The University of Iowa has come out strongly for holding on to “Mural,” a Jackson Pollock masterpiece at the university’s Museum of Art. At a Board of Regents meeting in August, following floods that caused considerable damage to the campus, a regent raised the question of whether “Mural” might be sold to finance repairs, and asked the university to provide certain information about the painting and its impact. The painting is insured for $140 million, so there’s no doubt it could bring in serious cash. But a detailed report from the university argued against a sale. It said that, if it sold the painting, it would probably lose the museum’s accreditation, which would make it difficult to acquire or borrow works of art, and that future donors would be unlikely to give works of art to the university. A statement from David Miles, president of the Board of Regents, thanked the university for the information and said that the report “concludes the board’s inquiry into this matter.”...

When Weather Changed History – the original series from The Weather Channel® that won awards and broke viewership records after its premiere in January 2008 – returns for an exciting all-new second season beginning October 5. The 14 new episodes explore weather-related circumstances known to affect the outcome of history and reveal the sometimes-surprising connections of weather on the course of events.

Each new episode of When Weather Changed History will premiere Sundays at 9 p.m. and 12 a.m. ET, with a number of repeats throughout the following week. The series is produced by Towers Productions, and season two will provide insights to weather’s effect on momentous historic events such as D-Day, the Titanic and the Hindenburg as well as in-depth exposition about well-known American experiences like the Dust Bowl, the Great Chicago Fire, and the Galveston hurricane. Encore presentations will be presented Monday through Saturday at 9 p.m. and 12 a.m. ET.
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When Charles Saatchi closed his last art gallery after a row with the landlord, he famously sold off his prestigious collection of works by the YBAs, leaving the world wondering what he would "discover" next.


Yesterday, Saatchi revealed a new collection of YCAs, or Young Chinese Artists, after unveiling the world's largest free-entry contemporary art gallery in private hands.

A giant faeces sculpture called Indigestion II, replicas of London buildings made from dog chews, and models of elderly men resembling leading statesmen playing "dodgems" in wheelchairs were some of the artworks occupying the 70,000 sq ft, four-storey gallery on London's King's Road for its inaugural exhibition, The Revolution Continues: New Art from China.

Speaking to The Independent about his initial hesitations about the collection, Saatchi said: "First I hated it. Then I liked it. Now that I've hung it, I'm mad about it." In 2005, the...

“The statue will be kept at the treasury of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art (TMCA) and we have no plans for its restoration,” office director and TMCA curator Mahmud Shaluii told the Persian service of MNA on Saturday.

“It will be kept at the place in its existing shape; perhaps it will be restored at some point in the future,” he added.

According to former curator Habibollah Sadeqi, TMCA planned to restore the statue in order to reinstall the artwork at the yard of TMCA by the end of the Iranian calendar year -- March 20, 2009.

The 4-meter high statue was created by the prominent Iranian sculptor Bahman Mohasses in 1975 by order of the City Theater Complex director and was installed in front of the complex.

After the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, it was removed from the site because it was deemed as contrary to the revolution’s criteria due to its unique shape...

Tony Blair, David Frost, HG Wells, Kenneth Williams, Brian Clough, Mozart, Caligula - the roll call of parts that Michael Sheen has played resembles a version of the parlour game known as Fantasy Dinner Parties. With that mob seated around the same table, passing the condiments and swapping chit-chat, there would be no need to resort to Pictionary or Taboo to give the evening a lift.

Until now, Sheen has been defined by his brace of performances as Blair. The Deal recreated the charm offensive of the PM-in-waiting, and the leadership pact made by Blair and Gordon Brown, while The Queen unpicked the part played by Blair in the redemption of the Windsors after the fall-out from Princess Diana's death.

That considerable achievement will shortly be overshadowed by his latest role, as David Frost in Frost/Nixon, which kicks off the London Film Festival on 15 October and opens nationwide in January. Like Peter Morgan's 2006 play, Ron Howard's film takes as its focus...

Bob Dylan's greatest creative inspiration is not Woody Guthrie, Little Richard or Odetta. It's even not Picasso or Cézanne. Instead, Dylan has revealed his greatest inspiration is Scotland's favourite son, the Bard of Ayrshire, the 18th-century poet known to most as Rabbie Burns.

As part of an advertising campaign this year, Dylan was asked to name the lyric or verse that had the greatest impact on his life. Rather than quoting his idol Woody Guthrie or poet Dylan Thomas, from whom it is thought that Robert Zimmerman took his name, Dylan selected A Red, Red Rose, written by Robert Burns in 1794.

"O, my luve's like a red, red rose," the poem begins, "That's newly sprung in June. / O, my luve's like the melodie, / That's sweetly play'd in tune."

The selection was made as part of HMV's My Inspiration campaign. The adverts were launched two years ago with a spot by David Bowie, who chose lyrics written by Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd....

The painting of a warship in Nelson's navy is the only known work by Captain Hardy and was created in about 1801. As an officer, Hardy was trained by the Royal Navy to be a competent artist so he could draw enemy ships and coastlines of foreign countries.

The drawings and paintings were not signed and were meant to be used for strategic purposes and not as works of art. Hardy gave it to Reverend Dr Alexander Scott, who was Nelson's private secretary and who rubbed the naval hero's chest on his deathbed.

The 10" by 12" painting has been handed down from generation to generation through Dr Scott's family and has never before been on public display.

A private collector paid £3,850 for it after it was put up for sale at an auction. Hardy used water colour paint and pencil on paper for the painting of the unidentified 40 gun ship shortly before he joined HMS Victory...

'We smell and we ache," says Alex Langlands. "It's been a huge undertaking - and it's freezing up here in winter. But it's also been a real thrill."

Adjusting to hard physical work in wild weather was not the only challenge for the team of two archaeologists and a historian who retreated to deepest Shropshire to live for a year as Victorian farmers.

"Braces were a revelation," says Langlands, one of the archaeologists. "They used to wear their trousers much higher in those days, Simon Cowell-style.

At first we were using belts - seriously uncomfortable. The switch was a godsend."

It was the urge to get out of the library and find out more about the gritty details of the "forgotten voices" of rural life 150 years ago that led the group to conduct the experiment as a follow-up to a television series shown in 2005.

Tales From The Green Valley featured the same enthusiastic trio...

The South is the bathroom of American history. Saturating the otherwise picturesque rolling landscapes is the oppressive stench of a history of lynching, blood-curdling beatings, and African-American bodies burned and ruthlessly mutilated. This is the room that America doesn't want visitors to see. Keep this door shut because if opened, threatening so spill out is a truth cold and heartless, vicious and numbing. It is better to infuse the truth with perfumed tales than it is to air it out.

Way down those small roads, and through those tiny close-knit communities of easy chatter and lazy porch nights, way back past trees where dark bodies hung like broken branches, is a black history raw and infected, oozing with secrets at once calloused and quaking to the touch.

On Sunday, Oct. 5, TV One will air the documentary, "Murder in Black and White, Moore's Ford" narrated by Rev. Al Sharpton. The story chronicles the brutal beating and mutilation of two...