Renaissance Blockbuster Set for Buckingham Palace, Reclusive Artist Henrik Orlik Enters the Spotlight, and More: Morning Links for August 5, 2024

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THE HEADLINES

TITIAN NOT BURYING HIS HEAD IN THE SAND. Buckingham Palace’s King’s Gallery has announced that it will host a blockbuster exhibition of Italian Renaissance works on paper next year, including a dozen artworks never seen before in the UK. One of them depicts an ostrich created around 1550 and attributed to Old Master heavyweight Titian. The show, titled “Drawing the Italian Renaissance,” will run from November 1 to March 9, 2025 and will comprise more than 150 works by 81 artists made between 1450 and 1600. Titian’s An Ostrich has rarely been shown to the public – it was previously exhibited at Florence’s Istituto Olandese in 1976. A Royal Collection spokesperson said that while the provenance of the chalk sketch has “occasionally been questioned over the past 50 years, [the] skewed up- close perspective is typical of Titian’s mature works and no one else.”

IN FROM THE COLD. A reclusive artist whose talent gave the likes of Salvador Dalí and René Magritte a run for their money has agreed to a solo show more than 50 years after he bowed out of the art world (in disgruntled fashion). Now 77 and living in the UK, Henrik Orlik was born in 1947 to a Polish father and Belarusian mother in Germany. In his twenties, he showed at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and had a sold-out solo show at London’s Acoris surrealist center. One critic described his surrealist works as “technically brilliant” and predicted a long and distinguished career for him. However, Orlik grew cynical of greedy art dealers and he withdrew from the commercial art scene. But it appears he’s softened in old age after he was persuaded to exhibit once again. “Cosmos of Dreams” opens at London’s Maas Gallery on August 9. The show’s curator, Grant Ford, said, “I have been involved in the art world for 38 years and I have never come across such an extraordinary group of paintings by an artist [who] should be considered one of our greats. Orlik accepts the fact that his work is of exceptionally high quality and unique and that it needs to be seen … Because he was so introverted, all he’s done for the last 50 years has just been painting and painting.”

THE DIGEST

Australia’s National Gallery (NGA) has acquired the country’s first ever Paul Gauguin painting after forking out $6.5 million for The blue roof, aka Farm a Le Pouldu (1980). The museum is hosting a major retrospective of the late post-Impressionist painter’s work. The NGA bought the painting from a private collector, who is believed to be the same person who successfully bid $5.3 million for the work at Christie’s in 2000. [The Art Newspaper]

People have been donating t-shirts that hold a special meaning to them for a large-scale public art installation called “Dancing Together” on the Channel Island of Jersey. Created by Kaarina Kaikkonen in partnership with ArtHouse Jersey and Butterfield, more than 600 t-shirts have been received to date. [BBC]

The world’s greatest collector of rare Zsolnay porcelain, László Gyugyi, has died at the ripe old age of 91. He amassed more than 700 pieces of the rare Hungarian porcelain. The local council of Pécs, where the Zsolnay factory was built, purchased Gyugyi’s collection of 588 rare Zsolnay pieces in 2010 for €1.3 million and pledged to keep it on public display. [Daily News Hungary]

A huge medieval altar, that was thought to be lost, has been found – hiding in plain sight. It turns out that an inconspicuous stone slab that occupied one segment of floor in a rear corridor of Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher was actually a valuable artifact. [Artnet News]

THE KICKER

RENAISSANCE 101. Want to know three surprising facts about Michelangelo’s David masterpiece? First fact: It turns out the Italian High Renaissance man used an imperfect, hand-me-down block of marble that two artists had already tried using but given up on. It had apparently been standing around a courtyard for 20 years. Second fact: Michelangelo added gilding to the iconic sculpture that has been lost over time. The trunk supporting the right leg, sling, and a victory garland on his head were all once gilded by the artist. Third fact: People have been making knock-offs of David for centuries. Caveat emptor.