Displaying items by tag: figure

Recent additions of artwork representing medieval Europe, the Ancient Americas, 20th-century photography, and contemporary art further enhance the Cleveland Museum of Art’s permanent collection. World-renowned for its quality and breadth, the collection represents almost 45,000 objects and 6,000 years of achievement in the arts.

The latest acquisitions include a Virgin and Child, a rare 13th-century wooden sculpture from the Mosan region of Europe; a Standing Female Figure, a clay figure representative of the Classic Veracruz period on Mexico’s Gulf Coast; and Just the two of us, one of contemporary artist Julia Wachtel’s first paintings to employ cartoons. The museum also announced the addition of eight photographs by Ansel Adams, a gift from Frances P. Taft, a longtime museum supporter and trustee.

Christie’s evening sale of Old Master & British Paintings, which took place on July 2, 2013 in London, garnered $36.2 million and attracted buyers from 11 countries. Georgina Wilsenach, Head of Old Master & British Paintings at Christie’s London, said, “This sale saw strong prices for paintings from all schools particularly Italian, Flemish and British. We welcomed, once again, bidders from Asia, the Middle East, South American and Russia as well as the traditional markets of Europe and America.”

Canaletto’s (1697-1768) masterpiece, The Molo, Venice, from the Bacino di San Marco, was the evening’s top lot. The work, which is one of the artist’s most celebrated views of Venice, realized $12.8 million, well over its high estimate of $8.9 million. The painting, one of the largest of this particular subject, once belonged to Edward Howard, the 9^th Duke of Norfolk and a major patron of British art. The work was passed down through the Duke’s family until the 1970s.

Other highlights from the sale included Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) detailed study of a bearded man’s head in profile holding a bronze figure. Created after the artist had returned to Antwerp from Italy, the composition depicts one of the kings featured in Rubens’ monumental Adoration of the Kings (1616-17), which was painted for the Church of Saint John in Mechelen. The study brought $2.6 million, just over its low estimate of $2.2 million.

Edgar Degas’ (1834-1917) La Masseuse (The Masseuse), which was once owned by the German-born British painter Lucien Freud (1922-2011), has been given to the Walker Art Gallery as part of the British government’s Acceptance in Lieu (AiL) of law. The AiL is a provision under which inheritance tax debts can be written off in exchange for the acquisition of objects of national importance.

The Degas sculpture was one of three works by Degas bequeathed to England following Freud’s death. The Walker Art Gallery, which is located in Liverpool and houses one of the largest art collections in England outside of London, was granted the sculpture after a competitive process with other UK museums and galleries. La Masseuse, Degas’ only two-figure sculpture, will join the artist’s painting Woman Ironing at the Walker.

Xanthe Brooke, Curator of European Art at the Walker Art Gallery, said, ‘We’re very grateful to Arts Council England for allocating the sculpture to the Walker Art Gallery, where it will be appreciated by an enthusiastic and diverse audience.”

An exhibition of monumental works by the British sculptor Henry Moore (1898-1986) is now on view at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The show, which includes 12 large-scale sculptures, inaugurates the museum’s new “outdoor gallery,” which was created as part of a major institution-wide renovation that concluded this spring.

The exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Henry Moore Foundation and features many works that have never been on public view in the Netherlands. Highlights of the exhibition include Reclining Woman: Elbow 1981, which has not left the Leeds Art Gallery since its creation over 30 years ago; the interactive sculpture Large Two Forms 1966; and Large Reclining Figure 1984, which measures nearly 30 feet tall. The sculptures, which are made of either bronze or fiberglass, span Moore’s post-war career and include his semi-abstract forms as well as his renowned sculptures of reclining figures.

The Henry Moore exhibition is the first in a series of annual international sculpture displays that will take place at the Rijksmuseum over the next five years. Moore’s sculptures will be on view in the gardens through September 1, 2013.

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 remarkable Barbier-Mueller Collection of Pre-Columbian Art will be up for sale at Sotheby’s Paris on March 22 and 23, 2013. Comprised of approximately 300 works from Mexico, Central America, and South America and worth around $26 million, the Barbier-Mueller collection is the most important grouping of its kind ever offered at auction.

Swiss collector Josef Mueller (1887-1977) started building his collection after acquiring major works by Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) and Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) in Paris during the early 20^th century. Mueller went on to develop an affinity for important works of Pre-Columbian art. The collection was later honed and expanded to include African art, Oceanic art, and Cycladic art by Mueller’s daughter, Monique, and her husband, Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller.

The works offered at Sotheby’s span the historical cultures that dominated the period from 1200BC to 1500AC and include objects in wood and stone, ceramics, textiles, and ritual items. Highlights from the collection include a Chupicuaro ceramic statue from 500-100BC that is expected to sell for approximately $2.6 million; a Maya ceramic head that Mueller purchased from the film director John Huston estimated to bring $200,000-$325,000; and an Aztec stone figure of a water goddess from 1300-1500 expected to garner over $650,000.  

The Barbier-Mueller Collection of Pre-Columbian Art is on view at Sotheby’s until March 21, 2013.

Fine Lines: American Drawings from the Brooklyn Museum is now on view at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. The exhibition presents over 100 drawings and sketchbooks from the museum’s collection, many of which have rarely been seen.

Fine Lines features works created between 1768 and 1945 and includes drawings by more than 70 artists such as John Singleton Copley (1738-1815), Stuart Davis (1892-1964), Thomas Eakins (1844-1916), William Glackens (1870-1938), Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), Winslow Homer (1836-1910), Edward Hopper (1882-1967), Eastman Johnson (1824-1906), Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), and John Singer Sargent (1856-1925).

Fine Lines is organized into six categories and draws connections between artists from varying periods and artistic styles. Topics explored in the six sections are portraiture; the nude; the clothed figure; narrative subjects; natural landscapes; urban landscapes; and conservation techniques.

Fine Lines will be on view at the Brooklyn Museum through May 26, 2013.