Internationally renowned fashion designer and native Cincinnatian, John Bartlett, takes a break from his busy schedule to speak at the Contemporary Arts Center during the last week of Marilyn Minter: Chewing Color, on Monday, April 26 at 5.30 pm. Bartlett, who hails from Anderson Township, runs his own eponymous menswear label and is Creative Director at Liz Claiborne overseeing the collection Claiborne by John Bartlett.

Join us at the CAC to hear him talk about the relationship between fashion and art and his experience using creativity as a tool in his life. He will discuss his roots and inspiration in Cincinnati, and the vision he is pursuing with his flagship store in Manhattan’s West Village as a “breeding ground of creativity and a collaboration of diverse local artisans.”

Read about “John from Cincinnati” http://www.johnbartlettny.com/index2.html

“Bartlett’s image of man has the potential to permanently alter the way a fellow dresses, how a gentleman thinks about his public face and the manner in which masculinity is perceived.” —Robin Givhan, The Washington Post
More Information: www.contemporaryartscenter.org 513.345.8400

Press Inquiries: LeAnne Anklan, lanklan@contemporaryartscenter.org 513.345.8421

About the Contemporary Arts Center
Founded in November 1939 as the Modern Art Society by three visionary women in Cincinnati, the Contemporary Arts Center was one of the first institutions in the U.S. dedicated to exhibiting the art of our time. In May 2003, the CAC relocated to its first free-standing home, the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art, designed by Zaha Hadid. Throughout its distinguished history, the CAC has earned a reputation for stimulating thought and introducing new ideas by presenting the work of diverse artists from around the world, including hundreds of now-famous artists such as Laurie Anderson, Jasper Johns, Louise Nevelson, Nam June Paik, I.M. Pei, Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg, Kara Walker and Andy Warhol. The CAC focuses on new developments in painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, performance art and new media, presenting six to 12 exhibitions and over 20 performances annually. The CAC receives ongoing support from: Fine Arts Fund; Ohio Arts Council; The Carol Ann and Ralph V. Haile, Jr. /U.S. Bank Foundation, City of Cincinnati Arts Grant Recipient; The National Endowment for the Arts; the generous contributions and grants of individuals, corporations and other foundations; CAC memberships, facility rentals, special events and sales from the CAC Store.
UnMuseum programs and artists are sponsored in part by the Charles H. Dater Foundation, Josephine Schell Russell Charitable Trust, PNC Bank, Trustee, and The Ladislas and Vilma Segoe Foundation.

Contemporary Arts Center is located in the Lois & Richard Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art 44 East 6th Street, Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 / 513.345.8400

Gallery hours:
Monday: 10am–9pm (FREE after 5pm)
Tuesday: Closed
Wednesday-Friday: 10am–6pm
Saturday & Sunday: 11am–6pm
CAC Store hours:
Store is open during normal museum hours and Tuesday: 1am-6pm

www.contemporaryartscenter.org

Bert Green Fine Art is pleased to present a long-overdue solo exhibition by San Francisco based artist John U. Abrahamson. Open through April 24, 2010.

John U. Abrahamson Puddle Oil on Panel, 5 x 7”, 2009. Bert Green Fine Art

John U. Abrahamson’s “Flesh and Blood” includes 20 oils on wood and paper with a central installation work of the same title. The installation is steel, glass, wood, journals, blood and flesh: 650 suspended vials of the artist’s own blood and flesh create the shape of a prone human form that hovers 3 feet over 30 journals, 220 pages each, opened upon a table for the viewer to destroy—15 years worth of the artist’s daily writings. This is an interactive experience — the public is encouraged to tear and keep pages from the journals to assist in the purging of the artist’s history.

In the artist’s words, “‘Flesh and Blood’ is catharsis. From the flesh and blood letting needed for the installation work to the subjects I gave form to in paint culminating in the destruction of 15 years worth of writings. An artist in midlife contemplating the waste, sloth and slowly approaching mortality of his life framed by moments of self-flagellation. My figures seem to have a resigned appreciation of their own personal hells.”

All gallery events are free and open to the public.

Bert Green Fine Art, 102 West 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90013, 213-624-6212 Gallery Hours: Tuesday through Saturday 12 – 6 pm

www.bgfa.us

Sotheby’s London will offer for sale, on June 2, 2010, one of the finest figure paintings by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875) ever to have appeared on the market. Estimated at £800,000-1,200,000, “Jeune femme à la fontaine” enjoyed an exceptional early provenance before it was requisitioned during WW2 period. It has now been restituted to the heirs of its erstwhile owners and will be one of the centrepieces of Sotheby’s forthcoming sale of 19th Century Paintings.

Jeune femme à la fontaine’s journey through history provides a story that is as compelling as those behind the restituted works by Gustav Klimt and Hendrick Goltzius recently sold at Sotheby’s. The first owner was Ernst Hoschedé (d. 1891), an important early patron of Claude Monet, from whom he commissioned decorative panels for his residence just south of Paris, the Château de Rottembourg in Montgeron. Following financial difficulties, the Hoschedé family moved into a house in Vétheuil with Monet, his wife Camille and his children. Hoschedé’s wife, Alice, eventually married Monet following their respective spouses’ deaths.

The second owner was Charles Alluaud (1861-1949), scion of the family that had directed the porcelain factory in Limoges since the eighteenth century. During his childhood, he and his brother, Eugène, had received painting instruction from Corot himself and it is likely that this relationship led to Alluaud’s acquisition of the present work.

The next documented owner of Jeune femme à la fontaine is Eduard Ludwig Behrens, senior who was born in Hamburg in 1824 and had been one of the early directors of the city’s private banking firm of Levy Behrens & Söhne. He acquired the painting in 1889. Upon his death he bequeathed his large and important art collection to his son Eduard Ludwig Behrens, junior, who left it, in turn, to his son Georg.

In 1925, Georg lent the Behrens’ paintings collection to the city of Hamburg for a period of ten years. On the expiry of this agreement, Georg attempted to send the collection to the safety of Switzerland, but was informed on 1st April 1935 by the German authorities that the present work and a number of other key works from the Behrens collection had been included on the Verzeichnis der national wertvollen Kunstwerke (list of works considered to be of national significance).

In May 1938, the Behrens banking firm was Aryanised and the following November Georg was arrested in Hamburg and then sent to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp where he was interned until the end of December. He then emigrated to Belgium in April 1939. In order to obtain his exit visa he had to pawn all of his possessions to the State. From Belgium he moved to France where, following the outbreak of the Second World War, he was interned in a camp in the south of France. In the autumn of 1940 he obtained a visa for Cuba where he finally found his freedom. After the war, Georg Eduard Behrens returned to Hamburg and died in that city in 1956, never having recovered the Corot.

In 1941 the painting surfaced under the auspices of Berlin art dealer H.W. Lange. Shortly thereafter, Lange purchased the work for the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo using money from a fund set up in 1941s. The purpose of the fund was to help the museum purchase new works for its collection after three of its paintings, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Hans Baldung Grien and Barthel Bruyn the Elder, had been requisitioned for display in the Führermuseum in Linz. The fund was in effect a smokescreen to give the impression that this was an exchange rather than the confiscation it really was.

In 1998, in response to an initiative by the Netherlands Museum Association, the museum attempted to trace the origins of various works acquired during the period 1940-1948. Following considerable research conducted by the representatives of the heirs, it was confirmed that the original owner parted with the work involuntarily and, as a result, the Minister of Education, Culture and Science decreed that Jeune femme à la fontaine be returned to the heirs of Georg Eduard Behrens in 2008 after 66 years in the museum’s collection. Sotheby’s sale will allow collectors the opportunity to provide the next chapter in the painting’s history.

Jeune femme à la fontaine can be ranked among Corot’s finest figure paintings of the 1860s and 1870s. The classical pose and modelling of the figure evoke the iconic female figures of Renaissance masters Leonardo and Raphael. It was during and following trips to Italy in the 1820s, 1830s and 1840s that Corot was inspired to create his series of Italian peasant girls. While the present work was painted decades after these sojourns, it was certainly painted from the artist’s idealised memories of the Italian women he encountered, and is imbued with a melancholy and pensive intimacy.

Image: “Jeune femme à la fontaine”, by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. Est. £800,000-1,200,000. Photo: Sotheby’s

The Patricia & Phillip Frost Art Museum at Florida International University (FIU) will unveil the Knight Foundation Virtual Gallery during its popular program Target Wednesday After Hours. This event, free and open to the public, will take place March 24, 2010

“Through the grant from The Knight Foundation, museum visitors will be able to experience the objects in our collection and the virtual gallery will serve as an entertaining and educational tool,” said Carol Damian, director and chief curator.

The Virtual Gallery enables visitors to tour the gallery, focus on individual objects and access additional information and links. The multimedia authoring software will provide such experiences as self-curating gallery spaces using The Frost Art Museum’s Permanent Collection. This project will allow the implementation of creative technical solutions to the exhibition’s complexity and enhance the viewing and educational experience of visitors of all ages and art backgrounds.

The Virtual Gallery Project will engage the South Florida Community with two interactive virtual gallery kiosks with touch screens located in the Permanent Collection galleries. It will present timelines, maps, and enhanced text labels based on a multi-media system using the most recent technological innovations. The program will create the opportunity for educational projects and other virtual experiences for students, visitors, curators and museum studies.

The Permanent Collection offers a rich variety of artworks from all over the world that range from contemporary installations to the ritual artifacts of Pre-Columbian cultures, wood carvings from African tribal peoples and the delicate visages of Asian deities. Among its thousands of objects, the attention to the human figure emerges as a particularly significant aspect of all artistic endeavors throughout time.

www.knightfoundation.org

A new installation at The Metropolitan Museum of Art explores themes of birthday celebrations and long life in Chinese art. Drawn entirely from the Museum’s collection and promised gifts, and on view in The Florence and Herbert Irving Galleries for Chinese Decorative Arts, Celebration: The Birthday in Chinese Art showcases more than 50 works—paintings, garments, and decorative art objects—depicting the birthday and longevity themes that were pervasive in China especially during the Ming (1368–1644) and Qing (1644–1911) dynasties. While the earliest work in the installation is a 13th-century painting, most date from the 16th to 18th centuries. Celebration includes several works never before exhibited, including a monumental 18th-century tapestry (kesi) woven in silk and gold with the character for longevity shou as well as a recently acquired lacquer box with mother-of-pearl inlays capturing a party setting and lively boys at play. The installation will remain on view through August 15, 2010.

Among the highlights are richly detailed works of embroidery, lacquer, porcelain, and tapestry, all depicting a grand reception celebrating the 80th birthday of the Tang-dynasty hero Guo Ziyi (697-781), who became a popular Chinese god of wealth, honor, and happiness. Of particular interest are a set of 12 exquisite hanging scrolls with dozens of figures embroidered in silk, gold, and feather thread on satin; a meticulously carved red lacquer screen (dated 1777) showing the bustling activity accompanying a birthday celebration in a large residential compound; and a delightful 19th-century silk tapestry (kesi) with painted details—that is on display for the first time.

As the birthday in Chinese art is a celebration of a long and rewarding life, objects with longevity themes were appropriately given, displayed, and worn on birthdays. Long life was encoded in the character for shou itself, in images with Daoist immortals, and in images of rocks, peaches, cranes, and flora and fauna of many kinds. The installation features many such examples, including a tall blue-and-white porcelain vase of the Wanli period (1573–1620) illustrating spirited immortals offering up the character shou; and a silk tapestry of the Ming dynasty depicting the legendary Dongfang Suo, who stole the mythical peaches of immortality and became immortal himself.

The installation is featured on the Museum’s website at www.metmuseum.org.

Celebration: The Birthday in Chinese Art is organized by Joyce Denney, Assistant Curator in the Metropolitan Museum’s Department of Asian Art. Installation design is by Michael Batista, Exhibition Design Manager; graphics are by Emil Micha, Senior Graphic Design Manager; and lighting is by Clint Coller and Richard Lichte, Lighting Design Managers, all of the Museum’s Design Department.

www.metmuseum.org