| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Tuesday, February 9, 2021 |
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| | Art-Level Antique Oriental Rugs and How to Recognize Them (Part 1) | |
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Connoisseur level (Tier 3) Persian Ferahan Sarouk (4' x 3'-6") ca. 1875.
By Jan David Winitz
President and Founder, Claremont Rug Company
OAKLAND, CA.- Whether you are a long-time collector or a neophyte developing an interest, the world of antique Oriental carpets woven during the Second Golden Age of Persian Weaving (ca. 1800 to ca. 1910) is both stimulating and rewarding. There is a wide range of Oriental carpets that can bring us pleasure and pride of ownership as they grace our homes. Yet only very few are also strong long-term investments worthy of collecting. With little exception, these are true antiques dating from the early 19th century to the turn of the 20th century. I term these pieces art-level rugs. Determining what to acquire requires education and exposure with the reward being the emotional and spiritual impact that great rugs have in your home as you live with them every day. More than a decade ago, I developed the Oriental Rug Pyramid © to provide my clients with a set of guidelines about evaluating rugs and elevating the experience of acquisition. ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Installation view, 'Mary Heilmann: Past Present Future', Hauser & Wirth Zurich, online from 6 February until 14 May 2021 on hauserwirth.com © Mary Heilmann. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Jon Etter.
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| Christie's Modern British Art Evening Sale now online for browsing | | Massimo De Carlo announces the representation of Jordan Casteel | | The Snite Museum of Art announces gifts of six important American and British paintings | 
L.S. Lowry, Ann in a Red Jumper, painted circa 1957, estimate: £150,000-250,000. © Christie's Images Ltd 2021.
LONDON.- The Modern British Art Evening Sale will be led by Sir Winston Churchills Tower of the Koutoubia Mosque (1943, estimate: £1,500,000-2,500,000), offered from The Jolie Family Collection. It is presented alongside two further works by the former Prime Minister of the UK, Scene at Marrakech (circa 1935, estimate: £300,000-500,000), offered by order of the Trustees of Viscount Montgomerys Will Trust and St Pauls Churchyard (1927, estimate: £200,000-300,000). Masters of British sculpture include outstanding examples by Lynn Chadwick, Barry Flanagan, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and William Turnbull. Sir John Laverys painting of Doris Delevingne, The Viscountess Castlerosse, Palm Springs (1938, estimate: £400,000-600,000) is offered from the collection of Charles Delevingne, while a selection of portraits from the Estates of L.S. Lowry and Carol Ann Lowry ... More | | 
Jordan Casteel, Royal, 2020.
MILAN.- Massimo De Carlo announced that its now representing Jordan Casteel. Jordan Casteel (b. 1989, Denver, Colorado) lives and works in New York City. In her larger-than-life, colorful oil portraits and cropped compositions, Casteel has developed a painting language centered around community engagement. Guided by intuition and psychological insights, the paintings feature interior and exterior scenes from the intimacy of a subject's home to a crowded subway car. Sourcing compositions from her own photographs, Casteels paintings reflect the sensory and human experience of everyday life. Her brushstrokes are determined, bold swathes of color, nodding to the history of portraiture while pushing forward multifaceted notions of individuality, gender, race, legacy, belonging, and community. Jordan Casteel solo exhibitions include: Within Reach, New Museum, New York (2020, curated by Massimiliano Gioni); Returning the ... More | | 
Joseph Morris Raphael (American, 18691950), Two Girls and a Baby (also recorded as Three Children, Laren, Netherlands), ca. 1909 (detail). Oil on canvas. Gift of Brenden Beck, ND 90 2020.016.
NOTRE DAME, IN.- The Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame is delighted to announce that it is the recipient of six noteworthy paintings from the late 18th to the early 20th centuries that will significantly augment the Museums holdings in American and British art. The Museum is deeply grateful for these gifts, many by donors with long relationships to the Museum and Notre Dame, states Joseph Antenucci Becherer, Director of the Snite Museum of Art. The importance of our 18th.-, 19th- and 20th-century collections have been greatly enhanced with these works. An important and generous gift from Ann Uhry Abrams, PhD, of a work by the American painter John Twachtman, leads this group of acquisitions. Born in Cincinnati to German parents, John Henry Twachtman became a student of Frank Duveneck, who ... More |
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| Monoliths are still happening | | Sotheby's to drop President Barack Obama Player Exclusive Nike Hyperdunks on Buy Now Sneaker Shop | | Why were so many Stettheimer art works up for sale? Not all were real | 
A woman looks on December 10, 2020 at a metal monolith that has popped up on a riverbank of the Vistula in the Polish capital Warsaw, the latest in a string of similar objects that have recently appeared in Europe and the US. Wojtek RADWANSKI / AFP.
by Daniel Victor
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Much like the coronavirus, monoliths refuse to be left behind in 2020. The discovery of a new mysterious metal slab in Turkey on Friday was a throwback to a momentary craze from the olden days of November and December. Back then, a shiny, metal monolith appeared in the Utah desert without explanation, followed by copycats from California to Romania. Perhaps art projects or perhaps the manifestation of pandemic-induced boredom, the monoliths captured the worlds attention for a fleeting moment. It remains unknown who created many of them or why they were created, but they largely faded from cultural relevance as the world focused on other things, like the presidential transition, a coup in Myanmar or the Netflix show Bridgerton. ... More | | 
On offer for $25,000, the sneakers mark the first major drop in Sothebys Buy Now Sneaker Shop. Courtesy Sotheby's.
NEW YORK, NY.- Sothebys announced that we will offer a deadstock pair of President Barack Obama Player Exclusive Nike Hypderdunks - designed by Nike exclusively for the 44th President of the United States, the present Hyperdunks are considered one of only two pairs known to exist, with the other specially made for President Obama in 2009. On offer for $25,000, the pair will mark the first major drop in Sothebys online Buy Now platform a new and immediate way to purchase fine art, fashion and collectibles, design and antiques, and exquisitely crafted jewelry and watches. Featuring rare pieces for every collector, The Sneakers Shop synchronizes into one singular store modern sneakers, vintage sneakers and memorabilia sneakers. In honor of the 44th President of the US, the pair will be available for purchase on 12 February starting at 4:44 PM coinciding with the start of Presidents Day Weekend and will be on vi ... More | | 
Five works by the dazzling and seldom-seen painter Stettheimer emerged on the market in 2020. But some stood on shaky ground. Florine Stetthemier Papers, Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University via The New York Times.
by Susan Mulcahy
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Years can pass without work by the singular modernist Florine Stettheimer (1871-1944) appearing on the art market. Her estate went mostly to museums and universities, which made 2020 a banner year, with five pieces popping up at U.S. auction houses and galleries. Only two turned out to have been actually created by Stettheimer. Of the other works, two were removed from the marketplace, and the attribution changed on the third. Stettheimer is beloved for her ultrafeminine faux-naïf style, expressed in richly detailed paintings that often featured her circle of friends, including artist Marcel Duchamp, writer Carl Van Vechten and sculptor Elie Nadelman. But along with authenticity issues, the current sales raised another question: ... More |
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| Changing the tune: Serbian artist turns weapons into instruments | | Norway to go ahead with massacre memorial despite opposition | | Lost: A golden flute on a subway. Found: Faith in others. | 
Serbian sculptor Nikola Macura grinds a Yugoslav army helmet at his studio in Novi Sad on February 1, 2021. Andrej ISAKOVIC / AFP.
by Miodrag Sovilj
NOVI SAD (AFP).- Every week, Serbian sculptor Nikola Macura wanders through a messy military junkyard in search of sounds. Picking through discarded rifles, helmets and missiles, he taps, blows and raps his knuckles on the decommissioned weapons to find pieces he can bring back to his studio and turn into musical instruments. The 42-year-old is trying to transform these former tools of destruction into vessels of creation, in a region that still bears scars from the 1990s wars that unravelled Yugoslavia. He has already successfully converted a bazooka and an army gas bucket into a cello, created a guitar out of a Zastava M70 rifle and a Yugoslav army helmet, and assembled a violin from an assault rifle magazine and a first aid kit, among others. "Guns are all around us. We are so surrounded with destruction that we no longer notice it", said Macura, an assistant professor at Novi Sad Academy of Arts in Serbia's ... More | | 
A makeshift memorial in downtown Oslo for victims of the bombing there and the massacre of youths on Utoya Island in Norway, July 27, 2011. Todd Heisler/The New York Times.
by Pierre-Henry Deshayes
OSLO (AFP).- A Norwegian court on Monday ruled against opponents of a national memorial to the victims of a 2011 massacre on Utoya island, saying its benefits outweighed the traumas it might revive. A number of residents near Utoya had argued that the memorial to the 77 people who were killed by right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik, including 69 shot dead on the island, would prolong the trauma they suffered on July 22 nearly a decade ago. They had filed suit with both the Norwegian state and Labour Party's youth wing, the organisation to which most of the victims belonged, in a bid to have the memorial moved from its building site at a dock where people take the ferry to the island. "The plaintiffs are obviously correct in that they unjustifiably will carry the weight of having a national memorial in their vicinity. The court understands that this feels ... More | | 
Donald Rabin and his $22,000 flute that he left on a Chicago train. Donald Rabin via The New York Times.
by Maria Cramer
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Donald Rabin carefully placed his flute made of silver and 18-karat gold next to him on a Chicago train. Do not forget it, Donald, do not forget it, he remembered thinking as he struggled with other belongings, including a suitcase and laptop, on Jan. 29. He had just spent two weeks in St. Louis with his family and stopped in Chicago to visit a friend for the weekend before flying home to Somerville, Massachusetts. As the blue line train pulled in to the Logan Square stop, Rabin, 23, a graduate student at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee, gathered his things, rushed out of the car and bounded up the station stairs to catch a ride. Suddenly, panic seized him. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh, he recalled thinking. I dont have my flute. For the next four hours, Rabin hopped from train to train, still hauling his luggage, as he searched in vain for the instrument, which he said he bought for $22,000. He spent the weekend ... More |
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| Lawrence of Arabia's motorcycle makes French comeback | | Art Institute of Chicago announces Irene Sunwoo as Chair of Architecture and Design | | Sotheby's announces 48-hour flash sale presenting a bottle of Black Bowmore Aston Martin DB5 1964 | 
Brough Superior motorcycles CEO, Thierry Henriette poses for pictures, on January 28, 2021 at the Brough Superior Motorcycles factory in Saint-Jean, southwestern France. Lionel BONAVENTURE / AFP.
by Hugues Jeanneaud
SAINT-JEAN (AFP).- Brough motorcycles, favourites of the writer, spy and gentleman adventurer T.E. Lawrence, are making a comeback -- not in their former home in England, but deep in the southwest of France. Production of Brough bikes, of which the historic figure known as "Lawrence of Arabia" owned seven, ended in 1940 when the factory in Nottingham was requisitioned for Britain's war effort. Manufacture didn't resume after the war, but the bike's memory was kept alive over the decades by diehard -- and flush -- fans, with prices for the bikes sometimes reaching $600,000 at auction. In the meantime the motorcycle world embarked on a nostalgic love affair with famed old British brands, with Royal Enfield, now Indian-owned, and Triumph leading the neo-vintage way. Brough fans had to wait much longer for a revival, ... More | | 
Sunwoo joins the Art Institute from the Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Photo: Benjamin Mistak.
CHICAGO, IL.- The Art Institute announced today that the museum has appointed architectural historian and curator Irene Sunwoo to be the John H. Bryan Chair and Curator, Architecture and Design. Sunwoo joins the Art Institute from the Columbia Universitys Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation , where she has been Curator of the Arthur Ross Architecture Gallery and Director of Exhibitions since 2016. At Columbia, Sunwoo established a distinctive vision, overseeing an experimental and interdisciplinary exhibition program that fused a scholarly approach to content with innovative exhibition design. In her ongoing collaborations with architects and artists, Sunwoo has supported and advanced new architectural practices, research, and ideas. She has consistently demonstrated a rigorous commitment to how architecture and design intersects with urban legacies ... More | | 
Two-day window to acquire one of the most coveted whisky bottles in the world. Estimate: $100,000-200,000. Courtesy Sothebys.
NEW YORK, NY.- Bidding opened at 9am EST today on 48 Hours Only | Black Bowmore x Aston Martin DB5 1964, a flash sale offering the first opportunity to acquire at auction one of the most coveted whisky bottles in the world. Launched by Bowmore in 2020, of the 27 bottles produced, 25 were released, with the two remaining bottles destined for Bowmore Distillerys archive. The bottle in Sothebys sale carries an estimate of $100,000-200,000, with bidding scheduled to close on Wednesday 10 February at 9:00am EST. Jonny Fowle, Sothebys Spirits Specialist, said: This rare expression is a high-concept marriage of British craftsmanship. The status of Black Bowmore as one of the greatest whiskies ever produced is fundamentally down to its quality and complexity. There can be no more fitting a tribute to such a legend in the world of whisky than this special partnership with arbiters of sophistication, Aston Martin. Sotheby ... More |
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Lee Krasner: The Unacknowledged Equal | New York | Spring 2021
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| More News |
 Its musicians are out of work, but the Met is streamingNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The Metropolitan Opera rang in 2020 auspiciously, with a Puccini gala featuring Anna Netrebko, the companys reigning diva. But in March, of course, just weeks before Netrebko was to return to the Met as Tosca, the company closed because of the pandemic. It has been shut for the past 11 months, canceling a slew of plans, including a new production of Aida for Netrebko, and furloughing hundreds of its workers without pay. On Saturday Netrebko returned to the company in a sense with the latest recital in its Met Stars Live in Concert series, streamed from the Spanish Riding School in Vienna and available through Feb. 19. In recent years Netrebko has moved into weighty dramatic soprano repertory. But for this occasion, accompanied elegantly by the pianist Pavel Nebolsin, she presented ... More  Cindy Nemser, advocate for women artists, is dead at 83NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Cindy Nemser, an art critic and historian who, half a century ago, began calling out sexism in the art world, decrying the way women artists were treated and how their work was evaluated, died Jan. 26 at her home in Brooklyn. She was 83. Her daughter, Catherine Nemser, said the cause was pneumonia. Nemser was already writing for arts publications in 1969 when someone invited her to an early meeting of Women Artists in Revolution, a New York coalition that pushed back against the marginalization of women in the art world. At the time few women had gallery representation or were being shown in major museums. A visit with that group changed my life, Nemser recounted in an autobiographical essay. I became an avid feminist, determined to help erase stereotypes about women artists and raise ... More  Hake's to auction comic art, Fleer #57 Michael Jordan rookie card, Negro League baseball treasuresYORK, PA.- Last September, Hakes Auctions set world record prices for pop-culture memorabilia and broke their own house records for sell-through rate, the number of registered bidders and the number of bids placed. Lightning could strike twice on February 24-25 when the Pennsylvania auction house hosts a 2,266-lot sale containing important political relics, Negro League baseball memorabilia, original comic art, exotic Star Wars and G.I. Joe figures, and the Michael Jordan sports card all fans dream of owning: a 1986-87 Fleer #57 rookie card. Hakes was established in 1967 with political items as its foundation. The February sale continues that tradition, not only with the opening lot but also a magnificent Civil War treasure: a hand-painted 1860 Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin Wide Awake parade banner with the mesmerizing image of a large ... More  Abell Auction Co. hosts Important Fine Art, Antiques and Jewelry Sale on February 21LOS ANGELES, CA.- Abell Auction Co. will host an important fine art, antiques, 20th century design and fine jewelry auction on Sunday, Feb. 21, 2021 at 10 a.m. PST. Featuring property from prominent California estates, the online-only sale will offer a 23.73 carat Colombian emerald ring by Graff (est. $200,000-$250,000), a cube by Larry Bell (est. $20,000-$30,000), an important pair of Chinese imperial palace panels ($est. 80,000-$120,000) and a still life painting by Francoise Gilot (est. $12,000-$18,000). As recounted in her memoir, Gilot was Pablo Picassos student, decade-long partner and mother of their two children. Abells February 21 auction also includes property from the estate of Audrey Steele Burnand, Newport Beach; the estate of Valerie Franklin, Los Angeles; and the estate of Eva and Loran Whitelock, Los Angeles, to benefit ... More  Bonhams establishes bicoastal Canadian presenceTORONTO.- The international auction house Bonhams announces the expansion of its North American presence, with the appointment of Cailin Broere as new Regional Consultant for Vancouver and Western Canada. She joins her counterpart, Kristin Kearney, Director of Bonhams Canada, based out of Toronto. Broere takes up her new post with immediate effect. Cailin Broere brings over 15 years of art market experience with her to Bonhams. Most recently, for ten years she excelled as a Hong Kong-based art consultant, working internationally with commercial galleries, art fairs, and both private and corporate clients throughout Europe and Asia. She has traveled extensively and organized numerous public and private exhibitions and curatorial projects, with clients including the Mandarin Oriental and the British Consulate of Hong ... More  'Black art: In the absence of light' reveals a history of neglectNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- This is Black art. And it matters. And its been going on for two hundred years. Deal with it. So declares art historian Maurice Berger toward the beginning of Black Art: In the Absence of Light, a rich and absorbing documentary directed by Sam Pollard (MLK/FBI) and debuting at 9 Eastern on HBO Tuesday night. The feature-length film, assembled from interviews with contemporary artists, curators and scholars, was inspired by a single 1976 exhibition, Two Centuries of Black American Art, the first large-scale survey of African-American artists. Organized by the artist David C. Driskell, who was then-head of the art department at Fisk University, it included some 200 works dating from the mid-18th to the mid-20th century, and advanced a history that few Americans, including art professionals, ... More  Toledo Museum of Art welcomes Jessica S. Hong as curator of modern and contemporary artTOLEDO, OH.- The Toledo Museum of Art will welcome Jessica S. Hong as curator of modern and contemporary art. Hong begins her appointment at TMA on March 15, 2021. In this role, Hong will manage the modern and contemporary art collection and help broaden the discourse around global and contemporary art. We are thrilled to have Jessica join our growing curatorial team, said Adam Levine, the Edward Drummond and Florence Scott Libbey director of the Toledo Museum of Art. Her breadth and depth of knowledge is distinguished, and her commitment to engaging modern and contemporary works with the Museums historical collection make her the perfect fit. Jessica understands that the past and present are not separate terrains they intersect and constantly redefine each other and her addition to our team will help ... More  Paris Opera to seek out new talent in diversity drivePARIS (AFP).- The Paris Opera vowed an overhaul of its recruiting practices on Monday as it launched a drive towards greater diversity in the heart of its elite ballet company, orchestra and dance school. The issue has already sparked fierce debate in France with right-wingers accusing the Opera's new director-general Alexander Neef of bringing American-style culture wars into the cloistered world of its arts scene. But with Black Lives Matter protests roiling France, and deepening debate over its colonial legacy, Neef remains unrepentant about the need for greater diversity, and in an online press conference on Monday, vowed a shake-up of the 350-year-old institution. A new report by historian Pap Ndiaye and rights advocate Constance Riviere set out recommendations including an active effort to send recruiters out into the world in search of new ... More  Beyond 'Black Panther': Afrofuturism is booming in comicsNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- When Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, it struck author and illustrator John Jennings as so unprecedented, such a break from American history, that it was like an event from some far-flung future. Before then, the only time you would see a president who was Black was in a science-fiction movie, he said in a phone interview last month. Jennings compared it to the sorts of imaginative leaps one finds in the most forward-thinking works categorized as Afrofuturist. This year, fans of Afrofuturism will see a bumper crop of comics and graphic novels, including the first offerings of a new line devoted to Black speculative fiction and reissues of Afrofuturist titles from comic-book houses like DC and Dark Horse. Afrofuturism, whether in novels, films or music, imagines worlds and futures ... More  Broadway's hair master puts away the wigsNEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Time was when just about every bouffant on Broadway could be traced back to Paul Huntley. From The Elephant Man to Chicago, Cats to Thoroughly Modern Millie, Huntley was the designer behind the wigs and often-elaborate locks that helped define the lasting visual impression of some 300 projects, earning him a special Tony Award in 2003. He also designed hair for about 60 films, styling the likes of Bette Davis, Jessica Lange and Vivien Leigh. He turned Glenn Close into Cruella de Vil for the 1996 live-action 101 Dalmatians and Al Pacino into Phil Spector for the 2013 HBO biopic. He fashioned Tootsie twice, transforming Dustin Hoffman for the 1982 film and Santino Fontana for the 2019 Broadway musical adaptation. The costume designer William Ivey Long has pronounced him by ... More  Famed soprano Gheorghiu to sing in aid of Met musiciansBUCHAREST (AFP).- Romanian soprano Angela Gheorghiu has announced she will lend her voice to help the musicians of New York's Metropolitan Opera (Met), deprived of their pay because of virus-related cancellations of their shows. "On February 21, through the wonders of technology, I will perform for you Dvoraks 'Song to the Moon' and Anton Panns 'Tatal Nostru' (Our Father) in a special arrangement by (composer) Andrei Tudor," she wrote on Facebook late Sunday. Considered one of the world's greatest opera singers, Gheorghiu, 55, will perform in Bucharest alongside pianist Alexandru Petrovici, to the accompaniment of the Met Orchestra from New York. Tickets for the performance, which can be watched online, have gone on sale for $15 (12.5 euros). Gheorghiu said the proceeds would "benefit over 150 Met musicians in need". ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
Mental Escapology, St. Moritz 
TIM VAN LAERE GALLERY 
Madelynn Green 
Patrick Angus
Flashback On a day like today, German painter Gerhard Richter was born February 09, 1932. Gerhard Richter (born 9 February 1932) is a German visual artist. Richter has produced abstract as well as photorealistic paintings, and also photographs and glass pieces. His art follows the examples of Picasso and Jean Arp in undermining the concept of the artist's obligation to maintain a single cohesive style. In this image: German artist Gerhard Richter gestures in front of his painting "Abstract Painting (946-3)" during a press conference before the opening of the exhibition "Gerhard Richter, New Paintings" on May 19, 2017. ROBERT MICHAEL / AFP.
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