On 29 Nov, 2010 With
Cynical realism Cynical realism is a contemporary movement in Chinese art, especially in the form of painting, that began in the 1990s. Beginning in Beijing, it has become the most popular Chinesecontemporary art movement in mainland China. It arose through the pursuit of individual expression by Chinese artists that broke away from the collective mindset that existed since theCultural Revolution. The major themes tend to focus on socio-political issues and events since Revolutionary China (1911) to the present. These include having a, usually humorous and post-ironic, take on a realist perspective and interpretation of transition that Chinese society has been through, from the advent of Communism to today’s industrialization andmodernization. Artists associated with Cynical Realism include Fang Lijun, Liu Wei, and Yue Minjun.
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On 16 Nov, 2010 With
The most expensive contemporary art painting ever sold 2008: The most expensive contemporary art painting ever sold at auction: Triptych (1976) by Francis Bacon. Sold for $86.3 million.
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On 1 Nov, 2010 With
Émile Schuffenecker Émile Schuffenecker (December 8, 1851 – July 31, 1934) was a French Post-Impressionist artist, painter, art teacher and art collector. A friend of Paul Gauguin and Odilon Redon, and one of the first collectors of works by Vincent van Gogh, Schuffenecker was instrumental in establishing the Volpini exhibition, in 1889. His own work, however, tends to have been neglected since his death—and even worse, recent season campaigns in the media have reactivated resentments virulent since the late 1920s, when Schuffenecker was suspected to haveimitated the work of other contemporary artists, among them, Van Gogh. Still a contentious issue, it has not been established whether he produced forgeries. Meanwhile, serious scholarly research at least has provided the base for a sober art historical approach…
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On 28 Oct, 2010 With
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On 22 Oct, 2010 With
The most expensive work from classical antiquity ever sold at auction 2007: The most expensive work from classical antiquity ever sold at auction: Roman-era bronze sculpture of Artemis and the Stag. Sold for $28.6 million.
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On 18 Oct, 2010 With
Sir George Sitwell (father of the famous writer Dame Edith Sitwell) was a very bizarre man in many ways. He was a keen gardener (he actually studied garden design) and, annoyed by the wasps in his garden, he invented a pistol for shooting them. After he moved to Italy to avoid taxes in Britain, he refused to pay his new wife’s debts which resulted in her spending three months in prison. He was such an avid reader and collector of books that he had seven libraries in his home. Other eccentricities included paying his son an allowance based on the amount paid by one of his forebears to his son during the Black Death, and trying to pay his son’s Eton school…
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On 13 Oct, 2010 With
An 1839 Turner masterpiece of a view of Rome has sold for £29.7m in London, breaking the artist’s auction record. Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino sold in five minutes with six bidders battling for the work which has only come up for sale once before, Sotheby’s said. The previous record was the £20.5m paid in 2006 for Venice painting Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio. Modern Rome, which had an estimate of £12m-£18m, was the top seller at the Old Master and British Paintings sale. Other highlights included Dutch artist Jan Lievens’ study of the head and shoulders of an old bearded man wearing a cap (circa 1629), which brought £2.5m against an estimate of £2-3m. TURNER AUCTIONS:…
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On 12 Oct, 2010 With
Sitwell, Dame Edith Edith Sitwell Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE (7 September 1887 – 9 December 1964) was a British poet and critic. Background Edith Sitwell was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, the only daughter of the eccentric Sir George Sitwell, 4th Baronet, of Renishaw Hall; he was an expert on genealogy and landscaping. Her mother was the former Lady Ida Emily Augusta Denison, a daughter of the Earl of Londesborough and a granddaughter of Henry Somerset, 7th Duke of Beaufort. She claimed a descent through female lines from thePlantagenets. Sitwell had two younger brothers, Osbert (1892-1969) and Sacheverell Sitwell (1897-1988) both distinguished authors, well-known literary figures in their own right, and long-term collaborators. Sacheverell married a Canadian woman, Georgia Doble, in 1925 and moved to Weston Hall in Northamptonshire….
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On 11 Oct, 2010 With
White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) by Mark Rothko • 2007: The second most expensive contemporary (ie. post-war) painting ever sold at auction: White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) by Mark Rothko. Sold for $72.8 million.
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On 10 Oct, 2010 With
Boston art theft remains biggest unsolved mystery By John Wilson Vermeer’s The Concert is estimated to be worth around £200m The Gardner robbery remains the largest single property theft of all time As crime scenes go, it has got to be one of the most beautiful. The Dutch Room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston is lined with green silk wallpaper, from terracotta cobbled floor to oak timbered ceiling. On one wall hangs a Van Dyck, on another a Rubens but these artworks are not the first things one notices in the first floor gallery. It is the empty frames that stop you in your tracks. One, an ornate gilded rectangle framing nothing but green wallpaper, once held…
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