ArtPourri

Mission Accomplished--The Lower Manhattan Development Corporation was created in the immediate aftermath of September 11th as a transitional agency to help in recovery and coordinate rebuilding.  The LMDC will now transition its responsibilities to appropriate partners in the rebuilding effort, part of an overall plan to sunset the agency in the fall of this year.  The City will administer the grants to over 60 downtown cultural initiatives and remaining earmarked funds.

Museum Grant Recipients Announced—The Institute of Museum and Library Services has announced the 2006 "Museums for America" recipients, the nation’s largest federal funding program for museums.  Of 448 museums (urban and rural, large and small, from art to zoo) nationwide that applied, 177 will share over $16.9 million.  For a list of recipients by state, visit http://www.imls.gov/news/2006/071806_list.shtm.

Stamp News—The U. S. Postal service has commemorated four of the greatest baseball sluggers of the twentieth century on spectacular new stamps recently released:  Mickey Mantle, Roy Campanella, Hank Greenberg and Mel Ott.  Artist Lonnie Busch of Franklin, NC, based his designs on historic photographs and then simplified and adapted the portraits to resemble old-fashioned baseball cards.  "Baseball Sluggers" stamps are available in sheets of 20 or stamped postal cards in booklet sets of 20.

NEA News—The National Endowment for the Arts recently announced the recipients of the 2006 National Heritage Fellowships, the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.  Among the ten chosen are Charles M. Carrillo, santero (carver and painter of sacred figures), Santa Fe, NM; Delores E. Churchill, Haida (Native Alaskan) weaver, Ketchikan, AK; and Diomedes Matos, cuatro (10-string Puerto Rican guitar) maker, Deltona, FL.  The 2006 Bess Lomax Hawes Award went to advocate, scholar, presenter and preservationist Nancy Sweezy of Westwood, MA.

—Research Note #90, Artist Employment in 2005, has been posted at http://www.arts.gov/pub/Notes/90.pdf.  It concludes that in 2005 the labor market improved for the civilian work force and for most workers in artist occupations.

Museum Receives Grant—The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum has been awarded a $1 million grant by the U.S. Department of Education to evaluate the impact of its pioneering arts education program "Learning Through Art" (LTA) on students’ problem-solving skills. The Guggenheim recently announced results of another Dept. of Ed.-funded three-year study which showed that LTA had a demonstrable impact on elementary students’ literacy and critical thinking.

Auction News--Picasso’s magnificent Blue Period portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto, 1903, will be offered at Christie’s New York evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on Nov. 8.  Estimated to bring $40-60M, the painting is arguably one of the most important of this period in the artist’s oeuvre.  Christie's has also been selected to advise the heirs of Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer on the sale of four of the five legendary Gustav Klimt paintings recently restituted to the family and currently on view at The Neue Galerie, New York City, until Sept. 18.

Top Dollar for Folk Art—A copper weathervane of a locomotive that topped a train station in Woonsocket, RI, from 1882 until 1971 has sold at auction for $1.2 million.  This is believed to be a record price for an American weathervane.  (See ARTtalk Vol. 16 No. 6, April 2006, or go to http://www.arttalk.com/archives/vol-16/artv1606.htm#FOLK).

Milestone—Cartoonist Bob Thaves has died in California at the age of 81.  Best known for his syndicated comic strip Frank & Ernest, he had transitioned into semi-retirement in recent years.  His son Tom, who had collaborated on the strip since 1997, will continue to lead a team effort to continue production of Frank & Ernest.

Exhibitions

New York, NY – Guggenheim Museum – No Limits, Just Edges:  Jackson Pollock Paintings on Paper is the first retrospective devoted exclusively to Pollock’s works on paper in 25 years and includes approximately 65 works drawn from private and public collections.  Organized on the occasion of the 50^th anniversary of his death, it specifically considers Pollock’s draftsmanship as an essential component in his transformation of the traditional figurative line into nonfigurative allover abstraction.  Through Sept. 29.

New York, NY - Metropolitan Museum of Art – Rembrandt Drawings and Prints, A Selection in Honor of the Artist’s 400^th Birthday includes a selection of 58 drawings and prints from the museum’s extensive collection of works by the great 17^th century Dutch master and artists of his school.  Forty-four works are by Rembrandt himself.  If you can’t visit by Oct. 15, view the exhibition online at www.metmuseum.org.

Washington, D.C. – Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum – Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Moran:  Tourism and the American Landscape explores the promotion of scenic tourism in 19^th century America through the museum’s extraordinary collections of oil paintings, drawings and watercolors by these artists.  This is the premiere showing of many Homer oil paintings.  Through Oct. 22.

Shelburne, VT – Shelburne Museum – Simple Beauty:  Paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe features some 25 works that provide an overview of this admired artist’s work and highlights connections to American landscape painting.  Through Oct. 31.

Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 16 No. 11 -- September 2006