First U.S. Exhibition of Medieval Glass Objects for Daily Use Opens in May

CORNING, NY.- The unexpected variety of medieval glass vessels will be explored in an exhibition of objects for daily use and display at The Corning Museum of Glass beginning on May 15, 2010 and running through January 3, 2011. The exhibition “Medieval Glass for Popes, Princes, and Peasants” will follow the evolution of glass production over 1,000 years, from its height in the Roman Empire, through the radical social and political change of the Middle Ages when all but the [...]

Smithsonian Exhibition Depicts an Efflorescence of Ceramic Production

WASHINGTON, DC.- The exhibition “Cornucopia: Ceramics from Southern Japan” includes more than 100 porcelain and stoneware vessels that vividly represent an era of highly diverse and accomplished ceramic production in southern Japan. A wide array of ceramic forms, including tea caddies, tea bowls, vases, rice bowls and incense burners, is on display in the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art through Jan. 9, 2011. The exhibition spans from the late 16th to the late 19th century, an era that marks the [...]

Royal Tapestry Exhibition Travels to U.S. for the First Time

COLUMBIA, SC.- Royal Renaissance tapestries from one of the premier museums of fine and decorative arts in the world, the Kunsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, will be on view in South Carolina’s capital city. Imperial Splendor: Renaissance Tapestries from Vienna opens at the Columbia Museum of Art on Friday, May 21, a free admission day, and runs through September 19, 2010. The exhibition marks the first time these centuries-old tapestries have travelled to the United States. Each of these eight exquisite [...]

Museum of Design in Gent Shows Czech Applied Arts and Design

GENT.- Last year, the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague commemorated the 100th anniversary of the establishment of Artěl – one of the most outstanding institutions specializing in Czech applied arts and design in the first half of the 20th century. On the occasion of this the museum prepared a travelling exhibition. The exhibition explores the association’s creative endeavours that lasted over a quarter of a century, through a display of wares and designs bearing the prestigious Artěl trademark, presented [...]

Mother Teresa, Gene Autry, Katharine Hepburn on Upcoming US Stamps

WASHINGTON, DC.- Nobel Prize winner Mother Teresa and Pulitzer Prize winner Bill Mauldin will be honored on U.S. postage stamps next year. Joining them will be Oscar-winning actress Katharine Hepburn, singing cowboy Gene Autry, artist Winslow Homer and Adm. Arleigh Burke. Other new stamps will honor the Negro baseball leagues, the Sunday funnies and the Hawaiian rain forest, the Postal Service announced Wednesday. The post office releases a series of commemorative stamps every year, honoring people, places and institutions. These [...]

Marc Camille Chaimowicz Creates an Environment at Vienna’s Secession

VIENNA.- A floorscape of carpets with floral and abstract ornamental patterns in soft pastel shades is spread out in the Secession’s light-flooded white cube. The large-format asymmetric carpets lie on bases of different heights whose vertical and horizontal surfaces are at crooked angles, calling into question the functionality of the tufted carpets at the same time as elevating them to the status of autonomous artworks. A multitude of parasols in variously patterned fabrics are arranged on and beside the carpets. [...]

Tapestries Created by Renowned Artists to be Shown at James Cohan Gallery

NEW YORK, NY.- James Cohan Gallery will present the exhibition Demons, Yarns & Tales featuring hand-woven tapestries created by thirteen internationally renowned artists, including avaf, Peter Blake, Gary Hume, Jaime Gili, Francesca Lowe, Beatriz Milhazes, Paul Noble, Grayson Perry, Shahzia Sikander, Fred Tomaselli, Gavin Turk, Julie Verhoeven, and Kara Walker. The exhibition was created by the London-based art organization, Banners of Persuasion, who commissioned each artist to design a tapestry, a medium foreign to his or her usual practice. Three [...]

Three Gems Saved for Seaton Delaval by The Art Fund

LONDON.- Leading independent art charity The Art Fund today announces that it has helped save two important objects housed at Seaton Delaval Hall, the Vanbrugh mansion which has been the subject of a major fundraising campaign by the National Trust. The Art Fund has pledged £100,000, enabling the Hall to acquire the Fairfax Jewel, which consists of three enamelled roundels set in an engraved, rectangular gilt-metal plaque, and a marble bust of Charles II by Bushnell. News of the charity [...]

Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum to Show Recent Acquisition of Extraordinary Collection of Rare Glass Works

NEW YORK, NY.- “Ted Muehling Selects: Lobmeyr Glass from the Permanent Collection” is the 10th installment in an exhibition series devoted to showing rotations of Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s permanent collection. The exhibition celebrates the museum’s recent acquisition of an extraordinary collection of 162 rare glass works from J. & L. Lobmeyr of Vienna, Austria, which dates from 1835 to 2008 and spans nearly the entire history of the firm. The exhibition will be on view from April 23, 2010, [...]

Carnegie Museum of Art to Show Tapestries and Prints from the Collection

PITTSBURGH, PA.- Carnegie Museum of Art presents the dynamic new exhibition Gods, Love, and War: Tapestries and Prints from the Collection, opening December 19, 2009. Highlighting a selection of six large-scale tapestries dating from the 16th and 17th centuries and 40 prints from Carnegie Museum of Art’s collection, the exhibition explores the historical popularity of tapestries as well as the patrons, artists, and studios that created the taste for tapestries. Charles Le Brun, designer (French, 1619-1690), Workshop of Jan Frans [...]

“Wisdom of the Mountain: Art of the Omie” at the National Gallery of Victoria

MELBOURNE.- The National Gallery of Victoria presents a beautiful selection of over thirty barkcloths in Wisdom of the Mountain: Art of the Ömie, the Gallery’s first exhibition of contemporary art from Papua New Guinea. The Ömie, a small tribe of less than 2000 people, live on the steep, south-eastern slopes of Mount Lamington, Oro Province in Papua New Guinea. The art of making barkcloths (nioge) is practised exclusively by Ömie women and is created from the inner bark of the [...]

Decorative Arts and Carpets from the Corcoran Gallery Realize $7,328,713

NEW YORK, NY.- The 500 Years: Decorative Arts Europe including carpets from the Corcoran Gallery of Art sale realized $7,328,713/£4,441,644/ €4,918,599 and was sold 75% by lot and 82% by value. Stefan Kist, Christie’s New York, Director of European Decorative Arts said: “Today’s inaugural sale of 500 Years: Decorative Arts Europe, which combined European and English furniture, ceramics, works of art, tapestries and sculptures including Oriental carpets from the 15th to the 19th centuries, achieved outstanding results in every category. [...]