Poland’s culture minister Bogdan Zdrojewski seeks return of art seized by Soviet Russia in 1945

WARSAW (AFP).- Poland’s culture minister said Wednesday that Russia has yet to return several paintings seized by the Soviet Red Army at the end of World War II, including one by Flemish artist Brueghel. “Of 31 official restitution requests by Poland, 18 concern works located in Russia,” Culture Minister Bogdan Zdrojewski told reporters. Most are paintings, including some several centuries old, such as works by the Baroque-era Jan Brueghel the Elder and German Renaissance painter Lucas Cranach the Elder. The landscape by [...]

Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York to return two Khmer sculptures to Cambodia

NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York announced today that it will return to the Kingdom of Cambodia two 10th-century Koh Ker stone statues of “Kneeling Attendants”—donated in separate stages to the Museum in the late 1980s and early 1990s—and on public display in its Asian Wing for nearly 20 years. The Met recently came into possession of new documentary research that was not available to the Museum when the objects were acquired. The decision follows a recent [...]

French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault to return relics bought at Christie’s to China

BEIJING (AFP).- French billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault will return two rare Chinese relics whose auction in 2009 outraged Beijing, his company said on Friday during a visit to China by France’s president. China has vehemently protested the sale of artefacts it says were stolen in the 19th century when European powers began encroaching on its territory, and has successfully pressured for some sales to be cancelled. The two bronze fountainheads owned by Pinault were taken along with many other relics in 1860, when [...]

Britain’s Tate Gallery pulls naked girl prints by ‘paedophile’ artist Graham Ovenden

LONDON (AFP).- Britain’s prestigious Tate Gallery on Thursday removed dozens of images from its website, some showing naked young girls, after their creator, renowned artist Graham Ovenden, was convicted of child sexual offences. Ovenden, 70, was convicted on Tuesday of six charges of indecency with a child and one count of indecent assault. Paintings and photographs by the artist, often depicting nude girls, have been displayed in galleries all over the world. A Tate spokeswoman said the gallery was reviewing its policy [...]

Jewish art critic’s heir settles on painting by Joachim Ringelnatz lost in Nazi era

NEUSS (BLOOMBERG).- A museum in the German city of Neuss reached a settlement with the heir of a Jewish art critic forced to flee Nazi-era Berlin, ending a dispute over a painting by Joachim Ringelnatz that was lost due to persecution. The Clemens Sels Museum agreed to pay 7,000 euros ($9,000) to keep the 1925 painting “Dachgarten der Irrsinnigen” (Roof Garden for the Insane), an e-mail sent by the German Culture Ministry said. The painting belonged to Paul Westheim, the editor of [...]

Jose Clemente Orozco mural at Dartmouth one of 13 new National Historic Landmarks

HANOVER, NH.- The Orozco mural cycle, one of Dartmouth’s greatest treasures, has been designated a national historic landmark, one of 13 new landmarks announced March 11, 2013, by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. Jose Clemente Orozco’s The Epic of American Civilization, created between 1932 and 1934 while Orozco was in-residence at Dartmouth, challenged traditional thinking about the development of Aztec and Anglo-American civilizations in North America. The renowned Mexican muralist conceived the [...]

‘The Hoff’ sings to save the Berlin Wall

BERLIN (AFP).- US singer and actor David Hasselhoff returned Sunday to the city where he symbolically sang for freedom in front of half a million people after the fall of the detested Berlin Wall in 1989. But this time the “Baywatch” and “Knightrider” star was in the German capital to lend star power backing to protesters of plans to remove part of the Wall’s longest surviving stretch. “I’ve come to lend my support because I believe this is a piece of history,” [...]

Norwegian Government to finance new $278 million Edvard Munch Museum in Oslo

OSLO (AFP).- Norway’s government said Wednesday it would help finance a new Munch Museum in Oslo in a bid to put an end to a long political squabble that has paralysed the project. “The state will help establish a new Munch Museum, both in terms of finances and organisation,” Culture Minister Hadia Tajik told Norwegian television news channel TV2 Nyhetskanalen. But she said Oslo’s city council would have to make a formal request for the support. The city has been struggling for [...]

World Monuments Fund announces major grant from the U.S. Department of State for work in Ayutthaya, Thailand

NEW YORK, NY.- World Monuments Fund President Bonnie Burnham announced today receipt of a grant of $131,800 from the United States State Department’s Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation and the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok for work at Wat Chaiwatthanaram, a Buddhist temple in the historic city of Ayutthaya, Thailand. Ms. Burnham stated: “Support from the State Department’s Ambassadors Fund will assist the Thai Department of Fine Arts with continuing efforts to protect the site in light of increasingly severe flooding in the [...]

Brazil to give $25 monthly culture stipend to workers to go to movies, read books or visit museums

BRASILIA (AFP).- Despite the economic crisis, Brazil announced Thursday it planned to give workers here a 50-real ($25) monthly stipend for cultural expenses like movies, books or museums. “In all developed countries, culture plays a key role in the economy,” Culture Minister Marta Suplicy said in an interview on national television. She recalled that popular former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva created “Bolsa Familia” (Family Grant), the program of conditional cash transfers to the poor which his successor, President Dilma [...]

Slovakia’s steel hub Kosice dusts off its creative side for “European Capital of Culture” tag

KOSICE (AFP).- Known mainly for its steelworks, the gritty industrial hub of Kosice in east Slovakia is hard at work reforging itself as a centre of creativity and the arts as it enters 2013 with the tag “European Capital of Culture”. A two-day gala blastoff featuring fireworks and gigs by international and local artists this weekend launches a year of metamorphosis with an unprecedented flurry of festivals and events to showcase Slovak film, literature and music. “We want to transform Kosice [...]

Chinese painter Liu Yi portrays Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest repressive Chinese rule

BEIJING (AP).- Beijing-based artist Liu Yi is working on a series of black-and-white portraits he knows will never be shown in a Chinese gallery. His varied subjects — men and women, young and old, smiling and pensive — have one thing in common: They are Tibetans who have set themselves on fire to protest repressive Chinese rule. Liu wants to paint a portrait of each of the hundred-or-so Tibetans who have self-immolated over the past three years, as a way of [...]

Egypt ex-culture minister Faruq Hosni cleared of corruption and abuse of power charges

CAIRO (AFP).- Faruq Hosni, who was Egypt’s culture minister for more than two decades under ousted president Hosni Mubarak, was cleared on Saturday of corruption charges, a judicial source said. A criminal court in the Giza suburb of Cairo “found Faruq Hosni not guilty on charges of corruption and illegal enrichment,” the source said. In September, state media reported that he had been accused of illegally acquiring 18 million Egyptian pounds (nearly $3 million). Hosni was also accused of “abuse of [...]

Andy Warhol’s Mao portraits excluded from the Beijing and Shanghai shows next year

BEIJING (AFP).- Andy Warhol’s famous portraits of Mao Zedong will be excluded in a major show of his work in China, organisers said Wednesday, although they stopped short of saying they had been censored. The exhibition to mark the 25th anniversary of the American artist’s death, which is currently touring Asia, features more than 300 of his works including 10 acrylic and silkscreen portraits of the former Chinese leader. But the US-based Andy Warhol Museum which is organising the tour said [...]

Turkey’s Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay wants talks with France on ‘stolen’ antiques

PARIS (AFP).- Turkey wants to start a “dialogue” with French authorities for the return of tiles and other antiquities on display at the Louvre museum in Paris, Culture Minister Ertugrul Gunay said Thursday. Saying the artefacts “were stolen at the end of the 19th century”, Gunay said: “We want talks to start between French authorities and the board controlling Turkish museums to work on the issue and take stock. “The theft had nothing to do with the Louvre or with a [...]