A local council partially disassembled a new Banksy mural installation in Margate celebrating Valentine’s Day as it contained a broken freezer deemed dangerous.
The artwork depicts a 1950s battered housewife with a black eye and missing tooth shoving a man into a freezer. The artwork titled “Valentine’s day mascara” also utilised a broken garden chair, a crate and an empty beer bottle, also removed.
The freezer has now been returned by Thanet District Council “once it has been made safe”. “The council has to ensure the ongoing safety of the public; it was necessary to carry out works to the freezer for health and safety reasons,” they stated. “Banksy raises the important issue of domestic abuse in this artwork. We are in touch with the property owner to understand their intentions around preserving the piece and securing the best possible outcome for the local community and victims of domestic abuse.”
Banksy presented a picture of the work on his website and Instagram page on Valentine’s Day. He is clearly referencing the plight of violence against women.
Ronald S. Lauder Compensates Family For Restitution Klimt
Ronald S. Lauder, the cosmetics heir/collector, will keep an iconic painting by Gustav Klimt, which he has owned for 50 years, after agreeing to pay restitution to the family of a Jewish woman who was was persecuted during the Second World War.
The purchase terms were not disclosed but followed many years of careful research into the painting’s provenance. Lauder bought the painting titled “The Black Feather Hat,” 1910, from a New York gallery in 1973. It was exhibited at his private museum, the Neue Galerie, which he founded. In 2001.
Irene Beran was the owner of the painting in 1934 when she lived in Brno, which is now part of the Czech Republic. She fled Europe, fearing Nazi persecution, settling in New York.
Lauder, currently the president of the World Jewish Congress, has been a campaigner for the restitution of property stolen by the Nazis. In a joint statement the family of Irene Beran along with Ronald S. Lauder stated that, despite ample research, the painting’s “whereabouts” between 1934 and 1957, when it resurfaced in an exhibition in Stuttgart, remained unclear.
Bob Ross’s Biopic Is Fiction, Not Fact
Paint, a new film launching in April starring Owen Wilson, is about the fictional Carl Nargle, a character loosely based on the TV Artist Bob Ross, a fixture on PBS and the BBC in the UK in the 1980s. His distinctive curly perm and gentle voice are based on Ross’s demeanour; however, the story is make-believe.
Nargle is “Vermont’s #1 public television painter with a custom van and fans internationally. “However, the film takes a twist when “a younger artist steals everything (and everyone) Carl loves.”
Ross, who died in 1995, was renowned for his soothing art lessons on the show he fronted from 1983 to 1994. The 2021 Netflix documentary Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed featured a look at the artist’s legacy. It has been so successful it has now prompted a Hollywood film,
Written and directed by Brit McAdams. The storyline is based on ‘The Black List’, a 2010 screenplay. It stars Michaela Watkins, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Stephen Root, Ciara Renée, Lusia Strus and Lucy Freyer.
Paint is set for release in US cinemas on April 28, 2023. Further by-location releases are to be confirmed.