Leonard Lauder’s Billion Dollar Gift

Avid art collector Leonard Lauder has given New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art an astonishing, no-strings-attached collection of Cubist art worth an estimated $US1 billion. The enormous collection, which Mr Lauder assembled over four decades, includes 78 works by Picasso, Braque, Gris, and Leger, and “will transform the museum,” a museum statement released said.

The Met has long suffered a hole in its early 20th century art collection, will be transformed by the completeness and quality of the sudden addition. The museum will also establish a new research centre for modern art, supported by a $22 million endowment created by donors including Mr Lauder, the gallery announced. The Lauder Collection will be unveiled late in 2014, the museum said :: Read the full article »»»»

New iPad App from Australia’s National Library Brings Sheet Music to the Forte

Tens of thousands of pages of historic, nostalgic sheet music from the National Library of Australia in Canberra are available for the first time on mobile devices.

The library has launched a new iPad application called Forte, which can access more than 13,000 individual musical items, dating from the early 1800s through to the 1950s.

Downloading the digitised musical scores is popular among musicians and historians, but also art lovers wanting to study the elaborate illustrated covers. The app was written by Canberra techy Jake MacMullin using an open data set from the Government’s data website.

Some of the online favourites include the Advance Australia Fair sheet music of the 1900s and the iconic Aeroplane Jelly song. The music collection contains over 300,000 musical scores and the largest collection of music research resources in Australia. :: Read the full article »»»»

MONA Removing Nolan’s Snake

A Sidney Nolan artwork which sat in storage for 40 years until it was unveiled at Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art in 2011 is being taken down. The spectacular mural is comprised of 1,620 individual paintings, which when hung as a polyptych creates a snake winding subtly across the paper mural.

MONA is the brainchild of eccentric millionaire gambler David Walsh, his acquisition of Snake was the catalyst for the museum.

Nolan’s serpent mural, Snake, was hung on a purpose-built 40 metre wall, it’s been a centre-piece of the museum which opened two years ago. Snake was described as a major structural component of the museum and one of the Nolan’s best, most dramatic works by Mr Walsh.

Snake will be replaced by an installation from the Japanese digital artist Rioji Ikeda in June 2013. If you haven’t had a chance to view Nolan’s spectacular work, hurry! More info: www.mona.net.au

Sundance Film Festivals Top Award Went to US Police Shooting Movie

Fruitvale, a film about a notorious US police shooting of an unarmed black man, has won the top prize at the Sundance Film Festival, while movies from Russia and South Korea were among non-US honourees . The movie by first-time director Ryan Coogler took out the US drama Grand Jury award, as well as the US drama audience award at the end of America’s premier independent movie showcase, held in the snowy Utah mountains :: Read the full article »»»»

Historical Hiroshima A-Bomb Photograph Found

A rare photograph showing the mushroom cloud from the Hiroshima atomic bombing in two distinct parts, one above the other, has been discovered in the city. The black-and-white picture is believed to have been taken about half-an-hour after the bombing on August 6, 1945, around 10 kilometres east of the hypocentre  :: Read the full article »»»»