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We’re back to normal for a couple of more weeks, Gentle Reader, before radio silence temporarily resumes during the Christmas holidays due to my impending travels. In case you missed it, my latest for The Federalist was published yesterday, in which I reviewed a new exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. “Private Lives, Public Spaces” examines the advent of home … Read More Art News Roundup: Traveling About Edition
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Readers will recall the rather stunning news I reported on a month ago, that “The Mocking of Christ”, an extremely rare panel painting by the proto-Renaissance Florentine painter Cimabue (c. 1240-1302) had been found hanging in the kitchen of a somewhat humble apartment in France. The small picture, which was once part of a larger altarpiece, was auctioned in suburban Paris this past Sunday, … Read More What Price, Cimabue?
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On these virtual pages I often share news and views with you about art, from exhibitions and sales to new discoveries and concepts. Yet even though I sometimes touch on aspects of a work’s provenance, i.e., the ownership history of a piece, it’s an area that I’d like to explore at greater length. So, I’m interested in learning whether you’d be interesting in coming … Read More Botticelli Backstory: Exploring A Picture’s Provenance
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If you’ve not seen the story already – and it both pleases and amuses me greatly that a number of my readers immediately contacted me about it when the story broke – an extremely rare painting by one of the most important figures in art history was recently discovered hanging in a French kitchen. Cimabue (c. 1240-1302) was a Florentine artist who could be … Read More Art News Roundup: Kitchen Cimabue Edition
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Earlier this week, I shared some thoughts about a significant New York Times investigation into the alleged failures of French authorities to adequately address public health and safety concerns during and in the aftermath of the devastating fire at the Cathedral-Basilica of Notre Dame de Paris. Yet despite the negative stories arising from that tragedy, there are also positive tales to tell. Among them is … Read More Art News Roundup: By the Numbers Edition
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My latest for The Federalist is out today, reviewing the new exhibition “Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence”, which opens at the National Gallery of Art here in the Nation’s Capital this coming Sunday. I had the privilege of attending the press preview of the show on Tuesday, and want to encourage those of my readers who find themselves in DC during the … Read More Art News Roundup: Viewing Verrocchio Edition
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Although Modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969) has been dead for nearly fifty years, one Midwestern city is about to become home to perhaps the last building of his ever to be built. In 1952, Mies was commissioned to design a building for the campus of Indiana University in Bloomington. Although plans were submitted to the University for approval, the project never … Read More Making Mies Happen: The Allure of Unbuilt Architecture
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Much as I don’t care for the work of Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), even I was fascinated by the latest scientific discovery to be made concerning one of his completed masterpieces, because it raises significant questions about the chronology of his surviving work. Ahead of an immersive exhibition on the painting that will open this November, the National Gallery in London has released amazing … Read More Art News Roundup: Chicken and Egg Edition
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Whether you’re talking about late-17th century Salem, or mid-20th century DC, people love a good witch hunt. In the Massachusetts colony, the fear of witchcraft was just as real to the people of that time, as the fear of insidious Communism was to people in the age of the Red Scare. Like worshiping the Devil, a practice of which Communism is merely a modern … Read More The Witching Hour
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Back on June 28th, a painting in the style of Sandro Botticelli (c. 1445-1510) – he of the iconic “Birth of Venus” (c. 1485), or as I like to call it, “Venus on a Half-Shell” – came up for sale at auction in Zurich, with a pre-sale estimate of $5,000. A bidding war ensued, and the final hammer price was $6.4 million. Clearly, some … Read More Take A Chance On Me: Buying A Botticelli (?)
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When it comes to learning about art, it’s difficult to attempt something approaching comprehensive autodidactism. As professional art researcher Eric Turquin pointed out in a recent interview with the Art Newspaper, discussing his career and the hotly-debated “Judith and Holofernes” alleged to be a lost work by Caravaggio (1571-1610), being an art generalist simply isn’t possible anymore. “If you want to succeed,” he notes, … Read More Art News Roundup: Luxuriant Beard Edition
