The art of shedding light on gifts with possible Nazi ties

When Georges F. Keller began donating paintings by masters like Henri Matisse and Salvador Dali to the Kunstmuseum in Bern his reputation was not in doubt. The Swiss-Brazilian national had been a respected art dealer who gifted 116 works to the museum from the 1950s until his death in 1981. But last year, the Kunstmuseum’s provenance researcher came across an archival document linking Keller to Etienne Bignou, a Frenchman now considered a “red-flag” dealer because he traded art with Germans in Nazi-occupied Paris. For the Bern museum, the potential fallout of gifts with possible Nazi ties was not new. The museum was the sole heir of hundreds of major pieces left behind by Cornelius Gurlitt, who died in 2014 and whose father, Hildebrand, was tasked by the Nazis with selling art stolen from Jews or confiscated as “degenerate” works. The case captured huge global attentio

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Julie Peppito: Making a statement through textile art

With an innate sense of political rights and wrongs and a deep empathy for humanity, Julie Peppito creates sculptures, collages, drawings, quilts and tapestries to depict a narrative, an idea or make social or political comments.

Julie seamlessly integrates plastic litter, objects from nature and collected items along with drawn and painted imagery into her works. She arranges and rearranges her composition until she is happy, then sews it together, adding stitched, repetitive patterns and paint to finish her work. The collaged, conjoined nature of her work is symbolic of our interconnections to each other and to our planet.

After a huge knock to her confidence at college, when her work was derided by people lacking an understanding of the concept of textile art, she gained strength from her professor’s positive response. She began to assert herself, moved to a more supportive environment and has gone on develop an important body of work during her career.

Julie received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1992 and a Master of Fine Arts in 2004. In 2001, she received a New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) Fellowship for sculpture. She has produced seven one-woman shows and shown her work in many other joint exhibitions.

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Imelda Connolly: Embracing creative confidence

For the last twenty years, Imelda Connolly harboured a secret dream. The dream of becoming an artist. But with no formal training, she fuelled her passion by creating small textile collages in private, never finding the courage to share what she made.

She would while away hours in fabric shops seeking out unusual textured and patterned fabrics.

But she became increasingly frustrated by the limitations of relying purely on the materials themselves to create interest and lacked confidence in her own abilities; she longed to have the skill to make her own designs with stitch.

With no access to suitable in-person courses in her area, Imelda began to search for guidance online.But the courses she found were expensive and required lengthy commitments.

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Edmonton | Call-to-Artists: Cultural Exchange

Starts February 2, 2019 and runs until March 30, 2019 in the back room of CARFAC Alberta Project Space (3rd floor, 10215-112 Street, Edmonton). 

Cultural Exchange is a two-month community engagement project that questions our current economic system. In Cultural Exchange, CARFAC Alberta offers core property (art books, art supplies and equipment, other cultural materials). We invite the community to purchase or exchange this material. This is not a fundraiser; rather, this event proposes to transform part of our Edmonton space into a meeting place for discussion, alternative commerce, and to generate some “community derived revenue” for further programming in support of professional development and advocacy initiatives for Alberta’s visual artists. During the two months of Cultural Exchange, we encourage the community to bring in cultural items that are not being used: donate them or exchange them for items that can be used and appreciated by others.

Cultural Exchange is a great place to find unusual gifts and odd treasures for yourself and others! Come back often between February 2nd, 2019 and March 30th, 2019 – inventory will change constantly!

For this event to succeed, we need core cultural property. If you are cleaning out your studio, preparing for new projects and have:

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Anders Wahlstedt Fine Art presents recent series of monoprints by Joan Snyder

Anders Wahlstedt Fine Art is presenting Joan Snyder: Six Chants and One Altar, featuring Chant/Forever, a recent series of monoprints. In addition, the show includes three early monoprints—Candles for Clem, For F and Prayer— and Apple Tree Mass, an iconic painting from 1983. The exhibit also celebrates the publication of Molly Snyder-Fink’s essay “My Mother’s Altar: Joan Snyder Paints to Face Herself” in the 2018 Fall/Winter Woman’s Art Journal. Snyder-Fink, a filmmaker and writer, offers a unique and illuminating exploration of her mother’s artistic and creative trajectory. Snyder’s new series Chant/Forever (2018) is the latest product of her decades-long collaboration with master printer Andrew Mockler of Jungle Press. The three earlier monoprints memorializing loved ones, Prayer (1996), For F (1996), and Candles for Clem (1998), were printed in collaboration with Master Printer Robert Townsend. Snyder’s monoprints complement

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