Vassar College’s Art Center Highlights Three Collectors and 48 Outstanding Works

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY.- The summer exhibition at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College, A Taste for the Modern: Gifts from Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller, Edna Bryner Schwab, and Virginia Herrick Deknatel, showcases 48 paintings, drawings, prints, sculptures, and photographs that have been donated to the Art Center by three Vassar alumnae. On view from June 24 through September 4, 2011, A Taste for the Modern, examines for the first time the modern art collecting of these three generous alumnae – [...]

The Queen: Art and Image at the National Gallery Complex Celebrates Diamond Jubilee

EDINBURGH.- To mark The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012, the National Portrait Gallery stages an innovative touring exhibition bringing together 60 of the most remarkable and resonant images of Elizabeth II spanning the 60 years of her reign and some on public display for the first time. The Queen: Art and Image will tour to British venues before being shown in London, opening in Edinburgh in June, Belfast in October and Cardiff and London in 2012. From Beaton and Leibovitz [...]

BBC Uploads 63,000 Paintings Online as It Launches Your Paintings; Aims for 200,000 Works

LONDON.- The BBC in partnership with the Public Catalogue Foundation (PCF) announced the launch of Your Paintings, a project to create a complete catalogue of every oil painting in the national collection, on a dedicated website. In all, the national collection amounts to some 200,000 works, held in 3,000 galleries, museums, libraries and public institutions all over the country, making it probably one of the largest and most diverse collections of paintings in the world. The first phase of Your Paintings [...]

Rijksmuseum Exhibits Rare 17th Century Masterpiece by Caesar van Everdingen

AMSTERDAM.- In celebration of the start of summer, the Rijksmuseum has organised the premier exhibition of the 17th -century masterpiece Girl with a Large Hat (1645-50) by Caesar van Everdingen. Acquired more than a year ago with support from the lottery BankGiro Loterij, the painting has since undergone extensive restoration, which has left it more appealing, lustrous and vivid than ever. This masterpiece offers a new take on 17th-century Dutch painting. The painting is now on display in the Philips Wing [...]

SCOPE Basel 2011 Returns with Its Cutting Edge Contemporary Art at Historic Kasern

BASEL.- SCOPE, the art show that has established its name by curating cutting edge contemporary art from around the world, proudly returns to Basel for the fifth year. Running concurrent with Art Basel for the next three years, SCOPE returns to its high profile venue in historic Kaserne just blocks from Art Basel 42. Located in the heart of the city, SCOPE Basel’s new home, a pavilion offering over 5,000 m², will provide the real opportunity for gallerists, collectors, curators, [...]

Despite Several Setbacks, Dutch National Museum Renovation in Full Swing; to Reopen in 2013

AMSTERDAM (AP).- Rembrandt’s “Night Watch” and other famed works by Dutch masters will return to their permanent home by 2013, as a radical decade-long renovation of the national Rijksmuseum nears completion. A sneak preview Wednesday showed the 19th-century museum both modernized and closer to its original plan. Its red-brick exterior, reminiscent of a fairy-tale castle, remains intact. Inside, maze-like corridors have been scrapped in favor of large spaces and high ceilings, with a central “gallery of honor” restored to its initial [...]

The Guggenheim Acquires Three Seminal Works by Artist, Philosopher, and Poet Lee Ufan.

NEW YORK, NY.- The Guggenheim Museum recently acquired three seminal works by artist, philosopher, and poet Lee Ufan. The two sculptures and one painting come into the collection on the eve of this summer’s retrospective Lee Ufan: Marking Infinity and are generous gifts of Lisson Gallery, London; Kukje Gallery, Seoul; Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; and The Pace Gallery, New York, in honor of the artist. Active in Korea, Japan, and France since the 1960s, Lee’s creation of a visual, conceptual, [...]

Getty Museum Celebrates Italian Anniversary by Showcasing Objects in Its Collection

LOS ANGELES, CA.- Highlighting Italy’s rich cultural heritage, the J. Paul Getty Museum is celebrating the 150th anniversary of Italian unification with the Italian Showcase, a presentation of objects from its permanent collection that draws visitors’ attention to the many fine examples of Italian art on view at both the Getty Center and Getty Villa. The Getty Museum joins other U.S. cultural institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), the Art Institute of Chicago and [...]

Dazzling Display by the Greatest Viennese Artists Opens at the National Gallery of Victoria

MELBOURNE.- Stylish, provocative, rebellious and unforgettable – the world has seen nothing like Vienna in 1900. The National Gallery of Victoria today opened Vienna: Art & Design, a dazzling display of over 300 extraordinary works by the greatest Viennese artists of the early 20th century. Vienna: Art & Design features truly spectacular works by the world-renowned Gustav Klimt (1862–1918) including his magnificent portrait Emilie Flöge 1902, alongside the groundbreaking paintings of Egon Schiele (1890–1918), Oskar Kokoschka (1886–1980), Koloman Moser (1868–1918) [...]

Sotheby’s Three-Part Single-Owner Evill/Frost Sale Closes with Final Total of $69,343,051

LONDON.- Sotheby’s London, on June 16th, 2011, the final session of Sotheby’s three-part Single-Owner Sale of the greatest collection of 20th-Century British ever to come to the market, The Evill/Frost Collection, closed with a final combined total of £42,484,639 /$69,343,051*, by far exceeding the pre-sale high estimate for the sale series of £19 million. The top lot of the sale series, with no fewer than five bidders vying for the painting, was Stanley Spencer’s Sunflower and Dog Worship, which sold [...]

National Gallery of Canada Unveils Rare Exhibition Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome

OTTAWA.- On June 17, the National Gallery of Canada unveils its much anticipated, ground-breaking exhibition, Caravaggio and His Followers in Rome. The exhibition brings the genius of Caravaggio to Canada for the first time ever and is presented exclusively in Canada at the NGC. On view until September 11, 2011, this prestigious, international exhibition features 58 works by more than 30 artists, 12 of which are by Caravaggio. Among them is the recently discovered St. Augustine, a painting lost since [...]

Museum for Photography in Berlin Presents Important German Photographer Abisag Tüllmann

BERLIN.- The Museum für Fotografie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin presents Abisag Tüllmann: Photojournalism and Stage Photography on view from June 17th through September 18th, 2011. Abisag Tüllmann is one of the most important German photographers of the second half of the twentieth century. Since 1958, her photographs appeared in all major newspapers and periodicals and were also displayed in books and exhibitions. As a photojournalist and theatre photographer she maintained a close focus on the political, social and aesthetic-artistic changes of [...]

World’s Top Fair for Modern and Contemporary Art Suggests Boom Times Are Back

BASEL (REUTERS).- Wealthy collectors at Art Basel, the world’s top fair for modern and contemporary art, had to dig deep into their pockets this week to get hold of high-quality works, amid signs the market was returning to pre-crisis peaks. In times of low interest rates, many investors seek to diversify their portfolios, and masterpieces by 20th century artists like Picasso and Miro, or contemporary stars such as Anish Kapoor or Antony Gormley, are in high demand. Almost 300 private jets [...]

Coming to the United Kingdom: A Half-Mile Long Woman’s Body by Architect Charles Jencks

LONDON.- The world’s largest sculpture of a human body is being carved out of the British landscape using more than a million tonnes of rock and soil left behind by coal-mining. “Northumberlandia,” designed by American landscape architect Charles Jencks, will be nearly half a mile long when it is finished in 2013. The sculpture, of a woman’s body, has already been given the epithet “Goddess of the North’ by locals in Northumberland in the far northeast of England, a part [...]

DC Moore Gallery Celebrates the Life and Work of George Tooker in Exhibition

NEW YORK, NY.- George Tooker: Reality Returns as a Dream celebrates the life and art of a painter whose powerful imagery and technical mastery made him one of the most acclaimed artists of his generation. For over sixty years, Tooker (1920-2011) has been highly regarded for his luminous and often enigmatic paintings. His themes range from alienation and the dehumanizing aspects of contemporary society to personal meditations on the human condition. Over the course of his long career, he created [...]