Category: today’s top story

A partnership of the city’s cultural leaders come together to match an offer for the Thomas Eakins work. “Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts would share ownership of the 1875 masterpiece. The two museums, which have led a frantic six-week fund-raising campaign to buy the huge canvas from Thomas Jefferson University, have agreed to take on a still-undetermined amount of debt and pay a record $68 million for what is widely viewed as an embodiment of the city’s intellectual and creative life.”

Connie Fisher beat 6000 other actresses to play Maria in a new West End production of The Sound Of Music. “The reviews were stunning, the advance sales are colossal and, of course, such success could be going to the head of the 23-year-old from Milford Haven. With the same speed that television turned ambition into reality, adulation could convert the sweet ingénue into a storming diva.”

“Italy’s culture minister warned on Wednesday that his government would not budge from its demand that the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles return all of the ancient artifacts in its collection that Italy contends were illegally separated from their heritage… The Italian government was not satisfied with a proposal made by the Getty on Nov. 21 to return 26 of 46 contested objects to Italy.”

“For decades, the [Canadian] government has funded the operation of museums and art galleries in Ottawa only, and then doled out the meagre Museums Assistance Program support to help other levels of government keep the rest of the country’s heritage institutions up and running. Now the Harper government is changing how museums and art galleries will be funded: simultaneously trying to devolve responsibility for operational support to the private sector while at the same time contemplating creating or designating ‘national’ institutions outside of Ottawa.”

A new study claims that the UK’s museums contribute £1.5 billion a year to the national economy. The report, by researchers at the London School of Economics, also finds that the arts are one on Britain’s most valuable exports. “Seven of the top 10 visitor attractions in the UK are museums, and 43% of the British population visited a museum in the past year.”

“Welcome to the world of brand-enhancing, profit-making, tax-paying philanthropy. Its proponents argue that we’ve become so accustomed to the idea that philanthropy has to operate within the confines of certain legal strictures that we’ve lost sight of what really matters: the good you foster, not necessarily how you go about fostering it.”

Apple is disputing a research claim that sales of iTunes music tracks were down 65 percent in the first half of 2006. “Research group Forrester said it was too soon to say whether its findings showed that buyers were ‘reaching their saturation level for digital music. Apple said the report is ‘simply incorrect’, but will not divulge iTunes financial figures. Forrester said Apple users may be put off since iTunes songs can only be played on iPods or via iTunes itself.”

Less than a week after it opened to blistering reviews and public indifference, the musical version of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity was officially killed off by its disappointed producers. Part of the problem may have been that the hipster rock music that permeated the book and movie of the same name was nowhere to be found in the Broadway version, despite the fact that the plot largely revolves around it.

Get most of your best work done late at night? You’re probably more creative than those who go to bed early. “Scientists can’t yet fully explain why evening types appear to be more creative, but they suggest it could be an adaptation to living outside of the norm.”