Erasmus portrait purported to be by Holbein the Younger, via The Art News

Experts speculate that new portrait of Erasmus is by Holbein the Younger [ArtInfo]
Art auction houses have always been touted as the most transparent transactions in the system, but they are  far more complex and secretive, and in recent years, much more is at stake [Financial Times]
Review of critic Michael Fried’s latest book: Why Photography Matters… [Artforum]

Shepard Fairey’s ‘Hope’ portrait of Barack Obama, via AP

Smithsonian acquires Shepard Fairey’s ‘Hope’ portrait of Obama [ArtInfo]
White Cube’s Jay Jopling’s rise to power and the current pressure from a failing market, gossip tabloids [The Times UK]

Brad Pitt portrait in daguerreotype by Chuck Close, via W Magazine

Chuck Close’s daguerreotype portrait of Brad Pitt is W Magazine’s new cover [W Magazine]
The Vatican aims to exhibit art in a ‘national pavilion’ during the Venice Biennale as a counbterpoint to “blasphemous” modern art [Times UK]

Black on Maroon (1959) by Mark Rothko, part of the Seagram mural series, via Tate Modern; studies for the Seagram series are owned by Ezra Merkin, who lost billions to Bernie Madoff ‘s investment scheme.

Assailed Madoff victim has 12 Rothkos; collectors salivate [Bloomberg]
The Art Newspaper explores the changing emerging art markets of China, and Russia here, and India here [Art Newspaper]

Stephanie Seymour (wife of Art Collector and Art in America owner Peter Brant) in Jeff Koons
for Gap; via Nylon

The Gap, working in close partnership with the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Art Production Fund, recently released a collection of 13 t-shirts designed by contemporary artists who have all been past Whitney Biennial participants. Jeff Koons, Chuck Close, Babara Kruger, Ashley Bickerton, Kiki Smith, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Marilyn Minter, Cai Guo-Qiang, Kenny Scharf, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Hanna Liden, and Sarah Sze are all participating.

Gap Partners with the Whitney to Launch Artist Edition T’s [Gap]
Gap Artist Edition T Shirts [LA Times]
Turning Shirts Into an Artforum [USA Today] (more…)

“Chuck Close” self-portrait via The State Hermitage Museum

From February 29 until April 13, the State Hermitage Museum in St.Petersburg presents the Chuck Close’s most recent series of portraits, created between 2005 and 2007. The show has been organized jointly with the London-based gallery White Cube.

Chuck Close at the Hermitage Museum [Bloomberg]
Chuck Close: seven portraits [State Hermitage Museum]
Chuck Close [White Cube]

(more…)

Photo by Genevieve Hanson via FLAG Art Foundation

This weekend The Flag Art Foundation, a new private exhibition space located in New York’s Chelsea Art Tower opened its inaugural show Attention to Detail curated by Chuck Close. The exhibition features work from 50 contemporary artists, including very established (more…)

From NY Times

Marion Cajori revisits her original documentary short, “Chuck Close: A Portrait in Progress” to create her full length documentary feature, entitled “Chuck Close” is now playing at the Film Forum in Manhattan.

NY Times
Film Forum for Showtimes

Running June 3 – September 10, The Museum of Modern Art’s retrospective exhibit of the work of Richard Serra brings forty years worth of sculpture, often gigantic, to the museum’s forefront. On Tuesday night, LVMH hosted a dinner in honor of the new MoMA’s most ambitious sculpture exhibition to date. The opening of Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years drew over 500 guests to the midtown museum. Among them were painters Brice Marden, Frank Stella, and Chuck Close and a clutch of connoisseurs in the form of Larry Gagosian, Veronica Hearst, and Lily Safra. Beginning at the inception of the artist’s career in the late 1960s, the exhibit features his work with nontraditional materials like neon, rubber and lead, and moves chronologically through the many phases of Serra’s sculpting. (more…)