| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net |   | Established in 1996 | Wednesday, February 19, 2020 |
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| | Pompeii restoration unearths 'surprise' treasures | |
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This photo taken on February 18, 2020 shows a restoration specialist working inside the House of Lovers at the Archaeological Site of Pompeii during the reopening of three "domus" and conclusion of safety work on the site. Alexandria SAGE / AFP.
by Alexandria Sage
POMPEII (AFP).- Vivid frescoes and never-before-seen inscriptions were among the treasures unearthed in a massive years-long restoration of the world-famous archeological site Pompeii that came to a close Tuesday. The painstaking project saw an army of workers reinforce walls, repair collapsing structures and excavate untouched areas of the sprawling site, Italy's second most visited tourist destination after Rome's Colosseum. New discoveries were made too, in areas of the ruins not yet explored by modern-day archaeologists at the site -- frequently pillaged for jewels and artefacts over the centuries. "When you excavate in Pompeii there are always surprises," the site's general director Massimo Osanna told reporters Tuesday. Archeologists discovered in October a vivid fresco depicting an armour-clad gladiator standing victorious as his wounded opponent gushes blood, painted in a tavern believed to have housed the fighters as well as prostitutes. ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Men stand atop the Kasbah (ancient fortress) of Ait-Ben-Haddou, where scenes depicting the fictional city of Yunkai from the hit HBO television series "Game of Thrones" were filmed, about 32 kilometres northwest of the city of Ouarzazate south of Morocco's High Atlas mountains on January 27, 2020. Millions worldwide may have seen the desert fortress in the hit fantasy series "Game of Thrones", but few know they can visit Morocco's kasbah Ait-Ben-Haddou -- where locals hope more fans might visit. The fortified city at the foot of the majestic Atlas mountains enchanted global audiences in the epic HBO series and also served as a dusty backdrop in Ridley Scott's swords-and-sandals epic "Gladiator". FADEL SENNA / AFP
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 | | Here lies the skull of Pliny the Elder, maybe | | 'Making the Renaissance Manuscript: Discoveries from Philadelphia Libraries' on view at Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center | | LACMA opens the first exhibition in the United States to showcase the work of Luchita Hurtado | 
Andrea Cionci, a historian and the leader of the Pliny Project, in the Museo Storico Nazionale DellArte Sanitaria in Rome. Lucilla Flo via The New York Times.
by Franz Lidz
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE ).- Pliny the Elders skull or more accurately, his alleged skull reposes in ghoulish splendor at the Museo Storico Nazionale DellArte Sanitaria in Rome, a treasure trove of medical curiosities. The cranium has ruminated for decades in a display case, amid pathological and anatomical anomalies such as malformed fetuses and pickled liver stones. Scholars have long debated whether the relic once housed the brain of Pliny, the renowned admiral and author of a vast encyclopedia of Roman knowledge who died during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Over the past few years a pool of Italian biologists, anthropologists and geochemists conducted a series of forensic tests on the skull and accompanying lower mandible, which were unearthed 120 years ago on a shore not far from Pompeii. On Jan. 23 the scientists presented their findings at a conference in the museum. The skull, they concluded, squared with what was ... More | | 
Leaf from a Book of Hours showing a Man in Prayer before the Virgin of Loreto. Parchment, 180 Ã 138 mm. France, ca. 152535; illuminator: Étienne Colaud. Private Collection, Philadelphia.
PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The University of Pennsylvania Libraries is presenting Making the Renaissance Manuscript: Discoveries from Philadelphia Libraries, on display in the Goldstein Family Gallery on the sixth floor of the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center from February 10 to May 19, 2020. Making the Renaissance Manuscript stems from the Bibliotheca Philadelphiensis (BiblioPhilly) project, the joint effort of fifteen regional libraries to digitize and make freely available 160,000 pages of European medieval and early modern codices. BiblioPhilly constitutes the largest regional online collection of medieval manuscripts in the United States, all available via Penns open-access database, OPenn. The exhibition includes loans from BiblioPhilly partners Bryn Mawr College, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the Free Library of Philadelphia, Lehigh University, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Temple University, and the Rosenbach Museum and Library, in addition to a book from La Salle ... More | | 
Luchita Hurtado, Untitled, c. 1951, crayon and ink, 24 à 18 in., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, gift of Janet Dreisen Rappaport through the 2019 Collectors Committee, © Luchita Hurtado, courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth, photo: Genevieve Hanson.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is presenting Luchita Hurtado: I Live I Die I Will Be Reborn, the first exhibition in the United States to showcase the remarkable eight-decade career of ninety-nine-year-old artist Luchita Hurtado (Venezuela, b. 1920). Prior to 2016, the breadth of Hurtados artistic practice was largely unknown, as her works were kept in storage and out of public view for most of her life. The exhibition traces Hurtados forays into abstraction, experiments with language, engagements with nature and ecology, and, most significantly, her persistent recourse to self-portraiture and the human figure. LACMAs presentation of Luchita Hurtado: I Live I Die I Will Be Reborn is curated by Jennifer King, Associate Curator of Contemporary Projects. The exhibition originated at the Serpentine Galleries (London), where it was curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Artistic Director, and Rebecca Lewin, Curator, Exhibiti ... More |
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| | Exhibition brings together 200 works by American and Mexican artists | | New galleries and star objects revealed for £13m transformation of V&A Museum of Childhood | | British Museum's world-class collection of French prints to go on show for first time in 40 years | 
David Alfaro Siqueiros. Zapata, 1931. Oil on canvas, 53 1/4 à 41 5/8 in. (135.2 à 105.7 cm). Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; gift of Joseph H. Hirshhorn, 1966 66.4605 © 2019 ARS/SOMAAP. Photo by Lee Stalsworth.
NEW YORK, NY.- The cultural renaissance that emerged in Mexico in 1920 at the end of that countrys revolution dramatically changed art not just in Mexico but also in the United States. Vida Americana: Mexican Muralists Remake American Art, 19251945 explores the profound influence Mexican artists had on the direction American art would take. With approximately 200 works by sixty American and Mexican artists, Vida Americana reorients art history, acknowledging the wide-ranging and profound influence of Mexicos three leading muralistsJosé Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, and David Alfaro Siqueiroson the style, subject matter, and ideology of art in the United States made between 1925 and 1945. Curated by Barbara Haskell, ... More | | 
Architectural render V&A Museum of Childhood, The Stage © AOC.
LONDON.- From Beatrix Potters idyllic illustrations of the world of Peter Rabbit, to the life-size West End War Horse puppet Joey, to designs by contemporary superstars Virgil Abloh and Olafur Eliasson, star exhibits and concepts are today revealed for a radical £13m reimagination of the V&A Museum of Childhood. A transformed free-to-access collection set within interactive and playful galleries, will see the beloved Bethnal Green museum reopen in 2022 as a world-leading centre of creativity for children. A three-day free RE-INVENT festival over the first May bank holiday, featuring live performances, a specially commissioned artist installation and drop-in events, will signal the new vision and celebrate the current museums final weekend before the doors close on 11 May 2020 to enable construction. An unforgettable first museum experience for children awaits in 2022. From objects displayed at a toddlers ... More | | 
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Divan Japonais, 1893. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
LONDON.- For the first time in over 40 years, the British Museum is to mount a major display of its collection of French prints, one of the best collections of its kind in the world. Nearly 80 important works by artists including Manet, Degas, Cézanne, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec will go on show in the exhibition French Impressions: Prints from Manet to Cézanne, which opens next week. Covering the last four decades of the 19th century, the exhibition provides an opportunity to view rarely seen artworks by some of Frances most famous artists. While the period from 1860 to 1900 in France produced some of the worlds most famous paintings, the extensive and hugely radical prints that were also created in these years are now little-known. Many of the celebrated artists from this time embraced printmaking alongside their painting, but this output has come to be overshadowed. This free exhibition will therefore be a ... More |
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| | Harvard Art Museums present 'Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection' | | Jim Morrison and The Doors star alongside Charlie Chaplin and a galaxy of Hollywood stars at Swann Auction Galleries | | Morocco fortress village hopes to draw 'Game of Thrones' fans | 
Maruyama Ōkyo, Peacock and Peonies, Japanese, Edo period, 1768. Hanging scroll; ink, color, and gold on silk. Promised gift of Robert S. and Betsy G. Feinberg, TL42147.17. Image: John Tsantes and Neil Greentree; © Robert Feinberg.
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.- The Harvard Art Museums present Painting Edo: Japanese Art from the Feinberg Collection, a special exhibition of more than 120 of the finest works from the preeminent collection of Robert S. (Harvard class of 1961) and Betsy G. Feinberg; the exhibition runs through July 26, 2020. Painting Edo offers a window onto the supremely rich visual culture of Japans early modern era and explores how the Edo period (16151868), and the city of Edo (present-day Tokyo), expressed itself during a time of artistic renaissance. A striking array of paintings in all the major formats will be on displayhanging scrolls, folding screens, sliding doors, fan paintings, and woodblock-printed books, among othersfrom virtually every stylistic lineage of the era, telling a comprehensive story of Edo painting on its own terms. Painting Edo, organized by the Harvard ... More | | 
An image from the Michael Montfort portfolio of The Doors on their 1968 European tour. The estimate for the group of nine photographs is $1,500 to $2,500. Image courtesy of Swann Auction Galleries.
NEW YORK, NY.- A series of photographs showing Jim Morrison and The Doors on their first European tour in 1968 is being offered in Swann Auction Galleries Classic & Contemporary Photographs auction in New York on February 25. Taken by Michael Montfort the German-born photo journalist known for his images of the band the group of nine photographs were taken in Frankfurt, following The Doors first foray outside the United States, starting with concerts in London followed by dates across Europe with Jefferson Airplane. Pictured at the height of their popularity, these photographs date to the beginning of Morrisons decline into alcoholism and drug use, with the tour culminating in him collapsing onstage during a show in Amsterdam. The estimate for the group of nine photographs is $1,500 to $2,500. The sale also includes a portfolio of ten photographs by George Hurrell of Hollywood ... More | | 
This picture taken on January 27, 2020 shows a view of the Kasbah (ancient fortress) of Ait-Ben-Haddou. FADEL SENNA / AFP.
by Ismail Bellaquali
AIT-BEN-HADDOU (AFP).- Millions worldwide may have seen the desert fortress in the hit fantasy series "Game of Thrones", but fewer know they can visit the Moroccan village of Ait-Ben-Haddou. The fortified old settlement at the foot of the majestic Atlas mountains enchanted audiences in the HBO series and also served as a dusty backdrop in Ridley Scott's epic swords-and-sandals film "Gladiator". But unlike other famous locations from movie and television history, this UNESCO World Heritage Site has so far missed out on a mass influx of tourism -- something some of its inhabitants are eager to change. "Several people have told me that they came here to see the filming location of 'Game of Thrones'," said Ahmed Baabouz, a local tour guide. "There is tourism linked to cinema here but frankly we have not developed it to the extent it could be." Ait-Ben-Haddou ... More |
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| | Rare images from Shackleton's expedition offered at Bonhams Travel and Exploration sale | | Morphy's Mar. 10-11 auction boasts fine toys, exquisite automata, comic character rarities | | Pirelli HangarBicocca opens an exhibition of works by Trisha Baga | 
Frank Hurley, Photographs of Scenes and Incidents in Connection with the Happenings to the Weddell Sea Party, 1914, 1915, 1916, [1917]. Photo: Bonhams.
LONDON.- Sir Ernest Shackletons Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917 is remembered for one of the great feats of human daring and valour. Attempting to sail across the Weddell Sea, the expedition ship Endurance became trapped in pack ice, eventually disintegrating in October 1915. The dramatic escape of the crew is the stuff of legend. The expeditions official photographer, Australian Frank Hurley, captured life on board the stricken vessel and the ships final hours. A newly discovered rare presentation album of Hurleys Photographs of Scenes and Incidents in Connection with the Happenings to the Weddell Sea Party is offered at Bonhams Travel and Exploration Sale in London on Wednesday 26 February. Consigned by a private owner in the UK, it is estimated at £30,000-40,000. Frank Hurley joined the Shackleton expedition as the official photographer in 1914, having ... More | | 
Extremely rare tin-litho wind-up 5-finger Mickey Mouse toy with moving pie-eyes, open/close mouth. Made in Germany for the English market, probably by Saalheimer & Strauss. Ex Jeff Landes collection. Estimate $20,000-$40,000.
DENVER, PA.- Pristine toys from some of the worlds finest collections will cross the auction block at Morphys on March 10-11. More than 1,260 lots will be offered, including 150+ American tin toys, 100+ still and mechanical banks, a fleet of more than 150 cast-iron cars, trains, and hundreds of coveted character and Disney toys. The lineup continues with more than 1,000 fine German tin toys, as well as robots, a sensational array of antique European automata, and a broad selection of horse-drawn cast-iron, Japanese, and pressed steel toys. Two exceptional, long-held toy collections are featured: the Dr Jeff Landes collection and the Gordon B. Lankton collection. Jeff Landes began collecting toys in 1975 during his surgical residency in Philadelphia. His first acquisition an impulse buy made while on vacation ... More | | 
Trisha Baga, Madonna y el Niño, 2010. Installation view at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan, 2020. Courtesy the artist and Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan. Photo: Agostino Osio.
MILAN.- Pirelli HangarBicocca presents Trisha Bagas solo exhibition the eye, the eye and the ear, running from 20 February to 19 July 2020 and comprising of video installations and ceramic sculptures, which form a sequence of unusual and thought provoking narratives: from science-fiction and the pop star Madonna to ancient myths and digital devices such as Alexa Echo Dot. Trisha Baga, an American of Filipino origin, is one of the most innovative artists and video-makers of her generation, combining different languages and other media, drawing from television and film imagery along with home movies. She grapples with such themes as gender identity, relations between the real and the digital world as well as technological evolution, in order to disclose a different perspective of our contemporary imagination. the eye, the eye and the ear, curated by Lucia Aspesi and Fiammetta ... More |
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Georgia O'Keeffe's Century of American Art
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 Monica Obniski appointed Curator of Decorative Arts and Design at High Museum of ArtATLANTA, GA.- The High Museum of Art today announced the appointment of Monica Obniski as its curator of decorative arts and design. Obniski currently serves as the Demmer curator of 20th- and 21st-century design at the Milwaukee Art Museum. She will join the High on March 16, 2020. Obniski will oversee the decorative arts and design department, including related exhibitions and programs, as well as its collection of more than 2,300 objects dating from the 17th century to the present. These holdings include significant international contemporary design with works by Joris Laarman Lab, Jaime Hayon, Ron Arad and nendo, as well as the renowned Virginia Carroll Crawford Collection the most comprehensive survey of 19th- and early 20th-century American decorative arts in the southeastern United States. Other significant works are represented ... More BOZAR opens an exhibition of works by the artist duo Jos de Gruyter and Harald ThysBRUSSELS.- Following the Venice Biennale, this spring BOZAR welcomes the much-acclaimed exhibition by the artist duo Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys. After passing through a steel fence the visitor finds himself in a closed world, a kind of underworld inhabited by 22 dolls. About ten of them are automated and make repetitive movements. The others, immobile, gaze into the distance. They are all mute, ashen-faced and locked into a kind of immutable trance. Condemned to an eternal monotonous existence from which there is no escape; though it is hard to imagine that any such desire exists within these creatures. On the walls, by way of distraction, a number of coloured line drawings hang as if a vague reflection of a surface world. Prints of humorous and disturbing scenes alternate with idyllic representations of bygone times. The exhibition ... More Solo exhibition by Sharif Waked opens at Center for Contemporary Art Tel AvivTEL AVIV.- CCA Center for Contemporary Art Tel Aviv opened Balagan, a solo exhibition by Sharif Waked (*1964, Nazareth; lives and works in Nazareth and Santa Barbara, California). Balagan means chaos, disarray, and confusion. The word is originally Persian balachan [بالاخان] and traveled across borders to other languages such as Russian, Yiddish, Lithuanian and Hebrew. Through sustained reflection on aesthetics and politics, Sharif Waked has consistently pierced the absurdities of reality with playful and estranged encounters between various temporalities, cultural-historical products, and political events. Following the artists unique modus operandi, the exhibition features existing and recent pieces, linking different bodies of Wakeds work over time. In the floor installation Crop Marks (2016), Wakeds self-portrait in an orange suit, ... More Bergen Assembly announces Ingrid Haug Erstad as new directorBERGEN.- The Executive Board of Bergenstriennalen AS announced that Ingrid Haug Erstad has been appointed General Manager and Director of Bergen Assembly. Erstad has acted as interim director since the fall of 2018 and asserted herself a strong contender for the position - a six-year fixed term appointment. Erstad holds a Masters degree from the University of Bergen and is educated as an art historian and curator. She started her career at Bergen Kunsthall and later moved to Berlin. From there, she has acquired broad experience and knowledge of the international art field, with projects in Europe and the US. In fall 2018, she took charge of Bergen Assembly in the run-up to its third edition, titled Actually, the Dead Are Not Dead (2019). I am delighted that we will get Ingrid in on a permanent basis and have high expectations for Bergen Assembly ... More Swann Auction Galleries to offer catalogue of Diana letters NEW YORK, NY.- Princess Diana was stunned when her dresses made $2 million at auction shortly before her death in 1997. Now a group of letters she wrote in preparation for the sale and detailing her reaction to its success, as well as a signed catalogue from the auction itself, are set to take around $20,000 at Swann Auction Galleries this week. It transpires that it was the then 14-year-old Prince Williams idea for the Princess to sell a selection of her dresses at auction to raise money for childrens and AIDS charities. The first of the letters, written to her friend, the Harpers Bazaar editor Liz Tilberis, is dated 15th October 1996. In it she writes: I am so thrilled that you've invited me to New York for the evening of December 9th [Costume Institute Gala] . . . . It goes without saying how enormously proud I am of you . . . [O]f course, I will be by your side ... More Summers Place Auctions' first auction of the decade opens with a mix of decorative piecesBILLINGSHURST.- Summers Place Auctions starts the decade with an auction with the variety clients are now expecting from the auction house. The sale will have a 13th century window and contemporary friezes from Camden Market displayed next to fossils and minerals, rockets and contemporary sculpture. The live auction will take place at the Sussex auction house on Tuesday, 24th March and the sealed bid auction finishes on Wednesday, 25th March 2020. The Camden bronze friezes come in four lots and bids can be left for all four or individual lots. They were all made in the late 20th century for the world-famous Camden Lock Market, one of London's most visited tourist attractions, but originally a horse hospital and warehouses close to Regent's Canal. The first lot comprising seven panels, over one metre high and almost 10 metres long, is estimate ... More Commissioned artists announced by Park Avenue Armory for 100 Years │ 100 Women InitiativeNEW YORK, NY.- At its fourth annual Culture in a Changing America symposium on Saturday, Park Avenue Armory, together with lead partner National Black Theatre and nine additional New York City-based cultural institutions, announced the lead group of artists they commissioned as part of the 100 Years | 100 Women initiative. In addition to the Armory and National Black Theatre, the commissioning institutions are : Apollo Theater; The Julliard School; La MaMa Experimental Theatre Company; The Laundromat Project; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of the Moving Image; National Sawdust; New York University (Department of Photography and Imaging, Tisch School of the Arts; Office of Global Inclusion, Diversity and Strategic Innovation; and Institute of African American Affairs & Center for Black Visual Culture); and Urban Bush Women. ... More 100 years of African-American art based on storytelling on view at Kunsthal KAdEAMERSFOORT.- Visitors can explore the visual richness of black culture in Kunsthal KAdE through the works of 50 African American artists. Around 140 works - mainly on loan from the United States - are being exhibited in Amersfoort. Most of the participating artists have never been exhibited in the Netherlands before. Meet the figureheads of African American art and learn about their unique stories. The exhibition is being curated by guest curator Rob Perrée: Black American artists are creating beautiful, profound art and have a great deal to say. They want their voices to be heard, which has not really been possible in the Netherlands until now. This exhibition offers a unique opportunity to find out what we've been missing out on. Tell Me Your Story starts with the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem in the 1920s saw a flurry of activity by ... More bitforms gallery opens a collaborative exhibition by Sarah Rothberg and Marina ZurkowNEW YORK, NY.- Wet Logic, a collaborative exhibition by Sarah Rothberg and Marina Zurkow, presents a model of the world organized according to a wet, oceanic ideology rather than a dry, land-based paradigm. This is a world that manifests the circuitous nature of time, the enmeshment of humans to the planet, and the shifting boundaries of earthly spaces. Rothberg and Zurkow present a series of systems that further human connection to oceans by way of action and imagination. Accretions is a series of silkscreens on repurposed packaging cardboard. Zurkow describes these works as masses of consumer goods: the result of what is bought, shipped globally, and discarded over time. Accretions relate the artists generative animations from her series MORE&MORE, which depict the international exchange of goods via ocean freight. Water ... More Puerto Rican poster archive leads sale at SwannNEW YORK, NY.- Swann Galleries sale of Vintage Posters on Thursday, February 13 was the houses most successful February poster offering in over 10 years. A collection of over 350 Puerto Rican posters, showcasing the best of the islands graphic artists and designers, led the sale at $37,500. Amassed by a studio assistant of Rafael Trufiño, Lorenzo Homar and José Rosa, the archive was one of the most items in the sale, representing almost half a centurys worth of graphic design from Puerto Rico and garnering more interest than any other item in the sale, noted Nicholas D. Lowry, the houses president and director of vintage posters. Nine Mucha designs earned spots in the top 20 lots. Highlights included The Flowers, a group of three decorative panels, 1898, which earned $18,200; Cycles Perfecta, 1897, saw $13,750; and Lance ... More Lunds konsthall opens Sammy Baloji's 'Other Tales'LUND.- Other Tales is Sammy Balojis first solo exhibition in both Sweden and Denmark, curated by Matteo Lucchetti. It offers an opportunity to introduce, through Balojis oeuvre, a larger conversation on the continuous colonial gestures and actions that tie the West to African territories, specifically the Congo. While presenting an overview of Balojis most recent productions, the exhibition also offers a broad insight into his investigative methodology. He uses photography, installation, film-making and sculptural forms to repurpose archival materials and museum narrativesagainst the backdrop of past and current international exploitation of human and mineral resources in his country of origin, now identified as the Democratic Republic of Congo. The exhibition focuses on the unearthing of "other" talesoverlooked, suppressed, forgottenabout the Democratic ... More De Pont opens an exhibition by the Belgian artist Marijke de RooverTILBURG.- Captivating, incisive, ironic, honest, camp and vocally flawless. This is how a musical performance by the Belgian artist Marijke de Roover (1990) could be characterized. At the HISK (Hoger Instituut voor Schone Kunsten) in Ghent, she has developed her own distinct variety of performance and video art in recent years. De Roovers works are musical bricolages: constructions in which the artist allows elements having very diverse origins to interact with each other and thus cause the material, in its new context, to assume unexpected connotations. She makes free use of opera, musicals, Disney productions, romcoms and karaoke and relies on feminist/queer theory as well. In early October 2019, during Frieze Week in London, Marijke de Roovers animated performance Live, Laugh, Limerence had its debut at an evening organized by the ... More |
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Flashback On a day like today, Romanian-French artist Constantin Brâncuși was born February 19, 1876. Constantin Brâncuși (February 19, 1876 - March 16, 1957) was a Romanian sculptor, painter and photographer who made his career in France. Considered a pioneer of modernism, one of the most influential sculptors of the 20th-century, In this image: The 1911 gilded bronze sculpture "Prometheus" by Constantin Brancusi is displayed during a preview of "Brancusi Serra" at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao October 7, 2011. Curator Oliver Wick described the third element of the interaction between the two sculptors as Frank Gehry, architect of the museum.
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