Sotheby’s director Philip Hook has unveiled a new guide, welcoming the uninitiated into the often “meaningless” terminology embraced by the institutional art world.  Exploring the meaning of overused words like “important” (“historically significant but hard to sell”), Breakfast at Sotheby’s: An A-Z of the Art World offers a look into the language of the commercial art world.  “They are words the meaning of which has become twisted by the desire to energize banality, to elevate mediocrity, or simply to make a sale.” (more…)

Some 350 engravings by Romantic era poet and artist William Blake have been discovered in the library of the University of Manchester.  A team of student and faculty researches uncovered the prints after an extensive, two-year search through the library’s archives.  According to library archivist Stella Halkyard:  “The students had some specialist training in identifying prints from David Morris at the Whitworth Art Gallery before hunting through the collection. They found out we actually had a huge number of commercial engravings by Blake.” (more…)