| The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Thursday, November 5, 2020 |
| Hands at the Loom, the Complex Art of Producing an Artistic Oriental Rug (Part 1) | |
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Caucasian Karachov Kazak, circa 1860, a High-Collectible tribal rug presenting an original rendition of age-old motifs. By Jan David Winitz, president/founder, Claremont Rug Company OAKLAND, CA.- The complexity of the art of weaving an Oriental rug combines elements of skill, dexterity, imagination, and artistic vision. With roots that span thousands of years, the final products, exquisitely constructed, primarily by women, are works of art appreciated by collectors, artists in other media and casual observers. Take a glimpse with me into the minds and methods employed by those weavers as they produced truly remarkable works of art, sometimes under the most trying and primitive conditions. For a moment, imagine yourself a small girl living in a Kurdish encampment in the mountains of Azerbaijan. The constant activity of the nomadic lifestyle is fascinating for you to watch, the numerous daily tasks of milking the goats, grinding wheat into flour, or carrying water up from the stream. Yet one activity is the most enchanting of all: when your mother takes her place in front of the long horizontal loom to weave. Her fingers move deftly, effortlessly as she ties knot-after-knot ou ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco opened The de Young Open, a juried community art exhibition welcoming submissions by artists from the nine Bay Area counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, and Sonoma. In this image: Curator Tim Burgard installing artwork for The de Young Open, at the de Young museum, September 2020 Photo by Gary Sexton Image provided courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
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| Saving Angkor Wat: Cambodia's ninja gardeners tame jungle growth | | Bob Dylan's first musical had a devil of a time | | Tanya Bonakdar Gallery opens a solo exhibition of new works by Thomas Scheibitz | This photo taken on October 12, 2020 shows a gardener removing a tree sapling from the exterior of the Angkor Wat temple in Siem Reap province. TANG CHHIN Sothy / AFP. by Suy Se SIEM REAP (AFP).- Stacking a ladder against the towering spires of Cambodia's archaeological marvel Angkor Wat, Chhoeurm Try gingerly scales the temple's exterior to hack away foliage before it damages the ancient facade. The 50-year-old is part of a crack team of gardeners ensuring the kingdom's most valued heritage site is not strangled by overgrown tree saplings sprouting from the sandstone's cracks. For two decades, Chhoeurm Try has made the treacherous climbs barefoot up to Angkor Wat's central tower, which rises 65 metres high (213 feet) above the archaeological complex in the northern city of Siem Reap. "If we make a mistake, we will not survive," he tells AFP after returning to the ground. But he soldiers on, aware that the fight to hack away tough roots is an ongoing battle against ... More | | Bob Dylan in New York in 1963. William C. Eckenberg/The New York Times. by Adam Langer NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- It sounded like a fine idea at the time pair two poetic giants of different generations and get them to collaborate on reinventing an American classic. The year was 1969. The producer Stuart Ostrow and director Peter Hunt already had a hit show on Broadway with 1776. Now they were setting their sights on The Devil and Daniel Webster, Stephen Vincent Benéts classic 1936 story about Jabez Stone, a New Hampshire farmer who sells his soul to the devil, has second thoughts, and enlists the orator and statesman Daniel Webster to argue his case before a jury composed of American villains. The tale had been adapted into a 1939 opera and a 1941 movie, but never a musical. Archibald MacLeish, three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and author of the Tony Award-winning play J.B., which re-imagined the Book of Job, would write the book. The composer and lyricist would be Bob ... More | | Thomas Scheibitz, Abacus, 2020. Oil, vinyl and pigment marker on canvas, 57 1/8 x 45 1/4 x 1 inches; 145 x 115 x 2.5 cm NEW YORK, NY.- Tanya Bonakdar Gallery opened Abacus, a solo exhibition of new works by Thomas Scheibitz in New York. This is the artists ninth exhibition with the gallery. Over the past two decades, Thomas Scheibitz has developed his own conceptual language that bridges the realms of figuration and abstraction, at times dissolving them entirely. By using language and forms that suggest numerous meanings, Scheibitz challenges the viewer to consider multiple perspectives. From an ancient counting device, the uppermost division of a column in architecture, a software for banking systems, a research consortium, to a cult object, Abacus is a word with many different definitions and uses. Beginning with a vocabulary with multiple perspectives, Scheibitz uses this as a parallel to his painting and sculpture practice. Drawing from classical painting and architecture, the contemporary urban landscape, and popular culture, Scheibitz decons ... More |
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| Dickinson New York presents 'Carmen Herrera in Paris: 1949-1953' | | Dutch to shut museums, cinemas, sex clubs as lockdown tightens | | Eli Wilner & Company expands business to include replication of important furniture | Carmen Herrera, Field of Combat, 1952 (detail), signed upper right Herrera, acrylic on canvas, 81.3 x 100.3 cm (32 x 39 ½ in.) Courtesy Dickinson. NEW YORK, NY.- Dickinson New York presents an important, privately-owned collection of works by Cuban- American abstract painter Carmen Herrera (b. 1915). The eight paintings date from between 1949 and 1953, a period when Herrera was living in Paris and responding to the European avant-garde. The collection includes other early paintings by Herrera, among them Venetian Red, White and Black (1949), considered by Herrera as one of her first mature works; and three pieces from the Habana Series, inspired by the artists return to her native Cuba over Christmas and New Year 1950-51. Four of the paintings on display were featured in the Whitney Museum of American Arts 2016-17 retrospective exhibition Carmen Herrera: Lines of Sight. Carmen Herrera is resistant to labels based on origin, location, gender or school. Her early training was with artists of the Vanguardia generation in Havana in the 1930s. In 1939 she moved to New York and s ... More | | Visitors look at exhibits in The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam on November 3, 2020. The Netherlands' cabinet is considering additional coronavirus measures that should limit group size, such as temporarily closing museums, theaters and cinemas, in order to attempt a faster reduction in the number of new coronavirus (Covid-19) infections. Evert Elzinga / ANP / AFP. THE HAGUE (AFP).- The Netherlands will tighten its partial coronavirus lockdown with museums, cinemas, sex clubs and other public places to close for two weeks, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said Tuesday. The closure will affect some of the world's most popular attractions including Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum and the Rijksmuseum, home to masterpieces from Dutch masters like Rembrandt. Despite falling cases in recent days, the Dutch government is also advising against all foreign travel until mid-January and reduced the number of visitors a household may host to two. "It is not going badly but it is not going well. The number of cases must go down faster," Rutte told a press conference. "That is a difficult message... ... More | | Sections of highly detailed ornament being hand-carved in the Eli Wilner & Company studio for a precise replica of the Resolute Desk. NEW YORK, NY.- Due to increased demand, Eli Wilner & Company are in the process of expanding their renowned business of antique frames, frame restoration, and frame replication, to create replicas of important furniture. Their first major undertaking in this capacity was the creation of a copy of the Resolute Desk, the famous desk used by John F. Kennedy and many other US presidents in The Oval Office. Wilners hand-carved, historically accurate replica now resides in the George W. Bush Presidential Library at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. As of September 2020, there are two more privately commissioned copies of the desk being built at Wilners studio in New York City. The original Resolute Desk was made from the timbers of an abandoned British ship recovered by an American vessel. The ship was returned to the Queen of England as a goodwill gesture. Later, when the ship was retired, Queen Victoria commissioned the creation ... More |
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| French bookworms denied their fix in lockdown | | Exhibition explores the connections between historical African art and contemporary practice | | Florence Griswold Museum celebrates the 20th anniversary of transformative gift with new scholarship | This photograph taken on November 2, 2020 shows books displayed at the Librairie des Abbesses bookstore in the Montmartre district in Paris. STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP. by Joëlle Garrus PARIS (AFP).- First, bookstores across literature-obsessed France were ordered to close in a new lockdown seeking to curb an alarming rise in coronavirus cases. A few days later, bibliophiles were dealt a further blow as the government banned supermarkets, too, from selling books in a bid to parry claims of unfair competition. Bookworms were left befuddled as store owners, authors and local politicians fumed. "I think the decision to close the bookshelves in supermarkets is stupid. It robs people in lockdown of culture," said Sylvie Lagrange, an avid reader who visited her library in the southern suburbs of Paris to "stock up" two days before the start of a long month of lockdown due to last until end-November. She was not alone: card carriers flocked to public libraries last week before they too were closed -- some 8,000 ... More | | Mask, early 1900s. Central Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Yaka people. Wood, cloth, fibers, pigment; h. 47 cm. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Katherine C. White, 1969.8. CLEVELAND, OH.- The connections between historical African art and contemporary practice are deep but not always apparent. Second Careers: Two Tributaries in African Art probes this connection through a smart selection of stellar highlights from the Cleveland Museum of Arts African collection and loaned works by six contemporary African artists of different generations. The exhibition is on view in the Cleveland Museum of Arts Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery from November 1, 2020, through March 14, 2021. Enigmatic, awe-inspiring and accumulative are some of the words used to describe historical African art as well as its impact on the viewer, said William Griswold, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. This exhibition contemplates how contemporary African artists from different generations draw inspiration from and seek transformative encounters with the historical canon, providing a critical ... More | | Walter Griffin, Portrait of a Lady, ca. 1897. Oil on canvas, 36 x 28 3/4 in. Florence Griswold Museum, Gift of The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company. OLD LYME, CONN.- In 2001 The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company donated its art collection of 190 works to the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme, Connecticut. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of this transformative gift, the Museum presents Expanding Horizons: Celebrating 20 Years of the Hartford Steam Boiler Collection, on view November 7, 2020 through May 23, 2021. The exhibition features highlights from the collection with an emphasis on new methods of research and interpretation. Commemorating these past twenty years, twenty leading art historians have re-examined 20 works through the lenses of environmental art history, material culture, landscape studies, and issues of identity, such as gender and race. The Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Companys gift marked an unprecedented milestone in the Museums history. As the home of the Lyme ... More |
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| Beth Lipman's first solo exhibition with Nohra Haime Gallery opens in New York | | One of three Canadian Beatles 'Butcher Cover' albums offered by Heritage Auctions Nov. 14 | | New dates: ART X Lagos 2020 committed to staging fair this year | Beth Lipman, SCALE AND GAZING BALL, 2020. Glass, wood, metal, paint, adhesive, 64 x 42 x 32 in. 162.6 x 106.7 x 81.3 cm. Photo: Rich Maciejewski. NEW YORK, NY.- In Every Last Thing, American artist Beth Lipman explores themes of time and human precarity through the use of cultural objects and prehistoric flora. Endangered plants, latent humanoid forms and communal emblems allude to mortality and transience, fossilized in glass and metal. This marks her first solo exhibition with Nohra Haime Gallery. Lipmans sculptural practice explores aspects of material culture and deep time through still lives, site-specific installations, and photographs. Ephemeral and intricate, the work addresses mortality, materiality, and temporality, critical issues since the inception of the still life tradition in the 17th century, that continue to be relevant. Every Last Thing features several new works, including All In All, a large-scale mixed media sculpture that alludes to the layered, porous ... More | | Canadian Yesterday & Today Butcher Cover. DALLAS, TX.- Sherry Parks kept it a secret for 54 years. Only she and one other person knew she owned one of the three existing Canadian copies of The Beatles' controversial "Butcher cover" from the group's album Yesterday and Today. The rare copy heads to auction Nov. 14, offered by Parks, who says it is now time for someone else to own the Canadian treasure. In 1966, Parks was a 16-year-old Beatles fan when she received a telephone call from a family friend named Tom McCabe. McCabe told Parks to meet him at his car as he drove by their house. McCabe, an area promotions manager for Capitol Records in Canada, pulled up and handed her The Beatles' latest album, with cover art depicting the band in butcher smocks covered with decapitated baby dolls and raw meat. The initial artwork It is now popularly referred to be collectors as the "Butcher Cover." "[McCabe] was super-secretive, and with ... More | | Tiffanie Delune, Love's Circus. LAGOS.- Acclaimed international art fair ART X Lagos today announced its new 2020 dates after postponing from its originally-scheduled dates due to the recent #EndSARS protests that called for an end to police brutality in Nigeria. The fifth edition of ART X Lagos will now take place online on ARTXLAGOS.COM and Artsy from 2-9 December with the theme Present States; Shared Futures. This years fair invites audiences to interact with 200 works from leading artists across Africa and the Diaspora, and will provide a place for communities around the world to contemplate societys shared demands and expectations for tomorrow, and to meditate on new ideas for how our global community might move forward together. ART X Lagos 2020 offers up new perspectives on histories grounded in Africa and its people. The ten galleries presenting works are: Bloom Art, Kó (formerly Arthouse - The Space), Nike Art Gallery, ... More |
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Fragonard's Fascinating Painted Portraits
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| More News | Photographs by Bruce Mozert on view at the Appleton Museum of Art, College of Central Florida OCALA, FLA.- In mid-October, after a seven-month closure, the Appleton Museum of Art reopened to all visitors with the exhibition Mid-Century Tourism on the Silver River, featuring 35 photographs by the American photographer Bruce Mozert (19162015). Mozert is known for pioneering the art of underwater photography and was a local legend in Marion County, home to both the Appleton Museum of Art and the Silver River. Before his adventures below the waters surface, Mozert was living in New York, where he first began working as a photographer. In 1938, he was on assignment in Florida and detoured to Silver Springs to take publicity photos of Johnny Weissmuller, who was starring in a Tarzan movie being filmed there. The cast eventually went home, but Mozert stayed and would later become the official park photographer for Silver Springs. By the late 1950s, Silver Springs, ... More 45ft golden monkey exhibited on exterior of Inverleith House highlighting urgent climate action needed EDINBURGH.- Australian ecological artist Lisa Roets inflatable Golden Monkey installations have previously scaled skyscrapers in Beijing and Hong Kong - this Autumn the first golden monkey will make its UK debut when it comes to Edinburgh and will be seen on the exterior of one of the capitals most prestigious art galleries. The sculpture - 45ft in total - will be shown on the exterior of Inverleith House, as part of its transformation into Climate House, a three-year programme of visual art, drawing attention to our global climate crisis, in partnership with the Serpentine Galleries and funded by Outset Contemporary Art Fund. Highlighting primate species whose lives and habitats are under threat from the sprawling concrete jungles of our modern world, Roet is known for her giant, inflatable, intricately detailed sculpture of the golden snub-nosed monkey ... More Frank Frazetta's iconic 1965 Creepy Magazine cover, 'Wolfman,' roars to Heritage Auctions DALLAS, TX.- Of the myriad pieces painted by Frank Frazetta during his storied career as creator of fearsome and fantastic imagery, it's quite possible none is more famed than a cover he painted for a 1965 issue of Warren Publications' magazine Creepy. Frazetta titled the piece 'Wolfman," and over the years it became as ubiquitous as it is iconic, this orange-moon-glow drenched painting of the furry beast poised to pounce on his prey (who resembles, more than a bit, a certain count with his own penchant for blood). Frazetta, who so adored classic horror films that he often revisited and interpreted them without sacrificing their scares, larded his painting with tropes made fresh and frightening -- the mountaintop castle, bats silhouetted against the auburn moon, a skull and spine emerging from the muck. Poster-sized reproductions of the ... More Sealed first edition Pokémon base set booster box could bring $300K at Heritage Auctions DALLAS, TX.- A sealed first edition Pokémon base set booster box could fetch $300,000 or more when it finds a new home in Heritage Auctions' Comics & Comic Art Auction Nov. 19-21. Still sealed in its original shrinkwrap, the Pokémon First Edition Base Set Sealed Booster Box (Wizards of the Coast, 1999) (estimate: $300,000) is considered the pinnacle of Pokémon box collecting Heritage Auctions sold a similar set in September 2020 for $198,000 and demand continues to increase, especially for sealed sets like this one. "This is an unquestionable prize for any serious Pokémon collector," Heritage Auctions Assistant Comics & Comic Art Operations Supervisor Jesus Garcia said. "This set comes from a very low print run, and to find one that is still sealed and in such great condition is extraordinarily rare." Pokémon was created in 1999 ... More Vibrant watercolor by Marc Chagall headlines A. B. Levy's online-only auction WEST PALM BEACH, FLA.- A watercolor on paper figural work by Marc Chagall, a life-size marble figure of Pamona by Adelaide Pandiani Maraini, a Chinese Imperial style ormolu, enamel and paste-set automaton table clock, and original oil paintings by Montague Dawson and Daniel Ridgway Knight will all come up for bid in A. B. Levys online-only auction Thursday, Nov. 19. The auction officially titled The Collector: Jewelry, Art, Antiques & Asian Works of Art is packed with European paintings, 20th century decorative art, fine jewelry, antiques, drawings and sculpture. Online bidding will be provided by LiveAuctioneers.com and the A. B. Levys website. Phone and absentee bids will be accepted. Representing the rich artistic diversity of the 19th and 20th centuries, this sale features art that spans a variety of countries and schools, led by the ... More Contemporary designer jewelry goes up for bid at Turner Auctions + Appraisals SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Turner Auctions + Appraisals is pleased to present Contemporary Designer Jewelry on Saturday, November 21, 2020. Featuring over 100 lots of distinctive, original pieces from an inventive Northern California designer, the offerings include necklaces, pendants, bracelets, earrings, and rings. Each piece is handcrafted using fine materials such as gold, white gold, blackened silver, or vermeil. All are embellished with precious and semi-precious gems, including diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds, aquamarine, tourmaline, coral, agate, opal, sapphire, tanzanite, and others. The wide selection presents ideal options for holidays gifts for family and friends (and oneself!). Turner Auctions + Appraisals begins its online auction on Saturday, November 21, 2020, at 10:30 am PDT; sale items are available for preview and bidding ... More Very rare silver penny sells for £29,760 at Dix Noonan Webb LONDON.- An extremely rare silver penny of Baron Eustace Fitzjohn, a 12th century Yorkshire Business Magnate that was recently discovered by a metal detectorist sold for £29,760 on Tuesday, November 3, 2020) in a live/online auction of Coins and Historical Medals at International coins, medals, banknotes and jewellery specialists Dix Noonan Webb. The coin, which measures 19mm in diameter, was minted in York and is one of only 20 surviving examples with this design. It was estimated to fetch £10,000-15,000. It was found in August by Rob Brown, a 56-year-old from Leeds, using his Deus XP metal detector on a stubble field near Pickering in North Yorkshire. Rob did not initially recognise the coin which is a very rare silver penny issued in York by Eustace Fitzjohn, the Lord of Malton and Knaresborough, who served under King ... More Exhibition features brand-new virtual reality and augmented reality works by Federico Solmi GLASSBORO, NJ.- Rowan University Art Gallery presents The Bacchanalian Ones, Federico Solmis satirical and clownish portrayal of controversial contemporary and historical characters and the distorted events that have contributed to a culture of misinformation, corruption, and hypocrisy. Using game engines, Virtual and Augmented Reality combined with his drawings and paintings, Solmi creates ghoulish and bombastic animated depictions of political leaders, colonial rulers, and historical explorers as overindulgent, degenerate devotees of the cults of Bacchus and Dionysus as they engage in extravagant and deranged celebrations, parades, parties, ballroom dance, and feasts. In this body of work, Solmi blends ancient mythology with contemporary celebrity culture and modern myth to reframe and expose inaccuracies in the historical ... More Exhibition at SALT delves into the memories of the Köpe family ISTANBUL.- Between Empires, Beyond Borders delves into the memories of the Köpe family, who witnessed Ottoman Empires modernization period as well as its withdrawal from the world stage. The visual narrative of the exhibition is based on detailed archival records spanning the Second Constitutional Era, the First World War and the Armistice Period that followed. Carefully preserved personal documents of the family members, whose lives took shape across Braşov, Istanbul, Thessaloniki, Edirne and Konya, shed light on the milestones of political, social and diplomatic history. The familys story begins in the Tanzimat era, a period of Westernizing reforms in the Empire, when the roads of Andras Köpe and Léocadie Tallibart intersect in Istanbul. Born and raised in a village near the city of Braşov, Andras had fled to the Ottoman ... More A conductor becomes a virtual-concert jet-setter NEWARK, NJ (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- On a recent afternoon at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center here, a scaled-down contingent of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra played its first concert program since March. The premiere of i am a white person who _____ Black people, a brooding contemplation for strings and percussion by Daniel Bernard Roumain, gave way to the serene Adagietto from Mahlers Fifth Symphony, a buoyant Mozart divertimento and Delights & Dances, a frolicsome modern concerto grosso by Michael Abels, showcasing four young Black and Latino string players. An audience almost entirely restricted to symphony employees, stagehands, camera operators and Roumain responded with enthusiastic applause, though the sound barely registered in an almost empty theater. But the sheer joy the musicians felt in performing ... More |
| PhotoGalleries Islamic Metalwork Klaas Rommelaere Helen Muspratt Bruce Nauman Flashback On a day like today, French artist Maurice Utrillo died November 05, 1955. Maurice Utrillo (born Maurice Valadon (26 December 1883 - 5 November 1955), was a French painter who specialized in cityscapes. Born in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, France, Utrillo is one of the few famous painters of Montmartre who were born there. In this image: Maurice Utrillo, Ruelle des Gobelins á Paris, 1921, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right Maurice, Utrillo, V, Mars 1921, signed, dated and titled on the reverse Maurice Utrillo, V, Mars 1921, 65 x 92 cm.
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