Art Appreciation

[samhexum]

They don’t just teach history at Dewitt Clinton High School — they cover it up too.

 

School officials wrecked a beautiful New Deal-era mural at the storied Bronx high school by slathering a coat of high-gloss, cotton-candy blue paint over it.

 

"Constellations" by German-born painter Alfred Floegel was installed on the ceiling outside DeWitt Clinton's library in 1940. It depicted the stars in the heavens alongside another large-scale Floegel mural called "History of the World."

 

The paintings, deemed Floegel’s masterpieces, were both used in history lessons. They also appear in the Department of Education’s online art collection, “Public Art for Public Schools.”

 

 

“It is a kind of Sistine Chapel of New Deal artworks,” wrote Richard Walker, a University of California/Berkley professor who directs the Living New Deal project, which aims to preserve New Deal-era artworks.

 

Floegel, who was born in 1894 and died in 1976, worked on the paintings for six years, Walker wrote in 2015 on his project’s website. At the time, he was teaching night courses at DeWitt Clinton, school staffers said.

 

Half of his masterpiece disappeared in November, when construction workers painted over the ceiling mural to spruce up for a visit by then-schools chancellor Carmen Farina, according to school staffers.

 

Farina never made the visit.

 

Education Department officials tell a different story — they say the painting was covered over as workers repaired damage to the building.

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/5C1tX1fpe7EUxbOQxEcDdf9Xwbc=/1400x0/www.trbimg.com/img-5b1b0b06/turbine/ny-1528498945-gx30zzxvzh-snap-image

"Constellations," painted by German-born painter Alfred Floegel, was beloved by students and school staffers. (kermitproject.org)

 

Whatever the reason, the loss of the mural stunned students and educators.

 

"It was like if you went to see the Mona Lisa and someone painted it blue," one school staffer said. "People were devastated."

 

“It’s messed up. Obviously there was a meaning for it to be painted,” said tenth-grader Leolanie Bonilla, 16. “No one values art like that no more.”

 

Staffers said the murals were refurbished in the 1990s and that Floegel’s son Alfred Jr. visited the murals and met with former DeWitt Clinton principal Santiago Taveras a few years ago on a tour of his father’s work.

 

City Education Department spokesman Doug Cohen said the city is seeking ways to recover the mural.

 

Cohen wouldn't say what Education Department official ordered the murail painted over, or if the matter is being investigated. “We're exploring ways to restore this historic artwork,” Cohen said.

 

Cohen said he couldn’t provide an estimate as to the mural’s value.

 

Manhattan appraiser Bonnie Kagan said that appraising such a rare work would be difficult.

 

“You’d have to see what it would cost to replace the mural with something similar today,” Kagan said.

[TruthBTold]

WTF? Are the light fixtures attached to the ceiling murals? It seems like removal would be an extremely small restoration.

[Kenny]

The artists is dead, but I wonder whether his heirs might have recourse under Ted Kennedy's 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act, which made obliterating a mural like this illegal.

 

Here's the text of the act: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106A

[+ Awwshuck]

They don’t just teach history at Dewitt Clinton High School — they cover it up too.

 

School officials wrecked a beautiful New Deal-era mural at the storied Bronx high school by slathering a coat of high-gloss, cotton-candy blue paint over it.

 

"Constellations" by German-born painter Alfred Floegel was installed on the ceiling outside DeWitt Clinton's library in 1940. It depicted the stars in the heavens alongside another large-scale Floegel mural called "History of the World."

 

The paintings, deemed Floegel’s masterpieces, were both used in history lessons. They also appear in the Department of Education’s online art collection, “Public Art for Public Schools.”

 

 

“It is a kind of Sistine Chapel of New Deal artworks,” wrote Richard Walker, a University of California/Berkley professor who directs the Living New Deal project, which aims to preserve New Deal-era artworks.

 

Floegel, who was born in 1894 and died in 1976, worked on the paintings for six years, Walker wrote in 2015 on his project’s website. At the time, he was teaching night courses at DeWitt Clinton, school staffers said.

 

Half of his masterpiece disappeared in November, when construction workers painted over the ceiling mural to spruce up for a visit by then-schools chancellor Carmen Farina, according to school staffers.

 

Farina never made the visit.

 

Education Department officials tell a different story — they say the painting was covered over as workers repaired damage to the building.

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/5C1tX1fpe7EUxbOQxEcDdf9Xwbc=/1400x0/www.trbimg.com/img-5b1b0b06/turbine/ny-1528498945-gx30zzxvzh-snap-image

"Constellations," painted by German-born painter Alfred Floegel, was beloved by students and school staffers. (kermitproject.org)

 

Whatever the reason, the loss of the mural stunned students and educators.

 

"It was like if you went to see the Mona Lisa and someone painted it blue," one school staffer said. "People were devastated."

 

“It’s messed up. Obviously there was a meaning for it to be painted,” said tenth-grader Leolanie Bonilla, 16. “No one values art like that no more.”

 

Staffers said the murals were refurbished in the 1990s and that Floegel’s son Alfred Jr. visited the murals and met with former DeWitt Clinton principal Santiago Taveras a few years ago on a tour of his father’s work.

 

City Education Department spokesman Doug Cohen said the city is seeking ways to recover the mural.

 

Cohen wouldn't say what Education Department official ordered the murail painted over, or if the matter is being investigated. “We're exploring ways to restore this historic artwork,” Cohen said.

 

Cohen said he couldn’t provide an estimate as to the mural’s value.

 

Manhattan appraiser Bonnie Kagan said that appraising such a rare work would be difficult.

 

“You’d have to see what it would cost to replace the mural with something similar today,” Kagan said.

 

Was this done under the auspices of a WPA project? If so, surely there would be hell to pay for the school district or school.

[+ bigjoey]

The artists is dead, but I wonder whether his heirs might have recourse under Ted Kennedy's 1990 Visual Artists Rights Act, which made obliterating a mural like this illegal.

 

Here's the text of the act: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/106A

 

Because the art work predates the Visual Artists Rights Act, I do not think it applies.

[+ quoththeraven]

Because the art work predates the Visual Artists Rights Act, I do not think it applies.

That's irrelevant. See subsection (d)(2), which makes the term of the rights regarding existing artworks coextensive with copyright protection. Because of intervening changes in copyright law, we'd need more information to determine when that expires or if it already expired.

[N13]

We seem to be living in a period that supports and encourages small-minded cretins! As long as reality tv stars are the standard we can look forward to a lot more of this!

[TruthBTold]

Reminded me of this. And this guy is still in office (but for not much longer).

 

https://newengland.com/today/living/new-england-environment/labormural/

[samhexum]

Times Square mural draws outrage over black man in a trash can

 

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/jP6eeNQwE8KyhC7EN3qQhr3mwuE=/47x178:915x829/1400x0/www.trbimg.com/img-5b1ff48e/turbine/ny-1528820874-4feznnf1jl-snap-image

A detail from "Loosey Deucey" by painter Arnie Charnick has drawn complaints from staff at Hotel Edison.

 

One artist’s trash is another man’s displeasure.

 

Outrage over the image of a black man dumped in the garbage in a new mural recalling 1970s-era Times Square has led to an acrylic cover-up.

 

 

In a picture posted Monday of the painting at the Hotel Edison on W. 47th St., the words PLACE LITTER HERE are seen on the trash can holding the African-American man.

 

The words are now gone.

 

“I took the sign out,” artist Arnie Charnick, 71, told the Daily News Tuesday morning, whether that appeases the staff remains to be seen.

 

“I could have made it a white guy,” he said, adding that a photograph of the city 40 years ago inspired the detail in the lower left corner in a wall-sized painting.

 

“It’s a suffering soul,” he said. “That’s what it’s meant to show.”

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/nBXl5Yej_nr7DLmRbfiOVrf4QlY=/1400x0/www.trbimg.com/img-5b1ff075/turbine/ny-1528819825-r8oa2xdtmq-snap-image

"Troupe du Jour" shows Al Jolson in blackface.

But some hotel staff saw racial insensitivity in the mural, Charnick acknowledged.

 

“I welcome remarks from people,” he said. “I don’t like it when they get lawyers.”

 

The News reached out for a comment on complaints from the Hotel Edison, which hired Charnick to do a mural in the lobby in 1991.

 

Charnick is now putting finishing touches on the art installation that began in January. He expects to complete the job by Sunday.

 

The three-part mural depicts Times Square in various eras using a mix of actual people, fictional characters, headlines and signs.

 

The panel “Loosey Deucey” spans 1965-90. It is crowded with hookers, porn houses and X-rated titles.

 

It is seen through the viewpoint of Travis Bickle, the title character of “Taxi Driver.”

 

“I prefer Times Squares funky to Disney,” said Charnick.

 

“Post-War Whoopee” covers 1935-65. It is anchored by an image of the iconic V-J Day kiss.

 

“Troupe du Jour” spans 1904-35 and the world of entertainment at the time.

 

It includes images of Houdini in chains, Buster Keaton as Hamlet and, in yet another provocative artistic choice, Al Jolson in black face and genuflecting, in “The Jazz Singer.”

 

Charnick, who has been painting since he was a 10-year-old kid in the Bronx, defended his decision to include the image of Jolson.

 

“‘The Jazz Singer’ was the first talkie,” he said. “And while it wasn’t in my consciousness, a white actor in blackface taking a knee relates to black athletes taking a knee in protest today.”

 

“I support these athletes,” he added, “100%.”

 

http://www.nydailynews.com/resizer/z30Rzd9T0wP6S_UH5r-pxRouVkg=/1400x0/www.trbimg.com/img-5b1ff0c0/turbine/ny-1528819896-c9iulhtwne-snap-image

"Loosey Deucey" is seen through the view of "Taxi Driver" vigilante Travis Bickle and shows NYC in all of its 1970's gritty and seedy glory.

[samhexum]

 

Many locals pine for the old New York, but a couple of Lower East Side shutterbugs are actively doing something about it.

 

“We knew the structure had to be as rough and tumble as the neighborhood,” Murray tells The Post. “It had to be able to take anything that was thrown at it. Just like the businesses down there.”

 

The ambitious work is a community effort — lumber for the projects was stored on the roof of Veniero’s, the couple’s favorite neighborhood pastry shop. When Karla dropped a heavy leveler on James’ nose during construction, a tattoo artist from Daredevil Tattoo around the corner bandaged him up.

 

The couple, who’ve spent 22 years in the same East Village apartment, believe tourists should spend less time wandering around Times Square and more time soaking up the city’s sights and smells, say, of a local pork store.

 

Barring that, the Murrays tell The Post, “We hope people will see this [installation] as a celebration, like an Irish wake.”

 

East Villager Paul Abreu, 45, says that when he saw the reproduction the other day, he tried to go inside.

 

“I was hoping I could get a water in there,” the Juice Press executive says of the Chung’s Candy and Soda Stand storefront. “I wish there was still a place where I know everybody and everybody knows me.”

 

 

[TruthBTold]

Chicago has made a great push to help create murals in its numerous vacate (and hideous) vehicle underpasses. Some were painted or installed years ago but the city itself has attempted to work with artists to create them. Here are a very few.

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nDV2BrqGfNQ/TtG26WixB1I/AAAAAAAAmuU/wlQ-toblnVI/s1600/LI-sculp-BMD-046b.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w7T3Z_TfksM/TtGzYdzMayI/AAAAAAAAmsc/a_HbXrbkjVo/s1600/LI-sculp-BMD-045b.jpg

 

http://api.ning.com/files/kV4MbYiv7oTS08FaNixlEI7k1-dkL*29A-3z9N2**waRiNUXyh0G0n6tCSAnSZIRl3JPlpxdPUo-UeWAZ0cynemEM5*P72vH/1082067841.jpeg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-s4ugueMTpHY/TtGwyWC0oPI/AAAAAAAAmrg/ooQyn-jYtoE/s1600/LI-sculp-BMD-032b.jpg

 

There are many more and art groups continue to work on them. It adds a lot to the fabric of the City and actually has pulled many of the neighborhoods together because the mural depicts their particular history/identity.

[samhexum]

A small-town couple left behind a stolen painting worth over $100 million — and a big mystery

 

 

Jerry and Rita Alter kept to themselves. They were a lovely couple, neighbors in the small New Mexico town of Cliff would later tell reporters. But no one knew much about them.

 

They may have been hiding a decades-old secret, pieces of which are now just emerging.

 

Among them:

 

After the couple died, a stolen Willem de Kooning painting with an estimated worth of $160 million was discovered in their bedroom.

 

More than 30 years ago, that same painting disappeared the day after Thanksgiving from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in Tucson.

 

And Wednesday, the Arizona Republic reported that a family photo had surfaced, showing that the day before the painting vanished, the couple was, in fact, in Tucson.

 

The next morning, a man and a woman would walk into the museum and then leave 15 minutes later. A security guard had unlocked the museum’s front door to let a staff member into the lobby, curator Olivia Miller told NPR. The couple followed. Since the museum was about to open for the day, the guard let them in.

 

The man walked up to the museum’s second floor while the woman struck up a conversation with the guard. A few minutes later, he came back downstairs, and the two abruptly left, according to the NPR interview and other media reports.

 

Sensing that something wasn’t right, the guard walked upstairs. There, he saw an empty frame where de Kooning’s “Woman-Ochre” had hung.

 

At the time, the museum had no surveillance cameras. Police found no fingerprints. One witness described seeing a rust-color sports car drive away but didn’t get the license plate number. For 31 years, the frame remained empty.

 

In 2012, Jerry Alter passed away. His widow, Rita Alter, died five years later at 81.

 

After their deaths, the painting was returned to the museum. The FBI is investigating the theft.

 

Did the quiet couple who lived in a three-bedroom ranch on Mesa Road steal “Woman-Ochre” and get away with it?

 

De Kooning, who died in 1997, was one of the most prominent painters of the midcentury abstract expressionist movement. “Woman III,” another painting in the same series as “Woman-Ochre,” sold for $137.5 million in 2006. The works of de Kooning remain among the most marketable in the world.

 

The Alters had moved to Cliff (population 293) in the late 1970s or early 1980s, according to the Silver City Daily Press. H. Jerome Alter, who went by Jerry, had been a professional musician and a teacher in New York City schools before retiring to New Mexico, he wrote under “About the author” in “Aesop’s Fables Set in Verse,” a book he published in 2011.

 

“His primary avocation has been adventure travel,” the biographical sketch says, noting that he had visited “over 140 countries on all continents, including both polar regions.”

 

Rita Alter, who died in 2017 at the age of 81, had worked as a speech pathologist at the local school district after the couple moved to New Mexico, the Daily Press reported. Her former co-workers remembered her as “pleasant but quiet,” a friendly woman who was good with children but didn’t volunteer much information about her life.

 

In 2011, a year before his death, also at the age of 81, Jerry published a book of short stories, “The Cup and the Lip: Exotic Tales.” The stories were “an amalgamation of actuality and fantasy,” he wrote in the preface. Though none were literary masterpieces, one stands out in the wake of the de Kooning discovery.

 

“The Eye of the Jaguar,” concerns itself with Lou, a security guard at an art museum. One day, a middle-aged woman and her 14-year-old granddaughter show up. The older woman asks Lou about the history of a prized emerald on display. Six months later, she and her granddaughter return, then leave in a rush.

 

“Wow, those two seem to be in a hurry, most unusual for visitors to a place such a this,” Lou thinks. He reinspects the room and realizes the emerald is gone. Running to the door, he sees the pair speeding away and runs out to stop them. The older woman floors the accelerator, crashing into Lou and killing him. Then the two speed off, leaving behind “absolutely no clues which police could use to even begin a search for them!”

 

Jerry Alter’s fictional tale ends with a description of the emerald sitting in an empty room. “And two pairs of eyes, exclusively, are there to see!” it concludes.

 

He could just as easily have been describing the de Kooning. But nobody thought of that until the painting was discovered in the Alters’ bedroom, where it had been positioned in such a way that you couldn’t see it unless you were inside with the door shut.

 

After Rita Alter died, her nephew, Ron Roseman, was named executor of the estate. He put the house on the market and began liquidating its contents. On Aug. 1, 2017, antique dealers from the neighboring town of Silver City came to see what was left.

 

One of the men, David Van Auker, would later recall at a news conference that he spotted “a great, cool midcentury painting.” They bought it, along with the rest of the Alters’ estate, for $2,000.

 

Silver City, an old mining town near the Gila National Forest, has a high concentration of artists. So it didn’t take long for someone who recognized the painting’s significance to wander into Manzanita Ridge Furniture and Antiques.

 

“It probably had not been in the store an hour before the first person came in and walked up to it and looked at it and said, ‘I think this is a real de Kooning,’ ” Van Aukertold KOB 4, a TV station in Albuquerque. “Of course, we just brushed that off.”

 

Then another customer said the same thing. And another.

 

It was becoming evident that the painting might be worth more than they had originally thought. Van Auker and his partners, Buck Burns and Rick Johnson, hid it in the bathroom.

 

Once the painting had been secured, Van Auker did a Google search for de Kooning. That’s when he spotted an article about the theft of “Woman — Ochre” and called the museum.

 

“I got a student receptionist, and I said to her, ‘I think I have a piece of art that was stolen from you guys,’ ” he told

. “And she said, ‘What piece?’ And I said, ‘The de Kooning.’ And she said, ‘Hold, please.’ ”

 

Miller, the museum’s curator, told WFAA that what made her pause was when Van Auker described how the painting had cracked, as if it had been rolled up. It was a detail that no one could have invented. The dimensions were an inch off from “Woman — Ochre,” which corresponded with it being cut out of the frame.

 

Van Auker took the painting home and stayed up all night with his guns, he told Tucson Weekly, getting startled every time he heard a branch scrape against the side of the house.

 

The next night, a delegation from the museum arrived. When Miller walked in, Van Auker told the Daily Press, the room turned silent.

 

“She walked up to the painting, dropped down on her knees and looked. You could just feel the electricity,” he recalled.

 

Authentication would later confirm that it was a perfect match for the missing de Kooning.

 

Over the past year, a handful of clues potentially linking the Alters to the theft have surfaced.

 

Several people told the New York Times that they had a red sports car, similar to the one spotted leaving the museum. The car also appears in home movies obtained by WFAA.

 

Some of the couple’s photos show Rita in a red coat like the one that the woman at the museum had been wearing, KOB 4 reported. And Ruth Seawolf, the real estate agent who put the Alters’ house on the market, told the Silver City Sun News that she had taken home a luggage set and, inside, found glasses and a scarf that match the police description.

[samhexum]

[continued]

 

“In the Alters’ day planner from 1985, they took meticulous notes about what they ate, where they went, and the medications they had,” KOB 4 points out. “On Thanksgiving 1985, they mysteriously left it blank.”

 

And now there’s the family photo showing they were in Tucson the night before the painting was stolen.

 

The investigation has been underway for a year now. The FBI has declined to comment until the case is closed.

 

“Composite sketches, in hindsight, resemble the faces in the Thanksgiving photo, down to their position side by side,” the Arizona Republic wrote.

 

The New York Times, on the other hand, theorized: “The sketch of the female suspect — described at the time of the theft as being between 55 and 60 years old — bears a resemblance to Mr. Alter, who was known as Jerry and was then 54. And the sketch of the young man — described at the time as between 25 and 30 years old — bears a resemblance to his son, Joseph M. Alter, who was then 23.”

 

The Alters had two children, Joseph and Barbara. Reporters from multiple news outlets, including The Washington Post, have been unable to locate either child. Several of the couple’s acquaintances told the Times that Joseph Alter has severe psychological problems, and has been institutionalized on and off since the 1980s.

 

Jerry Alter’s sister, Carole Sklar, told the New York Times that the idea that her brother, his wife, or their son could have stolen the painting was “absurd,” as was the theory that her brother disguised himself in women’s clothing.

 

“I can’t believe Rita would be involved in anything like that,” Mark Shay, one of her former co-workers, told the Daily Press. “I could see them buying a painting not knowing where it originally came from, maybe.”

 

Museum officials, however, told the Arizona Republic that the painting only appears to have been reframed once during the 31 years it was missing, suggesting it had only had one owner during that time.

 

Something else doesn’t add up. Jerry and Rita Alter worked in public schools for most of their careers. Yet they somehow managed to travel to 140 countries and all seven continents, documenting their trips with

.

 

And yet, when they died, they had more than a million dollars in their bank account, according to the Sun News.

 

“I guess I figured they were very frugal,” their nephew, Ron Roseman, told WFAA.

 

Roseman couldn’t be reached for comment on Thursday evening. But not long after “Woman — Ochre” resurfaced, he told ABC13 that he couldn’t imagine that his aunt and uncle had stolen the painting.

 

“They were just nice people,” he said.