HONG KONG (AFP) – A leading international art fair is to display a provocative work by detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in Hong Kong in a show of solidarity with the outspoken dissident amid a government crackdown.

Director Magnus Renfrew said the organisers of ART HK shared the concerns of the international community over Ai’s fate, and called for “due process” of the law to be upheld in his case, which has sparked an international outcry.

“Ai Weiwei’s works have been greatly admired,” he said.

The fair, starting Thursday, is to display Ai’s 2007 sculpture Marble Arm, which depicts an outstretched arm and hand – with its middle finger raised.

The artist was taken into custody in Beijing last month during the government’s biggest crackdown on dissidents and activists in years, with authorities later saying he was suspected of unspecified “economic crimes.”

The U.S. and European Union have called for Ai’s release, but Beijing has rejected such calls, denouncing them as interfering and inappropriate.

Marble Arm is being brought to the fair by Switzerland-based Galerie Urs Meile, which also runs a gallery in Beijing.

“By presenting his work, we believe his situation will be discussed,” the gallery’s assistant Rene Meile told AFP.

Chinese police alleged last week that a firm controlled by Ai had evaded taxes, in a move that appeared to be aimed at building their case against the detained artist.

Hong Kong maintains semi-autonomous status from China and enjoys civil liberties not seen on the mainland. Artists and campaigners have staged a series of protests there calling for Ai’s release.

ART HK, which is now in its fourth year, will see a record 260 galleries from 38 countries taking part in the four-day fair. It is expected to draw at least 45,000 visitors to see work by over 1,000 artists.

The city, which has become the world’s third-biggest auction hub behind London and New York, has ambitions to establish itself as a center for art in Asia.

The fair will also show new works by cutting-edge artist Barnaby Furnas and an acclaimed anamorphic projection by South African artist William Kentridge.

Organizers said they expect to see tens of millions of dollars in sales over the four days, but could not provide a forecast for the private transactions.

Several auctioneers, including Christie’s and Sotheby’s, are holding Hong Kong art sales to coincide with ART HK. The auctions are expected to gross in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

# # #

 

 

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

---

ROME (AP) – The Vatican on Friday slammed a giant new modernist sculpture that portrays John Paul II, saying the bronze work outside Rome’s main train station doesn’t even look like the late pontiff. Commuters and tourists say the statue looks more like the late Italian dictator Benito Mussolini than the widely beloved pope.

“How could they have given such a kind pope the head of a Fascist?” said 71-year-old Antonio Lamonica, in the bustling square outside Termini Train Station. As he pondered the statue, his wife muttered, “It’s ugly, really ugly, very ugly.”

The artist, Oliviero Rainaldi, depicts the pontiff as if he is opening his cloak to embrace the faithful.

But the Vatican says the effect is “of a mantle that almost looks like a sentry box, topped by a head of a pope which comes off too roundish.”

Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno, asked by APTN in an exclusive interview in his office if the city might take down the statue, said public opinion would be considered.

“There’s an ancient saying: ‘Vox populi, vox dei’ (Latin for voice of the people, voice of God),” Alemanno said. “And from this point of view we cannot help but take into consideration the opinion of the public.”

“And if public opinion consolidates around a negative opinion, we’ll have to take that into consideration,” the mayor said.

While acknowledging that the work is a modern one, and describing as “praiseworthy” the city of Rome’s initiative to erect the tribute, the Vatican said “the statue’s sin” is that it is “hardly able to be recognized.”

The statue, paid for by a foundation at no cost to the city of Rome, was erected a few days ago, to mark what would have been John Paul’s 91st birthday, on May 18. Pope Benedict beatified John Paul, the last formal step before sainthood, on May 1, at a ceremony drawing about 1 million admirers to Rome.

The website of the Silvana Paolini Angelucci Foundation, which is dedicated to humanitarian efforts and which donated the statue, makes no mention of the controversy. Neither the foundation nor the artist could be reached immediately for comment.

Comments of passers-by in the square Friday largely echoed those on Rome daily Il Messaggero’s website, where 90 percent of respondents told the paper’s online questionnaire that they didn’t like the statue.

The sculpture “doesn’t speak to me,” said Gracia Gonzalez Sanchez, from the Spanish island of Malaga. “I can’t recognize the pope. It could be a cardinal or anyone else. I think they should have put a crucifix or some other symbol related to him,” she told The Associated Press.

Fausto Durante, a 58 year-old from southern Puglia who commutes to Rome twice weekly for work, said the statue wasn’t bad but it just shouldn’t be in a public square.

“Millions of people pass by this place every day, and you need something you can recognize. If the artist wants to do conceptual art, he would aim for a museum, not a public place where the faithful want to recognize their pope,” Durante said.

He started to walk away, but turned back to say: “I want to add that its profile looks like Mussolini.”

The city noted that Vatican culture officials had seen a sketch of the work and approved it.

Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, confirmed that the sketch “received a positive opinion by the culture commission” of the Holy See. What happened between sketch stage and the final result, he couldn’t say.

A Rome cleaning woman ventured some practical objections, as well as artistic. “With the shape of a cape, sooner or later the homeless people at the station will sleep inside it, and in no time, it will be full of bottles of beer,” said Grazia Liberti, 46, returning home after her night job.

Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-05-20-11 2147GMT

 

---

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

---

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Nearly 40 years after leaving West Marin to become a Montana landscape painter, Russell Chatham has ended up with an excess of Montana land. A speculative binge has about broken him at age 71, so he’s come home to paint his way out of it.

“My sole possessions in this universe are 10 gray T-shirts and three pairs of overalls,” he says with a laugh while working on a picture he’s trading for a live-work studio on Tomales Bay. Barter has been a favored means of commerce, but if you must pay cash, his pictures are priced by the square inch. Owning one will put you in company with Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Jeff Bridges and Jessica Lange – and those are just the movie names.

“Thirty years ago, when Hollywood discovered Montana, my collectors were people like Jack Nicholson, who probably has the best private art collection in America,” he says. “I would be very ashamed if Sylvester Stallone or Madonna were interested in my work. But I’m not ashamed if Tom Brokaw or Harrison Ford are.”

There is always interest in a new Chatham, but just now there isn’t inventory, says his dealer and daughter Lea Chatham of Chatham Fine Art in Livingston, Mont. One of her father’s signature Western landscapes, which are deeper than plein air and somewhere between impression and illusion, can take a year to complete. It has been three or four years since he’s had enough inspiration, she says, and that’s partly why he’s in the Bay Area.

“I’m very comfortable working with these old motifs that I grew up with,” Chatham says.

His stay is open-ended, and his housing is in flux. On this day, he can be found in Marshall, next to Hog Island Oyster Farm, right on the water in a building marked J. Shields and Sons: Dealers in Coal and Feed. There is no TV or cell reception, and he is cut off to the point that he did not know that Osama bin Laden was dead.

The main floor is an open-space studio, and above it are living quarters where he’s writing for three hours a day. His day starts at first light, and when he’s not downstairs with his brushes, he’s upstairs typing a memoir of fishing on the San Francisco Bay, where he once caught a world-record striped bass with a fly rod. The book is called “Tide, Wind and Fog” and the time frame is from the 1950s to 1972, when he decamped from California.

The grandson of famed San Francisco muralist Gottardo Piazzoni, Chatham was priced out of San Francisco, where he was born, and Marin, where he grew up. So he kept gaining latitude until he was above Yellowstone National Park and across from the college town of Bozeman. He rented a three-bedroom farmhouse in Livingston for $500 a year.

“When I moved there, people didn’t even know where Montana was,” he says. “Then suddenly everybody in America wanted to buy it, which they don’t, by the way, anymore.”

When they did in the 1980s and ’90s, Chatham was set up as a full-service town artist. Over time, he would open and operate a gallery, a print shop, a publishing house (Clark City Press) and a restaurant called Chatham’s Livingston Bar & Grille.

The logical next step was unimproved property. “I did what these rich people who were buying paintings from me told me to do, which was to buy land,” he says. “So I took all the money I had and bought land.”

As the economy went into reverse, Montana winters became too long, Montana summers too short and the wind coming up the Yellowstone River Valley too strong. The private jets stopped landing, but Chatham was still a year-rounder.

“Half the town is dead. Restaurants are closed, stores are boarded up,” says Chatham, who sold his own restaurant and furloughed Clark City Press, which had published 40 books, known as much for his cover art as the content.

After 39 Montana winters, Chatham couldn’t take a 40th. So he left his home, his gallery, which had been closed for years but was recently reopened to sell his original lithography, and all that acreage.

“I’m probably going to end up with foreclosures, and there’s nothing I can do about it,” he says. “I’m probably going to have to reconstruct my life down here.”

For a start, he has his health, which he describes as “disgustingly good,” considering his Hemingway-esque lifestyle, and he has a history in Marin. Even after he moved to Montana, he kept a studio in San Anselmo through the 1970s, and he followed his grandfather by painting large murals at the College of Marin and Marin General Hospital. They’ve been painted over, but he wasn’t as good an artist then as now. That’s another reason he returned.

“I wanted to come back to that after all those years in Montana because I’ve solved so many of the problems I had with painting technique when I left here.”

When Chatham chooses a setting, he drives out and “spends some time to try to understand certain essences and qualities.” He might take some photos but avoids copying them, which he says is a sign of bad painting. “I take a picture of it in my mind and try to re-create it,” he says. “But these things are fictional. What happens is this information comes in through your eyes and comes out through your fingers. It’s been processed by your brain so it has been twisted.”

His paint palette is in six lumps, each the size of an arrowhead, on a butcherblock table. There are red, blue, yellow, ocher and raw umber. These he mixes with white to create the muted shades of earth and sky and water that are unmistakably Chatham. “Basically what I tell people is that I’m going to trick you into thinking this is absolutely real,” he says. “If it works, then I’m successful because I’ve made up a lie that they believe.”

Chatham had four kids by three women. Unmarried now, he’s in a serious relationship with a Bay Area restaurateur whom he declines to name. He’s vague on where he’ll be staying next, but he’s rented a work studio for the first time since he left the old one in San Anselmo.

Look for him around Inverness come late May or June. He won’t have a sign out front, but he’ll be working in a gray T-shirt and denim overalls.

Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-05-21-11 1306GMT

 

---

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

---

ROME (AFP) – An armchair shaped like a flower, a sleek black Ducati and mirrors decorated with Italy’s flag star in a new Rome exhibition ased on a previously unseen collection owned by the foreign ministry.

“Farnesina and its collections,” now on exhibit in the capital’s Ara Pacis museum, gives visitors a rare chance to see masterworks of Italian design which are usually kept behind closed doors at the ministry.

The collection includes works by some of the biggest names in Italian design, from auto designer Pininfarina – which has worked with Ferrari, Maserati and Jaguar among others – to Artemide modern lighting specialists.

On show is 5 in 1, a set of glasses that stack into one another to save space, designed by Joe Colombo, a Roman renowned for his innovative furniture, lamps and clocks made for contemporary firms Kartell and Alessi.

Michelangelo Pistoletto’s The Etruscan, a 1976 work in which a bronze Etruscan statue stands before a large mirror, contrasts starkly with Italia, a mirror by Mariano Moroni in the red, white and green of the national flag.

Nearby, Israeli designer Ron Arad’s Pizzakobra – a silver lamp made of a flexible pipe that can be wound or twisted to resemble a pizza or a snake – stands taut like a cobra primed for attack.

Japanese-born designer Makio Hasuike, who opened his own design firm in Milan in Italy’s northern industrial hub in 1968, pays tribute to the Italian love affair with ice-cream with his rotating gelato display case.

Maurizio Galante’s playful Tattoo sofa, its soft covers decorated with photos of prickly cactus plants, stars alongside a 160 horse-power Ducati Diavel motorbike and a multicolored anemone flower-shaped armchair by Giancarlo Zema.

A section is also dedicated to the imposing Farnesina building housing the ministry, which was built on the banks of the Tiber under Benito Mussolini’s – who in 1935 rolled up his sleeves and kicked off the construction in person.

The colossal travertine-clad building, with a facade measuring 554 feet, was originally designed as the National Fascist Party headquarters. It has been used to house the foreign ministry since 1959.

“The Farnesina palace is a key to understanding the Fascist era and the objects contained within reveal the development of design,” Umberto Croppi, Rome’s cultural politics director, told press at a preview Thursday.

From the 1960s onwards, the cavernous spaces inside have been gradually adorned with icons of Italian design from Art Nouveau to Futurism, Arte Povera and the New Roman School – around 100 of which are now going on show.

The exhibition runs through July 3.

For details go to www.arapacis.it

---

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

---

LONDON, (AFP) – A rare British exhibition of works by Austrian artist Egon Schiele went on display in London on Thursday, many of them highly sexual and still shocking a century after they were created.

Naked save for knee-high stockings, reclining and with their legs splayed, Schiele’s nudes leave little to the imagination, reminding the audience why he was arrested in 1912 for distributing immoral material. He was later cleared.

“It still is quite powerful to many people – still people are offended,” Richard Nagy, who has put on the exhibition of more than 45 drawings and watercolors at his eponymous London gallery, told AFP.

Half of the works have never been shown, coming from private collections across the world, and none of them have ever been on public display in Britain, where Schiele’s work is largely absent from mainstream galleries.

Reflecting the artist’s fascination the exhibition works are all of women, many of them from the street, with the exception of a few self-portraits.

“Egon Schiele. Women” runs from May 19 to June 30.

---

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

---

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Since 1986, the “Tree of Utah” has stood as a lone sculpture in the western desert along Interstate 80.

Swedish artist Karl Momen, who created it, now has plans for a visitors center so more people can enjoy the towering sculpture.

Some find the man-made tree fascinating, others have used it for target practice over the years. But the world-famous artist who fell in love with Utah’s desert 30 years ago, wants to make his artwork more accessible and has begun meeting with state officials to make that happen.

The 87-foot tall “tree” remains a mysterious statement standing on the edge of the Bonneville Salt Flats.

Momen became fascinated with what he calls the magnificent desert landscape driving to and from California 25 years ago. He designed a tree, signifying life in a place seemingly void of life.

“It is going to be an object of thinking,” he said in a 1986 interview. “What is the motive?”

His design included rocks and minerals from Utah’s desert, glued onto giant cement spheres. Contractor Don Ryman and his six sons took on the project.

It proved to be monumental back then. They crafted giant spheres – 225-tons of cement in all – that were eventually suspended 80 feet in the air with little support. And the sculpture had to withstand high desert winds.

Momen gave his tree to the state but there was never a pull-off or exit ramp along the westbound side of I-80, 95 miles west of Salt Lake.

To protect the work from vandals, a metal fence surrounds it. Momen wants to give the area new life and has now designed a visitors center with an overlook, cafe, souvenir shop, restrooms and parking. He envisions something serene. “You sit there and you don’t have any interruption of traffic, buildings, anything, just plain desert.”

Momen says it’s a great place to sit and enjoy and relax.

“In the early morning, you can see the sunrise, and by the evening, you see the sunset,” he said. “I have been almost all over the world, never have seen anything like that because when you come at the right time, it is so beautiful.”

He remembers his original reaction to terrain he says he didn’t know existed.

“August 1981 and I didn’t know anything about the desert. A walk, the crunch of the salt and I was so taken with the desert and then it didn’t take me many minutes to think something must be done here,” Momen recalls.

He says his sculpture remains internationally popular, largely because of the Internet. Between August and October, more than 1.2 million people saw the “tree” on Facebook and YouTube, he said.

Momen estimates the cost for the center will be between $1 million and $3 million. He says he has out-of-state donors, foundations in the Silicon Valley.

Momen said he has met with Division of Facilities Construction and Management director Gregg Buxton and attorney Alan Bachman. He plans to meet with representatives from Utah Department of Transportation and Office of Tourism. He says it will take 10 months to a year to acquire the licensing from all the state agencies before construction can begin.

___

Information from: Deseret News, http://www.deseretnews.com

Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-05-11-11 2318GMT

 

---

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

---

PARIS (AP) – A blood-colored, globulous balloon ensconced in Paris’ Grand Palais seems to suck you into its vortex as you lose your sense of balance. And that’s not such a bad thing.

The city’s latest monumental exhibit, by Anish Kapoor, is at once enveloping and vertigo-inducing, and as often with the outspoken British artist, political. Kapoor dedicated it to jailed Chinese artist and government critic Ai Weiwei.

Leviathan, which opened Wednesday and runs through June 23, really is just one 75,000-cubic-meter balloon filling up much of the Art Nouveau, glass-roofed Grand Palais. Its “skin” is PVC vinyl, barely thicker than the skin of a toy balloon. Its four orbs are sustained by fans pumping whooshes of air that become the exhibit’s soundtrack.

It’s a show you experience from inside and out. A stiff, narrow revolving door releases visitors into what curator Jean de Loisy calls “this strange monster.”

The initial sense of darkness and the deep red tones do make you feel you’re in the belly of some beast. It mesmerizes gradually, as the sunlight coming in through the Palais’ windowed roof shifts its shadows. The seams in the balloon form lines that lead to a black hole in the center of one orb.

“It offers the possibility of going inside ourselves,” de Loisy told The Associated Press at the opening. “You are at the origin of the world.”

That black hole creates such a pull, and the lines are so dizzying, that one visitor swayed and stumbled as she tried to find the exit. She sought to steady herself on a wall, but instead found herself reaching inside a deeply concave balloon.

From outside, the balloon resembles a mutant blimp, bulging in four directions. Visitors walk under and around the bulges, touching the smooth skin of the burgundy vinyl.

The exhibit is the latest in a series staged by the Grand Palais called Monumenta, in which artists create massive artworks taking into account the scale and structure of the domed venue. Past Monumenta exhibitors included U.S. artist Richard Serra and German artist Anselm Kiefer.

“It’s both monumental and intimate,” said visitor Sabyne Soulard, who teaches art in Toulouse. Waving her hand to watch the shadows it created, she said, “It feels like it’s breathing.”

Kapoor, one of Britain’s best-known artists, is known for embracing enormity. He is designing a 375-foot twisting steel tower to overlook the Olympic Stadium in east London, intended to draw tourists to the London Olympic Park after the 2012 Games. His 110-ton stainless steel Cloud Gate sculpture on Chicago’s lakefront has become one of the city’s most photographed landmarks.

Indian-born Kapoor dedicated the exhibit to Ai Weiwei, who was detained trying to board a flight to Hong Kong last month amid a Chinese crackdown on dissidents.

“His arrest, disappearance and alleged torture are unacceptable. When governments silence artists it bears witness to their barbarity,” Kapoor said in a statement.

___

Online:

www.monumenta.com

Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-WF-05-11-11 1424GMT

LONDON – The National Portrait Gallery has announced the call for entries for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011, a major international photographic award. Entry forms are now available and the closing date for entries is July 7, 2011.

The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011 is open to all photographers over the age of 18 and provides an important platform for portrait photographers including gifted amateurs, students and professionals of all ages. Those who wish to enter may visit www.npg.org.uk/photoprize and complete the online application form.

Around 60 photographers will be selected for the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, and the winner of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2011 will receive £12,000. The exhibition will run at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from Nov. 10, 2011 until Feb. 12, 2012.

For the third year running ELLE magazine will commission a photographer selected for the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize exhibition to shoot a feature story for the magazine. Clare Shilland won the second ELLE Commission in 2010 for her portrait Merel.

Last year the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize attracted nearly 6,000 entries and was won by David Chancellor, for his portrait Huntress with Buck. Prizes were also awarded to Panayiotis Lamprou, Jeffrey Stockbridge and Abbie Trayler-Smith.

Tim Eyles, Managing Partner of Taylor Wessing says: “We are delighted to continue our sponsorship of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize and we look forward to further strengthening our relationship with the National Portrait Gallery. As a multi-jurisdictional law firm we are proud to support an international competition that reflects our own firm-wide commitment to developing talent and supporting the arts, and which provides such pleasure and inspiration to those who take part and visit the exhibition. We hope that amateur and professional photographers internationally will be inspired to submit their entries to make this year’s competition the best yet.”

The first prize winner receives £12,000 (approx. $19,640). In addition the judges, at their discretion, will award one or more cash prizes to the shortlisted photographers.

ELLE magazine will choose one photographer selected for the exhibition to shoot a feature story. They will pay standard commissioning rates and expenses to the photographer chosen. ELLE is the world’s biggest-selling fashion magazine with 39 editions worldwide. The British edition of ELLE sells 195,455 copies a month (ABC January-December 2009).

#   #   #

 

GENEVA (AFP) – Works by many of the world’s greatest modern and impressionist artists will be sold at auction in June with the closure of the gallery of late Swiss art trader Ernst Beyeler, auctioneers Christie’s said on Sunday.

The paintings, sculptures and sketches from Beyeler and his wife Hildy’s private gallery collection include works by Monet, Gauguin, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Matisse, Kokoschka, Klee, Leger, Dubuffet and Roy Lichtenstein, the auction house said.

Ernst Beyeler, who became renowned for building one of the most impressive international collections of 20th century art, died at the age of 88 in February 2010, less than two years after Hildy.

“Many generations of specialists and collectors have seen their taste forged by Beyeler’s eye,” said Jussi Pylkkaenen, president of Christie’s Europe, Middle East and Russia. “To buy from Ernst Beyeler was to buy great 20th century modernism, and to buy from Beyeler was to buy the best.”

During his lifetime, Beyeler had already donated much of his collection, more than 200 seminal works, to a foundation and its purpose-built museum next to his native city of Basel.

However, he still owned many cherished works through his small gallery in the city center.

The Swiss gallery announced late Friday that it was closing in keeping with the couple’s last wishes and that its funds would be used to raise money for the Fondation Beyeler.

“We look forward to a tremendous atmosphere in the saleroom and to raising a significant sum for the Fondation Beyeler, which remains the great legacy of Ernst Beyeler’s personal generosity and vision,” said Pylkkaenen.

The auction is to take place in London on June 21-22.

Click here to purchase the 2007 book Beyeler Collection by Beyeler, Hohl, Kuster and Buttner through Amazon.com: www.amazon.com/Beyeler-Collection-Ernst/dp/3775719466