| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Friday, June 5, 2020 |
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| | Italians rediscover their museums, with no tourists in sight | |
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Director of the Uffizi Gallery Museum, Germany's Eike Schmidt, wearing a face mask in the colors of the Italian flag, poses in Florence on June 2, 2020, on the eve of the museum's reopening to the public, as the country eases its lockdown aimed at curbing the spread of the COVID-19 infection, caused by the novel coronavirus. Tiziana FABI / AFP.
by Elisabetta Povoledo
ROME (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- There was no red carpet, but even so, a cadre of photographers snapped frenziedly as the objects of their attention the first visitors to the Vatican Museums when they reopened on Monday after the coronavirus lockdown squirmed in the unexpected spotlight. With travel among Italian regions restricted until Tuesday, it was a local lineup, ready to experience what many Romans dream of: a tourist-free visit to one of the worlds greatest and most popular museums, which last year drew nearly 7 million visitors. Although she lives in Rome, Simona Toti, a statistician, said she hadnt seen the Sistine Chapel for years because of the mobs. While online reservations have shortened the milelong queue that once snaked along the walls of Vatican City to the museum entrance, many Rome residents are still daunted by the crowds, and the crowding. Normally its so packed that you just cant appreciate anything, Toti said. Fo ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Visitors wearing face masks look at a piece displayed at the Louvre Lens museum reopened to the public on June 3, 2020 as France easing of lockdown measures taken to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, caused by the novel coronavirus. DENIS CHARLET / AFP
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 | | How crowdsourcing aided a push to preserve the histories of Nazi victims | | Marie-Antoinette and lover's censored letters deciphered | | Christie's to offer an important private collection of 11 key works by L.S. Lowry | 
In an image provided by Arolsen Archives, lists from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp detailing prisoners deaths, transfers to other camps and other information. Arolsen Archives via The New York Times.
by Andrew Curry
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- While the coronavirus pandemic has painfully upended lives and businesses around the world, the lockdowns it caused are providing a unique boost for one groups effort to help heal a generations-old wound: Nazi atrocities. As the virus prompted lockdowns across Europe, the director of the Arolsen Archives the worlds largest devoted to the victims of Nazi persecution joined millions of others working remotely from home and spending lots more time in front of her computer. We thought, Heres an opportunity, said the director, Floriane Azoulay. Two months later, the archives Every Name Counts project has attracted thousands of online volunteers to work as amateur archivists, indexing names from the archives enormous collection of papers. To date, they have ... More | | 
The revealed passages are further confirmation of the steamy relationship between Marie-Antoinette and Count de Fersen.
PARIS (AFP).- Love letters between the ill-fated French queen Marie-Antoinette and her lover, which contain key passeges rendered illegible by censor marks, have been deciphered using new techniques, the French National Archives said on Wednesday. The revealed passages are further confirmation of the steamy relationship between Marie-Antoinette and Count de Fersen, who were writing to each other two years after the 1789 French revolution. At the time, the queen and King Louis XVI were living under surveillance in the Parisian Tuileries palace and had just failed to escape their house arrest. Much of the lovers' correspondence had already been brought to light, but redacted lines remained illegible. Until now. "For the first time we can read Fersen's writing using unambiguous sentences on his feelings for the queen, which had been carefully hidden," said the REX project's leaders in a statement. "Marie-Antoinette and Fersen express ... More | | 
Laurence Stephen Lowry, R . A . (1887-1976), Landscape with Figures. Oil on panel, 14 x 10 in. (35.6 x 25.4 cm.) Painted in 1957. Estimate: £250,000-350,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.
LONDON.- People Watching: The Art of L.S. Lowry, Christies focused presentation of original works by L. S. Lowry, will showcase an important private collection of 11 key examples that highlight the ongoing fascination the artist had for the characters and scenes he observed around him. This collection includes examples previously owned by Monty Bloom, Lowrys most enthusiastic patron, and The Reverend Geoffrey Bennett. The online-only sale will be live for bidding from 15 June to 2 July 2020 and comprises 19 paintings and drawings with estimates ranging from £4,000 to £800,000. A trio of paintings will lead the sale, each underlining an area of interest for the artist. Coming from the Match (1959, estimate: £500,000-800,000) is the only painting of a rugby match Lowry ever created, while Iron Works (1941, estimate: £500,000-800,000) depicts a sprawling industrial landscape in which the River Irwell has flooded ... More |
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| | A complete sheet of 1980 Golden Monkey stamps achieves over Hk$1 million at Zurich Asia | | Unseen script offers new evidence of a radical Lorraine Hansberry | | A world redrawn: Japan architect Ban urges virus-safe shelters | 
A complete sheet of 80 stamps of 8 fen from 1980 Year of the Monkey (Golden Monkey) realized HK$1,023,500/ US$131,218.
HONG KONG.- Zurich Asia successfully held a Live Internet Auction in its office in Hong Kong on 2 & 3 June, offering 2,300 lots of rare philatelic treasures, banknotes and coins. There was great interest in stamps from the Liberated Areas of China and the Peoples Republic of China. The star lot was a complete sheet of 80 stamps of 8 fen from 1980 Year of the Monkey (Golden Monkey) which realized HK$1,023,500/ US$131,218, exceeding its pre-sale high estimate. In very fresh condition and with a shiny golden colour, this rare offering is one of the most highly sought-after Chinese philatelic items. Among the prized Qing dynasty stamps on offer was an 1897 small figures surcharge, 4 cents on 3 cents revenue stamp, which sold for HK$195,500/ US$25,064. A very fine example of this rare variety, it is in mint condition with full original gum. Of note was a special section of philatelic items related to the Basel Mission, a Switzerl ... More | | 
A photo provided by the Cleveland Public Library Digital Gallery, Charles W. Chesnutt, the author of The Marrow of Tradition in his home library, 1904 or later. Cleveland Public Library Digital Gallery via The New York Times.
by Daniel Pollack-Pelzner
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- A few weeks after A Raisin in the Sun opened in New York in March 1959, making 29-year-old Lorraine Hansberry the first black woman with a play produced on Broadway, a reporter for The New York Post asked what other projects she had in the works. For Raisin, she had drawn on her familys battle to buy a house in a segregated white neighborhood in Chicago; for her next play, as the civil rights movement gathered momentum, she wanted to consider the progress and setbacks of an earlier era. Hansberry told the reporter that she was writing an adaptation of The Marrow of Tradition, a long out-of-print novel by Charles W. Chesnutt about a massacre that destroyed black rights gained after the Civil War, based ... More | | 
This file photo taken on May 14, 2013 in Metz, eastern France. Jean-Christophe VERHAEGEN / AFP.
by Miwa Suzuki
TOKYO (AFP).- Japan's Pritzker Award-winning architect Shigeru Ban, famous for designing buildings from paper tubes in disaster areas, says the world needs to think about tackling natural catastrophes in the coronavirus era. And while he hopes the pandemic will lead to less of a crush on Tokyo's packed commuter trains, he warns against relying on teleworking, stressing that hands-on contact with materials is vital for great architecture. Speaking to AFP from his Tokyo office, the 62-year-old said cities need to start planning now to mitigate the nightmare scenario of an earthquake or typhoon striking before the pandemic has run its course. Ban has won plaudits for his involvement in disaster relief projects around the world and urged city authorities to invest in a stock of shelters that can be deployed quickly with infection prevention in mind. "Shelters ... More |
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| | Sotheby's announces three exceptional live wine auctions in July at Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre | | Simon Lee Gallery announces representation and online exhibition of Donna Huddleston | | Kehrer Verlag announces 'Growing Up Travelling: The Inside World of Irish Traveller Children' by Jamie Johnson | 
Château Latour 1955. 12 bottles, est. HK$80,000-120,000 / US$10,000-15,000. Courtesy Sotheby's.
HONG KONG.- Sothebys Wine will present three exceptional sales in Hong Kong from 5 to 7 July, which opens the Sothebys Hong Kong Spring 2020 auction series, and brings to the market nearly 3,000 lots with a combined pre-sale estimate of HK$120-169 million / US$15-22 million. Adam Bilbey, Head of Sothebys Wine, Asia, states: We are proud to open the 2020 Spring Sale series in Hong Kong with two unmissable single-owner wine sales: Magnificent Bordeaux from the Cellar of Sir Dickson Poon offers some of the very finest Bordeaux in enviable depth; The Summit, A Complete Cellar is one of the greatest collections of top Burgundies and Rhônes to come to market, with an incredible selection of large formats. This seasons Finest & Rarest Wines and Spirits brings a plethora of much sought-after Scotch and Japanese whiskies, as well as Kweichow Moutai, with a diverse offering catering to all tastes and budgets. ... More | | 
Donna Huddleston, The Call, 2019. Pencil on paper, 106 x 72 cm (41 3/4 x 28 3/8 in.). Courtesy: The artist and Simon Lee Gallery. © of the artist.
LONDON.- Simon Lee Gallery announced representation of Donna Huddleston (b. 1970, Belfast, Northern Ireland) with the launch of the gallery's most recent Artist in Focus online viewing room. The art of Donna Huddleston (b. 1970, Belfast, Northern Ireland) draws on a range of influences that span the worlds of film, theatre, literature, design and the visual arts. Collapsing the boundaries between life and theatre, Huddlestons drawings marry ritualistic narrative with an unpretentious medium. Her dramatic tableaux and cryptic pencil studies combine the austerity of technical drawing with a tonally resonant palette. Her media includes Caran dache colour pencil, metal-point, watercolour and graphite. The evocation of memory through texture is the formalist ambition of Huddlestons works on paper. Her alternately stark and theatrical compositions include objects made in various media that combine sculptural pr ... More | | 
Interwoven throughout the book are quotes from the children sharing what is important to them.
NEW YORK, NY.- American photographer Jamie Johnson has devoted her over 20-year career to photographing children around the world. In 2014 she was invited to Ireland to document the Irish Travellers, a nomadic, ethnic minority that have lived on the margins of mainstream Irish society for centuries. She was introduced to a group of Travellers at the Ballinasloe Horse Fair and Festival, an annual event in County Galway where Travellers from Ireland and Europe come to set up camps, reunite with family and friends, and sell puppies and ponies. The children are left to run footloose and fancy free with dolls, animals, and candy cigarettes. While the Travellers don't usually like outsiders, Johnson's warmth, kindness and show of respect won them over and she was granted full access to photograph their lives and culture. Johnson, a mother of two girls, immediately fell in love with the outgoing, fun loving Traveller children who were eager to pose for her camera. ... More |
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| | Spring Rail & Road Auctions announces sale to feature artwork from former owner of Lionel Trains Estate | | This is not the end of fashion | | Tiancheng International announces highlights included in the Jewellery and Jadeite Spring Auction 2020 | 
Angela Trotta Thomas, Time's Past. Oil on Canvas, 14" X 18". Est: $1,500 - $2,000.
LAFAYETTE IN.- Toy train and Railroad art is something that interests a growing subculture of people. In this area one of the most famed artists is certainly Angela Trotta Thomas. Lafayette, Indiana based Rail & Road Auctions, who focus on the sale of Railroad and Automotive Art, Railroadiana, and 1980-2008 performance vehicles, recently announced very exciting news. The auction houses Spring auction, scheduled for June 6th, 2020, will feature some of Thomass most famous works presented to Rail & Road Auctions by the estate of Richard Kughn the former owner of Lionel Trains Inc. from his personal collection. Some are limited edition and even serial #1. Kughns collection will be split with half being featured at the Spring auction and the second half being available later at the Fall 2020 event. Interest is high and rising. We are honored to have been selected to bring this once in a lifetime collection of art to market, commented Derek Thomas, President of ... More | | 
History and human nature prove we will dress up again. What that looks like is the real question. Marianna Gefen/The New York Times.
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- It is a truth that may be hard to imagine in a world devastated by illness and economic insecurity, riven by racism and unrest, but we will get dressed again. Dressed not for the anonymity of the hospital or the essential workforce, the heat and heartbreak of the protest, the anomie of the supermarket or the park, but for the next stage catharsis. Capital D Dressed. It is both history and human nature. We will come out of this, like we come out of a war, said Li Edelkoort, a trend forecaster. The buildings are still there, but everything is in ruins. We will want two things: security and to dance. We will be aching for something new, to refresh our personalities, she said. Eccentric clothes, romantic clothes. And that is why, after months in which the death of fashion was proclaimed loudly and regularly, a week when it was once again forced to confront its own role in preserving inequality, the motor ... More | | 
Lot 146／10.25-Carat Natural Unheated Burmese Mogok Pigeons Blood Ruby and Diamond Ring. Estimate: HK$ 25,000,000 - 35,000,000／US$ 3,200,000 - 4,488,000.
HONG KONG.- Tiancheng International Jewellery and Jadeite Spring Auction will take place on 7 July, showcasing a vast selection of natural coloured gemstones, diamonds and jadeite pieces. Leading the sale is a magnificent 10.25-carat natural unheated Burmese Mogok ruby. Suffused with fiery pigeons blood colour intensity and unearthed from the celebrated Mogok mine, this gem is an exceptional choice for ones trophy collection. Ms. Connie Huang, Head of Tiancheng Internationals Jewellery Department, remarks, We are pleased to present our carefully curated auction to connoisseurs. With the COVID-19 pandemic still affecting all spheres of life, we have handpicked a more refined selection of gemstones and opulent jadeite, alongside a variety of branded jewels, designer pieces and exquisite watches. Tiancheng International hopes to offer ... More |
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| | More News |
 Navajo face loss of elders and traditions to COVID-19STEAMBOAT (AFP).- Emerson Gorman knows what it's like to face the destruction of his culture: when he was five-years-old he was among thousands of Navajo children taken from their families and sent to Christian schools that tried to erase their belief systems. Now 66, the traditional healer who lives on the largest Native American reservation in the United States sees it as his duty to pass on his wisdom, at a time when the community elders face an existential threat from the coronavirus pandemic. "It's very important to talk about our history, our rituals and ceremonies," said Gorman, a tall, well-built man with weathered features, who lives on a large homestead at the center of the Navajo Nation, where he and his family raise livestock and grow corn, fruit, and herbs. Handing down the medicine he practices is particularly important, he says, ... More Art that confronts and challenges racism: Start hereNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- What fills us up in disquieting times? What galvanizes through trauma? As the world endured months of lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, artists put forth works that comfort, that remind us of our regular days and nights at the theater and the gallery, of the bonhomie of a concert hall, the warm glow of a weekend movie. But as the United States convulsed with protests and activism in response to police brutality in the last week, many looked for a different kind of understanding one that offered a new view onto social justice and racial equity, civic engagement and economic rights. We want to challenge our own entrenched ways of thinking, as people, parents and a society. Artists and thinkers have already shown us how: Bryan Stevenson, the crusading lawyer and founder of the Equal Justice ... More Australian Centre for Contemporary Art announces projects selected for the ACCA OpenMELBOURNE.- Six new projects have been selected for the ACCA Open, a new commissions series for contemporary art projects in the digital realm. Devised as a way for ACCA to continue to work with and support contemporary artists during the COVID-19-related gallery closures and disruptions, the ACCA Open was an invitation for Australian artists and collaborations from all backgrounds, career levels and practices to submit ideas for projects that could be presented through digital platforms. Artists Archie Barry, Zanny Begg, Léuli Eshrāghi and Sean Peoples, and collaborators Madeleine Flynn and Tim Humphrey, and Amrita Hepi and Sam Lieblich will each receive $8,000 to create a new work to be presented by ACCA on digital platforms from August 2020. ACCA Artistic Director/CEO Max Delany said that while the original plan was ... More Women in Egypt's restive Sinai bring Bedouin embroidery to virus fightCAIRO (AFP).- In El-Arish, the provincial capital of Egypt's North Sinai, a group of women sew colourful Bedouin designs on masks to combat coronavirus, as an insurgency simmers in their restive region. Egypt's toll from the COVID-19 pandemic has reached over 28,600 cases, including more than 1,000 deaths, while North Sinai itself remains the bloody scene of a long-running Islamist insurgency. "I learnt how to embroider when I was a young girl watching my mother," homemaker Naglaa Mohammed, 36, told AFP on a landline from El-Arish, as mobile phone links are often disrupted. A versatile embroiderer, she also beads garments and crafts rings and bracelets. Now with the pandemic, she has been designing face masks showcasing her Bedouin heritage. Bedouins are nomadic tribes who traditionally inhabit desert areas throughout the Arab world, from North Africa to Iraq. ... More Bruce Jay Friedman, author with a darkly comic worldview, dies at 90NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Bruce Jay Friedman, whose early novels, short stories and plays were pioneering examples of modern American black humor, making dark but giggle-inducing sport of the deep, if not pathological, insecurities of his white, male, middle-class and often Jewish protagonists, died on Wednesday at his home in Brooklyn. He was 90. His son Josh said that the cause had not been determined, but that his father had neuropathy. Friedman, who also wrote the screenplays for the hit film comedies Stir Crazy and Splash, was an unusual case in American letters: an essentially comic writer whose work skipped back and forth between literature and pop culture and who, after a decade of early literary stardom, seemed almost to vanish in plain sight. Like his contemporaries Joseph Heller, Stanley Elkin and Thomas Pynchon, ... More Dallas-based Heritage Auctions relocates world headquarters to new, 160,000 square-foot campusDALLAS, TX.- Heritage Auctions has moved its global headquarters into a new state-of-the-art, 160,000-square foot facility and multi-purpose campus, befitting its status as the largest auction house founded in America. As of June 1, Heritage Auctions global headquarters is now located at 2801 W. Airport Freeway, Dallas, Texas 75261, which is adjacent to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport and in its foreign trade zone. Transwestern Principal Nora Hogan facilitated the move, with additional support from Principal Robert Deptula and Vice President Jordan Wade. Mark Hayes with HPI Real Estate Services and Investments represented the landlord, Bandera Ventures. The new headquarters, less than 30 minutes from both downtown Dallas and Fort Worth, is twice the size of Heritages longtime home at 3500 Maple Avenue, and now consolidates its three ... More The public's most-asked art questions explored in new six-part National Galleries video seriesEDINBURGH.- What makes a painting iconic? Who decides what art is worth? Why cant I touch artworks when in a gallery? Six in-depth videos will explore these and other common musings on art in Questions about Art, a brand-new, informative and unprecedented insights video series from the National Galleries of Scotland (NGS). All are explored through filmed interviews of expert analysis, archive material and animations, and never-before-seen behind the scenes footage from within the National Galleries. The videos aim to investigate, analyse and share comprehensive insights into these questions, rather than provide definitive answers. One video in the series is What Makes an Artwork Iconic? now available on YouTube. here explores Ray Lichtensteins seminal large-scale painting In The Car (1963). ... More Senate confirms conservative filmmaker to lead U.S. media agencyNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The Senate on Thursday confirmed Michael Pack, a conservative filmmaker who President Donald Trump has said he hopes will dictate more favorable news coverage of his administration, to lead the independent agency in charge of state-funded media outlets. The vote, 53-38, came after Trump intervened to expedite Packs nomination, which had initially stalled amid concerns from senators in both parties and hit a snag more recently amid an investigation by the District of Columbia attorney general into whether he illegally funneled funds from his nonprofit group to his for-profit film company. Pack, a close ally of conservative activists and Trumps former chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, will lead the United States Agency for Global Media, which oversees news organizations, including the Voice of America, ... More No Tony Awards show? Make your own with these great momentsNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The 500 guests at the American Theater Wing dinner dance at the Plaza Hotel on April 1, 1956, were not the only ones who saw Gwen Verdon, Paul Muni, Bob Fosse and Lotte Lenya accepting their Tony Awards. So did fans all over New York City, who for the first time in the history of the honors, which began in 1947, could watch the event live, on DuMont Channel 5. Since the broadcast went national in 1967, it has been an unmissable rite for theater lovers everywhere, many of whom have limited access to Broadway. More recently, thanks to YouTube, ranking (and ranking on) the winners, losers, excerpts and showstoppers has become a perennial pastime. So with the awards on hold for the first time this year, we decided to look back on the most memorable moments of Tonys past. Mostly those moments are acceptances ... More Bugs Bunny is back, and so is the 'Looney Tunes' mayhemNEW YORK (AFP).- In Dynamite Dance, Elmer Fudd comes at Bugs Bunny with a scythe, prompting the hare to jam a stick of lit dynamite in Elmers mouth. Over the course of the short animated video, the explosives get bigger and more plentiful, as Bugs jams dynamite in Elmers ears, atop his bald head, and down his pants. The relentless assault moves from rowboat to unicycle to biplane, each blast timed to the spirited melody of Ponchiellis Dance of the Hours. The short has the look, feel and unabashed mayhem of a classic Looney Tunes cartoon, circa the early 1940s. But Dynamite Dance is of much more recent vintage, one of scores of episodes created by a new crop of Warner Bros. animators over the past two years. The resulting series, Looney Tunes Cartoons, is a throwback effort being used to help fill out a shiny new platform. It premiered ... More |
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Flashback On a day like today, American-Italian painter Conrad Marca-Relli was born June 05, 1913. Conrad Marca-Relli (born Corrado Marcarelli; June 5, 1913 Boston - August 29, 2000 Parma) was an American artist who belonged to the early generation of New York School Abstract Expressionist artists whose artistic innovation by the 1950s had been recognized across the Atlantic. In this image: Conrad Marca-Relli, "San Miguel" S-P-13-78, 1978. Collage and mixed media on canvas, 28 x 34 1/4 inches, 71.3 x 87 cm.
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