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The Serpentine Gallery presents Richard Hamilton ~ Modern Moral Matters
Written by Julia Peyton-Jones Saturday, 11 February 2012 22:31
LONDON.- To start its 40th anniversary year, the Serpentine Gallery presents Richard Hamilton: Modern Moral Matters, a solo exhibition by one of the world’s most respected living artists. This will be the first major presentation of Hamilton’s work in London since 1992 and will include several new works created especially for the Serpentine Gallery exhibition. Richard Hamilton has embraced many different media since the 1950s, including painting, printmaking, installation, typography and industrial design. This major exhibition will reassess the nature of the British artist’s pioneering contribution, focusing on Hamilton’s political, or ‘protest’, works. On view 3 March through 25 April, 2010.
Read more: [The Serpentine Gallery presents Richard Hamilton ~ Modern Moral Matters]
The Phillips Collection presents Georgia O'Keeffe ~ Abstraction
Written by Gary Winters Saturday, 11 February 2012 22:30
WASHINGTON, DC - Although painter Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986), a central figure in 20th-century art, is best known for simplified images of recognizable objects, her contributions to American abstraction over the course of her long career were radical. Her approach-in paintings, drawings, and watercolors-was determined in 1915, when she decided that her art would record her feelings, rather than the appearance of things. For the remainder of her career, she looked to art, whether abstract or objective, to express emotions for which words seemed inadequate. On view through 9 May, 2010 at The Phillips Collection.
In her first abstractions, a series of non-objective charcoal
drawings,
O'Keeffe reduced her palette to black and white. She filled her
compositions
with fluid, curvilinear forms reminiscent of Art Nouveau. In 1916,
responding to
the elemental landscape of western Texas, O'Keeffe reintroduced color
into her
watercolors. By magnifying and tightly cropping her images, a framing
device
used by photographers, she found the means to express simultaneously the
vastness of nature, the immensity of her own response to it, and a
powerful
sense of being one with it.Two years later, seeking recognition as a painter in the circle of modern art dealer and photographer Alfred Stieglitz, she moved to New York and took up oils again.
Unwelcome critical interpretations of her work as expressive of her sexuality and a limited market for abstraction led O'Keeffe to turn away from pure abstraction in the 1920s and 1930s. After 1923, she rarely showed her early abstractions. Indeed, between 1935 and 1941, she produced no abstractions at all. Beginning in 1929, O'Keeffe spent long stretches of time in New Mexico, finally moving there in 1949. It proved to be an inexhaustible source of subjects for her mature works. She approached these as she had her most abstract works, through her feelings, using many of the same stylistic means. As she said, "I had to create an equivalent for what I felt about what I was looking at-not copy it."
Likely stung when critic Clement Greenberg trounced her in 1940 for
having
chosen representation over abstraction, O'Keeffe returned to it in1942,
painting
forms she found in the natural world that corresponded to abstract forms
in her
imagination. With the market more receptive to abstract art, she began
to
exhibit her abstractions again. By the late 1950s and 1960s she was
working
almost exclusively in an abstract style, in mural-sized aerial views of
clouds
and a minimalist, geometric series of patio door paintings. The fields
of color
of her radical late works set a precedent for a younger generation of
abstract
artists in the 1960s.Included in the exhibition are more than 100 paintings, drawings, and watercolors by O'Keeffe, dating from 1915 to the late 1970s, and 12 photographic portraits of her by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz.
In conjunction with Georgia O'Keeffe: Abstraction, co-organized by The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C., the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe.
The courtyard includes two major works of art. Ellsworth Kelly's Untitled, 2005, is a large-scale bronze that was commissioned specifically for the courtyard. Mounted on the back wall, it is the first work by Kelly in the museum's collection.
Dual Form, installed near the gallery entrance to the courtyard, is a 1965 work by the British artist Barbara Hepworth. It was acquired by The Phillips Collection in 2006.
Art Knowledge News Presents "This Week In Review"
Written by Editor, Art Knowledge News Saturday, 11 February 2012 22:29
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 Nevada Museum of Art presents Three Exhibitions on a Tiffany & Co. Themes
Written by Constance Kippenburg Saturday, 11 February 2012 00:37
Reno, Nevada.- The Nevada Museum of Art is pleased to present three exhibitions organized around Tiffany & Co. "Out of the Forest: Art Nouveau Lamps", "In Company with Angels: Seven Rediscovered Tiffany Windows" and "Tiffany & Co. Arms from the Robert M. Lee Collection" are all on view at the museum from February 11th through May 20th. "Out of the Forest: Art Nouveau Lamps" features 20 exquisite lamps manufactured in the early twentieth century by Tiffany Studios, Handel, Durand, and Duffner & Kimberly. The exhibition focuses on themes related to the Art Nouveau style and its inspiration in nature.
Discussion will also unfold related to various companies who competed for customers to sell lamps at the turn of the century and the competition between them. The exhibition will also explore the intricate copper foil production process used for the creation of glass lamps. All of the objects in "Out of the Forest" are from the private collection of Byron Vreeland.
"In Company with Angels: Seven Rediscovered Tiffany Windows" tells the remarkable story of the stained glass windows created by Tiffany Studios for the Church of the New Jerusalem in Cincinnati, Ohio. Created by Tiffany Studios in New York City at the beginning of the 20th century and named for the angels in the Biblical Book of Revelation, the seven windows in this exhibition were originally installed in the Church of the New Jerusalem in Cincinnati. When the church was taken by eminent domain and demolished for highway construction in 1964, the windows were crated and stored in various garages and sheds for decades until their re-discovery in 2001. This national exhibition tour debuts the story of these seven rediscovered Tiffany Windows.
The most distinguished name in decorative firearms in America is Tiffany & Co. — a surprise to those who might otherwise recognize the firm as a legendary purveyor of fine silver, jewelry and luxury objects. Founded in 1837 by Charles Lewis Tiffany, what became Tiffany & Co. commenced business just one year after the young inventor Samuel Colt registered his new designs for revolving pistols and long arms with the U.S. Patent Office. In the 175 years since then, the paths of Tiffany & Co. and Colt have crossed many times. Among the other American gun makers with ties to Tiffany & Co. are Henry Deringer, Winchester, and Smith & Wesson. The exhibition "Tiffany & Co. Arms from the Robert M. Lee Collection" features a selection of these highly decorated weapons. The Robert M. Lee Collection is recognized as the finest selection of Tiffany & Co. arms privately owned. The collection of items in this exhibition — including three revolvers, four pistols, one rifle, and one presentation sword — is rivaled only by those on display in the Robert M. Lee Gallery of American Arms, at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Tiffany’s production of presentation swords and fine guns began in the 1850s, reached a peak during the Civil War period (c. 1861-65), and continued through the close of World War I (c. 1918). The art of Tiffany & Co. arms was revived c. 1982, and remained active until c. 2001, with innovative modern era designs created by the firm’s Corporate Division. The Tiffany and Co. items in the exhibition span just over a century — they were made as early as 1893 and as recently as 1994.
The Nevada Museum of Art is the only accredited art museum in the state of Nevada. Recognized for following best practices as outlined by the American Association of Museums, the Museum is committed to continuous institutional improvement and change. The permanent collection is the heart of a fine arts museum. Held in trust by the Museum and enriched constantly, the collection is an inexhaustible treasure that grows in value and meaning. The permanent collection provides both the Museum and the community with a variety of fine artwork regularly displayed for the public. The collection is a resource for exhibitions and educational programs. The Permanent Collection at the Nevada Museum of Art consists of over 2,000 works of nineteenth through twenty-first century art and is divided into five focus areas that are unified by an overarching focus on natural, built and virtual environments. This thematic, rather than historical or stylistic specialization, is a natural outgrowth of the institution’s collecting practices over the years and offers varied perspectives on the ways in which humans interact with the world. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.nevadaart.orgARCOmadrid Highlights Around 160 Galleries from over 30 Countries
Written by Edward Overstrand Saturday, 11 February 2012 00:36
Madrid.- ARCOmadrid 2012 will be held in Halls 8 & 10 of the Feria de Madrid from February 15th through February 19th. The work on view covers the historical avant-gardes, classic contemporary and Emerging art. Around 160 galleries from over 30 country clubs will be showing paintings, sculpture, installations, photography, video, new media, drawings, and multiple editions. For the second year running ARCOmadrid presents "Opening - Young European Galleries", a highly successful programme designed to show and support young gallery projects from the Old Continent. On this occasion, Manuel Segade, curator and art critic, has been responsible for choosing the 25 galleries, from 10 different countries, that will give an overview of Europe's younger creators. Many of the emerging galleries that took part last year have asked if they can come back to the fair.Read more: [ARCOmadrid Highlights Around 160 Galleries from over 30 Countries]
A-Cero: Joaquin Torres and Rafael Llamazares at the Valencian Institute for Modern Art
Written by Osvaldo Hassan Saturday, 11 February 2012 00:24
VALENCIA, SPAIN - Vivir en la arquitectura. A-cero: Joaquín Torres y Rafael Llamazares (Living in Architecture. A-cero: Joaquín Torres and Rafael Llamazares) is the title of a complete exhibition that the IVAM is showing, devoted to the work over the last fifteen years of the well-known architects' studio based in La Finca, Pozuelo de Alarcón, with international offices in various cities of the world, including Dubai, Ho-Chi-Minh City, Beirut, Moscow, Bombay and Santiago de Chile. Joaquín Torres and Rafael Llamazares founded A-cero Arquitectos in 1996 and since their early days in the city of A Coruña they have developed a wide-ranging creative programme of residential dwellings, especially in Madrid. The monumental features and avant-garde style of their detached houses have become recognisable in the La Finca housing development, and past customers include famous celebrities from the worlds of sport, entertainment and finance. On exhibit 10th of February until 10th June.Read more: [A-Cero: Joaquin Torres and Rafael Llamazares at the Valencian Institute for Modern Art]
Oxford Exhibition celebrates the work of Guercino and the work of a great collector
Written by Stanley Zander Friday, 10 February 2012 23:27
OXFORD, UK - An adventurous and brilliant draughtsman, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino (1591–1666) was one of the 17th century’s greatest artists. He drew constantly, with a passion that revealed itself in the vigour and intensity of his preparatory studies. He explored, in drawings, different possibilities for literary and religious subjects, landscapes, and scenes of everyday life – which stand alone as independent works of art. Born in Cento, near Ferrara, Guercino received his nickname, ‘squinter’, as a boy and spent much of his career in his home town. As a young painter, he was inspired by the art of the Carracci in nearby Bologna, particularly their dramatic use of light and shade and the tender naturalism of their style.Read more: [Oxford Exhibition celebrates the work of Guercino and the work of a great collector]
The Gemeentemuseum Den Haag to Show Alexander Calder Retrospective
Written by Sandra Popplewell Friday, 10 February 2012 22:52
The Hague, Netherlands.- The Gemeentemuseum Den Haag is proud to present "Alexander Calder: The Great Discovery", on view at the museum from February 11th through May 28th. Thanks to a prestigious Turing Art Grant, which made this important exhibition possible, the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag will present the first major Calder retrospective to be held in the Netherlands since 1969. Calder’s radical wire sculptures, astonishing Cirque Calder (1926–1931), and mobiles characterized by immateriality and movement won the artist worldwide fame and established him as one of the foremost founders of modern sculpture. The exhibition focuses on the legendary meeting between Alexander Calder and Piet Mondrian at the latter’s studio in Paris in October of 1930, and explores the impact the studio environment made on Calder, which left an even more indelible impression on him than the paintings.
Alexander Calder (1898–1976) grew up in a family engaged in artistic traditions: his father was a sculptor and his mother, a painter. As a child, he made model animals, jewelry, and small sculptures from a variety of unconventional materials. Initially training as a mechanical engineer, Calder did not attend art school until 1923 when he enrolled in the Art Students League, New York. Over the rapidly unfolding years that followed, Calder entirely redefined the course of modern sculpture by formalizing movement in art. This was a major innovation: never again would sculpture be seen as a matter of chisels and blocks of wood or stone. Between 1926 and 1933, Calder lived in Paris, then the heart of the modern art movement. At this stage, he was producing wire sculptures that suggested volume with gestural lines and he became famous for performances of his Cirque Calder, an elaborate miniature circus he had concocted from everyday materials like wire, wood, leather, cork, and scraps of cloth. An early example of performance art, the Cirque was designed to be manipulated by the artist: acrobats swayed across the tightrope, dogs jumped through hoops, and the elephant stood on its hind legs.
The exhibition stems from Calder’s one visit to Piet Mondrian’s studio in 1930, which triggered a radical change in his artistic practice. As Calder later recalled: “It was this visit to Mondrian’s studio that made me abstract.” He admired Mondrian’s use of space and converted it into his own artistic expression grounded in gesture and immateriality. A central feature of the forthcoming exhibition is a complete reconstruction of Mondrian’s studio on the Rue du Départ. The exhibition includes a 1929 film by Hans Cürlis that was shown in the Netherlands in the early 1930s and depicts Calder creating two wire circus figures with no more than a pair of pliers and his own bare hands––profiling the artist as a great innovator with his unorthodox use of materials and methods. The exhibition concludes with one of Calder’s final works, a circa 1976 design for a sculpture that was to have stood in the sculpture park at the Kröller-Müller Museum, rediscovered during preparations for the exhibition. However, because of Calder’s untimely death in 1976, the project went unrealized.
The Municipal Museum (Dutch: Gemeentemuseum Den Haag) is an art museum, located in The Hague, Netherlands. The museum was built by the Dutch architect H.P. Berlage. It is renowned for its large Mondrian collection, the largest in the world. His last work, "Victory Boogie-Woogie", is on display at the museum. The modern art collection provides a varied overview of developments in the fine arts since the early 19th century. Charley Toorop's piercing eyes and Floris Verster's bowl of eggs are flanked by works by leading foreign artists, including Pablo Picasso and Claude Monet, plus an extensive collection of German Expressionist pieces. This helps to place Dutch examples of the Realist and Symbolist schools and the De Stijl movement in an international context. Outstanding features in the collection are the Hague School paintings and a marvellous series of works by Mondrian, ranging from moody Dutch landscapes to the sparkling Victory Boogie Woogie. As a whole, the collection traces the thrilling story of modern art - right through to today. The Modern Art Department’s print room has a large collection of drawings, prints and posters dating from the 19th and 20th century. Most are by Dutch artists, but there are also major groups of foreign works. These include a fine collection of 19th-century French works on paper with an emphasis on work by Rodolphe Bresdin, Odilon Redon and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. German Expressionism is also well represented. The entire collection numbers around 50,000 objects. Parts of the collection are regularly exhibited in the print room. The Gemeentemuseum possesses one of the world's leading collections of fashion items. It includes both historical costumes and contemporary designs. Exhibitions focus not just on changing fashions in the Netherlands, but also on landmark designs from abroad. Accessories, jewellery, fashion drawings and prints all help to place the garments in a broader perspective. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.gemeentemuseum.nlThe D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts Exhibits "The Real Housewives of Currier & Ives"
Written by Doris Etekondrea Friday, 10 February 2012 22:38
Springfield, Massachusetts.- The D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts is pleased to present "The Real Housewives of Currier & Ives”, on view at the museum until June 24th. Just as contemporary television and other media portray and define popular culture today, the ideals of Victorian culture permeated the visual media of that era, often in the form of art work designed by the publishing firm of Currier & Ives. The Real Housewives of Currier & Ives shows women engaged in family life, maintaining the home and wearing the latest fashions. The care of home and family was seen as the duty and fulfillment of all women, and Currier & Ives carefully depicted women as nurturers. However, Currier & Ives could not ignore important events such as the Civil War and the early Women’s Rights Movement. Instead, they chose to depict popular trends and political movements in a guarded, sentimental and often overly-optimistic manner, portraying women as a stabilizing influence during troubling times.Read more: [The D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts Exhibits "The Real Housewives of Currier & Ives" ]
Getty Museum announces two acquisitions: A rare Fragonard and a German painting
Written by Donald Drumming Friday, 10 February 2012 22:15
LOS ANGELES, CA.- The J. Paul Getty Museum today announced two acquisitions—The Pancake Maker , drawn in 1782, by French painter Jean-Honoré Fragonard (French, ca. 1732–1806) and The Trinity with the Virgin, Saints John the Evangelist, Stephen and Lawrence and a Donor, 1479, attributed to the famed Peter Hemmel von Andlau (ca. 1420/25–after 1501) Workshop. The Pancake Maker, by Jean-Honoré Fragonard is an embodiment of late Rococo style and subject matter, The Pancake Maker depicts a mother cooking beignets on the hearth, as a bevy of wriggling children look on, eager to eat the hot treats. The dynamically mounded figures throb with energy as they squeeze around the dinner table. An improvisatory but exacting draftsman, Fragonard uses dashing pencil lines worked over in infinite gradations of warm brown wash to convey the surging joy and anticipation in this intimate, animated scene. The only stable and patient presence is a little spaniel dog with its eyes trained on the frying pan. Fragonard also uses the white of the paper to evoke the scintillating flames and heat of the fire as it illuminates the mother’s face.Read more: [Getty Museum announces two acquisitions: A rare Fragonard and a German painting]
Rare & charming Chelsea Porcelain Head to feature in Bonhams auction
Written by Ronald Rutherford Friday, 10 February 2012 21:53
LONDON.- An immensely important, rare and charming porcelain head, made in the Chelsea porcelain factory, is the highlight of the next British Pottery & Porcelain auction on April 18th at Bonhams, 101 New Bond Street, London. Fergus Gambon, Department Director of British Ceramics at Bonhams, was moved to tears by his first sight of the work, and its significance cannot be underestimated. He comments, My heart stopped. I knew that the only known example of the model was in The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, regarded as a jewel in the crown of the ceramics collection there. No other example was recorded. Yet here was another.... and somehow even better. I was immediately struck by its radiance and beauty."Read more: [Rare & charming Chelsea Porcelain Head to feature in Bonhams auction]
Solo exhibition by New York-based artist Ryan Sullivan opens at Maccarone
Written by Wallace Thompson Friday, 10 February 2012 21:52
NEW YORK, NY.- Maccarone announces the first solo exhibition by New York-based artist Ryan Sullivan. In several large-scale paintings, Sullivan tempers gesture and authorship through an entropic set of actions. The works often invoke topographies, with a strikingly physical surface that undermines simple signification. The cracks, mounds and fissures manifest the electric instability of the painted surface while rendering the precarious state permanent. On exhibition 10th February though 17th March.Read more: [Solo exhibition by New York-based artist Ryan Sullivan opens at Maccarone]
The Speed Art Museum Showcases Modern French Masters from the Dixon Gallery & Gardens Collection
Written by Graham Hayward Friday, 10 February 2012 21:35
Louisville, Kentucky.- The Speed Art Muiseum is proud to present "Renoir to Chagall: Paris and the Allure of Color" on view at the museum until May 6th. the exhibition presents an extraordinary exhibition of modern French masters featuring 55 paintings from the Dixon Gallery and Garden s in Memphis, Tennessee and nearly 30 works from Speed’s collection and public and private collections throughout Kentucky. This major exhibition features French Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, as well as key artists who came immediately before and after them. Among the who’s who of painters included in the exhibition are Edgar Degas , Claude Monet , Pierre-Auguste Renoir , Camille Pissarro , Mary Cassatt , Henri Matisse , Paul Cézanne , Paul Gauguin , Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec , Georges Braque , and Marc Chagall . Renoir to Chagall demonstrates how Paris as the art capital of the Western world, produced and attracted artists of great accomplishment.
On view will be portraits, scenes of daily life, still lifes, landscapes, interiors, and the fascinating worlds of the ballet, cafés, boulevards, and other aspects of modern city life that made Paris a magnet for artists. The diverse subjects and styles of the magnificent works in this exhibition will illustrate the critical developments in French painting during this period that profoundly changed the direction of modern art. While the Impressionists experimented with color and light effects to capture the fleeting sensations of reality, the Post-Impressionists loosened ties to realism altogether by emphasizing abstract elements of form and color, and occasionally the inner world of feelings and emotions.
The Speed Art Museum, originally known as the J. B. Speed Memorial Museum, is Kentucky’s oldest and largest art museum. It was founded in 1925 by Hattie Bishop Speed as a memorial to her husband, James Breckinridge Speed, a prominent Louisville businessman and philanthropist. Designed by Louisville architect Arthur Loomis, the museum opened its doors on January 15, 1927, with an exhibition sponsored by the Louisville Art Association. Over a hundred American and European painters were represented and nearly two thousand visitors attended the opening. In 1941, Dr. Preston Pope Satterwhite made a significant gift to the museum - his collection of 15th century and 16th century French and Italian Decorative Arts including tapestries and furniture. In 1944, he donated the English Renaissance room, which was moved in its entirety from Devonshire, England. Dr. Satterwhite’s gift necessitated an enlargement of the museum and in his will he provided for the addition that bears his name. Completed in 1954, it was the first of three additions to the original building. After another major addition to the building in 1973, the Speed celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1977 with the acquisition of Rembrandt's magnificent "Portrait of a Woman".
While the museum was closed for a dramatic renovation project in 1996, the museum received a life-changing gift, a bequest of more than $50 million from Alice Speed Stoll, granddaughter of James Breckinridge Speed. The bequest marks one of the largest given to any art museum and significantly increased the Speed's endowment, ranking it among the top 25 in the United States. Mrs. Stoll’s bequest secured the museum’s future and has allowed for several significant acquisitions including Jacob van Ruisdael ’s "Landscape with a Half Timbered House and a Blasted Tree", (1653), and Paul Cezanne’s Post-Impressionist masterpiece, "Two Apples on a Table" (about 1895-1900).
Since reopening in November 1997, the Speed has dazzled the region with exciting traveling exhibitions, new acquisitions to the permanent collection, and a new parking garage. It has also benefited greatly by a bequest from the estate of long-time Board of Governors member General Dillman A. Rash who left the museum works by Marc Chagall, Jean Dubuffet , Paul Klee , Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso , and Maurice Utrillo . The museum is supported entirely by donations, endowments, grants, ticket sales, and memberships. The focus of the collection is Western art, from antiquity to the present day. Holdings of paintings from the Netherlands, French and Italian works, and contemporary art are particularly strong, with sculpture prominent throughout. Representative artists include Rembrandt van Rijn , Peter Paul Rubens , Giovanni Tiepolo, Henry Moore , Thomas Gainsborough , Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and contemporary artists Frank Stella , Helen Frankenthaler , Alice Neel , Petah Coyne, Yinka Shonibare, Vito Acconci, and Juan Munoz . Today, The Speed Art Museum has come a long way since Mrs. Speed first opened the doors to the original museum over 80 years ago. Its magnificent building and impressive collection serve more than 180,000 visitors each year, making it a nationally recognized institution. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.speedmuseum.orgThe Smithsonian American Art Museum ~ A Phenomenal Collection Of American Art In Washington D.C.
Written by Conrad Tuckerman Friday, 10 February 2012 21:18
The Smithsonian is the world's largest museum complex and research organization, comprising 19 museums and nine research centers. The Smithsonian American Art Museum, begun in 1829, is the first federal art collection and is dedicated to the collection and display of American Art (art produced by American artists or in America by others). The museum began with gifts from private collections and art organizations established in the nation's capital before the founding of the Smithsonian in 1846. The museum has grown steadily to become a center for the study, enjoyment, and preservation of America's cultural heritage. Today the collection consists of artworks in all media, spanning more than 300 years of artistic achievement. The collection began modestly in 1829 when a Washingtonian named John Varden set out to form a permanent museum for the nation with his collection of European art. At first, the art was placed in a room he added to his own house near the U.S. Capitol. In 1841, Varden's collection was displayed in the newly constructed Patent Office Building (coincidentally, the museum's home today). The establishment of the Smithsonian in 1846 eclipsed the prestige of the institute, which later disbanded. By 1858, many items in the Smithsonian Art Collection on view at the Patent Office Building were moved a few blocks to the newly completed Smithsonian Castle. The remainder of the collection followed in 1862. But a destructive fire there in 1865 increased the Smithsonian's reluctance to build cultural collections. For the rest of the century, most of the artwork was placed on loan to the Library of Congress and to the Corcoran Gallery of Art. A turning point in the history of the collection came in 1906. That year the probated will of Harriet Lane Johnston, an art collector and niece of President James Buchanan, forced an important decision in a federal court: the recognition that the Smithsonian's collection formed a "National Gallery of Art." Coined during a national art-collecting boom, the official name soon attracted major gifts. Highly prized were diverse artworks owned by John Gellatly and American impressionist paintings and Barbizon landscapes collected by William T. Evans. Plans to build a permanent home for the museum on the National Mall came and went, among them a prize-winning modernist structure that shocked federal officials. The competition had been organized after Andrew Mellon gave his European-focused art collection to the nation in 1937 with the stipulation that his new museum be called the "National Gallery of Art" in emulation of the National Gallery of Art in London. To comply with Mellon's wishes for a National Gallery of Art to house his European collection, the Smithsonian museum known as the National Gallery of Art for the previous thirty-one years was renamed the National Collection of Fine Arts in 1937. It was given a new mission based on New Deal idealism: to promote the work of living artists and to build a national audience.
The interest in historic preservation after World War II ultimately was responsible for giving the first Smithsonian art museum a new home and preserving an architectural treasure. In 1957, a bill was introduced in Congress to tear down the elegant Patent Office Building to make way for a parking lot. Deteriorated but still one of the purest examples of Greek Revival architecture in the nation, the structure was saved when Congress turned the building over to the Smithsonian. In 1968, after an extensive interior renovation, the museum opened to the public. In 1972, the Renwick Gallery opened to the public as a branch museum featuring American crafts. In 1980, the museum's name was changed to the National Museum of American Art as part of a Smithsonian initiative to standardize the names of its many museums and to reflect the national scope of the collections. Since then, the museum has focused its energy on acquiring and promoting the work of artists in the United States exclusively. Twenty years later, the museum proposed that it be called the Smithsonian American Art Museum as an easy-to-remember name and a straightforward presentation of its mission. Congress approved this change in October 2000. The Smithsonian American Art Museum's main building, a dazzling showcase for American art and portraiture, is a National Historic Landmark and is considered one of the finest examples of Greek Revival architecture in the United States. Several important early American architects were involved in the original design of the building, including Robert Mills and Thomas U. Walter. Begun in 1836 and completed in 1868, it is one of the oldest public buildings constructed in early Washington. The Smithsonian American Art Museum's branch for craft and decorative arts, the Renwick Gallery, is close to the White House in the heart of historic federal Washington. Its Second Empire-style building, also a National Historic Landmark, was designed by architect James Renwick Jr. in 1859 and completed in 1874. In the 1990s, the Smithsonian embarked on a plan to restore the main building, and to create innovative new public facilities. The recent renovation (2000-2006) revealed the full magnificence of the building's exceptional architectural features, such as the porticos modeled after the Parthenon in Athens, a curving double staircase, colonnades, vaulted galleries, large windows, and skylights as long as a city block. Full circulation on all three floors for the public has been restored. Extraordinary effort was made to use new preservation technologies to restore the historic fabric of the building and re-use historic materials. Two innovative and bold new public spaces are open to museum visitors: the Lunder Conservation Center and the Luce Foundation Center for American Art. In addition, the Nan Tucker McEvoy Auditorium and the Robert and Arlene Kogod Courtyard are major enhancements that make this a destination museum for the 21st century. The Smithsonian American Art Museum is one of the nation's leading centers for the study of American art. The museum offers academic opportunities for scholars at the graduate level and above, research opportunities for visiting scholars, and professional museum training for college seniors and graduate students. The museum also produces 'American Art', a peer-reviewed periodical on the arts in America, organizes scholarly symposia, and sponsors several annual publication prize awards. The museum's specialized art databases of a half million records and its extensive photograph archives further research efforts in the field. Education staff and docents welcome students and teachers at both venues, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum is the nation's first collection of American art and one of the world's largest and most inclusive collections of art made in the United States, is an unparalleled record of the American experience. The collection captures the aspirations, character, and imagination of the American people across more than three centuries. These artworks reveal America's rich artistic and cultural history from the colonial period to today. In recent years, the museum has strengthened its commitment to contemporary art, and in particular media arts. All regions, cultures, and traditions in this country are represented in the museum's collections, research resources, exhibitions, and public programs. Colonial portraiture, nineteenth-century landscape, American impressionism, twentieth-century realism and abstraction, New Deal projects, sculpture, photography, prints and drawings, contemporary crafts, African American art, Latino art, and folk art are all featured in the collection. More than 7,000 artists are represented in the collection, including major masters such as John Singleton Copley, Gilbert Stuart, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Childe Hassam, Mary Cassatt, Georgia O'Keeffe, Edward Hopper, Jacob Lawrence, Helen Frankenthaler, Christo, David Hockney, Jenny Holzer, Lee Friedlander, Nam June Paik, Jackson Pollock, Martin Puryear, Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein. The museum has been a leader in identifying significant aspects of American visual culture and actively collecting and exhibiting works of art before many other major public collections. The museum has the largest collection of 'New Deal' art and the finest collections of contemporary craft, American impressionist paintings and masterpieces from the Gilded Age. Other pioneering collections include historic and contemporary folk art; work by African American and Latino artists; photography from its origins in the nineteenth century to contemporary works; images of western expansion; and realist art from the first half of the twentieth century. The Renwick Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, features one of the finest collections of American craft in the United States. Its collections, exhibition program, and publications highlight the best craft objects and decorative arts from the nineteenth century to the present. The museum's Luce Foundation Center for American Art, a study center and visible art storage facility, displays more than 3,300 artworks from the museum's permanent collection in a three-story skylight space.
The highlight of the temporary exhibitions currently on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum is "Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow" until May 8th 2011. Alexis Rockman has been depicting the natural world with virtuosity and wit for more than two decades. He was one of the first contemporary artists to build his career around exploring environmental al issues, from evolutionary biology and genetic engineering to deforestation and climate change. Rockman has garnered attention for embracing these issues, as well as for the epic quality of his projects, including several monumentally scaled canvases. His work expresses deep concerns about the world's fragile ecosystems and the tension between nature and culture, which are communicated through vivid, even apocalyptic, imagery. Rockman achieves his vision through a synthesis of fantasy and empirical fact, using sources as varied as natural history, botanical illustrations, museum dioramas, science fiction films, realist art traditions dating back to the Renaissance, and firsthand field study. Alexis Rockman: A fable for Tomorrow is the first major survey of the artist's work and features 47 paintings and works on paper from private and public collections. The title of the exhibition is taken from the opening chapter of Rachel Carson's influential 1962 book Silent Spring. In it, Carson combines two seemingly incompatible literary genres, mythic narrative and factual reportage. Rockman approaches his paintings with a similar intent. The exhibition traces Rockman's artistic development from the mid-1980s to the present. Highlights include "Evolution" (1992), his first mural-sized painting, and "Manifest Destiny" (2003-2004), an ambitious large-scale work commissioned by the Brooklyn Museum of Art. An accompanying book has been produced, co-published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and London-based D Giles Ltd. In addition to the Rockman retrospective, 3 rotating exhibitions feature exhibits from the main collection. "Close to Home: Photographers and Their Families" until July 24th 2011 presents photographs made during the past three decades by both established and emerging artists. It features thirty-two color and black-and-white photographs from the permanent collection. "Watch This! New Directions in the Art of the Moving Image" takes stock of the cutting-edge tools and materials used by video artists during the past forty years and features key artworks from the history of video art alongside works by the latest generation of artists. The "Grand Salon Installation: Paintings from the Smithsonian American Art Museum" at the Renwick Gallery is an installation of seventy paintings from the collection showing the development of American art from the 1840s to the 1930s.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum displays its collections and presents special exhibitions in two locations in Washington, D.C. Its main building is located at the heart of a vibrant downtown cultural district, while its branch museum for contemporary craft and decorative arts, the Renwick Gallery, is located nine blocks west, near the White House. Before you visit, please take a moment to look over our Gallery Guidelines so you know what to expect. If you are looking for a quiet place to work or to check your e-mail, free public wireless Internet access (Wi-Fi) is available in the Luce Foundation Center. Please note: the Kogod Courtyard and the Courtyard Cafe are temporarily closed due to construction. If your time is limited, stop by the Information Desk for a self-guided tour brochure, Ten Highlights, which includes the innovative Luce Foundation Center for American Art and the Lunder Conservation Center, or take advantage of one of the daily docent-led tours of the collection. Don't forget, American Art's main building is open every evening until 7 p.m. so you can visit your favorite painting before going to dinner or heading home. Education staff and docents welcome students and teachers to "our space" at two venues, the Smithsonian American Art Museum and its Renwick Gallery. At the Smithsonian American Art Museum, interactive tours yield lively exchanges about our collection as windows on American history. At the Renwick Gallery, students handle and explore unique craft objects by contemporary artists to learn about process, material, and technique. A variety of programs are offered in the center, including themed scavenger hunts for children, a weekly sketching workshop, Art + Coffee tours and a variety of interactive games. Ten award-winning interactive computer kiosks share information about every object on display and include discussions of each artwork, artist biographies, audio interviews, still images, and nearly seventy videos created exclusively for the Luce Center. Audio tours with more than 180 stops can be accessed through a cell phone, iTunes, or free MP3 players available at the Center's information desk. Visit The Smithsonian American Art Museum at : www.americanart.si
Sir Stanley Spencer New Auction Record
Written by Carleton Zimmer Friday, 10 February 2012 21:17
LONDON.- The sale of 20th Century British Art at Sotheby’s in London established a new auction record for a work by Sir Stanley Spencer (in pounds – see note at foot of email), when his "Hilda and I at Pond Street" sold for £1,430,050 ($2,249,612), far in excess of its pre-sale estimate of £400,000-600,000. (The previous auction record for Spencer was £1,320,000 ($2,161,454) and this was achieved for his The Crucifixion, which sold at Sotheby’s in London in 1990.) "Hilda and I at Pond Street", from 1954, was arguably the finest work by the British artist to appear at auction in the last five years. It was offered for sale by The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago , to benefit the Museum’s acquisition fund.Discursive Painting from Albers to Zobernig at the MUMOK
Written by Anton Zwieg Friday, 10 February 2012 21:16
VIENNA.- “Pictures about Pictures. Discursive Painting” is the title of the exhibition of the Daimler Art Collection in the MUMOK. Around 130 works will be presented ranging from classical modernity and post-war avantgarde through European Zero and minimalism to international contemporary art. In addition to paintings and drawings the presentation in the MUMOK also includes installations and video art. Together, the selection of works represents the main focus of the Daimler Art Collection in the area of abstract avantgarde and reduced/conceptual tendencies from the Bauhaus on up to current international, contemporary art.
The presentation in the MUMOK is organized in
thematic fields
that stage discursive references to historical and current
positions:
Bauhaus and De Stijl; Hard Edge and New Color School USA;
constructive and
concrete tendencies; European Zero avantgarde; minimalism and
aspects of
design; Neo Geo and international contemporary art. Thus the show
brings
together approximately 75 artists from some twenty countries. The
works
span a period of a hundred years, from 1908 (Adolf Hölzel) to 2010
(Andreas Schmid).
As the title of the exhibition–“Pictures about Pictures. Discursive Painting”–suggests, the accent is not on a museum-like categorizing of styles and isms. The presentation is, rather, an attempt to make visible the dialogic references of the works to each other and the discursive interrelationships of individual notions of form and content. Here, art history should no longer be seen from a perspective of ‘invention’ and ‘progression’ but should be imagined as an argumentative union of pictures in temporary contexts and transitional forms.
Alongside classics such as Josef Albers, Oskar Schlemmer, Jean Arp, Adolf Fleischmann, Hermann Glöckner or Georges Vantongerloo, exemplary works and work groups from the 1960s to the 1990s by Absalon, John M Armleder, Jo Baer, Daniel Buren, Andre Cadere, Enrico Castellani, Gene Davis, Helmut Federle, Günter Fruhtrunk, Rupprecht Geiger, Poul Gernes, Donald Judd, John McLaughlin, Francois Morellet, Jeremy Moon, Olivier Mosset, Julian Opie, Gerwald Rockenschaub and Heimo Zobernig will be presented. An overview of current tendencies in abstractgeometric, minimalist art is present in the works of, amongst others, Krysten Cunningham, Stephane Dafflon, Maria Eichhorn, Liam Gillick, Nic Hess, Jim Lambie, Mathieu Mercier, Sarah Morris, Danica Phelps, Andreas Reiter Raabe, Ugo Rondinone, Tom Sachs, Pietro Sanguineti, and Katja Strunz.
The Daimler Art Collection was started in 1977 and currently includes about 1800 works by German and international artists. The collection focuses on abstract and geometrical pictorial concepts, from which it derives its distinctive character. The starting-point is fundamental tendencies in 20th century Modernism in south-west Germany, and this basic direction has been expanded in the 1990s by adding exemplary works by European and American artists.
One future policy will be to acquire a representative selection of photography and media art. A changing selection from the collection is accessible to Daimler employees and the public at the company's various locations. As well as this, the Daimler Art Collection started as early as the 1980s to acquire a high caliber ensemble of sculpture by contemporary artists, and this is a striking feature of the company's Stuttgart, Sindelfingen, Ulm and Berlin premises.
Mumok may sound like a character from Star Wars, but unless you're a performance artist - in which case anything goes. The 'Museum Moderner Kunst' is one of the main draws of the vast Museumsquartier, and it makes for a refreshing change if you're overdosing on baroque beauties. The sleek edifice houses some 9000 treasures, including paintings by Mondrian, Ernst, Bacon, Kokoschka and Magritte, as well as sculptural gems by Picasso and Giaccometti. Visit The MUMOK at : www.mumok.at/Complete Works by Rembrandt to be Shown at the Berlage Exhibition Centre, Amsterdam
Written by Stefanie Derks of Local World Agency Friday, 10 February 2012 21:15
AMSTERDAM.- For the first time ever, Rembrandt’s complete oeuvre will be on show in the special exhibition hall in the Beurs van Berlage (Berlage Exhibition Centre) over the coming summer. The exhibition, titled The Complete Rembrandt, Life-Size, will show all 317 paintings, 285 etchings and the relevant sketches and drawings in near-perfect reproductions. A number of Rembrandt’s damaged and mutilated paintings will also be reconstructed for the exhibition. This unique overview was compiled by Rembrandt specialists led by Professor Ernst van de Wetering, head of the Rembrandt Research Project. Shown July 5 through 7 September, 2009.
Read more: [Complete Works by Rembrandt to be Shown at the Berlage Exhibition Centre, Amsterdam]
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