Claremont Rug Company founder/president Jan David Winitz says that more than half his clients are choosing to acquire antique Oriental rugs to display as wall art. The interest in using rugs on walls in addition to as floor pieces has increased markedly in the past several years. “Art collectors are increasingly coming to me after having studied our website with requests that involve high collectible and connoisseur level pieces to serve as wall art. “They tell me that, compared to other art and antiques that they collect, Oriental rugs are undervalued both as art and as investments.” He attributes recognition to the education-oriented information on the Claremont website. “What they deeply appreciate is our ‘Oriental Rug Pyramid,’ which divides carpets into six tiers, with Level 1 to Level 6. It is instructional and a graphic depiction, allowing them to make informed decisions.”

On September 26, Urban Culture Auctions (UCA), a division of Palm Beach Modern Auctions, will sell a significant archive of 1950s/’60s “beefcake” photos taken by Bruce Bellas, known professionally as Bruce of Los Angeles. More than 200 lots of vintage prints, negatives, slides, real-photo greeting cards, and posing props will be auctioned. Most of the photos, which played an important supporting role in the foundation of America’s gay movement, were taken in Bellas’ studio, while a smaller number reflect Southern California’s influential fitness movement, which celebrated the male physique. “Around the same time Playboy magazine was launching its controversial first issue with a nude Marilyn Monroe centerfold, Bruce Bellas was creating his own provocative art – photographs of the male anatomy,” said UCA auctioneer and co-owner Rico Baca. “In addition to being an accomplis

With the exhibition of Van Gogh’s Inner Circle. Friends, Family, Models Het Noordbrabants Museum counters the persistent notion that Van Gogh (1853-1890) was a lonely, tormented soul who received little credit, respect or recognition for his work in his own age. In actual fact, this is beyond the facts. Vincent van Gogh was by no means an easy person and his abruptness, almost obsessive commitment and critical eye could ward off those around him. Yet, many also greatly appreciated him. All his life he kept in close and often long-lasting contact with his friends, family, models, fellow artists and lovers. Van Gogh’s Inner Circle offers a host of information about Vincent’s friends and family by presenting 99 well-known and lesser-known paintings, sketchbooks, works on paper, photos and letters. The exhibition has been curated by guest curator and Van Gogh expert Sjraar van Heugten, in close collaboration

A team of French diggers has restored three Sudanese artefacts, including a 3,500-year-old wall relief, and handed them to the African country’s national museum on Thursday, a French archaeologist said. The three artefacts were discovered at separate archaeological sites in recent years in Sudan and were restored by a French team of experts. The items are a wall painting of an ancient Kandaka Nubian queen, a Meroite stela and a wall relief inscription believed to be almost 3,500 years old. “The idea is to give back to the museum the most important archaeological pieces discovered and restored,” said Marc Maillot, director of the French archaeological unit deployed in Sudan. The wall painting was found at El-Hassa site, the stela discovered at Sedeinga and the relief at the temple of Soleb, where French diggers along with Sudanese counterparts have conducted extensive archaeological work for several years. On Thursday the three artefacts were handed over to