Books Archives - Jordi de Nadal

Seven for seven: From Paris to Cluny.

Posted on 16 November, 2017

1. The always surprising Louvre.

If you travel to Paris, don’t miss François Ier et l’Art des Pays-Bas at the Louvre. Conservator Cécile Scailliérez has put together this surprisingly generous, rich exhibition of Flemish and Dutch artists in Renaissance France, whose achievments had been overshadowed by those of their Italian counterparts for too long. The catalogue is a reference work in the field.

2. Picasso, day-to-day.

Picasso 1937. L’anée érotique at the Musée Picasso in Paris gives you more than what its catchy title promises. You can trace Picasso’s amazing work capacity, and his ability to jump from one style to another, in a matter of days, all as part of coherent, brilliant journey on the many languages at his disposal.

3. The quality is old, the money is new.

You will find a good account of the extraordinary sale of the Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi in artnet, plus a video recording the bidding at Christie’s. The auction house’s strategy of offering the Old Master’s masterpiece in a Contemporary Art sale has proved brilliant, since the last two bidders were represented by Francois de Poortere, International Director and Head of the Old Master’s Department, making small advances, and Alex Rotter, Chairman of Post-War and Contemporary Art for the Americas, who placed great increments, until his winning bid at $450.3 million (including fees).

4. Buy cheap, give generously.

In ARCA’s blog, you will find an interesting article explaining a “clever” fiscal optimization scheme: buy some important ancient artwork at a good price; have it appreciated for much, much more than your purchase price by some “expert” appraiser (duly provided by the seller); make a gift of the artwork to a museum; collect the tax-benefits attached to the donation – worth up to three times than your purchase price.

5. Promising.

*Anonymous (Antwerp), Carved retable of the Passion of Christ, c. 1510. Burgos, San Photo: Lesmes, Capilla de Salamanca* (Hans Nieuwdorp Archive, Illuminare – Centre for the Study of Medieval Art | KU Leuven).

Brepols will publish in January next year “Netherlandish Art and Luxury Goods in Renaissance Spain”, (edited by D. van Heesch, R. Janssen, J. Van der Stock), which will “explore the diverse ways in which Netherlandish art and luxury goods permeated the artistic landscape of Renaissance Spain”, and therefore “providing a fascinating and multifaceted view of the reciprocal relationships between the Low Countries and Spain in the fifteenth, sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries”. It will follow a symposium of the same title hold at the University of Leuven, in February 2016.

6. The Tàpies case: a German contribution.

Regarding artist Antoni Tàpies private collection’s sale, I took the side in favor of it, since I had read no article or study relating it to the late artist’s oeuvre. Well, it could be very well I was wrong: Barbara Catoir at the FAZ make a good case presenting it as a “typische Künstlersammlung”, short of any really important work, but with many ties to Tàpies’ creative process.

7. The monk’s treasure.

The heroes of the Révolution missed it, and it remained unearthed until last September: at the CNRS online blog, you can read the report of the fascinating finding of a treasure trove (“2,200 silver coins, 21 gold dinars, a gold signet ring with a Roman intaglio, a folded piece of gold leaf, and a small gold object”) found in the Abbey of Cluny, by a MA student working on the site.

Seven for seven: From Collection Godia to the Return of History

Posted on 27 October, 2017

1. Books 1: Keep the curator.

The Godia Fundation left its site in central Barcelona last year and sold some of its works, but kept its curator, Mercè Obón. And so Obon’s contiuous research on the collection keeps bringing new discoveries: in the catalogue for the exhibition hold in Museo Episcopal de Malaga last July (La esencia de la belleza), you will find who the sitters in this magnificient Ramon Casas are, and other interesting new data.

2. Books 2: a Tefaf’s veteran comes afresh.

As we announced some weeks ago, Eguiguren first showed this grand panel in Tefaf Maastricht 2016 as the work of a Spanish anonymous artist, and will now present it in Tefaf New York as the work of the Maestro de Belmonte. To accompany they are publishing a catalogue by Alberto Velasco (Virgin and Child with Musicina Angels. The Master of Belmonte and Late Medieval Aragonese Painting, Eguiguren 2017) which is in fact a complete study of the 16^th century school of Calatayud, completed with other new attributions and a generous supply of technical data.

3. Books 3: Michelangelo

You can already book the catalogue for the upcoming exhibition at the Metropolitan (opens on November 13^th), edited by Carmen C. Bambach, at yale.com for $65.

4. Women, women, women everywhere.

*Maruja Mallo. Kermés, 1928. Castres-Musée Goya, Musée d’art hispanique © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Jacques Faujour © Maruja Mallo, VEGAP, Málaga, 2017*

Before going for Olga Sacharoff (1889-1967) in the Museu d’Art de Girona (from November 25^th), you can travel to the Museo Picasso in Malaga to see their selection of 18 Surrealist ladies, under the title Somos plenamente libres. Las mujeres artistas y el Surrealismo (until January 28^th, comment in El Mundo). Meanwhile, Guillermo de Osma shows in Madrid a retrospective of Maruja Mallo (1902-1995), until November 10^th(catalogue here). The exhibition coincides with the launching of Mallo’s oil paintings catalogue raisonné initiative, lead by Mr Osma, Juan Pérez de Ayala and Antonio Gómez Conde. You can send your photos of Mallo’s works to catalogorazonado@marujamallo.com (website: www.marujamallo.com)

5. A family tradition.

The daughter of the late sculptor Pau Gargallo follows her family’s generous tradition with a new donation, this time of five important bronzes to the Museo Reina Sofía in Madrid (note from Efe). It is thanks to Mme. Gargallo’s mother that the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya holds an excellent selection of her father’s works.

6. Weimar in Frankfurt.

The Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt opens an exhibition about art in the Weimar Republic, with a fine digitorial – Splendor and Misery in the Weimar Republic, until February 25th, 2018.

7. The return of Seven for Seven’s Challenge: again, find the 7 differences.

Again, too hard. History does repeat itself.

Seven for seven: From Sitges to the Professor Castiñeiras.

Posted on 21 September, 201721 September, 2017

1. Sitges as usual.

The day of conferences (October 20^th) hosted by the Museums of Sitges, near Barcelona, and devoted to collectionism, museums and the art market, will as usual mark the rentrée in this corner of the Mediterranean. In a fitting coincidence, one of the speakers, Glòria Domènech, will elaborate on the late Antoni Tàpies as collector, just two weeks after some of the works he treasured will have gone to auction at Christie’s – at the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction (6 October, London) and the Up Close Sale, (3 October, London), with further works at the Impressionist and Modern sales in February 2018.

2. An Austrian abroad: Max Hollein.

*Photo: Fine Arts Museums San Francisco*

The FAZ has the ability of making good interviews to German-speaking directors abroad. Max Hollein, the former star of the European museum sector as director of the Frankfurt’s museums, and since last year, director of the Legion of Honor and the M.H.de Young Museum in San Francisco, says:

“European museums are heavily influenced by public cultural policies. There is not state-lead cultural policy in America. The museums are far more influenced by what the Board of Trustees says, not only from the economic point of view”.

3. A German abroad: Eike Schmidt.

All the same for Eike Schmidt, the current director of the Ufizzi: “The Italian bureaucracy is a giant hurdle. I have overcome it successfully many times”, states he in this interview for the FAZ. As it is known, he will leave the Florentine museum for the KHM Vienna in the second half of 2019.

4. Our common friend Leviathan.

The poor owner of Pleurant n. 17 from the tomb of Philippe the Bold (which has been reconstructed in the Musée de Beaux Arts de Dijon), can trace his ownership back to 1813, and has lent the piece to all the relevant exhibitions. Moreover, when he decided to sell it, he approached the tax authorities for a in lieu scheme, and also the museum of Dijon for a fundraising campaign, unsuccessfully. But when he eventually put it to auction, the heroes of Leviathan finally awoke, and he now risks expropriation by the French state on the grounds of a rule of 1804 (the tomb was however dismantled in 1793, articles at La Connaissance des Arts and Bilan).

5. A family matter.

ARCA’s blog explains us the family connections behind the robbery of a Big Leaf in the Bode Museum, Berlin. Otherwise, you can find in Die Zeit a video showing three of the detainees, in their way home after the job, taking a walk together into an empty, CCTV surveilled S-Bahn.

6. Böhler? Ask the ZI.

The ZI in Munich has secured funds for research on the Julius Böhler archives (1903-1949), which they acquired in 2015. They are however looking for more suport for the digitization of all the material. Böhler was one of the most important German Old Masters dealers of the first half of the 20th century, closely related with the Royal museus an collections in Berlin and Munich. He was also active with American Museums – the MFA Boston bought him this fine Saint Francis by Francisco de Zurbarán.

7. A man with a mission.

Professor Manuel A. Castiñeiras carries on in his effort to put the Hispanic Romanesque art in its right international context. In his new book you will find articles by the many specialists form home and abroad attracted by him in his seminars and courses, at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and elsewhere (Manuel A. Castiñeiras, ed.: Entre la letra y el pincel: El artista medieval. Leyenda, identidad y estatus, Círculo Rojo, 2017, 420 p.; ISBN: 978-8491603368).

Seven for seven: From Paris to Petrella Tifernina.

Posted on 10 August, 201714 September, 2017

1. Beyond one’s own walls.

The July newsletter from the Musee Picasso, Paris, shows the first fruits of the Picasso-Mediterranée project (programme here) and makes the unusual move to inform not only about the activities of the Musee, but also of the many others museums in France and Spain related with involved in the project. The grand project, led by the Parisian museum, will run from now until December 2019 and will include some 45 exhibtiions – at the three Picasso museums in Paris, Barcelona and Malaga, the Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Scuderia in Rome, Capodimonte in Naples, Musée Rigaud in Perpignan (already showing Picasso Perpignan. Le cercle de l’ntime 1953-1955, until November 5th), Musée Fabre in Montpellier and many others.

2. Michel Hilaire.

At La Tribune de l’Art you will find an interview with Michel Hilaire, director of the Musée Fabre of Montpellier. He explains how he turned it in to one of the most interesting and active in France.

3. A couple of centuries old, and fit.

The celebration’s programme for Museo del Prado 200th anniversary, planned for 2019, adds some specific proposals (like two exhibitions on the museum’s history) to an already ambitious Masterplan for 2017-2020. This includes three new catalogues on the museum’s holdings of Velázquez, Giordano and Teniers; exhibitions of star artists (Velázquez again, plus Rembrandt, Goya, Fra Angelico, Brueghel); among many other activities.

4. Hear the lawyer.

Lawyer Leila Amineddoleh explains in artnet news why the US government was right in pursuing the Hooby Lobby’s looted art case not as a criminal one, but as a civil one. Anyway, we learn from npr that there has been arrests in the Isarel’s side of the story .

5. Too cheap?

In this note by Reuters and this one by Art Law and More, I finally found the raisoning behind which an appeal judge, in California, agreed to reopen a case that seemed closed for good. The fact that Baron Thyseen first and the Spanish State from him, bought the Pissarro (Rue Saint-Honoré, Après-midi, Effet de Pluie, 1897) at a price below the market price, undermines now his good faith. But perhaps we should treat differently the first purchase, of a single painting, from the second, of an entire collection for a wholesale price? Will see.

6. Autumn’s reading.

Harvey Miller is about to publish Cut in Alabaster: a Material of Sculpture (320 ps, €125), in which Kim Woods discusses, among other European examples, the Doncel of Sigüenza (above) and some Iberian retables.

7. Not always an Ecce Homo.

Foto: AnsaThis year’s summer popular restauration story differs greatly from 2012 Ecce Homo of Borgia’s disaster. The Giornale dell’Arte reports about the nice restauration, paid by the inhabitants of the small Italian village of Petrella Tifernina (Campobasso, Molise), of their local Christ: what looked as a popular pastiche was in fact hiding a fine 15th-16th century wooden figure. More information at ANSA.

Seven for seven: From Sijena to Washington.

Posted on 27 July, 201714 September, 2017

1. Italy, capital Sijena.

Among this season’s sleepers, this powerful Adoration of the Magi (155,5 x 130,5 cm) stands out. It came as “Italian School, 16th century” at Stuker Bern last June, 20th. It rocketed from a modest CHF 5,000 estimate to a CHF 130,000 result and can safely be assigned to the Aragonese Master of Sijena, probably for the main retable in the monastery of the same town – his Nativity from the same retable now at the Prado measures 171,5 x 130,5 cm, a difference of 16 cm that may be explained by some trimming on the bottom of the piece.

2. Sunnier days for Venusti?

At Christie’s last Old Masters Day Sale (July 7th), this fine Deposition attributed to Marcello Venusti (?1512/1515 – 1579) rose from an estimate of GBP 20,000 to a final price of GBP 115,000 (including buyer’s premium). It is a record for an artist who, as the title of the forthcoming catalogue by Dr Francesca Parrilla points out, has yet to come out from his friend Michelangelo’s long shadow (Marcello Venusti, un pittore all’ombra di Michelangelo, ed. Campisano, Rome). For a good report on the best results of the rest of the Old Masters sales, see this article at The Telegraph.

3. Already here.

Quite ahead from the opening day, the catalog for the upcoming exhibition “Murillo. The Self-portraits” in the Frick Collection, NY (30.10.2017-10.02.2018) and then in the National Gallery, London (28.02.2018 – 21.05.2018) is already on sale – edited by Xavier F. Salomon, Chief Curator at the Frick, and Letizia Treves, curator of later Italian, Spanish, and French 17th-century paintings at the National Gallery.

4. Rigaud reopens.

After a 9M€ refurbishment, the Musée Rigaud reopened last May. Didier Rikner dislikes the result. Anyway, you will still find there the great Retable of the Trinity, by the anonymous Master of the Llotja de Mar de Perpinyà, and also some new loans of works by Aristides Maillol from the Foundation Dina Vierny.

5. Challenging Nonell.

In this interesting article in Nineteenth Century Art Worldwide, Illinois University PhD student Maria A. Dorofeeva explores the reasons behind the negative contemporary reaction to Isidre Nonell’s exhibition in 1903, at the all-conservative Sala Pares, Barcelona: the gipsy, destitute women portrayed in his paintings challenged stablished and reassuring conventions about them.

6. It’s a hospital… are the new NATO’s headquarters …. no, it’s a museum!

The new but not opened Museo de Colecciones Reales (Madrid) has been bestowed with the FAD Architecture Award 2017. Not my taste.

7. Alternatives.

Artsy has a nice piece about fine new buildings for art – among them, David Adjaye’s strong and elegant National Museum of African American Art, Wahington.

20.06.2015. From Barcelona to Basel

Posted on 21 June, 2015

1. The road to heaven.

This Spanish School – Circle of José de Ribera rocketed from an estimate of €4,000 to a hammer price of €350,000. It might be by the master himself, although I won’t rule out the name of Juan Do (Saint Jerome, oil on canvas, 135 x 102 cm, La Suite Subastas, Barcelona June 18^th, 2015, lot 32).

2. The naturalized Pietà.

What came to auction in Germany as the work of an Italinienischer Meister, turned out to be a fine panel by the Spanish Maestro de la Piedad, who was working around 1400 in the Toledo area under a strong Neapolitan or Southern Italian influence. It now belongs to a private collector.

3. A journey with Mr Wiseman.

Wiseman’s extraordinary National Gallery is a filmed play that opens with a rather topical argument about museums and its public (which Director Neil McGregor wins over, thanks to the old lawyer’s trick of asking the other part to produce the actual proof of her quite foggy claim), and takes you all the way up to two professional dances performing before Titian’s Diana and Acteon and its sequel Death of Acteon, as a way to celebrate its reunion. From talking about art to just contemplating it, as Richard Brody puts in The New Yorker, Wiseman’s way is a fascinating journey.

4. The Greek route.

While the magnificient Defining Beauty in the British Museum shows the multiple ways the Greeks explored the human figure; the tiny, carefully selected Maillol and Greece in the Museu Marés, Barcelona, explains which lessons took and retook the creator of the Mediterranée (1905) from the kouros and other archaic examples, during his trip in mainland Greece between April and May 1908. Curator Alex Susanna claims this was a key moment for modern sculpture, since Maillol’s quiet, self-contained forms opened the door to cold, modern, abstract works.

5.And then, Picasso.

No survey would be complete without the Master, so MOMA’s Picasso Sculpture (opening on September, 14th) comes particularly at hand for exploring further the birth of contemporary sculpture. According to David Ebony in Art in America, it will include the 1909 Head of Fernande – and perhaps the 1912 Cardboard Guitar?

6. A word from the lawyer.

Rebecca Foden, the lawyer from Boodle Hatfield LLP that represented Mr Thwaytes in his lost case against Sotheby’s, gives here some valuable pieces of advice about consigning works to auction.

7. The return of the prodigal son.

The most commented piece news from the ground floor of this year’s Art Basel was the return of Helly Nahmad with a spectacular stand (see reports at Artnet and Artnews). But it was not all about big works by big names. I was attracted by the reunion of these little Miró: no less than three, all of the same year (1944), all from the same series. I didn’t dare ask their price.