Art News Headlines 2012
Jan 1, 2012: Kippenberger Cleaned Out
Looking back on 2011, we empathize with the cleaner (turned contemporary
art critic) at the Ostwall Gallery in Dortmund who inadvertently ruined
a $1 million modern installation sculpture by the controversial postmodernist
artist Martin Kippenberger (1953-97). Apparently she scoured a 'dirty'
trough whose 'dirt' was actually paintwork depicting a dried-out puddle
of rain-water.
December 18: Bingham's Centenary
2011 was the 200th anniversay of the birth of George
Caleb Bingham (1811-79), the great Missouri painter who specialized
in landscape paintings of the American frontier. Along with other artists
like Albert Bierstadt, Frederic Remington and others, Bingham brought
East coast art-lovers face-to-face with the American wilderness. His most
famous picture is Fur Traders Descending the Missouri (1845), now
in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
December 11: New Portrait by Rembrandt
X-ray imaging has revealed that an unknown oil-on-panel painting is in
fact a work by the great Dutch Realist portraitist Rembrandt (1606-69).
The work, entitled Old Man with a Beard, shows an old man with a white
beard, and is believed to have been executed by the artist around 1630.
December 6: Martin Boyce Wins Turner
Prize
The installation-sculptor Martin Boyce, aged 44, was announced on Channel
4 TV last night as the winner of this year's Turner
Prize for contemporary art. The Emperor's new clothes look fabulous.
Boyce's installation takes up a whole room and contains various pieces
which are reminiscent of a public park. There are trees (the pillars which
support the gallery ceiling), leaves on the floor (cut from paper) and
an angular park bin and park bench. He was inspired by the designers Joel
and Jan Martel who created a modernist garden, complete with concrete
trees in Paris in 1925. Judges believe that Boyce reinvents the language
of early modern art. (Are they joking or what?) For details of past competitions,
see: Turner Prize-Winners
(1984-2011).
November 29: Leonardo Self-Portrait
on Show
A drawing by the High Renaissance artist, Leonardo
da Vinci, is currently on show at an exhibition celebrating the 150th
anniversary of Italian Unification in Turin, Italy. Shown in public only
twice before, in 1929 and 2006, the drawing is the only self-portrait
accredited to the artist,and is being displayed inside a special shock-proof
glass case filled with sensors. The drawing is housed in the Royal Library
in Turin and is insured for a sum of €50 million.
November 23: German Picture Returned
to Berlin
A 15th century oil-on-oak painting has been returned to a Berlin Museum
by the University of Indiana, more than 60 years after it was stolen by
a British soldier in the aftermath of World War II. The picture is one
of a number of masterpieces by an unknown painter of the Cologne School
during the 1480s. Both the University or the museum have described the
work's value to art history as "priceless."
November 16: Records Tumble at Christie's
Post-War and Contemporary Art
The 1961 painting "I Can See the Whole Room! and There's Nobody
in It!", by the pop artist Roy
Lichtenstein (1923-97), sold yesterday for $43 million, a record for
the artist. Other records included the sale of a bronze spider by sculptor
Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010) for $10.7 million, as well as a photograph
by the German artist, Andreas Gursky (b.1955) for $4.3 million - making
it the costliest item of fine art photography
in history.
November 1: Russian Icon Paintings Repatriated
Seventy religious icons have been donated to the Russian Orthodox Church
by a Russian property developer. Sergei Shmakov spent a year abroad tracking
down the icon paintings, valued at $1
million, which were taken out of Russia after the Revolution. The icons
were found at auctions, antique shops and markets in a number of countries
and include a rare mid-18th century icon entitled St John the Theologian
in Silence depicting the apostle composing his Gospel, with his fingers
over his lips and an angel peering over his shoulder. The Russian culture
minister has said that Shmakov's donation was an act of "great patriotism"
and that the people of Russia appreciated the return of not only sacred,
but "cultural treasures, works of art."
27 Oct: Export Ban on Guardi Painting
Venice, a View of the Rialto Bridge, Looking North, from the Fondamenta
del Carbon, a painting of the Rialto Bridge by Italian painter Francesco
Guardi, in the manner of Canaletto and Bellotto, has had a temporary export
ban placed on it by the British Arts Minister, Ed Vaizey. The work of
art was sold for a record £26.7 million to an unknown buyer by Sotheby's
of London earlier this year. It is hoped that by delaying the granting
of an export licence, it will give time for someone to come up with the
money to keep the painting in Britain.
20 Oct: Online Art Fair 2012
Almost one hundred exhibitors have already registered for the online VIP
Art Fair which goes live from the 3-8 February, 2012. The VIP Art Fair
was launched in January, 2011 amid huge hype but the reality proved disappointing
for both the 190 art dealers and their 9,000 works, as well as potential
buyers. The site is the brainchild of New York art dealers James and Jane
Cohen and the idea behind it is to reduce the costs associated with regular
exhibitions and art fairs. Their aim is also to make more accessible and
to showcase a wider number of artists than would be possible in any one
venue.
12 Oct: Ceramics at Sotheby's
A major auction of ancient ceramics from Persia, Iraq and Central Asia
(including part of Harvey Plotnick's huge collection of medieval Islamic
pottery) was held last week at Sotheby's, London, with disappointing results.
Expecting sales revenues of around £18-22 million, the auction actually
generated £8.5 million, with between 30-44 percent of items failing
to find buyers, including a 13th century Khurasan silver-inlaid brassewer.
Demand was brisk, however, for medieval Islamic items of clothing with
one item - a regal post-Sassanian silk shirt from central Asia, woven
with blue, cream and honey silk - selling for £713,250.
Sept 28: Jack B Yeats Painting Sells
for €1 million in Ireland
A Fair Day, Mayo (1925), an oil painting by Jack B. Yeats, was
hammered down for €1 million at Adam's sale of Important Irish Art
in Dublin (against a pre-sale estimate of €500,000-€800,000
– the highest price ever paid at auction for a painting in Ireland.
Previously owned by Eamon de Valera, among others, it was sold to an anonymous
collector, although it is believed that it will remain in Ireland. For
full details of other record-breaking pictures by Irish painters, see:
Most Expensive Irish Paintings.
Sept 28: Record Sales of Asian Art at
Christie's
Christie's of New York racked up record sales of $75 million at their
recent Asia Week auctions. ($38 million from Chinese art; $7.3
million from modern and contemporary Indian and Southeast Asian art.)
By comparison, Sotheby's made £31.5 million, mostly from Chinese
paintings, sculpture and ceramics.
Sept 26: Hidden Goya Picture Uncovered
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam
has discovered a 'hidden' portrait by the Spanish Old Master Goya, lying
underneath his Portrait of Ramon Satue (1823). The concealed image,
which was discovered using scanning macro x-ray fluorescence spectrometry,
is an early portrait of an unknown Spanish general. The technique used
to make this discovery is very new and has been developed by the Universities
of Antwerp and Delft.
Sept 25: $11.4 million Chinese Masterpiece
Might Be a Fake!
A painting, sold by the Jiuge International Auction House last year, as
a masterpiece by the Chinese 20th century painter Xu Beihong, is now thought
to be a fake. The oil on canvas nude, which sold for $11.4 million, was
listed as a study of the artist's wife painted in 1920. The work was authenticated
for the auction house by the artist's son, Xu Boyang. Best known for his
ink on paper works, Xu Beihong is ranked by Artprice as one of
the top ten artists, based on auction value, with sales in excess of $176
million. Having travelled to Paris in the 1920s to study Western Art,
Beihong was a Chinese pioneer in the use of oil on canvas. The controversy
has emerged thanks to an open letter which was recently published by a
group of former students at Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts. The
letter stated that the painting was actually painted by one of them in
1983, thirty years after the artist's death, as part of an art class exercise.
They cannot say who of them painted the picture, which is of a life-drawing
model, as it was done while the whole class copied the classic realistic
style of Beihong and his peers. A number of Chinese experts have confirmed
that the painting is not of Jiang Biwei, Beihong's wife and some have
declared that the painting bears no resemblance to Xu's style. According
to the Chinese Global Times, neither the auction house, nor the artist's
son are prepared to comment on the students claim.
Sept 10: Stolen Oil Drawing Recovered
An oil sketch by the Flemish Baroque painter Rubens,
stolen from the Ghent Fine Arts Museum over a decade ago, has been found
in Greece. Two people have been arrested. Statements from the Greek Ministry
of Culture and the Greek police, indicate that the work is a 11x20-inch
Flemish painting, entitled The Hunt for the Caledonian Wild Boar (1618).
The work was confiscated by undercover police posing as buyers, after
it was offered to them for €6 million, despite being worth only €200,000.
Sept 4: Graffiti Art the Hamptons
Stencilled paintings by the world's most famous street artist, Banksy,
were recently shown at an exhibition at the Keszler Art Gallery in the
Hamptons. Originally the works had been spray-painted onto walls in Bethlehem
by Banksy, in 2007. According to the Gallery, all the pieces on display
were legally purchased. Apparently, the British art dealer Robin Barton
bought them (attached to over 5 tons of concrete) from two Palestinian
art dealers who had tried to sell them on the Internet.
Aug 25: Four Paintings By Still To Be
Auctioned
Four major works of art by the American Abstract Expressionist Clyfford
Still (1904-1980) - co-founder with Mark Rothko (1903-70) and Barnett
Newman (1905-70) of Colour Field painting - are to be auctioned by Sothebys.
The right to auction these paintings has been given to Sothebys by the
city of Denver and are secured by a $25 million guarantee. According to
experts, because it is so rare to find a work by Still offered at auction,
they are likely to sell for many million dollars over the guarantee price.
Three of the paintings were completed in the 1940s and one dates from
1976. The Clyfford Still Museum, which houses 2,400 works from Still's
collection is due to open later this year. The paintings which are to
be auctioned were bequeathed to the Museum by Patricia Still, Clyfford's
late wife, and do not have the restrictions which are attached to Still's
own bequest.
Aug 20: Rembrandt Heist Solved
Last week, in a meticulously-planned heist, thieves in California grabbed
a pen-and-ink drawing by
the Dutch portrait painter Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69) from the lobby
of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Marina del Rey, California. The drawing,
entitled The Judgment (c.1655) was valued at $250,000. Two days
later, following an anonymous tip-off, the work of art was recovered from
a Church in the San Fernando valley.
Aug 16: Warhol's Eggs Coming to the
Tate St Ives, UK
Andy Warhol's little known silkscreen print Eggs (1982) is to be
shown in the UK for the first time this autumn. One of 25 egg paintings
completed by the artist, it will be the main attraction at the Tate St
Ives Autumn exhibition entitled The Indiscipline of Painting which
will feature works from the 1960s up to the present by 50 British, American
and European contemporary artists.
Aug 2: Restoration of Carracci's Farnese
Frescoes
Four centuries after Annibale Carracci dazzled Rome with his ceiling frescoes
in the gallery of the Palazzo Farnese (c.1596-1601), a €1 million
fund has been raised to clean them up. Regarded as the start of Baroque
painting, Carracci's murals set new standards in ceiling decoration.
The forthcoming restoration promises to return much of their original
splendour.
July 30: Art Theft: Police Recover Picasso
Artwork
A man caught on video camera has been charged with stealing a sketch by
Picasso entitled Tete de Femme
(Head of a Woman) from the Weinstein Gallery, as reported below. When
police entered his home in New Jersey, they found eleven other works of
art which had disappeared from a number of venues in New York City over
recent times.
July 20: Wildenstein Institute Controversy
Missing Impressionist masterpieces worth millions of euros have been unearthed
in the vault of the Wildenstein Institute in Paris. As a result, Guy Wildenstein,
the wealthy French art dealer, has been charged with fraud. In response,
Wildenstein has claimed that the presence of the lost works is due to
"an oversight" by his late father, who established the Institute
after making a fortune buying and selling Impressionist
paintings.
17 July: Gala-Dali Foundation Acquires
Surrealist Masterpiece
The Foundation Gala-Salvador Dali in Spain, a private cultural institution
created in 1983 at the express wish of the Surrealist artist Salvador
Dali, and presided over by him until his death in 1989, has acquired
an oil-on-panel work by the artist entitled Enigmatic Elements in a
Landscape. A major surrealist work from 1934, the Foundation purchased
this from a private owner for 7.8 million Euros. The Foundation, named
after Dali's wife, Gala Dali, has been acquiring works by the artist for
a number of years with the aim of making the museum an essential place
for understanding the life and works of Salvador Dali. The painting's
central figure is that of the Dutch realist artist Jan Vermeer who was
a major influence on Dali throughout his career and indeed features in
several of his paintings. In the work, Vermeer is shown painting while
Dali himself is portrayed as a boy, dressed as a sailor, holding a hoop
and a bone and being attended by a nursemaid. This work has reportedly
been exhibited only twice since the 1930s.
July 9: New Da Vinci Painting Unearthed
Art experts are agog following the authentication of a previously unknown
painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Entitled Salvator Mundi, the painting
- which is owned by a consortium of art dealers - has been examined by
curators at the Met in New York, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston,
as well as by a number of Da Vinci scholars in London. The rare painting
- asking price, reportedly $200 million - will be on display at the Da
Vinci Exhibition in London later this year.
7 July: San Francisco Art Heist
Head of a Woman, a sketch by Picasso valued at $200,000, was stolen
from the Weinstein Gallery in San Francisco. The framed drawing was hanging
near the entrance to the Gallery and it appears that a man in his early-30s
walked in and simply took it off the wall. He then made his getaway by
hailing a taxi! The sketch, which was drawn in 1962 is part of the Maurice
Bresnu Collection. Bresnu was chauffeur to the artist and received a number
of drawings as gifts from him. Police believe it will be difficult for
the thief to sell the work as it is registered in the database of the
Weinstein Gallery and they will be searching art markets worldwide to
recover it.
July 1: Art On The Move
The Barnes Foundation which houses an exceptional collection of European
Modern Art is moving it's collection, valued at $25 billion, to a new
home near the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Four thousand works of art,
including 108 Renoirs, which is the world's largest single group, 69 paintings
by the French Post-Impressionist painter Paul Cezanne and 59 works by
Henri Matisse, the French leader of Fauvism who made enormous contributions
to the theory and practice of colour
in painting. Included in the move will be Matisse's largest work,
the mural painting known as "The
Dance II". Other famous paintings being moved, include: Picasso's
Woman with a Cigarette, Cezanne's Bathers and his largest
version of The Card Players, Van Gogh's Postman and numerous
paintings by Modigliani, Degas, Seurat, Gauguin and Monet, to name but
a few. The foundation also houses a collection of Primitive Art including
a significant number of African sculptures. The move comes after a decade
long legal battle between those who wanted to relocate the collection
to a larger premises and those who wished to maintain the vision of the
gallery's founder, Albert C Barnes, limiting public access and allowing
the school to use the art collection for study purposes.
June 29: Record Sale at Sotheby's
Sothebys achieved the highest
ever total sales (over £108 million), for any sale of Contemporary
Art in London. A major contributing factor was the Duerckheim Collection
of German Art from the 1960s and 1970s, which sold for over £60
million. Top lots included Crouching Nude (1961) by Francis Bacon
(£8.3 million); Untitled by the graffiti artist Jean-Michel
Basquiat (£5.4 million); and a silkscreen portrait of Debbie
Harry (£3.7 million) by Andy
Warhol.
June 28: Christie's Post-War and Contemporary
Art
Francis Bacon's Study for a Portrait made the top price of $25
million at Christie's auction
of contemporary art this week. Another heavy-hitter was Mao (1973)
by Andy Warhol which sold for $11.1 million. A number of drawings and
paintings by British artist Lucian Freud, were also well received: His
drawing, Woman Smiling (1958) sold for $7.5 million.
June 28 to September 25: Antonio Lopez
Garcia in Madrid
An exhibition of the works of Spanish artist, Antonio Lopez Garcia, which
includes oils, drawings and sculptures of interiors, still life, and projects
including several busts of his grandchildren takes place in the Museo
Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid this summer. Painter and sculptor, Antonio
Lopez Garcia (b.Jan 1936), whose work initially displayed a surreal quality,
is known mainly for his realistic style. By the late 1950s, like many
other artists of the time, his portraits, landscapes and seascapes were
devoid of any surrealistic qualities. A highly versatile realist, Antonio
Lopez Garcia is proficient in a variety of media including oil
painting, pencil drawing, bas-relief in plaster and wood carvings.
On display are representations of the human figure, a motif central to
his works in both sculpture and drawing which highlight his continued
use of classical proportion. A large number of the works of art on display
will come from private collections and some, owned by the artist himself,
are still unfinished.
June 23, 2011: Reclusive Heiress Leaves
$400 million To Arts
Heiress to a copper mining fortune, Huguette Clark has died at the age
of 104 and has left her estimated estate of $400 million to a foundation
which promotes the arts. The Bellosguardo Foundation will also receive
Ms Clark's 42 room Fifth Avenue apartment, said to be the largest apartment
in New York as well as the dozens of paintings which hung on the walls,
including works by John Singer Sargent, Impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir
and William Merritt Chase. Also included is a Stradivarius violin and
rare first editions of the book Paradise Lost by Milton. The Corcoran
Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is to receive a Water Lilies
(1907) by Claude Monet which has
not been seen by the public since 1925. Ms Clark's father handed his entire
art collection to the Corcoran after his death in 1925. Ms Clark was briefly
married in the 1920s but after a divorce moved into her Fifth Avenue apartment
with her mother. When her mother died in 1963, she continued to live there,
although was seldom ever seen in public again.
June 18, 2011: Sotheby's Paris Art Sale
Achieves New Records
Sotheby's Paris set several new records during their recent sale of Old
Master and 19th Century Paintings this week. The first was the $4 million
for a Portrait of a Young Woman in an Interior Holding a Glass
by Dutch painter and engraver Cornelis Pietersz Bega (or Cornelis Pietersz
Begijn) (1632-1664). Another record was the $170,000 for Village Square
by French artist Nicolas-Antoine Taunay (1755-1830). Taunay was best known
for his landscapes having studied from the age of 13 with artists like
the Italian painter Francesco Giuseppe Casanova (1727-1803), whose landscape
and history paintings inspired Taunay's own subject matter. A third world
record was achieved for a work by French artist Alphonse-Henri Perrin
(1798-1874), whose Gardens of the Villa Medici in Rome sold for
$241,000, more than six times it's estimate. Popular 19th century painting
and drawing included works by leading French
landscapists. Two canvases by the great romantic French artist Camille
Corot (1796-1875), who was a pivotal figure in landscape painting, were
on sale: Archway/Auteuil, which tripled it's $70,000 estimate to
sell for $232,536 while Souvenir of Normandy (Sunset) sold for
$163,954. The French State also intervened to secure two paintings: one
by Flemish artist Michele Desubleo (1602-1676) who worked in Central and
North Italy during the Baroque era. Desubleo's Allegory of Music
sold for $100,515, twice it's estimate. The French State purchased this
painting on behalf of the Musee des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg. Diana
Returning from the Hunt by the French rococo artist, Jean-Francois
Le Moyne (1688-1737) was purchased for $652,000 - more than twice its
pre-sale estimate. This work of art will be returned to it's original
home, the Hotel Biron in Paris, now the Rodin Museum.
June 13, 2011: Asian Art Grosses $6.1
Million
Antiques and Fine Art Auction House, Skinners, grossed over $6.1 million
at their recent Asian Works of Art auction in Boston. The majority of
bidders came from China with a significant amount of pieces sold via online
bidding. A bamboo brush pot from 18th century China sold for $539,500
and a rhinoceros horn libation cup for $250,000. Chinese paintings continue
to remain popular with a painted fan by artist Wu Changshuo selling for
$34,365.
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