| | Rare Gold Bell Discovered by Archaeologists from Israel in Excavations in Jerusalem
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A worker for the IAA, Israel's Antiquities Authority holds a gold bell found in Jerusalem, Sunday, July 24, 2011. The tiny golden bell preserved for two millennia underneath Jerusalem is ringing again, having been discovered by Israeli archaeologists excavating a Roman-era sewer. AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner.
JERUSALEM.- A rare gold bell with a small loop at its end was discovered during an archaeological excavation in the drainage channel that begins in the Shiloah Pool and continues from the City of David to the Jerusalem Archaeological Garden, near the Western Wall. The excavations are being conducted at the site on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, in cooperation with the Nature and Parks Authority and underwritten by Ir David Foundation. According to the excavation directors, archaeologists Eli Shukron and Professor Ronny Reich of Haifa University, "It seems the bell was sewn on the garment worn by a high official in Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple period (first century CE). The bell was exposed inside Jerusalem's main drainage channel at that time, among the layers of earth that had accumulated along the bottom of it. This drainage channel was built and hewn the length of the Western ... More |
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Rare Seven Foot Stone Horse from the Chinese Ming Dynasty Expected to Fetch Up to £100,000
This horse is one of 6 funerary sculptures that were exported from Hong Kong by Langhard.
DORCHESTER.- As the director of one of Switzerland’ leading luxury stores and a renowned collector himself, Hans Leu, alongside his broker, Mr. Lee of Hollywood Street, Hong Kong, were responsible for the export to the West of many oriental artefacts during the 1970’s and 1980’s. His close relationship with the Chinese government allowed him to act as an official conduit for antiques exported from the East and marketed for sale in the West. Of particular interest to Langhard were early Chinese antiquities from the Tang and Ming dynasties, many of which came to light during the numerous tomb excavations taking place at this time, notably the excavations in the early 1980’s of the burial site built by Zhu Yuan Zhang for his forbears between 1386 and 1413. This horse is one of 6 funerary sculptures that were exported from Hong Kong by Langhard. On hearing the news of the shipment, Ernst Gamper, a wealthy man and treasurer to the Reitberg Museum, Zurich, arranged ... More | | Metropolitan Museum Highlights Frans Hals Paintings from Collection in Exhibition
Frans Hals, Young Man and Woman in an Inn ("Yonker Ramp and His Sweetheart"), 1623. Oil on canvas, 41 1/2 x 31 1/4 in. (105.4 x 79.4 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913 (14.40.602)
NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art holds the most important collection of paintings in America by the celebrated Dutch artist Frans Hals (1582/83-1666), whose portraits and genre scenes were famous in his lifetime for their immediacy and dazzling brushwork. Frans Hals in the Metropolitan Museum—on view from July 26, through October 10, 2011—presents 13 paintings by Hals, including two lent from private collections, and several works by other Netherlandish masters. Frans Hals is one of the most familiar and accessible of the Old Master painters. His name is second only to Rembrandt's in The Netherlands and equals Vermeer's in its evocation of the Golden Age of Dutch art. After falling out of favor in the 18th century, Hals's work was championed from the 1860s onward by Realist and Impressionist masters such as Courbet, Manet, and Sargent, and collected by several of the ... More | | Titanosaur Nest on View in Exhibition at the American Museum of Natural History
A titanosaur hatchling can be seen emerging from a cluster of eggs modeled on a nest found in Auca Mahuevo, Argentina. © AMNH/D. Finnin.
NEW YORK, NY.- They are some of the rarest of rare artifacts: fossil dinosaur eggs with the embryo still inside. And they are prized for what they can tell paleontologists about the adults that laid them. The exhibition The World’s Largest Dinosaurs features a scale model of a nest found at Auca Mahuevo, Argentina, one of the largest known dinosaur nesting sites in the world. While it isn’t always possible to figure out which dinosaur laid a particular egg, in this case, an embryo within an egg found at Auca Mahuevo site allowed scientists to identify these eggs as those of titanosaurs, a group of sauropods that included such species as Ampelosaurus and Saltasaurus. Herds of female titanosaurs are thought to have laid the thousands of eggs — 15 to 40 at a time — in shallow nests dug out with their huge feet in dry mud and sand over miles of ground at Auca Mahuevo. Titanosaurs are among the biggest sauropods, the group of saurischian dinosaurs featured in this ... More |
The Städel Museum to Present the Exhibition "Beckmann & America" in October
Max Beckmann (1884-1950), The Liberated One, 1937. Oil on canvas, 60 x 40 cm. Schloßmuseum Murnau, on permanent loan by private collection © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011.
FRANKFURT.- The last loans have been secured, technical and logistic preparations are in full swing: Frankfurt’s Städel Museum will present Max Beckmann’s (1884–1950) condensed late work against the background of the last years of his life and his artistic production in the USA in a major special exhibition starting on October 7, 2011. With more than 110 exhibits, including fifty paintings as well as numerous drawings, watercolors, printed graphic works, and sculptures, the show “Beckmann & America” offers a comprehensive survey of this important artist’s fascinating last creative period. After living and teaching in St. Louis from 1947 on, Beckmann finally moved to New York where he also accepted a teaching position and where he died walking through the city in 1950. From the point of view of the artist’s evolution, these years on American soil were decisive: marking a new beginning for ... More | | A Collection of Chinese Rhinoceros Horn Cups Sets Antiques Roadshow Record
Asian art expert and veteran "Antiques Roadshow." appraiser Lark Mason poses with a collection of Chinese rhinoceros horned cups in Tulsa. AP Photo/WGBH.
NEW YORK (REUTERS).- A collection of Chinese cups carved from rhinoceros horns has become the most valuable find in the 16-year history of the television program "Antiques Roadshow" in the United States. The five cups, believed to date from the late 17th or early 18th century were valued at $1-$1.5 million on Saturday after being brought to the TV show at a stop in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The owner, who prefers to remain unidentified, told Asian arts expert Lark Mason he started collecting cups inexpensively in the 1970s and had no idea of the collection's current value. Chinese antiques have been fetching strong prices in recent years, dramatically increasing the value of the collection. "As we continue our 16th season production tour here in Tulsa, we couldn't be more excited about such an extraordinary, rare treasure, and we look forward to sharing it with the nation," executive producer Marsha Bemko said in a statement on Monday. Three episodes produced from the Tulsa event will ai ... More | | Western Art Stampede! Coeur d' Alene Art Auction Sale in Nevada Tops $16.7 Million
Albert Bierstadt's Mt. Rainier (detail), a magnificent 54x83 oil was the highlight of the sale. Multiple bidders competed over it until the winning took it home at $2,143,000.
RENO.- A capacity crowd of over 600 buyers of Western Art filled the Grand Ballroom of the Silver Legacy Resort in Reno on July 23, 2011 for the 26th annual Coeur d’ Alene Art Auction. In what has long been the single largest event in the field of Classic Western Art, prices soared from the beginning to the very end of the 304-lot sale, reaching a total of approximately $16.7 million with 90% of the lots selling. Works by Charles M. Russell have always been the specialty of the Coeur d’ Alene Art Auction and this year was no exception. Two major paintings, A Dangerous Sport & Water for Camp each sold strongly at $1,471,000. Additional works by the artists were soon to follow with Indian Signaling, a 10x14 watercolor selling for $263,250, and Poems to Wallace, a wonderful 7x4 illustrated letter at $117,000, among others. Albert Bierstadt was also well represented at the sale with four major works going across ... More |
Catholic Diocese Offers to Buy Financially Struggling Crystal Cathedral
The sun reflects off the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif. AP Photo/Orange County Register, Ana Venegas.
GARDEN GROVE, CA (AP).- A Roman Catholic diocese made a $50 million cash offer to buy Southern California's financially struggling Crystal Cathedral, officials said Friday. The Diocese of Orange said its proposal could pull the megachurch, which was founded more than 50 years ago by pioneering televangelist Rev. Robert H. Schuller, out of bankruptcy by the end of the year. The Crystal Cathedral is trying to sell the property and lease back portions of it for use for services to help erase a $36 million mortgage and settle nearly $10 million in unsecured debt. The church has been plagued by financial troubles after a disastrous leadership transition and a devastating slump in donations. The church is also mulling several other offers. A real estate investment firm offered $46 million, as did Chapman University, which is considering building a medical school on the ... More | | Hollywood Engineer's Kissed, Autographed Marilyn Monroe 1952 Yankees Baseball Surfaces at Sale
New York Yankees team-signed baseball, signed by both Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe.
ROSEMONT, IL.- New York Yankees team-signed baseball, signed by both Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe, and still bearing Marilyn's lipstick, kept in a box in a closet for years, is expected to bring in excess of $20,000 when it is offered as part of Heritage Auctions Aug. 4 Signature(r) Vintage Sports Collectibles Platinum Auction, held in conjunction with the 32nd Annual National Sports Collectors Convention in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, IL. The ball was one of 15 similarly signed by the 1952 World Champion Yankees and gifted to the victorious squad of a 20th Century Fox intramural softball league, one of whom was Sound Editor Eddie D'Orazio, the father of the consignor of the ball. "I was only six years old when my dad got this ball," said D'Orazio's son. "It was always in the house with us when I lived with my parents, then it came to me, as the oldest son, when dad died in 1969." ... More | | As Curator Paula Rego Sees the Sadness in "Naked Girl with Egg" Painting by Lucian Freud
Lucian Freud, Naked Girl with Egg.
PORTO.- "Naked Girl with Egg" by Lucian Freud is on the centre stage of My Choice, an exhibition founded on the now known and tried concept of the artist-curator, with Paula Rego. Mostly comprised of drawings and etchings, but also photography and painting, the 87 works mirror their creators' identity. Always individualized, each work seems to have been observed and selected as a unique piece, her selection being unconcerned with the building of a body of related works. What unites each piece is Paula Rego's way of seeing, which is almost always drawn to works with an intrinsic narrative that becomes manifest in extreme situations, of great tension and drama, and others that develop more universal themes, such as life, death, love and sex. "I really only chose what I liked. I didn't choose pictures because of the name of the artist, or because they were considered historically significant. Very often I didn't know who had done them. Some I had seen before, but others not. I lo ... More |
In Exhibition, Ludwig Museum in Budapest Looks at Itself in the Mirror Held by the Artists
Little Warsaw: The Body of Nefertiti (After the unification at the Egyptian Museum Berlin), 2003. Photo: Lenke Szilágyi ©Little Warsaw.
BUDAPEST.- While the museums' main function is to preserve works of art for eternity, museums have gone through fundamental changes. New, spectacular museum buildings all over the world, the increasing number of visitors indicate that the function of the museum has changed radically. The encyclopedic museum, the modern art museum are followed by a new type of museum. This new museum offers a different kind of knowledge, as well as entertainment. The museum has proved to be one of the most successful cultural institutes, collecting preserving and displaying pieces of art, it is also a powerful institution, as it can select those works of art that may be the objects of a future art history. Since the beginning of the 20th century, artists have been criticizing this canonizing function of the institute of ... More | | PowerHouse Books Publishes Age of Silver by American Photographer John Loengard
1994, New York City: Richard Avedon in his studio.
NEW YORK, NY.- Age of Silver is iconic American photographer John Loengard's ode to the art form to which he dedicated his life. Loengard, a longtime staff photographer and editor for LIFE magazine and other publications, spent years documenting modern life for the benefit of the American public. Over the years he trained his camera on dignitaries, artists, athletes, intellectuals, blue and whitecollar workers, urban and natural landscapes, man-made objects, and people of all types engaged in the act of living. In Age of Silver, Loengard has focused on of some of the most important photographers of the last half-century, including Annie Leibovitz, Ansel Adams, Man Ray, Richard Avedon, Sebastião Salgado, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Harry Benson, and many, many others. Loengard caught them at home and in the studio; posed portraits and candid shots of the artists at work and at rest. Age of Si ... More | | Racine Art Museum Showcases Ornamented Vessels by Wisconsin Metalsmith
Kim Cridler, Field Study #1, 2009. Steel, 22k gold and silver, 12.5 x 13.5 inches. Photo: Jim Escalante.
RACINE, WIS.- The Racine Art Museum commissioned metalsmith and UW-Madison Department of Art Assistant Professor Kim Cridler to create a new exhibition for its Windows on Fifth Gallery. This summer, the museum encourages visitors to embrace adventure, explore new destinations, connect to local culture and uncover cultural influences - all through art. Open July 31, 2011 through July 22, 2012, My Wisconsin Home, Cridler links object making to an examination of place. As she states, "this project and the investigative process at its heart is testimony to my love for and interest in Wisconsin, its sheer physical grandeur and its rich history, its settlements and displacements. I hope this attempt to understand my surroundings through study and research will provide me, a more recent settler, to find a place for myself in the order of things." Using ... More |
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 New Christopher Le Brun Exhibition on View at Canary WharfLONDON.- An exhibition by Royal Academician Christopher Le Brun RA is the latest addition to the award winning Canary Wharf public art programme. Unveiled this week, the exhibition is in the lobby of One Canada Square, Britain’s largest office building. It runs until 2 September and features a series of impressive bronze and plaster sculptures, a number of which have been made especially for the Canary Wharf showing. “Christopher Le Brun's use of symbolism in his work centres on five images: the wing, the horse, the planet or disc, the tower and the figure. He uses these, not so much for their allegorical meaning, as found in romantic poetry, music or classical mythology, but for the power of their imagery. By grouping them in various ways he creates feeling and mood in compositions that also have a well-defined contemporary edge", says curator Ann Elliott. Widely acclaimed as a painter, Le Brun began to include ... More The Studio Museum in Harlem Summer 2011 Exhibitions and ProjectsNEW YORK, NY.- This summer, past and present converge is at the Studio Museum in three exhibitions of innovative art spanning the last half-century. Spiral: Perspectives on an African-American Art Collective features artworks from members of the Spiral art collective, founded by artists including Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, Norman Lewis and Hale Woodruff and active from 1963 through 1965; Evidence of Accumulation debuts brand-new work by the 2010–11 artists in residence Simone Leigh, Kamau Amu Patton and Paul Mpagi Sepuya, who have been working in the Museum’s studios for the last year; and Lyle Ashton Harris: Self/Portrait presented a selection of large-format Polaroid photographs portraying Harris’s friends, family, colleagues and self from 1998–2008. Also on view is: Expanding the Walls 2011, the annual exhibition of young artists enrolled in the Museum’s acclaimed high school photography ... More Bonhams to Sell Maharaja's Tiger Hunting Rolls Royce Complete with Cannon, Machine Gun and Rifle StandSAN FRANCISCO.- A truly unique, handmade automobile will be auctioned by Bonhams at its forthcoming Quail Lodge sale, held each August in Carmel, California during the world-famous Pebble Beach Car Week. The custom-made 1925 Rolls-Royce New Phantom was originally commissioned by Sahib Bahadur of India, officially known as Umed Singh II, Maharaja of Kotah, for the purpose of tiger hunting. The Rolls-Royce Limited company–then in Derby, England– employed preferred coachbuilders Barker & Company of London who created the highly specialized and bespoke Sports Touring body for His Highness the Maharaja. It is estimated to sell for $750,000 to $1,000,000. The massive and impeccably crafted car is powered by an 8.0-liter, 6-cylinder engine with dual-spark ignition that’s set to a low gearing ratio, allowing it to creep powerfully through the roughshod jungles of Rajasthan. In addition the standard luxury ... More Mexico 200-Year Monument: Late, Costly, Un-MexicanBy: Mark Stevenson, Associated Press
MEXICO CITY (AP).- A huge monument intended to commemorate the 2010 bicentennial of Mexico's independence uprising is late, over cost and doesn't have much Mexican content, officials said Thursday. Ignacio Lopez, director of the company overseeing construction of the onyx-clad tower, said he had to rely on stainless-steel columns from Italy, quartz panels from Brazil and a specialized lighting system made by a German-owned company. "Between 63 and 65 percent of the content is foreign," Lopez said. "The columns cannot be produced in Mexico." "If a material is called for it doesn't exist here, and only exists abroad, then it has to be brought in," he added. The complex, 104-meter (343-foot) tall central tower is made of a series of columns that will support panels of onyx, which will be backlighted in changing patterns by LED panels sandwiched between two layers of the translucent stone. The monument in downtown Mexico City was supposed to be ... MoredOCUMENTA (13) Partners with (CPPC) to Offer a Curatorial Fellowship for Curators and Scholars from Latin AmericaKASSEL.- dOCUMENTA (13) and the Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros (CPPC) have created a Curatorial Fellowship that will offer curators and scholars from Latin America the opportunity to work on the development of dOCUMENTA (13), an exhibition that will take place in the summer of 2012 in Kassel, Germany. This fellowship is offered to young arts professionals from Latin America focused on contemporary art. The Curatorial Fellow will have the opportunity to gain work experience participating and developing different projects and public programs for dOCUMENTA (13), by working closely with the office of the Artistic Direction and Project Management. Candidates for the Curatorial Fellowship should have an interest in working with artists in the creation of art that is activated by the participation of different groups of people and in developing a diversified and ... More |
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