Living Legend of the International Avant-Garde, Yayoi Kusama, at Gagosian in Rome

ROME.- Gagosian Gallery presents an exhibition of recent paintings and sculptures by Yayoi Kusama. Kusama is a living legend of the international avant-garde who has emphatically eschewed the categorizations of modern art. Flamboyant yet profound, her oeuvre runs the gamut from unique masterpieces to mass-produced pop culture commodities, consistent in their constant and manifold appeal to the imagination and the senses. In a protean career spanning more than sixty years, she has made cosmic infinity and personal obsession the twin [...]

A Celebration of the Skill of Emerging Victorian Artists at the National Gallery of Victoria

MELBOURNE.- Opening 31 March, the National Gallery of Victoria will present Top Arts: VCE 2010, a celebration of the skill and imagination of emerging Victorian artists. Now in its seventeenth year, Top Arts will display 55 works by 53 students from government, Catholic and independent schools from across Victoria. Exemplary drawings, photography, paintings, sculpture, ceramics, books, short films and textiles will be represented in this year’s exhibition. Works have been inspired by a wide range of themes, including responses to [...]

City of Cologne will Receive a Spectacular Gift from the Bequest of Irene Ludwig

COLOGNE.- After the unexpected death of Prof. Dr. h.c. mult. Irene Ludwig last November, the terms of our generous patron’s testament have been disclosed. The City of Cologne will receive spectacular gifts and permanent loans from the bequest of Irene Ludwig for the Museum Ludwig and the Museum Schnütgen. A total of 528 works from the estate of Prof. Ludwig will permanently enrich Cologne’s collections. Mayor Jürgen Roters announced the donation today in the Historisches Rathaus, expressing deep-felt admiration and [...]

Record for Any Paul Gauguin Print Sold at Auction Established Today at Sotheby’s

LONDON.- This morning at Sotheby’s in London , ten prints by Paul Gauguin from the Collection of Stanley J. Seeger, sold for £1.54 million ($2.47 million), almost four times the pre-sale low estimate for the group. A new auction record for a print by Paul Gauguin was achieved when Crouching Tahitian Woman Seen From The Back sold for £577,250 ($924,466), over three times the estimate (£180,000-220,000). The traced monotype, or ‘printed drawing’, was fiercely contested by a number of determined [...]

Alte Pinakothek Celebrates 175th Anniversary with a Series of Blockbuster Exhibitions

MUNICH.- In 2011 the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen is marking the Alte Pinakothek’s 175th anniversary with a wide range of events. Opened to the public on 16 October, 1836, Leo von Klenze’s seminal museum building today still provides the architectural framework for collections of paintings assembled in Munich around 1800 by various branches of the Wittelsbach dynasty, together with King Ludwig I’s later acquisitions. Queen Paola of Belgium (R) is guided through the Alte Pinakothek museum by curator Miriam Neumeister (L) in [...]

Exhibition of Paintings and Works on Paper by Richard Prince at Gagosian Gallery in Paris

PARIS.- Gagosian Gallery presents “Richard Prince: de Kooning” an exhibition of paintings and works on paper. This coincides with “Richard Prince: American Prayer” at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, an exhibition of American literature, ephemera and artworks from Prince’s personal collection. Prince’s “de Kooning” series is a process of interaction with the canonic imagery of the Abstract Expressionist idol Willem de Kooning. The idea for these edgy Oedipal works came to him when he was leafing through a catalogue of [...]

DC Moore Gallery Announces Acclaimed Painter George Tooker Dead at 90

NEW YORK, N.Y.- One of the most acclaimed painters of his generation, George Tooker (1920-2011) possessed an originality and depth of vision that is unsurpassed in modern American art. For over sixty years, he has been highly regarded for his luminous and often enigmatic work. His themes range from alienation and the dehumanizing aspects of contemporary society to personal meditations on the human condition. By reducing action and anecdote to subtle gestures and juxtapositions that carry meaning and express essential [...]

Exhibition of New Work by Spanish Artist Angela de la Cruz at Lisson Gallery

LONDON.- Lisson Gallery presents an exhibition of new work by Angela de la Cruz. Fiercely emotive, de la Cruz’s work examines the language of painting and sculpture, challenging the established norms and testing the boundaries of both mediums. Says Lisson Gallery’s Curatorial Director Greg Hilty, “De la Cruz’s fierce independence of vision and confidence with the physical matter of her work marks her out as one of the truly unique artistic voices of her generation.” Angela de la Cruz, Compressed [...]

Getty Museum to Return Looted Painting Previously Owned by Jacques Goudstikker

LOS ANGELES (AP).- The J. Paul Getty Museum has agreed to return a 370-year-old painting that once belonged to an art dealer who fled Holland when the Nazis invaded in 1940. Jacques Goudstikker was the Netherlands’ biggest art dealer in the 1930s. He was fleeing the Nazis with his wife and young son at the beginning of World War II when he fell through a trap door on an outbound ship and died. His collection was looted, with some works [...]

Hundreds of British Arts Organizations Feel the Sting of Government’s Funding Cuts

LONDON (AP).- Hundreds of British arts organizations had their public funding slashed or eliminated Wednesday, the result of government spending cuts aimed at tackling the country’s deficit. The Arts Council England must cut 15 percent from the amount it gives to art, music, theater, dance, literature and other groups by 2015 — which still leaves it with almost 1 billion pounds ($1.6 billion) to hand out. The council said that instead of “salami slicing” — cutting 15 percent from everyone [...]

Acte2Galerie Presents Photographer Albert Watson in Solo Show at ArtParis 2011

PARIS.- Acte2Galerie for ArtParis+Guest 2011 presents Albert Watson for the SOLO SHOW art fair. ArtParis+Guest is on view from March 31 to April 3, 2011 at le Grand Palais. Albert Watson has made his mark as one of the world’s most successful fashion and commercial photographers during the last four decades, while creating his own art along the way. Over the years, his striking images have appeared on more than 250 covers of Vogue around the world and have been [...]

Sotheby’s New York to Offer an Exceptional Tahitian Sculpture By Paul Gauguin

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 3 May 2011 in New York will feature Jeune tahitienne, an exquisite sculpture carved during Paul Gauguin’s first trip to Tahiti between 1890 and 1893 (est. $10/15 million). As the only fully-worked bust portrait that Gauguin is known to have created, it is unique within his oeuvre, and numbers among the artist’s finest sculptures in private hands. Jeune tahitienne will be on view this April at Sotheby’s Hong Kong [...]

Portuguese Architect Eduardo Souto de Moura is This Year’s Winner of the Pritzker Prize

CHICAGO, IL (REUTERS).- Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto de Moura is the winner of this year’s $100,000 Pritzker Prize for his designs that convey both “power and modesty, bravado and subtlety,” the foundation that awards the prize said on Monday. The honor, often dubbed the Nobel prize for architecture, was supposed to be announced next month and presented in Washington, D.C., but was prematurely reported by a news outlet, according to a spokesman. Portuguese architect Eduardo Souto Moura speaks during a [...]

Painting from the Collection of Mikhail Baryshnikov to Highlight Sotheby’s Sale of Russian Art

NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s 12 April 2011 auction of Russian Art in New York will feature a painting that Mikhail Baryshnikov donated to the Baryshnikov Arts Center, so that they may offer it at auction. The full proceeds from the sale of Petr Petrovich Vereshchagin’s View of St. Petersburg, one of the most magnificent cityscapes by the artist ever to appear at auction (est. $300/500,000), will go to benefit the Center’s work. The painting will be on view in Sotheby’s [...]

Madison Square Park Conservancy’s Mad. Sq. Art Premieres Newly Commissioned Film

NEW YORK, NY.- Madison Square Park Conservancy’s Mad. Sq. Art announces the premiere of City of Nature, a new film by artist Kota Ezawa to be on view in Madison Square Park March 31 – May 15, 2011. Knitting together fleeting, split-second excerpts of popular films in which flora and fauna are the featured characters, the artist’s new animated video offers a six-minute cinematic comment on the juxtapositions between nature and culture in narrative mass media. Incorporating re-interpreted scenes from [...]