Latest Modern art Stories
By Wendel BroereZWOLLE, Netherlands -- A master of his craft, painter Geert Jan Jansen was always happiest when his works were mistaken for those of other artists.Jansen, who says he taught himself to paint, turned to forgery when he found it hard to make ends meet by selling his own work. He was so good that some of the artists he copied claimed his works were their own.Jansen chose ambitious targets, painting in the style of some of the 20th century's greatest artists -- Pablo Picasso,...
By Gershwin Wanneburg JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - A selection of work by Spanish master Pablo Picasso will make a rare appearance in Africa -- the continent that inspired his revolutionary paintings but which he never visited. "Picasso and Africa" will run in two South African galleries between February and May. It is the largest exhibition of its kind and one of few to be hosted on the continent, organizers say. More than 60 Picassos from the Musee National Picasso in Paris and his...
By Christopher Michaud NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Christie's sale of post-war and contemporary art met its advance billing as the biggest auction of its kind on Tuesday, with a Mark Rothko oil painting setting a new world record of $22.4 million for any post-war work at auction. New marks were also set for artists Roy Lichtenstein, Francis Bacon and several others, as the auction house achieved the highest total for the increasingly lucrative post-war and contemporary market, selling...
By Christopher Michaud NEW YORK (Reuters) - It was a big night for Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Christie's, when the auction house sold the artist's painting of a laundress for a record-smashing $22,416,000 on Tuesday. "The Laundress," the most expensive painting of the annual autumn art auctions at Christie's and rival Sotheby's, also achieved the highest price at the first of two weeks of critical sales, coming in right in the middle of its $20 million to $25 million pre-sale...
By Ilaina Jonas NEW YORK (Reuters) - Vincent van Gogh's paintings have a universal appeal, but curators at The Metropolitan Museum of Art hope it will be his drawings that will take New York's breath away. The largest collection of the Dutch Impressionist's drawings ever shown outside the Netherlands will go on display at the museum next Tuesday. "Van Gogh's drawings have curiously escaped the fame that has been attached to his painting, in part because they are rarely exhibited,"...
By Alister Doyle OSLO (Reuters) - Norwegian police detained a woman on Thursday suspected of links to the unsolved 2004 theft of Edvard Munch's masterpieces "The Scream" and "Madonna" and to an alleged gang of bank robbers already on trial in Norway. "We arrested a woman early this morning at her home in Oslo," police lawyer Morten Hojem Ervik told Reuters. He declined to comment on whether police suspected that the theft of the 1893 paintings from the Munch Museum in Oslo by masked...
LONDON (AP) -- Congo the chimpanzee led a brief artistic career and enjoyed little critical success, despite the patronage of his contemporary and fellow painter Picasso. But nearly half a century after Congo's artistic career, some of his paintings are going on sale at a prestigious London auction house alongside works by Andy Warhol and Renoir. Three tempera on paper works - brightly colored compositions of bold brushstrokes - will be featured as a single lot in the sale of Modern and...
