Autumn Lead Show For Tate

The lead show for the autumn at Tate Britain follows the gallery's summer blockbusting show, Turner, Whistler, Monet, with another triumvirate of major nineteenth century painters; Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec and Sickert. The show also serves up some real 'big hitters' including Degas L’Absinthe and three of his famous ballet studies.

A fine selection of Toulouse-Lautrec prints and paintings return to London for the first time in over a century and there are some remarkable portraits as well as a fascinating investigation into the developing aritistic practice of that British Degas disciple, Walter Sickert. Of the 100 works, including about twenty each by Degas, Sickert and Toulouse Lautrec, a large proportion have a cross-channel connection. All of the French art displayed here was, at one time or another, owned by British collectors or exhibited in British Galleries.
For the full story - click the title
Irish Art

Art Investment Funds

Art investment funds represent something of a revolution in the relationship between art and commerce. A dozen art-only investment funds are now trying to raise money from investors looking to cash in on the art market’s current boom. Last year, Picasso’s 'Boy with a Pipe,' which had been sold in 1950 for thirty thousand dollars, went at auction for a hundred and four million, while a Canaletto that had fetched two hundred and eighty thousand pounds in 1973 sold for more than eleven million pounds three decades later. Next to such numbers, those shares of Wal-Mart that haven’t budged in five years start to look pretty dull.
For the full story - click the title
Irish Art

Rembrandt Shock

As celebrations begin for next year's 400th anniversary of Rembrandt's birth, scholars are still trying to figure out what came from his own hand, and what didn't. Research just published adds to a growing body of evidence that many of more than 600 paintings once attributed to the 17th-century Dutch master even some of Rembrandt's celebrated self-portraits were done by others, while other works once dismissed as fakes have been re-evaluated as true Rembrandts. Even Rembrandt's signature on some works is in doubt.
For the full story - click the title
Irish Art

Van Gogh's Other Art

Vincent Van Gogh's pen-and-ink drawings are every bit as astonishing and expressive as his famous paintings, yet amazingly, there has never been a major U.S. exhibition of the drawings. That changes this week, when New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art puts 113 Van Gogh drawings on exhibit. The works have been borrowed from various public and private collections, and will likely not be seen in public again anytime soon, due to the relative fragility of pen-and-ink works.
For the full story - click the title
Irish Art

Cubism Revisited At Tate

Britain's Tate Modern museum has unveiled a massive new work of installation art by Turner-winning sculptor Rachel Whiteread consisting of 14,000 identical white boxes. The work, aptly named "Embankment," was commissioned specifically for the Tate's enormous Turbine Hall, which measures 500 feet in length with a 115-foot ceiling. So what do 14,000 white boxes look like? Rather like a bunch of oversized piles of sugar cubes, as it turns out.
For the full story - click the title
Irish Art

Give Me Monet...

You have to reach a high bar to qualify as an obnoxious public nuisance nowadays. And over the past few years the graffiti artist Banksy has certainly raised that bar. He has daubed London’s streets with images of snogging policemen; he’s mocked signs prohibiting vandalism with images of scurrying rats; and he’s erected a statue of Justice wearing a garter stuffed with dollar bills. He’s even planted dead rodents wearing wraparound sunglasses in the Natural History Museum.
For the full story - click the title
Irish Art

French Creative Island

The French Government is offering tax breaks and a new showcase to encourage talent in the country’s struggling art scene, which has long since lost its dominant position in the world’s galleries and auction houses. The Prime Minister, announced a series of measures to boost artistic endeavour and help French painters and sculptors catch up with their British counterparts in price and creativity.The main part of his plan is to open a European Centre for Contemporary Creation on a 70-acre island in the Seine outside Paris.
For the full story - click the title
Irish Art

Chinese Master Of Droolism

Enjoy art but fed up with those hard-to-clean brushes? Chinese businessman Wang Yide has a way around the hassle: He paints art with his tongue. Wang recently gave a demonstration for journalists from a newspaper - he tongue-painted pictures of a lotus flower and a laughing Buddha. "He was somewhat embarrassed when he slurped and drooled ink during his painting," the News Agency said. Wang, who is about 50 years old, said he learned the skill from the technique's inventor, Huang Ernan, who died last year. The report said Wang warned the uninitiated against trying the art without proper guidance, saying inks and pigments could be poisonous. It didn't say, however, how he avoided poisoning himself.
(Don't try this at home kids...)

400 Clyfford Still's Gifted

Denver will receive another 400 Clyfford Still artworks for the planned museum dedicated to the American artist. Still's estate already has bequeathed about 2,200 works of art to Denver with the stipulation that the city build a museum for them. The additional pieces were in the hands of Still's widow, Patricia, and include the artist's only known sculptures. In addition, Patricia Still has decided to give the museum the contents of her late husband's archives, which includes sketchbooks, photo albums, articles, correspondence and diaries, and also has created an endowment through her will to benefit the collection once the museum is open.
Irish Art

Bronston's Violent Art

The biggest ever exhibition of art by the infamous prisoner Charles Bronson has gone on public display. Bronson has received critical acclaim for his pictures and cartoons, which depict his life behind bars. His drawings offer nightmare visions of life inside, drawn from his 31 years in jail, much of it in solitary confinement. The illustrations and poems are said to offer an insight into the tortured mind of a man known as Britain's most violent prisoner. Bronson was jailed originally for armed robbery but the sentence was extended because of his violent behaviour behind bars.The pictures are priced up to £2,000. Bronson has a chance of parole in two years so he may - eventually - be free to enjoy the fruits of his artistic success. Until November 13 at the Dyson Art Gallery in East London.
For the full story - click the title
Irish Art

Cocaine Artist Jailed

A Brisbane artist who painted a series of works titled The Cocaine Series has been jailed for 10 years for importing the illicit drug. Mitchell Lee Foley, 50, today pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in Brisbane to nine charges of importing just over 400 grams of pure cocaine. According to his own website Foley, from Teneriffe, is an award-winning stained glass expert and painter who has exhibited his art in Australia and overseas.
For the full story - click the title
Irish Art