News

28.09.2018

“With a probability of 99%” it is established that the scandalous canvas depicts ballerina Constance Kenyo from the Paris Opera.

The visitor takes a picture of “The Origin of the World” by Gustave Courbet in the Museum of Orsay. Photo: Francois Mori / AP / File / TASS

To establish the identity of the model depicted in the scandalous picture of Gustave Courbet L’Origine du monde (“The Origin of the World”, 1866), is difficult for a very obvious reason – it depicts only the body of a woman.

Nevertheless, according to Agence France Presse, the French literary historian Claude Schopp is sure that the picture was posed by the former ballerina of the Paris Opera Constance Kenyo, who at the time of the creation of the work was 34 years old. Earlier it was believed that the canvas depicts Courbet’s mistress Joanna Hiffernan – not a very good version, as Heffernan was red-haired. But Keno contemporaries described as the owner of “beautiful black eyebrows”. In addition, she was the mistress of the Ottoman diplomat Khalil Sherif Pasha (Khalil Bey), who ordered Courbet this picture.

Exploring in Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF, National Library of France) the letter of Alexander Dumas-son addressed to Georges Sand, dated June 1871, Shopp paid attention to the proposal, which was previously deciphered as “You can not write with your most elegant and accurate brush interview (interview ) Mademoiselle Keno from the Opera. ” However, after studying the original text, Shopp found that instead of “interviewing” it actually says “what is inside” (intérieur). More details about the arguments of the scientist can be read in a book that is published in the Paris publishing house Phébus on October 4.

 Constance Kenyo in the photo of André-Adolf-Eugene Disderi. Photo: BNF / Department of Photography and Printing Products

Head of Photography and Printing at BNF Sylvie Obenas told Agence France Presse that the interpretation of the correspondence “convinced me with a 99% chance that the picture of Courbet shows Constance Kenyo.” Another weighty argument, according to her, is the fact that the will of the ballerina mentions a picture of Courbet, which depicts camellias with a scarlet flower open in the center. According to Obenas, this work Keno received as a gift from Khalil Serif Pasha. Later, she became a respected philanthropist, and therefore, according to Obenas, her connection with the scandalous picture was eventually lost.

26.09.2018

Amancio Gonzalez / Photo: Adamovskiy Foundation

Six well-known masters from different countries gathered together to open the sky, in front of the audience, to create masterpieces from a stone: Vladislav Volosenco, Amancio Gonzalez, Peter Gronsky, Joe Clay, Volodymyr Kochmar, and Vasyl Tatarsky. Exactly a month they will work on the territory of the art residence of the 13th VDNG Pavilion, creating sculptures. All participants are connoisseurs of the work of Alexander Archipenko, an outstanding Ukrainian sculptor, founder of Cubism in world sculpture. It was in his honor that the symposium was named, the purpose of which is the development and popularization of plastic arts and the return of prominent Ukrainian names in the field of public consciousness.

“I have a dream – to create a park of sculptures, which would be admired more than one generation. The idea arose when I began to collect, in addition to the collection of paintings, which already exists, and a collection of sculptures. Therefore, the plan to hold the symposium is best suited to the planned plans. It is very interesting what will happen as a result “, – Andriy Adamovsky, founder of AdamovskiyFoundation.

 Andrew Adamovsky, founder of the Adamovskiy Foundation
This is the first pleinair in Kiev during the independence of Ukraine, which takes place in the same location as it was 30 years ago – the Expocenter of Ukraine VDNH. It is thanks to the All-Union Symposium that took place in 1998 in Kiev, the first park of modern sculpture, the preserved elements of which can be seen today on the Vladimir Hill.

“Conducting symposiums is an important component of the development of the cultural layer of society. This is especially the space for communication, the interaction of art with the viewer. Therefore, it is very important that the pleinair passes on the territory of the VDNG, rather than in a private, remote location. The dialogue will take place regardless of the reader’s willingness to understand art, because he will fall for the “scenes” of the creative process, where the forms have not yet become complete, have not become obstructed by interpretations and values, where everything is still in search, “- Darina Mo Mo, curator of the project.

One of the participants, Volodymyr Kochmar, a sculptor from Kharkiv, told about other advantages of the “symposium format”: “In a studio, it is usually not possible to do a great job. Creation of a sculpture is a very complicated process, very labor-intensive: it is necessary to bring a stone from a career, to hire cranes, other technical support … it’s not a brush to swing [laughs] in any way, without diminishing the significance of artists. Therefore, the symposium is a great opportunity for sculptors to create new large-scale works that they would not be able to do at their own expense in the workshop. ”

“For me, the symposium is an interesting format, because it is a deadline – a month of time, during which there is only me and a stone. This is important because in sculpture, in which different materials are combined, usually most of the time is spent on the technological part, and here I am one on one with a stone and for me, it is a certain buzz and relaxation, “- Peter Gronsky, a sculptor.

Joe Clay, a sculptor from Germany, spoke about his plans: “I want to convey strong and powerful forms. It is necessary to “free” them from the stone and show that they breathe and that they also have a life. I call it “energy in the form”. When I work in my studio, I’m usually alone. So work among the people – even better. ”

Interestingly, the fate of one of the participants in the symposium – Vladislav Volosenko – is somewhat like the fate of Archipenko, in whose honor the symposium is named. In the early 90’s he was still a student and he traveled to Canada in search of creative freedom, and it was there that he received recognition as a sculptor. “As far as I remember, Archipenko very much wanted to return to Ukraine, to make a big exhibition in recent years. But I was lucky more because we live in other times and, after traveling, I was able to return. I also work in the technique of “direct curving”: without a sketch, I simply take a stone and travel it as a person travels to the world “- Vladislav Volosenko, a sculptor.

Memoirs of student years and archipelago of the sculptor Vasyl Tatarsky: “During my training, Archipenko was considered a bourgeois artist and was banned from public access. For the first time, I became acquainted with the work of Archipenko thanks to the little book by Vitaly Korotych. It was a real discovery. The usual academic statements were tired, I wanted to innovate, and here it turns out our countryman has long worked in this direction. In those days, Archipenko became a source of inspiration and influenced a large cohort of artists. ”

That’s how the first sculptural pleinair of the sky, free from ideological plots of the Soviet era, revived, reassembled original artists inspired by the spirit of freedom, was made 30 years ago. A symbol of the symposium was the blue dancer Archipenko, who claims only one of his existence: the revolution in the art can happen at any time.

24.09.2018

The Dutch art dealer, Jan Siks, who specializes in the works of the Old Masters, made a sensational statement that he was able to open the world to the previously unknown picture of Rembrandt van Rein. The work is called “Let the children and not let them come to me” before it was simply attributed to the Dutch school.

Jan Siks first saw a canvas on the Cologne auction of Lempertz in 2014. He managed to draw a picture for € 1.5 million at the start of € 15 thousand. A few years later, the examination confirmed that the painting actually wrote Rembrandt. It is believed that Rembrandt wrote a work in Leiden in the 1620s. Now the cost of the picture can grow at a time.

According to the art dealer, he was sure that he bought the work of the famous artist even before it was studied by art historians. Having examined the canvas in the online auction catalog in detail, he noticed that in the face of a young man in the background, the artist portrayed himself younger. At that time, the painter was not yet popular, so nobody, except himself, could draw such a painting. Siks also noted that Rembrandt often left his portrait on the canvas.

Source: https://ukraineartnews.com/news/news/gollandskomu-art-dileru-vdalosja-vijaviti-nevidomu-kartinu-rembrandta

20.09.2018

Today the name of Elizabeth Vige-Lebrun was heard by few, although after Rubens in the history of painting there was no more prolific artist than she.

Vizhe-Lebrun wrote more than 600 portraits of kings, queens and other influential personalities of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The artist died at the age of 86 years. We can say that, in fact, Elizabeth Vigee-Lebrun was self-taught, she received the first lessons of painting from her father, and, having grown up, enjoyed the advice of Joseph Vernet and Jean-Baptiste Greuze. She gained popularity as a portraitist at the age of 15 – then Vigee-Lebrun earned enough to help her family financially, which was left without funds after the sudden death of the head of the family. The artist was able to professionally present their work, as well as flatter their customers, doing slightly theatrical portraits. When it came time to choose a life partner, Elizabeth decided to give preference to a marriage with the art dealer Jean-Baptiste Pierre Lebrun. It was thanks to the connections of her husband that she managed to get into a higher social and to have a friendship with all the titled ladies of France.

Certainly, the decisive role was played by the patronage of Queen Marie Antoinette. The 23-year-old artist painted a portrait of the queen in Versailles and quickly found a common language with the monarchy. So, in 1778, Vigee-Lebrun completed work on the earliest portrait of Marie Antoinette in a court dress. A couple of years later, the artist created a second important picture in her career, which was called “Maria Antoinette with children.”

The influence of a talented artist has grown both in secular life and in a professional environment. Under pressure from the royal family in 1783, Vigee-Lebrun was admitted to the French Academy of Painting and Sculpture. It is worth noting that for the 150-year history of the institution of its 550 members only 14 were women. This news was not very entertaining academics, because now the artist had the opportunity to officially sell their works to the Palace of Versailles than the woman strongly pressed many of the competing portraitists. Most resolutely acted artist Adelaide Label-Zhiar, who spread gossip about the novel by Elizabeth with Count Calonne. Such rumors led to his resignation and the spoiled reputation of Vigee-Lebrun. Having earned enough money for a carefree life, in her early years the artist lived alone. Later, other heroes began to appear on the stage, and our heroine of the eighteenth century remembered the world of art only many years after her death.

Source: http://art-news.com.ua/elizabet-vizhe-lebren-lyubimaya-xudozhnica-korolej-14356.html
© Art News Ukraine. Under the guidance of Sotheby’s.

17.09.2018

 Anthony van Dyck Portrait of Mary, the eldest daughter of the king and Princess of Orange

Two parade portraits of older children of King Charles I of England, the eleventh-day Prince of Wales (later King Charles II) and his nine-year-old sister Mary, the eldest daughter of the king (later the mother of the future King William III), will be among the most valuable auction lot items of the old masters of Sotheby’s in London December 5th. These two portraits, from a series of recent works that Anthony van Dyck wrote for their royal patron saint, were kept in one private collection for almost a century and entered the market with a total valuation of $ 3.8 million.

Conceived and executed in the summer of 1641, a few months before the death of the artist in December of that year, these may be portraits of the prince and the princess documented among the things found in the artist’s workshop in the Blackford District (London) after his death. Embodying the extraordinary skill that van Dyke brought to children’s’ portraiture, the genre in which he succeeded in his early years in Genoa, both works shows the perceptible resemblance of royal children at a time when their world and the Stuart monarchy were on the brink of collapse.

 Anthony van Dyck Portrait of Charles II, Prince of Wales Image: Sotheby’s

Alex Bell of the Sotheby’s old masters department said: “Van Dyke was responsible for the creation of durable portraits of Charles I and his courtiers, and in these exceptionally well-preserved portraits of his two older children, we see how the artist uses his artistic wizardry to portray both youth and the status of his royal models. The stormy history of the courtyard of Stuarts has always captured the imagination of people, and taking into account the additional interest caused by exhibitions in London this year, the appearance of the sale of these royal portraits, which is extremely rare is on the market, are very timely. ”

In 1632, van Dyke became the court painter of the English King. In this position, he created numerous portraits of Charles I, his wife Henrietta Maria and their children, many of whom still remain in the British Royal Collection. Van Dyck’s style, which endowed their models with a relaxed elegance and restrained power, dominated the English portrait painting by the end of the 18th century.

13.09.2018

The Museum of Art History gathered for the first time almost the entire legacy of Peter Brueghel the Elder – about three dozen paintings.

Peter Brueghel the Elder. «Children’s games». 1560. Photo: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

The exhibition is dedicated to the 450th anniversary of the death of the great master, although the gods himself ordered the crowns of his wreaths to hold his exhibitions – both on occasion and without him. The Vienna Museum of Art History – the main owner of works by Peter Bruegel the Elder, or Muzhitsky, (about 1525/30 – 1569), he owns 12 works of the artist. The second is the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels with six paintings; the rest, including such titans as the Louvre and the Metropolitan Museum, and even less. In total, about 40 paintings by Brueghel are preserved in the world.

In Vienna, will show all five surviving scenes from the series “Seasons”, among which, perhaps, the most famous work of the Netherlands artist – “Hunters in the snow.” For the first time in one exposition, there will be two “Tower of Babel” – from the Vienna museum and from the Museum of Boimans – van Beuningen in Rotterdam. Especially for the exhibition, the Madrid Prado restored Bruegel’s masterpiece from his collection – The Triumph of Death. Restoration, during which reinforced the paint layer and returned the original bright colors, lasted two years.

Peter Brueghel the Elder. The Tower of Babel. 1563. Photo: Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien

At the exhibition, modern multimedia tools will be widely used, because “rural life” in Bruegel is a rebus, behind which other content hides, this is what attracts a modern person with his clip-consciousness. The audience will be able to decode for themselves all the unusual details of the paintings. For example, “Magpie on the Gallows” from the Museum of the Land of Hesse (Darmstadt). Why such a complicated way to kill a bird? It turns out that this picture Bruegel expressed his attitude to scammers and gossipers, the guilt of which the Spanish conquerors executed his compatriots on real gallows. Another example is the “Parable of the Blind” from the Museum of Capodimonte (Naples), seemingly a simple illustration to the well-known maxim: if a blind man leads a blind man, they will both fall into the pit. However, it turned out that the second and fourth characters of the picture are blinded artificially. Perhaps this is Brueghel’s response to the atrocities of the Duke of Alba, repaired in his native Netherlands. It is curious that today the parable of the blind is perceived precisely by the picture of Brueghel.

Museum of Art History
Brueghel
October 2, 2018 – January 13, 2019

10.09.2018

The “Music on the Canvas” exhibition of the well-known Ukrainian artist Ivan Marchuk, which took place in August in the Kyiv Center for Contemporary Art, became the stage for Valery Meladze, a Russian singer of Georgian origin, “The Liberty or the Sweet Captivity”.

 A fragment of the exhibition “Music on the canvas” by Ivan Marchuk at the M17 CSM / Photo: Vladimir Stefan for artslooker.com

Only the permission and even the warning about filming a clip on the background of the work of Marchuk, the artist did not receive from representatives Meladze, which, in turn, may be a violation of intellectual property rights. Also on official pages, the singer does not have any information that the video work involved the artwork of the aforementioned author.

The artist himself, having learned that his exposition was clogged in a music clip, was not upset, but at the same time he was embarrassed by the fact that his works were used in filming without any warning.

 

07.09.2018

One of Bonhams’ oldest auction houses, which was put up for sale in May this year, was purchased by the British private equity firm Epiris. The financial terms of the deal have not yet been disclosed.

Bonhams CEO Matthew Golding and CFO Jonathan Fairhurst will continue to work in their positions along with former Sotheby’s chief operating officer Bruno Vinciguerra, who will take the post of executive chairman. Bruno Vinciguerra has already made a statement stating that “Bonhams is a business with great potential and a powerful history. I really hope to work with the team to help the company move on to the next stage of development. ”

Recall that in the year 2000, Bonhams was already sold to the Brooks auction house, after which the company was named Bonhams & Brooks. Subsequently, new owners wanted to resell their asset in 2014, even interested in buying it from representatives of the Chinese auction group Poly Culture Group, but something went wrong and sales did not happen. According to the Sunday Times, a financial advisory firm, NM Rothschild, was involved in the search for a buyer. At the beginning of this year, according to financial analysts, the auction house was estimated at several hundred million dollars.

The Bonhams Auction House, founded in 1793 and based in London, is one of the world’s largest and most well-known auction artists in visual arts and antiques, cars and jewelry. In 2017, Bonhams sold more than 50,000 lots worth more than £ 450 million.

Source: https://ukraineartnews.com/news/news/auktsionnij-budinok-bonhams–prodano

05.09.2018

Created by the famous representative of the Italian Baroque, the image of Lucretia since the XIX century was in a private collection and had never before been exhibited

Artemisia Gentileschi. “Lucretia.” Photo: Dorotheum

At auction Viennese auction house Dorotheum October 23 will be represented depicting Lucretia canvas Artemisia Gentileschi (1593-1654). The picture was never exhibited before and was not put up for auction.

Gentileschi – one of the very few known artists today, representatives of the Italian Baroque. Thanks to her pictures depicting strong women in dramatic life situations, she became a kind of female symbol of the world of old masters in the era of feminism and the campaign against sexual harassment of #MeToo. The contribution of artists who worked in various periods of art history is gradually overestimated; Against this background, there is a growing interest in the work of Gentileschi, in the center of which there are brave heroines of classical mythology.

In July, the British National Gallery purchased from the London dealer Robilant + Voena for £ 3.6 million “Self-portrait in the image of St. Catherine” (circa 1615-1617) Gentileschi. Another of her work, previously unknown, was sold in December last year at the Paris auction Drouot for a record € 2.3 million, which exceeded at times estimate in € 300-400 thousand Asked whether the National Gallery will fight for the canvas on auction of Dorotheum, the representative of the museum replied: “The National Gallery never comments on works in the acquisition of which it may be – or not be – is interested.”

The exhibition “Artemisia Gentileschi and Her Time”, which took place in the Museum of Rome in 2016-2017, also contributed to the growing interest in the artist’s work. Nicola Spinoza included the image of Lucretia as a catalog of this exhibition, published in 2015, and in the catalog of the Gentileschi exhibition in 2016 in the Roman palazzo Braski.

According to Mark McDonnell, head of the department of old masters at Dorotheum, “Lucrezia” is now in a private European collection, in which it appears to have come about in the middle of the 19th century. In that same period, a certain image of Lucretia was included in the collection of the Yatta family from Ruvo di Puglia: in documents from the family archive, a picture is mentioned with belle donne nude con pugnale (“beautiful naked women with daggers”). At the auction Dorotheum will also present a different image of Lucretia from the same collection – the brush of a Neapolitan artist of the 17th century Diana de Rosa.

“Lucretia” – the first canvas of Artemisia Gentileschi, with which the Vienna auction house works. Her works in principle are rarely at auction, and the database Artnet contains information about only 62 works of the artist, put up for auction – and every time with a low estimate. As McDonnell notes, the estimate of the picture (€ 500-700 thousand) is again “very modest and does not reflect its real market value, which, as we expect, will be much higher.”

“There were fierce disputes around the attribution of this canvas, but Nicola Spinoza and Riccardo Lattuada, who carried out the expertise in Vienna, are convinced that Gentileschi created it,” says McDonnell, who devoted six months to the work with the painting (with this attribution art critic Wolfgang Prochaska also agrees) ). Spinoza originally referred the work to the Florentine period of Gentileschi’s work (the late 1620s – early 1630s), but then changed his mind, suggesting that it was created in 1640-1645, that is, in the Neapolitan period. Lattuada also refers it to the Neapolitan period, but to its earlier part, approximately to 1630-1635, pointing to the stylistic similarity with the works of Massimo Stantsion, with whom the artist worked in the first time after moving to Naples, and Simon Vou, her friend on Rome.

“In life Artemisia was a scandalous figure – going to court with a lawsuit against the artist Agostino Tassi, who raped her, created her an ambiguous reputation. But she sought to use this reputation and forced her patrons to come face to face with these difficult, violent stories around suffering and powerful heroines, “says Mark McDonnell. According to him, in the XVIII and XIX centuries, her work turned out to be on the periphery of the canon: “In the views of the XIX century, the works of Gentileschi were too dramatic, too bloody, too rude for a” virtuous “artist. But their strength and power, in my opinion, are consonant with the modern atmosphere. “

03.09.2018

On August 30, Saatchi Gallery opened the international exhibition “Cash is King”, featuring colored banknotes from around the world. Ukraine presented the Odessa artist Kirill Bondarenko, especially for the London exhibition, he painted a banknote with a nominal value of two hryvnias.

The project “Cash is King” has allowed artists from all over the world to add their own touches to money. The exhibition also raises the question of how different countries are working to protect their system and society, whose incarnation is often billboards.

In general, the exhibition shows more than a hundred works, which can be purchased online from 120 to 4,700 pounds sterling. Already the second day after the opening, almost all the work was sold out.