Displaying items by tag: Modern Art

Art Basel, one of the world’s top modern and contemporary art fairs, opened on Tuesday, June 17, with a private preview that saw a number of impressive sales. Described as the “Olympics of the art world,” this year’s show features approximately 300 galleries from across the globe exhibiting the work of more than 4,000 artists, ranging from Modern masters to emerging contemporary artists.  

Welcoming an elite group of collectors, the opening night preview proved that the market for modern and contemporary art shows no signs of slowing down. Andy Warhol’s “Self-Portrait (Fright Wig)” (1986), which was being offered by London’s Skarstedt Gallery and carried an asking price of $32 million, was the most expensive work sold during the fair’s opening day. The silkscreen was snapped up by an American collector during the first 15 minutes of the event.

Organized to mark the 50th anniversary of the death of Georges Braque (Argenteuil-sur- Seine, 1882−Paris, 1963), this large retrospective covers all the phases of the career of one of the most important artists of the 20th century. As one of the creators of Cubism, along with Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris, and a pioneer of the papiers collés (glued papers), Braque focused his later work on the methodical exploration of still-life and landscape. He was considered the French painter par excellence, inheriting the classical tradition and also a precursor for the abstraction of the post-war period.

In fall 2015, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts will present “Eugène Delacroix and Modernity,” the first major exhibition to explore the legacy of the celebrated French painter, an influential trailblazer and one of the first modern masters of the form. The exhibition takes Cézanne’s observation that “we all paint in Delacroix’s language” as its starting point to reveal how Delacroix revolutionized French painting for the next generation of artists, leaving an indelible mark on Matisse, Van Gogh, Gauguin, Renoir, Degas, Monet, and others. The MIA is partnering with the National Gallery, London, for this unprecedented survey, featuring important works from the museums’ collections as well as rarely seen works from private collections. The exhibition opens at the MIA on October 18, 2015, and runs through January 10, 2016. It is on view at the National Gallery, London, February 10 through May 15, 2016.

By the time of his death, Eugène Delacroix (1798–1863) was one of the most revered artists in Paris and a hero of the avant-garde. By challenging the status quo by pushing the boundaries of the “Grand Style” of painting into the realm of modernism, he paved the way for younger artists. His large-scale paintings were the first to use the expressive, improvisational markmaking of the Impressionists, the dreamlike allusion of the Symbolists, and the bold colors of Morocco made famous 80 years later by Renoir and Matisse.

Frieze has announced the participating galleries for Frieze Masters. Following acclaim for the first two editions of the fair, this year sees not only a particularly strong representation of galleries from the UK and US but also an ambitious global reach. Dedicated to art from ancient to modern, Frieze Masters will take place October 15–19, 2014 on Gloucester Green, Regent’s Park, London, and is sponsored by Deutsche Bank.

Described by the Financial Times as ‘Unrivalled among fairs worldwide for its quality, range, seductive displays and scholarly interest’, Frieze Masters is a carefully selected presentation of over 120 of the world’s leading galleries. Taking place at the same time as Frieze London, the two fairs ensure that London is the destination for the broadest international art audience and benefits from a crossover between audiences of contemporary and historical art.

Isabelle Collin Dufresne, the French-born artist, actress and author known as Ultra Violet, the beauty among the superstars of Andy Warhol’s glory days at his studio, the Factory, died early Saturday morning at a Manhattan hospital. She was 78 and lived in Manhattan and in Nice, France.

The death was confirmed by William Butler, a family friend. A cousin, Carole Thouvard Revol, said the cause was cancer.

Is the Whitney set to supplant MoMA as New York’s go-to modern art museum? The institution will begin moving into its new Renzo Piano building later this year, with the Meatpacking District location opening to the public about one year from now. It’s hard to say how exactly the new building and location will change the dynamic among New York’s top tier of art museums, but a look at the numbers makes it clear that the Whitney’s move is literally and symbolically huge, and will put it in more direct competition with the Museum of Modern Art.

The Whitney’s Marcel Breuer building on Madison Avenue is much smaller than most people realize. At just 85,000 square feet, it is markedly smaller, for instance, than the new 100,000-square-foot Hauser Wirth & Schimmel gallery in Los Angeles—which, to be fair, is an exceptionally huge gallery.

Today's modern art forger is capable of producing fake works of art so perfect that even trained experts are unable to spot them. Even down to the most minute details of the pigments, binders, and canvas, these fakes are almost better than the works they're based on. But thanks to a byproduct of the Atomic age, the art world has a potent tool for finding forgeries.

Since the start of the 1960s, the art world—especially the modern art world—has been besieged by a torrent of faked "masterpieces." Peggy Guggenheim (yes, that Guggenheim) was once famously duped into purchasing what was believed to be a canvas painting by French artist Fernand Léger completed around 1913. It hung in her private collection for decades before being revealed as a forgery. This problem only expanded through the 1980s and 1990s as the market for modern art exploded.

Sotheby’s London is offering as a highlight of the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on Monday 23rd June 2014 Claude Monet’s Nymphéas (Water Lilies) of 1906, estimated at £20-30 million/ $33-50 million. Instantly recognisable and revered the world over, Claude Monet’s Nymphéas are among the most iconic and celebrated paintings of turn of the century. The profound impact the series has made on the evolution of modern art marks them out as Monet’s greatest achievement.

This painting was selected by the artist to be exhibited at his seminal exhibition held at the Galerie Durand- Ruel, Paris, in 1909 to unveil his Water Lily paintings in a show dedicated purely to this subject. It had also been singled out and acquired by Paul Durand-Ruel - the legendary art dealer who championed the Impressionists and represented Monet, among many other of the greatest artists of his time – and it remained in his personal collection throughout his lifetime. The painting has since been widely exhibited at some of the world’s most prestigious international museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, and since 2011 has been on loan to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. It is this painting, together with the others in this series, that eventually led to Monet’s Les Grandes décorations which were painted between 1914-26, now in the Musée de l’Orangerie in Paris.

As summer arrives in London, yellow roses blossom at Bonhams. Bouquet de roses by Paul Gauguin (French, 1848-1903) is the highlight of the Impressionist and Modern Art sale on 23rd June at Bonhams New Bond Street. Previously unknown even to Gauguin scholars, Bouquet de roses is an important, and delightful, discovery that will be offered for sale with estimates of £800,000-£1,200,000.

Paul Gauguin was a post-impressionist artist whose work influenced art giants Picasso and Matisse and is among the most celebrated of the modern masters.

However, Gauguin only began his career as an artist after numerous other professions, including the French Navy, stock broking and tarpaulin sales. Gauguin's artwork only truly gained popularity and renown after his death, and he died in relative anonymity and of modest wealth.

While the National Gallery of Art’s East Building galleries are closed for renovations, the Modern masterpieces that usually reside within their walls have headed from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco. “Modernism from the National Gallery of Art: The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection” is currently on view at the de Young Museum and presents 46 paintings and sculptures by postwar masters, including Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella. The show marks the first time that the Meyerhoff Collection has been exhibited outside of the greater Washington, D.C., and Baltimore metro areas.

The exhibition is divided into three generational groupings, creating a sweeping view of American Modern art from the end of World War II through the close of the 20th century. Highlights from the show include Stella’s geometric canvas “Flin Flon IV” (1969), Johns’ haunting encaustic “Perilous Night” (1982), Lichtenstein’s Pop art gem “Painting with Statue of Liberty” (1983), and Barnett Newman’s “The Stations of a Cross” (1958-66), a series of paintings, widely considered to be the Abstract Expressionist artist’s most import work. The canvases will be displayed in their own intimate gallery so that they can be experienced as a single work, as the artist intended.