ArtPourri

Auction Record Set – Sotheby’s summer sales of Old Master & British Pictures in London brought a total of $94.5 million, a 39% increase over last July.  Leading the sale was J. M. W. Turner’s masterpiece Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino at $44.9 million, setting a record for the artist at auction, and now at a new home—the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, CA.

Cultural Awards ― 2010 marks the first decade of the National Museum of American Illustration opening to the public.  In celebration they recently hosted a gala event in Newport, RI, that included the inaugural American Civilization Awards honoring individuals and institutions who have significantly contributed to our popular culture—our American Civilization.  Honored laureates included The National Arts Club.

Finalists Announced – The 2010 Knight Arts Challenge finalists have been announced in the third round of an annual contest that aims to bring together South Florida’s diverse community through the arts.  Forty-one finalists were chosen from a wide-ranging field of applicants with a broad spectrum of ideas.  Project descriptions are available at www.KnightArts.org.  Winners of the matching arts grants will be announced in the fall.

Final Bow Taken – Little Orphan Annie, the renowned comic strip, has ended its newspaper syndication run—which began in 1924.  But, fear not, the “sun will come out tomorrow.”  A new round of 21^st century opportunities is being explored in digital and entertainment media form for Annie, her pet pooch Sandy and Daddy Warbucks.

Museum Attendance Up – The Met (NYC) has announced that visitors numbered 5,240,000 as of June 30, the end of the fiscal year.  This is the first year since 2001 that attendance has exceeded five million.  Among the most popular exhibitions were Vermeer’s Masterpiece The Milkmaid, Picasso
in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (on view through Aug. 15), Doug + Mike Starn on the Roof:  Big Bambu (through Oct. 31) and American Woman:  Fashioning a National Identity (through Aug. 15). Memberships also increased to a record high and visitors to the Museum’s website increased
by 14%.

Recovery Effort Praised – The head of INTERPOL has praised police authorities in Germany and Ukraine for their “exemplary international collaboration” in a recent operation in which a stolen Caravaggio painting was recovered and an alleged international art theft gang broken up.  The painting, known as the “Taking of Christ” or the “Kiss of Judas” and reportedly worth tens of millions of Euros, is considered a national treasure in Ukraine.  It was stolen two years ago from the Museum of Western European and Oriental Art in Odessa.

NEA News – A new report, Audience 2.0:  How Technology Influences Arts Participation looks at who is participating in the arts through electronic media, what factors affect their participation and the relationship between media-based arts, activities, live attendance and personal arts creation.

See http://www.arts.gov/research/new-media-report/index.html

―A new class of NEA lifetime achievement recipients has been announced.  This award is the nation’s highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.

Visit http://www.nea.gov/news/news10/New-NEA-Lifetime-Honorees.html.

New Postage Stamps – The U.S. Postal Service celebrates five newspaper comic strips with the debut of Sunday Funnies stamps.  The 44-cent first-class stamps honor Archie, Beetle Bailey, Dennis the Menace, Garfield and Calvin and Hobbes.  Art director Ethel Kessler of Bethesda, MD, selected the images appearing on the stamps.

New Director/Curator Announced ― The Board of Directors of the Linda Pace Foundation, San Antonio, TX,  has announced the appointment of Steven Evans as its Executive Director and Curator effective this month.  Evans had a 20-year tenure with the Dia Art Foundation and was most recently Managing Director of Dia:Beacon, where he played an integral part in establishing the museum.

Copyright ARTtalk Vol. 20 No. 10 — August 2010