SAN FRANCISCO, CA (AP).- The case of a stolen Picasso has been cracked — and police say it was a New Jersey man who walked into the gallery in downtown San Francisco, snatched the drawing and fled in a taxi.
Police arrested Mark Lugo, 31, of Hoboken, N.J., on Wednesday at an apartment in Napa, and found the artwork stripped from its frame. The 1965 pencil-on-paper drawing — titled "Tete de Femme" — was purchased at a spring auction in New York. It's worth about a quarter of a million dollars.
"I've had some sleepless nights," said Rowland Weinstein, who owns the Weinstein Gallery. "I feel very, very lucky and very relieved that the Picasso wasn't harmed and will be returned back safely."
Weinstein said he planned to upgrade the street-level...New Jersey Man Arrested in Stolen Picasso Drawing Worth a Quarter of a Million Dollars
Friday, July 8, 2011
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Goya and 18th Century Painting (from Prado Museum)
More than 140 paintings by Francisco de Goya offer the visitor to the Prado the chance to analyse the artist’s development in considerable depth. Goya’s art arises from the Spanish tradition and Velázquez was his master, as he himself said. Goya was a brilliant and unique artist on a level with the other great masters of painting and far above his contemporaries in Spain. 
Among the most important works by the artist in the collection of the Museo del Prado are the tapestry cartoons The Parasol and The Crockery Vendor, and portraits of The Duke and Duchess of Osuna and their Children, The Countess of Chinchón, 
Don Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, The Family of Charles IV and The Marchioness of Santa Cruz. In addition there are the two Maja paintings, which have acquired near-iconic status. Goya as a history painter is represented by major works such as The Assault on the Mamelukes and The Executions on Príncipe Pío, better known as The Second and Third of May, respectively. Among works from the last two periods of Goya’s career are the Black 
Paintings, executed in Madrid, and The Milkmaid of Bordeaux, which the artist completed during his final years when he lived in that French city.
Also forming part of the 18th-century Spanish collection is a large group of still lifes by Luis Meléndez; small, cabinet paintings by Paret y Alcázar such as The Masked Ball and Charles III eating before the Court; tapestry cartoons by the Bayeu brothers; and other interesting paintings such as Antonio Carnicero’s The Ascent of a Montgolfier Balloon in Aranjuez.
Goya and More at the Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain
This exhibition presents a selection of works on paper – drawings, prints and photographs – acquired by the Museo del Prado between 1997 and 2010. It offers visitors the first opportunity to admire the most important works acquired over this period and which are normally stored in the Department of Prints and Drawings due to their fragile nature. In addition, the exhibition sets out the Museum’s principal strategies with regard to the acquisition of works on paper. The Museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings, located in the new Jerónimos Building designed by Rafael Moneo, houses the collection of drawings, prints and old photographs that has been built up since the time of the Museum’s founding. Together with the original works from the royal collection, a number of additional groups were added such as those from the Museo de la Trinidad and the Museo de Arte Moderno. Together they constituted the core of this area of the Prado’s collection, which has been expanded over the years, particularly with the addition of the Pedro Fernández Durán Bequest in 1931. It has continued to grow over the years through significant acquisitions, particularly in the period from 1997 to 2010.
In contrast to other artistic media, the material characteristics of works on paper mean that special conservation conditions are required for storing them, preventing their long-term public display. They are therefore normally kept in the Department of Prints and Drawings, where they can be studied and are made available to outside researchers. These works are only temporarily placed on display for exhibitions such as the present one.
Entitled Goya and More, the exhibition aims to emphasise the fact that while Goya’s work has always been the focus of one of the Museum’s principal acquisition strategies and perhaps the one that attracts the most media attention due to the undoubted value of his creations, a very large number of works of equal artistic importance by other artists have also entered the collection. Using this theme as its guiding thread, the exhibition is organised into various sections corresponding to the principal acquisition policies established by the Museum. It also present the main lines of research and the exhibitions to be organised by the Department of Prints and Drawings over the next few years.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Home sweet home!
We at Galerie Michael have been following closely the restoration project on Van Gough's masterpiece The Bedroom. We would like to share the experience with you. (click the title of the posting)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)