LONDON.- Christie’s longstanding commitment to British Watercolours & Paintings continues this June with the auction of enchanting works from the Nicolette Wernick Collection. It will be offered for sale on the morning of Wednesday 16 June, followed by the strong various owner sale of Victorian and British Impressionist Pictures including Drawings and Watercolours. Comprising 91 works, which exemplify the Victorian’s interest in legends, chivalry, fairytales, the paranormal and childhood, this collection was formed largely in the late 1970s, as the revival of Victorian Art started to gather pace. The sale showcases a lovingly curated array of charming works, led by The Chase of the White Mouse by John Anster Fitzgerald (1819-1906) (estimate: £180,000-250,000). The roll-call of leading artists featured from the period ranges from Lawrence Alma-Tadema, O.M., R.A (1836-1912), Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, Bt., A.R.A., R
Guggenheim Museum Publications Receive Excellence Awards
NEW YORK, NY.- The first-ever in-depth exploration of the process behind one of the greatest modern buildings in America, The Guggenheim: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Making of the Modern Museum has won First Prize in the Book category in the 2009 American Association of Museums (AAM) Publications Design Competition. Designed by Abbott Miller and Susan Brzozowski, of the design firm Pentagram, the book examines the history, design, and construction of Wright’s masterwork, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The annual AAM Museum Publications Design Competition recognizes excellence in the graphic design of museum publications and is the only national, juried competition of its kind. According to AAM, “Winners are chosen for their overall design excellence, creativity and ability to express an institution’s personality, mission, or special features.” Fully illustrated with preliminary drawings, models, and phot
Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay Opens at the de Young Museum
SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco welcomes the United States debut of Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay on view at the de Young Museum May 22 to September 6, 2010. The exhibition includes approximately 100 paintings from the Musée d’Orsay’s permanent collection and highlights the work of William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler, among others. The Musée d’Orsay is lending their most beloved paintings while it undergoes a partial closure for refurbishment and reinstallation in anticipation of the museum’s 25th anniversary in 2011. Birth of Impressionism will be followed in the fall of 2010 by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Beyond: Post–Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay. The de Young will be the only museum in the wo
California Attorney General Supports Claim for Art Seized in WWII
LOS ANGELES (AP).- California’s attorney general filed a brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday in support of a Connecticut woman who wants a Pasadena museum to return two 500-year-old paintings seized by Nazis during World War II. Attorney General Jerry Brown filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking the court to consider an appeal by Marei von Saher of Greenwich, Conn., who sued the Norton Simon Museum for the paintings in 2007. The pair of 16th century wood panels by German artist Lucas Cranach the Elder was seized from von Saher’s relative, owned for a time by Nazi leader Hermann Goering and purchased 40 years ago by the museum. In 2007, the paintings were valued at $24 million in an insurance appraisal. They feature Adam and Eve, and might have been the inspiration for the title sequence of ABC’s “Desperate Housewives.” Brown’s brief argued that California law extending the statute of limitations for heirs of Holocaust victims beyond the usual three-year limit that woul
Yael Bartana Awarded the UK’s Largest Art Prize
CARDIFF.- The 4th Artes Mundi Prize for contemporary art of £40,000 was awarded to Yael Bartana from Israel at National Museum Cardiff on Wednesday 19 May. Artes Mundi 4 has demonstrated that artists of today can add new readings into global issues as well as particular country politics. Bartana was awarded the Prize for her work of the last five to eight years which has consistently stimulated thinking about the human condition and adds to our understanding of humanity. The winning artist creates complex visualizations with photography, film, video, sound and installation. Using documentation and re-enactments she moves between playfulness and seriousness. Bartana divides her time between her homeland and Amsterdam and often focuses upon Israel and the Israeli situation. She explores the details of everyday living and its rituals while relating them to the actions of the state and the constant presence of war and insecurity. The announcement was made tonight by Professor Sarat
Van Gogh Museum and Kroller-Müller Museum Organise Van Gogh Exhibition in Japan
AMSTERDAM.- The Van Gogh Museum and the Kröller-Müller Museum are working together for the second time on an exhibition in Japan with works by Vincent van Gogh. The exhibition Van Gogh: The adventure of becoming an artist contains prominent works including The bedroom and The sower (Van Gogh Museum), Ravine and Portrait of Joseph-Michel Ginoux (Kröller-Müller Museum). The partners in this collaboration are the Tokyo Shimbun – Chunichi Shimbun newspapers and Tokyo Broadcasting System Television, Inc. In 2005, the Van Gogh Museum and the Kröller-Müller Museum also organised a successful exhibition in Japan. The exhibition gives an impression of the methods and techniques with which Van Gogh developed stylistically and technically, and of those who influenced him in the process. This is why the exhibition will also include paintings by several other famous artists: Van Gogh had not seen all of these works, but they do give an
Images from the Khodorkovsky Trial Make U.S. Premier
NEW YORK, NY.- Following its well-received eight-month tour of Moscow, Brussels, London and Paris, Sketches of (in)justice: The Khodorkovsky Trial from Putin to Medvedev makes its US debut presenting more than forty works by twelve artists whose works reflect the Russian peoples’ mounting frustration with corruption and hope for a freer society governed by the rule of law. The exhibition, created through “Drawing the Court,” a contest organized in Moscow by Sergey Kuznetsov Content Group and the Andrei Sakharov Memorial Museum and Community Center for Peace, Progress and Human Rights, is on view from May 18 through May 22. The exhibition will then move to the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The Khodorkovsky trial and the imagery it has inspired now serves as a reference point, being one of the significant phenomena of the Russian contemporary history, and another step in the eternal interaction of man and law. In assembling the exhibition, the organizers
Most Extensive Overview of Michael Schmidt’s Work to Date at Haus der Kunst
MUNICH.- With the exhibition of photographs by Michael Schmidt, the Haus der Kunst presents another formative position in contemporary photography. Works by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Robert Adams, Lee Friedlander, Andreas Gursky and William Eggleston have already been shown as part of this exhibition series. With 390 original photographs “Grey as Colour” is the most extensive overview of Michael Schmidt’s work to date. A third of the pieces are new works or – like “89/90”, which only existed as working proofs until now – have been edited as a series for the exhibit. On view will be the series Portraits (1970-74); Stadtlandschaft (Urban Landscapes) (1974-75); Berlin Wedding (1976-78); Berlin Wedding. Menschen (Berlin Wedding. People) (1977-78); Berlin, Stadtbilder (Berlin, Urban Images) (1976-80); Innenaufnahmen (Interior Views) (1979-80); Berlin nach 45 (Berlin after 45) (1980); Waffenruhe (Ceasefire) (1985-87);
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Announces Opening of New Wing on November 20
BOSTON, MA.- The highly anticipated wing for the Art of the Americas and Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), will open to the public on Saturday, November 20. In celebration, the Museum is hosting a free Community Day to welcome visitors to see The New MFA. The wing and enclosed courtyard are the focal points of the Museum’s transformational expansion and renovation project, designed by internationally renowned architects Foster + Partners (London). These additions elegantly incorporate a modernist aesthetic into the Museum’s 1909 Beaux Arts building. The MFA’s project represents the most expansive initiative focused on American art and culture happening in the world today. It allows for more than 5,000 works from the Museum’s Art of the Americas collections to be on view, which more than doubles the number previously displayed. Complementing the wing is a soaring g
Hammer Museum Present New Sculptural Work by Architect Greg Lynn
LOS ANGELES, CA.- This summer, the Hammer Museum will present a new sculptural work by Los Angeles-based architect Greg Lynn. A fantastical attraction for visitors of all ages, Fountain will be located in the museum’s outdoor courtyard. The work is a functioning fountain made entirely out of found large plastic children’s toys that have been cut and reassembled in multiple layers, with water spouting from its top and pooling at its base. Constructed from more than seventy-five prefabricated plastic whale and shark teeter-totters welded together and unified by the application of white automotive paint, Fountain will be a gathering place during the warm summer months. Greg Lynn’s Fountain is the first in a new series of projects focused on architecture and design. Taking place approximately once a year over the next three years, these projects will focus on the presentation of new works by