Archive for September 2009
Talking Pictures: The Great Debate
By: Jonathan Lopez Which art form is superior, painting or sculpture? On the face of it, this question might seem futile, since there is no right answer. But for artists in Renaissance Italy, the comparison, or paragone, of the arts was a matter of spirited and often invidious debate. The argument usually centered on a single issue—whether…
Read MoreFilm: Light and the City
A glass box of a room juts into the Los Angeles night; within it, two young women converse, unconcerned with the glittering grid of city lights beneath them. This striking image became famous not only because of its composition but because of its enduring resonance as an emblem of California modernism.
Read MoreCollecting: C’est Daguerre
In preparation for this past spring’s photography sale, the specialists at Sotheby’s New York were researching a 4- by 5.25-inch daguerreotype, taken in 1848 or earlier, of a rural estate on what is now New York City’s Upper West Side. The image, remarkably detailed despite some tarnishing, shows a house at the top of a hill, with a white fence encircling the yard in front of it.
Read MoreDream Weavers
Until April 2010 you can see Guernica in London, at the newly expanded Whitechapel Gallery. But if you’ve visited the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid and seen Picasso’s anguished portrayal of the bombing of a Basque town during the Spanish Civil War, you might notice something a bit odd. At 10 by 22 feet, the Guernica in London is slightly smaller than the one in Spain and considerably heavier (the gallery needed six men to hang it).
Read MoreInner Strengths
This past June and July, a very interesting thing took place in the London salesrooms of Christie’s and Sotheby’s. The results for Old Master paintings surpassed those for contemporary art, and they came surprisingly close to those for Impressionist and modern art. To market watchers, this topsy-turvy state of affairs signaled a shift in art-world priorities in the wake of the global economic crisis.
Read MoreFinancial Report: The Pawnbroker
If the art of business has revolutionized the business of art in the past decade, Tony Barreiro and Ray Parker Gaylord are firmly in the vanguard. The San Francisco-based company ArtLoan, which they founded in 2004, lends money against the value of art collections owned by individuals and galleries.
Read MoreIn a Nutshell: Fine Print
When it comes to miniature books, smallness is the point. “What’s nice about them is the fact that they’re so complete and so tiny,” says Catherine Williamson, director of the books and manuscripts department for Bonhams & Butterfields in Los Angeles. “The entire text is there, it just happens to be on a miniature scale.”
Read MoreCollecting: Blowing in the Wind
The weathervane collection at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont presents a visual feast of folk art. Dozens of antique wooden and metal sculptures that once crowned barns, churches, meeting houses, town halls and other structures symbolic of small-town America grace the interior of Shelburne’s Stagecoach Inn building. “We’re known for weathervanes,” says Jean Burks, senior curator and director of the museum’s curatorial department.
Read MoreBooks: The Other Hot Pot
Everybody now knows the story of the Euphronios krater, the sixth-century B.C. Greek masterpiece of vase painting that the Metropolitan Museum gave back to Italy last year. But what about the Euphronios kylix? A companion piece to the krater, this delicate drinking vessel shows an earlier version by the artist of the scene depicted on the krater—the body of the Homeric hero Sarpedon being carried off the battlefield of Troy by Sleep and Death.
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