AUGUST 27, 1997
 
- very sad news about Art Daily
- security academy
- Once-magnificent library is tattered and worn
- Searching for stolen art/antiquities
- Lottery cash for the arts 'to be frozen'
- Why the auction is the enemy of art
- Wood expert casts doubt on dating of masterpiece
- FBI Has Lead in 1990 Art Heist (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum)
- RE: Once-magnificent library is tattered and worn
 
 
Date sent: Tue, 26 Aug 1997 09:52:15 -0600
From: Liz Gangemi <lgangemi@mail.ivc.com.mx>
Send reply to: lgangemi@mail.ivc.com.mx
Organization: Artdaily
To: securma@xs4all.nl
Subject: Re: ArtDaily, the first art newspaper on the internet
 
Dear Ton,
I am writing you because I have some sad news. Our site will only go up
through this Friday. My boss has decided to stop creating ArtDaily for
an indefinate period of time.
The reason is, as usual, because of $$$. When we first started we had a
financial backer that was very strong, but since March this year, he has
been supporting it himself.
During our time on the "air" we received many awards and too many
e-mails congratulating us to mention. Part of that success was based
strongly on our news section, a section that was heavily supported not
only by the Museum Security Network, but by you, with your extra special
articles that you sent, above and beyond the call of duty.
>From me to you, Thank You. I was praised often because of my varity of
material and my self-esteem and personal satisfaction, for presenting a
job well done, increased enormously, that praise also belongs to you.
I have a computer at home and Internet service and will keep reading
your site. Perhaps from time to time I will still contribute to you
with subjects that I find relating to your theme.
Take care of you and your family and Thank You again for your help,
Sincerely,
Liz Marie Gangemi
----------------------
 
Date sent: Sat, 23 Aug 1997 22:42:07 +0300
From: "achilles n. makris" <achilsec@planet-cafe.com>
Send reply to: achilsec@planet-cafe.com
To: securma@xs4all.nl
Subject: security academy
 
Dear Sir
I am trying to establish and organize a Security Academy. So, I am
looking for information
on:
1. Security Programs and Systems
2. Current class schedules
3. VIDEO TAPES
4. Name your Prices ( cost or retail price )
Any short of information would help me to create the Best
ACADEMY in GREECE
I would like to buy all these stuff (knowledge-curriculum-material
etc.) for using them in my Academy.
Best regards
Achilles N. Makris
a retired attack pilot
----------------------
 
Published Sunday, August 24, 1997, in the Miami Herald
Once-magnificent library is tattered and worn
By JOHN DONNELLY
Herald Staff Writer
CAIRO -- The request was simple enough: The librarian was asked for X-rays of the mummy of King Tutankhamen. But at the Library of the Egyptian Museum, no request is so easy. After nearly a two-hour search, the young librarian came up with dusty X-rays of all the other royal mummies -- but King Tut's were nowhere to be found. Library director Adel Farid apologized. The loss of a set of X-rays, he said, was symptomatic of a bigger problem. This once-magnificent, two-story repository of Egypt's oldest books and prints, among other treasures, is decaying a little bit more each day. And, Farid said, there's no help on the horizon -- at least not from the government.
Scant support:
In the last two years, Egypt's Antiquities Department has provided exactly 54 pounds -- the equivalent of $15.92 -- for maintenance. `It's unbelievable, I know,'' said Farid, 45. ``We don't have a penny for the library. Even when we get a parcel from the post office, I have to go pay for it out of my own money -- money I've put aside for my children.'' When Farid became director of the century-old library more than two years ago, he requested five computers from the government. He received none. He requested 50 chairs so scholars could sit. He received none. He requested a maintenance budget of $500 -- to be replenished after the approval of receipts. He received petty cash -- 27 pounds, or $7.96, which has been replenished twice in two years. The government said it has no funds. The head of the Antiquities Department was not available for an interview. But a well-known Egyptologist on the state payroll, Zahi Hawass, the head of the Giza Pyramids, said the library's downfall is a tragedy. ``That library should be the No. 1 library in the world,'' Hawass said. ``If we don't restore the library, with all the treasures in there, how can we teach the upcoming generations of archaeologists in Egypt?'' Hawass never goes to the library anymore. ``I hate it,'' he said. ``It's dirty. It's dusty. I can't stand going inside.''
In need of repair:
The library, the southeastern corner of the grand, French-designed Egyptian Museum, is indeed as Hawass describes it. The faded brown curtains hang half off their hooks. Ceiling fans don't work. The second floor is closed. There are no chairs. And yet, the possibilities of restoring this library to the grand days of old don't seem entirely farfetched. Not at first glance, anyway. Beautiful floor-to-ceiling cherry-wood bookcases line rooms. On the shelves, behind glass, the library's 50,000 volumes on ancient Egypt are perhaps unrivaled anywhere in the world. But one look at the demoralized staff, and at dejected director Farid, brings home the scope of the problem, which extends to a persistent rodent infestation. The 30 librarians, paid about $30 a month, always eat lunch at their desks. After closing, mice always clean up. ``We've tried to kill these mice, but three months after spraying, they are back,'' Farid said. The infestation in the museum's basement would require exterminators to frequently spray the entire mazelike area, which is the size of a city block. ``We're trying to keep the books in as good a condition as possible,'' said the Cambridge-educated Farid. ``All I can do is write letters asking for funds and asking the public to donate books. But the problems are huge here. The salaries are a disaster. People are living with the help of God, I think.''
Silver lining:
There's one bright note: When Farid took over, he discovered that 350 antique books were missing. After the government said it would force the librarians to pay for the books, about 320 of the volumes mysteriously returned. There's even some hope for the next person looking for King Tut's X-rays: The museum's director of conservation said he has an extra set, and would give it to the library.
-------------------
 
(Museum-L)
From: HomeMcT1 <homemct1@AOL.COM>
Subject: Searching for stolen art/antiquities
 
Some of you may have read previous messages from me on this subject --
I am writing a law review article on searching for stolen art/antiquities
on the internet. Previous responses to my postings have offered tremendous
on-line resources, but I wonder if anyone can help with a more historical
perspective -- how did you handle searching for your stolen
art/antiquities prior to the internet. Anecdotes are welcome, and
attribution given!
Thanks in advance for the help!
Laura McFarland-Taylor
The John Marshall Law School
HomeMcT1@aol.com
-------------------------
 
 
(Telegraph London)
Lottery cash for the arts 'to be frozen'
By Norman Lebrecht and Jon Hibbs
THE Government is heading for confrontation with the arts world over a threat to impose a £100 million cap on National Lottery funding for theatres, galleries and arts initiatives. Ministers are being blamed for prospective cuts in lottery expenditure which would amount to the biggest reversal of public support for the arts since the principle of state subsidy was established in 1945. It follows a meeting at which Chris Smith, the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, is said to
have told the Arts Council that its lottery money would be frozen at £100 illion a year for the next three years. That is half the budget enjoyed by the arts under the Tories and has provoked fears that many important building projects and badly-needed renovation programmes will be hit. The row involves the share of income the arts can expect from the lottery and does not affect the separate £185 million Treasury grant to the Arts Council, which is spent on performances
and productions. Although the Government has launched a fundamental spending review covering the work of all Whitehall departments and agencies, Labour sources denied responsibility for the problem. They accused the council of over-estimating likely income from the lottery, and over-committing itself to expensive projects for which money was never guaranteed. One Whitehall source said the department had always been in dispute with the council over estimates of lottery funding, and denied that firm figures had been reached. The source said: "Talks are yet to take place." Labour warned before the election that it would set up a sixth "good cause" to channel lottery funds to health and education projects but ministers insist that such legislation later this year
will not adversely affect funds available to the original five. The White Paper on reform of the lottery last month showed that the success of the mid-week lottery had released an additional £1 billion for the new fund on top of the original forecast of £9 billion proceeds. A spokesman for Mr Smith's department said the other recipients of lottery funds - the arts, sport, charities and the millennium celebrations - could still expect to receive the same share as before, equivalent to about £250 million a year. Tories warned that there was bound to be a squeeze on resources once Labour interfered with the way lottery funding was distributed. "This is the inevitable consequence of a people's lottery being turned into the Government's lottery," said Patrick Nicholls, the shadow culture spokesman. The reductions present arts administrators with difficult choices in allocating the money left to them. Covent Garden's controversial restoration alone is costing £78 million - almost 80 per cent of
a year's budget - and the Lowry Centre at Salford Quays, Manchester, will consume £64 million. A £113 million bid under consideration to encase London's South Bank arts centre under a glass shield designed by Labour's favourite architect, Lord Rogers, would probably be ruled out under the new limits. The plan by English National Opera to quit the Coliseum in central London and move to a more residential area would also be put under threat. Some large-scale projects, such as the £40 million refit of the Royal Albert Hall or the newly-approved £33 million arts centre at the Baltic Flour Mills, in Gateshead, will still go ahead but completion may be delayed as funding is eked out over a much longer period. "It is very painful because there is so much good stuff that still needs supporting," said Prudence Skene, chairman of the lottery panel for the Arts Council of England. "To some of the bigger companies we will for the next few years have to say - don't even think of applying." Political sources say the Labour leadership is not in the least concerned about an arts backlash
over the withdrawal of lottery funding.
----------------
 
(The Age Melbourne)
Why the auction is the enemy of art
By ROBERT NELSON
Age visual arts critic
THERE HAS always been a secondary market for art, a market for the resale of
artworks. But now that considerable volumes of contemporary art are handled
by large international auction houses, the auction phenomenon is resented by
many people in the art scene. Unlike commercial galleries, the auction houses don't look after artists; they don't offer artists the sustained career of exhibitions that build up reputations and encourage critical interest. The auction houses are regarded by some as parasitic, depending on the earlier work of high-risk galleries who establish the standing of certain artists with few rewards. Once the trajectory of an artist has been set by the fragile collaboration of artist and gallery, the auction houses merely take their cop from resale, without any anxieties for the speculative nature inherent in contemporary art. But the auction houses inadvertently make one contribution to the scene: they represent an almost morbid aspect of the market. One consults the auctioneer's expected prices and the final results in much the same way as one reads obituary notices, especially when the artist is dead; for one can judge how the afterlife is treating him or her. One also becomes morbidly curious about the vendors -whether quick or deceased - and their tastes or (if still alive) their reasons for selling. And finally, one can do a "post mortem" on the auctioneer's expected prices. In other respects, reflecting on the auctions is like monitoring the real estate pages. These describe what is known as the "performance" of suburbs, a distasteful term that says everything about greed and nothing about the fact that suburbs and their houses are places where people live. With property, such materialist attitudes are vulgar; with art, they're profanity. However, like the real estate pages, an auction allows you to compare prices in a way that would be difficult by painstakingly gathering figures from individual dealers. This is especially so if you want to see how contemporary art fares against pre-modern art or modern art earlier this century. If you've never done it before, it's a sobering experience. For a couple of years, I must confess, I've found it somewhat disheartening.
Christie's is auctioning Australian and European paintings, sculpture and
drawing today and tomorrow. A beautiful catalogue lists all the works and
expected price range. Understandably, painting dominates and most works are
generously reproduced in color. An air of excitement almost automatically attends the publication, as the day of sale draws near and the hundreds of pieces advertised will find new destinations at prices to be determined by the competition of bidders. The disheartening part, for me, is the taste of the public, reflected in the expectations of the auctioneer. Works of considerable interest and quality seem cheap, while (at least in relative terms) the most ugly daubs of some of the better-known Australian modernist painters are really expensive. A sweet little Dobell picture of a cart in a street might be sold in the low $30,000 range. It has a strong composition, imaginative perspective, decent drawing and command of lights and darks. It's evidently nowhere in the league of a Sidney Nolan, whose aesthetically-challenged Kelly Study VI can be expected to fetch between $60,000 and $80,000. The work displays no skills that I can detect, other than a blithering rehearsal of a trope exhausted by the same artist long before he painted it in 1962. Still, it's a Nolan; and I guess that's what collectors pay for. Collectors also pay for size. An evocative and luminous picture by Tom Roberts of the imperial nine by five inches fame is expected to bring somewhere between $9000 and $12,000. But a lugubrious Brett Whiteley of about one and a half metres square is expected to fetch $140,000 and 180,000. It is said to depict two giraffes, one of which is fairly discernible if one angles one's head to appreciate the dislocated configuration of dull shapes. Still, there's the name and the size of the thing. But even with pictures by the same painter, the rule applies. If it's small and pictorially well resolved, it will be fairly cheap. If it's big and loud, pictorially
incoherent, outrageous in subject matter or downright ugly, it can be expected to reach high prices. Take Arthur Boyd's poetic Wading in the shallows , expected to get $6000 to $8000. The unpretentious idyll, which is painted in oil with commitment measures 21 by 25cm. But Boyd's Two figures ought to get about a thousand more, even though it's ink wash on paper. Why? Presumably because it's over half a metre square and it's demonstratively messy in a garbled form of
modernism. Collectors of recent art, I guess, have two main objectives that are difficult to reconcile. First, they want to look daring or progressive and, second, they want to be safe and make an investment underwritten by fame.
Their demands are not met by modestly sized pictures of an illusionistic kind;
for these might seem conservative and would not flatter the aspiration to
modernity. Besides, modest pictures don't connote wealth. But the demands of collectors of recent art are served exceedingly well by the pictorial grandstanding, gestural overstatement and psychological bombast of certain big names from the post-war period, such as Charles Blackman, Sidney Nolan or Brett Whiteley. The most tasteless productions of these painters are most likely to fetch the highest figures. Of course, there's no accounting for different tastes and there's no point complaining that values are as they are. But when I see earnest and sensitive small works knocked down for reasonable prices beside pompous daubs that go for megabucks, I console myself with the thought: our big spenders deserve what they get.
----------------
 
(Times of London)
Wood expert casts doubt on dating of masterpiece
BY DALYA ALBERGE, ARTS CORRESPONDENT
A TIMBER expert yesterday cast fresh doubt on the authenticity of one of the National Gallery's most prized paintings, Rubens's Samson and Delilah. Charles Norman, the executive director of the National Timber Trade Federation, disputed the gallery's dating of the wooden board to which the painting is glued.
He said that, judging from photographs, the wood was a blockboard manufactured in the late 1970s or early 1980s ­ around the time that the painting was bought by the gallery for a record £2.5 million. Mr Norman's
dating supports a report from four witnesses who saw the painting just before its 1980 sale. They cannot be named for reasons of confidentiality, but each remember that the painting had a wood cradling support common on Old Master paintings, and are adamant that it did not have a blockboard backing. Mr Norman said: "The blockboard looks like a manufactured item, machine-made rather than hand-made." The size of the panel and the five-ply construction were among clues to a modern dating. Mr Norman's reading is yet another piece of evidence against a work which was attributed to Rubens only in 1929. Throughout its 180 years in the Prince of Liechtenstein's collection, it was always said to be a copy of the early 17th century Rubens by a minor pupil, Jan van den Hoecke. The gallery has insisted that the wood was applied long before it acquired the picture. Last year it agreed to conduct a dendrochronology test to date the oak panels on which the picture was painted. It believes the results support the work's authenticity. However, if Mr Norman's reading is correct, a more recent dating has crucial implications, explained Michael Daley, director of ArtWatch UK, the group that campaigns for the welfare of works of art. He said: "Once the wood is
planed away, any documentary evidence is gone for all time if it's not recorded, either by photographs or written accounts. It seems incredible that this should have been done by any party in the 20th century, partly
because such information constitutes the pedigree of a painting and partly because everyone has become so record-conscious." The auction house from which the gallery purchased the painting has refused to comment on its attribution. Earlier this year, the gallery's director, Neil MacGregor, said the blockboard was applied "almost certainly before the war". His statement refined the gallery's earlier suggestion that it
had been done "at some time, probably during the present century", which implied it could even have been done in the last century, even though blockboard had yet to be invented.
-------------------
 
FBI Has Lead in 1990 Art Heist (Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum)
By ROBIN ESTRIN
Associated Press Writer
BOSTON (AP) More than seven years ago, two thieves posing as police officers brazenly made off with $300 million in art from a Boston museum. In all, 12 pieces disappeared without a trace, including three Rembrandts, a Vermeer, a Manet and five works by Degas, in what has been billed as the largest art theft in history. In the years since, none of the works taken from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum has materialized and no one has been arrested. Now authorities plan to talk to a convicted art thief long considered a possible suspect - even though he was in jail at the time of the theft. Myles J. Connor Jr., who is serving a 20-year federal prison sentence in Pennsylvania, will be interviewed in Boston soon, FBI spokesman Peter Ginieres confirmed Tuesday. "Every time somebody starts talking about the Gardner, Myles' name comes up because of the fact he's sort of a connoisseur on art," said his attorney, Martin K. Leppo. The Boston Herald reported that Connor offered earlier this month to help an old associate, antiques dealer William P. Youngworth III, negotiate the return of the art. Youngworth himself reportedly made an offer in return for amnesty from prosecution for unrelated drug and weapons charges and a piece of the Gardner's $5 million reward. The FBI met briefly with Youngworth last week, although officials would not disclose what they discussed. "We're willing to meet with anybody who purports to have information concerning the Gardner," Ginieres said. Connor pleaded guilty in 1974 to stealing paintings by Andrew Wyeth from an estate in Maine, but avoided a prison sentence by arranging the return of a stolen $1 million Rembrandt to Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. In 1989, he was convicted of stealing paintings valued at $400,000 from Amherst College's Mead Art Museum. His current prison sentence is for transporting stolen art and trying to sell cocaine to an undercover agent. Leppo said he did not know what information his client might have. "Myles has great contacts and he knows both sides of it," he said. "That's clear from what he did with the Rembrandt years ago." The spots where the paintings once were displayed in the museum are still marked by placards reading "Stolen March 18, 1990." Several promising tips have emerged over the years, but none panned out. About three years ago, Rembrandt's "The Storm on the Sea of Galilee" was reportedly seen in the home of an art collector in Japan. It took the FBI almost a year to get Japanese government permission to search the man's home. What agents found was a very good reproduction of the original.
Last year, a dog walker in Boston's Charlestown neighborhood looked into the window of a home and saw what was believed to be another of the missing works, Vermeer's "The Concert." It also turned out to be a reproduction. "They were the only ones that really had our hopes going for us," Ginieres said.
(26 Aug 1997 23:08 EDT)
------------------
 
Date sent: Wed, 27 Aug 97 01:59:24 UT
From: "Art Rubino" <Art_Rubino@classic.msn.com>
To: securma@xs4all.nl
Subject: RE: Once-magnificent library is tattered and worn
Well, just a practical suggestion. The library could be recatalogued and the
duplicates and non related materials could be sold at auction to raise
sufficient funds to maintain and restore the main collection. I am sure that
Christie's or Sotheby's could organize it. It would not be the first time. The
Farouk coin and stamp collections were sold for the benefit of the government
some years ago. I often handle the catalogues of the sales.
A library is not a paying proposition. I doubt if you could raise funding
easily in Europe or America for this project, as there would be some
skepticism about future management and long term preservation funding. It has
to be done internally in Egypt I think.
Let me know if you need my assistance. [That is meant to be humor.].
Art Rubino & Co.
Antiquarian Booksellers
Numismatic & Philatelic Arts of Santa Fe
----------