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Wine War: Broadbent settles with publisher over defamation suit
Luxist / October 14th, 2009
Michael Broadbent has settled his lawsuit against Random House for defamation of character for his potrayal in the book "The Billionaire's Vinegar" by Benjamin Wallace. The book tells the story of German collector Hardy Rodenstock who supposedly found rare bottles of Chateau Lafite walled up in a ...
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 ...
Discovering da Vinci: 500-year-old fingerprint links work to Leonardo
Guardian / October 13th, 2009
A new portrait by Leonardo da Vinci may have been discovered. The small picture of a young woman in profile was previously believed to be a German work from the early 19th century and has changed hands in recent years for around £12,000. But a growing number of scholars agree the work is almost ...
"No Love Lost": Damien Hirst's return to painting
AP / October 13th, 2009
Damien Hirst has made a fortune and become an art-world brand by peering at life's dark side. Rows of skulls stare sightless from deep blue backgrounds in a new exhibition by the man who turned pickled sharks and rotting cows' heads into multimillion-dollar works of art. The most striking thing ...
Koons on Koons: For sale at Frankfurt Book Fair
New York Observer / October 13th, 2009
Uber-popular artist Jeff Koons and the British curator Norman Rosenthal are working on a book together that the Wylie Agency is currently shopping to publishers at the Frankfurt Book Fair. The book will be called The Confessions of Jeff Koons, and will take the form of an extended conversation ...
Asia Eyes Ultra-luxury: Auction houses shift sales to Hong Kong
New York Times / October 13th, 2009
In December, Christie’s will auction off “the Vivid Pink,” a bubble-gum-colored five-carat diamond with an estimated value of $5 million to $7 million. But instead of scheduling the sale for New York or Geneva, the city chosen was Hong Kong. Asia’s role in the market for super high-end luxury ...
Bailed-out Must Share Art: Royal Bank of Scotland to display hidden collection
Guardian / October 12th, 2009
The Royal Bank of Scotland is to open one of the largest collections of British art in private hands to the public after it was accused of hiding its collection in its corporate offices and vaults. RBS, which is 70% owned by the taxpayer, has 2,200+ pieces, including work by David Hockney and Sir ...
Big Names at Sotheby's: November sales may boost art market
Telegraph / October 12th, 2009
Some exciting, major artwork is going under the gavel from November 4 to 11. Sotheby's New York will offer "Krass und Mild" by Kandinsky from the collection of Arthur M. Sackler with a $6-8 million estimate. The work has not been seen in public since 1964 and a retrospective on the artist is ...
Creative Spaces: Mixing folk art, antique styles in a Spanish Colonial
Architectural Digest / October 12th, 2009
“Each object becomes a piece of art,” Malibu-based designer Karin Blake says of her treatment of folk art in her clients' Los Angeles house. She placed an antique rocking horse on an 1890 sideboard with an oil by Rufino Tamayo. Her signature style is a blend of antiques, often from unexpected ...
Buyers' Market: Credit crunch pinches arts funding, fairs
Wealth Bulletin / October 12th, 2009
This week, around 60,000 of the world’s well-heeled will visit the annual Frieze Art Fair, in London’s Regent’s Park, and its satellite shows. Some visitors will be big collectors like Roman Abramovich and celebrities Brad Pitt, Gwyneth Paltrow and Karl Lagerfeld. While buyers are expected to ...
Charles Burchfield: A master of American Modernist watercolor
LA Times Arts / October 11th, 2009
LOS ANGELES - An exhibition at the UCLA Hammer Museum includes works from Charles Burchfield's beginnings as a wallpaper designer, his solo exhibition at the just-opened Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan and more. Arguably, watercolor was the most important medium ...
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 ...
Vanished Van Gogh?: Calif. art heist gets more bizarre
Boston Herald / October 11th, 2009
The weird case of two former Bostonians who claim they were robbed of priceless art in California took an even stranger turn last week when the pair offered up a tale about how they handled an "unknown Van Gogh." The men said they were given the painting by a Van Gogh family member and that no ...
Low Food, High Art: Big Macs To Join Mona Lisa At the Louvre
NPR 1 / October 9th, 2009
PARIS - Plans to open a McDonald's franchise in the forecourt of Paris' Louvre art museum have met with sharp criticism from the French art community, which decries the mixing of low food with high art. Museum officials say the quality McCafe will represent American cuisine at the food court.
Market Upswing: Sotheby's reports third highest sales in Hong Kong
Reuters / October 8th, 2009
HONG KONG - Sotheby's made a higher-than-expected $168 million or so in total sales for its autumn Asian auctions in Hong Kong. The sales tally for the array of Chinese antiques and paintings, Asian contemporary art, wine, jewelry and watches was 88 percent higher than its spring sales tally, ...
Reclaiming Relics: Egypt demands artifacts’ return, cuts ties with Louvre
New York Times Art / October 8th, 2009
The nation’s antiquities department says reliefs in the possession of the French museum were stolen in the 1980s from an ancient Egyptian tomb. Egypt also seeks the return of the 3,300- year-old bust of Nefertiti, the wife of the famed monotheistic pharaoh Akhenaten, which has been recently moved ...
Gilt-y Lot: Christie's offers $6.4 million "Cucci Cabinet"
Reuters / October 8th, 2009
LONDON - Christie's will offer for auction one of only three cabinets by Domenico Cucci known to survive, and expects the rare work to fetch around four million pounds ($6.4 million). The ornate Louis XIV cabinet, dated 1665 to 1675, is being sold by the March family, described by the auctioneer ...
Retrospective at Guggenheim: Kandinsky's Futurity
New York Observer / October 8th, 2009
NEW YORK - The imperative of visionary logic goes like this: if the worldliness of the present world be false, then divest yourself of it, and precipitate a future that rings true. Russian-born Vasily Kandinsky (1866-1944) remains one of a few artists whose art is definitive in this sense, and so ...
Market Expansion: Hirst's butterflies soar again in Asia
AFP / October 7th, 2009
HONG KONG — A monumental work by British artist Damien Hirst fetched more than 17.22 million Hong Kong dollars (2.21 million US) in an auction held on Wednesday, making it his most expensive art piece sold in Asia. "The Importance of Elsewhere -- The Kingdom of Heaven" broke the record set by ...
Irving Penn: The giant of photography dies at 92
LA Times Arts / October 7th, 2009
He began as a fashion photographer, but crossed the chasm that separated commercial and art photography. His works are considered icons. Irving Penn, a grand master of American fashion photography whose "less is more" aesthetic, combined with a startling sensuality, ...