World Art News at IrishArt.com
Snippets of interest to lovers of Art - Irish Art or otherwise - sometimes the ridiculous, the obscure, the unusual or just art stuff you might have missed. Updated every day... If you have something for our Blog, email us at md@irishart.com
Police have seized paintings and drawings they believe were forgeries intended to be passed off as Picassos in a search at a house in Kent. The search was carried out at the home of a 39-year-old man arrested following a stop check on a car in Minster. The man was initially arrested on suspicion of possessing cocaine. "At this stage we believe the paintings may have been intended for sale," a police spokesman said.
For centuries legend had it that a fresco above the altar was painted by the great Florentine artist Michelangelo in his youth. And the claim has sometimes been referred to in scholarly texts. But it has recently been learned that, at the end of last year, a stone slab forming part of the altar was heaved aside to reveal the first visible evidence for the claim: a monogram with the letters M, B and F intertwined. MBF is thought to stand for Michelangelo Buonarroti (his name) and fecit (did (it) in Latin), a common way of asserting authorship, or fiorentino (the Florentine). Stylistic verification of the claim will be difficult because the central part of the fresco was damaged by damp and painted over. But at least one scholar has said there is something of Michelangelo in the muscularity of the thief who stands on the right of the painting in Chianti, Italy.
Nearly 100 works by artist Amedeo Modigliani, including some of his trademark portraits, go on display Friday in Rome - the first time in decades that the Italian capital has hosted a show about the 20th-century painter and sculptor. The exhibition features oil paintings, watercolours, drawings and one sculpture. The works are on loan from museums across the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Denver Art Museum. All Modigliani works on display in Italian museums have been lent to the show. Rome last presented an exhibit of Modigliani works in 1959. The show covers works from Modigliani's early years until 1919, one year before his death in Paris at age 35. It features several of his typical portraits with linear forms and elongated necks. The exhibit, at the Vittoriano museum in downtown Rome, runs through to June 20.
A bar on two Canaletto paintings being sold abroad has been extended following an offer to buy the art masterpieces. The deadline to purchase the art has passed but the government has now deferred this to 20 June. Experts told the Department for Culture, Media and Sport the paintings were of such national importance it should try to keep them in the UK. About £6m is needed to match an offer received from abroad to ensure the paintings remain.The National Art Gallery has called on the government to set up an emergency fund to prevent them going abroad, saying museums do not have the money to save art for the nation.
In a setback for several major art museums, the Hong Kong government has retreated from plans to build one of the world's largest cultural art centers after real estate developers refused to participate, complaining that the financial terms had become too onerous. The Georges Pompidou Center in Paris, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, and MoMA in New York had been vying for the right to run museums at the art cultural center - the director of the Guggenheim Foundation, had publicly described the initiative as "'the most exciting opportunity in the world because of the scale and the location."
A fake painting is to be included in an exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland for the first time. A van Gogh forgery, Still Life with Daisies and Poppies, is to feature in a summer exhibition, entitled van Gogh and Britain, at the Dean Gallery in Edinburgh. The curator, said that although it appeared perverse to include the work, it was intended to demonstrate the history of van Gogh's popularity in Britain. It was one of 30 forgeries once sold by the Otto Wacker gallery in Berlin, Germany.
Tate Britain had the "highest rise in art visitor numbers among the country's leading tourist attractions. The total number of visitors that passed through the Millbank art gallery was 1,733,120 - up 58 per cent in 12 months. By contrast, almost all other leading attractions in London slumped after the 7 July bombings. The National Art Gallery had 15 per cent fewer visitors, the London Eye was down 12 per cent and the Tower of London by 9 per cent.
Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover is to give £10 million to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the largest donation ever made to a UK museum or art gallery outside London. Although the sum is not being disclosed, we understand that it will be provided through the Linbury Trust, in a series of tranches. Founded in 1683, the Ashmolean in Oxford is Britain’s oldest museum, with a collection ranging from archaeology to contemporary art. Although attracting 400,000 visitors a year, many of its art galleries and facilities are badly in need of upgrading.
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art is making preparations to return some looted art antiquities to Italy, the New York Times reported on Sunday. The art treasures to be repatriated include the Euphronios krater, a Greek vase which has been a centrepiece of the Metropolitan Museum's holdings for more than three decades. Metropolitan director Philippe de Montebello told the daily that changing world attitudes meant a change in museum practices. "The world is changing, and you have to play by the rules," he said. "It now appears that the piece came to us in a completely improper way, through machinations, lies and clandestine night-digging.
It was a sensation. Just as Damien Hirst's shark would do two centuries later, so a single painting exhibited by Henry Fuseli at the Royal Academy in 1782 captured the popular imagination and set the tone for one of the cultural obsessions of the age. The Nightmare, which forms the central focus of a new art exhibition at Tate Britain exploring the phenomenon of Gothic horror in late 18th-century Britain, was derived from a 17th-century horror story in which an imp ravaged a sleeping girl. Fuseli shows the aftermath of this unholy union, tempering his image with a healthy dose of bestiality and sadism. One of this year's must-see art exhibitions, offering a unique excursion into the collective consciousness of a vanished world. Until May 1st at Tate Britain.
