“San Francisco-based First Republic is one of the largest creditors of embattled New York dealer Lawrence Salander and his Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, accused in about two dozen lawsuits of defrauding customers and failing to repay tens of millions of dollars of debt. The bank has not been accused of wrongdoing. First Republic has lent a total of $59 million to Salander and his wife, Julie, his Upper East Side gallery and to an investment fund that said it arranged to buy all of Salander- O’Reilly’s Renaissance art.”
Tag: 10.31.07
Struggling DC Theatre Pushes Pause
Citing a severe “cash-flow crunch,” African Continuum Theatre Company’s board has decided to postpone its fall and winter shows and present a shortened season in the spring. Previously announced plays, including “Blue Door” by Tanya Barfield, “Intimate Apparel” by Lynn Nottage and “The Soul Collector,” a new work by David Emerson Toney, may not be part of that short season.
Princeton Signs Deal With Italy To Return Antiquities
The Italian Culture Ministry and the Princeton University Art Museum signed a deal yesterday for the return of eight disputed antiquities to Italy – Rome’s latest coup in its efforts to recover treasures it says were looted from the country.
Anatomy Of A Young Dance Company
BalletX is a two-year-old dance company in Philadelphia. It “is able to offer 20 weeks of work among rehearsals and performances, but that work is not contiguous. As a result, some of the dancers are already booked elsewhere in March, when the company’s spring season is scheduled, and will have to be replaced. The two directors also must rely on other jobs to help pay the bills. Neenan danced for 13 years with Pennsylvania Ballet, until Oct. 14; two days later, he was back with the company in his new role as choreographer.”
Parks Writes Tribute Play For Most Loyal Fan
Galeen Roe decides to see all of Suzan-Lori Parks’ nationwide theater festival “365 Plays/365 Days,” in which more than 600 theaters in Los Angeles, Atlanta, San Francisco, Washington, Chicago, Minneapolis and other participating cities committed, sight unseen, to presenting one week of Parks’ date-specific works. So Parks wrote a play dedicated to Roe: “I think this will actually perfect the cosmic juju thing, to sort of write a play to the perfect witness, an audience member.”
Hollywood Inches Toward Writers Strike Friday
“The fractious negotiations have prompted major studios to prepare for the first writers strike in nearly two decades. Guild leaders have obtained authorization from their members to call a strike if they can’t reach an agreement on a new three-year deal by midnight tonight. Although the two sides could extend the current contract, that’s unlikely. Union leaders have signaled that they will be ready to walk out as early as Friday.”
Women In Modernism
“In recent years, of course, women have become more visible in the profession. Their ascent has had a subtle impact on architectural practice, including a new emphasis on collaboration and a breakdown of traditional boundaries between architects, landscape specialists, fabric designers and graphic artists. But whatever optimism the panelists tried to muster about the future, we should all be appalled by the pace of progress.”
A House Sale Tests The Collectibles Market
An important house in the California desert designed by Richard Neutra is for sale at auction. Now the homeowners who undertook a major restoration “hope Neutra’s masterpiece will play a role in a third movement: promoting architecture as a collectible art worthy of the same consideration as painting and sculpture.”
The New Prado Museum
“The Prado has in the last several years hired a crew of gifted young curators under an ambitious young director with Byronic good looks named Miguel Zugaza. Now there’s a serious and world-class exhibition program, more than two million visitors annually (this year a record number is expected) — and, just opening, a 237,000-square-foot extension. It’s said to have cost several times more than was budgeted; but then, so did your kitchen. The final price tag was $219 million.”
The Top-Earning Dead Celebrities
“Elvis shimmied his way back atop the seventh annual list of 13 top-earning legends that he had ruled since its inception, with estimated earnings of about $49-million (U.S.) in the year ending this month.”