ArtPourri

Agreement Reached on Antiquities—The Metropolitan Museum of Art has signed an agreement that formalizes the transfer of title to six antiquities to Italy.  The Italian Culture Ministry has further agreed to provide the Met with long-term future loans of works of art of equivalent beauty and importance to the objects being returned.  The Met called this “an appropriate solution to a complex problem, which redresses past improprieties in the acquisitions process through a highly equitable arrangement.”

Milestone Reached—American icon Gordon Parks has died at the age of 93.  A photographer, filmmaker, author and activist, he was the first African American to work atLifemagazine as well as the first to direct a major studio feature film.  BothThe Learning TreeandShaft have been honored by preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry.

Masterpiece Acquired—The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, has purchased an early painting by Armenian-born American artist Arshile Gorky, which links the museum’s survey of 20^thcentury American art with its holdings of Modern masters.Nightime, Enigma and Nostalgia(c. 1933-34) incorporates his mastery of Cubist composition, his early interest in Surrealism and his wide knowledge of art history.

Auction News—Christie’sJune sale of British Art on Paper will include an exceptional work by J.M.W. Turner.The Blue Rigi:  Lake of Lucerne, Sunrise(1842) is considered an extraordinary study in light, color and texture and is expected to realize in excess of $2 million.—In MaySotheby’swill offer an unprecedented collection of watercolors (to be sold individually) by William Blake, 12 of which had been lost to scholars since 1836 and rediscovered in 2001. The 19 illustrations for an 18^thcentury poem by Robert Blair entitled “The Grave” were executed in 1805.—Sotheby’ssale of Plaster Casts from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York realized a grand total of $502,530 and all 177 lots sold.

NEA News—The National Endowment for the Arts has announced $700,000 in grants to support arts organizations in the Gulf Coast region that were affected by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Included is $500,000 in support to individual organizations and state and local arts agencies. And $200,000 is targeted for regional participation in the Mayors’ Institute on City Design and Your Town, two of the country’s most established city planning and design programs.

Exhibitions:

Kansas City, MO – Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art –Celebrating a Grand Gift: The Hallmark Photographic Collectionspans the entire history of photography, from 1839 to the present, with 31 works by such renowned pioneers and masters as Carleton Watkins, Alfred Stieglitz and Dorothea Lange, among others.  Recently acquired by the museum, the collection is considered the most broad-ranging and important private collection of American photography. Through April 30.

New York, NY – Museum of Modern Art –Edvard Munch:  The Modern Life of the Soulis the first retrospective devoted to the work of the internationally renowned Norwegian painter, printmaker and draftsman to be held in an American museum in almost three decades.  Eighty-seven paintings and 50 works on paper represent each phase of Munch’s career, from 1880 to 1944. Through May 8.

Boston, MA – Museum of Fine Arts –David Hockney Portraitsis the first exhibition devoted solely to Hockney’s portraiture and surveys five decades of the artist’s career.  More than 150 works reveal Hockney’s fascination with the human form through depictions of himself and important people in his life. Through May 14.

Washington, D.C. – The Phillips Collection –The Renoir Returns:  A Celebration of Masterworks from the Phillips Collection welcomes back to D.C. approximately 60 masterworks from an enormously successful four-year international tour by Renoir, Bonnard, Degas, Gauguin, van Gogh, Kandinsky, and others.  This special homecoming marks the culmination of a major addition and renovation project begun in 2003 to modernize and expand the institution. Opens April 15 through July 30.

Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 16 No. 6 -- April 2006