ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

Monumental Work by Sargent Johnson to Stay in California, Just Further South

ArtfixDaily / February 22nd, 2012

UC Berkeley’s loss is a gain for the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, in regards to a spectacular 22-foot long carved wood relief created by African-American artist Sargent Johnson. Part of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and 30s, Johnson was the first California ...

Palm Springs Blooms with Art Shows, Museum Exhibits, Sunnylands Opening

ArtfixDaily / February 20th, 2012

The California desert is alive with art this winter. A new art fair hit the ground running during the 11-day Palm Springs Modernism Week (through Feb. 26). The Palm Springs Art Museum has mounted a notable exhibition of ethereal landscapes by Lockwood de Forest on view through April 8 and the ...

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 ...

Confident dealers offer their best art & antiques in Maastricht; Preview video online

TEFAF Preview / March 17th, 2011

There are 30,000 items worth more than 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) offered by 260 top-tier galleries at the world’s most influential art and antiques fair. Two highlights are extraordinary paintings by Rembrandt and Renoir. Attracting leading international collectors and museum officials, ...

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 ...

Renoir to Richter, antique pistols to rare gems shine at Palm Beach fair

artinfo / February 9th, 2011

Nearly 8,000 guests flocked to the gala preview of the American International Fine Art Fair in Palm Beach last weekend. About 40,000 visitors are expected altogether to peruse the booths of 66 dealers, down from 84 last year. The 15th edition of the fair, which runs through Feb. 13 at the Palm ...

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 ...

Rietveld Revival: Dutch modernist's work gains permanence

ArtfixDaily / October 14th, 2010

The output of Dutch furniture designer and architect Gerrit Rietveld (1884-1964), best known as a proponent of the artistic movement De Stijl, is rising in the public view. This fall a seminal work from his late career was recreated while one of his first influential designs entered the permanent ...

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," ...

Splurge on modernism: The Mira Hong Kong

ArtfixDaily / September 14th, 2010

Fine Art Asia 2010, from October 3 to 6, as well as the many fall art and antiques auctions, will bring visitors to Hong Kong who may happily discover the city's current hotspot for dinner, drinks, or sweet dreams. The Mira Hong Kong is the latest jewel in the crown of the Design Hotels chain. ...

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 ...

Useful & Beautiful: The Transatlantic Arts of William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites

ArtfixDaily / September 9th, 2010

Influential English craftsman, designer, artist, and writer William Morris (1834-1896) once told an audience, "...if you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: ‘HAVE NOTHING IN YOUR HOUSES THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW TO BE USEFUL OR BELIEVE TO BE BEAUTIFUL.’" The multitude of ...

American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture

New York Times / July 14th, 2010

Alice T. Friedman, an architectural historian and professor of American art history at Wellesley, has a new book, “American Glamour and the Evolution of Modern Architecture” (Yale University Press; $65), that links the work of postwar architects like Morris Lapidus, Philip Johnson and Richard ...

A taste of SOFA WEST: Santa Fe 2010

ArtfixDaily / July 8th, 2010

Twenty-eight premier galleries and dealers converge this weekend in Santa Fe for the second annual SOFA WEST, a hotbed of cutting edge design and decorative arts. On offer are fresh works drawn from traditional artisan materials and methods just as much as they reach for new heights in artistic ...

$42.5 million Montecito estate on the market

ArtfixDaily / June 30th, 2010

A sumptuous reinterpretation of Southern vernacular architecture has been built on spec in the foothills of Montecito, California. Overlooking a wide swath of the Pacific on about 5 acres, stands the 10,797+/- sq.ft main residence, with a 56-foot pool, 2-bedroom guest house, and pool cabana with ...

Race car styling informed Keno furniture line

Chicago Tribune / June 29th, 2010

Antiques specialists Leigh and Leslie Keno are well known for their special brand of enthusiastic interplay with early American furniture. The twin brothers' expertise has been broadcast to 10 million viewers per week in their appearances as appraisers on PBS' popular 'Antiques Roadshow.' A new ...

$55 million Massachusetts mansion compound for sale

Huffington Post / May 20th, 2010

For more than 150 years, only three families have called "The Oaks" home. The recently-listed 9.4-acre property, about 20 miles south of Boston, literally commands the entire waterfront of Cohasset Harbor. The Barrons and the Bancrofts, heirs to the Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal fortunes, ...

SFMOMA names four finalists for expansion

San Francisco Chronicle / May 11th, 2010

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has narrowed the list of architects for its $250 million expansion to four firms that vary wildly in size and style - but which almost certainly guarantee the new wing will be a distinct contrast with the institution's iconic home. Foster + Partners, David ...

Keeper of the bygone cityscape

The Atlantic / May 11th, 2010

A roaring zinc lion from the El Dorado carousel in Coney Island and a languorous allegorical figure of Night, carved of granite, from the iconic Pennsylvania Station complex designed by McKim, Mead & White, are a couple examples of important New York architectural fragments saved by a ...

Clars' browse-worthy May auction

Auction Central News / April 29th, 2010

Bolstered by four big estates, Clars' May 15-16 auction includes some important 17th and 18th century furnishings and a fine selection of art from Old Masters to contemporary artists. Asian art and jewelry round out the Oakland, Calif. firm's sale. Top-notch Western artists represented ...