fine art

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At Heart of a $410M Battle: 5 Possibly Damaged Paintings

Billionaire Ron Perelman says fire didn't ruin them, but did sap their luster

(Newser) - At the heart of this unusual court case sits a billionaire, five paintings worth $410 million that hung in an East Hamptons estate, and one of the "existential questions of art insurance," per the New York Times : "What exactly constitutes damage and how can it be measured?"...

He Needed a Last-Minute Gift, Set Off a Wild Discovery
This Drawing
Could Shake Up
the Art World
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Jan 1, 2022 11:59 AM CST

This Drawing Could Shake Up the Art World

It may be the first Albrecht Dürer drawing found in nearly a century

(Newser) - The New York Times is calling it "one of the most extraordinary discoveries of Renaissance artwork in years," a find made all the more remarkable because it fell into a man's hands for just $30. That's how much an unidentified man spent in 2016 on the...

Man's Mission: Get 'Sucky' Renoir Out of Our Museums

Max Geller's voice is gaining traction on Instagram

(Newser) - Whether it's an honest complaint, a joke, an attempt to start a discussion about larger issues, or some combination, one thing is clear: Max Geller's protest of French impressionist Pierre-Auguste Renoir's work is gaining traction. After a petition to remove Renoir's work "from our national...

Picasso's Masterpieces Made With ... House Paint

Chemical study resolves art controversy: scientists

(Newser) - Picasso's great works had humble origins: They were painted using house paint, scientists say. Art historians have long debated whether Picasso was one of the first painters to use the standard enamel-based stuff rather than oil paints, but past paint-chip studies couldn't suss out the individual elements with...

Notorious Art Forger Rebrands as Genuine Faker

Ken Perenyi sold work as copies after the FBI caught on

(Newser) - Ken Perenyi has painted some of the world's most famous artworks—only he didn't paint them first. For nearly three decades, Perenyi grew rich as a forger of 18th- and 19th-century classics, then rebranded himself as a creator of fine reproductions when the FBI began snooping around in...

The 13 Most Worthless Majors

Want a job? Avoid fine art, according to 'Daily Beast' list

(Newser) - Hey, college students: If your life plans include getting an actual job, you may want to avoid the stars of the Daily Beast 's "most useless" majors list. Majors are ranked in terms of employment, taking into account unemployment rates among recent and experienced grads, earnings, and likely...

Photographer Lillian Bassman Dead at 94

Renowned art director experienced revival in 1990s

(Newser) - Lillian Bassman, who shot to fame as a self-taught photographer and the daring art director of a Harper's Bazaar spin-off, died yesterday at 94 in her Manhattan home. Bassman, born in Brooklyn and raised in the Bronx, studied fabric design and fashion illustration, and became a protégé of...

Behold the World's Priciest Photo

It sold for $4.3M this week

(Newser) - Have you ever gazed upon a river and thought, “This would make a lovely photograph that someone would pay millions of dollars for”? No? Well, that’s why you’re not Andreas Gursky. A chromogenic color print of the Gursky photo below, entitled Rhein II, sold for a...

Facebook Censors Famous French Painting

Man whose account was axed is now suing the site

(Newser) - Gustave Courbet's The Origin of the World hangs in Paris' renowned Musee d'Orsay—but good luck posting it on Facebook. A French man made the painting, which features a woman's, ahem, lower half, his profile picture—and found his profile deleted. He is now suing the social networking site, the...

Who Needs Donors? Arts Group Starts Selling Pot

Group expects to raise $1M from marijuana

(Newser) - When the directors of the nonprofit foundation Life Is Art found it increasingly hard to raise cash from recession-strapped donors, they decided to embrace a new revenue source: marijuana. Life Is Art's director owns land in California's Sonoma County, so the group has been growing varieties known as O.G....

Ansel Adams' Family Sues Museum Over Prints

Fresno Met trying to sell prints to pay off debt

(Newser) - Ansel Adams’ family is suing the bankrupt Fresno Metropolitan Museum over its attempts to auction off six prints the photographer donated before he died. The museum closed in January and is now furiously trying to sell off artwork to pay off its estimated $4 million in debt. But Adams' relatives...

Francis Bacon's Work Relied on 'Gimmick'
 Francis Bacon's Work 
 Relied on 'Gimmick' 
ART REVIEW
May 20, 2009 1:37 PM CDT

Francis Bacon's Work Relied on 'Gimmick'

(Newser) - Francis Bacon’s paintings still have the ability to shock, but beneath that initial thrill lies a consistent, even amateur, formula that “had grown stagnant by 1965,” Jerry Saltz writes in New York in previewing a retrospective opening today at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “The calculated...

12 Stories