All Art Friday
Art 'Most Wanted' List
Can you guess what painting is the "most wanted stolen art" in history? According to this post, an interview with art historian Noah Charney, it's Jan van Eyk's The Ghent Altarpiece (also known as The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb), which has been stolen seven times. The three-sectioned work, completed in 1426, comprises 12 individual oaken panels; huge, the triptych measures 14.5 feet x 11.5 feet and weighs some two tons. It was dedicated in 1432 in the Church of St. John, Ghent (now, Cathedral of St. Bavo).
Jan van Eyk, The Ghent Altarpiece
Other artworks that have captured the attention of thieves: Rembrandt's Portrait of Jacob de Gheyn (III) (dubbed the "takeaway Rembrandt"), lifted four times since 1966; Cezanne's The Boy in the Red Vest, taken in 2008 from the Emil Buhrle Collection in Zurich (see article on that theft here); and Raphael's Portrait of a Young Man, believed stolen by the Nazis in World War II and never recovered.
Charney is the author of Stealing the Mystic Lamb (Public Affairs Books/Perseus Books Group, 2010), an excerpt from which is here. His list of the top five "most wanted stolen art still missing" is here.
Database of Nazi-Looted Artworks (Project of the Claims Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany)
Exhibitions Here and There
✭ The Brooklyn Museum is presenting in its Egyptian Galleries "Body Parts: Ancient Egyptian Fragments and Amulets", opening November 19. The show, on view through October 2, 2011, features 35 representations of individual body parts from the museum's collection, using fragments of sculptures and objects to promote understanding of how ancient Egyptians thought about the body. Many of the pieces are being exhibited for the first time.
Right Eye from Anthropoid Coffin, Egypt, New Kingdom or Later, 1539-30 BCE
Obsidian, Crystalline Limestone, Blue Glass, 13/16 x 2-5/16 x 1 in
Brooklyn Museum, Charles Edwin Wilbour Fund, 37.1951E
✭ In Fort Worth, Texas, the Amon Carter Museum has mounted "Leon Polk Smith: The Tamarind Lithography Workshop", which continues through December 5 of this year. Included in the show are 15 prints from the museum's permanent collection that exemplify Smith's hard-edged geometric abstractions and the influence of Piet Mondrian.
New York Times Review of "Leon Polk Smith: American Painter", a Retrospective at The Brooklyn Museum
✭ A major retrospective of the career of Pacific Northwest artist Lee Kelly is on show at the Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon, through January 9, 2011. Included are 30 sculptures, paintings, and works on paper, as well as photographic documentation of Kelly's major public works. Kelly was instrumental in the establishment after World War II of an arts "scene" in the Pacific Northwest; he has been a sculptor for more than 50 years and is represented in many public, private, and corporate collections. His work encompasses the genres of gestural abstraction (think Jackson Pollock and "action painting"), minimalism, and post-modernism. Accompanying the show is a 198-page monograph, Lee Kelly.
OregonLive's "Profile: Northwest Sculptor Lee Kelly", October 9, 2010
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Six Dancers (Detail), Oil on Canvas, 1911
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Ludwig and Rosy Fischer Collection
© Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
✭ At the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts you'll find "German Expressionist Art: Selections from the Fischer Collection", on view through December 19. The exhibition includes major works by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Wassily Kandinsky, Max Pechstein, Conrad Felixmuller, and Otto Mueller. In putting together their collection, Ludwig and Rosy Fischer concentrated on artists who were part of Die Brucke ("The Bridge"), one of the principal groups in the German Expressionist movement.
VMFA's YouTube Channel
Richmond Times-Dispatch, "Va. Museum Acquires Prized German Expressionist Art", July 24, 2009
✭ The work of Arroyo Seco artist Johnnie Winona Ross is being exhibited in "Traces: Johnnie Winona Ross" at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. Featured in the artist's first solo museum show since he moved to New Mexico in 1999 are abstract paintings, some exhibited for the first time, spanning the last 14 years. Go here to see several images from the exhibit.
Ongoing at the museum is "Georgia O'Keeffe's Legacy in New Mexico", featuring paintings from NMMA's permanent collection.
Johnnie Winona Rose at The Harwood Museum of Art (through January 23, 2011)
Art Blogs and Websites
Below is a selection of art-related sites worth a visit:
✓ Arts Fuse ~ A nonprofit, Arts Fuse deeply covers the arts throughout New England. In addition to previews of coming attractions in film, theatre, dance, food, the visual arts, and jazz, classical, and popular music, Arts Fuse provides some of the very best in online arts journalism, criticism, and commentary.
✓ Artspace ~ This group seeks to promote, create, and preserve affordable space for artists and arts organizations through development projects, asset management, consulting, and community-building activities. Check the Events page for art walks, lecture series, and other art "happenings".
Artspace on Twitter
✓ Broad Strokes ~ This is the blog of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
NMWA on FaceBook and Twitter
✓ Broad Strokes ~ This is the blog of the National Museum of Women in the Arts.
NMWA on FaceBook and Twitter
✓ The Bruce High Quality Foundation ~ The "mission" of BHQF, organized by a group of artists to preserve the late sculptor's legacy, is to "aspire to invest the experience of public space with wonder, to resurrect art history from the bowels of despair, and to impregnate the institutions of art with the joy of man's desiring"; or, if you prefer, "to foster an alternative to everything". Go here for the Whitney Museum BHQF exhibition and here for a writeup in The New York Times' T magazine blog.
Bruce High Quality Foundation on FaceBook
✓ CultureGrrl ~ This blog of cultural commentary, which has received a "Best Blog" Front Page Award from the Newswomen's Club of New York, is written by Lee Rosenbaum. It is one of a number of excellent Arts Journal blogs.
✓ CultureGrrl ~ This blog of cultural commentary, which has received a "Best Blog" Front Page Award from the Newswomen's Club of New York, is written by Lee Rosenbaum. It is one of a number of excellent Arts Journal blogs.
✓ Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History ~ This marvelous resource is a chronological, geographical, and thematic exploration of the history of art, featuring images of works in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
✓ National Women's History Museum Blog
NWHM on FaceBook
Posts
6 comments:
Very interesting things Maureen!! Love the info about stolen art and the background of those pieces.
Yesterday, someone mentioned an art blog and I thought, Oh, I must let Maureen know about that one for her All Art Friday.
And I forgot to write it down!
But what thrilled me was how you All Art Friday's are an anticipated part of my week.
Eeek. I could spend all Sunday looking through all of this. Thank you so much, Maureen.
Lots of catching up to do ... computer issues continue to dog my steps and I've not been online most of the week.
iLike the six pink dancers. :)
i think i would like to have a Lee Kelly date.
thanks for the heads-up.
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