World’s Largest Photograph on View at University of California, Riverside’s Sweeney Art Gallery

RIVERSIDE, CA.- UCR Sweeney Art Gallery & Culver Center of the Arts present The Great Picture: The World’s Largest Photograph & The Legacy Project, an exhibition in three parts that tells the tale of the successful campaign to make the world’s largest camera and photograph. The photo’s mammoth scale of 32 x 111 feet earned it a place in Guinness World Records, and made it a photo history landmark. “It is also an exploration of the 172-year-old conflict between painting and photography, [...]

Photographs of Musicians by Laura Levine in Her First Exhibition at Steven Kasher Gallery

NEW YORK, NY.- Steven Kasher Gallery presents Laura Levine: Musicians, an insider’s look at the artists at the forefront of rock, punk, indie rock, post-punk, hip-hop, New Wave, and No Wave. This is the first one-person gallery exhibition featuring Levine’s photography, including her vintage gelatin silver prints – many one of a kind. The show features over 35 vintage and modern prints. Laura Levine: Musicians is being presented at Steven Kasher Gallery in conjunction with the exhibition Rude and Reckless: Punk/Post-Punk Graphics, [...]

Gang culture in the Americas by Donna De Cesare

Donna De Cesare, born in New York is considered an expert on the issues of youth identity and gang violence. Her photographs have documented the various phenomena of the gang culture of Los Angeles in the 90s, winning several awards and publications including The New York Times and Life magazine.

Exhibition of Flower Drawings at Fitzwilliam Museum Explores the Legacy of Redouté

CAMBRIDGE.- The ‘Raphael of flowers’, Joseph-Pierre Redouté (1759-1840), internationally famous for his prints of roses and lilies, was the finest botanical draughtsman of his age. In France he had a prestigious reputation in his own time, working for the Royal court both for Queen Marie-Antoinette and then for the Empress Joséphine following the French Revolution. Later in life his school of botanical drawing in Paris had over 80 pupils, the majority of them women, a number of whom became professional painters [...]

Auction of Mike Mitchell’s Beatles Photographs He Took as a Teen Soars Over $300,000 at Christie’s

NEW YORK, NY (REUTERS).- A trove of unpublished photographs of The Beatles’ first U.S. concerts taken by a Washington teen-ager in 1964 took in more than $360,000 at auction, selling for many times their estimates. Forty-six lots of about 50 pristine black-and-white photographs of the Fab Four that had sat in a box for 45 years totaled $361,938, including commission at the sale Wednesday night, Christie’s said. The collection had been expected to fetch about $100,000. Bidders paid anywhere from $813 to $68,500 [...]

Prado Displays Caravaggio’s Entombment of Christ, on Loan from the Vatican Museums

MADRID.- To coincide with the celebration of World Youth Day and with Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to Madrid, the Museo del Prado will be displaying. The Entombment of Christ, a major masterpiece by Caravaggio loaned from the Vatican Museums. For the first time in Spain, this monumental canvas will be exhibited for two months at the Prado thanks to sponsorship from the Fundación Amigos del Museo del Prado and as part of the “Invited Work” exhibition programme. This exceptional loan is also part [...]

artnet Auctions Announces Important Selection of 20th Century and Contemporary Design

NEW YORK, NY.- artnet Auctions announces Design: The Museum Sale, an important selection of 20th century and Contemporary Design that is also represented in museum collections. These works, consigned by private collectors as well as dealers and galleries, explore the artistry and innovation present in many examples of design, seen in common objects as well as works made in limited quantities. Brent Lewis, Head of Design at artnet Auctions notes, “Design has always been a focus of museum collections, and the collectors [...]

Rare Early Marilyn Monroe Images, First Time at Auction, Offered by Heritage Auctions

DALLAS, TX.- Seven images of a young Marilyn Monroe, then known as Norma Jeane – including one of Norma Jeane smiling in the California surf that, until recently, had remained unseen are being offered for the first time at auction by the family of acclaimed Hollywood photographer Richard C. Miller, as the Richard C. Miller Archive, as part of Heritage Auctions July 29 Signature(r) Music & Entertainment Memorabilia Auction. “There are many reasons that make this archive and Richard C. [...]

Christie’s Announces Global Art Sales Total $3.2 Billion in the First Half of 2011

LONDON (REUTERS).- Christie’s sold art worth 2.0 billion pounds ($3.2 billion) in the first half of the year, up 15 percent on the same period in 2011, and a leading executive said on Thursday that full-year results should break the 2010 record. The world’s biggest art business, owned by French billionaire Francois Pinault, posted sales of 3.3 billion pounds in 2010, a leap of 53 percent on 2009 when the global financial crisis saw wealthy buyers retreat. “There is a good chance [...]

Royal Institute of British Architects Stirling Prize 2011 Shortlist Announced in London

LONDON.- The beautifully simple Velodrome in London’s Olympic Park, the carefully crafted remodelling of the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres in Stratford upon Avon, a highly imaginative London school on a tight urban site, an innovative and vibrant cultural centre in Derry, the transformation of an unremarkable 1980s office building in London into an elegant new office and retail space, and the breathtaking extension of a significant museum in Germany, form the shortlist for the prestigious £20,000 RIBA Stirling Prize. Now in its [...]

British Realist Painter Lucian Freud, Famed for His Nudes, has Died Aged 88

LONDON (AP).- Lucian Freud, a towering and uncompromising figure in the art world for more than 50 years, has died, his New York-based art dealer said Thursday. He was 88. Spokeswoman Bettina Prentice said that Freud died after an illness at his London home late Wednesday night, but didn’t give any further details. Freud was known for his intense realist portraits, particularly of nudes. In recent years his paintings commanded staggering prices at auction, including one of an overweight nude woman [...]

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Announces New Deputy Director for Advancement

RICHMOND, VA.- The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts announced today the appointment of Linda Lipscomb as the new deputy director for advancement beginning September 1, 2011. As the leader of the museum’s development team, Lipscomb will work toward raising unrestricted money, which supports museum operations, exhibitions and education funding, as well as endowments and special projects. VMFA Development also oversees the John Barton Payne and Heritage societies, which support art donors and planned giving, respectively. “The Virginia Museum is currently experiencing unprecedented [...]

Grand Openings Return of the Blogs Commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York

NEW YORK, NY.- The Museum of Modern Art has commissioned the New York –based artist collective Grand Openings to compose a multifaceted, live program of performances to take place in The Donald B. and Catherine C. Marron Atrium and in other locations throughout the Museum from July 20 through August 1, 2011. Over the course of the 13-day exhibition, the group’s five core members —Ei Arakawa, Jutta Koether, Jay Sanders, Emily Sundblad, and Stefan Tcherepnin—will perform partly scripted and partly improvised actions, loose [...]

Stolen Painting Believed to Be a Modigliani Held Clue to Serbia War Crimes Arrest

BELGRADE (REUTERS).- Desperate for cash after years on the run, Goran Hadzic tried to sell a stolen painting believed to be a Modigliani and supplied the vital clue for capturing the last major Yugoslav war crimes fugitive. Serbia’s president announced the arrest of Hadzic, a Croatian Serb wartime leader indicted for crimes against humanity during the 1991-95 Croatian war, on Wednesday. In a later news conference, Serbia’s chief war crimes prosecutor Vladimir Vukcevic said the 52-year-old was arrested in a forest [...]

National Museum Wales’ Historic Photography Goes Digital Thanks to Gift

CARDIFF.- A new project to curate and digitise historic photography from Wales ’ national collections has been made possible with the support of the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, which is marking its 50th Birthday this year. Natural Images – Amgueddfa Cymru’s new initiative, which begins in Autumn 2011, will involve transferring the finest examples from the Museum’s extraordinary collection of around 500,000 photographs and historic items, into an accessible digital format. Items from the Museum’s photography collection are currently spread across several disciplines from [...]