This rare 10-inch cast-iron figure of the deity Guan Yin is from the early Ming Dynasty. It has a $6,000-$8,000 estimate. Image courtesy Wichita Auction Gallery.
WICHITA, Kan. – A private U.S. collector has provided some of the finest items at Wichita Auction Gallery’s sale Feb. 28. Included is a Yaun/early Ming dynasty cast-iron figure of the deity Guan Yin. The rare and well-cast figure is 10 inches tall and is expected to sell for $6,000-$10,000.
LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.
A pair of Famille Rose candlesticks with seal marks of the Qianlong period (1711-1799) feature finely painted lotus blooms on dense scrolling leafy stems on a rich lemon-yellow ground. Each of the 9 3/4-inch sticks has a six-character mark at the base. They are estimated at $10,000-$12,000.
A Qianlong mark is also found on a small Famille Rose bowl, which has a $1,000-$2,000 estimate. The bowl, 6 1/2 inches in diameter and 3 inches high, is decorated with phoenixes among formal lotus blooms on a rich yellow ground on the exterior and blue ground on the interior.
Estimated at $3,000-$4,000 is a pair of thinly potted Famille Verte month cups with a Kangxi six-character mark in underglaze blue within a double circle and of the period (1662-1722).
Leading off the auction, which starts at 9 a.m. Central, is a signed Alexandre Colin (Paris, 1798-1875) oil on canvas portrait of a soldier. The 23 1/4- by 19 1/4-inch painting has a $1,000-$2,000 estimate.
From the same collection comes a 19th-century French gilt candelabra, 18 1/2 inches tall, which has a $300-$400 estimate.
For details call 316-269-1111.
View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet during the sale at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Bidding is expected to reach $300-$400 for this French gilt candelabra, which dates to the first quarter of the 19th century. It is 18 1/2 inches tall. Image courtesy Wichita Auction Gallery. Alexandre Colin (Paris, 1798-1875) signed this oil on canvas portrait on the lower right. The 23 1/4- by 19 1/4-inch oil painting has a $1,000-$2,000 estimate. Image courtesy Wichita Auction Gallery. A Qinglong mark is found on this Famille Rose bowl with yellow ground. The bowl is 6 1/2 inches in diameter and 3 inches high. It has a $1,000-$2,000. Image courtesy Wichita Auction Gallery. Each of these Famille Rose candlesticks is finely painted with large lotus blooms on dense scrolling leafy stems on a rich lemon-yellow ground. The 9 3/4-inch sticks have a $10,000-$12,000 estimate. Image courtesy Wichita Auction Gallery.
Tex Avery had departed Warner Bros. 11 years earlier, but his influence was still present in this 1952 one sheet that featured his signature character, Bugs Bunny. Image courtesy Heritage Auction Galleries and LiveAuctioneers Archive.
DALLAS (AP) – Tex Avery’s cartoons were funny 70 years ago, and they’re still funny today.
Avery created the wisecracking Bugs Bunny and awarded him the signature, “Eh, what’s up, doc?”
He first heard the line at North Dallas High, where he graduated with the Class of 1926. Standing in the cavernous hallways, one can almost hear Roaring ’20s teenagers passing one another during class changes. “Hiya, doc.” “What’s new, doc?” “What’s up, doc?”
Avery, who died of lung cancer in 1980, once told an interviewer that Daffy Duck was born on White Rock Lake in East Dallas, where he and his friends hunted ducks.
Avery’s animated films – that’s what academics call cartoons – are enjoying a renaissance at his alma mater this month. In a narrow, whitewashed hallway between the cafeteria and a computer lab, students are painting color-drenched murals depicting the Avery characters Bugs, Daffy, Elmer, sad-eyed Droopy the dog, and the rest.
“I grew up watching them on Cartoon Network,” said Jesus Martinez, one of the student muralists.
“I like the ones with Foghorn Leghorn and Droopy,” said Noland Sowels, a 17-year-old senior.
Even though Avery created his best cartoons in the 1930s and ’40s, they still appeal to young people today. The reason, probably, is because the stories are fast-paced and infused with satire, irony, sex and violence. Above all, they’re funny.
These cartoons started out among the “short subjects” preceding a feature film at theaters. In the late ’40s, many were resurrected for television. Today, they live in DVD collections and on cable channels.
Walt Disney was the cartoon king of Avery’s era. Think of Mickey Mouse and Goofy or Jiminy Cricket and Snow White. Disney characters were sweet, earnest and without rough edges. Avery and his crew decided to go the other way, creating edgy characters such as Red Hot Riding Hood and the wolf who lusted after her.
“I think he brought Texas attitude to his work,” said Robert Musburger, professor emeritus at the University of Houston and a noted animation historian. “His characters had a certain cockiness get out of my way because I’m always right. Bugs was the epitome of that character.”
And it all started in Dallas.
The student artists are competing in a contest to paint the best mural of Avery’s characters. Winners will be declared later this month. Teachers say incidents of illegal graffiti have decreased recently, because students can use the cartoon contest as an outlet. But the North Dallas teachers who created the mural contest set a bigger goal.
“We want our students to know that great people went to school here, and that there are great people here today,” said Gordon Markley, a business teacher who came up with the idea of using Avery to make that point.
Avery left Dallas after high school and briefly attended an art school in Chicago. But he chafed under the discipline of structured classes. He returned to Dallas and worked odd jobs for several months before moving to Los Angeles.
Tex Avery rendered this artwork for the North Dallas High School yearbook when he was a student there in the ’20s. Avery had penned some cartoons in high school for the yearbook and school newspaper, but they weren’t very good. His attempts to sell a cartoon strip to California newspapers went nowhere.
After a while, he landed a job with Walter Lantz studios, which years later produced the Woody Woodpecker cartoons. But he and Lantz fell out over money, and Avery moved on to Warner Bros. studios, where he worked from 1935 to 1941. As a director, he was responsible for bringing together the whole cartoon the story, the music, the writing and the animation.
Chuck Jones, a fellow director who created the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote series, called Avery “a genius” and credited him with moving cartoons from realism to surrealism, meaning that Bugs could do things like moving a hole in the ground from one place to another so Elmer Fudd could fall into it.
Anything could happen in a Tex Avery cartoon.
“Tex took things to another level,” said Jerry Beck, an animation historian in Los Angeles (cartoonbrew.com). “He is right up there with the greats of comedy like Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. And as a director, he is way up there, too.”
Avery was as introspective as he was zany. Later in life, he lamented spending too much time at work and neglecting his wife and two children, one of whom died of a drug overdose in 1972. He later divorced and lived alone in a small apartment. He died in Los Angeles at age 72.
Avery created enduring images that cause people to exclaim, “Oh yeah, I remember that!”
Late in his career, he directed television commercials. One of the most successful was for Raid, the insecticide. A cartoon cockroach’s eyes get wide, he screams “RAID!” and lands dead on his back.
Animation historians credit Avery with inventing the extreme “take” and “double take” that became commonplace in cartoons.
The best example is Wolfie, the amorous rogue who appears in a series of cartoons that lay waste to the Little Red Riding Hood children’s story.
When the wolf first spots the sexy Red Hot Riding Hood, his eyes bug out of his head, and his body becomes horizontally erect in a metaphor that adults understand. It’s called a “take.”
“Tex loved the wild takes,” Beck said. “Every part of a character’s body would fly apart and come back together.”
The Mask, a 1994 Jim Carrey movie that incorporated animation and live action, paid homage to several “Averyisms.” In one scene, the cartoon version of Carrey’s character spots Cameron Diaz in a nightclub. His eyes pop out, his jaw literally drops to the floor, and his tongue unrolls like a fire hose.
The 1988 movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? features a cartoon character named Jessica Rabbit, a sexpot with more curves than a mountain road. Red Hot Riding Hood was the inspiration for Jessica, according to animation historians.
In some cases, Avery acknowledged that he had gone too far in creating scabrous characters with sketchy morals and values.
Take the misanthropic Screwy Squirrel, who starred in five Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoons that Avery directed between 1944 and 1946.
The first Screwy Squirrel cartoon opens with cute, cuddly Sammy Squirrel merrily dancing through a pastoral forest setting. Sammy is childlike, with a sweet voice clearly a parody of a Disney character.
Before long, Sammy runs into rough-and-tumble Screwy.
“What kind of a cartoon is this going to be, anyway?” Screwy asks Sammy.
“The story is all about me and my cute little furry friends in the forest,” Sammy answers.
A disgusted Screwy takes Sammy behind a tree, beats him senseless and then takes over the cartoon. For the next seven minutes, Screwy inflicts torment on a not-too-bright dog named Meathead.
“Tex Avery had no patience for the earnest world of the saccharine sweet,” said Kirsten Thompson, an animation historian at Wayne State University in Detroit.
“He wanted to mock it and spoof it.”
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) – The nation’s economic downturn has delayed the return of a citywide art exhibit originally planned to start in November.
Producer Dan Cameron says “2009 was really bad for fund-raising and 2010 didn’t look much better.” So the second Prospect New Orleans show will begin in November 2011 rather than November of this year.
In November, he had said he was scaling back the city’s foray into international contemporary art shows, called Prospect New Orleans.
Prospect.1, which was modeled on international art biennials, was the largest contemporary art exhibit in U.S. history. It also ran overbudget. Cameron says he thinks an extra year of fund-raising will let the second exhibit begin on a firm financial footing.
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Information from: The Times-Picayune, http://www.nola.com
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Signed and numbered, this lithograph by Pablo O’Higgins will sell at a Wiederseim Associates auction Feb. 27. The print, which measures 22 by 16 inches, has a $50-$100 estimate. Image coutesy Wiederseim Associates.SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – An artist who turned his back on Utah at age 20 and forged a colorful career in Mexico – including a stint with famed muralist Diego Rivera – is getting a posthumous show in his native state.
Twenty-eight works by Pablo O’Higgins are now on exhibit at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts at the University of Utah.
It’s believed to be one of the only solo exhibits ever of O’Higgins’ work in the United States.
Born in 1904 in Salt Lake City as Paul Higgins, he moved to Mexico City in 1924 and according to museum officials, briefly worked as Rivera’s assistant and later changed his name. His art career took off over the ensuing decades, including well-known depictions of Mexico’s working class.
He died in 1983. Most of the works on display at the museum are on loan from private collections in Salt Lake City.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
AP-WS-02-22-10 1339EST
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ADDITIONAL LOT OF NOTE
This untitled painting by Pablo O’Higgins was in a private collection in New Jersey. The 7 1/2- by 9 1/2-inch oil on canvas painting sold for $1,500 in 2007. Image courtesy Rago Arts and Auction Center and LiveAuctioneers Archive.
Herman Miller introduced the ergonomic Aeron chair, designed by Don Chadwick and Bill Stempf, in 1994. Image courtesy The Henry Ford.DEARBORN, Mich. – Discover the minds and methods behind one of the world’s foremost modern design companies with Good Design: Stories from Herman Miller, on display through April 25 at the Henry Ford Museum. Organized by the Muskegon Museum of Art, this traveling exhibit draws upon The Henry Ford’s extensive Herman Miller design collection, most of which has never been viewed by the public.
Featuring drawings, models, prototypes, photographs, oral histories and original designed objects, Good Design showcases the creation and evolution of several masterpieces of the 20th and 21st centuries by such designers as Gilbert Rohde, Ray and Charles Eames, George Nelson, Alexander Girard, Robert Propst, Steve Frykholm, Don Chadwick, Bill Stempf and others.
Visitors to Henry Ford Museum get an exclusive first glimpse of diverse materials from the design archive of legendary designer and co-creator of the Aeron chair, Bill Stumpf. This impressive collection, featuring prototype chairs, archival sketches and conceptual drawings, was just acquired by The Henry Ford and has never been on public display.
Good Design offers four distinct displays for visitors to obtain a greater understanding of the role of design in today’s world. Through items from The Henry Ford’s collections, such as the Aeron chair, elements from the Action Office Series and the Eames molded plywood lounge chair, each display highlights case studies that identified and met specific needs:
Good Design EXPLORES, investigating ergonomics to create healthier seating;
Good Design INQUIRES, supporting new kinds of work in the white-collar sector;
Good Design ENGAGES, effectively communicating a message through graphic design;
Good Design ENDURES, showcasing mid-century design classics to furnish a new type of living space.
The Henry Ford also offers the Inspired Design Lecture Series on Feb. 25, March 25 and April 22.
Henry Ford Museum is open seven days a week, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $15 for adults, $14 for seniors and $11 for youth; members and children under five are free.
For details call (313) 982-6001 or visit www.TheHenryFord.org.
ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
George Nelson designed the Marshmallow Sofa for Herman Miller in 1956. Image courtesy The Henry Ford.
A muddy creek runs through the eroded badlands knows as the Bisti Wilderness in northwest New Mexico. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.FARMINGTON, N.M. (AP) – The discovery of dinosaur bones in the Bisti Wilderness area in 1998 was a significant find for paleontologists who uncovered what became dubbed the “Bisti Beast.”
But 12 year later, the scientific community isn’t just looking at more dinosaur bones in a museum. Rather, a new species of Tyrannosaur.
The discovery took more than a decade to validate, but paleontologists applaud the find and praise the discovery as another breakthrough in evolutionary science.
The Bisti Beast now has an official name: Bistahieversor sealeyi (pronounced bistah-he-ee-versor see-lee-eye). The skull is more than 1 meter long and the entire dinosaur stood more than 30 meters tall.
“Anytime they find a new species, it opens up a new realm for working with evolution,” said Sherrie Landon, paleontologist coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management Farmington Field Office.
The Bisti Wilderness is plush with other dinosaur, small mammal and reptile fossils, but federal regulations prevent most digs in the area.
“The only way anything’s going to be discovered is if it’s exposed naturally by wind and rain,” said Bill Papich, spokesman for the Bureau of Land Management.
Only walking and hiking are permitted in federally designated wilderness areas, Papich said. Bicycling and other outdoor activities are prohibited, including excavations.
But researchers obtained a special permit to do the dig in the 1990s.
The Bisti Beast roamed the wilderness area 74 million years ago, said Thomas Williamson, curator of paleontology at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science in Albuquerque, where the Tyrannosaur is on display. Scientists believe New Mexico was a tropical forest situated on the edge of an inland sea during the late Cretaceus period, during the time the Bisti Beast roamed the area.
The dinosaur’s closest relative is the Tyrannosaurus Rex, but a shorter snout, among other features, sets the two apart.
“This find helps clarify some of the evolutionary history of Tyrannosaurus,” Williamson said.
The Bisti Beast was one of many varieties of Tyrannosaurus living in western North America 74 million years ago, Williamson said. But 8 million years later, only the Tyrannosaurus Rex remained.
“We don’t know why that is,” Williamson said.
Researchers think the discovery of the Bisti Beast will help bridge the gaps in determining the transition from many species of Tyrannosaurus to just one in an 8-million-year time frame.
“This is a very significant discovery,” said Thomas Carr, assistant professor of biology at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wis.
Carr was one of the researchers instrumental in determining that the Bisti Beast was a new species.
The discovery could provide researchers the links between a time when many varieties of Tyrannosaurus roamed and only the Tyrannosaurus Rex remained.
“It fits in the family tree right in between two big changes,” Carr said.
To determine a new species can take many years, Landon said. The skeletal remains are examined, then the findings undergo extensive peer review from other paleontologists.
“It’s an incredible opportunity for scientists to have that happen,” Landon said.
Scientists believe the Bisti Wilderness may hold countless other species of dinosaurs, reptiles and mammals.
Mammals previously found in the area are critical to the fossil record because they are some of the earliest known species.
“It’s really a big deal in the scientific world,” Landon said.
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Information from: The Daily Times, http://www.daily-times.com
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A photographic image from the book ‘Mother and Child’ shows Tasha Tudor dressing a youngster. Image courtesy Bloomsbury and LiveAuctioneers Archive.MARLBORO, Vt. (AP) – When author Tasha Tudor’s ashes were finally buried, it wasn’t in one place. Her bickering survivors couldn’t agree on when, where and how, so a judge ordered her cremated remains divided in half.
On Oct. 17, sons Seth Tudor and Thomas Tudor and daughters Bethany Tudor and Efner Tudor Holmes buried some under a rosebush she loved in her garden and the rest on Seth’s neighboring property, where her precious Pembroke Welsh corgi dogs were already buried.
“(Seth) got the ashes, we went outside and he gave us half the ashes and he went down to his property and scattered or buried the ashes there and we scattered ours,” said Thomas Tudor, 64.
Call it the war of the Tudors: Almost two years after the famed children’s book author and illustrator died at 92, a battle over her $2 million estate rages on – pitting sibling against sibling, blasting through her assets with Probate Court litigation and sullying the eccentric artist’s name.
At issue: family grievances old and new, including whether Tudor was unduly influenced when she rewrote her will to give nearly everything to Seth Tudor, 67, her older son.
Beginning with Pumpkin Moonshine in 1938, Tudor earned fame for the delicately drawn images and watercolors illustrating Little Women, The Secret Garden and dozens of other children’s books and for her own Corgiville Fair and The Great Corgiville Kidnapping.
Her works celebrated holidays, family and her love for children, a back-to-basics lifestyle and the sturdy little dogs she loved so much.
Tudor, who was fond of saying she wished she’d been born in 1830, lived much of her life as if she had been.
A calico-clad throwback, she went barefoot, spun flax into linen for her own clothing, raised Nubian goats for their milk and lived in a replica of a late 18th-century New England farmhouse.
Born to Boston Brahmins, Tudor quit school after eighth grade, married twice and raised her children, part of the time as a single mother. Royalties from her illustrated edition of Mother Goose helped her buy a rambling, 17-room Webster, N.H. farmhouse, where the family lived with no television, no radio and – for years – no electricity.
“I remember strongly disliking the solitude and being different from other people, wanting to play with neighborhood children,” said Thomas Tudor, now a U.S. Air force lawyer living in Fairfax Station, Va.
“I didn’t like wearing homespun clothes or getting my hair cut by my father. But we certainly communed with nature. We’d go down to the river and float cakes down on little rafts at nighttime, with candles burning on them.”
All four children went to boarding schools; Tudor didn’t trust public schools.
Tudor lived in a fantasy world, said Holmes, 61, who broke off communications with her mother in 1996.
“It’s fine when you’re a child and you have the doll parties and her marionette shows and all the wonderful fantasy things she did. My friends envied me,” said Holmes, who lives in Contoocook, N.H. “But when you grow up and you have a parent who absolutely refuses to talk to you about real-life issues, it’s a problem.”
Family and simplicity were at the heart of the Tudor name. Fans all over the world – especially in Japan and Korea – bought her books and later visited her Web site; the ardent ones took $165-per-person tours of her Vermont homestead, which her sons built by hand in the 1970s.
But the estate fight has torn at the homespun fabric of her image since her June 18, 2008, death from complications of a stroke.
Tudor’s 2001 will asked that she be buried with her predeceased dogs and the ashes of her pet rooster Chickahominy, should he die before her. It left the bulk of her estate to Seth Tudor, of Marlboro, and his son, Winslow Tudor; it left $1,000 each to the two daughters and only an antique highboy to Thomas Tudor – because of their “estrangement” from her.
Her collection of 19th-century clothing went to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. Officials there declined comment for this article; Seth Tudor’s lawyer didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Thomas Tudor is challenging the validity of the will, saying his brother wielded undue influence over their mother, causing her to cut them out of an earlier version. In Probate Court filings, Seth Tudor denies it.
Now, attorneys for the brothers are wrangling about the extent of Tudor’s assets, fighting over even the smallest details, including who was responsible for a $140 snowplowing bill for the narrow, unpaved road that leads to the Tudor compound, where Seth Tudor and his family still live.
Meanwhile, Bethany Tudor, who says her mother promised her the royalties to her books once she died, wonders whether she’ll ever see anything. She lives alone in a mobile home in neighboring Brattleboro, relying on food stamps to get by as she awaits word on whether she qualifies for low-income housing.
She’d been estranged from her mother since 2000, when she sold an unpublished Tudor book called Hitty’s Almanac, which her mother had given her when she was 16. Bethany Tudor, who has one daughter, calls her mother a two-faced eccentric who ignored advice to put her assets into a four-way trust for her heirs.
“Of course I’m angry at her,” Bethany Tudor said. “But what can I do? No sense in making yourself sick over it. I don’t even think about it anymore, it’s so outrageous. A kind, loving mother wouldn’t let that happen.”
Thomas Tudor, who has five children, says he was anything but estranged, keeping in close touch with his mother until her death. He accuses his brother of hatching a plan 10 years ago to disinherit him.
Next, the court will schedule a deposition for the author’s friend Amelia Stauffer, of Ada, Ohio, who lawyers believe might shed light on her intent in writing the will. As it stands now, the case is headed for trial.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Unusually small is this Simon Willard tall clock from the late 1700s standing just 86 inches high. It has a $30,000-$50,000 estimate. Image courtesy Skinner Inc. BOSTON –Skinner’s semi-annual auction of American Furniture and Decorative Arts on March 7 will feature perhaps the most extensive collection of mocha utilitarian pottery ever offered at the auction house in a single sale.
The sale kicks off at 11 a.m. Eastern in the Boston gallery located at 63 Park Plaza and is comprised of 667 lots of material. LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding.
Also offered in the upcoming Americana auction are several lots of interesting tall clocks, highlighted by a Simon Willard in a classic Roxbury case. This particular clock is especially unusual due to its small size. It is estimated at $30,000-$50,000. The sale also boasts a nice group of Connecticut production clocks from the early 19th century, coming to Skinner from a discerning collector.
A hallmark of Skinner’s Americana auctions has always been prolific folk portraiture, and distinguished in this sale is Portrait of a Girl and Her Dog in a Grape Arbor by Susan Catherine Moore Waters. The painting has remained in a New Hampshire collection since it was purchased at Skinner 30 years ago. It is estimated at $8,000-$12,000. Another portrait of interest is a John Samuel Blunt work, Portrait of a Lady Wearing a Green Dress with Jewelry. While the face is very carefully rendered, the remainder of the picture was done far more quickly, but effectively. The painting, which is estimate at $15,000-$25,000 was bought by the consignor’s grandmother in 1930 and has remained in the family since.
The sale also features some particularly fine landscapes, including Overlooking the Harbor, Cohasset, Massachusetts by Frank Henry Shapleigh, most regarded for his New Hampshire scenes. The piece is estimated at $4,000-$6,000. Marine art is highlighted by William Bradford’s Portrait of the Whaleship Young Hector off Clark’s Point, New Bedford. Created early in Bradford’s career, the painting is very luminous in nature and reminiscent of Fitz Henry Lane style, from whom he was influenced. It is estimated at $60,000-$80,000. Other marine offerings include James Edward Buttersworth’s Yacht Race estimated at $15,000-$20,000 as well as a scrimshaw and whale tooth carvings.
Finally, the sale is highlighted by a pair of fire buckets from Salem, Mass. While many fire buckets have survived, few pairs have remained intact. Painting on one bucket in particular is in very good condition. The pair is estimated at $4,000-$6,000.
Previews for the auction will be held March 3 from noon-5 p.m.; March 4 from noon-8 p.m., March 5 from noon-8 p.m., March 6 from noon- 5 p.m., March 7 from 8-10 a.m. In conjunction with Friday’s preview, Skinner will host an Americana gallery walk. The reception will be held at 5:30 p.m., with the gallery walk commencing at 6:30 p.m. Make reservations by calling 617-350-5400.
For details call 508-970-3000.
View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet during the sale at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.
Estimates range from $200 to $1,200 for these individual pieces of distinctly decorated mocha pottery. Image courtesy Skinner Inc. William Bradford (American, 1823-1892) painted this ‘Portrait of the Whaleship Young Hector off Clark’s Point, New Bedford.’ The 20- by 30-inch oil on canvas has a $60,000-$80,000 estimate. Image courtesy Skinner Inc. It is unusual to find a matched pair of polychrome painted leather fire buckets. This set from Salem, Mass., has a $4,000-$6,000 estimate. Image courtesy Skinner Inc.
The new library is expected to open in 2012 on the grounds of George Washington’s estate off the banks of the Potomac River. Image courtesy Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. MOUNT VERNON, Va. (AP) – There were no presidential libraries in the days of George Washington, so his papers and writings are scattered around the world. Some are lost forever. Martha Washington, for instance, burned nearly all of her personal letters from her husband shortly before she died.
But an unprecedented $38 million donation will allow George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate to establish a library dedicated to scholarship on the nation’s first president, in many ways filling the role of the modern presidential library.
The Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington is expected to open in 2012 on the grounds of Washington’s estate off the banks of the Potomac River, the estate announced Friday.
Mount Vernon Director James Rees said they don’t want to call it a “presidential library,” though, for several reasons. First, Mount Vernon has long prided itself on eschewing all forms of government funding, a contrast with modern presidential libraries that are part of the national Archives.
Rees also said a library focused only on Washington’s presidency would be too limiting, ignoring his significant contributions as a military general and as an 18th century entrepreneur.
The library will not only serve leading scholars and historians, but is designed to reach out to the general public. It will help train teachers and can host conferences and seminars for corporate boards to learn about Washington’s leadership skills.
The estate also wants to create a Mount Vernon Press that will publish new research on Washington.
Rees said he wants to engage the public in new ways. As an example, he suggested developing a George Washington video game, highlighting Washington as an 18th-century action hero.
“Mount Vernon has to reach beyond these gates,” Rees said. “We have to get involved with what’s called pop culture.”
Several years ago, concerned that the public viewed Washington as a stodgy, irrelevant figure, the estate built a new museum and orientation center that highlighted Washington’s vigorous youth and his military exploits, using interactive exhibits and even a 4-D theater. The new exhibits spurred a 20 percent increase in attendance that has not abated.
The $38 million donation, the largest in the estate’s history, comes from the Las Vegas-based Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, a longtime supporter of Mount Vernon.
Fred W. Smith, the foundation’s chairman, said his organization does not typically get involved in historical preservation efforts, but he was spurred to action in 2001 after learning that the Smithsonian Institution might lose possession of a famed Gilbert Stuart portrait of Washington. He learned from Rees that history textbooks in recent years have devoted less and less attention to Washington. Since then, he has been a staunch supporter of Mount Vernon.
“When I was in school, every schoolhouse had a picture of George Washington,” Smith said.
The estate also announced a partnership Friday with the University of Virginia, in which the new library will serve as the home for The Papers of George Washington, a 90-volume edition being compiled by the university consisting of copies all the known letters and documents written and received by Washington.
Mount Vernon plans to break ground on the library only after it raises $20 million in matching funds.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
AP-ES-02-19-10 1735EST
ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE
An artist’s conception shows an exterior view of the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington. Image courtesy Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.
Prinz Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein mit einer seiner beliebtesten Anschaffung für die Familiensammlung: Der 18. Jh. Badminton Schrank mit zarten Pietra Dura Halbedelstein und goldbronzenen Skulpturen. (Foto mit freundlicher Erlaubnis des Liechtenstein Museum)
Für Prinz Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein ist das Sammeln nicht nur ein Hobby. Es ist eine Familienverantwortung, die ihm das erste Mal als junger Erwachsener in den 1970igern widerfuhr, als er die schwierige Entscheidung traf, das Portrait von Frans Hals von Willem van Heythuysen zu verkaufen.
“Dieser Verkauf verursachte zu jener Zeit eine Art Aufruhr in Liechtenstein, aber er versetzte mich auch in die Lage -direkt nach Abschluss meines Studiums im Alter von 24 Jahren- den fürstlichen Besitz und Vermögen zu reorganisieren und wiederaufzubauen.”, erinnert sich Prinz Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein
Verwalter einer Sammlung zu werden, die bis ins 17. Jahrhundert reicht, kann in diesem jungen Alter nicht einfach gewesen sein. Bei einem Überfluss an Gemälden Alter Meister vom 14. bis zum 18. Jh., mit einem Schwerpunkt auf flämischen und Biedermeier Gemälden, mangelt es der Sammlung an Skulpturen und Möbeln. Mehrere sehr schöne Gemälde wurden nach dem 2. Weltkrieg bar verkauft, einschließlich Leonardo DaVincis Portrait von Ginevra de’ Benci, welches im Jahr 1967 an die Nationale Kunstgalerie, Washington, ging.
Anlässlich der Feierlichkeiten zum 65. Geburtstag des Prinzen Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein, werden 140 Stücke der Familiensammlung im Gartenpalast, dem Liechtenstein-Museum in Wien ausgestellt. Die Ausstellung demonstriert die mehr als dreißigjährige fleißige Arbeit des Prinzen, die Lücken in der Sammlung zu schließen.
Der Prinz gibt zu, sich mehr für Wissenschaften zu interessieren, hatte aber trotzdem ein Vergnügen damit, die Familiensammlung wieder aufzubauen und zu ergänzen. Prinz Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein zeigt auf Erasmus Hebermehl’s Equatorial Annular Sundial als ein Stück, welches das aktuellste technische und mathematische Wissen jener Zeit in der Darstellung als Kunstwerk kombiniert.
“Mein Interesse und meine Erkenntnisse sind gewachsen, obwohl ich nach wie vor ein Amateur bin”, erklärt Prinz Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein bescheiden, “Davon abgesehen habe ich sehr Frühzeitig begriffen, dass der Kauf von Kunstwerken eine sehr gute Investition sein kann, falls man wenigstens etwas davon versteht. Deshalb hole ich mir immer Expertenrat ein, wenn ich Kunstwerke zu kaufen beabsichtige.”
Teile dieser Ausstellung werden vom 24. September 2010 bis 16. Januar 2011 im Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein in Vaduz zu sehen sein. Um mehr von der Sammlung zu sehen, besuchen Sie www.liechtensteinmuseum.at.
Auktionfirmen expandieren
In diesem unsicheren wirtschaftlichen Klima ist ermutigend zu hören, dass 2 deutsche Auktionshäuser beabsichtigen, zu expandieren. Sowohl die Van Ham Kunstauktionen, Köln, als auch Hermann Historica, München, stocken ihr Personal auf, um die Vertretung in einem größeren geographischen Territorium zu gewährleisten.
Kunstexpertin Pia von Buchwaldt tritt bei Van Ham Kunstauktionen als deren neuer Vertreter in Hamburg ein. Sie wird unter der Adresse “Alsterufer 33” zu erreichen sein, um alle Fragen potentieller Käufer sowie Verkäufer bezüglich ihrer Sammlungen zu beantworten und hat auch bereits ihren ersten “Expertentag” gehalten.
www.van-ham.com
Hermann Historica begrüßt Nicholas McCullogh, den früheren Leiter der Waffen- und Rüstungsabteilung bei Christies, als ihren neuen Repräsentanten in London im Rahmen einer neuen strategischen Allianz mit Bloomsbury Auktionen und Dreweatts, London, New York und Rom. Ebenso wird Bloomsbury, bekannt für seine Bücher, Manuskripte und Grafiken, eine Vertretung in der deutschsprachigen Auktionswelt durch Hermann Historica’s Militaria Auktionshaus in München haben. Beide Auktionshäuser freuen sich über ihre neuen internationalen Kooperationen, planen aber keine Geschäftsfusionen. www.herman-historica.com
Weitere Neuigkeiten
Katzen – fremd und faszinierend, Doebele Galerie + Kunstauktionen, Kunstgut Effeldorf, 24. Februar bis zum 30. April. www.fine-art-doebele.de
“Pop Life. Warhol, Haring, Koons, Hirst” ab jetzt bis zum 5 September 2010, Galerie der Gegenwart, Glockengießerwall. www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de
Aktuell bis zum 13. März 2010 zeigt Ketterer Kunst die Ausstellung “Tom Wesselmann – Grafische Arbeiten” in seinen Räumen in Berlin-Charlottenburg. Die präsentierten Werke stammen aus der New Yorker Sammlung Paul Rothman. www.kettererkunst.de
Schmidt Kunstauktionen in Dresden beginnt das neue Auktionsjahr am 13. März mit einem reichhaltigen Angebot von 850 Objekten der Richtung Kunst, Porzellan, Glas und Einrichtungsgegenstände vom 18. bis zum 21. Jahrhundert. www.schmidt-auktionen.de
Van Ham Kunstauktionen Kunstexpertin Pia von Buchwaldt (Foto mit freundlicher Erlaubnis Vam Ham.) Hermann Historica London Repräsentant Nicholas McCullough. (Foto mit Erlaubnis und copyright Hermann Historica oHG, 2010.) Lithographie Katze, ca. 1920 von Otto Lange, 1879-1944. (Foto mit Erlaubnis Doebele Galerie + Kunstauktionen.)
Eine aus den USA stammende, freischaffend tätige Journalistin – Heidi Lux ist in der Nähe von Rochester, NY, aufgewachsen – und hat das Studium am Nazareth College in Rochester erfolgreich abgeschlossen. Ihr derzeitiger Wohnsitz befindet sich in Sachsen, Deutschland, wo Sie als Englisch Redakteur und Privatlehrer für Englisch arbeitet. Ihre journalistischen Arbeiten wurden sowohl in den englisch sprachigen Magazinen “Transitions Abroad” und “German Life” veröffentlicht, sowie auch in mehreren US-amerikanischen Publikationen des Antiquitätenhandels.
Click here to view Wichita Auction Gallery’s complete catalog.
Eine aus den USA stammende, freischaffend tätige Journalistin – Heidi Lux ist in der Nähe von Rochester, NY, aufgewachsen – und hat das Studium am Nazareth College in Rochester erfolgreich abgeschlossen. Ihr derzeitiger Wohnsitz befindet sich in Sachsen, Deutschland, wo Sie als Englisch Redakteur und Privatlehrer für Englisch arbeitet. Ihre journalistischen Arbeiten wurden sowohl in den englisch sprachigen Magazinen “Transitions Abroad” und “German Life” veröffentlicht, sowie auch in mehreren US-amerikanischen Publikationen des Antiquitätenhandels.