Real Clear Arts

Judith H. Dobrzynski on Culture

12th Century Manuscript Mystery

Twenty-three years after it disappeared — a theft that was never reported publicly — an 1133 Byzantine illuminated New Testament arrived at the Getty Museum “as part of a large, well-documented collection.” Now it’s going home to the Holy Monastery of Dionysiou on Mount Athos in Greece.

lowresbyzmanuscriptMount Athos is a special place, off-limits to women, actually, but I’ve read enough about it to know that. Way back in 1998, when the web was new and The New York Times had a section called Circuits that published articles about interesting websites, I wrote about one on Mount Athos — the site doesn’t exist at its then URL, but it might be this one or possibly this one.

Mount Athos was also rather secretive. But now, “Over the last six weeks,” Greece has provided the Getty with information — a “1960 monastery record indicating that the book had been illegally removed. The report of its disappearance had never been made public, nor had information about the theft been made available to the Getty, to law enforcement, or to any databases of stolen art.”

The manuscript is on view now at the Getty, through June 22, in Heaven and Earth: Byzantine Illumination at the Cultural Crossroads, which perhaps prompted the claim. Not that the Getty has been secretive about it. A press release about the return says “Since its acquisition, the manuscript has appeared in over 20 publications and its images have been available on the Getty website since 1998. It has been featured in 14 exhibitions at the Getty Museum, and was loaned to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1997 for its landmark exhibition, The Glory of Byzantium.”

Nonetheless, the Getty is doing the right thing, and the manuscript (a page showing St. Matthew is posted above) will go back to Greece with the other Greek loans when the exhibition ends. Need I say it’s absolutely the right thing to do?

But who stole it and how it got into that collection remains unknown.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Getty

 

Breaking News: Disgusting Developments In Detroit

Detroit’s creditors are getting out of hand. Today, news came that they have solicited bids for the art owned by the Detroit Institute of Arts — getting billion-dollar bids for the collection or key parts of it.

DIA-Wedding DanceAccording to both Detroit newspapers, the Financial Insurance Guaranty Co. (FGIC) has four tentative bids of up to $2 billion.

Said the Detroit Free Press:

The prospective investors include a coalition of Catalyst Acquisitions and Bell Capital Partners that tentatively offered $1.75 billion for all of the DIA’s property. The bids also include two Asian investors, including Beijing-based Poly International Auction, which tentatively offered up to $1 billion for the DIA’s Chinese art collection.

Said the Detroit News:

The bids, disclosed in a bankruptcy filing, ranged from $895 million to buy 116 unnamed artworks to a $2 billion loan that would require the entire 66,000-piece collection to be used as collateral.

Bond insurer Financial Guarantee Insurance Corp. filed an accompanying motion in U.S. Bankruptcy Court seeking to compel the city to let the bidders proceed with examining the paintings and sculptures and their accompanying ownership documentation.

Bankruptcy law gives a city’s creditors little leverage over the settlement, unlike corporate bankruptcies, thank goodness. We all just have to keep the judge informed how damaging this will be to the city of Detroit, long-term.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Detroit News

Mikwaukee Expanding Again?

I’m often skeptical of museum expansions; often, they’re really not needed, and they’re not paid for in advance. Boards often overestimate the expected visitorship (which often falls to pre-expansion levels after the first year) and underestimate the additional costs of maintaining a larger space.

MAM-expansionSo when I heard some months ago that the Milwaukee Art Museum planned to expand — it seems like only a few years ago that it opened its signature Quadracci Pavilion, designed by Santiago Calatrava (which doesn’t leak, management there tells me; other parts of the museum leak) — I was surprised.

But the QP actually opened in 2001, and when I visited Milwaukee at the beginning of this year (to review its wonderful folk art exhibition), I ta;led about it with MAM director Dan Keegan. He made a good case, and the design announced this week, by Milwaukee architect Jim Shields, of HGA Architects and Engineers, has persuaded me.

It’s not flashy. It will never compete with the Calatrava design, and wasn’t intended to. It was, in fact, intended to blend in with another MAM wing, the 1972 David Kahler addition. Plus, the cost — part of a $15 million project, of which $13 million has been raised — won’t break the bank. And it does two good things: adds an entrance on the building’s waterfront side and expands gallery space by 8,000 sq. ft.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has the story, including this part:

Initially conceived of as a soaring atrium with a cafe, seating areas and a transparent ceramic silkscreen on the exterior, the new plan calls for more functional exhibition space for art, including a 5,000-square-foot gallery for feature exhibitions and a dramatic sculpture gallery that will be visible to passers-by. The shift in design buys the museum about 8,000 square feet of additional gallery space and expands the footprint by about 1,000 square feet….

The museum’s new building will also provide a new entrance where the museum’s front door once was before the opening of the Santiago Calatrava-designed addition in 2001. Since the Calatrava opened, the old entrance has become an unused and deadened space, with cracking concrete and weeds outside.

As it stands now, museum visitors have to walk the length of about four football fields to reach the museum’s galleries from the largest parking lot on the north side. The new lakeside entrance will give visitors a second and much closer point of entry — and places to sit by the lake as well.

 

Keegan is also using this occasion to rethink the permanent collection galleries, and bring together the American collection for the first time, among other things.

More details here, from the museum’s website, and from the JS.

Work starts in the fall.

Photo Credit: Courtesy of the Milwaukee Art Museum

Is That A Rembrandt In The Closet? Yes.

More discoveries in the storeroom, and this time it’s a Rembrandt. Yes, the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha has been told that a painting in its collection for 72 years, acquired as a Rembrandt but downgraded to School of Rembrandt — and relegated to storage — is in fact by the master after all.

bilde2At least in the view of Rembrandt scholar Ernst van de Wetering, who says the work is “Portrait of Dirck van Os.” No date was given in the Omaha World-Herald, which published the news today. Here’s the backstory:

In 1942 the museum purchased “Portrait of Dirck van Os” from a private collection, believing it to be a true Rembrandt. The work hung beside Rembrandt’s name for 45 years — until a major initiative to catalog and authenticate the world’s known Rembrandt paintings led to its reclassification….

Joslyn continued to display “Portrait of Dirck van Os” for 12 years under its revised attribution before placing it in storage during a museum renovation.

The painting might still be there if not for a visit in 2010 from van de Wetering. Two years later he asked Joslyn to send the piece to Amsterdam for further analysis and conservation. Van de Wetering worked with Martin Bijl, former head of restoration at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, to bring the painting as close as possible to its original condition.

In addition to repair work, Bijl removed embellishments believed to have been made after the original painting was completed, including lace along van Os’ collar and a chain with a cross hanging from his neck.

For some reason, the Joslyn did not release a new photograph of the restored portrait, but the black-and-white pre-restoration picture I’ve posted here.

This story joins many other storeroom discovery stories I’ve written about here.

The Allure Of The New

The Miami art museum, now known as the Perez Art Museum Miami, released attendance figures for its first four months of existence the other day — they’re great. But they raise two questions.

Perez-Art-MuseumFirst the numbers: Since its December opening, the museum has welcomed 150,000 visitors. Massachusetts-based ConsultEcon had estimated 200,000 visitors for the entire first full year, according to Miami Today. One caveat: the projection was made in 2008, partly based on attendance in the old building. Nonetheless, congratulations are in order, and I agree with this quote from the article: “It’s fantastic. We’re very happy… and exhausted,” said Leann Standish, deputy director of external affairs. She also said that social media was spreading the word, and “I have never seen so much community ownership as there is here.” Also,  “the visitors love to shop,” Miami Today said, “PAMM’s retail shop has had to restock multiple times.” The museum is adding some staff to accommodate the crowds, as it probably must.

The two questions:

It would be prudent to question whether the current rate of attendance in sustainable — will the number really be 450,000 for the year? Or are people going to be one-time visitors, to see the building, take a look, and and that’s it? That is the pattern at most museum expansions; attendance often drops to previous levels. I wish the article had provided a membership number, in context with past numbers at the old building — individual membership costs just $55 a year, a reasonable number.

From afar, the upcoming exhibition schedule looks strong, so we’ll soon see if art is the draw or if the building/events are the draw.

Speaking of events: the article said “The museum fields 100 calls a day to reserve space for private events…” That is amazing, and obviously they are not all booking an event. So how many private events have there been? Is private event attendance included in that 150,000 total? Are attendees looking at art? Or spending all their time on the “sprawling outdoor plazas with lush vegetation”?

Event popularity can be good, too — I’m not complaining about it, just asking for clarification.