Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 8 : Pressclippings, 1977-1981

ART NEWS PAUL BIRD $20million art show NEW YORK art dealer and colleclor, Andrew J, Crispo, wlJ,l fly to Brisbane for the opening of the $20 mllllon Thyssen-Bornemlsza collection ex– hibition which will show at the Queens• land Art Gallery from February 12, Mr Crispo helped the prescnL Buron Thyssen– Bornemlsz11 r•lecL the masLcrpleces for the Qucenslnnd showing. They rcpresenL onl)" a small portion ol the collect.ion which WR5 st.erLed in 1920 and which has Jt.s per– manent; home In SwiL· zerland. Th c exhibition or pRintlngs rrom one of the world's Rrcnlest prl· va.te nn collections wlll be oflic!ally opened b)" t h e O over nor , Sir James Ramsay, on lhe evening of Fcbnmry 11. "America and Eu– rope : A Century or Modern Masters'", le•· tures 97 artists and 107 works with at least one p a. I n t In g from each year since 1870. T he exhibit.Ion In Quee ns land wm be sponsored by The Cou- 1· Ic r-Mall and BTQ Channel 7. The exhibition, which hus attraoted record crowds to the Western Austrnllun and South Australian galleries, will he the most lmportRnt lnterntttlonal collcctlon surrcylng 10th and 20th ccnwry art. yet. shown in Queensland. Most of the cele– brated European nnd AmericRn masters Rre featured . Included are Renoir, o e z a n n e , Degas, Pi· casso, LRULrec and Van Oogh on the Eu1·opean s t d c a nd Americans John Sa r ge nt . De Koo n I n g , Rauschen– ber~. Rothko, Pollock and Wyeth . The painLlngs lrom the earlier periods fol• low more tt'adlllonal st~·les. La ter works chronicle parallel and o!Len dl– ver~ent developments. ·rhe exhibition wlll be open dally from Febru– arr 13 to March 30. The British contem– porary ceramics on dis• pJay at present wlll close on February 3. The gallery wlll be closed until February 12 !or preparation work for the Thyssen-Borne– mlsza collection. ART By Dr GERTRUDE LANGER -1 The art of a century A series of seven weekly prorrams on the develop– ment of a century of art from lhe 1870M will begin 11t t h e Queensland Art Gallery next Wednesday. The series will be run In conjunction with the gallery's ma– jor .;America and Eu• rope: A Century ol Modern Masters"' ex– h I b It Io n lrom the 'I'hyssen • sornemlsw. collection, be11lnnln11 on Tuesday. T he Wednesday programs beginning at 6 p.m., and contin– uing unlll g p.m., can be booked as a series at $7 a ticket through the Queensland An Oallcry's education olflce. They will Include Ie c Lures, perform– A. n c e s I music, and fllms. FLAGELLATION OF CHRIST by Giovanni Bologna, a sculpture in wax from the 16th Century ••• rediscovered in an earth basem Found any_good art treasures lately] YOU, too, could have a· valuable antique which has been "lost" in your house. Arter all, the Queensland Mu– seum did it. The story is something like lhc one last week from London where Chrislie's npparcntly sold a lost llernini bust, worth up lo SI million, for S170. The b11,t, of Pope Gregory XV, wn, made in I (121. The Qucc11sla11d Museum's find was of :, beautiful sculpture in wax by a contempora ry of llcrni11i. lie wns the Flemish-Italian m1lptor (;iova nni llolog11a (some– time~ called Gia mbolognn) who lived from 1529 to I M)X . Thal makes the work around ~00 i e11rs old . The red wax sculpture, The Fl11gell:11 inn of Christ. was Inst after I X'l~ whc11 it was bnughl at a sale 111 Chri~1ic's by ":-.0111conc 11:1111cd .1111,c," fur f'11u r ronncls liftccn , hilli11gs. That is c,111 ivalcnt to ~•lj lJ. By PETER TRUNDLE The work is worth many thou-. sa nd, of dollars. There is no record of what the Museum paid for it. The sculpture was rediscovered in• 1%5 in nn cnrth basement under: neath the Ooor of the Queensland Museum at the Gregory Terrace :· llowen Bridge Road corner or Brisbane, No· one knows from where it came. It had never been exhibited. The va luable work of nrt was brought to the allention of the then 11cw ga llery director Mr Jack Woods, by ornithologist Mr Donald Vernon. Mr Woods i. now public service he11d of the Queensland Mi nes l)cpartmenl. Mr Vernon is still at the Museum. Art Ga llery director Mr Raoul Mellish p111s •he Flngcllation with l'irn"o·, La Belle lloll:tndnise as the briµ hte,t sems or the gallery's collec11u11. · It is 73 cm by 48 cm, and 10 cm thick. The sculpture is kept in n case with -a glass lop. It is so fragile that Mr Mellish asked that it not be photographcd, The picture with this article was supplied by the gallery. The sculpt ure is not be ing exhibited a1 present because or space problems. Mr Mellish tells alsn of n wonrnn who took to the Museum l11, 1 yea r a figure of Christ carved in ivory. She claimed it was a Bcrnini. Mr Mellish could nol be certain, but ii was a fine piece of wnrk, exquisitely done, probnbly lnte · seventeenth century and worlh at least 5200,000. l ler family, apparently, had come from Italy. Some years earlier, nnother woman brought to the gallery from ai ms two etchings by Rembrandt, the Dutch painter, who li1·ed frum 1606 10 It,69, They were worth a~ut SIO,ot' ~c~ I She wns nn American. H • grandfa ther had collected them I his travellings in Europe. .. People with ancestors who can11 to Aus1rali11 in the early days 8Jt more likely tu have valuable "lost 1 antiques than anyone else. Antique dea ler Mrs Belly llindl or the llrisbanc suburb of Ta ringit · Jell.<of the man who asked her t.i \'a lue three tea chests full of silv• which he had inherit ed. There were George 11 and Gcorg lit 11nti<1ucs, up 10 :!50 years ol she says, includ ing ca ndlesticks an ,i lvcr taper slicks for lighting th cnndles. llul, considers Mrs ll inds, a antique dealer fo r :!2 years, thcr probably aren·1 that many anti<111e1 hiding in allies now. People ar more nlcrl tu the pos,i bilify o unknown riches. And re,ncmbcr, ~he warns, n rcnl antique k.at least I no ye11rs old. None or your E. P. .S, "silver" IIUW.