Displaying items by tag: ink

The New York School artist Robert Motherwell could be ponderous in oil on canvas. But on paper, he was lighter and looser, to judge from the Kasmin Gallery’s career-spanning mini-survey of Mr. Motherwell’s drawings and collages (organized with the artist’s Dedalus Foundation). Working with ink, charcoal, acrylic and assorted labels and wrapping papers, Mr. Motherwell offset strong colors and muscular gestures with the suggestion of chance and accident.

The show includes notable works from every phase of Mr. Motherwell’s long career, from the loopy 1951 ink drawing “Fowl” to the vibrant mixed-media piece “The Red and Black No. 24” of 1987-88.

The tenth edition of Master Drawings in New York January 24 – February 1, 2015 promises to be the best ever. More than thirty of the world’s leading dealers are coming to New York City to offer for sale master art works in pencil, pen and ink, chalk and charcoal, as well as oil on paper sketches and watercolors, created by iconic artists working in the 16th to 21st centuries. Each exhibition is hosted by an expert specialist and many works on offer are newly discovered or have not been seen on the market in decades, if at all.

In addition, Margot Gordon and Crispian Riley-Smith, co-founders of Master Drawings in New York, announced that John Marciari, the new head of the Department of Drawings and Prints at the Morgan Library & Museum in New York, will provide the introduction for the 2015 Master Drawings in New York brochure.

Art collecting has always been an international affair. Works made in one place are often sought after by people living in another.

Many of the greatest American Pop artworks of the 1960s are in German collections. French Impressionism from the end of the 19th century is superbly represented in the United States.

And going back hundreds of years, collections in Japan began to swell with paintings made across the sea in China. A magnificent show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art chronicles the phenomenon.

"Chinese Paintings From Japanese Collections" is something of a coup. It features 35 scrolls, some consisting of multiple panels, from the Tokyo National Museum and other collections in Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. Japanese museums are often reluctant to allow important works to leave the country, even for temporary exhibitions. But LACMA curator Stephen Little has managed a remarkable group of loans — including some that are just now making their premiere abroad.

This March, the Museum of Modern Art in New York will present a selection of new works by the celebrated contemporary artist Jasper Johns. “Jasper Johns: Regrets” features approximately 30 works created by the artist in the last year and a half.

Johns, who emerged as a pioneering figure in American art in the late-1950s, is known for his exploration of iconography, especially flags, targets and numbers. Johns’ new series introduces a new motif -- the British painter Lucian Freud. Johns took a photograph of Freud sitting on a bed with his arm raised to obscure his face, and not only incorporated the image into his work, but also the physical qualities of the original black-and-white print, which had been torn and creased. The new series includes an array of mediums such as watercolor, pencil and ink-on-plastic.

“Jasper Johns: Regrets” will be on view at the Museum of Modern Art from March 15, 2014 through September 1, 2014.

Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum is selling a limited number of replicas of the artist’s sketchbooks for the first time ever. While only four of Vincent van Gogh’s (1853-1890) sketchbooks exist today, together they offer a rare insight into the artist’s life and artistic process.

Executed in pencil and black charcoal as well as ink and chalk, the entries include scribblings, quickly drawn notes, copies of poems, and a number of thought-out studies for later paintings including The Sower (1888). The publication marks the first time that all four sketchbooks will be replicated. A limited number of 1,000 editions are currently on sale at the museum’s shop and online sales are slated to start next week. A box set containing the four sketchbooks and a short commentary is retailing for $850.

Three of the four original sketchbooks are currently part of the Van Gogh Museum’s exhibition Van Gogh at Work. The show, which inaugurated the museum’s newly renovated space, coincides with the 160^th anniversary of the artist’s birth and offers an extensive overview of van Gogh’s oeuvre.

The Louvre’s new outpost in Abu Dhabi, which is slated to open in 2015, has assembled the 130 paintings, miniatures, sculptures, and other artworks that will form its permanent collection. Museum officials allowed reporters a sneak peek of the works including paintings by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Rene Magritte (1898-1967), Édouard Manet (1832-1883), and Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). The entire collection will be on view from April 22 to July 20, 2013 as part of the exhibition The Birth of a Museum at a gallery on the island of Saadiyat, close to where construction for the new museum is currently underway.

Louvre Abu Dhabi’s collection is comprised of numerous works from private collections, many of which have never been on public view before. Highlights from the museum’s holdings include Picasso’s gouache, ink, and collage work on paper Portrait of a Lady (1928); Gauguin’s Children Wrestling (1888); and Paul Klee’s (1879-1940) Oriental Bliss (1938).

The Louvre’s new venue, which was designed by the French architect Jean Nouvel, is the museum’s first branch outside of France. The venture is expected to bring the Louvre and its French partner museums approximately $1.31 million over 30 years. The Louvre also has an offshoot location in the northern city of Lens.

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.

Phivos Istavrioglou, a resident of Athens, Greece, has been arrested in connection to the botched theft of a Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) painting from a New York gallery last June. Security cameras captured Istavrioglou as he made off with the watercolor and ink work, which is valued at approximately $150,000. After surveillance images were released to the public, a panicked Istavrioglou mailed the Dalí painting back to the Upper East Side gallery in a cardboard tube.

 Fingerprints left on the returned painting helped officials track down Istavrioglou, 29, and he was arrested on Tuesday, February 19, 2013 at John F. Kennedy airport in a sting that lured him to the United States from Italy. After his arrest, Istavrioglou appeared briefly in a Manhattan court where he pleaded not guilty to grand larceny in the second degree. Istavrioglou’s bail was set at $100,000.

 The stolen painting, Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio (1949), was on view at the Venus Over Manhattan gallery as part of its inaugural exhibition, which opened in May 2012.

In 1913, the Art Institute of Chicago became the first American art museum to present the work of the young Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). One hundred years later, the museum is celebrating its important relationship with the artist with the exhibition Picasso and Chicago.

Picasso and Chicago features 250 works by the artist who went on to become one of the defining figures in 20^th century art. Paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and ceramics from the museum’s holdings as well as private collections in the city will be on view. This is the first comprehensive Picasso exhibition organized by the Art Institute in nearly 30 years.

The Art Institute of Chicago began collecting works by Picasso after the seminal 1913 Armory Show, which revolutionized American modern art. Works on view from the museum’s collection include The Old Guitarist (1903-04), Mother and Child (1921), Red Armchair (1931), and the sculpture Cubist Head of a Woman (Fernande) (1909). The exhibit also features impressions of The Frugal Meal (1904), one of only three examples in the world of the well-known Blue Period etching actually printed in blue ink.

Picasso and Chicago will be on view through May 12, 2013.

American pop artist Andy Warhol (1928-1987) brought $380.3 million in sales in 2012, exceeding Chinese ink painter Zhang Daqian (1899-1983) as the world’s highest seller at auction. Warhol also surpassed modern master Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Gerhard Richter (b. 1932), who holds the record for top living artist at auction.

Warhol’s all-time sales reached $2.9 billion while Picasso, who is regarded as the world’s costliest artist at auction, hit $5 billion. Picasso’s total auction sales for 2012 were down to $334.7 million from $366 million. Officials blame lack of supply for the dip in Picasso sales; while works by Picasso remain in demand, there are currently fewer exceptional pieces on the market. Daqian took an even harder hit than Picasso, slipping from $782.4 million at auction to $241.6, most likely the result of the economic and political uncertainty that pervaded China in 2012, which affected the international demand for Chinese art.

The restructuring that occurred last year knocked Daqian from first to fourth place in terms of selling power, a reflection of the increased demand for western postwar and contemporary works in the art market. A testament to contemporary art’s dominance, auctions in that category raising a record $1.1 billion in November 2012 through sales at Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips de Pury & Co.