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Art Talks: "Mona Lisa" speaks Mandarin in high-tech exhibit
Reuters / August 27th, 2009
BEIJING (Reuters) - For centuries, Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and her enigmatic smile have inspired as much speculation as admiration. Now she's ready to answer questions -- in Mandarin. A digital, interactive version of the renowned 16th century painting is one of 61 high-tech replicas ...
Roman Ruins Re-hashed: German discovery of 2,000-yr-old horse statue
Reuters / August 27th, 2009
BERLIN (Reuters) - German archaeologists on Thursday unveiled a bronze and gold horse's head they said was believed to be a remnant of a 2000-year-old Roman statue. A team digging at a former Roman town near Waldgirmes in central Germany found the life-sized head along with the foot of a rider on ...
The Bouguereau Blow-up: New lawsuit entails from nuns' sale to art dealers
Maine Antiques Digest / August 27th, 2009
Last April news broke about a group of cloistered nuns from upstate New York who sold a major work by French artist William Adolphe Bouguereau. The buyer was art dealer Mark LaSalle, who was representing Santa Fe dealer Mark Zaplin. After $50,000 of restoration work to the painting, Zaplin ...
Heave-ho to Heirlooms: Recession is boom time for antiques appraisers
BND.com / August 27th, 2009
Charlotte, N.C. - A North Carolina stay-at-home mom had her dining room set appraised for insurance purposes. When the appraiser came back with a valuation of $32,000 for a marble-top Louis XV buffet in her foyer, the homemaker and her husband considered selling it. The economy had diminished ...
"Retail is for rednecks": Bargains to be found at Baltimore Summer Antiques Show
Metro Weekly / August 27th, 2009
From Sept. 3 to 6, more than 30,000 people are expected to attend Baltimore's 29th Summer Antiques Show. Billed as the largest indoor antiques show in the U.S., over 550 international jewelry, art, and antiques dealers converge. Highlights include a 70-dealer antiquarian book fair and a slew of ...
Insinuating Brushwork: Abstract Expressionist Jack Tworkov revisited at UBS Art Gallery
New York Observer / August 27th, 2009
That there should still be, in 2009, degrees of neglect in an artistic movement as heavily studied as Abstract Expressionism may be a surprise. But the artist Jack Tworkov certainly belongs in that category. Born in Poland, in 1900, the artist emigrated to New York at the age of 13 and spent most ...
Sharing Art to Make Money: The Collectors Fund offers artful investing
Portfolio / August 25th, 2009
Kansas City, Missouri - Art enthusiasts who have invested in The Collectors Fund have happily observed their money outperform the stock market. The added value of the fund is a rotating art collection of 130 works, currently valued at $17 million, which fund members enjoy in their own homes. ...
SFMOMA Focues East: A New Look at Asian Photography
NPR 1 / August 26th, 2009
San Francisco - Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon and Henri Cartier-Bresson are a few 20th-century photographers most widely noted as masters. An entire hemisphere of photographic history is often overlooked. Two upcoming fall exhibitions at SFMOMA will examine stunning photography from Japan, China, ...
Fabulous Finds vs. Disappointing Duds: U.K.'s 'Antiques Roadshow' still stokes viewers' interest
Daily Record / August 26th, 2009
U.K. - From Chippendale chairs to Anthony Gormley paintings, Britain's popular television series "Antiques Roadshow" has unsurfaced a treasure trove of exciting attic finds. But more often than not, there is a budding collector who is disappointed by the show's expert appraisals. Recently, a ...
Condos & Princes: Russian dealer sues New York gallery over $3 million art agreement
Bloomberg / August 26th, 2009
New York - New York’s Luhring Augustine Gallery has been sued by Moscow art dealer Gary Tatintsian for an alleged breach an agreement over a complicated series of transactions involving works by artists George Condo and Richard Prince. According to a complaint filed Aug. 11 in Manhattan, ...
Americana ascends: Schoolgirl sampler soars to $465,000 at Maine auction
Antiques & the Arts / August 25th, 2009
Thomaston, Maine - From a $40,000-$60,000 estimate, an early American craft swept bidders away to a final six-figure sum that silenced the audience at Thomaston Place Auctions' Aug. 22 sale. Old Lyme, Conn., textile specialist Stephen Huber was all over the 18th-century Boston schoolgirl sampler ...
The rescue of Gilbert Stuart's Washington: Decendants of a slave see the painting he saved
NPR / August 25th, 2009
Washington, D.C. - During the War of 1812, on Aug. 24, 1814, British troops set fire to the White House. Before they did, Paul Jennings, who was born into slavery at Montpelier, James Madison's Virginia mansion, helped save a now-famous portrait of George Washington, painted by Gilbert Stuart. ...
Frenzy for fresh-to-the-market: Rare and early Derby ceramics smash auction records
Derby Telegraph / August 25th, 2009
Lichfield, U.K. - A huge private collection of rare Derby ceramics estimated to fetch up to £80,000 at auction was hammered down for a record-breaking £250,000 on Aug. 20. Around 250 figurines, vases and tableware, some dating back to the 1750s, were sold by Richard Winterton Auctioneers, in ...
Featuring the original 'American Idol': Washington-signed Society of Cincinnati document
Auction Central News / August 25th, 2009
Rancho Santa Fe, Calif. - A rare and important Society of Cincinnati diploma signed by George Washington in a strong hand with rich, brown ink comes to auction Aug. 30. Founded in 1783, the society sought to preserve the ideals and fellowship of the Revolutionary War's officers, and to influence ...
Vote on the Hope Diamond's new setting
NPR 1 / August 22nd, 2009
The Hope Diamond might be the most famous gemstone on Earth. For the first time in nearly a century, it's getting a makeover — and you get to choose the new setting by casting your vote on the Smithsonian Channel website. Most of the 7 million or so people trooping through the National Museum of ...
Acclaimed collection of African-American art travels
Temple Daily Telegram / August 24th, 2009
Cultivated collectors Dr. Harmon Kelley and wife, Harriet, of San Antonio, Texas, have assembled one of the nation’s most impressive collections of art by African-Americans, with works by Horace Pippin, Henry O'Tanner, and more. The couple has shared their collection through numerous loan ...
Sotheby's withdraws sculptures of Aborigines' ancestors amid protests
The Australian / August 24th, 2009
An outcry from Tasmanian Aborigines prompted Sotheby's to pull a pair of busts from auction just hours before the sale in Melbourne. Woureddy, An Aboriginal Chief of Van Diemen's Land and Trucaninny, Wife of Woureddy, by the English artist Benjamin Law, were expected to set a record price for ...
'Sargent and the Sea' opens at the Corcoran
Art Knowledge News / August 24th, 2009
Washington, D.C. - In "Sargent and the Sea", the Corcoran Gallery of Art brings together for the first time more than 80 seascapes and coastal scenes from the early career of John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), America's pre-eminent exaptriate painter of the late 19th century. The Corcoran’s ...
New Tampa Museum debuts with Matisse, impressionists, video artists
The Tampa Tribune / August 24th, 2009
With an ambitious exhibit schedule that ranges from the celebrated works of Henri Matisse to introducing video artists, the new Tampa Museum of Art will try to redefine itself as a vibrant urban destination, according to executive director Todd Smith. Rounding out 2010, from September to early ...
Picasso Museum closes for two-year renovation
AFP / August 24th, 2009
PARIS — Paris's Picasso museum closed on Monday for a two-year, 30-million-euro (43-million-dollar) renovation of one of the world's major galleries devoted to the Spanish-born master. On the eve of the closure more than 5,800 people seized a last chance to view the collections, housed in a ...