Displaying items by tag: commission

Sotheby’s will present three early bronzes from Auguste Rodin’s (1840-1917) pivotal The Gates of Hell at its Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on May 7, 2013 in New York. The three casts are part of a renowned private collection and include a rare, early cast of The Thinker (1906), which is expected to garner anywhere from $8 million to $12 million.

The cast of The Thinker was made by the Alexis Rudier foundry in Paris and was commissioned directly from the artist by the publishing tycoon, Ralph Pulitzer. The sculpture features a plaque stating that it was made for Pulitzer under Rodin’s immediate supervision. The other casts included in the Impressionist and Modern Art auction are Rodin’s beloved The Kiss (1909) and Ugolino and His Children (1883), which was only cast three times during Rodin’s lifetime.

The Directorate of Fine Arts commissioned The Gates of Hell, which was inspired by Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, in 1880. The project was originally expected to take five years but Rodin spent 37 years working intermittently on what would become the defining sculpture of his career. While The Gates of Hell was never fully realized, many of Rodin’s most notable sculptures are related to the single and multi-figure works he created for the commission.

The international financial services group, Credit Suisse, has decided to donate a portrait of Alexander Hamilton by Revolution-era painter, John Trumbull (1756-1843), to not one, but two museums. The painting has been on loan to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas since it opened to the public in 2011.

Credit Suisse decided that giving the portrait to Crystal Bridges and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, two well-known institutions, would maximize the public’s enjoyment of the work by expanding its audience. The shared ownership will see that the portrait remains in Arkansas until the summer, when it will travel to the Met for a year. The painting will return to Crystal Bridges in 2014 for another year. Eventually the painting will be on view at each museum for two-year stretches.

Credit Suisse acquired the striking full-length portrait in 2000 when it absorbed the New York-based investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Richard Jenrette, one of the bank’s founding partners, had assembled a remarkable art collection for the company that became part of Credit Suisse’s acquisition.  

The New York Chamber of Commerce commissioned Trumbull to paint the Hamilton portrait in 1791 while he was serving as President Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury.

Seven works by the renowned Italian painter Piero della Francesca (1411/13-1492) are currently on view at the Frick Collection in New York. Piero della Francesca in America is the first monographic exhibition in the United States to focus on Piero, one of the founding figures of the Italian Renaissance.

Among the seven works on view at the Frick are six panels from the Sant’Agostino altarpiece (1454-69), a work commissioned for the Church of St. Agostino in Piero’s native Borgo San Sepolcro. Soon after the altarpiece was completed, it was dismantled, removed from the church, and the panels dispersed. Eight panels survive to this day including the four belonging to the Frick, three more, which are housed in European museums, and another belonging to the National Gallery in Washington, D.C.

The Frick’s reunion of the six panels is the largest reassembly from Piero’s masterpiece ever to appear on display. The panels are accompanied by the Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels (circa 1460-70), the only intact altarpiece by Piero in the United States. Acquired by Sterling Clark (1877-1956), the heir to the Singer Sewing Machine fortune and an avid art collector in 1913, the work is now part of the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute’s collection in Williamstown, MA.  

The exhibition, which is on view in the Frick’s oval room, is accompanied by a number of lectures, gallery talks, and seminars. Piero della Francesca in America will be on view through May 19, 2013.

Thomas Hart Benton’s (1889-1975) epic mural, America Today (1930-31) has found a new home at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. A sweeping panorama of American life, the work once lined a boardroom at the International-Style New School for Social Research on West 12^th Street, which was designed by the Austrian architect, Joseph Urban (1872-1933).

The 10-panel mural, which was Benton’s first major commission, ushered in a new approach to mural painting, turning to the reality of everyday life for inspiration. America Today portrays American life prior to the Great Depression and features the flappers, farmers, steel workers, and stock market moguls that are readily associated with the period. The mural remains Benton’s best-known work and a masterpiece of modern art.     

Benton, an American realist painter, drew inspiration for the mural from his travels around the United States in the 1920s. A glimpse into both rural and urban life at the time, America Today portrays the wealthy and poor as well as the progressive and traditional ideals that defined the era. While Benton did not receive a fee for the commission, the work opened the door for future commissions and helped inspire the Works Progress Administration mural programs that were implemented in the late 1930s.  

Bought by the insurance company, AXA Equitable, nearly 30 years ago, America Today was in storage before the decision to donate the work was made. However, the Met is currently without extra exhibition space and the mural won’t be on view until at least 2015 when the museum takes over the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue. The Whitney is headed to its own larger space in the meatpacking district. America Today is the first artwork that Met officials have confirmed for the Breuer building.

When the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art opened its doors for the first time in Bentonville, Arkansas on November 11, 2011, the institution presented about 450 works of art, nearly half of its entire holdings. A little over a year later, the Crystal Bridges’ collection has ballooned and now includes over 2,000 artworks thanks to an active acquisition program led by Executive Director Don Bacigalupi, museum curators, and a solid leadership board. Within the past year, the Crystal Bridges Museum has acquired five sculptures, eight paintings, one mixed media work, 468 prints, and 504 works on paper, including photographs, drawings, and watercolors.

Museum officials were particularly excited to acquire a large painting by Abstract Expressionist artist, Mark Rothko, titled No. 210/No.2011 (Orange) (1960) and held an official unveiling back in October. The piece, which has only been exhibited twice in public, is currently part of the museum’s temporary exhibition, See the Light: The Luminist Tradition in American Art. After the show closes in late January, the Rothko work will be moved to the museum’s Twentieth-Century Art Gallery.

Other major acquisition include a portrait by American folk artist Ammi Phillips (1788-1865), titled Woman in Black Ruffled Dress (circa 1835); a neoclassical white marble sculpture completed in 1867 by William Wetmore Story (1819-1895); a contemporary mixed-media work from the early 1980s by Californian artist Miriam Schapiro (b. 1923); and a large painting titled Tobacco Sorters (1942-44) by the twentieth-century American artist, Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), which was commissioned by the American Tobacco Company.

A private collector who specialized in early twentieth-century works facilitated the major growth in the museum’s print department. The recent acquisitions vary in style from Benton’s Regionalism to Charles Sheeler’s (1883-1965) Precisionism and include drypoints, etchings, engravings, lithographs, screenprints, woodcuts, and wood engravings. A selection of recently acquired prints will be part of the temporary exhibition Art Under Pressure: Early Twentieth Century American Prints, which will be on view from December 21 through April 22, 2013.

The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens acquired thirteen pieces of furniture by the American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. The selection of furniture had previously been on display at the Library since 2009 as part of a long-term loan from the prominent New York collectors, Joyce and Erving Wolf. The purchase was made directly from the Wolfs for an undisclosed amount.

The highlight of the group is a nine-piece dining room suite designed in 1899 for the now-demolished Husser House in Chicago. The commission marked a turning point in Wright’s career as he moved away from his more architecturally rigid views on interiors towards the notion that interior space can be open and flowing. The other four pieces in the acquisition were from signature Wright houses in Illinois including the Avery Coonley House, the Arthur Heurtley House, the Little House (which has been demolished), and the Ward W. Willits House.

One of the greatest architects of the 20^th century, Wright played a pivotal part in changing design sensibilities from the highly ornate styles of the late-19^th century to more streamlined designs for modern times. In addition to developing plans for upward of a thousand buildings, Wright designed furniture, leaded-glass windows, light fixtures, metal ware, and textiles – all made to harmonize with the buildings for which they were intended.

Leon Black, a billionaire financier and chief executive of the private equity firm, Apollo Global Management, announced his acquisition of Phaidon Press, a publisher of fine art books. Black, who paid an undisclosed amount for the company, bought Phaidon from the British businessman, Richard Schlagman.

Phaidon is one of premier publishers of books on the visual arts along with Taschen and Assouline. The company has collaborated with such artists as Ai Wei Wei, Nan Goldin, and Stephen Shore and they publish everything from children books to cookbooks to collector’s editions that often come with signed prints or specially-commissioned pieces of art. On Phaidon’s site there is a statement from Black saying, “We having greatly admired Phaidon and the important contribution the company has made to art and culture. We are impressed with how Richard Schlagman has built the business and the Phaidon brand under his ownership over the last two decades. My family and I look forward to supporting the future of the company, including through the ongoing development of its publishing program, further geographic expansion, and the launch of digital products.”

Black, who is rumored to have paid $120 million for Edvard Munch’s The Scream earlier this year, is one of the country’s most prominent art collectors. In May, Black and his wife announced a $48 million contribution to the new visual arts center at Dartmouth College. An alumnus of the school, Black and his family also included a commissioned sculpture by Ellsworth Kelly in the gift.

The Museum of Craft and Folk Art (MOCFA) will be closing its doors on December 1, 2012, the date marking the institution’s thirtieth anniversary. Founded in 1982 by craft artist and well-known sculptor, Gertrud Parker, MOCFA is the only folk art museum in Northern California.

After three decades, the Museum’s overseers felt that their mission, to bring recognition and legitimacy to craft and folk art in the contemporary art arena, had been achieved. The poor climate for smaller art institutions was undoubtedly a contributing factor.

Although the art market and leading museums now embraces contemporary artists who borrow from craft traditions, the innovative and daring venues that helped these artists get there are suffering. For instance, this past summer amid financial troubles, the American Folk Art Museum in New York was forced to sell its building on 53^rd Street to the Museum of Modern Art and move to a smaller venue.

The MOCFA has exhibited hundreds of artists and significant local and national craft and folk art collections over the years. The Museum is devoted to collaborating with artists on commissions of new work as well as promoting artist-led projects and public programs. MOCFA has worked ardently to provide a place for makers and artists to come together and create, discuss, and learn. The Museum’s final exhibition, Fiber Futures: Japan’s Textile Pioneers, will be on view from now until December 1.