| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Thursday, January 31, 2019 |
 |
| | Rubens drawing fetches $8.2 mn at controversial auction | |
|
|
The Sotheby's auctioneer takes bids on the Flemish Baroque Master Sir Peter Paul Rubens' drawing "Nude Study of a Young Man with Raised Arms" on January 30, 2019 at Sotheby's in New York. The winning bid for the drawing was $7 million. Don EMMERT / AFP.
NEW YORK (AFP).- A drawing by Flemish Baroque master Peter Paul Rubens sold for $8.2 million in an auction in New York on Wednesday that was criticized by some in the Netherlands who said the work should have been offered to a Dutch museum. Sotheby's described the small, rectangular "Nude Study of a Young Man with Raised Arms" as a key piece in the development of one of the artist's pivotal commissions, and one of only a handful of drawings of comparable importance by Rubens to have come on the market in the last half century. Depicting a muscular, nearly nude young man who strains as he pushes an unseen weight above his head, the drawing was used in the preparation of Ruben's famous "Raising of the Cross" triptych, painted in 1610. It was acquired by the Dutch royal family in 1838 by Prince William of Orange, who became the Netherlands's King William II. ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day A picture taken on January 27, 2019, shows hieroglyphs at the Great Temple of Abu Simbel, south of Aswan in upper Egypt. Ludovic MARIN / AFP
|
|
|
| 
|
 | | Rembrandt...? Attribution of two paintings in Mauritshuis Collection to be researched | | Hamiltons exhibits rare and unseen vintage prints by Don McCullin | | McNay Art Museum receives $175,000 from the Henry Luce Foundation to support summer 2019 exhibition | 
Rembrandt? Tronie of an Old Man, c. 1630-31.
THE HAGUE.- After the exhibition Rembrandt and the Mauritshuis has ended, the Mauritshuis will embark on new research into two paintings in its collection to determine whether or not they are indeed by Rembrandt. The works in question are Study of an Old Man from 1650 and Tronie of an Old Man from c. 1630-31. Both were purchased as genuine Rembrandts by then Mauritshuis director Abraham Bredius, in 1891 and 1892, but are today considered doubtful by the museum. Both paintings will also be thoroughly restored. The study and the tronie have both previously been examined, but from September 2019 the latest techniques will be deployed to find out more about the paintings and later overpaint will be removed. The results of technical analysis and restoration will hopefully provide an answer to their attribution. The restoration and examination will take place in the ... More | | 
Shell Shocked Marine, Vietnam, Hue, 1968 © Don McCullin. Courtesy Hamiltons Gallery, London.
LONDON.- To coincide with the major retrospective at Tate Britain (5th February 6th May 2019), Hamiltons will be celebrating Sir Don McCullins lifetime achievement and decades of collaboration with Hamiltons by exhibiting rare and unseen vintage prints dating back to the 1950s. Selected from the photographers personal archive, they were made shortly after the photographs were first taken on assignments around the world. Intimate and physically modest, the prints provide access to events witnessed and recorded by a photojournalist working on the frontline of multiple, international flashpoints from Vietnam to Cyprus. Largely produced for a photo editor or agency in a pre-digital age, these historic prints have been visibly put to work and bear the physical marks of their use. In these pictures McCullin shares ... More | | 
During the exhibition, the Museum is offering an internship opportunity thanks to the Association of Art Museum Directors new program focused on college students from underrepresented communities.
SAN ANTONIO, TX.- The McNay Art Museum announced a $175,000 grant from the Henry Luce Foundation for the upcoming exhibition, Transamerica/n: Gender, Identity, Appearance Today, opening this summer. Each year, the Henry Luce Foundations American Art Program supports exhibitions that are anticipated to make significant contributions to the public and scholarly understanding and experience of the United States. Chosen from a highly competitive pool of applicants, the McNay is one of 14 museums across the country to receive funding from this years competition. We are profoundly honored to have the support of the Henry Luce Foundation for this pioneering exhibition, said Richard Aste, Director of the McNay. ... More |
|
|
|
| |
| | | Exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay looks back at the history of the 'Talisman' by Paul Sérusier | | Christie's appoints Alex Heminway International Head of Design | | An excellent start for BRAFA 2019 | 
Paul Sérusier, The Talisman, also known as Landscape at the Bois d'Amour, October 1888, oil on canvas, 27 x 21.5 cm, Paris, Musée dOrsay, RF 1985 13. Photo © Musée dOrsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt.
PARIS.- This open-air study produced by Paul Sérusier in Pont-Aven, in October 1888 under the direction of Gauguin, evidenced by the handwritten inscription on the back of the panel, was instantly raised to iconic status. On his return to the Académie Julian, he presented this synthetic landscape with its pure lines and simplified forms to the Nabis (prophets in Hebrew), who made it their talisman. The work joined the collection of Maurice Denis, who contributed to its status as a founding work by recounting the story of its creation in a text published in the magazine LOccident in 1903: How do you see this tree? said Gauguin at the Bois dAmour: Is it really green? Use green, then, the most beautiful green on your palette. And that shadow, rather blue? ... More | | 
Mr. Heminway joins Christies from Phillips auction house in New York, where he was Senior Vice President, Head of Design, Americas. © Christie's Images Ltd 2019.
NEW YORK, NY.- Christies announced Alex Heminway has joined the company as International Head of Design, effective immediately. He will be based in New York and oversee Christies global sales in the growing collecting category of 20th Century Design. Mr. Heminway joins Christies from Phillips auction house in New York, where he was Senior Vice President, Head of Design, Americas. Previously, he worked at a Manhattan antiques gallery Cove Landing, where he sold 18th and 19th century English and Continental furniture, sculpture, and fine art. Heminway began his career at Christies in 1993 as an intern in the 20th Century Decorative Arts department and later worked in the Contemporary Art and Bids departments. He holds a BA in Art and Archeology from Princeton ... More | | 
Gilbert & George in front of their work BEARD MAD @ BRAFA 2019 © Fabrice Debatty.
BRUSSELS.- The BRAFA (Brussels Art fair) taking place in Brussels on the Tour & Taxis site until 3 February, is off to an excellent start. This is the case in terms of its visitor figures, which, with 33,000 visitors welcomed by Tuesday night, are entirely in line with the 2018 version, which closed with a record of more than 65.000 visitors. Similarly, in terms of sales, a great many transactions have already been recorded during the opening evenings and the first weekend. The contagious good humour of the British duo Gilbert & George, the guests of honour at the 2019 edition who received a veritable onslaught of requests for autographs and other selfies during the opening spread throughout the corridors of the fair, helping to persuade collectors and actors to give in to the thousand and one temptations presented by the 133 exhibitors in attendance. It is true that the context may lend itself particularly ... More |
|
|
|
| |
| | | Kasmin exhibits three large-scale bronze works by Max Ernst | | Sean Kelly announces representation of Kris Martin | | Dr Kevin Fewster to step down as Director of Royal Museums Greenwich | 
Installation view.
NEW YORK, NY.- Kasmin opened an exhibition of three large-scale bronze works by Max Ernstthe second in an ongoing program of public presentations in the gallerys new outdoor sculpture garden. Situated on the rooftop of Kasmins flagship gallery space at 509 West 27th Street, New York, the garden is viewable from The High Line. The exhibition continues in High Line Nine, Gallery 3, with seven additional works. At various moments throughout Ernsts career, from his Cologne Dada period in the 1920s and onwards, the artist turned to sculpture in intense bursts of activity. The three examples in the present exhibition were conceived during one such period in the 1960s whilst Ernst was living in France. It was during this phase that the animal worldlush, overgrown, and naturalshifted into the foreground of the artists vision and began to manifest steadily throughout his work. The towering pillar of Le génie d ... More | | 
Portrait of Kris Martin. Courtesy: the artist and Sean Kelly, New York.
NEW YORK, NY.- Sean Kelly announced that the gallery now represents Kris Martin. Kris Martin is internationally recognized for a rigorous conceptual practice in which he addresses existential questions with subtlety and wit. Martins sculptures, drawings, photographs and installations reflect his ongoing preoccupation with matters of human existence and its contradictions. In his work Martin often makes use of the readymade; through subtle acts of displacement and with minimal intervention, he re-contextualizes familiar objects, infusing them with new meaning. Martins poetic gestures range from the grand to the intimate, drawing upon icons of history, art history, religion and literature to fashion poignant meditations on mortality, faith and the human condition. In all areas of Martins radically diverse practice, the artist explores universal themes of ... More | | 
Dr Kevin Fewster, Director, Royal Museums Greenwich ©National Maritime Museum.
LONDON.- The Director, Royal Museums Greenwich, Dr Kevin Fewster AM has announced his retirement from the Museum, after more than a decade in the role. He will step down as Director in the middle of this year. His retirement follows the successful completion of the Museums Endeavour Masterplan Project (2014-18) with the recent opening of four new galleries and the move of the Museums collections into the new Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre in Kidbrooke. Kevin Fewster joined Greenwich, the worlds leading maritime museum in 2007, and during his tenure he has overseen not just the Endeavour Project but a number of other award-winning capital projects including the Sammy Ofer Wing (2011), the ship model store in partnership with the Historic Dockyard, Chatham (2010) and the recent refurbishment of the Queens House (2016), said by some to be the most ... More |
|
|
|
| |
| | | Louisiana Museum of Modern Art receives magnificent donation from British artist Cecily Brown | | Grammy-winning R&B singer James Ingram dies at 66 | | Kimbell Art Museum appoints new Curator of European Art | 
Cecily Brown, Where, When, How Often and with Whom?, 2017 (detail). Oil on linen, 277 x 1008 cm / 3 panels © Cecily Brown. Courtesy of the artist.
HUMLEBÃK.- Cecily Brown has long been on the Louisianas wish list. The current exhibition has been the first step. The question was whether the museum could take the next one: to incorporate a work by the artist in its collection. It has succeeded and quite sensationally in doing so. Cecily Brown has decided that her more than ten-metre-long painting Where, When, How Often and with Whom which gave its name to the exhibition can remain hanging in the museum in Humlebæk after the exhibition is closing in March. This is a uniquely generous gesture, says Louisianas Director Poul Erik Tøjner of the gift. Not only has Cecily Brown taken the public and reviewers here by storm; internationally too the exhibition has aroused attention. And of course we are as happy as can be that to all this we can add such an event as the donation truly is. Cecily Browns Where, When, How Often and ... More | | 
In this file photo taken on April 22, 2008, singers James Ingram and Patti Austin perform onstage at the ASCAP Pied Piper award celebration in honor of Quincy Jones. Brad Barket / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP.
NEW YORK (AFP).- James Ingram, a Grammy winner known for his soulful R&B hits, has died, his friends and colleagues said Tuesday. He was 66 years old. "I have lost my dearest friend and creative partner James Ingram to the Celestial Choir," performer Debbie Allen tweeted. "He will always be cherished, loved and remembered for his genius, his love of family and his humanity." A native of the US state of Ohio, Ingram launched his music career with the band Revelation Funk and later played keyboard for soul pioneer Ray Charles. His rise to fame came after he lent his smooth vocals to the songs "Just Once" and "One Hundred Ways" on an album recorded by industry legend Quincy Jones. Ingram earned three Grammy nominations for the works, including Best New Artist, winning for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance in 1981. ... More | | 
Guillaume Kientz was Velázquez and El Greco expert at the Musée du Louvre.
FORT WORTH, TX.- The Kimbell Art Museum announced the appointment of Guillaume Kientz, the former curator of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American art at the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Kientz officially began his new position as curator of European art at the Kimbell on Tuesday, January 22, 2019. "I look forward to organizing stimulating exhibitions and working with the Kimbell's celebrated permanent collection of masterpieces to inspire and connect with Museum visitors," remarked Kientz. "For all art historians and museum lovers, the Kimbell is a jewel, with its high-profile collection and unique, splendid architecture." Kientz is a specialist in the Spanish Golden Age and European Caravaggesque paintings. At the Louvre, where he served as a curator for eight years, he developed the acclaimed exhibition Velázquez, shown at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, in 2015, and co-curated the exhibition Ribera in Rome, ... More |
|
The David Gilmour Guitar Collection
|
|
| |
| | More News |
 The Institute of Contemporary Arts opens Morag Keil's first major solo exhibitionLONDON.- The Institute of Contemporary Arts presents Moarg Kiel, the first major solo exhibition by London-based Scottish artist Morag Keil. The exhibition revisits key works from the past eight years of the artists career, centring on four major installations that have been reconceived and remade for this presentation and are now brought together for the first time. The exhibition presents these works alongside new paintings and lesser-known earlier works. Keil explores the impact of data-capitalism on contemporary subjectivities while acknowledging how these are affected by the precarity of everyday realities, such as labour and wealth inequality. Keil works in installation, film, painting and drawing, and often collaborates with fellow artists. Her work frequently adopts a lo-fi, pared-back aesthetic, incorporating everyday objects and found materials alongside digital ... More MAMbo - Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna opens Mika Rottenberg's first Italian institutional solo exhibitionBOLOGNA.- From 31st January to 19th May 2019 MAMbo Museo dArte Moderna di Bologna will be presenting Mika Rottenbergs first Italian institutional solo exhibition, curated by Lorenzo Balbi. This Argentine born artist who grew up in Israel and is now based in New York is a centre stage player on the contemporary world scene. She appropriates the imposing volumes of the Sala delle Ciminiere on the ground floor, besides the museums Foyer, to animate eleven of her most recent productions - sculpture objects and video installations - famous for their sarcastic and bizarre narrative register. Rottenberg uses the various languages of film, architectural installation and sculpture to explore the concepts of class, work, gender and value by means of visual image devices which throw light on the connections and concealed processes behind apparently ... More Fine autographs and artifacts featuring Presidents to be auctioned BOSTON, MASS.- In honor of Washington's Birthday, RR Auction's February Fine Autograph and Artifact Auction includes a remarkable assortment of nearly 200 presidential autographs with online bidding through February 6, 2019. The sale is highlighted by an excessively rare William Henry Harrison document signed as president. The rare one-page document signed "W. H. Harrison, dated August 28, 1841. The right half of a four-language ship's paper issued to "Theodore Wimpenney, master or commander of the Ship called the Margaret
lying at present in the port of Newport (RI), bound for Pacific Ocean and laden with provisions, Tackle & stores for a voyage in the whale fishery." Crisply signed at the conclusion by President Harrison and countersigned by Secretary of State Daniel Webster. Archivally double-matted and framed behind UV-protective acrylic. ... More Gary Hume's first one-person exhibition in Los Angeles in over twenty-five years opens at Matthew MarksLOS ANGELES, CA.- Matthew Marks is presenting Gary Hume, an exhibition in his galleries at 1062 North Orange Grove and 7818 Santa Monica Boulevard. Featuring eight recent paintings in enamel on aluminum or paper and two new sculptures, this is the artists first one-person exhibition in Los Angeles in over twenty-five years. Humes new paintings include several large-scale depictions of the sea. Some have life jackets floating across them, while others are left resolutely empty, their wide horizontal format and undulating monochrome surface recalling a Monet Water Lily updated for the twenty-first century. The high-gloss finish in Humes paintings, a feature of the household enamel he has used since the late 1980s, allows each work to be perceived as both object and image he once described his paintings as the thinnest sculptures in the world. ... More Masterpieces of Orientalist art offered at Bonhams 19th century picture sale in LondonLONDON.- Three paintings by the Austrian Orientalist painter, Ludwig Deutsch (1885-1935), feature prominently in Bonhams 19th Century European, Victorian and British Impressionist Art in London on Wednesday 20 February 2019. At the Mosque (1895) is estimated at £300,000-500,000; Respect (1902) at £250,000-350,000), and The Performance (1885) at £100,000-150,000. The works have been in the same private collection for over 50 years. Deutsch was born in Vienna in 1855 into a prosperous Jewish family. He trained initially at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna, moving to Paris in the mid-1870s to continue his studies. He settled permanently in the French capital in 1880, setting up a studio on Rue le Peletier (where in 1876 the second Impressionist exhibition had been held). His interest in Orientalist art was sparked by his close friendship ... More Artist Tania Kovats creates new public artwork for Bodleian LibrariesOXFORD.- Acclaimed British contemporary artist Tania Kovats has created a new public artwork at the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford. Titled The Space of Reading, the permanent commission is a sculpture created from casts of 21 open books and has been installed above the public entrance of the Weston Library. The artwork was unveiled on 29 January and was commissioned by the Bodleian Libraries with funding from Art Fund and the Henry Moore Foundation. The work has been installed in the ceiling of the colonnade on the south side of the Weston Library, located at the Librarys public entrance on Oxfords historic Broad Street. The Weston Library opened to the public in 2015 following a three-year renovation of this 1930s Giles Gilbert Scott building by WilkinsonEyre architects. It is now the Bodleians Special Collections library and includes ... More Dix Noonan Webb's February sale to include a group of medals linked to the Dambusters RaidLONDON.- Dix Noonan Webb, the international coins, medals, banknotes and jewellery specialists will hold their first auction of 2019 devoted to Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria on Wednesday, February 27 and Thursday, February 28, 2019 at their auction rooms in central Mayfair (16 Bolton St, London, W1J 8BQ). Among the highlights of the sale will be the highly important Great War Airships A.F.C. (Air Force Cross) group of ten awarded to Air Chief Marshal The Honourable Sir Ralph Cocky Cochrane, [G.B.E., K.C.B.] Royal Naval Air Service and Royal Air Force is estimated at £6,000-8,000. Cochrane had worked with Barnes Wallis during the Great War, flying his experimental airships and testing the worlds first airship mooring mast, which Wallis had designed. He later became first Chief of Air Staff of the Royal New Zealand Air Force ... More New £5.3 million Biggin Hill Memorial Museum opensLONDON.- Following a 16-month construction project, the brand new Biggin Hill Memorial Museum will open its doors to local, national and international visitors for the first time on 2 February 2019, offering them the chance to experience the inspirational history of Britains most famous airfield. Major funding for the project came from the National Lottery and Central Government. The museum will tell the story of Biggin Hill through the experiences of the people who served and lived there. The museum also secures the future of St. Georges RAF Chapel of Remembrance, the moving memorial to the 454 pilots killed flying from RAF Biggin Hill during the Second World War. The Grade II-listed Chapel, built in 1951 at the behest of Sir Winston Churchill, with a wooden floor made from slats of sectioned propeller blades and 12 stained glass windows designed ... More London's India Club, saved from developers, celebrates its historyLONDON (AFP).- An exhibition celebrating the storied history of an Indian members' club in London opened on Wednesday, less than a year after the restaurant dodged being turned into a boutique hotel. "A Home Away from Home", organised by British conservation charity the National Trust, tapped into a "treasure trove" of history on the India Club which emerged in part thanks to recent efforts to save it from eviction. The month-long exhibition tells the story of the restaurant and bar venue on the Strand in London's West End, through the voices of those connected to it over its six decades. "The history has always been there but the campaign unearthed it and brought it to the surface," Phiroza Marker, the club's manager, told AFP during a preview tour. "People want to tell their stories," she added, noting that old customers and even relatives of those ... More Axes, armour, torches: Vikings feast on Scottish islandLERWICK (AFP).- Vikings partied in Scotland's Shetland Islands on Tuesday in the annual "Up Helly Aa" festival, featuring a parade of men in suits of armour torching a wooden ship. The event -- which means "long winter's end" in Old Norse -- has taken place in the port of Lerwick, around 125 miles (200 kilometres) northwest of mainland Scotland, on the last Tuesday in January every year since the early 1890s to celebrate the region's Viking heritage. "It means a lot to Shetlanders and people in Lerwick that we can do this festival," John Nicolson, one of the organisers, told AFP. "It's really steeped in Viking history here." The 48-year-old is the figurehead for this year's festival -- known as the "Guizer Jarl" -- leading a "Jarl Squad" of dozens of Vikings for the day and hundreds of other dressed up "guizers". "I've been looking forward to it for 13 years," said ... More The Lou Gehrig Collection, historic bats, iconic Ali robes lead Heritage Auctions Platinum Night catalogDALLAS, TX.- Heritage Auctions Platinum Night sales have a long history as the most dangerous threat to standing world record prices, and experts expect more to fall: No fewer than 17 lots are expected to record prices of six or seven figures. Bidding is now open for the sale will close in Extended Bidding format, Feb. 23-24, 2019 on HA.com/50011. In both value and lot total, this is our largest Platinum Night event to date, said Chris Ivy, Director of Sports auctions for Heritage. Every consignor in the hobby knows that this is the auction no serious collector can miss. The Lou Gehrig Collection will provide a thrilling assortment of the Hall of Fame first basemans personal treasure trove of memorabilia, including a game worn cap (est. $200,000-up), multiple signed documents, and the earliest known photograph of the Iron Horse as a child (est. ... More |
|
Flashback On a day like today, American painter and sculptor Dorothea Tanning died January 31, 2012. Dorothea Margaret Tanning (August 25, 1910 - January 31, 2012) was an American painter, printmaker, sculptor, writer, and poet. Her early work was influenced by Surrealism. In this image: Dorothea Tanning, Untitled (Set Design for The Night Shadow or an Unrealized Ballet), c. 1950. Graphite, ink, and gouache on paper, 25.4 x 35.6 cm, 10 x 14 ins © ADAGP. Courtesy of The Destina Foundation, New York, and Alison Jacques Gallery, London.
|
| |
|
|
