| | Collector Jane Batten Donates Nine American Masterpieces to the Chrysler Museum of Art
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Albert Bierstadt, Minnehaha Falls. Oil on canvas. Promised gift of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Batten. Image courtesy of the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Va.
By: William J. Hennessey
NORFOLK, VA.- In addition to his extraordinary success as a businessman, civic leader, and philanthropist, the late Frank Batten, Sr. was also a distinguished art collector. Now, thanks to the generosity of Jane Batten, nine works from the Batten Collection have been placed on long-term loan to the Chrysler as promised gifts to the Museum. This winter the museum will present these American masterpieces by Winslow Homer, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Hart Benton, William Glackens, and Edward Redfield, and others in a special second-floor installation. Forty years ago Walter Chrysler, Jr. arrived in Norfolk. He brought with him one of the nation’s great private collections—over 30,000 works of art spanning the full history of human civilization. Chrysler’s gift to the Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences was transformational. The newly renamed Chrysler Museum was suddenly the home to an art collection of international ... More |
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Nearly 3,000 Calligraphers in Japanese Break Out the Brushes for Annual New Year's Ritual
Participants show off their works during the New Year calligraphy contest at the Budokan Hall in Tokyo. EPA/FRANCK ROBICHON.
TOKYO (REUTERS) .- Nearly 3,000 people gathered in Tokyo on Wednesday from as far away as Brazil to break out their calligraphy brushes for an annual new year's ritual to bring in 2011. Traditionally, people across Japan use ink brushes and paper to write out their resolutions, wishes or auspicious Chinese characters to commemorate the start of a new year. Participants, who ranged from those barely old enough to write all the way up to 80-somethings, were given 24 minutes to complete their calligraphic portrayals of the year ahead. "I first came since my nephew had been coming a few times, and now I've come 13 times in a row," said 60-year-old Yasuko Ikeda after finishing her piece, executed using a thick, horse-hair brush and ink made from charcoal. The Chinese characters selected for people to write ranged from "New Year" to "Vibrant Nature." "I hope that, as I wrote, I can get through this year without catching a cold or getting sick," said Yuki Oogane, 12, who wrote the Chin ... More | | Dennis Hopper Art Collection Up for Auction Next Week at Christie's in New York
A portrait of Mao Zedong by Andy Warhol, with two bullet holes put there by "Easy Rider" star Dennis Hopper. AP Photo/Christie's Images Ltd. 2011.
By: Ula Ilnytzky, Associated Press
NEW YORK, NY. (AP).- Dennis Hopper shot two bullet holes through an Andy Warhol portrait of Mao Zedong but instead of earning the wrath of the artist, Warhol called the "Easy Rider" star a collaborator. Warhol's "Mao" is among 300 works of fine art and memorabilia owned by the late actor-director of the 1969 counterculture film up for auction at Christie's next week. The 1972 colored screenprint is expected to bring $20,000 to $30,000. Most of the items adorned the actor's Venice Beach, Calif., home. Hopper, who was twice nominated for Oscars and earned a star last year on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, died of prostate cancer at his home in May. He was 74. The actor/director was already stricken with cancer when he attended the ceremony for the unveiling of his commemorative star. The framed plaque of the star that Hopper received as a momento of the event is being sold next week for an estimated $1,000 to $1,500. Hopper ... More | | Miraculous Hudson River Splashdown Plane Headed for North Carolina Museum
Shawn Dorsch, president of the Carolinas Aviation Museum sits in a cockpit on display in the museum. AP Photo/Bob Leverone.
By: Mitch Weiss, Associated Press
CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP).- The US Airways jet that made a near-miraculous landing on the Hudson River in 2009 will finally reach its destination, but as a museum piece rather than in service. The Carolinas Aviation Museum has almost completed an agreement to buy the damaged plane from the insurance company that owns it, museum president Shawn Dorsch said Wednesday. The museum is in Charlotte, which was the destination of US Airways Flight 1549 until a flock of geese disabled the engines. Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger glided it to a safe landing on the Hudson in New York City and all 155 passengers and crew members were rescued. Dorsch would not disclose the cost of the plane. The fuselage is in a New Jersey warehouse. Dorsch says he hopes to have the plane on exhibit by May. "It will be trucked down here and will be reassembled in the configuration it came out of the water," he said. "And ... More |
 | The Circus Leaves Town this Weekend, Final Days to Clown Around at the Bruce Museum
Clown Toy, Windup Clown Toy. Bruce Museum Collection (93.13.17) Photograph by Paul Mutino.
GREENWICH, CT.- The Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, showcases the delight and wonder of the circus in Circus! Art and Science Under the Big Top, the new exhibition on view through January 9, 2011. Organized by the Bruce Museum, the exhibition illuminates the skillful pageantry and daring feats of this spectacular form of public entertainment and examines its evolution from the 18th century to the modern day. The exhibition features over 65 objects, many on loan from institutions throughout the country. These include authentic swallowing swords and costumes, colorful circus posters, historic photographs, and exquisite fine artworks by world renowned artists such as Henri Matisse and Marc Chagall. Also included are several interactive stations demonstrating the science and mechanics behind performing acts that seem to fly through the air or require impossible balance. Circus! Art and Science Under the Big Top opens w ... More | | New Book on The Moche of Ancient Peru in the Peabody Museum Collection Series
Jeffrey Quilter's Magdalena de Cao excavation made headlines in fall 2010.
CAMBRIDGE, MA.- In the coastal lowlands of northern Peru, the Moche archaeological culture flourished from about A.D. 100 to 800. Moche culture is known for its vividly painted and realistically modeled ceramics. A new volume in the award-winning Peabody Museum Collection Series presents a refreshing analysis of Moche works from the magnificent collection at Harvard's Peabody Museum. In the richly illustrated The Moche of Ancient Peru: Media and Messages, archaeologist Jeffrey Quilter gives readers a thorough introduction to this fascinating culture and explores current thinking about Moche politics, history, society, religion, and art. The Peabody's collection became a means for Quilter to investigate how the Moche used various media, particularly ceramics, to convey messages about their lives and beliefs. In The Moche of Ancient Peru, Quilter provides a critical examination of many commonly held interpretations of Mo ... More | | New Edition of Mark Twain's Books will Try to Hold True after Removing 'Offensive' Words
Mark Twain. AP Photo/The Mark Twain House & Museum.
By: Philip Rawls, Associated Press
MONTGOMERY, AL. (AP).- Mark Twain wrote that "the difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." A new edition of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" will try to find out if that holds true by replacing the N-word with "slave" in an effort not to offend readers. Twain scholar Alan Gribben, who is working with NewSouth Books in Alabama to publish a combined volume of the books, said the N-word appears 219 times in "Huck Finn" and four times in "Tom Sawyer." He said the word puts the books in danger of joining the list of literary classics that Twain once humorously defined as those "which people praise and don't read." "It's such a shame that one word should be a barrier between a marvelous reading experience and a lot of readers," Gribben said. Yet Twain was particular about his words. His letter in 1888 about ... More |
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Heritage Auctions Adds Up More Than $677 Million in Overall Gross Sales in 2010
Lou Gehrig 1927 Jersey.
DALLAS, TX.- With final overall 2010 tallies in, adding up to more than $677 million gross, Heritage Auctions is pointing to a record year across several categories of its business including world record totals for any auction house in the Comics & Original Comic Art and Illustration Art categories. "We saw brisk growth in those categories in particular," said Greg Rohan, President of Heritage Auctions. "When we combine the weekly comic and comic art auctions with our Signature auctions, the total for the comics category reaches $23,077,321, while Illustration Art, anchored by the Charles Martignette Estate, totaled $14,454,281. We've done our research and can't find another auction firm that has ever equaled those totals in these categories." Comics saw several high-profile auctions over the course of the year, with none bigger than the February sale of a CGC graded 8.0 copy of Detective Comics #27, ... More | | New Installation of Fluorescent Minerals Collection Opens at the University of Richmond Museums
Specimen from the Franklin-Sterling Hill District in New Jersey. © Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature, University of Richmond Museums. Photograph by Katherine Wetzel.
RICHMOND, VA.- The Lora Robins Gallery of Design from Nature, one of the University of Richmond Museums, will open the reinstallation of the permanent exhibition Fluorescent Minerals: From the Permanent Collection on January 12, 2011. This new display contains more than 300 specimens and more than 40 different mineral species from North America and beyond, and it explores the science behind these minerals' ability to fluoresce. Highlights of the installation include numerous bright reddish-orange and green rocks of calcite and willemite from New Jersey, yellow-green hyalite opal slabs from North Carolina, and deep red rubies from India. A majority of these specimens originate from the famous Franklin-Sterling Hill mining district in Sussex County, New Jersey. ... More | | A&F Markets in Paris Presents Art Exchange, the First Stock Exchange for Art
Art Exchange allows the public, as well as institutions, to buy and sell shares of artworks. AP Photo/Stephen Chernin.
PARIS.- A&F Markets will soon be launching Art Exchange, the first stock exchange for Art that will be open to everyone who wishes to invest in a new and extremely interesting asset. By allowing the public, as well as institutions, to buy and sell shares of artworks via its marketplace, Art Exchange renders the investment in Art attractive, simple, fast and liquid. “We believe that we respond to a clear demand from financial players: the opportunity to invest easily in a highly appealing asset that has, until present, not been possible,” explains Pierre Naquin, founder of A&F Markets. “Through providing the art market with the transparency and the liquidity (factors that are continuously identified as almost nonexistant) needed, we believe to have found the right formula that allows a much larger public to finally consider in ... More |
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Churchill, The Windsors and 420 Million Year Old Tree Trunk Star in Bonhams Gentleman's Library Sale
Gladstone's wheelbarrow and shovel, Estimate: £20,000-£25,000. Photo: Bonhams.
LONDON.- What do one of Churchill’s cigars, a 35 million years old fossilised giant pig, a silver wheelbarrow presented to W.E. Gladstone, historic butterfly cabinets from the Natural History Museum and Christmas presents from the Duke and Duchess of Windsor have in common? They all feature in Bonhams annual Gentleman’s Library Sale on 19 January. During the war, portraits of Churchill were important propaganda tools but he rarely actually sat for them. In 1944 he did so, briefly, for the artist Frank O Salisbury who had already painted him many times. When the Prime Minister left, he discarded his half smoked cigar which the painter kept as a souvenir. It has been in the family ever since and is estimated at between £600 and £1,000. A perfect place to keep it would be one of the 46 collectors’ cabinets from the Natural History Museum. Until recently they hel ... More | | High Hosts Second Annual Collectors' Evening to Help Build the Museum's Collection
Spencer Finch, Bright Star (Sirius), 2010, fluorescent lamps, fixtures, filters, aluminum, 107 7/8 inches (diameter). Purchase through funds provided by patrons of the Second Annual Collectors' Evening, 2011.
ATLANTA, GA.- The High Museum of Art will host the second annual Collectors’ Evening on Friday, January 28. The event, instituted in 2010 to build and improve the Museum’s permanent collection, invites guests to take an active role in choosing the next work of art to join the collection. During the evening, each of the High’s current curators will present a work of art as a potential new acquisition for their collection. Guests will then cast their votes and the High will purchase the work of art that receives the most votes. “The second Collectors’ Evening arrives with much anticipation and excitement, both by our curators and the attendees who will be voting,” said David Brenneman, the High’s Director of Collections and Exhibitions and Frances B. Bunzl Family Curator ... More | | Norman Rockwell Museum Shares Decade-Long Digitization Project With Worldwide Audience
The “Four Freedoms” gallery at Norman Rockwell Museum. Photo courtesy of Berkshire Visitors Bureau. All rights reserved.
STOCKBRIDGE, MA.- Norman Rockwell Museum announces the online debut of ProjectNORMAN (New Online Rockwell Media Art & Archive Network), the public interface of its ongoing digitization efforts. Effective today (January 6), Visitors to the Museum’s website, will be to look through thousands of Norman Rockwell’s reference photos, preliminary sketches and paintings, and other items from the Museum’s art and archival collections. Initiated by Norman Rockwell Museum in 2003, ProjectNORMAN is a ten-year, comprehensive online publishing project, intended to preserve, catalogue, and digitize the Museum’s entire collection of original artworks and notable archival objects, making them more accessible to researchers and the general public worldwide. The project advances the Museum’s ... More |
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Glasgow Museum's Scotland Street School Museum Exhibits Toy Stories
GLASGOW.- An exhibition of some of the best loved toys in Britain over the past 100 years is open at Scotland Street School museum. Toy Stories relives many of the crazes and must-have toys and games over the 20th century and features everything from puzzles, action figures and board games. The exhibition looks at popular toys over the decades, including vintage toys like iconic Muffin the Mule, and also has a focus on Toy Crazes – from Yo-Yos and Slinkys right through to My Little Pony and the Rubik’s Cube. The exhibition also has a play area where visitors can play with toys, and is accompanied by a range of public events. Toy Stories runs until May 2, 2011 and has an extensive series of events based on the exhibition. On December 11th Scotland Street School hosted a family toys event with free workshops, activities and games and visitors to the exhibition in the run up to Christmas were able to post their letters to Santa in a special Toy Stories post-box. The exhi ... More
Mozambican Artist Malangatana Ngwenya Dead at 74
LISBON, PORTUGAL (AP).- Malangatana Ngwenya (Mah-LANG-gah-tah-nah en-GWEN-yah), a Mozambican painter, poet and politician who became one of the African country's most famous artists for his work drawing on the country's rocky history, died Wednesday, a Portuguese hospital said. He was 74. The Pedro Hispano Hospital in Matosinhos, Portugal, said that Ngwenya died there after a prolonged illness but declined to provide further details. Jorge Dias, a close friend of Ngwenya, and former curator of the National Museum of Art in Mozambique's capital, remembers Ngwenya as a great storyteller. "He had a massive collection of stories about Mozambican history. I learned a lot of our history from him," Dias told The Associated Press from Maputo. Inspired by Mozambican culture and history, as well as his own personal life, Ngwenya was not only an artist, but also a musician and philosopher, Dias said. Ngwenya left school at 11 when Mozambique ... More
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Presents Perspectives 173: Clifford Owens
HOUSTON, TX.- Perspectives 173: Clifford Owens marks the first museum solo exhibition for this New York-based photographer and performance artist. The exhibition is on view from January 6 through April 3 at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston. Often incorporating the camera in his performance works, Owens blurs the boundaries between the documentation of his performance events and the creation of photographic artwork born out of action. Additionally, Owens' performances break through the separation between artist and viewer by allowing audiences to participate in events. He also restages historical work by other artists, creating open-ended situations that challenge the convention of art-making. Inherent in his work, however, is the proclivity for performance as complex and process-oriented work. Owens' works often contain multiple components and layers based upon his interactions with the public or other artists. These interac ... More
Museum Of Contemporary Art San Diego Presents David Wojnarowicz's A Fire in My Belly
SAN DIEGO, CA.- The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego joins dozens of arts organizations and universities across the United States in protesting the Smithsonian Institution’s decision to remove a video by David Wojnarowicz from the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Through Feb. 13, MCASD will feature two versions of Wojnarowicz’s 1987 video A Fire in My Belly. They will be screened as part of the ongoing exhibition Home Bodies: Selections from the Permanent Collection in the galleries. On November 30, 2010, administrators of the Smithsonian Institute ordered that Wojnarowicz’s 1987 video, A Fire in My Belly, be removed from the exhibition Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, an exhibition which focuses on sexual difference in the making of modern portraiture. This decision was ma ... More
Unprecedented $13 Million Gift from the Otis Booth Foundation to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Kevin Sharer, Chairman, and Paul G. Haaga, President of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Board of Trustees of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, announced that the institution has received the largest private gift dedicated to the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park in its nearly century-long history, enabling it to create a gleaming glass entrance pavilion for the Museum and its new North Campus. The $13 million gift from The Otis Booth Foundation—the largest made to date by the Los Angeles-based private foundation—will allow NHM to provide a focal point for the major new public approach to the Museum, through the landscaped North Campus. Named the Otis Booth Pavilion in honor of Otis Booth’s service to the Museum and the unprecedented donation, the light-filled, three-story entrance will be connected to Exposition Boulevard by a soaring pedestrian bridge and w ... More
PAFA Strengthens Its Renowned Collection of American Art
PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) has stepped up its efforts to expand and diversify its renowned collection of American art. The strategic plan, approved by PAFA's Board of Trustees, calls for the growth of the collection through gift and purchase to fill gaps, including improving its holdings of Hudson River School artists, selected movements in 20th-century art, and contemporary art. In addition, PAFA seeks to add greater representation of works by women and African Americans. "We are very excited about the focused attention we are placing on the development of PAFA's already renowned collection of American art," said David R. Brigham, PAFA President and CEO. "Recent acquisitions will enable us to more fully tell the story of American art and culture." Recent artwork purchased to begin addressing the strategic collecting initiative include Lilly Martin Spencer's Mother and Child by the Heart ... More
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