| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Friday, February 1, 2019 |
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| | Lucian Freud's rare 1956 portrait of Guinness heir to make auction debut | |
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Mesmeric portrait of the artist?s lifelong friend, the late Hon. Garech Browne. Courtesy Sotheby's.
LONDON.- Rendered with a captivating intensity and a remarkable tenderness, Lucian Freuds mesmerising early portrait, Head of a Boy, will appear on the market for the first time as a highlight of Sothebys Contemporary Art Evening Auction on March 5. Embodying the sensational powers of observation which famously characterise Freuds work, this tightly composed painting from 1956 is a remarkable example of portraiture executed when Freud was just 34 years of age. Small in scale and yet boasting a remarkable emotional intensity, the 18 by 18cm work is at once testament to the artists masterful control over his subject, and a tremendous tribute to the sitter - the late Hon. Garech Browne. The portrait bespeaks the lifelong friendship between Lucian Freud and Garech Browne - dedicated patron of Irish music, poetry and culture, Guinness heir, and last custodian to the magical Luggala estate. Freud first visited Luggala in t ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day A general view of atmosphere during the Jackie Robinson Centennial Photo Exhibit Premiere at Museum of the City of New York on January 31, 2019 in New York City. Craig Barritt/Getty Images for Jackie Robinson Foundation, Inc./AFP
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 | | Auction record for any female artist of the pre-modern era achieved at Sotheby's New York | | Georgia O'Keeffe's dazzling Ritz Tower joins museum's collection | | New painting added to the Van Gogh Museum collection | 
Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Bruns Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan from 1788 sells for $7.2 million, leading Sothebys Master Paintings Evening Sale. Courtesy Sotheby's.
NEW YORK, NY.- Sothebys annual Masters Week sales series kicked off today in New York, with 170 paintings and drawings sold across two auctions for an overall total of $67.8 million. The day was began with Sir Peter Paul Rubenss drawing of a Nude Study of Young Man with Raised Arms selling for $8.2 million a new world auction record for any drawing by the iconic artist. That result helped propel the Old Master Drawings sale to a $15.1 million total, which itself marks the highest total for this category in Sothebys history. Last nights Master Paintings Evening Sale celebrated the work of groundbreaking female artists of the 16th 19th centuries and established multiple auction records, most notably for Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, whose Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan achieved an incredible $7.2 million a new world auction record for any female artist of ... More | | 
Georgia O'Keeffe. "Ritz Tower", 1928 (detail). Oil on canvas, 40 1/4 x 14 in. Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. Museum Purchase. © Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. [2018.14.1]
SANTA FE, NM.- The Georgia OKeeffe Museum announced the newest addition to its permanent collection, Georgia OKeeffes 1928 oil painting, Ritz Tower . Created during her rise to art world stardom, the work captures the iconic building at night. The slender painting is one of OKeeffes rare depictions of skyscrapers in New York City. This is a painting as dazzling as the modern city itself, says Ariel Plotek, Curator of Fine Art for the OKeeffe Museum. Throughout the 1920s, Georgia OKeeffe lived in New York with her husband, photographer and art impresario Alfred Stieglitz. The couple was at the center of the citys cultural scene, with OKeeffes exhibitions receiving critical acclaim. Some of her peers initially discouraged her from painting urban subjects. Later in life, OKeeffe recalled, The men decided they didnt want me to paint New York . . . They tol ... More | | 
Maurice Denis (1870 1943), Motherhood (Vierge au baiser), 1896-1897, oil on canvas, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.
AMSTERDAM.- The Van Gogh Museum has acquired a painting by Maurice Denis: Motherhood (Vierge au baiser) from 1896-1897. This monumentalwork depicts Denis wife Marthe and their child Noële in soft, subtle colours. Motherhood is a significant theme in Denis work he created an entire series of paintings and prints devoted to this subject. Maurice Denis is one of the leading representatives of the Nabis (1890-1914), a group of French artists that strived to depict universal values through intimate, often domestic, scenes. The painting Motherhood (Vierge au baiser) has been part of a private collection for many years, and has never before been exhibited in the Netherlands. The work will go on display at the Van Gogh Museum from today, as part of the permanent collection on the third floor. Maurice Denis was part of the Nabis, a group of French artists working in the period 1890 to 1914. ... More |
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| | | Pace opens the first solo exhibition in Hong Kong dedicated to the work of Irving Penn | | Sausage museum plan at ex-Nazi camp sparks outcry in Germany | | The Winter Show 2019 welcomed strong sales and new collectors | 
Irving Penn, Untitled, 2006 © The Irving Penn Foundation.
HONG KONG.- Pace Gallery is presenting the first solo exhibition in Hong Kong dedicated to internationally-renowned artist Irving Penn, on view at Paces H Queens gallery from January 25March 7, 2019. Featuring thirty photographs drawn from the collection of The Irving Penn Foundation, the exhibition showcases a selection of the artists most iconic works in fashion photography, portraiture, nudes, and still life from four decades of his career. In addition to Penns photographs, the show features two of the artists mixed-media paintings, also drawn from the Foundations collection. Making their premiere in Asia following a debut exhibition at Pace in New York in fall 2018, these late paintings reveal the artists largely-unknown experimentation in the medium. One of the most esteemed artists of the twentieth century, Penn reinvented fashion photography through his long career at Vogue.His use of a ... More | | 
Buchenwald gate with "Jedem das Seine".
BERLIN (AFP).- Plans to build a sausage museum at an annex of the former Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald Thursday sparked protests over a "lack of historical awareness" in Germany. An association called Friends of the Thuringer Bratwurst had announced plans to move the Bratwurst Museum from its current location in Holzhausen to Muehlhausen, where a theatre and a hotel will also be built. But the Muehlhausen site was once part of the Buchenwald camp, where the Nazis imprisoned almost a quarter of a million people between 1937 and 1945. Around 700 Jewish women were held in the outlying location that is to be redeveloped into a tourist attraction. The prisoners had been sent from the Auschwitz death camp to work in a weapons factory nearby, and warned that they would be returned to the death camp when they could no longer work. Rikola-Gunnar Luettgenau of the Buchenwald memorial foundation said the redevelopment plan showed a ... More | | 
Aronson of Amsterdam, who celebrated their 25th anniversary at the show presented the audience with a newly discovered pair of flower vases.
NEW YORK, NY.- The 65th edition of The Winter Show, Americas leading art, antiques, and design fair, closed on Sunday, January 27. This years Fair was energized by robust sales, vitalized interest from new and returning collectors, and record attendance at sold-out events and special programming. An annual benefit for East Side House Settlement, a community-based organization serving the Bronx and northern Manhattan, The Winter Show featured 68 of the worlds experts in the fine and decorative arts alongside a series of lectures and panel discussions and this years loan exhibition, Collecting Nantucket, Connecting the World, organized by the Nantucket Historical Association. The fairs Presenting Sponsor Chubb returned for a 23rd year. Under the leadership of new Executive Director Helen Allen and Associate Executive Director Michael Diaz-Griffith, the ... More |
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| | | Tampa Museum of Art celebrates one of South America's most ambitious and celebrated modern artists | | Rago's $4.8M Design Auction brings impressive results for modern ceramics and glass | | Distinguished mementos from ruling houses highlight 78th Auction of Hermann Historica GmbH | 
Oswaldo Vigas (Venezuelan, 1923-2014), Bruja infante (Infant Witch), 1951. Oil on canvas. 39 ¼ x 22 ½ inches. Courtesy of the Oswaldo Vigas Foundation.
TAMPA, FLA.- The Tampa Museum of Art announced the opening of Oswaldo Vigas: Transformations, an exhibition celebrating one of South Americas most ambitious and celebrated modern artists. Organized by the Grand Rapids Art Museum and made possible with support from the Oswaldo Vigas Foundation and the Grand Rapids Art Museum Exhibition Society, this exhibition is on view from January 31 through May 27, 2019. Oswaldo Vigas: Transformations presents the first US museum survey of artist Oswaldo Vigas (Venezuelan, 1923-2014) and features 60 works of art created between 1940 and 1980, including 40 paintings and a selection of sketches and drawings. A prolific artist, Vigas found inspiration in both the natural landscape and traditions of his native Venezuela, as well as the European avant-garde. The exhibition examines the artists evolution ... More | | 
Betty Woodman, Early Pillow Pitcher. Sold for: $31,250.
LAMBERTVILLE, NJ.- Rago Auctions January 19-20 Design Sales brought in a total of $4,826,775 across five sessions. The two-day auction series saw impressive results for a wide range of property, with particularly noteworthy results from the 223-lot segment of Modern Ceramics and Glass, which achieved $721,406 in sales. Two works by Betty Woodman stole the show in Ragos Modern Ceramics and Glass auction, achieving the highest prices of the session. Lot 2113, an early pillow pitcher with Tang-style glaze, defied expectations and shattered the pre-sale estimate of $2,000 - $3,000 to sell for $31,250, setting a record for the highest price achieved at auction for a Betty Woodman work since 2008; and lot 2112, a two-handled vase with polka-dots, which shot past the high estimate of $2,750 to sell for $20,000. For years, Rago has proudly presented works by Betty Woodman, the first living female artist to earn a retrospective at the Metropolitan ... More | | 
Prince Heinrich of Prussia (1862 - 1929) - silver model SMS Kaiser Friedrich III. SP: 200000 Euros.
MUNICH.- In a two-day auction on 14 and 15 March, Hermann Historica GmbH is launching its auction year 2019 with a bang: three outstanding special catalogues are coming under the hammer. Alongside the most sumptuous artefacts of royal and imperial provenance, a vast estate from the renowned von Leonrod family and a selection of noteworthy collectors' items from five centuries of gunmaking are being offered for sale. Carefully chosen officer's gifts, some extremely valuable, were a testament to the deep bonds that developed among the regiments and their superiors. A particularly imposing, precious and magnificent gift of honour in outstanding jeweller's quality was presented to Prince Heinrich of Prussia (1862 1929) by the officers and officials of the 1st Geschwader to mark his departure as commander. Having held this position from 1900 to 1903, the brother of the German Kaiser was given ... More |
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| | | India Art Fair opens its 11th edition | | Exhibition brings films by James Scott into dialogue with works by David Hockney and Richard Hamilton | | Galerie Lelong & Co. opens exhibition of works that span over forty years of Michelle Stuart's remarkable oeuvre | 
India Art Fair 2019. Photo © Jeetin Sharma. Courtesy of India Art Fair.
NEW DELHI.- India Art Fair, the leading platform to discover modern and contemporary art from South Asia, opens to the public tomorrow. In partnership with BMW Group India, India Art Fair 2019 presents 75 exhibitors from 24 Indian and international cities. Evolution and expansion of the programme both on- and off-site offers visitors unique access to the breadth and strength of Indias thriving visual art scene. The fair runs until Sunday 3 February 2019. The fair programme reflects upon the changing face of the global art community with Forum, a platform encouraging opportunities aimed at the younger generation. This years guest curator Sitara Chowfla, a writer, researcher and curator based between London and New Delhi, celebrates critical experimentation and the work of artists, curators, institutions, critics and collectors across the globe. Forum includes performances by internationally renowned artists Yasmin Jahan Nupur, Am ... More | | 
Richard Hamilton, Palindrome, 1974. Acrylfolie auf Lichtdruck auf Papier, 59,6 x 44,4 cm. Museum Ludwig, Köln. Leihgabe der Freunde der Art Cologne e.V. 2012 © R. Hamilton. All Rights Reserved/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019. Reproduktion: Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.
COLOGNE.- Films about art can make art seem small and banal, but they can also expand and enlarge itlike the first films by the British art film pioneer James Scott (*1941). The Museum Ludwig brings them into a dialogue with the works they feature: David Hockneys Illustrations for Fourteen Poems by C.P. Cavafy (1966) and works by Richard Hamilton. The Cologne-based collectors Herbert Meyer-Ellinger and Christoph Vowinckel donated this series of works by Hockney to the museum in 2016. Now it is being exhibited for the first time, along with works on paper by Hockney and Hamilton from the collection, supplemented with loans from private collections. Illustrations for Fourteen Poems by C.P. Cavafy comes ... More | | 
Michelle Stuart, Trajectory of Evolutionary Correspondences (detail), 2009-2010. © Michelle Stuart. Courtesy Galerie Lelong & Co., New York.
NEW YORK, NY.- Galerie Lelong & Co. is presenting Michelle Stuart: Flight of Time, the artists first solo exhibition at the gallery since joining in 2018. The exhibition features drawings, photographs, and sculptures that span over forty years of her remarkable oeuvre. Stuart has worked on both a monumental and intimate scale to excavate universal human experiences, from collective memory to the natural landscape. Stuart is widely celebrated as a pioneer of land art with her groundbreaking hybrid uses of earth, drawing, and photography in the 1960s and '70s. In recent years, Stuarts photography has developed into a crucial part of her practice and garnered international recognition. Central to the exhibition is a new work, These Fragments Against Time (2018), which combines photography with found objects and sculptural forms. At the fore is ... More |
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#MetKids -- Can a Painting Tell More Than One Story?
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 Minneapolis Institute of Art acquires major works by Il LeeNEW YORK, NY.- Art Projects International announced a recent accession of two major works by Il Lee Untitled 978W (1997-98) and BL-07835 (2007-08) to the permanent collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia). Untitled 978W (above) is an important large-scale black ballpoint ink on paper work from the 978 series of powerful drawings from the late 1990s, each measuring up to 82 x 61 inches. BL-07835 is a six-foot wide blue ballpoint ink on canvas work that presents one of Il Lees iconic forms. Untitled 978W and other large-scale blue ballpoint ink on canvas works were prominently exhibited in the artist's critically acclaimed mid-career retrospective IL LEE: Ballpoint Abstractions at the San Jose Museum of Art in California in 2007 with a review by Kenneth Baker in the San Francisco Chronicle. More recently, Untitled 978W was exhibited ... More The Cleveland Museum of Art opens Raúl de Nieves: Fina CLEVELAND, OH.- Raúl de Nieves: Fina is the first solo museum exhibition by Raúl de Nieves (b. 1983, Michoacán, Mexico). Through processes of accumulation and a celebration of excess, de Nieves transforms humble materials into spectacular objects and immersive narrative environments. Presented by the Cleveland Museum of Art at the Transformer Station, Raúl de Nieves: Fina features a new site-specific installation of figurative sculptures on a central mirrored structure in the Transformer Stations main gallery. While this soaring space is illuminated with blue hues that conjure a cloudless daytime sky, the adjacent smaller gallery evokes nighttime as two figures seem to dramatically emerge from darkness. Narrative facets of Fina are informed by de Nievess experience of Mexican artistic and cultural traditions filtered through the lens of this moment ... More New exhibition by German artist Peter Wächtler opens at Bergen KunsthallBERGEN.- Bergen Kunsthall opens its 2019 programme with a new exhibition by German artist Peter Wächtler. The exhibition presents a large body of new works, in conjunction with a recent large-scale video installation. Peter Wächtler works in a variety of media: bronze, ceramics, drawings and video. But in many ways «stories» could be described as his main artistic material. His works often evoke a narration, with animals or human figures in animated states. They are made in ways that use and adapt elements of fiction and folklore, relating to specific traditions and common tales, and materialize the ways of telling a story as much as the story itself. For his exhibition at Bergen Kunsthall, Wächtler assembled a series of four distinct spaces, each presenting a group of new works (ceramics, bronze, drawings) leading towards the Kunsthalls main space in which ... More MIMA opens an immersive and playful exhibition called "DREAM BOX"BRUSSELS.- Enter the magical world of DREAM BOX. Test the limits of your senses and the power of your imagination. In order of appearance, the illusions are: The psychedelic box of Elzo Durt, the phantasmagorical world of HellO, the musical incantation of Escif, the trompe-loeil of Felipe Pantone and the survey of Imabelpro Eurostom, conceived by the Gogolplex Collective. The spirit of the 6th MIMA exhibition can be encapsulated in two words: immersive and playful. Called DREAM BOX, this chapter borrows its vocabulary from the language of magic: Optical illusion, special effects, and visual and musical incantation will guide your senses and make room for your imagination. This simultaneous experience of what is known as your intuitive and reflective thought is what makes the visit enjoyable. The illusions trick your senses and beef up your imagination. ... More Claudia Wieser creates new installation at London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE: ShiftLONDON.- London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE today announced its latest contemporary art commission, Shift, by Berlin based artist Claudia Wieser. Wieser's installation transforms the ground floor of the three-level space with delicately crafted sculptures and collaged wallpaper, welcoming visitors to explore an ever-changing scene where the ancient and the contemporary conflate and collide. Wiesers Shift characteristically weaves together material from the realms of fine art, architecture, design and film. In her productions, the world becomes a stage where artefacts and images become props, offering new ways of seeing known spaces. Her inventive use of modern geometric patterning and decorative motifs are also apparent throughout the scene she has devised for Bloomberg SPACE. Using composite wallpaper, ornamented woodwork, hand-painted tiles, ... More Ice instruments melt musical boundaries in Italian AlpsPASSO DEL TONALE (AFP).- When Tim Linhart started making instruments from ice they were more likely to explode with a bang than produce music, but things have come a long way since then. Today, the US-born artist is in charge of an ice orchestra of local musicians playing a series of concerts at sub-zero temperatures in a vast, custom-built igloo high in the Italian Alps. "I made snow and ice sculptures in the ski resort where Im from in New Mexico (for 16 years)... and then I decided it would be cool to make a sculpture of a violin," Linhart, 59, told AFP. "I heard the sound coming from inside and thought 'wow this is super exciting, if I just tighten up the strings a little bit more it would be louder'," he recalled. Overtightening the strings, however, caused the instrument to shatter into little pieces, he recounted. "But I had heard enough, it was the beginning," said ... More Vienna's Secession opens exhibition of works by Gerard ByrneVIENNA.- Gerard Byrne uses video, film, photography, and performance art to address fundamental questions concerning the relationships between images and time. His exhibitions play with display formats and reflect on the changing technical and cultural realities underlying his work and its presentation. Upon all the living and the dead gathers Byrnes most recent works for the first time, activating a dialogue between the proto-cinematic moment of Jielemeguvvie guvvie sjisjnjeli (2016), the evasive temporality of In Our Time (2017), and A Visibility Matrix (2018), a new work co-authored with the artist Sven Anderson that borrows aggregation methodologies from early media art and cybernetics to picture current conditions of visibility. Across the works, underlying patterns and recurring interests become visible. Each of the three video works in the exhibition occupies ... More Frazetta original cover art and unrestored copy of Superman #1 headline Comics & Comic Art AuctionDALLAS, TX.- One of just eight Famous Funnies covers by the legendary Frank Frazetta and an unrestored Superman rarity are expected to headline Heritage Auctions Comics & Comic Art auction Feb. 21-23 in Dallas, Texas. Heritage has enjoyed a streak of several exceptionally successful comics auctions in recent years, and we anticipate that collectors will find similarly irresistible materials in this auction, as well, Heritage Auctions Vice President Lon Allen said. This sale features extraordinary lots at the top of the auction the Frank Frazetta Famous Funnies cover is the first we have offered in 15 years and includes highly intriguing options for collectors at all levels. Frank Frazetta Famous Funnies #209 Cover Original Art (Eastern Color, 1953) is one of just eight covers for the title by the hugely popular artist. With a pre-auction estimate of $300,000+, ... More The Armory Show announces Gramercy International Prize to celebrate 25th anniversaryNEW YORK, NY.- The 2019 edition of The Armory Show will celebrate the fairs 25th Anniversary. To mark this historic milestone, The Armory Show is announcing the creation of the Gramercy International Prize, a new, yearly initiative that supports the advancement of young and pioneering New York galleries who have not previously participated in The Armory Show. In the spirit of the fair's founders, a jury will award a nominated gallery with a booth at no cost to showcase a solo or dual-artist presentation, providing a platform for experimentation and discovery with minimal financial risk. Ramiken has been selected as the recipient of the inaugural Gramercy International Prize and will exhibit a dual-artist presentation of works by Darja Bajagić and Andra Ursuţa. Combining wall sculptures from Ursuțaʼs Vanilla Isis series with paintings on printed and ... More Clars to offer a rare 34 carat fancy light yellow diamond ringOAKLAND, CA.- On Sunday, February 17th, the world will be watching as Clars will host what is anticipated to be the most extraordinary sale in their history. Both history and mystery have unfolded as the contents of the famous Spenger Collection of Berkeley, CA, has been researched and revealed. Headlining this sale will be the very rare 34.28 fancy light yellow old mine cut diamond and platinum ring, VS2 (GIA). Frank Spenger acquired this ring in 1950 and its prior history is as rich as the ring itself. Its provenance, which has been researched by experts in the field for decades, reveals that this diamond ring likely dates back to Hawaiian King Kalakaua, who purchased it for Queen Kapiolani to wear to Queen Victorias Jubilee Celebration in England in 1887. In late 1890, King Kalakaua traveled to San Francisco to gamble, taking out a loan from ... More |
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Flashback On a day like today, Japanese painter and sculptor Takashi Murakami was born February 01, 1962. Takashi Murakami (born February 1, 1962) is a Japanese contemporary artist. He works in fine arts media (such as painting and sculpture) as well as commercial media (such as fashion, merchandise, and animation) and is known for blurring the line between high and low arts. In this image: Installation view, Takashi Murakami: The Octopus Eats its Own Leg, MCA Chicago, June 6 - September 24, 2017. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA
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