LONDON - Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary Art Sales series concluded, having achieved a remarkable total of £251,047,957 ($497,450,648) –the highest total for any series of Summer Sales ever staged by the company in Europe. 15 new artist records were set (including many for works by leading artists such as Richard Prince, Bridget Riley, Anthony Gormley and Anish Kapoor.)

TAMPA, FL - The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts presents “Masks & Identity: Len Prince in the Collection of William K. Zewadski.” The exhibition runs through August 2, 2008. Len Prince arrived in New York in 1972 and built an impressive reputation for his photographs that have appeared in Vanity Fair, Interview and InStyle magazines as well as for his work for Estee Lauder and Cartier. He is especially recognized for his portraits of celebrities as seen in his 1997 book, About Glamour. Portrayed in the style of 1930s Hollywood publicity stills, Prince’s luminaries (Patti LaBelle, Drew Barrymore, Patrick Stewart and Kevin Spacey among others in the exhibition) wield the force of their fame through faces they have crafted and perfected.

BADEN-BADEN, GERMANY - This year’s comprehensive exhibition at the Museum Frieder Burda puts the emphasis on the dialogue between painting and sculpture. The show, that runs from July 5 to October 26, 2008, is entitled “Sculpture by Painters – Painting in Dialogue with Plastic Art”. It displays approximately 140 20th century art works by Degas, Miró, Picasso, Modigliani, Giacometti, Chagall, Kirchner, Beckmann and Baselitz. For the first time ever, the Museum in Baden-Baden presents an exhibition combining painting with sculpture on a large scale.

LONDON - Christie’s will offer 3 rediscovered drawings by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828) at the auction of Old Master and 19th Century Drawings on 8 July 2008 in London. The exhibition just opened and the works will be on view through July 7. Last recorded at a landmark auction of works by the artist in Paris in 1877, the drawings have been missing and presumed lost ever since, and represent the most important grouping of sketches by the artist to be consigned to auction in over 30 years. The three drawings, which will be offered individually, are expected to realise a total in excess of £2 million.

Wolverhampton, UK - Exploring the relationships and connections between the Pop Art of the 1960s and contemporary art today. The third Pop Art exhibition at Wolverhampton Art Gallery features outstanding contemporary artists like David Mach, Takashi Murakami and Gavin Turk amongst familiar Pop Artists, Roy Lichenstein, Patrick Caulfield, Andy Warhol and many more.

WILLIAMSTOWN, MA - The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute announced that the Starr Foundation has contributed $5 million in support of its acclaimed Research and Academic Program, a leading international center for discussion and scholarship in the visual arts. The gift establishes The Starr Directorship of the Research and Academic Program.

POUGHKEEPSIE, NY.-In the beginning of the twentieth century, Germany forged a vital, multifaceted movement in the arts that encompassed architecture, painting, printmaking, sculpture, poetry, prose, music, theater, and film. This pluralistic modern movement, Expressionism, was visionary and rebelled against the staid constraints of a German Empire society that retreated from the destitute populations crowding into industrialized cities. The touring exhibition Impassioned Images: German Expressionist Prints, to be seen August 22-October 26, 2008 at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, explores the visions of numerous artists who engaged their charged emotions with printmaking.

BERLIN - The Pablo Ducrós Hicken Film Museum in Buenos Aires, Argentina has found in its archives a copy of the movie “Metropolis” directed in 1927 by Fritz Lang, with lost footage. The silent film was one of the most expensive ones (around $200 million dollars) and was cut heavily to make it more accessible. It was initially thought as a movie that would last two and a half hours. The footage that was found will add around 25 minutes to the film, but there will still be around five minutes missing. 

Vancouver, BC - Art Beatus (Vancouver) Consultancy Ltd. presents the print works of Wuon-Gean Ho in a solo exhibition titled, “Beautiful Beast”.  The exhibition will open with an afternoon reception open to the public on Friday, July 11 from 3pm to 6pm, and the artist, visiting from London, England, will be in attendance.  Four series of works will be featured, all sharing recurrent themes of life, death, love, the attractive and repulsive through animal, human and otherworldly subjects. 

RICHMOND, VA - This loan reunites two great masterpieces by the Italian late-Baroque painter Paolo de' Matteis: VMFA’s own “Adoration of the Shepherds” and the St. Louis Art Museum’s “Annunciation.” Originally commissioned as a pair by the Duchess of Laurenzano, a celebrated Neapolitan patroness of the arts, these glorious examples of religious painting have not been exhibited together in recent times. The loan presents a rare opportunity to explore the two works’ creation, display and visual relationship and to encourage ongoing scholarship on de Matteis and late-Baroque painting.