| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |    | Established in 1996 | Wednesday, December 29, 2021 |
| | A cabinet of wonders opens wide | |
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The set model for the Broadway production of Sunday in the Park with George on display at Treasures," a permanent exhibition at the New York Public Library's flagship branch, Dec. 20, 2021. Vincent Tullo/The New York Times.
by Jennifer Schuessler
NEW YORK, NY.- The most exquisite holiday windows on Fifth Avenue might be inside the New York Public Librarys flagship building at the corner of 42nd Street. Walk up the stairs past the stone lions, through the marble entrance court and into the ornate Gottesman Hall, and you can peer into dramatically lit cases holding medieval illuminated manuscripts, a ballet slipper designed by Coco Chanel, the stuffed toys that inspired Winnie-the-Pooh and Virginia Woolfs walking stick, among other prized items. None of the objects are for sale. But in a way, they already belong to us. Or thats the message behind Treasures, the librarys first permanent installation of highlights from its research collections. The exhibition, supported by a $12 million gift from philanthropist Leonard Polonsky, is the culmination of more than three years of shopping the librarys epic closets, which hold more than 45 million manuscripts, rare books, prints, photographs, audio ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Dawn DeDeaux, Where's Mary, 2021 (detail), Digital projection and found sculpture, 156 x 840 inches, Video Production: Dave Greber, Filming: John Bagnall and Elsa Kern from Fish Pot Studio, Paul Costello; Sound: Dawn DeDeaux, Pedro Segundo; Produced by John Fischbach with Westley Fontenot and Misha Kachkachishvili of Esplanade Recording Studio; Collection of the Artist © Dawn DeDeaux, Photo by Jonathan Traviesa.
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| Hong Kong removes statue that memorialized Tiananmen victims | | The artists we lost in 2021, in their words | | Cities around the world pare back New Year celebrations, again | 
University students clean the "Pillar of Shame" statue at the University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong on June 4, 2021. Lam Yik Fei/The New York Times.
by Mike Ives
NEW YORK, NY.- Authorities in Hong Kong on Thursday removed a statue that memorialized those killed in the 1989 government massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing, the latest crackdown on political dissent in the Chinese territory. The 26-foot copper statue, known as the Pillar of Shame, was created by Danish sculptor Jens Galschiot in 1996 and shows a pile of naked corpses arranged into what looks like a ghastly obelisk. It commemorates the June 4, 1989, massacre of pro-democracy students and workers around Tiananmen Square by the Chinese government. The Tiananmen massacre is among the most delicate topics in Chinese politics and has been largely erased from history on the Chinese mainland. But for more than two decades, Galschiots statue was a symbol of the pro-democracy ... More | | 
A look from the Off-White show during Pitti Uomo in Florence, Italy, June 15, 2017, with text projections by Jenny Holzer. Clara Vannucci/The New York Times.
NEW YORK, NY.- This year, as pandemic deaths ebbed and flowed, a distinctive, eternal beat that of artists deaths played on as usual, bringing its own waves of collective grief. Some, such as Cicely Tyson and Stephen Sondheim, held the spotlight for generations. Others, like Michael K. Williams and Nai-Ni Chen, left us lamenting careers cut short. Here is a tribute to just a small number of them, in their own words. Stephen Sondheim, composer and lyricist, born 1930: Life is unpredictable. It is. There is no form. And making forms gives you solidity. I think thats why people paint paintings and take photographs and write music and tell stories that have beginning, middles and ends even when the middle is at the beginning and the beginning is at the end. Cicely Tyson, actress, born 1924: Im not scared of death. I dont know what it is. How could I be afraid of something I dont know anything about? Nai-Ni Chen, ... More | | 
Visitors pose with a 2022 sign in Times Square in Manhattan, Dec. 21, 2021. New York City, London, Tokyo and New Delhi are among the cities where major gatherings have been curtailed or canceled as Omicron spreads. John Taggart/The New York Times.
by Anna P. Kambhampaty and Alyssa Lukpat
NEW YORK, NY.- As the omicron variant drives coronavirus infection rates to their highest levels of the pandemic in many parts of the world, major cities have scaled down or canceled New Years Eve events for a second consecutive year. Only months ago, expanding COVID vaccinations and loosening travel rules had promised a return of raucous New Year gatherings amid hopes that the pandemic might finally be waning. But the emergence of omicron the highly transmissible variant that is now dominant in the United States and fueling record surges in many nations has prompted governments to reinstate travel restrictions, mask mandates and bans on large gatherings. Even as early studies suggest that omicron produces less severe ... More |
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| Unseen Paul McCartney lyrics on display for the first time at the British Library | | This sea Lizard had a grand piano-size head and a big appetite | | Honolulu Museum of Art adds three works by contemporary artist Hung Liu to its permanent collection | 
Paul at home with his original 'Magic Piano'. © Mary McCartney.
LONDON.- Showcasing previously unseen material from Paul McCartneys personal archive, the British Librarys free Paul McCartney: The Lyrics display (5 November 2021 13 March 2022) celebrates one of the worlds most successful songwriters and performers. Handwritten lyrics, printed photographs and original memorabilia spanning McCartneys career reveal the process and people behind some of the most famous songs of all time, from his earliest compositions through legendary decades of The Beatles and Wings to the present. Featuring around 35 exhibits, highlights of the free Entrance Hall Gallery display include: Original handwritten lyrics for songs, such as Hey Jude, Pipes of Peace and Jenny Wren, which have never been seen before An original drawing by Paul McCartney for the Put It There single Original memorabilia including an early ... More | | 
An artists reconstruction of Cymbospondylus youngorum in the Triassic ocean, present-day Nevada. Stephanie Abramowicz/Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County via The New York Times.
by Sabrina Imbler
NEW YORK, NY.- About 246 million years ago, a sea lizard with a skull the size of a grand piano died in the ancient ocean that is now Nevada. It was an ichthyosaur, and its body was most likely the size of a modern sperm whale. Although ichthyosaurs and whales are separated by a few hundred million years, they have a lot in common. Both descend from lineages of animals that returned to the sea after stints on land. Both evolved giant bodies that made them the largest creatures in the seas when they lived. Both birthed live young. But it took whales 45 million years of living in the ocean to evolve their most giant body sizes. This new species of giant ichthyosaur appeared only 3 million years after the first ichthyosaurs took to the seas, ... More | | 
Hung Liu, "Imperial Pillar", 2011, Mixed media, Collection of Honolulu Museum of Art. (2021-07-01).
HONOLULU, HI.- The Honolulu Museum of Art has added three works by contemporary artist Hung Liu (American, born in China, 1948-2021) to its collection. Known for working from historical photographs, Liu drew from Chinas long history and her own experiences in order to represent people who had historically been invisible or marginalized. The three large-scale paintings "Temple School" (1996), "Reverie" (1998) and "Imperial Pillar" (2011) are strong examples of Lius signature, loose painting style, which allows for thin washes of linseed oil to drip down the surface of the canvas suggesting tears, or the passage of time and memory. "Temple School" (1996) features children sitting and studying at tables within a traditional Chinese temple school setting. As is typical with Lius portrait work, the children are depicted as individuals with distinct characteristics, who have taken a momentary break from studying to ... More |
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| From a Burger King to a concert hall, with help from Frank Gehry | | Overlooked no more: Frances B. Johnston, photographer who defied genteel norms | | Major American art reinstallation, "Borderlands," opens at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens | 
Students in a class at the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center in Inglewood, Calif. on Nov. 9, 2021. Rozette Rago/The New York Times.
by Adam Nagourney
INGLEWOOD, CALIF.- Noemi Guzman, a 17-year-old high school senior, usually has to find a corner someplace to practice violin the instrument she calls quite literally, the love of my life. But the other Saturday morning, Guzman joined a string ensemble practicing on a stage here that is nearly as grand and acoustically tuned as the place she dreams of performing one day: Walt Disney Concert Hall, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. This is beautiful, Guzman said during a break from a practice session at the Judith and Thomas L. Beckmen YOLA Center, her voice muffled by a mask. To have a space you can call your own. It is our space. It is created for us. Inglewood, a working-class city 3 miles from Los Angeles International Airport that was once plagued by crime and poverty, is in the midst of a high-profile, largely sports-driven economic transformation: The 70,000-seat SoFi Stadium, which opened here last year, now the home of the Rams and the Chargers, will b ... More | | 
A photo by Frances B. Johnston of George Washington Carver in 1906. Library of Congress via The New York Times.
by Richard B. Woodward
NEW YORK, NY.- Frances B. Johnston, one of the first women in the United States to enjoy a long and fruitful career as a professional photographer, had by all accounts so indelible a personality that it is hard to believe that she could ever have been forgotten. Undaunted by obstacles faced by others of her gender and happy to rattle the easily shocked, she demonstrated her character early on with an 1896 self-portrait titled The New Woman, in which she sits in profile beside a fireplace, her dress hiked up to reveal a ribbon of petticoat. In her right hand is a cigarette, in her left a beer stein. For an even brassier self-portrait, she assumed a head-to-toe male persona, complete with mustache and trousers. Johnston was a raconteur and a reliable drinking companion who traveled the country taking photographs across the social spectrum. She portrayed celebrities at the White House; reported from coal mines in West Virginia and from Mammoth Cave in ... More | | 
Borderlands. Exterior installation view of the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art at The Huntington. Photo: Joshua White / JWPictures.com. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
SAN MARINO, CA.- The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens opened Borderlands, a new permanent collections installation that explores a more expansive and contextualized view of American art history. Envisioning American art through the theme of borderlands, the exhibition debuts several new works and new acquisitions to the museums American art collection, including works by women, Native American, and Latinx artists. Borderlands opened Nov. 20, 2021, in a suite of rooms in the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art. The exhibition is a reinstallation of portions of The Huntingtons American art collection that date from the 19th through the early 20th century, including works by such renowned artists as Mary Cassatt, Frederic Edwin Church, Thomas Eakins, and Winslow Homer. New acquisitions on view include photographs by contemporary artists Mercedes Dorame and Cara Romero and a celebrat ... More |
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| Nationalmuseum publishes a new book about its collection of miniature paintings | | Original owner's copy of Superman's first flight soars past $1.5 million weeks before auction | | Virginia Museum of History & Culture to reopen in 2022 | 
Miniature Paintings in Nationalmuseum.
STOCKHOLM.- Nationalmuseum is publishing a new book about its collection of miniature paintings. The books author, Magnus Olausson, has been working with this collection for more than 30 years. This is the first comprehensive survey in Swedish of miniature painting as an art form, but also the first complete presentation in English of the museums collection. Nationalmuseum has the worlds biggest collection of miniature paintings, comprising 5,700 works, mainly portraits, by Swedish and European artists from the 16th to the mid 20th century. What makes this collection noteworthy is not only its volume, but also its depth and breadth. A lavishly illustrated book now being published in Swedish and English is intended to be a comprehensive survey of the history of miniature painting, featuring examples from Nationalmuseum. The book traces the development of miniature painting over five centuries from exclusive art form to the ... More | | 
Action Comics #1 Rocket Copy (DC, 1938) CGC FN 6.0 White pages.
DALLAS, TX.- Its the best copy of Action Comics No. 1 ever offered by Heritage Auctions and already the most valuable by far even with a few weeks to go before the live auction begins. Up, up and away, indeed. The worlds largest comics auctioneer will kick off 2022 by offering the Rocket Copy of Supermans 1938 first flight during its Jan. 13-16 Comics & Comic Art Signature® Auction. It bears this playful moniker because of the red spaceship stamped on its cover by its first and, so far, only owner, whose family kept the historic issue in an envelope meant to preserve important documents. And Zod knows this book is as consequential as it gets: Action Comics No. 1 is the palladium title of the Golden Age, the book in which Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster introduced readers to Clark Kent and Lois Lane and ushered in the Era of the Superhero. Certified Guarantee Company knows of only 77 copies of Action Comi ... More | | 
Grand re-opening after a once-in-a-generation renovation and programmatic overhaul, at a time when history matters more than ever.
RICHMOND, VA.- In May 2022 the Virginia Museum of History & Culture will re-open after the most extensive and transformative renovation in its nearly 200-year history. Renewed and reinvigorated, the VMHC will offer a dramatically expanded, welcoming and innovative museum experience for all visitors to engage with a shared past and the stories that connect Virginians and Americans. Through its nationally significant collection of more than 9 million objects, renowned research library, galleries and public programs, the VMHC is committed to serving and authentically reflecting all Virginians and demonstrating the centrality of Virginia to the narrative of the United States. Designed to engage, inform and inspire, the new museum recognizes that history is personal, and that the most effective way to communicate is to ensure that all visitors see themselves at the museum ... More |
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Albrecht Dürer's influence | National Gallery
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 'Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love' debuts to West Coast audiencesSAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco announced the West Coast debut of Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love, celebrating the remarkable career and legacy of Black fashion designer Patrick Kelly (19541990). The exhibition, organized by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, arrives at the de Young museum to spotlight almost 80 of Kellys sophisticated and light-hearted designs. These fully accessorized ensembles are presented alongside footage from his groundbreaking fashion shows, revealing a designers enduring message of loveone that boldly asserted Black empowerment and fearlessly pushed the bounds of fashion. "The de Young museum has always been committed to showcasing the world's finest fashion designers, and we could not be more delighted to present Patrick Kelly: Runway of Love to our audiences, said Thomas ... More  Dr. Renz's Herb Bitters bottle circa 868-1881 brings a record $24,150SACRAMENTO, CALIF.- A Dr. Renzs Herb Bitters bottle (San Francisco, circa 1868-1881), 9 ¾ inches tall, with a uniquely styled applied tapered top (one of maybe four known), light lime green in color, sold for $24,150 in the online-only sale #72 of Part 1 of the Mel Hammer bottle collection, which began December 10th and ended December 19th, by American Bottle Auctions. The Mel Hammer collection is an incredible hoard gathered over a 50-year span by a man who dedicated much of his adult life to the acquisition and study of antique glass. Part 1 featured many of Mr. Hammers favorites, such as schnapps and gin bottles, bitters bottles and inkwells, many boasting 9.5 grades. Part 2 will be held in March. Mr. Hammer died on Thanksgiving Day. The Dr. Renzs Herb Bitters was easily the top achiever in the 137-bottle auction and the price ... More  Kehrer Verlag publishes a coming of age book by Michal Solarski and Tomasz LiboskaNEW YORK, NY.- Cut It Short is a collaboration between photographers Michal Solarski and Tomasz Liboska. It is a visual reconstruction of their youth spent in a little town in Southern Poland. It is an autobiographical story about transition between boyhood and adulthood, about friendship, and the passing of time. The title Cut It Short refers to the old tradition in Slavic cultures called »Postrzyzyny«. Young boys have their hair cut in order for them to enter society, a »coming of age« of sorts. The custom is still being practiced in some circles as a kind of symbol of obeying the rules. From the text by Tomasz Liboska: We come from Goleszów, one of these places that are simply there on a map. Not a Nowheresville, but not a shadowy town of crooked streets and mysterious doings either. Anyway, its in Goleszów that we had our eclectic band of friends, our favourite haunts, ... More  Lucille Ball on the big screen, the small screen and offscreenNEW YORK, NY.- All of a sudden, heres Lucy. Small-screen icon Lucille Ball has reappeared on the big screen in two current releases: first in fictionalized form as the boisterous harridan Lucille Dolittle (Christine Ebersole) in Paul Thomas Andersons Licorice Pizza, then, more significantly, as her full-blown, no-nonsense, businesslike self, as portrayed by Nicole Kidman in the Aaron Sorkin biopic Being the Ricardos. When the Australian actress was announced for the role, the news prompted an internet backlash among fans and insiders. As the co-author of a book on Desilu Productions and a longtime Lucy aficionado, I shared their concern. It was a pleasant surprise, then, to see how deftly Kidman conveyed the nuances of the star offscreen challenging, direct, competent, professional and often humorless. What was lacking was her genuine, ... More  Second time capsule is found beneath pedestal of Lee statueNEW YORK, NY.- Crews removing the pedestal of a Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia, on Monday found what appeared to be an elusive time capsule that may contain rare Confederate memorabilia, including a photo of Abraham Lincoln in his coffin. The discovery stoked excitement among historians and officials, including Gov. Ralph Northam, who declared on Twitter: They found it! This is likely the time capsule everyone was looking for. Many people had been searching for the artifact. Last week, a separate time capsule was found near the base of the same statue and opened. The items inside that one, however, puzzled conservators, who theorized that one might have been left behind by the workers who built the statue. Inside was an 1875 almanac, a waterlogged book of fiction, a British coin, a catalog, one letter and a photograph ... More  What three Broadway shows tell us about racial progressNEW YORK, NY.- Now that Broadway has returned and made it through the fall, and as it deals with a raft of cancellations because of the resurgent pandemic, Ive been thinking a lot about the meaning of progress. Promoted, in large part, by the racial reckoning of 2020, the theater industry has responded to criticisms about its systemic racism by featuring an impressive number of plays by Black writers or with Black leads. In the last few weeks, Ive seen a handful of these shows: Trouble in Mind, Caroline, or Change and Clydes. Individually, their plots and period settings offer great insight into how far weve really come. But taken together, they reveal a full range of aesthetic and racial possibilities that exist for their African American characters once the white gaze is diminished or fully removed. My feelings largely align with the points Alice ... More  Donald H. Elliott, innovative urban planner, dies at 89NEW YORK, NY.- Donald H. Elliott, who as chairman of the City Planning Commission in the late 1960s and early 70s proposed a visionary master plan for New York, imposed innovative urban design standards for public and private projects, and enlisted local communities in government decision-making, died Thursday at his home in Brooklyn. He was 89. His death was confirmed by his son Drew. Elliott recruited a team of young progressive architects who were frustrated by decades of Robert Moses urban renewal by bulldozer diplomacy and by the citys bureaucratic embrace of drab, Stalinesque architecture for public works. In so doing, he indelibly altered the cityscape. He oversaw the establishment of special zoning districts that preserved midtown theaters, retailers on Fifth Avenue and the historic South Street Seaport from major development and ... More  Jonathan Spence, noted China scholar, dies at 85NEW YORK, NY.- Jonathan D. Spence, an eminent scholar of China and its vast history who in books like Gods Chinese Son: The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Hong Xiuquan (1996) and The Search for Modern China (1990) excavated that countrys past and illuminated its present, died Saturday at his home in West Haven, Connecticut. He was 85. His wife, Annping Chin, said the cause was complications of Parkinsons disease. Spence, who taught for more than 40 years at Yale University, where his lecture classes were always in great demand, found the big picture of Chinese history in small details. His books, deeply researched, probed individual lives and odd moments that were representative of larger cultural forces, wrapping it all together with vivid storytelling. This is a delicate spiders web of a book, deft, fascinating and precise ... More  Seoul Museum of Art presents an exhibition of works by sanghee songSEOUL.- Homo Natura is a solo exhibition of the media artist sanghee song (b. 1970). The exhibition presents six new works commissioned by the Seoul Museum of Art, along with a work that has not yet been shown in Korea. The artist embraces various forms of media and builds her own visual language that unfolds contradictions of modern society inside a delicate narrative structure. The artist collects and studies various forms of literature such as myths, media reports, and historical records, and visits sites where these past traces remain. Based on the research, she has carried out aesthetic experiments that fuse different genres such as music, drawing, and literature into video works. Each reference has been woven into horizontally dense creative narratives suggesting open endings, and they gradually expand into larger narratives throughout ... More  Palazzo delle Esposizioni presents the Sublimi Anatomie online platformROME.- The Sublimi Anatomie digital platform is now online, offering access to all the documentation relevant to the exhibition of the same name that ran at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in the autumn of 2019 and which explored the body in its many sensorial manifestations. Curated by Laura Perrone, the digital project stands as something altogether different and more dynamic than an exhibition catalogue. The platform is articulated through multiple hypertextual connections, stratified within the architecture of the site to form a polyphonic index of new texts, images and audio-visual material. Digitalisation of ancient and historical documents, together with analytical texts concerning contemporary artistic practices (with contributions by Natascha Burger, Luca Cerizza, Liv Cuniberti, Danilo Eccher, Helena Ferreira, Rudi Fuchs, Martin Herbert, Daniela Lancioni, ... More  Exhibition presents a dialogue between Monaco and AlexandriaMONACO.- Monaco-Alexandria presents itself as an emancipated exhibition from the spectrum of nationalist and Eurocentric art history. It is remarkable in this respect to depart from Monaco and its Nouveau Musée National to rethink North-South relations, in particular between key areas of Mediterranean Europe, including in its African and Eastern dimensions. In this perspective, the NMNM in collaboration with curators Morad Montazami and Madeleine de Colnet for Zamân Books & Curating and with the scientific advice of Francesca Rondinelli, aims to create a dialogue between Monaco and Alexandria, namely two world capitals with eloquent and yet little-known relations, woven in the heart of the 20th century, through transnational themes: ballets and (post)orientalist shows, southern surrealism, flora and fauna, feminist eroticism, urban development ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
New Galleries of Dutch and Flemish Art 
Cassi Namoda 
Anke Eilergerhard 
Jeffrey Smart
Flashback On a day like today, Mexican painter David Alfaro Siqueiros was born December 29, 1896. David Alfaro Siqueiros (born José de Jesús Alfaro Siqueiros, December 29, 1896, in Chihuahua - January 6, 1974, in Cuernavaca, Morelos) was a Mexican social realist painter, better known for his large murals in fresco. Along with Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, he established "Mexican Muralism." In this image: Unfinished 1940s mural painted by David Alfaro Siqueiros, in Escuela de Bellas Artes, a cultural center in San Miguel de Allende, Gto.
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