Did Leonardo da Vinci copy his famous 'Vitruvian Man'?

Nail Sculpture Success Not Without Nail-Biting Moments At Copake Sale Dec 6th, 2011 By W.A. Demers

Copake's father and son auctioneers Seth and Mike Fallon hold a Guenther Uecker nail sculpture from the estate of artist Fred Eng. Signed and dated 1964, the 241/8-by-481/8-inch sculpture that had been commissioned by Eng, sold for $379,500 to a German collector bidding by phone. It is the highest priced item sold to date by the auction house

Copake, N.Y: Copake Auction recorded the sale of its highest priced item to date in an October 22 auction, but the milestone was not achieved without some emotional stress and physical wear and tear on Seth Fallon, one of the firm's principals. An unreserved nail sculpture by German sculptor, Op artist and installation artist Guenther Uecker (b 1930) sold for $379,500 to a phone bidder from Germany. The sculpture came from the Fred Eng estate in Tivoli, N.Y., and could have represented just another interesting but fairly routine sale at auction of a work by a living artist. Instead, the piece became emblematic of the lengths an auction house sometimes has to go to in order to consummate a successful sale.

Fallon ended up having to fly to Germany to have the piece authenticated by the artist, in the process getting to meet the now 81-year-old Uecker, as well as seeing firsthand the workings of art warehouses in Dusseldorf and Cologne.

"This is the most expensive piece we've ever sold," said Fallon. "And we had definitive provenance from the 1960s when the work was commissioned and purchased by Eng," adding that when the 241/8-by-481/8-inch piece was removed from the wall in the family's home, the paint was visibly lighter in color behind it.

Feeling sanguine about the sculpture's provenance, Seth Fallon and his father, Mike Fallon, prepared to put the piece in the firm's monthly unreserved cataloged estate auction.

A couple of weeks before the auction, the firm was questioned by the Uecker family about the authenticity of the lot. "We contacted them to see if we could get a better idea of their concerns, but they did not get back to us," he said. Finally, and literally one day before the auction, Copake received an email, supposedly from the artist himself, questioning whether the work was actually his. "At this point, we had seven people lined up to bid by phone. So we spoke to Mr Eng [the son] and decided we'd pull it from the auction. My dad and I got here at 7 am, called the bidders — six of whom were in Europe — and, surprisingly, five out of the seven indicated that if it was offered, they would still bid on it."

This, Fallon said, is what becomes a moment of truth for any auction house that understandably wants to make the sale but also wants to maintain that all-important ingredient of success — integrity. Copake has been a full-service auction house since 1952. It claims to be the longest running auction house in Columbia County, N.Y., as well as a member of the New York state and national auctioneers associations. Mike Fallon purchased the auction gallery in 1985 and was joined by son Seth in 1995.

So the Fallons did what they typically do — they offered a guarantee to the bidders. "We rarely deal in this kind of artwork," said Seth Fallon. "And the family did not know much about it, but they knew it was important." Proceeding with offering the sculpture, which was estimated at $120/180,000, the Fallons got more validation on its value when, according to Seth Fallon, "four phone bidders had their hands up at $280,000."

A collector in Germany on the phone ultimately prevailed, and now it was time to back up the guarantee.

At a cost of $9,500, the sculpture, accompanied by Fallon, was put on a plane from New York City to Dusseldorf, Germany, arriving on the morning of October 25. Fallon spent the next couple of days traveling between art warehouses in Dusseldorf and Cologne, meeting with Uecker, who disavowed the signature on the front (another signature on the back done in red marker was correct), but ultimately recognized the work as his own.

"Now the piece gets cataloged and the collector feels good," said Fallon.

The Uecker sculpture was one of 619 lots that were sold in the auction that drew 879 registered bidders and 1,315 absentee bids.

Experts reclassify painting as real Rembrandt after X-ray reveals outlines of a self-portrait

Rembrandt expert Ernst van de Wetering inspects the small painting 'Old man with beard' during the presentation of an up to now unknown painting by Dutch painter Rembrandt at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 02 December 2011. The painting is, after research, attributed to the famous painter. EPA/OLAF KRAAK.

AMSTERDAM — Experts have reclassified a painting as a Rembrandt after years of attributing it to one of the Dutch master's students.

Ernst van de Wetering of the Rembrandt Research Project said Friday that X-ray analysis of "Bearded Old Man" has revealed outlines of a self-portrait of Rembrandt as a young man underneath.

He also cited stylistic analysis and circumstantial evidence in support of the conclusion that the painting — showing a man with unkempt white hair, lost in thought with just a hint of sadness — is by the Dutch master.

Van de Wetering dates the small (15 x 20 cm, 6 x 8 inch) but emotive painting to 1630, when Rembrandt van Rijn would have been 24 years old. Rembrandt's reputation as a portraitist was rapidly growing and he was preparing to leave Leiden for Amsterdam, which at that time was enjoying its golden age as a major naval power.

Van de Wetering said that the style and quality of the painting itself provide the strongest arguments for its authenticity, but the existence of the underlying portrait was important too.

"The light is typically Rembrandt in that it is so totally convincing: you perceive it as if you are looking at reality and not at a painting," he said.

"That was one of Rembrandt's great, great interests and also where he was so extraordinarily gifted, at portraying light so convincingly."

Classifying the painting as an authentic Rembrandt fills a hole in his historical record — a 1633 painting exists with an inscription that says it is a copy of "Bearded Old Man" by the Dutch master.

"Bearded Old Man" belongs to an unidentified private collector. It will go on display May-July of next year at the Rembrandt House Museum in Amsterdam, where the finding was announced Friday.

Van de Wetering collaborated with restorer Martin Bijl and technology professors Joris Dik of the Delft University of Technology and Koen Janssens of the University of Antwerp, among others in the reclassification.

Researchers used at least five different kinds of X-ray scans to analyze the chemical makeup of pigments in the painting and probe its hidden layers of paint. The scans were done at the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York and ESRF in Grenoble, France.

Rembrandt produced hundreds of paintings, etchings and drawings, but new finds are extremely rare. However, four works formerly attributed to his students — a talented group in their own right — have been reclassified as by Rembrandt since 2008, often with the help of new technology.

Theodore E. Stebbins: The Expert on Heade by Frances McQueeney-Jones Mascolo, Antiques and the Arts Weekly

When eminent American art historian, curator and scholar extraordinaire Theodore E. Stebbins Jr was a Yale student in the late 1950s, he majored in political science, with an eye toward law school and ultimately a career as a US senator. His roommate was an art history major, which he says now he just did not understand.

Three years of law school helped him see the error of his ways. Finding it largely uninspiring, Stebbins was determined to finish what he had started. As a third-year law student, the New York City native wrote a paper on liability for art experts titled "The Problem of Tort Liability for the Art Expert."

During the course of Stebbins' research, he was stimulated by the paintings he saw in the offices of art historians and curators that he visited, such as Lloyd Goodrich, James J. Rorimer, John P. Coolidge and Jakob Rosenberg. Like St Paul on the road to Damascus, he was converted.

While his paper remained a standard reference in case law for many years, its author moved on to art, picking up a master's degree and then a doctoral degree in the history of art, both from Harvard. Meanwhile, the college roommate with the art history degree became Senator H. John Heinz III of Pennsylvania.

On a recent rainy afternoon in the comfort of his book-lined study, Stebbins recounted his career, his interests and the course of art history. His doctoral thesis was "The Life and Work of Martin Johnson Heade." When asked, why Heade? Stebbins responded with a smile that John Wilmerding had already captured the Fitz Henry Lane market. Actually, Stebbins says he loves landscapes, and when he first saw a Heade prominently displayed at a Boston gallery, he was much moved by it. Although he is most often recognized as the expert on Heade, Stebbins' interests are wide and all-encompassing.

Stebbins' trajectory from aspiring politician to highly regarded art expert has resonance with Tennyson's "Ulysses" — he is very much a part of all he has met. He is a unique combination of art historian and curator, professor, authenticator, fundraiser, stimulator of donations, builder of collections and observer of the human condition.

He began his career back at the Yale museum as curator of American painting, associate professor of art and American history and acting director of the museum between 1968 and 1977. He taught the popular "Pots and Pans" class there with Charles F. Montgomery. At Yale, Stebbins built a premier collection of Nineteenth Century American landscape and still life painting, along the way adding Frederic E. Church's spectacular sunset view of Mt Ktaddn [sic] executed in 1853.

He returned to Boston in 1977 as the John Moors Cabot curator of American paintings and ultimately, from 1999 to 2000, was chair of art of Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA.)

In his 22 years at the MFA, Stebbins left a profound mark on the museum. It was he who acquired the nearly 100 Twentieth Century American Modernism works that comprise the landmark William H. and Saundra Lane collection. Whether Boston was ready for it or not, Stebbins changed the local landscape of art, introducing the community to Charles Sheeler, Stuart Davis, Georgia O'Keeffe, Arthur G. Dove, Marsden Hartley and many other American Modernists. Stebbins eventually added more than 300 great pictures to the collection, from Copley's "Col Nathaniel Sparhawk" in 1983 to Warhol's double "Red Disaster" in 1986.

At the MFA, Stebbins organized major exhibits on such artists as Washington Allston, whose "Elijah in the Desert" was the first entry to the MFA collection and who was all the rage in the late Nineteenth Century. He curated more than a dozen major exhibitions of work by other artists, including John Singleton Copley, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Charles Sheeler, Edward Weston and, of course, Martin Johnson Heade.

Martin Johnson Heade's 1861 "Flowers in a Vase” is a recent discovery and was authenticated by Theodore E. Stebbins Jr, who says it is, "The best of Heade's early still lifes, unknown to me at the time of the Heade exhibition at the MFA (and traveling) in 2000.” Private collection.

For the Sargent show in 1999, Stebbins arranged the donation, by family descendants, of the two large Arita vases depicted in Sargent's 1882 "Daughters of Edward Darley Boit." The Nineteenth Century vases, which today flank the painting, are pretty hardy as they survived multiple transatlantic crossings with the Boits. Stebbins also mounted "Boston Collects," an exhibit of contemporary painting and sculpture that helped dust off the reputation of fustiness of Boston collectors.

When Stebbins resigned from the Museum of Fine Arts in 2000, he thought he would simply retire and write. That just was not meant to be, however. Instead, James Cuno, then director of the Harvard Art Museums, persuaded him to cross the Charles River to Cambridge to develop and head the newly created department of American art as the first curator of American art at Harvard. As of July 1, 2011, he is the consultative curator.

According to Stebbins, Harvard, even though he is a Yale man, has allowed him great latitude in building up the American paintings department. The Theodore E. Stebbins Jr Curatorship of American Art has been endowed in his honor. Part of the honor entails financial responsibility; so far, he has raised more than $10 million to endow the department of American art, which includes decorative arts.

Fundraising is not easy, but Stebbins described the process as "a joyful experience." He says people have been incredibly generous and, "At the end of the day, I have made some very real friendships through a shared interest in art."

In many ways, Stebbins was presented with a tabula rasa at Harvard, which for him is perfect: "What I love most is to get into new things." The art museums are undergoing a major expansion designed by Renzo Piano that, when complete in 2013, will house, but not combine, the Fogg, the Busch-Reisinger and the Arthur M. Sackler museums, as well as first-rate conservation laboratories and study centers, under one roof in the expanded 1927 Fogg building. It is an exciting time to be reforming the American collection.

Over its three and three-quarter centuries Harvard amassed around 1,200 early portraits of important American figures and Harvard presidents, most of which were commissioned, beginning with the 1680 purchase of a portrait by Captain Thomas Smith of Puritan William Ames. Stebbins has in mind the expansion of the collection from one of "all white males" to include portraits of minority figures in Harvard history.

Whereas the major museums foster attendance, and attendant income, with blockbuster exhibits complete with sophisticated marketing programs, T-shirts and tote bags, university museums face very different challenges. They are first institutions of learning, teaching and scholarship, explains Stebbins, not given to blockbusters. Yet the need to attract an audience and supporters still exists. At Harvard, Stebbins has organized shows on "The Last Ruskinians: Charles Eliot Norton, Charles Herbert Moore and Their Circle," an American watercolor and pastel exhibition and "Life as Art: Paintings by Gregory Gillespie and Frances Cohen Gillespie," among others.

In the process of building the collection, Stebbins continues to acquire objects, although funds are limited; his most recent purchase is a Robert Salmon marine painting that he says fills a huge gap. Another recent acquisition is a gorgeous 1799 communion cup by Boston silversmith Jeremiah Dummer. Its relevance to the collection? First, the museums had no Seventeenth Century example and, more important, silver, says Stebbins, was the great art of the era.

A favorite of Ted Stebbins, Howard Finster's enamel on Masonite "If A House Be Divided against Itself That House Cannot Stand,” circa 1978, is part of the newly arrived Barrett collection of Outsider Art, the first group of works in the Harvard museums by artists who were not highly trained. Harvard Art Museums, ©2011 President and Fellows of Harvard College.

Looking to round out the collection with mid- to late Twentieth Century American art, he has brought the Didi and David Barrett collection of self-taught, folk and Outsider art to Harvard. The collection pleases him greatly; the work "demonstrates the very real human impulse to make art," and includes pieces by such artists as Bill Traylor, Joseph Yoakum and Nellie Mae Rowe.

Part of Stebbins' mission at Harvard is a catalog of the collection. He says, "Working on the new catalog is one of the things I enjoy most." Oddly, volume two, American Paintings at Harvard. Volume Two: Paintings, Watercolors, Pastels, and Stained Glass by Artists Born 1826–1856, was the first of the catalogs to be published in 2008. He is now at work on volume one, Paintings, Watercolors, Pastels and Stained Glass by Artists Born Before 1826, which will appear in 2013. Volume three will include the work in the Harvard collections of American artists born after 1856. In addition, Stebbins' work on the Heade catalogue raisonné is ongoing.

It is not all American art with Stebbins, however, as he describes pictures by Vermeer as "little prayers on canvas." He views paintings as living entities. "Things have happened to them," he says. "Colors change, perspective alters."

His eyebrows raise when he shows a visitor an image of Winslow Homer's 1885 watercolor and pencil drawing, "Sea Garden, Bahamas." The story is that Homer, a consummate businessman, tailored his paintings to suit the market. "Sea Garden" originally depicted two Bahamian men harvesting coral with a watery foreground and a sailing vessel on the left horizon. The artist cut the painting, cropping it tightly to give dramatic emphasis to the foreground figure and gave it another signature, rendering it more desirable.

Two fragments forming an L-shape foreground and the left side with the original signature were discarded by the artist, but his family retrieved them and later donated them to the Yale University Art Gallery. The body of the picture is in the collection of the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University and the Yale and Harvard pieces were reunited at the Fogg in 1978.

The reconstructed picture also alludes to the monetary side of making art as it demonstrates playing to the popular taste. As in every other market, taste and popularity in art are cyclical. Stebbins cites Washington Allston, considered a giant in the Nineteenth Century and viewed less enthusiastically today. Asked what drives popularity of various artists, he chuckles, "Sometimes it just depends on scholars needing PhD topics." Sargent, he notes was a leading artist through World War I, but "dead in the water after 1920." In the 1980s, Escapism was popular and Sargent was hot again.

Stebbins sees it as the curator's responsibility to mount exhibitions of an artist's best work; careful selection must be at work — not every work of every artist is excellent. He points out that displays of an artist's lesser work alongside his or her best examples can diminish the artist overall. For this curator, the purpose of an exhibit is the presentation of the artist at his or her best.

Another curatorial responsibility is that of advising collectors or students, in addition to teaching. Stebbins counsels his advisees to look freshly and originally at a picture, to take in its intrinsic value. The purchase of art as an investment is foolish, he says.

Along the way Stebbins has kept his hand in the matters pertaining to the liabilities of art experts, noting that the stakes are staggeringly higher today than when he first studied the issue. He is also deeply interested in matters of connoisseurship, not a presently popular approach, but one that serves the expert well in authenticating and attributing pictures.

Stebbins is asked frequently to authenticate a painting. He is willing to authenticate works ascribed to Heade as a public service to the field, to the artist and to connoisseurship; no money changes hands. Two new Heades have turned up recently, which Stebbins has authenticated. He says he sees a new, previously unknown, example every month or so. This is attributable to Heade's relatively recent popularity. In contrast, Winslow Homer's popularity has long been established, and only one previously unknown Homer work has come to light in the past half century.

Fakes and forgeries are another matter. As Stebbins observes, "Every painter has his friends." Fakes and forgeries vary with the market, driven by the popularity of the artist, but they are thicker than ever on the ground. Stebbins describes several categories: Some were made to fool, while some were made by admirers of the artist in the style and technique of the master.

An expert eye, based on a complete understanding of the work, heightened perception of technique and form and analytic skill, are all required to make a determination. Stebbins certainly possesses that eye, although the expertise of the expert is sometimes contested — hotly. The power of wishful thinking on the part of owners of fakes can be mighty strong.

Stebbins is recognized as one of the world's leading scholars of American art and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997. He serves on the board of directors and the Art Advisory Council of the International Foundation for Art Research and is a trustee of the Heinz Family Foundation. In the past, Stebbins has served as advisor to the Henry Luce Foundation, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the San Francisco Art Museums, the Cleveland Museum of Art and others. He has served as a consultant on American art to the kingdom of Spain. Stebbins is the recipient of numerous fellowships, awards and organized the first major exhibition of American Art in Paris since before World War II.

Transformed! New-York Historical Society Reopens by Regina Kolbe, Antiques and the Arts Weekly

New York City: If the history of New York City, the state and the nation is one of immigration, diversity, conflict and compromise, then the exhibits in the newly renovated galleries at the New-York Historical Society tell it eloquently.

Relevancy is the keyword that resonates throughout, with fine art and decorative arts, craftsmanship and innovation being the tip of an iceberg that inspires thought and conversation. In short, the renewed site is a triumph of vision.

Two hundred and seven years ago, a similar vision was in play, due in large part to the efforts of a banker, art patron and supporter of free education named John Pintard. He was joined at the first meeting of the historical society by an exclusive group of ten of New York's most prominent achievers that included Mayor DeWitt Clinton.

Within nine years, the society had printed its first catalog. That publication noted that it owned 4,265 books, 234 volumes of US documents, 119 almanacs, 130 titles of newspapers, 134 maps along with 30 miscellaneous views, the start of a manuscript collection, several oil portraits and 38 engraved portraits.

Today, the museum houses more than 1.6 million pieces of art, including 800 works of representational sculpture, 500 items of furniture ranging from a chair owned by Marie Antoinette to a pair of 1960s Bertoia chairs. The drawings collection has been mounting since 1816.

Collections within collections include John James Audubon's preparatory watercolors for The Birds of America and Rufus Grider's scholarly and annotated drawings of the Mohawk Valley. Among the decorative arts holdings are George Washington's camp bed from Valley Forge, one of the world's largest collections of Tiffany lamps and glassworks and the desk at which Clement Clarke Moore penned "A Visit from Saint Nicholas."

Despite the wealth of its holdings, the society has, at various times, lacked the support it needed. For instance, in the 1970s and 1980s, access to its collections was limited to professional researchers. Then, in 1995, under the direction of Betsy Gotbaum, funding from grants restored general access to the collections. By then, the society had become a well-kept secret.

Nevertheless, following years brought moments of glory. The landmark exhibit "Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Girls" opened up new scholarship on the subject. The quarterly rotation of Audubon's work kept audiences coming back.

In 2005, the New-York Historical Society was among the more than 400 New York City arts and social service institutions benefiting from a $20 million grant from the Carnegie Corporation, made possible through a donation by the city's Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

And then, in 2008, under the direction of president and chief executive officer Louise Mirrer, the society launched a $65 million renovation. It was the cornerstone of a new strategy to create a "radically different" visitor experience. The new direction allows for a dynamic presentation of social, political and aesthetic history as it evolved from pre-colonial times through today's political, social and artistic movements.

The convergence of the paths of history is immediately apparent. Just inside the newly widened doors on Central Park West, a life-size statue of Abraham Lincoln offers welcome. Around the corner, at the 77th Street entrance, a bronze of Frederick Douglass echoes the sentiment.

"Revolution! The World Reborn" follows through on the exploration of political cross thoughts prevalent between 1763 and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. "Revolution!" compares the protests in America, France and Haiti and — for the first time — explains the story of the Eighteenth Century as a global narrative. The exhibition exposes treasured paintings, historical documents, maps and manuscripts in the telling. Technology, of course, takes its place in the story with audiovisual presentations and interactive learning stations. All of which embody the new course of the New-York Historical Society's mission.

Moving farther into the building, collections that had once been relegated to warrens and warehouses now have the space needed to spread their influence.

Chief among these is the 11-by-7-foot narrative "Return of the 69th (Irish) Regiment, N.Y.S.M. From the Seat of War." (The seat of war was the first Battle of Bull Run, which the troops had lost.) Created by Louis Lang, the oil on canvas depicts the events of the morning of July 27, 1861, when a crowd amassed along the bay to greet returning soldiers. Lang captured them all: dignitaries, newsboys, grieving widows, the soldiers themselves.

While the painting is the centerpiece of "Making American Taste: Narrative Art for a New Democracy," it is an interesting aside that the painting is debuting during the sesquicentennial year of the Civil War.

The back story of the painting — donated by Lang in 1886, on display until sometime after World War II and then lost, only to be unearthed in pieces in 1977 before being recently restored — reflects the society's renewed emphasis on honoring that which it has.

Among the fine art displayed in "Making American Taste" are works by Benjamin West, Asher B. Durand, William Sidney Mount and Eastman Johnson, names familiar to all. And then there is the reintegration of paintings by Daniel Huntington, Henry Peters and T.H. Matheson, artists who have been virtually ignored in current American art surveys.

History repeating history seems to be the underlying current of the exhibition running concurrently. "Freedom Now" captures the Civil Rights era and the rise of such figures as Muhammad Ali. It will stir the souls of viewers who expect the past to be much farther removed from their reality.

Throughout the decades, the New-York Historical Society has amassed the finest. John James Audubon's preparatory watercolor studies for the 435 plates in The Birds of America were bought from Audubon's wife Lucy Bakewell Audubon. The collection has been an ongoing exhibition, rotated quarterly. For the next two years, the Audubon niche will showcase selections that have not been exhibited for years.

Other works to emerge from the permanent collection include Christian Köhler's "Germania (The Awakening of Germania in the Year 1848)." An allegory of the German people's struggle for democracy, it was sent to New York for safekeeping after the failed revolutions of 1848. It entered the society's collections in 1882 and hung in the stairwell of New-York Historical Society's Second Avenue home. It had been on loan to the Deutsches Historisches Museum since 1998 before reinstallation.

The Henry Luce III Center for American Culture on the fourth floor offers access to more than 40,000 objects from the permanent collection. From American paintings to Tiffany lamps and historical touchstones like the draft wheel that was at the center of the New York riots, viewers now have an opportunity to view collections formerly kept in offsite storage.

Also of note in the Luce Center is the Congregation Shearith Israel Collection of maps, liturgical treasures, documents and artifacts. Established in 1654 with the arrival of 23 refugees of Sephardic ancestry from Recife, Brazil, the congregation was the foundation of religious diversity here.

The treasures will continue to flow from their vaults to the exhibition halls. "Stories in Silver: Four Centuries of Silver in New York" is slated to open on May 4. The exhibition will feature 150 of the society's most aesthetically compelling pieces, culled from collection of more than 2,500 objects. The survey will be accompanied by the publication of Stories in Sterling , a reference for silver scholars and collectors.

Meanwhile, society exhibitions that traveled during the hiatus are coming back to their home turf. Among these are 45 iconic works from the Hudson River School painters. Ironically, while the rest of the country has enjoyed the works, New Yorkers have been deprived of several works that have not been on display locally in half a century. Among them are Thomas Cole's five-part series "The Course of Empire," plus works by John F. Kensett, Albert Bierstadt, Jasper F. Cropsey and Asher B. Durand. The "Return of the Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision" opens on August 31.

In mixing the aspects of history with social history, including an exhibition on beer craft in New York, the society has not neglected children. Perhaps now more than ever before, with technology keeping youngsters grounded in the present, there is a profound need for a link to understanding the past. To that end, the renovation provides access for children with the 4,000-square-foot DiMenna Children's History Museum.

The New-York Historical Society is at 170 Central Park West at Richard Gilder Way (West 77th Street). It is open Tuesday through Thursday, 10 am to 6 pm. On Friday, it remains open until 8 pm and on Sunday the hours are 11 am to 5 pm. For details, www.nyhistory.org or 212-873-3400.

Explore Thomas Cole | Scrapbook | Page 1

Explore Thomas Cole | Scrapbook | Page 1

Jean-Louis Forain Exhibit Brings New Works to Light

Jean-Louis Forain, The Buffet, 1884, Oil on canvas, Private Collection, Paris (C) All Rights Reserved

The Dixon in Memphis is the first and only American museum to present the landmark retrospective of Jean-Louis Forain, essential member of the Impressionist circle, protege of Degas, and mentor to Toulouse-Lautrec. Don't miss this unique opportunity to explore the world of Forain and turn of the century Paris through 130 paintings, pastels, drawings and decorative objects on view through October 9.

The most ambitious exhibition in the Dixon's thirty-five year history, this seminal retrospective of Impressionist artist Jean-Louis Forain (1852-1931) was produced in partnership with Paris’ Petit Palais. Assembled from museum and private collections from across the globe, the once-in-a-generation exhibition traces the arc of the insightful artist’s prolific career with 130 works spanning over a fifty-year time period, including twenty works from the Dixon’s own collection of 58 works by Forain.

About Jean-Louis Forain
More than any other artist in the Impressionist circle, Forain was the great chronicler of Parisian life at the turn of the nineteenth century. At the beginning of his career, the young artist was closely associated with a group of bohemian writers and poets, often providing the illustrations for their publications, before being drawn into the Impressionist circle by Edgar Degas. With Degas’ support, Forain exhibited at four (1879, 1880, 1881, and 1886) of the eight landmark Impressionist exhibitions held in Paris between 1874 and 1886, showing mainly his scenes of bustling Parisian cafés, elegant soirées, and of the dazzling world of Parisian Opéra.

As time went on, the artist became more and more interested in depicting the foibles of human nature in Paris’ many newspapers, including Le Courrier Français and Le Monde, and when France became involved in World War I, the sixty-two year old patriot-artist enlisted in the Camouflage Unit, documenting soldier life through his expressive drawings. At the end of his life, Forain returned to what he knew best—dance subjects, both the ballerinas that he always adored and the dancers that had emerged in Paris’ jazz clubs in the 1920s, depicting them with the same honesty and wit that had always defined his work.

Working with a distinguishing passion and exuberance, Forain remained dedicated to exposing and poking fun at human weaknesses throughout his career. His incredible skill as both a draughtsman and painter, as well as his unflinching honesty, influenced a generation of artists including Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.

This summer, we invite you to come discover why Jean-Louis Forain means so much to the story of Impressionism. Showcasing only Forain’s finest works from public and private collections across the United States and Europe (including several works from the Forain family), Jean-Louis Forain: La Comédie parisienne is the exhibition of the year!

Organized by the Petit Palais, Museum of Fine Arts of the City of Paris, in collaboration with the Dixon Gallery & Gardens

Curated by Florence Valdés-Forain

Learn more about the Dixon's Jean-Louis Forain Collection

• A full-color catalogue for the exhibition will be published in English and available June 2011
• Cafe Forain, an outdoor garden cafe, will be open during the run of the exhibition
• The Dixon will extend its hours every Thursday evening until 9 pm for Forain After Dark. Check the event calendarfor program details.
• The new Forain Sunday Lecture series will feature local and national experts

The Salvador Dali Research Center

RESEARCH NEWS
The Creation of the Salvador Dali Research Center
By Alex J. Rosenberg, Sc.D., AAA, ASA
Chair, Salvador Dali Research Center

In 2007, as a result of the complex environment associated with Salvador Dali's prints, a group of art professionals joined together to form the Salvador Dali Research Center. The organization includes six present and past presidents of the Appraisers Association of America. There are also other experts, including: the former Director of the Salvador Dali Museum; well-known publishers and dealers of Dali's work; a museum curator and author regarding Dali's work; the recognized authority on early Dali prints; and several authorities on various aspects of Dali's life. Our efforts have been focused on attempting to diminish sales of suspect works as well as protect buyers and Dali's reputation (See list below.)

Although there have been fake and unauthorized Salvador Dali prints in the marketplace since the mid-1960's, after the artist's death death, in 1989, the number of specious works increased dramatically. This may be attributed to the fact that a large number of people were involved in Dali's various publishing and printing endeavors. Later on, these associates had the means and motivation to re-create and sell Dali's images.

Research has indicated that, at various times during his lifetime, Dali allowed others to sign works for him. And, some of those who worked closely with Dali had no qualms about actually forging his signature. The result was great confusion; hundreds of inauthentic artworks were seamlessly introduced into the marketplace. Furthermore, many of the images now being offered were not even created by Dali himself. When the prints are unauthorized, the signatures are obvious forgeries too. Other permutations of Dali's work include:
1. Etching plates made by Dali and signed by him;
2. Lithographs made from gouaches made by Dali for the purpose of lithographs and signed by him;
3. Lithographs made from gouache by Dali but signed by others as part of an authorized edition;
4. Overruns signed by others (unauthorized);
5. Prints made from Dali's paintings, not signed by him and unauthorized but sold as authorized;
6. Copies of authorized editions (which are unauthorized);
7. Invented images that are signed by others (unauthorized);
8. Etching plates mainly made by others, signed by Dali;
9. Etching plates made by others and signed by others;
10. Lithographs and etchings made from his drawings, signed by others (unauthorized).

Dali, who was the ultimate self-promoter, cultivated an unrealistic image of himself. He believed that public relations efforts were more important than artistic ability. The result was that teachers, critics, and students paid little attention to him as a serious artist during his lifetime, especially after his break with the Surrealists. The following are two examples from my personal experience with Dali, illustrating his overriding concern with his public image:

When Franco's granddaughter was getting married, Dali gave her a very valuable gift of a Velazquez painting. This surprised me, since one of Dali's major paintings was "Homage to Lenin." When I asked him, how could the painter of "Homage to Lenin" could give Franco's granddaughter a Velazquez, he answered, "Yes, but Lenin is dead." Later, I found out that he and Gala were trying to get a Dali museum, which required Franco's permission. The gift of a Velazquez helped make that happen.

On another occasion, Dali invited me to lunch in Paris and we went to Maxim's. Although he had no reservation, Dali demanded his regular table, which was already occupied. The maitre d' offered Dali another, equally prominent table. Dali went into a rage, demanding his normal table. After unsuccessfully lobbying, Dali stormed out and drove me back to the Hotel Meurice. It was then that I realized that Dali was not interested in having lunch but, rather, in creating a scene at Maxim's. He never again invited me to have a meal.

Anecdotes associated with colorful artists like Dali may help us understand the personality behind the public figure and may offer interesting lessons. However, as professional appraisers we are not directly responsible for authenticating the art submitted to us to value. But, if a work is believed to be a fake or forgery an appraiser should take heed. The United States government has attempted to inhibit the fraudulent representation of Dali's works, which now involved hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, much of which was transacted at outrageous prices aboard cruise ships.

At the time of the formation of the Salvador Dali Research Center, members were dedicated to preventing unscrupulous dealers from exploiting innocent collectors by selling questionable Dali works. (The fact that prices were well above those that would be fair for work known to be authentic added insult to injury.) We also began to create a photo archive of works by Dali that were exhibited during his lifetime. This allowed us to build a database of artworks we could be certain were authentic works produced by the artist and sold by his authorized dealers.
Today, the Salvador Dail Research Center is a 501 (c)(3) tax-free educational foundation with 25 members. We are currently training a number of our members to act as authorities, particularly on Dali's prints, drawings and sculpture. We expect to have several new and qualified authenticators during the next year. In this manner, we will be able to expand the number of cases we will be able to handle.

In the short time we have been in operation, we have examined and issued opinions for about 100 clients, including auction houses and galleries. We have succeeded in helping several clients rescind their purchases of artwork on cruise ships–their payments being returned to them.

As an educational foundation, we only authenticate work submitted to us. We neither do appraisals nor act as dealers. But we will recommend dealers who we believe to be honest should our clients wish to buy or sell Dali's work. Our President is Dr. Paul Cardile, and the Executive Director is Barbara Fischman. Should you or your clients need any assistance regarding work by Salvador Dali–buying, selling, estates, or gifts–please call me at 212-628-0606 and we will try to be of service.

SALVADOR DALI RESEARCH CENTER
MEMBERS

Alex J. Rosenberg, Sc.D., AAA, ASA – Chair; Certified appraiser of 35 years; Dali expert; Former president, Appraisers Association of America

Robert C. Aretz, AAA – Gem Appraiser and Consultant; Graduate gemologist; Certified appraiser in gems and jewelry with expertise in the Cheatham Collection by Dali.

Marion Banks, MA – Appraiser with many years experience in glass and silver.

Paul Cardile, Ph.D., AAA – Certified appraiser and research expert.

Hermine Chivian-Cobb, MA, AAA – Certified appraiser; expert on paintings and drawings, film and theatre.

Michael Cohn – Authority in physical testing

Russell J. Dionne, Ph.D. – Management and Systems Expert

Vivian Ebersman, MA – Director Fine Art of AXA Art Insurance Corp.

Helaine Fendelman, MA, AAA – Certified appraiser and expert on furniture; Former president of Appraisers Association of America

Barbara Fischman, MA, AAA – Certified appraiser and expert on pastel drawings and prints; Former president of the Pastel Society of America.

Jennifer Freeman, Esq.

Roslyn Goldman, MA, AAA – Certified appraiser and recognized print expert; current President of the Appraisers Association of America

Bennet Grutman, CPA

Erica Hartman Horvitz, MBA, AAA – Certified appraiser with expertise in determining value.

Barbara T. Hoffman, Esq. – Recognized legal authority on Intellectual Property

Harmer Johnson, AAA – Certified appraiser; Chair of Ethics Committee of Appraisers Association of America (AAA); Former president of AAA.

Daile Kaplan, AAA – Certified appraiser and expert in photography; Vice president and Director of Swann Galleries.

Clayton Kirking, MLS – Chief of Art Information Resources, New York Public Library

Louis Lauer, Esq.

Peter Lucas – Dali expert

Walter Maibaum – Authority on Post-impressionist, Modern and Surrealist sculpture

Larry Saphire – Dali print expert and catalogue editor

Ann Marie Stock, Ph.D. – Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies, College of William and Mary; authority on Cinema

Charles F. Stuckey, Ph.D. – Curator and Professor of Art at Art Institute of Chicago; expert on Salvador Dali

Edward Sullivan, Ph.D. – Dean of Humanities and Professor of Fine Arts, Institute of Fine Art, New York University

Phyllis Tuchman, Ph.D. – Art historian and critic.

Jane H. Willis, AAA – Certified appraiser and expert in silver; Former president of Appraisers Association of America

The Yale University Art Gallery and Eli Wilner & Company Frame a Lunette by Elihu Vedder

Elihu Vedder, Goddess Fortune Stay With Us, Yale University Art Gallery, Gift of Archer M. Huntington, M.A. (Hon.) 1897, in carved and gilded Eli Wilner & Company frame.

New Haven CT (PRWEB) April 4, 2011

The Yale University Art Gallery has reframed the 31" X 59" lunette Goddess Fortuna Stay With Us painted by Elihu Vedder. The lunette is one part of an extraordinary group of thirty-three murals by artists Harry Siddons Mowbray, Edwin Blashfield and Vedder commissioned by Collis P. Huntington and his wife Arabella to adorn their Fifth Avenue mansion, the site where Tiffany's now stands. When the mansion was demolished in 1925 the murals were given to Yale as a gift where they have been rolled up in storage due to space limitations. Happily, the murals are now undergoing complete conservation treatment and will play a prominent role in the Art Gallery's newly renovated spaces for American Art set to open in late 2012-early 2013.

The lunette was installed as a large overmantel in the dining room and had no independent frame. Drawing on motifs Vedder used in his ceiling panel The Abundance of the Days of the Week, Eli Wilner & Company designed and created a unique carved and gilded frame that employs a pattern of paired ribbons flowing in interlaced curves around a series of circular spaces known as a 'guilloche'.

About Eli Wilner & Company
Recognized as the foremost worldwide authority on antique frames, and founded in 1983,Eli Wilner & Company specializes in American and European frames from the 17th-through mid-20th centuries. Clients include fine art collectors, major art and historical institutions as well as The White House, where he has created 28 frames for its collection.

With an atelier composed of a team of thirty highly skilled artisans, including 15 frame conservators, and over 10,000 custom framing projects completed to date, Eli Wilner & Company takes pride in each project. Every frame is handcrafted to not only reflect the time in which the painting was created, but also to best reflect the framing choices known to be made by the artists themselves. http://www.eliwilner.com

About Yale University Art Gallery
The mission of the Yale University Art Gallery is to encourage appreciation and understanding of art and its role in society through direct engagement with original works of art. The Gallery stimulates active learning about art and the creative process through research, teaching, and dialogue among communities of Yale students, faculty, artists, scholars, alumni, and the wider public. The Gallery organizes exhibitions and educational programs to offer enjoyment and encourage inquiry, while building and maintaining its collections in trust for future generations.

Thomas Lawrence Retrospective Showcases Dazzling Portraits of High Society in Regency London

Thomas Lawrence, Charles William (Vane-)Stewart, Later 3rd Marquess of Londonderry, 1812, oil on canvas, National Portrait Gallery, London, Purchased with help from the Art Fund and the National Heritage Memorial Fund, 1992, © National Portrait Gallery, London.

NEW HAVEN, CT.- The Yale Center for British Art is the only North American venue for a landmark retrospective of the great Regency painter, Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830). On view from February 24, 2011 through –June 5, 2011, Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power and Brilliance showcases outstanding works by the most important British portrait painter of his generation. It also explores the development of Lawrence's career as one of the most celebrated and influential artists in Europe in the early nineteenth century. Organized jointly with the National Portrait Gallery, London, the exhibition features more than fifty stunning portraits from collections around the world, including The Royal Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Palace of Versailles, and The Art Institute of Chicago, as well as works from a number of private collections, many of which have never been seen by the public.

Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power and Brilliance is the first substantial examination of the artist in the United States since 1993 and the first Lawrence exhibition in the United Kingdom since 1979. It includes the artist’s greatest paintings and drawings alongside lesser-known works in order to provide a fresh understanding of Lawrence and his career. The show also contrasts his approach to sitters according to age and gender; juxtapose his public identity with the private world of the artist’s studio; explore Lawrence’s technical innovations as a draftsman and painter; and place him within the broader contexts of the aesthetic debates, networks of patronage, and international politics of his day. Particular attention is paid to meaningful groupings that Lawrence created by exhibiting works together at the Royal Academy, a feature that has yet to receive attention. The exhibition brings visitors “behind the scenes” to explore Lawrence’s working methods and the importance of his studio as a workspace, asocial space in London, and a space for the display of Lawrence’s own works and his stellar collection of Old Master drawings.

Spanning the scope of the artist’s career, Thomas Lawrence: Regency Power and Brilliance closely examines the Regency period, a time defined by the political and cultural role played by George IV (1762–1830), who was Prince of Wales between 1789 and 1811, and then, successively, Prince Regent (during his father’s illness between 1811 and 1820), and crowned king after his father’s death. The exhibition begins with a restaging of Lawrence’s first definitive Royal Academy success in 1790, where he showed Elizabeth Farren (Metropolitan Museum of Art) and Queen Charlotte (National Gallery of Art, London). A display of works from Lawrence’s controversial exhibitions from the 1790s will follow, including Arthur Atherley (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), which challenged traditional notions of masculinity. The next section examines the period from 1805 to 1815, during which the artist experienced financial and emotional turmoil and created his most innovative and experimental group portraits and “half history” portraits. Lawrence was sent abroad by the Prince Regent to paint the victors of Waterloo between 1818 and 1820, and a section of the exhibition features portraits such as Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (private collection) and Charles William (Vane-)Stewart, later 3rd Marquess of Londonderry (National Portrait Gallery, London), as well as the innovative chalk-on-canvas drawings he made during his travels.

Another display includes some of his best works on paper, ranging from friendship portraits and commissioned portrait drawings to sketches of historical events, such as the treason trial of John Thelwall (National Portrait Gallery, London). Sparked by a drawing of his studio in 1824 (Yale Center for British Art), the last section of the exhibition explores new paradigms of masculinity and femininity in Lawrence’s later work and also examine the importance of his portraits of children. The section proves definitively that Lawrence continued to challenge himself as an artist even in the last decade of his career. This display also highlights an important portrait of the young Julia Peel (private collection), which is shown exclusively in New Haven. Yale Center for British Art Director, Amy Meyers, asserts, “A critic once wrote of Lawrence’s work that ‘The magic of his art is thrown around the representations of the most ordinary things.’ We are thrilled to be able to share this magic with visitors drawn to the show by the beauty of Lawrence’s paintings, by interest in the period of the Napoleonic wars, and by the changing representations of gender roles in Lawrence’s work.”

Beginning as a child prodigy working in pastels, Thomas Lawrence succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as Britain’s greatest portrait painter. While lacking in formal and artistic education, he rose to the highest ranks of his profession and was appointed President of the Royal Academy in 1820. With the temperament and fl air to capture the glamour of the age, Lawrence created the image of Regency high society with dazzling brushwork and innovative use of color. He became not only the most popular chronicler of fashionable London society, but also one of the most lauded (and imitated) portraitists in Europe. Under his brush, portraits emerged that were both startlingly modern, yet grounded in historical forms. They owed their popularity to the fact that Lawrence represented his sitter’s idealized social persona, and also attempted to capture in paint a visual representation of their inner life and character.

Skilled thieves targeted Cairo museum

Antiquities minister praises work of protesters to protect heritage site
By Agence France Presse (AFP)

Riad Abu Awad

Agence France Presse

CAIRO: Skilled thieves slid down ropes from a skylight at the Egyptian museum in Cairo while riots raged outside, targeting priceless ancient treasures, the minister for antiquities said Wednesday.

The world-renowned collection was burgled last month during anti-government protests, and several artifacts are still missing, including famous statues depicting King Tutankhamen and Pharaoh Akhenaton.

Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s minister of state for antiquities, praised protesters for helping the armed forces protect the bulk of the museum’s collection, and insisted Egypt is once more safe for foreign visitors.

He added that Egypt’s ancient sites and archaeological museums could reopen to tourists as early as Saturday, if the government approves.

Standing on the steps of the museum, he told reporters that he had rushed to the scene on Jan. 29, one day after clashes broke out in surrounding streets between pro and anti-government crowds.

“I found two important things. Number one: I found all the angry people outside were protecting [the] Cairo museum, and when I came in I found many angry people with the army commanders protecting the museum,” he said.

Nine looters were detained by the army and investigations are continuing following the riot, which saw scores killed and the next door headquarters of now deposed autocrat Hosni Mubarak’s ruling party burnt out.

“What happened is two things: Hundreds of people entered the museum shop. They thought that the museum shop was [the] Cairo museum,” Hawass said.

“But a few people knew that this was [the] Cairo museum. They came from the fire stairs and they climbed on top and they broke the glass on top and with ropes, like in the movies, they came about 30 feet down to the ground,” he said.

One of the thieves cut himself and bled on the floor, Hawass added.

The robbers did not get the museum’s most iconic exhibits, such as the boy king Tutankhamen’s funeral mask, but did grab eight major pieces, the most important of which was a limestone statue of Akhenaten making an offering. Akhenaten is the so-called heretic king who tried to introduce monotheism to ancient Egypt.

Three of the missing pieces have been recovered, two which were dropped outside and one that was found under a damaged display case.

“We found the heart scarab, we found a statue and we found the statue of the goddess that was holding King Tut, the face was scratched and King Tut is still missing,” Hawass explained.

Amid the near collapse of Egypt’s crucial tourism industry in the wake of the revolt, Hawass was at pains to point out that none of the country’s other attractions – from the Pyramids to the Valley of the Kings – had been hit.

He boasted that one million tourists had been able to leave the country safely at the height of the protests, and called on them to come back.

He was at pains not to blame the pro-democracy protesters who forced Mubarak to quit office Friday for the thefts, praising them for forming a human chain to protect the museum from more extensive looting.

“The pro-government and the anti-government agreed on one thing, they both wanted to protect the museum,” he said.

Tourism accounts for 6 percent of Egypt’s gross domestic product, and February should be the height of the holiday season.

It brought in $13 billion in 2010, with a record 15 million people visiting the Land of the Pharaohs.

Hawass, who makes frequent television appearances in archaeology shows and often sports an “Indiana Jones”-style fedora, has faced some criticism since Mubarak’s ouster. Archaeology students protested and demanded his removal, calling him a “showman” who cares little about helping them find work in their field.

Hawass said Wednesday he had raised enough money to employ 500 new graduates and would continue to seek more money. – With AP