visual arts – The News Desk

A painting of Winston Churchill by an artist whose work he hated is up for auction

17Apr

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Entertainment

A painting of Winston Churchill by an artist whose work he hated is up for auction

LONDON -- A portrait of Winston Churchill by an artist whose work the British leader loathed went on display Tuesday at Churchill’s birthplace ahead of an auction in June.The painting by modernist artist Graham Sutherland was made in preparation for a larger portrait that Churchill hated and which was later destroyed — an episode recounted in the TV series “The Crown.”The surviving oil-on-canvas study shows Churchill’s head in profile against a dark background. It is expected to sell for between 500,000 pounds and 800,000 pounds ($622,000 and $995,000) at Sotheby’s in London on June 6.Sutherland was commissioned by the Houses of Parliament to paint Churchill to mark his 80th birthday in 1954. The full-length portrait was unveiled in Parliament that year, with Churchill calling it, with a ...

Demolition of groundbreaking Iowa art installation set to begin soon

3Apr

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Entertainment

Demolition of groundbreaking Iowa art installation set to begin soon

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Crews could begin ripping out a groundbreaking art installation bordering a Des Moines pond as early as next week under plans announced by a local art museum Wednesday, saying the artwork is hazardous and would be too expensive to repair.City officials gave the Des Moines Art Center permission to begin demolishing the artwork, called Greenwood Pond: Double Site, as soon as Monday. Removal of the pond-side installation in the heart of a beloved city park is expected to take months.The artwork, completed in 1996, was considered a highpoint of New York artist Mary Miss' career, and news of its likely removal has sparked outrage from Miss, other artists and arts organizations.Miss has expressed shock at the art center's plan to remove her artwork and said doing so would vi...

Artist Zeng Fanzhi depicts ‘zero-COVID’ after a lifetime of service to the Chinese state

27Nov

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Entertainment

Artist Zeng Fanzhi depicts ‘zero-COVID’ after a lifetime of service to the Chinese state

SHENZHEN, China -- In one painting, a child sits, mouth wide open, as a worker in white medical garb extends a long cotton swab toward her tonsils. In another, a masked officer and medical workers stand guard in front of an apartment cordoned off with ropes and seals reading “CLOSED,” as residents look on with frustration and despair.These are some of the portraits that Zeng Fanzhi, 85, has painted to commemorate three years of China’s strict “zero-COVID” controls, which sparked nationwide protests a year ago. But Zeng, a retired architect living in Shenzhen, is not a critic of the measures, under which millions of people were tested, locked in apartments, or carried off to quarantine centers.Zeng has spent much of his life in service to the Chinese state, designing monuments in Beijing’s...

300-year-old painting stolen by an American soldier during World War II returned to German museum

20Oct

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Entertainment

300-year-old painting stolen by an American soldier during World War II returned to German museum

CHICAGO -- After a stopover in the U.S. that lasted the better part of a century, a baroque landscape painting that went missing during World War II was returned to Germany on Thursday. The FBI handed over the artwork by 18th century Austrian artist Johann Franz Nepomuk Lauterer to a German museum representative in a brief ceremony at the German Consulate in Chicago, where the pastoral piece showing an Italian countryside was on display. Art Recovery International, a company focused on locating and recovering stolen and looted art, tracked down the elusive painting after a person in Chicago reached out last year claiming to possess a “stolen or looted painting” that their uncle brought back to the U.S. after serving in World War II.The painting has been missing since 1945 and was first re...

Chinese artists boycott big social media platform over AI-generated images

29Sep

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Technology

Chinese artists boycott big social media platform over AI-generated images

Editor’s Note: Sign up for CNN’s Meanwhile in China newsletter which explores what you need to know about the country’s rise and how it impacts the world. Hong Kong CNN — Artists across China are boycotting one of the country’s biggest social media platforms over complaints about its AI image generation tool. The controversy began in August when an illustrator who goes by the name Snow Fish accused the privately owned social media site Xiaohongshu of using her work to train its AI tool, Trik AI, without her knowledge or permission. Trik AI specializes in generating digital art in the style of traditional Chinese paintings; it is still undergoing testing and has not yet been formally launche...

Black portraitist Barkley L. Hendricks is 1st artist of color to get Frick solo show

26Sep

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Entertainment

Black portraitist Barkley L. Hendricks is 1st artist of color to get Frick solo show

NEW YORK -- A dozen years ago, Barkley L. Hendricks, the pioneering portrait artist known for vivid, stylish paintings of Black men and women, stood outside the Frick Collection in Manhattan, known for its works by European Old Masters. He was explaining his love for Rembrandt.“It’s like good music,” the artist said that day. "You can be replenished every time you hear it.”By the time Hendricks died in 2017, the art world was finally giving overdue recognition to his work, which applied centuries-old traditions of European painting to depictions of Black figures — friends, relatives or strangers he photographed in the streets with his Polaroid. Still, curators say, he'd likely have never imagined that in 2023, he’d be the first artist of color to have a solo show at the 88-year-old Frick....

Renowned Colombian painter, sculptor Fernando Botero dies at 91, daughter says

15Sep

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Entertainment

Renowned Colombian painter, sculptor Fernando Botero dies at 91, daughter says

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Renowned Colombian painter and sculptor Fernando Botero, whose depictions of people and objects in plump, exaggerated forms became emblems of Colombian art around the world, has died. He was 91.Lina Botero told the Colombian radio station Caracol that her father died Friday morning in Monaco of pneumonia complications.Botero depicted politicians, animals, saints, and scenes from his childhood in an inflated and colorful form that was instantly recognizable. During his lifetime the artist attained global fame and influence, despite his humble origins, and his paintings were exhibited in museums globally, while his imposing bronze sculptures can be found in the parks and avenues of many European and Latin American capitals.“His success was truly immense” Botero’s son Jua...

From piñata to postage stamp, US celebrates centuries-old Hispanic tradition

9Sep

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Entertainment

From piñata to postage stamp, US celebrates centuries-old Hispanic tradition

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The U.S. Postal Service on Friday rolled out its latest special edition postage stamps, paying homage to a tradition with global roots that has evolved over centuries to become a universal symbol of celebration. The release of four new stamps featuring colorful piñatas coincides with a monthlong recognition of Hispanic heritage in the U.S. and the start of an annual festival in New Mexico where the handmade party favorites are cracked open hourly and children can learn the art of pasting together their own creations.Piñatas are synonymous with parties, although their history is layered and can be traced to 16th century trade routes between Latin America and Asia and the efforts of Spanish missionaries to convert Indigenous communities to Christianity. It was through d...

Visual artists fight back against AI companies for repurposing their work

31Aug

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Entertainment

Visual artists fight back against AI companies for repurposing their work

NEW YORK -- Kelly McKernan’s acrylic and watercolor paintings are bold and vibrant, often featuring feminine figures rendered in bright greens, blues, pinks and purples. The style, in the artist’s words, is “surreal, ethereal … dealing with discomfort in the human journey.”The word “human” has a special resonance for McKernan these days. Although it’s always been a challenge to eke out a living as a visual artist — and the pandemic made it worse — McKernan now sees an existential threat from a medium that's decidedly not human: artificial intelligence.It’s been about a year since McKernan, who uses the pronoun they, began noticing online images eerily similar to their own distinctive style that were apparently generated by entering their name into an AI engine.The Nashville-based McKernan...

X to auction off old Twitter items — everything from desk chairs to a rendering of Ellen DeGeneres’ 2014 Oscar Selfie

13Aug

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Technology

X to auction off old Twitter items — everything from desk chairs to a rendering of Ellen DeGeneres’ 2014 Oscar Selfie

New York CNN — Twitter has officially rebranded as X — so owner Elon Musk is holding a giant garage sale to purge the company’s HQ of remnants of the past. Items up for auction range from a standard desk chair to a large bird cage welded with a Twitter logo bird and everything in between. Since buying Twitter less than a year ago, Musk has worked to remake the social media site. He’s laid off most of the company’s employees, instituted a paywall and eliminated most account authentication, among other changes. Interested buyers can browse through numerous “#” and “@”statues, paintings of Ellen DeGeneres’ viral 2014 Oscar selfie and Barack Obama celebrating his reelection, a reconstruct...