LONDON.- Visitor figures published today show that in the financial year 2009-10 the National Portrait Gallery received 1, 980, 000 visits, its highest ever number. This was an increase of 8% on 2008-9 and 20% increase on 2006-7. As well as the overall increase, the Gallery’s annual BP Portrait Award exhibition – free entry made possible by BP’s sponsorship – received the largest number of visitors for any National Portrait Gallery exhibition (298,420). A popular programme of displays, activities and exhibitions including Irving Penn Portraits, Constable Portraits: The Painter and His Circle, Gerhard Richter Portraits, Beatles to Bowie: the 60s exposed, Gay Icons and the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2009 meant that visitor numbers to the Gallery were consistently high. The figure is announced just prior to the tenth anniversary in May of the Gallery’s Ondaatje Wing. With its theatre, rooftop restaurant and new di
American Artist Barbara Kruger to Appropriate Art Gallery of Ontario Facade
TORONTO.- The Art Gallery of Ontario’s Dundas Street façade is about to get a new look. In partnership with Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, the AGO has commissioned renowned American artist Barbara Kruger to create a large-scale public installation to be displayed along the Gallery’s signature glass skirt, which spans an entire city block between McCaul and Beverley Streets. The installation will respond to CONTACT’s theme for 2010, “Pervasive Influence,” which considers how photography informs and transforms human behavior, especially via the medium’s connections to mass media, advertising, consumerism, and propaganda. Kruger’s installation, on view from May 1 through August 30, marks the first time the AGO has exhibited artwork on the exterior of its newly transformed Frank Gehry–designed building. “The AGO is committed to making great works of art accessible to everyone, and t
Government of Peru Reopens Machu Picchu After 2 Month Closure
MACHU PICCHU (AP).- The famed Inca citadel of Machu Picchu reopened to tourists Thursday after a two-month closure due to floods that washed out the rail link to the mountaintop ruins. Actress Susan Sarandon was on hand for an ancient ceremony asking for the blessing of mother Earth and other rituals, including the sounding of an Incan welcoming trumpet. Sarandon posed for photos with young girls wearing traditional Andean dress, and sipped coca tea that many locals use to ward off the effects of altitude at nearly 8,000 feet (2,440 meters) above sea level. Tourism Vice Minister Mara Seminario said hundreds of foreign visitors entered the ruins following the morning reopening, as an early downpour gave way to a brilliant sun. Peru’s No. 1 tourist site had been shut down since late January, when heavy rains disrupted the rail link from the city of Cuzco and trapped some 4,000 tourists, many
Steve Wolfe on Paper On View at The Menil Collection
HOUSTON, TX.- For the last twenty years Steve Wolfe has created objects and drawings of astounding craft and visual presence that explore the intersections between material culture, intellectual history, and personal and collective memory. Steve Wolfe on Paper, a collaboration between the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Menil Collection, focuses on works on paper, some purely drawn but most combining aspects of drawing, painting, collage, and printmaking. The exhibition is co-organized by Franklin Sirmans, the Menil’s former curator of modern and contemporary art (now head of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art) and Carter E. Foster, the Whitney’s curator of drawings. The title, Steve Wolfe on Paper, selected by Wolfe himself, refers to the artist’s technique and subject (Wolfe’s work often depicts
Matisse’s Celebration of The First Bastille Day to be Offered by Sotheby’s
NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s 5 May 2010 Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in New York will feature Henri Matisse’s spectacular “Bouquet pour le 14 Juillet 1919”, the artist’s emotional celebration of the first Bastille Day following World War I (est. $18/25 million)*. The present work also heralds the fresh and colorful style that would define Matisse’s career from 1919 onward, and signals the artist’s renewed sense of optimism following one of the most troubling periods of his career. The large and ambitious masterpiece (45 1/2 x 35 in, 116 x 89 cm) was presented by the artist to his dealers Bernheim-Jeune shortly after its completion and it remained in Bernheim’s family collection until it was sold at auction in France in the early 1980s. At that time, the picture achieved a record price, and since then, it has been in the same private collection for over a quarter of a century. Prior to e
Allentown Art Museum Names J. Brooks Joyner President and CEO
ALLENTOWN, PA.- J. Brooks Joyner has been appointed by the Board of Trustees as the Allentown Art Museum’s Priscilla Payne Hurd President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Joyner will assume his new post, vacated by Gregory J. Perry in September 2009, on May 1, 2010. Joyner comes to the Allentown Art Museum from the Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Neb., where he was director from 2001 to 2009. In formation since 1931, the Joslyn Art Museum’s collection now contains more than 11,000 works of art from all over the world, antiquity to the present, with a concentration on 19th and 20th century European and American art. Highlights of the permanent collection include works by Lorenzo di Credi, Titian, El Greco, Veronese, Claude de Lorrain, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Pierre August Renoir, and Camille Pissarro. American masters such as Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Hart Benton, Mary Cassatt, Thomas Eakins, Winslow
Sculptures by Jonathan Prince on View at Cynthia Reeves
NEW YORK, NY.- Jonathan Prince’s sculptures simultaneously evoke the work of 20th century fine art masters like Constantin Brancusi and Jean Arp, and ancient archeological artifacts. Principally, his work is concerned with exposing the stone’s latent power through large-scale, universally iconic forms. Ellipses, spheres and cubes are intentionally interrupted by the artist’s hand to infer a sense of discovery of something ancient. Prince refers to this body of work as “Fragments”. In the series, he suggests a form, but does not fully fabricate the piece. Rather, his partial articulation allows the mind to complete the widely recognizable shapes, asking his audience to be active, rather than passive, viewers. He often exaggerates the “broken” edges by adding gold and palladium leaf. The highlighted texture creates a dynamic tension with the highly polished, sumptuous black stone–Prince’s medium of choice. His interest is in creating forms that are
Rare Character Toys from Estate of KB Toys Co-Founder to Be Auctioned
VINELAND, NJ.- The dreams of thousands of toy collectors worldwide have come true since last March when Bertoia launched a semiannual series of auctions to disperse the renowned Donald Kaufman Collection. Last September when the hammer fell on the closing lot for part II of the series, the incomparable collection of American, European and Japanese toys had already taken in $7.2 million, with much more to come. The massive Kaufman toy box has not been depleted of its premier offerings of rare toys. On April 16-17, 2010, Bertoia’s will debut part III of the Donald Kaufman Collection, which will include the first offerings of classic American character toys from this prestigious collection. “The selection will astound collectors – something like this won’t happen again in our lifetime,” said Rich Bertoia, who catalogued the majority
Asian Art Week Sales at Christie’s London to Be Held in May
LONDON.- The strength of international demand for Asian Art was again demonstrated in the March 2010 sales in New York which realised $60 million; re-confirming Christie’s continued position as market leader for the category, with 73% market share. This spring, Christie’s London Asian Art Week will run from 11 – 14 May 2010, featuring further remarkable works which exemplify rarity, beauty and excellent provenance, with many highlights offered from inspiring private collections such as The Edward and Marilyn Flower Collection of Netsuke and Inro, Part II, Prints from The Illing Collection and The Dr Neil Kendall Collection of 20th Century Chinese Porcelain. The sales include: Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art on 11 May at King Street; Interiors – juxtaposing Eastern and Western Styles – on 11 May at South Kensington; Japanese
Michael Crichton Collection Features World-Class Artists
NEW YORK, NY (AP).- Best-selling author Michael Crichton approached art in the same way he did his writing — through extensive research — but also by developing close friendships with many of the artists whose works he collected. The popular thriller writer died in 2008 leaving behind such blockbusters as “Jurassic Park,” ”The Andromeda Strain” and the TV series “ER.” But he also left a 20th century art collection that features some of pop art’s best known artists, including Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg. Crichton’s family is selling about 80 percent of the collection at Christie’s auction house in New York on May 11-12. Among the highlights is Jasper Johns’ “Flag,” a rendition of the American flag that Crichton bought from the artist in 1974, and which decorated the writer’s Beverly Hills bedroom. It was last