ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

More than Expensive Eggs: Faberge comes back with jewelry collection online

Reuters / September 9th, 2009

GOODWOOD HOUSE, England - Revived luxury firm Faberge, whose namesake designed jewel-encrusted eggs for Russian Tsars, plans to sell its first collection of jewelry pieces worth up to $7 million each to the ultra rich on the Web.  

American Patriot For Sale: Hindman will hammer down Nathan Hale sculpture

Auction Central News / September 9th, 2009

On Sunday, Sept. 13, Chicago-based Leslie Hindman will host a 220-lot auction featuring postwar, Contemporary, American and European art. The top lot is an 1890 Frederick William MacMonnies bronze of American patriot Nathan Hale. Considered the State Hero of Connecticut, and widely acknowledged ...

Life's Work at Stake: Loan deadline is up for Annie Liebovitz

NY Times / September 8th, 2009

NEW YORK - The photographer Annie Leibovitz’s $24 million loan was due Tuesday, but by the end of the work day, it appeared that little had happened between her and her lender. Although Sept. 8 was widely reported as Ms. Leibovitz’s day of reckoning, the day when she might have to file bankruptcy ...

A Classic Luxury: Brando-owned watch at auction

Luxist / September 8th, 2009

NEW YORK - Later this month Antiquorum in New York will auction a gold cased Vacheron Constantin watch that was given to Marlon Brando by Zsa Zsa Gabor in 1954 (estimate $3,000-$8,000). The classic watch bears a style of guilloche engraved dial decoration that you don't often see anymore. It is ...

Polaroid Sell-off: Photographers lament loss of historic instant image trove

/ September 8th, 2009

BOSTON - All of the precious Polaroids, a 16,000-piece collection of one-of-a-kind prints by hundreds of photographers ranging from Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol, were supposed to stay together forever. Polaroid’s corporate art collection survived a 2001 bankruptcy intact, to the delight of ...

5-Pound Pearl: Unusual finds, toys, collectibles at Philip Weiss Auctions

WorthPoint / September 8th, 2009

OCEANSIDE, N.Y. – An incredible, five-pound pearl—measuring six inches in diameter and bearing an uncanny resemblance to a human brain—is just one of hundreds of intriguing lots that will cross the block at Philip Weiss Auctions Sept 11-13. The naturally occurring pearl is one of the largest ...

Digitized Culture: High-tech copies preserve original art, architecture

asahi / September 8th, 2009

TOKYO - The protection of cultural properties is going digital, with Buddhist sculptures, old paintings and World Heritage sites like Beijing's Forbidden City being preserved as digital images and in video. The move is a result of not just progress in image processing technology but of awareness ...

Bonds that Bind: Long Beach museum and city could break ties

LA Times Arts / September 5th, 2009

Long Beach, Calif. - The Long Beach Museum of Art's future could be at stake, with a dispute intensifying over whether the 59-year-old museum must pay back $3.06 million the city government grudgingly anted up this week to satisfy bond holders. The museum's discovery that it doesn't have to pay ...

Forgeries or Finds? Art world is fighting over Frida Kahlo

LA Times Arts / September 6th, 2009

The emergence of previously unknown artwork said to be made by the popular Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-54) has led to a very public debate about its authenticity. In Mexico, Kahlo is officially ranked an artist of the national patrimony, a formal endorsement foreign to American culture. ...

Eco-friendly Art: Giant bird sculpture arrives in Hyde Park

London Times / September 7th, 2009

An enormous Ibis is the first new public sculpture in Hyde Park, Central London, for nearly 50 years. The three-metre tall bronze artwork, named Isis after the goddess of nature, was created by Simon Gudgeon. It is spearheading a drive to raise £1.8 million to build an ecofriendly wildlife ...

The Go-to List: NYT's museum and gallery exhibition guide

NY Times / September 7th, 2009

The New York Times' listing of New York gallery and museum exhibitons includes the jewel-toned paintings of Paul Jenkins, on view at D. Wigmore Fine Art, and fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi's group show of artwork by friends such as Wayne Thiebaud (shown here) at Julie Saul Gallery. Check out the ...

Pastoral Pre-War Watercolors: Adolf Hitler's artwork auctioned in Nuremberg

NY Daily News / Reuters / September 7th, 2009

Three watercolors supposedly painted by a young Adolf Hitler were auctioned off for a total of $60,000 in the Bavarian city of Nuremberg Saturday. German auctioneer Herbert Weidler said the paintings were sold to three different phone bidders. Although the exact number of Hitler artworks is ...

Benevolent Titan: Australian art dealer Joseph Brown dies

The Age / September 7th, 2009

Joseph Brown (b. 1918), Australia's most prominent and respected art dealer, who was renowned for his extraordinary civic generosity, has died at age 91. Between 1966 and 1999, Brown donated 460 works of art to public collections. In addition, in 2004, he made what was described by then premier ...

Harvard is #1: Boston Globe ranks top college museums

Boston Globe 1 / September 3rd, 2009

New England - and Massachusetts in particular - is richly endowed with great college art collections. As teaching collections, almost all of them span continents and epochs. And they’re all easily accessible to the public. Among the ten best, the greatest, without question, is Harvard Art Museum ...

Paris Pleasures; Touring the city's antiques markets

Telegraph / September 3rd, 2009

Clignancourt market – or, as it is officially known, Marché aux Puces St-Ouen de Clignancourt, on the northern edge of Paris, in the 18th arrondissement – is the biggest flea market in the world: a seven-hectare junk city. As the American rightly said, taking in this warren of other ...

Upscale & Upbeat: Baltimore Antiques Show expects high turn-out, strong sales

Maryland Daily Record / September 3rd, 2009

Expectations are high for this weekend's 29th annual Baltimore Summer Antiques Show, the largest indoor antiques shows in the world, featuring 550 top-tier dealers. "The industry overall has been soft but nobody’s giving anything away — prices haven’t fallen,” said Kris Charamonde of the Palm ...

Recession Reaction: Art insurers say fraudulent claims on the rise

The Art Newspaper / September 3rd, 2009

The insurance industry is on red alert. The number of fraudulent claims is rising rapidly and experts predict they will continue to increase until the economic situation improves. According to the Association of British Insurers (ABI), in 2008 there was a 17% rise in fraudulent claims compared ...

Rants against Landmarks: FOX's Glenn Beck turns into an art critic

UnBeige Mediabistro / September 3rd, 2009

Everyone's favorite screamer Glenn Beck last night decided to expose the fascist/communist art at Rockefeller Plaza in New York. He explained that NBC, the Rockefeller family, and everyone else who happens to pass by the building is a raving communist and/or fascist (probably both). View the ...

"Portfolio from the Past": Antique furniture is a solid (wood) investment

CNBC / September 2nd, 2009

Though things may be looking up for the stock market, the next time the Dow Industrials drop 500 points, you may want to consider pulling funds out of the market and putting them in your bed. It may not be a bad idea if your resting place is part of an exceptional Louis XV-style bedroom suite by ...

Image Library at Risk: Art trade bemoans budget cuts at Courtauld

Guardian / September 2nd, 2009

The Courtauld Institute of Art in London, one of the most esteemed colleges in the world for the study of art history, is at the center of a storm over the upkeep of its photographic libraries - a hugely valuable resource for both art historians and the international art trade. A ...