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• Helen Frankenthaler, most esteemed abstract artist for six decades, Dies at 83
• The Michener Art Museum to Show Mavis Smith's Egg Tempera Paintings
• The Ari Kupsus Gallery to Show Gabor Nagy and Alexandra Nadas
• The Nelson-Atkins Museum attendance Jumps to 410,000 and Awarded Re-accreditation
• Lentos Art Museum celebrates Oskar Kokoschka ~ A Vagabond in Linz : Wild & Denigrated
• New Painting by Shiva Ahmadi at Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery
• Haughton International Fairs to Celebrate the 21st "International" in New York
• THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM SHOWS THE FRED EBB BEQUEST
• Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Celebrates Rosa Schapire's Life Work
• From Klimt to Krystufek at Museum der Moderne Rupertinum
• Phoenix Art Museum Hosts Major Retrospective of Ernest L. Blumenschein
• The William Benton Museum of Art Shows "The Art of Dr. Seuss"
• Sotheby's Returns to Chatsworth with a Selling Exhibition of Modern & Contemporary Sculpture
• German Expressionists Exhibit At The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)
• Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Exhibits the Collection of Entrepreneur Max Fischer
• Portland Museum Exhibition Examines the Relationship Between Word & Image in Prints
• WEATHERSPOON ART MUSEUM SHOWS Maud Gatewood
• Belvedere Museum celebrates Gustav Klimt's 100th Anniversary
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

Helen Frankenthaler, most esteemed abstract artist for six decades, Dies at 83 Posted: 28 Dec 2011 09:30 PM PST NEW YORK, N.Y.- With profound sadness, the family of Helen Frankenthaler announces the death of Ms. Frankenthaler on December 27, 2011, at age 83, following a lengthy illness. Frankenthaler, whose career spanned six decades, has long been recognized as one of the great American artists of the 20th century. Heir of the first-generation Abstract Expressionists, she brought together in her work—always with prodigious inventiveness and singular beauty—the idea of the canvas as both an arena of gesture and a formal field. She was eminent among the second generation of postwar abstract American painters and is widely credited for playing a pivotal role in the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Color Field painting. One of the foremost colorists of our time, she produced a body of work whose impact on contemporary art has been profound. Frankenthaler, who received the National Medal of Arts from President George W. Bush in 2002, is survived by her husband, four stepchildren and six nephews and nieces. Frankenthaler, daughter of New York State Supreme Court Justice Alfred Frankenthaler and his wife, Martha (Lowenstein) Frankenthaler, was born on December 12, 1928, and raised in New York City. She attended the Dalton School, where she received her earliest art instruction from Rufino Tamayo. In 1949, she graduated from Bennington College, where she was a student of Paul Feeley, following which she went on to study briefly with Hans Hofmann. Frankenthaler's professional exhibition career began in 1950, when Adolph Gottlieb selected her painting Beach (1950) for inclusion in the exhibition titled Fifteen Unknowns Selected by Artists of the Kootz Gallery. Her first solo exhibition was presented in 1951, at New York's Tibor de Nagy Gallery, and she was also included that year in the landmark exhibition 9th Street: Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture. Renowned art critic Clement Greenberg immediately recognized her originality. Her work went on to garner growing international attention. As early as 1959, she began to be a regular presence in major international exhibitions, and in 1960 she had her first museum retrospective, at The Jewish Museum, in New York City. In 1952, Frankenthaler created "Mountains and Sea", a seminal breakthrough painting of American abstraction. Pioneering the "stain" painting technique, she worked by pouring thinned paint directly onto raw, unprimed canvas laid on the studio floor, working from all sides to create floating fields of translucent color. Mountains and Sea was immediately influential for the artists who formed the Color Field school of painting, notable among them Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland. Thereafter, Frankenthaler remained a defining force in the development of American painting. This method of applying paint from above had been pioneered by Jackson Pollock a few years earlier, but the 23-year-old Frankenthaler had replaced the older artist's looping and whipping lines of intense, brooding colors with gentle pools of luxuriant pink, blue and green that had been subtly nudged here and there with a sponge. The painting was a revelation to the two visitors: as Noland subsequently wrote: "We were interested in Pollock but could gain no lead from him. He was too personal. Frankenthaler showed us a way to think about and use color." Throughout her long career, Frankenthaler experimented tirelessly, and, in addition to unique paintings on canvas and paper, she worked in a wide range of media, including ceramics, sculpture, tapestry, and especially printmaking. She was a significant voice in the mid-century "print renaissance" among American abstract painters, and in particular is renowned for her woodcuts. Her distinguished and prolific career has been the subject of numerous monographic museum exhibitions, including major retrospectives at The Jewish Museum in 1960; the Whitney Museum of American Art, and European tour, in 1969; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and tour, in 1985 (works on paper); The Museum of Modern Art, New York, and The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, and tour, in 1989; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and tour, in 1993 (prints); the Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, and the Naples Museum of Art, Florida, and tour, in 2002 (woodcuts); and the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, and the Royal Scottish Academy, in 2003 (works on paper). In addition to the many scholarly essays and articles on her work by renowned art historians, curators, and critics, Frankenthaler was the subject of three monographs: Frankenthaler, by Barbara Rose (1971); Frankenthaler, by John Elderfield (1989); and Frankenthaler: A Catalogue Raisonné, Prints 1961–1994, by Suzanne Boorsch and Pegram Harrison (1996). Important works by the artist may be found in major museums worldwide, among them the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Helen Frankenthaler was the recipient of twenty-six honorary doctorates and numerous honors and awards, among them: First Prize for Painting, Première Biennale de Paris (1959); the first woman elected Fellow at Calhoun College, Yale University (1968); Art and Humanities Award, Yale University (1976); New York City Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture (1986); Distinguished Artist Award for Lifetime Achievement, College Art Association (1994); Lifetime Achievement Award, 25th Anniversary, Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York (1999); National Medal of the Arts (2001); Skowhegan Medal for Painting (2003); Gold Medal of Honor, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (2005); and the inaugural Nelson A. Rockefeller Award in Art from Purchase College, State University of New York, School of Arts (2007). Most recently, she was appointed as an Honorary Academician of the Royal Academy of Arts in London (2011). From 1985 to 1992, she served on the National Council on the Arts of the National Endowment for the Arts. Her many memberships included the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1974–2011), where she served as Vice-Chancellor in 1991. It is strange that the sculptor John Chamberlain and the painter Helen Frankenthaler should have died within a week of each other — he on Dec. 21, and she on Tuesday — considering that they occupy such similar positions within the history of American art. Both emerged in the 1950s and provided crucial links between art styles, specifically helping to forge the transition from Abstract Expressionism to what lay beyond.

The Michener Art Museum to Show Mavis Smith's Egg Tempera Paintings Posted: 28 Dec 2011 09:29 PM PST Doylestown, Pennsylvania.- You're strolling down a busy sidewalk, absorbed in your thoughts. Suddenly someone walking the other way glances in your direction, you glance back, and your reverie is broken. Two souls meet, briefly, then the moment passes, and without breaking stride you each walk on. The paintings of Mavis Smith are about that moment, hinting at a narrative, yet remaining intentionally elusive. "Mavis Smith: Hidden Realities" will be on view at the James A. Michener Art Museum from January 14th through May 20th 2012 in the Fred Beans Gallery. Part storyteller, part portraitist and part stage director; the Bucks County resident and Trenton native creates images like single frames of a movie with no beginning and no end. Who are these mysterious figures, gazing at the world with enigmatic calm, surrounded by swimming pools, moody interiors and distant skies, portals to another world?

The Ari Kupsus Gallery to Show Gabor Nagy and Alexandra Nadas Posted: 28 Dec 2011 08:45 PM PST Budapest, Hungary.- The Ari Kupsus Gallery is pleased to present "Gabor Nagy and Alexandra Nadas" on view from January 4th through January 27th 2012. Gabor Nagy was born in 1949, Budapest. He started his art studies in Budapest, learning painting at the Secondary School of Visual Arts, then at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts. The Academy played an important and influential role in his life: he became an assistant professor, adjunct and finally the associate professor. He received the Munkacsy-prize in 1980 and has been the organizer of many prestigious exhibitions in Hungary and abroad as well. His profession in the art field has been very diverse: he founded the Art Camp of Csongrad, taught painting at the Hungarian Academy of Fine Arts, organized and attended the painting course in Mezotur.

The Nelson-Atkins Museum attendance Jumps to 410,000 and Awarded Re-accreditation Posted: 28 Dec 2011 07:51 PM PST KANSAS CITY, MO.- Attendance at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City jumped significantly in the 2011 calendar year, to 410,000 visitors. In 2010, 359,000 visitors came to the museum. The higher numbers are attributed to a renewed sense of energy surrounding the exhibitions and events offered by the Nelson-Atkins. Nearly 100,000 visitors came to see Monet's Water Lilies during the spring and summer. The exhibition was the first time all three sections of the famous triptych had been on view together in more than 30 years. Membership numbers are also on the rise, with a 5% increase from fiscal year 2010 to 2011, and a projected increase of 10% for fiscal year 2012.

Lentos Art Museum celebrates Oskar Kokoschka ~ A Vagabond in Linz : Wild & Denigrated Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:33 PM PST LINZ, AUSTRIA - In the exhibition Oskar Kokoschka - A Vagabond in Linz. Wild, denigrated, celebrated, the Lentos Art Museum documents the great Austrian painter, who was a non-conformist all his life, and focuses on his contacts with Linz. This extensive show presents 40 paintings, 49 watercolors and drawings, and about 27 prints as well as 36 photographies from 20 museums, galleries and private collections abroad and ten from Austria. On exhibition through 5 October, 2008. The Lentos Art Museum and the City Museum Nordico, which with five paintings, 15 drawings and over 100 lithographs are among the most important Kokoschka collections in Austria, show their rich Kokoschka holdings collected in an exhibition for the first time. Kokoschka's personal contacts and friendships with art historians, gallerists, high-ranking city officials and politicians in Linz were the basis of the ties between the artist from Pöchlarn and the capital of the federal province of Upper Austria. The first contact was established by Wolfgang Gurlitt (1888-1965), art dealer from Berlin and founder of the New Gallery of the City of Linz, which became the Lentos Art Museum. His successors Walter Kasten and Peter Baum and the mayor at that time, Ernst Koref, maintained a close artistic exchange with Kokoschka through purchases, commissioned works and numerous exhibitions. This bears witness to the important art historical pioneering role of the city of Linz as well as to the city's special engagement in the relationship to Kokoschka.  Kokoschka's first exhibition after World War II in Austria was shown at the New Gallery of the City of Linz in the summer of 1951. Several paintings from this sensational exhibition - Die Freunde (1917), Vater Hirsch (1909), Marcel von Nemes (1929) - and many print graphic works were added to the Museum Collection through purchase in 1953 and are still today among the international highlights of the Lentos Collection. This exhibition, which was highly successful and had a strong media presence, is reconstructed on the basis of the works shown then in rooms in the main square of Linz and supplemented with press reviews and photographic documents. A special focal point deals with the National-Socialist understanding of art that branded Kokoschka as a "degenerate" artist. More than 400 of his works were confiscated, nine of them denounced in the exhibition "Degenerate Art" in 1937 in Munich and eleven other stations (including Vienna and Salzburg). Some of the "degenerate" and confiscated works are shown for the first time in this sensitive context. All the provenances of the Kokoschka holdings of the Lentos are published in the accompanying catalogue, which also details the complex history of purchases and origins of the works acquired by Gurlitt at the Fischer auction in Lucerne. A special area is devoted to the photographs, which have been continuously collected and presented and developed in scholarly treatment since the opening of the New Gallery in 1946. The rich holdings of the Lentos Collection include incunabula of Austrian reportage photography, including works by Erich Lessing, Franz Hubmann and Peter Baum, which show Oskar Kokoschka in vitality and artistic passion. The exhibition covers a broad range: works are presented in the show from Kokoschka's controversial early work, from the lively years of traveling, and also paintings, watercolors, color pencil drawings and posters created in exile in England - a rich selection of exhibits with important paintings, illuminating photo documents and audio material presented for the first time, much of this with a unique relevance to Linz. The exhibition comprising 139 works provides insights into an oeuvre marked by strokes of fate, which underwent a fascinating thematic and stylistic development. The presentation of over sixty years of creative production (the earliest watercolor is from 1905, the last from 1967) enables a comparison of styles from the different phases of the artist's work.  As successor institution to the New Gallery of the City of Linz, the Lentos Art Museum, which opened in May 2003, is among the most important museums of modern art in Austria. 120 important art works from the collection of the Berlin art dealer Wolfgang Gurlitt (1888 - 1965), including paintings and graphic works by Klimt, Schiele, Kokoschka, Nolde, Corinth and Pechstein, formed the foundation for the collection of the New Gallery of the City of Linz after World War II. Building on these holdings, the city of Linz decided in 1953 to continue the New Gallery as a city museum with an active exhibition program and acquisition policies. As a museum today, Lentos presents and communicates significant themes and positions of contemporary art production in relation to 20th century art history. This is exemplified by displaying works and schools of modern art and their consequences, whereby the Lentos collection is highlighted in specific selections according to alternating focal points. Visit the Lentos Art Museum at : www.lentos.at/en/

New Painting by Shiva Ahmadi at Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller Gallery Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:32 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- An exhibition of new paintings and sculpture by Shiva Ahmadi will be on view from February 4 through 27 February, 2010, at  Leila Taghinia-Milani Heller (LTMH) Gallery. Ahmadi has created a dynamic visual language inspired by Persian miniatures and Islamic art and architecture that she uses to explore social and political issues affecting both the Middle East and the West. Shiva Ahmadi: Reinventing the Poetics of Myth examines issues of capitalism and the glory of oil in the Middle East and as well as the dependency of the West on oil. To call attention to these issues, Ahmadi often paints on panels shaped like oil barrels or actual oil barrels, which become transformed into objects of beauty.

Haughton International Fairs to Celebrate the 21st "International" in New York Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:31 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- The International Fine Art and Antique Dealers Show, Brian and Anna Haughton's flagship fair launched in 1989, will again bring together many of the top dealers in the world from October 16th-22nd at the Park Avenue Armory, Park Avenue at 67th Street, New York City. Optimism and confidence prevail among the sixty-five exhibitors this year despite global economic concerns. "Quality sells," comments Brian Haughton, who organizes the fair and exhibits as well. "The fair's enduring strength is validation that the market for quality is strong and resilient. We are delighted that the IFAADS remains in a leadership position as the top international platform in America today."

THE MORGAN LIBRARY & MUSEUM SHOWS THE FRED EBB BEQUEST Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:30 PM PST New York, NY - An extraordinary collection of forty-three early-twentieth-century German and Austrian drawings by some of the leaders of the German expressionist movement and the Vienna Secession will go on view at The Morgan Library & Museum from April 20 through September 2, 2007.  The exhibition, entitled From Berlin to Broadway: The Ebb Bequest of Modern German and Austrian Drawings.  Most of the drawings and watercolors date from 1910 to 1925, when expressionism dominated the avant-garde in Germany and Austria. The Ebb exhibit is drawn from a collection formed by Broadway lyricist Fred Ebb (1928–2004), and includes drawings by Max Beckmann (1884–1950), Egon Schiele (1890–1918), Otto Dix (1891– 1969), George Grosz (1893–1959), Oskar Kokoschka (1886– 1980), and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938). In total, twenty-two artists from the period are represented in the Ebb collection, which is shown in its entirety. The exhibition will therefore be an important occasion to reassess the vital role this movement played in the development of modern art at the beginning of the twentieth century.  The earliest work in the exhibition is a moving depiction of an old peasant woman by Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907).  Executed ca. 1899, it continues to reflect the realist tendencies of the second half of the nineteenth century.  Most of the drawings and watercolors date from 1910 to 1925, when expressionism dominated the avant-garde in Germany and Austria. At the other end of the chronological span of the exhibition, the most recent work is a drawing created by Max Beckmann in 1947, soon after his arrival in the United States, where he would spend the last three years of his life.  This unsettling vision of a New York nightclub epitomizes the mood of many works in the exhibition, in which the figures appear to be hovering between happiness and tragedy. Urban entertainment, a frequent theme of German expressionism, held special significance for Fred Ebb and is also represented in his collection by a watercolor of street musicians by Grosz as well as by a humorous drawing by Karl Hubbuch entitled The Film Star Spends Two Minutes in her Parents' Garden. A particular strength of the Ebb collection is its large number of portraits, including a powerful selfportrait of Erich Heckel (1883–1970) in his studio (1912) and another by Schiele (1910) in which the disembodied head of the artist, with typically tormented features, seems to be floating in a dramatic, spare composition.  The largest number of works by a single artist in the Ebb bequest is the eight drawings by Schiele, four of which are portraits.  They display the tense poses characteristic of the artist. Other important figural compositions in the exhibition include the social and political satires of Grosz and Dix, whose Pimp and Girl (1923) is a vivid example of the combination of violence and eroticism frequently found in his depictions of the seamier side of urban life. Expressionist artists often addressed similar subjects; their styles, however, could be widely divergent, ranging from the quickly sketched, angular forms of Kirchner's strolling figures to the delicate and decorative line of Gustav Klimt's (1862–1918) nudes.  Many drawing techniques— pencil, charcoal, ink—are represented in the exhibition, which includes a concentration of watercolors, a medium that, in the words of the author of a recent catalogue "often conveys, in the grand period of German expressionism, the purest rendering of the spiritual essence of the epoch."  "This superb collection formed by Fred Ebb and generously bequeathed to the Morgan underscores our commitment to acquiring and exhibiting twentieth-century art," said Charles E. Pierce, Jr., Director of The Morgan Library & Museum.   "We are grateful to Joan Fisher for helping us obtain this collection.  Most of the drawings in the collection have not been publicly exhibited for nearly thirty years and some have never been reproduced. As a group they offer new insights into a movement that had tremendous influence on modern art."  Ebb began assembling his collection in the late 1960s, following the success of Cabaret, the Broadway musical he cowrote with composer John Kander in 1966.  Kander and Ebb collaborated for forty years, producing many other musicals, notably Zorba (1968), Chicago (1975), Woman of the Year (1981), and Kiss of the Spider Woman (1992).  They also composed popular songs, such as "New York, New York," the title song of Martin Scorsese's 1977 film of the same name. Ebb's interest in German popular music of the twenties and thirties, reflected in Cabaret, which takes place in Berlin between the two world wars, led him to collect art of the period. From Berlin to Broadway: The Ebb Bequest of Modern German and Austrian Drawings is organized by Isabelle Dervaux, Curator of Modern and Contemporary Drawings, The Morgan Library & Museum. In conjunction with the exhibition, the Morgan will publish a fully illustrated catalogue that documents the entire bequest.  This publication, which will also include reminiscences of Fred Ebb by John Kander and an introduction by Isabelle Dervaux, will be an important contribution to the literature on German and Austrian expressionism. The Morgan Library & Museum A complex of buildings in the heart of New York City, The Morgan Library & Museum began as the private library of financier Pierpont Morgan, one of the preeminent collectors and cultural benefactors in the United States.  Today it is a museum, independent research library, musical venue, architectural landmark, and historic site.  Nearly a century after its founding, the Morgan maintains a unique position in the cultural life of New York City and is considered one of its greatest treasures.  With the 2006 reopening of its newly renovated campus, designed by renowned architect Renzo Piano, the Morgan reaffirmed its role as an important repository for the history, art, and literature of Western civilization from 4000 B.C. to the twenty-first century. General Information The Morgan Library & Museum - 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, - New York, NY 10016-3405 212.685.0008 - Visit : www.themorgan.org

Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Celebrates Rosa Schapire's Life Work Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:29 PM PST Hamburg, Germany - The Hamburg art historian Rosa Schapire was one of the earliest patrons of the Brücke school of painters. She made it her life's work to struggle tirelessly to promote the recognition of avant-garde artists, in particular the Expressionists, in Germany. She was a close friend of Karl Schmidt-Rottluff and Erich Heckel, but others such as Franz Radziwill and members of the Hamburg Secession like Karl Kluth and Willem Grimm also benefited from her enormous commitment to their cause. They showed their gratefulness in the form of numerous portraits or artistic postcards. On exhibition 28 August through 15 November, 2009.

From Klimt to Krystufek at Museum der Moderne Rupertinum Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:28 PM PST Salzburg, Austria - The Museum der Moderne Salzburg Collection is largely based on works of art from the Salzburg, Ausria - The Museum der Moderne Salzburg Collection is largely based on works of art from the 20th and 21st centuries, wherein two Leitmotifs constitute the Collection: images of people and landscapes. A defining aspect of the concept of the collection is Austrian art in its autonomous development, its special forms, its embedding in overall European development, and its relationship to international styles. The exhibition displays an outstanding selection from MdM Salzburg's collection of paintings, which consists of purchases, donations and important permanent loans. On exhibition 16 June until 30 September, 2007.

Phoenix Art Museum Hosts Major Retrospective of Ernest L. Blumenschein Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:27 PM PST Phoenix, AZ – Phoenix Art Museum celebrates the career of one of the most successful American artists of the early 20th century with the opening of In Contemporary Rhythm: The Art of Ernest L. Blumenschein. A founder of the famed Taos Society of Artists, Blumenschein rocketed into the spotlight with his modernist approach to capturing the American West.  This major retrospective, on view March 15 through June 14, 2009, covers every aspect of the artist's career and is the first Blumenschein exhibition in 30 years and the first in Arizona.

The William Benton Museum of Art Shows "The Art of Dr. Seuss" Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:26 PM PST Storrs, CT.- The William Benton Museum of Art is proud to present a retrospective of works by "America's favorite illustrator," a small but comprehensive exhibition of rare original works by Ted Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss. This engaging collection showcases some of his earliest sketches of the Cat in the Hat and Horton the Elephant, and shows how his iconic and beloved characters evolved during his lifetime. The exhibition includes published illustrations, political cartoons, sketches, drawings, sculpture, prints, and whimsical paintings created in the artist's later years, along with panels, labels and music from some of the most popular animated treatments of "The Grinch," "Horton Hears a Who," "Seussical," and "Gerald McBoing Boing." The Art of Dr. Seuss brings together loans from private collections and Animazing Gallery in New York. "The Art of Dr. Seuss" is on view at the museum. Theodor Seuss Geisel was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, to Theodor Robert and Henrietta (Seuss) Geisel. Geisel attended Springfield's Classical High School, and entered Dartmouth College in fall 1921 as a member of the Class of 1925. At Dartmouth, he joined the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity and the humor magazine Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern, eventually rising to the rank of editor-in-chief. While at Dartmouth, Geisel was caught drinking gin with nine friends in his room. As a result, Dean Craven Laycock insisted that he resign from all extracurricular activities, including the college humor magazine. To continue work on the Jack-O-Lantern without the administration's knowledge, Geisel began signing his work with the pen name "Seuss". His first work signed as "Dr. Seuss" appeared after he graduated, six months into his work for The Judge where his weekly feature Birdsies and Beasties appeared. Geisel was encouraged in his writing by professor of rhetoric W. Benfield Pressey, whom he described as his "big inspiration for writing" at Dartmouth. After Dartmouth, he entered Lincoln College, Oxford, intending to earn a Doctor of Philosophy in English literature. At Oxford, he met his future wife, Helen Palmer; he married her in 1927, and returned to the United States without earning a degree. He began submitting humorous articles and illustrations to Judge, Life, Vanity Fair, and Liberty. The July 16, 1927 issue of the The Saturday Evening Post published his first cartoon under the name Seuss. He became nationally famous from his advertisements for Flit, a common insecticide at the time. His slogan, "Quick, Henry, the Flit!" became a popular catchphrase. Geisel supported himself and his wife through the Great Depression by drawing advertising for General Electric, NBC, Standard Oil, and many other companies. In 1935, he wrote and drew a short-lived comic strip called Hejji. In 1937, while Geisel was returning from an ocean voyage to Europe, the rhythm of the ship's engines inspired the poem that became his first book, And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street! As World War II began, Geisel turned to political cartoons, drawing over 400 in two years as editorial cartoonist for the left-leaning New York City daily newspaper, PM. Geisel's political cartoons, later published in Dr. Seuss Goes to War, denounced Hitler and Mussolini and were highly critical of non-interventionists ("isolationists"). His cartoons were strongly supportive of President Roosevelt's handling of the war, combining the usual exhortations to ration and contribute to the war effort with frequent attacks on Congress (especially the Republican Party), parts of the press (such as the New York Daily News, Chicago Tribune and Washington Times-Herald), and others for criticism of Roosevelt, criticism of aid to the Soviet Union, investigation of suspected Communists, and other offenses that he depicted as leading to disunity and helping the Nazis, intentionally or inadvertently. In 1942, Geisel turned his energies to direct support of the U.S. war effort. First, he worked drawing posters for the Treasury Department and the War Production Board. Then, in 1943, he joined the Army and was commander of the Animation Dept of the First Motion Picture Unit of the United States Army Air Forces, where he wrote films that included Your Job in Germany, a 1945 propaganda film about peace in Europe after World War II, Our Job in Japan, and the Private Snafu series of adult army training films. While in the Army, he was awarded the Legion of Merit. Our Job in Japan became the basis for the commercially released film, Design for Death (1947), a study of Japanese culture that won the Academy Award for Documentary Feature. Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950), which was based on an original story by Seuss, won the Academy Award for Animated Short Film. After the war, Geisel and his wife moved to La Jolla, California. Returning to children's books, he wrote many works, including such favorites as If I Ran the Zoo, (1950), Horton Hears a Who! (1954), Horton Hatches the Egg (1954), If I Ran the Circus (1956),The Cat in the Hat (1957), How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1957) and Green Eggs and Ham (1960). Although he received numerous awards throughout his career, Geisel won neither the Caldecott Medal nor the Newbery Medal. Three of his titles from this period were, however, chosen as Caldecott runners-up (now referred to as Caldecott Honor books): McElligot's Pool (1937), Bartholomew and the Oobleck (1939), and If I Ran the Zoo (1950). Dr Seuss also wrote the musical and fantasy film The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, which was released in 1953. The movie was a critical and financial failure, and Geisel never attempted another feature film. During the 1950s he also published a number of illustrated short stories, mostly in RedBook Magazine. Some of these were later collected (in volumes such as The Sneetches and Other Stories or reworked into independent books (If I Ran the Zoo). A number have never been reprinted since their original appearances. In May 1954, Life magazine published a report on illiteracy among school children, which concluded that children were not learning to read because their books were boring. Accordingly, William Ellsworth Spaulding, the director of the education division at Houghton Mifflin who later became its Chairman, compiled a list of 348 words he felt were important for first-graders to recognize and asked Geisel to cut the list to 250 words and write a book using only those words.  Spaulding challenged Geisel to "bring back a book children can't put down." Nine months later, Geisel, using 236 of the words given to him, completed "The Cat in the Hat". It retained the drawing style, verse rhythms, and all the imaginative power of Geisel's earlier works, but because of its simplified vocabulary could be read by beginning readers. The Cat in the Hat and subsequent books written for young children achieved significant international success and they remain very popular today. Geisel went on to write many other children's books, both in his new simplified-vocabulary manner (sold as Beginner Books) and in his older, more elaborate style. The Beginner Books were not easy for Geisel and reportedly took him months to complete. Geisel died of throat cancer on September 24, 1991, following several years of poor health, in San Diego, California. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered. On December 1, 1995, four years after his death, UCSD's University Library Building was renamed Geisel Library in honor of Geisel and Audrey for the generous contributions they made to the library and their devotion to improving literacy. The William Benton Museum of Art has a proud past, a vibrant present and an exciting future. The Benton opened officially in 1967, but its roots go back to the early twentieth century and the days of the Connecticut Agricultural College, which evolved into the University of Connecticut. The building that housed the original Museum was constructed in 1920 and served as The Beanery,? the campus' main dining hall until the mid-1940s. The small, elegantly designed College Gothic structure, with its gracious sculpture garden, is among the core campus buildings that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Museum collection traces its beginnings to College President Charles Lewis Beach who bequeathed his impressive holdings of American art to the University on his death in 1933, along with a trust fund for future acquisitions. It was President Beach's intent that the collection "instill and cultivate an appreciation of works of art in the student body of the College and in such other persons as may avail themselves of said collection." This original collection included works by Childe Hassam, Henry Ward Ranger, Emil Carlson, Charles H. Davis, Ernest Lawson and Guy Wiggins. Since then, the Benton has added works by such renowned artists as Mary Cassatt, Thomas Hart Benton, Fairfield Porter, George Bellows, Rembrandt Peale, Georges Braque, Gustav Klimt, Edward Burne-Jones, Maurice Prendergast and Kiki Smith. In 1965, Dr. Walter Landauer, an internationally recognized geneticist and professor, gave the University 107 Käthe Kollwitz prints and drawings. In 1966, during the Presidency of Dr. Homer Babbidge, these treasures and the Beach Collection, which by then included works by such well-known artists as Mary Cassatt, George Bellows and others, found a home at the Museum later named in honor of prominent Connecticut Senator and University trustee William Benton. His family generously donated to the Museum some of his sizable collection of Reginald Marsh paintings and works by other important 20th century American artists. Today the Museum has an exceptionally fine collection of more than 5,500 works including paintings, drawings, watercolors, prints, photographs, and sculptures. The future is bright for the Benton with the new addition including the Evelyn Simon Gilman Gallery, new and refurbished galleries and lecture areas, an elegant Members Lounge, Café Muse, and The Store. This expansion serves to enhance the Benton's reputation as a museum of significance, a vital part of the University environment, and an important art venue in the Northeast. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.thebenton.org

Sotheby's Returns to Chatsworth with a Selling Exhibition of Modern & Contemporary Sculpture Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:25 PM PST DERBYSHIRE, UK - This year, between Tuesday, 9 September and Sunday, 2 November 2008, Sotheby's will return to Chatsworth to stage Beyond Limits – a landmark selling exhibition of monumental modern and contemporary sculpture, now in its third year. Following the extraordinary success of last year's exhibition - at which almost all of the 22 pieces found a buyer, and which attracted more than 30,000 extra visitors to the garden at Chatsworth - Beyond Limits will once again showcase a broad range of work by many of today's leading international sculptors, as well as major pieces by homegrown UK talents.

German Expressionists Exhibit At The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:24 PM PST New York.-  A new exhibition running at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), N.Y from March 27 to July 11, 2011 features approximately 250 works by some thirty artists drawn from MoMA's outstanding holdings of German Expressionist prints, enhanced by selected drawings, paintings, and sculptures from the collection. "German Expressionism: The Graphic Impulse" includes works from E. L. Kirchner to Max Beckmann, artists associated with German Expressionism in the early decades of the twentieth century who took up printmaking with a collective dedication and fervor virtually unparalleled in the history of art. The woodcut, with its coarse gouges and jagged lines, is known as the preeminent Expressionist medium, but the Expressionists also revolutionized the mediums of etching and lithography to alternately vibrant and stark effect. The graphic impulse is traced from the formation of the Brücke artists group in 1905, through the war years of the 1910s, and extending into the 1920s, when individual artists continued to produce compelling work even as the movement was winding down.

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Exhibits the Collection of Entrepreneur Max Fischer Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:23 PM PST STUTTGART.- To this day, the private collection of the entrepreneur Max Fischer (1886-1975) of Stuttgart is little known although it unites classical modern art of the highest quality. The generosity of the heirs in leaving the collection to the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart in the form of a permanent loan is now enabling the museum to pay tribute to this comprehensive collection for the first time, and to present a selection of 180 works - from a total of more than 250 - to the public. The significance of this collection will also become evident in the juxtaposition with individual works from the Staatsgalerie's holdings. On view through 20, June , 2010. The Collector Max Fischer Dr. Max Fischer was a collector who played a prominent role in the multifaceted Stuttgart art scene of the post-war period. In amassing his collection, Fischer relied on his own perusal of scholarly texts on art, with whose aid he acquired the ability to assess quality confidently. Apart from the societal circumstances which prevailed after World War II, this was a decisive criterion for the building of a collection concentrating primarily on Expressionism. The result was a superb collection with a clear profile, which - despite its private nature - increasingly received loan requests from all over the world. An Overview of the Holdings In addition to Expressionist works on paper by Max Beckmann, Heinrich Campendonk, Otto Dix, Conrad Felixmüller and Max Pechstein, the early acquisitions in the area of modern art also included paintings by the Stuttgart artist Oskar Schlemmer. Fischer purchased further important works in the 1920s primarily in the Kunsthaus Schaller in Stuttgart. Among them are the touching composition Two Girls (ca. 1923) by Carl Hofer, an interior by Oskar Kokoschka (ca. 1925) for which Fischer paid the considerable sum of 3,000 Reichsmarks, as well as the dream-world watercolour Two Female Nudes (1912) by Franz Marc. Fischer acquired the majority of his collection in the Stuttgart Kunstkabinett which - founded in 1946 by Roman Norbert Ketterer - was to become the most important auction house for art of the twentieth century. Outstanding Expressionist works at what were still very moderate prices convinced the collector to concentrate increasingly on Edvard Munch, Emil Nolde and Max Beckmann. Among the artists of the Bauhaus, he had a special predilection for Oskar Schlemmer and the Cubist-inspired Lyonel Feininger. The Brücke - Blauer Reiter - Bauhaus core of the inventory was enhanced by sculptures of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Wilhelm Lehmbruck, and a substantial number of works by friends of the collector: the Stuttgart artists Alfred Lörcher and Ida Kerkovius as well as their teacher Adolf Hölzel. The Heavyweight in the Collection: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner With nearly sixty prints, forty-eight drawings and a group of six paintings executed between 1908 and 1924, the artist most prominently featured in Fischer's holdings is Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Max Fischer succeeded in assembling a Kirchner ensemble covering the entire development of the artist who died in Davos in 1938 and including all of the media in which the latter worked. A group of brush-and-ink and pastel drawings - some very large in scale - executed between 1912 and 1915 and depicting women in the studio or on the street constitute a highlight of Fischer's Kirchner collection. During a bidding battle at the Stuttgart Kunstkabinett, Max Fischer relinquished the prominent landscape painting Sailboats near Grünau of 1914, today in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, to then-director and confidant Erwin Petermann, and purchased the colour lithograph of the motif instead. Apart from Kirchner, Max Fischer also collected works by Brücke artist Erich Heckel. It is an indication of his expertise that he concentrated on the essential works of printmaking by this artist of the years 1907 to 1919. The latter include his early experiments with the painterly qualities of lithography (Cabaret Singer of 1907/1906?) and representative woodcuts which were groundbreaking for his further work (Two Women Resting; Fränzi Reclining, both of 1909, and the famous White Horses of 1912). Mavericks: Emil Nolde, Edvard Munch and Max Beckmann Among the forerunners to the Brücke artists, the simplified, planar art of the Norwegian Edvard Munch is particularly prominent. Fischer recognized its significance for the Expressionists and invested substantial funds in purchasing important early prints. One of the collection's very special works is the frottage Head by Head (1905), existing in only a few copies, for which Munch rubbed coloured chalk into the printing block. This work is juxtaposed in the show with a colour woodcut of the motif belonging to the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart's Department of Prints, Drawings and Photographs (Head by Head [Man and Woman Kissing]), 1905). Max Fischer sharpened the profile of his collection by selling works. In order to purchase an important painting of the 1940s by Max Beckmann (Akademie I, 1944) at a very high price, he disposed of works by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec as well as his entire Dürer and Altdorfer holdings. With a dynamic that virtually bursts the confines of the format, the studio painting executed by Beckmann in exile in Amsterdam is yet another highlight of the Fischer collection. The dialogue between the painter lost in gloomy contemplation and the oversize, heroically vibrant model mirrors the artist's depressive mood. Bauhaus: Oskar Schlemmer, Paul Klee Already before World War II, Fischer purchased two landscape paintings by Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer (In Front of the Cloister, 1914; Stuttgart Landscape, 1912). The Heroic Scene of 1935, in which the artist - prohibited from exhibiting his works in public - reacted to the political circumstances, was the last Schlemmer work to be acquired by Fischer. The confusion of the densely crowded figures contrasts strongly with earlier large-scale major works (Five Men in a Room, 1928; Scene at a Balustrade, 1931; Boy in Blue and White, 1931). In the works of Paul Klee, the collection strategy so carefully pursued by Max Fischer over decades is particularly convincing. In 1925, only one year after the Staatsgalerie had acquired the painting Rhythm of the Windows (1920), Fischer purchased the watercolour The Parlour Maid's Suicide (1923). The last Klee acquisition to enter the collection - in 1955 - was A Park and the Trespasser (1939), executed long after the artist's Bauhaus period. Alongside the filigree earlier compositions, this late work using elements of collage and paste paint has an almost frightening quality about it. As is also the case in the late works of Schlemmer and Beckmann, premonitions of death and the threats posed by the events of the time are starkly present here. The collector Max Fischer, who sought the "insight of truth" in his preoccupation with art, was moved precisely by intense works such as this one, and it was they who lend his collection its distinctive profile. Visit the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart at : http://www.staatsgalerie.de/

Portland Museum Exhibition Examines the Relationship Between Word & Image in Prints Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:22 PM PST PORTLAND, OR.- Featuring works by artists from Albrecht Dürer to Ed Ruscha, this exhibition examines the relationship between word and image in prints over the course of more than 500 years, from the Renaissance to today. Comprised of nearly 70 works, the exhibition is assembled from the permanent collection of the Portland Art Museum and local private collections. The exhibition focuses on four groups of works, beginning with late 15th- and 16th-century prints, which tend to convey clear messages with a close correlation of text and image. This section includes a page from the renowned Nuremberg Chronicle, the most lavishly illustrated book of the late 15th century.

WEATHERSPOON ART MUSEUM SHOWS Maud Gatewood Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:21 PM PST Greensboro, NC - The Weatherspoon Art Museum at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro presents the exhibition, Maud Gatewood.  Maud Gatewood (American, 1934-2004) was a powerful force in the North Carolina art community.  As a painter, teacher, activist and staunch individualist, she delighted viewers, inspired students, supported organizations, and served as a role model for how to participate in a world of images and ideas.  Maud was also a good friend of the Weatherspoon Art Museum and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG). She left trust funds for a guest artist lecture series and bequeathed a portion of her estate and 18 works of art by her and other American artists to the museum.  She also made a generous gift to the University toward the new art building on campus, which is named in her honor.  On exhibition until 17 June, 2007.

Belvedere Museum celebrates Gustav Klimt's 100th Anniversary Posted: 28 Dec 2011 06:20 PM PST   VIENNA, AUSTRIA - Following disagreement within the Secession and the spectacular leaving of the "Klimt-Group", the inscription "To the time its art, to art its freedom" was removed from its building's doors in 1907 and made the motto of the Kunstschau 1908, an exhibition that is still regarded as trailblazing for the development of Modern Art in Vienna. The Kunstschau 1908 was conceived by numerous artists around Gustav Klimt and coincided with the celebrations held in Vienna on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the reign of Emperor Francis Joseph I. The artists were not invited to participate in the imperial procession but were offered the use of construction land as an exhibition venue which had been designated for the location of the Konzerthaus in the city centre and was temporarily lying fallow. In only a few months, Josef Hoffmann, Gustav Klimt, Otto Prutscher, Koloman Moser, and others built and furnished wooden structures accommodating 54 exhibition rooms, gardens, interior courtyards, a small cemetery, a café, and a summer stage - as well as a two-storey, completely furnished country house. Painting, sculpture, the graphic and decorative arts, and stage design were combined to create a Gesamtkunstwerk – a synthesis of the arts – on exhibition premises covering 6,500 square metres. Indoor and outdoor floor space, walls, and showcases were filled and covered with works by 176 artists, including Carl Moll, Franz Kupka, Max Oppenheimer and numerous students from the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts, like Oskar Kokoschka. The art historian Werner Hofmann described the concurrence of the procession – the Kaiserjubiläumshuldigungsfestzug – and the Kunstschau as a "synopsis of the monarchy's official art and intellectual histories". Whereas the procession staged the Habsburg monarchy's long tradition and national diversity, Gustav Klimt, in his opening speech, declared the Kunstschau to be "a display of the performance of artistic volition in Austria", compiled by artists who "were not affiliated with a collective, an association, or a league", but who had "gathered in an informal fashion solely for the purpose of this exhibition". On the occasion of its 100th anniversary, the show is going to be revived in the Belvedere's exhibition: as from October, a large part of the original exhibits – which will partly be presented in replicas of the former exhibition rooms – as well as documentary photographs, models, original plans, and films, will serve to illustrate the details and dimensions of this extraordinary event. An architectural model measuring four square metres will demonstrate the location of the Kunstschau premises within their urban context. An authentic spatial experience is going to be conveyed by three halls to be reconstructed in their entirety: "Room 50", with works by leading members of the Wiener Werkstätte, "Room 10", with reproduced posters pasted directly onto the walls as they were then, and "Room 22" which was designed by Koloman Moser using major works by Gustav Klimt, the highlights of the show – both then and today. Among other works, Gustav Klimt presented Fritza Riedler (1906), Adele Bloch-Bauer I (1907), The Three Ages of Woman (1905), Danaë (1907/08) and his most famous work The Kiss (1908), which was acquired for the collection now housed in the Belvedere while the exhibition was still running. Notwithstanding the euphoric press reviews, the public failed to show up at the „large-scale show" - Berta Zuckerkandl wrote in the Neues Wiener Journal: "Hevesi, Richard Muther, and I frequently met at the small café at the Kunstschau, deliberating how to counter the […] campaign against the Kunstschau. 'It's futile,' Hevesi said, 'but in twenty years it will turn out that we were right.'" Further exhibits come from the former rooms devoted to "Theatre Art": Richard Teschner's monumental glass mosaics and puppets, stage designs by Alfred Roller, and a two-metre-high costume design by Emil Orlik for Shakespeare's Winter's Tale, staged by Max Reinhardt. For "Room 27", Otto Prutscher had designed an impressive wall ensemble of marble, ornamental brass sheet, and a glazed display cabinet; its individual parts have been assembled from all over Europe and now appear reunited. From the original room "Art for Children", Magda Mautner von Markhof's doll's house has been made available as a loan; the "General Painting" section is represented by works of Adolf Hölzel, Wilhelm List, Leopold Blauensteiner, Maximilian Kurzweil, Broncia Koller-Pinell, Elena Luksch-Makowska and others. Research conducted for this exhibition has led to a new scholarly approach to numerous artists who appeared in the Kunstschau and have largely fallen into oblivion today, such as the sculptor Franz Metzner, to whose work the Kunstschau devoted two rooms. The exhibition is on from 1 October 2008 to 18 January 2009 at the Lower Belvedere and will be accompanied by a publication. The Belvedere is a baroque palace complex built by Prince Eugene of Savoy in the 3rd district of Vienna, south-east of the city centre. It houses the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere museum.  Visit : www.belvedere.at/

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 28 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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