This year in art...

2010 is going to be a big year in the art world. The British Museum opened its doors 251 years ago today. This year marks the 75th Anniversary of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Columbia Museum of Art celebrates its 60th Anniversary. The Galleria Borghese in Rome will be showing Caravaggio and Francis Bacon in concert. The National Portrait Gallery in London will be showing the work of Irving Penn. The da Vinci masterpiece La Bella Principessa will be shown at the Eriksbergshallen complex in Sweden. The long-awaited Maxxi Museum opens in Rome in April. The wardrobe of actress Grace Kelly will be shown at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Picasso is being shown at the Tate, Liverpool, while Gauguin will be shown at the Tate Modern.

This is also a year in which we remember our art history: In 410 Rome was sacked by Visigoths led by Alaric I, destroying much cultural heritage to that point. It has been 500 years since the death of Giorgione, and 350 years since the death of Diego Velázquez. In England 150 years ago, Sydney Paget, illustrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories in The Strand magazine, was born and the British Association met at Oxford University Museum. It has been 100 years since the death of author Samuel Clements, French naïve painter Henri Rousseau and American painter Winslow Homer. It is also 100 years since the birth of architect Richard Seifert, painter Rodrigo Moynihan and art historian Sir Denis Mahon.

Are you curious about up-coming exhibitions world-wide? Did you resolve to bone up on your art history in 2010? Stop by the Jean Outland Chrysler Library and see what we have to offer on your topic of interest.

Library Assistant Sara Mason