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• The Museum of European Cultures Reopens in Berlin
• Charles M. Russell's Finest Watercolors to be shown at the Amon Carter Museum
• French Realism Highlights Art Gallery of Hamilton Exhibition Season
• The Kunsthal Rotterdam Shows a major Aad de Haas Retrospective
• Elvis at 21 ~ Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
• Guggenheim Museum Shows an Exhibition of Pop Art from its Permanent Collection
• Major Canadian Exhibition of works by Vincent van Gogh at the National Gallery of Canada
• MoMA Features Pivotal Moments in Henri Matisse's Radical Invention
• Sotheby's to Sell Works from Neuberger Berman & Lehman Brothers Collections
• New Works on Paper & Recent Paintings by Philip Taaffe at Gagosian Gallery
• The Field Museum exhibits The Aztec World
• "Coming Together through the art of John Lennon" and Beatles Memorabilia
• Museum of Contemporary Art Screens Classic Italian Films that Changed the World of Cinema
• Sotheby's London Offers the Greatest Collection of 20th-Century British Art
• Graffiti Artist Banksy Set Auction Record at Sotheby's Auction
• "Yoko Ono ~ Between the Sky & My Head" Exhibition Featured at Kunsthalle Bielefeld
• "Spool Paintings" by Ruta Smilškalns
• Museum Artium shows the Exhibition 'Between You and Me' ~ by Antony Gormley
• Seattle City Council Approve Plans For a Dale Chihuly Museum
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Museum of European Cultures Reopens in Berlin Posted: 26 Dec 2011 10:57 PM PST BERLIN.- After two years of extensive renovation work, the Museum of European Cultures reopened this December and is again able to host exhibitions in Dahlem. The Museum of European Cultures was called into being in 1999 and was created by merging the 110 year-old Museum of European Ethnology (Museum für Volkskunde) with the European collection of the Ethnological Museum. It focuses on life-worlds in Europe and European cultural contacts from the 18th century until today. Comprising some 27,000 original objects, the museum houses one of the largest European collections of everyday culture and popular art. The topics covered by the collection are as diverse as the cultures of Europe themselves: ranging from weddings to commemorating the dead, the cult of Napoleon to Halloween, music on Sardinia, the historically pagan 'Perchten' processions in the Alps ... the list goes on and on. Highlights will include: • a permanent exhibition on the theme of 'Cultural Contacts - Life in Europe' • a temporary exhibition entitled 'Explorations in Europe - Visual Studies in the 19th Century' and • a study collection, with regularly rotating displays of groups of objects from the museum's collection. The museum unveiled its new permanent exhibition, 'Cultural Contacts - Life in Europe', which forms a cross-section of its diverse collections and will be spread over 700 square metres of exhibition space. It tackles debates on social movements and social boundaries, for no matter where you are in the world, 'mobile' social patterns among people lead to cultural encounters, ties and mingling. Europe is an excellent example of this. Despite all their differences, Europeans have many things in common, which have arisen from many factors, ranging from cultural contacts to globalization. Besides the spread of knowledge through various forms of media, such factors primarily include encounters through trade, travel and migration, as well as missionary campaigns, war and reconciliation. With its many ties to Judaism and Islam, Christianity has decisively shaped Europe ever since the Middle Ages. The Age of the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, industrialization and the consequences of both World Wars are the key factors that continue to shape Europe today. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that many people in Europe are critical of what they perceive as increasing 'Europeanization' and globalization. A common reaction to such skepticism is the desire to return to one's 'own' culture, with its comforting sense of familiarity. Quite often such uncertainties are capitalized on for political gain, with theories expounded that a specific country or region is congruent with a 'homogeneous culture'. But in no way does this match up to reality - cultures can overlap with each other, cross over several regions or be translocal, even though there may well be cultural characteristics typical of a place, a region, or even a nation. The temporary exhibition 'Explorations in Europe. Visual Studies in the 19th Century' will be on show until 8 April 2012. It picks up from the topic of cultural encounters featured in the permanent exhibition and highlights the journeys undertaken by several artists and scientists who wanted to become acquainted with and explore other cultures in the 19th century. Besides the collection of three-dimensional, original artifacts, the show also depicts these voyages of discovery through a selection of pictures, photographs and architectural models created to scale. One impressive example of such an expedition is highlighted here in the oil paintings and miniature buildings by the Berlin painter Wilhelm Kiesewetter, who in the mid-19th century spent 14 years traveling extensively through North and Eastern Europe. At this point in time photography was still in its infancy, but developed rapidly, with the result that scientific photography soon replaced detailed drawings and pictures, or at least augmented them. The study collection, now on show to the public for the first time, sees groups of objects on display in a comparative, cross-cultural presentation that has its roots in the collection's research-based tradition - a legacy of the Museum für Volkskunde, the institution that preceded it. For approximately half a year, starting on the 9 December 2011, the study collection will feature a display on the culture of childhood as seen through various kinds of toys, all taken from the museum's own rich fund of objects. The reopening will see the Dahlem cluster of museums reclaim their European collections, with the building designed by Bruno Paul once again becoming an important address that reunites European and non-European collections under one roof. Visit the Museum of European Cultures at : http://www.smb.museum/smb/sammlungen/details.php?objID=10&lang=en

Charles M. Russell's Finest Watercolors to be shown at the Amon Carter Museum Posted: 26 Dec 2011 09:11 PM PST FORT WORTH, TX.- On February 11, 2012, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art presents more than 100 of the finest and best-preserved watercolors by Charles M. Russell (1864–1926) in the special exhibition Romance Maker: The Watercolors of Charles M. Russell. Never before have so many of Russell's singular depictions of the Old West been brought together. The exhibition is on view through May 13, 2012; admission is free. Russell created approximately 3,000 works of art in his lifetime—paintings, watercolors, drawings and sculpture. He turned out roughly 1,100 watercolors; thus, fully one-third of Russell's artistic output was in the watercolor medium. His watercolors, as well as his mastery of the medium, have never been examined in depth. In Romance Maker, his works are studied in the larger context of watercolor in America from the Civil War to the late 1920's.

French Realism Highlights Art Gallery of Hamilton Exhibition Season Posted: 26 Dec 2011 08:48 PM PST HAMILTON, ON, CANADA -  The Art Gallery of Hamilton's Fall 2011 exhibition season offers a closing salute to its French Connection year with a stunning display of nineteenth-century French Realist paintings alongside three intriguing exhibitions drawn from private collections. On view through January 15, 2012, Masters of French Realism showcases works by various French painters associated with the central nineteenth-century artistic movement Realism, which achieved its most coherent expression in French painting. At the centre of French Realism was Gustave Courbet (1819–1877), represented in the exhibition by two landscape paintings. While Courbet's Realist representations of peasants and labourers were motivated by strong political views, other French Realists, such as Philippe Rousseau (1816-1887), found both popular and critical success with their naturalistically painted humble subjects.

The Kunsthal Rotterdam Shows a major Aad de Haas Retrospective Posted: 26 Dec 2011 08:47 PM PST Rotterdam, Netherlands.- The Kunsthal Rotterdam in close collaboration with SCHUNCK* and the De Haas family is proud to present "Faith, Love and Nostalgia: Aad de Haas" on view at the museum through March 4th 2012. The exhibition is a major retrospective of the oeuvre of painter and graphic artist Aad de Haas who was born and brought up in Rotterdam although he spent a great deal of his life in the Dutch province of South Limburg. His work can now be seen once again in Rotterdam, the city De Haas felt homesick for throughout his life. The main theme of the exhibition is based around several self-portraits that together provide a delightful cross-section of his richly varied oeuvre and the way in which it developed. His work is characterised by social themes such as religion, suffering, power, temptation and eroticism. In addition to one hundred and ten paintings, the exhibition also comprises graphics, drawings and various household goods that De Haas painted. From religion to eroticism, Aad de Haas considered art and life to be very closely related.

Elvis at 21 ~ Photographs by Alfred Wertheimer at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Posted: 26 Dec 2011 08:31 PM PST RICHMOND, VA.- Fifty-six dramatic 1956 photographs of Elvis Presley on the brink of international superstardom - including intimate images taken in Richmond - are being shown in Elvis at 21 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA).The black-and-white photographs taken by Alfred Wertheimer show a baby-faced Elvis just as his career began but before he was a recognizable rock-and-roll icon. Elvis at 21 is the first national traveling show of Wertheimer's photographs, which have been described as the stuff of music legend. Master printer David Adamson produced new pigment prints for the exhibition. Developed collaboratively by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES), Govinda Gallery, and the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, the exhibition is made possible through the support of HISTORY™.

Guggenheim Museum Shows an Exhibition of Pop Art from its Permanent Collection Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:45 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum presents a focused exhibitions selected from the museum's permanent collection, exploring Pop art. The explosion of Pop art in America in the early 1960s signaled the return to representational images following the Abstract Expressionists of the preceding decades, who favored large gestural canvases and expressive colors. Other artists at this time investigated the aesthetic potential of paintings and sculpture dominated by a single color or limited to a narrow spectrum of tones. Pop Objects and Icons from the Guggenheim Collection is on view on Annex Level 5 from through January 11, 2012, with an additional gallery on Annex Level 7 on view through February 8, 2012.

Major Canadian Exhibition of works by Vincent van Gogh at the National Gallery of Canada Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:44 PM PST OTTAWA.- The National Gallery of Canada's 2012 exceptional summer show, "Van Gogh: Up Close", will be the first major Canadian exhibition of works by the famous Dutch artist for more than 25 years. In what promises to be a truly unique exhibition, visitors to the National Gallery will have the opportunity to discover Vincent van Gogh's genius from an entirely new perspective by exploring the artist's approach to nature through his innovative use of the close-up view. Opening on May 25, 2012, the exhibition is organized in partnership with the Philadelphia Museum of Art and supported by Sun Life Financial, the exhibition will be honoured by the patronage of Her Majesty The Queen of the Netherlands and His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada. Van Gogh: Up Close will feature some 45 paintings from private and public collections around the world, offering the opportunity to see some of Van Gogh's most famous paintings alongside others that are rarely, if ever, shown. The exhibition will also explore parallel uses of the close-up view in Japanese prints, drawings from the 16th through the 19th century and 19th-century photographs to provide a context for Van Gogh's extraordinary compositions. "Vincent van Gogh's profound love of nature has often been taken for granted, but has rarely been studied. This project will give us fresh insight into Van Gogh's thinking and places him in a new and unexpected light," said NGC director Marc Mayer. "We are profoundly indebted to our lenders, both institutional and private. Without their generosity and commitment to this undertaking Van Gogh: Up Close would have been impossible." "As a long-standing supporter of the arts in Canada, we are proud to partner with the National Gallery as Presenting Sponsor of this outstanding exhibition," said Dean Connor, President of Sun Life Financial. "We are delighted that thousands of Canadians will now have the opportunity to view some of this brilliant artist's most original and radical work." Nature in focus Beginning with his work from Paris (1886/7) and continuing to the end of his career (1890), the exhibition will reveal how Van Gogh experimented with depth of field and focus by zooming in on a tuft of grass or a single budding iris in some paintings, while providing shifting views of a field or garden in others. For example, the show will display Iris (1889), from the National Gallery of Canada's collection, as well as paintings that depict another corner of the garden where Van Gogh painted Iris, but from a wider angle. Van Gogh: Up Close will demonstrate how these paintings became the most radical and innovative in the artist's body of work. Where it started In early 1886 Van Gogh arrived in Paris from the Netherlands and came face to face with a revolutionary new way of painting. For the first time he was exposed to the art of the Impressionists and Neo-Impressionists, which compelled him to revise his painting in both content and style. He quickly abandoned the somber hues of his earlier Dutch works in favour of a brighter palette and modernized brushstroke, beginning with a series of flower still lifes painted in a typical 19th-century Western style. But Van Gogh swiftly departed from this tradition and focused increasingly on the subject itself, eliminating the surrounding space. At the same time, Van Gogh developed a keen interest in Japanese woodblock prints, which he admired for their aesthetic qualities. Like the Impressionist painters who had discovered these prints earlier, Van Gogh became fascinated with Japanese art. This led him to experiment with unusual visual angles, decorative use of colour, cropping and flattening of his compositions. In 1888, in Arles, Vincent van Gogh wrote: If we study Japanese art, then we see a man, undoubtedly wise, who spends his time – on what? – studying the distance from the earth to the moon?  – no, he studies a single blade of grass. This blade of grass leads him to draw all the plants – then the seasons, the broad features of landscapes, finally animals, and then the human figure. He spends his life like that, and life is too short to do everything. Van Gogh, the man While often remembered for his battles with mental illness, Van Gogh was an ambitious, well-read and sophisticated thinker whose work was informed and deliberate. He was fluent in English, French and Dutch, and he had a great love for the written word. Through out his life he read a vast amount of literature that stretched from the bible to French Naturalist writings. Van Gogh also had a strong understanding of art history that extended from Old Master paintings right up to the emergence of photography. Visit The National Gallery of Canada at : http://www.gallery.ca/en/

MoMA Features Pivotal Moments in Henri Matisse's Radical Invention Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:31 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–1917, a large-scale investigation into a pivotal moment in the career of Henri Matisse (1869–1954), presents an important reassessment of the artist's work between 1913 and 1917, revealing this period to be one of the most significant chapters in Matisse's evolution as an artist. On view from July 18 through October 11, 2010, at The Museum of Modern Art, the exhibition examines paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints made by the artist between his return to Paris from Morocco in 1913 to his departure for Nice in 1917. Over these five years, he developed his most demanding, experimental, and enigmatic works: paintings that are abstracted, often purged of descriptive detail, geometrically composed, and dominated by blacks and grays. Comprising nearly 110 of the artist's works, Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–1917 is the first exhibition devoted to this period, thoroughly exploring Matisse's working processes and the revolutionary experimentation of what he called his "methods of modern construction." Organized by The Museum of Modern Art and The Art Institute of Chicago, the exhibition is curated by John Elderfield, Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, and Stephanie D'Alessandro, Gary C. and Frances Comer Curator of Modern Art at The Art Institute of Chicago. The exhibition is the result of a five-year collaboration between MoMA and The Art Institute of Chicago, combining new archival and art-historical research, fresh physical examinations of artworks, and innovative methods of scientific investigation to generate an unprecedented understanding of Matisse's work during these years. Technical examinations have revealed the evolution of objects from this period and illuminated previously unknown relationships among them. Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–1917 is organized chronologically, and begins with the immediately preceding years of 1907–1912. When Matisse was 22 years old, he began to study under Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, who sent his pupils to make copies of Old Master paintings in the Musée du Louvre. Matisse pursued a similar practice in his independent work, reusing compositions and a range of subjects and poses in an effort to pare down forms to what he called "a truer, more essential character." On view is Paul Cézanne's (French, 1839–1906) Three Bathers (1879–82), a work Matisse had acquired in 1899 which then became a touchstone for the artist as he worked on issues of color and construction in his own bathers compositions. Also on view are Matisse's Nude with a White Scarf (1909) and Bathers with a Turtle (1908), which inaugurated Matisse's new practice of extensively reworking his canvases. By 1909 Matisse had formed relationships with a number of important and supportive collectors, including Sergei Shchukin, who commissioned decorative panels by Matisse for the stairway of his Moscow home. For this project Matisse initially suggested imagery of dance and bathers, subjects that would allow him to synthesize his evolving interests in harmonious colors, arabesques, and flat, overall designs with the tradition of décorations, pictures of mythical subjects intended to evoke tranquility. The composition of bathers begun that year would be transformed over the following nine years to become Bathers by a River, on view in the final gallery of the exhibition. Also in 1909, Matisse continued to work on his largest sculpture to that point, the bas-relief Back, begun in 1908, which he would return to several times over the next 21 years. On each occasion Matisse began with a new plaster cast of the relief; but instead of destroying the previous states when he moved on to the next version, Matisse preserved them, resulting in Back (I), Back (II), Back (III), and Back (IV), each of which is on view within the exhibition. The last gallery of the exhibition also includes a digital presentation illustrating the known states of Bathers by a River and Back, exploring the techniques that provided the foundation for the artist's most radical inventions of this period. 1914, New Ambitions On January 1, 1914, Matisse and his wife, Amélie, moved into an apartment on the fourth floor of 19 quai Saint-Michel in Paris, directly beneath the studio he had occupied from 1894 to 1907. Matisse wanted a break from his studio in Issy in order to better focus on his artistic exploration. The new space energized him, and in just over six months he produced almost a dozen canvases. Although Matisse used a different visual approach in almost every painting, the works are united by palette and size, giving them the quality of a series. These remarkably bold works constitute Matisse's response to Cubism's new challenge to the representation of form and space. On view is Interior with Goldfish (1914), the first of four great canvases from this period that picture the artist's studio. The form and position of the fishbowl, furniture, grillwork, and planter within the work underwent multiple revisions, many of which are visible in the finished painting. He reprised this composition in Goldfish and Palette (1914–15) simplifying the vertically banded format of the earlier work into a single broad black band. Also on view is View of Notre Dame (1914) and Woman on a High Stool (1914), the latter of which shares its simplified geometric forms, heavy contouring, and austere palette with the work of Cézanne and the Cubist paintings of Matisse's own peers. In View of Notre Dame (1914), which depicts the Paris cathedral as seen from Matisse's studio window, he reworked features of the canvas before covering almost the entire surface in blue, leaving early compositional elements visible beneath the paint. The section concludes with Portrait of Yvonne Landsberg (1914): startling even to its maker, it is one of the most dramatic of Matisse's canvases from early 1914. After many campaigns of wiping, incising, and repainting, work on this canvas ended with the artist scraping the lines that radiate from the figure, echoing the curve of the subject's hairline and the arms of her green chair. This painting is joined by Branch of Lilacs (1914), and Still Life with Lemons (1914), a work that demonstrates Matisse's interest in the visual vocabulary of Cubism. August 1914–1915, Interruptions and Returns Matisse's daring achievements in 1914 came to a dramatic and abrupt end with the outbreak of World War I. The period between August 1914 and the end of 1915 was full of stops and starts, interruptions and returns, as the artist tried to negotiate the challenges of wartime and satisfy his own creative ambitions. In summer 1915 Matisse and his family moved from Paris back to Issy, which they had left the previous year when their home there was requisitioned by the French military. While reorganizing his studio, the artist was inspired by the rediscovery of his 1893 canvas La Desserte (After Jan Davidsz. de Heem), on view in this section, which he had copied from the 1640 original in the Musée du Louvre when he was a student. He remade the composition with Still Life after Jan Davidsz. de Heem's "La Desserte" (1915) "adding everything I've seen since," he said, and working with "the methods of modern construction." He was most likely referring to Cubism, which he used to toughen his visual approach, though continuing to privilege detail and brilliant color. In his new work he also returned to still lifes, portraits, and open windows or doors—familiar subjects that he could easily set down on canvas and then develop when time allowed. On view is Composition (1915), in which Matisse returned to his earlier mode of working, drawing the composition and then filling it in with color. In contrast, the surface of Head, White and Rose (1914–15), reveals the extent of the artist's revisions; the scraping and overlapping layers of paint as Matisse reworked a naturalistic image into an abstracted face. These canvases are joined by The Italian Woman (1916), which demonstrates how, even in his most daring and austere paintings of this period, Matisse continued to reuse and repeat themes, this work being the first of a series of over 50 paintings and drawings of the Italian model Laurette that Matisse would make over the next year. This section also focuses on Matisse's printmaking. In fall 1913, after a six-year hiatus, Matisse returned to printmaking; and when he relocated to his quai Saint-Michel studio, he purchased a hand etching press with which to make his own prints. Through early 1917 he produced eight lithographs, 66 drypoints and etchings, and at least 69 monotypes, the latter for the first and only time in his career. Their modest subjects reflected the world around him—everyday life in the studio, and especially his family and friends. The format, tools, and techniques of printmaking had a great impact on Matisse's practice, and in its potential for simplification of color and form the medium complemented the artist's formal goals. January–November 1916, The Challenge of Painting The year of 1916 was one of the worst of the war for France, punctuated by the terrible battles of Verdun and the Somme. That year, Matisse made progress on some of the most difficult but pivotal works of his career, notably The Moroccans (1916) and Bathers by a River (1909–17). In The Moroccans, he employed his demanding "methods of modern construction" on an ambitious scale. Its surface is thick with the trails of repeated reworking, products of the artist's attempt to reconsider and adjust his approach to familiar motifs. Matisse conceived this "souvenir of Morocco" in 1912, stretched a canvas for it in 1913, returned to his composition on an enlarged scale in 1915 and started this new canvas in 1916. Black is the principal agent in The Moroccans, at once simplifying, dividing, and joining the three zones of the canvas: the still life of melons and leaves on a tiled pavement, bottom left; the architecture with domed marabout, top left; and the figures, right, among them a seated Moroccan seen from the behind and, above the shadowed archway, figures in two windows. Matisse built up the surface with thin layers of pigment, with the color of the underlying layers modifying those on top. Other paintings of this time demonstrate that the artist had begun to loosen his approach in certain ways, with the works in this gallery suggesting that Matisse was slowly beginning to experiment with a new process while preserving the same formal concerns: paring down what he had previously painted not by scraping it away but by applying new paint to cover and reshape what lay below. In The Window (1916), light from the outside powerfully enters the room. Turquoise merges floors and walls, flattening deep space and solid forms into a single plane. The thick band of white paint signals the powerful, dematerializing nature of light. In Bowl of Oranges (1916), the still life fills the canvas's visual field, producing an effect of colossal size. Matisse reinforced this sense of monumentality through near-sculptural handling of paint, applying coarse, hatched strokes, layering new pigment over dry layers, reserving the heaviest paint for areas of reflected light, and employing a thinner application in the dense, dark shadows. This compressed composition echoes the dense, compacted areas of the surface of The Moroccans and recalls its vivid yellow melons and other circular motifs. 1916–1917, Changing Course In spring, summer, and fall 1916 Matisse returned yet again to Bathers by a River and his Back series, both of which were by then significantly altered from their 1913 states. The artist built upon his earlier processes of scraping and incising while adding new material, reducing and fragmenting form. He also painted The Piano Lesson (1916), the most ambitious of his interiors in this whole period, and, in early 1917, the starkest of this period's portraits, Portrait of Auguste Pellerin (II). While these works make no direct reference to the war in style or subject, they were physical and mental challenges for the artist, pushing his art to levels of extremity and difficulty that may be considered his responses to the conflict. The Piano Lesson depicts the living room of Matisse's home at Issy-les-Moulineaux, with his elder son, Pierre, at the piano. The painting also features, at bottom left, the artist's sculpture Decorative Figure (1908) and, at upper right, his painting Woman on a High Stool. The artist began with a naturalistic rendering which he then purged of detail as he worked, scraping down areas and rebuilding them in broad fields of color. His incising on the window frame and stippling on the left side produced a pitted quality that suggests the eroding effects of light or time, a theme reiterated by the presence of the metronome on the piano. The artist's major preoccupation in 1916–17 was the advancement of Bathers by a River. He transformed the almost monochrome canvas of 1913 into a composition of vertical bands with now greatly enlarged and abstracted figures confined within the rigid geometric structure. His changes closely relate to those that he made in transforming Back (II) into Back (III) at the same time in the Issy studio. In the painting, a central black band both divides and coheres its two halves, one filled with verdant foliage, the other void of incident. Matisse's final work on the canvas was to revise the colored band between the third and the fourth figure, and to lightly scrape into the paint at the left side to reveal the layers beneath. The incising of the foliage here relates to that of the contemporaneous landscapes Shaft of Sunlight, the Woods of Trivaux (1917) and Garden at Issy (1917). Matisse: Radical Invention, 1913–1917 concludes with a digital presentation illustrating the known states of Bathers by a River and Back, exploring the techniques that provided the foundation for the artist's most radical inventions of this period. Visit MoMA at : www.moma.org/

Sotheby's to Sell Works from Neuberger Berman & Lehman Brothers Collections Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:30 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby's announced that it has been appointed by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LBHI) and Alvarez & Marsal, LLC, the professional services firm overseeing LBHI's restructuring, to sell selected works from the distinguished Neuberger Berman and Lehman Brothers Corporate Art Collections*, subject to bankruptcy court approval. After Lehman's acquisition in 2003 of Neuberger Berman, Lehman expanded its commitment to collecting fine art and embraced the enlightened vision of Roy Neuberger, who made contemporary art an integral part of the workplace for decades.

New Works on Paper & Recent Paintings by Philip Taaffe at Gagosian Gallery Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:29 PM PST ATHENS.- Gagosian Gallery presents an exhibition of new works on paper and recent paintings by Philip Taaffe. Taaffe's elaborate images evolve out of wide-ranging meditationS on the interrelations between forms and images in art, nature, architecture, and archaeology filtered through a discerning and dynamic relation to the history of abstract painting both Occidental and Oriental. Drawing has always played an important role in his art. Early appropriationist works (after Bridget Riley, Myron Stout, Charles Shaw, and others) were largely hand-drawn. On view 18 May through 16 July, 2010.

The Field Museum exhibits The Aztec World Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:28 PM PST   Chicago, IL - Explore the grandeur and sophistication of one of history's greatest civilizations—the Aztec Empire—and find out how a community that began in the middle of a lake eventually became the capital of an empire. Hundreds of spectacular artifacts and works of art assembled together for the first time provide a look into the remarkable rise and fall of The Aztec World. On exhibition at the Field Museum through 19 April, 2009.

"Coming Together through the art of John Lennon" and Beatles Memorabilia Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:27 PM PST WAUKESHA, WI.- The new John Lennon original art and Beatles memorabilia exhibit is rapidly evolving at the Waukesha County Museum. Entitled "Coming Together through the art of John Lennon", the display will debut with a grand opening ceremony on August 15, 2008, followed by an opening to the general public on August 16, 2008 at 10:00 am.

Museum of Contemporary Art Screens Classic Italian Films that Changed the World of Cinema Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:26 PM PST CHICAGO, IL.- The Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), Chicago, screens classic Italian films that changed the world of cinema January 7-31, 2010. The selected films resonate with the political, familial, and design themes of the "Italics: Italian Art between Tradition and Revolution 1968-2008" exhibition. Italics, a ground-breaking exhibition devoted to contemporary Italian art and creativity, presents work that embraces classical roots yet breaks away from traditions. The 'Italics Film Series' presents rare 35mm prints of highly acclaimed films made between 1970 and 1981; significant years during Italy's social transformation.

Sotheby's London Offers the Greatest Collection of 20th-Century British Art Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:25 PM PST LONDON.- Sotheby's London announced the sale of the greatest collection of 20th-Century British Art ever to come to the market: The Evill/Frost Collection, a stand-alone three-part sale which launches with an Evening Sale on Wednesday 15th. This incomparable collection comprises outstanding works of the highest calibre by Modern British masters including the most important – and largest – group of paintings by Stanley Spencer ever to come to the market, in addition to works by Lucian Freud, Henry Moore, Dame Barbara Hepworth, Graham Sutherland, Edward Burra and Patrick Heron, amongst many others. The collection – which is estimated to fetch in excess of £12 million and comprises not only 20th-century British art but also furniture and porcelain. The paintings and sculptures, collected by Wilfrid Evill between 1925 and 1960 and then vigilantly maintained by Honor Frost, represent a window for the collectors of today to look into a past world, and the dispersal of this collection offers those same collectors opportunities that appear perhaps only once in a lifetime – to acquire the very best. The collection, aside from the Spencer's which have been loaned for Stanley Spencer retrospectives, has been largely hidden from view since the 1965 Wilfrid Evill Memorial exhibition at Brighton City Art Gallery . The assemblage demonstrates an unparalleled vision of the achievements and talent of some of the most accomplished British artists in the period just before and after World War II. Wilfrid Evill and Honor Frost A discreet but widely respected connoisseur, Wilfrid Evill was a collector with a remarkable understanding of contemporary art during the inter-war period and just after. His interest in and support for British artists at this time ensured the careers of some of our most celebrated artists. Evill's choices when he held a ten-year tenure as a buyer for the Contemporary Arts Society ensured the acquisition of masterpieces for museums and galleries throughout Britain. Wilfrid Evill was a London solicitor who represented several artists including Stanley Spencer, Lucian Freud and Graham Sutherland – along with a number of other notable names such as Evelyn Waugh – but he also represented trade unions. It was with Stanley Spencer that Evill struck up a particularly strong friendship and he eventually built up the most important private collection of Spencer's work. Evill's appreciation of and support for Spencer's work led him to acquire paintings directly after their exhibition, but he also pursued works that had been bought by other collectors, waiting a number of years until they appeared for sale on the market. Notable too are the large sums he paid for works he desired. In 1937 he paid £250 to secure Workmen in the House – a considerable amount to be spent on art at the time and significantly more money than he spent for on any other work in his collection for some years. For Lucian Freud's Boy on a Sofa, for example, he paid just £18 in 1944, the details of which were rigorously archived in his ledgers. No other private lender, beyond the artist himself, was more generous than he, as was seen for the 1955 Tate Gallery retrospective of Spencer. Similarly, bequests by Wilfrid Evill of important Spencer paintings to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge immediately established their holding of the artist's work as one of the most significant outside London. When Evill died in 1963 he bequeathed his estate, together with his extraordinary collection of paintings and works of art, to his long-time ward Honor Frost. An only child, Honor lost both her parents when she was small, after which Evill took over responsibility for her upbringing and education. Both keenly intelligent, they developed over the years an extremely close relationship. A fascinating woman in her own right, Honor shared Evill's love of the arts: having studied at the Central School of Art in London, and the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford, she went on to work as a designer for the Ballet Rambert and then became director of publications at the Tate Gallery, before becoming a marine archaeologist, for which she is renowned, pioneering its pursuit as a scientific discipline. Stanley Spencer, R.A. (1891-1959) The elements of narrative, personal experience and visionary presentation make Stanley Spencer one of the most important yet elusive British artists of the twentieth century, and he is represented in the Evill/Frost Collection by a group of works that offer an opportunity to rediscover and re-engage with the artist's life and vision. Executed in 1935, Workmen in the House (est. £1.5-2.5 million**) ranks among the most important works in Stanley Spencer's oeuvre. It has featured in virtually every publication on the artist, and indeed was chosen as the cover for the important 1955 Tate retrospective of the artist's work, as well as for Evill's memorial exhibition in 1965. It thus holds a position as one of the best known yet relatively little seen of Spencer's major paintings. One of his more accessible works of this period in Spencer's career, Workmen in the House refers to an incident at Chapel View, the house Spencer lived in whilst painting the Burghclere Chapel series. The everyday setting of a smoking kitchen range becomes a springboard for the artist which allows him to address a much wider range of topics, not least the element of intrusion and disturbance of the home environment that the visit of the workmen entails. As with much of Spencer's best work, one detailed memory leads to a wider remembrance, and in a letter of 1937 he outlined how this derived from the sense of excitement that he had experienced as a small boy when familiar rooms were redecorated and the furniture moved around. Not seen in public since the Wilfrid Evill Memorial Exhibition of 1965, Patrick Heron's Table with Fishes, of 1954, is estimated at £250,000-350,000. This is a superb example of Heron's early style, drawing on the example of Braque's magisterial Atelier interiors, but employing a palette and manner entirely his own. The coloring of this painting is particularly striking, the blue, red and pink creating the space of the room, whilst the dense inky blackness of the night-time world beyond the window is remarkable. The thick handling of the paint offers a wonderful counterpoint to the delicacy of Heron's line, which winds beautifully across the image, giving enough detail to inform without ever showing too much. The guttering flame of the candle is a master-stroke, animating the entire composition with just the simplest and most minimal gesture. Spencer's Sunflower and Dog Worship, an important work of 1937, ranks among the most extreme manifestations of Spencer's notion of universal harmony. In it, Spencer envisages a heaven-like state of all-embracing love as the two central figures, a husband and wife enclosed within their garden walls with a number of dogs (emblematic in Spencer's work of the kind of untrammeled freedom mankind is seeking), enjoy a mystical state of joy, embracing and being embraced by huge sunflowers. Spencer's more complex, narrative works such as this were less readily appreciated by the wider collecting community of the time, yet Evill belonged to a small band of collectors who saw in works such as these the "real Spencer". Sir Hugh Walpole was another collector who shared Evill's appreciation of Spencer's work and he was quick to recognize the importance of this painting, purchasing it within just two hours of its exhibition in December 1937. Disappointed at having missed it, Evill was able to buy it from Walpole some seven years later for £100. It is now estimated at £1,000,000-1,500,000. Further Highlights of the Sale Beyond the uniquely large group of works by Spencer, the sale offers paintings, drawings, watercolors and sculptures; a selection which moves through generational boundaries, and highlights different phases of Evill's collecting. Starting with the major names of the inter-war period, such as Henry Moore, Edward Burra, and Graham Sutherland, together with Spencer, William Roberts and Paul Nash, his involvement with the Contemporary Art Society gave him access to a younger generation of artists working in the post-war period. These included the young Lucian Freud, John Craxton and Patrick Heron. A stunning example of Lucian Freud's early work Boy on a Sofa (est. £400,000-600,000), drawn in 1944, demonstrates the artist's exceptional ability as a draughtsman. A composition of wonderful simplicity, the direct presentation of the sitter (Billy Lumley) and his engagement with us as a viewer is nevertheless somewhat disarming, and the setting – using the worn chaise that appears in the seminal The Painter's Room of the same year – and the clothing appear oddly out of keeping with the youth and innocence of the sitter. Not seen in public since the Wilfrid Evill Memorial Exhibition of 1965, Patrick Heron's Table with Fishes, of 1954, is estimated at £250,000-350,000. This is a superb example of Heron's early style, drawing on the example of Braque's magisterial Atelier interiors, but employing a palette and manner entirely his own. The coloring of this painting is particularly striking, the blue, red and pink creating the space of the room, whilst the dense inky blackness of the night-time world beyond the window is remarkable. The thick handling of the paint offers a wonderful counterpoint to the delicacy of Heron's line, which winds beautifully across the image, giving enough detail to inform without ever showing too much. The guttering flame of the candle is a master-stroke, animating the entire composition with just the simplest and most minimal gesture. Henry Moore's bronze, Rocking Chair No.3 was purchased by Evill in the 1950s for £150. One of an edition of 6 casts, this important piece now comes to auction with an estimate of £800,000-1,200,000. Moore's ability to combine realism and abstraction in his sculpture works here as a perfect vehicle for a sculpture that despite its scale has both a monumentality and a real tenderness. The theme of the mother and child was a central one for Moore throughout his career and this marvelously poised sculpture captivates by its understanding of the subject and his rendering of it into sculptural forms. A rigorously urban image of life on the streets, rife with style and shrewdly observed elements of character, Edward Burra's Zoot Suits, £250,000-350,000, depicts a group of men newly arrived in London from Jamaica on the SS Empire Windrush in 1948, and who are establishing themselves within the new urban culture that was burgeoning in London. The work recalls Burra's excitement on first visiting New York in 1933 when he was particularly drawn to the energy of the Harlem Renaissance and therefore draws a parallel between the artistic and social movements present in New York in the 1930s and those emerging in London in the 1940s. Furniture & Ceramics In addition to works of art, the sale will also include a selection of furniture and ceramics, a highlight of which is a Sèvres tea service contained within a kingwood parquetry carrying box (est. £10,000-15,000), formerly in the collection of the great actor, director and theatre manager David Garrick (1717-79). Garrick visited Paris three times and on his final visit in the autumn of 1764, returning from a European tour, he purchased this Sèvres service together with its fitted box. This illustrious owner and the high quality of the set by possibly the best 18th century porcelain manufactures would have delighted Evill and met the qualifying requirements of beauty and quality that were established for choosing objects for his collection.

Graffiti Artist Banksy Set Auction Record at Sotheby's Auction Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:24 PM PST LONDON, ENGLAND - An auction record was set for graffiti artist Banksy after a set of Kate Moss paintings were sold in London for £50,400.  The six silk-screen prints, feature the model painted in the style of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroe pictures and sold for five times its estimated value. A stencil of a green Mona Lisa with paint dripping from her eyes sold for £57,600 at the Sotheby's auction.

"Yoko Ono ~ Between the Sky & My Head" Exhibition Featured at Kunsthalle Bielefeld Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:23 PM PST BIELEFELD, GERMANY -Yoko Ono, born in 1933 in Tokyo, is one of the pioneers of Conceptual Art. In 1952, she became one of the first women in Japan to study philosophy. In 1953 she took composition courses at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, NY, and studied creative writing at Harvard. In the mid-1950s, Yoko Ono lived in New York City, where she knew John Cage, and many other artists and composers. In 1960, she rented a loft on Chambers Street, and together with La Monte Young, organized a series of concerts, attended not only by young musicians and artists, including Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns and Fluxus founder George Maciunas, but also by Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Peggy Guggenheim, and Isamu Noguchi.

"Spool Paintings" by Ruta Smilškalns Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:22 PM PST   SPRINGFIELD, MA – Ruta Smilškalns, an artist from Wayland, Mass., creates intriguing work form the most common object in her sewing basket, colorful spools of thread. Her "Spool Paintings" will be on view in the Community Gallery at the Springfield Museum of Fine Arts from September 18, 2007 through January 13, 2008.

Museum Artium shows the Exhibition 'Between You and Me' ~ by Antony Gormley Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:21 PM PST VITORIA-GASTEIZ, SPAIN - Artium, Basque Centre-Museum of Contemporary Art presents the exhibition 'Between You And Me', by Antony Gormley (North Gallery, until August 30), a selection of works by this English artist who is considered to be one of the great renovators of European sculpture. Over the last 25 years, Gormley has revitalised the human figure in sculpture based on his perception of the human body as a place of memory and transformation. The central theme of his work is the individual and his position in the universe and Gormley's creations are full of great symbolic intention, from the forcefulness of the figures in iron and lead to the lightness and fragility of those made with rods or clay.

Seattle City Council Approve Plans For a Dale Chihuly Museum Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:20 PM PST Seattle, WA - The Seattle City Council has unanimously approved the lease for a planned Dale Chihuly glass art museum and garden at the former Fun Forest amusement site at Seattle Center. Under the agreement, Center Art LLC.,  a subsidiary created by the Space Needle's owners, will develop, construct and operate an exhibition hall and art garden in the former Fun Forest site. Center Art will pay for the project and  will donate $1 million for the development of a children's play area north of the monorail, according to a City Council news release. The past 16 months of negotiations have shown that good public process can lead to good public policy," said Council member Sally Bagshaw, chair of the Parks and Seattle Center Committee, in a news release. "Seattle will have another world class attraction and Seattle Center will be further invigorated through art, music and a creative new family play space." Center Art plans to open the new exhibition hall to coincide with a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the 1962 World's Fair on April 21, 2012. After a public process began in March 2010,  nine proposals for development of the former Fun Forest site were reviewed. Three public meetings were held and in September 2010, an advisory panel made up of  Century 21 Committee members recommended Center Art LLC's proposal, according to a news release. The lease agreement with Center Art LLC specifies that the base rent would be $350,000 a year.  Seattle Center would also get a cut of the glass exhibit's net sales after the fifth year. The project also includes enhancing 39,000 square feet of "public walkways and landscaping around the exhibition site and a community partnership program with a focus on arts and education." Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly was introduced to glass while studying interior design at the University of Washington. After graduating in 1965, Chihuly enrolled in the first glass program in the country, at the University of Wisconsin. He continued his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he later established the glass program and taught for more than a decade. In 1968, after receiving a Fulbright Fellowship, he went to work at the Venini glass factory in Venice. There he observed the team approach to blowing glass, which is critical to the way he works today. In 1971, Chihuly cofounded Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State. With this international glass center, Chihuly has led the avant-garde in the development of glass as a fine art. His work is included in more than 200 hundred museum collections worldwide. He has been the recipient of many awards, including ten honorary doctorates and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. Chihuly has created more than a dozen well-known series of works, among them Cylinders and Baskets in the 1970s; Seaforms, Macchia, Venetians, and Persians in the 1980s; Niijima Floats and Chandeliers in the 1990s; and Fiori in the 2000s. He is also celebrated for large architectural installations. In 1986, he was honored with a solo exhibition, Dale Chihuly objets de verre, at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Palais du Louvre, in Paris. In 1995, he began Chihuly Over Venice, for which he created sculptures at glass factories in Finland, Ireland, and Mexico, then installed them over the canals and piazzas of Venice. In 1999, Chihuly mounted a challenging exhibition, Chihuly in the Light of Jerusalem; more than 1 million visitors attended the Tower of David Museum to view his installations. In 2001, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London curated the exhibition Chihuly at the V&A. Chihuly's lifelong affinity for glasshouses has grown into a series of exhibitions within botanical settings. His Garden Cycle began in 2001 at the Garfield Park Conservatory in Chicago. Chihuly exhibited at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, near London, in 2005. Other major exhibition venues include the de Young Museum in San Francisco, in 2008, and the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, in 2011. Visit the artist's website at ... www.chihuly.com

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 26 Dec 2011 06:19 PM PST This is a new feature for the subscribers and visitors to Art Knowledge News (AKN), that will enable you to see "thumbnail descriptions" of the last ninety (90) articles and art images that we published. This will allow you to visit any article that you may have missed ; or re-visit any article or image of particular interest. Every day the article "thumbnail images" will change. For you to see the entire last ninety images just click : here . When opened that also will allow you to change the language from English to anyone of 54 other languages, by clicking your language choice on the upper left corner of our Home Page.  You can share any article we publish with the eleven (11) social websites we offer like Twitter, Flicker, Linkedin, Facebook, etc. by one click on the image shown at the end of each opened article.  Last, but not least, you can email or print any entire article by using an icon visible to the right side of an article's headline.

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