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 Thursday, February 16.
NEED-TO-READ
Harriet Tubman’s Childhood Home Unearthed – The brick foundation of the home where the famed American abolitionist grew up in Thompson Farm in Maryland has been fully unearthed after two years of excavation. The project has also turned up hundreds of small items which will go on display at the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center. (ARTnews)
Ibrahim Mahama Reclaims Colonial-Era Trains – The Ghanian artist’s studio Red Clay will incorporate 19th century train coaches from the British colonial times. The artist acquired the carriages for £24,000 ($28,930), and these coaches will be transformed into classrooms, sculptures, libraries, studios, and residency spaces. (The Art Newspaper)
Tate Britain Plans Complete Rehang – The London museum is embarking on a complete rehang of its free collection displays, which will see a fresh presentation of the national collection of British art for the first time in 10 years. Opening on May 23, total of 800 works by more than 350 artists, including some 200 pieces acquired after the millennium and 70 from the past five years, will be featured. A particular focus of the rehang will be on female artists; half the contemporary artists on display will be women, and the gallery will showcase great women artists from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, including many who have never been shown at Tate before. (Press release)
Works in NGA Collection Sold Under Duress in WWII – Three Old Master drawings in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. have been identified as once belonging to Jewish dealer Siegfried Laemmle in Munich. Saint Ignatius Leaving Antioch (1773) by Johann Baptist Enderle, Madonna and Child Appearing to a Supplicant (c.1600) by Georg Neher, and The Banquet of Archeloüs (c.1545) by Luca Penni—were found to have been sold under duress after Laemmle was ordered to close his business in 1935. The NGA is now looking into these works and the possibility of restitution. (TAN)
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Major Gift of Degas Works Heads to Purdue University – Businessman Avrum Gray gifted 74 bronze works to his Illinois-based alma mater, including Little Dancer, Aged Fourteen, which has a value of $21 million. The works are set to star in an exhibition this fall. (ARTnews)
TBA21-Academy and Audemars Piguet Contemporary Co-Commission Venice Installation – Artists Petrit Halilaj and Álvaro Urbano are preparing to unveil a new site-specific installation as part of the ongoing exhibition, “Thus waves come in pairs” at TBA21-Academy’s Ocean Space in Venice. The installation, which is drawn from the Spanish children’s song Ay mi pescadito in which fish are sent to the school at the bottom of the sea, will be staged in part at the deconsecrated San Lorenzo Church, juxtaposed with a piece by artist Simone Fattal. The exhibition runs from April 22–November 5, 2023, to coincide with the Venice Architecture Biennale. (Press release)
National Museum of the Women in the Arts Gets Reopening Date – After a nearly complete overhaul, the two-year renovation of the Washington, DC-based museum has announced it will reopen on October 21, 2023. The museum now boasts more than 20 percent more exhibition space, a new learning center, performance hall, and a forthcoming special exhibition featuring the work of 12 women artists. (Press release)
Cassi Namoda Gets New Representation – The Mozambique-born New York- and Massachusetts-based artist has joined the stable at 303 Gallery. Namoda’s paintings draw from mythology, literature, and cinema, blending Western tropes with African indigenous religions. Namoda is also represented by Goodman Gallery Johannesburg, Cape Town, and London. (Instagram)
FOR ARTS SAKE
Freezer Returned to Banksy Artwork – The freezer that provided the setting for Banksy’s most recent mural was returned to its location in Margate, after the local council removed it just hours after the artwork appeared, citing safety concerns. The image, titled Valentine’s Day Mascara, appeared to reference domestic violence, with a 1950’s-style housewife having disposed of her abuser in the freezer. (Guardian)
<img aria-describedby=”caption-attachment-2256590″ loading=”lazy” class=”size-full wp-image-2256590″ src=”https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/02/GettyImages-1466443035.jpg” alt=”Banksy’s newly intact Valentine’s day mascara. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.” width=”1024″ height=”683″ srcset=”https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/02/GettyImages-1466443035.jpg 1024w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/02/GettyImages-1466443035-300×200.jpg 300w, https://news.artnet.com/app/news-upload/2023/02/GettyImages-1466443035-50×33.jpg 50w” sizes=”(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px”>
Banksy’s newly intact Valentine’s day mascara. Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images.
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.
