Events

Christopher Le Brun is one of the leading British painters of his generation, celebrated internationally since the 1980s. Le Brun employs a mastery of touch and colour alongside a profound understanding of art history and a wide range of visual, musical and literary sources. A heightened awareness of the physicality of the painting process, with its dramatic tension between revealing and covering has been a central feature of his work that unites all its phases, whether abstract or figurative.

He was an instrumental public figure in his role as President of the Royal Academy of Arts in London from 2011 to 2019. He was awarded a Knighthood for services to the Arts in the 2021 New Year Honours. At the beginning of 2023, further two of his major pieces were added to institutional collections of Tate Gallery in London and the Museum of Contemporary Art & Urban Planning (MoCAUP) in Shenzhen.

During the studio visit members met with Christopher and learnt about his methods and practices as an artist as well as his experience as a public figure within the arts.

photo credit: Maureen M. Evans. Courtesy of the artist.

ICRA’s 2022 Annual Conference took place at Cromwell Place in London and online on Thursday 1 December from 9.30am (GMT) on the topic of Legacy: The Artist's View. 

This conference had a philosophical construct, placing the artists and their families at the centre of the conversation. The implications of how the catalogue raisonné continues to be perceived proved to be very meaningful.

The keynote speaker was Edmund de Waal with contributions from artists Dame Rachel Whiteread DBE, Sir Michael Craig-Martin CBE RA and Marina Abramovic. There were also conversations between the children of artists, Nick Willing (Paula Rego) and Ben Bowling (Sir Frank Bowling OBE RA), the grandchildren of artists, Saskia Spender (Arshile Gorky) and Daniel Hug (László Moholy-Nagy), as well as others whose work is to shape legacy, including museum curators and catalogue raisonné authors. 

The conference was a hybrid event: held in the Lavery Studio at Cromwell Place in London, it was also filmed and streamed live to a global audience.

This event was generously sponsored by Christie's, Constantine Cannon LLP, Navigating.art, Phillips Fiduciary Services, and Sotheby's.

ICRA members were invited to a very special preview of the upcoming exhibition of work by American Colourist Milton Avery, at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. This exclusive event included a tour with the exhibition’s curator, and ICRA Board Member, Edith Devaney and provided ICRA members with a unique opportunity to see this exhibition before it opened to the public. Members also benefited from a personal explanation about the work involved in staging the exhibition as well as insights into the artworks.

From the Royal Academy website:

‘Worshipped by Abstract Expressionists Mark Rothko and Barnett Newman, Milton Avery expressed his vision of the world through harmonious colour and simplified forms. Now, for the first time, see the North American painter’s work this side of the Atlantic’.

Image: 

Milton Avery, Little Fox River, 1942

Oil on canvas, 91.8 x 122.2 cm

Collection Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, State University of New York. Gift of Roy R. Neuberger Photo: Allen Phillips/Wadsworth Atheneum

© 2022 Milton Avery Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York and DACS, London 2022 Exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London in collaboration with The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art

ICRA members were given the rare opportunity to tour the Pissarro Archives with a senior curator of European Art. The visit coincided with a major exhibition at the Museum which drew upon the Ashmolean's Pissarro archive, the world's largest collection devoted to an Impressionist artist. Members had the exciting opportunity to view the exhibition's 120 works, 80 by Pissarro and 40 by his friends and contemporaries, as well as eight paintings on display for the first time in the UK. (https://www.ashmolean.org/pissarro).

Image: The Church and Farm of Eragny, 1895 (oil on canvas), Pissarro, Camille (1830-1903) / Musee d'Orsay, Paris, France / Bridgeman Images

ICRA’s 2021 conference, entitled ‘Sculpture and the Catalogue Raisonné from Antiquity to NFTs’ aimed to highlight the host of fascinating challenges for those tasked with documenting, cataloguing, and archiving sculpture. The conference was held entirely online on Wednesday 1 December and Thursday 2 December 2021, was curated by Dr Sharon Hecker, and offered a wide range of presentations, case-studies and panel discussions offered by leading international scholars, market professionals, and legal experts who have experience with sculpture from different epochs and in diverse art-related fields.

Programme and Speakers: 

DAY ONE – Wednesday 1 December 2021

Session 1: Cataloguing Renaissance Sculpture 

This panel discussed the challenges of cataloguing Renaissance sculpture and the implications for art history, museums, and the market. 

Panellists: David Ekserdjian, Andrew Butterfield, Philippe Malgouyres

Session 2: To Include or Exclude? 

This session tackled one of the most basic and difficult questions when compiling a catalogue raisonné of sculpture: how to decide what objects, images and information to include or exclude, and what are the implications of such tough decisions.

Panellists: Alexandra Keiser, Susan Cooke, Chris Stephens, Eleanor Nairne, Barry Rosen

Session 3: Restoring, Conserving, Replicating, Fabricating

Scholars and art professionals discussed what material, art historical, museum, market and legal issues are at stake when a sculpture is damaged and requires restoration or conservation, and how much information should be given in catalogue raisonnés.

Panellists: Amélie Simier, Martha Buskirk, Peter Karol, Derek Pullen

Session 4: Labelling and Terminology

This panel presented innovative thinking and new tools for making sculpture terminology understandable and accessible to those cataloguing sculpture of all periods.

Panellists: Malcolm Baker, Marin Sullivan, David Bourgarit, Francesca Bewer, Jane Bassett

Fireside Chat: Jan Dalley, FT editor, in conversation with Madeleine Bessborough, Founder of The New Art Centre London and Roche Court Sculpture Garden.

DAY TWO – Wednesday 2 December 2021

Session 1: Lifetime and Posthumous 

This panel took up the topic of cataloguing sculpture, an inherently reproducible medium, from different viewpoints and varied approaches, through complex case studies such as Boccioni and Arp.

Panellists: Penelope Curtis, Rosalind McKever, Arie Hartog, Guy Rub

Session 2: 2D for 3D – Print, Digital, Audio: Different Media for Sculpture Catalogue Raisonné

What are the advantages and disadvantages of print versus digital catalogue raisonnés for sculpture? Do other tools exist?

Panellists: Toby Treves, Alex Ross, Brad Epley, Ann Gallagher

Session 3: Dematerialisation: the Catalogue Raisonné and the Evolving Definition of Sculpture 

Contemporary sculpture, which often involves dematerialisation, presents a host of new challenges for cataloguers as well as living artists in the digital age. Three speakers addressed this question from different angles.

Panellists: Lisa Le Feuvre, Jennifer Gross, Deafbeef

Session 4: Preparing for the Future

This panel presented a case study of the Estate of Czech Sculptor, Daniela Vinopalová. Speakers discussed what tools and practices are best for when an artist or heirs prepare their future legacy, and how innovative digital approaches can be involved.

Panellists: Sharon Hecker, Matthew Stephenson, Jan Marek and Daniela Markova, Pierre Valentin followed by 

Andrew Lacey, Artist, Archaeometallurgist and Independent Scholar, in conversation with Adam Lowe, Director of Factum Arte.

The conference is sponsored by:

ICRA was delighted to host a webinar with Jayne Warman, co-author of the Cezanne digital catalogue raisonné, entitled ‘Seeing Cezanne’.

The Cezanne online catalogue raisonné, under the direction of Walter Feilchenfeldt, Jayne Warman and David Nash, capitalizes on the versatility of modern-day technology and takes Cezanne research in a new direction. In addition to establishing the authenticity of Cezanne’s pictures, the interactive catalogue provides the researcher a means of studying the works of this influential artist from differing perspectives.

Jayne Warman presented a brief history of the Cezanne catalogue raisonné, demonstrated some of the features of the online edition and outlined some of the challenges faced by her colleagues and the future of their project.

Image: Cezanne seated before the Large Bathers (Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, PA). Photograph by Emile Bernard, 1904.

On Tuesday 25 May, ICRA, together with the Wildenstein Plattner Institute, Inc. and Navigating.art, hosted a webinar entitled ‘Building the Gauguin Catalogue Raisonné: A Digital Publication’. 

Session 1: The first session was centred on the issues and obstacles that have arisen during the researching, writing and publishing online of the new volume of the Gauguin catalogue raisonné. WPI's Caitlin Sweeney and Elizabeth Gorayeb discussed the project while showcasing the new digital publication. The presentation was followed by a Q&A, featuring Sylvie Crussard, Gauguin scholar and consultant to the WPI.

Session 2: The technical innovations of the digital Gauguin catalogue raisonné were addressed by Nicolai Bohn and Martin Lorenz of Navigating.art, the developers of this software. Navigating.art is a ‘Software-as-a-Service’ provider that offers a new experience for digitizing, publishing, and exploring art. Together, they introduced their software and toured the web features they designed and built for their users.

Image: Paul Gauguin, La Sieste, c. 1892–94

ICRA’s Annual Conference took place on Thursday 3 December 2020 in partnership with The Art Newspaper and sponsored by Lund Humphries. Staged entirely online, the conference included presentations and case-studies by leading scholars, experts and art market professionals from around the world.

Programme and Speakers 

Session 1: A How-to Guide to Research Tools and Practices 

Panellists: Richard Aronowitz-Mercer, Dr Eileen Costello and Martin Kemp

Session 2: Provenance and Forgeries Case study (The Beltracchi Affair) 

Thomas Seydoux

Session 3: Restitution: Research Questions and Perspectives

Panellists: MaryKate Cleary and Isabel von Klitzing

Session 4: Provenance and the Law 

Panellists: Amelia Brankov, Olivier de Baecque, Nicholas Maclean, Pierre Valentin, Martin Wilson

Spotlight session: Provenance and the Collector: A Conversation with Christian Levett

Session 5: Artists’ Estates and Archives and their Approach to Provenance 

Panellists: Stephanie Camu, Susan J. Cooke, Martin Harrison

Session 6: Provenance in Museums

Panellists: Susanna Avery-Quash, Victoria Reed, Iris Schmeisser

Session 7: The Future of Provenance and the Catalogue Raisonné

Panellists: Elizabeth Gorayeb, David Newbury, Prof Dr Lynn Rother

ICRA is grateful to the following for their generous sponsorship and support of the event:

Lund Humphries, The Art Newspaper, The Estelle Trust and Artlyst.

ICRA members were invited to attend a very special event in London, kindly hosted by Art Analysis and Research.

The event included a presentation by Dr. Jilleen Nadolny and Dehlia Barman, followed by a tour. Together they explained how they can help clients increase the value of their artworks and decrease the risk of buying forgeries, as well as how their approaches can be integrated to support the development of a catalogue raisonné.

ICRA's first conference offered a full day of presentations and panel discussions on various topics relevant to the catalogue raisonné. Over 100 delegates from a broad cross-section of art market businesses attended: independent scholars, exhibition curators, managers of artists' estates, publishers and book sellers, a contemporary artist as well as authors of catalogue raisonnés.

The Programme:

Introduction: Pierre Valentin, Chair of ICRA

Presentation I: All the Rembrandts of the World: Towards a History of the Catalogue Raisonné

Dr Antoinette Friedenthal

Panel I: What Makes a Good Catalogue Raisonné

Authors and editors of catalogues raisonnés discussed the logistics, framework, methodology, financing, relationship with the artist and/or artist estate and publishing approach.

Moderator: Georgina Adam

Panellists: Flavie Durand-Ruel, Dr Sharon Hecker, Valérie Didier Hess, Toby Treves, Sarah Whitfield

Panel II: Establishing and Maintaining a Legacy

This session looked at the positives and negatives of foundations/archives, how to run an archive and how to handle the authentication process.

Moderator: Anna Somers Cocks OBE

Panellists: Rana Begum, Elizabeth Gorayeb, Saskia Spender

Presentation II: The Risks Involved in Writing a Catalogue Raisonné, and how Authors can Protect Themselves

Pierre Valentin

Panel III: Who Uses the Catalogue Raisonné?

This panel discussed the end user of the catalogue raisonné and how to take into consideration their needs.

Moderator: Toby Treves

Panellists: Giovanna Bertazzoni, Thomas Heneage, Lucy Myers, Prof Richard Thomson, Dr Barnaby Wright

The ICRA Board would like to thank Christie’s Education for their generous support which has made this event possible.

The Academicians’ Room at the Royal Academy was full and buzzing with enthusiasm at the launch of ICRA on Monday 1 July. There was a broad cross-section of people in attendance, many of whom had travelled considerable distances to find out more about the association, its aims and objectives. Board members, Pierre Valentin and Toby Treves addressed the room and were joined by guest speaker Sir Nicholas Serota who gave an excellent speech in support of ICRA stating that its formation was an important and timely venture.