PollocK Art Fakes?

The Pollock-Krasner Foundation says that six Jackson Pollock paintings tested and spotted as frauds by physicist will be retested. "All of Jackson Pollock's poured paintings analysed by my research group are composed of a highly specific and identifiable form of fractal patterning. Pollock's specific fractal signature has not been found in the submitted paintings. The analysis has also revealed that the patterns vary between the paintings, indicating that they may have been painted by different hands."
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Irish Art

Getty Art Boss Probe

The president of the J. Paul Getty Trust - one of the world's richest art institutes - has resigned amid a probe over allegations that the trust's assets had been misused for personal benefit, excessive travel and lavish pay. The Board of Trustees said in a statement on Thursday that Barry Munitz, president and CEO for the past eight years, had decided to resign effective immediately. Munitz will receive no severance package and will pay the Getty Trust $250,000 (142,000 pounds), without admitting any wrongdoing, to resolve any outstanding disputes, the statement said.

Munch Millions For ShipYard Boss

Harland & Wolff shipyard owner Fred Olsen is £17m better off today thanks to the sale of a unique art collection. The 77-year-old Norwegian shipping magnate sold the paintings - the works of fellow countryman Edvard Munch - at top London sales house Sothebys yesterday. The eight-piece collection had been in the Olsen family since the 1920s. Mr Olsen said he had put them on the market for "security and tax reasons". One of the works, Summer Day, painted in 1904, was sold for a record price of £6,168,000, much more than the expected £3.5m price tag, to an anonymous bidder. It is said to be the most important Munch painting to be offered for sale since Girls On A Bridge fetched a world-record price of £4.4m in 1996. The collection, billed as the greatest by the Norwegian artist ever put on sale, sold for almost £17m, far more than the estimated £12m.
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Irish Art

Record Price for Soutine Art

A painting of a beef carcass by Chaim Soutine has sold for a record £7.8m at auction in London. The sale, to an anonymous buyer, set a world art record for the expressionist artist's work. Le Boeuf Ecorche is one of half a dozen paintings of the carcass but the others are all owned by major art museums.

Soutine was born in Lithuania in 1893 but moved to Paris in 1913 where he met artists such as Modigliani, Chagall and Laurens. He spent years living in poverty - his first one-man art exhibition was not until 1927. His carcass paintings were inspired by Rembrandt's still life of the same subject, which he discovered while studying the Old Masters in the Louvre Art Gallery.
Irish Art

Picasso Art And Africa

A world-first art exhibition of Pablo Picasso's works and the "magical" African masks and sculptures that influenced him opens in Johannesburg on Friday. A collection of 84 original Picasso paintings and sculptures alongside 29 African art objects will be on display at the Standard Bank Art Gallery in downtown Johannesburg for five weeks. This is a first. Nowhere else in the world has there been an exhibition showing the relation between Picasso's work and African art.
Irish Art

Venice Sex Art Shocks

The display of art - paintings, photographs and sculpture - opens to the public at the start of the annual Venice Carnival, has been accused by critics of being no more than a "sex shop" and "a shameful embarrassment" to the city, which welcomes millions of tourists every year. The exhibition is housed over four floors in the 250-year-old Palazzo Rota, overlooking the lagoon and less than a minute's walk from the recently-restored basilica. Maurizio Costa, the museum's artistic director, said Venice was synonymous with erotica, having been the birthplace of Giacomo Casanova, the world's most famous seducer. "I can't see what all this fuss is about," he said.
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Irish Art

Da Vinci's "Secret Supper"

A new novel, based "90 per cent on historical facts", depicts artis Leonardo Da Vinci as a heretic who painted his own face into The Last Supper, and claims that the painting portrays Saint Peter as a traitor and carries a blasphemous message. The Secret Supper, which has sold more than 500,000 copies in Europe, is set to rival The Da Vinci Code for conspiracy theories about one of the most famous figures in art history. The novel portrays Da Vinci as a Cathar, a member of a gnostic sect outlawed by the Roman Catholic Church.
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Irish Art