Displaying items by tag: acquisition

To this day, Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) is widely considered the greatest German artist ever to live. A master of drawings, watercolors, and engravings, Dürer produced the earliest known self-portrait drawing in European art at the age of 13 as well as some of the first stand-alone landscapes. The craftsmanship of his woodcuts was so exceptional that he singlehandedly changed the public’s perception of the medium from commonplace to fine art.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is currently hosting the exhibition Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina. The Albertina in Vienna, Austria holds one of the finest and largest collections of Dürer’s work including masterpieces such as The Great Piece of Turf, a watercolor nature study of the Renaissance; the beyond iconic chiaroscuro drawing Praying Hands; and his famous self portrait.

Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina presents 91 remarkable works from the Albertina as well as 46 related engravings, woodcuts, drawings, and prints from the National Gallery’s own collection. This exhibition, which is the culmination of decades of acquisition, study, and exhibitions of early German art at the National Gallery, will be on view through June 9, 2013.

After partnership offers from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) has decided to remain an independent institution. The museum has been struggling after a spate of financial issues and widespread criticism of its administration and overall direction.  

MOCA’s board released a statement on March 19, 2013 explaining, “The board is in agreement that the best future for MOCA would be as an independent institution. The Board understands that this will require a significant increase in MOCA’s endowment to ensure its strong financial standing. We are working quickly toward that goal, while at the same time exploring all strategic options, to honor the best interest of the institution and the artistic community we serve.” There are currently no artists on MOCA’s board after a number of high-profiled artists including John Baldessari, Ed Ruscha, and Barbara Kruger resigned earlier this year.

Earlier this month, LACMA Director Michael Govan offered to raise $100 million for MOCA’s two locations in exchange for the acquisition of the institution. The National Gallery was not interested in an institutional merger but offered to collaborate with MOCA on programming and research initiatives. Eli Broad, one of MOCA’s major benefactors, was in favor of partnering with the National Gallery.  

The international financial services group, Credit Suisse, has decided to donate a portrait of Alexander Hamilton by Revolution-era painter, John Trumbull (1756-1843), to not one, but two museums. The painting has been on loan to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas since it opened to the public in 2011.

Credit Suisse decided that giving the portrait to Crystal Bridges and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, two well-known institutions, would maximize the public’s enjoyment of the work by expanding its audience. The shared ownership will see that the portrait remains in Arkansas until the summer, when it will travel to the Met for a year. The painting will return to Crystal Bridges in 2014 for another year. Eventually the painting will be on view at each museum for two-year stretches.

Credit Suisse acquired the striking full-length portrait in 2000 when it absorbed the New York-based investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. Richard Jenrette, one of the bank’s founding partners, had assembled a remarkable art collection for the company that became part of Credit Suisse’s acquisition.  

The New York Chamber of Commerce commissioned Trumbull to paint the Hamilton portrait in 1791 while he was serving as President Washington’s Secretary of the Treasury.

The remarkable Barbier-Mueller Collection of Pre-Columbian Art will be up for sale at Sotheby’s Paris on March 22 and 23, 2013. Comprised of approximately 300 works from Mexico, Central America, and South America and worth around $26 million, the Barbier-Mueller collection is the most important grouping of its kind ever offered at auction.

Swiss collector Josef Mueller (1887-1977) started building his collection after acquiring major works by Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918) and Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) in Paris during the early 20^th century. Mueller went on to develop an affinity for important works of Pre-Columbian art. The collection was later honed and expanded to include African art, Oceanic art, and Cycladic art by Mueller’s daughter, Monique, and her husband, Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller.

The works offered at Sotheby’s span the historical cultures that dominated the period from 1200BC to 1500AC and include objects in wood and stone, ceramics, textiles, and ritual items. Highlights from the collection include a Chupicuaro ceramic statue from 500-100BC that is expected to sell for approximately $2.6 million; a Maya ceramic head that Mueller purchased from the film director John Huston estimated to bring $200,000-$325,000; and an Aztec stone figure of a water goddess from 1300-1500 expected to garner over $650,000.  

The Barbier-Mueller Collection of Pre-Columbian Art is on view at Sotheby’s until March 21, 2013.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) has offered to acquire L.A.’s struggling Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA). MOCA has been at the center of a number of controversies after the museum’s chief curator, Paul Schimmel, left the institution in June 2012 after 22 years on the job. Critics have bashed the museum for becoming too celebrity focused and all of the artists who once served on the museum’s board including John Baldessari (b. 1931), Barbara Kruger (b. 1945), and Ed Ruscha (b. 1937), have resigned after disagreeing with the institution’s new direction.

LACMA Director, Michael Govan, offered to raise $100 million for MOCA’s two locations in exchange for the acquisition. LACMA made a similar offer to MOCA, which is currently helmed by former New York gallery owner Jeffrey Deitch, back in 2008. LACMA officials believe that the merger would strengthen both institutions and provide MOCA with stability and strong leadership.

MOCA’s contributions, grants, and operating profits have all declined in recent years.

Thanks to the keen eyes of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s curators, the institution snapped up an important Old Master drawing at an auction at Swann Galleries for $840 (with premium). The auction, which took place on January 29, 2013, was part of the highly anticipated Old Masters Week in New York.

The drawing was described in the auction catalogue as being from the early 19^th century and of French origin. An illustration in brush, black ink, and gray wash of Socrates dying, the drawing was said to be modeled after Jacques-Louis David’s (1748-1825) painting The Death of Socrates, a work that resides in the Met’s permanent collection. The original painting by David was acquired by the museum in 1931 and is among the artist’s greatest works.

As it turns out, the alleged copy, which was given an estimated selling price of $500-$700, was a previously unrecorded preliminary compositional study for David’s painting. Along with the painting, the Met owns a well-developed chalk drawing of The Death of Socrates, which helped the Met’s curators to authenticate the compositional drawing despite differences in setting, positions, and gestures of the figures featured in the painting.

The drawing was acquired by the museum via Katrin Bellinger, a frequent agent for the institution.

An exhibition titled At War with the Obvious: Photographs by William Eggleston is now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. William Eggleston (b. 1939) became pioneering force in modern photography during the 1960s and helped legitimize color photography as a respected art form. He also popularized the dye-transfer color process, a practice that until then was primarily used by commercial photographers. Eggleston, who remains a prominent figure in the modern art world, draws inspiration from a number of sources including the photography of Robert Frank (b. 1924) and Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908-2004) as well as the musical compositions of Johann Bach.

A native of the Mississippi delta region, Eggleston’s photographs often depict the inhabitants as well as the physical landscape of the area. Drawn to seemingly ordinary subject matters, Eggleston is able to evoke a sense of complexity and raw beauty from the mundane. Often featuring roadside snapshots, backyard barbeques, parking lots, and diners, Eggleston’s photographs act as a lush interpretation of the American vernacular.

At War with the Obvious commemorates the Met’s acquisition of 36 dye-transfer prints by Eggleston, which took place in the fall of 2012. The addition fleshed out the museum’s Eggleston collection and included his first portfolio of color photographs from 1974, 15 prints from his seminal book, William Eggleston’s Guide (1976), and seven other important works from a career that has spanned over 50 years.

At War with the Obvious features a number of Eggleston’s most recognizable images including Untitled (Peaches!) (1970), Untitled (Greenwood, Mississippi) (1980), and Untitled (Memphis) (1970). The exhibition will be on view through July 28, 2013.

When Henry Kravis, the co-chairman of the global investment firm KKR & Co., and prominent art collector Donald L. Bryant Jr. purchased a triptych by Jasper Johns (b. 1930) in 2008, the duo agreed to take turns exhibiting the works in their homes before eventually donating them to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In a lawsuit recently filed by Kravis and his wife, Marie-Josée, the couple claims that Bryant violated their agreement when he refused to hand the works over to them on January 14, 2013. The Kravises stated that Bryant is essentially holding the works hostage until their agreement is amended, nixing the pledge to donate the paintings.     

Considered one of the most important living American artists, Johns completed the three works titled Tantric Detail I, Tantric Detail II, and Tantric Detail III in 1980 and 1981. A powerful presence in the contemporary art market, Johns’ triptych is said to be worth between $15 million and $25 million. MoMA announced the Johns acquisition in a 2008 press release saying that the works were a “promised gift” from Bryant, who was one of the museum’s trustees at the time, Marie-Josée, the president of MoMA’s board of trustees, and her husband, Henry.

In their lawsuit, the Kravises ask that Bryant relinquish the works to them so that they can fulfill their vow to donate the paintings to MoMA.  

Renowned art collector, Daphne Farago, announced that she will donate 161 works from her stunning collection to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. A longtime supporter of the MFA, Farago’s contribution is the largest gift of contemporary craft the museum has ever received and will greatly improve a once-lacking part of the collection.

Farago’s gift features works from the 20^th and 21^st centuries by artists such as Dale Chihuly (b. 1941), Sam Maloof (1916-2009), and John Cederquist (b. 1946). The pieces range from works of fiber, ceramics, glass, woodcarvings, and metal to furniture, jewelry, basketry, and folk art. The newly acquired works, man of which have remained out of public view until now, will be exhibited in the museum’s Farago Gallery beginning in August 2013.

This is the third major donation from Farago and her late husband, Peter to the MFA; their contributions total $2.5 million to $5 million in art and money, which prompted the museum to open the Farago Gallery in September 2011 as part of the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art. Edward Saywell, Chair of the Linde Family Wing, said, “Although the MFA has a distinguished history of collecting and exhibiting contemporary craft, this gift broadens and deepens our holdings in truly significant ways. The gift will be a touchstone for the collection and will be a remarkable legacy.”  

Ellsworth Kelly: Colored Paper Images is currently on view at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. through December 1, 2013. Kelly (b. 1923), a painter, printmaker, and sculptor, is best known for his hard-edge and Color Field paintings as well as for his involvement in the minimalist movement.

The exhibition at the National Gallery features a series of paper-pulp works that were first unveiled in 1977. The 23 works, which are drawn from the museum’s collection, feature erratic edges and irregular textures, a departure from Kelly’s previous works, which are comprised of sharp angles and precise curves. Earl A. Powell III, director of the National Gallery of Art said, “Kelly has long been recognized for his mastery of form and color, but even to those who know his work well, these Colored Paper Images will come as a revelation.”

A pioneering force in postwar abstraction, Kelly created his colored paper images by placing molds on single sheets of paper and filling them with colored and pressed paper pulp. Once the pulp settled, the molds were removed and the sheet along with the colored pulp was run through a printing press, fusing the damp paper layers together. Multiple impressions were made of each image.

The National Gallery of Art has a longstanding relationship with Kelly, which began in 1975 when the institution acquired its first work by the artist. The Gallery now owns over 200 pieces by Kelly including paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints.