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The Headlines
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A MILESTONE. The National Gallery of Ireland has been around for 158 years, and now it has named its first female director, BBC News reports. That new leader is Belfast-born Caroline Campbell, who is coming to the Dublin institution from the National Gallery in London, where she is head of collections and research. Campbell told the outlet that a visit to the National Gallery as a teenager was pivotal in her early passion for art. “It felt amazing for everyone, so inspiring and very welcoming,” she said, and added, “For years, I carried around the postcards we bought that day.” She starts in November, and will be succeeding Sean Rainbird, who is stepping down after a decade at the helm.
RAYMOND BRIGGS, the illustrator and author of much-beloved children’s books, most famously The Snowman (1978), died on Tuesday in Brighton, England, at the age of 88, the New York Times reports. Briggs, who also made work for adult audiences, won fame for inventive storylines told through striking graphics. The Snowman, which includes no words, follows a young boy who embarks on a wild adventure with a snowman. It has sold more than 5 million copies in various forms worldwide, according to BBC News, and in 1982, it was made into an animated TV film that remains popular today.
The Digest
A Church of England court granted a London church’s request to remove a mural from its exterior that shows a city on fire, writing that after the Grenfell Tower fire in 2017, which killed 72, the work has “now acquired unfortunate connotations.” The piece was made by local artist Peter Pelz in 1977. [The Guardian]
The National Gallery of Zimbabwe is currently hosting a show of work made by Black students in the mid-20th-century at the Cyrene Mission School, the first school to teach art to Black pupils in the country, which was then Rhodesia. The art was recently discovered in the basement of a London church. [The Associated Press]
The record rainfall in South Korea this week has caused damage to 19 government-designated cultural heritage sites in the Seoul region, including the Yeongbinmyo Royal Tomb in the city of Namyangju. [The Korea Herald]
The revered historian David McCullough, who died on Sunday, was an avid art lover, and sometimes wrote on the subject. The Wall Street Journal’s arts team has been kind enough to resurface some of the art-related columns he penned for the paper, on works by John Trumbull, George Caleb Bingham, and more. [The Wall Street Journal]
French jewelry designer Aurélie Bidermann’s apartment on Paris’s Left Bank features a Claude Lalanne apple sculpture, a Frank Auerbach drawing, a Tony Cox painting, and perched atop a mantle, a handsome little Gene Beery painting that reads, “BEER AND PEACHES.” [Architectural Digest]
Hole legend Courtney Love recently captioned a seaside Instagram post “living well is the best revenge”—the title of a classic 2008 R.E.M. song (she tagged the band) and a classic 1971 Calvin Tomkins book about artist Gerald Murphy and and his wife, Sara Murphy. The line comes from poet George Herbert (1593–1633). [Page Six]
The Kicker
TRYING TIME(PIECE)S. Reports of luxury-watch thefts are up of late, and so owners of fine horological devices are taking precautions, wearing more subdued (and less expensive) material on their wrists, the New York Times reports. Ashkan Baghestani, who deals art, recalled a knife-wielding man pursuing him through Chelsea a few years back. He now limits himself to a dark-colored Cartier Tank when out and about. “I’m not wearing a watch that’s worth more than $5,000,” he said. [NYT]
Source: artnews.com