Arthur Okamura, RIP

This morning I received an email from Stephen Beal, President of California College of the Arts, bearing sad news: FROM PRESIDENT STEPHEN BEAL Dear CCA Community, I’m very sad to report the death of Professor Emeritus Arthur Okamura. He passed away on July 10 near his home in Bolinas. He was 77. Arthur taught at [...]

Obama Street Artist Pleads Guilty

Street artist Shepard Fairey, 39, was sentenced to two years probation and fined $2,000 on Friday, after pleading guilty in Boston Municipal Court to two counts of destruction of property and one count of defacing property. Eleven other charges were dismissed. The California resident must also notify Suffolk County officials when he visits the Boston [...]

Mona Lisa Revealed

An exhibit entitled Joconde: From the Mona Lisa to the Nude Gioconda is on display from June 14 through September 30, 2009, at the Museo Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci in Vinci, Italy, Leonardo’s birthplace. It features 5,000 paintings, sculpture and new media created over the past 500 years, inspired by Leonardo’s immortal portrait of Mona [...]

Yale, Van Gogh, Lenin and the Nationalization of Art

At first Chairman Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized private land and “redistributed” it to the Russian peasants. They nationalized the banks and industry. Personal property was confiscated for the state, including the art collections of the Russian industrialists. General Secretary of the Communist Party Josef Stalin sold off some of the “nationalized” art treasures [...]

Reagan Statue in National Statuary Hall Collection

Nancy Reagan will be on hand for the unveiling of the Ronald Reagan statue in the National Statuary Hall at the United States Capitol on Tuesday, June 3, 2009. On Monday, Mrs. Reagan was at the side of President Barack Obama as he signed the Ronald Reagan Centennial Commission Act, which calls for national celebrations [...]

Dedicated to Art

Arnold Schwarzenegger Returns California’s Nazi Loot

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was on hand on April 10, 2009, when two paintings belonging to the state were returned to the grandchildren of their original owners. Jakob and Rosa Oppenheimer, who owned a gallery in Berlin, fled to France in 1933 to escape Nazi persecution. The Nazis auctioned off 100 paintings from the Oppenheimer’s [...]

Castrobama

The first major group show of American artists in Cuba opened on Saturday, March 28, 2009. It’s called “Chelsea visits Havana.” No, not that Chelsea. Even though Ms. Clinton’s father was sympathetic to the frequent visits to Cuba by American art dealers, this show got its name from the Manhattan district where the 30 artists [...]

Princess Diana, Mandela Labeled ‘Gay Icons’ in London Exhibit – Bloomberg.com

For “Gay Icons,” a show of photographic portraits at London’s National Portrait Gallery, 10 famous gays and lesbians, such as entertainer Elton John and athlete Billy Jean King, chose “icons” for the exhibit, based on their inspirational qualities and achievements. The sexual orientation of these role models was only occasionally a factor in their selection. [...]

Rose Family to Brandeis U: “We Object”

In January 2009, Brandeis University announced it would be closing the Rose Art Museum and selling off works from its collection, due to the University’s budget problems. The museum was founded in 1961, with a gift of $1 million from the Rose Family, which funded construction of the building. Brandeis president Jehuda Reinharz has said [...]