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

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• The Palace of Versailles Presents Louis François Lejeune's Paintings
• Delaware Art Museum Showcases ~ "The Life and Work of Katharine Pyle"
• Heather James Fine Art Features Australian Artist Andrew Taylor
• Arteaméricas Fair To Bring the Best Latin American Art to Miami Beach
• Gavin Turk pays homage to Alighiero Boetti at Ben Brown Fine Arts
• New paintings by the artist Bill Jacklin at Marlborough Gallery in NYC
• The Kunsthal Rotterdam Exhibition Highlights the Dutch Waterland
• The Hunterdon Art Museum Shows Nathan Skiles Innovative Foam Rubber Sculptures
• The Irvine Musuem to Show Works by Early Californian Women Artists
• The World's Most Difficult Museum ~ The New York Times Talks To The White House's Curator
• The Whitney Museum of American Art Presents Exhibiton Exploring Its Founding Collection
• Three People Arrested in $140 Million Art Heist from Paris' Museum of Modern Art
• SFMOMA SHOWCASES PICASSO AND AMERICAN ART
• Musee d'Art Moderne Shows Works by Artists Aware that Death was Imminent
• Wyoming Art Dealer Discovers Previously Unknown American Impressionist Master
• 'From Vessel to Sculpture' at the Speed Art Museum
• MUMOK Reopens With New Exhibition from its Permanent Collection
• "ARTIST ROOMS 2010 Tour" Announced ~ 21 Exhibitions of Contemporary Art
• The Lowe Art Museum Shows "Sacred Stories - Timeless Tales"
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Palace of Versailles Presents Louis François Lejeune's Paintings Posted: 16 Feb 2012 09:53 PM PST Paris.- The Palace of Versailles is pleased to present "Napoleon's Wars. Louis François Lejeune, General and Painter", on view in the Africa and Crimea rooms until May 13th. The soldier, spy, painter and diplomat Louis François Lejeune (1775 - 1848) is a unique figure in the history of his time: as a soldier, he fought in all the wars of the Revolution and the Empire before reaching the rank of brigade general. But that was not enough for him: during his military career he painted the principal battles in a dozen paintings, then described the Napoleonic campaigns at length in his Souvenirs. The exhibition is designed to do justice to this colourful artist. It presents his drawings and his paintings in the context of the artists of his time, as well as his personal memories of military and civilian life during the Empire, the Restoration and the July Monarchy. Six sections present his production of battle paintings, from his observation of the theatre of operations until their exhibition in the Parisian salons. Through the life and works of Louis François Lejeune, the visitor discovers an eyewitness account of the wars of Napoleon. In the course of his life, the general and painter Louis François Lejeune (1775-1848) alternated between military missions and periods consecrated to painting. Lejeune studied painting in the private studio of the landscape painter Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1750-1819), and at the Royal Academy of Painting, which he entered in 1789. In 1792, aged 17, he abruptly interrupted his studies and enrolled in the army, in the Compagnie des Arts. He rose up rapidly through the ranks: after being incorporated into the Engineering Corps, he became one of the aides de camp of marshal Alexandre Berthier in 1800. During twenty years he took part in most of the military campaigns, including the siege of Charleroi (1794), the crossing of the Rhine (1795), the second Italian campaign (1800), the first German campaign (1805), the war in Spain (1808-1812) and the Russian campaign (1812). While he embraced his military career with enthusiasm, Lejeune did not forget his vocation to be a painter. In 1798, he exhibited for the first time in the Salon with The Death of General Marceau. The success of The Battle of Marengo, exhibited in the Salon of 1801, led him to undertake a cycle of paintings of battles in which the triumphal marches of the armies are balanced by the long hours spent in bivouacs and sieges. The Battle of Aboukir and The Battle of the Lodi Bridge were exhibited in 1804. The Bivouac of Napoleon on the Eve of Austerlitz was the only commission he ever received. This cycle of paintings shows an encyclopaedic aim as Lejeune also depicted battles in which he did not participate. While fully pursuing his military career, he managed to have works presented up until 1845 in nearly all the Salons during the Consulate, the Empire and the Restoration. In 1835, the July Monarchy put an end to the functions of Lejeune in the army. He then began a career as a public figure: he was appointed Director of the School of Beaux-Arts in Toulouse. He was also appointed interim Mayor of that city in 1841. At the same time he was writing his Souvenirs, in which he presented his experience of Napoleon's wars. He died in 1843 in Toulouse at the age of seventy-three.de Napoléon. Other works in the exhibitions include paintings by François Gérard, including "General Rapp presents to Napoleon his captive Prince Repnin, and the prisoners and the flags taken from the enemy". The face to face encounter of the two principal protagonists was inspired directly by Lejeune, but Gérard took an isolated motif from it on which to centre his composition. The sketch made for this work is presented in the exhibition. The definitive painting was commissioned in 1806 for the room of the Council of State in the Tuileries palace. It was enlarged and then placed for king Louis-Philippe in the Palace of Versailles, in the Battles Gallery where it is still preserved. One of the most celebrated draughtsmen recruited as a geographer-engineer by Napoleon Bonaparte to depict his battles was the Piedmontese Giuseppe Bagetti. His drawings made in the field soon after the battle enabled him to execute small paintings in gouache and watercolour, some of which are presented in the exhibition. These works had a didactic purpose. And of course they were used as propaganda for the imperial policy. The Palace of Versailles is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. In French it is the Château de Versailles. When the château was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometres southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the centre of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution. Versailles is therefore famous not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime. With the past and ongoing restoration and conservation projects at Versailles, the Fifth Republic has enthusiastically promoted the museum as one of France's foremost tourist attractions. The palace, however, still serves political functions. Heads of state are regaled in the Hall of Mirrors; the Sénat and the Assemblée nationale meet in congress in Versailles to revise or otherwise amend the French Constitution, a tradition that came into effect with the promulgation of the 1875 Constitution. Public establishment of the museum and Château de Versailles Spectacles recently organised the Jeff Koons Versailles exhibition. Visit the palace's website at ... http://en.chateauversailles.fr

Delaware Art Museum Showcases ~ "The Life and Work of Katharine Pyle" Posted: 16 Feb 2012 09:52 PM PST Wilmington, Delaware.- The Delaware Art Museum is pleased to present "Tales of Folk and Fairies: The Life and Work of Katharine Pyle", on view from February 18th through September 9th. Katharine Pyle (1863 – 1938), younger sister to famed American illustrator and author Howard Pyle, spent much of her career in her older brother's shadow. Although she worked for a time in her brother's Howard's Wilmington studio, and even took his classes at the Drexel Institute, Katharine developed a unique style all her own, and eventually emerged as one of Delaware's most prolific women authors and illustrators. "Tales of Folk and Fairies" reintroduces 71 of Katharine's books and illustrations to present-day audiences.

Heather James Fine Art Features Australian Artist Andrew Taylor Posted: 16 Feb 2012 09:22 PM PST Palm Desert, California.- Heather James Fine Art is pleased to present "Andrew Taylor - Outside: The Periphery", on view at the gallery from February 18th through March 31st, with an opening reception on Saturday February 18th from 6-8 pm. Andrew Taylor's lush and iridescent paintings of nature are manifested from looking at things from the periphery. He paints the overlooked environment around us that we see but do not consciously focus our attention on. He describes the subjects in his paintings as "The things we look through when we think we should be looking somewhere else."

Arteaméricas Fair To Bring the Best Latin American Art to Miami Beach Posted: 16 Feb 2012 09:06 PM PST Miami Beach, Florida.- Arteaméricas, the premier fair of art from Latin America, will be returning for its tenth consecutive year.  Starting on Saturday, March 3rd through Monday, March 5th, Arteaméricas will showcase the latest trends in paintings, sculpture and multimedia from contemporary artists as well as renowned masters at the Miami Beach Convention Center. Right now, Latin American art is hot. It was the subject of conversation at Art Basel and the satellite fairs. The co-directors of Art Basel Miami Beach mentioned "Latin America" numerous times in an interview for the official magazine of the fair. ARCO, the acclaimed fair in Madrid focused on Latin American art in their ads. At the Venice Biennale, Allora & Calzadilla represented the United States, and the MOMA in New York City has a major exhibit of Diego Rivera's murals. "We are very excited to continue showcasing Latin American art, and do so with the support of great Latin American artists and galleries," says Leslie Pantín, President of arteaméricas. "arteaméricas has been the most respected Latin American art fair since it's inception. We're proud of this distinction, and for that reason, we raise our standards every year, create innovative projects and recruit the best galleries out there," he adds. The best galleries from all over Latin America, the United States, the Caribbean, Canada and Europe will be participating. The three-day arteaméricas event will feature works by internationally recognized artists and sculptors. Likewise, vanguard contemporary artists will be on hand in order to exhibit their works as the latest in Latin American modern art. Arteaméricas is a place where art collectors and art professionals alike gather among the present trends in paintings, sculptures, and conceptual art multimedia that distinguish the region's art. In 2011, the fair had more than 50 galleries taking up more than 80 spaces and showcasing more than 300 artists. The artists represented by the galleries hail from every country in the Americas and Spain. This year, the fair organizers are developing a special tribute to Argentina. The country will be showcased through its art, which is of high quality and innovation. The legendary Argentinean gallery, Galleria Rubbers, will be at the fair. Also, several other prestigious Argentinean galleries and institutes will be on board to showcase their art. "For 2012, arteaméricas will feature many new and interesting things; from sculptures, to music performances and art talks," states Emilio Calleja, fair VP.  The "Maestro" Carlos Cruz-Diez from Venezuela is this year's invited artist.  Cruz-Diez, a revered master of geometric art, was chosen by Jeffrey Loria, owner of the new Miami Marlins to install a major work of art in the four acre entrance Plaza at the stadium. "arteaméricas wishes to honor this great artist at our fair along with the Miami Marlins and Art in Public Places who participated in this selection," adds Emilio Calleja. As in past years, arteaméricas has set up a Selection Committee, Angel Felix, Director of the Cultural Program of the Interamerican Development Bank; and Leonor Amarante, an acknowledged curator and critic from Brazil. Carol Damian, Director of the Frost Museum, has been in the committee since the fair's first year and is a member once again. All four carefully evaluate every gallery and their artists, in order to continue to raise the quality of the fair. Organized by Dr. Marijean Miyar, Arteaméricas 2012 will bring back Art Talks, a series of four discussion tables aimed at furthering the understanding of the visual arts, biennial productions and collecting practices. The panels are structured to promote reflection and critical analysis of issues relevant to biennial directors, curators and artists, as well as the formation of private and public collections. Topics will include everything from photography to a talk by renowned artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. Art Talks 2012 will take place in the Salón arteaméricas, furnished by Poltrona Frau. This area will have theater-type and will also be showing video art throughout the fair's three day run. In 2012, arteaméricas will introduce its FOTOAMERICAS section, a photography exhibition open to artists from all nationalities. The art available at arteaméricas ranges from $2,000 to approximately one million dollars.  Visit the fair's website at ... www.arteamericas.com

Gavin Turk pays homage to Alighiero Boetti at Ben Brown Fine Arts Posted: 16 Feb 2012 07:54 PM PST LONDON.- Like all artists, Gavin Turk's name is his brand and in the schizophrenic title for this show, he turns it into a family brand. Throughout 25 years of artwork, Turk has questioned authorship, identity and the handmade. This new exhibition is no exception, but here, he chooses to pay homage to Alighiero Boetti, an Italian conceptual artist prominent in the sixties and seventies, who is the subject of a current Tate Modern retrospective. Gavin Turk exhibition is on view at Ben Brown Fine Arts, London through 20th of April.

New paintings by the artist Bill Jacklin at Marlborough Gallery in NYC Posted: 16 Feb 2012 06:27 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- Marlborough Gallery announces that an exhibition of new paintings and a steel wall-hanging by the artist Bill Jacklin, entitled Bill Jacklin: Recent Work, New York, on view through the 17th of March. Jacklin, born and raised in London, has lived and worked in New York City and Rhode Island since 1985. The subjects of the 30 oils on canvas and one COR-TEN steel sculpture exhibited are taken from visual encounters specific to New York City. The scenery of New York has inspired Jacklin since his arrival in the city. His past work has explored such landmarks as Grand Central Station, 57th Street, Roseland Ballroom, and Coney Island, among others. In the majority of Jacklin's paintings, emphasis is on the essence of place, on the sensation of being in an environment rather than on the topography and details of the setting itself. In this exhibition, the multiple renderings of specific locations, such as Times Square, Little Italy, and the Rockefeller Center skating rink, allow the viewer to revisit these spaces. Yet placing these scenes in time is nearly impossible, as if it is only the memory of the location that is actually being depicted.

The Kunsthal Rotterdam Exhibition Highlights the Dutch Waterland Posted: 16 Feb 2012 05:22 PM PST ROTTERDAM, NL - Water is the single most defining element of the Dutch identity. The ease with which the Dutch deal with water and their low-lying country is a source of wonder to the rest of the world. With a hundred and twenty artworks, the Kunsthal Rotterdam illustrates the affinity that the people of the Netherlands have with water. Top historical pieces by Old Masters such as Willem Maris and Salomon van Ruysdael are exhibited alongside remarkable works by modern artists including Theo van Doesburg and Edgar Fernhout, and contemporary artists such as Marijke van Warmerdam and Daniëlle Kwaaitaal. This varied selection of artworks provides an insight into the essential role that art plays in our perception of water. Visitors to Sweet&Salt can 'experience' the Dutch waterland in all its diversity, be they young or old, novice or expert. On view through the 10th of June.

The Hunterdon Art Museum Shows Nathan Skiles Innovative Foam Rubber Sculptures Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:47 PM PST Clinton, New Jersey.- The Hunterdon Art Museum is pleased to present " Nathan Skiles : The Clockmaker's Apprentice" on view through March 25th. Nathan Skiles combines recognizable iconography, such as woodworking and drafting tools, with cuckoo clocks and birdhouses to directly influence our traditional perceptions. With his innovative use of foam rubber as the only material in his works, Skiles tricks the eye and confuses our sense of immediate recognition, further challenging the viewer to look beyond the obvious and discover the detailed and meticulous process to which he is attached. For his exhibition at the Museum, Skiles has installed 100 never-before-seen pieces throughout the first floor.

The Irvine Musuem to Show Works by Early Californian Women Artists Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:46 PM PST Irvine, California. The Irvine Museum is proud to shine a light on early California women artists in the exhibition "Inner Visions: Women Artists of California" on display from March 17th through June 7th. This exhibition will display works by women working in California in three major periods: the Tonalist style of the late 1800s; the Impressionist period of the early 1900s, and the Regionalist style of the 1930s and 1940s. The central attraction in Inner Visions will be the 7 foot by 26 foot mural by Jessie Arms Botke, a gift to The Irvine Museum from The Oaks at Ojai, for which the mural was painted in 1953. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, California had more women artists than other regions of the country. In the East, the entrenched art establishment had existed for more than a century and it consisted solely of men artists. It was deemed inappropriate to have women earning a living and pursuing a career in the arts. By contrast, there was no entrenched art establishment in Los Angeles as both men and women artists began arriving at the same time. Artists who lived in Southern California in the early 1900s were part of a close circle of friends and included men and women. Artists featured in Inner Visions include Jessie Arms Botke, Meta Cressey, Anna Hills, Donna N. Schuster, Marion Kavanagh Wachtel, among others. The main attraction for Inner Visions is a mural from the venerable Oaks Hotel in Ojai, a generous gift to The Irvine Museum in 1992 from the Oaks at Ojai. The mural was painted in 1953 by Jessie Arms Botke, with assistance from her husband Cornelis Botke. It is a large work, measuring nearly 7 feet high by 26 feet long and it represents a scene in the Everglades, with a large variety of bird life and flora set on a gold-leaf background. The mural graced the ballroom wall of the old Oaks Hotel for nearly forty years when, in the course of renovating the hotel, the decision was made to tear down the wall in order to enlarge the room. Mindful that this was an important work of California art, the hotel offered the mural as a gift to The Irvine Museum with the condition that the museum assume the costs of removal and restoration of the work. Fortunately, the mural was painted on two large pieces of canvas, and not directly on the wall. The mural was carefully removed and restored to its full glory. At the time The Irvine Museum received the mural, the museum was in a large suite on the 12th floor of its current building. As such, it was impossible to bring the mural into the museum because it would not fit into the elevators. So, for more than eighteen years the mural was displayed at Joan Irvine Smith Hall, at the University of California, Irvine. A few years ago, the museum relocated to the ground floor of its current building, thus making the elevator restrictions moot. The museum is finally able to display this majestic and magical mural. Since the museum does not have a single wall that measures 26 feet, the mural will be displayed in its two parts for Inner Visions, one measuring 14 feet long and other 12 feet long. They will be shown on opposite walls so the viewer will, in effect, be in the middle of the scene. Opened in January 1993 and dedicated to the preservation and display of California art of the Impressionist Period (1890-1930), the Irvine Museum is embracing a principal role in the education and furtherance of this beautiful and important regional variant of American Impressionism that has come to be associated with California and its remarkable landscape. The Irvine Museum invites you to share this experience and to enjoy the splendor and power of art as it relates directly to our beloved California. Much of what originally made California a "Golden Land" was directly linked to the environment, especially the land and water that nurtured and sustained a rare quality of life. Over a hundred years ago, the splendor of nature fascinated artists and compelled them to paint beautiful paintings. As we view these rare and remarkable paintings, we are returned, all too briefly, to a time long ago when the land and its bounty were open and almost limitless. Today, with the renaissance of the glorification of nature in art, that spirit is motivating enlightened people in the same way it energized artists of the past. The common bond is the deep reverence for nature and the common goal is to preserve our environment, and no statement is more eloquent than the silent testament of these magnificent paintings. Each generation, in its turn, is the steward of the land, water and air. The Museum itself is housed in a lovely hacienda style building, reminiscent of the Golden Land's early days. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.irvinemuseum.org

The World's Most Difficult Museum ~ The New York Times Talks To The White House's Curator Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:29 PM PST Washington, DC (New York Times).- Reduced to its bare particulars, it can sound like one of the strangest museums in the world. It holds no special exhibitions, it has no web site, admission to the public is free, but it can take as long as six months to get in. For those who succeed in getting in, there are treasures on the order of John Singer Sargent, Asher B. Durand and Jacob Lawrence to be seen. But works by two of the most famous artists in the collection, Cézanne (a still life and a handful of landscapes) and Monet (a gauzy view of the Seine), are kept out of public view. For a few years the collection's lone Grandma Moses painting was seen almost exclusively by a pre-teenage girl from Georgia named Amy Carter and her friends. Add to all this the longstanding tradition that privileged guests are allowed to use some of the historical artifacts as desks and to eat off of others, and it can be a curator's nightmare. But it is never boring, caring for the collection of the 210-year-old museum that one of its residents, Thomas Jefferson, described as palatial enough for "two emperors, one pope and the Grand Lama," and a later one, Harry S. Truman, bemoaned as "a great white jail." "It is a museum but it's also the White House, and so it's a working house," said William G. Allman, who has worked in the curator's office here for 35 years, and has been chief curator since 2002. "There are times when you run screaming, telling somebody, 'You can't put those hot television lights up against the portrait of Washington!' You worry about someone spilling a drink on something. Sometimes somebody breaks a piece of furniture. But it's the nature of it. It's a place where people actually live." As if to underscore his point a black-and-white blur, Bo, the Obamas' Portuguese water dog, could be seen through the window, racing across the South Lawn, for the moment not posing his own threat to the art in the house that has become his own. Like most of his six predecessors since the office of the White House curator was created by Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961, Mr. Allman has worked almost as hard at keeping a low profile as he does at overseeing the 50,000 objects that are cataloged as part of the house's permanent collection, from the fish forks in the state silver service to the 1938 Steinway grand piano with heroic gold-leafed eagles for legs. "The residence staff here prides itself on being behind the scenes," he said. But this year marks the 50th anniversary of both the curator's office and the White House Historical Association, the non-profit organization that supports the acquisition and conservation of White House art and artifacts. And so Mr. Allman was recently persuaded by Obama staffers to emerge from the relative anonymity of his office (in a windowless former servants' dining room, near the White House bowling alley on the ground floor) and to talk about the role he has played in shaping the house's art and décor through seven administrations (which explains how he remembers that Grandma Moses's pastoral scene "July Fourth" once graced Amy Carter's bedroom). On a recent sunny afternoon he showed a visitor around the hushed and largely deserted ground floor and first floor of the house, through the historic public rooms, Blue, Green, Red, East, that are the nation's domestic patrimony and the curator's primary responsibility. The second and third floors, the first family's residence, are less his domain, though he advises on its art and décor. And especially since 2009, when the Obamas made headlines by borrowing pieces by the kind of adventurous contemporary artists, including Ed Ruscha, Glenn Ligon and Susan Rothenberg, who had never been seen before in the White House, the dialogue between the upper and lower levels of the house has begun to change aesthetic assumptions here in ways that Mr. Allman said he had never experienced before. It has, for example, led to a thorough modernization of the wish list that the White House Historical Association and the curator's office keep (along with the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, appointed by the president) to guide their purchases of works by American artists not yet represented in the house's permanent collection. Before the Obama administration the list had not yet made its way, art-historically, up to Abstract Expressionism. It included Edward Hopper, Grant Wood, Thomas Hart Benton and other lyrical 20th century realists, and, in the work of Arthur Dove, it dipped one toe tentatively into abstraction. There are still no purely abstract works in the collection now, though a Georgia O'Keeffe donated in 1998 plays with it, those that the Obamas added are all on loan from other museums and galleries. "We realized as we came into an administration that had more of an affection for abstract art that we really needed to update our list," Mr. Allman said. So now that list is longer, about 50 artists, and includes New York School names like Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline, along with others like Robert Rauschenberg, Alexander Calder and Louise Nevelson. The change has prompted Mr. Allman, 58, whose main expertise lies mostly in silver and furniture, to survey the 18th and 19th century portraits and landscapes on the house's walls and for the first time to try envisioning something like Franz Kline's volcanic black-on-white slashes hanging in their august company. "Do we think those things are going to go together?" he said. "Hmm. Maybe not now, but that's the nice thing about the kind of place this is, that maybe someday it will." Mr. Allman, whose job requires a phenomenal breadth of historical knowledge, much of it having little to do with art, concedes that he has never had to focus much on American art made during his lifetime. He recounted an exchange with Michael Smith, the California decorator who advises the Obamas and who helped them pick the art for their living spaces. "Michael said to me, 'Now you're a modern art expert,' " he recalled. "And I said, 'How did that happen?'" But while there might be gaps in his expertise, many who have worked with him over the years say that Mr. Allman, a boyish-faced man with an unabashedly folksy manner, has mastered a kind of diplomatic dexterity that may be more important to his job. In a historic house that is continuously inhabited, and always under political scrutiny, art decisions are never just aesthetic. When President Obama requested that a portrait of Truman replace one of Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Cabinet Room, he was in essence reversing a Bush administration policy (one that had also been the policy of the Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and George H. W. Bush White Houses). When the first lady changed her mind in 2009 about hanging a painting by the African-American artist Alma W. Thomas in her office, some critics accused her of giving in to conservative commentators who criticized the painting as a fraud because it reworked and paid homage to a famous Matisse collage. The first lady's office took great pains to say that the removal had nothing to do with politics; the painting just didn't fit the space where it had been intended to hang. Leslie Greene Bowman, a former member of the White House preservation committee and president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, recounted a reupholstery crisis several years ago involving the red Empire chairs in the second-floor Cross Hall in the White House, a frequent stage for televised events. The historically accurate red chosen for the fabric looked practically nuclear on camera. So Mr. Allman quietly managed to find a shade that would horrify neither historians nor network producers. "It's the kind of situation where lots of curators would have put their foot down, but Bill has a sense of humor about these things," she said. "It was color theory in action. These are the kinds of challenges that curators never have to face in a regular museum," she said. Mr. Allman likes to point out that while it might not be a regular museum, the White House is indeed a museum under federal legislation, Public Law 87-286, passed in 1961. And in 1988 it was even accredited by the American Association of Museums. "Now I think that in the process they conceded that we didn't meet some of their standards," he said, smiling. "Most museums have all these complicated long-range plans. Our long-range plan? It's pretty much just to make it through the next inauguration."

The Whitney Museum of American Art Presents Exhibiton Exploring Its Founding Collection Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:28 PM PST New York, NY - At the turn of the twentieth century, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, an heiress and sculptor born to one of America's wealthiest families, began to assemble a rich and highly diverse collection of modern American art. This group of objects, combined with a trove of new works purchased around the time of the Whitney Museum's opening in 1931, came together to form the founding collection. 'Breaking Ground: The Whitney's Founding Collection' is the first in a multiyear series of exhibitions aimed at reassessing the museum's collection. Unfolding in chronological order over a two year period, these exhibitions will explore overlooked developments in American art and reconsider iconic figures and masterworks within new frameworks and contexts.

Three People Arrested in $140 Million Art Heist from Paris' Museum of Modern Art Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:27 PM PST PARIS - Three people are being held in connection with the theft of paintings worth at least 140 million dollars from a Paris gallery last year, but the works are still missing, a legal official said Saturday. The three, a woman suspected of taking part in the theft and two people suspected of handling stolen goods, were arrested and charged over the robbery of the five paintings, by Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Ferdinand Leger and Amedeo Modigliani, and placed in custody on September 16, the official said. The artworks, stolen from Paris Museum of Modern Art 18-months ago after the alarm system failed to trigger, have still not been recovered, said an official from the Prosecutor's office.

SFMOMA SHOWCASES PICASSO AND AMERICAN ART Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:26 PM PST San Francisco, CA - From February 23 to May 28, 2007, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will present the exhibition Picasso and American Art.  The exhibition examines the fundamental role that Pablo Picasso's artwork played in the development of American art during the 20th century.  Beginning with the artist Max Weber, who developed a friendship with Picasso in the early 1900s, many American artists came to both acknowledge Picasso as the central figure of the modern movements and define their own artistic achievements through the absorption, critique, or rejection of his example.  While unmistakably pervasive during the first half of the last century, Picasso's catalytic influence continued to be of great importance in the second half, sparking some of the most searching work from our most significant artists. Picasso and American Art is organized by guest curator Michael FitzGerald, associate professor in the department of fine arts at Trinity College in Connecticut, for the Whitney Museum of American Art.  The San Francisco presentation is organized by Madeleine Grynsztejn, SFMOMA's Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture. The exhibition spotlights nine American artists who have been most deeply engaged with Picasso's work and who, in turn, have made the most significant contributions to the art of their time: Stuart Davis, Willem de Kooning, Arshile Gorky, John Graham, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Jackson Pollock, David Smith, and Weber.  The exhibition includes some 40 works by Picasso and more than 100 works by the artists he influenced, including Gorky's Enigmatic Combat (1936–37) from the SFMOMA collection.  The exhibition also features works by other American artists inspired by Picasso, including Louise Bourgeois, Marsden Hartley, Lee Krasner, Man Ray, Claes Oldenburg, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann.  The precise juxtapositions of these works—in many cases the first public pairings of significantly related objects—reveal Picasso's far-reaching effect on American art.  "We are thrilled to host this important exhibition and to showcase some of SFMOMA's own Picasso holdings, including the 1955 painting Les femmes d'Algers (Women of Algiers)," says Grynsztejn.  "Picasso was pivotal in the transformation of American art in the 20th century; this exhibition not only documents his influence but also defines the extremely varied role his art and reputation served for the American artists who used his example to make innovative and challenging works.  This exhibition will no doubt be a treat for all Bay Area audiences."  Picasso and American Art features a number of pieces that have never before been exhibited publicly in the United States, including Picasso's Still Life (1908); Untitled (1940) and Untitled (1941) by Louise Bourgeois; After Picasso (1998), Pyre (2003), and Pyre II (2003) by Jasper Johns; and several drawings from Johns's personal collection.  The exhibition also features important Picasso works from international collections, including Bar-Table with Musical Instruments and Fruit Bowl (ca. 1913), Still Life with Bunch of Grapes (1914), Landscape with Dead and Live Trees (1919), and Minotaur Moving (1936). The exhibition is accompanied by a 368-page catalogue which includes a scholarly essay by FitzGerald, some 300 illustrations, and a comprehensive chronology that documents the accessibility of Picasso's work in the United States through exhibitions, collections, and publications.  The catalogue offers new insights on Picasso's influence on American artists as well as the ways in which the United States helped shape Picasso's reputation.  The catalogue is copublished by the Whitney Museum of American Art and Yale University Press. Picasso and American Art is organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art. Lead corporate support for this exhibition is provided by Bank of America.  Major support is provided by the Koret Foundation Funds, the Evelyn D. Haas Exhibition Fund, Robert Mondavi Winery, and the Modern Art Council, an SFMOMA auxiliary.  A Hidden Picasso In conjunction with Picasso and American Art, SFMOMA also will present the exhibition A Hidden Picasso in the Koret Visitor Education Center.  On view from February 23 to May 28, 2007, this unusual exhibition examines Picasso's Rue de Montmartre, a painting displayed on the second floor as part of the exhibition Matisse and Beyond: The Painting and Sculpture Collection.  During conservation work on the piece, X-rays revealed another image beneath its surface: a sketch of a Parisian nightclub bearing a striking resemblance to another Picasso painting, Le Moulin de la Galette. The Koret Center exhibition details this fascinating discovery and the methods used by researchers to find it.  An interactive feature accompanying the exhibition sheds more light on the use of X-rays and ultraviolet and infrared light in conservation and includes an extensive glossary. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is supported by a broad array of contributors who are committed to helping advance its mission as a dynamic center for modern and contemporary art. Major annual support is provided by the Koret Foundation Funds, Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, and Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.  KidstART free admission for children 12 and under is made possible by Charles Schwab & Co. Inc.  Visit our Web site at www.sfmoma.org

Musee d'Art Moderne Shows Works by Artists Aware that Death was Imminent Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:25 PM PST PARIS.- This exhibition at the Musee d'Art Moderne in Paris is devoted to the late work of twelve international artists who, aware that death was imminent, brought to their work a sense of urgency and self-transcendence. Since the publication in 1970 of Gaëtan Picon's Admirable tremblement du temps and the exhibition L'œuvre ultime at the Fondation Maeght in 1989, the question of artists' last works has rarely been looked into transversely.

Wyoming Art Dealer Discovers Previously Unknown American Impressionist Master Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:24 PM PST Laramie, WY.- When art dealer, Gayle B. Tate, was contacted by the estate of Emerson E. Glass, one can only imagine his surprise.  The work of the previously unknown master of American impressionism that had laid hidden from the art world for over fifty years, came suddenly to light. It was not until the first shipment of paintings arrived at Mr. Tate's office that he began to realize the significance of this offering.  The paintings began to flow into his office only a few at a time, but with increasing quality, to the point where it was obvious that this was truly an undiscovered master. Mr. Tate had met the widow of the artist in 2003 in pleasant surroundings of tea and cake, but did not place much significance on it until she asked for another meeting in Kansas City, Missouri. During that meeting, Nina Glass spoke in rambling memories of her late husband's work and their life together. Then, a year later, Mr. Tate received a call from a law office in Omaha, informing him of the choice by the artist's deceased widow, that G. B. Tate & Sons Fine Art was named in her will to handle the artist's estate. The work of Emerson Glass can found at the current show G. B. Tate & Sons Fine Art in Laramie, Wyoming through the end of October. The show is open to the public by appointment, or the works can be seen on the gallery's website. Among the artist's few associates was his friend, Birger Sandzen, who is widely recognized in the art world for his own contributions to American impressionism. The work of E. E. Glass bears certain similarities to that of Sandzen, but with a greater attention to detail and draftsmanship. E. E. Glass worked with both brush and a tight palette knife technique that is unique to himself in the world of art. Why has the artist's work never surfaced? Mr. Glass was deformed in a house fire when a youth. He lost his parents in the fire and was raised in the deep south by a plantation worker. He was always a recluse who shunned public exposure. Even his work reflects who he was, being of the high and lonely mountain ridges and hidden places of the Rocky Mountains. His work took him to Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming among other places. One can see the kind of place Glass preferred, evident in their isolation or time of day. His paintings of the night and moon are an important part of his production, which are again a reflection of isolation and seperation. Also, the artist often painted the storms and tornados of the midwest plains, logically reflecting his own turmoil. Yet the paintings of E. E. Glass are filled with hope and energy, despite his life circumstances. Colors are applied very liberally and beautifully interacted in his strong impressionist techniques. His subjects, often the wind blown pines of the high ridges are carefully and dramatically drafted to show their character... that of survivors against the "storms of life". Emerson Glass was born in poverty and died in poverty, having never sold a painting.  Glass's father was a foreman on a cotton plantation in the deep south, near the town of Clinton, Louisiana.  At the age of seven, a fire destroyed the boy's home and his father and mother died in the blaze. Emerson himself was badly burned and scarred for life on the left side of his face and upper body... leaving him scarred in more ways than one. A plantation worker took the young boy in and cared for him till he left home at the age of 23.  "Mammi Jax" was a black woman, born and raised as a plantation slave and served as cook for the master of the plantation.  The deformed Emerson Glass was worth little more than an object of abuse in southern society, even for a white boy... but to Mammi Jax, he was the son she never had, a gift from above.  For the rest of the world, a boy with no education, no social acceptance and no hope for the future... EE Glass was a castaway. No one noticed the foundation of an exceptional talent... no one except Mammi Jax. She could see the pain in the young Emerson, and always spoke to the boy as if he was the Prince of Baton Rouge, destined for greatness.  Even though he never saw the kind of success most folks dream of, it never seemed to matter much to young Emerson. But Mammi Jax was there to gently push the boy toward his destiny. At the age of 13, the great depression hit this country like those freight trains that roared through Clinton but never stopped. Nonetheless, despite the lack of education, Emerson found ways to make his own colors... from red clays and roots and berries, to rocks and bits of cloth ground into pigments, Glass rubbed his rudimentary pigments together and stored them in jars, spreading them onto cardboard panels with twigs and branches. With Mammi Jax behind him, young Emerson did not work in the fields or the kitchen, but spent his days gathering materials and sitting alone under the trees of southern Louisiana and Mississippi. He would get off by himself for days at a time, spreading his handmade colors on bits of cardboard and shirt stuffers he was given from grocery stores and laundry services. He knew nothing of government help for artists during the years of FDR and the WPA. He simply worked alone in fields, far from civilization and the pain of exposure to society. When Mammi Jax died, Glass was 23, and had never seen a real painting, never met an artist, never been to a museum or gallery and never read an art book. Yet in Montgomery, Alabama, Emerson Glass found his first exposure... a show of the great impressionists at the new Museum of Fine Art. He wept for days in delight at the sight of the great masters... Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and the rest of the early modernist movements.  Color just for the sake of color became a new source of passion for Glass.  He took jobs washing dishes and sweeping floors so he could buy colors he had never seen before.  Slowly but surely, he grew in skill and determination to paint. By the time he was 30, Glass was producing work that had matured into his unique style.  In his travels, he crossed paths with William Henry Walker (American, 1871 - 1938), who spoke of Glass as an innovative post runner of the impressionists. He was invited to stay and study with Walker, but rejected it to avoid Walker's frequent company and popularity. During his travels toward the west, Glass met Birger Sandzen in Lindsborg, Kansas, staying briefly to study with the artist before continuing toward the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and Wyoming. No further artists have been found to associate with the work of EE Glass, and he had no audience with which to share his vision. Because of his awkward appearance, he avoided public exposure and would not engage in social events so necessary for emerging artists of his day.  No galleries, no patrons... destined for obscurity for the rest of his life. In 1954, Emerson met Nina Brandt. The couple seemed like a perfect if not serendipitous match, for she was blind and he was deformed. Under common law marriage, they lived together for the remainder of Emerson's life, when he died of natural causes at the age of 71 in a tiny apartment in a rural area south of Kansas City, Missouri. What Nina did for Emerson was support his desire to see what she couldn't... the wide spread horizon of the midwest and western United States, from the abundant wildlife and fields of corn and wheat of the plains to the majesty of the Rocky Mountains. There is no evidence that they ever traveled east from the Mississippi River. Nina was able to obtain government disability support, most of which was used to buy paints, wooden panels and pay for travel expenses for she and her husband. In return, Emerson taught her to read Braille... this despite the fact that he could not read himself. Yet in his own words, he could "feel the language with her", and they both learned from books without print. Little else is known about Emerson Glass. The only two people who figured in his life were Mammi Jax and Nina. No other person is named as instrumental in his history. Emerson never exhibited his work and as far as is known, never sold a painting. The fact that he and Nina lived in the barest of circumstances was never a hindrance to their happiness together and their privacy was just what they liked. Nina Glass died in March, 2007. Two years prior to her death, and having no children or other close relative, she entrusted the estate of her husband's work to G. B. Tate & Sons Fine Art of Laramie, Wyoming. Nina and Tate were under agreement that no paintings would be displayed or offered for sale until after her death... for she could not allow even the potential for any further rejection of her husband, in the event the art world might not accept his work. G. B. Tate & Sons Fine Art retired from public art gallery operations in 1997, and have since worked discretely and privately with our long standing and growing list of clientele for quality works of art. Visit their website at  ... http://www.gbtate.com

'From Vessel to Sculpture' at the Speed Art Museum Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:23 PM PST Louisville, Kentucky - The Speed Art Museum is proud to present From Vessel to Sculpture: Ceramics at the Speed on display through June 24, 2007.  Admission is free to this exhibition An international survey of 20th- and 21st- century ceramics, objects presented in From Vessel to Sculpture range from production pieces to important contemporary sculptural works selected from the Speed's permanent collection.  Highlights of the exhibition include Awakened Man by Viola Frey and an iconoclastic 1954 Jim Leedy piece, Colorful Vessel.  In the late 1970s, Frey was among a contingent of California ceramists who began dramatically expanding the scale of their work.  Frey's monumental—but rarely heroic—figures came to define her work.  Awakened Man shares the detached gaze typical of Frey's sculptures.

MUMOK Reopens With New Exhibition from its Permanent Collection Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:22 PM PST Vienna, Austria - On the 9th of September Karola Kraus will be re-opening the MUMOK Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien with her "Museum of Desires" and thus ushering in a new era on the 10th anniversary of the institution in the MuseumsQuartier. After renovations and rebuilding by the Austrian architects Ortner & Ortner and the installation of a cinema by Heimo Zobernig and Michael Wallraff the museum relaunch will begin with a focussed programme and a new appearance. "Museum of Desires" will remain on view through January 8th 2012. The Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien (MUMOK) stands for open and innovative interaction with modern and contemporary art. The exceptional collection and the pioneering exhibitions and events have given the museum an excellent international reputation so that compared to larger institutions it is a jewel. "With the "Museum of Desires", my first large presentation, I want to send a signal about the collection and the exhibition strategy for the museum in the coming years," said Director Karola Kraus who has been in office since 1 October 2010. In her first exhibition Karola Kraus will be presenting her subjective point of view of the MUMOK's nine-thousand-work collection on all of its levels. In the process she focuses attention on a selection of key works and work groups. These are structured according to chronology and content and feature pioneers of modernism, continuing on up to the most recent positions. In amongst the exhibits from the collection there are works that the museum would like to acquire in the coming years. More than thirty works by internationally acclaimed artists—including Dan Flavin, Fred Sandback, Ray Johnson, Robert Barry, Henryk Stazewski, Geta Bratescu, Isa Genzken, Cindy Sherman, Louise Lawler and Monika Sosnowska — have been selected by Karola Kraus so as to supplement existing collection focal points and set new accents for the future. The "objects of desire" have been loaned by galleries and collectors for the duration of the exhibition. Patrons and supporters are being encouraged to help the MUMOK gratify its desires and thus enable the museum to continue to fulfil is responsibilities in regard to its core mission—collecting—despite dwindling public funds for acquisitions. Following up on past "wish" exhibitions such as the legendary "Museum of Our Wishes" by Pontus Hultén at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm (1963-1964, 2009) and the one in the Ludwig Museum Köln by Kasper König (2001), Karola Kraus links in her initial exhibition innovative presentational forms with goals which are proactive in relation to acquisition strategy. Her curatorial signature takes the foreground along with her vision of presenting the museum as a lively and open institution. "This show sends out a number of signals. On the one hand I consider it important to further expand the collection. On the other hand I would like to show large scale monographic exhibitions and subject-related group shows that enter into a dialogue with the collection. The "desires" are intended to fill gaps in the collection, especially in the areas of minimal and conceptual art, but also to underline our intention to give more attention to the acquisition of positions in contemporary art. For example, I wish for monument for V. Tatlin (1964), one of Dan Flavin's seminal works, in order to provide a historical basis for the works by the artist which are already in the collection. We also want a work by Fred Sandback, a further artist who is central to minimal art and not yet represented in the collection. Furthermore I would like to integrate the most important pioneer of conceptual art, Marcel Broodthaers, into the collection thus closing a large gap. Cindy Sherman and Louise Lawler are pioneering artists in the area of new media whose works are still available on the market at affordable prices. In addition, we would like to acquire works by younger artists such as Thomasz Kowalski, Marzena Nowak or Christian Mayer. With the "Museum of Desires" my first concern is to show the direction in which our collection should go and, of course, I very much hope that many of our wishes will come true," says Karola Kraus. The MUMOK (Museum für Moderne Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien) is Austria's largest and most significant museum for contemporary art. First opened in 1962 as the Museum of the 20th Century in the Schweizergarten park, the MUMOK is now at its third address and with its third name (regularly moving to accommodate its expanding collection). MUMOK's commitment to both history and the present and its museological, scientific and educational mission demands its profound engagement in the collection, research and communication of international artworks of modernism, the recent past, and the the present. With its emphasis on Pop Art and Photorealism, taken from the Austrian Ludwig Foundation, Fluxus and Nouveau Réalisme, taken from the Hahn Collection, and Viennese Actionism, MUMOK offers a unique blend of art focusing on society and reality as well as of performative art of the 20th century. MUMOK communicates the social relevance of art by illustrating the changes in art perception and their causes, both historical and contemporary. With reference to the present, MUMOK participates in the socio-political discourse and opposes tendencies which challenge the freedom of art and cultural policy. The collection spans from the Cubist, Futurist, and Surrealist works of classical modernism to Pop Art, Fluxus, and Nouveau Realism from the 1960s and 1970s. The early 20th century is represented with paintings and sculptures by masters Like Henri Matisse, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti. The collection includes important works of Pop Art by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein as well as definitive examples of Fluxus, and conceptual art, In recent years, the collection has been expanded with present-day film, video, photo and graphic art. In total, the MUMOK collection contains around 9,700 works: paintings, sculptures, installations, drawings, graphic works, photos, videos, films, architectural models and furniture from the first half of the 20th century. The collection of Classic Modernism contains the most important movements and artists of the heroic years of modernism right up to the abstract and expressive tendencies of the post World War II period. Expressionism (Richard Gerstl, Oskar Kokoschka, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff), Cubism and Futurism (Henri Laurens, Giacomo Balla), constructive tendencies, Bauhaus (Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee) are represented as are important works from the areas of Dada and Surrealism (Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Max Ernst, René Magritte). Amongst the pioneering works of modernism to be found are André Derain's Cowering Figure and František Kupka's Nocturne, two of the earliest examples of conscious abstraction. The great 'lone warriors' who were committed to the human figure such as Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon are represented with outstanding works and form an antipole to the abstractionists of the 50's (Jackson Pollock, Ad Reinhardt, Morris Louis, Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni). Nouveau Réalisme is one of the focal points of the Hahn collection which was acquired by MUMOK in 1978, and the collection includes important works by Arman, François Dufrêne, Raymond Hains, Yves Klein, Martial Raysse, Daniel Spoerri, Jean Tinguely and Jacques de la Villeglé. César, Mimmo Rotella, Georg Baselitz, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Gérard Deschamps and Christo. Equally important in the collection are works from the Fluxus movement. Alongside numerous important works of Viennese Actionism the museum also holds extensive documentation in the MUMOK's archive of actionism. A younger generation of artists is showcased in the 'MUMOKFactory', a separate exhibition space with a cinema, where the emphasis is on experimental media and performance art and several exhibition levels are used for special exhibitions. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.mumok.at

"ARTIST ROOMS 2010 Tour" Announced ~ 21 Exhibitions of Contemporary Art Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:21 PM PST LONDON.- 21 British museums and galleries from Llandudno to Fort William will be able to show masterpieces of contemporary art in 2010 thanks to "ARTIST ROOMS", Anthony d'Offay's gift to the nation made in 2008. The "ARTIST ROOMS 2010 Tour" has been made possible by The Art Fund and is supported by the Scottish Government. Held jointly by National Galleries of Scotland and Tate, "ARTIST ROOMS" is the largest public gift of art to museums in UK history. The collection has now been enhanced by artists and collectors who have made significant donations to the scheme including: Ed Ruscha, "The Music from the Balconies", 1984, donated by the artist; Ian Hamilton Finlay, "Idylls End in Thunderstorms", 1986; and "A Last Word Rudder", 1999 donated by the Estate of the artist.

The Lowe Art Museum Shows "Sacred Stories - Timeless Tales" Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:20 PM PST Miami, FL.- The Lowe Art Museum is proud to present "Sacred Stories, Timeless Tales: Mythic Traditions in World Art". "Sacred Stories, Timeless Tales" addresses multi-cultural mythic traditions in art, drawn exclusively from the permanent collection of the Lowe Art Museum, which distinguishes itself among South Florida art museums by the depth and breadth of its holdings, which span 5,000 years and represent the art of Europe, the Americas, pan-Asia, and Africa. Concepts of creation, love, morality, mortality, seasonal regeneration, the cosmos, beauty, divinity, heroes, and war are explored in some 100 examples of ceramics, paintings, works on paper, sculpture, and textiles. "Sacred Stories, Timeless Tales" is on view at the museum through October 23rd. Mythic traditions are rooted in fictitious, symbolic narratives developed by cultures through time, which address the relationship between the inexplicable and the explicable, between the powers and forces that control the world and the human beings who occupy that world. Frequently reflecting regional differences, these sacred stories helped, and in some present-day cultures continue to help elucidate a people's religion, history, value systems, rituals, and concepts of self. As myths exist apart from, and are not dependent upon, verifiable facts or scientific objectivity for their impact on society, they typically involve deities, heroes, wondrous creatures, and fantastic events. Some renderings faithfully adhere to time-honored visual conventions. Others reflect more personal interpretations of traditional subject matter. Among the featured objects are a 6th century BCE Greek, black-figure hydria, which describes a myth about the goddess Athena in the presence of Ajax and Achilles; "The Judgment of Paris" by Jacob Jordaens, painted around 1620;  storyteller figure by Native American artist Mary Trujillo; an African Kuba mask known as Moshambwooy that represents the myth of the ancestral figure Woot;  a 19th century Japanese wood-block print that relates a ghost story; Richard Stankiewicz's scrap metal sculpture, The River Styx, from 1953; "St. George" by Moises Finale; "Persephone" by Theodore Stamos from 1945; a contemporary metal cutout of a siren by Haitian artist Serge Jolimeau; and a 10th century sandstone sculpture of Ganesha Breaking His Tusk to Throw at the Moon. Mythological narratives were originally transmitted and preserved orally, during eras when people could neither read nor write, and paper was not available. Written traditions did not develop until a later moment on mankind's cultural time line, as scribes and poets sought to formally preserve stories in writing, lest they disappear. Artistic expression dramatically bridges both word-based systems, transforming into vivid pictorial or sculptural forms, concepts that spoken and textual forms of communication can only convey through mental images. Regardless of cultural derivation or individual inspiration, all the works on the exhibition represent an artistic urge to visually address those universal questions to which mythologies respond, and which unite humankind through time. From its origins in three classrooms in 1950, the history of the Lowe Art Museum reflects an unswerving commitment to fulfill its mission to serve the University of Miami as a teaching resource, and the residents of and visitors to greater Miami as its major general art museum. The Lowe's success in fulfilling its mission is confirmed by an extraordinary and ongoing outpouring of support for the museum and its collections. With the gift in 1950 by philanthropists Joe and Emily Lowe, a free-standing museum facility opened to the public in 1952, the first art museum in South Florida. It's 17,500–object collection is one of the most important in the southeast, with strengths in Renaissance and Baroque, American, Ancient and Native American, and Asian art.The development of its highly regarded collection is traced through sustained support from Miami and winter resident patrons who, from its beginning, have supported the Lowe with major gifts of art and funding. A 1956 donation by Alfred I. Barton brought one of the country's finest collections of Native American art. In 1954, the Lowe was designated the only Florida recipient in a national distribution of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation collection, and, in 1961, constructed a 2,100 square foot gallery to house the 41 Renaissance and Baroque paintings and sculptures that are the backbone of its Western collection. The Americas Collection includes 2,000 works surveying art in the Americas during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Lowe's Ancient American collection was begun in 1958 but achieved international stature with the gift of 531 works by Robert M. Bischoff in 1984. The Lowe's important Asian collection was built over twenty years with superb Chinese, Korean and Japanese ceramics, painting and sculpture, donated by Stephen Junkunc III, a Chicago native and Miami winter resident. The Lowe achieved AAM accreditation in 1972, the first university art museum in Florida to do so, and was reaccredited in 1987 and 2000. Also in 1987, the Lowe was designated a "Major Cultural Institution" by the State of Florida. In 1990, the Lowe was elected to AAMD, one of only three Florida university art museums awarded this honor. The European Collection encompasses more than 1,500 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from antiquity through the nineteenth century, and includes works by Thomas Gainsborough, Henry Raeburn, Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, and Paul Gauguin. The art of North and south America and the Caribbean Basin comprises a growing collection, presently numbering some 3,000 works. These include paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries, by luminaries such as Rembrandt Peale, Thomas Sully, Albert Bierstadt, Jasper Francis Cropsey, George Inness, John French Sloan, Roy Lichtenstein, Fernando Botero, Andy Warhol and Deborah Butterfield. Given its location in south Florida, the Gateway to the Americas, the Lowe boasts a growing collection of art from Cuban and Haiti. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www6.miami.edu/lowe/index.html

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 16 Feb 2012 04:19 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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