Leighton House awarded funds for final phase of restoration

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

Leighton House Museum announces Heritage Lottery grant for new phase of development | The Heritage Lottery Fund has granted £337,000 to the former home and studio of the artist Lord Leighton. The award will allow the museum to complete the third phase of a major restoration and redevelopment effort, which began in 2010. The museum, which is run by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, intends to increase public areas by a third, including a new exhibition gallery. Daniel Robbins, senior curator at Leighton House, says, ‘Once the project has been completed, we will be able to showcase much more of our collection and tell the full story of the Holland Park Circle, the unique group of studio-houses that surround the museum.’

Alec Baldwin sues Mary Boone over Ross Bleckner work | The actor Alec Baldwin has sued dealer Mary Boone, asserting that he was ‘defrauded’ over the purchase of a work by Ross Bleckner. Baldwin claims that Boone promised him a specific work by the artist that was sold to a Los Angeles collector in 2007, but that he was in fact given another painting with the same title, Sea and Mirror. Baldwin’s suit accuses Boone of ‘fraudulently’ stamping the painting she sold to him with the inventory number of the work he believed he was to receive. According to the New York Times, Boone’s lawyers have rejected the lawsuit as ‘an effort to intimidate’ her.

Emerige steps in to finance Paris’s ‘Art City’ | Development group Emerige has taken over ownership of the R4 ‘Art City’ on Paris’s Île Seguin, reports Le Journal des Arts. (£, French language article, via The Artnewspaper.) The handover has occurred in part due to the complicated circumstances of the project’s former chief backer Yves Bouvier, who is embroiled in legal difficulties. No figure has yet been revealed for the transaction, though it is known that EuroAsia, a company of which Bouvier is chairman, has sold its entire stake to Emerige. Emerige president Laurent Dumas has said that he is ‘delighted’ to take control of the Jean Nouvel-designed mixed-use site.

Australia bars export of Herbert Badham painting | The Australian government has placed an export bar on a 1944 painting by Herbert Badham, which was acquired last year by a London-based collector who planned to take it back to Britain. According to the Daily Telegraph, the unnamed collector purchased the work for AUS$465,000 at an auction in Melbourne, and applied for permission to export it. However, the Australian culture ministry deemed the painting a work of ‘national significance’ and refused the owner an export licence. This prompted him to apply to the federal Administrative Appeals Tribunal. The latter body has since ruled that ‘is of such importance to Australia, that its loss would significantly diminish the cultural heritage of Australia’.