AP stories for 11-5
AP stories for 11-5
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Two Indian artworks reported stolen in Santa Fe
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) â Two Santa Fe galleries are the latest victims of art theft in the stateâs capital city. An $11,500 Indian chief pictorial Navajo rug was stolen recently from a hallway in Price-Dewey Galleries, according to a police report.
The same day, a Plains Indian childâs dress made of white buckskin with beading around the neck was taken from The Spanish and Indian Trading Co., said gallery director Toba Tucker. The item dating back to the late Nineteenth Century was priced at about $3,500, Tucker said.
Tucker always locks the front door to her gallery, personally showing every customer in and out, but said she suspects one member of a couple took the artifact while she showed the other person jewelry in another room.
Santa Fe has struggled with a number of art thefts dating back to December.
Gilbert Stuart portraits at Met capture leaders of a new nation
By David Minthorn
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) â Americans will be forgiven tugs of patriotism at the Gilbert Stuart retrospective opening this week at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Stuartâs portraits of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers are familiar from history books and classroom walls, and now these widely dispersed icons and his other great works are assembled in one astonishing collection. Every school child should see this show â their parents, too.
âGilbert Stuartââ runs through January 16. The show is co-organized by the Met and the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the showâs other stop, March 27âJuly 31.
Stuartâs first retrospective in nearly four decades, the exhibition encompasses nearly 100 portraits loaned by more than 50 private collections and institutions as diverse as the White House, Bostonâs Museum of Fine Arts, Colonial Williamsburg, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and national galleries of Ireland, Britain and the United States.
Most riveting are 14 of Stuartâs renowned portraits of Washington displayed in a single gallery, paintings never before seen side-by-side. They illustrate three portrait types from sittings Washington granted Stuart in 1795â96: ten are bust-length facing left and right, and four in full-length.
Included are Stuartâs two most famous pictures of Washington â the original, unfinished âAthenaeumââ and the heroic, full-length âLansdowne,ââ both from 1796. The smaller, 4 by 3 feet, is a left-side view of Washingtonâs stern visage, his gray hair coiled over his ears. He is shown ramrod straight in a high white collar and black coat, jaw clenching his ill-fitted false teeth.
A version of this likeness, engraved in reverse, decorates the one dollar bill, forming an indelible image for all Americans of the father of their country.
In the âLansdowneââ portrait, 8 by 6 feet, Washington is depicted in a black cape, his right hand outstretched over a table of presidential documents, his left hand clutching a gold-handled sword. Nearby is a velvet chair bearing the stars and stripes emblem of the new nation. âStuartâs grandest American accomplishment,ââ say curators Carrie Rebora Barratt and Ellen G. Miles in their 338-page catalog of this fascinating retrospective. The portrait was a gift to the Marquis of Lansdowne, a British sympathizer with the American Revolution. Unauthorized copies and engravings were quickly made of the masterpiece, robbing Stuart of a fortune in reproductions.
Stuart was also the first artist to paint the four presidents who followed Washington â John Adams, Jefferson, James Madison and James Monroe. All are displayed, including the renowned 1805 medallion portrait of Jefferson in profile.
Stuartâs affinity with beautiful women is strikingly realized in his 1804 triple portrait of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte, wife for a short time of Napoleonâs youngest brother, Jerome. Also shown is his ethereal 1802 painting of American poet Sara Wentworth Apthorp Morton, âone of Stuartâs most sensual, expressive images,ââ the curators say.
âThe Skater,ââ from 1782, showing lawyer William Grant in motion on the ice of a London pond, is one of Stuartâs earliest triumphs, dating from his apprenticeship in the studio of another expatriate, Benjamin West.
Born in Newport, R.I., in 1755 to a merchant family, Stuart showed an early talent for drawing. His early training in Rhode Island was with an itinerant Scottish portrait painter. When his royalist father fled to Nova Scotia at the start of the colonial rebellion, 19-year-old Gilbert went to London to paint, and mastered the Grand Manner style during the Revolutionary War years.
Stuart is believed to have created 1,000 portraits in his highly productive career, but he had a checkered reputation for reliability. Struggling to support an English-born wife and their 12 children, he took too many commissions and often failed to meet deadlines, leaving a trail of angry clients in London, Dublin and American cities. But when he delivered, the portrait was invariably accurate â if not always to the idealized conceptions of his sitters.
Better than any American artist of his era, Stuart could paint a precise likeness of his subject, enhanced with subtle revelations about character he sought to put on canvas. A renowned conversationalist, he animated those who sat before his easel to capture unguarded expression and gesture.
At his death in 1828, Boston Mayor Josiah Quincy raised funds to purchase Stuartâs unfinished portraits of George and Martha Washington for the Boston Athenaeum â pictures he never delivered to the president. The purchase saved Stuartâs family from poverty.
Field Museum to auction American Indian portraits
CHICAGO. ILL. (AP) â The Field Museum wants to sell 31 American Indian portraits and paintings of Western scenes by Nineteenth Century artist and adventurer George Catlin to raise millions of dollars for its anthropology collection. But the effort is being criticized by some who fear Chicago will be robbed of a scientific and cultural treasure.
The paintings, purchased shortly after the museum was founded 111 years ago, could be auctioned as soon as December 2 at Sothebyâs in New York. The auction house is predicting the works could fetch between $9 million and $15 million.
Field anthropologists recommended selling the paintings years ago, saying they were valuable as art but were of little scientific worth. Most of the paintings have been stored unseen for decades. âYou have to ask what kind of museum you are,ââ said John McCarter, the Fieldâs president. âIf we were an art museum, those would be important paintings for us, but our strategy is different from an art museumâs.ââ
McCarter says the museumâs mission is to collect current ethnographic materials that are at risk of disappearing, rather than storing paintings of indigenous Americans by a European American.
But some are questioning the ethics of the museumâs decisionmaking process. Chicago business consultant Edward Hirschland resigned from the museumâs board of trusteeâs after a 30-2 vote approving the sale. âThe rationalizing that has been done to support this sale has been unbelievable,ââ Hirschland said. âThey call it âmonetizing a nonperforming asset.â I think the museum administration has been blinded by the economic potential of the paintings, the money to be made by selling them.ââ
William Sturtevant, an anthropologist at the Smithsonianâs Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C., says the Field Museumâs assessment of Catlinâs paintingsâ as art history and not anthropology is wrong.
Sturtevant said Catlin probably produced the works in the field and then used the images as a guide to make more carefully executed portraits later in the studio. Sturtevant said the Indians likely posed in their finest clothing, holding valued objects in their hands. The decorative beadwork and feathers they wore had tribal significance, as did objects such as tobacco pipes or weapons.
âWhen he did his studies from life, he probably was pretty accurate in his portrayal of all that information,ââ Sturtevant said.
Catlin made several trips into Indian country in the 1830s to capture on canvas the tribal people he was convinced would soon be extinct. He wanted to document American Indian culture before it was altered or erased by contact with the invasion of settlers. He painted some of historyâs most notable Indians, including the Sauk and Fox Chief Black Hawk and his lieutenant, White Cloud.
The Smithsonianâs American Art Museum owns nearly 500 paintings by Catlin. All but eight of Fieldâs Catlin paintings have a close copy in the Smithsonian collection. Many believe the Field Museumâs paintings are more valuable than most of the Smithsonianâs because the ones in Chicago seem to be works Catlin painted directly from life.
Former guard pleads guilty in OâKeeffe museum theft
SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) â A former museum security guard has pleaded guilty to thefts from the Georgia OâKeeffe Museum and the Santa Fe County treasurerâs office.
William Crumptonâs attorney said his client did not want to go to trial and believed he needed to accept responsibility for his actions in the two separate cases, including one involving the theft of a $500,000 OâKeeffe painting.
Crumpton, 45, will be sentenced December 10. He faces up to 19½ years in prison.
Crumpton worked as a guard at the OâKeeffe museum and called police January 8 to report a burglary in progress, according to court records. He was later arrested and admitted hiding the painting, âRed Canna,â 1919, inside the museum.
Crumpton also admitted stealing $14,000 from the adjoining OâKeeffe Cafe in November and December 2003. In that case, he was charged with three counts of embezzlement and one count of criminal damage to property.
In the second case, he was accused of stealing $8,000 from a safe at the treasurerâs office. He was charged with burglary, larceny and criminal damage to property.
He pleaded guilty to all seven charges.
District Attorney Henry Valdez said he did not offer Crumpton a plea bargain because the proof against him was âoverwhelming.ââ Valdez said Crumpton also remains the only suspect in the December 16 theft of the OâKeeffe painting âNo. 21-Specialâ from the Museum of Fine Arts. The painting has not been recovered and the investigation continues. Valdez said charges could still be brought against Crumpton, who admitted to the theft but then said he did not do it.
Feds claim Picasso painting looted by Nazis until court rules on
By Ryan Pearson
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES, CALIF. (AP) â The federal government has claimed custody of a $10 million Pablo Picasso painting that was allegedly stolen by Nazis during World War II and is being fought over by a collector and the family of a previous owner.
The move allows the federal court in Los Angeles to claim jurisdiction over a case pitting the paintingâs current owner, Chicago art collector Marilynn Alsdorf, against the grandson of a Jewish woman who sent it to a Paris gallery for safekeeping during the war before fleeing Berlin.
The FBI said Tuesday that FBI agents and US marshals served Alsdorf with an order last week barring her from moving the painting from a safe in her Chicago home until a court decides the proper owner.
The federal complaint alleges that in December 2002, Alsdorf illegally moved the 1922 oil painting, known as âFemme en blancââ or âWoman in White,ââ from California to Illinois.
Federal authorities said the painting was subject to forfeiture because it is against the law to knowingly transport stolen goods across state lines.
Alsdorf and her late husband bought the painting from a New York gallery in 1975 for $357,000. Its value is now estimated at $10 million.
Thomas Bennigson of Oakland had filed a lawsuit against Alsdorf shortly before she moved the painting. Bennigsonâs lawsuit was dismissed by a state appellate court that found California courts did not have jurisdiction, but that decision is now under review by the state Supreme Court. Last weekâs federal action will likely boost Bennigsonâs case, said his attorney, E. Randol Schoenberg.
âThe victims of Nazis or their heirs shouldnât have to chase stolen property from one state to another,ââ Schoenberg said Tuesday. Alsdorfâs attorney, Roscoe Howard, would not respond publicly to the federal complaint, saying only that he would respond within 30 days.
Alsdorf said she was surprised by the sudden appearance of federal agents at her home. The agents photographed the painting and gave her court documents.
âThey were very polite,ââ she said. âThey just came in very businesslike and left.ââ
Met exhibit explores luxury of Dresden Court in rare showing
By Deepti Hajela
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK CITY (AP) â A sword with a spring-loaded blade and a concealed dagger. A bowl made out of ivory. A drinking vessel in the shape of an elephant, made of silver, gold and mother-of-pearl. And all dating back to the turn of the Seventeenth Century.
Clearly, the philosophy of âif youâve got it, flaunt itââ is not a contemporary cultural phenomenon. A new exhibit shows just how much one princely family took that idea to heart, collecting vast amounts of high quality, finely crafted goods as well as exotic, rare items from all over the world.
âPrincely Splendor: The Dresden Court, 1580â1620,ââ at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, runs through January 30.
Dresden was the major city of the territory of Saxony, in what is today Germany. It was an important place, and its rulers, called electors, were among the few who helped choose the leaders of the Holy Roman Empire.
Its ruling family of the Sixteenth Century, the House of Witten, was a recent arrival to power. Hoping to solidify the rightness of its rule, as well as make use of the areaâs natural resources of silver and precious stones, the House of Witten followed a trend in other parts of Europe and started its own collection of artistic, natural and technical goods.
âThey had to do it, in a way, because the family that started to rule was only in their second generation. ... They had to cement their power,ââ Wolfram Koeppe, curator of the show, said.
The Witten rulers had both the resources and the numerous interests to build up their collection, he said. The quality of the objects is uniformly high, as is the variety. âThey had the resources to buy only the best and only the rarest,ââ Koeppe said.
The items in the show are separated by material, and are testament to the diversity of what the Wittens valued. There is a section devoted to rock crystal objects, another to ivory carvings, which the rulers were themselves taught how to make.
Another section focuses on armor and weaponry, including a full set of childâs armor, and a sword with a watch set in the handle. A different section focuses on gardening tools, and yet another shows how natural items, like ostrich eggs and nautilus shells, were used for sculpture. There are clothes, works in silver and gold, bronze statues.
To see all these items together is a rare opportunity, Koeppe said. Much of it is on loan from the Dresden State Art Collections in Germany while the Green Vault, the legendary showcase for the items, is being renovated. Once the renovation is complete and the pieces put in place there, it is unlikely that this many pieces would ever be sent out of the country.
âAn amount like that will never travel again,ââ Koeppe said. âThis is really unique.ââ
While it is here, in its only American stop, it is a chance for viewers to get a real understanding of life in that time, said Dirk Syndram, director of the Green Vault at the Dresden State Art Collections.
âIt is a view into the past â a very special view into the past which no other collection can open,ââ he said.
AP for 11-5
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Thieves steal Galle from Swiss
GINGINS, Switzerland (AP) â Thieves broke into a museum and stole around a dozen glass artworks made by a French master craftsman, worth $3.3 million, police said. The robbers struck in the early hours at the Neumann Foundation in the village castle in Gingins, overlooking Lake Geneva, said Vaud state police. The stolen items were made by Emile Galle, who spurred a revival of glasswork in Nineteenth Century Europe.
The thieves disabled the security alarm around the building and used a ladder to climb to a second floor window, which they broke to enter the museum.
They set off a second alarm and woke the resident curator, but they managed to escape with the art before police arrived.
The Neumann Foundation, which is closing in December, was celebrating Galleâs career in its final exhibition and had combined its own collection with artworks from museums in France and Germany. It was not immediately clear if the borrowed artworks were among those stolen.
Galle, who also worked with wood and ceramics, drew his inspiration from nature, particularly the shapes of plants, seaweed and insects. The missing objects include five âCoupes a La Libellule,ââ or dragonfly cups, which Galle made shortly before he died.
State justice authorities have opened a formal investigation of the theft.
Kimbell acquires Renaissance masterpiece
FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) â The Kimbell Art Museum has acquired a Renaissance-era painting that some experts say could be valued at more than $5 million. âJudgment of Parisââ by German artist Lucas Cranach is an oil on panel that was painted between 1512 and 1514.
The museum bought the piece from a private New York dealer for an undisclosed price. âIâve never seen a Sixteenth Century piece in better condition,ââ Kimbell Director Timothy Potts said in an edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The painting sold for $3.27 million in a 1996 auction, and art experts say a piece of this age in such pristine condition could cost more than $5 million.
âItâs a fabulous acquisition, a great coup for the Kimbell,ââ Maryan Ainsworth, curator of European painting at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, said in Fridayâs edition of The Dallas Morning News.
The Kimbell, which opened in 1972, was a bequest of Fort Worth entrepreneur Kay Kimbell. Through his endowment, the museum collection has expanded with major acquisitions including paintings by Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso and sculptures by Bernini and Jean-Antoine Houdon.