Art Movements
This week in art news: A Cezanne catalogue raisonné was published online for public use, a brutalist structure is to be converted into an arts center, and a watercolor by Adolf Hitler sold for $161,000.
Art Movements is a weekly collection of news, developments, and stirrings in the art world.
The Kunstmuseum Bern accepted hundreds of art works bequeathed by Cornelius Gurlitt. The museum maintains that it will return any Nazi-looted pieces whose rightful owners can be identified. One of Gurlitt’s cousins, Uta Werner, intends to contest Gurlitt’s will.
The ruins of St. Peter’s Seminary, a brutalist structure designed by Gillespie, Kidd and Coia, is to be converted into an arts venue. Built in Cardross, Scotland in 1966, the structure has been disused for 25 years (image above).
A catalogue raisonné of Cezanne’s work has been made fully available to the public. It can be accessed in full at cezannecatalogue.com.
The Middle East Studies Association passed a resolution affirming members’ rights to boycott the Israeli state.
The New-York Historical Society announced plans to open a new center for the study of women’s history.
A Shakespeare First Folio was discovered in a library in Saint-Omer, near Calais, France.
Oakland’s City Council passed a law requiring private developers to set aside 1% of their project costs for public art.
The Armory Show published its 2015 exhibitor list.
The “Jason Tapestries,” designed by eighteenth-century French artist Jean Francois de Troy, are to go on display at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art through April 2015. The four tapestries (thought to have been part of a set of seven) will go on display in the Morgan Great Hall during the final stages of the museum’s $33 million renovation (image below).
Transitions
The Sonnabend Gallery will represent its artists without a physical exhibition space. The gallery plans to lease its Chelsea space to Lehmann Maupin from January.
Kent Devereaux was appointed president of the New Hampshire Institute of Art.
Alex Poots has been named artistic director and chief executive of New York’s Culture Shed.
Ugo Rondinone and Vin Cipolla joined the Public Art Fund‘s board of directors.
The Wide Water Gallery in Ottawa, Illinois, is to close.
Transactions
Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian purchased a Tibetan tapestry at Christie’s for HK$348 million ($45 million), breaking his previous record for the highest price paid for a Chinese work of art.
Outgoing Sotheby’s CEO, William Ruprecht, will receive $4 million in severance.
The University of Texas acquired the personal archive of Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Márquez.
A watercolor attributed to Adolf Hitler sold for €130,000 ($161,000) at auction.
The Cowardly Lion costume from the Wizard of Oz (1939) sold for $3.07 million at a Bonhams auction of Hollywood memorabilia.
Accolades
Elena Damiani has been commissioned to design a permanent installation for the Americas Society headquarters at 680 Park Avenue (image above)
Njideka Akunyili Crosby was awarded the 2014 James Dicke Contemporary Artist Prize.
Anri Sala won the 2014 Vincent Award.
Obituaries
Film and theatre director Mike Nichols (1931–2014), best known for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), The Graduate (1967), and Postcards from the Edge (1990).
Photographer Lewis Baltz (1945–2014), a key figure in the New Topographics movement.
