Jul 11th, 2020 - Great works of art contain touches of strangeness that, once seen, unlock deeper meaning. Kelly Grovier reveals examples from paintings including The Scream and The Kiss. What do the greatest paintings and sculptures in cultural history – from Girl with a Pearl Earring to Picasso’s Guernica, from the Terracotta Army to Edvard Munch’s The Scream – have in common? Each is hardwired with an underappreciated, indeed often overlooked, detail that ignites its meaning from deep inside. That, at least, is the premise of my book, , a study that invites readers to reconnect with works that are ...
Jul 10th, 2020 - A nude by Roy Lichtenstein led Christie’s relay-style auction that played out virtually Friday in four cities around the globe. The live-streamed event -- which had been postponed from May due to the pandemic -- produced $421 million in sales over four hours, exceeding its low estimate. Like Sotheby’s and Phillips before it, Christie’s pivoted from a live to virtual auction, connecting sales rooms in Hong Kong, Paris, London and New York digitally and drawing more than 20,000 viewers. “Nude with Joyous Painting” by Roy Lichtenstein “It worked,” said Alex Rotter, Christie’s ...
Jul 9th, 2020 - In addition to being a source of time wasting cat videos and minutiae, YouTube can also be an excellent means of learning something more meaningful on a multitude of subjects. Art history is a good example. Most of the world’s major galleries and museums have YouTube channels, with lectures about artworks and online tours of exhibitions. New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art , celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, offers a wealth of material through its YouTube channel, including videos with step-by-step instructions on how to paint and draw and series like “Artists on ...
Jul 9th, 2020 - Exhibitions will focus on Paula Rego, Lubaina Himid, Yayoi Kusama and Sophie Taeuber-Arp as well as a major survey of Philip Guston Tate has announced its exhibitions for 2021 with a programme dominated by female artists, including major exhibitions for the contemporary artists Paula Rego and Lubaina Himid, an exhibition of Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Mirror Rooms and the first major UK survey of Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Philip Guston will also be the subject of a hefty survey, and thematic exhibitions on Auguste Rodin and William Hogarth have also been announced. At Tate Modern, the year will open ...
Jul 7th, 2020 - Picture: Haarlems Dagblad Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz: On 19th September 2020 the first ever solo retrospective exhibition in the Netherlands dedicated to John Constable will open at the Teylers Museum in Haarlem.* The exhibition will feature a vast array of drawings, watercolour and paintings loaned from collections around the world. Constable, as we know, was greatly influenced by Dutch golden age painters such as Ruisdael, Hobbema and Rembrandt. The exhibition will run from 19th September 2020 to 31st January 2021. * - Quite surprising fact, if true! I'm sure an AHN reader will get in ...
Jul 7th, 2020 - Experts Cast Doubt on Spanish Dealer’s ‘Ridiculous’ Long-Lost Kahlo Painting a 1940 painting created in the aftermath of the artist’s painful divorce from Diego Rivera. Considered the holy grail of Kahlo works, it is one of the only two known large-scale paintings created by the artist. The painting was last seen in an exhibit in Warsaw in 1955, and it disappeared en route to Moscow soon after. Associated Press have claimed there are differences between the painting López claims is a Kahlo and photographs taken of the original. The latter was painted on wood, according to experts, ...
Jul 7th, 2020 - These Pictures Capture What Frida Kahlo Was Really Like A look back at the incredible life of one of art history's most recognized and celebrated icons. Love photography as much as we do? S ign up for the BuzzFeed News newsletter JPG for behind-the-scenes exclusives from renowned photographers and our hard-hitting photo stories. This week marks the 113th birthday of one of art history's most celebrated artists — Frida Kahlo . The Mexican painter rose to prominence in the mid–20th century with her unique approach to self-portraiture that blended elements of surrealism and naive folk art to ...
Jul 7th, 2020 - Picture: Sotheby's Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz: As AHN often features contemporary reinterpretations of old master paintings, I thought the following artwork might be of interest. The above painting by Kehinde Wiley (b.1977) made $350,000 (inc. fees) at Sotheby's last month. Art lovers will know that it takes direct inspiration from Van Dyck's portrait of Charles I, La Roi à la chasse , in the Louvre, Paris. Wiley's work (2007) is a continuation of the artist's fascination for Old Masters, and follows his reinterpretations of paintings by the likes of Frans Hals, Rubens and David. As the ...
Jul 2nd, 2020 - Sotheby’s will auction 1931 charcoal drawing that shines light on artist’s affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter A tender and largely unseen portrait by Picasso of his lover and muse Marie-Thérèse Walter, which the artist personally kept until his death, is to appear at auction for the first time. The 1931 charcoal drawing shines light on one of the great love affairs of the 20th century and was made by Picasso when his affair with Walter was still a closely guarded secret. It is “an absolute gem, it is so exquisitely beautiful,” said Helena Newman, worldwide head of Sotheby’s ...
Jun 18th, 2020 - An art detective in the Netherlands says he has received two "proof of life" photos in the hunt for a stolen Van Gogh painting. The 1884 artwork Spring Garden went missing after a break-in at a museum near Amsterdam in late March. Arthur Brand, a specialist in recovering lost art, told the AFP news agency he had received two dated photos he believes show the stolen painting. According to AFP, the work is valued at up to €6m (£5.3m; $6.6m). Mr Brand, who has been described as the "Indiana Jones of the art world", said he was given two photos of the missing painting a few days ago. While he ...
Jun 18th, 2020 - On Tuesday, the Drouot auction house in Paris sold a letter dually written by the artists Vincent van Gogh and Paul Gauguin to the painter Émile Bernard for a head-turning sum of $237,000. The document, bought by the Vincent van Gogh Foundation, is the only known letter to have been written by both van Gogh and Gauguin. It contains a treasure trove of insight into the exploits of the two blossoming masters, including van Gogh’s account of the pair’s visits to brothels, both for recreational and work-related reasons. "We’ve made some excursions in the brothels, and it’s likely that ...
Jun 17th, 2020 - For the past 25 years, Christophe Van de Weghe never missed the event that transforms a quiet Swiss town into the art world’s epicenter each June. Art Basel has become a destination for collectors, with more than $3 billion of modern and contemporary blue-chip works offered. As an exhibitor, Van de Weghe spends as much as $200,000 to ship works by Pablo Picasso, Alexander Calder and Jean-Michel Basquiat from New York, insure them, pay for the booth, host client dinners at Chez Donati and stay at the Three Kings hotel. On the eve of each VIP opening, he jumps into the frigid Rhine for a ...
Jun 10th, 2020 - Marc Restellini, an art historian, is fighting the Wildenstein Plattner Institute over the ownership of a research archive he spent decades compiling. For more than three decades, Marc Restellini’s life has been very much about his study of Amedeo Modigliani, the Italian painter known for his elongated, slender faces and figures. He has organized exhibitions of Modigliani’s work in spots around the world and in the 1990s began his own magnum opus: a catalogue raisonné, or a definitive compendium, of Modigliani’s work. He has been exhaustive in authenticating the artist’s work because ...
Jun 10th, 2020 - Participants compared paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, with digital images of the same works. There may be little difference between the way our brains perceive works of art in person versus through digital reproductions, a new study from Cuseum , a Boston-based start-up that helps museums improve visitor experience with technology, suggests. Given that many of the country’s museums still remain on lockdown, forcing art lovers to settle for JPGs and video tours instead of the real thing, that may be a comforting thought. But is there really no difference between the way our ...
