The Transcendent Landscapes of Northwest Artist Victoria Adams at the Tacoma Art Museum

TACOMA, WA.- Somewhere between the soothing and the sublime, the work of landscape artist Victoria Adams offers a respite from our busy lives. Tacoma Art Museum is proud to present Where Sky Meets Earth: The Luminous Landscapes of Victoria Adams. A local artist living on Vashon Island, Adams paints rich, panoramic views of sky and land, untouched and untrammeled by man. The exhibition features a compelling survey of Adams’ paintings, with works ranging from 1992 to present. The artist created [...]

Restored Leonardo Masterpiece Goes Back on Display at the National Gallery in London

LONDON.- Leonardo da Vinci’s Virgin of the Rocks is to go back on display in the National Gallery (afternoon of 14th July) after an 18-month restoration project which started in November 2008. The decision to restore the painting came after several years of intensive study of Leonardo’s work and that of his Milanese associates and assistants – the so-called leonardeschi – from within the Gallery’s collection. The experience gained from examining these pictures reinforced the view that ‘The Virgin of [...]

Mickey Mouse Art Poster with Nazi Symbol Ignites Polish Anger

WARSAW (AP).- A huge outdoor art poster that blends Mickey Mouse’s image with that of a swastika and a nude woman’s body is causing a stir in Poland, where memories of the suffering inflicted by Nazi Germany remain strong. The poster, which went up in June in the western city of Poznan just steps from a synagogue, is an Italian artist’s take on what he calls the “horrors” of the American lifestyle and is one piece of artwork in a [...]

Irvine Contemporary Presents New Gallery Artist Alexa Meade

WASHINGTON, DC.- Irvine Contemporary presents new gallery artist Alexa Meade and her series of recent photographs during Picture Planes: Robert Mellor & Alexa Meade, June 19 – July 24. Last week, Meade continued her unique portrait series with Anne Goodyear, Curator of Prints and Drawings, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. Meade’s portraits are executed by painting directly on a subject’s body and clothing to render flattened three-dimensional figures in composed sets or staged in real world locations. Alexa Meade’s photographs are [...]

Iraq’s Artists Reflect Pain, Trauma of the War and Uncertainty

BAGHDAD (AP).- Iraq’s artists are using their work to try to process the turmoil since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion, and what they are producing shows a profound anger over their country’s traumas and uncertainty over its future. They have a lot to deal with: A change of regime, foreign occupation, an insurgency, sectarian massacres and, now, the prospect of a divided nation left by the Americans in the hands of unpopular politicians, unprepared security forces and a fragile democracy. The [...]

Paintings Taken by Serviceman in WWII Return to Germany

NEW YORK, NY.- In a ceremony at the Goethe Institute in Manhattan, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) displayed some of the 11 oil paintings that were taken by a U.S. serviceman from a Pirmasens air raid shelter after the allied invasion of Germany in 1945. The paintings, several by a hometown artist, are on their way home to Pirmasens Museum in Germany. ICE New York Special Agent in Charge James T. Hayes Jr. thanked the grand-niece of the U.S. [...]

17th Century Automata Lion Clock Roars in £117,600 at Bonhams

LONDON.- An early 17th century gilt brass automata lion clock, which moves its eyes in time with the seconds and roars a chime every hour, sold for £117,600 at Bonhams, New Bond Street as part of its Fine Clocks and Barometers sale on Wednesday 14 July. The sale made an impressive £716,000 in total with a 74% sale rate by value. Made in France, the clock which had been estimated to sell for £70,000 to £100,000, is unique in that [...]

Sotheby’s to Hold Auction of Property from England’s Most Magnificent Stately Home

LONDON.- This autumn Sotheby’s will hold a once-in-a-lifetime sale at the most magnificent of all England’s stately homes – Chatsworth, in Derbyshire. Chatsworth: The Attic Sale – a three-day auction – will have in it all the ingredients of the quintessential attic sale: an Aladdin’s cave of items at all price levels (estimates range from £20 to £200,000), each one with its own story to tell. More than that, though, the sale will have at its core a wealth of [...]

Studio Museum in Harlem Summer Exhibition Features Zwelethu Mthethwa

HARLEM, NY.- The first New York museum exhibition of South African photographer Zwelethu Mthethwa (b. 1960, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa) brings together three compelling series: “Interiors” and “Empty Beds” document the domestic lives of migrant workers in and near Johannesburg, South Africa, while photographs in “Common Ground” focus on shared experiences of natural disaster in urban areas, featuring houses in post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, Louisiana and on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, after wildfires. Though his photographs are [...]

Grass Grows by Itself: A Group Exhibition Opens at Marlborough in Chelsea

NEW YORK, NY.- Marlborough Gallery presents a group exhibition titled Grass Grows by Itself, curated by Sima Familant, with works by Chakaia Booker, Mark Bradford, Dale Chihuly, Wade Guyton, David Hammons, Carmen Herrera, Jim Hodges, Wolfgang Laib, Cameron Martin, Daniel Joseph Martinez, Molly McIver, Virginia Overton, George Rickey, Leigh Ruple, Kianja Strobert, Richard Tuttle, Charlene von Heyl, and Robert Žungu, on view from July 15th to September 9th, 2010. The exhibition includes artworks from both emerging and established artists in [...]

Rare Cabinet by Emile Bernard Acquired by the Indianapolis Museum of Art

INDIANAPOLIS, IN.- The Indianapolis Museum of Art announced today the acquisition of a rare corner cabinet with scenes of Breton life, carved and painted by Pont-Aven School artist Emile Bernard. One of only four known examples of important wood furniture produced by the Pont-Aven School, this cabinet further enhances the IMA’s renowned Pont-Aven School collection—the most distinguished in North America. The Pont-Aven School was named for a remote village in the French province of Brittany where an international group of [...]

Group Exhibition Phantasmorganica at Allegra LaViola Gallery

NEW YORK, NY.- Allegra LaViola Gallery presents the group exhibition Phantasmorganica, co-curated with Danielle Mund, on view from July 14 through July 31, 2010. The exhibition showcases the work of seven artists who examine and transmogrify ideas and materials into complex, “organic” images through drawing, painting, collage, and photography. “Phantasmorganica” is a fabricated word fusing the lexical words “phantasmagoria” and “organic”, resulting in the idea of the natural intertwined with the fantastical. The primitivistic quality of drawing makes it especially [...]

History of Graffiti in NYC Reviewed in Exhibition at Benrimon Contemporary

NEW YORK, NY.- Benrimon Contemporary presents a group exhibition that demonstrates the trajectory of the history of graffiti in New York City. Graffiti NYC: Artists of the Third Rail is curated by Molly Sampson in collaboration with Mario Ramos (ARE) and Claudia Bumbac (DIA), owners of 1HUNDREDB; a Lower East Side storefront gallery that serves as the mecca of NYC urban art and graffiti culture. Aerosol Art has festooned New York City’s concrete facades and steel traincars for over four [...]

Photographer of Modern Life Gets Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery

LONDON.- The first retrospective exhibition of work by Camille Silvy, one of the greatest French photographers of the nineteenth century, will open at the National Portrait Gallery this summer. Marking the centenary of Silvy’s death, Camille Silvy, Photographer of Modern Life, 1834 – 1910, includes over a hundred objects, many of which have not been exhibited since 1860. The portraits on display offer a unique glimpse into nineteenth-century Paris and Victorian London through the eyes of one of photography’s greatest [...]

Pencil Drawings Combined with Photographs by Ben Heine

Ben Heine, a talented Belgian artist, has created a series of awesome images by combining photographs with pencil drawings. Enjoy! For more creative art by Ben Heine, visit flickr.com/photos/benheine/