In the news
If shops can reopen in April, why can’t museums?
Museums in England will have to wait until May to reopen but shops, gyms and libraries are set to open in April. What’s the logic in that?
American museums should not be selling their art to keep the lights on
Deaccessioning rules for US museums have been relaxed to raise money for collection care – and even the Met may take advantage. It’s a slippery slope, says Thomas P. Campbell
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Podcast
The Apollo 40 under 40 podcast: Mohamad Hafez
The Syrian-born, US-based artist talks to Gabrielle Schwarz about his sculptural dioramas of cities ravaged by war – and offers a message of hope for the future
Art news daily
The week in art news – museums in Germany to open from Monday
Plus: V&A to merge departments and cut 140 jobs | UK government announces £390m to help arts venues reopen | Alan Bowness (1928–2021) | and missing Jacob Lawrence painting discovered in Manhattan
Missing Jacob Lawrence painting discovered in Manhattan apartment
The panel from one of the American painter’s great narrative series is the second to have shown up by chance in quick succession
The week in art news – Amnesty report points to massacre in Ethiopian town of Axum
Plus: Swiss museums reopen next week, while UK museums must wait until May | Experts confirm message on The Scream is by Munch | and National Gallery in London and Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin update Hugh Lane bequest deal
Reviews
The Met’s Old Masters, seen in a new light
European paintings still occupy prime real estate on Fifth Avenue – but a redisplay offers fresh insight into the Met’s hallowed holdings
Vein glorious: an epic history of marble, reviewed
For millennia, marble was taken to be a gleaming reflection of the heavens – and, in Fabio Barry’s new book, it regains its divine mysteries
TEFAF Treasures
The beach at Lacco Ameno with the ‘mushroom’ at Casamicciola, Ischia (1843), Lancelot-Théodore Turpin de Crissé. Giacometti Old Master Paintings
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There are hundreds of exceptional artworks adorning the stands at TEFAF Maastricht this year. Everyone will have their own favourites, but we urge any visitor to seek out these works, which happen to be some of ours…Digby Warde-Aldam selects the first set of TEFAF Treasures
The beach at Lacco Ameno with the ‘mushroom’ at Casamicciola, Ischia (1843), Lancelot-Théodore Turpin de Crissé. Giacometti Old Master Paintings
The Beach at Lacco Ameno with the ‘Mushroom’ at Casamicciola, Ischia
Lancelot-Théodore Turpin de Crissé
Oil on canvas, 40 x 61 cm
Giacometti Old Master Paintings, Rome
On a visit to Ischia, Lancelot-Théodore Turpin de Crissé sketched out an image of a bay dominated by a distinctive, mushroom-shaped rock formation. When he returned to Paris, he completed the rest of the painting in minute detail, but deliberated on how to paint the rock. Then, stuck at an artistic impasse, he laid down his brushes and declared the picture ‘finished’. Quite accidentally, the result is a fascinating work, a statement of economy that calls to mind the blank spaces in Katsushika Hokusai’s most famous images.
Le Corbeau (The Raven)
First edition of the French translation by Stéphane Mallarmé with illustrations by Édouard Manet
Edgar Allan Poe
Librairie Thomas-Scheller – Bernard & Stéphane Clavreuil, Paris
Mallarmé’s translation of Poe’s uncanny masterpiece is a work of monumental importance to French literature. As if that wasn’t significant enough, he roped in Manet to provide the illustrations, which are just as spectacularly disturbing as the tome itself. This first edition, with the plates of Manet’s drawings in two states, is as rare as ravens’ teeth, and it’s just as lugubriously beautiful as you’d hope.
Egyptian fragment with profile of god or pharaoh (30th Dynasty-Early Ptolemaic Period, c. 350–300 BC) Charles Ede, London
Egyptian fragment with profile of god or pharaoh
30th Dynasty – Early Ptolemaic Period, c. 350–300 BC, grey fine-grained granite
Charles Ede, London
The outline of the mysterious fragment is oddly perfect, like an upturned map of South America. A near-immaculate right angle running along the brow of the head it depicts draws attention to the face. The figure’s mouth seems to be curling into a smile, the head leaning forward as if to contribute to a conversation. We can only wonder as to what story it once told.
TEFAF Maastricht is at the Maastricht Exhibition & Congress Centre from 13–22 March.
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