“Art prices extended a seven-year surge for much of 2008, with a Claude Monet painting of water lilies, Lucian Freud’s portrait of a civil servant called Sue and a Francis Bacon triptych setting records. A 111.5 million pound ($162 million at current rates) sale of Damien Hirst works in September featured pickled unicorns, flying pigs and a golden calf with 18-carat hooves and horns.” Then, of course, everything changed.
Author: Laura Collins Hughes
Madoff Investor Foundations Donated $73 Million In ’07
“U.S. foundations that invested with Bernard Madoff donated more than $73 million to nonprofit organizations in 2007, according to a tally based on foundation tax returns.”
Sir Michael Levey, National Gallery Director, Dies At 81
“Sir Michael Levey, who died on Sunday aged 81, was a distinguished art historian who rose through the ranks of the National Gallery to become its director.”
Pinter Defended Writers Threatened By Tyrants
“As we mourn the passing of one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century, let’s not forget that the field of human rights has also lost a great defender of freedom of expression. During my time at PEN, Harold Pinter proved indispensable in helping to raise the profile of numerous, lesser well-known, writers in trouble for their work. He never let them down.”
MOCA’s New Chief Exec On Righting The Ship
Charles E. Young, UCLA’s chancellor emeritus and now MOCA’s first chief executive, “said he does not consider himself an ‘arts person,'” but he also doesn’t expect to have the job more than 18 months. “His goal at MOCA, he said, is to set about correcting financial and management problems that have plagued the museum. ‘We need to get it back into a position where you can go out and recruit a really top-flight director,’ he said.”
Jazz Trumpeter Freddie Hubbard Dies At 70
“Freddie Hubbard, the Grammy-winning jazz musician whose style influenced a generation of trumpet players and who collaborated with such greats as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, died Monday, a month after suffering a heart attack.”
Art Theft As Minor Catharsis: Madoff Sculpture Stolen
“Swindler extraordinaire Bernard Madoff got a taste of his own medicine last weekend when a burglar stole a $10,000 statue from his posh, $9.4 million Palm Beach estate, according to a police report.”
Badly Needed In Publishing: Some Robert Giroux Types
At editor Robert Giroux’s memorial service this month, editor Paul Elie cautioned the assembled, “It is tempting to float an analogy between his death and the death of a certain kind of publishing. But the fact is that his kind of publishing was rare in his own time, and so was he.” The legendary Giroux died in September, just as publishing was entering a particularly rough patch.
At 89, Matisse And Maillol’s Model Reminisces
“Henri Matisse made drawings of her, with spare, pure lines. Aristide Maillol sculpted her in bronze. And these days, in France, the muse of those 20th-century artists — Dina Vierny — speaks of them with affection and clarity. Vierny was Maillol’s last model, and has opened a museum named for him in Paris.”
Boston-Area Theatre Lays Off 57, May Shutter
“A half-century old theater still recovering from a devastating fire three years ago announced Monday that without increased ticket sales and donations it may shut its doors. Officials at the Beverly-based North Shore Music Theatre said the theater has been hit with lower-than-expected philanthropic support and slow ticket sales from its current production of ‘Disney High School Musical 2.'”