Lucian Freud's Kate Moss Painting Lucian Freud is arguably the greatest living painter of the human figure. His works command prices that reflect his respect in the art world and his painting of model Kate Moss will soon be up for auction.

Lucian Freud's Nude Portrait of Kate Moss Presented
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM.- Lucian Freud's nude portrait of pregnant supermodel Kate Moss in London. The almost life-size piece is to lead Christie's spring sales in the Post War and Contemporary art sale 09 February 2005 and is estimated to fetch GBP2,500,000 - 3,500,000. Named 'Naked Portrait 2002', the painting is very rare in Freud's oeuvre for being one of only a few portraits the artist has painted of a well-known or famous person.
artdaily

More on Kate Moss and Freud
"It might seem incongruous for Kate Moss to end up in a Freud painting: His aesthetic, so redolent of the miserabilist, earnest, existentialist postwar period in which he came artistically of age, seems a far cry from the slick, trashy, ephemeral pop culture epitomized by the cult of celebrity models. But Mr.Freud is ever the slumming lord of high art, socializing with teenagers and all the while vying with the old masters."
artcritical
  ¶ 7:28 AM 16 comments

  Australian Surrealist James Gleeson Retrospective James Gleeson, 88 years old and still carrying the Surrealist torch that he has carried almost since he picked up a brush has been awarded with the prestigious Painters and Sculptors Association Medal at the opening of his retrospective at the National Gallery of Victoria, Australia.


  ¶ 8:54 AM 2 comments

  Art Scammer Arrested 40% return over a few months sounds good to me.. too good!

Art scam suspect arrested
"The suspect convinced investors that she would buy undervalued paintings with their money, Hinnant said. Jacoby told investors she would sell the paintings a few months later for a higher amount and give them a 40 percent return on their money. Once Jacoby got the cash, the art never materialized."
newsobserver
  ¶ 6:59 AM 0 comments

  Top 100 Art Figures The ArtReview magazine has released its list of what it considers to be the top 100 people in art. They include gallerists, artists, curators, and art collectors from all parts of the world.
Gallery owner Larry Gagosian is number one, with a stable of famous artists and galleries placed in all the important places. He has five galleries located in London, New York and Beverly Hills. The artists he represents include giants like Andy Warhol, Georg Baselitz, Jasper Johns, and Cy Twombly.

Top40 in the Art World..
The full list of 100 can found at the Guardian-arts..
(position last year is in brackets)

1 (4) Larry Gagosian, dealer
2 (14) Glenn D Lowry, director, MoMA New York
3 (3) Sir Nicholas Serota, director, Tate
4 (24) Maurizio Cattelan, artist
5 (15) Samuel Keller, director, Art Basel
6 (10) Dakis Joannou, collector
7 (-) William Ruprecht, CEO, Sotheby's
8 (1) Ronald Lauder, chairman, MoMA
9 (-) Robert Storr, US curator and academic
10 (7) Takashi Murakami, artist
11 (17) Iwan Wirth, dealer
12 (5) Gerhard Richter, artist
13 (2) François Pinault, owner, Christie's
14 (-) Rem Koolhaas, architect
15 (28) Marian Goodman, dealer
16 (-) Steve Wynn, collector
17 (6) Charles Saatchi, collector
18 (48) Jeff Koons, artist
19 (9) Leonard Lauder, collector, philanthropist
20 (21) Zaha Hadid, architect
21 (-) Marc Glimcher, gallerist
22 (19) Eli Broad, collector and philanthropist
23 (-) Richard Serra, artist
24 (26) Adam D Weinberg, director, the Whitney
25 (-) Peter Brant, publishing magnate, collector
26 (77) Nicholas Logsdail, owner, Lisson Gallery
27 (-) König family, gallerists, publishers
28 (-) David Teiger, collector
29 (-) Olafur Eliasson, artist
30 (-) Daniel Buchholz, gallerist
31 (8) Maja Oeri, presides over Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation
32 (-) Amanda Sharp & Matthew Slotover, magazine publishers
33 (-) Jasper Johns, artist
34 (32) David Zwirner, gallerist
35 (43) Mick Flick, collector
36 (18) Barbara Gladstone, gallerist
37 (-) John Currin, artist
38 (27) Sadie Coles, gallerist
39 (-) Gary Garrels, director of painting and sculpture, MoMA
40 (-) Don & Mera Rubell, collectors

  ¶ 7:59 PM 1 comments

  Microsoft's Art Collector moves on.. Michael Klein from Microsoft is leaving his job as art curator to take a new position as the director of the International Sculpture Center in New Jersey.
The Microsoft Art Collection started in 1987 and now consists of more than 4000 contemporary works. It was started to create a positive work environment and to engage its workers, customers and the community.
It would be interesting to see the budget allocated for art collecting at Microsoft each year.. "The company grows; the collection grows"

Microsoft art curator is packing his bags
"At Microsoft, he has favored painting and photography, especially still lifes, abstractions, landscapes and figure studies with their clothes on. By nature a contrarian, he collects at the edges of the mainstream and celebrates the underdog, which doesn't mean he passes on central figures if he has the right opportunity to acquire their work."
seattlepi


  ¶ 10:56 PM 2 comments

  Beheading in Iraq Video Is this just another artist trying to shock or is it the shocking times we now live in?
Video of beheading in Iraq part of Nashville art exhibit
"A video showing the beheading of an American hostage in Iraq and a photograph of a man masturbating have divided students and challenged administrators at Watkins College of Art & Design."
tennessean
  ¶ 10:55 PM 11 comments

  Damien Hirst - Pharmacy Auction Damien Hirst stamps his authority on the contemporary art market with record sales at the Sotheby's, London auction.

Damien Hirst's Pharmacy Sells For 11.1 Million
Damien Hirst reaffirmed his position as one of the leading contemporary artists of the 21st century this evening (October 18th, 2004), when all 168 lots of original items from the celebrated Pharmacy restaurant sold at Sotheby's London for a total of £11,132,180 ($20,063,528), far in excess of the pre-sale estimate of £3.5 - 4.9 million. His international status attracted more than 500 people into the saleroom, many of whom spent the hour before the sale queuing on New Bond Street eager to bid for a piece of Pharmacy's history.
artdaily
  ¶ 9:11 AM 2 comments

  Horniman Museum is filtered Spam and adult filters are censoring the family friendly Horniman Museum in London. I cannot see how such a wholesome establishment like the Horniman Museum would be censored..

Online censor says no to the Horniman
"Mr Horniman would be mortified. One mention of his name, and internet filters are consigning the museum founded by the blameless Victorian tea merchant to the outer reaches of the web.
Museum staff at the south London museum have discovered that up to a tenth of all emails sent to or from the museum are being hoovered up by spam filters."
guardian-arts
  ¶ 7:52 AM 1 comments

  Contemporary art at Sotheby's I'm considering flying in on my private jet to pick up a few works to decorate the home office... or maybe next auction when I do have a private jet and something in the bank!..

"NEW YORK.- This November, Sotheby's is pleased to offer an outstanding assemblage of Contemporary Art, ranging from Post-War masters to Pop icons to some of the most dynamic artists creating works today. The top lot of the sale is Mark Rothko's seminal work, No. 6 (Yellow, White, Blue over Yellow on Gray) from 1954 which is estimated to sell for $9/12 million. Also included are iconic works by Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Louise Bourgeois, Gerhard Richter, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Jeff Koons. The evening sale is estimated to bring a total of $79,755,000 - 106,605,000. Prior to the sale, the works will be on public exhibition at Sotheby's in New York from November 6-9."
artdaily
  ¶ 11:03 PM 3 comments

  Ripping off Artists Online ArtQuest, an online gallery for artists is warning its members of an increase in scammers trying to rip artists off. Over the past few weeks they have had more than 15 members contact them in regards to scammers. Problems with cashiers checks (cheques), credit cards, and international money orders have been reported.
ArtQuest has started a list of art scammers, along with some information about avoiding these kind of people.
I personally get at least two emails per month from a Nigerian, first letting me know what paintings they like, then asking how they can pay immediately. Their name is different each time, so I hope no legitimate Nigerian art collector ever contacts me by email because they get deleted immediately.

  ¶ 5:51 PM 6 comments

  Edvard Munch in Melbourne - Australia "The NationalGallery of Victoria presents Edvard Munch – The Frieze of Life, through January 12, 2005. This, the first comprehensive exhibition of Edvard Munch's art in Australia, assembles more than 80 works from across the artist's entire oeuvre – including paintings, prints, drawings, and watercolours."
artdaily
  ¶ 8:37 PM 4 comments

  Sounds of Bruce Nauman at the Tate Modern Those heading to the Tate Modern will be treated to, amused, or baffled by a sound installation by the artist Bruce Nauman.
"Feed me, eat me, anthropology ... help me, hurt me, sociology ... feed me, help me, eat me, hurt me."
"There is no visual component to the work, no trick, no special effects wow factor. The Turbine Hall is completely empty and raw. Visitors pass through a series of audio recordings from speakers mounted in pairs opposite each other on the walls of the space. The recordings consist of texts used in previous video or sound works by Nauman, stripped of their original contexts and redeployed as material for this new work."
guardian-arts
  ¶ 8:13 AM 0 comments

  Paul Gauguin work estimated at 40 to 50 million A work by Paul Gauguin at the upcoming Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern art auction is set to make between 40 and 50 million dollars.
I think art critic Robert Hughes got it right when he said "A fair price is the highest one a collector can be induced to pay." and also.. "Art prices are determined by the meeting of real or induced scarcity with pure, irrational desire, and nothing is more manipulable than desire."

"NEW YORK.- Sotheby’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on November 4, 2004 will include one of the finest works by Paul Gauguin to appear on the market, Maternité (II), painted in 1899 during the artist’s second Tahitian period."
artdaily
  ¶ 11:48 PM 0 comments

  Spelling mishap at Livermore Library Sixteen foot wide ceramic mural outside of a library in Livermore, California has spelling errors in it. Historical figures like Vincent van Gogh, Albert Einstein, Shakespeare, Michelangelo and seven others all had their names mispelled in the $40,ooo mural.
Miami based artist Maria Alquilar has agreed to be flown back to fix the errors for $6,000 plus expenses. She says "The people that are into humanities, and are into Blake's concept of enlightenment, they are not looking at the words, In their mind the words register correctly."
usatoday & news10
  ¶ 2:58 AM 13 comments

  Alberto Sughi Interview at ArtQuotes.net ArtQuotes.net has a new artist profile up for October. Alberto Sughi is an established Italian painter depecting the life around him. His works include bar scenes, cafes, portraits and people interacting with each other in daily life.

"When I feel that a painting has its own voice and is coming alive, I want to live with it, talk to it, quarrel with it, and agree with it."
Alberto Sughi Interview and selected paintings now online.
  ¶ 8:45 AM 0 comments

  Hanging boy sculpture Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan is causing quite a stir at the Biennale of Contemporary Art in Seville, southern Spain with his sculpture of a hanging boy.
"Visitors to La Cartuja - the former monastery where the show is being held - are greeted in the courtyard by the sight of three tall, white poles. Halfway up the middle one hangs a realistic dummy of a boy aged about 10, white, blond-haired and dressed in clean Western clothes. His eyes are open and his face expressionless."
bbcnews
  ¶ 5:45 AM 4 comments

  This is Bananas Some artists just love attention and an 8ft high pile of bananas is one method of achieving it. The public all got a piece of this exhibit too as the bananas were given away after the exhibition (and before they started rotting).
Banana art piece proves fruitful
"Passers-by in Trafalgar Square were handed out bananas on Tuesday after an artwork made of 30,000 items of the fruit was dismantled.
The installation, which measured 8ft high and 15ft wide, was created on the pedestrianised area outside the National Gallery in central London.
It was made by London-based artist Doug Fishburne after the Greater London Authority gave it the go-ahead."
bbcnews

  ¶ 7:11 PM 2 comments

  Homage to Gaudi splits community "While many residents rally in support of surrealist shop-front as an antidote to high-street monotony, the council is unimpressed.
The surrealist architecture of Gaudi may have helped Barcelona turn itself into a magnet for tourists and one of Europe's most admired cities. But the emergence of a shop-front in north London in the anarchic style the Catalan pioneered has divided locals and led officials to order its removal."
theguradian
  ¶ 8:46 AM 3 comments

  Sharks and beds take a rest as Saatchi turns to paintings theguardian - arts
  ¶ 8:28 PM 2 comments

  Charles Saatchi Interview - got a question? The Art Newspaper will be interviewing the Brit art collector Charles Saatchi and is asking its readers to send their questions in to be answered.

Email your queries for Mr Saatchi to: saatchi (at) theartnewspaper.com or post them to: Charles Saatchi c/o The Art Newspaper, 70 South Lambeth Road, London, SW8 1RL. Please include your name, address, and a contact email or telephone number. All questions must be received by 6 December

  ¶ 7:59 AM 2 comments