Previous Posts: December 2014

“What I find frustrating sometimes, is people seem to brush right by the needs of the museum.”

[Page] is an extremely well known English garden designer along with Gertrude Jekell. And if you say you don't know who she is...

Per your recent post about the proposed Frick expansion, let me direct you to two articles in the Huffington Post written by Charles A. Birnbaum, founder and president of The Cultural Landscape Foundation -  Here's What's Missing in the Debate Over the Frick Collection's Proposed Expansion and That 'Temporary' Frick Garden - It Was Created to Be Permanent.  Together, they provide some context for why the Russell Page-designed garden is a central issue in this debate.

As for the physical addition, along with opening space on the museum's second floor, we know there will be a net increase of some 42,000 square feet, but be have yet to get an accounting of how all this space is being allocated. The most recent architectural rendering (attached) does not discuss the disposition of more than 35,000 square feet – how much of this addition is going for office space?  And, do all of the museum's components have to be contiguous? 

The Cooper-Hewitt, also sited in an historic Gilded Age mansion on Fifth Avenue,  just managed to increase their exhibition space by 60% without a massive addition or the destruction of their garden – and they moved some offices offsite to other properties they own on East 90th Street. 

The Guggenheim Museum has curatorial offices down in SoHo.

In addition, the Russell Page-designed garden is a site specific work of art, which Frick officials have deemed an interim land use. This is a particularly disconcerting aspect of the entire debate.  Cultural custodians are making a judgement about the worth of a specific work of art, and an entire genre – what are the criteria? On what basis is this unique work of art, a commissioned site specific work that is part of their permanent collection, being deemed of less value than other parts of their permanent collection?

[The Frick's director, Ian Wardropper, has said that the Frick currently has three gardens, and will continue to after the expansion because the Page garden will be replaced by a rooftop garden.  Ergo, gardens are all the same and interchangeable.  That's a devastating indictment of the entirety of landscape architecture and design – and because it's being rendered by otherwise esteemed cultural custodians, it will be taken at face value and not challenged.  Substitute building for garden and see if that response is still valid.  What if Wardropper said of their three Vermeers: because of space considerations we're replacing one of the three Vermeers with a newly acquired black velvet painting – don't worry, we started with three paintings and we end up with three paintings. That, in essence, is what is being proffered].

 [...] let’s ruin it! Let’s make it big and noisy and crowded! 

A big part of the [expansion] pitch is education. But last I checked the Frick doesn’t allow children under 10 and hopefully that won’t change.

The Frick garden is charming but is an ornament which is viewed but unused. The museum has genuine needs which the addition will serve and will benefit the public. As you mention Central Park is just across Fifth Avenue.

Keep your mouth shut.

The debate revolves around several points. Is the 1970s garden, given its recent vintage, important enough to be protected? Would the loss of the garden harm the townhouse character of the street — which historically had no such gardens? A really correct restoration would replace the three townhouses — why isn’t that on the table? Will the new wing overpower the original Frick, even though the original Frick long ago disappeared?

The lightning rod is the garden itself, a simple, innocent thing. With foresight the Frick has never made the garden public, and it’s “don’t touch” aspect is part of its considerable charm. But is it “charm preservation” we’re after?

I think the question is whether or not this garden (and by extension, landscape architecture) is considered a work of art – and not compared to works by Vermeer, Watteau, Franceso di Vannuccio, etc.  Is this art?  In deciding to demolish the garden, Frick officials have tacitly endorsed the idea that it's not.  Shouldn't it be incumbent on them, as cultural custodians to whom we look to for guidance, education and understanding and who we believe have a broader context, to outline their criteria and explain why they believe so?  The garden's fate is in their hands. Thus far, this has been absent from the debate.

[...] is the man graffiti artists love to hate. His relentless and increasingly hi-tech pursuit of graffiti writers for almost 30 years has earned him the reputation as the graffiti bogeyman.

His name is frequently spray-painted on walls as a taunt to the authorities. Abusive comments about him have even been spotted on goods wagons in Germany. Saysell has helped convict at least 300 graffiti offenders in his time, first in Bristol and more recently in London for British Transport police. As the only detective registered as an expert witness on graffiti, Saysell regularly helps police forces across the UK and Europe.

Saysell says the police are winning the war on graffiti. But his tactics and hardline approach are being questioned. He is seen by many as out of step with a society that celebrates rather than prosecutes graffiti artists. Even some officials tout the idea of decriminalisation.

The Ford House, which is on solid financial footing and carries no debt, is using proceeds from the sale to create a special endowment for preservation, conservation and restoration of the collection — defined as the 1929 English Cotswold-style mansion designed by architect Albert Kahn, the landscape and gardens created by Jens Jensen and furnishings and objects inside the house.

The Ford House, which draws about 60,000 visitors a year for tours and events, has a separate operating endowment of $86 million.

Mullins said that the Ford House trustees received an unsolicited offer for the Cézanne painting in the middle of 2013 but at first turned it down. The buyer came back with a second offer that also was refused. Mullins said that when the buyer came back a third time, the seven-member board — comprised of six Ford family members and the family's lawyer — decided to discuss with a wider circle of family members the possibility of selling.

"This was really a once-in-a-lifetime offer," said Mullins. "The family thought it was a way to guarantee the estate would be taken care of the way Eleanor would have wanted."

“It is important for us to remember that French art of the second half of the nineteenth century is not only Impressionism, Naturalism and Symbolism, but that there were also figures who were mainly driven by their imagination. This is the ‘other French nineteenth century,’ and it is equally influential.”

In the December issue of popular science magazine New Scientist, Icke, a professor of Theoretical Astronomy at the University of Leiden, states that the pearl on the ear of the famous Girl with a Pearl Earring by Vermeer, could not have been a real pearl. The way in which a pearl would reflect the light does not match the reflection of the light in the painting, says Icke.

The article by Vincent Icke confirms what we at the Mauritshuis have been thinking and writing about Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring for some time now. In fact, it's one of the most fun facts about this painting. Just like the fact that it was purchased in 1881 by the previous owner at an auction for 2.30 guilders. At the museum, the caption for the painting also mentions the unrealistic size of the pearl. Vincent Icke reaches the same conclusion, but through a very different understanding and research. The Mauritshuis has taken note of his findings with great interest. This illustrates what makes seventeenth-century paintings so interesting to look at: nothing is what it seems.

The Mauritshuis has written previously about the jewel in the ear of Vermeer's girl, saying it was not a true pearl. Indeed, just like the turban, the "pearl" was no daily outfit for Dutch girls in the seventeenth century. Quentin Buvelot (Mauritshuis chief curator) described the painting together with fellow curator Ariane van Suchtelen in the catalogue for an exhibition on highlights of the Mauritshuis in Bologna earlier this year. They then wrote: "Some of the most salient features of Vermeer's painting include the girl's headpiece and the pearl in her ear. The headpiece consists of yellow fabric, with blue fabric on top of it, knotted around her forehead. The yellow-green jacket is painted in such a loose style that it isn't clear which material it's made from. It is probably wool fabric. This garment is often seen as part of the girl's exotic costume, but it is indeed a contemporary jacket. The low-set sleeve and small pleats are typical of the fashion in the 1660s, when this painting was made. The pearl on the girl's ear is remarkably large. Whereas most pearls nowadays come from farms, in the seventeenth century, they were natural ones. Pearls were formed in oyster-like sea mussels. Large pearls were rare and ended up in the hands of the richest people on the planet. In the seventeenth century, cheaper glass pearls, usually from Venice, were also quite common. They were made from glass, which was lacquered to give it a matt finish. Maybe the girl is wearing such a handcrafted 'pearl'."

One of the richest and most comprehensive digital art and archival resources in Europe and the world’s largest archive of British Art - Tate Archive - is being made available online for a worldwide audience.

Sketchbooks, drawings, family photographs, personal letters and intimate diaries from artists including Paul Nash, Graham Sutherland, Jacob Epstein, Barbara Hepworth and Ben Nicholson will be available on the free archive, which has been supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund with a grant of £2 million.

Highlights of the project, which will be released in stages, include Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture records compiled by the artist throughout her life. They featuring original photographs, handwritten notes and details of exhibitions, giving a comprehensive record of her sculptures from 1925-1975.

Diary entries include tender love letters with intimate sketches sent by Paul Nash to his wife detailing their early life together as well as his service as a soldier and war artist during the First World War. 

My wife and I would like to add a very loud ''hear hear'' to Martin Filler's article.  We used go out of our way to stop-over in Chartres whilst driving to and from our house in the south-west in France. Even for a confirmed atheist such as myself, the cathedral interior was the most spiritual and awe-inspiring building that I have ever experienced and it truly became an inspirational place of pilgrimage for us. We were shocked and heart-broken, indeed out-raged, when we visited last year to find that the French had wilfully embarked on this catastrophic campaign of so-called restoration. The result is that now we sadly have no wish to return, as we prefer to retain the memories of this Gothic masterpiece when it still retained the accretions of centuries which were responsible for so much of its mystical character.

Perhaps we can now expect the French state to countenance the cleaning of the Mona Lisa?

Among the items to be loaned are Da Vinci's "La Belle Ferroniere" ("Portrait of an Unknown Woman") from the Louvre in Paris; Claude Monet's "Gare Saint-Lazare" from the Musee d'Orsay; a self-portrait by Van Gogh, also from the Musee d'Orsay; and Matisse's "Still Life With Magnolia" from the Centre Pompidou.

The Chateau de Versailles will be lending the famous "Napoleon Crossing the Alps" painting by Jacques-Louis David.

The only decorative cycle on public display in the UK by one of the most influential artists in the development of landscape painting and a key inspiration to the Impressionists, will remain on view for future generations to enjoy after being purchased by the National Gallery with the support of the Art Fund.

The Four Times of Day (about 1858), by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, has a long association with the UK. The four paintings, representing Morning (pictured left), Noon, Evening and Night, were acquired by artist Frederic, Lord Leighton in 1865 and were among the earliest Corot works to be acquired by a British collector. Lord Leighton displayed them as the focal point of his London home, where they provided inspiration for his fellow Victorian artists. After his death, the paintings spent more than a century in the same family collection and have been on loan to the National Gallery since 1997. The pictures were acquired for Lord Wantage at Christie’s in 1896 and their sale to the nation was negotiated by Christie’s.

Corot painted the four large panels, which trace the deepening light of the sky from sunrise to star-studded night, to decorate the Fontainebleau studio of his friend and fellow painter Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps. He completed the cycle in a single week prompting Decamps to exclaim, 'Not so fast, don’t hurry so; there is still enough soup for a few days more.' Decamps apparently spent hours in contemplation of the panels, filled with dismay at their quality, technique and effect compared to his own work.

Another unnecessary acquisition.  They already have 21 Corots so why not have helped Leighton House get them back – the latter’s been buying back works from the Lord’s collection over the years.

I’ve found the lack of comment on the National Gallery’s Corot acquisition interesting. Does this mean that the vast majority of people deem it to be a good acquisition, I wonder? As compared to the Wilke, this (surely more significant) acquisition seems to have raised hardly a peep.

I’ve always liked the Four Times of Day, and am glad to see them in the permanent collection – they’re striking when viewed together, and they’re also varied, compared to a lot of other Corot landscapes with milky-white skies. I suppose there’s a debate to be had about whether the money would have been better spent on expanding the collection’s range (given they already have more than 20 Corots).

The paintings were originally owned by Mathilda Marks, an heiress to the Marks and Spencer empire, but were stolen by con men from the flat she shared with her American husband in Chester Terrace, near Regent's Park in London, in 1970.

The thieves smuggled the paintings by train through France, intending to enter Italy, but panicked while waiting to cross the border and left them on a train heading towards Turin.

They were found by railway inspectors and languished for years in a dusty lost property office before being put up for auction by Italy's national railway network in 1975.

The Fiat worker, who regularly attended the railway auctions as a hobby, bought the two masterpieces for 45,000 lire – just £19 in today's money.

Yes, but the estate would only go to the Crown (State) if the intestate was domiciled in England or Wales for which we do not have the facts.

It is strange to me that the insurers, would not have been considered the rightful owners if they had paid for the loss.

25 originals by European artists, including the Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor Lorenzo di Credi.

This is really sad but......  last year  at work we received shiny new Leonardo Dispensing Solutions loo roll holders.  Now my daughter is a facilities manager and gets highly excited about such things so I made a mental note to tell her.

After work a friend and I went to the cinema in the same city and visited the ladies before the film began. Imagine my excitement when I noticed that the same loo roll holders were there. But no - on closer examination, these holders were called.......   DA VINCI. 

I googled it for you and there's a whole world of products:       

Versatwin dispenser     

The Da Vinci versatwin toilet roll system is the smallest and most versatile toilet tissue system on offer. Its compact size and large capacity of 250 metres of paper makes it an attractive, neat and efficient solution for even the smallest washroom. The dispensers control usage by allowing access to only one roll at a time. Only when the first roll is depleted can the second be accessed. This allows for efficient replenishment and ensures that the product need never run out.£29.95 (inc VAT £35.94)   each