Displaying items by tag: pop art

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. received a promised gift of 250 paintings, drawings, sculptures and photographs from the American art collector and gallerist Virginia Dwan. The bequest, which includes works by Robert Smithson, Yves Klein, Ad Reinhardt and Sol LeWitt, will help bolster the museum’s postwar and minimalist holdings.

The National Gallery’s director, Earl A. Powell, said, “The National Gallery of Art is thrilled to be the beneficiary of Ms. Dwan’s seminal collection. The pledge will significantly strengthen our holdings of art from the 1960s and 1970s.” Dwan owned and helmed the Dwan Gallery in Los Angeles and New York during the ‘60s and ‘70s. She presented the group exhibition My Country ‘Tis of Thee in 1962, one of the earliest pop art shows in the United States.

Dwan’s collection will be featured in the exhibition From Los Angeles to New York: The Dwan Gallery 1959-1971 when the National Gallery’s East Building reopens in 2016. The space will close next year for a maintenance and expansion project.

The Denver Art Museum and the Clyfford Still Museum will present Picasso to Pollock: Modern Masterworks from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery from March 2, 2014 through June 8, 2014. The sprawling exhibition will bring together approximately 50 works by more than 40 significant artists from the late 19^th century to the present. The show is drawn from the holdings of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, which boasts one of the finest collections of 20^th century art in the country.

Modern Masterworks will present works by Vincent van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Georgia O’Keeffe, Salvador Dali, Frida Kahlo, Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock. The exhibition charts the evolution of modern art, starting with post-Impressionism and moving on to a number of groundbreaking movements such as Cubism, Surrealism, Pop Art and Minimalism. A large portion of Modern Masterworks is comprised of works by mid-century American artists such as Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell.

A related exhibition, 1959, will be on view at the Clyfford Still Museum from February 14, 2014 through June 15, 2014. The show re-creates Still’s seminal exhibition held at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 1959. Still, one of the leading figures of Abstract Expressionism was a contemporary of Pollock, de Kooning, Motherwell and Rothko.

Christoph Heinrich, Frederick and Jan Mayer Director of the Denver Art Museum, said, “Not only are most of the iconic artists of the time represented, but the works themselves are masterpieces from each artist.”

The Museum of Modern Art in New York will honor the legendary gallerist and collector Ileana Sonnabend with an exhibition of works that were shown in her galleries in Paris and New York between the 1960s and 1980s. Sonnabend, who opened the Sonnabend Gallery in Paris in 1962, was instrumental in bringing American art of the 1960s, most notably Pop Art and Minimalism, to Europe. Sonnabend opened a New York outpost in 1970 and conversely, popularized European art of the 1970s, including the Arte Povera movement, in the U.S.

Ileana Sonabend: Ambassador for the New will open on December 21, 2013 and celebrates the Sonnabend family’s generous bequest of Robert Rauschenberg’s seminal mixed media assemblage Canyon (1959) to MoMA. The exhibition will present works by approximately 30 artists including Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, John Baldessari and Jeff Koons. Works will be pulled from MoMA’s own collection as well as other public and private holdings.  

Ileana Sonabend: Ambassador for the New will be on view at MoMA through April 21, 2014.

To commemorate Pop artist Andy Warhol’s would-be 85^th birthday, the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh has teamed up with the video network EarthCam to stream live video feed from the artist’s grave. Warhol, who died in 1987 from complications stemming from a routine gallbladder surgery, would have been 85 on August 6, 2013.

The project, “Figment,” will be on view indefinitely and aims to connect Warhol to the museum’s global audience. The project’s title was pulled from a comment by Warhol:

“I never understood why when you died, you didn’t just vanish, and everything could just keep going on the way it was only you just wouldn’t be there. I always thought I’d like my own tombstone to be blank. No epitaph and no name. Well, actually, I’d like it to say ‘figment.’”

Warhol’s tombstone, which is located in a Roman Catholic cemetery outside Pittsburgh, his hometown, is engraved with his name, the dates of his birth and death, and a cross. Warhol’s grave attracts many of the artist’s fans and the live feed shows his resting place adorned with flowers and balloons.

Eric Shiner, the director of the Andy Warhol Museum, told the Associated Press, “We believe that this will give Warhol the pleasure of knowing that he is still plugged in and turned on over 25 years after his death.”

When Andy Fields, 49, purchased a handful of unidentified sketches from a property sale in Las Vegas, he did not know that he would be acquiring a potential Andy Warhol original. Experts believe that one of the drawings, which Fields bought for $5, is a previously unknown picture by the Pop Art legend from when he was 10 or 11 years old.

Although the Andy Warhol Authentication Board did not approve the sketch of singer and actor Rudy Vallee before it disbanded, Fields has listed the sketch on eBay for $1.9 million. Fields claims that he has been told by experts at Bonhams and Sotheby’s that the pencil and graphite drawing is authentic and could be worth up to ten times his asking price.

Fields, a businessman, purchased the drawing from a man who told him that his aunt had cared for and befriended Warhol when he was young and prone to illness.

The Nassau Museum of Art in Roslyn Harbor, New York is currently presenting the exhibition Alex Katz: Selections from the Whitney Museum of Art. The solo show consists of an array of large, striking portraits by the American artist Alex Katz (b. 1927). The exhibition is drawn from the Whitney Museum of American Art’s extensive collection of the artist’s work.  

A primarily figurative painter, Katz often portrays his friends and family, especially his wife Ada, in simple, brightly colored compositions. Because of these aesthetic predilections, he has often been associated with the Pop Art movement. Katz’s expansive oeuvre also includes numerous landscapes, particularly of New York City and Maine. Since 1951 Katz has been the subject of over 200 solo exhibitions and he has been included in nearly 500 group shows worldwide.

Alex Katz: Selections from the Whitney Museum of Art will be on view at the Nassau Museum of Art through October 13, 2013.  

A painting by renowned Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) will be the highlight of Masterpiece London, which takes place at the Royal Hospital Chelsea from June 27 through July 3, 2013. Now in its fourth year, the show presents the finest art, antiques, and design from across the globe.

While works ranging from furniture, jewelry, and books to classic cars, watches, and whiskey will be offered, there is one particular artwork generating tons of pre-show buzz. Geoffrey Diner, a Washington, D.C.-based art dealer, will present Roy Lichtenstein’s Puzzle Portrait (1978), which has not been seen in public in 30 years and has never appeared at auction. Similar paintings are part of the Guggenheim Museum’s and the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s collections in New York. Puzzle Portrait is expected to garner around $10 million.    

Diner has revealed little about the painting’s provenance other than the fact that it was sold in 1984 to “a prominent American collection.” Diner purchased the painting privately last year and the change of ownership still has not been registered in the Lichtenstein Foundation archives. The identity of the previous owners will be revealed to the buyer upon acquisition of the painting. The future buyer will also be given the personal correspondence between them and the artist from the original transaction.

After a whirlwind of auctions last week in New York, which included a historic $495 million post-war sale at Christie’s, Phillips’ Contemporary Art Evening Sale on May 16, 2013 seemed quite subdued. The boutique auction house’s sale garnered $78.6 million and sold 81% by lot and 88% by value.

The highlight of the night was Andy Warhol’s (1928-1987) Pop Art masterpiece, Four Marilyns (1962), which sold for $38.2 million. The sale confirmed that Warhol remains a powerful presence in the art market. During the auction two other Warhol works were sold -- Flowers (1964), which brought $2.4 million and Marilyn Monroe (Marilyn) (1967), which sold for upward of $2 million. Other major sales that night included Jean-Michel Basquiat’s (1960-1988) Untitled (1961), which garnered over $4 million and Roy Lichtenstein’s (1923-1997) Still Life (1972), which also sold for upward of $4 million.

Phillips has undergone a number of changes in the past year. Following the departure of Chairman Simon de Pury in December 2012, the company changed its name from Phillips de Pury & Co. to Phillips. In February 2013, the auction house revealed 10,000-square-feet of new gallery space at the company’s headquarters on Park Avenue in Manhattan. The expansion was an attempt to compete with the major auction houses such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s.

Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Art Auction on May 15, 2013 in New York garnered $495 million – the highest total in auction history. Packed with masterpieces from an array of important art movements including Abstract Expressionism and Pop, many of the works offered were from lauded private collections and institutions. Brett Gorvy, Chairman and International Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, said, “The remarkable bidding and record prices set reflect a new era in the art market, wherin seasoned collectors and new bidders compete at the highest level within a global market.”

The top lot of the night was Jackson Pollock’s (1912-1956) Number 19, 1948 (estimate: $25 million - $35 million). A prime example of Pollock’s drip paintings, the work sold for $58.3 million and set the record for the artist at auction. The influential art critic, Clement Greenberg, singled our Number 19 as the painting that offered enough proof to justify calling Pollock one of the most significant painters of our time.

Other highlights include Roy Lichtenstein’s (1923-1997) iconic work of pop art, Woman with Flowered Hat (1963) (estimate: approximately $30 million), which sold for $56.1 million and set the record for the artist at auction; Jean Michel-Basquiat’s (1960-1988) Dustheads (estimate: $25 million - $35 million), a neo-expressionist work from the 1980s, which sold for $48.8 million, an auction record for the artist; and Mark Rothko’s (1903-1970) color field painting, Untitled (Black on Maroon) (1958) (estimate: $15 million-$20 million), which sold for $27 million.

Out of 70 works offered at last night’s auction, only 4 failed to find buyers.

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.