| 'Most important prehistoric discovery in a century' revealed by British Museum and Allen Archaeology | | Francis Bacon's powerful painting 'Triptych 1986-7' to be offered at auction for the first time | | Sotheby's to auction $40M+ Dr. Wou Kiuan Collection | 
Chalk ball. 30052890BC. Photo: © The Trustees of the British Museum.
LONDON.- The British Museum and Allen Archaeology today announce the discovery of the most important piece of prehistoric art to be found in Britain in the last 100 years. The object is a 5,000-year-old chalk sculpture and was discovered on a country estate near the village of Burton Agnes in East Yorkshire. The sculpture was first unearthed in a routine excavation by Allen Archaeology as part of the planning process in 2015, and has since gone on to be the subject of extensive research and conservation work. Thanks to this work, its existence can now be revealed as its confirmed to be one of the most significant ancient objects ever found on the British Isles. This remarkable new discovery will now go on public display for the very first time as part of the British Museums The world of Stonehenge exhibition which opens next week. The sculpture is decorated with elaborate motifs that reaffirms a British and Irish ... More | | 
Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Triptych 1986-7 (detail). Signed, titled and dated (on the reverse). Oil, pastel, aerosol paint and dry transfer lettering on canvas, each: 78 x 58in. (198 x 147.5cm) Executed in 1986-1987. © Christie's Images Ltd 2022.
LONDON.- Francis Bacons Triptych 1986-7 (estimate: £35,000,000-55,000,000) will be offered at auction for the first time in Christies 20th / 21st Century: London Evening Sale, a key auction within the 20/21 Shanghai to London sale series, which will take place on 1 March 2022. An extraordinary meditation on the passage of time, and a rhapsody on the solitude of the human condition, Triptych 1986-7 stands among Bacons last great paintings. Across three monumental canvases, his most rare and celebrated format, he entwines imagery drawn from the annals of twentieth-century history with a poignant, retrospective view of his own life and art. Originally unveiled in New York in 1987 at Marlborough Gallery, Christies will exhibit the work at Rockefeller Center from ... More | | 
A Rare Archaic Bronze Rectangular Vessel (Fangyi). Courtesy Sotheby's.
NEW YORK, NY.- Coinciding with the return of New York Asia Week this March, Sothebys will present the first of a series of four single-owner sales to held globally throughout 2022 from one of the last great collections of Chinese art remaining in private hands, The Dr Wou Kiuan Collection. Celebrating 4,000 years of Chinese culture and art history, the Dr Wou Kiuan Collection spans pottery, porcelain, jades, bronzes, paintings, calligraphy and more, the extraordinary scope of the collection sets it apart from all other private collections of Chinese art formed in the mid-20th century. Estimated to achieve in excess of $40 million and featuring more than 1,000 works, the collection together represents a comprehensive visual history of China, ranging from utilitarian storage vessels made by the first Neolithic cultures that emerged along the Yellow River to the most dazzling porcelains ever commissioned to adorn the ... More |
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| The fine art of staging a blockbuster | | Mapping a bold vision for the California African American Museum | | Hermann Nitsch joins Pace Gallery | 
Matthew Yokobosky, a curator at the Brooklyn Museum, posing for a portrait in the "Dior: Designer of Dreams, exhibit, in New York, Jan. 18, 2022. Vincent Tullo/The New York Times.
by Ruth La Ferla
NEW YORK, NY.- Growing up in the town of Republic in southwestern Pennsylvania, Matthew Yokobosky would visit the local tailor most days after school. His name was Danny Mariotti, and I used to go and watch him sew, he said. There were the Trevallini sisters, whom he liked to observe constructing jeweled flower arrangements and wedding bouquets. Oh, and Charlie Angeloni, the shoemaker, he added with the uncommon recall that over the years has served him well. His memory is like a superpower, said Anne Pasternak, the director of the Brooklyn Museum, one of many factors that prompted her in 2018 to name Yokobosky the museums senior curator of fashion and material culture. His latest appointment is a high point in a career that has ... More | | 
Cameron Shaw, executive director of the California African American Museum, in Los Angeles, Dec. 26, 2021. Erik Carter/The New York Times.
by Jori Finkel
LOS ANGELES, CA.- Cameron Shaw has had from an early age a knack for creating her own opportunities. Home from college the summer of 2002, she visited the offices of the Peter Norton Family Foundation in Santa Monica, California, was impressed by the very-contemporary art covering every wall, and asked if she could work there. The organization created an internship for her the following summer. When she moved to New York after college to take an assistant position at David Zwirner gallery, she quickly parlayed that into a job, which did not previously exist, as its research manager. After that, as a freelance arts writer interested in how culture could play a role in rebuilding New Orleans post-Katrina, she earned a writing grant, and won $10,000 on the game show Who Wants ... More | | 
Portrait of Hermann Nitsch © Roland Rudolph
NEW YORK, NY.- Pace announced its global representation of Hermann Nitsch in collaboration with the Nitsch Foundation and Galerie Kandlhofer. The gallery will present its first solo exhibition of Nitschs work in New York in 2023. Over the course of more than 60 years, Nitsch has cultivated an intensive practice that spans performance, painting, drawing, printmaking, film, photography, and music. A leading figure of the Austrian avant-garde, Nitsch was a co-founder of the Viennese Actionism movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The disruptive ethos of this movement brought irreverent performance work to the forefront of Viennas art scene in the latter half of the 20th century. Paces representation of Nitsch aligns with its long history of supporting artists working in performance, including Claes Oldenburg, who in the late 1950s and early 1960s created immersive and madcap Happenings involving live theater, art objects, sound, and o ... More |
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| Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, to create new galleries for art of the Islamic worlds | | Phillips to expand calendar of editions auctions amid increasing international demand | | Hauser & Wirth announces appointment of Elaine Kwok as Managing Partner, Asia | 
Muhammad Baqir, Dancing Girl, Iran, AH 1192 / 1778-1779 CE. Oil on canvas. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Museum purchase funded by Franci Neely, and Sabiha and Omar Rehmatulla at the 2015 Arts of the Islamic Worlds Gala.
HOUSTON, TX.- Today, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, announced that new galleries devoted to art from historic Islamic lands will open to the public in early 2023. With the new galleries more than doubling the Museums current gallery space for Islamic art, the MFAH will be able to present its permanent collection, enhanced by a significant selection of Persian masterworks from the distinguished collection of Hossein Afshar, and the exceptional objects on loan from The alSabah Collection. The extended loans from the Afshar collection are the second such partnership initiated by the Museum, the first being the 2012 landmark agreement with The al-Sabah Collection, Kuwait. The opening of the galleries culminates a major 15-year initiative at the MFAH to develop special exhibitions, new scholarship, signature acquisitions, and ... More | | 
Christopher Wool, Quartet. Estimate: $10,000 - 15,000. Image courtesy of Phillips.
NEW YORK, NY.- Phillips announced an expanded sale calendar for Editions auctions, following a record-breaking year in 2021. This year, three additional live auctions have been added to the schedule for a total of seven live auctions across New York and London. The first newly scheduled auction on 11 March is the companys first New York Editions sale of the year and will present a diverse selection of over 100 contemporary lots including editions by David Hockney, KAWS, Cindy Sherman, Christopher Wool, and Kehinde Wiley with 20% of the sale consisting of works on paper by Kara Walker, Thomas Nozkowski, Larry Zox, Marcel Dzama, William Pope L., Purvis Young, Nicolas Krushenick and more. An exhibition will be open to the public from 4-11 March in the lead up to the sale at 432 Park Avenue, concurrent with the New Now sale. The New York Spring season continues with a blockbuster April auction to be held on 19-20 April at 432 Park Avenue and on ... More | | 
Elaine Kwok. Courtesy Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Dickson Kwok.
HONG KONG.- Hauser & Wirth has been active in Asia for over a decade, and developed its presence through a Hong Kong space, which opened in 2018, and an ongoing program of exhibitions, partnerships, and fair presentations. A highly respected industry figure, Kwok will bring enhanced leadership to the Asia team ensuring that excellence and an artist-centered approach continue to be the hallmarks of Hauser & Wirths growing activity in the region. Kwok joins Hauser & Wirth with an outstanding track record of art world experience following a 15-year tenure at Christies auction house, most recently as Director, 20th and 21st Century Art and principal auctioneer. Kwok launched and led Christies Education in Asia for six years as part of the auction houses expansion into China. She holds an advisory role on the Museum Committee for the Leisure and Cultural Services Department of the Government of the Hong Kong Special Admin ... More |
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| John Wesley, an artist who couldn't be pinned down, dies at 93 | | Louisa Gagliardi now represented by Galerie Eva Presenhuber | | Historic building reimagined as research science incubator | 
The artist John Wesley at his retrospective exhibit at the Venice Biennale in Italy, June 3, 2009. Todd Heisler/The New York Times.
NEW YORK, NY.- John Wesley, a painter of flat, cartoonish figures that seemed to spring not from the well of pop art but from some deeper, stranger reservoir of the American unconscious inhabited by floating babies, rubbery nudes and hapless comic-strip husband Dagwood Bumstead, died Thursday at his home in New York City. He was 93. His death was confirmed by Fredericks & Freiser, the New York gallery that has represented his work for many years. In a prolific career of more than five decades, Wesley, who was known as Jack, had the great distinction and occasional critical misfortune of eluding almost every attempt at categorization. He tolerated the label of pop artist, he said, mostly because it got him into shows. Through the years, critics also described him variously as a surrealist secret agent, a sly eroticist, a latter ... More | | 
Louisa Gagliardi, Photo; Adam Cruces.
ZURICH.- Galerie Eva Presenhuber announced the representation of the Zurich-based artist Louisa Gagliardi. Paintings by Gagliardi are currently on view at Eva Presenhuber, New York, alongside works by Yves Scherer, until March 5. Gagliardi will also feature in a group show at the Maag Areal gallery in Zurich from February 12 to April 9. I have been observing Louisa Gagliardis work for some years and am thrilled to announce that she has joined the gallery. An exceptional artist, Louisa uses her distinct form of portraiture and surprising techniques to pull you into the glow of her paintings, only to subvert your expectations and confront you like a mirror. I look forward to seeing how Louisas practice evolves as she works on her first solo show with us next year and beyond. Eva Presenhuber Gagliardi's paintings exist as reflections: internally, of artist and viewer, and of the rapid acceleration of technology ... More | | 
The project has introduced an elevated atmosphere, providing scientists and staff with refreshed lab facilities and welcoming gathering areas while honoring the buildings historic character. Photo: Robert Umenhofer courtesy Svigals + Partners.
NEW HAVEN, CONN.- Architecture, art and advisory firm Svigals + Partners has announced the completion of the New Haven Innovation Labs, an incubator space for startup bioscience research organizations located inside the historic John B. Pierce Laboratory building in New Haven, Conn. Renowned for inspiring, cutting-edge environments for scientific research, Svigals + Partners designed and renovated the labs and associated amenities. They worked with developer BioCT, a nonprofit organized to promote the Southern Connecticuts continuing emergence as a bioscience and technology hub. The collaboration has established a new and potent incubator for the next generation of research start-ups. Within the century- ... More |
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Bosco Sodi: La fuerza del destino
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| More News |
 Casey Kasem and his wife to auction their Holmby Hills estate items at Julien's AuctionsLOS ANGELES, CA.- Juliens Auctions, the world-record breaking auction house to the stars, has announced Property from the Collection of Jean and Kasey Kasem, a celebration of the distinguished life and career of the beloved American radio icon whom for over five decades entertained millions around the world as the King of the Top 40 Countdown and as the voice of Shaggy in the animated Scooby-Doo television franchise, with an exclusive presentation of luxurious items and possessions from his marriage to his wife, actress Jean Kasem, most known for playing fan favorite character Loretta Tortelli on TVs iconic sitcom, Cheers. This exclusive event presenting nearly 500 lots for the first time at auction, will take place Thursday, March 17th, 2022 at Juliens Auctions in Beverly Hills and live online at juliensauctions.com. On offer is a spectacular ... More  Johann Sebastian Bach signed document sold for $400,000 at auction BOSTON, MASS.- An excessively rare handwritten receipt by composer Johann Sebastian Bach sold for $400,000, according to Boston-based RR Auction. The one-page, double-sided receipt in German is twice-signed by Bach. The document acknowledges the sum of five guilders from Martin Simon Hille and Johann Bode under the terms of Sabina Nathan's legacy, which provided for the music performed at her annual memorial service. When the wealthy widow Sabina Nathan of Leipzig died in 1612, she made a bequest to have a motet sung in her memory every year on the feast day of St. Sabina in the Lutheran St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. As Kapellmeister of this church, Bach carried out the task from 1726 to 1749. "Bach's autograph is scarce in any form," said Bobby Livingston, Executive VP at RR Auction, "this being the first we have ever ... More  Major gift from Cy Twombly Foundation to name conservator position at the WhitneyNEW YORK, NY.- The Whitney Museum of American Art announced a newly endowed position, the Cy Twombly Conservator of Paintings, funded by a major gift from the Cy Twombly Foundation. The gift is being made in acknowledgment of Cy Twomblys long relationship with the Whitney, which in 1979 was the first New York museum to present a solo exhibition of his work, and with Carol Mancusi-Ungaro, the Museums Melva Bucksbaum Associate Director for Conservation and Research. Associate Conservator Matthew Skopek, who joined the Whitney in 2007, has been named to the new position. This generous gift from the Cy Twombly Foundation is profoundly meaningful to the Museum, said Adam D. Weinberg, the Whitneys Alice Pratt Brown Director. The discussions for the gift commenced before the COVID-19 crisis. When the pandemic ... More  Historic Mickey Mouse production cel leads Heritage's first 'All Things Disney!' auction past $3.4 millionDALLAS, TX.- The lyrics to Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color are known to generations of fans of the studio that bears the Disney name. But they also aptly describe Heritage Auctions' first "All Things Disney" February 4-7 Animation Art Signature® Auction which, thanks to Disney Renaissance films, Mickey Mouse and Mary Blair amassed $3,412,812 in sales. The success of the event was beyond dispute, after it drew 4,136 global bidders who snatched up all 1,532 lots in the sale. "Our first 'All Things Disney!' auction was a home run," Heritage Auctions Vice President and Animation & Anime Art Director Jim Lentz said. "Every single lot sold to impressive results. We saw strong prices across the board for everything from major collections of vintage Disney maquettes to Disney World War II artwork, Disney Storybook art and even Disneyland ... More  Max Gimblett's archive of artist's books joins Getty Research Institute collectionLOS ANGELES, CA.- The Getty Research Institute has acquired an archive of more than 250 artists books. The Max Gimblett Artists Book Collection, created by painter, calligrapher, and Zen monk Max Gimblett, are a gift by the artist and his wife, scholar and curator Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett. These volumes join the GRIs internationally known Artists Books Collection. The stunningly bound volumes are not only unique but notably different from each other. Combining words and images, the journals contain writings, drawings, questions, calculations, small paintings, collages, notes on travel and conferences, and quotes from others. The books document the sources of Gimbletts work as a self-identified "Pacific Rim person" who grounds his practice, particularly his sumi ink painting, in Zen philosophy. Taken together as an archive and ... More  New art book: Laissez-Faire by Italian photographer Cristiano VolkNEW YORK, NY.- The visual narrative of the photographs in Italian photographer Cristiano Volk's latest project, Laissez-Faire, shines bright and pops with color and chaotic lines, implying the ever-branching vector points away from oneself. It is beautiful and magical, yet how much of it is missed by the humans that Volk captures within this urban, cultural, and political landscape? As with any artist adept at their craft, Volks palette and structural choices are imbued with context and layers, informing, and helping to cue the content and suggest the cultural and social themes that are also present within the work. The images were created between 2018 and 2020 and taken around the world in locations that include the United Arab Emirates, the United States, France, Germany, Austria, England, the Czech Republic, Poland, Spain and Croatia. Volk ... More  Angela Heisch joins GRIMMNEW YORK, NY.- GRIMM announced the representation of Brooklyn-based painter Angela Heisch (b. 1989, Auckland, New Zealand). GRIMMs representation and work on behalf of the artist will be focused in New York and Amsterdam and will be shaped in close collaboration with Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London. GRIMM will first present an exhibition of new paintings by Heisch in Amsterdam in September 2022, followed by a solo exhibition in New York in 2023. Known for her luminous application of color, Heisch composes paintings of repeated motifs, curving forms, and delicate, gestural lines. Drawing inspiration from organic bodies, patterns in nature, and the cosmos, Heischs paintings are infused with waves of energy and tension, capturing triumphant yet fleeting moments of balance and stillness. Heisch paints carefully in multi-layered ... More  Ashley Bryan, who brought diversity to children's books, dies at 98NEW YORK, NY.- Ashley Bryan, an eclectic artist and childrens book illustrator who brought diversity to an often white-dominated genre by introducing generations of young readers to Black characters and African folk tales, died Feb. 4 at the home of his niece Vanessa Robinson in Sugar Land, Texas, near Houston. He was 98. Another niece, Bari Jackson, confirmed the death. Bryan had already built a 20-year career as an artist when, in 1965, he read an article in Saturday Review bemoaning the lack of diversity in childrens books. Already a devotee of African traditions and stories, he saw a chance to use his talents to bring those tales to life on the page. He wrote down many of them himself, often in verse, injecting rhythm into tales that until then had usually been recounted in dry prose by anthropologists. He would then pair those stories ... More  Hans Neuenfels, opera director with a pointed view, dies at 80NEW YORK, NY.- Hans Neuenfels, a German director and writer whose provocative, iconoclastic productions made him one of the pioneers of modern operatic stagecraft and the frequent target of audience and critical outrage, died in Berlin on Sunday. He was 80. The cause was COVID-19, said his son, cinematographer Benedict Neuenfels. Neuenfels was among the founding fathers, and arguably the leading exponent, of what came to be known as Regietheater, or directors theater, in which the directors vision tends to dominate the work. He abandoned performance traditions to interpret operas in light of the present, and aimed to force audiences to engage with what they saw which they often did with riotous booing. His style earned him the title of enfant terrible of the German opera world. He came to prominence with a production of Verdis ... More  Irwin Young, patron of independent filmmakers, is dead at 94NEW YORK, NY.- Irwin Young, who through his Manhattan film processing laboratory gave support to the early careers of directors such as Spike Lee, Frederick Wiseman and Michael Moore, died Jan. 20 in the New York City borough of Manhattan. He was 94. His daughter Linda Young confirmed the death, at a rehabilitation facility. Over nearly a century, DuArt Film Laboratories processed and printed studio features, documentaries, newsreels, boxing films from Madison Square Garden, network news footage and commercials. But Young, who took over the company when his father died in 1960, was best known as an ally of independent filmmakers, some of whom could not always pay for his companys services on a timely basis early in their careers. He was the biggest mensch in the business, documentarian Aviva Kempner, who produced ... More  Syl Johnson, soul singer with a cult following, dies at 85NEW YORK, NY.- Syl Johnson, a Chicago soul singer and guitarist who built a cult following for his raw sound on 1960s songs like Is It Because Im Black and, decades later, was heavily sampled by rappers, died Sunday in Mableton, Georgia, at the home of one of his daughters. He was 85. The cause was congestive heart failure, his daughter Syleecia Thompson said. Although never a chart-topping star, Johnson was beloved by record collectors and hip-hop producers for the driving power of his songs, and for a versatile vocal style that could match James Browns grunting gusto or Al Greens lovelorn keening. He released dozens of singles and albums on an array of record labels across five decades, and he enjoyed a career revival in his 70s after an exhaustively researched boxed set, Complete Mythology (2010), introduced his work ... More |
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PhotoGalleries 
Fabergé in London: Romance to Revolution 
'In-Between' 
Primary Colors 
The Last Judgment
Flashback On a day like today, English photographer Henry Fox Talbot, was born February 11, 1800. William Henry Fox Talbot (11 February 1800 - 17 September 1877) was a British scientist, inventor and photography pioneer who invented the salted paper and calotype processes, precursors to photographic processes of the later 19th and 20th centuries. His work in the 1840s on photomechanical reproduction led to the creation of the photoglyphic engraving process, the precursor to photogravure. In this image: William Henry Fox Talbot, Rev. Calvert Richard Jones, âThe Fruit Sellers,â before December 13, 1845, salted paper print from a calotype negative, H: 6 11/16 x W: 8 1/4 in. image, Gift of the William Talbott Hillman Foundation.
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