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Self-taught artist Winfred Rembert featured at Adelson Galleries

Art Knowledge News / April 8th, 2010

After a youth spent in the cotton fields of Georgia, an arrest after a 1960s civil rights march, and a near-lynching, Wilfred Rembert became an artist whose work is now being shown in Manhattan. Adelson Galleries and Peter Tillou Works of Art have collaborated to present the first major solo ...

Boston artist John Wilson's work is strong on character

Boston Globe / April 8th, 2010

John Wilson was a master in figure drawing at an early age. Throughout his nearly seven-decade-long career, he has successfully married bold figuration with a sophisticated take on abstraction. But what stands out about the 88-year-old artist’s work is the humanity. “John Wilson: Prints & ...

Artist in her element on O'Keeffe's land

New York Times / April 8th, 2010

Ex-New Yorker Susan Rothenberg is an artist painting in New Mexico, amidst the same striking scenery that inspired Georgia O'Keeffe to produce some of her best work. Many parallels exist between the lives of the two artists. Each exited the city for the desert, a quiet place "with no grid," ...

Sign of the times: Robins v. Zwirner et al.

New York Observer / April 7th, 2010

A powerhouse Chelsea art dealer got slammed with a $8 million lawsuit in a New York court from a prominent American collector. The claim states that the dealer renegged on a confidentiality agreement and a promise to supply the collector with first dibs on new works by South African artist ...

National Gallery of Art's "Hendrick Avercamp: The Little Ice Age"

Washington Post / April 7th, 2010

Icy snow is a visual treat in Washington, D.C. this Spring, at least in pictures. On view at the National Gallery is the work of Dutch artist Hendrick Avercamp (1585-1634) whose paintings of winter wonderlands depict people of all classes cavorting and working outdoors. Part landscape, part ...

Egypt leads multinational efforts to restitute relics

BusinessWeek / April 7th, 2010

This week, Egypt hosts an international conference centered on the retrieval of disputed antiquities from Western museums to their land of origin. On the target list are such objects as the 3,300-year-old bust of Queen Nefertiti from Berlin’s Neues Museum and the Rosetta Stone from London’s ...

Rare blue diamond sells for $6.4 million "bargain" price

Bloomberg / April 7th, 2010

London jeweller Alisa Moussaieff secured the winning bid of HK$49.9 million ($6.4 million) for a 5.16-carat blue diamond at a Sotheby's auction in Hong Kong. “It’s a bargain and I got it at this price because everyone was asleep,” Moussaieff said in an interview, reported by Bloomberg. The ...

Six museum (re)openings keep art fresh this Spring

MSNBC / April 6th, 2010

New or newly expanded museums around the country this spring will showcase everything from Tiffany lamps to Wyeth paintings, as well as some cutting-edge new architecture to house it all. “Wyeth: An American Legacy, Treasures from the Farnsworth Art Museum” and Japanese woodblock prints are on ...

Bohemian Club's PR boosted landscape artist

Santa Barbara Independent / April 6th, 2010

By the time of his death in Santa Barbara in 1919, Thaddeus Welch was considered one of California’s finest landscape painters. He achieved this success despite the disapproval of his father, criticism from his mentors, and decades of grinding poverty. He had triumphed over it all. Welch's ...

Blue-chip Chinese contemporary art returns to red-hot

New York Times / April 6th, 2010

Asian art sales surged in Hong Kong early this week. Sotheby's sale of contemporary Asian art brought $18.7 million with Liu Ye's (b. 1964) "Bright Road" fetching $2.45 million, an artist record and nearly three times the estimate. With rising real estate prices in Hong Kong and mainland China, ...

Ted Pillsbury left a legacy rich in art

The Dallas Morning News / April 6th, 2010

The death last month of Edmund P. "Ted" Pillsbury, a major player on the American art museum scene, was a suicide, his family said Monday. An earlier statement said his March 25 death was due to a heart attack. Dr. Pillsbury, 66, was chairman of fine arts at Heritage Auction Galleries in ...

Los Angeles Antiques Show adds more Continental furniture dealers

Culture Kiosque / April 5th, 2010

New exhibitors to the Los Angeles Antiques Show this year are Bernard Steinitz of Paris and Carlton Hobbs of New York, both respected dealers of Continental furniture. From April 21 to 25, sixty-five exhibitors from across the U.S. and Europe will be featured in room-setting vignettes ...

Tiny masterpieces re-examined in Russian exhibition

The Moscow Times / April 5th, 2010

Little known in his native Russia, Ivan Pokhitonov (1850-1923) won fame in France for his delicate miniature paintings of landscapes. The Tretyakov Gallery, a Russian national museum, is now providing audiences with a chance to re-evaluate the artist with the exhibit “Painter-Sorcerer” — timed to ...

Balinese painting soars to record $3.3 million

Bloomberg / April 5th, 2010

A 1960s oil painting of Balinese villagers by Indonesia’s Lee Man Fong fetched a record HK$25.3 million ($3.3 million) at Sotheby's in Hong Kong. The 2-meter-long “Bali Life,” depicting a rustic scene of the islanders at rest, became the most expensive Southeast Asian artwork at auction. Prices ...

Antiques restorer is bent on authenticity

Kentucky.com / April 5th, 2010

Mason Roberts, 38, is part artist and craftsman, part detective and historian. One of a handful of top-level antiques restorers in Kentucky, Roberts examines each damaged piece carefully so that, he says, "you won't be able to tell I did anything" after the restoration. For example, he uses ...

Hottest museum shows of 2009

The Art Newspaper / April 3rd, 2010

The Art Newspaper has listed the 30 most visited museum exhibitions worldwide for the 2008- 2009 season. Topping the list are four blockbusters at Japanese museums. Shows on twentieth-century masters ranked high including Kandinsky at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and Joan Miró at MoMA in New ...

Museum show is big on Botero

New York Times / April 3rd, 2010

The Colombian artist Fernando Botero is showcased at Long Island's Nassau County Museum of Art, where a small but significant collection of figure paintings, drawings and monumental sculptures is gathered, including a huge, plump female nude at the entrance. In painting or sculpture, Botero, ...

Crichton art collection may exceed $75 million at Christie's

Washington Post / April 3rd, 2010

Popular thriller writer Michael Crichton, of "ER" and "Jurassic Park" fame, died in 2008. He left behind a top-notch art collection which his family is selling 80% of at Christie's in New York on May 11-12. Among the works to watch for record-setting status is Jasper Johns' "Flag," which ...

PAFA acquires a trio of diverse works

Art knowledge News / April 3rd, 2010

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) in Philadelphia recently acquired three works for its American art collection, including Mark Bradford's "Untitled (Dementia)," 2009; Philip Evergood's "Mine Disaster", 1933/37; and Lilly Martin Spencer's "Mother and Child by the Hearth," ...

Imperial Russian box returns to the market

Luxist / April 1st, 2010

A heated bidding battle took an Imperial Russian silver box, with a $4,000 to $6,000 estimate, to $400,000 at a William J. Jenack auction in 2008. The winning bidder never paid up so the box is back on the block April 11. Made by I.P. Khlebnikov, a craftsman who worked for the House of Fabergé ...