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• The Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts ~ Superb Collection Of Canadian Artworks ~ Visited By 5 Million Annually
• The National Gallery of Canada features "The 1930s ~ The Making of "The New Man"
• Metropolitan Museum of Art hosts 'Venice and the Islamic World'
• Frist Center to host American Modernism from The Lane Collection
• High Museum of Art to Explore Salvador Dalí's Late Work
• After Legal Odyssey ~ Homecoming Show for Looted Antiquities
• National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires Opens Pop Art Exhibition
• Gemeentemuseum shows Modern & Contemporary Art ~ XXth Century
• CityCenter in Las Vegas Features An Unparalleled Fine Art Collection
• The Walters Art Museum to show " Romance of the Rose "
• Lyle Ashton Harris at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art
• Getty Museum Acquires a Bronze Vase by Jean-Désiré Ringel d'Illzach
• Rebecca Rothfus' " Towers " at Pentimenti Gallery
• Contemporary Greats at The Harn Museum of Art
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts ~ Superb Collection Of Canadian Artworks ~ Visited By 5 Million Annually Posted: 22 Feb 2011 09:03 PM PST The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, started life in 1860 as the Art Association of Montreal. At that time there was no school of art and no museum, nor even any venue at which exhibitions could be mounted. But Montreal was the most important city in British North America at the time, it was the cradle of the Canadian industrial revolution, the hub of waterway, maritime, and railway transport, and the seat of the country's great financial institutions. However, with few funds and a collection that relied on loans to mount even the most basic exhibition, it took a while to develop anything significant. In 1877 Montreal merchant Benaiah Gibb bequeathed the Art Association a plot of land, a sum of money to be used to build a museum, and a modest collection of European paintings and sculptures which formed the nub of the institution's permanent collection. Located in the business quarter of the city, the Art Gallery inaugurated in 1879 was the first building in Canada to be specifically designed to house a collection of works of art. Every year, the Art Association organized two major events in the gallery, an exhibition of works lent by its members and a Spring Exhibition, devoted to living Canadian artists. From the 1880s, the Art Association regularly purchased works exhibited at the Spring Exhibition, and also works produced by the best students at its school of art, thus building up the foundations of its collection of Canadian art. Various bequests to the museum in the 1990s and early 1900s allowed the collection to grow substantially and after considering extending the existing museum in 1909, the members of the Art Association's council decided instead to buy a site on Sherbrooke Street, in the heart of the very smart 'Square Mile' district (later known as the 'Golden Square Mile') where they built a museum consistent with their aspirations. In line with the wishes of the Art Association's council, the new museum, designed by the architects Edward and William S. Maxwell, was sober and imposing in appearance. It had façades in white marble, a high portico with colonnade, a monumental staircase, and discreet decoration in low relief. The building comprised several large exhibition-rooms with overhead lighting, a lecture-hall, a library, and the art-school studios. The new museum opened in December 1912 and in the following year it welcomed some 50,000 visitors. The institution eventually adopted a name that encompassed all the collections, and in 1948 it became the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. The 1991 Riopelle retrospective was the first exhibition to be held in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' new annex, a major expansion project on the south side of Sherbrooke Street, facing the original building. To design it, the museum called upon the renowned international architect Moshe Safdie, creator of the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa and the Musée de la civilisation in Quebec. In a colorful history, the museum was the subject of Canada's largest art-theft, when in 1972, fifty or so works by, amongst others, Rubens, Rembrandt, Corot, and Delacroix, were stolen and never recovered . From those first 50,000 visitors in 1912, numbers have now risen to well over 5,000,000 every year. Visit the museum's website at … www.mbam.qc.ca Since 1860, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts' collection has grown to almost 38,000 objects, including paintings, sculptures, works on paper, prints and drawings, photographs and decorative art objects, from Antiquity to the present day. Year after year, the Museum continues to acquire new works to enrich its collections of Ancient Cultures, European Art, Canadian Art, Inuit and Amerindian Art, Contemporary Art and Decorative Arts. The Museum has a rich collection of paintings by European masters, as well as sculptures and objects from the Middle Ages to the present day, from 14th-century religious scenes to grisaille paintings by Mantegna. Hans Memling's "Portrait of a Young Man" contrasts with the austerity of an El Greco portrait, while the collection of Baroque art features French, Italian, Dutch and Flemish works with paintings by Nicolas Poussin, Salvador Rosa, Rembrandt, Emmanuel de Witte ("Interior with a Woman Playing a Virginal") and Pieter Bruegel the Younger. Works from the 18th century include portraits by Largillière, Hogarth and Gainsborough, with Italian masters represented by Canaletto, Tiepolo and Pellegrini. Most of the works in the 19th-century collection were gifts or bequests from prominent Montreal families and reflect their preference for painters of the Barbizon School such as Corot and Daubigny. A magnificent Daumier ("Nymphs Pursued by Satyrs"), and the striking Tissot painting "October" are included with Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works by Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Monet and Cézanne. The collection of early 20th-century art counts major artists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Lyonel Feininger, Georges Rouault, Salvador Dalí and Otto Dix, not to mention a fine collection of small bronzes. The Museum's contemporary pieces range from the clean geometric abstraction of Guido Molinari and the Plasticiens to the magic realism of Alex Colville's "Church and Horse". The collection includes Canadian works by internationally acclaimed Montreal artist Betty Goodwin, as well as minimalist sculpture, installation pieces and other recent art forms. The Museum's collection of international contemporary art includes works by American artists such as Hans Hofmann, Sam Francis, Robert Rauschenberg, Alexander Calder, Louise Nevelson and Leon Golub. European artists are represented by Gerhard Richter, Jorg Immendorff, Rebecca Horn, Barry Flanagan and Stephan Balkenhol. A permanent exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is devoted to Napoleon and the arts of the First Empire, thanks to a major gift (the collection of works assembled by the late Ben Weider). The exhibition includes both relics (clothes worn by Napoleon) alongside art works showing the emperor throughout his life. Amongst the 4 temporary exhibitions currently on show at the Montreal Museum Of Fine Arts', "19th-Century French Photographs from the National Gallery of Canada" (until 20th March 2011) features approximately eighty works from 1840 to 1900 by some of the major practitioners of photography in France during that time; Édouard Baldus, Maxime du Camp, J. B. Greene, Gustave Le Gray and Nadar as well as several examples of Eugène Atget's work from the early twentieth-century. The exhibition will highlight the variety of techniques that were explored: daguerreotypes, salted paper prints, albumen silver prints and photogravures. All works are drawn from the National Gallery of Canada's extensive collection of nineteenth-century French photography. "The Earth is Blue Like an Orange" is the second presentation of the collection of contemporary art in the reorganized underground galleries of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and brings together some thirty works, most of them recently acquired, some on loan, notably from Loto-Quebec, informed with a sense of the marvellous. and soaring into the world of the imagination. These works, paintings, sculptures, photographs, installations and videos by Canadian, American and Japanese artists open vistas in which viewers can suddenly, if briefly, look differently at the world. The exhibition is on view until August 28, 2011. The museum is also showing the travelling exhibition "The Warrior Emperor and China's Terracotta Army" featuring some 300 artefacts, including the famous life-size terracotta soldiers of the first Qin Emperor's army to June 26, 2011. ANNOUNCEMENT: Our Editor has been invited to visit Museums and cultural sites worldwide, and they are featured on our Home Page (center). 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 . . and we are publishing current art news articles on the left hand side under RECENT NEWS .. Enjoy

The National Gallery of Canada features "The 1930s ~ The Making of "The New Man" Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:28 PM PST   Ottawa, Canada - The 1930s: The Making of "The New Man" exhibition, on view at the National Gallery of Canada. The exhibition, which has already attracted more than 50,000 visitors, has been well received by both critics and public. While the 1930s are known above all for the political upheavals that led to World War II, this decade merits being examined from another viewpoint. A North American exclusive, the exhibition The 1930s: The Making of "The New Man" brings together over 200 extraordinary works that explore the seminal link between art and biology.

Metropolitan Museum of Art hosts 'Venice and the Islamic World' Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:27 PM PST New York City - With nearly 200 works of art from more than 60 public and private collections around the world, Venice and the Islamic World, 828 – 1797 is the first major exhibition to explore one of the most important and distinctive facets of Venetian art history: the exchange of art objects and interchange of artistic ideas between the great Italian maritime city and her Islamic neighbors in the eastern Mediterranean.  Glass, textiles, carpets, arms and armor, ceramics, sculpture, metalwork, furniture, paintings, drawings, prints, printed books, book bindings, and manuscripts tell the fascinating story of the Islamic contribution to the arts of Venice during her heyday, from the medieval to the Baroque eras. 828, the year two Venetian merchants stole Saint Mark's hallowed body from Muslim-controlled Alexandria and brought it to their native city, and 1797, when the Venetian Republic fell to the French conqueror Napoleon Bonaparte, form the chronological parameters of the exhibition that is at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Frist Center to host American Modernism from The Lane Collection Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:26 PM PST NASHVILLE, TN.- The Frist Center for the Visual Arts closes the 2009 exhibition year and welcomes the new with Georgia O'Keeffe and Her Times: American Modernism from the Lane Collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston on view in the Ingram Gallery from Oct. 2, 2009 through January 31, 2010. Featuring 45 paintings and eight photographs by such American masters as Georgia O'Keeffe, Charles Sheeler, Arthur G. Dove, Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, and Ansel Adams, the Lane Collection is considered by many to be one of the greatest museum collections of American Modernism.

High Museum of Art to Explore Salvador Dalí's Late Work Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:24 PM PST ATLANTA, GA.- The first major exhibition to reevaluate the last half of Salvador Dalí's career will be presented exclusively at the High Museum of Art this August. Beginning in the late 1930s, Dalí went through a radical change in which he embraced Catholicism, developed the concept of nuclear mysticism and, in effect, reinvented himself as an artist. Comprising more than 40 paintings and a related group of drawings, prints and other Dalí ephemera, "Salvador Dalí: The Late Work" will also explore the artist's enduring fascination with science, optical effects and illusionism as well as his connections to such artists of the 1960s and 1970s as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Willem de Kooning. The High will be the sole venue for the exhibition, where it will be on view from August 7, 2010, through January 9, 2011.

After Legal Odyssey ~ Homecoming Show for Looted Antiquities Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:22 PM PST   ROME, ITALY - In Greek, the word nostos means homecoming; the plural is nostoi. Hence the title of an exhibition that Italy has organized to trumpet the return of dozens of ancient artifacts that until recently adorned showcases in American museums and private galleries. "Nostoi: Recovered Masterpieces" does not pull its punches in explaining how those objects made their way abroad: They were looted from Italian archaeological sites.

National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires Opens Pop Art Exhibition Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:21 PM PST BUENOS AIRES.- The State Society for Cultural Action Abroad in Spain (SEACEX) and the Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno (IVAM) inaugurated on 6 October 2009, where we visit until November 22, 2009 This co-production with the collaboration of the Embassy of Spain in Argentina and the National Museum of Fine Arts in Buenos Aires. The Pop Art exhibition at the IVAM Collection is curated by chief curator of the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg (USA) William Jeffett, and the Director of IVAM, Consuelo Ciscar. The exhibition brings together 59 works of different techniques and media including paintings, photography, works on paper and sculptures. These works have been selected from the extensive exhibition devoted to Pop Art held at the IVAM in 2007 and that following its exhibition in San Juan, Puerto Rico and Fortaleza (Brazil) are presented in the coming days in Buenos Aires.

Gemeentemuseum shows Modern & Contemporary Art ~ XXth Century Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:18 PM PST   THE HAGUE, NL - For the first time in its history, the Gemeentemuseum presents a vast display of modern and contemporary art filling two whole floors of its main building. The new exhibition, entitled XXth Century, uses both major historical events like the Wall Street Crash and the Russian revolution to suggest the background against which untiring artistic experimentation constantly transformed the face of Western art. Via outstanding works by artists like Mesdag, Toorop, Van Doesburg, Picasso, Constant, Mondrian, Lewitt, Merz, Lüpertz and Baselitz, it reveals a world still inward-looking at the start of the period but increasingly interested in new external developments as time went on.

CityCenter in Las Vegas Features An Unparalleled Fine Art Collection Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:17 PM PST LAS VEGAS, NV.- CityCenter presents the first major permanent collection of art in Las Vegas to be integrated into a public space, and one of the world's largest and most ambitious corporate art collections in existence today. The CityCenter Fine Art Collection features works by acclaimed artists, sculptors and visionaries including Maya Lin, Jenny Holzer, Nancy Rubins, Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, Frank Stella, Henry Moore and Richard Long, among others. The artwork has been paired with CityCenter's unique architecture to create a sensory journey that presents the works in a never-before-seen fashion.

The Walters Art Museum to show " Romance of the Rose " Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:16 PM PST   BALTMORE,MD - Romance is in the air this winter when Romance of the Rose: Visions of Love in Illuminated Medieval Manuscript s opens at the Walters Art Museum on January 24, 2009. The exhibition features lavishly illuminated copies of The Romance of the Rose, a book-length poem written in Old French wherein the narrator enters a dream world and falls in love with a Rose, an allegorical representation of a young woman. During his pursuit, he instructs readers on the art of courtly love with frequent bawdy comments and surprising detours into alchemy and astronomy. On exhibition from 24 January through 19 April, 2009.

Lyle Ashton Harris at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:15 PM PST   Scottsdale, AZ - Lyle Ashton Harris imbues his photographs with the complexities of human life—its triumphs, horrors, heroics and prejudices. A key figure who helped define cultural politics in the art world in the 1990s, Harris reminds us of the gravity of images and the power at stake in their production. As Anna Deavere Smith wrote, "Lyle's work questions the meaning of maleness and femaleness, not to mention of blackness and whiteness….Is it possible that, now, we can look at identity as a constellation: that each of us has inside of ourselves many fragments?"

Getty Museum Acquires a Bronze Vase by Jean-Désiré Ringel d'Illzach Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:13 PM PST LOS ANGELES, CA.- The J. Paul Getty Museum announced the acquisition of a nine-foot bronze vase by the French sculptor Jean-Désiré Ringel d'Illzach (1847-1916) that was exhibited at the 1889 Universal Exposition in Paris, the 1893 World Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, and the 1910 Universal Exposition in Brussels. The Ringel d'Illzach vase is currently on view in the Museum's West Pavilion (W102) at the Getty Center. The vase will remain on view until January, when the West Pavilion will be temporarily deinstalled to make way for the Getty's presentation of "Leonardo and the Art of Sculpture: Inspiration and Invention" (opening on March 23, 2010).

Rebecca Rothfus' " Towers " at Pentimenti Gallery Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:12 PM PST   Philadelphia, PA - Pentimenti Gallery opens From a Thousand Pages..., a group show on Friday November 2. There will be a reception for the artists on Friday evening from 6 – 8:30. The show will run through December 15, 2007. 3 artists will show paintings and works on paper in this exhibition. All of the exhibiting artists incorporate collage in their work. For some it is the subject, for others it plays an obvious role. For all, it is a defining element.

Contemporary Greats at The Harn Museum of Art Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:10 PM PST Gainesville, FL - - The Harn Museum of Art brings world-renowned contemporary masters to Gainesville when American Matrix: Contemporary Directions for the Harn Museum Collection, Part II opened May 23 in the Mary Ann Harn Cofrin Pavilion.  American Matrix Part II, the second installment in the Pavilion's inaugural exhibition, honors the extraordinary contributions of American artists.  It celebrates the growth of the Harn Museum collections dedicated to contemporary art.

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 22 Feb 2011 07:09 PM PST This is a new feature for the subscribers and visitors to Art Knowledge News (AKN), that will enable you to see "thumbnail descriptions" of the last ninety (90) articles and art images that we published. This will allow you to visit any article that you may have missed ; or re-visit any article or image of particular interest. Every day the article "thumbnail images" will change. For you to see the entire last ninety images just click : here . When opened that also will allow you to change the language from English to anyone of 54 other languages, by clicking your language choice on the upper left corner of our Home Page.  You can share any article we publish with the eleven (11) social websites we offer like Twitter, Flicker, Linkedin, Facebook, etc. by one click on the image shown at the end of each opened article.  Last, but not least, you can email or print any entire article by using an icon visible to the right side of an article's headline.

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