Category: visual

Ray DuVarney “just might play a crucial role in recovering a Leonardo da Vinci mural no one has seen in 400 years. He thinks he can build a machine that would use nuclear energy to locate ‘The Battle of Anghiari,’ thought to be hidden behind a wall in Florence’s Palazzo Vecchio. Call his idea a da Vinci decoder.”

“In the Eighties, every oligarch who wanted to occupy his wife bought her a beauty salon. In the Nineties he got her a shop. But now art has replaced the diamonds. What every 21st-century Russian woman wants is a gallery and a foundation. What does this mean for Russian art?”

The Museum of Modern Art finally responds to revelations about its director’s inflated compensation fund. “All actions taken by the museum and the trust were legal, ethical and disclosed. All payments and compensation were reported on tax forms filed by the trust, the museum and Mr. Lowry, who paid personal income tax on compensation he received.”

“Four years ago Dr John Curtis was warning that war in Iraq would be a disaster for some of the oldest and most important sites in the world. He has since seen his worst fears confirmed: the site of ancient Babylon became an American military base; thousands of objects are missing from the national museum at Baghdad; and looted artefacts have been illicitly excavated and smuggled out of the country. Now Dr Curtis dreads seeing history repeated.”

The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia is trying to sell its prized asset. William Vaux, “who died in 1882, left his prized collection to the academy. But with strings attached – one, that it never be sold. Last week, the academy was in Philadelphia Orphans Court, asking to do just that.”

“Last week, Christie’s auctioned off 74 pieces from the collection of the Swiss art dealer Pierre Huber…The sale netted almost $17 million and set auction records for Mr. Kawara, Jim Shaw, Paul McCarthy, and Albert Oehlen. But some of these artists and their dealers say that for years Mr. Huber claimed he was building a collection that would end up in a museum. On that basis, he acquired works, sometimes at discount prices, that he couldn’t have otherwise.”

The disputed paintings are authentic, says Alex Matter. “Why would somebody try to do fakes of 32 paintings instead of one big one? It just doesn’t make sense. And why do experimental’ pieces? Why would somebody do that? It’s just ridiculous.”

“It gets down to the matter of how people see things. And I think the variation in how people see things may be much greater than we think. All I can speak for is myself and how I see them. I presume we’re seeing somewhat on the same level, but then again, I’m not quite sure.”

With the dramatic buy-up in art prices, it’s fair to wonder how closely the quality of art corresponds to the prices it fetches. John Windsor concludes that ‘the criteria for market success do not necessarily have much to do with an artist’s merit or even his influence.”

A stolen Norman Rockwell painting has been found in Steven Spielberg’s collection. “Spielberg purchased the painting in 1989 from a legitimate dealer and didn’t know it was stolen until his staff spotted its image last week on an FBI Web site listing stolen works of art, the bureau said in a statement.”