News Articles Library Event Photos Contact Search


Home - AFAnews
Wednesday, 27 April 2011 02:35

Art and politics are entangled in China. Two recent events in Beijing show just how much: the reopening of the National Museum and the detention of the outspoken artist Ai Weiwei.

The renovated museum's inaugural displays avoid the less palatable aspects of history under the Communist Party, including the disastrous famines of the Great Leap Forward that cost millions of lives in the 1950s and '60s. There's only a minute reference to the violent and destructive Cultural Revolution of the '60s and '70s, and none at all to the bloody 1989 pro-democracy protests of Tiananmen Square, where the museum stands.

Such omissions are no surprise. Artists in China have long been aware of these and other no-go subjects. They know that if they want to show their work in state-run museums, they must conform to an unspoken "no politics, no sex and no violence" rule.

In the early 1990s, many artists tried to get around this rule by showing their work at their studios and private galleries. Even so, exhibitions were sometimes closed by authorities and artists rounded up. Performance artists in Beijing's East Village were especially vulnerable in 1994. One of the most celebrated, Ma Liuming, was arrested after security forces broke up a performance.

Recently, there has been a relaxation of sorts. During the past five years, gallery districts have flourished in cities across the country, a collector class has grown in line with the boom in the economy and even state-run museums have let down their guard to show more contemporary works.

As the Chinese art world expanded, the government applied more stringent conditions for the media in the lead-up to the Beijing 2008 Olympics. Ai Weiwei seemed like an exception to the rule, since his comments to the Western media were often critical of the government.

Long used to traveling in and out of the country as his international reputation and fame grew, Ai Weiwei was taken into custody at Beijing Airport on April 3 as he tried to board a plane to Hong Kong. Now held in parts unknown and being investigated for unspecified "economic crimes," Ai Weiwei joins a list of other artists, lawyers and activists detained during the past two months.

Many see the crackdown as evidence of government nervousness over calls for a Chinese "Jasmine revolution" after regime-changing protests in North Africa and the Middle East. Ai Weiwei, like other critics, had made such comparisons.

Wednesday, 27 April 2011 02:32

Sotheby’s announces that it will offer for sale The Duerckheim Collection, a collection of the most significant and defining German Art of the 1960s and 1970s ever to come to market, in the forthcoming Contemporary Art Auction Series in June. This collection represents a remarkably detailed and complete survey of major advancements in the recent history of European art and features the most important assemblage of 1960s paintings by Georg Baselitz in private hands; an outstanding history of Gerhard Richter's early Photo paintings; and notably rare and early works by Sigmar Polke, Blinky Palermo, Konrad Lueg, Jörg Immendorff and Eugen Schönebeck, among others. The offering is also particularly remarkable for the outstanding quality and exceptional condition of the individual pieces. Together, these works provide a very special anthology to an era of momentous change in Germany and the radical aesthetic and conceptual advancements that became so seminal in shaping the course of art history in the 20th century. These 59 artworks, which have not appeared on the market for over 30 years, are expected to realise in excess of £33 million and will be offered in the Contemporary Art Evening and Contemporary Art Day Auctions on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 and Thursday, June 30, 2011.

Discussing this extraordinary collection of German Art, Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby’s Head of Contemporary Art Europe, commented: “Presenting this definitive collection of German Art of the 1960s and 1970s for sale at auction is a great privilege for Sotheby’s. Historical perspective, extensive scholarship and renowned international exhibitions have long proved the enormous contributions to art history made by Georg Baselitz, Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke. To see masterpieces by these artists alongside works by their peers Blinky Palermo, Jörg Immendorff, Konrad Lueg and Eugen Schönebeck gives an insight into German Art of the 1960s which has not been seen in London since the 1985 landmark exhibition “German Art of the 20th Century” at the Royal Academy. The exhibition at Sotheby’s will bring these museum quality works together in public for the first time and the auction will be an exciting crescendo to the story of the Duerckheim Collection.”

The Collector Count Christian Duerckheim-Ketelhodt:
Count Duerckheim started collecting German contemporary art in 1970 after seeing a “Hero” print by Baselitz which was used to illustrate the first edition of “ZET”, a publication for literature and graphic works. This marked the collector’s ongoing fascination with the work of Baselitz and initiated an intense period of collecting in the 1970s and early 1980s during which Count Duerckheim was able to compile a complete survey of the art of his generation. He recalls feeling that he should have started buying the works at the time of their execution in the 1960s and therefore made a conscious effort to collect the artist’s earlier work which was fortunately still available. The ensemble is a resounding testament to his vision and the overall coherence of the collection demonstrates Count Duerckheim’s expert understanding, curatorial intelligence, judgment, connoisseurship and passion. It features art historically important pieces, which look back to a period when artists such as Georg Baselitz, Eugen Schönebeck, Gerhard Richter and Sigmar Polke had moved from East Germany to West Germany and it has since become an in-depth archive of German Art from the 1960s and early-1970s. Together they represent the new beginnings that so fundamentally altered the course of the visual arts from the dawn of the 1960s onwards. The inaugural exhibition of highlights from this collection will be staged at Sotheby’s New York from May 6th until May 9th and represents the first time an international exhibition of this museum-quality collection will be on view to the public in over 30 years.

Highlights in the Collection:
One of the major highlights of the auction will be Georg Baselitz’s oil on canvas Die Grosse Nacht im Eimer (The Big Night Down the Drain), executed in 1962-63., which is the most important German work of art of the post war period to come to the market. It is the sister painting to a work of the same title housed in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne (Ludwig donation), and when that painting was unveiled in 1963 at the artist's first solo exhibition and the inaugural show of Michael Werner and Benjamin Katz's gallery in West Berlin, the Ludwig painting was confiscated by the Director of Public Prosecutions on the grounds of "infringement of public morality", and the artist and gallerists were fined. It is widely recognised as the genesis of the artist's entire illustrious canon, directly anticipating later series such as the 'Hero' paintings, and related works are held in the world's most prestigious collections, such as a 1963 watercolour of the same title that was included in the Royal Academy exhibition (cat no. 37) and is now in MoMA (gift of R. L. B. Tobin, 1987). Executed when Baselitz was around 24 years old, Die Grosse Nacht im Eimer was inspired by a newspaper article about an Irish poet, Brendan Behan, who gave a reading of his poetry drunk on stage with his trouser flies open. For the artist Die Grosse Nacht im Eimer represents the ultimate provocation, which he of course considers the ultimate and inevitable purpose of his painting. At the press conference for the Baselitz Remix exhibition at the Albertina in Vienna in 2007 the artist declared that "My first painting, my first attempt at painting, was 'The Big Night Down the Drain'", and in the 2007 Royal Academy retrospective catalogue Norman Rosenthal observed that "The artist recently stated in public that perhaps he never has and never will make a finer painting than The Big Night Down the Drain.". The work is estimated at £2-3 million.

From this most important private archive of 1960s paintings by Georg Baselitz in existence, another principal highlight is his oil on canvas Spekulatius, executed in 1965 and measuring 162.7 by 132cm, which is emblematic of the artist’s celebrated ‘Hero’ series**. The painting, which is estimated at £1,800,000–2,500,000, stands as one the most significant masterworks both of the series and of the revered artist’s entire illustrious career. It belongs squarely at the centre of the seminal series of 'Hero Paintings' or ‘New Types’ that were executed between 1965 and 1966. As is exemplified in this painting, the vanquished, depleted protagonists in this cycle are survivors in a devastated post-war Germany, whose tragic isolation invokes the specific heritage of German Romanticism from Goethe to Caspar David Friedrich. Created by the artist in his mid-twenties and living in the German capital newly segregated by the Berlin Wall, Spekulatius is directly comparable to examples of the cycle that are now housed in the Tate Gallery in London and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek. Furthermore, the ‘Hero’ paintings have achieved three of the top four prices for the artist at auction, including the record price of $4,633,000 at Sotheby’s New York on 14th May 2008.

Another important work by Baselitz in the collection is his oil on canvas Das Idol, measuring 100.3 by 81.7cm, which carries an estimate of £600,000–800,000. Executed in the year following the erection of the Berlin Wall and the remarkable creation of a 26 year old, Das Idol of 1964 confronts the viewer as a searing existential vision of imagery that is without precedent.

Headlining the works in the collection by Sigmar Polke is his Dschungel, of 1967 and measuring 160 by 245.5cm, which is estimated at £3,000,000-4,000,000. By far the largest of the artist’s legendary Rasterbilder (dot paintings) from the 1960s ever to appear for public sale, this painting has been virtually unknown since its execution and only reproduced in black and white. This monumental tableau is a masterful paragon of Polke’s attempt to deconstruct the illusions and paradoxes of painting, and is one of his most important works. In the context of Pop Art and Kapitalistischer Realismus, this masterpiece questions the mechanics of the art of painting and shares the rebellious attitude inherent to Pop Art.

The work of an exceptional 26 year old who had moved to West Germany from the East in 1953, where he was to win the Young German Art Prize and have his first solo shows in Berlin and Düsseldorf immediately prior to this work in 1966. However, his student career, spanning 1961 to 1967 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, was paramount in shaping his immensely dynamic approach to art. In 1963 with his friends Gerhard Richter and Konrad Lueg, Polke initiated the quasi movement Kapitalistischer Realismus that, in its title alone, was a pithy riposte to the state-sponsored 'Socialist Realism' of the GDR. Their first exhibition was entitled Life with Pop – A Demonstration for Capitalist Realism: clearly these young men saw art as a means to effect political and social ends. Initiated during this formative period, the Rasterbilder works not only critique issues of perception and reality in a media-obsessed world but also challenge global methods of communication as agents of social change. Having been born in the abysmally dark shadow of Nazism, Polke had lived on both sides of a divided Germany that was the crucible of the Cold War. Hence he knew extremely well the manipulative power of the media and the potential of propaganda.

A further highlight by Polke is his oil and dispersion on canvas Stadtbild II, signed and dated 68 on the reverse, 151 by 125.5cm, which is estimated at £2,000,000–3,000,000. The work showing the New York skyline is a brilliant crescendo of Polke’s late- 1960s output, revealing fascinating parallels and developments in his use of media and treatment of subject matter.

A triumph of Gerhard Richter’s ground breaking 1960s Photopainting, Telefonierender stands as the epitome of both cerebral and painterly innovation that characterised the artist’s output of this period. The work exemplifies his inimitable technique and historically significant approach to source material. Executed in 1965 on an impressive scale (70 by 130cm.) and via exquisite technical accomplishment, this is an historic work that will remain central to the genesis of Richter’s remarkable contribution to visual culture. Telefonierender represents a moment when Richter’s ambition had advanced beyond simply a European riposte to the advent of American Pop, and had developed into an independent, highly-sophisticated philosophy. Although Richter’s original source image for Telefonierender, is a newspaper clipping of an anonymous man engaged in the quotidian action of speaking into a telephone, his painterly manipulation of the man’s features transforms his specific anonymity into a more encompassing, general facelessness.

A readily feasible identification of Richter’s unknowable protagonist is Elvis Presley, with whom the Man on the Phone bears a striking resemblance. The tonal topography and composition of Telefonierender has been dramatically blurred by the artist’s feathering of the wet paint surface with a fine dry brush to inscribe thousands of horizontal furrows in a consummate exhibition of sfumato brushwork. With the present work Richter exposes the false autonomy and supposed objectivity ascribed to photography and challenges his audience to question and re-evaluate their perception of contemporary media. The work is estimated at £2-3 million.

Further works by Richter in the collection comprise the artist’s provocative oil on canvas Schwestern, dated 1967, measuring 65.3 by 65cm., which is an exemplary model of his appropriation of found imagery (est. £1,200,000–1,800,000); and his oil on canvas 1024 Farben, dated 1974, numbered 356/3, measuring 96.3 by 96.2cm (est. £1,000,000–1,500,000). Finally the sale will offer the second work recorded in Richter’s legendary catalogue raisonné, his oil on canvas Eisläuferin, which was previously believed to be destroyed (est. £2,000,000–3,000,000).

Wednesday, 27 April 2011 02:29

"He who dies with wealth dies with shame,” Andrew Carnegie once said. The famous quote was repeated Sunday night by Eli Broad -- the Los Angeles billionaire and philanthropist -- on the occasion of a profile piece on CBS' "60 Minutes." Interviewed by Morley Safer, Broad opened up about his philanthropic activities, his art collection and his reputation for being difficult and demanding.

Sunday's profile of Broad shed a largely positive light on the 77-year-old businessman. But the segment was also notable for what it didn't include. Among the conspicuously absent were the leaders of L.A.'s biggest museums, some of whom have had less than amicable dealings with Broad. As Safer put it to the silver-haired billionaire, most people didn't want to speak on the record about their criticisms.

Those offering praise included Michael Bloomberg, a fellow billionaire and mayor of New York, and Jeff Koons, whose works of art rest in Broad's extensive  collection.

Wednesday, 27 April 2011 02:19

 In this era of belt tightening, it's kind of refreshing to take a look at people whose happiest pastime is to give money away. Such a man is 77-year-old Eli Broad, a self-made billionaire, art collector and for the past ten years one of the most consistently generous philanthropists in America - supporting education reform, medical research and the arts. Broad also wants to transform that sprawling monster of a city Los Angeles into a cultural capital.
Broad thinks big, but his critics say he can act very small: that he may give billions away, but that he tries to micromanage almost every dollar he gives. Broad doesn't really care what they say - all he wants to do is die poor. Well, relatively poor.

"I believe in two things: One, Andrew Carnegie said, 'He who dies with wealth dies in shame.' And someone once said, 'He who gives while he lives also knows where it goes,'" Broad told "60 Minutes" correspondent Morley Safer.

There's no one quite so civic minded in America. Broad and his wife Edye have become paparazzi pets because of the money they lavish on Los Angeles, so far more than half a billion dollars.

Behold his footprint on Los Angeles. He's a driving force behind 16 major public institutions. In the center of downtown, there is a cultural corridor, anchored by the magnificent Disney Hall, home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Next to it is the home of the Los Angeles Opera, The Museum of Contemporary Art, The High School for the Performing Arts, and The School of Music.

In greater Los Angeles, three scientific research centers, a theatre, an art center, and another contemporary art museum are supported by Broad. He puts his name on almost all of them.

Media

Wednesday, 27 April 2011 02:16

The business & commerce landscape may be littered with the remains of companies that succumbed to the economic recession, but New Orleans Auction Galleries, which has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is assuring consignors they are not one of them.

On April 1, 2011, attorneys representing the revered Louisiana auction house petitioned the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana to allow New Orleans Auction Galleries (NOAG) protection against creditors under the provisions of Chapter 11 Bankruptcy law. Chapter 11 Bankruptcy enables a company to restructure its debt under the strict guidance of the court. Only the court can issue approval of outgoing payments or further incurrence of debt by the petitioner, once Chapter 11 has been filed.

Auction Central News spoke with Attorney Stewart F. Peck of Lugenbuhl, Wheaton, Peck, Rankin & Hubbard, the law firm representing NOAG in its bankruptcy proceedings. Attorney Peck said the proposed plan for the restructuring of NOAG’s debt would allow for all consignors, including those still owed from past auctions, to be paid in full.

“Everything is subject to court approval, but the prognosis is good,” Peck said. “There are a couple of really major friends out there who want to support us. A very well known local man, Eric Aschaffenburg, has stepped in and offered to be a ‘dip lender.’ He has formed a business, Aschaffenburg Assets LLC, that is prepared to make a $300,000 loan to New Orleans Auction Galleries. The loan will provide a cash injection to give us liquidity.” Peck said the loan is expected to receive final approval at a court hearing on April 28.

Ashaffenburg, NOAG’s angel lender, is from a prominent New Orleans family that owns The Ponchartrain, an independent living facility for well-heeled retirees that, in its earlier incarnation, was a hotel favored by celebrities such as Truman Capote, Frank Sinatra and Tennessee Williams.

Peck explained that, under the terms of the bankruptcy, consignors and vendors are to be classified separately. “Subject to court approval, consignors, including unpaid consignors from January auction, would be paid 100% of what they are owed. That's what our goal is. Those who have consigned to the Major Estates Auction coming up this weekend (April 9-10) will be paid from monies kept segregated for that purpose only.”

Wednesday, 27 April 2011 01:45
With Something for Every Collecting Taste, 
Inaugural Spring Show NYC Offers a Diverse Array 
of Fine and Decorative Arts Treasures

April 28 - May 2, at the Park Avenue Armory

 
Decisions, decisions. When the Spring Show NYC, opens its doors on April 28 to May 2 at the Park Avenue Armory, a diverse array of fine and decorative arts from 65 members of the Art and Antique Dealers League of America will greet collectors and art aficionados of all tastes. From ancient artifacts to fine furniture to modern masterworks on canvas and mid-century decorative arts, fairgoers can count on finding a stellar piece to suit their style. Budding enthusiasts are also welcomed with a selection of exceptional and accessibly-priced items. Most importantly, all works on display have been carefully vetted for authenticity in accordance with the strict standards of the AADLA. Here we present a brief survey of some of the show's most extraordinary pieces, spanning more than 2500 years in age.

ANTIQUITIES - 17th CENTURY

Dating from the 6th century BCE, an important large Egyptian bronze statue of a kneeling Pharaoh ($950,000) from Royal-Athena Galleries is the oldest work on offer by far. This extremely rare figure has been modeled in the henu pose, a traditional gesture expressing jubilation. Only four other kings in this pose are known. Douglas Dawson exhibits an ancient wooden ossuary in the shape of a water buffalo ($110,000) was carved by the Toradja people of Sulawesi, Indonesia. This huge example is covered in bas-relief geometric carvings in a Neolithic style.
 
Fast-forwarding to the Middle Ages, Engs-Dimitri Works of Art offers a 16th-century Flemish feuilles de choux (cabbage leaves) tapestry, adorned with fifteen animals and a solitary figure amongst verdant foliage. Also fit for hanging is The Penitent Magdalene ($325,000), an oil on canvas by Italian painter Onorio Marinari (1627-1716) at Robert Simon Fine Art. L'Antiquaire & The Connoisseur offers a very finely early 17th century carved gilt-wood lion ($65,000).

18th CENTURY

Fine examples of furniture from this period can be found at the booths of several dealers. At Hyde Park Antiques, a Queen Anne, Japanned secretaire cabinet dates from 1710, while Clinton Howell Antiques offers an exceptional English rococo carved and gilded mirror frame in the style of Thomas Johnson ($275,000), circa 1755, which stands eight feet tall. Also from England is a pair of George III green-painted open armchairs ($55,000), circa 1790, with pierced backs adorned with an unusual motif of a quiver and arrows, available at Kentshire Galleries.

Collectors of Continental furniture should visit the Dalva Brothers, where they will find a Louis XVI roll top desk, by A. L. Gilbert, with an adjustable fall-front for use while standing. Its delicate marquetry depicts scenes of classical ruins and townscapes with details in ivory and mother of pearl. Philip Colleck offers a Danish carved gesso and giltwood mirror frame ($34,500) with original gilding, backboard and plate all in excellent condition from 1720. An expansive (approximately 77 inches by 92 inches) and extremely rare tile picture of liveried servants from Valencia, Spain ($220,000) circa 1770 is at Carlton Hobbs, while Patrick Bavasi offers a large French needlepoint picture depicting an amusing Bacchanalian scene, circa 1750. Adding to the mix is a Chippendale block-front kneehole desk in mahogany ($175,000) from George Subkoff, a rare piece from early America, circa 1760.

A broad array of 19th century fine and decorative arts from around the world will be up for the taking. Small-scale decorative arts offerings include a hard-to-find Leeds pearlware model of a stallion ($85,000), circa 1820-30, from Earle Vanderkar of Knightsbridge, while Yew Tree House presents an impressively-scaled English tavern sign of a retriever in painted iron and copper. Spencer Marks, Ltd. brings an elegant, Aesthetic Movement sterling silver and mixed metal water pitcher by Tiffany & Co. ($95,000), fashioned in the Japanese taste. No less graceful is a Manchu woman's tien tzu headdress ($34,000) from the late Qing dynasty, embellished with kingfisher feathers, pearls, Peking glass, jade, agate, coral and quartz, at Jon Eric Riis. And lovers of Americana will want to head straight to Jeff Bridgman American Antiques, where they can purchase a rare hand-sewn, Civil War-era American flag, which features 34-stars arranged in the highly sought-after "great star" pattern.

Large-scale decorative arts offerings include an impressive Italian micro-mosaic tabletop on giltwood base ($65,000), the top depicting a partial view of the Roman Forum. Likely crafted in the Vatican Workshops circa 1820, it is available at European Decorative Arts Company. At Charles and Rebekah Clark Antiques, a Classical parlor suite in bird's eye and figured maple veneer from Philadelphia, circa 1825, comprises a sofa, four chairs and a pair of footstools. The set is attributed to Michel Bouvier, ancestor of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and a furniture supplier to the White House. At O'Sullivan Antiques, an extremely rare English mahogany circular extension dining table, designed by Robert Jupe and complete with its original leaves, is circa 1840 and a further display of superb craftsmanship and technical mastery.
 
Fine art aficionados will find a Jean Baptiste Camilles Corot oil on canvas, Souvenir de Coubron; Soleil Couchant, at Rehs Gallery. And from Schiller & Bodo, an oil on panel from 1882, Il m'aime un peu, beaucoup ($95,000), by Belgian painter Jan Van Beers, thought to be one of Europe's first photo-realists. Avery Galleries exhibits a work by American painter Philip Leslie Hale, The Top of the Morning (1898), of quality and provenance rarely found in works by Hale on the market today. Finally, fellow American artist William Lamb Picknell's Paysage, A Winter Day in Brittany from 1881 can be seen at Thomas Colville Fine Art. The painting was Picknell's entry to the Salon of 1881, following his most famous picture, The Road to Concarneau, now at the Corcoran Gallery of Art.

20th CENTURY

The show's roster of 20th-century pieces highlights the remarkable aesthetic shift that took place over the last hundred years in Europe and America. From the turn-of-the-century you'll discover exquisitely ornamented furniture, like Charles Cheriff's Le Grand Bureau -- a magnificent, Belle Époque sculptural writing desk and accompanying chair by Francois Linke, which netted the Gold Medal at Paris' Exposition Universalle in 1900. And from the same year, a walnut table with bone, copper and ebony inlay ($96,000) by Carlo Bugatti from Alexander Cohane. At Pierre/Famille, a precious 30.26 carat cushion-cut Cape diamond, dating from 1900 and set in a modern 18K yellow gold mount. It's a wonderful example of early 20th-century stonecutting skill. No less eye-catching is Questroyal Fine Art's charming Impressionist pastel by Child Hassam, Hollyhocks, Isles of Shoals (1902), which beautifully showcases one of Hassam's beloved subjects: the garden of friend and mentor Celia Laighton Thaxter.

Holster Fine Art offers a unique bronze sculpture forged just after the end of World War I, Soixante - Quinze (1920), by American veteran Herbert Haseltine. The work depicts one of the guns, a French 75mm rifle, used widely throughout the war. In contrast, a peaceful watercolor scene from 1924 by Carle Michel Boog, Concert in Central Park ($85,000) is available at N.P. Trent Antiques. Similarly serene is French Fauvist painter Louis Valtat's Vase de Roses, an oil on canvas from 1938 at Abby M. Taylor Fine Art.
 
Mid-century modern will get its due too, with a rare sculpture by Harry Bertoia in iron and bronze from the 1950s. On view from Lost City Arts, the piece relates to a larger work, Gold Tree, that was produced in the early 1950's and exhibited in the American Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair in 1958. At Vojtech Blau Helice (c. 1970s), is a colorful wool tapestry, designed by famed French artist Sonia Delaunay, whose work is currently on view at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, while ILLIAD features a handsome Art Deco dining table by Jules Leleu.

UNDER $5,000

The Spring Show NYC welcomes the next generation of collectors with a selection of pieces priced to suit the budding enthusiast's budget. At Royal-Athena Galleries, a 5th-century BCE Greek polychrome terracotta figure of a standing female ($4,500) bears purple edging along her chiton. Robert Simon Fine Art, offers a Madonna and Child oil on canvas ($5,000) attributed to Pietro Faccini dates from the 16th century. L'Antiquaire & The Connoisseur adds to the under $5,000 selections with A Design for a Stage Set Depicting an Architectural Fantasy with Castle, Bridge and Encampment, a pen and brown ink, gray and black wash on cream laid paper ($3,500).

From the 18th century comes a fine George III mahogany carving of an eagle on a custom-made modern ebonized wood stand ($4,800), available at Philip Colleck Ltd., while a circular Chinese export famille rose tureen and cover ($5,000), at Earle Vanderkar of Knightsbridge. An 18th-century Dutch Delft wall plaque in the Chinoiserie style, adorned with butterflies, birds, storks and a dog, is on display at Engs-Dimitri Works of Art. European Decorative Arts will offer a late 18th-century French snuffbox in gold and gilt-metal.

19th and 20th century works include a beautifully detailed, Parian porcelain figural group from Charles and Rebekah Clark Antiques, illustrating Charles Bell Birch's Wood Nymph, and a rare pair of British Regency pearlware obelisks in a sky blue hue ($3900) from Clinton Howell Antiques. Perfect for gift-giving is a pair of antique English gold acorn earrings ($4,500), circa 1870, at Kentshire Galleries. From George Subkoff, a pair of American cast-iron sunburst andirons ($2,500) is stamped with the seal of Bradley & Hubbard of Meriden, Connecticut, circa 1880. San Francisco's Rick Scott brings a rare late 19th-century Italian tiger's eye and onyx veneered box, set in a harlequin pattern and mounted in a gold-plated copper frame ($3,995). A second flag from Jeff Bridgman American Antiques, bears 13 stars in the "Betsy Ross" pattern ($2,850) sewn around the turn of the last century. Flower lovers will admire Hayley Lever's Lily ($4,000), an oil on board from Questroyal Fine Art. And from Ghana, a 17-inch-tall, 20th-century flywhisk handle in gold foil over wood ($2,800) is at Doug Dawson. Finally, a panel sculpture by Harry Bertoia at Lost City Arts measures nine feet square and exemplifies Bertoia's use of meltcoat bronze during the early 1950s.

Saturday, 23 April 2011 01:20

The Smithsonian Institution will see a $1.8 million cut in its 2011 budget under the spending deal approved by Congress.

Details of the budget released Monday include a $759.6 million appropriation from Congress, down from $761.4 million last year. Most Smithsonian funding remains intact with a small reduction for salaries and expenses.

Last year, Republican leaders in Congress complained the Smithsonian was misusing taxpayer funds with a National Portrait Gallery exhibit that explored gay themes in art history. A video in the exhibit drew complaints from a Catholic group, and the Smithsonian removed the piece.

Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas said there were no cuts to major programs in the appropriation from Congress.

For 2011, there is $125 million for construction and revitalization projects. That includes $20 million for planning and design of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and $10.6 million for revitalization at the National Museum of Natural History and National Zoo. The Natural History Museum also will receive $16.6 million to replace its mechanical systems and windows.

The National Museum of American History will receive $18 million to convert its parking garage into space for collections storage.

Major construction funding for a new museum devoted to black history is still pending in the 2012 budget.

Saturday, 23 April 2011 01:12

The Museum of Modern Art will be extending its hours from July 1 through September 3, keeping the museum open until 8:30 p.m. on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (with the exception of Saturday, July 9) evenings, and opening its doors from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Tuesdays (July 5 through August 30), a day the Museum is usually closed, providing the public with more opportunities to enjoy the Museum's renowned collection and special exhibitions. Also this summer, live music performances return to MoMA's Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden in July and August.

For MoMA Nights in July and August, MoMA is open until 8:30 p.m. every Thursday, with live music presented in two sets, at 5:30 and 7:00 p.m., in the Sculpture Garden (weather permitting).

MoMA Nights concerts are free with Museum admission and feature an international and innovative selection of live music. The 2011 series focuses on musical acts that mine a specific genre and give it a personal imprint. The musicians take idioms codified by previous generations and add idiosyncratic touches that reflect geographic and chronological distance, as well as personal artistic temperament. The series will launch on July 7 with a Brazilian group to celebrate this summer's edition of Premiere Brazil!, MoMA's annual collaboration with the Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival. In August, one concert ties in with the exhibition Impressions from South Africa, 1965 to Now. Further concert details will be available in mid-May. This is the fourth MoMA Nights music series organized in collaboration with Olivier Conan, programmer and co-owner of Barbès performance space in Brooklyn.

During MoMA Nights, there will be a cash bar (specialty cocktails, draft beer, wine, and nonalcoholic beverages) and seasonal tapas for purchase in the Sculpture Garden. The Garden Bar will sell local gelati and sorbetti, ice cream sandwiches, and cookies, as well as wine, beer, and specialty coffees. Terrace 5, on the fifth floor of the Museum, will offer wines and salumi in an-urban picnic? in addition to the regular à la carte menu presented by chef Lynn Bound.

Saturday, 23 April 2011 01:08

Paul Graham's exhibition at London's Whitechapel gallery is filled with people who are just looking. We observe their rapt attention, their lostness, absorbed in things that we can't see. They stare at TVs beyond the frame, their faces caught in the glow of the screen; they look out of cafe windows, distracted by the passing traffic. They wait in dole offices whose grimness is an insult to the eye.

In the corners of nightclubs, people stand with their eyes closed, engulfed in music, or booze, or drugs. In Belfast, a woman squints at the smoke from the cigarette she's dragging on. A pensive Galician girl casts her eyes downwards in Vigo. People stare at the pavement. They gaze at the floor. Wretched walls return their vacant looks. Sometimes they don't seem to see the world at all, their thoughts engaged elsewhere. We see their interiority and distraction, but cannot penetrate it. Sometimes they see nothing because they really are blind.

Sometimes we are blinded, too, and the picture goes almost blank, too full of glare for us to see. There's something going on in there, but the detail has been blanched out. This is a whited-out view of America, black neighbourhoods bleached to the point of erasure, just like the affliction visited on everyone in José Saramago's 1995 novel Blindness, in which Graham discovered a telling affinity with his own work. Made between 1998 and 2002, American Night juxtaposes these over-exposed images with over-rich, colour-saturated shots of sturdy homes in affluent suburbs, and often shadowy shots of black people on America's streets. As a photographic essay, American Night is as much conceptual as it is social critique, as perversely poetic as it is observational.

It is difficult not to regard all of Graham's projects as metaphor, not least for the photographer and his subject, for engagement itself: looking at photographs and at the world; looking at other people looking, seeing and not seeing. The camera sees more than the photographer – or rather, it sees something different. We see with the mind more than the eye, while the camera itself is only an eye, wherever the photographer directs it. When I look at Graham's photograph of the view from the bridge over the Archway Road at Highgate in north London, I see things from my past that Graham can't possibly know, and which aren't actually in the picture. The past, and your own life, comes tumbling in.

The same is true of the wretched pictures he took in employment offices during the early 1980s. I have sat in at least two of these self-same DHSS offices, waiting for my number to be called. Graham waited, too, not only to take sly shots, but to sign on himself. Beyond Caring remains Graham's best-known series; laminated versions of these photographs were toured by the old Greater London Council to TUC conferences in order to lobby MPs for better conditions in these desolate waiting rooms and interview booths. They remain often appalling and dehumanising places, for claimants and staff alike. But there's more to Beyond Caring than social documentary and observation, or even political commitment or outrage against Thatcherism. There's a terrible emptiness in them, a blight that goes beyond the economic.

Saturday, 23 April 2011 00:56

For years, it has been the two-fingered salute to the conventional art world, a poke in the eye for homophobes and a feather in Brighton's non-conformist cap. But now, seven years after its creation on the side of the Prince Albert pub, Banksy's "kissing coppers" is set to be shipped out and put on sale in America.

The work, which depicts two policemen in a passionate clinch, has become a shrine for fans of the elusive graffiti artist and a regular stop on Brighton's tourist trail. But, after repeated attacks on the artwork left it severely damaged, the pub owner has decided to sell the original through a New York gallery for an sizeable fee, estimated to be anywhere from £500,000 to £1m.

"When he put it on the pub it belonged to the pub and, if it is sold, all the money will go back to the pub," said the owner Chris Steward. "It is very difficult to just keep the pub going, so a little break from that would be very welcome."

Like many of Banksy's street artworks, the kissing coppers has a colourful history. A Banksy emissary had sought permission on behalf of the street artist but the pub had no idea what to expect. "My first thought was, 'oh no'," admitted Steward. "I thought we'd get in loads of trouble for it." And when a group of uniformed officers stepped out of their cars in front of the pub, he expected the worst. "I didn't know what was going to happen but they all stood there and started taking photos of it, it was lovely," said Steward.

Friday, 22 April 2011 01:33

An inimitable genius with a fierce drive to create, Pablo Picasso constantly explored opportunities to break boundaries and challenge himself in new ways. In the 1940s, this quest led him to an entirely new medium, one that would become one of the most vibrant and creative of his career...

Picasso’s first encounter with ceramics took place in 1946, when he visited a pottery exhibition in Vallauris, France. There he became particularly enamored of the work of Suzanne and Georges Ramié. A friendship quickly developed between the artists, and Picasso eagerly accepted an invitation to visit their workshop in Madoura the following summer, perhaps as a chance to fuse his interests in painting, drawing and sculpture in a previously undiscovered medium. From that moment on, he returned to the workshop for significant periods of work over the next 20 years.

This month, Christie’s present an important private collection of ceramics by Picasso which exemplify the wide range of functional forms and decorative motifs this artist explored in his work at Madoura. The selection of more than 140 ceramics—which includes plates, bowls, chargers, vases, pitchers, and tiles modeled from earthenware or terracotta—highlight many of Picasso’s characteristic themes, such as mythological and anthropomorphic forms, bull-fighting pieces, and animal and human portraits. With estimates ranging from $800–30,000, this occasion marks the perfect opportunity to acquire attractively priced sculptural works that capture the boundless talent and impassioned energy of this unequivocal master.

Friday, 22 April 2011 00:31

The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA) presents Catherine Opie: Empty and Full, on view at the ICA from April 15 through Sept. 5, 2011. Exhibition presents new work on view for the first time.

This spring, the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston opens Catherine Opie: Empty and Full, an exhibition of new and recent work by photographer Catherine Opie. One of the defining artists of her generation, Opie is known for her portraits and landscapes. In this exhibition, Opie has taken photographs of recent political demonstrations and gatherings—ranging from the inauguration of President Obama to Tea Party rallies. Her work explores the intimate relations between community and politics, citizens and the landscape, offering a dynamic portrait of the United States at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Organized by ICA Chief Curator Helen Molesworth, Catherine Opie: Empty and Full is on view at the ICA from April 15 through Sept. 5, 2011.

“Catherine Opie: Empty and Full is a timely exhibition by an important artist, whose work continues to pose and frame questions about the most basic human values: love, community, family, and freedom,” says Jill Medvedow, director of the ICA.

“Opie’s recent work elaborates on the relationship between people and place, particularly the energy and desires created when masses of people convene around a shared interest or value,” says Molesworth. “Freedom of assembly is one of the rights Americans take for granted and Opie is interested in the way that sites, such as the National Mall in Washington, D.C., come to be defined by the groups of people who assemble there and how their gathering shapes the identity of the place. Drawing on the long and august tradition of American landscape painting and documentary photography, Opie ultimately gives us a picture of a great experiment: democracy in action.”

The first series is entitled Inauguration and documents the enormous crowds that convened in Washington, D.C., for President Barack Obama’s inauguration. These images show us portraits of Americans assembled en masse on the Mall, bundled up against the January cold to await the arrival of the new president. Shot against a landscape of pale winter light and bare trees, Opie’s photographs capture moments of individual emotion on a day that recognized the hopes and voices of an American majority.

Other works are images of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and the annual convening of the Boy Scouts of America. These works further Opie’s interest in the specific use made of the landscape, as well as her ideas about the wide variety of ideals and beliefs held by Americans in their pursuit of a meaningful life. These lush and pastoral images are held in contrast with images Opie has been taking of political protests in urban areas, notably Tea Party rallies, pro-immigration marches, and anti-war demonstrations. A comparison is made between urban and rural, pleasure and protest, leisure and commitment, all of which add up to a rich and complex view of the United States, our citizens and our deeply engrained relationship to the landscape.

Installed around the perimeter of the ICA gallery is a series of devastatingly beautiful images of the ocean. These images, from a body of work called Twelve Miles to the Horizon, were taken over a period of ten days, one at every sunrise and one at every sunset, from the deck of a massive container ship making the passage from Busan, Korea, to Long Beach, California. These pictures of sunrises and sunsets all share the same horizon line, are radically unpopulated, and are feats of technical precision and sublime beauty. Their “emptiness” stands in stark contrast to the fullness of the political pictures.

Despite the formal differences between the two “types” of images on view in Empty and Full, there is also a strain of continuity. In each body of work, Opie suggests a profound level of interconnection and interdependence that people have not only with one another, but with the spaces we collectively inhabit.

Artist bio
Born in 1961 in Sandusky, Ohio, Catherine Opie has become one of America’s premier documentarians, photographing the American landscape—from its Alaskan glaciers to its suburban freeways—as frequently as she images its citizens. A graduate of Cal Arts, she currently teaches in the studio program at the University of California at Los Angeles. Select solo exhibitions include Catherine Opie: Figure and Landscape at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2010), Catherine Opie: American Photographer at the Guggenheim Museum in New York (2008), Catherine Opie: Chicago at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2006). Opie was a 2009 recipient of the President’s Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Women’s Caucus for Art and was awarded a United States Artists Fellowship in 2006.

The exhibition is made possible with the generous support of the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, Mark and Marie Schwartz, the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, Sandy and Les Nanberg and Regen Projects.

Friday, 22 April 2011 00:25

In the decades before World War II, many artists were thrilled by the steel- and fossil-fuel-based technology embodied in trains, planes and automobiles, and edifices like the Eiffel Tower and the Chrysler Building. Few were more inspired by the promises of industrial modernity than the sculptor John Storrs.

The subject of an excellent, taut survey at the Grey Art Gallery that focuses mainly on work from the 1920s, Storrs (1885-1956) compacted utopian, machine-age dreaming into Cubist-Art Deco sculptures resembling pieces of architectural ornament and models of skyscrapers. There is nothing quite like his dense, carefully wrought stone and metal sculptures in early American — or European, for that matter — Modernism.

The exhibition, “John Storrs: Machine-Age Modernist,” was organized by Debra Bricker Balken, an independent scholar and curator, for the Boston Athenaeum, where it opened last spring.

Born and reared in Chicago, Storrs studied for short periods at the Art Institute of Chicago, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He trained in Hamburg with Arthur Bock, a Vienna Secession-style figurative sculptor, and in Paris with Auguste Rodin.

For most of his career he lived in France, but in accordance with a stipulation in his father’s will, he maintained residency in Chicago and thereby stayed informed about developments in art and architecture in the United States. In New York he was acquainted with members of the Société Anonyme, including Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray and Charles Demuth. In Europe he met Constantin Brancusi, Alexander Calder and many other players on the avant-garde scene.

The most conspicuous influences on Storrs’s sculpture, however, were not artists but architects: the American Modernists Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright, whose Chicago works Storrs knew well. In the late teens and early 1920s, Storrs created suave, chunky, semi-abstract statues of people. “Le Sergent de Ville (Gendarme)” (modeled in 1919, cast in bronze in 1923) has a square head and a blocky body whose angular, faceted planes are selectively plated in silver. This muscular little fellow projects a heroic manliness, but, at just over 16 inches tall, there is something humorous about him; he is a Cubist RoboCop.

Friday, 22 April 2011 00:20

You have an interesting face. I would like to do your portrait. I have a feeling we will do great things together.--Pablo Picasso

Following the critical and popular success of Picasso: Mosqueteros in New York in 2009 and Picasso: The Mediterranean Years in London in 2010, Gagosian Gallery is pleased to present the next chapter in an ongoing exploration of Picasso’s principal themes. Picasso and Marie-Thérèse: L’amour fou brings together the paintings, drawings, sculptures, and prints inspired by one of Picasso’s most ideal models and enduring passions. The exhibition is curated by the eminent Picasso biographer, John Richardson, together with Marie-Thérèse’s granddaughter, art historian Diana Widmaier Picasso, who is currently preparing a catalogue raisonné of Picasso’s sculptures.

In 1927, on a street in Paris, Picasso encountered the unassuming girl, just shy of eighteen years old, who would become his lover and one of modern art’s most famous muses. “I am Picasso” he announced. The name meant nothing to Marie-Thérèse so he took her to a bookshop to show her a monograph of his paintings and asked if he could see her again. Flattered and curious, she agreed, and thus began a secret love affair that would establish Marie-Thérèse as the primary inspiration for Picasso’s most daring aesthetic experiments in the decade to come.

More than any other woman that Picasso desired and painted, Marie-Thérèse, with her statuesque body and strong, pure profile, fueled his imagination with a luminous dream of youth. Although her first appearances in his work were veiled references with her initials forming spare linear compositions, such as in the earliest work in the exhibition, Guitare à la main blanche (1927), the arrival of the blond goddess’s likeness in his art announced a new love in his life. In portrayals, Picasso would stretch her robust athletic form to new extremes, metamorphosing her in endlessly inventive ways. She became the catalyst for some of his most exceptional work, from groundbreaking paintings to an inspired return to sculpture in the 1930s, according her an almost mythic stature and earning her immortality as an art historical subject. Yet her true identity remained a secret from even Picasso’s closest friends. Even after Marie-Thérèse bore their daughter Maya in 1935, Picasso would continue to divide his time between his professional life as the most famous artist in the world, and his secret family life, spending Thursdays and weekends with her and Maya and amassing a trove of love letters and snapshots exchanged while they were apart.

The exhibition spans the years 1927 to 1940 and includes several works never before seen in the United States. The curators have assembled the group of more than eighty works to show a rarely articulated range of Marie-Thérèse’s influence within Picasso’s imagery, beyond recent headline-grabbing portraits. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue with a new biographical essay by John Richardson, and Diana Widmaier Picasso’s revelatory essay exploring Picasso’s portraiture, which includes dozens of never before published photographs of Marie-Thérèse from the family archives. Elizabeth Cowling, Professor Emeritus of History of Art at Edinburgh University and co-curator of the historic exhibition “Matisse Picasso” (2002-03), has contributed an essay that examines the dissemination of images of Picasso’s sculptures through the art journals of the period.

To show Picasso’s work in a downtown contemporary art gallery creates a context that evokes the original challenges that his art presented in his own time while celebrating its enduring significance in our own. Under the direction of Valentina Castellani and installed in a dynamic transformation of the 21st Street gallery by architect Annabelle Selldorf, this unprecedented exhibition of the period will reveal Picasso’s secret muse and his l'amour fou Marie-Thérèse in a dramatic new light.

Pablo Picasso was born in Málaga, Spain in 1881 and died in France in 1973. Recent exhibitions of his work include “Picasso: Tradition and the Avant-Garde,” Museo Nacional del Prado and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2006); "Picasso and American Art" at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2006) traveling to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2007); "Picasso et les Maîtres," Galeries nationales du Grand Palais (2008-09); “Picasso: Challenging the Past,” National Gallery, London (2009) and “Picasso at the Metropolitan Museum”, New York (2010).

For further information please contact the gallery at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or at 212.741.1717.

Friday, 22 April 2011 00:17

London’s Victoria and Albert Museum today named Martin Roth as director starting Sept. 1, choosing a culture manager with 10 years’ experience of running Dresden’s extensive art collections and organizing international shows.

Roth, who is 56, takes over from Mark Jones, who has led the V&A since 2001 and is leaving to be master of St. Cross College at Oxford University. Roth is currently director general of Dresden’s State Art Collections, among the oldest and most important collections in the world.

The V&A describes itself as the “world’s greatest museum of art and design,” with a collection spanning 3,000 years. It encompasses architecture, ceramics, glass, fashion, jewelry, metalwork, painting, photography and more. The museum last month chose architect Amanda Levete to lead a 35 million pound ($58 million) redevelopment that will create new exhibition rooms, a public courtyard, and a new side entrance.

Roth has “a strong record of leading and managing complex arts organizations,” Paul Ruddock, chairman of the V&A board of trustees, said in an e-mailed statement. “He is the ideal person to build on the recent successes of the V&A.”

As Dresden’s museum chief, Roth has overseen the reopening of the World War II-bombed Historic Green Vault treasure chamber, the rebuilding of the ruined royal palace (due for completion in 2013) and the renovation after flood damage of the 16th-century Albertinum.

Old Masters

The Dresden art collections were assembled by the electors of Saxony including August the Strong, a passionate collector of art and treasures. The 15 separate collections, housed in seven museum buildings, include old masters, jewels, porcelain, weaponry, modern art, sculpture, graphics and folk art.

Friday, 22 April 2011 00:11

An Egyptian court on Thursday jailed five officials, including a former head of the state's fine arts department, over the theft of a Van Gogh painting worth an estimated $55 million, state media said.

"Vase with Viscaria" was stolen in August from Cairo's Mahmoud Khalil museum, home to one of the Middle East's finest collections of 19th and 20th-century art.

The state MENA news agency and court officials said the five had been found guilty of "causing the theft of the painting," without giving further details.

The painting has not been recovered.

A police investigation soon after the theft found that security measures at the museum were extremely lax, raising fears about the safety of the treasure trove of art and antiquities on display in Egypt.

Legal sources said the court sentenced Mohsen Shaalan, who was head of the culture ministry's fine arts department, to one year in jail and ordered him to perform community service.

Four other employees at the museum were given six-month prison terms, said the sources.

The museum houses works assembled by Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil, a politician who died in 1953, including paintings by Gauguin, Monet, Manet and Renoir, as well as the Dutch post-Impressionist master Vincent Van Gogh.

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris offered a 1-million pound ($168,000) reward for information leading to the recovery of the painting.

Friday, 22 April 2011 00:10

An Austrian museum has announced plans to return a precious Gustav Klimt painting to the heir of its rightful owner after researchers discovered it was confiscated by Nazis during the second world war.

The painting, Litzlberg am Attersee, currently owned by the modern art museum MdM Salzburg, could be worth as much as €30m ($44m).

Research showed that the Nazis seized the 96-year-old painting from an apartment of a woman named Amalie Redlich in a village near Vienna. Redlich was deported to Poland, where she was killed, Salzburg deputy governor Wilfried Haslauer and the head of the museum, Toni Stooss, told reporters. Her 83-year-old grandson, Georges Jorisch, lives in Montreal, Canada.

The painting was bought by Salzburg art collector and dealer Friedrich Welz who exchanged it in 1944 for a piece from Salzburg's state gallery. It was subsequently taken over by the state gallery's successor, the Salzburger Residenzgalerie, in 1952 and later became part of the inventory of Salzburg's modern art museum.

"This is looted art, there's absolutely no question about that," Haslauer said in comments carried by Austrian radio Oe1.

Friday, 22 April 2011 00:06

Last week, in the industrial heart of Downtown L.A., thousands of people were confronted with art and artists behaving badly. Big time. Graffiti and litter messed up every square inch of the walls and grounds around the crowds. But judging from their body language and smiles, the people were having the time of their life. And who could blame them?

For several weeks, dozens of artists from around the world have been working hard inside and outside of the once gritty old garage building which, a quarter of a century ago, was transformed by Frank Gehry into what is known today as MOCA's Geffen Contemporary. The resulting exhibition, with its messy, explosive, joyful energy, is called Art in the Streets.

If you had the misfortune of riding the New York subways in the late '70s or early '80s, you might be excused for your grudginess toward graffiti. And the same can be said for regular folks feeling abused by taggers scrawling their names around local stores and apartment buildings. And again, who could blame them?

But what a difference 30 years makes ... And that is precisely what this museum exhibition is all about. Without art behaving badly we would have never had the thrill of discovering the graffiti art of Keith Haring. And can anyone enjoy the great paintings of Jean-Michel Basquiat without feeling and smelling the danger of the streets that inspired them? Or would Barrack Obama's presidential campaign be the same without the Shepard Fairey posters pasted all over the country?

One wants to congratulate MOCA's director Jeffrey Deitch, who has been able to pull this wild rabbit of an exhibition out of his hat, in spite of the embarrassment caused by the white washing of the mural that initiated this exhibition a few months ago.

Thursday, 21 April 2011 02:07

Robert Vickrey, a painter whose often unnerving depictions of shadow-streaked streets populated by nuns, clowns or children at play made him a leading figure of the magic realism school, died on Sunday at his home in Naples, Fla. He was 84.

The death was confirmed by his son, Scott.

Mr. Vickrey, who mastered the Renaissance technique of egg tempera painting as a student at Yale, used his consummate skill to create, in his early work, hyper-real scenes suffused by an atmosphere of dread or impending disaster. He was an avant-garde filmmaker on the side, with a deep knowledge of expressionism and film noir, whose shadows, angles and distortions he introduced into his paintings.

In the 1950s and ’60s Mr. Vickrey was a highly visible artist. He was included in no fewer than nine of the Whitney Museum’s annual exhibitions showcasing contemporary art. He was also commissioned to paint dozens of portraits for the cover of Time, notably a portrait from life of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for the magazine’s Man of the Year issue in 1964.

As his style of painting fell out of favor, Mr. Vickrey was relegated to the margins of the art world. Critics did not always respond kindly to the more upbeat tone of his later painting, moreover, which seemed closer to Andrew Wyeth and Norman Rockwell than his chilling early work.

In the 1980s, a reassessment of magic realism, and of overlooked artists like Paul Cadmus, Jared French and George Tooker (who died on March 27), led to renewed interest in Mr. Vickery’s work. He was the subject of a retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Art, Science and Industry in Bridgeport, Conn., in 1982, and of a biography by Philip Eliasoph, “Robert Vickrey: The Magic of Realism” (Hudson Hills, 2008).

Thursday, 21 April 2011 02:05

An Andy Warhol self-portrait completed shortly before his death is expected to sell for as much as $40 million at auction next month, Christie's said on Wednesday.

"Self-Portrait," a large haunting depiction of Warhol rendered in deep red and black, was done in 1986 and displayed in a widely praised gallery show in London just months before he died after routine surgery in New York.

"It is a rare event that a work of this grandeur and stature comes to market," said Amy Cappellazzo, Christie's international co-head and deputy chairman of post-war and contemporary art.

"With all the other examples in museums, it will be the last chance that buyers will have to bid on a work that shifted art history," she added about the sale on May 11.

Events