Rembrandt Recovered

A Rembrandt has been recovered nearly five years after it was stolen from the National Museum in Stockholm. Police arrested four people - including two Iraqi nationals, a Swede and a Gambian - in a raid on a downtown Copenhagen hotel. The Rembrandt, a self-portrait from 1630, was stolen by three armed and masked robbers who entered Stockholm's National Museum making off with the masterpiece as well as two paintings by Renoir. The painting is worth an estimated $42 million. The Renoir stolen at the same time was recovered earlier when an undercover police officer posed as an art expert who wanted to buy back the paintings for the museum. Thirteen people were charged in that part of the theft, and most were later sentenced to prison. The second Renoir painting has yet to be recovered.
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Irish Art

Titian to Fetch £5 million

A little-known work by Titian is expected to fetch more than £5m when it is auctioned in December. The painting - Portrait of a Lady and her Daughter - probably dates from the 1550s but was painted over in the late 16th or early 17th Century.

It was only recently revealed after nearly 20 years of careful restoration. Thought to depict his daughter Emilia with one of his granddaughters, the uncompleted portrait is the only known work by Titian to show a mother and daughter.
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Irish Art

Pregnant Artist Statue Unveiled

The statue of a pregnant, disabled artist was unveiled in Trafalgar Square on Thursday, a tribute to motherhood and people with disabilities. Marc Quinn's white, 13-ton statue was inspired by artist Alison Lapper, who was born with no arms and shortened legs due to a congenital disorder. Lapper posed naked for Quinn when she was eight months pregnant. "This is an amazing day for me, not just for me but hopefully for all people in the country and around the world who have disabilities," Lapper said at the unveiling. "It's been hidden away too long. It's about time that people started to confront their prejudices. It's fantastic and it's a real honor to be up there."
Irish Art

Dali Exhibition Generates $55m

The Salvador Dali retrospective, which closed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art on 30 May, generated $55 million for the Philadelphia region, including $4.46 million in state and local taxes. Approximately 85% of the 370,000 visitors to the exhibition travelled from outside the city and more than 39,000 of them stayed in a hotel.
Irish Art

£60 Million Self Portrait

An Italian Renaissance painting that disappeared from view for 450 years was yesterday declared to be the previously unknown self-portrait of the 16th century master goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini. The painting was unveiled in Paris after a team of experts concluded during 11 months of art detective work that it was genuine. The owner, a private collector who apparently has no wish to sell, is insuring it for £60 million.

He found the painting in an antiques sale in France a year ago, paying an undisclosed sum. Convinced that the painting was Cellini's, the collector approached Italian art authorities, offering it for research and display, only to be turned away. He then commissioned the Parisian art laboratory Cosmo di Medici to conduct a detailed study. By a process involving comparison with the only other known portrait of Cellini, physio-chemical analysis and even psychological profiling, the experts agreed that the work was Cellini's, painted in his native Florence between 1555 and 1565.
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Irish Art

When Is A Bomb Art?

"A Knock at the Door," an exhibition at Manhattan's South Street Seaport Museum and the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, includes stamps depicting a gun to the president's head, a straightjacket made from an American flag and what appears to be a suitcase bomb. The show is meant to heighten awareness of government encroachment on civil rights and to raise questions about what is offensive and what is art. But for some relatives of September 11 victims, the answer is clear, Fox News reports. "From our point of view, and I think from a lot of Americans' point of view, it's a slap in the face," said one who lost his brother in the terrorist attacks.
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Irish Art

One More Million Jimmy...

The refurbishment of Glasgow's Kelvingrove art gallery and museum is finished as an appeal for £1 million was launched to take the project on the last lap to completion. In the past three years, Lord Macfarlane of Bearsden, the chairman of the Kelvingrove Refurbishment Appeal (KRA), has twisted the arms of big businesses, benefactors, the National Lottery and international trusts, to raise £29 million of the £30 million cost. Yesterday, he asked the citizens of Glasgow to come up with the final million to pay for returning the exhibits to create what will be the jewel in the city's crown and Scotland's biggest single visitor attraction. Restoring Kelvingrove has the biggest ever such project in Scotland. It is expected to attract 1.5 million visitors a year. Call 0141 565 4135 to donate.
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Irish Art

Thai Artist's Edible 'Body Parts'

Inside a dark room, realistic-looking human body parts are stacked on shelves and hanging on meat hooks. The place looks like a mortuary or the lair of a serial killer, but in fact, it's a bakery. What appears to be putrefying body parts are the bread sculptures of 28-year-old art student Kittiwat Unarrom. He hopes his realistic artwork will make people ponder whether they are consuming food, or food is consuming them. Along with edible human heads crafted from dough, chocolate, raisins and cashews, Kittiwat makes human arms, feet, and chicken and pig parts. He uses anatomy books and his vivid memories of visiting a forensics museum to create the human parts. He now is receiving regular orders from the curious and from pranksters who want to surprise their friends or colleagues, but that's a minor sideline. By the end of the year, Kittiwat's confectionary slaughterhouse will go on display at Bangkok's Silpakorn University. It's his final dissertation...
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Irish Art



Driver Steals $1.5m Painting

A truck driver charged with stealing a $1.5-million Jean-Michel Basquiat painting from a warehouse at John F. Kennedy International Airport has pleaded guilty to grand larceny. He was accused of removing a wooden crate containing the painting from a warehouse and driving away with it on May 4. Police identified him after reviewing video surveillance tapes. The untitled acrylic-oil painting was sold for more than $1.5 million US in November at Christie's auction house in New York and was to be shipped to the buyer in Rome. Basquiat, a darling of art critics who was praised for his strong use of colour and the social commentary in his work, died in 1988 at age 27 of a heroin overdose.
Irish Art

Rolf Does Holbein

On Sunday September 25th at 11AM, Trafalgar Square will be awash with colour and creativity as over a hundred artists join Rolf Harris for a huge free art event in London. In a collaboration between the BBC, the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery and the Mayor of London, artists from all over the UK will be invited to join forces to recreate one of Holbein's famous depictions of Henry VIII on a giant 10 metre x 5 metre canvas for BBC ONE's Rolf on Art- The Big Event.
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Irish Art

Renoir + Billion Dollar Art Fraud

According to documents filed in an Arizona court, Jean-Emmanuel Renoir, great-grandson of Pierre-Auguste Renoir, has lent his name to what one lawyer claims could be the 'biggest art fraud in history', a plan to market hundreds of thousands of works inspired by Renoir-Guino sculptures to which the artist’s descendant does not hold copyright. Projected revenues are over $1 billion.
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Irish Art

Sotheby's Ownership Changes

The Taubman family, which has owned controlling interest in Sotheby's auction house, is reducing its investment to minority shareholder status. The deal, which ends years of speculation about the Taubmans intentions for their holding, ends a dual share structure that had allowed the family's 22% stake to carry 62% of the votes. The family will continue to hold 7.1 million shares, which will give them the same power as other investors in the company.
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Irish Art