Displaying items by tag: oil

The tenth edition of Master Drawings in New York January 24 – February 1, 2015 promises to be the best ever. More than thirty of the world’s leading dealers are coming to New York City to offer for sale master art works in pencil, pen and ink, chalk and charcoal, as well as oil on paper sketches and watercolors, created by iconic artists working in the 16th to 21st centuries. Each exhibition is hosted by an expert specialist and many works on offer are newly discovered or have not been seen on the market in decades, if at all.

In addition, Margot Gordon and Crispian Riley-Smith, co-founders of Master Drawings in New York, announced that John Marciari, the new head of the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, will provide the introduction for the 2015 Master Drawings in New York brochure.

The Georgia Museum of Art at the University of Georgia is hosting the show Deaccessioning Bernard Smol (1897-1969), which is putting a unique spin on the standard museum exhibition. Due to limited storage space and an evolving collection, the museum has decided to deaccession all but one of Smol’s works. Visitors to the exhibition will vote for the piece that they would like to remain in the museum’s collection and curatorial staff will work this feedback into their final decision.

The process of deaccessioning artworks is lengthy and closely regulated. A museum must make the public aware of its intent and the museum’s collections committee and Board of Advisors must approve that intent. Only when all parties are on board is a work able to be removed from a collection. Oftentimes, the artwork heads to auction and the proceeds from the sale are used for future acquisitions that will bolster the museum’s collection.

Deaccessioning Bernard Smol presents five oil paintings by the French artist, which have not been shown at the Georgia Museum since their initial exhibition in 1959. The Georgia Museum was inspired by DePaul University’s exhibition, The Good the Bad, and the Ugly, which helped them decide what works to deaccession from their own collection in 2010.

Over fifty major works totaling about $64 million were offered as payment to the UK for nearly $40 million worth of inheritance tax that accumulated between 2010 and 2012. Those in control of the estates of authors, artists, and collectors have been allowed to use cultural and historical artifacts to pay the tax since 1910.

The UK has recently received a number of masterpieces including two oil portraits of aristocratic families by Sir Joshua Reynolds, a renowned 18^th century English artist. One portrait will be placed in the Tate and the other will go to the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery. Other works include two landscapes by JMW Turner; an oil sketch by Peter Paul Rubens titled The Triumph of Venus that will be placed in Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum; a work by Italian 17^th century master Guernico that has been allocated to the National Gallery; and four sculptures and three works on paper by Barbara Hepworth.

The ability to donate significant works to pay off inheritance tax has introduced a number of remarkable pieces to the UK’s galleries and museums, bringing monumental works out from behind closed doors and into the public arena.