New Goya found

The Restoration Service of the Museums of France (RSMF) has authenticated a rare self-portrait by the Spanish master Francisco  Goya y Cifuentes owned by the Musée Bonnat in the small town of Bayonne, in Southwest France, Le Figaro reports

Details here.

Campello watercolor at auction

At auction here is a 1994 original watercolor starting at a decent price, as original works from this vintage and style have sold/been appraised as high as $5,000. Although I returned from Scotland back to the US in 1992, I went back to visit Scotland on a yearly basis through the early 2000s, so this piece is probably a Scottish-inspired skyscape.

Check it out here.

Scammers scammed by a scammer

Spanish Police have arrested two brothers from Girona, Spain, who attempted to sell a fake Francisco de Goya painting to a purported sheikh, EFE reports. But the "sheikh" was no victim: he paid the pair with photocopied money.

The con artists realized they had been tricked when they tried to deposit 1.7 million Swiss francs (€1.5 million) in a Geneva bank and were told that the banknotes were mere photocopies.

Spanish police officers found out about the scam in December 2014, when the Avignon customs warned them that they had intercepted two Spanish brothers trying to smuggle 1.7 million fake Swiss francs.

 Details here.

Anaïs Nin

Today is the birthday of Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell, the Cuban sex virago who is perhaps best remembered as a diarist and as a writer of erotic tales and seducer of nearly everyone who came across her incandescent life.

Other than her famous diaries, Little Birds and Delta of Venus are my favorite books of erotica.

Touchstone Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Artists

Deadline: March 30, 2015.

An opportunity to exhibit, develop and grow as an artist. The Fellowship provides a 2 year membership in Touchstone Gallery in downtown DC. This guarantees a solo exhibition as well as participation in gallery group shows, mentorship and a presence on the gallery website. The monetary value of the fellowship exceeds $4500.00. The Fellowship is awarded to 1 or more emerging artists who have not been represented by a commercial gallery in at least 10 years. 

The application and related information can be found on the TFA website www.touchstonefoundationdc.org.

For questions email touchstonefoundationdc@gmail.com or call Ksenia Grishkova, the TFA Director, at 202-347-2787.

Broken Wing Ops

That's my right shoulder, which as previously announced, has been out of commission since December 23rd and will be cut open and operated on this morning around 8:30AM.

My doc went to Boston College and then to Harvard, so those elitist credentials better be good for something.

Two hours under the knife... see ya after that!

Call for Artists: Bethesda Painting Awards

Deadline: Monday, February 20, 2015.

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is currently accepting applications for the seventh annual Bethesda Painting Awards.

Up to nine finalists will be selected to display their work in an exhibition during the month of June at Gallery B in downtown Bethesda, and the top four winners will receive $14,000 in prize monies. Best in Show will be awarded $10,000; Second Place will be honored with $2,000 and Third Place will receive $1,000. Additionally, a “Young Artist” whose birthday is after February 20, 1985 may be awarded $1,000. Artists must be 18 years of age or older and residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. All original 2-D paintings including oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, encaustic and mixed media will be accepted. The maximum dimensions should not exceed 60 inches in width or 84 inches in height. No reproductions. Artwork must have been completed within the last two years and must be available for the duration of the exhibit. Each artist must submit 5 images, application and a non-refundable fee of $25. Digital entries will be accepted on DC in JPG, GIF or PNG format.

For a complete application, please visit www.bethesda.org, send a self-addressed stamped envelope to the Bethesda Painting Awards, c/o Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, 7700 Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda, MD 20814 or call 301-215-6660 x117.        

What ISIS really wants

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy—and for how to stop it.

Read  Graeme Wood's eye-opening article in The Atlantic here.

271 new Picassos!!!!

It all started with a box. A box jam-packed with treasure — previously unseen, extremely rare Picasso drawings and collages, 271 works altogether. The box has been through everything imaginable. It survived flooding of the painter's workshop when the Seine River overflowed its banks, the German occupation, the Liberation, and it was carted about from home to home.

The deceased Pierre Daix, the best expert on the painter's works, once told us, "Picasso was often ejected from his Parisian workshops. He didn't know how to store his works anymore. It made him furious."

The box, one among thousands, then wound up in one of the villas on the French Riviera where the artist lived. Once Picasso filled one home with his paintings, he would buy another one to fill that too.

When the artist died in 1973, the box disappeared. No one noticed because his two villas, the "Californie" and the "Notre-Dame-de-Vie," were overflowing with paintings, sketches and packages.

A box worth €60 million

The box reappeared almost half a century later, and in a completely unexpected way.

Read all (thanks to NotionsCapital.com) about it here!

The New York Times and Cuban AIDS

(Via) Less than three years ago, The New York Times wrote an article praising the Castro regime's "Tight Grip on AIDS" -- even if it meant restricting the Cuban people's most fundamental human rights.

It heralded:

"Whatever debate may linger about the government’s harsh early tactics — until 1993, everyone who tested positive for H.I.V. was forced into quarantine — there is no question that they succeeded... Other elements have contributed to Cuba’s success: It has free universal basic health care; it has stunningly high rates of H.I.V. testing; it saturates its population with free condoms, concentrating on high-risk groups like prostitutes; it gives its teenagers graphic safe-sex education; it rigorously traces the sexual contacts of each person who tests positive."

These "quarantines" were actually nefarious HIV/AIDS prisons. Or as the Castro-friendly World Health Organization ("WHO") calls them "pretty prisons."

Like nearly everything else The New York Times has written about Cuba since 1959, that article turned out to be unmerited -- and unethical -- propaganda.

Last week, we learned that a new, more aggressive strain of the HIV virus has been discovered in Cuba.

According to Medical News Today:

"In Cuba, a variant of HIV that is much more aggressive than other known forms of the virus has been documented. Patients infected with this new variant progress to AIDS so rapidly that they may not even know they are infected, with AIDS symptoms occurring within 3 years of infection."

And how did this new strain come about?

"If a person contracts multiple strains of HIV - typically by engaging in unprotected sex with multiple infected partners - then these strains can recombine into a new variant of HIV within the host. The new Cuban variant of HIV is one such recombinant version of the virus."

Clearly those "harsh early tactics" were not only cruel and inhumane -- but they were also unsuccessful [and are now responsible for developing a new, much more aggressive, strain of AIDS].

Castrum Canis

This new version of the ongoing Castrum Canis series is heading to an exhibition in Arte Americas in Fresno later this year.



Ernesto (Che) Guevara de La Serna Lynch - Castrum Canis
Charcoal and Conte on Paper. 20x16 inches, c.2015
F. Lennox Campello

 

Opportunity for Portrait Artists

Deadline: March 4, 2015

 INTERNATIONAL PORTRAIT COMPETITION

The International Portrait Competition is open to all artists, members and non-members
with more than $60,000 to be awarded in cash & prizes. The $45 entry fee covers up to 3 submissions and all entries must be uploaded through the website in a jpg digital format by midnight on March 4,
2015.

Prospectus located on website indicates all the rules, including size restriction.

Details: 850-878-9996 OR http://tiny.cc/rrqesx OR
amanda@portraitsociety.org

1990s artwork

Between 1992-1994 I lived in Sonoma, California (great place!!!) and at that time I was still serving in the US Navy as the Executive Officer (XO) of NSGA Skaggs Island.

Prior to that, destiny had given me the opportunity to be stationed at NSGA Edzell, in Scotland... easily one of the most beautiful places on the planet.

While in Scotland I worked with a model named Fleur, took some shots of her and then, and later on, using the photos while living in Sonoma, created some watercolors based on the images.

At the time a local Sonoma gallery (Presidio Gallery) picked me up and gave me two great solo shows... one was an incredible solo aimed at raising funds for the Sonoma Ballet Conservatory - that story deserves a post of its own - and the other was a show of assorted artwork.

And then, thanks to the amazing connectivity of Al Gore's Interwebs, I get an email from the person who bought two of the Fleur watercolors.

And for the first time since 1993... here they are!

"Fleur" circa 1993, watercolor 10x8 inches by F. Lennox Campello

Opportunity for Artists

Call for Artists - Open Portfolio Review

JASPER ARTS CENTER -- Public art gallery is reviewing portfolios for solo and group shows for 2016.

All media. No fees. Professional, non-student artists only. Artwork must be presented in a professional manner.

Gallery provides invitations, press releases, honorarium, insurance coverage on-site, and reception where
needed. Artist is responsible for framing, shipping and/or delivery.

30% commission.
 
Send 10 images minimum for solo show, more for group show, along with artist statement and curriculum vitae. Digital images should be on CD. E-mail submissions accepted. There are also paid opportunities
for workshops/gallery talks in conjunction with the exhibit.

Details here.
 
Deadline March 13, 2015

Mail materials along with SASE to:
Emily Colucci, Visual Arts Coordinator
Jasper Arts Center
951 College Ave.
Jasper, IN 47546
or
E-mail:  visualarts@ci.jasper.in.us
 

Artists prisoners of Castro

Today join the Twitter demonstration (#FreeTaniaAngelElSexto) demanding the freedom of:

Danilo Maldonado, a Cuban artist known as "El Sexto," who has been imprisoned since December 26th, 2014 -- pursuant to the Obama-Castro deal.

Angel Santiesteban-Prats, a Cuban novelist who has been imprisoned since February, 28, 2013, and was left behind by the Obama-Castro deal.

Tania Bruguera, a New York-based Cuban artist, who was temporarily arrested on December 30, 2014 for organizing a free speech performance entitled #YoTambienExijo -- pursuant to the Obama-Castro deal. She had her passport confiscated and is not allowed to leave the island.

Googleando

This is what you get when you Google images for "Washington, DC artists." 

This is what you get when you Google images for "Maryland artists."

This is what you get when you Google images for "Virginia artists."

This is what you get when your Google image "Obama paintings."

This is what you get when you Google image "Bush paintings."

Cough, cough...

 

Artists Opportunity with BMA

The Baltimore Museum of Art has issued a Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to artists in the Greater Baltimore area interested in being considered for a collaborative project that will debut with the museum’s new center for learning and creativity (CLC) in October 2015. The BMA will contract with one artist or artist team, in partnership with an area non-profit, to produce a year-long project on the theme of ‘home’. Details of the RFQ are available on the BMA’s website.

Responses are due by midnight, Friday, February 27, 2015.

The opening of the CLC is the culmination of the BMA’s $28 million phased renovation to offer visitors a more welcoming environment and more imaginative encounters with the collection. It is designed to fuel new ways of thinking about art, culture, and contemporary life in Baltimore and beyond.

Through exhibitions, programs, digital initiatives, outreach, and partnerships, the CLC will spark new ways of thinking about art and culture in the context of the wider world. Equal parts catalyst, convener, and connector, the CLC will deepen visitor understanding of human experiences and stimulate the creativity essential for addressing some of society’s greatest challenges. The center is comprised of five interconnected spaces—a total of 5,550 square feet situated adjacent to the museum’s newly renovated Zamoiski East Entrance and East Wing Lobby.

The selected artist or artist team will activate the museum’s new 864 sq. ft. community commons space with artwork and with a series of free public programs implemented between October 2015 and August 2016. The project budget, inclusive of all fees, materials, fabrication expenses, and transport is $30,000.

Eligibility is limited to artists who meet the following guidelines:

• Artists who are working in traditional or new media, public art, and/or performance-based visual expression.
• Artists who have a history of collaboration, social, and/or participatory practice.
• Artists whose work addresses the theme of ‘home.’
• Artists must reside within the Greater Baltimore region (defined as Baltimore City and its surrounding five counties (Baltimore, Harford, Anne Arundel, Howard, and Carroll counties) during the 12-month project period.
• Artists may not be enrolled in a degree-seeking program, either part-time or full-time, at an institution of higher learning at the time of the application deadline.
• BMA staff and their families are not eligible to apply.
• Artists must apply in partnership with a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

Responding candidates are asked to submit a PDF portfolio, resume, references, a letter of intent, and up to five pages of supporting materials. Also required is a letter of support, mission statement and legal proof of 501(c)(3) status from a non-profit partner organization. Interested candidates are invited to review the full details of the RFQ on the BMA’s website.

The selection process includes selecting a shortlist of candidates in March, presentations and interviews with candidates in April, and final selection announced on April 30.

Please address all questions to Jessica Braiterman, Manger of Community Engagement and Learning (jbraiterman@artbma.org).

PK on Mayor Bowser

They simply don’t have the money, and money is all that matters. Never mind that the institute would have enlivened a neighborhood that pretty much goes dark when offices close at the end of the day. Never mind that the city desperately needs an open space for large temporary art exhibitions that are a staple of the cultural diet in other, more progressive, far-sighted metropolitan areas. Never mind the innumerable intangible advantages to having an institution devoted to free expression and innovation closely knit into the fabric of the downtown core.

Thank God for Artomatic, uh? Read Kennicott in the WaPo here - also read the commenters lambasting him... Ouch!

Opportunity for Artists

Application Deadline: Wednesday, March 25, 2015 before midnight
VisArts invites artists working in all media to apply for 2016 Solo Exhibitions in the Gibbs Street Gallery and Common Ground Gallery.

The Gibbs Street Gallery offers exhibitions that explore the breadth of contemporary art featuring emerging to mid-career artists. Exhibits reflect a wide range of media and experimental approaches that offer the viewer unexpected interactions with art. The gallery is approximately 1,100 square feet with 16 ft. ceilings. It is on the street level with floor to ceiling windows along one wall. International, national and local artists are welcome to apply.
The Common Ground Gallery features exhibitions that reflect the creative pursuits of artists from our community. The gallery is located on the second floor and is approximately 300 square feet. Artists must live in the DC/Baltimore metro area to apply for a solo exhibition in this gallery.

Applicants who have participated in a solo exhibition at VisArts within the past two years are not eligible to apply.

Application Deadline: Wednesday, March 25, 2015 before midnight
*Incomplete applications will not be reviewed.

All application materials must be submitted online through our website no later than 11:59 pm EST on 03/25/2015. Application materials submitted by mail or hand delivery must be received in our administrative offices (3rd floor) no later than 5:00 pm on Wednesday, March 25, 2015.

Required Application Materials
Application Form
Images Submit 5 – 10 images of work produced during the past 3 years. Work samples can be a combination of high resolution photos and time-based media.
Media Requirements: Images must be in .jpg, .jpeg, .png, or .gif file format. Minimum image resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels. Maximum file size 5MB per image. 2 minutes of video, film, sound or performance documentation = one work. Up to 10 minutes total.
 
List of Works Form
Artist Statement (1 page maximum)
Artist Biography (1 page maximum)
Exhibition Proposal: Briefly describe the exhibition, installation or project for the gallery space.
Resume/CV
Application Fee ($15.00) – online application will require payment by credit card or Pay Pal

Submission Guidelines

Apply online : Complete the online application and submit all images and required documents on the VisArts website, Click Here.

Application Deadline: Wednesday, March 25, 2015 before midnight
Apply by mail: All required application materials must be RECEIVED in our Administrative Offices (3rd floor) no later than 5:00 pm on Wednesday, March 25, 2015. Download Application Forms.

Send or deliver all required application materials to:
Exhibitions Department
VisArts at Rockville
155 Gibbs Street, Suite 300
Rockville, MD 20850
 Make payment of Application Fee by check made payable to: VisArts (Please write “Solo Application 2016″ in the memo line)
 
Notification
Applicants will be notified of the status of their application via email by April 13, 2015.

Questions
Please send any questions via email with “Solo Exhibitions 2016″ in the subject line to Susan Main, Exhibitions Coordinator at: smain@visartscenter.org

Art censorship???

Welcome to the solipsistic world of equality activism, in which the removal of sloganeering in chalk on the pavement, which might have been wiped away by routine maintenance, if rain didn’t get it first, is equated with the censorship of a faculty artist.

Read  Franklin Einspruch 's superb piece When Artists Fear their Audience here.

I think there's a current confusion in the world left of center that needs some distinction: There is a huge difference between a "liberal" and a "leftist."

Liberals generally embrace diversity, discussions amongst different opinions and points of view, protection of our basic rights, and an open, receptive ear to all.

Leftists, on the other hand, are generally aligned with the Marxist dogma that prohibits all but one voice and seeks to silence all others and endorses only the "approved" form of art. Some of the biggest mass murderers in modern history (Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro) have all been leftists.