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U.S. philanthropic foundations have pledged more than $330 million to help preserve the Detroit Institute of Art's collection and assist in shoring up the cash-strapped city's employee pensions, the mediators overseeing Detroit's bankruptcy negotiations said on Monday. _0"> In a statement, the mediators said other foundations are expected to pledge assistance in the near term. "As the mediators attempt to achieve a settlement of all claims, it bears emphasis that the foundations' agreement to participate is specifically conditioned upon all of their funds being committed to the twin goals of helping the city's recovery from bankruptcy by assisting the funding of the retirees' pensions and preserving the DIA's art collection as part of an overall balanced settlement of disputes in the bankruptcy," the mediators said. Last month, auction house Christie's appraised the value of Detroit-owned works at the institute at $454 million to $

Imelda Marcos' former secretary was sentenced on Monday to up to six years in a New York prison for a scheme to sell art that once belonged to the former Philippine first lady, including a Claude Monet water-lily painting that netted $32 million. Vilma Bautista, 75, was convicted in November of conspiracy and tax fraud charges related to the sale or attempted sale of four museum-quality paintings acquired by Marcos during the two decades that her husband, Ferdinand Marcos, was president of the Philippines. The art disappeared around 1986, when Marcos was ousted from power. He died three years later. A New York state judge sentenced Bautista to between two and six years in prison for the count of tax fraud and between one and three years for the conspiracy charge. Bautista, who had faced up to 25 years in prison, was also ordered to pay $3.5 million in restitution to the state of New York. Bautista was charged in the state because she lives in New York City. Prosecutors said

Sotheby's has rebutted claims that an $8.2 million Chinese calligraphic scroll it sold at auction in New York last year is a fake, defending its reputation as it seeks to gain a foothold in the fast-growing China art auction market. The New York-based auctioneer issued a 14-page document authenticating the work by Song dynasty politician-poet Su Shi, China's equivalent of one of Europe's Renaissance masters, which had been expected to fetch in excess of $300,000. The scroll, comprising just nine characters, went well past that estimate, going under the hammer for $8,229,000, including a buyer's premium of 12 to 25 percent. The buyer, Chinese art collector and businessman Liu Yiqian, was quoted by Chinese media on Tuesday as saying he believed the work was real. Sotheby's rejected assertions carried in the state-owned China Cultural Relic News, and written by three Shanghai-based researchers, that the more than 900-year-old scroll was not by Su Shi, also known

A Picasso portrait of his lover and eventual wife Jacqueline Roque and a canvas by Belgian surrealist painter Rene Magritte are among the star attractions of February auctions that Christie's said on Monday could net almost $380 million. Christie's estimated that those works and others to be sold in four auctions on February 4-5 and a fifth on February 7 in London could raise between 156.7 million and 228.3 million pounds ($260 million-$376 million). The Picasso, entitled "Femme au costume turc dans un fauteuil" (Woman in a Turkish costume seated in a chair), 1955, is valued at 15-20 million pounds and is on sale for the first time in 55 years, Christie's said in a press release. The painting is one of a small group of portraits by Pablo Picasso showing Roque in the costume of an "odalisque", a woman of the harem. It is "a colorful, sexually charged celebration of Jacqueline, whom Picasso would marry six years later and who would become one of

London has a new theatre lit entirely by candles, transporting audiences back 400 years to the kind of performances seen on winter nights in Shakespeare's time. Constructed mainly of oak, the building sits alongside the established open-air Globe theatre on the south bank of the Thames - but it offers a very different experience by replicating an indoor playhouse of the early 17th century. While the Globe's thatched amphitheatre is breezy and holds more than 1,500 people, the new Sam Wanamaker Playhouse - named after the American actor and director who came up with the idea for both venues - is intimate, with just 340 seats. Stepping inside is like entering an antique marquetry box, with the flickering candlelight illuminating woodwork and a painted ceiling that make a fine setting for the inward-looking psychological dramas of the Jacobean period. In many ways the small indoor space is an "anti-Globe," according to artistic director Dominic Dromgoole, whose pro

A celebrated portrait by Francis Bacon of his lover and muse George Dyer could raise up to 30 million pounds ($49 million) on auction in London next month, Christie's said on Wednesday. A Bacon triptych sold last year set an auction record of $142 million. The "Portrait of George Dyer Talking" from 1966 is one of the most famous images of Bacon's lover and was exhibited at his Retrospective at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1971, a Christie's statement said. The Irish-born Bacon met Dyer in London's Soho district in 1963, drawn to him by his fragility and need for protection. An anxious, constant smoker and problematic drinker, Dyer went on to dominate Bacon portraits for the rest of the decade. Dyer committed suicide in 1971. The portrait will be offered at the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction on February 13 in London. "Francis Bacon's position at the forefront of 20th century painting was highlighted at Christie's in November

Juan Gelman, the celebrated Argentine poet and fierce critic of the South American nation's "dirty war" against leftists, died Tuesday in Mexico City, Mexico's national art council said. _0"> Gelman, who was born in Buenos Aires but lived in the Mexican capital for more than 20 years, died after being hospitalized, the council said in a statement. Local media reported that he suffered from myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS), a group of bone marrow and blood diseases. The poet and political analyst's writings won some of the highest awards given to Spanish writers, including the lifetime achievement Miguel de Cervantes Prize. Gelman fought against impunity and injustices under Argentina's military junta, which "disappeared" thousands of suspected leftists from 1976 to 1983. One of Gelman's own sons was kidnapped and murdered during the so-called "dirty war." (Reporting by Miguel Gutierrez; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)