The First Art Newspaper on the Net    Established in 1996 Saturday, February 12, 2022


 
Dutch museum Mondriaanhuis acquires nine Mondrians

Dredger on the Amstel near the Omval, Oil on cardboard, 1906-1907, 63,5 x 76 cm.

AMERSFOORT.- In the year that Mondrian's 150th birthday is being celebrated, Mondriaanhuis, the birthplace of the painter in Amersfoort, is acquiring nine early Mondrians from the period 1899-1908. This exceptional acquisition has been made possible thanks to generous support from the Rembrandt Association and the Municipality of Amersfoort, among others. The new acquisitions will be on show from 15 February. The Mondriaanhuis had had the works on long-term loan since 2010 from an heir of art collector Dr J.F.S. Esser. After the death of this owner, the works threatened to be lost to the public. Intensive contact with the heirs has resulted in the paintings and drawings being permanently preserved for the Dutch public art collection. "The fact that the purchase of no fewer than nine works was successful is truly exceptional. We are extremely happy that, with all the support we have received, they can remain in the Mondriaanhuis once and for ... More



The Best Photos of the Day
Best Photos of the Day
The Rubell Museum is presenting a robust presentation in its new home, featuring a slate of exhibitions highlighting three artists-in-residence, newly commissioned work and new acquisitions. Installation view, Cajsa von Zeipel, Rubell Museum, Miami, 2021-22





Jennie C. Jones, a minimalist who calls her own tune   Louisiana Museum of Modern Art opens an exhibition of works by Sonia Delaunay   Charles Ray: Radical conservative


The artist Jennie C. Jones at her studio in Hudson, N.Y., Jan. 23, 2022. Lauren Lancaster/The New York Times.

by Siddhartha Mitter


NEW YORK, NY.- A few weeks ago, artist Jennie C. Jones made her way to the top of the spiral in the Guggenheim Museum to test audio tracks for “Oculus Tone,” a serene, dronelike sound installation she was designing for her exhibition now at the museum. The space was demanding, with its dome of skylights, recessed exhibition bays and open central volume cascading down. As she worked with Piotr Chizinski, the museum's head of media arts, decisions became clear: which speakers to use, which sound files to tweak or discard. “As someone who works with parameters and likes parameters, because it forces you to think in different ways, I love it,” Jones said later. “The riddles are fun to solve.” Jones, 53, is an artist who allies sound and shape in more ways than one. She is an abstract painter whose works channel the austerity of minimalism but incorporate acoustic panels — the kind used in concert halls and music studios — atop the canvas. Her drawings nod to the wo ... More
 

Sonia Delaunay, Rythme-Couleur no. 1916, 1973 (Rhythm-Colour No. 1916). Gouache and pencil on paper. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk. Donation: The Riklis Collection of McCrory Corporation. Photo: Poul Buchard / Brøndum & Co. © PRACUSA S.A.

HUMLEBÆK.- On Saturday 12 February, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art is opening its big spring exhibition featuring one of the most original voices of modernism, Sonia Delaunay (1885-1979). The biggest presentation of the Russian-French artist’s work in Scandinavia to date, the exhibition showcases Delaunay's work across art and design, including paintings, drawings, prints, fabrics, fashion and more. Sonia Delaunay was among the pioneers in developing and disseminating abstract art in the 1910s. She did not work with painting only but swung freely between isms and roles across the boundary between “art” and “craft” both as an avant-gardist and an entrepreneur and was a forerunner of contemporary experimental collaborations in art and design. The artist’s work will be on view until 12 June in a comprehensive exhibition displayed in the West Wing of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk. Sonia Delaunay belon ... More
 

Charles Ray at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where his works were on exhibit in “Charles Ray: Figure Ground,” Jan. 12, 2022. Jody Rogac/The New York Times.

by Roberta Smith


NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art has never looked as sharply contemporary, even hip, as it does with the exhibition “Charles Ray: Figure Ground.” This daringly streamlined show surveys the five-decade career of remarkable American sculptor Charles Ray in a mere 19 artworks, three of them photographic pieces. They occupy a spacious gallery of 9,600 square feet divided by a single wall. The expanses of dark unoccupied stone floor feel less like the Met than the fourth level of the Whitney Museum’s old Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue. Welcome to now, it seems to say. Before you read a single wall text, the show’s open vistas signal that space itself is a major consideration for this artist, as it was for his minimalist and post-minimalist elders Donald Judd and Richard Serra. But Ray had a busier agenda, one that, expanding over the years, has come to include American history, ... More


Atlas Gallery announces representation of the George Hoyningen-Huene Estate   Major exhibition of Mark Rothko's paintings on paper announced for 2023   An Amelia Earhart mystery solved (not that mystery)


Divers, Swimwear by A.J. Izod, 1930.

LONDON.- Often known simply as Huene, George Hoyningen-Huene worked primarily in Paris, New York and Hollywood and first gained international fame in the fields of sophisticated fashion and portrait photography. His carefully-lit studio compositions infused with elements of modernism, neoclassicism and surrealism made Huene one of the leading photographers at Vogue and Vanity Fair magazines from 1926 to 1935, and later at the rival magazine Harper’s Bazaar. Revered by his contemporaries, he also inspired subsequent generations of photographers and filmmakers around the world. In the words of Richard Avedon, Huene was “a genius, the master of us all”. Paris was the most powerful hub of creativity in the arts in the 1920s and 1930s, and Huene became a principal chronicler within the intertwined worlds of art, fashion, design, film and high society. He befriended and collaborated with the stars of the artistic milieu, including Man Ray and Salvador Dalí. Huene worked ... More
 

Mark Rothko, Untitled, 1959, Oil on paper, Collection of Kate Rothko Prizel. © 2023 Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko.

WASHINGTON, DC.- The National Gallery of Art, the largest public repository of works by Mark Rothko, announced today a major exhibition of the artist’s paintings on paper. On view in the National Gallery’s East Building from November 19, 2023, through March 31, 2024, the exhibition will examine some 100 paintings on paper that the artist viewed as finished works in their own right, rather than sketches or preliminary studies intended for his own eyes. By considering Rothko’s work on paper, which is largely unfamiliar to art specialists and the public alike, the exhibition offers a new view of the development of the artist’s oeuvre. Made throughout Rothko’s career, the works in the exhibition range from early watercolors of figurative subjects and mythological and surrealist works to oil and acrylic paintings in the artist’s signature format of soft-edged rectangular fields arranged ... More
 

Amelia Earhart, already an international celebrity, on the nose of her Lockheed Electra in 1936. Earhart disappeared the next year while trying to circle the globe. The New York Times.

by Laurie Gwen Shapiro


NEW YORK, NY.- The response from the experts was always the same: So, your mom told you this aviator’s helmet belonged to Amelia Earhart? That’s great, they’d say, but we’re going to need a little more proof. That was the gist of the messages conveyed to Anthony Twiggs, who inherited the leather cap more than 20 years ago when his mother died. It was still, after all these years, remarkably supple, with the tiniest of tears just below the half-moon-shaped communications pocket on the left flap. The cap looked very much like the aviator’s helmet she wore for her first trans-Atlantic flight, in 1928. It had been missing since an air race in 1929. This was the same race from which Earhart’s leather goggles went missing, later found with lenses ... More



Almine Rech opens an exhibition of new works by Joseph Kosuth   Sting sells his songwriting catalog for an estimated $300 million   First look at the final auction series from the Estate of Karl Lagerfeld at Sotheby's Cologne


Joseph Kosuth, Quoted Clocks #9 (A.R.), 2022. Clock and vinyl, 40 x 4.5 cm. 16 x 2 in. © Joseph Kosuth Studio. Courtesy of the Artist and Almine Rech.

PARIS.- Almine Rech presents Existential Time, an exhibition of new works by Joseph Kosuth that is a continuation of a series of installations begun in 2020. Kosuth’s interest is in the meaning of time as we experience it within the array of contexts life provides. In the sixteen individual works titled ‘Quoted Clocks’, Kosuth’s use of the analog clock referentially anchors the concept of time to its most literal and familiar visual representation, serving as a canny reminder that time is contained in a clock no more than the complex process of making meaning in art is contained in a single object. However precise the mechanism, a clock functions visually as little more than a punctuation mark in need of a sentence, allowing those who look at it, collectively, individually, only a glimpse of a moment that never simply passes. By removing the clock as a fabricated object from its ... More
 

Sting backstage at the Arena Regina di Cattolica during his Back to Bass Tour in Cattolica, Italy, July 29, 2013. Marco Gualazzini/The New York Times.

NEW YORK, NY.- Sting has sold his songwriting catalog, including hits with the Police such as “Every Breath You Take” and “Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic,” and solo work such as “If You Love Somebody Set Them Free,” to the Universal Music Group, in music’s latest blockbuster catalog deal. The transaction, announced Thursday by Universal’s music publishing division, Universal Music Publishing Group, covers Sting’s entire output as a songwriter. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the deal is estimated to be worth around $300 million. Over the past couple of years, major music conglomerates and Wall Street investors have poured billions of dollars into music deals, driven by the growth of streaming, low interest rates and old-fashioned competition. In December, Sony purchased Bruce Springsteen’s entire catalog — covering both his songwriting ... More
 

Karl Lagerfeld. Photo: Succession Lagerfeld.

COLOGNE.- Karl Lagerfeld has been fascinating audiences for more than five decades, and his influence and aura can be felt far beyond the realm of luxury fashion, a world which he helped shape and globalise, turning his name and style into a multi-faceted brand. As well as being a key figure in the luxury industry, he was a legendary style icon, avid photographer and illustrator, passionate collector and eloquent writer. In the upcoming months, Sotheby's will present the Gesamtkunstwerk "Karl Lagerfeld", the final series of sales from the late designer’s Estate. The collection on offer is as multi-layered and surprising as Karl Lagerfeld himself - ingenious, knowing and self-deprecating at the same time, telling the story of a creative genius and visionary, a passionate collector with an enduring love for art and design. On 4 and 5 May 2022, Sotheby’s will hold two live auctions of 300 lots in its magnificent new German headquarters ... More


John Williams, Hollywood's maestro, looks beyond the movies   Peter Blum Gallery now representing Rebecca Ward   Art Brussels 2022 announces participating galleries for 38th edition


The composer John Williams at his home in Los Angeles, Jan. 31, 2022. The composer of “Star Wars” and “Jaws,” who turned 90 this week, says he will soon step away from film. But he has no intention of slowing down. Chantal Anderson/The New York Times.

by Javier C. Hernández


UNIVERSAL CITY, CALIF.- At the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, when film production came to a halt and recording studios shuttered, John Williams, the storied Hollywood composer and conductor, found himself, for the first time in his nearly seven-decade career, without a movie to worry about. This, in Williams’ highly ritualized world — mornings spent studying film reels and improvising at his Steinway; a turkey sandwich and glass of Perrier at 1 p.m.; afternoons devoted to revisions — was initially disorienting. But in the months that followed, Williams came to relish his freedom. He had time to compose a violin concerto, immerse himself in scores by Mozart, ... More
 

Portrait of Rebecca Ward by Frank Sun for Interview Magazine, 2015.

NEW YORK, NY.- Peter Blum Gallery announced the representation of American artist Rebecca Ward (b. 1984). Her first solo exhibition at Peter Blum Gallery entitled, infinite plane, will open on March 19, 2022. Rebecca Ward explores the territory between painting and object through her banded, sewn, and deconstructed canvases that emphasize materiality and process. She painstakingly removes sections of either horizontal or vertical threads of fabric to expose underlying stretcher bars while converging planes of subtly painted canvas at machine-sewn seams. The works highlight the multidimensional physical structure of painting and its ability to both reveal and obscure. "The thing that first struck me when I approached painting is that you are dealing with a very complex support system that has three dimensions. From the wall to the surface to the frame, different layers interact with each other. This is why I chose to reveal the support str ... More
 

Director Nele Verhaeren and Managing Director Anne Vierstraete © Greetje Van Buggenhout.

BRUSSELS.- Art Brussels, one of Europe’s most original and established art fairs, announced its 38th edition. The fair makes its long awaited in-person return from Thursday 28 April to Sunday 1 May 2022 with a strong and international line up and a unique mix of established artists and emerging talent. With an increase in SOLO gallery presentations, Art Brussels continues to be highly curated and more appealing than ever. Anne Vierstraete, Managing Director of Art Brussels, says: “The local and international galleries participating in the fair this year have demonstrated tremendous levels of enthusiasm and commitment. They are eager to meet at Art Brussels after two missed editions due to the pandemic. The successful launch of Art Antwerp last December - which brought together 56 galleries and nearly 10,000 visitors - demonstrated our ability to safely organise a fair, and the 38th edition of Art Brussels will provide an exc ... More




Sotheby's Talks | Luxury NFTs - Accessorising the Metaverse



More News

PEER announces Ellen Greig as Director
LONDON.- PEER announced that it has appointed Ellen Greig as its new Director. Currently Senior Curator at London’s Chisenhale Gallery, Ellen replaces PEER’s previous Director Ingrid Swenson who stepped down at the end of 2021. This appointment marks the beginning of a new direction for PEER with a focus on collaboration and sustainability. Ellen is a curator and writer based in London. Informed by a background in collective practice Ellen’s research interests include examining the role that art and culture play in shaping and challenging historic narratives and social and political contexts. She joined Chisenhale Gallery in 2016, where she has commissioned and produced long-term projects with numerous artists. Previously, she has held curatorial positions at Focal Point Gallery in Southend-on-Sea, Liverpool Biennial, and LUX Artists ... More

At $375,000, Fernand Leger painting tops Clarke Auction's February sale
LARCHMONT, NY.- Clarke Auction Gallery billed its February 6 auction as an “Awesome Estates Auction” and the sale more than lived up to expectations, seeing robust performers across the board. The undisputed star of the auction though was a Fernand Leger painting that attained $375,000, including the buyer’s premium. Sold fairly early on in the sale, the painting had already attracted quite a bit of attention before the auction, shortly after the catalog went online. The bidding action on this lot may not have been very dramatic but four very determined bidders drove the price up and up, making for a stellar result. The circa 1954 gouache, titled “Les loisirs,” depicted figures engaged in leisure activities and was a motif the artist often repeated throughout his career. This work is markedly similar in composition to his lithograph, “Le Picnic.” ... More

Newfields appoints Ernest Gause as Vice President of Human Resources and Chief People Officer
INDIANAPOLIS, IN.- Newfields welcomes Ernest Gause as Vice President of Human Resources and Chief People Officer. In his new role, Gause will lead Newfields’ HR department and serve as a strategic member of the senior leadership team. At Newfields, Gause will continue his more than 20-year career in human resources, as well as a diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA) practitioner. Before coming to Indianapolis, Gause held human resources leadership roles in several different industries, including as Director of Human Resources North America for Luxottica Retail in Mason, Ohio, and Vice President of Human Resources Operations for Source Consulting in Cincinnati, Ohio. Most recently, he held the position of Leader of M&A Services at Hillenbrand Inc., also in Cincinnati. Gause is the founding President for the National ... More

Two outstanding collections of American Brilliant Cut Glass to be offered at auction
DOUGLASS, KAN.- A two-day American Brilliant Cut Glass (“ABCG”) auction featuring a pair of outstanding single-owner collections will be held Friday and Saturday, March 4th and 5th, by Woody Auction, online and live in the Woody Auction auction hall at 130 East 3rd Street in Douglass. The start times are 5 pm Central for March 4th (lots 1-150) and 9:30 am Central for March 5th (lots 151-508). The collections are those of Ila and the late Joe Lemon, who gathered fine examples of colored stems and great patterns; and Rich and Sandy Encelewski, who insisted that all the pieces in their collection be in outstanding condition. Some smaller collections have also been added, pushing the lot total to more than 500. All the lots will be sold to the highest bidder, without reserves. Mark your calendars. “Cut glass auctions are always a thing of beauty, ... More

The creators of 'On Sugarland' build a site of mourning and repair
NEW YORK, NY.- In the mobile home-lined cul-de-sac at the center of the new play “On Sugarland,” grief is pervasive. A memorial of dog tags, boots and other personal items of fallen soldiers sits center stage, a reminder of a community’s losses. Daily rituals — from services with singing, dancing and shouting to a boy shaving his father’s chin — move mourning from expressions of sorrow to utterances and activities that keep the dead in communion with the residents. “We got a frequency other folk can’t pick up on,” one character says. “On Sugarland,” about a community that is constantly losing its members to a perpetual war, gives new meaning to what Ralph Ellison called the lower frequencies. A register, in this case, that situates life and death on a continuum. The play itself is the latest collaboration between playwright Aleshea Harris and playwright ... More

John Williams in the concert hall: An introduction
NEW YORK, NY.- John Williams has been Hollywood’s leading composer for more than a half-century. A keeper of the golden age flame of soaring grandeur and indelible melodies, he is the musical mind behind the two-note terror of “Jaws,” the operatic fanfare of “Star Wars” and the mischievous charm of “Harry Potter” — along with the sounds of some 50 other Academy Award-nominated scores. Over the years, Williams has also maintained a robust career in the concert hall. But while his soundtracks are the stuff of cultural immortality, his symphonic works have never found a foothold in the repertory. Even now, as his music is programmed by the storied ensembles of Vienna and Berlin, it’s more likely to be “E.T.” than his “Essay for Strings.” Williams’ concert works tend to be skillful but less imaginative than his film scores. And ... More

Harper Lee Estate told to pay $2.5 million in dispute over 'Mockingbird' plays
NEW YORK, NY.- An arbitrator has ordered the estate of writer Harper Lee to pay more than $2.5 million in damages and fees to Dramatic Publishing, a theatrical publishing company that has licensed a stage adaptation of “To Kill a Mockingbird” for decades. The ruling found that under pressure from Scott Rudin, then lead producer of a different adaptation of the book, which was intended for Broadway, the estate interfered with Dramatic’s contracts, and tried to prevent some productions of the work. The ruling, made in January, comes nearly three years after Dramatic invoked an arbitration clause in its contract to prevent limits on productions of its adaptation. Dramatic’s adaptation, by playwright Christopher Sergel, has long been a staple at schools and community theaters around the country. It’s the version that has been staged ... More

'Sleep No More' awakens after a long hibernation
NEW YORK, NY.- The taxidermy birds have been waiting. So have the lamps, the cards, the dolls, the crucifixes, the trees, the mounded salt. “Sleep No More,” the dark and dreamlike show that reshaped the landscape of participatory theater, left its performance space intact when it closed the doors on its dozens of rooms in March 2020. Months passed, then a year. The March 2021 date that would have marked its 10th anniversary came and went. Performances were to resume last October; the delta variant changed those plans. Finally, on Feb. 14, for those who prefer their Valentine hearts still bloodied, “Sleep No More,” will reopen, with new masks, new protocols and a fresh commitment to total immersion. On an evening in late January, I arrived at the McKittrick Hotel in Manhattan for a rehearsal visit and a tour. “Sleep No More” is a ... More

Betty Davis, raw funk innovator, is dead at 77
NEW YORK, NY.- Betty Davis, the singer and songwriter whose raunchy persona, fierce funk grooves and Afrofuturistic style in the early 1970s made her a forerunner of R&B and hip-hop to come, died Wednesday in Homestead, Pennsylvania, the town outside Pittsburgh where she had lived. She was 77. Her reissue label, Light in the Attic, distributed a statement from her friend of 65 years, Connie Portis, announcing the death of a “pioneer rock star, singer, songwriter and fashion icon.” The cause was not specified. Davis, who first recorded as Betty Mabry, got her last name from her one-year marriage to jazz bandleader Miles Davis. The music she made in the early 1970s didn’t bring her nationwide hits, but it directly presaged the uninhibited funk of musicians from Prince to Janet Jackson to Janelle Monáe. On the three albums she released ... More

Holabird Western Americana Collections announces 4-day Western Trails & Treasures Premier Auction
RENO, NEV.- Holabird Western Americana Collections, LLC’s first major auction event of the New Year will be a four-day Western Trails & Treasures Premier Auction, Thursday through Sunday, February 24th-27th, online and live in the gallery located at 3555 Airway Drive in Reno. Start times all four days will be 8 am Pacific. Nearly 2,500 lots will cross the auction block. The sale is brimming with important collections, to include Part 2 of the Ron Lerch Western directory collection; Part 2 of the Joe Elcano Nevada collection; more from the Ken Prag railroad stock collection; more from the Stuart MacKenzie Montana collection; the Bill McKivor mining, numismatic and Americana collection and more, plus great rarities from other private collections. Day 1, on Thursday, February 24th, will be dedicated to general Americana, in categories that include ... More

Everard to auction art treasures from distinguished Southern estates
SAVANNAH, GA.- A growing interest in items that are unique or finely crafted has the auction market off to a robust start in 2022. Everard Auctions & Appraisals’ February 23-24 Winter Southern Estates Auction is ready to meet the demand with more than 650 lots of fine and decorative art from select sources in Georgia, South Carolina, Florida and beyond. Absentee bidding is now in progress, with Internet live bidding slated to begin at 10 a.m. ET on both days of the auction series. The auction features a wide range of modern and contemporary art, including an important bronze by William Kentridge (NY, South Africa, b. 1955-) titled Sculpture for Return (Commendatore Naso). It is initial-signed WK and numbered 11/12 on the side of the base. When rotated, the sculpture changes to form a nose, hence the “Commander Nose” referenced ... More


PhotoGalleries

Life Between Islands

Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution

'In-Between'

Primary Colors


Flashback
On a day like today, French photographer Eugène Atget was born
February 12, 1857. Eugène Atget (12 February 1857 - 4 August 1927) was a French flâneur and a pioneer of documentary photography, noted for his determination to document all of the architecture and street scenes of Paris before their disappearance to modernization. In this image: Eugène Atget, Rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Geneviève, June 1925. Gelatin silver printing-out-paper print, 6 11/16 x 8 3/4? (17 x 22.2 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Abbott-Levy Collection. Partial gift of Shirley C. Burden.

  
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