Art Institute of Chicago Announces Significant Acquisition of Seminal Kazimir Malevich Painting

CHICAGO, IL.- The Art Institute of Chicago announces one of the most significant acquisitions in its history: Kazimir Malevich’s Painterly Realism of a Football Player–Color Masses in the 4th Dimension (1915). Joining such works as Georges Seurat’s A Sunday on La Grande Jatte–1884, Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks, El Greco’s Assumption of the Virgin, Gustave Caillebotte’s Paris Street; Rainy Day, and Henri Matisse’s Bathers by a River , Malevich’s masterpiece is the first work of Russian Suprematism to enter the museum’s collection [...]

Selling Exhibition of Key Modern British Sculpture at Robert Bowman Modern

LONDON.- Robert Bowman Modern is holding a selling exhibition of Modern British Sculpture. On view until April 7, 2011, the show coincides with that of their neighbour the Royal Academy who is hosting its first 20th-Century British Sculpture exhibition for 30 years. Robert Bowman Modern presents works by the key modern British sculptors including Kenneth Armitage, Michael Ayrton, Jacob Epstein, Elizabeth Frink, Barbara Hepworth and Leon Underwood. The exhibition features a number of works by Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), one of [...]

Rembrandt Portrait, Which Sold at Christie’s in 2009, to Be Offered for $47 Million

LONDON (REUTERS).- A Rembrandt portrait, one of the last works from the Dutch master’s late career still in private hands, will be offered for sale at the TEFAF Maastricht art fair later this year for $47 million. “Portrait of a Man With Arms Akimbo” was under the auctioneer’s hammer as recently as 2009, when it fetched an artist record price of 20.2 million pounds, or $33 million, at Christie’s in London. The buyer at the time was reported to be [...]

Egypt Army Secures Egyptian Museum with Pharaonic Treasures

CAIRO (REUTERS).- Army units secured the Egyptian Museum in central Cairo against possible looting on Friday, protecting a building with spectacular pharaonic treasures such as the death mask of the boy king Tutankhamun, state TV said. The news follows a day of violent anti-government protests in Cairo and other cities. Some of the most violent scenes in four days of protests have been in squares and streets close to the museum building. Egyptian protesters are gathered outside the Egyptian Museum [...]

Nefertiti’s Bust will Stay in German Capital Says Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit

BERLIN (REUTERS).- Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said Friday that Germany would not send the bust of an ancient Egyptian queen to modern-day Egypt because it was obtained nearly a century ago. Wowereit defended a German foundation’s possession of Nefertiti’s bust that has been in Berlin since 1913 after a dispute flared this week over its ownership between the foundation and Egypt’s antiquities chief. File photo of Berlin’s Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit “Nefertiti is staying in Berlin,” Wowereit told mass-circulation daily [...]

Seventy Impressive Black-and-White Drawings by Roy Lichtenstein on View at Albertina

VIENNA.- The 1960s marked a dramatic change of direction in the art of Roy Lichtenstein: while his earlier works consisted mainly of paintings of American history and the American West, in 1961 he turned to black-and-white drawings. Inspired by advertising and media illustrations as well as by comic strips, Lichtenstein created about seventy impressive black-and-white drawings between 1961 and 1968. These were completely new in terms of subject and style. In the same period, the artist also made numerous black-and-white [...]

Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna Presents Matthew Day Jackson Exhibition

BOLOGNA.- Museo d’Arte Moderna di Bologna presents In search of…, the first solo show hosted by a European museum of the work of Matthew Day Jackson, one of the main protagonists of the new American art scene, a generation that cannot be reduced to any single movement or avantgardist logic. On view until May 1, 2011. Taking his cue from our fundamental questions concerning human existence—who we are, where we come from, what lies ahead—the artist enacts an exploration of [...]

Paul Kasmin Presents Dual Exhibition of New Works and Iconic Paintings by Kenny Scharf

NEW YORK, NY.- Paul Kasmin Gallery presents a two-fold exhibition of works by the renowned pop artist Kenny Scharf, on view at the gallery’s Chelsea locations from January 27th through February 26, 2011. NATURAFUTURA, a new series of large-scale paintings inspired by the surroundings of Scharf’s coastal studio in Bahia, Brazil will premiere at 293 Tenth Avenue, and THREE DOZEN!, a collection of his iconic donut paintings will be shown at 511 W. 27th Street. Kenny Scharf, Various donut works, [...]

Auction Record Set for Titian at Sotheby’s Old Master Paintings Sale in New York

NEW YORK, NY.- Today at Sotheby’s sale of Important Old Master Paintings in New York, a new auction record was established for the Renaissance master Titian when his A Sacra Conversazione: The Madonna and Child with Saints Luke and Catherine of Alexandria sold for $16,882,500 to a European Private Collector. That price exceeded the previous record of $13.6 million, which had held for 20 years. A Sacra Conversazione is one of only a handful of multi-figured compositions by Titian that remain [...]

Berkeley Art Museum Exhibition Looks at James McNeill Whistler

BERKELEY, CA.- James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903), the expatriate American artist, was a prolific and innovative painter, watercolorist, and printmaker. Throughout his lively career Whistler was known as a discerning collector of Japanese prints and as a quick-witted, sharp-tongued advocate of “art for art’s sake.” Whistler’s roots were in Realism, but his approach Modernist; his brand of Realism eschewed narrative and sentimentality and instead set the incidents and characters of the everyday into compositions determined by design, color, and tonal variation. [...]

Italy’s Largest and Most Important Art Fair Arte Fiera Art First Celebrates Contemporary Art

BOLOGNA.- Arte Fiera Art First celebrates its 35th edition this year, to be held in Bologna from 28 to 31 January 2011. One of the first international modern and contemporary art fairs organized in Italy in the 1970s, Arte Fiera has gradually become Italy’s largest and most important art fair. Every year, this must-see event is the first exhibition devoted to modern and contemporary art, and attracts gallery owners, collectors, curators, artists, and art lovers from Italy and around the [...]

Statues Devastated in World War II Go on Show at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin

BERLIN (AP).- The ancient gods and fantastical creatures going on show in Berlin this week have made an unlikely comeback from near-destruction. Unearthed in present-day Syria a century ago, the 3,000-year-old basalt statues and stone reliefs in the exhibition, “The Tell Halaf Adventure,” shattered into thousands of pieces when their Berlin home was destroyed by bombing in 1943. The rubble was rescued, then slumbered in the vaults of the capital’s Pergamon Museum, then in East Berlin, for decades before a [...]

British Museum and Rio Tinto Announce Australian Season: Broad Program of Exhibitions

LONDON.- The British Museum and Rio Tinto today, on Australia Day, announce plans for Australian Season, a season dedicated to Australian culture featuring a broad programme of exhibitions, installations, performances, lectures and film screenings. The season is supported by Rio Tinto and will include: Australia Landscape, a specially commissioned space presenting Australian biodiversity in the Museum‟s forecourt (in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew); Out of Australia: prints and drawings from Sidney Nolan to Rover Thomas, an exhibition of [...]

The Romanovs, Tsars and Art Collectors at the Pinacotheque de Paris

PARIS.- For the opening of its new rooms, the Pinacothèque de Paris has organised an exceptional exhibition around a major theme: the birth of a Museum. Through May 29 2011, the Pinacothèque de Paris displays the treasures of the Romanovs, a unique ensemble consisting of a hundred works from the Hermitage Museum in Saint-Petersburg. Assembled since the end of the 17th century, the Russian imperial collections have quickly become part of the largest European collections. As early as 1785, Count Ernst [...]

Milwaukee Art Museum, Carnegie Museum of Art Wager Masterpiece on Super Bowl XLV

MILWAUKEE, WI.- In keeping with the tradition of friendly wagers, Carnegie Museum of Art and the Milwaukee Art Museumare venturing temporary loans of major works of art, based on the outcome of Super Bowl XLV between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Green Bay Packers. The stakes: A temporary loan of Milwaukee Art Museum’s prized Boating on the Yerres by Gustave Caillebotte, wagered by Director and avid Packer fan Daniel Keegan, and a temporary loan of the Carnegie Museum of Art’s Bathers with [...]