Peter Paul Rubens is a well known baroque style painter from the late 1500’s. One of his projects was a series of nine large panelsfor the ceiling of the Banqueting House at the Palace of Whitehall, most of which was destroyed in a fire in 1698.

Rubens did many sketches before he created the panels, one of which, valued on the open market at just over 11 million pounds, is set to go up on sale after existing in a private collection for over 200 years.

The Tate Britain museum has an agreement with the potential vendor of the sketch to keep it off the market until the end of July. They are looking for donations to aquire the piece for their own collection stating that “It is absolutely unthinkable that this leaves the country”.

According to Reuters, “there [are] plans, if the appeal succeeded, to unite the work with about a dozen other known preparatory sketches for the ceiling in a special exhibition.”

The Tate has secured 1.56 million pounds so far, and donations can be made by visiting artfund.org or tate.org.uk.

So I was stumbling around and I came across some art by Charmange Coe, and I have to say it is amazing. I’m sad I just blew through all the money I made from my own art sales even though I did get some fantastic pieces from Tracy Melton, Chad Pugh and half a dozen other artists on Etsy. I’ll have to save up and get a piece or two from her.

Charmagne is an artist who lives in Northern Arizona. She received an art degree at Northern Arizona University. She is interested in creating art which reflects science, spirit and human relationships on this existential journey. Charmagne often works in the mediums of watercolor, combined with pastel and india ink.

Make sure you visit her site for some amazing works of art.

I first saw this guys sculpture’s posted on another blog and I was amazed. I of course had to go read everything I could about this artist. Art is a fun and great thing to create, but imagine playing with lego blocks for a living. Oh my I think I would be in heaven.

Make sure you check out the works Sean has for sale, the prices are actually very good.

From the artists bio:

“Sean is a full-time artist who works exclusively with LEGO bricks. He is not employed by The LEGO Group.

Based in New York City, he has produced commissions for galleries, museums, television, publications, celebrities, and companies like Google, ABC, JP Morgan Chase, ELLE, and FAO Schwarz.

In using LEGO bricks as an art medium, Sean hopes that children will become inspired to visualize their imagination and create great things themselves.

For over 30 years LEGO toys have played an important part in Sean’s life, first as a child’s toy, then as a hobby, and now as the world’s greatest job.

Sean’s work is continually featured in major media channels throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, and he has gained recognition as one of the premier LEGO artists in the world.

In 2005, Sean became the first of only six LEGO Certifed Professionals in the world, officially recognized by the LEGO Group as a trusted business partner.

In 2004 Sean helped launch the highly successful LEGO Ambassadors and LEGO Factory programs, which create dialog between The LEGO Group and its community of customers, fans, and hobbyists.

Since 2003, Sean’s MOCpages.com is a social network that provides millions of people with a fun way to see and share LEGO creations with each other. It now is the world’s largest online LEGO fan community and reaches more people than every other major LEGO fan community combined.”

Jeff Koons is an influential contemporary artist who sold a piece titled Hanging Heart at Sotheby’s auction house for $23.6 million. This was the most expensive piece by a living artist ever auctioned until recently. It was bought by the Gagosian Gallery which also purchased another Koons sculpture entitled “Diamond (Blue)” for $11.8 million from Christie’s auction house on Tuesday, November 13, 2007. [wikipedia]

The works in the new Chicago exhibit include a 10 foot high gigantic balloon-animal dog painted metallic orange, a 1988 sculpture titled “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” and portraits of an ex-porn star.

“Many works in the retrospective show — featuring about 60 paintings and sculptures spanning Koons’ career from 1979 through 2007 — incorporate everyday articles, such as Hoover vacuums in glass cases, basketballs suspended in water tanks and children’s blowup swimming toys hanging from fences and chains.”

Koons has gained immense popularity as well as much criticism.

“The core of my work is to have transcendence in life. You have to first be able to accept yourself,” Koons said. “Then you can take a journey which leads you to the acceptance of others.”

Koons was a pioneer in his field in the 1980s as well as a successful commercial artist. He recently designed limited edition T-shirts for the Gap.

At the same time, Koons has developed an intense commercial appeal. He recently designed limited edition T-shirts for Gap.

Koons is not a stranger to Chicago. According to AP:

“The exhibit has been a homecoming for the artist, who spent one year at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and opened his first major show at the Museum of Contemporary Art nearly 20 years ago. Koons also got his start in Chicago, working under Ed Paschke, who used to take him to bars and tattoo parlors to look for ideas.”

Koons is a very valuable artist and according to museum officials, many of his works were uninsurable. He meticulously planned the entire Chicago exhibit and spent many hours making sure it was perfect.

This sounds like a great show that runs through Sept. 21st. If you are in the Chicago area make sure to stop in and see it.

A quick update. I noticed a google ad on the site for Jeff Koons igoogle themes. Google ads sure can be neat sometimes.

ivoteforart.com is a new online gallery and store that launched on May 23rd, just days ago. It is a pretty neat little site, it lets you vote up your favorite pieces and you can also buy them. After my initial browse through I’ve found most of the work to be quite good. I was referred to the site by Wilmer Murillo, who is quite a brilliant artist. Check out his flickr page and buy his prints at ivoteforart.

The website has a terrific range of affordable artwork from talented artists from all over the world. You can sign up to sell your own work but it must go through an approval process at the moment. This control is a good thing for a gallery site starting off as it keeps quality standards higher. It will be interesting to see the site grow and a large variety of artworks go up in the future.

According to the site there are over 70 different pieces for sale with 24 artists, which is pretty good for a site that is but a couple weeks old. The site isn’t called i vote for art for nothing. If you see an artwork that you like, click on that little thumb and give it a vote. The artwork that receives the most votes gets promoted to the front page. This is a great method which has proven useful for many social networking and news sites such as digg, reddit, propeller and the rest of the bunch.