Stephenson’s to Welcome 2011 with Auction of Fine and Decorative Art; Superb Silver and Jewelry

SOUTHAMPTON, PA- Philadelphia-area estates, residences and private collectors were the sources contributing to the outstanding lineup of fine paintings, decorative art, silver and jewelry to be offered by Stephenson’s Auctioneers over the first weekend of 2011. The opening session on Saturday, Jan. 1 is laden with beautiful antique silver and jewelry. One of the premier lots is a 19th-century Russian enameled-silver inkwell by Pavel A. Ovchinnikov (estimate $10,000-$18,000). The marble-based inkwell is intricately beaded and enameled, and is topped by a [...]

Cantor Arts Center’s Contemporary Gallery Features New Look, New Works, and Old Favorites

STANFORD, CA- The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University announce a floor-to-ceiling reinstallation of its contemporary gallery with a new exhibition of art dating from the 1950s to the present. The Freidenrich Family Gallery’s new look juxtaposes recent acquisitions with familiar pieces and artworks that have been off view, increases space for two-dimensional works, and places more sculpture throughout the gallery. “Extreme Makeover: A Fresh Look at the Cantor Art Center’s Contemporary Collection” opened today, December 15. Darren Waterston (U.S.A., [...]

Stunning Watercolour of East Sussex Cottage by Helen Allingham to be Sold at Bonhams

LONDON.- A beautiful painting by the Victorian watercolourist Helen Allingham entitled By the cottage gate, Mayfield, East Sussex is estimated to sell for £7,000-10,000 in Bonhams 19th Century Pictures auction on 27th January 2011. East Sussex was a county well known to Helen Allingham. Watercolours dating from the late 1870s show her children playing on the beach at Eastbourne or Beachy Head during the family’s summer holidays. She painted the church at Etchingham, sketched in Robertsbridge and painted the countryside around [...]

Contemporary Works in Clay from Kansas City Collection Featured in Exhibition at The Nelson-Atkins

KANSAS CITY, MO- Contemporary works in clay from the outstanding collection of Lennie and Jerry Berkowitz are on view atThe Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in an exhibition that opened today, Dec. 15, in the Bloch Building. Collecting with Passion: Contemporary Ceramics from the Lennie and Jerry Berkowitz Collection features works of art by such noted American artists as studio potter Ken Ferguson and sculptor Akio Takamori. Each of the 17 works of art in the exhibition is among 24 that [...]

Israel Museum and Museum in San Diego Jointly Purchase Ann Lislegaard Video Installation

JERUSALEM.- The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, and the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) announced the joint acquisition of Ann Lislegaard’s Crystal World (after J.G. Ballard) (2006), a silent two-screen video installation from a trilogy of three-dimensional animations based on science fiction novels. Inspired by J.G. Ballard’s dystopian 1966 book The Crystal World, which tells of a landscape and its inhabitants slowly petrifying into crystal, the video installation depicts a surreal architectural landscape being overtaken by crystalline forms, and incorporates text [...]

Craig Robins Donates Netscape Installation by Konstantin Grcic to Miami Art Museum

MIAMI, FL.- Craig Robins, co-founder of Design Miami /, has donated this year’s Designer of the Year installation to Miami Art Museum (MAM). Entitled Netscape, the large-scale outdoor seating installation was created by Konstantin Grcic as a centerpiece of the December 2010 edition of Design Miami /, a global forum for design. Robins made the donation with the Museum’s new, Herzog & de Meuron-designed facility in mind. The new Miami Art Museum is scheduled to open to the public in Downtown [...]

Robert A. M. Stern Named 2011 Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture Laureate

NOTRE DAME, IN.- Robert A. M. Stern, whose influential designs have revitalized traditional architecture, has been named the 2011 recipient of the Richard H. Driehaus Prize for Classical Architecture. Stern will receive $200,000 and a model of the Choregic Monument of Lysikrates during a March 26 ceremony in Chicago. As Founder and Senior Partner of Robert A. M. Stern Architects, and as Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, Stern has built a reputation as a modern traditionalist architect. In his [...]

Tate Announces Tacita Dean to Undertake Next Commission in The Unilever Series

LONDON.- Tate and Unilever today announced that Tacita Dean will undertake the twelfth commission in The Unilever Series for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern. The work will be unveiled on 11 October 2011. Tacita Dean is one of the most respected artists working today. Her practice encompasses artist’s books, drawing, found objects, photography and sound installations, but she is best known for her use of 16mm film. Dean’s films act as depictions or portraits rather than conventional narratives, capturing [...]

Metropolitan Museum’s Exhibitions Stimulate $784 Million Economic Impact for City

NEW YORK, NY.- The Metropolitan Museum’s concurrent presentation of three acclaimed and widely attended special exhibitions over the summer 2010 season—Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof: Big Bambú, and American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity—generated $784 million in economic activity by regional, national, and international tourists to New York, according to a visitor survey the Museum released today. Using the industry standard for calculating tax revenue impact, the study noted that the [...]

Conceptual Artist Barbara Kruger Creates a New Work for the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt

FRANKFURT.-The US-American conceptual artist Barbara Kruger has created a new, publicly accessible installation for the Rotunda of the Schirn, which covers floor, ceiling, and surrounding walls with the white- and partly red-on-black captions typical of her oeuvre. “I work with pictures and words because they have the ability to determine who we are and who we aren’t,” says Kruger, whose show is presented in the Schirn from December 15, 2010 until January 30, 2011. Pictures and texts from the mass media, [...]

Historic Price Achieved for Arpita Singh’s “Wish Dream” at Saffronart Auction

NEW YORK, NY.- Saffronart, the world’s largest online fine-art auction house, concluded its annual Winter Online Art Auction on December 9, 2010 with strong results that highlight the continued demand for important works with notable provenance. With a total of 80% of the 100 lots on offer selling, the auction brought an impressive $7.1 million. As anticipated, the lot illustrated on the catalogue’s front cover, a stunning mural made up of sixteen individual canvas panels by one of India’s most [...]

Sotheby’s Presents Works to Be Featured in “Hurouf: The Art of the World” Sale in Doha

DOHA.- Sotheby’s presented its landmark calligraphic auction which will take place at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, Doha on the 16 December. The 145-lot auction will showcase works by over 65 artists from 24 countries, with 82 pieces in the sale which are contemporary interpretations of calligraphy. The entire auction carries a pre-sale estimate of in excess of USD$4 million. The auction takes place in the year that Doha is Doha: Arab Capital of Culture 2010. ‘Hurouf: The Art of the Word’ [...]

Three Major German Museums Announce an Exhibition on the Art of the Enlightenment in China

BERLIN.- – In spring 2011 three major German museum bodies – the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen Munich – will join forces with the National Museum of China to present an exhibition on the art of the Enlightenment, to be held in Beijing. The exhibition reveals the unfolding artistic and intellectual curiosity and openness of mind which characterized this era in European history. It is furthermore the first international exhibition to be hosted [...]

Unseen Egon Schiele Work to be Unveiled at the New Richard Nagy Gallery in UK

LONDON.- More than forty-five extraordinary works by Austrian artist Egon Schiele, previously unseen in the UK, will be unveiled at Richard Nagy’s new gallery on Old Bond Street from 07 February – 04 March 2011. Much of the four thousand works Schiele produced during his short lifetime can only be seen in Vienna; at the Belvedere, the Albertina and the Leopold Museum, or New York, primarily at the Neue Galerie. While Schiele is recognised as one of the greatest draftsmen of the 20th [...]

PAFA Receives Unprecedented Gift of Art by Philadelphia Collector Linda Lee Alter

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts announced a gift of the collection of art by women from Philadelphia art collector and artist Linda Lee Alter. This important collection, formed by an extraordinary person with a clear vision of how collecting can make a difference, includes approximately 400 works of art spanning the 1910s to the present in all media and by a wide range of artists from the well-known to the underappreciated. Alice Neel, Investigation of Poverty [...]