Family firm Fabergé was the most powerful and largest jewelry company of its era. In this video, find out how the brand captured the attention of Royal families in Russia and across Europe, and discover works with true imperial provenance, including the Balletta Vase, which is offered as part of Sotheby’s upcoming sale Fabergé and Vertu: Property from the Brooklyn Museum (2 December | London). Other highlights include Fabergé special singular commissions, including a nephrite and moonstone study of mistletoe, a nephrite and diamond dandelion, and intricately carved agate models of a dog, a billy goat and a diamond-eyed cat.
Category Archives: Art
Top Exhibitions: ‘Pollès – Monumental Sculptures’, Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay, France (Cinematic Video)
Dominique Pollès, called Pollès, is a French sculptor born in Paris in 1945. He is considered as the inventor of “organic cubism”.
Like Leonard de Vinci in an anatomical search of perfection, of representation of movement,with an almost scientifical or medical glance, Pollès holds the utmost passion of anatomy: he learns about the human body, the complicated hank of muscles, movements of members and all the bodily mechanics.
That’s why in 1964 he starts medicine school and along side goes to the Charpentier Academy where he follows art lessons. In 1966, he encountered sculpture in London where he was invited by his friend Enzo Plazota. This final step teaching him all the bases of sculpture. Pollès then decides to go to live in Italy, in Carrare, an important art place. He moved in 1970 and settled in Pietrasanta where he still lives.
His sculptures, by creating a vision of the moving being, polished and smoothed, break the pureness of aestheticism. He just knows one theme, one model: the female form. According to Pollès, this is the most beautiful one, the most harmonious one. “When we are looking at a feminine body, it is splendid, it is musical”.
His love of women, the sensuality, the complexity, the shapes and passions, brought him to explore the female form. Since the beginning he has created a singularly stylized cubist form; this becoming his signature form. All are cast in bronze by Pollès himself and made in a series of four with one artist’s proof. His masterliness of the patina is considered unparalleled. The world’s recognition of his craft is evidenced by the many awards he has won, the unique places he has shown and the prestigious private collections he is in, including that of Princess Caroline of Monaco.
Pollès was recently honored in an exhibition outside Paris, sponsored by the French Government, called “Sculptors From Rodin to The Present”. He was one of the few living sculptors to be so honored; the others include Abakanowicz, Arman, Saint-Phalle & Wesselmann. Maurice Rheims, a respected Art Critic, and a member of The French Academy, has said “I consider Pollès to be one of the outstanding sculptors of our time.”
His show in the Bagatelle Gardens in Paris in 1998 was a major honor as he was one of only two artists who have ever been allowed to present their work in the Bagatelle. The other artist is Henry Moore. – Galerie Philia is an internationally recognized contemporary design and modern fine arts gallery representing worldwide known designers and artists.
The Galerie Philia attempts in this way to build bridges between different artistic continents in order to enlighten artworks endowed with a marked artistic depth.
Video Profile: ‘Elsie De Wolfe’ – America’s First Professional Interior Designer (1859 – 1950)
The year 2020 marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted millions of women in the U.S. the right to vote.
The Frick is celebrating with a series of videos honoring the stories of women who made, appeared in, collected, and took care of art in this collection. In the second-to-last episode, meet Elsie de Wolfe, America’s first professional interior designer, who decorated the Frick’s Fifth Avenue home. #WhatsHerStory
Elsie de Wolfe, also known as Lady Mendl, (December 20, c. 1859 – July 12, 1950) was an American actress and interior decorator.
Born in New York City, de Wolfe was acutely sensitive to environment from her earliest years, and became one of the first women interior designers, replacing heavy Victorian styles with light, intimate effects and uncluttered room layouts. Her marriage to English diplomat Sir Charles Mendl was seen as one of convenience, though she was proud to be called Lady Mendl, and her lifelong companion was Elisabeth Marbury, with whom she lived in New York and Paris. De Wolfe was a prominent social figure, who entertained in the most distinguished circles.
Art: ‘Apollo Magazine – December 2020 Issue’
| INSIDE THE ISSUE |
| FEATURES | Kirsten Tambling on Shakespearean relics; Susan Moore visits a museum-worthy collection of Old Masters; Alisa LaGamma on African art and attribution; Alice Gorman asks who is responsible for protecting space heritage |
| REVIEWS | Robert Barry on Bruce Nauman in London; Mark Evans on Prince Albert’s Raphael Collection in Woking; Imelda Barnard on Haegue Yang in St Ives; Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth on the history of European porcelain; Andrew Hussey on Isidore Isou; Thomas Marks on a collection of recipes by video artists |
| MARKET | Susan Moore previews December sales in New York and looks back at the autumn season; Emma Crichton-Miller on the enduring appeal of German limewood sculpture |
| PLUS | The Apollo Awards 2020; Caroline Campbell and Michael Prodger consider the consolations offered by historic paintings; Madeleine Schwartz on fakery and the Russian avant-garde; Christopher Turner in search of Bologna’s historical waxworks; Charles Holland on architectural copies and cover versions; Robert O’Byrne on the brilliantly named painter Hercules Brabazon Brabazon |
Art Books: Watercolor – A History (Marie-Pierre Salé)
The most comprehensive and best-illustrated history of watercolor painting ever published.
The term watercolor calls to mind atmosphere, luminosity, and immediacy―qualities that derive directly from the quick-drying, translucent nature of water-based pigments. In Watercolor: A History, Louvre curator Marie-Pierre Salé provides an authoritative and beautifully illustrated account of this versatile and widely beloved artistic medium.
Salé’s incisive text traces the development of watercolor from the thirteenth to the twentieth century in Europe and the United States, encompassing every type of work―from plein-air sketches to finished studio pieces―and a wide variety of artists. Here are Dürer’s detailed animal studies, Turner’s landscapes, Cézanne’s tireless explorations, Sargent’s light-dappled sketches, O’Keeffe’s pioneering abstractions.
This handsome volume features more than three hundred full-color illustrations, specially printed on Munken paper to capture the vibrancy and texture of the original works. It is sure to be welcomed by art historians and art lovers alike.
Cocktails With A Curator: Claude Monet’s “Vétheuil in Winter” (Frick Video)
In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon takes viewers through Claude Monet’s journey as an artist, focusing on “Vétheuil in Winter,” one of only four Impressionist paintings at The Frick Collection. Monet created this work during a particularly difficult period in his life, which included his wife’s passing and the bankruptcy of his biggest patron. For Xavier, this canvas signifies the importance of hope, as Monet persevered and went on to complete some of his greatest works in the wake of these challenges. The wintry landscape is paired with a complementary beverage of mulled wine. To view this painting in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/vetheuilwinter
Art: Experience ‘The Wine Harvest’ By 17th C. Flemish Painter David Teniers
Hear the voice of Downton Abbey star Jim Carter bring to life David Teniers’ monumental depiction of a 17th-century wine harvest. Immerse yourself in Teniers’ unrivalled talent for storytelling as we see grape harvesters unloading their bounty, coopers fixing up wine barrels, a wine merchant sealing a deal, and worse for wear villagers raising their glasses to the temple of Bacchus. Unseen in over a century, ‘The Wine Harvest’ is the finest work by Teniers to come to market in living memory.
David Teniers the Younger or David Teniers II was a Flemish Baroque painter, printmaker, draughtsman, miniaturist painter, staffage painter, copyist and art curator. He was an extremely versatile artist known for his prolific output.
Top Art Exhibitions: ‘Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera And Mexican Modernism’ (2020)
“Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism from the Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection” is on view at the Denver Art Museum through January 24, 2021.
Art: ‘Dazzling’ Matchstick Replicas Of The World’s Wonders By Egyptian Man
Sixty-two-year-old Ahmed Hassan creates dazzling replicas of ancient and modern wonders of the world using matchsticks.
Cocktails With A Curator: Tiepolo’s “Perseus and Andromeda” (Frick Video)
In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Deputy Director and Peter Jay Sharp Chief Curator Xavier F. Salomon considers the fragility of art in the context of the Frick’s “Perseus and Andromeda” by Giambattista Tiepolo. This depiction of the Greek demigod saving Andromeda from a sea-monster is a preparatory sketch for a series of ceiling frescoes at Palazzo Archinto in Milan that were destroyed during an Allied bombing in 1943. The painting was featured in an acclaimed 2019 exhibition at the Frick that brought together the surviving preparatory works and pre-war photography to tell the story of these lost masterpieces. This week’s complementary cocktail is a Milanese Gin and Tonic.
To view this painting (or object) in detail, please visit our website: https://www.frick.org/perseusandromedaSHOW LESS
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