Category: visual

David Rockefeller is “selling a seminal painting by Mark Rothko for what the auction house hopes will be more than $40 million. The painting is a particularly sensuous example of Rothko’s abstract work during his most important years. It will be the star of the sale at Sotheby’s, which has consistently lagged behind Christie’s in recent years and has been aggressive about securing prestigious property for this spring’s auctions.”

“Last week, a court in London awarded 350,000 pounds ($685,248) in compensation and legal costs to Ofir Scheps, a Swiss collector who had deposited a sculpture by Anish Kapoor with a specialist storage company, Fine Arts Logistics. Was it a regrettable, though one-off, error? Perhaps not. There is a pattern here.”

“The Dutch city of Maastricht drew 71,000 visitors to an art fair that closed this week, 15 percent fewer than last year. Organizers said they’d aimed to cut overcrowding in the aisles.” How? The admission price to the fair was hiked.

A blue chip committee analyzed the museums of the Smithsonian. “Its overall finding is that: The Smithsonian’s art collections, taken together, might be expected to be a kind of national encyclopedia of the world’s art, like those in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, or Chicago; but in reality they are not. [And] to the extent that their designation as ‘national’ museums implies qualitative superiority and leadership, they have seldom lived up to their names.”

When the roof collapsed at Alberta’s Prairie Art Museum earlier this week, museum officials thanked their lucky stars that no one was hurt. But now, attention has shifted to rescuing the 500 pieces of art that remain in the damaged gallery, which is covered in snow and ice and remains unsafe even for interior inspection.

“Paintings by Francis Bacon and items belonging to the artist that were rescued from being thrown away about 30 years ago are to be sold at auction… Auctioneers say the sale of items including photographs, diaries and letters is a first, and could earn much more than its £50,000 estimate.”

“The first in a series of sales of antiquities from the collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo made more than $18 million yesterday at Sotheby’s, providing a substantial boost to the museum’s endowment but saddening a group of patrons who have protested the decision to sell.”

China has been joining the artworld in a rush. “Starting today, the newly constructed Capital Museum will host the city’s biggest exhibition of contemporary British art, featuring a well-made bed, a dripping severed head, fidgeting bobbies, Royal Ascot hats and a perilously perched Stephen Hawking.” This is a show that would have been unimaginable 10 years ago.

“Constantly measuring himself for admission to the pantheon, Picasso evidently felt that taking down the masters also meant taking them on, and in his time he had mixed it up with, among others, Grünewald, Poussin, Cranach, Velázquez, Goya, and El Greco. At the end, though, it was Rembrandt of whom, according to his friend and biographer Pierre Cabanne, he spoke ceaselessly.”

“The awards, which recognize distinguished contributions to the visual arts, come with prize money of $25,000, recently increased from $15,000.”