| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Friday, August 21, 2020 |
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| | Nazi-looted French painting on display in search for rightful owner | |
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Philippe Hansch, director of the World Peace Center, presents the painting by the French painter Nicolas Rousseau in Verdun, France on Aug. 17, 2020. AFP Photo.
by Murielle Kasprzak
VERDUN (AFP).- A 19th-century oil painting stolen from occupied France during World War II has gone on display in a bid to trace its rightful owners after being returned by the son of the German soldier who took it on orders from above. After 76 years in Germany, the small untitled artwork by French painter Nicolas Rousseau is back in France and exhibited at the World Centre for Peace, Liberty and Human Rights in the northeastern town of Verdun. Next to it hangs a sign: "If you recognise the landscape or have any information about this painting, we would be grateful if you would let us know." Philippe Hansch, the centre's head, went to fetch the painting from Berlin at the beginning of August and brought it back by car. For the last fortnight, it has hung in the lobby of the centre, which receives around 60,000 visitors a year, in the hope it ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Since 2012, the website Closer to Van Eyck has made it possible for millions around the globe to zoom in on the intricate, breathtaking details of the Ghent Altarpiece, one of the most celebrated works of art in the world. The Getty and the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, in collaboration with the Gieskes Strijbis Fund in Amsterdam, are giving visitors even more ways to explore this monumental work of art from afar, with the launch today of a new version of the site.
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 | | The Meadows acquires an Alonso Cano drawing and more | | For Gregory Crewdson, truth lurks in the landscape | | Getty and Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage announce major enhancements to Ghent Altarpiece website | 
Francisco de Herrera the Elder (Spanish, c. 15901654), Bearded Head in Half‐Profile, c. 1642. Reed pen with gray‐brown ink on laid paper, 3 7/8 x 2 7/8 in. (10 x 7 cm). Meadows Museum, SMU, Dallas. Museum purchase with funds from The Meadows Foundation with additional support provided by the ExxonMobil Foundation, MM.2020.03. Photo by Kevin Todora.
DALLAS, TX.- The Meadows Museum, SMU, announced today that it has acquired six new works for its collection: five Spanish drawings from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, including one by Alonso Cano (16011667), and one terracotta sculpture by the Catalan Modernist AgustÃn Querol y Subirats (18641909). Purchased together from De la Mano Gallery in Madrid, Spain, the five sheets reflect the strong tradition of Spanish draftsmanship in the early modern period, and significantly enhance the museums collection of drawings. Works by Francisco de Herrera the Elder (c. 15901654) and Pedro ... More | | 
Photographer Gregory Crewdson at his home in Egremont, Mass., Aug. 1, 2020. Caroline Tompkins/The New York Times.
by Arthur Lubow
GREAT BARRINGTON (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The world has caught up to Gregory Crewdson. In his large-scale photographs, which are produced with a movie crew in bravura Hollywood style, the people stare off into space, cloaked in solipsistic misery. The lighting is so portentous and the isolation and hopelessness so exaggerated that these scenes have always reminded me of Technicolor film stills from a 1950s melodrama a kitschy imitation of life. Until now. In the current locked-down world, which is hollowed out by economic collapse and fragmented by fear of contagion, Crewdsons overwrought images seem like faithful representations of our frazzled psychological state. Its weird how all my pictures have taken on a new ... More | | 
Detail from the Hermits, after restoration.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Since 2012, the website Closer to Van Eyck has made it possible for millions around the globe to zoom in on the intricate, breathtaking details of the Ghent Altarpiece, one of the most celebrated works of art in the world. More than a quarter million people have taken advantage of the opportunity so far in 2020, and website visitorship has increased by 800% since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, underscoring the potential for modern digital technology to increase access to masterpieces from all eras and learn more about them. The Getty and the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA, Brussels, Belgium), in collaboration with the Gieskes Strijbis Fund in Amsterdam, are giving visitors even more ways to explore this monumental work of art from afar, with the launch today of a new version of the site that includes images of recently restored sections of the paintings as well as More |
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| | Two museums announce September reopenings | | Swann sets new auction record for Tom of Finland | | Works by Yeats and Dillon to make auction Debuts in Sotheby's Irish Art Sale | 
The Brooklyn Museum in New York, July 28, 2019. Jeenah Moon/The New York Times.
by Sarah Bahr
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- After months of having empty halls, the Brooklyn Museum and El Museo del Barrio will reopen Sept. 12, but with limited hours and restrictions on capacity. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced last week that museums could reopen as soon as Monday, at 25% capacity and with timed ticketing. Face coverings will be necessary, and museums will be required to control the flow of traffic through their halls. The Brooklyn Museums opening weekend festivities, some of which will be outdoors, will include musical performances, chalk drawing and food offerings from local vendors on the museums plaza. Inside, the museum will premiere its Studio 54: Night Magic exhibition about the social politics of the storied Manhattan nightclub, which was originally scheduled to open March 13, ... More | | 
Tom of Finland, Fucker, graphite, 1965. Sold for $55,000, a record for the artist.
NEW YORK, NY.- The second iteration of Swann Galleries LGBTQ+ Art, Material Culture & History sale on Thursday, August 13 was a resounding success. The auction bested last years results, totaling $1,023,375, hammering above the high estimate for the sale, and delivering stellar prices for desirable material. A portion of the sale proceeds will benefit NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project. The high-point of the auction was the moment a highly anticipated graphite drawing by Tom of Finland came across the block. The work surpassed its estimate of $6,000 to $9,000, selling for $55,000, a record for the artist, after heated bidding on the phones and several online platforms. Works by David Wojnarowicz formed the cornerstone of the sale with all 19 lots on offer finding buyerseach far surpassing their high estimatesand five of the lots making it into the top 20. The works came across the auction block through the artists ... More | | 
Jack B. Yeats, Kerry Fisherman (detail), oil on panel, 1927, est. £70,000-100,000. Courtesy Sotheby's.
LONDON.- This year, Sothebys annual Irish Art sale, including Property from the Collection of Sir Michael Smurfit, carries the highest combined pre-sale value since the reintroduction of dedicated Irish art sales in London in 2015. Comprising 60 lots and featuring a roll-call of the most beloved and esteemed names in the field, amongst a strong selection of works by contemporary artists, the sale is estimated to bring in the region of £3.2 million. Preceding the auction in London on 9 September 2020, public exhibitions are set to take place at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin from 27 to 30 August, by appointment, and in our New Bond Street galleries from 4 September. Eighteen works from the collection of Sir Michael Smurfit are distinguished by Louis le Brocquys Travelling Woman with Newspaper (est. £700,000-1,000,000), one of the artists most significant works, and a number of exceptional paintings ... More |
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| | New book features self-expression through fashion, style and art in the streets of Kinshasa and Brazzaville/Congo | | Frank Frazetta's 1970 The Princess of Mars, one of Fantasy Literature's most influential paintings, comes to market | | She was more than just the 'most beautiful suffragist' | 
Basile Gandzion, 51-year-old human resources manager and sapeur for 30 years, in Brazzaville, 2017 © Tariq Zaidi.
BERLIN.- British photographer Tariq Zaidi presents a fashion subculture of Kinshasa & Brazzaville: La Sape, Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes (Society of Ambiance-Makers & Elegant People). Its followers are known as »Sapeurs« (»Sapeuses« for women). Most have ordinary day jobs as taxi-drivers, tailors and gardeners, but as soon as they clock out they transform themselves into debonair dandies. Sashaying through the streets they are treated like rock stars turning heads, bringing joie de vivre to their communities and defying their circumstances. From the text by Tariq Zaidi: »Brazzaville and Kinshasa are on opposite banks of the Congo River, almost directly across from one another, yet they have different styles. In Brazzaville, La Sape is mainly French style (think exquisite suits), but in Kinshasa anything goes, from Japanese Yamamoto coats to Scottish ... More | | 
Heritage Auctions offers the artists personal version, painted immediately after he turned in the first take to Doubleday.
DALLAS, TX.- In 1970, Frank Frazetta painted two versions of the cover for Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars. One he sent to the publishing house Doubleday, whose hardback version of the 1912 story featuring the debuts of Confederate soldier John Carter and Martian princess Dejah Thoris has become one of the most recognizable and influential covers in publishing history. And the other Frazetta made for himself immediately upon competition of the assignment. He was deeply proud of the piece and knew its return was unlikely. Better, he thought, to make another than lose this only child. The paintings that Frazetta titled The Princess of Mars, each featuring John Carter brandishing a sword above his head and Dejah Thoris alongside him, were seemingly identical in almost every way. They look the same at first, second, even third glance. But there are alterations, at once small yet significant: In the version ... More | | 
Artist Jeanine Michna-Bales at her home in Dallas, Aug. 5, 2020. Nitashia Johnson/The New York Times.
by Meredith Mendelsohn
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In October 1916, Inez Milholland, a renegade young lawyer and ardent social reformer, collapsed onstage while eloquently pleading with more than 1,000 women in Los Angeles to stand together in the battle for womens suffrage. Run ragged from weeks of campaigning across the West while fighting strep throat and tonsillitis, she died the next month, at age 30, from pernicious anemia. The loss of their heroic, rising star devastated suffragists, who exalted her as a martyr and emblazoned her famous last words, Mr. President, how long must women wait for liberty? on their banners while picketing Woodrow Wilsons White House the following year. One of the great, though tragic, chapters of the road to suffrage, Milhollands story, like so many others of womens history, is little known to the wider public. The ... More |
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| | Renowned Casula artist honored as Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre launches art collection online | | ICA Miami announces over 75 recent acquisitions | | CHART now represents Will Ryman | 
Rebecca Brady, Landscape - Notes to Basquiat, 2015. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas.
SYDNEY.- Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre announced online access to their collection, an initiative that will continue to see the Centre provide universal access to the arts and expand its acclaimed digital program. From August 20, over 200 artworks from the expansive collection will be available to discover and enjoy online including 114 pieces from celebrated Liverpool artist Gina Sinozich who sadly passed away this June. Gina Sinozich was a local Casula based artist, known for her distinctive artistic style and powerful story-telling ability. A Croatian-Australian immigrant, Gina and her family arrived in Australia after World War II, making the voyage by boat from Istria following the dissolution of Croatia. Gina first took up painting at age 70, as a way of expressing and coming to terms with the impacts of her husband Eugens dementia before using it as a method to capture the many ... More | | 
Martine Syms, Intro to Threat Modeling, 2018. Digital video (color, sound). 4:32 minutes. Museum purchase. Image courtesy of ICA Miami.
MIAMI, FLA.- The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami has added more than 75 works to its collection in 2020, representing a wide range of artists that represent the defining voices of contemporary art and its future. Supported by major gifts from the Miami community and nationwide, ICA Miamis recent acquisitions include work by established and emerging artists, including new commissions for the collection and artists first U.S. museum acquisitions. The museum has also launched and expanded its commitments to focused acquisitions initiatives that support the ongoing advancement of representation of the global and local communities within the collection, anchored by a commitment of 75% of its annual acquisition budget to work by artists of color. Major recent acquisitions include works by MarÃa BerrÃo, Tomás Esson, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Lauren Halsey, Lyle ... More | | 
Will Ryman, Dinner III, 2019-2020. Stainless steel, approx. 74 x 82 1/2 x 82 3/4 inches. Photo: Elizabeth Bernstein.
NEW YORK, NY.- CHART announced their representation of Will Ryman (American b. 1969). His first exhibition at the gallery, DINNER III, opens September 12. This exhibition will mark his first show in New York City in five years, featuring his most complex and ambitious work to date. Dinner III (2019-2020) is a nearly life-size sculptural tableau of figures gathered around a table in the midst of a meal. Rymans assemblage combines found and sculpted objects, all cast in stainless steel. Four figures are seated on improvised chairs around a table chaotically strewn with half-eaten meals and various dinnerware. A sense of distortion and isolation is exaggerated by shifts in scale. The artists use of polished stainless steel fractures and multiplies the scene, reflecting the viewer in the surfaces. Rymans amalgamation of the ... More |
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Storytime with The Met: "Llama Llama Time to Share" by Anna Dewdney
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 Cooke Latham Gallery opens an online exhibition of works by Anousha PayneLONDON.- Cooke Latham Gallery is presenting Eating a Peach (A hairs breadth escape) by Anousha Payne as the fifth instalment of their online Isolation Exhibitions and a precursor to the artists solo exhibition at the gallery in September 2021. At the heart of Anousha Paynes practice is the idea of the object as a cultural and spiritual signifier. A visual anthropologist she mines cultures, religions and folklore to produce her own unique imagined artefacts. In Eating a Peach (A hairs breadth escape) snakes are present throughout the work. A loaded symbol, the serpent represents fertility, creativity, eternity and original sin as interpreted by different cultures. In Paynes ceramics these attributes are reimagined; like sloughed skins the works retain the impression and power of these beliefs but are also uniquely their own. Eating a Peach (A hairs breadth escape) derives in part from Tam ... More Mary Hartline, a TV star when TV was new, is dead at 92NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Mary Hartline, the high-energy platinum-blond entertainer who became one of network televisions earliest stars on the childrens show Super Circus, died Aug. 12 at her home in Hillsboro, Illinois. She was 92. The death was confirmed by Hough & Sons Funeral Home in Hillsboro. Super Circus, a live Sunday afternoon series on ABC, began in early 1949, when the television industry was still laying its coaxial cables. Hartline was a striking presence with her long, wavy hair, her majorette-style costumes including her signature uniform, with musical notes on the thigh-high hemline and white tasseled boots. Between the shows death-defying circus acts, she conducted the bands lively musical numbers, performed comedy sketches with the clowns, guided young audience members through contest segments ... More Ahlers & Ogletree will sell items from the Atlanta estate home known as White OaksATLANTA, GA.- Items from the spectacular Atlanta estate home known as White Oaks, featuring decorative arts from high-end retailers and world-class auctions, will be sold in a two-session auction on Saturday and Sunday, September 12th and 13th, by Ahlers & Ogletree, live in the gallery at 700 Miami Circle in Atlanta, plus online via several popular bidding platforms. The White Oaks estate is bursting with fine decorative arts from names like Steuben, Baccarat, Hermes, Christofle, Tiffany & Company, Lalique, Ralph Lauren Collection, Buccellati, Moser, Fornasetti and Asprey; as well as fine antiques from the Doris Duke Collection, acquired from around the world and previously sold at Christies. An expected top lot is a portrait of Oonagh Guinness by Philip de Laszlo (Austro-Hungarian, 1869-1937). Oonagh Guinness (1910-1995) was ... More In Lagos, a homegrown ballet academy leaps into the spotlightLAGOS (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- In June, a minute-long video featuring a young ballet student dancing in the rain began circulating on the internet. As the rain falls, forming puddles between the uneven slabs of concrete on which he dances, Anthony Mmesoma Madu, 11, turns pirouette after pirouette. Though the conditions for such dancing are all wrong dangerous, even he twirls on, flying barefoot into an arabesque and landing it. He indulges the camera with a smile, but only for a moment, before assuming a look of fierce determination, lifting his eyes toward the sky, his lithe arms and graceful fingers following closely along. The wide reach of the video it has been seen more than more than 20 million times on social media platforms has turned a spotlight on the unlikely story of a ballet school in a poor suburb of Lagos, Nigeria: ... More Dallas' David Bates' Crab Legs could crack $50K in Heritage Texas Art AuctionDALLAS, TX.- An exceptional oil painting by one of the most prominent artists from the Lone Star State could bring $50,000 or more wen Sept. 26 in Heritage Auctions Texas Art Auction. David Bates Crab Legs, 1984 (estimate: $30,000-50,000) was created when the Dallas artist was approaching the top of the ladder of the most popular Texas artists. The 72-by-60-inch oil on canvas, from a distinguished Dallas collection, is signed and dated in lower corners: Bates 84 and signed, dated and titled on the lower reverse: David Bates Crab Legs 84. This auction is shaping up to be similar to some of the best Texas Art auctions we have had in the last decade, Heritage Auctions Texas Art Director Atlee Phillips said. Crab Legs is a really great David Bates painting, from right at the sweet spot of when he was getting really big. We also are offering an ... More Bonhams returns to Bonmont with pair of rare BugattisCHESEREX.- Bonhams returns to Bonmont Golf and Country Club in Cheserex, Switzerland on 20 September, following 2019s successful inaugural sale, which achieved a world record auction price for a Lamborghini, a rare Veneno model, selling for CHF 8,280,000 (7,685,000). The picturesque Lake Geneva will once again be the backdrop, while the former 12th century abbey chapel will provide an atmospheric venue for the Bonhams saleroom. A matching pair of Bugatti Veyrons leads a fine selection of classic and collectors motor cars from the worlds most glamorous, sporting and luxurious automotive marques to be offered in the Bonhams sale. The 2010 16.4 Super Sport Coupé and 2014 16.4 Grand Sport Vitesse convertible variants of the French supercar, which set the benchmark for the category when it was launched, offer potential ... More At theaters, push for racial equity leads to resignations and restructuringNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Fifteen years ago, Paul Kuhn co-founded Philadelphias Curio Theater Co. Now, having reached the conclusion that his leadership is part of a racist power structure, Kuhn says he is relinquishing all authority to choose plays, directors and designers to a new co-artistic director, Rich Bradford, who is Black. Across the country, in Berkeley, California, Jon Tracy, a white man who serves as the artistic facilitator at TheatreFirst, is demoting himself, and the company is creating a term-limited position of artistic director, hoping the opening will provide an opportunity to diversify its leadership. And in New York City, William Carden is planning to leave Ensemble Studio Theater a company he joined in 1978. All four people on its artistic staff are white, and Carden, who has been the artistic director since 2007, said he believed ... More Bonhams offers the Collection of The Late Tony White, Australia's most innovative jeweller SYDNEY.- Bonhams Australia announced the forthcoming sale: Tony White: The Jewellers Eye, a celebration of the work and life of the Late Tony White. The auction will take place in Sydney on 27 September 2020. Tony White created one-of-a-kind jewellery for over four decades, carving out a singular space in the Australian art world. Exquisitely made, his work is sculptural and wearable, combining the beauty of the past with timeless style inspired by nature and his explorations around the world. He chose to exhibit his work in fine art galleries and created pieces for celebrity clients as wide-ranging as The Pope to Kate Middleton. The Sale will include over 250 unique pieces of exquisite bespoke jewellery, furniture, and key works from his extraordinary contemporary art collection including works by Brett Whiteley, Charles Blackman, and Joel Elenberg. ... More Exhibition relates Leiko Ikemura's works to ones from the permanent collection at Kunsthalle RostockROSTOCK.- Leiko Ikemura is a an internationally acclaimed artist. The painter and sculptor has lived and worked in Germany since 1987. The essence of Leiko Ikemuras art is conveyed in her merging of the human and nature in works culminating in surreal phantasmagorical landscape composites. Fusion and alienation simultaneously appear both paradoxical and harmonious, a synthesis that is also reflected in Leiko Ikemuras own biography. She is immersed in western art and culture, which has influenced her own roots, enabling the discovery of subject matter and formal languages that are immanent to Japanese traditions. Kunsthalle Rostock has invited the artist to relate her works to ones from the permanent collection at Kunsthalle Rostock as well as others on loan, to engage both East German and East European art in a dialogue with regard ... More Designing doesn't stop, even when stage shows doNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Theater seats are empty, orchestra pits mute and the stages bare and undressed, or still wearing last seasons fashions. Among those in the theater industry rocked by the pandemic are the scenic artists who create the environment and aesthetic that defines the works onstage. And though right now the shows cant go on, the designers still must, and many are finding innovative ways to stay busy. Were artists, so were used to using our hands and expressing ourselves, said designer Anita La Scala. Its interesting in a pandemic what can come out of that, creatively speaking, and I think everyone is being put to that test. Heres a look at what La Scala and some of her colleagues have been doing if not for money, then for an expressive outlet while the world is stalled. Molly OCathain Set and costume designer ... More Jazz saxophonist Hal Singer dies at 100VERSAILLES (AFP).- The American jazz saxophonist and band leader Hal Singer, who played with the likes of Ray Charles and Billie Holiday, has died at the age of 100, the French town where he lived announced Thursday. "We regret to inform you of the death of Hal Singer on August 18, 2020 at the age of 100," said a press release issued by the town hall of Chatou, west of Paris, where the jazz veteran had lived for 20 years. "Weakened in recent years, Hal Singer has passed away peacefully surrounded by his wife and family," the Chatou statement added. No cause of death was announced. During his 70-year career, Singer recorded nearly a hundred records, first in the United States and then in France where, according to his website, he settled in 1965. Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as an infant he was caught up in the notorious Tulsa race massacre ... More |
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Flashback On a day like today, American designer and architect Charles Eames died August 21, 1978. Charles Ormond Eames, Jr (1907-1978) was an American designer, who worked in and made major contributions to modern architecture and furniture. He also worked in the fields of industrial and graphic design, fine art and film. In this image: "Lobby Chair" models by U.S. designers Charles Eames (1907-1978) and his wife Ray (1912-1988) are on display during the exhibition "The furniture of Charles and Ray Eames - Products, Processes, Prototyps", in the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, Thursday, March 22, 2007.
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