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Tuesday, 25 January 2011 04:12

US authorities return a stolen small painting ‘Laundry Women with Toothache’ completed by Edgar Degas during 1870-872 to France

A work by famous French impressionist Edgar Degas is coming back home to France to Andre Malraux Museum, Le Havre in Normandy. Noting had been heard about this small painting Blanchisseuses souffrant des dents until October last year after it was stolen thirty seven years ago.

Tuesday, 25 January 2011 03:14

Thousands of art lovers queued in freezing temperatures on Saturday night for a final glimpse of a major retrospective on French Impressionist Claude Monet, after Paris' Grand Palais opened round the clock to cope with demand.

Wrapped in scarves and heavy coats, people queued for more than three hours to see the nearly 200 works by the 19th century master before the historic exhibition, the biggest one on Monet in decades, closes on Monday evening.

Tuesday, 25 January 2011 03:12

The 16th-century portrait was a bargaining chip in the spring of 1943.

Friedrich and Louise Gutmann, a Jewish couple from a prominent banking family, hoped to trade it for their lives.

Adolf Hitler's art dealer ordered the painting, along with others from the famous Gutmann collection, shipped to Germany in exchange for the couple's safe passage from the Netherlands to Italy.

Thursday, 20 January 2011 05:15

The National Gallery of Art, Washington, will present 21 of Canaletto’s finest paintings of Venice with 34 by his most important contemporaries, including Gaspar Vanvitelli, Luca Carlevarijs, Michele Marieschi, Bernardo Bellotto, and Francesco Guardi, in Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals, on view from February 20 through May 30, 2011, in the East Building. These dazzling cityscapes represent the best view painters of Venice—each responding to the city in his own way, and each competing in a market driven largely by the British Grand Tour, at its height during the 18th century.

“Unlike previous exhibitions on Venice or Canaletto, this one focuses on rivalries that pitted the artist against his fellow painters. Visitors to the show will have the opportunity to compare their differing portrayals of the same or similar sites or monuments. We are deeply grateful to our supporters for making this landmark show possible,” said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art.

The entrance to the exhibition will feature a 35-foot-long gondola that once belonged to the American painter Thomas Moran and is now in the collection of the Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, VA. One of the world’s oldest gondolas, it will visually “transport” visitors to the lagoon city celebrated in the views of Canaletto and his rivals.

Thursday, 20 January 2011 05:13

A Pablo Picasso painting of his mistress may sell for as much as 18 million pounds ($28.6 million) at Sotheby’s in London next month as auction houses feed collectors’ hunger for trophy works of 20th-century art.

“La Lecture,” showing Picasso’s blonde muse Marie-Therese Walter asleep in a chair with a book on her lap, will be offered in Sotheby’s Feb. 8 sale of Impressionist and modern art, the New York-based company said in an e-mailed statement.

The work dates from 1932, the same year as the Picasso’s Walter-inspired “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” which fetched $106.5 million -- a record for any work of art at auction -- at Christie’s International in New York in May last year. It was one of several museum-quality works by big-name 20th-century artists that international bidders pushed to new highs in 2010.

Thursday, 20 January 2011 05:11

This weekend could be the first time so many of Charleston's finest antiques were crated up and shipped North since the end of the Civil War.

But this time, it's about prestige -- not plunder.

The Historic Charleston Foundation has assembled 70 paintings, ceramics, pieces of furniture, jewelry and metalwork to be featured later this month at the 57th Annual Winter Antiques Show in New York.

The exhibit, expected to be seen by about 25,000 collectors and enthusiasts from around the world, will be novel because it will feature several pieces that have not been previously displayed in public.

Brandy Culp, a curator with the foundation, helped assemble the exhibition and will give one of five lectures about it during the show.

"The point of the exhibit is the level of sophistication and craftsmanship you see in the city from the 18th to the early 19th centuries," she said. "Charleston is known for its consumer base that was very interested in having the latest fashion from abroad."

The exhibit marks only the second time in 17 years that the Winter

Antiques Show's featured collection comes from the South -- and the first time that it comes from a collaboration of institutions, she said.

Thursday, 20 January 2011 05:07

The London Art Fair opened its biggest show to date on Wednesday with over 100 galleries, many featuring exhibits inspired by contemporary themes like economic hardship and civil unrest.

Other highlights of the exhibition of paintings, sculpture and photography include a contemporary photography showcase and provocative installations from a Glaswegian art collective.

"This year is our largest Fair to date," said director Jonathan Burton in a statement.

"Modern British painting and sculpture are at the heart of London Art Fair, but our thriving contemporary strand has grown with a number of galleries exhibiting at the Fair for the first time, including Danielle Arnaud, Vegas Gallery, and BARTHA CONTEMPORARY."

Thursday, 20 January 2011 05:02

Protesters carrying two custom-made artworks plan to greet Wayne Clough, the embattled secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, with a "funeral procession for freedom of expression" Thursday, when he has a long-planned speaking engagment at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

Acting on Nov. 30, the same day Republican leaders criticized the work as anti-Christian and threatened budgetary consequences for the Smithsonian because it briefly showed ants crawling over a crucifix, Clough ordered the removal of David Wojnarowicz’s 1987 video, “A Fire in My Belly,” from a show about gay-themed portraiture at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery. The federal government provides the bulk of the Smithsonian's $1-billion budget.

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