Archives for April 2011

Would you buy the painting at right if you discovered it and knew nothing about the artist? Ah, but what if it’s by Picasso, which it is?

The early artistic output of renowned artists always fascinates me. This work, Les enfants et les jouets, will be up for sale at Christie’s in New York on May 3, with an estimate of $5.5- to $7.5 million.

It’s the second early Picasso to come on the market this year. In January, Christie’s sold Sur l’impériale traversant la Seine (below), deaccessioned by the Art Institute of Chicago, for $7.8 million (including commission). Both works were painted in 1901, when Picasso was 19.

Picasso painted both in preparation for his first major exhibition, at Ambroise Vollard’s gallery in Paris, according to the press release. Says Conor Jordan, head of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s, Americas:

This scene of two small children amidst their toy horses and dolls is a work of irrepressible painterly élan. Picasso’s innate skill as a draftsman and his newfound excitement at the coloristic innovations of the Parisian avant-garde are evident in this work. Even at this early stage of his career, his searching eye found obvious enjoyment in the interaction of two infants, a theme he was to revisit throughout his legendary career.

Vollard seemed to think so. The Christie’s press release continues:

The painting may well have been among the more than 60 works selected for Vollard’s gallery show, which opened in June of 1901 to great critical acclaim. From a commercial standpoint, the exhibition was a rousing success for both the artist and for Vollard, with well over half of the paintings sold and enough income generated for the young Picasso to establish himself in Paris.

Really? Just for fun, to see how Vollard recorded this, I went to my copy of his Recollections of a Picture Dealer, and found this passage:

Towards 1901 I received a visit from a young Spaniard, dressed with the most studied elegance. He was brought to me by one of his countrymen…a manufacturer from Barcelona, Manache… Picasso, who, though only eighteen, had finished about 100 paintings, which he was bringing me with a view to an exhibition. This exhibition was not a success, and for a long time after Picasso got no better reception from the public.

Well, I guess it depends on what your definition of success is. Or how good Vollard’s memory was when he wrote his memoir (my edition is a reprinting of the 1936 English translation).

Since Gertrude and Leo Stein played such a large role in Picasso’s career, maybe more will be revealed when we see the upcoming show, The Steins Collect. Meantime, I’m going with the book.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Christie’s

 

What museum wouldn’t love an exhibit that attracts 5,000 people a day? Using the recent worldwide tally of attendance by The Art Newspaper for context, an exhibition of that popularity on a daily basis would have ranked 28th on the most popular list in 2010 — right behind Bauhaus at the Museum of Modern Art and right ahead of Gabriel Orozco, also at MoMA.

So the Park Avenue Armory has something to brag about, and it did (in a press release). Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts, a show of 651 such examples that was “presented” by the American Folk Art Museum, attracted nearly 5,000 people a day in its recent six-day run. Just quilts! And more quilts of two hues than anyone probably imagined, really.

But in the Armory’s eight-story drill hall, hung mainly on circular rods that spiraled as much as 45 feet into the air, the quilts (owned by Joanna S. Rose, whose family paid for the exhibition) really were a spectacle. I enjoyed seeing them.

Now, it’s true that no one knows what would have happened if A) the exhibit lasted longer and B) it wasn’t free. Still, plenty of museums in The Art Newspaper’s annual list are free. For the quilts, people came from as far away as New Zealand, Japan, South Africa and Australia, according to the Armory.

Here’s another comparison: Leonardo’s Last Supper: A Vision By Peter Greenaway, which ran at the Armory from Dec. 3, 2010, through Jan. 6, 2011, received nearly as many visitors — about 24,000, the Armory says — in the course of about a month. Of course, general admission tickets for Greenaway cost $15 ($12 for senior, students, etc.).

I don’t want to stretch the point too far, but the quilt show has legs and should travel, BUT:

First, it needs a catalogue (now in preparation). At the Armory, there was almost no context; there wasn’t even a checklist with origin or dates, etc. A proper museum exhibition requires some scholarship. This was more spectacle than exhibit.

And, of course, the Rose family could pay for it, as they did at the Armory: that’s renting out a museum aka pay to play (I addressed single-collector shows here).

Infinite Variety raises another question: the financial woes of the American Folk Art Museum are well known, and popular exhibits won’t solve its money problem. But AFM’s attendance hovers around 160,000 a year, according to recent reports. Could it be higher? More important, how can it use this success to attract more support, both from visitors and funders? 

Photo Credit: Gavin Ashworth, Courtesy of the Park Avenue Armory

This post is about men, change, and museums — not necessarily separately or in that order, so please bear with me.

On Saturday, I read an article saying the Phoenix Art Museum was parting ways with the Cowboy Artists of America. For 37 years, the two have staged a joint show and sale of Western art in October. But sales declines over the past five years — once $2.8 million, but half that in 2009, according to the Arizona Republic — caused a reevaluation, and … splitsville.

The breakup, said James Ballinger, director of the museum, “reflects a real shift in collecting habits and what people are looking for.” Tim Cox, president of the cowboys group, said the museum “wanted us to make some changes to the show that would have changed our uniqueness as an organization.” 

Both sides may well be correct. But here’s the good thing: Ballinger isn’t parting company with Western art. He promised that the museum would mount an annual Western-themed art exhibit. I say this is good not because I think Western art is so great — there’s good Western art, and bad Western art, the same as any category — but because it is one of the things that makes the Phoenix museum distinctive. Not every museum can differentiate itself from others — but it’s a positive when one can. It’s a reason for out-of-towners to visit.

I learned something else from the Republic article: the Phoenix museum has a Men’s Arts Council. Here’s what it does:

Men’s Arts Council (MAC) of Phoenix Art Museum was founded in January of 1967 to support the programs and activities of the Museum. Admission is by invitation only. With the talents and efforts of its over 125 members, MAC organizes three distinctively different annual events: the Cowboy Artists of America Sale & Exhibition, the Copperstate 1000 Vintage Car Rallye, and Vin Arte, Masterpieces Sale and Dinner. In addition, MAC members provide help in a variety of ways at the Museum.

The efforts of the Men’s Arts Council enable the group to make annual contributions to the Museum’s operating budget, to financially sponsor exhibitions and to fund two separate endowments: the Western American Art Endowment Fund and the Men’s Arts Council Sculpture Endowment.

The website hasn’t yet caught up with recent news, and it says that the April Vin Arte event has been postponed. Which is too bad.

But maybe the wine events weren’t making money either. I’m speculating, but sometimes events live past their sell-by date and it is time to change. I know that some museums have recently decided that many “support” groups have been costing more than they’ve delivered in benefits to the museum.

At the same time, I’d hope that Phoenix does keep events that address the male gap in attendance at museums. It has been a long time since anyone mentioned a men’s museum group. Years ago, I’d heard of one that held an annual men-only acquisitions dinner, at which — supposedly — they all smoked cigars and drank wine and outdid each other pledging money to buy art.

I’d suspect those events have gone the way some people apparently think Cowboy art has.

Photo Credit: © 2007 Judy Hedding

  

The John Simon Guggenheim Foundation* announced 2011 fellows from the U.S. and Canada the other day. Of the 180, 20 were in “fine arts” (that means visual arts) and another eight were in photography. These are prestigious awards, and I always wonder, what does it take to win one?

Here’s the list, and — to find what kind of work was deemed worthy — links to the best website about them I found: their own, their dealer’s, or another art website.

UPDATED: It turns out that I can not do a list with links…the names, I think, are too close together and the links all run together. Some work, some don’t. Apologies.

It’s a range of work. You know some of them already; some, probably not.

Fine Arts
Ann Agee

Gregory A. Amenoff

Janine Antoni

Judith Barry
James Mark Biederman
Katherine Bradford
Rick Briggs
Beth Campbell
Janet S. Echelman
R. M. Fischer
Charles Adam Goldman
Duncan Hannah
Corin Hickory Hewitt
Bernie B. Lubell
Andrew Masullo
Jesus Mora
Endi E. Poskovic
Charles Ross
Lisa Beth Sigal
Stephen Vitiello

Bradford’s “Ferry” is above.

Photography

Karolina Karlic
Jonathan Scott Lowenstein
Richard Mosse His “Breach: is at right.
Pipo Hieu Nguyen-duy
Betsy Schneider
Katherine M. Turczan
Penelope Umbrico
John M.Willis

Photo Credits: Courtesy of the artists

* I consult to a foundation that supports the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation

 

For my latest art news, I visited the website of the National Science Foundation. Yes, there for another reason, I discovered three recent news items dealing with museums and conservation, and the findings made possible by science.

The latest involves two paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Winslow Homer’s For to Be a Farmer’s Boy (a watercolor made in 1887) and van Gogh’s The Bedroom (1889). Using new techniques on the Homer, scientists now know for sure that the sky — “starkly blank” now — was once “a vibrant autumn sunset, with organic purples and reds, in addition to inorganic reds and yellows.”

The photo at left shows what a “restored” half would look like, and what the painting now looks like on the right.

The new discovery method is too involved for me to explain here, but it pairs a 30-year-old technique called Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy with nanotechnology. Next up is using “these next-generation nanoparticles …to unlock information on dyes, pigments and binding media, as present in Van Gogh’s The Bedroom.” You can read the whole NSF article here.

In another instance, the Metropolitan Museum of Art* is using new anti-body based research to “uncover the material world of art–the organic compounds mixed with inorganic materials that compose what we see in a painting, a sculpture or even costumes.” Discoveries were not disclosed so there may not be any — yet. But read more here.

Finally, NSF put out this intriguing notice about Attic pottery from 4th to 6th centuries B.C.:

…a collaborative group of California scientists from the Getty Conservation Institute (GCI), the Aerospace Corporation and the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC) at Stanford is investigating the ancient technology used to create these works of art. From their study of the makeup of this iconic pottery, the researchers hope to further current conservation practice and future space travel….

Led by Karen Trentelman, a conservation scientist at the GCI, the grant team is working with conservators and curators from the J. Paul Getty Museum to attribute characteristic material “signatures” to known artists, which should aid the classification of unsigned works. The information will provide a deeper understanding of ancient pottery techniques and inform future conservation methods.

Of importance to aerospace industries, the effort will also create a deeper knowledge of iron-spinel chemistry, which is critical for advanced ceramics found in aerospace applications.

Many more details and descriptions are here. Finding “signatures” and making attributions to works that are currently “artist not known” would be great fun, akin to the work attributing Native American works that I wrote about here. 

Indeed, that’s what ran through my mind reading about these conservation techniques: they hold other promises for art research, too.

I’m not sure how competitive these NSF grants are, but here’s a link to the NSF’s Chemistry and Materials Research in Cultural Heritage Science program.  

Photo Credits: © Kristi Dahm, Loren McDonald, The Art Institute of Chicago (top); J. Paul Getty Museum (bottom)

*I consult to a Foundation that supports the Met