See Strawberry Hill

Ring in Halloween with “gloomth” – Mike Gocksch -Yale Daily News October 30, 2009

A recent front-page article in the News informs us that the Yale Center for British Art suffers from a lack of visibility: Many undergraduates, apparently, do not know it exists. There will be some who turn their nose up at the very idea of pre-twentieth century British art, dismissing it as derivative, dull, second-rate. That said, I encourage everyone, teeming undergraduate masses, skeptics and veterans of the British Art Center alike, to investigate “Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill,” a new exhibition that will be running in New Haven through Jan. 3; it may or may not make you a regular visitor to the museum, but it should leave you with a renewed appreciation for the eccentricities of our cousins across the pond.

-Tanya

The Museum at the Heart of the Academy

The Museum at the Heart of the Academy – October 29, 2009 – Inside Higher Ed – James Christen Steward

Like libraries that often also find themselves embattled in times of budget cuts (since typically neither museums nor libraries directly generate tuition streams), great university art museums are a “public good,” offering value and possibility to the whole of our university communities as well as to users from outside the walls of the ivory tower. That all university museums do not achieve this centrality of purpose — often, I suspect, for lack of adequate resourcing by their parent institutions in the perpetual fight against the perception that art represents a “luxury” in the logo-and data-centric university — is to be regretted. Without question much work remains to be done to make our museums central to the academic experience.

-Tanya

Most undergraduates don’t know the BAC

British Art Center seeks more undergraduate visitors Alison Greenberg – October 28, 2009 -Yale Daily News

The survey found that undergraduates comprised just 2 percent of visitors to the [British Arts] center. Attendance at gallery events, such as screenings, lectures and concerts, is composed primarily of New Haven residents, visitors and graduate students, with much lower numbers of undergraduates, Meyers said. This means that approximately 2,000 Yale undergraduates visit the center annually, according to the center’s spokesman, Ricardo Sandoval ’06.

-Tanya

A Shower of Tiny Petals

A Shower of Tiny Petals in a Marriage of Art and Botany – KAREN ROSENBERG – New York Times – October 22, 2009

The fascinating “Mrs. Delany and Her Circle,” at the Yale Center for British Art, celebrates this exemplary woman’s contributions to botany, the decorative arts and English court society. All of these fields had something to do with order, structure and design (in the divine, as well as the human, sense).

-Tanya

Yale moves to drop museum suits

Yale moves to drop museum suits Nora Caplan-Bricker – Yale Daily News – October 27, 2009

The University filed one motion Oct. 5 to dismiss Pierre Konowaloff’s claim to ownership of “The Night Café,” a painting by Vincent Van Gogh housed in the permanent collection of the Yale University Art Gallery, and another on Oct. 16 to dismiss the Republic of Peru’s suit for the return of Inca artifacts housed in the Peabody Museum of Natural History.

-Tanya

Sol LeWitt @ the new Smilow Hospital

Sol LeWitt’s “Wall Drawing 692″ @ Mass MoCa

Smilow’s interior features modern art – Lauren Motzkin – Yale Daily News – October 22, 2009

In a collaboration between the Smilow Hospital and the Yale University Art Gallery, “Wall Drawing 692” by conceptual artist Sol LeWitt has been installed in the lobby of the hospital, providing patients and visitors with a colorful welcome to the building.

-Tanya

Lisa Kereszi’s “Fun and Games”

Yale lecturer publishes ‘fun’ photos Chantal Fernandez Yale Daily News October 20, 2009

The body of work in “Fun and Games” spans the last 10 years, since Kereszi’s time as a graduate student at the Yale School of Art, and has evolved into a distinct perspective on escapism in its many forms. Though there are no people in her photographs, a human presence is made clear in the peculiar spaces of haunted houses, motels, fairs and other slightly tawdry entertainment venues.

-Tanya

Scully wins DuPont Crowninshield Award

Preservationists honor Scully Yale Daily News Lauren Motzkin – October 16, 2009

Scully received the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Louise DuPont Crowninshield Award, the most prestigious of the organization’s annual prizes. The prize recognizes lifetime achievement in the field of historic preservation and was — in Scully’s case — long overdue, said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

-Tanya

Walpole’s Strawberry Hill @ BAC

‘Horace Walpole’s Strawberry Hill’ At Yale Center for British Art October 15, 2009 Hartford Courant

It’s a miracle that the original home, Strawberry Hill, still exists, though it was listed as one of the planet’s most endangered heritage sites by the World Monuments Fund. It is being renovated, however, for a reopening to the public scheduled next fall. In the meantime, the home’s holdings, along with those from the Walpole Library and collections across the globe, make up the surprising exhibit opening today at the Yale Center for British Art.

-Tanya

Annie Leibovitz

How the credit crunch has brought down Annie Leibovitz – London Evening Standard 05.08.09

Annie Leibovitz, the highest-paid photographer in the world, is in a six-week race to raise $24million (£14.2 million) or risk losing her homes and the rights to her entire body of work.

Philip Delves Broughton

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23728275-details/How+the+credit+crunch+has+brought+down+Annie+Leibovitz/article.do

-Charlie

In a Mermaid Statue, Danes Find Something Rotten in State of Michigan

Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

This town’s statue of Hans Christian Andersen’s “Little Mermaid” is a symbol of its proud Danish heritage. Now some are saying she doesn’t have permission to be in the country.

In a Mermaid Statue, Danes Find Something Rotten in State of Michigan Timothy Aeppel WSJ 7/27/09 

-Charlie

New Yale Podcast: Art of the Ketubah

Find the podcast here and read about the Sterling Library exhibit here.

-Chris

Photos from the 2009 Venice Biennale

ALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images

See the entire set of photos here.

-Chris

Pigeons to replace art historians

Can’t Tell Between Good and Bad Art? Ask a Pigeon. William Weir “It’s Alive” Hartford Courant June 26, 2009

Tokyo psychologists trained pigeons to tell the difference between good paintings and bad ones.

-Tanya

Yale Fight for Van Gogh’s ‘Night Cafe’ May Open More Battles

The great-grandson of collector Ivan Morozov, from whom Van Gogh’s ‘Night Cafe’ was stolen by the Bolshevik government after the 1917 revolution,  has filed suit against Yale claiming rightful ownership.

So whose is it? That turns on the legitimacy of the Bolshevik government and its acts: a matter for international lawyers. Though, I might add, if the world’s museums were to disgorge all the works that have in the past been stolen by armies or expropriated by revolutionary regimes there are going to be an awful lot of gaps. The National Gallery in London and the Hermitage both have works looted by Napoleonic troops; the Louvre and Prado are full of works from the collection of Charles I, sold off by Cromwell’s government. And so on, and on.

Yale Fight for Van Gogh’s ‘Night Cafe’ May Open More Battles Martin Gayford Bloomberg 6/30/09

-Chris