Category: visual

“A portrait believed by its Canadian owner to be the only likeness of William Shakespeare painted in his lifetime got a major boost in its credibility this week when experts in the United States announced that the ink identifying the portrait as such dates back to the Bard’s era.”

An innkeeper in France is attempting to raise $30m or more to purchase a Van Gogh landscape at auction. If he is successful, the painting would hang in the attic room where the painter died two days after shooting himself in 1890. “The plan is dismissed as a mad fantasy by some curators and art dealers,” but the innkeeper seems to be skilled at attracting backers.

When cosmetics heir Robert Lauder bought a Klimt portrait for $135m last year, it instantly made him one of the world’s most famous collectors. “But for some experts in Holocaust restitution research, the show raises another issue related to Mr. Lauder’s trove: He declines to issue documentation of his private collection for public scrutiny.”

“It brought culture to the masses and changed how we view our national treasures for ever. So why, asks Joanna Moorhead, was the UK’s biggest ever art show airbrushed out of history?”

A London exhibition showcasing erotic art through the ages is rekindling old debates on art and pornography. “The exhibition throws light on how different cultures at different times have viewed sex. What it reveals above all is how styles of art have changed over the centuries, while human beings and their desires have essentially stayed the same.”

“A buyers’ revolt against escalating Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol values, and rising demand for Chinese and lower-priced Western art at London’s five-day auctions may be a guide to New York’s November sales.”

The New York old master dealer Salander-O’Reilly Galleries is being accused of operating a so-called “Ponzi scheme”, in a New York court.

A conference on public art debates the state of the art in Seattle…

A French innkeeper has a dream of hanging a real Van Gogh painting in his inn in the room where the artist died. He knows the painting; now he’s trying to find a way to buy it. “As Sotheby’s estimates the painting’s value from $28 million to $35 million, and bidders may drive the price higher, Mr. Janssens is now trying to raise money through private donations and from an appeal to van Gogh lovers through a Web site (vangoghsdream.org).”

“Lawyers for the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum filed a legal challenge late Monday that seeks to prevent Fisk University from selling a stake in the collection that O’Keeffe donated to the historically black university. The cash-strapped school wants to sell a 50 percent share of the collection to the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art for $30 million. The museum was founded by Alice Walton, daughter of late Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton.”