| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Monday, December 14, 2020 |
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| | Toomey & Co. Auctioneers sets auction records for works by Chicago artists | |
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The top lot in the auction was a small yet captivating painting by Chicago surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie, whose prices have soared recently. In Tradition & Innovation, Toomey & Co. sold Abercrombies oil on masonite, Levitation, 1964, for $112,500 over a $10,000-20,000 estimate the second-highest auction result ever for Abercrombie.
OAK PARK, IL.- Toomey & Co. Auctioneers has often found considerable success selling art and design of historic importance by Chicago artists and makers or those with local ties. In its Tradition & Innovation sale on Thursday, December 3, in which just 65 lots combined to realize $1.24 million, a wide range of significant material went to the highest bidders with multiple auction price records set. Toomey & Co. has been based in Oak Park since 1982 and conducted auctions since 1987, said President John Toomey. As a proud member of the community, we are pleased to bolster the art and design legacy of Chicago with collectors from all over the world despite these challenging times. The top lot in the auction was a small yet captivating painting by Chicago surrealist Gertrude Abercrombie, whose prices have soared recently. In Tradition & Innovation, ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day A security guard stands in the doorway during a press viewing of "A New Look at Old Masters" a newly installed gallery for European Paintings, on December 10,2020, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Nearly two dozen galleries dedicated to old master paintings at The Met will re-open to the public under a new roof and new skylights, after being closed for more than two years. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP
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| Exhibition at TAI Modern celebrates the beguiling confluence of light, shadow, and Japanese bamboo art | | British spy thriller author John le Carre dies aged 89 | | The Met opens nearly two dozen newly installed European Paintings Galleries | 
Tanabe Chikuunsai IV, Creative City, 2020. Madake bamboo, rattan, 22 x 10 x 6 in.
SANTA FE, NM.- As the weather gets colder and days get shorter, something very special happens in the gallery. For a brief period of time in late afternoon, works of bamboo art on view transform in the slanting rays of the low winter sun. Bamboo glows as fantastical shadows stretch across walls and pedestals. Already beautiful objects become beautiful in a different way. This winter, TAI Modern celebrates the beguiling confluence of light, shadow, and Japanese bamboo art. Sometimes subtle, often dramatic, the shadows cast by the works featured in this exhibition are almost as beautiful as the works themselves. Like a skyscraper in an urban landscape at dusk, Tanabe Chikuunsai IVs Creative City casts a trailing edge of shadow that echoes the architectural shape of the piece. Says Tanabe, Every time my father [Japanese bamboo artist Tanabe Chikuunsai III] drove on the Hanshin Expressway near the Nakanoshima ... More | | 
In this file photo taken on January 30, 2020 British author John le Carre (David John Moore Cornwell) poses after receiving the Olof Palme Award 2019. Claudio BRESCIANI / TT News Agency / AFP.
by Phil Hazlewood
LONDON (AFP).- John le Carre, the British writer best known for his Cold War espionage novels "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold", has died aged 89, his agent and family said Sunday. The author, a former British intelligence officer whose real name was David Cornwell, wrote 25 novels and one memoir in a career spanning six decades, selling some 60 million books worldwide. "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" was adapted for television in 1979, with Alec Guinness starring as the enigmatic spycatcher George Smiley, and became a classic. Gary Oldman reprised the role in the 2011 film, winning an Oscar the following year. Le Carre's last novel, "Agent Running in the Field", was published in October 2019. ... More | | 
A patron looks at paintings on display during a press viewing of "A New Look at Old Masters" a newly installed gallery for European Paintings, on December 10,2020, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP.
NEW YORK, NY.- On December 12, nearly two dozen galleries dedicated to old master paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art re-opened under a new roof and new skylights, after being closed for more than two years. (The opening of these galleries marks the midpoint of a four-year construction project that will ultimately include all 45 galleries for European Paintings, 12501800.) This is the first opportunity for visitors to experience the 21 updated galleries and see more than 500 works from the collectionfrom Giotto to Goyain light that will vary depending on the season and time of day, augmented by artificial light to maximize the viewing experience on overcast days or evening visits. Novel juxtapositions offering fresh dialogues among the works, including a large ... More |
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| Eli Wilner releases the first price guide with retail replacement valuations for period frames | | Christie's New York Magnificent Jewels totals $44.58 million | | In her book Twelve Paintings Tal Sterngast explores the contemporary relevance of the Old Masters | 
Antique frame dealer and collector Eli Wilner, in his Manhattan atelier.
NEW YORK, NY.- Eli Wilner has published the first and only price guide with retail replacement valuations for American and European period frames. This is available in a digital eBook format only. For the price of $795, the purchaser will also receive two complimentary verbal period frame appraisals, normally priced at $500 each. Ongoing updates to price valuations and relevant scholarly information are included in the price. The first edition of Eli Wilners Antique American Frames Identification and Price Guide, written with Mervyn Kaufman, was published in 1995 by Avon Books, with a second edition released in 1999. Since that time, considerable effort has been made by frame dealers and historians, as well as art dealers, museum curators, and auction house professionals toward expanding knowledge of various aspects of historically-accurate framing and frame conservation. Eli Wilner & Company shares this new collection of over 100 period fr ... More | | 
The top lot of the Magnificent Jewels auction was an extraordinary Kashmir sapphire and diamond bracelet of 43.10 carats surrounded by 67.90 carats of D color internally flawless diamonds that was purchased for $6,030,000 by Harry Winston. © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.
NEW YORK, NY.- Christies New York auction of Magnificent Jewels achieved a total of $44,583,875 with 95% sold by value, 91% sold by lot, and 118% hammer above low estimate after a marathon ten-hours of bidding. There was global participation with bidders from 39 countries. Additionally, the preceding Jewels Online sale from November 18 to December 1 totaled $2,575,500 with 100% sold by value and 90% sold by lot. Together, the December Jewels sales in New York achieved a combined total of $47,159,375. The top lot of the Magnificent Jewels auction was an extraordinary Kashmir sapphire and diamond bracelet of 43.10 carats surrounded by 67.90 carats of D color internally flawless diamonds that was purchased for $6,030,000 by Harry Winston. Nayla Hayek, CEO ... More | | 
Jan Vermeer van Delft, Junge Dame mit Perlenhalsband, um 1662/1665, Ãl auf Leinwand, © Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie / Christoph Schmidt.
BERLIN.- Reading familiar paintings in new ways: In her book Twelve Paintings: Excursions in the Gemäldegalerie of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin published by Hatje Cantz-Verlag author Tal Sterngast takes a closer look at selected works from the collection of Berlins Old Master Paintings in a new and subjective way. Sterngast analy-ses masterpieces by Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Vermeer through the lens of contemporary social and art-criticism discourses, revealing that the Old Masters still have a great deal to say to us today. In her essays, Tal Sterngast combines art criticism with social analysis, hauling supposedly antiquated subject matter into the here and now remarks Michael Eissenhauer, Director-General of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and Director of the Gemäldegalerie and the Skultpturensammlung. I would like to thank the author for responding to o ... More |
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| Gifts of enduring value: Whyte's announces Christmas online auction | | Universally Unknown opens 'Floating Downstream' by Tom Dunn | | Ukraine seeks World Heritage status for Chernobyl zone | 
Graham Knuttel (b.1954), Sharp Glance. Oil on canvas; (unframed). Size: 13¾ x 10in. (34.93 x 25.40cm). Estimate: 600 - 800.
DUBLIN.- Looking for inspiration this Christmas? Why not decorate that home office? Whytes online only auction on 11-16 December will offer shoppers a chance to acquire something of lasting value for their walls, tables or Christmas stockings this festive season. From artworks to silver, sculpture and wine, Whytes have Christmas wrapped up! From stunning contemporary paintings and prints by well-known Irish names such as Louis le Brocquy, Patrick Scott, Robert Ballagh, Cecil King, Graham Knuttel, John Kingerlee, Pauline Bewick, Gladys Maccabe, Kenneth Webb, Peter Collis, Arthur Maderson to international superstars such as Damien Hirst and Sean Scully there is something to suit all tastes, budgets and wall sizes. For music fans there are artworks by Bob Dylan and David Bowie (guides from 800-3,000). ... More | | 
Tom Dunn, Honeydew.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Universally Unknown is presenting Floating Downstream by Tom Dunn. Come and take a strange journey downstream into the mind of the artist Tom Dunn. Dunns Floating Downstream series borrows its name from John Lennon lyrics describing the beginning of an acid trip. Turn off your mind, relax and float downstream. It is not dying, it is not dying. Lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void. It is shining, it is shining. I am an Australian artist based in the US. I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Art degree from the Victorian College of the Arts and an Honors degree in Fine Art from Monash University in Melbourne. Currently I am doing a Master of Fine Art degree at the University of California Santa Barbara. Over the last several years in the US I have done residencies in Vermont, New Mexico, Utah, Torrance and Los Angeles. Overseas residencies include the Philippines, Norway and China. I have exhibited i ... More | | 
More than three decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster forced thousands to evacuate, there is an influx of visitors to the area that has spurred officials to seek official status from UNESCO. GENYA SAVILOV / AFP.
by Dmytro Gorshkov / Ania Tsoukanova
CHERNOBYL (AFP).- A soft snow fell as a clutch of visitors equipped with a Geiger counter wandered through the ghostly Ukrainian town of Pripyat, frozen in time since the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986. More than three decades after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster forced thousands to evacuate, there is an influx of visitors to the area that has spurred officials to seek official status from UNESCO. "The Chernobyl zone is already a world famous landmark," guide Maksym Polivko told AFP during a tour on a recent frosty day. "But today this area has no official status," the 38-year-old said of the exclusion zone where flourishing wildlife is taking ... More |
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| Phillips' Racing Pulse auction realizes $27.6 million, concluding a record-setting year | | Moroccan schools to teach Jewish history and culture | | Museums partner to grow Asian art provenance researcher community | 
Sale led by Paul Newmans Rolex Big Red Daytona, which achieved a remarkable $5.5 million. Image courtesy of Phillips.
NEW YORK, NY.- Racing Pulse, Phillips final 2020 auction held in New York, realized $27,584,570 on Saturday, 12 December, selling 99% by lot and 99.5% by value, an industry-leading sell-through rate. With Aurel Bacs conducting the sale live from London and broadcast across the globe, the sale was led by Paul Newmans Rolex Big Red Daytona, which sold for $5,475,000 to an anonymous private collector, marking the third highest price ever for a Rolex watch at auction. The sale also set a record price for any Heuer timepiece, with the iconic Monaco worn by Steve McQueen in the film Le Mans and gifted to his personal mechanic, Haig Alltounian, selling for $2.2 million. Vintage and modern Patek Philippe wristwatches also achieved exceptional results. A modern ref. 3974G minute repeater with perpetual calendar, one of only 5 known, achieved a remarkable $1,022,200, and a vintage ref. 3448 perpetual ... More | | 
In this file photo taken on December 14, 2019, Andre Azoulay, adviser to the Moroccan king, poses for a picture at the "Bayt Dakira" (House of Memory) Jewish museum, in Morocco's Atlantic coastal city of Essaouira on December 14, 2019. FADEL SENNA / AFP.
by Kaouthar Oudrhiri
RABAT (AFP).- Jewish history and culture in Morocco will soon be part of the school curriculum -- a "first" in the region and in the North African country, where Islam is the state religion. The decision "has the impact of a tsunami," said Serge Berdugo, secretary-general of the Council of Jewish Communities of Morocco. It "is a first in the Arab world," he told AFP from Casablanca. For years, although the kingdom had no official relationship with Israel, thousands of Jews of Moroccan origin visited the land of their ancestors, to celebrate religious holidays or make pilgrimages, including from Israel. But Morocco this week became the fourth Arab nation since August to announce a US-brokered deal ... More | | 
Lecture by Christina Haak (Deputy Director-General of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) at the PREP event in 2017 at the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin © SPK/photothek.net/Florian Gärtner.
BERLIN.- The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution in the United States will cultivate an international network of provenance researchers focused on Asian art. SI is represented by and through the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonians National Museum of Asian Art. In SPK, the Museum für Asiatische Kunst (Asian Art Museum) and the Zentralarchiv (Central Archive) of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (National Museums in Berlin) will be responsible for the cooperation. The initiative includes expert exchanges, networking activities and public programs. It is following a three-year German/American Provenance Research Exchange Program for museum professionals (PREP, running 2017-2019), which SPK and SI had jointly set up. From 2020 to 2022, the two institutions will host Hidden Networks: The Trade of Asian ... More |
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How to draw landscapes | Drop-in Drawing
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 LACMA and Snap Inc. to bring together artists and technologists to create new monuments and muralsLOS ANGELES, CA.- LACMA, in collaboration with Snap Inc., announces an ambitious new interactive initiative called Monumental Perspectives. Over the coming years, the program will bring together local artists and technologists to create virtual monuments and murals. These new augmented reality (AR) monuments will celebrate diverse histories in an effort to reflect richer and more inclusive perspectives from communities across the region. Launching in early 2021, this initiative will pair major and emerging artists with members of Snaps Lens Creator community and bring their shared visions to life throughout Los Angeles, including LACMAs Wilshire Boulevard campus and Magic Johnson Park. The virtual monuments and murals can be experienced through the Snapchat app. LACMA has partnered with Snap before, but this is ... More French theatres, cinemas bid to overturn virus closurePARIS (AFP).- French theatres, cinemas and other venues said on Saturday they would go to court to force the government to allow them reopen, as the country emerges from partial virus lockdown on Tuesday. The government announced on Thursday it would lift the six-week-long partial lockdown on December 15 and impose a night-time curfew instead. But in a severe blow for the cultural sector, it said that museums, theatres, concert venues and cinemas would remain closed for three more weeks. Nicolas Dubourg, president of a union representing 400 venues, said he would seek an urgent hearing on the matter at the Council of State, France's highest administrative court. "Our lawyers are busy compiling all the arguments," he told AFP. The government's announcement forced venues into last-minute postponements of year-end ... More Noah Creshevsky, composer of 'hyperreal' music, dies at 75NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Noah Creshevsky, a composer of sophisticated, variegated electroacoustic works that mingled scraps of vocal and instrumental music, speech, outside noise, television snippets and other bits of sound, died Dec. 3 at his home in New York. He was 75. His husband, David Sachs, said the cause was cancer. Creshevsky studied composition with some of the most prominent figures in modern music, including French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger and Italian composer Luciano Berio. Rather than pursuing a career that might have resulted in concert-hall celebrity, Creshevsky found his calling in the studio-bound world of electronic music. Using the prevailing technologies of the day at first cutting and splicing magnetic tape, later using samplers and digital audio workstations he made music that was dizzyingly ... More An epic Israeli TV drama exposes war wounds old and newJERUSALEM (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- A new Israeli television series based on true events from the 1973 war, when the country was caught off guard on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar and feared total destruction, has prompted an intense public reckoning with the scope of war trauma and the treatment of survivors. The high-impact series pried open a collective national wound and led to a cathartic outpouring of emotion. It also exposed a younger generation to the battlefield sacrifices and the shocking failures of leadership that led to the surprise concerted Arab attack on Yom Kippur, led by the Egyptian and Syrian armies. The period is so painful that Israeli culture has rarely dared to grapple with it. This was our worst trauma and our worst disaster as a country, said Ron Leshem, who co-created the series together with Amit Cohen, ... More Chennai Photo Biennale - Edition III announces first list of artists and curatorial conceptCHENNAI.- Chennai Photo Biennale announced yesterday at a virtual event the first list of artists, collaborative projects and the curatorial concept for the upcoming edition. This would have been the month, CPB Foundation opened the 3rd Edition of the Chennai Photo Biennale but amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biennale was postponed to December 2021 from its original schedule of December 9, 2020 - February 6, 2021. The announcement made yesterday marks this month with the first reveal of the plans for the upcoming edition. The curatorial team working on this edition consists of Arko Datto (Kolkata), Bhooma Padmanabhan (Chennai), Boaz Levin (Berlin) and Kerstin Meincke (Essen). Titled Maps of Disquie t, the third edition of the Biennale will reflect on the exigencies of our times: resisting majoritarian impositions, ecological collapse, and ... More Charlie Brown original 'Peanuts' artwork sells for $288,000DALLAS, TX.- In 1953 Charles Schulz drew portraits of Lucy, Linus, Snoopy, Schroeder, Patty, Violet, Shermy and Good Ol' Charlie Brown for a promotional giveaway. On Friday these early iterations of the classic characters set a world record for the highest price paid at auction for original Peanuts artwork. The drawings Schultz made for "The Peanuts Album sold for $288,000 during the first session of Heritage Auctions' Dec. 11-13 Animation Art event. That bests a previous high-water mark set only last month, when a Nov. 17, 1950, Peanuts daily strip realized $192,000 during our Comics & Comic Art event. These endearing drawings were made for a newspaper freebie available for the price of a self-addressed stamp envelope, and have never been seen in public or available at auction. Instead they have resided with a longtime ... More Ghana's first independent artist residency program unveils new works by Emmanuel TakuACCRA.- Marking its first edition, Noldor, Ghanas first independent artist residency program, unveiled Temple of Blackness It Takes Two, the debut solo presentation of its inaugural resident, emerging Ghanaian artist Emmanuel Taku. The exhibition, on view from December 4, 2020 January 17, 2021 at Noldors warehouse studio space in Accras La district, features 10 portraits created by the artist during his time at the residency. Building on Takus figurative surrealist approach, the new work revisits and reclaims a Black narrative and identity. Reflecting the residencys profound concern for its artists creative development, this first iteration attests to Noldors role as a catalyst in the emergence of a striving Ghanaian local subculture. A technically trained emerging African artist with only limited resources to pursue his art, the Accra-based artist Emmanuel Taku was selected as ... More Robert Berry Gallery presents the first solo show of Wilmington-based artist Jennifer SmallNEW YORK, NY.- Robert Berry Gallery is presenting Beauty in Banality, the first solo show of Wilmington-based artist Jennifer Small comprised of representational abstractions featuring hard edges, patterning. and bold use of color in her first solo exhibition. The show is open at www.robertberrygallery.com. Jennifer Small is a Wilmington, DE-based painter and visual designer whose work focuses on elevating everyday routine through representational abstraction. Smalls work combines hard edges, patterning, and bold use of color. A Pennsylvania native, Small has exhibited her work in Washington, D.C.; New York, New York; Richmond, Virginia; Savannah, Georgia; and Chicago, Illinois. From a railing casting a shadow on a sidewalk, to quotidian scenes from a daily walk or commute, visually interesting elements are often the greatest artistic inspiration, ... More Erik Parker solo exhibition "New Solitude" opens at Over the Influence Hong KongHONG KONG.- Over the Influence presents New Solitude, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Erik Parker. The exhibition opened on 28 November and will run until 09 January 2021. Brooklyn-based artist Erik Parker has risen in the art world as a singular voice of dissent, resistance, and complaint, humorously expressed in vibrant, playfully appealing visual narratives. His rebellious and youthful paintings are jam-packed with reference material in compositions that exploit todays familiar feeling of overstimulation. Parkers practice has always touched on politics and the 24-hour news cycle of contemporary media, and his upcoming exhibition at Over the Influence, Hong Kong is no different. With works such as Bro, Hot Spot, and Crackdown, Parker decidedly articulates flashpoints of current cultural dissension. Bro, a reference ... More Phillips Hong Kong fall auctions realise HK$710 millionHONG KONG.- Jonathan Crockett, Chairman, Asia, Phillips, said: Despite a challenging global environment in 2020, our fifth anniversary in Asia marked an outstanding year for Phillips, with auction sales in Hong Kong increasing by more than 24% over the previous year, to HK$1.18 billion/ US$152 million, and once again marking our best year in the region. Our Hong Kong Sales of 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design have consistently set new records for the category, with the Fall auction series seeing an 87% year-on-year increase and setting multiple world auction records. This season, we continued to see astonishing international participation in our Hong Kong Watch auction, with 1,600 bidders raising their paddles in the saleroom, over the phone and online, the most in any live auction held by Phillips in Asia. Moreover, Jewellery sales continue ... More Kunstraum Lakeside presents an exhibition of works by Maria Anwander and Ruben AubrechtKLAGENFURT.- For Maria Anwander and Ruben Aubrecht, modes of collaboration are not only discussed in daily work in their studio, when they develop and implement joint art projects. Collaboration and how it manifests, the potentials and consequences of working together regularly become the actual subject of their artistic practice, whether as individual artists and or as a duo. Where does a thought originate, and who sparks it to life so that it can develop into a concept? What does it take to pursue a goal together? How can the idea of collaboration be translated to social conditions? While Maria Anwander often deals with the mechanisms, rules, and logic of the art industry in her solo work, Ruben Aubrecht explores the media and technological prerequisites and conditions of contemporary artistic production. In the end, the two ... More |
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Flashback On a day like today, American painter George Rodrigue died December 14, 2013. George Rodrigue (March 13, 1944 - December 14, 2013) was an American artist originally from New Iberia, Louisiana, who in the late 1960s began painting Louisiana landscapes, followed soon after by outdoor family gatherings and southwest Louisiana 19th-century and early 20th-century genre scenes. His paintings often include moss-clad oak trees, which are common to an area of French Louisiana known as Acadiana. In the mid-1990s Rodrigue's Blue Dog paintings, based on a Cajun legend called loup-garou, catapulted him to worldwide fame.In this image: Wendy and Me.
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