Displaying items by tag: Jasper Johns

The Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City is currently presenting the exhibition “Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein -- Walls.” The show includes paintings, drawings, and collages dating from the early 1970s to the 1990s, some of which have never been exhibited before.

All of the works on view feature walls as the main subject matter. The exhibition illustrates how Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein both explored space and the notion of reality versus illusion in their work. Pieces such as Johns’ “Untitled,” which features a well-known Picasso image hanging on a wooden wall, and Lichtenstein’s “Trompe L’oeil with Léger Head and Paintbrush,” which includes an image from Fernand Léger, show how both artists also played with appropriation and referentiality in their wall works.

The Castelli Gallery was founded by the pioneering art dealer Leo Castelli in 1957. The gallery quickly became the international epicenter for Pop, Minimal, and Conceptual art and exhibited works by Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, Donald Judd, Dan Flavin, Lichtenstein, and Johns. Castelli passed away in 1999 and the gallery is now directed by his wife, Barbara Bertozzi Castelli. The Castelli Gallery maintains a commitment to exhibiting the best of postwar American art.

“Jasper Johns and Roy Lichtenstein -- Walls” will be on view at the Leo Castelli Gallery through June 27. 

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. will receive 30 photographs from Robert E. Meyerhoff, a longtime supporter of the museum, and his partner, Rheda Becker. The gift includes photographs by a number of German artists including Andreas Gursky and Bernd and Hilla Becker as well as works by Jeff Wall, Cindy Sherman, and Hiroshi Sugimoto.

The gift will substantially improve the National Gallery of Art’s photography collection, which contains few works by prominent living artists. The museum began assembling its photography collection in 1949 when Georgia O’Keeffe donated 1,720 photographs made by her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, to the institution. The National Gallery of Art did not establish a separate photography department until 1990.

In 1987, Meyerhoff and his late wife, Jane, agreed to donate their entire art collection to the National Gallery of Art. The gift included works by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Ellsworth Kelly, and Brice Marden and was displayed at the museum in 1996 and again in 2010. This recent gift will go on view when the museum’s East Building reopens in the fall of 2016 after a renovation and expansion.    

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.

Since September 2013, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. has acquired a number of important works from the 15th through 20th centuries including tempera-and-gold drawings on vellum from the Middle Ages and works on paper by Paul Cézanne, Claude Monet and Paul Gauguin. Earl A. Powell III, the director of the National Gallery of Art, said, “These acquisitions are masterworks from the Middle Ages to the current moment that represent the highest levels of creativity in media ranging from printmaking and manuscript illumination to easel painting and photography. We are delighted that they can be shared with the public as part of our permanent collection.”

Among the museum’s recent acquisitions are a woodcut-illustrated book of Giovanni Boccaccio’s ‘Seminal History of Famous Women’, the Gallery’s earliest German woodcut book; ‘Still Life with Peacock Pie,’ a banquet piece measuring more than four feet across by the Dutch Golden Age painter Pieter Claesz; one of Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s finest versions of ‘Avenue of Cypresses at Villa d’Este’; a watercolor by Cézanne titled ‘A Stand of Trees Along a River Bank’; an early drawing by Gauguin titled ‘Seated Nude Seen from Above’; a pastel of Waterloo Bridge by Monet; and Pop artist Jim Dine’s ‘Name Painting.’ The National Gallery of Art also received works by artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Marc Chagall, Jasper Johns and Robert Motherwell from the celebrated Herbert and Dorothy Vogel Collection. 

The National Gallery of Art was established in 1937 for the people of the United States by a joint resolution of the U.S. Congress. Financier and art collector, Andrew W. Mellon, donated a portion of his sizeable art collection to the museum, forming its core holdings. The National Gallery of Art’s collection of paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, sculptures and decorative arts spans from the Middle Ages to the present and includes the only painting by Leonardo da Vinci in the Americas as well as the largest mobile ever created by Alexander Calder.

The American contemporary artist, Jasper Johns, testified in a Manhattan federal court on Thursday, January 23, saying that he never authorized foundry owner, Brian Ramnarine, to make a bronze copy of his Sculptmetal painting, ‘Flag.’ Johns had given Ramnarine a mold of the work in 1990 with instructions to make a single wax cast mold.

Prosecutors are trying to prove that Ramnarine, owner of the Empire Bronze Art Foundry in Long Island City, Queens, attempted to sell an unauthorized bronze sculpture of the painting in 2010. Johns stated in court that Ramnarine had never returned the original mold to him and that somebody later showed him a flag sculpture that he had never seen before, but he believed had been made from the mold in Ramnarine’s possession.

Ramnarine attempted to seek a buyer for the alleged Johns sculpture, telling interested parties that he was willing to sell the work for $11 million. Potential buyers were suspicious of Ramnarine as Johns had made only six ‘Flag’ sculptures and had kept several in his own possession (another is owned by the Art Institute of Chicago and another was given to President John F. Kennedy by the art dealer Leo Castelli). In an attempt to quell wariness, Ramnarine would provide interested parties with a letter said to be from Johns as well as a certificate of authenticity. Johns said he had nothing to do with either document.

Ramnarine has pleaded not guilty to the charges levelled against him.        

Keith L. Sachs, the former chief executive of Saxco International, a packaging distribution company, and his wife, Katherine, have been longtime supporters of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The institution announced this week that it will receive 97 works from the couple’s collection of contemporary paintings, sculptures and drawings. The gift, which is estimated to be worth nearly $70 million, includes works by Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly and Gerhard Richter.

In honor of the Sachs’ generous donation, the museum will name its modern and contemporary art galleries the Keith L. and Katherine Sachs Galleries. An exhibition of the collection is slated for the summer of 2016. 

New York’s Museum of Modern Art is honoring the legendary gallerist and collector Ileana Sonnabend with the exhibition ‘Ileana Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New.’

The show brings together works that were shown in her galleries in Paris and New York between the 1960s and 1980s. Sonnabend, who opened the Sonnabend Gallery in Paris in 1961, was instrumental in bringing American art of the 1960s, most notably Pop Art and Minimalism, to Europe. Sonnabend opened a New York outpost in 1970 and conversely introduced Americans to European art movements such as Arte Povera.

‘Ambassador for the New’ features works by approximately 40 artists, including Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, John Baldessari, and Jeff Koons. Works on view have been pulled from MoMA’s own collection as well as other public and private holdings.

‘Ileana Sonnabend: Ambassador for the New’ will be on view at MoMA through April 21, 2014.  

James Meyer, a former studio assistant to the contemporary artist Jasper Johns, was charged with stealing 22 unauthorized works, which he then sold through an unnamed art gallery in Manhattan. Meyer, who worked at Johns’ studio in Connecticut from 1985 to 2012, made $3.4 million off of the sales, which totaled $6.4 million.

Meyer was assigned to protecting the works that Johns did not want sold but ended up creating fake inventory numbers and false documents for the paintings, which he photographed inside a binder that catalogued Johns’ authorized works. Meyer told the gallery in New York that he had received the paintings from Johns as a present and offered notarized documents that supported his claim.

Meyer, who was arrested at his home in Salisbury, CT on August 14, 2013, appeared in federal court in Hartford, CT where he was charged with interstate transportation of stolen property and wire fraud. The maximum prison sentences are 10 years for the stolen property charge and 20 years for wire fraud. Meyer was released on a $250,000 unsecured bond and will appear in federal court in Manhattan on or before August 23, 2013.

James Meyer, a former studio assistant to the contemporary artist Jasper Johns, was arrested on Wednesday, August 14, 2013 for stealing 22 unauthorized works, which he then sold through an unnamed art gallery in Manhattan. Meyer, who worked at Johns’ studio in Connecticut from 1985 to 2012, made $3.4 million off of the sales, which totaled $6.5 million.

Meyer was assigned to protecting the works that Johns did not want sold but ended up creating fake inventory numbers and false documents for the paintings, which he photographed inside a binder that catalogued Johns’ authorized works. Meyer told the gallery in New York that he had received the paintings from Johns as a present and offered notarized documents that supported his claim.

Meyer could spend anywhere from 10 to 20 years in prison and has been accused of transporting stolen good across state lines and wire fraud.

The Museum of Modern Art in New York will honor the legendary gallerist and collector Ileana Sonnabend with an exhibition of works that were shown in her galleries in Paris and New York between the 1960s and 1980s. Sonnabend, who opened the Sonnabend Gallery in Paris in 1962, was instrumental in bringing American art of the 1960s, most notably Pop Art and Minimalism, to Europe. Sonnabend opened a New York outpost in 1970 and conversely, popularized European art of the 1970s, including the Arte Povera movement, in the U.S.

Ileana Sonabend: Ambassador for the New will open on December 21, 2013 and celebrates the Sonnabend family’s generous bequest of Robert Rauschenberg’s seminal mixed media assemblage Canyon (1959) to MoMA. The exhibition will present works by approximately 30 artists including Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, John Baldessari and Jeff Koons. Works will be pulled from MoMA’s own collection as well as other public and private holdings.  

Ileana Sonabend: Ambassador for the New will be on view at MoMA through April 21, 2014.