s Late Religious Portraits exhibition, which included many of the powerful religious portraits that Rembrandt created toward the end of his life during a time of personal turmoil.

Painted between 1662 and 1665, Saint Bavo shows a bearded, middle-aged man who wears a red beret with a white ostrich feather and holds a falcon on his left hand. He stares into the distance with an abstract and vaguely melancholy expression which is characteristic of Rembrandt’s approach to the evocative portrayal of religious figures in the later phase of his career. Many of Rembrandt’s saints and apostles during this period, such as the Getty’s St. Bartholomew (1661), include attributes from the medieval Catholic tradition, but are otherwise unrecognizable as holy figures. Although some scholars have disputed the identity of the subject in this painting, a number of attributes, such as the falcon and the plumed hat, support his identification as the medieval Dutch nobleman Bavo who converted to Christianity.

When the painting first arrived at the Getty in October 2008, it was covered with heavy layers of varnish and broad re-paints that partially obscured the artist’s descriptive brushwork and details of the saint’s costume. Mark Leonard, senior conservator in the Getty Museum’s Paintings Conservation Department, spent several months cleaning the painting and removing the old varnish and overpaints, eventually revealing the textured brushwork of the subject’s face and clothing and the falcon he holds, as well as making more visible the horse and young page boy that were previously difficult to read in the painting’s dark background.

Also on loan to the Getty Museum from a private collector is Rembrandt’s little-known Portrait of a Rabbi, painted about 1640-45. This painting will be displayed in the same gallery as Saint Bavo until March 2010. Throughout his career, Rembrandt painted and drew numerous contemplative elderly male subjects. In Portrait of a Rabbi, the rabbi’s chest and face is illuminated by a strong light, which is energetically modeled with expressive, textured brushstrokes. In contrast, the heavy folds of his gown and soft material of his hat are more loosely executed. Rembrandt was sensitive to Jewish tradition, and he sought to capture its character through the representation of physical appearance and an internal spirituality.

Duchamp, Miró, Marc, Monet and Picasso Highlight Christie's Auction of Impressionist and Modern Art

2009-06-03T04:23:00.001-07:00

Pablo Picasso, Homme à l'épée. Signed "Picasso" (not signed in the reproduction but at a later date). Oil on canvas, 162 x 130 cm. (63 3/4 x 51 1/4 in.). Painted on July 26th 1969. Estimate: £5 million to £7 million.

LONDON.- The Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale will take place at Christie’s on 23 June and will offer 46 works of art, including exceptional museum-quality masterpieces by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Franz Marc, Joan Miró, Camille Pissarro and Marcel Duchamp. The auction is expected to realise in excess of £40 million and will be on public view at Christie’s in London from 18 to 23 June 2009.

Leading highlights include:

Au Parc Monceau, 1878, by Claude Monet (1840-1926), an important painting from the vintage years of Impressionism which is expected to realise £3.5 million to £4.5 million.

Springende Pferde, 1910, by Franz Marc (1880-1916), an exciting breakthrough painting in which the artist embraces the influences of the avant gardes of the period, and which is offered at auction for the first time (estimate: £3 million to £4 million).

Deux nus: un fort et un vite, 1912, by Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) one of very few important drawings by the artist to remain in private hands (estimate: £800,000 to £1,200,000).

Two large, bold works from the 1960s by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973); Homme à l'épée, 1969, which carries an estimate of £5 million to £7 million, and Nu assis et joueur de flûte, 1967, which is expected to realise £3 million to £4 million.

Painting, 1949, by Joan Miró (1893-1983), one of an outstanding group of pictures described as being among the most important of the artist’s career which is expected to realise £2.2 million to £2.8 million.

Giovanna Bertazzoni, Director and Head of Impressionist and Modern Art, Christie’s London: “Impressionist and Modern art continues to attract global interest as illustrated by the strong results at our recent auctions in London in February and in New York in May. Collectors continue to show a great appetite for important works of art that are in good condition, fresh to the market and which are priced at the right level. In London this June, we will offer a selection of rare works most of which will present a rare opportunity to collectors, and many of which were created at formative moments in the careers of many of the 20th century’s most important artists. Leading highlights include masterpieces by Franz Marc and Pierre Bonnard which will be both offered at auction for the first time, one of the only important early drawings by Marcel Duchamp to remain in private hands and important works by Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro.”

Tate Britain Shows First Survey in London for Eighteen Years of the Work of Richard Long

2009-06-03T04:14:00.000-07:00

Richard Long, A Line in Scotland 1981© Copyright the artist.

LONDON.- Heaven and Earth is a major exhibition of the work of Richard Long and his first survey in London for eighteen years. The exhibition will include important works selected across four decades and will provide an opportunity to understand afresh Long’s radical rethinking of the relationship between art and landscape. Comprising around 80 works, Heaven and Earth will include sculptures, new large-scale wall works, and photographic and text works documenting walks around the world, from Dartmoor to Japan.

Richard Long first came to prominence in the late 1960s and is part of a generation of British artists who extended the possibilities of sculpture beyond traditional materials and methods. Long’s work is rooted in his deep affinity with nature, developed during solitary walks. Long revolutionised the definition of sculpture by using walking as a medium. These walks take him through rural areas in Britain, or as far a field as the plains of Canada, Mongolia and Bolivia. Long never makes significant alterations to the landscapes he passes through. Instead he adjusts the natural order of wilderness places, up-ending stones for example, or making simple, geometric shapes. His work explores relationships between time, distance, geography, measurement and movement.

Heaven and Earth will reflect the distinctive themes and interests in his work; sculptures of stones, watery mud works, and photographic and text works which record walks in global locations, or from a local area of life-long interest like Dartmoor. Long presents his work in various forms, which include artists’ books and postcards, all of which are ascribed equal value. The exhibition will include key early works such as A Line Made by Walking, England 1967, made in a field where the artist walked back and forth until the flattened grass caught by the sunlight became visible as a line, a path going ‘nowhere’. Long then photographed this work, as he has continued to record similar works in the landscape.

Mostly working in the landscape, Richard Long sometimes brings materials into the gallery. Four of Long’s dramatic mud works, which represent the forces of speed, water, chance and gravity will be made directly on to the walls for the show. The large central gallery of the exhibition will be devoted to six major stone sculptures. Norfolk Flint Circle 1990 is an eight metre sculpture consisting of a single layer of flints lying close together on the floor. In the gallery, as on his walks, Long lays the stones in simple geometric configurations such as circles, lines, and ellipses. The exhibition will also include early examples of remote stone sculptures such as the first stone circle made while walking in the Andes in 1972.

Richard Long was born in Bristol in 1945 where he continues to live and work. Long has exhibited widely since his first solo show at the Konrad Fischer Gallery in Düsseldorf in 1968. He represented Britain in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1976 and was awarded the Turner Prize in 1989. In 1990 he became a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Heaven and Earth is curated by Clarrie Wallis, Curator of Contemporary Art, Tate Britain, assisted by Helen Little, Assistant Curator, Tate Britain. A fully illustrated publication produced by Tate Publishing will accompany the exhibition and will include previously unseen works.

Carla Bruni Photograph Taken by Pamela Hanson to be Sold at Villa Grisebach Auktionen

2009-06-01T02:28:00.001-07:00

Pamela Hanson, Carla Bruni in Bed, 1994. Silbergelatineabzug, 2008. 38.9 x 58.1 cm.

BERLIN.- This year’s spring auctions at Villa Grisebach Auktionen in Berlin start off on June 4, 2009 with the sale of Modern and Contemporary photography including a copy of only ten numbered that exist of the image of the French First Lady taken by U.S. photographer Pamela Hanson

Also, among the 190 lots for sale, are a convolute of around two dozens photographs and two original glass negatives depicting the work of the German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. The top lots in this segment include Curt Rehbein’s vintage prints from 1922 depicting Mies van der Rohe’s famous model for a glass skyscraper (estimate of 10,000-15,000 EUR) as well as the architect’s project for the “Tower house at Friedrichstraße” (estimate of 5,000-10,000 EUR).

On the occasion of the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of the Bauhaus, Grisebach furthermore offers a collection of selected photographic works by various Bauhaus artists. Featured here are namely the experimental portraits by Kurt Kranz (estimate of 8,000-10,000 EUR) and Hajo Rose (estimate of 3,500-4,000 EUR), Werner David Feist’s “electronic still life” (estimate of 4,000-6,000 EUR) as well as images showing the Bauhaus in Dessau during its construction taken by Lucia Moholy (estimate of 1,800-2,200 EUR). Additional architectural photographic highlights in this segment are by Kurt Kranz, Bernhard Pankok, the Atelier de Sandalo, and Iwao Yamawaki.

Within the segment of Modern photography, Grisebach presents a few exceptional and rare prints such as Martin Munkácsi’s photograph from circa 1932 depicting himself in one of the windows of the Zeppelin LZ 127 (estimate of 18,000-24,000 EUR), Erwin Blumenfeld’s inimitably personal view of the cabaret artist Valeska Gert (estimate of 8,000-10,000 EUR), two unique and original photograms by Christian Schad (estimated each with 5,000-7,000 EUR), a vintage print from Herbert List’s metaphysical-surreal “The Spirit of Lycabettos” (estimate of 5,000-7,000 EUR), and an early print of the famous 1953 photograph of Marilyn Monroe by Alfred Eisenstaedt (estimate of 8,000-10,000 EUR).

Further highlights featured in Grisebach’s photography auction are amongst others the rare portfolio Portraits by American photographer Arnold Newman estimated with 15,000-20,000 EUR, Irving Penn’s New Guinea Man and Sitting Woman (estimate of 10,000-15,000 EUR), and a version of the Odalisque by Horst P. Horst in a later platinum-palladium print. Contemporary works presented in the sale include a diptych entitled Portrait of a Girl 1+2 by Loretta Lux (estimate of 12,000-15,000 EUR) as well as photographs by artists such as Roger Ballen, Elger Esser, Axel Hütte, Helmut Newton, Bettina Rheims, Sebastiao Salgado, Frank Thiel.

The Dallas Museum of Art Presents a New Way for Visitors to Experience the Museum's Collections

2009-06-01T02:00:00.000-07:00

Claude Monet (French, 1840–1926), The Seine at Lavacourt, 1880. Oil on canvas 38 3/4 x 58 3/4 in. (98.4 x 149.2 cm) Munger Fund, 1938.4.M. Monet executed The Seine at Lavacourt while living in Vétheuil, outside Paris, during the 1880s.

DALLAS, TX.- This summer, the Dallas Museum of Art rolls out the red carpet to present the Summer Spotlight tour, inviting visitors to experience the romance, drama, action, and mystery of great works of art as they view them through a cinematic lens. Beginning in June and running through August, the Museum will highlight 30 of its masterworks, both old favorites in the collections and new acquisitions, to encourage viewers to look at great art in an exciting and different way.

In addition, Summer Spotlight will offer a multitude of special family-friendly programming, including the launch of the Late Night Friday Summer Block Party and special film screenings. Also premiering this summer is the DMA’s Wi-Fi enabled tours enhanced with video clips, audio excerpts, images, and more. Visitors can use their own Wi-Fi enabled phone or media player to access this material or borrow one at the Visitor Services Desk. The Museum will also provide its guests with a special gallery map to the “DMA Stars” featured in the program.

“We are excited about Summer Spotlight and the opportunities it offers for our visitors to connect with great works of art in a new way and to participate in a vast array of programs focused on art and the movies,” said Bonnie Pitman, The Eugene McDermott Director of the Dallas Museum of Art.

The Summer Spotlight masterworks, encompassing all time periods and cultures and a broad range of media, are separated into four popular movie genres – Love and Romance, Action and Adventure, Drama, and Horror, Mystery and Suspense – and can be found on Levels 2, 3 and 4 of the Museum. With help from the Dallas Film Society, these works are spotlighted and feature special labels whose text encourages the visitor to think about the relationship of the artwork to the cinema.

For example, to illustrate Action and Adventure, the DMA places its favorite superhero, Vishnu as Varaha, “center stage” in the Asian Art gallery. Like Superman, the 10th-century Indian god Vishnu takes on a special form in times of great need. In the sculpture, he becomes a boar called Varaha, who saves the beautiful earth goddess Prithvi. While looking at the work, the DMA suggests visitors make their own “Movie Connection” and think of other movies with superheroes, such as Superman and The Neverending Story.

Love and Romance are easy to see in the works by 18th-century American portraitist John Singleton Copley titled Woodbury Langdon and Sarah Sherburne Langdon. Sarah Sherburne was 16 years old when she married Woodbury Langdon in 1765 and these portraits capture the young couple as they wanted to be remembered: powerful, stylish, and affluent. Here, visitors can make a “Movie Connection” by remembering such popular films as When Harry Met Sally and Love Story.

And for Horror, there’s Hitchcock. The DMA’s painting of Lighthouse Hill by Edward Hopper is known to have inspired several of the eerie scenes in the horror master’s films. Hopper created sketches for this painting during the summer of 1927 in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, emphasizing the overwhelming stillness of the scene. Make a “Movie Connection” to a scary place and check out Vertigo and Psycho.

Take in some drama at the DMA with a classic, The Icebergs by Frederic Edwin Church. This larger- than-life oil painting is one of the DMA’s and Church’s finest works and easily brings back memories of the dramatic story of the Titanic. Make a “Movie Connection” and try to recall another favorite film where Mother Nature was the villain, such as The Perfect Storm.

Additional DMA favorites featured in the Summer Spotlight experience are Apollo and Diana Attacking the Children of Niobe by Jacques-Louis David, Portrait and a Dream and Cathedral by Jackson Pollock, Thomas Sully’s Cinderella by the Kitchen Fire, jaraik figures from Indonesia, the rain god Tlaloc from Mexico, and Kneeling female figure with bowl (olumeye) by sculptor Olowe of Ise of Nigeria.

Christie's New York Latin American Art Evening Sale Realizes $11 Million Tonight

2009-05-29T03:44:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK, NY - Christie's highly anticipated Latin American Sale totaled $11,004,350, led by strong results for Mario Carreño, Leonora Carrington, and Diego Rivera. Five new world auction records were achieved for artists Leonora Carrington, René Portocarrero, Helio Oiticica, Roberto Aizenberg, and Lygia Pape. The sale was 68% sold by lot and 77% by value. Icons of Latin American modernism led the sale tonight with strong results for the top three lots, all of which date from the 1940s. We are particularly excited about the long overdue recognition and important world auction record for Leonora Carrington, whose work surpassed the $1million dollar mark, and for the spectacular price realized for the rediscovered masterpiece Fuego en el batey by the Cuban master Mario Carreño, which became the second highest auction price achieved for the artist. In addition, a new record was set for a self-portrait by Diego Rivera,” said Virgilio Garza, Head of Latin American Art at Christie’s.

One of the finest examples by Leonora Carrington, The Giantess, also known as The Guardian of the Egg, painted circa 1947, set a new artist record at $1,482,500, doubling her previous record for Juggler, el juglar, 1954, which sold for $713,000 at Christie’s in May 2008. In this surrealist seascape, a towering Giantess allegorically commands the flora and fauna of the earth, sea and sky. The Giantess embodies Carrington's fascination with mystical femininity and the enchantments of the cosmic world. Between her palms she clasps a mysterious black egg, a symbol the artist frequently includes in her work.

Exceptional results were achieved for four major works from the Collection of the late Milton and Nona Ward of New York. The lead lot of the group was Mario Carreño’s Fuego en el batey (Fire in the farm) from 1943, which sold for $2,188,100. The painting was widely regarded as a lost masterpiece of Cuban modernism until it was recently rediscovered in the couple’s private collection, where it had been for over 50 years. Known to scholars and collectors, but never published in color, Fuego en el batey achieved an iconic stature over time as a key missing link in the scholarship of one of Cuba’s most accomplished artists. Fuego en el batey is one of the three masterpieces from a brief series of paintings in Duco that he painted in Cuba in 1943.

Among the other major works in the Ward collection were two other previously unpublished and unknown works by Carreño and his contemporary René Portocarrero. Untitled (Woman with Flowers) from 1945, sold for $60,000, and Untitled, a portrayal of a trio of masked musicians from 1938, realized $146,500, well above its pre-sale estimate. René Portocarrero’s Untitled (Woman with Umbrella), achieved $52,500, a new world auction record for a work on paper by the artist. Total sales achieved for the collection were $2,447,100.

A self-portrait by Diego Rivera, commissioned by Sigmund Firestone achieved $1,022,500. Firestone was an American engineer and art collector from Rochester, New York, who met Rivera and Frida Kahlo on a business trip to Mexico in 1939, and subsequently maintained a friendship and correspondence with the artists, commissioning self-portraits from each. The painting was sold along with 14 letters exchanged between Rivera, Kahlo and Firestone during their years of friendship. In one letter, Kahlo affectionately signed the letter with magenta-pink kisses, one for “Sigy” and one each for his daughters, Alberta and Natalie.

Additional strong results were achieved for Brazilian artists, with two new world auction records achieved for Helio Oiticica and Lygia Pape. Oiticica’s abstract grid painting Metasquema 19, painted in 1957-58, set a record at $186,500; Lygia Pape’s Untitled (Grupo Frente), a wood relief from 1954 set a record at $86,500. Earlier in the sale, Emiliano di Cavalcanti’s Baianas, 1959, drew $56,250, Candido Portinari’s Menino sentado, 1945, sold for $218,500, and the final lot of the sale, Adriana Varejão’s Azulejaria de cozinha com peixes (Kitchen tiles with Fish), 1995, achieved $146,500. Argentinian artist Roberto Aizenberg’s Pintura, painted in 1988-1989, also set an auction record at $146,500. The Latin American Sale will continue tomorrow at 10am.

From Raphael to Carracci: The Art of Papal Rome Opens at the National Gallery of Canada

2009-05-29T02:12:00.001-07:00

Carlo Saraceni (c. 1580–1620), Venus and Mars, c. 1600, Oil on copper, Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, on loan at the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid.

OTTAWA.- The power, politics and drama that surrounded papal patronage in 16th-century Rome will be revealed in a magnificent new exhibition opening at the National Gallery of Canada (NGC) on May 29. From Raphael to Carracci: The Art of Papal Rome represents an unprecedented survey of art in this period. Presented by Sun Life Financial, it will be on view until September 7, 2009.

This large international loan exhibition brings together over 150 exceptional paintings and drawings for the first time by celebrated artists such as Michelangelo, Titian, El Greco, Vasari, Barocci and Annibale Carracci. In addition, pieces by lesser known, but nonetheless superb artists are also included. They too played a significant role in the evolution of Renaissance Rome but have only recently been acknowledged and appreciated for their skill and relevance to art history during this period. Together they illustrate how papal patronage, which was driven by unrivalled ambition and the need to propagate their own belief system, gave rise to one of the richest periods in art history and the lasting legacy of some of the greatest artists in the world.

“An exhibition of this exceptional nature could not have been realized without the generosity and vision of institutional and individual lenders,” said NGC Director, Marc Mayer. “The vast majority of these works have been generously loaned to us by prestigious arts institutions and individual collectors throughout Europe and North America. Given their rarity, the Gallery is privileged to be the sole venue for this exhibition.”

Papal patronage raises Rome to an unrivalled cultural capital - Organized chronologically pope by pope, the exhibition commences with Julius II in 1503 and concludes with Clement VIII in 1606. Through their enlightened patronage they transformed Rome from a banal backwater to the most important and influential centre of the Renaissance and the unrivalled cultural capital of the western world for over three centuries. By the same token, it shows Rome as an unpredictable European centre, deeply affected by the dramatically shifting tides of this patronage and the tensions created between the temporal and spiritual worlds.

“Even more than Michelangelo, Raphael exemplifies a new type of artist that developed Rome in this period,” said NGC Deputy Director and exhibition curator, David Franklin. “However, another purpose of this exhibition is to present Raphael’s ideal and elegant style as a source of inspiration to his many talented followers, as well as to portray him as a liberated master who gave birth to a seemingly endless variety of artistic forms. By concluding with the works of Annibale Carracci, we intend to examine more broadly the transitions of style known as High Renaissance, Mannerism and the Early Baroque, and indeed to question the relevance of these terminologies.”

The NGC acknowledges with gratitude the generosity of the presenting sponsor, Sun Life Financial, for their support of From Raphael to Carracci: The Art of Papal Rome. Sun Life, a long-standing partner of the National Gallery, has sponsored three major exhibitions since 2006.

“Thanks to the National Gallery of Canada, we now have a rare opportunity to see an extraordinary collection of timeless masterpieces by some of the greatest artists of the 16th-century,” said Sun Life Financial Chief Executive Officer, Donald A. Stewart. “As presenting sponsor of this exhibit and a long-standing supporter of the arts in Canada, Sun Life Financial is pleased to help the National Gallery provide Canadians of all ages a glimpse into the fascinating world and art of Papal Rome.”

Strengthening the Gallery’s European Collections - From Raphael to Carracci: The Art of Papal Rome is also a testament to the increasing strength of the National Gallery’s own collection of European art as this exhibition will feature 25 of its own pieces. These include a number of recent acquisitions, such as the remarkable work by Francesco Salviati Virgin and Child with Angel that was purchased in 2005 through the support of the NGC Volunteers Circle and the patrons of the NGC Foundation. Also displayed will be an oil sketch by Cristoforo Roncalli for his Saint Peter’s altarpiece entitled Death of Sapphira – a subject famously treated by Raphael.

From Raphael to Carracci: The Art of Papal Rome is designed as a sequel to the NGC’s exhibition entitled Renaissance Florence shown in Ottawa in 2005. The organizing committee, led by David Franklin, also includes distinguished art historians, including Rhoda Eitel-Porter of the Morgan Library & Museum, Sebastian Schütze of Queen’s University and Louis A. Waldman from the University of Texas.

The National Gallery of Canada extends special thanks to its partners - The National Gallery of Canada praises its partners for their support: Alenia North America, for the restoration of the St-Julian Hospitaller painting, featured in this exhibition; the Italian Embassy and the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Canada for the presentation of a private baroque concert from the Accademia Barocca di Santa Cecilia di Roma; the Canada Travelling Exhibition Indemnification Program through the Department of Canadian Heritage, as well as its media partners, la Télévision de Radio-Canada, CBC Television, The Ottawa Citizen and Le Droit.

Monumental Horses “Indoor, Outdoor, Next Door” Take Center Stage in Sedona AZ

2009-05-27T04:32:00.000-07:00

SEDONA, AZ - June’s “1^st Friday Gallery Tour” event in Sedona will feature a special joint celebration at Lanning Gallery and Turquoise Tortoise Gallery right in the heart of the Gallery District, a reception that is planned to spill outdoors, indoors and next door as the sister galleries welcome three artists to town. On June 5^th, from 5-8 p.m., visitors will have the rare pleasure to meet Dixie Jewett who welds the monumental horses that are so eye-catching outside Hozho Center. Jewett is a rare breed of artist; once an Alaskan bush pilot she combines her mechanical skills of building and welding with an impeccable eye for artistic detail and the conformation of horses.

Myriad found objects are joined into Jewett’s magnificent steeds; with a strong steel framework she welds everything from auto parts to farm equipment, washing machine parts to steel bumpers into horses that can measure twelve feet high. The joy of Jewett’s horses is not only how realistic and alive with character each one is, but also how much fun it is to identify and relate to all the little bits.

Inside Lanning Gallery artist Jonathan Howard will also be on hand to greet visitors and answer questions about his paintings of urban scenes. Howard is an emerging artist with a singular style of existentialist surrealism that is capturing serious attention. His canvases are acrylic based, often with subtly layered elements of collage. “Cities, towns, and buildings are a telling extension [of ourselves], perhaps a portrait of humanity,” Howard has said. “You can see the good, bad, hopes, dreams, nightmares and ambitions of mankind through examining our urban footprint on the planet.”

Next door, at Turquoise Tortoise Gallery, artist William Spencer III, who is new to the gallery, will showcase his bright, warm and compelling paintings that combine organic tendrils and abstracted shapes with representational elements from cacti to horsemen. Most of the artist’s work is produced in acrylic, oil and resin silkscreen on plaster and panel. For Spencer, the meaning of each piece arises as much from within those who collect his works as from his own subconscious.

Reina Sofia Museum Rearranges its Collection and Shows it in a Different Way

2009-05-27T01:54:00.000-07:00

Picasso’s 'Woman with flower vase', in its new location at the Museo Reina Sofía, where today, the collection was presented in a new order. Photo: EFE/J.J. Guillén.

MADRID.- “The story we propose is more like The Thousand and One Nights than War and Peace”. With this graphic example the head of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia referred to the reorganization of the museum’s collection which will open to the public today, including free entry from Friday through Sunday. One and a half years after starting his job at the museum of contemporary art, Manuel Borja-Villel, has made a complete turn around and now the museum’s collection shows modern art in a new way and starts off with works made by There will no longer be a linear exhibition of works of art, by date, creator and theme, but what there will be is a scheme where relations and connections will allow us to see movies made by Buster Keaton and Luis Buñuel together with the works made by Goya, Solana and Picasso and also African art, which so inspired the artist from Malaga.

“Active spectators” are required for this new Reina Sofia, willing to arrive at their own conclusions and to get closer to art by proposals in the historic context, wider and denser.

Photography, cinema, posters and installations are shown equally with paintings and sculptures and as essential to the modernity which they layed the foundations for.

Visitors are invited to “navigate” with the help of new electronic signs and to be the protagonists of an adventure that demands walking through 8,000 square meters that the new collections takes up. It is distributed throughout the four floors of the Sabatini building and the two that were recently remodeled by Jean Nouvel. More than 1,000 works of art, from the 17,290, that the museum owns, are shown. These have been distributed in 38 halls and of these 1,000 works, 400 had been stored in a warehouse, with 137 totally new works that were recently acquired. On view are: 265 paintings, 90 sculptures, 230 works on paper, 299 photographs, 12 installations and 50 audiovisuals.

The undisputed icon continues to be Guernica, by Picasso, which has substantially improved its exhibition conditions. There are also works on loan from the Lorca Foundation –several drawings by the poet- and from the National Library and the Prado.

2009-05-27T01:50:00.000-07:00

The White Boat, Jávea. Oil on canvas, 105 x 150 cm., 1905. Private collection.

MADRID.- This May, the Museo del Prado is presenting the largest and most important retrospective ever to be devoted to the work of Joaquín Sorolla, the most internationally celebrated Spanish painter of the XIX century. The exhibition includes more than 100 paintings by the artist and will offer a comprehensive overview of his finest works, among them all of his great masterpieces. They include the group of panels entitled Visions of Spain, painted for the Hispanic Society of America and brought to Spain by Bancaja in 2007. This exceptional exhibition has benefited from the sponsorship of Bancaja, who in addition to their significant undertaking as organising body of the exhibition “Sorolla. Vision of Spain” that was shown to great acclaim in various Spanish cities, has now made a further contribution in the form of their collaboration with this major exhibition project at the Prado.

The exhibition “Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923)” (Museo del Prado, 26 May to 6 September 2009) will offer the visiting public an outstanding opportunity to see more than 100 paintings by the great Valencian master in what will constitute the most comprehensive and ambitious survey of his finest works. Among the 102 paintings on display, loaned from museums and collections worldwide, will be all the masterpieces by Sorolla that brought him most fame. They include Return from Fishing (1894), loaned by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris; Sewing the Sail (1896), from the Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna di Ca’Pesaro in Venice; Sad Inheritance (1899), from the Bancaja Collection; Evening Sun (1903), from The Hispanic Society of America in New York, which is returning to Spain for the first time since it was sold to New York by the artist himself; The Photographer Christian Franzen (1903), from the Lorenzana Collection; Female Nude (1902), and The white Boat. Jávea (1905), both from a private collection.

The exhibition will naturally also include important examples of Sorolla’s work from the Prado’s own collection, including And they still say Fish is expensive! (1894), and Boys on the Beach (1909), as well as a large number of paintings from the Museo Sorolla in Madrid, including The Horse’s Bath (1909), Strolling along the Sea Shore (1909), and The Pink Gown (1916). The exhibition will also feature the dazzling group of fourteen monumental panels entitled Visions of Spain, painted by Sorolla for the Hispanic Society of America in New York. They have travelled for the first time in their history for exhibition in Spain through the agreement reached with Bancaja. The large number of works by Sorolla assembled at the Prado, all of which are considered masterpieces by experts on the artist, will make this exhibition unique and unrepeatable.

Over the last few decades Sorolla has been the subject of study in the form of numerous exhibitions and other projects, but there has not been a major retrospective of this type since the one devoted to the artist in 1963 in the Casón del Buen Retiro, organised by the Ministry of Science and Education. In addition, the present exhibition, the first to be devoted to Sorolla by the Prado, emphasises the idea of interpreting him as the last great master within its collections. Sorolla will thus be seen to fall within the great tradition of the Spanish School through an exhibition of the same scale, importance and scholarly rigour as the others devoted to the leading names of Spanish art held at the Prado over the years, such as those on Velázquez, Ribera, Murillo, El Greco, Zurbarán and Goya.

The layout of the exhibition
The exhibition has a fundamentally chronological structure, organised into various sections that emphasise the importance of the various themes and subjects that Sorolla depicted at different periods in his career. For example, there will be a space dedicated to the paintings of social themes that brought the artist fame in the last decades of the 19th century. This is followed by a sizeable group of portraits and a nude that reveal the profound influence of Velázquez on his compositions during the early years of the 20th century. Another area will display his finest beach scenes, painted in 1908 and 1909. Due to their particular importance and large size, the fourteen panels of Visions of Spain painted for the Hispanic Society of America will fill an entire room of the four occupied by the exhibition. This spectacular group was the most complex and important decorative scheme of Sorolla’s entire career and can also be seen as an epilogue and summary of his entire oeuvre. The exhibition ends with examples of his landscape paintings.

A Bone Seal Engraved with the Name Shaul, from the Time of the First Temple, was Found in Jerusalem

2009-05-27T01:48:00.000-07:00

Hebrew seal that dates to the time of the First Temple. Photo: Vladimir Naykhin.

JERUSALEM.- The Knesset presidium, headed by Speaker Reuben Rivlin, visited the City of David in Jerusalem. A Hebrew seal that dates to the time of the First Temple was displayed for the first time during the visit. The seal was found in an excavation that is being conducted in the Walls Around Jerusalem National Park, on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority and in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority, under the direction of Professor Ronny Reich of the University of Haifa and Eli Shukron of the IAA, and underwritten by the ‘Ir David Foundation'.

The seal, which is made of bone, was found broken and is missing a piece from its upper right side. Two parallel lines divide the surface of the seal into two registers in which Hebrew letters are engraved:
לשאל
]ריהו

A period followed by a floral image or a tiny fruit appear at the end of the bottom name. The name of the seal’s owner was completely preserved and it is written in the shortened form of the name שאול (Shaul). The name is known from both the Bible (Genesis 36:37; 1 Samuel 9:2; 1 Chronicles 4:24 and 6:9) and from other Hebrew seals.

According to Professor Reich, “This seal joins another Hebrew seal that was previously found and three Hebrew bullae (pieces of clay stamped with seal impressions) that were discovered nearby. These five items have great chronological importance regarding the study of the development of the use of seals. While the numerous bullae that were discovered in the adjacent rock-hewn pool were found together with pottery sherds from the end of the ninth and beginning of the eighth centuries BCE, they do not bear any Semitic letters. On the other hand, the five Hebrew epigraphic artifacts were recovered from the soil that was excavated outside the pool, which contained pottery sherds that date to the last part of the eighth century.

It seems that the development in the design of the seals occurred in Judah during the course of the eighth century BCE. At the same time as they engraved figures on the seal, at some point they also started to engrave them with the names of the seals’ owners. This was apparently when they started to identify the owner of the seal by his name rather than by some sort of graphic representation.”

It appears that the “office” which administered the correspondence and received the goods that were all sealed with bullae continued to exist and operate within a regular format even after a residential dwelling was constructed inside the same “rock-hewn pool” and the soil and the refuse that contained the many aforementioned bullae were trapped beneath its floor. This “office” continued to generate refuse that included bullae, which were opened and broken, as well as seals that were no longer used and were discarded into the heap of rubbish that continued to accumulate in the vicinity.

Antiques Roadshow Discovery on View at Amon Carter Museum

2009-05-21T01:42:00.000-07:00

James Henry Beard (1811-1893), The Illustrious Guest, 1847. Oil on canvas. Private collection, Dallas , Texas. L2009.23

FORT WORTH, TX.- When The Illustrious Guest (1847) appeared on the PBS program Antiques Roadshow earlier this year, appraiser Alan Fausel of the Bonhams auction house said the painting “could hang in a museum.” Now it is.

“I was intrigued by the painting when I saw it on the program,” says Rebecca Lawton, curator of paintings and sculpture at the Amon Carter Museum . “I called Alan and asked him to pass along my contact information to the owner because I wanted to see it in person. I’m so thankful the guest had already contacted Alan, making it possible for him to connect us, because now we have the privilege of displaying this wonderful painting in our museum.”

The 19th-century painting by James Henry Beard depicts legendary Kentucky statesman Henry Clay (1777–1852) as a guest at a country tavern while on the campaign trail. The work is on long-term loan to the Amon Carter Museum .

The Dallas owner, who remains anonymous, brought the painting to a Dallas taping of Antiques Roadshow last summer. On the episode that aired in January, she revealed that the painting had been in her family for more than six generations, and that they likely acquired it shortly after it was painted.

“It is a terrific genre subject that combines fact with fiction,” Lawton says. “The setting is accurate, as Clay, a veteran campaigner, certainly would have stopped at country taverns to solicit votes during the 1844 presidential election. Beard likely imagined the painting’s cast of characters, some of whom marvel at Clay’s elegant attire, while others eye him warily after identifying him from the guest register. This is a perfect picture of life in antebellum America and a wonderful rediscovery.”

James Henry Beard
James Henry Beard (1811–1893) was born in Buffalo , N.Y. , and at the age of 11 moved with his family to Painesville , Ohio . A self-taught artist, Beard worked for several years as a traveling portrait painter in Cincinnati , Louisville , New Orleans and Pittsburgh . He was an honorary member of the National Academy of Design from 1848 to 1860 and a full member until his death in 1872.

Beard’s genre paintings, or scenes of everyday life, of the 1840s are less well-known than his later satirical pictures and portraits of domestic pets. Like his younger brother, artist William Holbrook Beard (1824–1900), the elder Beard’s reputation now rests primarily on his paintings of animals.

Architect Norman Foster Bestowed 2009 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts

2009-05-21T01:38:00.001-07:00

Norman Foster, has been bestowed the 2009 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts. The decision was announced today by the Jury in Oviedo. Photo: EFE/Fernando Alvarado.

OVIEDO.- Norman Foster, has been bestowed the 2009 Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts. The decision was announced today by the Jury in Oviedo.

The characteristics that distinguish Foster's work are his constant compromise with the noblest values in architecture, his open approach to innovation, his thoroughness in all phases of a project, his use of state-of-the Art technology, the magnitude of his career and his compliancy with the principles of sustainable development.

This candidacy was put forward by Alfonso Vegara, President of the Metropoli Foundation (Spain).

Norman Foster was born in 1935 in Manchester (United of Kingdom) to a working-class family. At the age of 21 he began his architecture studies, which he financed by taking different jobs. After graduating in 1961 at the Manchester University School of Architecture and City Planning, he moved to the United States where he was granted a scholarship to Yale University. There he learnt about the work of such personalities as Lloyd Wright and Kahn, who influenced him significantly. His interest in technology and in overcoming the distance between technology and the building industry came to being in 1966, when he carried out a project for a factory in Wiltshire. In 1967 he founded Foster Associated, a studio which focuses on town planning and objects related to building, with its head office in London and where some of his most outstanding work has been carried out. In 1999 its name changed to Foster and Partners. He currently leads a team of a thousand professionals, with branches in more than 20 countries.

What made him famous was the Bank of Hong Kong and Shanghai, in 1985, a glass skyscraper of 47 floors that stand out for the functionality in its spaces, its natural lighting and its use of technology as a construction tool. In 1988 he was assigned the construction of the metro system in Bilbao (inaugurated in 1995), and the communications tower of Collserola in Barcelona (on Tibidabo), which was vital for the 1992 Olympic Games. Some of his most representative works are the new terminal at London's third airport (Stansted, Essex), the glass dome of the restored Reichstag in Germany, the new Commerzbank headquarters in Frankfurt (Germany) with 62 floors, the dome in the Great Court of the British Museum (London), the Millenium tower with 92 floors and 385 meters high (London), the Sage Gateshead centre for music (United Kingdom), the Daaewoo Tech Tower (Seoul) and the Carré d´Art (Nimes).

Norman Foster has also built the world's highest bridge, which stands 243 meters above the River Tarn (France) and which is 23 meters higher than the Eiffel Tower. It was inaugurated in December 2004 and is considered the first great project of the 21st century.

His latest works include the new underground train station in Florence, the Caja Madrid skyscraper in the Spanish capital, and the Pyramid of Peace and Concord Between Religions in Astana, the new capital of Kazakhstan, as well as the world's largest airport in Beijing, the emblem of the Olympic Games in China. His work is on permanent exhibition at the MOMA in New York and at the Georges Pompidou Centre in Paris.

Through his firm he also works and campaigns for several non-governmental organisations, such as Save the Children, and he finances grants for students of architecture, together with the Royal Institute of British Architects.

He became Lord Foster of the Thames Bank in 1999 and, among other recognitions, was awarded the Gold Medal for Architecture from the Royal Institute of British Architects (1983); the Mies van der Rohe Award (1992); the Gold Medal from the American Institute of Architects (1994); the Pritzker Prize (1999); the Auguste Perret Prize (2002); the Praemium Imperiale (Japan, 2002); and the Madrid Creatividad (2006).

The Prince of Asturias Foundation's statues establish that the aim of the Awards is to acknowledge and extol ‘scientific, technical, cultural, social and humanistic work carried out by individuals, groups or institutions worldwide'. Consonant with this spirit, the Prince of Asturias Award for the Arts ‘will be bestowed upon the person, institution, group of people or group of institutions whose work in Architecture, Cinematography, Dance, Sculpture, Music, Painting or other forms of artistic expression constitutes a significant contribution to Mankind´s cultural heritage'.

This year a total of 26 candidatures from Austria, Brazil, Cuba, France, Italy, Peru, Portugal, United Kingdom, United States, Russia, and Spain ran for the award.

This is the first of eight Prince of Asturias Awards, which are being bestowed this year for the twenty-ninth time. The rest of awards will be announced in the coming weeks in the following order: International Cooperation, Social Sciences, Communication and Humanities, Technical and Scientific Research and Letters, with the Sports and Concord awards being announced in September.

Each of the Prince of Asturias Awards, which date back to 1981, is endowed with 50,000 Euros, a commissioned sculpture donated by Joan Miró, a diploma and an insignia. The awards will be presented in the autumn in Oviedo at a grand ceremony chaired by H.R.H. the Prince of Asturias.

Whitfield Fine Art presents a major retrospective of painting, drawing and sculpture by Thomas Nathaniel Davies (1922-1996)

2009-05-20T02:02:00.000-07:00

The exhibition, to mark the opening of Whitfield Fine Art's new gallery space, is the first opportunity in over 20 years to view a substantial group of work by this important Welsh artist, who was both a contemporary and friend of such artists as John Skeaping and Ceri Richards.

Despite being acquainted with these luminary artists, Nathaniel Davies did not receive the same recognition as his contemporaries during his lifetime. Very much a family man, he preferred to channel his energies towards his wife and four children rather than promoting his art. Yet his work is entirely relevant in the canon of 20th century British Art and is currently housed in public collections throughout the UK, including The Victoria and Albert Museum and The National Library of Wales. This retrospective aims to further accentuate Nathaniel Davies's reputation as one of the leading British artists of his time.

£3m Henry Moore sculpture 'sold as scrap for £1,500'

2009-05-18T04:11:00.000-07:00

The mysterious disappearance of a £3m Henry Moore sculpture appears to have been solved, with police believing it was melted down and sold for no more than £1,500.

After more then three and a half years investigating one of the most audacious British art thefts, detectives believe it was almost certainly stolen by travellers and sold on as scrap.

Authorities say it most likely ended up feeding China's growing demand for electrical components.

The bronze sculpture Reclining Figure was stolen from the 72-acre estate of the Henry Moore Foundation in Much Hadham, Hertfordshire, in December 2005.

It took thieves 10 minutes using a crane-equipped flatbed Mercedes truck stolen from nearby Roydon to carry it away.

A global alert was issued but, apart from a sighting by another motorist at a road junction in Harlow, Essex the same evening it was never seen again.

Detective Chief Inspector Jon Humphries, of Hertfordshire Police, said inquiries revealed the artwork was moved through a Dagenham scrap dealer and on to another Essex scrapyard.

It was then shipped abroad, possibly to Rotterdam, and then further east.

He said estimates suggested the sculpture, three metres long and two metres high, may have made just £1,500 as scrap metal even though The Henry Moore Foundation is believed to have offered £10,000 for its safe return.

"We have evidence and information suggesting it was cut up on the night, then taken to a location where it was irreparably damaged before it was shipped abroad," said DCI Humphries.

"In my mind we've managed to kill off the mystery as much as is possible."

It is not thought anyone has been ever been arrested over the theft.

Moore, who died in 1986, was renowned for his monumental, rounded reclining figures.

Richard Calvocoressi, director of the Henry Moore Foundation, said the theft remained a "source of great regret" and that security had been increased since the theft.

In January 2006 a sculpture by the late British artist Lynn Chadwick was stolen, almost certainly to melt down for scrap.

The 7ft tall figure, one of three which make up the £600,000 sculpture The Watchers, was stolen on the night of 10 January from outside Downshire House, in the grounds of Roehampton University in south-west London.

It was one of only three such pieces in the world.

Pinacotheque de Paris Announces The Dutch Golden Age: From Rembrandt to Vermeer

2009-05-18T03:02:00.000-07:00

Johannes Vermeer, The love letter, c. 1669-1670. Oil on canvas, 44 x 38,5 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Acquired thanks to Vereniging Rembrandt © Image Department Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2009.

PARIS.- For its third season, the Pinacothèque de Paris, in association with the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, will present one of the most interesting periods in art history: the Dutch 17th century.

That period produced some of the most famous artists of all time, and above all the one whose name has remained one of the leading references for every artist for nearly four centuries: Rembrandt.

The exhibition will put on an outstanding ensemble of over one hundred and thirty pieces, including about sixty paintings, thirty graphic works (drawings and water-colors) ten etchings as well as ten objects to give an extremely visual representation of that period (carved ivories, tapestries, china, wooden miniatures, silverware, glassworks and furnishings).

By means of that period’s works of art, it is easier to grasp how a young republic (1581) was able, thanks to its commercial successes and its tolerant approach to thinking, to become one of the most powerful commercial places in Europe at a time when other European nations were entering an endemic recession and were religiously intolerant: the new-born republic appeared as a promised land where everyone could live in peace and harmony.

It was above all by means of religious forbearance that the Republic of the United Provinces (ancestor of the Netherlands) was to attract a great number of people who found there the possibility of working, thinking and of practicing their religion whereas they were persecuted for their beliefs in their countries of origin.Writers, and thinkers flocked from all over Europe to teach, publish and develop their knowledge.That part of the world thus became the centre of the world as regards knowledge.

Maritime commercial power was to be rapidly associated with that powerhouse of learning. The commercial strength grew thanks to the speed of the ships that traded in the Baltic Sea. Amsterdam soon became a hegemonic commercial powerhouse far ahead of every other European seat of power.

Thus Amsterdam became the leading economic place for industry, commerce and art It was thus quite naturally that the young republic also became a centre wherein culture in its broadest meaning, as much in the visual arts as in letters, was able to flourish. One of the first characteristics of the region was the growth of a new kind of patronage. It was no longer confined to the wealthy aristocratic families, as elsewhere throughout Europe, but also included newly rich businessmen, based on the recently developed maritime commerce. Born into patrician families, that middle class had been the main supporters of works of art. Later on, all those who made money commissioned works of art in their turn, thus creating a sort of competitiveness between the trade guilds and the patrician families, each one feeling the need to exhibit their social success and their economic ascension, as well as their evolving status.

And so the region became the main cultural focus wherein artisans and artists’workshops could flourish. Art and culture made up a new form of economic and industrial prosperity.A form of one-upmanship in those realms was one of its consequences. Every year, new painters sprang up, bringing with them new themes or unusual subjects.Genre painting was born at that time, the description of landscapes was approached in novel ways.

A generation of unprecedented wealth in the history of art sprang up, that was to be found again in Paris only at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th century. Some painters also acquired a specialty in very precise fields : still-lives or vanities, with Willem Claesz Heda and Pieter Claesz ; landscapes with Jan van Goyen, Jacob van Ruysdael or else Meindert Hobbema. Jan Steen or Adriaen van Ostade illustrated satires of village life, whereas Gerard Ter Borch and Pieter de Hooch gave themselves up to the comedy of manners and to the genre scenes, which included peasant festivities. Emanuel de Witte and Pieter Jansz Saenredam specialized in painting monuments,Thomas de Keyser and Frans Hals were portrait specialists and Paulus Potter specialized in animal portraits.

We have to set apart individuals such as Vermeer or Rembrandt who are finally not particularly representative of that period. However, they have become its symbols. Unlike other artists, they were interested in several different fields and refused any kind of specialization. One and the other have remained the absolute models, beyond time and period, regarded for four centuries as the leading painters in the history of art.

This exhibition wants above all to put forward Rembrandt’s singular role as the most influential artist of his time. Rembrandt enjoyed a notoriety that gave him a very particular status and made of him the model for that period thanks to his tolerance, his modernity, his poetical realism and his emotional power, chiefly translated by his use of light.A master of chiaroscuro, Rembrandt conferred upon his models,whether simple portraits or religious scenes, an unequalled dimension, a density, a human beauty that made of him the fore-runner of modernity, an analyst of souls and consciousness three centuries ahead of his contemporaries.

Tate Opens Galleries Dedicated to the Arte Povera Movement for the First Time

2009-05-18T02:13:00.000-07:00

Robert Morris, Bodyspacemotionthings 1971/2009. Tate © Robert Morris. Photo: Tate.

LONDON.- On 18 May 2009 a new wing of UBS Openings: Tate Modern Collection Displays will open exploring the radical art of the 1960s associated with Arte Povera and its legacy. The Energy and Process wing will feature 11 galleries showing the precedents to the movement and echoes of Arte Povera on recent contemporary practice. As part of the 2009 rehang, major new acquisitions to the Tate Collection will be unveiled by artists including Giovanni Anselmo, Lynda Benglis, Anselm Kiefer, Susumu Koshimizu, Ana Mendieta, Marisa Merz, Robert Morris and Michelangelo Pistoletto.

The central space of the new Energy and Process wing will be devoted to a selection of works made by artists in the 1960s and 1970s. The term Arte Povera was coined by the art critic Germano Celant to describe the activities of Italian artists who used the simplest means to create poetic statements based on everyday life. Seen as a reaction against the commercialism of the art market, the work demonstrated a keen appetite to use commonplace or ‘poor’ materials and new processes. This attitude immediately found international resonance. Art could be made from anything: living things, natural and industrial products, or even immaterial substances such as moisture, sound or energy. Traditional definitions of an art work [something missing here] and instead energy and process were emphasised: temporality, materiality, concept and context. The remarkable new acquisitions in this gallery include works by major international figures and will be shown alongside familiar works from Tate’s collection, including Eva Hesse’s Addendum 1967 and Giuseppe Penone’s Tree of 12 Metres 1980-2.

Elsewhere in the Energy and Process wing Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Venus of the Rags 1967/1974 will be shown with two works by Alighiero Boetti. Pistoletto – a key figure in the Arte Povera movement – surrounded a marble reproduction of the classical Callipigia Venus with second-hand clothes which had been used to clean his Mirror Paintings. Clearly, the work brings together two opposing elements: classical and contemporary, ‘high’ and ‘low’, precious and throw-away, hard and soft, and emphasises the artists’ attitude that all forms, materials, ideas and means are available and to be used.

Introduced by the pairing of two iconic pieces by Kasimir Malevich and Richard Serra, a series of displays radiate out in galleries around the central space. Powerful works by Ana Mendieta and Marissa Merz will feature in two new monographic displays. These artists have recently been added to the Tate Collection demonstrating the commitment by Tate to acquire and display works by important international women artists. Energy and Process will include further monographic displays of recently acquired works including the ARTIST ROOMS displays of Anselm Kiefer and Jannis Kounellis. There will also be a gallery dedicated to the experimental films of Yvonne Rainer.

There are two broader themes. A key display, titled ‘Beyond Painting’ explores the expansion of painting off the wall throughout the twentieth century in ways that anticipate concerns explored by the generation associated with Arte Povera. This will include reliefs by Pablo Picasso and Kurt Schwitters, and more materially explorative works by Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana, Daniel Spoerri and others.

Another room will look at the practice of Land Art. It will present a group of works which explore the natural environment as artistic source, bringing into question the supposed difference of nature and culture through more observational or conceptual means.

First Time Museum in Bremen Shows Five Cranach Paintings Housed in the City's Museums

2009-05-18T01:57:00.000-07:00

Restorer Angelika Hoffmeister places the portrait of Martin Luther’s wife, Katharina von Bora (r) beside her husband's, made by German Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach at Kunstsammlung Boettcherstrasse in Bremen, Germany. The exhibition titled Lucas Cranach in Bremen, opened its doors today and will run through August 23, Photo: EPA/Ingo Wagner.

BREMEN, GERMANY.- The Paula Modersohn Becker Museum in Bremen opened the exhibition "Lucas Cranach in Bremen" which runs through August 23. As the leading member of a German family of artists, Lucas Cranach was a painter, printmaker and book illustrator with a most individual manner and a highly successful business. He was one of the most distinctive artists of the German Renaissance, court artist to the Saxon electors, a staunch supporter of the Reformation, and a close friend of Martin Luther. During the course of his long career, Cranach created striking portraits and expressive devotional works, propaganda for the Protestant cause, as well as his own brand of erotic female nude and inventive treatments of biblical, mythological and classical subjects.

Cranach adopted his surname from his birthplace Kronach, a town in Upper Franconia. No works by him are known before c. 1500 when he was nearly 30 years old and living in Vienna. His activity in the Danube region placed him at the forefront of a school of painting which fused landscape and human action with emotive force. His religious paintings set in the wild landscapes of the Alpine foothills, with ruins and windswept trees, are profoundly devotional.

In 1505, shortly after his period in Vienna, Cranach settled in Wittenberg as court artist to the Saxon electors, a position he held under three successive rulers. There he established a highly productive workshop, enlarging his reputation by his prolific work in portraiture, religious and mythological painting, and as a designer of crests, court dress, and murals for the Saxon palaces and hunting lodges. Bold design, intense colour and gracefully outlined costumes typify Cranach’s court portraits. His likenesses of the personalities of the day have shaped our conception of them. He was among the first artists to paint full-length portraits; notable also is Cranach’s skill in psychological characterisation, seen for example in his portraits of children such as the Portraits of a Saxon Prince and Princess, c. 1512, from the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

In 1508 the Elector Frederick the Wise conferred on the artist a coat of arms with the winged serpent that then became the basis of his standard signature. In the same year Cranach visited the Netherlands, where he painted portraits of great figures such as The Emperor Maximilian I and his successor, the future emperor Charles V, then still a young prince. Like his rival and near contemporary Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), who also enjoyed the patronage of Frederick the Wise and was later court painter to Maximilian, Cranach also created engravings and woodcuts.

Cranach was to become a close friend of Martin Luther, professor of theology at Wittenberg University. He supervised the printing of Luther’s propaganda pamphlets; designed woodcuts for Luther’s translation of the New Testament; painted altarpieces for Lutheran churches; invented entirely new pictorial types for the reformed faith; and made portraits of the Protestant Reformers and princes (such as the Portrait of Martin Luther, 1525, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery). Cranach’s involvement with the Reformation did not impede him from continuing to work for Catholic patrons, including Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg, one of Luther’s principal opponents,

2009-05-15T01:44:00.000-07:00

Archibald 2009 - Art Gallery of New South Wales. Vincent Fantauzzo, Brandon.

SYDNEY.- Melbourne artist, Vincent Fantauzzo has won the Archibald People’s Choice Prize for his portrait of child actor Brandon Walters. Vincent Fantauzzo was highly commended at last year’s Archibald Prize for his triple-image portrait of his friend Heath Ledger, painted just weeks before the actor’s death. The painting also won the People’s Choice Award.

This year his subject is Brandon Walters, who played the young boy Nullah opposite Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman in Baz Luhrmann’s film Australia. Born and raised in an Indigenous community near Broome, Western Australia in 1996, Walters was diagnosed with leukaemia at age six but overcame the cancer after a year in hospital. He had never acted before performing in Australia.

Fantauzzo first became aware of Walters when Luhrmann, a friend of the artist’s, called and told him what an ‘amazing kid’ he was. "I thought it would be great to meet him and that he and his family might be an interesting subject for a portrait," says Fantauzzo. "He was really shy at first but as I got to know him he became bubbly and excited. He has already experienced a lot as a child, which I believe adds to his presence."

Fantauzzo worked on various portraits in his Melbourne studio, including one of Walters with his father, and another of his mother. For this painting, he did a couple of fully finished sketches. Fantauzzo decided to focus on Walters’ face for a couple of reasons. "He has a very intense gaze and amazing eyes and I wanted the feel of the harsh Australian sun across his face."

Born in England in 1977, Fantauzzo came to Australia as a child. He has a Bachelor of Fine Art (Painting) and a Master of Fine Art from RMIT University, Melbourne. Last year he was awarded an artist’s residency at Chancery Lane Gallery in Hong Kong. He has also had many solo exhibitions.

Vincent Fantauzzo receives $2,500 and a $1,000 Myer gift card for winning the People’s Choice.

Each year a voter for the Archibald painting which receives the most votes is selected to win $2,500 and a $1,000 Myer gift card. The lucky winner is Anne McKenzie from Western Australia who voted for Vincent Fantauzzo’s painting of Brandon.

This is the 21st year of the People’s Choice Prize. 33629 people voted this year. Hong Fu’s portrait of Dame Elisabeth Murdoch was the second most popular painting.

2009-05-15T01:37:00.001-07:00

Frank Lloyd Wright, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1943–59, Exterior view. © The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York.

NEW YORK, NY.- Fifty years after the realization of Frank Lloyd Wright’s renowned design, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum celebrates the golden anniversary of its landmark building with the exhibition Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward, co-organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation. On view from May 15 through August 23, 2009, the 50th anniversary exhibition brings together 64 projects designed by one of the most influential architects of the 20th century, including privately commissioned residences, civic and government buildings, religious and performance spaces, as well as unrealized urban mega-structures. Presented on the spiral ramps of Wright’s museum through a range of media—including more than 200 original Frank Lloyd Wright drawings, many of which are on view to the public for the first time, as well as newly commissioned models and digital animations—Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward illuminates Wright’s pioneering concepts of space and reveals the architect’s continuing relevance to contemporary design.

The exhibition takes its title from Frank Lloyd Wright’s musings on the importance of interior space in shaping and informing a structure’s exterior. “The building is no longer a block of building material dealt with, artistically, from the outside,” Wright said. “The room within is the great fact about building—the room to be expressed in the exterior as space enclosed.” Few designs in Wright’s oeuvre so well illustrate the concept of designing “from within outward” as the Guggenheim Museum, in which the interior form gives shape to the exterior shell of the building.

Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and Museum, stated, “Fifty years ago, the trajectories of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Frank Lloyd Wright became intertwined. When it opened in October 1959, the museum drew both criticism and admiration, but what was indisputable was that Wright had reinvented the art museum.” Armstrong continued, “How fitting that we open our fiftieth-anniversary celebrations with Frank Lloyd Wright: From Within Outward, an exhibition that documents and challenges how architecture influences the way we live and how we experience art.”

“Rather than a retrospective, this exhibition focuses on the diversity of Wright’s vision and the ways he sought to realize it, conveying fresh perspectives on how the buildings themselves celebrate that vision through spaces that enrich our lives with their transformational power,” said Phil Allsopp, President and CEO of the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation, the only organization established by Frank Lloyd Wright to be the repository of his life’s work and the first to bear his name. “The concept of the exhibition also reflects a growing recognition of the enormous relevance today of Frank Lloyd Wright’s design philosophies, which embrace culture, technology and environment. The exhibition articulates the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation’s public mission and active engagement in education, scholarship, design, research, historic preservation, and public policy.” The Frank Lloyd Wright Archives, which the Frank Lloyd Wright Foundation owns and operates at its headquarters in Scottsdale, Arizona, is the primary source of loans for the exhibition.

Sotheby’s Contemporary Sale Solid but Subdued

2009-05-14T02:03:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK—Sotheby’s opened the contemporary art auction season Tuesday night with a solid though uninspiring $47,033,500 tally.
That number fell short of low pre-sale expectations of $51.8 million, but all but nine of the 48 works offered managed to sell, for confidence-building sell-through rates of 81 percent by lot and 78 percent by value.

For comparison’s sake, the firm’s November 2008 tally was $125 million, with 68 percent sold by lot, and at the equivalent sale a year ago, the house hit a grand slam of $362 million, with 88 percent sold by lot.

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For a lower result than last night’s, you’d have to scroll back to May 2003, when Sotheby’s realized $27 million. But still, four artist records were set, and 14 works made over a million dollars. Of those, five sold in excess of $2.5 million.

The top lot — no surprises here — was Jeff Koons’s high-chromium stainless steel confection Baroque Egg with Bow (Turquoise/Magenta) (1994–2008), which sold to dealer Larry Gagosian for $5,458,500 (est. $6–8 million).

The wildly decorative “Celebration” series sculpture was offered in the $18–20 million range when it was shown by Gagosian last September at the Red October Chocolate Factory in Moscow. It was consigned at this sale by New York hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb.

Asked after the sale about the price for the Koons, auctioneer and Sotheby’s contemporary head Tobias Meyer said, “That’s a very serious amount of money for a very serious artist.”

Koons’s record at auction is a galaxy away, at £12.9 million ($25.8 million), set at Christie’s London in June 2008 by Balloon Flower (Magenta), from the collection of Dallas art patron Howard Rachofsky.

Sculpture Carved 35,000 Years Ago Might be World's Oldest According to Archaeologists

2009-05-14T01:42:00.001-07:00

The sculpture of a woman made of ivory was presented today by German archaeologists in Tuebingen, Germany. The figure, found in 2008 in a cave in Schelklingen, is supposedly the world's oldest reproduction of a human with an estimated age of at least 35,000 years. Photo: EFE/Marijan Murat.

TUEBINGEN, GERMANY.- The finding is a sensation, since it offers a new light on the first artistic expressions of primitive man in Europe and probably in the whole world, informed Nicholas Conard, professor of archaeology from the University of Tuebingen and responsible for the excabations.

The figure, which measures just 6 centimeters long, was found in September during the excavations at Hohle Fels, close to Scheklingen, in the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg, even though the discovery had been kept a secret until now.

"We were left speechless after seeing it", said Conard after presenting the figure in public for the first time. "It's very sexually charged," he added.

His colleague Pau Mellars wrote an article that will be published tomorrow in the scientific magazine "Nature", stating that the new venus is almost pornographic, taking into consideration the aesthetic values and morals of today.

The venus, which will be shown starting in september at Kunstgebäude in Stuttgart, was found broken in six piecesm some 20 meters from the entrance to the cave and is missing the left arm.

The site of Hohle Fels stands 534 meters above see level in the Ach River Valley, a tributary of the Danube. The excavations at Hohle Fels are currently directed by Nicholas Conard and Hans-Peter Uerpmann and have been ongoing since 1977. Hohle Fels Cave has yielded tens of thousands of finds dating to the Magdelanian ca. 13,000 years ago, and the Gravettian ca. 29,000 years ago. These finds include diverse stone tools, ornaments, remains of fireplaces, and the remains of game animals including reindeer, horse, mammoth and woolly rhinoceros.

Current evidence indicates that the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany was one of the central regions of cultural innovations after the arrival of modern humans in Europe some 40,000 years ago.

The research at Hohle Fels is conducted by the University of Tübingen and is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Heidelberger Zement company, the village of Schelklingen, the Office of State Archaeology in Baden-Württemberg and the Gesellschaft fªr Urgeschichte.

2009-05-13T08:50:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON, DC.- An important part of world history will be on display in the exhibition “Jamestown, Québec, Santa Fe: Three North American Beginnings” at the Smithsonian’s S. Dillon Ripley Center beginning Monday, May 18. The exhibition is co-organized by the Virginia Historical Society and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History and will be on view through Nov. 1.

The year 1607 marked the beginning of a turning point in world history. It was a collision of empires, cultures and ideas. The first permanent English settlement was established at Jamestown, Va., but that was just the beginning. In the following years, the French would establish Québec (1608) and the Spanish would push north from Mexico to establish Santa Fe (1609). The “New World” offered the hope of opportunity to Europeans, but Native Americans and, soon, Africans would pay the price. The exhibition tells the story of dramatic twists of fate, strategic alliances and violent conflict between the three mighty European empires and the Native people living in North America. It is a story that changed the face of the world as we know it today.

Presented in three languages and with multiple perspectives, “Jamestown, Québec, Santa Fe: Three North American Beginnings” uses rare surviving Native and European artifacts, maps, documents and ceremonial objects from museums and royal collections on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The result is a ground-breaking exhibition. A 1622 broadside advises English settlers on what to pack for their journey to Virginia. A wampum belt from the French royal collection illustrates how gift giving became an important tactic as the French sought alliances with the Huron people. Spanish armor engraved with Christian symbols exemplifies the religious dimension of the Spanish conquest of New Mexico.

“This exhibition is going to give audiences a broader perspective,” said James C. Kelly, director of museums at the Virginia Historical Society and co-curator of the exhibition. “People tend to think of Jamestown as an isolated incident, but in many ways, Jamestown is a small part of a much larger story. The stage had been set for quite a few years before Jamestown. Many Native people had prior contact with Europeans and trade had already been established in several areas. It was the permanence and eventual expansion of the colonies that intensified all the forces that had been set in motion by initial contact.”

Through objects and text, visitors are reminded that the colonization of North America was not just a westward movement from a single starting point.

“The English, French and Spanish were all establishing these three permanent settlements almost simultaneously,” said Barbara Clark Smith, co-curator of the exhibition and curator of Colonial history at the National Museum of American History. “This exhibition helps museum visitors understand the multinational nature of North American history and absorb the implications of the legacy.”

Salander Arrested

2009-03-27T08:57:00.000-07:00

A Once-prominent art dealer was arrested on Thursday on an indictment charging that he stole $88 million from investors, collectors and artists who had consigned paintings and sculpture to his Upper East Side gallery, the authorities said.

NEW YORK TIMES

Death on the Pale Horse and other Works by Benjamin West PRA on View at Royal Academy

2009-03-10T02:38:00.001-07:00

An exhibition focusing on Benjamin West’s first version of Death on the Pale Horse, opened at the Royal Academy in February in the Tennant Room. This striking drawing, depicting the Apocalypse, was produced in 1783 as part of a commission from George III, but the King eventually rejected it as a ‘Bedlamite scene’. West nevertheless pursued the composition independently, reworking his original study to produce a final, monumental painting in 1817.

Based on the Book of Revelations, the drawing depicts the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse with Death in the centre, crowned and wielding bolts of lighting. West intended to include this scene in a cycle of religious paintings for George III’s new chapel at Windsor Castle. However, the whole project was cancelled in 1801. The King’s comment on Death on the Pale Horse associates apocalyptic imagery with madness and disorder, in spite of its biblical credentials. This has been explained not only in terms of the King’s concern for his sanity but also in connection with the volatile political climate of the late 18th century. It may be no coincidence that this scene of conflict and destruction was produced just as the American War of Independence drew to a close. West’s subsequent versions of the same scene can also be related to contemporary events including the aftermath of the French Revolution and the Battle of Waterloo.

Death on the Pale Horse is displayed alongside a small group of West’s watercolours, drawings and sketchbooks from the Royal Academy Collection to explore his skills as a draughtsman as well as the fascination with apocalyptic imagery which emerged during this turbulent age of revolutions and wars. On show are further drawings for the Windsor project including Moses Striking the Rock and historical scenes such as Prince Bladud in Exile. In addition, the artist’s 1793 self-portrait and his painting Christ Blessing Little Children hang in adjoining galleries while his ceiling paintings of the Four Elements and the Graces unveiling Nature can be seen in the Front Hall of the Royal Academy.

West was born in Pennsylvania, U.S.A., in 1738, but achieved his greatest success in Britain. Moving to London in 1763, he rapidly established himself as one of the country’s leading artists. His status was confirmed when he became a founder member of the Royal Academy in 1768 and he was shortly afterwards appointed History Painter to the King. In 1792 he succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as the Academy’s second President.

Lucas Cranach stolen yesterday from the Larvik church

2009-03-10T02:33:00.000-07:00

A 450-year-old painting made by Lucas Cranach the Elder and estimated to be worth over $2 million was stolen from a Lutheran church in Norway.

“Suffer the Little Children to Come unto Me” had been hanging at the Larvik church in southern part of the country for the past 330 years. The painting shows Christ in a blue robe holding two children in his lap and surrounded by several women with small children and a few men.

The heist was noticed by firefighters who responded to an alarm that went off at the church at 1:30 am on Sunday. After they got to the church they found a broken window and a ladder outside.

Police officer Petter Aronsen said to Norwegian news agency NTB that the thief or thieves probably had a car waiting nearby.

"We don't have any suspects and are very interested in talking to anyone who might have seen something," he said.

Cranach the Elder is one of the most significant German Renaissance painters.

Indian Businessman Buys Gandhi Items for $1.8M

2009-03-06T08:11:00.000-08:00

A group of items that once belonged to Mahatma Gandhi and that have recently become the subject of an international controversy sold yesterday in a New York auction for $1.8 million (est. $20–30,000), reports the New York Times. The buyer was Indian liquor and airline magnate Vijay Mallya,

The sale of the personal effects of India's non-violent independence leader — his watch, glasses, sandals, bowl, and plate — had been decried as illegal by the Indian government, which said it would do "whatever possible" to get the items back, and called a "grave insult" by Gandhi's great-grandson Tushar. The Indian government had gone so far as to extend an offer to the owner of the items, L.A.-based filmmaker and peace activist James Otis, who said he would accept on the condition that India improve its health care system or include the pieces in an exhibition that would travel around the world.

The Indian government rejected the terms.

But yesterday, Otis had a change of heart, and his lawyer, Ravi Batra, interrupted the afternoon sale proceedings at Antiquorum auctioneers. An official from Antiquorum countered that Otis had entered a "legally binding agreement" to sell.

Mallya has since promised to return the items to India for public display, an outcome which Tushar Gandhi said makes him "very happy." But India's consul general in New York, Prabhu Dayal, said that there are still legal matters to resolve, because a New Delhi court had issued an injunction earlier in the week to stop the sale.

Van Dyck to go on show at TEFAF

2009-03-06T04:39:00.000-08:00

Whitfield Fine Art will show a beautiful oil sketch by Sir Anthony Van Dyck at this year's European Fine Art Fair. The painting has been in a private collection for the past 40 years and has been relatively unknown to scholars, although a record of the painting has always existed in a painting by David Teniers the Younger in Schleissheim palace, Munich. The painting by Teniers shows the Van Dyck among many other paintings in a gallery thought to have belonged to Archduke Leopold Wilhelm (1614-1662) whose collection later became the foundation of the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

The attribution was confirmed by leading Van Dyck scholar Rev. Susan J. Barnes, who dated it to 1617-18.

The Swedish Academy of Fine Arts is planning to sell Rembrandt

2009-03-06T04:09:00.000-08:00

The Swedish Academy of Fine Arts is planning to sell Rembrandt's The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis (1661–62) to raise money for the upkeep of its facilities and funding of its activities, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reports. The institution said most of its funds are tied up in trusts for art stipends, and it hopes to get 300 million kronor ($48 million) for the painting. The academy would require the buyer to keep the Rembrandt work, which was donated to the institution in 1798, at the National Museum, where it has been on loan since the museum opened in 1866.

The European Fine Art Fair 2009

2009-03-06T03:57:00.000-08:00

TEFAF Maastricht - The World's Leading Art and Antiques fair opens next week.

As a visitor to TEFAF Maastricht you will be present at an outstanding event, one that offers the best choice of the very best in fine art. You will have a unique chance to view and to buy paintings from Bruegel to Bacon as well as objects reflecting 6,000 years of excellence in the applied arts.

No where else will you find such an elegantly displayed selection of genuine masterpieces from 239 of the world’s most prestigious international dealers.

No where else will you find such rigorous investigation of their quality, condition and authenticity. Every item is checked by one of 25 vetting committees made up of over 155 internationally respected experts.

And no where else will you find yourself in such a distinguished and stimulating company of dealers, academics, art critics, and collectors. During the week of the fair, anyone who is anyone in the field of fine art will be at TEFAF Maastricht.

Hamburg, Germany - Hamburger Kunsthalle presents today Nicolai Abildgaard.

2009-03-06T03:47:00.000-08:00

Hamburg, Germany - Hamburger Kunsthalle presents today Nicolai Abildgaard. The Artist Who Taught Friedrich and Runge, on view through June 14, 2009. For the first time in Germany, the exhibition presents 100 works by the Danish neoclassical and Romantic artist Nicolai Abildgaard (1743–1809). Abildgaard was Denmark’s first important history painter; he was, however, expressly critical of absolutism. As a professor at the Art Academy in Copenhagen he exerted a great influence on many of his pupils, including Caspar David Friedrich and Philipp Otto Runge.

Abildgaard, witness of his time, open to the spirit of his era, his paintings, classical in form but latently Romantic, also contained a glimmering of religious and social criticism. Nothing in his modest origins suggested the career Abildgaard would lead. His father, a self-taught man with a passion for natural science, was entrusted with the task of listing ancient Danish monuments. His growing reputation as a scholar did not, however, spare the family from financial hardship, which compelled the two sons to exercise manual trades in order to pursue their studies. Christian became a veterinary surgeon, while Abildgaard gained admission to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen. Based on the French model, the Academy regarded history painting as the highest form of art.

Abildgaard’s paintings, which were influenced as much by the poems of Ossian as by antiquity, reflect the time of new departures and disruptions around 1800. Organised in cooperation with the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, the exhibition reveals the thematic complexity of Abildgaard’s paintings and drawings, and places particular emphasis on the innovative and politically reformist aspects of his work, awareness of which has grown considerably as a result of recent research.

As a painter and architect, Nicolai Abildgaard, 1743-1809, was a leading figure in Danish neo-classicism and early Romanticism. He trained in the Copenhagen Academy of Fine Arts, and during a stay in Rome he made a close study of Classical and Renaissance idiom. Here, he also executed the main work of his youth, Wounded Philoctetes (1774-75, Statens Museum for Kunst).

Abildgaard took the inspiration for his motifs from the world of literature, principally portraying the unbalanced and passionate, and his many extant drawings reflect his vivid imagination. In his idiom he was closely related to J.H. Füssli, whom he met during his stay in Rome. As a Professor (from 1778) and later Director (1788-91 and from 1801) in the Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen Abildgaard exerted a great influence on the young artists of his day.

He created a large number of works for the royal family, including ten large-scale paintings representing the deeds of the Oldenborg monarchs for the Great Hall in Christiansborg Palace. Seven of them were lost in the fire of 1794, but the sketches are still in existence in Statens Museum for Kunst, which owns the largest collection of Abildgaard's works.

After c. 1800, Abildgaard mainly painted motifs from the Classical world. One of his architectural designs was the Apis Temple in Frederiksberg Have. Visit the Hamburger Kunsthalle at : www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/