Category: visual

“The Churchill family has offered the pictures to the nation in lieu of inheritance tax. A decision by the government on whether it will accept this deal is expected next year.”

“More than 40 historic sites, including a mosque, a church and an ancient bath, were damaged or destroyed in Gaza during the 51-day war this summer, reports the Middle East news organisation Al-Monitor.”

The Clyfford Still Museum in Denver has exceeded every expectation in its first three years of operation, “quieting some who doubted that Still, a pioneer of Abstract Expressionism but never a household name, could carry a single-artist museum, let alone one constrained by a will dictating that no work by any other artist could be ever be shown there.”

“Spain’s minister of education, culture and sport, José Ignacio Wert, has dispelled any fears that some of the Museo del Prado’s Renaissance masterpieces could be transferred to a planned Royal Collections museum, due to open in 2016.”

“Many people donate percentages of a painting to a museum over several years so that the deduction matches their income. While the ultimate goal is to give 100 percent of the painting to the museum, people might be deterred from giving art gradually if the I.R.S. discounted the value for charitable gifts.”

“Beyond trying to confirm the losses, antiquities guardians around the world are asking themselves this question: Is it better to raise the alarm about what’s in harm’s way – or keep quiet to avoid the militants’ gaze?”

“The Metropolitan Museum of Art played the role of deus ex machina late last week, agreeing to purchase a trove of Egyptian antiquities that were about to go on the block at Bonhams in London, consigned by a St. Louis archaeological society. Archaeologists and historians alike had assailed the auction, fearing that the nearly 4,000-year-old artifacts would disappear into the hands of private collectors.”

“It is far from common for an artist to revisit the site of a commission to recreate the work of decades past. In [Sheila] Hicks’s case, the effort is particularly unusual. She turned 80 in July. She lives in Paris. She had to finance much of the project herself. And at this stage in her career, she had nothing to prove.”

“Matisse wanted to control the beholder and specify how and what she would see, but he also wanted something like the opposite. The viewer must be led by the work, but her attention must at the same time be self-conscious — both hypnosis and resisting hypnosis are part of engaging the work.”