| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Monday, March 15, 2021 |
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| | Exhibition explores the creative expression seen in Meiji-era prints | |
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Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (1839-1892), Ichikawa Danjuro IX as Benkei in the play Kanjincho, 1890, woodblock printed triptych 14 3/8 by 29 in., 36.6 by 73.7 cm.
NEW YORK, NY.- Scholten Japanese Art is presenting, On The Vanguard: Meiji Period Woodblock Prints, a two-part exhibition, with thirty prints in each section, exploring the creative expression seen in Meiji-era prints and the acceptance of new cultural ideas in the Japanese populace at large during this dynamic period in the late 19th and early 20th century. Delineated by the reign of Emperor Meiji (1852-1912; reign 1868-1912), it was an era of rapid modernization as Japan remade itself as a nation, both figuratively, as it transformed from a feudal society based on samurai culture. Drawing on Western models, the old social classes were abolished, the army was reformed, a navy was created, and industries adopted emerging modern technologies. In the artistic community, the traditional master-student system began to be undermined by newly established Western-style art schools, and the introduction of foreign techniques for print prod ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day A photo taken on February 23, 2021 in Florence shows a fac-simile reproduction of the "Book of the Nail" (Libro del Chiodo), one of the most evocative and representative relics of the Florentine State Archives, which contains copies of all the records of those condemned through 1268 - 1378, including the one of Dante Alighieri. Dante's "Divine Comedy," considered one of the world's greatest literary works, came to light after a miscarriage of justice which Italian legal experts now want to correct, some seven centuries on. To do that, Italian criminal lawyer Alessandro Traversi has invited fellow lawyers, senior judges and prosecutors, plus the descendants of both Dante and the judge who banished him from Florence, to reopen the case at a May 21, 2021 conference. Vincenzo PINTO / AFP
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| World-renowned composer and teacher Martin Boykan dies at age 89 | | Long-lost mosaic from a 'floating palace' of Caligula returns home | | Museums, coins to mark Greek revolution bicentenary | 
Marty at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Sweet Briar, MA.
NEW YORK, NY.- Martin Boykan, a world-renowned composer, inspirational teacher, published author and prodigious performer, died peacefully at his home on March 6, 2021 at the age of 89. He leaves behind his wife, Susan Schwalb, and his niece Ina Pour El and her family. His funeral took place in New York City on March 8, 2021. Born in 1931, Boykan studied composition with Walter Piston, Aaron Copland and Paul Hindemith, and piano with Eduard Steuermann. He received a BA from Harvard University, 1951, and an MM from Yale University, 1953. In 195355 he was in Vienna on a Fulbright Fellowship, and upon his return founded the Brandeis Chamber Ensemble whose other members included Robert Koff (Juilliard Quartet), Nancy Cirillo (Wellesley), Eugene Lehner (Kolisch Quartet) and Madeline Foley (Marlborough Festival). This ensemble performed widely with a repertory divided equally between contemporary music and the tradition. At the same time Boykan appeared regularly as a pianist with soloists ... More | | 
A piece of Caligulas ship, on display at the Consulate General of Italy in Manhattan, Oct. 19, 2017. A 2,000-year-old artifact that had ended up in the home of a Manhattan antiquities dealer is now in an Italian museum. Yana Paskova/The New York Times.
by Elisabetta Povoledo
NEMI (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- If stones could speak, the mosaic unveiled recently at an archaeological museum just south of Rome would have quite the tale to tell. It was crafted in the first century for the deck of one of two spectacularly decorated ships on Lake Nemi that the emperor Caligula commissioned as floating palaces. Recovered from underwater wreckage in 1895, the mosaic was later lost for decades, only to reemerge several years ago as a coffee table in the living room of a New York City antiques dealer. If you look at it from an angle, you can still see traces of a ring from a cup bottom, said Daniela De Angelis, director of the Museum of the Roman Ships in Nemi, referring to the pieces modern use. The mosaic has been installed in the museum next to two other marble fragments ... More | | 
A museum employee brushes dust from a sculpture in the new museum dedicated to the Philhellene foreign volunteers who fought and died for Greece on March 12, 2021. Louisa GOULIAMAKI / AFP.
ATHENS (AFP).- Hundreds of rare items dating to the 1821 Greek revolution go on virtual display in Athens this month, with bicentenary events scaled back because of the Covid-19 pandemic. A new museum dedicated to the Philhellene foreign volunteers who fought and died for Greece will be inaugurated in April, featuring contemporary paintings, weapons, ornaments and personal items of the fighters, among them celebrated 19th century poet Lord Byron. "The Philhellenic movement seduced all social classes...it was a vertical and horizontal movement without precedent," says museum founder Constantinos Velentzas, a private collector and IT entrepreneur. "We are preparing a 3D virtual tour...we have to address a wide public that is not only based in Greece," he told AFP this week. Items on display include Byron's weapons, a letter by American revolutionary war hero and French aristocrat the Marquis de Lafayette, early ... More |
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| Can Italy's Dante have justice, 700 years after his death? | | On a storied stretch of Fifth Avenue, a symbol of Irish America reels | | How a museum show honoring Breonna Taylor is trying to 'get it right' | 
A photo taken on February 23, 2021 in Florence shows Italian criminal lawyer Alessandro Traversi with a fac-simile reproduction of the "Book of the Nail" (Libro del Chiodo), one of the most evocative and representative relics of the Florentine State Archives, which contains copies of all the records of those condemned through 1268 - 1378, including the one of Dante Alighieri. Vincenzo PINTO / AFP.
by Alvise Armellini
FLORENCE (AFP).- Dante's "Divine Comedy," considered one of the world's greatest literary works, came to light after a miscarriage of justice which Italian legal experts now want to correct -- some seven centuries on. The man whom Italians call the "Supreme Poet" was exiled from his native Florence in January 1302, after finding himself on the losing side of a feud between the city's "White" and "Black" political factions. "Our objective is to assess, in the light of new evidence that may emerge, if these (three) verdicts (against Dante) could be the subject of a retrial, or ideally be quashed," criminal lawyer Alessandro Traversi told AFP. To do that, Traversi has invited fellow lawyers, senior judges and prosecutors -- plus the descendants of both Dante and the judge who banished ... More | | 
The American Irish Historical Societys mansion on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on March 11, 2021. The building, long a symbol of the ascent of immigrants in the U.S., is now on sale for $52 million, but many are citing mismanagement and asking the attorney general to intervene. Sarah Blesener/The New York Times.
by Dan Barry
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- An exquisite Fifth Avenue townhouse of Gilded Age pedigree is on the market for $52 million. It features five stories, a curved terrace and a history that reads like a tragedy of manners, filled with grandeur and pride, pettiness and decay. Think Edith Wharton; better yet, think James Joyce. As home to the American Irish Historical Society, the mansion has long symbolized the immigrant ascent of Irish America. The Irish tricolor and the American stars and stripes flying from its bowed facade staked claim on rarefied pavement, directly across from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But for nearly a half-century, the building and society have been the fief of an eminent physician named Dr. Kevin M. Cahill, his family and his friends. Those who ventured to reform its nepotistic ways have historically ... More | | 
Amy Sherald (b. 1973), Breonna Taylor, 2020. Oil on linen 137.2 x 109.2 cm / 54 x 43 inches. © Amy Sherald. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Joseph Hyde.
by Siddhartha Mitter
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Promise, Witness, Remembrance an exhibition opening April 7 at the Speed Art Museum in Louisville, Kentucky, in honor of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old medical worker killed by police there roughly a year ago came together fast, yet in a manner tempered by conversations, said its curator Allison Glenn. These involved, centrally, Tamika Palmer, Taylors mother, whose input yielded the show title; and painter Amy Sherald, whose portrait of Taylor will anchor the exhibition. Two advisory committees one national, one in Louisville have guided the shows making, in part to avoid the shoals on which museums have foundered in their efforts to address trauma and inequity in their communities and in their own practices. But Promise, Witness, Remembrance whose list of about two dozen artists mixes big names (for instance Kerry James Marshall and Lorna Simpson) with others who are lesser known ... More |
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| Canada's Group of Seven artists featured in exhibitions in Germany and the Netherlands in 2021 | | Hindman to present three days of Asian art sales this month | | Rescuing an off-off-Broadway theater with a storied past | 
Installation view. Photo: Schirn Kunshalle, Frankfurt.
OTTAWA.- Works by the artists of the celebrated Group of SevenLawren Harris, J. E. H. MacDonald, A. Y. Jackson, Arthur Lismer, F. H. Varley, Franklin Carmichael and Franz Johnstonas well as Emily Carr and Tom Thomson, among othersare on view at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany, as part of the exhibition Magnetic North: Imagining Canada in Painting 19101940. The exhibition, which brings together 87 paintings and five films from several Canadian collections and institutions, will subsequently be hosted by the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, the Netherlands in fall 2021. Magnetic North: Imagining Canada in Painting 19101940 is co-organized by the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the National Gallery of Canada. This exhibition is provided within the context of Canadas Guest of Honour presence at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2021. A richly illustrated catalogue is also available in English, French (available in Canada only), and ... More | | 
A Carved Bamboo Figure of Yawning Luohan, Pantha the Elder. Height 4 7/8 in., 12.4 cm. Estimate: $6,000 - $8,000.
CHICAGO, IL.- Hindman Auctions will present three days of Asian Art sales this March with over 1,000 lots, beginning with Chinese and Southeast Asian Works of Art on March 25, followed by Japanese and Korean Works of Art on March 26, and concluding with Asian Works of Art Online on March 27. We are thrilled by the range of unique consignments featured in our March sales, said Annie Wu, Hindmans Director and Senior Specialist of Asian Art. We expect to see very strong engagement from online bidders given the current environment and anticipate that the sale will resonate with buyers, and what they are currently looking for in the Asian art market. Standout works in the Chinese and Southeast Asian Works of Art auction include a set of four scrolls by one of the most famous Chinese artists Qi Baishi titled Flowers of the Four Seasons: Wisteria, Lotus, Chrysanthemum and Prunus ... More | | 
Edith OHara, the leader of the 13th Street Repertory Company for nearly half a century, at the theater in New York, Feb. 15, 2006. OHara died last fall at age 103. Ruby Washington/The New York Times.
by John Freeman Gill
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- When Edith OHara, the mother hen and indefatigable leader of the eclectic 13th Street Repertory Company for nearly half a century, died last fall at 103, the future became decidedly shaky for one of off-off-Broadways longest-operating stages. In an effort to ensure that its not the end of the run as well for the antebellum brick house where both the theater and OHara made their homes, preservationists are urging the city to grant landmark protection to the three-story Greek Revival structure. The city Landmarks Preservation Commission told an advocacy group in January that the quaint 1840s row house with the intricate cast-iron portico at 50 W. 13th St. was not distinguished enough to warrant landmark ... More |
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| The Lockwood Gallery opens a solo show of works by unknown Outsider/Visionary artist Bruce Cahn | | Pace opens debut show by New York-based sculptor Arlene Shechet in Palo Alto | | Paula Cooper Gallery exhibits works by Carl Andre and Meg Webster | 
Bruce Cahn, Wrapped in His Own Arms.
KINGSTON, NY.- The Lockwood Gallery is presenting Bruce Cahn: Discovered, a solo exhibition highlighting the prolific though little-known practice of the late artist Bruce Cahn (1942-2020). Cahns creative approach was meticulous and extensively varied, exploring all media of visual art with aesthetic, conceptual, and technical precision. This focused survey will bring together over fifty multidisciplinary worksincluding marble sculptures, watercolors, oil paintings, photographs, and ceramics that showcase the vast depths of the artists complex and mysterious oeuvre. Born in the Bronx, Bruce Cahn led an eccentric, yet solitary life driven by an all-consuming desire to live life as an ongoing creative process. The son of a prominent New York City caterer, he spent his childhood comfortable but socially disinterested, preferring to spend time in his parents basement sculpting anatomical studies of the human form or mounting shows upstairs of his drawings and ... More | | 
Arlene Shechet, Together: Pacific Time: 5 a.m., 2021 Glazed ceramic, powder coated steel, 80" (203.2 cm). © Arlene Shechet, courtesy Pace Gallery.
PALO ALTO, CA.- Pace Gallery is presenting Together: Pacific Time, the debut show by New York-based sculptor Arlene Shechet in Palo Alto. Featuring more than a dozen brilliantly colored ceramic and steel sculptures created by the artist at her studio in the Hudson Valley during the recent period of quarantine, this exhibition demonstrates Shechets deep exploration of the power of color during a time of extraordinary upheaval. These sculptures show Shechetwho views color as a lifeforcecreating a livening pulse of highly saturated and tactile works: art as a source of renewed joy and inspiration. Together: Pacific Time comes on the heels of Together, Shechets solo show at Paces East Hampton gallery last August, and is on view from March 11 May 1, 2021. Building upon the unique and technically demanding glazing methods the artist employed for her New York City ... More | | 
Meg Webster, Copper Containing Salt II, 2017, copper, acrylic, silicone, salt, height: 42 in. (106.7 cm), diameter: 28 in. (71.1 cm), copper plate: 1/4 in. (.6 cm). Photo: Steven Probert. © Meg Webster. Courtesy Paula Cooper Gallery, New York.
NEW YORK, NY.- Works by Carl Andre and Meg Webster are on display in adjacent galleries at the Paula Cooper Gallery from February 20th through March 27th. Formed from elementary materials: wood, copper, and salt, these works share the provisional in their use of untransformed matter. A single sculpture by Carl Andre entitled Diarch (1979) fills the larger gallery. Formed of sixty units of western red cedar, positioned against two opposing walls and arranged alternately upright and on their side, the work plays with verticality and mass and transforms the gallery into a sculpture in place. First installed in the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza Sculpture Garden, New York, in 1979, along with Fermi (1979) the work was one of a number of significant large-scale timber pieces produced that year ... More |
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Rediscovered and Rising Stars of Figurative Art | Christie's
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| More News |
 Senegalese music legend Thione Seck dies aged 66DAKAR (AFP).- Thione Seck, one of Senegal's biggest music stars over the last four decades, died at the age of 66 in Dakar on Sunday, his lawyer said. "He died this morning of an illness at the Fann hospital," lawyer Ousmane Seye told AFP, confirming reports in the Senegalese media. Thione Ballago Seck, from a family of "griot" singers, was one of the West African country's most famous musicians, alongside Youssou Ndour, Omar Pene, Ismael Lo and his own son, Wally Seck. In the 1970s he sung in the Orchestre Baobab, known for playing a mix of Afro-Cuban salsa and traditional Senegalese music. The singer and lyricist founded Raam Daam in the 1980, which became one of the most popular purveyors of mblalax, a genre combining funk, reggae, dance music and local rhythms. Some of his hits include "Allo Petit", "Orientissime" and "Diaga". ... More  Yo-Yo Ma marks second jab with surprise concert in clinicWASHINGTON (AFP).- Receiving a second Covid vaccine dose is often a cause for celebration and, in one US clinic, legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma marked the occasion with a surprise recital. Ma was pictured playing the cello while wearing a mask and sitting on a plastic chair at the Berkshire Community College in Massachusetts during his 15-minute observation period after getting the jab on Saturday. Ma "wanted to give something back," Richard Hall of the Berkshire COVID-19 Vaccine Collaborative told The Eagle local newspaper, describing it as a "very special" concert that was greeted with warm applause from listeners. A clip on the recital was posted on the college's Facebook page. The cellist, 65, has been active on social media during the pandemic, posting clips of him playing pieces often using the hashtag #songsofcomfort, as well as promoting ... More  Arab troubadour Madfai longs to get back on stageAMMAN (AFP).- The Arab world's favourite troubadour Ilham al-Madfai, who last year had to perform in an empty Roman amphitheatre and scrub concert dates across Europe and the Gulf, can't wait to get back on stage. Unveiling his latest work in Amman where he has lived since 1994, the Iraqi star widely known as simply Ilham has tried to break free of the shackles imposed by Covid-19 with a song of hope entitled "After the Absence", taken from a poem by Omar Sari, a young Jordanian. "After the absence, you must come back, your dream is a cloud, your sadness is a mirage," the 79-year-old veteran performer with the world-weary voice sings, strumming a guitar. "Come back tenderly, your voice rings in my ears, leave behind the sadness, forget the past," read the lyrics of the song posted this week on YouTube, in which Madfai is accompanied ... More  L.A. Louver pens an exhibition of sixteen recent prints by David HockneyVENICE, CA.- L.A. Louver is presenting David Hockney: My Normandy, an exhibition of sixteen recent prints from the internationally acclaimed artist, including eleven prints from original drawings, three iPad prints, and two 40-foot-long frieze prints. This is Hockneys twenty-second solo exhibition with the gallery since 1978. Hockney arrived in rural Normandy, France, in March 2019. The artist settled into a 17th-century traditional half-timbered cottage and converted the adjacent barn into a studio, from which he could observe the changing of the seasons in the surrounding countryside. The prints featured in this exhibition provide a glimpse into that pastoral existence; they depict the artist's environs with an eye toward precise line and detail. They also communicate a distinct sense of the pleasure of working with ink through their light ... More  Aaron Johnson's first solo exhibition at Almine Rech opens in BrusselsBRUSSELS.- Almine Rech Brussels is presenting Other Earths, Aaron Johnson's first solo exhibition at the gallery. Allegory, the grotesque, humor and esotericism animate the paintings of New York-based artist Aaron Johnson, whose new body of work oscillates between genre painting, portraiture and landscape painting. Other Earths consists of five large canvases and a set of small, brightly colored works populated by a host of imaginary characters and monstrous figures. The luminous, fluid and heterogeneous nature of Johnson's oeuvre is owed above all to a singular creative process. He inherited this practice from Color Field stain painting, pioneered by Helen Frankenthaler and continued by Morris Louis, emblematic artists of American Abstract Expressionism. The artist first spreads his blank canvases out on the floor of his ... More  Brady collection of high-condition antique mechanical banks commands $2M at Morphy's Feb. 27 auction DENVER, PA.- The revered Bob and Judy Brady collection of antique mechanical banks attracted worldwide bidding and strong prices at Morphys live gallery auction held February 27 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The premier collection built over a 40-year period featured some of the most elusive, beautifully preserved banks known to exist. In total, the 184 banks realized $2 million, inclusive of 20% buyers premium. The top seller, a J & E Stevens Shoot the Chute bank featuring beloved early comic strip characters Buster Brown and his dog Tige, swept past its $80,000-$120,000 estimate to land at $156,000. That bank offered everything a mechanical bank collector could possibly want, said Dan Morphy, president of Morphy Auctions and a bank authority in his own right. Its in near-mint-plus condition, has its very rare original wood ... More  M+ museum building completedHONG KONG.- M+ has reached the important milestone marking the completion of construction of the museum building. With the Occupation Permit for the museum building obtained on 24 December 2020, M+ is set to open to the public at the end of 2021. Designed by a global team of the world-renowned architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron in partnership with TFP Farrells and Arup, the M+ building is set to become a new addition to the global arts and cultural landscape and a new international architectural icon. Located in Hong Kong's West Kowloon Cultural District on the Victoria Harbour waterfront, it provides a permanent space for M+, the first global museum of contemporary visual culture in Asia dedicated to collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting visual art, design and architecture, moving image, and Hong Kong visual culture of the twentieth- ... More  Son of Frankenstein Italian poster could fetch $120K at Heritage AuctionsDALLAS, TX.- The only known copy of a 4Fogli from Boris Karloff's third and final appearance in his signature role could be one of the top offerings in Heritage Auctions' Movie Posters Auction March 27-28. Son of Frankenstein (E.N.I.C., 1940) Italian 4 Fogli with Francesco Giammari Artwork (estimate: $60,000-120,000) was housed at one time in a private Swiss collection. This large-format poster (measuring 55-1/4 by 77-1/2 inches), featuring a spectacular design from the classic film, is offered through Heritage Auctions for the first time. A potential centerpiece of any horror collection, it captures Frankenstein's Monster emerging from a shadow. Considered the final truly great Frankenstein movie at Universal, it features a stellar cast that included Bela Lugosi, Basil Rathbone and Lionel Atwill, in addition to Karloff. included a stellar cast that included ... More  Singer, Civil Rights icon Marian Anderson's necklace coming to Heritage AuctionsDALLAS, TX.- Heritage Auctions announced it will offer a stunning necklace once owned and worn by legendary 20thcentury African-American musician and social activist Marian Anderson. The beautiful baroque Natural South Sea Cultured Pearl, Diamond and White Gold Necklace (estimate: $5,000-7,000) will be part of Heritage Auctions' May 3 Spring Fine Jewelry Auction. Marian Anderson, a legendary contralto, performed a wide range of music from opera to spirituals. She is best known, however, as one of the visible figures in the civil rights movement. Black artists often met resistance when seeking performance venues. In 1939, Anderson was denied the opportunity to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., which was owned by the Daughters of the Revolution. At the time, their policy only represented white performers on stage. First ... More  Metro Pictures presents eight new paintings and five videos by Jim ShawNEW YORK, NY.- Metro Pictures presents eight new paintings and five videos by Jim Shaw. The paintings are all made on found theatrical backdrops, a signature of Shaws, with two that incorporate three-dimensional sculptural elements. Shaws work draws from an expansive breadth of references and idiosyncratic associations to present a surrealistic take on American consumer culture. The pastiche of vintage film, advertising, and television imagery that Shaw poignantly combines in these works engenders them with a pervasive sense of nostalgia and critique for a mythologized, bygone era of American history. A painting titled The Bridge is modeled after Margaret Bourke-Whites famous depression-era photo Worlds Highest Standard of Living, first published in the February 1937 issue of Life. Riffing on the originals clear juxtaposition of prosperity ... More  1961 Austin Healey 3000 for sale with H&H ClassicsLONDON.- One of just 18 Big Healey based Lenham Six cars made, it was built in 1981 for the actor and screenwriter John Jeremy Lloyd OBE whose writing credits included 'Allo 'Allo and Are You Being Served and is now for sale on March 24th in an Auction Online with H&H Classics for an estimate of £21,000 to £25,000. The car is 5cwt lighter than a standard 3000 which combined with a tuned engine producing just over 145bhp means 0-60 is achieved in around 8 seconds and when flat out in 4th gear (overdrive on 3rd and 4th) will top 115mph for anyone brave enough to try. In the documentation the current owner found with the car were various press clippings, magazines from the early 80s, assorted bills and receipts, a bill of sale to a Mr Jeremy Lloyd of Maida Vale, London and a page from a publication showing the career of Joanna Lumley, who ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
Mental Escapology, St. Moritz 
TIM VAN LAERE GALLERY 
Madelynn Green 
Patrick Angus
Flashback On a day like today, Hungarian-French painter Victor Vasarely died March 15, 1997. Victor Vasarely (9 April 1906 - 15 March 1997), was a Hungarian-French artist, who is widely accepted as a "grandfather" and leader of the op art movement. His work entitled Zebra, created in the 1930s, is considered by some to be one of the earliest examples of op art. In this image: Cheyt - Pyr, Serigraph, 68.5 X 66 cm.
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