September 2010

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Look back over two vibrant years of Apollo: browse every issue from January 2006 to the present day.

Léger painting returned to France
The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has returned a $2.8m painting by Fernand Léger to a family in France after detective work concluded that it was looted by the Nazis in the 1940s. Smoke over the Rooftops (above), painted in 1911, has been given back to the French heirs of a Jewish collector who died in 1948. In 1997, the museum received a letter claiming that the painting had been taken from Alphonse Kann, a legendary French collector. Much of Kann's art was returned to him after World War II, but the Léger painting was instead bequeathed to the Minneapolis Institute by businessman Putnam Dana McMillan in 1961. Kaywin Feldman, director of the art institute, said: ‘having researched this to the end of the road, we decided we had to return the painting; it was the right thing to do’.

Arlequin no longer on sale at Sotheby’s
A Cubist painting by Picasso that would have been at the heart of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern art sale on 3 November has been abruptly withdrawn from the auction. Arlequin (1909), depicting a harlequin resting his chin on one hand, was estimated at over $30 million and had belonged to the Surrealist painter Enrico Donati, who bought it for about $12,000 in the late 1940s. Speaking on behalf of the seller, David Norman, co-chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern art department worldwide said, ‘it’s been withdrawn for private reasons.’ It had been rumoured for weeks that the work would be removed from the sale because of fears that art prices would fall in response to the uncertainty surrounding global financial markets.

Getty to fund post-WWII projects
The J. Paul Getty Trust announced an additional $2.8m in grants this week to support projects focussing on post-World War II art in Los Angeles. The Getty Foundation, the philanthropic branch of the trust, has already awarded about $2.7m to local museums and libraries to catalogue archives that document L.A.'s cultural development after the war. In 2011 the Getty Museum will present a survey of Southern California painting and sculpture from the late 1940s to the early 1970s in coordination with Getty-funded shows at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Hammer Museum. The latest announcement will provide funding for 15 more institutions in Southern California to mount exhibitions exploring the development of the local art scene.

Raphael painting restored to Uffizi
Raphael’s Madonna of the Goldfinch (1506) will go back on display at the Uffizi Gallery, Florence, next month after 10 years of restoration work. The painting was executed when Raphael was 23 years old as a wedding gift for Lorenzo Nasi, a Florentine wool merchant, but was unfortunately smashed into 17 pieces in 1547. A contemporary of Raphael, Ridolfo di Ghirlandaio, put the pieces together again using nails and painted over the joins. The restoration team has spent the last decade repairing the damage and cleaning the surface of the painting. Antonio Natali, of the Uffizi, said: ‘We will celebrate it like the return of our prodigal daughter.’

Biennial opens in New Orleans
A new art biennial billed as the largest exhibition of contemporary art ever held on American soil opens in New Orleans this weekend. Prospect 1 New Orleans, an ambitious project set to restore the cultural vibrancy of the city three years after Hurricane Katrina, continues until 18 January.

Eisenhower Memorial competition chooses finalists
Frank Gehry and Moshe Safdie have been named among seven finalists selected for a competition to design a National Eisenhower Memorial in Washington D.C. The shortlist also includes Berkeley-based landscape architect Peter Walker, who has teamed up with Michael Arad on the forthcoming, much-delayed 9/11 memorial at Ground Zero; San Francisco architect Stanley Saitowitz; New York firm Rogers Marvel; and a pair of Chicago architects, Ralph Johnson and Ron Krueck. The winner will be announced later this year.

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