New York City - Spanierman Modern exhibits On Paper, featuring works from the 1880s to the present.  Ranging from small figural studies to large-scale abstractions, rendered in a wide variety of mediums, the exhibition demonstrates the way that works on paper have fully come into their own, leaving their once-perceived relegation to secondary status far in the past.  In addition to featuring several noted and rising contemporary artists, such as Carolyn Carr, Dan Christensen, Jasmina Danowski, Teo González, Susan Jamison, and Gary Komarin, the prominent artists represented include Ilya Bolotowsky, Alexander Calder, Arthur B. Davies, Willem de Kooning, Arthur Wesley Dow, Jasper Johns, Franz Kline, Georgia O’Keeffe, Philip Pearlstein, George Segal, James McNeill Whistler, and Andrew Wyeth.

Among the highlights of the exhibition, Georgia O’Keeffe’s Red and Green, No. III (1916)

London - The winners of this year’s Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition were announced on Wednesday 18 October 2006, at a special private viewing at the Natural History Museum, London.  Göran Ehlmé of Sweden will be awarded Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2006 for his image Beast of the sediment and Rick Stanley, 17, of the USA will be named Shell Young Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2006 for his image The dilemma.

LONDON - Three of the John Madejski Fine Rooms have been re-hung, exhibiting fresh, key works from the Royal Academy’s Collection, many of which have never been shown together.  The restored John Madejski Fine Rooms are dedicated to the display of highlights from the Royal Academy’s Collection of art, architecture and sculpture dating from the mid 18^th century to the present day. The Royal Academy’s Collection comprises mostly British works, and includes works by renowned painters such as Reynolds, Gainsborough, Constable, Turner, Stanley Spencer and David Hockney.

New York City - The Jewish Museum will present Food for Thought: A Video Sampler through February 28, 2006 in the Museum’s Barbara and E. Robert Goodkind Media Center.  Food for Thought features four videos from two generations of video artists – Martha Rosler, Laura Kronenberg (Cavestani), Jessica Shokrian, and Boaz Arad – in which food serves as a resource for memory, a way of connecting or disconnecting with family, and of understanding identity.  A handout with recipes from the participating artists will be available to visitors.

Philadelphia, PA – The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) is pleased to present “Carlos Garaicoa,” the first U.S. survey of recent work by Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa, who addresses Cuba’s politics and ideologies through the examination of modern architecture.  Presenting a selection of new works created specially for the exhibition, “Carlos Garaicoa” opens in ICA’s second-floor galleries on January 20 through March 25, 2006.  Organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Associate Curator Alma Ruiz, “Carlos Garaicoa” features 12 works that use architectural models, renderings, drawings, videos, and photographs to articulate the failed outcome of social and architectural programs in Cuba.

FORT LAUDERDALE, FL – The Museum of Art | Fort Lauderdale has announced that it will mount a major exhibition tracing the shared roots of Judaism and Christianity by bringing some of the most significant artifacts ever found in Israel, including the Temple Scroll, one of the most important of the Dead Sea Scrolls, to the Museum from December 7, 2006, through April 15, 2007.

Cradle of Christianity: Jewish and Christian Treasures from the Holy Land, Presented by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Florida, in association with Wachovia, provides South Florida residents and visitors an unprecedented opportunity to learn about aspects of early Jewish life, the concurrent birth of Christianity, and how the two faiths influenced each other by presenting archaeological treasures excavated in Israel during the last century.  The exhibition, which was curated and organized by the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, explores two periods of major consequence for religious history.  The first era focuses on the final days of the Second Temple, the Herodian Period and the first century CE, which is the time when Jesus of Nazareth lived.  The second period examines the concurrent development of formative Judaism and Christianity in the Holy Land between the fourth and seventh centuries CE.

New York City - (NY Times) - In a landmark sale, the biggest in auction history, nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of art changed hands last night at Christie’s sale of Impressionist and modern art.  Soaring prices for blockbuster paintings by Klimt and Gauguin left thousands of spectators, who came to watch and to buy, gasping.  “It was certainly the most amazing sale I’ve ever taken,” said a dazed Christopher Burge, honorary chairman of Christie’s and the evening’s auctioneer, after the two-and-a-half hour sale.  The evening’s total, $491.4 million, was well over $200 million more than that for any previous auction, topping its high estimate of $427.8 million.  (The previous record was $269 million at Christie’s in May 1990.)  Of the 84 lots up for sale last night, only 6 failed to sell.

AUSTIN, TEXAS – The Austin Museum of Art (AMOA) presents a landmark exhibition illuminating two transformative periods in New York City.  New York is more than just a location, it’s an attitude—and, that attitude forever changed the face of American art and culture.  Radical NY! is a two-part exhibition presenting The Downtown Show: The New York Art Scene, 1974-1984 and Abstract Expressionism: 1940s-1960s opening November 18, 2006 with works by over 200 groundbreaking artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Cindy Sherman, and hundreds of paintings, sculptures, drawings, videos, and photographs.

New York, New York – Sotheby’s sale of American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture will take place on November 29th and will feature major paintings by Edward Hopper and Norman Rockwell among others. Also to highlight the sale are paintings by Mary Cassatt and Charles Sheeler, as well as an important modern sculpture by Paul Howard Manship.  The paintings, drawings and sculpture are to be exhibited at Sotheby’s New York from November 25th to the 28th.

New York City - The Japanese literary tradition, dating from as early as the 8th century, is among the richest and most enduring of any country in the world, and ehon – or “picture books” – are one of the glories of world art.  The New York Public Library’s new exhibition, Ehon: The Artist and the Book in Japan, calls attention to the Library’s world-renowned holdings of Japanese books, prints, and manuscripts. Ehon includes approximately 280 objects, including books with printed illustrations, manuscripts, drawings, woodblock prints, and photographs.  On exhibition until February 4, 2007.

LONDON - Italian artist Patrick Tuttofuoco is to present an exhibition of new work for Chindia, his first UK solo show at Haunch of Venison, London.  The exhibition is to focus on the two main emerging world powers – India and China.  The show is to tour the urban landscapes of both counties, with the artist’s photographs, maps, sculptures and video projections producing an ever evolving megalopolis.  The artist’s experiences and observations of both countries become blurred through different scenes, shapes and sounds.

Kingston, Ont., Canada - Trained as an artist in his native England, Daniel Fowler (1810-1894) immigrated in 1843 with his young family to Amherst Island, near Kingston, Ontario, and for the next 14 years devoted himself exclusively to farming.  Returning to painting part time in 1857, with his beloved Island as his subject, he soon established himself among Canada’s first generation of professional artists, and was admired by his peers as “one of the fathers of Canadian art.”  Fowler was a founding member of the Ontario Association of Artists (1872) and was elected a charter member of the Royal Canadian Academy (1880).  He was the only Canadian to receive an international medal of excellence at the International Centennial Exhibition held in Philadelphia in 1876.  Also a prolific writer, Fowler reflected upon his experiences in journals, an autobiography, articles and fiction.