Architectural bloggers are suddenly talking about the soon-to-be-opened Centre Pompidou-Metz, in Alsace-Lorraine. So naturally I went looking for pictures -- a little eye candy. Here are a few: The building looks "interesting," shall we say? Early commentary insists that it will be fine as galleries, but the discussions so far have been larded with the adjective "incredible," which leads me to believe that some press release somewhere used that description and bloggers/writers are going along. Three long, adjoining galleries that … [Read more...]

Art Historian Francis V. O'Connor has published his book, The Mural in America: Wall Painting in the United State from Prehistory to the Present, online -- free, usable by all. It's not an e-book. It's a book in the form of a website. O'Connor, you'll recall, wrote the catalogue raisonne for Jackson Pollock, along with Eugene V. Thaw, among other books. He has been working on this mural book for 30 years and, as he explains on the website for it, he could not get a publisher for a book of this size and scope, and decided instead … [Read more...]

Well, now I know: in January, when Red, the play about Mark Rothko, was playing in London, and possibly coming to New York, I posted what the guides and reviewers there were saying about the play (mostly positive things), ending with the line: "the critics said the play goes on about art, too. I' m eager to hear exactly what..." I saw Red, which is in previews, over the weekend. I agree with London's critics that the play, starring Alfred Molina as Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as his assistant, Ken, is brilliantly acted -- they … [Read more...]

My mind is divided over an initiative in Virginia called "Minds Wide Open," which is under the financial aegis of the Virginians for the Arts Foundation. Between March and June, Virginia, through MWO, is celebrating "Women in the Arts" statewide, in a series of events planned by various groups and venues. The celebration is apparently an outgrowth of roundtable meetings among 22 Virginia large arts groups in 2007: They decided to collaborate to raise the visibility of the arts. They chose women for their … [Read more...]

A couple of New York dealers got lucky this week, thanks to a couple of diligent Canadian dealers. Marlborough and James Goodman were the lucky galleries -- works that had been stolen from them years ago were found this week by Landau Fine Art Inc. in Montreal and the Miriam Shiell Gallery in Toronto, respectively. "This just happens to be a bad...or should I say good week for Canada," said Christopher A. Marinello, the general counsel and worldwide recoveries manager of the Art Loss Register. A tad ironic, that -- a few weeks ago, the … [Read more...]

Just a quick note to update a previous post: The Staffordshire Hoard has been "saved" for the British nation, rather than going into private hands, by a government grant. As I described the situation here, a private citizen found the trove of more than 1,500 gold and silver artifacts, from the 7th Century, last summer, and he and the landowner will split the money. A valuation committee set the price at £3.285 million, and both public and private sector money has been coming into the fund. On Wednesday, the National … [Read more...]

A big raspberry goes today to one Henry Aubin, who -- writing in the Montreal Gazette -- wrote this:   The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is also using imagination to reach new markets. It has already featured shows on Yves St. Laurent (fashion as art), cars, Tintin, e-art and John & Yoko. In April it'll launch a show on Miles Davis ("Music is a painting you can hear"). Attendance is up by 84 per cent since 1993. Notes director Nathalie Bondil, "We're in a healthy financial situation." I don't know Aubin, but judging by that passage and … [Read more...]

When I wrote my "Masterpiece" column for the Wall Street Journal about Adam Elsheimer's The Flight Into Egypt, I mentioned that there's only one painting by him in the United States. The Kimbell Art Museum owns a daytime version of the same biblical story, also called The Flight Into Egypt, painted around 1605, about five years before his magnificent nocturnal version. The Kimbell acquired the tiny work (at left), about 4 inches high, in 1994 for an undisclosed amount. It had been sold at auction by the estate of Peter Jay Sharp a few … [Read more...]

Even at a moment like this, when New York is full of wonderful art exhibits, The Mourners stand out -- no pun intended. They are the group of touchingly expressive alabaster figures carved for the tomb of John the Fearless, second Duke of Burgundy, and his wife, Margaret of Bavaria, that are on view at the Metropolitan Museum. They march, two by two, in procession on a table in the Met's Medieval Hall. Very effective, and affecting. The Mourners also happen to have a fabulous website, which -- oddly -- the press … [Read more...]

The Association of Art Museum Directors released its annual "State of North America's Museums" survey the other day, and about the best I can say about it is, it's better than nothing. Or is it? There has been widespread speculation about rising museum attendance, for example -- with me being one of the skeptics. AAMD says that 45% of respondents said attendance rose last year, 29% said it declined, and 22% said there was no change (4% of the respondents were closed). (NB: AAMD president Michael Conforti cited these numbers for 2009 … [Read more...]