Haiti Painting Donated to Auction for Earthquake Relief

Port-au-Prince, Haiti, an early 20th-century oil painting by American landscape artist Louis Aston Knight, will be auctioned on February 16 to raise funds for earthquake victims. [Credit: Bonhams via ArtDaily]

NEW YORK — Port-au-Prince, Haiti, an oil painting by landscape artist Louis Aston Knight (1873-1948), will be auctioned to raise funds for the devastated Caribbean capital. The work of art was donated by an anonymous collector and will be up for bid at Bonhams fine art auction house on February 16. 

Painter Louis Knight was born in Paris, where he studied under Robert-Fleury Lefebvre and his father, celebrated American artist Daniel Ridgway Knight. The early 20th-century artwork depicts a view of the now-devastated capital city of Port-au-Prince; the cathedral and National Palace are visible in the distance on the right. The Palace was destroyed in 1912 and rebuilt from 1915-1934, only to be destroyed once again in the recent disaster. 

“When the owner of this painting heard about the disaster in Haiti she asked us to sell it on behalf of a charity currently working to help the people of Haiti," said Giles Peppiatt, Director of Topographical Pictures at Bonhams. 

The money raised by the sale will go to AmeriCares, a nonprofit global health and disaster relief organization currently working in Haiti. The painting is estimated to fetch $6,000-9,000 for earthquake relief.

[Source: BusinessWeek]

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Haiti Painting Donated to Auction for Earthquake Relief

Stars Shine at Whitney Museum Gala Benefit for the Arts

The stars were shining on Monday night at the 2009 Whitney Museum Gala in New York. The annual museum event raises funds to support museum exhibitions and educational programming. Sponsored by Versace, the museum's black-tie benefit was attended by the likes of actresses Lindsey Lohan and Mischa Barton, actors Gerard Butler and Patrick Dempsey, designer Charlotte Ronson, singers Shakira and Jennifer Hudson, and the list goes on.

“I draw, but only cartoon figures, so I would never make it into a museum like this,” said singer Jennifer Hudson, whose special musical performance elicited a standing ovation from the crowd. Other celebrities also discussed their artistic abilities (or lack thereof). “I have ‘paint parties.' I put up blank canvases on the wall and everyone comes over and paints on them," Mischa Barton said. “I make sculpture, I used to paint fried eggs—I was in a phase,” added Shakira.

NEW YORK /Sfilate.com/-- In addition to sponsoring the Gala, Donatella Versace collaborated with the Whitney’s Education Department to create Art Unites, a global initiative aimed at providing needy children in the United States  and China with the incomparable spirit, creativity, inspiration and solace that visual arts bestow. The program, officially launched on July 1st, benefits the Starlight Children’s Foundation, an organization dedicated to brightening the lives of seriously ill children and their families in the US, and the Versace One Foundation (founded by Jet Li)  in China, an organization committed to the long-term recovery of the areas devastated by last year’s earthquakes in the Sichuan province, funding and operating two Versace One Foundation children’s centers with schooling, psychological therapy, and post  trauma counseling for over 1200, through creative visual arts, an essential form of relief.

As part of the Art Unites program Versace provided canvas and art supplies to 500 children from Starlight and 900 children from the Versace One Foundation to create original drawings using the theme of “friendship”.  Each child’s work of art has been fashioned into a one-of-a-kind Versace canvas tote bag which are being sold worldwide now at Versace boutiques and the Gilt Groupe, a member’s only ecommerce site.  The bags retail for about 200 euro, and 100% percent of the proceeds from the sale of the bags will be donated equally to Starlight and to the Versace One Foundation.

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[Read more - Versace Sponsors 2009 Gala | Sfilate.com]

Stars Shine at Whitney Museum Gala Benefit for the Arts