July-August 2010

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1) It emerged this week that three libraries housed at the Courtauld Insititute – the Witt, the Conway and the Photographic Survey – are under threat after the staff who run them were served redundancy notices. The Witt contains around 2 million photographs of work by 70,000 artists from 1200 onwards. The Photographic Survey, begun under the helm of Anthony Blunt, contains a record of 600 private collections in England and Wales. The Conway comprises over a million images of sculpture, ivories, seals and stained glass.

2) The Dia Art Foundation in New York has voiced concern that the latest expansion of evaporation pools in Salt Lake City could seriously threaten the integrity of Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty. It has been suggested that the new pools could change the Jetty so much that the ‘new’ northern end of the Lake would be unrecognisable.
http://www.artsjournal.com/man/2009/07/examining_the_latest_threat_to.html

3) A forthcoming exhibition next June at the National Gallery, London, is set to explore the fakes that have found their way into the collection over the years. The exhibition, ‘Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries’, will document the museum's past mistakes when forgeries had convinced the curatorial staff.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/jul/21/national-gallery-fake-art-exhibition

4) The architect Richard Rogers has been announced as a finalist for the prestigious Stirling Prize. Rogers, 76, who has already been nominated twice for the Stirling Prize, recently hit the headlines after his proposed design for the Chelsea Barracks renovation was scrapped following intervention by Prince Charles.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aUDIbokbJr8Q

5) One of Canada’s major auction-house partnerships, Sotheby’s-Ritchies, has come to an abrupt end. Toronto-based Ritchies has admitted to missing payment deadlines for clients who had consigned paintings for a multi-million dollar Sotheby’s-Ritchies sale that took place in May.
http://www.canada.com/entertainment/Auction+house+partnership+going+going+gone/1817592/story.html

6) A shortfall of £100m has been discovered in the budget of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The shortfall may have implications for the British Museum’s new wing, a Tate Modern development, the British Film Institute's film centre and the Stonehenge visitor centre.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jul/22/dcms-culture-department-funding-deficit

7) The London home of John Keats has reopened after major refurbishments. The house, which has been voted Britain’s top poetry landmark, underwent a major restoration funded by a £424,000 Heritage Lottery grant. The house in Hampstead stands on a road renamed Keats Grove.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/jul/22/keats-london-home-reopens

8) Ingeborg Hunzinger, one of the best known sculptors of the German Democratic Republic, has died at the age of 94. Hunzinger was famous for her sculpture Block der Frauen, which honoured the rebellion of mothers and wives against the forced deportation of Jewish men from Berlin. The artist taught at the Steinbildhauerin in Wuerzburg and the Academy of Art in Berlin Weizbensee. The potter Otto Heino also died this week. Heino was known as an intellectual and as one of the seminal figures of the mid-century Californian studio crafts movement. Heino, aged 94, was of Finish-American descent and was popular worldwide for his use of butter yellow glaze.
http://artforum.com/news/

9) Five Nigerian Government officials have been charged with the theft of over $6.8 million from funds that were for the country's National Gallery of Art. The head of the gallery has said the men took the money over a four year period for their own personal use.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/8161017.stm

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