Displaying items by tag: renaissance

The Frick’s Center for the History of Collecting announces a new book series with the publication of its first volume, "Holland’s Golden Age in America: Collecting the Art of Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Hals." This series, entitled The Frick Collection Studies in the History of Collecting, is co-published with the Pennsylvania State University Press, and will ultimately cover a broad range of art collecting, reflecting the Center's reach well beyond the parameters of the Frick's own scope to include topics on modern and non-western art. Comments Inge Reist, Director of the Center, “We aim to encourage new scholarship in this young field of art history through our annual acclaimed symposia and ongoing fellowship program, much of which leads to new publications. Complementing that activity is this series that enables the Center to make its own contribution to the growing bibliography on the history of collecting in America.” This and future volumes are drawn from papers given at the Center’s symposia. Upcoming books from recent events include "A Market for Merchant Princes: Collecting Italian Renaissance Painting in America" (February 2015), edited by Inge Reist; "Going for Baroque: Americans Collect Italian Paintings of the 17th and 18th Centuries," edited by Edgar Peters Bowron; and "The Americas Revealed: Collecting Colonial and Modern Latin American Art in the United States," edited by Edward Sullivan.

Americans have long had an interest in the art and culture of Holland’s Golden Age. As a result, the United States can boast extraordinary holdings of Dutch paintings. Celebrated masters such as Rembrandt, Johannes Vermeer, and Frans Hals are exceptionally well represented in museums and private collections, but many fine paintings by their contemporaries can be found here as well.

A Renaissance masterpiece by Raphael has warped because the air conditioning in a Rome museum has not worked for six months, raising questions once again over Italy’s ability or willingness to look after its precious cultural heritage.

In the heat and humidity of the Italian summer, the High Renaissance master’s "Deposition," which shows Christ being carried from the cross, became deformed, forcing officials in the capital’s Galleria Borghese to place a dehumidifier next to the art work in an attempt to save it.

Throughout the autumn season visitors to the National Gallery of Denmark can see the museum’s conservators at work, restoring Albrecht Dürer’s 500 year-old masterpiece "The Arch of Honour of Maximilian I."

For many years, this artwork by Albrecht Dürer – the largest Renaissance woodcut ever made – was on display at the Royal Collection of Graphic Art’s premises in Prinsens Palæ, now the home the National Museum of Denmark. Here, the 3.5 x 3m artwork was exposed to light and changing climate conditions, and eventually it yellowed and deteriorated to such an extent that it was no longer fit for display. Since then it has been rolled up and tucked away in the SMK storage facilities.

In the spring of 2015 Dürer’s large-scale work will see the light of day again – and be the main feature of an exhibition arranged by the Royal Collection of Graphic Art.

A traveling exhibition of master paintings by some of the greatest names in European art ends its East Coast summer residency at the Allentown Art Museum on Sunday, September 7. "Of Heaven and Earth: 500 Years of Italian Painting from Glasgow Museums" features works by Italian Renaissance and Baroque masters such as Giovanni Bellini, Sandro Botticelli, Francesco Guardi, Salvator Rosa, and Titian, many of which have never before been exhibited in the United States. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these forty major works; after Allentown, the exhibition will travel west to the Milwaukee Art Museum and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art.

Thanks to a generous grant from the Society of the Arts (SOTA), the exhibition is free to all visitors, Wednesday-Saturday 11-4 and Sunday noon-4. “The elimination of our admission fees this summer, and dual-language labels in English and Spanish, are intended to deliver a message that in this, our eightieth anniversary year, the Allentown Art Museum is accessible to all and that we encourage everyone to experience what this extraordinary institution has to offer,” says David Mickenberg, Priscilla Payne Hurd President and CEO of the Art Museum.

None of them is pristine. From the beginning, they experienced decades of fitful renovation, and their occupants still keep bursting through walls. There’s never enough space. Some institutions wear their history more lightly, or have the luxury of starting fresh.

In a single gallery at the Carnegie Museum of Art, sacred and scandalous stories unfold.

"Faked, Forgotten, Found," which runs through Sept. 15, reveals how five Renaissance paintings were altered and documents the twisted paths each artwork has traveled. Four of the works belong to the museum.

On one wall is Isabella, an Italian princess from the Medici family who took multiple lovers before her powerful brother and husband plotted to have her strangled. To add insult to murder, a Victorian-era restorer painted over Isabella's portrait to make her face prettier and her hands daintier. Thankfully, this picture has undergone cleaning, and museumgoers will be able to appreciate the full character of her distinctive face.

Centuries ago, if you wanted to see the paintings of the great Italian masters, you would have embarked on something called The Grand Tour, a kind of traveling educational experience to the principal artistic centers of Renaissance Italy: Rome, Milan, Bologna, Florence, Siena, Naples and Venice.

This summer, The Grand Tour, by way of Glasgow, Scotland, is coming to Allentown.

The Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley is one of the stops on an once-in-a-lifetime American tour of paintings by some of the greatest names in Italian art. It's a rare opportunity to see the work of artists that quite literally changed the world. And admission will be free, due to an initiative to make the museum more accessible.

Over the course of 30 years, Barbara Piasecka Johnson (1937-2013) – art connoisseur, philanthropist and wife of the late John Seward Johnson, co-founder of the Johnson and Johnson medical and pharmaceutical firm - assembled one of the most remarkable collections of Old Master paintings, drawings and works of art in recent times. On 9 July 2014, Sotheby’s London Evening sale of Old Master and British Paintings will present a group of nine Renaissance and Baroque masterworks from her Estate, led by three remarkably rare Florentine drawings, including the only Botticelli drawing to appear on the market in a century (est. £1-1.5 million).

The proceeds of the sale, expected to fetch over £8.6 million, are to benefit the Barbara Piasecka Johnson Foundation, the primary focus of which is helping children with autism.

The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, today announced the acquisition of Gustav Klimt’s Die Medizin (Kompositionsentwurf) (1897-1898), the artist’s only remaining oil study for a controversial series of monumental paintings created for the University of Vienna’s Great Hall. Commissioned by Austria’s Ministry of Culture and Education in 1894, Die Medizin is one of three allegorical panels representing the themes of enlightenment Klimt developed for the Great Hall’s ceiling. All three works were later destroyed by retreating German SS forces in May 1945. Blending elements of neo-Baroque and Secessionist aesthetics, the work captures the emergence of Klimt’s iconic style and unconventional treatment of subject matter and themes. Representing a seminal moment in the artist’s development, this acquisition is the first painting by Klimt to enter the collection, joining several works on paper. It is on display in the Museum’s 19th century, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist galleries, within the context of the Museum’s presentation of fine art from the Renaissance through the 20th century.

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) is considered one of the most innovative artists of the early 20th century for his distinct style, which joined gold leaf and ornamentation in rich figurative compositions. In 1897, he became one of the founding members and president of the Vienna Secession, whose aim was to break away from historicism by providing a platform for unconventional young artists through exhibitions and publications.