Elizabeth Taylor-owned Dutch master Frans Hals painting coming to New York auction

NEW YORK (AP).- A 17th century portrait that once hung over the fireplace of Elizabeth Taylor’s Bel Air home — and only recently reattributed to the Dutch master Frans Hals — is expected to fetch up to $1 million at auction. “Portrait of a Man,” painted in the early 1630s, is being offered at Christie’s sale of Old Masters on Wednesday. A Hals scholar, Seymour Slive, had listed the painting as a “doubtful” Hals in a 1974 catalog, based on a [...]

Paul Klee and Cobra in international exhibition at the Cobra Museum in Amstelveen

AMSTELVEEN.- From 28 January through 22 April 2012, the Cobra Museum will present Klee and Cobra: A Child’s Play. The exhibition reveals the influence that Paul Klee (1879-1940) had on the Cobra movement (1948-1951), seen from the perspective of their shared fascination for the wondrous world of children’s imagination. This theme has never before been so thoroughly investigated in an exhibition. In all, 120 masterpieces by Paul Klee (oil paintings, works on paper, mixed media works and sculptures) and about 100 highlights by [...]

“Rockwell’s America” named London’s best art exhibition for 2011 by American Spectator magazine

LONDON.- The American Spectator magazine’s December/January 2012 issue named theNational Museum of American Illustration‘s Norman Rockwell’s America – at London’s oldest art museum, Dulwich Picture Gallery for their Bicentennial Celebration last year- to be London’s best art exhibition of 2011. The exhibition drew record-setting attendance numbers as the first ever showing of Rockwell’s original artworks in the UK, and is now on display at the NMAI in Newport, Rhode Island under the title Norman Rockwell: American Imagist. Rockwell has been considered [...]

Tatsuo Miyajima: Three Time Train / Counter Voice on the Wall Lokremise at Kunstmuseum St.Gallen

ST. GALLEN.- Time and space are recurring themes in the work of the Japanese artist, Tatsuo Miyajima. The basis for the art of Tatsuo Miyajima (born 1957 in Tokyo, lives in Ibaraki) are illuminated LED displays in color. In various tempos, these displays count relentlessly from 1 to 9, only to start again from the beginning. The electronic look of the LED digits is, however, less the expression of a positivist technological understanding and more a symbol of ongoing life: an [...]

From Manhattan to the Bauhaus: First Lyonel Feininger retrospective in North America is exclusive to Montreal

MONTREAL.- Through May 13, 2012, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is presenting the first posthumous retrospective in North America on Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956). Lyonel Feininger: from Manhattan to the Bauhaus offers the first comprehensive panorama of the oeuvre of this American artist, who has been strangely forgotten since he spent most of his life in Germany. A celebrated cartoonist, a leading figure of Expressionism alongside Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky, a professor at the avant-garde Bauhaus School, from its founding in Weimar [...]

Bonhams to sell beautiful JMW Turner painting of Kirkby Lonsdale Churchyard

LONDON.- A beautiful painting 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, [...]

Second Israeli art sale at Bonhams celebrates European view of the Holy Land

LONDON.- Many of the works of art in Bonhams sale of Israeli Art on Feb 29th was made by new arrivals from Europe. A work by Reuven Rubin (Israeli, 1893-1974), a Rumanian émigré who became Israel’s first ambassador to Rumania, leads the sale. Titled ‘Les Oliviers’ and dated ‘Rubin Les Oliviers 1958′ , it is an oil on canvas estimated to sell for £75,000-100,000.The picture is from the collection of Joseph and Mabel Ottenstein, Washington D.C. and thence by descent to its current [...]

University of Richmond Museums opens Dancing with the Dark: Joan Snyder Prints 1963-2010

RICHMOND, VA.- On view in the Joel and Lila Harnett Museum of Art, University of Richmond Museums, from January 24 to April 22, 2012, Dancing with the Dark: Joan Snyder Prints 1963-2010 features a selection of more than sixty works created between 1963 and 2010 by Joan Snyder (American, born 1940), and the exhibition is the first retrospective of the artist’s prints. A nationally noted painter and 2007 MacArthur Fellow, Snyder has developed a powerful body of work that explores aspects of [...]

Exceptional ensemble of nearly 200 works from the Library of R. & B. L. for sale at Sotheby’s

PARIS.- Paris auctioneers Binoche & Giquello, in association with Sotheby’s, announced the sale of Part II of the Library of R. & B. L. in Paris on 28 March 2012. Expert Yves Lebouc (Bouquinerie de l’Institut) will team up with Sotheby’s specialists for the sale – to be held at the Galerie Charpentier – with the gavel wielded jointly by both firms. The sale features an exceptional ensemble of nearly 200 works, with an overall estimate of €3-4 million ($3,9-5,2 million), and [...]

Istanbul’s Pera Museum exhibition sheds light into the beginning of Turkish-Dutch relations

ISTANBUL.- As one of the first key exhibitions of the year 2012, the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation Pera Museum is presenting Sultans, Merchants, Painters: The Early Years of Turkish-Dutch Relations; an exhibition commemorating four hundred years of cultural, diplomatic and trade relations between Turkey and the Netherlands. Organized in collaboration with the Amsterdam Museum and with the support of several other partners, including the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and Nationaal Archief in The Hague both in the Netherlands, the exhibition includes 81 works [...]

Italy returns 2,000 year-old statue to Libya

TRIPOLI (AP).- Italy has returned to Libya the head of a 2,000 year-old statue that was smuggled out of the country in the 1960s. Prime Minister Mario Monti gave the sculpted head of Domitilla Minor, the daughter of Roman emperor Vespasian, to Libyan authorities during his trip to Tripoli on Saturday. An artifact returned by Italy to Libya, known as the Head Domitilla, which was stolen from Sabratha, Libya in 1990, is seen on display during Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti’s [...]

Exhibition of new work by Dublin-born artist Richard Gorman at Kerlin Gallery in Ireland

DUBLIN.- Kerlin Gallery presents an exhibition of new work by Richard Gorman. Kozo is an exhibition of works on handmade Japanese echizen kozo washi paper using techniques including dyed paper pulp poured into moulds and gouache paint on paper made by the artist. Richard Gorman made the paperworks at Iwano Heyzabouro paper mill in Imadate Fukui in West Japan over a period of ten years, 1999 – 2009. The gouaches, 63 x 49 cm, have grown out of a personal research to [...]

Americana Week totals $17.9 million at Sotheby’s New York; highest total since 2007

NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s Americana Week auctions concluded today in New York with a combined total of $17,900,261 – Sotheby’s highest total for this annual week of sales since 2007. The Important Americana auction on Friday and Saturday was led by two record-setting results: the previously undocumented Exceptional Lieutenant Colonel Oliver Arnold Shell-Carved and Figured Mahogany High Chest of Drawers with Open Talons made by John Townsend in 1756, which set an auction record for any high chest of drawers in [...]

Dana Hart-Stone draws on his Montana roots for new exhibition at Brian Gross Fine Art

SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Dana Hart-Stone’s, solo exhibition, Exposition, is on view at Brian Gross Fine Art, San Francisco, through February 25. Drawing on his Montana roots, the paintings on display explore image, pattern, and remembrance. Each painting featured in Exposition is a composition comprised of vintage, vernacular photographs that have been manipulated and printed in acrylic on raw canvas. Drawn to the mystery behind the photographs, Hart-Stone collects images that portray the “collective mindset of American culture.” Creating paintings that play with [...]

Parisian Laundry in Montreal opens three new exhibitions

MONTREAL.- BGL returns once again to Parisian Laundry with a comprehensive solo exhibition on the main floor of the gallery space. Always working beyond expectation, BGL’s latest exhibition, Concessionaire explores the walls of the gallery. A jest towards the long-standing significance of wall work in the private gallery space, Concessionaire is a sculptural interpretationof this hierarchy. BGL’s installation and sculpture-based practice is thus re-affirmed and re-enforced in this witty gallery intervention. Québec city collective BGL has exhibited widely and frequently both in solo [...]