Tag: 12.05.06

Kahn’s Yale Art Gallery To Reopen, Restored

“Yale University, famous for its Gothic buildings, is showing off a newly restored jewel that marked the beginning of its modern era. The university has completed a $44-million restoration of the main building of its art gallery that was designed by architect Louis Kahn…. The Chapel Street building, which opened in 1953, was Yale’s first modernist structure and marked a radical break from the campus’ largely neo-Gothic character. It was also Kahn’s first masterpiece,” and it reopens Sunday.

The Getty Board’s Smart Decision

Naming James N. Wood, who led the Art Institute of Chicago, as president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust may be just the thing to repair the damage caused by his predecessor, Barry Munitz. “By selecting Wood, the trustees have shown that they listen to critics. Wood’s appointment is for just five years, but that could be ample time for the Getty to put the scandals behind it and start living up to its potential.”

Art-Theft Detective Robert Volpe, 63

“Robert Volpe, a painter with a flowing mustache who gained street smarts chasing drug smugglers as a police officer and then put those skills to use as the New York City Police Department’s one-man art-theft squad in the 1970s, died on Nov. 28 at his home on Staten Island. … Mr. Volpe essentially created his detective’s job after computer analyses pinpointed art theft as a growing problem. Asked to make a survey, he came back with actual arrests instead of a report — underlining the need for a special effort. He became that effort, making the New York Police Department the nation’s only one with a separate bureau for art crime.”

The Bibliography Invades Fiction

“Traditionally confined to works of nonfiction, the bibliography has lately been creeping into novels, rankling critics who call it a pretentious extension of the acknowledgments page, which began appearing more than a decade ago and was roundly derided as the tacky literary equivalent of the Oscar speech. Purists contend that novelists have always done research, particularly in books like ‘Madame Bovary’ that were inspired by real-life events, yet never felt a bibliography was necessary.”

Buy Russian

Russian art is selling briskly, even withstanding charges of fakes coming to market. “The Russian sales are about rediscovering more home-spun talents Often, prices and estimates were inexplicably erratic. But, like the problems with fakes, this is all part of a young and booming market.”