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

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• The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Presents Major Lyonel Feininger Retrospective
• The Lentos Museum of Modern Art Shows Works by Markus Schinwald
• The New Mexico Museum of Art Presents Three New Mexico Photographers
• Kati Heck Solos at Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp
• United Kingdom's Art Fund Increases Support for Struggling UK Museums
• American cabinetmaker Duncan Phyfe celebrated in Metropolitan Museum exhibition
• Paul Kasmin Gallery presents Santi Moix Watercolors and Wall Drawings
• African American Artists from the Flomenhaft Collection opens in NY
• The Schirn Kunsthalle presents a Major Exhibition Dedicated to Edward Kienholz
• The AKN Editor Visits The Charming & Historic Skagen Museum In Denmark
• Art Institute of Chicago shows "Becoming Edvard Munch ~ Influence, Anxiety, & Myth"
• National Gallery of Scotland opens The Discovery of Spain by British Artists ~ Goya to Picasso
• The Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts to Show Masterpieces from the Wadsworth Atheneum
• Essl Museum Offers Insights into the Contemporary Indian Art Scene
• Nassau County Museum of Art Showcases the Romantic Fascination of the Sea
• The MAK-Vienna to solo 'Recent Works' of Julian Opie
• Andy Warhol's Iconic '200 One Dollar Bills' from 1962 Sells for $43,762,500 at Sotheby's
• Sotheby's to show "Women" ~ A Loan Exhibition from the Collection of Steven & Alexandra Cohen
• 'Pop Life' at Hamburger Kunsthalle Proves that "Good Business is the Best Art"
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Presents Major Lyonel Feininger Retrospective Posted: 04 Jan 2012 10:25 PM PST Montreal, Canada.- The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is proud to present "Lyonel Feininger: From Manhatten to the Bauhaus", the first major retrospective of the artist's work to be held in Canada, from January 20th through May 13th. "Lyonel Feininger: From Manhattan to the Bauhaus" will offer a comprehensive panorama of the oeuvre of this American painter who spent most of his life in Germany. There, he became one of the leading figures of German Expressionism and of the Bauhaus School, where he taught. The exhibition will highlight the astonishingly modern approach of this multidisciplinary artist, who was equally interested in the fine arts and the applied arts. The presentation features over 150 works, including seventy-three paintings, watercolours, prints, political cartoons, carved toys and, for the first time in a Feininger retrospective, photographs taken by the artist and by his two sons, Andreas and T. Lux Feininger. This exhibition is organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, in collaboration with the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. Major loans have come from a number of institutions, including the Bauhaus Archiv, Berlin, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, from Feininger's family in the United States and Canada, and from museums and private collectors in Germany, Austria and the United States. Exceptionally for his era, Feininger was one of the first "American" artists of his generation to be perceived as an international artist with a hybrid identity. This has since become the norm for many contemporary artists. Born in Manhattan of a German father and a German-American mother, Feininger was sent, at the age of sixteen, to Hamburg, Germany, to complete his education. Expecting to return to the United States a few years later, he studied in Berlin, Liège and Paris, got married and pursued a brilliant career in Germany, which eventually weakened his attachment to his native land. Although he was born American, he was considered a German artist and his works could not be exhibited at the famous "Armory Show" in New York in 1913 because of the bias against German art characteristic of the time. In the 1910s, he exhibited in leading avant-garde galleries in Germany, but his art was rarely seen in the United States before the mid-1920s. When his work was denounced by the Nazis and featured in the infamous exhibition Entartete Kunst [Degenerate Art] of 1937, he returned to the United States shortly before the outbreak of World War II. Because of his origins, American museums began to exhibit his work. In the first few years after his return, his works were presented at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in San Francisco, among others. An oeuvre marked by multidisciplinarity Feininger began his career as a caricaturist, illustrator and cartoonist for prestigious publications like the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung and Ulk. As one of the most famous caricaturists in Germany at the turn of the twentieth century, he also created comic strips for the Chicago Sunday Tribune – The Kin-der-Kids and Wee Willie Winkie's World. His style, his subjects, his compositions and juxtapositions, not to mention his sense of humour, were to make him one of the fathers of the modern comic strip. His short career as an illustrator – he stopped at the age of thirty-five –   was to serve as an example years later for artists like Roy Lichtenstein (from the 1960s on) and Raymond Pettibon (from the 1980s on). In about 1907, he began to focus on painting in oils. The lively, colourful paintings he executed in that decade evoke his early work as a caricaturist. It was while exhibiting at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in 1911 that he discovered Cubism. He then developed a personal style characterized by fragmented images. He later exhibited at the Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin and taught at the Bauhaus. The retrospective will also feature a selection of watercolours and woodcuts that Feininger produced after 1918, and photos showing his fascination with light. An equally important and original facet of his production – which is glimpsed also in his paintings – was carved wooden toys, some of which appear here. The exhibition will be a chronological and thematic presentation of Feininger's art following the artist's trajectory from Berlin, Paris, Weimar and Dessau to his return to Manhattan. The first gallery will introduce Lyonel Feininger as a cartoonist, as well as provide biographical material about his family's musical background and include photographs by his two sons, Andreas and T. Lux Feininger. The   second gallery will feature the artist's paintings made in Berlin from 1910 to 1918, from his carnivalesque paintings to the crystalline-layered architectural paintings. Feininger's role at the Bauhaus, from 1919 to 1932, will be explored alongside his famous seascapes and little-known photographs. Music composed by Feininger, as well as the fugues by Bach that inspired him, will be heard in the last gallery, alongside his magnificent series of Gelmeroda paintings, and the final works he executed after he settled in Manhattan. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has one of the highest attendance rates among Canadian museums. Every year, its 600,000 visitors enjoy its encyclopedic collection, unique in Canada and free to all, and its original temporary exhibitions, which combine artistic disciplines (fine arts, music, film, fashion, design) and feature innovative exhibition design. The Museum designs, produces and circulates many of its exhibitions in Europe and North America. It is also one of Canada's leading publishers of bilingual art books, which are distributed worldwide. More than 100,000 families and schoolchildren take part in its educational, cultural and community programmes every year. In 2011, the Museum will open a fourth pavilion – the Claire and Marc Bourgie Pavilion of Quebec and Canadian Art – and a 450 seat-concert hall housing a rare collection of Tiffany stained glass – Bourgie Hall. At the same time, the Museum's rich collections will be reinstalled in the three other pavilions devoted to world cultures, European and contemporary art, as well as the decorative arts and design. Music is now an integral part of the Museum, providing another perspective on the visual arts, through musical audioguides and other innovative activities organized in co-operation with the new Arte Musica Foundation. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is a private, non-profit institution that must generate the funds for nearly 50% of its annual operating budget and nearly 100% of the acquisition of works for its collection. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.mmfa.qc.ca

The Lentos Museum of Modern Art Shows Works by Markus Schinwald Posted: 04 Jan 2012 09:57 PM PST Linz, Austria.- The Lentos Museum of Modern Art is pleased to show "Markus Schinwald", on view  through February 12th 2012. Markus Schinwald is one of the most internationally acclaimed artists of his generation. In 2011 – almost at the same time as the major solo exhibition in LENTOS Kunstmuseum – he is presented at the Austrian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The graduate from the Linz Art University creates fascinating, highly independent work that makes masterly use of all contemporary artistic media and formats. Sculpture and the staging of spaces, film, photography, painting and reproduction techniques are used to trace out an artistic framework interest in manifold ways: the human body as a cultural construct between self-presentation and disciplining, convention, correction, neurotic ticks and unsuspected grace. Deformations of the psyche find disconcerting physical correspondences. Influences from art history and consumer culture, from critical theory, film history and contemporary TV, choreography, stage set and the world of cabaret come into view: sensual, humorous, intelligent unmistakable.

The New Mexico Museum of Art Presents Three New Mexico Photographers Posted: 04 Jan 2012 09:37 PM PST Santa Fe, New Mexico.- The New Mexico Museum of Art is proud to show "Past Present Future: Michael Berman, David Taylor and Connie Samaras", on view at the museum through April 22nd 2012. Each of the three photographers in this exhibition, Michael Berman, David Taylor, and Connie Samaras, presents us with a desert landscape that is simultaneously of the present, reflecting the past and hinting at the future. Photography is, for the most part, a document of a very specific moment as it evolved in front of the artist's camera.  Both landscape and photography share an intimate relationship with memory.  Photographs of the landscape have an uncanny ability to create and reinforce memory and because of this unique capacity cannot help but to express time.

Kati Heck Solos at Tim Van Laere Gallery in Antwerp Posted: 04 Jan 2012 09:23 PM PST ANTWERP, BELGIUM - Tim Van Laere Gallery presents 'Multikulti Sause', an exhibition of new works by Kati Heck. The exhibition, the artist's first solo show at the gallery, consists of 7 monumental sized paintings, 2 photographic works and a series of drawings. The title of the exhibition alludes to Angela Merkel's statement 'Multikulti ist tot'. Kati Heck stages people from her immediate environment in her canvases with a heightened sense of drama and irony. Her paintings often display happenings she held during her journeys or in the artist's studio. Her whole gang is there, the local night shop owner, acquaintances with a dress-up fetish, malicious old men, indie kids, her friends. The nude female form is depicted confrontational, almost in a softcore porn kind of way. Heck's protagonists are engaged in indeterminable tasks, making it challenging for us to figure out what they are thinking or in which mood they are in. Often they don't communicate with each other and almost seem to be in different time zones.

United Kingdom's Art Fund Increases Support for Struggling UK Museums Posted: 04 Jan 2012 09:09 PM PST LONDON.- Membership of the UK's national fundraising charity, the Art Fund, has increased by 15% in 2011 to just fewer than 90,000 members, thanks to the enormous success of the launch of the National Art Pass in April this year. The National Art Pass gives membership of the Art Fund, and a wide range of discounts and free admission across the UK's art venues. Sales of the Pass go directly towards the work of the Art Fund, which helps museums to buy and share great art. The Art Fund has been particularly active in supporting acquisitions of contemporary art, offering 71 grants for work made since 1965, more than ever before in its history. Works of art by Sir Peter Blake, Ai Weiwei, 2011 Turner Prize-nominee George Shaw, Jake and Dinos Chapman and Eva Rothschild have all joined the nation's collections, in museums across the United Kingdom.

American cabinetmaker Duncan Phyfe celebrated in Metropolitan Museum exhibition Posted: 04 Jan 2012 08:14 PM PST NEW YORK, N.Y.- Renowned in his lifetime for his elegant designs and superior craftsmanship, Duncan Phyfe (1770–1854) remains to this day America's most famous cabinetmaker. The Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibition Duncan Phyfe: Master Cabinetmaker in New York—the first retrospective on Phyfe in 90 years—serves to re-introduce this artistic and influential master craftsman to a contemporary audience. On view are furniture produced in Phyfe's Fulton Street workshops that once stood on the site of the former World Trade Center. The full chronological sweep of his long and distinguished career is featured, including examples of his best-known furniture from the period 1805-20, which was influenced heavily by early English Regency design; his more opulent, monumental, and archaeologically correct Grecian style of the late 1810's and 1820's, sometimes referred to as American Empire; and his sleek, minimalist late work of the 1830s and 1840s known as the Grecian Plain style, based largely on French Restauration furniture design.

Paul Kasmin Gallery presents Santi Moix Watercolors and Wall Drawings Posted: 04 Jan 2012 08:01 PM PST NEW YORK, N.Y.- Three years after tackling themes and images from the quintessential work of Spanish satirical-heroism, Cervantes' Don Quixote, Santi Moix animates the ultimate allegory of American cultural-heroism, Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Moix's series of watercolors, collages, and wall-drawings transcribe the optimism, color, and vernacular panache of Twain's characters and prose. They also represent a witty confrontation between the artist and his adopted land; the works on exhibit are the quasi-autobiographical "Adventures" of Santi Moix. On exhibition 5 January through 11 February at Paul Kasmin Gallery.

African American Artists from the Flomenhaft Collection opens in NY Posted: 04 Jan 2012 08:00 PM PST NEW YORK, N.Y.- The Black artists' selections on view share neither an artistic program nor a similar background. They are all of a different mettle. All create with an unremitting creative force that issues from their Black heritage, their American heritage, political or societal influences or from a poetic instinct. What is clear is that out of their shared heroic struggles have come some glorious art that feeds on life. The Flomenhaft Gallery collected works by wonderful Black artists and is making them available to the public. In the exhibit are: Emma Amos, Benny Andrew, Romare Bearden, Beverly Buchanan, Jacob Lawrence, Faith Ringgold, Charles Lloyd Tucker, and Carrie Mae Weems. The exhibition with be on view at the Flomenhaft Gallery from January 5 through March 3, 2012.

The Schirn Kunsthalle presents a Major Exhibition Dedicated to Edward Kienholz Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:44 PM PST FRANKFURT.- Rebellious, provocative, and polarizing, the oeuvre associated with the name Kienholz has always caused quite a stir since its beginnings in the mid-1950s, first the works by Edward Kienholz (1927–1994) alone, then later, from 1972 on, the collaborative projects with his wife, Nancy Reddin Kienholz. This is hardly astonishing, since religion, war, death, sex, and the more inscrutable sides of society and its social conflicts have always been at its center. Dealing with such subjects as the sexual exploitation of women in prostitution, the role of the media, and the effects of ethnic conflicts, the works pinpoint fractures of Western societies which have hardly been remedied to this day and thus lend the oeuvre its unmitigated topicality. But this contemporaneity is not due solely to the themes dealt with; today we view the works as anticipating central trends in contemporary art like those we find ourselves confronted with in Paul McCarthy's and Mike Kelley's pieces, for example, but also in the production of Jonathan Meese, Thomas Hirschhorn, or John Bock. On show until January 29, 2012, the exhibition at the Schirn, spanning from the first three-dimensional smaller works to the conceptual pieces and room-filling tableaux, offers a complex survey highlighting the essence of Edward Kienholz and Nancy Reddin Kienholz's achievements.

The AKN Editor Visits The Charming & Historic Skagen Museum In Denmark Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:29 PM PST The Skagen Museum is located in Skagen, Denmark was founded in the dining room at Brøndum's Hotel in Skagen on October 20th 1908. The aim was to gather the works of the Skagen artists and to raise economic funding for the building of a museum. The collection of Skagens Museum includes over 2,000 paintings, sketches, graphic works, sculptures and ceramics, mainly from the period 1870-1930. From the end of the 1870s and up to the turn of the century Skagen was an international meeting place for young artists. They all were inspired by naturalism and open-air painting, sought new places and motifs. During the course of the 1880s Skagen was transformed into an artists' colony. The artists' favorite motifs were the fishermen working on the beaches, the tiny fishermen's cottages, the landscape and the artists' social life. Already during their own lifetime the Skagen artists achieved world fame at prominent exhibitions abroad. The Skagen Painters, who enjoyed the reputation of a bohemian lifestyle, encompassed not only painters, but also writers, and other influential people as well. While only a few were fulltime residents of the area, they were often joined by friends, especially during the summer months. Among these notable visitors and residents of the time were writers Holger Drachmann, Georg Brandes, Hans Christian Andersen, and Henrik Pontoppidan, artists Peder Severin Krøyer, Marie Triepcke Krøyer Alfvén, Christian Krohg, Michael Ancher and Anna Ancher, and composers Carl Nielsen and Hugo Alfvén. The most prominent Skagen artists are the Danish painters Anna and Michael Ancher and P.S. Krøyer, but also artists such as Holger Drachmann, who was both poet and painter, Viggo Johansen, Carl Locher, Laurits Tuxen and the Nordic artists Christian Krohg and Oscar Björck contributed to putting Skagen on the map. Since 1928 the museum has been located in a building designed by the architect Ulrik Plesner. The Garden House, where many of the artists used to rent lodgings, and the old grain-drying warehouse where P.S. Krøyer established his first studio in Skagen can both be found in the museum's atmospheric and evocative garden. The Garden House (Havehuset) in the museum garden is one of Skagen's oldest houses. It was first mentioned in 1801, and was named in the 1840s when it became part of the Brøndum property. P.S. Krøyer completed his painting 'Hip, hip, hurray!' from 1888 (Gothenburg Art Museum) in this garden. The garden and its many varieties of plants and flowers continued to be a source of inspiration to the artists. The sunflowers seen in Michael Ancher's paintings of the girl with sunflowers are picked in the garden. The Brøndum and Ancher families donated "Brøndum's old garden" including the Garden House and the Coffee House to Skagens Museum in April 1919. In 1926 the old garden was extended to include an adjoining site. Today, museum guests have free access to the garden where selected museum sculptures are placed at various spots. Extensions to the museum were built in 1982 and 1989. The museum is a combined open-air museum and exhibition facility, housed in buildings dating from three different periods in the history of the town of Skagen: the '"dark period'" (lasting until c. 1875), the '"yellow period'" (c. 1875-1907) and the '"red period'" (after 1907). In addition, there are collections dealing with fishing, the rescue system and seafaring. The exhibitions lead visitors back in time through the history of Skagen, and extend outward into other areas of Danish society as well. The museum cutter, the "Hansa", can be studied in the harbor, and even takes visitors out on cruises during the summer season. Skagen received 2008 two large grants for the preservation of Brøndums dining hall, which is a unique work of art. Brøndums dining hall was designed by architect Ulrik Plesner and Thorvald Bindesbøll in 1891/92 for the first extension of Brøndums Hotel. On the painter PS Krøyer's invitation was hotelier Degn Brøndums art collection added into the décor. The artists who visited Brøndums Hotel, had for years donated portraits of each other to Degn Brøndum. These portraits were placed in a frieze below the ceiling in the dining room. At the end of the 1800s served as the dining room setting for the artists' social life. It was here they met to discuss, eat and celebrate. Hall was transferred to the Skagen Museum in 1946. The museum presents the "Painting of the Month" the first and third Thursdays on the months of February, March, April, September, October, November and December from selected works from its collection. Registration is not required and everyone is welcome. Visit website :_ http://www.skagensmuseum.dk/ The Skagen Museum has divided its collection in three sections: "The Journey to Skagen", "Open-Air Painting", "The Skagen Painters' Portraits of Local Fishermen". The first part of the collection is a description of the journey to Skagen. At the end of the 19th century, Skagen could be reached in two ways: By train and horse-drawn carriage or by boat. Up until 1890, the railway only went as far as Frederikshavn, and the last 40 kilometers of the journey had to be made by a horse-drawn coach. If you were coming to Skagen by sea, the large ships would anchor off the coast of Skagen, and the passengers would then be sailed to shore in smaller vessels, for until 1907, Skagen did not have a port where large ships could moor. Several Skagen Painters have described their difficult journey to Skagen. Some of the artists have even described the journey to Skagen as a very risky one which nearly cost them their lives. Still, it was precisely the difficult and perilous journey, combined with the distinctive landscape, which fascinated the painters. The second section is all about open-air painting. Photographs showed P.S. Krøyer sitting with his large canvas near the shoreline, painting one of the models for the oil in canvas Boys Bathing ("Badende Drenge" – 1892). At the start of the 19th century, several French artists would complete their works in the open. To a certain extent, artists have always been working in the open, but before the 19th century it had been common practice for artists to complete their works at their studios. During the 19th century, however, plein air painting became an artistic practice in its own right, and in the 1870's, the French Impressionists became known for their quick, spontaneous sketches of Nature. When the Skagen Painters started coming to Skagen, it had become fashionable to complete one's paintings in front of the motifs, even the large canvasses. It was called open-air painting, because the artists sat out in the open whilst painting. In this way, they were able to capture the light and the colors directly on the canvas. It was thanks to the open-air painting, the unique landscape, the special environment, the colorful locals – and the fact that other artists were staying in Skagen. The last part of the collection is all about the people and especially the fisherman of Skagen. At the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, several European artists portrayed the life and work of fishermen. In the 1870's, motifs with fishermen became really popular among the general audience, and the pictorial art and literature from the period abound with portrayals of heroic fishermen. The fishermen were seen as heroes because of the dangerous nature of their work, and their heroism is often emphasized in the paintings. Michael Ancher is known particularly for his many portraits of fishermen working as rescuers, whereas P.S. Krøyer's paintings of fishermen are more peaceful. Krøyer preferred to portray fishermen hauling nets on the beach in different light conditions. In order for the artists to maintain their credibility, it was very important for them to appear as eyewitnesses to the hardships of the fishermen. The Skagen Museum is showing from February 1st until May 8th 2011 its collection of drawings, watercolors and pastels. The museum is also including the exhibition its fine collection of vases designed by Thorvald Bindesbøll and a selection of the architect Ulrik Plesner drawings for several of the houses in Skagen - including Skagen Museum, Brøndums Hotel Klitgaarden and the church. The Skagen Museum is the place to be for those who enjoy 19th century Nordic Naturalist paintings and at the same time visit the places that inspired the famous "Skagen Painters".

Art Institute of Chicago shows "Becoming Edvard Munch ~ Influence, Anxiety, & Myth" Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:28 PM PST CHICAGO, IL- Two potent myths have traditionally defined our understanding of the artist Edvard Munch: that he was mentally unstable, as his iconic work The Scream suggests, and that he was influenced by the contemporary art of France and Germany to the exclusion of his native Norway. The Chicago Art Institute's exhibition Becoming Edvard Munch: Influence, Anxiety, and Myth aims to challenge and overturn these entrenched myths by presenting Munch's paintings, prints, and drawings in relation to those of his European contemporaries. On exhibition 14 February through 26 April, 2009.

National Gallery of Scotland opens The Discovery of Spain by British Artists ~ Goya to Picasso Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:27 PM PST EDINBURGH.- A spectacular celebration of Spanish culture will bring some Mediterranean colour to Edinburgh this summer, as the National Gallery of Scotland unveils the highlight of its festival programme for 2009. The Discovery of Spain will explore the fascination for Spanish art and culture in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Britain, and examine the taste of Hispanophile collectors and artists. Outstanding examples of Spanish art, including works by Velázquez, El Greco, Murillo and Zurbarán, will form a dramatic centerpiece for the exhibition. Paintings by major British artists who were captivated by the experience of travelling through Spain will also dominate the show; these include important paintings by Sir David Wilkie, David Roberts, John Phillip, Arthur Melville and David Bomberg.

The Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts to Show Masterpieces from the Wadsworth Atheneum Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:26 PM PST Springfield, Massachusetts.– "Old Masters to Monet: Three Centuries of French Painting from the Wadsworth Atheneum" will premier at the Michele and Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts in Springfield from December 13th through April 29th 2012. The Wadsworth Atheneum, America's oldest public art museum, founded in 1843, has never before presented a full-scale survey of its distinguished collection of French paintings. This exhibition of 50 outstanding masterpieces provides a history of French painting, ranging from the 17th through the 19th centuries and into the beginning of the 20th century. All the major types of painting are represented, including religious and mythological subjects, portraiture, landscape, still life, and genre. Old Masters to Monet begins with the great 17th-century masters who went to Rome and absorbed Italian ideas of beauty, classical sculpture, and ideal landscape. Claude Lorrain's "Landscape with St. George and the Dragon," commissioned by Cardinal Fausto Poli in 1641, is one of the artist's most important paintings in this country. The 18th-century works present a rich tapestry of life in France, including humorous genre paintings, still lifes by such masters as Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, and historical paintings inspired by the French Revolution. Likenesses of aristocrats include "Portrait of the Duchesse de Polignac" by the most important woman painter of the era, Madame Vigée-Lebrun. The 19th century brings the Romanticism of Théodore Géricault and Eugène Delacroix; pastoral and realistic landscapes by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet and Gustave Rousseau; and the Academic style of William Bouguereau. The essence of Impressionism is captured in Pierre-Auguste Renoir's famous painting of his friend Claude Monet at work in the garden of their rented home at Argenteuil in 1873. In addition there are two superb paintings by Monet himself — the 1870 "Beach at Trouville" and the 1904 depiction of his water lily pond. Also included are fine examples by their colleagues Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, Edgar Degas, and Paul Cézanne. The final group of paintings by the younger Post-Impressionist generation includes Louis Anquetin's "Avenue de Clichy," a view of a Parisian boulevard on a rainy evening that had a profound effect on Vincent van Gogh, whose own powerful "Self-Portrait" of about 1887 is included. Finally there are Paul Ranson, Édouard Vuillard, and Pierre Bonnard who focus on intimate interiors. Old Masters to Monet also provides an opportunity for the D'Amour Museum to highlight its own outstanding French collection which features many of the same artists shown in the Wadsworth show. Among the finest French works in the D'Amour Museum are "Refreshments," 1764 by Chardin, one of the artist's most celebrated still-life paintings; "The Madman-Kidnapper," c. 1823 by Géricault, an intense examination of mental illness; and "Grainstack, 1893 by Claude Monet, an example of the artist's continuing exploration of the effects of light on the landscape. The Springfield Museums, located in the heart of downtown Springfield, Massachusetts, is comprised of five world-class museums; the Michele & Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts., the George Walter Vincent Smith Art Museum, the Springfield Science Museum, the Connecticut Valley Historical Museum and the Museum of Springfield History. The Museums Association is proud to be home to the Dr. Seuss National Memorial Sculpture Garden, a series of full–scale bronze sculptures of Dr. Seuss's whimsical creations, honoring the birthplace of Theodor Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss. The Michele & Donald D'Amour Museum of Fine Arts is one of the two Springfield Museums dedicated to fine and decorative arts. The Art Deco-style museum was erected in response to a bequest from Mr. & Mrs. James Philip Gray, who left their entire estate for the "selection, purchase, preservation, and exhibition of the most valuable, meritorious, artistic, and high class oil paintings obtainable," and for the construction of a museum to house them. The museum opened in 1934. The first floor of the museum is dedicated to American art ranging from "Portrait of Nymphas Marston" by John Singleton Copley to "Promenade on the Beach" by Winslow Homer to Contemporary glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly. The American collection also includes the country's only permanent museum gallery dedicated to the lithographs of Currier & Ives. The second floor is a chronological tour of the museum's fine European art collection. Beginning in the Middle Ages with an intricate 15th-century, Hispano-Flemish Fuentes Retable (altarpiece), the galleries lead visitors through the Renaissance and subsequent centuries with fine paintings from Italy and France. The Dutch and Flemish collection is particularly strong. Familiar names in the Impressionism Gallery include Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro and Paul Gauguin. Traveling exhibitions can be found in the Wheeler Gallery. Performances, lectures and presentations are offered in the Davis Auditorium. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.springfieldmuseums.org/ Source: PR sent to Editor (reply to Sara Orr - SOrr@springfieldmuseums.org)

Essl Museum Offers Insights into the Contemporary Indian Art Scene Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:25 PM PST KLOSTERNEUBURG.- With the exhibition CHALO! INDIA. A New Era of Indian Art, the Essl Museum offers impressive insights into the contemporary Indian art scene. CHALO! INDIA. A New Era of Indian Art explores the present state of Indian contemporary art and the great changes it has gone through in recent years; examining the work of artists who attempt to question the reality of the society and age in which they live by taking subject matters from their everyday surroundings and transforming them through their art into a theatre of life. "Chalo!" means "Let's go" in Hindi, and this exhibition is an invitation on a journey to encounter the new creativity and energy of Indian contemporary art. It is a visit to "India now" via these works of art, and an exploration of diverse ways of thinking that each visitor may discover for him or herself.

Nassau County Museum of Art Showcases the Romantic Fascination of the Sea Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:24 PM PST ROSLYN HARBOR.- Nassau County Museum of Art's (NCMA) newest exhibition portrays the magnetism we feel for bodies of water alongside the dangers, even the terror, that seas often present. This exhibition examines the romantic fascination artists have always had for expanses of water through American and European artists working in many styles from the mid-19th century to the present. Organized by Director Emerita Constance Schwartz, the exhibition opens on Saturday, June 5 and remains on view through Sunday, September 12. The Sea Around Us is sponsored by David Lerner Associates with additional sponsorship by Astoria Federal Savings.

The MAK-Vienna to solo 'Recent Works' of Julian Opie Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:23 PM PST Vienna, Austria - For more than two decades now, Julian Opie has ranked among the most important exponents of contemporary British art. Like no other, Opie knows the art of reduction to essentials, which particularly informs his much-acclaimed portraits. Using a few dots and lines only, he is brilliantly able to transform facial features of a given individual into universal, pictogram-like icons without cutting out individual characteristics altogether. In the same manner, he reduces details of landscapes, architecture, and objects. In its exhibition of "Recent Works", the MAK surveys, in a large solo exhibition, Julian Opie's latest art creations. The reduced visual vocabulary of the artist, born 1958 in London, has its counterpart in his continual search for new means of expression, media, and inspirations in art. From his preoccupation to overcome classical art forms and genres derives his artistic intention of separating the picture from its carrier and making it recur as a wall painting, sculpture, light-box, video, vinyl picture, or C-print. On exhibition June 11 – September 21, 2008. An exponent of "New British Sculpture", Opie became known in the mid-1980s for metal sculptures made of everyday objects with painted surfaces. Opie borrows from comics and pop art from his clear and reduced line work. The artist's complex œuvre also evokes associations of Japanese Mangas and seems indebted to a consumer sphere context (advertising, picture postcards, posters, stickers, record covers, etc.). However, Opie's subjects – portraits, nudes, half and full figures, and landscapes – are firmly rooted in the tradition of art-historical pictorial genres. Since the early 1990s, Opie has taken to developing his works on the computer: he scans real photos which he then transforms, using cutting edge software, into easily readable two or three-dimensional virtual views. Julian Opie has also been working with moving images for some years now. Digitally drawn humans and landscapes are gently animated and shown on large flat screens mounted on art museums or other suitable buildings. The MAK exhibition "JULIAN OPIE. Recent Works" brings together many facets of his œuvre. In the center of the show is a new series of portraits (2007–2008), based on Baroque models. Here, Julian Opie explores the works of the Dutch-born painter Sir Peter Lely (1618–1680), who immigrated to England and became one of the most preferred portrait painters of the 17th century.   Besides, the MAK show features nudes, among them his "This is Shanoza" series (2007), half figures, including "Lorenzo with hand on chest" (2008), a series of animated landscapes deriving from the artist's studies of 19th century Japanese masters, as well as a series of animated human portraits. Presented on large flat-screens, or displays, the minimalist figures are in permanent flowing motion. Julian Opie received numerous awards, among them, for example, a Music Week CADs for his record cover "Best of Blur" (2001). He won international recognition with his spectacular contribution to the documenta 8 (1987) in Kassel, Germany. Today, his works are represented in important international collections such as Tate Modern, London, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, and the Zurich Kunsthaus. Established 1986, the MAK Permanent Collection Contemporary Art holds a special position within the system of MAK collections.  Central to this are the interfacing zones of "applied" and "pure" art as well as the development of new presentation concepts in close cooperation with the artists.  Not only in the MAK Permanent Collection, but also in the public sphere – with works by Donald Judd, Philip Johnson, Franz West and James Turrell permanently exhibited in the Vienna cityscape, in Stadtpark, on Schottenring, on the Stubenbrücke, and in the park of Geymüllerschlössel, respectively –, the MAK Permanent Collection Contemporary Art champions an open approach to and an expanded understanding of art. Visit the MAK at : www.mak.at/

Andy Warhol's Iconic '200 One Dollar Bills' from 1962 Sells for $43,762,500 at Sotheby's Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:22 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby's in New York, Andy Warhol's monumental masterpiece, 200 One Dollar Bills, brought a remarkable $43,762,500, soaring past the pre-sale estimate of $8/12 million. Competition was fierce. Auctioneer Tobias Meyer opened the bidding at $6 million and was immediately met with an almost unheard of response - a bid of $12 million, twice his opening bid. Five more bidders raised their paddles before the winning bid was cast by an anonymous purchaser bidding on the telephone. The Warhol was the top-selling lot in a sale of Contemporary Art that brought an outstanding total of $134,438,000, far-above pre-sale expectations (est. $67.9/97.7 million) and with all but two lots finding buyers.

Sotheby's to show "Women" ~ A Loan Exhibition from the Collection of Steven & Alexandra Cohen Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:21 PM PST NEW YORK, NY - From April 2-14, 2009 a loan exhibition from the collection of Steven and Alexandra Cohen will be shown at Sotheby's in New York. Entitled Women, the exhibition will focus on one area of the Cohen's collection, works depicting female subjects. This remarkable assemblage of twenty masterpieces ranges from Edvard Munch's Madonna and Pablo Picasso's Le Repos to Willem de Kooning's Women III and Andy Warhol's Turquoise Marilyn, and includes paintings, sculpture, works on paper and photographs by the most influential artists of the modern era. The collection has never before been exhibited to the public.

'Pop Life' at Hamburger Kunsthalle Proves that "Good Business is the Best Art" Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:20 PM PST HAMBURG.- The exhibition Pop Life takes Andy Warhol's famously provocative claim that "good business is the best art" as the starting point for a completely new interpretation of the legacy of Pop art and the influence of its chief protagonists. Pop Life shows the various ways in which artists since the 1980s have engaged with the mass media, often involving the deliberate creation and cultivation of an artistic persona as a 'brand'. The exhibition features works by Andy Warhol alongside key pieces by Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, Richard Prince, Martin Kippenberger, Tracey Emin, Takashi Murakami and others. Some 320 exhibits will be on display, including paintings, drawings, photographs, magazines, sculptures, videos, merchandising products, spatial installations and a shop.  On view through 9 May, 2010 at the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Pop Life argues that Andy Warhol's most radical lesson is reflected in the work of artists of subsequent generations who not only reproduce everyday culture in their artworks but also strategically infiltrate this realm, appropriating the mechanisms of the market, the mass media and the omnipresence of advertising in order to reach an audience far beyond the confines of the art gallery. The conflation of culture and commerce is commonly regarded as a betrayal of the values of modern art; Pop Life, on the other hand, shows that for many artists who came after Warhol, the fusion of the two realms is the only possible means of interacting with the modern world. Pop Life includes reconstructions of Keith Haring's Pop Shop and Jeff Koons's series Made in Heaven, which is rarely presented in its entirety. Haring opened the Pop Shop on New York's Lafayette Street in 1986 to market his branded artistic signature in the form of merchandising products – including T-shirts, toys and magnets – that were aimed at the widest possible audience. In his series Made in Heaven, first shown at the 1991 Venice Biennale, Jeff Koons publicly celebrates his marital union with the Italian porn star Ilona Staller, also known as La Cicciolina. One of the central themes of the exhibition is the performative aspect revealed by the self-presentation and role perception of artists within the spheres of the mass media and the art business. The artists themselves are actively involved in key areas – among other things as forgers, celebrities, publishers, art dealers, gallerists, business owners, curators, TV presenters, even auctioneers. They smuggle themselves in disguise into the operating systems of product and information circulation, exposing these mechanisms without having to take a personal stance. Here in lies the ambiguous content – affirmative and critical at once – of Pop Life. The exhibition begins with an examination of Andy Warhol's late work, looking at his various roles as a television personality, an advertising icon and the publisher of Interview magazine – typical activities for that time. Highlights include a number of works from the initially controversial series that became known as the Retrospectives and Reversals. As reprisals of his own celebrated images of pop icons from the 1960s, these works prefigure installations by artists such as Martin Kippenberger or Tracey Emin. Like Warhol, these artists openly embrace the self-mythologizing impulse: they consider the creation of their public persona and its distribution as a brand to be one of the fundamental tools of their profession. Several rooms in the Hamburg edition of Pop Life are dedicated to Martin Kippenberger. One special presentation that will only be shown here features early works from the collection of Gisela Stelly Augstein, a Hamburg-based filmmaker whom the artist much admired. With this display of black-and-white photo-paintings from Kippenberger's series Un Tedesco in Firenze, along with the 'Ideentafeln' (idea panels), and numerous letters and postcards to Stelly Augstein, the exhibition allows visitors to experience at close quarters the early stages of his development into a skilful self-promoter and social analyst. Following in the tradition of Dada and Fluxus, Kippenberger's provocative, mocking attacks were aimed at dismantling the traditional concept of art. A further section of the exhibition is devoted to the so-called 'Young British Artists', with particular emphasis being placed on their early activities. These include the shop opened by Tracey Emin and Sarah Lucas in London's Bethnal Green district, where the two artists created and sold their work. Renowned pieces by Gavin Turk are featured here alongside selected works from Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, Damien Hirst's spectacular auction that took place in September 2008 at Sotheby's in London. A specially commissioned new installation by the Japanese artist Takashi Murakami, who has set up his own multinational company to distribute his art, will be shown in one of the final rooms of the exhibition. Hamburger Kunsthalle  at : www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de/

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review" Posted: 04 Jan 2012 07:19 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.

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