ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

The Real Deal: 'Finding Van Dyke' exhibition unfolds at Philip Mould

ArtfixDaily / May 31st, 2011

Philip Mould has an eye for authenticity. As one of the world’s leading specialists in Old Master paintings and an authority on British portraiture, Mould is sharing his expertise in an innovative and revealing exhibition opening this June in London. Located in the heart of fashionable Mayfair, ...

Copper heiress Huguette Clark dies at 104

MSNBC / May 24th, 2011

The mysterious recluse and heir to a copper fortune, Huguette Clark, died at age 104 on Tuesday morning in a New York City hospital. After decades of living in obscurity, Clark captured media attention last year when MSNBC reported on her immense wealth, her three unoccupied residences valued ...

New David McCullough book fleshes out Madame X scandal

The Daily Beast / May 23rd, 2011

When popular society artist John Singer Sargent unveiled his portrait of Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau at the 1884 Paris Salon---scandal ensued. Author David McCullough, two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, dishes out the scintillating story behind Sargent's most famous painting in his new ...

Yale debuts free online collection database

ArtfixDaily / May 13th, 2011

Yale University has launched a massive online database with records on over 250,000 objects from its museums, archives and libraries. Providing unprecedented, unlimited access to the Ivy League school's varied collections, including a tantalizing peek at artwork in storage, the digitization ...

Private art cache of Ernst Beyeler at Christie's sale

news.com.au / May 9th, 2011

Christie's will offer paintings, sculptures and sketches from legendary Swiss art dealer Ernst Beyeler (d. 2010) and his late wife and partner Hildy's private home and gallery collections, including works by Monet, Gauguin, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Matisse, Kokoschka, Klee, Leger, ...

Vlaminck, Monet lead Christie's sale

Bloomberg / May 4th, 2011

Christie’s Impressionist and modern art sale on Wed. night was boosted by a boldly-colored fauve landscape. Maurice de Vlaminck (1876-1958)'s Paysage de banlieue soared to $22.5 million, almost double the artist's previous auction record of $10.8 million. Hedge fund manager Steve Cohen was the ...

$170 million Sotheby's sale begins Spring series

Wall street Journal / May 4th, 2011

A Picasso-packed Sotheby's sale with 44 paintings, drawings and sculptures brought in $170 million for Impressionist and modern art on Tuesday evening in New York. Hefty pre-sale estimates and choosy bidders kept the sale subdued while it fell soundly within the overall pre-sale estimate ...

Spring Show attracts fresh crowd, steady sales

Art Newspaper / May 3rd, 2011

The inaugural Spring Show, organized by the Art and Antiques Dealers League of America, had a promising first-run at the Park Avenue Armory in Manhattan. About 1,495 attendees, including a contingent of designers, celebrities, and collectors, enjoyed the opening night party on April 27. Over the ...

Klimt canvas looted by Nazis to be returned

Telegraph / April 24th, 2011

A Gustav Klimt painting looted by the Nazis from a Jewish family will be returned to its rightful heir in Canada. Currently owned by Salzburg’s modern art museum, the painting is estimated to be worth

Barberi table, Baryshnikov's painting lead Sotheby's Russian sale

Bloomberg / April 13th, 2011

A two-part auction of Russian paintings and works of art at Sotheby's in New York this week brought $16.1 million, slightly above its high presale estimate of $15.8 million. Buyers pursued the highest-quality lots, including a micro-mosaic table made by Italy’s Barberi workshop for the Russian ...

Salander employee found guilty of scheming to defraud

Bloomberg / April 7th, 2011

The former director of bankrupt Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, Leigh Morse, was convicted by a New York jury in a scheme that prosecutors said defrauded the estates of artists. She was found not guilty of a grand larceny count alleging the theft of $77,000 from actor Robert De Niro Jr. whose ...

Philanthropist gives £15 million to save unseen art

Telegraph / March 31st, 2011

British hedge fund manager Jonathan Ruffer has donated £15 million to keep a series of paintings on public view in the U.K. He has never seen the 13 paintings of Jacob and his sons by the Spanish artist Francisco de Zurbarán. Church commissioners were set to auction the 17th century ...

Sales surge at TEFAF Maastricht

Guardian / March 22nd, 2011

This week's rarefied bazaar of art and antiquities at TEFAF in Maastricht is truly an international affair that has proven the upper-end of the market remains strong in many categories, from antiquities to contemporary art.  Early on, a group of Chinese buyers snapped up Japanese art from ...

Confident dealers offer their best art & antiques in Maastricht; Preview video online

TEFAF Preview / March 17th, 2011

There are 30,000 items worth more than 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) offered by 260 top-tier galleries at the world’s most influential art and antiques fair. Two highlights are extraordinary paintings by Rembrandt and Renoir. Attracting leading international collectors and museum officials, ...

$45 million Turner goes on display at Getty

Getty Museum blog / March 9th, 2011

J.M.W. Turner’s Modern Rome—Campo Vaccino was finally placed on view Tuesday at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles after the U.K. failed to raise funds to keep the masterpiece on British soil. The Getty bought the 1839 painting by the British master at a Sotheby's auction last July for a record ...

New art fair finds a niche in Naples

Naplesnews.com / March 8th, 2011

Veteran show organizer David Lester estimated that sales soared to between $10 million and $20 million at his inaugural Naples International Art & Antiques Show. About 80% of visitors to the new 4-day show were locals from the southwest Florida city of Naples, but Lester told Naplesnews.com ...

Must-see Chagall exhibition in Philadelphia

Philadelphia Inquirer / March 6th, 2011

The Philadelphia Museum of Art presents the exceptional exhibition "Paris Through the Window: Marc Chagall and His Circle," a look at the emigre artists from Eastern Europe who helped to make Paris the center of the artistic avant-garde. Works by Marc Chagall dominate such as Half-Past Three ...

Private collection of Dutch Golden Age art on view at Peabody Essex Museum

Salem News / February 24th, 2011

On Feb. 26, the Peabody Essex Museum, in Salem, Mass., will open a new exhibit, "Golden: Dutch and Flemish Masterworks from the Rose-Marie and Eijk van Otterloo Collection," which includes 67 works by important Old Masters such as a Rembrandt, Frans Hals and Jan Steen, as well as lesser known ...

Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914 opens Feb. 13 at MoMA

Bloomberg / February 10th, 2011

A Feb. 8 preview for the exhibition “Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914,” which opens Feb. 13 at New York's Museum of Modern Art, attracted more than the usual art elite, including R.E.M.’s songwriter Michael Stipe. The MoMA exhibition offers insight into Pablo Picasso's creative process during his ...

Renoir to Richter, antique pistols to rare gems shine at Palm Beach fair

artinfo / February 9th, 2011

Nearly 8,000 guests flocked to the gala preview of the American International Fine Art Fair in Palm Beach last weekend. About 40,000 visitors are expected altogether to peruse the booths of 66 dealers, down from 84 last year. The 15th edition of the fair, which runs through Feb. 13 at the Palm ...