| | Sotheby's London Establishes World Record Price at Auction For Egon Schiele in Sale
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A Sotheby's employee poses with artist Egon Schiele artwork "Hauser mit bunter wasche (vorstadt II) / Houses with laundry (suburb II)" at Sotheby's Auction House in London. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor.
LONDON (REUTERS).- Sotheby's auctioneer sold a rare cityscape by Austrian artist Egon Schiele for a record 24.7 million pounds ($40.1 million) at a London auction on Wednesday. The auction house had expected to fetch between 22 and 30 million pounds for the work, called "Hauser mit bunter Wasche 'Vorstadt' II" ("Houses with colorful Laundry, 'Suburb' II"). The sale price included a buyer's premium, meaning that despite comfortably setting a new auction benchmark for the artist, the work sold at the lower end of the expected price range. The work was painted in 1914 at the height of Schiele's short career, four years before his death in the Spanish influenza epidemic at the age of 28. Proceeds from the sale are expected to be used to help pay for the settlement of a long-running restitution dispute over a 1912 portrait of the artist's lover Walburga Neuzil (Wally). ... More |
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A Crusader Town Emerges Under an Old Israeli Port, Workers Prepare to Open It to the Public
Workers in a section of the Crusader town underneath the old port city of Acre. AP Photo/Ariel Schalit.
By: Matti Friedman, Associated Press
ACRE, ISRAEL (AP).- Off the track beaten by most Holy Land tourists lies one of the richest archaeological sites in a country full of them: the walled port of Acre, where the busy alleys of an Ottoman-era town cover a uniquely intact Crusader city now being rediscovered. Preparing to open a new subterranean section to the public, workers cleaned stones this week in an arched passageway underground. Etched in plaster on one wall was a coat of arms — graffiti left by a medieval traveler. Nearby was a main street of cobblestones and a row of shops that once sold clay figurines and ampules for holy water, popular souvenirs for pilgrims. All were last used by residents in 1291, the year a Muslim army from Egypt defeated Acre's Christian garrison and leveled its remains. The existing city, built by the Ottoman Turks around 1750, effectively preserved this earlier town, which had been hidden for centuries under the rubble. "It's like Pompeii of Roman times — it's a complete c ... More | | Renowned Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei Free After Confessing to Tax Evasion, Stays Quiet
File photo of artist Ai Weiwei speaking during an interview at his studio in Beijing. AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan.
By: Don Durfee and Chris Buckley
BEIJING (REUTERS).- The dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, whose detention in April ignited an international uproar, was released on bail Wednesday under conditions likely to keep the outspoken critic of Communist Party controls silent for now. "I can't say anything more, because I'm on bail," Ai told reporters who had gathered outside his home after his release was reported by China's official Xinhua news agency. His abrupt release came days before Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao heads to Europe, where Berlin and other capitals have been critical of Beijing's secretive detention of Ai and dozens of other rights advocates, lawyers and dissidents. But the Chinese government cast its apparent backdown as a vindication of their controversial case. Xinhua said Ai was freed "because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes as well as a chronic disease he suffers from," citing the police. A company that police said he controlled "was found to have evaded a huge amount of taxes and in ... More | | New Study Says Image of Ancient Mammoth or Mastodon Found on 13,000 Year-Old Bone
A carved image, at least 13,000 years old, found in Vero Beach, Fla. AP Photo/Smithsonian.
By: Randolph E. Schmid, AP Science Writer
WASHINGTON (AP).- Some of the earliest Americans turn out to have been artists. A bone fragment at least 13,000 years old, with the carved image of a mammoth or mastodon, has been discovered in Florida, a new study reports. While prehistoric art depicting animals with trunks has been found in Europe, this may be the first in the Western Hemisphere, researchers report Wednesday in the Journal of Archaeological Science. "It's pretty exciting, we haven't found anything like this in North America," said Dennis J. Stanford, curator of North American Archaeology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, who was a co-author of the report. They hunted these animals, Stanford explained, and "you see people drawing all kinds of pictures that are of relevance and importance to them." "Much of the real significance of such finds is in the tangible, emotional connection they allow us to feel with people in the deep past," said Dietrich Stout, an anthropologist at Emory Univer ... More |
Macedonia Erects Alexander the Great Statue, Further Inflaming Long-Running Row with Greece
A massive statue of Alexander the Great on his horse Bucephalus stands on its position on a pedestal on Macedonia Square. EPA/GEORGI LICOVSKI.
By: Kole Casule
SKOPJE (REUTERS).- Macedonia erected on Tuesday a giant bronze statue of Alexander the Great, further inflaming a long-running row with neighboring Greece that is blocking the country's bid for membership of the European Union and NATO. Cranes hoisted the 40-tonne, 11-meter-high (39-feet) statue on a 10-meter-high pedestal in downtown Skopje, where hundreds of people cheered and took pictures. "He is back. Alexander is finally home and can now rest," said Goran who brought his children to witness what he described as an historic event. Greece has prevented Macedonia's entry into NATO in 2008 and blocked its progress toward EU membership because it rejects the name Macedonia, which it says implies territorial ambitions toward Greece's own ... More | | Rare 16th Century Helmet Used by Opera House as a Stage Prop for Sale at Bonhams
A 16th Century Saxon Electoral Guard Comb Morion helmet from Nuremberg. Photo: Bonhams.
LONDON.- Bonhams sale of Fine Antique Arms and Armour on July 20th at Knightbridge includes the life’s work of a medical doctor, Peter Parsons, whose passion was armour. The collection is a perhaps strange interest for a man who spent his life dealing with damaged human bodies, but given that this stunningly beautiful material was designed to limit wound damage, not that surprising maybe. Among the items in the sale is a 16th Century Saxon Electoral Guard Comb Morion helmet from Nuremberg, that bears figures of Mutius Scaevola and of Marcus Curtius leaping into the gulf, and the arms of Saxony and the insignia of the Arch-marshalcy of the Holy Roman Empire. It is estimated to sell for £8,000-12,000. This item is from the group of helmets made for the Trabantan guard of the Prince Electors of Saxony. A large number of these morions are believed to have been given to the Dresden Opera House in the 1830s to be used as stage ... More | | Iron Age Gold Hoard, The Wickham Market Hoard, Saved for Ipswich Museum
Part of the Iron Age Wickham Market Hoard, Ipswich Museum.
LONDON.- One of the largest collections of Iron Age coins to be found in recent years has been saved for the nation, and will be displayed at Ipswich Museum thanks to the support of the Art Fund. The Wickham Market hoard is one of the most important discoveries to be found in Suffolk in the past century and joins a roll call of nationally important treasure finds from the county that includes the Mildenhall treasure and Hoxne hoard. The hoard consists of 840 gold coins dating from between 20 BC-AD 20. The hoard is rare for the time period and unique for this type of discovery as it contains only gold coinage. It is tangible evidence of the long history of the peoples of the British Isles and offers a direct connection to the Iceni tribe which remains strongly linked to the story of Boudica, one of Britain’s most famous folk heroines. Stephen Deuchar, director of the Art Fund, said, “We are pleased to have played a pa ... More |
Mining Heiress, Huguette Clark, Leaves Fortune to Arts, Monet to Washington's Corcoran
Mrs. Huguette Clark Gower, daughter of the late Sen. William A. Clark of Montana. AP Photo.
NEW YORK (AP).- Huguette Clark, the Montana copper mining heiress who died in New York last month at 104, has left most of her $400 million fortune to the arts. According to her will, obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday, Clark gave a prized Claude Monet water-lily painting not seen by the public since 1925 to Washington's Corcoran Gallery of Art. Manhattan prosecutors had been looking into how Clark's finances were handled while she spent the last two decades of her life in a hospital, a virtual recluse. Before that, she lived in the largest apartment on Fifth Avenue. The daughter of one-time U.S. Sen. William A. Clark left instructions for the creation of a foundation "for the primary purpose of fostering and promoting the arts." ... More | | Exceptional Drawing by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes to Be Offered at Christie's
Francisco Jose de Goya y Lucientes, Hutiles trabajos (Useful work). 10⅜ x 7⅜ in. Estimate: £2,000,000 - £3,000,000 ($3,244,000 - $4,866,000). Photo: Christie's Images Ltd 2011.
LONDON.- Christie's will offer a drawing made by Francisco de Goya y Lucientes at its Old Master & Early British Drawings & Watercolours sale on July 5. This enchanting drawing was numbered by Goya himself as sheet 37 of an unbound series of pages, commonly called Album E or the Black Border Album owing to the single- or double-ink border that makes its sheets immediately recognizable. In 1796, at the age of fifty, Goya began filling pages of albums with drawings of people observed in various attitudes and occupied in various ways, singly or in groups. He was to maintain this practice until the end of his life, some thirty years ... More | | Portraits of Major Artists by Important Italian Photographers at the Estorick Collection
Federico Garolla, Giorgio Morandi, Grizzana, 1961. Gelatin silver print, 40 x 30 cm.
LONDON.- United Artists of Italy, an exhibition of portraits of some of the 20th century’s best-known artists by twenty-two leading Italian photographers, will be staged at the Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, 39a Canonbury Square , London N1, from Wednesday 22 June to Sunday 4 September 2011. The exhibition, comprising around 90 photographs of artists including De Chirico, Fontana and Morandi by such photographers as Mario Giacomelli, Mimmo Jodice and Gianni Berengo Gardin, tells the story of the Italian contemporary art scene from the 1960s. This rich group of photographs has been assembled over many years by Massimo Minini. He was born in Vallecamonica, near Brescia . From 1964 to 1968, he ... More |
Prized Nobel Blades Highlight Bonhams & Butterfields' $1.2 Million Arms & Armor Sale
An historic gem-set and gilt silver-mounted Islamic saber, probably Turkish, 17th century. Sold for $144,500. Photo: Courtesy of Bonhams & Butterfields.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Bonhams & Butterfields Antique Arms, Armor and Modern Sporting Guns auction on June 20, 2011 in San Francisco brought an impressive $1.2 million, with top lots consigned from the Nobel Family Collection, which included Alfred Nobel, creator of the Nobel Prize awards. Leading the sale was a fine gold-inlaid nephrite hilted Ottoman jambiya, from the Nobel Family Collection, that brought $304,000 (est. $30,000-50,000). When translated, an inscription above the jambiya's hilt reads: "The work of Feyzollah of Sustar," and "Help from God and Early Victory." Other items that brought especially impressive results, included a fine Persian shamshir out of the Nobel Collection, that sold for $205,000 (est. $12,000-18,000), and a historic gem-set and gilt silver-mounted Islamic saber, from during the reign of the Tipu Sultan, which brought $144,500 (est. $15,000-25,000). The Islamic saber's origin points to a robust p ... More | | Frieze Projects 2011: Programme of Eight Artists' Commissions Announced in London
Sigmar Polke, Michael Werner. Frieze Art Fair 2010 in Regent's Park, London. Photo by Linda Nylind for Frieze.
LONDON.- Frieze Projects is a programme of artists’ commissions realised annually at Frieze Art Fair. Curated by Sarah McCrory, this year the programme includes eight specially commissioned projects as well as the Emdash Award. The artists commissioned to create site-specific works for Frieze Art Fair 2011 are: Bik Van der Pol, Pierre Huyghe, Christian Jankowski, Oliver Laric, LuckyPDF, Peles Empire, Laure Prouvost and Cara Tolmie. This year’s programme incorporates a number of unique viewpoints throughout the fair that will demand a shift in viewers’ perception, ranging from Laure Prouvost’s idiosyncratic signs positioned in response to the fair’s architecture, to Bik Van der Pol’s physical commentary on the environment, which will take the form of an abstract script writ large on a live text ‘scoreboard’. Pierre Huyghe’s aquarium demands that the fair audience looks at a mi ... More | | Delft: Johannes Vermeer, Porcelain, Bridges and Canals in Quaint Dutch City
This May 2, 2004 file photo shows a woman passing by reproductions of Johannes Vermeer paintings. AP Photo/Dusan Vranic.
By: Emily Fredrix, Associated Press
DELFT (AP).- You don't have to be in Delft long to see what inspired Johannes Vermeer. Meandering up and down countless bridges that stretch over canals, and past storefronts and slender houses, the quaint Dutch life sets in. It's this life — with its scenes of domesticity, milkmaids, and yes, that girl with the pearl earring — that the famed Dutch master so cherished during his lifetime in the city in the 1600s. And it's one that comes alive for anyone who visits this city of about 100,000 people even centuries after Vermeer's time. Granted, Delft is often overlooked as a tourist destination considering its larger, more cosmopolitan neighbors: Amsterdam is an hour by train and Den Haag (The Hague), some 25 minutes. But quaint does have a place and a time — and Delft exemplifies it. From the famed blue ... More |
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 Some September 11 Families Angered by Museum Entry FeeNEW YORK, NY (REUTERS).- Some family members of victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks expressed outrage on Wednesday at a potential admission fee to a National Memorial Museum currently under construction at the former site of the World Trade Center towers. Last week, president and chief executive of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum Joe Daniels told New York City council members about the possible $20 or $25 fee. He said the museum must generate enough income to operate, which memorial officials say could require between $50 and $60 million a year. The memorial portion will be free to enter. "This is not the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's supposed to be a memorial," said former New York City Fire Department Deputy Chief Jim Riches, whose son, also a firefighter, was killed in the attacks. "I think it's very crude." "This was not supposed to be a money making thing. Most people will be coming ... More California's Surfing Madonna Mosaic to Come DownENCINITAS, CA (AP).- The artist who created the popular but illegal Surfing Madonna mosaic has agreed to pay the costs of relocating it from public property, it was announced Tuesday. Mark Patterson will pay a $500 fine and all costs to remove the 10-foot-by10-foot stained glass work that mysteriously appeared days before Easter on the wall of a railroad bridge underpass in the beach town. In negotiations with the city, Patterson agreed to remove the artwork "as soon as reasonably possible," according to a city statement. The colorful piece depicts the Virgin of Guadalupe surfing a wave along with the words "Save the Ocean." Hundreds of people have come to view it in Encinitas, a picturesque coastal community 25 miles north of San Diego. City officials said the piece was put up without a permit and technically was graffiti. However, authorities also agreed that it was beautiful and hired an art conservation firm to find ... More Temporary Installation of Paul McCarthy's Work "Henry Moore Bound to Fail" in ViennaVIENNA.- The American artist Paul McCarthy’s work Henry Moore Bound to Fail presented by KÖR on public space karlsplatz relates to Henry Moore not only formally, but also topographically: it is positioned in a place that guarantees visual contact with the British sculptor’s Hill Arches in front of St. Charles’s Church. Paul McCarthy’s bronze holds a special position within the artist’s oeuvre in terms of design and material. McCarthy quite often develops his motifs over long periods of time; this sculpture’s origin is a miniature figure from 1960/61 which did not explicitly relate to Henry Moore at that time. Only when the artist took up the form again in 2003/2004, he emphasized the similarities to the Englishman’s sculptures and included his name in the title of the work. The smooth surface with its soft appearance and the abstract and yet torso-like form rotating around its own axis actually suggest an appropriation of Henry Moore’s aes ... More Haunch of Venison to Open New Chelsea Location With Dynamic Group Show NEW YORK, NY.- Haunch of Venison will present Boundaries Obscured from September 23rd to November 5th 2011, a group exhibition that will mark the gallery’s inaugural exhibition in their new Chelsea location. The show will feature new and seminal works by artists including Ahmed Alsoudani, Kevin Francis Gray, Isca Greenfield-Sanders, Jitish Kallat, Patricia Piccinini, Peter Saul, Eve Sussman, Günther Uecker and Joana Vasconcelos. Several of the aforementioned artists will also have solo shows in the new space over the next year. Haunch of Venison’s move to the heart of Chelsea’s gallery district is a major change from the previous Rockefeller Center location and reflects their renewed focus on gallery artists. “The inaugural exhibition is a group show of artists we work with. The move to Chelsea means greater exposure for our artists and the ability to more effectively present their work to the publ ... More Shining Stars Grace Gala at New Mercedes-Benz Manhattan Flagship StoreMONTDALE, NJ.- The new Mercedes-Benz Manhattan dealership hosted its gala opening last night and amongst the shining stars and VIPs pulsing around the 330,000 square foot flagship store was one of the most expensive Mercedes-Benz vehicles in the world that can’t be purchased at the dealership, but rather through RM Auctions during this year’s Pebble Beach Motoring Week in August. If guests weren’t buzzing about celebrities in attendance or Matchbox 20 playing a private concert, or food inspired by Executive Chef Gabriel Kreuther of the Modern, it was definitely the 1937 Mercedes-Benz 540K Special Roadster – chassis number 154140 - part of the esteemed private collection of Sam and Emily Mann. A star consignment for RM’s annual Monterey sale, August 19 – 20, the exquisite, multi-million dollar 1937 540K Special Roadster is expected to set a new auction record for a Mercedes-Benz, as well as enter ... More VMFA Presents Scraps: British Sporting Drawings from the Paul Mellon CollectionRICHMOND, VA.- Taking its title from a series of drawings and prints by Henry Alken depicting sketches of country life, Scraps: British Sporting Drawings from the Paul Mellon Collection features drawings and watercolors that showcase the passing moments of observation that comprise the rich world of British Sporting Art. The exhibition is on view from June 18th through September 18th, 2011 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA). Works in the exhibition range from pencil sketches which record the artist’s direct observation of animal subjects to more highly finished works which present a more fully developed vision of sport and country life. The exhibition offers a broader view of artists well known for their sporting paintings and prints such as Henry Alken, James Seymour, Sawrey Gilpin, Edwin Landseer, James Ward and Thomas Rowlandson and reveals them to be skilled draftsmen as well as keen observers of the ... More |
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