| | Sotheby's Achieves Second Highest Price for Any Old Master Painting at Auction in London
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New benchmark for any Venetian view painting established when Francesco Guardi’s Venice, a View of the Rialto Bridge, Looking North, from the Fondamenta del Carbon sold for £26,697,250/ $42,865,105/ €29,834,146. Photo: Sotheby's.
LONDON.- Tonight Sotheby’s London Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale was led by Francesco Guardi’s monumental masterpiece Venice, a View of the Rialto Bridge, Looking North, from the Fondamenta del Carbon, which established the highest price of the week of London Old Master Sales when it sold for an astonishing £26,697,250/$42,865,105/ €29,834,146 (est. £15-25 million*). Achieving a record as the 2nd highest price for any Old Master Painting sold at auction, a record for any Venetian view painting at auction**, as well as a record for the artist’s work***, the painting was sought after by two determined bidders and finally sold to an anonymous telephone bidder. Overall the sale achieved a total of £47,640,900/$76,492,229/ €53,238,651 (pre-sale est. £31,110,000-48,120,000), with an average lot value for the works sold of £952,818 million. The sale was 68.5% sold by lot and 91.6% sold by value ... More |
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Devotion by Design: Italian Altarpieces Before 1500 at the National Gallery in London
Carlo Crivelli, La Madonna della Rondine (The Madonna of the Swallow), After 1490 © The National Gallery, London.
LONDON.- Altarpiece: An image-bearing structure placed upon or behind an altar in a Christian church. Usually forms the focus of devotion for worshippers and is normally decorated by painters and/or sculptors. Altarpieces can vary considerably in size and in complexity of construction, ranging from simple dossals (a horizontal panel or cloth either fronting or set at the back of an altar) to huge polyptychs (a painting divided into multiple sections or panels). They are decorated with a range of imagery which often reflects the circumstances of their original commission and location. As part of a new series of summer exhibitions drawn from the National Gallery’s permanent collection, 'Devotion by Design' focuses on Italian altarpieces ranging from the 13th century to the end of the 15th ... More | | Proprietors of San Francisco Restaurant Say They Have Footage of Picasso Thief
An unidentified man is seen walking with a valuable pencil drawing by Pablo Picasso. AP Photo/Lefty O'Doul's.
SAN FRANCISCO, CA (AP).- The proprietors of a San Francisco restaurant said Wednesday they have surveillance footage of a sockless thief who snatched a valuable Picasso drawing off an art gallery wall. Lefty O'Doul's released images showing a man walking on a sidewalk carrying a framed artwork under his arm. The restaurant is just a few doors down from the Weinstein Gallery, where police say a man stole a Picasso drawing late Tuesday morning before fleeing in a waiting taxi. Gallery President Rowland Weinstein told the San Francisco Chronicle that the piece, a 1965 pencil-on-paper drawing titled "Tete de Femme," was purchased at auction this spring for $122,500 and had been part of a collection belonging to Picasso's driver. The man in the video is dressed similarly to a police description of the suspect. Police say he was a well-dressed man in his 30s wearing a dark jacke ... More | | Idea Generation Gallery Presents Duffy: A Visual Record of the Photographic Genius
John Lennon, taken from Duffy, published by ACC Editions, © Duffy Archive
LONDON.- Idea Generation Gallery presents the first ever full retrospective of Brian Duffy - a man who changed the face of British photography. The first ever full-career retrospective of the legendary British photographer Brian Duffy will open July 8th at Idea Generation Gallery, coinciding with the publication of Duffy – the first and only book of his work. Duffy infamously quit photography in 1979 when, at the height of his career, he took the majority of his photographic work into the back garden and set it on fire. Featuring more than 160 images painstakingly rediscovered by Duffy’s son after years of searching through archives and publications around the world, this exhibition has truly risen from the ashes. Duffy’s newly restored body of work firmly cements his place in British photography as part of the notorious ‘Black Trinity’ that defined the visual ... More |
Sotheby's London Sells a Lost Royal Masterpiece Setting a Record at Auction
Attributed to Giovanni Ambrogio Miseroni (1551-1616), Italian, Milan , Late 16th Century Chalcedony cover carved with Venus and Cupid sleeping in a shell, with silver gilt mount in the form of Jupiter as a Swan. Estimate: £800,000-£1,200,000. Photo: Sotheby's.
LONDON.- Tonight Sotheby’s London Evening Sale of Treasures: Princely Taste was led by the sale of a magnificent pair of Italian carved giltwood settees created for one of the most sumptuous Rococo interiors in Italy - the Gilded Gallery of Palazzo Carrega Cataldi. Setting a record at auction for Italian seating furniture when they sold, to a round of applause, for £1,721,250/$2,763,639/¤1,923,495, the settees sold for over three times the pre-sale high estimate of £300,000 -£500,000*. A further highlight of the sale was a recently rediscovered masterpiece - an exquisitely carved chalcedony cover which is the lost partner of a magnificent cup in the collection of the Louvre. Expertly crafted by Giovanni Ambrogio Miseroni - the greatest of all Renaissance hardstone engravers – the exquisite cover sold for £1,497,150/$2,403,985/¤1,673,175 ... More | | Exhibition of Works that Use Everyday Domestic Objects Opens at David Zwirner
Robert Gober, Untitled, 1984-88. Plaster, wire, lath, wood, and semi-gloss enamel paint, 28 x 29 x 24 inches, 71.1 x 73.7 x 61 cm © Robert Gober, courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery, New York.
NEW YORK, NY.- David Zwirner presents The House Without the Door at the gallery’s 525 and 533 West 19th Street spaces. The exhibition includes works by Adel Abdessemed, Eija-Liisa Ahtila, David Altmejd, Francis Alÿs, Mamma Andersson, Louise Bourgeois, Michael Brown, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Maureen Gallace, Isa Genzken, Robert Gober, Mona Hatoum, Toba Khedoori, Charles LeDray, Thomas Ruff, Gregor Schneider, Luc Tuymans, Jeff Wall, and Rachel Whiteread. The exhibition is on display from July 7 and runs until August 5, 2011. Finding inspiration in Emily Dickinson’s poem Doom is the House without the Door, this exhibition considers the idea of the home as a charged psychological space. Frequently identified with her family’s home, where she produced much of her work, Dickinson has been described as an “eccentric recluse, wedded to her interiority.” Feminist scholar Diana Fuss has argued that ... More | | Rome, Naples, Venice: Italian Masterworks from the BAM/PFA Collection
Guiseppe Cesari (Il Cavaliere D'Arpino): Judith with Head of Holofernes, 1603-06; oil on canvas; 24 1/8 x 18 7/8 in.; bequest of Andrew C. Larson.
BREKELEY, CA.- When the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive was founded in the mid-1960s, among the earliest and most important works acquired were paintings and works on paper by Italian artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These have remained enduring cornerstones of the collection. In celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Italian Republic, we present Rome, Naples, Venice: Italian Masterworks from the BAM/PFA Collection. The exhibition brings together striking Mannerist and Baroque works by Michelangelo da Caravaggio, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Giambattista Tiepolo, Carlo Maratta, Giovanni Caracciolo, and Guiseppe Cesari (called Il Cavaliere d’Arpino), among others, reflecting a vibrant range of artistic innovation from three of Italy’s great cities. The Roman Mannerist artist D’Arpino, for example, was distinguished as a brilliant colorist, a ... More |
Spanish Government Honours Irish Museum of Modern Art Director Enrique Juncosa
The Ambassador of Spain in Ireland, Her Excellency Ms. Mercedes Rico, presented IMMA Director Enrique Juncosa with the Order of Civil Merit. Photo: Justin Mac Innes / Mac Innes Photography.
DUBLIN.- The Spanish State awarded one of its highest decorations, the Order of Civil Merit, to Enrique Juncosa, Director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art since 2003. The award was made by King Juan Carlos of Spain in recognition of Mr Juncosa’s outstanding contribution to the arts in Ireland and his work in promoting cultural cooperation between Ireland and Spain. It was presented last evening by the Ambassador of Spain in Ireland, Her Excellency Ms. Mercedes Rico, at the Ambassador’s Residence in Ailesbury Road. The Order of Civil Merit was established by King Alfonso XIII in 1926 to “reward the civic virtues of civil servants as well as the extraordinary services to the Nation of Spanish and foreign subjects.” Mr Juncosa has been awarded the Encomienda de Número of this order, which is the highest ... More | | The Courtauld Institute of Art Expands into the Arts of Asia with New Research Posts
Iwan and Manuela Wirth. © Marco Walker.
LONDON.- The Courtauld Institute of Art announces the establishment of two new faculty teaching and research posts in Asian art history as a major step in the expansion of its curriculum beyond the Western tradition as part of its engagement with world art history. Supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the first post will be based chronologically in the period from 1000 to 1750 AD. It will be defined thematically and focus on questions of imperialism and artistic patronage from the perspective of empires outside the Western world, from any major region of Asia. Supported by Manuela and Iwan Wirth, co-Presidents of Hauser & Wirth, the second post is in the field of Asian modern and contemporary art and will respond to the immensely exciting developments in those areas. It will build on existing expertise in the modern and contemporary faculty, one of the fastest growing areas of teaching and research at The Courta ... More | | Artist Dick Bruna Loans Large Selection of His Work to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam
Illustration by Dick Bruna@copyright Mercis bv, 1953-2011.
AMSTERDAM.- Graphic designer, illustrator and author of children’s books Dick Bruna (1927) has agreed a long-term loan of a selection of his work to the Print Room of the Rijksmuseum, the national museum of the Netherlands. His designs for paperback covers, advertising material and children’s books, obviously including Miffy, cover the period from 1953 to 2007. The Rijksmuseum has selected over 120 creations on paper from Bruna’s body of work. The selection includes famous designs such as the Zwarte Beertjes paperback covers (Havank, Charteris and Simenon) from the 1960s and 1970s, advertising campaigns (the poster for buttermilk with the slogan ‘Karnemelk, omdat ’t zo fris is’ [‘Buttermilk, because it’s so refreshing’]) and final drawings in poster paint for the book ‘Circus’. Visitors can follow the entire design process for the book Miffy’s Letter, ... More |
Galeri Manâ: A New Contemporary Art Space in Istanbul Opens with Idea-Driven Show
Galeri Manâ co-founders and partners Suzanne Egeran and Mehves Ariburnu.
ISTANBUL.- The inaugural exhibition, Nereden Nereye, a Turkish phrase that translates “From Where to Where,” includes sixteen works by eleven artists, and explores the function of images and the nature of representation. Nereden Nereye features paintings, drawings, photographs and video works by Murat Akagundüz, John Baldessari, Lewis Baltz, Mel Bochner, Diana Al-Hadid, Tamar Halpern, Sol LeWitt, Albert Oehlen, Robin Rhode, Charles Sandison and Nasan Tur. The exhibition runs through July 23, 2011. Curated by Suzanne Egeran, NEREDEN NEREYE features paintings, drawings, photographs and video works by Murat Akagunduz, John Baldessari, Lewis Baltz, Mel Bochner, Diana Al-Hadid, Tamar Halpern, Sol LeWitt, Albert Oehlen, Robin Rhode, Charles Sandison and Nasan Tur. Significantly, many of these internationally recognized artists are showing their work in Istanbul for the first time and will be new discoveries for the Turkish public. The works on view in the exhibition are idea ... More | | Pennsylvania Family Fights United States Treasury Over Rare 1933 Gold Coins
A 1933 $20 coin. AP Photo/U.S. Mint.
By: Maryclaire Dale, Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA, PA (AP).- A jeweler's heirs with a cache of rare $20 gold coins will fight for the right to keep them when they square off in court this week against the U.S. Treasury. Treasury officials charge that the never-circulated "double eagles" were stolen from the U.S. Mint in Philadelphia in 1933. They could be worth $80 million or more, given that one sold for nearly $7.6 million in 2002. The coins come from a batch that were struck but melted down after President Franklin D. Roosevelt took the country off the gold standard in 1933. Two were preserved for the Smithsonian Institute. But a handful more mysteriously got out. The daughter and grandsons of Israel Switt, a jeweler and scrap metal dealer on nearby Jeweler's Row, say they discovered 10 of them in his bank deposit box in 2003. Joan Langbord of Philadelphia and her sons went to the U.S. Treasury to authenticate th ... More | | Duped: Big California Gold Nugget Sold at Auction is Actually Australian and Worth Less
A 100-ounce gold nugget found by a man last year on his property near Nevada City, Calif. AP Photo/Holabird-Kagin Americana.
NEVADA CITY, CA (AP).- A 6.2-pound hunk of gold was auctioned for nearly half a million dollars in March after a man claimed he found it on his Sierra Nevada property, but it turns out it was actually dug up decades earlier in Australia. After Jim Sanders' "find" on his property near Nevada City in California's Gold Country made news last year, Australian prospector Murray Cox compared pictures of Sanders' "Washington Nugget" with "The Orange Roughie" he unearthed near Melbourne in 1987, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. They were an exact match, except the Washington Nugget sold for $460,000 in March and Cox originally sold it for $50,000. Cox contacted Don Kagin, a coin dealer, and mining geologist Fred Holabird, who together auctioned the nugget for Sanders. The two investigated Cox's claims and determined he was right. "The parties have mutually concluded that the nugget was from Australia," ... More |
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 Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York Presents On ShuffleNEW YORK, NY.- Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York presents On Shuffle, a group exhibition featuring works by Billy Childish, Kim Gordon, Kalup Linzy, Ryan McNamara, Tony Oursler, Dave Muller, Dario Robleto and Stephen Vitiello on view from July 6th through August 19, 2011 . On Shuffle presents works by these interdisciplinary underground cult figures in various mediums, which use and reference music, including sound, performance, painting, mixed media and video. Billy Childish’s portraits of composers Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff and Jean Sibelius reflect the crossover between art and music in Childish’s work. In addition to the creation of over 2000 paintings, Childish has a prolific output of music and poetry, with over 40 collections of poetry and 100 full-length LP’s. Childish will present his first solo exhibition at Lehmann Maupin Gallery in November 2011. Video and performance artist Kalup Linzy is ... More "Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels" Sets Attendance RecordNEW YORK, NY.- The “Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels” exhibition attracted a record-breaking 172,000 visitors during its 20-week run at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. On view from Feb. 18 through July 4, visitation to “Set in Style” exceeded the previous exhibition attendance record holder, “Design Life Now: National Design Triennial 2006.” “Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels” examined the renowned jewelry firm’s significant historical contributions to jewelry design and design innovation, particularly during the 20th century. Organized by Sarah Coffin, curator and head of the Product Design and Decorative Arts department, the exhibition featured more than 350 works, including jewels, timepieces, fashion accessories and objets d’art by Van Cleef & Arpels, many of which were created exclusively for American clientel ... More New iPad App Lets Anyone Create Designs with Vintage Type and Art on a Virtual Hand-Driven Printing PressCHAMPAIGN, IL (PRWEB).- LetterMpress™, an app just released for the Apple iPad, gives users the hands-on experience of working with traditional letterpress wood type, art cuts, and printing press techniques. Every step of the letterpress printing process is replicated on the iPad for the authentic feel and experience of traditional printing techniques. Users select and assemble vintage wood type and art images, mix colors and ink the type, select paper, and hand-crank the virtual letterpress to produce graphic designs for prints, posters, books, invitations, greeting cards, photo albums and more. The new app enables finished letterpress designs to be printed, shared via email, Photo Album, posted to Facebook, Tumblr and other social media, or output to graphics applications for incorporating into larger design projects. LetterMpress offers the flexibility and image quality for professional graphic designers, and is e ... More 'Star Spangled Banner' Fragments Bring $65,000+ to Lead Heritage Auctions Arms & Militaria SaleDALLAS, TX.- Two superbly documented fragments from "The Star Spangled Banner," the very flag that flew over Ft. McHenry in Baltimore, MD on Sept. 13, 1814 and inspired Francis Scott Key to pen the words to America's national anthem, sold for $65,725 as part of Heritage Auctions' $1,361,858 June 25 Signature(r) Arms & Militaria Auction. All prices include 19.5% Buyer's Premium. "The Star Spangled Banner is the most famous example of America's most potent symbol," said Dennis Lowe, Director of Civil War and Militaria Auctions at Heritage, "and these mere fragments of that important flag brought a final price realized quite in line with that significance." The auction saw 925 bidders vying for 954 lots, resulting in an 89.22% sell-through rate by lot value. "Overall we were quite pleased with the results of the sale," said Lowe. "Collectors were enthusiastic about the offerings and responded with solid, competitive ... More Royal Ontario Museum Displays World's Most Comprehensive Collection of Vesta MeteoritesTORONTO, ON.- In celebration of the arrival of NASA’s Dawn mission to the asteroid Vesta, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) presents the world’s most comprehensive collection of meteorites thought to be from that asteroid. On temporary exhibition in the Vale Gallery of Minerals, inside the Teck Suite of Galleries: Earth’s Treasures, the display houses 30 diverse specimens from Vesta, the second most massive asteroid in our solar system. “No other public institution in the world has put together such a wide-ranging display of this type of meteorite,” said Dr. Kim Tait, ROM Associate Curator of Mineralogy. “NASA travelled 3.5 billion kilometers to reach Vesta. Our visitors need travel no further than the ROM!” Launched in 2007, NASA’s Dawn probe is the space agency’s first major mission to study asteroids in detail. The mission focuses on Vesta and Ceres, the two largest known bodies in ou ... More Fitzgerald Collection of Regional Americana Donated to Library of CongressWASHINGTON, D.C.- American regional writing gained increasing popularity in the years following the Great Depression and beyond. The period 1938 to 1980 was an especially fruitful one for this type of documentation of the nation’s people, history and culture, as well as America’s natural treasures – its mountains, plains, lakes, seaports, forts, trails, folkways and customs. The Fitzgerald Collection, donated by Carol and Jean Fitzgerald, comprises books, original correspondence, documentation and copies of research materials related to the series devoted to Americana as highlighted in "Series Americana: Post Depression-Era Regional Literature, 1938-1980: A Descriptive Bibliography." This important contribution to 20th-century American publishing history is by Carol Fitzgerald and was published in 2010 by Oak Knoll Press and the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. In this illustrated and authoritative tw ... More |
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