Provocative Balthus paintings focus of New York museum exhibition
NEW YORK - French-born painter Balthus is known for his street scenes and portraits, but it is his paintings of young girls, some with erotic undercurrents, that are the focus of the first exhibition of his works in New York in 30 years.
Norman Rockwell paintings to be sold at New York auction
NEW YORK - Seven works by American painter and illustrator Norman Rockwell, including "Saying Grace" and "The Gossips," will be sold at auction in New York in December, Sotheby's auction house said on Thursday.
A Minute With: Hungarian violinist Kelemen - proud of Roma roots
LONDON - Hungarian violinist Barnabas Kelemen has studied with the late virtuoso Isaac Stern and won Gramophone magazine's award for best chamber music CD of 2013, but what he is really proud of is his Roma heritage.
Britain's Tate museum calls on government for funding "contract"
LONDON - The Tate museum called for a five-year public funding "contract" with the British government on Thursday to help stabilize its role as a national repository of art in an era of declining public finances for culture.
New York's MoMA exhibition explores Rene Magritte's surrealist work
NEW YORK - Belgian painter Rene Magritte's work, featuring men in bowler hats, mysterious landscapes and bright blue skies, may be familiar to many art lovers, but a new exhibition focuses attention on the artist's surrealist pieces.
'To Kill a Mockingbird' author in dispute with U.S. museum over book's title
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama - The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "To Kill a Mockingbird," Harper Lee, is locked in a dispute with a museum in her Alabama hometown over the use of the novel's title.
Japan hands top arts prize to filmmaker Coppola, sculptor Gormley
LONDON - U.S. filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, Spanish opera singer Placido Domingo and British sculptor Antony Gormley won three of Japan's top arts prizes, the Japan Art Association said on Tuesday.
Van Gogh copies in 3D look almost real, cost 25,000 euros
AMSTERDAM - It would be the envy of forgers: a technology that can mint near-perfect reproductions of Vincent Van Gogh's paintings at a rate of three a day, with differences only experts can detect.
John Grisham's 'Time to Kill' adapted for Broadway stage
NEW YORK - Best-selling author John Grisham's first novel, "A Time to Kill," has been adapted for the stage and is heading for Broadway next month with an ensemble cast that includes Fred Dalton Thompson of TV's "Law and Order" and Tom Skerritt, an Emmy-award winner for "Picket Fences."
Artist Liu Bolin hides in plain sight at Beijing theatre
BEIJING - Liu Bolin, the Chinese artist known as "the invisible man" for using painted-on camouflage to blend into the backdrops of his photographs, has done it again by making himself and 22 others "disappear" into the red seats of a Beijing theatre.
'Foodimals' stalk animated film world of 'Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2'
LOS ANGELES - Fruits, vegetables and cheeseburgers get their film shelf-life extended in the animated comedy "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2," as the franchise explores a new world of living, breathing "foodimals."