Stanford’s Board of Trustees approves sites for two new arts buildings

STANFORD, CA.- The Stanford University Board of Trustees has approved sites for two new buildings: the McMurtry Building and the museum building for the Anderson Collection at Stanford University. These facilities will be critical to expanding and enhancing the role the arts play throughout campus. Trustees gave concept and site approval – the first two steps in the university’s construction approval process – to the two buildings at their Dec. 12-13 meeting. The McMurtry Building, the future home of the Department of Art [...]

Park Avenue Armory appoints Alex Poots artistic director

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Rebecca Robertson, President and Executive Producer of Park Avenue Armory, announced that Alex Poots has been appointed Artistic Director, and will start work in early 2012 on the development of the Armory’s 2013 season. Mr. Poots is the Festival Director of the biennial Manchester International Festival in England, a position he will continue to hold. Park Avenue Armory is a new cultural institution that works with artists in the creation of works that are catalyzed by the scale and [...]

Over half the United Kingdom’s collection of paintings now online in Your Paintings

LONDON.- Your Paintings is the first national online museum of all publicly owned oil paintings in the UK. It was launched in June of this year (2011) by the Public Catalogue Foundation and the BBC. It has been announced that a further 40,000 paintings have been uploaded to the site since the launch, taking the total to 104,000 paintings, over half the national collection. Among the latest painting images uploaded to the site are works by Thomas Brooks (RNLI Grace Darling Museum, [...]

Leading artists auction self portraits for Face Britain – The Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts

LONDON.- Quentin Blake, Angela de la Cruz, Tracey Emin, Ryan Gander, Rankin, Gerald Scarfe, Bob & Roberta Smith and Gavin Turk are amongst the high-profile artists contributing self portraits to the Face Britain project. As well as these artists, a wide range of well known faces from the worlds of film, TV, theatre, sport, music, fashion and literature are also donating self-portraits which will go under the hammer in aid of this important and timely cause. Face Britain is the UK’s [...]

More than sixty prints by Pablo Picasso on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum

CINCINNATI, OH.- The life and work of Pablo Picasso the painter was one of drama and extraordinary talent. Much of that excitement found its way into his prints. This December, theCincinnati Art Museum will sweep you away in an exhibition that examines how Picasso brought beautiful women and mythical half man half animals alive in etchings, linoleum cuts and lithographs. More than sixty prints by Pablo Picasso are on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum, December 17, 2011 through May 13, 2012. [...]

First fully representative retrospective of David LaChapelle’s work at Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague

PRAGUE.- David LaChapelle (born 1963 in Farmington, Connecticut, USA) has ranked among the world’s most eminent photographers since the mid-1990s. His work has exerted an influence on dozens of other artists and over time, LaChapelle has evolved a style entirely his own, one which is recognizable at first glance. In the context of his exhibitions, the present show, entitled Thus Spoke LaChapelle and held at Galerie Rudolfinum in Prague, occupies a unique place. It is the first fully representative retrospective of his work, [...]

John Chamberlain, an artist who turned automotive scrap metal into sculpture, dies at 84

NEW YORK, NY.- Gagosian Gallery announced that John Chamberlain has died on December 21, 2011, in Manhattan. Brandishing a wicked sense of humor and notoriously ornery, Chamberlain was a larger-than-life personality who was as bold and expressive as his sculptures, photographs, paintings, and films. He was constantly experimenting with new materials and processes over his five-decade long career—including discarded automobile parts, galvanized steel, paper bags, Plexiglas, foam rubber, aluminum foil–revealing a near-constant stream of inventiveness. His recent exhibitions—in Giswil, Switzerland, in 2009 [...]

Francesco Manacorda, Director of Artissima, appointed Artistic Director of Tate Liverpool

LIVERPOOL.- Tate announced that Francesco Manacorda, Director of Artissima, the international fair of contemporary art in Turin, has been appointed the new Artistic Director, Tate Liverpool. Francesco Manacorda (b 1974 in Turin, Italy) has been Director of Artissima since February 2010. Between 2007 and 2009 he was Curator at Barbican Art Gallery where he realised the large-scale Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art (with co-curator Lydia Yee) and Radical Nature – Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969-2009 (2009). Also at Barbican [...]

Artists announced for New York’s Whitney Museum of American Art Biennial 2012

NEW YORK, N.Y.- The Whitney Museum of American Art announced the list of artists participating in the upcoming 2012 Whitney Biennial, which takes place at the Whitney Museum from March 1 through May 27, 2012. This is the 76th in the ongoing series of Biennials and Annuals presented by the Whitney since 1932, two years after the Museum was founded. Curator Jay Sanders Photo David Armstrong The Whitney Biennial is an exhibition held every two years in which we gauge the current state [...]

Important Old Master paintings & sculpture for sale in January at Sotheby’s New York

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Sotheby’s annual auction of Important Old Master Paintings & Sculpture in New York will take place on 26 January 2012. The morning session of Important Old Master Paintings will offer strong examples across a wide range of styles and genres, from early Italian pictures to Italian Baroque, French Rococo, Dutch 17th century and Italian view paintings, while the afternoon session of Old Master Paintings & Sculpture will feature a selection of sculpture by artists including Andrea Della Robbia, Agnolo [...]

The J. Paul Getty Museum presents exhibition of memorable images of Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES, CA.- As part of the region-wide Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945-1980 initiative, The J. Paul Getty Museum presents In Focus: Los Angeles, 1945–1980, an exhibition of photographs from the permanent collection made by artists whose time in Los Angeles inspired them to create memorable images of the city, on view at the Getty Center from December 20, 2011 – May 6, 2012. “This exhibition features both iconic and relatively unknown work by artists whose careers are defined by their [...]

Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York presents Vivian Maier: photographs from the Maloof Collection

NEW YORK, N.Y.- Howard Greenberg Gallery presents the recently discovered work of street photographer, Vivian Maier (1926-2009), from the Maloof Collection. A nanny by trade, Vivian Maier’s street and travel photography was discovered by John Maloof in 2007 at a local auction house in Chicago. Always with a Roleiflex around her neck, she managed to amass more than 2,000 rolls of films, 3,000 prints and more than 100,000 negative which were shared with virtually no one in her lifetime. Her black and [...]

Jerry Uelsmann and Pentti Sammallahti exhibit simultaneously at Peter Fetterman Gallery

SANTA MONICA, CA.- Peter Fetterman Gallery announces two exhibitions: a series of images by distinguished contemporary photographer Jerry Uelsmann and introducing the work of Finnish photographer Pentti Sammallahti with a selection of images shown in Los Angeles for the first time. Using multiple negatives to produce his surreal, dreamlike photographs, Jerry Uelsmann has developed a singular artistic vision which has carried him through a nearly 50 year artistic career. Firmly entrenched in his traditional darkroom compositing practices, Uelsmann continues to produce magical [...]

Museum exhibits itself: New permanent display of Israeli art at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art

TEL AVIV.- Brought out from storage to the limelight, a chronological presentation of selected works from the permanent collection of Israeli art is now open to the public in three huge galleries in the new Herta and Paul Amir Building of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Works from the turn of the twentieth century to cutting edge are divided into three sections: Collective Identities (1906-1960); Private Identities (1960-1990); and Glocalism (1990-2011) Reuven Rubin, The Artist’s Family, 1926-1927 Collective Identities refers to [...]

Indianapolis Museum of Art announces top acquisitions, from the 230 it acquired, for 2011

INDIANAPOLIS, IN.- The Indianapolis Museum of Art announced that it has acquired 230 objects over the past 12 months. The new works enhance the Museum’s encyclopedic collection and span eight curatorial departments: American, Asian, Contemporary, Design Arts, European before 1800, European 1800-1945, Prints and Drawings, and Textile and Fashion Arts. T.C. Steele, American, 1847-1926, Morning – Old Schofield Mill, 1889, oil on canvas, 30 1/4 x 45 1/2 in. Gift of Rosemary A. Gatewood and Kenneth Gatewood; 2011.132 Highlights among the year’s acquisitions [...]