All posts tagged: portrait

Hidden Painting Revealed Beneath Portrait from Picasso’s Blue Period

Hidden Painting Revealed Beneath Portrait from Picasso’s Blue Period

The most studied period of Pablo Picasso’s career, it seems, still had a secret to keep: a mystery woman hidden beneath a well-known portrait, now revealed by conservators at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London.   X-ray and infrared analysis were conducted on Portrait of Mateu Fernández de Soto (1901), a depiction of a Spanish sculptor who befriended Picasso during his Blue Period, a stylistically pivotal though melancholic moment in the painter’s early oeuvre. Over the course of three years, Picasso diverged from painting convention, utilizing expressive brushwork and a now famously moody blue-green palette. His Blue Period paintings have become widely popular and are now the subject of a wealth of scholarship. Related Articles Portrait of Mateu Fernández de Soto is particularly well known, given its age and composition. It contains an ode to the friend and artist whose suicide plunged Picasso into despondency.    The Courtauld findings suggest that Mateu Fernández de Soto wasn’t the planned subject of the canvas, as the newly discovered figure of the woman was likely painted only …

Van Gogh Museum Denies Attribution for Long-Lost Portrait

Van Gogh Museum Denies Attribution for Long-Lost Portrait

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam said on Friday that a long-lost portrait was, in fact, not by Vincent van Gogh, contradicting a 458-page report by the New York–based firm LMI Group International that claimed it was by the famed painter. The painting in question, titled Elimar (1889), depicts a fisherman with a round hat on his head and a pipe in his mouth. The fisherman appears transfixed as he repairs his net near a shore. The word “Elimar,” presumed to be the man’s name, is scrawled in the lower righthand corner. LMI Group said that the portrait would have been created while van Gogh was at the Saint-Paul psychiatric sanitarium in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France. Van Gogh had checked himself into the sanitarium; he remained there from May 1889 and May 1890. Related Articles To assess the painting, LMI Group assembled a team of roughly 20 experts from a variety of fields, including chemists, curators, and patent lawyers. In 2019, the firm paid an undisclosed sum for the work, purchasing it from an anonymous antiques collector who found it …

King Charles’s latest portrait leaves royal fans saying the same thing

King Charles’s latest portrait leaves royal fans saying the same thing

King Charles looked so dapper in a new portrait shared to mark Burns Night on Saturday. The striking portrait was taken by photographer Millie Pilkington last autumn and shows the monarch beaming beside a stack of leather-bound books in Balmoral Castle’s ornate library. © Photograph by Millie Pilkington for Buckingham Palace The Royal Family’s official social media accounts shared the image with the caption: “Wishing those celebrating a very happy #BurnsNight tonight. The King in the Library at Balmoral Castle, taken by Millie Pilkington.” Impressed by the striking portrait, royal fans were quick to share their thoughts in the comments section. Charles’s choice of outfit proved to be a popular talking point, with royal aficionados racing to complement the King’s smart tartan look. © Getty ImagesKing Charles wearing tartan at The Braemar Gathering in 2024 In light of the special Scottish occasion, His Majesty could be seen rocking a traditional tartan kilt crafted from the King Charles III tartan – a new variety of cloth designed by the Scottish Tartans Authority in 2023. It was created …

National Portrait Gallery Under Scrutiny for Donor-Linked Exhibition

National Portrait Gallery Under Scrutiny for Donor-Linked Exhibition

The National Portrait Gallery in London is facing scrutiny for putting on an exhibition centered on the photographic work of a donor whose family contributed £40 million (approx. $50 million) to a recent large-scale renovation that ended in 2023. The exhibition is centered on the photography of Zoë Law, who had donated to the institution through a family foundation in the past. The show, titled “Legends,” features close to a hundred black-and-white portraits of prominent figures in art, fashion, and pop culture, including an image of British musicians Noel Gallagher and Princess Julia, both of which the museum acquired to its permanent collection. Other subjects include British writer Lemn Sissay and designer Ozwald Boateng. Related Articles The work, which is presented in the museum’s Studio Gallery and Spotlight Space, will close on March 2. The photographer cofounded the Law Family Charitable Foundation with her former partner, British hedge fund manager Andrew Law. The organization was listed as a major donor to the museum’s renovation, according to a report published by The Guardian earlier this week. …

Elon Musk Portrait Removed From German Museum After Controversial Salute

Elon Musk Portrait Removed From German Museum After Controversial Salute

A portrait of tech billionaire Elon Musk was removed from a space and technology exhibition at a German museum following backlash over a controversial gesture Musk made Monday at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration. Many interpreted Musk’s gesture at the inauguration as a Nazi salute, though Musk called the controversy “dirty tricks” from critics. As the founder and CEO of SpaceX, Musk was prominently featured in a portrait among “visionaries from the past and future” in the astronautics gallery at the Deutsches Museum of Science and Technology. However, the artwork was temporarily covered in November, amid Musk’s increasing political involvement, and has now been removed. Related Articles “It can always be problematic to honor people who are still alive in such a prominent place in an exhibition because it can be understood as an uncritical tribute,” a museum spokesperson told Fortune Wednesday. “A person’s lifetime achievements can often only be correctly assessed in retrospect.” The founder and CEO of both SpaceX and electric car company Tesla, Musk is currently the richest man in the world with …

Third of schools snap up free portrait of King (costing £1m)

Third of schools snap up free portrait of King (costing £1m)

New figures reveal take-up of controversial scheme to offer King Charles portrait to all public bodies New figures reveal take-up of controversial scheme to offer King Charles portrait to all public bodies A third of England’s schools ordered a free portrait of King Charles III, new figures show, at a cost of just over £1 million to the taxpayer.  Cabinet Office statistics, published today, show 8,067 of 23,739 eligible schools – 34 per cent – took up the government’s offer to receive an A3 framed picture of the king in full regalia.   The average price of a portrait, including delivery was £131.81, meaning school orders alone cost more than £1 million.  Across all public institutions, 20,565 orders were made costing the government £2.7 million.  Many in the sector were critical of the scheme as it came as budgets were cut in departments, including the Department for Education.  Cut included governor recruitment and teacher top-up training and national professional qualification courses. When schools were invited to apply last year, the National Education Union leader Daniel …

Caravaggio Portrait Unseen for Decades now on View

Caravaggio Portrait Unseen for Decades now on View

A portrait attributed to Italian painter Caravaggio has gone on view in Rome, marking the first time it can be seen by the painting’s existence was made public 60 years ago. The painting depicts Maffeo Barberini, a Florentine aristocrat who was coronated as Pope Urban VIII in 1623. By papal standards, his reign was illustrious reign. Barberini expanded the church’s territories through armed force and keen politicking, even weathering 21 years of the Thirty Years War. Urban VIII was a major patron of the arts (he often commissioned Gian Lorenzo Bernini), though the same was not true for science. Under pressure from the Vatican, Galileo publicly recanted his astronomical breakthrough, itself derived from the Copernican heliocentric model also rejected by Urban VIII. Related Articles Caravaggio met the one-day pope as a young, ambitious man. Dated to 1598, the painting shows a 30-year-old Barberini wearing a black biretta—a three or four-peaked cap worn by Catholic clergy—and a green sleeveless cassock, another traditional Catholic signifier. Bright-eyed and grasping a letter, he had already obtained a law doctorate …

Gustave Caillebotte Retrospective Offers a Comprehensive Portrait

Gustave Caillebotte Retrospective Offers a Comprehensive Portrait

For around a century, Gustave Caillebotte was the most discreet of the Impressionists, only coming back into the spotlight in 1994, when the Grand Palais in Paris celebrated the centenary of his death in 1894 through a memorable retrospective. Ever since, the French painter has been the subject of several exhibitions from London to Washington, D.C. to Switzerland. Now, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Art Institute of Chicago have joined forces to examine Caillebotte anew, with a sweeping retrospective “Painting Men,” which runs through January in Paris, before heading to LA next spring and then Chicago next summer. Despite the acclaim the artist has received over the past three decades, he still remains a bit of a mystery, a major focus of the exhibition which also coincides with the 130th anniversary of the artist’s passing.  Related Articles “When facing this attractive, modern, yet enigmatic man—we still don’t know who he is—I realized we had good starting point,” Orsay curator Paul Perrin, who organized the exhibition …

Palace releases new portrait of King and Queen as their Samoa trip ends

Palace releases new portrait of King and Queen as their Samoa trip ends

King Charles heckled by Australian senator: ‘Give us our land back’ Get the free Morning Headlines email for news from our reporters across the world Sign up to our free Morning Headlines email Buckingham Palace has released a new portrait of the King and Queen as their Samoa trip draws to a close. King Charles III said: “As our visits to Australia and Samoa come to a close, my wife and I would like to thank both nations for the warmest of welcomes and for the countless fond memories we will carry in our hearts for many years to come. “Even when we are far apart in distance, the many close connections that unite us across the globe and through our Commonwealth family have been renewed, and will remain as profound as they are enduring.” It came after he acknowledged the “most painful aspects” of the Commonwealth’s past as he bid goodbye to Samoa after indirectly acknowledging growing calls for slavery reparations in Samoa. Charles and Queen Camilla ended their four-day state visit to Samoa …