FEATURES | Michael Rakowitz interviewed by Daniel Trilling; Jon Day on smell and the visual arts; Susan Moore catches up with art collector and former Louvre director Pierre Rosenberg; Oliver Cox on country-house exhibitions in museums; Debika Ray assesses Narendra Modi’s architectural shake-up of New Delhi
REVIEWS | Kitty Hauser on new Australian art in Sydney; Matt Stromberg evaluates LACMA’s experimental rehang; Tom Fleming on the life of John Craxton; Clare Bucknell on a study of women’s self-portraits; Glenn Adamson on a history of Western ceramics; Mark Francis on Richard Hamilton, Pop pioneer
PLUS | Xavier F. Salomon finds a lost Valadier masterpiece in Nicaragua; Isabella Smith visits imperial China through her TV screen; Samuel Reilly on Joan Eardley in Glasgow; Charles Holland on the post-war buildings of Raymond Erith; Thomas Marks on Daniel Spoerri’s tableaux of tables; and Robert O’Byrne picks over Apollo’s wartime diet
In this week’s episode of “Cocktails with a Curator,” Curator Aimee Ng explores the turbulent life of the woman portrayed in James McNeill Whistler’s serene “Harmony in Pink and Gray: Portrait of Lady Meux,” currently on view on the fourth floor of Frick Madison. A former bartender and actress, Lady Meux was shunned by London polite society even after she married Sir Henry Bruce Meux, heir to a huge brewery fortune. This week’s complementary cocktail is a refreshing Mummy, a nod to her extensive collection of some 1,800 Egyptian and Assyrian objects, including an infamous mummy of Nesmin.
Director Colin B. Bailey takes a close look at three drawings by Jean-Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), considered some of the finest drawings in the Morgan’s collection: Seated Young Woman (ca. 1716), Young Woman Wearing a Chemise (ca. 1718), and Two Studies of the Head and Shoulders of a Little Girl.
Artificial intelligence is helping humans make new kinds of art. It is more likely to emerge as a collaborator than a competitor for those working in creative industries.
In the era of the Russian tsars, Peter Carl Fabergé’s jewel-studded objets d’art were a royal riff on a much humbler Easter tradition of ordinary folk giving each other colored hens’ eggs. Correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports on the lore of Fabergé eggs, from opulent originals to sparkling counterfeits.
The celebrated series of 50 Imperial Easter eggs was created for the Russian Imperial family from 1885 to 1916 when the company was run by Peter Carl Fabergé. These creations are inextricably linked to the glory and tragic fate of the last Romanov family. They were the ultimate achievement of the renowned Russian jewellery house and must also be considered the last great commissions of objets d’art . Ten eggs were produced from 1885 to 1893, during the reign of Emperor Alexander III; 40 more were created during the rule of his dutiful son, Nicholas II, two each year, one for his mother, the dowager, the second for his wife.
FEATURES | Glenn Adamson on Alice Neel’s compassionate portraits; Antony Gormley interviewed by Gabrielle Schwarz; Christopher Turner on the Surrealist houses of Edward James; Morgan Falconer on Jessica Morgan’s ambitious vision for the Dia Art Foundation; Kaywin Feldman on cultural leadership in 2021
REVIEWS | Eve M. Kahn on the opening of the Frick Madison; Sukhdev Sandhu on ‘Grief and Grievance’ at the New Museum; Christopher Baker on friendship and portraiture in 18th-century France; Michael Prodger on art museums in the 21st century
MARKET | Susan Moore previews spring auctions and reviews sales in Paris and Brussels; Emma Crichton-Miller on collecting Tiffany glass; Samuel Reilly on Frieze New York and gallery reopenings in London
PLUS | Kirsten Tambling on satirical images of Robert Walpole; Tim Smith-Laing on Baudelaire’s cantankerous art criticism; Emilie Bickerton in Eugène Atget’s Paris; Emma Crichton-Miller on single-artist museums in Switzerland; Will Wiles on the future of department stores; Thomas Marks on the Georgian feasts of Niko Pirosmani; Robert O’Byrne on Spain before the Civil War
Pablo Picasso is perhaps the Modern master most admired by Asian artists. His commitment to breaking with tradition resonated deeply with Chinese modernist pioneer Sanyu. In this episode of Expert Voices, our Head of Modern Art in Asia, Felix Kwok, introduces masterworks by both artists, which will headline our upcoming Beyond Legends: Modern Art Evening Sale (18 April | Hong Kong). ‘Nu Avec un Pékinois’ is a masterpiece from Sanyu’s post-war period that reflects themes of love and perseverance and ‘Buste de Matador’ from the 1970s is the first painting in Picasso’s final Matador and reflects an urgency in the face of mortality.
For the fifth episode of Gagosian Premieres, we celebrate “Anselm Kiefer: Field of the Cloth of Gold”—a new exhibition at Gagosian, Le Bourget—with a conversation between the artist and art historian James Cuno and a debut ballet performance by Hugo Marchand and Hannah O’Neill, choreographed by Florent Melac and set to music composed by Steve Reich. The episode airs on March 23 at 2pm EDT. In this episode of Gagosian Premieres, James Cuno, president and CEO of the J. Paul Getty Trust, speaks to the artist in an exclusive interview about the inextricable relationship between history and place that animates the works on view. Hugo Marchand and Hannah O’Neill—principal dancer and first soloist, respectively, at the Ballet de l’Opéra national de Paris—perform original choreography by Florent Melac in the gallery. Set to Steve Reich’s “Duet,” a contemplative composition scored for two solo violins and a string ensemble, the dance was created in direct response to Kiefer’s exhibition of monumental paintings in the vast Jean Nouvel–designed former airplane hangar.
This film was commissioned by North Lands Creative, as part of the UK in Japan 2019-20 bilateral campaign, a partnership between British Council Scotland and Creative Scotland. Supported by project partners Toyama Institute of Glass Art, Toyama Glass Art Museum and Museum of Arts and Design, New York.
The Premiere is part of the “Glass, Meet the Future” Film Festival 2021”
In Collaboration with Rusty Coin Production and Daniel Del Risco Animation.
Project Developed in part OUR COMMON HUMANITY
Commission for the Royal Edinburgh Hospital — by Edinburgh Lothian Foundation
Large Scale Installation in Partnership with GRAS Architects ( project lead — Jan Hajek )
Edgar Degas was a prolific artist of dance. In this latest episode of Expert Voices, Sotheby’s specialist Brooke Lampley takes us through his fascination with dance, exploring how he perfectly captured every movement both on and off-stage. Ahead of Sotheby’s upcoming Art Impressionniste et Moderne Evening Sale (25 March 2021 | Paris) discover how his painting ‘Danseuse au Tutu Vert’ beautifully illustrates a dancer’s private moment backstage. Find out about the artist’s intense use of colour and how his chosen medium of pastel has truly stood the test of time.
