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

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• The Prado features a new exhibition of the Late Works by Raphael
• The Korean National Museum of Contemporary Art celebrates Lee In-Sung's Centennial
• The National Gallery of Art in Washington shows "Joan Miró ~ The Ladder of Escape"
• The Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents "Cycling, Cubo-Futurism and the 4th Dimension"
• The Toy Art Gallery to showcase "Meredith Dittmar ~ Transmutation"
• The National Gallery of Art to Reopen Impressionism & Post-Impressionism Galleries
• Landmark Exhibition on Buckminster Fuller at The Whitney Museum of American Art
• Poppy Sebire Gallery shows "Danny Rolph ~ Kissing Balloons in the Jungle"
• Tate Britain to Re-stage William Blake's May 1809 Solo Exhibition
• Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay at the de Young Museum
• World's Leading Photography Award at Les Rencontres d'Arles
• The Singapore Tyler Print Institute Presents a Survey of David Hockney's Prints
• Super Bowl Loss Means Renoir’s “Bathers With Crab” Will Be Going To The Milwaukee Art Museum
• Baroque Prints by Jacques Callot at the Museum of Art in Rhode Island
• The Kunsthalle Krems to Show Works From the Migros Museum for Contemporary Art
• Rago Arts Nov.12th Fine Art Auctions Feature Works by Reginal Marsh, Red Grooms & Many Others
• Lucian Freud's Rarely-seen Portrait of Francis Bacon to be Offered at Christie's
• The Lowe Art Museum Shows "Sacred Stories - Timeless Tales"
• This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

The Prado features a new exhibition of the Late Works by Raphael Posted: 11 Jun 2012 10:26 PM PDT Madrid, Spain.- The Museo Nacional del Prado is proud to present "Late Raphael", opening on June 12th and remaining on display through September 16th. "Late Raphael", is one of the most important exhibitions ever to be devoted to the artist and his studio and the first to focus on his final years, during which time Raphael became the most influential painter in Western art. The exhibition includes a total of 74 works, the majority of them never previously exhibited in Spain. It presents a chronological survey of Raphael's artistic activities from the start of the pontificate of Leo X (1513) to the artist's death in 1520, as well as an analysis of the activities of his principal assistants, Giulio Romano and Gianfrancesco Penni, up to 1524. "Late Raphael" is the first major survey exhibition on Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, 1483-1520) to combine paintings and drawings in order to focus on the last seven years of the life of the artist, who died in Rome on his 37th birthday. This was the period in his career when Raphael produced the work that would have the greatest subsequent impact on European art. Nonetheless, his paintings have not been fully understood due to chronological issues, to their disconcerting diversity and because the artist did not work by himself. The present exhibition aims to establish a clear definition of the boundaries between works executed by Raphael and those produced with the collaboration of his principal assistants, Giulio Romano (ca.1499-1546) and Gianfrancesco Penni (ca.1496-1528). It starts in 1513 by which date Raphael had been working in Rome for five years, decorating the monumental Vatican Stanze alongside other leading Italian artists such as Michelangelo (his principal rival, at that point working on the Sistine Chapel) and Sebastiano del Piombo, firstly during the pontificate of Julius II then for Leo X. With the change of pope Raphael took on a greater number of commissions both for Leo X and for other patrons and at this point began to employ a considerable number of assistants. His studio was very possibly the largest to date under the direction of a single great painter and eventually counted on 50 pupils and assistants. The exhibition presents the visitor with the highly efficient and effective results of this system, led by the remarkably versatile Raphael. In addition to producing easel paintings (the subject of this exhibition) he also executed frescoes such as those for the Vatican Stanze and for the Villa Farnesina, cartoons for tapestries (for the Sistine Chapel), and worked as an architect (continuing the construction of St Peter's after Bramante's death). The exhibition includes an unprecedented selection of forty-four paintings, twenty eight drawings, an archaeological item and a tapestry, loaned from around forty different institutions. Visitors can see a chronologically structured survey organised into six sections that cover Raphael's pictorial and aesthetic evolution and also presents a comparison of his final style with a group of works by his two assistants Romano and Penni, the latter produced both during Raphael's lifetime and immediately after his death. This unprecedented opportunity for comparison allow for an identification of the degree of participation of Raphael and his assistants in these works while also helps to establish the latter's intellectual and aesthetic contribution to Raphael's oeuvre. In this regard the almost thirty drawings that are displayed alongside the paintings play a key role in helping to identify Raphael's hand, not only due to their absolute mastery but also because they reveal the original design and conception of his paintings. Among the most outstanding works that have travelled to Spain for the first time are the serene portrait of one of the artist's friends, Baldassare Castiglione (1519), loaned from the Louvre, and the major altar painting of Saint Cecilia (1515-1516) loaned from the Pinacoteca Nazionale de Bolonia in which the viewer can appreciate the remarkable beauty of the figures and their perfect, harmonious composition, a level of achievement that Raphael attained during his time in Rome. Also remarkable are the paintings from Raphael's late period in the Prado's own collection, including the panel transferred to canvas known as Lo Spasimo di Sicilia (1515-1516), which is on display for the first time since its restoration. The Prado Museum (Museo del Prado) in the Spanish capital, Madrid, is the most prestigious museum in Spain and probably the largest gallery of classical paintings in the world. The museum features one of the world's finest collections of European art, from the 12th century to the early 19th century, based on the former Spanish Royal Collection. The building that is now the home of the Museo Nacional del Prado was designed on the orders of Charles III in 1785 by the architect Juan de Villanueva. Originally designed to house the Natural History Cabinet, construction was delayed by the War of Independence and the building's final function was eventually decided by Charles III's grandson, Ferdinand VII. Encouraged by his wife, Queen María Isabel de Braganza, the building became the new Royal Museum of Paintings and Sculptures. The Royal Museum, which would soon become known as the National Museum of Painting and Sculpture and following nationalization in 1868, the Museo Nacional del Prado (after the area of Madrid in which it is located), opened to the public for the first time in November 1819. Despite the size of the original building, space has always been a problem, and in 1971 the nearby Casón del Buen (which began life in 1637 as a ballroom for the Buen Retiro Palace) was acquired to house the 19th century collections from the Prado and "Guernica" by Pablo Picasso. In 1992, this building was transferred to the Reina Sofia Museum of modern and contemporary art (along with "Guernica"), and the Prado once again had to look for more space. The museum's exhibition area increased by more than 50% in 2007 with a new, modern extension designed by Pritzker prize winning Spanish architect Rafael Moneo. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.museodelprado.es

The Korean National Museum of Contemporary Art celebrates Lee In-Sung's Centennial Posted: 11 Jun 2012 10:07 PM PDT Seoul, Korea.- The National Museum of Contemporary Art Korea (NMOCA) is holding an exhibition titled "The Centennial Celebration of Lee In-Sung's Birth" at the National Museum of Art Deoksugung through August 26th. Artist Lee In-sung (1912-1950) created a remarkable artistic legacy in the field of Korean contemporary art in the 1930s-40s, during the Japanese occupation, characterized by his abundant use of symbolic colors and refined sensibility. This exhibition was conceived to shed new light on the life and artistic world of Lee In-sung, a master of Korean contemporary art, for the centennial celebration of his birth. The exhibition will focus on the personal life of Lee In-sung, who is recognized as a genius of contemporary art. Visitors will be able to see the artistic journey he took during his turbulent life, shedding light on and investigating historical records of several influential relationships hitherto only vaguely explained. For this exhibition, the museum collected data from various sources, particularly from the Seoul and Daegu areas, for two and a half months after posting a public notification of data collection, and held several review conferences on the collected data with experts. Based on these reviews, the museum held academic seminars under six sub-titles to investigate the current status of research on Lee In-sung, and then prepared the exhibition on the basis of these seminars. What artist Lee In-sung sought to express through his works of art was sentiment about the hometown. As he revealed in his writings titled In Search of Hometown and Missing the Homeland, 'homeland' refers to various ideas including his geographical hometown of Daegu, Korea's mountains and streams, and his own artistic homeland. Lee In-sung expressed his homeland from the perspective of Korean art, rather than from that of Japanese or Western art. In the end, he was able to formalize remarkable works of art in the 1930s with his unique materials and strong colors and symbolism, thereby reflecting a particularly Korean sensibility. Lee In-sung's lyrical and idyllic paintings melt into the Korean art arena and incessantly flow through that arena. This exhibition is designed to offer visitors a special opportunity to meet an artist who lived a turbulent life during Korea's contemporary era. The archive space of the exhibition hall will showcase actual data and materials such as the books, postcards and photos he collected over the years. As visitors follow the footsteps of his life through historical data which bear his imprint, they will be able to visually sense the relationship between Lee In-sung's art world and the influence of Western and Japanese art. The Deoksugung Gallery will open this exhibition to the general public free of charge after completing its grand restoration/construction project. Along with The Centennial Celebration of Lee In-sung's Birth exhibition, the National Museum of Art, Deoksugung is holding an exhibition titled Modern Masterpieces from the Museum Collection: Poetry and Dreams (featuring 90 works of art by 50 artists) on the 3rd floor, to enable visitors to view masterpieces of Korean contemporary art in a permanent exhibition space. The museum also plans to transform itself into a museum with a focus on contemporary art in the near future. In 1986 the museum moved to Gwacheon with an international sized facility and an outdoor sculpture park. The museum has taken on the role of National Art Organization, and collects and conserves artwork and data, researches and studies, and also improves art cultural awareness through international exchanges and supply/education of artwork activity. The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea was the only National Art Museum in Korea that could accommodate both the flow of Korean contemporary art, and the time sensitivity of international art. In 1969 the museum opened a smaller exhibition hall in Gyeongbokgung which moved to Seokjujeon in Deoksugung in 1973. In 1998, the National Museum of Art, Deoksugung was established as an annex of the National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea to showcase Korean cultural identity. It would achieve this through establishing an aesthetic view of history that exposed contemporary art by the process of systematization of Korean contemporary art's development. It would also pursue various initiatives such as the research/study of contemporary art, collecting, restoration, planning regular exhibitions, development and practice of educational programming, academic lectures, and publication and information interchanges with international contemporary artwork as a specialized organization of contemporary art. The Deoksugung addition was also a new cultural space in Gangbuk area(north of the Han River) and allowed museum goers the option to visit an art space in a more central location, rather than that of the far and difficult to reach National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea. On November 18, 2004, the gallery policy, which was previously overseen by the museum policy, became independent and was established as the "gallery policy department." The separation was made to implement new gallery promotion policies for the development and pormotion of local galleries. The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea has taken this opportunity and since become an agency(performance based organization). Since the organizational change as an agency in January, 2006, the museum has transformed into a first-class global named museum. The museum has risen to the top of cultural leadership by reorganizing itself to be focused on the visitor through strong management innovation, as well as structuring a customer satisfaction focus system that allows the museum to improve its customer service quality. The National Museum of Contemporary Art, Korea will open a new museum in Seoul in 2013 to support experimental creation. The new museum aims to expand expression in the visual arts, as well as create a space where artists can develop, interpret, and discuss new methods and styles. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.moca.go.kr

The National Gallery of Art in Washington shows "Joan Miró ~ The Ladder of Escape" Posted: 11 Jun 2012 09:41 PM PDT Washington, DC.- Celebrated as one of the greatest modern artists, Joan Miró (1893–1983) developed a visual language that reflected his vision and energy in a variety of styles across many media. On view at the National Gallery of Art Washington, East Building, through August 12, 2012, "Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape" reveals the politically engaged side of Miró through some 120 paintings and works on paper that span his entire career. They reflect the artist's passionate response to one of the most turbulent periods in European history that included two world wars, the Spanish Civil War, and the decades-long dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Through it all, Miró maintained a fierce devotion to his native Catalonia, a region in northern Spain. The exhibition was organized by Tate Modern, London in collaboration with Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona (October 14, 2011, through March 18, 2012), and in association with the National Gallery of Art, Washington. "Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape" traces the arc of Miró's career while drawing out his political and cultural commitments. The exhibition presents these themes through three principal periods: Miró's early work, rooted in the Catalan countryside, and then transformed under the influence of the surrealists in the 1920s; his artistic response to the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), the fall of France, and life under fascist rule; and the artist's late work just before the demise of Francisco Franco's dictatorship in 1975. The first room of the exhibition explores Miró's early work and his so-called detailist style. Focusing on the Catalan coastal village of Mont-roig, where Miró spent most of his summers, the paintings include scenes of his parents' farmhouse, the village church, and the region's tilled fields. Critical works from this period include Vegetable Garden with Donkey (1918) and The Farm (1921–1922), a painting that Miró regarded as a key work in his career. Painted in Paris, it combines Miró's memories of Mont-roig with elements of cubism, abstraction, and primitivism. Ernest Hemingway purchased The Farm shortly after it was painted. Years later, in 1987, Mary Hemingway donated it as a gift to the National Gallery of Art. Two important works painted just a few years after The Farm, The Hunter (Catalan Landscape) (1923–1924) and The Tilled Field (1923–1924), reflect not only the liberating influences of surrealism, but also Miró's own maturity. Drawing upon the surrealists' interest in free association, Miró created a series of "animated landscapes" where he used only rich fields of color and a handful of forms. Miró juxtaposed animals with unrelated objects: a hare with a spiraling sphere in Landscape (The Hare) (1927); and a dog and rooster, respectively, with a ladder in Dog Barking at the Moon (1926) and Landscape (Landscape with Rooster) (1927). In these early appearances, the ladder motif suggests a bridge between earth and heaven, and reality and imagination. Though he was born in metropolitan Barcelona, Miró identified with the peasant, which he took as an emblem of Catalan nationalism. In his Head of a Catalan Peasant (1924–1925) paintings, Miró reduced the face and body of the figure to abstracted symbols (including the peasant's barretina, or red cap). His self-identification with this figure, at a time when Catalonian autonomy was under siege from the government of Miguel Primo de Rivera, suggests these works may have been a direct political statement. The exhibition in Washington brings together multiple canvases from the series. In 1929 Miró married Pilar Juncosa and they settled in Paris, but returned to Barcelona (the capital of Catalonia) in 1932. Working in Barcelona, Miró was well aware of the turmoil and uncertainty preceding the Spanish Civil War. He initially remained in Spain after the war began in July 1936, but by the end of the year he and his family went into self-exile in France. They followed the war from afar until the approaching Nazi troops forced them back to Spain in 1940, when they settled on the island of Mallorca. More than any others in his career, the works Miró made during this period depict war and violence. Some works conjure the fearful times through their distorted imagery: figures crying in anguish, raising their arms in protest, standing by a volcano waiting to erupt. Other works evoke the danger through garish colors or violent application of their materials. Still Life with Old Shoe (1937), with its acid colors and distorted objects, transforms a tabletop still life into a profound commentary on the dramatic times. While Miró's political statements were oftentimes subtle, the exhibition also showcases works that demonstrate overt resistance—such as Aidez l'Espagne (Help Spain) (1937). This work is an original design for a one-franc stamp in support of Spain's Second Republic; however, France's adoption of a nonintervention agreement stopped the stamp's production and the work became a poster instead. Initially exhibited clandestinely in Spain, the Barcelona Series of lithographs (1944), more than 40 of which are on view, draws upon traditions of political caricature and takes aim at tyranny and dictatorship. The final two rooms of the exhibition cover the last years of Franco's rule, when Miró, influenced by abstract expressionism, turned to making monumental paintings, both calm and explosive. The works alternate between a growing dissatisfaction with the regime and a feeling of hopefulness as the rebellions of the 1960s prompted political change elsewhere. Miró's grand abstract paintings of the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Mural Painting I–III (1962) and Fireworks I–III (1974), became a mark of his resistance and integrity in the final years of the regime, a period of intense self-examination for the artist. In Composition and Untitled (both 1972)—scroll-like works on Japanese paper that extend nearly 30 feet—Miró demonstrates a graphic flair that characterized his work throughout his life. These two works are on view in the National Gallery of Art Library along with Miró's introduction and lithograph from a 1972 Alexander Calder exhibition catalogue from the Sala Pelaires Gallery in Palma de Mallorca, where Miró was a resident. By that time friends with Calder for 40 years, Miró created an introduction that comprises a series of recollections from their friendship in both French and Catalan, illustrated with colorful shapes and symbols. Franco's last years in power were marked by mass unemployment and a cycle of protest and crackdowns. The tension culminates in Miró's Burnt Canvases from 1973, where he splashed paint onto a canvas, torched it, and then walked across the surface. He attempted to harness what he called the "inventive force" of fire. Now visited by more than 4.5 million people annually, the National Gallery of Art (NGA) is now one of the world's leading art museums. The NGA was created in 1937 for the people of the United States of America by a joint resolution of Congress, accepting the gift of financier and art collector Andrew W. Mellon. The original West Building, designed by John Russell Pope (architect of the Jefferson Memorial and the National Archives), is a neoclassical marble masterpiece with a domed rotunda over a colonnaded fountain and high-ceilinged corridors leading to delightful garden courts. At its completion in 1941, the building was the largest marble structure in the world. The modern East Building, designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect I. M. Pei and opened in 1978, is composed of two adjoining triangles with glass walls and lofty tetrahedron skylights. The pink Tennessee marble from which both buildings were constructed was taken from the same quarry and forms an architectural link between the two structures. The East Building provided an additional 56,100 m2 of floor space and accommodated the Gallery's growing collections and expanded exhibition schedule as well as housing an advanced research center, administrative offices, a great library, and a burgeoning collection of drawings and prints. The two buildings are linked by an underground concourse featuring sculptor Leo Villareal's computer-programmed digital light project "Multiverse". The National Gallery of Art has one of the finest art collections in the world, including an outstanding and highly representative collection of European art. The permanent collection of paintings spans from the Middle Ages to the present day. Visit the museum's thorough website at .. http://www.nga.gov

The Peggy Guggenheim Collection presents "Cycling, Cubo-Futurism and the 4th Dimension" Posted: 11 Jun 2012 08:37 PM PDT Venice.- Through September 16th, the exhibition "Cycling, Cubo-Futurism and the 4th Dimension" will be on view at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. Jean Metzinger's "At the Cycle-Race Track" focuses on a painting acquired by Peggy Guggenheim in 1945 and now permanently on view in her museum in Venice. Exactly one hundred year years after At the Cycle-Race Track (1912) was painted, the exhibition reveals how Jean Metzinger (1883 - 1956) adapted the avant-garde pictorial language of Cubism to subject matter combining the popular sport of cycle-racing with attempts to depict speed and to define in paint the fourth dimension—alluded to in the number '4' in the stadium grandstand. Metzinger, though less celebrated today than contemporaries such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, figured prominently among the Cubists that exhibited together in Salle 41 of the 1911 Salon des Indépendants in Paris—the event at which the Cubist movement crystallized in the perception of Parisian art and art critical circles. At the Cycle-Race Track is by an artist who is central to our understanding of Cubism, one of the most original pictorial styles in twentieth century art. Together with Albert Gleizes, Metzinger published Du Cubisme (1912), the first book-length account of the aims and methods of Cubism. At the Cycle-Race Track illustrates the final yards of the Paris-Roubaix race, and portrays its winner in 1912, Charles Crupelandt. The Paris-Roubaix has earned several nicknames: 'Hell of the North', owing to the extreme hardship of cycling over the cobbled pavé roads of northern France, 'Queen of the Classics', the 'Easter Race'. Metzinger's painting was the first in Modernist art to represent a specific sporting event and its champion. He folded into the image his concepts of multiple perspective, simultaneity, and time, according to his belief that the fourth dimension was crucial to a new art that could compete with the classical French tradition of Jacques-Louis David and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. Metzinger belonged to a group of intellectuals and artists, including Guillaume Apollinaire, Albert Gleizes and František Kupka, that frequented the household of the Duchamp brothers, Marcel Duchamp, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and Jacques Villon, in Puteaux, a suburb of Paris, and who, inspired by their admiration for Maurice Princet, known as the 'the mathematician of the Cubists', discussed such matters as non-Euclidean geometry, theoretical mathematics, the golden section and non-visible dimensions. The combination of a sporting subject chronicling a new passion in French popular culture and an ambitious intellectual and visual apparatus central to the nascent Cubist movement qualifies Metzinger's At the Cycle-Race Track as a masterpiece. This exhibition is inspired by and curated by Erasmus Weddigen, who first discovered the identity of the cyclist in At the Cycle-Race Track and its precise date. It will include two further paintings of racing cyclists by Metzinger, and a third, recently rediscovered painting, treating the subject of time and the fourth dimension, and signifying the end of Metzinger's research into the dynamics of movement. These works will be exhibited together to the public for the first time. Images of cyclists by Italian Futurists—Umberto Boccioni, Fortunato Depero, Gino Severini and Mario Sironi—will also be displayed. Unique Forms of Continuity in Space (1913) by Boccioni and works by Marcel Duchamp will further reference the elasticity of space. Paintings by Georges Braque and Louis Marcoussis will illustrate the presence of sand as the volumetric 'third dimension' in art. The exhibition documents the passion, then and now, for cycle racing, and for the Paris-Roubaix race in particular, with early and modern bicycles loaned by the collection of Ivan Bonduelle, a long-term loan to Musée Régional du Vélo 'La Belle Echappée', La Fresnaye-sur-Chédouet, Museo del Ciclismo Madonna del Ghisallo, and designer Marco Mainardi of Studio Dimensione Servizi. In addition, the racing cycle of Fabian Cancellara, winner of the Paris-Roubaix race in 2006 and 2010, is loaned by the RADIOSHACK NISSAN TREK. The theoretical and sporting themes of the show come together in the exhibition of a stationary bicycle, to be used by the audience, designed to illustrate theories of space and time formulated by Albert Einstein, loaned by the University of Tübingen, Germany. Paul Wiedmer (b. 1947), a Swiss artist living and working in Lazio and Burgdorf, Switzerland, has created a new sculpture for this exhibition. It will be on view in the Nasher Sculpture Garden. Titled Cyclosna this work deals with concepts such as the eternity of time and the connection between the past, the present and the future. It will reference other works on display and allude to the philosophical nature of cycle-races. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is among the most important museums in Italy for European and American art of the first half of the 20th century. It is located in Peggy Guggenheim's former home, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on the Grand Canal in Venice. The museum was inaugurated in 1980 and presents Peggy Guggenheim's personal collection of 20th century art, masterpieces from the Gianni Mattioli Collection, the Nasher Sculpture Garden, as well as temporary exhibitions. The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is owned and operated by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, which also operates the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, and the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin. The Palazzo Venier dei Leoni was probably begun in the 1750s by architect Lorenzo Boschetti, whose only other known building in Venice is the church of San Barnaba. It is an unfinished palace. Its magnificent classical façade would have matched that of Palazzo Corner, opposite, with the triple arch of the ground floor (which is the explanation of the ivy-covered pillars visible today) extended through both the piani nobili above. We do not know precisely why this Venier palace was left unfinished. Money may have run out, or some say that the powerful Corner family living opposite blocked the completion of a building that would have been grander than their own. Another explanation may rest with the unhappy fate of the next door Gothic palace which was demolished in the early 19th century: structural damage to this was blamed in part on the deep foundations of Palazzo Venier dei Leoni. In 1980, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection opened for the first time under the management of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, to which Peggy Guggenheim had given her palazzo and collection during her lifetime. The core mission of the museum is to present the personal collection of Peggy Guggenheim herself. The collection holds major works of Cubism, Futurism, Metaphysical painting, European abstraction, avant-garde sculpture, Surrealism, and American Abstract Expressionism, by some of the greatest artists of the 20th century. These include Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Marcel Duchamp, Fernand Léger, Constantin Brancusi, Gino Severini, Francis Picabia, Giorgio de Chirico, Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti, Paul Klee, Max Ernst, Renee Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Jackson Pollock, Arshile Gorky, Alexander Calder and Marino Marini. The museum also exhibits works of art given to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation for its Venetian museum since Peggy Guggenheim's death, as well as long-term loans from private collections. Visit the museum's wesbsite at ... http://www.guggenheim-venice.it

The Toy Art Gallery to showcase "Meredith Dittmar ~ Transmutation" Posted: 11 Jun 2012 08:07 PM PDT Hollywood, California.- The Toy Art Gallery is proud to present "Transmutation" a two-week engagement featuring the work of Portland, Oregon artist Meredith Dittmar . The work is characterized by exquisite human-animal-plant-energy hybrids that contain threads of common elements and colors to express deep levels of union between consciousness, biology, and technology. The exhibition will open on Saturday, June 16th from 7-10 pm at Toy Art Gallery's new showroom located at 7571 Melrose Avenue. Hollywood California. "Transmutation" runs through June 30th. The exhibition sees a resurgence of Meredith's "My Guys", fanciful, thoughtful characters in beautiful colors and shapes, each 100% handmade from polymer clay. Also showcased are her abstractly and geometrically detailed clay reliefs, each presented in a wall-mountable lightbox. Every work is one-of-a-kind and unique, and priced to satisfy all budgets. Says Meredith: I first touched polymer clay 18 years ago, and very rapidly after, I began to create characters. A constant stream of unique faces numbering in the thousands have emerged from my fingertips. They gave my busy hands a job and brought me many varied commercial opportunities, but more importantly, guided me towards art and the realization that I am an artist for the long haul. Over the years the characters varied quite a bit in subject, size, and realism; and more recently, have left my work almost entirely. Throughout this transition I have frequently reflected on what this natural departure of the character might signify in the context of my life and work. Why get rid of them? They were, after all, what I built my career on. I kept hearing how much people really connected to the expressions, in particular the eyes. But I began to feel like, just maybe, they mistakenly thought they loved the character and its eyes, but what they really loved was what was coming through its eyes. I've been driven to find out just what is coming through the eyes that people connect with so greatly, and that exploration had been the basis of my artwork ever since. Using the strongest character at my disposal (myself) I began to look deeper and deeper. Shockingly- the attachment to the concept of MY character seemed to be the very thing getting in the way. So it began, somewhat against my choice, the systematic stripping away of the character. observing it, splitting it and looking behind it, until there was no thing and no one left. Working on this show allowed me to revisit character work as the plain ole' fun and free activity it is, and has always been for me. While at the same time, I got to continue to dig under the story of the transmutation of my own "character". The result is a merger of the two practices, arriving at a recognition of the underlying truth of both as the same. Meredith Dittmar is an artist living and playing in Portland Oregon. Born near Boston Massachusetts, she grew up in a world of pet pigs, horses, hay-forts and spy games. Follow this with an education in computer science, a career in interactive design, a compulsive need to create, and a drive to seek and you get the major elements of her person and work. Dittmar's human-animal-plant-energy amalgams contain threads of common elements and colors to express deep levels of union across themes of biology, technology, and consciousness. Her characters are frequently involved in quiet expressive moments, or lounge facing their audience so they can share their inner space. Dittmar believes it is this space we recognize in ourselves, and through convening in that space, the interconnectedness of all things is revealed. She sees the act of spontaneous artistic creation as part of a larger practice of being present, and a way to better understand herself and reality. Dittmar's work is featured in the books Dot dot Dash and Mascotte 2, along with numerous magazines and online publications. In conjunction with her artwork she works as an independent character designer and maintains her company Corporatepig, through which she continues to create thousands of unique handmade characters called "My Guys". The Toy Art Gallery is the first gallery of its kind to showcase and consult on high-end art toys and sculptures. Their goal is to showcase exciting, original, and new artists who use figurative sculpture as their primary medium of expression. They also focus on showing, collecting, and producing high end, limited edition, custom, and life-size toy sculptures. The showroom and gallery is located in Hollywood, California. One of the gallery's specialties is to provide availability on rare and desirable toys, life-size figures, bronze sculptures, and one-of-a-kind custom figures created by some of the leading artists/toy designers from around the world. They also have an incredible selection of aftermarket fine art originals and prints created by the leading pop surrealist and low brow artists working today. The aim is to provide the best works from these artists at a fair market value and priced to fit a variety of budgets. Visit the gallery's website at ... http://www.toyartgallery.com

The National Gallery of Art to Reopen Impressionism & Post-Impressionism Galleries Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:52 PM PDT Washington, D.C.- Following a two-year renovation, the galleries devoted to impressionism and post-impressionism in the West Building of the National Gallery of Art reopen to the public on January 28th 2012. Among the greatest collections in the world of paintings by Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Vincent Van Gogh, and Paul Gauguin, the Gallery's later 19th-century French paintings will return to public view in a freshly conceived installation design. The new installation is organized into thematic, monographic, and art historical groupings. The "new" Paris of the Second Empire and the Third Republic are highlighted through cityscapes by Manet, Renoir, and Camille Pissaro. Showcasing sun-dappled landscapes and scenes of suburban leisure, a gallery of "high impressionism" masterpieces of the 1870s is prominently located off the East Sculpture Hall, including such beloved works as Monet's "The Artist's Garden at Vétheuil" (1880) and Renoir's "Girl with a Hoop" (1885). A gallery is devoted to the sophisticated color experiments of late Monet, while Cézanne's genius in landscape, still-life, and figure painting is explored in another. Paintings exemplifying the bold innovations of Van Gogh and Gauguin are displayed along with Degas' later, experimental works in one gallery, followed by a room of canvases by artists such as Gustave Delacroix, Renoir, and Matisse celebrating exoticism and the sensual use of color and paint handling. The final gallery is dedicated to the Parisian avant-garde circa 1900: Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Rousseau, and early Pablo Picasso. The recently acquired "Black Rocks at Trouville" (1865/1866) by Gustave Courbet will be on view for the first time in the French galleries. Additionally, 13 works have been newly restored. Most of these will be on view in the West Building galleries, including Renoir's sparkling Parisian view of the Pont Neuf (1872), his ever-popular "Girl with a Watering Can" (1876), Monet's classic "Bridge at Argenteuil" (1874), and an 1867 portrait of Monet's newborn son Jean in his cradle. During the two-year period of repair, restoration, and renovation, works normally on view in these galleries were either in storage, on loan, or featured in a special installation — "From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection" —in the West Building Ground Floor galleries. Some 50 of the greatest works from this collection were included in major exhibitions shown in Houston, Tokyo, and Kyoto. Opened in 1941, the National Gallery of Art is significantly younger than its nationwide competitors—The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art —in this area of collecting. As the nation's art museum, the National Gallery's collection was formed through generous donations from private citizens and has continued to grow to the present day thanks to contributions by numerous collectors and patrons. The impressionist and post-impressionist collection begins with the 1942 Widener bequest, and reaches a high point with an extraordinary gift from Chester Dale in 1962, which tripled the size of the Gallery's modern French paintings. These works include major masterpieces, such as Cézanne's "The Peppermint Bottle" (1893/1895), Gauguin's "Self-Portrait" (1889), Van Gogh's "La Mousmé" (1888), Edgar Degas's "Four Dancers" (c. 1899), and two of Monet's celebrated views of Rouen Cathedral (1894). Two of their most spectacular acquisitions, made within nine months of each other, were Manet's early masterpiece, The Old Musician (1862), and Picassos' early masterpiece, Family of Saltimbanques (1905). In particular, the Dales gravitated toward figural works, accruing examples by many of the modern masters of portraiture, as well as marvelous female nudes, such as Renoir's "Bather Arranging Her Hair" (1893) and "Odalisque" (1870) and Modilgiani's "Nude on a Blue Cushion" (1917). In accordance with the deed of gift, these great works may never be loaned. Paul Mellon—son of the Gallery's founding benefactor Andrew Mellon—also avidly collected 19th-century French paintings, influenced by his second wife, Rachel "Bunny" Mellon. Inspired by Dale's example, Mellon expanded upon the the foundation of French modernism that Dale built for the Gallery. While the Dale collection includes Monet's later landscapes, Mellon collected Monet in all genres and across his career, as well as work by important impressionist painters the Dale did not collect, such as Bazille and Caillebotte. Mellon was a great admirer of Cézanne and gave the Gallery seven paintings spanning the artist's career, including the 1991 gift of "Boy in a Red Waistcoat" (1888­–1890), one of the Gallery's great masterpieces. Mellon was also a devotee of Degas, and his gift of major paintings and sculptures by the master makes the Gallery's Degas collection one of the best in the world. Paul Mellon's sister Ailsa Mellon Bruce augmented the Mellon family's dedication to the Gallery through her extensive 1969 bequest of great old master and impressionist paintings, by Renoir in particular. Other important donors to this part of the Gallery's collection include the Havemeyer family, W. Averell Harriman, his second wife Marie Norton Whitney Harriman and his third wife Pamela Digby Churchill Hayward Harriman, John Hay and Betsy Cushing Whitney, and Eugene and Agnes Ernst Meyer. The Small French Paintings galleries in the East Building, designed to accommodate the extraordinary gift of French paintings from Ailsa Mellon Bruce, are among the most beloved at the Gallery. The works in these rooms have also been part of reconsidering the 19th-century French collection in the West Building. One gallery will feature an installation of prints together with several paintings by Pierre Bonnard, illuminating the way this artist works across the two media. Other groupings include a selection of circa 1800 landscape sketches, impressionist interiors, realist landscapes, a suite of works by Eugène Boudin, and intimate paintings by the artistic brotherhood known as the Nabis. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.nga.gov

Landmark Exhibition on Buckminster Fuller at The Whitney Museum of American Art Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:51 PM PDT NEW YORK CITY - The Whitney Museum of American Art is presenting Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe, the first major American exhibition in decades devoted to the visionary mind and work of Buckminster Fuller, and the most inclusive show to date of Fuller's work. On view from June 26 to September 21, 2008, the show is co-curated by Michael Hays, Adjunct Curator of Architecture, and Dana Miller, Associate Curator at the Whitney; the curators are working in association with the Department of Special Collections of the Stanford University Libraries and with the cooperation of the Fuller family. The exhibition travels to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, in the summer of 2009.

Poppy Sebire Gallery shows "Danny Rolph ~ Kissing Balloons in the Jungle" Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:50 PM PDT London.- the Poppy Sebire Gallery is proud to present "Danny Rolph: Kissing Balloons in the Jungle", on view through March 24th. In his paintings, Danny Rolph samples disparate cultural and historical references, from kids' clothes patterning to particle physics, producing non-hierarchical and chaotic abstract fields. For his second solo exhibition with Poppy Sebire, Rolph presents a selection of large acrylic paintings on canvas that continue his investigation into the language of collage. Unlike the nocturnal, saturated blues of Rolph's multi-layered triplewall paintings, the pastel backgrounds of the expansive canvases evoke the light of day. Streaked and stained, their celestial hues are inspired by the skies of Tiepolo, just one of the artist's broad-reaching sources.

Tate Britain to Re-stage William Blake's May 1809 Solo Exhibition Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:49 PM PDT LONDON - In April 2009, Tate Britain will unveil the first display devoted to William Blake's only one-man exhibition, reuniting nine of the surviving works two hundred years after they went on display in May 1809. The original exhibition was Blake's most significant attempt to create a public reputation for himself as a painter and provided a vital insight into the artist's self-image and ambitions. A new edition of Blake's Descriptive Catalogue (1809) will be published by Tate Publishing to coincide with the display. Held in Blake's brother's shop on Golden Square, Soho, the exhibition comprised 16 works. It was not a critical success: only a single, negative review was published in the press, and the show was very poorly attended, to the artist's profound dismay. It proved to be a turning-point in Blake's life, leading him to withdraw yet more fully from the public realm and become even more embittered about the state of the British art world. The Tate display will include works from the Tate Collection along with important loans from the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Fitzwilliam Museum, and Southampton Art Gallery. The display will highlight Blake's distinctive use of watercolour and tempera, which he called 'fresco painting' in imitation of the great painters of the Renaissance. For example, the watercolour The Soldiers Casting Lots for Christ's Garments 1800 will be displayed alongside tempera paintings such as Satan Calling up his Legions 1795-1800. The display will also include a number of related works by Blake, and more conventional paintings in oil colours and watercolour exhibited in other exhibitions in London in 1809 - including pictures by JMW Turner. Blake's Descriptive Catalogue (1809) is one of the most sustained and lucid commentaries on his aspirations as an artist, his symbolism, and on art and the art world. Tate Publishing will be publishing a new edition of this important work, which will make available to the general reader for the first time this key text by one of the best-loved and most intensively studied of British artists. Significantly, this will incorporate full-colour illustrations of the works surviving from the original exhibition now to be seen alongside Blake's text. In this catalogue Blake directly addresses widely relevant questions about art history and aesthetic value, technique and commerce in art, displaying ferocious wit, insight and an extraordinary sense of creative ambition. The Descriptive Catalogue is perhaps one of the most overlooked of Blake's writings. William Blake (1757-1827) was a poet, printmaker, visionary and artist whose work was both profoundly personal and universal. Overlooked by many of his contemporaries, Blake was always certain that his achievement as artist, poet, prophet and visionary, would one day be properly recognized and, in the early 1920s, Tate created the first ever gallery devoted to his work. To this day a designated Blake gallery, with regularly changing displays, is a permanent feature at Tate Britain, playing a significant role in shaping the extraordinary public reputation which Blake now enjoys. Blake's Descriptive Catalogue with illustrations is edited by Tate curator, Martin Myrone and published in hardback by Tate Publishing (price £12.99) The display is part of the BP British Art Displays; admission is free. It opens on 20 April through 4 October 2009. Visit The Tate Britain at : http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/

Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay at the de Young Museum Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:48 PM PDT SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco welcomes the United States debut of Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay on view at the de Young Museum May 22 to September 6, 2010. The exhibition includes approximately 100 paintings from the Musée d'Orsay's permanent collection and highlights the work of William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Gustave Courbet, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler, among others. The Musée d'Orsay is lending their most beloved paintings while it undergoes a partial closure for refurbishment and reinstallation in anticipation of the museum's 25th anniversary in 2011. Birth of Impressionism will be followed in the fall of 2010 by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, and Beyond: Post–Impressionist Masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay. The de Young will be the only museum in the world to host both exhibitions.

World's Leading Photography Award at Les Rencontres d'Arles Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:47 PM PDT ARLES, FRANCE - The third cycle of the Prix Pictet launches at Les Rencontres d'Arles, the world's foremost photography festival, on 8 July 2010. The new cycle will be announced at the Théâtre Antique, Arles, with a special presentation of work by the four Prix Pictet laureates to date. Benoit Aquin's 2010 Haiti project is among the new work to be featured. The Prix Pictet, conceived and run by the Swiss private bank Pictet & Cie, is the first photography award to provide a global platform for the application of art to the critical issues of global sustainability. Its honorary president is HE Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations.

The Singapore Tyler Print Institute Presents a Survey of David Hockney's Prints Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:46 PM PDT Singapore.- The Singapore Tyler Print Institute is proud to present "David Hockney: Through the Eyes of the Artist", a selection of the artist's prints from Singapore Art Museum Tyler Collection. "David Hockney: Through the Eyes of the Artist" is on view at the Institue until July 30th. Bold, luscious colours, dynamic lines and curves fill the walls of STPI with Singapore Art Museum Tyler Collection's works on paper from British giant David Hockney. This survey of Hockney's works not only follows his artistic development throughout the years, but pays homage to some key figures of inspiration such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. Best known for his chic, minimal portrayals of Los Angeles, California, these works on paper reveal Hockney's unique eye into the people and environment around him and show how Hockney's deft and experimental printing techniques are a true testament to the legacy he had with Master printer Kenneth Tyler. Do not miss this opportunity to see why Hockney is regarded as one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century. When you think about his road to becoming one of the most popular living British artists (little wonder that postcards reproduced with his 1971 masterpiece "Mr & Mrs Clark and Percy" are hot sellers at the Tate Museum), you won't be surprised to discover that during his childhood, David Hockney drew cartoons of Jesus much to his Sunday school teacher's consternation. This exhibition features rare lithographs and prints from the Singapore Art Museum's Tyler Collection. The effervescently hued works delve into the 72-year-old icon's personal experiences with family, close friends and his living environment. As much as it sheds light on the artist's personal narrative and signature techniques of layering multiple perspectives and mixing mediums, it also celebrates the influential role of his collaborator, master printmaker Kenneth E. Tyler. Expect to gawp at Hockney's oeuvre from the 1980s, which includes the impressive Images of Celia (1984), a stylistic mash-up of lithography, screenprinting and collage, paying homage to Cubism. Clever observers will also notice that the model for the work was Celia Birtwell, a popular British fashion designer from the Swinging London era and a close friend of the artist, was also heavily influenced by Pablo Picasso. And to cap it all off, there is also an inkjet print of Hockney's recent dabbling with Apple's iPhone and iPad, showcasing the innovative spirit of this grand master. Best known for his chic, minimal portrayals of Los Angeles, California, these works on paper reveal British artist David Hockney's unique eye into the people and environment around him and show how Hockney's deft and experimental printing techniques which is a true testament to the legacy he had with Master printer Kenneth Tyler. The Singapore Tyler Print Institute (STPI) is an international publisher and dealer of fine art prints and works on paper. With its unique facility and dedicated team, STPI collaborates with outstanding artists from around the world to push the technical and aesthetic frontiers of printmaking and papermaking, creating edition prints and unique works on paper. STPI was established in 2002 under the guidance of the foremost American master printer of the 20th century, Kenneth E. Tyler, with the support of the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts, Singapore Tourism Board and Singapore Totalisator Board. For nearly 40 years, Tyler published major works by prominent international artists such as Josef Albers, Anthony Caro, Helen Frankenthaler, David Hockney, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Motherwell, James Rosenquist, Frank Stella and Donald Sultan. Through its Visiting Artists Programme (VAP), STPI has collaborated with leading artists from Singapore, The United States, China, France, Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia. Each collaboration offers unique opportunities to pursue new and innovative techniques whilst opening the door for artists to push their art to higher levels of development. Visit the institute's website at ... http://www.stpi.com.sg/

Super Bowl Loss Means Renoir’s “Bathers With Crab” Will Be Going To The Milwaukee Art Museum Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:45 PM PDT AKN NEWS - A good number of friendly (and probably not so friendly) wagers were resolved when the Green Bay Packers edged out the Pittsburgh Steelers 31-25 in the  45th Super Bowl. Amongst those wagers was one, among two museum directors,  that is starting to become a Super Bowl ritual among museum directors. The loss of a major artwork by a museum in the losing team's city. In this case, Pierre-Auguste Renoir's "Bathers With Crab" will be making the trip from The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh to The Milwaukee Art Museum in Wisconsin. The annual wager between arts museums was initiated by arts blogger Tyler Green, and last year resulted in the Indianapolis Museum of Art sheepishly sending a prized J.M.W. Turner work to the New Orleans Museum of Art. This year, the Carnegie Museum of Art's Renoir was up against "Boating on the Yerres" an 1877 painting by Gustave Caillebotte. Loss of the artwork is only temporary, the winning museum only gaining custody of the painting on a 3 month loan, but the wager required that both museums put up a great work of art that would definitely be missed from their collection, but one that was not already committed to an upcoming exhibit or education program.

Baroque Prints by Jacques Callot at the Museum of Art in Rhode Island Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:44 PM PDT Providence, RI.- Highlights from the Museum of Art Rhode Island School of Design extensive and superb collection of prints by the French artist Jacques Callot (1592-1635) are on view from June 17th 2011 through January 22nd 2012 in the exhibition "Jacques Callot and the Baroque Print". The exhibition explores the themes of Callot's art alongside his technical innovations in the medium of etching. "This is the first time in more than 30 years that the RISD Museum's outstanding collection of Callot's work has been on view," says the Museum's Interim Director Ann Woolsey. "Visitors will be fascinated by Callot's theatrical presentation, his mastery of intricate detail, and his serious as well as humorous subjects."

The Kunsthalle Krems to Show Works From the Migros Museum for Contemporary Art Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:43 PM PDT Krems, Austria.- The Kunsthalle Krems is proud to present "Time to Act! – Works From the Migros Museum for Contemporary Art Zurich", on view at the museum from November 27th through February 19th 2012. Since its foundation in 1996 the Migros Museum for Contemporary Art has been a space for reflection and production. Contemporary art here is explicitly embedded in a societal and social context. For the first time in Austria a large part of the core of this 500-work collection will be shown. The extensive Kunsthalle Krems exhibition on the topic of 'social action' will consist solely of items from the Migros Museum. The artworks prompt discussion on future-oriented value creation, sustainability, global justice and social responsibility, principles that are also part of Migros's corporate philosophy. Not only is Migros the biggest Swiss retail trader, it is one of the best-known private sponsors in the areas of culture, society, education, leisure and business. The exhibition brings together works by 43 artists from the late 1960s until today, all of whom reflect different forms of political action through their artistic practice. The starting point is the artist as a political activist, who analyzes with the tools of research, participation, the performative and the appropriation of his actions. The works are designed to stimulate discussion on sustainability, global justice and social responsibility. Our consumption patterns reflect the scarcity of resources, a dilemma highlighted in works by Katharina Sieverding, Josephine Meckseper and Gianni Motti. Describing a range of actions rooted in politica are pieces by Christoph Büchel, Cady Noland and Gilbert & George. Alighiero Boetti uses cartography to represent the politics of nationhood, while Lothar Baumgarten questions the democratic processes. The manipulation of the media is deconstructed by Anne-Lise Coste and Phil Collins. Jonathan Horowitz, Noritoshi Hirakawa and Piotr Uklanski characterize the formation of identity by the news. Jens Haaning, Stephen Willats, Christine Borland, Mathilde ter Heijne and Marc Camille Chaimowicz address issues of group politics and the Nazi past. Maurizio Cattelan's sculpture "We are the Revolution" along with works by Darboven, Elmgreen & Dragset, Tom Burr and Bruce Nauman consider, the conditions of artistic practice as self-image. Other artists featured in the exhibition include Eustachy Kossakowski, Babette Mangolte, Christian Philipp Müller, Stefan Burger, San Keller, Spartacus Chetwynd, Jan Dibbets, Gabríela Fridriksdóttir, Daniel Knorr, Bernhard Luginbuhl, Fabian Marti, Steve McQueen, Juan Muñoz, Elodie Pong, Ed Ruscha, Markus Schinwald, Hanna Schwarz, and Andy Warhol. The Kunsthalle Krems is an international exhibition house in the Federal State of Lower Austria. Its programme spans 19th-century art, classical modernism and contemporary art, its main focus being on 20th and 21st-century art. The Kunsthalle Krems contributes importantly to the European art-exhibiting scene, dedicating itself to modernist masters generally considered well-known and to international artists rarely exhibited in Austria. Both Austrian and international contemporary art is intensively treated in solo and thematic exhibitions. Central to the exhibition philosophy is a networked synopsis of old and new, opening up exciting perspectives and new paths of access. Unusual groupings are vividly presented, complex viewpoints adopted, confrontation deliberately sought. The presentation of works comprises various genres and styles in ways that bridge art historical epochs. Connections to contemporary art are constantly being sought. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.kunsthalle.at

Rago Arts Nov.12th Fine Art Auctions Feature Works by Reginal Marsh, Red Grooms & Many Others Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:42 PM PDT Lambertville, New Jersey.- The Rago Arts and Auction Center is holding two auctions on Saturday November 12th, the 19th and 20th century American and European Art auction starts at 11am and will be followed in the afternoon by the Post-War and Contemporary Fine Art sale. The auctions include a group of paintings from a local Pennsylvania collection passed down directly from the artist to the family and by descent to the present owner, along with many works from private collections throughout the U.S. Top lots include works by Evan penny, Raymond Pettibon, Reginald Marsh, Kees Verkade, Werner Drewes, William Langson Lathrop, Robert Alexander Darrah Miller, Otto Dix, Michael Corinne West, James Bishop, William Joseph Anastasi, Beverly Pepper, Bill Woodrow, Chuck Close and Marilyn Minter. The lots can be viewed from Saturday, November 5th through Thursday, November 10th between 12–5 pm and by appointment. Open until 7 pm on Friday, November 11th.

Lucian Freud's Rarely-seen Portrait of Francis Bacon to be Offered at Christie's Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:41 PM PDT   LONDON - Christie's announces that they will offer one of only two oil portraits of Francis Bacon (1909-1992) ever painted by Lucian Freud (b. 1922) at the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale on 19 October 2008 in London. The last known remaining oil portrait (the other was stolen from an exhibition in Berlin in 1988), the rarely-seen painting offers a tangible and intimate glimpse into the inspirational friendship of two of the greatest British artists of the 20th century.

The Lowe Art Museum Shows "Sacred Stories - Timeless Tales" Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:40 PM PDT Miami, FL.- The Lowe Art Museum is proud to present "Sacred Stories, Timeless Tales: Mythic Traditions in World Art". "Sacred Stories, Timeless Tales" addresses multi-cultural mythic traditions in art, drawn exclusively from the permanent collection of the Lowe Art Museum, which distinguishes itself among South Florida art museums by the depth and breadth of its holdings, which span 5,000 years and represent the art of Europe, the Americas, pan-Asia, and Africa. Concepts of creation, love, morality, mortality, seasonal regeneration, the cosmos, beauty, divinity, heroes, and war are explored in some 100 examples of ceramics, paintings, works on paper, sculpture, and textiles. "Sacred Stories, Timeless Tales" is on view at the museum through October 23rd. Mythic traditions are rooted in fictitious, symbolic narratives developed by cultures through time, which address the relationship between the inexplicable and the explicable, between the powers and forces that control the world and the human beings who occupy that world. Frequently reflecting regional differences, these sacred stories helped, and in some present-day cultures continue to help elucidate a people's religion, history, value systems, rituals, and concepts of self. As myths exist apart from, and are not dependent upon, verifiable facts or scientific objectivity for their impact on society, they typically involve deities, heroes, wondrous creatures, and fantastic events. Some renderings faithfully adhere to time-honored visual conventions. Others reflect more personal interpretations of traditional subject matter. Among the featured objects are a 6th century BCE Greek, black-figure hydria, which describes a myth about the goddess Athena in the presence of Ajax and Achilles; "The Judgment of Paris" by Jacob Jordaens, painted around 1620;  storyteller figure by Native American artist Mary Trujillo; an African Kuba mask known as Moshambwooy that represents the myth of the ancestral figure Woot;  a 19th century Japanese wood-block print that relates a ghost story; Richard Stankiewicz's scrap metal sculpture, The River Styx, from 1953; "St. George" by Moises Finale; "Persephone" by Theodore Stamos from 1945; a contemporary metal cutout of a siren by Haitian artist Serge Jolimeau; and a 10th century sandstone sculpture of Ganesha Breaking His Tusk to Throw at the Moon. Mythological narratives were originally transmitted and preserved orally, during eras when people could neither read nor write, and paper was not available. Written traditions did not develop until a later moment on mankind's cultural time line, as scribes and poets sought to formally preserve stories in writing, lest they disappear. Artistic expression dramatically bridges both word-based systems, transforming into vivid pictorial or sculptural forms, concepts that spoken and textual forms of communication can only convey through mental images. Regardless of cultural derivation or individual inspiration, all the works on the exhibition represent an artistic urge to visually address those universal questions to which mythologies respond, and which unite humankind through time. From its origins in three classrooms in 1950, the history of the Lowe Art Museum reflects an unswerving commitment to fulfill its mission to serve the University of Miami as a teaching resource, and the residents of and visitors to greater Miami as its major general art museum. The Lowe's success in fulfilling its mission is confirmed by an extraordinary and ongoing outpouring of support for the museum and its collections. With the gift in 1950 by philanthropists Joe and Emily Lowe, a free-standing museum facility opened to the public in 1952, the first art museum in South Florida. It's 17,500–object collection is one of the most important in the southeast, with strengths in Renaissance and Baroque, American, Ancient and Native American, and Asian art.The development of its highly regarded collection is traced through sustained support from Miami and winter resident patrons who, from its beginning, have supported the Lowe with major gifts of art and funding. A 1956 donation by Alfred I. Barton brought one of the country's finest collections of Native American art. In 1954, the Lowe was designated the only Florida recipient in a national distribution of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation collection, and, in 1961, constructed a 2,100 square foot gallery to house the 41 Renaissance and Baroque paintings and sculptures that are the backbone of its Western collection. The Americas Collection includes 2,000 works surveying art in the Americas during the 19th and 20th centuries. The Lowe's Ancient American collection was begun in 1958 but achieved international stature with the gift of 531 works by Robert M. Bischoff in 1984. The Lowe's important Asian collection was built over twenty years with superb Chinese, Korean and Japanese ceramics, painting and sculpture, donated by Stephen Junkunc III, a Chicago native and Miami winter resident. The Lowe achieved AAM accreditation in 1972, the first university art museum in Florida to do so, and was reaccredited in 1987 and 2000. Also in 1987, the Lowe was designated a "Major Cultural Institution" by the State of Florida. In 1990, the Lowe was elected to AAMD, one of only three Florida university art museums awarded this honor. The European Collection encompasses more than 1,500 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from antiquity through the nineteenth century, and includes works by Thomas Gainsborough, Henry Raeburn, Claude Monet, Alfred Sisley, and Paul Gauguin. The art of North and south America and the Caribbean Basin comprises a growing collection, presently numbering some 3,000 works. These include paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from the nineteenth through the twenty-first centuries, by luminaries such as Rembrandt Peale, Thomas Sully, Albert Bierstadt, Jasper Francis Cropsey, George Inness, John French Sloan, Roy Lichtenstein, Fernando Botero, Andy Warhol and Deborah Butterfield. Given its location in south Florida, the Gateway to the Americas, the Lowe boasts a growing collection of art from Cuban and Haiti. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www6.miami.edu/lowe/index.html

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News Posted: 11 Jun 2012 07:39 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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