Marilyn Monroe in a mid-1950s photograph by Sam Shaw. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Estates-On-Line.com.

50 years on, everything Marilyn Monroe is in high demand

Marilyn Monroe in a mid-1950s photograph by Sam Shaw. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Estates-On-Line.com.

Marilyn Monroe in a mid-1950s photograph by Sam Shaw. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Estates-On-Line.com.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The first thing you notice when you see Marilyn Monroe’s full-length gloves in the storeroom of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History is how small her hands were.

“They’re one of a number of pairs she had,” says curator Dwight Bowers, gently lifting them out of the beige steel cabinet they share with Christopher Reeves’ Superman costume and the 10-gallon hat that J.R. wore in Dallas.

“They’re white kid. They’re very tiny and petite. And they show the decorousness of the 1950s,” he explained. “There’s a stain of ink on the left one … perhaps it came from giving an autograph to someone.”

Donated by a private collector, the gloves make up the entire Marilyn Monroe collection at the publicly funded Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest network of museums and, in principle, repository of all things Americana.

Bowers, who plans to include the gloves in an forthcoming Smithsonian exhibition on American popular culture, said it’s “logical” for the museum to hold more Monroe memorabilia.

“But Hollywood material and Hollywood celebrities are big business in the auction world,” he told AFP in the windowless storeroom that’s packed floor to ceiling with show-business artifacts from vaudeville to today.

“Private collectors are part of our competition—and private collectors have a much bigger budget than we have.”

Fifty years after her death, demand for anything related to Hollywood’s original blonde bombshell—from the dresses she wore to the magazine covers she graced—is stronger than ever. And it’s more global as well.

Many choice items can be seen at the Hollywood Museum in Los Angeles, where a handful of private collectors have pooled their most prized Monroe objects for a summer-long public exhibition.

It’s a wide-ranging show, from the mortgage paperwork on Monroe’s house to never-before-seen photographs and a host of garments like the black silk crepe dress she wore on her honeymoon with baseball legend Joe DiMaggio.

“It had been in storage for 35 years,” Hollywood Museum founder Donelle Dadigan said. “When we received it, you knew who it belonged to, because the Chanel Number Five perfume still lingered … It was almost magical.”

The bulk of Monroe’s personal belongings went on the auction block at Christie’s in New York in October 1999 at a historic two-day estate sale that raked in $13.4 million.

“They literally had everything from pots and pans to her brassieres,” recalled Clark Kidder, a collector of Monroe-related magazines in Wisconsin and author of a 2001 guide to Monroe memorabilia who attended the sale.

The most expensive item then was a diamond-studded platinum eternity band, a gift from DiMaggio, her second husband, that Christie’s experts had estimated at $50,000 tops. It sold for $772,000 and it’s likely worth much more today.

Monroe’s baby grand piano went, too, for $662,500, along with everything else from a pair of bikinis and a set of gym equipment to her driver’s license—as well as the gloves that eventually wound up in the Smithsonian.

Such prices today would be considered bargains, due in part to the globalization of the memorabilia market and an influx of cash-rich and reclusive Asian and Gulf collectors for whom price is no object.

“Some of the top prices for Marilyn Monroe memorabilia, in the seven figures, you may end up finding in China, in Japan, in the Middle East … it’s just extraordinary,” Dadigan told AFP in a telephone interview.

Last year the billowing dress that Monroe wore over that famously breezy subway grating in The Seven-Year Itch sold for a staggering $4.6 million—plus commission—in Los Angeles.

The seller was the actress Debbie Reynolds, who at 79 had no more room for her collection of 35,000 Hollywood movie costumes. The buyer, as is so often the case at auctions, opted for discretion and bid by telephone.

“A lot of these high-profile pieces, when they come up for auction, are going to the Asian countries,” Los Angeles collector Scott Fortner, whose own Monroe objects are part of the Hollywood Museum exhibition, told AFP.

“I find it disappointing that some of these pieces literally just disappear and we have no idea where they go,” added Fortner, who has cataloged his entire collection—from a feather boa to make-up and eye drops—online.

Fortner sees himself not so much as a collector than as a custodian of the memory of a timeless motion picture icon. He’s especially proud of one item in his possession—Monroe’s humble Brownie snapshot camera.

“I have always found that piece very, very intriguing,” he said. “It’s the childhood camera of one of the most photographed women, if not the most photographed woman, in the world. There’s an interesting bit of irony there.”


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


Marilyn Monroe in a mid-1950s photograph by Sam Shaw. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Estates-On-Line.com.

Marilyn Monroe in a mid-1950s photograph by Sam Shaw. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Estates-On-Line.com.

Artist Marc Chagall pictured with Annabelle Wiener, director of volunteers for World Federation of United Nations Associations, in front of his United Nations mural in New York, 1967. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Early American History Auctions.

Moscow exhibition probes Marc Chagall’s Russian roots

Artist Marc Chagall pictured with Annabelle Wiener, director of volunteers for World Federation of United Nations Associations, in front of his United Nations mural in New York, 1967. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Early American History Auctions.

Artist Marc Chagall pictured with Annabelle Wiener, director of volunteers for World Federation of United Nations Associations, in front of his United Nations mural in New York, 1967. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Early American History Auctions.

MOSCOW (AFP) — Once banned as “bourgeois,” the work of painter Marc Chagall is enjoying a revival in the ex-Soviet Union with a new exhibition delving into the influence folk art and his Russian Jewish roots had on his work.

“Visitors often ask, why Chagall’s animals are blue, yellow or pink, why the bride is flying over the rooftops and the man has two faces. They will now understand where Chagall drew (his images) from,” said curator Ekaterina Selezneva.

To emphasize the importance of these influences, the exhibition at Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery features a popular Russian engraving on wood, a carpet and icon as well as a Jewish spice-cake mold and seven-branched menorah chandelier.

Born Moishe Segal in 1887 to a poor Jewish family outside Vitebsk in modern Belarus, Chagall never forgot his life in the Jewish pale—the area to which Catherine II confined the Jews of her empire in the 18th century—and recalls images of Vitebsk in each painting.

When the 1917 Russian Revolution abolished anti-Semitic laws, Chagall was appointed Fine Arts Commissioner in Vitebsk, but a conflict with the fellow painter and colleague Kazimir Malevich led to his resignation in 1920.

Chagall left Vitebsk and within two years emigrated to France.

The exhibition, which runs until Sept. 30, “must help people to understand the mystery of Chagall,” who always looked to popular art in his search for a distinctive figurative language, said Selezneva.

Also on display are little-known drawings, watercolors and gouaches by Chagall as well as sketches of Vitebsk, Paris collages and famous illustrations of the Bible and Lafontaine’s fables.

Some of the exhibits—borrowed by the organizers from the Saint Petersburg Ethnographic Museum and Moscow’s Museum of Jewish History—reveal the prototypes of Chagall’s imagery.

The brightly colored muzzles on a carpet woven in early 20th century Moscow are reminiscent of the animal faces portrayed by Chagall, who once described himself as “a tree bound to the earth by its roots.”

A man depicted in 1896 by an unknown artist, in the traditional Russian engraving technique known as lubok, also hovers above the roofs of a town. This image was to become one of Chagall’s favorite characters some 15 years later.

Although Chagall found fame in France, where he died in 1985, his imaginative work continued to be frowned upon in the USSR.

A reappraisal of his work, however, began two years after his death amid Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms and in 1987 thousands queued at Moscow’s Fine Arts Museum for the first major exhibition of his paintings.

And in 2005, around 128,000 people visited a three-month-long Chagall exhibition entitled “Hello Motherland!”

“His characters are flying around the Earth, but return to their place of origin,” said Selezneva.


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


Artist Marc Chagall pictured with Annabelle Wiener, director of volunteers for World Federation of United Nations Associations, in front of his United Nations mural in New York, 1967. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Early American History Auctions.

Artist Marc Chagall pictured with Annabelle Wiener, director of volunteers for World Federation of United Nations Associations, in front of his United Nations mural in New York, 1967. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Early American History Auctions.

Pablo Picasso, 'The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas, after Velazques) (Les Menines vue d'ensemble, d'apres Velazquez), La Californie,' Aug.17, 1957. Oil on canvas, 194 x 260 centimeters. Museu Picasso, Barcelona, gift of the artist, 1968 © 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Gassull Fotografia.

Guggenheim Museum to show less-colorful side of Picasso

Pablo Picasso, 'The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas, after Velazques) (Les Menines vue d'ensemble, d'apres Velazquez), La Californie,' Aug.17, 1957. Oil on canvas, 194 x 260 centimeters. Museu Picasso, Barcelona, gift of the artist, 1968 © 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Gassull Fotografia.

Pablo Picasso, ‘The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas, after Velazques) (Les Menines vue d’ensemble, d’apres Velazquez), La Californie,’ Aug.17, 1957. Oil on canvas, 194 x 260 centimeters. Museu Picasso, Barcelona, gift of the artist, 1968 © 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Gassull Fotografia.

NEW YORK — “Picasso Black and White,” the first major exhibition to focus on the artist’s lifelong exploration of a black-and-white palette, will be presented at the Guggenheim Museum from Oct. 5 to Jan. 23.

The exhibition features 118 paintings, sculptures, and works on paper from 1904 to 1971, and will offer new and striking insights into Picasso’s vision and working methods. This chronological presentation includes significant loans—many of which have not been exhibited or published before—drawn from museum, private and public collections across Europe and the United States, including numerous works from the Picasso family.

Following its New York presentation, a major part of the exhibition will travel to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where it will be on view from Feb. 24 to May 27, 2013.

“Picasso Black and White” is organized by Carmen Giménez, Stephen and Nan Swid Curator of Twentieth-Century Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, with assistance from Karole Vail, Associate Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog with an essay by Giménez as well as essays by Dore Ashton, Olivier Berggruen and Richard Shiff.

Few artists have exerted as considerable an influence over subsequent generations as Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). While his work is often seen through the lens of his diverse style and subjects, the recurrent motif of black, white, and gray is frequently overlooked. “Picasso Black and White” will demonstrate how the artist was continuously investigating, inventing, and drawing in somber and austere monochromatic tones throughout his career.

“Picasso Black and White” presents a unique and illuminating perspective on a lesser-known but fascinating aspect of his formidable body of work. Picasso’s Blue and Rose periods include, in effect, works painted in delicate black, white and gray soft light shadings, and his pioneering investigations into Cubism are condensed to geometric and deconstructed components of austere gray tones. Likewise, his neoclassical figure paintings allude to the cool tonalities of Greek and Roman sculpture as well as to European painting and drawing for which Picasso always had a strong affinity, and his explorations into Surrealism comprise sensual works composed of a panoply of grays. The forceful and somber scenes depicting the atrocities of war, the allegorical still lifes and the vivid interpretations of art-historical masterpieces display a striking intensity through such minimal tones. Finally, the highly sexualized works of his twilight years feature these black and white colors, which are at times tender, but always vigorous, and convey the direct mode of spontaneous and raw expression that is so typical of Picasso’s output.

According to Giménez, the graphic quality of these distinctive works harks back to the spare paintings of Paleolithic artists who developed a primal visual language using charcoal and simple mineral pigments. But in adopting this restricted palette, Picasso was also faithful to a centuries-long Spanish tradition, following in the footsteps of earlier masters whose use of the color black was predominant in their canvases—artists such as El Greco, Diego Velázquez, Francisco de Zurbarán, Jusepe de Ribera and Francisco de Goya (who made black paintings in his old age, as did Picasso until the very end of his life).

Giménez also explains that Picasso made highly effective use of black, white, and gray tones in a nod to monochromatic grisaille painting, evoking textural and sculptural qualities. Reported to have said that color “weakens,” Picasso purged and isolated color from his work to highlight its formal structure and assert its autonomy.

“Picasso Black and White” will be accompanied by a full roster of public programs. Details may be found at guggenheim.org/publicprograms.


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


Pablo Picasso, 'The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas, after Velazques) (Les Menines vue d'ensemble, d'apres Velazquez), La Californie,' Aug.17, 1957. Oil on canvas, 194 x 260 centimeters. Museu Picasso, Barcelona, gift of the artist, 1968 © 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Gassull Fotografia.

Pablo Picasso, ‘The Maids of Honor (Las Meninas, after Velazques) (Les Menines vue d’ensemble, d’apres Velazquez), La Californie,’ Aug.17, 1957. Oil on canvas, 194 x 260 centimeters. Museu Picasso, Barcelona, gift of the artist, 1968 © 2012 Estate of Pablo Picasso/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Gassull Fotografia.

Photographer and filmmaker Irving Klaw (1910-1966) ran the business known as Movie Star News and gained the nickname 'Pin-up King.' This poster promotes one of his films, 'Teaserama,' which starred exotic dancer Tempest Storm and a young Bettie Page. Fair use of low-resolution image under the guidelines of United States copyright law.

NYC movie, pin-up collection slated for auction at Guernsey’s

 Photographer and filmmaker Irving Klaw (1910-1966) ran the business known as Movie Star News and gained the nickname 'Pin-up King.' This poster promotes one of his films, 'Teaserama,' which starred exotic dancer Tempest Storm and a young Bettie Page. Fair use of low-resolution image under the guidelines of United States copyright law.

Photographer and filmmaker Irving Klaw (1910-1966) ran the business known as Movie Star News and gained the nickname ‘Pin-up King.’ This poster promotes one of his films, ‘Teaserama,’ which starred exotic dancer Tempest Storm and a young Bettie Page. Fair use of low-resolution image under the guidelines of United States copyright law.

NEW YORK (AP) – Movie Star News amassed a staggering amount of film stills, posters and negatives over the past 73 years — nearly 3 million, including 1,500 prints of Bettie Page, known as the queen of pin-ups. But last week, the once-lively store in lower Manhattan was lifeless. The classic movie posters that once covered its narrow 2,000-square-foot space were rolled up or covered in cellophane, its bins and racks empty. Everything was packed up in cardboard boxes that lined the floor.

The legendary Manhattan store credited with creating pin-up art had sold its entire inventory to a Las Vegas collectibles company.

The collection, regarded as one of the largest of its kind, is headed for the auction block. It will be sold in a series of sales slated to begin next year. The bulk of the collection covers the years 1939 to 1979; 11,500 movies and 5,000 actors are represented.

“This is the most important photo archive of Hollywood in existence. There are tens of thousands of negatives that have never been reproduced,” said Stuart Scheinman, co-owner of Entertainment Collectibles, which bought the collection. “There are images here that have never been seen by the public.”

There are 2,000 original prints and negatives of Frank Sinatra and Marlon Brando, 1,000 of Gary Cooper, 400 of Bette Davis, hundreds of movie images of “The Godfather” and “Gone With the Wind.”

“This could literally take five to 10 years to go through it all,” Scheinman said. He would only say the company purchased the collection for “seven figures.” Its true value was anyone’s guess, but he believed it easily was worth $150 million.

Movie Star News produced 8-by-10 glossy prints from the negatives, selling each for a few dollars in the store and through the mail. But the Internet has significantly cut down on demand.

“I make references to things when customers come in, and they have no idea what I’m talking about,” said Ira Kramer, who took over the business that his mother, Paula, and uncle Irving Klaw, started in 1939. “Today, if you want a picture of a star you can go on the computer and download it. So what do you need me for?”

“The maintenance of the collection has been fastidious … the way a fine library would maintain material,” said Arlan Ettinger, president of Guernsey’s and in charge of selling the collection.

As far back as the 1940s, Movie Star News had a mailing list of 100,000 names. World War II soldiers were big customers, buying prints for their lockers, Kramer said.

The entrepreneurial Klaw, who died in 1966, hit on the idea of selling pictures of Hollywood stars while operating a movie bookstore.

“He noticed that kids were tearing out the pictures of the movie stars, so he decided to sell their pictures rather than the books,” Kramer said. Klaw started dealing directly with movie studios, RKO, Columbia and others, located in those days along Eleventh Avenue.

“He made arrangements to buy from them whatever they didn’t want … original negatives, original prints of ‘Citizen Kane,’ ‘Three Stooges,'” he said. The studios were more than happy to be rid of the stuff for which they had no room.

Kramer’s mother was the one who took the pin-up shots. But it was Klaw who launched that side of the business after a man approached him about making him a set of photographs of skimpily-clad girls posing with whips and ropes, said Kramer.

Page was Klaw’s favorite model, and a suitcase of the 7-inch heels she wore in the photos, plus other bondage props, will be included in the auction.

The photos were tame by today’s standards. In fact, the models were required to wear two pairs of underwear. But the FBI continuously harassed Klaw and he had to appear before the 1955 Senate Subcommittee on Obscene and Pornographic Materials.

“It was a big headache,” Kramer said. Klaw finally decided to burn all the pin-up material — but Paula Klaw saved a lot of it.

Online: Guernsey’s http://www.guernseys.com

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Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

British street artists take aim at the Games

LONDON (AFP) — An javelin thrower stands poised to make his throw — but in place of a spear, he holds a missile.

The striking image, stenciled in black onto a dirty wall, is one of two new works recently unveiled on the website of British satirical street artist Banksy to coincide with the London Olympics.

The other shows a pole-vaulter, springing over a rusty fence onto an abandoned mattress.

Banksy — whose works sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars — is famed for his secrecy, but his witty observations about British life can usually be spotted on the street.

The location of the two new stencils, however, has been kept under wraps, prompting speculation that Banksy feared they could be removed as part of a reported drive to clean graffiti from London’s walls for the Olympics.

British Transport Police arrested four graffiti artists this month and banned them from Olympic venues in an apparent bid to prevent the Games becoming a target for subversive spray-painters.

“There’s a more widespread clean-up operation than normal, definitely,” street artist Mau Mau told AFP. “There’s loads of work disappearing from the tracksides by the railways.”

Mau Mau, who declined to give his real name, made his own Olympic offering to the city walls a few weeks ago: an overweight McDonald’s clown, carrying a torch labeled “Coca-Cola” that was spewing out a thick plume of black smoke.

Both brands are official sponsors of the Games.

“I painted it to protest against the corporate takeover of the Olympics,” he explained.

Mau Mau created the west London mural with the permission of the wall’s owner, but it was whitewashed just six days later by the local council, which said it had received a complaint from a member of the public.

“It wasn’t offensive,” said Mau Mau. “It was just a picture of a fat clown.”

The artist believes he may have fallen foul of strict regulations designed to protect the Games’ corporate sponsors.

His mural clearly featured the Olympic rings, a symbol that can only be used with the approval of the International Olympic Committee.

With the rings emblazoned on his vest, Banksy’s javelin-thrower also breaks the rules, which could give Games officials additional cause to paint over it — if they can find it.

James Cochran, whose vivid mural of the world’s fastest man Usain Bolt beams over an east London car park, said he was careful to seek official approval before shaking the first aerosol can.

“They said, ‘By the way, don’t touch the Olympic rings — there’s very strict copyright control on that,'” he recalled.

“They’re getting a bit authoritarian,” the British-Australian artist told AFP. “The Olympic Committee have got to be careful that they don’t infringe on freedom of expression. Sometimes you think, ‘Jeez, Beijing was more open-minded.'”

The Games’ corporate sponsors, and the lengths to which organizers have gone to accommodate them, have become popular targets of Britain’s vibrant underground art scene, particularly near the Olympic Park in East London.

At Hackney Wick station on the edge of the park, someone scrawled the word “Shame” in huge letters over a mural commissioned by Coca-Cola, forcing the company to have the work painted over.

For Cochran, the Games are an opportunity to spread a more cheerful message. His image of Bolt, with brightly colored rays pulsing from his face in all directions, is his “homage to the buzz around the Olympics”.

“I love London, and I see this as an amazing and positive time for the city,” the 39-year-old said.

“When the Olympics are done and everyone’s gone home, it would be nice to have something that speaks about that time. But who knows if it will last? That’s the interesting thing about street art — anything can happen to it.”

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Customers at a Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair. Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair image.

Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair scheduled for Nov. 2-3

Customers at a Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair. Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair image.

Customers at a Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair. Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair image.

LONDON – The 22nd Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair will take Friday and Saturday, Nov. 2-3, in the stunning surroundings of the Chelsea Old Town Hall, King’s Road (opposite Sydney Street), London SW3 5EE.

In its intimate environment, this true boutique of a book fair is directed and managed by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association, the UK’s oldest antiquarian booksellers and part of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. It attracts more than 70 exhibitors, both local and from around the UK and abroad, who specialize in all types of books, manuscripts and ephemera.

Tickets are complimentary if pre-booked in advance online, or £5 or £7 (per pair) if bought during the fair.

As chair of the ABA Chelsea Committee, Leo Cadogan commented: “The fair is now in its 22nd year and attracts a wide range of enthusiastic buyers, old and young. Whether you are looking for that key book to start or finish your collection, or want to buy a memorable and unique Christmas gift for a loved one, the fair has something for everyone.”

The fair will be open from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the first day and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the Saturday, therefore making it attractive to the private buyer who can visit after work or over the weekend.

For more details on the fair, visit www.chelseabookfair.com or follow on twitter @ChelseaBookFair.


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


Customers at a Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair. Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair image.

Customers at a Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair. Chelsea Antiquarian Book Fair image.

Brittany Ransom (left) and Mary Blackburn (right). Photos courtesy of SMU Meadows Division of Art.

Two noted artists join faculty of SMU Meadows Division of Art

Brittany Ransom (left) and Mary Blackburn (right). Photos courtesy of SMU Meadows Division of Art.

Brittany Ransom (left) and Mary Blackburn (right). Photos courtesy of SMU Meadows Division of Art.

DALLAS – Noted national artist/educators Mary Walling Blackburn and Brittany Ransom have been appointed to faculty positions in the Division of Art at SMU Meadows School of the Arts, beginning in fall 2012. Blackburn, a New York-based artist and writer known for conceptually dense, multi-disciplinary projects, will be assistant professor of art and urbanism. Ransom, whose practice centers on art/technology and interactive installations, will be assistant professor of digital/hybrid media and video art.

“With the addition of Mary Blackburn and Brittany Ransom, the Division of Art is beginning its next phase of development,” said Michael Corris, chair of the Division of Art. “Mary will be spearheading our new art and urbanism program and contribute to teaching at all levels. She will be introducing new courses on art in the context of the city, which means our students will be able to engage with the very fabric of Dallas as a laboratory for visual art. Brittany will be associated with the Center of Creative Computation at Meadows, and teach and develop interdisciplinary courses in all aspects of digital and hybrid media, such as computer code art and physical computing. Brittany’s breadth of knowledge means she will be able to organize courses that will link up with SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering and the biological sciences. Both new hires underscore the division’s, and the school’s, commitment to interdisciplinary programs where artists, engineers, scientists and students can work together in meaningful ways.”

Mary Walling Blackburn’s work ranges from art installation and network-based media to video art, performance, sculpture, social practice and critical theory. She has exhibited at the Whitney Museum, Bard College, LAX Art and Art Dubai and participated in group shows from Brooklyn to Hong Kong to Melbourne. She has taught at The Cooper Union School and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and published in highly acclaimed journals such as Cabinet, Afterall, Art Forum and others. She was also recently included in Draw It With Your Eyes Closed: The Art of the Art Assignment (2012), published by Paper Monument and praised in The New York Times as a “mischievous and nourishing new book.”

Blackburn received a national ArtMatters grant in 2011, which is given by invitation only to artists who display a decisive engagement with social justice. Her current project involves research in Turkey and at the Syrian border. A specific aspect of her art practice involves an experimental educational project, The Anhoek School, a graduate program in which student-teacher monetary exchange is replaced with a barter system – students work for the school in exchange for classes (http://www.anhoekschool.org). The nomadic school has been invited to stage classes in Aarhus, Denmark; at the Blanton Museum of Art in Austin; at Southern Exposure in San Francisco; and through The Laboratory at Harvard University.

Blackburn earned a B.A. in history from the University of New Hampshire and an M.F.A. in interactive telecommunications from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, and served a residency at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2011.

Brittany Ransom joins SMU from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she was adjunct assistant professor of new media arts/electronic visualization. She has guest-lectured at DePaul University, The Ohio State University and Loyola University, Chicago, and served as artist-in-residence in the Meadows School’s Division of Art in fall 2011.

Ransom is one of a growing number of new media artists interested in the boundary between human and animal societies. She has created environments that aim to heighten awareness of the world from the point of view of other species. Her work is interactive and often relies on the direct contact between organisms and technology.

Ransom is the recipient of numerous arts council awards and scholarships, including the prestigious College Art Association Professional Development Fellowship in January 2011. She received her B.F.A. from The Ohio State University in art and technology, and her M.F.A. in 2011 from the University of Illinois at Chicago.

As a member of the faculty of the Division of Art, she will be working closely with the Center of Creative Computation, an interdisciplinary research and teaching center at the Meadows School that integrates theory and methodology from computer science and engineering with aesthetic principles and creative practice from the arts.

About the Meadows School of the Arts:

The Meadows School of the Arts, formally established in 1969 at SMU, is one of the foremost arts education institutions in the United States. The Meadows School comprises 10 academic divisions: the Temerlin Advertising Institute, Art, Art History, Arts Management and Arts Entrepreneurship, Communication Studies, Dance, Film and Media Arts, Journalism, Music, and Theatre. The goal of the Meadows School is to prepare students to meet the demands of professional careers. It is also committed to providing an ongoing opportunity for all SMU students to grow in the understanding and appreciation of the arts. The Meadows School is a leader in developing innovative outreach and community engagement programs, challenging its students to make a difference locally and globally by developing connections between art entrepreneurship and change.

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ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE


Brittany Ransom (left) and Mary Blackburn (right). Photos courtesy of SMU Meadows Division of Art.

Brittany Ransom (left) and Mary Blackburn (right). Photos courtesy of SMU Meadows Division of Art.

Government Auction of Tehachapi, Calif., saw the trend coming for large, impressive gemstones and always offers a selection in their sales. This spectacular 15.35-carat brilliant-cut GIA-certified natural alexandrite gemstone was entered in the company's April 29, 2012 auction with an estimated value of $84,000-$167,000. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Government Auction.

Attendance was up at NY Antique Jewelry & Watch Show

Government Auction of Tehachapi, Calif., saw the trend coming for large, impressive gemstones and always offers a selection in their sales. This spectacular 15.35-carat brilliant-cut GIA-certified natural alexandrite gemstone was entered in the company's April 29, 2012 auction with an estimated value of $84,000-$167,000. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Government Auction.

Government Auction of Tehachapi, Calif., saw the trend coming for large, impressive gemstones and always offers a selection in their sales. This spectacular 15.35-carat brilliant-cut GIA-certified natural alexandrite gemstone was entered in the company’s April 29, 2012 auction with an estimated value of $84,000-$167,000. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Government Auction.

NEW YORK (PRNewswire) – U.S. Antique Shows, a major promoter of antique shows in North America, announced today an increase of five percent in attendance at this year’s 6th Annual New York Antique Jewelry & Watch Show, which took place on July 20-23, 2012, at The Metropolitan Pavilion. The Show attracted more than 100 of the most prestigious dealers in the industry. who showcased the latest antique and estate jewelry and watch trends to worldwide and local New York antiques enthusiasts.

“This year’s increased attendance marks the sixth consecutive year to see a rise in visitors to the show,” said Andrea Canady, fair director. “It’s undeniable, based on attendance numbers, that this show remains an important event which brings the New York elite, celebrities and antique trendsetters into one venue for the weekend to experience some of the most impressive antique jewelry and watch collections in the world.”

Luxurious items showcased throughout the aisles revealed the latest trends, including bold gold jewelry, large statement pieces and classic watches. Also featured this year were items ranging from all categories of jewelry such as cameos, tennis bracelets, rings, decorative necklaces, brooches, gemstones and pendants from various time periods including the Renaissance to Art Deco eras.

Most sought-after pieces, according to exhibitors, included untreated gems such as emeralds, rubies and sapphires; large elegant signed pieces and classic Victorian pieces, such as Victorian enamel and diamond snake bracelets.

“Our top sellers included signed pieces from notable brands including Tiffany, Van Cleef & Arpels, and Cartier,” said charter exhibitor Gus Davis of Camilla Dietz Bergeron Ltd.

Dealers witnessed elevated sales and viewed interest from the public at an all-time high throughout the show. Exhibitors also saw an increase in European and Asian buyers at the show.

“Antique jewelry is back in style, with interest at an all-time high from US, European and Asian buyers,” said Ronald Kawitzky of D.K. Bressler & Company Inc. “Antique jewelry is finally being appreciated in the general jewelry market. Buyers are now open to adding these fabulous antique and estate pieces to their jewelry inventory and personal collections.”

The next show on the calendar for US Antique Shows is the Miami Beach Antique Jewelry & Watch Show, scheduled for Oct. 5-7, 2012 at The Miami Beach Convention Center. Next year, the New York Antique Jewelry & Watch Show will be held July 26- 29, 2013 at The Metropolitan Pavilion. For more information, visit the promoter’s website at www.NYAntiqueJewelry.com .

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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


Government Auction of Tehachapi, Calif., saw the trend coming for large, impressive gemstones and always offers a selection in their sales. This spectacular 15.35-carat brilliant-cut GIA-certified natural alexandrite gemstone was entered in the company's April 29, 2012 auction with an estimated value of $84,000-$167,000. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Government Auction.

Government Auction of Tehachapi, Calif., saw the trend coming for large, impressive gemstones and always offers a selection in their sales. This spectacular 15.35-carat brilliant-cut GIA-certified natural alexandrite gemstone was entered in the company’s April 29, 2012 auction with an estimated value of $84,000-$167,000. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Government Auction.

A campaign ribbon for Ohio native William McKinley, 25th president of the United States. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com and Hassinger & Courtney Auctioneering.

Political items collectors hold national convention in Ohio

A campaign ribbon for Ohio native William McKinley, 25th president of the United States. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com and Hassinger & Courtney Auctioneering.

A campaign ribbon for Ohio native William McKinley, 25th president of the United States. Image courtesy LiveAuctioneers.com and Hassinger & Courtney Auctioneering.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – Before tweets, Youtube videos and Facebook posts, politicians promoted themselves with campaign buttons, and this week a national political items collectors group shows off this tradition at its national convention in Columbus.

The American Political Items Collectors is a 67-year-old organization and one of the country’s oldest hobby groups.

The group’s 2,000 members seek out not just buttons but vintage political ribbons, glassware, china, autographs, posters, postcards and other items.

The organization works with the Smithsonian Institution, presidential libraries, homes, birthplaces and museums among others to facilitate the understanding of politics using the artifacts of American political campaigns.

The convention runs Monday through Saturday.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-07-30-12 0703GMT

Adam Cullen (Australian, 1965-2012), 'Goat 2000,' lithograph, 58 x 77 cm, auctioned by Shapiro Auctioneers on June 23, 2012. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Shapiro Auctioneers.

In Memoriam: Australian ‘grunge’ artist Adam Cullen, 47

Adam Cullen (Australian, 1965-2012), 'Goat 2000,' lithograph, 58 x 77 cm, auctioned by Shapiro Auctioneers on June 23, 2012. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Shapiro Auctioneers.

Adam Cullen (Australian, 1965-2012), ‘Goat 2000,’ lithograph, 58 x 77 cm, auctioned by Shapiro Auctioneers on June 23, 2012. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Shapiro Auctioneers.

SYDNEY (ACNI) – Australian media sources are reporting the death of “grunge” artist and 2000 Archibald Prize winner Adam Cullen. He was 47.

Cullen, who died peacefully in his sleep at his Blue Mountains home west of Sydney, had fought a long battle against drugs and alcohol, and had been in poor health. A diabetic, Cullen reportedly took 11 medications daily.

He was also plagued by legal problems. Last year Cullen persuaded the courts to release him on a good behavior bond after he pleaded guilty to firearms possession and drink-driving charges. He was given a 10-month suspended jail sentence and ordered to undergo treatment for bipolar disorder.

Cullen was known for the controversial subjects depicted in his work. His style had, at times, been called simplistic, crude, adolescent or puerile, although he also had been voted one of Australia’s most collectible contemporary artists.

At his studio in the New South Wales town of Wentworth Falls, Cullen painted to the music of punk bands like Black Flag, the Meat Puppets and the Butthole Surfers. He employed a highly personal visual language to address a broad range of topics including crime, masculinity and cowboy culture. A favorite subject was Australian bush outlaw Ned Kelley.

Cullen merged high and low cultural influences in works that are distinguished by their iridescent colors and bold gestural marks.

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Copyright 2012 Auction Central News International. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.


ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE


Adam Cullen (Australian, 1965-2012), 'Goat 2000,' lithograph, 58 x 77 cm, auctioned by Shapiro Auctioneers on June 23, 2012. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Shapiro Auctioneers.

Adam Cullen (Australian, 1965-2012), ‘Goat 2000,’ lithograph, 58 x 77 cm, auctioned by Shapiro Auctioneers on June 23, 2012. Image courtesy of LiveAuctioneers.com Archive and Shapiro Auctioneers.