Art Knowledge News - Keeping You in Touch with the World of Art...

---

• The Swedish Nationalmuseum Presents "Pioneers of Russian Painting"
• Bernini's Famous Medusa Sculpture at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco
• The British Museum Announces Acquisition of Complete Set of Picasso's Vollard Suite
• The Fitzwilliam Museum Hosts "Vermeer’s Women ~ Secrets and Silence" & Dutch Golden Age Painters
• Lovebird Studio Displays New Works by Michael X. Rose
• The Lanning Gallery to Feature Ted CoConis in 25th Anniversary Exhibition
• The Reina Sofia Museum Opens New Rooms Showing Parts of its Collection
• The Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent Belgium Shows John Constable's Oil Sketches
• J. Paul Getty Museum ~ A “Must-See” Museum With A Stunning Collections in Los Angeles
• 'Carol Wax ~ Dance of Shadows' At the Herakleidon Museum in Athens
• Brooklyn Museum to Display Site-Specific Installation by Artist Kiki Smith
• Maurice de Vlaminck, a Fauve Instinct: Paintings from 1900-15 on View at Caixaforum Barcelona
• The Royal Academy of Arts Opens Exhibition Celebrating Radical Sculpture
• Colombian Museum Hosts Largest Exhibition Ever in Latin America of Andy Warhol's Works
• Collective Exhibition: Contemporary Art at Agora Gallery - Chelsea
• Smart Museum of Art shows Master Drawings from Yale Collection
• The Sixties: Photographs by Robert Altman at Idea Generation Gallery
• ' An Incomplete World ' works from The UBS Art Collection
• Gagosian Gallery presents "Roy Lichtenstein - Still Lifes"
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Swedish Nationalmuseum Presents "Pioneers of Russian Painting" Posted: 30 Nov 2011 10:16 PM PST Stockholm, Sweden - This winter's major exhibition at Nationalmuseum, "The Peredvizhniki – Pioneers of Russian Painting",with around 100 pieces on loan from the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow and the Russian Museum in St Petersburg, this will be Sweden's largest ever exhibition of works by this group of artists. The exhibition will focus on the 1870–1910 period and will feature realistic, socially critical paintings, landscapes, historical scenes, and portraits of contemporary artists, musicians and writers. The exhibition will remain on view through January 22nd 2012. This is the first large-scale exhibition in Sweden of works by members of the Russian group known as the Peredvizhniki. The group was founded in 1870 in protest at the conservative attitudes of Russia's Imperial Academy of Art. Its members used realist techniques to portray contemporary Russian society and to highlight social and political injustices. They organized travelling exhibitions around the country to take art to the people. Since the late 19th century the Peredvizhniki have enjoyed huge popularity in Russia, but they remain little known abroad. Thanks to the generosity of the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, and the Russian Museum, St Petersburg, in providing works on loan, Nationalmuseum is able this autumn to present a comprehensive survey of the group's art. The exhibition, focusing on the 1870–1910 period, will comprise three rooms and four cabinets featuring around 100 paintings and drawings on a variety of subjects. The diversity of the group's work will be apparent in the exhibition. The Peredvizhniki believed in producing socially engaged art focused on social injustice and tough living conditions. Artists such as Vladimir Makovsky, Ilya Repin and Nikolai Yaroshenko depicted secret political meetings, convicts and starving peasants. Exhibition highlights will include Ilya Repin's famous Barge-haulers on the Volga, one of the best-known works in Russian art. However, members of the group were fascinated by Russia's past as well. Also on show will be images inspired by folktales, depictions of religious traditions, and scenes from daily life in years gone by. Several of the Peredvizhniki specialized in landscape painting intended to portray what was typically Russian. Images of Russia's plains and forests came to symbolize the motherland and were influential in shaping national identity. At times, Russian landscape painting calls to mind the dreamy, melancholy landscapes painted by Scandinavian artists of the fin de siècle, so to a Swedish audience it seems familiar yet foreign. Some members of the group moved in prominent intellectual circles. The exhibition will include portraits of several leading Russian composers and authors of the time, such as Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy. The creation of Nationalmuseum in Stockholm was the most extensive governmental investment in culture in the 19th century in Sweden. For some 150 years the building has functioned as an art museum, enjoying a special international position both as an architectural monument and an important cultural heritage. Topical exhibitions and a varied program ensure that every visit to the museum is an enriching experience. Join a guided tour, rent an audio guide or wander around independently and discover the museum's artistic treasures. Experience Swedish fin de siècle painting in the form of well-known works by Carl Larsson, Hanna Pauli, Anders Zorn and Bruno Liljefors. Get to know the art of earlier times too: from portraits painted during Sweden's age of greatness in the 17th century to the Romantic landscapes of the 19th century. Highlights from the 18th century include Roslin's veiled lady and Sergel's sculptures and drawings. As well as Swedish art, they present works by international masters: Rembrandt, Watteau, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Gauguin and many others. The Modern Form exhibition (Den moderna formen) presents developments in Scandinavian design and applied art over the past 100 years. Alongside Jonas Bohlin's Concrete armchair, you can see ceramics by Stig Lindberg, glass by Simon Gate, and Gösta Thames' "cobra" telephone. The Design in Sweden exhibition (Formen i Sverige 1500–1740) discusses the roots and development of European design. See the fashionable furnishings of the time, tapestries, china, splendid silverware and much more. Presented in their historical context, the artifacts provide a picture of innovations and trends among the upper classes between 1500 and 1740. In April 2008, Statens fastighetsverk (the National Property Board) was commissioned by the Government to carry out a preliminary study of the requirements for a refurbishment and renovation of the Nationalmuseum. Work on an extensive refurbishment programme is expected to start soon. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.nationalmuseum.se

Bernini's Famous Medusa Sculpture at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco Posted: 30 Nov 2011 10:00 PM PST SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The Musei Capitolini in Rome are lending San Francisco one of their greatest treasures, the Baroque masterpiece The Medusa by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, one of history's finest sculptors and a leading figure in 17th-century Italian art and architecture. This loan is part of The Dream of Rome, a project initiated by the mayor of Rome to exhibit timeless masterpieces in the United States from 2011 through 2013. The Medusa represents the inaugural object loaned as part of a joint venture signed recently between the Musei Capitolini and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco designed to share exhibitions, collections, curatorial and conservation knowledge and to collaborate on educational programs. The loan of Medusa is the first time that the sculpture has ever traveled to the United States and is only the third time it has left Rome in nearly 400 years.

The British Museum Announces Acquisition of Complete Set of Picasso's Vollard Suite Posted: 30 Nov 2011 09:47 PM PST LONDON.- The British Museum announces the major acquisition of a complete set of Picasso's Vollard Suite, which will go on display at the Museum in the summer of 2012. The suite comprises 100 etchings produced by Picasso between 1930 and 1937 and is the most important cycle of etchings produced by arguably the 20th century's most important artist. This will be the only complete Vollard Suite held by a public museum in the UK and only a handful of museums in the world are fortunate to hold a set. It is believed that this will be the first time a complete Vollard Suite has been shown in Britain in the past 50 years. This landmark acquisition for the British Museum is made possible through the extraordinary generosity of the Hamish Parker Charitable Trust in memory of the donor's father, Major Horace Parker.

The Fitzwilliam Museum Hosts "Vermeer’s Women ~ Secrets and Silence" & Dutch Golden Age Painters Posted: 30 Nov 2011 09:32 PM PST Cambridge, UK.- The Fitzwilliam Museum is proud to host a new exhibition on the 17th-century Dutch master Johannes Vermeer, which will explore the mysterious appeal of the women in his paintings. "Vermeer's Women: Secrets and Silence" features 28 works by master painters of the Dutch Golden Age and four iconic works by Johannes Vermeer, including "The Lacemaker" from the Musée du Louvre in Paris, on show in the UK for the first time. Women are one of the key subjects in Vermeer's works:  whether gazing out wistfully at the viewer, or focusing on an activity with an almost eerie calm, they possess a powerful allure. This exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum is the first to focus on Vermeer's domestic interiors and, by examining them in the context of paintings by other Dutch Golden Age masters, explores the enigma of these women who seem crystallised in a moment in time. "Vermeer's Women" will be on view at the museum through January 15th 2012.

Lovebird Studio Displays New Works by Michael X. Rose Posted: 30 Nov 2011 08:54 PM PST Rosendale, NY.- Lovebird Studio is pleased to present "Michael X. Rose: The Garden of Eden and After", opening on September 3rd. In The Garden of Eden and After, Michael X. Rose presents a new body of work that examines the Fall of Man.  These oil paintings draw upon the great Romantic tradition of Peter Paul Rubens, Nicolas Poussin, and Eugène Delacroix and depict the eternal battles of Good against Evil.  Evil in its most hideous form, the UnDead Nazi Zombie.  Who can withstand and prevail against that great Evil? In his artist statement, Rose says: "Thematically I seek to discover or create that pivotal moment in human events when there is no turning back; disaster or salvation is imminent. The scene is a finely balanced fulcrum about to tip; the viewer can speculate on the outcome. Romantic influences combined with a realization that in the greatest Shakespearean works all the main characters end up dead, to me,  are the ingredients of a great painting.

The Lanning Gallery to Feature Ted CoConis in 25th Anniversary Exhibition Posted: 30 Nov 2011 08:39 PM PST Sedona, Arizona.- It has been a quarter century since Lanning Gallery opened its doors in the heart of Sedona's Gallery District and the gallery is celebrating with a special exhibition. During that city's "1st Friday Gallery Tour" December 2, 5-8 pm, the gallery welcomes master jeweler Michael Grant, who unveils his latest pieces of hand-cut stone bead jewelry; the gallery also unveils a rare collection of works on paper by artist Ted CoConis. The CoConis drawings presented in this exhibition include graphite, pastel, oil and ink and represent a range of sizes. Each piece is matted and framed. This is not only a rare collection but a rare opportunity for collectors to acquire works by this acclaimed artist at a more accessible price point. This special exhibition will remain on view throughout December.

The Reina Sofia Museum Opens New Rooms Showing Parts of its Collection Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:31 PM PST MADRID.- Opening to the public at the Museo Reina Sofía on Wednesday 30 November are the rooms devoted to the third section of the Museum's Collection, which covers the period from 1962 to 1982. The Museum's Collection is articulated around four areas corresponding to the key moments in the history of art, both Spanish and international, in the 20th and 21st centuries. Two of them have already been opened to the public. The first, exhibited on the second floor of the Sabatini Building, takes in the twenties and thirties, when the avant-gardes moved in the direction of greater commitment and antagonism. The second, presented a year ago under the title Is the War Over? Art in a Divided World (1945-1968), surveys the forties, fifties and sixties, and can be visited on the fourth floor.

The Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent Belgium Shows John Constable's Oil Sketches Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:30 PM PST Ghent, Belgium.- The Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent is proud to present "John Constable: Oil Sketches from the Victoria and Albert Museum" on view through January 29th 2012. The exhibition explores the later works of John Constable, Britain's best-loved landscape painter, and showcases some of the finest paintings from the V&A's world-renowned Constable collection. It includes the full-size oil sketches for 'The Hay Wain' and 'The Leaping Horse', two of the painter's most prestigious works. Both of these important sketches have been cleaned specially for the exhibition, revealing their original colours and tonalities for the first time in living memory. These are displayed alongside a number of the artist's watercolours, drawings and oil studies. From the turn of the 19th century these works have captured the public imagination as representations of archetypal English landscape. John Constable was born in East Bergholt in Suffolk, to Golding and Ann (Watts) Constable. In his youth, Constable embarked on amateur sketching trips in the surrounding Suffolk countryside that was to become the subject of a large proportion of his art. These scenes, in his own words, "made me a painter, and I am grateful"; "the sound of water escaping from mill dams etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things." He was introduced to George Beaumont, a collector, who showed him his prized "Hagar and the Angel" by Claude Lorrain, which inspired Constable. Later, while visiting relatives in Middlesex, he was introduced to the professional artist John Thomas Smith, who advised him on painting but also urged him to remain in his father's business rather than take up art professionally. In 1799, Constable persuaded his father to let him pursue art and entered the Royal Academy Schools as a probationer. His early style has many of the qualities associated with his mature work, including a freshness of light, colour and touch, and reveals the compositional influence of the Old Masters he had studied, notably of Claude Lorrain. Constable's usual subjects, scenes of ordinary daily life, were unfashionable in an age that looked for more romantic visions of wild landscapes and ruins. He did, however, make occasional trips further afield. In order to make ends meet, Constable took up portraiture, which he found dull work—though he executed many fine portraits. He also painted occasional religious pictures, but according to John Walker, "Constable's incapacity as a religious painter cannot be overstated." Constable adopted a routine of spending the winter in London and painting at East Bergholt in the summer. And in 1811 he first visited John Fisher and his family in Salisbury, a city whose cathedral and surrounding landscape were to inspire some of his greatest paintings. Although he had scraped an income from painting, it was not until 1819 that Constable sold his first important canvas, "The White Horse", which led to a series of "six footers", as he called his large-scale paintings. He was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy that year, and in 1821 he showed "The Hay Wain (a view from Flatford Mill)" at the Academy's exhibition. Théodore Géricault saw it on a visit to London and was soon praising Constable in Paris, where a dealer, John Arrowsmith, bought four paintings, including "The Hay Wain", which was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1824, winning a gold medal. In his lifetime Constable was to sell only twenty paintings in England, but in France he sold more than twenty in just a few years. Despite this, he refused all invitations to travel internationally to promote his work, writing to Francis Darby: "I would rather be a poor man [in England] than a rich man abroad." In 1825, perhaps due partly to the worry of his wife's ill-health, the uncongeniality of living in Brighton ("Piccadilly by the Seaside"), and the pressure of numerous outstanding commissions, he quarrelled with Arrowsmith and lost his French outlet. After the birth of their seventh child in January 1828, his wife, Maria fell ill and died of tuberculosis that November at the age of forty-one. Thereafter, he always dressed in black and cared for his seven children alone for the rest of his life. Constable quietly rebelled against the artistic culture that taught artists to use their imagination to compose their pictures rather than nature itself. Constable painted many full-scale preliminary sketches of his landscapes in order to test the composition in advance of finished pictures. These large sketches, with their free and vigorous brushwork, were revolutionary at the time, and they continue to interest artists, scholars and the general public. Possibly more than any other aspect of Constable's work, the oil sketches reveal him in retrospect to have been an avant-garde painter, one who demonstrated that landscape painting could be taken in a totally new direction. Constable's watercolours were also remarkably free for their time: the almost mystical "Stonehenge", 1835, with its double rainbow, is often considered to be one of the greatest watercolours ever painted. In addition to the full-scale oil sketches, Constable completed numerous observational studies of landscapes and clouds, determined to become more scientific in his recording of atmospheric conditions. The power of his physical effects was sometimes apparent even in the full-scale paintings which he exhibited in London; "The Chain Pier", 1827, for example, prompted a critic to write: "the atmosphere possesses a characteristic humidity about it, that almost imparts the wish for an umbrella". The sketches themselves were the first ever done in oils directly from the subject in the open air. To convey the effects of light and movement, Constable used broken brushstrokes, often in small touches, which he scumbled over lighter passages, creating an impression of sparkling light enveloping the entire landscape. One of the most expressionistic and powerful of all his studies is "Seascape Study with Rain Cloud", painted in around 1824 at Brighton, which captures with slashing dark brushstrokes the immediacy of an exploding cumulus shower at sea. Constable also became interested in painting rainbow effects, for example in "Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows", 1831, and in "Cottage at East Bergholt", 1833. The Ghent Museum of Fine Arts is situated at the East side of the Citadelpark (near the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst). The museum holds a large permanent collection of art from the Middle Ages until mid 20th Century. The collection focuses on Flemish Art (Southern Netherlands) but also has several European - especially French - paintings. It also has a large collection of sculpture. Next to its permanent collection the museum organises temporary exhibitions (approximately 2 every year). The museum building was designed by city architect Charles van Rysselberghe around 1900. In 2007, the museum reopened after a 4 year restoration project. The museum is a member of The Flemish Art Collection. This is a structural partnership joining the three main museums of fine arts in Flanders: Royal Museum of Fine Arts, the Groeninge Museum in Bruges and the Ghent Museum of Fine Arts. The museums' collections have all been developed in a similar way and complement each other perfectly. Together, they offer a unique, representative overview of Flemish art from the 15th to the 20th century. As partners sharing the same responsibility in our cultural heritage, the three museums exchange their expertise, they strive for a more sustainable, high quality management and international awareness of their collections, including works that are part of the world patrimony. Amongst the highlights of the collection are "Christ Carrying the Cross" by Hieronymus Bosch, "Portrait of a Kleptomaniac" by Théodore Géricault, "Portrait of Giovanni Paolo Cornaro" by Tintoretto, "The Flagellation of Christ" by Peter Paul Rubens and "Jupiter and Antiope" by Anthony van Dyck. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.mskgent.be

J. Paul Getty Museum ~ A “Must-See” Museum With A Stunning Collections in Los Angeles Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:20 PM PST The J. Paul Getty Museum is located within the Getty Center, in Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, a campus for cultural institutions founded by oilman J. Paul Getty. The Center sits atop a hill, connected to a visitor's parking garage at the bottom by a three-car, cable-pulled tram. With more than 1.3 million visitors annually, the Getty Museum is one of the most visited art museums in the USA. It is one of two locations of the J. Paul Getty Museum, the second being the 'J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa in Malibu', dedicated to the study of the arts and cultures of ancient Greece, Rome, and Etruria. The 'J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Centre' is the branch of the museum specializing in "pre-20th-century European paintings, drawings, illuminated manuscripts, sculpture, and decorative arts; and 19th- and 20th-century American and European photographs". Besides the Museum, the Center's buildings house the Getty Research Institute (GRI), the Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Foundation, and the administrative offices of the J. Paul Getty Trust, which owns and operates the Center. The Center was designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Richard Meier and includes a central garden designed by artist Robert Irwin. GRI's separate building contains a research library with over 900,000 volumes and two million photographs of art and architecture. Originally, the Getty Museum started in J. Paul Getty's house located in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, California, when in 1954, he expanded the house with a museum wing. In the 1970's, Getty built a replica of an Italian villa on his property to better house his collection, which opened in 1974. After Getty's death in 1976, the entire property was turned over to the Getty Trust for museum purposes. However, the collection outgrew the site, which has since been renamed the Getty Villa, and management sought a location more accessible to Los Angeles. The purchase of the land upon which the Center is located (a campus of 24 acres on a site in the Santa Monica Mountains, surrounded by 600 acres kept in a natural state) was announced in 1983. The top of the hill is 900 feet (270 m) above Interstate 405, high enough that on a clear day it is possible to see not only the Los Angeles skyline but also the San Bernardino Mountains to the east as well as the Pacific Ocean to the west. The Center opened to the public on December 16, 1997. After the Center opened, the villa closed for extensive renovations, and reopened on January 28, 2006. The Center museum building consists of a three-level base building that is mostly closed to the public and provides staff workspace and storage areas. Five public, two-story towers on the base are called the North, East, South, West and the Exhibitions Pavilions. The Exhibitions Pavilion acts as the temporary residence for traveling art collections and the Foundation's artwork for which the permanent pavilions have no room. The permanent collection is displayed throughout the other four pavilions chronologically. The first-floor galleries in each pavilion house light-sensitive art, such as illuminated manuscripts, furniture, or photography. Computer-controlled skylights on the second floor galleries allow paintings to be displayed in natural light. The second floors are connected by a series of glass-enclosed bridges and open terraces, both of which offer views of the surrounding hillsides and central plaza. Sculpture is also on display at various points outside the buildings, including on various terraces and balconies. The lower level (the highest of the floors in the base) includes a public cafeteria, the terrace cafe, and the photography galleries. Visit The J. Paul Getty Museum at : www.getty.edu/museum/ It all started with the museum's namesake, J. Paul Getty, an oil executive and art collector who lived from 1892 until 1976. He founded the famous Getty Oil Company which eventually became Texaco. Getty began collecting art in 1930 and, upon his death, left his entire estate to the J. Paul Getty Museum Trust. Eventually, the trust grew to over $4.5 billion, a sum which has allowed the Trust to continue updating the Getty Museum art collection with some of the finest, most sought-after pieces of art in the world. One publication noted that the Getty Museum has about 25 times the budget of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Getty Museum specializes in Greek and Roman antiquities, European paintings, drawings, sculpture, manuscripts, furniture and photographs, split between the two California locations. Whilst the collection may lack the breadth of some longer-established museums, the depth and quality of the collection in those artistic areas that interested its founder more than compensate for any possible omissions. The works of European sculpture are a particular strength, and these are located throughout the museum's pavilions (and outside spaces) and include work from the Renaissance through to 1900. The oldest painting at the Getty dates from 1295 and the collection continues up to the early 1900s, including paintings by Masaccio, Andrea Mantegna, Pieter Breughel (both the elder and the younger), Rembrandt, Jan van Goyen, Jean-Baptiste Raguenet , Jean-Étienne Liotard, Van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet and Paul Cezanne. Amongst the highlights of the collection are Van Gogh's "Irises", "Rue Mosnier With Flags" by Manet and "La Promenade" by Renoir, Jacopo da Pontormo's "Portrait of Cosimo I de Medici" and a rare bronze sculpture of a male figure by the 16th-century Dutch artist Adriaen de Vries. J.M.W. Turner's "Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino", which the Getty Museum purchased at auction in 2010, should be joining these other masterpieces on display later in 2011. With extensive exhibition spaces available, the Getty Museum hosts a constantly changing series of temporary exhibitions. Currently (until 24th April 2011) the Getty Museum are presenting "Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road". In a career that spanned five decades, the photographer Felice Beato (1832–1909) covered a wide swath of East Asia. Following in the wake of Britain's vast colonial empire, he was among the primary photographers to provide images of newly opened countries such as India, China, Japan, Korea, and Burma. A pioneer war photographer, Beato recorded several conflicts: the Crimean War in 1855–56, the aftermath of the Indian Mutiny in 1858–59, the Second Opium War in 1860, and the American expedition to Korea in 1871. His photographs of battlefields, the first to show images of the dead, provided a new direction for that genre. Catering to a Western audience, Beato produced an exceptionally diverse oeuvre: topographical and architectural views, including panoramas, as well as portraits and costume studies of the countries he visited or in which he resided. Beato spent more than 20 years in Japan (1863–84), his longest residency in one country and the most prolific period of his career. Despite restrictions on foreigners, Beato was able to take numerous photographs, including the monumental sculpture of the Dai Bouts (Great Buddha), which had been the centerpiece of a temple that was destroyed by a typhoon. In 1871 Beato was the first to make photographic images of Korea. He was hired to document an American punitive expedition to Korea, Beato's images helped perpetuate the illusion of victory for this unsuccessful military campaign. After speculative ventures in Japan ruined him financially, Beato set off for new lands once more. He went first to Sudan to record the Anglo-Sudan War and finally settled in Burma in 1887. Beato quickly established himself as a photographer by traveling throughout Upper Burma documenting sites of interest. His landscapes, architectural views, and portrait studies offer a glimpse into Burmese life at the end of the 19th century. After a life of wandering, Beato returned to Italy, his birthplace, where he died in 1909. "Felice Beato: A Photographer on the Eastern Road", is showing concurrently with "Photography From the New China", an exhibition featuring a selection of Chinese photographs produced since the 1990s, when People's Republic leader Deng Xiaoping introduced the current period of opening and reform. These two exhibitions create a powerful contrast between the nineteenth-century views of China and other parts of East Asia and the contemporary works. 8 other exhibitions can currently be seen at the Getty Centre, with a further 3 at the Getty Villa. Coming to the Getty "Spirit of an Age: Drawings from the Germanic World", 1770–1900 on exhibition March 29–June 19, 2011 Unveiling recent acquisitions that reflect a new area of the Museum's collection, this exhibition features about forty German and Austrian drawings and watercolors. The works reflect the profound changes—intellectual, social, and political—that the Germanic world underwent from about 1770 to 1900. Events such as the publication of the writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and the formal unification of Germany contributed to shaping the artist's world. Drawing captured the spirit of the age and evolved quite dramatically over the course of this period, which is rarely showcased by North American museums. The J. Paul Getty Museum seeks to further knowledge of the visual arts and to nurture critical seeing by collecting, preserving, exhibiting and interpreting works of art of the highest quality. To fulfill its mission, the Museum continues to develop its collection through purchase and gifts, complementing its impact through special exhibitions, publications, educational programs developed for a wide range of audiences, and a related performing arts program. The Museum strives to provide its visitors with access to the most innovative research in the visual arts while they enjoy a unique experience in viewing works of art at our Getty Center and Getty Villa sites. While benefiting from the broader context of the Getty Trust, the Museum also extends the reach of its mission via the internet and through the regular exchange of works of art, staff, and expertise. The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Center in Los Angeles houses European paintings, drawings, sculpture, illuminated manuscripts, decorative arts, and European and American photographs.

'Carol Wax ~ Dance of Shadows' At the Herakleidon Museum in Athens Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:19 PM PST Athens.- The Herakleidon Museum in Athens is presenting 'Carol Wax: Dance of Shadows" until 19th June 2011. The exhibition includes 100 works on paper by the contemporary New York artist Carol Wax. The majority of these works are mezzotints, however a number of pencil and mixed media drawings are also being shown. The antique sewing machines, typewriters, electric fans, toys, instruments, cameras, projectors, textiles and other items she collects inspire Carol's images. Living with these objects in her home and studio means she is constantly studying them from different angles and finding new and diverse ways to revisit subjects, making the ordinary seem extraordinary.

Brooklyn Museum to Display Site-Specific Installation by Artist Kiki Smith Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:18 PM PST BROOKLYN, NY.- Kiki Smith: Sojourn, a major site-specific installation that explores the ideas of creative inspiration and the cycle of life in relation to women artists, will be on view February 5 through September 12, 2010, in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art. The exhibition will draw from a variety of work by Kiki Smith in a range of media including cast objects, unique sculpture, and works on paper. The artist will also incorporate her work into two of the Brooklyn Museum's eighteenth-century period rooms in the nearby Decorative Arts galleries.

Maurice de Vlaminck, a Fauve Instinct: Paintings from 1900-15 on View at Caixaforum Barcelona Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:17 PM PST BARCELONA.- CaixaForum Barcelona, "la Caixa" Community Projects opened Maurice de Vlaminck, a Fauve Instinct: Paintings from 1900 to 1915. This is the first Spanish exhibition of works by this artist, who is key in terms of the renewal of European avant-garde painting at the beginning of the 20th century, and arrives to Barcelona after being shown at CaixaForum Madrid. With this exhibition, "la Caixa" Community Projects aims to make the general public aware of the pioneers of art at the beginning of the 20th century, in the same way as it has done recently with exhibitions of works by Alphonse Mucha and Gustav Klimt. These artists created art that was free from the shackles of realist painting conventions, seeking essential colours and volumes. On exhibition through 18 October, 2009.

The Royal Academy of Arts Opens Exhibition Celebrating Radical Sculpture Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:16 PM PST LONDON.- The Royal Academy of Arts presents an exhibition of works celebrating the radical change that transformed British sculpture at the beginning of the twentieth century. Over a period of 10 years (1905-1915), three outstanding young sculptors emerged; Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Eric Gill. This is the first time that the three artists have been shown together in this revolutionary context and many of the works have not been exhibited in London before. On display 24 October through 24 January, 2010.

Colombian Museum Hosts Largest Exhibition Ever in Latin America of Andy Warhol's Works Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:15 PM PST BOGOTA, COLUMBIA - The exhibition, organized by Museo de Arte del Banco de la República in conjunction with the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and curated by Philip Larratt-Smith, offers a complete panorama of the work of this fertile artist and it is the largest exhibition ever organized in a Latin American museum. The list of works of art comprises 26 paintings, 57 silk screens, 39 photographs and 2 installations ('Silver Clouds' and 'Cow wallpaper'). Fourteen of his films will also be screened at the Fundación Gilberto Alzate Avendaño. Andy Warhol, "Mr. America" explores all aspects and periods from this multi-facetic production from this artist, with a particular emphasis in the period between 1961 and 1968. On exhibition 18 June through 21 September, 2009. It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American products such as Campbell's Soup Cans from the Campbell Soup Company and Coca-Cola bottles, as well as paintings of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Troy Donahue, and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "The Factory," his studio during these years, and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He began producing prints using the silkscreen method. His work became popular and controversial. Among the imagery tackled by Warhol were dollar bills, celebrities and brand name products. He also used as imagery for his paintings newspaper headlines of photographs of mushroom clouds, electric chairs, and police dogs attacking civil rights protesters. Warhol also used Coca Cola bottles as subject matter for paintings. New York's Museum of Modern Art hosted a Symposium on pop art in December 1962 during which artists like Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were scandalized by Warhol's open embrace of market culture. This symposium set the tone for Warhol's reception. Throughout the decade it became more and more clear that there had been a profound change in the culture of the art world, and that Warhol was at the center of that shift. A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit The American Supermarket, a show held in Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical U.S. small supermarket environment, except that everything in it from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc. were created by six prominent pop artists of the time including the controversial (and like-minded) Billy Apple, Mary Inman, and Robert Watts. Warhol's painting of a can of Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for $6. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what is art.  As an advertisement illustrator in the 1950s, Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career; in the 1960s, however, this was particularly true. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga. Malanga assisted the artist with producing silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at "The Factory", Warhol's aluminum foil-and-silver-paint-lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol's Factory crowd included Freddie Herko, Ondine, Ronald Tavel, Mary Woronov, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin (from whom he apparently got the idea to tape record his phone conversations). During the 60s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "Superstars", including Edie Sedgwick, Viva, and Ultra Violet. These people all participated in the Factory films, and some, like Berlin, remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer John Giorno and film-maker Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this period. The Museo de Arte del Banco de la República inaugurated in 2004, next door to the Museo Botero, it houses the bank's art collection and different art exhibits throughout the year. Opens Mondays through Saturdays -except Tuesdays- from 9 am to 7pm. Sundays from 10 am to 5 pm. Visit : www.lablaa.org/museodearte.htm

Collective Exhibition: Contemporary Art at Agora Gallery - Chelsea Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:14 PM PST New York City - An exciting exhibition beginning highlights the artist's unique point of view. Roughly divided into three categories; "Verve and Reverence," "Subjective Elements," and "A Prism of One;" the show examines the unique filter through which each featured artist views the world. Pictures diverge from simple representation and become art when the creator applies his or her subjective interpretation to a scene.  These interpretations become objects of analysis: Quinn Stilletto sees and represents his subjects as matrices of color devoid of form, while Giannis Stratis imbues his studies with a thousand years of historical context.  Taken in sum, these various filtered views present a pastiche of the human experience, derived from artists hailing from every point around the world.

Smart Museum of Art shows Master Drawings from Yale Collection Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:13 PM PST   Chicago, IL - This exhibition, organized by the Yale University Art Gallery and traveling to the Smart Museum of Art, provides a compelling survey of European draftsmanship, with masterworks by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Edgar Degas, Guercino, Jacob Jordaens, and Jean-Antoine Watteau, among many others. The selections come from the Yale University Art Gallery's substantial collection of European drawings and include examples of nearly every artistic movement and drawing technique used by European artists from the Renaissance to the mid-nineteenth century. On exhibition October 4, 2007 – January 6, 2008.

The Sixties: Photographs by Robert Altman at Idea Generation Gallery Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:12 PM PST LONDON.- The Idea Generation Gallery invites you to take a trip…down Memory Lane, through Haight-Ashbury and across Golden Gate Park to turn on, tune in, drop out at the naked love-ins and anti-war sit-ins; at the psychedelic be-ins and the politicized happenings and meditate upon the spirit, body and soul of The Sixties - the first UK exhibition from Robert Altman, chief staff photographer of Rolling Stone, at Idea Generation Gallery (on view through 29th August.)

' An Incomplete World ' works from The UBS Art Collection Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:11 PM PST Sydney, AU - 'An incomplete world' features paintings and photographs by leading international artists including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Sarah Morris, Damien Hirst, Andreas Gursky, Ed Ruscha, Lucian Freud, Gerhard Richter and Cindy Sherman.  Selected from The UBS Art Collection, one of the finest international corporate art collections, An incomplete world will open at the Art Gallery of New South Wales before traveling to the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne and the Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Exhibitions curated from the UBS collection have previously been presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York and Tate Modern, London.  On exhibition 19 May – 29 July 2007.

Gagosian Gallery presents "Roy Lichtenstein - Still Lifes" Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:10 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- Gagosian Gallery presents "Roy Lichtenstein: Still Lifes," the first exhibition devoted solely to Lichtenstein's still life paintings, sculptures and drawings, which span from 1972 through the early 1980s. Although Lichtenstein will always be synonymous with Pop Art, he continued to make inventive new work for almost three decades beyond the 1960s, during which he had become famous for his distinctive use of popular cartoon images and commercial painting style. On exhibition 8 May through 30 July, 2010. Beginning in 1972, he began to work on still lifes, making his own updated contribution to the venerated historical genre, using hard, vivid color and simulated Ben-Day dots, laboriously painted by hand. Lichtenstein rendered his Still Lifes in flat, outlined shapes that were inspired by newspaper and print advertisements and painted to look like the originals. Frequently his evocations of mechanical reproduction were more pronounced than in the original source; even when adapting motifs from other artists' works, Lichtenstein used postcards or reproductions of the original rather than the original itself. Lichtenstein's Still Lifes cover a variety of motifs and themes, including the most traditional such as fruit, flowers, and vases. He also created still lifes from contemporary vernacular subjects, including the intentionally banal Office Still Lifes, as well as from the contents of his own studio. During the 1970s he began to quote art-historical styles as well as his own previous works, for instance rendering his subject in a way that conflated Cubist or Expressionist style with his own signature technique. Using his "cartoonish" method of painting, he stripped both subjects and movements of their original import and gravitas. He also mined the modern masters of painting -- from Matisse to Leger, Gris, and Raphael Peale, among others – for still life motifs, which he included in paintings or used alone in sculptures. This exhibition brings together more than fifty Still Life paintings and sculptures from prominent private collections and museums worldwide, and it includes a selection of rarely seen Still Life drawings, many of which are precise sketches for the paintings and sculptures. A fully illustrated catalogue will accompany the exhibition, featuring an essay by John Wilmerding, Professor of American Art at Princeton University, a photographic contribution by artist Louise Lawler, and an interview with collector and dealer Joe Helman. Roy Lichtenstein was born in 1923 in New York, where he died in 1997. His work has been exhibited extensively worldwide. Recent retrospective surveys include "All About Art," Louisiana Museum, Humelbaek (2003, traveled to the Hayward Gallery, London, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art through 2005); and "Classic of the New", Kunsthaus Bregenz (2005). "Roy Lichtenstein: Meditations on Art" is currently on view at the Museo Triennale, Milan through May 30 and will travel to the Ludwig Museum, Cologne in July of this year. A major retrospective co-organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and Tate Modern, London is planned for 2012. Visit Gagosian Gallery at : http://www.gagosian.com/

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 30 Nov 2011 05:09 PM PST This is a new feature for the subscribers and visitors to Art Knowledge News (AKN), that will enable you to see "thumbnail descriptions" of the last ninety (90) articles and art images that we published. This will allow you to visit any article that you may have missed ; or re-visit any article or image of particular interest. Every day the article "thumbnail images" will change. For you to see the entire last ninety images just click : here . When opened that also will allow you to change the language from English to anyone of 54 other languages, by clicking your language choice on the upper left corner of our Home Page.  You can share any article we publish with the eleven (11) social websites we offer like Twitter, Flicker, Linkedin, Facebook, etc. by one click on the image shown at the end of each opened article.  Last, but not least, you can email or print any entire article by using an icon visible to the right side of an article's headline.

You are subscribed to email updates from Art News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610