Displaying items by tag: Los Angeles County Museum of Art

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) presents Marsden Hartley: The German Paintings 1913–1915 (August 3–November 30, 2014), the first focused look and the first solo exhibition on the West Coast in almost ten years of the American-born artist’s German paintings in the United States. From 1912 to 1915, Hartley lived in Europe—first in Paris and then in Berlin. There he developed a singular style that reflected his modern surroundings and the tumultuous time before and during World War I. Berlin’s exciting urban environment, prominent gay community, and military spectacle had a profound impact upon him. Marsden Hartley features approximately 25 paintings from this critical moment in Hartley’s career that reveal dynamic shifts in style and subject matter comprised of musical and spiritual abstractions, city portraits, and military symbols to Native American motifs.

Art collecting has always been an international affair. Works made in one place are often sought after by people living in another.

Many of the greatest American Pop artworks of the 1960s are in German collections. French Impressionism from the end of the 19th century is superbly represented in the United States.

And going back hundreds of years, collections in Japan began to swell with paintings made across the sea in China. A magnificent show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art chronicles the phenomenon.

"Chinese Paintings From Japanese Collections" is something of a coup. It features 35 scrolls, some consisting of multiple panels, from the Tokyo National Museum and other collections in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. Japanese museums are often reluctant to allow important works to leave the country, even for temporary exhibitions. But LACMA curator Stephen Little has managed a remarkable group of loans — including some that are just now making their premiere abroad.

The Dallas Museum of Art today announced the debut of the first Friends membership pilot program at The Grace Museum in Abilene, Texas. Grace Friends offers free membership to all visitors and is modeled on the DMA free membership platform, which since its launch in January 2013 has welcomed more than 62,000 new Friends members. The introduction of the membership model in Abilene represents the first stage of a broader national expansion supported by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Other participating museums considering aspects of the Friends platform include the Denver Art Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and Minneapolis Institute of Arts. Along with the launch of the program, The Grace Museum has also announced reduced general admission to support visitor participation.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) acquired ten artworks during the institution’s 29th annual Collectors Committee fundraiser, which began on Friday, April 25 and continued through the weekend. The new additions to the museum’s robust permanent collection include an autograph reduction of Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres’ celebrated “Odalisque,” a print by Pablo Picasso from 1952, and an 18th-century painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe by the important Mexican painter Antonio de Torres. LACMA also acquired contemporary works by Roni Horn, Feng Mengbo, and Mitra Tabrizian.

LACMA’s Collectors Committee Weekend is one of the museum’s most significant fundraising events of the year. Throughout its 29-year history, the event has facilitated 202 acquisitions through donations totaling more than $32 million. Funds for this year’s acquisitions were raised by Collectors Committee membership dues, with additional funds provided by individual members. Another $800,000 was raised by a live auction.

For the sixth consecutive year, LACMA’s Collectors Committee Weekend was led by museum trustee Ann Colgin. Colgin said, “Collectors Committee Weekend is a celebration of LACMA’s timeless artworks, and I am delighted that these new acquisitions will further strengthen the museum’s collection.”

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dallas Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York are joining forces with the Outdoor Advertising Association to execute the “outdoor art show,” Art Everywhere. The interactive art campaign will display images of the greatest American artworks on billboards and signs in select cities across the United States.

The participating museums have created a master list of 100 American artworks from their combined holdings and are asking the public to visit www.ArtEverywhereUS.org and vote for their favorite pieces. The 50 most popular works will be featured throughout August on approximately 50,000 billboards and signs across the country. Art Everywhere’s master list includes paintings, drawings, decorative objects, photographs, and multimedia works from the 18th century to 2008. Artists represented on the ballot include Edward Hopper, Mark Rothko, John Singer Sargent, Mary Cassatt, Ed Ruscha, Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Frank Lloyd Wright, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Jackson Pollock.

Voting will remain open until June 20 and the chosen works will be unveiled on August 4.

On March 29, 2014, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA will present the exhibition ‘California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way.’ The show will include over 250 mid-century modern design objects by pioneering designers such as Charles and Ray Eames, Richard Neutra and Greta Magnusson Grossman. Organized by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, this exhibition is the first major study of California mid-century modern design and the Peabody Essex Museum will be the show’s only east coast venue.

Works on view, which will include furniture, textiles, graphic design, ceramics, jewelry and architecture, will be contextualized within the creative climate of California and the social and cultural conditions that existed between 1930 and 1965. the exhibition will be divided into four thematic sections--Shaping, Making, Living and Selling--and will explore the origins of modern California design, the materials used, and how the movement proliferated worldwide.  

‘California Design, 1930-1965: Living in a Modern Way’ will be on view at the Peabody Essex Museum through July 6, 2014.

This past November, Francis Bacon’s triptych ‘Three Studies of Lucian Freud’ sold for $142 million at Christie’s in New York, making it the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. Rumors swirled after the buyer’s name was not immediately revealed, with some speculating that Paul G. Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft and an avid art collector, had purchased the painting.

Nearly two months after the sale, it has been reported that the buyer was Elaine Wynn, former wife of Las Vegas casino owner and collector Steve Wynn. Elaine Wynn, who is a co-founder of the Wynn Casino empire, is estimated to have a net worth of $1.9 billion. The couple, who divorced in 2010, are the owners of a remarkable art collection and Ms. Wynn serves on the board of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Painted in 1969, ‘Three Studies’ depicts Bacon’s friend and artistic rival, Lucian Freud. It is one of only two existing full-length triptychs of Freud and it was included in the Grand Palais’ Bacon retrospective in Paris during the early 1970s.

Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), which has been plagued by financial troubles for years, has quadrupled its endowment to over $100 million in the past nine months. Just last year the Los Angeles County Museum of Art offered MOCA $100 million to merge its two facilities with its own larger facilities. MOCA turned down the offer, opting to remain independent and launch a fundraising campaign for its endowment.

The campaign garnered the support of nearly 30 donors including financier and philanthropist Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe, who bailed the museum out nearly six years ago with a $30 million donation, and Jeffrey Deitch, MOCA’s former director. The museum is still searching for a permanent director following Deitch’s tumultuous departure.

MOCA is currently the only museum in Los Angeles dedicated solely to  collecting and exhibiting contemporary art. Its collection includes works by Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Mark Rothko and Robert Rauschenberg.

Scott Schaefer, the J. Paul Getty Museum’s Senior Curator of Paintings, will retire on January 21, 2014. Schaefer joined the Getty in 1999 after stints at Sotheby’s, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Schaefer, who helmed the Getty’s Paintings department for four years, helped the museum acquire a total of 70 paintings and pastels and five sculptures. Among the most important recent acquisitions are the Getty’s first paintings by Paul Gauguin, J.M.W. Turner’s Modern Rome, and a rare self-portrait by Rembrandt.

Timothy Potts, the Getty’s director, said, “Through his acquisitions, Scott has made an impact on every one of the Museum’s paintings galleries and, in particular, transformed our eighteenth-century French collection. We will miss his discerning eye, keen intelligence and above all his unswerving commitment to the Museum.”

This August and September, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York will offer members an exclusive look at James Turrell’s major site-specific work Aten Reign. The popular installation will be showcased in Quiet Views, allowing visitors the chance to experience the luminous and immersive work in an intimate and meditative environment.

James Turrell, an American artist who is best known for his works that explore light and space, spent nearly six years planning the massive installation that has transformed the Guggenheim’s iconic Frank Lloyd Wright-designed rotunda. Quiet Views consists of four events taking place on the evenings of August 12, August 19, September 9, and September 23 and will include two sittings on each day. Only sixty people will be present at each hour-long sitting.

James Turrell was organized by the Guggenheim in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.