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Tuesday, 12 July 2016 13:47

While the story about Vincent van Gogh cutting off part of his ear is well known, the details surrounding the incident have remained murky. Until now, that is. Researcher Bernadette Murphy has discovered a letter from Van Gogh’s doctor, Felix Rey, that provides a detailed account of how the artist severed his entire ear and gave it to a maid. The discovery will be included in the Van Gogh Museum’s highly anticipated exhibition, On the Verge of Insanity: Van Gogh and His Illness, which opens Friday, July 15, in Amsterdam.

Tuesday, 12 July 2016 13:47

Back in 2014, a building by the influential Scottish architect, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, was severely damaged by a fire. Part of the Glasgow School of Art, the Art Nouveau structure, which was completed in 1909, is widely considered Mackintosh’s crowning achievement. Two years after the devastating incident that left much of the building destroyed, restoration work on the structure is set to begin.

Monday, 11 July 2016 12:34

1. This Park Avenue masterpiece features interiors by Tony Ingrao.

This six-bedroom, 7,300-square-foot residence is located in one of New York City’s most sought after prewar cooperatives. Designed in 1931 by J.E.R. Carpenter—an influential architect responsible for many of Manhattan’s most luxurious residential high-rises—the fifteen-story building’s stately exterior is entirely clad in limestone.

Monday, 11 July 2016 12:33

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has acquired thirty-nine prints produced by Gemini G.E.L.—a legendary workshop and publisher of hand-printed lithographs, screenprints, and etchings. The bequest, which includes works by Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella, and Claes Oldenburg, comes from Gemini co-founder Sidney Felsen and his wife, Joni Weyl, as well as Roy Lichtenstein’s widow, Dorothy Lichtenstein, and Gemini itself.

Monday, 11 July 2016 12:32

A moving portrait of Frida Kahlo straddling the border between the United States and her native Mexico will go on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in October. The painting, which is part of the exhibition Paint the Revolution: Mexican Modernism, was created in 1932, while Kahlo was in Detroit with her husband, Diego Rivera. The show, organized in collaboration with the Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, will remain on view through January 2017.

Monday, 11 July 2016 12:31

The Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Philadelphia Museum of Art will present joint exhibitions dedicated to Jasper Johns in 2020. The sweeping, two-part retrospective will cover the influential artist’s lengthy career. The exhibition will be the first Johns retrospective since 1996, when the Museum of Modern Art in New York hosted a show focused on the artist’s oeuvre. Johns, who is eighty-six years old, continues to create innovative works in his Sharon, Connecticut, studio.

Monday, 11 July 2016 12:30

The Minneapolis Institute of Art announced that it welcomed a record 760,000 visitors in the fiscal year that ended on June 30. The museum, which has seen a steady increase in attendance over the past four years, wrapped up its monumental centennial celebration in December. Related activities included a number of special events and exhibitions, including the show Delacroix's Influence, which brought together masterpieces by such icons as Delacroix, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

Friday, 08 July 2016 13:51

Last month, the Watergate Hotel—yes, the Watergate Hotel that served as the backdrop for one of the country’s most notorious political scandals—reopened following an extensive $200-million renovation. Designed in 1961 by the Italian architect Luigi Moretti, the hotel had fallen into disrepair before New York real estate developers Rakel and Jacques Cohen of Euro Capital Properties swooped in to save the Modernist icon in 2010.

Friday, 08 July 2016 13:49

The Brooklyn Museum announced that it will be closed until Wednesday, July 13, due to an air conditioning outage. Repairs to the damaged cooling system are currently underway and  sensitive materials from the institution’s collections are being moved to climate controlled spaces. The Brooklyn Museum’s air conditioning system was last revamped in 2004 as part of a $63 million renovation project.

Friday, 08 July 2016 13:48

Eric Shiner, who has served as the Director of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh since 2011, will join Sotheby’s as the Senior Vice President of its new fine art division. Shiner, who will step down from his post at the Warhol Museum in September, will  work on private sales brokered by the auction house. Shiner is one of the world’s foremost Warhol experts as well as an authority on contemporary Japanese art.

Friday, 08 July 2016 13:47

The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, which includes the Legion of Honor Museum and the de Young Museum, has named Claudia Schmuckli Curator-in-Charge of Contemporary Art and Programming. The newly created position will be responsible for implementing cutting-edge programming in video and live performance. Schmuckli previously served as Director and Chief Curator at the Blaffer Art Museum at the University of Houston in Texas.

Friday, 08 July 2016 13:46

Peter Paul Rubens’ monumental Lot and His Daughters sold for more than  £44 million at Christie’s in London on Thursday, July 7. The work, which has never been exhibited publicly, was pushed past its undisclosed pre-sale estimate by three lively bidders. The painting came extremely close to breaking the record for an Old Master at auction, which was set in 2002 when Rubens’ The Massacre of the Innocents netted  £45 million at Sotheby’s.

Thursday, 07 July 2016 12:56

Last year, Market Art + Design debuted a revamped identity to elite collectors, curators, and designers who flock to the Hamptons each summer to partake in the panoply of must-attend fairs, parties, and exhibitions. In addition to a new name (the show was previously known as Art Market Hamptons), Market Art + Design unveiled a thoughtfully curated design component.

Thursday, 07 July 2016 12:55

The Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek art museum in Copenhagen has agreed to return looted artifacts to Italy. The Italian Ministry of Culture has been pushing for the objects’ return for years. The artifacts were once part of a tomb excavated north of Rome and were acquired by the Glyptotek in the 1970s. They will begin their return to Italy in December.

Thursday, 07 July 2016 12:54

Frieze New York announced that it will shorten its run from five days to four days in 2017. Organizers claim that the adjustment will increase the fair’s focus and will be easier on the participants, especially smaller galleries. Frieze New York, which launched in 2014, will take place May 5-7 on Randall’s Island. Past exhibitors include David Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth, and Acquavella Galleries.

Thursday, 07 July 2016 12:53

London’s Victoria & Albert Museum has been named the UK’s Museum of the Year by the Art Fund—a charity organization that helps museums and galleries acquire and exhibit significant works of art. The award was presented by Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge. The V&A will receive a £100,000 prize, which will be used to revive its Circulation department, allowing the museum to loan works from its collection to other institutions in the nation.

Thursday, 07 July 2016 12:52

Back in May, the Ringling Museum of Asian Art in Sarasota, Florida, unveiled its new Center for Asian Art. Designed by the Boston-based architecture firm Machado Silvetti, the Center for Asian Art boasts 6,800 square feet of exhibition space, where treasures from the Ringling’s illustrious collection of Asian art are displayed. Helga Wall-Apelt, who donated millions to help the Ringling realize its new center, has filed a lawsuit against the museum, citing breach of contract.

Wednesday, 06 July 2016 13:45

1. This modern masterpiece by Rudolph Schindler comes with a garden designed by Richard Neutra—The seminal Modernist architect Rudolph Schindler designed this four-bedroom stunner in Los Angeles’ trendy Silverlake neighborhood in 1925. Boasting a cutting-edge design that remains incredibly fresh today, the residence, known as the How House, was designated a Historical-Cultural Monument by the city of Los Angeles in 2007.

Wednesday, 06 July 2016 13:44

The National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh will unveil ten new galleries this week. The institution recently underwent a $18 million revamp, which is part of an ongoing transformation. The new galleries will present over 3,000 works from the museum’s art, design, fashion, science, and technology collections, many of which have not been exhibited in decades.

Wednesday, 06 July 2016 13:43

The Avedon Foundation—an entity established by the late fashion photographer Richard Avedon to serve as an archive of his oeuvre—has refused to authenticate a series of unsigned prints from the artist’s last major photo series, In the American West. In 1985, when the series was produced, Avedon called on Ruedi Hofmann to serve as his master printer. Hofmann claims that in exchange for his work, Avedon promised him a set of prints from the series, which were never signed.

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