Sunday, April 17th, 2016

Cleveland Museum of Art receives $10 million gift enabling museum to build on mission and core principles

March 4, 2014 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Cleveland Museum of Art receives $10 million gift enabling museum to build on mission and core principles

CLEVELAND, OH.- The Cleveland Museum of Art announces a $10 million gift by an anonymous donor that will further strengthen the hallmarks of the museum’s guiding vision: scholarship, artistic excellence and community engagement. These three pillars reinforce the museum’s regional and international reputation and serve as a bridge to both the neighborhood and global communities. The generous gift has enabled the museum to establish two endowments, one to support community engagement activities and the other for interpretation of the collection. The final [...]

Provenance researchers in Munich continue the work of the Monuments Men

February 25, 2014 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Provenance researchers in Munich continue the work of the Monuments Men

MUNICH.- The Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen are pursuing their duty to examine their holdings according to the standards and recommendations defined in the common declaration and the Washington Principles (drawn up at the Washington Conference on Holocaust-Era Assets with regard to works of art confiscated by the Nazis). An unconventional special unit of the US Army, a team of scholars and art experts, moved across war-torn Europe 70 years ago – the ‘Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives ’ department, famous from Robert M. [...]

Physicists at the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics resolve the enigma of a painting by “Léger”

February 13, 2014 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Physicists at the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics resolve the enigma of a painting by “Léger”

VENICE.- In the early 1970s the authenticity of a painting that had been acquired by the American collector Peggy Guggenheim as by Fernand Léger was made questionable when a friend, Douglas Cooper, an expert on Léger, expressed his doubts. It is now a certainty that the painting is a fake thanks to a team from the Italian Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), who analysed the canvas using carbon 14 dating. After decades in which scholars, connoisseurs and experts had failed to [...]

Getty Publications launches virtual library, providing free online access to hundreds of backlist titles

January 22, 2014 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Getty Publications launches virtual library, providing free online access to hundreds of backlist titles

LOS ANGELES, CA.- Getty Publications today launched a Virtual Library, providing free online access to more than 250 of its backlist titles. The books are available to read online or download as PDFs. Getty President and CEO James Cuno launched the Virtual Library in a blog post on the Getty Iris today. “Last year we made freely available thousands of images of works in our collections that were in the public domain or to which we held all the rights,” said Cuno. [...]

Detroit Institute of Arts discovers rare painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo at Meadow Brook Hall

November 14, 2013 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Detroit Institute of Arts discovers rare painting by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo at Meadow Brook Hall

DETROIT, MI.- A chance visit to Meadow Brook Hall by a curator from the Detroit Institute of Arts has led to the rediscovery of a significant work by a 17th-century Spanish artist and a unique learning opportunity for Oakland University (OU) art students. Salvador Salort-Pons, DIA executive director of Collection Strategies and Information, and curator of European paintings, was at Meadow Brook Hall in February presenting a lecture when a painting in a dark corner of the room caught his eye; it turned [...]

Eli Wilner discusses the importance of frames and proper techniques necessary for frame restoration

November 5, 2013 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Eli Wilner discusses the importance of frames and proper techniques necessary for frame restoration

NEW YORK, NY.- There are many aspects to the management of an art collection. One area of considerable importance is the role that frames play in the preservation and display of an artwork. Frames themselves can be very valuable so it is of key importance that collectors seek those with the skills and information necessary to make informed decisions. Two key components discussed here are the value of frames on artworks and the proper techniques necessary to preserve both the art [...]

Documentary profile of the acclaimed Russian artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov to premiere at Film Forum

October 16, 2013 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Documentary profile of the acclaimed Russian artists Ilya and Emilia Kabakov to premiere at Film Forum

NEW YORK, NY.- Film Forum will present the theatrical premiere of Ilya and Emilia Kabakov: Enter Here, a new documentary by the creators of Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, The Mistress and The Tangerine. Director Amei Wallach and editor/cinematographer Ken Kobland collaborate with Saint Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum to explore the fascinating lives and work of the Kabakovs, a husband-and-wife team who are Russia’s most acclaimed visual artists. Born in 1933 in the Ukraine — to a Jewish family during the famine artificially created [...]

Flemish masterpiece ‘The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb’ under the microscope

October 15, 2013 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Flemish masterpiece ‘The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb’ under the microscope

GHENT (AFP).- Split, stolen, even stashed in a salt mine, one of the world’s most mythical oils, Flemish masterpiece “The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb”, is undergoing its most ambitious clean-up in 600 years. By Flemish primitive masters Hubert and Jan Van Eyck — though Hubert remains something of a mystery — the 24-panel work is also known as the Ghent Altarpiece or Lamb of God, and features the first known nudes in Flemish art, Adam and Eve. Its unusually eventful past [...]

Hidden sea discovered in portrait reveals Walter Ralegh’s secret desire for Elizabeth I

October 10, 2013 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Hidden sea discovered in portrait reveals Walter Ralegh’s secret desire for Elizabeth I

LONDON.- Conservators at the National Portrait Gallery have uncovered a small painted passage of wavy blue water in a portrait of Sir Walter Ralegh which reveals the depth of the explorer’s devotion to Queen Elizabeth I. The discovery was made during the making of the Gallery’s forthcoming exhibition Elizabeth I & Her People (10 October 2013 – 5 January 2014), supported by The Weiss Gallery, which opens tomorrow. Found at the top left-hand corner of the painting, the sea can be made out [...]

New multi-touch app from Van Gogh Museum turns painter’s fans into art detectives

October 4, 2013 by  
Filed under Education & Research

New multi-touch app from Van Gogh Museum turns painter’s fans into art detectives

THE HAGUE (AFP).- Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum on Thursday launched a new app for tablets allowing users to turn “art detective” when looking at the Dutch master’s paintings. The “Touch Van Gogh” app for Android and iPad tablets allows users to explore the secrets behind some of Van Gogh’s best works including “The bedroom”, “View from Theo’s apartment” and “Daubigny’s garden.” “The app… uses multi-touch features that make it easy and entertaining to explore the information concealed in and under the paint,” [...]

Marc Labarbe discovers a rare painting from the sixteenth century

October 3, 2013 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Marc Labarbe discovers a rare painting from the sixteenth century

TOULOUSE.- Holding the record for the highest auction realized in France for many years (sale of an imperial Chinese painting over 22 million euros in March 2011), Marc Labarbe, just makes another discovery that will be auctioned on December 3d in Toulouse and should this time be of interest to U.S. institutions. It is an exceptional painting from the mid-16th century depicting “Outina Chief Timucua” attributed to Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (1533-1588), draftsman and cartographer of King Charles IX of [...]

Remarkable wall painting by Pre-Raphaelite artists is uncovered at home of William Morris

August 20, 2013 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Remarkable wall painting by Pre-Raphaelite artists is uncovered at home of William Morris

KENT.- For years, two figures painted on a wall and concealed behind a cupboard at the former home of William Morris were believed to have been the work of a single artist. Now, major conservation work has uncovered an entire wall painting which experts believe is by William Morris and friends, all of whom were important Pre-Raphaelite artists. Red House in Kent, owned by the National Trust, was the home of Morris between 1860 and 1865. Regular visitors were Pre-Raphaelite artists Dante [...]

Partnership offers art imaging and conservation research opportunities with new laser system

August 8, 2013 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Partnership offers art imaging and conservation research opportunities with new laser system

RALEIGH, NC.- The North Carolina Museum of Art announces a collaboration with Duke University’s Center for Molecular and Biomolecular Imaging (CMBI) that brings new technological advances to the Museum’s Art Conservation Department. The partnership between NCMA conservators and Duke scientists offers art research opportunities with the use of two lasers: a new nondestructive pump-probe laser and an Erbium:YAG (Er:YAG) laser cleaning tool. “This collaboration with Duke dovetails perfectly with the Museum’s initiative to share resources with local universities, bolstered by a research [...]

Groundbreaking new Danish research shows masterpieces at risk from preservation technique

August 5, 2013 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Groundbreaking new Danish research shows masterpieces at risk from preservation technique

COPENHAGEN.- Groundbreaking new Danish research shows that a frequently used preservation method may damage oil paintings – including some of the world’s great masterpieces. If an oil painting treated with the frequently used wax-resin lining is exposed to relative humidity above 60 per cent, there is a serious risk that it will shrink – and the paint will be compressed. A thesis defended this week at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Conservation shows that a method used [...]

Dallas Museum of Art discovers a new attribution in its Reves Collection: Giovanni Bonazza’s Reclining Nymph

July 27, 2013 by  
Filed under Education & Research

Dallas Museum of Art discovers a new attribution in its Reves Collection: Giovanni Bonazza’s Reclining Nymph

DALLAS, TX.- The Dallas Museum of Art announced the reattribution of a Baroque sculpture to the artist Giovanni Bonazza, a prominent Italian sculptor active in Padua in the 17th and 18th centuries. The work of art has been in the Museum’s collection for nearly thirty years, entering in 1985 as part of the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection. When the DMA acquired the Reclining Nymph, it was considered to be by the hand of Alessandro Algardi (1598–1654), an Italian sculptor who was [...]