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The Headlines
LOS ANGELES LOSES A LEGEND. Art dealer Margo Leavin, who ran a trailblazing contemporary art gallery in L.A. for more than 40 years, has died at the age of 85, Christopher Knight reports in the Los Angeles Times. Leavin set up shop in 1970 and closed in 2013; along the way, she showed canonical and soon-to-be-canonical artists including Ellsworth Kelly, Billy Al Bengston, Claes Oldenburg, Sarah Charlesworth, Christopher Williams, John Baldessari , and many, many more. In all, she hosted more than 500 exhibitions. In 2015, she sold the gallery’s archives to the Getty Research Institute. The following year, she donated $20 million to the UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture to fund the expansion of its studios for graduate students, which were renamed the UCLA Margo Leavin Graduate Art Studios. Her donation was the largest that the UC system had ever received for the arts.
A RESTITUTION RESOLUTION. An 1888 Vincent van Gogh watercolor of haystacks that was seized by the Nazis will be offered at Christie’s in New York next month with a low estimate of $20 million, ARTnews reports. The piece was once owned by the German-Jewish industrialist Max Meirowsky, who left it with a dealer when he fled the country in 1938. It was subsequently purchased by Alexandrine de Rothschild (an heir to the famed banking family), whose Paris-based collection was confiscated by the Nazis. The piece is being sold by the estate of the Texas oil kingpin Edwin Cox, who purchased it from Wildenstein & Co. in the 1970s. The proceeds “from the sale will be included in a settlement agreement to the heirs of Max Meirowsky, Alexandrine de Rothschild, and representatives for Cox’s estate,” Angelica Villa writes.
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The Digest
Museums in the United Kingdom are grappling with financial losses stemming from the pandemic, and it could take them years to recover, Alex Marshall reports. “It’s not back to normal at all,” Sharon Heal, the director of the Museums Association, said. [The New York Times]
Artist Glenn Ligon got the profile treatment from Megan O’Grady. “It sort of drives me crazy when people say, ‘Oh, the work is so timely,’ ” Ligon said. “Antiracism is always timely.” [T: The New York Times Magazine]
The Broad Art Foundation has made more than 8,700 loans of works from its collection over the years. (A pretty astonishing figure!) Have you ever wondered how such arrangements work? Here is a primer. [ARTnews]
Textiles that were “spun from the naturally golden silk of millions of orb-weaver spiders” are on view through next Friday at Cromwell Place in London, in a presentation by Oliver Hoare Limited, Melanie Gerlis advises. Artist Simon Peers conceived of the pieces, and fashion designer Nicholas Godley handled production. [Financial Times]
Artist Tschabalala Self shared details about the inner workings of her studio in New Haven, Connecticut: Her assistants handle the music playlist, and she does not cook or sleep there. Self’s most important tool is “my scissors,” she said. “I use those for everything, even the drawing.” [Apollo]
Artist, fashion designer, and occasional restaurateur Susan Cianciolo has a new cookbook out that brings together her recipes (and those of her friends) with her art. The tome has an intriguing title: This Cookbook Is Made for the Fifth Dimension. [Vogue]
The Kicker
VISIONS OF THE FUTURE. The Guardian took a look at how the emergence of online viewing rooms may affect the gallery business. OVRs helped some dealers weather the pandemic, reaching new collectors without the cost of participating in the art fairs, but not everyone is sold on the format. “The online viewing room is the most ridiculous notion of technology,” artist Sebastian Errazuriz said. “It’s basically just a website with a jpeg on it.” A fair point. [The Guardian]
