Previous Posts: articles 2023
The Arts Society goes online
April 7 2020
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Guardian have reported today that The Arts Society have recently announced that they will be online streaming a series of free lectures and Q&As for the over-70s over the upcoming months. This is in response to the current virus crisis, which sensibly prevents the gatherings of large audiences in lecture halls during these troubling times.
This organisation, who I happen to be an accredited lecturer for, coordinates with 380 societies consisting of 90,000 members across the country and beyond to stage lectures related to the arts. The standard of lectures are usually very high, mostly due to the lengthy and intense application process for speakers.
Their first lecture will be on Velazquez’s Las Meninas, by lecturer Jacqueline Cockburn, and will be available through their new digital platform The Arts Society Connected. It seems that you must be a member of the Arts Society to watch the lecture for free.
The future of such events is a very interesting and mildly concerning one. Like many professionals involved with presenting to live audiences, including musicians, actors and performers, I wonder how long it will take for people feel safe enough to gather in enclosed theartres and halls again?
Treasures Sold Off to Raise Millions for Councils
April 6 2020
Picture: The Sunday Times
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Worrying article in The Sunday Times yesterday (paywall) reporting on cash-strapped Councils in Britain that are selling off works of art to fund various projects and shore themselves up in testing times.
Several freedom of information requests were placed by the newspaper with hundreds of councils across the country to reveal that £27 million has been raised over the past decade. This has included the selling off of important paintings, ancient sculpture and collections of ceramics.
Their findings revealed;
A total of 2,280 pieces of art have been sold since January 2009, according to FoI responses and public record searches, which cover about 70% of the UK’s 408 councils.
The five local authorities with the highest sales are Northampton borough council (£15.8m), Croydon council (£8.2m), Ealing council (£713,000), Cambridgeshire county council (£688,000) and Hertfordshire county council (£469,282).
Amongst the works that the newspaper highlighted included an Italian Landscape by Joseph Wright of Derby, sold by Kensington and Chelsea Council for £240,000, and featured in a recent series of Britain’s Lost Masterpieces.
The reasons for the sales listed are various, from paying for residential care to helping to build new art storage facilities (which wouldn’t be needed if more effort was put into putting their art out on display).
This of course sets a rather worrying precedent, and raises the question of whether more councils will start reviewing their deaccessioning policies in wake of the recent economic fallout affecting the globe.
The Gestingthorpe Choir - Reidentified
April 4 2020
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Telegraph have a published a fascinating news story today regarding the reidentification of a group portrait of musicians.
The said picture belongs to London art dealer and Fake or Fortune? presenter Philip Mould, who purchased the large scale painting at an auction several decades ago. Over the past few days Philip has been presenting a brilliant daily series exploring his private collection kept in his Oxfordshire home, all in response to the #ArtInIsolation that is sweeping social media during the present lockdown.
Andy Craig, a local historian and chairman of his village’s history society, watched Philip’s video online when he realised that it matched a long lost painting described in Notes on the Parish of Gestingthorpe, published in 1905. The painting’s naïve feel, identified in the pamphlet as The Gestingthorpe Choir, indicates that it is likely to have been produced by a local provincial artist.
Most curiously, and as Philip discovered when he had the painting cleaned, the canvas bears the names of each of the musicians and servants (including the dog). Speaking as someone who pays a lot of attention to musical subjects in paintings, its also quite rare to see a struck dulcimer in pictures of this period (!). They are still quite popular in places like Hungary, where they are called a Cimbalom.
Perhaps this lockdown presents the chance for galleries and museums to highlight some of their more puzzling pictures online. Who knows who might be watching.
Click here to read the article (behind a paywall, unfortunately)…
Art history in the age of Covid
April 3 2020
Picture: via Pixabay.
Hell everyone! It's been a while since I've tended to the blog. Life rather overtook me, and I increasingly found I didn't have the time. But now of course many of us find that we have more time on our hands than we know what to do with. And so I thought it was time to bring the blog back.
This time, to help things tick along, I will be ably assisted by my friend and fellow art historian, Adam Busiakiewicz. Stories posted by Adam will have his name at the top of each post.
But the most important thing to say is that I hope you - dear AHNers - are all well and keeping as safe as you can. I have missed our blogging acquaintances. For all of us, our daily lives are now radically different, and over the coming weeks, Adam and I hope to keep you informed and amused with any art historical stories that are around. But we also want to hear your stories; what you're up to, and how you're coping. Are you a curator missing your collection? Are you an art historian missing access to a library? Are you a security guard all alone in a museum? Are you an art lover who's missing your weekly wander around your local gallery? Please let us know.
In the meantime, best wishes to you all, and stay safe.
Sleeper Alert! - Old Master Drawing Special
April 3 2020
Picture: Drout Digital
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Interesting news via. Twitter (from @Claudia05086940) that an Old Master Drawing depicting the History of Adam and Eve ascribed to 'German School 17th Century' sold for €82,200 over an estimate of €600-800 earlier today. The online only sale was held by the French auction house Aguttes.
Any suggestions for a possible attribution? We might assume that the buyer is hoping it to be the work of an early sixteenth century German Master.
It is quite something that such high prices can be achieved during such a period of crisis. But, such is the inestimable attraction of securing a sleeper.
The Art Newspaper - Diary of an Art Historian
April 3 2020
Picture: via The Art Newspaper
Here is my most recent Diary piece for The Art Newspaper. Included are brief accounts of escaping Italy during filming the new series of BLM and the early closure of The European Fine Art Fair at Maastricht.
(Was it wise to keep Tefaf going? I hear alarming tales of large numbers of people having contracted the virus there. If you were there, or affected, please let us know. Anonymously if you prefer!)
I also contributed to an Art Newspaper podcast examining Van Dyck's portrait of Martin Ryckaert hanging in the now closed Prado. Click here to listen...
Home-made art - #ArtInIsolation
April 3 2020
Picture: Getty Museum
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz
Despite the current crisis that faces the world, these troubling times have not managed to quash the creative and comedic ingenuity amongst lovers of art. Several challenges have been put forward to recreate scenes from famous paintings and artworks with whatever means you have available at home. Both the Getty Museum (@GettyMuseum) and an Instagram account @tussenkunstenquarantaine (who have no less than 121k followers) have been regularly posting examples of these homemade recreations.
Here are a few of our favourite reinterpretations;
@17centurygirl - & friends recreating a Caravaggio.
@sandrineatmospheriste - channelling a Petrus Christus.
@Saschaloske – reinterpreting a Whistler (with authentic frame).
@_saar_W – restaging a serene Raphael.
Here at AHN we are still pondering what to do. By the standard so far, it's going to have to be good...
National Gallery of Art DC - Virtual Tours
April 3 2020
Video: National Gallery of Art, Washington
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz
Continuing on the theme of how galleries and museums are continuing to share their collections during the current lock down, here is a video from the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
It shows Northern European paintings curator Betsy Wieseman unravelling a rather dashing picture by Johannes Cornelisz Verspronck of Andries Stilte as a Standard Bearer (1640).
The NGA are currently running a virtual tour series on their Facebook page, highlighting one work of art from each of their rooms every day.
Never before has it been so easy for videos of this kind to be made. Click, point and go (whilst keeping at least 2 metres apart, in our current climate).
Curator Talk - Titian: Love, Desire, Death
April 2 2020
Video: The National Gallery via. Facebook
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz
The current lock down of museums across the world has led to some wonderful examples of how social media can help bring art into peoples homes through sight and sound.
Over the next weeks we'll share lots of the fantastic virtual tours that museums and galleries are uploading to Youtube and other platforms.
First off, and related to the previous post, here is Italian paintings curator Mattias Wivel introducing the National Gallery's Titian exhibition. Although it was posted before the lockdown, it is still an excellent introduction to this significant reunion of Old Master Paintings.
BBC2 - Titian Behind Closed Doors
April 2 2020
Picture: BBC
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz
Exciting news for UK television licence fee holders that the BBC has made a special hour long programme celebrating the National Gallery’s important and historic exhibition Titian: Love, Desire, Death.
A feat of curatorial engineering, this exhibition reunites for the first time in four centuries six works commissioned from Titian by the future King Philip II of Spain. The Venetian painter’s ‘poesies’ inspired by Ovid’s Metamorphoses are considered amongst his most original works, yet were dispersed during his lifetime. Most notably, the Wallace Collection had only recently ‘reinterpreted’ their 1897 bequest ruling so that their Perseus and Andromeda could be part of the show.
The exhibition opened to the public on 16th March, but had to close just two days later as a precautionary measure against the spread of COVID-19. The National Gallery on Trafalgar Square was one of the last museums to close its doors, with the Vatican Museums having closed on 8th March, the Prado on 12th March and the Louvre on 13th March.
The gallery’s website explains that the current plan is for the exhibition to reopen when the rest of the gallery does on 4th May. This, we might imagine, will be subject to developments and advice from the government. The exhibition is due to run in London until 14th June 2020, after which it will travel to Edinburgh, Madrid and Boston.
The programme entitled Titian - Behind Closed Doors will air on BBC Two on Saturday 4th April 2020 at 21.45 (GMT).
Burlington releases current issue online
April 2 2020
Picture: The Burlington Magazine
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz
Wonderful news that during the world’s current crisis The Burlington Magazine has made its current issue free to read online. You can click here to read the current issue.
This will come as welcome news, as the majority of the world is now confined to four walls. A good way to find future new subscribers, alongside the joy of reading the magazine’s contents for free during these troubling times. Furthermore, this month’s editorial is dedicated to the pertinent theme of Art and Illness. Spurred on from new research undertaken by the University of California at Berkley, leading psychologists have been able to verify the notion that ‘Art can make you feel better’. This, as the editorial points out, has been a long held view by readers of the Burlington and generations of Art Lovers across the globe.
A large number of online journal resources are following suit, with JSTOR having announced that open access content can now be read without having the faff of signing up for an account.
'Britain's Lost Masterpieces' (ctd.)
October 30 2019
Video: BBC
Hello everyone. I'm very sorry the blog has gone into abeyance. The new series of Britain's Lost Masterpieces starts tonight on BBC4 at 9pm. Above is a trailer. There are three episodes, the first looking at a potential Batoni. We've found that more than three is quite difficult - these aren't like making usual programmes, as the conservation and research can take months, and can also be quite unpredictable. But this week we've started filming for the fifth series, which all being well will be shown about this time next year. I hope you enjoy them!
My regular Diary column in The Art Newspaper should keep you up to date with most things I'm doing. Or at least, most things I want to have a rant about. I've recently written about the National Gallery's treatment of its lecturers, the National Portrait Gallery's ill-advised Michael Jackson show, the fact that Scotland doesn't do very well out of 'the nation's' art collection, and of course the Salvator Mundi.
You'll know that the latest on that picture is that it hasn't appeared in the Louvre's Leonardo exhibition. What a shame. First, it seems the Louvre really did want to borrow, contrary to all manner of false early reports. They even left a space for it on the walls, and it was shown in various exhibition plans. It seems negotiations with the owners went down to the wire. So we can deduce that the Louvre wanted the picture, and the owners were willing to lend it, but something happened. And of course we must suspect that this likely comes down to attribution. Did the Louvre refuse to commit to displaying it as 'a Leonardo' or did they reserve the right to call it 'Leonardo & Workshop'? The catalogue as published is unclear, and refers cryptically to the picture's attribution. Probably, politics got in the way. The new book on the painting by Robert Simon, Martin Kemp and Margaret Dalivalle is out, and available here.
Other developing stories that have been featured on AHN include the Old Master fakes scandal, involving paintings said to be by Frans Hals and Parmigianino. The English High Court case between Sotheby's, the dealer Mark Weiss and the collector David Kowitz has ended, but there's been no judgement yet. It was suggested the judgement would have been given in the Summer. In Italy, an arrest has been made - of the artist Lino Frongia. A warrant has also been issued for the arrest of the collector Giulano Ruffini. Vincent Noce in The Art Newspaper has the most detail, here. Longstanding readers of AHN might remember Lino Frongia's name appearing on the blog, back in 2016.
London Art Week
July 5 2019
Picture: Andrew Clayton-Payne
First, further apologies for the lack of AHN these last few weeks. I've been finishing both a series of 'Britain's Lost Masterpieces' for the BBC, and the catalogue for 'Bright Souls'. So there wasn't much time left for other things. Recently, I've tended to wake up in the morning and wonder anxiously where I am, or where I need to be going. When it comes to travelling, I like to follow Jared Diamond's advice of 'constructive paranoia', and this means being indecently early for trains and planes. If you need to know how maddening this is, talk to my poor wife.
But I'm now back home in the Scottish Borders, and I don't plan on moving further than a few miles in any direction for at least a month. Sitting at my desk, I can hear buzzards calling and wheeling in the warm air. Later, I will fire up my ancient tractor (that is, assuming it feels like starting), cut some grass, and wonder how I can manage a mid-life career change to smallhold farming.
But before that, I wanted to write about London Art Week, the annual chance for dealers and auctioneers in 'classic art' to shine and show off their wares. I'm biased, in that I used to be an art dealer myself, but I was struck more than ever this year at how 'the market' can drive art history forward in a positive and exciting way.
Too often, there is a temptation in some quarters of the art world to sneer at the activities of dealers and auctioneers. The case of Leonardo's Salvator Mundi is an obvious example; supporters of the painting are derided by those who seek to criticise it as either sticking up for the art market, or having some kind of vested interest in it. The debate about the painting's authenticity is pitched as pure-minded scholarship on one side, and commerce driven speculation on the other.
'Bright Souls' (ctd.)
June 19 2019
Video: Lyon & Turnbull
Here's a short trailer for the exhibition I'm curating on the first British female artists.
'Bright Souls'
June 14 2019
Picture: Lyon & Turnbull
Please accept my further apologies for the lack of news. I've been tied up finishing the latest series of 'Britain's Lost Masterpieces', and writing the catalogue for a new exhibition I'm curating on the first female British artists. They are Joan Carlile, Mary Beale and Anne Killigrew.
The exhibition is called 'Bright Souls; the Forgotten Story of Britain's First Female Artists', and will be at Lyon & Turnbull's London gallery (on Connaught Street) from 24th June to 6th July. It would be great to see some of you there. It's the first time anyone has shown works by these three artists together, and the first exhibition to look more broadly at Joan Carlile and Anne Killigrew. We'll have a catalogue, and some newly discovered paintings. More details here.
The title comes from John Dryden's Ode to Anne Killigrew after her death in 1685 at the age of 25;
Thus nothing to her Genius was deny'd,
But like a Ball of Fire the further thrown,
Still with a greater Blaze she shone,
And her bright Soul broke out on ev'ry side.
Apologies (ctd.)
May 21 2019
Sorry about the radio silence. I'm writing a catalogue for an exhibition I'm curating in London, opening next month. Should be quite exciting. More news soon.
Notre Dame de Paris
April 17 2019
Video: Guardian
You'll all have despaired at the terrible fire in Paris. While the restoration project ahead will be long and difficult, it seems we can be relieved that the damage was not worse. Thanks to an extraordinary feat of firefighting by the Paris Sapeurs-Pompiers, the structure of the building has survived. And pretty much the bulk of the interior and stained glass has survived too; the cathedral's stone vaulting prevented most of the burning roof from collapsing into the lower part of the building, and causing any further destruction.
Fakes, fakes everywhere? (ctd.)
April 17 2019
Picture: via TAN
The Sotheby's/Weiss/Fairlight trial has concluded in London's High Court, but, reports Vincent Noce in TAN, we'll need to wait till the summer to get judgement. It appears that over the two weeks, there wasn't the contest over the attribution that we might have hoped for. Rather, argument focused on the contracts between the various parties. Lawyers for Fairlight (the art dealing vehicle of the collector and financier David Kowitz, which owned 50% of the Hals painting) argued that since Sotheby's contract was only signed with Weiss, Fairlight should not be pursued for any monies by Sotheby's, even if Fairlight ultimately benefited from the $11.75m sale of the picture.
Fairlight is also being pursued by Weiss for half of his $4.2m settlement with Sotheby's. On the face of it, there seems to be a competing logic here; Weiss's lawyers would appear to be of the view that his settlement with Sotheby's covered 100% of the transaction - in other words, that the Sotheby's contract was only with Weiss, and not partly with Fairlight - hence them seeking a sum from Fairlight commensurate with the initial shareholding in the picture. But Sotheby's appear to take the view that their $4.2m settlement with Weiss only represents half the transaction - or at least, as much of that half as they thought they were likely to achieve -and that Kowitz is liable for the remainder.
Whatever one thinks of the picture, or the legal issues involved, would it not be extremely unfortunate if Mr Kowitz ended up having to pay both Sotheby's and Weiss to the extent that has been claimed in court?
'Diary of an Art Historian' (ctd.)
April 17 2019
Picture: ArtFund
My latest 'diary' piece for The Art Newspaper has gone online, with tales from filming in Italy, and another look at the Art Fund's sad decision to disband its volunteers.
The Toulouse Caravaggio
April 17 2019
Video: Labarbe
The catalogue for the auction in France of the 'Toulouse Caravaggio' has gone online. In the video above, the Caravaggio expert Nicola Spinosa tells us why the picture is indeed by Caravaggio. The auction is in 71 days time, says a countdown on the site. The presentation is impressive. Will it sell?
The picture will be in New York from 10th - 17th May at the Adam Williams gallery.
