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

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• The National Gallery of Art in Washington shows Three Decades of George Bellows' Prolific Career
• The Whitney Museum of American Art to show Retrospective of Yayoi Kusama
• The Norman Rockwell Museum showcases The Golden Age Illustrator ~ Howard Pyle
• The South Street Seaport Museum hosts "Compass ~ Folk Art in Four Directions"
• The Irvine Museum presents "Paradise Found ~ Summer in California"
• The San Jose Museum of Art Fully Explores Humour in Art
• Exhibition at the MdM Mönchsberg shows Collection FOTOGRAFIS Bank Austria
• Bank of America Merrill Lynch art conservation project helps restore 20 works of art across globe
• Art from the Collections of "la Caixa" Foundation and MACBA on view at the Guggenheim
• Tate Modern Announces "Arshile Gorky: A Major Retrospective"
• Retrospective of American artist William N. Copley opens at Museum Frieder Burda
• The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston presents "The Puppet Show"
• Sotheby's to Sell Works from Neuberger Berman & Lehman Brothers Collections
• The Kunstmuseum in Bern (Switzerland) ~ and The Zentrum Paul Klee Receive Our Editor
• "ARTIST ROOMS 2010 Tour" Announced ~ 21 Exhibitions of Contemporary Art
• Elite Decorative Arts Auction to Feature 465 Lots of Fine Artwork, Porcelain and Decorative Arts
• Richard Deacon Installation at Portland Art Museum
• Shannon's Fine Art Auction To Feature Cropsey, Rembrandt and Lichtenstein Among Others
• Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"

The National Gallery of Art in Washington shows Three Decades of George Bellows' Prolific Career Posted: 14 Jun 2012 10:31 PM PDT Washington, DC.- When George Bellows died at the age of 42 in 1925, he was hailed as one of the greatest artists America had yet produced. The first comprehensive exhibition of his career in more than three decades premieres in Washington, DC, through October 8th. "George Bellows" includes some 130 paintings, drawings, and lithographs of tenement children, boxers, and the urban landscape of New York, as well as Maine seascapes, sports images, World War I subjects, family portraits, and Woodstock, NY, scenes. "George Bellows is arguably the most important figure in the generation of artists who negotiated the transition from the Victorian to the modern era in American culture," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art. "This exhibition provides the most complete account of his achievements to date and will introduce Bellows to new generations." The exhibition will travel to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and close at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. The accompanying catalogue documents and defines Bellows' unique place in the history of American art and in the annals of modernism. The exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, in association with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Mentored by Robert Henri, leader of the Ashcan School in New York in the early part of the 20th century, George Bellows (1882–1925) painted the world around him. He was also an accomplished graphic artist whose illustrations and lithographs addressed a wide array of social, religious, and political subjects. The full range of his remarkable artistic achievement is presented thematically and chronologically throughout nine rooms in the West Building. The exhibition begins with Bellows' renowned paintings and drawings of tenement children and New York street scenes. These iconic images of the modern city were made during an extraordinary period of creativity for the artist that began shortly after he left his hometown of Columbus, Ohio, for New York in 1904. Encouraged by Henri, his teacher at the New York School of Art, Bellows sought out contemporary subjects that would challenge prevailing standards of taste, depicting the city's impoverished immigrant population in River Rats (1906, private collection) and Forty-Two Kids (1907, Corcoran Gallery of Art). In addition to street scenes, Bellows painted more formal studio portraits of New York's working poor. These startling, frank subjects—such as Paddy Flannigan (1908, Erving and Joyce Wolf)—reflect the artist's profound understanding of the realist tradition of portraiture practiced by such masters as Diego Velázquez, Frans Hals, Edouard Manet, and James McNeill Whistler. Bellows' early boxing paintings chronicle brutal fights; to circumvent a state ban on public boxing, they were organized by private clubs in New York at that time. In his three acclaimed boxing masterpieces—Club Night (1907, National Gallery of Art), Stag at Sharkey's (1909, Cleveland Museum of Art), and Both Members of This Club (1909, National Gallery of Art)—Bellows' energetic, slashing brushwork matched the intensity and action of the fighters. These works will be on view together for the first time since 1982. The series of four paintings Bellows devoted to the Manhattan excavation site for the Pennsylvania Railroad Station—a massive construction project that entailed razing two city blocks—focuses mainly on the subterranean pit in which workmen toiled. Never before exhibited together, these works range from a scene of the early construction site covered in snow in Pennsylvania Station Excavation (1909, Brooklyn Museum) to a view of the monumental station designed by McKim, Mead, and White coming to life in Blue Morning (1909, National Gallery of Art). Bellows was fascinated with the full spectrum of life of the working and leisure classes in New York. From dock workers to Easter fashions paraded in the park, he chronicled a variety of subjects and used an array of palettes and painting techniques, from the cool grays and thin strokes of Docks in Winter (1911, private collection) to the jewel-like, encrusted surfaces of Snow-Capped River (1911, Telfair Museum of Art). While Bellows portrayed the bustling downtown commercial district of Manhattan in his encyclopedic overview New York (1911, National Gallery of Art), he more often depicted the edges of the city near the shorelines of the Hudson and East Rivers in works such as The Lone Tenement (1909, National Gallery of Art) and Blue Snow, The Battery (1910, Columbus Museum of Art). The artist visited Monhegan Island off the coast of Maine for the first time in 1911 and returned to Maine every summer from 1913 to 1916. In 1913 alone he created more than 100 outdoor studies. His seascapes account for half his entire output as a painter, with the majority done after the 1913 Armory Show. Shore House (1911, private collection) and The Big Dory (1913, New Britain Museum of American Art) are among Bellows' most important seascapes and pay homage to his great American predecessor, Winslow Homer (1836–1910). In 1912 Bellows started working more consistently as an illustrator for popular periodicals such as Collier's and Harper's Weekly, and in 1913 for the socialist magazine The Masses. These illustration assignments led him to record new aspects of American life ranging from sporting events to religious revival meetings, as seen in The Football Game (1912, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden) and Preaching (Billy Sunday) (1915, Boston Public Library). Along with Bellows' more affordable and widely available lithographs (he installed a printing press in his studio in 1916), the published illustrations broadened the audience for his work. Bellows supported the United States' entry into World War I, resulting in an outpouring of paintings, lithographs, and drawings in 1918. For this extensive series, he relied on the published accounts of German atrocities in Belgium found in the 1915 Bryce Committee Report commissioned by the British government. The paintings evoke the tradition of grand public history paintings, as seen in Massacre at Dinant (1918, Greenville County Museum of Art), while the drawings and lithographs recall Francisco de Goya's 18th-century print series The Disasters of War. Bellows' late works on paper survey modern American life, from the prisons of Georgia to the tennis courts of Newport, and highlight complex relationships between his various media. Taken from direct experience as well as fictional accounts, they range in tone from lightly satirical and humorous (Business-Men's Bath, 1923, Boston Public Library) to profoundly disturbing and tragic (The Law Is Too Slow, 1922–1923, Boston Public Library). In Emma at the Piano (1914, Chrysler Museum of Art), Bellows depicts his wife and lifelong artistic muse. His portraits of women constitute a larger body of work than his more famous boxing paintings. They cover all stages of life and include both the naive, youthful Madeline Davis (1914, Lowell and Sandra Mintz) and the more refined, matronly Mrs. T in Wine Silk (1919, Cedarhurst Center for the Arts). The show will end with paintings in a variety of styles made in 1924, the year before the artist's sudden death from appendicitis. Painted in Bellows' studio in rural Woodstock, New York, these last works, including Dempsey and Firpo (1924, Whitney Museum of American Art), Mr. and Mrs. Philip Wase (1924, Smithsonian American Art Museum), and The White Horse (1924, Worcester Art Museum), will prompt visitors to contemplate the artist Bellows might have become had he lived into the 1960s, as did his friend and contemporary Edward Hopper (1882–1967). 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, 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 Whitney Museum of American Art to show Retrospective of Yayoi Kusama Posted: 14 Jun 2012 09:28 PM PDT New York City.- Yayoi Kusama, whose work spans more than six decades of intense productivity in Japan and the United States, is the subject of a retrospective opening at the Whitney Museum of American Art on July 12th. Legendary, semi-reclusive, and still vibrant, Kusama, who turned 83 in March, has created an extensive body of work since the 1940's. Ranging from her earliest explorations in painting to new works made in the past few years, this survey—the artist's first major exhibition in New York in fifteen years—celebrates a career of exceptional duration and distinction, tracing the development of Kusama into one of the most respected and influential artists of her time. On view at the Whitney through September 30th, the traveling exhibition is organized in collaboration with Tate Modern and has been seen over the past year in Madrid, Paris, and London; the Whitney is its final stop. It was curated by Frances Morris, Tate's Head of Collections (International Art). The Whitney installation is overseen by curator David Kiehl. Both Tate and Whitney presentations are supported by Louis Vuitton. In 1989, Kusama was given important solo exhibitions at the Center for International Contemporary Arts, New York, and the Museum of Modern Art Oxford, England. In 1993, she participated in the 45th Venice Biennale. As Chris Dercon, director of Tate Modern, notes in his foreword to the catalogue, "This is the first large-scale museum retrospective of Kusama's career to be staged in the west since Love Forever: Yayoi Kusama 1958-1968, the seminal survey of her work organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The Japan Foundation in 1998…Love Forever focused exclusively on Kusama's production during her years in the United States. This exhibition, by contrast, seeks to show the full breadth of the artist's output throughout her lengthy and varied career, contextualizing Kusama's American sojourn with representations of her early and late career in Japan." Yayoi Kusama's art encompasses an astonishing array of media, including painting, drawing, sculpture, film, performance, and immersive installation. It ranges from works on paper featuring semi-abstract imagery, to soft sculptures known as Accumulations, to her Infinity Net paintings, made up of carefully repeated arcs of paint built up into large patterns, to the dense patterns of polka dots for which she is perhaps best known. Like her near contemporaries Eva Hesse, Louise Bourgeois, and Nancy Spero, Kusama's work has gained over time the recognition it deserves, following periods in which her work was received with acclaim and other periods in which she was almost completely overlooked. The exhibition unfolds chronologically, in a sequence of rooms, each devoted to the emergence of a new artistic phase. Much of Kusama's art has an almost hallucinatory intensity that reflects her unique vision of the world, whether through obsessively recurring imagery, a teeming accumulation of detail, or the dense patterns of nets and polka dots that have become her signature. Kusama is also renowned for her environments, immersive, large-scale installations of dazzling power. The Whitney's installation includes her extraordinary Fireflies on the Water (2002), shown here in our 2004 Biennial and now part of the Whitney's collection. As described by Christian Rattemeyer in the 2004 Biennial catalogue: "The reflective interior environment consists of a small room lined with mirrors on all sides, a pool in the center of the space, and 150 small lights hanging from the ceiling, creating a dazzling effect of direct and reflected light emanating from both the mirrors and the water's surface. Fireflies embodies an almost hallucinatory approach to reality, while shifting the mood from her earlier, more unsettling installations toward a more ethereal, almost spiritual experience." Yayoi Kusama was born in Matsumoto, Japan, in 1929. In her early career she immersed herself in the study of art, integrating a wide range of Eastern and Western influences, training in traditional Japanese painting while also exploring the European and American avant-garde. Kusama arrived in New York in 1958, where she worked hard to gain recognition. In the 1960s and early 1970s she became a major figure in the New York avant-garde, associated with key developments in Pop, Minimalism, and performance art, and exhibiting alongside artists she came to know well, including Donald Judd (her downtown loft neighbor), Andy Warhol, Joseph Cornell, and Claes Oldenburg. The exhibition includes a group of Kusama's first Infinity Net paintings from her early years in New York, canvases covered in unceasing, scalloped brushstrokes of a single color. Kusama forged her own direction in sculpture and installation, adopting techniques of montage and soft sculpture. The exhibition includes a significant selection of her classic Accumulation Sculptures dating from 1962 to 1968.  As the 1960s progressed, Kusama moved from painting, sculpture, and collage to installations, films, performances, and happenings as well as political actions, counter-cultural events, fashion design, and publishing. The exhibition includes Kusama's iconic film Kusama's SelfObliteration (1968), capturing this period of performative experimentation, and an extensive selection of archival material revealing the ways in which Kusama's artistic activity extended beyond the boundaries of the gallery.  After achieving fame and a certain prominence in New York through her groundbreaking and prescient art happenings and events, she returned to her country of birth in 1973. The exhibition includes a selection of the vibrant and evocative collages she created on her return, during a period in which she was also forging a parallel career as a poet and novelist. Major sculptural installations include The Clouds (1984), comprising one hundred unique black and white sprayed sewed stuffed cushions, and Heaven and Earth (1991), which features snake-like forms emerging from forty boxes. The exhibition concludes with a series of works from the last decade. The Whitney Museum of American Art is the world's leading museum of twentieth-century and contemporary art of the United States. Focusing particularly on works by living artists, the Whitney is celebrated for presenting important exhibitions and for its renowned collection, which comprises over 19,000 works by more than 2,900 artists. With a history of exhibiting the most promising and influential artists and provoking intense debate, the Whitney Biennial, the Museum's signature exhibition, has become the most important survey of the state of contemporary art in the United States. In addition to its landmark exhibitions, the Museum is known internationally for events and educational programs of exceptional significance and as a center for research, scholarship, and conservation. Founded by sculptor and arts patron Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1930, the Whitney was first housed on West 8th Street in Greenwich Village. The Museum relocated in 1954 to West 54th Street and, in 1966, inaugurated its present home, designed by Marcel Breuer, at 945 Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side. While its vibrant program of exhibitions and events continues uptown, the Whitney is moving forward with a new building project, designed by Renzo Piano, in downtown Manhattan. Located at the corner of Gansevoort and Washington Streets in the Meatpacking District, at the southern entrance to the High Line, the new building, which has generated immense momentum and support, will enable the Whitney to vastly increase the size and scope of its exhibition and programming space. Ground was broken on the new building in May 2011, and it is projected to open to the public in 2015. Visit the museum's website at ... http://whitney.org/

The Norman Rockwell Museum showcases The Golden Age Illustrator ~ Howard Pyle Posted: 14 Jun 2012 08:10 PM PDT Stockbridge, Massachusetts.- Howard Pyle (1853 – 1911) was one of America's most popular illustrators and storytellers during a period of explosive growth in the publishing industry. A celebrity in his lifetime, Pyle's widely circulated images of pirates, knights, and historical figures were featured in publications such as Harper's Monthly and were admired by such artists and authors as Vincent Van Gogh, Mark Twain, and Norman Rockwell. In celebration of the centenary of Pyle's death and the lasting influence of the artist's work, Norman Rockwell Museum will present the new exhibition, "Howard Pyle: American Master Rediscovered" from June 9th through October 28th. Organized by the Delaware Art Museum, in Wilmington, Delaware, the exhibition features 79 original paintings and drawings created by Pyle between 1876 and 1910, on loan from the Delaware Art Museum, which was founded in 1912 to preserve and exhibit Pyle's work following his death. The exhibition presents a fresh perspective on Pyle's imagery, exploring his interaction with the art and culture of 19th-century art. "When Howard Pyle died in 1911, he left behind an extensive body of over 3,000 works of art and a lasting legacy of inspired teaching," says Stephanie Plunkett, chief curator at Norman Rockwell Museum. "This exhibition features an outstanding selection of the artist's best known and rarely seen paintings, drawings, prints, and archival materials that shed light on the artist's career as a painter and a consummate storyteller in a changing world at the cusp of the 20th century. " "Admired by Norman Rockwell and his contemporaries, Pyle's exacting working methods resulted in the creation of artworks of singular beauty and refinement with innovative compositional structures," notes Dr. Joyce K. Schiller, curator of the Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies at Norman Rockwell Museum. "His extraordinary skill was strengthened by his conviction that illustration was an act of self revelation, and he encouraged students like N.C. Wyeth, Jessie Willcox Smith, and Frank Schoonover to understand their subjects by imagining themselves in them. The artist's powerful paintings of pirates and historical and literary themes continue to spark the imagination, as reflected in the works on view." The exhibition catalogue features essays by Norman Rockwell Museum curators Stephanie Plunkett and Joyce K. Schiller, Ph.D., along with other leading scholars on Howard Pyle's work. Pyle's unique approach to the art of illustration was honed through the intensive, self-directed study of the art of his time, which he experienced both in the original as well as through illustrated periodicals and books, reproductive prints, and fine art reproductions. The exhibition will include Pyle's paintings alongside related works by contemporary American and European artists, as well as selected paintings by Norman Rockwell, to show the cross-currents in both fine and commercial art. 'Visions of the Past' concentrates on Pyle's depictions of history, including Roman gladiators and Medieval knights. His views of the classical world drew inspiration from the work of the French academic artist Jean-Leon Gérome (1824 – 1904) and his numerous depictions of the Middle Ages show how conversant Pyle was with the works of the 19th-century Pre-Raphaelites. Pyle's pirate imagery is based on his own personal archive of costume books and historic manuscripts; however, his use of strong diagonals, flat compositional arrangements, and restrained placement of color suggests an understanding of the art world's new-found interest in Japanese ukiyo-e prints. The contemporary art world was obsessed with Japanese art as reflected in the work of James McNeill Whistler, James Tissot, and Edgar Degas, among others. Fairytale and Fantasy will focus on Pyle's fairy tales and children's illustrations, which show his knowledge of European illustrators, including Walter Crane (1845 – 1915) and Kate Greenaway (1846 – 1901). His depictions of the world of make-believe also reflect many of the themes and methods of European Aesthetic and Symbolist art. America – Past and Present highlights Pyle's enthusiasm for the American Colonial Revival of the 1880s, which celebrated the history of the United States. Many of Pyle's iconic Revolutionary War scenes seem to have been strengthened by knowledge of the work of the French Salon artist, Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier (1814 – 1891), whose military scenes of the Napoleonic Wars were immensely popular. The Norman Rockwell Museum is the preeminent museum of American illustration art. Dedicated to art education and art appreciation inspired by the enduring legacy of Norman Rockwell, the Museum stewards the world's largest and most significant collection of Rockwell art, and presents the works of contemporary and past masters of illustration. The Museum's holdings include Rockwell's last studio, moved from its original location to the Museum grounds, and the Norman Rockwell Archives, a 200,000-object collection undergoing digital preservation through ProjectNORMAN, "A Save America's Treasures Project." The Museum is also home to the new Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies, the nation's first research institute devoted to the art of illustration. In 2008, Norman Rockwell Museum became the first-ever museum recipient of the National Humanities Medal, America's highest honor in the field. Founded in 1969 with the help of Norman and Molly Rockwell, Norman Rockwell Museum is dedicated to the enjoyment and study of Rockwell's work and his contributions to society, popular culture, and social commentary. The Museum, which is accredited by the American Association of Museums, is the most popular year-round cultural attraction in the Berkshires. The Museum houses the world's largest and most significant collection of Rockwell's work, including 574 original paintings and drawings. Rockwell lived in Stockbridge for the last 25 years of his life. Rockwell's Stockbridge studio, moved to the Museum site, is open to the public from May through October, and features original art materials, his library, furnishings, and personal items. The Museum also houses the Norman Rockwell Archives, a collection of more than 100,000 items, including working photographs, letters, personal calendars, fan mail, and business documents. Having spent its first 24 years at the Old Corner House on Stockbridge's Main Street, the Museum moved to its present location, a 36-acre site overlooking the Housatonic River Valley, in 1993. Internationally renowned architect Robert A. M. Stern designed the Museum gallery building. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.nrm.org

The South Street Seaport Museum hosts "Compass ~ Folk Art in Four Directions" Posted: 14 Jun 2012 07:43 PM PDT New York City. - Beginning June 20th, the American Folk Art Museum will present "Compass: Folk Art in Four Directions" at the South Street Seaport Museum. The exhibition is mounted in collaboration with the Museum of the City of New York, which operates the South Street Seaport Museum, and will span four galleries. Running through October 7th, the exhibition will use highlights from the Folk Art Museum's extensive collection to illuminate the story of the Seaport district during the height of its prominence as an international port in the early 1800's. The exhibition will be presented in four sections that represent life at the Seaport in the early nineteenth century. Exploration will present works that convey the risks and rewards of seafaring expeditions in the early years of the Seaport. Social Networking will focus on the Seaport's history as a center for commerce, trade and social interactions. Shopping will highlight the area's roots as a thriving commercial district. Wind, Water, & Weather will illustrate the effects of the environment on harbor activities. Each section will contain artworks that embody the history of the Seaport as well as modern artworks that express the continuation of these themes and impulses in contemporary life. "In the early nineteenth century, the Seaport was a center of commerce and culture for New Yorkers and visitors from across the globe. For the exhibition, we have selected artworks that bring this rich history to life. I am thrilled that our exhibition can bring the Seaport's vibrant past into its exciting present moment," said Stacy C. Hollander, the Museum's senior curator. "Compass" will be presented in four sections that represent life at the Seaport in the early nineteenth century: Exploration, Social Networking, Shopping, and Wind, Water, & Weather. Each section will feature artworks that resonate with the history of the Seaport district during this time as well as modern artworks that express the continuation of these themes and impulses in contemporary life. Exploration: In the early years of the Seaport, the world was still a vast enigma and tales of far-off places stirred the imagination. Commercial expeditions yielded exotic goods while ordinary seamen were granted opportunities to experience customs and landscapes very different from their own. This gallery will focus on works that suggest the perils and rewards of lengthy voyages, the urge to explore, and the yearning for loved ones left on shore. The gallery will open with the 1835 Map of the Animal Kingdom. Such maps as this, copied by an unidentified New England schoolgirl, represented an urge to understand the world and Young America's place in it. Social Networking will open with an 1832 Coffeehouse trade sign that speaks to Schermerhorn Row's history as home to a coffeehouse and hotel for travelers. What we call "social networking" today was part of the coffeehouse scene from its earliest days. Coffeehouses provided the nexus for business and social interactions, as well as solitary musings over a cup of coffee. This section will include gameboards, personal journals, ledger books, and artworks that communicate personal beliefs and ideas of the artists. Shopping: Throughout its history, the Seaport has been a thriving commercial district with shops, open markets, services, and diverse activities aimed at both traveler and local. This gallery will feature a wealth of fancy wares including textiles, painted tinware, furniture, and decorative arts, available to the growing consumer class, as well as representations of the Americans who were buying these goods for personal use. Wind, Water, & Weather will conclude the exhibition with artworks that illustrate environmental aspects of the seaport: weathervanes that indicated wind direction, outdoor trade carvings that show the effects of weathering by the elements, images of seagoing vessels and collateral harbor activities. This final section of the exhibition will also include several works depicting extreme weather by the Chicago artist Henry Darger and accompanied by one of the six weather journals the artists maintained on a daily basis for ten years. The American Folk Art Museum was founded on June 23, 1961, and opened its doors to the public for the first time on September 27, 1963, in the rented parlor floor of a townhouse at 49 West 53rd Street. In 1979, the museum purchased two townhouses adjacent to 49 West 53rd Street. While plans for a development of these properties were being devised, the institution continued to present its exhibitions in the rented gallery until 1984, when it opened facilities in a former carriage house at 125 West 55th Street. That building, however, was razed just two years later, leaving the museum without galleries of its own for almost four years. During that time, the institution continued to organize a full schedule of exhibitions and educational programs, utilizing public spaces and corporate galleries, and offered an extensive traveling exhibition program to museums throughout the country. In 1989, exhibition facilities at 2 Lincoln Square, opposite Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, were opened. As the collection and the reputation of the museum continued to mature, so did the effort to develop a permanent home. It was determined that the museum would erect a 30,000-square-foot (2,800 m2), eight-level structure on the 45 and 47 West 53rd Street lots, to be designed by the internationally recognized firm of Tod Williams & Billie Tsien. This building was inaugurated on December 11, 2001. However, following finanical difficulties, this building had to be sold to MoMA, and the museum returned to its Lincoln Square location. The museum began to build a collection almost immediately after it was established. The now iconic Flag Gate (c. 1876) was its initial accession, in 1962, followed, a year later, by the Archangel Gabriel Weathervane (c. 1840) and the monumental St. Tammany Weathervane (c. 1890), now a centerpiece in the museum. The purchase, in 1979, of the famous Bird of Paradise Quilt Top (1858–1863) represented a turning point: The art of quiltmaking would become a major emphasis in the collection and public programs of the institution. Throughout the 1980s, the permanent collection continued to grow with major acquisitions of early American folk art, including Ammi Phillips' masterpiece, Girl in Red Dress with Cat and Dog (1830–1835). Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, the institution was recognized for its lively exhibitions, many of which were pioneering in scope, including the wide-ranging and influential "Twentieth-Century American Folk Art and Artists" in 1970, which explicitly took a broader view of the field than that originally articulated by the organization's founders. In this and other exhibitions, the museum argued against the notion that the creation of folk art was a thing of the past. In anticipation of the completion of the new building in 2001, more than four hundred important works of early American folk art from the renowned collection of Ralph O. Esmerian were promised to the museum. These included a comprehensive collection of Pennsylvania German material, Shaker gift drawings, needlework samplers, and paintings by artists such as Edward Hicks and Sheldon Peck. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.folkartmuseum.org Since 1967, the South Street Seaport Museum has presented exhibitions that tell the stories of the Seaport's past, present, and future.  Recently reopened under the management of the Museum of the City of New York, the Museum is currently presenting a lively interweaving of the city and the sea through photography, video, historic artifacts, and contemporary design.  Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.seany.org/

The Irvine Museum presents "Paradise Found ~ Summer in California" Posted: 14 Jun 2012 07:14 PM PDT Irvine, California.- The Irvine Museum is proud to present "Paradise Found: Summer in California" from June 16th through September 20th. "Paradise Found" will feature a selection of paintings by California Impressionists that show various familiar views of California as they appeared nearly a century ago, before the great population growth of the late twentieth century. Starting in the early 1900s, Southern California became a popular destination for impressionist and plein air painters. A French expression, which means "in the open air," plein air is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors. The mild climate in California allowed for numerous opportunities to paint outdoors, and a rich variety of subject matter, ranging from expansive beaches, to snow-capped mountains, to desert, and to rolling hills, was within one day's travel. Painted in 1907 as an advertisement for the Southern Pacific Railway, "Mid-Winter, Coronado Beach" by Louis Betts (1873-1961), shows a group of people frolicking at the beach in the middle of winter. Even then, tourism was important to California's economy. Maurice Braun (1877-1941) was born in Hungary, but emmigrated to the US at the age of 4.  In 1901 Braun trained under the American painter William Merritt Chase (1849–1916). He established himself as a figure and portrait painter in New York City, but in 1909 he left for California. He spent the summer of 1917 painting in Yosemite Park, and his "Yosemite Falls from the Valley" from this period, captures one of California's most spectacular sights. John Frost (1890-1937) suffered from tuberculosis all his life. As such, he often stayed at sanitariums in the warm, dry air of the desert. "Mount San Jacinto", which abuts Palm Springs, was a favorite painting subject. Guy Rose (1867-1925) was a native to Southern California, and became recognized as one of California's top impressionist painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His father was a prominent California senator. He and his wife raised their large family on an expansive Southern California ranch and vineyard – the San Gabriel Valley town of Rosemead bears the family name. In 1876 young Guy Rose was accidentally shot in the face during a hunting trip with his brothers. While recuperating he began to sketch and use watercolors and oil paints. He graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1884 and moved to San Francisco where he did his art training at the California School of Design, where he studied with the Danish-born artist Emil Carlsen . On September 12, 1888, Rose enrolled at the Académie Julian in Paris and studied with Benjamin-Constant, Jules Lefebvre, Lucien Doucet and Jean-Paul Laurens while in Paris. In 1888-89, he won a scholarship at the Academie Delacluse. He met fellow students Frank Vincent and Frederick Melville at the Académie Julian – Frank Vincent and Guy Rose were to remain lifelong friends. Rose lived New York, New York in the 1890s and illustrated for Harper's, Scribners, and Century. Choosing to return to France in 1899, he and his wife Ethel Rose bought a cottage at Giverny. In 1900 he resided in Paris and spent the winter in Briska, Algeria where he painted three known paintings. From 1904 to 1912 husband and wife lived in Giverny and his works from this period show the influence of "the master" Claude Monet , who became his friend and mentor. In 1913-1914 the Roses summered in and held an outdoor sketching school at Narragansett, Rhode Island. Suffering on and off again from the effects of lead poisoning, Rose and his wife moved permanently to Los Angeles, California in 1914. In Los Angeles, Guy Rose taught and served as Director of the Stickney Memorial School of Art in Pasadena. While much of his work was painted in France, "Lifting Fog" and "Incoming Tide" both show the California coast, "Lifting Fog" capturing a typically overcast summer morning at Laguna Beach. "Wash Day, Sunset Beach", by Sam Hyde Harris (1889-1977), captures the quaint life along numerous coastal communities in the early 1930s. Although Harris worked in downtown Los Angeles, he would take the Pacific Electric Red Line trolley from Sunset Beach and get to work in about thirty minutes. Anna Hills (1882-1930) was one of California's most important artists and teachers. She was one of the founders of the Laguna Beach Art Association, and served as its president on two occasions. "Summer in the Canyon" displays her facile and quick paint technique, a skill much needed for plein air painting. Opened in January 1993 and dedicated to the preservation and display of California art of the Impressionist Period (1890-1930), the Irvine Museum is embracing a principal role in the education and furtherance of this beautiful and important regional variant of American Impressionism that has come to be associated with California and its remarkable landscape. The Irvine Museum invites you to share this experience and to enjoy the splendor and power of art as it relates directly to our beloved California. Much of what originally made California a "Golden Land" was directly linked to the environment, especially the land and water that nurtured and sustained a rare quality of life. Over a hundred years ago, the splendor of nature fascinated artists and compelled them to paint beautiful paintings. As we view these rare and remarkable paintings, we are returned, all too briefly, to a time long ago when the land and its bounty were open and almost limitless. Today, with the renaissance of the glorification of nature in art, that spirit is motivating enlightened people in the same way it energized artists of the past. The common bond is the deep reverence for nature and the common goal is to preserve our environment, and no statement is more eloquent than the silent testament of these magnificent paintings. Each generation, in its turn, is the steward of the land, water and air. The Museum itself is housed in a lovely hacienda style building, reminiscent of the Golden Land's early days. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.irvinemuseum.org

The San Jose Museum of Art Fully Explores Humour in Art Posted: 14 Jun 2012 07:02 PM PDT San Jose, California.- The San Jose Museum of Art is proud to present "Renegeade Humour", on view at the museum from February 3rd through July 8th. The exhibition explore artists' amusing and tradition-defying use of humor and begins with a look at the bawdy irreverence, parody, and puns that are hallmarks of the work spawned at the University of California, Davis, in the 1960s and 1970s. It continues with works by artists of later generations who enlist humor to make a point and ends with new works by Kathy Aoki and Imen Yeh, who satirize election-year politics in projects commissioned by SJMA. Renegade Humor comprises 45 works drawn from the Museum's permanent collection, including paintings, works on paper, monumental sculptures, and ceramics. Visitors will encounter traditional and untraditional media: a millipede-like couch, a pinball machine, a ceramic plate embedded with taxidermy eyes, and "paper" dolls of Barack Obama and Newt Gingrich. Davis School artists represented include Robert Arneson, Roy de Forest, David Gilhooly, Peter VandenBerge, William T. Wiley, and others whose flippant attitudes reflected the shifting values of the time. Their humor often belied deeper social messages. In addition, Renegade Humor includes works by: John Bankston, Ray Beldner, Squeak Carnwath, Enrique Chagoya, Robert Colescott, Robbie Conal, Brian Goggin, Llyn Foulkes, Viola Frey, Jane Hammond, Evri Kwong, Lynn Hersman Leeson, Marilyn Levine, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Nathan Redwood, Walter Robinson, Richard Shaw, and M. Louise Stanley.  "This exhibition gives visitors the opportunity to laugh out loud, and at the same time make meaningful connections to the hot topics examined through the lens of humor," said Susan Krane, Oshman Executive Director. "With sometimes rowdy, always transgressive humor, the artists in this exhibition raise important social and societal issues. 'Renegade Humor' looks at this play of politics and humor, from the 1960's to today. SJMA has commissioned new works inspired by the notion of "Renegade Humor" from artists Aoki and Yeh. In this presidential election year, both artists will create interactive works that comment on the political process. For "Renegade Humor," Aoki designed a series of three-foot-tall "paper" dolls (actually constructed of steel) representing Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Aoki will make a set of rugged paper clothes and accessories for each doll, including a windmill costume for Obama and a "mama grizzly" suit for Palin. Visitors will be able to dress the dolls in the galleries; the costumes are interchangeable among the four figures in any combination. Yeh has imagined a fictional political candidate, taking as inspiration a real design challenge for a campaign identity that would appeal to both Latino and Asian voters. She developed a logo for "Juan Ton" through whom she skewers cultural stereotypes and marketing clichés. Her installation will include an array of propaganda with Juan Ton's logo, such as t-shirts, posters, and buttons. Yeh has also designed a hands-on activity for visitors, who will create their own Juan Ton campaign buttons. The fictional candidate will also have a social media "campaign." Visitors are encouraged to post their photos, wearing the buttons outside the Museum, to Juan Ton's Facebook page. In "Desire for the Other" (2004), a thirty-foot long, millipede-shaped red couch stuffed with household objects, Brian Goggin comments on people's insatiable desire for things. Walter Robinson's larger-than-life, hot pink, and melting polar bears ("Melt," 2008) point to the realities of global warming. William Wiley also comments on climate change with his "Punball Machine" (2008). In this working vintage pinball machine, Wiley depicts Eskimos and femmes fatales in the North Pole perched on icecaps with walruses and polar bears. Wiley, Arneson, and de Forest were influential instructors at UC Davis in the 1960s, when they and their students challenged the traditions of ceramics and craft. Among their students were VandenBerge, Shaw, and Gilhooly. In "Couple Watching Saturday Night Movie" (1969), VandenBerge depicts two snuggling ceramic carrots. In "Little French Girl" (1996), Shaw reinterprets Constantin Brancusi's famous sculpture of the same name using porcelain hot dogs and other eccentricities. The San Jose Museum of Art (SJMA) is a distinguished museum of modern and contemporary art and a lively center of arts activity in Silicon Valley. The leading institution in the area dedicated to the art of our time, SJMA is committed to providing access for its extraordinarily diverse populations and to pioneering new approaches to interpretation. Established in 1969, SJMA presents art ranging from modern masterpieces to recent works by young, emerging artists. The Museum's permanent collection—1,400 varied artworks from the 20th and 21st centuries—has a special focus on West Coast art, seen in an national and international context. SJMA is accredited by the American Association of Museums, a recognition given to just 750 of the nation's 8,000 museums. SJMA serves 100,000 people a year, including 37,000 school children: SJMA is the largest provider of arts education in Santa Clara County. Initiatives such as the award-winning school program Let's Look at Art Program and SJMA's participatory activity stations in the galleries further distinguish the Museum as an innovator in museum education. The SJMA's collection contains approximately 2,000 20th and 21st century artworks including paintings, sculpture, installation, new media, photography, drawings, prints, and artist books. The collection continues to evolve as a set of works reflecting important movements in recent art history, the accomplishments of emerging West Coast artists, acquisitions from their special exhibitions, and other significant works. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.sjmusart.org/

Exhibition at the MdM Mönchsberg shows Collection FOTOGRAFIS Bank Austria Posted: 14 Jun 2012 07:01 PM PDT Salzburg, Austria - This exhibition at the MdM Mönchsberg presents almost the entire FOTOGRAFIS collection which was provided to the MdM Salzburg as permanent loan by Bank Austria and integrated into the MdM's photographic collection in July 2008. The FOTOGRAFIS collection, established in 1976, is one of the earliest and most outstanding photographic collections in Europe. In 1987 it was presented temporarily at the Rupertinum and now it returns to Salzburg. On exhibition at the MdM Mönchsberg  through 26 October, 2009.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch art conservation project helps restore 20 works of art across globe Posted: 14 Jun 2012 07:00 PM PDT LONDON.- At an event at London's Courtauld Gallery on 31st January, Bank of America Merrill Lynch announced this year's conservation funding recipients through its unique Art Conservation Project. This year, participating institutions span the globe from Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), to Asia, Australia, Latin America and the United States. The Art Conservation Project will see the restoration of 20 art works and artifacts with important cultural and historical value from 19 countries. The 2012 award selections for EMEA include one of Leonardo Da Vinci's earliest manuscripts at the Castello Sforzesco in Milan; five Marc Chagall paintings at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and a collection of 1st century BC Urartian jewellery at the Rezan Has Museum in Istanbul. The programme aims to strengthen public awareness about the importance of art conservation, and the value that it holds in underpinning museum and gallery programming throughout the world.

Art from the Collections of "la Caixa" Foundation and MACBA on view at the Guggenheim Posted: 14 Jun 2012 06:59 PM PDT BILBAO, SPAIN - From January 31st to September 2nd, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao will be hosting The Inverted Mirror: Art from the Collections of "la Caixa" Foundation and MACBA, a superb selection of works belonging to two outstanding contemporary art collections that represent the most significant tendencies and movements spanning the second half of the twentieth century to the present, such as Dau al Set, the El Paso group, the Vancouver School and the Dusseldorf School. Throughout the Museum's third floor, The Inverted Mirror offers visitors a tour of 93 works by 52 artists who worked with various media, especially photography, video and large-format sculpture. The exhibition is structured around the points of agreement and divergence between the Fundación "la Caixa" and MACBA collections and highlights the art movements that play an outstanding role in both collections, such as the beginning of Art Informel in Spain and the establishment of objectivity as a current in contemporary photography. The exhibition title derives from Michelangelo Pistoletto's work Mirror Architecture, which is featured in the show. The image of a mirror is a metaphor for the processes of accumulation, transfer and interference that are a fundamental part of the birth and development of all art collections. In connection with its title, the show highlights two contemporary art collections located in Barcelona, which are extremely relevant in Europe and are being presented for the first time together outside of their respective venues, in keeping with a collaboration agreement signed in 2010. Curated by Álvaro Rodríguez Fominaya, Curator of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the exhibition features photographs, paintings, publications, sculptures, installations and videos by 52 celebrated artists such as Antoni Tàpies, Sigmar Polke, Julian Schnabel, Jeff Wall , Martha Rosler, Michelangelo Pistolletto, Thomas Ruff , Gillian Wearing, Bruce Nauman, Andreas Gursky , Martín Chirino and Antonio Saura , among others. Scope of the exhibition The nearly one hundred works from the "la Caixa" and MACBA collections that make up this exhibition are spread across 2,000 square meters on the Museum's third floor, a thematic tour in six major sections: Dau Al Set and El Paso, Function and Reenactment in Photography: Landschaft, Function and Reenactment in Photography: the Self and the Other, The Limits of Performance, The Inverted Mirror, and Levity, Gravity and Other Impossibilities. Designed specifically for the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, The Inverted Mirror exhibition acquires a new dimension in conjunction with the unique, luminous spaces in Frank Gehry's building. Dau Al Set/El Paso The exhibition starts in Gallery 304 with two movements that helped renovate the language of art in Spain after the Spanish Civil War: Dau al Set and El Paso. These and other groups that arose in the 1940s and 1950s joined in the debate that was raging on the international art scene. Dau al Set (1948–1954) was formed in Barcelona around the magazine of the same name. The group originally consisted of several Catalan writers and artists who promoted the project such as Joan Brossa, Modest Cuixart, Joan Ponç, Antoni Tàpies and Joan-Josep Tharrats. Later, a series of artists and art critics, among them Antonio Saura, Juan Eduardo Cirlot, Jorge Oteiza and Alexandre Cirici Pellicer, collaborated with the movement and stimulated the course of contemporary art in Catalonia. Dau al Set was inspired by the Dada and Surrealist movements and especially by Max Ernst, Joan Miró and Paul Klee. In turn, El Paso was founded in Madrid in 1957 with the adoption of a manifesto that championed freedom for art and artists, among other issues. The most prominent members of this movement, which broke up in 1960, were well-known figures on the international scene such as Antonio Saura, Manuel Millares, Martín Chirino, Rafael Canogar and Manuel Rivera. In the founding manifesto, these artists advocated an austere color palette together with the partial adoption of the aesthetic postulates of Art Informel. Function and Reenactment in Photography: The Self and the Other In this section, the artists approach portraiture and self-portraiture on the basis of a contemporary perspective and pay special attention to issues such as identity and gender. These works illustrate the way in which the human figure has been portrayed in photography from the late twentieth century until the present. Cindy Sherman, Gillian Wearing, Geneviève Cadieux, Craigie Horsfield and Vanessa Beecroft are a few of the artists that have addressed this genre from different points of view: Vanessa Beecroft's Black Madonna with Twins (Right), 2006, is a photograph of people who, in being deprived of their uniqueness, are turned into anonymous subjects. In Gillian Wearing's photography from her Album series (2003–06), the artist starts out with images of her family to recreate her own self-portrait. On the other hand, in Hear Me with Your Eyes (1989), Geneviève Cadieux photographed her sister over the course of several years in order to capture the emotional intensity of the moment. The section also includes a portrait by Rineke Dijkstra from her Park Portraits series that shows a teenager in a park in Amsterdam who poses for the photographer. Levity, Gravity and Other Impossibilities The notion of gravity and levity is the common denominator of the works in this section, which were created on an array of different formats: a series of sculptures and installations by Ernesto Neto , Gego, Tony Cragg, Damián Ortega and Lothar Baumgartner; a photograph by Francesc Torres; and a painting by Ettore Spalletti. A prominent place in this gallery is occupied by Square Reticulárea (1971), a key sculpture in the career of Venezuelan artist Gego, in which she used threedimensional vectors, mesh and planes. Gego's mathematical roots contrast with the organic nature of Ernesto Neto's installation Globulocell (2001), made of Lycra tulle.

Tate Modern Announces "Arshile Gorky: A Major Retrospective" Posted: 14 Jun 2012 06:58 PM PDT LONDON.- Tate Modern will present the first major retrospective of Arshile Gorky (c.1904-1948) to be seen in Europe for twenty years. Celebrating one of the most powerful and poetic American artists of his generation, "Arshile Gorky: A Retrospective" will examine the extraordinary contribution of this seminal figure in Abstract Expressionism. The exhibition will span Gorky's 25 year career and offer the opportunity to see this complex and moving body of work as a whole. It will include more than 150 paintings and works on paper, many of which have not been shown in public previously. On view from 10 Februay through 3 May, 2010.

Retrospective of American artist William N. Copley opens at Museum Frieder Burda Posted: 14 Jun 2012 06:57 PM PDT BADEN-BADEN, GERMANY - Stripes, rhombuses, flags, chequers or hearts are the shapes William N. Copley uses to humorously depict the battle of sexes. He cryptically sets his figures in an environment of lush decoration. From 18th February to 10th June the Museum Frieder Burda presents a comprehensive retrospective of the American artist (1919 to 1996). More than 80 works by the artist are shown. From the mid 40ies on, as a gallery owner, artist, author and editor, Copley acted as an important mediator between surrealists and the pop art movement and certainly was one of the most unconventional celebrities of the arts scene. A poet should work visually, Copley thought, and a painter poetically. He had deleted the melodious vowels from his name and from then on made the unutterable CPLY his brand and signed his pictures with it. In the tradition of dada, surrealism and American pop art, William N. Copley ironically deals with the erotic game between man and woman in all its facets. When asked whether he had a theory on his style, he answered in a 1968 interview: "No, it just seems as if I were doomed to explore the tragedy of man and woman. That probably is chaplinesque." Just as the solo exhibitions Polke, Richter and Baselitz, previously shown at the Museum Frieder Burda, this special exhibition is based on the works from the collection Frieder Burda. Frieder Burda started collecting works by Copley at a very early stage and now owns a considerable number of works that are shown together for the first time. The exhibition is completed by international loans and works from the estate of the artist some of which are publicly exhibited for the first time. Copley's life was not a straight line: his parents passed away early, Copley himself was found on the threshold of a New York hospice in 1919. Two years later, he was adopted by Ira and Edith Copley, wealthy news paper publishers from Illinois. Between 1932 and 1936, Copley was at the Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, then two years at Yale University. In 1940 he joined the US Army, went to Italy and Africa as a soldier, returned home as a reporter and grew fond of surrealism. In 1947 he taught himself to paint. First, simply to enhance his writing skills, as he wanted to become an author. In Los Angeles he founded a gallery to promote surrealist artists, but failed financially. Copley bought some of his works himself and thus laid the foundations for his art collection which later became one of the most important surrealist collections with works by Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Max Ernst, René Magritte and Yves Tanguy. The dashing free spirit Copley traveled frequently: from 1951 in Paris, he rated Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and René Magritte among his friends before he returned to the US ten years later and became part of the New York arts scene. He maintained relations with Christo, Roy Lichtenstein and later also with Andy Warhol. Götz Adriani is the curator of this comprehensive retrospective that paints a new picture of the artist's various facets, especially through a series of aquarelles never before publicly exhibited. Adriani describes Copley as follows: "A minimalist with baroque features who remained faithful not only to his peculiar subjects, but also to his cunningly steered artlessness during all his artist life. Mostly, he stuck to clear-cut picture punch-lines and a rather graphical approach. He achieved a remarkable variety in composition and color with his combination of contextual standards and highly abstract abbreviations." Copley spent the last ten years of his life rather isolated. He used the living room of his house for painting and sailed around in a boat. In 1996 he died at the age of 77 from a stroke. What remains is his work: a keen and entertaining picture of the attraction between men and women. By presenting these contemporary positions the Museum Frieder Burda is taking part in the current discourse on art, which continues to raise questions about the foundations and essence of painting. The collection will continue to develop in this direction in the future. In order to maintain the integral nature of the Collection and make it accessible to the public, a museum was built in Frieder Burda's home city of Baden-Baden. The plans for the 25 million euro project have been drafted by the New York architect Richard Meier. The Museum Frieder Burda was inaugurated in the autumn of 2004 and will be fully financed and run by the Foundation Frieder Burda which was established in 1998. The Museum will show the Collection to the public in varying presentations and taking ever-changing factors and new contexts into consideration. A fundamental part of the alternating exhibitions will also relate to the Collection, so that with the museum a place will be created for animated reflection and discussion on the works of art of the Collection. Visit : http://www.museum-frieder-burda.de/

The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston presents "The Puppet Show" Posted: 14 Jun 2012 06:56 PM PDT HOUSTON, TX - The Contemporary Arts Museum Houston's Brow Foundation Gallery becomes a stage for The Puppet Show, a group exhibition that looks at the imagery of puppets in contemporary art. The Puppet Show concentrates on sculpture, video, and photography and brings together several generations of artists from around the world. Organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania, The Puppet Show is co-curated by Ingrid Schaffner, senior curator at ICA, and Carin Kuoni, director, The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, New York. On view through 12 April, 2009

Sotheby's to Sell Works from Neuberger Berman & Lehman Brothers Collections Posted: 14 Jun 2012 06:55 PM PDT NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby's announced that it has been appointed by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (LBHI) and Alvarez & Marsal, LLC, the professional services firm overseeing LBHI's restructuring, to sell selected works from the distinguished Neuberger Berman and Lehman Brothers Corporate Art Collections*, subject to bankruptcy court approval. After Lehman's acquisition in 2003 of Neuberger Berman, Lehman expanded its commitment to collecting fine art and embraced the enlightened vision of Roy Neuberger, who made contemporary art an integral part of the workplace for decades.

The Kunstmuseum in Bern (Switzerland) ~ and The Zentrum Paul Klee Receive Our Editor Posted: 14 Jun 2012 06:54 PM PDT Outstanding works by Paul Klee, Pablo Picasso, Ferdinand Hodler and Meret Oppenheim have made the Museum of Fine Arts Bern an institution with an international reputation and well worth a visit. At the present time, the constantly growing and evolving collection consists of over 3,000 paintings and sculptures as well as 48,000 drawings, prints, photographs, videos and films. The roots of the museum's history reach back to the revolutionary ideas proliferating in Europe towards the end of the 18th century which, in 1809, led to the founding of the National Art Collection in Bern and, in 1879, to the opening of the first museum building. The Museum of Fine Arts Bern is the oldest art museum in Switzerland with a permanent collection and houses works covering eight centuries, making it not only one of the most important and variegated collections in Switzerland but, due to its substantial collection of works from the classical modern period, also one of international significance. The present building in the Hodlerstrasse was built between 1876 and1879 under the guidance of architect Eugen Stettler. Between 1932 and1936 under the guidance of the architect Karl Indermühle (from the firm of Salvisberg & Brechbühl), the museum was extended. In 1983, the local Bern architects Atelier 5 designed a further extension. Currently the museum are planning yet another expansion, to improve the facilities available for displaying its expanding collection of contemporary art. The museum has close ties to the nearby Paul Klee Center, and hosted the Paul Klee Foundation's collection until they moved to their own, new building. The Paul Klee Cultural Centre, Bern was designed by Ptitzker award winning architect Renzo Piano, and opened in 2005. Around 4,200 of Paul Klee's paintings, watercolours and drawings as well as archives and biographical material, have been brought together at the Centre, which also hosts exhibitions and cultural events. It is currently jointly hosting "Lust and Vice: The Seven Deadly Sins from Dürer to Nauman" with the Kunstmuseum Bern. The exhibition provides a fascinating record of artistic preoccupation with this theme from medieval times to the present day. "Lust and Vice: The Seven Deadly Sins from Dürer to Nauman" also addresses the relevance of the notion of sin in contemporary society and how our culture justifies changes in values. The exhibition is split between the two venues, with pride, avarice, envy and anger at the Kunstmuseum, lust, gluttony and sloth displayed at the Paul Klee Centre. Visitors to Bern should not miss visiting both of these oustanding museums. Visit both museum's websites : http://www.kunstmuseumbern.ch ; and the Paul Klee Cultural Centre (Zentrum Paul Klee) at: www.zpk.org/ Highlights of the museum's collection include a unique group of 14th and 15th century Italian paintings featuring works by the Sienese painter Duccio di Buoninsegna. The early modern period is represented by outstanding works of local Berne artists from the late Gothic through to the realism of the 19th Century, including paintings by Niklaus Manuel, Joseph Heintz , Joseph Plepp , Kauw Albrecht and Joseph Werner. The museum also contains a significant collection of works by Albert Anker (often referred to as Switzerland's "National Painter" for his popular depictions of 19th-century Swiss village life). The growth of modern art from the mid-19th Century onwards is well represented with an international quality collection, including individual works by Manet, Cézanne, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, van Gogh and Toulouse-Lautrec. Significant groups of works representing cubism, the "Blue Rider" group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München (Munich), "Die Brücke" (The Bridge) - Dresden group, Bauhaus and Surrealism are held by the museum and presented in coherent groupings. Local Swiss artists are very well represented with multiple works by Ferdinand Hodler, Cuno Amiet and Giovanni Giacometti from all their creative periods. A major focus for the museum is "outsider art", and one of world's most prominent representatives, the former Bernese farmhand Wölfli (1864-1930). In conjunction with the Adolf Wolfli Foundation, the museum contains a large collection of his works. The Kunstmuseum Bern is also one of the few public collections in Switzerland, which have long been explicitly collecting and promoting the work of female artists. Artists including; Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Louise Bourgeois, Meret Oppenheim and Marina Abramovic are therefore well represented in the collection. Contemporary works include extensive groups of works by Bernhard Luginbuhl, Franz Gertsch, James Lee Byars, Markus Raetz, Urs Lüthi, Dieter Roth and Sigmar Polke. The Graphic Collection of the Kunstmuseum Bern consists of around 48,000 drawings, prints and photographs. The 16th Century is represented by a large number of prints from various periods including works by Hans Baldung Grien, Hans Sebald Beham, Hans Burgkmair Ae. and Albrecht Dürer. From the 17th Century, the collection contains prints by Jacques Callot, Van Dyck, Rembrandt van Rijn and Hendrik Goltzius. A significant part of the collection is the art of the Bernese minor masters of the 18th Century. These small-scale landscape views and traditional representations of Swiss life helped made the Bernese Oberland (and other parts of Switzerland) famous as early tourist destinations. 19th Century works include the Swiss artists, Ferdinand Hodler, Albert Anker, Karl Stauffer-Bern and Rudolf Friedrich Kurz and international works by of Camille Corot, Edgar Degas, Adolf von Menzel, Hans von Marées and Max Liebermann. Important 20th century artists represented include, Otto Meyer-Amden, Otto Nebel, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Wassily Kandinsky, Louis Moilliet, Pablo Picasso, Andre Masson and Salvador Dali. Visitors currently are able to enjoy "Chinese Window: Big Draft Shanghai - Contemporary Art from the Sigg Collection". The latest in a series of exhibitions of work by the Chinese artists from the Uli Sigg collection which unifies more than 1,200 Chinese contemporary art pieces, ranging from canvases to videos, photos and installations. "Big Draft Shanghai" features a number of artists from China's artistic powerhouse, presenting a broad panorama of Chinese contemporary art including Shi Guorui's futuristic view of the city with his urban silhouettes of Shanghai, Jin Jiangbo's focus on the life of a day laborer in an interactive installation, Zhang Qing brings taxis to dance in his video, Jin Feng's "Flying Angels" and Shi Yong evokes the anonymity of urban life with small plaster-of-Paris figures. In contrast, Ni Youyu designs geometrical experimental spaces on canvas in which bizarre landscapes have been inscribed. In conjunction with the exhibition, and also until 6 February, a 2008 video installation with the title "Chinesisch von Vorteil" (Chinese is an Advantage) by the artist couple Sylvie Boisseau and Frank Westermeyer is taking place at the nearby PROGR building. Exploring language barriers, this is an ideal counterpoint to the art on show in the main museum building. The museum is also exhibiting (until 27 February 2011) "Yves Netzhammer. A Refuge for Drawbacks". Swiss artist Yves Netzhammer's first large solo exhibition in his native country provides a retrospective of his art, and includes drawings, room installations, murals, and computer-generated videos which fascinate with their corporeal impact and formal clarity while they probe the dark side of our existence. Complementing the Netzhammer exhibition, until the end of 2014, the museum has (on loan from Dr. H.C. Hansjörg) Yves Netzhammer's monumental installation "The Subjectification of the Repetition. Project B" consists of pulsating images, projections and sound within a room-sized, wedge-shaped construction. The final exhibition currently being held at the Kunstmuseum (until 20 March 2011) is "Don't Look Now – The Collection of Contemporary Art, Part 1". This exhibition is the first of a series of themed presentations of works from the collection of the museum, in conjunction with those of the Kunsthalle Bern, Kunst Heute, GegenwART and the Bernische Stiftung für Fotografie, Film und Video. The title is borrowed from Nicolas Roeg's (1973) film classic with the same title and refers to the central role that visual perception plays in the fine arts and the transformation of corporeal and sensory perception into knowledge. It also ironically refers to the "hidden" nature of much of the museum's contemporary art collection, which has been in storage or limited display awaiting the new extension to be properly displayed. The starting point for the exhibition is James Lee Bryars' The Looking Glass (1978), a pane of glass larger than man-size with a viewing hole cut into it at about 1.8 meters from the base.

"ARTIST ROOMS 2010 Tour" Announced ~ 21 Exhibitions of Contemporary Art Posted: 14 Jun 2012 06:53 PM PDT LONDON.- 21 British museums and galleries from Llandudno to Fort William will be able to show masterpieces of contemporary art in 2010 thanks to "ARTIST ROOMS", Anthony d'Offay's gift to the nation made in 2008. The "ARTIST ROOMS 2010 Tour" has been made possible by The Art Fund and is supported by the Scottish Government. Held jointly by National Galleries of Scotland and Tate, "ARTIST ROOMS" is the largest public gift of art to museums in UK history. The collection has now been enhanced by artists and collectors who have made significant donations to the scheme including: Ed Ruscha, "The Music from the Balconies", 1984, donated by the artist; Ian Hamilton Finlay, "Idylls End in Thunderstorms", 1986; and "A Last Word Rudder", 1999 donated by the Estate of the artist.

Elite Decorative Arts Auction to Feature 465 Lots of Fine Artwork, Porcelain and Decorative Arts Posted: 14 Jun 2012 06:52 PM PDT Boynton Beach, Florida.- Nearly 500 lots of quality fine art, porcelain and decorative accessories will cross the block on Saturday, Januray 14th at the gallery of Elite Decorative Arts, located in the Quantum Town Center at 1034 Gateway Boulevard (Ste. 106-108) in Boynton Beach. The event will get underway at 1 p.m. (EST) with an in-house pre-sale slated for 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. The pre-sale auction will feature 120 lots of Lladro, Lalique, Roseville, Delft, Baccarat, oil paintings, bronze, crystal and more. It will be a live-only auction (no Internet bidding) and all items will be sold without reserve (no minimums). For the main auction starting at 1 p.m., phone and absentee bids will also be accepted, with online bidding facilitated by LiveAuctioneers.com. Works of fine art will headline the main auction, with original oil paintings by Ivan Choultse (Russ., 1874-1932) leading the way. A sunset snow lake scene is expected to fetch $40,000-$60,000, while a seascape should realize $30,000-$50,000. Important original works by Edouard Cortes (Fr., 1882-1969) and Jules Dupre (Fr., 1811-1889) will also come up for bid. "We're quite proud of the quality artwork being featured in the January auction," said Scott Cieckiewicz of Elite Decorative Arts. "Moving forward, we hope to dedicate auctions exclusively to high-end artwork and oil paintings." Elite Decorative Arts has already earned a solid reputation as a premier auction house for Asian objects and fine decorative accessories. Decorative accessories in the January auction will include a magnificent Hanau (mid-17th century faïence factory founded in Hanau, Germany) silver and ivory Theodorich figure (est. $30,000-$40,000); a stunning pair of African elephant ivory tusks (est. $25,000-$35,000); and an exquisite 65-piece 19th century French necessaire small silver travel box (est. $10,000-$14,000). The Choultse paintings are the expected top lots of the auction. While still a young man, Choultse became the court painter to Czar Nicholas II. After the Russian Revolution, he moved to Paris in 1923 and was exhibited at the prestigious Salon des Artistes Francais. He later made side trips to Switzerland, where he honed his skills as a master landscape and mountain painter. The street scene by Edouard Cortes is expected to knock down at $30,000-$40,000. Cortes had the good fortune of maturing as an artist in Paris at a time when the "City of Lights" was at the epicenter of the art world. Parisian street scenes by artists like Cortes, Eugene Galien-Laloue (1854-1941), Luigi Loir (1845-1916) and Jean Beraud (1849-1916) were in high demand. Jules Dupre's oil on canvas landscape rendering carries a pre-sale estimate of $20,000-$30,000. Dupre was one of the chief members of the Barbizon School of landscape painters. His work is defined by the sonorous and resonant colors he exacted from his palette. The subjects that seemed to most attract his attention were dramatic sunset effects and stormy skies and seas. Also featured in the auction will be a 1968 signed Modernism color lithograph by Marc Chagall (Russ./Fr., 1887-1985). The piece is expected to bring $10,000-$15,000. Chagall was born Moishe Shagal in Russia, but when he became a member of the Ecole de Paris, he adopted French citizenship and the French spelling of his name. Today, his work is highly collectible. Another name that will be familiar to art aficionados is that of Joan Miro (Spain,1893-1983). An abstract aquatint etching hand-signed by the artist should garner $6,000-$8,000. Miro left his native Spain for Paris at age 26 and became friends with artists such as Pablo Picasso. He became renowned for his abstract curvilinear design paintings, collages and murals. Another artwork expected to hit $6,000-$8,000 is a framed silkscreen by Friedensreich Hundertwasser (Austrian, 1928-2000). The son of a Jewish mother and a Christian father (who died when he was one), Hundertwasser was born in Vienna and studied at the Vienna Academy of Art. He left after only three months, but earned a reputation anyway as a fine modern painter. The auction will also feature a 17th century unsigned Old Master oil painting of dancing villagers (est. $20,000-$30,000) and a pair of 17th or 18th century Italian baroque oil floral still lifes (est. $6,000-$8,000 each). Also sold will be a stunning turquoise and diamond 18kt white gold necklace suite and a 14kt gold diamond deco brooch necklace (est. $20,000-$30,000 each). Previews will be held on Friday, January 13th from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., and on Saturday, January 14th, the date of sale, from 10 a.m. until the first gavel comes down at 1 p.m. in the main auction. Elite Decorative Arts will be exhibiting at the Miami Beach Antique Show (Feb. 2-6, 2012 -- Booths 2105, 2107 and 2109). The event bills itself as the world's largest indoor antique show. Visit the auction house's website at ... www.eliteauction.com.

Richard Deacon Installation at Portland Art Museum Posted: 14 Jun 2012 06:51 PM PDT   Portland, OR – On January 26, the Portland Art Museum will present a new monumental sculpture by internationally celebrated British artist Richard Deacon. This will be the latest installation in the Museum's ongoing series of international contemporary art exhibitions, supported in part by the Miller Meigs Endowment for the Contemporary Arts. On exhibition January 26 – June 1, 2008.

Shannon's Fine Art Auction To Feature Cropsey, Rembrandt and Lichtenstein Among Others Posted: 14 Jun 2012 06:50 PM PDT Milford, CT.- Original works of art by such renowned painters as Jasper Cropsey, Birge Harrison, Martha Walter, John White Alexander and others – plus a pair of original etchings by Rembrandt and a rare etching by the Italian master Campagnola – will be sold Thursday, October 27th, by Shannon Fine Art Auctioneers, at their semi-annual fine art auction. The auction will be held in Shannon's spacious gallery facility, located at 354 Woodmont Road in Milford, located just off I-95 just south of New Haven. Previews will be held from October 17th up until auction day, October 27th from 9-5:30. Shannon's only conducts two fine art auctions per year – in April and October – and when they happen, collectors do take notice. In the sale held this past April, bidders from 18 countries and 42 states participated, and the full bank of 20 phones was ringing all evening. As with last the sale, a live crowd of about 100 people is expected when bidding begins at 6 p.m. "Thanks to some wonderful pieces already consigned, plus a museum collection that we expect to come in, this auction should be very strong," said Gene Shannon of Shannon's Fine Art Auctioneers. "And, typically, we experience a spurt of other great consignments in the three weeks leading up to sale. Overall there will be more than 250 fresh-to-the-market lots to bid on." Two of the lots carry pre-sale estimates of $100,000-$150,000 and are expected to attract intense bidder interest. The first is a luminist view of the Hudson River by Jasper Cropsey. Mr. Cropsey was known for his autumnal landscapes. He is a leading member of the Hudson River School and his work coveted by collectors. The other is a tea party painting by Martha Walter, who painted in France, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania over the course of her rich and fruitful career. She was best known for portrait work, beach-child-park paintings and landscapes. A second painting by her – a beach scene – will also come under the gavel. It is expected to command $60,000-$80,000. The Birge Harrison painting is a scene of Bryant Part in New York City (est. $80,000-$120,000). Birge Harrison was born in Philadelphia and has been described as one of America's leading tonalist painters. He specialized in landscapes, and he bucked convention by eschewing en plein air work, preferring instead to paint from memory. Another painting expected to get paddles wagging is John White Alexander's "Lady in Green" (est. $60,000-$80,000). Mr. Alexander, was born in Pennsylvania, but became one of the most prominent artists in New York City in the late 19th and early 20th century. He painted portraits and murals but was best known for his female renderings. Any time the name Rembrandt comes up at auction, it generates buzz, and this auction has two works by the Dutch master. Both are original etchings and one, a diminutive self-portrait, has a pre-sale estimate of $30,000-$50,000. Another etching, by the Italian master Domenico Campagnola is exceedingly rare, but has been estimated conservatively, at $20,000-$30,000. A museum-size harbor view by Jonas Lie should realize $50,000-$75,000; a still life of cherries tumbling from a basket by the still life master John F. Francis is expected to garner $40,000-$60,000; and "White Birches", a Vermont masterpiece by Luigi Lucioni should also hit $30,000-$50,000. A portrait of a seated young woman by Irving Ramsey Wiles should cross the block for $30,000-$50,000; "Arizona Twilight", by Dale Nichols, is expected to reach $30,000-$50,000; a lost masterpiece by William Holbrook Beard, depicting bears and goats cavorting, should fetch $30,000-$50,000; and a painting of the Andes by Elizabeth Gilbert Jerome will also be offered. Collectors will also be interested to know that works by Richard E. Miller, Frederick Bridgman, Robert Vickrey, George Russell and Hans Dahl will also be featured in the sale. Among the Modern artists, several works are worthy of mention. They include "Test Pilot by Gerald Laing, expected to bring $12,000-$18,000. "Carnival Abstraction", by Rolph Scarlett, meanwhile, should garner $30,000-$50,000. Other Modern art notables will include a rare Provincetown pointillist work, executed circa 1917 by Blanche Lazzell, which should sell for $25,000-$35,000; a powerful early 1950s abstract work by Charles Green Shaw, titled "Polychrome" (est. $15,000-$25,000); and a vibrant colored print by the pop imagery cartoon painter Roy Lichtenstein, titled "Crying Girl" (est. $20,000-$30,000). Shannon's Fine Art Auctioneers is one of only two auction houses in the country that sells only fine art. Its auctions include paintings, watercolors, drawings and rare prints. Historically, Shannon's has specialized in American and European art executed between 1840 and 1940. But in recent years the firm has expanded more into post-war Modern and Pop art. Shannon's produces a 180-page, full-color catalog and an eight-page, oversize color brochure that is mailed to 18,000 clients. Paintings consigned to Shannon's are viewed by collectors, museum directors, appraisers and clients with an interest in fine international art. The firm markets itself online worldwide and in newsletters and magazines in Europe and the U.S. Shannon's Fine Art Auctioneers will be accepting quality consignments for the Oct. 27 sale through Sept. 13. Visit the gallery's website at ... www.shannons.com.

Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review" Posted: 14 Jun 2012 06:49 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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