| The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Thursday, February 8, 2018 |
| | | Groundbreaking DNA analysis shows first modern Briton had dark skin, blue eyes | |
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Model makers Adrie (L) and Alfons Kennis pose with their full face reconstruction model, made from the skull of a 10,000 year old man, known as 'Cheddar Man', Britain's oldest complete skeleton, during a press preview at the National History Museum in London on February 6, 2018. Justin TALLIS / AFP.
LONDON (AFP).- The first modern Briton had dark skin and blue eyes, London scientists said on Wednesday, following groundbreaking DNA analysis of the remains of a man who lived 10,000 years ago. Known as "Cheddar Man" after the area in southwest England where his skeleton was discovered in a cave in 1903, the ancient man has been brought to life through the first ever full DNA analysis of his remains. In a joint project between Britain's Natural History Museum and University College London, scientists drilled a 2mm hole into the skull and extracted bone powder for analysis. Their findings transformed the way they had previously seen Cheddar Man, who had been portrayed as having brown eyes and light skin in an earlier model. "It is very surprising that a Brit 10,000 years ago could have that combination of very blue eyes but really dark skin," said the museum's Chris Stringer, who for the past decade has analysed the bones of people found in the cave. ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Lacoste Gallery opened the exhibition Through the Eyes of a Collector. This exhibition offers an insight into the art collecting practices of Steve Alpert, an avid ceramic art lover and collector of more than 40 years. Mr. Alpert has brought together a group of diverse ceramic artists to illustrate the breadth and depth of today's contemporary ceramic art.
| Famed photography album at risk of leaving the UK | | Getty Museum acquires Etruscan bronze appliqué of the Sun God Usil | | 'African Mona Lisa' mesmerises after surprise rediscovery |
Image from the Life (the Norman Album), by Julia Margaret Cameron, The Red and White Roses.
LONDON.- Arts Minister Michael Ellis has placed a temporary export bar on Images from the Life (the Norman Album), by Julia Margaret Cameron, to provide an opportunity to keep it in the country. The extraordinary collection of photographs is at risk of being exported from the UK unless a buyer can be found to match the asking price of £3,700,000. Arranged in a single sequence from front to back, it includes some of her finest and best-known portraits, including her niece Julia Jackson (the mother of Virginia Woolf), scientist and polymath John Herschel, poet Alfred Tennyson and famed naturalist Charles Darwin. Apart from the aesthetic and historical value of the individual photographs, the album itself is a labour of love, representing a very personal selection of works chosen and sequenced by the artist herself and intended as a gift for her beloved daughter whose gift of a camera introduced Cameron to photography. Between 1864 and 1869, Cameron assembled a ... More | |
Appliqué depicting the Sun God Usil, Etruscan, 500 - 475 B.C. Italy, Vulci. Bronze. H: 20 cm (7 7/8 in.) The J. Paul Getty Museum, Villa Collection, Malibu, California.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- The J. Paul Getty Museum announced today the acquisition of an early 5th-century B.C. bronze appliqué depicting the Etruscan Sun God Usil. This bronze appliqué that probably decorated an Etruscan chariot or funeral cart is of exceptional quality, representing the peak period of an artistic milieu in which Greek and Italic aesthetics merged to create a distinctively Etruscan style, says Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. Bronze statuettes and reliefs are a particular strength of the Gettys collection of Etruscan art and the Usil appliqués rarity and quality will assure it a significant presence in the newly reinstalled gallery at the Villa dedicated to this fascinating culture. The appliqué represents the solar deity Usil (the equivalent of the Greek god Helios and Roman god Sol), who stands with spread wings and dramatically splayed fingers. A nimbus of rays surrounds the ... More | |
Tutu by Ben Enwonwu. Estimate: £200,000-300,000. Photo: Bonhams.
LONDON (AFP).- "I think of it as the African Mona Lisa," said award-winning novelist Ben Okri, gazing at the long-lost portrait of a Nigerian princess which recently turned up in a London flat. Ben Enwonwu's 1974 painting of Adetutu "Tutu" Ademiluyi, daughter of a Yoruba king, has taken on almost mythical status in the painter's native Nigeria. It was last seen in 1975 but is now up for sale after its surprise rediscovery. "It has been a legendary painting for 40 years, everybody keeps talking about Tutu, saying 'where is Tutu?'," the Booker Prize-winning writer Okri told AFP. As a prominent Nigerian cultural figure on the world stage, Okri viewed the painting at prestigious London auction house Bonhams, where the work will be sold on February 28. "He wasn't just painting the girl, he was painting the whole tradition. It's a symbol of hope and regeneration to Nigeria, it's a symbol of the phoenix rising," he said. "I spent hours looking at it, making up for the t ... More |
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| Heather Hutchison: "Forever Changes" opens at Alfstad& Contemporary | | Exhibition offers an insight into the art collecting practices of Steve Alpert | | Michigan meteorite on view at Christie's |
Heather Hutchison, When It Rains It Shines (detail).
SARASOTA, FLA.- Alfstad& Contemporary announces an exhibition of works by Heather Hutchison spanning the past decade. The exhibit, Forever Changes, opens February 8, 2018, and runs through March 10. The exhibition highlights Hutchisons trademark style, which NY Arts Magazine described as being "more akin to the simplified beauty of James Turrell than the stark face of minimalism." The comparison is important, especially for anyone who has only experienced her art in reproductions. The flatness of photographs creates an illusion of pristineness in her work, which is far from accurate. Deep, uncomplicated, frames of birch plywoodwith visible grain and repeating striationsmount thin sheets of Plexiglas. Sparingly masked in duck tape with surfaces coated in beeswax, the constructions are suggestive, from a distance, of seascapes reflecting on jalousie windows, ... More | |
KyungMin Park, Korean Doll, 2017. Porcelain.
CONCORD, MASS.- Lacoste Gallery announces its exhibition Through the Eyes of a Collector from February 3 28, 2018. This exhibition offers an insight into the art collecting practices of Steve Alpert, an avid ceramic art lover and collector of more than 40 years. Mr. Alpert has brought together a group of diverse ceramic artists to illustrate the breadth and depth of todays contemporary ceramic art. These works of art represent his vision informing the newer generations of ceramic art fans and collectors on how to begin an astute ceramic art portfolio. The works range from studio pottery work to figurative and sculptural ceramic art. Mr. Alpert is the former board member of MFA Boston, former Board Chairman of ICA and the Founder and former Chairman of Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University. Michael Ashley is a studio potter based in Tupelo, Mississippi. ... More | |
Matchless Canyon Diablo meteorite - natural sculpture from outer space. Iron Coarse octahedrite IAB-MG Meteor Crater, Coconino County, Arizona (35°3' N, 111°2' W) Estimate: $150,000 - 250,000. © Christies Images Limited 2018.
NEW YORK, NY.- Christies New York hosts, for the first time a public view of meteorites in conjunction with Deep Impact: Martian, Lunar and Other Rare Meteorites, an online auction taking place from February 7 14. In addition to rare and aesthetic iron meteoritesnatural sculptures from outer spaceand specimens with extraterrestrial gemstones, a highlight will be a meteorite recovered from last months Michigan fireball. As was extensively reported worldwide, Earths atmosphere over Michigan was punctured by a visitor from the asteroid belt at 8:10 pm EST January 16, 2018. Shortly after atmospheric impact, the resulting fireball created sonic booms of such intensity that the resulting energy waves mimicked an earthquake terrifying local ... More |
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| Exhibition presents groundbreaking approaches to photography by Latin American and Latino artists | | Paddle8 Announces FLASH! A sale of photographs of musicians, celebrities, and artists | | National Museum of African American History and Culture exhibits Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment |
José León Cerrillo (Mexico, b. 1976), Untitled, ca. 2015. Cyanotype, silkscreen ink, on cotton paper. Collection of the artist.
STANFORD, CA.- The Matter of Photography in the Americas highlights groundbreaking works by artists from Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latino communities in the United States who cast a critical eye on photography as both an artistic medium and a means of communication. Working in the wake of digital photography and the explosion of images this new technology has unleashed, the artists ask important questions about how photographs shape our understanding of history, current events, and people, both close to home and far away. Rather than documenting the world immediately around them, the artists in the exhibition approach photography from nontraditional points of view. The works on displayincluding prints, drawings, and sound installationsprovide pointed social commentary and examine not just the technical development of photography but also the effects of its circulation in the global sphere in the 20th and 21st centuries. Survey exhibitions ... More | |
Richard Miller, James Dean, Giant, 1955. Archival pigment print, 20 x 24 in (50.8 x 60.96 cm). Edition of 36. Signed and numbered by the photographer on recto. Printed later. Estimate $900 - $1,200.
NEW YORK, NY.- Paddle8, the leading online auction house, debuts FLASH! an auction featuring iconic photography of musicians, celebrities and artists from the 1960s 1990s. Highlights of the sale include rare photographs of the Beatles by Mike Mitchell and never-before offered Hollywood photographs by Brad Elterman. The sale features more than sixty images that celebrate legendary personalities including David Bowie, ÂÂÂMarilyn Monroe, Robert Mapplethorpe, Grandmaster Flash, Salvador Dali, Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jackson, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry, Mick Jagger, Bob Marley, Sinatra and the Rat Pack among others. Photographer Mike Mitchell captured the Beatles at their historic first US concert in February 1964, two days after their American debut on the Ed Sullivan show. As a prescient 18 year-old who understood the phenomenal appeal of the Beatles, Mitchell obtained a ... More | |
The Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution are among the most important documents in the history of the United States. Photo by Leah L. Jones for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
WASHINGTON, DC.- Original copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment are on display in the Slavery and Freedom exhibition on Concourse Three of the Smithsonians National Museum of African American History and Culture. The documents share exhibition space with a restored slave cabin used in the early 1800s to house enslaved families on a plantation on Edisto Island, S.C. The Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment are on a long-term loan to the museum by philanthropist David M. Rubenstein, Smithsonian Regent and co-founder and co-executive chairman of The Carlyle Group. The Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment to the Constitution are among the most important documents in the history of the United States. With the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln to take effect Jan. 1, 1863, the aim of the Civil ... More |
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| 25 years later: 1993 WTC bombing marked with special installation | | Blumenthal Gallery opens exhibition of works by Laura Hunt, Miles Huston, and Sven Sachsalber | | Rediscovered master work at Bonhams sets new world record for artist at auction |
A farewell note written by Carl Selinger, who was a Port Authority of New York and New Jersey employee who was stuck in a North Tower elevator and feared he wouldn't survive, is displayed. Spencer Platt/Getty Images/AFP.
NEW YORK, NY.- The National September 11 Memorial & Museum announced the opening of a special installation focused on the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center as part of a month-long series of commemorative events recognizing the 25th anniversary of the deadly terror attack. The installation features a roughly 3 1/2-foot by 5 1/2-foot model of the World Trade Center parking garage created by the FBI to demonstrate the scale of the bomb crater that measured 150-feet wide and plunged several stories deep. The model was also used in prosecuting the perpetrators. The installation is on view from Feb. 1 through March 5. The ramifications of the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center continue to reverberate today, 9/11 Memorial & Museum President Alice M. Greenwald said. ... More | |
Sven Sachsalber, Giallo Napoli (detail), oil and pantone postcard on canvas, 20 x 88.5 in (50.8 x 224.79 cm).
NEW YORK, NY.- Blumenthal Gallery is presenting "Laura Hunt, Miles Huston, Sven Sachsalber," a group exhibition opening on view at 75 Bowery. This marks the first exhibition at Blumenthal's Lower East Side space. Laura Hunt's paintings look the way thinking feels. Like thoughts forming and cascading, fragments of spoken phrases combine with TVs, light switches, cherries, staccato lines and shapeshifting figures on reflective red spandex. Through mark-making reminiscent of the cadence of a voice, Hunt juxtaposes the absurd and mundane, the satiating and stripped-down, the familiar and uncomfortable. Her paintings transmute into imagery the anxieties and pleasures of being. Miles Huston's Verse Drawings are energetic in their making and in their appearance. Huston implements a designed system of lines and color to create an irregular ... More | |
Detail of Vera Cruz, and Castle of San Juan DUlloa by Daniel Egerton. Sold for £344,750. Photo: Bonhams.
LONDON.- Vera Cruz, and Castle of San Juan DUlloa, by the British 19th century topographical painter Daniel Egerton, established a new world record price for the artist at auction when it sold for £344,750 at Bonhams Travel and Exploration Sale in London, today (7 February). It had been estimated at £200,000-300,000. The painting had been in private hands since it was first exhibited at the Society of British Artists in the late 1830s, and had been owned by the same family for at least the last 120 years. Bonhams Senior Specialist, Rhyanon Demery, said: This was a beautiful painting by an artist whose work rarely appears at auction. Completely fresh to the market it had wide appeal and I am not surprised that it was so keenly fought over. Daniel Egerton (1797-1842) led a short but turbulent life, and his time in Mexico played a pivotal role in his artistic career. Born in London in 1797, Egerton made ... More |
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The Language of Less: Tony Conrad
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RAF Museum CEO appointed president of the Museums Association
LONDON.- The Royal Air Force Museum announced that their CEO - Maggie Appleton has been appointed as president of the Museums Association. Previously a board member of the MA, Maggie will begin her presidency on 1 April 2018. Maggie has over twenty-five years experience in the sector, focusing on the difference that museums and culture can make to peoples lives. After starting her career at the Royal Armouries, she worked in community museums in Stevenage and Luton, going on to be the chief executive of Luton Culture before moving to her current role at the RAF Museum in January 2015. She led the development of Stockwood Discovery Centre, which opened in July 2008, and was behind a campaign to save the medieval Wenlok Jug for Luton and the nation after its export was stopped in 2006. In 2012 she received an MBE for services to ... More
Exhibition featuring Vermont cartoonist Alison Bechdel opens this winter at the Fleming Museum of Art
BURLINGTON, VT.- The Fleming Museum of Art presents the exhibition, Self-Confessed! The Inappropriately Intimate Comics of Alison Bechdel, featuring the decades-long career of the illustrious cartoonist and graphic memoirist. Bechdel, who lives in Bolton, Vermont, is a MacArthur Foundation genius grant winner, and the third Cartoonist Laureate of Vermonta position unique to the state. Her pioneering comic strip about the lives of a group of lesbian friends, Dykes to Watch Out For, ran from 1983 to 2008 and was syndicated in over fifty alternative papers, including Vermonts Seven Days, which recently published new strips by Bechdel focused on current political events. In 2006, Bechdel published the graphic memoir Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, which explores her relationship with her father, her coming out, and his possible suicide. Fun Home was a New York ... More
Exhibition at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert opens on the exact centenary of Peter Lanyons birth
LONDON.- Peter Lanyon: Cornwall Inside Out opens on the exact centenary of the painters birth and marks the publication of the first catalogue raisonné of his work. This exhibition brings together a group of Lanyons Cornish paintings from major private and public collections. Highlights include pictures from the David Bowie collection, from the collections of the Arts Council of England and the British Council, including Bojewyan Farms, and other important works. This centenary exhibition is curated by art historian Toby Treves, a leading expert on Lanyon and coincides with the publication of his catalogue raisonné on the artist (Modern Art Press). Treves has concentrated on Lanyons Cornish landscape paintings in this exhibition because these works form a central part of the artists oeuvre. They have not been the subject of an exhibition in London for many ... More
Vienna's Secession opens exhibition of works by Rudolf Polanszky
VIENNA.- Since the mid-1970s, Rudolf Polanszky has created a multifaceted oeuvre in a range of media that extends from conceptual film, video, and photography to drawing and painting, sculptural objects, and assemblages. His art is informed by the intentional and even methodical integration of the accidental. Of particular significance is the incorporation of materials that show traces of usage or have been exposed to the elements: they in a sense encourage the artist to abdicate control over the emergence of form and undercut his constructive-creative will. Polanszkys fascination with scientific explanatory models in conjunction with his skepticism of an ostensibly imperturbable logics claim to interpret the world has prompted the artist to devise various schemes of comprehension. Guided by the idea of renouncing the making of meaning, ... More
Smithsonian concludes capital campaign with $1.88 billion in private support
WASHINGTON, DC.- The Smithsonian announced today that it successfully concluded its comprehensive campaign, raising $1.88 billion against its goal of $1.5 billion. It is the largest amount ever raised in a fundraising campaign by a cultural organization. The Smithsonian Campaign encompassed all 19 museums, the National Zoo, nine research centers and educational units. Campaign fundraising priorities emphasized new and renovated buildings and spaces, education and outreach initiatives, endowment support, scientific research around the globe, and programs and exhibitions. More than 535,000 donors contributed to the campaign, including gifts from foundations, corporations and individuals from every state and 107 countries. Approximately 93 percent of donors made gifts of $100 or less. The largest gift to the campaign, more than $50 ... More
Kunsthalle Basel opens the first exhibition ever to survey the output of the Italian artist Yuri Ancarani
BASEL.- Ravishing in their every cinematic detail, Yuri Ancaranis films and videos are hypnotic studies. Each follows a peculiar choreography of bodies, places, and technologies that constructs an image of the human condition that is as mesmerizing as it is diagnostic. This first exhibition ever to survey the output of the Italian artist will span his production from 2010 to the present, providing an overview of the precision and poetry of his vision. While having chosen the Italian word for sculpture as his title, Ancarani has never actually carved, chiseled, or indeed sculpted in the classical sense. Yet it is the creation of something in the order of the sculptural through filmthat is a recurring concern. That is to say, the spectators own vantage point and body position while viewing his films, and, perhaps most importantly, a complex dimensionality within ... More
Museum receives major gift from renowned shoe designer Suart Weitzman and his family
PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The National Museum of American Jewish History announced today a major $1 million gift from the family of renowned shoe designer and entrepreneur Stuart Weitzman. In recognition of this gift, the Museums First Families gallery, which explores the lives of early Jewish settlers in colonial America, will be named in honor of his family. We are immensely grateful to Stuart, his wife Jane, and family for this significant contribution to the Museum, says Ivy L. Barsky, NMAJH CEO and Gwen Goodman Director. From the first time I met Stuart, it was clear that he had a profound understanding of the importance of American Jewish history and the Museums unique role in preserving and sharing those stories. The Weitzmans act of generosity will play an invaluable role in advancing the Museums work. Stuart Weitzman says, My ... More
Gemeentemuseum Den Haag displays twelve new paintings by Morgan Betz
THE HAGUE.- A thumbs up, a window through which a rainbow can be seen, a wooden fence. Using a mix of Pop Art and comics Morgan Betz (b. Amsterdam, 1974) creates his own unique visual idiom in which art history in the form of High Art colludes with Low Art comics and advertising images. Twelve new paintings are on display, closely positioned in a row resembling a frieze in Gemeentemuseum Den Haags Projects Gallery. These large brightly-coloured paintings feature whimsical images. Outside the museum, Betz surprises visitors and passers-by with a three-dimensional sculpture in the pond. Today more than ever before, painting is a medium that offers artists a whole range of possibilities. Our current image culture can be viewed as a threat to painting, or it can be seen as an incredible opportunity. Morgan Betz is only too happy to exploit ... More
Original cover art for Amazing Spider-Man #100 may bring $300,000 at Heritage Auctions
DALLAS, TX.- The original cover art from The Amazing Spider-Man #100 considered one of the most iconic Silver Age covers ever produced could sell for as much as $300,000 when it goes up for bid at Heritage Auctions Feb. 22-24. Artists John Romita Sr.'s and Frank Giacoia's iconic portrayal of the web-slinger and dozens of famous cannon characters marks the first time the artwork has ever been offered at auction. "This cover was done during the peak period of John Romita, Sr.'s artwork, at a time when Spider-Man's popularity was extremely high," Heritage Auctions Senior Vice President for Fine & Decorative Arts Ed Jaster said. "John Romita, Sr., had done the covers and interior of Spider-Man #39-95, and he changed the character from a kind of nerdy high school kid to a more self-confident college student, which is part of the reason why Spider-Man ... More
UB Art Gallery and Albright-Knox Art Gallery open Tony Conrad retrospective
BUFFALO, NY.- The Albright-Knox Art Gallery and University at Buffalo Art Galleries are co-presenting the special exhibition Introducing Tony Conrad: A Retrospective. Throughout his six-decade career, Tony Conrad (American, 19402016) forged his own path through numerous artistic movements, from Fluxus to the Pictures Generation and beyond. Although he was best known for his pioneering contributions to both minimal music and structural film in the 1960s, his work helped define a vast range of culture, including rock music and public television. He once declared in an interview, You dont know who I am, but somehow, indirectly, youve been affected by things I did. This exhibition, the first large-scale museum survey devoted to artworks Conrad presented in museum and gallery settings, is part of an ongoing reappraisal of his creative achievement. Indeed, ... More
Game-used bats and high-grade rookie cards fuel Heritage Winter Platinum Night Sports Auction
DALLAS, TX.- Sports collectors' most anticipated auction event of the season will offer an elite lineup of game-used lumber, including important bats from Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Josh Gibson, Mel Ott and Joe DiMaggio, in Heritage Auctions' Feb. 24-25 Platinum Night Auction now open for bidding and closing in Extended Bidding format. "This is really the best of the best," said Chris Ivy, Director of Sports Auctions at Heritage. "We have the only documented Josh Gibson bat in existence and a 1941 DiMaggio gamer that is attributed with a high degree of probability to his celebrated 56-game hitting streak." The greatest slugging triumvirate of the pre-war game also supplies Hillerich & Bradsbys to the event, with a Ruth bat from his earliest Yankees years (est. $600,000+), a late-career gamer from Gehrig (est. $300,000+) and a splendid Jimmie Foxx ... More
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Flashback On a day like today, Italian painter Guercino was born February 08, 1591. Giovanni Francesco Barbieri (February 8, 1591 - December 22, 1666), best known as Guercino, or il Guercino, was an Italian Baroque painter and draftsman from the region of Emilia, and active in Rome and Bologna. The vigorous naturalism of his early manner is in contrast to the classical equilibrium of his later works. His many drawings are noted for their luminosity and lively style. In this image: Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino, A Study for Hercules, in three-quarter-length, 1640s. Photo: Cecilia Heisser/Nationalmuseum.
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