Christie’s shows off star New York Lots in newly renovated show rooms in central London

LONDON (REUTERS).- Christie’s is showing some of the prize lots coming up for sale in New York at an exhibition in London including a Degas sculpture valued at up to $35 million and a Lichtenstein picture worth as much as $45 million. The prices underline the belief among auction houses and some sellers that high-quality works which rarely come to market will continue to fetch top prices despite broader concerns over the global economy. Edgar Degas’ “Petite danseuse de quatorze ans” [...]

North American debut of David Hockney’s “Fresh Flowers” at the Royal Ontario Museum

TORONTO, ON.- The Institute for Contemporary Culture (ICC) at the ROM presents David Hockney’s Fresh Flowers: Drawings on iPhones and iPads, an exhibition that reveals the artist’s extraordinary use of this novel new artistic medium and its impact on shaping visual culture today. Originally presented by the Fondation Pierre Bergé/Yves Saint Laurent in Paris, this ICC presentation is the exhibition’s North American debut and marks Hockney’s first major show in Canada in over two decades. Curated by Charlie Scheips and engineered by architect [...]

Titian masterpiece among highlights of Miami’s longest running contemporary art fair

MIAMI, FL.- Art Miami, Miami’s longest running contemporary art fair, will once again captivate the city from November 29 – December 4, 2011. As the anchor art fair to the city of Miami, the fair will return with a compelling array of modern and contemporary artwork from the 20th and 21st centuries. Art Miami will be held in a state-­‐of-­‐the-­‐art 125,000 square foot pavilion in Midtown Miami’s burgeoning Wynwood Arts District. With over 110 prestigious international galleries participating, Art Miami is [...]

Three of the greatest painters of the last 200 years are brought together at Moderna Museet

STOCKHOLM.- In what is arguably one of the most ambitious exhibitions to be held at Moderna Museet, three of the greatest painters of the last 200 years are brought together, not in competition, but as a means to explore the ways in which artists across the centuries share interests, values and preoccupations. It is an exhibiton that focuses on the radical nature of painting. J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851), Claude Monet (1840-1926) and Cy Twombly (1928-2011) were each in their own time [...]

The Whitney presents “Real/Surreal”, exploring two of the strongest currents in twentieth-century American art

NEW YORK, N.Y.- The permeable boundary between the real and the imagined is the subject of Real/Surreal, at the Whitney Museum of American Art. A close look at the interconnection between two of the strongest currents in twentieth-century American art, the exhibition includes eighty paintings, drawings, photographs, and prints made in the years before, during, and immediately after the Second World War by such artists as Paul Cadmus, Federico Castellón, Ralston Crawford, Mabel Dwight, Jared French, Louis Guglielmi, Edward Hopper, Man Ray, [...]

Exhibition devoted to the works in black and white by Ellsworth Kelly at Haus der Kunst

MUNICH.- The exhibition at Haus der kunst is devoted solely to the works in black and white. Ellsworth Kelly (b. 1923 in Newburgh, New York) regularly verified a newfound formal solution through an execution in black and white. Mostly these versions in black and white were created parallel to the coloured versions; sometimes they preceded them. According to Ellsworth Kelly, his paintings in black and white comprise approximately 20 percent of his total úuvre; their amount in the complete work is higher than [...]

Collectors of contemporary art may bid for a Banksy at the Cumberland Hotel

LONDON.- Eight works by legendary graffiti artist Banksy, a canvas by Eine – whose work was given to US president Barack Obama by prime minister David Cameron – a vintage Hermes crocodile ‘Kelly’ handbag and a collection of costume jewellery that once belonged to the Duchess of Windsor, are among the lots on offer at two auctions taking place at The Cumberland Hotel. Fans of contemporary art and collectors of high-end fashion are expected to pack the Marble Arch property – [...]

Major exhibition&event that recounts Arte Povera at the Maxxi Museum in Rome

ROME.- A major exhibition/event to recount Arte Povera, the movement that has starred Giovanni Anselmo, Alighiero Boetti, Pier Paolo Calzolari, Luciano Fabro, Jannis Kounellis, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Giulio Paolini, Pino Pascali, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Emilio Prini and Gilberto Zorio. Arte Povera 2011 curated by Germano Celant will from September be staged in parallel through to March 2012 in various major Italian museums and cultural institutions in Bologna, Milan, Naples, Turin and Rome. From 7 October 2011 through to 8 [...]

New show at Ordovas Gallery in London examines artist Francis Bacon’s debt to Rembrandt

LONDON (REUTERS).- An exhibition at a new London gallery examines what its owner believes is a long overlooked subject — 20th century painter Francis Bacon’s debt to 17th century Dutch artist Rembrandt. It was Rembrandt’s Spanish contemporary Diego Velazquez who is most closely associated with Bacon in the minds of most art lovers, due to the Irish-born painter’s famous series of interpretations of the 1650 portrait of Pope Innocent X. While the relationship between Bacon and Rembrandt is less obvious, gallery [...]

Christie’s announces the auction of an exceptional selection of Pop Art masterpieces

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Christie’s announces the auction of an exceptional selection of Pop Art masterpieces at its Post-War and Contemporary Sale on November 8, 2011. The constellation of major works to be offered will include stars such as Roy Lichtenstein’s I Can See the Whole Room…and There’s Nobody in It!, Andy Warhol’s Silver Liz and Four Campbell’s Soup Cans and Gerhard Richter’s Frau Niepenberg. Works by all three of these artists have previously set world auction records at Christie’s, a leader in [...]

“Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum” opens at Reynolda House Museum

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C.- ”Modern Masters from the Smithsonian American Art Museum,” an exhibition that examines the complex nature of American art in the mid-twentieth century, will open at Reynolda House Museum of American Art on Friday, Oct. 7. The exhibition, North Carolina’s first from the Smithsonian American Art Museum in nearly ten years, will remain on view through Dec. 31, 2011. Several events will be going on during opening weekend. On opening day, museum staff will hold Looking Aloud Gallery Discoveries, a series [...]

Degas Dancer estimated at US$25-35 million to lead Christie’s Impressionist and Modern evening sale

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Christie’s announces its Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on November 1 will be led by Edgar Degas’ Petite danseuse de quatorze ans, the most celebrated sculpture to have emerged from the Impressionist era. With its unflinching realism, bold and unconventional combination of materials, and staunch rejection of idealized grace, Petite danseuse represents a defining moment in Degas’s career, when he made a daring and controversial break with academic tradition to embrace a new modernist aesthetic unlike any seen [...]

Frans Hals Museum confronts contemporary arts with master paintings of the Golden Age

HAARLEM.- From 7 October 2011 to 8 January 2012, the Frans Hals Museum is presenting paintings by John Currin (1962) in an encounter with the work of Cornelis van Haarlem (1562 – 1638). The American artist John Currin is well known for his realistic paintings in which commonplace scenes alternate with explicitly erotic images. Solo exhibitions of Currin’s work have been staged in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Serpentine Gallery in London and the Whitney Museum of American Art in [...]

“Beckmann & America” at the Stadel Museum highlights Max Beckmann’s late works

FRANKFURT.- Max Beckmann’s (1884–1950) late oeuvre from the United States will be highlighted for the first time in a monographic special exhibition shown at the Städel Museum in Frankfurt under the title “Beckmann & America” from October 7, 2011 until January 8, 2012. With a total of 110 exhibits, including forty-one paintings as well as numerous drawings, watercolors, printed graphic works, and sculptures, the show offers a comprehensive survey of this important artist’s fascinating last period of life and creative production. After living [...]

Bonhams to sell stunning JMW Turner painting of Kirkby Lonsdale Churchyard

LONDON.- A beautiful watercolour of Kirkby Lonsdale Churchyard by Joseph Mallord William Turner RA (1775-1851) is to be offered for auction as part of the 19th Century Paintings sale on Wednesday 25th January 2012, at Bonhams New Bond Street, London. The watercolour of a lyrical English landscape has not been seen at auction since 1884 and is estimated to fetch £200,000-300,000. In this work Turner has painted the scene of the River Lune from the churchyard of St Mary’s Church in Kirkby Lonsdale, [...]