Displaying items by tag: publishing

Dutch graphic artist Irma Boom is renowned for designing books whose contents have been filtered through her idiosyncratic view of the world. How fitting, then, that she was asked to design a book for New York’s Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum as it celebrated its recent renovation of the Carnegie Mansion.

The Cooper Hewitt is the only museum in the U.S. exclusively devoted to design, and its vast collection (more than 210,000 objects, spanning 30 centuries) must have served as a near-limitless playground for Boom’s imagination.

Paintings of the three wise men created by Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens for his childhood friend Balthasar Moretus have been reunited for the first time in 130 years at the National Gallery of Art.

And while biblical in theme, the pictures offer a glimpse into a friendship fostered 400 years ago.

Rubens painted the portraits around 1618 for his friend, who was head of the Plantin Press, the largest publishing house in 16th- and 17th- century Europe. The paintings were together for almost 300 years, until they were sold at a Paris auction in 1881.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has published a new handbook—the first in more than 20 years—of its encyclopedic collections. Featuring some 550 masterpieces from the Museum’s world renowned holdings of Asian, European, American, and modern and contemporary art, this volume includes a broad range of media from each of the Museum’s curatorial departments, including paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, sculptures, the decorative arts, costumes and textiles, arms and armor, and architectural settings. Expanded entries provide in depth information on some of the most significant works, among them Thomas Eakins’s masterpiece "The Gross Clinic" (1875) and a superb man and horse armor acquired in 2009.

The introduction to the handbook, written by Timothy Rub, the George D. Widener Director and CEO, recounts the Museum’s institutional history and the formation and distinctive characteristics of its collection.

Billionaire Leon Black’s publishing company Phaidon acquired Artspace.com, an Internet startup that sells works by contemporary artists, as investors struggle to figure out how to make money from art online.

Phaidon, a publisher of art and design books, agreed to buy Artspace, the companies said today in a statement without disclosing the price. The deal is the latest in a wave of mergers and partnerships shaking up the Internet art market even as profit in the nascent industry remains elusive.

Longtime supporters of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, Sam and Helen Zell, donated $10 million to the institution on behalf of the Zell Family Foundation. It is the second substantial gift the museum has received in less than seven months.

Business and publishing magnate, Sam Zell, and his wife, Helen, hope to create “The Zell Fund for Artistic Excellence” through their sizable gift. Helen served as the chair of the museum’s board from 2004-2008 and has served on various other museum committees. She is currently chairman of the collection committee.

Madeleine Grynsztejn, the museum’s director, said, “The museum is extremely grateful for this generous gift.” Grynsztejn plans to use the money to help underwrite programs like the museum’s outdoor summer plaza series, exhibitions, and artist residency programs, expand its education lectures and programs, and to help pay off debt stemming from the museum’s mortgage on its building at 220 E. Chicago Ave.

The museum received another $10 million gift in April of this year from Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson. Edis, a trustee since 1981, and Ms. Neeson are longtime supporters of the museum.