| | The First Art Newspaper on the Net | | Established in 1996 | Wednesday, November 25, 2020 |
| | | Two Darwin notebooks, missing for decades, were most likely stolen | |
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Examples of manuscript box and Darwin notebooks similar to those missing.
by Megan Specia
LONDON (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Twenty years ago, two historic notebooks belonging to the renowned naturalist Charles Darwin were found missing from the archives at Cambridge University Library. The tiny books recorded Darwins thoughts after he returned to England from his famed voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, as he grasped toward ideas that would form the foundations of modern evolutionary biology. Now, the library had said it believes the notebooks were most likely stolen, and it launched a public appeal for any information about their whereabouts Tuesday. Local police say they have asked Interpol to place the items on its Stolen Works of Arts Register. The library, which houses the largest collection of Darwins writings, has described the missing notebooks as priceless but nevertheless estimated their value at millions of pounds. One page, reproduced around the world in museum exhibits, on schoolroom posters and on T-shirts, gives his first sketch of a Tree of Life, ... More |
The Best Photos of the Day Artemis Gallery will hold a very special fundraising auction to benefit Community Food Share, a Feeding America Food Bank that serves Boulder and Broomfield Counties in Colorado on Thu, Nov 26, 2020 2:00 PM CST. 100% of the buyer's premium - of all lots sold - will be donated to Community Food Share. In this image: Huge 19th C. Fijian Wood Yaqona Bowl (Tanoa). Estimate $2,800 - $4,200.
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| A record of horseback riding, written in bone and teeth | | MoMA announces gift from the Legacy Emilio Ambasz Foundation to establish a research institute | | How archaeologists are using deep learning to dig deeper |
A photo provided by Yue Li shows an occlusal bevel (Arrow 1) of the right lower second premolar of Horse 3, uncovered at the Shirenzigou archeological site in northwestern China. Yue Le via The New York Times.
by Katherine Kornei
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- The advent of horseback riding transformed our ancestors lives, irrevocably changing how they migrated, fought wars and traded. Now, researchers have found the oldest direct evidence of horseback riding in China, which could help unlock the historical timeline of how the civilization was affected by a newfound ability to get around on four legs. While neighboring civilizations such as those in the area now known as Mongolia had been riding since roughly 1200 B.C., the timing and details of the rise of horsemanship in China have long remained murky, said William Taylor, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History in Boulder. But the new study to which he contributed, ... More | |
Emilio Ambasz. Casa de Retiro Espiritual, Córdoba, Spain, 1979. Photo: M. Alassio.
NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art announced today the establishment of The Emilio Ambasz Institute for the Joint Study of the Built and the Natural Environment. The goals of the Institute, through a range of curatorial programs and research initiatives, are to foster dialogue, promote conversation, and facilitate research around the relationship between the built and the natural environment--making the interaction between architecture and ecology visible and accessible to Museum visitors and the wider public while highlighting the urgent need for an ecological recalibration. The Ambasz Institute will focus in particular on digital initiatives in order to both advance a global conversation on this crucial issue and to ensure that the Institute reaches a diverse audience. The Institute, to be located on MoMAs Midtown Manhattan campus within the Department of Architecture and Design, will specifically study creative ... More | |
Gabriele Gattiglia with bits of clay pottery. He had spent hours mapping burials using Google Earth images of territory in what is now Russia, Mongolia and Western Chinas Xinjiang province. MAPPALab - University of Pisa via The New York Times.
by Zach Zorich
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- Finding the tomb of an ancient king full of golden artifacts, weapons and elaborate clothing seems like any archaeologists fantasy. But searching for them, Gino Caspari can tell you, is incredibly tedious. Caspari, a research archaeologist with the Swiss National Science Foundation, studies the ancient Scythians, a nomadic culture whose horse-riding warriors terrorized the plains of Asia 3,000 years ago. The tombs of Scythian royalty contained much of the fabulous wealth they had looted from their neighbors. From the moment the bodies were interred, these tombs were popular targets for robbers; Caspari estimates that more than 90% of them have ... More |
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| Employees at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston vote to unionize | | New paintings by Lester Rapaport in dialogue with a 1980s series on view at David Richard Gallery | | Christie's to offer a selection of over 200 works from private European and Asian collections |
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Art of the Americas Wing. © Chuck Choi.
BOSTON (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- An overwhelming majority of the employees eligible to unionize at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, have voted to join the United Auto Workers, becoming one of the latest bargaining units within a leading American cultural institution. Election results were tabulated Friday, showing a 90% margin of victory for union hopefuls after a monthlong mail-in election and nearly a year of organizing. I find this redistribution of power meaningful, Jon Feng, a members and visitors services representative at the museum, said. I believe in our ability to work together to negotiate and then uphold a more just workplace for all. The 133-14 vote comes as officials navigate the economic challenges of the coronavirus pandemic. The Boston museum enacted a number of cost-saving measures over the summer after projecting a budget shortfall of about $14 million. Those moves included executive pay cuts and a staff reduction of about 100 employees through layoffs or early retirem ... More | |
Lester Rapaport, Rainbow Dream, 1989. Acrylic on canvas, 58.5 x 52 x 2 inches © Lester Rapaport. Courtesy David Richard Gallery, LLC.
NEW YORK, NY.- David Richard Gallery is presenting Awakening, the gallerys second solo exhibition for New York artist, Lester Rapaport. The presentation includes 14 paintings: eight square canvases from a new series, Into The Mystery, completed in 2020 and six from an earlier series of shaped canvases, Gifts to the Universe, painted in 1988 and 1989. The later paintings represent an early breakthrough for the artist as they followed several cathartic series, Convergence (1980-81) and Emergence (1982-3) as well as extensive reading in astrophysics, psychology and higher states of consciousness. Those paintings manifested a culmination of understanding himself as a human being and his location in the cosmos, but also opened the door to a decades-long meditation practice and systemic approach to realizing serenity in his paintings through minimal compositions and ethereal sprayed color. Thus, the newest series contains single central ... More | |
A remarkable painting by the painter Fu Baoshi entitled Three Literates (estimate: 100,000-200,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2020.
PARIS.- On December 10th, the Asian Art department of Christies France will offer a selection of over 200 works from private European and Asian collections, covering more than 3,000 years of Asian art. All the richness of Asian art and the different mediums in which it unfolds will highlighted, with the sale offering important works of Buddhist art, Samurai art, but also Japanese screens, ancient ceramics, porcelain from the Ming and Qing dynasties, jade sculptures, cloisonné enamels, huanghuali furniture, textiles and finally classical and modern Chinese paintings. Among the highlights are two large bronze statues of Bodhisattvas from the13th century, coming from an important private European collection (estimate:80,000- 120,000 et 70,000-90,000). Impressive in size and delicacy, they are among the most important Tibetan sculptures ever sold by William H. Wolff, a renowned Asian art dealer whose gallery was base ... More |
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| Milestone for Notre-Dame as fire-damaged scaffolding cleared | | A weird monolith is found in the Utah desert | | Forum Gallery announces representation of the Estate of Claudio Bravo |
Paris Cathedral's rector Patrick Chauvet visits Notre-Dame on November 24, 2020 during reconstruction works. Martin BUREAU / AFP.
PARIS (AFP).- Reconstruction of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris reached a turning point Tuesday with the removal of the last portions of scaffolding that melted during last year's blaze, which will allow crucial protective and stabilisation work to proceed. The delicate work was begun in June to clear away the tons of tangled tubes that were surrounding the church's spire when it collapsed as millions of people watched in horror on April 15, 2019. The spire and other parts of the roof were undergoing renovation work when the fire erupted, threatening to destroy the 13th-century gothic landmark. But while the monument's walls remained standing, the extensive heat and loss of much of the oak roof framework compromised their structural integrity. The mass of molten scaffolding -- some 40,000 tubes weighing 200 tonnes, suspended dozens of metres above the cathedral's floor -- also risked ... More | |
A monolith embedded in the rock in southeastern Utah, Nov. 18, 2020. A team surveying bighorn sheep for Utahs wildlife agency found the strange object, 10 to 12 feet tall, embedded in the ground in a remote part of Red Rock Country its probably art, officials said. Utah Department of Public Safety via The New York Times.
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- At the base of a barren slot canyon in Utahs Red Rock Country, a team that was counting bighorn sheep by helicopter spotted something odd and landed to take a closer look. It was not a sheep. It was a three-sided metal monolith, about 10 to 12 feet tall, planted firmly in the ground with no clear sign of where it came from or why it was there. The Utah Department of Public Safety, revealing its existence to the wider world Monday, said the team found the unusual object last week in southeastern Utah, during a survey with the state wildlife agency. While on this mission, they spotted an unusual object and landed nearby to investigate further, the department said in a statement. The crew said there ... More | |
Claudio Bravo, Tres Papeles de Aluminio / Three Aluminum Papers, 2010, oil on canvas, 63 3/4 x 51 1/8 inches.
NEW YORK, NY.- Forum Gallery announced representation of the work of Chilean born artist Claudio Bravo (1936-2011). Opening in January 2021, the gallery will present an exhibition of paintings, pastels and drawings by Claudio Bravo, including rarely exhibited works completed towards the end of the Artist's life. In the monograph Claudio Bravo: Painting & Drawing (Rizzoli, 2005), Edward J. Sullivan writes, While it is certainly true that Bravo has very consciously forged his own path and makes his art with particular attention to the traditions of classicism and academic convention, I always argue that he is, at the same time, a modern painter, and even a radical one. Bravos intense dedication to the figure, to his own peculiar view of observed reality and his steadfast disregard of any of the artistic fashions of his time have defined him as an artistic individualist." Claudio Bravos art is best known for hyper-realistic exec ... More |
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| Phillips announces 'Arts du Feu: Works from the Collection of Jason Jacques' | | The ASU Art Museum announces new public art commission by artist Leo Villareal | | New solo exhibition by Yan Pei-Ming opens at Massimo De Carlo |
Ernest Chaplet, Pair of Monumental Vases. Estimate: $20,000 30,000. Image courtesy of Phillips.
NEW YORK, NY.- Phillips announced a remarkable selection of nearly thirty exceptional Art Nouveau ceramics from the collection of renowned New York City gallerist Jason Jacques. Arts du Feu: Works from the Collection of Jason Jacques showcases superlative examples of fin-de-siècle French ceramics, when undulating vegetal and natural forms along with pioneering new techniques in stoneware and earthenware created a new class of artistic ceramics. Arts du Feu features a remarkable seventeen works by the ceramist Pierre-Adrien Dalpayrat, alongside rare works by Ernest Chaplet, Edmond Lachenal, Ernest Bussière, Henri de Vallombreuse, and Taxile Doat. Also included are three works by American turn-of-the-century master ceramist George Ohr, all previously from the collection of Robert A. Ellison, Jr., in their first time being offered at auction. Arts du Feu will highlight Phillips Design Auction in New York on 9 December, following an ... More | |
Leo Villareal, Point Cloud (ASU), 2020, 12 10 x 3 3 x 1 1, LEDs, custom software, electrical hardware, steel, Nov. 2020, Arizona State University Art Museum. Image by Uplifted Creative, LLC.
TEMPE, AZ.- In a joint collaboration between ASU Art Museum and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Point Cloud (ASU) is a newly commissioned light sculpture by Leo Villareal. Inspired by ASU Art Museums architecture, designed by Antoine Predock in 1987, Villareal worked with the mobile 3D scan technology company Kaarta to map both the inside and outside of the building, creating approximately 147,000,000 exterior data points and over 53,000,000 interior data points. Villareal then manipulated the data with custom software to create this captivating public artwork. This is the first time the artist used actual data sampled from a location as part of an artwork. Villareal brings the museums exterior to life through the use of light, revealing the unseen and creating a sense of wonder. Light has this universal power to connect people together, said Villareal. This project at ... More | |
Yan Pei-Ming, Pleurant XIX, 2018, Ex. Unique. Watercolour on paper, 152.4 Ã 101.6 cm / 60 Ã 40 inches.
LONDON.- Massimo De Carlo presents The Mourners, a new solo exhibition by Yan Pei-Ming for the London gallery. The duality of eastern and western cultural experiences (Chinese born Yan Pei-Ming has been working and living in Dijon for the last forty years) has led to the artists expressive style and mostly monochromatic palette that has acquired international success and recognition. Working from memory or from photographic images, Yan Pei-Ming's paintings intertwine both personal and cultural imagery: fame and anonymity, public figures and intimate subjects, life and death, all these issues are resolved inside his work that is, above anything, a deep and sometimes harsh reflection on human condition. The solo exhibition The Mourners combines two new self-portraits with six watercolours that were first presented in 2019 at Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dijon as part of the solo exhibition The Man Who ... More |
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Wayne Thiebaud at 100 | Christie's
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Josef Hoffmann to take centre stage at the Art Nouveau sale
VIENNA.- Progress through beauty is a principle that definitely applies to the works of universal genius Josef Hoffmann. It is also the subtitle of the exhibition opening in December 2021 at the MAK on the occasion of this architect and designers 150th birthday. Dorotheums Art Nouveau auction on 7 December 2020 will focus on works by this exceptional artist. A vase in a wooden frame offered for the Bakalowits company in 1899 is an excellent example of Hoffmanns appreciation of Japanese art, its simplicity and elegance. Its influence grew in Vienna at a time when the notion was spreading that the purpose of art is not only to reflect status à la Ringstrasse, or to end up in museums, but that it also serves to shape public and private life. This philosophy, it was believed, was realised in the Japanese home, and experience by its inhabitants, as a kind of ... More
A new exhibition by artists from Maruku Arts in central Australia showcases Walka (Design)
SYDNEY.- A new exhibition by Indigenous artists called WALKA is on view at the Hazelhurst Arts Centre until December 7 with more than 120 diverse works from the artists of Maruku Arts in central Australia. Maruka is an Aboriginal art organisation owned and governed by Anangu artists from the Central and Western Desert regions of Australia. Maruka is home to over 500 Anangu artists and serves 22 communities in the Western and Central Desert. The 35 years old Aboriginal owned organisation specialises in Punu (wood carvings). Traditional wood carvings go back to the beginning of mankind. They were essential for Anangu survival and are still the keepers of culture and tradition - Tools and sculptures carried the designs that were later transferred to acrylic paintings. Maruku is not only serving established artists by collecting the finished works and selling ... More
The Exceptional sale and The Collector: Le goût français achieved a combined total of €4,789,878
PARIS.- The Exceptional sale was held in Paris under an auctioneer in the box format with a video link with the auction room in London. It realised a total of 2,842,250 and was led by an outstanding Louis XIV period Aux Saisons cabinet executed by André-Charles Boulle. Coming from the prestigious Sadruddin Aga Khan collection, it was acquired for 716,000. Additional top lots of the sale included a sumptuous baroque gilt-oak table console which doubled its presale estimate and was sold 190,000. Estimated at 200,000-300,000, Hubert Robert's work of exceptional proportions, Caprice architectural avec un escalier en pierre monumental animé de personnages achieved 325,000. We can also mention a refined extensive early 19th century Paris porcelain part service which was sold 106,250 after a long bidding battle between telephones from ... More
Charles Conlon's iconic photograph of Ty Cobb stealing third base to be auctioned
CHESTER, NJ.- Charles Conlons photograph of Ty Cobb sliding into third base is considered by many to be the most hallowed and coveted sports image. An original image of Conlons shot will be auctioned by Robert Edward Auctions. It is one of just two known original images. Bidding for the photo concludes December 6. Interested bidders may participate in the auction online. In every field of collectible there is one piece, a singular item that rises in stature above all others and becomes iconic. In art, it is the Mona Lisa; in baseball cards, the T206 Honus Wagner Card; and in musical instruments, a Stradivarius violin. Baseball photography, too, has its own paragon of visual perfection, and it is not surprising that it comes to us from the gifted lens of the man many consider to be the greatest practitioner of his craft: Charles Conlon. ... More
Poster Auctions International's 82nd Rare Posters Auction totals $1.3 million in sales
NEW YORK, NY.- Poster Auctions Internationals (PAI) third sale of the year, on November 15th, finished at $1.3 million in sales. Auction LXXXII proved an ongoing passion for posters, as rarities and unique works sparked avid bidding. Jack Rennert, President of PAI, said, If weve learned anything about the year 2020, its that nothing is for certain. I had no real way of predicting how this sale would go, but I am so pleased with the results. Passionate collectors led to some really fantastic sales, and I am so grateful for their enthusiastic involvement. Across the span of the auction, numerous works garnered unexpectedly high winning bids. Howard Chandler Christys first design, Remember the Maine, from 1898, exceeded its estimate of $1,000-$1,200 by bringing in $4,800 (all results include the buyers premium). Fred ... More
Dinner is no longer served: Theater that built careers is gone
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- It was a closing night at the Westchester Broadway Theater unlike any other. The theater marquee still read All Shook Up. But the stage was stripped, except for piles of lights, and the audience was sparse 100 or so, many of them former actors, crew members and fans. They carted off spotlights, posters, tablecloths and printers at a sale last week that lasted more than 10 hours. Everything had to go. Bill Bateman, who had appeared in 10 shows at the 46-year-old dinner theater, came from Manhattan to reminisce, joining others at what was at once a family reunion and a funeral. I wanted to say thank you, he said later. This was a great place to work for so many years. You got to do what you loved, all while getting to earn health insurance, pay your rent and sleep in your own bed at night. Its a ... More
A film festival in Poland feted his work. Now he may face prison there.
NEW YORK (NYT NEWS SERVICE).- News photos showed Matty Libatique looking like hed just been yanked from a barroom brawl; wild-eyed, disheveled, his hands cuffed behind his back. The Oscar-nominated cinematographer, who shot A Star is Born, Straight Outta Compton, Black Swan and Iron Man, had been arrested in northern Poland, accused of slugging a paramedic who came to his side when he collapsed in a hotel lobby during a film festival there. Hollywoods trade news and gossip sites reported the November 2018 incident, and Libatiques colleagues made light of it a few days later when he returned to the United States. But the joking was lost on Libatique, who says he can remember nothing about his collapse or what followed. He admits he had been drinking but fears, he said, with some evidence, that he was intentionally ... More
Piguet Auction House reveals its end-of-year auction catalogue
GENEVA.- This November, Europe faces the second wave of the Covid-19 epidemic with full force. New measures in place to deal with it set new challenges in the continuation of business in Switzerland and around the world. Piguet Auction House tasks itself with constant innovation and reinvention in order to continue its business, providing its clients a distraction and some escapism. From adapting public viewings respecting the current sanitary measures right through to the auction and lot collection, the team is ready to bring culture to life and meet the demands of the public wishing to acquire objects that please them. Following the success of its major September auctions, Piguet reveals its end-of-year auction catalogue. Famous private collections await the public and are certain to attract an international audience. Dinosaurs are back in the limelight ... More
Edward Burtynsky gifts career-spanning archive to the The Ryerson Image Centre
TORONTO.- The Ryerson Image Centre announced a multi-year donation of photographs by celebrated Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, whose iconic images have brought worldwide attention to the impacts of human industry on the natural landscape. The first installment of this gift comprises 142 photographs from the artists early career, a selection of which have been made public in a virtual gallery on the RICs website. Subsequent annual gifts will make the Toronto-based photography centre the most important global repository for the study of Burtynskys oeuvre. Edward Burtynsky began his career in the late 1970s at the School of Image Arts of Ryerson Polytechnical Institute (now Ryerson University). "It was important to me that my lifes work be housed in a Canadian institution, and it felt like a fitting 'homecoming' to entrust ... More
Sarah Sze donates important work to benefit non-profit organization, to be sold at Christie's
NEW YORK, NY.- On December 3, Christies will offer Sarah Szes Surprise Ending, 2020 ($200,000-300,000) in its Day Sale of Post-War and Contemporary Art. Sze has donated Surprise Ending to benefit Hopeland, a New York City nonprofit organization working to help vulnerable at risk children who are unable to live with their families for a myriad of reasons, inclusive of poverty, mental health, war and abuse. 25 million children globally are growing up without a family, and 385 million more are at risk of separation. Hopeland works both domestically and internationally creating innovative initiatives and solutions to ensure every child lives in a permanent loving family. Hopelands focus is to put the issue of vulnerable children front and center on the global agenda, and especially at this time when the pandemic is putting children at risk of ... More
Christie's Fine & Rare Wines and Spirits including Historic Madeira direct from the Island totaled $1,859,188
NEW YORK.- The Christies Wine & Spirits Department online sale Fine & Rare Wines and Spirits Including Historic Madeira Direct from the Island (10-24 November) totaled $1,859,188 with 97% sold by lot, 100% sold by value, and 128% hammer above low estimate. There was global participation with registered bidders from 19 countries and 27% first-time buyers. Throughout the sale there were 46 world auction records with 37 of those records set for Madeira. Leading the online auction was a superb selection of over 130 lots of rare Madeira (lots 412-548), the largest offering of its kind ever to be sold in an online auction. Of the 136 lots offered, 100% were sold, and 37 achieved world auction records. The top lot of Madeira was the HM Borges, Pather Terrantez 1720 that sold for $20,000. Additionally, bottles recently found in the old cellar of ... More
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PhotoGalleries
Anne Truitt Sound
Islamic Metalwork
Klaas Rommelaere
Helen Muspratt
Flashback On a day like today, 'Max Klinger. The Drama of Man and Woman' opened November 25, 2011. OLDENBURG.- An employee of the Horst Janssen Museum in Oldenburg walks through the exhibition 'Max Klinger. The Drama of Man and Woman' and checks the art works helped by the catalogue of the special exhibition in Oldenburg, Germany. About 100 exhibits concerned with the relationship of man and woman were presented between 25 November 2011 and 19 February 2012 at the museum.
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