May 26th, 2020 - Philanthropic couple’s promised donation to New-York Historical Society boosts collection’s 20th-century holdings The New-York Historical Society today announced a promised gift of 130 works depicting New York City scenes, including vivid examples by Norman Rockwell, Marc Chagall, Robert Henri, Jacob Lawrence, Georgia O’Keeffe, Louise Nevelson and David Hockney, from the philanthropists Elie and Sarah Hirschfeld. The art, dating from the mid-19th through the 21st centuries, includes works by artists from movements associated with New York City like the Ashcan School, Abstract ...
May 25th, 2020 - The 10 Most Important Exhibitions at London’s Tate Modern opened in London in 2000, it was perceived by many as a marker of a seismic shift in the British art scene. "This is the beginning of something enormous in British art, a re-ordering, a great tempest of cultural energy which will blow apart all the old certainties, all the traditional hierarchy of law and money and God," artist Antony Gormley told the Guardian at the time. Sentiment of the sort would go on to ring more or less true, and Tate Modern is now a major institution in the international art world. With the institution ...
May 24th, 2020 - New insight into paint preservation could help “The Scream” show its face in public again. Edvard Munch’s 1910 version of this iconic artwork has rarely been displayed since 2006 because the painting’s cadmium sulfide pigments are so fragile. Cadmium yellow brushstrokes in the sky and central figure have faded to off-white, and thick paint in the lake is flaking off. To prevent further decay, the Munch Museum in Oslo almost always keeps “The Scream” in storage, under carefully controlled lighting and about 50 percent humidity. Now, a chemical analysis of the painting shows that ...
May 23rd, 2020 - As the dog days of summer are approaching, physical auction rooms may be temporarily shut down, but online auctions of scintillating artwork are busier and more relevant than ever. On Friday, Phillips announced that in July, they’ll be centering a sale around Noël (1961-1962), an extraordinary painting made by the influential abstract expressionist painter Joan Mitchell, which is expected to fetch from $9.5 million to $12.5 million. On the same day, Sotheby’s revealed today that a planned June sale of the robust collection of Denver philanthropist and collector Ginny Williams will ...
May 22nd, 2020 - Adventures with Van Gogh is a weekly blog by Martin Bailey, our long-standing correspondent and expert on the artist. Published every Friday, his stories will range from newsy items about this most intriguing artist to scholarly pieces based on his own meticulous investigations and discoveries. Executed by the Nazis: the story of Vincent van Gogh’s brave great-nephew This month the Van Gogh family pays tribute to Theodoor, the 24-year-old student who faced a firing squad in 1945 Earlier this month members of the Van Gogh family placed roses on the grave of Theodoor (Theo), who was executed ...
May 22nd, 2020 - From Maurizio Cattelan's Bedtime Stories to Neïl Beloufa's post-capitalist fable featuring camels and foxes French-Algerian artist Neïl Beloufa has taken on the story-telling mantle in a big way by creating his own allegory, which can be read on the website of Mendes Wood DM gallery. "This is the story of a post-capitalist dehydrated camel who gets some young, dynamic fennecs [desert foxes] to build a wall at the expense of the worker ants," says a gallery statement. The yarn, which reads like an absurd take on La Fontaine's famous fables, forms the basis for an upcoming exhibition at the ...
May 22nd, 2020 - $50 Million Trove on Block at Sotheby’s “Re-Echo” by Lee Krasner Hundreds of artworks from the collection of late art dealer Ginny Williams, estimated at more than $50 million , are heading to Sotheby’s. Works by women, including postwar masters Lee Krasner and Joan Mitchell, comprise the bulk of the 450-piece trove, and the top lots will be offered in a standalone live sale on June 29 in New York, Sotheby’s said Friday. The company’s traditional evening sale of contemporary art, which had been postponed from this month, will immediately follow. Sotheby’s said it has already ...
May 22nd, 2020 - Coinciding with the auction house's New York sale room re-opening in June, the sale marks the first time female artists will comprise over two-thirds of the value of an evening auction Sotheby’s will offer the collection of the late gallerist and collector Ginny Williams in several sales beginning the 29 June, coinciding with the re-opening of its New York sale rooms that week. The collection of more than 450 works, which is estimated to sell for more than $50m, "will be the first time female artists will comprise over two-thirds of the value of the sale," says Saara Pritchard, senior vice ...
May 21st, 2020 - Humidity from the breath of museum goers have gradually degraded the colors of the famous painting. Munch’s 19th-century masterpiece The Scream is one of the most recognizable paintings in the world. It’s been featured countless times in pop culture with various renditions appearing in film, literature, art, and animation. Unfortunately, the famous artwork is deteriorating fast — and fans visiting museums may be partly to blame, according to a new study. A fading scream In a new study, an international team of researchers, working under the guidance of the Munch Museum in Oslo, ...
May 19th, 2020 - News Artist Damien Hirst talks about how he has adapted to change. "It is a different world, isn’t it," he said. "It’s amazing how quickly you get used to it." [ Rebekah Frumkin delves deep into different ways that artists and scientists have worked to illustrate the coronavirus. After seeing some on a microscope, she writes, "The molecules looked like the cartoon amoebas you’d expect to see in a fifties film reel about germs. But they were the virus qua virus, with its spikes and spherical body." Surveys Alex Greenberger looked into the wide variety of work made over the years by Yayoi ...
May 19th, 2020 - Just like the rest of us, it seems that the painting needs to practice some social distancing. Back away from The Scream —literally. The famed Edvard Munch painting is deteriorating, and it’s all because adoring visitors to Olso’s Munch Museum are crowding its display. To preserve the 1910 masterpiece, it would seem that, just like the rest of us, the painting needs to practice some social distancing. “When people breathe they produce moisture and they exude chlorides,” Koen Janssens, a professor at the University of Antwerp, told the Guardian . That’s why, he explained, ...
May 19th, 2020 - Securing the loan extensions was “really easy” says director of the Scuderie del Quirinale The once-in-a-lifetime Raphael exhibition in Rome, which was open to the public for only three days before the Covid-19 lockdown in Italy forced its closure, will re-open on 2 June and run for three months until 30 August. The show, at the Scuderie del Quirinale, was organised to mark the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance master’s death and includes works on loan from 52 museums, galleries and others. “So far, everybody we have approached to extend the loans has said yes,” a spokeswoman for ...
May 19th, 2020 - Wall art works as a beautiful icing on the cake of your interior. Art pieces, including family photos, favorite sports, world map canvas , nature’s beauty, and more draw the eye while making the home inviting. But, when it comes to choosing the perfect wall art, making the right decisions is critical. Some people face a challenge in selecting the right wall art for space. So, here are some expert tips that will help you to select the right piece of art for your room or home. Tip 1: Choose Wall Art by Size When selecting wall art, consider the size of both all art and room. Like in ...
May 14th, 2020 - The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is closed to the public, but you can now view Rembrandt's 'The Night Watch' in unprecedented detail thanks to a hyper-resolution scan. A museum in Amsterdam has uploaded a scan of Rembrandt’s The Night Watch painting that’s so detailed you can see individual brushstrokes and cracks in the paint . Thanks to the hyper-resolution scan, anyone can pull up the painting online and zoom in on individual features. Painted in 1642, The Night Watch is a massive 11 feet tall and 14 feet wide. The hyper-resolution scan is part of an ongoing restoration project of The ...
May 13th, 2020 - 44,804,687,500 pixels in one image Each year, hundreds of thousands of art aficionados travel to Amsterdam to take a peek at Rembrandt‘s The Night Watch . But now you can get intimately familiar with this historic painting — without even having to step foot in the Rijksmuseum. A team of data scientists has made a 44.8 gigapixel digital copy of The Night Watch . The researchers created the ultra-detailed photograph of Rembrandt‘s painting from a total of 528 exposures — or 24 rows of 22 pictures each. They then used the help of neural networks to digitally stitch together the images. ...
