ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

George Washington Wine Cooler Reaps $782,500 at Christie's

ArtfixDaily / January 22nd, 2012

A wine cooler, which George Washington presented to Alexander Hamilton as a gift, far exceeded its expected sale price at auction, going for $782,500 on January 19th. The cooler was designed according to specifications given by George Washington himself...

New Tuscaloosa Museum of Art to Showcase Important American Art

ArtfixDaily / December 12th, 2011

Last week, the Tuscaloosa Museum of Art opened its doors, finally giving a home to the art collection assembled by Jack Warner. Earlier this year, the Jack Warner Foundation and Westervelt Company separated, leaving the fate undetermined as to where their respective collections would be housed. ...

Last chance to visit American Folk Art Museum on West 53rd Street

ArtfixDaily / June 30th, 2011

Independence Day weekenders can soak up Americana, from Colonial portraiture to quilts, in Manhattan for one last stretch at the American Folk Art Museum's 45 West 53rd St. location. The museum will be moving to its home at 2 Lincoln Square on July 9.

Antiques dealer Albert M. Sack remembered

New York Times / June 1st, 2011

Albert M. Sack, the legendary dealer of American antiques who penned the influential collecting guide, "Fine Points of American Furniture: Good, Better, Best,” died on Sunday in Durham, N.C. He was 96.  

Yale debuts free online collection database

ArtfixDaily / May 13th, 2011

Yale University has launched a massive online database with records on over 250,000 objects from its museums, archives and libraries. Providing unprecedented, unlimited access to the Ivy League school's varied collections, including a tantalizing peek at artwork in storage, the digitization ...

American Folk Art Museum passes fair to new owner

New York Times / May 7th, 2011

Ownership and management of the annual American Antiques Show, a ten-year-old fundraiser for New York's American Folk Art Museum, has been turned over to the Art Fair Company in an effort to stabilize the museum's finances. Faced with a default on nearly $32 million worth of bonds that it ...

American Folk Art Museum executive director quits

American Folk Art Museum / May 4th, 2011

Maria Ann Conelli, executive director of New York's American Folk Art Museum, announced on the museum's website on May 3 that she would be leaving in July to return to academia. The financially-troubled institution missed $3.7 million in payments to a debt service fund connected to bonds issued ...

Spring Show attracts fresh crowd, steady sales

Art Newspaper / May 3rd, 2011

The inaugural Spring Show, organized by the Art and Antiques Dealers League of America, had a promising first-run at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan. About 1,495 attendees, including a contingent of designers, celebrities, and collectors, enjoyed the opening night party on April 27. Over the ...

Winterthur Museum acquires one of the earliest known American depictions of the Easter Bunny

Winterthur / April 18th, 2011

Delaware's Winterthur Museum recently acquired one of the earliest known American depictions of the Easter Bunny, which was sold at Pook & Pook auction house in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. Together with the Christmas tree, the custom of the Easter rabbit and colored eggs was brought to ...

Gustav Stickley, now in paperback

PHAIDON store / March 10th, 2011

Phaidon has released a massive paperback about Gustav Stickley (1858-1942), the iconic character and one of the most influential figures of the American Arts & Crafts movement. Stickley was a self-made man whose furniture company, Craftsman Workshops, and the seminal magazine he founded in ...

Picasso, Esherick among modern masters lifting auction results

Washington Post / February 8th, 2011

A Pablo Picasso painting of his mistress Marie-Therese Walter, titled "La Lecture," more than doubled its low estimate to fetch 25.2 million pounds ($40.7 million) at a Sotheby's auction in London on Tuesday. The Picasso edged up the firm's modern and impressionist art auction total to 68.8 ...

New York Observer's Top 50 Art Collectors

New York Observer / February 3rd, 2011

From stockpiles of Matisses to flocks of duck decoys, early works by Koons to ravishing Rothkos and Renoirs and rooms full of Chippendale and Biedermeier furniture, or even Damien Hirst's infamous shark, New York's leading collectors have amassed a wide array of art and antiques. View the New ...

Kentucky butter churn fetches auction record of $55,200

Maysville Online / December 28th, 2010

In October, Knoxville-based Case Antiques Inc., Auctions and Appraisals sold an eight gallon stoneware butter churn, made and decorated in Maysville, Kentucky, by Isaac Thomas, for $55,200, a record price for Kentucky pottery.

Quick tour of the new wing at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

ArtfixDaily / December 1st, 2010

With only three hours to take in the magnificent, $504 million-dollar Art of the Americas Wing addition to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, first impressions made all the difference. Beginning in the clean-lined and airy Ruth and Carl J. Shapiro Family Courtyard, an impressive new feature ...

Preview the new wing at Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Boston Globe / November 14th, 2010

The much-anticipated $500 million Art of the Americas Wing at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is set to open to the puplic on Saturday, Nov. 20. Admission is free that day. The 53 new galleries, designed by Foster + Partners, holds about 5,000 works from the museum’s American collections, more ...

Legendary designer Michael Taylor's 'California Look' at auction

ArtfixDaily / October 18th, 2010

Bonhams & Butterfields brings American and European furniture and decorative arts to auction in San Francisco on Monday, November 1, 2010, concurrent to the San Francisco Fall Antiques Show.  The international auctioneers will offer several important collections to bidders, including ...

Early 20th c. decorative arts soar at Rago auction

ArtfixDaily / October 8th, 2010

Rago Arts and Auction Center totalled a strong $5.6 million for 1,380 lots in its 20th c. Design sale, from October 1 to 3. Pieces dating from the early 20th century, including Roycroft furniture and metalwork, which completely sold-out, elicited fierce bidding "at levels not seen since 2007," ...

Roycroft among highlights at upcoming Rago sale

ArtfixDaily / September 13th, 2010

A browse-worthy duo of 20th-century design auctions is slated for a three-day weekend this fall. Rago Arts and Auction Center in Lambertville, New Jersey, will offer up several hundred choice decorative items, from Arts & Crafts pieces by Stickley and a Louis Comfrot Tiffany sketchbook to ...

Estate auction offers 2,000 lots from 10 generations

ArtfixDaily / September 9th, 2010

From Thomas Jefferson letters to Tiffany glass, a George Inness landscape to 1860s gowns, the personal property of ten generations of descendants from Thomas Green (born 1640) are part of a huge four-day auction underway through Sept. 12. The R.W. Oliver auction takes place at the DCU Center in ...

Solid sales at Baltimore Summer Antiques Show

ArtfixDaily / September 4th, 2010

The 30th Annual Baltimore Summer Antiques Show, from September 2 to 5, sustained a high gate as well as notable retail and trade business over Labor Day weekend. More than 550 exhibitors displayed nearly 200,000 objects from antiquarian books, fine art, jewelry, and silver, to textiles, ...