Evening view of the St. Louis Art Museum at Forest Park in a photo taken by Matt Kitces on Sept. 27, 2008. Image used by permission, Creative Commons license, Wikimedia Commons.
ST. LOUIS (AP) – The St. Louis Art Museum broke ground on Tuesday, Jan. 19, 2010, to mark the start of a $130.5 million expansion project.
Mayor Francis Slay, St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley and other dignitaries attended the 3 p.m. event outside the museum in the city’s Forest Park.
Museum officials announced the go-ahead for the expansion last month – more than a year after weakening credit markets and the sour economy delayed the project.
The expansion has been in the planning stages for more than a decade. The new wings are expected to open in about two years, and the museum will remain open during construction.
The additional space will allow the museum to display more of its 30,000-piece collection.
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Autographed photo of Abraham Lincoln taken by C.S. German, sold for $35,000 + buyer’s premium at Cowan’s Auctions, June 7, 2007.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Indiana State Museum officials said Wednesday that a fundraising campaign devoted to caring for a large collection of Abraham Lincoln artifacts, including the last portrait Lincoln sat for, raised nearly $7 million in its first six months.
Campaign co-chairman Ian Rolland said he and his colleagues were advised to wait until after the recession before asking donors for the $12.5 million deemed necessary to conserve, exhibit and endow a fund for the collection’s long-term maintenance.
Rolland said the fundraising response to date – $6.9 million in gifts or pledges from individuals, businesses and foundations from around Indiana – shows Lincoln “holds a special place in the hearts” of the residents of the state known as his boyhood home.
“Abraham Lincoln spent a good share of his early days here in Indiana and the acquisition of this collection gives Indiana its proper place in terms of the Lincoln history,” he said.
Nearly half the money pledged so far, $3 million, came from Lilly Endowment.
Museum officials said the collection, valued at about $20 million, was once the nation’s largest privately held collection of Lincoln memorabilia.
Lincoln National Corp., which moved from Fort Wayne to Philadelphia in 1999, began amassing the memorabilia of Lincoln’s personal and presidential life in 1928. It includes campaign materials, about 300 documents signed by Lincoln and 5,000 photographs – many of which belonged to the Lincoln family.
In late 2008, the company donated the collection to Indiana. The collection is housed both at the downtown Indianapolis museum and the Allen County Public Library in Fort Wayne.
Tom King, the state museum’s interim president and CEO, said that while the collection has been seen by many Fort Wayne residents and visitors to that city, it will be getting wider exposure at the museum.
“These remarkable treasures are just waiting to be discovered by the citizens of Indiana and visitors here,” King said during a news conference.
He said some of the fundraising campaign will be used to digitize the entire collection to make it available online to Lincoln scholars and anyone else who wants to see it.
Museum officials announced the campaign success with one of the collection’s choice pieces – the final portrait that Lincoln sat for – as a backdrop.
Lincoln sat for artist Matthew Wilson in February 1865, when the Civil War still was raging. Wilson finished the painting after Lincoln was assassinated two months later.
Rolland, who is Lincoln National’s former chairman, recalled that when the portrait was acquired in the 1980s he and a colleague never left the side of the crate carrying the painting, even taking it with them into the dining car.
Dale Ogden, the museum’s chief curator or cultural history, said the collection includes more than 30,000 objects, as well as about 220,000 newspaper clippings from the mid-1800s to the present about Lincoln.
Among its choice pieces are rare signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolishing slavery, and the chair in which Lincoln sat for some of his most famous presidential photographs.
The museum will showcase some of the collection in an exhibit that opens Feb. 12. The same day, a traveling Library of Congress exhibit on Lincoln also opens at the museum.
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ATLANTA (AP) – Simple line drawings aren’t what most art lovers think of when people mention Henri Matisse, who’s better known for his vivid, colorful paintings.
The artist produced dozens of drawings and etchings as illutrations for the work of French poets Stephane Mallarme and Pierre Ronsard. Matisse’s drawings appeared alongside the poems in his Florilege des Amours de Ronsard and Poesies collections, published in the 1930s and ’40s.
Sixty-three of the illustrations will be on display at the Museum of Art at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta from Jan. 17 until May 9.
“There is a sensual, lyrical line he creates,” said museum director Lloyd Nick. “I wouldn’t be surprised if after seeing the exhibit, people feel like dancing.”
The pieces include couples wrapped in each other’s arms, women lounging on beds and lush flowers. They also include familiar images, such as a sketch of the frolicking figures from his vibrant painting, The Dance.
Other pieces are more complex: a woman clothed in a patterned dress standing in a forest or a nude woman bathing in a stream flanked by vines.
The works in the exhibit are part of the estate of French publisher Albert Skira, who worked closely with Matisse on both works. It will appear again in 2011 when it goes to Los Angeles, said curator Reilly Rhodes.
Matisse, who died in 1954 at the age of 84, created art in various media throughout his career – from collages of thick pieces of painted paper to bronze sculpture. He is best known for his vivid paintings of rounded blue nudes, a slain Icarus falling through a starry blue sky and cloud-like flowers and plants.
PARIS (AP) – The Louvre Museum attracted 8.5 million visitors last year, the same number it had in record-breaking 2008.
Temporary exhibits, including a show about the ancient Egyptians and another on Venetian Renaissance masters Titian, Tintoretto and Veronese, helped attract art lovers.
On top of the 8.5 million people who toured the Paris museum, another 3.5 million visited traveling shows of Louvre works in France and abroad. One traveling exhibit on 18th-century European painting drew in 1.5 million visitors in Tokyo and Kyoto, Japan.
The Louvre released its annual attendance figures Monday.
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KAMUELA, Hawaii (AP) – The Big Island’s fabled Parker Ranch is reducing public access to its historic properties and rare art because of the slow economy, a ranch spokeswoman said.
The Mana Hale and Puuopelu historic homes are no longer open to the public Tuesdays through Saturdays. Puuopelu, the former home of the ranch’s last owner, Richard Smart, houses a rare collection of art from around the world.
The move is part of an ongoing effort by the foundation that owns Parker Ranch to cut costs after $18 million in operational losses in 2008.
“Parker Ranch is still exploring opportunities to be able to open the home on a more regular basis. We are all very passionate about the history of Parker Ranch,” Diane Quitiquit said. “It’s just a great honor to share that with visitors and our community.”
The houses will be available to tour during the Feb. 6 Cherry Blossom Heritage Festival, and there will be 10 dates before then during which the homes will be opened for private groups.
But beyond that, what will be done with the properties hasn’t been undetermined, Quitiquit said. And the fate of the artwork, antiques and memorabilia housed in the buildings is also up in the air, she said.
“There are no plans to move any of the Hawaiian artifacts in the Mana Hale house,” Quitiquit said. “Although there have been some changes, there hasn’t been a long-term decision made.”
While the home tours are no longer available, the ranch will continue to offer horseback riding tours, ATV tours and hunting excursions, she said.
Founded on the Big Island more than 160 years ago, Parker Ranch is one of the largest ranches in the nation.
Last year, Parker Ranch offered to sell 3,509 acres of North Kohala property for a reported $50 million. That sale to an undisclosed buyer is expected to close later this year.
The ranch also sold its realty division in November.
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Information from: Hawaii Tribune-Herald,
http://www.hilohawaiitribune.com
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Aerial view of Woodburn Circle on West Virginia University’s downtown campus. 2004 photo by Wvuuam, Creative Commons license, courtesy Wikimedia Commons. MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) – Work on the first phase of West Virginia University’s new art museum is expected to be completed in May.
The old Erickson Alumni Center is being renovated to house the museum’s staff offices, a gift shop and a hall for performances and other events.
The second phase involves construction of a three-story building next to the Creative Arts Center. Curator Bob Bridges says about 3,000 works of art owned by WVU will be moved to the new building.
Museum director Joyce Ice says the building is slated to open in 2012. She isn’t sure when construction will start.
The project’s total cost is about $10.5 million. Ice says WVU has raised about $8.5 million to $9 million so far.
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Information from: The Dominion Post, http://www.dominionpost.com
Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
CLAREMONT, Calif. – On Dec. 21, the Claremont Museum of Art Board of Directors voted to discontinue operation of the museum in The Packing House and place the permanent collection in a secure storage facility. The board will continue working to rejuvenate the Claremont Museum of Art in the next few years as the economy improves.
The Claremont Museum of Art nearly closed its doors in October, but thanks to funding from the City of Claremont, the institution remained open through 2009. For the past six weeks, a working group of board members and volunteers has been meeting regularly to create a business plan for 2010. The group determined that it would cost $213,000 to operate the museum for one year on a modest budget with one employee and a large group of dedicated volunteers.
The museum has received over $5,000 in donations from the initial letter sent to supporters. A fund-raising project is underway to sell 15 ceramic Torso sculptures cast from Harrison McIntosh’s original 1940s mold for $5,000 each. So far, there have been four orders for the sculptures, and the first castings will be completed soon after the first of the year.
An art book signing raised $3,500; and a phone campaign resulted in pledges totaling $26,255. This would be enough to continue operations for only about six weeks, so the decision was made to discontinue operations at The Packing House.
The working group has already begun looking at ways to remain a functioning entity and to begin to restructure and rebuild. Founding President Marguerite McIntosh said artworks will still be able to view, but on the Internet. “With a group of dedicated leaders, we shall continue as a museum without walls,” she said. “We shall offer the public the best talent that Claremont has and continues to produce as a reputed center of art.”
LONDON (AP) – The prince of Liechtenstein has canceled a major London art exhibition because British officials have held up the export of a Renaissance painting he bought in 2006, officials said Wednesday.
Prince Hans-Adam II pulled the plug on the exhibition, planned for autumn of next year, because of a criminal investigation into whether the permission to export the painting was properly obtained, according to museum officials in London and Vienna.
Johann Kraeftner, director of the Collections of the Prince of Liechtenstein and the Vienna Liechtenstein Museum, stressed that neither the prince nor the museum was involved in the probe surrounding The Infante Don Diego, by 16th century Spanish painter Sanchez Coello.
He said that the British government’s failure to tell them what was going on during the more than two-year investigation meant that his institution could not trust it with its art.
“We are not going to entrust our great treasures to a state that treats us badly,” Kraeftner said, adding he tried to find an “amicable solution” with the Royal Academy of Arts in London, where highlights from the prince’s 500-year-old collection were due to go on display.
The exhibition had been due to include Italian and German Renaissance paintings as well as other work – although The Infante Don Diego was not due to go on display, the academy said.
It added that it was disappointed by the prince’s move and was working on finding an alternative to the show.
The British investigation was first made public in 2007, when Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs announced the arrest of an unnamed art dealer on suspicion of manipulating the documents needed to export The Infante and other works, including a 17th century Dutch masterpiece by Michiel van Musscher titled Portrait Of An Artist.
The agency declined comment when asked for an update on the investigation Wednesday, but confirmed that The Infante was still being kept in the U.K.
Kraeftner said his museum would be willing to reconsider a show in London once the matter was resolved.
“We just want legal certainty,” he said.
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Associated Press Writer Veronika Oleksyn in Vienna contributed to this report.
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, completed in 2003, was London architect Zaha Hadid’s first American work. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) – Michigan State University’s trustees have approved the start of construction for a new world-class art museum on the East Lansing campus.
The school says it will break ground March 16, 2010 for the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum. It is expected to open in early 2012.
In 2007, Michigan State alumnus Eli Broad and his wife, Edythe, donated $18.5 million toward building the museum. The couple also gave $7.5 million to commission a sculpture, buy art works and fund operations and an endowment.
The university says the $26 million gift is its largest ever and that the facility will enable the museum to increase its visibility, showcase more of the permanent collection, and organize and exhibit larger and more significant exhibitions.
London-based architect Zaha Hadid won an international design competition for the museum in January 2008.
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On the Net:
http://www.broadmuseum.msu.edu
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WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Smithsonian Institution has settled a lawsuit with a former employee who accused the National Air and Space Museum of failing to properly contain asbestos and penalizing him after he complained.
According to documents obtained by The Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, the $233,000 settlement with Richard Pullman was signed in July. It was filed under seal at the Department of Labor.
Smithsonian spokeswoman Linda St. Thomas says there is no admission of guilt in the settlement.
An outside consultant’s study ordered by the Smithsonian urges improvements in the handling of asbestos at the museum complex. The study calls for changes in training and procedures.
More than 800 Smithsonian workers have attended asbestos classes this year.
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Information from: The Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com
Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
