Fine Art News

2012-01-31T14:30:00.000-08:00

Elk River Arts Alliance Re-Opens for Holidays

2011-11-21T23:06:00.001-08:00

November 18, 2011

Elk River, Minnesota

The Elk River Arts Alliance staff and volunteers are getting its new gallery and
classrooms ready for the holidays at its new location at 312 Jackson Avenue in
Elk River. While smaller, we will still offer space for art exhibits and a full array of
classes including the addition of a fully functional pottery studio. The Elk River
Arts Alliance plans to re-open on Wednesday, November 23, 2011. This will kick
off the Holiday Gift & Art Sale and the public is invited to a Grand Re-Opening
reception on Saturday, December 10th from 2-7 with activities planned for all
ages.

The Arts Alliance had been located at 716 Main Street for nearly four years, but
was recently required to move due to damage discovered in the adjoining vacant
building located at 720 Main Street. The Elk River Housing and Redevelopment
Authority, owner of the two buildings, made a decision to demolish both buildings
and gave the Arts Alliance 30 days notice to vacate the premises on October 6,
2011.

The Arts Alliance Gallery and Gift Shop mainly features local artists’ work.
Gallery exhibits are rotated every 4 to 6 weeks, with approximately ten exhibits
throughout the year featuring work by over 100 artists. Nearly all of the artwork
is available for purchase. Members of the organization have produced for the
past 17 years, an annual international juried art exhibit called “Arts in Harmony."
In addition, two art events run annually, the Art Crawl in the fall and ArtSoup in
June.

The Arts Alliance also presents a Performance Series which features many
renowned musical and theatrical groups. On December 10 at 7:30 pm “An Elk
River Christmas Carol” written by local award-winning author Britt Aamodt will be
presented at the Elk River High School Little Theater. This performance features
a half-dozen Twin Cities stage and radio actors. Tickets are now available.

Elk River Arts Alliance Re-Opens for Holidays ….continued page 2

“I am proud of the volunteers, members, the staff and the board who have
managed to secure this new location and have worked hard to get it up and
running for the holidays given the short notice" said Dave Raymond, Director of
the Board. “It shows that good things can happen when a spirited group of
people work together to beat the odds."

The Arts Alliance is a nonprofit organization that works with local schools, various
arts organizations, and individual artists, area businesses and government
agencies to provide quality arts experiences for area residents.

For more information on the gallery, performance, or other arts events sponsored
by the Arts Alliance, visit "http://www.elkriverart.org" www.elkriverart.org or visit
the Elk River Arts Alliance on Facebook.

Contact Information:

Dave Raymond, Chairman of the Board

Elk River Area Arts Alliance

312 Jackson Ave

Elk River, MN 55330

763.441.4725

Art, cocktails, film and music ahead this week

2011-11-03T23:54:00.000-07:00

Give me one reason

1 There isn't just one reason to look forward to the Great Gulfcoast Arts Festival each year. There are hundreds.

The fine arts show alone — easily Pensacola's premier fine art show — offers more than 200 reasons in the volume of participating artists, offering eye-popping talent in just about every medium imaginable. And if you're in a shopping mood, there are plenty of opportunities for purchase, whether for gifts or for yourself. I know I have several pieces in my home that were purchased at previous festivals, and I'm always on the lookout.

But the fine arts are just the beginning. Certainly, there are hundreds of performers participating in music, dance....Read more.

Mu Daiko Coming to the Arts Alliance in Elk River Minnesota

2011-10-04T20:11:00.000-07:00

ArtSoup winner Jessica Henry Davis seeks the soul of her subjects

2011-06-24T23:38:00.000-07:00

"The Heart Hath Its Own Memories" was chosen as best entry of the Arts Alliance Members Show at ArtSoup.

Jessica Henry Davis

by Bruce Strand, Arts editor

A young mother and two toddlers in repose caught Jessica Henry Davis’ eye last summer.
The local painter transformed that placid scene into the oil painting that won the Elk River Arts Alliance member’s show at the ArtSoup festival last Saturday.

“I loved the idea of painting them in a field of mist,” said Davis, who spotted the young family in Cloquet, where the woman’s husband was involved in a Voyageurs re-enactment program. “There is so much poetry to it. The blossoms on the tree were a last-minute idea.”

Just at the moment she snapped a photograph, the little boy in the middle lifted his face to look at Davis, much to her delight.
“The Heart Hath It’s Own Memories,” is the title Davis chose for the painting.

Davis, who grew up on two farms in the Elk River area and lives on one of them with husband Ted and four children aged four to 10, has been a professional artist for 20 years. She feels she may be finding her niche in this genre of painting.

“I have painted all kinds of things. I have found joy in landscapes, still life, horses, and portraits,” said Davis, “and after 20 years, what I love most are painting people — ....More.

Frank Big Bear

2011-01-24T21:30:00.000-08:00

All My Relations Gallery opens.

Star Tribune

Last update: January 20, 2011 - 3:10 PM

Opening: Since Ancient Traditions gallery closed last year, Twin Cities fans of American Indian art have eagerly awaited the opening of its successor, All My Relations Gallery, sponsored by the Native American Community Development Institute. Also located on E. Franklin Avenue, the new gallery debuts this ...more.

Art news 1/14/2011 Immersed in Images and an Age of Blurred Boundaries

2011-01-14T14:18:00.000-08:00

The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, has just unveiled a new addition. Here, the entrance to the main theater.

For those familiar with the old Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, stepping into the new addition will feel like Dorothy landing in a digital 3-D version of Oz.

Designed by Thomas Leeser, the swollen baby-blue form, which has been grafted onto the back of a 1920s building, effectively blurs the boundaries among architecture, film and viewer. In doing so it immerses you in the kind of fantasy world you usually get only when the lights are turned off. .....MORE

Reconsidered, a Met Velázquez Is Vindicated

2010-12-29T19:42:00.000-08:00

For nearly 60 years the portrait of a baby-faced Philip IV by Velázquez hung in the Metropolitan Museum of Art ’s European paintings galleries, a stunning example of the only 110 or so known canvases by that 17th-century Spanish master.

Art News for 10/1/2010

2010-10-02T08:23:00.000-07:00

A Preview of Hong Kong's Major Fall Modern and Contemporary Art Auction
A Preview of Hong Kong's Major Fall Modern and Contemporary Art Auctions - ARTINFO.com

Link to Article photo:
RTINFO - Zhang Xiaogang's 1992 "Chapter of a New Century � Birth of the People�s Republic of China II" is estimated to sell for as much as $3 million.

At Fine Art News we review articles and post what we think might be of interest to our readers. Please let us know how we are doing. Have an Art Day.

Soviet sunshine, Russian light | StarTribune.com

2010-09-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

This is a great article. If you love Russian art this is a must read. If you have never experienced Russian art you need to, at least, look at the painting in the article. Click the link below to view the article at the StarTribune.

Soviet sunshine, Russian light | StarTribune.com

We are blessed with a great Russian museum. The Museum of Russian Art is located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. http://www.tmora.org/index.html

Art Theft Underworld Frustrates France

2010-08-28T22:43:00.000-07:00

Published: August 26, 2010

PARIS — The vulnerability of museums and high-end art owners to costly thefts has been a whispered concern in France for years, but two events here are forcing the issue into the open.

A spectacular €100 million, or $127 million, burglary at the Paris modern art museum in May and the trial next month of three men in connection with an audacious heist at the Left Bank apartment of a Picasso granddaughter have laid bare how susceptible the keepers ....MORE

mn original: Virgil Leih, woodturner

2010-07-09T16:19:00.000-07:00

mn original: Virgil Leih, woodturner

Produced by TPT | Last updated on Jul 09, 2010

Virgil Leih turns 2000 lb. rescued tree trunks into enormous, carved sculptures. Now, at 64 years of age, he has his first public show at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska. Produced by mn original: http://mnoriginal.org

Turner's Rome view painting sells for record £29.7m

2010-07-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

The painting was bought by the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles

An 1839 Turner masterpiece of a view of Rome has sold for £29.7m in London, breaking the artist's auction record.

Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino sold in five minutes with six bidders battling for the work which has only come up for sale once before, Sotheby's said.

The previous record was the £20.5m paid in 2006 for Venice painting Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio.

Modern Rome, which had an estimate of £12m-£18m, was the top seller at the Old Master and British Paintings sale.

Other highlights included Dutch artist Jan Lievens' study of the head and shoulders of an old bearded man wearing a cap (circa 1629), which brought £2.5m against an estimate of £2-3m.

Painted in 1839, Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino shows Turner at his "absolute best" and was bought by a London dealer on behalf of The J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Prior to Wednesday's sale, the painting had only appeared on the open market once in the 171 years since it was painted.

It was offered for sale at Sotheby's by a descendant of the 5th Earl of ..... read the complete story at BBC News

Wu Guanzhong, Leading Chinese Painter, Dies at 90

2010-06-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

Wu Guanzhong, whose fusion of Western modernism and traditional Chinese painting made him one of China’s most forward-looking and admired artists, died on Friday in Beijing. He was 90.

His death was confirmed by Fong Yuk Yan, his longtime dealer in Hong Kong.

In 1950, Mr. Wu returned to China after three years of study in Paris, where he came under the spell of van Gogh, Utrillo and Modigliani and enthusiastically embraced modernism’s license to experiment. Trained in traditional Chinese ink and brush painting, as well as Western-style oil painting, he went on to develop an artistic hybrid style expressed in landscape views captured on painting trips all over China and beyond.

“I felt that I was pursuing something: the people’s feelings, the earth’s rhythms, a traditional style and the formal principles of modern Western art,” he wrote in a 1982 essay.

Mr. Wu’s education and career were constantly disrupted by war and political turmoil. In the early 1950s his figure paintings, some of them nudes, were attacked when Socialist Realism became the official style of the Communist government. He turned to landscape, a safer subject.

During the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Wu, along with his colleagues and students at the Central Institute of Arts and Crafts in Beijing, was sent to do hard labor in a remote village in Hebei Province, in the northeast. He was forbidden to paint for three years.

In 1972, along with other notable artists, he was summoned back from internal exile by Premier Zhou Enlai and commissioned to paint a large mural at the Beijing Hotel.

He returned to ink and brush painting, which he had studied under Pan Tianshou, in part because of the space constraints of his apartment in Beijing. In 1978 he had his first one-man show, which traveled throughout China. In 1992 the British Museum organized an exhibition of his work, “Wu Guanzhong: A 20th-Century Chinese Painter.”

Mr. Wu won recognition as one of China’s most original artists and became a darling of Asian and Western collectors. In 2009 his works fetched nearly $40 million at auction. This month his 1974 oil painting “Panoramic View of the Yangtze River” sold for $8.4 million at an auction in Beijing.

“He was an inspiration for many Chinese artists even to this day and one of the most important forces in modern Chinese art,” Tan Ping, the vice president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, told The Associated Press.

Wu Guanzhong (pronounced gwan-ZHUNG) was born on Aug. 29, 1919, in Yixing, in Jiangsu Province. His father was a village schoolteacher. While studying electrical engineering at Zhejiang University, he attended an art exhibition at Hangzhou Academy and, against the wishes of his family, decided to become an artist.

More ......

From the New York Times - Art and Design

Weaving a dream at the Arboretum

2010-05-30T12:35:00.000-07:00

Left, North Carolina Artist Patrick Dougherty and volunteers are constructing an elaborate two-story folly of sticks and branches harvested from the Minnesota Arboretum and elsewhere.

Something new is growing , as a North Carolina sculptor crafts a fantasy castle out of twigs and branches.

Standing amid huge bundles of willow branches, dogwood cuttings and box elder boughs, Patrick Dougherty tugged on a pair of well-worn gloves and set to work weaving branches into a two-story "castle" on a driveway island in front of the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska. For the past three weeks the internationally known artist from North Carolina and about 80 volunteers were on a single-minded drive to make magic out of underbrush -- 6,000 pounds of spring prunings that would otherwise go to mulch.

The results of their effort will debut Saturday morning in a ceremony that is a prelude to the arboretum's summer celebration of "Powerhouse Plants." Like all of Dougherty's work, the arboretum project is a fanciful mash-up of sculpture, architecture and botanical dreamscape. The structure is a temporary addition to the arboretum's landscape, expected to last about two years before it disintegrates under the pressure of weather and natural decay. Even so, it is sturdy enough for visitors to enter and explore, dodging in and out of doorways, wandering hallways under twig arches and .....More.

Copied from Star Tribune

Last update: May 23, 2010 - 8:01 PM

Minnesota principal prepares to teach in Kuwait

2010-05-21T06:09:00.001-07:00

BRAINERD, Minn. — Harrison Elementary School Principal Jeff DeVaney knows it'll be an emotional experience for him to say goodbye to his friends and colleagues in the Brainerd School District, where he's worked for 32 of his 34 years in education. He officially retires on June 30.

But DeVaney, 58, isn't actually retiring. He has accepted a two-year assignment as principal at an elementary school in Kuwait City, Kuwait. He leaves Minnesota Aug. 14 and begins his new job Aug. 22.

DeVaney will serve as principal of the first- through fifth-grade elementary school for boys for the American Creativity Academy, which is a kindergarten through 12th-grade campus. He'll be responsible for 550 students. A similar girls' school is located six blocks away. English is the spoken language at the school, but 96 percent of the students are Kuwaiti and Islam will be practiced there. He said many Kuwaiti parents send their children there to become fluent in English. The instructors are all American or Canadian.

"At Lincoln, we had a sign that said, 'Learning for Life,'" said DeVaney, who served for 12 years as principal of the former Lincoln Elementary School. "I believe in that. I am forcing myself into a learning for life mindset. I'm very, very, excited about that, about not knowing what's out there."

DeVaney grew up in Austin — and proudly displays Spam memorabilia in his office. Starting around the age of 10, he began working at his grandfather's fine dining restaurant, The Lobster House, where he worked throughout his teen years. Because he was so busy after school and on weekends at the family restaurant, he was never able to participate in extracurricular school activities. When he began school at Austin State Junior College, he became involved in drama and choir and discovered a creative side that he never knew he had. He was a pre-architecture major and was required to take an introduction to design class. His design teacher, the late Ione Bell, opened his eyes to the world of art. Her encouragement and guidance changed his career path forever.

After attending the junior college, he transferred to St. Cloud State University and majored in art education, to become an art teacher like Mrs. Bell.

In August of 1975, DeVaney traveled to Brainerd to interview with former Superintendent Bob Gross. Before he left that interview, Gross offered him the job. He went home to Austin, packed his bags and found a place to live in Brainerd.

He taught art at five Brainerd elementary schools — Nisswa, Harrison, Lowell, Edison and Whittier — for eight years before he was laid off due to budget cuts. He then spent two years teaching restaurant management food preparation at the former Brainerd Area Vocational Technical College before being hired back into the district when an art teaching position opened up due to a retirement. He taught art at Washington Middle School for 12 years before he returned to St. Cloud State to earn his graduate degree and administrative license. In 1997, Gross asked DeVaney if he would serve as principal of Lincoln and Whittier schools, which he did for one year, then become principal at only Lincoln for 12 years.

"I loved Lincoln," DeVaney said. "I worked hard to turn it into a caring family of learners."

DeVaney also spent his summers working in the local...... More

Come out and play at Walker Art Center

2010-04-30T09:39:00.000-07:00

The new plaza cafe will be a grassy, sunny space.
From Star Tribune
Last update: April 29, 2010 - 3:38 PM

What to do with the prettiest hillside in downtown Minneapolis? For the past five years Walker Art Center honchos have been scratching their well coiffed heads about the future of the grassy declivity where the Guthrie Theater once stood. Sculpture? Trees? Ski jump? Water park? Experts were summoned from abroad, proposals launched, shoulders shrugged.

In the end, a day of brainstorming by more than 30 local artists, designers, architects, landscapers and other creative types spawned a temporary plan that goes into effect June 3. It is expected to be in place for three to five years, during which the museum will develop a more permanent design.

"My hope is it will actually change our practice, how we engage people and bring
READ MORE........

Turner tipped to fetch up to £18m

2010-03-31T01:09:00.000-07:00

The Turner masterpiece was last seen on the market in 1878.

An 1839 painting by JMW Turner has been tipped to fetch up to £18m, when it is sold at Sotheby's in London on 7 July.

According to the auction house, Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino is among the most important of the British artist's works ever to go under the hammer.
Last seen on the market in 1878, the painting represents the culmination of the painter's fascination with Rome.
The record for a Turner was set by a view of Venice that sold for $35.9m (£24.1m) at a New York auction in 2006.
At the time, the sale of Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio also set a new record for a British painting at auction.
The sale of Modern Rome - Campo Vaccino will form part of an evening sale of Old Master and early British paintings.
David Moore-Gwyn of Sotheby's said the masterpiece represented "Turner at his absolute best" and "one of the most evocative pictures of Rome ever painted".
Bought by the 5th Earl of Rosebery and his wife Hannah Rothschild in 1878, the painting has remained in their family collection ever since.

Pop painter did double duty for Fargo museum

2010-03-03T02:46:00.000-08:00

James Rosenquist survived a devastating blaze and produced a new mural - twice.

Source: Star Tribune

Last update: February 27, 2010 - 2:45 PM

From the smoldering embers of a Florida brush fire comes a new $600,000 painting that will be a centerpiece of the Plains Art Museum's collection in Fargo. And the enormous work was painted twice.

"It's really a phoenix rising from the ashes," said Plains director Colleen Sheehy, referring to the 13- by 24-foot melange of North Dakota motifs that will hang in the museum's atrium.

The painting is the second version of a mural by Pop star James Rosenquist, a North Dakota native and University of Minnesota graduate. Known internationally for his immense images combining advertising icons with flowers, galaxies and cultural flotsam, Rosenquist is a former billboard painter whose work hangs in major museums, from the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., to the Tate Gallery in London. Read More...

Plains Art Museum, Handout photo

Gormley’s Fine Art event

2010-02-24T06:45:00.000-08:00

Sixty new works of art have been commissioned and created exclusively for Lisburn Road’s Gormley’s Fine Art to celebrate 21 years in the art business.

Gormley’s Fine Art 21st Anniversary exhibition, which takes place from February 25 to March 11, will showcase the work of artists such as Jonathan Aiken, Michael Smyth, Carol Ann Waldron, Paul Donaghy, Verner Finlay, Lorcan Vallely, Barry Kerr and Rowland Davidson.

“The exhibition ....Read more

Five thousand Minnesotans get their "Foot in the Door"

2010-02-19T13:21:00.000-08:00

The result: A bizarrely fabulous cornucopia of kitsch and true talent at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.

By MARY ABBE

Last update: February 19, 2010 - 12:57 PM

Truly crazy thrift shop. That's the first impression of the 5,000 or so artworks crowded into the Minneapolis Institute of Arts' new "Foot in the Door 4" show.

Behind vast platforms chock-a-block with mutant taxidermy, bronze nudes, feisty dragons, imperiled Barbie dolls and knitting projects run amok rise 16-feet-tall walls lined with paintings, drawings, and photos of anything and everything that might flit through the mind of a housebound Minnesotan in the dark of winter: images of banana cream pie, seasonal landscapes, the Dalai Lama, Jesus, rubber duckies, the Golden Gate Bridge, big-eyed girls, many-breasted monsters, anguished teens, snowmen, guitarists, dogs, cats, birds, fish.

A cornucopia of kitsch spiced with inspired moments of LOL satire, smarty-pants conceptualism and straight-up talent, "Foot" is a brilliant albeit daft snapshot of Minnesotans' artistic skills and preoccupations....Read more...

Lucian Freud black-eyed portrait fetches £2.8m

2010-02-11T03:37:00.000-08:00

Lucian Freud's Self-Portrait With A Black Eye has sold for £2,841,250 at Sotheby's in London.

The estimate for the work, which shows the artist with a swollen eye following a punch-up with a taxi driver, was £3m to £4m.
Sotheby's said the rediscovered 1978 work was his "most important self-depiction ever to appear at auction".
The top lot at the London Evening Sale of Contemporary Art was Willem De Kooning's Untitled XIV, fetching £4m.
Self-Portrait With A Black Eye, which has never been displayed in public before, has remained in the same private collection for more than 30 years.
Read more...

Audio slideshow: Greece and Rome rediscovered

2010-02-02T20:30:00.000-08:00

Dozens of ancient treasures - including a Roman version of the Swiss Army knife - are going on display in Cambridge, in a newly refurbished Gallery of Greek and Roman antiquities at The Fitzwilliam Museum.

Take a tour with Lucilla Burn, the museum's Keeper of Antiquities.

Fine Art News commentary: Article by the BBC click the picture to be taken to the video. This is a good one.

Questions Over Fixing Torn Picasso

2010-01-27T06:52:00.000-08:00

Questions Over Fixing Torn Picasso
By CAROL VOGEL
Published: January 25, 2010

Since 1952 “The Actor,” a rare Rose Period Picasso, has hung prominently at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, along with other examples of early paintings by this Spanish master. But on Monday it could be found in a new, temporary home, the Met’s conservation laboratory, where experts there are trying to determine the best course of action for this 105-year-old painting’s brand-new feature: an irregular, six-inch tear running vertically along the lower right-hand corner.
“The Actor,” a rare Rose Period Picasso, was damaged on Friday when a woman accidentally fell into it at the Metropolitan Museum.
On Friday afternoon a woman taking an adult education class at the museum accidentally fell into “The Actor,” causing the tear. Officials at the museum said that since the damage did not occur “in the focal point of the composition,” they expected that the repair would be “unobtrusive,” according to a statement released on Sunday.
The accident recalled another human-canvas run-in involving a Picasso. In 2006 the Las Vegas casino owner Stephen A. Wynn put his elbow through “Le Rêve” (“The Dream”), a 1932 Picasso of the artist’s mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter, leaving a sizable hole that has been so artfully repaired that the untutored eye would never know such a fate had befallen it.
But it is difficult to compare a 1932 Picasso with one painted in 1904-5. The early canvases are more delicate and the oil paint is thinner than the enamel-based kind the artist was known to have used later in his career. And then there is the question of whether there’s only one image involved.
“The Actor” was painted when Picasso was only 23. “He was very poor, and these canvases were expensive,” said John Richardson, the Picasso biographer. He explained that if Picasso made a mistake, he couldn’t afford to throw out the canvas, but rather painted over it. “Nearly all these early canvases have something painted underneath,” Mr. Richardson said. Read more...

Local Artists get Seed Money

2010-01-27T06:35:00.000-08:00

A Chicago foundation for artists of color is funding new works by a professor and a choreographer.
Last update: January 25, 2010 - 8:40 PM

Galleries are great, but every artist itches to take over a whole building. That's what University of Minnesota art professor Ali Momeni and a team of artists will do next year at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA), thanks to Chicago's Joyce Foundation.
The award is among five $50,000 Joyce grants to arts organizations in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois. Each will support new work by an artist of color.
St. Paul's Ordway Center also got a grant to commission a new dance from St. Paul-based choreographer Uri Sands, top right, inspired by the paintings of black artist Ernie Barnes. TU Dance, a troupe headed by Sands and his wife, Toni, will perform the piece in the Ordway's 2010-11 season.
Momeni, bottom right, an Iranian-born musician and technology artist, working with colleague Jenny Schmid and a team of Minneapolis artists and teens, will project images about war and its global effects onto the exterior of the MIA. The performance will include original music, computer-manipulated drawings and audience participation. A signature element in the museum's new contemporary art program, the event also will be documented in a multimedia gallery show linking current events to historic material in the museum's collection including Persian textiles and 16th-century Mughal paintings.
Three other Joyce grants went to organizations in Chicago and Milwaukee. In Chicago the Old Town School of Folk Music will commission a vaudeville-inspired multimedia performance from the Carolina Chocolate Drops, a black string band, and Steppenwolf Theater will do a new play based on the biblical book of Job by Read more...