Displaying items by tag: drawings

When the College of William and Mary's' Muscarelle Museum of Art landed its latest world-class art exhibit – this one featuring more than 30 drawings by Leonardo da Vinci – the tourism community at last stepped up in support.

"Leonardo da Vinci and the Idea of Beauty" opens Saturday at the Muscarelle and runs through April 5. It's the second huge exhibit at the Muscarelle in three years, following 2013's "Michelangelo: Sacred and Profane." Like the Michelangelo exhibit, the da Vinci art will only have one other U.S. venue, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Would Picasso have donated 271 works to an electrician who worked for him for a few years in south-east France?

A French court has begun to contemplate that mystery as the three-day trial begins of Pierre Le Guennec and his wife, Danielle. They claim the artist or his wife gave them the 180 lithographs, collages, and paintings and 91 drawings in about 1970 when Le Guennec began working as a general handyman at Picasso’s estate. Picasso heirs and a state prosecutor describe the couple’s account as ridiculous.

Thanks to a new film based on the critically acclaimed exhibition "Rembrandt: The Late Works" that debuted at the National Gallery, London, and opens at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, on February 12, U.S. audiences will be able to experience the exhibition on screen. For one night only, on February 24, the new film "Rembrandt from the National Gallery London and Rijksmuseum Amsterdam" will be presented at over 300 movie theaters across the country.The film gives viewers an opportunity to see the once-in-a-lifetime installations of Rembrandt's paintings, prints, and drawings in these two preeminent institutions and learn more about the revered Dutch artist from scholars, curators, and art historians. Given exclusive access by both museums, the film documents this extraordinary presentation and interweaves Rembrandt's life story with the preparations at both institutions.

Betsy Wieseman, Curator of Dutch and Flemish Paintings, National Gallery, and Jonathan Bikker, Curator of Research at the Rijksmuseum, among others, provide illuminating context regarding Rembrandt's life and times.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art has published a new handbook—the first in more than 20 years—of its encyclopedic collections. Featuring some 550 masterpieces from the Museum’s world renowned holdings of Asian, European, American, and modern and contemporary art, this volume includes a broad range of media from each of the Museum’s curatorial departments, including paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, sculptures, the decorative arts, costumes and textiles, arms and armor, and architectural settings. Expanded entries provide in depth information on some of the most significant works, among them Thomas Eakins’s masterpiece "The Gross Clinic" (1875) and a superb man and horse armor acquired in 2009.

The introduction to the handbook, written by Timothy Rub, the George D. Widener Director and CEO, recounts the Museum’s institutional history and the formation and distinctive characteristics of its collection.

Jean-Michel Basquiat's first retrospective in Canada opens in Toronto this weekend, with nearly 100 large paintings as well as drawings, sculptures, and video filling the halls of "Now's the Time," (a Martin Luther King quote/the title of a painting) at the AGO.

More impactful and comprehensive than past shows like the Brooklyn Museum's "Street to Studio," the exhibit witnesses the curators separate Basquiat's works into nine sections that successfully represent the themes and stylistic variety of the multifaceted 1980's American artist. The show's only downfall may come from Toronto itself.

The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam will be open on Friday nights in the coming months to give people more opportunity to visit the large Late Rembrandt exhibition. The exhibition opens on February 12th. 

The exhibition includes more than a hundred paintings, drawings, and prints and is the first retrospective the Rijksmuseum offers of Rembrandt’s work between approximately 1652 and 1669.

The National Arts Club presents a rare collection of work from Spanish surrealist, Salvador Dali. The month-long free exhibition, entitled "Dali: The Golden Years," celebrated its opening with a reception on Wednesday February 4th between 6pm - 8pm to which the general public was invited.

The exhibition will show 65 pieces in total, including early works that have never been shown before on loan from private collectors. Early drawings and prints make up three full collections including; "The Les Chants Maldoror" (1934), "12 Tribes of Israel" (1971), and "Memories of Surrealism" (1973). Each marks a major graphic series in Dali's career, while four never-before-seen pieces and an iconic photo of the artist himself by Anton Perich provide invaluable insight into Dali's creative process.

The Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts will be represented exclusively by the international gallery Hauser & Wirth, the organizations announced Thursday.

The foundation, established by Kelley in 2007, issues grants for challenging and novel projects in Kelley's favored mediums, which included textiles, drawing, painting, video, photography, sculpture, installation and performance.

When Kelley died of an apparent suicide in South Pasadena in 2012, the foundation took on the role of shepherding his legacy. Hauser & Wirth said it will seek to reinforce Kelley's stature as one of Los Angeles' most influential artists, expand the foundation's programs and exhibit Kelley's work at its galleries worldwide.

Sales of Old Masters got off to a slow start as about $42 million of art from the 15th to 19th century was auctioned in New York.

Christie’s sold $36.6 million, missing its low estimate of $54 million in three sales yesterday. Of the 54 lots in its paintings sale, only 22 were sold. Sotheby’s drawings sale totaled $5.3 million, within its estimate of $4.2 million to $5.9 million.

The auctions, which continue through Jan. 30, are offering about $200 million of paintings, drawings and sculptures. The auction houses are trying to revive interest in what had been the most popular category until the 1980s, when other groups such as modern and contemporary art gained favor.

A recently opened exhibition at the Beaux-Arts Mons, in Belgium examines van Gogh's stay in the Borinage (a depressed coal mining region in southern Belgium) from 1878-1880, a pivotal time during which the artist abandoned his failed attempt at a preaching career and instead embraced drawing and painting.

In a letter written to his brother Theo, he expressed his longing to draw, and started by copying prints. Van Gogh, who felt a connection with the town's peasants and workers, began to focus on scenes from their everyday lives, themes that would continue throughout the duration of his short career.