Interest in the Old Masters category of collecting has seen a resurgence in the past few years as auction houses have learned that there are indeed people willing to pay prices for vintage masterpieces akin to dollar amounts going to contemporary art—the more-expensive collecting category over the past two decades or so.

But who exactly are the buyers of some of these historically important artworks? That’s the premise of My Rembrandt, a new documentary directed by Oeke Hoogendijk that aims to tell the stories of some of some of the people who own work by the ultimate 17th-century Dutch Golden Age master.

The film begins inside a Scottish castle, later revealed to be that of the Duke of Buccleuch, one of Europe’s largest landowners. We slowly watch the camera pan over Rembrandt’s Old Woman Reading, which is hung high above a fireplace in a reading room. … Read the rest

Kim Tschang-Yeul, the influential postwar artist whose groundbreaking water drop paintings heralded new frontiers for abstraction, died on Tuesday at the age of 91. A cause of death was not given. The news of his passing was announced in emails by his two galleries, Tina Kim Gallery and Almine Rech.

Kim’s most well-known paintings, in which droplets of water appear to protrude from monochromatic canvases but are in fact optical illusions, toe a very fine line between abstraction and figuration. These works, begun in the early 1970s, depict various volumes of droplets, ranging from single drops to dozens upon dozens of them. In Kim’s hands, water droplets became entrancing, enlivened elements.

“The act of painting water drops is to dissolve all things within [these], to return to a transparent state of ‘nothingness,’” Kim once said, according to a press release for a 2019 exhibition at Tina Kim Gallery that … Read the rest

Marshall McKay, the first Indigenous board chair of the Autry Museum of the American West in Los Angeles, has died at age 68. The Los Angeles Times reported that the cause of death was complications from Covid-19.

A former chairman of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, McKay, who was of Pomo-Wintun heritage, is known for his role growing the tribe’s land holdings in Yolo County, California, and his work establishing its economic autonomy. He was also a founding member of the nonprofit Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, a member of the International Indigenous Peoples Forum on Climate Change, a board member of the UC Davis Foundation, and a board member of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. McKay also served on the California Native American Heritage Commission.

McKay joined the Autry’s board in 2007 and became chair in 2010, finishing his term in 2016. He … Read the rest

Monday, January 4

Six Philadelphia Cultural Institutions Announce 2021 Reopening Dates
Following temporary closures that have been in effect just before the Thanksgiving holiday, six institutions in Philadelphia have made plans to reopen in 2021. The Franklin Institute will reopen to the public January 6, and the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Academy of Natural Sciences will reopen January 8. The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts will reopen January 21, while the historic Eastern State Penitentiary will reopen in March.

Amanda Coulson Departs National Art Gallery of the Bahamas
Amanda Coulson, who has served as executive director of the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas for nine years, will leave her post in May to join Nassau’s new TERN Gallery as founding director. The recently opened enterprise will foreground Bahamian and Caribbean art, and its first exhibition, titled “Inherited Values,” will feature work by … Read the rest