Displaying items by tag: piet mondrian

While many museums post photos of their illustrious collections online, the images are not for public use. The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is about to change all of that. The institution, which focuses on the art and history of the Netherlands, is allowing visitors to download high-resolution images off of their website at no cost. They’re even going so far as to encourage patrons to copy, alter, and share the images.

The Rijksmuseum, whose collection includes works by Rembrandt (1606-1669), Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), and Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), has already made 125,000 images available through Rijksstudio, an interactive section of their website. Officials aim to add 40,000 images per year until the entire collection, which is comprised of 1 million artworks, is available to the public. The decision to make all of the museum’s images public stems from the notion that they are a public institution, making the art and objects in their collection communal property. The proliferation of the Internet has also made image policing extremely difficult and officials would rather the public use high-quality images instead of poor reproductions.

Rijkstudio has seen over 2.17 million visitors since going live in October 2012 and approximately 200,000 people have downloaded images.

The Sterling and Francine Clark Institute in Williamstown, MA received its largest gift to date from New York-based collectors Frank Martucci, and his wife, Katherine. The Martuccis donated an impressive collection of works including eight landscapes by the 19^th-century American painter George Inness (1825-1894).

The gift is extremely beneficial for the Clark, which focuses on collecting certain artists in depth; the museum currently boasts impressive collections of works by John Singer Sargent (1856-1925), Winslow Homer (1836-1910), and Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). The Martuccis’ donation strengthens the Clark’s Inness holdings as they had only two paintings by the artist in their collection, which were acquired in 1955. The Martuccis also donated oil paintings by Eastman Johnson (1824-1906) and Gaston Latouche (1854-1913), an early watercolor landscape by Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), and five works by the Italian genre painter Mose Bianchi (1840-1904).

The new Inness landscapes will be featured in the exhibition George Inness: Gifts from Frank and Katherine Martucci from June 9 through September 8, 2013; the show will run concurrently with a major exhibition of paintings, watercolors, and prints by Winslow Homer.

A major exhibition titled Ice Age Art: Arrival of the Modern Mind is now on view at the British Museum in London. With works dating as far back as 40,000 years, the show presents ice age objects from across Europe alongside works by modern masters including Henry Moore (1898-1986), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), and Henri Matisse (1869-1954). The juxtaposition is meant to illustrate the fundamental human desire to explore life and oneself through art.

Many of the ice age-era works on view are made of mammoth ivory and reindeer antler and tend to be diminutive in stature. Highlights include a 40,000-year-old flute made from a vulture’s wing bone, a mammoth tusk carved to resemble a pair of reindeer, and a 23,000-year-old abstract ivory sculpture found in Lespugue, France that had a profound influence on Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) sculptural work of the 1930s.

The works, which range from 10,000 to 40,000 years old, will be on view through May 26, 2013.

Between 1938 and his death in 1956, G. David Thompson, a steel tycoon and passionate art collector made a number of sizable donations to his alma mater, Peru High School in Indiana. Thompson’s generous gifts were in honor of his art teacher, John Whittenberger, who inspired the former troublemaker to change and his ways and helped set him on the path that led to his eventual success.

Thompson graduated from Peru High School in 1913 and established his own investment banking company in Pittsburgh during the Great Depression. By 1945, he was at the helm of four steel companies in the city. With ample funds, Thompson became a fervent art collector, often buying works by unknown artists who went on to become quite established. His multi-million dollar collection included works by Paul Klee (1879-1940), Georges Braque (1882-1963), Claude Monet (1840-1926), Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Jackson Pollack (1912-1956), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966), and Edgar Degas (1834-1917).

While Thompson made a number of donations to major museums, he ultimately gifted 75 paintings and prints, one sculpture, and 54 pieces of oriental pottery to Peru High School. The exhibition Hidden Treasures: The John Whittenberger Collection of G. David Thompson at Peru High School at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art features a portion of the dozens of works Thompson sent to Whittenberger. Works on view include pieces by William Merritt Chase (1849-1916), Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), and Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Hidden Treasures is on view through February 24, 2013.  

Inventing Abstraction, 1910-1925 opened on December 23 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and celebrates the bold art movement that swept across mediums and continents during the first half of the twentieth century. Severing ties with the realistic, practical images that dominated western art, abstraction infiltrated everything from sculpture and painting to poetry, music, and film.

Inventing Abstraction brings together over 350 works including paintings, stained glass, needlepoint, film, sculpture, and illustrated books. Organized by Leah Dickerman, a curator in MoMA’s painting and sculpture department, and Masha Chlenova, a curatorial assistant, the show includes many pieces that are on loan from outside museums.

Inventing Abstraction features works by Marsden Hartley (1877-1943), Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944), and many others. While extremely comprehensive, the exhibition draws connections between artists and illustrates the development of abstraction over time.

On September 14^th, star bond trader, Jeffrey Gundlach, returned to his Santa Monica home to find his art collection, 2010 Porsche Carrera, watches, and rare bottles of wine missing. Two weeks later, police recovered the contemporary art trove. Including works by Piet Mondrian, Jasper Johns, and Richard Diebenkorn, the collection totaled nearly $10 million. Gundlach had offered a $1.7 million reward for the collection’s safe return.

Santa Monica police arrested two suspects after officers received a tip that the stolen art was being held at an automobile stereo shop in Pasadena. After raiding Al & Ed’s Autosound, police recovered all but one of Gundlach’s paintings. The store’s manager, Jay Jeffrey Nieto, 45, was arrested on suspicion of possessing stolen property. A second suspect, Wilmer Cadiz, 40, was arrested on the same charges at his home. The final painting was recovered at a residence in Glendale.

The near-record reward is believed to have played a key role in the collections’ recovery. However, it is not clear whether the reward money will be paid to the person who provided the tip that led to the arrest of Nieto and Cadiz. Gundlach had offered $1 million for the return of the Mondrian painting, Composition (A) En Rouge Et Blanc. The offer is said to be the highest ever reward for a single painting.

Jeffrey Gundlach, the chief executive officer of DoubleLine Capital LP, was the victim of a multi-million dollar burglary last week. After returning to his Santa Monica residence, the so-called ”bond guru” found $10 million worth of assets missing including several paintings, a 2010 Porsche Carrera 4S, watches, wine, and cash. At least ten paintings, including pieces by Jasper Johns (b. 1930), Piet Mondrian (1872–1944), and Guy Rose (1867–1925) were taken. Gundlach, a well-known connoisseur of fine art, is offering a $200,000 reward for any information leading to the recovery of the goods.

The burglary occurred sometime between September 12 at 3PM and September 14 at 8PM as Gundlach was in New York at the Bloomberg Markets 50 Summit. The investigation is ongoing.