Henry Moore Mother & Child Brings World Auction Record

Wednesday, 30 November 2005 11:25

LONDON, ENGLAND.-In a jam-packed Bonhams saleroom in New Bond Street, the most important sculpture by Henry Moore to appear at auction in recent years sold for £1, 069,600 (with premium) after intense bidding today. It sold in the room to a private collector and smashed the world auction record for a unique carving by Henry Moore. Mother and Child, 1931, described by Moore himself as “one of my best earlier pieces” was purchased soon after Henry Moore’s exhibition at the Leicester Galleries in the same year, for just £18–18 shillings. Also in the sale, a reclining figure by Henry Moore sold for over double its estimate in the room at £308,000. Henry Moore’s Mother & Child, 1931 is the most expensive 20th century work of art to be sold in London this year. Bonhams’ Head of Modern British Art, Matthew Bradbury said, “It is an immense privilege to have sold this beautiful Mother & Child sculpture. The enormous price reflects the quality of the work. It stands head and shoulders above any other carving by Moore and has smashed a world record for hand carved object by ¾ million.”

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Frank Stella at Arthur Sackler Museum

Wednesday, 30 November 2005 11:46

CAMBRIDGE, MA.-The first exhibition to examine the seminal work Frank Stella created in 1958, the year he graduated from Princeton University, will be presented by the Harvard University Art Museums at its Arthur M. Sackler Museum . Frank Stella 1958 brings together more than 20 works from this period of tremendous experimentation and productivity, and provides new insight into Stella’s career and his development as an artist. A number of the works have only recently been rediscovered as part of the research for this exhibition and many of the others have rarely been on public display. In developing the exhibition, curators Cooper and Luke conducted interviews with Stella himself as well as several of his closest friends and early colleagues—including artist Darby Bannard and art historians Michael Fried and Robert Rosenblum—to gain new insight into the genesis of the works and the debates roiling the art world in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

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Shirin Neshat TOOBA Video in Sidney

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 17:45

SIDNEY, AU. - Romantic, poetic, mythic... The work of Shirin Neshat is among the most lyrical of contemporary Islamic art. Shirin Neshat grew up in the ancient city of Qazvin, in northwest Tehran. When she travelled to America in 1974 to study art, she had no idea that the Shah would soon be deposed and that Iran would undergo a cultural revolution under the fundamentalist Islamic rule of Ruhollah Khomeini. In 1990, after the Ayatollah Khomeini's death, Neshat was able to make her first journey home. In returning she experienced the profound difference between modern Iran and the Iran of her childhood - a culture still connected with Persia. The Eastern-Islamic values of her childhood were now in utter contradiction with current Iranian society. The changes were particularly evident in the position of women. As Neshat explains: 'I see my work as a visual discourse on the subject of feminism and contemporary Islam - a discourse that puts certain myths and realities to the test, claiming that they are far more complex than most of us have imagined ...'

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Alexander Calder in Focus at MCA Chicago

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 17:45

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.- The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, presents Alexander Calder in Focus: Works from the Leonard and Ruth Horwich Family Loan. Alexander Calder is the subject of a small exhibition each year at the MCA to provide an opportunity to look at how the seminal artist's ideas developed throughout his fifty-year career. These works from 1927 to 1968, mostly from The Ruth and Leonard Horwich Family Loan, include examples of Calder's mobiles, stabiles, drawings, and paintings.

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AMOA Presents Christo and Jeanne-Claude

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 17:48

AUSTIN, TEXAS.– The Austin Museum of Art (AMOA) announces a Christo and Jeanne-Claude retrospective exhibition opening January 28, 2006 . This major exhibition is expected to attract the interest and curiosity of the entire community and visitors throughout Texas. Famous for their fabric installations, Christo and wife-collaborator, Jeanne-Claude have created some of the most compelling and controversial public artworks of the 20th century. Together they challenge perceptions of contemporary art with grand projects to transform urban and rural sites. In contrast to the ephemeral nature of their creations, designing, securing access, and installing their grandiose projects on private and public property takes years of planning, fundraising, and public support. This selection of seventy-five works includes preparatory objects for The Gates Project, their heralded installation in New York’s Central Park in the spring of 2005. It also includes early wrapped objects, a life-size Store Front, a scale model of the Wrapped Reichstag, preparatory drawings, collages, and large-scale photographs of completed projects such as Wrapped Coast, Valley Curtain, Running Fence, The Pont Neuf Wrapped, Surrounded Islands, The Umbrellas, Japan - USA, Wrapped Reichstag, Wrapped Trees. The exhibition is organized by The Trust for Museum Exhibitions. In 1979 the Austin Museum of Art–Laguna Gloria introduced many Austinites to the work of Christo and Jeanne Claude with the exhibition Urban Projects, which included 10 scale models, 90 framed photographs, three films: Running Fence, Wrapped Coast, and Valley Curtain—organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. Their talk at Laguna Gloria in conjunction with the exhibition attracted over a thousand people.

Pearls of the Parrot at The Metropolitan

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 17:50

NEW YORK.-In India in the late 16th century, the Mughal emperor Akbar – a great patron of the arts – amassed an extensive library of some 20,000 beautifully illustrated and illuminated manuscripts. One of them, a lavishly ornamented copy of the Khamsa (Quintet of Tales) by Amir Khusrau Dihlavi (1253-1325), is on view at the Metropolitan Museum, in the exhibition Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Emperor Akbar's Illustrated "Khamsa," 1597-98. Considered the greatest Persian-language poet of the Indian subcontinent, Amir Khusrau often described his poems as "pearls" spilling from his lips and – invoking the bird that symbolized eloquence in the Indo-Persian tradition – referred to himself as the "Parrot of India." More than two centuries later, in 1597-98, a sumptuously illustrated copy of Amir Khusrau's Khamsa was created for the famed library of the Mughal emperor Akbar. This manuscript, one of the most magnificent of India's early Mughal period, features illustrations of astounding virtuosity and superb calligraphy. The 29 surviving full-page illustrations from the manuscript are now in the collections of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore (which owns 21 paintings and the text within the manuscript's lacquer binding)

Read more: [[Pearls of the Parrot at The Metropolitan]]

Artur Zmijewski's "Repetition" at CCA Wattis

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 17:51

SAN FRANCISCO, CA.-The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts presents Artur Żmijewski's 39-minute film "Repetition" (2005), a documentary recording his reenactment of Professor Zimbardo's 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment. The film screens every hour on the hour at the CCA Wattis Institute's Logan Galleries through February 21, 2006. Professor Zimbardo's experiment, which isolated groups of graduate students in randomly designated roles of prisoners and guards in a simulated prison, had to be interrupted due to the participants' own abusive behavior. For "Repetition," Żmijewski hired unemployed Polish men to play the roles of prisoners and guards. Filmed with hidden cameras, their behavior quickly progresses from playacting to acts of seemingly genuine frustration and anger. Confrontations escalate, but just when it seems Żmijewski's experiment will replicate the original, things take an unexpected turn.

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Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 17:52

NEW YORK, NY.-The Jewish Museum will present Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama, the first major museum exhibition in the United States ever devoted to the great French actress (1844-1923). Over the course of a remarkable sixty-year career, “the Divine Sarah” established herself as the premier tragedienne in the West. Her very name became synonymous with acting and, long after her death, it continues to exercise a powerful spell on performers and audiences around the world. Born five years after the invention of photography, Bernhardt pioneered the use of modern technologies to disseminate her image, and was the first major stage actress to star in films. Sarah Bernhardt embodied the art of the Belle Époque. The exhibition will illuminate the life and art of this remarkable performer through over 250 spectacular and rarely seen objects in all media—painting, sculpture, photography, costumes, stage designs, Art Nouveau theater posters and jewelry, her furniture and personal effects, as well as a recording of her voice and selected films in which she starred. Drawing on public and private collections in America and Europe, Sarah Bernhardt: The Art of High Drama will explore celebrity, theatrical style, biography, politics, fashion, and taste.

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Highest Total For Sale of Russian Art

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 17:53

LONDON, ENGLAND.-The Russian Sale at Sotheby’s in London realized a record total of £22,243,600 ($38,445,838), against a pre-sale estimate of £12-£16 million, bringing the combined total for this year’s Russian sales at Sotheby’s worldwide to £56,360,381 ($102,511,790). The sale, which included more than 400 lots, many from private collections and fresh to the market, was extremely well-attended and attracted over 500 buyers and bidders. This strong sale attracted several new buyers from Russia who were selective and were looking for works of quality with good provenance – demonstrated by the results of the James Theakston Collection. We observed particularly strong bidding for 20th-century Russian pictures, Russian porcelain and pieces by Fabergé.” The top lot in today’s sale was the painting Still Life with Flowers by Ilya Ivanovich Mashkov – a founding member of the Moscow based avant-garde movement Bubnovy Valet or “Jack of Diamonds” group – which achieved a record for the artist at auction and is the highest price ever paid for a painting by a Russian artist in a Russian sale.

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British Soldier Takes New York Art Market by Storm

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 17:53

NEW YORK.-Five paintings sourced by Bonhams in Scotland have astonished their former owners by making a total of $882,000 at Bonhams New York Sale of American and European paintings .Scotland, said: "The couple concerned were moving home and popped in to have some pictures valued as they were having a clear-out. They did not think that they were worth anything but brought them in anyway. When they heard the result yesterday they were speechless." The pictures taken so casually over the counter in Edinburgh were consigned to the relevant Bonhams New York Sale as it was felt that this is where the market was strongest for these items.

Read more: [[British Soldier Takes New York Art Market by Storm]]

Mary Cassatt Painting Sells at a Record $4,272,000

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 17:56

NEW YORK.-The work Mother and Two Children, oil on canvas, 1906 by Mary Cassatt sold for $4,272,000 at Christie's Important American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture auction in New York. This is world auction record for an oil painting by Mary Cassatt. The American modernist market has been gaining considerable strength in recent seasons. With the rapid growth in the postwar and contemporary market, collectors who traditionally have bought in this category are showing increased interest in American modernism, an essential precursor to the international post-war art movements.

Museum Boijmans Buys Eliasson Exhibition

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 17:58

ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS.-The Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is acquiring the work ‘Notion Motion’ by Olafur Eliasson. The patronage has bought the work and given it to the museum. This is the first time that a Dutch art institution acquires a work by Eliasson. The internationally celebrated artist has realized this installation especially for the three largest galleries of the museum. A fitting acquisition - Notion Motion is an excellent addition to the museum’s collection of modern and contemporary art. Thus, this purchase fits in with a series of illustrious acquisitions by the museum, works that were made especially for the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s space, and that now belong to the icons of the collection. Light and water - Notion Motion is an installation in which the visualization of light waves takes central place. The monumental work, which is largely built up out of water and light, consists of three installations with a collective size of 1500 square meters.

Read more: [[Museum Boijmans Buys Eliasson Exhibition]]

Rembrandt? The Master and His Workshop

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 17:59

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK.-Statens Museum for Kunst opens the exhibition year with a comprehensive exhibition on Rembrandt and the circle of artists around him. The exhibition will also reveal the results of the latest research into the authenticity of the paintings that at some point in the history of the museum have been ascribed to the master. The 4th centenary of the birth of Rembrandt van Rijn is celebrated with the most comprehensive exhibition ever staged in Denmark about the miller's son from Leiden who became one of the pre-eminent painters of all of art history. A number of truly outstanding paintings on loan from other museums supplement the Statens Museum for Kunst's own collection of graphic art and drawings to create an exhibition that ranges across the Dutch master's entire life's work. Rembrandt's enormous influence on his contemporary colleagues working in the Golden Age of Dutch art is put into perspective with works by his students and the circle around him. Rembrandt the innovator - Rembrandt (1606-69) is one of the greatest storytellers within the history of art. His unique ability to depict human beings in a wide range of emotional states and dramatic situations soon gave him the moniker "painter of souls". In his biblical scenes as well as his many portraits and self-portraits Rembrandt imbued both paintings and engravings with a hitherto unseen presence and life.

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Ceramics & Tradition at Museo Picasso

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 18:18

Malaga, Spain.- Picasso. Ceramics and Tradition brings Pablo Picasso´s astounding ceramic artworks face-to-face with the millenary tradition of pottery in Mediterranean culture. Curated by Marilyn McCully and Michael Raeburn, this exhibition invites the viewer to share in the dialogue between 56 original works by the artist and 36 works from different historical periods ranging from Antiquity to the nineteenth century, and from different parts of Europe.

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Girodet: French Romantic Rebel

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 18:19

The Art Institute of Chicago / February 11-April 30, 2006 Girodet: Romantic Rebel - is the first retrospective in the United States devoted to the works of gifted French painter Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (1767-1824). The exhibition assembles more than 100 seminal works (about 60 paintings and 40 drawings), demonstrating the artist's impressive range, from mythological subjects to portraits and representations of Napoleon's military triumphs.

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‘Exposing’ . . the World of Special Effects

Wednesday, 11 January 2006 18:20

By Jane Hart....ABN Contributing Editor Advancements in digital cameras and computer technology are providing photographers with an extensive palette of tools and techniques to create literally thousands of special effects that enhance, alter and support their images. These advancements have propelled the evolution of photography as an art form, with some saying that the use of special effects in photographic images has catapulted photography more firmly into the realm of fine art. André Gallant, a travel photographer from New Brunswick, Canada, and author of several photography books including, “Dreamscapes: Exploring Photo Montages,” says, “As an art form, photography has not been as widely accepted as say, painting. Photography has been accepted a little more in the states than in Canada. But the use of techniques to create special effects will only improve on that acceptance of photography as a fine art form. Many photographers now are more artistic than they are straightforward.”Gallant has dedicated an entire book to images of his montages and the techniques behind them, which he has self-published and financed. Believing that photographic techniques should be shared rather than guarded.

Read more: [[‘Exposing’ . . the World of Special Effects]]