Displaying items by tag: bronze

The naked lady stays.

The planning board of the Village of Old Westbury, N.Y., agreed on Monday to allow the art collector Aby Rosen to keep “The Virgin Mother,” a 33-foot-tall painted bronze sculpture of a pregnant woman with an exposed fetus, by Damien Hirst, on his property. Neighbors had objected to the graphic sculpture, which could be glimpsed from a private road leading to Mr. Rosen’s estate. The outdoor art even prompted the board to consider enacting a law to prohibit any structures — including sculptures — from rising more than 25 feet.

London’s Tate Modern has received one of its “most generous gifts ever” thanks to a donation from the late American artist Cy Twombly. Twombly, who is best known for his calligraphic, graffiti-like paintings, expressed his wish to make the donation to the Tate following a major retrospective at the museum in 2008. The gift includes three large paintings, all titled “Untitled (Bacchus),” created between 2006 and 2008, and five bronze sculptures dating from the period 1979-91. The trove is worth around £50 million.

Twombly’s “Bacchus” paintings are an extension of a series of eight works created in 2005 and inspired by Homer’s “The Iliad.” The sculptures, all bronze casts of everyday objects collected by Twombly, are meant to represent classical artifacts. The bronze lends a permanence reminiscent of ancient sculpture to otherwise ephemeral objects. All of the paintings and sculptures are currently on view at the Tate Modern.

Going the extra mile to authenticate a sculpture they suspected was an original Rodin has reaped a big reward for Quinn’s Auction Galleries. On Saturday, May 17, the metro-Washington, DC company auctioned a bronze-and-marble Auguste Rodin (French, 1840-1917) sculpture titled Le Desespoir [Despair] for $306,800, inclusive of 18% buyer’s premium. The 13¾ by 12 by 11-inch sculpture had been entered in Quinn’s Fine Art sale with a presale estimate of $60,000-$80,000.

The buyer of the artwork, whose name has not been released, is a collector from Germany who bid over the phone.

All the romance, history and adventure of the American West comes to life in the first full-scale exhibition of western bronzes ever put together: The American West in Bronze, 1850–1925, running at the Denver Art Museum, May 11-August 31, 2014.

One of the Getty's most prized ancient artworks is hanging in a legal balance this week in Italy's highest court, leaving the L.A. museum's leaders feeling as if they have landed in a Franz Kafka tale, a judicial and bureaucratic nightmare they can neither understand nor escape.

But unlike a hapless Kafka character, the Getty has an inkling as to why its nearly life-size statue, known as "Victorious Youth" or the "Getty Bronze," is back in a maze of judicial and investigative proceedings. And rather than suffer passively, the Getty — the world's richest art institution, with a $6-billion endowment — may well draw a line.

Winslow Homers in the shadow of a defunct Beech-Nut baby food plant. A Rembrandt, Picasso, Rubens and Renoir up the hill from a paper mill. The founder of the Hudson River School vying for attention amid baseball memorabilia and old farm machinery.

There are plenty of treasures to be found among the collections of lesser-known, off-the-beaten-path art museums dotting upstate New York. But they're well worth the trek for anyone looking for great art in unexpected places, whether it's the rolling, bucolic countryside typical of many areas or the industrial grittiness of riverside mill towns.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), which stood by Steven A. Cohen last year as his SAC Capital Advisors LP bore the brunt of a massive insider trading probe, has come to the billionaire’s aid again.

The top prime broker to the former hedge-fund firm, Goldman Sachs is making a personal loan to Cohen for the first time, according to a regulatory filing, joining the list of banks that have provided SAC’s founder with credit lines backed by his $1 billion art collection. Like Citigroup Inc. (C), JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Bank of America Corp., New York-based Goldman Sachs is making the loan through its private bank as part of an effort to expand its business catering to ultra-wealthy individuals.

The Museum of Biblical Art in New York City will host an unprecedented exhibition of sculptures by Donatello along with works by Filippo Brunelleschi, Luca della Robbia, Nanni di Banco, and others. The works, which were created for the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo in Florence, have never been on view in the United States.

“Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral” will feature 23 works created for Florence’s Duomo by leading masters of the Italian Renaissance. Highlights include Donatello’s “Lo Zuccone (Habbakuk),” which was created during the most productive period of his career; two recently restored bronze heads, one by Donatello and the other by Michelozzo di Bartolomeo, which were made for the singing gallery that Donatello fashioned for the Duomo’s interior; and three early 15th-century stone reliefs derived from scenes from the Florence Baptistery’s Gates of Paradise by Lorenzo Ghiberti. A full-scale cast of Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise will be on view in New York City at a location that will be announced in the months leading up to the monumental exhibition.

The Museum of Biblical Art, an independent museum that explores the Bible’s impact on art, is the sole venue for the exhibition. The Duomo is currently undergoing an expansion and renovation that is expected to reach completion in October 2015.      

“Sculpture in the Age of Donatello: Renaissance Masterpieces from Florence Cathedral” will be on view at the Museum of Biblical Art from February 20 through June 14, 2015.

On Monday, April 14, workers began placing scaffolding and protective netting around the former home of the American Folk Art Museum on West 53rd Street in New York City. Last week, the Museum of Modern Art, which acquired the Tod Williams and Billie Tsien-designed building in 2011 after the Folk Art Museum defaulted on more than $30 million in bond debt, filed plans with the city’s Department of Buildings for a partial demolition. MoMA made the controversial decision to raze the building last April.

Before demolition can begin, the Folk Art Museum’s striking bronze facade must be disassembled and stored. MoMA has made no further decisions about what will happen to the facade beyond its preservation. Demolition of the remaining structure is expected to last through the summer.    

The former Folk Art Museum will be leveled to create space for MoMA's upcoming expansion. The project is being helmed by the architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro and will include a renovation of the museum’s main building. The new site will join MoMA’s existing galleries with a forthcoming 82-story residential tower, which will include exhibition space for the museum.

The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. has organized several installations throughout the museum showcasing recent acquisitions alongside popular masterpieces and rarely exhibited works from its permanent collection. Divided among several intimate galleries, the installations are organized by theme, including sculpture, drawings, and portraiture.

Perpetual crowd-pleasers such as Edgar Degas’ “Dancers at the Barre,” Joan Miró’s “The Red Sun,” and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “Luncheon of the Boating Party” will appear next to rarely seen works, including Jean-Honore Fragonard’s drawing “Odorico Kills Corebo and Sets Out in Pursuit of Isabella” and Pablo Picasso’s bronze sculpture “Head of a Woman,” promoting the rediscovery of treasures in the museum’s holdings. Showing support for established and emerging artists alike, recent acquisitions, including contemporary works by living artists, will be exhibited on the museum’s second floor.

Dr. Dorothy Kosinski, the Phillips Collection’s director, said, “The juxtaposition of provocative new additions with iconic European masterworks demonstrates the museum’s commitment to founder Duncan Phillips’s mission to create an ‘intimate museum combined with an experiment station.’”

The Phillips Collection plans to display a selection of new acquisitions throughout the spring and summer, with a rotation of artworks in May.