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

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• AKN Editor Visits The Traditional Wallraf-Richartz Museum In Cologne, Germany
• Albertina Museum shows The Collection of Eberhard W. Kornfeld
• Mystic Masque ~ Georges Rouault, 1871-1958 at The McMullen Museum of Art
• The Powerful Hand of George Bellows ~ Drawings from the Boston Public Library
• Nelson-Atkins Museum Announces Exhibition by Alfred Jacob Miller
• Projects Gallery to open 'Frida and Me'
• Renaissance Armor and Portraits on View Together at the National Gallery of Art
• Fenimore Art Museum presents a Retrospective ~ Earl Cunningham's "America"
• Museum Quality Photographs Featured at Swann Galleries' Auction
• ClampArt Shows the best of Stephen Wilkes
• From Dürer to Renoir: Prints Exhibition at Harn Museum
• Black & White Gallery to exhibit Artificial Realities ~ Erik Benson / Jan Dunning / Leigh Tarentino
• Maier Museum of Art to Sell Prized Paintings
• McCaffrey Fine Art shows First Ever Solo Exhibition of Kazuo Shiraga in the U.S.
• Encouraging American Genius: Mint Museum of Art
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

AKN Editor Visits The Traditional Wallraf-Richartz Museum In Cologne, Germany Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:29 PM PST The Wallraf-Richartz Museum is one of the great traditional art galleries in Germany. It is located in Cologne, Germany and houses a collection of fine art from the medieval period to the early twentieth century. Part of its collection was used for the establishment of Museum Ludwig in 1976. The museum lies at the heart of the Old Town, within view of the cathedral, right next to the historical city hall. Virtually every school of style and historical period of European painting is also represented here, from the Dutch masters to the late Impressionists of France. The Cologne merchant Johann Heinrich Richartz (1795-1861), who gave his name to the museum, supported the first public museum building which was opened in 1861. After the destruction of the building in the Second World War the museum was housed in 1957 in a new building designed by Rudolf Schwarz and Josef Bernard. After a few years in a modern museum building, which from1986 housed both the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum and the Museum Ludwig, at the beginning of 2001 the museum moved into a new building designed by Oswald Mathias Ungers. A "permanent loan" of numerous Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings by the Swiss collector Gerard Corboud was made a short time later. The new building in the quarter between the town hall and Gürzenich stands on an important site in the history of art: In the Middle Ages this was the artistic centre of the cathedral city with the workshops of the goldsmiths and painters of Cologne. Once the museum moved into their modern new building in 2001 the name was changed for marketing purposes to: "Wallraf, The Museum." Visitors approaching the museum from the cathedral come up against a quiet façade of classical proportions, built on the basis of the ancient canons on a massive basalt base, marked with a series of windows. The facade is then developed toward the top as a blind wall with only a few panoramic windows all in a row in one corner. The smooth, clear upper wall, corresponding to the exhibition halls, is the result of geometric partitioning of the artistic work of Ian Hamilton Finlay. Rectangular slabs of slate arranged in two parallel rows are repeated at intervals all over the tuff block of the complex, revealing to passers-by the names of the artists whose works are kept in that area. On the western side, the building is divided into three staggered towers echoing the church bell tower: they house offices and a multifunctional hall and are clearly separated from the museum block itself. The entrance immediately evident from outside, follows the path of the old medieval road where artist Stefan Lochner lived and on the underground floor. The organization of space inside is very simple: a large entrance hall offers access to the three exhibition floors, divided on the basis of strictly chronological criteria, from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century. The atrium is developed on the basis of the template formed by square units, multiplied and divided over and over again against the luminous ceiling and made up of pillars forming an orderly grid. The works in this internationally prominent collection are not contained in a single hall, but in rooms of different sizes, arrangements and colors. Each floor has its own layout and a color identifying a period in history: terracotta for the Middle Ages, Verona green for the Renaissance, Carrara grey for the nineteenth century. A famous collection of art from the 13th to the 19th centuries occupies a postmodern cube designed by Cologne's own Oswald Mathias Ungers. Works are presented chronologically, with the oldest on the 1st floor where standouts include brilliant examples from the Cologne School, known for its distinctive use of color. Upstairs are Dutch and Flemish artists like Rembrandt and Rubens, Italians such as Canaletto and Spaniards including Murillo. The 3rd floor focuses on the 19th century with evocative works by Caspar David Friedrich and Lovis Corinth. Thanks to a permanent loan from Swiss collector Gèrard Corboud, there's now also a respectable collection of impressionist paintings, including some by heavyweights Monet and Cézanne. A donation by Swiss collector Gèrard Corboud in 2001 greatly expanded the museum's stock of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works. The museum also have a 20th Century collection of American Pop Art Retrospective with works from artist like James Rosenquist. The museum carries out a permanent research and restoration program and on February 14, 2008, the Wallraf-Richartz Museum announced that "On the Banks of the Seine by Port Villez", attributed to Claude Monet, was a forgery. The discovery was made when the painting was examined by restorers prior to an upcoming Impressionism exhibition. X-ray and infrared testing revealed that a "colorless substance" had been applied to the canvas to make it appear older. The picture was acquired by the museum in 1954. The museum, which will keep the forgery, still has five authentic Monet paintings in its collection. Visit website:_ www.wallraf.museum/ An exhibition dedicated to one of the foremost artists of 19th century France, Alexandre Cabanel (1823 - 1889) will take place from February 4 to May 15 2011 at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum. The retrospective, "The Tradition of Beauty" will present more than 60 works (paintings, drawings, prints, photographs and sculptures). Star designer Christian Lacroix has been commissioned to design a special interior exclusively for the exhibition. Lacroix studied at the Academy of Arts in Montpellier the hometown of Cabanel and regards the painter as one of his all-time favorites. The organizers have assembled paintings, photographs, sculptures and cinema excerpts in order to reconstruct the vibrant 19th century in which Cabanel lived, a time devoted to the cult of the precious and the beautiful. The exhibition comprises almost 250 artworks, many of which have been loaned from some of the most prestigious museums in the world. Alongside the principal character of Alexandre Cabanel, the great masters of the classical tradition and their work are also highlighted. Originally from Montpellier, Cabanel was one of the most influential academic painters of the Second Empire and his fame was clinched when Napoleon III picked up his "Birth of Venus" at the 1863 Paris Salon. Still his most famous work, the painting is now housed at the Musée d'Orsay. A savvy businessman as well as a skillful painter, Cabanel sold the reproduction rights to the art dealer and publisher Adolphe Goupil. In addition to producing lucrative engravings based on "The Birth of Venus," Goupil had an in-house artist make two smaller copies of the work, which Cabanel later retouched and signed as part of his agreement with Goupil. Showered with awards — including a first-class medal at the 1855 Paris World's Fair and a medal of honor at the 1865 Paris Salon — Cabanel was esteemed not only for his portraits but also for his dramatic depictions of figures such as Phèdre, Cleopatra, and Othello. He was made a professor at Paris' Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1864, training hundreds of young artists during his career, and becoming a major force in 19th-century artistic life. Cabanel was an excellent painter and a view of his work shows us once again that "academic", a term referring to training, and especially "pompier" , an adjective of still debatable origin, are words which do not reflect a pictorial reality since the styles of the different artists included in this so-called movement are each so different. In fact, and this is at times suggested in the catalogue (notably in Stephen Bahn's essay), Cabanel might be associated to Romanticism. His subjects are often drawn from Shakespeare or themes treated in the first half of the 19th century by Romantic artists. The manner frequently recalls that of Chassériau, more than Delacroix. When one compares his angels in Paradise Lost to Chassériau's, or his figure of Veleda to some of this painter's heroines, there are undoubtedly a certain number of analogies which merit further study. Cabanel was fortunate in that he was quickly taken on by Alfred Bruyas whom he had met in Montpellier at a young age. While in Italy, he had painted three works for him which correspond by their subject and size, La Chiaruccia, a young Italian peasant girl carrying a basket of flowers, A Thinker, a Young Roman Monk and finally, Albaydé, his first painting with a title inspired by a Romantic literary work, Les Orientales by Victor Hugo. The last is a particularly remarkable canvas, notably for its subtle colors and sensuality, devoid of any vulgarity. Orestes, his first work sent from Rome in 1846, is a beautiful painting due to its atmosphere and a palette of brown shades. The awkwardness of the drawing of the right leg, much too short thus disrupting the balance of the composition, seems surprising however for an already experienced painter. The painting dispatched in 1847, on the other hand, The Fallen Angel, is an authentic masterpiece of late Romanticism, as is also, in a very different genre, the last work he sent, in 1850, and for which the Musée Fabre has a second version, The Death of Moses. The fact that he has been criticized for obviously borrowing from Raphael (for God the Father) and Michelangelo (for Moses) is absurd. Painters from all periods have always found inspiration in their illustrious predecessors. This is in no way a pastiche or a copy, but in fact a reinterpretation. Cabanel studied art carefully while in the Eternal City and profited from these contacts. Thus armed and in full possession of his talent, he was set to conquer Paris when his stay there ended. While Impressionism precipitated the collapse of the system of Fine Arts, the confrontation of his Birth of Venus and the Luncheon on the Grass by Manet is one of the most famous artistic controversy over the nude in the nineteenth century. Hundreds of young artists formed in his studio: Aristide Maillol, Bastien-Lepage, Eugene Carriere ... They have perpetuated his teachings in their own way and open new perspectives to the tradition of beauty. ANNOUNCEMENT: Our Editor has been invited to visit Museums and cultural sites in mainland China, Korea, Vietnam. Myanmar, Thailand (Siam), Singapore, Bali and mainland Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Nepal, Bhutan, Malaysia, Japan, Mongolia, Russia, Finland, Sweden, Norway and now Denmark. Because of the Editor's travel we will be posting many interesting articles from our archives, some of the BEST Articles and Art Images that appeared in your magazine during the past six plus (6+) years . . Enjoy.

Albertina Museum shows The Collection of Eberhard W. Kornfeld Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:27 PM PST   Vienna, Austria - The Albertina Museum presents Routes Through Modern Art - From The Collection of Eberhard W. Kornfeld, on view through Fabruary 8, 2009. In honour of the 85th birthday of Swiss art dealer Eberhard W. Kornfeld, some 200 works from his remarkable private art collection are on exhibit at the Albertina. The auction house owner and art publisher is a distinguished expert on prints and the author of catalogues raisonnés on Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Marc Chagall, Käthe Kollwitz and numerous other artists. Like the collection as a whole, the exhibition focuses on multifaceted selections of their works, as well as works by the collector's close friends Pablo Picasso, Sam Francis and Alberto Giacometti.

Mystic Masque ~ Georges Rouault, 1871-1958 at The McMullen Museum of Art Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:26 PM PST CHESTNUT HILL, MA.- The McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College hosts an exclusive exhibition, Mystic Masque: Semblance and Reality in Georges Rouault, 1871-1958, on view August 30 through December 7, 2008. It marks the fiftieth anniversary of the 1958 death of the French Fauvist and Expressionist painter and printmaker, and aims to recover the artist for a new generation by uncovering dissonant aspects of his work, which exhibition curator Stephen Schloesser, SJ, an associate professor in BC's History Department, argues have been obscured by "forced conventional consonances."

The Powerful Hand of George Bellows ~ Drawings from the Boston Public Library Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:25 PM PST SAN ANTONIO, TX.- The San Antonio Museum of Art is pleased to present The Powerful Hand of George Bellows: Drawings from the Boston Public Library in the Focus Gallery. Considered the most important collection of Bellows' graphic art in the United States, the exhibition sets a new standard for recording the history and significance of the artist's drawings. On exhibition 21 June through 31 August, 2008.

Nelson-Atkins Museum Announces Exhibition by Alfred Jacob Miller Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:23 PM PST KANSAS CITY, MO.- Vibrant and masterful mixed media works on paper by the artist Alfred Jacob Miller, depicting the American West inspired by a six-month expedition in 1837, will be on view in Romancing the West: Alfred Jacob Miller in the Bank of America Collection, an exhibition that opens this fall at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo., then travels to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and to the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2011.

Projects Gallery to open 'Frida and Me' Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:22 PM PST Philadelphia, PA - This February Projects Gallery proudly presents Frida and Me, Common Threads.  Inspired by the centennial exhibition of the world-renown Frida Kahlo at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (February 20 until May 18), four contemporary Latina artists join together to celebrate and express their common connections.  Doris Nogueira-Rogers, Michelle Angela Ortiz, Marilyn Rodriguez-Behrle, and Marta Sanchez present works that reflect on the intertwining relationships between various identities and cultures of Latin American female artists.

Renaissance Armor and Portraits on View Together at the National Gallery of Art Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:21 PM PST WASHINGTON, DC.- Armor from the renowned Spanish Royal Armory in Madrid will be paired for the first time with portraits by masters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Alonso Sánchez Coello, Anthony van Dyck, and Diego Velázquez depicting emperors and kings wearing the same armor in The Art of Power: Royal Armor and Portraits from Imperial Spain at the National Gallery of Art, Washington. This unprecedented exhibition, which explores how armor was used to cultivate the image of royal power in late15th- to 18th-century Spain, highlights some 75 armors and paintings, in addition to magnificent tapestries and works on paper that depict armor worn in the courtly, chivalric context of parades, pageants, and jousting tournaments and occasionally, battles. On view June 28 through November 1, 2009, the sole venue worldwide.

Fenimore Art Museum presents a Retrospective ~ Earl Cunningham's "America" Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:19 PM PST COOPERSTOWN, NY - The Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, New York, presents Earl Cunningham's America, an exhibition featuring the paintings of one of the premier folk artists of the 20th century, Earl Cunningham (1893-1977). The exhibition and the fully illustrated catalog trace the story of Cunningham's life and place his work in the context of the folk art revival that brought Edward Hicks, Grandma Moses, Horace Pippin and other folk masters to national attention. This national traveling exhibition, organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., will be on view through December 31, 2008.

Museum Quality Photographs Featured at Swann Galleries' Auction Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:17 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- On Thursday, May 20, Swann Galleries will conduct a two-part auction of Photographic Literature & Important Photographs that features many scarce and significant works—both individual photographic images and books. The auction will begin at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 20 with Photographic Literature, and will continue at 2:00 p.m. with Important Photographs. The photographs and books will be on public exhibition at Swann Galleries Saturday, May 15, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Monday, May 17 through Wednesday, May 19, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

ClampArt Shows the best of Stephen Wilkes Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:16 PM PST New York City - ClampArt is proud to present two exhibitions of work by artist, Stephen Wilkes; a selection of his new photographs from China in the main gallery and a suite of his renowned Ellis Island images in the project room.  Traveling throughout old and new China, Stephen Wilkes has expertly portrayed a nation amidst rapid and vast transformation.  Focusing on both rural and industrial settings—and the increasing number of areas where the two collide—the artist draws our attention to a changing way of life.  The large, spectacular imagery speaks of not only a new era in China, but also a shift in global economies already felt in the United States.  On exhibition through 12 May, 2007.

From Dürer to Renoir: Prints Exhibition at Harn Museum Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:15 PM PST GAINESVILLE, FL – On July 17, 2007, the Harn Museum of Art premieres an exhibition of more than 40 prints from 1500 to 1900 that explore themes such as politics, religion and travel. "From Dürer to Renoir: European Prints from the Harn Museum Collection" features etchings, lithographs and woodcuts demonstrating the various themes and uses for prints, including as illustrations for books and newspapers, and as limited editions for the art market. Featured are 25 artists from Belgium, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.

Black & White Gallery to exhibit Artificial Realities ~ Erik Benson / Jan Dunning / Leigh Tarentino Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:12 PM PST New York City - BLACK & WHITE GALLERY is proud to present "Artificial Realities" from February 20th through March 28th, 2009. This exhibition brings together three engaging contemporary artists whose works although executed in highly individual and very distinctive manners convey common interest in exploring the relationships between built and natural environments.  Opening Reception: Friday, February 20th, 6-8pm.

Maier Museum of Art to Sell Prized Paintings Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:09 PM PST   Lunchburg, VA - In 1920, students at what was then Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Va., raised $2,500 to buy George Bellows's "Men of the Docks," a stark 1912 painting of men waiting by the water's edge. It was the first purchase for what later became the college's Maier Museum of Art.

McCaffrey Fine Art shows First Ever Solo Exhibition of Kazuo Shiraga in the U.S. Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:07 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- McCaffrey Fine Art is showing at their new gallery at 23 East 67th Street the first ever solo exhibition of Kazuo Shiraga in the United States.He succeeded in creating paintings of great innovation with his unique style that involved sliding, spinning, and swirling his feet in mounds of oil paint on large sheets of paper laid on the floor. By the time of his 1957 "performance painting" on stage, Sanbaso–-Super Modern, Shiraga was amongst the most avant-garde artists working anywhere and his work was drawing international attention.  Kazuo Shiraga: Six Decades which continues through January 23, 2010.

Encouraging American Genius: Mint Museum of Art Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:03 PM PST Charlotte, NC – Exceptional quality, breadth, and depth characterize the Corcoran's outstanding collection of American paintings.  Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art features iconic works by Thomas Cole, Frederic Edwin Church, Albert Bierstadt, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, and Edward Hopper, among other notable painters.  Organized by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Encouraging American Genius tours nationally in 2006–2007 and will be on view at the Mint Museum of Art October 7 – December 31, 2006, following its presentation at the Corcoran.

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review" Posted: 14 Dec 2010 09:02 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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