May 2011 - Page 5 of 18 - Auction Central News

Rhinoceros horn libation cup, China, 18th century, 3 3/8 inches high, 6 3/8 inches long. Estimate: $5,000-$7,000. Image courtesy of Skinner Inc.

Skinner to present 3-session Asian arts auction June 2-4

May 24, 2011/in Upcoming Auctions/by Tom Hoepf

Rhinoceros horn libation cup, China, 18th century, 3 3/8 inches high, 6 3/8 inches long. Estimate: $5,000-$7,000. Image courtesy of Skinner Inc.

BOSTON – Skinner Inc will host a major auction of Asian art at their Boston gallery, 63 Park Plaza, in three sessions Thursday, June 2, through Saturday, June 4. With 1586 lots, including paintings, jade, bronzes, and porcelain pieces, this sale is indicative of the strength of the Asian art market, said James Callahan, Skinner’s director of Asian Works of Art.

LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.

Callahan calls the event a “must-attend,” noting that “the Asian art market shows no sign of cooling down. Skinner is outpacing the competition and continues to put together really expansive sales.”

The first session, June 2, includes lots 1 – 242. Of particular interest is lot 55, a bronze Buddhist stele of rare Burmese material collected in the 1960s or ’70s. The piece is pagan, dated to the 12th century, and features the seated figure of Bhaigrava Buddha with two attendant deities. The estimated value is $8,000-$12,000. Also to be auctioned is a large group of Buddhist images including lot 168A, a carved giltwood image of Buddha from Japan. This 19th century figure of Amida Nyorai stands about 16 inches tall and is valued between $300 and $500.

In the second session, on June 3, lots 243 – 975 will be auctioned. An impressive giltwood Buddha, lot 284, from the Ming Dynasty will be available. The estimated value is $800 -$1,200. For fine examples of scholar’s items, including a piece featured on the catalog cover, see lot 419 from a very old upstate New York collection. The gourd vase from China, dated to the early-mid 19th century, is dated a winter month in jiazi year. “Xing You Heng Tang” is marked on the base. The piece is valued at $800-$1,200. Several brush pots will also be offered including lot 450A, a bamboo brush pot from 18th century China. The pot is inscribed, signed, and dated guichou year and is estimated at $800-$1,200. Another unique bamboo piece is a Chinese carving, dated to the 18th or 19th century, of a seated old man. Lot 459 is valued at $2,500-$3,500.

Also in session II is lot 466, a lacquered box containing six archer’s rings. Made in China in the 19th century, enclosed are three gray-white jade archer’s rings. It bears a Qianlong mark, and is estimated at $500-$700. From a Massachusetts collection, Skinner will auction lot 480, a rare rhinoceros cup. Rhinoceros horns are becoming increasingly scarce, and this beautiful 18th century Chinese cup is valued at $5,000-$7,000. From an old New England collection comes another large 18th century ivory carving from China. In a size rarely seen, this standing figure of a goddess, lot 553, is estimated at $800-$1,200. Session II also features a large number of fine jades, including lot 945, a jade planter made in 19th century China, made from jade of a highly-translucent white color, and valued at $300-$500.

The third session of the auction, June 4, will include lots 976-1586. This session will feature many jades, vases, some textiles, fans, scrolls, paintings and snuff bottles. Lot 984 is a jadeite carving of Guanyin on an ivory stand from China. Made in the 18th century, this carved standing figure is an emerald green color and is estimated at $10,000-$15,000. A jade double-gourd vase and cover from China, lot 1024, was made in the 18th or 19th century, and is valued at $2,000-$3,000.

Lot 1115, a Kesi dragon robe, comes to Skinner with an interesting history. It was made in China in the 18th century and was given to Dr. Harvey J. Howard by Pu Yi, the last emperor of China. Howard was in China as the head of the Department of Ophthalmology at Union Medical College in Peking from 1917-1927 and served as the ophthalmologist to Pu Yi, from 1921 to 1925. The estimated value is $8,000-$12,000.

Session III also features paintings from the Pah-Yuen/Boyuan Wang collection, pieces from which previously achieved prices totaling $1.9 million in the last Skinner Asian Art sale. Lot 1157 is a fan painting by Wu Changshuo and has an estimated value of $800-$1,200. Another fan painting, from the same collection, is lot 1158 by Jin Cai and has an estimate of $600-$800.

Previews will be held for the entire auction Thursday, June 2, 9 a.m.-7 p.m. and for the third session only Friday, June 3, 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

For details visit www.skinnerinc.com or call 508-970-3000.

View the fully illustrated catalogs and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

Bronze Buddhist stele, Burma, pagan, 12th century, 9 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches. Estimate: $8,000-$12,000. Image courtesy of Skinner Inc.

Gourd vase, China, early to mid-19th century, ‘Xing You Heng Tang’ mark to the base, 12 1/4 inches high. Estimate: $800-$1,200. Image courtesy of Skinner Inc.

Fan painting, Jin Cai (1841-?), ink and color on paper, depiction of prunus branches, lingzhi fungus plants, and rockery, inscribed, signed ‘Xianiu Jin Cai,’ dated autumn in renyin year (1902), 20 1/4 x 6 3/4 inches. Estimate: $600-$800. Image courtesy of Skinner Inc.

Alfred Jacob Miller (American, 1810-1874), The Indian Guide, painted circa 1840-1860, 16 x 18 inches (framed). Bank of America Collection. Exhibition opens June 4, 2011 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo credit: John Lamberton. Image courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Watercolor exhibition depicts visions of American frontier

May 24, 2011/in Museums/by Catherine Saunders-Watson

Alfred Jacob Miller (American, 1810-1874), The Indian Guide, painted circa 1840-1860, 16 x 18 inches (framed). Bank of America Collection. Exhibition opens June 4, 2011 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Photo credit: John Lamberton. Image courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

PHILADELPHIA – The American West was a source of great fascination for Easterners and visitors to this country alike during the 19th century. Novelists such as James Fenimore Cooper and Charles Bird King capitalized on this fascination with books such as King’s Young Omaha, War Eagle, Little Missouri, and Pawnees, featuring descriptions of wild mountain men and Native Americans that incited the public’s imagination about life on the frontier.

Alfred Jacob Miller (1810–1874) was one of the first American artists to paint the American West, producing beautiful watercolors of the remarkable landscape, exotic wildlife, and Native American peoples that he encountered during the trips he made through the Great Plains and into the Rocky Mountains during the late 1830s.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art’s June 4-Sept. 18, 2011 exhibition titled Romancing the West presents a selection of 30 rarely seen watercolors from Miller’s most important body of work: the images he created in1837 when traveling with the Scottish adventurer Captain William Drummond Stewart west from St. Louis to Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains, along what would become known as the Oregon Trail.

“As a greenhorn from the East, Miller captured life in the West with wide-eyed admiration, depicting the landscape in a captivating way,” said Kathleen A. Foster, the Robert L. McNeil, Jr. Senior Curator of American Art, and Director, Center for American Art. “He was also a vivacious and accomplished draftsman, and gave us a picture of roundups, fur trappers and hunting expeditions that blended visual journalism with the fanciful and made an important contribution to what would become a shared mythology of the West.”

Commissioned by Captain Stewart to document scenes from their travels to the annual fur-trading rendezvous in Wyoming’s Wind River Mountains, Miller spent six months creating hundreds of sketches that would serve as a mine of inspiration for the next three decades. The watercolors in Romancing the West are drawn from a group of more than 1,000 works created during and after his trip. Many feature horsemen riding at breakneck speeds, hunting expeditions, colorfully-dressed fur traders, beautiful Native American women, and all of the thrills of the trail.

Driven by his patron’s agenda, the works Miller created for Stewart depict a heroic and romantic way of life, frequently starring Miller’s enterprising patron as the protagonist. Stewart leads the hunt in Elk Taking the Water, while Chase of the Grizzly Bear, Black Hills suggests the Scotsman’s prowess and bravery in pursuit of the fierce grizzly. Large-game hunting was among Stewart’s favorite leisure activities, and the theme appears in more than one-quarter of the images Miller created for him. When they returned from the trip, Stewart commissioned several large paintings in oil and watercolor from Miller’s original sketches, which were bound into an album he kept back in his castle in Perthshire, Scotland, to illustrate his dramatic tales of his American adventures.

Of different sizes and on different papers, the watercolors in the exhibition suggest works done over time and in different locations. Historical details depicted in works like Departure of the Caravan at Sunrise provide a first-hand record of the contrasts seen between white and Native American travelers and provide important cultural and historical evidence of everyday life on the frontier during the 1830s. Others are based on accounts from other travelers or are drawn from Miller’s imagination, depicting views from vantage points that Miller would never have seen, including Watching the Caravan, depicting two Native Americans peering over the edge of a cliff at a wagon train below. He also embellished certain details, giving fur trappers an air of mystique by replacing ordinary trousers and jackets with elaborate, fringed buckskin ensembles (Old Bill Burrows, a Free Trapper). These romanticized characters and invented landscapes captivated viewers back East and in Europe, many of whom fantasized about the picaresque life of the fur trappers of the Wild West.

Miller’s formal art training, first with Thomas Sully in Baltimore, and later at the École de Beaux-Arts in Paris, presented an opportunity for him to study the Old Masters and to become known as a skilled copyist. He particularly admired the work of Eugène Delacroix and of French Romantic painter Horace Vernet, whose images of horses offered a possible model for On the Warpath – Running Fight, and War Path, both part of the Bank of America collection. Snake Female Reposing, a sensual portrayal of a young woman from the Snake tribe reposing under a tree, references the paintings of Middle Eastern odalisques Miller would have seen in the galleries of the Louvre while training abroad in 1833-34.

As a result, the works in Romancing the West mix fact with fantasy, reflecting frontier life both as it was, and as it was imagined to be. The exhibition offers a glimpse of a thrillingly unknown, frequently mythologized region of the country that was intoxicating to its mid-19th-century Eastern and European viewers.

“Bank of America is committed to strengthening artistic institutions and in turn, the communities we serve,” said Tom Woodward, Bank of America Pennsylvania president. “Sharing our collection with the public through partners such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art not only makes business sense for the bank, but also helps support one of Philadelphia’s finest local cultural anchors.”

Related Exhibitions:

A related exhibition in Gallery 120, Western Movement, will include approximately 20 works from the Museum’s collection of American Art from the 1800s to the present day, focusing on the theme of movement from East to West.

This exhibition is organized by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, from the Bank of America Collection. All of the images in the exhibition are discussed and reproduced in a full-color catalogue, Romancing the West Alfred Jacob Miller in the Bank of America Collection (Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2010) available for sale in the Museum Store.

Bank of America and the Arts:

As one of the world’s largest financial institutions and a major supporter of arts and culture, Bank of America has a vested interest and plays a meaningful role in the international dialogue on cultural understanding. As a global company, Bank of America demonstrates its commitment to the arts by supporting such efforts as after-school arts programs, grants to help expand libraries, programs to conserve artistic heritage as well as a campaign to encourage museum attendance. Bank of America offers customers free access to more than 150 of the nation’s finest cultural institutions through its acclaimed Museums on Us® program, while Art in our Communities® shares exhibits from the company’s corporate collection with communities across the globe through local museum partners. The Bank of America Charitable Foundation also provides philanthropic support to museums, theaters and other arts-related nonprofits to expand their services and offerings to schools and communities. Bank of America partners with more than six thousand arts institutions worldwide.

About the Philadelphia Museum of Art:

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States, showcasing more than 2,000 years of exceptional human creativity in masterpieces of painting, sculpture, works on paper, decorative arts and architectural settings from Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the United States. An exciting addition is the newly renovated and expanded Perelman Building, which opened its doors in September 2007 with five new exhibition spaces, a soaring skylit galleria, and a café overlooking a landscaped terrace. The Museum offers a wide variety of enriching activities, including programs for children and families, lectures, concerts and films.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is located on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th Street in Philadelphia. For general information, call 215-763-8100 or visit the Museum’s website at www.philamuseum.org.

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The International UFO Museum and Research Center, located at 114 North Main in Roswell, N.M. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Latest theory says Roswell UFO was Russian craft

May 24, 2011/in Books/by Tom Hoepf

The International UFO Museum and Research Center, located at 114 North Main in Roswell, N.M. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

ROSWELL, New Mexico (AP) – The world famous Roswell “incident” was no UFO but rather a Russian spacecraft with “grotesque, child-size aviators” developed in human experiments by Nazi doctor and war criminal Josef Mengele, according to a theory floated by investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen.

Her book, Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base, is about the secretive Nevada base called Area 51. One chapter offers the new Roswell theory, citing an anonymous source who says Joseph Stalin recruited Mengele and sent the craft into U.S. air space in 1947 to spark public hysteria.

Like past theories, Jacobsen writes that the U.S. government was involved in a cover-up of the UFO report, which has spawned space alien legend and turned this southern New Mexico town into a tourist attraction.

Bill Lyne, who self-published a book called Space Aliens from the Pentagon in 1993, agrees that the Roswell incident was faked, but he thinks the hoax was perpetrated by the U.S. government – not the Russians.

“They’re just saying what I’ve been saying all along, that it was a hoax,” he told the Santa Fe New Mexican. “But that Mengele stuff is a bunch of hogwash because Mengele was recruited by the CIA (rather than the Russians), and he was actually brought to Albuquerque.”

Clifford Clift of the Mutual UFO Network, or MUFON, in Greeley, Colo., said he has not seen Jacobsen’s book but has read other articles that suggest the Roswell incident involved German technology.

“After researching the claim, I found little truth in this theory,” he said. “It is a stretch. One of my concerns is if they wanted to create panic, why in New Mexico and not New York where there are more people to panic? I would suggest it is another conspiracy theory and, heavens, MUFON knows about conspiracy theories. They do sell books.”

Jacobsen, a contributing editor the Los Angeles Times magazine, told NPR that said she knows people will be skeptical.

“But I absolutely believe the veracity of my source, and I believe it was important that I put his information out there because it is the tip of a very big iceberg,” Jacobsen said.

Julie Schuster, executive director of the International UFO Museum and Research Center in Roswell, told the Albuquerque Journal she hasn’t read the book. But any new theories fuel public interest, and that’s terrific, she said.

“Every time something new comes out, it piques somebody’s curiosity somewhere, and the come to Roswell, and they come to the museum,” Schuster said.

AP-WF-05-23-11 1637GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

The International UFO Museum and Research Center, located at 114 North Main in Roswell, N.M. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Madonna at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival in New York. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Madonna donates boots to daughter’s school auction

May 24, 2011/in Collectibles & Pop Culture/by Tom Hoepf

Madonna at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival in New York. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

NEW YORK (AP) – Bale sales and raffles? So passé.

Now that it boasts Madonna as a parent, New York City’s LaGuardia High School was able to auction off a pair of Chanel boots worn by the Material Mom at its spring fundraiser.

LaGuardia, the so-called “Fame” school, is a public high school specializing in the visual and performing arts. Madonna’s daughter Lourdes enrolled there in September.

The Daily News reports that the LaGuardia auction also featured an item donated by novelist Jonathan Letham, who’s an alum. He auctioned off a chance to become a character in his next book.

There was no information on what either of the lots sold for.

High-profile parents at some New York City schools are able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars at the schools’ annual auctions.

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Information from: Daily News, http://www.nydailynews.com

AP-WF-05-23-11 1457GMT

Study concludes artsy people happier, less stressed

May 24, 2011/in General Interest/by Catherine Saunders-Watson

PARIS (AFP) – People who go to museums and concerts, create art or play an instrument are more satisfied with their lives, regardless of how educated or rich they are, according to a study released Tuesday.

But the link between culture and feeling good about oneself is not quite the same in both sexes, according to the study, published in the British Medical Association’s Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. For men, passive activities such as taking in a concert or museum exhibition are associated with an upbeat mood and better health, it found. For women, though, the link is active, in that they were less likely to feel anxious, depressed or feel unwell if they played music or created art.

Researchers led by Koenraad Cuypers of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology analyzed information culled from 50,797 adults living in Norway’s Nord-Trondelag County. The participants were asked detailed questions about their leisure habits and how they perceived their own state of health, satisfaction with life and levels of depression and anxiety.

The results were unambiguous and somewhat unexpected: not only was the correlation strong between cultural activities and happiness, but men felt better when they were spectators while women clearly preferred doing rather than watching.

Even more surprising was that wealth and education were not an issue.

“After adjusting for relevant confounding factors” – including socio-economic status – “it seemed that cultural participation was independently associated with good health, a low depression score and satisfaction with life dependent on gender,” the study said.

“The results indicate that the use of cultural activities in health promotion and healthcare may be justified,” it concluded.

Questions remain, though, about cause and effect: are people healthier and happier because they are cultured – or do they seek out more culture because they feel good to begin with?

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Pedro Pablo Oliva, Muchacha con Pajaro (Girl with Bird), 2001, mixed media on paper, 46 x 30 in., sold for $6,750 on May 21, 2006 at Wittlin & Serfer. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Wittlin & Serfer.

Prominent Cuban artist Oliva clashes with Communists

May 23, 2011/in People/by Catherine Saunders-Watson

Pedro Pablo Oliva, Muchacha con Pajaro (Girl with Bird), 2001, mixed media on paper, 46 x 30 in., sold for $6,750 on May 21, 2006 at Wittlin & Serfer. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Wittlin & Serfer.

HAVANA (AFP) – One of Cuba’s best-known living painters, Pedro Pablo Oliva, on Monday slammed the Communist government’s “narrow-mindedness” and defended his rights to free expression and to meet with dissidents.

Havana, the Americas’ only one-party Communist-ruled regime, labeled him a “counter-revolutionary” after he met with prominent dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez and published commentary on her award-winning site.

The provincial assembly in Pinar del Rio, where he lives, recently stripped him of his post calling him a “dissident,” and “traitor to the fatherland” in favor of annexing Cuba to the United States.

Oliva struck back, writing in an editorial on his website that “I reject these accusations, made only because I have expressed my ideas. I am a man who will not shut my mouth faced with what I consider a mistake. I want to make some things clear because I also know how to fight back against narrow-mindedness and manipulation,” Oliva wrote.

“I am not paid by the CIA, the Cuban-American National Foundation or anyone else,” he said referring to typical allegations by the government against dissidents. “And what I have, I have earned by dint of my work.”

Saying that he hoped for a better society, Oliva said that “quest does not necessarily have to match the ideas of any one given party … And stagnant thought is a cancer for social evolution.”

On official charges that he met in his workshop with dissidents including Sanchez, Oliva, 62, said “I will choose my own friends … I do not discriminate against others regardless of their political affiliations.”

He also said he regretted living in a country “in which people are obsessed with getting out, no matter where they are going,” and said he had no plans to leave.

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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Pedro Pablo Oliva, Muchacha con Pajaro (Girl with Bird), 2001, mixed media on paper, 46 x 30 in., sold for $6,750 on May 21, 2006 at Wittlin & Serfer. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Wittlin & Serfer.

Ball Wall Clock, designed in 1947 George Nelson (American, 1908-1986). Painted birch, steel, brass, Image courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Collab: The Group for Modern and Contemporary Design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1983.

Philadelphia museum exhibit celebrates design

May 23, 2011/in Art, Design & Architecture/by Tom Hoepf

Ball Wall Clock, designed in 1947 George Nelson (American, 1908-1986). Painted birch, steel, brass, Image courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Collab: The Group for Modern and Contemporary Design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1983.

PHILADELPHIA – Showcasing nearly 60 out of the hundreds of works of modern and contemporary design acquired through the generosity of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s support group for Modern and Contemporary Design, “Collab: Four Decades of Giving Modern and Contemporary Design” features outstanding examples of 20th- and 21st- century furniture, ceramics, glass, lighting and functional objects.

It commemorates the 40th anniversary of Collab, a collaboration of design professionals and enthusiasts founded in 1971 to support the development of the modern and contemporary design collection at the museum through acquisitions, special exhibitions, and programming, and includes important works by leading designers such as Alvar Aalto, Charles and Ray Eames, Frank Gehry, Ettore Sottsass Jr. and Philippe Starck.

“Collab members have demonstrated a sustained commitment to helping the museum acquire key works in the history of design,” said Timothy Rub, the George D. Widener director and CEO at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, “and this effort has made our collection one of the largest and most important of its type in any museum in this country.”

“The exhibition reflects the wonderful depth of the museum’s collection of modern and contemporary design,” said Diane Minnite, Collections and Research assistant, European Decorative Arts and Sculpture, who organized “Collab: Four Decades of Giving.”

The exhibit is arranged chronologically, beginning with a 1907 chair designed by Joseph Hoffmann for the barroom of the Vienna Kaberett Fledermaus, and ending with the 2006 Veryround chair by Danish designer Louise Campbell. All of the works are gifts made to the Museum by Collab or individual members of the committee, and together offer a rich and fascinating overview of modern and contemporary design.

A key object in the exhibition is the MR-20 armchair and stool, made of chrome-plated steel with lacquered caning by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (American, born Germany), which was given to the Museum by Collab in 1978 in memory of Roland Gallimore, a noted Philadelphia architect and chairman of Collab from 1974 to 1975. The gift inaugurated a tradition of donating objects to the museum in honor of Collab chairpersons that has continued to the present.

A number of works in the exhibition signal important trends in modern design. These include Gerrit Thomas Rietveld’s celebrated Zigzag chair (1932-33), Bruno Mathsson’s Pernilla Chair and Mifot Footstool (1941-43), and George Nelson’s Ball Wall Clock (1947). This painted birch, steel, and brass clock was included in the 1983 landmark Collab exhibition “Design since 1945,” an exhibition designed by Nelson, and the last major project completed by the American designer before his death in 1986.

Iconic designs from the 1950s including Charles Eames’ Rocking Chair (1950-53) and Arne Jacobsen’s Egg armchair (1957) represent “one of the strengths of the collection,” according to Minnite, and are augmented by household items by Kaj Franck (Finnish, 1911-1989) and lighting by Poul Henningsen (Danish 1894-1967).

A 1994 exhibition titled “Japanese Design: A Survey Since 1945” resulted in the acquisition of a number of important examples of Japanese design, including Shiro Kuramata’s How High the Moon armchair and Kito Toshiyuki’s Wink chair, both from the 1980s. Other recent designs from the 1990s to today include an “iMac” computer (1998) designed by the Apple Industrial Design Team, a kitchen system (2004) by the German firm Storno Design, and Patricia Urquiola’s brightly accented Antibodi Chaise (2006).

The opening of “Collab: Four Decades of Design” will also mark the publication of Collecting Modern: Design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art since 1876 (ISBN 978-0-87633-221-4; $65), written by Kathryn Bloom Hiesinger, curator of European Decorative Arts after 1700. Published by the Philadelphia Museum of Art, this is the first historical survey of the growth of the museum’s design collections, chronicling the institution’s changing attitudes toward the collecting of the contemporary decorative arts and design from its founding in the late 19th century to the present day.

ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE

Ginza Robot Cabinet, designed 1982 by Masanori Umeda (Japanese, born 1941). Plastic-laminated wood and chipboard, 68 7/8 inches x 56 inches x 22 inches. Image courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Collab: The Group for Modern and Contemporary Design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, in memory of Hava J. Krasniansky Gelblum, 1994.

Antibodi Chaise, 2006, designed by Patricia Urquiola (Spanish, born 1961). Stainless steel, PVC, polyurethane, felt, 30 5/16 x 35 7/16 x 61 13/16 inches. Image courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art, gift of Fury Design Inc., Philadelphia.

Valentine Typewriter, 1969, designed by Ettore Sottsass, (Austrian-born Italian, 1917-2007). ABS plastic, width: 17 1/8 inches. Image courtesy of Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Collab: The Group for Modern and Contemporary Design at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2005.

Ferdinand Preiss (Austrian, 1883-1947), ‘Torch Dancer’ figurine, rare. Estimate: $40,000-$50,000. Image courtesy of Antique Place.

Antique Place to hold 300-lot auction on Memorial Day

May 23, 2011/in Upcoming Auctions/by Tom Hoepf

Ferdinand Preiss (Austrian, 1883-1947), ‘Torch Dancer’ figurine, rare. Estimate: $40,000-$50,000. Image courtesy of Antique Place.

HALLANDALE, Fla. – Antique Place will cap Memorial Day with one of their biggest auctions ever – more than 300 lots of Art Deco bronze and ivory figures, fine art glass including pate-de-verre, Tiffany glass lamps and an assortment of Tiffany desk sets.

LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding for the auction, which will begin Monday, May 30, at 6 p.m. Eastern.

Among the bronze and ivory figures are works by D.H. Chiparus, Ferdinand Preiss and Schmidt-Cassel.

Rene Lalique, Daum, Americ Walter and G. Argy Rousseau are among the great glass makers represented in the auction.

Antique Place is the premiere online auction in house in South Florida. The company conducts monthly online auctions that include the finest pieces of Art Deco and Art Nouveau sculptures gathered from across the globe.

Other artists whose works sell at Antique Place are G. Argy Rousseau, Camille Faure, Emille Galle and many others. The auction house also sells English silver pieces, Meissen, pietra dura, sterling silver singing bird boxes, paintings, bracket clocks and more.

For details visit the Antique Place website: www.antiqueplace.biz or phone 954-457-7777.

View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

Four-piece English sterling silver tea and coffee service set by George Angell, date mark 1849, 74 troy ounces. Estimate: $4,000-$6,000. Image courtesy of Antique Place.

Rare musical automaton playing ‘The Blue Danube,’ while switching dice, cards and a plate beneath two cones, 19 3/4 inches high. Estimate: $4,000-$6,000. Image courtesy of Antique Place.

‘F. Preiss’ cold painted bronze, ‘Charleston Dancer,’ 11 inches high on a 3 1/2-inch marble base. Estimate: $20,000-$30,000. Image courtesy of Antique Place.

Pair of carved ivory and wood Japanese men, each signed on the bottom, 8 inches tall, each signed on the bottom. Estimate: $2,000-$3,000. Image courtesy of Antique Place.

Camille Faure enameled vase, geometric and flower decoration, signed ‘C. Faurer Limoges France,’ 11 1/4 inches high. Estimate: $12,000-$15,000. Image courtesy of Antique Place.

Future of American Indian museum project uncertain

May 23, 2011/in Museums/by Tom Hoepf

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Work crews have spent five years building the $170 million American Indian Cultural Center and Museum southeast of downtown. Whether construction will continue is up in the air.

State Senate leaders last week rejected a $40 million bond package to supplement $67.4 million committed through previous bonds. Project developers fear work might stop in August, but they remain committed to seeing the project through to completion.

“It’s not ‘if’ we’re building it, it’s ‘when,’” said Gena Timberman, the museum’s executive director. “That vision still lives on. It’s important we stay committed to the task.” She fears stop-and-go construction will raise the cost of the project.

Work began in 2006, with more than $91 million already spent to date. To maintain construction, the museum received $6 million in federal stimulus money last October, and Gov. Mary Fallin and others supported a proposed $40 million bond package during the 2011 legislative session.

Project officials were hopeful additional state funds and privately raised matching funds would carry the museum to completion by 2015, but the sudden halt in funding leaves major questions: What will become of the museum and what will become of its potential as an anchor for commercial development?

A 2009 study by the Applied Economics research group said the project would create a $3.8 billion economic impact in the first two decades after its completion; State Sen. Dan Newberry calls it a “hole in the ground.”

Sen. Patrick Anderson, R-Enid, called for an audit regarding of the use of state dollars for construction of the project. Timberman said she’d welcome such an audit and is always open to having legislators visit the construction site, to see first-hand how the money is being used.

The museum is being built along the Oklahoma River, near downtown at the junction of cross-country interstates 35 and 40. The 300 acres donated by the city of Oklahoma City for the museum used to be the site of an oilfield, meaning extensive cleanup was required before construction could begin. A visitor center already is finished, along with a 90-foot-high promontory mound, and white steel support beams for the museum’s Hall of the People rise above the landscape.

According to the Native American Cultural and Educational Authority, a state agency that oversees the project, $50 million was used to remediate the site, to build the mound and visitors center, to start work on the museum’s galleries and east wing and for interim debt service. Another $41 million went for more gallery and east wing construction and initial work on the Hall of the People and performance facility.

Critics also say the state’s 39 federally recognized American Indian tribes should help pay for the museum. State Sen. Steve Russell, R-Oklahoma City, noted that “a certain tribe who is behind the Native American Cultural Center just bought two racetracks in Texas for more money than what they require from the state to finish the cultural center.”

The Ada-based Chickasaw Nation bought Remington Park in Oklahoma City for $80.25 million in January 2010 and this month paid $47.8 million for Lone Star Park in Grand Prairie, Texas. Chickasaw Gov. Bill Anoatubby is chairman of the NACEA board. Through a spokesman, Anoatubby said he was “very disappointed” the bond issue didn’t receive a vote in the Senate.

The tribes maintain the state should fund its own project, because it’s the state that will benefit from the project. According to Timberman, they’ve already kicked in $4.7 million to help cover debt service.

“All along this has been a state-funded project that has been supported by other donors, including Cherokee Nation and other tribal governments,” Cherokee Nation spokesman Mike Miller said. “We’ve contributed what we said we would to the project, with the assumption that the state would do the same. Unfortunately, the state is having to make difficult choices due to budget circumstances. It is hard to expect other donors to put in more money to the state’s project when the state won’t.”

According to numbers prepared by the NACEA, delaying the project by one year will result in a $6.1 million increase in construction costs and $4 million in lost state tax revenues. The state would be liable for the unfinished project and would have to pay for security costs, Timberman said.

Demolishing the facilities that already have been built would cost $38.1 million, the study said. But building something else at the site doesn’t appear to be a suitable option for the state, because the land given to the NACEA by Oklahoma City would revert to the city if the museum isn’t built, city spokeswoman Jane Abraham said.

Sen. Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City, said the NACEA once said it wouldn’t need any more state money to finish the project, citing a May 2008 news release from the museum – issued about the time the Legislature approved a $25 million bond issue for the project – that said “The remaining $75 million (for the project) will come from private sources, including American Indian Tribes.”

“A false dichotomy is being put forth: that we must either pass the additional $40 million bond, which the agency in 2008 said they wouldn’t need, or we must bulldoze the $91 million investment,” Treat said. “This is simply untrue, and no one is advocating this idea. We simply want to take a closer look at this issue before piling on more debt.”

As things stand now, Timberman said construction on the project will end in August and won’t resume until more funding is in place. It’s uncertain when that might occur. State Senate President Pro Tem Brian Bingman, R-Sapulpa, plans to conduct an interim study this year concerning proposed bond issues.

“We have a lot of capital needs in addition to existing bond obligations that need to be prioritized before we make decisions about additional bonding,” Bingman said.

Bingman, Fallin and House Speaker Kris Steele, R-Shawnee, all have said they’d like to see the project finished, but want to pay for it in a fiscally responsible fashion. They haven’t said what that might look like.

In the meantime, Timberman said museum officials are re-evaluating their fundraising plans. She had planned to use the carrot of the state money to encourage donors. Now, she said, raising money will be difficult, because potential donors don’t want to give money to “something that you don’t know will ever be finished.”

Still, she remains optimistic the museum will eventually open.

“We have one shot at this time to do it right,” she said. “We have one opportunity to brand Oklahoma as the gateway to Indian country. We have an opportunity to provide visitors a rare experience. … We’ve gone too far to turn back.”

AP-WF-05-21-11 1810GMT

Princess Beatrice wearing the hat designed by Philip Treacy. Image courtesy of ebay.co.uk

Princess Beatrice’s royal wedding hat tops $131,341

May 23, 2011/in General Interest/by Tom Hoepf

Princess Beatrice wearing the hat designed by Philip Treacy. Image courtesy of ebay.co.uk

LONDON (AP) – Auction site eBay says a bidder has offered 81,100 pounds ($131,341) for the spiraling headpiece worn by Princess Beatrice to last month’s royal wedding. The auction ended Sunday.

The 22-year-old granddaughter of Queen Elizabeth II startled commentators with the swirling hat she wore to the wedding of her cousin Prince William and Kate Middleton.

The silk Philip Treacy creation has been compared to antlers, a toilet seat and a pretzel, and has been photoshopped into scores of unlikely scenarios on the Internet.

Beatrice has taken the joke in stride and put the hat on sale for charity. Proceeds will go to UNICEF and Children in Crisis.

On Saturday 38 bidders were competing for the hat, described on eBay as a “unique sculptural celebratory headpiece.”

AP-WF-05-21-11 1038GMT

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Princess Beatrice wearing the hat designed by Philip Treacy. Image courtesy of ebay.co.uk