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• The Hermitage Amsterdam Features Flemish Masterpieces From the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg
• P•P•O•W Gallery to Show Thomas Woodruff's The Four Temperament Variations
• The Museum of Contemporary Art Shows Weegee's Hollwood Photographs
• The Fleming Collection Celebrates Artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham of Scotland
• SOHO Galleries Presented Ross Wilsmore's Realist Paintings
• Blain|Di Donna's Inaugural Exhibition Displayed the Works of René Magritte
• Vanity Fashion Photography from the F.C. Gundlach Collection at Kunsthalle in Vienna
• Uffizi Gallery shows Exhibition of Sculptures in 'Volti svelati' ('Faces Revealed')
• Masterpiece Landscapes at the Palais Rohan in Strasbourg
• Avant-Garde Artist Christo Coetzee on Show at the University of Pretoria
• Art Gallery of Ontario to present Landmark Early Works by Alexander Calder
• The National Portrait Gallery to exhibit " Inventing Marcel Duchamp "
• Sims Reed Gallery Acquires Sir Eduardo Paolozzi's Estate of Print Editions
• Our Editor Is Escorted Though The Museum Ludwig By Prof. Kasper König, Director
• Getty Museum Announces Exhibition of Still Life Photography
• Impressions and Expressions – Vietnamese Contemporary Painting
• Picasso, Magritte, Monet, Dali and Other Impressionist & Modern Artists In Sotheby's Major May Sale
• Deutsche Guggenheim to show 'Picturing America ~ Photorealism'
• Felix Nussbaum Murdered Jewish Artist on exhibit in Daniel Libeskind Designed Museum
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

The Hermitage Amsterdam Features Flemish Masterpieces From the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg Posted: 02 Jan 2012 10:30 PM PST Amsterdam.- On view through to March 16th 2012, the Hermitage Amsterdam will present a stunning selection from the Flemish art collection of the St. Petersburg Hermitage. With 75 paintings and about 20 drawings, "Rubens, Van Dyck & Jordaens: Flemish paintings from the Hermitage" offers a definitive survey that includes many masterpieces by the three giants of the Antwerp School, Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, and Jacob Jordaens, supplemented by the work of well-known contemporaries. One of the highlights will be Rubens's famous 'Descent from the Cross'. This will be the first exhibition of this superb collection in the Netherlands. Many of the paintings to be shown were acquired by Catherine the Great in the eighteenth century; Catherine purchased first-rate collections, such as those of Crozat and Brühl, in their entirety. Originally, many of the paintings were on display in churches, convents, and monasteries in Antwerp and other European cities. The exhibition will offer a close look at Flemish art and the history and the history of the Flemish art collection at the St. Petersburg Hermitage. Antwerp, strategically located at the mouth of the Scheldt estuary, prospered and flourished as never before in the early sixteenth century, becoming a powerful commercial metropolis and the most important centre of the arts north of the Alps. It was the leading place in the Netherlands for ambitious young artists to keep abreast of the latest trends in art. Quinten Massijs was the city's first famous artist and together with Joos van Cleve he forged a bridge between the late mediaeval tradition and the sixteenth-century Renaissance. Besides Massijs and Van Cleve, two other history painters determined the appearance of Antwerp's art in the first half of the sixteenth century: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Jan van Hemessen. Joachim Patinir and Herri met de Bles, both from Dinant, were the first painters in Antwerp to specialise in depicting landscapes. The Amsterdam artist Pieter Aertsen secured a section of the market in Antwerp with his peasant scenes, which preceded those of Pieter Bruegel. After he left Antwerp, his younger cousin and pupil Joachim Beuckelaer continued along the path he had mapped out. Hans Vredeman de Vries experimented with different perspectival constructions and was the first to specialise in 'perspectives', as paintings of architecture were known at the time. In the mid-sixteenth century, Frans Floris was the most successful history painter in Antwerp. He was the first to introduce mythological themes into Antwerp painting. Willem Key and Anthonis Mor were among the first artists in Antwerp to specialise exclusively in portraiture. When Antwerp fell to the Spanish armies in 1585, the mass exodus from Antwerp included countless entrepreneurs, highly educated professionals and skilled craftsmen, and many young painters also went north to escape religious persecution. However, the city's painting retained its vibrancy and high quality, thanks to brilliant painters such as Rubens and Van Dyck who remained. Peter Paul Rubens return to Antwerp in 1608, signalled a clear turning point for Antwerp's artistic life. Under his forceful influence, many artists started painting in a majestic, monumental and highly dynamic style. Rubens excelled in every category: besides biblical, mythological, and historical scenes, his repertoire also included portraits, landscapes, animal pieces, and still lifes. To execute the numerous commissions entrusted to him, Rubens ran a large and busy studio, the organisational structure of which was based on similar ventures in Italy, where the large-scale commissions were produced with the aid of numerous assistants. That Rubens also inspired many painters in Holland is clear from the large number of migrants from the Northern Netherlands who worked in his studio for varying periods of time: Pieter Soutman from Haarlem, Justus van Egmont from Leiden, and Abraham van Diepenbeeck and Theodoor van Thulden. Attracted by the impressive work of fellow painters such as Frans Snijders, who maintained close contact with Rubens and who made paintings unlike those produced in Holland, the Leiden-born Jan Davidsz de Heem also went to Antwerp. On his return to Holland, he became one of the founders of the 'sumptuous' still life. Rubens's studio was supreme in Antwerp, and his artistic and social dominance in the Southern Netherlands greatly surpassed that of his peer, Rembrandt, in Holland and the mark of his influence was everywhere. The work of the gifted still life and animal painter Frans Snijders clearly reflects this primacy. Snijders was greatly influenced by Rubens, with whom he frequently collaborated from 1609 onwards, and his reputation was such that he could rely on the assistance of other influential Antwerp history painters, although he executed some of the figures in his paintings himself. Like Snijders, Adriaen van Utrecht also depicted monumental still lifes, game larders, and market pieces, but his work is less accomplished. Rubens's most famous – and undoubtedly the most talented – of his pupils was Anthonie van Dyck, a child prodigy who produced his first self-portrait around fifteen years of age. In Antwerp he became Rubens's first serious rival, although for some time he continued to operate in the latter's sphere of influence. Later, once he was working independently in Genoa, and from 1632 onwards as the court painter to King Charles I in London, Van Dyck revealed himself to be a masterful portraitist with unerring empathic powers, whose brilliant technique was on a par with that of Frans Hals. Portrait painters who drew inspiration from Van Dyck include Peter Franchoys and Michiel Sweerts. In the mid-seventeenth century, Gonzales Coques became the portrait painter of the Antwerp élite.In spite of the dominance of the giants Rubens and Van Dyck, seventeenth-century painting in Antwerp nonetheless displays a surprisingly varied picture. A great many history painters unmistakably took their lead from the two great masters. This applies in particular to Jacob Jordaens, Antwerp's most popular painter after the deaths of Rubens and Van Dyck, but also to Abraham Janssens, Gerard Seghers, Cornelis Schut, and Erasmus II Quellinus. But the work produced in Antwerp was not limited to grand history paintings. Other masters – most notably, perhaps, Hendrick van Balen – painted Italianate scenes in far smaller formats. Jan I Brueghel, the youngest son of Pieter Bruegel, focused primarily on small landscapes and also pioneered the flower still life, a genre that he greatly refined at an early stage. In the tradition of Flemish painting, Brueghel worked with minute brushstrokes in opaque paint, in which he depicted highly detailed images of his favourite subjects. A greater contrast with the work of his friend Rubens is hard to imagine. Still lifes with floral wreaths around a stone relief painted in trompe l'oeil technique were the trademark of Daniël Seghers, a Jesuit painter who learned his craft from Jan I Brueghel. Brueghel's contemporary Clara Peeters introduced the pure fish still life into Antwerp. Antwerp's most productive fish painter was Alexander Adriaenssen, although most of his still lifes depict fish amid other objects, such as a hunting catch. Joannes (Jan) Fijt focused primarily on still lifes with a hunting catch in varying size and format, with a masterful feeling for the rendering of textures. Another still life specialist was Cornelis Mahu, whose preference was for soberly arranged ontbijtjes (breakfast pieces) and banketjes (banquet pieces) in the style of Haarlem artists such as Pieter Claesz and Willem Claesz Heda. Adriaen Brouwer originally painted his smoky pub scenes with uncivilized, drinking and fighting peasants in Haarlem, but took his Holland-bred genre style to Antwerp, where he settled in 1631. David II Teniers initially followed his example, but his view of peasant life later changed, and his scenes became less grim and sometimes even took on a tender ambience. From that moment onwards, Teniers also allocated more space to the landscape. In Antwerp, Theodoor Rombouts, Adam de Coster and Gerard Seghers were the primary exponents of the Caravaggist genre scene that enjoyed a brief wave of popularity throughout Europe, and especially in Utrecht. The earliest work of Jan Cossiers, given its themes, combined with its remarkable illumination and strong chiaroscuro effects, was also related to that of the Caravaggists. Jacob Jordaens also produced genre paintings. Particularly popular were his scenes of the Feast of the Epiphany ('The king drinks') and of 'As the old sing, so pipe the young', a proverb he took from the work of Jacob Cats, and which Jan Steen would interpret in his own way over two decades. In some genres, like marine and architectural painting, Antwerp never attained the heights achieved in the Northern Netherlands. The oblique 'momentary' glimpses of church interiors that Gerard Houckgeest and Emanuel de Witte had introduced to Delft around 1650, with immense feeling for light and space, appear to have escaped the attention of Antwerp's architecture painters. Other genres did not develop in Antwerp at all. For instance, local painting had nothing equivalent to the simple interiors with one or more figures, such as those painted in Delft by Pieter de Hooch and Johannes Vermeer. But there was also a genre that was exclusive to Antwerp: art cabinet or kunstkamer scenes. In one of the most beautiful examples, the owner displays the pièce de resistance of his collection – Quinten Massijs's Madonna and Child – to prominent guests, while Rubens explains the work of his illustrious predecessor. Among those present we recognize Anthonie van Dyck and Frans Snijders: Antwerp knew its star painters. At the same time, this work gives a superb picture of the wealth and extraordinary versatility of the Antwerp school of painting in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The Hermitage Amsterdam is a satelitte of the Hermitage Museum of Saint Petersburg located on the Amstel river in Amsterdam. The museum has been displaying small exhibitions in a side building next to the Amstelhof since 24 February 2004. The full museum was opened on 19 June 2009. It is currently the largest satellite of the Hermitage Museum, with the total area of the building numbering 12,846 square metres (138,270 sq ft), and the exhibition area 2,172 square metres (23,380 sq ft) (two big exhibition halls and exhibition rooms). The building was used as a retirement home. Due to modernizations in healthcare, the building was no longer sufficient and was transformed into the museum when the last inhabitants left in 2007. On 20 June 2009, the whole museum was opened by Dutch Queen Beatrix and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The museum was opened to the public the following day. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.hermitage.nl

P•P•O•W Gallery to Show Thomas Woodruff's The Four Temperament Variations Posted: 02 Jan 2012 10:29 PM PST New York City.- P•P•O•W Gallery is "tickled sanguine" to be presenting the latest opus from Thomas Woodruff , master alchemist/imagist painter of the arcane, perverse, and popular. The new group of paintings is called The Four Temperament Variations, and it is his eighth solo exhibition with the gallery since 1989. Woodruff is a conceptual artist who uses traditional figurative painting techniques, archetypal formats and hybrid visual vocabularies from history to create contemporary "structures of contemplation" in the form of elaborative paintings in series. Woodruff's content has explored issues of health, emotion, and personal discovery. "Thomas Woodruff: The Four Temperament Variations" will be on view at the gallery from January 5th through February 4th 2012, there will be an opening reception on Thursday, January 5th between 6 and 8pm. In Thomas Woodruff's latest body of work, he tackles the four temperaments as well as the painterly figurative genres of portrait, still-life, landscape, and wild life in his variations. Using his highly cross-referenced pictorial mash-up of visual motifs, this series is a celebration of the emotional value of color, the storytelling potential of character and costuming, and a contemporary revision of the enigmatic mysteries of our collective past. He creates his own beasts, including the "quadicorn" and the "batterfly" and weaves threads from animae, steampunk, and body modification culture into these grand, fabulist images as well as his encyclopedic knowledge of art and fashion history. The Four Temperaments Variations were inspired by the theories of Hippocrates, around 400 BC, when wise men believed everyone's body and mind were controlled by four different, mysterious, colored fluids: Sanguinic, Choleric, Melancholic, and Phlegmatic. Imbalance or overabundance of the fluids would cause disease or pre-described behaviors. Treatment would usually involve bleeding, cupping, herbs, and emetics. During the Renaissance this theory was revised to include ideas of temperature. In the Age of Reason, aspects of physiognomy were brought into play, and today many pop psychologists and dating services still find the personality traits useful tools for getting along and finding love. For many artists, the idea of the humors continues to inspire as models for our emotions and behavior, as a model of the stages of man, and a tidy way of organizing what is ill or well within us all. The Mannerist Jacopo Pontormo used the temperaments to frame his portraits of the evangelists gospel authors. The eccentric engraver Lavater used the characteristics in his visual lexicons on appearances. The Danish composer Carl Nielsen created his Symphony #2 as a meditation on the theme. And of course, there is the modernist masterpiece composed by Paul Hindemith and choreographed by George Balanchine. Over the years, Woodruff has worked as an artist, illustrator, educator, and curator. He has designed works for theatre, dance, opera, and television, and has worked as a tattooist. He has been a Chair at the School of Visual Arts in New York City for the past 12 years and continues to inspire young artists with his eccentric, visually complex, and visionary paintings. His works have included: The Turning Heads 2008; Freak Parade 2000-2006; All Systems Go 1999; Apple Canon 1997; and The Secret Charts 1995. This is Mr. Woodruff's 31st solo exhibition in his thirty year career. His work is in public and museum collections all over the world. Woodruff has had over 31 one person exhibitions, including shows at the Haggerty Museum , Marquette University; the Selby Gallery, Ringling College of Art , Fla.; the Herron School of Art and Design, IUPUI; the University Art Museum, California State University, Long Beach; University Gallery, Illinois St. University, Normal, Illinois; the Contemporary Museum, Honolulu; the Atlanta College of Art, Atlanta, Ga; the Huntington Beach Art Center, California; the Greenville County Museum of Art, South Carolina; the St. Louis Museum of Art, St. Lous, MO.; and the Queens Museum, NY. Thomas Woodruff is a self-proclaimed "neo-fabulist" artist who always works in series on large, complex imagistic projects. The imagery is a cross-culturally hybridized, relentlessly figurative, technically tricky, perversely ornate, and more often than not– dark. P·P·O·W was founded by Wendy Olsoff and Penny Pilkington in the first wave of the East-Village Art Scene in New York City in 1983. In 1988 the gallery moved to Soho and in 2002 moved to Chelsea. P·P·O·W maintains a diverse roster of national and international artists. Since its inception, the gallery has remained true to its early vision, showing contemporary work in all media. There is a commitment to representational painting and sculpture and artists who create work with social and political content. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://ppowgallery.com

The Museum of Contemporary Art Shows Weegee's Hollwood Photographs Posted: 02 Jan 2012 10:00 PM PST Los Angeles, CA.- The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) presents "Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles", the first museum survey devoted to the work the that the tabloid photographer known as Weegee produced in Southern California, including his 1953 photo-book Naked Hollywood. The exhibition will be on view at MOCA Grand Avenue through February 27th 2012, and opened  to coincide with MOCA's 2011 gala. In 1947, Weegee relocated from New York City to Los Angeles, abandoning the grisly crime scenes for which he was best known and training his camera instead on Hollywood stars, strip tease artists, costume shops, and naked mannequins, sometimes distorted through trick lenses and combination printing. "Now I could really photograph the subjects I liked," said Weegee of his newfound career in Los Angeles, "I was free."

The Fleming Collection Celebrates Artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham of Scotland Posted: 02 Jan 2012 09:35 PM PST London.- The Fleming Collection is proud to present "Wilhelmina Barns-Graham: A Scottish artist in St Ives", a special centenary exhibition in association with the Barns-Graham Charitable Trust, on view at the collection from January 10th through April 5th. The painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham is usually classified as a St Ives School artist yet her Scottish roots and her continuing close links with her homeland had a huge influence on her work. A major exhibition marking the centenary of her birth will be held at The Fleming Collection at 13 Berkeley Street, London W1 from 10 January to 5 April 2012. W. Barns-Graham: A Scottish artist in St Ives, will radically reappraise her career looking at the influence of her artistic training in Edinburgh, the inspirational resource she found in Scotland and its continuing creative importance as she divided her time between Cornwall and Fife. The Fleming Collection, which has become an embassy for Scottish art in London, is mounting the exhibition, the first to look at the artist from this perspective, in association with The Barns-Graham Charitable Trust.

SOHO Galleries Presented Ross Wilsmore's Realist Paintings Posted: 02 Jan 2012 09:21 PM PST Sydney, Australia.- SOHO Galleries were pleased to present "Ross Wilsmore: Realist Paintings". His works are dramatic and thought provoking in their simplicity. A sensitive colour palette, subtle light situations and distorted perspective all combine to create a surreal mood. Simple everyday scenes with interesting objects juxtaposed and isolated, so as one points to and accentuates the character of the other. Originally a graphic designer from the Caulfield institute of technology Ross worked as an art director in Melbourne advertising agencies before becoming a freelance designer illustrator. Now a sophisticated emerging artist his work is fast becoming collectable. Held in many corporate and private collections both in Australia and overseas Ross Wilsmore artwork is instantly recognizable.

Blain|Di Donna's Inaugural Exhibition Displayed the Works of René Magritte Posted: 02 Jan 2012 08:54 PM PST New York City.- Blain|Di Donna is delighted to present as its inaugural exhibition, "Dangerous Liaisons", a survey of paintings, works on paper and objects by the Belgian Surrealist René Magritte. The exhibtion was viewed at the new gallery in the Carlyle Hotel. Bringing together over twenty five major oils, gouaches and drawings, this is the first Magritte show of this scale to be presented in New York in almost fifteen years, and comes at a time of renewed interest in Surrealism and its key exponents. The exhibition's title is derived from Magritte's seminal early work, "Les Liaisons dangereuses" (1935), an enigmatic painting thought to have been inspired by the eighteenth century French novel of the same name, in which two rival lovers deploy sex as a weapon to humiliate others. As with many of the works in the artist's oeuvre, it delights and disturbs in equal measure; uncanny, poetic, playful and erotic, it underlines his unsettling ability to pull at the threads of philosophical and psychological certainties, and in doing so eloquently sets the tone of the exhibition as a whole.

Vanity Fashion Photography from the F.C. Gundlach Collection at Kunsthalle in Vienna Posted: 02 Jan 2012 08:34 PM PST VIENNA.- Fashion is a manifestation of ideals of beauty and social change, an expressive play between belonging and distinction, communication and trend. Its only constant factor is permanent change. In the sphere of beautiful appearances fashion/photography works in a both anticipatory and historicizing way: it reflects the change it creates. As part of the Kunsthalle Wien's special photography program, the exhibition Vanity, which presents about two hundred selected works from the F.C. Gundlach Collection (Hamburg), explores the subject of fashion and photography. F.C. Gundlach, who was born in Heinebach, Hesse in 1926, was a legendary fashion photographer himself who produced 180 covers and 5,500 pages for the editorial section of the magazine Brigitte alone.

Uffizi Gallery shows Exhibition of Sculptures in 'Volti svelati' ('Faces Revealed') Posted: 02 Jan 2012 08:08 PM PST FLORENCE.- The  Uffizi is showing a collection of art works entitled 'Volti svelati' ('Faces Revealed') in the Reali Poste Hall, until 29 January 2012. This exhibition is sponsored by the Friends of the Uffizi, an association which has supported and worked alongside the gallery since 1993. The exhibition has been put together by the Uffizi Gallery with the help of the Special Office for Historic, Artistic and Anthropological Heritage and the City of Florence Museums Association. The exhibition contains a number of classical sculptures from the collections of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The exhibition supervisor, Cristina Acidini said 'The exhibition sheds light on an extraordinary part of the history of museum studies as it highlights the rather topical and sometimes burning issue of the 'use' of ancient artifacts in museums and galleries. The Uffizi and other places displaying Classical art, including villas, gardens, private family collections and smaller museums and galleries, are all places where these busts and sculptures have been on display in one way or another.'

Masterpiece Landscapes at the Palais Rohan in Strasbourg Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:51 PM PST Strasbourg.- The Museum of Fine Arts Strasbourg and the Galerie Heitz (City Gallery), both located in the historic Palais Rohan jointly present the exhibition "A Taste of Nature" until the 15th of August. The exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts brings together a collection of paintings and graphic works (prints and drawings), chosen from among the finest pieces from the collections of Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art and the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings. About eighty graphic works, all from the Cabinet of Prints and Drawings at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art are presented at Galerie Heitz. The works exhibited emphasize dialogue between nature and Man (whether man is the artist or the viewer): the exaltation of the feelings of attraction to the picturesque and the idealized landscape and the journey from observation to subjective vision. The exhibition is intended as a journey through the history of European landscape art extending from the Romantic period to the middle of the twentieth century, with masterpieces by Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, Arthur Sisley, Claude Monet and Paul Signac all on view. Alongside these painters, a host of less well-known works It aims to highlight key works from the collections of museums in Strasbourg, where possible featuring the landscape of the region. By bringing together for the first time, works that are not usually displayed in the same location, resonances between the works can be seen. Some eighty paintings are exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts by themes, allowing for unprecedented confrontations. The themes are, 'The Window', 'Characters in Nature', 'Water', 'The City'. 'The Campaign' and 'The Tree'. The exhibition is accompanied by a selection of films and a series of lectures, and is thematically linked with the major exhibition held in conjunction with the Museum Unterlinden in Colmar, entitled "The picturesque Alsace. The invention of a landscape 1770 - 1870". The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Strasbourg (Museum of Fine Arts of Strasbourg) is the old masters paintings collection of the city of Strasbourg, located in the Alsace region of France. The museum is housed in the first and second floors of the baroque Palais Rohan since 1898. The museum displays works by non-Upper Rhenish artists from between the 14th century and 1871 and by Upper Rhenish artist from between 1681 and 1871. The museum owns almost 1,000 works, of which around 250 are on permanent display. The old masters from the upper-Rhenish area until 1681 are exhibited in the neighboring Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame.The first municipal art collection of the city of Strasbourg was the result of the French Revolution, and was a consequence of the expropriation of churches and cloisters. Through the years, the collection, which was founded in 1801, grew by private donations, as well as government loans from the inventory of the Louvre. On August 24, 1870, the museum, which was housed in the Aubette on Place Kléber, was set on fire by Prussian artillery fire and completely destroyed. After the end of the Franco-Prussian War, it was resolved to re-establish the museum, and the imperial art historian Wilhelm von Bode was commissioned with the task in 1889. In 1890, the museum was launched and was re-stocked since that time by acquisitions and gifts. In 1931 under the leadership of Hans Haug (1890-1965), the collection of medieval art and upper-Rhenish painting (Konrad Witz, Hans Baldung, Sebastian Stoskopff) was transferred to the newly-founded Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame. The collection of modern art went to the Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg (Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Strasbourg). On August 13, 1947, fire destroyed part of the re-established collection, including works of Francesco Guardi, Thomas de Keyser, Antonio del Pollaiolo and Lucas Cranach the Elder. Visit the Strasbourg museums website at ... http://www.musees-strasbourg.org

Avant-Garde Artist Christo Coetzee on Show at the University of Pretoria Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:50 PM PST Pretoria, SA - The University of Pretoriais showing a retrospective of the controversial avant-garde South African artist Christo Coetzeeuntil July 31st. This extraordinary exhibition of 64 of his works is on view in the Edoardo Villa Museum, Old Merensky Building on the main campus of the University. In 2000 Christo Coetzee bequeathed his entire collection to the University of Pretoria. This temporary exhibition showcases some of the greatest works of Christo Coetzee in the collection of the University of Pretoria, as well as some of his best personal works recently acquired from his home in Tulbach. Also represented in the exhibition will be the artworks of his late wife, Ferrie Binge-Coetzee who was tragically killed in a fire in 2010.

Art Gallery of Ontario to present Landmark Early Works by Alexander Calder Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:48 PM PST TORONTO.- Most artists spend their formative years in the studio, honing their technique and finding their style, hoping that somebody somewhere will notice their work. Not Alexander Calder. The 20th century's most celebrated and influential sculptor spent his formative years hitting the streets of Paris with a creation that has to be seen to be believed — a magical miniature circus. This fall, that circus is coming to Canada for the first time as the centerpiece of a special exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario titled Alexander Calder: The Paris Years 1926–1933. Running from October 3, 2009 to January 10, 2010, the exhibition draws on over 80 works to tell the story of Calder's artistic trajectory — from his early sketches of circus folk in New York and the small wire sculptures he created in Paris to early examples of his famous mobiles. The focal point of the exhibition is Calder's Circus, a miniature three-dimensional circus that Calder created between 1926 and 1931 and then performed internationally for decades, garnering the attention of the Paris art scene and introducing him to artists whose friendship and influence would change his life and work forever, including Mondrian, Miró and Man Ray. "It's really an exhibition about a young artist developing his own vocabulary and responding to what was around him," says Joan Simon, curator at large at the Whitney Museum of American Art, who organized the show with Brigitte Leal of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. "When Calder arrived in Paris in 1926, he aspired to be a painter; when he left in 1933, he had evolved into the artist we know today: an international figure and defining force in twentieth-century sculpture." "Calder's wonderful sense of whimsy and exuberance makes this a terrific show for the whole family," says AGO director and CEO Matthew Teitelbaum. "Calder's Circus is such an enchanting work. It's a thrill to be able to share it with a Canadian audience for the first time alongside the work that made Calder famous — those magical mobiles." Patrons will be able to view many of the incredible mechanical sculptures that Calder created and operated while performing his Circus: a lion that roars before taking its handler's head in its mouth; trapeze artists that latch arms, fly through the air and then drop into a net; a dancer, naked but for some strategically placed fringe, seductively twisting and twirling. Giving context to these sculptures is Jean Painlevé's 1955 film Le Grand Cirque Calder 1927, a visual recording of Calder performing his Circus as only he could. Alexander Calder: The Paris Years 1926–1933 includes 56 sculptures, 6 paintings and 34 works on paper and was organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris. Visit the Art Gallery of Ontario at : http://www.ago.net/

The National Portrait Gallery to exhibit " Inventing Marcel Duchamp " Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:47 PM PST   Washington, DC - This groundbreaking exhibition casts new light upon Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), one of the most influential artists of the recent past. This show demonstrates that Duchamp harnessed the power of portraiture and self-portraiture both to secure his reputation as an iconoclast and to establish himself as a major figure in the artworld. In the process, he played a key role in the reinvention of portraiture, exerting a transformative influence from the early 20th century to the present. On view March 27, 2009 through August 2, 2009.

Sims Reed Gallery Acquires Sir Eduardo Paolozzi's Estate of Print Editions Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:46 PM PST LONDON.- The Sims Reed Gallery announced their recent acquisition of Sir Eduardo Paolozzi's highly revered estate of print editions. In Paolozzi's first show solely devoted to his screenprints, his iconic 1960s Pop Art prints will be showcased alongside his later works, from 21st October through13th November 2009. Since it was established in 1978 Sims Reed Ltd. has been trading in the heart of St James's to an international clientele and is now one of the leading antiquarian booksellers in London.

Our Editor Is Escorted Though The Museum Ludwig By Prof. Kasper König, Director Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:45 PM PST After World War II, Cologne developed into a thriving art centre, achieving a level of excellence that was rooted in a long tradition. The city had exceptional museum collections that had been saved from destruction during the war.The contract signed on 5 February 1976 by Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig covering their donation to the City of Cologne marked the founding of Museum Ludwig. In the contract, Peter and Irene Ludwig agreed to endow 350 modern artworks and in return the City of Cologne committed itself to build a dedicated "Museum Ludwig" for works made after the year 1900. The "twin" museum designed by the architectural team Peter Busmann and Godfrid Haberer, and opened in 1986, became home to both the Wallraf Richartz Museum as well as Museum Ludwig. In 1994 it was decided to separate the two institutions and to place the building on Bischofsgartenstrasse at the sole disposal of Museum Ludwig. The collection at Museum Ludwig covers the major currents and approaches in twentieth century and contemporary art. The core collection was amassed by a Cologne lawyer, Dr. Josef Haubrich (1889-1961). Directly after World War 2, in May 1946, he presented the City of Cologne with his Expressionism collection (Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, August Macke, Otto Mueller) and works by other representatives of Classical Modernism (Marc Chagall, Otto Dix). In October 1946 a selection of 100 paintings was presented for the first time in the old University of Cologne. Among the visitors to this now legendary exhibition was a 21 year-old art history student from Mainz - Peter Ludwig. He was not only impressed by the art, but equally so by the collector and donor Josef Haubrich. As a person who had been denied the chance to see contemporary art in his youth as a result of the Nazi regime, after this encounter he resolved to likewise collect art and make it available to the general public. The first gift from the Ludwigs in 1976 brought works by the Russian avant-garde from the period 1905 to 1935 (Goncharova, Larionov, Exter, Popova, Malevich, Rodchenko) of singular quality and quantity to the newly founded museum. In addition to this came the most extensive AmericanPop Art Collection outside of the USA (including paintings, objects and environments by Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, Warhol and Wesselmann). In 1957 the collections were enriched by an important group of works by Max Beckmann in the form of the "Georg and Lilly von Schnitzler Bequest", and in 1958 the Willy Strecker Collection could be acquired and with that important works by among others Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Oskar Kokoschka and Paul Klee. Between the years 1976 and 1988 the husband and wife collectors Günther and Carola Peill donated bit by bit major works from their collection (paintings and graphics by Max Ernst, Alexej von Jawlensky, Willi Baumeister, and Ernst Wilhelm Nay). In 1994 Peter und Irene Ludwig handed the City of Cologne 90 works from their personal Picasso collection on condition that the Wallraf Richartz Museum moved to its own premises. The reopening of Museum Ludwig on 31 October 2001, an event that sadly one of the name givers was no longer alive to see, prompted Irene Ludwig to donate a further 774 works by Picasso. With that Museum Ludwig has the third largest Picasso Collection worldwide, after Barcelona and Paris. It offers a representative cross-section through every genre, material and technique explored by the artist. Time and again the tradition of collecting and donating has given new impetus to Museum Ludwig: its large exhibition for the reopening of the house - "Museum of our Wishes" (11 November 2001 to 28 April 2002) - made a direct appeal to the people of Cologne and their civic pride, as well as all the museum's other visitors, inviting them to take active part in shaping the museum by purchasing selected artworks and donating them to the museum. The contract signed on 5 February 1976 by Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig concerning their donation to the City of Cologne marked the founding of Museum Ludwig. A beginning of a noble collection of at of the 20th century. Roy Lichtenstein's "M-Maybe", Andy Warhol's Brillo Boxes and George Segal's "Restaurant Window", all icons of American Pop Art, had all just been completed when in 1969 they arrived at the Ludwig. The upper floors mostly contain works from the permanent collection, although here again individual galleries are used for temporary exhibitions of varying dimensions. The upper floors have galleries leading off from the uninterrupted axis that is referred to as the 'museum street'; on the first floor they are only on one side of the axis, whereas on the second floor they are on both sides. Large galleries alternate with small rooms. At the end of the 'street' a space rising over two floors provides a setting for large-scale installations. Here, at the eastern end, staircases again connect the three floors, thus enabling visitors to make their way through all the galleries. Other exhibition rooms are to be found on the first floor in the direction of the cathedral. Expressionist works are now on exhibition here. The tour of the museum is further enhanced by a series of openings that afford views of the Rhine, the cathedral, Heinrich-Böll-Platz and Hohenzollernbrücke bridge. The varied spatial concept offers visitors numerous options. They can decide themselves whether they want to see the whole museum or prefer to spend more time looking at the works on show in a certain section. Additional exhibition rooms are located on the lowest level next to the foyer of the Philharmonic Hall and can be opened to merge with it. The overall area of the exhibition spaces thus amounts to around 16,000 square metres. But there is more to come. The range of cultural services provided by the museum includes a library in the western part of the building opposite the entrance passageway. It has its own entrance, as does the cinema auditorium, which the North-Rhine Westphalia Film Forum (a society of eight partner organizations) has used since 2005. The roof terrace above, directly opposite the cathedral, serves as an open-air cinema in the summer. It is well worth returning to the complex some time on a summer evening just to enjoy watching a film in this incomparable setting. Museums need friends. Under this motto, the Freunde des Wallraf-Richartz-Museums und des Museums Ludwig e.V. has appealed over the years to the local citizens and won them over for the museums. With over 4,600 members, the Freunde is the oldest and largest museum association in Cologne. Its members span the generations and come from all walks of life and social spheres, and all live in Cologne and the vicinity.

Getty Museum Announces Exhibition of Still Life Photography Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:44 PM PST LOS ANGELES, CA.- The J. Paul Getty Museum presents In Focus: Still Life, a survey of some of the innovative ways photographers have explored and refreshed this traditional genre, on view at the Getty Center in the Center for Photographs from September 14, 2010–January 23, 2011. "Still life photography has served as both a conventional and an experimental form during periods of significant aesthetic and technological change," said Paul Martineau, assistant curator, Department of Photographs, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and curator of the exhibition. "One of our goals for the exhibition was to show how still life photographs can be both traditional and surprising."

Impressions and Expressions – Vietnamese Contemporary Painting Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:43 PM PST Bangkok, Thailand - Thavibu Gallery announces the publication of a new major book on Vietnamese art: Impressions and Expressions – Vietnamese Contemporary Painting , and a joint art exhibition of the 15 Vietnamese artists featured in the book. They are: Cong Kim Hoa, Dang Xuan Hoa, Dinh Quan, Dinh Y Nhi, Hong Viet Dung, Le Quang Ha, Luong Xuan Doan, Nguyen Thanh Binh, Nguyen Trung, Pham An Hai, Pham Luan, Thanh Chuong, Trinh Tuan, Truong Tan, and Van Duong Thanh.

Picasso, Magritte, Monet, Dali and Other Impressionist & Modern Artists In Sotheby's Major May Sale Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:42 PM PST New York City.- Sotheby's Impressionist  & Modern Art Evening Sale on 3 May 2011 in New York will offer an impressive range of paintings and sculpture from across the period. A spectacular group of 10 paintings by Pablo Picasso will be led by "Femmes lisant (Deux personnages)", a striking portrait of Marie-Thérèse Walter from 1934 (est. $25/35 million*). Impressionist, Expressionist and Surrealist paintings and sculpture will feature works by iconic artists including Paul Gauguin, Alexej von Jawlensky, Claude Monet and René Magritte, among many others. Works from both the Evening and Day Sales will be on view in Sotheby's York Avenue galleries beginning 29 April, alongside highlights from the Contemporary Art Evening Auction. The May sale will offer an impressive group of ten paintings by Pablo Picasso that span the artist's long career. The canvases date from 1901 to 1970, offering a truly encyclopedic tour of his life, work and the women who inspired him: Blue Period, Neo-Classical, Surrealist and late works are all represented, as are depictions of Olga Khokhlova, Marie-Thérèse Walter, Jacqueline, and his daughter Paloma. Since the turn of the 21st century, Picasso has come to dominate the fine art market unequivocally, and his works have been the top lot of 5 of the past 7 seasons. The auction will be led by Picasso's "Femmes lisant (Deux personnages)" from 1934, a striking portrayal of Marie-Thérèse Walter–the artist's beloved mistress during the 1930s–reading with her sister (est. $25/35 million). These legendary pictures are renowned as Picasso's most euphoric, sexually-charged and inspired compositions, and they rank among the most instantly recognizable works of 20th century art. "Femmes lisant" is among the most monumental of these pictures, created when Marie-Thérèse was firmly at the center of Picasso's artistic universe. The work was last on the market in 1981, when it was acquired by the current owner. "Couple à la Guitare" from 1970 is a monumental and poignant depiction of lovers, a dominant subject during the artist's final years (est. $10/15 million). Painted when Picasso was 88, the male figure serenades his lover as his limbs intertwine with hers, underscoring the physical melding of the two bodies into one unified form. As is often the case in Picasso's late work, the female figure is a reference to his wife Jacqueline, and the male figure to the artist himself. Picasso's "Femme" from 1930 (est. $3/5 million) is among the most powerful images from a small series known as the "Bone" pictures, inspired by 16th century anatomical drawings. The painting is one of the most loaded compositions of Picasso's Surrealist production: a terrifyingly fantastic evocation of his wife, Olga. By sharp contrast, "Fillette aux nattes et au chapeau vert" from 1956 is an intimate and tender portrait of Picasso's daughter, Paloma, painted when she was seven years old and the artist was 74 (est. $3.5/5 million). Unlike his depictions of his son Paulo from the 1920s or daughter Maya from the 1930s, Picasso's many  aintings and drawings of Paloma and her older brother, Claude, from the 1950s reveal the easy familiarity he shared with his two youngest children. The auction will be highlighted by works from four of the most iconic names in Impressionist art: Claude Monet, Édouard Manet, Pierre Auguste Renoir and Camille Pissarro. Painted in 1877, Monet's "La Seine à Argenteuil" depicts the promenade looking downstream from the bank of the river Seine (est. $6/8 million). Monet moved to Argenteuil, a suburb of Paris, in 1871, and lived there for the following six years. The present painting is unusual among those that Monet created during his time there, depicting a bath house on the promenade and a lavish flower garden. Manet's handsome "Portrait de Monsieur Brun" dates from the height of the artist's prodigious career (est. $4/6 million). The work is one of two renderings of Manet's aristocratic friend, and has remained in Brun's family since it was painted in 1880. The Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale will feature a strong group of important sculptures, at a time when the market has demonstrated an exceptional demand for masterpieces in this medium. The works will be led by "Jeune tahitienne", an exquisite sculpture carved during Paul Gauguin's first trip to Tahiti between 1890 and 1893 (est. $10/15 million). As the only fullyworked bust portrait that Gauguin is known to have created, it is unique within the artist's oeuvre and numbers among his finest sculptures in private hands. As in the artist's greatest paintings, this serene young woman captures the mystery, allure and exoticism of the South Pacific. The history of "Jeune tahitienne" is equally exquisite: months after returning to Paris in 1894, Gauguin presented this sculpture to Jeanne Fournier, the 10-year-old daughter of critic and collector Jean Dolent, having promised to bring her a gift from the tropics. In 1961, Fournier entrusted its sale to Father Celas Rzewuski, a member of the Dominican Order, who in turn consigned it to Sotheby's in London, where it was purchased by the present owner. The sculpture on offer is also highlighted by works from Auguste Rodin, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, Jean Arp and Rembrandt Bugatti. Two models related to Rodin's monumental "Gates of Hell" and cast within the artist's lifetime include "Eve", one of the most memorable renderings of the Creation story (est. $3/5 million), and "Le Penseur" (est. $1.5/2 million). "Le Penseur (The Thinker)" was originally intended to represent Dante and crown the "Gates of Hell", but soon took on an independent life, ultimately becoming perhaps the most celebrated sculpture of all time. Conceived in 1956 at the height of Alberto Giacometti's international acclaim, "Femme debout" is related to the series of the artist's "Femmes de Venise" that made their debut at the Venice Biennale the following year (est. $2/3 million). After his success at the Biennale, Giacometti continued to develop the theme of standing female figure, which became one of the most important motifs of his art. "Diego, tête sur socle cubique" is an iconic rendering of Giacometti's younger brother Diego, the artist's most important model (est. $900,000/1.2 million). Pulsating with vibrant color and rich, painterly detail, the extraordinary "Frau mit grünem Fächer (Woman with a green fan)" exemplifies Alexej von Jawlensky's talents as a key figure in the Expressionist movement (est. $8/12 million). The composition dates from 1912, at the height of the artist's involvement with the Blaue Reiter group, and is a distillation of the stylistic concerns that preoccupied the German avant-garde during the early 20th century. The model for Frau mit grünem Fächer was the artist's wife Helene, although Jawlensky preferred to render  his portraits anonymous so that he could objectively express the emotive impact of color. The work is on offer from an important private collection, where it has hung since the 1970s, and remains in exquisite condition. Following the success of Salvador Dalí's "Portrait de Paul Éluard", which set a record for any Surrealist work at auction when it sold for $21.7 million at Sotheby's London in February of this year, the New York sale will offer works by top Surrealist artists. The group is led by René Magritte's "Quand l'heure sonnera", which dates from the height of the Surrealist movement in the 1930s and belongs to the artist's iconic series of works that challenge the viewer's understanding of the world through the pairing of two distinct elements–in this case, a female plaster torso and a hot air balloon (est. $5/7.5 million). Additional highlights include Paul Delvaux's spectacular "Les Cariatides" from 1946, which ranks among the most celebrated and widely-known compositions of his career (est. $3/5 million), as well as Salvador Dalí's extraordinary portrait "Helena Rubinstein" (est. $1/1.5 million). The riveting depiction of the legendary cosmetics industrialist is among the artist's most accomplished portraits.

Deutsche Guggenheim to show 'Picturing America ~ Photorealism' Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:41 PM PST   Berlin, Germany - At the end of the 1960s, a number of young artists working in the United States began making realist paintings based directly on photographs. With meticulous detail, they portrayed the objects, people, and places that defined both urban and suburban contemporary American life. Various terms were used to describe this art, chief among them Hyperrealism and Photorealism. On view 07.03.2009 - 10.05.2009 at Deutsche Guggenheim.

Felix Nussbaum Murdered Jewish Artist on exhibit in Daniel Libeskind Designed Museum Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:40 PM PST OSNABRUCK, GERMANY - On the special occasion of its tenth anniversary in 2008, the Felix Nussbaum Museum in Osnabrück, designed by Daniel Libeskind, will feature the extraordinary exhibition "The Hidden Trace: Jewish Paths Through Modernity" from 7 December 2008 until 19 April 2009 with high-calibre loans from renowned museums throughout Europe and the USA. What trace have Jewish artists left in 19th and 20th-century art history? And how can it be revealed? The anniversary show under the patronage of Federal Chancellor Dr Angela Merkel is devoted to the impact of Jewish culture and Jewish life on art in modernity over the past two centuries. The thread of the exhibition is a fundamental experience which determines the tradition of Jewish culture: Jews live in the Diaspora (dispersion) in Germany and other countries. The basic idea of the concept relies on the realisation that up to the present, this experience is reflected throughout Jewish culture in numerous testimonies. Selected paintings of Felix Nussbaum are related to some 100 exhibits of national and international artists, thereby pointing out new continuities. Unlike any other artist of the first half of the century, the painter Felix Nussbaum, born in Osnabrück in 1904 and murdered at Auschwitz in 1944, recorded the experiences of the decades following the First World War in his paintings and reflected upon them as part of his own situation, which the artist, as a Jew, was pushed into by the racist ideology of national-socialist Germany. No other victim has artistically documented the "Holocaust" of Jews in Europe like Nussbaum. For him, in his hopeless situation, painting became an act of resistance, because it enabled him to retain his human dignity and, for a long time, gave him the strength he needed to survive. He was a recorder of this era, and became its victim. In accordance with his wish:''Even if I perish, do not let my pictures die, show them to the public.'' The exhibition starts in the first half of the 20th century with the heyday of art which emerged in particular in metropolises such as Paris and Berlin. Many artists and intellectuals of Jewish origin became protagonists of a dynamic and exciting development. In the beginning of the century, numerous Jewish artists came from the "Shtetls" of Eastern Europe. Marc Chagall, for instance, enters into an artistic dialogue by reviving the mystical world of the Hasidim in surrealistic combinations of images. Chaim Soutine, on the other hand, turns his back on Jewish tradition. Artists like Max Liebermann or Felix Nussbaum develop from a secularised understanding of Jewish tradition. The seizure of power by the National Socialists puts an abrupt end to this culture and defames the avant-garde as being "degenerate." Fear of persecution and expulsion becomes a subject in the works of many artists and writers. After 1945, in particular the New York School and the London School start to develop new pictorial languages, with many important stimuli coming in particular from the immigrated artists. In the 1940s, for instance, Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko establish abstract expressionism as a counterconcept to European painting. In London, artists like Lucian Freud and R. B. Kitaj design their figurations from "human ashes", so to speak. Kitaj formulates the concept of "diasporist painting". Even today, the Shoah continues to be present in works of Jewish and non-Jewish artists. In the focus are different forms of recollection of Jewish life and a cultural memory shaped by the Shoah. They pick up traces which are represented in the exhibition by works of Christian Boltanski or Rebecca Horn, among others. The spectrum of subjects which ranges from the burden of memory to global experience in the face of worldwide crises reaches into contemporary art. For art, this situation means that different cultural forms of expression are intensively intertwined.   In the context of Jewish identity, "transit" originally denotes the way into exile, which today has become a global experience due to the effects of worldwide crises. In contemporary art, the Hebrew bible as a portable shrine and basis of versatile and deductive thinking has found its expression for instance in the works of Dani Karavan or William Kentridge. Increasing globalisation forms a contrast to cultural and territorial conflicts. Israel is one of the culminating points of these conflicts. These processes are critically accompanied and examined by artists like Larry Abramson and Yael Bartana. The exhibition directs the visitor's eye to works of art which owe their existence in different ways to these stimuli from Jewish tradition and the associated Diaspora experience. By relating them to the architecture of the Felix Nussbaum House, this "hidden trace" is to be visualised. All exhibited works will be reproduced in a catalogue and explained and related to each other by accompanying text. The exhibition will be complemented by an extensive supporting programme. The anniversary exhibition is made possible with the kind assistance of: the Federal State of Lower Saxony, Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, Klosterkammer Hannover, Niedersächsische Sparkassenstiftung, Sparkasse Osnabrück, VGH, Stiftung Stahlwerk Georgsmarienhütte, Felix Nussbaum Foundation, Felix Nussbaum Gesellschaft and Museums- und Kunstverein Osnabrück e.V. Visit the Felix Nussbaum Museum at : http://www.osnabrueck.de/fnh/english/default.asp

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review" Posted: 02 Jan 2012 07:40 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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