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

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• The Crawford Art Gallery features "The AIB Art Collection"
• The Jewish Museum Shows Works by New York's Photo League From 1936-1951
• The Albertina Marks the 150th Anniversary of Gustav Klimt's Birth
• The Institut Valencià d’Art Modern presents "Menchu Gal: A Free Spirit"
• The Danforth Museum Shows the "Boston Ten and Beyond"
• The Nevada Museum of Art to Show "Gregory Euclide ~ Nature Out There"
• The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts hosts "Loïs Mailou Jones ~ A Life in Vibrant Color"
• The Tel-Aviv Museum of Art shows "Utopias on Paper II"
• The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art Hosts Two Exhibitions of the Chicago Imagists
• O'Keeffe Museum hosts Screening of 'Georgia O'Keeffe' Starring Joan Allen & Jeremy Irons
• The Whitney Museum Hosts "David Smith ~ Cubes and Anarchy"
• Christie’s First Open Post-War & Contemporary Art Sale Had Positive Results
• The BMW Art Car Collection on the Internet ~ Legendary Collection Virtual Video Tour
• Colored Woodcuts From 19th Century Japan at the Benton Museum of Art
• The Portland Museum of Art to Feature Works by Rackstraw Downes
• The Singapore Tyler Print Insitute Showcases BMW Young Asian Artists
• Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to host American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life
• Museum of Fine Arts Features the Artists who Designed Currier & Ives Prints
• The Art Students League of New York Highlights at Lowe Art museum
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Crawford Art Gallery features "The AIB Art Collection" Posted: 14 Mar 2012 10:47 PM PDT Cork, Ireland.- The Crawford Art Gallery is proud to present "The AIB Art Collection", on view until April 14th. Donated this February by AIB to the State, this fine collection of some of the best works of Irish art will become part of the Crawford Art Gallery's permanent collection. A total of 39 paintings including works from well-known artists such as Jack B Yeats, Paul Henry and Sir William Orpen, have been donated, twelve of the artworks have already been transferred to the State with a further 27 to be given over the next two years. The paintings are form part of the permanent collection of the Crawford Art Gallery in Cork An exhibition featuring some of the works being donated will be opened by Minister for Arts Jimmy Deenihan at the gallery early next month. The star of the collection is Jack B. Yeats' A Race in Hy-Brazil. Described by Oskar Kokoschka as the "greatest painter in the world", Yeats depicted the people and landscapes of Sligo and the West of Ireland using colour in a glorious and uninhibited way. He did much of his best work during the 1940's and 50's, when received wisdom would hold that Ireland was a drab and grey place. If this be true, then AIB and its support of the arts played an important role in the country's emergence from these grey years, and it is fitting that the three works by Yeats coming to the Crawford are amongst his best: A Race in Hy Brazil has a marvellous dream-like quality while Now or Never and Shelling Peas in Moore Street capture quintessential moments of everyday life. William Scott's Blue Still Life with Knife were also inspired by aspects of everyday life, as was Nathaniel Hill's Goosegirl in a Breton Farmyard and Joseph Malachy Kavanagh's Cockle Pickers. The AIB Art Collection also records the struggle for political independence, and the equally arduous road towards making Ireland a modern nation state. Sean Keating's On the Run, War of Independence recalls the early 1920's, when ambushes, raids and reprisals were a common occurance and yet during this same period artists such as Mainie Jellett, Mary Swanzy and Evie Hone could still travel to London and Paris to study art. These talented artists returned to Ireland, where they avidly promoted Modernism, including Cubism, in an art world that had up to then been rather blinkered, and dominated by male academic painters.  A key work by Mainie Jellet is Composition with 3 Elements, while Evie Hone's Landscape, Co. Wicklow is an early and fine example of her work. William Orpen, represented in the AIB collection by The Boxer, inspired a later generation of realist painters including Maurice MacGonigal, whose Races at Ballyconneely is delightful evocation of windswept Connemara. Colin Middleton experimented with Expressionism and Surrealism, as in his, Market Day, Moonlight Ballyholme and Winter, while Patrick Collins also forged a very individual and delicately-handled style of abstraction, seen at its best in Travelling Tinkers, Bog Country and A Place with Stones, works that evoke memories of Fragonard and Watteau. Harry Kernoff continues the thread of everyday life that links many of the works in the AIB collection, with his view of ordinary people enjoying themselves, in Sunny Day, Dublin and The Forty Foot, Sandycove, while Gerard Dillon never lost sight of his background, instead transforming his experience of years of adversity into magnificant paintings such as Cut Out, Drop Out and Still Life. The painter Tony O'Malley had started out on a career as a bank official only turning to art later in life, and it is apt that his Ripe Cornfield in the Wind and Big White Flower Pot are two works from AIB that will be coming to the Crawford. William Crozier has a particular affinity with West Cork, and is represented by two fine paintings, Walking to the Sea and The River Boundary (Lough Hyne). Donated in February 2012 by AIB to the State, this fine collection of some of the best works of Irish art will become part of the Crawford Art Gallery's permanent collection. Crawford Art Gallery, a National Cultural Institiution and regional art museum for Munster, is dedicated to the visual arts, both historic and contemporary. Located in the heart of Cork city, beside the Opera House, the Gallery is a critical part of Ireland's cultural and tourism infrastructure, welcoming over 200,000 visitors a year. The Gallery´s permanent collection comprises over 2,000 works, ranging from eighteenth century Irish and European painting and sculpture, through to contemporary video installations. At the heart of the collection is a collection of Greek and Roman sculpture casts, brought to Cork in 1818 from the Vatican Museum in Rome. The collection is particularly strong in Irish art of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Crawford Art Gallery´s art collection was formed in 1819, when a set of Graeco-Roman and Neo-Classical sculpture casts were presented to the Cork Society of Arts. This collection was quickly augmented with works by students and teachers of the Cork School of Art, formed that same year: the students included Samuel Forde, Daniel Maclise and John Hogan. In 1825, the collection was moved to its present building, the former Custom House of Cork. The old Custom House provided a home for the Royal Cork Institution, the body that had taken over responsibility for the art collection, between 1825 and 1849. With the founding of a university in Cork, responsibility for the art collection was transferred to the Cork Government School of Design, established in 1850, that continued to occupy the old Custom House. In 1884, a new extension was added to the building, providing purpose-built galleries for exhibiting paintings and sculptures. Renamed the Crawford School of Art, the art collection, used also as an adjunct to the teaching of art, continued to grow, under the stewardship of the Technical Instruction Committee. The collection was augmented with the purchase of works by Irish artists, many of them staff or graduates of the Cork School of Art. This pattern continued through the twentieth century, although there were several developments, notably the bequest of funds for the purchase of works for the collection by Joseph Stafford Gibson in 1919. This fund was used through the mid-20th century to acquire a sizeable collection of mainly academic paintings. Private donations of works, such as the Seamus Murphy sculpture collection, will continue to form an important part of the Gallery´s acquisition strategy in the future, although such acquisitions need to be guided by this policy document. In 2006, a new company was established by the Minister of Arts, Sport and Tourism to manage the Gallery. Ownership of the building was transferred to the Office of Public Works, and the Gallery designated a National Cultural Institution. The School of Art had long since moved (in 1979) to a different building, and in 2007 the administrative offices of the City of Cork VEC were also transferred to new premises nearby. The Department of Arts Sport and Tourism now provides an annual grant in aid that enables the purchase of a small number of significant works, both of historic and contemporary art. The legislation Section 1,003 of the Finance Act, through providing income tax relief on works donated to the Crawford and other National Cultural Institutions, has become an important avenue for acquisitions to the permanent collection. The permanent collection of the Crawford Art Gallery has grown steadily in recent years. It is strongest in 20th century and contemporary Irish art. In 1990 the collection numbered some 1,500 paintings sculptures, prints and other works of art. These works were listed in the Illustrated Summary Catalogue, published in 1992. Since that date, over 1,000 new works have been added to the collection, which now contains over 2,500 items. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.crawfordartgallery.ie

The Jewish Museum Shows Works by New York's Photo League From 1936-1951 Posted: 14 Mar 2012 10:46 PM PDT New York City.- Drawing on the depth of two great Photo League museum collections, The Jewish Museum in New York City and the Columbus Museum of Art in Ohio are collaborating on an exhibition of over 140 vintage photographs. "The Radical Camera: New York's Photo League, 1936-1951", a formidable survey of the group's history, its artistic significance, and its cultural, social and political milieu, will premiere at The Jewish Museum through March 25th. The Radical Camera exhibition will then travel to the Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH (April 19 - September 9, 2012); the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, CA (October 11, 2012 - January 21, 2013); and Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL (February 9 - April 21, 2013).

The Albertina Marks the 150th Anniversary of Gustav Klimt's Birth Posted: 14 Mar 2012 10:45 PM PDT Vienna.- To mark the 150th Anniversary of his birthday, the Albertina is showing more than 170 drawings by the phenomenal artist Gustav Klimt. The exhibition "Gustav Klimt. The drawings" opens on March 14th and remains on view through June 10th. On show for the first time in 50 years, will be examples of Klimt's most beautiful figure studies, monumental works drawings and pictorial allegories. The great popularity of the illustrator Gustav Klimt is primarily based on the intoxicating sensuality of his female studies from the nude. The exhibition "Gustav Klimt - The Drawings" memorably visualises just how complex his draughtsmanship really is. The Albertina is showing a large part of its famous Klimt holdings, which consist of 170 sheets. The show is supplemented by outstanding loans from Austrian and international collections.

The Institut Valencià d’Art Modern presents "Menchu Gal: A Free Spirit" Posted: 14 Mar 2012 10:23 PM PDT Valencia, Spain.- The Institut Valencià d'Art Modern ( IVAM ) is proud to present "Menchu Gal : A Free Spirit", on view at the museum until May 6th. The exhibition, organized in collaboration with Menchu Gal Foundation and sponsored by Social Kutxa, shows oil paintings, drawings and watercolors, representing different stages of this creative artist's career and genres that grew from her first works influenced by êcole de Paris in the 30's, to her final creations of the 1990's. Although Menchu Gal was the first woman to be awarded the National Painting Prize, in 1959, her name fell into oblivion, like those of María Blanchard and, to a lesser extent, Maruja Mallo or Remedios Varo , all unjustly distanced from the general public but who achieved ever greater closeness to those curious non-conformist followers who wanted to discover the alternative, hidden, parallel paths of art.

The Danforth Museum Shows the "Boston Ten and Beyond" Posted: 14 Mar 2012 09:42 PM PDT Framingham, Massachusetts.- The Danforth Museum is pleased to present "Boston Ten and Beyond", on view at the museum through May 20th. The exhibition consists of over 30 collaborative pieces selected from work recently acquired by the Museum. This past January twenty-four individual artists donated a total of 113 works, created together as part of a group project.  This donation represents the single largest collection of work gifted to the Museum to date—and perhaps the most unique. This show represents collaboration between 24 artists, each working in their own way to create works that blend individual styles. Some works walk the line between the real and surreal, some display interest in the graphic novel or pop realism, some embrace the painterly brushwork of neo-expressionism.  The resulting work is compelling and forceful—a sum of many creative parts. Contributing artists include Miroslav Antic, Gerry Bergstein, Gail Boyajian, Morgan Bulkeley, Mark Cooper, Todd McKie, Ann Neely, Scott Prior and numerous others. Collaboration began in 2006, following an opening for a show for a group calling themselves the Boston Ten at the Lascano Gallery in Great Barrington, MA.  Artist and curator Morgan Bulkeley described hosting an after show party at his house during which "A bunch of us sat on our front porch on Mount Washington drinking wine and beer, reveling in seeing each other after all these years. Most of us had studios together in Boston in the 70's and 80's and this reunion reignited our collective creativity. Mark Cooper had brought paper and paints which we started working on and passing around the crowd for additions. We all agreed; that day was close to what heaven must be like."  This magical afternoon was reminiscent of those enjoyed by Surrealist poets in 1920's Paris when "exquisite corpse" parlor games were all the rage. When Bulkeley experienced a medical condition that interrupted his usual method of working, he again called upon the process to connect with friends—accessing the creative unconscious of a group that had grown beyond its original circle. "In the summer of 2007 my glaucoma made it impossible to work on large paintings, but I could see close up and I started doing some 7"x10" beginnings, which I handed, or sent, to the Boston Ten group and other friends. The first results were a splendid surprise; and several of those involved began new pieces to send around the group. The project had such a life of its own that I would run to the mailbox to see if anything had arrived." A selection of these drawings was shown in 2008 at the Ferrin Gallery in Pittsfield, MA, and work on the project continued through January, 2012 when the group decided to gift the entire collection to the Danforth Museum. The Museum is now organizing a future exhibition of all drawings, alongside work by participating artists. An exhibition catalog to archive the collection is planned. Established as a grass roots organization in 1975 by a committed group of citizens, the Danforth Museum of Art has grown to become a vital cultural resource. Located in Framingham, Massachusetts, 30 miles west of Boston, the Museum provides visitors with entertaining and educational experiences in the visual arts. The Danforth educates the public through its collection of American art, changing exhibits of contemporary artists, classes and workshops in the Museum School, and a variety of community outreach programs. Focusing on American art from 18th century to present day, the Danforth Museum of Art is dedicated to showing the very best examples of contemporary art by both emerging and established artists, as well as an exploration of the School of Boston Expressionism. Their compelling exhibitions and permanent collection of over 3,500 works of art offer countless opportunities for all ages to explore a range of media and artistic forms of expression. Among the highlights of the collection, which specializes in 19th and 20th century American art, are such well-known artists as Gilbert Stuart, James McNeill Whistler, Charles Sprague Pearce, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, Albert Bierstadt, Yves Tanguy, Karl Knaths, Thomas Hart Benton and Faith Ringgold. The museum's mission strongly supports education, the 400 yearly studio art courses offered in the Museum School, family workshops and artist lectures offer Museum members and visitors numerous opportunities to learn and create. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.danforthmuseum.org

The Nevada Museum of Art to Show "Gregory Euclide ~ Nature Out There" Posted: 14 Mar 2012 09:33 PM PDT Reno, Nevada.- Artist Gregory Euclide's intricately crafted sculptural works, on view at the Nevada Museum of Art, explore the tension between idealized, picturesque views of landscapes and actual experiences of being in nature. Using traditional methods of landscape painting combined with natural materials and found objects, Euclide constructs three dimensional encapsulated worlds where pristine notions of landscape meet the reality of our current environment. "Gregory Euclide: Nature Out There" is on view at the Nevada Museum from March 24th through September 2nd

The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts hosts "Loïs Mailou Jones ~ A Life in Vibrant Color" Posted: 14 Mar 2012 09:01 PM PDT Montgomery, Alabama.- The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts is proud to present "Loïs Mailou Jones: A Life in Vibrant Color" on view from March 17th through June 10th.  This exhibition illuminates the life and work of Lois Mailou Jones (1905-1994), an African-American artist, illustrator, and educator who produced a substantial oeuvre of colorful paintings while teaching art at Howard University for 47 years. This exhibition of 55 works surveys the vast sweep of Jones's seventy-five years as a painter stretching from late Post-Impressionism to a contemporary mixture of African, Caribbean, American, and African-American iconography, design and thematic elements. Jones received recognition in her lifetime through exhibitions and representation in important museum collections. Her work remains a substantial contribution to American art. In her nineties, Jones still painted. Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton collected one of her island seascapes "Breezy Day at Gay Head" while they were in the White House.

The Tel-Aviv Museum of Art shows "Utopias on Paper II" Posted: 14 Mar 2012 08:20 PM PDT Tel-Aviv.- The Tel Aviv Museum of Art is pleased to present "Utopias on Paper II", until July in the Prints and Drawings Gallery, The Gallery of the German Friends of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Herta and Paul Amir Building. The term " Expressionism " spans diverse expressions of the modernist current in art and literature, which developed in Germany and in the sphere of German culture in the first two decades of the 20th century. Expressionist art spoke in multiple voices of individual artists and short-lived associations which moved in different directions to expose the experience of a society and a culture in crisis. This, second chapter of the exhibition focuses on the Expressionists' approach to modernity and their reference to their life in the metropolis, this time through manifestations of culture, both high and popular.

The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art Hosts Two Exhibitions of the Chicago Imagists Posted: 14 Mar 2012 08:10 PM PDT Madison, WI.- The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art is proud to present two exhibtions featuring the works of the Chicago Imagists. Both exhibitions open on September 10th. In the museum's main galleries, they will be showing "The Chicago Imagists" (until January 15th 2012), while the State Street Gallery will be showing "Chicago School: Imagists in Context" (until December 30th). In the late 1960s, art audiences were introduced to a vibrant new generation of artists who would soon be identified collectively as the Chicago Imagists. Like the Pop artists in New York, Los Angeles, and London, who were somewhat older, these young artists drew inspiration from the everyday urban world and popular culture. But despite these common interests, the Chicago Imagists were more focused on a fantasy art of brilliant color, graphic strength, and free line. With sources and inspirations that ranged from comic books to Surrealism, the Chicago Imagists trafficked in exuberant and irreverent satire that spoke to the political and social foibles, as well as the whimsy, of contemporary life at the end of the tumultuous 1960s and into the 1970s. "Chicago Imagists" at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art will include more than 75 works by Roger Brown, Sarah Canright, Ed Flood, Art Green, Philip Hanson, Gladys Nilsson, Jim Nutt, Ed Paschke, Christina Ramberg, Suellen Rocca, Barbara Rossi, and Karl Wirsum, as well as their friend and mentor Ray Yoshida. The exhibition is being organized by the museum's curator of collections, Richard H. Axsom; director, Stephen Fleischman; and former curator of exhibitions, Jane Simon, and will be accompanied by a major publication. Titled 'Chicago Imagists', this richly illustrated book will include essays by Lynne Warren, curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Cécile Whiting, professor of art history at the University of California, Irvine; and the exhibition curators. Together, these writings will comprise the most extensive examination to date of the Imagist artists, their influences, and their place within American history and art history. "Chicago School: Imagists in Context" offers a cultural framework in which to consider the work of the Chicago Imagists. Drawing from the museum's permanent collection, this exhibition presents works by artists who influenced the Imagists or were influenced by them--from the expressionistically rendered human figures of Leon Golub to the sexually charged, surrealist watercolors of Robert Lostutter. Other artists represented include Robert Barnes, Phyllis Bramson, Don Baum, Miyoko Ito, Ellen Lanyon, June Leaf, Peter Saul, Hollis Sigler, and H.C. Westermann, among others. The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art is a nonprofit, independent organization that exists to exhibit, collect, preserve, and interpret modern and contemporary art. After a distinguished 105-year history in borrowed and refurbished spaces, the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art opened to the public on April 23, 2006, in a new facility within the Overture Center for the Arts. Designed by world-renowned architect Cesar Pelli, the museum's exhilarating facility offers 51,500 square feet of space for the study, presentation, and conservation of modern and contemporary art, as well as a 7,100-square-foot rooftop sculpture garden. Public amenities include spacious galleries, a 230-seat lecture hall, a children's classroom, a new-media gallery, and a study center for drawings, prints, and photographs. Like the rest of Overture Center, the facility was made possible by the extraordinary generosity of W. Jerome Frautschi, a long-time friend of the museum. The museum's collection traces its origins to a major gift from Rudolph and Louise Langer in 1968. Through donations and museum purchases, the collection has grown to become an important community resource. Works span the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and include paintings, sculpture, photography, prints, and drawings. Romare Bearden, Deborah Butterfield, John Steuart Curry, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Cindy Sherman are among the many esteemed artists represented in the collection. Exhibitions are the cornerstone of MMoCA's public programs and have featured many of the most respected artists of the last century, including Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Chuck Close, Sol LeWitt, George Segal, Jim Dine, Rodney Graham, Georgia O'Keeffe, Claes Oldenburg, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and John Wilde. The main galleries, located on the second floor, host the museum's major exhibitions. The Henry Street Gallery presents exhibitions from the museum's permanent collection while the State Street Gallery offers a changing roster of exhibitions and installations. MMoCA's rooftop sculpture garden presents major works on a rotating basis in an illuminated garden setting. Visit the museum's website at ... http://mmoca.org

O'Keeffe Museum hosts Screening of 'Georgia O'Keeffe' Starring Joan Allen & Jeremy Irons Posted: 14 Mar 2012 08:09 PM PDT SANTA FE, NM.- Georgia O'Keeffe's life and art continue to fascinate public imagination, as is evident with the upcoming premiere of the Sony Pictures Television original film for Lifetime, Georgia O'Keeffe, scheduled to air in September 19, 2009. Starring three-time Academy Award®, Golden Globe® and Emmy Award® nominee Joan Allen (The Contender, The Upside of Anger) and Academy Award, Golden Globe and Emmy Award winner Jeremy Irons (Reversal of Fortune, Elizabeth I), the film is directed by Academy Award nominee Bob Balaban, who produced Gosford Park, the sly poke at the British class system that so delighted movie audiences. Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Cristofer wrote the script for the film. Allen, who has twice interpreted O'Keeffe's voice in readings of her letters, serves as one of the film's executive producers along with Emmy nominated producer Joshua D. Maurer (Introducing Dorothy Dandridge) and Alixandre Witlin (Dodson's Journey). Tony Mark (And Starring Poncho Villa as Himself) is a producer.

The Whitney Museum Hosts "David Smith ~ Cubes and Anarchy" Posted: 14 Mar 2012 08:08 PM PDT New York City.- The Whitney Museum of Art is proud to show "David Smith: Cubes and Anarchy", on view until January 8th 2012. This exhibition examines the abiding importance of geometric form in the work of American sculptor David Smith (1906-1965) from his earliest small works through the monumental late masterpieces that he created in the final years of his life. Organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it debuted earlier this year, the exhibition brings together approximately 60 works, including the largest grouping of Smith's Cubis and Zigs assembled in more than two decades. Cubes and Anarchy places these acknowledged masterpieces in context with Smith's earlier works in an exhibition that includes sculptures, drawings, paintings, and photographs, many provided by the Estate of David Smith.

Christie’s First Open Post-War & Contemporary Art Sale Had Positive Results Posted: 14 Mar 2012 08:07 PM PDT NEW YORK CITY - Christie's first open Post-War and Contemporary Art sale achieves positive results. Alexandre Carel, Head of First Open said, "The positive results achieved for the first mid-season sale of the season are a reflection of the right amount of lots offered and correct estimates. The 149 lots presented achieved over $3 million and a healthy sold rate of 86%, with many works selling well above their pre-sale estimates.

The BMW Art Car Collection on the Internet ~ Legendary Collection Virtual Video Tour Posted: 14 Mar 2012 08:06 PM PDT MUNICH.- Just in time to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the BMW Group's international cultural commitment, the legendary BMW Art Car Collection can now be seen for the first time within a virtual video tour on the Internet. For the first time, an extensive virtual overview of the origin, history and development of the collection is available on the Internet. In addition to extensive photographic material, a film has been devoted to every single one of the 17 "works of art on wheels", each of which was designed by an internationally well-known artist. Historic racing footage and artists' statements as well as renowned representatives from art and culture are to be seen. "After four decades and a total of 17 BMW Art Cars, they can now all be admired by everyone. The interactive website pays homage to the collection, unique in the history of the automobile and the arts. Whilst the originals are often exhibited individually at the BMW Museum in Munich or at significant cultural institutions throughout the world, people are now able to discover for the BMW Art Cars in their entirety. A comprehensive online tour is now available anywhere and anytime," says Bill McAndrews, head of BMW Group Corporate Strategy and Communications. The BMW Art Car Collection. Since 1975 renowned artists from all four corners of the world have made their contribution to the series with the creation of contemporary vehicles. In 2010, BMW celebrated the 35th anniversary of the Art Car series. For this occasion, the internationally acclaimed artist Jeff Koons created the 17th vehicle of the collection. All BMW Art Cars will be showcased until 25 September within the first comprehensive overall exhibition at the BMW Museum in Munich to demonstrate a chapter of exciting automobile, design and art history. The works of art are racing and production saloons, coupés and roadsters and are all contemporary witnesses of a mobile lifestyle. The exhibition covers everything from Pop Art of the 70's to the "idea of the continents", right down to new 21st century concepts. The initial idea of the collection – to have a car designed by an artist – was a product of the imagination of the French auctioneer and passionate racing car driver Hervé Poulain. On his initiative, the American Alexander Calder designed his BMW racing car – the BMW 3.0. CSL – at the beginning of the 1970s. The first vehicle to bring together the worlds of art and motor sport took part in the 24-hour race of Le Mans. The enthusiastic reception of the rolling sculpture was the spark of inspiration that led BMW to create the Art Car Collection. Hervé Poulain about his vision: "One day, I said to myself, now is the time to do something grandly communicative and heroic and unite my two passions, by having my racing cars painted by the leading artists of the time." A total of 17 male and female artists from 9 countries and all 5 continents have contributed towards the special diversity and aesthetics of the collection, artists such as Alexander Calder, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, A.R. Penck, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer and Olafur Eliasson. The collection attracts interest all over the world: at the Louvre in Paris, the New York Whitney Museum, the Palazzo Grassi in Venice, the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney and at the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao. During the years 2006 to 2010, the BMW Art Car Collection completed a world tour, taking it, inter alia, to museums in Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Australia, India, Taiwan, China, Russia, Africa, the United States and Mexico. The Arts Cars – symbols of the interconnection between art, design and technology – will also in future continue to be on show at international museums. Comments by the art car artists "My design is like a blueprint transferred onto the bodywork." Frank Stella "I pondered on it for a long time and put as much into it as I possibly could." Roy Lichtenstein "I love that car. It has turned out better than the artwork." Andy Warhol "I think mobile museums would be a good idea. This car is the fulfilment of my dream." Robert Rauschenberg "Ndebele art has, in an entirely natural way, something slightly formal but very majestic about it; through my work I have added the idea of movement." Esther Mahlangu "The car has wonderful lines which I followed." David Hockney "By bringing together art, design, social and environmental issues, I hope to contribute to a different way of thinking-feeling-experiencing cars and seeing them in relation to the time and space in which we live." Olafur Eliasson "These race cars are like life, they are powerful and there is a lot of energy," said Koons. "You can participate with it, add to it and let yourself transcend with its energy. There is a lot of power under that hood and I want to let my ideas transcend with the car – it's really to connect with that power." Jeff Koons Visit the BMW Virtual Art Tour at  : http://www.bmw-artcartour.com/

Colored Woodcuts From 19th Century Japan at the Benton Museum of Art Posted: 14 Mar 2012 08:05 PM PDT Storrs, CT.- The Benton Museum of Art at the University of Connecticut is currently showing "The Colored Woodcut in 19th-Century Japan: Edo and Osaka" until August 7th. The colored woodcut was ubiquitous in 19th-century Japan, and for Europeans a source of artistic influence and of pleasure in collecting them. The late 19th-century artistic influence of the woodcut lay in its disavowal of Western perspective, an ingrained facility for two-dimensional patterning, and an unwavering sense of coloration. The pleasure of collecting the color woodcuts in the late 19th and 20th centuries lay in a more profound interest in Asian arts, Chinese as well as Japanese, than had been expressed by the decoratively brilliant but very western Chinoiserie of the 18th century.

The Portland Museum of Art to Feature Works by Rackstraw Downes Posted: 14 Mar 2012 08:04 PM PDT PORTLAND, ME.- This winter, the Portland Museum of Art will feature the first major survey of paintings by contemporary artist Rackstraw Downes. Rackstraw Downes: Onsite Paintings, 1972-2008, on view December 16, 2010 through March 20, 2011, will feature more than 30 major works ranging from Downes' earliest en plein air paintings executed in Maine to his later signature views of the New York City skyline and the vast panoramas near his home in Presidio, Texas. Recipient of a 2009 MacArthur Foundation "genius" award, Rackstraw Downes, who was born in England in 1939, developed his panoramic style by studying 17th-century Dutch landscape painting.

The Singapore Tyler Print Insitute Showcases BMW Young Asian Artists Posted: 14 Mar 2012 08:03 PM PDT Singapore.- The Singapore Tyler Print Institute is proud to present "BMW Young Asian Artists Series III" on view at the institute from November 12th through December 17th. The exhibition features rising stars: Genevieve Chua (Singapore), Lyra Garcellano (Philippines), R.E. Hartanto (Indonesia) led by Chief Curator, Heman Chong (artist from BMW YAAS first series), in collaboration with co-curators, Joselina Cruz and Agung Jenong. Started in 2005, this programme identifies and enables young and promising Asian artists to make their mark. Each artist spent two weeks working alongside STPI's workshop team exploring new ideas and print techniques to create fresh, innovative and cutting-edge works.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to host American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life Posted: 14 Mar 2012 08:02 PM PDT LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765–1915, a major exhibition highlighting the variety and strength of American artistic achievement during an epochal century and a half, from the colonial era through the period leading to World War I. American Stories—the first survey of American narrative painting in more than thirty-five years—features over seventy works, including loans from leading museums and private collections, as well as key works from LACMA's collection. LACMA's presentation—the exhibition's only West Coast showing—will be on view in the museum's Art of the Americas building from February 28 through May 23, 2010. "American Stories features many of America's most celebrated artists, represented by some of their best works—iconic examples that have appeared in American textbooks for generations," says Bruce Robertson, Consulting Curator of American Art at LACMA. "These images reflect their times, but they also actively develop and shape what we know about the past, as great works often do." Exhibition overview Between the American Revolution and World War I, a group of British colonies became states, the frontier pushed westward until the new nation spanned the continent, a rural and agricultural society became urban and industrial, and the United States—reunified after the Civil War under an increasingly powerful federal government—emerged as a leading participant in world affairs. Throughout this complicated, transformative period, artists recorded American life as it changed around them. The exhibition concentrates on a core group of major painters: John Singleton Copley, Charles Willson Peale, George Caleb Bingham, William Sidney Mount, Richard Caton Woodville, Eastman Johnson, Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins, Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, and George Bellows. In addition to selections of these artists' works, the exhibition features key examples by lesser known artists that also exhibit a broad array of subjects and styles. American Stories opens with a thematically organized gallery that illustrates the continuity of stories through the full extent of the exhibition, as well as the different ways in which artists told these stories. These range from John Singleton Copley's dramatic Watson and the Shark (1778) to William McGregor Paxton's The Breakfast (1911). Copley portrays an encounter between a fourteen-year-old boy swimming in Havana harbor and a large shark, but also tells a story of the community of sailors who save him, while Paxton depicts the unraveling of another kind of community—marriage. LACMA's presentation of American Stories is arranged in five broad chronological sections and includes a supplemental section devoted to stories unique to California. Inventing American Stories, 1765–1830 Many early American artists focused on individuals, specific locales, and relationships, but the cleverest among them responded to broader narrative agendas, telling stories within the bounds of portraiture. Although portraiture dominated artistic enterprise into the post-Revolutionary era, patrons gradually learned to read paintings as more than mere likenesses. Affected by shifts in society, artistic practices, and clientele, portraitists began to reveal their sitters' desired social positions and to delight them with more elaborate compositions. Charles Willson Peale's painting Benjamin and Eleanor Ridgely Laming (1788) portrays his married patrons as if they were still courting. Stories for the Public, 1830–1860 In the early 1830s, artists began to paint more scenes of everyday life, filled with recognizable types: the good mother, the old Revolutionary War veteran, the canny Yankee, and other stock characters. Artists avoided subjects that might be melodramatic or unpleasant, unless they took place far away, in the new frontiers of the West. Audiences enjoyed the chance to see themselves, their neighbors, and a full range of Americans on the stages of these canvases, and to do so in the safety of their own homes. These scenes celebrate self-consciously the distinctive strengths and peccadilloes of a new nation. A few artists, however, did hint at the darker side of American experience—the danger of luxury, the taint of slavery, and the violence that lurked under the bustling, go-getting surface of American society—as in Eastman Johnson's Negro Life at the South (1859), a subtle allegory of the strength of black Americans' family bonds under the pressure of poverty and slavery. Stories of War and Reconciliation, 1860–1877 The unique and overwhelming circumstances of the Civil War and the years of Reconstruction challenged American artists. The confluence of charged political and economic events as well as profound social change created such turmoil that many artists chose to examine only small, reassuring slices of the human experience in subtle, open-ended narratives. Seeking to assuage the sorrow of the war and heal the nation's fractured spirit, painters turned away from military and political content. Artists depicted women in new roles and grappling with the new responsibilities left to them after the loss of so many men in combat. And, as the agrarian basis of American life yielded to urbanization and industrialization, artists who lived, studied, worked, and exhibited their paintings in cities looked to the countryside for subject matter. Winslow Homer's masterpiece The Cotton Pickers (1876, LACMA) addresses all of these issues in a monumental study of two black women picking cotton in Virginia after the War. Cosmopolitan and Candid Stories, 1877–1900 By the mid-1870s the taste of American viewers and patrons had changed in response to their expanded opportunities for travel. They were as likely to paint people enjoying everyday life in Paris or the French countryside as in New York or New England. Their works evade the harsh realities of urban existence, and compared to earlier genre scenes, their stories are ambiguous and at times elusive. Mary Cassatt's study of a bored young sitter in Little Girl in a Blue Armchair (1878) touches on these issues. Many painters recorded the lives of women as devoted mothers, dedicated household managers, participants in genteel feminine rituals, and resolute keepers of culture. A few artists told tales about men at work and leisure while celebrating new American heroes. The cowboy emerged as an icon of American masculinity and the shrinking frontier, as is seen in Frederic Remington's Fight for the Water Hole (1903). Stories of the City 1900–1915 By 1900, the city had become a significant theme for artists, a place of pleasure and excitement rather than danger. The artists of the Ashcan School (so-called because they were accused of painting ash cans, or garbage, rather than higher-class subjects) were known for celebrating the immigrant neighborhoods of the city and its entertainments, rather than ignoring or condemning them. George Bellows and John Sloan in particular delighted in the raucous qualities of working-class culture, as is seen for instance in Bellows's spectacularly aggressive Club Night (1907) or vivid Cliff Dwellers (1913, LACMA). But even as they championed the ability of painters to capture life itself, other artists were exploring abstraction. While story-telling painting would continue, it would now share the stage with radically different artistic forms. California Stories Exclusive to LACMA's presentation is an additional section dedicated to California Stories, curated by Ilene Susan Fort, the Gail and John Liebes Curator of American Art at LACMA. Drawn from local collections, a selection of a half dozen paintings focuses on themes of mining, tourism, and ethnicity unique to California, illustrating stories of the Gold Rush, the extraordinary natural beauty, and the Hispanic and Asian heritage of the state. Among the artists represented will be Albertus Browere, William Hahn, and Ernest Narjot.

Museum of Fine Arts Features the Artists who Designed Currier & Ives Prints Posted: 14 Mar 2012 08:01 PM PDT SPRINGFIELD, MA – The lithography firm of Currier & Ives produced more than 8,000 images, including pictures of newsworthy events and prints that reflected familiar all-American themes such as farm life, home and children, religion, sports and leisure, and westward expansion. To design their prints, the company used staff artists who are unknown today as well as a group of celebrated American artists. The work of some of these well-known artists will be highlighted in the exhibition Behind the Scenes: The Artists Who Worked for Currier & Ives, on view from June 10, 2008 through January 18, 2009, at the Museum of Fine Arts.

The Art Students League of New York Highlights at Lowe Art museum Posted: 14 Mar 2012 08:00 PM PDT The Art Students League of New York, Highlights from the Permanent Collection, featuring some seventy -five paintings, works on paper, and sculptures, will be on view at the Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami, from December 15, 2007 through February 3, 2008. As one of America's oldest art schools -- established by and for artists -- The Art Students League of New York has attracted outstanding talents as teachers and helped prepare others who left their mark on twentieth-century American art. In the League's historic building on New York's West 57th Street, Georgia O'Keeffe studied with William Merritt Chase, Fairfield Porter worked under the guidance of Thomas Hart Benton, and Louise Nevelson enrolled in the classes of George Grosz and Hans Hofmann. The school's permanent collection documents its distinguished history and reflects art movements of the last 125 years, from late 19th-century figure drawings to 1930s social realist prints to pop and abstract paintings, and works by contemporary students and instructors. Inevitably, the works also capture events and trends in the nation's history. The League was founded in 1875 by art students who were dissatisfied with the educational opportunities at the National Academy of Design in New York. As it evolved, the school reflected practices at the prestigious French art academies, such as the independence of each instructor within his studio or atelier. By 1920, the League was the country's most prominent art school, inspiring similar institutions in other American cities and attracting students from every state. The school's permanent collection began as a learning resource. A friendly patron donated a set of etchings by James McNeill Whistler. League students fortunate enough to travel and study abroad were asked to share some of their figure drawings done there – called "exile donations." These drawings were often displayed on the classroom walls as educational aides and entered the collection. Other works were acquired through scholarships awarded to outstanding students. Norman Rockwell's 1911 charcoal illustration of Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, for example, was most likely a class assignment that earned him a year's tuition at the League; in exchange, the drawing became the League's property. Over time, additional strong student works were acquired for the collection as a "record of what had been accomplished." The collection also benefited from the generosity of League instructors such as Chase, Allen Tucker, Kenneth Hayes Miller, and Frank Vincent Dumond. Over the decades, the collection registered the shifting interests and styles of teachers and students. Charles Courtney Curran's Woman Reading and Allen Tucker's October Cornfield reflected Americans' turn-of-the-century interest in the subjects and style of French Impressionism. Later, John Sloan's satirical etching, Connoisseurs of Art, drew fire from those who found such subjects crude; the same critics would later use the term "Ashcan School" to describe the candid images of city life done by Sloan and his compatriots. By the late 1920s, growing student interest in European avant-garde movements prompted the League to hire artists from abroad, including Hans Hofmann, George Grosz, and Jan Matulka. Years of study in Paris had exposed Matulka to Cubism and Surrealism. Students David Smith, Burgoyne Diller, and Dorothy Dehner found his advocacy of modernism compelling. At the same time, the League faculty included artists who focused on explicitly native subjects and worked in realist styles. The Depression-era focus on both the dignity and the de-humanizing aspects of labor emerge in Harry Sternberg's print Steel. Well into the 1940s, the interest in native subjects endured in the work of such League instructors as printmaker Martin Lewis and Reginald Marsh, who found inspiration in the crowds at Coney Island. Artists/teachers working in abstract styles and with non-traditional materials are also represented in the collection. Collagist and painter Leo Manso, who exhibited with Hofmann, Jackson Pollock, and Adolph Gottlieb in the 1940s, focused on the "distillation of the landscape experience," embodied in After the Storm. Charles Alston and Norman Lewis, African-American artists who taught at the League, gave the collection examples of their abstract work as well. René Robert Bouché, an instructor, became famous for magazine illustrations. Sculpture has been an integral part of the League's program since its inception and is represented in this exhibition by the humanism of William Zorach's mother and child and by contemporary sculptor Rhoda Sherbell's portrait of Aaron Copland. Among the present generation of artists in the exhibit are printmaker / instructors William Behnken and Michael Pellettieri and students Sam Goodsell and Roberto Franzone. The League has enabled generations of individuals the chance to learn from experienced, professional artists in studio settings. This exhibition presents some of the high points in that history. The Art Students League of New York, Highlights from the Permanent Collection is courtesy of The Art Students League of New York; Tour Development by Smith Kramer Fine Art Services, Kansas City, Missouri Visit The Art Students League of New York : www.theartstudentsleague.org/ Visit Lowe Art Museum, University of Miami at : www.lowemuseum.org

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 14 Mar 2012 07:15 PM PDT 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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