AUGUSTA, GA.- “Deep Sea: Drawings by William O. Golding”, an exhibition of twenty-nine remarkable maritime drawings by self-taught African-American artist William O. Golding (1874–1943), opens to the public December 12, at the Morris Museum of Art. Shanghaied from the Savannah waterfront when he was eight years old, William O. Golding chronicled his travels world-wide through drawings that he created near the end of his life while a patient at the U.S. Marine Hospital in Savannah. Between 1932 and 1939, he executed approximately sixty drawings, literally drawn from his memories of the ships on which he sailed and the ports he visited around the globe. “Golding’s is a remarkable story of a remarkable life, most of which was spent as a merchant seaman at the very end of the Age of Sail. He traveled the world at a time when most Americans spent their entire lives within fifty miles of their place of birth, and he
Ringling Museum of Art to Host Exhibition Featuring Objects Bought in 1927
SARASOTA, FL.- Many discoveries surround the more than 300 objects John Ringling purchased in 1927 from Alva Vanderbilt Belmont’s Gothic Room in Marble House at Newport, Rhode Island. These discoveries will be explored in The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art’s newest exhibition “Gothic Art in the Gilded Age: Medieval and Renaissance Treasures in the Gavet-Vanderbilt-Ringling Collection”, on view December 19, 2009 through April 4, 2010. The exhibition considers the development of the collecting and display of medieval and early Renaissance art in the United States during the
First One Person Exhibition in New York for Sangram Majumdar at Gallery Schlesinger
NEW YORK, NY.- Steven Harvey Fine Art Projects presents the first one person exhibition in New York City of paintings by Sangram Majumdar at Gallery Schlesinger. Majumdar is a young painterly realist whose work expands the perimeters of contemporary representation. Sangram Majumdar’s paintings describe ostensibly traditional subject matter- still life, landscape and figure. Yet Majumdar’s paintings have grown progressively more radical in the way they try to encapsulate human perception. These paintings are densely layered with a range of marks, implicit narratives, and visual possibilities. In her essay for the exhibition catalog Jennifer Samet observes that “Sangram Majumdar’s paintings reminds us of the potential and the achievement of transfixing simultaneity within a single visual image. He seems to slice open his worlds, cutting into them almost mercilessly to present an image rich with evocation.“ She
Police Seize Stash of Masterpieces Belonging to Founder of Dairy Company Parmalat
ROME (AP).- Italian tax police said Saturday that they had seized works by Van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne and other giants of art in a crackdown on assets hidden by the disgraced founder of the collapsed dairy company Parmalat. Authorities estimated the 19 masterpieces stashed away in attics and basements were valued at some euro100 million ($150 million). Parma Prosecutor Gerardo Laguardia said that, based on wiretapped phone conversations, officials believed at least one of the paintings hidden by Calisto Tanzi was about to be sold. “We got lucky. We learned that there were negotiations under way to sell one of the paintings” and raid three apartments in the area of Parma, near Parmalat’s headquarters, Laguardia said in an interview on Italy’s Sky TG24 TV. He didn’t identify the painting. Bologna-based tax Police Col. Piero Iovino told The Associated Press by telephone that investigators believed the entire batch of paintings, watercolors and drawings were up to be sold. The prosp
Künstlerhaus Bethanien Opens Exhibition by Brazilian Photographer Dirceu Maués
BERLIN.- Dirceu Maués is a photographer whose oeuvre constitutes a far-reaching investigation into the photographic process and the techniques and equipment involved. His works, therefore, are always in-depth examinations of the photographic mechanism as such, and this study presents him with his own opportunity to define a camera’s functional categories. The current omnipresence of digitally generated images is an occasion for Dirceu Maués to reflect on more original forms of photography in his works. Deliberately setting them apart from the predominantly functional parameters to be found in today’s modern cameras, he constructs his
Police Seize Stash of Masterpieces Belonging to Founder of Dairy Company Parmalat
ROME (AP).- Italian tax police said Saturday that they had seized works by Van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne and other giants of art in a crackdown on assets hidden by the disgraced founder of the collapsed dairy company Parmalat. Authorities estimated the 19 masterpieces stashed away in attics and basements were valued at some euro100 million ($150 million). Parma Prosecutor Gerardo Laguardia said that, based on wiretapped phone conversations, officials believed at least one of the paintings hidden by Calisto Tanzi was about to be sold. “We got lucky. We learned that there were negotiations under way to sell one of the paintings” and raid three apartments in the area of Parma, near Parmalat’s headquarters, Laguardia said in an interview on Italy’s Sky TG24 TV. He didn’t identify the painting.
Christie’s Expects to Break Auction Records with Rembrandt and Raphael Sale Next Week
LONDON (REUTERS).- Christie’s is confident the recession is well and truly over in the world of fine art, with a record old masters sale in London next week that includes important works by Rembrandt, Raphael and Il Domenichino. The world’s largest auctioneer is calling its December 8 old masters and 19th-century auction a “landmark,” and pre-sale estimates range from 45-63 million pounds ($75-105 million), its highest ever for such a sale. “This auction promises to be a landmark sale for the art market,” said Richard Knight, international co-head of old masters at Christie’s. “The (old masters) market has shown great stability over the last year and … collectors continue to seize opportunities to acquire works which rarely appear on the market.” Unlike other sectors of the art market, notably contemporary and Russian, values of old master works have held up relatively well during the financial downturn.
Invited Work at the Museo del Prado: The Company of Captain Reijnier Reael
MADRID.- “Just to see that painting would make the journey to Amsterdam worthwhile,” wrote Vincent van Gogh in 1885, after having seen this work in the Rijksmuseum. He particularly liked the “orange banner in the left corner”, he had “seldom seen a more divinely beautiful figure”. The painting that caused such a sensation was the group portrait of the crossbowmen’s militia under Captain Reijnier Reael, painted by Frans Hals and Pieter Codde in 1633 – 1637. Together with Rembrandt and Vermeer, Frans Hals is one of the most important and celebrated 17th-century
Major Outdoor Exhibition by Internationally Acclaimed Artist Yayoi Kusama
MIAMI, FL.- This December, the world famous Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden will present Yayoi Kusama at Fairchild as part of its annual visual art program. The Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, known for her distinctive sculptures and paintings that involve hand-worked repetition and bold patterning, will be exhibiting works from the exuberant new sculptural ensemble “Flowers that Bloom at Midnight” (2009), a group of her classic Pumpkins, as well as “Guidepost to the New Space”, a multi-part floating work specifically conceived for Fairchild’s Panandus Lake. This will be the first time anywhere in the world that all these
National Gallery of Australia Opens Exhibition of Post-Impressionist Art
CANBERRA.- One of the most extraordinary international art events ever held in Australia opens tomorrow at the National Gallery of Australia, with the world premiere of “Masterpieces from Paris: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne and Beyond—Post-Impressionism from the Musée d’Orsay”. This exceptional exhibition brings together 112 of the best known works of modern art from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Included are iconic works such as Vincent van Gogh’s beautiful “Starry Night”, 1888 and Van Gogh’s “Bedroom at Arles”, 1889, Paul Gauguin’s “Tahitian Women”, 1891, Paul Cézanne’s “Beloved Mount Saint-Victoire”, c. 1890 as well as many works by