Mona Lisa is in the building

Mona Lisa paid us a visit this morning, accompanied by a glamourous redhead.  We tried to get ML to laugh, but only got that mysterious smile in response.

Way to give 110% with the costumes, ladies!

Nov. 2 lecture: “Velazquez in the Basement: Connoisseurship and the Politics of Art History”

Dr. John Marciari, Curator of Italian and Spanish Painting at the San Diego Museum of Art, will deliver a lecture at UCSB entitled “Velazquez in the Basement: Connoisseurship and the Politics of Art History.” Co-sponsored by the departments of the History of Art and Architecture, Art, and Spanish and Portuguese, the lecture is part of the “Moralities in Art and Architecture” series at UCSB.

Dr. Marciari made international headlines when he recently attributed a painting at Yale University Art Gallery to Velazquez.  Depicting “The Education of the Virgin Mary,” the painting was damaged, had no known provenance and had never been on public view. While the reattribution to Velazquez began with a connoisseurial judgment, the case is supported by further research on Sevillian painting, the study of provenance and by technical examination in the conservation laboratory. Marciari’s detective work is also a commentary on the art world’s reluctance to admit new works to the canon.  (See LA Times article here; also our earlier posting about the discovery here. )
When and where: Tuesday, November 2^nd at 5:00 pm in HSSB 6020, McCune Conference Room.  Refreshments will  be provided.

The latest on Fisk University and the Stieglitz Collection

As we’ve reported before (here and here), Fisk University is pushing to sell a 50% share of their Stieglitz Collection to an Arkansas museum as a way to raise operating funds. The Tennessean recently reported that an anonymous donor has come forward with a pledge to give the university a needed flow of money now so that the Collection can remain on campus. The university, who has rejected the offer, posted their response here.

Photography raffle to benefit Louisiana

Santa Barbara-based photographer Nell Campbell has organized a fundraiser to benefit The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana (read more about CRCL here).  She has donated the photograph pictured below, which she took in 2004 on Little Chenier Road in SW Louisiana.  It is 8″x19″, framed in maple wood, with a white rag mat and UV glass. 

How to enter the drawing for the photograph:  For one entry please send a check for $25 made to CRCL (The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana).  For a $100 check made to CRCL, you will have five entries for the drawing.  Please no cash or credit cards. The drawing will be held on November 10, 2010.  All checks must be received by November 9, 2010. Please mail your checks made to CRCL and contact information to:
Nell Campbell
P.O. Box 45
Santa Barbara, CA 93102
Please include your email address if you want confirmation of your entry.
For questions, please email Nell at nellcampbell@cox.net.

Online database for art looted by Nazis

More than 20,000 works of art were plundered in Germany-occupied France and Belgium from 1940 to 1944. These works, meticulously documented during the war by the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR), can searched and researched via a new online database. The database combines records from the U.S. National Archives in College Park (MD), the German Bundesarchiv in Koblenz, and records from the French government.

via artdaily.org

You, too, can be a patron of the arts

Following the model of other micro loan ventures, Kickstarter.com is a site where artists  propose  projects and everyone can contribute to their funding.   Project descriptions are posted on the site, outlining the goals, medium, budget and time frame.   Anyone can make a financial contribution, for any amount.   According to their website more than half the projects achieve their funding goals.  Projects are organized by city, and also by type: film, dance, fashion, music, writing, photography, etc. , and are posted for a fixed period (e.g. 30 days).  You can track the progress of funding goals, and read follow-ups reports from the artists.

Read more in today’s article in the LA Times.

Image Resource Center Open House

If you’re in the area today and haven’t seen our new space (or even if you have), please stop for our Open House.  We’re in Ellison Hall on the ground floor – through the red doors beside the elevator.  Refreshments will be served!

Thursday, October 14 – 1:00-4:00pm

Survey: architects on architecture

Vanity Fair magazine recently conducted a survey of  52  architects and architecture critics and scholars, asking them to list the five most important structures (including buildings, bridge and monuments) built since 1980, and to name the  most significant architectural work of the 21st century.   All participants and their choices are listed here.   A slideshow of the top 21 structures is here.

The winners?  We’re not telling – you’ll have to look…  (My choice?  Anything by Norwegian firm Snøhetta.)

Photographs revealed of Tibet 100 years ago

An album of extremely rare photographs of Tibet and its people, taken during a 1903 British mission, has both been publicized for the first time and auctioned off.  The amazing photos were taken by Officer John Claude White and are the first known of their kind.  Read or listen to an NPR interview by Renee Montagne and the auction house director of books and manuscripts, and also see some wonderful examples of the photos.  The auction took place on October 5 at Bonhams,  and the album sold for 38,000 pounds – read more here.

Get out your metal detectors!

A lucky person with a metal detector uncovered a Roman helmet last year, which is now going up for auction at Christie’s (on Oct. 7).  It’s expected to fetch between $315,000 and $470,000.  It is one of only three of its caliber and design  (with complete face masks)  ever discovered in England.  It was found in the northwest, and was in 74 fragments when found.

Read the full press release here.  And, read about the ownership/right-to-sell controversy here, along with a film clip of Christie’s antiquities specialist which shows more details of the helmet.

UPDATE – it went for over $3 million!!!  Read the story here.