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Salander director Leigh Morse gets weekends in jail
Reuters / July 20th, 2011
Leigh Morse, the former gallery director who worked for disgraced art dealer Lawrence Salander, will owe defrauded clients $1.65 million in restitution. Manhattan criminal court also sentenced Morse, 55, to weekend confinement in prison...
"The Great American Hall of Wonders" opens at Smithsonian
ArtfixDaily / July 19th, 2011
The first mass-produced American clock, a locomotive prototype, and Charles Willson Peale’s iconic self-portrait, “The Artist in His Museum,” are part of a major exhibition showcasing American innovation on view at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art until January 8, 2012. "The Great ...
Rare Jane Austen manuscript brings $1.6m at auction
The Improper / July 18th, 2011
English novelist Jane Austen’s unpublished manuscript for “The Watsons,” a story about four daughters of a widowed clergyman who endeavor to marry well, fetched a stunning £993,250 ($1.6 million) at a Sotheby's auction in London. The selling price (with fees) for the 68-page document was ...
American Masterpieces from the Batten Collection at Chrysler Museum
ArtfixDaily / July 18th, 2011
The Chrysler Museum of Art has extended the exhibition "American Masterpieces from the Batten Collection" through July 31, 2011. This extraordinary collection of American art is from Jane and the late Frank Batten, Sr., who have placed nine of their paintings on long-term loan as promised gifts ...
Tillou Gallery presents the art of Winfred Rembert
Huffington Post / July 17th, 2011
Winfred Rembert (b. 1945), whose work is currently exhibited at the Tillou Gallery in Litchfield, Connecticut, learned the craft of leather tooling while serving on a chain gang in a Georgia prison.
Picasso thief's apartment yields more stolen art
Mail online / July 17th, 2011
A police search of the Hoboken, New Jersey, apartment of accused Picasso thief Mark Lugo has turned up other missing artworks. The raid recovered 11 stolen pieces in total, worth more than $500,000, mainly from Manhattan galleries and hotels.
German billionaire pays $70 million for Holbein Madonna
Bloomberg / July 17th, 2011
Reinhold Wuerth beat out Frankfurt's Staedel Museum to acquire an important Holbein painting from the collection of an aristocratic family. The German billionaire industrialist paid more than 50 million euros, the highest amount ever...
Book presents artists' to-do lists, inner thoughts
The Atlantic / July 14th, 2011
Lists: To-dos, Illustrated Inventories, Collected Thoughts, and Other Artists' Enumerations from the Collections of the Smithsonian Museum gives an inside look into the lives of some of the 20th century's most remarkable artists...
"Lost Michelangelo" masterpiece worth £100million found in student dorm
Daily Mail / July 14th, 2011
A painting thought to have been by a Michelangelo contemporary could be the work of the Renaissance master himself. The mid-16th century oil has been hanging in a student residence hall at Oxford since the 1930s.
Unpublished Jane Austen hits the auction block
Los Angeles Times / July 12th, 2011
An unpublished manuscript written by Jane Austen in 1804 will be offered at Sotheby's in London on Thursday with an estimate of $330,000 to $490,000. The beloved English novelist never finished writing "The Watsons." She abandoned the manuscript after one-quarter was written (68 pages). "The ...
Guardi fetches record $43m at London auction
Dawn / July 11th, 2011
A monumental Francesco Guardi painting of Venice’s Rialto Bridge sold in London last Wednesday for almost £27 million ($43 million), the highest amount ever paid at auction for a work by the Italian artist. “Venice, a view of the Rialto Bridge, Looking North, from the Fondamenta del Carbon” ...
Art dealers accused of selling fake Motherwells
New York Post / July 11th, 2011
Two Manhattan art dealers---formerly with Knoedler Gallery---have been accused of selling fake paintings by abstract expressionist Robert Motherwell, according to the Dedalus Foundation, a group in charge of authenticating the artist's work.
Steve Wynn drops $12.8m on vases for Macau resort
Sacramento Bee / July 10th, 2011
Hotel and casino mogul Steve Wynn purchased four 18th-century Chinese porcelain vases at a London auction Thursday night to decorate his new resort in Macau for 8 million pounds ($12.8 million). The four-foot tall decorative vases from the Jiaqing period (1796-1821), with Buddhist and Taoist ...
Art dealer Guy Wildenstein faces criminal charges
Independent / July 8th, 2011
Billionaire art dealer Guy Wildenstein, who is based in Paris and New York, has been formally accused of fraud after 30 valuable paintings and sculptures that had been missing for decades turned up in a police raid of his family's institute in Paris. Mr Wildenstein claims the works found ...
Qatar named world's biggest contemporary art buyer
The Art Newspaper / July 7th, 2011
The oil-rich nation of Qatar has emerged as the world's biggest buyer of modern and contemporary art, according to a report in The Art Newspaper. Among the recent major art deals...
Indian court orders curator for Hindu temple treasures
Voice of America / July 7th, 2011
A treasure with an estimated value of more than $20 billion that was discovered in the vaults of a Hindu temple last week will have a court-ordered curator. The immense trove of diamonds, emeralds, gold and silver coins, and figurines...
Family fights U.S. Treasury over rare 'Double Eagle' coins
USA Today / July 7th, 2011
A Philadelphia family began a court battle on Thursday with the U.S. Treasury over ownership of 10 'double eagle' gold coins from 1933. They claim the cache of coins---perhaps worth $80 million---is rightfully theirs...
The legacy of folk artist Stephen Huneck
Valley Advocate / July 7th, 2011
His work is described as accesssible and recognizably bright. It is most often a witty rendition of a dog. A former antiques "picker," the late Vermont artist Stephen Huneck (1948-2010) left behind a charming and internationally-popular body of work. When the economic downturn began in 2008, ...
Picasso drawing swiped from San Francisco gallery
/ July 6th, 2011
A San Francisco restaurant says it has surveillance video of a man who ripped a Picasso drawing off the wall of a nearby gallery. The thief snatched the 1965 pencil-on-paper drawing on Tuesday morning then got into a waiting taxicab...
Media mogul Tommy Mottola becomes art dealer
Wall Street Journal / July 6th, 2011
Tommy Mottola, the former head of Sony Music Entertainment, has debuted his newest venture, an art gallery. His Gallery Valentine in East Hampton, New York, showed a mix of contemporary and blue-chip artists at its weekend opening...