June 15, 2016
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June 15, 2016 Table of Contents How a Decaying Painting Spurred America's Most Comprehensive Pigment Collection .......................................................................... 2 Art a Life‐Long Passion for Margo Sety ...................................................................................................................................................... 3 Spain Police Nab 7 Suspects of Large Francis Bacon Art Heist ................................................................................................................... 4 Pick up a Paintbrush, Head Outdoors for Inspiration ................................................................................................................................ 5 Splash Mob Pairs Painting and Dance ........................................................................................................................................................ 6 Guccifer, Who Revealed George W. Bush's Secret Life as a Painter, Pleads Guilty to Hacking ................................................................. 7 Melbourne Artists' Supplies is a Mecca for City Creatives ......................................................................................................................... 8 Donors Should Give to Art Education, Not Just Fine‐Art Collections ......................................................................................................... 9 This Houston Artist Expresses Powerful Emotion With Every Brushstroke ............................................................................................. 10 You Can Relax Now, Because Netflix Is Streaming Bob Ross ................................................................................................................... 11 The Louvre and Musée d’Orsay Shut Down as Seine River Floods .......................................................................................................... 12 Art Supply Store Closing This Month ....................................................................................................................................................... 12 Quiet Hero Turns Lives Around With Paintbrushes ................................................................................................................................. 13 $80 Million Andy Warhol Elvis Painting Elbowed at SFMOMA ................................................................................................................ 15 Aboriginal Art Centres: Acker Report Shows Many Losing Money .......................................................................................................... 15 Banksy Surprises British School Children With Playground Mural ........................................................................................................... 17 C.C Lowell Is On The Move ....................................................................................................................................................................... 18 How Can I Get My Kids Interested in Art? ............................................................................................................................................... 19 2 __________________________________________________________________________________________ How a Decaying Painting Spurred America's Most Comprehensive Pigment Collection CAMBRIDGE, MA: Art conservation departments are more or less ubiquitous in museums today, but it wasn't always this way. The first dedicated conservation facility in the United States wasn't founded until 1927, when Edward Forbes, then‐ director of Harvard University's Fogg Museum, initiated the museum's department of research and restoration. Forbes had a personal stake in art preservation. Attending to his own collection of Renaissance paintings (like this Madonna he bought in Italy), he traveled the world collecting rare pigments to improve identification and conservation efforts—and he created a chromatic archive in the process. The Fogg's department of research and restoration is now the Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, one of four research centers at the Harvard Art Museums. Helmed by director and senior conservation scientist Narayan Khandekar, the collection comprises over 3,600 items which are on display in the Straus Center's analytical labs. Besides the meticulously‐organized pigments, the center also houses binding media, historical scientific equipment, and raw material samples. While the Forbes Collection and the Straus Center improved conservation efforts, they've also been instrumental in research and, notably, authentication. In 2007, Harvard Art Museums undertook an investigation into 3 of 32 paintings thought to be by Jackson Pollock. The paintings were found in a storage facility in Long Island in 2002 by Alex Matter, who claimed they were finished by Pollock in the studio of Matter's father, photographer Herbert Matter. The authenticity of these paintings were questioned soon after the study. Using a technique called laser desorption ionization mass spectrometry (LDI MS), the researchers identified some common nineteenth‐ and twentieth‐century pigments, like synthetic yellow ochre, synthetic ultramarine blue, and titanium white. But they also found materials like PO 43, an orange pigment that wasn't commercially available as paint until 1950, as well as PY 151, another hue of orange that wasn't patented until 1969, and PR 254, a red pigment discovered in 1974. The paintings in question were thought to have been created between 1946 and 1949, and Pollock died in 1956. He was also known to use commercial housepaints, rather than mixing his own pigments, so the study cast serious doubt on a number of paintings that already lacked the aesthetic sophistication of authenticated Pollocks. The pigment collection holds other scandalous stories. One researcher found Indian Yellow in Seurat's 1879 Vase of Flowers, a pigment outlawed in 1908 on grounds of inhumanity—the color was made from the urine of cows that had been fed nothing but mango leaves. June 15, 2016 3 __________________________________________________________________________________________ And if that seems awful, just wait until you hear about Mummy Brown, a pigment made from the ground‐up remains of Egyptian mummies. In a quest to conserve a beloved personal collection, Forbes began a decades‐long exploration into color. In contrast, the Metropolitan Museum of Art didn't create a conservation department of their own until 1942—and it was a Fogg alum who established it. artnet news: http://artnt.cm/28C31Kf Art a Life‐Long Passion for Margo Sety CHEWELAH, WA: Margo Sety has always had art on the mind. When Margo was a kid, her mother would also make sure the household was stocked with art supplies, her father always made sure there were tools around for her to use on projects. It’s no suprise the Chewelah‐native was always doing one creative thing or another. “I remember one time I frosted the edge of a table while making a cake,” Sety said. “While I was in elementary school, my teachers would give me a lot of attention with my art. I think when people give you encouragement, your desire to do art really grows.” That encouragement from the teachers continued through middle and high school. She was also an art minor in college with a teaching endorsement from EWU. Sety is now a third grade teacher at Gess Elementary — and a simple walk around the town of Chewelah will reveal that she’s an accomplished artist as well. Her watercolor paintings adorn several local businesses and will be on full display when the Chewelah Arts Guild host their Taste of Chewelah event. The paintings aren’t just a testament to Sety’s artistic ability but also to her persistence. For years, watercolor paintings weren’t her cup of tea. “I just had not been successful with them and then Gail Johannes began offering classes in them and they became really rewarding,” Sety said. Rewarding to the tune of over 30 paintings and many of them being displayed for everyone to see. The most she’s shown is 19, and Sety admits she’s ecstatic and amazed that she’s been able to have three shows for her work. Margo said that most of her paintings are of birds, which provide an amount of intrigue for her. “I’ll find a cool bird and then after painting it, I’ll have to ask what it is and before long I’m doing a bunch of research on the bird,” Sety said. “It’s funny how art works like that.” Watercolor has provided Sety with a “green medium.” Not requiring a ton of supplies, Margo can put her paints in a backpack and go into a field and paint it. Sety said she’s inspired by the local area’s landscapes. “I want to do more local landscapes,” Sety said. “Quartzite is right there and we have our little barn and meadow scenes that are wonderful. You also have four seasons that change those scenes throughout the year.” June 15, 2016 4 __________________________________________________________________________________________ Sety added she’d also like to paint more of downtown. After getting comfortable with the art, it’s still not an easy thing to do as watercolor can sometimes be unforgiving. “Other painting styles you can add white to a scene,” Sety said. “But in watercolor painting, with white you always have to think about how to save it on the painting. It’s a challenge and there are ways to undo things but it’s still tough.” Having taught at Gess Elementary since the mid‐90s, Sety has also helped out with the Chewelah Community