murmurs

Art Business News, March, 2001

At the same time, the Dallas Museum of Art has announced its acquisition of a monumental 19th-century bed that was originally destined for the White House and is regarded as one of the finest surviving examples of American Gothic Revival furniture. The bed was designed for use by Henry Clay, who seemed a shoo-in in 1844 but lost the election in the final weeks of his campaign due to his wavering on the question of the annexation of Texas.

In Houston, the city that lost a professional football team has gained a new museum. Its new Museum of Fine Arts fills an entire city block, cost $83 million and features masters like Tiepolo, Picasso and Van Gogh. Its annual budget has grown from $5 million to $33 million, its endowment from $25 million to a Texas-size $440 million. Most important, to Director Peter C. Marzio at least, the number of annual visitors has increased from 300,000 to more than 1.4 million.

As part of Boston's Fan Pier development program, the Institute of Contemporary Art plans to build a new 60,000-square-foot museum, the first major cultural institution constructed in that city in almost 100 years. Opening is planned for 2004.

Among those receiving the National Art Medal at the end of last year were Chuck Close, painter; Claes Oldenburg, sculptor; and David C. Driskell, curator and scholar of African-American art.

Visitors to next year's Artexpo New York will be able to dine in a new restaurant in the landmark Lever Building on Park Avenue. At the same time, they can take in the "lost" Isamu Noguchi sculpture garden which will be installed nearly 50 years after it was planned.

Photographers who need music for artistic inspiration might want to consider the Fujifilm FinePix 40i. Most of the time it's a 2.4-pixel digital camera, but when a tiny remote control and headphones are plugged in, it is transformed into an MP3 digital music player.