Archive for March, 2010

There Must be a Better Way!

Posted by Gary Vikan on Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

The Baltimore Museum of Art - photo: GV

The Baltimore Museum of Art - photo: GV

To support the arts in Baltimore City. High unemployment coupled with a dead real estate market and pension obligations skyrocketing out of control have left our new mayor with unprecedented financial challenges.

The BSO’s musicians have just agreed to a painful reduction in pay, and all cultural institutions in the City are facing cuts in public funding that will be very, very hard to absorb.

The Baltimore Opera is gone.

How will we ever come out of it, if we don’t find some way to fund the arts regionally, with a dedicated revenue stream? As St. Louis – another city without a county – figured out more than a century ago.

The Walters - photo: GV

The Walters - photo: GV

Posted in Art, Baltimore, Museums, The Walters, Uncategorized, arts and the economy | 931 Comments »

Do you think this is Jesus?

Posted by Gary Vikan on Monday, March 29th, 2010

333I don’t. And I’m pretty sure the editors of TIME knew that it wasn’t back in 1998 when they put it (a detail from the Shroud of Turin) on their magazine’s cover.

The linen of the Shroud had been Carbon 14 dated to AD 1260-1390 ten years earlier, in 1988.  And as it turns out, the Shroud appears for the first time in historical documents in AD 1357 in a small town in France (Lirey, not Remulak).

So you would think it would be obvious, and we (the world at large) would by now have gotten over the Shroud of Turin.

No so.  More than 2,000,000 people, including the Pope, will make pilgrimage to Turin between April 10th and May 23rd this year, to see the Shroud on display (for the first time in a decade) in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.

Want to hear the whole story behind the Shroud of Turin?  Come on down to the Walters on April 2nd, at 6 pm.

Posted in Art, Forgeries, Religion, The Shroud of Turin, The Walters, Uncategorized | 799 Comments »

Whose hand is that?

Posted by Gary Vikan on Sunday, March 28th, 2010

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

Since this is so easy, the prize will be a sense of personal reward for having been the first to answer correctly (i.e., not a free book).

GV

Posted in Uncategorized | 328 Comments »

Close Enough!

Posted by Gary Vikan on Sunday, March 28th, 2010

Vienna.08 284

Photo: GV

Close enough!  Christine Plumer at 8:55 pm came up with Peter Bruegel the Elder, Census at Bethlehem, Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Brussels.Well, it’s a copy (by “the Younger”?) in Vienna.

But, as I said: Close enough!!

Send your address to gvikan@thewalters.org, and the book is on its way!

And stay tuned for more “stump the Kunsthistorischer”

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Name that Artist!

Posted by Gary Vikan on Saturday, March 27th, 2010

Photo: GV
Photo: GV

Well, it’s not quite that easy. But the reward is great: our most recent collection catalogue on Greek art. Free, to the first to get all the following correct (no WAM employees or Vikan family, please):

Artist
Subject Matter
Museum and City

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

The Barnes Foundation – “The Art of the Steal”

Posted by Gary Vikan on Monday, March 8th, 2010

 There is a powerful new documentary out there called The Art of the Steal (http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/movies/26artof.html). It’s the story of one of the art world’s most wonderfully odd characters, Albert Barnes (d. 1951), his fantastic collection of Renoirs, Cezannes, Matisses et cetera, which came to rest in a suburb of Philadelphia decades ago, and of the planned move of that collection to downtown Philadelphia in 2012.

Albert Barnes in the Barnes Foundation ca 1950

Albert Barnes in the Barnes Foundation ca 1950

The documentary has a very strong point of view, obvious from its title, and as a viewer you are certain to react one way or the other. Last Sunday morning I introduced an advanced screening of The Art of the Steal at the Charles Theatre here in Baltimore, and moderated a very lively conversation after the screening.

I think it would be fair to say that 80+% of those present agreed with the thesis of the film.

It will be shown at the Charles later this month.  And all over the country.

SEE IT!

Posted in Aesthetics, Art, Cultural Property, Museums | 1,164 Comments »

“Egg…Modern”

Posted by Gary Vikan on Friday, March 5th, 2010

Photo: GV

Photo: GV

TWO IMPERIAL FABERGE EGGS

THE TREASURY, THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM

How did these magnificent mementos of a vanished age make it to Baltimore?  Both eggs remained treasured possessions of Russia’s imperial family until 1917, but after that year – after the Revolution –, they disappeared. 

More than a decade later, in 1930, the building superintendent of what was then the private “Walters Art Gallery,” was checking the contents of a crate containing the artworks Henry Walters had purchased on his last trip to Paris.  The manifest listed two items which, in the most humble way, eventually proved to be of extraordinary interest – and value (quote): “one egg in white enamel with a ring of little enameled pearls … modern” and “one copper egg decorated with enameled roses, modern.”

“Orphaned” and unknown then, the Gatchina Palace and Rose Trellis Imperial Easter Eggs have since come to be recognized as among the greatest treasures of the Walters Art Museum.

Posted in Art, Baltimore, Henry Walters, Museums, The Walters, Uncategorized | 29 Comments »

Win a Prize? Guess how much…

Posted by Gary Vikan on Monday, March 1st, 2010

These are 3000-lb, lion-headed godesses, 14th century BC, from Thebes

WALTERS ANCIENT EGYPT GALLERY

The prize is a one-year membership in THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM, with all the substantial rights and benefits that accrue thereto.  Like free entry to museums all over the country, and discounts at local restaurants.  Plus, best of all, free admission to ticketed shows at the WAM, and to all its great programs. And, of course, our members help keep the Walters’ permanent collections free for the public!

Anyhow, Henry Walters bought six Sekhmets in his lifetime. These are 3000-lb, lion-headed godesses, 14th century BC,  from Thebes. Like the two in the picture.

But he gave them all to the MET in New York!  Well, he lived there (in NYC), was VP of the MET at the time, and they’re pretty heavy and hard to move.

The British Museum has something like 33 Sekhmets, but shows only a few.  So we asked the BM: can we borrow two of yours for 10 years?  Yes, they said, but you have to pay to get them from our store room in London to your gallery in Baltimore.

Fair enough.

So, the contest is easy: how much did that cost?  All inclusive.

And like “The Price is Right,” the winning guess will be that one closest to the actual cost, without going over.

GV

PS: If I’ve told you the answer over the years, please sit on your hands.

Posted in Art, Baltimore, Henry Walters, Museums, Uncategorized | 816 Comments »