Trapezoidal Rock is Smoking Gun in DMA Inness Attribution
The Dallas Museum of Art decided last week that a painting given to the museum in 1931 as painter Asher B. Durand’s “In The Woods” is actually a much nicer painting by George Inness titled “Stream in the Mountains.” There have been doubts about the unsigned painting’s authorship since the 1940′s, but it was sharp [...]
Should Texas Museums Have Artist Board Members?
Noting the flap over the departure of the artist-members of LA MOCA’s board of directors, D Magazine‘s Peter Simek asks if the Dallas museums ought to consider getting some. Simek points out that audience-centric museums need not suck, using Nicholas Serota’s Tate Modern as an example, and crediting Serota’s use of input from contemporary artists [...]
Dallas Two x Two For Aids and Art Event Raises $4.8 million for amfAR, DMA
The star-studded Two x Two For Aids and Art benefit, held at the Rachofsky House in Dallas raised a record-breaking $4.8 million for amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, and the Dallas Museum of Art last Saturday. Close to 475 people attended the black-tie event; 121 works of art were sold via live and silent [...]
DMA woes unearthed by DMN, Details Remain Behind Online Pay Wall
The Dallas Morning News recently ran an unprecedented, front-page dissection of the Dallas Museum of Art’s financial woes by Michael Granberry. The piece, printed on Aug 10, gives a detailed account of the DMA’s investment losses, decline in membership revenue, and staff attrition. Board president John Eagle, who describes himself as “a glass half-full kind [...]
Bonnie Pitman interview: outgoing DMA director spews fluff, may return to making art
Dallas Art News’ Michael Roman snatched 15-20 minutes to interview outgoing DMA director Bonnie Pitman on her successes, failures and the future of the museum in the 21st century. Relentlessly positive, Pitman crams pages of text into the brief interview, but fails to drop many startling insights, except to hints that she may return to [...]
Dallas museum gets AAMC award for excellence for “The Mourners”
The Dallas Museum of Art has won an Association of Art Museum Curators Award for Excellence in the category of “Outstanding Small Exhibition” for The Mourners: Medieval Tomb Sculptures from the Court of Burgundy, curated by the DMA’s Heather MacDonald and Sophie Jugie, the Director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon. A set of [...]
Concentrations 54: Fergus Feehily and Matt Connors
Curator Jeffrey Grove selected Fergus Feehily and Matt Connors for Concentrations 54 (both enjoy their first museum exhibition here at the DMA) because of the quiet little trail the two are blazing in the current story of painting. They are unlikely trailblazers because their work is so decidedly hushed, and often very small, especially in [...]
DMA director Bonnie Pitman to step down
The Dallas Museum of Art announced today that its director Bonnie Pitman is to step down next month due to health reasons. Olivier Meslay, the DMA’s Senior Curator of European and American Art, will serve as the interim director as the museum forms a search committee to find a new director. Pitman joined the museum [...]