Whom You Know News from Across the Pond from the Mother Country: What Is Hot In Europe! According to Peachy Deegan!!
The Paul Mellon Estate Pledges $250,000 towards the Restoration of the State Music Room at Stowe House, Buckinghamshire
Through World Monuments Fund (WMF), The Paul Mellon Estate has announced a pledge of $250,000 towards the restoration of the State Music Room at Stowe House, the magnificent Grade I listed Neo-Classical palace set in 400 acres of landscaped park in Buckinghamshire. The funding means that the work will begin this year and should be completed by 2012-13. WMF Britain’s Chief Executive Dr Jonathan Foyle said “The generous gift of The Paul Mellon Estate, along with donations from our members, trusts and foundations and others who responded to our recent Music Room Challenge, will allow one of the principal rooms of Stowe to be restored for everyone to enjoy. This magnificent response brings WMF’s £10 million fundraising challenge for Stowe to within £410,000 of its target – wonderfully positive news in these economically challenged times.” Completion of the State Music Room will allow the core of historic spaces at Stowe to be presented as they were at the turn of the 19th century, following the recent restoration of the Marble Saloon and the Large Library which are now open to the public
Going to Florence
Visitors to MoMA in New York should keep their admission ticket if they plan to visit Florence Florence New York
Face to Face with Marilyn
World-famous lookalike and tribute artist to Marilyn Monroe Suzie Kennedy arrived in style for the official opening of the exhibition Marilyn – Hollywood Icon at the American Museum in Britain in Bath Atwell-Wilson Motor Museum Jersey who has so generously loaned the screen goddess’s original gowns and outfits, photographs and posters, as well as personal items, for this show which is on view to the public until 30 October 2011.
As well as this major loan exhibition, the Museum marks its 50th anniversary in 2011 with a gallery trail, three publications, and the opening of two new facilities: the Folk Art Gallery and The Coach House (see below).
New publications from Paul Holberton publishing
Paul Holberton publishing aims to produce art books to a consistently high standard. Holberton not only publishes books independently but also works with museums, galleries and institutions throughout the UK and Europe , producing exhibition catalogues and other publications.
Coming soon:
Food for the Flames: Idols and Missionaries in Central Polynesia
By David Shaw King, with a Foreword by David Attenborough
Twenty-five years after Captain Cook, the London Missionary Society sent its first representatives to the South Seas . Their goal was to eradicate heathenism and idolatry but, unwittingly, they became agents for the preservation of Polynesian culture through their diligent recording of language and religious practices. They even preserved a number of religious artifacts, which they sent back to England for exhibition in the Mission Museum in London
This book focuses on these artifacts, the idols that avoided the flames. With the scientist’s belief in letting the evidence speak for itself, the author, a biochemist, has mined a wide range of primary sources to bring together a wealth of new information on a generally unpopular subject, the missionary endeavour. Eighty-five colour plates illustrate missionary subjects, Polynesian ‘temples’, and numerous idols. The majority of this material is published here for the first time.
Edited by Steven Parissien
Essays by Keith Bell, Jeremy Gould, Steven Parissien, Martin Postle and Duncan Robinson
Accompanying an exhibition at Compton Verney, Warwickshire (25 June to 2 October 2011) this catalogue focuses on a crucial, but hitherto ignored, aspect of Spencer’s work: his gorgeous garden views and landscapes. Its central theme is as relevant today as it was in inter-war Britain
From the beginning of his career, Stanley Spencer’s landscape, garden and flower paintings were the most popular aspect of his artistic production. Both in terms of sales and critical reception, these paintings – particularly those dating after 1929 – represented for many the high point of his work, while the figure paintings were often considered to be stylistically awkward and difficult to understand. This publication of Spencer’s garden paintings is an important addition to Spencer studies, giving us an opportunity to consider these works as an ensemble, rather than as punctuation marks between the figure paintings.
PAUL HOLBERTON PUBLISHING
Third Floor
Tel. +44 (0)20 7407 0809
Opening this month
From 2 April 2011 Stowe House, Buckinghamshire
Newly restored rooms open to public
From Easter 2011 visitors to Stowe House, the magnificent Grade I listed Neo-Classical palace set in 400 acres of landscaped park in Buckinghamshire, will be able to admire the recently restored Large Library (sometimes referred to as the State Library), one of the most magnificent Georgian interiors in Britain, thanks to the generous support of World Monuments Fund, The Country Houses Foundation, a WMF Robert W. Wilson Challenge grant, an anonymous donor, other trusts, foundations and former pupils (known as Old Stoics).
Stowe House Preservation Trust has undertaken the daunting challenge of restoring this great mansion with its 400 rooms and 1/6 mile-wide façade and of opening it up to the general public. Some of the six phases of work are complete, including the North front and colonnades, the South portico and pavilions as well as the Large Library and Marble Saloon, an oval version of the Pantheon in Rome, also supported by World Monuments Fund. Visitors this spring will see that the South front is nearly complete, although part of it still has scaffolding in place.
With the generous donation by the Paul Mellon Estate towards work on the Music Room just announced (see page 3) the £10 million target needed for the external work and interiors of other State Rooms is now within £410,000 of its target. An additional £1.2 million is needed for the interpretation centre which will open in 2012, the balustrades on the South front and further State Rooms. An anonymous donor has generously agreed to match all the funds raised.
STOWE HOUSE
Buckingham MK18 5EH
Tel. +44 (0)1280 818166
Opening hours:
2 to 25 April, Wednesday to Sunday: 12 noon to 5 pm. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays except Monday 25 April. Closed 17 & 18 April
Admission:
House only: Adult £4.40; child £2.70; family £13.20. House and Garden: £10.70, £5.80, £28.90
Under 5 & disabled helpers: free
World Monuments Fund Britain
Tel. +44 (0)20 7730 5344
13 April to 12 June 2011 Double Portrait: Ida Barbarigo and Zoran Music
Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London
The intertwined artistic lives of husband and wife painters Zoran Music (1909-2005) and Ida Barbarigo (b.1925) are explored in an exhibition comprising some 25 works as well as photographs and ephemera. The exhibition has a particular resonance because of their relationship with Eric and Salome Estorick, who built the museum’s permanent collection of modern Italian art. The two couples were introduced in 1954 by the artist Massimo Campigli and became good friends.
Zoran Music and Ida Barbarigo met in Trieste in the spring of 1944, but romance was put on hold as the area was occupied by Nazi forces and in October 1944 Music was arrested – reputedly taken as a spy and accused of collaborating with dissidents. He was questioned and attempts were made to recruit him to the SS. When he refused, he was sent to Dachau
ESTORICK COLLECTION OF MODERN ITALIAN ART
39a Canonbury Square
Tel. +44 (0)20 7704 9522
Opening hours
Wednesday to Saturday 11 am to 6 pm
Sunday 12 noon to 5 pm
Admission
£5, concessions £3.50
May
20 May to 17 July 2011 Virtual Identities
Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina (CCCS)
Palazzo Strozzi, Florence , Italy
Today digital technology and new forms of communication play an increasingly dominant role in society, prompting a rethink of the concept of identity which is under pressure as a result of the conflict between privacy and public access, between the right to personal freedom and the need for collective security. This theme of identity is explored in Virtual Identities, an exhibition organised by the CCCS in consultation with Antonio Glessi (Dept of Media Design, ISIA, Florence), Roberto Simanowski (Institute for Media Studies, University of Basel), Christiane Feser (artist) and Franziska Nori (Director of the CCCS).
While the ‘networked society’ is redefining the borders of our personal as well as our collective persona, shaping our habits and attitudes, desires and needs as well as our values, the online identity (or internet persona) becomes an extension of the physical self when establishing social relations on the internet. On the other hand, in the current communication-based society a person seems only to exist if they have an online presence and are involved in a constant flow of interaction.
Participating artists: Evan Baden (USA ), Christopher Baker (USA), Natalie Bookchin (USA), Robbie Cooper (UK), etoy.CORPORATION (Switzerland ), Nicholas Felton (USA), Les liens invisibles (Italy
CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY CULTURE STROZZINA (CCCS)
Palazzo Strozzi
Tel. +39 055 2645155
Opening hours
Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 8pm, Thursday 10am to 11pm
Monday closed
June
16 June to 18 September 2011 Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril: Beyond the Moulin Rouge
The Courtauld Gallery, London
Nicknamed ‘La Mélinite’ after a powerful form of explosive, the dancer Jane Avril (1868-1943) was one of the stars of the Moulin Rouge in the 1890s. Known for her alluring style and exotic persona, her fame was assured by a series of dazzlingly inventive posters designed by the artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). Jane Avril became an emblematic figure in Lautrec’s world of dancers, cabaret singers, musicians and prostitutes. However, she was also a close friend of the artist and he painted a series of striking portraits of her which contrast starkly with his exuberant posters.
Organised around The Courtauld Gallery’s painting Jane Avril in the Entrance to the Moulin Rouge, the exhibition explores these different public and private images of Jane Avril. Toulouse-Lautrec and Jane Avril: Beyond the Moulin Rouge brings together a rich group of paintings, posters and prints from international collections to celebrate a remarkable creative partnership which captured the excitement and spectacle of bohemian Paris
The exhibition is supported by the Jungels-Winkler Charitable Foundation and the Friends of The Courtauld.
THE COURTAULD GALLERY
Tel. +44 (0)20 7848 2526
22 June to 4 September 2011 United Artists of Italy
Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London
This exhibition comprises some 250 photographs of some of Italy ’s best-known 20th century artists by twenty-two of Italy Fontana
The images have been assembled over many years by Massimo Minini, whose burning personal interest in the subject has flourished thanks to direct contact with photographers who welcomed and supported the idea. His has been a journey into the world of photography, an expedition through archives, boxes, films and files. Although the initial plan was to select only portraits of artists, in time the project broadened and began to embrace portraits of foreign artists with close links to Italy, such as Joseph Beuys, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg and Sol LeWitt, as well as writers like Pier Paolo Pasolini, Italo Calvino and Alberto Moravia. These brilliant portraits are by no means conventional ‘studio portraits’; in most cases the artists have been caught either at work or relaxing. In addition, there are portraits of some of Italy
The accompanying publication, also entitled United Artists of Italy, is published by Photology, Milan
ESTORICK COLLECTION OF MODERN ITALIAN ART
39a Canonbury Square
Tel. +44 (0)20 7704 9522
Opening hours
Wednesday to Saturday 11 am to 6 pm
Sunday 12 noon to 5 pm
Admission
£5, concessions £3.50
30 June to 5 July Bernheimer-Colnaghi
at Masterpiece, London
Bernheimer-Colnaghi will combine Old Master paintings and contemporary photography on their stand at the second staging of Masterpiece London, the luxury fair that was launched to great acclaim last summer. The stand will be divided into two parts with capriccio or architectural fantasy paintings on one side, photographs on the other and the large photographic masterpiece by Candida Höfer from her Louvre series forming a bridge between the two disciplines.
Amongst the Old Master paintings to be featured will be Architectural Capriccio with Figures discoursing among Roman Ruins by Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691-1765), the leading 18th century painter of vedute in Rome
Among the photographs to be displayed by Bernheimer Fine Photography will be a selection of nudes by Robert Mapplethorpe, Jeanloup Sieff, Helmut Newton and Lucien Clergue, as well as polaroids by American artist and film director Julian Schnabel.
BERNHEIMER-COLNAGHI
AT MASTERPIECE LONDON
South Grounds
The Royal Hospital Chelsea
www.colnaghi.co.uk; www.bernheimer.com
Opening hours:
30 June: 11 am to 6 pm;
1 to 5 July: 11 am to 9 pm
Admission
£20 including catalogue
July
1 July to 8 July 2011 Master Paintings Week Various galleries in London
Now in its third year and established as one of the key art events in the summer calendar, Master Paintings Week is a collaboration between twenty-three leading galleries and three auction houses. This week of exhibitions and events offers a wonderful selection of predominantly European paintings, dating from the 15th to the 19th centuries, coinciding with the Old Master Sales at Bonhams (6 July), Christie’s (5 and 6 July) and Sotheby’s (6 and 7 July), and another dealer initiative Master Drawings London (1 to 8 July).
Each exhibitor, in the heart of London ’s St James’s and Mayfair , stages a special display or event in their gallery. Many of the paintings have an untold story, a fascinating history or an important and newly discovered provenance. Master Paintings Week appeals to collectors, curators and enthusiasts from all over the world and highlights the unrivalled expertise that is to be found in London
Joining Master Paintings Week for the first time this year are two new galleries specialising in Italian masters. Well-known Italian dealers Riccardo Bacarelli and Bruno Botticelli have recently opened their own space in London Bruton Street New Burlington Street
MASTER PAINTINGS WEEK LONDON
Tel. +44 (0)20 7491 7408
Participating Galleries:
Agnew’s
Verner Åmell Ltd
Riccardo Bacarelli and Bruno Botticelli
Charles Beddington Ltd
BNB Art Consulting Ltd
Colnaghi
Ben Elwes Fine Art
Deborah Gage (Works of Art) Ltd
Richard Green
Johnny Van Haeften Ltd
Fergus Hall Master Paintings
Derek Johns Ltd
John Mitchell Fine Paintings
Moretti Fine Art Ltd
Philip Mould Ltd
Robilant + Voena
Sphinx Fine Art (exhibiting at Frost & Reed)
Stair Sainty
Rafael Valls
The Weiss Gallery
Whitfield Fine Art
Auction houses:
Bonhams, Christie’s and Sotheby’s
2 to 4 July Independence Day Weekend activities
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM IN BRITAIN
50 YEARS IN 2011
Founded in 1961 by two collectors – Dallas Pratt, a New York psychiatrist, and John Judkyn, an English antiques dealer – The American Museum in Britain is the only public collection of American decorative arts to be found outside the United States and contains over 15,000 items which span US
Independence Day Weekend, 2-4 July
The American Museum in Britain
Marilyn – Hollywood Icon
Until 30 October 2011
This exhibition features twenty of the screen goddess’s original gowns and outfits, photographs and posters, as well as personal items, loaned from the collection of David Gainsborough Roberts. Museum Director Richard Wendorf says: “The Museum owns over 500 items of clothing from the 18th and 19th centuries, so it will be both exciting and fitting that we celebrate our birthday with these modern dresses from the 1950s and 1960s. The focus on Marilyn Monroe and her career in Hollywood will also pay tribute to the strongest of all art forms in 20th-century America and to the hold American films continue to exert far beyond the boundaries of the United States
Fab@50!
Until 30 October 2011
Highlighting fifty items in the Museum’s collection and the intriguing stories that lie behind them is the Fab@50 trail through the period rooms of Claverton Manor. Reflecting the breadth of the decorative arts collection, the objects range from books, documents and Renaissance maps to clothes, quilts, coverlets and rugs as well as paintings, prints and sculpture.
Two new facilities have been unveiled this anniversary year:
The Folk Art Gallery, in the former picture gallery, introduces visitors to the art of the artisan in pre-Industrial America
The Coach House will be used for lectures, corporate retreats, musical events, films and educational purposes. The conversion of the old coach house and stables building was designed by Bath
THE AMERICAN MUSEUM IN BRITAIN
Claverton Manor
Tel. +44 (0)1225 460503
Opening hours:
Tuesday to Friday, 12 noon to 5 pm, last admission 4 pm
Closed Mondays
Open Bank Holiday Mondays and every day during August
Admission (includes museum, exhibition and grounds):
Adult: £9.00, concessions £8.00, child (5-16) £5.00, family ticket £24.00, groups 15+ £7.00 each
Monday 4 July: Free to all
September
17 September 2011 Money and Beauty. Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities
to 22 January 2012 Palazzo Strozzi, Florence , Italy
Masterpieces by Botticelli, Filippo Lippi, Beato Angelico, Paolo Uccello, Donatello, Antonio del Pollaiolo, Domenico Veneziano and Lorenzo di Credi – the cream of Renaissance artists – show how the modern banking system developed in parallel alongside the most important artistic flowering in the history of the Western world. The exhibition also explores the links between that unique interweave of high finance, economy and art, and the religious and political upheavals of the time.
Money and Beauty. Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities recounts the birth of our modern banking system and of the economic boom that it triggered, providing a reconstruction of European life and the continent’s economy from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Visitors can delve into the daily life of the families that controlled the banking system and perceive the ongoing clash between spiritual and economic values that was such a feature of it. The saga of the art patrons is closely linked to that of the bankers who financed the ventures of princes and nobles alike, and indeed it was that very convergence that provided the humus in which some of the leading artists of the time were able to flourish.
PALAZZO STROZZI
Piazza Strozzi
50123 Florence
Tel. +39 055 277 6461
Opening hours:
Daily 9 am to 8 pm
Thursday 9 am to 11 pm
23 September 2011 The Great Transformation
to 22 January 2012 Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina (CCCS)
Palazzo Strozzi, Florence , Italy
In the autumn the CCCS will present an exhibition which complements the exhibition in the Palazzo Strozzi’s main hall, Money and Beauty. Bankers, Botticelli and the Bonfire of the Vanities. The Strozzina exhibition will address the impact that capitalism had on a social, political and ecological level. Piroschka Dossi, who co-curated Art, Price and Value (14 November 2008 to 11 January 2009), has been invited to co-curate this second project devoted to a critical analysis of how economical parameters influence today’s globalized world.
CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY CULTURE STROZZINA (CCCS)
Palazzo Strozzi
Tel. +39 055 2645155
Opening hours
Tuesday to Sunday 10am to 8pm, Thursday 10am to 11pm
Monday closed
October
13 October 2011 The Spanish Line: Drawings from Ribera to Picasso
to 15 January 2012 The Courtauld Gallery, London
This exhibition celebrates the publication of the catalogue raisonné of The Courtauld Gallery’s important collection of Spanish drawings. The collection of over 125 drawings ranges from the 16th to the 20th century. It includes a large number of works which were once owned by Sir William Stirling Maxwell (1818-78), the celebrated hispanist, traveller and MP whose work on Spanish art provided the foundations for much later scholarship. The drawings include splendid examples by well-known artists such Ribera, Murillo, Goya and Picasso. Also of great interest are drawings of striking quality by lesser known artists whose contributions are only now coming to be understood.
The study of Spanish drawings is still a relatively new field of research and the exhibition and catalogue will seek to address some fundamental issues of attribution and regional identity. The exhibition is supported by the Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica and the International Music and Art Foundation.
THE COURTAULD GALLERY
Tel. +44 (0)20 7848 2526
Last chance to see
Until 3 April From Morandi to Guttuso
Masterpieces from the Alberto Della Ragione Collection
Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London
Comprising over 200 works, the collection of the Genoese engineer Alberto Della Ragione offers an extraordinarily comprehensive overview of Italian Modernism, spanning key movements and tendencies from Futurism to the Scuola Metafisica, Novecento and Corrente, including paintings and sculpture by artists little seen in Florence’s other museums and galleries. The selection of some forty stunning works in this show are by some of Italy’s most celebrated artists of the 20th century, such as Carlo Carrà, Giorgio de Chirico, Filippo De Pisis, Renato Guttuso, Giacomo Manzù, Marino Marini, Giorgio Morandi, Enrico Prampolini and Emilio Vedova.
Della Ragione began acquiring works of Modernist art towards the end of the 1920s, preferring figurative work rather than abstraction, in much the same way as Eric Estorick. He also supported a number of prominent artists such as Renato Birolli and Bruno Cassinari whose work reflected the realist aesthetics dominating the immediate post-war period. He donated his collection to the city of Florence
ESTORICK COLLECTION OF MODERN ITALIAN ART
39a Canonbury Square
Tel. +44 (0)20 7704 9522
Opening hours
Wednesday to Saturday 11 am to 6 pm
Sunday 12 noon to 5 pm
Admission
£5, concessions £3.50
Until 17 April Passion for Perfection: Islamic Art from The Khalili Collections
Nieuwe Kerk, Amsterdam , The Netherlands
Following the successful exhibitions in Sydney , Abu Dhabi and Paris , some 500 pieces selected from the fabulous Nasser D Khalili Collection of Islamic Art have been on view in Amsterdam Iran
Richly illuminated manuscripts, paintings, carpets and fabrics, gold jewellery, ceramics, glassware, lacquerware, metalwork, and carvings are on display. These artworks are of great historical significance, and reflect the refinement and grandeur of Islamic art. This art is not necessarily religious in terms of content and application: many of the items are secular, intended for use in everyday life. Besides geometrical motifs, arabesques and elegant scrolls, representations of human figures and animals also play a role.
Because the artistic vocabulary of Islamic art is shaped to some extent by the spirit and doctrines of the Muslim faith, the art on display in the exhibition does not represent any single country or civilization; Passion for Perfection illustrates the virtuoso expression of peoples who have been linked by Islam for over 1,400 years.
DE NIEUWE KERK
Dam, Amsterdam
The Netherlands
Tel. +31 (0)20-638 69 09
Tel. +31 (0)20-638 69 09
Opening hours
Daily 10 am to 6 pm
Thursdays to 10 pm
Admission
Adults: €5, concessions €4
Currently on view
Until 1 May Emerging Talents – 2nd edition
Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina (CCCS)
Palazzo Strozzi, Florence , Italy
The winner of the second bi-annual Emerging Talents prize is Luigi Presicce. The jury found his work “entrancing, enigmatic and haunting”. The Emerging Talents award was set up by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi to draw the attention of critics and of the general public to young artists in Italy
The works of the 16 candidates were considered by an international jury composed of Achim Borchardt-Hume (Whitechapel Gallery, London ), Barbara Gordon (Hirshhorn Museum , Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
CENTRE FOR CONTEMPORARY CULTURE STROZZINA (CCCS)
Palazzo Strozzi
Tel. +39 055 2645155
Until 15 May Life, Legend, Landscape: Victorian Drawings and Watercolours
The Courtauld Gallery, London
This exhibition presents a rich selection of Victorian drawings and watercolours from the Gallery’s own collection. Many of the works are on show for the first time. They range from finished watercolours intended for public exhibition to informal sketches and preparatory drawings for paintings or sculpture. Life studies, portraits, landscapes, fantasies and scenes from history and everyday life provide an engrossing account of Victorian draughtsmanship. The selection includes a study by Edwin Landseer for the famous lions used at the base of Nelson’s column in Trafalgar Square, London; the Pre-Raphaelite painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s intimate portrait of his muse, Elizabeth Siddal, seated at her easel; Whistler’s delicate study of the young Elinor Leyland in a kimono, and Fredrick Walker’s outstanding The Old Farm Garden, one of two superb watercolours by this short-lived artist presented to the Gallery in 2009.
This is the first exhibition to be organised as part of The Courtauld’s new IMAF Centre for the Study and Conservation of Drawings. The accompanying catalogue has been developed in collaboration with the University of Bristol
The Gallery will remain open until 9 pm on Friday 13 May. Visitors can enjoy not only the exhibition and permanent collection, but also live music and gallery talks, drawing workshops and refreshments in The Courtauld Gallery Café. Supported by the Art Fund.
THE COURTAULD GALLERY
Tel. +44 (0)20 7848 2526
Opening hours
Daily 10 am to 6 pm
Admission
Adult £6, concessions £4 .50
Until 17 July Picasso, Miró, Dalí. Angry Young Men: The Birth of Modernity
Palazzo Strozzi, Florence , Italy
The exhibition brings together some sixty early works by the three artists, concentrating on Picasso’s pre-Cubist period 1900-1905, whilst Joan Miró’s works of 1915-1920 are presented along with Salvador Dalí’s from 1920-1925, both artists painting in the period before the discovery of Surrealism. All three artists were raised in Catalonia , the northernmost region of Spain , but came to fame in France where Picasso and Miró chose to settle and to build up their careers, while Salvador Dalí stayed largely in Spain
The exhibition is structured like a film in a series of ‘flashbacks’ that take the visitor back in time to the birth of modernity. From Dalí’s meeting with Picasso in 1926, it traces the birth of modernism to its earliest beginnings through Dalí’s responses to Miró, Miró’s encounter with Picasso (1917), and ends just before the young Picasso’s arrival in Paris Spain
For Florence
PALAZZO STROZZI
Piazza Strozzi
50123 Florence
Tel. +39 055 277 6461
