Posts

Sale of a “Stunning” UK Fossil Collection to the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi Sparks Controversy

A “stunning” British collection of 318 Jurassic-era fossils has been sold to the Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, the Guardian reports, in what some have described as a loss to the nation. The trove was collected by UK fossil hunter Chris Moore along the Jurassic Coast, a UNESCO world heritage site in southwest England that is rich in fossils dating from 200 million to 245 million years ago. They include ichthyosaurs, fish, and crustaceans, among other creatures, some of which could be new species. The collection was initially offered to the Natural History Museum in London and to Amgueddfa Cymru (a natural history museum in Wales) for what is said to have been an eight-figure sum. Both museums passed, citing a lack of funds. In first making the collection available for purchase to those museums, Moore was following the area’s fossil-collecting codes, which specify that scientifically important specimens must first be offered to UK-registered institutions for...
Post a Comment
Read more

The New York Gallery That Brought You Adrien Brody Is Suing a Collector for More than $800,000 in Unpaid Invoices

Image
New York’s Eden Fine Art filed a legal complaint in New Jersey district court last month, saying that collector Jacob Shochat hasn’t paid for some $822,390 worth of artworks he bought from the gallery. The gallery is accusing the collector, who has a background in medical technologies, of breach of contract. Eden says it began taking orders from Shochat in 2018 for $900,000 worth of “artworks and sculptures.” Based on past experience in which he had paid for his purchases, the gallery handed over pieces, sometimes even personally delivering them to his home in Mahwah, New Jersey. Eden says it’s a small, family-owned gallery that can’t withstand these kinds of losses and is suing for the balance as well as interest, attorney’s fees, and expenses. Shochat could not immediately be reached. Eden’s attorney declined to comment for this article.  Founded in 1997 by Cathia Klimovsky, Eden boasts “over 100,000 square feet of spectacular gallery spaces” ...
Post a Comment
Read more

One of the Greatest Private Hiroshige Collections Ever Assembled Is Heading to Christie’s

For decades, if you wanted to talk about Japanese prints, the conversation usually began and ended with Hokusai’s  Great Wave . That may be starting to change. This September, Christie’s will begin selling more than 600 prints from the collection of Alan Medaugh, an American businessman who spent half a century chasing the finest impressions he could find by Utagawa Hiroshige, Hokusai’s great rival and one of the towering figures of Japanese printmaking. Specialists say the collection ranks among the finest ever assembled. The first auction, on September 17 in New York, will include more than 180 prints. The timing might be ideal. The market for Japanese prints has quietly become one of the auction world’s success stories. Hokusai has led the charge, with exceptional impressions of  The Great Wave  regularly smashing expectations. Last year, Sotheby’s  sold one from the Okada Museum collection for $2.8 mill...
Post a Comment
Read more

New York’s School of Visual Arts Reports One-Third Drop in Enrollment Since 2019, Faces Largest Budget Deficit Ever

Image
Amid a broad crisis in higher education in the US resulting from demographic trends and a combative Trump administration, enrollment at New York’s School of Visual Arts (SVA) is down some 34 percent since 2019, and the school faces a $22 million structural budget deficit, “the largest in its nearly 80-year history,” according to a previously unreported July 1 email to faculty and staff from interim president Christopher J. Cyphers. The school’s annual operating budget is around $200 million. SVA is largely dependent on tuition; full-time tuition is $55,270 annually for the coming school year. The drop in enrollment is partly due to the so-called demographic cliff, a plunge in enrollment resulting from a drop in birth rates in the US at the advent of the Great Recession, starting around the end of 2007. The email also puts the crisis partly down to “the ongoing dismantling of education and the arts by the federal government, and an onslaught of threats to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pacific Health Leaders Recognised in Pasifika Medical Association Awards

Image
Pacific health leaders recognised for decades of service and leadership at the Pasifika Medical Association’s 30th anniversary conference. Photo: Pasifika Medical Association Members of the health sector were recognised for their decades of service and leadership with a commitment to improving the health and wellbeing of Pacific communities in Aotearoa New Zealand.  As part of the Pasifika Medical Association (PMA) 30th anniversary conference held in Auckland this week, PMA honoured 13  health leaders and advocates with Life Member and Service Awards and President’s Medals. PMA Chief Executive Debbie Sorensen says the awards are an important opportunity to acknowledge the people whose service has helped shape Pacific health over generations. “Leadership in Pacific health has always been grounded in service. These awards recognise our outstanding leaders who have given their knowledge, expertise, time and leadership to our communities, often over many decades.”...
Post a Comment
Read more

Sideline Conversions 10 August (some rugby news and information to start the week)

Above: Thumbs up to Ma’a Nonu, who will wear the #23 jersey for the Sharks against the All Blacks on Wednesday at 5.00am at Durban.  Monday morning edition (updates expected): It’s school finals week in Wellington, with the schoolgirls finals at Porirua Park on Wednesday evening, Premier 2 and lower grade boys college finals at...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Picasso Etching Stolen 8 Years Ago Was Returned to Milwuakee Police

A Pablo Picasso etching stolen from Milwuakee’s DeLind Art Appraisals in 2018 was handed over to the city’s plice department on Thursday, according to a press release . The etching and aquatint printed in ink on paper, titled Torero , is the ninth in an edition of 30. When it was stolen in 2018, Bill DeLind told news organizations that it was worth between $35,000 and $50,000. “It was like, ‘Oh my God,” DeLind told local news station 12 News on Thursday. “I never thought I’d see this again. And there it was.” In 2018, DeLind described the work as having “walked off the wall,” telling the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he did not see anyone in the business on the day the work disappeared, and that the office did not have security cameras. At one point, police offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the work’s whereabouts, but that offer expired in 2019. Police broug...
Post a Comment
Read more