Art News Archive
Clark Art Institute Acquires Great Barbizon School Painting by Rousseau
November 24, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Art Events & Exhibitions, Featured
WILLIAMSTOWN, MA.- The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute has announced the acquisition of a major nineteenth-century landscape painting by Pierre Étienne Théodore Rousseau. The acquisition brings to the public one of the greatest Barbizon School paintings, Farm in the Landes (House of the Garde), which until now has been held in private collections and has not been widely exhibited since 1946. “The painting is a moving testament to Rousseau’s abiding love for rural life and unadorned nature,” said Richard Rand, senior curator at the Clark.... [Full Article]
Sotheby’s Sale of American Paintings to be Held in December
November 24, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Art Market, Featured
NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s auction of American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture on 3 December 2009 will offer collectors a rich array of works by American artists from the 19th and 20th centuries. The auction includes a number of major paintings and sculptures almost entirely unknown to the market, many of which have been in private collections for the last several decades. Works from the sale will be exhibited at Sotheby’s New York galleries beginning November 28. Marsden Hartley (1877 - 1943), "Mountains No. 22", 1930. Oil on canvas, 30 x 36 inches... [Full Article]
Google Chief Eric Schmidt Announces Documentation of Iraqi Museum Treasures
November 24, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Arts Policy, Featured
BAGHDAD (AP).- Google is documenting Iraq’s national museum and will post photographs of its ancient treasures on the Internet early next year, Google chief Eric Schmidt announced Tuesday. The museum was ransacked in the chaotic aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s ouster in April 2003, and only reopened to visitors early this year. Schmidt, who toured the museum with U.S. Ambassador Christopher Hill on Tuesday, said it was important for the world to see Iraq’s rich heritage and contribution to world culture. “The history of the beginning of — literally... [Full Article]
Getty Museum Opens Exhibition Featuring J. Paul Getty’s Antiquities
November 20, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Art Events & Exhibitions, Featured
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Celebrating 70 years of collecting, Collector’s Choice: J. Paul Getty and His Antiquities, on view from November 18, 2009–February 8, 2010, at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa, presents seldom-seen works of art that captured J. Paul Getty’s eye and inspired the creation of a museum modeled on an ancient Roman villa. Favored objects and personal memorabilia illuminate Mr. Getty’s taste, his engagement with noted connoisseurs, and his profound love of the classical Mediterranean world. Unknown, "Bust of a Woman", about... [Full Article]
Artist Jeanne-Claude, Who Co-Created ‘The Gates’ with Husband Christo, Dies at Age 74
November 20, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Artists & People, Featured
NEW YORK, NY (AP).- Artist Jeanne-Claude, who created the 2005 Central Park installation “The Gates” and other large scale “wrapping” projects around the globe with her husband Christo, has died. She was 74. Jeanne-Claude died Wednesday night at a New York hospital from complications of a brain aneurysm, her family said in an e-mail statement. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he spoke with Christo on Thursday morning and offered condolences on behalf of all New Yorkers. The two artists met in Paris in 1958 and have been collaborating for 51 years on temporary... [Full Article]
Top 10 Craziest & Most Original Artworks
November 19, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Art Reviews, Featured
Rotating Wall Art Richard Wilson, one of Britain’s best known sculptures is drawing inspiration for the world of construction and engineering with his latest art called Turning the Place Over. The art is a section cut out from a building and rotates itself on a pivot with a cost of £450,000. It is described as one of the most daring piece of public art ever commissioned in the UK. It will be launched on June 20th 2007 and will run till the end of the year. House Tunnel Art This extraordinary structure on Montrose Boulevard took motorists by surprise. A pair of... [Full Article]
Karijn Kakebeeke Named Winner of the 2009 BMW Paris Photo Prize
November 19, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Featured, Photography
PARIS.- Karijn Kakebeeke was named winner of the 2009 BMW – Paris Photo Prize for contemporary photography at the opening of Paris Photo, receiving the 12 000 Euros (US $ 15, 000) Prize. Karijn Kakabeeke, represented by The Empty Quarter Gallery from Dubai, is the sixth winner of this major international award. Born in 1974, the Dutch photographer is pursuing her continuing interest in social issues through her photojournalistic, essayistic images. In this context, she captures pictures that stand as magnificent icons of our time. The winning work “Khadija’s... [Full Article]
Sotheby’s Hopes “Zero Art” Sale will Raise Plenty of Cash
November 19, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Art Market, Featured
LONDON.- Sotheby’s is hoping its February sale of 49 works from the so-called “Zero Art” movement will raise plenty of cash, and confidence is high after a recent New York contemporary auction that eclipsed expectations. The works from the private collection of Gerhard and Anna Lenz are expected to fetch more than 12 million pounds ($20.2 million) and will form part of the auctioneer’s London contemporary art sale in 2010. Jan Schoonhoven, “Relief R 69-1″, 104 x 104 cm. Executed in 1969. Estimate: 180,000 GBP – 250,000 GBP The pieces on offer... [Full Article]
Do Antiquities Really Belong To Their Country Of Origin?
November 19, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Arts Policy, Featured
Zahi Hawass regards the Rosetta Stone, like so much else, as stolen property languishing in exile. “We own that stone,” he told Al Jazeera, speaking as the secretary general of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. The British Museum does not agree — at least not yet. But never underestimate Dr. Hawass when it comes to this sort of custody dispute. He has prevailed so often in getting pieces returned to what he calls their “motherland” that museum curators are scrambling to appease him. Last month, after Dr. Hawass suspended the Louvre’s excavation... [Full Article]
UC Berkeley Modifying Museum Building Project; Alternate Plan Due Early Next Year
November 19, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Featured, Museums & Galleries
BERKELEY, CA.- The University of California, Berkeley’s plans for a new Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) are being modified due to lingering economic uncertainty, museum and university officials announced today. Several intriguing concepts for a new BAM/PFA home are under review and a detailed plan is expected to be unveiled early next year, said Lawrence Rinder, the director of BAM/PFA, which is one of the largest university art museums in the United States in both size and attendance. Rinder emphasized that the university and BAM/PFA remain... [Full Article]
High Names Michael Rooks New Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art
November 19, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Museums & Galleries
ATLANTA, GA.- Michael E. Shapiro, Nancy and Holcombe T. Green, Jr. Director of the High Museum of Art, announced today that the High has appointed Michael Rooks as the new Wieland Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. Rooks will officially join the High in January 2010. Rooks has held curator positions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, The Contemporary Museum Honolulu, and at the Honolulu Academy of Arts. Most recently, Rooks served as Chief Curator and Director of Exhibitions and Artist Relations at Haunch of Venison, a contemporary art gallery in... [Full Article]
Nine Dusseldorf Museums and Galleries Prepare for Dusseldorf’s Second Quadriennale
November 17, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Featured, Museums & Galleries
DUSSELDORF.- Art enthusiasts from Germany and abroad are looking forward to the second Quadriennale, which will open on September 10, 2010 and ends in January 2011. Nine Duesseldorf museums and galleries are preparing high quality exhibitions with considerable grants from the regional capital without which the ambitious exhibition plans would not be possible. Despite the general financial crisis, the city is supporting the Quadriennale with additional funds of approx. five million Euros. “With this Festival of Arts, the city with an extensive artistic tradition underscores... [Full Article]
China calls for return of art treasures from abroad
November 17, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Arts Policy
BEIJING – China has ratcheted up pressure for imperial treasures to be repatriated, condemning overseas auctions of its relics and demanding they come home. China is particularly eager to get back a series of bronze animal heads looted in 1860 by British and French soldiers when they burned down the Qing emperors’ summer palace in Beijing. China’s drive to recover the heads has alarmed Western museums and auction houses, who are also sparring with Greece and other nations over the return of historic art treasures. A March auction of two heads from the estate... [Full Article]
‘Turner to Czanne’ is a hit at Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse
November 16, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Art Events & Exhibitions
In 1908, two straight-laced Welsh sisters became the world’s unlikeliest avant-garde art collectors. Gwendoline and Margaret Davies were strict Calvinists, teetotalers and spinsters. They also had a passion for sumptuous Impressionist paintings — and the means to gratify it. Granddaughters of a railway magnate, each received the modern equivalent of $195 million at age 25. For 12 years, they hunted down seductive canvases by Monet, Renoir, Czanne and others. The astonishing results of their shared obsession have arrived at Syracuse’s Everson Museum of Art. More... [Full Article]
How the Mona Lisa Lost Her Eyebrows
November 16, 2009 by All Art News - Filed under Education & Research
Pascal Cotte said Leonardo built the painting up in layers, the last being a special glaze whose optical properties increased the illusion of a three-dimensional face. Above the glaze Leonardo painted details such as the eyebrows. Cotte said: “That could explain why the eyebrows have disappeared – they have faded because of chemical reactions or they have been cleaned off.” He has uncovered a host of secrets about the Mona Lisa using a 240 megapixel camera. It can measure light so sensitively as to see through the top paint surface and uncover the layers below. For... [Full Article]
