Displaying items by tag: Museums

"Directors’ Cut: Selections from the Maine Art Museum Trail" presents art from Maine’s most-renowned museums—bringing the best art Maine has to offer together for the first time. The exhibition is on view at the Portland Museum of Art from May 21, 2015 through September 20, 2015.

Art and culture has defined the identity of Maine since artists began visiting Monhegan Island and trekking up Mount Katahdin before Maine even became a state.

Museums are increasingly displaying jewelry as a form of wearable art in its own right, sometimes with the conversation centering around the innovative use of materials in alternative ways.

“Jewelry is more than just you wear to complement your clothes. If you pick good jewelry, it’s like wearing a piece of art,” says Ulysses Dietz, curator of the exhibition, titled "From Pearls to Platinum to Plastic," opening at the Newark Museum in June.

The Brooklyn Museum announced this evening that it has named Anne Pasternak, president and artistic director of Creative Time, as its next director. The appointment completely upends the well-established career path to the directorship of a major museum, and makes Ms. Pasternak, who has virtually no museum experience, one of the few women helming a top museum in the U.S.

Current director Arnold Lehman had previously announced he will retire, after 17 years, next month.

Lark Mason has been designated the new Chairman of Asia Week New York—the collaboration of over 40 top-tier international Asian art specialists, five major auction houses, and numerous museums and Asian cultural institutions.

“I am honored to follow Carol Conover as the new Chairman of Asia Week New York, and look forward to continuing the successful paths forged by her and her predecessors,” says Mr. Mason, founding director of iGavel, the online international network of independently owned regional auction salesrooms, specializing in the sale of fine and decorative arts.

"Horace Pippin: The Way I See It," a major exhibition of over 65 paintings of his work assembled from museums and private collections across the United States, opened in Chadds Ford, PA. One of the leading figures of 20th-century art, Horace Pippin (1888-1946) is known for his bold, colorful and expressive paintings of family life, history, religion and war. The Brandywine River Museum of Art is the only venue for this landmark exhibition.

Taking its title from Horace Pippin's response to his own question about what made him a great painter: "I paint it exactly the way it is and exactly the way I see it," the exhibition will look closely at Pippin as an artist who remained independent—creating and upholding a unique aesthetic sensibility, vividly depicting a range of subject matter, from intimate family moments and bold floral still lifes, to powerful scenes of war, history and religion that comment on issues such as racism and social justice.

In another sign of the market’s bubbling strength, Christie’s announced it will offer Alberto Giacometti’s life-size bronze “Pointing Man (L’Homme au Doigt)” from 1947 on May 11 in New York, along with an unpublished estimate in the record-breaking region of $130 million. Of the six works in the famed edition, as well as one artist proof, this example is believed to be the only one that is hand-painted by the artist. Five of the six in the edition are tucked away in museums or private foundations, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Tate Modern in London. Only two are left in private hands.

“Pointing Man,” standing 69 7/8 inches tall and bearing a crusty patina, as if charred by the horrific aftermath of the Second World War, reaches out with his spindly right arm, while his left remains raised at shoulder height, as a fencer might guardedly stand before an opponent.

One of the most comprehensive displays of works by Diego Velázquez is opening this week at Paris’s Grand Palais. Showcasing 119 artworks from museums around the globe, it will cover the breadth of his career. But pulling together this large retrospective of the influential 17th-century Spanish painter was no easy feat for curator Guillaume Kientz.

Mr. Kientz, the chief conservationist for Spanish paintings at the Louvre, which is jointly producing the exhibition, spent the past two years negotiating with private collectors and museums to assemble some of the Spanish master’s most famous works in what will be the Grand Palais’s blockbuster show of the year.

For the past 15 years, Málaga, the birthplace of Pablo Picasso, has pushed to promote its connection to the great painter, as part of its efforts to turn itself into an arts center.

Now, the cultural ambitions of this southern Spanish city are taking on a new dimension, spearheaded by its longstanding mayor, who persuaded two prestigious museums to add here their first overseas offshoots: the Pompidou Center from Paris and the State Russian Museum from Saint Petersburg.

The Málaga branch of the Russian Museum was to be inaugurated on Wednesday, three days before the opening of the so-called Pop-Up Pompidou.

The Musee d'Orsay has dropped its ban on visitors taking photos of artworks after France's culture minister openly flouted the restriction on Monday, sparking criticism.

She lived much of her life in New York City luxury, but Mary Griggs Burke never forgot her Minnesota roots.

Museums around the world courted her, hoping she would bequeath to them her legendary collection of Japanese art, but it was to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts that she left the bulk of it: 700 pieces of rare Japanese and Korean art, spanning 5,000 years, along with a $12.5 million endowment.

The bequest from Burke, announced Monday, catapults the Minneapolis museum’s Japanese collection into the top tier of U.S. museums.