By: Jonathan Lopez As a salute to New York on the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage to America—a Dutch-financed venture that aimed to find the Northwest Passage to the Orient but instead found the waters around Manhattan island—the Rijksmuseum has placed Johannes Vermeer’s famed Milkmaid on temporary loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The painting [...]
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Books: A Kleptocrat’s Collection
October 2009The great complexities of provenance research are little known to those outside the profession. Claimants of looted art, lawyers, judges and most journalists, unaware of the difficulties, often think that the exact history of a work of art is easily found. In her extraordinary book on the paintings collection of Hermann Goering, Nancy H. Yeide, chief of provenance research at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., makes clear that that is not the case.
Continue reading...The Visionary
October 2009In 1930, at the age of 37, Charles Burchfield was given a one-man exhibition by the Museum of Modern Art. While by no means indifferent to the honor and in no way dissatisfied with the way his work was presented, the artist didn’t trouble himself to make the trip from his home in Buffalo, N.Y., to attend his own show. To MoMA director Alfred H. Barr Jr., he wrote, somewhat sheepishly, “I wish I had been able to come to the exhibit, but found it was impossible just now.”
Continue reading...Outside In
October 2009Russel Wright’s longtime home and studio, Dragon Rock, was built along a rocky slope overlooking the Hudson River about an hour north of Manhattan. The designer envisioned Dragon Rock as a modern country retreat that melds unnoticed into 75 acres of oaks, ferns, white pines, wildflowers, streams, moss, meadows and Chevy-size boulders. “His key philosophy in developing and creating Manitoga (meaning, ‘place of the great spirit’) was to live in harmony with nature, and he achieved this by blending the indoors with the outdoors,” says Lori Moss, assistant director of the Russel Wright Design Center
Continue reading...Collecting: Take Me Away
October 2009Toward the end of the 1920s real estate entrepreneur Carl Fisher attempted to repeat the huge success of his Miami Beach residential development, promoting what he called the “Miami Beach of the North” on New York’s Long Island. To promote the 10,000-acre luxury resort, Fisher commissioned a poster that featured star athletes of the time posing in the foreground of his grandiose 200-room Montauk Manor.
Continue reading...Critic's Notebook: Conceptualizing Tradition
October 2009In 1997, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei published a photograph showing Tiananmen Square blocked out by his middle finger. He titled his image Study in Perspective, in a phrase making a provocative statement out of an obscene gesture. Formulating his contempt for power in a manner akin to a classical painter extending a digit to reckon proportions, Ai suggested that the individual artist might eclipse even the most oppressive government.
Continue reading...Coats of Many Colors
October 2009The difference between a mediocre piece of American painted furniture and a great one is measured in a span smaller than an inch. Vulnerable to the ravages of time and the whims of fashion, few of these furnishings have survived the centuries with their painted surfaces intact.
Continue reading...Exhibitions: Sèvres’ Success
October 2009Since the mid-18th century, Sèvres has produced porcelain for monarchs, diplomats and private collectors alike. Even as the factory’s wealthy clients were put to the guillotine in the midst of the French Revolution, the National Convention decided that Sèvres must continue to run. “We all know that French history is riddled with changes of regime and political and social turmoil over the centuries,” says Liana Paredes, curator of a new Sèvres exhibition at the Hillwood Estate, Museum and Gardens in Washington, D.C. “What were the factors that safeguarded this factory and its production through such a long history?”
Continue reading...In Perspective
October 2009By: The Editors EXHIBITIONS Back to Nature: Babcock Galleries in New York has a comprehensive show of the work of Alan Gussow from Oct. 8–Nov. 25. Gussow, who died in 1997, combined abstraction with observation in landscape paintings that expressed his conservationist philosophy. Buried With the Pharaohs: Opening Oct. 18 at the Museum of Fine [...]
Continue reading...Market: On the Continent
October 2009By: John Dorfman Although relatively little known to art buyers in the English-speaking countries, German and Austrian auction houses are excellent hunting grounds for unusual finds at sometimes bargain prices. This month and next, a large number of sales in a wide variety of categories will be held. Starting off the fall season, the storied [...]
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