Art Collector Sues For Millions

An amateur art collector is taking the Van Gogh Museum to court to challenge its verdict that a painting he bought for 2480 ($6149) in a flea market is a fake. The 47-year-old Frenchman, who believes the picture is genuine, is asking a court in Bordeaux to order the museum in Amsterdam either to confirm that Les Laboureurs is an authentic piece by the Dutch master, or to pay him damages of 4 million, the amount he claims he could have sold it for at auction. The battle between the school canteen worker and the museum, which has the biggest collection of Van Goghs, has been going for 12 years.
Irish Art

"Sex Slaves" Art Exhibited

An art exhibition opened in Tokyo of paintings by former "comfort women," depicting the pain they suffered as sex slaves for the Imperial Japanese Army.

The 24 art works, on display at the Women's Active Museum on War and Peace in Shinjuku Ward, were done by former sex slaves who live at Nanum House, which means shared house in Korean, near Seoul. They studied art under volunteer teachers. One painting,"Innocence Stolen" depicts a naked girl lying beside a Japanese soldier with her hands covering her face. It is from the artis's memory of being forcibly brought to a mountain by a Imperial Japanese soldier and raped. Historians estimate Japan forced up to 200,000 women, from the Korean Peninsula, China, Taiwan, the Philippines and other parts of Asia into sexual slavery.
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Irish Art

Pain of Great Art

The notion of the "suffering artist" has long been a potent one, and a new examination of masterpieces from the past suggests it may not be far off the mark. A California pathologist believes illness, environmental poisons and drug use may have colored the creations of Michelangelo, Raphael, Vincent Van Gogh, and Renaissance sculptor Benvenuto Cellini. "Their inspiration may have been shaped by their human condition," concludes Dr. Paul L. Wolf, a professor of clinical pathology at the University of California, San Diego, and author of an article on the subject in the November issue of Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine
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Irish Art