New & Noteworthy:
After 75 Years and 15 Claims, a Bid to Regain Lost Art Inches Forward
Heirs of Baron Mor Lipot Herzog, a Hungarian banker whose collection of masterpieces was seized by the Nazis, are still pursuing its return….CLICK HERE.
Creative Hope Emerges From Australia's Wildfires
In the midst of terrible tragedy, Australian artists band together to raise money, donate their own artwork and even create new pieces to save lives. …CLICK HERE.
Homer, Sargent, And The American Watercolor Movement
The phenomenal rise in the popularity of watercolor painting in the United States that followed the formation of the American Watercolor Society in 1866 drew energy from a new talent bank of artists and an expanding class of collectors, on the rise after the Civil War. Determined to overturn the prejudice against watercolor as a medium for amateurs and commercial artists, the members of the new society recruited support from all corners of the art world. …CLICK HERE.
The Decade In Art, Christie's' and Sotheby's' Supremacy, and 2019 Highlights
As the second decade of the 21st century comes to a close, we reviewed our data and assembled the most valued paintings and artists of the decade and look back at 2019 as well. …CLICK HERE.
Dean’s List: Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys Focus on Collecting African-American Art
In May 2018, in a buzzing salesroom at Sotheby’s New York, the hammer fell on Kerry James Marshall’s Past Times (1997), a sprawling masterpiece that surveys a contemporary pastoral scene in which black figures are seen picnicking, boating, golfing, and playing croquet. Not long after, the price—$21.1 million, the highest figure for a work by a living African-American artist at auction—set off a fierce debate. …CLICK HERE.
Is Maurizio Cattelan’s $120,000 Banana Sculpture a Cynical Sign of the Times or a Thrilling Artwork? Yes!
At the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing on impeachment yesterday, the Republican’s expert witness, law professor Jonathan Turley, testified that everyone in America is “mad.” “My Republican friends are mad,” he said. “My Democratic friends are mad. My wife is mad. My kids are mad. Even my dog seems mad, and Luna is a goldendoodle and they don’t get mad.” …CLICK HERE.
Gucci Mane, Chloë Sevigny, Jared Leto, and More Flock to Miami Art Week—See Photos of Art and Celebrities …CLICK HERE.
Art Basel Miami Beach’s VIP Opening Sees Brisk Sales, as $2.4 M. David Hammons, $1.7 M. Helen Frankenthaler Find Buyers
It’s no secret that the global art market is alive and relatively well, especially in the air-conditioned bubble of the spacious Miami Beach Convention Center, where the V.I.P. vernissage of the 18th Art Basel Miami Beach fair took place Wednesday. As beautiful weather graced the city outside, 269 galleries offered primary and secondary market material. …CLICK HERE.
John Baldessari: the giant prankster who torched artworld pretension
John Baldessari was a towering figure in conceptual art. I mean, literally he was a towering figure: 6ft 7in to be precise. He was also incredibly important. …CLICK HERE.
Is Maurizio Cattelan’s $120,000 Banana Sculpture a Cynical Sign of the Times or a Thrilling Artwork? Yes!
As you may know by now, the semi-retired artist, whose last major creation was a golden toilet titled America (2016), has now taped a banana to a wall of Perrotin gallery’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach, the glitzy bazaar that alights in that flood-endangered city every December. It is titled Comedian, and it is priced at $120,000. Three were available, and the first two apparently sold on opening day. …CLICK HERE.
Art Basel Miami Beach’s VIP Opening Sees Brisk Sales, as $2.4 M. David Hammons, $1.7 M. Helen Frankenthaler Find Buyers
It’s no secret that the global art market is alive and relatively well, especially in the air-conditioned bubble of the spacious Miami Beach Convention Center, where the V.I.P. vernissage of the 18th Art Basel Miami Beach fair took place Wednesday. As beautiful weather graced the city outside, 269 galleries offered primary and secondary market material. …CLICK HERE.
Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi makes auction history
The rediscovered masterpiece by the Renaissance master sells for an historic $450,312,500, obliterating the previous world record for the most expensive work of art at auction. Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale totals $785,942,250 … CLICK HERE.
7 Artists To Watch: September 2019
The art season is officially open! Here's who we can't stop gabbing about this month: …CLICK HERE.
The Amy Sherald Effect
In the painter’s realism, race applies as a condition and a cause for resetting the mainstream of Western art.
The subjects of Amy Sherald’s eight strong oil portraits at Hauser & Wirth impress with their looks, in both senses: striking elegance, riveting gazes. In six of the pictures, the subjects stand singly against bright monochrome grounds. (The other two works are more complicated.) They are young or youngish, attractive, stylishly dressed, and likely well-to-do—presentable people, presented. All are African-American. Should this matter? … CLICK HERE.
Art Industry News: Inside the Top-Secret Rooms Where Art Basel’s Most Sensitive Sales Really Go Down + Other Stories
Artist Censored by Polish Museum Speaks Out – This spring, the National Museum of Poland in Warsaw controversially removed two artworks from an exhibition: Natalia LL’s Consumer Art, which features a topless woman eating a banana, and Appearance as Lou Salomé by fellow Polish artist Katarzyna Kozyra, a video depicting a woman walking two people dressed up as dogs. …CLICK HERE.
Arts Power 50: The Changemakers Shaping the Art World in 2019
The art industry changes fast. Spurred on by artists who are bringing forward new ideas and radical aesthetics into the discourse, this is an industry where those who promote, represent, exhibit, sell, critique and generally support art have to stay nimble. For this reason, Observer takes a moment each year to consider the power players impacting the arts. This industry is a complicated ecosystem, but we look to the changemakers both behind the scenes and in the spotlight to see who is building the future zeitgeist. …CLICK HERE.
Which Emerging Artist Dominated 2019? 12 Art-World Players Share Their Thoughts
There is never any shortage of cutting-edge work by rising art stars to get your fill of, and this year was no exception. With so much material to wade through, we asked curators and other art experts to tell us which names dominated 2019 and are worth keeping an eye on as we head into the new year. Below, 12 experts share their thoughts. …CLICK HERE.
How Rising Art Star Alvaro Barrington Charmed London’s Top Galleries Into Breaking Their Own Rules for the Chance to Work With Him
It’s unusual to hear about an emerging artist who has 10 years’ worth of work already mapped out in his mind. It’s even more unusual to hear that that artist is rolling out his magnum opus at top galleries—just two and a half years out of art school. But 36-year-old Alvaro Barrington doesn’t let tradition dictate his career. In fact, he’s made it a point to break the rules. … CLICK HERE.
Reaching Beyond her Island Home in Barbados: Sheena Rose still creates art in her brother’s old bedroom, but things are about to change.
This month we are highlighting the wonderful and provocative Barbadian artist Sheena Rose whose bold and impressive works of art are about to break out onto the world stage. Sheena Rose was born and raised on the island of Barbados, which retains its importance and centrality in her artistic works. A fullbright scholar who received her masters degree from The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Sheena Rose is a familiar name in the Caribbean and diaspora. Drawing is an integral part of Rose’s artistic practice, though she is equally well known for her video, animation, installation and performance work.
Rose’s artwork challenges the conventions of the society she grew up in. In fact, the work that some thought should be censored was the very work that brought Sheena Rose not only to national, but indeed to international attention. The curator David Bailey came to Barbados saw her work and commissioned Rose to do a site-specific work called “Town to Town’ in which the artist explored the everyday urban life in Barbados. This work was an immediate success and she became one of the first artists on the island to dive head first into installation and video art. Since then her work has been included in Art Fairs such as Art Basel Miami, Film festivals, auctions and galleries and is on the cover of Naomi Jackson’s book called, “The Star Side of Bird Hill.” This cover has been awarded from Huffington Post and E People Magazine as one of the best book covers for the year 2015.
Sheena Rose has performed a piece called “Island Monster” at The Royal Academy of Arts in London, at MoCada Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art in Brooklyn and in an artists talk with Tamara Best Senior Editor of the NY Times. Her art has been collected by tennis star Venus Williams and by other collectors abroad. Please see artist Sheen Rose featured in the NY Times Arts and Design column.
Marsden Hartley's Maine: Exhibition at the Met Breuer in New York City, New York, from March 15, 2017 - June 18, 2017
The American artist Marsden Hartley first visited Bermuda with fellow artist Charles Demuth around 1917 during World War I. Hartley’s time was spent on the North Shore of Bermuda where he stayed with fisherman Elmo Petty, and the two frequently fished together. Hartley was infatuated with the vibrant Bermuda fish and the dazzling blue water. He spent the majority of his time painting and writing poetry, and was fortunate to return to the island again in 1935. Marsden Hartley’s found inspiration in the landscape, expressing the spiritual essence of nature, a theme he had explored for three decades. Perhaps the best-known artworks from Hartley’s time in Bermuda are Movement, Bermuda and Sunken Treasure, the latter now being a permanent piece of the Bermuda Masterworks Collection.
To view more about Marsden Hartley's upcoming exhibition at the Met Breur please CLICK HERE.
Insiders Dish on the Art Market
The bidding battle for a 1982 abstract by Gerhard Richter at Sotheby's Friday evening auction on Oct. 7, and the magnitude of the price achieved (about $12.7 million), encapsulates why people become fascinated with the art market, and why, if they have enough money, they become collectors... CLICK HERE
Modern Heroics: 75 Years of African-American Expressionism at the Newark Museum
Exhibition on view in Newark, New Jersey -- June 18, 2016 - January 8, 2017
Presenting selected works from Newark’s permanent collection, including pictures by Romare Bearden and Norman Lewis... CLICK HERE
Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis
Exhibition at the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, TX -- June 4, 2016-August 21, 2016
CLICK HERE to see the promotional video or CLICK HERE to connect to the exhibition announcement on the Amon Carter Museum website.
Reappraising the art of Norman Lewis -- VIDEO from CBS Sunday Morning -- March 20, 2016.
There's a certain satisfaction in seeing a talented artist finally getting his due ... however belatedly. Jim Axelrod has a case in point... CLICK HERE
Elbow Beach's Painterly Past: Graham Foster's massive new mural depicts over 100 years of Bermuda tourism at Elbow Beach Hotel -- Article in The Bermudian Magazine -- December 1, 2015.
By his own admission, Graham Foster always knew he would devote his career to the making of art but perhaps he didn’t predict that one day he would literally make history... CLICK HERE
Procession: The Art of Norman Lewis
Exhibition at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts -- November 13, 2015 through April 3, 2016
The first comprehensive museum overview of Norman Lewis: a pivotal figure in American art, a participant in the Harlem art community, an innovator of Abstract Expressionism, and a politically-conscious activist... CLICK HERE
Impressionism and the Caribbean: Francisco Oller and His Transatlantic World
Exhibition at The Brooklyn Museum -- October 2, 2015 through January 3, 2016
The painter Francisco Oller contributed greatly to the development of modern art in both Europe and the Caribbean and revolutionized the school of painting in his native Puerto Rico... CLICK HERE
Ushio Shinohara: Live Boxing Painting on YouTube
Performance at the Dallas Museum of Art -- October 16, 2015
VIDEO: Watch a public demonstration of Ushio Shinohara’s Boxing Painting, in which the artist uses paint-soaked sponges attached to boxing gloves... CLICK HERE
Lusher Teams up with US Art Advisory Group
Article in The Royal Gazette -- October 9, 2015
New collaboration: Bermudian art broker Nicholas Lusher is to work with the Winston Group in offering art advisory services in Bermuda... CLICK HERE
Dealer (Nicholas Lusher) Prepares Show of Top Bermuda Art
Article in The Royal Gazette -- December 1, 2014
Christmas may come early this year for local art collectors... CLICK HERE