National Museum of Women in the Arts Founder Dies, Cindy Sherman Joins Hauser & Wirth, and More: Morning Links from March 9, 2021
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The Headlines
THE FOUNDER OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS in Washington, D.C., Wilhelmina Cole Holladay, has died at the age of 98, the Washington Post reports. The pivotal moment in Holladay’s life as a patron came in the 1970s when she was taken with a still life by the 17th-century Flemish artist Clara Peeters in a European museum, but could find no information about the artist in her trusty art-history textbook. (It was filled with the artistic exploits of men.) “Painting by painting, artist by artist, we set out to track down great women artists who had been forgotten or ignored,” she once said. With her late husband, Wallace F. Holladay, she amassed hundreds of works by women, and in 1987 they opened the NMWA, whose collection now numbers more than 5,000, according to the Art Newspaper. Its director, Susan Fisher Sterling , said that Holladay’s “foresight in recognizing women artists of the past and championing women artists of the present by creating a new museum was visionary—even revolutionary—for the time.”
CINDY SHERMAN HAS JOINED HAUSER & WIRTH—an art-market move of seismic proportions—Sarah Douglas and Alex Greenberger report in ARTnews. For 40 years, the pioneering photographer was represented by Metro Pictures in New York, which said on Sunday that it would close by year’s end. Sherman’s cunning images, in which she appears in an endless variety of guises, have made her one of today’s most famous and widely collected artists. At her new heavyweight home, which has branches across three continents, she will join a roster that includes Pierre Huyghe, Ida Applebroog, and Mark Bradford. Hauser & Wirth’s president, Marc Payot, said that the gallery is excited “to introduce the artist’s work to ever-broader audiences and new generations worldwide.”
The Digest
The artist Alexander Klee, who made art under the name Aljoscha Ségard, has died at the age of 80. Klee was deeply involved in promoting the legacy of his grandfather, the storied modernist painter Paul Klee. [The Art Newspaper]
The Brazilian government has cut off cultural funding to regions that have imposed lockdowns aimed at curtailing the coronavirus’s spread. [ArtReview]
This Banksy guy stays busy! The street artist will auction a painting that pays tribute to healthcare workers through Christie’s later this month to raise money for the United Kingdom’s National Health Service. It could fetch north of £3 million (about $4.16 million). [BBC]
Rents have fallen in the Central district of Hong Kong, and some dealers are finding deals on spaces there. [South China Morning Post]
Chicago dealer Mariane Ibrahim, who focuses on contemporary art from the African diaspora, is opening a Paris branch of her gallery in September. “I started to notice that there is growing demand from French collectors and others—Italians, as well—and I thought there was an opportunity for me to be the face of a new presentation of young and emerging artists of African descent,” Ibrahim told Andy Battaglia. [ARTnews]
The Louvre has been expanding its brand partnerships amid the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, it brought in €4.5 million (about $5.3 million) through such initiatives, a solid jump from 2019’s haul of €2.7 million ($3.2 million). [The Art Newspaper]
Twitter’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, has put up for auction, as an NFT, the first ever tweet (which was sent by him). The leading bid at the moment is $2.5 million. [People]
The late, great Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi will be honored with the Venice Architecture Biennale’s Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at its 2021 edition (which is set to open in May). Bo Bardi died in 1992 at the age of 77. [Designboom]
The Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati has hired Marcus Margerum its deputy director and chief business officer, a new position. He’s coming from Georgia, where he was vice president of government and community affairs with the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau. [ArtDaily]
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and her cat Cookie Tsai hung out with Yoshitomo Nara in advance of the opening of the artist’s exhibition at the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts in Taipei. [Focus Taiwan]
The Kicker
A COPY OF WILD RASPBERRIES, THE LIMITED-EDITION COOKBOOK that Andy Warhol made with the interior decorator Suzie Frankfurt in 1959 will hit the block at Bonhams in New York this month with an estimate of $30,000 to $50,000, the Guardian reports. A note before you bid: The recipes are more conceptual than cookable. (One is titled “Gefilte of Fighting Fish.” ) There are believed to be only 34 of editions of the book in existence. A few were apparently bought by customers at the New York ice-cream standby Serendipity 3, and the rest were given to friends. Frankfurt, who wrote the recipes, said she “thought it would be a masterpiece and we’d sell thousands. I think we sold 20.” [The Guardian]
Thank you for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.
