ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

Andrew Lloyd Webber charity strikes secret deal over £30m Picasso

Independent / January 9th, 2010

A wealthy art charity set up by music impresario Andrew Lloyd Webber has reached a confidential settlement over the ownership of a £30m Picasso portrait with the heirs of a Jewish banker who claimed that he had been forced to sell the painting during the 1930s by the Nazis. The Andrew Lloyd ...

L.A. art dealer accused of selling a phony Picasso pastel

La Times / January 9th, 2010

Tatiana Khan, owner of the Chateau Allegre gallery in Los Angeles, sold a pastel drawing -- called "La Femme Au Chapeau Bleu" -- which she claimed was a Pablo Picasso owned by the Malcolm Forbes family estate and a bargain at only $2 million, according to court documents. But the buyer became ...

Major landscapes by impressionist Clark Voorhees on view in New York

Hartford Courant / January 7th, 2010

Trained as a chemist at Yale, Clark Greenwood Voorhees was attracted to sketching nature more than science. The New Yorker traveled up to Old Lyme on the Connecticut coast as early as 1893, where he became instrumental in the development of a leading art colony. Now, Hawthorne Fine Art on New ...

Smithsonian Institution has record year in 2009, with 30 million visits

Washington Post / January 7th, 2010

A full year of open doors at the National Museum of American History, combined with a robust bump from the crowds in Washington for the inauguration, brought a record number of visits to the Smithsonian in 2009. Last year, according to numbers released this week by the Smithsonian, the ...

Baccarat crystal, nostalgia fill Tavern on the Green’s auction

Bloomberg / January 7th, 2010

This week, the landmark restaurant in Manhattan’s Central Park opened its doors for a public preview of thousands of items, from glassware to weathervanes, to be auctioned off January 13-15. The 75-year-old restaurant filed for bankruptcy protection in September 2009, after the losing its lease ...

Fabled Skull and Bones ballot box up for auction

Luxist / January 7th, 2010

An 1872 skull ballot box from Yale University's mysterious Skull and Bones society will be sold as part of Christie's New York's Important American Furniture, Folk Art, Silver & Chinese Export sale on January 22. Skull and Bones was founded in 1832 and has been the subject of many works of ...

PREVIEW: From the Gothic Tradition to the Early Renaissance

ARTFIXdaily / January 6th, 2010

Moretti Fine Art will stage their third US exhibition, entitled From the Gothic Tradition to the Early Renaissance, at their gallery at 24 East 80th Street, New York, from 19 January to 12 February 2010.  Some twenty works will not only reveal the richness of gold-ground and panel ...

A rare British ocean liner model for maritime history buffs

Luxist / January 6th, 2010

A massive, rare model of a famed World War I British ocean liner-turned-battle cruiser has been listed for sale at $175,000. The 640 ft. HMS Alcantara was built by Harland & Wolff of Belfast for Royal Mail Lines and launched in October 1913. She was sunk by the German armed merchant cruiser ...

Laptop designer named as head of Cooper-Hewitt museum

Washington Post / January 6th, 2010

Bill Moggridge, a leading industrial designer who is credited with designing the first laptop computer, was named Wednesday to lead the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. Moggridge, 66, takes over the New York institution, which is part of the Smithsonian, at a critical time. The ...

Kenneth Noland, Color-field painter, passes away

LA Times Blogs / January 6th, 2010

Kenneth Noland, whose groundbreaking Color-field paintings explored the richness of color while hewing to basic shapes such as concentric circles, chevrons, diamonds and stripes, has died at 85. His wife, Paige Rense, told the New York Times that the North Carolina-born artist died ...

Europe 2010: Van Gogh's secrets, Penn's portraits, cool quilts

Bloomberg / January 5th, 2010

Vincent van Gogh’s private letters and Irving Penn’s celebrity portraits will be among star exhibits at European art shows in 2010. The most important Van Gogh show that London has seen in 40 years opens at the Royal Academy this month. Meanwhile, Vincent’s old houseguest Paul Gauguin is the ...

A small museum acquires Chagall painting at bargain price

Los Angeles times - blog / January 5th, 2010

A little-known painting by Marc Chagall has taken the international spotlight after a small museum in London revealed over the weekend that it has purchased the work at a bargain price. Chagall's "Apocalypse in Lilac, Capriccio" (1945) was purchased in October at a Paris auction by the London ...

Tales from the Gothic Room

Sarasota Magazine / January 5th, 2010

Behind the current exhibition at Sarasota, Florida's Ringling Museum lies a story of great wealth, a society marriage and absolute ambition. "Gothic Art in the Gilded Age" encompasses more than 300 items including medieval and Renaissance paintings, sculpture, furniture, and more, reflecting both ...

Turner landscapes to Thiebaud pies: January openings in Washington, D.C.

Washington Post - blog / January 5th, 2010

The American Art Museum is dipping into its permanent collection to unveil its third Graphic Masters show this month. Among the major draws is an almost edible piece by Wayne Thiebaud and Masami Teraoka's contemporary riff on traditional Japanese woodblock paintings (Jan. 15-Aug. 8). The Corcoran ...

Bloomsbury rare book auction let's the market decide

Seattle P-I blog / January 4th, 2010

Bloomsbury Auctions realized twice its estimate for the recent auction of the de Orbe Novo Collection of early books related to the New World 1492-1625, with complete sell-through of all 81 lots for a total of $3,489,000. At a time when rare book auctions are typically selling only 70%-75% of ...

Forensic test may monitor ivory trade

BBC News / January 4th, 2010

From Chinese puzzle balls to Anglo-Indian furniture, tea caddies to letter openers, many antiques are comprised of elephant ivory. The European Union only allows the sale of antique ivory, from before 1947, but there has been no accurate way of distinguishing it from modern ivory. A scientist at ...

New da Vinci rumors have the art world abuzz

Los Angeles Times / January 4th, 2010

The Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci left us only 10 to 20 paintings; just one resides in the U.S. (National Gallery). Last week, The Washington Post received an anonymous tip that the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston is in the process of authenticating a painting believed to ...

Chinese art market resumes upward trajectory

The Malaysian Insider / January 3rd, 2010

In 2009, Christie’s Hong Kong sale of Asian Contemporary Art and Chinese 20th Century Art achieved a combined total of US$50.2 million (RM171 million) in sales, a 48 per cent increase on the previous year. UK-based ArtTactic Research found that 62 per cent of survey respondents believe that the ...

Picasso, other art works stolen from Provencal villa

Reuters / January 3rd, 2010

Thieves have stolen about 30 paintings, including works by Pablo Picasso and post-impressionist Henri Rousseau, from a private villa in the south of France, police said on Saturday. The haul was worth about 1 million euros ($1.43 million). The theft was discovered on Thursday by a caretaker at ...

PREVIEW: photo l.a. 2010

ARTFIXdaily / January 3rd, 2010

On view from January 14 to 20 is an array of stunning photographic works in LA's longest running art fair at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Browse highlights from photo l.a. 2010 in this exclusive ARTFIXdaily photo gallery including works by Hu Li, Julie Blackmon, and Qiang ...