Six Potential Heirs DNA Tested in Caravaggio Death Hunt

CARAVAGGIO.- Six possible descendants of Baroque artist Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, have been DNA-tested in the hopes they can help unveil the mystery surrounding the painter’s death. The cause of death in 1610 and the whereabouts of the corpse have always been unclear but a team of Italian anthropologists believe that what is left of Caravaggio’s body may be hidden among dozens of bodies buried in a crypt in Tuscany. For months, the team — from the departments of [...]

‘Secret’ Painting by Giotto Uncovered in Florence Chapel

FLORENCE.- Restorers using ultra-violet rays have rediscovered rich original details of Giotto’s paintings in the Peruzzi Chapel in Florence’s Santa Croce church that have been hidden for centuries. “We have uncovered a secret Giotto,” said Isabella Lapi Ballerini, head of Florence’s Opificio delle Pietre Dure, one of the world’s most prestigious art restoration laboratories. Last year, more than a dozen restorers and researchers began an ambitious project of “non-invasive diagnostics” to ascertain the condition of the 12-meter-high chapel, which Giotto [...]

Parsons Launches Website that Provides Guidance for Artists and Designers on Copyright Issues

NEW YORK, NY.- Parsons The New School for Design recently launched the website The Copyright Corner. Developed by Michelle Bogre, an associate professor in the photography program of the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons, it is intended as a place for debate and dialogue about copyright and other important intellectual property issues. It is the only website of its kind geared specifically for artists and designers, both students and professionals. Funded through a grant from The Media [...]

New Research: Mystery Snake Revealed in Elizabeth I Portrait

LONDON.- Scientific detective work has revealed a mysterious coiled serpent in the hands of Queen Elizabeth I, which was painted out by the artist shortly afterwards, in a portrait at the National Portrait Gallery. It has also been revealed that this portrait of the queen, which has not been on display at the Gallery since 1921, was painted over an unfinished portrait of an unknown sitter. The revelations about this painting and three others of the Tudor queen will form [...]

Getty and Disney Team Up to Study Original Animation Cel

LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Getty Conservation Institute (GCI) and the Disney Animation Research Library (ARL) are teaming up in an effort to better understand deterioration that can occur in plastics, a material increasingly used by artists over the last fifty to sixty years. The collaboration is being undertaken as part of a long-term project already underway at the GCI to develop conservation strategies for objects made with plastics. Plastics research is one of the key components in the GCI’s major [...]

Georgia Museum of Art Publishes Important Source on Early Italian Paintings

ATHENS, GA.- The Georgia Museum of Art announces the publication of the “Corpus of Early Italian Paintings in North American Public Collections: The South.” Conceived as a massive project that would catalogue and illustrate every Italian painting on panel and canvas dating between 1250 and 1500 in public collections across North America, the “Corpus” in its first part focuses on public collections in the American South. The author, Perri Lee Roberts of Miami University, discusses more than 400 paintings, each [...]

Spanish Researchers Publish Work on Mayan Pictographs

GUATEMALA CITY.- Spanish researchers from Valencia University presented in Guatemala a book analyzing the meaning of drawings and incisions on a Mayan architectural decoration in the form of a mask dating back to between 300 and 600 A.D. The publication “Los Grafitos Mayas” (Mayan Pictographs) has been prepared by the team of Spanish and Guatemalan researchers who last January announced the discovery of a stucco mask at the La Blanca archaeological project in the province of Peten in northern Guatemala. [...]

artnear: the First Global Guide to Contemporary Art for iPhone and BlackBerry

NEW YORK, NY.- hopnear announced the updated version of artnear — the first sophisticated global guide to art for the iphone and Blackberry. Today art happens everywhere and people travel all over the world to visit galleries, museums and art fairs. artnear is the ultimate mobile tool for those people, who mainly consist of busy collectors and art professionals. artnear lists top art galleries, museums and events workldwide. artnear users can find nearby venues esily thanks to integrated GPS-enabled maps, [...]

The Caravaggio season opens for scholars

It is not surprising that, on the fourth centenary of Caravaggio’s death (1610) and with the numerous exhibitions and events scheduled for this year across the world to celebrate his artistic achievements, scholars might be tempted to offer the public new monographs on the Italian master. Also, it is fortunate that two outstanding German scholars, Sybille Ebert-Schifferer and Sebastian Schütze, have seized this opportunity to produce two excellent books on Caravaggio’s painting: the former, Caravaggio. Sehen-Staunen-Glauben. Der Maler und sein [...]

First Bilingual, Collaboratively Authored Guide to Chinese Contemporary Art Launches

NEW YORK, NY.- ArtSpeakChina (ASC), the first online, collaboratively authored bilingual encyclopedia of Chinese contemporary art officially launched today. Now online at both www.artspeakchina.org and www.tanyishu.cn, the Wikipedia-style reference guide provides both English and Mandarin speakers with hundreds of in-depth articles on Chinese artists and the world of Chinese contemporary art. ASC’s bilingual, collaborative character helps overcome the language barrier and is already improving the global availability, exchange and quality of information about Chinese contemporary art. ArtSpeakChina now contains well [...]

National Portrait Gallery Publishes New Book on Later Stuart Portraits 1685 – 1714

LONDON.- This important reference work is the latest in the series of thoroughly researched, impressively detailed catalogues raisonnés of the National Portrait Gallery‘s Collections. It catalogues the entire Collection of portraits in all media of those active in the period 1685 and 1714, and includes new research from the Gallery’s curators and art historian John Ingamells. This volume revises and updates David Piper’s Seventeenth-Century Portraits in the National Portrait Gallery (1963), and like its predecessors, forms a bedrock for research [...]

Italian Scientists Believe Leonardo da Vinci Painted Himself as “Mona Lisa”

ROME.- The legend of Leonardo da Vinci is shrouded in mystery: How did he die? Are the remains buried in a French chateau really those of the Renaissance master? Was the “Mona Lisa” a self-portrait in disguise? A group of Italian scientists believes the key to solving those puzzles lies with the remains — and they say they are seeking permission from French authorities to dig up the body to conduct carbon and DNA testing. This combination of images shows [...]

Art and Architecture Books for this Christmas

‘Vincent Van Gogh: The Letters’ Edited by LEO JANSEN, HANS LUIJTEN and NIENKE BAKKER If you are prepared to go for broke, by all means go for “Vincent van Gogh: The Letters,” a fabulous six-volume hardcover edition of the artist’s complete surviving correspondence, edited by Leo Jansen, Hans Luijten and Nienke Bakker. Van Gogh was a prolific, eloquent, emotionally unguarded writer, as the more than 900 letters here demonstrate. And what he couldn’t fully say in words, he drew in [...]

Glasgow School of Art has Produced 30% of Turner Prize Nominees Since 2005

GLASGOW.- The winner of the Turner Prize 2009 is a 1995 graduate of The Glasgow School of Art’s world renowned MFA program. With another GSA graduate Lucy Skaer, also nominated for this year’s Turner Prize, the School can now claim to have produced 30% of the Turner Prize nominees since 2005. Three of the Turner Prize winners since its inaugural year in 1984 have been graduates of The Glasgow School of Art – Douglas Gordon, Simon Starling and now Richard [...]

Paul Delaroche Work “Ruined” in War Rescued for Show

LONDON.- A major work by French painter Paul Delaroche thought to have been virtually destroyed during a World War Two German air raid on London in 1941 has been unrolled and found to be in good condition. “Charles I Insulted by Cromwell’s Soldiers,” depicting the British monarch shortly before his execution in 1649, was damaged when Bridgewater House was bombed on May 11, 1941. The canvas, hanging in the dining room at the time, was taken down, rolled up and [...]