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The Headlines
SEND UP THE WHITE SMOKE. Next week, Gagosian will show at its Davies Street space in London what is believed to be the first “screaming Pope” painting that Francis Bacon ever made, the Art Newspaper reports. The piece dates to 1946 and has reportedly never been exhibited. Art historian Martin Harrison came across it in a warehouse in northern Italy when putting together the Bacon catalogue raisonné in 2016; a collector from the country later purchased it. It had been believed that the artist destroyed the Popes he made around 1946, the Times of London wrote in 2016. Bacon created more than 40 Popes, and an example from around 1958 hammered for $33 million at Phillips New York last November. The one at Gagosian is not for sale.
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NONI OLABISI, a Los Angeles artist whose incisive, unflinching murals tackle Black history and social issues, has died at the age of 67, the Los Angeles Times reports. The cause of her death is not yet known. Among Olabisi’s many large-scale murals is Freedom Won’t Wait , which shows a number of Black figures crying out or wincing in pain. Olabisi made it in 1992 on the side of a South Central barbershop where she sometimes cut hair, after the community uprising that followed the acquittal of police officers videotaped beating Rodney King. Artist Dominique Moody, who made work with Olabisi, told the paper, “Her mural work is very dynamic and powerful. In Olabisi’s new body of work, her figures are ethereal, almost indiscernible. It’s as if she captured spirit.”
The Digest
Paris’s leading art museums have been popular sites for runway shows during the Fashion Week currently running in the French capital. Stella McCartney was at the Centre Pompidou, Louis Vuitton the Musée d’Orsay, and Giambattista Valli the Musée d’Art Moderne. [Associated Press/Bloomberg]
Officials took into custody a man who allegedly broke into the Akron Art Museum in Ohio on Sunday and set small fires. The local fire department extinguished them; no one was injured. [Akron Beach Journal]
Collector Budi Tek and his Yuz Foundation have donated seven works of Chinese contemporary art to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the latest development in a partnership the two organizations announced in 2018. Among the artists in the gift are Ai Weiwei and Qiu Anxiong. [The Art Newspaper]
Philanthropist and art collector Norma B. Marin, who worked to boost the legacy of her father-in-law, artist John Marin, and emerging artists in Maine, has died at 91. [Portland Press Herald]
Curator and professor Steven Lam has been named dean of the school of art at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, taking the place of Tom Lawson, who held the job for 30 years. Lam arrives from the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, where he was associate vice president of research. [Press Release/CalArts and Diverse: Issues in Higher Education]
Artist Bosco Sodi and his wife, Lucia Corredor, have a family compound on the Greek island of Folegandros that was designed by Deca Architecture and decorated by her company, Decada. Here is a look inside. [Architectural Digest]
The Kicker
WHAT IS GOING ON IN BRITISH CHARITY SHOPS? A rare 1936 copy of James Joyce’s Ulysses worth more than $1,000 was spotted at one before it was put on sale for £1, as was noted in a recent “Breakfast.” Now a man is sending to auction a first edition of the first Harry Potter novel that he picked up for £0.50 at another such shop, BBC News reports. A prime copy of that Potter has gone for £350,000, but this one has a more modest £3,000 estimate because a child made some dramatic drawings within it. The book chief at Hansons Auctioneers, which is handling the sale, sounded a philosophical note. “The question is, which one was loved the most?” he said. “Or enjoyed the most? Arguably, the damaged one tells its own important story.” The young artist’s drawings, for the record, are superb. [BBC News]
Source: artnews.com