Maurice de Vlaminck’s Exhibit at Musee du Luxembourg in Paris

Written by Leonard Edmundson Saturday, 04 February 2012 23:10

PARIS - This exhibition brings together works of the period 1900-1915, from Maurice de Vlaminck’s (1876-1958) earliest known paintings - Vlaminck’s career started when he was 17, but none of his juvenalia has been preserved - in which he already asserted his characteristic violence, down to the works produced at the beginning of the First World War, which reflect his contemporary research on the rendering of space.

Read more: [Maurice de Vlaminck’s Exhibit at Musee du Luxembourg in Paris]

Loyola University Chicago Gifted a Historic $50 Million from John and Herta Cuneo

Written by Michael J. Garanzini Saturday, 04 February 2012 23:08

CHICAGO, IL.- Loyola University Chicago announced that John Cuneo Jr., his wife, Herta, and the Cuneo Foundation have given the University the largest gift in its 140-year history. The generous $50 million gift includes the Cuneo Museum and Gardens in Vernon Hills, Illinois, its nearly 100 surrounding acres, an extensive collection of art and furnishings, and an in-kind distribution of funds. Loyola has a long-standing relationship with the Cuneos. The family has been committed supporters, benefactors, and friends of the University for more than 50 years.

"This gift is the legacy of my father, and I know that he would want it used in a special way," John Cuneo Jr. said. "I feel that Loyola University Chicago is contributing to a better society by educating students in a tradition founded in the Jesuit values, and I can't think of a better place to pass on our family's estate."

The gift will be used to support several strategic initiatives at Loyola, including scholarships for students, a new state-of-the-art academic building on the Lake Shore Campus (to be named Cuneo Hall), and funds to support operations at the historic mansion and gardens. The University also will seek opportunities to develop the north part of the property.

"I am honored and humbled that John has asked to partner with Loyola so that we can enhance and preserve the property while also creating a funding source for student scholarships, which has always been near and dear to the Cuneos' hearts," said Michael J. Garanzini, S.J., president of Loyola. "The University will forever be indebted to John and Herta for their confidence and trust in putting this wonderful treasure in our hands so that we can continue this wonderful legacy that he and his father began."

After the transition is complete, Loyola plans to increase use of the mansion for weddings, other special occasions, and corporate events. In addition, the University will offer educational opportunities there to benefit students, faculty, and the greater Chicago-area community, especially those living in and around Lake County. Academic plans being considered include fine arts performances, lectures and classes, artist-in-residence programs, special events programming, and sustainability initiatives.

John Cuneo Sr. helped found the Stritch School of Medicine Annual Award Dinner in 1950. The dinner is now the school's largest annual fundraiser. In 2000, John and Herta Cuneo partnered with the University to continue the support of John's father by naming the John & Herta Cuneo Center on the medical school's campus. The couple also sponsors a four-year scholarship for deserving students, allowing them to receive a Jesuit education they might otherwise not be able to afford.

With the Cuneo gift, Loyola has raised $400 million of its $500 million goal for its campaign, Partner: The Campaign for the Future of Loyola.

The Cuneo Museum and Gardens
Construction on the Cuneo Museum and Gardens began in 1908 and stopped during World War I. It was completed in 1918 as the home of Samuel Insull, an original founder of the General Electric Company, and designed by Chicago architect Benjamin Marshall in the Italianate style. Its gardens and landscaping were designed by world-renowned landscape architect Jens Jensen. In 1937, John Cuneo Sr. bought the home. He and his wife, Julia, had two children, John Jr. and Consuela, whom they raised on the estate. John Sr. owned and operated Hawthorn Mellody Farms Dairy, the National Tea Company, and the Cuneo Press. The mansion, which opened to the public as the Cuneo Museum and Gardens in 1991, houses the Cuneo family collection of fine antiques, paintings by world-famous artists, tapestries, sculptures, silver, and porcelain.

Visit Loyola University Chicago at : http://www.luc.edu/

Capitain Petzel in Berlin Presents New Works by Artist Sarah Morris

Written by Werner Wintermeyer Saturday, 04 February 2012 23:07

BERLIN.- Capitain Petzel Berlin presents “John Hancock”, an exhibition of new works by Sarah Morris and her film ’Points on a Line’ (2010). The exhibition is on view from April 29 through July 30, 2011. Sarah Morris is one of the most intriguingly contradictory artists of her generation, known for her complex abstractions, which play with architecture, design and the psychology of urban environments.

Read more: [Capitain Petzel in Berlin Presents New Works by Artist Sarah Morris]

Acropolis Museum Athens ~ Among Finalists for the European Union Architecture Prize for 2011

Written by Andrew Sandler Saturday, 04 February 2012 23:06

BERLIN.- The European Commission and Mies van der Rohe Foundation have announced the six finalists for the Prize of the European Union for Contemporary Architecture 2011, Mies van der Rohe Award. In all, some 323 submissions were entered from projects across 33 European countries. The prize awards outstanding contemporary building projects. It is the most prestigious of all European architectural awards, comes with a prize of 60,000 euros and has been awarded every two years since 1987. The projects are nominated by a panel of independent experts, member associations of the Architect's Council of Europe, various national institutes of architects and the award committee's own advisory board.

Read more: [Acropolis Museum Athens ~ Among Finalists for the European Union Architecture Prize for 2011]

Major Picasso Exhibition for Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2012

Written by Franklin de Silvia Saturday, 04 February 2012 23:05

EDINBURGH.- The first exhibition to explore Pablo Picasso’s lifelong connections with Britain will be the highlight of the summer season at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in 2012. Picasso and Britain will examine Picasso’s evolving critical reputation here and British artists’ responses to his work. Originating at Tate Britain, this pioneering show marks the first time that the two organisations have collaborated on a major exhibition. Opening in August 2012 at the height of the Olympic celebrations, Picasso and Britain will comprise over 150 works from major public and private collections around the world, including over 60 paintings by Picasso. Highlights will include masterpieces from all periods of his career such as his great 1925 painting, The Three Dancers, which the Tate acquired from the artist following his 1960 exhibition and major cubist paintings from the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Pablo Picasso instigated many of the most significant developments of twentieth-century art. The exhibition will explore Picasso’s rise as a figure both of controversy and celebrity, tracing the ways in which his work was shown and collected here during his lifetime. This will demonstrate that the British engagement with Picasso and his art was much deeper than previously thought.

The artist’s enormous impact on twentieth-century British modernism will be examined, through seven exemplary figures for whom he proved an important stimulus: Duncan Grant, Wyndham Lewis, Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Graham Sutherland and David Hockney. While many British artists have responded to Picasso’s influence, these artists have been selected to illustrate both the variety and vitality of these responses over a period of more than seventy years. Around a dozen works by each artist will be shown, each carefully chosen to illustrate a specific feature of the dialogue between that artist and Picasso.



Announcing the collaboration, Simon Groom, Director of Modern and Contemporary Art, National Galleries of Scotland said: ‘This will be the most important exhibition of Picasso’s work to be held in Scotland for 65 years, bringing together around 60 of his greatest paintings with masterpieces by some of Britain’s finest twentieth-century artists. Filling the entire ground floor of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art it will be an extraordinary and revelatory show. We are delighted to be collaborating with Tate on this ambitious project.’

Penelope Curtis, Director, Tate Britain commented: ‘We are delighted that the exhibition will travel to Edinburgh. We hope that it will be one of the highlights of the festival.

The National Galleries of Scotland cares for, develops, researches and displays the national collection of Scottish and international art and, with a lively and innovative programme of activities, exhibitions, education and publications, aims to engage, inform and inspire the broadest possible public. Visit The National Galleries of Scotland at : http://www.nationalgalleries.org/

This Week in Review in Art Knowledge News

Written by Editor, Art Knowledge News Saturday, 04 February 2012 23:04

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.

The DC Moore Gallery to Showcase Charles Burchfield and Janet Fish

Written by Adele Winterton Saturday, 04 February 2012 04:27

New York City.- The DC Moore Gallery is pleased to present two solo exhibitions, "Charles Burchfield: Landscapes 1916-1962" and "Janet Fish: Recent Paintings", both open at the gallery on February 9th and run through March 17th 2012. One of the most original artists of the twentieth century, Charles Burchfield (1893-1967) created highly personal works that project an atmospheric intensity and a strong sense of mood. Throughout his life, he found evidence of the divine in the natural world and frequently imbued his paintings with a sense of otherworldly presence. This focused exhibition in our West Gallery presents a prime selection of watercolors that spans his fifty-year career. Drawing from the tradition of still life painting, Fish defies its connotations by engaging primarily with the movement of paint. Her paintings radiate with bold color and light, and her gestural brushstrokes guide the eye through transparent surfaces and across intricate patterns in paint.

Among Burchfield's earliest paintings are modernist views of his hometown of Salem, Ohio and the surrounding countryside. While a student at the Cleveland School of Art from 1912-16, Burchfield was introduced to major trends in European and American modernism, Chinese and Japanese art, and contemporary design theory. His work at the time often evidenced an interest in imaginative, expressionist landscapes and a personal visual language of fantasy. In "Sunlight in Park" (1917), he approached abstraction through the bold optical effects of a burst of sunlight that creates dense, colorful patterning on a screen of trees while also illuminating the ground below. After moving to Buffalo, New York, in 1921, Burchfield engaged a deeper concern with realism and became a founder of the American Scene painting movement. Much of his work addressed the harsh realities of twentieth-century industrialization and life in small towns and urban areas. At the same time, he strived for compositions that were almost classical in form and often poetic in feeling. He once wrote that he preferred to be known as a “romantic-realist,” adding, “It is the romantic side of the real world that I portray. My things are poems—(I hope).”


In the early 1940s, Burchfield returned to a more active expressionism. Swirling skies, anthropomorphic forms, visual notations of insect sounds, and heavily outlined trees radiating a visible energy are some of the elements that characterize his watercolors from the decades that followed. He also focused on what he knew best—the landscape around his home in upstate New York. In "Brown Land" (c. 1962-63), he turned his attention to one of his favorite subjects, an intimate view of a field, a close up of a cluster of plants set against a backdrop of schematic trees at a time of seasonal transition. In both his life and art, Burchfield saw the universal in the particular, and nothing was too small or insignificant to capture his attention. He felt strongly that his identity as an artist was bound up with his relation to nature. “I feel impelled to embrace the earth,” he wrote in his journals. On another day spent in the fields and woods, he found that his “spirit was in complete harmony with the world of nature and absorbed every sight and sound with a completeness that has not been my lot for many a month.” DC Moore Gallery is the exclusive representative of The Charles E. Burchfield Foundation.

Janet Fish sometimes spends days meticulously arranging her compositions with objects that often connote particular seasons or activities. The specific objects chosen, however, do not create the content of the work. Fish utilizes colored glassware, crystal tchotchkes, patterned textiles, and vibrant floral bouquets merely as a surface for her energetic exploration of the properties of paint. “The real structure of a painting comes from the movement of color over the surface,” Fish has said. Indeed, the wild and mesmerizing motion of her colored lines combined with commonplace decorative items produces what artist and critic Robert Berlind has called a “hallucinatory experience of the everyday.”Fish attributes her fascination with light and color to her childhood spent in Bermuda. Her grandfather was the American Impressionist painter Clark Voorhees, and her mother was a sculptor. Fish attended Smith College and earned her Master’s Degree in Fine Art from Yale University in 1963, when art school faculties taught Abstract Expressionism. Fish notes that she absorbed those artists’ interest in gesture and matters of form, but she independently gravitated toward figuration. Fish lives in New York City and Vermont. Works by Janet Fish are included in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Detroit Institute of Arts, MI; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, TX; Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT; and American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, New York, among others. Harry N. Abrams published a monograph of Fish’s work by poet and critic Vincent Katz in 2002. DC Moore Gallery is the exclusive representative of Janet Fish.

Art Rotterdam To Present the Latest Developments in Contemporary Art

Written by Arnold Weltzinger Saturday, 04 February 2012 03:28

Rotterdam, Netherlands - Art Rotterdam returns to present the latest developments in contemporary art. From February 9th to February 12th, the stunning departure hall of the Holland America Line is the set for the thirteenth edition of Art Rotterdam, the international fair to discover emerging talent. Some seventy galleries from home and abroad present their most daring artists. Next to the absolute best in Dutch galleries, that have attended for a number of years, a strong participation of foreign galleries stands out (40% of all participants).

Art Rotterdam proudly presents one of the most important emerging talents of this moment, Dutch conceptual artist Navid Nuur (1976), as focused artist. On a central location at the fair Nuur shows his work ‘Distant relations between lovers could fail by the lack of your true focus’. This work is about the relation between artists and public commercial art places, like f.e. magazines, catalogues and art fairs. The print work of the fair is an integral part of the artwork, as well as the participation of the visitor, from whom Nuur expects an interactive role. Also on show, from featured artists Driessens & Verstappen is "E-volved Cultures", a software presentation by which an artificial landscape is being created in ‘real time’. Virtual organisms, that leave behind visible traces in interaction with their surroundings, together generate a dynamic pixel fabric. Bright, abstract animations bring about associations with geological processes, cloud formations, mould cultures, organ tissue or satellite photos. But in the end they withdraw themselves from any fixed identifications.


During the fair at the site of the Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) a temporary pavilion designed and built from reclaimed materials from the rebuilding of the NAi, by Kaleb de Groot, will be open. This pavilion will show films by video artists that are represented by galleries at Art Rotterdam. Alongside these artists, the films of the award winners at the Princess Margriet Routes Awards 2011 will be shown. This award is given annually in celebration of the achievements of artists, activists and thinkers who make an outstanding contribution to discourse on cultural diversity in Europe. This year’s laureates are: filmmaker and contemporary artist Kutlug Ataman [1961, Istanbul] and artist Šejla Kamerid [1976, Sarajevo].

Simultaneously with Art Rotterdam, in the (opposite) building Las Palmas, 'Object Rotterdam' will take place. At this international fair for autonomous design twenty participants present unique or limited edition objects in the field of current design, crafts and jewelry. Object Rotterdam exposes the cutting edge between art and design and is the place to experience the latest developments. Talented designer Aldo Bakker (1971) will present his latest series of wooden chairs in the booth of Particles Gallery. With his work Bakker aims to surprise the visitor and to initiate discussions. Gallery Zand shows work of Marc Mulders. This Dutch painter has evolved himself, over the past years, into a glass artist, a.o. by creating leaded- light windows in De Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam and the Sint- Jan in Den Bosch. At Object Rotterdam Gallery Zand shows fifteen blown glass objects, painted by Marc Mulders.


Various cultural institutions in the city offer a range of activities that are, during the fair, free of charge and accessible for a broad audience. On show in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is the first large-scale solo exhibition ‘Suspension of Disbelief’ by Dutch artist Gabriel Lester (1972). By means of an integral installation, consisting of interventions, film and sculptures, Lester displays in this exhibition the various aspects of fate. The Kunsthal presents ‘I promise to love you’, a retrospective of the very best from the Caldic Collection, the largest private collection in the Netherlands from collector Joop van Caldenborgh. Furthermore, Rotterdam galleries TENT. Mama and Witte de With organize special evening openings with work of promising young artists Artist collective Het Wilde Weten organizes a market for special artists’ books, and Rotterdam architects, designers and artists will open their studios and workspaces for the public. Visit the fair's website at ... http://www.artrotterdam.nl

Montréal Museum of Fine Arts to host Restrospective of Kees Van Dongen

Written by Franklin Overmeyer Friday, 03 February 2012 21:12

MONTREAL, QUE - The exhibition Van Dongen - A Fauve in the City, presented from January 22 to April 19, 2009 at the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts is the first major retrospective of the work of Kees Van Dongen (1877-1968) in North America. The exhibition, which brings together some 200 works, including over a hundred paintings, forty rare drawings, prints and other archival documents and photographs as well as for the first time, a dozen Fauvist ceramics, will illustrate the influential role Van Dongen played in the early twentieth century as the only portraitist among the Fauves.

His dazzling, shameless paintings, described as "riots of light, heat and color," attest to his distinctive style within modern art alongside his contemporaries Matisse and Picasso. His caustic, urban, scandalous art is very different from the landscape Fauvism that is generally associated with this movement. In light of new research and previously little-known works, the artist's career will be traced from his early days in Holland to the time he settled in Paris and participated in the illustrious Salon d'Automne of 1905, which established Fauvism as a new style in modern art.

Major Works - The Montreal exhibition will present, for the first time in North America, the outstanding collection of works by Van Dongen recently acquired by the Nouveau Musée national de Monaco, including the magisterial Spotted Chimera (1895-1907) and the Tabarin Wrestlers (1907-1908), an astonishing canvas that has not been exhibited for over fifty years, and Tango of the Archangel (1922-1935). The Musée national d'art modern, the Centre Pompidou and the Musée d'art modern de la Ville de Paris have granted many outstanding loans for the exhibition, including the famous Tableau that created a scandal in 1913 and the Self-portrait as Neptune (1922). Many major loans have also been received from public and private collections in Europe and elsewhere, including a number of important works from the Nahmad family. The Montreal exhibition is also presenting works from American collections.

Arresting paintings of nudes and coquettish female figures that nevertheless retain the sumptuous palette and rich impasto of his Fauvist works will be examined through the themes of exoticism, spectacle and Orientalism. During the 1920s, Van Dongen frequented high society, which earned him commissions for portraits of the most celebrated personalities of the era. An impressive selection of these major portraits from the Roaring Twenties and a series of landscapes in saturated colors will illustrate the artist's mature period.

In 1904 van Dongen exhibited some 100 works at the gallery of Ambroise Vollard, a champion of avant-garde art. The catalogue of the show was introduced by the progressive art theorist and critic Félix Fénéon. Van Dongen's neo-Impressionist style of bold color patches and a flattened depth linked him with such artists as Andre Derain and Maurice de Vlaminck and their anti-naturalist palette. In 1905, the same year in which his daughter "Dolly" was born, van Dongen showed pictures at the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d'Automne alongside a loose collection of like-minded painters of which Matisse was the ringleader. The riot of color in their work caused a somewhat hostile critic, Louis Vauxcelles, to dub these artists "les fauves" ("the wild beasts").

The Exhibition Themes - The themes of the exhibition will introduce visitors to Van Dongen's rich and varied oeuvres as they follow his career from Rotterdam to Paris, where he was an active player in the avant-garde scene of the early twentieth century. From North to South, from Symbolism to Neo-impressionism (1885-1904) presents early works executed in Holland, which reflect Van Dongen's inspiration, which ranged from Rembrandt to the Neo-Impressionists; Van Dongen Illustrator (1895-1904) reveals the key role his graphic work played in his art, which was defended by Van Dongen's first, most influential supporter, art critic Félix Fénéon; Van Dongen Fauve (1904-1912) shows his style evolving under the influence of artists of the avant-garde like Matisse and Picasso, as well as how he became notorious after his participation in the Salon d'Automne in 1905, and his growing interest in portraiture, the worlds of the cabaret and the circus and his obsession with women; Exoticism and Orientalism (1910-1917) reveals how his trips to Spain, Morocco and Egypt inspired him to create new harmonies of colors and to explore a new purity of line; The Artist's Studio: A Social Venue (1914-1930). During this period the now famous Van Dongen frequented Paris high society and painted a gallery of portraits that represent a chronicle of the Roaring Twenties; and Landscapes (the 1950s) the final section, presents works, as well as archival documents and photographs, that show the artist revisiting the themes and styles that characterized his early years.

Curators: Nathalie Bondil, Director and Chief Curator of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, and Jean-Michel Bouhours, curator at the Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Pompidou, are the exhibition curators. Anne Grace, Curator of Modern Art at the MMFA, is the associate curator. The Curatorial Committee includes Christian Briend, chief curator of prints and drawings, Musée national d'art moderne, Centre Pompidou; Anita Hopmans, chief curator of modern and contemporary art, Netherlands Institute for Art History in the Hague; and Daniel Marchesseau, chief curator for heritage, Direction des musées de France, and director of the Musée de la vie romantique de la Ville de Paris.

The Catalogue: More than just a catalogue, this richly illustrated book will be co-published by the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco and Hazan, Paris, in separate French and English editions. It includes many previously unpublished documents thanks to the co-operation of the artist's family. The first major work published in English on Van Dongen, it includes essays by a team of internationally renowned experts, including, for the first time, American art historians.

This exhibition is organized by the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, in partnership with the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco. It has also received support from the artist's family. The exhibition will travel from Monaco to Montréal and subsequently to Barcelona's Picasso Museum.  Visit : the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts (www.mmfa.qc.ca ).

Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City Shows Siqueiros ~ Landscape Painter

Written by Francisco Gonzaez Friday, 03 February 2012 21:10

MEXICO CITY.- A term Siqueiros used to refer to the sketches that would eventually become murals, "portable paintings", are the works presented in this one-of-a-kind exhibition—consisting of approximately eighty paintings and drawings—that showcase the great muralist’s interest in, and profound study of, the elements that constitute a landscape; namely, open horizons, volcanic ranges, turgid forms, and even the first planes of telluric surfaces that are combined to render a complete emotional and dramatic experience. As with everything else in David Alfaro Siqueiros’ work, the landscape moves, vibrates, and its volumes become disproportionate in order to exalt the monumentality of the work.

Read more: [Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil in Mexico City Shows Siqueiros ~ Landscape Painter]