| The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Friday, November 17, 2017 |
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| | Exhibition brings together the largest group of original drawings by Michelangelo | |
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Visitors view an oil painting of Michelangelo's 'Last Judgment' by Marcello Venusti at the new Michelangelo exhibit titled 'Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer' at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, November 13, 2017 in New York City. The exhibit opened on Monday to the public and will run through February 12, 2018. Drew Angerer / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP.
NEW YORK, NY.- Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer, on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from November 13, 2017, through February 12, 2018, presents a stunning range and number of works by the artist: 133 of his drawings, 3 of his marble sculptures, his earliest painting, and his wood architectural model for a chapel vault. A substantial body of complementary works by his teachers, associates, pupils, and artists who were influenced by him or who worked in collaboration with him are also being displayed for comparison and context. A towering genius in the history of Western art, Michelangelo was celebrated during his long life for the excellence of his disegno, the power of drawing and invention that provided the foundation for all of the arts. For his mastery of drawing, design, sculpture, painting, and architecture, he was called Il divino ("the divine one") by his contemporaries. His powerful imagery and dazzling technical virtuos ... More |
| Bacon portrait of Freud to be shown for the first time since 1965 | | Rubens' daughter comes to the Scottish National Gallery | | Eli Wilner and Company brings their restoration studio to the AIG Private Client Group Exhibitor Showcase | 
Francis Bacon Study for Portrait of Lucian Freud 1964. The Lewis Collection © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved. DACS, London. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd.
LONDON.- A large-scale painting by Francis Bacon of his friend Lucian Freud is to be shown in Tate Britains landmark exhibition All Too Human in February 2018. The work was only seen in public shortly after it was completed firstly in London in 1964 and then in Hamburg and Stockholm in 1965. It has since remained in private hands and has not been exhibited for over half a century. Bacon and Freud had a deep and complex friendship, and were often viewed as artistic rivals. They first met in the mid-1940s and were inseparable for years, seeing each other almost daily in Sohos bars and clubs as well as visiting each others studios and occasionally sitting for portraits. The portrait that will be shown at Tate Britain next year is an angst-ridden image of the human figure, bare chested and curled into the corner of a dark room beneath ... More | | 
Sir Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of the Artists Daughter Clara Serena, about 1623, private collection.
EDINBURGH.- A beautiful and intimate family portrait by one of the greatest of all seventeenth-century artists is on display at the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh this winter. Portrait of the Artists Daughter, Clara Serena by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) was probably painted about 1623, not long before the sitters tragically early death at the age of 12. This charming painting, which, after cleaning, has only recently been unanimously accepted as being by Rubens, has never before been shown in the UK. Rubens was an extraordinarily talented artist, scholar and diplomat, who enjoyed a long, prolific and internationally successful career. He is renowned for painting allegories, Biblical subjects and scenes from classical mythology on a grand scale, employing many assistants to meet the intense demand for his work. However, he also created smaller self-portraits, and portraits of friends and family, ... More | | 
Eli Wilner and Company's expert artisans at the AIG Private Client Group Exhibitor Showcase.
NEW YORK, NY.- Among its top conservators, appraisers, and specialty partners, Eli Wilner and Company Master Framers was recently featured at a risk management exhibitor showcase hosted by AIG Private Client Group, a division of the member companies of American International Group, Inc. (AIG). Staged in the elegant ballroom of the Basking Ridge Country Club, Eli Wilner and Company was permitted to erect a scaled down version of their 10,000 square foot restoration studio, which is located in Long Island City, New York. Attendees, comprised of independent insurance agents and brokers, were offered the unique opportunity to engage with five frame historians and master artisans, and to participate in hands-on frame making and restoration tutorials. Carving demonstrations were held by Eli Wilner and Companys master carver, Felix Teran, perhaps best known for his intricate work on the frame for ... More |
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| Pricing the priceless: the $450mn Da Vinci record | | The largest mammoth skeleton in private hands to be offered at Aguttes | | Washington's Bible museum aims to skirt the political weeds | 
A visitor takes a photo of the painting 'Salvator Mundi' by Leonardo da Vinci at Christie's New York Auction House. Drew Angerer/Getty Images.
NEW YORK (AFP).- A triumph of marketing over aesthetics? Or the legitimate cost of owning a Da Vinci? The sale of a Renaissance portrait of Jesus Christ for nearly half a billion dollars has stunned the art world. Its quality and condition are debated and isolated doubts may even linger over its authenticity. But few dispute that the $450.3 million price tag for reputedly Leonardo da Vinci's "Salvator Mundi" was anything less than historic. "Unbelievable," said Georgina Adam, an editor-at-large at The Art Newspaper whose book on excesses in the 21st century art market comes out next month. "If you were in for a trophy work of art, this was it," she said. "It was a now or never opportunity and the market spoke. And the price is huge. It's colossal." For now, the identity of the buyer remains a mystery. The 19-minute sale came down to two clients outbidding each other by telephone to exhilarated gasps from a packed room at Christie's in New York. Speculation has focused on a select group of billionaires ... More | | 
Rare complete skeleton of a mammoth: Mammuthus primigenius, late Pleistocene era, Siberia, Russia. Photo: Aguttes.
PARIS.- The largest mammoth skeleton in private hands will be exhibited, then auctioned on 16 December by Aguttes inside Lyon-Brotteaux railway station France: a gigantic mammoth 3.40 metres high and 5.30 metres long, mounted in walking position. The Aguttes auction house has previously achieved success in this field, with the 1,128,000 it obtained for a dinosaur skeleton in Lyon on 10th December 2016. Contemporary with Neanderthal man in the Middle Palaeolithic and Homo sapiens in the Upper Paleolithic, the mammoth was the largest land mammal of all time. The one here is the world's biggest privately-owned specimen. It is estimated at £400,000 - £440,000: a figure justified by its extraordinary size. Sales of this kind of specimen are very rare. The first complete mammoth skeleton sold at auction in 2006 was bought for 150,000 by the Cave des Vignerons de Montfrin in the Gard region, which has based its entire communica ... More | | 
Different versions of Bible are on display at Museum of the Bible November 15, 2017 in Washington, DC. Alex Wong/Getty Images/AFP.
WASHINGTON (AFP).- Washington's new Museum of the Bible will take a leap of faith this weekend, opening its massive bronze, Latin-inscribed gates to visitors eager to browse ancient relics and interactive exhibits -- as well as to critics skeptical of the institution's "non-sectarian" mission. The privately funded $500-million museum tells the story of the Bible by blending archaeology with history and a hint of whimsy, offering everything from antiquities and biblical curio to an amusement ride, all intended to "celebrate" the good book. But since its genesis the 430,000 square-foot museum has raised eyebrows, as much for its location -- mere blocks from the US Capitol building -- as its creator and major financial backer, billionaire evangelical Christian Steve Green. Green's Oklahoma City-based arts and crafts retail chain Hobby Lobby burst into the public sphere when it won a 2014 Supreme Court case permitting companies on religious grounds to opt out of contraceptive coverage ... More |
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| Met Museum receives $80 million gift from the Irving Family | | Cincinnati Art Museum commemorates 500 years since the Reformation with Dürer exhibition | | North Carolina Museum of Art Director Lawrence J. Wheeler announces retirement | 
For over 30 years the Irvings have been landmark benefactors of the Museum.
NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art announced today an exceptional gift of more than $80 million from Trustee Florence Irving and her late husband, Herbert Irving. This is the largest financial gift the Museum has received in recent history. Mr. Irving's bequest will establish an unrestricted art acquisitions endowment fund, as well as several endowment funds for the Department of Asian Art. These funds will support acquisitions, exhibitions, and publications of the arts of China, Japan, Korea, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Himalayas, with a preference for Chinese Decorative Arts and Indian and Southeast Asian Art, all fields in which the Irvings collected art. An endowment will also support the Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for South and Southeast Asian Art, which were named by the Irvings in 1994. For over 30 years, the Irvings have been landmark benefactors of the Museum, and in particular the Department of Asian Art. ... More | | 
Albrecht Dürer (14711528), Germany, Adam and Eve, 1504, engraving, Bequest of Herbert Greer French, 1943.193.
CINCINNATI, OH.- Explore a 500-year-old revolution in printmaking technology at the Cincinnati Art Museums free special exhibition Albrecht Dürer: The Age of Reformation and Renaissance, on view November 17, 2017February 11, 2018. The Cincinnati Art Museum is one of several local arts organizations who will commemorate 500 years since Martin Luther issued his 95 theses in 1517, which triggered enormous theological, political and cultural changes throughout Europe. The Age of Reformation and Renaissance follows the development of Dürers artistic brilliance from his apprenticeship through the eve of the Reformation. Through Dürers works, visitors will experience the artistic, cultural and political changes that lead up to Luthers defiant act. Dürers political and social influence are evident in the prints in the exhibition, including popular artworks The Four Horsemen ... More | | 
After 24 years at the Museum, Wheeler will step down in November 2018.
RALEIGH, NC.- The North Carolina Museum of Arts director, Lawrence J. Wheeler, has announced his plans to retire in November 2018. In his 23 years at the helm of the NCMA thus far, Wheeler has led the Museum to new heights, shaping it into a top-tier art destination and, above all, a welcoming community space for a growing city and state. Wheeler will continue as director until a new director is appointed. Wheeler was named director of the Museum in October 1994, having served as assistant director at the Cleveland Museum of Art and, before that, as deputy secretary at the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources in Raleigh. During his tenure the NCMA has become one of the leading art museums in America, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors each year to the Museum galleries, special exhibitions, and Ann and Jim Goodnight Museum Park. North Carolinians of all walks of life ... More |
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| Secret Holocaust-era archive on display in Poland | | Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale totals $41.3 million | | China's futuristic library: More fiction than books | 
People visit the Permanent Exhibition What We Were Unable To Shout Out To The World of the underground archive of the Warsaw Ghetto, a few days before its public opening. Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP PHOTO.
WARSAW (AFP).- Eight decades ago, Jewish archivists facing death in the Warsaw Ghetto hid a trove of documents they hoped would bear testimony to the sufferings of the Holocaust. Now part of the unparallelled archive has gone on display in its first permanent exhibition at the Polish capital's Jewish Historical Institute. "This is the greatest Jewish treasure of the war era, a treasure that shows death approaching. It conveys the testimonies of people destined to die in a few weeks, months or hours," historian and exhibition curator Pawel Spiewak told AFP, ahead of the Ringelblum Archive's official opening on Thursday. Jewish historian and activist Emmanuel Ringelblum led a team that collected and hid the documents from the Nazis, burying them in metal milk jugs and boxes. The team recorded eye- ... More | | 
Pablo Picasso, Paysage, Vu D'atelier De L'artiste (detail). Oil on canvas, 25 3/8 by 31 1/2 in. 64.4 by 80 cm. Painted on April 27, 1967. Estimate $1/1.5 million. Sold for $ 1,575,000. Courtesy Sothebys.
NEW YORK, NY.- Yesterday we saw a continuation of the strong international bidding and buying that drove Tuesday nights auction as well, said Scott Niichel, Co-Head of Sothebys Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sales, New York. We were pleased to see private collectors in particular drive the top end of our sale, and participation online at the highest levels including a Chagall still life that sold for nearly $600,000. Our results reinforce the persistent demand for Pablo Picasso, from the two 1960s paintings that led the auction to works on paper and his celebrated ceramics. Julian Dawes, Vice President of Private Sales and Co-Head of Sothebys Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sales commented: The market responded with enthusiasm for works emerging from esteemed private collections, leading to strong results for pieces from ... More | | 
This picture taken on November 14, 2017 shows a woman reading a book at the Tianjin Binhai Library. FRED DUFOUR / AFP.
TIANJIN (AFP).- A futuristic Chinese library has wowed book lovers around the world with its white, undulating shelves rising from floor to ceiling, but if you read between the lines you'll find something is missing. Those rows upon rows of book spines are mostly images printed on the aluminium plates that make up the backs of the shelves. Pictures of the sleek Tianjin Binhai Library have gone viral on Chinese social media and abroad since its opening last month, with headlines trumpeting it as the "world's best library" and a "book lover's dream". On weekends, an average of 15,000 visitors flock to the six-storey space in the eastern port city of Tianjin. Designed by Dutch architectural firm MVRDV, the building looks like an eye when viewed from the still unfinished park outside, with a spherical auditorium as the iris at its centre. The library contains 200,000 books and it has grand ambitions ... More |
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 Dutch woman with a trumpet taking Colombian salsa by stormBOGOTA (AFP).- A woman playing trumpet in a salsa band in traditionally macho South America is a rare thing. It's rarer still when that woman is Dutch. Since arriving on Colombia's salsa scene, Maite Hontele has been blasting her horn to full houses from Bogota to Seoul and has gradually won the respect of salsa's greats. "I was born on the wrong continent," says Hontele, a tall, blonde 37-year old from the central Netherlands. She insists she's "Colombian at heart." Her love affair with the country began when she played Bogota's Teatro Colon while visiting from the Netherlands in 2003 with the Rumbata Big Band. The audience loved her and the feeling was mutual. "I fell in love with Colombia, with its people, its cities, its energy, its diversity," she says in an interview at her apartment in Bogota's bohemian La Macarena quarter. Hontele followed her heart and her trumpet ... More Nepal's musicians retune to tradition KATHMANDU (AFP).- Nepal's musical heritage is enjoying a revival as young musicians fuse the sounds of traditional instruments once at risk of disappearing with lyrics that examine the modern challenges facing the country. The Himalayan country has a rich folk tradition, but its unusual traditional instruments -- which include a leaf from a native tree that is played like a harmonica -- were dying out as younger generations moved towards Western music styles. That was until bands such as Night, which formed in 2006 as a metal group, decided to create a modern take on its indigenous music. "We grew up listening to sounds of guitars and drums and so we started to play the same. But then we started experimenting with folk instruments," said Night's Jason Kunwar. Now the 33-year-old singer's musical repertoire includes the more esoteric Sarangi, ... More Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park breaks ground on $115 million expansion projectGRAND RAPIDS, MICH.- Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, one of the nations most significant botanic and sculpture experiences, announced the groundbreaking of a major $115 million expansion project. Since opening in 1995, Meijer Gardens has experienced tremendous growth in guest attendance, membership, art collections, dedicated garden spaces, and educational programs. Annually, over 750,000 people visit Meijer Gardens. Owing to such growth, a major expansion of facilities is needed. New York firm Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects | Partners has been selected from a wide-spread international search to re-envision and expand the facilities. Well-known for their masterful design of the iconic Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia and, most recently, chosen to design the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, Williams and Tsien see architecture ... More Three Bugatti bronzes and a Torsade table by Giacometti highlight Artcurial Art Deco salePARIS.- On the occasion of its sale dedicated to Art deco on November 21st, Artcurial auction will offer three Rembrandt Bugatti bronzes from an individual private collection, including a Lionne dévorant created around 1903, estimate 250,000- 300,000 / $265,000 to 330,000. A Torsade table by Diego Giacometti will also be amongst the auction's exceptional lots. This is one of the largest models to be presented in public sale to date, made in 1981 especially for an American collector, a French diplomat's wife with whom the artist had woven ties of friendship (estimated: 150,000-200,000 / $165,000-220,000). A rare lacquered piano by Jean Dunand made for Yvette Guilbert, a French singer, will add to these exceptional pieces and a Jacques Quinet furniture set ordered directly from the decorator in the 50s and remained in the family until now. The Art ... More Exhibition of large-scale photographs by Michael Eastman opens at Edwynn Houk GalleryNEW YORK, NY.- Edwynn Houk Gallery is presenting an exhibition of large-scale photographs by Michael Eastman (American, b. 1947). The show runs through Saturday, 20 January 2018. The exhibition features unexpected photographs of iconic interiors in Buenos Aires. It is natural that Michael Eastman, whose works tell stories through the details of interiors located throughout the world, found rich material and inspiration in this city. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Buenos Aires staged ambitious and extravagant architectural projects to brandish its wealth, its stunning architecture helping the city earn its nickname the Paris of South America. Latin Americas tallest building and a series of neoclassical palaces were amongst the feats the city boasted. While Buenos Aires proudly retains this legacy today, still teeming with examples of architectural achievement ... More The Rockwell Museum unveils new Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) GalleryCORNING, NY.- A new gallery dedicated to Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) art and culture has joined The Rockwells permanent collection galleries. Haudenosaunee, which translates to The People of the Longhouse, refers to the six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Tuscarora, and Mohawk. This new permanent gallery at The Rockwell features a blend of art and objects of material culture of many different Nations, from pre-contact tools to 19th-century clothes, toys, dolls, baskets and bowls, as well as contemporary fine art by artists including Shelley Niro, Peter Jemison and Richard Glazer-Danay. Curator of Collections, Kirsty Buchanan, worked with Seneca Faithkeeper Peter Jemison, as well as Jonathan Holstein, Native American Scholar, to select and interpret the art and objects that are on view in the new gallery. ... More Exhibition of art created by or about Oklahomans opens at the Oklahoma City Museum of ArtOKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA.- A new exhibition, "The Art of Oklahoma," opened at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art on Nov. 16, the 110th anniversary of Oklahoma statehood. The installation features a selection of paintings, prints and photographs spanning 100 years and ranging in style from Impressionism and documentary photography to geometric abstraction and hyperrealism. Curated from the Museum's permanent collection, the exhibition includes works by Oscar Brousse Jacobson, Nellie Shepherd, David Fitzgerald and Woody Big Bow, among others. "The Museum has an outstanding collection of art created by or about Oklahomans, and we are excited to showcase these works together," said Dr. Michael J. Anderson, director of curatorial affairs. "While no exhibition about the art of the state can present every option open to Oklahoma artists, we do believe ... More Aboriginal masterpiece by Emily Kame Kngwarreye sells for £1.2 millionSYDNEY.- One of Australias most famous contemporary paintings, Earths Creation I by the late Emily Kame Kngwarreye, has sold at Fine Art Bourse auctions for £1.2m, AUD$2.1M (including 5% buyers premium) breaking its own record for the highest price achieved at auction for an Australian female artist. Fine Art Bourse (F.A.B.) and CooeeArt Marketplace, the newly formed auction house partnership behind the auction, revealed that it was acquired by Tim Olsen who has recently established a gallery in New York on behalf of a client. F.A.B auctioneer, Tim Goodman, said: This has been an extraordinary journey. The brokering if this stunning painting with my colleagues at Cooee has been one of the highlights of my forty year career in the auction industry. This sale will go a long way to breathing life back ... More Three significant large scale paintings by Alex Katz on view at Peter Blum Gallery's new downtown location NEW YORK, NY.- Peter Blum Gallery is presenting the exhibition Three Paintings by Alex Katz, at their new downtown location at 176 Grand Street, New York. The exhibition runs through January 13, 2018. Alex Katzs cool, representational, and reductive style has set him apart as one of the most influential painters working in America today. This exhibition highlights three significant large scale paintings by Katz from 1972, 1990, and 1993. Alex Katzs wife Ada has long been his best known model. In this work, generally considered one of his most important paintings, the subject is alone in a black coat and a colorful scarf, the head and umbrella nearly covering the whole canvas. She is standing in the rain, staring into the distancestoic and elegant. The rain drops cut across the surface diagonally, creating a pattern evenly dispersed throughout the painting. A deep ... More Scored by history, overhauled Algiers mosque to reopenALGIERS (AFP).- At the foot of the famed UNESCO-listed Casbah district in Algiers, the Ketchaoua Mosque has had a tumultuous past that, at one point, saw it turned into a cathedral under French rule. Now the ornate towers and arches are set for a new chapter as the majestic place of worship gets ready to open its doors for the first time in nearly a decade following a lengthy renovation. Once a symbol of Ottoman influence, it was known for more than a century as the Roman Catholic Saint Philippe Cathedral after France's conquest of Algeria, only to revert to a mosque when the country claimed independence in 1962 following a bloody struggle. In 2008 it was shut down as the ravages of time -- and a powerful earthquake -- took their toll. But much to the delight of local residents it will soon be up and running again after more than three years of restoration ... More Fiumano Projects and Orion Contemporary merge to become Fiumano ClaseLONDON.- On 7th November 2017, contemporary gallery Fiumano Projects merged with Orion Contemporary, to become Fiumano Clase. In recent years Andrés Clase and Francesca Fiumano have collaborated on numerous exhibitions and projects. The success of these collaborations, pooling over thirty years of combined knowledge and experience, resulted in the decision to form Fiumano Clase. The two comment: After sixteen years as professionals in the art world, the forming of Fiumano Clase is our most exciting milestone yet. We see our role as continuing to encourage and support the very best ideas, techniques and practice, something which is crucial to the growth of our artists and the gallerys programme. The gallerys debut exhibition - which runs from 7th November - 8th December 2017- showcases two of their most intriguing contemporary artists: Nicole ... More |
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