Innholdsfortegnelse for November-December 2016 i Fine Art Connoisseur

In the Southwest, when Native Americans beat their drums, it isn’t just to keep time during ceremonial dances. The beating of the taut hide, by hand or stick, helps summon sacred gods and forefathers, acts as medicine during healing ceremonies, signals the start of war, even awakens deities. But no matter how talented the drummer, practice is required, a subject deftly captured in the mid-1920s by Catherine Critcher (1868–1964) in Indian Drummer, which is featured in the Santa Fe Art Auction’s next sale (December 3–4). “The greatest part of this painting is the almost single-minded emphasis on the drummer himself, caught in a very private, isolated moment,” says Adam H. Veil, executive director of the auction firm. “The subject is contemplative, lost in his thoughts, not returning the viewer’s gaze.…

Amazingly, one of the world’s greatest cultural institutions — the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City — has, until now, been without a comprehensive publication devoted to its key paintings. Forty-six years ago, it did produce a book of 100 European and American paintings in its collection, but naturally that title is long out of print. This September, the gap was bridged with Skira Rizzoli’s publication of The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Masterpiece Paintings. Clocking in at 544 pages and adorned with 1,100 color photographs (including many details in close-up), this handsome hardcover volume focuses on 500 paintings spanning 5,000 years around the world, boiled down from the approximately 20,000 possibilities in the Met’s extraordinary holdings. No massive project like this can happen without a team of professionals…

Depending on when this reaches you, Americans have elected, or are about to elect, a new president. This campaign has been more polarizing than any I’ve seen, and the U.S. media has been unprecedentedly biased and ill-behaved. I’d say we’re all a bit embarrassed for those press organizations — at every point on the political spectrum — that have abandoned their integrity in the hope of fooling audiences into supporting favored candidates. It’s clear many outlets were paid to report stories as though they were fact. And it’s possible that millions were consequently swayed by the journalists they trusted. This constitutes journalistic malpractice. Alas, the art world has its own form of journalistic malpractice. If a dealer promotes a forged artwork as authentic, that is clearly grounds for prosecution, as…

E lie Hirschfeld walks into the living room of his Fifth Avenue apartment overlooking the Metropolitan Museum of Art and begins to examine the framed paintings leaning against his furniture. “Choosing my favorite artwork is like asking me to choose my favorite child — and my wife and I have a lot of kids in our now-blended family,” says Hirschfeld, who, as president of Hirschfeld Properties, is one of New York’s most prolific real estate developers, as well as a Broadway producer and philanthropist whose causes include the Weizmann Institute of Science, Brown University, and the Jewish National Fund. “Choosing was a real challenge.” In the rooms of his expansive home, one finds Georgia O’Keeffe’s drawing/study for her famous Brooklyn Bridge painting, a Marc Chagall scene looking through a Manhattan…

Although it wasn’t until 1517 that Martin Luther (1483–1546) became the face of the Protestant Reformation by posting his Ninety-Five Theses on the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, the roots of dissatisfaction with the Roman Catholic Church were deep-seated by then. Luther’s action, at first seemingly rather benign, was the decisive axe-blow to a tree already beginning to fall. Essentially it completed the collapse of medieval society and launched the modern age: by translating the Bible into contemporary German vernacular and disseminating his teachings through the newly invented printing press, Luther not only eroded Catholic authority, but also epitomized how the right tools, and strategic use of technology, could quickly spur irreversible change. LUTHER’S LIFE & TIMES Martin Luther was born to a mining family in Eisleben,…

ARTISTS & GALLERIES Denver November 11–December 3 Gallery 1261 will exhibit Shared Solitude, a show of more than 20 paintings by Mia Bergeron. Originally from Québec, she has recently been inspired by the art of Andrew Wyeth: “There is an unsaid stillness in his work — beauty mixed with sadness and surprise. Something which should be routine becomes special and strange.” Les Feux Follets, illustrated here, emerged from a folk tradition conveyed by Bergeron’s grandparents: sometimes people see small fires above graves “thought to be from the gases that escape a body after it has been buried, spontaneously combusting ” Some associate these sparks with evil spirits, but their “natural and invented symbolism” fascinates Bergeron. INFORMATION: 1261 Delaware Street, Denver, CO 80204, 303.571.1261, gallery1261.com Colorado Springs through November 13 Broadmoor…

I am glad to report that we got a great response to the October issue’s feature article on the Da Vinci Initiative. As you may recall, this is a non-profit organization working with classroom teachers nationwide to help them master challenging artistic skills they can pass along to their pupils. Once you focus on something, you suddenly start noticing it everywhere you go: since the Da Vinci Initiative article ran, I’ve been hearing about other success stories in this vein. Most recently, I visited the Aperture Foundation, a leading nonprofit dedicated to contemporary photography. That’s not generally “my” kind of art, but I was inspired to discover that Aperture helps students learn how to visually communicate their ideas, construct and defend their interpretations, create photographs with intention and meaning, and…

When Tar Heels, as North Carolinians often refer to themselves, are asked about the length and breadth of their state, the phrase “from Murphy to Manteo” is usually part of the reply. The alliterative Murphy and Manteo refer to the westernmost and easternmost towns in this 100-county state. The former is perched high in the Blue Ridge Mountains, while the latter edges the Atlantic Ocean and the Outer Banks, whose deadly currents and shifting coastline have sunk hundreds of ships over the centuries. The state’s more obvious east-west bisector, though, is Interstate 40, which begins minutes outside the port city of Wilmington, at one time with a sign that famously read: BARSTOW, CALIF. 2,554. The mileage signpost was stolen so many times — five — that the Department of Transportation…

BEST CONTEMPORARY / POST-WAR — SOLO ARTIST Rauschenberg in China Ullens Center for Contemporary Art Beijing, China Moholy-Nagy: Future Present Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum New York City, U.S.A. Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World Kröller-Müller Museum, Tate Britain, Arp Museum Otterlo, Netherlands; London, England; Remagen, Germany BEST CONTEMPORARY / POST-WAR — GROUP OR THEME Revolution in the Making: Abstract Sculpture by Women, 1947–2016 Hauser Wirth Schimmel Gallery Los Angeles, U.S.A. Human Interest: Portraits Whitney Museum of American Art New York City, U.S.A. Contingent Beauty: Contemporary Art from Latin America Museum of Fine Arts Houston Houston, U.S.A. BEST IMPRESSIONIST / MODERN — SOLO ARTIST Degas: A New Vision National Gallery of Victoria, Museum of Fine Arts Houston Melbourne, Australia; Houston, U.S.A. Joan Miró: Painting Walls, Painting Worlds Schirn Frankfurt, Germany…

The holidays’ approach signals the arrival of a particularly delightful feature of the art world — exhibitions of “small works” ideally sized, and priced, for thoughtful gift-giving. Small paintings, sculptures, and graphics are an ideal way to begin a collection (especially for youngsters) or to obtain a work by an artist you admire but cannot generally afford (at bigger sizes). Moreover, small works beckon us to look closer, to form a more intimate connection with the image and artist, whose touch we can more readily admire. Here is a snapshot of top-quality small-work shows scheduled this season across the country. In many cases, their exhibits are posted online, so consider making an offer even if you cannot attend in person. • November 11: Susan Powell Fine Art, Madison, CT, susanpowellfineart.com…