Long before the invention of film the Chinese developed a remarkable art form of moving images. Shadow puppets, made of pierced and embossed rawhide and manipulated with sticks behind an illuminated screen of transparent cloth, entertained both emperors and rural peasants. Accompanied by music, shadow theater brought good luck at weddings and offered welcome distraction at funerals.

An entertaining new exhibition at the China Institute, “Enchanted Stories: Chinese Shadow Theater in Shaanxi,” explores this rich folk art tradition, which originated in Shaanxi Province (in the north-central area of the country known as the cradle of Chinese civilization). Western viewers may not be familiar with the traditional story lines or characters of shadow puppetry, but anyone who has seen the cut-paper silhouettes of Kara Walker will get the idea.

Continue reading — Shadow Journey to the East on Rawhide Wings

Four paintings by Van Gogh, Cézanne, Degas and Monet worth an estimated SFR180m (£84m) have been stolen from a museum in Switzerland, police said today.

Zurich police said Cezanne’s Boy in the Red Waistcoat, Monet’s Poppy Field at Vetheuil, Ludovic Lepic and his Daughter, by Edgar Degas, and Vincent van Gogh’s Blooming Chestnut Branches were stolen. A reward of SFR 100,000 was offered for any information leading to the recovery of the paintings.

Continue reading — £84m paintings stolen in ‘spectacular’ Swiss raid

With a subtle but unmissable flourish, Jussi Pylkkänen flicks his wrist fractionally upwards to signal that, unless someone offers him 24 million quid, he is going to bring the entertainment to an end.

“Selling in the doorway at 23 million 500,” he announces, gesturing at the mysterious figure standing at the threshold who has made his presence known with the last bid. “Fair warning to the room at 23 five. Selling at 23 million, 500.” A brief pause as he looks around one last time. “All done.” Bang! The gavel falls with a sharp rap on the Chippendale-designed rostrum. “Sold, for 23 million, 500,000 pounds.”

Continue reading — How to sell a £26m painting in 80 seconds

“I want to take some quite incredible photographs that have never been taken before… pictures which are simple and complex at the same time, which will amaze and overwhelm people,” wrote Alexander Rodchenko in his diary on March 14, 1934. “I must achieve this so that photography can begin to be considered a form of art.”

These are bold words coming from a man who had picked up a camera for the first time only 10 years earlier, aged 33, and would all but give up photography just six years later. A tightly focused new exhibition of Rodchenko’s photographs at the Hayward Gallery in London shows how – during that brief, passionate, turbulent period – the artist fell not only in and out of love with the medium, but also disastrously in and out of favour with the Soviet state.

Continue reading — Alexander Rodchenko: A man who took life lying down

London — Reassurance. That’s what motivated so many dealers and collectors from around the world to flock here this week for the big February art auctions. Reassurance that, despite the shaky state of world financial markets, there are still plenty of people willing to spend millions of dollars to put Impressionist, Modern or contemporary art on their walls.

So there was considerable relief when a Francis Bacon triptych fetched $51.6 million or when, after frenzied bidding, a landscape by the German Expressionist painter Franz Marc made $24.3 million — a record for the artist at auction — or when an 1874 Renoir that sold for $12.1 million in 1989 was snapped up for $14.6 million.

Continue reading — February art auctions

A mysterious three-part painting that is viewed as a Francis Bacon masterpiece sold for $46.1 million Wednesday night at a Christie’s auction here, countering expectations of a record price for his work.
Continue reading — Triptych by Francis Bacon Is Sold for $46.1 Million