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Painting attributed to follower of Joshua Reynolds revealed as missing work by renowned British artist

A quiet painting of a reflective man in a modest brown coat has been newly identified as a lost self-portrait by Joseph Wright of Derby – better known for dramatic scenes lit by candle or moonlight or the glare of an erupting volcano.

“It’s a very honest portrait, very much the kind of picture you might give to a friend,” said Archie Parker, the art dealer who recognised Wright immediately, wrongly catalogued as by a follower of Joshua Reynolds, and then spent months trying to prove it.

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Aman Mojadidi discusses Once Upon a Place

The New York-based Pakistani designer Nashra Balagamwala has created a game to shed light on a process she is afraid of facing when her US visa expires

In 2016, the Pakistani designer Nashra Balagamwala attended her best friend’s wedding in Karachi. She was approached by an older woman, who asked about her relationship status. “You’re 22 and you’re still single?” the lady gawked.

“She was in shock I wasn’t getting engaged any time soon,” said Balagamwala, who now lives in New York City. “It infuriated her before she walked off.”

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The Telegraph

Hyperallergic

Haffendi Anuar and Jesse Wine to create pieces inspired by Asian columns and Henry Moore for development

Two sculptors, Jesse Wine, who was born in Britain, and is based in New York, and the Malaysian artist Haffendi Anuar, have been announced as joint winners of the first commission to create major outdoor sculptures for the Battersea power station development.

Wine’s sculptures will echo the reclining figures of Henry Moore, who showed work in nearby Battersea Park. However, they will include cups, sandwiches and flat caps to suggest a tea break of the power station workers. Anuar will create a site-specific series of columns, traditionally used across Asia to raise dwellings such as fishermen’s huts above the water.

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The Art Newspaper

The two septuagenarian authors of the Guide to the Architecture of London have updated their definitive book as an app. But can it offer the same insights into a city that is changing faster than anyone can keep up with?

“Maltese gangsters with guns used to shoot each other at lunchtime.”

Edward Jones is recalling the Soho of his past with his longtime associate Christopher Woodward. Woodward remembers “the first cappuccino machine in Soho, and the first tables on the pavement in Percy Street”, where Jones lived in the Architectural Association school of architecture residences.

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Who says practical things cant be beautiful? Iran has put its two oldest petrol stations on its national heritage list, making the monuments part of the countrys first petroleum museum. But these are no ordinary petrol stationsFourth Fuel Distribution Station in downtown Tehran, which was built by the Anglo Persian Oil Company between 1925-41, is covered in bright glazed tiles and boasts the same classic Islamic architectural features, including geometric patterns and arches, that can be seen on some of the countrys most spectacular buildings. The other petrol station, which dates to 1927, is built from stone and has strong Art Deco influences, showing the popular British aesthetic at the time. Unfortunately, a number of old fuel distribution places including gas stations with very peculiar architecture have been destroyed during the time or have been changed for other uses, says a statement on the museums website.

The Iran Petroleum Museum and Documents, which is located in the southwestern city of Abadan, on the border with Iraq, opened in January this year to document and preserve objects and equipment relating to Irans century-old oil industry. The open-air museum includes hundreds of objects from oil tanker trucks, kerosene lamps and oil product containers to historical documents. The museum hopes to add 15 more fuel-related heritage sites to its roster in the future.

Two members of the Russian artist collective Pussy Riot were detained for several hours by police on Monday for protesting against the imprisonment of the Ukrainian film-maker Oleg Sentsov. 

Maria Alyokhina and Olga Borisova were arrested in Yakutsk in eastern Siberia after unfurling a Free Sentsov banner and setting off coloured flares on a bridge outside the prison where the film-maker is serving a 20-year sentence. Sentsov was convicted of terrorist acts after voicing opposition to Russias annexation of Crimea. Other film-makers including Pedro Almodvar, Ken Loach and Wim Wenders have all campaigned for his release.

Alyokhina and Borisova were taken to court for holding an unauthorised protest, but were released after the judge found errors in the case files, according to the Guardian.  

Alyokhina was previously imprisoned in 2012, for a performance with fellow Pussy Riot members Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Yekaterina Samutsevich in which they criticised Vladimir Putin. They were sentenced to two years in jail for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova each served 21 months and are currently suing the Russian government over their trial and imprisonment. 

What brings together Ghanaian fantasy coffins and the idea that art can save you? The Coffins of Paa Joe and the Pursuit of Happiness (until 24 August), the latest exhibition at Jack Shainman on show across the gallerys 24th Street Chelsea location in New York and its other venue, The School in Kinderhook. The mammoth showa smorgasbord of more than 125 artists featuring big names such as El Anatsui, Hank Willis Thomas and Nan Goldinrevolves around two thematic groups: a collection of Gold Coast slave castles by the Ghanaian artist Paa Joe and a private collection of historic oil paintings. The sculptures by Paa Joe were commissioned by the gallerys late co-founder, Claude Simard, himself a voracious collector whose spirit infuses many of the unexpected objects on display throughout The School, a press statement says. Fashioned in the spirit of Ghanaian fantasy coffins, Paa Joes structures form a bridge between the material world and possibilities beyond impermanence. Look out for Titus Kaphars Menina, an imagined image of the dark-skinned child supposedly born from a secret affair between an African dwarf attendant and The Queen of France, Maria Teresa (a historic image of the queen, by a follower of Velazquez, hangs alongside).

Years before he found fame as a Magnum photographer, Elliott Erwitt was commissioned to document the city of Pittsburgh. Many of the images he took as a 22-year-old lay forgotten for decades, but have now been compiled in a book

• Pittsburgh 1950 by Elliott Erwitt is published by GOST books
  

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The 70th anniversary of the introduction of the listing system shows our view of architectural value is as arbitrary as ever

Designed to preserve the UK’s architectural heritage, the modern listed building system has its 70th birthday this year. A massive amount of redevelopment was foreseen in 1947, and no one wanted to finish what the German bombers had started and demolish even more historically important buildings.

Related: Cabbies' shelter and 'hobbit house' Grade II-listed for 70th anniversary

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Pablo Picasso was 85 when he gave the monumental untitled sculpture now famously known as The Chicago Picasso to the city in 1967. The work precipitated an aesthetic shift in civic and urban planning, broadening the idea of public art beyond the commemorative. In honor of the 50th anniversary of the works unveiling, the Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events is hosting the event Everyones Picasso at Daley Plaza on Tuesday, 8 August, at noon.

Paul Durica, a public historian who produces re-enactments and walking tours through his Pocket Guide to Hell series, approached the city with the idea of restaging the dedication ceremony a couple of years ago. Durica was intrigued not only by the scale of the 1967 unveilingMayor Richard J. Daley pulled a cord to release the drapery covering the sculpture, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra played, Gwendolyn Brooks read a poem written for the occasionbut with the opportunity to help the public see the work anew. After half a century, the Chicago Picasso has become part of the built environment, Durica says. Yet, as is well documented, the Picasso angered and perplexed some politicos and members of the public, either because of its abstraction or because of the artists leftist politics.

The sculpture might never have been in danger of being destroyed or being replaced with a statue of Cubs baseball player Ernie Banks (per the wishes of one alderman), but for several years, the word controversial preceded any mention of the work in the press. The Chicago Tribune did an informal poll of the public passing by the sculpture which resulted in comparisons to a baboon, a flying nun or a cow sticking out its tongue. Then it became a symbol of Chicago. Since there was no copyright on The Chicago Picasso, the image started turning up on merchandise and souvenirs. As soon as you see it turning up on buttons and coffee mugs, it stops being controversial, said Durica. It appeared as a background extra in films like The Blues Brothers and Ferris Buellers Day Off.

Children began using The Picasso as a slide almost immediately, making it a de facto interactive sculpturea feature that factors in the instant success of two later public art works in Chicago: Anish Kapoors Cloud Gate and Jaume Plensas Crown Fountain.

To prepare for the anniversary, Durica researched the archive at Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), one of the architectural firms that designed the plaza and civic centre, which was later renamed after Mayor Daley. The architect William Hartmann first started the conversation with Picasso and guided the project. Durica was able to study Hartmanns notes and read a collection of letters responding to the idea for the commission. When Hartmann visited Picasso in the French Riviera in 1963, he brought a care package designed to give the artist a flavour for Chicago that included a Native American warbonnet, a White Sox baseball jersey, Bears football helmet, and photographs of Ernest Hemingway and Carl Sandburg. It was noted that Picasso responded to the image of Hemingway the most, as the two had become friends during their time Paris in the 1920s.

The 50-foot-high Picasso was fabricated at the American Bridge Division of US Steel in Gary, Indiana out of Cor-Ten steel. A structural engineer at SOM scaled up the 42-inch artist-made maquette (now in the collection of the Art Institute). It was assembled on site, hidden by scaffolding and tarps, by a construction crew that welded and smoothed the 162-tonne sculpture. Picasso was sent images of the process periodically, and approved of minor structural revisions made to account for high winds.

Mark Kelly, Chicagos current cultural commissioner, was 16 and living on the far southside of city when the Picasso was installed. It was the subject of every news outlet and it dominated family conversation. The tone, and I remember it so vividly, was that we had been had, this alien beast or whatever it is with no name arrived and some poseur artist has played a joke on the city, he said. But the Picasso captured his imagination. I would like to believe that I became a little more open and curious to my urban surroundings and to what was considered art.

But despite the controversy, even at the time of its unveiling the sculpture earned a grudging respect. It was nothing but a big, homely metal thing. That is all there is to it, wrote the columnist Mike Royko in the Chicago Daily News. Some soaring lines, yes. Interesting design, I'm sure. But the fact is, it has a long stupid face and looks like some giant insect that is about to eat a smaller, weaker insect. It has eyes that are pitiless, cold, mean. But why not? Everybody said it had the spirit of Chicago. And from thousands of miles away, accidentally or on purpose, Picasso captured it.

The late designer Ettore Sottsass may be finally getting his due, but his most passionate collector refuses to take him too seriously — just as Sottsass himself would have wanted.

The Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and Garage Magazine founder Dasha Zhukovaone of the contemporary art scenes biggest power coupleshave split. In a statement released to the media on Monday, the couple said: We are committed to jointly raising our two children. We will also continue to work together as co-founders of the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow and the New Holland Island cultural centre in Saint Petersburg.

Abramovich, the owner of Englands Chelsea Football Club, is ranked 12th on the 2017 Forbes list of Russian billionaires, with a fortune estimated at $9.1 billion. Zhukova, who sits on the boards of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, was ranked 98th on ArtReview magazines 2016 Power 100 list of most influential people in the contemporary art world.

Abramovich and Zhukova were together for a decade, but the only indication that they had married came from a 2015 Wall Street Journal Magazine story, and the legal nature of their relationship was not specified in the announcement of their separation. The couple have two children, who were both born in the US.

They were pictured looking happy late last month at an opening at New Holland, a man-made island in St Petersburg with a history stretching back to Peter the Great. The couple, via Abramovichs Millhouse, LLC and Zhukovas Iris Foundation, have been converting it into a public art space.

The Garage Museum is located in a Soviet-era building repurposed by Rem Koolhaas in Moscows Gorky Park. The inaugural exhibition in that space in 2015 featured two infinity room installations by Yayoi Kusama. And despite Russias increasing isolation, the opening of the Garage Triennial of Russian Contemporary Art earlier this year drew a crowd of international collectors and curators.

Among the Russian social media speculation on Monday were suggestions that the split was fueled by Western sanctions against Russia. High-level Russian officials have reportedly been divorcing their wives in recent years and by some accounts transferring assets to them as a way to protect their fortunes against potential seizure.

Mr. Roth was a pathbreaking curator in London who stepped down in protest over the “Brexit” vote.

Nick Pinkerton on “The Zanzibar Films”

My friend Atholl Hill, who has died aged 82, was a silverware designer whose career reflected his considerable artistic talents. Pieces designed by Atholl include a silver plate for St Joseph’s church in Wool, Dorset, candelabra and a punchbowl for York University, a mace for St John’s University, Newfoundland, and a processional cross for the Chapels Royal at the Tower of London.

Born in Dundee to Louis Hill, a director of Low & Bonar jute merchants, and his wife, Agnes (nee Nairn), Atholl attended Morgan Academy, where he won the top prize for art in his final year and also captained a nationally successful team on the BBC radio show Top of the Form in 1952. He studied industrial design at Glasgow School of Art (1953-56), where, upon graduation, he was awarded the highest accolade, the Newbery medal.

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Julie Mehretu, a MacArthur Foundation “genius,” is executing a monumental new commission for the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The Art Newspaper

For last month’s readers’ art assignment photographer Patrick Harbron invited you to share your art on the theme of underwater. Here are some of his favourites, with captions by the artists themselves

This next month’s assignment is V is for value

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For this month’s project, Dr Fiona Bradley at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh invites you to share your art on the theme of value

Value in art is a much-contested notion. Artists engage with things that are hard to put a value on; ideas, ideals, beauty, challenge and protest. Yet the art market does just that, with some works of art selling for bafflingly astronomical sums, often long after the artist themselves is in a position to benefit from the sale, while others seem puzzlingly to have no value at all.

I’m interested, though, in the value that the attention of an artist confers on things in the world – the way in which art can make us look differently, or properly, at things. This can work in a number of ways, from Mark Wallinger’s State Britain, which made us confront anew the atrocities of contemporary conflict and the value of the individual in protesting against our own government’s role in it, to Phyllida Barlow’s Upturned Houses, which plunder the seemingly valueless materials of the street to help us understand the precariousness of modern life.

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Around 80 National Academy of Art members in the US have written a letter in support of Dana Schutz, whose painting based on a photograph of Emmett Tills open-casket funeral sparked condemnation when it went on show at the Whitney Biennial earlier this year. 

In response to this work, a group of Boston artists and activists recently called for the cancellation of Schutzs exhibition which opened at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) Boston last month (until 26 November). We were hoping to hear the ICA resist the narrative that Black people can be sacrificed for the greater good, the artists wrote in a letter to Eva Respini, the curator of Schutzs show.

Now, artists including Marina Abramovic, Chuck Close, Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman and Kara Walker have written their own letter in support of Schutz and the ICAs decision to exhibit her work. The exhibition does not include Open Casket (2016). 

As fellow artists and architects, we wholeheartedly support cultural institutions like the ICA Boston who refuse to bow to forces in favour of censorship or quelling dialogue, they write. It is also of the utmost importance to us that artists not perpetrate upon each other the same kind of intolerance and tyranny that we criticise in others.

The ICAs decision to go ahead with the survey of Schutzs work came after a meeting on 20 July with members of the Boston art community including Megan Smith, Allison Disher, Stephanie Houten, Pampi, and Vonds DuBuisson. 

During the meeting, they voiced their concerns over the ICAs role in exhibiting Schutzs work. The ICA has the responsibility to challenge dominant narratives, the appropriation of Black pain, and their role in history as institutions and individuals uplifting imagery with the potential to incite violence, the protesters wrote in a letter published online.

In a follow-up letter, they called again for the show to be pulled, saying: We are unconvinced that ICA has the will to challenge the egregiousness of continued institutional backing of this type of violent artefact. Peoples humanity cannot be up for debate. 

Schutzs painting of Emmett Till elicited protest from artists and critics, including the British artist Hannah Black, who called for the Whitney to destroy Open Casket "because it is not acceptable for a white person to transmute Black suffering into profit and fun".

First German to head major UK museum oversaw record visitor numbers but left V&A after disillusionment with Brexit vote

The V&A has paid tribute to its former director Martin Roth, who has died in Berlin, aged 62.

Roth was the first German to head a major British museum, leaving the V&A in 2016 shortly after it won the museum of the year award. That victory meant that Roth, after five years in charge, could leave while the museum was on a high. However it was a decision also hastened by his disillusionment over the Brexit vote.

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An exhibition at the United Nations headquarters in New York includes works by four North Korean artists who are participating anonymously for fear of reprisal. Ambassadors entering the building will see the works on display in the Delegates entrance as part of a 50-strong show called the International Youth Exhibition (until 11 August).

The exhibition is organised by the Beijing-based non-profit Eye Art International in partnership with the Society & Diplomatic Review, an UN-affiliated journal. 

The show is part of a cultural offensive launched by China. This exhibition is inspired by the Peoples Republic of Chinas One Belt, One Road initiative, an ambitious development campaign through which China hopes to boost trade, stimulate economic growth and enhance cultural communication across Asia and beyond, a project statement says.

According to the New York Post, the North Korean artists submitted their works in secret, bypassing government officials in the notoriously censorious state. One painting shows a mother and toddler looking at Korean architecture; another depicts a North Korean woman in national costume. 

Gloria Starr Kins, the editor in chief of the Society & Diplomatic Review, says that the initiative is important, yet delicate. Last week, the UN voted to impose new sanctions on Kim Jong-uns regime, which include banning North Korean exports of coal and iron.

Apart from the North Korean artists, there will also be works from artists of Pakistan, India, Panama, China, and many other countries shown in this exhibition, she adds.  The artists from North Korea will not be attending. The works will not be on permanent display, only for a week or so after the opening ceremony held last Friday (4 August). The German airline Lufthansa is among the exhibition sponsors.  

UPDATE 8 August: The North Korean government approved one artist. "The North Koreans sent us the painting that was approved and accepted by the country with a known artist recently shown in a New Jersey gallery. Unfortunately, the size [of the work] did not fit into the space," Starr Kins says. Four artists participated anonymously. 

Martin Roth died yesterday (6 August) in Berlin, aged 62. When he retired as director of the Londons Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) last October he was in good health, but cancer was diagnosed immediately after he left. 

Roth remained undaunted by his illness. On 1 July, just five weeks ago, he took over as president of Germanys Institut fr Auslandsbeziehungen (Institute for Foreign Relations), which deals with cultural exchanges. After heading leading museums in Germany and Britain he wanted to become more politically engaged.

Roth had served as director general of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (Dresden State Art Collections), overseeing 12 museums, from 2001 to 2011. He then moved to London to become director of the V&A, where visitor numbers soared with a series of major exhibitions. He oversaw the new extension which opened this June, played a key role in developing plans for V&A East on the former Olympic site and expanded the museums international links.

When Roth announced his retirement from the V&A there was considerable speculation about the reasons and the speed of his departure. On timing, he told The Art Newspaper that its like a love affaironce you split, you dont want to share the kitchen table.

We asked Roth whether he was leaving because of Brexit. It was just an element, but definitely an element, he said. Roth spoke out frankly: Brexit was about telling people lies, Little England coming back, new nationalism returning to Europe, xenophobia, hate crimes. 

Privately Roth was very disturbed that UK museum directors were unwilling to speak out before the referendum in June 2016. As he put it in our interview: It is part of our job [as museum directors] to publicly defend a civil society and the values of the past. It is not just objects we have in our collection, but values. This belief led Roth to accept the post of chairman of the Institute for Foreign Relations.

Germanys foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel today paid tribute to Roth by saying that he set standards for the museum world and was committed to cultural cooperation. Gabriel added: His death, which comes much too soon, deeply affects me.

Nicholas Coleridge, the chairman of the V&A, said that Roth will be remembered as a man of prodigious energy; a director with a global reputation both within the museum world and beyond; a committed Europhile and cultural ambassador with a philosophical turn of mind, as well as a dedicated husband and father.

For an interview with Martin Roth on his departure from the V&A, click here
 

Afghanistan, published by Taschen later this month, is a retrospective portfolio of the Magnum photographer Steve McCurry’s most striking images of the country, from 1979 to 2016

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The Theatre La Fenice in Venice has been given a dramatic overhaul courtesy of the artist Fabrizio Plessi whose Fenix DNA work was recently installed in the historic theatrical venue. The work featured 200 moulds by Plessi of the theatre's ornamental sculptures which were destroyed in the catastrophic fire of 1996 (the opera house, which opened in 1792, was devastated by another blaze in 1836). These moulds were scattered in the stalls area; a dramatic musical backdrop comes courtesy of Giovanni Sparano, who composed a special score played by Pourquoi-Pas Ensemble. Spectators [are] lost in the magic of the labyrinth of emotions, Plessi says. Theres fire and the theatre shines with a digital red light. The white light of the moulds illuminate the secret shadows of perception. The work was sponsored by Generali Group's Valore Cultura programme and presented in collaboration with Arthemisia. 

In an uncharacteristic move, the artist reveals something of herself, and points out the gap between self-portraiture and narcissistic selfie snapping.

The performance artists Marina Abramovi and Ulay speak candidly about their personal and professional relationship, from their first meeting in 1975 to a recent reconciliation at the Louisiana Museum.  

For more on this story, see Abramovic and Ulay reunite at Louisiana Museum

Tristram Hunt’s apology comes after mother tweets about incident at museum

The director of the V&A has apologised after a woman complained she was asked to cover up while breastfeeding at the museum in London.

The woman took to social media to point out the irony of the encounter at a museum filled with naked depictions of women.

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Smith took many famous pictures, but also taped hours of audio of jazz greats, writers and artists of the day in his New York loft. A new book explores his strange world

In April 1977, the photographer W Eugene Smith sat in a wheelchair in 23rd Street in New York and oversaw the loading of his vast archive into two removal trucks by a team of young volunteers. Among material carried out of his loft and transported to the Center for Creative Photography in Arizona were several hundred thousand photographic prints and negatives, hundreds of notebooks filled with his writings, boxes of cameras and accessories, 25,000 LPs and 8,000 books. His entire archive filled a high-school gymnasium, floor to ceiling, and weighed about 22 tonnes.

Like many photographers, Smith was obsessive in the pursuit of his vision, but fuelled by alcohol and a long-term addiction to amphetamines, his compulsive behaviour had over the years become extreme. Among his archives were several boxes containing photocopies of all the letters he had ever written.

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Royal Academy, London
Pots, jugs, chairs, textiles… Matisse’s work is peopled by his beloved possessions, which in turn begin to look like Matisses in this beautifully cluttered journey into the artist’s mind

At his wedding in 1898, Henri Matisse received a silver chocolate pot as a gift from a fellow painter. You can see this startling object at the Royal Academy. Low-bellied like a duck, it balances on three dainty feet and rises up, full-throated and almost comical, to a speaking beak of a spout.

Which is exactly how it first appears in his art, described in quite conventional 19th-century style. But Matisse soon starts to paint the pot’s personality. Its handle sticks out like a bicyclist turning left, or lunges straight at the viewer – en garde! The silver beak opens and shuts. It appears in a flurry of wild blue arabesques, trying to stand fast like a sailor in a storm. Or it sits quietly beside the artist’s young daughter as she reads, keeping a kindly watch.

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Sarah Nicole Prickett on Episodes 11 & 12 of Twin Peaks: The Return

  Con grande piacere, anzi gratitudine, Eosarte ha rivevuto da Pietro di Loreto questo ricordo del fraterno amico Maurizio che ha dato per anni la sua sapiente collaborazione alla nostra testata, e che volentieri pubblichiamo. PLP Sono passati già sei anni dalla scomparsa, la notte del 5 agosto del 2011, di Maurizio Marini  (Roma, 1942 – 2011) [...]

MPs David Lammy and Dennis Skinner, film director Sofia Coppola and Wimbledon winners feature in this month’s showcase of the best photography commissioned by the Observer

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Protests in Caracas, wildfires in Europe, the World Athletics Championships and Neymar’s record-breaking transfer – the news of the week captured by the world’s best photojournalists

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Travis Diehl on KNOWLEDGES at the Mount Wilson observatory

The Seattle Art Fair (3-6 August) kicked off its third edition with an expanded exhibitor roster and measured optimism from local and international dealers. Since the fairs 2015 debut, under the auspices of billionaire Paul G. Allen's Vulcan Inc., in partnership with Art Market Productions, it has been eyed with interest: an urbane and underserved market with an existing coterie of dedicated patrons, plus a new class of would-be buyers from the computing and biotech fields.

As tempting as this untapped potential is, the conversion of casual interest into serious collecting can be a slow process. Many viewed the third edition as crucial for the fairs national profile, and organisers had doubled down on outreach. Alongside bold-face names like Dale Chihuly, Dick and Betty Hedreen, Barney and Rebecca Ebsworth, Alice Walton, and Bill Gates Sr. and Mimi Gardner Gates, dealers were pleased to see buyers from Miami, New York, Los Angeles, the Bay Area, and Vancouver come through the doors of the slick CenturyLink Field Event Center.


Although the close-knit Seattle scene was still mourning the death, on Monday, of local arts booster and Costco founder Jeffrey Brotman, according to dealer Greg Kucera, it may have been a galvanizing moment, too, as some 5,000 people turned out during the collectors preview on Wednesday evening, up 20% from the previous year. The old maxims of a summer slowdown no longer apply, says fair director Max Fishko, of Art Market Productions. I also think that people are just tired of going to the same old places and are looking for something new.

While some of the coastal imports described the opening as mainly social, local dealers fared well with existing clients. Kucera had taken on 50% more space this year to showcase works by Northwest artists, including the late Michael Dailey, whose gradient color-field paintings (ranging from $17,000 to $27,000) were garnering buzz. Woodside/Braseths stand was packed, and sales had been humming along, including lithographs by Mark Tobey and Jacob Lawrence, a blue-and-red Michael Spafford painting for $45,000 and Margaret Tomkinss Sign of the Sun (1957) for $35,000Tomkins being the Lee Krasner of the Northwest, according to John Braseth. His advice for dealers new in town? You cant come in here and do a hard sell, he says. The tech folks feel targeted. As Seattle dealer James Harris puts it, There are a lot of people here who are interested and have the potential to become collectors. Art fairs can do some of that education.


West Coast dealers see the fair emerging as a useful hub during an otherwise blank spot on the calendar. Theo Downes-Le Guin, owner of Portlands Upfor gallery, was doing the fair for the third time, and by Friday had placed three Michelle Grabner bronzes with a private Northwest collection. I feel as if the Seattle Art Fairs unique identity was in place from year one, and thats quite unusual for a young fair, he says. Each year the crowd has become more sophisticated.

Roberts & Tilton, in its second year, reported a very successful opening day, with several pieces on reserve for institutions, including a 1970s Betye Saar wall hanging adorned with hanks of hair that the artist had recently discovered hidden away under her couch (asking $160,000). Its very different from last year, says the gallerys Julie Roberts. Its better. Speaking with Los Angeles colleagues, Bennett Roberts reported that the mood is positive, and theyre selling a lot of their less expensive pieces.

At the David Zwirner booth, stocked with a potpourri of gallery artistsfrom a large Oscar Murillo pieced canvas to a highlighter-yellow John McCracken plank, plus a large purple Yayoi Kusama pumpkin to coincide with the artists blockbuster show at the Seattle Art Museumdirector Robert Goff told The Art Newspaper, We brought a booth wed bring anywhereFrieze, Miami. Serious collectors had been through, but he was circumspect about sales before the weekend. People do buy, he said on Friday, but theyre working right now. And I feel like they do work very hard here.


Cheek by jowl with the blue-chip players were smaller outfits from the US, Canada, Cologne, Paris, Tokyo, and Seoul. Boca Ratons Sponder Gallery presented a solo booth of kinetic sculptures by architect-engineer-artist Anne Lilly, ranging in price from $4,200 to $65,000, which seemed to be the fair's sweet spot, price-wise; three had sold within the fairs first 24 hours. We dont often show in the same building as Gagosian, notes the gallerys Cristina Longo, citing one draw for the smaller gallery participants.  

Laguna Beach-based Peter Blake, who specializes in California Light and Space artists such as Helen Pashigan and Mary Corse, both featured in his booth, was doing the fair for the first time. His impression was that people here want to collect; they dont want to feel like a second-class city. He was impressed by the number of collectors who had traveled specifically for the fair: Lately its these outside marketsDallas, Chicago, Seattlethat are the most surprising.

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