Dear All,
I haven't received one of these in quite some time, so here is the latest....

Cheers,
-- jack

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *
Jack Robertson  ||  Foundation Librarian
Jefferson Library  || Thomas Jefferson Foundation
PO Box 316  Charlottesville, VA  22902
(434) 984-7545  ||  http://www.monticello.org/library 


-----Original Message-----
From: H-Net Network for Museum Professionals [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of H-Museum [Blank]
Sent: Monday, November 21, 2005 11:10 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: NEWS: H-Museum News Digest (USA, UK)


From: Stephanie Marra <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: News Digest
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2005 13:35:38 +0100
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H-MUSEUM NEWS DIGEST (USA, UK)
November 14 - November 20, 2005

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November 14
++ British magazines
Plans revealed for slavery museum
The city of Liverpool is to have a museum dedicated to its role in the transatlantic slave trade (BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/merseyside/4435454.stm

Maori heads to be returned to NZ
Three preserved Maori heads will be returned to New Zealand after decades in a Glasgow museum (BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/4433280.stm


November 15
++ British newspapers
Museum hands back heads
The preserved heads of three Maori chiefs will be returned to New Zealand after being handed over yesterday at a ceremony in Glasgow. The heads, believed to have belonged to chiefs killed in battle in the 19th century, were accepted by a party from the Te Papa Tongawara museum, Wellington. Councillors voted to return the remains from Glasgow's Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum after requests from the Te Papa for items, such as the mask pictured, held outside their homeland (The Times) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1872404,00.html


November 16
++ American newspapers
Prosecutors Bet Big on Antiquities Trial in Italy
It is not every day that an American museum curator goes on trial, accused of a crime. But for Italian prosecutors, the spectacle is part of the point. In a high-stakes gamble, they are betting that a trial that opens here on Wednesday will strongly deter illicit trading in Italian antiquities - and even persuade some American museums to give lost treasures back (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/16/arts/design/16gett.html

++ British newspapers and magazines
Uplifting project comes to London
Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist's new work is a film projected on to the gallery ceiling - and to spare aching necks, beds are provided (The Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1643506,00.html

New museum breaks visitor targets
Officials running Wales' newest museum say they are delighted with the public response in the month since it opened (BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_west/4443644.stm


November 17
++ American newspapers
Former Curator in Courtroom as Her Trial Begins in Rome
Ending a bit of suspense, Marion True, the former antiquities curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, showed up Wednesday for the opening of her trial here on charges of conspiring to import illegally excavated antiquities for the museum (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/17/arts/design/17gett.html

Museums Under Fire on Ancient Artifacts
Three years ago, directors of some of the world's top museums, meeting in Munich, commiserated over a major annoyance: the growing demands from countries like Greece and Italy that they return ancient artifacts (New York Times) http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/11/17/arts/design/17anti.html

Ex-Getty curator received 2nd loan
The J. Paul Getty Museum's former antiquities curator, Marion True, received a $400,000 personal loan from two wealthy art collectors just days after the museum closed a deal to acquire their collection, records and interviews show (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-me-getty17nov17,0,4332571.story?coll=cl-art

++ British newspapers
$1bn of seized art to be returned
The Swiss back down over paintings that were 'hostages' for a bad debt. Paintings worth $1 billion that had been impounded in Switzerland over an unpaid debt are to be returned to Russia after the country's leading collectors threatened to end all lending to overseas exhibitions (The Times) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1875649,00.html


November 18
++ American newspapers
Stolen Art and the F.B.I.
In 1950, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began its "Most Wanted Fugitives" list. Now the F.B.I. has extended its franchise to art, by inaugurating the "Ten Top Ten Art Crimes" list, which is available here: http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/arttheft/arttheft.htm
(New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/weekinreview/20read.html

The Met Purchases a Rauschenberg Painting
The Metropolitan Museum has acquired its first painting by Robert
Rauschenberg: "Winter Pool" (1959), one of the artist's classic combines (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/arts/design/18voge.html

The Overlooked French Knew How to Draw, Too
To the tsunami of French art from the past reaching our shores this season, add "Clouet to Seurat," a show of 16th- to 19th-century French drawings from the magisterial British Museum that is now on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/arts/design/18glue.html

Where Issues of Black Identity Meet the Concerns of Every Artist Once upon a time, toward the middle of the 20th century, the Guggenheim, the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art regularly mounted theme shows and surveys of contemporary art. These days, only the Whitney, among New York's big museums, maintains the habit, most notably with its flawed but indispensable biennials (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/arts/design/18freq.html

Russian City's Sacred and Secular Visions
Sacred Arts and City Life: The Glory of Medieval Novgorod," which opens on Saturday at the Walters Art Museum here, negotiates precisely that divide. Cogent, propulsive, quite unlike the Guggenheim's Russian extravaganza, the show illuminates two overlapping realms: the secular life of a once-grand commercial city; and the religious life of the same city, which was itself in some sense a giant icon, a sacred space (New York Times) http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/11/18/arts/design/18cott.html

Jewish museum plans move
The National Museum of American Jewish History on Thursday announced plans to build a new facility that it hopes will raise the museum's profile and quadruple the number of annual visitors (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-et-museum18nov18,0,5791652.story?coll=cl-art

++ British newspapers
Tate expands Wall collection
Tate Modern has acquired two works by the great Canadian photographer Jeff Wall for its permanent collection (The Guardian) http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1645391,00.html


November 19
++ American newspapers
The Grandeur of Evolution in a New Exhibition Called 'Darwin' The new exhibition called "Darwin" at the American Museum of Natural History portrays the making of the man and the scientist, and it reminds us how well and how fully evolution explains the life around us. It also captures the way Darwin's theory opened an entirely new window in the human imagination (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/opinion/19sat4.html

Photos That Don't Capture Reality, but Change It
If photography began escaping the shadow of painting a century ago, decades passed before it was widely recognized as an art unto itself. Today proof of its star status can be found in a four-day international fair called Paris Photo, which closes on Sunday. Clearly, the market for art photography is booming (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/19/arts/design/19phot.html

Director of S.F. museums named
John E. Buchanan Jr., executive director of the Portland Art Museum for the last 11 years, has been appointed director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-et-quick19.3nov19,0,5264979.story?coll=cl-art

++ British newspapers
Pollock painting stolen in raid
Artworks by Jackson Pollock and Andy Warhol have been stolen from a museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania in the early hours of Friday morning (BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4452858.stm


November 20
++ American newspapers
Royal Ontario's Refurbished Galleries to Showcase Asian Art Holdings The Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto will open 10 renovated galleries on Dec. 26, including seven devoted to China, Japan and Korea. Four of these Far Eastern galleries showcase the museum's extensive collection of Chinese art, artifacts and sculpture (New York Times) http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/travel/20advmuseum.html

The Fossils That Never Lived
The steep rocks by a stone wall in Central Park near East 106th Street offered little evidence of what might rest deep beneath the soil. "See if there's any heads lying around, or tails, or feet," suggested Carl Mehling, the manager of the fossil collections at the American Museum of Natural History (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/nyregion/thecity/20dino.html

A Sophisticated Eye for Naïve Art
The artist Richard Tuttle seems to share little with his minimalist cousins - Sol LeWitt, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin - but it's a good little. That is, a longstanding exploration of what constitutes art, well chronicled in the Whitney Museum retrospective of his work, which opened this month. While his colleagues have exalted fluorescent tubes and lead, Mr. Tuttle has thought smaller and weirder: string, wire, cloth, cans. Or some combination thereof, recalling the uneasy catchall genre known as outsider art (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/fashion/sundaystyles/20POSS.html

This Deal Came Around Twice
Even in the often-bizarre world of museum acquisitions, it was an unusual turn of events. When the National Gallery of Art in Washington recently decided to acquire a 17th-century marble statue of John the Baptist, it was the museum's second shot at a piece attributed to at least two different artists over half a century (New York Times) http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/arts/design/20voge.html

Humility at its most radiant
Two Renaissance masters, from Europe's north and south, are showcased in exhibitions that are lessons in serenity (Los Angeles Times) http://www.calendarlive.com/galleriesandmuseums/cl-ca-memling20nov20,0,2428597.story?coll=cl-art

++ British newspapers and magazines
A masterly homage to magic of Matisse
Critics regularly quarrel about the vogue for blockbuster exhibitions, which sometimes seem designed primarily to seduce sponsors and to advance a political agenda. For some observers, record-breaking attendance figures have little to do with the cultural mandate of a museum and, indeed, may distract from the tasks of conservation, research and communication that are vital to a public collection. Furthermore, transporting works of art is a hazardous enterprise that should never be taken lightly (International Herald Tribune) http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/11/18/features/gallo.php

The Guerrilla Girls in our midst
The Guerrilla Girls go ape at art-world sexism: "We were a bunch of women artists living in New York, and in 1984, the Museum of Modern Art opened a new building with an exhibition titled An International Survey of Painting and Sculpture" (The Times) http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,14933-1878378,00.html

Call for museums to open at night
London's galleries and museums should open until 10 at night to give people an alternative to binge drinking, the London Assembly is expected to say (BBC News) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4454854.stm

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