Displaying items by tag: print

The Van Gogh Museum has for the first time acquired a work by Edgar Degas: the "La lecture après le bain" monotype. A monotype is a print of an ink drawing made on a plate. Degas’ monotypes are rare and they were a hidden treasure, because they never left his studio during his lifetime. "La lecture après le bain" is the first black monotype in any Dutch public art collection. The Mondriaan Fund and the Rembrandt Association have made this acquisition possible.

The art of Impressionist printmaking
The Van Gogh Museum has been collecting prints for decades, following the example of Vincent van Gogh and his brother Theo.

Artists Jeff Koons and Cindy Sherman have donated to the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies’s Original Print and Photography Collections, respectively.

The FAPE’s collections are displayed in U.S. embassies all over the world, and aim to promote the creativity and diversity of American culture. The tradition of artists donating artworks to the FAPE’s Original Print and Photography Collections began in 1989, when Frank Stella donated an edition of "The Symphony" to every American embassy, and every year, an American artist has donated a new edition of original prints.

Princeton University has announced the largest gift in its history: a trove of rare books valued at nearly $300 million, including a Gutenberg Bible, an original printing of the Declaration of Independence, all four of Shakespeare’s Folios and significant musical manuscripts written by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Schubert and Wagner.

The Scheide Library, named for the family of the philanthropist and scholar William H. Scheide, has been housed in a special room in Princeton’s Firestone Library since 1959, when Mr. Scheide, who died last November at age 100, moved it there from his family home in Titusville, Pa. The bequest makes Princeton the permanent home of what the university’s president, Christopher L. Eisgruber, called “one of the greatest collections of rare books and manuscripts in the world today.”

A work by the British sculptor Henry Moore became a very special gift last week, when British Prime Minister David Cameron presented an artwork to US President Barack Obama when the pair met at the White House to discuss a range of world issues, including violent extremism, in light of the recent attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The piece is a print by the famous British artist, which depicts Stonehenge.

Cameron's present was rather considered, due to a certain trip made by the American president, when Last September, Obama made a surprise visit to the famous Neolithic site, which he described as "cool." The images of a smiling Obama walking around the magnificent ruins soon were seen all over the world.

On Monday night, non-profit organization Americans for the Arts held its annual fundraising gala in the Cipriani ballroom across from New York’s Grand Central Station. The black tie affair brought together a blue chip who’s who including RoseLee Goldberg, Agnes Gund, and Jeffrey Deitch as well as artists like Frank Stella and Will Cotton. Cocktail hour offered guests the chance to pick up a limited-edition print by Shepard Fairey to benefit the charity. “I feel like a bit of an imposter in this realm because I come from a not-asking-for-permission background,” admitted Fairey, who looked oddly at home in a suit. “But I am enjoying the company.”

Andy Warhol’s print of a nickel coin was expected to sell for as much as $30,000 in a money-themed online auction on Paddle8.com. Instead, the 1986 work failed to draw a single bid, the biggest casualty of the “Currency” sale in which 65 percent of the 20 lots went unsold.

None of this information can be gleaned now. When the auction ended at 5 p.m. on July 24, the estimates and final bids vanished from the site. So much for transparency.

A young woman hangs sheer white linens on a clothesline. A refulgent angel descends from the heavens while shepherds tend their flocks by night. And an early motion-picture camera captures the fairyland allure of a world’s fair, slowly panning its illuminated buildings.

These vastly different images — from a 19th-century painting, a 17th-century print and a 20th-century film — are among the treasures in the current exhibition at Vassar’s Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. What brings them together is “Mastering Light: From the Natural to the Artificial,” a quirky, thought-provoking show that divides its subject into three sometimes overlapping areas: interiors and exteriors illuminated by daylight; nighttime events made visible by moonlight or firelight; and scenes either lighted by or on the subject of artificial light.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) acquired ten artworks during the institution’s 29th annual Collectors Committee fundraiser, which began on Friday, April 25 and continued through the weekend. The new additions to the museum’s robust permanent collection include an autograph reduction of Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres’ celebrated “Odalisque,” a print by Pablo Picasso from 1952, and an 18th-century painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe by the important Mexican painter Antonio de Torres. LACMA also acquired contemporary works by Roni Horn, Feng Mengbo, and Mitra Tabrizian.

LACMA’s Collectors Committee Weekend is one of the museum’s most significant fundraising events of the year. Throughout its 29-year history, the event has facilitated 202 acquisitions through donations totaling more than $32 million. Funds for this year’s acquisitions were raised by Collectors Committee membership dues, with additional funds provided by individual members. Another $800,000 was raised by a live auction.

For the sixth consecutive year, LACMA’s Collectors Committee Weekend was led by museum trustee Ann Colgin. Colgin said, “Collectors Committee Weekend is a celebration of LACMA’s timeless artworks, and I am delighted that these new acquisitions will further strengthen the museum’s collection.”

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.

On February 5, Sotheby’s London’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale fetched 163.5 million pounds, significantly more than its pre-sale estimate of 128.4 million pounds. Out of the 89 lots offered, 10 failed to find buyers.

The highlight of the sale was Camille Pissarro’s ‘Boulevard Montmartre, Matinee de Printemps,’ a street scene that sold for a record 19.9 million pounds, nearly five times the previous record for the Impressionist master at auction. The painting, which is widely considered to be one of the most important Impressionist works to appear at auction in the last decade, was originally owned by the Jewish industrialist, Max Silberberg. During World War II, the Nazis forced Silberberg, who perished in a concentration camp, to get rid of his entire collection of 19th and 20th century artworks. ‘Boulevard Montmartre, Matinee de Printemps’ was restituted to Silberberg’s family in 2000.

The auction also saw the highest price for a Vincent Van Gogh painting offered at auction in London when ‘L’Homme est en mer’ sold for 16.9 million pounds. Other highlights included a print by Pablo Picasso titled ‘Composition au Minotaure,’ which sold for a record 10.4 million pounds and a work on paper by Alberto Giacometti titled ‘Homme Traversant une Place par un Matin de Soleil,’ which achieved a record 8.5 million pounds.

Two weeks of London sales kicked off on February 4 at Christie’s where works by Picasso, Rene Magritte and Juan Gris helped an auction reach 177 million pounds, a record for a sale in London. During the sale, Gris’ still-life ‘Nature Morte a la Nappe a Carreaux’ sold for 34.8 million pounds, a world record for the Spanish artist at auction.