April 28, 2010
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 12:18 pm
Rupert Alexander has earned a small place in art history by becoming the youngest person to be commissioned to paint the Queen. He has produced the final in a series of portraits of the Royal family which began with the Duke of Edinburgh and the Prince of Wales when Alexander was just 23; the latest painting of the Queen was completed when he was 35.
The London born artist who learnt his craft at the prestigious Florence Academy of Art, is believed to have had a total of three sittings with her Majesty in order to complete the painting.
The Queen is said to have been interested in discussing Alexander’s uncle Alan Campbell-Johnson during these meetings, as he was right-hand man to Mountbatten while he was serving as the Viceroy of India.
The selection of a head and shoulders portrait was apparently Alexander’s as he was trying to bring out the more intimate areas of her Majesty’s character, as such he deliberately avoided the inclusion of any Royal symbols or other ‘clutter’ that would take away from exposing her Majesty’s more ‘human’ side.
Alexander is the youngest artist to the commissioned to paint the Royal family in the last 300 years since the apprenticeship system for younger artists was withdrawn during the mid-17th century.
The artists’ time at school in Italy was funded by the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust (QEST) which seeks to bolster fading areas of the visual arts. Not surprisingly since his first Royal portrait his reputation as an artist has been greatly enhanced and he has become a very much in demand portrait painter.
April 27, 2010
Filed under: Art News, Art events, Exhibitions — admin @ 1:03 pm
More Margate More Past by Tracey Emin
An exhibition of prints, curated by students at the University of Kent, has received a resounding endorsement from leading artist Tracey Emin. KRIKEY! Kentemporary Prints, is the result of work by History and Philosophy of Art students at the University of Kent. The exhibition, which runs from Monday 10 May 2010 until 4 June 2010, is open from 9am – 5pm Monday – Friday, in the University’s new School of Arts building, Canterbury campus.
Commenting on the exhibition, Tracey Emin, said: “It’s amazing how many appreciated and well known printmakers come from Kent. It’s obviously a hotbed of printmaking activity.”
Emin, famously from Margate, features alongside similarly high profile artists, from Royal Academicians to YBAs (Young British Artists), associated with the Kent region. Others include Frank Auerbach, Peter Blake, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Ian Davenport, Angus Fairhurst, Gary Hume, Humphrey Ocean, Chris Orr and Ana Maria Pacheco.
The exhibition forms an eclectic mix from the controversial Chapman Brothers’ Unhappy Meal and Gary Hume’s Hermaphrodite Polar Bear to Pop icons such as The Beatles and Andy Warhol in Peter Blake’s shimmering Love me do and Diamond Dust.
Michael Healey and Martyn Hill form the student duo who had the initial idea for the show. Martyn has said: “We wanted to demonstrate the print as a serious contemporary art form that would appeal to the masses; something that was both accessible but at the same time enjoyable and thought-provoking.”
The exhibition will be the fourth organised under the auspices of The Kent Print Collection. Established in 2005, it aims to give undergraduate students the opportunity to collect art on behalf of the School of Arts, and to put on museum-standard exhibitions drawing on this resource.
Dr. Ben Thomas, convenor of the Print Collecting and Curating module said: “I am excited about Krikey! kentemporary prints and very proud of what History & Philosophy of Art students have achieved. This is the fourth Kent Print Collection exhibition and they just keep getting better and better. By any standards this will be a great show of contemporary British art. It would not have been possible without the generosity of artists and art dealers, and I am very grateful for the amazing support we have received from professionals in the art world.”
Further details here.
April 23, 2010
Filed under: Exhibitions — Alan @ 5:40 pm
A new exhibition entitled The Great Escape that showcases the art of Guy Griffiths opened this week at the Hampshire Royal Marines Museum. Griffiths was a spy inside of the Stalag Luft III during the Second World War and helped PoWs escape to freedom.
He was the first Royal Navy officer to be captured just 11 days after the war began and used his cartoons to give information to the British. He also forged documents to aid escapees. The display features footage of him and paintings by the pilot.
The documents he forged allowed the escapees to appear to be Austrian or Hungarian citizens, which was the inspiration for the Steve McQueen film The Great Escape, in 1963.
The archivist for the exhibit, Matthew Little, stated that Griffith was able to transmit a large amount of information back to his base using his cartoons. One of his tricks was a pantomime that he published which had a hidden cast list in code that detailed the soldiers who were captured.
Little stated that he also would draw futuristic planes that had the Germans convinced were new inventions by the British leading them on wild goose chases.
Griffiths was captured in September of 1939 while attempting to dive bomb a German U-boat. After the war ended he became a Navy test pilot until he retired in 1958.
At that point he worked both as a coffee shop owner and newspaper editor until he died from a heart attack in July of 1999.
Filed under: Art Sales — Alan @ 5:37 pm
A large treasure trove of books, paintings, drawings, and prints from some of the premier 20th century artists is slated to be auctioned off after sitting in storage and kept from the public eye for about seventy years.
The works are from Derain, Cezanne, Picasso, Renoir, and Gauguin and are billed as the ‘Tresors du Coffre Vollard.’ Together they compile a timeline from some of the key composers of modern art and outline the previous century’s most historical moments.
Altogether there are 140 works, which were placed in a Paris safety deposit box in 1939 and stayed there for forty years. However, now they will soon go up for sale at the Sotheby’s in London and Paris.
Vice chairman of Sotheby’s modern art and impressionist department, Helena Newman, stated that the sale is like exploring a lost world as she only saw the collection for the first time just a couple of weeks ago. Newman continued to say that it was like taking a step back in time because a great many of the works had not actually been viewed since 1939.
The collection at one point belonged to the imminent art dealer Ambroise Vollard who was killed in 1939 in a car crash. A young Jew was in charge of his works and as the Nazis got closer he decided to put 140 of the works into a bank vault.
In 1942 the young man was killed at the Sajmiste concentration camp and the vault remained unopened due to the fact that French law mandates forty years must pass before the bank can sell the pieces to cover storage fees.
April 17, 2010
Filed under: Photography — Alan @ 2:57 am
The mobile based picture search service by Google aptly named Google Goggles is ready to add some culture to its line-up as Google has secured a deal to purchase the Oxford based Android mobile app called Plink that will allow users to identify works of art simply by taking a photo.
The founders of the app- James Philbin and Mack Cummins- will be joining the Google team to enhance the capabilities of Google Goggles which dates back to a December launch date in order to help Google search via mobile photo.
Plink is the first UK acquisition made by Google, but it is a small one. Google Goggles has however already offered mobile picture art identification but it is looking to improve its previous offering by adding more talent to its team since mobile search is growing in importance to the Google website.
Eric Schmidt the CEO of Google commented in January that the company would pick up a new company every month but most will be small purchases.
In December Plink won $100,000 from Google after Android users chose it as one of the top reference apps available to them.
Mobile product development director Hugo Barra who is based in London believes that due to the fact mobiles have sensors such as GPS and camera they are able to offer the world and users plenty of new search experiences which Google is trying to capture and relate back to users.
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 2:55 am
This year the Labour manifesto is taking an extensive look at the arts and culture segment of government to an unprecedented extent which may partially be due to the fact that Conservatives have offered a few initiatives on the arts over the last few months, or perhaps because they are afraid to get negative publicity from the small but noisy arts lobby.
Among the inclusions are a handful of new policies and initiatives such as a £10 theatre ticket scheme that will be extended nationally to match the National Theatre’s Travelex £10 tickets, a biannual Festival of Britain in order to celebrate the achievements in British theatre starting in 2013, new incentives for philanthropy, and primary legislation to guide natural museums so that they can get greater independence.
Also included is a mention of looking over the current structure of the English Heritage in order to ad mutual principals at the core governance so people can offer more input into how the historical legacy of Britain is preserved and maintained although this can be a bit hard to interpret and can really be expanded to mean anything from pubs to football clubs.
Worth noting is a promise that will allow public institutions to borrow art from the national connection so that more people will be able to view the artistic heritage of Britain although once again the statement is a little open-ended and could refer to art within national museums, the arts Council collection, or maybe the government art collection.
April 10, 2010
Filed under: Exhibitions — Alan @ 5:56 pm
Bristol gallery goers are in for a bold treat in summer of 2010 as a new North American cutting edge art will land in the West Country. Starting on May 1st and reaching until August 22nd 2010 the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery will be home to an exhibition titled Art from the New World.
Included in the exhibition will be dozens of artworks from contemporary and urban US artists that will be under the supervision of curator Jan Corey Helford.
Helford is the curator and owner of the Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles, California and as thus most of the work for the show was created just for the exhibition.
Much like the Banksy Versus Bristol Museum, most of the exhibits will be located across the venue’s first floor on the ground.
One interesting perk of the exhibit includes a 15ft ice cream cone that is the work of street artist Buff Monster that visitors can walk into in place of an ice cream van. Buff Monster is also going to be on site himself days before the exhibition opens in order to create murals to adorn the museum walls.
Other perks for visitors on opening day include people dressed as artwork created by Gary Baseman so that visitors can actually interact with the art hands-on.
Also noteworthy is the actual creation of a book sculpture installation by artist Mike Stilkey which will be marked by an entranceway adorned with 2,000 books built into a ten foot wall.
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 4:31 pm
Trips made undercover by a team of judges along with their children led to the winner being announced of the Guardian family friendly museum of the year award which was awarded to the Coventry Herbert Art Gallery and Museum.
The award is quite notable for the museum and well timed given that it celebrates its 50th birthday this year. The museum won the award for scoring the best on the 20-point Kids in Museums manifesto which is a template that was created in order to make all museums think about the best way to design their exhibits so that they make for great places to plan a family visit.
The Herbert museum was officially named the winner at a London ceremony beating out other shortlisted museums including the National Trust’s Beningbrough Hall and Gardens, Great North Museum, the Highland Folk Museum, the Exeter St. Nicholas Priory, and the Stoke Potteries Museum and Art Gallery.
As winner of the award, the Hebert will receive 500 activity sheets illustrated especially by Quentin Blake.
Journalist Dea Birkett led to the creation of the awards in 2004 who was horrified to be kicked out of the Aztec exhibit at the Royal Academy when her son yelled ‘monster’ at a scary exhibit.
Since then the campaign has only grown stronger launching a new manifesto in 2010 at the British Museum this past January. Included in its objectives are widening family ticket options outside of the standard two adult two children packages and ‘shushing’ at museums.
April 2, 2010
Filed under: Art events — Alan @ 3:26 am
Sotheby’s will offer up the Turner painting Modern Rome- Campo Vaccino for sale at its London location. Due to the fact that it one of the most well known Turner paintings and has not been on the market for the last 132 years the auction house is confident that it will topple records especially since Turner’s works are currently receiving an open reception from the art market.
Senior specialist in Early British Paintings and deputy chairman of the UK Sotheby, David Moore-Gwyn, said that they expect Modern Rome to break the previous world record for a Turner painting which is currently held by the Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio set at £20.5m in 2006.
Sotheby’s has placed a price range of £12m to 18m on Modern Rome which is the same price range it put on L’Homme Qui Marche I by Alberto Giacometti in January which went on to sell for a bit over £65m.
Moore-Gwyn is also aware that the market may even bring in a higher price due to the fact that the art market is currently filled with competitive and super wealthy collectors from all over of the world who are desperately seeking masterpieces from top artists.
Christie’s also has three paintings coming up to auction in New York and London that could make a solid attempt at beating the Giacometti record, a Jasper Johns Flag and two works by Picasso.
The components that demand a huge price in a piece of artwork are the place the work was completed, the condition of the piece, its rarity, and the name of the artist all of which Modern Rome has.
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 3:23 am
A Toronto art dealer recovered a New York City gallery bronze Henry Moore sculpture that has been missing since 2001.
Owner of Miriam Shiell Fine Art Gallery, Miriam Shiell, said that a man attempted to sell the statue on consignment at her Yorkville store a week ago which is valued at around $80,000.
However, when Shiell looked it up as part of a routine search on the Art Loss Register it was quickly clear to her that the statue was stolen from a museum in New York.
The recovery of the statue comes directly after a batch of stolen goods was recovered in Montreal at an art gallery when the owner realized he had a Paul Klee painting that was stolen. Investigations are underway in both cities but authorities do not believe there is a connection between the two.
Henry Moore is known for his abstract large marble and bronze sculptures that are spread out around the globe in several cities. One of his sculptures sits in Nathan Phillips Square named Archer and came at a large cost of $100,000 when it was commissioned in 1966.
Before Moore passed away, the artist donated 200 pieces of his work to the Ontario Art Gallery which are on view to the public at the Henry Moore Sculpture Centre in the Gallery.
