| | Exhibition in Barcelona Explores the Realist Movement through Courbet's Paintings
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Visitors pass by the paintings 'Self portrait' (L) by Spanish artist Bartolome Murillo (1617-1682) and 'Fugint de la critica' (R) by Spanish artist Pere Borrell (1835-1910) (R) at the exhibition 'Realism (s). The tread of Courbet' at the Catalonian Contemporary Art National Museum (MNAC) in Barcelona, Spain, 07 April 2011. The exhibition shows 80 artworks by Courbet, and other artists influenced by his work, including paintings, drawings, pictures and prints, and can be visited until 10 July 2011. EPA/MARTA PEREZ.
BARCELONA.- The French Painter Gustave Courbet rocked the art world in the 19th century. Through his brush, reality entered painting: Realism was born. With the aim of tracing his footsteps in this country, the MNAC is exhibiting a selection of his most outstanding works, most of which are being shown in Spain for the first time. The exhibition reveals Courbet’s influence on Catalan painting in the period, most of all through the work of Ramon Martí Alsina, the man responsible for the renewal of painting and who introduced Realism to the Spanish art scene. It is an ambitious exhibition, produced by the MNAC, that invites the public to gain greater in-depth knowledge of Realism and at the same time discover its precedents and its legacy, in a show that deliberately goes beyond the temporal limits of this movement: from the Spanish Golden Age, with paintings by Murillo, Ribera and Velázquez, to contemporary art, through the ... More |
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Philip Taaffe's First-Ever Solo Exhibition in London Opens at Gagosian Gallery
Philip Taaffe, Crescent Totem, 2011 (detail). Mixed media on linen 114 x 52 inches 289.6 x 132.1 cm. ® 2011 Philip Taaffe. Photo by Rob McKeever. Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.
LONDON.- Gagosian Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings by Philip Taaffe, his first-ever solo exhibition in London. Taaffe’s paintings are the slow product of wide-ranging meditations on the interrelation of forms and images in art, nature, architecture, and archaeology. Filtered through a critical and dynamic relation to the history of abstract painting, Taaffe’s oeuvre is remarkable for its visual exuberance and intricate craft. In a single work he might combine the gestural impulses of Action Painting with the mechanical processes of silk-screening, as well as relief printing, marbleizing, traditional gold-leaf illumination, and subtle collage processes that are entirely of his own invention. Through these elaborate methods he composes dazzling schemes of great eloquence and beauty, often combining deeply personal visual reflections with ... More | | Bonnard's Le Petit Déjeuner to Highlight Christie's Impressionist and Modern Evening Sale
Pierre Bonnard, Le petit déjeuner (detail), oil on canvas, painted in 1936. Estimate: $6,000,000-9,000,000. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2011.
NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announced its upcoming Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on May 4 will include Pierre Bonnard’s Le petit déjeuner, an important interior scene from the artist’s last decade, a significant period of modernist innovation for the artist. Previously featured in museum retrospectives of the artist’s work at the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, among others, this radiant 1936 painting has been in the private collection of the late arts patron Evelyn Annenberg Jaffe Hall since it was acquired more than sixty years ago. Thanks to increased scholarship on this mature period in Bonnard’s career in recent years, there has been a resurgence of interest in Bonnard's late, great paintings and a re-appraisal of his importance within the canon of 20th century art. In the past 12 months alone, the world auction record price for any work by the ... More | | Major Chinese Ceramics Sale at Sotheby's in Hong Kong Fails to Live Up to Hype
Falangcai Vase With Golden Pheasants and a Poetic Colophon'. Sotheby's withdrew the item from auction after it fetched less than expected. EPA/YM YIK.
By: James Pomfret
HONG KONG (REUTERS).- A major collection of Chinese ceramics seen as one of the best to be sold in decades, fell flat in a Sotheby's sale on Thursday, in a surprise setback for the market given a relative lack of Chinese buying interest and high estimates. Amid great market expectations, four hundred people crammed into Sotheby's Hong Kong auction room for a chance to witness the sale of perhaps the best and last intact major private Western collections of Chinese ceramics, assembled over half a century by Swiss pharmaceutical tycoons, the Zuellig brothers. Bidding though, was surprisingly tame from the start for the 77 lots of Ming and Qing wares spanning dynasties from the 14th to 18th centuries, with 30 percent of lots going unsold and the sale netting just $51.2 million, around half the pre-sale ... More |
 | Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Reaches Purchase Agreement for 17th-Century Tapestries
The Palazzo dell' Annona, from THE LIFE OF POPE URBAN VIII (detail), Barberini Manufactory, Italian (Rome), 1663–1679. Tapestry weave (wool warp; wool and silk wefts). Overall: 565.2 x 132.1 cm (222 1/2 x 52 in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
BOSTON, MA.- Provenance research conducted by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), has resulted in new discoveries about the history of ownership of four 17th-century tapestries in the MFA’s collection. The Museum’s research revealed that the tapestries—given to the MFA in the 1950s by Eugene Garbáty, a German Jewish art collector and refugee—had been included in a forced sale in 1935 of the stock of the art dealership Margraf and Co. in Berlin, a firm run by Jakob and Rosa Oppenheimer. The MFA contacted the Oppenheimer heirs in 2010 to inform them of the discovery and to begin settlement discussions, which concluded recently. “In the course of provenance research on our collection, we learned that these tapestries were part of the Oppenheimer family’s heritage,” said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund ... More | | Westervelt Collection To Highlight Christie's American Paintings Sale May 18
Childe Hassam (1859-1935), Celia Thaxter’s Garden, oil on canvas. Estimate: $1 – 1.5 million. Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2011.
NEW YORK, N.Y.- Christie’s announce it has been entrusted with the sale of selected works from one of the most important corporate collections of American paintings ever to appear at auction. On May 18, as part of its sale of Important American Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture, Christie’s will offer 29 paintings from the private collection of The Westervelt Company, formerly Gulf States Paper Corporation, based in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Amassed over four decades by Jonathan (Jack) Westervelt Warner, the former chief executive of Gulf States Paper Corporation, the selection includes masterworks by the leading American artists of 19th and 20th centuries, including Albert Bierstadt, William Trost Richards, Childe Hassam, Frederick Carl Frieseke, Marsden Hartley, Thomas Hart Benton, Charles Ephraim Burchfield, and Andrew Wyeth, among others. The complete group is estimated to achieve in excess of US$ 10 million. Eric W ... More | | Bonhams in London Hammers Bronze into Gold in Chinese Art Sale Next Month
Archaic bronze wine vessel and cover, fangyi late Shang Dynasty, Circa BC 1300-1050, cast with mythical beasts and dragons. Estimate: £700,000 to £1,000,000. Photo: Bonhams.
LONDON.- A collection of remarkable 3,000-year-old Chinese bronze ritual offering vessels will be among the most important items in Bonhams next sale of fine Chinese Art on May 12th. Two of these items are estimated to sell for £700,000 to £1,000,000 and £500,000 to £800,000. They have emerged from a little known Canadian collection made by a family which fled the Nazis and spent WWII in China, joining family in Canada after the war. A granddaughter, Mrs E. Sinclair, inherited the collection. Lot 249 is an important and rare archaic bronze wine vessel and cover, fangyi late Shang Dynasty, Circa BC 1300-1050, cast with mythical beasts and dragons. It is estimated to sell for £700,000 to £1,000,000. Among all bronze vessels produced in early China, the fangyi, a rectangular wine vessel, deserves special attention. It is extremely rare as it was made during a short period (Late Shang –Early Zhou, c. 1300-1000BCE). Almost all ... More |
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Sotheby's London Sale of Contemporary Turkish Art Realises Total of £2.3 Million
Mubin Orhon, Untitled, oil on canvas, 1963 (detail). Estimate: £200,000 - 300,000. Sold for £241,250 ($393,141). Photo: Sotheby's.
LONDON.- Sotheby’s Sale of Contemporary Turkish Art today achieved a total of £2,332,175 ($3,800,512), within pre-sale expectations (est. £2-3 million). The auction established sell-through rates of 65.7% by lot and 75.4% by value, and set 13 new artist records and 8 benchmarks for artists new to auction. Commenting on the results of the auction, Elif Bayoglu, Head of the Contemporary Turkish Art Sale, said: “Overall, we are pleased with the results of today’s sale which are in line with what we achieved this time last year, demonstrating the continued strength of this segment of the art market. Pre-auction interest in both Turkey and London was strong, and buyers today came from across the globe: North America, Middle East, Continental Europe, the UK and of course Turkey . We also established new auction records for 13 artists and 8 benchmarks were also set for artists new to auction.” The auction ... More | | Brooch that Belonged to Queen Victoria Reigns Over Bonhams Jewellery Sale
The finely detailed brooch is embellished with green and red enamel, set with cabochon garnets that suspend an elongated drop of a similar design. Photo: Bonhams.
LONDON.- A gold, enamel and garnet bodice brooch from 1830 that belonged to Queen Victoria made fourteen times its pre-sale estimate at Bonhams Jewellery Sale that took place yesterday (April 6th) in Knightsbridge. With a pre-sale estimate of £600 – 800, the brooch sold for £11,400. The finely detailed brooch is embellished with green and red enamel, set with cabochon garnets that suspend an elongated drop of a similar design.
The brooch originally belonged to Victoria, Duchess of Kent, who on her death in 1861 (the same year as the death of Prince Albert) left her jewellery to her daughter, Queen Victoria. Queen Victoria subsequently gave the brooch to her third daughter Helena, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, as a present on her 24th birthday in 1870. The reverse of the brooch has a simple, yet very personal engraving:
... More | | First Exhibition to Focus on Motif of the Open Window in 19th Century Art at Metropolitan Museum
Caspar David Friedrich, Woman at the Window, 1822. Oil on canvas, 17 3/4 x 12 7/8 in. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Alte Nationalgalerie. Photo: Jörg P. Anders.
NEW YORK, NY.- During the Romantic era, the open window appeared either as the sole subject or the main feature in many pictures of interiors that were filled with a poetic play of light and perceptible silence. Rooms with a View: The Open Window in the 19th Century, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 5 through July 4, 2011, is the first exhibition to focus on this motif as captured by German, Danish, French, and Russian artists around 1810–20. Works in the exhibition range from the initial appearance of the motif in two sepia drawings of about 1805–06 by Caspar David Friedrich to paintings of luminous empty rooms from the late 1840s by Adolph Menzel. The show features 31 oil paintings and 26 works on paper, and consists mostly of generous loans from museums in Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Austria, Sweden, and the United ... More |
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New Version of the Two-Man Orchestra Led by Wilhelm Bruck and Matthias Würsch at Museum Tinguely
Wilhelm Bruck (in the back) and Matthias Würsch (in the front) during rehearsals for Mauricio Kagel's "Zwei-Mann-Orchester", 3rd version, Basel 2011. © 2011 Museum Tinguely, Basel Photo: Ute Schendel.
BASEL.- Zwei-Mann-Orchester [Two-Man Orchestra] for two one-man orchestras (1971–73), described by its creator Mauricio Kagel (1931–2008) as an 'unautonomous automatophone', is surely one of the strangest yet most original pieces of contemporary music ever composed. When it was premièred at the Donaueschingen Festival in 1973, Kagel and his musicians, Wilhelm Bruck and Theodor Ross, surprised their mystified audience with a gigantic contraption pieced together from more than 200 broken, battered and discarded instruments and dysfunctional sound-generators. They were played with the aid of strings, rods, levers and all manner of other movable elements by the smallest combination of musicians capable of forming an ensemble. The traditional instrumental body of the renowned festival that had ... More | | Asia Week New York 2011 Announces Sales Over $250 Million, Double and Triple Attendance
Vajradhara, Tibet, 14th century. Gilt copper alloy, pigment and gems. H: 19¾ inches. Courtesy of Kapoor Galleries.
NEW YORK, NY.- Collectors, curators, scholars and Asian art enthusiasts from around the world convened for Asia Week New York 2011 in March—nine days of exhibitions, private sales, public auctions, special events and fund-raising, spending more than $250 million on Asian art. Complementing Asian exhibitions at 18 New York-area museums and cultural institutions were thousands of ancient through contemporary Asian works of art at 5 leading auction houses and at the venues of 34 Asian art specialists exhibiting in New York. Dealers from the U.S. and abroad reported double and triple the attendance over last year with strong sales to collectors and institutions based in the United States, Europe, Hong Kong and mainland China with many works on reserve by museums. Asia Week New York 2011 sales highlights include: • Showing The John Menke Collection of Vietnamese Ceramics, Zetterquist Galleries announced that the enti ... More | | Silvio Berlusconi and Moroccan Teenage Lover Ruby on Auction at Milan Art Dealer
A man unwraps a painting called "Silvio & Ruby" made with plastic bags and scotch tape by Israeli artist Dodi Reifenberg at the Edward Cutler gallery. REUTERS/Alessandro Garofalo.
MILAN (REUTERS).- A smiling close-up of Silvio Berlusconi and Moroccan teenager Karima El Mahroug together would have been a priceless picture for photographers attending the Italian prime minister's trial on underage prostitution charges. Prosecutors accuse the 74-year-old Berlusconi of paying for sex with El Mahroug when she was under the legal age limit of 18 and the trial, which opened in Milan on Wednesday, has caused a global media sensation. But Israeli-born artist Dodi Reifenberg said the couple has inspired him to create a more regal image to depict the young dancer and the aging Italian politician. "When I started working, I had a clear objective. I wanted people to think they were just looking at a beautiful couple, like Prince William & Kate Middleton, portrayed in their life together," ... More |
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 Ceramics Produce Fireworks During Garth's March Americana AuctionDELAWARE, OH.- The firing of objects made from earthenware, porcelain, and stoneware comprise the larger category known as ceramics and during Garth’s March 11-12, 2011 Americana auction, the ceramics definitely provided continual fireworks as bidders, both in-house and in absentia, took home a variety of vessels, some typical and some more unusual, at very strong prices. With over 800 lots offered in two sessions, the top lot of the sale was a monumental Cochiti effigy figure dating to the late 19th – early 20th century, which sold for $17,625 against an estimate of $4/8,000. With outstretched arms and polychromed surface, the figure practically beseeched the audience to embrace the chance to be the new owner. Of the approximately twenty-five lots of effigy figures and vessels from the collection of Charles Shanafelt (b. 1855), most were collected around 1900 and 1915 as figurative pottery from New Mexico ... More Auctions America by RM Acquires Bator Vintage Motorcycle AuctionsAUBURN, INDIANA.- Less than one year after its formation, Auctions America by RM, a subsidiary of the world’s largest collector car auction house - RM Auctions, is expanding to include a vintage motorcycle division with the acquisition of Bator Vintage Motorcycle Auctions. The well-respected classic and antique motorcycle expert, Glenn Bator, will lead the new division for Auctions America. The company will present its first extensive bike offering at its second annual ‘Auburn Fall Collector Car Auction’ scheduled September 1 – 4, 2011 at its 235-acre Auburn (Ind.) Auction Park headquarters during the famed ‘Auburn Cord Duesenberg Festival’ weekend. “The establishment of a dedicated motorcycle division for our company is in direct response to our clients’ interests and requests,” states Donnie Gould, President, Auctions America by RM. “We’re thrilled to have Glenn Bat ... More High to Showcase Works by Alfred Stieglitz and His Circle from Atlanta CollectionsATLANTA, GA.- The High Museum of Art will organize and host “Alfred Stieglitz and His Circle: American Moderns from Atlanta Collections,” an exhibition featuring approximately 60 works―watercolors, prints, paintings and photographs―drawn from the High’s permanent collection, as well as loans from private collections located in Atlanta. On display will be works by both Alfred Stieglitz and the artists who engaged with him over the course of five decades—from the early experimental works of Max Weber to the mature expressions of John Marin and Marsden Hartley, and the progressive photographic compositions of Paul Strand and Edward Steichen. The exhibition will be on view from June 18 through September 11, 2011, and will run concurrently with “John Marin’s Watercolors: A Medium for Modernism.” The Marin exhibition, organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, was largely drawn from that m ... More 2011 Portland Museum of Art Biennial Highlights 47 Contemporary Maine ArtistsPORTLAND, ME- This spring the Portland Museum of Art features 47 artists whose work has been selected for the 2011 Portland Museum of Art Biennial, on view April 7 through June 5, 2011. Last September, jurors Jim Kempner, Owner and Director of Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York; David Row, a painter based in New York and Maine; and Joanna Marsh, the James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., chose 65 works culled from more than 900 applicants. Their work is created in media ranging from painting, drawing, printmaking, and photography to sculpture, installation, and video. The majority of Biennial artists are full-time Maine residents and a number of them are part-time or have spent significant time exhibiting, creating artwork, and studying in Maine. This blend of experiences enriches the state’s artistic community and defines its art scene as one ... More LACMA and Film Independent Join Forces on New Film SeriesLOS ANGELES, CA.- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) announced that it has entered into a partnership with Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards and the Los Angeles Film Festival. As a result of the museum’s analysis and strategic planning process (funded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association) over the past year around its current film program, Film Independent was identified as an ideal partner for its film series. The collaboration combines LACMA’s efforts in presenting film within an encyclopedic art historical context with Film Independent’s strong relationships with filmmakers and expertise in building audiences and developing programs for a wide spectrum of films. The partnership is effective immediately, with new programming to begin in September 2011. LACMA and Film Independent are al ... MoreWinners of 2011 EU Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards AnnouncedBRUSSELS.- The 27 winners of the 2011 European Union Prize for Cultural Heritage / Europa Nostra Awards are announced today by the European Commission and Europa Nostra. The awards will be presented on 10 June during a ceremony at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in the presence of Androulla Vassiliou, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth, and Plácido Domingo, the world-renowned tenor and president of Europa Nostra. Out of the 27 winning projects, six will be named as 'grand prix' laureates at the ceremony as 2011’s most outstanding heritage achievements. "Each of the winners represent the best of Europe’s achievements in conservation, research and education, as well as honouring dedicated service by individuals and groups. Cultural heritage is an essential part of our cultural diversity and shared history; it brings together our past, present and future. It has helped to make E ... More Archives of American Art Receives Second Multimillion Dollar Grant to Support Digitization ProjectWASHINGTON, DC.- The Terra Foundation for American Art has awarded a $3 million grant to the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art to support another five years of the Archives' digitization project and to fund a new position that will create and oversee related online scholarly and educational outreach initiatives. With this second grant, the Terra Foundation has committed more than $6.6 million over a 10-year period. Founded in 1954, the Archives is the world's largest and most widely used resource on the history of American art, with vast holdings of art-related photographs, sketches, letters and diaries. Over the next five years, a substantial number of its most-requested documents will be prepared, scanned and made available on the Archives' website, www.aaa.si.edu. Grant monies also will enable the Archives to further develop Web technologies to support various social media formats and digital humanities scholarship. Beg ... More |
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