Piero Pierotti To coincide with the G8 Summit, the Hermitage Museum has planned a series of exhibitions, including one in honor of the 500th anniversary of the death of Andrea Mantegna. For this exhibition, the city of Mantua will loan two paintings to the museum. ArtWatch Italia has criticized this practice of using works of […]
The Metropolitan Museum website may now indicate that the famous 2500-year-old Euphronios krater is “Lent by the Republic of Italy,” but that has hardly been the case since the acquisition of the object thirty years ago. Shortly after the Met acquired the krater, Italy claimed that the work had been stolen from a tomb in Cerveteri. […]
Several times in recent memory, the restoration of an artwork has led to the re-attribution of a painting, or at the very least, the shift in attribution from a workshop piece to one executed directly by the master. Rembrandt and Titian are the authors of two major works “uncovered” during recent cleaning campaigns. The discovery […]
ArtWatch has previously reported on the way in which museums exert their power to suppress discussions in public forums that do not favor their actions or points of view. Shortly after reporting on the MoMA’s possession of an Egon Schiele painting claimed to have been looted by Nazis during WWII in December of 2004, David […]
The phenomenon of the traveling exhibition has always been a powerful tool, used by museums to boost attendance rates and bring works of art to a population that otherwise might not get the chance to see them. But at what cost? ArtWatch has raised the issue of the danger of transporting works in the past, […]
SALVIAMO LEONARDO! MANIFESTO ETICOADARTE, 2005 Salvatemi per mirabile necessità (Leonardo, Codice Atlantico) Save me out of admirable necessity (Leonardo, Codex Atlanticus) Salvatemi dai barattieri e dai pomposi trombetti (Codice Atlantico) Save me from tricksters and pompous trumpeteers (Codex Atlanticus) Salvatemi dalle sette di ipocriti (Trattato della pittura) Save me from the clans of hypocrites (Treatise […]
A new advertising campaign was announced in August, aimed at raising money to fund upcoming restoration projects. The non-profit agency Fondazione CittàItalia (founded 2003) has scheduled its second such initiative, called “The Days of Art — Fundraising Campaign for the Restoration of Italian Cultural Heritage”, set to run from 24 September to 2 October 2005. […]
Beginning on the 4th of July, the famed sculptural monument of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota was cleaned in a matter of weeks, hailed by the press as a “facelift”. Yet is was far more than a cleaning, it was a… pressure washing. Featuring the 60-foot high likenesses of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and […]
Lorenzo Lotto (1480-1557) Saint Jerome doing penitence in the Desert 1500 or 1508
Conceived of as the home of the Huntington Hartford’s Gallery of Modern Art and completed in 1964, the 9-story building at 2 Columbus Circle by Edward Durell Stone (d. 1978) now stands vacant, as it has been since 1998. Its unique design is now threatened by a planned “renovation”, based upon the plans of architect […]