» Christie's to Sell Property From the Collection of Dennis Hopper
» RIP, John Baldessari, the painter
In 1970 he gathered up almost all the art he had made between graduation from art school in 1953 and the start of the word paintings in 1966 and took it to a mortuary crematorium. Everything was incinerated. Some ashes were interred in a book-shaped bronze urn, and a paid death-notice was published in the paper. RIP, John Baldessari, painter.
» Getty Trust President and CEO James Wood passed away this weekend...Roundup via Tyler Green
Getty Trust president and CEO James Wood died suddenly on Friday. Mike Boehm has the LAT obituary, Jori Finkel rounds up response, and Boehm reports that the Getty won’t race to replace Wood even though it is without both a museum director and a trust leader for the first time since 1982. Lauren Viera writes the Chicago Tribune obit. In the St. Louis Beacon, Bob Duffy shares thoughts on the former St. Louis Art Museum director, and includes a couple cracker-jack stories. (That’s the best thing I read on Wood this weekend, so don’t miss it.) There has been no NYT mention nor obit.
Kate Moss for Alexander McQueen
RIP Alexander McQueen. You’re vision will never be duplicated.
via bebelestrange.
Laura Vere-Hodge of Christies walks along a gallery containing Picasso’s “Femme et Fillettes” (L) and “Flag” by artist Jasper Johns at the auction house in London.
LONDON.- Christie’s is honored to announce that it will offer at auction this spring in New York major works from the collection of the late Michael Crichton. Best-selling author and screenwriter, film director and producer, Crichton is renowned for his terrifying and sometimes controversial scientific thrillers such as The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, Timeline, The Lost World, Rising Sun, and State of Fear, and for creating the television series ER.
Crichton is also acknowledged as a leading authority on the American artist Jasper Johns.…
Early in his career, Crichton developed a keen interest in contemporary art and friendships with David Hockney (who made a portrait of Crichton in 1976), Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg and Claes Oldenburg. In the 1970s, Crichton also became a close friend and an avid collector of Jasper Johns. He was asked by Johns to write the catalogue for his major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1977. This publication and its revised and expanded edition are considered one of the preeminent studies on America’s foremost living artist. via…
Andrew Wyeth Ring Road, 1985
The Dayton Art Institute has placed on view Ring Road in memoriam of the late artist.

It is with great sadness that I share the news of Sam Haskin’s death. I was lucky enough to spend some time with legendary photographer recently (recap here), and was just as enamored with his stories as I’ve always been with his work. Haskins had a sharp eye and an even sharper tongue (proof). That said, I will forever cherish the copy of Fashion Etcetera that he gave me and choose to remember him as I met him - smiling. My thoughts go out to his family.
Inside the gallery, I was met by Pierce Jackson, Sam, and Sam’s son Ludwig. Pierce asked Sam to do a mic check, and a few numbers in, he paused and apologized. “I never used to sound this hoarse. It’s from the stroke,” he confided. He went on to say he thought he sounded foolish. I said he didn’t and joked that if he wanted to hear what foolish sounded like, he ought to listen to Pierce. It was a potshot, but it worked. Pierce offered a playful scowl, and Sam cracked a smile. The interview began. (via)
via simko