ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

Leigh Keno's auction premiere to offer a boat-load of Americana

Hartford Courant / February 11th, 2010

Recently, American antiques expert Leigh Keno, of "Antiques Roadshow" fame, has been making many housecalls looking for objects for his newest venture — the inaugural auction of Keno Auctions, to be held at the Marriott Stamford (CT.) on May 1 and 2. He's already amassed an impressive sale ...

Two works by watercolor master Whorf on the block

Auction Central News / February 11th, 2010

Coming up at Jenack's Feb. 21 auction in Chester, New York, are two marine-themed watercolors by impressionist John Whorf (Massachusetts/California, 1903-1959). In The Sand Dunes, Provincetown, Mass., dated 1954, is estimated at $3,000-$5,000. The other work, Mediterranean Fishermen, is a vibrant ...

Arshile Gorky's mysterious paintings at Tate Modern

Guardian / February 10th, 2010

Arshile Gorky, a master of reinvention, was perhaps once the greatest painter in America. Having spent two decades catching on to the coat-tails of style he had developed a tentative yet expansive originality just before total despair overwhelmed him. His death at a young ...

Bob Dylan canvases unveiled in London

Citizen - AFP / February 10th, 2010

On view Feb. 13 to April 10, "Bob Dylan on Canvas" at the Halcyon Gallery in London's upmarket Mayfair district includes pieces with price tags ranging from 95,000 to 450,000 pounds (150,000-700,000 dollars, 110,000-510,000 euros). Says the musician-artist, "I just draw what's interesting to ...

Part of Crichton's art trove going under gavel

Independent (UK) / February 7th, 2010

Best-selling science fiction writer Michael Crichton, creator of TV's ER drama and film-adapted books such as Jurassic Park, also left the legacy of a first-class art collection. Two years after his death in 2008, four of his privately-held paintings, worth an estimated £20m, are to be put up for ...

Parrish's landscape show is a tranquil respite

New York Times / November 8th, 2009

Before Long Island's Parrish Art Museum breaks ground on a 37,300-sq.-ft. expansion early next year, a must-see show, “American Landscapes: Treasures From the Parrish Art Museum,” displays some 50 paintings, about half by artists who lived or worked on Long Island. From Asher B. Durand to April ...

White House rejects bold abstraction

New York Times / November 5th, 2009

ARTnews has reported that the White House has quietly de-listed a painting by Alma W. Thomas that it chose last month, among some 45 pieces borrowed from several Washington museums, to decorate the private White House residence and the West and East Wings. “Watusi (Hard Edge),” from 1963, ...

Plan would preserve Hopper's Cape Cod property

Cape Cod Times 1 / November 4th, 2009

After years of controversy over the construction of a 6,500-square-foot house next door, a plan is afoot to protect the Truro, Mass., summer house that once belonged to artist Edward Hopper. Built by Hopper and his wife Josephine in 1934, the 800-sq.-ft. white Cape house is on a bluff overlooking ...

On the Block: Traditional Offerings, Bargain Prices

New York Times / November 2nd, 2009

The images splashed across the pages of this fall’s auction catalogs are as familiar as they are telling: Degas dancers and Pissarro landscapes; Picasso portraits and Warhol dollar bills. All are well-known works by tried-and-true artists carrying estimates as low as sellers are willing to go. ...

Failed Bank Provenance Boosts Auction: Lehman Bros. collection sells out

Wall Street Journal / November 2nd, 2009

Call it the Lehman premium: The first in a series of auctions at Freeman's, expected to bring in around $750,000, brought in a surprising $1.34 million, with all 238 lots of modern and contemporary art finding buyers. The star of the failed bank's art assets was a late-period Roy Lichtenstein ...

Closet Clean-up: Lost Warhol self-portrait may fetch $1 million

AP / November 1st, 2009

On Nov. 11, Sotheby's is auctioning a self-portrait by Andy Warhol that was recently found after being forgotten in a closet in New York City for more than 40 years. The painting belongs to Cathy Naso. She was 17 years old when she got a part-time job as a receptionist at Warhol's Factory. Two ...

Discovery: $900 painting at Kentucky antiques shop somewhat undervalued

Kentucky.com / October 29th, 2009

Dr. Jim Huffman waffled whether to put down $900 for a painting he liked at a Lexington, Kentucky, antique store. The ophthalmologist finally bought it and then sent the work to an art restorer. A cleaning revealed the artist's signature: Robert Scott Duncanson, a noted 19th-century artist who ...

Banks Hoard Troves of Art: Public wants to see corporate collections

New York Times Art / October 25th, 2009

The art owned by financial institutions should get out more — at the least to give the taxpayers, who have been so generous with the financial sector, an aesthetic return. Deutsche Bank is believed to own the largest corporate collection in the world, with some 60,000 pieces of contemporary art. ...

Norman Rockwell: At Long Island's Nassau County Museum of Art

New York Times / October 25th, 2009

Ever-popular Norman Rockwell painted in a realist style, but a close examination of the 40 original Rockwell paintings and studies and of all 323 of his vintage Saturday Evening Post covers in this touring exhibition suggests he was more of a fabulist than a realist. He painted archetypes, not ...

Style-Mixing Guru: Designer Suzanne Tucker will speak at SF Fall Antiques Show

San Francisco Chronicle / October 25th, 2009

At this year's San Francisco Fall Antiques Show, which will be held Thursday through Nov. 1, interior designer Suzanne Tucker will reveal her creative insights in a lecture based on her new book "Rooms to Remember: The Classic Interiors of Suzanne Tucker." Tucker is known as especially adept at ...

American Scenes: Hudson River School on view at NYHS, new book

Luxist / October 14th, 2009

NEW YORK - In celebration of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson's first voyage up the Hudson River, the New York Historical Society has an exhibition of Hudson River School paintings running through March. The companion book, Linda Ferber's The Hudson River School: Nature and the American ...

Hike Like an Artist: The Hudson River School Art Trail

New York Times / October 11th, 2009

Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School, made his first sketching trip in the Catskills in the 1820s. The paintings that followed created a sensation in the New York art world, and a host of other painters soon followed Cole. Their influential paintings include scenic views of the natural ...

Sophisticated, Historical: What the Obamas like

Guardian / October 7th, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Obamas are decorating their private spaces with more modern and abstract artwork than has ever hung on the White House walls. Pieces by contemporary African-American and Native American artists are on display. Historical works by George Catlin and artifacts such as a ...

Off View: Steven Spielberg-owned Norman Rockwell in hiding

LA Times / October 6th, 2009

More than 20 Norman Rockwell paintings belonging to Steven Spielberg will be hung in a special exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington -- along with more than 30 other Rockwells from the collection of his fellow filmmaker-to-the-masses, George Lucas. And then there's the ...

Nan Tull: Sensuously blending nature, abstraction

Boston Globe 2 / October 3rd, 2009

FRAMINGHAM, MA. - Nan Tull’s 25-year retrospective at the Danforth Museum of Art begins at a dark moment for her. In 1983, her life was wracked with personal loss and illness that required months of recovery. Friends brought her amaryllis plants as get-well offerings, but the heating unit in her ...