I’d venture that a $25,000 prize means a lot to the author of an art book, and that’s what Mary L. Levkoff (below) just won: The Frick Collection’s Center for the History of Collecting* announced last Tuesday that Levkoff’s book, Hearst the Collector, was chosen as the winner of the second Sotheby’s Book Prize.

Levkoff, since 2009 the curator of sculpture and decorative arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, wrote the book while she was curator of European sculpture and classical antiquities at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; LACMA present a show with the same title in 2008-09.

The award will be presented to Levkoff on Dec. 6, but in announcing it, the Frick’s new director, Ian Wardropper, noted that “The Center’s book prize further strengthens this area of study by acknowledging–and perhaps inspiring–relevant new publications.” Amen to that.

Sotheby’s committed to supporting the prize, awarded every two years, in 2009, and the first winner — Julia Meech, author of Frank Lloyd Wright and the Art of Japan: The Architect’s Other Passion — was announced that fall.

When I last wrote about the Center here, in 2009, is was after I’d attended an excellent symposium on the collecting of Dutch Golden Age art in the U.S. Since then, there have been many more symposia, forums and other events — I’ve attended parts of some of them — and it has grown in other ways, such as making available an online database of dealer and collector archives, offering fellowships, starting the Archives Directory for the History of Collecting, and making plans for oral histories of collectors.

The next symposium is set for March, a two-day event called “The Dragon and the Chrysanthemum: Collecting Chinese and Japanese Art in America.”

Want to know more? About a year ago, ArtInfo conducted an excellent interview with the Center’s director Inge Reist (whom I count as a personal friend).

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Center

 

Everyone loves a good restoration story, and here’s one: On Tuesday, the Dulwich Picture Gallery unveiled a 17th century painting of Saint Cecilia, which as you can see from the photograph below was in pretty sad shape.

The painter is unknown, although when the painting was purchased in 1790 by Noel Joseph Desenfans from the well-known French print-maker and dealer, Jean-Baptise Pierre Le Brun, it was thought to be by Bolognese painter Annibale Carracci. Desenfans hung it in pride of place at his home in London, which he shared with fellow art dealer and co-founder of Dulwich Picture Gallery, Sir Francis Bourgeois.

That’s when the trouble began. According to a press release,

Saint Cecilia hung in the lofty surroundings of the ‘Skylight Room’ amongst a cluster of masterpieces by other members of the Bolognese school. These included Domenichino (The Adoration of the Shepherds, now at the Scottish National Gallery and due for loan as December’s ‘Masterpiece a Month’ at Dulwich Picture Gallery) and Reni (The Martyrdom of Saint Sebastian, on display at Dulwich Picture Gallery). Significantly…it hung directly alongside a version of the celebrated Mrs Siddons as the Tragic Muse by Sir Joshua Reynolds (also now at Dulwich Picture Gallery). It is possible that Bourgeois and Desenfans paired the works according to their compatible themes – with Mrs Siddons being the most famous actress of the late eighteenth century and Saint Cecilia the patron saint of music – but it is also likely that this pairing was intended as a homage to Reynolds, placing his work amongst some of the best examples of the Bolognese school of painting he so admired. Either way, in order to make this a symmetrical pairing and the works equal in size, Bourgeois added wide strips around the Saint Cecilia canvas to enlarge it to the size of Mrs. Siddons. 

Those additions eventually began to disintegrate and come away from the original canvas. In 1842, the well-known art critic Mrs. Jameson wrote that she had “seldom seen a picture so shamefully maltreated – so patched and repainted…[Sir Francis Bourgeois’s] hand is clearly distinguishable.” Later that century, Saint Cecilia was removed from display at the Dulwich Picture Gallery and has not been on display since.

Since 2009, with the help of the Pilgrim Trust, the painting has been restored to the glorious condition shown here. It’s back on display, although attributed to circle of Annibale Carracci — perhaps until more scholarship reveals the true author.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Dulwich Picture Gallery

 

How funny, and inconsistent, the public is sometimes. When the Metropolitan Museum* raised its suggested price to $25 earlier this year, the outcry was tremendous. Ditto the Museum of Modern Art’s* admissions hike — mandatory — to $22.50.  

But when Christie’s charges $30 per ticket to see 850 items once owned by Elizabeth Taylor —  “including [her] legendary jewelry, haute couture, ready-to-wear fashion, handbags and accessories, and a selection of decorative arts, and film memorabilia being sold in the live auction” for four days, Dec. 13-16, no one says boo. No one complains that the tickets to the exhibition (Dec. 3 through 12) are available only online, are timed and offer no discounts to students or seniors. Oh yes, and add the $30 cost of a “printed gallery guide.” (The catalogues for the four-day sale cost $300.)

Is there also irony in the fact that Christie’s suggests that visitors spend an hour and a half in the exhibit?

Here are the answers to other frequently asked questions.

People will pay and go. Taylor’s items have been on a three-month global tour that has included stops in Moscow, London, Los Angeles, Dubai, Geneva, Paris and Hong Kong. Some of those shows were free, but Christie’s also charged for admission to the exhibition in Los Angeles, where “tickets…sold out online within a matter of days, and Christie’s added extra, late night viewing hours to accommodate the many fans and collectors who came to see the exhibition,” according to its press release.

Christie’s, of course, has every right to charge what it wants. The market is bearing it. But it does make one wonder why people will pay for celebrity but not for the highest arts. What’s the message for museums?

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Christie’s

*I consult to a foundation that supports the Met and MoMA.

 

As I’ve been away, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do — it’s amazing how much can happen or be written about in the art world in just five days. 

Let’s start with a headline that intrigued me: The Accidental Art Mogul. I quickly learned that the moniker was given to someone who deserves attention — the art dealer Marian Goodman. Writing in Newsweek magazine, Blake Gopnik shines a light on a gallerist (the term she prefers) whose track record of showing artists that matter, early in their careers, not after everyone else has discovered them, is an open secret in part of the art world — but who gets much less attention that showier dealers who follow taste or, rather, the money. 

Goodman, meanwhile, has roster of artists that includes Gerhard Richter, William Kentridge, Jeff Wall, John Baldessari, Julie Mehretu, Thomas Struth (his picture of her is at right), Tino Sehgal, and many more. Not all are my taste, but they are (mostly) serious artists.

As Gopnik writes,

Kerry Brougher, deputy director of the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, calls her a “curator’s dealer”: “It’s not enough for her just to sell it to a private collection for a great amount of money. The art has to be out there where the public can see it.” Brougher says that he’s actually heard Goodman complain when art prices rise. At a recent dinner for one of her artists, Goodman sat at a head table that included curators, artists, a critic, and various other culturati–but not a single collector.

And:

Almost every big contemporary gallery is funded by the blue-chip old works they sell out of the back room, while Goodman almost never sells works that her artists haven’t made. “It’s all front room,” says Tate director Nicholas Serota. “It’s an achievement to build a gallery on those terms.” Where other major galleries seem to have a supermarket approach, with something to feed any billionaire’s habit, most Goodman artists conform to one vision. “There’s an ethos in the gallery that you don’t find in many others,” says Serota. Goodman spots good work by young artists who seem likely to matter–the Jeff Walls of this world–and then sticks by it.

Have a look at some works she has sold here.

Goodman isn’t very accessible to the press, and that’s part of why she has gone unrecognized. To some editors (and I’ve tried), she’s a hard sell for that very reason. So kudos to Gopnik for getting her to talk and to Newsweek for printing it.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Marian Goodman/Thomas Struth via Newsweek

 

Dear RCA Readers,

If you’ve been wondering why I haven’t posted, my apologies. I am just back from a quick trip to Italy, where I expected to have more access to a computer — and more time to post — than I actually did.

But I’ll be posting again soon, probably later today.