Art Source | The Art World



Intel Corporation, the market leader in computer chip technology, recently gave $5 million to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York for their "American Century" exhibit, the largest corporate contribution ever made to an art museum exhibition. Intel is also responsible for the launch of artmuseum.net, a comprehensive Internet-based gallery featuring works from the Whitney show. Not only does the site feature works from the exhibit, but it also relates the pieces to relevant historical events and key themes which the artists were addressing. A popular on-line feature is the "zoom lens" which lets viewers see such close-up details as brush strokes and the layering of paints. The "American Century" exhibit, Part I, will be on view through August. Part II (1950-2000) will run from Sept. 26 - Feb. 13. This September, the veterans of the 1944 Battles at Arnhem (memorialized in the movie A Bridge Too Far) will gather in Holland for the final full commemoration of the battle. As part of the ceremony, aviation artist John Young, has issued a limited-edition print entitled "A Bold Leap - The Red Berets Drop on Arnhem". The prints will be signed by every veteran present, and presented to every museum in Arnhem. The prints are being donated by Rosenstiels' Widow & Son Ltd., London.

Businesses are recognizing the value of supporting the arts to win big clients. The recent show of Van Gogh paintings at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. was supported by a $1 million donation from Andersen Consulting, a major management and consulting firm based in the same city. Special events sponsored by the corporation allowed the firm to host over a thousand Fortune 100 clients at the public exhibit. This follows in the footsteps of both Boeing and Bell Atlantic, who have also sponsored important shows at the D.C. museum.
Other news from the National Gallery is the opening of the new outdoor sculpture garden. The setting, a 6 acre space near the National Mall, showcases over 20 major works by such preeminent sculptors as Claes Oldenburg, Coosje van Bruggen, Mark di Suvero, Tony Smith, and Roy Lichtenstein. A reflecting pool and splashing fountain in the center of the garden will enhance the setting, and be transformed into a skating rink for winter enjoyment.
And Paul Mellon, wealthy philanthropist and art lover, who died in February of this year, has given $75 million in cash to the National Gallery of Art in Washington as well as two valuable oil paintings by Vincent Van Gogh.

Art and the Sounds of Music: New York's Museum of Modern Art, in conjunction with its recent show on Jackson Pollock, offered a compact disc featuring the artist's favorite jazz recordings. Called "Jackson Pollock Jazz", the 17 selections included music from Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, and Count Basie. The curators indicated that the improvisation inherent in jazz music paralleled Pollock's own style of "dripping, pouring, and throwing paint onto a canvas." A similar pairing of art with music occurred when the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston let visitors listen to music popular in the late 19th century as part of its "Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman" exhibit in May. Using headphones, museum visitors could listen to music by Debussy, Ravel, and others selected by the New England Conservatory.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York has received a grant of $5 million from Michael Bloomberg, of the Bloomberg data services business, to create audio guides for their art tours of the museum.
This fall, the Women's Museum opens in Dallas. One of its most unique features will be an electronic quilt made up of 16 video monitors and a hall of panels showcasing 36 women with electronic biographies, artifacts, and memorabilia.

"The Frame in America: 1860-1960" is a touring exhibition that highlights the history of American picture frame design during this era. In the exhibit are more than 100 frames by such well-known names as James McNeill Whistler and Stanford White. The curator of the exhibition, William Adair, directs the International Institute for Frame Study. Show dates include: Headley-Whitney Museum, Lexington, KY, through August 11; Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY, Aug 28-Nov 14; and Stanford University Museum of Art, Stanford, CA, Dec. 14- March 6, 2000.

The Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey recently announced the acquisition of a showpiece panorama called "Pilgrim's Progress", painted by Joseph Kyle and Jacob Dallas. Painted some 148 years ago, the mural is 400 feet long and 8 feet high, and depicts Bunyan's religious allegory. During the last century, the art piece was presented in theaters and churches accompanied by music and narration, as its canvas with 54 different scenes was unrolled across a stage in a show that lasted almost two hours.

The Solomon Guggenheim Museum has received a gift of $750,000 from the Henry R. Luce Foundation to conduct a comprehensive survey of American art to be presented in China. Called "America 300", it is scheduled to open in Beijing next year and then travel to Shanghai. The show will cover art from the Colonial period through all the major American art movements up to the present. Among the artists represented will be Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Georgia O'Keefe, Frank Stella, and Andy Warhol.

The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) has commissioned over 30 fine artists to create site-specific pieces for the various train stops along the line now under construction. These art pieces, installed at different stations, are part of the 1989 Los Angeles "1 percentage for art program" that requires private buildings and other construction projects to include art as an essential component in their design.
Talk show host Rosie O'Donnell opened one of her April shows sitting behind a desk specially designed for her by New York artist Charles Fazzino. Depicting scenes from such Broadway musicals as The Lion King, Rent, and Dream Girls, as well as Grease (which Rosie appeared in), the desk was then auctioned off on www.ebay.com to benefit the talk show host's The All For Kids Foundation.
Thomas Kinkade, a well-known painter in the romantic realism style, is currently teaming with U.S. Home, a upscale residential home builder based in Houston, to build a house in California inspired by one of his paintings, "Home is Where the Heart Is." The yellow and gray structure's interior will be furnished throughout with products from Kinkade's group of licensees, including sofas from La-Z-Boy, solid wood furniture from Kincaid Furniture, and wallpaper from Imperial Home Decor Group.