World Art News at IrishArt.com
Snippets of interest to lovers of Art - Irish Art or otherwise - sometimes the ridiculous, the obscure, the unusual or just art stuff you might have missed. Updated every day... If you have something for our Blog, email us at md@irishart.com
Louisa Buck was a judge for this year's Turner Prize. "Critics of the prize, such as the tedious Stuckists, say that it is an inside job. Well you wouldn’t ask someone who knows nothing about dogs to judge Crufts, would you? All I can say is that I had my eyes opened and my mind changed on several occasions."
Two paintings purportedly by 17th-century Dutch painter , which were on display in a state museum in Portugal for 25 years, have been determined to be fakes, the museum's director said overnight. Last year the museum finally set aside funds to test the paintings and experts concluded they could not have been painted by Rembrandt because they used pigments that only became available in the 19th century.
A century after artist Paul Cezanne's death, France will honor him in 2006 with exhibits and a new guided tour to help art lovers see the arid landscapes of Provence through the painter's eyes. The focal point of commemorations is the southern region of Provence, where Cezanne spent much of his life documenting the ochre cliffs, clustered houses and sunbathed fields, the Culture Ministry said as it launched the "Year of Cezanne." Cezanne is often seen as a father of modern art.
The Louvre Art Gallery saw a record 7.3 million visitors in 2005. The previous record of 6.7 million visitors was set in 2004. Officials attribute the increased numbers in part to the popularity of The Da Vinci Code, and expect the forthcoming movie will result in even more visitors. The movie, starring Tom Hanks, was shot partly in the Louvre. In one of the opening scenes, a Louvre art curator is murdered and discovered naked with a five-pointed star drawn on his chest in blood, just under the painting of the Mona Lisa. The murder leads to the search for something called the Da Vinci Code.
Norwegian shipping magnate Fred. Olsen will sell 12 works by artist Edvard Munch next month in London. The scheduled February 7 sale at auction house Sotheby's is likely the largest sale of Munch works from the same collection since World War II. 'I grew up with Munch on the walls and have seen these paintings since I was a little boy,' 77-year-old Olsen said. 'I know them by heart. Over time it has become more difficult to have them on the walls. It is a matter of security and tax,' he said, adding that an old dispute with his brother Petter also contributed to the decision. Olsen's father bought them in 1938 from an Oslo art dealer who in turn bought the works from Nazi Germany that sold off confiscated art from German museums considered to be 'degenerate'.
Art theft is big business. Interpol reckons that it ranks fourth among the highest-value criminal activities, after drugs, arms smuggling and money laundering. The FBI puts its value at $5 billion a year. "We have 160,000 items listed as lost, stolen, looted or missing," said the Art Loss Register, an international database of missing artworks. "We start at £2,000, but some of them, like Leonardo's 'Madonna with the Yarnwinder,' are worth tens of millions." It is more or less impossible to sell a stolen work from the A-list of artists without instantly alerting experts to its identity. "With very high-level property, the majority is stolen with buy-back ransom in mind, usually 1 million pounds — a nice easy pay day." The recovery rate for stolen art is about 11% a year.
Secret documents detailing the government's emergency response to a nuclear attack have revealed officials had no plans for a mass civilian evacuation - but a strategy was in place for saving treasured works of art. According to the 30-year-old files - described by historians as the "most secret" to be released by the National Archive, art masterpieces from galleries in Edinburgh and London would have been transported to Wales, where they would have been stashed in a slate quarry. The prime minister and top officials would have been taken to government bunkers manned by civil servants.
