Category Archives: Art

Artist captures the impact of climate crisis over 150 years on Mont Blanc

Posted on by

Paintings from a climb that retraced an 1800s route on western Europe’s highest mountain reveals the extent of the peak’s melting ice

A British landscape artist who recreated a climb made 150 years ago to document the impact of the climate crisis on western Europe’s highest mountain says what he found was so grim it reminded him of the “dark paintings” of Francisco de Goya.

James Hart Dyke ascended Mont Blanc’s ancien passage north face, the route taken in 1786 by the first climbers to reach the summit. It was also the same one taken in August 1873 by French painter Gabriel Loppé, whose climb inspired Hart Dyke’s own.

Continue reading...

Bye bye brutalism, hello Instagrammers: inside Geelong’s spectacular $140m arts centre

Posted on by

Australia’s newest and largest regional arts centre features malleable theatres, Indigenous art and spaces especially designed to get your camera out

When Joel McGuinness was brought on to oversee the redevelopment of the Geelong Arts Centre, and subsequently run the venue as its CEO and creative director, he wanted to change more than the 1980s building’s brutalist aesthetics. He wanted to redefine its purpose, to open it up to people who may have thought they didn’t belong.

“I really wanted to challenge the notion of black box theatres that turn their back on the world,” he says. “To change the relationship between the art and the audience. Because when the baby boomers die out, maybe the institutions as we know them will die out too.”

Continue reading...

Owner ‘mortified’ Margate gallery was closed when Pedro Pascal turned up

Posted on by

Hollywood star had come to see an exhibition featuring 17 images of his face, but found the door locked

The owner of an art gallery featuring an exhibition dedicated to Hollywood star Pedro Pascal said she was “mortified” the gallery was closed when the actor turned up for a visit.

Jessica Rhodes Robb, who owns and runs the venue with her partner, Gavin Blake, was bemused to discover Pascal, 48, had turned up to the Rhodes Gallery in Margate on Sunday to find the door closed.

Continue reading...

Archibald prize 2023: Noni Hazlehurst portrait wins people’s choice award

Posted on by

Jaq Grantford’s portrait of the beloved actor and former Play School presenter wins $5,000 prize decided by the public

A realist portrait of television personality and actor Noni Hazlehurst has won the $5,000 people’s choice award for the 2023 Archibald prize, announced at the Art Gallery of New South Wales on Wednesday.

It is a first-time Archibald win for Melbourne artist Jaq Grantford and the second portrait the artist has painted of Hazlehurst.

Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning

Continue reading...

Ukraine creates database of art linked to sanctions-hit Russians

Posted on by

Corruption agency hopes portal will ‘make it difficult for Russian oligarchs to sell such assets’

From Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi to Andy Warhol’s Four Marilyns, it amounts to an art collection that could grace any gallery in the world.

But rather than being the highlights of a blockbuster exhibition at a major gallery, these are just some of the 300, and counting, pieces known to have been recently owned by Russian nationals under western sanctions that have been entered into a searchable database set up by Ukraine’s National Agency on Corruption Prevention (NACP).

Continue reading...

Art dealer ordered to pay £111,000 over missing painting by Mexican artist

Posted on by

Esperanza Koren told London court she didn’t know whereabouts of Bosco Sodi’s painting

An art dealer has been ordered to pay £111,000 over a missing abstract painting compared to a giant “burnt digestive biscuit” by a judge in a London court.

The court heard that the piece by the Mexican artist Bosco Sodi – a round painting with a cracked surface built up using natural pigment, sawdust, wood pulp, natural fibres, water and glue – went missing after being loaned to the London art dealer Esperanza Koren in 2012.

Continue reading...

LGBTQ+ military charity backs proposal for Alan Turing statue on fourth plinth

Posted on by

Trafalgar Square monument would stand in ‘stark contrast’ to treatment codebreaker received in his lifetime

An LGBTQ+ armed forces charity has backed proposals to erect a statue of the second world war codebreaker Alan Turing on Trafalgar Square’s fourth plinth – a high-profile platform for contemporary art commissions.

The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, originally made the suggestion in the House of Commons last week in response to an independent review into the service and experience of LGBTQ+ veterans who served under the pre-2000 ban on homosexuality in the armed forces.

Continue reading...

Australian art dealer Tim Klingender found dead in Sydney Harbour following boating incident

Posted on by

Police recovered the body of Klingender, who was employed by Sotheby’s for two decades, off Watson’s Bay in Sydney on Thursday

The Australian art world is in shock after the body of art dealer Tim Klingender was recovered from waters off Sydney’s Watsons Bay on Thursday morning.

NSW police’s Marine Area Command found a man’s body floating among debris at around 10.20am on Thursday, following what is believed to be a boating accident.

Continue reading...

Anti-Lukashenko artist Ales Pushkin dies in Belarus prison aged 57

Posted on by

Artist who once depicted authoritarian leader in hell died in ‘unclear circumstances’, his wife says

A Belarusian artist who once dumped manure outside the office of the president, Alexander Lukashenko, has died in prison, where he was serving a five-year sentence.

Ales Pushkin died in the prison in Grodno in western Belarus of an unknown cause, even though the 57-year-old was not known to be sick, the Viasna human rights centre said on Tuesday.

Continue reading...

‘It’s like a hostile environment’: London’s creative core at risk as artists in poverty quit

Posted on by

UK capital as ‘huge generator of wealth’ under threat as a third of visual artists struggle to pay for studios

What makes Britain’s capital city so magnetic? Familiar landmarks? The nightlife? Or its financial, fashion and art trades? Maybe. But behind the glamour and money a network of artists is giving London the crucial appeal of a place where new things happen, while working on the edge of poverty.

A survey released on 13 July is to reveal just how close many of London’s visual artists are to giving up on a career that has pushed them to the bottom of the pile. Close to a third of those asked said lack of funds might force them out within five years. And just under half said they cannot afford to build savings or pay into a pension plan.

Continue reading...

Camera brings ‘unprecedented clarity’ to restoration of historic artworks

Posted on by

Technology will allow conservators to use fluorescence to identify and remove ageing varnish with total accuracy

Scientists have developed technology that will revolutionise the restoration of historic works of art by allowing conservators to identify and remove ageing varnish with total accuracy.

A team at King’s College London’s department of physics has harnessed the power of fluorescence to bring “unprecedented clarity” to the conservation process, said Prof Klaus Suhling.

Continue reading...

‘Highly unusual’: lost 17th-century portrait of black and white women as equals saved for UK

Posted on by

Exclusive: Unknown artwork was barred from leaving the UK after surfacing at an auction in 2021

A painting has been saved for the UK in recognition of its “outstanding significance” for the study of race and gender in 17th-century Britain, it will be announced on Friday.

The anonymous artist’s portrait of two women – one black and one white, depicted as companions and equals with similar dress, hair and jewellery – has been bought by Compton Verney, an award-winning gallery in Warwickshire.

Continue reading...

Banksy show officially authorised by elusive street artist to open in Glasgow

Posted on by

Show at Gallery of Modern Art inspired by city’s Duke of Wellington statue with traffic cone on its head, says artist

An exhibition of work by Banksy is to open in Glasgow this weekend. The solo, show Cut & Run, taking place at the city’s Gallery of Modern Art (GoMA), has been officially authorised by the elusive street artist.

It spans 25 years and will feature many of the stencils he has used to create his work. Banksy told the Herald: “I’ve kept these stencils hidden away for years, mindful they could be used as evidence in a charge of criminal damage.

Continue reading...

Art dealer sentenced to more than two years for fake Andy Warhol paintings

Posted on by

A 69-year-old Florida dealer is set to go to federal prison after a scheme involving the sale of fake artwork

A south Florida art dealer was sentenced on Tuesday to two years and three months in federal prison in connection with a scheme involving the sale of fake Andy Warhol paintings.

Daniel Elie Bouaziz, 69, was sentenced in Fort Pierce federal court, according to court records. He pleaded guilty in February to a single count of money laundering, while prosecutors agreed to drop 16 other counts related to fraud and embezzlement. Bouaziz was fined $15,000, and a restitution hearing is scheduled for 16 August.

Continue reading...

Rolf Harris, convicted sex offender and entertainer, dies aged 93

Posted on by

Australian-born artist and musician was jailed for sexual assaults on children after a 50-year career as one of Britain’s best-known TV performers

The entertainer Rolf Harris, whose career as one of the best-loved performers on British TV ended in the disgrace of convictions for indecent assault on teenage girls, has died aged 93.

In October 2022, it was reported that Harris had neck cancer and was barely able to speak. His death was confirmed by a registrar at Maidenhead town hall, close to his family home in the Berkshire village of Bray.

Continue reading...

Fears looted Nazi art still hanging in Belgian and British galleries

Posted on by

Leading art museums are reassessing their works after a Belgian journalist traced how a fascist sympathiser acquired a Jewish dealer’s collection

In August 1940, Samuel Hartveld and his wife, Clara Meiboom, boarded the SS Exeter ocean liner in Lisbon, bound for New York. Aged 62, Hartveld, a successful Jewish art dealer, left a world behind. The couple had fled their home city of Antwerp not long before the Nazi invasion of Belgium in May 1940, parting with their 23-year-old son, Adelin, who had decided to join the resistance.

Hartveld also said goodbye to a flourishing gallery in a fine art deco building in the Flemish capital, a rich library and more than 60 paintings. The couple survived the war, but Adelin was killed in January 1942. Hartveld was never reunited with his paintings, which were snapped up at a bargain-basement price by a Nazi sympathiser and today are scattered throughout galleries in north-western Europe, including Tate Britain.

Continue reading...

Falklands war art installation given ‘fitting place’ in Portsmouth

Posted on by

Standing With Giants, created for 40th anniversary, commemorates troops and islanders who died

Lifesize silhouetted figures representing the 255 British military personnel and three civilians who lost their lives in the Falklands war have been installed on the parade ground and ramparts at Fort Nelson in Portsmouth.

The art installation, Standing With Giants, was created to mark the 40th anniversary of the conflict and its arrival in the Hampshire port is regarded as particularly poignant as so many of the British ships left and returned there.

Continue reading...

UK imposes sanctions on art collector accused of financing Hezbollah

Posted on by

Nazem Ahmad, who has owned works by Picasso and Warhol, suspected of laundering money for militant group

A high-profile art collector has been put on a Treasury sanctions list and charged in the US over claims that he uses his collection, which has included masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Antony Gormley and Andy Warhol, to launder money for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

Nazem Ahmad, a diamond and art dealer who once posed in his Beirut penthouse for a glossy magazine and featured in a piece about the “world’s most beautiful homes and the fascinating people who live in them”, has been targeted in the UK under new counter-terrorism powers.

Continue reading...

Man admits to Basquiat forgery scheme which saw fakes displayed in museum

Posted on by

Michael Barzman sold paintings created in ‘maximum of 30 minutes’ by accomplice, justice department says

To the admiring patrons of a special exhibition at the Orlando Museum of Art, they were among Jean-Michel Basquiat’s finest works, the angst of the troubled 1980s neo-expressionist rebel shining through the vivid colors of the compositions before them.

But what the paying public was really viewing were fakes, hastily slapped on offcuts of cardboard in 30 minutes or less by an unscrupulous auctioneer and an accomplice cashing in on the late artist’s famous name.

Continue reading...

John Olsen, celebrated Australian artist, dies aged 95

Posted on by

In a career spanning seven decades best known for his landscapes, Olsen won the Archibald prize in 2005 for a self-portrait

John Olsen, one of Australia’s most celebrated artists best known for his landscapes, has died aged 95.

Olsen, who won the Archibald prize in 2005 for a self-portrait and was appointed to the Order of Australia in 2001, passed away on Tuesday evening surrounded by his family.

Continue reading...