NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM GROTTA DI TIBERIO
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World War II
The New York Times reports that “the mayor of Düsseldorf has backtracked on his last-minute cancellation of an exhibition at the city’s Stadtmuseum about Max Stern, a Jewish art gallery owner who fled Nazi Germany in 1938.” Ronald Lauder, and many others, had called for the show to go forward, which the mayor had previously scuttled because of “current demands for information and restitution in German museums in connection with the Galerie Max Stern.” [The New York Times]
Some 500 academics have condemned Poland’s right-wing government for changes it has orchestrated at the Museum of the Second World War in Gdansk, the Art Newspaper reports. “Poland is losing one of the few truly cultural and scientific institutions of international importance,” they said in an open letter. [The Art Newspaper]
Market Action
The record-breaking Leonardo sold at Christie’s for $450.3 million last month was widely touted as the last picture by the artist in private hands, but Bloomberg‘s Katya Kazakina spoke with experts on the Renaissance master, and they point to two—and, perhaps, three—works by the artist that are not in museums and could, conceivably, one day be sold. [Bloomberg]
The absolutely indefatigable painter Mark Bradford, fresh off shows at the Hirshhorn and the Venice Biennale, will have the first show at Hauser & Wirth’s Hong Kong gallery, which opens in March. The gallery’s president, Iwan Wirth, told the Art Newspaper, that there is “enormous appetite” for the artist’s work. [The Art Newspaper]
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York acquired from Sotheby’s a Hebrew Bible created in the first half of the 1300s in Spain, Al Día reports. Once owned by collector Jaqui E. Safra, the piece had been estimated to fetch $3.5 million and $5 million on the block, but it was purchased in a private deal. [Al Día]
The Talent
After 16 years at the Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, Rebecca Nagy is retiring from her position as its director. Nagy told the Gainesville Sun that she’s looking forward to having some time to draw. [The Gainesville Sun]
An anonymous donor has given Indiana University in Bloomington $1.5 million to endow a chair for the study of African art in the art history department of the College of Arts and Sciences. [Press Release]
Artists
A public tile mural by Larry Rivers for a Philadelphia mall, which “legions of conservators and public art mavens said could not be moved, has been moved,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. And it has been restored and moved to a public-transit station. “It was a painstaking project for us,” the conservator on the project said, “probably the most difficult we’ve ever done.” [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
Artist Paul Chan has penned a stemwinder of an essay that is too complex to summarize here, but very loosely speaking, takes up the topic of Odysseus as an artist. Chan writes, “Being exposed to art means among other things seeing all the resourceful and ingenious ways in which someone has tried to make—using what is readily available—something more than what is there.” Head to the Los Angeles Review of Books to read the piece.
LARB
The Holidays
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art crafted a quality holiday-related meme using a print by 17th-century Dutch artist Frederick Bloemaert and shared it on Twitter. Click!
@LACMA/Twitter
And a quick note: Breakfast with ARTnews will take the day off on Monday, December 25, and return to your inbox and podcast program on Tuesday. See you in a few!