Art Happenings Around the World

Art Happenings Around the World

1.FLORENCE:  "Archeologists working in Florence reported to AFP the discovery of the final resting place of Lisa Gherardini this week, potentially confirming a crucial fragment in the biography of one of the most recognizable personages in Western culture and art history. As the purported model for Leonardo da Vinci's "Portrait of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Francesco del Giocondo," more popularly known as "La Gioconda" or the "Mona Lisa," Signora Gherardini has been a object of incessant speculation and wonder for five centuries; as with any international celebrity, even the most minor detail that might explain her poise, her countenance, or her uniquely cryptic and subtle simper has posed an unquestionable draw on the world's attention over the years.
And the discovery of the model's bones is far from minor. Historians renewed their focus on the life of Lisa Gherardini in 2008 when experts from the Hedelberg University Library announced they had found a description from the notebook of city official Agostino Vespucci of three works-in-progress by Leonardo, including a portrait of the fair wife of the Florentine textile merchant Francesco di Bartolomeo di Zanobi del Giocondo. "All doubts about the identity of the 'Mona Lisa' have been eliminated," the university said at the time in a statement to Discovery News....." Read More at
http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/814955/skeleton-key-leonardo-fanatics-dig-up-graves-harvest-dna-to-crack-the-mona-lisa-code

2.  BARCELONA: "A Swiss family has withdrawn long-term loans of pre-Columbian artifacts to a Barcelona museum, which closed on Sept. 14. The Barbier-Muellers, two generations of Swiss art collectors active in fields ranging from Renoir and Picasso paintings to African masks and ancient Vietnamese daggers, had planned to sell more than 300 pre-Columbian pieces to Spanish government groups for about $26 million, but the financing fell through.

The contents of the Barbier-Mueller Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, which had occupied a 15th-century palace near a Picasso museum since 1997 until it closed, have been consigned for a March auction at Sotheby’s in Paris. Highlights have been traveling to Sotheby’s branches, and 20 will be on view at the New York showroom from Nov. 3 to 13.
On the Barcelona museum’s closing day, the newspaper El País reported, “There were barely 20 last-minute visitors to the world’s largest private collection of pre-Hispanic art.” Estimates at Sotheby’s reach into the seven figures apiece for terra-cotta, stone and wood vessels, masks and statues of deities and animals, made by cultures scattered from Alaska to Patagonia. A few had previously
belonged to famous expatriates in Mexico, including the film director John Huston and the French-Canadian collector Guy Joussemet.
Collectors in the pre-Columbian field typically focus on one region. But Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, the family patriarch, preferred to cover the whole Western Hemisphere.
“He bought against the currents of fashion,” said Jacques Blazy, Sotheby’s specialist for the sale.
Other portions of the family’s art collection remain on view elsewhere. At the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva, a show of 100 masks includes pieces from Asia, Africa and the Americas, along with contemporary face protectors for athletes and workers.
In Manhattan the family has lent works to the current Neue Galerie retrospective of the Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler. Gabriel and Ann Barbier-Mueller, a son and daughter-in-law of Jean Paul and his wife, Monique, have been lending their samurai armor and artifacts for traveling displays; the Museum of Civilization in Quebec City is showing the pieces through early 2013. African gold objects that the family assembled, which now belong to a mining company, are displayed in an 18th-century Dutch slaveholder’s house in Cape Town. "
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/arts/design/ceramic-pieces-pre-columbian-art-and-byzantine-jewelry.html?_r=0

3.  MEXICO CITY: "A leather corset that belonged to late Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is displayed at the Frida Kahlo museum in Mexico City, Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012. A full collection from Kahlo's wardrobe will go on public display Nov. 22 in Mexico City after being locked for nearly 50 years in her armoires and dressers: jewelry, shoes and clothes that still carry the scent of the late artist's perfume and cigarette smoke or stains from painting. Her loose blouses covered the stiff corsets she wore for back pain. AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills. "
By: Adriana Gomez-Licon, Associated Press

MEXICO CITY (AP).- "The women on the cocktail circuit of the late 1930s were all curve-hugging dresses and gelled curls. Not Mexican surrealist painter Frida Kahlo. She graced dinner parties and theaters from Paris to New York in ribbons, full skirts and loose peasant blouses embroidered with vividly colored flowers, and her uni-brow was a bold contrast to the pencil-line eyebrows of the time.
Over the years, Kahlo's look has become as influential as her art, capturing the fancy of trendsetters from Madonna to French designer Jean Paul Gaultier. There are YouTube tutorials on how to braid hair like she wore hers, and Vogue Italy lets readers know where to shop for Kahloesque skirts and jewelry. Now, a full collection from her wardrobe is going on display in Mexico City after being locked away for nearly 50 years in her armoires and dressers: jewelry, shoes and clothes that still carry the scent of the late artist's perfume and cigarette smoke or stains from painting.
"She had a tremendous self-confidence. She was convinced that what she wore displayed who she was inside," said Alejandra Lopez, art restorer for the painter's home, now the Frida Kahlo Museum, where the collection will be shown starting Nov. 22 in an exhibit sponsored by Vogue Mexico.
Yet Kahlo's clothing was also an armor of sorts. It was her ally in disguising a life of pain, both physical and emotional. She had polio as a child, a bus accident maimed her at age 18, there were miscarriages, and she endured the countless affairs of her husband, renowned muralist Diego Rivera.
Her long, full skirts hid a tiny, thin right leg, and loose blouses covered the stiff corsets she wore for back pain. "She described how she used her clothes to cover her body imperfections," the exhibit's curator, Circe Henestrosa, said during a sneak peak offered to The Associated Press.
After Kahlo died in 1954, her husband ordered her clothes to be locked up for 15 years. He died three years later, leaving art collector Dolores Olmedo as the manager of his and Kahlo's houses and she refused to give access to Kahlo's archives of letters, clothes, jewelry and photographs. They were not unlocked until 2004 after Olmedo died. Museum director Hilda Trujillo said three of Kahlo's dresses created a frenzy when they were shown in 2007, featured in fashion stories across the world.
"The story of Frida started to change with the discovery of her things," Trujillo said.
Her life of suffering was the subject of her paintings, and it inspired books, plays and the 2002 movie "Frida" starring Mexican actress Salma Hayek. Kahlo-mania outside Mexico started in the 1980s with the publication of her biography by Hayden Herrera that was widely read outside art circles.
Fashion designers and photographers have since been captivated by Kahlo and have put together collections, such as Gaultier's 1998 homage. As recently as last month for Madrid Fashion Week, the spring 2013 designs of Maya Hansen featured corseted dresses, flowers and skeleton patterns.
The show, "Appearances Can Be Deceiving: The Dresses of Frida Kahlo," will include a black velvet short cape with lace border, a twist on the popular capelet of the time; a worn silk blouse with square neckline of embroidered red, yellow and lavender flowers; and a purple cotton blouse with patterns of red and yellow squares. Also on display will be a long purple skirt with white flowers that look like poppies, a yellow long-sleeved ruffle shirt with a pattern of fall leaves and a muslin skirt of sangria color. Poignantly, the exhibit will show the white corset that Kahlo featured in her self-portrait "The Broken Column." And there will be an earring that was a gift from Pablo Picasso and was featured in a 1940 self-portrait. It's mate has not been found.
Restorers and the exhibit's curator say many of Kahlo's blouses were custom made. She bought the fabrics and took them to Indian seamstresses. Some were made of velvet cherry, the fabric often used for traditional elegant dresses in Oaxaca region known as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Henestrosa, the curator, said the Tehuana dress, called after Indian women of that region, was Kahlo's signature piece of clothing. She wore it with large gold earrings and flowers in her braided hair. It is not a dress she chose by accident. The women run that society. The women symbolize power," Henestrosa said.
The dress became her signature look in her many self-portraits — copied by women worldwide.
"This is going to amplify her influence much more," said Trujillo, the museum director.
Associated Press writer Isaac Garrido contributed to this report.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
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4. BEJING Blouin INFO Bits and Bites
"Sotheby's Signs Partnership for Chinese Expansion: The auction house has entered a 10-year partnership with the state-run Beijing Freeport developer Beijing Gehua Cultural Development Group that, pending government approval, will allow Sotheby's to become the first international auctioneer to hold sales in China under the name Sotheby’s (Beijing) Auction Co. Ltd. “China and its growing class of collectors has been the single most attractive growth market for the company,” said CEO of Sotheby's Asia Kevin Ching. [Bloomberg]"

Christies Fall Auction

NEW YORK, NY.- On November 14th, Christie's will offer a major work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, executed in 1981. Untitled, which has been in the same private collection for almost two decades, is regarded as one of Basquiat’s ultimate masterpieces from the beginning of his career alongside Untitled (Scull) 1981, from the Broad Collection. The work has been featured prominently in every major Basquiat retrospective, including the recent survey at the Beyeler Foundation and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Untitled 1981, which set a record when it sold at auction in 1988 for $110,000 is poised to break the previous highest record price of $ 20.1million achieved by the artist at auction last June at Christie’s in London. Loic Gouzer, International Specialist of Post-War and Contemporary Art, declared: “In contrast to most artists, Basquiat created his best paintings at the beginning of his career. Untitled 1981 unites all the elements of energy, freedom and boldness that one looks for in Basquiat. The market has been waiting a long time for a work of this caliber and freshness, therefore we expect it to set a new record for Basquiat, an artist who is in the process of being recognized as a classic of Post-War American Art alongside Warhol, De Kooning and Pollock.” This work is a remarkable and important early example of the potency of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s unique artistic language. Painted in 1981, as the artist emerged from the underground world of street art into the adulation of the New York art scene, this monumental painting displays the powerful iconography and painterly energy that enraptured both critics and collectors alike until the artist’s untimely death seven years later at the age of just 27. Standing boldly at the center of the canvas, the majestic figure of the fisherman proudly displays his catch, a large fish dangling at the end of a long line. The dark figure, whose skeletal contours are outlined in stark black and white, is crowned with what appears to be a wreath made from barbed wire—twisted pieces of sharp metal appearing as a halo around the figure’s head. The raw intensity with which Basquiat depicts the
man’s features recalls the naïve figures which populated the artist’s street art, scrawled and scratched across the abandoned buildings of the city’s less desirable neighborhoods. In stark contrast to the dark figure’s haunting raw expressionism, Basquiat locates his protagonist against a background composed of a palette of vibrant yellows, creams, pinks and mauves, thereby forcing our attention onto this central character and pushing the figure to the forefront of the composition. As an early example of Basquiat’s rich visual language, Untitled attests to the artist’s growing use of iconography in his art. Whereas in later paintings, in which the artist depicted figures representing some of his childhood heroes such as Sugar Ray Robinson, Casius Clay and Joe Louis, Untitled features a figure that remains a mysterious apparition, which appears to be an amalgamation of characters from Basquiat’s own vivid imagination made up from a heady concoction of observations of New York life mixed together with the rich symbolism of his Haitian and Puerto Rican heritage. Whilst not overtly representational, this particular figure may have its origins in any number of sources, from the glimpses of the dispossessed fishing along the banks of New York’s numerous waterways to the obvious Christian symbolism (the ‘crown of thorns’ and Jesus’ instructions to his Disciples to become ‘Fishers of Men’). But perhaps the strongest resonance comes from the artist’s own
cultural legacy. The boxy shape and cross hatched markings of the fish caught at the end of the line indicate that it could be a Puffer Fish, valued by Haitian Vodou culture for its poison, by which the Bokor (a Vodou priest) is believed to create zombies through a potion. Indeed the central figure in Untitled could easily be Basquiat’s rendering of a Bokor, as the man’s ashen complexion recalls the ash smeared onto the faces of those participating in religious festivals and ceremonies. The figure of the fisherman was clearly an important one for Basquiat during this pivotal period of his career as it makes an appearance, with slight compositional variations, in a number of his other works.
http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=57827
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NEW YORK, NY.- In keeping with increasing collector demand for exceptional examples of modernist sculpture, Christie’s New York is pleased to announce its Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on November 7 will feature Constantin Brancusi’s Une Muse --- a pivotal work in plaster that was among the first sculptures by the artist ever exhibited for American audiences. Executed in 1912, Brancusi’s delicate, stylized rendering of a woman’s head drew widespread accolades from collectors and the press when it debuted at the inaugural Armory Show of 1913 in New York. Armory Show co-founder Walt Kuhn was so enamored with Une Muse that he purchased it for his own personal collection, keeping this sculpture as well as a second version in plaster for the rest of his life. Estimated at US$10-15 million, Une Muse is among the highlights of an exceptional private collection of Modernist works that forms the core of the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale this season and features important sculptures by Alberto Giacometti, Henry Moore and Jacques Lipschitz and paintings by Lyonel Feininger, Emil Nolde, and Marc Chagall, among others. Acquired in the 1980’s with a careful eye and attention to detail, the many important works featured in the sale have not been seen in public in over 25 years. With 16 works in total, the collection is expected to achieve in excess of $35 million. As part of its international tour of highlights leading up to the November 7 auction in New York, Christie’s has recreated Brancusi’s Muse as a hologram – an innovative approach that allows collectors in Hong Kong to experience the work in three dimensions, while the plaster original stays in New York. The ghostly visage of Brancusi’s muse was inspired by Baroness Renée-Irana Frachon, who served as the model for the artist’s earlier work, La Muse Endormie of 1909-10. Over the following three years, Brancusi continued to refine the ovoid figure, reaching for new levels of sculptural complexity and stylization while moving steadily toward the abstracted egg-like form that would become the central theme of his work. With its upright pose, elegantly curving neck and expressive features, Une Muse captures a critical moment in the artist’s creative evolution and has been widely heralded as a pivotal composition in Brancusi’s mature
career. Since its first great success at the Armory Show of 1913, Une Muse went on to feature in Brancusi’s first-ever museum exhibition, a 1955 retrospective at the Guggenheim that definitively established the then-88 year old sculptor as a monumental figure in Modern Art. The plaster entered the collection of the Guggenheim Museum in 1955 as a gift from Walt Kuhn’s widow, and was featured in multiple exhibitions in the years following, including a 1976 retrospective devoted to Brancusi’s body of work. Une Muse was last exhibited publicly in 1986, when it was acquired by the present owner at auction at Christie’s New York.
PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTION
In addition to Brancusi’s Muse, the collection features a trio of important works by Giacometti, Chagall, and Feininger, all estimated at $6-8 million. Tête sur tige (Head on a rod) stands as one of the most haunting and deeply expressive works of Giacometti’s mature career. With the head thrown back and mouth open as if screaming, this life-sized figure of a human skull impaled on a rod appears alarmingly alive, as though captured precisely in the agonizing moment between life and death. This unsettling premise had both fascinated and preoccupied Giacometti for some time, and in the years following the Liberation, he returned to Paris to begin producing the stylized human figures that would become his signature works. Tête sur tige was conceived in 1947 and first displayed
in its original plaster version at Giacometti’s landmark solo exhibition at Pierre Matisse’s gallery in New York. The bronze version offered in the upcoming sale is among the first casts of the work, made in 1952. By 1928, the year Feininger painted Der Raddampfer III (Side Wheeler III), he was widely recognized as one of Germany’s most important modern artists. Having mastered the tenets of Futurism and Cubism earlier in his career, he applied his deepening sophistication and nuanced skill to creating a powerful, large-scale depiction of a paddle-wheel steamship foundering on a stormy sea. As the third work in a series of three paintings done over 15 years, Side Wheeler IIII became Feininger's final statement on the theme of nature's immense power. Nature Morte of 1910-14 was painted during Chagall’s heady first years in Paris after leaving his home in Vitebsk, Russia at the age of 20. Already an accomplished artist, the young Chagall reveled in the rich array of artistic influences he found in Paris. Working feverishly to assimilate everything he had seen, Chagall began in 1912 to develop an impressive body of work that would catapult him to instant fame in the art world. Nature Morte — a rare conventional still life for Chagall — reveals the influence of several masters and movements at once, including Chardin, in the work’s spare and meticulously arranged composition, Van Gogh and the Fauves in its ecstatic color choices, and Picasso and the Cubists in its use of free “passages” through which the colors of objects and background flow into one another. 
http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=58157
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Sothebys Fall Auction

Screenprints by Andy Warhol to spearhead Sotheby's sale of Old Master, Modern & Contemporary Prints 

Andy Warhol, Eva Mudocci (After Munch). Unique Screenprint, 1984. Est. £100,000 - 150,000. Photo: Sotheby's. LONDON.- Three exceptional colour prints by Andy Warhol, which appropriate motifs from some of Edvard Munch’s most iconic works, are among the top lots which will appear at Sotheby’s Sale of Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints in London on 19 September 2012. Striking, unique and ground-breaking works, The Scream (After Munch), Eva Mudocci (After Munch), and Madonna and Self-Portrait with Skeleton’s Arm (After Munch) are a rare and enterprising offering from Warhol – a meeting between two of the finest artists of the twentieth century. The prints come to auction from an Important European Collection with a combined estimate of £500,000 – 750,000. Warhol appropriated Munch’s emotionally charged works to create his own equally evocative and emblematic images. It is perhaps not unexpected that Warhol chose to makes these prints. The pop-artist was fascinated by the history of art and sought to adapt and explore famous motifs from the past through his oeuvre. The universally recognisable work of Munch, a modern master, was the perfect vehicle for Warhol’s vision. The sale will also include a woodcut by Edvard Munch which depicts The Girls on the Bridge, one of the artist’s most celebrated and popular compositions. Printed in 1918, The Girls on the Bridge is estimated at £180,000 – 200,000.
The Scream (After Munch) Screenprint in a unique combination of colours, 1984, sheet: 1016 by 813mm Est. £200,000 - 300,000
Munch’s The Scream is one of most instantly recognisable motifs in both art history and popular culture. An existential cry for the struggle of mankind, the composition is one of the artist’s darkest and most challenging works. In this impression, Warhol makes some radical changes to the original motif, emphasising the basic features of the figure to create a cartoon-like face and exchanging the sombre tones of Munch’s work for his own choice of unique, bright clashing colour combinations. Warhol has succeeded in replicating the feelings of the intense angst of the original – rendering man’s inner turmoil and utmost despair in print.
Madonna and Self-Portrait with Skeleton’s Arm (After Munch)
Screenprint in a unique combination of colours, 1984, sheet: 813 by 1016mm
Est. £200,000 - 300,000
Andy Warhol’s unnerving screenprint Madonna and Self-Portrait with Skeleton’s Arm (After Munch) is composed of motifs from two of Munch’s celebrated works. On the left, we see Warhol’s interpretation of Munch’s Madonna. Capturing the moment of the conception, this was one of Munch’s most controversial works. Surrounded by long flowing hair, Warhol’s transforms her into an emblem of powerful femininity, on par with the artist’s prints of Hollywood stars Liz Taylor or Marilyn Monroe. On the right, Warhol pays tribute to Munch’s haunting self-portrait, Self-Portrait with Skeleton’s Arm. The use of the self-portrait reflects Warhol’s anxiety over mortality and his pre-occupation with death. Eva Mudocci (After Munch) Screenprint in a unique combination of colours, 1984, sheet: 1016 by 813mm Est. £100,000 - 150,000
As well as being one of the finest English violinists of her generation, Eva Mudocci was also Edvard Munch’s lover. Munch tried several times to paint the perfect picture of Eva in vain; each time abandoning his attempts and destroying his canvases. He had more success with lithographs, and one such work entitled Madonna (The Brooch), forms the basis for Warhol’s print. In Warhol’s adaptation, the pop artist retains the romantic essence of Munch’s original image, though creates his own 20th century interpretation of the female ideal much like he does in Madonna. The uniqueness of this trial proof is shown through the echo of the brooch upon Eva’s face. This is the only impression where Warhol used this detail, paying tribute to Munch’s original title.

http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=57452

Sothebys NY
NEW YORK, NY.- A seminal, large-scale masterpiece by Mark Rothko will lead Sotheby's Evening Sale of Contemporary Art on 13 November 2012 in New York. No.1 (Royal Red and Blue) was painted in 1954, a time considered by many to be the zenith of the artist's creative powers. The majestic canvas was one of eight works hand-selected by Rothko for his landmark solo show of the same year at the Art Institute of Chicago. Measuring 113¾ x 67½ in (288.9 x 171.5 cm), No.1 (Royal Red and Blue) has remained in the same collection for 30 years and is estimated to sell for $35/50 million*. The canvas will be on view in New York beginning 1 November. “To have a ravishingly beautiful and monumental work from the legendary 1954 show appear at auction is a major market event,” commented Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art.

“Beginning with the breakout price achieved for White Center (Yellow, Pink and Lavender on Rose) from the collection of David Rockefeller at Sotheby’s in 2007, demand for key works by the artist has been insatiable. No.1 (Royal Red and Blue) joins major abstract expressionist paintings by Jackson Pollock, Clyfford Still and Willem de Kooning at Sotheby’s this autumn, creating a particularly exciting opportunity for collectors to appreciate this crucial period in 20th century art.”
No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) stands as the one of the great achievements of Rothko’s abstract painting. The stunning aura of its brilliant red and orange surface is superbly countered by the intensely vivid blue stack towards its base, giving the viewer a sense that the canvas is illuminated from within. The painting is central to Rothko’s mature mode of artistic expression in which he pioneered unprecedented territory in a spectacular outpouring of innovation.
In April 1954, Rothko was approached by Katherine Kuh, a visionary curator at the Art Institute of Chicago, who proposed the artist's first one-man show at a major American museum. Rothko was closely involved in the organization of the exhibition, personally selecting the works to be exhibited and even prescribing the color of the walls. Of the eight works included in Recent Paintings by Mark Rothko, four are now in the collections of major museums: The Tehran Museum of Art, The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, The Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. and The Whitney Museum of American Art; one each belongs to the artist's son and daughter; and in addition to No.1 (Royal Red and Blue), only one other work remains in private hands. In preparation for the exhibition, Kuh and Rothko engaged in significant correspondence, originally intended to provide material for a pamphlet to accompany the show. Having visited the artist's studio in New York,
her initial request for paintings specifically singled out the present work, as she wrote: "I particularly want that marvelous large red one" (letter of June 3, 1954). When Rothko asked her to describe her reactions to his paintings she wrote of the ones she had seen (including the present work): "for me they have a kind of ecstasy of color which induces different but always intense moods. I am not a spectator - I am a participant" (letter of July 18, 1954).
http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=57872

NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 5 November 2012 in New York will be led by an exuberant example of Pablo Picasso’s acclaimed and sought-after portraits of his lover Marie-Thérèse Walter. Femme à la fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse) bears all the hallmarks of the artist’s sumptuous depictions of the young woman, while its sharp color palette and boldness of form distinguish it within the famed series. This singular style may reflect what was an intense period in Picasso’s personal life: painted in the spring of 1936, the work followed the birth of his daughter Maya the previous fall with Marie-Thérèse, as well as his separation from his wife Olga and the beginnings of a passionate affair with another important muse, Dora Maar. The work carries a pre-sale estimate of $15/20 million*, and will be on view in Hong Kong from 4 – 7 October and in London from 10 – 16 October before returning to New York for exhibition beginning 1 November.
“Marie-Therese inspired some of Picasso’s greatest work,” commented Simon Shaw, Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art department in New York. “His legendary meditations on love, dreams and desire represent one of the seminal achievements of Modernism. It is no coincidence that three of the top ten auction prices for Picasso are for works from this series. Femme à la fenêtre remained with the artist until his death; for over 30 years it has belonged to the distinguished private collector who has consigned today to Sotheby’s”. Picasso famously encountered Marie-Thérèse outside Galeries Lafayette in Paris in 1927. At that time only 17, the athletic and statuesque blonde came to embody sensuality for Picasso. His many inventive depictions of her asleep, reading or at play – in which her form is transformed magically in a style inspired by Surrealism – underscore how her every move fascinated him. In contrast to his depictions of a more passive Marie-Thérèse, Femme à la fenêtre is one of his most poignant renderings of the young woman, perhaps due to the fact that the composition dates from one of the most vulnerable times in her relationship with the artist. Picasso painted this canvas at a villa in Juan-les-Pins, where he had taken Marie-Thérèse and their infant daughter Maya during the spring of 1936, and he had neglected her for months following the birth in order to deal with his separation from his estranged wife Olga. But another distraction had entered Picasso’s life during these months, and her influence on Picasso was becoming increasingly apparent in his art: Dora Maar, the young Surrealist photographer whom Picasso met through Paul Eluard while Marie-Thérèse was pregnant, had already commenced her love-affair with the artist by late 1935. By the end of the decade, Dora would eclipse Marie-Thérèse as Picasso’s primary muse,
becoming the inspiration for his harrowing “weeping women” series of the war years. As is the case for many of the works that are now considered to be among Picasso’s greatest pictures, Femme à la fenêtre remained in the artist’s possession until his death in 1973. It was then inherited by his
granddaughter Marina, whose father was the son that Picasso had with his wife Olga. The portrait is further distinguished by having been a highlight of the celebrated Picasso and Portraiture show organized by William Rubin at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1996.
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Sotheby's Makes History With First-Ever Chinese Mainland Auction
Courtesy Sotheby's Wang Huaiqing’s sculpture “Self and Self Shadow,” 2012, became the first work of art to be auctioned in mainland China by an international auction house since 1949.
by Madeleine O'Dea, ARTINFO China
Published: September 28, 2012

BEIJING — Sotheby’s has become the first international fine art auction house to conduct a sale in mainland China since the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949. In a largely symbolic affair Thursday just a single lot was put on the block at the Millennium Hall of the World Art Museum in west Beijing, a sculpture entitled “Self and Self Shadow” by Wang Huaiqing (born 1944), an artist hitherto best known for his bold abstract paintings. The sale went off without a hitch, with “Self and Self Shadow” being hammered down at RMB 1.4 million ($222,222), comfortably within the pre-sale estimated range of RMB 1-1.5 million. The auction was staged in celebration of Sotheby’s joint venture, signed only last week with the Chinese state-owned Beijing Gehua Art Company, to create Sotheby’s (Beijing) Auction Co., Ltd. It was entering that joint venture that allowed the historic sale to take place, as Chinese regulations still prevent international houses from conducting auctions on their own on the mainland.

The joint venture with Gehua has given Sotheby’s a foothold in the Chinese art market — but more crucially has secured it a partnership with Gehua’s parent company, the GeHua Cultural and Development Group, which is building the Chinese mainland’s first Freeport, which is slated to open within the Tianzhu Free Trade Zone near Beijing airport by late 2013. Courtesy of its deal with Gehua, Sotheby’s will be the only international house allowed to conduct auctions or selling exhibitions within the Freeport, which will enjoy tax advantages similar to those applying in Hong Kong. Although the importance of this Freeport to the Chinese art market has been somewhat overstated — as it is only while goods remain within the port that they will be exempt from China’s customs duties — it should still generate significant business, as it will provide both a convenient sales venue and storage facility for mainland Chinese clients. Even under the new joint venture, however, Sotheby’s will still be prevented by Chinese law from participating in significant sectors of the Chinese mainland art market. Chinese antiques, such as porcelain, calligraphy, and other works of art will be off limits, but as Sotheby’s CEO William Ruprecht told AFP that the law still allows the company to trade in such significant sectors as Chinese contemporary and modern art, not to mention Western art, jewellery, and watches. Meanwhile, just as Sotheby’s enters the mainland market, China’s oldest fine art auction company, China Guardian, prepares for its first auction in Hong Kong next month. The sale on October 7 will mark the first time that a Chinese mainland auction house has gone head to head with its international competitors.
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Stolen Art Fall 2012

Stolen Art

Jeffrey Gundlach: Gets Robbed, Gets Thieves, Gets 5 Star Rating
SANTA MONICA:Jeffrey Gundlach, co-founder of the super-hot bond mutual fund company Doubleline Capital, has had an exciting few days:
September 14th – GETS ROBBED
Jeffrey Gundlach returns home from a business trip to find his house was burglarized. Several famous paintings were stolen with a market value of over $20 Million.
September 20th –  OFFERS REWARD
Gundlach offers a reward of $200,000 for any tip leading to the recovery of his art.
September 24th – INCREASES REWARD

Gundlach holds a press conference to announce an additional $1.5 million reward for the return of his favorite paintings and art objects undamaged.
September 26th – COPS RECOVER ART
Police receive a tip that the stolen art is located at an auto-sound shop. Raid is successful with all paintings recovered.
October 2nd – GUNDLACH’S FUND RECEIVES 5 STAR RATING
Learn Bonds awards Gundlach’s DoubleLine Total Return Bond Fund a five star rating. The fund has yet to be rated by Morningstar or Lipper, despite managing ten of billions of dollars.
more detail’s about the robbery, recovery and 5 star rating . . .
Gundlach’s Love Of Modern Art
Gundlach offered a million dollar reward for the return of this painting undamaged. The key word is “undamaged”. Often times, thieves that successfully rob well-known paintings end up destroying them. Why? Many wealthy buyers don’t want to take the risk of buying a painting in which there is an active large scale investigation, or can be easily identified as stolen when they show their collection. As a result, the thieves often destroy the evidence of the crime when they cannot sell the art to collectors.
Gundlach’s Aggressive Personality Is Part of DoubleLine’s Success
Many people would have let the police handle the matter of catching the criminals. Many people would also be satisfied with receiving the money from insurers for their stolen artwork. Not Jeffrey Gundlach. He publicized the theft. Every major news organization ran photos of the stolen art work, making the paintings impossible to sell. Then he offered a reward “$200,000 – No questions asked for the return of the artwork”, trying to get the thieves to give back the art or their potential buyers to rat them out. When that did not work, he raised the reward. In short, Gundlach took control of the situation and achieved the outcome he desired.
Should you invest in the DoubleLine Total Return Fund?
The rating service of Learn Bonds, LB Fund Ratings, has only granted a five star rating to 5 mutual funds and ETFs.  However, the DoubleLine Total Return Fund is the only five star fund in both the core bond fund and short-duration fund categories. Short duration funds have a major advantage over other bond funds, because they are much less heavily impacted by rising interest rates. Where a 1% rise in interest rates would decrease the value of The Pimco Total Return Fund by 5%, the DoubleLine Total Return Fund would lose only 1%..
Despite having much less interest rate risk. the fund has turned in outstanding returns of 8.27% this year.
Doesn’t Everybody Rate The Fund 5 Stars
No.  In fact, to date Morningstar and Lipper have yet to rate the fund. This is probably because the fund has only been around since April 2010. However, Gundlach has a long-term track record as a very successful mutual fund manager prior to starting the fund.
Joseph Cornell’s Pinturicchio Boy and Medici Princess
http://www.forbes.com/sites/marcprosser/2012/10/09/jeffrey-gundlach-gets-robbed-gets-thieves-gets-5-star-rating/
The name of Gundlach’s firm is a tribute to the style of his favorite artist Piet Mondrian.  ." Forbes magazine

2. WASHINGTON DC - It’s like stealing history. Art and cultural property crime—which includes theft, fraud, looting, and trafficking across state and international lines—is a looming criminal enterprise with estimated losses running as high as $6 billion annually.

To recover these precious pieces—and to bring these criminals to justice—the FBI has a dedicated Art Crime Team of 14 special agents, supported by three special trial attorneys for prosecutions. And it runs the National Stolen Art File, a computerized index of reported stolen art and cultural properties for the use of law enforcement agencies across the world.

Please note: U.S. persons and organizations requiring access to the National Stolen Art File should contact their closest FBI Field Office; international organizations should contact their closest FBI Legal Attaché Office.
FBI Top Ten Art Crimes
1.Iraqi Looted and Stolen Artifacts
2. Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Theft
3. Theft of Caravaggio’s Nativity with San Lorenzo and San Francesco
4. Theft of the Davidoff-Morini Stradivarius
5. The Van Gogh Museum Robbery
6. Theft of Cezanne’s View of Auvers-sur-Oise
7. Theft of the Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney Murals, Panels 3-A and 3-B
8. Theft from the Museu Chacara do Céu
9. Theft of Van Mieris’ A Cavalier
10. Theft of Renoir Oil Painting

3. BALTIMORE :11:02PM EDT September 27. 2012
 "A purported Renoir painting bought for $7 at a West Virginia flea market two years ago was actually stolen from the Baltimore Museum of Art six decades ago, The Washington Post has discovered.
Saturday's eagerly awaited auction of the Impressionist work, Paysage Bords de Seine (Landscape on the Banks of the Seine), has been canceled, and the FBI is investigating. The oil painting was done on a linen napkin, allegedly for Renoir's mistress. Searching the museum's library, the Post found documents showing it had the artwork from 1937 until at least 1949. After being alerted  today, museum officials found paperwork indicating the painting was stolen from the Renoir gallery on Nov. 17, 1951.

The Post explains who found it and what happened next:
The Virginia woman, who wants to remain anonymous, bought the painting in 2010 for $7 in a box with a doll and a plastic cow. She said in an interview that she stashed the box away for nearly two years before her mother suggested it might be a real Renoir. Shortly after the woman brought the painting to the auction house in July, Potomack checked with the London-based Art Loss Register, the world's largest private database of stolen and lost art, and verified that the Renoir wasn't suspicious. Potomack said it also confirmed the piece's authenticity with the Paris-based Bernheim-Jeune gallery, which sold the painting to the May family in 1926 and keeps a registry detailing the
ownership histories behind Renoir pieces.
But neither Bernheim-Jeune nor Potomack could explain what happened to the painting after 1926 or how it came to be sitting in a box of junk at Harpers Ferry Flea Market on Route 340. Until Thursday, the Baltimore Museum of Art, which has an entire wing named after May, said it had no records of the Renoir ever being exhibited there." Washington Post.

4. VANCOUVER:  Although Bill Reid has passed away, he still is a Canadian icon and contemporary artist who's work is valued at the high end in the hundreds of thousands of US dollars. We covered this theft when it happened and now learn that it had an intriguing end.

"Four and a half years ago, police launched an investigation into the brazen, smash-and-grab heist of a dozen “irreplaceable” art pieces from the University of B.C.’s Museum of Anthropology.
 Within months, all the stolen items — mostly gold pieces crafted by legendary Haida artist Bill Reid and described as “national treasures” — were recovered.  Yet, questions lingered. How exactly was the heist pulled off? How did police get the items back? Why was no one charged? Did police, as one media report suggested, pay a career criminal $20,000 for help in the case?  Newly released RCMP and university campus security records obtained by Postmedia News through federal and provincial access-to-information laws, plus court documents, offer a fuller picture of the mysterious theft and its bizarre fallout.
Around opening time on May 24, 2008, museum staff alerted campus security and RCMP that there had been a break-in.  A glass showcase had been smashed and a dozen Bill Reid works of art — valued at about $2 million — were gone.  They included a “one-of-a-kind” gold box with a three-dimensional eagle on top; a gold brooch with a dogfish design; a set of carved ivory, gold and silver cufflinks; and a carved argillite-stone panel pipe.  The thieves had also forced their way into the drawers of a cabinet and made off with two pieces of Mexican jewelry and a set of coins.  According to a campus security report, the thieves broke in at 4:40 a.m. and were out in less than three minutes.  The thieves entered from the back by carefully removing a glass panel, a former campus security officer said in an interview.  Inside, they unleashed a cloud of bear spray, presumably to repel any guards who might try to intervene. Residue settled over the carpets and cabinets. A bear spray canister and a crowbar were found nearby.

CAMERAS NOT WORKING

For unknown reasons, security cameras stopped recording before the break-in, the campus security report said. The security system had apparently been undergoing upgrades. One guard was working that night. Contrary to media reports that suggested he had been on a smoke break and apparently oblivious to trouble, the guard alerted dispatch when the alarms started wailing, the former security officer said.

FALSE ALARMS

Protocol at the time dictated that the guard stay put and that dispatch send another officer to walk through the museum. But the walk-through never happened, the former security officer said.
There had been a lot of false alarms in the past. According to the campus security report, the dispatch centre was aware that an alarm had been triggered, “however this event came in as an ‘Invalid Alarm.’”
 A security consultant hired by the university later concluded in a report that there was a “false sense of security” at the museum and that the incident should be a “call to action.” The museum’s security system subsequently underwent major upgrades. The RCMP major crimes section immediately launched a “full-scale” investigation. There was worry that the stolen pieces might be melted down. Interpol was notified in case the thieves attempted to send the art overseas. The university offered a $50,000 reward for the missing items’ safe return.

ANONYMOUS TIP

Within days, police got an anonymous tip that a local career criminal with a string of convictions for break-and-enters was involved. Police began to follow the man on May 30, according to a report filed by investigators to obtain a search warrant. On June 4, police watched as he made a phone call from a pay phone outside a transit station, the report said. The man, carrying a “full-looking” Adidas bag, dialed three numbers, which police later traced to the university. One was for the museum itself. There was “no legitimate reason” for the man to call the university, police wrote, citing a review of 56 police reports related to the man.  Police speculated that the man wanted to discuss handing over the stolen items for a reward. According to the report, an informant told police he, too, believed the man was connected to the museum heist because he likes to carry out “big” thefts. The informant described the man as “intelligent and calculating.”

OTHER LEADS

Police pursued other leads during this time, including the possibility that the heist was an inside job, according to the report. They ran the names of hundreds of construction workers working on the museum’s expansion. They also looked into a security guard who had been fired and “disgruntled” artists who had worked with Reid.

HOMES SEARCHED

But on June 8, with concerns growing that the stolen items might be destroyed, police set their sights on their strongest suspect and executed search warrants at two homes — one in Burnaby, the other in New Westminster. Court records show that a man connected to those homes has at least 11 convictions for property crimes.  The searches paid off. Police recovered all but two of the stolen items. In an email to senior RCMP officials, lead investigator Insp. Brendan Fitzpatrick praised his team for working “around the clock” for two weeks.  A briefing note June 9 to B.C.’s solicitor general indicated that three men — including the “main suspect” — had been taken into custody.
 At a news conference the next day, Fitzpatrick said the three had been released but stressed the investigation was ongoing.  He played down suggestions that the heist was linked to an international ring and described the alleged culprits as “unsophisticated.”  By August, all the missing items were recovered. The last piece, the argillite pipe, was dropped off anonymously.

$20,000 PAYMENT REPORTED
With all the items back, police recommended charges to Crown counsel. While prosecutors reviewed the file, the case took a bizarre twist. Citing “police sources,” the CBC reported in January 2009 that RCMP had paid a chronic offender $20,000 for help with the investigation. The alleged tipster made headlines in 2006 when it came to light that he had been forced to pose with Vancouver police officers for a “trophy” photo following his arrest. Several officers came under investigation.
 In a briefing note to senior officials, Fitzpatrick, the RCMP inspector, repudiated the CBC story, saying it had “no basis in fact,” and that the man named in the story had “no involvement” in the case.  He went on to suggest that sources “from another (police) agency” that deals with the man on a regular basis — he didn’t say which one — fed the erroneous information to the CBC.

CASH REWARD CONFIRMED

He confirmed in the briefing note that police had paid someone a “cash reward,” but the amount was “nowhere near” $20,000. The RCMP would not say this week who received the money or how much was paid. Court records show that the man named in the CBC story filed a defamation suit in January 2011. In the claim, the man said he was in jail at the time of the report and that he suffered harassment, physical assaults and death threats. He also suggested Vancouver police contributed to the story. In a court filing, Vancouver police denied any involvement. The CBC denied that it had defamed him and said his “reputation as a criminal was not lowered by any of the publications complained of.” The case is unresolved.

EVIDENCE INSUFFICIENT

Meanwhile, in September 2010, two years after charges were recommended in the museum heist, Crown counsel notified RCMP there wasn’t enough evidence to lay charges.
The notice came “with little explanation other than there was insufficient evidence,” according to an RCMP briefing note. A Crown spokesman said this week the decision was explained verbally to investigators. Expecting “negative press” from the Crown’s decision, police devised a media strategy.
“The current media strategy is to acknowledge that the RCMP has received a report from Crown counsel and is presently studying the matter,” the briefing note said. But William Elliott, then the RCMP Commissioner, weighed in. “One concern I have is that the proposed strategy leaves the impression the question of charges is unresolved. Why not put the matter to bed?” he said in an email. RCMP officials declined an interview request this week to discuss the case. In a statement, a spokesman said RCMP conducted a “full and extensive” investigation. Postmedia News was unable to reach the main suspect for comment. Court records show that he went on to be charged and convicted in a bunch of unrelated cases, including a theft from a Zellers store and a break-and-enter.
dquan@postmedia.com
 Twitter.com/dougquan
 © Copyright (c) The Province
  http://www.theprovince.com/news/Bill+Reid+mystery+unsolved+Haida+heist/7460726/story.html
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Stolen Art
PARIS (AP).- The burglars dashed out the back door with seven masterworks, then sped on screeching tires into the night. Now comes the hard part: The thieves have to unload the paintings, instantly recognizable pieces by Picasso, Matisse and Monet worth millions. If the thieves who robbed Rotterdam's Kunsthal exhibition this week don't have a plan, the stolen art could quickly become a burden. Paintings, sculptures and other cultural treasures can be hard to match with a

buyer willing to overlook questionable provenance. Just ask the trafficker who lucklessly tried for 20 years to sell a statue head of Nero's mother stolen from Pompeii before its recovery was announced on Thursday. But, experts say for criminals with connections, it's a low-risk, high-reward job, especially for lesser known pieces. Art theft is the third most lucrative crime in the world, after drugs and illicit arms sales, according to Interpol and the FBI. Films glamorize it, and the punishment for those who are caught is too light to be much of a deterrent. Stolen art disappears into the underworld quickly. Much of it is never found. Paintings have been buried, stashed in storage units, given as gifts to the unwitting, traded for drugs, held for ransom, hung on the walls of criminals, and sold on eBay.
Straight cash transactions appear to be rare — at least for high-profile thefts like the one in Rotterdam. Anyone legitimate enough to demand where a painting came from is going to come across it in news stories and databases of stolen artwork.  "We either see artwork being recovered very quickly after the theft or decades later, very little in-between," said Chris Marinello, executive director of the Art Loss Register, whose job it is to track stolen art after the police trail has run cold.
But it's been 22 years since the theft of $300 million in works from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston — the largest single property theft ever. The case is unsolved and none of the 12 paintings has been recovered. "It's easy to steal artwork, and that's why you see it happen, but it's not easy to sell it. You steal a car, you steal a watch, there's a market for that. You steal a Rembrandt, you steal a Picasso . It's too recognizable," said Geoffrey Kelly, the FBI agent leading the Gardner investigation. That means many stolen works end up getting dumped. Five works stolen from the Paris Museum of Modern Art in 2010 may be gone forever. According to one French report, the thieves couldn't quickly resell the works and their fence panicked after a series of arrests, destroying the canvases and throwing away the remains — a Picasso, a Braque, a Modigliani, a Matisse and a Leger. In another case, Marinello said, a British woman whose boarder gave her a painting years before contacted him to determine its worth, only to learn it was stolen. She was innocent, an unwitting victim of someone who couldn't unload his loot. And in Ireland, IRA thieves plundered the art collection of Sir Alfred Beit in the 1970s, demanding ransom and freedom for political prisoners. Their demands weren't met and the works were found in the trunk of a car. Beit's collection was stolen again in 1986. This time, the thief buried 11 paintings while trying to sell them. He eventually traded two for drugs and stashed one behind a couch before the collection was recovered. Then there is "The Scream," one of two Edvard Munch masterpieces stolen from an Oslo museum in 2004 and recovered in 2006. Police have never offered details on the painting's whereabouts for those two years, but by the time they were found, they had sustained water damage and tears. Not a sign of a theft commissioned by a connoisseur. Despite the complications of fencing stolen art, it clearly can be done, especially by thieves with connections. Estimates range from $6 billion to $9 billion in global sales — a sign of both how lucrative the market is and how little known. It's anyone's guess what happened to the Gardner paintings, for example — or whether anyone still alive even knows. The $5 million reward hasn't brought them to light, nor have promises of immunity.
"It's easy to move around, easy to enter the black market," said Anthony Roman, a New York-based security expert. And, he said, even though the returns on the black market are a fraction of what the art could fetch on the open market, "There is still a fortune to be made. The risk of getting caught is very, very low." Prosecutions generally fall under burglary, extortion or — at most — robbery statutes. Sentences are relatively short. "Art theft is not murder, but still the penalties could be enhanced a bit to discourage people," said Marinello. In one infamous case, a compulsive French art thief named Stephane Breitwieser told a court he stole more than 200 works from small museums across Europe, keeping most of them at his home purely for his own enjoyment. He was sentenced to 26 months in prison in 2005 — and then was arrested again in 2011 after investigators said they found 29 works of art at his apartment. Insurance companies absorb most of the losses. In the Rotterdam case, the payout is likely to climb to the tens of millions of dollars — but that causes costs to rise in the future for everyone in the art world, said Coco Soodek, a Chicago lawyer who specializes in the field. And it makes private collectors more reluctant to put their works to go on public display in the future. "The more the art world becomes the target for theft," she said, "the more expensive it is to insure the product." Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=58437

Barbier-Mueller Pre-Columbian For Sale

Some were probably not surprised that funding failed in Barcelona to keep the world class Barbier Mueller Pre-Columbian collection in Spain. Whether this was politics, the Spanish economy,or just plain a reassessment of priorities, the Barbier Mueller family understands both business and the market. So it goes to Sothebys after a preview tour in Europe and the United States for what many consider to be one of the last great known Pre-Columbian  collections in private hands. Whatever superlatives you may select expect some big prices. with some competition coming from some unexpected buyers. One can debate the merits of holding Pre-Columbian sales in Paris and whether this location might dampen US interest. In this case this sale belongs in Paris where American buyers that have the interest and money will pay up.

PRE-COLUMBIAN WORKS

 

 A Swiss family has withdrawn long-term loans of pre-Columbian artifacts to a Barcelona museum, which closed on Sept. 14. The Barbier-Muellers, two generations of Swiss art collectors active in fields ranging from Renoir and Picasso paintings to African masks and ancient Vietnamese daggers, had planned to sell more than 300 pre-Columbian pieces to Spanish government groups for about $26 million, but the financing fell through. The contents of the Barbier-Mueller Museum of Pre-Columbian Art, which had occupied a 15th-century palace near a Picasso museum since 1997 until it closed, have been consigned for a March auction at Sotheby’s in Paris. Highlights have been traveling to Sotheby’s branches, and 20 will be on view at the New York showroom from Nov. 3 to 13. On the Barcelona museum’s closing day, the newspaper El País reported, “There were barely 20 last-minute visitors to the world’s largest private collection of pre-Hispanic art.”
Estimates at Sotheby’s reach into the seven figures apiece for terracotta, stone and wood vessels, masks and statues of deities and animals, made by cultures scattered from Alaska to Patagonia. A few had previously belonged to famous expatriates in Mexico, including the film director John Huston and the French-Canadian collector Guy Joussemet. Collectors in the pre-Columbian field typically focus on one region. But Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, the family patriarch, preferred to cover the whole Western Hemisphere. “He bought against the currents of fashion,” said Jacques Blazy, Sotheby’s specialist for the sale. Other portions of the family’s art collection remain on view elsewhere. At the Barbier-Mueller Museum in Geneva, a show of 100 masks includes pieces from Asia, Africa and the Americas, along with contemporary face protectors for athletes and workers.
In Manhattan the family has lent works to the current Neue Galerie retrospective of the Swiss painter Ferdinand Hodler. Gabriel and Ann Barbier-Mueller, a son and daughter-in-law of Jean Paul and his wife, Monique, have been lending their samurai armor and artifacts for traveling displays; the Museum of Civilization in Quebec City is showing the pieces through early 2013. African gold objects that the family assembled, which now belong to a mining company, are displayed in an 18th-century Dutch slaveholder’s house in Cape Town. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/26/arts/design/ceramic-pieces-pre-columbian-art-and-byzantine-jewelry.html?_r=0

SOTHEBYS NY: Comprising around 300 works from Mexico, Central & South America, this extraordinary ensemble of Pre-Columbian art from The Barbier-Mueller Collection has been widely exhibited and published. Among its many masterpieces are a Chupicuaro Ceramic Statue (500-100 BC) and a Tarascan Ceramic Bird shaped Vase (1200-1500 AC) both formerly in the Guy Joussemet Collection, a Maya Ceramic Head (500-900 AC) formerly in the John Huston Collection, an Aztec Stone Figure of a Water Goddess (1300-1500) acquired by Josef Mueller in 1920, and a Maya Figure, Jaina, Mexico (AD 550-950).

One of the strengths of the Barbier-Mueller Collection lies in its cross-cultural approach: the choices of objects across the historical cultures represented (from 1200 BC to 1500 AC) reflect a remarkable coherence of vision on the part of the collector as well as showing the variety of media in which Pre-Columbian artists worked. The Collection comprises works in wood and stone, ceramics, textiles, ritual objects, as well as being representative of all the leading Pre-Columbian cultures. Not only are iconic pieces to be found in each area, but many possess historic provenance and are in an exceptional state of preservation.

In 1908 and 1909 Josef Mueller acquired major works by Hodler and Cézanne in Paris. While initially focusing on Western masterpieces of universal appeal, he soon became attracted by important works of Pre-Columbian art, his first purchase being an Aztec ‘water goddess’ in Paris in 1920. His son-in-law Jean Paul Barbier-Mueller, a great aesthete and man of culture, brought this high standard of collecting to other fields, such as African Art, Oceanic Art and Cycladic Art. His dedicated focus has resulted in the well-deserved reputation for excellence that the collections have today. Mr. Barbier-Mueller and his wife Monique Barbier-Mueller (Josef Mueller’s daughter), who has pursued modern and contemporary art, have achieved one of the foremost collections of art in private hands, one defined by their sophisticated knowledge and refined eye.

Along with their role as custodians of this magnificent, century-old collection, they are renowned for their commitment to furthering recognition of non-Western art and culture and for the remarkable exhibitions and publications they have overseen.