2007 in art explained

The year 2007 in art involved some significant events and new works.

Events

• April - The Museo Alameda opens in San Antonio, Texas, U.S.A.^[1]
• 10 June – 21 November – 52nd Venice Biennale.
• October - Execution by Yue Minjun sells at Sotheby's in London for £2.9 million pounds (US $5.9 million - euro 4.2 million) making it most expensive artwork ever sold by a Chinese contemporary artist.^[2]
• 18 October – In New York City, the Salander-O'Reilly Galleries is forced into closure on the evening of the opening of a major Caravaggio exhibition, amidst scandal and lawsuits.
• 22 October – In Amersfoort (Netherlands) a fire at the Armando museum destroys 63 paintings from the permanent and loan collections.^[3]
• 2 November – Nightwatching, Peter Greenaway's film about Rembrandt, is released. It is the first film in Greenaway's series "Dutch Masters".^[4]
• 14 November – Sotheby's sells La Fuensanta by Julio Romero de Torres to a private collector.^[5]
• 20 December – The Pablo Picasso painting Portrait of Suzanne Bloch, together with Candido Portinari's O Lavrador de Café, is stolen from the São Paulo Museum of Art. It is recovered about three weeks later.

Exhibitions

• 23 January - 13 May - "Martin Ramirez at the American Folk Art Museum in New York City^[6]
• 10 May–28 July - “Universal Language & the Avant-Garde: Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter, and Jonas Mekas” at the Maya Stendhal gallery in New York City^[7]
• 14 June-16 September - National Portrait Gallery, "BP Portrait Award 2007"^[8]
• 15 June until 26 August - Ken Heyman: Pop Portraits at the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo, New York^[9]
• 23 June until 16 September - Hans Schabus: Deserted Conquest at SITE Santa Fe in Santa Fe, New Mexico^[10]
• September–December - Garden in Transit, a public art exhibit, is displayed on New York City taxis between September 2007 and December 2007

Awards

• Archibald Prize – John Beard, Portrait of Janet Laurence
• Arts & Cultural Council for Greater Rochester Artist of the Year – Manuel Rivera-Ortiz
• Caldecott Medal – David Wiesner, Flotsam
• Turner Prize – Mark Wallinger, State Britain
• Venice Biennale – (June 10 - November 21)
  • Lion d'Or Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement:Malick Sidibé (Mali)
  • Lion d'Or for Best Pavilion: Andreas Fogarasi (Hungary)
• Wynne prize – Philip Wolfhagen, Winter Nocturne IV

Works

• Sanford Biggers - Blossom^[11]
• Ed Dwight – Statue of Martin Luther King Jr. (sculpture, Houston, Texas)
• Russ Faxon – Statue of John Stith Pemberton (sculpture, Atlanta)
• Valerie Hegarty - Fallen Bierstadt (after A Storm in the Rocky Mountains, Mt. Rosalie by Albert Bierstadt)^[12]
• David Hockney – Bigger Trees Near Warter
• Zhang Huan - Three Legged Buddha (sculpture)^[13]
• Maya Lin - Above and Below (sculpture, Indianapolis Museum of Art)
• John Ney Michel and Christopher Liberatos – Statue of William Moultrie (sculpture, Charleston, South Carolina)
• Stephen Kettle – Statue of Alan Turing (sculpture in slate, Bletchley Park, England)
• Jo Ractliffe – Roadside stall on the way to Viana (photograph)
• Ian Rank-Broadley – The Stretcher Bearers and The Gates (bronzes, Armed Forces Memorial, Staffordshire, England)
• Neo Rauch
  • Hunter's Room
  • Waiting for the Barbarians
• Allison Saar – "Swing Low" – Harriet Tubman Memorial (Harriet Tubman Plaza, Harlem, Manhattan, New York City)^[14]
• Doris Salcedo – Shibboleth (installation at Tate Modern, London)
• Luke Sullivan – The Fourth Secret of Fatima (sculpture)^{[15] [16] [17]}
• James Turrell – Dividing the Light (installation at Pomona College, Claremont, California, United States)

Deaths

January to March

• 8 January – Iwao Takamoto, Japanese American animator, television producer and film director (b.1925).
• 11 January – Bryan Pearce, English naïve painter (b.1929).
• 20 January – Dan Christensen, American abstract painter (b.1942).
• 4 February – Jules Olitski, American abstract painter, printmaker, and sculptor (b.1922).
• 6 February – Heinz Berggruen, German art collector
• 14 February – Emmett Williams, American poet and Fluxus artist (b.1925).
• 22 February
  • Lothar-Günther Buchheim, German author, painter, and art collector (b.1918).
  • Miriam Mone, Northern Irish fashion designer (b.1965; ovarian cancer).^[18]
• 2 March – Madi Phala, South African artist (b.1955).
• 6 March – Jean Baudrillard, French cultural theorist, sociologist, philosopher, political commentator, and photographer (b.1929).
• 16 March – Raymond Nasher, American art collector (b.1921).

April to June

• 7 April – Johnny Hart, American cartoonist (b.1931).
• 8 April – Sol LeWitt, American conceptual and minimalist artist (b.1928).
• 10 April – Salvatore Scarpitta, American sculptor (b.1919).
• 15 April – Brant Parker, American cartoonist (b.1920).
• 17 April – Kitty Carlisle Hart, American singer, actress, and New York State Council on the Arts member (b.1910).
• 3 May – Warja Honegger-Lavater, Swiss artist and illustrator (b.1913).
• 26 May – James Beck, American art historian (b.1930).
• 28 May – Jörg Immendorff, German painter, sculptor, stage designer and art professor (b.1945; ALS).^[19]
• 2 June – Jerry Wilkerson, American painter (b.1943).
• 17 June – Gianfranco Ferré, Italian fashion designer (b.1944).
• 22 June – Bernd Becher, German photographer (b.1931).
• 26 June – Liz Claiborne, Belgian-born American fashion designer and entrepreneur (b.1929).

July to September

• 7 July – John Szarkowski, American photographer, curator, historian, and critic (b.1925).
• 17 July – Jeremy Blake, American digital artist and painter (b.1971).
• 22 July – Aleksandr Tatarskiy, Russian animator, artist, and film director (b.1950).
• 9 August – Joe O'Donnell, American photographer (b.1922).
• 11 August – Maurice Boitel, French painter (b.1919).
  • • 12 August Elizabeth Murray, American painter, printmaker, and draughtsman (b.1940).
  • Mike Wieringo, American comic book artist (b.1963).
• 17 August – Edward Avedisian, American abstract painter (b.1936).
• 24 September – Lenore Tawney, American fiber artist (b.1907).
• 25 September – André Emmerich, American gallerist.

October to December

• 5 October – Alexandra Boulat, French photographer (b.1962).
• 8 October – Constantine Andreou, Greek painter and sculptor (b.1917).
  • • 21 October R. B. Kitaj, American-born English artist (b.1932).
  • Ileana Sonnabend, American art dealer and gallerist.
• 30 October – Norbert Lynton, British art historian and Professor of the History of Art (b.1927).
• 16 November – Paul Brach, American abstract painter, lecturer and educator (b.1924).
• 4 December
  • Norval Morrisseau, Aboriginal Canadian artist (b.1932).
  • Herman Rose 98, American painter (b.1909).
• 7 December - Noel Forster, British painter (b.1932)
• 14 December – Ismail Gulgee, Pakistani painter (b.1926).
  • • 31 December Michael Goldberg, American abstract expressionist painter and teacher (b. 1924).
  • Ettore Sottsass, Italian architect and designer (b. 1917)^[20]

Undated

• Steven Campbell, Scottish figurative painter (b. 1953)

Notes and References

1. News: Rothstein . Edward . 2007-04-21 . Celebrating Hispanics From Both Sides of a Hyphenated Identity . en-US . The New York Times . 2023-03-02 . 0362-4331.
2. Web site: The Star | Malaysia News: National, Regional and World News. https://web.archive.org/web/20080922145628/http://thestaronline.com/news/story.asp?file=%2F2007%2F10%2F13%2Fapworld%2F20071013203027&sec=apworld. 2008-09-22.
3. Web site: Armando Museum in Ruins After Fire. Blouin Artinfo. 2007-10-24. 2014-01-07. 2014-01-07. https://web.archive.org/web/20140107181036/http://www.blouinartinfo.com/news/story/25906/armando-museum-in-ruins-after-fire/. live.
4. Morgan. Nesta. Nightwatching. Film&festivals. 2. 2. 5. Wallflower Press, Film Culture Ltd.. United Kingdom. 1755-5485.
5. Web site: Julio Romero de Torres. Sotheby's. 2015-08-16. 2015-09-24. https://web.archive.org/web/20150924131556/http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2012/european-paintings/lot.79.html. live.
6. Web site: Martín Ramírez | American Folk Art Museum. 2021-03-28. 2021-03-13. https://web.archive.org/web/20210313123411/https://folkartmuseum.org/exhibitions/martin-ramirez/. live.
7. Web site: "Universal Language & the Avant-Garde: Viking Eggeling, Hans Richter, and Jonas Mekas" at Maya Stendhal Gallery. 6 June 2007 . 2021-03-14. 2021-09-17. https://web.archive.org/web/20210917003301/https://www.artforum.com/picks/universal-language-the-avant-garde-viking-eggeling-hans-richter-and-jonas-mekas-15451. live.
8. http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/exhibitions/2007/bp-portrait-award-2007.php National Portrait Gallery website
9. Web site: Ken Heyman: Pop Portraits | Buffalo AKG Art Museum. buffaloakg.org. 15 April 2023.
10. Web site: Hans Schabus. 2021-06-04. 2021-06-04. https://web.archive.org/web/20210604020615/https://sitesantafe.org/exhibition/hans-schabus/. live.
11. Web site: Brooklyn Museum: Sanford Biggers: Sweet Funk—An Introspective. 2021-05-16. 2021-05-16. https://web.archive.org/web/20210516194426/https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/sanford_biggers/. live.
12. Web site: Brooklyn Museum . 2023-03-02 . www.brooklynmuseum.org.
13. Web site: Zhang Huan. 2021-06-05. 2021-06-05. https://web.archive.org/web/20210605004333/https://stormking.org/exhibitions/zhanghuan/works/3leggedbuddha.html. live.
14. Web site: Alison Saar - NYC Department of Cultural Affairs . 2017-03-26 . 2017-03-27 . https://web.archive.org/web/20170327080122/http://home2.nyc.gov/html/dcla/html/panyc/saar.shtml . dead .
15. Web site: Bin Laden & Virgin Mary in Art Row . Stefanie . McIntyre . Reuters . August 2007 .
16. Web site: Furor over Burqa-clad Virgin Mary, Jesus morphing into Osama bin Laden . USA Today . September 2007 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20080507073916/http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/09/furor-over-artw.html . 2008-05-07 .
17. News: Fury on Virgin Mary's Burqa. Elizabeth. Fortescue. Heath. Aston. Herald Sun. August 2007. 2012-05-16. 2007-12-16. https://web.archive.org/web/20071216121439/http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22333103-661,00.html. live.
18. News: Miriam Mone obituary in The Irish Times . . 2014-02-26 . 2012-10-11 . https://web.archive.org/web/20121011104219/http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2007/0223/1172182811315.html . live .
19. https://www.theguardian.com/obituaries/story/0,,2101396,00.html Obituary
20. News: Ettore Sottsass, Designer, Is Dead at 90. Pogrebin. Robin J.. 1 January 2008. The New York Times. 3 July 2017. en-US. 0362-4331.