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Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer: May 17 Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale

Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer , oil on canvas, in three parts, 1963. Christie’s will feature Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dyer, 1963 as a central highlight in its May 17 Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale in New York (estimate: $50,000,000-70,000,000). Painted in 1963, Three Studies for a Portrait of George Dye r marks the beginning of Francis Bacon’s relationship with Dyer, his greatest source of inspiration. This triptych is the very first portrait Bacon made of his longtime muse who came to feature in many of the artist’s most arresting and sought after works. Dyer came to appear in at least forty of Bacon’s paintings, many of which were created after his death in Paris in 1971. The convulsive beauty of this work represents the flowering of Bacon’s infatuation with Dyer, and is only one of five triptychs of Dyer that the artist painted in this intimate scale. The present example once resided in the collection o

CHAGALL: COLOUR AND MUSIC

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts     January 28 to June 11, 2017 The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA) presents CHAGALL: COLOUR AND MUSIC , the largest exhibition ever devoted to Marc Chagall (1887-1985) in Canada. The exhibition explores, for the first time, the omnipresence of music in the artist’s life and work, through close to 340 works and a major documentary corpus. This unusual approach demonstrates the degree to which Chagall’s aesthetic and artistic world is imbued with music, from his paintings, works on paper, costumes, sculptures, ceramics, stained glass and tapestries, to his creations for the stage and his grand decorative and architectural projects. This major exhibition reveals some fabulous costumes rarely
seen by the public and some decors produced by the artist for the ballets Aleko (1942), The Firebird (1945) and Daphnis and Chloé (1958-59), and the opera The Magic Flute (1967), thanks to some exceptional loans granted by the Opéra de Paris, the New York City B

Bruegel: Defining a Dynasty

Holburne Museum February 11, 2017 – June 4, 2017 The Holburne Museum is proud to announce the UK’s first exhibition devoted to the Bruegel dynasty, including recent attributions for two paintings from the Museum’s own collection. Bruegel: Defining a Dynasty will unravel the complex Bruegel family tree, revealing the originality and diversity of Antwerp’s famous artistic dynasty across four generations through 29 works, including masterpieces from the National Gallery, Royal Collection Trust, the National Trust, the Fitzwilliam Museum, the Ashmolean Museum and the Barber Institute of Fine Arts. Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Wedding Dance in the Open Air , 1607–1614, oil on panel, 36.6 × 49 cm, A45, © The Holburne Museum A key work in the exhibition will be Wedding Dance in the Open Air , an oil painting from the Holburne’s own collection which, following conservation work and technical examination, can be attributed firm

Masterpieces from the Leiden Collection. The Age of Rembrandt

Musée du Louvre 22 February - 22 May 2017 As part of its season devoted to the Dutch Golden Age, the Musée du Louvre is presenting a selection of masterpieces by 17th-century Dutch painters from the collection of Thomas Kaplan and his wife, Daphne Recanati Kaplan. This selection, brought together at a major international museum for the first time, showcases the largest private collection of works by Rembrandt. Visitors will discover some thirty paintings and drawings by the greatest painters of the Golden Age from the region of Leiden in the Netherlands, primarily ten works by Rembrandt and a painting recently attributed to the artist. Among the Leiden Collection’s Rembrandt paintings is the Minerva , a particularly spectacular large-format work, part of a series of strong women and mythological goddesses. As its name indicates, this collection highlights the “fine painters” of Leiden, among them Gerrit Dou and Frans van Mieris. It also

A Life of Seduction: Venice in the 1700s

Gabriel Bella, Fat Thursday Festivity in Piazzetta , 18th century, Venice, Querini Stampalia Foundation Presented exclusively by the New Orleans Museum of Art, A Life of Seduction: Venice in the 1700s showcases a remarkable range of objects – costume, glass, handbags, masks, a puppet theater, and exquisite paintings by Canaletto, Guardi, Longhi and others. Renowned for its beauty and singularity, Venice played a central role in the history of Western art. In the 18th century, the city experienced a revival in the arts and was the premier destination for intellectuals and travelers. Venetians cultivated a distinctive and in influential tradition of street life, festivals, and fashion. Guest-curated by the former director of the Civic Museums of Venice, Giandomenico Romanelli, the exhibition is organized around four themes: A City that Lives on Water, the Celebration of Power, Aristocratic Life in Town and Country, and the City as Theater. Venice in the 1700s