Rome, Naples, Venice: Italian Masterworks from the BAM/PFA Collection

BREKELEY, CA.- When the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive was founded in the mid-1960s, among the earliest and most important works acquired were paintings and works on paper by Italian artists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These have remained enduring cornerstones of the collection. In celebration of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Italian Republic, we present Rome, Naples, Venice: Italian Masterworks from the BAM/PFA Collection. The exhibition brings together striking Mannerist and Baroque works by Michelangelo [...]

Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With” To Be Exhibited at The White House

STOCKBRIDGE, MA.- Norman Rockwell Museum announces the loan of Norman Rockwell’s iconic painting “The Problem We All Live With,” part of its permanent collection, to The White House, where it will be exhibited through October 31. The loan was requested this year by President Barack Obama, in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Ruby Bridges’ history-changing walk integrating the William Frantz Public School in New Orleans on November 14, 1960, that later inspired Rockwell’s bold illustration for the January 14, 1964 issue [...]

Frida Kahlo’s “Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird” at Ransom Center in Austin

AUSTIN, TX.- The Harry Ransom Center, a humanities research library and museum at The University of Texas at Austin, celebrates the homecoming of one of its most famous and peripatetic art works, the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo’s “Self-portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird” (1940). The painting is on display from July 6, which is Kahlo’s 104th birthday, through Jan. 8, 2012. Since 1990 the painting has been on almost continuous loan, featured in exhibitions in more than 25 museums in the United States [...]

The Procuress: Fake or Mistake? Painting Featured in the Third Episode of BBC One’s Fake or Fortune

LONDON.- The Procuress, the painting featured in the third episode of BBC One’s Fake or Fortune, went on view to the public at The Courtauld Gallery, London, on Monday 4 July 2011, the day after the television programme was broadcast. In the late 1940s Geoffrey Webb, an officer responsible for the restitution of art seized by the Nazis in Germany and The Netherlands, was given a version of the 17th-century painter Dirck van Baburen’s The Procuress (the original painting, dated 1622, is [...]

The Whitechapel Gallery’s Major Summer Exhibition Presents Thomas Struth: Photographs 1978 – 2010

LONDON.- The Whitechapel Gallery‘s major summer exhibition presents Thomas Struth’s first solo show in Britain for almost 20 years. Struth’s large-scale photographs bring his intense and precise vision to subjects as diverse as visitors looking at famous works of art in the world’s great museums, family portraits and the dense undergrowth of the Asian jungle. The exhibition is on view from July 6 through September 16, 2011 in Galleries 1, 8 & 9. Thomas Struth is an artist who travels widely and [...]

Glamour of the Gods: Hollywood Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery in London

LONDON.- This new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery examines the importance of photography in creating the stars of Hollywood from 1920 to 1960. Glamour of the Gods: Hollywood Portraits, Photographs from the John Kobal Foundationincludes portraits of Marlene Dietrich, James Dean, Joan Collins, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe by nearly 40 photographers including George Hurrell, Clarence Sinclair Bull, Laszlo Willinger, Bob Coburn and Ruth Harriet Louise. This exhibition is on view from July 7 until October 23, 2011. Nearly all of [...]

An Artist’s Sense of Place: The World of Atta Kwami at Nicolas Krupp Gallery in Basel

BASEL.- Nicolas Krupp Gallery presents An Artist’s Sense of Place: The World of Atta Kwami, on view from July 8th through August 27th, 2011. Some of Africa’s most familiar visual imagery originates in Ghana—akua’ba figurines, kente strip woven cloth, and the stamped patterns of adinkra cloth. Much less familiar are the paintings of artists associated with the art schools and commercial workshops of Ghana’s cities. Over the last fifty years, these artists have been responding to the realities and shaping the futures [...]

London Street Photography Festival Launches Celebrating the Time-Honoured Genre

LONDON.- World-class photography takes over London’s most celebrated venues, large and small, for the festival’s inaugural year. The London Street Photography Festival launched this summer to celebrate the time-honoured genre. An exciting new addition to London’s cultural calendar, the festival, 1st-31st July 2011, features curated exhibitions alongside a diverse events programme bringing together leading international artists past and present. Highlights include the first UK exhibition of the incredible archives of mysterious Chicago street photographer Vivian Maier at the German Gymnasium, as well as [...]

Sotheby’s Achieves Second Highest Price for Any Old Master Painting at Auction in London

LONDON.- Tonight Sotheby’s London Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale was led by Francesco Guardi’s monumental masterpiece Venice, a View of the Rialto Bridge, Looking North, from the Fondamenta del Carbon, which established the highest price of the week of London Old Master Sales when it sold for an astonishing £26,697,250/$42,865,105/ €29,834,146 (est. £15-25 million*). Achieving a record as the 2nd highest price for any Old Master Painting sold at auction, a record for any Venetian view painting at auction**, as well [...]

Priceless Manuscript Stolen from Spanish Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela

MADRID (AP).- A priceless collection of 12th-century religious manuscripts was stolen from a cathedral in the northwestern Spanish city of Santiago de Compostela, police said Friday. Galicia regional police inspector Benigno Roca said a special unit has been set up to try to recover the Calixtinus Codex, which went missing from a strongbox in the cathedral’s archive room last week. He said there were no signs of a break-in. Roca said European police forces had been alerted. Cathedral dean Jose Maria [...]

Galeri Manâ: A New Contemporary Art Space in Istanbul Opens with Idea-Driven Show

ISTANBUL.- The inaugural exhibition, Nereden Nereye, a Turkish phrase that translates “From Where to Where,” includes sixteen works by eleven artists, and explores the function of images and the nature of representation. Nereden Nereye features paintings, drawings, photographs and video works by Murat Akagundüz, John Baldessari, Lewis Baltz, Mel Bochner, Diana Al-Hadid, Tamar Halpern, Sol LeWitt, Albert Oehlen, Robin Rhode, Charles Sandison and Nasan Tur. The exhibition runs through July 23, 2011. Curated by Suzanne Egeran, NEREDEN NEREYE features paintings, drawings, [...]

Sotheby’s to Offer Spectacular Works by Leading International Designers at Sudeley Castle

LONDON.- Sotheby’s announces an exciting line‐up for MATERIAL WORLDS, its second outdoor selling exhibition at Sudeley Castle, from 28th July to 30th September 2011. The exhibition brings together cutting‐edge, one‐off and limited edition works in strikingly different materials by 11 artists and designers, including Ingo Maurer, Tord Boontje, Paul Fryer, Laura Ellen Bacon and leading architects David Adjaye and Amanda Levete. Set amidst medieval Sudeley and its romantic ruins and award‐winning gardens in Gloucestershire, the works will challenge the boundaries of Design, Art [...]

Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery Acquires 17th Century Painting with Local Connections

PLYMOUTH.- A 17th century painting that was part of one of the most important collections of historical portraits in England has been acquired by Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery for the city’s permanent collections. The ‘Portrait of Johann Friederich, the Elector of Saxony and the Reformers’ was purchased thanks to funding support from the Art Fund (£5,344) and the V&A/MLA Purchase Grant Fund (£6,120). The painting is a copy of an original 16th century work and shows the leaders of the Protestant Reformation – [...]

Martin Schoeller’s Portraits of International Celebrities at The Kennedys in Berlin

BERLIN.- With the beginning of the Showroom Days Berlin, the Museum The Kennedys will temporarily turn into a photographic catwalk for trendsetters, style icons as well as fashion rebels of the international fashion world. The exhibition »Behind the Mask« shows one of the most fascinating portrait series of the last couple of years worldwide. Whether pop stars, athletes, actors, or politicians: It is the people from the public sphere who influence the public opinion and create a socially acceptable consensus out of short-lived [...]

Florence Griswold Museum Hosts Renowned Collection of American Landscapes

OLD LYME, CONN.- Through September 18, the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme hosts an exhibition of over 40 American landscape paintings from the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York. American Landscapes: Treasures from the Parrish Art Museum traces the evolution of American art from its roots in an emerging national landscape tradition to the liberating influences of European modernism. Some of the artists represented include William Merritt Chase, William Stanley Haseltine, Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman, John Marin, John Sloan, Ernest [...]