The Whitney Museum has loaned a pair of Cape Cod landscapes by Edward Hopper to the White House, where they have been installed in the Oval Office.  “We are pleased and honored to lend two paintings by Edward Hopper—the artist with whom the Whitney Museum of American Art is most closely identified—to The White House for display in the Oval Office,” said Director Adam D. Weinberg. “We hope these beautiful Cape Cod landscapes will give great pleasure to President Obama and to all who see them.”  (more…)

The LA Times traces the path of 8 Cézanne canvases originally intended for donation to the White House, and the political maneuverings that eventually sent the majority of them to the National Gallery. Through a series of closed door meetings and forceful persuasion, then chief curator John Walker III convinced the donors (who had previously intended to give the works to the White House), to instead donate them to his museum.  “I still feel ashamed,” Walker once wrote. “I behaved abominably and frightened a dear friend nearly to death.”   (more…)