Category: visual

Four of five Gustav Klimt paintings returned by Austria to a Los Angeles woman earlier this year, will be sold at Christie’s this fall. “Experts say the four paintings — three landscapes and a portrait executed between 1903 and 1916 — are worth about $100 million.”

Two suspects have been arrested in the theft of 221 artifacts from the Hermitage Museum. “The authorities in Moscow and St. Petersburg declined to discuss the investigation, saying it was still under way. But the Interfax news agency cited an unidentified official close to the investigation as saying the case had been effectively solved. It said the fate of about 70 of the works, including where they had been sold, had been established, although it was not clear whether any of the items had since been found.”

Glass artist Dale Chihuly has built an empire that nets tens of millions of dollars a year in sales. Has the artist become a factory removed from the art?

Experts are disputing the autheticity of a painting attributed to Van Gogh. “The work, known as either Portrait of a Man or Head of a Man, is said to have been painted by Van Gogh in Paris in the winter of 1886. It is on loan from the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) in Melbourne, Australia, for an exhibition in Scotland.”

Australia’s National gallery of Victoria is disputing claims that a prize Van Gogh it owns is a fake. “The painting is not mentioned in any of the artist’s letters. It was painted on canvas and mounted on a panel, also unusual for Van Gogh.”

Asecond artifact on the Hermitage Museum’s list of missing art has turned up. “A 19th-century chalice was turned in by a Moscow dealer, who said he had discovered it among his collection after the venerable museum went public Monday about the theft of its artifacts.”

A lawsuit brought by glass artist Dale Chihuly against a former employee has not been settled, contrary to what the artist claimed last week. “On Friday, Chihuly’s studio manager Billy O’Neill and publicist Janet Makela said that they initially thought the suit was settled, but discovered they were ‘misinformed’ by their attorney about the resolution of Chihuly’s suit against glass blower Rubino.”

“A consortium of Philadelphia print curators and artists will launch a city-wide international festival of printmaking in 2010. Fashioned as the Documenta of the print world, the quadrennial Philagrafika will take place at museums, arts organisations, galleries and alternative spaces throughout the city.”

“It would be an error to concentrate on organising events to the detriment of the permanent collection just because we have new spaces. There are several museums that are exhausted because they have invested all their energies in realising a programme of temporary exhibitions. We will only organise exhibitions if they are necessary.”

Glass artist Dale Chihuly has settled his lawsuit with a former employee whom Chihuly claimed was infringing on the artist’s copyright. “If I had to do it again, I probably wouldn’t. I’m not the kind of person who wants to sue somebody, and yet I did. I got kind of fed up. For some reason, some people don’t think it’s illegal to copy someone else’s work. Maybe this suit clarified the point.”