July 27, 2011
Filed under: Art events — Alan @ 7:53 am
Sotheby’s may very well be enjoying skyrocketing profits across the globe, but their art handlers, a group of people that carry around and package the works worth millions of pounds when sold at the auction house, are threatening to go on strike.
The group has bases across the globe and the art handlers say that Sotheby’s is planning to cut back the number of handlers they employ full time. That, they say would leave just untrained, poorly paid handlers packaging and handling some of the most expensive art in the world. Of course the auction house completely disputes this claim.
A large part of the work of the handlers is traffic that is transatlantic between New York and London and involves a number of art works that are both coming and going from places all across the globe.
One employee who requested anonymity said a strike could create huge repercussions for anyone that ships works from the US and Britain or any other of the Sotheby bases. It is very common to have artworks transported by sellers from country to country. Specialists in valuing the works are located in many different locations around the globe.
A local union in New York is ready to strike if negotiations do not work out. The union wants more handlers while the auction house is seeking to cut costs. What is key the union said was full time employment. The auction house has done quite well over the past couple of years yet we are being asked to reduce full time art handlers.
July 26, 2011
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 7:49 am
Lucien Freud, the great painter, passed away at 88 in London on July 20th. He had established himself for quite some time as the last of a group of English masters from John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough to J.M.W. Turner. He was also the classic bohemian who drank hard, spent hard, screwed hard and most of all painted hard. He was only married twice but had many the lover and untold children with them.
The chaos in his life was reflected in the chaos he left on his canvases and that was his intention. His start was rocky and it took figurations in the 1980s to return to fashion for him to become a global star. But, for all the acting up that he did, he still ended up being British Art’s grand old man.
He was born into elitism in Berlin and was the grandson of Sigmund Freud, and his family had enough foresight to flee the tyranny of Hitler arriving in England when the painter was 11, in 1933. Like a great deal of people that age that were transplanted, he neither merged seamlessly into the new culture nor did he fully ignore it.
Before him, British art sat out many of the movements that were radical in America and Europe. While the art world in Moscow, Paris, New York and Berlin were following the Malevich’s abstractions, Picasso’s cubism or Duchamp’s conceptualism most in London were just mired in the legacies of the 18th and 19th century forefathers. Freud took on all the conservatism that was in London.
July 24, 2011
Filed under: Exhibitions — Alan @ 8:40 am
London’s Fleming Collection, UK’s only museum devoted to only Scottish art, last year invited contributions from certain artists to sell at a summer exhibition. This proved to be so successful that it was decided they would do it again. Thus, in the heart of the Mayfair, there will be a summer show of impressive living Scottish artists.
The emphasis is painting but there is a great deal of diversity among the artists. They range from Ian Howard the principal from the Edinburgh College of Art to an ECA student just completing his MFA, Alexander Allan.
Kate Whiteford will present works commissioned for Imperial College of Healthcare Trust relating to the penicillin inventor Alexander Fleming. These works are to scale and they could be cultures in a Petri dish or an aerial view of Fenwick Moor his birthplace
Grahma Fagen will have photos and prints from earlier work about Robert Burns, Adam Kenedy the Aspect prize winner will has an impressive piece that is inspired by the shipbuilding past of Glasgow, great work by Mark l’Anson with his pencil drawing and Jo Milne’s abstracts of interlocking circles.
A few streets from the Mayfair another happening is taking place at Lowell Libson Ltd. to promote the publication of a new National Galleries catalogue for the Scotland’s collection of English watercolours and drawings. The NGS is like a treasure trove and the small show works from the 18th and 19th centuries reflect their diversity.
In the onset of expanding travel drawing and watercolours were to record new places and plenty of fine examples are located her with the study of Palazzo Grimani in Venice by William Callow, dramatic Colosseum paintings by John Robert Cozens, John Frederick Lewis’ study of Cairo the mountains of Elba and John Webber’s Native American home at Nootka Sound.
July 15, 2011
Filed under: Art Sales — Alan @ 8:31 am
Dr. Tony Ryan, philanthropist, highly successful businessman, connoisseur of fine art and one of the wealthiest Irishmen in modern history died in 2007 at the age of 77. He left an amazing legacy that includes his home, Lyons Demesne in County Kildare, a magnificent Georgian estate that he purchased in 1996 and completely restored to its former grandeur.
As well as co-founding Ryanaire and participating in many other international enterprises, Dr. Ryan had a passion for and a deep committment to fine art. During the restoration of Lyons Demesne, he uncovered and regenerated some of the existing murals and tapesties dating from an earlier century, but he also acquired a vast collection of outstanding art works by Irish masters and many other world-renowned artists.
A relatively small portion of these (about 450) will be sold at auction on July 14th by Christie’s London.
Amongst the treasures to go on the block are paintings, furniture, sculpure and tapestries, some valued at far more than Ryan paid for them, some less. They include the finest work of Irish artist Hugh Douglas Hamilton, whose Portrait of Arthur Hill is expected to bring from £200-300,000; Dr. Ryan paid £377,500 when he bought it at Christie’s in 2000.
Dr. Ryan’s estate is said to contain the finest and most valuable private collection ever seen in Ireland, and this partial sale is expected to realize at least £2 million, with additional sales likely in the future. Spokespersons for the estate have said that since none of Ryan’s heirs will be living at Lyons Demesne, the collection should be made available to the public so others can enjoy this national treasure.
July 14, 2011
Filed under: Art crime — Alan @ 8:15 am
Art heists says international security experts, like this week’s £237,500 theft in Toronto of 11 works, are never like they are depicted in the movies. More often than not the reality is they are very non-dramatic and end pointing to internal staff or the curators instead of Pierce Brosnan or other cinematic thieves.
Tom Cremers is a security consultant to some of the world’s libraries, galleries and museums and he says that illicit trading of art is worth annually about £4.8 billion just third behind the trade of drugs and arms which are worth about £62 billion.
Cremers says it is never like in the movies saying he has never seen a case where thieves get commissioned by art collectors to steal artwork. The vast majority of cases involve long serving staff that work internally such as librarians or curators who have great knowledge of the work that has been commissioned for their museums and galleries.
And he also pointed out that besides what many believe, the security guards never do it. The majority of what is stolen is from private collections with only about 10% being stolen from museums because of heightened internal security measures making it much more difficult to steal.
More than 50% of the art stolen crosses over international borders with the thief’s motivation being the arts value since they may have no idea about it and do not even have a buyer in mind. Cremers consultants for many of the 1,200 galleries in museums in the Netherlands. Often thieves, after stealing the artwork cannot find a buyer and end up destroying what they cannot sell.
July 8, 2011
Filed under: Exhibitions — Alan @ 9:47 am
Until 2 October 2011
Colin Booth Institute of Play
The Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle upon Tyne is playing host to a new cityscape of building blocks. The new display is by artist Colin booth and is a major new installation I n the gallery. Colin was born just across the river Tyne in Gateshead and is renowned for his sculptures. They are architecturally inspired but are also created in response to watching his children at play.
His latest exhibition consists of 3000 individual blocks of Tulip wood and was specially commissioned by the Victoria & Albert Museum of childhood. It is entitled ‘Colin Booth: Institute of play and also features a further two sculptures entitled Streamline and colony.
The curator of the Laing Art Gallery, Julie Milne, says of the exhibition:
“We are delighted to be able to show these works by Colin Booth. Using blocks in his work, the themes surrounding his approach appeal to architects and young children alike, so this exhibition will appeal to all ages, especially with the activities programme which is scheduled to run alongside the display.”
There will be also be interpretation spaces where visitors of any age are to be invited to get hands on and construct something themselves using wooden building blocks. There is also going to be the opportunity to use computers to create modernist masterpieces using invited to construct with wooden building blocks and there will also be the opportunity to build modernist masterpieces on computers using the 3D modelling programme Google SketchUp.
The collector Jackie Britton has lent the exhibition a collection of ‘Architoys’, and these include Froebel’s gifts numbers V and VI and also Lego pieces Jackie works for the V & A in London and is also an enthusiastic blogger.
The Laing Art Gallery is open Monday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm and Sundays from 2pm to 5pm. Admission is free. For more details visitwww.twmuseums.org.uk/laing or find the Laing on Facebook and Flickr.
Image caption: Institute of Play, 2010, Colin Booth. Photographed by Peter Greenhalf © V&A
July 7, 2011
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 9:24 am
The artist suffered many mental health problems including schizophrenia and those diseases he suffered from affected VanGogh artistic career. He did the renowned Starry Night while a resident of a Sanit-Remy insane asylum in France. There were a number of other disorders that plagued the talented artist his whole life and are able to be seen in some of his works.
He was a famed artist and an even more intelligent individual and Vincent Van Gogh knew when was enough and actually admitted himself a number of times into mental asylums throughout Europe. Once released from those self imposed recovery institutes increasing signs of improvement could be seen but were short term at best. After a bout with depression he committed suicide.
Today his sister-in-law is the one responsible for him being popular. Six months after the death of Vincent, his brother Theo passed away and Theo’s wife Johanna decided to devote her life to making sure Van Gogh received the recognition he rightfully deserved. Without her efforts the world would not have known of his mastery.
Vincent loved Theo and everyone knew that and that love for his brother extended to both life and death and time and space. He directly attributed all his accomplishments to his brother even if his brother had no nothing or very little to do with it. His words for his brother were always of the highest regard. He often said a finer brother no one could ever have.
Happiness obsessed Van Gogh and he was one that felt all he ever needed was wrapped up in happiness and then his world would be right. He always chased happiness his entire life and that craving is evident in all his works. In his entire lifetime he sold just one painting but he also created 2,000 pieces of art, 1,100 pencil drawing and sketches and more than 900 paintings.
July 1, 2011
Filed under: Art News — Alan @ 3:56 pm
Helensburgh is where I made my first attempts in film making and saw my first movies. Tom Vaughn the Hollywood film director has pledged support for the creation of a centre for arts & entertainment in Helensburgh his former hometown on the west coast of Scotland.
Just recently completing directing Miley Cyrus in her upcoming film So Undercover Vaughn spent his childhood in Helensburgh and said it was a wonderful idea about the centre for the town that inspired him to do what he love, directing films.
He said he went from viewing films with Harrison Ford in Star Wars at La Scala cinema to then directing him in my own film years later. It has been a long journey but one that started in Helensburgh and the centre will provide equal inspiration to other young people in the town.
Speaking as a filmgoer and filmmaker there is not better way to view a film than on the big screen with an audience. . The films in Helensburgh inspired me to follow my dream and become a director and it was a shame when La Scala closed in 1984.
The Helensburgh Heroes Charity has recently received planning permission to convert a former Victorian Warehouse in the town into a three storey Arts and Entertainment Centre, complete with two digital auditoriums, a 50s style diner and arts space.
The charity also hopes to establish a ‘Helensburgh Heroes Hall of Fame’, with memorabilia and displays to celebrate the lives of the local men and women who have made significant contributions to society in their chosen fields. Over 100 inductees have been identified to date, including ‘Father of Television’ John Logie Baird, movie stars Deborah Kerr and Jack Buchanan, authors WH Auden and AJ Cronin and members of the Glasgow Boys and Girls Arts movement.
The charity hopes that by telling the stories of these ‘Heroes’, young people from the town and visitors to the centre will be inspired to emulate their achievements.
It is a sentiment that is echoed by Tom Vaughan. He added: “I remember seeing a model of John Logie Baird’s early TV set in the local library and it made me think that you can come from a small town like Helensburgh and go out into the world and do whatever you want.”
Phil Worms, Director of the Helensburgh Heroes charity, said: “We are delighted that Tom has taken the time out from his hectic production schedule to offer us his support. He absolutely epitomises what this arts and entertainment centre will be about. He is living his dream and we hope that the Heroes Centre will allow many other young people in the town to pursue theirs.”
Worms added: “The West Coast of Scotland boasts an incredibly rich and diverse heritage, and one of which we should be rightly proud, and we hope that companies and individuals will step forward and help us celebrate the achievements of these inspirational men and woman, by supporting the Centre’s fund raising efforts.”
Full details of the Charity’s plans for the Heroes Centre can be found on Facebook
Sotheby’s may very well be enjoying skyrocketing profits across the globe, but their art handlers, a group of people that carry around and package the works worth millions of pounds when sold at the auction house, are threatening to go on strike.
