Following the success of its exhibition Matisse: The Cut-Outs, MoMA will return Henri Matisse’s full room installation The Swimming Pool to its permanent collection galleries, beginning in April. “MoMA’s viewers will now be able to encounter this important work in the context of the museum’s collection,” says exhibition co-curator Karl Buchberg. (more…)
The Rudolf Staechelin Family Trust, which owned the record-setting Paul Gauguin painting that sold last week in Switzerland, has withdrawn its collection from the Kunstmuseum Basel, and is seeking a new partner institution. “These works, which had been integral to our exhibitions, will be sorely missed at the Kunstmuseum, and we are painfully reminded that permanent loans are still loans; the people of Basel do not own them, and they may be taken away at any moment and for whatever reason,” the museum said in a statement. (more…)
An article in The Art Newspaper this week examines the strategies and impacts of museum’s undertaking collection and implementation strategies for video games and computer programs, as well as utilizing game platforms and structures to encourage engagement. “It’s an innovative way to get the public interested in collections, especially audiences that wouldn’t normally engage with them,” says Stella Wisdom, the British Library’s digital curator. “There’s a lot of potential for creative industries to work with cultural institutions and vice versa. We’re just at the start of a journey.” (more…)
The Louvre Abu Dhabi has purchased an iconic portrait of George Washington, executed by portrait artist Gilbert Stuart from Los Angeles’s Armand Hammer Foundation. The work will hang in a gallery featuring work exploring the notion of prominent individuality, alongside the Jacques-Louis David ’s Napoleon Crossing the Alps. (more…)
The Stedelijk Museum has announced a major donation of 175 works from the collection of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, featuring pieces by Lawrence Weiner, Anselm Kiefer, and Jeff Wall, among many others. “The Stedelijk is deeply honored to receive such a generous, essential and wonderful gift, says Beatrix Ruf, director of the Museum. “We are extremely moved about their decision to make the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam their collection’s new home. It reflects their deep engagement with the city as well as the Stedelijk’s relationship and engagement with the history of artistic exchange between the US and Amsterdam.”
A 1986 Ellsworth Kelly design for a free-standing building has been acquired by the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin, and will be constructed on the museum grounds this spring. The building has some ties to the contemplative, spiritual air of the Rothko Chapel, as well as Matisse’s design for the Chapelle du Rosaire. “I think people need some kind of spiritual thing because, as you can see, there are spots around the world that are blowing up and we don’t want that,” the artist says. “No one wants that.” (more…)
A canvas by 17th Century French artist Claude Lorrain is the subject of a recent export ban placed by UK Minister of Culture Ed Vaizey, while the government seeks to find a buyer to keep the painting in the country. “It is of outstanding beauty and it would be tremendous to see it permanently on display in a UK gallery where it can be appreciated by all,” Vaizey said. (more…)
The Wall Street Journal profiles collectors Aaron and Barbara Levine, whose focus on collecting conceptual art has led to an impressive collections of 20th century art focused around works by On Kawara and Marcel Duchamp, among many others. “The first time I saw the early 20th-century abstractions of Kazimir Malevich, I was in tears,” Ms. Levine says. (more…)
Pointing to concerns over security, the Victoria and Albert Museum has attempted to withhold information on its ownership of a devotional image of Muhammad following the terrorist attacks in Paris earlier this month. “Unfortunately we were incorrect to say there were no works depicting the prophet Muhammad in the V&A’s collection,” said spokeswoman Olivia Colling. “As the museum is a high-profile public building already on a severe security alert, our security team made the decision that it was best to remove the image from our online database (it remains within the collection).” (more…)
The Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris is focusing on expanding its collection of photography, the Art Newspaper reports, earmarking over €100,000 a year to increase the size of its holdings in the upcoming years. (more…)
The New York Times reports on the criminal case in Spain between the city of Barcelona and the daughters of wealthy industrialist Julio Muñoz Ramonet, who stand accused of stealing over 352 paintings and drawings, as well as tapestries and other works from the collector’s home when he donated them to the city. “We’re talking about a quantity and a quality of missing works of art that could probably fill a first-class museum,” says Marc Molins, a criminal lawyer representing the city. (more…)
The Corning Glass Museum in Upstate New York has reportedly acquired a number of contemporary art works heavily relying on glass as part of its new $64 million wing construction. Works from Roni Horn, Klaus Moje, Ayala Serfaty, Jeroen Verhoeven and Fred Wilson will be included in the new space, among others. (more…)
The Art Newspaper has published a profile on Wolfgang Gurlitt this week, a cousin of the late Cornelius Gurlitt, and an avid art dealer who sold a sizable number of works to the Austrian city of Linz. Much of the collection’s provenance remains shady or undocumented, and investigations are still underway. (more…)
The North Carolina Museum of Art has received a major donation of modern and contemporary art from the collection of Jim and Mary Patton this week, including works by Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler, Ellsworth Kelly and Robert Motherwell, among others. “This transformative gift significantly expands the breadth and scope of the Museum’s permanent collection and will allow our visitors to have an even more engaging and exciting experience in our modern and contemporary galleries,” says NCMA Director Lawrence J. Wheeler. (more…)
The New York Times notes the attractive benefits for wealthy collectors founding their own private, tax-exempt museums to house their art collections, allowing the collectors to deduct full market value for their donations even when the museum may be housed on the same property as their home. “I’m not against it being done, but it’s got to be done well,” says Robert Storr, dean of the Yale School of Art. “If there’s to be a public forgiveness for taxes there should be a clear public benefit, and it should not be entirely at the discretion of the person running the museum or foundation.” (more…)
The Whitney Museum has embarked on an ambitious expansion of its online database, dramatically growing its selection of images from 700 to 21,000 works. A sizable portion of the museum’s collection, which has long been out of public view, will occupy a 60,000 square-foot section of the Whitney’s new Meatpacking District space. (more…)
The LA Times sits down with Broad Museum Curator Joanne Heyeler to discuss the completion of city’s new art museum, set to open in late 2015. “I have to say, living and breathing with these renderings and plans for almost five years now,” Heyeler says, “I am absolutely thrilled to see it finally revealed as a whole exterior.” (more…)
The Detroit Free Press reports on the $100 million sale of Paul Cézanne’s La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue du bosquet du Château Noir by the The Edsel & Eleanor Ford House in 2013, which would make it one of the 15 most expensive works ever sold. “This was really a once-in-a-lifetime offer,” says Ford House president Kathleen Mullins. “The family thought it was a way to guarantee the estate would be taken care of the way Eleanor would have wanted.” (more…)
More than 40,000 works from the Smithsonian’s Asian Art Collection have been digitized, and will be placed online for public use by New Year’s Day. “The depth of the data we’re releasing illuminates each object’s unique history, from its original creator to how it arrived at the Smithsonian,” Courtney O’Callaghan, the director of digital media and technology, says. (more…)
The Wall Street Journal notes the growing trend for museums to collect visitors data as they pass through the museum, using the information in exhibition planning, marketing, and other strategies in running a successful institution, despite some criticism. “It’s not as if people going out of museums say, ‘Jeez, I wish that museum knew a lot more about me, I would’ve had a lot better experience,’” says Marc Rotenberg, the law professor heading the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “It’s being driven by the possibility of increased sales, advertising and better marketing.” (more…)
The Kunstmuseum Bern has released a full list of the works received from Cornelius Gurlitt, offering the most in-depth look at the collection since it was discovered. The museum has announced that it will be accepting the collection, but released the full list “in the interests of transparency.” (more…)
Artist Bjarne Melgaard has unveiled a new fashion collection he designed himself, inspired by the 2013 Catherine Breillat film Abuse of Weakness. “I was thinking about creating clothes that are about the mental state you’re in and the faults you feel you have,” the artist says. “And rather than do that in sculpture, I wanted to try it with a commercial fashion line.” (more…)
The Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland, which found itself as the unlikely recipient of the late Cornelius Gurlitt’s trove of looted artworks, is preparing to announce its decision of the collection following a lengthy discussion among museum officials. Initial reports are claiming that the museum will in fact accept the works. (more…)
Sotheby’s Impressionist sale in New York this November is anticipating record numbers for a 1881 Claude Monet painting, already estimated to achieve $35 million on the auction block. “It truly is the ultimate trophy painting: dappled sunshine, lovely garden and a pretty woman in a white dress, it’s got everything you would want in a Monet,” says Sotheby’s Impressionist expert Peter Hook. (more…)
