“Why should it be Klimt – a modest, quiet man – who set this record and not Picasso or Matisse or Hirst? Forget the cliche of Klimt – the gilded Valentine cards, the Athena posters; in short, The Kiss, the one image by this artist that we all think we know. Klimt is so often undervalued, just because of this travestied masterpiece. So tear your mind’s eye away from it. The paintings by Klimt displayed on these pages are pieces of modern intellectual history to set beside a formula scrawled by Albert Einstein or a score by Arnold Schönberg.”
Tag: 06.21.06
Long-Lost Schiele Painting Sells For £11.7 Million
The Egon Schiele painting was missing for more than 60 years after it was stolen by the Nazis in 1938. “For decades it was feared that Wilted Sunflowers had been destroyed during World War II. The painting was last exhibited in Paris in 1937, when it was owned by Austrian art dealer Karl Grunwald. Mr Grunwald fled Vienna for Paris in 1938, but Wilted Sunflowers was among 50 paintings confiscated by the Nazis in Strasbourg. It disappeared after being sold at auction in 1942.”
France Compromises On iTunes Dispute
The French National Assembly voted in March to “force companies like Apple Computer to make their online music stores and players compatible with rival products, but key members say they have agreed to many of the weaker measures endorsed by senators.”
ACLU Protest Book Ban In Florida Schools
The ACLU is contesting a Miami-Dade County school board decision to remove a book from its library shelves. “Last week, the board voted 6-3 to remove ‘Vamos a Cuba’ and its English-language version, ‘A Visit to Cuba’ from 33 schools, stating the books were inappropriate for young readers because of inaccuracies and omissions about life in the communist nation.”
Hockney Sells For Auction Record £2.6 Million
A new record has been set for sales price of a David Hockney painting. “The painting, dating from 1966, had been in a private collection in California for the past 20 years. The piece, in Hockney’s minimalist style, depicts the moment someone hits the water, diving into a swimming pool.”
ABT Star Retires
Julio Bocca Spend 20 years with American Ballet Theatre. “it is easy to remember that Mr. Bocca was a winner from the start. As a 20-year-old in his New York debut, he looked like Boris Becker, then a tennis star at his peak, and danced like a champion. Not everyone today has an image of Mr. Becker. But at 39, Mr. Bocca remains consistent and leaves a legacy for all dancers: bravura in the service of art.”
MoMA Names An Architecture Curator
“The Modern’s director, Glenn D. Lowry, said that Bsrry Bergdoll’s appointment underlined the museum’s “commitment to having an interesting program in architecture and design that can deal with the historic sweep of Modernism as well as the present.”
The Dealer As Looter?
Robert Hecht is on trial in Italy for antiquities looting. “In some ways Mr. Hecht’s recent four-day Roman sojourn reflected the yin and yang of his persona. There is the refined connoisseur of antiquities, fond of good living, the occasional game of backgammon and traveling throughout Europe; and there is the wily dealer, whom the Italians accuse of conspiring to plunder the nation’s buried treasures at huge personal profit.”
Jacques Chirac’s Problematic New Museum
“As an epitaph to a presidency, Chirac really couldn’t have chosen a more controversial subject. The new museum contains that stunning national collection of ethnographic artefacts that so entranced Modernist artists in Paris — it is Chirac’s passion, too, as the self-styled ‘great defender’ of global culture. But at a time of national soul-searching over the stagnant economy, the loss of the Olympics and the recent race riots, this is bold indeed. True to form, the project has been dogged with controversy — not just the usual ‘will it be finished in time’ (not quite), the cost (£180 million), the ‘Elgin Marbles’ debate, but its very purpose.”