Arts Update

Victor Christ-Janer, Modernist Architect, Dies at 92
...Victor F. Christ-Janer, a member of a group of influential architects who built Modernist homes and offices in New Canaan, Conn., died on March 24 at the home he designed for himself there. He was 92. Like the far-better-known Marcel Breuer and Philip Johnson , Mr. Christ-Janer helped transform the town from a haven of traditional Colonial-style homes into an incubator for distinctive Modernist dwellings as well....

Record Price for Monet at Auction
...An 1873 canvas by Monet of a riverbank landscape with two trains atop a railway bridge sold for $41.4 million Tuesday night at Christie’s. It was a record price for the artist...

An Auction of New Chinese Art Leaves Disjointed Noses in Its Wake
...SHANGHAI — Sotheby’s auction house called it the “most important collection of contemporary Chinese art to ever come to market” — some 200 works by some of China’s hottest names.
And when the first half of the trove, called the Estella Collection, went on the block in April in Hong Kong, it brought in $18 million and set some record prices for artists, like $6 million for a canvas by the Chinese painter Zhang Xiaogang.But the sale of the works has stirred indignation among many of the artists and their dealers and some curators....

Serra’s Monumental Vision, Vertical Edition
...PARIS — France is making a fuss this week over Richard Serra, the 68-year-old American bantamweight who fashions elegant, gargantuan art out of steel.On Wednesday Mr. Serra opens the annual solo show called Monumenta in the echoing Grand Palais; the city of Paris has restored one of his earlier works to its proper place in the garden of the Tuileries...

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