Sabtu, 23 Juni 2012

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

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


With Sorrow This Is The Very Last Art Knowledge News . . . Forever

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 08:50 PM PDT

The Jewish Museum Recaptures the Brilliance of a Vanguard Theater, Cut Short

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:58 PM PDT

artwork: Marc Chagall - Introduction to the Jewish Theater,(detail) 1920 - Tempera, gouache, and opaque white on canvas State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow -  © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris 

NEW YORK, NY.- During the artistic ferment following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, major artists joined actors, choreographers, writers, and musicians in creating a daring new theater. This collaboration gave rise to extraordinary productions with highly original stage designs that redefined the concept of theater itself, attracting large, diverse audiences and garnering international critical praise. In Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919-1949, on view from through March 22, 2009, The Jewish Museum tells the little-known and tumultuous story of this vanguard artistic flowering, which thrived on the stage for thirty years before being brutally extinguished during the Stalinist era.

artwork: Marc Chagall - Music, 1920 Tempera, gouache, & opaque white on canvas - State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow © 2008 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.More than 200 works of art and ephemera, the majority never before exhibited, have been drawn from collections in Russia, France, Israel, and the United States for the showing. Marc Chagall's celebrated, monumental murals are featured, in addition to more than 100 watercolor, gouache and crayon drawings of costume and set designs, executed in the experimental modes of Cubism, Futurism, and Constructivism by such artists as Natan Altman, Robert Falk, Ignaty Nivinsky, Isaac Rabinovich, and Aleksandr Tyshler.

Rare film footage of early performances transports viewers back to another time. Fascinating archival materials such as music, posters, prints, programs, and period photographs of productions and actors in character help recapture extraordinary moments. Many items in the exhibition survived a 1953 blaze at Moscow's Bakhrushin State Central Theater Museum, the premier repository for archives of the Moscow State Yiddish Theater (GOSET), and a major lender to the exhibition. The fire, almost certainly intentional, was an attempt by the Soviets to stamp out the legacy of the Russian Jewish theater.

Following its showing in New York, Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919-1949 travels to the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco where it will be on view from April 25 through September 7, 2009.

The exhibition has been organized by Susan Tumarkin Goodman, Senior Curator at The Jewish Museum. She first learned of the Bakhrushin's trove while researching another exhibition in Moscow nearly a decade and a half ago: "I became aware of the achievement of artists who, in the heady days after the revolution, embraced the avant-garde and the potential of a people's theater."

"These artists created a uniquely new theater, one that combined visual art and music with stylized expressionist performances. They also had an affinity for the grotesque and the comedic melodrama of Yiddish folklore," continues Goodman.

The Jewish theater movement in Russia was represented by two companies based in Moscow with very different approaches. Habima's productions, performed in Hebrew, emphasized the ideas of Zionism and Jewish national rebirth. Soviet ideologues soon deemed the theater's policies at odds with socialist ideals. In 1926, Habima left the Soviet Union to settle in Palestine, eventually becoming Israel's national theater. In contrast to Habima, GOSET, which performed in Yiddish, presented daring expressionistic dramas. With its innovative blending of Jewish folklore and literature, Constructivist-inspired sets, and expressionist acting techniques, GOSET was wildly popular with Jews and non-Jews alike.

The legendary murals created by Marc Chagall in 1920 to adorn the GOSET theater will be displayed in a gallery that replicates its original intimate size. Painted by the artist in a little over a month, Chagall's murals will cover the Museum's walls with engaging representations of GOSET's performers using vibrant color and geometric forms that dance across the surfaces.

Natan Altman's faux-naïve, yet sophisticated color drawings for the sets and costumes of one of Habima's most acclaimed productions, Solomon An-sky's The Dybbuk (1922) are another highlight. Already a leading avant-garde artist, Altman transformed familiar folkloric characters into a visual feast of exaggerated, distorted, and twisted forms. Rare photographs of the original production, directed by Evgeny Vakhtangov, a protégé of the renowned Konstantin Stanislavsky, will be shown on video, and the production's Constructivist set model (reconstructed), poster, handwritten score, and program also will be on view. Costume design drawings by the artist Robert Falk for GOSET's production of At Night in the Old Marketplace are animated with an angular visual vitality in portrayals of prostitutes and the walking dead.

In 1932 Stalin issued a decree stating that all artistic endeavors must conform to the goals of the Revolution. The only approved form of artistic expression was Socialist Realism. Thereafter, the avant-garde fell out of favor. Many in Russia's theatrical avant-garde feared for their lives and began to opt for "safe" works. In 1935 GOSET mounted Shakespeare's King Lear, which, rather ironically, became the company's greatest success due in large measure to the acclaimed performance of the brilliant actor Solomon Mikhoels. Helping to convey the gravitas of the production are emotive watercolors by set designer Aleksandr Tyshler and photographs of Mikhoels, by then GOSET's director, as Lear.

artwork: Natan Altman, Portrait of Mikhoels, 1927, Oil on canvas -  A. A. Bakhrushin State Central Theatrical  Museum, Moscow. © Estate of Natan Altman/RAO, Moscow/VAGA, New York.In 1948, Solomon Mikhoels was murdered at Stalin's direction, his brutal death staged as a truck accident. More than ten thousand people attended his funeral. GOSET was liquidated the following year. Exhibition visitors will be able to see the actor's broken eyeglasses, retrieved when his body was found on a snowy road, as well as film footage from Mikhoels's funeral.

Other productions to be featured in Chagall and the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919-1949 include Habima's The Golem (1925), and GOSET's The Sorceress: An Eccentric Jewish Play (1922), 200,000: A Musical Comedy (1923), and At Night in the Old Marketplace: Tragic Carnival (1925).

The catalogue was funded through the Dorot Foundation publications endowment.

About The Jewish Museum

The Jewish Museum was established on January 20, 1904 when Judge Mayer Sulzberger donated 26 ceremonial art objects to The Jewish Theological Seminary of America as the core of a museum collection. Today, The Jewish Museum maintains an important collection of 26,000 objects—paintings, sculpture, works on paper, photographs, archaeological artifacts, ceremonial objects, and broadcast media. Widely admired for its exhibitions and educational programs that inspire people of all backgrounds, The Jewish Museum is the preeminent institution exploring the intersection of 4,000 years of art and Jewish culture.

General Information

Museum hours are Saturday through Wednesday, 11am to 5:45pm; and Thursday, 11am to 8pm. Museum admission is $12.00 for adults, $10.00 for senior citizens, $7.50 for students, free for children under 12 and Jewish Museum members. Admission is free on Saturdays. For general information on The Jewish Museum, the public may visit the Museum's Web site at http://www.thejewishmuseum.org or call 212.423.3200. The Jewish Museum is located at 1109 Fifth Avenue at 92nd Street, Manhattan.

The École de Nancy Museum Presents the Art Nouveau Works of Jacques Gruber

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:57 PM PDT

artwork: Jacques Gruber - "Vitrail Roses et Mouettes (Stained Glass with Roses and Gulls)", 1904 - Created for the Villa Bergeret. © MEN/ Studio Image. The École de Nancy is showing "Jacques Gruber and Art Nouveau: A Decorative Path" at the Galeries Poirel, Nancy  until January 22nd 2012.

Nancy, France.- The École de Nancy Museum is proud to present "Jacques Gruber and Art Nouveau: A Decorative Path", on view at the Galeries Poirel from September 16th through January 22nd 2012. The museum has assembed more than 150 of Gruber's works, including posters and paintings, decorative pieces and furniture, but pride of place goes to the magnificent stained-glass works for which Gruber became most famous. Works have come from museums and private collectors in the Nancy area (where Gruber lived and worked), but also from major museum collections further afield, including Musée d'Orsay, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Royal Art and History in Brussels.


An Art is Born-Photography from Birth to 100 Years at Detroit Institute of Arts

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:56 PM PDT

artwork: Edward J. Steichen - Silverware Still Life, 1930 - Gelatin silver print. Detroit Institute of Arts.

DETROIT, MI.- Imagine a world without photography. Now imagine being alive when photography was invented, and how for the first time, it was possible to view the world through someone else's eyes. Photography—The First 100 Years: A Survey from the Detroit Institute of Arts DIA's Collection looks at the evolution of photography from its beginnings in the 1830s through the experimentation and innovations that led to its acceptance as an art form in the 1940s. The exhibition is on view from September 2, 2009 to January 3, 2010, and is free with museum admission.

Christie's to sell Elizabeth Taylor art including a Vincent van Gogh landscape

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:55 PM PDT

artwork: Vincent van Gogh's autumn landscape "Vue de l'Asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy," which was once owned by actress Elizabeth Taylor and estimated to sell for 5 million to 7 million pounds ($7.6 million to $11 million) when auctioned in February 8th at Christie's auction in London.

LONDON - A Vincent van Gogh landscape and other paintings from the collection of Elizabeth Taylor are up for auction in London next month. Christie's auction house says 38 works belonging to the late actress will be included in Impressionist and modern sales Feb. 7 and 8. They include van Gogh's autumn landscape "Vue de l'Asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy," estimated at 5 million to 7 million pounds ($7.6 million to $11 million), as well as an Edgar Degas self-portrait and works by Camille Pissarro and Auguste Renoir. The screen goddess — whose films included "Cleopatra," ''Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" — died in March aged 79.

Edinburgh Printmakers features 'Kirsty Whiten: Breeder Badlands'

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:52 PM PDT

artwork: Kirsty Whiten - "Feral Family", 2011 - Oil and varnish on canvas - 122 x 152 cm. - Courtesy Edinburgh Printmakers. On view  now in "Kirsty Whiten: Breeder Badlands"

Edinburgh, Scotland - Edinburgh Printmakers is pleased to present "Kirsty Whiten: Breeder Badlands" on view now. This engaging solo exhibition by Kirsty Whiten deals with the complexities of the new familial unit and contains both large works on canvas and a new series of stone lithographs commissioned and co-published by Edinburgh Printmakers. Entrance is free. Keenly rendered figures, faces and gestures are examined in detail and placed in an unsettling context. The exhibition showcases a body of work spanning nearly two years, from small-scale drawings, through life size oil and varnish paintings shot through with Day-Glo, to new prints. These are bare and essential images; mothers, fathers and infants in knotted groups, travelling and resting in imagined woodlands and badlands. Stripped of clothes and technology, these families are none the less robustly connected, and surviving.


Whiten works first with models and photography, acting out scenarios and interpreting ideas. Drawing and painting from these photographs, sketches and other found images forms the basis of her practice. During this co-publishing project with Edinburgh Printmakers, Whiten has discovered an affinity with stone lithography. Her direct drawing works well in this medium, as the materials demand that marks must be made with confidence. The resulting prints are bold and intricate; the figures condensed by a sense of epic narrative pressing in from outside the frame. Kirsty Whiten studied at ECA, spent a year in Paris and is now based near Edinburgh. She has been producing her distinctive, warped drawings and paintings for over 10 years, exhibiting internationally, most recently at Bold Hype in New York and Stolenspace in London. Whiten's imagery divides opinion; it's finely crafted and sensitively rendered but the subjects are challenging and the humour dark. Whiten first made co-published prints with Edinburgh Printmakers in 2008, and found her technique translated well into stone lithography. The tight drawings and richly coloured paintings in her recent London show Feral Family have grown into this new sprawling, fecund series of stone lithographs.

artwork: Kirsty Whiten - "Mammalian Pastoral", 2011 - Oil and varnish on canvas - 125 x 125 cm. Courtesy Edinburgh Printmakers.  - Now on view in "Kirsty Whiten: Breeder Badlands"

Established in 1967 as the first open access studio in Britain, Edinburgh Printmakers (EP) is dedicated to the promotion of contemporary printmaking practice. It achieves this by providing, maintaining and staffing an entrance free gallery and inexpensive, open access print studio, where artists and members of the public can use equipment and source technical expertise in order to develop their hands on printmaking skills. As a not for profit organisation that is also a registered charity, EP receives approximately 50% of it's funding through revenue and project funding from the Scottish Arts Council as well as support from the City of Edinburgh Council. This enables the organisation to highly subsidise the cost of using the print studio, making access to creative facilities affordable to a wide range of people. This includes professional artists, students, community groups and members of the public, who wish to develop new or existing skills. To complement the work on show by the resident artists they have a rolling programme of exhibitions representing the whole spectrum of contemporary graphic art. Previous exhibitions have ranged from the graphic works of artists such as Marc Chagall, David Hockney, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso to contemporary American prints by such artists as Andy Warhol and Jim Dine as well as showcasing the wealth of talent that exists in Scotland itself. The Gallery and Studio are very centrally situated being only a few minutes walk from both the railway station, central bus station and the main shopping and cafe areas. Visit Edinburgh Printmakers website at ... http://edinburgh-printmakers.co.uk/

Pablo Picasso painting of Notre-Dame to highlight Bonhams Impressionist & Modern Art auction

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:50 PM PDT

artwork: Pablo Picasso - "Notre-Dame de Paris". Dated 1954, it is one of his later landscapes, showing the influence of his earlier experiments with Cubism. Photo: Courtesy of Bonhams.

LONDON.- Alongside the beautiful Jeune fille aux cheveux noirs by Amedeo Modigliani (£700,000-1,000,000), Bonhams Impressionist & Modern Art auction on 7th February 2012 at 101 New Bond Street, London, includes an exciting selection of works by artists including Pablo Picasso, Raoul Dufy, Marc Chagall, Candido Portinari and Carlos Nadal. A stunning painting of Notre Dame de Paris by Pablo Picasso is a highlight. Here Picasso has taken a subject he knows well, via his walks to, and the view from, his studio, but he chooses to challenge the truth in order to explore artistic aims other than realism. He toys with the artistic conventions of perspective and scale to leave the viewer separated from reality and immersed instead into Picasso's own pictorial truth. Dated 1954, it is one of his later landscapes, but it shows the influence of his earlier experiments with Cubism. By October 1954, when it was completed, the artist was falling in love with a woman who would later become his wife - Jacqueline Roque.


The Latvian National Art Museum Presents Boris Berzins Landscapes

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:48 PM PDT

artwork: Boris Berzins - "Autumn", 1990 - Oil on canvas - Collection of the Latvian National Art Museum On view in "Boris Berzins: Landscapes" until August 14th.

Riga, Latvia.- The Latvian National Art Museum is proud to present "Boris Berzins: Landscapes" through August 14th. Boris Berzins (1930-2002) is one of the best known Latvian painters of the 20th century and the Latvian National Art Museum holds his bequest - a creative legacy spanning paintings, graphic works and thousands of drawings. The size of the bequest meant that it took some time to catalogue and sort everything, but since 2007, the museum have been hosting themed exhibitions that allow them to show some of Boris Berzins works. Berzins studied at the Rozentals art school (1947–9), the Riga College of Applied Art (1949–52) and the Latvian Academy of Arts (1952–9) in the painting studio of Eduards Kalnins (1904–88).


Museo de Arte de Ponce announces "Treasures of the Collection : The Pre-Raphaelites"

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:33 PM PDT

artwork: Edward Coley Burne-Jones - "The Sleeping Beauty" from the small Briar Rose series. - Oil on canvas, 60 x 115 cm. Courtesy of Museo de Arte de Ponce, San Juan de Puerto Rico

PONCE, PR.- In an unprecedented event for Puerto Rico, on Saturday, February 4, 2012, Museo de Arte de Ponce will host an international symposium titled "Treasures of the Collection in Context: The Pre-Raphaelites in the Museo de Arte de Ponce Collection." From 10 am to 5 pm, renowned specialists in art history and Victorian literature will meet in this south-coast Puerto Rico city to discuss the artists and works contained in the museum's world-famed collection. This conference represents the most important academic event ever held on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in Puerto Rico. The symposium is made possible by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation. Among the scholars specializing in Victorian England expected to take part in the conference are Tim Barringer (Yale University), Sally Huxtable (Northumbria University), Franny Moyle (author and BBC producer), Jason Rosenfeld (Marymount Manhattan College), Alison Smith (Tate Britain), and Madeleine Vala (University of Puerto Rico).


artwork: William Holman Hunt - "Miss Gladis M. Holman Hunt" (The School of Nature). Oil on panel, 122.5 x 982 cm. San Juan de Puerto Rico, Museo de Arte de Ponce.Their presentations will be in English, with simultaneous interpretation into Spanish. The speakers promise to throw light on the creative processes of the young artists who founded the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848, their sources of inspiration, and the recurrent themes and subject-matter of the movement, and there will be panels on the artistic and literary exchanges that occurred as a result of the movement's sweeping influence and popularity. Also to be discussed are the curatorial approaches that have been taken in Pre-Raphaelite exhibitions organized since 1980.

The remarkable collective of painters and poets that comprised the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood decried the formulaic nature of the art promulgated by the Royal Academy in London, and proposed instead to return to an "honest" art—the sort that existed, in their view, prior to Raphael. And so the Brotherhood's name: the Pre-Raphaelites.

Museo de Arte de Ponce's British Collection consists of sixty-six objects dating from 1760 to 1905. Forty of these works are Pre-Raphaelite paintings, drawings, and a photograph. It represents one of the clear strengths among its holdings, and the nucleus of Victorian works in the British Collection has been called one of the most important outside London itself.

"This symposium will be a milestone in the Museum's history, as it will offer, for the first time, a broad look at these wonderful works of art outside the context in which they were created," said Agustín Arteaga, the museum's director and chief executive officer, who then added, "Through this international symposium we will be bringing this important group of works to the attention of a broader public and continuing to promote our permanent collection as an object of study and intercultural dialogue."

The conference will serve as a preamble to the publication, in the summer of 2012, of a bilingual (English/Spanish) catalog of the Museo de Arte de Ponce's British Collection, which is being co-edited by Cheryl Hartup (the museum's curator-in-chief), Alison Smith, and Sally Anne Huxtable. This collection, which has traveled to the Tate Britain, the Prado Museum in Madrid, the Gemeente Museum in The Hague, and the Belvedere Museum in Vienna, among many others, contains such masterpieces as The Sleep of King Arthur in Avalon (1881–1898) by Sir Edward Burne-Jones and Flaming June (c. 1895) by Frederic, Lord Leighton. The catalog of the British Collection is planned as the first in a series of volumes on specific areas of the museum's permanent collection, specifically those that solidify its position as an institution of great international prestige.

artwork: Dante Gabriel Rossetti - " Roman Widow" (Tell Manibus). Oil on canvas, 103.7 x 91 / 2 cm.  -   San Juan de Puerto Rico, Museo de Arte de Ponce.

The Museum is offering financial aid for graduate students in Art History or Victorian Literature who wish to take part in the symposium for academic purposes. Those interested in applying for this aid (which will be given on a competitive basis) should send a current curriculum vitae accompanied by a letter of interest explaining how their participation in the symposium is related to the museum's collection, and how it would further their studies and possible or ongoing research. The letter should be addressed to kjelias@museoarteponce.org, and should specify the university where they are studying and their year of study. Deadline for application is January 7, 2012.

To complement this academic event, on the evening of February 4, the museum's restaurant Al Sur will offer a prix-fixe menu designed especially for the symposium. Chef Ariel has drawn inspiration from the Romanticism that was a part of the age of the Pre-Raphaelites, and he is making preparations to delight diners with foods known in the culinary world for their relationship to love and passion. And coincidentally, that dizzying passion of the time is at the heart of the BBC-produced mini-series "Desperate Romantics," based on the best-selling novel by one of the symposium's speakers, Franny Moyle.

Post-War & Contemporary Evening Auction at Christie's Realises $68.6 Million

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:31 PM PDT

artwork: "Silver Liz" 1963 portrait of actress Elizabeth Taylor by late artist Andy Warhol, unseen in over 20 years, at Christie's auction house in London. Christie's estimated the painting would bring 6 - 8 million pounds (8.7 to 11.6 million US dollars) at auction on June 30. The painting sold for £6,761,250 ($10,168,920).

LONDON.- The Post-War and Contemporary Evening Auction took place 30 June at Christie's and realised £45,640,200 /$68,642,861/ €56,091,806, selling 84% by lot and 85% by value. The top price was paid for Silver Liz, 1963, by Andy Warhol (1928-1987), one of only two paintings by the artist to depict the celebrated actress and Hollywood icon with her legendary violet eyes. It sold to an anonymous bidder for £6,762,150 / $10,168,920 / €3,354,248. Further highlights of the evening included Loopy, 1999, by Jeff Koons (b. 1955), showing childhood motifs from the artist's Easyfun series, which sold for £3,401,250/$5,115,480/€4,180,136 (estimate: £2.5 million to £3.5 million), a record for a painting by the artist.

The Menil Collection presents Hedda Sterne and Saul Steinberg

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:29 PM PDT

artwork: Saul Steinberg - The Spiral, 1966 - Ink on paper - 19 x 25 1?4 inches - The Menil Collection, Houston  © The Saul Steinberg Foundation/ARS, NY

Houston, Texas - Paired in a single museum exhibition, Saul Steinberg (1914-1999) and Hedda Sterne (b. 1910) may at first look like an odd couple. The two Romanian-born artists met in New York City in 1943 after the Nazi occupation forced them to flee Europe. They became U.S. citizens and married in 1944. Despite occupying the same domestic space, as well as exhibiting at the same gallery, the artists had little aesthetic ground in common: most art historians and critics would be hard pressed to trace stylistic influences between the two. Yet Sterne and Steinberg did share an important artistic perspective: each questioned the ability of an artist's personal aesthetic style to communicate a stable identity.

The Weatherspoon Art Museum to present "Matisse and the Decorative Impulse"

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:20 PM PDT

artwork: Louise August - "Europa and the Bull", undated - Woodcut on paper - 12 ¼" x 16 7/8" - Collection of the Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. -  On view in "Matisse and the Decorative Impulse" from April 14th until July 8th.

Greensboro, North Carolina.- The Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro is pleased to present "Matisse and the Decorative Impulse", on view at the museum from April 14th through July 8th. Attracted to bold patterning throughout his career, Henri Matisse explored in both prints and paintings the decorative possibilities of simplified forms and areas of flat surface design mixed with volumetric representation. Matisse's proliferation of patterning served to unify his compositions—and also inspired a succeeding generation of artists. Following the French master's precedent, the artists featured in this exhibition likewise examine the possibilities of robust design and the restorative contemplation of beauty.


Sotheby's in New York to Auction Rare Synagogue Interiors by Marc Chagall

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:16 PM PDT

artwork: Three rare oil paintings of synagogue interiors by Marc Chagall are going on the auction block at Sotheby's in New York City on 14 Dec. The paintings came to the market for the first time in 66 years from a descendent of art collector and original owner Max Cottin, who acquired them from the 1945 exhibition at the Gallery of Jewish Art in New York.- Only six finished oil paintings of synagogues by Chagall are known to exist.

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Sotheby's New York announces that it will present for sale three exceptionally rare oil paintings of synagogue interiors by Marc Chagall (1887-1985). In all, only six finished oils of synagogues by the artist are known to exist. These three paintings come to market for the first time in 66 years from a descendent of the original owner Max Cottin, who acquired them from the 1945 exhibition at the Gallery of Jewish Art in New York. Leading this offering in the forthcoming Israeli & International Art auction on Wednesday, December 14, 2011 is Chagall's 1931 Interior of the Yemenite HaGoral Synagogue, Jerusalem, illustrated below, which carries an estimate of $400/600,000..

Commenting on the sale of these rare and revealing paintings, Jennifer Roth, Senior Vice President and Head of the Sotheby's Israeli & International Art Department, said: "Documentary paintings by Chagall are remarkably rare and only six finished oils of synagogues by Chagall are known to exist. The sale this coming December represents a truly unique opportunity for collectors of Chagall to acquire works from this little known aspect of his oeuvre. Fitting testimony to their importance and rarity, two of the other three synagogue paintings reside in Museum collections: one painting is in the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam; one is in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem; and the third is in a Private Collection, on extended loan to Musée d'art et d'histoire du Judaïsme ."

A clue to the significance of these three paintings was found in a small cache of letters, written in the 1960s and 1970s, between Chagall and Max Cottin. The correspondence demonstrates Chagall's great attachment to the paintings that Mr Cottin had acquired and eventually Chagall asks if he can buy them back or arrange a "mutually advantageous" exchange. The request was poignantly but firmly declined. 

In the spring of 1931, Chagall and his family spent three months in the Holy Land, a trip he undertook to gather material for his Bible etchings. While Ambrose Vollard – his dealer – had commissioned this project, Vollard did not support or understand Chagall's desire to travel to the land of the Bible and see it for himself. Ultimately, this trip brought Chagall closer to his Jewish roots and was to be the first of many visits there. In the mystical hill town of Safed, the seat of Kabbalah , Chagall painted two views of the Ha'Ari Sephardi Synagogue (now in the Israel Museum and the Stedelijk Museum) and one of the Ha'Ari Ashkenazi Synagogue, which is included for sale. Interior of the Ashkenazi Ha'Ari Synagogue, Safed, 1931, is estimated at $300/500,000 and the synagogue depicted, with its elaborate Ark with ornate carving by Galician craftsmen, is still in use today. It is no surprise that Chagall, raised in the Hassidic tradition, would have been drawn to synagogues dedicated to the Ha'Ari, Rabbi Isaac Luria (1534-72), who had a profound impact on mystical Judaism.

artwork: Marc Chagall - Interior of the Yemenite HaGoral Synagogue, Jerusalem. Est. $400/600,000. Photo: Sotheby's.

The largest of the three Cottin paintings, Interior of the Yemenite HaGoral Synagogue, Jerusalem, is more enigmatic and is estimated at $400/600,000. Discussing her research into this work, Jennifer Roth, commented: "Unable to discover any photo of the synagogue, I was determined to find the structure itself, to explore whether it still resembled Chagall's delicate and exquisite depiction. A scholar of Jerusalem synagogues provided the address and instructed me to simply go there, as there was no phone. In the old Yemenite neighborhood in Nachla'ot, through a maze of winding pedestrian streets, impassable to motor traffic, I finally spotted a small plaque with the name of the synagogue. Within moments we were standing in the small upstairs room, in the footsteps of Chagall, admiring the tri-partite wooden Torah Ark surmounted by delicate carving, which had been so lovingly portrayed."

artwork: Marc Chagall - Interior of the Ashkenazi Ha'Ari Synagogue, Safed, 1931 -  Est. $300/500,000. Photo: Sotheby's.The third of the synagogue works was painted in Vilna, Lithuania, in 1935, where Chagall was invited to open the Museum of Jewish Art. The painting has a more somber feel than the others, perhaps an indication of the gathering clouds of the 1930s. Beneath the glow of the beautiful stained glass windows, the synagogue is shown empty. It depicts the "Kloyz" or study hall of the Vilna Gaon. Remarkably, the painting appears to be the only extant record of the Torah Ark of this small but important synagogue, which was destroyed just a few years later in the ashes of the Holocaust. Synagogue in Vilna, the "Kloyz" of the Vilna Gaon, 1935, is estimated at $300/500,000.

All three oil paintings were shown in 1945 at the Gallery of Jewish Art in New York, where Mr. Cottin bought his treasured artworks. The exhibition opened as World War II was finally drawing to a close and the full impact of the destruction of European Jewry was becoming known.

Among the other highlights of the sale on 14 December are several works by Reuven Rubin , including The Drummer of Meron from 1929, as well as several landscapes and still lifes; Nahum Gutmann , the other founding father of Israeli art, is represented by two brightly colored harbor scenes of Jaffa and Haifa. Other exceptional works include oils by Mordecai Ardon, Ori Reisman and Michael Gross and a large-scale steel sculpture by Yaacov Agam . The Contemporary art section includes a video by Sigalit Landau , who represented Israel at this year's Venice Biennale .

Marc Chagall,. (24 June 1887 – 28 March 1985), was a Russian-French artist associated with several major artistic styles and one of the most successful artists of the 20th century. He was an early modernist, and created works in virtually every artistic medium, including painting, book illustrations, stained glass, stage sets, ceramic, tapestries and fine art prints.

Art critic Robert Hughes referred to Chagall as "the quintessential Jewish artist of the twentieth century." According to art historian Michael J. Lewis, Chagall was considered to be "the last survivor of the first generation of European modernists." For decades, he "had also been respected as the world's preeminent Jewish artist." Using the medium of stained glass, he produced windows for the cathedrals of Reims and Metz, windows for the UN, and the Jerusalem Windows in Israel. He also did large-scale paintings, including part of the ceiling of the Paris Opéra.

'Photography Behind the Berlin Wall' at UH Galleries

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:14 PM PDT

artwork: Sybille Bergemann Hoppenrade 

Hatfield, UK - While on a visit to the exhibition Art of the GDR in Berlin in 2003, Matthew Shaul, Curator at the University of Hertfordshire Galleries discovered amongst the hackneyed, ideological offerings from East Germany's artistic past, a beautiful and almost entirely unknown chapter in the history post-war European photography. On exhibition November 9 - December 21, 2007.

The de Young Museum opens a Retrospective of the Work of Yves Saint Laurent

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:12 PM PDT

artwork: Yves Saint Laurent design - Marina Schiano in Evening Gown. Fall-Winter 1970 - © The Estate of Jeanloup Sieff

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - Virtuoso. Visionary. Genius. These are just some of the words used to describe the late Yves Saint Laurent, master couturier and fashion pioneer. On November 1, 2008, the de Young opens the exclusive United States presentation of the special exhibition, Yves Saint Laurent, which celebrates the life of Yves Saint Laurent and showcases forty years of creativity by the Maison Haute Couture Yves Saint Laurent, whose unique style blends references to the world of art with allusions to pop culture and social revolutions. Structured around four themes, the exhibition develops the revolutionary nature of his body of work that presents a new definition of femininity and a signature that transcends fashion.

Crime and Punishment Explored in Exhibition at Musée d'Orsay in Paris

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:07 PM PDT

artwork: René Magritte (Belgian, 1898-1967) - The Menaced Assassin, 1927 - Oil on canvas,150.4 x 195.2 cm. Kay Sage Tanguy Fund. © 2010 C. Herscovici, Brussels / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / © 2010, Digital Image, the MOMA, New York

PARIS.- On 30 September 1981, the French Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Seals, Robert Badinter, successfully brought about the abolition of the death penalty in France. It had taken two hundred years of discussion to reach this point: from 1791, when Le Peletier de Saint-Fargeau addressed the Constituent Assembly and called for the abolition of capital punishment. From 1791 to 1981, from the French Revolution to the present day, there had been two hundred years of passionate debate about the sense and the value of a penalty which, having once depended on the omnipotence of a god or on a king's absolute power - tempered by grace – would now only be meted out, in the philosophy of the Enlightenment, by man, and man alone. But can man be the judge of his fellow man's actions?

With a long history of dark inspiration, modern literature has resounded with these struggles, and created many, memorable criminal characters, in works ranging from Sade to Baudelaire and Barbey d'Aurevilly, from Dostoyevsky, whence the title of the exhibition, to Camus' The Outsider... The figure of the murderer, with all his negative energy and complexity, is the dark side of the hero, his ambiguous double, the part of him that transgresses and becomes all the more disturbing for being so seductive. A source of stories for magazines (from Lacenaire to Violette Nozières), and soon after, for illustrated daily newspapers, the powerful fantasy of violent crime was greatly increased through novels and the theatre. Linking murder to sexual abuse even became a must in pulp fiction and in the images this conveyed or evoked.

In fact, the contamination of the visual arts by the theme of crime, by newspaper articles, and even by images in the popular press, was another great feature of the century. There are many example of this in painting: from Prud'hon's Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime [Justice et la Vengeance divine poursuivant le Crime] to Valloton's Nemesis, from the Fualdès Affair that so fascinated Géricault, to Delacroix's Louvel, from Victor Hugo's hanged men to Warhol's electric chairs. New subjects, such as the female criminal, appeared and caught the imagination. Condemned by David, rehabilitated by Baudry, then presented once again as a dark character by Edvard Munch, Charlotte Corday joined the ranks of mythical figures, from Lady Macbeth to Lucie de Lamermoor. The issue was also raised of the relationship between madness, genius and crime, from Delacroix's prisoners to those of Egon Schiele.

artwork: Pierre-Paul Prud'hon - "Justice and Devine Vengeance" - RMN Daniel Arnaudet

The greatest painters are those whose heightened representations of crime or of capital punishment result in the most striking works. These range from Goya and Géricault to Lautrec and Picasso. Like opera, the cinema was not slow to assimilate the equivocal charms of extreme violence, transformed by its representation into something pleasurable, perhaps even into sensual pleasure.

artwork: Theatrical posters on display during the exhibition 'Crime and   Punishment' at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.At the end of the 19th century, a new theory appeared purporting to establish a scientific approach to the criminal mind. It was Lombroso - 2009 marks the two hundredth anniversary of his death – who developed this school of anthropology, setting out not only the character traits he claimed were found in criminals, but also the physiological features, like stigmata, all transmitted genetically, in his view, through atavism. Acceptance of this theory also decriminalised the individual to some extent and criminalised his social class and then his race, or at least made them open to scientific investigation, the procedures for which Bertillon would later develop. This theory of anthropology concluded that a man whose fate is preordained by his anatomy, could not be held fully accountable. Theories such as these would have a considerable influence on images in painting, sculpture and photography.

As a regular visitor to the courts, like Daumier whom he greatly admired, Degas liked to examine and decipher the faces of the accused, hoping to detect the " science" of the criminologists. And his little Rat in a tutu (The adolescent corps de ballet at the Paris Opera were known as petits rats), far from being an innocent young girl, is a dangerous, plague-mongering animal. Sexual violence also haunted Degas; it could well have led to the excesses of Neo Baroque freneticism in Cézanne's early works; it then appeared in Picasso's work, before finding its full expression in the works of Dix, Grosz and the later works of Munch.

Finally we should remember that the motif of the gibbet, the garrotte and the guillotine was ever-present, even though architects were creating panoptic designs for prisons where the individual could be observed at any time. For several years now, a new issue has arisen in relation to crime and punishment: the crime of passion, the compulsive crime of the serial killer, should they be subject to psychiatric investigation and commitment to an asylum, or to the judgement of the court and imprisonment? Beyond crime, there is still the perpetual problem of Evil, and beyond social circumstances, metaphysical anxiety. Art, particularly art between 1820 and1920, can provide a spectacular expression of this. The aesthetic of violence and the violence of the aesthetic - the exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay aims to bring them together through music, literature and a wide range of images. Visit : http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/home.html

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

Posted: 22 Jun 2012 07:06 PM PDT


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.

This Week in Review in Art News

Kamis, 21 Juni 2012

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

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The Whitchapel Gallery displays ~ Commissions: Now and Then"

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:21 PM PDT


London.- The Whitechapel Gallery looks at the important role the Government Art Collection plays in commissioning British artists to make new works of art. The Government Art Collection is one of the most important collections of British art, with 13,500 works dating from the 16th century to the present day displayed in 420 government buildings worldwide. "Government Art Collection: Commissions: Now and Then", on view from June 21st through September 9th, is part of the Whitechapel Gallery's on-going programme opening up important public and private collections for everyone and is the final of a series of five displays exploring the diverse nature of the Government Art Collection and its role promoting British culture on the world stage.


This display, a key part of the London 2012 Festival, marks 60 years of commissioning for the Government Art Collection and unveils a new work inspired by the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Works in the exhibition, many being shown for the first time in a public gallery, date from 1949 to the present day. Highlights includeL. S. Lowry's painting of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation procession in 1953 and John Piper's city scenes for the British Embassy in Rio de Janeiro in 1949. Catherine Yass' colour transparencies of the British Embassy in Paris in the day and evening light (1999) will be on display, as well as a pen and ink drawing by Donald Urquhart featuring an A to Z guide to Los Angeles (2010). The display also includes works by artists including Edward Bawden, Andrew Grassie, Robert Holyhead, Runa Islam, Eduardo Paolozzi, Tom Phillips and Conrad Shawcross. 




Shown alongside this is The Story of the Government Art Collection (Until September 2nd) in the Pat Matthews Gallery (Gallery 4), displays the Collection's archives for the first time. Rare documents include papers detailing the loan ofWinston Churchill's bust to the Oval Office in Washington from 2001 – 2008, and records of paintings hung in 10 Downing Street under Prime Ministers from the Duke of Wellington to John Major. A 1962 document records artist William Coldstream's proposal that the Whitechapel Gallery hold an exhibition of the Collection, while a World War II photograph shows the bomb damage to the State Rooms of 10 Downing Street. The Government Art Collection (GAC) is very much a working collection and has been since the British Government began to collect works of art to display in 1898. Over the years the collection has expanded and nowadays contains over 13,500 works of art, mainly by British artists ranging from the 16th century to the present day. Works from the Collection are displayed in the offices and reception rooms of several hundred major British Government buildings in the United Kingdom and around the world. Thousands of people visit these buildings every year and therefore the works of art themselves play a vital role in helping to promote British art and artists. New works of art are purchased with the approval of an Advisory Committee. They acquire works by artists who have a strong British connection: for example, those who were born in Britain, or who have lived or are living in the country. Works must be robust and be able to withstand being displayed in a non-gallery environment – a Minister's office or a working building such as an Embassy or Residence. Recent additions to the Collection include an 18th century portrait by Thomas Ross, a painting by William Powell Frith, and sculptures by contemporary artists Cornelia Parker, Yinka Shonibare and Matthew Darbyshire. They also commission works of art, sometimes for the Collection such as Andrew Grassie's paintings of Downing Street and the GAC Sculpture Store, but more often site-specific works for new or refurbished Government buildings. Recent examples of commissions for buildings include Brussels and Madrid, and the Home Office and Ministry of Justice buildings in London. 



The Whitechapel Gallery is a public art gallery on the north side of Whitechapel High Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, it was founded in 1901 as one of the first publicly-funded galleries for temporary exhibitions in London, and it has a long track record for education and outreach projects, now focused on the Whitechapel area's deprived populations. It exhibits the work of contemporary artists, as well as organising retrospective exhibitions and shows that are of interest to the local community.The Gallery exhibited "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso in 1938 as part of a touring exhibition organised by Roland Penrose to protest the Spanish Civil War. For the history of post-war British art, the most important exhibition to have been held at the Whitechapel Gallery was This is Tomorrow in 1956. Initiated by members of the Independent Group, the exhibition brought Pop Art to the general public as well as introducing some of the artists, concepts, designers and photographers that would define the Swinging Sixties. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://www.whitechapelgallery.org

The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art to exhibit "Dear Mother Nature ~ Hudson Valley Artists 2012"

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:20 PM PDT


New Paltz, New York.- The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art presents its annual exhibition of work by artists from the mid Hudson Valley. This year's exhibition titled "Dear Mother Nature: Hudson Valley Artists 2012" is organized by guest curator Linda Weintraub and will be on view at the museum from June 23rd through November 4th. Ms. Weintraub served as the first director of the Edith C. Blum Art Institute at Bard College where she originated 50 exhibitions and published over 20 catalogues. She is the author of several books about contemporary art including "To Life! Eco Art in Pursuit of a Sustainable Planet," to be published by the University of California Press in 2012.


For Dear Mother Nature: Hudson Valley Artists 2012, Ms. Weintraub invited artists to send something to Mother Nature that expresses their relationship to her and their feelings about her. What would it be? Love letter? Care package? Medal of honor? Bill for unfulfilled promises? Payment for services rendered? Prayer for guidance? Crutches for support? Bouquet of praise? Compensation for damages? Reward for effort? Entreaty for forgiveness? Pledge of devotion? Summons for misconduct? Condolences? Advice? Warnings?This is the fourth year that a Hudson Valley Artists Annual Purchase Award of $3,000 will be used to acquire one or more artworks from the exhibition for the museum's permanent collection. This Purchase Award is made possible through the Alice and Horace Chandler Art Acquisition Fund. Artists whose work has been purchased in the past include Charles Geiger, Curt Belshe and Lise Prown, François Deschamps, Gilbert Plantinga, and Thomas Sarrantonio. 



The Hudson Valley Artists exhibition is open to all emerging and mid-career artists with a permanent mailing address and active art practice in Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, and Westchester Counties who have not had a major one-person museum exhibition and who do not have an exclusive contract with a commercial gallery. Students are not eligible. There is no application fee. Artworks created in traditional and nontraditional media as well as audio, video, film, etc., are welcome. The Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art at the State University of New York at New Paltz (the Dorsky), located at the geographic center of the SUNY New Paltz campus, is one of the largest museums in the SUNY system, with more than 9,000 square feet of exhibition space distributed over six galleries. The Dorsky's permanent collection comprises more than 5,000 works of art, with areas of focus that include American Art, with an emphasis on the Hudson Valley and Catskill Regions, 19th, 20th and 21st century photography and metals. A small but excellent "world collection" of art and artifacts dating back to ancient times and representing diverse cultures enhances the museum's exhibitions and educational programs. Through its collections, exhibitions, and public programs, the Dorsky supports and enriches the academic programs at the college, presents a broad range of world art for study and enjoyment, and serves as a center for Hudson Valley arts and culture. 



The museum, which celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2011, is fast gaining recognition as the premier public showplace for exhibition, education, and cultural scholarship about the Hudson Valley region's art and artists from yesterday, today, and the future. The Dorsky's temporary exhibition program includes exhibitions drawn from the museum's collection as well as exhibitions, installations, and projects by nationally and internationally recognized artists. Each summer the Museum sponsors thematic exhibitions of work by Hudson Valley artists, featuring works by artists living in the mid-Hudson Valley and Catskill Mountain regions. This collection includes outstanding examples of both two and three dimensional objects from diverse cultures, dating from classical to modern times. Areas of strength include objects from ancient Egypt and the Greek and Roman world, Pre-Columbian artifacts, Asian prints spanning the 17th to 19th centuries, traditional African sculpture and masks, Australian aboriginal bark paintings, and Pacific Island artifacts from the early 20th century. The painting collection was started in 1939, when the university acquired a single painting on an extended loan from the W.P.A. Hasbrouck House (New Paltz, NY) by James Scott, became a cornerstone piece in the museum's collection of paintings. Today the collection ranges from 17th to 20th century American, European, and Asian works, with a special emphasis on paintings by artists from our region. In keeping with the regional emphasis of our mission and programming, the museum has a special interest in collecting, exhibiting, and interpreting the work of artists associated with the Hudson River School and the Woodstock Colony for the Arts. The museum is deeply committed to bringing a complementary critical focus to the work of the modern and contemporary artists who have called the Hudson Valley home. Works on paper make up the museum's single largest core collection. The collection was established in 1957 with a bequest of more than 150 American prints from the estate of Edward Coykendall, Many of the prints are by artists from the Hudson Valley and Catskill regions. The Coykendall collection laid the foundation for, and stimulated the museum's interest in, formally addressing the cultural heritage of the region. This focus complements a more comprehensive teaching collection ranging from the 15th through the 20th century that is international in scope, with a strong emphasis on modern and contemporary American and European posters and drawings representing the major art movements of the 20th centuries. In 1983 the museum made a long-range commitment to building a comprehensive collection of 19th and 20th century photographs. Although the museum held only two photographs then, the collection now includes more than 1,300 photographs, daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and tintypes. In 1995, a formal partnership established with the Center for Photography at Woodstock (CPW) resulted in the transfer of the permanent print collection developed by CPW, to the SDMA on extended loan. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.newpaltz.edu/museum/

The Birmingham Museum of Art to show "Warhol & Cars ~ American Icons"

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:19 PM PDT


Birmingham, Alabama.- The Birmingham Museum of Art brings the Birmingham community a distinctive exhibition of works by Andy Warhol. "Warhol and Cars: American Icons", on display from June 24th through September 16th, is the first exhibition to examine Warhol's enduring fascination with automotive vehicles as products of American consumer society. A special preview party, which is open to the public, will take place the evening of Friday, June 22nd from 6 pm – 9 pm. "Warhol was fascinated with American culture and his images represented what he felt were elemental to our culture whether they were Hollywood icons, Campbell's soup cans, or Chryslers coming off the Detroit assembly line," said Ron Platt, Curator of Modern and Contemporary art at the Birmingham Museum of Art. "He loved to extol what America was famous for-its products and its thriving industries." The exhibition features more than 40 drawings, paintings, photographs, and related archival material spanning from 1946 to 1986.

The Museo de Antioquia celebrates Fernando Botero's 80th Birthday

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:18 PM PDT

artwork: Fernando Botero  -  "The Disrobing of Christ" (Left) and "The Path of Lamentation" (right),  both 2011  -  Oil on canvas © Fernando Botero, courtesy the Museo de Antioquia. On view in "Viacrucis: La Passion de Cristo" until August 8th.

Medellin, Colombia.- The Museo de Antioquia is proud to celebrate the 80th birthday of the Medellin-born and resident Fernando Botero by presenting "Viacrucis: La Passion de Cristo" on view through August 8th. Viacrucis —a Latin word meaning "the path of the Cross"— comprises 27 large-format oil paintings and 33 drawings. On display in this show are Botero's careful study of and deep love for the Italian primitives of the first half of the Fifteenth Century and for the artists of the Renaissance. Many artists painted the passion of Christ in scenes that included medieval fortresses and hill-dotted landscapes; now Botero approaches the subject in contexts that incorporate Manhattan or small Antioquia towns.


One of the largest works in the show is a Pieta measuring 93 x 58" while a Descent of the Cross measures 90 by 50". Smaller works measuring 20 x 20" lose no power from their size and are made all the more touching by their very intimacy. The hallmark of all the paintings regardless of size and subject is Botero's stunning use of color that charges the works with both seductive beauty and elemental impact. Just as in his paintings of the Abu Ghraib prison, these works depicting Christ's Passion are intense and powerful not only because of the events depicted but also because of Botero's ability to convey pathos and emotion. Botero can be humorous and whimsical as some of his paintings over the years reveal, but he can also turn his considerable talents to portray tragic events as the paintings in this show effectively demonstrated.

artwork: Fernando Botero - "The Kiss of Judas", 2011 - Oil on canvas - 55" x 63" - © Fernando Botero, courtesy of The Marlborough Gallery On view at the Museo de Antioquia in "Viacrucis: La Passion de Cristo" until August 8th.

Botero has all his life been an avid observer of old master paintings and to this day he is a constant museum goer. His work has often been infused with various references to the masters either by subject such as his take on van Eyck's The Marriage of Arnolfini or by subtle references to structure and technique. What becomes immediately clear in the Via Crucis exhibition is Botero's long study and great love of the early Italian primitives of the first half of the fifteenth century as well as the early northern Renaissance painters. What those painters strove to achieve was a way to express naturalism of human form and to create a means to convey in regard to the story of Christ the great emotion and feeling of the event. Botero has in his inimitable, elegant style taken up this heroic and exalted subject and in a unique manner has, while remaining faithful to the events of the story, transformed it. In so doing he has achieved one of the most commanding cycles of works he has painted to date. Through a singular vision of the expression of human emotion and spirit these works are destined to be a high water mark of the artist's entire career. Just as the old master painters used places and people of their time to depict the Passion, Botero uses places and events of our time to portray The Way of the Cross. To give just a few examples, the background setting in one depiction of Christ's crucifixion is Manhattan; in the flogging of Christ, instead of Roman soldiers we see Colombian soldiers; in The Kiss of Judas we see a small figure in the left hand corner which is a self-portrait, and in Ecce Homo Pontius Pilate is represented by an accusatory finger and the village is a town in Botero's home state of Antioquia in Colombia.

In the introduction essay to the exhibition catalog the writer Cristina Carrillo de Albornoz writes, "Botero, who in his own words is 'at times a believer, at times an agnostic,' has captured the intensity and cruelty but also the piercing poetry of the tremendous drama of Christ's journey along the Way of the Cross toward his crucifixion." In regard to Botero's style she astutely quotes the English poet, Francis Bacon, "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion." Botero's style is distinctly his own and highly original. His art, both in painting and sculpture, strikes a universal chord that goes beyond regional tastes and temporal values and reaches a fundamental feeling in people all over the world. There is perhaps no other living artist who has so many admirers and collectors. His work is recognized and sought-after as much in the United States, South America, and Europe as it is in South Africa, Asia, and Australia. Asia Pacific Sculpture News attributed this phenomenon to "a vision of humanity that transcends the boundaries of cultural specificity, a vision of humanity that pulsates to the ancient universal rhythms of life."

artwork: Fernando Botero - "Entombment of Christ", 2010 - Oil on canvas - 59" x 79 7/8" - © Fernando Botero, courtesy of The Marlborough Gallery On view at the Museo de Antioquia in "Viacrucis: La Passion de Cristo" until August 8th.

Botero was born in Medellín, Colombia in 1932. He moved to Bogotá in 1951 and had his first show there the same year at Galeria Leo Matiz. His first retrospective took place in 1970 in Germany at museums in Baden Baden, Berlin, Dusseldorf and Hamburg. Since then, Botero has continually showed in museums all over the world. In the last ten years he has had an astounding number of museum shows in the following countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay, Venezuela, and the United States.Botero's work can be found in forty-six museums. Among the most prominent are: The Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland; the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Caracas, Venezuela; Museo de Arte Moderno, Bogotá, Colombia; Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, Chile; The Museum of Modern Art New York; Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany; Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne, Germany; and The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia. Many books have been published on Botero's work in English, Spanish, French, German Italian, Chinese and Japanese.

The Museum of Antioquia was founded in 1881 and was the first in the region, only the second museum in Colombia and one of the first South American museum's to feature an art room. In the first 60 years, the collection consisted mostly of objects representing important historical moments of Antioquia and Colombia. However, during the twentieth century, with the help of the Society of Public Improvements in Medellin, the museum began to expand its collection and displays of art. In 1975 the institution received the picture "Ex voto" from the Medellin-born Fernando Boteroa, and this paved the way for a close relationship, with Botero making further donations in the following years. Today the museum has a collection of over 5,000 pieces ranging from archaeological to contemporary art, spanning all eras of the history of Colombia. The building has an area of 14,500 m2, distributed over 4 floors. It is located in the historic center of town and was declared an Architectural Heritage of the Nation and restored in the 1990's by the Antioquia Railway Foundation. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.museodeantioquia.org.co

YouGugg? You Tube and The Guggenheim Explore Digital Art

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:17 PM PDT

artwork: Dmitry Zajtsev - "Ice" - Digital art - Adobe Photoshop 7, 2005 -  Courtesy of Artlavart, Russia

New York, NY
- Art has taken many forms since paintings were hand-pressed on cave walls 32,000 years ago in a grotto in France. The occupants of Grotte Chauvet apparently spit pigment on their hands to make them virtual stencils and then squashed them against the wall. Definitely analog. And they probably never thought of them as art. In its latest incarnation, some art is made up of 1's and 0's. Definitely digital. Many museums, including the Denver Art Museum, have displayed digital art for several years. Now, YouTube has become the primary international display of such art in just five years. There are other locations, such as the online Digital Art Museum.

Galerie Barbara Thumm Shows Recent Works by Simon Cantemir Hausi

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:16 PM PDT


Berlin.- The Barbara Thumm Gallery is proud to present "Simon Cantemir Hausì: Waiting for the Perfect Days", on view at the gallery through December 21st. This exhibition is the first solo show in Germany by Cluj based Romanian artist Simon Cantemir Hausì. The exhibition features selected works on paper and canvas from the years 2002 to date.Born in 1976, Hausì's family was highly politicized, subject to surveillance by Romania's communist regime and continually under the threat of interrogation. Hausì's work dwells on themes of uncertainty, and distrust of stability and ideologies. The wildy beautiful landscape of the Romanian countryside is one the artist continues to return to, both physically and via his imagination. Sometimes he reconjures scenes from his childhood: images of boys walking through a forest  at night, or playing in a field during the day. At other times Hausì uses the countryside that he is so familiar with as a ground for the figures and animals that come to his mind as he lives and works in Cluj. These works have a visionary quality: the figures often appearing bathed in an otherworldly light, and the animals portrayed in a fashion that reminds the viewer of scenes found in late Medieval and early Renaissance paintings.


Picasso & Braque's Pivotal 1910-1912 Cubist Works At The Kimbell Art Museum

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:15 PM PDT

artwork: Georges Braque - "Glass on a Table", 1909–10 - Oil on canvas. - Collection of the Tate, London. © 2011 Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY/ADAGP, Paris. On view in "Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912" at the Kimball Art Museum in Fort Worth from May 29 until August 21st.

Fort Worth, TX.- "Picasso and Braque: The Cubist Experiment, 1910–1912", the first exhibition to unite many of the paintings and nearly all of the prints created by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque during these two exhilarating years of their artistic dialogue, goes on view at the Kimbell Art Museum on May 29, where it will remain on view until August 21st. "This small-scale exhibition examines a brief moment with huge implications for the history of art," commented Eric M. Lee, director of the Kimbell Art Museum. "This show is the first to focus exclusively on this landmark period of intense productivity and adventure for Picasso and Braque."


artwork: Pablo Picasso - "Portrait of a Woman" 1910 - Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. © 2011 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.During the years 1910 through 1912, these two great masters invented a new style that took the basics of traditional European art—modeling in light and shade to suggest roundedness, perspective lines to suggest space, indeed the very idea of making a recognizable description of the real world—and toyed with them irreverently. "These are beautiful, enigmatic, playful works of art. They're like conversations in the artist's studio or favorite café, not to be hurried," remarked Malcolm Warner, deputy director at the Kimbell Art Museum. "We hope our visitors will take the time to savor them." Following up on hints they found in the work of Paul Cézanne, and brimming with youthful bravado, Picasso and Braque created pictorial puzzles, comprehensible to a point but full of false leads and contradictions. Viewers pick up a few clues—a figure, a pipe, a moustache, a bottle, a glass, a musical instrument, a newspaper, a playing card—and these start to suggest a reality in three dimensions.

The impression is that of a fast, modern world, with glimpses of models, friends, and the paraphernalia of drinking and smoking. But things never fully add up, either in detail or as a whole—and deliberately so. Teasingly elusive, the image is a construction of forms and signs that the artist has put together in a spirit of parody and play. The pleasure for the viewer is to let go of all normal expectations and enter into the game, which is an endlessly intriguing one. More than any avant-garde artists before them, Picasso and Braque called into question conventional ideas about art as the imitation of reality. They collaborated so closely and like-mindedly ("roped together like mountain climbers," in Braque's own phrase) that their works of this period are sometimes difficult to tell apart. Their radical experiment in picture-making, which came to be known as Analytic Cubism, has been as far-reaching in its implications for art as the theories of Einstein for science.

artwork: Pablo Picasso - "Still Life with a Bottle of Rum" 1911 - Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jacques & Natasha Gelman Collection, 1998. © 2011 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS)This choice, intimately scaled exhibition, featuring 16 paintings and 20 etchings and drypoints, was conceived and organized by Eik Kahng, chief curator at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, in partnership with the Kimbell and Mr. Warner. The Kimbell is a natural collaborator on the project since the Museum's collection includes an outstanding example of the work of each artist from the Analytic Cubist period, Picasso's Man with a Pipe and Braque's Girl with a Cross, both painted in 1911. In the exhibition these appear among paintings from a number of other distinguished collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Dallas Museum of Art, the Menil Collection and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Tate London, the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, and the Robert B. and Mercedes H. Eichholz Collection. The etchings and drypoints are selected from several sources, most notably the extraordinary holdings of Cubist prints in the Melamed Family Collection. Not surprisingly in light of its importance in the history of art, Cubism has been the subject of numerous museum exhibitions. Some of them have been dauntingly large, especially given the amount of time each of these highly complicated works demands of the viewer. The guiding principle of the present exhibition is that less can be more. It offers the kind of small, carefully calibrated selection that invites the viewer to spend time exploring each work in detail.

The Kimbell Art Museum is widely regarded as one of the most outstanding architectural achievements of the modern era. Designed by the American architect Louis I. Kahn (1901–1974), the Museum has won wide acclaim for its classic modern building since its opening in 1972. Kahn's innovative use of natural light and subtle articulation of space and materials greatly enhance the experience of the art. Kahn envisioned a museum with "the luminosity of silver." In his design, "narrow slits to the sky" (as he described the skylights) admit natural light, which perforated metal reflectors disperse onto the underside of cycloid-shaped vaults and down the walls. Courtyards, lunettes, and light slots vary the quality and intensity of the light. The building's gracious proportions, fine craftsmanship, and beautiful landscaping add further to the sense of serenity and restraint. A small collection of less than 350 works, the Kimbell Art Museum has become a byword for quality and importance at the highest level. The Museum's holdings range in period from antiquity to the 20th century, including European masterpieces from Fra Angelico and Caravaggio to Cézanne and Matisse, and important collections of Egyptian, Near Eastern, Greek, and Roman antiquities, as well as Asian, Mesoamerican, and African arts. Visit the museum's website at ... https://www.kimbellart.org

The Israel Museum Features an Exhibition of Peter Paul Rubens

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:14 PM PDT

artwork: Peter Paul Rubens, (Flemish, 1577–1640) - "The Death of Adonis (with Venus, Cupid, and the Three Graces)", ca. 1614. -  Oil on canvas. The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. -  Gift of Saul and Gayfryd Steinberg, New York, to American Friends of the Israel Museum.

JERUSALEM.- Inaugurating a new series of in-depth exhibitions exploring masterpieces from its encyclopedic collections, the Israel Museum presents an exhibition that sheds new light on The Death of Adonis (ca. 1614) by Flemish Baroque master Peter Paul Rubens . On view from January 10 through May 5, 2012, Rubens, Venus, and Adonis: Anatomy of a Tragedy examines this monumental masterpiece, analyzing its iconographic sources, composition, and place within the development of Rubens' style. Twenty-five related works—including a preparatory oil sketch by Rubens as well as drawings, paintings, and prints of the same theme by Rubens and other Flemish and Italian masters of his time—are brought together to illuminate aspects of the artist's special interest in the story of Venus, the goddess of Love and Beauty, and Adonis, her human lover.

MoMA Pays Tribute to Iris Barry ~ Its First Curator of Film

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:13 PM PDT

artwork: Walt Disney's film "The Three Little Pigs" (1933) - Courtesy of MoMA Film Library

NEW YORK, NY.- The establishment of The Museum of Modern Art's Department of Film, founded as the Film Library, began in 1933, when Iris Barry, the Museum's first film curator, was challenged to organize a series of film programs to "test the waters" of public consumption. From May 10 through 24, 2010, MoMA honors Barry with Iris Barry: Re-View, an exhibition comprising films that Barry selected for a historic series of screenings at The Wadsworth Atheneum (Hartford, Connecticut) from October 28 through December 30, 1934, many of which were later shown at MoMA. The exhibition, which also marks the 75th anniversary of the June 1935 founding of the Film Library, is organized by Anne Morra, Associate Curator, Department of Film, The Museum of Modern Art.

Art Production Fund to Present "White Ghost" Sculpture by Yoshitomo Nara in NYC

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:12 PM PDT

NEW YORK, NY.- Art Production Fund will present "White Ghost" sculpture by Yoshitomo Nara in two locations on Park Avenue, NYC. "We are thrilled to be working with Nara to introduce his first public sculptures in New York City" says Co-founders of Art Production Fund, Yvonne Force Villareal and Doreen Remen. This public art installation will coincide with the first Nara retrospective "Yoshitomo Nara: Nobody's Fool" opening at Asia Society in early September 2010. During August of 2010 the Park Avenue Armory will host Nara for an open studio residency.

Hirschl & Adler Modern to show New Works by David Ligare

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:11 PM PDT

artwork: David Ligare - "Still Life with Rooster and Fruit", 2012 - Oil on canvas - 20" x 24" - Courtesy Hirschl & Adler Modern, New York. On view in "David Ligare: New Paintings" from April 12th until May 12th.

New York City.- Hirschl & Adler Modern is proud to announce the opening of "David Ligare: New Paintings" on April 12th. The artist's first solo exhibition with the gallery will feature over 15 new  paintings in oil, remains on view through May 12th and will be accompanied by a 16 page catalogue with illustrations in color. David Ligare has spent the last thirty years painting, studying, and thinking about  what he calls "recurrent Classicism" – the tenets of Greco-Roman Classicism as they have appeared and reappeared over the centuries. The photographic intensity of his vision is decidedly modern, even as he explores the ancient ideals of measure, harmony, and rich philosophical content.


Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art to Re-open with a New Exhibition "Pure Pleasure"

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:10 PM PDT

artwork: Julie Blackmon -

BOULDER, CO.- On June 5, 2009, the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art will present "Pure Pleasure". This exhibition celebrates the re-opening of the museum following a four-month closure. The museum has undergone renovations to include installation of an elevator and upgrading our jewel of an historic building. We are excited to be able to make our exhibits and programs accessible to a larger community. "Pure Pleasure" highlights the rich and varied talents of a renowned group of artists from the region and beyond. In diverse media, including photography, painting, assemblage, ceramics, video and installation, these artists explore the boundaries of varied definitions of pleasure.

The Art Gallery of New South Wales opens "Grand Weekend"

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:09 PM PDT

artwork: Grand Courts, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Photograph: Jenni Carter.

SYDNEY.- The Art Gallery of New South Wales Grand Courts, home to Rubens, Van Gogh, Monet, Pissarro, Cezanne, Hogarth, Delacroix, Leighton, Constable, Gainsborough and Australian artists, Roberts, Streeton, McCubbin, Lambert, Bunny, Phillips Fox, Gruner and Ashton, will re-open to the public in 'grand' style on the Gallery's open weekend (September 12 & 13) with more than 50 free events. Some of the most significant and iconic paintings in the world hang permanently on the walls of the Art Gallery of New South Wales in the thirteen grand old courts. These rooms were the very first rooms of the gallery to be built in 1897 in typically grand Victorian style and scale.

Eli Klein Fine Art hosts The Best of Chinese Contemporary Artists

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:08 PM PDT

artwork: Liu Yan - Cool on the World, 2009 - Acrylic on canvas - 63 x 63 inches (160 x 160 cm) - Courtesy of Eli Klein Fine Art, New York

New York - Eli Klein Fine Art is pleased to present our 2010 Winter Show. This group exhibition features the work of some of the Gallery's most-established artists as well as our highly promising emerging artists. This eclectic group includes Cathy Daley, Chen Qiang, Hung Tung-lu, Jiang Huan, Liu Yan, Luo Qing, Meeson Pae Yang, Miao Xiaochun, Sophie De Francesca, Wei Dong, Zhang Lujiang, Zhao Kailin, and Zhang Dali. On exhibition through 1 March, 2010.

Eli Klein Fine Art has, over the last year, hosted several important solo exhibitions at the Gallery for artists Zhang Peng, Luo Qing, Xiao Se, and Ma Bing. For each of these artists, our show was their first solo exhibition in the United States and represented a major step in the advancement of their careers. In addition to these landmark shows, Eli Klein Fine Art has produced several significant group shows over this past year, including, Redefining Surrealism, Passing by China, and Chasing Flames. Each exhibit brought together some of China's finest contemporary artists, showcasing some of their work for the first time in the United States.

artwork: Hung Tung-Lu Asura - Manhattan, 2001 Laser print, lenticular, lightbox (180 x 140 x 15 cm.) Courtesy of Eli Klein Fine ArtThus, this exhibition celebrates our past while looking toward the future. Eli Klein Fine Art remains steadfast in its promotion of contemporary Chinese art. Eli Klein Fine Art is at the forefront of America's contemporary Chinese art scene. With a particular focus on the visual arts of contemporary China, Eli Klein Fine Art is committed to exhibiting the work of prominent and emerging Chinese artists--promoting awareness of China's ever-transitioning culture as it's reflected through the country's innovative art.

Eli Klein Fine Art is located in the heart of SOHO on West Broadway, situated amongst many of New York's finest galleries and art establishments. Its street-level location boasts 4,000 square feet of exhibition space spread over two floors.

Eli Klein Fine Art's strong curatorial department collaborates with prominent museums, private collections and galleries across the world, allowing new Chinese art to become more accessible to a larger audience. Eli Klein Fine Art's artists are represented in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and many other internationally renowned museums.

Below is the artist statement of artist Zhao Kailin.

One of the most important and critically acclaimed Chinese masters of contemporary realism working today, painter Zhao Kailin was born in 1961 in Bengbu in southeast China.

Zhao Kailin felt, even as a young child, that he wanted to be an artist. "By the age of eight, I knew I wanted to be a painter," Zhao relates. "It was my second grade teacher in elementary school who taught me basic painting skills and encouraged and challenged me. Most important, she taught me how to soar with imaginary wings through the secret world of art." Under her tutelage, Zhao's painting abilities matured, so much so that his work began appearing in children's juried art exhibitions in Bengbu.

In 1988, Zhao Kailin was accepted for graduate studies at the prestigious oil painting department of Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts, China's most illustrious and rigorous fine arts institution. "From 1988 to 1990, I studied there and learned traditional western-style oil painting," states Zhao. "It was the most important period of art studies in my life."

During this period of intensive training, Zhao was exposed to the galvanizing portraits of Dutch Renaissance master Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (1606-1669) and was immediately taken with the work's luxuriant brushwork, jewel-like color and commanding manipulation of light and shadow inspired by Italian Renaissance painter Carravagio (1573-1610). It was during this same time that Zhao also became enamoured of the elegantly voluptuous society portraiture of American painter John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). Sargent's Madame X (1884), a full-figure portrait of a mysterious porcelain-skinned woman dressed in a long black dress that scandalized Paris's Salon of 1884, most certainly has left its silky mark on many of Zhao Kailin's portrait paintings.

artwork: Zhao Kailin - The Dream Back to Tang Dynasty, 2010 - Oil on canvas 56 x 58 inches (142 x 147 cm) - Courtesy of Eli Klein Fine Art, NYC

More recently, Zhao's work has concentrated on depicting beautiful, introspective young women, most of whom are Asian and dressed in traditional Chinese attire. Several of the latest pieces feature females with musical instruments. These paintings capture the essential aura of young women suspended between the innocence of childhood and the smoldering sexuality of womanhood, evoking a sense of longing, dreams and desire.

"Every painting I do involves personal stories and memories," Zhao explains. "I am always striving to communicate not only the beauty and unspoken personal narratives of these women, but also the inherent beauty of Chinese culture and life."

Zhao Kailin's work has been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout Asia, Europe and the U.S. and is a part of notable public and private art collections. Winner of a number of awards for his work, and has been an influential mentor to a number of other painters.

For further information, please contact the gallery at (212) 255-4388 or info@ekfineart.com.  Eli Klein Fine art is located at 462 West Broadway in between Prince and Houston streets, New York, NY 10012. Please visit our website at: www.ekfineart.com .

DC Moore Gallery exhibition as the Exclusive Representative of Robert De Niro, Sr. estate

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:07 PM PDT

artwork: Robert De Niro, Sr. (1922-1993) - "Nude Still Life", 1969  -  Oil on fiberboard, 21 3/4 x 29 3/4 inches Courtesy of DC Moore Gallery, NY

NEW YORK, NY.- One of the most original painters of the post-war generation in New York, Robert De Niro, Sr. (1922-1993) blended abstraction and representation, bridging the gap between European modernism and Abstract Expressionism. For their first exhibition as the exclusive representatives of the Estate of Robert De Niro, Sr., DC Moore Gallery is presenting figure paintings, landscapes, still lifes, and charcoal drawings from 1960-1993. DC Moore Gallery is the exclusive representative of the Estate of Robert De Niro Sr. On exhibition through 28th April.

Priska C. Juschka Fine Art Presents Rosemarie Fiore ~ Artificiere

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:06 PM PDT

artwork: Rosemarie Fiore - Firework Drawing #67, 2011 - Lit firework residue on TS Saunders and Fabriano paper, 65¾ x 89 in. (167 x 226 cm) Image courtesy of Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, New York

NEW YORK, NY.- Priska C. Juschka Fine Art presents Artificiere, Rosemarie Fiore's second solo exhibition at the gallery, on view from May 19th through July 2nd. Fiore continues her practice of using fireworks as her sole medium to create works on paper and, most recently in addition, glass sculptures by uniquely utilizing fireworks and smoke bombs for her work and compositions.

Hospital Radiologists Analyze Brooklyn Museum's Mummies and Make Discovery

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:05 PM PDT

artwork: Cartonnage Containing Mummy of Hor (ca. 712-664 B.C.E.), property of The Brooklyn Museum is Prepared for CT Scanning at North Shore University Hospital. - Photo © Adam Husted

BROOKLYN, NY.- Four human mummies from the Brooklyn Museum's renowned Egyptian collection underwent computed tomography or CT scanning at North Shore University Hospital on Long Island yesterday. Hospital spokeswoman Michelle Pinto said to MSNBC that the testing enables radiologists to learn about the bones and skeletal system of the mummies in extraordinary detail, without having to do invasive or damaging procedures. However, it's the type of news no patient wants to hear and no doctor wants to deliver. So the radiologist looks over the scans, then might say, in a firm but sympathetic voice:

"I'm sorry, sir, but by the look of these images it appears nearly all of your organs have been removed. Moreover, you've been dead for thousands of years".

The CAT scan revealed a mummy named Lady Hor was male. "It's definitely a man," said Edward Bleiberg, curator of Egyptian art at the museum to the New York Daily News. "Physiologically, it's really clear.

artwork: CT Scan Image of the Skullof the Mummy of Hor. Photo © Adam Husted.The museum, which is seeking to gather more information about the long-since-departed as it prepares to revamp and expand its collection of Egyptian antiquities, released the images on Wednesday. The museum expects to complete a full analysis of the images — 2,400 for each mummy — in about six months, said Edward Bleiberg, curator of Egyptian art.

While the general lack of organs came as no surprise — organs were typically removed during the mummification process — the scans have already yielded some interesting information, like the presence of four small amulets on one of the bodies or the discovery of anatomical indicators suggesting that the 2,700-year-old mummy known as Lady Hor was actually a man.

The mummy of Hor, which is encased in linen and plaster, has never been opened, because to do so would destroy the ornate case, officials said. Along with a male mummy, it has been a centerpiece of the museum's renowned ancient Egyptian holdings. In the 1910s, the New-York Historical Society, which owned the mummy at the time, reclassified it as a female because the face on the mummy case had no beard.

"It still looks like a woman's face to me," Mr. Bleiberg said. "It's so delicate. The features are so fine."

The discovery was made after Chusid, a radiologist, and Dr. Amgad Makaryus, director of cardiac CT and MRI at the Manhasset hospital, performed a 64-slice computed tomography, or CT scan, on the mummy, reported Newsday.

The Brooklyn Museum's collection of ancient Egyptian art, considered one of the finest in the United States, includes mummified remains of several animals and eleven humans. Through the CT scanning, Brooklyn Museum curators are learning more about each of the four mummies and the ancient civilization in which they lived.

The mummies that underwent CT scanning are a Royal Prince, Count of Thebes, who is more three thousand years old; Hor, who was believed to be female prior to yesterday's CT Scan and is actually male; Thothirdes, who is more than 2,500 year old; and a mummy about which little is known, that dates back to the first century C.E.

"This was really different from the usual day-to-day," said Dr. Jesse Chusid, a radiologist who conducted the scans. "It was fun because you don't have to make a diagnosis that's unfortunate."

Hans Schiebold featured at Lanning Gallery

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:04 PM PDT

artwork: Hans Schiebold - Canyon Series - 60 

SEDONA, AZ - Artist Hans Schiebold creates large-scale landscapes of such depth that each reads like a geological time clock of its scene.  On Friday, March 7th, from 5-8 pm, Sedona's Lanning Gallery will feature the artist's work for its "1st Friday" event.  It has been said that Schiebold does not paint, but rather sculpts in media on canvas and this is a fair assessment of the singular technique that has secured the artist a listing in the "Who's Who in American Art."   
 

Paintings on Paper by Reeve Schley at James Graham & Sons Gallery

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:03 PM PDT

artwork: Reeve Schley - "Posing Patterns", 2009 - Oil on canvas, 46 x 60 inches. - Photo: Courtesy James Graham & Sons Gallery.

NEW YORK, NY.- James Graham & Sons Gallery presents an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Reeve Schley, Outdoor Light, which marks the artist's eighteenth solo exhibition with the gallery. Schley has been exhibiting with James Graham & Sons for close to 40 years. The show will be on exhibit from May 5th through June 18th, 2010. The show will feature over two dozen new watercolors as well as four large-scale oil paintings, conveying imagery personal to the artist and painted en plein air.

Liechtenstein Museum Presents a Cross-section of the History & Typology of the Picture Frame

Posted: 19 Jun 2012 10:02 PM PDT

artwork: View of the exhibition Structure and Ornament © Liechtenstein Museum. Die Fürstlichen Sammlungen, Vaduz–Wien

VIENNA.- The Liechtenstein Museum is staging the exhibition Structure and Ornament which presents a cross-section of the history and typology of the frame from the late medieval period to the 19th century. It also showcases the various different techniques involved, from construction to finishing, gilding and patination. Around 100 objects from the Collections' holdings are complemented by works from important private collections in Britain, France and Germany as well as by major loans from national and international museums. The exhibition illustrates the phenomenon of the frame in context with furniture, metalwork and textiles as well as graphics and engravings of ornamental motifs together with miniature paintings in precious settings. On exhibition through 12 January, 2010.