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Thursday, February 2, 2012 |
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Earliest known copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa found at Spain's Prado Museum
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Miguel Falomir, director of Italian painting at the Prado Museum speaks to reporters next to a copy of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa that was painted at the same time as the original in the same studio is displayed at the Prado Museum in Madrid Wednesday Feb. 1, 2012. Spain's Prado Museum says the copy it has of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was painted at the same time as the original perhaps making it the earliest replica of the masterpiece. A museum spokeswoman said the work was painted side by side with the 16th century original that hangs in the Louvre in Paris and was done by one of Leonard's key students. AP Photo/Paul White.
By: Daniel Wools, Associated Press
MADRID (AP).- A "Mona Lisa" copy owned by Spain's Prado Museum was almost certainly painted by one of Leonardo da Vinci's apprentices alongside the master himself as he did the original, museum officials said Wednesday. The stunning find of what the Prado now says is probably the earliest known copy of La Gioconda will give art lovers and experts an idea of what the Mona Lisa looked like back in the 16th century, said Gabriele Finaldi, the museum's deputy director collections. "It is as if we were in the same studio, standing at the next easel," he told reporters. The copy has been part of the Prado collection for years and displayed occasionally but no one paid much attention to it because around the woman in the Mona Lisa was a stark black ... More |
| Cy Twombly: Photographs 1951-2010 opens at the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels |
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Artist Mike Kelley found dead in Los Angeles home; appears he committed suicide |
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German architect Mies van der Rohe's Modernist masterpiece Tugendhat to reopen again |
Cy Twombly, Lemon, Gaeta Dryprint on cardboard, 2008 (detail). 43,1 x 27,9 cm © Schirmer/Mosel Verlag - Nicola Del Roscio Foundation.
BRUSSELS.- As a tribute to the recently deceased artist, the Centre for Fine Arts is turning the spotlight on a less familiar aspect of his oeuvre. The exhibition includes more than 100 dryprint Polaroid photographs (selected by Twombly himself), along with a selection of other works by Twombly and a film portrait by Tacita Dean. Cy Twombly (who was born in Lexington in 1928 and died in Rome in 2011) was one of the most important US artists of his generation. He made his name with large-scale abstract paintings whose free form and spontaneous dynamism recall calligraphy and graffiti. In his work Twombly often referred to the myths of Classical Greek and Roman Antiquity, to literature and to art history. The Cy Twombly: Photographs 1951-2010 exhibition focuses on a less familiar aspect of Twombly's oeuvre: his photographic work. The photographs are an addition to the artist's creative world and throw new light on it. At the reques ... More |
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File photo of a museum visitor looking at the artwork 'Herida gloriosa' by US artist Mike Kelley. EPA/LUIS TEJIDO.
LOS ANGELES (AP).- Artist Mike Kelley, described by colleagues as an "irresistible force" in contemporary art, has died, police said Wednesday. He was 57. Kelley was found at his home Tuesday and it appeared he had committed suicide, South Pasadena Police Sgt. Robert Bartl said, without providing further information on the artist's death. An autopsy was pending. "Kelley's work in the 1980s was part of how one defined the Los Angeles arts scene. He had a remarkable ability to fuse distinction between fine and popular art in ways that managed to perturb our sense of decorum," said Stephanie Barron, senior curator of modern art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A family friend who was concerned about Kelley went to his home and called 911, Bartl said. The friend told investigators that Kelley had been depressed because he had recently broken up with his girlfriend, but no note was found, Bartl said. "Mike was an irresistible force in contemporary art. ... We cannot ... More |
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View of the Tugendhat Villa in Brno, Czech Republic. By: Karel Janicek, Associated Press
BRNO, CZECH REPUBLIC (AP).- It was completed in 1930, a Modernist masterpiece by legendary German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. But Villa Tugendhat's early history was rocked by the turbulence of the 20th Century: The Nazis seized it, then came World War II bombardments that smashed its windows. When the Soviet troops liberated Czechoslovakia, living space became a large stable. It has languished in disrepair ever since. Now, a two-year renovation that cost $9 million is almost complete. In March, the glass-fronted building that houses a thick, honey-colored onyx wall, floor-to-ceiling windows, winter garden and clean white lines throughout will be open to the public. Czech officials are confident it will become one of the most popular tourism venues in the region. "It's been a huge challenge," said Michal Malasek, whose construction company was tasked with the daunting challenge of refurbishing the villa while staying faithful to its design. "I have never worked on anythi ... More |
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| Restored Rubens masterpiece goes back on public view at The Courtauld Gallery |
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Christie's 2011 sales total US$5.7 billion; significant increase in private sales and via online |
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Ashmolean opens the year with Visions of Mughal India: The Collection of Edward Hodgkin |
Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Cain slaying Abel, 1608-1609, after treatment. Oil on oak panel , 131.2 x 94.2 cm© The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London.
LONDON.- The newly-conserved masterpiece Cain Slaying Abel by Sir Peter Paul Rubens went back on public display at The Courtauld Gallery, today. The magnificent painting, widely considered to be one of the most important in the Gallery’s world-class collection of works by Rubens, has been restored as part of the Bank of America Art Conservation Project which was launched in 2010. The Flemish master Rubens (1577-1640) was one of the most exciting and explosive artistic talents of early modern Europe . His energetic compositions, such as Cain Slaying Abel, greatly influenced his contemporaries as well as future generations of artists. One of the first works of Rubens's artistic maturity and representing a pivotal moment in his early career, Cain Slaying Abel was ... More |
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Claude Monet’s Les peupliers, one of the most celebrated of the artist’s great series of works from his years in Giverny sold for $22,482,500. © Christie’s Images Limited 2011.
LONDON.- Christie’s announces 2011 sales of £3.6 billion / US$5.7 billion, up 9% by £ (14% by US$) compared with 2010 (figures include buyer’s premium). This includes private sales of £502 million / US$808.6 million, an increase of 44% by £ (50% by US$) on 2010. “Christie’s ability to curate and offer sales of art to a growing audience has led to continued demand across geographies, collecting categories and at all levels. This is a very encouraging set of results”, said Steven P. Murphy, Chief Executive Officer, Christie’s. “While we are seeing more investors collecting, there are many more collectors who are increasing their investment in their collections as the explosion of interest in art, fuelled by globalization, facilitated by the technology that increases access to ... More |
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Dhiraj Singh -® Collection of Howard Hodgkin.
OXFORD.- On 2 February 2012 the Ashmolean will open an exhibition of Indian paintings from the outstanding private collection of the artist Howard Hodgkin. Hodgkin has been a passionate collector of Indian paintings since his school days and his collection has long been considered one of the finest of its kind in the world. At times he has devoted almost as much effort to developing his collection as to his own work as a painter. It will go on show at the Ashmolean for the first time in its entirety. The collection comprises most of the main types of Indian court painting that flourished during the Mughal period (c. 1550–1850), including the refined naturalistic works of the imperial Mughal court; the poetic and subtly coloured paintings of the Deccani Sultanates; and the boldly drawn and vibrantly coloured xxstyles of the Rajput kingdoms of Rajasthan and the Punjab Hills. Above all, this is a personal collection, forme ... More |
| Sweden's Nationalmuseum acquires Tradgardsinterior by artist Johan Krouthén |
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Exhibition of treasures from London's Society of Antiquaries highlights milestones in British history |
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Bank of America Merrill Lynch art conservation project helps restore 20 works of art across globe |
Johan Krouthén, Trädgårdsinteriör från Linköping (detail). Oil on canvas. Nationalmuseum.
STOCKHOLM.- Nationalmuseum has acquired the painting Trädgårdsinteriör från Linköping by Swedish artist Johan Krouthén. The detailed painting depicts army surgeon Ernst Boman and his family and is dated 1887-1888. Nationalmuseum previously only owned one painting by Krouthén, and is thus pleased to be able to add this work from the artist’s best period. Johan Krouthén (1858-1932) was part of the generation of artists that broke through during the 1880s, when a French-oriented realism dominated Swedish painting. However, in contrast to many of his contemporaries, Krouthén never spent any significant time in France in his youth. In the summer of 1883, he accompanied fellow artist Oscar Björck to Skagen and joined the colony of artists working there. In the 1880s, he took part in the opposition movement against the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts and ... More |
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Hans Eworth, Mary I, 1554, oil on oak panel.
NEW HAVEN, CT.- This February, the Yale Center for British Art will present historic treasures of international importance from the Society of Antiquaries of London, a society for people concerned with the study of Britain’s past that was established three hundred years ago and still thrives today. Through more than one hundred forty objects, including works from the Center and other collections at Yale, Making History: Antiquaries in Britain will explore ways in which scholars have recorded, preserved, and interpreted history since the Society was founded in 1707. The exhibition marks the first North American tour of objects from the Society’s collection and has been organized by the Society of Antiquaries of London in association with the Yale Center for British Art and the McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, where it will debut in September. The idea of Britain as a nation was promoted following the ... More |
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The Bank of America Merrill Lynch Art Conservation Project is an extension of the company’s global commitment to supporting the arts.
LONDON.- At an event at London’s Courtauld Gallery last night (31 January), Bank of America Merrill Lynch announced this year’s conservation funding recipients through its unique Art Conservation Project. This year, participating institutions span the globe from Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), to Asia, Australia, Latin America and the United States. The Art Conservation Project will see the restoration of 20 art works and artifacts with important cultural and historical value from 19 countries. The 2012 award selections for EMEA include one of Leonardo Da Vinci’s earliest manuscripts at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan; five Marc Chagall paintings at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and a collection of 1st century BC Urartian jewellery at the Rezan Has Museum in Istanbul. The programme aims to strengthen public awareness about the importance ... More |
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| Israel Museum jointly acquires Marclay's The Clock with Tate and Pompidou |
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Exceedingly rare Calvin and Hobbes original artwork offered by Heritage Auctions in February |
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Hayward Gallery presents first major United Kingdom survey of works by David Shrigley |
Christian Marclay, The Clock, 2010© the artist. Photo: Ben Westoby. Courtesy White Cube.
JERUSALEM.- The Israel Museum announced the joint acquisition of Christian Marclay’s video work The Clock (2010), together with the Centre Pompidou in Paris and London ’s Tate. This internationally acclaimed masterwork of video art, which was on view at the Israel Museum from August through October 2011, is composed of thousands of film excerpts illuminating the passage of time by means of time-related references, among them images of clocks, watches, or announcements identifying specific times of the day. Marclay extracted each of these moments from its original context to form a 24-hour montage that unfolds according to his reconstruction in real time. The Clock premiered in London in October, 2010, and has since been presented in New York , Los Angeles , Venice , Moscow , Boston , in Paris at the Centre Pompidou, and in Jerusalem at the Israel Museum . Twenty-four-hour screenings have att ... More |
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Bill Watterson Calvin and Hobbes 1989-90 Calendar Cover Watercolor Illustration Original Art (c. 1988).
NEW YORK, NY.- An incredibly rare piece of original, published Calvin and Hobbes artwork - 1989-90 Calendar Cover Watercolor Illustration Original Art (c. 1988) – by artist Bill Watterson, is expected to bring $50,000+ when it comes to auction as part of Heritage Auctions’ Feb. 23 Vintage Comics & Comic Art Signature® event, at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion (Ukrainian Institute of America). “Beyond the Peanuts comic strips of legendary cartoonist Charles Schulz, there is no more popular comic strip and certainly no strip where the original art is more in demand,” said Todd Hignite, Vice President of Heritage Auctions. “The difference being that original Schulz work can be had at a variety of price points. Original Calvin and Hobbes artwork has, simply, never come up for public auction. There’s really no telling how high collectors will be willing to go on this one.” Bill Watterson wrote and drew ... More |
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Installation view of David Shrigley: Brain Activity at the Hayward Gallery. Photo: Linda Nylind.
LONDON.- This Hayward Gallery exhibition is the first major survey in the UK of works by David Shrigley. Spanning the upper galleries, David Shrigley: Brain Activity, covers the full range of Shrigley’s diverse practice from the past two decades of the artist’s career, including drawing, animation, painting, photography, taxidermy and sculpture. The exhibition features some 240 works, the majority of which are new or never before shown in the UK. David Shrigley is best known for his pared down drawings and animations that make witty and wry observations on a range of familiar social subjects and everyday situations. Deliberately amateurish and crude, they have an immediate and accessible appeal, while offering insightful commentary on the absurdities of life, death and everything in between. Since graduating from the Glasgow School of Art in 1991, Shrigley has produced more than 7000 works on pape ... More |
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 The first Pointillist painting enters the Portland Art Museum's collection
PORTLAND, OR.- The Portland Art Museum announced the recent acquisition of an important painting by Théo Van Rysselberghe (Belgium, 1862 – 1926). Plage à marée basse à Ambleteuse, le soir (Beach at Low Tide, Ambleteuse, Evening) is now on display on the first floor of the Jubitz Center for Modern and Contemporary Art. The 1900 canvas is the first pointillist painting to enter the Museum’s collection and provides an important link between the avant-garde of post-impressionist activity of Paris and its Belgian counterparts. A major figure in the development of modernism in the Low Country, Van Rysselberghe was a founder of the group that staged major exhibitions in Brussels of leading French radical painters of the day including Monet, Seurat, Gauguin, and Van Gogh. This major canvas presents the beach scene as an intellectual construct of color and optics. Capturing the setting sun across the low horizon of th ... More Tono Stano's first solo show in the United States opens at Pace/MacGill Gallery
NEW YORK, NY.- Pace/MacGill Gallery presents Tono Stano: White Shadow, on view February 2 through March 17, 2012. The exhibition marks Stano’s first solo show in the United States and features 28 unique gelatin silver prints from his ongoing series of surreal portraits, White Shadow. The artist will attend an opening reception on Thursday, February 2 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm. Tono Stano (b. 1960, Slovakia) studied photography under the influential Slovak photographer and teacher Milota Havránková at a secondary school for graphic arts in Bratislava. Following a year spent photographing on film sets, he enrolled at FAMU, Prague’s School of Film, Photography and Television, in 1980. At FAMU, Stano was among a group of students—including Vasil Stanko, Miro Švolík, and Rudo Prekop—who reinvigorated the medium with their dynamic and imaginatively staged images, ultimately becoming known as the “S ... More Smithsonian honors Clint Eastwood, opens theater on mall
By: Brett Zongker, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP).- The Smithsonian Institution honored Clint Eastwood on Wednesday for his six decades of work in American film, and the actor and director cut the ribbon to open a new movie theater to showcase film history at the National Museum of American History. Eastwood visited the museum Wednesday evening to help dedicate the new Warner Bros. Theater as a space to present the history of Hollywood. Warner Bros. Entertainment donated $5 million in 2010 to renovate the museum's old Carmichael Auditorium into a modern theater with 3D projection capability. The new theater gives the Smithsonian its first space dedicated to film history, museum spokeswoman Melinda Machado. The 264-seat theater will be able to screen silent films and first-run movies. "Films are ... More Portrait of Fred Korematsu to be Presented at the National Portrait Gallery
WASHINGTON, DC.- Just three days after Fred Korematsu Day, Korematsu’s acheivements will be recognized by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery with the installation of his portrait in a private ceremony at the museum. Two 1940s’-era photographs will become part of the museum’s permanent-collection exhibition, “The Struggle for Justice” Feb. 2. The photographs are gifts to the Portrait Gallery from the Fred T. Korematsu family. “I am delighted that these photographs will reside in the museum’s exhibition, ‘The Struggle For Justice,’” said Martin Sullivan, director of the museum. “Korematsu’s courageous advocacy in the courts on behalf of interned Japanese Americans was essential to ending legislated segregation.” Korematsu, an American-born citizen of Japanese ancestry (1919-2005), was a welder on the Oakland, Calif., docks before the Japanese attack on Pe ... More What grows in Brooklyn? A tree and a new theater
By: Mark Kennedy, AP Drama Writer
NEW YORK (AP).- In a season where little grows in the Northeast, something in Brooklyn is doing just that, foot by foot. The metal guts of what will be a sleek three-tiered glass box surrounding the Theatre for a New Audience's 299-seat stage have gone up in a former parking lot as part of the city's ambitious plan to create a new $650 million cultural district. "It's going to be a destination," said Jeffrey Horowitz, the founding artistic director of the company, during a recent tour of the work site in the Fort Greene section of the borough. When opened in 2013, the $48-million theater will represent a milestone for Theatre for a New Audience and the city: It will be the first new stage designed expressly for Shakespeare and classic drama since 1965, and it will be the first permanent home for ... More |
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