| | Christie's Two-Part Sale of Old Master & 19th Century Art Totals a Combined $36,671,625
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Diana Bramham, 19th century paintings specialist, speaks about artist William Adolphe Bouguereau's (1825-1905) piece "Portrait of Eva and Frances Johnston" as artist Luca Carlevarijs' (1663-1730) "View of the Molo, Venice, looking West" (L) is seen during the media preview of the Old Master & 19th Century Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors art at Christie's. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton.
By: Chris Michaud
NEW YORK (REUTERS).- An iconic 19th-Century painting depicting an Ottoman Empire reserve soldier and his hunting dogs sold for $1.65 million on Wednesday at Christie's Old Master and 19th-Century paintings auction. "Master of the Hounds," by Jean Leon Gerome, had generated significant buzz during exhibitions due to the reviving popularity of Orientalist art, Christie's said. It had been estimated to sell for between $700,000 and $1 million. Several bidders competed for the diminutive work, which measures only 13 inches by 9-3/4 inches, effectively doubling the expected price. The sale's top lot, as expected, was "View of the Molo, Venice, looking West", by 18th Century painter Luca Carlevarijs which sold for just over $4 million, in the middle of the estimate range and a new record for the artist. The first session of the two-part sale took in just over $28 million, short of the $39.8 million pre-sale estimate. Nearly two-th ... More |
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| The Best Photos of the Day |  |  | Mortons Auction House, the leading auction house in Mexico, opens the year with its sale of Modern and Contemporary Art. The sale will take place today at 7 pm. at Monte Athos 179 Col. Lomas de Chapultepec, Mexico D.F. Morton´s Auction House first opened in 1988. As an antique gallery they held their first auction that very same year. From that moment on they have handled the best collections, now in the possession of private persons, and in both Mexican and foreign museums. Their honesty, integrity and dedication to customer service has earned them great prestige over the years. Mortons has, at its disposition, experts to assist you in order to provide fine service and optimum choices for your art objects and works in the most appropriate auction. Areas of expertise include antiques, modern and contemporary art, jewelry, old and contemporary books and documents, collectable and every-day wines and decorative arts. | | |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
Plate Painted by Pablo Picasso Donated to Ransom Center by Photojournalist Duncan
While Jacqueline Roque looks on, Lump, David Douglas Duncan's dachshund, inspects the luncheon plate Pablo Picasso has just painted. Gelatin silver negative. April 19th, 1957. © David Douglas Duncan.
AUSTIN, TX.- The Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, has received a plate painted by Pablo Picasso from David Douglas Duncan, a photojournalist whose archive resides at the Ransom Center. Duncan donated the plate in honor of his friendship with Stanley Marcus, who suggested that Duncan donate his archive to the Ransom Center in 1996. The archive includes more than 36,000 prints, 87,000 negatives and 21,000 transparencies, in addition to correspondence, manuscripts, camera equipment, artwork and personal effects. Picasso painted the plate, a piece of commercial dinnerware, at his home Villa La Californie in Cannes, France, on April 19, 1957. Dedicated to Duncan's dog Lump, a dachshund, the plate is 24 centimeters in diameter and contains a portrait of ... More | | Sotheby's Contemporary Art Evening Sale to Debut Ai Weiwei's 'Sunflower Seeds' at Auction
A young girl sits over renowned Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei's porcelain sunflower seeds. EPA/Andy Rain.
LONDON.- In the wake of Sotheby’s third most successful year ever (2010) for sales of Contemporary Art, the company presents its forthcoming Contemporary Art Evening Auction, which will take place on Tuesday, February 15th, 2011. The sale will feature major pieces by established Post-War and Contemporary artists as well as cutting-edge works of art and installations by the younger generation of artists practising today, including: Lucio Fontana, Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Frank Auerbach, Juan Muñoz, Bridget Riley, Antony Gormley, Chris Ofili, Ged Quinn and Ai Weiwei. The Evening Auction is estimated to realise in excess of £30* million, bringing the total value of Contemporary Art to be offered by Sotheby’s this February to more than £56 million**. Commenting on the forthcoming sales, Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby’s Chairman of Contemporary Art Europe, said: “2010 was an extremely healthy y ... More | | Richard P. Townsend Steps Down as President and CEO of the Museum of Latin American Art
Richard P. Townsend has stepped down as President and CEO of MOLAA to pursue other opportunities.
LONG BEACH, CA.- Mike Deovlet and Burke Gumbiner, Co-Chairmen of the Museum of Latin American Art’s (MOLAA) Board of Directors, announced today that Richard P. Townsend has stepped down as President and CEO of MOLAA to pursue other opportunities. Since joining MOLAA in May 2009, Townsend has played an instrumental role in reshaping and strengthening the artistic vision of the museum. One of his first and most critical moves was bringing on MOLAA’s current Chief Curator Cecilia Fajardo-Hill. Together, Fajardo-Hill and Townsend have produced some of the most compelling and artistically challenging exhibitions in the institution’s history. The result – growing admissions and increasing accolades from the museum industry and media critics regionally, nationally, and internationally. These are signs of great things to come as Fajardo-Hill continues to lead the curatorial department in carrying out the artisti ... More |
 | Eighty Images by Vivian Maier from the 50's and 60's at Hilaneh von Kories Gallery
Vivian Maier: Twinkle, twinkle, little star # 60, Untitled, Undated, New York.
HAMBURG.- Between January 27 and April 28, 2011, Hilaneh von Kories Gallery in Hamburg is going to show “Twinkle, twinkle, little star”, an exhibit of more than eighty images by Vivian Maier from the 50’s and 60’s. Maier, who in her life time did not publish any of her pictures, has been recently discovered as an enormously talented “street photography” artist who saw the world through the lenses of a Rolleiflex camera and captured hundreds of thousands of telling moments in the gritty streets and shops of Chicago and New York. The show is only the third of her work worldwide and the first in Germany. Maier’s life was a mystery. Just like her objects are mysterious. And her methodology seems mystifying. Even more astounding is the story about how the treasure trove of images was saved from distinction. It happened in 2007 when Chicago real estate agent John Maloof bought boxes ... More | | New Exhibit Unveiled in Royal Ontario Museum's Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume
Time Magazine dress. Printed paper designed by Walter Lefmann and Ron de Vito, United States, 1967 ROM967.77. Gift of TIME International of Canada Ltd. Royal Ontario Museum © 2011. All rights reserved.
TORONTO.- The Royal Ontario Museum has unveiled its newest installation in the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume. Riotous Colour, Daring Patterns: Fashions + Textiles 18th to 21st centuries is a dazzling display featuring over 120 textiles and costumes from around the world drawn from the ROM’s extensive textile and costume collection. These historical and contemporary printed textiles, many on display for the first time, provide insight into the lives of textile makers, sellers and users. “This new exhibit demonstrates that fashion exists in vivid colour throughout the world and the desire to look smart has driven many of humankind's technical advances,” said Dr. Alexandra Palmer, Nora E. Vaughan Fashion Costume Curator, Textiles and Costumes in the ROM’s World Cultures department. ... More | | New Museum Presents First Major United States Survey of Works by George Condo
George Condo, Memories of Picasso, 1989. Oil on canvas, 200 x 160 cm. Frac Île-de-France Collection.
NEW YORK, NY.- Since first bursting onto the scene in the early 1980s with his unique adaptation of the language of Old Master painting, George Condo has created one of the most adventurous, imaginative, and provocative bodies of work in contemporary art. Condo’s work has been deeply influential to two generations of American and European painters, who have felt the impact of the artist’s astonishing technical ability, stylistic versatility, and inventive subject matter. This January, the New Museum presents “George Condo: Mental States,” the first major US survey of over eighty paintings and sculptures from the past twenty-eight years of the artist’s career. Condo is famously prolific, and this tightly edited selection of works from 1982 to the present responds to his prodigious output with a unique conceptual approach. The exhibition is organized thematically and stylistically in “chapters ... More |
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Mile-Long Floating Walkway Above the Thames to Open Up London's Hidden Past
Suspended a few feet above the water on the north bank, the walk will be interspersed with five glass-encased pavilions.
By: Stefano Ambrogi
LONDON (REUTERS).- A mile-long floating walkway on London's River Thames is being planned in the heart of the capital, allowing views of the city's hidden alleys, wharves and landmarks dating back to medieval times. The pontoon, known as the "London River Park," will connect Blackfriars Bridge, on the western edge of the ancient city, and the Tower of London in the east. Suspended a few feet above the water on the north bank, the walk will be interspersed with five glass-encased pavilions housing a museum, a cinema, a concert hall and an eco-park amongst other attractions. Swimming pools are central to drawings of one futuristic-looking enclosure. The "promenade," to be built in time for the Olympic Games and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in 2012 -- if funding is found -- won the Mayor of London's award for planning excellence last week. The mayor, Boris ... More | | Virginia Historian Thomas P. Lowry Denies Tampering with Abraham Lincoln Pardon
President Lincoln pardon for Patrick Murphy. AP Photo/National Archives.
By: Matthew Barakat, Associated Press
McLEAN, VA (AP).- Colleagues of a Virginia historian accused of altering a presidential pardon signed by Abraham Lincoln to make it appear he had made a major discovery say he betrayed the trust that had been placed in him. The accused historian — Thomas P. Lowry, 78, of Woodbridge — denied Tuesday that he actually tampered with the document despite a written confession he gave to the National Archives earlier this month. The National Archives announced on Monday that Lowry used a fountain pen with special ink to change the date on a presidential pardon issued by Lincoln to a Union army deserter from April 14, 1864, to April 14, 1865. The date change made it look like the pardon was the last official act carried out by Lincoln before he was shot that night at Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth. In a phone interview Tuesday, Lowry recanted his confession and said he offered repeated denials to Archives investigators ... More | | From North Korea Propaganda to Art Exhibit in Seoul, Defector Song Byeok Shows His Work
A visitor passes by a painting showing the face of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il with the body of Marilyn Monroe. AP Photo/Lee Jin-man.
By: Haeran Hyun,Associated Press
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AP) —.- The face in the painting is North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's, smiling beneath his trademark sunglasses and wall of black hair. But the body is Marilyn Monroe's, pushing down her white dress in an updraft. This striking image, part of an art exhibition by North Korean defector Song Byeok opening Wednesday in Seoul, would have been unthinkable at the artist's old job making propaganda posters in the North with slogans like "Let us Exalt the Great Leader." Satirical paintings would have gotten everyone in his family "taken somewhere nobody knows about and forced to work until death," Song said during an interview at his small workspace in an arcade on the outskirts of Seoul. "Freedom of speech has nothing to do with North Korea," Song said. "Here in South Korea, people can draw what they want. So every painting reflects ... More |
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LACMA Announced Today the Retirement of President and COO Melody Kanschat
Melody Kanschat, LACMA President and Chief Operating Officer. © 2011 Photo Museum Associates/LACMA.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art announced today that Melody Kanschat will be leaving her position as President and Chief Operating Officer, effective May 2011. Ms. Kanschat has held this position since July 2005, having worked at LACMA in a variety of capacities since 1989. As President and Chief Operating Officer, Ms. Kanschat has been responsible for the day-to-day operations of the museum, overseeing its annual budget of $60 million and, most recently, the completion of LACMA‟s recent Transformation building initiative designed by Renzo Piano. The Piano-designed master plan, which added more than 100,000 square feet of new exhibition space, includes the Broad Contemporary Art Museum and BP Grand Entrance opened in 2008, the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Exhibition Pavilion opened last October, and the new Ray‟s restaurant and Stark Bar in the grand entrance, slated to open in March of this year ... More | | SFMOMA's 2011 Auction Features Work by Artists with Strong Ties to the Museum
Mark Grotjahn, Untitled (Full Color Butterfly 41.52), 2010; color pencil; 85 3/4 x 47 3/4 in. Estimate: $200,000–$250,000.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will hold its biennial Art Auction at the museum on April 6, 2011. This highly anticipated fund-raising event organized by the Modern Art Council (MAC) will feature more than 70 lots representing an exceptional range of work by celebrated artists with strong ties to the museum. Auction items will include photographs, paintings, and works on paper donated by local and national galleries and artists. Proceeds from Art Auction 2011 will benefit SFMOMA's world-class collection and educational programs. The event will include both live and silent auctions during the course of the night. The live auction will feature some 20 works by such important artists as John Baldesarri, Mel Bochner, Mark Bradford, Vija Celmins, Chuck Close, Olafur Eliasson, Mark Grotjahn, Marilyn Minter, Dave Muller, and Richard Serra, just to name a few. This year's auction will ... More | | Clark Art Institute to Launch First International Tour of Masterpieces from the Collection
Pierre-Auguste Renoir (French, 1841–1919), Girl with a Fan, c. 1879. Oil on canvas, 65.4 x 54 cm. © Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA, 1955.595
WILLIAMSTOWN, MA.- Continuing its commitment to global outreach and cultural exchange, the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute will tour masterpieces from its collection of nineteenth-century European paintings to leading museums around the world beginning this spring. The Clark’s first-ever international tour of masterpieces from its collection will include many of the greatest works from its extraordinary holdings of French Impressionism and European paintings. The exhibition features 73 paintings, including works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, and Camille Pissarro, as well as by Pierre Bonnard, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Paul Gauguin, Jean-François Millet, Alfred Sisley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Jean-Léon Gérôme. “As we embark on this ... More |
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Notable Names Highlight Clars February 2011 Auction
OAKLAND, CA.- Clars auctioneers, appraising and selling fine art and antiques since 1948, will offer collectors a two-day sale February 5-6, 2011, with important works of fine art, Asian art, furniture, jewelry, books, manuscripts and collectibles offered from their Oakland salesroom with live bidding via the internet. Top lots include a Paul Klee oil on paper, a rare Queen Elizabeth I manuscript, a first edition of “Grapes of Wrath” and a classic motorcar, among many other desirable lots. An extensive and impressive list of works by American and international artists is led by an unframed oil on paper by Swiss artist Paul Klee titled “Landhaus im Norden,” 1925 (est. $400/600,000). “Under the Mango Tree” by Fernando Cueto Amorsolo (Filipino, 1892-1972) is estimated at $35/45,000 while a framed color pencil on paper titled “Tete de Profil” by Amedeo Modigliani (Italian, 1884-1920) should ... More
Prendergast Works Loaned to Milwaukee Art Museum
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN.- A selection of important objects by artist Charles Prendergast (1863–1948) are on display as of today. To frame historians, the name Charles Prendergast is a hallowed one. To art historians, he is a fascinating but elusive early American modern artist. To many, he is simply painter Maurice Prendergast's younger brother. Through the generosity of the Terra Foundation for American Art, three important works by Charles Prendergast temporarily join the Maurice Prendergast paintings in the Museum's Collection. Charles Prendergast, already an established Arts and Crafts frame maker, embarked on an ambitious second career as a painter and sculptor in his fifties. He continued in this profession for thirty-six years, producing works such as the painted panel Four Figures and Donkey and the carved Chest. "Prendergast blurred the boundaries of decorative design and high art even more than his Arts and Cra ... More
RM Auctions Selects Salon Privé at Syon Park for All New "Quintessentially English" UK Sale
LONDON.- RM Auctions, the world’s largest collector car auction house, is delighted to announce that it has selected the Salon Privé luxury car show and Concours d’Elegance at Syon Park, as the venue for its third annual European sale. Themed ‘Quintessentially English’ and scheduled for 23rd June, 2011, the new RM sale is set to become a regular fixture on the company’s global events calendar, catering specifically for collectors with an affinity for British marques. Max Girardo, Managing Director, RM Europe says, “Over the past four years, RM has firmly placed its stamp on the UK auction scene with our unique style, quality offerings and unsurpassed client experience. Held in the middle of London’s summer events season, our new sale at Salon Privé will complement our already well-established Autumn Battersea sale by offering a fresh, new approach – it will be smaller in size and focu ... More
Memorial at Site of Auschwitz Oven Builders
ERFURT, GERMANY (AP).- A new memorial is opening in Germany that examines the role played by educated professionals such as the engineers and architects who created the crematoria ovens for Auschwitz to help carry out the Holocaust. The exhibit is housed in the former administrative building of the Topf & Sons company that collaborated with Hitler's SS to design and construct special ovens to meet the demands of the death camps. It opens to the public on Thursday, the day of international Holocaust remembrance. Using original blueprints, letters from the Nazi SS, and other documents, the exhibit shows how a "normal" German company, based in the central city of Erfurt, knew and took pride in its role of designing a crucial part of the killing machinery. "The story is so unique but so universal," said curator Rikola-Gunnar Luettgenau. "Nowhere else is it possible to see the overreaching bridge between daily life under the Nazis and the monstrosity of Auschwitz." Visitors entering ... More
Iconic Little House on the Prairie Artwork Readies for Illustration Art Event at Heritage Auctions
BEVERLY HILLS, CA.- Famed illustrator Garth Williams' original graphite 1953 cover art for Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder – familiar image to anyone that has read the classic books since the Fifties – will be part of Heritage Auctions' Feb. 11 Signature® Illustration Art Auction in Beverly Hills. It is expected to bring $8,000+ and joins 99 other Little House drawings, spread across 30 lots, in the auction. "So many of us saw America's heartland through the eyes of Garth Williams, through these exact drawings," said Barry Sandoval, Director of Operations of Comics & Comic Art at Heritage, "and the cover is the most famous of them all. With his wonderful soft-pencil art, Williams conveyed the majesty of the prairie, but also the warmth of a family that had to stick together through all of its hardships." Williams' scenes of the close-knit frontier family and all of their hardships have become accepted as the de ... More
Clara Kim to Join Walker Art Center as Senior Curator of Visual Arts
MINNEAPOLIS, MN.- Clara Kim has been named Senior Curator of Visual Arts at the Walker Art Center, effective August 1. Kim is currently Gallery Director and Curator of REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) in Los Angeles. She will lead the artistic vision of the Walker's visual arts department; promote new acquisitions, exhibitions, publications, and artist-based residencies; and serve as artistic liaison with local, regional, national, and international artists and partners. "I am honored to be joining the team at the Walker," Kim said. "It is in many ways a homecoming for me, returning to the place where I began my curatorial career as an intern over 14 years ago. The Walker has had a formidable and lasting impact on me both professionally and critically. I am eager about the prospect of returning to build upon the Walker's incredible legacy—taking its singular programming in new and exciting directions." Kim has ... More
Adrian Ghenie at Tim Van Laere Gallery, Antwerp
ANTWERP.- Tim Van Laere Gallery presents an exhibition of new works on paper by Adrian Ghenie. Staking out an area between painting, collages and recently even a three-dimensional installation (The Dada Room), Ghenie's work draws from source material ranging from personal narratives, to historical references, to popular culture (e.g. Laurel and Hardy, slapstick), to artistic connotations (e.g. the Dadaists, the renaissance painting). For Ghenie this source material is part of our collective memory. The artist arranges elements from this collective memory into new compositions, creating visual gestures that feel familiar yet eerie to the experiencing subject. According to Ghenie, it is only through the juxtaposition of these images that new symbolic meanings emerge. Moreover, a powerful compositional contrast is established that bypasses the spectator's consciousness. "Nothing is really interesting in itself. It's th ... More
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