CHICAGO, IL.- Modern and contemporary prints are an extension of a long and illustrious lineage that goes back to the Renaissance engravings of Albrecht Dürer, and the 17th century prints of Rembrandt, Rubens, van Dyck and Claude Lorraine. The diffusion of printmaking throughout Europe in the 18th century drew in the Italians, Tiepolo, Piranesi and Canaletto, the mystical Englishman, William Blake and the Spanish master, Goya. The posthumous 1863 publication of Goya’s powerful suite of prints, “Disasters of War”, was of major import, coincident with and an influence upon the emergent Parisian avant-garde who would come to be known as the impressionists. During the impressionist period, the woodblock prints of Hokusai and
Galerie Ludorff Presents Important Paintings, Watercolours and Prints by Expressionist Emil Nolde
DUSSELDORF.- Galerie Ludorff presents an exhibition of important paintings, watercolours and prints by expressionist icon Emil Nolde. The exhibition comprises more than thirty paintings, watercolours and some of his most important prints. It brings together some of his very early prints, some of his most important works from the Brücke years and the winters spent in Berlin from 1905 to the 1920’s. At the centre of the exhibition are two bodies of work that concentrate on showing Nolde’s most important achievement – the deliberation of colour. A group of six of his most delicate watercolours show his love for the rural landscape in Northern Germany . Impressive sunsets meet humid grounds. Farm houses and wind mills are set before night skies
First Exhibition Ever Devoted to Bronzino at Metropolitan Museum
NEW YORK, NY.- The Drawings of Bronzino, the first exhibition ever dedicated to Agnolo Bronzino (1503-1572), brings together nearly all of the 61 known drawings by, or attributed to, the great Florentine court artist of the Medici. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from January 20 through April 18, 2010, the exhibition features drawings of extraordinary beauty and rarity which are seldom on public view, and draws loans from major museums and private collections within Europe and North America, including the Galleria degli Uffizi, Musée du Louvre, British Museum, Royal Library of Windsor Castle, Ashmolean Museum, Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden, and Staatliche Museen Berlin. Surprisingly, this
Pirate Klaus Stoertebeker’s Skull Stolen from German Museum
BERLIN (AP).- A 600-year-old skull believed to be that of a legendary German pirate has been stolen from a museum in Hamburg, the museum’s director said Wednesday. Klaus Stoertebeker was the most famous German pirate of the Middle Ages. He is believed to have been beheaded by authorities in 1400 in Hamburg, together with 30 of his followers. The heads were nailed on pillars at the entrance of the Hamburg harbor in an effort to deter would-be pirates. The skull was stolen from the Museum for Hamburg History on Jan. 9, but the museum didn’t immediately announce the theft so as not to hamper the investigation. It wasn’t clear how the exhibit was stolen, or why. “We are deeply shocked about the theft,” museum director Lisa Kosok said in a written statement. The museum said it was offering a reward of several thousand euros
Experts May Have Found Bones of English Princess Eadgyth
LONDON (AP).- She was a beautiful English princess who married one of Europe’s most powerful monarchs and dazzled subjects with her charity and charm. Now a team of British and German experts say they think they’ve found the body of Princess Eadgyth (pronounced Edith) — a 10th-century noblewoman who has been compared to Princess Diana. “She was a very, very popular person,” said Mark Horton, an archaeology professor at Bristol University in western England. “She was sort of the Diana of her day if you like — pretty and full of good works.” Horton is one of a team of experts working to verify the identity of some bones found bundled in silk in Magdeburg Cathedral in Germany. Should the skeleton be positively
Crystal Bridges Acquires New Work by Walton Ford
BENTONVILLE, ARK.- Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art has acquired a major new work by Walton Ford, an artist winning international acclaim for his highly detailed, monumental watercolors of exotic birds, reptiles and mammals. In “The Island”, Ford presents a writhing pyramidal mass of Tasmanian wolves (thylacines) grappling with each other and a few doomed lambs. The violent extermination of the thylacines, which were hunted to extinction in the early 20th century, calls into question who is hunter and hunted in this savage tableau. “Thylacines were mysterious terrifying phantoms in the minds of Tasmanian settlers,” Walton Ford said via email. “I wanted to create a delirious image that suggested the thylacine’s doom. The painting could be interpreted as the hallucination of either the man or the beast.” Chris Crosman, chief curator for Crystal Bridges, describes the 8-feet-high by 11 ½-feet-long triptych as a “tour d
Berlin Jewish Museum Gets Libeskind Extension
BERLIN (AP).- The Jewish Museum in Berlin will get a new extension designed by architect Daniel Libeskind, who also designed the zigzag-shaped main exhibition hall. Museum spokeswoman Melanie von Plocki told the German news agency DAPD on Tuesday that a 19th century market hall for flowers, across from the original museum, would be turned into exhibition space by autumn 2011. Construction will begin this summer. The cost is estimated at euro10 million, to be funded by the federal government and private donations. The first building, which opened in 2001, has become a tourist destination. It has been celebrated as a memorial to Jews in Germany: its jagged structure evoking a deconstructed Star of David, suggesting the dramatic break in history wrought by the Holocaust.
Fiona Banner will Create the Tate Britain Duveens Commission 2010
LONDON.- Fiona Banner has been invited to create the next installation for the Tate Britain Duveens Commission 2010, supported by Sotheby’s. Her new work, created especially for the neoclassical Duveen galleries at the heart of Tate Britain, will be unveiled on 28 June 2010 and will be on display until 3 January 2011. Artists who have previously undertaken the Commission include Eva Rothschild (2009), Martin Creed (2008), Mark Wallinger (2007), Michael Landy (2004), Anya Gallaccio (2002) and Mona Hatoum (2000). Fiona Banner works with sculpture, performance, film, drawing and painting. Her work often reflects the tension between a private, internal world and the public, social realm. She first became known for her word-scapes or ‘still films’: vast unedited descriptions in her own words, of feature films, including war films and pornographic films, commentaries which relay what is often disturbing, brutal or frigh
Fiona Banner will Create the Tate Britain Duveens Commission 2010
LONDON.- Fiona Banner has been invited to create the next installation for the Tate Britain Duveens Commission 2010, supported by Sotheby’s. Her new work, created especially for the neoclassical Duveen galleries at the heart of Tate Britain, will be unveiled on 28 June 2010 and will be on display until 3 January 2011. Artists who have previously undertaken the Commission include Eva Rothschild (2009), Martin Creed (2008), Mark Wallinger (2007), Michael Landy (2004), Anya Gallaccio (2002) and Mona Hatoum (2000). Fiona Banner works with sculpture, performance, film, drawing and painting. Her work often reflects the tension between a private, internal world and the public, social realm. She first became known for her word-scapes or ‘still films’: vast unedited descriptions in her own words, of feature films, including war films and pornographic films, commentaries which relay what is often disturbing, brutal or frigh
Alan Cristea Gallery Announces First Major Retrospective of Bauhaus Artist Annie Albers
LONDON.- The Alan Cristea Gallery will be presenting the first major retrospective of the prints of Bauhaus artist and designer Anni Albers from 18 March. The exhibition will be the most comprehensive survey of her graphic work to date and will include nearly every print she has made, alongside studies, photographs and source material loaned from the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. The exhibition will be accompanied by the release of the catalogue raisonne of her prints – the first major monograph on this aspect of her work. Albers primarily worked in textiles and, late in life, as a printmaker. At the Bauhaus, Albers experimented with new materials for weaving and executed richly coloured designs on paper for wall hangings and textiles in silk, cotton, and linen yarns in which the raw materials and components of structure became the source of beauty. Like Josef, she focused above all on her work—happy to pursue it wh