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Friday, 13 May 2011 02:10

Phillips de Pury & Co. scored its second-highest tally ever for a contemporary art sale in New York last night, boosted by a hot property from hedge-fund manager Steven Cohen.

The founder and chairman of SAC Capital Advisors LP consigned Andy Warhol’s portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, and the late screen idol was the star of the evening’s 50-lot sale.

With two telephone bidders dueling for the work, the 40- inch-square 1963 canvas titled “Liz #5” fetched $26.9 million, falling within its target range of $20 million to $30 million.

The sale brought in $98.8 million, close to the low end of the forecast $84.5 million to $121.4 million, and 22 percent of the lots failed to sell. Still, the total was more than double the boutique auction house’s tally of a year ago.

“They are definitely the underdog and they are hanging in there. It’s remarkable,” said Wendy Cromwell, New York art adviser, comparing Phillips with much bigger players Sotheby’s (BID) and Christie’s International.

In “Liz #5,” the legendary actress, who died in March, is depicted with a clownlike red mouth and turquoise eye shadow that matches the background. The painting used to belong to the influential art dealer Ileana Sonnabend. Six months after her death in October 2007, her heirs sold the work to the Gagosian gallery along with other Warhols from her collection.

A Maurice de Vlaminck landscape from Cohen’s collection sold at Christie’s last week for $22.5 million. Together the two works brought in $49.4 million.

Another 1963 turquoise “Liz” appeared on the market in 2007. Consigned by actor Hugh Grant, it fetched $23.6 million at Christie’s in New York.

More Warhol

Warhol accounted for four of the top 10 lots; in addition, his collaboration with Jean-Michel Basquiat titled “Third Eye” was the third-priciest piece at $7 million, more than double its $3 million high estimate.

Friday, 13 May 2011 02:07

Thomas P. Campbell, the Oxford- educated curator elevated to director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in January 2009, earned $929,735 in salary and benefits in his first year atop New York’s most visited museum.

The package, disclosed in the Met’s 2009-2010 tax return, is in line with recent pay at the nation’s top museums, which have responded to the recession by trimming executive compensation. Campbell was approved by the Met’s board as its ninth director six days before Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. filed for bankruptcy. He took over following a 38 percent annual drop in the Standard & Poor’s 500 stock Index and with the Met’s endowment down by more than a quarter.

The Museum of Modern Art, with half the budget of the Met, paid its director, Glenn Lowry, $1.32 million in salary and benefits in the year ending in June 2009. That was down from $1.95 million the year before that.

(Complicating the comparison, MoMA is a private nonprofit organization that received no government operating support in 2009-2010, according to its financial statement. The Met sits on city-owned land and received a $25 million appropriation from New York City.)

James Cuno, president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago, with 60 percent of the Met’s budget, earned $836,000 in pay and benefits in 2008. (Cuno takes over the J. Paul Getty Trust in August. Neither the Art Institute nor MoMA has yet released its 2009-2010 return.)

Attendance Rising

Attendance at the Met, with a collection of more than 2 million artworks, was 5.2 million in 2009-10. It was the first time it exceeded 5 million since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In a press briefing on Monday, Campbell said the museum’s new exhibition of the work of fashion designer Alexander McQueen had nearly 12,000 visitors on Saturday. The wait to get in was 45 minutes.

Campbell earned $640,697 in base pay, $160,103 in expenses and pension benefits plus $129,000 in estimated rent for the Fifth Avenue apartment where he lives with his wife and two children. The museum owns it and requires him to reside there.

A 49-year-old tapestry specialist born in Cambridge, England, he oversaw a hiring freeze as well as hundreds of job cuts to balance the Met’s budget. In the year ending in June 2010, the Met reported a $3.7 million surplus, following a record $8.4 million operating deficit the year before.

Galleries Open

“We didn’t sacrifice programs,” Campbell said in a brief interview this week. “We didn’t close galleries.”

More than a half-dozen Met staffers were in Campbell’s pay stratum in 2009. Some were longtime continuing employees who earned retirement-fund payouts and others took buyouts -- “separation pay” in the tax return -- for early retirement.

Friday, 13 May 2011 01:20

MICHAEL DOUGLAS, elegantly dressed in a dark blue suit, white spread-collar shirt, violet tie and a white pocket square, and looking fit despite his recent bout with throat cancer, was standing in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden of the Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday night, one of the hundreds of people who had shown up for the museum’s annual Party in the Garden.

Did he remember the first time he visited MoMA?

“Hmm, let me think,” he said. “Gee, I think it must have been at the opening.”

An awkward silence ensued while his questioner tried to run off a quick calculation in his head: Was Michael Douglas even born in 1929? How old is he actually? And he’s looking great for his age!

“That must have been it,” he continued. “Must have been ’84 or ’85, right?”

Oh, right. The 1984 renovation by Cesar Pelli, which doubled the museum’s space. Well, he’s still looking good for his age.

On to dinner.

As guests dined on truffled asparagus and filet mignon, Marie-Josée Kravis, one of the evening’s hosts (along with Jerry Speyer), gave a mercifully short speech in tribute to the evening’s honorees: Patricia Phelps de Cisneros, Mimi Haas, Jill Kraus and Sharon Percy Rockefeller.

“Strong women are nothing new to MoMA,” Ms. Kravis said, referring to its founding by some of the leading socialites of the early 20th century.

Though the speeches were short, the dinner was not, dragging on well past the scheduled hour, as outside in the garden, more than a thousand people began to gather in anticipation of the night’s big attraction: a live performance by Kanye West. (Tickets for the dinner started at $1,500 a person; for the after-party, $150. The sold-out event raised $4 million for the museum.)

Friday, 13 May 2011 01:18

One of the most anticipated moments of the television show “Antiques Roadshow” is when participants come to learn that their dust-covered garage sale find or inherited household item is worth many multiples of what was originally paid for it.

A similar plot unfolded on March 5, when a Cortlandt Manor couple, who asked not to be identified, brought two paintings that they had recently inherited to an “Antiques Appraisal Day” event sponsored by the Larchmont Historical Society (LHS) and Clarke Auction Gallery.

Both paintings appeared to be signed by Jasper F. Cropsey, a 19th Century landscape painter of the Hudson River School. Cropsey's paintings have appeared in major museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Art. 

When David Bahssin, co-owner of Post Road Gallery and one of the expert appraisers at the event, initially saw the couple’s paintings he was dubious, given the fact that the paintings were a pair and appeared to have been completed late in the artist’s career.

“They were painted well after the artist’s prime period,” he said. “That confused me.”

Clarke Auction Gallery Owner Ron Clarke, an eternal optimist, then viewed the paintings himself and, recognizing the quality and potential value, “decided to pursue further.”

The Cropsey paintings had all the dust and dirt of many years on them, having spent several decades hovering over a ping-pong table in the owner’s childhood home in West Hartford, Connecticut.

“It’s a sign that they haven’t been seen in public for 150 years,” said Clarke Appraiser Tom Curran, referring to the original, untouched condition of the works.

Bahssin recommended that the gallery contact the Newington-Cropsey Foundation, a Hastings-on-Hudson-based organization that is the foremost authority on the work of Cropsey to further authenticate the pieces.

It was a bit of a hard sell, confessed Clarke, but eventually the Foundation agreed to look at both paintings in person.

Friday, 13 May 2011 01:15

The Heckscher Museum of Art presents Edward Weston: Life Work on view May 7, 2011 – July 24, 2011.

Edward Weston: Life Work surveys the fifty-year career of a giant of twentieth-century photography. The photographs of Edward Weston (1886-1958) capture the rhythms, patterns and interconnections between nature and human experience. Whether exploring still life, the human face, the landscape or the nude, Weston’s goal was never a literal recording. His experiments with form and scale in still lifes of shells, peppers and radishes, his sculptural nudes, landscapes and dune studies, and his portraits of prominent artistic and literary figures sought to depict the subject “in its deepest moment of perception.”

Weston’s photographs are renowned for their sensuous print quality and for the rich black and white scale the photographer achieved during printing. Most of the works in this exhibition belonged to the Weston family, for whom the artist often reserved his choicest prints. All are vintage, produced by the artist shortly after he shot the image, and thus represent his original vision.

Edward Weston: Life Work is drawn from the significant private collection of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg, who consider Weston the “Picasso of photography.”

This exhibition is organized by art2art Circulating Exhibitions.

Thursday, 12 May 2011 02:39

The Metropolitan Museum of Art will take over the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Marcel Breuer building in 2015, when the Whitney opens its new museum in Manhattan’s meatpacking district, according to the terms of a real estate agreement that the museum boards are pursuing.

The Breuer building’s Brutalist concrete architecture may seem like an odd fit with the stately Classical aura of the Met. But the agreement would serve both institutions: allowing the Whitney to preserve the landmark Breuer building, at Madison and 75th Street, while providing the Met with much needed space to showcase its modern and contemporary art, an area where the institution’s holdings have long been considered its weakest link.

The Whitney had been talking to several nonprofit institutions about the possibility of taking over its uptown site because it realized it cannot afford to run two museums. Under the agreement the Met will occupy the Breuer building for at least eight years.

Under the Whitney, the Breuer building has been primarily a home for American art, but officials at the Met said they would use it as an outpost for modern and contemporary art from around the globe.

While the broad brushstrokes of the deal are set, many details are still to be hammered out, officials at the museums said. Under the broad terms approved Tuesday and Wednesday by the museum boards, the Met would move into the Madison Avenue building in four years, when the Whitney’s new museum is scheduled to open on Gansevoort Street.

With the Whitney’s groundbreaking less than two weeks away, it can proceed with its plans knowing that its financial obligations have been greatly eased. “This will give us a chance to catch our breath and get some perspective,” said Adam D. Weinberg, director of the Whitney. The Met-Whitney agreement is the second major real estate development in the New York museum world this week. The Museum of Modern Art agreed on Tuesday to take over the American Folk Art Museum’s new building on West 53rd Street because the folk museum has serious financial problems. MoMA, however, will be purchasing that building, unlike the Met, which will be operating, but not buying, the Breuer building.

Thursday, 12 May 2011 02:36

The market for trophy art roared back after a three-night case of the blahs as Christie’s International saw its biggest tally for a New York evening contemporary-art sale since May 2008.

All but three of the 65 lots sold last night, with Cy Twombly and Richard Diebenkorn paintings setting records and a Cindy Sherman fetching the highest price ever for a photo at auction, $3.9 million.

The $301.7 million total surpassed the $299 million high presale estimate and was the closely held auctioneer’s largest in the category since the market was sideswiped by the world financial crisis.

The top lot was Andy Warhol’s 1963-64 “Self- Portrait,” made of four photo-booth-strip images in different shades of blue.

It went for $38.4 million, above the $30 million high estimate, after a tortuous -- some dealers said tedious -- bidding war between private art dealer Philippe Segalot and a telephone client of Brett Gorvy, deputy chairman and international head of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s. The price was an auction record for a Warhol portrait.

Dealers said the evening offered rarer works than Sotheby’s (BID) $128.1 million contemporary sale the previous night. Collectors and dealers had likewise complained that the two Impressionist and modern evening sales last week skimped on masterpieces.

‘Night and Day’

“It’s like night and day,” said Lucy Mitchell-Innes, a New York art dealer. Sotheby’s on Tuesday night “was dreary and a real struggle. It’s all about quality.”

Both of the major Sotheby’s New York evening sales were at the low end of their estimates. The auctioneer’s shares are off 23 percent since April 5.

Another highlight at Christie’s was an undocumented 1961 painting by Mark Rothko that went for $33.7 million, above the high presale estimate of $22 million. Classical postwar works by Roy Lichtenstein, Alexander Calder and Sam Francis brought strong results.

“Quality speaks,” said Daniella Luxembourg, private art dealer in New York and London. “The rarity of things like Rothko is covering the aggressive estimates.”

‘Because I Love It’

The most aggressively estimated Warhol of the season didn’t fare as well. A 1986 self-portrait of the artist in a spiky wig sold for $27.5 million, missing the low estimate of $30 million. It landed with the Mugrabi family, known for its vast Warhol collection and steadfast support of the artist’s market.

When asked why he bought the Warhol, Jose Mugrabi said, “Why? Because I love it. I have no client for it.”

Thursday, 12 May 2011 02:31

Last night, the American Folk Art Museum — that beloved, bedeviled museum on West 53rd Street — confirmed what many of us had feared for years. It is in such deep debt and has such low attendance numbers that it will sell its building and relocate back to a lobby space one sixth its current size near Lincoln Center. Sad as it is to say, this news comes as no surprise, and the culprit is the museum's physical home.

Despite the many rave reviews the 30,000-square-foot building received when it opened in December 2001, it was immediately clear to many that the building was not only ugly and confining, it was also all but useless for showing art — especially art as visionary as this museum's. In the past decade, AFAM has mounted shows of some of the greatest artists of the twentieth century, including Martin Ramirez, Henry Darger, Adolf Wolfli, and Thomas Chambers. Yet from the outside it looked like a bronzed Kleenex box or a miniature suburban professional building. The inside was worse. Dominated by showy staircases of many scales going in different directions, ill-conceived nooks and niches, the galleries were long narrow corridors or landings, sometimes only a few feet wide, making it impossible to see the art. The largest exhibition spaces had the look of a gloomy cloakroom. The architects responsible for this utter lack of imagination and hubristic mess of starchitectural vanity, Tod Williams and Billie Tsien, were praised for their intelligent use of materials. The building was called astonishing, a shrine, a temple, a Zen masterpiece. In reality, every one of their decisions reflected a total lack of feeling for, even a disdain for, art. Before he died, the Times architectural critic Herbert Muschamp, who'd said nice things about the building when it opened, confided to me that my loathing was “probably right.”

Thursday, 12 May 2011 02:26

Don't be alarmed! This strange blob in the Grand Palais des Champs-Elysees is not some alien creature from the Paris sewers mulching everything in its path.

The sci-fi looking monster which seems to appear from round the corner to fill the cavernous expanse is part of the current Monumenta exhibition.
It is the work of British artist Anish Kapoor and the first time he has shown a work in the French capital for 30 years.

Leviathan is 35 metres high and comprised of tautly-stretched PVC over a giant metal frame and is the highlight of the exhibition which opens tomorrow and runs until June 23.People can walk around it and inside it.

Kapoor said: 'My ambition is to create a space within a space, responding to the great height and light of the nave of the Grand Palais.
'People will be invited to enter the artwor to immerse themselves in its colour and it will be I hope a contemplative, poetic experience.'

Thursday, 12 May 2011 02:24

Daniel Brodsky, a real estate developer, was elected chairman of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Tuesday in a vote by the museum’s board. Mr. Brodsky will assume the post on Sept. 13, succeeding James R. Houghton, who has been chairman for the past 13 years and will now become a trustee emeritus.

A Met trustee since 2001, Mr. Brodsky, 66, has served on important committees, including those for Finance and Buildings. He is also a trustee of New York City Ballet and New York University.

The Met chairmanship is one of the most prestigious positions in New York’s cultural firmament, requiring someone who is politically deft, an adept fund-raiser and well liked and respected by the rest of the board. That description seemed to fit Mr. Brodsky.

The Met’s director, Thomas P. Campbell, described him as a “good listener, someone who really takes the time to consider everybody’s opinions, but at the same time has a clear sense of purpose and direction.”

Mr. Houghton said that Mr. Brodsky got “along well with everybody.”

After Mr. Houghton announced his plan to retire in early March, the board — at 40 voting members, one of the largest of any American cultural institution — formed a succession committee led by three longtime trustees, Henry B. Schacht, S. Parker Gilbert and Annette de la Renta. The committee spoke to a number of people — the Met would say only that that group included Mr. Campbell — and made its recommendation to the full board at its meeting on Tuesday.

In an interview Mr. Brodsky said that his work on various board committees had given him a good view of how the museum was run and that he had enjoyed that learning process.

“The more you get involved with it, the better you know it, and the more you want to know about it,” he said of the museum.

Mr. Brodsky, who is unassuming in conversation, said he did not have a deep knowledge of art history or a favorite piece in the museum’s collection, although he prefers modern art. His wife, Estrellita Brodsky, is an independent curator specializing in Latin American art who has endowed the post of Latin American curator at the Museum of Modern Art.

Mr. Brodsky is the managing director of the Brodsky Organization, a company he started with his father, Nathan Brodsky, in 1971. It currently owns and manages 6,200 apartments in 68 Manhattan buildings and has also developed a number of condominium and co-op buildings.

As a trustee of City Ballet, Mr. Brodsky played a significant role in rallying support among Lincoln Center’s constituent organizations for the renovation of its campus, one of the biggest construction projects undertaken by a cultural institution in recent years. During the planning process, which was sometimes contentious, he said he learned that he enjoyed “listening to people and hearing them out and being able to help people come to a consensus.”

Thursday, 12 May 2011 02:01

Is the Metropolitan Museum of Art engaging in the age-old sport of blaming the victim?

In March, British collector Robert Wylde made headlines when he sued the Gagosian Gallery for selling him a $2.5 million Mark Tansey painting, "The Innocent Eye Test," which, it turned out, had been promised to the Met.

Wylde had purchased the painting through the gallery in 2009 from former art dealer and Artforum magazine publisher Charles Cowles — only to be informed in spring 2010 that the Met owned 31% of the painting. Cowles' mother, Jan Cowles, owned the remaining 69%, and the museum had been promised it would eventually own the work in full.

According to Wylde's complaint, had the Gagosian gallery properly done its "due diligence," it never would have given Wylde "clear and unencumbered title" to the artwork.

Wylde, who still has the painting, is seeking $6 million in compensatory damages, but now he has to battle the Met and Mama Cowles in a related suit filed Tuesday at U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The complaint, not surprisingly, seeks the return of the Tansey painting. But what's interesting about the suit is the kid-gloves approach it takes regarding the Gagosian Gallery, which is owned by silver-haired billionaire Larry Gagosian — one of the most powerful art dealers in the world.

Thursday, 12 May 2011 01:58

Following an eminently successful first year, the Wayside Inn Antiques show is now destined to be an annual event drawing antique dealers and antique lovers from all over the Northeast, Midwest and this year, from across the Atlantic.

Nearly 50 premier antique dealers will converge upon grounds of the inn, 72 Wayside Inn Road, from May 13, through 15. This year’s event will be held in a 20,000 square-foot lavishly appointed, climate controlled tent and feature dealers from as far away as Portugal. New this year is an unmatched opportunity for those attending to get in-depth knowledge from experts via eight “Booth Chats” to be held during the show on Saturday and Sunday.

Proceeds from the show will be donated to The Wayside Inn Historic Site, the 501(c)3 not-for-profit corporation that oversees the sprawling 125-acre campus. The grounds include Longfellow’s Wayside Inn, The Gristmill, the Schoolhouse, and the Martha-Mary Chapel, along with many scenic walking trails connecting the buildings. Funds raised will be used for upkeep of the grounds and buildings and for informational and educational purposes.

“Last year’s event was successful beyond even our high expectations,” said Guy LeBlanc, Wayside’s Museum Services Coordinator. “We’re very pleased to be able to offer the region what will now be an annual show featuring extremely high quality exhibitors and their wares.”

The show begins on Friday evening, May 13, with a preview party and reception from 6:30-9 p.m. Tickets for the preview party, a major fundraising portion of the event, are $125 per person with advanced registration, or $150 at the door. The main show will run on May 14 and 15 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. General admission on Saturday and Sunday is $10 at the door. Once again Skinner Auctioneers & Appraisers, of Marlborough and Boston, is the show’s Presenting Sponsor.

“Skinner is proud to again sponsor the Wayside Inn Antiques Show. With so many first-rate dealers assembled under one roof, collectors and aficionados will find an incredible array of antiques and decorative art,” said Karen Keane, CEO of Skinner. “As appraisers and auctioneers, we relish in discovering the treasures of yesterday. This show brings that excitement to the general public with the opportunity to appreciate and experience all that American furniture and decorative arts have to offer.”

New to this year’s show will be the informative “Booth Chats,” four each day, at 11 a.m., noon, 1 and 2 p.m. Each chat will feature one of the show’s exhibitors discussing topics including American furniture, oriental carpets, American painting, and caring for fine art collections.

Sarah B. Cunningham, a Sudbury resident and the owner of Walker-Cunningham Fine Art, on Boston’s Newbury Street, in her second year at the show, will be conducting the booth chat, “Secrets from a Gallery Owner – Tips on Managing Your Collection,” on Sunday at 2 p.m.

“I’m very pleased to be back this year and to be giving this presentation,” Cunningham said. “I will be talking about organizing a collection, insuring it, appraising it and caring for it. Collections take shape over time and some collectors may lose sight of very important details involved in conserving their collections.”

Cunningham will also be bringing many paintings to the show, including two rare Boston School works, Wilton Lockwood’s Still Life of Peonies, and Frank Hector Tompkins’ The Young Mother.
Another dealer, Keith Funston, of Funston Antiques, also a Sudbury resident, will return this year as well, having had a great experience with the first show last spring.

“I’m really looking forward to this year’s show,” he said. “We drew a great crowd from all over the region last year, and with the economy picking up, we should do even better this year.”

Funston specializes in recreating wunderkammerns, or wonder chambers, also called Chambers of Curiosities. Such rooms were created in Europe during the Age of Discovery, circa 1500 to 1650, whereby collectors would display all sorts of items culled from the "New World" together with wonder-inspiring things made by local artists.

This year, Funston will be displaying a 17th Century table cabinet used in a wonder chamber collection, fossilized dinosaur bones, a Victorian bird egg collection, tribal antiquities and many other items. The idea, according to Funston, is to create a “sensation of juxtaposition” pleasing to a 21st Century eye. Funston noted that he has been seeing more interest in wonder chambers, as evidenced by a replication of them in Macy’s store windows in New York City this past Christmas season.

Thursday, 12 May 2011 01:39

Police have arrested a man they said broke into China's famed Forbidden City, the heavily guarded former home of the country's emperors, and stole seven art pieces made of gold and jewels, state media reported Thursday.

It was the first theft in 20 years from the historic site, the tourist attraction's spokesman Feng Nai'en said, adding that security would be increased.

An investigation found that nine pieces – all small Western-style gold purses and mirrored compacts covered with jewels made in the 20th century – were missing from the temporary exhibition, on loan from the private Liang Yi Museum in Hong Kong.

Two of the missing items were recovered nearby shortly after the theft and were slightly damaged.

State media said Thursday that police had caught a man called Shi Bokui in an Internet cafe Wednesday night who confessed to the robbery. The China Daily said some of the seven remaining stolen pieces were recovered, but did not give details.

Feng said Wednesday the entire Palace Museum will be checked to see if any other items are missing.

"For this to happen here shows us that, No. 1, we need to speed up the modernization and installation of our security systems," Feng said. "No. 2, we need to investigate carefully and find out if we can implement better, more modern and more sophisticated security systems."

Wang Xiahong, curator of the Liang Yi Museum, refused to reveal the value of the stolen items, which belong to Hong Kong art collector Fung Yiu Fai. She said that despite the theft, the exhibition would continue and other pieces would be added to the show, which is temporarily closed but expected to reopen soon.

The museum's deputy director, Ma Jige, told reporters he felt "very guilty and sorry" about the theft. He stood up and bowed to Wang in a show of remorse.

Karen Smith, a Beijing art curator and historian, said the theft was "a big loss of face" for the museum but would probably result in much improved security at the sprawling landmark.

Thursday, 12 May 2011 01:34

Last November, Andy Warhol's 1962 painting "Men in Her Life" sold for over $60 million at Phillips de Pury & Co. It went for well over its high estimate, and became the second most expensive Warhol painting ever to sell at public auction. Because both the buyer and the under bidder were on the phone, the scenario was ripe for speculation. Some market observers and journalists wondered if there had been foul play, and talk arose, as it does from time to time, that the fast-paced, loosey-goosey art market was in need of regulation.

With the major biannual contemporary art sales at Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips once again upon us, it's worth remembering the fuss over Warhol's 82-inch painting which, through a single, repeated photographic image, tells the story of a famous love triangle. Liz Taylor is at a racetrack squeezed between her movie producer husband Mike Todd and his best friend, crooner Eddie Fisher, who was then married to starlet Debbie Reynolds. Todd's marriage to the beautiful Taylor, then a dewy 24, was his third; when he died in a plane crash in 1958 it would take less than a year for Fisher to dump his own spouse, hook up with his dead friend's young widow and marry her in 1959. As it turned out, this spelled doom for Fisher, because his clean-cut showbiz persona was, in part, dependent on a storybook-perfect marriage to the wholesome Reynolds. It wasn't long before the unfavorable publicity surrounding his affair and divorce prompted cancellation of his television series with NBC and his recording contract with RCA. By 1964, his marriage to Taylor had also ended. Warhol's painting captures the beginning of what would be a series of disasters for both men.

The same week that Philips sold "Men in Her Life," Sothebys's sold a large 1962 Warhol painting, "Coca-Cola [4] Large Coca-Cola," for $35 million. They are both from the artist's early, and most valuable, period, but for me the similarity between them ends there: the Coca Cola bottle is merely a great hand-painted early pop image, whereas the newspaper-appropriated image of Liz's love triangle is representative of Warhol's most important contribution to art history, and well worth double what the other painting sold for.

All it takes is two bidders to chase a painting well past its presale estimate, and nowhere in any catalog does it say, "Please don't overpay." Do we really need a regulation setting these prices in their appropriate ratios to insure that clients don't overpay? Auctions today are about theater. Face it: it's pretty amazing to see such large quantities of money lavished on works of art whose value is strictly subjective. No matter how great they are, they aren't gold mines or oil wells.

As much as I love Warhol, the blockbuster prices at the high end feel like they're topping out. This season yet another large Warhol "Fright Wig" self-portrait comes up at auction, and once again it has been dubbed "the last in private hands." This blazing red one from collectors Norah and Norman Stone of San Francisco carries a $40 million price (a purple one made $32.5 million last year). Also on offer is a blue Liz, estimated at over $20 million, and an assemblage of "16 Jackies" priced at $25 million. There is little oxygen in the upper reaches of this market, but eventually a picture will crash and the cycle will turn or slow down. Until that happens, the auction experts will continue to source the material and find the clients, season after season. But then again, maybe it won't happen. Maybe, like Columbus, we'll find that the world of demand for Warhol is bigger than we thought it was. Meanwhile, the sums traded for these top lots are staggering, and the brouhaha surrounding them adds to the conviction of some that regulation lurks just around the corner.

 The last time the government interfered in the art market was after the scandal over the price-fixing arrangement between Sotheby's and Christie's. It's been over 10 years since this debacle, and still the pain is fresh. Remember when Christopher Davidge, then CEO of Christie's, ratted out his competitor, Sotheby's, took $7 million in severance and jetted off with the young, attractive Asian art specialist Amrhita Jhaveri? Both Christie's chairman Sir Anthony Tennant and Sotheby's chairman Alfred Taubman were found guilty of price fixing under U.S. antitrust laws, but only Mr. Taubman was incarcerated — he spent 10 months in prison — because there is no applicable criminal law in the U.K.

Thursday, 12 May 2011 01:31

The Portland Art Museum presents Maine Moderns: Art in Seguinland, 1900-1940 on view June 4, 2011 – September 11, 2011.

This exhibition of 65 paintings, sculptures, drawings, and photographs will examine the personal and professional relationships of a small group of American modernists who worked in Maine in the first half of the 20th century. Although much of their artistic activity was centered in New York, along with their mentor the photographer and art dealer Alfred Stieglitz, these artists all chose to summer in the small mid-coast communities south of Bath, in a region that was then known as “Seguinland.” It was there that they developed a camaraderie and sense of place that strongly influenced their work. This exhibition will feature works by F. Holland Day, Clarence White, Marsden Hartley, Max Weber, Marguerite and William Zorach, and Gaston Lachaise, among others.

Funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Image: Marsden Hartley (United States 1877–1943), Jotham’s Island (now Fox), Off Indian Point, Georgetown, Maine. Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA.

Portland Museum of Art Seven Congress Square . Portland, Maine 04101 . (207) 775-6148

www.portlandmuseum.org

Thursday, 12 May 2011 01:21

Vienna’s Leopold Museum agreed to pay $5 million to the granddaughter of Jenny Steiner, a Jewish silk- factory owner, to keep in its collection a painting by Egon Schiele that was stolen by the Nazis.

The 1914 painting, “Houses by the Sea,” belonged to Steiner until she fled Austria in 1938, shortly after the Nazis marched into Vienna. She escaped to Paris and later emigrated to the U.S. with her two daughters. The painting was seized and sold by the Nazis, then later auctioned. Rudolf Leopold, the founder of the Leopold Museum, acquired it in 1955, the museum said in a statement published today on its website.

“After long negotiations, we succeeded in finding a fair and just solution,” the museum said. “Both sides went to great lengths to find a definitive settlement.”

The Leopold Museum owns 44 Schiele paintings and 180 works on paper, the biggest collection of the artist worldwide. During Rudolf Leopold’s lifetime -- he died on June 29 last year at the age of 85 -- the museum argued that as a private foundation, it was not subject to Austria’s restitution law, which only applies to federal government museums.

After Leopold’s death, his son Diethard Leopold pledged to settle all outstanding claims for Nazi-looted art in the museum’s collection as quickly as possible.

Thursday, 12 May 2011 01:15

The original art from Page 10, issue #3 of Frank Miller and Klaus Janson’s Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (DC, 1986) became the single most valuable piece of American comic art to ever sell when it brought $448,125 as part of Heritage Auctions’ May 5 Vintage Comics and Comic Art Auction. Final price includes 19.5% Buyer’s Premium.

“Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns defined the best of 1980s comics, and has since been universally acknowledged as one of the most important and influential stories ever published ,” said Ed Jaster, Senior Vice President of Heritage Auctions, “and no image from that important comic series is more iconic than this Splash Page. It’s a little surprising, yes, but fitting that this piece is now the most expensive piece of American comic art ever sold at auction.”

The piece was bought by an anonymous collector.

The image is the single most memorable image from the entire comic book series and the greatest image from the decade of the 1980s ever to come to market, as well as now standing as one of, if not the most desirable pieces of original comic art from any era to come to market. It is a perfect stand-alone image of Batman and Robin (Carrie Kelley, the first female, full-time Robin) soaring high above Gotham City, emblematic of the entire storyline.

"I've always loved that drawing,” commented Miller, when asked before the auction what his thoughts on its imminent sale were. “Danced around my studio like a fool when I drew it. I hope it finds a good home."

The previous record price for a piece of original American comic book art was set last year when the cover of EC comics Weird Fantasy #29, by legendary artist Frank Frazetta sold via a private treaty sale for $380,000.

The public record for an American comic book cover was set last year with the $380,000 sale of the cover of EC title Weird Science-Fantasy #29 by Frank Frazetta.

“Frank Miller’s original art work for the cover of Daredevil #188 sold for $101,575 last year,” said Jaster, “so we knew there were serious buyer’s out there, especially for Miller’s top work. Now we know for sure what collectors are willing to pay. This piece is far away the current king. Nothing else has even come close.”

Thursday, 12 May 2011 01:09

Storm King Art Center today announced a major exhibition of large-scale works by iconic American sculptor Mark di Suvero, to open on Governors Island on May 27. Mark di Suvero at Governors Island: Presented by Storm King Art Center comprises roughly a dozen works that will be sited across the 172-acre expanse of the Island, a former military base that is now a vibrant public space.

The exhibition, which is curated by Storm King Director and Curator David Collens, is the largest outdoor presentation of di Suvero’s sculpture to be shown in New York City since the 1970s. With loans from public and private collections—including a number of sculptures from Storm King’s own celebrated installation of the artist’s work—as well as several new works that have never been on public view, it will be the centerpiece of the 2011 season at Governors Island. The exhibition remains on view through September 25, and is free to the public.

Storm King President John P. Stern notes, “For many, the name Storm King is indelibly connected with that of Mark di Suvero, one of the world’s greatest sculptors. Indeed, di Suvero’s work is an integral part of the history of Storm King, where the ‘di Suvero fields’ represent one of the largest installations of the artist’s sculptures. We are thrilled that this exhibition enables us to present Mark’s work to a broad international audience.”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg says: “New York City will be an incredible place to see public art this summer. I encourage all New Yorkers and visitors to go to Governors Island to see Storm King’s exhibition featuring the work of one of the country’s most extraordinary artists— Mark di Suvero.”

Leslie Koch, President of The Trust for Governors Island, adds, “The Trust for Governors Island is honored to be the site of the first exhibition that Storm King has organized outside of its campus. Viewing these dynamic sculptures against the backdrop of the City’s skyline and harbor will be an incredible experience for all Island visitors.”

The works in the exhibition will be sited throughout Governors Island’s vibrant green spaces-including at Picnic Point, the Parade Ground, and along the Island’s northern shore-and on Governors Island National Monument, adjacent to Fort Jay. An additional work will be sited adjacent to the ferry terminal at Brooklyn Bridge Park, at Pier 6. The vistas of the Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor, the Lower Manhattan skyline, and the Brooklyn Bridge from these locations will create an experience of public art that is unique to New York City.

In addition to organizing the exhibition on Governors Island, Storm King will enhance its own presentation of di Suvero’s work with several sculptures that have never been exhibited at the Art Center, located in the Hudson Valley about an hour north of New York City. The public will thus be able to view the work of this seminal artist in two distinct but complementary settings-in a dynamic urban environment, and a pastoral one of mountains, sky, and fields-enhancing viewers’ understanding of the sculptures themselves and of their relationship to their surroundings.

Mark di Suvero’s work has helped to shape our notion of modern sculpture. His monumental, spatially dynamic compositions, created using such industrial materials as I-beams and salvaged steel, reveal a masterful sense of form, composition, and movement, while also conveying poignant emotion and, frequently, a sense of play.

With work ranging in date from 1977 to today, Mark di Suvero at Governors Island will reveal the depth and variety that the artist has achieved within his intentionally limited range of materials. Works on loan from Storm King will include: Mahatma, 1978-79, in which a 7,000-pound beam, bent into a “U” shape, rocks and turns on top of a sentinel-like I-beam, creating continually changing shadows and perspectives; and For Chris, 1991, created by di Suvero as a memorial to his friend the late artist Chris Wilmarth, an assemblage in which the open spaces created by cut shapes are as integral to the sculpture as the steel forms themselves, and which contains a bell that visitors can ring. Also on view will be Old Buddy (For Rosko), 1993-95, a composition of vertical and horizontal girders that is at once powerful and playful, named in memory of the artist’s dog.

Other works in the exhibition will include She, 1977-78, a fifty-two-foot wide, dynamic composition that includes three suspended elements-a wooden platform, a steam roller, and an abstract composition-on loan from a private collection; Will, a forty-two-foot-high I-beam sculpture dating from 1994, which will come to Governors Island from The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection; and Fruit Loops, 2003, a sixteen-foot-high work in which elements of bent steel loop and intersect in a fanciful, energetic composition, from The Collection of Agnes Gund.

New works will include Figalu, 2005-11, composed of painted I-beams and three large buoys suspended from a steel cable whose combination of forms creates a tension between dense and open spaces.

In addition to the outdoor works, the exhibition will also include an indoor, changing installation of photographs of Mr. di Suvero’s work at Storm King. The images will be complemented by videos of the artist installing his sculpture at Storm King.

Mark di Suvero was born in China in 1933 and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. His work may be found in public and private collections across the globe and has been exhibited internationally. The first of several citywide exhibitions of his work was in New York City in 1975. This was followed by presentations in Paris, Nice, and Valence, France; Venice, Italy; and Stuttgart, Germany. He was the first living artist to be shown in the Jardin des Tuileries, in Paris. In 1957, di Suvero moved to New York City, where, other than during the first half of the 1970s, he has continued to make his home. His early wood sculptures were made with material from buildings being torn down in Lower Manhattan. After he was paralyzed in an accident while doing a construction job to make the rent, he began electric arc-welding while in a wheelchair and later learned to operate a crane. He continues to make his work at his studios in New York and California.

In addition to his role as a pivotal American artist, di Suvero is also a central figure in some of the institutions that have shaped the landscape of New York City’s art world. In the early 1960s, for example, he was a founding member of the Park Place Gallery, in Soho, the first contemporary-art gallery located in what would become a hub of the City’s art scene. Since 1981, he has maintained a studio in Long Island City, Queens, and in 1986, he led the transformation of an abandoned landfill and dumpsite next door into the award-winning Socrates Sculpture Park, which combines space for artists with a neighborhood park. Today Socrates Sculpture Park, with its stunning view across the East River to the iconic Manhattan skyline, is internationally renowned
for its programs serving artists and the public, including an extensive arts-education program.

Mark di Suvero is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the 2010 National Medal of Arts.

Widely celebrated as one of the world’s leading sculpture parks, Storm King has welcomed visitors from across the globe for fifty years. Its pristine 500-acre landscape provides the setting for a collection of more than 100 carefully sited sculptures, created by some of the most acclaimed artists of our time. These span the years from post-World War II to the present and include specially commissioned site-specific works, all set against the backdrop of Storm King and Schunnemunk Mountains. With its verdant fields, rolling hills, and woodlands, Storm King offers a unique and memorable experience with every visit, as changing light and weather conditions transform both the grounds and the sculpture.

In addition to Mark di Suvero, artists whose work is on permanent view include Alexander Calder, Andy Goldsworthy, Maya Lin, Louise Nevelson, Isamu Noguchi, Nam June Paik, Richard Serra, David Smith, Ursula von Rydingsvard, and Zhang Huan. Storm King’s permanent display is complemented by special exhibitions, which may comprise large-scale sculptures sited in outdoor “galleries” defined by sky and landscape, or smaller works and supporting materials shown in Storm King’s museum building.

Image: View of South Fields,Storm King Art Center, Mark di Suvero sculptures Pyramidian, 1987/1998 Mon Pere, Mon Pere, 1973-75 Mother Peace, 1969-70

For additional information, visit www.stormking.org

Thursday, 12 May 2011 01:03

Designed by Allied Works Architecture, New Museum to House 94% of Still’s Creative Output and Provide Unprecedented Opportunity for New Scholarship and Public Appreciation of One of America’s Greatest Painters

The Clyfford Still Museum announced that it will open its doors on November 18, 2011. The museum, which will house 94% of the artist’s total creative output, the majority of which has never been on display, will reintroduce the public to the life and work of Clyfford Still, one of America’s most significant yet least understood artists. No previous exhibitions of the artist’s work have been able to present the full trajectory of Still’s 60-year career, including his rarely seen figurative works from the 1930s, paintings from the 1960s and 1970s created after Still’s retreat from the commercial art world, and the hundreds of works on paper that the artist created, often on a near-daily basis. The museum’s collection of approximately 2,400 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures will provide an unprecedented opportunity to reflect on the full scope of Still’s legacy and his profound influence on American art.

Designed by Brad Cloepfil and Allied Works Architecture, the new museum will provide visitors with an intimate environment to experience the art of Clyfford Still. The museum’s inaugural exhibition will feature 100 works drawn from the Still collection, exploring both his early arrival at complete abstraction as well as the ongoing significance of figuration on his later work. The exhibition will include a number of never-before-displayed paintings, works on paper, and objects from Still’s personal archives, as well as the only three Still sculptures in existence.

“Still is considered among the most important and influential painters of the twentieth century, though the vast majority of his work has never been exhibited publicly,” said Dean Sobel, Director of the Clyfford Still Museum. “Our prior knowledge of Still was based on a small fraction of works that were in the public realm, a mere six percent of the artist’s creative output. The opening of this museum will provide unprecedented insight into the life and work of Clyfford Still, and will redefine how the artist is considered within the art historical canon. Our inaugural exhibition, which traces the arc of Still’s career from his early figurative paintings, through his monumental abstract canvases, to his late works on paper, will provide an overview of the artist’s primary imagery and establish Still as one of the first of his American peers to realize the concept of a monumental, pure abstraction.”

After achieving national recognition and prominence for his abstract works in the 1940s and early 1950s, Still ended his relationship with commercial galleries in 1951, infrequently exhibiting his work thereafter. Following the artist’s death in 1980, the Still collection, comprising approximately 2,400 works by the artist, was sealed off completely from public and scholarly view. Still’s will stipulated that his estate be given in its entirety to an American city willing to establish “permanent quarters” dedicated solely to his work, ensuring its survival for exhibition and study. In August 2004, the City of Denver, under the leadership of Mayor John Hickenlooper, was selected by Still’s wife, Patricia Still, to receive the substantial Still collection. In 2005, Patricia Still also bequeathed to the city her own estate, which included select works by her husband as well as his complete archive.

“Seven years ago Patricia Still, the wife of Clyfford Still, entrusted us with her husband’s legacy and asked us to build a home for his work in Denver,” said now Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper. “Colorado’s growing arts community is gaining the world’s attention. Having one of the most comprehensive single-artist museums in the world in Denver is an incredible collection for the city and our state.”

Inaugural Exhibition
The museum’s inaugural exhibition will present a comprehensive survey of Still’s artistic career from 1925 through the late 1970s, documenting the development of his primary imagery and his early arrival at what would be considered Abstract Expressionism. The exhibition is the first to explore Still’s early figurative work created before World War II, which points to the significance of figuration throughout the artist’s career, even in his most outwardly abstract images. The exhibition will also consider rarely seen paintings and drawings produced by Still after he retreated from the New York art world to Maryland in 1961, providing visitors with a greater understanding of Still’s impact on and relevance to Abstract Expressionism, as well as later artistic movements.

Installed chronologically over the course of nine discrete galleries on the Museum’s second floor, the exhibition establishes a chronology of Still’s 60-year career to provide an overview of the stylistic evolution of his oeuvre and the places where he created these works—including Alberta, Canada; eastern Washington State; Richmond, Virginia; San Francisco; New York City; and rural Maryland. The first exhibition galleries will include Still’s figurative and landscape paintings from the late 1920s and early 1930s, which demonstrate his representational style and introduce characteristics that mark his later work, including his emphasis on the vertical form. At the center of the exhibition are a number of never-before-seen paintings, drawings, and prints made by Still in the 1940s that reveal the artist’s arrival at characteristics of Abstract Expressionism earlier than his peers, including Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Willem De Kooning.
Later galleries will show Still’s dramatic expansion of scale, his rarely displayed works on paper from all periods of career, and his works from the 1960s and 1970s, which are marked by a lighter palette and greater economy of imagery. Visitors will gain further insight into Still’s personal history and creative process through the presentation of select objects from the Clyfford Still Archives on the museum’s first floor, including letters, photographs, tools and materials, and various personal effects.

Exhibition highlights will include:
• PH-77 – A figurative work painted in 1936 that portrays field workers with oversized hands and arms—a feature common to Still’s work at the time. Still’s highly expressive interpretation of the subject denotes his increasing interest in abstracting the human form.

• PH-343 – This 1936 painting demonstrates Still’s transition from figuration into abstraction, with a canvas that loosely depicts a farmer and his farming tools. Divided left and right between the warm earth tones used to paint the human form, and the black and white farmer’s tools, the work shows early techniques that Still used in his later abstractions.

• 1944-N No. 1 (PH-235) – Featuring jagged streaks of blue, red, yellow, and white, Still’s oversized, predominately black canvas is widely believed to be the first example of Abstract Expressionism as we conceive of it. Though Abstract Expressionism is identified as a New York movement, this painting was made during Still’s stay in Richmond, Virginia, where he was a visiting professor from 1944 to 1945, three years before Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings were made.

• 1957-J No. 2 (PH-401) – This 9-by-13-foot mural features Still’s iconic red, black, and white forms that seem to be simultaneously drawing towards each other and breaking apart. Like many artists working in New York at this time, this painting is indicative of Still’s use of scale to create immersive environments for the viewer.

• PH-1023 – After a decade of living in New York, Still moved to rural Maryland in 1961, where he lived and worked in virtual seclusion until his death in 1980. Compared with his densely populated canvases of the late 1940s and 1950s, this painting from 1976 demonstrates Still’s exploitation of the bare canvas and more minimal gesture that marked the artist’s final works.

The Clyfford Still Museum broke ground in December 2009 and will open to the public in November 2011 in its new building, designed by Brad Cloepfil of Allied Works Architecture and located in Denver, Colorado. The new museum will be in the heart of the city’s Civic Center Cultural Complex, near the Denver Art Museum and its new Daniel Libeskind-designed building, the Denver Public Library designed by Michael Graves, and the new Colorado History Museum designed by David Tryba.

For more information about the Clyfford Still Museum, please visit www.clyffordstillmuseum.org.

Wednesday, 11 May 2011 01:38

James Cuno, director of the Art Institute of Chicago, was named president and chief executive of the J. Paul Getty Trust, taking over the world's wealthiest arts organization, with a $5.3-billion endowment and $250-million annual budget, but one that has suffered management turnover in recent years.

Cuno, 60, has led the Art Institute through its most ambitious expansion in its 130-year history. He will take over the vast Getty Trust, which consists not just of the museum — its most public face — but a grant-making foundation, a conservation institute and a scholarly institute.

The Getty has been without a museum director since January 2010, when Michael Brand resigned, and without a head of the trust since James Wood's death last June. Wood was hired in 2006 to turn the organization around after Barry Munitz was forced to retire because of a scandal over his leadership and spending and a curator faced charges of trafficking in looted antiquities.

Word of Cuno's hiring met with a mixed response. "It's not a surprising appointment by any means but a very gratifying appointment," says Hugh Davies, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, calling Cuno a "seasoned" museum leader. "They came to the right conclusion and got the best person for the job."

But several art-world figures did express surprise at the appointment.

Some wonder what Cuno's hire means for the Getty's increasingly aggressive stance against the looting of antiquities, since Cuno is one of the few museum leaders known to speak out against cultural patrimony laws. He argues that some antiquities are best served in encyclopedic museum collections, not necessarily back in their countries of origin. In short, will his hire affect either the Getty's commitment to return antiquities or its reputation internationally?

Others have criticized the Getty for not taking this opportunity to combine the job leading the Trust with the job leading the museum. Under the Getty's unusual management structure, the museum director reports to the trust president. And Brand left following clashes with Wood.

Art+Auction magazine editor Benjamin Genocchio quickly posted an editorial online criticizing that organizational structure. "So why would the Getty board have chosen to replicate the same disastrous management structure — to hire another veteran museum director (from the same Chicago institution, no less) to be its president, who in turn will have to choose a museum director to work for him?" Genocchio called it "a perfect recipe for internal conflict and tension."

"I obviously don't think this needs to be the case," replied Cuno, who had not seen the editorial but was familiar with the criticism. He says hiring a director will be "a very high priority."

Until recently, "I never directly reported to the board myself but to a president of a university. I understand the culture of the university and the benefits of delegating responsibility. I am not a micromanager or someone who needs to be involved in every decision."

Getty board Chair Mark Siegel also defended the existing management structure, noting that the board had a "serious discussion" on whether to modify it after Wood's death but decided not to. "The Getty's museums are an important part of our program. But we also have three other programs inside the Getty Trust that we don't think of as subsidiary to the museum, that stand in their own right as important, wonderful contributions," he says. "We don't want them to become offshoots of the museum."

Cuno's scholarly pedigree and managerial experience are not in question. As Davies puts it, "He's an ideal combination of somebody with impeccable scholarly credentials and extensive international experience."

With an M.A. and PhD in art history from Harvard, Cuno made his name in the museum world as a scholar-curator. An expert in 18th and 19th century French printmaking, he has written extensively on subjects like the French Revolution and French caricature.

Most of his jobs early on were at major universities. In the mid-1980s, he was the director of the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts at UCLA. He later served as director of the Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth College from 1989 to 1991 and director of the Harvard Art Museums for the following decade. After a brief stint as head of the Courtauld Institute in London, he took the job at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2004 — a job previously held by Wood, also his Getty predecessor.

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