Previous Posts: June 2024
Summer Sale Season is here!
June 28 2024
Picture: Philip Mould & Co. via AB
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Summer Sale Season and London Art Week is finally here! Forgive me if I've been a little quiet these past days but now is the prime opportunity to attend all the exciting views and events this next week and a bit has to offer. Both auction houses will be opening their views today, and London Art Week has pulled together some of the city's top dealers many of which are running exhibitions (Click here to see the full list of those involved). This is not to mention the aforementioned The Treasure House Fair (above is a picture I took yesterday from PM's stand) and side-exhibitions like Trois Crayons. If you can't attend, then lots of information and catalogue notes can be found online via the links above.
I'll resume next week with more pictures and thoughts as and when they appear.
Seminar of the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage
June 27 2024
Picture: The National Gallery, London
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) in Belgium have released details for their upcoming 23rd Art History Seminar. This year's topic will be The Archduchess Isabella (1566-1633): Artistic Agency between Madrid and the Southern Netherlands and features 2 days' worth of talks from scholars and workshops on the subject. The seminar will take place on 12th & 13th September 2024.
Can Sound Damage Art?
June 26 2024
Picture: iiconservation.org
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Can sound damage art? Well, scientists from The National Gallery in London have been exploring this question and are 'still working through the data acquired and hope to share the results in a journal article in the near future'. If you'd like to read about the tests carried out, so have a look at the article written by Catherine Higgitt, Tomasz Galikowski, David Trew and others in the latest News in Conservation journal (free to access).
Addiction and Recovery through Art History
June 26 2024
Picture: hyperallergic.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The website Hyperallergic.com have published a review of Kikan Massara’s new book entitled The 12 Steps: Symbols, Myths, and Archetypes of Recovery. In particular, the article focuses on how explorations of artworks are used within the book.
To quote a section:
The core of this parlance is, of course, the eponymous 12 steps in the book’s title. A section of the book breaks down each step into its core principle, and then illustrates it through works of art and literature. Step One, summarized as “Admit Powerlessness,” is paired with “Despair” (1894) by Edvard Munch, “Snow Storm – Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth” (1842) by J. M. W. Turner, “Sueño” (1992) by Kiki Smith, and even a Ptolemaic relief dating to 332 BCE from the Temple of Haroeris and Sobek in the Nile Valley of Egypt. Each captures the devastation, confusion, and tumult of a losing battle with alcoholism and other related diseases — one that drives millions of people to reach out for help.
Click on the link above to read more.
Recent Release: The Radical Print
June 26 2024
Picture: Yale Books
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Paul Mellon Centre has released a new book today. The Radical Print is the latest title from the Courtauld scholar Esther Chadwick.
According to the blurb:
The Radical Print argues for printmaking in Britain as the most exciting, innovative, and critically engaged field of artistic production in the late eighteenth century. Moving the print from the margins to the centre of the study of art history, this new critical study demonstrates how print responded to the acceleration of historical events, the polarisation of public discourse, and the sense of a world turned upside down in ways that traditional artistic media could not.
Across five chapters, this book brings printmakers James Barry, John Hamilton Mortimer, James Gillray, Thomas Bewick, and William Blake together as artists of the “Paper Age” for the first time. From Barry’s experiments in aquatint at the time of the American Revolution to Blake’s visionary engravings of the post-Napoleonic period, Chadwick shows how the print medium provided artists with special purchase on the major political issues of their age.
CFP: Women Collectors
June 26 2024
Picture: The Wallace Collection
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Wallace Collection in London have issued a call for papers on the subject of Women Collectors. This is in preparation for a Study Day on 1st November 2024 on the subject as part of their Collection Past and Present series.
Abstracts need to be in by 2nd August 2024 and you can read the full CFP poster here.
Conserving Kauffman's Frame
June 25 2024
Picture: icon.org.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
ICON (The Institute of Conservation) have published a short article on the recent restoration of the original frame belonging to Angelica Kauffman's Diomedes and Cressida. The work was undertaken by Sophie Reddington and Jonida Mecani and features within the recently opened display at Petworth which delves into the complete restoration of Kauffman's painting.
First known portrait commissioned by an American born into slavery on display in Baltimore
June 25 2024
Picture: The Washington Post
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Washington Post have reported on news that the first known portrait commissioned by an American born into slavery will be going on display at the Baltimore Museum of Art this week. The painting, attributed to the artist James Alexander Simpson, is believed to depict Mary Ann Tritt Cassell, a woman of mixed race whose mother was enslaved on Stratford Hall plantation in Westmoreland County, Va. The article explains the research which has gone into uncovering the life of the sitter and her family.
Horse in Majesty at Versailles
June 25 2024
Picture: chateauversailles.fr
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Horse lovers will have yet another opportunity to bask in the beauty of historic depicts of these majestic animals in France this year (see the previous post on Géricault's Horses at the Le Musée de la Vie romantique). The Palace of Versailles will be opening a new show dedicated to the Horse in Majesty on 2nd July 2024 and have created this rather snazzy poster to help promote the show (pictured).
According to the palace's website:
To coincide with the equestrian events at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, to be hosted on the Versailles estate, the Château is holding a major exhibition dedicated to horses and equestrian civilisation in Europe – the first exhibition on this theme to be presented on such a scale. [...]
Nearly 300 works will highlight the roles and uses of horses in civil and military society, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, up to the eve of the First World War, which marked the end of horse-drawn civilisation and the relegation of horses to the realm of leisure.
The show will gallop along until 3rd November 2024.
Master Drawings Summer 2024
June 25 2024
Picture: masterdrawings.org
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Summer 2024 edition of the Master Drawings journal has just been published.
Here's a selection of the articles within this issue:
“Hardly more than a shadow”: Apropos Drawings by Antonio Palma in the Louvre - Lily Mathelin
Getting to Color: Early Pastel Drawings by Federico Barocci - Luca Baroni
An Introduction to the Life and Drawings of Robert van den Hoecke - Tom Nevile
Six New Drawings by Nicolas Lancret at the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon - Axel Moulinier
Giambattista Tiepolo’s “Scalzi-style” Drawings Reconsidered: New Proposals for the Würzburg Residenz and the Church of the Pietà, Venice- Ian Hicks
The Torlonia Collection at the Louvre
June 25 2024
Picture: presse.louvre.fr
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A new display of classical sculpture from the Torlonia Collection will be opened tomorrow at the Louvre in Paris. It will be the first time the collection has been exhibited outside of Italy.
According to the press release:
The Paris show is intended to display the Torlonia Collection, little known in France, in a setting steeped in the history of museums of ancient sculpture. It will offer an intimate archaeological and aesthetic look at the extraordinary Torlonia marbles as they engage in dialogue with the artworks in the Louvre’s own collection.
It will be held in the summer apartments of Anne of Austria and in the adjacent ‘Salle d’Auguste’ , where Roman sculpture has been displayed in the Louvre since 1798. These spaces have been completely renovated as they will later be home to a newly designed display of the Louvre’s Roman collection.
The exhibition will run until 11th November 2024.
Out with the Antiquities and in with the Female Artists, says Christian Levett
June 24 2024
Picture: FT
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The FT ran an interesting article at the weekend regarding the changing tastes of the collector Christian Levett. Levett, a former hedge fund manager, had opened a museum in Mougins, France, dedicated to classical antiquities back in 2011. However, at the end of last year a series of sales was held at Christie's selling off a great portion of his collection. Levett is now focused on opening a museum dedicated to female artists.
According to the article:
Why the shift in his museum’s focus? Although the market for antiquities has become polarised in recent years — “Things with great provenance have exploded in value, while objects with weak provenance are almost unsaleable,” Levett says — the overriding factor has been his parallel enthusiasm for postwar art. In 2013, with his antiquities museum up and running, he “decided to focus on Modern and contemporary art. I wanted to buy fantastic works by the greatest artists, be they male or female.” His purchases included pieces by Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, Helen Frankenthaler, Cecily Brown and Tracey Emin, which he initially installed in the Florentine palazzo where he now lives.
UK Places Export Ban on Louis XIV's £7.5m Table
June 24 2024
Picture: gov.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The UK Government has placed a temporary export ban on a spectacular table made between 1668 - 1681 and attributed to Bernard Perrot (1640-1709). The table has been identified as having been in the collection of Louis XIV, before it was sold in 1752. It appears to have later been in the collection of Clopton House, Warwickshire, before it was sold at auction in 1975 and 1988 respectively. Interested institutions have until 18th October 2024 to find £7,500,000 to keep the work of art in the country.
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Brief conversations I've had about similar cases relating to important and valuable furniture leaving the UK have always been rather disheartening. Unlike paintings, for which there are several big galleries with healthy acquisition pots, the obvious place for such high quality and valuable works of decorative arts would usually be the V&A. However, in recent years this institution has been in the press for making drastic budget and staff cuts rather than making stellar acquisitions. Fingers crossed that something can be done in this instance.
Museum of Fine Arts Budapest Acquire Juan de Zurbarán
June 24 2024
Picture: mfab.hu
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest has acquired a still life by Juan de Zurbarán (spotted on 'X' via @MiguelGranado74). A quick search on Google shows that the picture was exhibited by Charles Beddington at TEFAF in 2023 and was acquired by the museum this year.
New British Art Podcast
June 24 2024
Picture: Walpole Society
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A new podcast is being released today. British Art Matters is the official podcast of the Berger Prize, hosted by Dr Christina Faraday and produced by The Walpole Society. Two episodes have already been uploaded online, the first with Tim Clayton (winner of the 2023 Berger Prize) and the second with art dealer Jonny Yarker (of Libson & Yarker). The next selection of recordings will be released in the autumn.
Longford Castle Art Tour
June 24 2024
Video: The National Gallery, London
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery in London have recently published the following 40-minute video providing a tour of the art collection at Longford Castle in Wiltshire.
Upcoming Release: Guillaume Lethière
June 21 2024
Picture: Yale Books
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
It appears that the Clark Institute's upcoming exhibition on Guillaume Lethière is going to be accompanied by what looks to be a rather good scholarly book (pictured). The volume is edited by Esther Bell and Olivier Meslay and features contributions from a long list of scholars.
According to the blurb on Yale Books:
Born in the French colony of Guadeloupe, Guillaume Lethière (1760–1832) was a key figure in the history of art during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The son of a formerly enslaved woman of color and a white government official and plantation owner, Lethière moved to France with his father at age fourteen. He trained as an artist and successfully navigated the tumult of the French Revolution and its aftermath in order to achieve the highest levels of recognition in his time. A favorite artist of Napoleon’s brother, Lucien Bonaparte, Lethière also held important positions at the Académie de France in Rome, Institut de France , and École des Beaux-Arts. A well-respected teacher, he operated a robust studio that rivaled those of his contemporaries Jacques-Louis David and Antoine-Jean Gros.
Despite his remarkable accomplishments and considerable corpus of paintings and drawings, Lethière is relatively unknown today. Lavishly illustrated and authoritative, this groundbreaking study serves to introduce Lethière to new and broader audiences and restore him to his rightful place as one of the most eminent artist of his generation. An international group of scholars offer the first comprehensive view of Lethière’s extraordinary career in its political, social, and art historical context, addressing issues of colonialism, slavery, and diaspora, as well as shedding new light on the presence and reception of Caribbean artists in France during this time.
On Thin Ice at the Getty
June 21 2024
Picture: getty.edu
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I failed to spot that the Getty Center in Los Angeles opened a new exhibition at the end of last month. On Thin Ice: Dutch Depictions of Extreme Weather might just be the perfect antidote to the sweltering Californian summer!
According to the museum's website:
In the 17th century, frigid winters and unusually cool summers blanketed northern Europe in what became known as the Little Ice Age. Dutch artists depicted this persistent global cooling in scenes of daily activities like ice skating and fishing. Highlighting human vulnerability and resilience in the face of a changing climate, these works offer opportunities to reflect on our current environmental crises. This exhibition features works by Hendrick Avercamp and other Dutch artists of the 1600s.
The show will run until 1st September 2024.
15th Century Flemish Paintings in the Prado
June 21 2024
Picture: tiendaprado.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Prado Museum in Madrid have just published a new catalogue of their 15th Century Flemish Paintings (spotted via @MarteVelazquez on 'X'). The volume, which was written by José Juan Pérez Preciado, includes vast descriptions of works by the likes of Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, The Master of Flémalle, Dirk Bouts, Hans Memling and Hugo van der Goes.
Recent Release: Painting Architecture in Early Renaissance Italy
June 20 2024
Picture: brepols.net
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Harvey Miller Publishers are set to release the following book this month. Painting Architecture in Early Renaissance Italy: Innovation and Persuasion at the Intersection of Artistic and Architectural Practice has been written by the scholar Livia Lupi whose work has been funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the Leverhulme Trust and the Warburg Institute.
According to the publication's blurb:
Why did artists include prominent architectural settings in their narrative paintings? Why did they labour over specific, highly innovative structural solutions? Why did they endeavour to design original ornamental motifs which brought together sculptural, painterly and architectural approaches, as well as showcasing their understanding of materiality? Painting Architecture in Early Renaissance Italy addresses these questions in order to shed light on the early exchanges between artistic and architectural practice in Italy, arguing that architecture in painting provided a unique platform for architectural experimentation.
Rather than interpreting architectural settings as purely spatial devices and as lesser counterparts of their built cognates, this book emphasises their intrinsic value as designs as well as communicative tools, contending that the architectural imagination of artists was instrumental in redefining the status of architectural forms as a kind of cultural currency. Exploring the nexus between innovation and persuasion, Livia Lupi highlights an early form of little-discussed paragone between painting and architecture which relied on a shared understanding of architectural invention as a symbol of prestige.
