Every Picture Has A Story

Every Picture Has a Story

For 30 years, Michael Schwartz has owned and operated Galerie Michael, an art gallery on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, building, in his own words, “museum-quality collections, one work at a time.” Works by Picasso, Dali, Goya and Miró adorn the walls for the current exhibition on Spanish masters.

With a staff of 24, many of whom hold fine-arts degrees and are called curators, Schwartz would be happy to sell you a work of art. But he would prefer to tell you a story first because what Schwartz really wants to do is enchant you.

I’ve known a few art dealers in my time, and much the way poker players have a tell, dealers have a “sell.” Some dealers sell status and exclusivity — as if you are joining a club; others make a more mercenary pitch, appealing to one’s sense of value, investment savvy and greed; for others, the sell is more aesthetic, with a focus on the artist’s technique, or on occasion

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The First Modern Catalogue of an Art Collection:

Q&A with Curator Louis Marchesano
By Jessica Portner on August 17, 2011 under Collections, Exhibitions, Getty Research Institute

In the 1700s, the seeds of a new style of presenting works of art—both on the wall and on the page—were planted by a German prince.

I talked with Louis Marchesano, curator of prints and drawings at the Getty Research Institute, about the prince and his story, which is told in the exhibition Display & Art History: The Düsseldorf Galley and Its Catalogue, closing Sunday. He explained how the bold ideas of an influential group of royal art collectors, patrons, and artists influenced how we experience and learn about art today.

Van Gogh in Saintes-Maries

In 1888, Van Gogh spent some time in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the South of France. Van Gogh was living in Arles at the time and on May 28, 1888 he wrote to his brother Theo saying, “I expect to make an excursion to Saintes-Maries, and see the Mediterranean at last.” By the first week of June Van Gogh was in Saintes-Maries where he marveled at the sea and its colors. He completed two paintings of the sea both shown below. In a letter to his brother Theo from June 4, 1888 he wrote,

“I am at last writing to you from Stes-Maries on the shore of the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean has the colours of mackerel, changeable I mean. You don’t always know if it is green or violet, you can’t even say it’s blue, because the next moment the changing light has taken on a tinge of pink or gray.”

In addition to the two seascapes, Van Gogh also painted: View of Saintes Maries, Three White Cottages in Saintes Maries, Street Scene in Saintes Maries and, probably

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The Getty: Illuminate Manuscripts

Have You Seen an Illuminated Manuscript Lately?

By Bryan Keene on August 23, 2011 under Collections, Getty Center, J. Paul Getty Museum, Manuscripts

The Getty Center is one of few places in the United States where you can see medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscripts year-round. With three or four exhibitions per year drawn almost exclusively from the permanent collection, in addition to major international loan exhibitions like Imagining the Past in France, 1250–1500 and Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe, we in the Manuscripts Department are constantly busy envisioning new ways to present this art form to as many

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Stealing the Mona Lisa

Exactly 100 years later, a documentary film uncovers new insights into the theft of the masterpiece.
by David D'Arcy

New York. On 21 August 1911, someone entered the Salon Carre of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, removed the Mona Lisa from the wall, unfastened the clamps holding the panel to its frame, and walked off. A painstaking police investigation followed, as newspapers fumed over such a brazen theft. Police failed to capture the thief until he tried to sell the painting in Florence more than two years later.

Recent Art Thefts in America

Recent Art Thefts in America including a Rembrandt Sketch!

Thursday, August 25, 2011