Teach Art of the Americas at Oxford
January 14 2025
Picture: worc.ox.ac.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Worcester College and the Department of Art History at the University of Oxford are hiring an Associate Professorship in the Art of the Americas.
According to the job description:
Worcester College and the Department of History of Art are looking to appoint an Associate Professor with research and teaching expertise in the Art of the Americas (North and/or South) after 1500.
The appointee will bring together students and scholars working across the University, including in its libraries and collections, through a consideration of the visual and material cultures of the Americas that expands Art History’s traditional geographic, material and methodological boundaries.
This position provides exciting opportunities for the postholder, who will conduct advanced research and build research networks within and beyond Oxford; give lectures, classes, and tutorials; supervise, support and examine students at the undergraduate and graduate levels; play an important part in the academic life of Worcester College; and take on leadership and administrative roles in the Department of History of Art and, as required, in the History Faculty and College.
The job comes with a salary between £55,755 to £74,867 per annum and applications must be in by 5th February 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
The Art Museum in the Digital Age – 2025
January 14 2025
Picture: belvedere.at
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Belvedere in Vienna are hosting their 2025 instalment of The Art Museum in the Digital Age Conference next week. As usual, there are a wide variety of speakers on a vast number of relevant topics, all of which are available to watch online.
Trompe-l’oeil at the Musée Marmottan Monet
January 13 2025
Picture: Musée Marmottan Monet
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm slow to news that the Musée Marmottan Monet in Paris opened an exhibition at the end of last year dedicated to Trompe-l’oeil painting.
According to the museum's website:
This exhibition traces the history of the representation of reality in the arts and seeks to pay tribute to a little-known facet of the Museum’s collections, while shining a light on Jules and Paul Marmottan’s penchant for this pictorial genre. [...]
Over the centuries, trompe-l’oeil has been used in various media and has proven to be multifaceted. Not only does it play with the viewer’s gaze, but it is a nod to the potential traps set by our own perceptions. If certain themes of trompe l’oeil are well-known—vanities, hunting trophies, letter holders or racks, and grisailles—other aspects will be explored in this exhibition, such as the decorative variations on furniture, pottery, etc., and even the political significance of this pictorial genre from the revolutionary period up to the modern and contemporary day.
More than eighty key works ranging from the 16th to the 21st century, coming from both private and public collections in Europe and the United States (National Gallery of Art in Washington, Museo nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Musée d’art et d’histoire in Geneva, the Museo dell’Opificio delle Pietre Dure in Florence, the Château de Fontainebleau, the Louvre, the Musée de l’Armée, Musée national de la Céramique in Sèvres, the Fondation Custodia, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, the Musée Unterlinden in Colmar, etc.) will be on display, allowing visitors to understand the formal evolution of the trompe l’oeil genre.
The show will run until 2nd March 2025.
Conservation Tours of St Bartholomew's Hospital
January 13 2025
Video: St Bartholomew's Hospital
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
St Bartholomew's Hospital in London are running a limited number of Conservation Tours during the end of January, showing visitors the current progress of work. The tour includes going up on a scaffold, including some insights into the conservation of Hogarth's famous paintings on the staircases. The tours cost £11.55 to attend.
According to the description of the tours:
Join us on this tour to explore the rich history, architecture and people involved in the craftsmanship of the James Gibbs' Great Hall. The tour will highlight the conservation work to rescue and rejuvenate the Grade 1 listed building, including the staircase decorated by William Hogarth.
Get an insider's look at the conservation and restoration work being done to protect this historically significant building.
Please note, this tour involves accessing a scaffolding viewing deck. There are 31 steps on the staircase to reach the deck. The paintings in the Hogarth staircase are partially obstructed by scaffolding as our Conservation Team work on them.
New Release: Salomon Mesdach
January 13 2025
Picture: wbooks.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
A new monograph on the Zeeland painter Salomon Mesdach (1575/80-ca. 1628) is set to be released on 15th January 2025. The publication is the work of the scholar Carla van de Puttelaar and is the first to carve out the small but distinctive oeuvre of the artist. It contains 170 illustrations, within its 128 pages, and is supported by technical as well as art historical research.
Sleeper Alert!
January 13 2025
Picture: clarkeny.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
News on social media (spotted via @mbrehe) that the following picture catalogued as 'FLORENTINE SCHOOL (POSSIBLY 14TH/15TH CENTURY)' sold for $230,000 over its $3k - $5k estimate at Clarke Auctioneers in NY yesterday.
1,000 posts later... and Maria Verelst
January 10 2025
Picture: Carmarthenshire Museum via ArtUk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
As I've just passed my 1,000 post since my return to AHN, I wanted to thank you all for sticking with the blog. It has been tremendously good fun to share enthusiasm for all of the interesting things going on in our small corner of the art world. I'm especially grateful to those of you who get in touch. Ultimately, we must all thank Bendor for supporting its continuation.
To mark this occasion, I thought I'd share a small accidental discovery of mine recently on ArtUK (whilst I was searching for something else, as is always the way). Although catalogued as Portrait of an Unknown Lady in Green by an 'Unknown Artist', it is clear to me that this must be a work by Maria Verelst (1680–1744). In particular, the face pattern and overall handling is so reminiscent of her painting of Anne Blackett formerly with Philip Mould & Co. The artwork is currently in the Carmarthenshire Museum in Wales and is the sort of picture that would really dazzle after a clean and new application of varnish! Maybe one day.
Wishing all readers a very good weekend ahead.
Michelangelo Casts and 3D Prints at the SMK
January 10 2025
Picture: smk.dk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The National Gallery of Denmark will be opening a new exhibition dedicated to Michelangelo in March. Michelangelo Imperfect will place specific focus on the gallery's collection of casts after his works 'alongside newly-produced 3D-modelled and -cast facsimiles'.
According to their website:
In the exhibition, SMK will juxtapose its own extensive collection of historical casts of Michelangelo’s sculptures with brand new, high-quality 3D-cast replicas. This way, you can experience the majority of Michelangelo’s sculptures in one place – something that would be impossible with the originals, which are never moved. You will also be able to see the largest selection of Michelangelo’s original drawings, letters, and sculpture models ever displayed in Denmark.
Join us as SMK unfolds Michelangelo’s life and art through close studies of his sculptures and focuses on the complex relationship between original and reproduction in the digital age.
The show will run from 29th March until 31st August 2025.
Funded PhDs for Medieval Art in Italy
January 10 2025
Picture: University of Salerno
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The University of Salerno in Italy is receiving applications for 2 funded PhDs in Medieval Art.
According to the page linked above:
The StoryPharm project, which is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Marie SkÅ‚odowska-Curie Action – Doctoral Networks – Grant Agreement 101169114 (https://www.ucy.ac.cy/storypharm/). The focus of the project will be on premodern narratives and images involving medicine, health, and healing. These will be studied from a transdisciplinary and comparative perspective, across linguistic and cultural borders.
A place on the project will come with a rather generous €3,311 per month plus mobility allowance of €600. Applications must be in by 17th February 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Musée George Sand acquires Carolus-Duran's Portrait of Émile Aucante
January 10 2025
Picture: Nicolas Nouvelet
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
La Tribune de l'Art has shared news that the Musée George Sand in La Châtre, France, has acquired Carolus-Duran's portrait of the publisher Émile Aucante (1822-1908). The work was pre-empted from Nicolas Nouvelet's auction last October for 5,850 EUR (inc. fees).
According to the auctioneer's catalogue note:
Émile Aucante was a publisher and journalist, godson and close collaborator of George Sand. He began his career as a fervent disciple of the theoretician Pierre Leroux, for whom he contributed to the Revue Sociale. Condemned to exile during the coup d'état of 1851, he was called by George Sand, who made him her secretary in Nohant, inheriting all her manuscripts and papers. He then negotiated all publications with publishers on her behalf. In 1858, following Orsini's attempt on the life of Emperor Napoleon III, Émile Aucante was arrested once again. Our painting shows him at the age of 38, in his period as a political opponent of the Second Empire. Under the Third Republic, he developed his publishing activities, directing L'Univers Illustré and then several collections at Calmann-Lévy, alongside his printing business.
Curatorial Cataloguing Fellows at the FAM San Francisco
January 10 2025
Picture: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco are hiring 8 Curatorial Cataloguing Fellows. In particular, the positions are spread out across the departments / spheres of Costume and Textile Arts, European Paintings, European Decorative Arts, Contemporary Art and Programming, Africa, Oceania and the Americas, Ancient Art, American Art and AFGA (Works on Paper).
Here's the description for the European Paintings department role:
The Corporation of the Fine Arts Museums is offering a Curatorial Cataloguing Fellowship with the European Paintings department. This fellowship program aims to support the Museums’ strategic goal to significantly enhance the scope of information available about works of art in the Museums’ collection, and make this information digitally accessible to a wider public. The two-year paid Fellowship program, onsite in San Francisco from September 2025-August 2027, is designed to provide an important professional development opportunity for eight emerging art museum professionals. We strongly encourage applicants from backgrounds historically underrepresented in the art museum field. This fellowship will advance participants’ curatorial training through rigorous research and cataloguing experience.
The 2-year contract comes with an hourly rate of $27 and applications must be in by 14th February 2025.
Good luck if you're applying!
Sotheby's New York Master Paintings Part II
January 10 2025
Picture: Sotheby's
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
Sotheby's New York have published their upcoming Master Paintings Part II sale online. The auction will take place on 6th February 2025 at 14.00 EST.
As usual with these sales, I won't spoil the fun by pointing out way may or may not be interesting.
Doom: The Gallery Experience
January 9 2025
Video: Martinoz
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
As AHN is both dedicated to both the sublime and ridiculous, I thought it was worth sharing news that two game developers have reinterpreted the popular 1990s shoot 'em up classic Doom into a free browser game set in an art gallery.
According to the article linked above:
Doom: The Gallery Experience, created by Filippo Meozzi and Liam Stone, transforms the iconic E1M1 level into a virtual museum space where players guide a glasses-wearing Doomguy through halls of fine art as classical music plays in the background. The game links each displayed artwork to its corresponding page on the Metropolitan Museum of Art's website.
"In this experience, you will be able to walk around and appreciate some fine art while sipping some wine and enjoying the complimentary hors d’oeuvres," write the developers on the game's itch.io page, "in the beautifully renovated and re-imagined E1M1 of id Software's DOOM (1993)."
As you'll see from the video above, the comparison to an art show preview is simply uncanny.
Suzanne Valadon at the Centre Pompidou
January 9 2025
Picture: Centre Pompidou
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Centre Pompidou in Paris will be opening a new exhibition on 15th January dedicated to Suzanne Valadon (1865-1938).
According to their website:
Suzanne Valadon had not been the subject of a monograph since the one devoted to her by the Musée National d’Art Moderne in 1967. Presented at the Centre Pompidou-Metz in 2023 (“Suzanne Valadon. A World of Her Own”), then at the Musée des Beaux-arts de Nantes (2024) and the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya (2024), the tribute to this ostensibly modern artist, free of the conventions of her time, continues at the Centre Pompidou in 2025, enhanced by new loans and new archives.
The exhibition showcases this exceptional figure and highlights her pioneering, but often underestimated, role in the birth of artistic modernity. It reveals the great freedom of this artist, who did not really adhere to any particular movement, except perhaps her own. The exhibition of almost 200 works draws on a wealth of national collections, in particular the largest, that of the Centre Pompidou, but also from the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée de l’Orangerie.
The show will run until 26th May 2025.
George Washington's pastel makes $317,500
January 9 2025
Picture: maineantiquedigest.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm very late to this rather fascinating story (spotted via @MaryMWalsh) that a unattributed pastel of St John the Evangelist realised $317,500 at the The Potomack Company auctioneers in Alexandria, Virginia, last October. This enormous sum is explained by the fact that the artwork had documented provenance back to its original owners George and Martha Washington and had descended with members of the family. Even if we forget that the estimate was $250,000 - $500,000, this is still quite a price! Click on the link to read more.
Recent Release: Venice in Blue
January 9 2025
Picture: olschki.it
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
I'm a little late to news of this interesting sounding book dedicated to the use of blue paper in Italy entitled Venice in Blue. The volume was edited by Alexa McCarthy, Laura Moretti and Paolo Sachet.
According to the blurb:
This volume is the first of its kind to focus solely on the material of handmade blue paper in Italy, shedding new light on its significance and transcultural impact. Bringing together perspectives from art and book historians, paper conservators and paper historians, this publication explores the proliferation of the use of blue paper for drawings, prints, and printed books in Veneto and beyond during the first half of the 16th century.
Acceptance in Lieu Report 2024
January 8 2025
Picture: artscouncil.org.uk
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The UK Arts Council have published their Annual Acceptance in Lieu Report for 2024. 44 unique cultural items and collections were acquired through the scheme during this period, representing a total of £45m in value.
Here's a list of some of the artworks (and their values) which may interest readers of AHN:
- Nicholas Hilliard miniature. Victoria & Albert Museum, London - £207,396.
- Veronese and Van der Neer (pictured) paintings. Ashmolean Museum - £4,375,000
- Nicolas Poussin: Eucharist. National Gallery, London - £7,111,704
- Vroom: A pair of marine landscapes National Maritime Museum, London - £1,460,000
- Group of four Gainsborough portraits. No.1 Royal Crescent, Bath - £88,125
- Kneller portrait of James Medlycott. Holburne Museum, Bath - £28,000
- Portrait of Wills Hill, 1st Earl of Hillsborough by Allan Ramsay. Hillsborough Castle, Northern Ireland - £158,100
- Theseus and Ariadne by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones. Fitzwilliam Museum - £350,000
- A collection of 18 Modern British works, a group of eight prints and a book of photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron. Pallant House Gallery, Chichester - £316,890
'Thrift Store' Find Connected to Prominent Black Artist Redisplayed
January 8 2025
Picture: artnews.com
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
An interesting story from artnews.com that a watercolour purchased from a 'thrift store' in the US has ended up on display in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. The artwork was purchased by Andy Robbins, an HR professional, by chance. Robbins then spent time cracking the work's inscription which reads 'W.H. Dorsey 1864'. It transpired that this signature referred to William H. Dorsey, a prominent black artist in 19th-century Philadelphia who is known primarily for his extensive scrapbooking of black community history. Read the article above to find out more.
New Release: The Farnese Drawings Collection
January 8 2025
Picture: Editori Paparo srl
Yale 2024/25 Acquisitions
January 8 2025
Picture: YCBA
Posted by Adam Busiakiewicz:
The Yale Centre for British Art have uploaded a list of their 2024-25 'additions' (or acquisitions) onto their website. Most impressively, many of these pictures were acquired from the art trade in Britain and will be familiar to readers who have attended many of the London / European art fairs (and auctions) in the past few years.
Here's a list of some of the noteworthy acquisitions (with dealers names added alongside by myself):
Mary Beale - Head Study of Charles Beale (Weiss Gallery)
Mary Beale - Portrait of an unknown Lady (Peter Harrison)
Sir Godfrey Kneller - Lady Boyle, Nursing her Son Charles (Philip Mould & Co.)
Mason Chamberlin - A Portrait of Joseph Nash (UK Dealer)
Maria Spilsbury - A Sunday School (Libson & Yarker)
Emma Soyer - Young Mariner and Dog (pictured) (Dominic Sanchez-Cabello)
_______
George Gower - Portrait of Thomas Whythorne, Musician (Transfer from the James Marshall and Marie-Louise Osborn Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)
Allan Ramsay - Portrait of Dorothy, Mrs. John Rolleston (née Burdett) (On loan from the Rolleston family)
A reminder that the YCBA will reopen to the public on 29th March 2025.
