Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most consequential developments coming out of the art world and art market. Here’s what you need to know on this Wednesday, January 11.
NEED-TO-READ
Man Who Hawked Fake Warhols Arrested – Brian Walshe, who was investigated by the FBI in 2016 for selling fake Andy Warhol prints to an L.A. gallery on eBay, has been arrested in connection with his wife’s disappearance. In the week since Ann Walshe, who assisted him in the eBay con, was reported missing, authorities have found blood and a damaged knife in the couple’s home and evidence that Brian had Googled how to dispose of a body. (Artnews)
Spanish Armada Maps Reveal Changes Made Centuries Later – Conservation work on 16th- century hand-drawn maps tracking the battles of the Spanish Armada has revealed that they contain annotations in red that were added in the 19th century. It is believed this was done to make them more attractive for sale at auction. (The Art Newspaper)
San Francisco Gallerist Under Fire for Hosing a Homeless Woman– Collier Gwin, who owns San Francisco’s Foster Gwin Gallery, was caught on video spraying an unhoused woman with a hose in front of his gallery on Monday morning. Gwin, who specializes in antiquities and Abstract-Expressionist art, told a San Francisco newspaper he did not regret his actions and had tried to help her in the past. “I’m only sorry that … my way of helping her countlessly has gotten nothing done.” (Guardian)
Residency Program Brings Ukrainian Artists to Los Angeles – Six artists in Ukraine will be welcomed to Los Angeles, thanks to a new residency program “Kyiv to L.A.” spearheaded by the curator Asha Bukojemsky. Participating host venues include ICA L.A., Villa Aurora, and 18th Street Arts Center. (Hyperallergic)
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Blanton Museum Announces New Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art – Hannah Klemm, currently associate curator of modern and contemporary art at the Saint Louis Art Museum, will fill the vacancy left by Veronica Roberts at the Blanton Museum. Roberts became director of the Cantor Arts Center at California’s Stanford University in 2022. (Press release)
Venice Architecture Biennale Launches a College Edition – The first Biennale College Architettura targeting graduate students, graduates under 30 years old, early career academics, and emerging practitioners under the age of 35 will take place from June 25 to July 22. An open call for applications is on through to February 17 and up to 50 eligible participants will be selected. (Press release)
Bonhams Gets a New Head of Chinese Art in Paris – Chinese art specialist Caroline Schulten has been appointed head of the Bonhams Chinese ceramics and works of art department in Paris. (Press release)
Skeleton of the “Irish Giant” Is Removed From London Museum – It was the dying wish in 1783 of a seven-foot-seven-inch Irish man that his skeleton not end up in a museum, but for more than two centuries his has hung in the Hunterian in London. Museum bosses have now decided the display is “insensitive” but there will be no delayed burial, instead the remains of the “Irish Giant” are being kept for scientific research. (Daily Mail Online)
FOR ART’S SAKE
Whitechapel Gallery Stages Charity Auction – Fifteen artists including Jenny Holzer, JR, Alfie Caine, and Lydia Pettit have donated works for a charity auction to raise funds for the education and community programs of London’s Whitechapel Gallery as part of its Art Icon award. Phillips will host the auction online; bidding is welcome from January 12 to January 20.(Press release)
Alfie Caine, Pear and Lilies (2022). Courtesy the artist, Whitechapel Gallery, and Phillips.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
