Frans Hals Museum to Show Exhibition of the First Woman to Become Masterpainter

HAARLEM.- Judith Leyster (1609 – 1660) is the most famous female painter of the Dutch Golden Age. Unlike many contemporary female artists, who concentrated on meticulously painting true-to-life flowers and insects, she ventured into more ambitious figure-based projects. Competing with Frans Hals, Leyster chose remarkably similar themes: portraits, children playing, dancing musicians and a drinking actor. She is also known for her innovative and evocative night scenes, in which she experimented with the subtle effects of light and dark. Like [...]

Sotheby’s Swiss Art Sale Highlights Works by Giacometti, Hodler and Vallotton

GENEVA.- Sotheby’s forthcoming auction of Swiss Art will be held in Zurich, at the Talstrasse 83, on Monday, 7th December 2009, at 6pm. Urs Lanter and Stéphanie Schleining Deschanel, Specialists of Swiss Art at Sotheby’s, will offer 123 lots spanning more than 250 years of Swiss artistic history. The sale highlights classical artists such as Amiet, Anker, Biéler, Bocion, Buchet, Calame, Giacometti, Hodler, Segantini and Vallotton to name just a few; and also includes contemporary artists with important figures like [...]

Frantisek Kupka Exhibition at Fundación Miró Explores His Influence on Abstract Art

BARCELONA.- The Joan Miró Foundation is presenting František Kupka, an exhibition curated by Brigitte Léal, Assistant Director of the Musée National d’Art Moderne – Centre Georges Pompidou, and sponsored by BBVA. The exhibition will show for the first time in Spain a selection of around 80 paintings and drawings by the Czech artist, all from the Centre Georges Pompidou, and documents from the collection of Pierre Brullé, a leading expert on Kupka, who was considered the first painter to explore [...]

Sotheby’s to Sell the Pierre Leroy Collection of Modern & Contemporary Art

PARIS.- Sotheby’s will offer Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary works from the collection of Pierre Leroy, Co-Managing Partner of Groupe Lagardère. Pierre Leroy’s collection of books and manuscripts is already world renowned; now his modern art collection will be unveiled for the first time, in Paris on December 8/9. Andy Warhol is the foremost figure in Pierre Leroy’s collection of contemporary art, which boasts two works by the Pope of Pop Art – both portraits, but of very different artists: Roy [...]

Kirsty Young to Chair Judging Panel for 100,000 Art Fund Prize

LONDON.- Broadcaster Kirsty Young will chair a panel of seven high profile judges who will choose the winner of The Art Fund Prize for museums and galleries 2010, the UK’s largest single arts prize. Kirsty’s fellow judges come from the worlds of media, arts, culture, science and academia: • Kirsty Young (Chairman), broadcaster • Kathy Gee, museums and heritage adviser • Professor A C Grayling, Professor of Philosophy, Birkbeck College, London • Professor J Steve Jones, Professor of Genetics, University [...]

Nineteen New Paintings by Damien Hirst on View at White Cube

LONDON.- White Cube presents nineteen new paintings by Damien Hirst. The exhibition will be staged at White Cube Mason’s Yard and White Cube Hoxton Square. At White Cube Hoxton Square, Hirst will present a group of paintings, which include three triptychs from 2007-09, each depicting crows shot in mid-flight against blue skies, with outspread wings and violent splatters of red paint across their bodies. In the four triptychs on show in the lower ground floor at White Cube Mason’s Yard, [...]

Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art Re-Hangs its Collection

EDINBURGH.- For the first time in twenty-five years the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art will be re-hung in its entirety to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its founding. Opening during the Homecoming Scotland Finale Celebrations, the display will reveal the richness and range of the collection in a series of rooms which aim to delight and surprise. Since its opening in Inverleith House in 1960, in Edinburgh’s Royal Botanic Gardens, its move to a larger building on Belford Road [...]

New Permanent Galleries and Display Spaces at the National Gallery of Australia

CANBERRA.- The Hon Peter Garrett AM MP, Minister for the Arts today officially opens a suite of new permanent display spaces and galleries at the National Gallery of Australia dedicated to the display of works from the national art collection and bringing to completion the Stage One renovations and improvements to the original 1970s building. “It gives me great pleasure to open these new exhibition spaces, the culmination of a four year refurbishment program of the interior of the National [...]

Winner of Award for Scottish Artists to be Announced at the Fleming Collection

LONDON.- The winner of the prestigious Aspect Prize, the premier award for Scottish artists and one of Britain’s largest independently funded art prizes, is to be announced at a reception at The Fleming Collection in London on 11 January 2010. Four of Scotland’s most talented contemporary artists have been shortlisted for the prize and the winner will take away £10,000 in addition to the £5,000 that each of them has already received. Works by the four artists – Patricia Cain, [...]

First Permanent Artwork for London Underground Since 1984

LONDON.- King’s Cross St. Pancras Underground Station will unveil Full Circle by Knut Henrik Henriksen on Friday 27 November 2009, the first permanent artwork to be installed on the network since Paolozzi’s mosaics at Tottenham Court Road in 1984. Full Circle has been created as an integral part of the King’s Cross station upgrade, an enormous undertaking that includes two new ticket halls and several new pedestrian tunnels, to cater for growing numbers of Tube customers. The work references the [...]

Photographer Michel Demanche Wins Holgapalooza National Competition

BROOKLYN, NY.- Causey Contemporary photographer, Michel Demanche has won first place in the special categories for the 2009 Holgapalooza National Photographic Competition, sponsored by LightLeaks Magazine. Out of 2500 entries, her entry, “Finding Santa” was selected as the the Holgablog award for the strangest, most bizarre and downright WTF photograph. The image will be printed in issue 16 of Ligh Leaks, Low Fidelity Photography available at lomography stores worldwide and at lightleaks.org. Michel says of her winning photography, “this image [...]

Leonardo’s “Angel in the Flesh” to Make Appearance with Work by Bill Viola

LOS ANGELES, CA.- The controversial drawing the “Angel in the Flesh” (c. 1513-1515), discovered in 1990, will appear in its unique splendor at the Istituto Italiano di Cultura (Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles) December 3-12, 2009. It is a truly historical moment as this is the first time ever that the “Angel in the Flesh” (formerly in the Royal Collection at Windsor Castle) will be shown on the West coast before it returns to Europe. Under the High Patronage [...]

Metropolitan Museum Exhibitions Create $593 Million Economic Impact for NY

NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum‘s summer 2009 opening of its New American Wing, along with the concurrent presentation of three highly acclaimed and widely attended special exhibitions—Roxy Paine on the Roof: Maelstrom; Francis Bacon: A Centenary Retrospective; and The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion—generated $593 million in spending by regional, national, and foreign tourists to New York, according to a visitor survey the Museum released today. Using the industry standard for calculating tax revenue impact, the study found that [...]

mima Acquires Works by Legendary American Artist Ellsworth Kelly

MIDDLESBROUGH.- Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art has bought two works by Ellsworth Kelly, a seminal figure in modern American art, with funding from the Art Fund International scheme, independent charity The Art Fund announced today. The works, “Untitled”, 1957 and “Untitled”, 1959, have come directly from Ellsworth Kelly’s studio and were selected after extensive conversations between mima and the artist himself. They will go on display as part of the Ellsworth Kelly Drawings 1954-1962 exhibition opening at mima on 11 [...]

David Hockney’s Bigger Trees Near Warter Presented at Tate Britain

LONDON.- David Hockney gifted Bigger Trees near Warter 2007 to Tate in 2008. The oil painting, his largest ever, was made on fifty canvas panels and was executed outside, en plein air. Measuring 4.6 x 12.2 metres (15 x 40 feet), its subject is a typical Yorkshire landscape, west of Bridlington. The work was first exhibited in 2007 at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. David Hockney also presented Tate with two digital photographic renderings of the painting on paper sheets [...]