Realistic Paintings by David Jon Kassan

David Jon Kassan (Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, 1977) is a contemporary American painter best known for his life-size realist portraits. The paintings combine figurative subjects with abstract backgrounds or “tromp l’oeil texture studies,” reportedly inspired by Franz Kline and Robert Rauschenberg. Of this dual representation strategy Kassan notes, “my effort to constantly learn to document reality with a naturalistic, representational painting technique allows for pieces to be inherent contradictions; paintings that are both real and abstract.” Kassan currently lives [...]

Gustav Klimt and Napoleon Bonaparte Heading to Melbourne

MELBOURNE.- Famous Viennese and French artworks rarely seen outside Europe are coming to Melbourne in 2011 and 2012. Minister for the Arts Peter Batchelor announced the next two instalments of the highly successful Melbourne Winter Masterpieces Series – Vienna: Art & Design, Klimt, Schiele, Hoffmann in 2011, and in 2012, Napoleon: Revolution to Empire. “Victorians can expect exquisite international masterpieces at the National Gallery of Victoria over the next two winters with the exhibitions centred around two very different seats [...]

Private California Collection of Impressionist Paintings Highlights Christie’s Sale

NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announced it has been selected to offer The Walter and Phyllis Shorenstein Collection as part of its major fall 2010 and spring 2011 sales in New York and Hong Kong. Assembled over more than four decades by Walter Shorenstein, the San Francisco real estate mogul, and Phyllis Shorenstein, founder of the city’s Asian Art Museum, the collection unites the couple’s individual passions for Impressionist paintings and sculpture and fine Chinese glass, porcelain, jade and works of [...]

Exhibition at Fondation Beyeler in Basel Explores Vienna: 1900, Klimt, Schiele and their Times

BASEL.- With the Vienna Secession and Wiener Werkstätte, Vienna around 1900 was one of the cradles of modern art. The Fondation Beyeler is mounting the first comprehensive exhibition ever devoted in Switzerland to this theme, curated by Barbara Steffen. On view will be about 200 paintings, water-colors and drawings, supplemented by architectural models, furniture, textile designs, glass and silver objects, artists posters, and photographs. At the center of our exhibition of Viennese modernism stand the renowned ornamental portraits and landscapes [...]

Hauser & Wirth’s First Posthumous Show of Jason Rhoades’ Work Opens

LONDON.- Hauser & Wirth presents the gallery’s first posthumous show of Jason Rhoades’ work and the artist’s first European solo exhibition since his death in 2006. The exhibition features ’1:12 Perfect World’, Rhoades’ scale model of his groundbreaking 1999 exhibition, ‘Perfect World’ at Deichtorhallen in Hamburg. Originally existing as four quarters, the sterling silver model will be brought together at Hauser & Wirth’s Piccadilly gallery, viewable in its entirety for the first time. Like his previous exhibition, ‘The Black Pussy… [...]

Hungarian Artists Alongside Greats in London Show at Royal Academy

LONDON (REUTERS).- Hungarian artists hang alongside some of Europe’s greatest painters in a new blockbuster exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts put together at the 11th hour after the original show fell through. “Treasures from Budapest: European Masters from Leonardo to Schiele” opens on Friday and features around 230 works from the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest and Hungarian National Gallery. The London exhibition was scrambled together in only a few months when a show featuring treasures from the [...]

New Exhibition of Paintings by Deborah Kass at Paul Kasmin Gallery

NEW YORK, NY.- Paul Kasmin Gallery and Vincent Fremont present a new exhibition of paintings by Deborah Kass entitled “MORE feel good paintings for feel bad times.” This is Kass’s second show at the gallery and will be on view at 293 Tenth Avenue from September 23 through October 30, 2010. Expanding the ideas of her exhibition in the fall of 2007, Kass continues to mine the fields of post war painting, language, and music to explore the intersection of [...]

Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI Museum is Favourite to Win RIBA Stirling Prize 2010

LONDON.- With just over a week to go before the winner of the RIBA Stirling Prize is revealed, William Hill’s latest odds reveal Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI, National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome to be the favourite to win, with odds of 11/8. The winner will be announced on Saturday 2 October at 7.30pm, broadcast live from The Roundhouse in London, on BBC TWO’s The Culture Show. Interior view of the Maxxi, the new Museum of the 21st Century [...]

Lehman Brothers Sign, Artworks to Be Auctioned Off in UK

LONDON (AP)- For sale: a sign of the times. Christie’s is auctioning off the 10 foot-long (3 meter-long) sign that adorned the European headquarters of Lehman Brothers, along with paintings, furniture and other objects from the offices of the collapsed investment bank. They are among millions of dollars’ (euros’) worth of items being sold to help pay Lehman’s creditors. The bank collapsed in September 2008. It was the largest bankruptcy filing in U.S. history and helped cause one of the [...]

Rediscovered Spanish Civil War Negatives by Capa, Chim, and Taro at ICP

NEW YORK, NY.- The Mexican Suitcase, a groundbreaking exhibition revealing the most famous group of recovered negatives of the twentieth century, will be on view at the International Center of Photography (1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43rd Street) from September 24, 2010 through January 9, 2011. Considered lost since 1939, the so-called Mexican Suitcase is in fact three boxes containing 4,500 negatives documenting the Spanish Civil War by Robert Capa, Chim (David Seymour), and Gerda Taro. There are also [...]

World of Khubilai Khan Revealed in New Exhibit at the Metropolitan

NEW YORK (REUTERS)- A new exhibit featuring massive statues, dragon-shaped roof ridge ornaments and art from the Yuan dynasty gives visitors a glimpse of ancient China that the first Westerners would have seen 700 years ago. “The World of Khubilai Khan: Chinese Art in the Yuan Dynasty,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art features 200 works of art. Many are being shown outside of China for the first time. It focuses on the era spanning the birth in 1215 of [...]

Show at Victoria & Albert Museum Puts Diaghilev Among Greats of Modern Art

LONDON (REUTERS)- Russian dance impresario Sergei Diaghilev once sat down to dinner with Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, Marcel Proust and Igor Stravinsky. For many, his name is the least familiar amid the roll-call of early 20th century artistic greats, but a major exhibition at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum seeks to explain why Diaghilev deserved his seat at the table. “It is curious organising an exhibition when you know that your central figure is much less well known than many [...]

Women’s Feet in Focus by Thomas Wuhrer

The young German artist, photographer Thomas Wuhrer more like a child interested in drawing and painting. In particular, he loved comics, graphites and airbrush. But when the sisters got a LOMO camera (this plastic-thing with 4 lenses) in 2004. years, his interest in photography is growing steadily. Wuhrere started to research his options, but soon wanted to go even further. Purchased a digital camera, which was initiated by an avalanche. Namely, Wuhrer was unable to stop the issue of research [...]

Cocteau and Picasso Prints and Ceramics Make over £500,000 at Bonhams

LONDON.- A collection of drawings, pastels and ceramics by the French poet, filmmaker, playwright and novelist, Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), brought together by the late business tycoon and founder of Gucci timepieces, Severin Wunderman (1939-2008), made a remarkable £430,000 today (23 September) at Bonhams, Knightsbridge, with 90% sold by value. Just an hour earlier, a selection of prints, ceramics and silver by the artistic master of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso, fetched a total of £220,812, with 85% sold by value. [...]

Bronzino: Artist and Poet at the Court of the Medici Opens at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence

FLORENCE.- Agnolo di Cosimo, known as Bronzino (1503-1572), was one of the greatest artists in the history of Italian painting. Court artist to Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519-1574), his work embodied the sophistication of the Mannerist style. Bronzino. Artist and Poet at the Court of the Medici, on view at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence from 24 September 2010 to 23 January 2011, will be the very first exhibition devoted to his painted work. Bronzino conveyed the elegance of the [...]