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

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• Meridian Gallery Showcases Works by Ireland's Patrick Graham
• The Art Institute of Chicago opens Claude Cahun's Surrealist Photographs
• The Laguna Art Museum Presents "Victor Hugo Zayas ~ Mi Obra"
• The Sakip Sabanci Museum Shows Dutch Golden Age Masterpieces From the Rijksmuseum
• Exhibition of the New York based artist Charline von Heyl opens at Tate Liverpool
• Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt releases Dataset to broaden access to Online Collection
• Photography’s Angel Provocateur ‘Cindy Sherman’ at Museum of Modern Art
• New Works by British-born Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE at James Cohan Gallery
• "The Ruins of Detroit" ~ Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre exhibit at Wilmotte Gallery
• Meijer Gardens to exhibit The Largest Exhibition by Jaume Plensa
• Studio Museum in Harlem displays " Barkley L. Hendricks ~ Birth of the Cool "
• Allentown Art Museum features Linda Lee Alter ~ A Life in Art
• Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center Receives Al Hirschfeld 'Barber Chair'
• Crystal Bridges to Loan Major Works by Parrish & Rockwell to Toledo Museum
• Allentown Art Museum Receives Major Gifts from Peter Grippe Estate
• George Grosz Heirs File Suit Against MoMA for Artworks Unlawfully Taken During Nazi Era
• Zhang Hongtu's 'Bird's Nest' Painting Barred by Beijing Customs as "Unacceptable"
• CaixaForum in Barcelona Offers a Journey Through Contemporary Engravings
• The Albertina exhibits Masterworks of Modern Art from The Batliner Collection
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

Meridian Gallery Showcases Works by Ireland's Patrick Graham Posted: 25 Feb 2012 10:19 PM PST San Francisco, California.- Meridian Gallery is showing "Patrick Graham — Thirty Years: The Silence Becomes the Painting", on view through April 14th. In a rare opportunity to view the works of Ireland's most influential contemporary artist, the gallery will display over 35 works by the artist Patrick Graham, including paintings, collages, and drawings. This exhibition contains four of his monumental iconic diptychs. Two of these pieces, "Wreath" and "Somewhere Jerusalem", evoke the sense of ceremony, ritual, and a longing for space and homeland. Organized by Meridian Gallery, the exhibition will tour under the gallery's auspices to; Katzen Museum of Art at American University (June 9- August 12, 2012) and the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art at Saint Louis University (September 23- December 16 2012). The exhibition will include a full-color catalog. "Graham is widely considered Ireland's major contemporary painter; Graham's paintings indeed have vistas that cannot be measured, his figures are fragmented, wounded humans, they are vulnerable, but promise endurance." - Curator Peter Selz. Graham has always created meditations in the form of landscapes and iconic imagery that touch upon questions pertaining to reality, the meaning of life, and the search for faith in a world of diminishing absolutes. "The landscape has influenced my work right up to the present, particularly the low horizon; and that great vista where you can encounter space, and figures in it, in all kinds of ways….Silences. No conversations. A looking in, rather than a lived experience. That 'looking-in on things' has stayed with me: a self-contained art." - Patrick Graham, "Interior Visions." Irish Arts Review Graham's work has also been the subject of exhibitions and symposiums internationally, including the National Gallery of Ireland, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Trinity College, Walker Art Gallery in England, the Hokkaido Museum in Japan, the University of Michigan, Northeastern University, and Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Works are selected from Jack Rutberg Fine Arts (LA), Graham's international agent. In the Summer of 1989, Meridian Gallery opened its downtown performance and exhibition space with a show curated by Rolando Castellón (co-founder and first director of the Galería de la Raza) called Drawings from the Fourth World. That arresting show of work by seven San Francisco Bay Area artists from seven cultures and ethnicities set the pattern for much that was to come: Performances of music, film, poetry, occasionally – dance – and from the beginning, Saturday Afternoon Forums, where dozens of interdisciplinary artists have given voice. By "The Fourth World" Castellón (who was also the curator for the SF MOMA "MIX" program), meant "…that space that exists between geographical, political, and aesthetic borders."  That space is the one that Meridian with its shows, events and concerts of New Music consistently explores. The interns program is sited at the core of the gallery. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://meridiangallery.org

The Art Institute of Chicago opens Claude Cahun's Surrealist Photographs Posted: 25 Feb 2012 09:52 PM PST Chicago, Illinois.- The Art Institute of Chicago is proud to present "Entre Nous: The Art of Claude Cahun", on view at the museum from February 25th through June 3rd. Born Lucy Schwob to a family of French intellectuals and writers, Claude Cahun (who adopted the pseudonym at age 22) is best known for the staged self-portraiture, photomontages, and prose texts she made principally between 1920 and 1940. Rediscovered in the late 1980s, her work has not only expanded our understanding of the Surrealist era but also serves as an important touchstone to later feminist explorations of gender and identity politics. In her self-portraits, which she began creating around 1913, Cahun dismantled and questioned pre-existing notions of self and sexuality. Posing in costumes and elaborate make-up, Cahun appears masked as various personae: man or woman, hero or doll, both powerful and vulnerable. Almost a century after their making, these innovative photographs and assemblages remain remarkably relevant in their treatment of gender, performance, and identity.

The Laguna Art Museum Presents "Victor Hugo Zayas ~ Mi Obra" Posted: 25 Feb 2012 09:22 PM PST Laguna Beach, California.- The Laguna Art Museum is proud to present "Victor Hugo Zayas: Mi Obra" on view at the museum from February 26th through April 29. The exhibition will be on display in Laguna Art Museum's lower level galleries and will feature paintings and sculptures created in the last five years by contemporary Los Angeles artist Victor Hugo Zayas. With a keen sense of observation, Zayas works swiftly. His subject matter encompasses the figure, landscape, and cityscape in which the breadth and generosity of his paints cover canvas and surprisingly, paper. Looking to European masters such as Velázquez, Titian, Rembrandt, Fragonard, and Goya, Zayas has developed an expressionist style of paint handling involving a landscape that is visceral, moody, and passionate.

The Sakip Sabanci Museum Shows Dutch Golden Age Masterpieces From the Rijksmuseum Posted: 25 Feb 2012 09:06 PM PST Istanbul, Turkey - For the first time, the Rijksmuseum is organising an exhibition on the Dutch Golden Age in Turkey, including five paintings by Rembrandt and 'The love letter' by Vermeer. Over 100 masterpieces from the Rijksmuseum collection will be on display in Sakip Sabanci Museum in Istanbul until June 10th. The exhibition is part of the festivities marking 400 years of diplomatic relations between Turkey and the Netherlands. Today Sabanci University Sakip Sabanci Museum presents a versatile and world class museological environment with its rich permanent collection, the comprehensive temporary exhibitions that it hosts, its conservation units, model educational programs and the various concerts, conferences and seminars held there. The exhibition showcases the rich and varied nature of 17th-century Dutch art and history, telling the story of the power and majesty of the young Dutch Republic in the Golden Age through a selection of 111 paintings, drawings, prints and applied art in the form of carpets, ceramics, silverware and glassware. The exhibits include landscapes by Jan van Goyen, Jacob van Ruisdael and Aelbert Cuyp, still lives by Pieter Claesz and Adriaen Coorte, genre pieces by Gerard ter Borch, Gabriël Metsu and Pieter de Hooch, and jocular scenes by Jan Steen and Adriaen van Ostade. Two portraits by Frans Hals will also be on display, alongside several cityscapes by Gerrit Berckheyde and two pen paintings by Willem van de Velde de Oude. The highlights of the exhibition are The Love Letter (1669-1670) by Johannes Vermeer and no fewer than five paintings by Rembrandt van Rijn : Portrait of Haesje van Cleyburgh (1634), Still life with peacocks (c. 1639) and Portrait of Dr Ephraïm Bueno (1645-47), The music lesson (1626) and Joseph recounting his dreams (1633). While the Rijksmuseum is being rennovated, it will be taking the opportunity to share its collection with as wide an audience as possible, both in the Netherlands and abroad. Countries where works from the Rijksmuseum's collection have been on display include Australia (2005), Japan (2005, 2007), the United States (2006), China (2007), Canada (2009), France (2009), Luxembourg (2010) and Qatar (2011). The exhibition in Istanbul will be the final exhibition abroad before the Rijksmuseum's main building reopens in all its glory in 2013. Sabanci University's Sakip Sabanci Museum is located in Emirgan, at one of Istanbul's oldest settlements on the Bosphorus. In 1927 Prince Mehmed Ali Hasan of the Egyptian Hidiv family commissioned the Italian architect Edouard De Nari to construct a villa, now the museum's main building, and it was used as a summer house for many years by various members of the Hidiv family, briefly also serving as the Montenegran Embassy. After the mansion was purchased in 1950 by industrialist Haci Ömer Sabanci from Prince Iffet, a member of the Hidiv family, it came to be known as "Atli Kösk" (The Horse Mansion), because of the statue of a horse (purchased in the same year) by French sculptor Louis Doumas that was installed in the garden. A second horse sculpture on the grounds of Atli Kösk is the cast of one of the four horses taken from Sultanahmet square in Istanbul when it was looted by Crusaders during the fourth Crusade in 1204 and removed to the Basilica of San Marco in Venice. After the death of Haci Ömer Sabanci in 1966 Atli Kösk began to be used permanently as a home by Sakip Sabanci, the eldest of the family, and for many years housed Sakip Sabanci's rich collection of calligraphy and paintings. In 1998, together with its collection and furnishings, the mansion was allocated to Sabanci University to be transformed into a museum. With the addition of a modern gallery annex, the exhibition areas of the museum opened to visitors in 2002, with a further extension completed in 2005. Today Sabanci University Sakip Sabanci Museum presents a versatile and world class museological environment with its rich permanent collection, the comprehensive temporary exhibitions that it hosts, its conservation units, model educational programs and the various concerts, conferences and seminars held there. Visit the museum's website at ... http://muze.sabanciuniv.edu

Exhibition of the New York based artist Charline von Heyl opens at Tate Liverpool Posted: 25 Feb 2012 08:52 PM PST LIVERPOOL.- Tate Liverpool presents the first major UK exhibition of the New York based artist Charline von Heyl (b 1960). Von Heyl is at the forefront of a new generation of abstract painters who have acknowledged painting's contradictions and rejected late modernism's emphasis on signature style. Forty-two large canvasses and a number of unique works on paper are displayed, covering the period 1990-2011. Taking a broadly chronological approach, the exhibition demonstrates von Heyl's eclectic approach to painting. Often employing unconventional painting methods and actively resisting a single style or vision, she has constantly reinvented the art form. On exhibition from 24 February through 27 May.

Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt releases Dataset to broaden access to Online Collection Posted: 25 Feb 2012 08:34 PM PST NEW YORK, NY.- The Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum today announced the release of its collection dataset, which will broaden access and allow for increased analysis of the museum's object holdings. Basic museum data for more than 60 percent of the collection (more than 120,000 records) is now available as a single downloadable file at www.cooperhewitt.org/data. This open data release is the first of its kind for the Smithsonian Institution. "Following the lead of NYC's Open Data and Data.gov in driving transparency and access, Cooper-Hewitt's data release connects to a philosophy of publicly shared information, collaboration and inclusive participation," said museum director Bill Moggridge.

Photography’s Angel Provocateur ‘Cindy Sherman’ at Museum of Modern Art Posted: 25 Feb 2012 07:12 PM PST New York City - There are several conclusions to be drawn from the Museum of Modern Art's magnificent if somewhat flawed survey of Cindy Sherman's brilliant career. But one of them is surely that reports of the death of the author have been greatly exaggerated. At many points throughout this dense, often exciting show, which opens on Sunday, we are confronted by an artist with an urgent, singularly personal vision, who for the past 35 years has consistently and provocatively turned photography against itself. She comes across here as an increasingly vehement avenging angel waging a kind of war with the camera, using it to expose what might be called both the tyranny and the inner lives of images, especially the images of women that bombard and shape all of us at every turn. Aided by ever-shifting arrays of costumes, wigs, makeup techniques, accessories, props and at times masks and prosthetic body parts, Ms. Sherman has aggressively role-played and stage-directed her way through, and in many ways laid waste to, a lexicon of mostly female stereotypes. Her career started in the late 1970s with the small black-and-white "Untitled Film Stills," quietly reverberant scenes from nonexistent movies. Inspiring almost reflexive story lines in viewers, their female protagonists identify variously as housewives, forlorn lovers, sex kittens, girl Fridays and tourists. From there she moved ever onward and outward, to color and to larger formats and a dizzying array of conventions — fashion, art history, centerfolds, pornography, portraiture, fairy tales and horror movies. We have followed, filling in the blanks, from one set of characters to the next. Unfolding in discrete, chapter-like series, her work has proved to be as formally ambitious and inventive as it is psychically probing. Her photographs are inevitably skewed so that their seams show and their fictive, constructed nature is apparent; we are always in on the trick, alerted to their real-feigned nature. The rough, visible nonchalance with which they are assembled for the camera has expanded the boundaries of setup photography, incorporating aspects of painting, sculpture, film, installation, performance, collage and assemblage. Ms. Sherman is often lauded for being a skilled, chameleonlike actress, and she is — an actress always teetering on the brink of being in a role, but never all the way in. She is also a consummate manipulator of space, scale, color and pattern textiles. And she is famous for working solo in her studio, without assistants. Part of the power of her images is their home-alone quality. We know that everything we see in a Sherman image she put there, deliberately, decisively. This is a timely exhibition. At a moment when too much art is dependent for its effect on lengthy explanations offered by wordy museum labels or nattering art dealers, Ms. Sherman has pursued an adamantly visual art that allows for — coerces, really — rich, free rumination on the viewer's part. Similarly, when younger artists are increasingly encouraged to make work that tackles the problems of the world, she demonstrates that these things can't be easily calculated. It reminds us that art's political and moral effects are convincing only when driven by deep, in many ways selfish, psychological needs. Ms. Sherman, who was born in New Jersey in 1954 and grew up on Long Island, is one of the most important artists of her era. The Modern's press statement rightly notes that her work remains "the unchallenged cornerstone of postmodern photography." But she is also great, and arguably the first of her kind, in a more old-fashioned sense. She may be the first woman in modern art history whose career conforms in its broad outlines to those of figures like Pablo Picasso, Jasper Johns or Bruce Nauman: an innately precocious, innovative, prolific, influential artist who has enjoyed widespread acclaim — and market success — virtually since she first appeared, in the early 1980s, and who has never rested on her laurels, but has persisted, decade after decade, with interesting, surprising work. Basically, the Modern blinked. Ms. Sherman's body of work could have easily handled the entire sixth floor, like the recent De Kooning retrospective or Richard Serra's in 2007, instead of just two-thirds. Or it should have been given additional space elsewhere in the museum, like the recent surveys of work by Martin Kippenberger, Gabriel Orozco and Martin Puryear. Failing that, better use should have been made of the allotted space. It is easy to grasp the challenge that the quality, quantity and variety of Ms. Sherman's art presented the show's able organizers, Eva Respini, associate curator, and Lucy Gallun, curatorial assistant in the department of photography. The notion of laying out her career series by series might have seemed, on paper, too predictable. But the treatment here pulls its punches. Her big corrosive clown images from 2002-04, with their bright, digitally manipulated abstract backgrounds, should have blazed forth from their own space rather than been divided among three thematic galleries. I could have used many more examples of the fashion photographs, which despite being commercial work, are among some of Ms. Sherman's most aggressive, opulently sardonic efforts. Here nearly 30 years of projects are represented by a mere 11 images, and none of them shows her incorporating masks or prostheses, one of many examples of cross-fertilization between series that might have been stressed. And the show lingers too long over her popular but uneven history portraits, in which she cobbled together riotously false approximations of old master paintings by Raphael, Rembrandt, Caravaggio and Ingres. The most recent works at the Modern are murals of immense images that break out of the photographic frame and portray the artist without makeup in often ill-fitting costumes. Here Ms. Sherman unabashedly plays on her own aging — as she does in a more lacquered way in the society portraits — but she also evokes the play-acting little girl that she once was while making it feel like new territory. If this show does not go all out for Ms. Sherman, it is still a gift, one that reminds us, when we especially need reminding, what it takes to be a great artist. Although not one of her images qualifies, exactly, as a self-portrait, the Modern's show is above all an inspiring portrait of the artist ceaselessly at work, striving never to repeat herself, always trying to go deeper and further in one direction or another. Her self — remorseless, generous, imaginative and shrewd — is everywhere. "Cindy Sherman" will be on view through June 11 at the Museum of Modern Art; (212) 708-9400, www.moma.org.

New Works by British-born Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE at James Cohan Gallery Posted: 25 Feb 2012 07:11 PM PST NEW YORK.- James Cohan Gallery presents an exhibition of new works by British-born Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE running through March 24th. In this multi-part exhibition of new sculptures, photoworks and the premiere of a new film, Shonibare explores the concept of destiny as it relates to themes of desire, yearning, love, power and sexual repression. Yinka Shonibare, well known for creating multi-faceted conceptual art work, continues to draw our attention to patterns of history and how they are repeated in our own time. Following the installation of the artist's widely acclaimed work Nelson's Ship in a Bottle on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London, Shonibare continues his explorations of Lord Nelson, the figurehead of the British Empire at its apotheosis. Nelson's destiny was to fall a hero at the Battle of Trafalgar just as the British Empire's ultimate destiny became its inevitable demise. Shonibare sees a similar fate reflected on the front pages of today's newspapers: "The Imperial West is in decline at a time of great economic challenges as we see the rise of the East. The old world is in decline and new worlds are emerging through the economic successes of China and India and the revolutions in the Arab world. We are re-experiencing a new Age of the 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'."

"The Ruins of Detroit" ~ Yves Marchand & Romain Meffre exhibit at Wilmotte Gallery Posted: 25 Feb 2012 07:10 PM PST LONDON.- Tristan Hoare and Julien Dobbs-Higginson present a selection of photographs from the much acclaimed body of work The Ruins of Detroit (published: Steidl, 2010). Photographs from this series have previously been exhibited in Ville Fertile, Cité de l'architecture et du patrimoine, Paris and Metropolis, Noorderlicht Photofestival, Groningen. They will be shown in the UK for the first time. The Ruins of Detroit is a five year collaboration between French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. Together they have documented Detroit's abandoned buildings, thus bringing to light the current state of 'Motor City' through a cinematic series of starkly beautiful photographs. Shooting with a large format, custom made camera, taking advantage of natural light and using long exposures, the images embody the unique atmosphere of each location. Marchand and Meffre's work retains a formal quality and is conceived as a document, giving the viewer a surreal glimpse of Detroit's former glory. Like the great civilizations of the past, we interpret them through their remains.

Meijer Gardens to exhibit The Largest Exhibition by Jaume Plensa Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:49 PM PST   GRAND RAPIDS, MI.- Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, the most significant sculpture and botanic experience in the Midwest and an emerging cultural destination on the national scene, is honored to welcome Spanish artist, Jaume Plensa, for his largest exhibition in the United States to date. This examination of Plensa's work is open October 3, 2008 through January 4, 2009. The focal point of Plensa's work is the universality of humankind through the context of public sculpture and installation, which can be seen in dozens of permanent works around the world," said Joseph Becherer, Director of Exhibitions and Curator of the Sculpture at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park. "His work is significant for Meijer Gardens because it directly addresses the connection between art and life, and how each fit within the natural world."  "Guests are undeniably drawn to Plensa's sculpture. He purposefully selects materials and sites in graceful harmony that entices participation and encourages contemplation—a flawless match to our gardens." Plensa integrates a variety of materials into his work such as metal and glass; air and water; light and darkness; audio and video technology and written text to take advantage of the viewer's entire sensory experience. This effect often immerses viewers, making his pieces more interactive and extending their importance. "My work has tried to reconcile opposites. It is perhaps inside that friction of dualities where I can raise the big questions in a more suitable way and, in their own impossibility, find the path of emotion," said Plensa. The opening of Jaume Plensa at Meijer Gardens coincides with the 21st bi-annual International Sculpture Conference, October 2-4, 2008 in Grand Rapids. The conference will focus on sculpture in public places, including a keynote presentation from Plensa on Thursday, October 2nd. The three-day event will bring together artists, arts administrators, curators, patrons, museum directors, educators and students for dialogue and networking events focused on issues related to public art. About Jaume Plensa - Born in Spain, Plensa's cutting-edge work reflects his Catalan origins. With their contextually diverse, layered and dualistic nature, Plensa's works demand participation to enhance and extend their significance. Though Barcelona is his home base, he has also lived and worked in Berlin, Brussels, England (at the invitation of The Henry Moore Foundation), and France (at the invitation of the Atelier Alexander Calder). The winner of many national and international awards, his work is exhibited in major museums and galleries, including the Galérie Nationale du Jeu de Paume in Paris; the Henry Moore Sculpture Trust in Halifax, England; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; Museum der Modernen Kunst, Vienna, and in New York, Chicago and Tokyo. Outdoor and public sculpture is an equally important aspect of Plensa's output, with numerous installations in North America, Europe, and Asia, including his famed Crown Fountain in Chicago's Millennium Park. Best known in America as the creator of Chicago's iconic Crown Fountain in Millennium Park, Plensa is one of the most innovative and profound public artists on the contemporary art scene. This exclusive presentation centers on Plensa's distinct interpretation of the human form and use of text, through eight sculpture installations and 18 drawings, many of which never before seen in the United States. About Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park The 132-acre Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, which currently serves more than a half-million visitors annually, features Michigan's largest tropical conservatory; one of the largest children's gardens in the country; arid and Victorian gardens; carnivorous plant house; outdoor gardens; the Midwest's most comprehensive sculpture experience featuring internationally-acclaimed works by Rodin, Oldenburg, Moore, Rickey, di Suvero and others; indoor galleries with changing sculpture exhibitions, as well as a 1750-seat outdoor amphitheater, featuring an eclectic mix of world-renowned musicians every summer, café and gift shop.  For additional information, please visit www.meijergardens.org

Studio Museum in Harlem displays " Barkley L. Hendricks ~ Birth of the Cool " Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:48 PM PST NEW YORK CITY - The Studio Museum in Harlem is proud to present Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool, the first career retrospective of the renowned American artist. Hendricks (b. 1945) is best known for his life-size portraits of people of color from the urban northeast in the 1960s and 70s. His bold portrayals of attitude and style capture a moment of fashion following the civil rights movement—he depicts iconic power within his subjects. On view through 15 March, 2009.

Allentown Art Museum features Linda Lee Alter ~ A Life in Art Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:47 PM PST Allentown, PA - Philadelphia artist Linda Lee Alter's life has been devoted to an all-embracing creative exploration of the arts. Her work has ranged from vibrant fabric wall hangings and appliqués with lively allegorical depictions of fables and Old Testament stories to paintings that serve as metaphors for life events. Many of her works, which have been widely exhibited and collected, have served as inspiration for children's book illustrations and greeting cards. On view JUNE 8 – SEPTEMBER 7, 2008, at The Allentown Art Museum.

Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center Receives Al Hirschfeld 'Barber Chair' Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:46 PM PST NEW YORK, NY - Show-biz caricaturist Al Hirschfeld immortalized the world of theater with his fluid ink-and-pen portraits while seated in a barbershop chair behind a worn century-old drafting desk in the fourth-floor studio of his Manhattan town house. Now, eight years after the celebrated artist's death, his widow is donating the sturdy tools of his trade to the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Hirschfeld, who captured the appearance and personality of theater people for more than half a century with a distinct linear calligraphic style, died in 2003 at the age of 99. "It took eight men to get the chair down" the four flights of stairs, Louise Hirschfeld Cullman, a theater historian who married Hirschfeld in 1996, said in an interview Tuesday. "I thought this library was the right place for his work," she said. "He lived most of his life in New York. His main focus was New York City and the theater. ... his personal vision and style was something I felt belonged in New York." The artifacts were scheduled to be unveiled at a reception at the library. The two artifacts will be displayed in the lobby of the performing arts library. Hirschfeld made virtually all of his drawings while he was ensconced in his chair at the old desk with his subjects seated on a sofa across from him. His widow, who has remarried, recalled how Wynton Marsalis arrived at the house to have his portrait drawn, "blowing his trumpet all the way upstairs." Another time, Michael Tilson Thomas, walking past the grand piano for his sitting, stopped to tickle the ivories with George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue." Among the last notable figures to pose for his portrait in the studio was Nicolas Cage, she said. Its executive director, Jacqueline Davis, said 2,200 to 2,500 people a month walk through the door where they will "immediately be hit by this desk and chair ... and discover Al Hirschfeld and his creativity." "It stretches the imagination how he worked, both by the work he did and the setting in which he worked," Davis added. "The chair was like his throne," it's height allowing him to "look down at his studio," Hirschfeld Cullman said. It came from a barbershop in the Chrysler Building in 1993, replacing another barber chair that had fallen apart from wear. The drafting table is from the early 1900s and "had many little drawers for his pen stubs and pencils, and a variety of beautiful brushes which he never used, but they were so theatrical looking," his widow said. Hirschfeld took his daily afternoon tea at the desk and chair, napped in it, read in it and did his finances in it, she said. The Al Hirschfeld Foundation also will be donating a variety of Hirschfeld letters, photographs, memorabilia and other items of interest to the library over the next few months, said Hirschfeld Cullman, who is the foundation's president. Among the letters will be ones from his daughter, Nina, whose name he imbedded in the lines of all his drawings. Albert "Al" Hirschfeld (June 21, 1903 – January 20, 2003) was an American caricaturist best known for his simple black and white portraits of celebrities and Broadway stars. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, he moved with his family to New York City where he received his art training at the Art Students League of New York. Hirschfeld's art style is unique, and he is considered to be one of the most important figures in contemporary caricature, having influenced countless cartoonists. Hirschfeld's caricatures are almost always drawings of pure line with simple black ink on white paper with little to no shading or crosshatching. His drawings always manage to capture a likeness using the minimum number of lines. Though his caricatures often exaggerate and distort the faces of his subjects, he is often described as being a fundamentally "nicer" caricaturist than many of his contemporaries, and being drawn by Hirschfeld was considered an honor more than an insult. Nonetheless he did face some complaints from his editors over the years; in a late-1990s interview with The Comics Journal Hirschfeld recounted how one editor told him his drawings of Broadway's "beautiful people" looked like "a bunch of animals". During Hirschfeld's nearly eight-decade career, he gained fame by illustrating the entire casts of various Broadway plays, which would appear to accompany reviews in The New York Times. Though this was Hirschfeld's best known field of interest he also would draw politicians, TV stars, and celebrities of all stripes from Cole Porter, the Nordstrom Sisters to the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation; Hirschfeld also caricatured hard rockers Aerosmith for the cover of their 1977 album Draw the Line. He expanded his audience by contributing to Patrick F. McManus' humor column in Outdoor Life magazine for a number of years. Hirschfeld started young and continued drawing to the end of his life, thus chronicling nearly all the major entertainment figures of the 20th Century. Hirschfeld drew some of the original movie posters for Charlie Chaplin's films, as well as The Wizard of Oz. The Rhapsody in Blue segment in the Disney film Fantasia 2000 was inspired by his designs and Hirschfeld became an artistic consultant for the segment, while the segment's director, Eric Goldberg, is a long time fan of his work. Further evidence of Goldberg's admiration for Hirschfeld can be found in Goldberg's character design and animation of the Genie in Aladdin. He was the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary film, The Line King: The Al Hirschfeld Story (1996). Compilation of Hirschfeld's work, showing caricatures of Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, Franklin Pierce Adams and other members of the Algonquin Round Table. Permanent collections of Hirschfeld's work appear at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The Martin Beck Theatre, which opened November 11, 1924 at 302 West 45th Street, was renamed to become the Al Hirschfeld Theatre on June 21, 2003. In 2002, Al Hirschfeld was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Hirschfeld resided at 122 East 95th Street, in Manhattan. He died, aged 99, of natural causes at his home on January 20, 2003; just five months before his 100th birthday

Crystal Bridges to Loan Major Works by Parrish & Rockwell to Toledo Museum Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:45 PM PST BENTONVILLE, ARK.- Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art will share important works of art by America's most beloved artist-illustrators with the Toledo Museum of Art. Maxfield Parrish's lyrical nocturne The Lantern Bearers (1908), originally created as a frontispiece for the December 10, 1910 issue of Collier's magazine, and Norman Rockwell's Rosie the Riveter (1943), an iconic representation of the American work ethic that provided the May 29, 1943 cover of the Saturday Evening Post, will go on display in Toledo beginning August 17.

Allentown Art Museum Receives Major Gifts from Peter Grippe Estate Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:44 PM PST ALLENTOWN, PA.- The Allentown Art Museum recently received a major gift of art and real estate from the estate of the artist Peter Grippe (1912-2002). Grippe, an American mid-century modernist artist whose works were inspired by Cubism, was a talented and inventive sculptor and printmaker who worked and exhibited with the major artists of the mid-20th century, including those from the New York School. "Peter Grippe left behind a substantial body of work, and the museum is honored and grateful to serve as a home for it," said Greg Perry, the Allentown Art Museum 's Priscilla Payne Hurd Executive Director. "The collection will be a boon to our 20th century holdings, and will allow the museum to more fully represent the wave of abstraction that followed and reinterpreted Cubism from the first decades of the century." An exhibition of Grippe's work is scheduled at the museum from January 31-May 16, 2011.

George Grosz Heirs File Suit Against MoMA for Artworks Unlawfully Taken During Nazi Era Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:43 PM PST NEW YORK, NY - The heirs of George Grosz, a famous Weimar period artist and relentless critic of the Nazis and German military establishment, filed suit in New York on Friday, April 10, 2009 against the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for refusing to return three artworks created by Grosz and left behind by him when he fled Germany in 1933 to avoid Nazi threats against his life. The artworks, Portrait of the Poet Max Herrmann-Neisse, Self-Portrait with Model, and Republican Automatons, were left behind in Germany with his Galerist Alfred Flechtheim. Eventually Flechtheim was also forced to flee Germany due to Nazi persecution and the artworks were lost after Flechtheim's death. Suit against MoMA was filed only after MoMA refused further discussion with the Grosz heirs, refused to toll the statute of limitations, and refused to mediate or arbitrate the dispute. Under the Washington Conference principles museums are to seek "fair and just" solutions to Nazi-era claims, and under the AAM and AAMD guidelines museums also should waive technical defenses such as the statute of limitations and laches and seek alternative avenues of dispute resolution, such as through mediation or arbitration. MoMA refused all of these suggested alternatives, leaving the Grosz heirs with no other alternative but to file suit. The Max Herrmann-Neisse painting, one of the best examples of Grosz' portraits, was created by George Grosz in 1927 and was consigned by Grosz to the Galerie Alfred Flechtheim in Berlin. The Flechtheim Galerie exhibited the painting on several occasions including at the MoMA in 1931. However, in 1933 the Flechtheim Galerie went into liquidation and Alfred Flechtheim fled Germany due to Nazi persecution. In early 1933, George Grosz left Germany after being threatened by the Nazis and took up a teaching position in New York with the Art Students League. As a strident Nazi opponent Grosz exited Germany just prior to Hitler's appointment as Chancellor. Shortly thereafter Grosz'apartment and atelier in Berlin were ransacked by Nazi storm troopers and approximately 285 Grosz artworks, including those on display in museums, were either confiscated or destroyed. While he was in exile in America, the Nazi government ordered all of Grosz' property left behind in Germany confiscated, including the Max Herrmann-Neisse painting, and revoked his German citizenship. Although steps were taken against Grosz' property as early as 1933, including the seizure of his bank account, the confiscation of his property and revocation of Grosz' German citizenship was published by the Nazis on March 9, 1938. Alfred Flechtheim died on March 11, 1937 in London, having also been exiled from Germany. Flechtheim's wife, Betty, stayed on in Germany not having raised the necessary funds to pay Jewish taxes in order to obtain permission to leave. She eventually committed suicide in 1941 after having been given notice that she would be sent to a concentration camp. During all this time, the Max Herrmann-Neisse painting stayed in Berlin. On April 4, 1937, shortly after Flechtheim's death, and subsequent to to the closure of Flechtheim's Galeries, Charlotte Weidler, an art dealer and curator for the Carnegie Institute, claimed she had "inherited" paintings from Flechtheim including the Max Herrmann-Neisse painting. However, the Max Hermann-Neisse painting belonged to George Grosz who had never given up its ownership. After WWII, in 1949 Weidler brought the painting to New York where she sold it to MoMA in 1952 through a dealer in Nazi-confiscated art, named Curt Valentin. At the time, George Grosz was living in New York but was not informed of the sale. Records indicate that MoMA never inquired as to the seller or the painting's further provenance. When Grosz first learned that the Max Herrmann-Neisse painting was hanging in the collection of the MoMA in 1953, he wrote to his brother-in-law Otto Schmalhausen that "Modern Museum exhibited a painting that was stolen from me (I am powerless against that) they bought it from someone who stole it." Despondent due to Nazi persecution and the loss of his artistic legacy, Grosz died a broken man. Weidler had also been involved in a very similar case involving the collection of Paul Westheim. After the publisher and art collector Paul Westheim fled Germany during the Nazi takeover, he left his art collection behind with Charlotte Weidler. Weidler left Germany as well in 1939 and stored the Westheim artworks in her sister's apartment in Berlin. Following the war Westheim asked Weidler what had become of his collection, and Weidler told him that his art collection was a total loss. This was not true. Following Westheim's death in 1963, Weidler sold paintings from Westheim's collection that he left with her. Westheim's collection lost in Nazi Germany was well documented in publications and in German restitution claims. Among the Westheim paintings sold by Weidler was "An die Schoenheit"(To Beauty), by Otto Dix, which Weidler sold to the German art dealer Dr. Ewald Rathke. However, Rathke found out that Weidler was not the owner and forced Weidler to compensate Westheim's wife. Besides the loss of the Max Herrmann-Neisse painting to Charlotte Weidler without compensation, Grosz also lost other artworks which he had consigned to Alfred Flechtheim and which were sold without Grosz' authorization in a sham auction in Amsterdam after Flechtheim's death. Among the artworks sold in the Amsterdam auction were Self-Portrait with Model and Republican Automatons, also now in the possession of MoMA. Asked to comment on the events leading to the suit against MoMA, Marty Grosz said "We are very respectful of the MoMA, one of the leading modern art museums in the world. Unfortunately they were not willing to apply the principles of the Washington Conference and reach a "fair and just solution" in this case. MoMA left us with no alternative but to file suit. We were quite willing to resolve the matter amicably, but they refused."

Zhang Hongtu's 'Bird's Nest' Painting Barred by Beijing Customs as "Unacceptable" Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:42 PM PST Wall Street Journal - "Birds Nest, in the style of Cubism," a painting by Zhang Hongtu, is now at the Lin & Keng Gallery in Taipei, awaiting shipment back to New York. The ashen-brown picture shows the gleaming new Olympic stadium, designed by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, as Piranesi might have imagined it and Picasso painted it. . as a decaying ruin rendered in fragmented angled forms. On the canvas, cubist-style, are inscriptions in English letters and Chinese characters: "Tibet," "human right" and the Olympic motto, "one world, one dream." The painting was supposed to be in Beijing during the Olympic Games, in the exhibition "Go Game, Beijing!" organized by a Berlin marketing firm. But it was seized by Customs on arrival and denied entry as "unacceptable" for its color, its depiction of the stadium, and its inscriptions.

CaixaForum in Barcelona Offers a Journey Through Contemporary Engravings Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:41 PM PST   Barcelona, Spain - A total of 42 engravings by, among others, Antoni Tapies, Robert Motherwell, Eduardo Chillida, Edward Ruscha and Jaume Plensa, form a journey through contemporary engraving that CaixaForum has gathered in an exhibition titled, "Sign, space, time". The show, which opened in Barcelona, gathers works of art created between 1970 and 1990, where it will be on view until  March 15, 2009.

The Albertina exhibits Masterworks of Modern Art from The Batliner Collection Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:40 PM PST Vienna, Austria - Starting at the end of May, works from the Batliner Collection, which came to the Albertina as a permanent loan in 2007, will be shown in a new presentation occupying 3,000 square metres of space. French Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, the Fauves, German Expressionism and the Russian avant-garde are represented by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, Pablo Picasso, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. The exhibition continues into the latter half of the 20th century with important late works by Picasso and paintings by Mark Rothko and Francis Bacon, and concludes with three leading contemporary artists, Gerhard Richter, Georg Baselitz and Anselm Kiefer. The 280 works on display are drawn from the Batliner Collection and from the Albertina's 30,000 holdings of early modern and contemporary art.  One of Europe's greatest private collections of classical modern art came to the Albertina as a permanent loan from the Rita und Herbert Batliner Foundation in Liechtenstein. The Albertina is now in a unique position to compensate for the major gaps in the Austrian state-run museums' holdings of international modern art with key works of French Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, German Expressionism, Fauvism and the Russian avant-garde. The Batliner Collection has received acclaim from museums and connoisseurs for decades. It includes outstanding works by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Mark Rothko and Francis Bacon. These masterpieces can be seen in a new permanent exhibition at the Albertina. The Batliner Collection is augmented by works from the Forberg Collection in Switzerland, which was also transferred to the Albertina on permanent loan. The Collectors Herbert and Rita Batliner Herbert and Rita Batliner began collecting art nearly half a century ago. Due to their close friendship with the legendary art dealer Ernst Beyeler, French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting formed a cornerstone of the collection from the very beginning, along with the work of Alberto Giacometti. Exceptional works by Monet such as The Water-Lily Pond, Edgar Degas' Two Dancers, or Cézanne's Arc-Tal and Mont Sainte-Victoire landscapes attest to the couple's passion for French art. Picasso became an additional focal point. Today he is represented in the collection with over 40 works, including ten paintings and numerous drawings and one-of-a-kind ceramics. In the course of his travels, Herbert Batliner gained familiarity with Russian avant-garde art. He and his wife were inspired by the works they saw in Amsterdam's Stedelijk Museum, the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and the Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, to build their own fine collection of Russian avant-garde art from 1905-35. The focus of their acquisitions was on Marc Chagall, but they also sought out works by Natalia Goncharova, Liubov Popova und Mikhail Larionow. The collection includes a major work by Kazimir Malevich, painted as a defiant memory image immediately following the artist's release from a Stalinist prison. The Collectors' Legacy As the collection has grown from decade to decade, so has its recognition within the art world. Herbert and Rita Batliner regularly lent to museums; rare was the Picasso, Monet, Modigliani or Giacometti exhibition that did not include works on loan from the Batliner Collection. Several years ago the Batliners decided to respect the integrity of the collection by transferring the entire collection to a museum as a bequest. Convinced that extraordinary art collections are no less distinctive, and as such worth preserving, than great works of art, the Batliners decided to make their collection accessible to the general public in their lifetime. The couple derived enormous pleasure and intellectual stimulation from the daily contact they had with their paintings, pastels, gouaches and sculptures, and now they wanted to share this experience with others. The Batliner Collection and the Albertina To safeguard the unity of their distinguished collection in perpetuity, the Batliners set up the Herbert and Rita Batliner Art Foundation, which transferred the artworks to the Albertina as a permanent loan. Together with works from the Swiss collection of Eva and Mathias Forberg, which is also on permanent loan to the Albertina, around 100 works from the Batliner Collection are on display at the Albertina in a permanent new exhibition that traces the development from Impressionism to modern art. Visit The Albertina at : http://www.albertina.at/jart/prj3/albertina/main.jart

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review" Posted: 25 Feb 2012 06:39 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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