Art Industry News is a daily digest of the most consequential developments coming out of the art world and art market. Here’s what you need to know this Monday, July 24.

NEED-TO-READ

The Smithsonian’s Kickstarter Gamble Has Paid Off – In the last couple of years, the Washington, DC, institution has turned to online crowd-funding to finance some important acquisitions. Is this the new way forward? (The Washington Post)

New Private Museum of Arab Art to Open in Beirut – The Beirut Arab Art Museum, set to become the city’s biggest art museum when it opens downtown in 2020, will house the 4,000-strong Modern and contemporary Arab art collection of the Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation. (The Art Newspaper)

Elizabeth Peyton Paints Angela Merkel – The American painter studied the German Chancellor’s features by looking at “a million photos” from the past 30 years. Her portrait accompanies Vogue‘s profile of “the most powerful woman in the world.” In photographs shot over the last two months, Peyton says, “there was such pain visible.” (New York Times)

Danny Boyle on Why Art Is a Human Right – Dramatic Need, the latest charitable project of the director behind Trainspotting and Steve Jobs, seeks to use art and drama to help vulnerable children in South Africa and Rwanda to tell their stories to overcome trauma. (Financial Times)

ART MARKET

Munich’s Pinakothek Returns Looted Painting – The Bavarian State Painting Collections returned a $250,000 painting, Raising of Lazarus, by an anonymous artist to the heirs of a Jewish-German banking family after discovering it had been looted by the Nazis and later bought by Hermann Goering. (Press release)

Alfred Eisenstaedt’s Photographs Hit the Auction Block – Signed photographs of some of the photojournalist’s famous subjects (including Nixon and Winston Churchill) from his personal collection will be sold on July 27 at Nate D. Sanders Auctions. (Press release)

Laura Paulson Gets a New Role – The auction house veteran has been appointed vice chairwoman of Christie’s Americans Advisory Board, and will also take on a senior advisor role that will allow her to continue to work with clients while overseeing strategy more broadly. (Press release)

Will Online Sales Fill the Void for Christie’s? – In a bid to cash in on the growth in the online market for luxury collectables like handbags and watches, Christie’s plans to replace its South Kensington salesroom with increased live and online sales at its Central London headquarters. (NYT)

COMINGS & GOINGS

New Director for the University of Michigan Museum of Art – Christina Olsen, currently director of the Williams College Museum of Art, will replace Joseph Rosa at the helm of the Michigan art museum on October 30. (Press release)

Philanthropist Raymond Sackler Has Died – The last of the three Sackler brothers, pharmaceutical moguls and generous donors to museums around the world, died last week at age 97. (NYT)

Remembering Sculptor Nathan David – Ann David, the wife of the sculptor known for his bronze ballerinas, has written a tribute to the artist, who died of cancer at 87. (The Guardian)

FOR ART’S SAKE 

Artifacts Give Insight Into Edward Hopper’s Childhood – The Edward Hopper House, located in the lower Hudson Valley, is adding 1,000 items to its collection. Among the new acquisitions is a masterfully executed sketch drawn on the back of Hopper’s third-grade report card when he was only nine years old. (Artdaily)

See What World Leaders Gave the Queen – More than 200 gifts to Queen Elizabeth II from the likes of Nelson Mandela and JFK are currently on display at Buckingham Palace. Not included, sadly, are the live gifts she has received, including a crocodile from the Gambia in 1961 and six Australian kangaroos in 1977, which are safely housed in the London zoo. (Artdaily)

FROM OUR PARTNERS

Double Fly Art Center’s “The Bro Generation”
de Sarthe Gallery – Beijing
July 8 – September 10, 2017

A collective established in 2008 by nine graduates of the China Academy of Art’s New Media Art department, the Double Fly Art Center creates work that spans traditional Chinese ink paintings and 3D animation. This new show, which includes a series of bunk beds (outfitted with surveillance cameras) to house the artists, is a commentary on what they perceive as China’s new “Bro Generation” of migrant workers who follow work from one construction job to another, falling into ad-hoc male societies along the way.