Displaying items by tag: publisher

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has awarded to Yale University Press an $840,000 grant to establish a new electronic portal on which curated and customizable art and architectural history content will be made available to consumers and institutions.

The grant will allow Yale University Press, one of the world’s leading publishers of art and architecture books, to expand both the utility of and the readership for its award-winning and critically acclaimed art and architecture backlist by making text and images available electronically at a reasonable cost or for free. Users also will be able to customize the content, making course packs or creating other digital publications from a variety of texts.

Two Pennsylvania museums have begun dividing more than 500 pieces of art bequeathed to them by the late Pittsburgh Tribune-Review publisher Richard Mellon Scaife.

Officials with the Brandywine River Museum of Art near Philadelphia met Wednesday in Greensburg with their colleagues at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art.

Scaife, the billionaire banking heir who died July 4 at age 82, willed the paintings to the museums. They divided more than 140 of the most sought-after works of art Wednesday by taking turns, and will divvy up the rest in the coming days.

One of the earliest examples of color woodblock printing — which originated in China — now belongs to The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens, the institution announced Thursday.

Prominent publisher, calligrapher and seal-carver Hu Zhengyan first published “The Ten Bamboo Studio Collection of Calligraphy and Pictures” in 1633.

Donors purchased the first edition in honor of The Huntington President Steven Koblik, who will retire on June 30, 2015.

ARTnews, the world’s oldest art magazine, has been sold by Milton Esterow to Skate Capital Corp., a private art and media industry investment vehicle belonging to Sergey Skaterschikov, a Russian art market analyst and investment banker. Esterow became publisher and editor of ARTnews, which was founded in 1902, after acquiring the publication from Newsweek in 1972.

Esterow said in a statement, “It has been a privilege working at ARTnews—a marvelous, fascinating 41-year ride running one of the world's most honored magazines. I have had the chance to meet, and work with, the great and the good. I have met with gifted artists, scholars, curators, collectors, dealers and writers in many countries. I have also met forgers and frauds. As Noel Coward once said, 'work is more fun than fun.'”

Skaterschikov is the owner Skates, an art investment review, and briefly owned the contemporary art fair, ViennaFair. In addition, Skates Capital is an investor in the online auction house, Paddle8.

Greenhill & Co, a New York-based global investment banking firm, served as financial advisor to ARTnews on the sale of the company. Terms of the transaction have not been revealed.

Cahiers d’Art, a famed French literary journal and publisher of visual arts, will re-release its definitive catalogue of works by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). The long out-of-print work titled Zervos Picasso Catalogue after Cahiers d’Art’s founder, Christian Zervos, is comprised of 33 volumes and features over 16,000 paintings and drawings that were amassed during a long-lasting working relationship between Zervos and Picasso.

For the first time ever, the Zervos Picasso Catalogue will be available in English and it will include corrections to the original catalogue made in cooperation with the Picasso Administration, the organization responsible for managing the artist’s estate. Sotheby’s has been named the worldwide distributor of the catalogue, which will be available on December 15, 2013.

Founded in Paris in 1926, Cahiers d’Art was revered for its publications highlighting the most important artists of the early 20^th century. Zervos Picasso Catalogue is arguably the publisher’s most important work. With the earliest volumes dating back to 1932, complete sets of the catalogue are extremely uncommon. Staffan Ahrenberg, the current owner of Cahiers d’Art, said, “Christian Zervos dedicated his life to Picasso, and it is our great honor to continue the Zervos/Picasso story and legacy. I think it is essential for Zervos to be back in print and available to collectors, scholars, and trade.”

Fourteen watercolors by the Spanish surrealist painter, Salvador Dali (1904-1989), will be sold at Bonham’s Impressionist and Modern Art auction in London on June 18, 2013. Commissioned by the publisher Jean-Paul Schneider in 1969, the watercolor fruit studies have been in private collections since their creation. The paintings are expected to garner a total of $1.5 million.

In the ‘FruitDali’ series, the painter takes traditional 19^th century botanical lithographs, which were originally used as scientific illustrations, and paints over them using his iconic surrealist twist. Dali infuses each fruit with humanistic qualities including legs, arms, and facial expressions. The works are a testament to Dali’s ability to find human forms in the ever-inspiring natural world.

William O’Reilly, Director of Bonhams Impressionist department, said, “These compositions are a fabulous illustration of Dali’s artistic approach. By overlaying such traditional images with his famous artistic vocabulary of dragons, hooded figures, crutches and weeping eyes, he gives us an insight into his own hyper-fertile imagination.”

The publisher and art critic, Christian Zervos, founded the French art review, Cahiers d’Art, in 1926. The magazine ran without interruption from 1941 to 1943, until 1960 and featured artists such as Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Leger, Ernst, Calder, and Giacometti. Known for its striking layout and abundant photography, Cahiers d’Art also featured reviews written by the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Samuel Beckett. After being out of production for more than fifty years, Cahiers d’Art has been reborn.

Swedish collector and entrepreneur, Staffan Ahrenberg, bought the dormant publication after he walked by the still-operating Cahier d’Art gallery along the rue du Dragon in Paris. Ahrenberg re-launched Cahiers d’Art with former Art Basel director Sam Keller and the renowned curator Hans Ulrich Obrist as editors. The first issue features Ellsworth Kelly, Cyprien Gaillard, and Sarah Morris. As in the past, Cahiers d’Art will not contain advertisements nor will it follow a regular production schedule.

Major art world players including Larry Gagosian, Guggenheim boss Richard Armstrong, and Alfred Pacquement of the Pompidou Centre gathered in a tiny Left Bank gallery in Paris to celebrate the review’s return.

Leon Black, a billionaire financier and chief executive of the private equity firm, Apollo Global Management, announced his acquisition of Phaidon Press, a publisher of fine art books. Black, who paid an undisclosed amount for the company, bought Phaidon from the British businessman, Richard Schlagman.

Phaidon is one of premier publishers of books on the visual arts along with Taschen and Assouline. The company has collaborated with such artists as Ai Wei Wei, Nan Goldin, and Stephen Shore and they publish everything from children books to cookbooks to collector’s editions that often come with signed prints or specially-commissioned pieces of art. On Phaidon’s site there is a statement from Black saying, “We having greatly admired Phaidon and the important contribution the company has made to art and culture. We are impressed with how Richard Schlagman has built the business and the Phaidon brand under his ownership over the last two decades. My family and I look forward to supporting the future of the company, including through the ongoing development of its publishing program, further geographic expansion, and the launch of digital products.”

Black, who is rumored to have paid $120 million for Edvard Munch’s The Scream earlier this year, is one of the country’s most prominent art collectors. In May, Black and his wife announced a $48 million contribution to the new visual arts center at Dartmouth College. An alumnus of the school, Black and his family also included a commissioned sculpture by Ellsworth Kelly in the gift.