15th Art Forum Berlin Opens the Autumn Season of the European Art Shows

BERLIN.- From October 6 to 10, 2010, art forum berlin is taking place for the 15th time. Like in the previous year, the International Art Show in Berlin opens the autumn season of the European art shows. Out of more than 300 applications, the international Selection Committee, consisting of Bärbel Grässlin (Galerie Bärbel Grässlin, Frankfurt am Main), Mehdi Chouakri (Galerie Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin), José Freire (team gallery, New York), Georg Kargl (Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Vienna), Nicky Verber (Herald St, [...]

World Record: $32.4 million for a Qing Dynasty Vase

HONG KONG (REUTERS).- A Chinese Qing dynasty vase sold for HK$253 million (20.2 million pounds) in a Sotheby’s sale in Hong Kong on Thursday, a world record at auction for any Chinese porcelain. “This is definitely a milestone,” Nicolas Chow, the Deputy Chairman of Sotheby’s Asia told Reuters. “Chinese works of art took their place on the world auction stage today.” While segments of the Chinese art market cooled substantially during the financial crisis, especially once white-hot Chinese contemporary art, [...]

$250,000 First-Place Prize Goes to Grand Rapids , Michigan Artist Chris LaPorte

GRAND RAPIDS, MI.- The largest cash prize in an art competition, $250,000, was presented tonight to Chris LaPorte from Grand Rapids, Mich. for his work Cavalry, American Officers, 1921 during the ArtPrize winners’ announcement held in Grand Rapids, Mich. ArtPrize, which has no formal jury, curator or judge, asks the public to vote and decide the winners using the web and mobile devices. ArtPrize 2010 began Sept. 22 with 1,713 artists displaying their works at 192 venues in a three-square-mile [...]

Jerry Hall to Shed Her Art Collection Next Week at Sotheby’s

LONDON (AP).- Model Jerry Hall will auction some of her art collection next week, including a famous portrait by Lucian Freud that shows her nude when she was eight months pregnant. The auction will also include works by Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, David Bailey and other prominent artists collected by Hall, ex-wife of Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger. The works will be sold Oct. 15-16 as part of a larger contemporary art sale, Sotheby’s spokesman Simon Warren said. US model [...]

Important Works by Andy Warhol from the Shapazian Collection Go to the Huntington

SAN MARINO, CA.- A gift of important works by Andy Warhol will come to The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens from the estate of Los Angeles gallery director Robert Shapazian, who died earlier this year. One of the pieces is Small Crushed Campbell’s Soup Can (Beef Noodle), a painting made in 1962 as a unique, early variant of the famous series. Another is Brillo Box, constructed in 1964 at the time of the artist’s first sculpture exhibition; and [...]

Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Claims Painting is by Rembrandt Not His Pupil

ROTTERDAM.- We have just been informed that Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen has a new Rembrandt in the collection. According to the new standard work on the painter, the painting ‘Tobias and His Wife’ is not the work of a pupil of Rembrandt, but is by Rembrandt himself. From Thursday 7 October the painting will be exhibited for one month in the museum. The painting will be on view in the Old-Dutch staircase of the museum, between galleries 17 and 18 [...]

The Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish Painting from the Stadel Museum at the Guggenheim

BILBAO.- From October 7, 2010 to January 23, 2011, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao will present The Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish Painting from the Städel Museum, a splendid selection of masterpieces from the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, one of Europe’s most important institutions. The Museum owns a unique collection of seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings from the so-called Golden Age, the period of greatest Dutch hegemony. Installed in the galleries of the Museum’s third floor, and sponsored by Fundación [...]

Two Outstanding Beach Scenes by Sorolla are the Highlights of Sotheby’s 19th Century European Paintings Sale

LONDON.- Sotheby’s announced that the Spanish section of the 19th Century European Paintings sale on 23 November will be headed by two outstanding oil paintings by Joaquín Sorolla (1863-1923). Depicting children by the sea, both works were painted over the same summer of 1904 on Cabañal beach, Valencia, a favourite location of the painter. Both works featured in Sorolla’s first major international exhibition of his work at Galerie Georges Petit in Paris in 1906, and have remained in two private [...]

Record Number of Visitors this Summer for the United Kingdom’s National Museums

LONDON.- This summer saw a record number of visitors to the UK’s national museums. Over 5.7 million people visited UK national museums in August 2010. This represents an increase of 11% from August 2009. A total of 809,443 people visited the four branches of Tate in August, a 15% increase on last year. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor Highlights include: • A total of 809,443 people visited the four branches of Tate in August, a 15% increase on last year. • The Victoria [...]

Christie’s to Offer 69 Important Works of Art from the Collection of Robert Shapazian

NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announced the sale of The Collection of Robert Shapazian. Shapazian’s passion for the arts was reflected in his life-long dedication to the field, his friendships with those in it and his personal, yet masterful collection which Christie’s will offer in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening and Day Sales and other various auctions, beginning this fall. The Collection of Robert Shapazian includes 69 works of art including standout examples by Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamp and Roy [...]

Michelangelo’s Most Precious Drawings at Albertina in Vienna

VIENNA.- Between 8 October 2010 and 9 January 2011, the Albertina presents the first major Michelangelo exhibition in more than twenty years. This display of 120 out of the artist’s most precious drawings offers a comprehensive insight into the work of this great genius. The sheets come from the Albertina’s own holdings, as well as from important European and American museums – the Uffizi and the Casa Buonarroti in Florence, the Louvre in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in [...]

Sotheby’s Islamic Art Sales Series Achieves Record Sum of £25.3 ($40.3) Million

LONDON.- Sotheby’s Islamic Art Sales Series concluded this afternoon, realising an outstanding – above high estimate – total of £25,349,000 ($40,264,239) and a combined sell-through rate by lot of 64%. The total achieved represents a record sum for any Auction Series of Islamic Art ever staged. The exceptionally strong sum of £18,297,200 ($29,118,164) realised for today’s ‘Arts of the Islamic World Sale’, which was over £1 million above the high estimate for the sale, established the highest-ever total for a [...]

The Museo del Prado Exhibits Treasures from Its Library

MADRID.- The exhibition is organized into three sections. The first, Bibliotheca artis (Library of Art), is the most important, featuring major works from the European literature on art, starting with the great treatises of the Italian Renaissance. On display are first editions of the key texts on painting by Leon Battista Alberti (1547) and Leonardo da Vinci (1651), as well as the first systematic treatise on perspective by Daniele Barbaro, who is the subject of a portrait by Titian in [...]

Important Whistler and Old Master Prints at Swann Galleries’ Three-Part Print Auction

NEW YORK, NY.- On October 27 and 28 Swann Galleries will conduct a three-part print auction featuring material that is truly museum worthy. The sale begins on Wednesday, October 27 with more than 150 lots devoted to Whistler and His Influence, which offers rare and important etchings, drypoints and lithographs from the 1850s to the 1890s by the renowned printmaker. The auction continues the following day with Rare & Important Old Master Prints—one of the finest selections Swann has ever [...]

Tate Britain in London Shows Works by the Four Artists Competing for the Turner Prize

LONDON (AP).- The Tate Britain museum is to exhibit works being considered for this year’s Turner Prize. Four artists are competing for Britain’s best known contemporary art prize, which in the past has often been controversial. The exhibit will open Tuesday, with the winner to be announced at the museum in early December. The four artists on the shortlist include painter Dexter Dalwood, painter and sculptor Angela de la Cruz, sound artist Susan Philipsz, and the artist-led collective The Otolith [...]