Archives for August 2006

CultureGrrl is an operaphile, attending several Metropolitan Opera performances every year since I was in my 20s (and I won't tell you how long ago that was). But ever since we had to share conductor James Levine with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, things just haven't been the same. I should preface this by saying two things: I feel blessed to have lived during the Levine … [Read more...] about The Other Met: Less of the Divine Levine, More Small Print

This item is so wildly speculative that I could never put it in the Mainstream Media. But I couldn't help noticing that three visitors to my blog today, all from Spain, got to CultureGrrl by searching on Google about the Hermitage thefts. One of them, from Barcelona, typed in: "POOL IN A HAREM STEAL"; another, from Girona: "stolen pool in a harem"; the third, from Valladolid: … [Read more...] about Hermitage Thefts: The Spanish Connection?

In its press release announcing the appointment of Derek Gillman as its new executive director and president, the Barnes Foundation of Lower Merion has lined up an all-star array of art museum directors to give major-league support to Gillman's minor-league credentials: Neil MacGregor of the British Museum, Glenn Lowry of the Museum of Modern Art, Michael Conforti of the Clark … [Read more...] about Derek’s Dominos: MacGregor, Lowry, Conforti and Shearer Sing Back-Up

Sometimes, it's the little things that count. The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery just reopened their spacious, jointly occupied facility in Washington's Old Patent Office Building, after a lavish $283-million renovation and reinstallation. But amidst all the state-of-the-art enhancements, they inexplicably lost sight of one elementary, … [Read more...] about Washed Out in Washington: Lincoln Photo Basks in the Sun

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported today that Derek Gillman, the British-born head of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, had been selected to be the new director of the Barnes Foundation, as it prepares to move from suburban Lower Merion to a new site in Philadelphia. Here's what Gillman said just two years ago, on an Australian radio program, about … [Read more...] about Gillman on the Barnes: Aug. 22, 2004

Today's a special day for art lovers who believe that we should just let Rembrandt be Rembrandt. For two months, ending yesterday, visitors who made the pilgrimage to the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, during the master's 400th birthday year, saw the museum's most famous painting, "The Night Watch" of 1642, transformed into a sound-and-light show, courtesy of a brash theatrical … [Read more...] about Greenaway’s Gone Away: End of the Authorized Attack on “The Night Watch”

There's been a lot more news on the Hermitage theft case than reported in the NY Times article posted today on ArtsJournal. On its own website, the Hermitage Museum has cautioned journalists "to exercise greater caution in dealing with unofficial information with respect to the investigation underway," so I will give you these links with that foregoing caveat: Here's the … [Read more...] about Two Arrests in Hermitage Thefts; Reforms Promised

For the first time since suspending its stock dividends more than six years ago, Sotheby's this week declared a quarterly dividend of 10 cents a share, payable Sept. 15 to its shareholders of record as of Aug. 31. William Ruprecht, president and CEO of the international art auction house, called this "a very important indicator of the health of our company and our belief in the … [Read more...] about Robust or Pre-Bust? Sotheby’s Resumes Quarterly Dividend

I hope readers have noticed that CultureGrrl has been out ahead of other news outlets on the Hermitage theft story. But I was "behind" those who said unequivocally that the icon found in the trash yesterday was one of the Russian museum's stolen objects. This statement today from the Hermitage tells you why: In the course of investigative and field operations surrounding the … [Read more...] about The Iconic Inside Job, Continued

For all you readers of Russian (that leaves me out), here's a list of the works stolen from the State Hermitage Museum (as discussed in my three most recent posts): http://www.hermitagemuseum.org/html_Ru/11/2006/hm11_1_167_1.html One of CultureGrrl's readers just wrote, "Wow. Have you bought the movie rights to the Hermitage story yet?" Right, Mark. Dan Brown ain't got nothin' … [Read more...] about Hermitage: A List of the Missing Objects

Alexander Shedrinsky, calling me from the International Program office of New York's Museum of Modern Art, told me that he just heard, from one of his many curatorial contacts at the Hermitage, this important new development in connection with the Russian museum's theft case: An anonymous caller to a police station said today that he had bought a Russian icon in good faith a … [Read more...] about Hermitage Theft: This Just In

The mystery surrounding the death last year at the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, of the curator who was in charge of the 221 items recently discovered to have been stolen from the Department of Russian Culture left the impression that she may have been a victim of foul play. Not so, according to Alexander Shedrinsky, a former conservation professor at NYU's Institute … [Read more...] about More on the Hermitage Theft

There have been many conflicting accounts in the English-language press about the theft of 221 objects from the Department of Russian Culture of the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. It seems worth publishing the official statement released by the Hermitage, complete with its mistranslations ("exhibits" for "objects"; the curator died at "his work," when it should have … [Read more...] about The Hermitage Who-Done-It

What, no hard-hitting, on-the-scene reportage by the NY Times today on how Metropolitan Museum visitors were handling yesterday's increase of the recommended admission fee to $20? Where's Randy Kennedy when we need him?!? … [Read more...] about NY Times Drops the Ball

Scott Gutterman, deputy director of the Neue Galerie, New York, told me last week that the long wait for the Neue Galerie's public posting of its Nazi-era provenance research was partly due to its desire to do it right: "We will create a provenance website above and beyond other websites," he promised. But the uncorrected draft version, seen by clicking a link made privately … [Read more...] about Neue Galerie’s Online Provenance Prototype: Worth the Wait?