Displaying items by tag: Van Gogh

In the teeth of the recession, the Ashmolean museum iin Oxford has succeeded in raising £7.83m in less than eight months, through lottery grants and more than a thousand donations from members of the public, to buy a major work by the 19th century French painter Edouard Manet which would otherwise have left the country.

The Portrait of Madame Claus, a study for one of his most famous paintings, Le Balcon, regarded as a key work in the development of Impressionist art, was sold last year for £28.5m, after being in a private collection in England since it was bought from the artist's studio in 1884. The comparative bargain price the museum paid represents the tax breaks for works of art going to national collections.

Vincent van Gogh was shaken but also calmed by nature. The natural landscape inspired some of his most implacably innovative paintings, roiled of surface, ablaze with color and steeped in feeling. They are blunt, irresistible instruments for seeing. Yet nature — and its tiniest details in particular — also sharpened his visual acuity and soothed and comforted his often unstable personality.

In the catalog to “Van Gogh Up Close,” a succinct, revelatory exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the art historian Anabelle Kienle notes van Gogh’s repeated references in his letters to “a blade of grass,” “a single blade of grass,” “a dusty blade of grass.” He not only thought that something this small and modest was a worthy subject for art — as demonstrated by the spare works of the Japanese artists he so admired — he also invoked it as a kind of centering technique for regaining concentration. Writing to his sister-in-law, he recommended focusing on a blade of grass as a way to calm down after the tumult of reading Shakespeare.

“Van Gogh Up Close” has been organized by Joseph J. Rishel and Jennifer A. Thompson, curators in Philadelphia, working with Ms. Kienle, a curator at the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, and Cornelia Homburg, an independent scholar. It examines van Gogh’s relationship to nature at its most intimate, cutting a narrow path through his achievement, with 45 often small, sometimes seemingly tossed-off paintings. In doing so it manages to lead us to the fullness of his achievement along a fresh and eye-opening route.

The show focuses on van Gogh’s tendency to depict nature in close-up, either in teeming detail or with a highly compressed sense of space, sometimes achieved by high horizon lines and thick brushwork that flatten the image and appear to push the surface of the picture close to the viewer. It includes a cache of unfamiliar works from abroad, some of which are being exhibited in this country for the first time anyone can remember. Stellar among these is a strange wonder titled “Garden in Auvers,” with its patchwork of dotted walkway and heaving, dappled lawn erupting with tangled oval flowerbeds that seem about to toboggan out of the painting and land in our laps.

As might be expected, the show centers almost exclusively on landscapes, aided and abetted by a few still lifes of flowers and fruits. It is devoid of portraits, self-portraits and interiors. There is little indication in the art, the wall texts or the excellent, extravagantly illustrated catalog of van Gogh’s fraught relationship with Paul Gauguin, his bouts of mental illness or the partly sliced-off ear.

Devotees of van Gogh as crazed visionary may be disappointed by this low-key approach, but they may also appreciate having his visionary genius grounded so specifically in tangible experiences of the real world.

The works here span his intensely productive last four years, from his arrival in Paris from Antwerp in early March 1886 to his death in Auvers in July 1890. In three still lifes of flowers painted early in his stay in Paris, he begins to grapple with the heightened colors, brighter light and greater tactility of the Impressionists, which he was seeing for the first time. He remained in Paris almost two years, living with and supported by his devoted art dealer brother, Theo, drinking in art, meeting artists and collecting Japanese prints, with which he decorated his room.

But Paris left van Gogh frazzled and on edge. In February 1888 he headed south to Arles, dreaming of establishing an artists’ colony, but mainly in search of the respite of nature, along with light and color that would enable him to surpass the Impressionists. That he did so is evidenced by the “Sheaves of Wheat,” which reads as a hallucinatory, muscle-bound version of something by Monet, whom van Gogh greatly admired.

A 33-carat diamond and a Van Gogh painting will be among top lots in auctions that may raise more than $50 million for the estate of Elizabeth Taylor.

Christie’s International announced the contents of the New York and London sales yesterday as it put on show some of the 1,000 lots of jewelry, couture and art formerly owned by the Oscar-winning actress and philanthropist. Taylor died in March, aged 79. Bloomberg reported in April that a sale was planned.

The star of “Cleopatra,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” made more than 50 movies and was married eight times. She was an inveterate collector and wearer of jewels.

The 33.19-carat emerald-cut diamond was a gift from Richard Burton, whom she married twice. Burton bought the piece at Sotheby’s, New York, in May 1968 for $305,000, then an auction record for such a ring. The stone, worn by Taylor on an almost- daily basis, will reappear at Christie’s Rockefeller Plaza rooms priced at $2.5 million to $3 million on Dec. 13. The two-day sale of Taylor’s jewels is valued at $30 million.

A necklace incorporating a pear-shaped 203-grain pearl known as “La Peregrina” -- formerly part of the crown jewels of Spain -- was another Burton gift. It is valued at $2 million to $3 million.

The exhibition runs from today to Sept. 26 at Christie’s in London. The show, comprising more than 100 pieces, continues on a world tour to Los Angeles, Dubai, Geneva, Paris, Hong Kong and New York. Visitors to the London preview will be charged 10 pounds and the boxed five-volume catalog costs $300. A portion of these proceeds will be donated to the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation (ETAF), the auction house said in an e-mailed statement.

A former art dealer was arrested Thursday on a federal indictment that alleges he sold paintings stolen from a Los Angeles art gallery as well as forged pieces he claimed were by Monet and other artists.

Matthew Taylor, 43, of Vero Beach, Fla., was arrested without incident by the FBI in Florida

A federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Taylor last week on seven felony charges related to art theft and a long-running fraud that targeted a Los Angeles art collector.

The indictment charges Taylor with defrauding the art collector victim out of millions of dollars by selling him forged artworks. Taylor allegedly sold the collector more than 100 paintings -- including works that he falsely claimed were by artists such as Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko -- for a total of more than $2 million, according to prosecutors.

The indictment charges that Taylor altered paintings from unknown artists to make them appear to be the products of famous artists, and then sold the bogus artwork to the victim at higher prices than their actual worth.

If true, it would be the only known painting of Theo, although Vincent made several sketches of his brother, who supported him financially and was his lifelong confidant and friend.

"People have often thought it was funny that there were no portraits of Theo, given that they were so close," said museum spokeswoman Linda Snoek.

She said the portrait was made in 1887 while the pair lived together in Paris – a lesser-known period of Van Gogh's life, since the bulk of information about Vincent is derived from letters he sent to Theo.

The painting has long been in storage, but went on display at the museum in Amsterdam on Tuesday as part of an exhibition on new findings about the painter's time spent in Antwerp and Paris in 1885-1888.

Though the brothers resembled each other physically, scholars determined the painting represents Theo by a number of factors.

Head researcher Louis van Tilborgh compared two paintings from 1887 with similar-looking men in suits set against a blue background.

"They are two small, detailed portraits that when you see them you think: they belong together," Van Tilborgh said in an interview with Dutch state broadcaster NOS.

One of the Cincinnati Art Museum's most famous works appears to most visitors to be a beautiful, well-preserved post-Impressionist painting. However, most visitors do not see what the museum's chief conservator, Per Knutas, sees in this masterpiece. Not only is Vincent van Gogh's 1890 painting "Undergrowth with Two Figures" on display at the Cincinnati Art Museum, but now its chief conservator is too.

Born in Sweden, Knutas was trained in Denmark and previously worked at the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art before coming to Cincinnati two years ago.

"For me, it's really important to heighten the awareness of conservation," Knutas said. "Most of the time, conservators are tucked in the back vaults of museums. People just expect the paintings to look great. But there's actually a profession behind the painting."

1. LORDS JOHN AND BERNARD STEWART
by ANTHONY VAN DYCK
Many of van Dyck's greatest portraits were the ones he painted during his early career in Italy. However, he later moved to England and found fame for his paintings of the cavalier court of King Charles I. So influential were these paintings that we can now only imagine that period in history through his work. This portrait of Lord John Stuart and his brother Bernard is certainly imposing. It was painted around 1638, before both men were killed fighting for the Royalist side in the Civil War. Despite this, van Dyke's portrait actually portrays them as spoilt, arrogant cavaliers.

2. JAN SIX
by REMBRANDT
Perhaps I should have chosen a self-portrait of the great artist to include in my top ten. However, Rembrandt's amazing portrait of the Dutch scholar, Jan Six, has all the freedom of brushwork we usually associate with the painter Frans Hals. All the props have been dispensed with in this 1654 masterpiece. Here is a man who chose to be painted nonchalantly pulling on a pair of gloves. The bravura brushwork is unsurpassed. Six was a serious collector of art in all its forms during the golden age of the Netherlands. He owned a number of paintings by Rembrandt and was also a personal friend.

3. MR & MRS CLARK & PERCY
by DAVID HOCKNEY
A rare portrait that epitomises an era. Indeed, this 1970-71 portrait is an icon of the Swinging Sixties. It is understandably the most popular work in Tate Britain. This picture has all the elegance and casualness of a new age. However, beneath it lurks an uncertainty. This is perfectly caught in fashion designer Ossie Clark's quizzical, troubled glance. The painting shows Clark and his wife, Celia Birtwell, just after their wedding, at which Hockney was best man. It featured in the top ten of Radio 4's Greatest Paintings In Britain vote, in 2005.

4. SELF PORTRAIT
by VINCENT VAN GOGH
Van Gogh famously painted many self-portraits during the final years of his life. Self-portraits of artists are an absorbing genre but this tense one, painted in 1888, captures the artist only months before his mental breakdown. He was passionate about creating what he called 'the modern portrait'  -  something quite different from a photograph. This picture is a monument to self-examination, tense and brooding and, in its way, a landmark.

5. LA BELLA
by TITIAN
Titian's women are unashamedly sexy. He was a member of the 16th century Venetian school and one of the great portrait painters. Titian brought a fresh eye to women on canvas, depicting them as stunning, sensuous beauties. The Italian reflected this in his treatment of the flesh tones, as well as the tactile quality of their costume, in his oil on canvas paintings. La Bella was possibly a portrait of Eleonora Gonzaga, Duchess of Urbino, painted in the 1530s. There are so many amazing portraits by Titian it is difficult to know which one to choose.

An Egyptian court on Thursday jailed five officials, including a former head of the state's fine arts department, over the theft of a Van Gogh painting worth an estimated $55 million, state media said.

"Vase with Viscaria" was stolen in August from Cairo's Mahmoud Khalil museum, home to one of the Middle East's finest collections of 19th and 20th-century art.

The state MENA news agency and court officials said the five had been found guilty of "causing the theft of the painting," without giving further details.

The painting has not been recovered.

A police investigation soon after the theft found that security measures at the museum were extremely lax, raising fears about the safety of the treasure trove of art and antiquities on display in Egypt.

Legal sources said the court sentenced Mohsen Shaalan, who was head of the culture ministry's fine arts department, to one year in jail and ordered him to perform community service.

Four other employees at the museum were given six-month prison terms, said the sources.

The museum houses works assembled by Mohammed Mahmoud Khalil, a politician who died in 1953, including paintings by Gauguin, Monet, Manet and Renoir, as well as the Dutch post-Impressionist master Vincent Van Gogh.

Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris offered a 1-million pound ($168,000) reward for information leading to the recovery of the painting.

Walking the halls of one of the world's great art museums, it's easy to regard familiar classic paintings as eternal and unchanging. But this is not the case. Paintings are a mix not only of color but of chemistry-and chemistry changes. In some of Vincent van Gogh's works, the striking, sunny yellows have faded and turned brownish, robbing the Dutch master's art of some of its trademark intensity. So a European team of scientists decided to find out exactly what was happening on those canvases.
Using sophisticated X-ray machines, they discovered the chemical reaction to blame - one never before observed in paint. Ironically, van Gogh's decision to use a lighter shade of yellow paint mixed with white is responsible for the unintended darkening, according to a study published online Monday in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

Vincent loved yellow. In particular, he loved chrome yellow, a 19th century invention that shone brighter than previously available hues of paint. Art preservationists have known that the lead-based paint fades under intense sunlight, so they've done what they can to keep van Goghs and similar works out of intense light. What's curious about his paintings, however, is that some yellows have faded while others have not.