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The Headlines
IN MEMORIAM. Leonard Lauder, the cosmetics heir and billionaire art collector, died on Saturday at the age of 92, reports Harrison Jacobs for ARTnews. His mother was Estée Lauder, of the eponymous, multi-billion-dollar beauty company that he joined in 1958. Lauder was also passionate about art and gave several major gifts to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, including 81 Cubist paintings, sculptures, and collages by the likes of Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, and Juan Gris. His collection was estimated to be worth over $1 billion. At the time of the donation, he told the New York Times, “You can’t put together a good collection unless you are focused, disciplined, tenacious, and willing to pay more than you can possibly afford.”
IN MEMORIAM. Also in this weekend’s news, we learned of the passing of artist Joel Shapiro at the age of 83. He was acclaimed Post-Minimalist sculptor whose work explored shifts in scale and perception, while challenging Minimalism, reports Alex Greenberger for ARTnews. He had been battling acute myeloid leukemia, according to his daughter, Ivy Shapiro. Shapiro’s widely exhibited works include figural sculptures made from bronze and aluminum elements. “Though steeped in the haughty concepts that guided art-making during the 1960s and ‘70s, these sculptures are also quirky and whimsical, with limbs that appear to leap and flail,” writes Greenberger. The artist also took a different approach to the dominant Minimalism of his time by painting his wood and metal pieces in vibrant colors, gaining the attention of critics. In one memorable 2009 interview with Bomb magazine, the artist said “I’ve made big things … they’re not colossal. They could be monumental. I’d like to think that they’re not too bloated.” Asked for clarification, he said, “Bloat is a disease of sculpture.”
The Digest
The Palazzo Maffei museum in the Italian city of Verona has called on people to “respect art” after a visitor was filmed on CCTV breaking a chair covered in shimmering Swarovski crystals. The footage shows a man taking a photo of a woman pretending to sit on the artwork by Italian artist Nicola Bolla, which is known as the “Van Gogh” chair, before the man sits on it himself. The chair folds under his weight, causing him to stagger backward against a wall. The couple, who remain unidentified, then dash out of the room. [ARTnews]
The city of Osh in Kyrgyzstan has removed a 23-meter (75-foot) statue of Vladimir Lenin first erected in 1975, and thought to be the tallest of the former Soviet leader in Central Asia. In a statement, the local city hall said the decision was “common practice” intended to improve the area’s “architectural and aesthetic appearance.” The explanation has been portrayed by some media as a means of placating Russia, the country’s ally. [The Associated Press and Le Figaro]
Security guards at three London museums have won a pay raise after months of strikes. The guards employed by subcontractors will get pay raises ranging from 13 to 23 percent at the National History, Science and Victoria & Albert Museums, considered better aligned with living wages in London. [The Art Newspaper]
About 50 leaders of cultural and scientific institutions have signed a petition in Le Monde warning against the closing and/or reduction in scope of the Palais de la Découverte science museum, located alongside the Grand Palais in Paris. The institution has been closed for renovations, and its reopening repeatedly delayed amid reports of disagreements over its future. In a sign of those tensions, the president of Universcience, which oversees the Palais de la Découverte, and the Cité des Sciences et de l’Industrie, Bruno Maquart, was fired. [Le Monde and Journal des Arts]
The Kicker
REAL RUBENS OR DUD? An old debate about the authenticity of a long-lost, and believed to have been found Rubens, has just been reignited. The Guardian reports that London’s National Gallery acquired the £2.5 million ($3.4 million) Samson and Delilah in 1980, considered to have been painted by Flemish artist Peter Paul Rubens in 1609. But was it all a big mistake? At the time of its purchase, the painting had been lost for centuries, so its rediscovery came as a shock, and critics were quick to doubt its authenticity because of inconsistencies in style, use of pigment, and lack of signs of aging. Now, a petition has been launched to have a public debate about it, in light of a new, controversial statement made and then withdrawn by former National Gallery curator Christopher Brown. The former head of the Dutch and Flemish collections at the museum told the Guardian the painting was authentic, but he also said the National Gallery had attached a modern blockboard to the back of the painting. This would have covered important information about its authenticity. To complicate matters, earlier catalogues state the painting’s back had been glued to a blockboard sheet, “probably during the [20th] century,” and that the painting was “planed down to thickness of about 3mm and set into a new blockboard panel before it was acquired by the National Gallery … so no trace of a panel maker’s mark can be found.” This strangely contradicts the condition report of the painting by the auction house that sold it to the museum. So who “planed down the panel,” erasing critical evidence, and why? After the Guardian asked the National Gallery for comment, Brown also changed his statement. “The National Gallery says that the backboard was applied before its acquisition. I have no reason to disbelieve them,” he said.
