ArtfixDailytm News Feed
- Tuesday, March 9 2010
Annie Leibovitz gets help with her debtsMontreal Gazette - March 10th, 2010 00:52 Photographer Annie Leibovitz has turned to a private equity firm to help restructure her enormous debt load. Last summer the celebrity photographer narrowly averted foreclosure after she missed a payment deadline for her $24 million loans owed to Art Capital Group. Her properties and archives were used as collateral for the loan.
Los Angeles-based Colony Capital said it had “formed a new partnership” with Leibovitz.
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2010: A scaled-back Whitney BiennialCalifornia Literary Review - March 9th, 2010 19:32 The simple title "2010" for this year's Whitney Biennial seems appropriate for a recession-era show with a pared-down selection of works. From art described as "mere decorative" to "humanistic," this 75th iteration of the influential American art venue, on view at the Whitney Museum through May 30, has a foot in the traditional while exploring new approaches.
View a selection of works including Aurel Schmidt's jarring drawing made with pencil, beer, dirt, and blood as well as a jewel-like, small-scale abstraction by Lesley Vance.
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Donor displeasure over Western Reserve Historical Society auctionsCleveland Plain Dealer - March 9th, 2010 19:15 The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported Sunday that the Western Reserve Historical Society has been quietly selling pieces from its collections at auctions to pay down a staggering $7.2 million debt.
The Ohio institution's debt has been reduced to $2.6 million, but gone from the collections are donations like a 1949 Indy race car, hundreds of examples of American Indian art and artifacts, guns, and furniture. Read more...
Amazing details of hidden Giotto come to lightVancouver Sun - March 9th, 2010 18:27 Restorers used ultraviolet light to examine paintings by Giotto, who is credited as the first of the Renaissance masters, in the Peruzzi Chapel inside Florence's Santa Croce church. Centuries-old restorations have obscured the chiaroscuro effects and original details by the artist's hand. Under the UV light, Giotto's masterful work, as admired by Michelangelo in the 1500s, was visible to the restorers.
The scenes in the lives of John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, painted in about 1320, were evaluated for four months by restoration laboratory Opificio delle Pietre Dure, funded in part by the Getty Foundation, to determine the best course for restoration. Read more...
A sale chock-full of clocksLuxist - March 9th, 2010 04:52 Nearly 500 lots, dating from the 16th through the 20th centuries, in a wide variety of styles and price ranges, is on offer at the Bonhams & Butterfields Fine European Furniture and Decorative Arts sale in Los Angeles on March 29. With a focus on pieces of English, French, Italian, Spanish and German origin, the sale is noteworthy for a strong collection of 30 clocks by prominent makers.
One highlight is a 117-inch tall French gilt bronze mounted marble regulateur from the 19th century. The estimate is $70,000-90,000. Read more...
Art market rebound talk at Armory WeekBloomberg - March 9th, 2010 04:39 Some exhibiting galleries at the bevy of fairs making up New York's Armory Week, which ended March 7, report the art market is back to "crazy," although collectors were keen to get quality at the right price.
Sales at the Art Show included small watercolors depicting flowers and pregnant silhouettes by Louise Bourgeois, priced between $65,000 and $75,000 each, at Cheim & Reid. Unsold at the fair's close, but much admired, was a $35 million canvas collage by Robert Rauschenberg at Faurschou Gallery’s booth. Read more...
Bonhams eyes Asia for expansion opportunitiesWall Street Journal - March 9th, 2010 00:31 Following last week's announcement that Bonhams will open an outpost in Tokyo, Robert Brooks, the London-based chairman of the international auction house, now plans to relaunch a branch in Australia. Bonhams already has a presence in Hong Kong, where rivals Christie's and Sotheby's have also set up shop and added more sales recently, including important wine, jewelry and fine art auctions. Last year, Christie's saw a 94% increase in the value of items purchased by Chinese buyers. Read more...
Cost-cutting pushes up profits for Sotheby'sBusinessWeek - March 8th, 2010 18:40 Sotheby’s reported a fourth-quarter profit of $73.6 million, its second best quarter ever, reportedly due to a downsizing of staff (1/5 lost jobs), salary cuts, and the elimination of money-losing price guarantees.
Chief Executive Officer William Ruprecht has now had his full salary restored to $700,000 after taking a voluntary $100,000 pay cut last May. Ruprecht's 2008 compensation package was valued at $6.4 million, but his total take for 2009 is expected to be more conservative when the figure is disclosed in a few weeks.
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The appeal of duck decoysClevelan Plain-Dealer - March 7th, 2010 20:25 The collecting bug hit Jon Deeter, of the Ohio Decoy Collectors and Carvers Association (ODCCA), with the gift of an old, beat-up decoy carved in the 1930s. He now pursues the thrill of hunting down antique decoys, especially vintage Mason Decoy Factory.
The 33rd annual ODCCA Show on March 19-21 at the Westlake Holiday Inn offers both antique and contemporary decoy carving. Read more...
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Featured Event
contemporary art fair March 17-20, 2010 , United Arab Emirates Art Dubai 2010 welcomes over 70 galleries from 30 countries and an extensive programme of collateral events including ... Read more
Book Spotlight
The Hudson River School: Nature and the American VisionIn the mid-1800s, a group of painters based in New York turned their focus to the theme of the natural landscape to demonstrate the beauty of the wilderness. Their work enjoyed a popular national success that no other group of artists has achieved since. This seminal survey of the artists marks the first presentation of the outstanding collection at the New-York Historical Society. It features works by all the greatest artists of the group, including Thomas Cole, Asher Durand, Albert Bierstadt, and Frederic Church. Accompanying a major traveling exhibition, the book is also timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s first voyage up the Hudson River. Buy now
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Featured News Release
 Madonna and Child with the Infant Saint John by Sandro Botticelli
ArtfixDaily Blogs
 ArtfixDaily Staff New York art institutions combine research assets onlineSpace-consuming stacks of deteriorating catalogs and steady streams of researchers looking for information are two reasons for art museum libraries to innovate with Web solutions. Four leading New York City institutions are addressing these issues of collection preservation and information ... Read moreMore blogs
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