Announcement for the opening of the exhibition “Eden and Everything After” at the University of Stavanger Archaelogical Museum and publication of attendant catalogue.

In a continuing investigation, the Raubkunst at the Ringling Project is seeking the onetime owner or heirs of a quartet of oil-on-canvas Pastoral Scenes made by Giovanni Battista Piazzetta (1682 -1754) and/or his workshop, dated c. 1750. These works are presently housed at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Object numbers: SN627-630.

This is the review of the catalogue published by Hirmer Verlag accompanying the 2018 exhibition Hello World: Revising a Collection held at the Hamburger Bahnhof / Museum für Gegenwart in Berlin in 2018.

The European Commission on Looted Art, known officially as the Central Registry of Information on Looted Cultural Property 1933-1945, has accepted the results of my findings on the provenance of the works purchased by the American UPI journalist Robert Beattie from the notorious “art dealer to the Nazis” Bernhard Böhmer in 1940. The collection of…[Read more]

This story is the culmination of a three year investigation into some Nazi-lootd art I discovered at the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, Florida. The works are woodblock prints by Franz Marc, “Schöpfungsgeschicte II” (1914) and “Geburt der Pferde” (1913) that had been seized as Entartete Kunst from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart,…[Read more]

This is a review of the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition “Franz Marc and August Macke: 1910-1914” at the Neue Galerie, September 2018-January 2019.

A review of the Bill Viola exhibition at the Stavanger Kunstmuseum including Man Searching For Immortality / Woman Searching for Eternity (2013) and Tristan’s Ascension (2005) in conversation.

A review of the 2018 book by Robin Schuldenfrei, “Luxury and Modernism: Architecture and the Object in Germany 1900-1933.”

Reviews of Modern Masters “Degenerate” Art at the Kunstmuseum Basel and Gurlitt Status Report: – Confiscated and Sold, Kunstmuseum Bern – Nazi Art Theft and Its Consequences, Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany.

This article discusses Franz Marc’s 1914 essay “Das abstrakte Theater”1 (Fig. 01), and the events surrounding an “Expressionist” production of Shakespeare’s Der Sturm planned by Marc and Hugo Ball the same year. Marc’s position in this detour from painting and writing can be understood in terms of his embrace of “die ‘Wilden’” – “th…[Read more]

This is a review of “Modigliani,” the catalogue accompanying the eponymous exhibition at the Tate Modern.

This essay examines photographs of the German Expressionist artist, writer, and Tierliebhaber Franz Marc and his dog, Russi, taking the position that one of the most obvious characteristics of Marc’s life his – affectionate and respectful relationship with Russi – has been largely overlooked, though its documentation is clear. I extol the value…[Read more]

August Macke und Franz Marc pflegten bis zum Tod eine innige Freundschaft, die in
einem gemeinsam gemalten Bild einen fast utopischen Ausdruck fand: Das Paradies-
Fresko in Mackes Haus in Bonn. Das überlebensgroße Bild zeugt einerseits vom seltenen,
aber gelungenen Versuch einer künstlerischen Zusammenarbeit. Zum anderen
dokumentiert es die Su…[Read more]

A review of the exhibition catalogue for the show of the same name at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, February-September 2017. This is a review for the Museum Bookstore. The url with images is here: http://www.guggenheimstore.org/books/visionaries-creating-a-modern-museum-exhbition-catalogue

This thesis uses ethology as a framework to examine Franz Marc’s paintings of animals. To perceive animals ethologically means acknowledging that animals feel, think, experience, and imagine the world. Ethology has come to include interpretive pursuits as well as traditional field studies, and as I show, Marc’s practice encompassed both asp…[Read more]

This is a review of Max Beckmann in New York. Written by Sabine Rewald and published by Yale University Press, this catalogue accompanies the eponymous exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Fifth Avenue, 16 October 2016-20 February 2017; 148 pages with color reproductions of all the paintings from the exhibition plus other Beckmann…[Read more]

This is the introduction to a Raubkunst investigation spanning decades and continents.

These are reviews of publications produced by the Franz Marc Museum in Kochel am See, Germany, relating to retrospective texts and exhibitions of the painter and writer Franz Marc on the 100th anniversary of his death in 2016.

A review of the book of translations and commentaries, ed. Kimberly A. Smith, The Expressionist Turn in Art History: A Critical Anthology (2014).