More thefts have hit the Santa Fe, N.M. area, AP
reports: Three handwoven blankets are the latest items to
be stolen, taken from the Medicine Man Gallery on April
15, the same day a task force of law enforcement agencies and the
state Department of Cultural Affairs met to come up with a
strategy to stop the burglaries. Gallery owner Mark Sublette said
the blankets were made in New Mexico and are worth $9,000, and
that the gallery has 24-hour surveillance and the burglary was
recorded. Police were not sure if the burglary was related to a
string of thefts from state-owned museums and private Santa Fe
galleries over the past four months. In December, a Georgia
O'Keeffe painting was stolen from the Museum of Fine
Arts and a second O'Keeffe was taken in January from The
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum. A $165,000 Joseph Henry Sharp
painting was stolen January 28 from Nedra Matteucci's Fenn
Galleries. It has not been recovered, and neither has a
$30,000 San Ildefonso pueblo bowl taken in late December
or early January from Morning Star Gallery. A
carving by early Twentieth Century santero Celso
Gallegos, a Stuart Davis oil work and a Billy The Kid
bronze statue were also taken from various museums and
galleries. Meanwhile, David Brandle, a Santa Fe man, has been
sentenced to nine years' probation for stealing two
bronze statues of imps from a Chalk Farm Gallery.
State District Judge Michael Vigil on April 19 sentenced Brandle,
22, and ordered him to repay the gallery. A jury in March
convicted Brandle of second-degree larceny exceeding $20,000.
The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College,
Annandale-On-Hudson, N.Y., will present its annual Award for
Curatorial Excellence to Walter Hopps, founding
director of the Menil Collection in Houston, at a gala
dinner on Tuesday, May 4, in Manhattan. Artist James
Rosenquist and Ann Temkin, curator at the Museum of
Modern Art, will present the award. There will also be a toast by
Robert Rauschenberg. Hopps's "sensitivity to works of art
takes in not only the works themselves but also the dialogue that
he believes can and should occur between one work and another,"
wrote Calvin Tomkins in a 1991 profile of Hopps for The New
Yorker. Hopps is curator of Twentieth Century art for the
Menil Collection and adjunct senior curator of Twentieth Century
art at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. He began his
distinguished curatorial career in Los Angeles in 1957, when he
and Edward Kienholz founded the now-legendary Ferus Gallery. As
curator and director of the Pasadena Art Museum from 1959 to
1967, Hopps organized the first museum exhibition of Pop Art and
the first solo museum exhibition of Marcel Duchamp.
Indian artifacts said to be almost 5,000 years old have
been found at a Lake Fort Smith, Arkansas construction
site, reports the Associated Press. The artifacts found at
the site include arrowheads and pottery. Once removed, the
items will be taken to the University of Arkansas researchers,
who will then catalog them. Other artifacts from more recent
periods have been discovered at the lake expansion site, where
construction started in 2002 and is scheduled to be finished in
2006.
Greg Martin Auctions, San Francisco, has announced that
Wm Pete Harvey has joined the company as an
agent. In this new position, Harvey will be available to
the firm's East Coast clients to consult, appraise collections of
property and serve as liaison for auction information and
services. Harvey has a long history as a collector and dealer of
firearms. When this avocation became more lucrative than his
business as a building contractor in Falmouth, Mass., he decided
in 1954 to focus his efforts on firearms. In 1964, he became a
full-time dealer and later began cataloging and appraising
firearms for various auction houses. In 1993, he also established
his own auction and appraisal firm, Wm Pete Harvey Auctions, in
Portsmouth, N.H.
The Metrolina Antiques & Fine Collectibles Show, North
Carolina, has changed its name to the Charlotte
Antiques & Collectibles Show. The 2004 show schedule is
as follows: June 3-6; July 1-4 (1,000-plus exhibitors); August
5-8; September 2-5; September 30-October 3; November 3-7 (more
than 2,000 exhibitors); and December 2-5.
Augustin Tzen has opened China Gallery at The
Manhattan Art & Antiques Center, No. 13, at 1050 Second
Avenue, New York. He specializes in ancient Chinese art including
some significant pieces from the Neolithic period (Twenty-First
Century BC), Han (206 BC-220 AD), Tang (618-907) and Song
(960-1279) dynasties.
