Large-scale exhibition of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s work opens in Chemnitz

CHEMNITZ.- The Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz is presenting the large-scale exhibition PIERRE-AUGUSTE RENOIR. Like Painted Silk from 18 September 2011 to 8 January 2012. The exhibition aims to cast an altogether new light on the great Impressionist painter. In addition to masterpieces from private collections and from European museums such as the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, the National Museum of Stockholm and the Belvedere in Vienna, the show will also include the rich stock of prints by Renoir from the Saarland Museum in Saarbrücken. This [...]

Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement at the Royal Academy of Arts

LONDON.- The Royal Academy of Arts presents a landmark exhibition focusing on Edgar Degas’s preoccupation with movement as an artist of the dance. Degas and the Ballet: Picturing Movement traces the development of the artist’s ballet imagery throughout his career, from the documentary mode of the early 1870s to the sensuous expressiveness of his final years. The exhibition is the first to present Degas’s progressive engagement with the figure in movement in the context of parallel advances in photography and early film; indeed, [...]

Minneapolis Institute of Arts to transfer 5th century B.C. Greek volute krater to Italy

MINNEAPOLIS, MN.- The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) has agreed to transfer a 5th century B.C. Greek volute krater acquired by the MIA in 1983 to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) for delivery to Italy. The MIA became concerned with the provenance of the object and contacted the Ministry for Cultural Assets and Activities of the Italian Republic (Ministry). Both the Ministry and ICE HSI provided information about the krater to the Museum. Working collaboratively with the Ministry [...]

Delhi exhibition explores India’s sexy “morning shows”

NEW DELHI (REUTERS).- A decade ago, there was hardly a street corner in Indian cities that wasn’t plastered with sleazy posters of adult movies. Over the years, the posters and the risqué “morning show” films they advertised have mostly disappeared from Indian cinemas. But this month in New Delhi, a unique exhibition is trying to give these posters a new lease of life. “When I talk to some young people…(they) do not know this whole morning show culture,” says V. Sunil, [...]

Exhibition of rarely seen paintings by Eva Hesse presented at the Brooklyn Museum

BROOKLYN, N.Y.- Eva Hesse Spectres 1960, an exhibition of rarely seen paintings by the artist Eva Hesse (1936–1970), are presented in the Brooklyn Museum’s Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art beginning September 16, 2011. Created when Hesse was just 24 years old, this group of nineteen semi-representational oil paintings, while standing in contrast to the works for which she is well known, nonetheless constitutes a vital link to her later Minimalist sculptural assemblages. Although several recent museum exhibitions of Hesse’s work [...]

FBI arrests Florida man accused of stealing paintings from a Los Angeles art gallery

LOS ANGELES, CA (REUTERS).- A former art dealer was arrested in Florida on Thursday on accusations he sold a Los Angeles collector forged paintings he claimed were by Claude Monet, Mark Rothko and others, federal prosecutors said. Matthew Taylor, 43, of Vero Beach, Florida, was also accused of stealing paintings from a Los Angeles art gallery. Taylor was charged in a federal grand jury indictment last week with wire fraud, money laundering, interstate transportation of stolen property and possession of stolen [...]

Philadelphia Museum of Art appoints Hiromi Kinoshita associate curator of Chinese Art

PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Timothy Rub, the George D. Widener Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, today announced the appointment of Hiromi Kinoshita as Associate Curator of Chinese Art in the Department of East Asian Art. Currently Assistant Curator of Chinese Art at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Dr. Kinoshita will join the staff on April 1, 2012. She will be responsible for the care and utilization of the Museum’s extensive holdings of Chinese art. “Hiromi Kinoshita brings [...]

Nine monumental photoworks by American artist John Chamberlain at Steven Kasher Gallery

NEW YORK, NY.- Steven Kasher Gallery exhibits a new body of work by the great American artist John Chamberlain. John Chamberlain: Pictures presents nine monumental photoworks, comprised of multiple eight-foot-high stretched canvas panels, each panel hosting a highly-processed and colorized panoramic photograph by the artist. Created in 2010-11, Pictures is Chamberlain’s most candid, autobiographical, and intimate body of work to date. Departing from his sculptures in medium and imagery, these new works on canvas continue the artist’s use of color and composition [...]

Wesleyan University’s Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery presents Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports

MIDDLETOWN, CT.- Mixed Signals: Artists Consider Masculinity in Sports, a traveling exhibition of works by contemporary artists that probes the stereotype of the American male athlete organized by Independent Curators International is on view in Wesleyan University’s Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery, located at 283 Washington Terrace on the Wesleyan campus in Middletown, through Sunday, October 23, 2011. There will also be a screening of two films by Matthew Barney, one of the featured artists in the Mixed Signals exhibit, on Tuesday, [...]

Exhibition of new work by Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco at Marian Goodman Gallery

NEW YORK, NY.- Marian Goodman Gallery presents an exhibition of new work by Gabriel Orozco which will be on view through October 15th. This is Orozco’s first solo exhibition to follow his recently completed retrospective tour that began in December 2009 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and traveled to the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Centre Pompidou, Paris, and ended at the Tate Modern, London, in May of this year. Two new bodies of work are introduced in this exhibition. [...]

Exhibition of German portraiture around 1500 opens at the Hypo Cultural Foundation

MUNICH.- In collaboration with the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Kunsthalle of the Hypo Cultural Foundation in Munich presents an exhibition on German portraiture around 1500. Around 170 outstanding artworks, including paintings by Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) and Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98-1543), as well as formidable sculptures, medals, prints and drawings, demonstrate how individuals became the focal point of artistic interest in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries and how artists developed into explorers and [...]

Eighteen new paintings in oil and mixed media by Vincent Desiderio exhibition at Marlborough Chelsea

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Marlborough Chelsea presents an exhibition of new work by Vincent Desiderio. Featuring eighteen new paintings in oil and mixed media, this is Desiderio’s seventh exhibition with Marlborough Gallery. The show will be on view through October 15. Vincent Desiderio’s new work revels in the uninhibited toughness of paint. He exploits this toughness to underscore the absolute presence of the work in all its unapologetic materiality. As such this work demonstrates the unique capacity of painting to anchor the viewer [...]

Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art totals $2.3 million at Sotheby’s New York

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Sotheby’s week of Asian Art sales concluded this morning with Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art which brought $2,262,000 (est. $2.6/3.8 million). This brings the combined total for the weeks three sales to $31,447,375. The auction was led by the cover lot Eglise by SH Raza. The painting comes from an important period in the artist’s work and met expectations when it sold for $362,500 (est. $300/500,000). This was one of a number of strong prices for modern paintings [...]

Nassau County Museum of Art presents an early first edition of Goya’s Los Caprichos

ROSLYN HARBOR, N.Y.- This exhibition features an early first edition of Los Caprichos, a set of 80 etchings by Spanish artist Francisco de Goya y Lucientes that was published in 1799. It is regarded as one of the most influential series of graphic images in the history of Western art. Francisco Goya: Los Caprichos was organized by Landau Traveling Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA, in association with Denenberg Fine Art, West Hollywood, CA. “Capricho” can be translated as a whim, a fantasy [...]

Smithsonian Institution Archives launches a new website

WASHINGTON, D.C.- The Smithsonian Institution Archives announces the launch of its new website, http://siarchives.si.edu, with new features and improved access to collections. First launched in 1995, the website has been redesigned to maximize public access to the Archives’ rich collections that document the history of the Smithsonian and its role in the arts, science and culture of the United States. The Smithsonian Archives is the record keeper of the Smithsonian—collecting, preserving and making available the official records of the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine [...]