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Monday, 18 February 2013 14:20

David Hausman, a New York City antiques dealer, was sentenced to 6 months in prison for illegally purchasing rhinoceros horns. The federal court also hit Hausman with a $28,000 fine for breaking laws intended to protect endangered black rhinos.

Hausman was arrested and pleaded guilty in court last summer, admitting that he knew the horns needed to be more than 100 years old in order to be purchased legally. Hausman, whose arrest was part of a nationwide crackdown, had previously offered to help the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service fight the illegal sales of rhinoceros horn.

Rhinoceros horn carvings, which are believed to bring good luck and health, have left the world’s rhino population devastated.

Monday, 18 February 2013 13:57

Atlanta’s High Museum of Art has joined forces with the Art Gallery of Ontario to present the exhibition Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics, and Painting. The show, which features approximately 140 works by the Mexican modernists Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) and Diego Rivera (1996-1957), includes works from Mexico’s Museo Dolores Olmedo, the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection of Mexican Art, and the Galeria Arvil. The works are presented in pairs based on chronology and theme including Mexican identity, maternity, and portraiture.

Kahlo and Rivera, who married in 1929, were known for their tumultuous relationship as well as their involvement in Mexican politics and culture. Frida & Diego aims to take the focus off of the personal lives and explore the ways in which they influenced each other as artists.

Frida & Diego: Passion, Politics, and Painting will be on view through May 12, 2013. The High Museum of Art is the only museum in the U.S. to host the exhibition, which is the largest presentation of the couple’s art ever to appear together.


Monday, 18 February 2013 13:55

U.S. Antique Shows announced that they will be adding another event to their roster this spring. The L.A. Antique Jewelry & Watch Show, which will take place March 22-24, 2013, will bring together over 100 preeminent antique jewelry dealers from across the country.

The show, which will be held at the Hyatt Regency Century City, will offer patrons a variety of rare and unique jewelry and watches by notable brands such as Cartier, Rolex, Patek Philippe, and Van Cleef & Arpels. Cameos, rings, decorative necklaces, brooches, gemstones, and pendants spanning from the Renaissance to the Art Deco era will also be featured. Highlights from the upcoming show include a 12-carat internally flawless fancy yellow ring from Raymond Lee Jewelers, rare Art Deco diamond bracelets and jewelry from Jerome Heidenreich Inc., and an Art Deco platinum and diamond Tiffany & Co. pendant from J.S. Fearnley.

Dan Darby, group fair director, said, “We are thrilled to be able to bring together dealers and antique jewelry enthusiasts in the market that boasts the largest jewelry district in the country…We look forward to introducing local antique collectors to some of the most unique pieces ever offered on the West Coast.”

Friday, 15 February 2013 10:59

French senator Corinne Bouchoux is urging French museum officials to take closer looks at their prized holdings as many public art collections contain works looted by Nazis during World War II. Bouchoux has led an investigative committee devoted to uncovering Nazi-looted artwork in France, which prompted her to ask museums to be more thorough in their provenance research.

Bouchoux revealed that out of the 100,000 artworks stolen from Jewish families in France and Belgium, approximately 2,000 of those works were still present in French museums. Many of these museums were designated “national museums of recovery,” which allowed the institutions to keep the works as long as they did not become property of the state and if identified, the rightful owners could reclaim them.

Bouchoux wrote her doctoral thesis, which has just been published as a book, on Nazi-looted art in France and has suggested nine proposals to direct the stolen works back to their rightful owners or offer restitution for them.

In line with Bouchoux’s efforts, the Shoal Memorial in Paris presents the exhibition Looting of the Jews: A State Policy (1940-44), which grants visitors a glimpse of the goods, including artworks, that originally belonged to Jews in France. The show is on view through September 29, 2013.

Friday, 15 February 2013 10:50

In 2006 The Cardsharps was sold to the late collector and scholar Sir Denis Mahon for just over $65,000 at an auction at Sotheby’s in London. At the time of the sale, Sotheby’s identified the work as being by a “follower” of the Italian master, Caravaggio (1571-1610). However, after his purchase, Mahon identified the work as a Caravaggio original and obtained an export license for the work that put its value at $15.5 million according to a claim filed at London’s High Court of Justice.

Due to their failure to identify The Cardsharps as an authentic Caravaggio painting, Sotheby’s is being sued by Lancelot William Thwaytes, who consigned the work to the 2006 auction. Thwaytes is now seeking unspecified damages, interest, and costs relating to the price difference between the painting’s 2006 selling price and what he believes it was actually worth on the open market that year had it been properly attributed to Caravaggio. Thwaytes claims that Sotheby’s was negligent in its research prior to the work’s sale, leading to its extraordinarily low selling price.

However, Sotheby’s stands behind its belief that the painting is a copy and not a work by Caravaggio’s hand, citing Caravaggio expert Professor Richard Spear and several other leading scholars. Sotheby’s added that their view was supported by the market’s reception to the painting when it was put up for auction.

Mahon, who passed away in 2011, donated 58 works from his collection worth around $155 million to various U.K. galleries.

Thursday, 14 February 2013 14:37

Dallas’ Southern Methodist University and Philadelphia’s Cultural Data Project have joined forces to launch the National Center for Arts Research. The Center, which is the first of its kind in the United States, will conduct, analyze, and assemble arts research as well as investigate issues concerning arts management and patronage. The Center will make all of its finding public to art leaders, funders, policymakers, researchers, and the general public.

Through extensive studies and follow-up analysis, the National Center for Arts Research plans to create a comprehensive depiction of the health of the country’s arts sector. The Center, which launched on February 13, 2013, plans to collaborate with I.B.M. to create an interactive dashboard that will allow arts organizations to compare themselves to their peers.

Jose Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University said, “Arts organizations must have a more research-driven understanding of their markets and industry trends in order to more deeply engage existing audiences and reach new ones.” Along with management and patronage, the National Center for Arts Research will specialize in the impact of the arts on communities across the U.S. as well as fiscal trends and stability of the arts in the U.S.

Thursday, 14 February 2013 13:44

Recent tests on the Isleworth Mona Lisa support the theory that the painting pre-dates the Louvre’s world-famous portrait by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). Hidden in a Swiss bank vault for 40 years, the Isleworth Mona Lisa was unveiled to the public on September 27, 2012, inciting rampant speculation about the work’s history. The Louvre’s Mona Lisa, which is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506, has been considered the only one of its kind for centuries.

The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Alfonso Rubino, a specialist in “sacred geometry,” carried out tests on the 15th century Isleworth portrait after its unveiling. Carbon dating determined that the canvas was manufactured between 1410 and 1455, shooting down claims that the Isleworth Mona Lisa was a late 16th century copy. Rubino’s geometric analysis also supported the da Vinci attribution, explaining that the geometry of the Isleworth portrait matched the geometry used by da Vinci in his other works including the Vitruvian Man (circa 1490).  

The new findings combined with the existing scientific and physical research build a strong case for the Isleworth Mona Lisa. The Zurich-based Mona Lisa Foundation is even on board with the claim, vowing to pursue efforts to prove the portrait’s authenticity.

Thursday, 14 February 2013 12:47

Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary evening art auction garnered over $127 million on February 14, 2013, the highest total ever for a February sale of its kind at Christie’s London. Out of the 72 lots presented, 65 were sold; the auction total cruised past the pre-sale estimate of $86.8 million to $120.8 million.

The top lot of the night was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s (1960-1988) text-laden acrylic, oilstick, and paper collage on canvas titled Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown) (1983), which sold for $14.5 million. French collector John Sayegh-Belchatowski purchased the work, which carried a third-party guarantee. In 2012, Museum Security was pulled from a Christie’s New York auction after a legal dispute between an owner, the British aristocrat Lord Edward Spencer-Churchill, and dealers, Gerard Faggionato and Alberto Mugrabi, broke out. The case was settled out of court and the work was re-offered at Christie’s last night.

Other highlights from the blockbuster sale include Gerhard Richter’s (b. 1932) Abstraktes Bild (889-14) (2004), which sold to a telephone bidder for $13.2 million; Francis Bacon’s (1902-1992) Man in Blue VI (1954), which was also snapped up by a telephone bidder for $7.8 million; and David Hockney’s (b. 1937) figurative painting Great Pyramid at Giza with Broken Head from Thebes (1963), which went for $5.5 million.

Basquiat, Bacon, and Richter garnered major sales at both Christie’s and Sotheby’s, who’s contemporary sale the night before brought $116 million, proving that the category has not lost its edge in the art market.

Wednesday, 13 February 2013 16:21

Residents of Alderney, the northernmost of the British Channel islands, recently came together to complete the Bayeux tapestry, an embroidered cloth measuring 230 feet from the 1070s. The original tapestry is believed to have been commissioned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, the half brother of Duke William II of Normandy, and was sewn by English needle-works in either Winchester or Canterbury over a ten year span.

The Bayeux Tapestry is comprised of 50 scenes depicting the events leading up to the Norman conquest of England at the Battle of Hastings, where Duke William II defeated King Harold II of England. However, the tapestry ends before the coronation of William in London in 1066, leading experts to believe that the embroidery had lost its final panels over the centuries.

Hundred of people from Alderney have contributed to the completion of the Bayeux tapestry. Designed by artist Pauline Black, the project was overseen by Kate Russell, an American who lives on the island. Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles even added a few stitches while on a visit to the Channel Islands.

The completed Bayeux tapestry will go on display at the Alderney Museum later this year.

Wednesday, 13 February 2013 14:30

Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction in London totaled $116 million on February 12, 2013. The sale featured a number of works by art market powerhouses such as Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), and Gerhard Richter (b. 1932). Bacon’s oil on canvas triptych Three Studies for a Self-Portrait (1980), which sold for $21.5 million, was the evening’s top lot. German collector, Jurgen Hall, who plans to loan the work to a major international institution, purchased the painting.  

44 of the 54 lots offered sold and over 20 works brought more than $1 million dollars. Highlights included two Richter paintings, Wolke (Cloud) (1976) and Abstraktes Bild (769-1) (1992), which sold for $11.9 million and $12.8 million respectively. Basquiat’s Untitled (Pech/Oreja) (1982-83), a large-scale acrylic, oil stick, and paper collage, went for $10. 7 million and another one of his hefty works, Five Fish Species (1983), sold for $7.8 million. Both works were purchased by New York-based art dealer Jose Mugrabi.

While there were some major sales, the auction fell comfortably within its pre-sale estimate of $95.7 million to $132.2 million. The contemporary auctions will continue tonight, Feburary 13, 2013, at Christie’s London.

Wednesday, 13 February 2013 14:03

Looking at the View, a sweeping display of 300 years of British landscape painting, opened at London’s Tate Britain on February 12, 2013. The exhibition coincides with the re-opening of the Tate Britain galleries, which were closed for renovations.

The show is part of the museum’s BP British Art Displays, a series that highlights contemporary and historic British art from its collection. Curated by Tate Britain’s director Penelope Curtis, Looking at the View illustrates the different ways British artists have interpreted and portrayed their surroundings over the past three centuries. The exhibition features works from the Romantic and Pre-Raphaelite periods as well as paintings from the Land Art and other contemporary movements. Artists on view include J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851), John Brett (1831-1902), Henry Lamb (1883-1960), Lucian Freud (1922-2011), and Tracey Emin (b. 1963).

Looking at the View, which presents over 70 works by more than 50 artists, is arranged according to motif and draws connections between artists from vastly different time periods and movements. It is on view at Tate Britain through June 2, 2013.

Tuesday, 12 February 2013 13:45

Henry Moore’s (1898-1986) severely damaged sculpture Knife Edge Two Piece (1965) will finally be restored according to the Parliamentary Art Collection. The sculpture, which is prominently displays outside of the Houses of Parliament in London, is England’s most revered work by the British sculptor.

Moore and the Contemporary Art Society donated Knife Edge Two Piece to England in 1967 but the work fell into disrepair after administrative changes left it with no legal owner. Eventually, the British government suggested that the House of Commons take ownership for the sculpture and that the Parliamentary Art Collection take responsibility for the its care.

The bronze sculpture, which is marred by discoloration, deterioration, and incised graffiti, will undergo conservation beginning February 16, 2013. Conservator Rupert Harris will lead the effort, which involves removing the sculpture’s protective lacquer and abrading its surface to eliminate the damage. The work will then be repatinated and treated with wax in order to protect it from future environmental damage.

The conservation project is expected to cost a little over $50,000 with most of the funding coming from the Parliamentary Art Collection. The Henry Moore Foundation will contribute about $17,000 to the effort. The Knife Edge Two Piece restoration project is expected to reach completion at the end of March 2013.

Tuesday, 12 February 2013 13:05

Days after the British government placed an export ban on two important works by the English painter, George Stubbs (1724-1806), officials have announced that they will take similar measures to keep a landscape painting of a London park by American Hudson River School artist, Jasper Francis Cropsey (1823-1900), in the U.K.

The export ban placed on Cropsey’s Richmond Hill in the Summer of 1862 gives the British government time to raise money to keep the painting in the country rather than having it sold to a foreign buyer. The government will need to come up with about $7.83 million in order to keep the painting, which has been in British collections for 150 years, in the U.K. Richmond Hill is important to British culture because it draws connections between American and British landscape paintings of the 19th century. It is one of the only British landscapes by an American artist to remain in the U.K.

The export ban will keep the Cropsey painting in the U.K. until April 7, 2013 and may be extended to August 7, 2013 if a potential British buyer has been found. The British government placed a previous export ban on Richmond Hill in 2000.  

Tuesday, 12 February 2013 12:41

Although the exhibition Chihuly at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts closed on February 10, 2013, the show’s success left a lasting mark on the Richmond institution. The exhibition, which opened on October 10, 2013, was devoted to the popular American glass artist and sculptor, Dale Chihuly (b. 1941), who is credited with revolutionizing the Studio Glass movement.

Chihuly at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts brought a record number of visitors during its nearly four-month run. The show welcomed around 160,000 patrons, far exceeding the 115,000 visitors museum officials were expecting. The exhibition also set records for the museum store where Chihuly Studio editioned glass sculptures and lithographs were for sale. The store sold 69 works priced between $4,600-$8,600 and $2,500-$2,800 between November, December, and January.

The show at the Virginia Museum was the third major exhibition in the U.S. to focus on Chihuly’s work in recent years. He was also the subject of record-breaking shows at San Francisco’s de Young Museum (2008) and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2011).

Monday, 11 February 2013 15:51

Genre-defying painter, sculptor, and illustrator, Richard Artschwager (1923-2013), died February 9, 2013 in Albany, NY. He was 89.

Artschwager, who was often linked to the Pop Art movement, Conceptual Art, and Minimalism, resisted classification through his clever genre mixing. His most well known sculpture, Table with Pink Tablecloth (1964) is an amalgamation of Pop Art and Minimalism and consists of a box finished in colored Formica, creating the illusion of a wooden table draped in a pink tablecloth. Artschwager often used household forms in his work including chairs, tables, and doors. In his paintings, Artschwager often painted black and white copies of found photographs and then outfitted them with outlandish frames made of painted wood, Formica or polished metal.

Artschwager was born in 1926 in Washington, D.C. and went on to study at Cornell University. In 1944, before he could finish his degree, he was drafted into the Army and sent to Europe. Upon returning to the United States after World War II, Artschwager completed his degree and decided to pursue a career in art. He moved to New York City and began taking classes at the Studio School of the painter Amédée Ozenfant, one of the founders of Purism. With a growing family and bills to pay, Artschwager took a break from making art to start a furniture-making business. After a fire destroyed his workshop, Artschwager returned to making art, developed his defining style, and was taken on by the Leo Castelli Gallery, which represented him for 30 years.

A few days prior to Artschwager’s death, the Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan closed a major career retrospective of his work. It was the second of its kind to be organized by the museum.    

Monday, 11 February 2013 13:57

State Farm Insurance is suing French art dealer Alfred DeSimone for either discarding or losing an original lithograph by the colorful French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). The lost work, Artistide Bruant Dans Son Cabaret, 1893, was part of a series of three posters used to promote French cabaret singer and comedian Artistide Bruant (1851-1925) around Paris in the late 1800s. The lithograph remains one of Toulouse-Lautrec’s most recognizable images.


State Farm is seeking $103,000 in damages from DeSimone for the centuries-old lithograph, which was bought by the insurance company’s client, Thomas Rosensteel, in 2006. Rosensteel purchased the work as an investment, but never ended up hanging it. While looking for a buyer, Rosensteel gave the lithograph to DeSimone for safekeeping, agreeing to pay him a fee once the work was sold. Rosentsteel found a buyer in 2010 and when he went to pick up the work from DeSimone, it was missing. DeSimone claims that the lithograph may have been put in a mailing tube and either sent to someone else or discarded. Rosensteel filed an insurance claim with State Farm who paid $103,109 to him; the company is now seeking compensation for the claim.

DeSimone, who has been experiencing financial troubles, has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing in the Toulouse-Lautrec case. A judge will review the lawsuit on April 25, 2013.

Monday, 11 February 2013 13:08

A major exhibition titled Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind is now on view at the British Museum in London. With works dating as far back as 40,000 years, the show presents ice age objects from across Europe alongside works by modern masters including Henry Moore (1898-1986), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), and Henri Matisse (1869-1954). The juxtaposition is meant to illustrate the fundamental human desire to explore life and oneself through art.

Many of the ice age-era works on view are made of mammoth ivory and reindeer antler and tend to be diminutive in stature. Highlights include a 40,000-year-old flute made from a vulture’s wing bone, a mammoth tusk carved to resemble a pair of reindeer, and a 23,000-year-old abstract ivory sculpture found in Lespugue, France that had a profound influence on Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) sculptural work of the 1930s.

The works, which range from 10,000 to 40,000 years old, will be on view through May 26, 2013.

Friday, 08 February 2013 14:37

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), an obscure graffiti artist who shot to fame in the 1980s thanks to his Neo-expressionist and Primitivist paintings, is the subject of a major exhibition now on view at Gagosian Gallery in New York. Gagosian first featured Basquiat’s work thirty years ago in its Los Angeles gallery.

Since his untimely death at 27, Basquiat has been given a number of posthumous retrospectives including one at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (1992-92) and another at the Brooklyn Museum of Art (2005). The first major show to focus on the artist in eight years, the Gagosian exhibition will present over fifty works from public and private collections that span Basquiat’s short but powerful career.

Basquiat, who left his family home in Brooklyn at 15, became a major figure in New York City’s underground art scene. After making a name for himself as a prolific graffiti artist, Basquiat transitioned to painting and hit his artistic stride. Basquiat befriended Andy Warhol (1928-1987), was the subject of an iconic New York Times Magazine feature, and had become a major art star before his life was cut short due to a drug overdose.  

Basquiat’s works will be on view at Gagosian Gallery through April 6, 2013.

Friday, 08 February 2013 13:28

Paul Cézanne’s (1839-1906) The Large Bathers is currently on view at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The work, which is on loan from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is being exhibited alongside the MFA’s own Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903).

 The Large Bathers, painted in France between 1900 and 1906, is considered one of the most ambitious of Cézanne’s many works exploring the theme of nudes in a landscape. Serene and idyllic, the painting was left unfinished at the time of Cézanne’s death.

 Gauguin’s Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?, which was painted between 1897 and 1898, also features nudes in a landscape, but as means to illustrate the inevitable passing of time. Upon its completion, Gauguin said, “I believed that this canvas not only surpasses my preceding ones, but that I shall never do anything better – or even like it.” Gauguin attempted suicide after finishing the painting but was unsuccessful.

 Exhibited together for the first time in Boston, Large Bathers and Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? bridged the gap between art of the 19th and 20th centuries. In doing so, Cézanne and Gauguin influenced a generation of modern artists including Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Henri Matisse (1869-1954).

 The two paintings will be on view at the MFA through May 12, 2013.

Friday, 08 February 2013 12:42

Eune Delacroix’s (1798-1863) celebrated painting Liberty Leading the People was defaced while on view at the Louvre’s satellite location in Lens, which opened in the former mining town in northern France in December 2012. French police have a detained the woman accused of scrawling a graffiti tag along the bottom of the work.

Delacroix, a leader of the Romantic school in French painting, painted Liberty Leading the People to celebrate the July revolution of 1830, which brought down France’s Charles X. The work was featured on the country’s 100-franc banknote before the Euro was adopted and is rumored to have inspired New York’s Statue of Liberty.

Just before the museum closed for the day on Thursday, February 7, 2013, a 28-year-old woman scribbled in 12 inch writing what officials believe to be a reference to a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Officials believe that the work can be easily cleaned, but a restoration expert from the Louvre was being sent to Lens to perform a thorough examination. Museum officials have not yet decided if the painting will need to be removed.    

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