Search

The article discusses the depiction of the night by painters. It notes that the painters' perception of the night often have been affected by the cultural preoccupations and technological progress of their times. It describes the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh titled "The Starry Night" and "The Night Café." It relates the devotion of painter John Atkinson Grimshaw to the night. It presents an overview of the popularity of the secular nightscape in the middle of the 17th century. It cites several painting exhibitions of the secular nightscape.

The article presents information on the recurring trend of depicting food and drink in still-life painting. In the 1960s, American artists like Claes Oldenburg and Wayne Thiebaud focused their art on pantry items. The art show "The Food Show: The Hungry Eye," held at Chelsea Art Museum in New York, featured trends of modern eating by various artists, including Roy Lichtenstein. Other examples of artists' fascination with edibles also can be found in several art galleries in New York.

The article presents information on artist Janet Fish and on her works. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts, but when she was an infant her parents moved to Bermuda Islands. Her's works are available in many public collections, north and south, including the Museums of Fine Arts in both Boston and Houston.

The article presents information about the top 100 art objects. A commemorative figure of a king by a Bangwa carver brought $1.07 million, the highest price for a work of African art since 2000. Everett Shinn's "Stage Scene," a 1906 depiction of two vaudeville starlets taking a bow, brought $7,848,000 at a Sotheby's auction in December 2004, an auction record for the artist. The sculptural mask made by the Mandinka people of southern Mali between the early 19th and early 20th centuries was used to celebrate the initiation of young males into manhood.

The article focuses on the Art Deco furniture produced in France between 1910 and 1939. Wrought of exotic woods and distinctive materials, French Deco is inherently luxurious. Its svelte lines, geometric forms and elegant understatement have elicited feverish response in today's design-conscious marketplace. The 40th anniversary retrospective in Paris, France of the 1925 Exposition International des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, from which the term Art Deco is derived, initially helped rekindle interest.

The article focuses on the painters in New York City. Lisbeth Firmin, a painter in a storefront studio in a small town in New York, use to paint the city's street scenes. Firmin shows her work at Michael Ingbar Gallery, where painting and photography by a number of artists with an affinity for architecture is displayed. Ironically, Firmin and most of her coevals tend to remove the masses of people from their paintings, focusing more on mood and structures, whether anonymous dwellings, instantly recognizable landmarks or the formidable skyline. These painters are part of a multifaceted tradition that flowered a century ago when Ashcan School artists like John Sloan limned quotidian life on the Lower East Side and Childe Hassam delighted in celebratory flags fluttering from the facades of fashionable Fifth Avenue. New York's bridges have been a theme of perpetual fascination for painters.

Fleet of foot, noble in stature, both helpmate and playmate to man, the horse for eons has been an object of fascination for artists. Prehistoric illustrators limned equine figures on the walls of caves at Lascaux, Leonardo da Vinci sketched horses and 20th-century artists as diverse as Franz Marc and Susan Rothenberg have found them of abiding interest. For many collectors, however, it is equine sporting art dating from the early 18th century to the present that is of special appeal. William Secord, president of the eponymous New York City gallery, feels the market for equine sporting art may be ready for the fast track. Last year, Secord a specialist in canine art, hopped into the paddock, figuratively speaking and held his first exhibition of horse paintings.

While the classic tea service no longer occupies the revered position it once did on dining room sideboards, contemporary teapots have become highly sought-after collectibles. Teapots were originally produced in China about 500 years ago, says Garth Clark, owner of an eponymous New York gallery specializing in fine contemporary ceramics. Renowned artists and architects, among them Roy Lichtenstein and Michael Graves, have designed teapots. A tea service by photographer Cindy Sherman was recently seen at the Garth Clark Gallery.

The article details how photorealist painter Richard Estes has been discovering new inspiration in far-flung realms of nature. His paintings possessed a technical virtuosity and luminosity as well as a striking sense of detail and perspective. One of the noticeable factors that runs through his work, particularly the New York cityscapes, is shimmering reflective surfaces. Various museums which showcase Estes' paintings included the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts and the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum of Art in Madrid, Spain.

The article focuses on Red Grooms and his six 8-by-8-foot contemporary paintings based on the legend of the unicorns depicted on a medieval setting. Groom's fascination with the medieval period and his showcase of medieval art and architecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, inspired him to come up with these sextet of huge paintings. It is noted that these paintings function both as a legendary tale and a creative caricature of art-world iconography.

The article presents information related to Massachusetts furniture maker Silas Kopf. Fauna and flora are essential visual elements in the marquetry marvels produced by Kopf. His marquetry is beautifully juxtaposed with the refined design of his furniture. For the past decade, he has led the state of contemporary American marquetry, which is the exacting and painstaking art of assembling pictures out of minute pieces of differently colored woods. Kopfs pieces generally sell for $8,000 to $30,000, depending on size, intricacy of design and rarity of the wood.

The article highlights the regain of the popularity of the pet portraits. Comedienne Joan Rivers last spring gave the Prince of Wales and his bride a portrait of their dogs on their wedding. The heyday for dog portraits was from about 1860 to 1920. Then the realm of dog breeding itself, which had stimulated the taste for pet portraits, was bitten by the depression and other world woes. Works of William Secord, eponym of a New York gallery represents a number of contemporary pet portraitists in addition to showing works by outstanding English artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The article focuses on the Storm King Art Center. Tucked away in rippling mountainous countryside, practically within a cannon's roar of the U.S. Military Academy at. With the emphasis pointedly on sculpture created since 1960, the year of its founding, Storm King boasts works by such renowned artists as Alice Aycock, Anthony Caro, Alexander Calder, Henry Moore, Isamu Noguchi, Claes Oldenburg, George Rickey and David Smith. Besides the pieces on permanent display, Storm King also mounts special exhibitions.

The article reports on the growing market interest for antique weathervanes in the U.S. In the August 2006 and January 2007 auctions in New York, several weathervanes were sold at more than one million price. They are the Goddess of Liberty weathervane for $1,080,000, the American Indian chief weathervane for $5,840,000. Other antique weathervanes with outstanding record prices are the Rooster weathervane and the Steam locomotive and tender weathervane.

The article discusses the value of antique boxes regarding not only the contents they hold but also their decorative value. By itself, an antique box might be used to store favorite bonbons or "billets-doux" or as a handsome counterpoint to a covey of crystal or porcelain figures. In small clusters, antique boxes are decorative accents for tables, mantelpieces and sideboards. Sally Kaltman of Sallea Antiques in New Canaan, Connecticut, points out towards a circa-1830 marquetry cosmetics box of rosewood inset with lemonwood floral decorations, which has all of its original fittings ivory-handled combs and brushes, as well as blue opaline glass jars with silver-gilt caps.

The article reports on presidential campaign collections. The variety is infinite, ranging from bandanas, bumper stickers, pennants, posters and T-shirts to golf balls, matchbooks, neckties, napkins, thimbles and charm bracelets. The typical pin-back political button is the fulcrum of many collections of presidential campaign memorabilia, but it was not introduced until 1896 notes Michael J. McQuillen, an Indianapolis dealer. While most of these vintage buttons now sell individually for $5 to $250, items featuring double portraits of James Cox, governor of Ohio might bring $20,000 to $25,000.

The article reports that the auction of furniture, paintings and vertu from Partridge, the venerable London antiques dealer, at Christie's New York, an art and antique auction company, on May 17, 2006, was more successful than anticipated. The auction was estimated to bring $10 million but final sales were $14.85 million. One of the purpose of the sale was to repay Christie's for its assistance when Partridge Executive Chairman Mark Law purchased the gallery.

The article presents information related to American art exhibitions outside the United States. "Winslow Homer: Poet of the Sea" is going to be held from June 18, 2006 to September 24, 2006, at the Musée d'Art Americain in Giverny, France. The exhibition "New York, New York: 50 Years of Art, Architecture, Photography, Film and Video" is going to be held at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco from July 14, 2006 to September 10, 2006.

The article presents information on an auction which is related to Maurice Dick Turpin, an antique dealer. Turpin loomed large in the realm of British antiques. Turpin became a familiar presence on Great Britain antiques scene from the year 1940 until his death. Although Turpin had his own shop on Bruton Street in Mayfair, Great Britain, he made his mark as a major supplier. Some 800 Hems from Turpin's inventory will be sold. Turpin primarily dealt in mid to late 18th-century British antiques and was renowned for his gill mirrors.

The article informs that hundreds of art collectors will gather in New York this spring, as May 22 to 29 officially has been proclaimed "New York Art Deco Week" in honor of the eighth World Congress on Art Deco. The event will feature walking tours and galas at such fabled sites as the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Center and a Jazz Age Harlem nightclub.

This article reports that the sculpture garden has become the sine qua non of American art museums' building programs. Given the gigantic scale of today's sculpture and the durable materials from which it is wrought, placing it outdoors seems a sensible choice. The largest collection of sculptor Henry Moores' monumental bronzes outside of England is in Kansas City, Missouri, at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art's sculpture park. An expanded sculpture garden is part of the $425 million makeover at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the New Orleans Museum of Art's moss-laden sculpture garden boasts works by Jacques Lipchitz and Arnoldo Pomodoro.

This article presents information related to art and antiques. It hasn't had its own cohesive context. It has as much potential as photography. An undergraduate passion eventuated in artist Pavel Zoubok opening his own eponymous gallery devoted to "the whole gamut of collage, including three-dimensional, mixed-media assemblages. Zoubok features primarily post-World War II American work that evokes styles from Abstract Expressionism to Pop and Surrealism, mostly$ 2,000 to$ 10,000. Collage requires patience. There's a unique intimacy between artist and material. Galleries flip for collage and a mobile museum.

Artist Pablo Picasso's "Boy with a Pipe," 1905, broke the world auction record for a painting in May when it sold for $104.2 million at Sotheby's New York. The soporific allegedly flavors the mood of many of Picasso's paintings of this period. The" Boy" had a salubrious effect on other lots included in the sale, establishing new world auction records for Sir Alfred Munnings ( $7.8 million), Jean-Frederic Bazille ( $5.3 million), William Blake ( $3.9 million) and Raoul Dufy ( $3.1 million).

This year marks the golden anniversary of The Winter Antiques Show in New York City. This staple on the calendar was born when members of The East Side House Settlement, its beneficiary, sold a trunk full of vintage couture at an antiques fair and, heady with success, started a show of their own. Over the decades, the show became a fulcrum for other events. One constant is the participation of Elinor Gordon, a Villanova, Pennsylvania, dealer of Chinese export porcelain. Gordon recalls selling an Order of Cincinnati plate years ago for $2,600, then watching it fetch $44,850 at an auction in 2002.