Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture
Fear not. Something called The Meta Picture has a cheat sheet for several of art history’s masters. If you’d like a laugh, or at least a smile, have a look.
Here’s a sampling; perhaps you can fill in the blanks:
You get the drift…now post your examples as comments below.
Renoir died some 94 years ago, but tomorrow Heritage Auctions is offering what it calls “The single largest archive of Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s personally-owned objects — from his signature polka-dot scarf to the original plaster maquette of La Grande Venus Victrix, recently discovered in a shed in France” for sale. The auction is titled “The Unknown Renoir: The Man, The Husband, The Father, The Artist Signature Auction.” Here’s a link to the catalogue. It will be a live auction, but Heritage is also taking bids online now.
I browsed the catalogue, and found Renoir’s marriage license and minutes of the marriage, as well as his funeral receipts. There’s what it believed to be his last painting (left), a small still life of two dead birds that he is believed to have painted just hours before his death. His spectacles are there, as well as ledgers for his home decorating, his family expenses, his jewelry box, his cigarette holder, his medals, lots of letters, photos, some plaster maquettes, and personal items that belonged to his wife. I love that he kept a personal notebook of critics’ reviews (below).
Some of these items — e.g., letters with Monet, Manet, Rodin and Vollard — might be useful to scholars. Perhaps they belong in museum or university collections. The press release suggests that the trove “reveals volumes about the man and his art.”
The 143 lots have been estimated to fetch about $3 million.
But there is a bad-vibe story behind this sale: the items have been on the block before. In 2005, most of these items, consigned by Renoir’s heirs were offered as a single lot at Hantman’s Associates of Rockville, Md., according to Antiques Trade Gazette. It said:
When the archive (offered as a single lot with a $250,000 low estimate) failed to attract a bid, Hantman’s marketed the collection privately and received a $135,000 offer. The ‘buyer’ insisted Hantman’s had accepted their offer and filed a lawsuit asserting their right to the collection, while the [Renoir] Trust sought damages from the auctioneers after receiving a cheque for just $100,100, reflecting the proceeds of the sale less Hantman’s commission….
That the case was not settled until 2008 ensured it was Hartman’s last sale – the 2005 catalogue is still prominent on the home page of a now redundant website. Heritage say their vendor, the buyer at the sale in 2005, offers the material with ‘free and clear’ title.
Assuming that is true, I hope Renoir scholars have done their homework on these items, and keep the important ones in the public domain. Renoir, after all, is beloved by so much of the public.
Photo Credits: Courtesy of Heritage Auctions
Two bits of news this week got me thinking about the Hopper market. First, Crystal Bridges Museum announced that it had purchased Blackwell’s Island, which will soon go on view in its early 20th Century gallery. Great addition, I thought. Painted in 1928, it is a view of what is now known as Roosevelt Island, just off midtown Manhattan in the East River. It’s a sizeable piece, measuring 34-1/2 inches by 59-1/2 inches.
Said the museum’s President Don Bacigalupi in the press release: “This is a most ambitious composition for Hopper. He painted this work at the height of his powers and it exemplifies some of the best of Hopper’s style: a complex architectural composition with a full range of light and shadow, few people and the drama of the past colliding with the present in the form of historic architecture meeting modern.â€Â Previously owned by a private collector, the work has been exhibited at The Museum of Modern Art; The Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Institute; the Art Institute of Chicago, and in the big retrospective for Hopper at the Grand Palais in Paris, which drew major crowds when it ran from October last year through February of this.
Though Crystal Bridges didn’t announce the price, it was easy to discover that the painting sold at Christie’s last May for nearly $19.2 million, including the commission, against a presale estimate of $15- to $20 million.
Then, within hours, the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts announced that it was deaccessioning one of its two Hoppers,  East Wind over Weehawken, from 1934. Uh oh, I thought — would Crystal Bridges have wanted that one? It will also be offered at Christie’s (in December) and its presale estimate is $22– to $28 million.
Uh oh, too, because although PAFA is planning to use the proceeds to fund an acquisitions endowment, “which will be used both to acquire contemporary artworks and to fill gaps in the collection of historic art,” per its press release, Hopper is a very big star. It’s like selling a Picasso or van Gogh, almost, as if one ever has too many. Although the sale meets museum ethics policies, it’s worth noting that PAFA has only one other Hopper: Apartment Houses from 1923.
The PAFA Hopper is a bit smaller than Crystal Bridges’s: 34 1/8 x 50 3/16 inches. PAFE director Harry Philbrick said he chose it for sale because “Hopper prices are rising fast in the marketplace. Also, the academy acquired the painting with its own money; no donor restrictions govern its disposition,” according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
So Christie’s is being very aggressive here — probably hoping that the museum connection will draw higher bids than s. Both paintings are lovely, but which would you pay more for? We’ll see in December.
There are many reasons to admire the artist-provocateur Ai Weiwei and now I’ve learned of another. In conjunction with his show at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Ai Weiwei According to What?, the man is going to do a live video chat with the museum’s visitors on Sept. 5. The AGO’s director and CEO, Matthew Teitelbaum, will be asking the questions — or at least moderating (the announcement is a little unclear on that).
Not too many artists would do this, imho. I’ve spoken with quite a few who evade questions and say things like “the art speaks for itself.”
But according to the Teitelbaum, Ai will “share his insights into his art, activism and passion for China and its changing landscape.†He continued: “As we open this major exhibition, Weiwei’s physical absence is deeply felt, but technology allows him to defy borders so we can welcome him personally to Toronto.†The chat will take place during the AGO’s First Thursdays art parties.
This is the same show that was at the Hirshhorn Museum earlier this year, then went to Indianapolis and will eventually get to Miami and Brooklyn. It’s an updated version of the show at the Mori Museum in Tokyo in 2009.
In Toronto, it includes more than 40 large-scale works and, says the AGO, “the exhibition blends art history, activism and traditional Chinese materials and symbols to create a compelling vision of the artist’s everyday reality and his ongoing fight for freedom of expression in the face of Chinese government censorship.”
Kudos to whoever thought of the chat, and to the never-shy Ai for doing it.
This is a little ghoulish, admittedly, but a company Earthcam, which calls itself “the global leader in providing webcam content, technology and services,” has been launching some arts-related project lately, and tonight at midnight, the newest one goes live. It will mark what would have been Andy Warhol’s 85th birthday, had he lived this long.
In “celebration,” as the press release says, Earthcam has organized an interactive multimedia project with the Warhol Museum. The elements:
You can see it here.
Earthcam’s other main arts site are at Petra, Jordan, and at the Hagia Sophia, Instanbul. They are nice views of sites, especially Petra, not that easily accessible. The Warhol thing is a but gimmicky, but then again, wasn’t Warhol too?