The Bass Museum of Art presents today 20th Century Works on Paper from the Fundacion Mapfre Collection: Picasso, Tàpies, Miró and Others , on view through November 2, 2008. This extraordinary exhibition is comprised of approximately 80 works on paper by some of the 20th century’s most renowned Spanish artists, as well as artists from other countries whose careers were impacted by Spain. Rarely seen sketches and illustrations by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Sonia Delaunay, Juan Gris, Francis Picabia and Joaquín Torres-Garcia will be shown. These works on paper show how these artists first honed their talent in drawings and watercolors, and illustrate how the tension between figuration and abstraction dominated the course of art during this period. The exhibition will cover four movements: Pioneers of the Avant-Garde; The International Influence; Cubism and the School of Paris; and The Surrealist Movement.
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The Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, in partnership with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, presents the exhibition, El Greco to Velázquez: Art during the Reign of Philip III, the first comprehensive exhibition of art made for this Spanish court four centuries ago. Among the works of two giants of Spanish art, the show will introduce great unknown masters of painting and sculpture. El Greco to Velázquez will be on view at the Nasher Museum from August 21 through November 9, 2008.

The exhibition includes 52 master paintings, including seven late works by El Greco, three early works by Velázquez and works by their contemporaries, lesser known but talented artists. El Greco to Velázquez: Art during the Reign of Philip III, the largest-ever assemblage of international loans of Spanish art in the Southeast, includes monumental altar pieces, life-sized portraits, some of the earliest still-life paintings in Europe, full-length carved and painted wooden sculptures of Spanish saints and more than 50 pieces of period glass and ceramics. Many works are traveling to this country for the first time from major museums, some from the churches for which they were originally commissioned.
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Brazilian police have recovered the final piece of artwork that was stolen during a daylight heist at the Estacao Pinacoteca Museum in Sao Paulo on June 12.

Brazilian police present, today August 18, in Sao Paulo, the recovered art work Minotaur, Drinker and Women (1933), made by Spanish painter Pablo Picasso.
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A new trend in the art business is flourishing at a moment when the economy is tight and sales are slow at galleries around town. What’s the idea? Add a bar.

It’s not entirely new to mix art and alcohol. In nightspots where artists hang out, such as Seattle’s Two Bells tavern and the Virginia Inn, paintings have been exhibited above the booths and bar stools for decades.

What’s sprouting up now is something different, though. These aren’t bars with art added: Now, the gallery is the main focus, with a separate lounge adjoining. That way, artworks can be displayed to their best advantage and stay somewhat protected from the more uninhibited bar scene.
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The window, in the Metz cathedral, was designed and made by Chagall in 1963 and depicted Adam and Eve.

At the weekend intruders broke into the church, stole a few objects and broke the window - leaving a hole about 24 by 16 inches.

Officials at the Metz-based culture ministry said the perpetrators had not yet been caught - and they appeared not to have been professional thieves.
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Wanted: the owners of 137 artworks discovered in an apartment in Manhattan, suspected stolen. The FBI is appealing for owners to come forward to claim the paintings and sculptures that were found in the Upper East Side - some of them stuffed under a bed - in one of the more unusual mysteries to fall to federal investigators.

The artworks were found in the apartment of an occasional art writer and genealogist called William M V Kingsland, who died in March 2006, aged 62, leaving no will. His collection of about 300 pieces - including works by Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso and Odilon Redon - was handed to two auction houses to sell off.
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The Long Beach Museum of Art received several gifts of prints by artist Robert Rauschenberg in the 1970s and 1980s. A selection of prints is on view in the Museum’s Ridder Gallery June 20 through October. Rauschenberg was instrumental in changing the approach to printmaking in fine art studios. Publisher Tatyana Grosman of Universal Limited Art Editions (ULAE) on Long Island, New York invited Rauschenberg to make prints in 1962. Master printer Kenneth Tyler of Gemini G.E.L. said of working with Rauschenberg, “Work with him and you get his life, spirit and energy. He’s the only two-way street in the art world.” Tyler believed that Rauschenberg set out to give lithography the state of a major art form. Sidney Felson of Gemini added, “Bob’s single biggest gift to lithography was the combining of photo images and hand-drawing.”
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