“The order, obtained by Canada’s Competition Bureau, directs Sotheby’s to take measures to ensure it complies with existing rules. Sotheby’s also must pay for the C$800,000 ($720,000) probe and is barred from ‘doing any act or thing directed in the commission of an offence’ forbidden by Canada’s competition law.”
Tag: 08.28.06
Returned Nazi-looted Painting Causes Controversy
The restitution last month of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s 1913 painting ‘Berlin Street Scene’ to a descendant of the Jewish family who owned it before World War II has “sparked an indignant response from art experts and the regional parliamentary opposition. London-based Christie’s International estimates the oil painting may fetch as much as $25 million at its Nov. 8 auction in New York.”
Were Illiad, Odyssey Written By Women?
“Andrew Dalby, author of Rediscovering Homer, argues that the attribution of the poems to Homer was founded on a falsehood. Homer’s link to the poems, Dalby writes, stems from an ‘ill-informed postclassical text, the anonymous Life of Homer, fraudulently ascribed to Herodotus,’ a respected Greek historian who lived from around 484-425 B.C.”
Chuck Close Versus The Developer
Chuck Close “is gearing up for a full-fledged battle with Olmstead Properties over a five-story condo building the company wants to build on a 6-by-12-foot portion of an L-shaped lot on Bond Street, next door to Close’s co-op. The complex – which would have 50 feet of frontage on Lafayette Street – would plunge Close’s studio into darkness, he says.”
Oscar Peterson At 81
“As reclusive as he is legendary, Mr. Peterson is an artist whose amazing technical command and uncanny musical instincts have for decades instilled in other musicians the kind of awe and fear he expresses about his idol, the late Art Tatum (he once compared that piano master to a lion: an animal that scares you to death, but one you can’t resist getting close enough to hear roar). Over a decade ago, however, Mr. Peterson suffered a stroke that debilitated his left hand and left him in a weakened condition. He has been battling his way back ever since. It’s an arduous challenge.”
Warner Bucks Record Industry Trend – Music Sales Up
Major recording companies have been fighting sales declines. “But Warner Music’s sales of worldwide recorded music in its most recent quarter rose 15% from a year earlier to $678 million. In the first half of 2006, Warner Music was the only major music company to increase its U.S. market share. That’s a significant accomplishment for a company that, when it went public last year, the stock debut was criticized by at least one high-profile analyst as a dud.”
Aaron Betsky To Lead Cincinnati Museum of Art
“The 48-year-old, whose birthday was Monday, comes to the museum after six years as director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute, the world’s largest architectural museum. He’s a Montana native who was raised in the Netherlands after his parents, both college professors, received Fulbright Fellowships to travel there.”
Leonardo, Rediscovered?
A conservationist believes he knows where one of Leonardo’s greatest works is hidden. “But for three years he has been frustrated by wrangling in Florence. Now the election of a new government in Italy, where art is seldom apolitical, has given his search fresh impetus. Francesco Rutelli, the Deputy Prime Minister and Culture Minister, will soon appoint a committee to resolve the issue.”