New England splint basket, $29,900.
Trade News from Around the World
The auction house Christie’s International, New York City, has announced the appointment of Jean-Claude Noel as international chief operating officer. In the newly created position of international COO, Noel will be based in Rockefeller Center and will be responsible for supervising standards of client service and operational procedures for all the firm’s offices. French born and a United States resident since 1991, Noel has an extensive international business background in hotels and hospitality management as well as in the transportation and shipping industry. He served as an executive on the Board of Hilton International and occupied key leadership positions at the TNT Post Group, a $9 billion European leader in mail, communications and logistics.
The Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, has received a grant of $10.5 million from the Donald W. Reynolds Foundation, the largest single grant in the museum’s 70-year history. The money will be used for the construction of the Donald W. Reynolds Center for the Visual Arts, reports the Associated Press.
Suzanne Flynt of Dummerston, Vt., curator of Old Deerfield’s Memorial Hall Museum, Deerfield, Mass., has been awarded a Robert Lee Gill Research Fellowship by the Winterhur Museum, Garden and Library I Winterthur, Del. The prestigious Gill Fellowship supports scholarship in American furniture, Chinese Export porcelain and China Trade painting, the decorative arts in America, art history, and the history of architecture and preservation. Flynt will focus her study in the Winterthur collections and library on the Arts and Craft Movement in Deerfield, Mass. Her research will be published in two books on the Deerfield Arts and Crafts movement; one of the entire enterprise which came to be called the “Deerfield Industries” and the other on the photography of glass plate photographers Frances and Mary Allen who were actively involved in the Deerfield movement.
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., has acquired four classic early works by the renowned installation artist James Turrell. They are “Royce” (1967), a horizontal single-wall projection, “Artar” (1967), a vertical cutout projection; “Amba” (1968) and “Orca” (1968), two end-wall projections.
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), California, has appointed Madeleine Grynsztejn as SFMOMA’s Elise S. Haas Senior Curator of Painting and Sculpture. Known most recently for her accomplishments as curator of the 1999 Carnegie International, Grynsztejn has been the curator of contemporary art at the Carnegie Museum of Art since 1997. She will start at SFMOMA in early September.
The Frick Art Reference Library, New York City, has completed a two-year project to enter records for its renowned collection of auction sale catalogs into SCIPIO, the international database of the Research Libraries Group. SCIPIO: Art and Rare Book Sale Catalogs is the only online collaborative catalog of auction sale catalogs in existence, providing bibliographic access to valuable sources of information on the provenance of works of art and the history of patronage, taste, and market trends.
The Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG) presented a check for $100,000 to the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg, Va., the second of several installments to be paid over a period of ten years for a total commitment of $1.1 million. The funds will be added to Colonial Williamsburg’s Annual Fund as part of its $300 million comprehensive fund raising campaign.
Newport furniture maker Jeffrey Greene has been chosen by The Rhode Island Historical Society, Newport, R.I., to replicate some of its original John Goddard masterpieces for sale to collectors and antique enthusiasts. Green will replicate the Goddard corner chair and tea table that were featured recently on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. Both pieces are displayed at the Historical Society’s 1786 John Brown House in Providence, R.I. One of Greene’s first replicas of the Goddard corner chair will be shown at an opening reception at the John Brown House on Sunday, August 27, 2 to 4 pm.
The Illinois Historic Preservation Agency released sketches August 11 of a new design for the proposed $115 million Abraham Lincoln library and museum in Springfield, Ill, says AP’s Christopher Wills. The new version contains some significant changes, made after public comments suggested people did not like the original version, said agency Director Susan Mogerman. Officials also had concerns about the cost and upkeep of the dome. Now the dome, which resembled half a football, has been removed from the design; bronze friezes that would have depicted scenes from Lincoln’s life have been removed; and the building’s many curves have been replaced with firm, straight lines that bring to mind the “prairie” style of architecture.
Dr John Driscoll, director of Babcock Galleries, New York City, and a scholar on the works of American Nineteenth Century landscape painter John Frederick Kensett has announced the preparation of The John Frederick Kensett Catalogue Raisonne. Driscoll is the author of John F. Kensett Drawings (Museum of Art, The Pennsylvania State University, 1978).
The Reading Public Museum, Reading, Pa., has reinstalled its Twentieth Century Gallery. Boasting such names as Vlaminck, Picasso, Warhol and Harring, which have been collected over the past several years, the new acquisitions and gallery place the museum in a position to showcase outstanding recent painting and sculpture.
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York City, publisher of art and illustrated books, will welcome Mark Magowan, vice president and general manager of Abbeville Publishing Group, as associate publisher beginning September 1. Magowan will be involved in all aspects of publishing, new project development and production. A graduate of Harvard College and Oxford University, he has served on the boards of the Museum of the City of New York, The Academy of American Poets and the Chapin School. He is also a fellow of the Morgan Library and a former member of the Visiting Committee of the Harvard University Library.
