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

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• The National Gallery of Art to Reopen Impressionism & Post-Impressionism Galleries
• Matter + Spirit: The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler at the de Young Museum
• Waterhouse & Dodd to Present a Major George Folmer Retrospective
• The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas Opens "Go West!" Exhibition
• Dancing Shiva X-rayed by Rijksmuseum ~ Indian Masterpiece shown to be Solid Bronze
• Blindspot Gallery presents "Memory and Fiction" by Wong Wo Bik
• Turner and his Contemporaries Celebrate Abbot Hall Art Gallery's 50th Anniversary
• The Ogden Museum of Southern Art Presents Jimmy Descant's Assemblages
• Park West Gallery Loses ~ Arts Registry Awarded $500,000 by Jury
• An Open House of American Art at Private Dealers in New York
• Salvador Dalí's Mustache Finds New Home on a Delta Plane
• Comprehensive Solo Exhibition for Katharina Fritsch at Hamburg's Deichtorhallen
• Saint Louis Art Museum to open The Immediate Touch: German, Austrian & Swiss Drawings
• National Gallery of Art hosts The Beffi Triptych Rescued from Italian Earthquake
• Stolen Art by Warhol Is Double Mystery in California and Worldwide
• The Cheekwood Museum of Art Displays Masterworks From the Buffalo Bill Historical Center
• American Pop Exhibition Coming to the Crocker Art Museum
• Cheim & Read shows New Work by William Eggleston and Rare Photos by Diane Arbus
• Exhibition by The Singh Twins Announced at the National Portrait Gallery
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The National Gallery of Art to Reopen Impressionism & Post-Impressionism Galleries Posted: 14 Jan 2012 01:32 AM PST Washington, D.C.- Following a two-year renovation, the galleries devoted to impressionism and post-impressionism in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art reopen to the public on January 28th 2012. Among the greatest collections in the world of paintings by Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Vincent Van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin, the Gallery's later 19th-century French paintings will return to public view in a freshly conceived installation design. The new installation is organized into thematic, monographic, and art historical groupings. The "new" Paris of the Second Empire and the Third Republic are highlighted through cityscapes by Manet, Renoir, and Camille Pissaro. Showcasing sun-dappled landscapes and scenes of suburban leisure, a gallery of "high impressionism" masterpieces of the 1870s is prominently located off the East Sculpture Hall, including such beloved works as Monet's "The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil" (1880) and Renoir's "Girl with a Hoop" (1885). A gallery is devoted to the sophisticated color experiments of late Monet, while Cézanne's genius in landscape, still-life, and figure painting is explored in another. Paintings exemplifying the bold innovations of Van Gogh and Gauguin are displayed along with Degas' later, experimental works in one gallery, followed by a room of canvases by artists such as Gustave Delacroix, Renoir, and Matisse celebrating exoticism and the sensual use of color and paint handling. The final gallery is dedicated to the Parisian avant-garde circa 1900: Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Rousseau, and early Pablo Picasso. The recently acquired "Black Rocks at Trouville" (1865/1866) by Gustave Courbet will be on view for the first time in the French galleries. Additionally, 13 works have been newly restored. Most of these will be on view in the West Building galleries, including Renoir's sparkling Parisian view of the Pont Neuf (1872), his ever-popular "Girl with a Watering Can" (1876), Monet's classic "Bridge at Argenteuil" (1874), and an 1867 portrait of Monet's newborn son Jean in his cradle. During the two-year period of repair, restoration, and renovation, works normally on view in these galleries were either in storage, on loan, or featured in a special installation — "From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection" —in the West Building Ground Floor galleries. Some 50 of the greatest works from this collection were included in major exhibitions shown in Houston, Tokyo, and Kyoto. Opened in 1941, the National Gallery of Art is significantly younger than its nationwide competitors—The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art —in this area of collecting. As the nation's art museum, the National Gallery's collection was formed through generous donations from private citizens and has continued to grow to the present day thanks to contributions by numerous collectors and patrons. The impressionist and post-impressionist collection begins with the 1942 Widener bequest, and reaches a high point with an extraordinary gift from Chester Dale in 1962, which tripled the size of the Gallery's modern French paintings. These works include major masterpieces, such as Cézanne's "The Peppermint Bottle" (1893/1895), Gauguin's "Self-Portrait" (1889), Van Gogh's "La Mousmé" (1888), Edgar Degas's "Four Dancers" (c. 1899), and two of Monet's celebrated views of Rouen Cathedral (1894). Two of their most spectacular acquisitions, made within nine months of each other, were Manet's early masterpiece, The Old Musician (1862), and Picassos' early masterpiece, Family of Saltimbanques (1905). In particular, the Dales gravitated toward figural works, accruing examples by many of the modern masters of portraiture, as well as marvelous female nudes, such as Renoir's "Bather Arranging Her Hair" (1893) and "Odalisque" (1870) and Modilgiani's "Nude on a Blue Cushion" (1917). In accordance with the deed of gift, these great works may never be loaned. Paul Mellon—son of the Gallery's founding benefactor Andrew Mellon—also avidly collected 19th-century French paintings, influenced by his second wife, Rachel "Bunny" Mellon. Inspired by Dale's example, Mellon expanded upon the the foundation of French modernism that Dale built for the Gallery. While the Dale collection includes Monet's later landscapes, Mellon collected Monet in all genres and across his career, as well as work by important impressionist painters the Dale did not collect, such as Bazille and Caillebotte. Mellon was a great admirer of Cézanne and gave the Gallery seven paintings spanning the artist's career, including the 1991 gift of "Boy in a Red Waistcoat" (1888­–1890), one of the Gallery's great masterpieces. Mellon was also a devotee of Degas, and his gift of major paintings and sculptures by the master makes the Gallery's Degas collection one of the best in the world. Paul Mellon's sister Ailsa Mellon Bruce augmented the Mellon family's dedication to the Gallery through her extensive 1969 bequest of great old master and impressionist paintings, by Renoir in particular. Other important donors to this part of the Gallery's collection include the Havemeyer family, W. Averell Harriman, his second wife Marie Norton Whitney Harriman and his third wife Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, John Hay and Betsy Cushing Whitney, and Eugene and Agnes Ernst Meyer. The Small French Paintings galleries in the East Building, designed to accommodate the extraordinary gift of French paintings from Ailsa Mellon Bruce, are among the most beloved at the Gallery. The works in these rooms have also been part of reconsidering the 19th-century French collection in the West Building. One gallery will feature an installation of prints together with several paintings by Pierre Bonnard, illuminating the way this artist works across the two media. Other groupings include a selection of circa 1800 landscape sketches, impressionist interiors, realist landscapes, a suite of works by Eugène Boudin, and intimate paintings by the artistic brotherhood known as the Nabis. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.nga.gov

Matter + Spirit: The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler at the de Young Museum Posted: 13 Jan 2012 11:43 PM PST SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Approximately 55 ceramic and bronze works spanning the career of sculptor Stephen De Staebler (1933–2011) will be installed in the American art galleries at the de Young Museum from January 14 to April 22, 2012. Matter + Spirit: The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler and its accompanying monograph commemorate the life and work of the renowned Bay Area artist, who died earlier this year in his Berkeley home. For more than 50 years, De Staebler created figurative sculptures from clay—a medium that derives from the primordial earth. Drawing inspiration from childhood experiences with nature, a transformative adolescent encounter with human mortality, and adult studies in the history of art and religion, he explored and extended a tradition of human representation that includes the religious monuments of ancient Egypt, the Renaissance humanism of Michelangelo's finished and unfinished figures, and the modern existentialism embodied in the works of Alberto Giacometti.

Waterhouse & Dodd to Present a Major George Folmer Retrospective Posted: 13 Jan 2012 10:42 PM PST New York City.- Waterhouse & Dodd are pleased to present a major retrospective of the innovative French abstract artist, Georges Folmer. The exhibition is entitled simply "Φ", the Greek letter 'Phi' that lies at the heart of much of Folmer's work from the 1930s onwards: it is the symbol of The Golden Ratio, the ancient mathematical and geometrical theory upon which most of his works are constructed; it signifies the philosophy of balance in all things, in life and art; and it is the character that Folmer used to sign many of his works. The exhibition opens at Waterhouse & Dodd's gallery at 104 Greene Street in SoHo on Thursday 19th January 2012 and continues until 15th February. Selected works will tour to TEFAF Maastricht in March 2012 and to Waterhouse & Dodd's London gallery at 16 Savile Row in April.

The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas Opens "Go West!" Exhibition Posted: 13 Jan 2012 10:08 PM PST Austin, Texas.- The Blanton Museum of Art at The University of Texas is pleased to present "Go West! Representations of the American Frontier" on view at the museum from January 14th through September 23rd 2012. The focus of the exhibition is on the western art works from the celebrated C.R. Smith Collection (donated to the museum in 1970) and highlight the lifestyle and landscape of the Pioneering West. The exhibition will explore the pioneering American West as both a physical terrain and an idea deeply rooted in the American psyche. "Go West!" will also provide a Western counterpart to the "American Scenery: Different Views in Hudson River School Painting" exhibition which opens at the museum on February 26th. "Go West!" features paintings, sculptures and works on paper made in, and about, the American West by Henry Farny, Charles Russell, Maynard Dixon, and other artists from the Blanton's celebrated C.R. Smith Collection of Art of the American West, in the largest installation of this collection in over a decade.

Dancing Shiva X-rayed by Rijksmuseum ~ Indian Masterpiece shown to be Solid Bronze Posted: 13 Jan 2012 10:07 PM PST AMSTERDAM.- Research recently revealed that the Rijksmuseum's monumental bronze statue of Shiva was cast in solid bronze. The thousand year-old temple statue was X-rayed, along with the lorry transporting it, in the most powerful X-ray tunnel for containers of the Rotterdam customs authority. It is the first research of its kind on a museological masterpiece.  At 153 cm x 114.5 cm, the Rijksmuseum's Shiva is the largest known bronze statue from the Chola Dynasty (9th to 12th century) kept in a museological collection outside of India. Given its weight (300 kg), the statue has always been suspected of not being hollow, as has been common practice in Europe since the Greek Antiquity. As part of an earlier investigation, an X-ray was taken of the statue in a Rijksmuseum gallery in 1999 while visitors were evacuated as a precaution against radiation. Unfortunately, the equipment used at the time (280 KeV) was not powerful enough to determine anything definitively. The Rotterdam X-ray tunnel of the Rotterdam customs authority offered a solution. Normally used to scan sea containers for suspicious contents, the high-energy digital radiation (9.3 MeV) offers sufficient resolution and range to distinguish between a 1mm copper wire and a 30 cm piece of steel.

Blindspot Gallery presents "Memory and Fiction" by Wong Wo Bik Posted: 13 Jan 2012 09:29 PM PST HONG KONG.- Blindspot Gallery presents "Memory and Fiction", featuring Wong Wo Bik, one of Hong Kong's most accomplished photographers, as well as one of a small number of female photographers active in the territory. The retrospective exhibition features selected works of Wong dated from the 1980s, including photographs of Hong Kong's historical and notable landmarks, such as Lai Yuen Amusement Park and the Eu family mansions that were now demolished, and the Main Building of the University of Hong Kong. Since the 1980s, Wong took all possibilities to photograph historical architecture threatened by demolition in Hong Kong. "I paid particular attention to landmarks or buildings that were not considered 'built heritage', but carried historical significance or were once frequented by locals. Because their demolition was inevitable, the only thing I could do was to document them photographically. It was for me of paramount importance to capsulate them in the photographic space1," Wong says. Yet Wong's photographs of these architectures are not merely documentary of history, they are also the artist's subjective narrative of her personal experiences at these sites, as well as depiction of traces left behind by others.

Turner and his Contemporaries Celebrate Abbot Hall Art Gallery's 50th Anniversary Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:59 PM PST CUMBRIA, UK - As part of its Fiftieth Anniversary, Abbot Hall Art Gallery will be exhibiting a selection of outstanding works from the magnificent collection assembled by one man, Sir Hickman Bacon (1855-1945), almost 100 years ago. It is probably the most important private holding of British eighteenth and nineteenth century watercolours in the world, and now, thanks to the generosity of the present owners, more than 40 of these masterpieces (including eighteen Turners) will be on show in Cumbria, an area that played a crucial role in the development of watercolour as the medium of choice for the itinerant artist in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century.

The Ogden Museum of Southern Art Presents Jimmy Descant's Assemblages Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:58 PM PST New Orleans, Louisiana.- The Ogden Museum of Southern Art is pleased to present "Jimmy Descant: The Shape of Louisiana Commenting on the Shape of Louisiana" on view at the museum from January 19th through April 8th 2012. Jimmy Descant (a.k.a. "the Rocketman") is an assemblage artist known primarily for his use of found objects to create retro-futuristic rocket ships inspired by the quality of earlier craftsmanship, Art Deco, science fiction and the spirit of exploration and optimism prevalent in mid-century America. In The Shape of Louisiana Commenting on the Shape of Louisiana, Descant uses the shape of his native state as the foundation for a series of assemblages that speak to the cultural, political and natural environment of Louisiana in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the failure of the Federal levee system in New Orleans, and the BP Macondo well oil spill. When Jimmy Descant started creating assemblage art, he saw in the parts he was finding at thrift stores and flea markets his own vision of what craftsmen before him knew; that details, many unseen, were the true key to vision and expression. Having no art history or technique training, he has found myself in the realm of artists past and has compounded on those past ideas of found object assemblage and made it his own. The rocketships were first due to an old vacuum cleaner found at a New Orleans flea market and it's futuristic art deco lines. Now after 15 years the form takes a larger shape - a tactile mural, a bowling ball planet, a vision of potential; and what were sequentially numbered now have creative titles, purpose, and positivity. There is no welding in his work. He finds parts that have never seen each other that mesh naturally and forms his style in a clean professional fit. his rocketships neither contain or depict any form of guns, bullets, or bombs; they are for the peaceful exploration of time, space, ideas, and cultures. But some political/social assemblages may include tools of violence to make a point. Recycling is a major key, and the finding of the raw materials is a large share of the end result, of which he is a professional in acquiring the vintage and beautiful in out of the way places. After losing all at his former home and shop in New Orleans, he has found that the world is still full of inspiration and the means to get to the realization of those visions. In other words, there will always be more stuff out there in the world. Traveling everywhere in America, he knows he will never run out of raw materials from the Golden Age of manufacturing. Though rockets are his specialty, he is not just the Rocketman, but a severe Reconstructivist seeking the cool and inspiration. Descant now lives and creates in Salida, Colorado, but will always be a New Orleanian. Louisiana businessman and philanthropist Roger Ogden first saw "Blue Lagoon", a Southern landscape by the early 20th century artist Alexander Drysdale, at a Baton Rouge, Louisiana art gallery in 1966. Captivated by its beauty, Ogden, a college student at the time, persuaded his father to help him buy the painting for his mother as a Christmas gift. For a number of years to follow, father and son continued the habit, fostering the younger Ogden's interest in Southern art. The collection Roger Ogden went on to assemble was one of the first to focus solely on Southern art, helping to identify and define the genre. By the mid-1980s, Ogden had collected a full range of paintings that recounted the history and changing aesthetics of painting in Louisiana. The collection included 19th-century portraits by Jacques Amans, landscapes by William Henry Buck, Richard Clague and Clarence Millet, and works such as Mother Louisiana, an allegorical portrait of the state of Louisiana by Dominico Canova. Gradually, he began to expand his collection by including artists from other Southern states, and broadening the scope of works to include sculpture, photography, works on paper, self-taught art, and mixed media. By the 1990s, the Ogden Collection was recognized by art historians and collectors as one of the most significant of its kind in the nation. The concept for creating a permanent public home for the Ogden Collection was based upon a unique public-private partnership between the University of New Orleans Foundation and Ogden. Since then, the Collection has grown, through the generosity of donors from across the United States, to become the largest and most comprehensive assemblage of Southern art in the world, establishing the Ogden Museum as the preeminent resource on art and culture of the South. Concrete plans for the Museum's future were laid down in late 1994 when the public announcement of the founding of The Ogden Museum of Southern Art was made in December by Ogden and Dr. Gregory O'Brien, Chancellor of the University of New Orleans. The concept for creating a permanent public home for the Ogden Collection was based upon a unique public-private partnership. It was built upon a gift of works from the Ogden Collection to the University of New Orleans Foundation to establish a museum of Southern Art, to be constructed in a complex of buildings in the Lee Circle area of the city. By 1999, the museum's five-story Stephen Goldring Hall was under construction and its historic library was under restoration. Goldring Hall, featuring 47,000 square feet of exhibition space, stands as part of a larger, three-building complex that includes the significant 1889 Howard Memorial Library (later renamed the Patrick F. Taylor Library) designed by the important American architect and Louisiana native, Henry Hobson Richardson. The only one of Richardson's buildings in the South, the library will house the museum's 18th and 19th century art collections, its new Goldring-Woldenberg Institute for the Advancement of Southern Art and Culture, an orientation theater, studio and classroom spaces, and a technology resource center. The Library was made available to the University of New Orleans Foundation to house the earlier works in the Ogden Collection. Extensive improvements to the Library totaling $3 million were recently completed in the first phase of the structure's restoration. Programs related to the architecture and the life of H. H. Richardson will be an integral part of the activities presented in this structure. Adjoining the Library, and included in the 20,000 square feet of space, is the new Clementine Hunter Wing dedicated to the art and life of this noted Louisiana self-taught artist. This will also be the permanent home to the Museum's educational initiatives, including classrooms and a technology center. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.ogdenmuseum.org

Park West Gallery Loses ~ Arts Registry Awarded $500,000 by Jury Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:40 PM PST Detroit, MI - Southfield-based Park West Gallery took a $500,000 hit Wednesday in a legal brawl with a Phoenix-based Web site that said the gallery defrauded customers in art auctions aboard cruise ships."The verdict vindicates everything my client ever said about Park West," Farmington Hills lawyer Donald Payton said after a federal jury in Port Huron awarded $500,000 to Global Fine Arts Registry and its founder, Theresa Franks, for trademark violations involving registry Web sites. "I'm ecstatic," Franks said. "I'm thrilled. After three years of hell, I've finally gotten a sweet, sweet, sweet victory." Park West's lawyer, Rodger Young of Southfield, who had sought a $46-million defamation judgment against the registry, said he would ask U.S. District Judge Lawrence Zatkoff to throw out the verdict. "Needless to say, we are going to vigorously appeal," Young said, adding that the gallery also would ask Zatkoff to find that it was defamed. Park West sued for defamation in 2008, alleging that the registry engaged in a smear campaign by posting articles saying Park West had sold overpriced, forged and fraudulent artwork to unsuspecting customers during auctions aboard cruise ships. The registry countersued, charging that it was Park West doing the smearing. Among other things, the registry said Park West had created Web sites with names similar to the registry's to divert readers. The registry said those Web sites made disparaging remarks about the registry. Park West, founded in 1969, describes itself as one of the largest independently owned art galleries in the world. A large part of its business involves cruise ship art auctions. The Fine Arts Registry, which devotes part of its Web site to exposing fraud and deception in the art world, said it began investigating Park West after reading news accounts and receiving customer complaints. It insists that its stories about Park West were true. A very popular pastime is purchasing art at cruise ship auctions. Millions of dollars are spent every month by unsuspecting tourists who know little or nothing about what they acquired. Art collectors should be aware everything they bought was purchased in international waters, beyond the three mile limit of United States Court jurisdiction. If you read your receipt, there is no recourse and the appraisals don't even guarantee authenticity. The Hucksters on board these ships often make extravagant verbal claims that never find themselves in writing. They say certain works are worth thousands of dollars when they often only bring a couple of hundred dollars at major auctions or in local galleries. Rembrandt, Picasso and Salvador Dali prints are their main prey. No legitimate gallery would do business this way. Remember the art pirates that sail the high seas today don't wear black eye patches.

An Open House of American Art at Private Dealers in New York Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:39 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- Leading American Art dealers on the Upper East Side will open their doors for the Just Off Madison Spring Gallery Walk, on Wednesday, May 19, from 4–8pm. Coinciding with the American art auctions at Sotheby's and Christie's, Just Off Madison gives American art enthusiasts a chance to discover even more museum quality pieces while taking a leisurely stroll down Madison Avenue. The participating galleries offer a rich and diverse selection of American paintings, sculptures, and works on paper, from the nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth century.

Salvador Dalí's Mustache Finds New Home on a Delta Plane Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:38 PM PST ATLANTA, GA.- In celebration of the High Museum's new exhibition, "Dalí: The Late Work," Delta has decked out a 757 plane with a Salvador Dalí-esque mustache. The plane, which went into service yesterday, will fly domestically. The High invites travelers who spot or ride on the plane to share their experience on the museum's Facebook page and on Twitter. Delta Air Lines is the Official Airline of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.

Comprehensive Solo Exhibition for Katharina Fritsch at Hamburg's Deichtorhallen Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:37 PM PST HAMBURG.- Since the artist's inaugural exhibition of the K 21 in Düsseldorf in 2001, Deichtorhallen are the first to present a comprehensive solo exhibition of Katharina Fritsch (born in Essen, Germany in 1956). The work show, set up in cooperation with Kunsthaus Zürich, will be exclusively presented in Germany at Deichtorhallen Hamburg. As one of the leading female artists in Germany and on the international scene, Fritsch represented Germany at the Biennale in Venice in 1995 and exhibited at Tate Gallery in 2001.

Saint Louis Art Museum to open The Immediate Touch: German, Austrian & Swiss Drawings Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:36 PM PST Saint Louis, MO - The Saint Louis Art Museum announces the June 29 opening of The Immediate Touch: German, Austrian and Swiss Drawings from St. Louis Collections, 1946–2007, an exhibition of more than 120 provocative works of art created after World War II by 37 German speaking artists. Featuring works by such influential artists as Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Hanne Darboven, Anselm Kiefer, Blinky Palermo, Sigmar Polke, Arnulf Rainer,  A. R. Penck, Gerhard Richter and Dieter Roth. The exhibition also includes private explorations into the aesthetics of the drawn line, preparatory sketches for sculptures and highly finished works that are the size and scale of large contemporary paintings.  "Drawings demonstrate how the drawn line of the artist is the most immediate and spontaneous rendering of the artist's initial feelings and conceptions," said Francesca Herndon-Consagra, curator of prints, drawings and photographs. "The drawn line, connected to an artist's nervous system and energy, acts like a seismograph. It springs from within, moves down the arm into the fingers and begins its dance across the page."  Selected largely from the Museum's collection and local private collections, these works reveal the foresight of St. Louis collectors. Under the stewardship of a group of perceptive art collectors, directors and curators, St. Louis has become a gathering place for important works by both internationally known artists and artists who until very recently have gone largely unnoticed by the mainstream art market. "The works of art in this exhibition are varied but all display a particular intensity and energy that is truly affecting," said Herndon-Consagra. "These individuals use their artistic talents not only to address such forces as death, politics, spirituality and social change, but also to explore and expand ideas about aesthetics and art making. Some of the works may be described as haunting and passionate, while others are humorous and whimsical." Of the 32 living artists featured in the exhibition, 25 were interviewed by Sydney Norton, a researcher in the department of prints, drawings and photographs at the Saint Louis Art Museum. Norton traveled to Germany, Austria and Switzerland to personally speak with these artists, documenting the personal stories behind their works. The Museum has written and produced a catalogue that incorporates this intensive research. The publication will be available in the Saint Louis Art Museum Shop in June. Curated by Francesca Herndon-Consagra, curator of prints, drawings and photographs, with the assistance of Sydney Norton, researcher, The Immediate Touch: German, Austrian and Swiss Drawings from St. Louis Collections, 1946–2007, will be on view through September 7, 2008 in the Museum's Main Exhibition Galleries. The Saint Louis Art Museum is one of the nation's leading comprehensive art museums with collections that include works of art of exceptional quality from virtually every culture and time period. Areas of notable depth include Oceanic art, pre-Columbian art, ancient Chinese bronzes and European and American art of the late 19th and 20th centuries, with particular strength in 20th-century German art. The Museum offers a full range of exhibitions and educational programming generated independently and in collaboration with local, national and international partners. Admission to the Saint Louis Art Museum is free to all every day; featured exhibition admission is free on Fridays. For more information about the Saint Louis Art Museum, call 314.721.0072 or visit www.slam.org .

National Gallery of Art hosts The Beffi Triptych Rescued from Italian Earthquake Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:35 PM PST WASHINGTON, DC.- The National Gallery of Art presents The Beffi Triptych: Preserving Abruzzo's Cultural Heritage, on view in the West Building's Rotunda from June 15 to September 7, 2009. The first work of art to be transported out of the region of Abruzzo, Italy, in the aftermath of a violent earthquake, the triptych is one of the most important works from the National Museum of Abruzzo in the city of L'Aquila. The Italian government has loaned the altarpiece for display at the National Gallery of Art until Labor Day in gratitude to the United States for being among the first to offer assistance to the region after the earthquake and as testimony to the Italian commitment to restore fully the cultural heritage of the region.

Stolen Art by Warhol Is Double Mystery in California and Worldwide Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:34 PM PST LOS ANGELES, CA - The theft of 10 silkscreen paintings by Andy Warhol has the Los Angeles Police Department searching for clues, but it has people in the art world scratching their heads, too. Why were just Warhols stolen, and not other more valuable art at the same location? Also what art thieves in their right mind would steal well known Warhols that are realistically un-marketable anywhere in the world ? "It's hard to say what they want to do with them, but it looks like somebody knew about these pieces," Detective Hrycyk said Saturday. He said that there was no sign of forced entry and that other valuable artwork and possessions had not been taken.

The Cheekwood Museum of Art Displays Masterworks From the Buffalo Bill Historical Center Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:33 PM PST Nashville, TN.- The Cheekwood strong>Botanical Garden and Museum of Art is proud to present "Visions of the American West: Masterworks from the Buffalo Bill Historical Center", on view at the museum through March 4th 2012. The American West is a remarkable and storied place; both the real, history-baked landscape and the "Wild West" that lives in the world's imagination. The Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming is one of the best destinations in the world to learn about every side of the West. Native Americans and Cowboys, landscape, technology, history, art, and, of course, Buffalo Bill -- the BBHC tells these stories and more through a vast collection contained within five distinct museums. Cheekwood is fortunate to partner with The Buffalo Bill Historical Center to bring these treasures to Nashville. We are excited to reintroduce you to Buffalo Bill, the star of the world-traveling Wild West show of the late 1800s. The show came through Nashville and several other cities in Tennessee on numerous occasions-- around the same time that Joel Cheek was perfecting the Maxwell House coffee blend that built the Cheekwood estate. Five connected galleries will feature highlights from the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, featuring several famous artists. First, Landscape, featuring the untamed western wilderness; next, Exploration and Wildlife, focused on encounters with native animals and people. In the middle, view an entire gallery dedicated to the dynamic works of Frederic Remington. From there, go west with paintings capturing the wagon train spirit of the Pioneers, then move into a gallery of 20th Century images of Native American Life, centered on the work of Henry Sharp. Cheekwood is thrilled to include exceptional examples from the Cody Firearms Museum in this exhibition. See artfully embellished guns used by Buffalo Bill and the members of his Wild West show, a US Model 1875 Gatling Gun Revolving Rifle Battery, a Winchester Model 1895 Sporting Rifle and a Sharps Model 1853 Sporting Rifle. The original Cheekwood estate was home to many horses. In honor of these majestic symbols of the West, one gallery is dedicated to the art of horse culture, including beautiful saddles, spurs, bits and ropes. A gallery will be dedicated to Native American history and traditions. View art and artifacts ranging from baby cradles, children's moccasins and dolls to everyday items, including a shield, parfleche and blanket. Women have shaped the history of the American West in myriad ways, and this gallery is Cheekwood's tribute to their strength and sense of adventure. View the wedding dress of William F. Cody's daughter, Arta; see an outfit that belonged to famous cowgirl, Etheyle Parry; experience paintings, photographs and everyday objects documenting the life of a ranch woman. Cheekwood will bring the life of the cowboy into focus in this gallery, with historic objects including a cowbell, branding iron, lariat and more. This collection will also document cowboy "high style," with intricately decorated hats, boots, and saddles. Buffalo Bill and the Wild West is an introduction to Buffalo Bill's life. Learn about the legend through a rich documentation of his personal affects, including the Spider Studebaker Buggy he acquired in England and other personal items, including a his Congressional Medal of Honor. The history and origin of Cheekwood are intimately interwoven with the growth of Nashville, the Maxwell House coffee brand and the Cheeks, one of the city's early entrepreneurial families. Christopher T. Cheek moved to Nashville in the 1880's and founded a wholesale grocery business. His son, Leslie Cheek joined him as a partner. In 1896, Leslie Cheek married Mabel Wood of Clarksville, Tennessee. Their son, Leslie, Jr. was born in 1908 and their daughter, Huldah, in 1915. By that year, Leslie Cheek was president of the family firm. During these same years, the elder Cheeks cousin, Joel Cheek, developed a superior blend of coffee that was marketed through the best hotel in Nashville, the Maxwell House. His extended family, including Leslie and Mabel Cheek, were investors. In 1928, Postum (now General Foods) purchased Maxwell House's parent company, Cheek-Neal Coffee, for more than $40 million. With their income secured by the proceeds from the sale, the Cheeks bought 100 acres of what was then woodland in West Nashville for a country estate. To design and build the house and grounds, they hired New York residential and landscape architect, Bryant Fleming, and gave him control over every detail - from landscaping to interior furnishings. The result was a limestone mansion and extensive formal gardens inspired by the grand English houses of the 18th century. Fleming's masterpiece, Cheekwood, was completed in 1932. Leslie and Mabel Cheek moved into the mansion in January 1933. Leslie Cheek lived at Cheekwood for just two years before his death at 61. In 1943, Mabel Cheek deeded the house to her daughter, Huldah Cheek Sharp and her husband, Walter Sharp. The Sharps lived at Cheekwood until the 1950s when they offered it as a site for a botanical garden and art museum. The development of the property was spearheaded by the Exchange Club of Nashville, the Horticultural Society of Middle Tennessee and many other civic groups. The Nashville Museum of Art donated its permanent collections and proceeds from the sale of its building to the effort. The new Cheekwood opened to the public in 1960. The core holdings include broad collections of American art; American and British decorative arts; contemporary art, especially outdoor sculpture acquired for the Woodland Sculpture Trail. Cheekwood's American art collection includes 600 paintings and 5,000 prints, drawings and photographs. The collection, assembled in the 1980s and early 1990's through a multi-million dollar bequest, spans the history of American art. Its strength centers on The Eight. Other strengths include the world's largest collection of sculptures of William Edmondson, photographs by Louise Dahk-Wolfe, and a vast variety of post-WWII prints. Recently, the Museum has pursued a consciously focused acquisition process, having added paintings by James Hamilton, William Bradford, and new contemporary sculpture for the Trail. The Contemporary Art collection, housed in the galleries created out of the estate's original garage and stables, is small but of high quality, including paintings by Larry Rivers, Andy Warhol, Robert Ryman, Red Grooms and Marylyn Dintenfass. Additionally, seven small galleries were created in the old horse stable stalls to enable Cheekwood to display installation art. The Carrell Woodland Sculpture Trail, a collection of fifteen sculptures by international artists, extends the contemporary art collection into nature, focusing on a kind of intimate, outdoor art not commonly found in American museums. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.cheekwood.org

American Pop Exhibition Coming to the Crocker Art Museum Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:32 PM PST Sacramento, Calif. – From Lichtenstein to Warhol, the art of the controversial Pop Art movement will be on exhibit at the Crocker Art Museum August 16 – November 2, 2008. American Pop: Featuring Andy Warhol's Athletes from the Richard Weisman Collection highlights 36 works drawn from major private collections as well as the Crocker's own and probes how artistic introspection of the 1960s developed into the ultimate endorsement of 1970s celebrity.

Cheim & Read shows New Work by William Eggleston and Rare Photos by Diane Arbus Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:31 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- Cheim & Read present two concurrent photography exhibitions featuring, respectively, a selection of rarely shown photographs by Diane Arbus and new work by William Eggleston. The installation of Arbus's work, shown here under the title "In the Absence of Others", brings together a group of photographs of empty interiors and artificial landscapes spanning the 1960s. The Eggleston exhibition is titled "21st Century". A presentation of this work is also on view at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London. Both exhibitions on view through 13 February, 2010.

Exhibition by The Singh Twins Announced at the National Portrait Gallery Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:30 PM PST LONDON.- Work by The Singh Twins will be on display at the National Portrait Gallery for the first time in March. The twin sisters are contemporary British artists whose award-winning paintings explore issues of social, political, religious and multicultural debate. The display will offer a contemporary response to the concurrent exhibition, The Indian Portrait 1560-1860, and The Singh Twins have created a new Gallery trail to draw links between their work, The Indian Portrait 1560-1860, and the Gallery's permanent Collection. On view 11 March through 20 June 2010

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 13 Jan 2012 08:30 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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