Category: magazine

Pennon laid off about 24 employees across LNP | LancasterOnline and WITF on Thursday. 

Ron Hetrick, president and CEO of Pennon, said a cut of 10% of the company’s employees is part of a restructuring that stemmed from the donation of LNP Media Group to WITF last year.

Hetrick said the goal is to make the organization more effective and efficient as it focuses on developing its digital operations. He said the company remains committed to serving the community through its digital, broadcast and print products.

Tom Murse, vice president of journalism at WITF and executive editor of LNP | LancasterOnline, said 11 members of the combined news teams were laid off. He declined to discuss compensation, salaries or payroll of staff.

Ben Wasserstein, the Capitol bureau chief for WITF, confirmed that he was one of the news staffers laid off. He declined to discuss the layoff on the record. WITF was one of just two radio stations statewide to staff the Capitol with a full-time reporter. Pittsburgh public radio station WESA is the only other station will a full-time reporter there.

“We're evaluating the Pennsylvania Public Radio network to see where, or whether, it fits into the broader media landscape in Harrisburg,” Murse said in an email. “We've spent considerable time over the past year listening to news leaders at the affiliates we serve across the state, and we take their concerns and suggestions seriously. I am absolutely confident in our newsroom's ability to continue covering elections the way it always has.”

Hetrick declined to say what positions were cut or whether upper management received pay cuts as part of the restructuring. The layoffs include non-newsroom personnel, as well. Employees contacted for this story declined to discuss the situation.

Employees said Hetrick held a private, off-the-record virtual meeting with staff Thursday afternoon. No employees contacted for this story were willing to discuss the meeting on the record. Neither LNP Media Group nor WITF newsrooms are unionized.

Last July, the Steinman family gave the for-profit LNP Media Group to the nonprofit media company with the hope that the donation to the public broadcaster could find a new model of sustainability for the newspaper company. 

In a recent tax return, The Steinman Foundation reported that in 2023 it gave $5 million to the Steinman Institute for Civic Engagement, which is set up under Pennon. Neither Steinman nor WITF had revealed how much the donation was.

Hetrick said the intent of the deal with Steinman has been to find a sustainable model and that it did not include maintaining the status quo. 

But when the deal was announced in May 2023 the company leadership said no changes in staffing, printing frequency or coverage focus would be made in the immediate future when LNP Media Group began operating under WITF. 

“Our expectation is WITF has agreed they will continue to publish a seven-day a week newspaper with focus on Lancaster County for at least next five years and operate a newsroom the same size or larger for next five years,” Robert Krasne, chairman and CEO of Steinman Communications, which used to own LNP Media Group.  told LNP | LancasterOnline at the time. 

The launch of Pennon, the nonprofit that oversees LNP | LancasterOnline and WITF, was announced last month. At that time, officials said WITF and LNP | LancasterOnline would retain their own branding, websites, offices, editorial independence and policies under the new organization.

Attempts to reach Krasne and Shane Zimmerman, president of The Steinman Foundation, were not successful Thursday afternoon. 

Inigo Philbrick, the disgraced art dealer who committed the largest art fraud in American history, may have been released from prison but his crimes still resonate. On Tuesday, a US magistrate judge said that a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting that was used by Philbrick in his illegal scheme belongs to a collector he misled—and not the high-profile art lender he also duped.

The collector, Alexander “Sasha” Pesko, has been locking horns with the art lender. Athena Art Finance, for over five years in court filings that outline complex and conflicting transactions by Philbrick. He was released from federal prison earlier this year after pleading guilty to wire fraud in 2021.

In 2016, Philbrick purchased the Basquiat, titled Humidity (1982), for $12.5 million from Phillips auction house. He then sold shares in it to Pesko and another collector called Damien Delahunty, telling them that they were buying the shares from a company in Pennsylvania—SKH Management Corp. The firm, however, didn’t exist. Pesko and Delahunty are allies in the litigation, but the judge’s writing only mentions the former.

Pesko purchased a 66 percent stake in Humidity for $12 million through his company Satfinance, while Delahunty bought a 12.5 percent stake, forking out $2.75 million.

When the cash landed in his bank account, Philbrick resold the Basquiat in its entirety to an offshore company called Boxwood that he had set up on the island of Jersey in the English Channel. After this, he included the painting in a series of works that he used as collateral to get his hands on a $10 million loan from Athena. Athena then locked the painting in a New York storage facility in 2017.

Two years later, Athena sent Boxwood and Philbrick a default notice. At the same time, he was also hit with his first serious fraud lawsuit. Not long after, Philbrick fled the US. A judge in New York then ruled that he owed Athena $14.3 million, and the art lender moved to take ownership of the Basquiat.

Pesko and Delahunty protested the decision, and the parties have been battling over Humidity ever since.

Valerie Figueredo, the US magistrate dealing with the case, said Philbrick’s transfer to Boxwood through his company Inigo Philbrick Ltd was “a fraudulent conveyance.” She added that Boxwood “had no rights in the painting and thus could not convey a security interest to Athena.”

Figueredo’s decision is a recommendation to the case’s presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge George B. Daniels, who will end up making the final call.

For its part, Athena said it will appeal the decision. Jonathan Shapiro, one of the art lender’s attorneys, told Artnet News, “Our client utilizes an industry leading, well-trodden approach to asset-backed lending. Ultimately, we expect that the court will rule—as other courts have in the past—that the secured lender is entitled to enforce its rights against Philbrick and, in this case, his ‘silent partners.’”

Artnet news also spoke to Gregory Clarick, an attorney for Delahunty, who said, “We are pleased that the court correctly and sensibly found that Inigo Philbrick could not transfer the painting to Athena after he sold interests to Satfinance and to our client Delahunty Ltd.”

We’re nearly at the end of 2024 which means there are only three more Designer Desktops left in the year! This month, we’re thrilled to bring you a fresh design from Chinese illustrator and animator, Yukai Du, whose work has attracted clients like The New Yorker, Apple, TED Talks, The Guardian, and more. Known for her dynamic use of color and intricate layering techniques, Yukai’s art feels like a whimsical journey through dreamscapes – playful yet profound, encouraging you to pause and soak in every detail of her work.

Du’s October desktop design is no exception. In this vibrant illustration, nature and surrealism collide together. Graphic patterns cover the hills, and mysterious eyes peer from beneath them. Hands, a reoccurring motif in Du’s work, stretch upwards in the foreground, as if inviting a perspective of openness to endless possibilities. Whether you’re organizing your digital workspace or simply craving a dose of creativity, Du’s artwork is here to brighten your day (and screen).

Download the wallpapers for free with the links below for all your tech devices today!

DESKTOP: 1024×768  1280×1024  1680×1050  1900×1200  2560×1440

MOBILE: iPhone XS  iPhone XS Max  iPad Pro

Check out some of Yukai Du’s other work:

Follow Yukai Du on Instagram here.

View and download past Designer Desktops here.

As the Senior Contributing Editor, Vy Yang is obsessed with discovering ways to live well + with intention through design. She's probably sharing what she finds over on Instagram stories. You can also find her at vytranyang.com.

The Canadian auction house Heffel was recently presented with a seemingly forgotten painting by Emily Carr (1871-1945) that was discovered at a barn sale in the Hamptons several months ago by a New York-based dealer who thought it might be special. The price was right, too.

The dealer Allen Treibitz plunked down a mere $50 for the signed 41cm by 33cm piece, dated 1912 and titled Masset, QCI, then reached out to Heffel with details of his find. His instincts proved to be correct, and the painting was deemed an authentic work by Carr, one of Canada’s early art stars. After a good cleaning, it will goes on the auction block in Toronto on 20 November, when it will carry an estimate of C$100,000 to C$200,000 ($74,000-$148,000).

“Cinderella stories like Allen’s Emily Carr remind people that important treasures are still out there, waiting to be found,” David Heffel, the auction house’s president, tells The Art Newspaper. “It’s rare to come across an artwork that has been hidden away for so long and it’s one of the reasons why our business is so joyful—it’s not just about the value of the piece, but the thrill of unveiling history and sharing that wonder with the world.”

The painting depicts an Indigenous memorial post topped by a carved grizzly bear in the village of Masset, which is on British Columbia’s Haida Gwaii archipelago (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands). Carr would paint it again some years later. It is thought to have been gifted to Carr’s friend Nell Cozier and her husband in the 1930s. Originally from Carr’s longtime home of Victoria, British Columbia, they had moved to the Hamptons for work on a large estate.

The piece is inscribed Miss Carr/chez R. Charbo 96 Bvld Montparnasse on the back, a likely reference to Carr’s time spent studying in Paris around 1910-11.

The auction record for a work by Carr, set by The Crazy Stair (around 1928-30) at a Heffel sale in 2013, is C$3.39m (including fees), or around $3.2m.

Still life paintings of food have a long and storied history. Dutch and Flemish 17th-century artists famously portrayed lush, overflowing banquet tables. Impressionist master Édouard Manet once enlisted a sprig of asparagus in a clever joke for a patron. Among Pop art’s most recognizable images are Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup cans and Wayne Thiebaud’s frosted cakes.

Vying for a spot in that august lineage today is artist Noah Verrier, who has painted subjects like Smuckers Uncrustables, jelly donuts, and a can of Diet Coke (a lower-calorie echo of Warhol’s Coca Cola bottles) in a style that calls back to the Old Masters. Along the way, he has garnered coverage in the pages of publications from Bon Appétit to the New York Times and racked up some 189,000 followers on Instagram (and almost as many on X). It all makes you wonder how many likes Manet would have achieved.

The artist has also earned plaudits from some art-world insiders. “After first discovering Verrier’s work on Instagram, I now own two of his pieces,” Sotheby’s chairman and president Americas, Mari Claudia Jimenez, said in an email. “I was captivated by his blend of Old Master still lifes and modern fast food culture, which I find both witty and charming.”  

Another fan is William Tomicki, formerly vice president at both Tiffany & Co. and Sotheby’s, now editor of the blog Travel by Entree, who also discovered Verrier on Instagram and owns one of his paintings. “Love his work,” Tomicki said in an email.

Verrier lives not in an artistic center like Manet’s Paris or Warhol’s New York, but rather in Tallahassee, Florida, with his family and their pets. He earned his BFA and MFA at Florida State University and credits his professors, including Mark Messersmith and Lilian Garcia-Roig, with introducing him to art history.

“That was a blessing,” the artist said in a phone interview. “The biggest thing I learned from them was the idea of intimate scenes of daily life and the lineage to Manet and Chardin. That was unique to me. The concept grew from there to what was to me a revolutionary concept, and it still is—that you can paint an intimate still life but then think about the time you’re living in. So many realist paintings out there look like they’re from two or three hundred years ago.”

Noah Verrier, Pringles, Caviar, Champagne (2024). Courtesy the artist.

He made a splash with the $4,999 paid last month for a small painting of a solitary Uncrustable in a shallow space, its luscious fruity filling dripping out onto the table where it rests. From a starting bid of $99 on September 12, some 10 bidders sent it up over the next three days. But that’s hardly the highest his prices go. “For a small one, that’s a pretty good price,” said Verrier. “But when you do a brand collaboration, those prices will be in the tens of thousands.”

Those commissions have come from brands such as Dunkin, Popeyes, Little Caesars, and Philadelphia Cream Cheese. Sometimes they want a painting to share on social media to promote a seasonal offering; sometimes they want an original oil painting to hang in their headquarters; and, in one recent instance, they wanted something special to send out to influencers.

Even in the section of his website showing available works, they all seem to be sold. He’s a “star seller” on Etsy, and earned 100 percent positive feedback across 428 eBay reviews. Some of his paintings there combine high and low: one shows a flute of champagne next to a serving of Cup Noodles, and another shows a martini alongside an Uncrustable.

But it’s not just brush on canvas. The artist has (perhaps inevitably) expanded into the ether with a set of NFTs of his paintings. The highest price paid is for one that is currently owned by Foundation user @owhyte and that shows a painting of Eggo waffles, a bottle of Log Cabin syrup, and flowers in a jar; it last traded for 2.5 ETH ($6,300 at time of writing). 

Noah Verrier, Martini and Uncrustable (2024). Courtesy the artist.

Those on a more limited budget can get prints in various sizes, some hand-embellished, for prices ranging from $47 to $299. Want to share your love of Verrier’s work with the world? Check out the 15 pages in the merchandise section of his site, where you can find mugs, t-shirts, tote bags, pillows, beach towels, sweatshirts, and much more, emblazoned with his imagery.

It all raises the question of whether he is, in part, having fun with it all.

“Nobody’s really talked about that, but 100 percent,” he said. Growing up, he enjoyed comedian Tom Green’s MTV show and the work of icons like Dave Chapelle. “I think your art reflects your personality: it’s fun and it makes you laugh and it makes you happy.” 

Noah Verrier, Taco Bell (2022). Courtesy the artist.

But it’s not just a gag, either. Verrier is that rare artist who actually talks about a spiritual dimension to his work. 

“For me, every painting is like a prayer to God,” reads a statement on his website. “I can be still, look closely, and interpret the colors, shapes, and emotion before me.”

Really? Yes, really, though he admits he can see the tension between the Hershey’s bar and the Higher Power.

“There’s a loving care you can give to these objects,” he said. “There’s the idea that the subject doesn’t matter, but maybe through this wet-on-wet, alla prima technique, and through gesture, you can inject some kind of emotion. You’re putting yourself into that piece, even if it’s cheesy, and that’s why it works.”

As a top producer of children’s entertainment, Disney is no stranger to America’s culture wars.

Liberals have long criticized the company for its products’ promotion of gender stereotypes and racist tropes. Meanwhile, conservatives have excoriated the company for being “too woke,” whether it was casting actresses of color in live action remakes of the “The Little Mermaid” and “Snow White” or coming out against a Florida statute that curtails discussion of gender and sexuality in public schools.

As Disney CEO Bob Iger grapples with the unenviable task of navigating criticism from all sides, I can’t help but recall how executives decided to table an effort to “Disneyfy” American history 30 years ago.

My research and teaching investigates how media companies such as Disney construct historical narratives for popular consumption. I can only imagine how today’s culture wars would have expressed themselves at Disney’s proposed theme park, which would have featured everything from Civil War forts to Native American villages.

Disney eyes the outskirts of DC

From his early days as an animator, Walt Disney presented a sanitized and nostalgic view of America.

Mickey Mouse represented the “everyman,” while the company’s animators drew a largely optimistic portrait of America, first in the studio’s animated films and later in their theme parks. Anyone who has walked down Disneyland’s Main Street, U.S.A., witnessed Magic Kingdom’s Hall of Presidents or visited Epcot’s American Adventure can see how Disney strives to present an uncomplicated, uncritical view of the nation and its leaders.

In 1984, Michael Eisner became the company’s CEO. He was credited with revitalizing Disney’s brand through producing hit animated features such as “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Little Mermaid,” and spearheading theme parks such as Disney–MGM Studios – now known as Hollywood Studios – and Disneyland Paris.

A visit to Colonial Williamsburg inspired Eisner’s next venture: a theme park based on U.S. history that would be built outside of Washington, D.C.

Beginning in 1993, the company quietly started purchasing real estate in northern Virginia using shell companies. The land acquisitions became public knowledge only a few days before the announcement of the theme park, aptly named Disney’s America.

The news was largely welcomed by politicians. Eisner had already gained the support of the state’s outgoing and incoming governors, along with the Virginia Commission on Population Growth and Development. The plan was to build the park in Haymarket, Virginia, a small, wealthy area southwest of Washington, D.C., a few miles from Manassas, the site of two major Civil War battles.

History isn’t so simple

Although Disney had diligently worked to consolidate support ahead of the announcement, signs of conflict emerged during the first press conference, which featured Bob Weis, a Disney vice president who had helped oversee the planning of several theme parks.

“This is not a Pollyanna view of America,” he told the group of assembled reporters. “We want to make you a Civil War soldier. We want to make you feel what it was like to be a slave or what it was like to escape through the underground railroad.”

Questions over how Disney would tell the complex – often discriminatory – history of the nation spurred a group of historians, led by David McCullough, to lodge their concerns: How would Disney construct its narrative of the United States? And how would the park affect Manassas, one of the most important Civil War battle sites?

According to the original plans and brochures, Disney’s America would contain nine sections: a Colonial-era Presidents Square, an Indigenous village, Ellis Island, a factory town from the Industrial Revolution, a Civil War fort, a county fair, an early 19th-century port, a World War II-era battlefield and a Depression-era family farm.

On the surface, these themed areas seemed fitting. You could easily see them as exhibits at the Smithsonian. But issues emerged when people took into account that this was still a Disney theme park, with entertaining guests and making money likely taking precedence over historical accuracy and contemporary sensitivities and sensibilities.

The story of immigration, for example, would have been told through the musical-comedy stylings of Kermit the Frog and the other Muppets.

There were also concerns over how Disney would handle the exploitative and violent history of the treatment of a number of groups.

This included the enslavement of Africans and the genocide of Indigenous populations, the latter of which was also connected to the forthcoming 1995 release of “Pocahontas.” Historians later highlighted the film’s distorted history, and it isn’t far-fetched to imagine rides or attractions based on those misrepresentations at Disney’s America.

Mickey Mouse goes to Washington

Even as plans came together for Disney, criticism began to mount.

Disney issued an ultimatum to the Virginia legislature to improve infrastructure surrounding the site, threatening to abandon the project if the US$150 million for infrastructure improvements were not passed on the last day of the Virginia General Assembly’s legislative session in March 1994.

In June, the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a resolution opposing the park, and the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a hearing regarding the proposed project’s environmental impact.

The now-infamous hearing featured discussions regarding sewage, traffic and lodging, and even saw U.S. Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado, who at the time was a registered Democrat, place a Mickey Mouse hat on the lectern in a show of support.

As criticism mounted, Disney decided to shift its approach. In the summer of 1994, it renamed the project Disney’s American Celebration.

Rather than highlight periods or events in American history, the new concept would focus more on themes: Democracy, Work, Family, Generations, Streets of America and the Land.

Many of the attractions featured in these lands would have resembled attractions already in Disney parks. For example, Generations would have been similar to the Magic Kingdom’s Carousel of Progress, while the Land was already a pavilion at Epcot.

This would have also opened more opportunities for sponsorship. The Work section of the park would have included virtual factory tours of popular brands such as Apple or Crayola, while Streets of America would have featured cuisine from around the country, similar to Downtown Disney, which opened in 1997 in Disney World and in 2001 at Disneyland.

It all falls apart

Disney abruptly announced on Sept. 28, 1994, that it would abandon these plans.

Although the criticism from historians was a factor, there were also concerns about the park’s profitability in colder months. The company faced mounting debt from its Paris theme park and uncertain leadership after the death of senior executive Frank Wells in a helicopter crash in April 1994. Eisner, meanwhile, had undergone bypass surgery in July 1994.

Many of the attractions that were planned for the Virginia site found their way into Disney parks, particularly in Disney’s California Adventure in Anaheim.

Disney, both under Walt’s leadership and after his death, has long leveraged patriotism for the sake of its media content and park experiences. From Mickey Mouse to the Hall of Presidents, Disney’s nostalgic, linear and uncomplicated view of American progress has been foundational to the Disney experience.

However, an entire park dedicated to this approach – just down the road from a real battlefield integral to the bloodiest war in U.S. history – was too much for historians and other critics to ignore.

Disney’s failure to profit from an uncritical celebration of America may have been a blessing in disguise, as it avoided constructing yet another battlefield in the culture wars.

Two months after the stock market crash of 1929, an American Gold Rush heiress named Eila Haggin McKee purchased a Paul Gauguin still life called “Flowers and Fruit” (c. 1889) from the Reinhardt Galleries in New York City for $5,000. A decade later, McKee gave the painting to the Haggin Museum, a fledgling new museum in Stockton, California that she helped found, and where it has remained on display ever since. But for nearly 90 years, the art world believed the painting to be lost. When it was “rediscovered” in 2018, the Gauguin committee of the Wildenstein Plattner Institute decided to remove the work from its latest version of the artist’s catalogue raisonné. “Flowers and Fruit” was no longer an authentic Gauguin, at least in the opinion of the institute. 

How did a painting that was once coveted by museum directors and collectors alike simply disappear? And how can a work of art suddenly be deemed inauthentic, after more than a century of authenticity? This is the subject of The Case of the Disappearing Gauguin: A Study of Authenticity and the Art Market by Stephanie Brown.

The Case of the Disappearing Gauguin is many things at once. It’s an art detective mystery, a behind-the-scenes look at provenance research, a psychological analysis of Paul Gauguin, and a critical commentary on the art market. It is also a case study of what can go wrong from the minute a painting leaves an artist’s hands. Brown takes the reader from the rocky seaside coast of Brittany, France to the hallowed halls of Paris’s most esteemed art auction houses, the galleries of New Bond Street in London and Fifth Avenue in New York City, and finally, a little-known museum in northern California, uncovering, in her words,  a “complex, layered story” with “unexpected connections and surprising gaps.” 

In the book, Brown provides one definition of provenance: the “chain of transfer of ownership and possession” of a work of art. By this definition, there are some critical issues to the provenance of “Flowers and Fruit”  that originate from Gauguin himself, whom Brown describes as a wandering soul who lived a “peripatetic life” full of “fractured relationships.” Gauguin himself often did not know exactly where his paintings were. As the artist was not commercially successful in his lifetime, there was no reason for anyone to keep detailed accounts of his paintings. His agent, the renowned dealer Ambroise Vollard, kept “famously vague and inconsistent” records, according to Brown. And finally, the relationships between art dealers in the early 20th century was complex, opaque, and international, allowing for art to be purchased and moved under the radar. This combination of unfortunate factors sowed the seeds of doubt nearly 130 years after “Flowers and Fruit” was created. 

The painting features two vases, one blue and one dark pink, with eight pieces of fruit and floral blue wallpaper in the background. According to the Wildenstein Institute’s 1964 catalogue raisonné, which deemed the painting authentic but noted it as “disparu,” or “missing,” it was likely painted in 1889 at an inn on the coast of Brittany. Scientific analysis so far has confirmed that the painting does indeed date from that time period. 

It is not, however, a painting that screams “Gauguin.” Brown calls it “ordinary.”  Still life paintings only make up 15 percent of the artist’s oeuvre, and “Flowers and Fruit” does not resemble any of his others. Nor does it seem to reflect a particular location, which his work often does. 

But, as Brown notes, the painting does resemble Paul Cézanne’s “Still Life with Fruit Dish” (1879–80), which Gauguin owned. And he often lost track of artwork. He would stash paintings with friends and acquaintances between travels around France and long stays in Tahiti. Often, he would fall out with them; sometimes, they would refuse to return his artwork. And he had no family life to speak of, having abandoned his wife and family shortly after the French stock market crash of 1882. 

“Flowers and Fruit” was dedicated to “à l’ami Roy” — “the friend Roy” — per the words written above Gauguin’s signature on the painting. One of Brown’s first quests was to track down who exactly “Roy” was. Through what she describes as a “meticulous culling of source materials,” Brown discovered that Louis Roy was a fledgling artist and high school drawing teacher who had collaborated with Gauguin on a series of woodcut prints. Gauguin once made a portrait of him, and he owned numerous Gauguin paintings before he sold half a dozen of them to Vollard shortly after the artist’s death. Two years after Roy died, his wife sold two more. None of these, however, were “Flowers and Fruit.”

By the early 1920s, interest in Gauguin had increased exponentially. Major museums, including the Louvre, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago, added the artist’s work to their collections. In 1923, “Flowers and Fruit” came up for auction at the Hôtel Drouot, a respected auction house in Paris, consigned as one of several Gauguins said to come from the Louis Roy collection. At that point, the painting was considered a “signature” work of Gauguin; the renowned French actor Sacha Guitry purchased the painting for 14,000 francs — around the equivalent of around $10,000 today, according to some conversions. Six years later, Guitry put the painting back up for auction at the same auction house, where an amateur collector named Max Kaganovitch, bidding on behalf of gallery owner Étienne Bignou, bought it for 42,700 francs, or around $20,000 today. From there, it traveled to London, where Bob McKee, Eila’s husband, saw it in a gallery window. When it traveled to the Reinhardt Gallery in New York City later that year, the McKees purchased it. 

In 1939, the McKees donated the painting to the Haggin Museum, located 80 miles east of San Francisco. It was a museum specialized in local history, rather than art. There were no art historians who could write a catalog. It had no connections to the greater art community, and there is no record of them working with external art experts. This is how the painting disappeared from the art world — until 2018, when Brown reached out to the Wildenstein Institute to let them know where the painting was, and sent them her research. The institute inspected the painting and decided not to include it in its new edition of Gauguin’s catalogue raisonné, but did not give any reason why. 

“Flowers and Fruit” was once the pride of the Haggin Museum. The painting was emblazoned on mugs, coasters, and postcards in the gift shop. Due to the uncertainty of the painting’s provenance, however, the museum removed the painting from public view in 2018 and hung it in a private office. Next month, however, it will return to the museum galleries as part of a special exhibition delving into the history and provenance of the painting. It will be hung side-by-side with another Gauguin still life, “Still Life with Quimper Pitcher” (1889), on loan from the BAMPFA collection at the University of California Berkeley. 

Brown set out to determine if “Flowers and Fruit” was authentic. She does not find a definitive answer, but her research leads her to many other important questions: Who gets to decide what is authentic or not? What is the definition of “authenticity”? Does the location of where a piece of art ends up — a fine art museum, a renowned private collector, or a local historical museum — impact the painting’s legitimacy? What inherent biases exist within provenance research? What groups of people or types of artists are privileged in this research? Does the practice account for human nature and how history unfolds, which is often messy, unpredictable, and unclear?

According to Brown, the story of the painting’s fluctuating authenticity is more a “story about cultural power and identity, and the way that the art world assigns value.” Being left off a catalogue raisonné, Brown writes, “does not necessarily confirm or deny the authenticity of a work of art.” She adds, “Gauguin specialists do not always agree on the authenticity of a particular work.” Two more still life paintings by the artist, for instance, were removed from the latest update to the Wildenstein’s catalogue raisonné in July 2024, including one housed in the Glyptotek museum in Copenhagen purchased from the same 1923 auction as “Flowers and Fruit,” and one from the Musée D’Orsay in Paris. Additional scientific testing, Brown adds, could yield more answers. Ultimately, the convoluted history of “Flowers and Fruit” is still being written. 

The Case of the Disappearing Gauguin: A Study of Authenticity and the Art Market (2024) by Stephanie Brown, published by Rowman & Littlefield, is available for purchase online and in bookstores.

The day after Christie’s inaugurated its new Hong Kong headquarters with a $134 million evening 20th/21st century art sale, reality bit for the house, as its first 21st Century day sale brought in just $16 million plus fees.

Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips have each made major investments in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the region in recent years. Sotheby’s will inaugurate its own new Hong Kong headquarters in November, and Phillips opened a new Asia headquarters in city in 2023. It’s still too early to say whether those investments will help the houses defy the global art market’s ongoing stagnation. ArtTactic recently reported that sales of art at Hong Kong evening sales tanked 40 percent by value during the first six months of this year compared with 12 months earlier. That was their lowest level since 2017.

We should have more data soon however, as all three houses will be using their new digs to hold year-round auctions in the city, as opposed to previously holding all of their sales over the course of a jam-packed week or two.

(All prices below are with fees)

The inaugural 21st century art day sale on Friday had 44 lots, headlined by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama’s Pumpkin and Bird (both acrylic on canvas). Kusama has enjoyed increased attention in the United Kingdom recently, with two new public sculptures in London and her 14th UK solo show at Victoria Miro gallery. However,  Pumpkin sold for $1.8 million, just shy of its $2 million low estimate. Bird did a little better, selling for $1.7 million (high estimate: $2 million). Those results, and just two others, made the post-sale highlights. It was slim pickings.

Kusama’s compatriot, Yoshitomo Nara, deservedly made Friday’s highlights reel. His ABC (acrylic and graphite on canvas) sold for $2.1 million, exceeding the high estimate of $1.3 million. Nara’s Attack the Modern World (acrylic and colored pencil on paper) also sold well, edging past its high estimate of $320,000. His Long Long Way From Your Home (a hand-painted ceramic plate) was purchased for $810,000 (high estimate: $515,000).

A 20th century day sale preceded the evening sale on Thursday. Together, the three auctions totalled $162.2 million including fees, with 90 percent sold by lot.

As one might expect, Asian artists made up a large chunk of those featured in the 21st century day sale on Friday. Aside from Kusama and Nara, works by several other Japanese artists including Izumi Kato, Ayako Rokkaku, and Kohei Nawa were offered. Indonesia’s Handiwirman Saputra and Christine Ay Tjoe were included, so too Chinese artists Stephen Wong Chun Hei, Huang Yuxing, Cui Jie, and Ding Yi. Of the above, Ay Tjoe’s First Type of Stairs #02 was the standout performer, tripling its high estimate and selling for $770,000.

Representing the West, George Condo, Antony Gormley, and Lucy Bull were the most prominent names. Condo and Bull’s works (one a piece) sold just beyond their low estimate, while Gormley’s was pulled before the sale.

As for the wet artists, Britain’s Jadé Fadojutimi, who is barely 20 years old, saw her Gimmer of Our Twigs (oil, oil stick, and acrylic on canvas) skip past its high estimate of $515,000 to sell for $730,000. China’s Yuan Fang, born in 1996, also did relatively well; her Galloping Horse and Vines (acrylic on canvas) sold for $40,000 (high estimate: $32,000).

New York’s status as the auction capital of the world is safe for the time being, but it’s early days in Asia. Watch this space?  

Artist Liza Lou’s new exhibition Painting at Lehmann Maupin Gallery in New York debuts 12 new works made from tens of thousands of colorful glass beads that resemble brushstrokes. It’s a color and texture surprise that offers more intrigue the closer you view – a hybrid between paint and pixels, light and extreme physicality. Inspired by her experience viewing paint through a microscope, Liza Lou again pushes her signature material into fresh and unexpected possibilities.

Liza Lou, Gravity’s Rainbow, 2024 (detail)

For over three decades, Liza Lou has shocked and dazzled the contemporary art world with her room-sized installations of glass beads. Her full-sized hyper-color Kitchen (1991-1996) for example, took five years to construct with millions of beads and drew crowds (again) at a recent exhibition at the Whitney Museum. And just last week, the Brooklyn Museum installed her 40-foot Trailer (1998-2000) in their entry pavilion – inviting viewers to peer, one at a time, into a real 1949 mobile home with an eerie and unbelievable fully-beaded interior.

Liza Lou, Idyl, 2024 Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London

Liza Lou, Idyl, 2024 (detail)

Lou again pushes into new ground in her current work – where beads become oversized pigment particles. Rather than the well-ordered mosaic-like beads of Kitchen however, these beads pile and clump into coral-like 3D pixels. All were constructed in solitude at her studio in the Mojave Desert. (See her studio in Joshua Tree below!)

Liza Lou, Denoument, 2024 Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London

Each work here was also composed intuitively – one brushstroke at a time – resulting in works that may reference art historical echos, but also exist as great abstract paintings in their own right. At moments you forget the beads and just enjoy great compositions and expression.

Liza Lou, Denoument, 2024 (detail)

Liza Lou, Denoument, 2024 (detail)

But this unique material also produces some effects that I’ve never seen in paint – especially as you get closer. The best moments are when “brushstrokes” overlap. The beads, unable to blend like wet paint or fully cover the layer beneath, break into a joyous chaos of intense color particles in the most dense areas.

Liza Lou, Falling Action, 2024 Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London

Liza Lou, Falling Action, 2024 (detail)

Falling Action 2024 (above) is a stand-out, with a sewn white beaded background that resembles canvas and a few brushstrokes of “real paint” that camouflage with the beads as they skip across the surface.

Liza Lou, Epitaph, 2024 Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London

Liza Lou, Epitaph, 2024 (detail)

Liza Lou, Octave, 2024 Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London

Though I can’t wait to see one of these juxtaposed with other paintings in a museum, it is exceptionally special to see all 12 in one space – an accumulation that exceeds any one work. A visit to the gallery this fall is highly recommended.

Installation of Liza Lou “Painting” at Lehmann Maupin Gallery New York, 2024

Installation of Liza Lou “Painting” at Lehmann Maupin Gallery New York, 2024

Installation of Liza Lou “Painting” at Lehmann Maupin Gallery New York, 2024

Portrait of Liza Lou, 2024 Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London Photo: Mick Haggerty.

And as bonus, I highly recommend combining your gallery visit with a trip to the Brooklyn Museum to see Trailer. Created over 20 years apart with the same material, the works could not be more visually different and both become more complex, mysterious, and rich when seen together.

What: Liza Lou: Painting
Where: Lehmann Maupin Gallery, 501 W 24^th St, New York, NY
When: September 5 – October 12, 2024 

Bonus:  Liza Lou’s Trailer (1998-2000) on view at The Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, New York. (Check website for hours).

All artwork and installation images courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin, New York, Seoul, and London. Detail images photographed by author David Behringer for Design Milk.

David Behringer visits over 200 galleries every month to uncover and share the most exciting contemporary art in New York today. Subscribe to his exclusive weekly newsletter at www.thetwopercent.com and learn about his private gallery tours. And be sure to check out his YouTube.

Environmental activists have hurled tomato soup at two Sunflowers works by Vincent van Gogh on show in the exhibition Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers at the National Gallery in London.

One of the works—Sunflowers (1888, National Gallery, London)—was previously the target of a similar incident in October 2022, for which Just Stop Oil activists Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland received prison sentences earlier today (27 September). The second work involved in this most recent stunt was Sunflowers (1889, Philadelphia Museum of Art).

In an online statement, Just Stop Oil said that its supporters took part in the protest as “a sign of defiance after the original soup throwers, Plummer and Holland were imprisoned for up to two years at Southwark Crown Court today”.

At around 2:30pm, “three supporters of Just Stop Oil entered the Van Gogh exhibition at the National Gallery and proceeded to throw Heinz vegetable soup over two Van Gogh masterpieces: Sunflowers (1889) and Sunflowers (1888). The latter was splashed with soup by Plummer and Holland in 2022”, say the campaigners.

Ludi Simpson, one of the protestors involved in today’s actions, said: “We will be held accountable for our actions today, and we will face the full force of the law. When will the fossil fuel executives and the politicians they’ve bought be held accountable for the criminal damage that they are imposing on every living thing?”

The National Gallery says in a statement that the demonstrators “appeared to throw a soup-like substance over two works…. police were called and three people have been arrested. The paintings were removed from display and examined by a conservator. The paintings are unharmed. We are aiming to reopen the exhibition as soon as possible."

Louis Fratino, a painter from Baltimore who turned 30 last year, was already a global phenomenon before his debut at the Venice Biennale in April drew even more attention to his wide-ranging body of work.

His works are immediately compelling, drawing you into a self-contained universe that is rich with art-historical references. His subjects include quiet but emotionally resonant interior scenes and nude men embracing one another or engaging in sexual acts in scenes that feel tender and intimate.

Juan Manuel Silverio, a contributing writer for the biennale, writes that Fratino’s latest works “explore the ways in which LGBTQ+ people are socialized to navigate the world as an ‘outsider,'” and that he “juxtaposes the image of the family in contrast with visceral homoerotic imagery as a way to visually complicate the tensions between the two.”

Fratino’s presence in Italy grows even larger today, with the opening of a major solo show at the Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato, “Louis Fratino. Satura,” which will include 12 new paintings, several sculptures, over 20 drawings and lithographs, and 30 earlier paintings. Mousse Press is publishing a book in conjunction with it that focuses on Fratino’s connection to Italy, where he has spent considerable time.

Meanwhile, Magic Hour Press, which is run by Jordan Weitzman, has just published a stunning monograph with beautiful color reproductions of a range of Fratino’s paintings, an essay by the Baltimore Museum of Art’s American art curator, Virginia G.M. Anderson, and a conversation between the artist and the veteran painter Carroll Dunham.

Louis Fratino, My meal (2019). Image courtesy the artist and Magic Hour Press.

The book has an eye-catching, collage-like image on its cover, a format inspired by the mid-20th-century periodical Verve from the French publisher Teriade. “It was a series of publications, each one dedicated to artists like Matisse, Picasso, and Miró,” Weitzman said. “Because Louis’s work references those artists so much we thought that would be a fitting reference. Printed in a run of 2,000, it has already sold out.

Below, a deeper look at the current market for Fratino.

Source: Artnet Price Database. Image courtesy Artnet Worldwide Corporation.

The Context

Performance in 2023

– Lots sold: 41
– Bought in: 1
– Sell-through rate: 97.6 percent
– Total sales: $3.1 million

Overall Performance

Auction record: $730,800, for An Argument (2021), which sold at Sotheby’s New York on November 16, 2022, against an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000.

Top painting price: Also $730,800, for An Argument (2021) in that November 2022 sale.

Lowest painting price: Morning Glory, (2017), an oil and pencil on canvas that sold for $42,851 (£35,300) at a Phillips London day sale in June 2022

Lowest overall price: $3,543 for Untitled (2018), an oil on card box sold at Christie’s First Open online sale on March 12, 2024.

Expert View: While primary market prices for Fratino’s paintings are typically in the low six-figures, his auction highs indicate just how strong demand is for his creations. At least five works have recently sold for over $500,000 each. (Works in other mediums can, of course, go for less: Artnet recently viewed an image of an ink on watercolor from 2018 that was offered privately by a dealer for $25,000.)

“In the past several gallery previews I have received with Louis Fratino’s paintings in them, the artworks are either already marked as sold or are listed with the qualifier ‘price upon application,’ both of which indicate high demand,” art advisor Liz Parks said in an email.

Louis Fratino, Covetousness (2019). Image courtesy Sotheby’s.

Lucius Elliot, vice president and head of contemporary marquee auctions for Sotheby’s in New York, said that Fratino “falls within that group of Brooklyn artists using figuration as a way of navigating identity politics,” and named Salman Toor, Julien Nguyen, and Doron Langberg as key contemporaries.

“Each work is a carefully observed world in miniature, though the mode of observation isn’t precious,” Anderson writes in her essay.

Experts said that while Fratino’s more sexually explicit paintings may have a more limited audience, demand for them is nonetheless intense. The Argument (2021), which holds his auction record, features nude men lying on opposite sides of a dividing wall in the wake of a heated fight. It was estimated at $200,000 to $300,000, but sold for $730,800.

The second-highest price on record is the $504,000 achieved for The Flower Market (2022), which sold at Christie’s this past May, trouncing its $200,000 high estimate.

Elliot said that galleries that show Fratino have long waiting lists for his work. In New York, that’s Sikkema Jenkins Gallery. (The gallery did not respond to questions about the artist’s market.)

The artist “doesn’t let [paintings] out of his studio with any great velocity,” Elliot said, adding that demand for Fratino’s work is “global,”  with collectors coming from Asia, Europe, and the U.S. “They are largely younger collectors, at least in my experience,” he said.

The Appraisal: Fratino stands out for his unique vision and extraordinary skill; his beautiful, quiet interiors avoid feeling sentimental, just as his sexually frank scenes never feel explicit or confrontational. Demand for his work is vigorous across a wide range of subject matter, and given the scarcity of available material, buyers can expect those high-six-figure prices for his paintings to keep ticking upward.