Category: visual

Believe you might be owed money from the settlement of the $512 million settlement of the Christie’s/Sotheby’s price-fixing suit? Time’s running out to get in on the settlement…

Legal wrangling over the future of the Barnes Collection outside Philadelphia has begun. The foundation is trying to move to Philadelphia, but is being challenged by Lincoln University, which currently appoints board members to oversee the Barnes. The university wants to keep control of the board, and objects to the move. Tuesday a judge granted Lincoln full status in the case, denying the same to other parties that have interests in the Barnes. The Barnes says it will go bankrupt if it is not allowed to move.

Titian was one of the great painters of the Renaissance. The great biographer Vasari concluded that “Titian had invented a new form of art ‘made up of bold strokes and blobs, beautiful and astonishing because it makes paintings seem alive.” Every painter that has followed him has been influenced by his work in some way. So why, in 400 year, has there never been a British exhibition of his work? Now London’s National Gallery has managed to beg and borrow more than 40 of Titian’s finest paintings for an exhibition of his work.

“Real-estate and steel magnate Joey Tanenbaum and his wife Toby have announced an immense donation of 211 European 19th-century works to the Art Gallery of Hamilton, a gift that will make the Southern Ontario city a destination for scholars of the period.” The collection is valued at as much as CAN$90 million, and includes works by Gustave Doré, Jean Léon Gérôme, and Eugene Carrière.

A Renoir and a Monet stolen from a Florida mansion in December have been recovered by Miami police. The police used their acting talents as much as their investigative skills to recover the art. “A Miami-Dade officer posed as a seedy high-roller with a penchant for gold jewelry. A private investigator, hired by an insurance company, adopted the role of an Eastern European businessman with a professorial air and an appetite for boosted art treasures. Another Miami-Dade officer posed as a chauffeur-body guard to the artistic impersonator, driving him to the decidedly unswanky Hialeah hotel in a pricey Lincoln…” And the sting was on…

Washington’s Phillips Collection is expanding. “The Phillips has bought an adjoining four-story, 15-unit apartment house on 21st Street NW fashioned in the early 20th century out of two town houses. The museum will keep that building’s cream-colored facade while gutting the interior. The museum bought the apartment house for $1.4 million two years ago, and it has budgeted $20 million for the expansion, a figure that museum officials expect to rise.”

What were the most popular art exhibitions of 2002? The Art Newspaper does its annual survey. This year “Van Gogh and Gauguin” was the top show on both sides of the Atlantic. At the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam the show drew almost 7000 visitors a day – for a total of 739,117.

What to do with all those ugly (usually) concrete buildings of the 1960s and 70s? “Demolition is cathartic and the idea of a blank piece of paper seductive. But though developers can make a profit tearing down 1960s office buildings, elsewhere comprehensive redevelopment has proved hellishly expensive. That sort of money is never going to be available for the arts, though,” so how to make arts buildings of that period work?

The Melbourne Museum is asking the state government to eliminate the museum’s admission fee. “The museum raises $10 million a year from admission fees but visitor numbers have consistently fallen below expectations. The museum faces a $6 million deficit by June 2004, if nothing is done, despite a management shake-up in December when three senior executives lost their jobs.” Museum officials believe if the museum is free it will attract more visitors and customers to the cafes and gift shops.