Displaying items by tag: shanghai museum

Three art historians who are affiliated with the state-run Shanghai Museum are saying that Sotheby’s sold a fake Chinese scroll for $8.2 million last September. ‘Gong Fu Tie,’ which soared past its high estimate of $500,000, was listed as a thousand-year-old masterpiece of Chinese calligraphy by Song Dynasty poet, Su Shi.

The historians are saying that the work, which was purchased by Shanghai businessman and collector, Liu Yiqian, was produced during the 19th century using an old method for copying and retracing artworks. The experts also stated that the forgery was made using a stone carving rather than the original work.

Sotheby’s released a statement saying that the auction house “firmly stands by the attribution of ‘The Gong Fu Tie Calligraphy’ to the Song Dynasty poet Su Shi.” If the scroll is deemed a forgery it could be a major blow to Sotheby’s, which is trying to expand its reach in China and touting its high standard of expertise to collectors both in and outside of the country. 

The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA will unveil its updated, 140-acre campus on July 4, 2014. The museum’s decade-long expansion plan is the most significant transformation the institution has undergone since opening in 1955.

The renovations were spearheaded by three different architects -- Japan’s Tadao Ando Architects designed the new, 44,000-square-foot Visitor Center; New York’s Selldorf Architects transformed the original Museum Building as well as the Manton Research Center; and Massachusetts-based firm, Reed Hilderband, updated the Clark’s landscape and added a dramatic, one-acre reflecting pool. The renovation added over 16,000-square-feet of gallery space to the museum, allowing the Clark to exhibit more of its remarkable collection, which includes Old Master paintings, Impressionist masterpieces, and fine British and American silver.

When the Clark reopens this summer, the museum will present four inaugural exhibitions and the reinstallation of its collections. The exhibitions include ‘Make It New: Abstract Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, 1950–1975,’ ‘Cast for Eternity: Ancient Ritual Bronzes from the Shanghai Museum,’ ‘Raw Color: The Circles of David Smith,’ and ‘Photography and Discovery.’