MoMA Exhibition History Online

Posted on October 22, 2016 by Derek Churchill

Modigliani exhibition, MoMA, April 10-June 10, 1951

The Museum of Modern Art has launched an online resource documenting its complete exhibition history. Here you can find installation views, catalogues, checklists, and press releases for over 3500 exhibitions at MoMA from 1929 to the present. Needless to say, MoMA has played a central role in the history of modern and contemporary art, so this comprehensive resource should prove extremely valuable to scholars and students. You can read more in MoMA’s press release and an article in The New York Times.

25th Anniversary of the Gardner Theft

Posted on March 18, 2015 by Derek Churchill

Johannes Vermeer, The Concert (detail), ca. 1665, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (stolen 1990)

Twenty-five years ago today, two thieves stole thirteen works of art–together valued at around half a billion dollars–from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. It was the largest property crime ever in this country, and one of the most famous art thefts of all time. The stolen items have never been returned. The Gardner is still offering a $5,000,000 reward for their recovery.

Among the works lost were five drawings by Degas, a painting by Manet, three Rembrandts, and one of only about three dozen Vermeers in existence.

The Gardner is commemorating this milestone with a slideshow on its website, where you can learn more about these works and the events of March 18, 1990.

Freer and Sackler Collections Online

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Derek Churchill

Chinese (Western Zhou), Bronze Fitting in the Form of a Tiger, ca. 900 BCE, Freer Gallery of Art, Washington

The Freer and Sackler Galleries, the Smithsonian Institution’s museums of Asian art, released their entire digitized collections online on January 1, 2015. With the new Open F|S, you can now download high-resolution images of more than 40,000 works in the two museums, and you are permitted to use them for any non-commercial purpose.

The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery in Washington are among the nation’s most important collections of Asian art, with a particular strength in the arts of China. In addition, they are home to works from ancient Egypt, the Islamic world, and the United States, including James McNeill Whistler’s famous Peacock Room at the Freer.

You can read the press release about Open F|S here.

Art Museums in the News

Posted on November 30, 2014 by Derek Churchill

Tullio Lombardo, Adam, ca. 1490-1495, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Here is a roundup of some recent stories from the museum world:

A “grand bargain” appears to have saved the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts, which was in danger of being sold off to help pay the massive debts of the bankrupt city of Detroit.
A Renaissance statue of Adam by the Venetian sculptor Tullio Lombardo has been put back on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art after more than a decade of conservation. The marble statue had shattered in 2002 when its pedestal buckled beneath its weight.
The Harvard Art Museums have reopened after a six-year expansion. The new complex, designed by architect Renzo Piano, unites the three museums (Fogg Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum, and Arthur M. Sackler Museum) under a single roof.
Billionaire Jerry Perenchio is donating his collection of 19th- and 20th-century art to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
After the controversial deaccessioning of several works from its collection, the Delaware Art Museum has retired its debt and announced that it has received a number of new gifts.

VRC@UD

The news blog of the Visual Resources Center at the University of Delaware

Tag Archives: 19th-century art

MoMA Exhibition History Online

25th Anniversary of the Gardner Theft

Freer and Sackler Collections Online

Art Museums in the News