Getty Acquires 105 Glass Plate Holograms, Ethiopian Emperor's Locks of Hair Repatriated
Plus, Rice Public Art acquires an Ursula von Rydingsvard sculpture, and Basquiat sells at auction.
The J. Paul Getty Museum has acquired 105 glass plate holograms by 20 artists related to the C-Project, a collaboration that began in the early 1990s of contemporary artists and holographers experimenting with the hologram process. The glass plate holograms were donated by the Archival Master Plate Collection, LIC, through Guy and Nora Barron, members of the C-Project. The donation also includes a portion of the C-Project archive that includes research and correspondence, photographs, digital files, films, VHS tapes, and collages. Among the 105 glass plate holograms are 89 non-editioned plates that are viewable with the directed laser light of an LED light created by the C-Project between 1994 and 1999. 16 final editioned holograms were created in 2017. Artists whose works are a part of the donation include Richard Artschwager, John Baldessari, Larry Bell, Ross Bleckner, Louise Bourgeois, Pol Bury, Chuck Close, Marisol Escobar, Al Held, Roy Lichtenstein, Anne McCoy, Tatsuo Miyajima, Malcolm Morley, Eric Orr, Larry Rivers, Dorothea Rockburne, Ed Ruscha, Robert Ryman, Richard Smith, and James Turrell. [via email announcement]
Ruby City in San Antonio, TX has acquired Joyce J. Scott’s sculpture “Breathe” (2014). The sculpture is of a red Buddha giving birth, made from Murano-blown glass and beadwork. “Breathe” will join the Linda Pace Foundation’s permanent collection, going on display alongside works by Wangechi Mutu, Xu Bing, and Sarah Charlesworth, among others. [via email announcement]
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has acquired a portrait of Irishman Captain Richard Bayly, by 18th-century British landscape and portrait artist Joseph Wright of Derby. Bayly served in the French and Indian War, and the portrait was painted circa 1760, after he returned to Britain, in the uniform he wore in America. The portrait was purchased using The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collection Funds. [via email announcement]
The National Army Museum in the UK has agreed to return two locks of hair belonging to Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros II, after a repatriation request from Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. The Museum claims that the hair was donated in 1959 by relatives of an artist who painted the emperor on his deathbed. However, last year, Hirut Woldemariam, Ethiopia’s minister for culture and tourism told the Associated Press, “Displaying human parts in websites and museums is inhumane.” Terri Dendy, the National Army Museum’s head of collections standards and care said in a statement, “Having spent considerable time researching the provenance and cultural sensitivities around this matter, we believe the Ethiopian government claim to repatriate is reasonable and we are pleased to be able to assist. Our decision to repatriate is very much based on the desire to inter the hair within the tomb alongside the Emperor.” [Al Jazeera]
Rice Public Art has acquired Ursula von Rydingsvard’s seven-foot sculpture “Malutka II,” carved from cedar, then cast in bronze, and Sol LeWitt’s “Wall Drawing #1115: Circle within a square, each with broken bands of color” (2004). Von Rydingsvard’s sculpture will be installed on Rice University’s Campus on “a grassy space” near the Cambridge Office Building entrance. The acquisition was made possible through the university’s “half-percent-for-art” program. At the Glassock School of Continuing Studies, LeWitt’s drawing will be installed in the Dean’s Commons of the Anderson-Clark Center this fall. The acquisition was a gift of Rice alumnus H. Russell Pitman, class of 1958.
Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Day Auction in London brought in a total of £16,106,625 (~$21,202,000) on March 6. The sale’s top lot, Keith Haring’s “Untitled” (1983), sold for £975,000 (~$1,283,000).
Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction in London brought in a total of £93,205,800 (~$122,693,000) on March 5. The sale’s top lot, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s “Apex” (1986), sold for £8,227,950 (~$10,831,000).
Sotheby’s Contemporary Curated sale in New York brought in a total of $36,845,800 on March 1. The sale’s top lot, Kerry James Marshall’s “Untitled (Painter)” (2008), sold for $7,325,800.
Sotheby’s By Women, For Tomorrow’s Women sale in New York brought in a total of $3,928,875 on March 1. The sale’s top lot, Carmen Herrera’s “Blanco y Verde” (1966–67), sold for $2,900,000.
Sotheby’s Important Picasso Ceramics online sale brought in a total of £509,750 (~$671,000) on February 28. The sale’s top lot, Pablo Picasso’s “Vase Aztèque aux Quatre Visages” (1957), sold for £93,750 (~$123,000).
Sotheby’s sale of American Art in New York brought in a total of $3,335,875 on March 6. The sale’s top lot, Milton Avery’s “Portrait of the Artist’s Daughter Reading” (1951), sold for $425,000.
Christie’s online sale of Matisse on Paper: Prints and Drawings from the Estate of Jacquelyn Miller Matisse brought in a total of $891,250 from February 21–March 1. The sale’s top lots, Henri Matisse’s “Tête” (1936) and “Femme accoudée” (1935), sold for $75,000 each.
Christie’s online sale of Picasso Ceramics brought in a total of £1,470,750 (~$1,936,000) from February 22–March 1. The sale’s top lot, Pablo Picasso’s “Plat à la tête de faune” (1948), sold for £93,750 (~$123,000).
Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale in London brought in a total of £16,723,000 (~$22,014,000) on February 28. The sale’s top lot, Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s “Vase d’anémones” (c. 1910), sold for £851,250 (~$1,121,000).
Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper sale in London brought in a total of £7,098,875 (~$9,345,000) on February 28. The sale’s top lot, Marc Chagall’s “L’été, Les moissommeuses (Les quatres saisons)” (1974), sold for £671,250 (~$884,000).
Christie’s Post-War to Present sale in New York brought in a total of $20,963,750 on February 28. The sale’s top lot, Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled (Last Light)” (1993), sold for $867,000.
