Fitzwilliam Museum Bids to Acquire Weeping Virgin by Spanish Sculptor Pedro de Mena

ARTDAILY

Pedro de Mena (1628-1688), The Virgin of Sorrows (Mater Dolorosa), about 1670-5.

UNITED KINGDOM---A remarkably realistic painted wood bust of the Mater Dolorosa (Virgin of Sorrows) by Pedro de Mena (1628-1688), one of the most celebrated sculptors of the Spanish Golden Age, has gone on display at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge as part of an appeal to acquire the sculpture. It was most likely created for the private chapel, study or bedchamber of a devout patron, and would almost certainly have been protected under a glass dome and originally paired with a similarly-sized bust of the Ecce Homo (Christ as the Man of Sorrows). The Fitzwilliam Museum has already raised a substantial amount towards the work (including £30,000 from the Art Fund and £10,000 from The Henry Moore Foundation) but needs to secure a further £85,000 by the end of September 2014 in order to acquire the remarkable bust. [link]

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The Race to Find New Art Collectors

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Kelly Crow

Korean collector Hong-gyu Shin bid on a $142 million Francis Bacon, but lost Nicholas Hunt/Patrick McMullan

In early May, Christie's invited a group of 18 new collectors from China to visit New York. The auction house threw the guests a lavish dinenr at its Rockefellor Center ballroom, escorted them on guided tours through the Museum of Moden Art and arranged VIP tickets to a local art fair. Christie's efforts paid off: During its May 13 contemporary art ales, members of the grip placed bids on at least half the top 10 priciest pieces in what became an historic $745 million auction. [link]

A quarter of all art-auction sales were made to first-time buyers this year. An inside look at Sotheby's and Christie's global quest to identify and recruit them.

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Folk Art Collection of Robert Hicks Now on View at Customs House Museum

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

TENNESSEE---The Customs House Museum is exhibiting works from the Folk Art collection of Robert Hicks, the first Tennessean to be included in Art & Antiques magazine’s Top 100 Collectors in America. Folk Art is art which does not come out of the fine art tradition. Folk Artists are typically from rural or pre-industrial societies, and are more closely related to craftsmen than to fine artists. Today, the term “Outsider Art” is often used in place of “Folk Art”. Outsider art is defined as art produced by self-taught artists who are not part of the artistic establishment. The Customs House Museum and Cultural Center is the State’s second largest general museum.

Customs House Museum: "The Outsiders" (Ends September 7, 2014); 200 South Second Street, Clarksville, TN; (931) 648-5780; customshousemuseum.org

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ARTnews Releases it's 200 Top Collectors

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

Every artist wants to know who is collecting, but more importantly who is buying the kind of art that they create. The annual ARTnews 200 is a place to start. It begins at the top with the world's most active art buyers: name, location, profession, and genre of collecting. A full version of this story originally appeared in the Summer 2014 issue of ARTnews on page 52. [link]

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Famed Jewish Composer's Hilltop Home Comes With a Surprise Buddha

CURBED.COM
By Lily di Costanzo

NEW YORK---Formerly home to late Oscar, Grammy, Emmy, Tony, and Pulitzer Prize-winning (whew) composer Marvin Hamlisch, this hilltop property in Bedford, N.Y., just hit the market for $7.95M. And though the place was originally built in 1968, it underwent a major renovation effort four years ago, leaving behind pretty, neutral-hued decor and exactly one massive, totally unexpected buddha mural. [link]

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White Mid-Century Blues Collectors Are Getting a Lot of Attention Today

THE NEW REPUBLIC
By Barry Mazor

In mid-April, The New York Times Magazine published a cover story that might have been taken as a sign of a leap in interest in pre-World War II acoustic blues. Constructed to maximize suspense, that story—and the peculiarities of white, educated blues obsessives—was the element that justified the article’s prominence in a publication not otherwise known for introducing forgotten music by minor artists of earlier eras. The magazine’s editors are not alone. In the weeks since then, four new books have been published that take up related themes: stories of middlemen blues researchers and record collectors, often, of guys who’ve been both. [link]

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Cowboy Artist, Gib Singleton Was Favorite of Roman Catholic Popes

VAIL DAILY
By Kimberly Nicoletti

Singletons "The Dove" is an anchor at the end of the gallery.

COLORADO---With the odds stacked against Gib Singleton, no one would have predicted what profound effect he would impress upon the art world. Even after Jacqueline Kennedy recruited him to restore Renaissance art lost to floods in Europe and the Vatican enlisted him to restore Michelangelo’s Pieta, Singleton still ended up often hungry, sleeping on beaches in Connecticut and selling his work on the streets of New York. Singleton’s bowed Christ on the cross so impressed the Vatican that popes since John Paul II carried it on their crosier. Singleton transferred that representation of woe to one of his last pieces before he died on Feb. 28, 2014. He depicted Abraham Lincoln after the Civil War, with shoulders slumped, knowing he was about to be assassinated. [link]

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India's National Museum Hosts First Art Exhibit by Private Donor

THE HINDU
By Ians

Some of the artefacts from South India on general display at the National Museum in New Delhi. Photo: R. V. Moorthy

INDIA---For the first time since its inception, the National Museum here will host an exhibition featuring artefacts from a private donor’s collection, an official said Tuesday. The month—long ‘A Passionate Eye’ exhibition will open Friday and showcase around 100 works from the private collection of art connoisseur C. L. Bharany and his father, all of which they collected from across India. Sculptures in stone, bronze and wood; paintings on paper and cloth; manuscripts and textiles from over the past two millennia will be shown in this exhibition curated by three experts. “It thus acknowledges one of many people who have helped gather items of our cultural heritage,” National Museum director general Venu V. said in a statement. “It highlights the role private collectors have played in enriching the nation’s public museums,” he added. [link]

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El Paso Museum of Art Announces Retablo Exhibition Focused on "Saint Francis"

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS
By TAHLIB

Anonymous (Mexico, 19th Century) Saint Francis of Paola, 19th Century

TEXAS---Today's Pope Francis is the head of the Roman Catholic faith, but his namesakes: Sait Francis of Assisi and Saint Francis of Paola were of different eras, and this summer, the El Paso Museum of Art has organized an exhibition of these historic Saint Francis' that spotlights the museum's growing collection of retablos. A retablo or lamina is a Latin American devotional painting, especially a small popular or folk art one using iconography derived from traditional Catholic church art.

El Paso Museum of Art: "Saint Francis of Assisi and Saint Francis of Paola" (Ends November 2, 2014) in Dorrance and Olga Roderick Gallery: Retablo Niche; One Arts Festival Plaza, El Paso, TX; (915) 532-1707; elpasoartmuseum.org

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Catholic League Mocks Sotheby's Auction of ‘Piss Christ’ by Andres Serrano

THE DAILY CALLER
By Rachel Stoltzfoos

"Piss Christ" (1987) by Andres Serrano in artist's frame for auction

NEW YORK---Andres Serrano’s controversial photograph, “Piss Christ,” is for sale, and the Catholic League thinks anyone who would buy it is a “sucker” and a “lout.” The Catholic League, an organization founded to defend the rights of Catholics, has condemned the piece in the past as “gratuitous and intentionally insulting.” Sotheby’s, one of the world’s largest brokers of art, will auction a print Thursday at 9:30 a.m., and expects to get between $100,000 and $150,000 for it. ”The Catholic League will not make a bid,” Donahue added in the statement. “But we are interested in interviewing the sucker who buys it. If you know who the lout is, please have him give us a call.” Serrano has said he wasn’t trying to offend. ”At the time I made Piss Christ, I wasn’t trying to get anything across,” he told The Guardian. “In hindsight, I’d say Piss Christ is a reflection of my work, not only as an artist, but as a Christian.” [link]

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Imran Qureshi's First Project in an American Art Museum Opens at The Broad MSU

ALPHA OMEGA ARTS NEWS 
By TAHLIB

Imran Qureshi, And They Still Seek the Traces of Blood, 2013. View from “Imran Qureshi: Artist of the Year 2013” at Deutsche Bank KunstHalle, Berlin. Courtesy the artist and Corvi-Mora, London. Photo: Mathias Schormann

MICHIGAN---East Lansing's Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University presents a new exhibition showcasing work by one of the most dynamic contemporary religious artists working today. Born in Hyderabad, Pakistan, in 1972, Imran Qureshi has developed a contemporary aesthetic that integrates twenty-first-century themes with the Islamic motifs and techniques of miniature painting. In 2013, Qureshi's roof-top installation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art set the art world talking about bloody wars fought in the name of religion. For his project at the Broad MSU Qureshi extends his practice by creating an indoor installation—his first in an American art museum.

Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at MSU:  "Imran Qureshi: The God of Small Things" (Ends August 17, 2014); 547 East Circle Drive East Lansing, MI; (517)884-4800; broadmuseum.msu.edu

For his project at the Broad MSU Qureshi extends his practice into 
indoor installation—his first in an American art museum.

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Non-Jewish Couple Donates Holocaust Torah to Virginia University

JEWISH TELEGRAPHIC AGENCY

VIRGINIA---A non-Jewish couple from Arizona donated a 250-year-old Torah scroll recovered from the Nazis to Virginia Commonwealth University. The couple, Martin L. Johnson and Olinda Young of Phoenix, are collectors of antiques and art; an interest in old Bibles led to them to acquire eight Torah scrolls. In recent years, the two have donated Torahs to the University of Pennsylvania, Loyola University in Chicago, Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, the University of Arizona and Arizona State. The Torah will be kept at the VCU Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives, in Richmond, Va. Jack Spiro, who teaches Judaic Culture at VCU, said the scroll will be a great benefit to the university. [link]

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Jewish Artist Gerry Judah and the St Paul’s Crucifix

JEWISH CHRONICLE
By Charlotte Oliver

Cross references: the two new, white cruciform sculptures (Photo: David Barbour)

UNITED KINGDOM--- It is not every day that a Jewish artist is given free rein to make his mark on the walls of St Paul’s Cathedral. But then, Gerry Judah is not one to follow convention — as can be seen by the six-metre-high cruciform sculptures he has constructed, now hanging either side of the famous church’s Nave Pier walls. The sculptor — who was born into a Sephardi community in Calcutta, India and came to the UK with his family at the age of 10 — was approached by St Paul’s officials last year with the unique opportunity to commemorate the centenary of the beginning of the First World War. [link]

Gerry Judah (Photo: Raphael Judah)

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Qatar Splurges on Modern Art Despite Conservatism

GLOBAL POST

"Miraculous Journey" by Damien Hirst (2010)

QATAR---Energy-rich Qatar is gaining a foothold on the global cultural scene by lavishing billions of dollars on renowned artworks, but some could prove controversial in the deeply conservative Gulf monarchy. Damien Hirst's "Miraculous Journey" -- a group of 14 bronze foetus sculptures -- makes an unlikely addition to the landscape of Doha, installed in front of a medical centre on the outskirts of the capital. In 2010 the emirate established the first museum devoted to modern Arab art. The avant-garde vision of Sheikha Al-Mayassa sometimes appears to be on a collision course with the emirate's deeply conservative populace. Conservative interpretations of Islam forbid the portrayal of the human form, equating it with idolatry.[link]

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Museum of Islamic Art Announces ‘Building Our Collection’ Exhibition

PENINSULA QATAR

DOHA---The Museum of Islamic Art (MIA) will give its visitors insight into the process of collecting and displaying art through “Building Our Collection”, a two-part temporary exhibition which opens tomorrow. Located at MIA’s temporary exhibition galleries on the fourth floor, the expo explores why MIA collects Islamic art and how the museum’s collecting and exhibition practices shape people’s understanding of Islamic art culture from China to Spain through artistic and cultural connections between different regions of the Islamic world. The majority of featured objects have never before been on display. [link]

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Bill Viola Unveils Major New Installation At St Paul's Cathedral

ARTLYST

Martyrs is located behind the High Altar of the Cathedral next to the American Memorial Chapel

UNITED KINGDOM---Bill Viola has unveiled a major new installation At St Paul's Cathedral in London. Martyrs, has taken ten years to realise and is the first of two large-scale permanent video installations created by this internationally acclaimed artist. The was inaugurated in St Paul’s Cathedral on 21 May 2014. The installation is the first moving-image artwork to be installed in a British cathedral or church on a long-term basis. Martyrs, is joined in 2015 by a second piece entitled Mary, which the artist has conceived as a companion work. Although installed in an Anglican cathedral, the works will engage with a multi-national, multi-denominational audience, in keeping with a spiritual environment that attracts millions of people of all faiths. [link]

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Artwork Lenders Agree to Extend BYU's 'Sacred Gifts' Exhibit

DESERT NEWS
By Whitney Butters

"The Sermon on the Mount" is a well-known painting by Carl Bloch. (Det Nationalhistoriske Museum Frederiksborg)

UTAH---BYU’s Museum of Art’s “Sacred Gifts" is going to continue giving the rare opportunity to view the works of Carl Bloch, Heinrich Hofmann and Frans Schwartz a little while longer. The museum announced in a news release that the exhibit has been extended through May 26, two weeks past its original closing date. [link]

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For The Love of Basquiat: 25 Years After His Drug Overdose\

VANITY FAIR
By Ingrid Sischy

ELECTRIC DUO Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat
with their collaborative paintings at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in 1985.

NEW YORK---More than 25 years after Jean-Michel Basquiat died of a drug overdose, at 27, his most devoted collectors, Lenore and Herbert Schorr, are sharing their treasures in a show at New York’s Acquavella Galleries. Their memories of the artist, a surrogate son, illuminate his struggle to be seen. After he’d lost faith in the art-world establishment, Basquiat even asked Herb, a scientist and self-described “nerd,” to take over as his dealer. No fool, Herb, he did not give up his day job. What he did do, though, with Lenore, was build an unparalleled collection of Basquiat’s work, some of it bought directly from the artist’s studio, all of it clearly chosen with eyes that knew what they were looking at. [link]

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From Noah to Moses, Why the Renewed Interest in Bible Films? 80 Million Tickets

FINANCIAL TIMES
By Randy Bagoda

Charlton Heston as Moses in Cecil B de Mille’s ‘The Ten Commandments’ (1956)

HOLLYWOOD---There hasn’t been this much Hollywood interest in biblical material since the last midcentury, when movies such as Quo Vadis (1951), The Robe (1953), The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben-Hur, Solomon and Sheba, The Big Fisherman (all released in 1959), and King of Kings (1961) came out to popular and critical success, establishing what we now expect from Bible movies: that they be outsized spectacles of event and feeling, frequently melodramatic, and occasionally lurid, but usually respectful of their source material. Market opportunism is clearly one of the factors informing Hollywood’s latest come-to-Jesus moment. There are 80 million conservative evangelical Christians in the US alone. [link]

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Sikhs Buy Back Their History One Bid at a Time, But Say Museum Space is a Hard Sell

THE GLOBE & MAIL
By DAKSHANA BASCARAMURTY

The sword is believed to have been owned by Maharajah Ranjit Singh, the founder of the Sikh Empire in India.

CANADA---“In the last 10 to 20 years, there’s been a huge surge of what are classified as Sikh objects entering the market,” said Deepali Dewan, senior curator of South Asian Arts & Culture at the Royal Ontario Museum. “Because of the demand mostly coming from the Sikh community, the prices have skyrocketed … it has priced museums out of the market.” Although Canada’s Sikh population is large – 1.4 per cent of the population follows Sikhism (compared to 1.9 per cent in India) – none of the major galleries or museums has a sizable permanent collection devoted to Sikh history in India. Even internationally, representation of Sikh history in major museums is limited, Ms. Dewan says. [link]

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