The Frick Collection has announced that Selldorf Architects will helm the museum’s upcoming renovation, returning to plans that had been put on hold after protest over the original expansion blueprints.  “It’s about enhancing the visitor’s experience and making it utterly seamless, so that it doesn’t harm any of the existing experience that people cherish, myself included,” Annabelle Selldorf said. “We’ll do our darndest.” (more…)

Screen shot, Palace of Versailles, via Google Art Project

Over 1,000 works from 17 museums are now available to view online in high-resolution, thanks to today’s launch of Google Art Project. Founded and headed by Amit Sood, the new site combines several Google applications to provide virtual tours similar to Google Street View, with a zoom-in feature and information on each work. Most noted is the the project’s use of gigapixel resolution—7 billion pixels—rendering a virtual view magnified greater than the naked eye could achieve; at this stage the extra gigapixel technology has only been employed on one work per musuem.

Screen shot, max zoom of Hans Holbein the Younger’s The Ambassadors (1533), via Google Art Project

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Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola, known as Parmigianino (1503 – 1540), Antea,
c. 1531–34, oil on canvas, Museo di Capodimonte, Naples
photograph courtesy of Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Napoletano

On January 29, The Frick Collection on New York’s Upper East Side opened a one-painting exhibition which has drawn widespread interest. The sole work which is on special loan from the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, is Parmigianino’s Antea, an Italian Renaissance (more…)