British artist Damien Hirst has turned down an offer to become a Royal Academician at the Royal Academy in London, an institution that was founded in 1768 by King George III.

The refusal was revealed by Secretary and Chief Executive Dr Charles Saumarez Smith CBE, who told the Evening Standard that he does not know the reasons of this decision.

Other contemporary artists, such as Tracey Emin, who made her dirty bed an artistic installation, have accepted to become a Royal Academician.

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The winner of the BP Portrait Award 2009 was announced by Sebastian Faulks at the National Portrait Gallery. In a record-breaking year for entries the prestigious first prize was won by 44-year-old Surrey artist Peter Monkman. His winning portrait, Changeling 2, is part of a series of portraits of his daughter, Anna, at different stages of her life. Peter wins £25,000 and a commission, at the National Portrait Gallery Trustees' discretion, worth £4,000. The second prize of £8,000 goes to Michael Gaskell for Tom and the third prize of £6,000 goes to Annalisa Avancini for Manuel.

There is, also for the third time, the BP Young Artist Award of £5,000 for the work of an entrant aged between 18 and 30. This has been won by Mark Jameson for Benfica Blue. 

Peter Monkman (b.1964) for Changeling 2 (oil on canvas, 1220 x 900 mm) was shortlisted for the first time this year, having been included in the BP Portrait Award exhibition in 1999, 2001 and 2003. Currently Director of Art at Charterhouse School, Surrey, Monkman, 44, studied visual arts at the University of Lancaster, John Moores University Liverpool and the University of.

The shortlisted portrait is part of a series of portraits of his daughter exploring the concept of the changeling, a child substituted for another by stealth, often with an elf. ‘I challenge the fixed notion of an idealised image of childhood and substitute it for a more unsettling, complex, representation that exists in its own right as a painting.' The initial ideas for this portrait came from photographic studies of Anna playing in woods in Brittany where the light had a magical quality.

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The Mayor of Linz, Franz Dobusch, announced yesterday that the town will return the painting titled, Portrait of a Woman (Ria Munk) made by Gustav Klimt to the descendants of a Jewish family who were robbed of it by the Nazis.

An independent expert has confirmed the painting was seized from Mrs Munk by the Nazis after she was deported to a concentration camp where she died in 1941.

Family lawyer Alfred Noll applied in 2007 for the return of the painting, which made its way into Linz's collection from an art dealer after the Second World War.

Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian Symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Art Nouveau (Vienna Secession) movement. His major works include paintings, murals, sketches, and other art objects, many of which are on display in the Vienna Secession gallery. Klimt's primary subject was the female body, and his works are marked by a frank eroticism--nowhere is this more apparent than in his numerous drawings in pencil.

Klimt became one of the founding members and president of the Wiener Sezession (Vienna Secession) in 1897 and of the group's periodical Ver Sacrum (Sacred Spring). He remained with the Secession until 1908. The group's goals were to provide exhibitions for unconventional young artists, to bring the best foreign artists' works to Vienna, and to publish its own magazine to showcase members' work. The group declared no manifesto and did not set out to encourage any particular style -- Naturalists, Realists, and Symbolists all coexisted. The government supported their efforts and gave them a lease on public land to erect an exhibition hall. The group's symbol was Pallas Athena, the Greek goddess of just causes, wisdom, and the arts -- and Klimt painted his radical version in 1898.

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Emmanuel Di-Donna, Vice Chairman, Impressionist and Modern Art Worldwide and Head of Sotheby’s Evening Sales, New York, commented, “This group of paintings, all from Lempicka’s prime period, embodies the spirit of the Art Deco era and its sense of style and modernity. These iconic images range from intimate and sensual to bold and monumental. As an artist, 2 Lempicka drew on the avant-garde art and design around her, Cubism in particular, to derive a distinct aesthetic all her own.”

Continue reading "Important Works by Tamara de Lempicka From the Collection of Wolfgang Joop To be sold at Sotheby’s in New York" »

Continue reading "Researchers in Germany Use Computed Tomography to Examine Hidden Face in Nefertiti" »