McDonald’s South Africa has confirmed that MEC for Local Government and Housing Humphrey Mmemezi paid R10 000 for a piece of artwork through one of its branches.
McDonald’s spokesman Belinda McKenna said the fast food company had instituted a probe after The Star ran a story on Monday on how Mmemezi had used his government-issued credit card at a McDonald’s branch in Silverton, Tshwane, for the painting.
McDonald’s said the transaction took place on October 12 last year.
McKenna said: “The owner-operator, in his capacity as a businessman, was empathetic to the needs of a friend, the artist, offering assistance of using the credit card facility in his restaurant to process the transaction, as the artist does not have credit card facilities with which to receive payments.”
She added: “No sale transaction was processed through the McDonald’s system. In hindsight, the owner operator agrees that this was an innocent error of judgment.”
McKenna said the owner-operator’s actions were not in line with McDonald’s South Africa’s corporate governance standards.
The Star
Chippenham launches artwork trail to coincide with arrival of Olympic torch - This is Wiltshire
Chippenham launches artwork trail to coincide with arrival of Olympic torch
1:19pm Tuesday 22nd May 2012 in Latest News By Alex Winter
A trail of artwork created by children at Chippenham schools to celebrate the Olympics will be launched tomorrow to coincide with the arrival of the torch.
With fire-breathing dragons, eerie Moomins and a whole shop dedicated entirely to Mexican sombreros, the colourful trail, called Follow Wenlock after the Olympic mascot, will stay on display until September 1.
There are 20 stops on the trail, as each school has taken on a country to represent.
Maps are available at the Chippenham Community and Visitor Information Centre on the High Street and at the museum and heritage centre, and all of the primary schools taking part will also receive them.
Assistant curator at the museum Paul Connell helped to hang the giant dragons, hand-crafted by children at Stanton St Quintin Primary School, ahead of the launch.
“The children have done some amazing work,” he said.
“It’s lovely that some of it will be displayed in the Yelde Hall. It has only just opened again after the tourist information centre moved onto the High Street, and it’s fantastic that the community will come along to see work done by children in the town.”
As the Olympic torch passes through Chippenham tomorrow, artist Imogen Harvey Lewis is due to take up a station outside the Yelde Hall and recruit passers by to create a one of a kind painting that will go on display at John Coles Park.
Mr Connell said: “She will be asking people to think of a British icon to paint – like the Queen, or even David Beckham. The artwork will then be displayed in the park.”
The enthusiasm from the Olympics in Chippenham won’t end as soon as the torch does however – children from primary schools will be taking part in the Chippenham Games from June 25 to 29 at the Stanley Park Sports Ground.
Diego Rivera artwork poised to set new auction record for artist at Latin America sale in NY - Washington Post
The painting, “Niña en azul y blanco,” is a portrait of 10-year-old Juanita Rosas and is from a period in which Rivera captured the innocence of children. The muralist chose the work to illustrate a catalog for a 1949 exhibition celebrating his 50 years of painting, organized by the Mexican National Institute of Fine Arts.
“It is very typical of his work, especially of that period,” said Carmen Melian, director of Sotheby’s Latin American Art department. Rivera “painted through the years the children of the help at his home and the neighbor’s, and in particular he painted Juanita several times,” Melian said.
It’s Rivera’s most important painting to be auctioned in decades, according to Sotheby’s, which has promoted it as one of his two biggest paintings outside of Mexico and says it is hitting the market at the right time. Just last year the Museum of Modern Art featured a solo exhibit of Rivera’s work.
“What I love the most is that it was painted in his studio,” Melian said of the painting. “I have been in his studio and the floor there has been dyed green, that’s why it is green in the piece. And the white wall in the background, with its mix of blue and pink, is almost like a Monet or a Renoir; the front is more realistic, the figure of the kid pops out.”
Rivera’s current record is $3,082,500 for the 1928 oil on canvas “Baile en Tehuantepec,” (”Dancing in Tehuantepec”) sold in 1995 at Sotheby’s in New York.
“Niña en azul y blanco” could even break the auction record for Latin American art, held since 2008 by Mexican Rufino Tamayo’s “Troubadour,” which fetched $7.2 million.
“You never know,” Melian said. “You don’t see a piece like this one very often.”
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Sigal Ratner-Arias can be reached at https://twitter.com/(hash)!/sigalratner
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Online:
http://www.sothebys.com
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Artwork produced by the Kray twins to go up for auction in Norfolk - eveningnews24.co.uk
Kray twins Ronnie (left) and Reggie, Britain's most notorious gangsters
ADAM LAZZARI
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
2:26 PM
More than 40 paintings and drawings by the notorious Kray twins are to go up for auction in Norfolk
Ronnie and Reggie Kray were at the forefront of organised crime in London’s East End in the 1950s and 1960s and were given life sentences for murder in 1969.
Ronnie died of a heart attack in Broadmoor Hospital, Crowthorne, in 1995, aged 61, while Reggie died, aged 66, from cancer at the Town House Hotel in Norwich in 2000.
Artwork produced by the pair while they were in prison will be up for sale at an auction at Fakenham Racecourse on July 11.
David James, from Fakenham auctioneers James and Sons, said the artwork is in a variety of mediums including chalk on paper, watercolour, oil on paper, on board and on canvas, charcoal, pastel and pencil.
The subject matter covers a wide range including nudes, portraits, landscapes, seascapes, animals and still-lifes.
The majority of the work is by Reggie, 37 items, with five by Ronnie.
Mr James said: “Some of the works are clearly copies of originals by renowned artists, presumably from text books available in the prison libraries.
“While the work can best be described as naive it cannot be written off as pure amateurism – there is evidence of some talent.”
Also at the auction there will be an album of photographs and Reggie’s letters to ‘Clive’, a fellow inmate who appears to have been Kray’s ‘gopher’ at HMP Wayland and who kept in touch with him after his own release.
A pair of boxing gloves which belonged to Charles Bronson, often referred to as “Britain’s most violent prisoner”, are also in the collection. These bear Bronson’s name and are the subject of one of Reggie’s letters to ‘Clive’, in which he describes how meeting Bronson was “the most frightening visit I had” when the two, accompanied by 20 prison officers, exchanged the gloves at HMP Parkhurst.
There is also one drawing by Ronald “Buster” Edwards, one of the thieves involved in the “Great Train Robbery” of 1963, up for sale.
The auction will be the first to be held by James and Sons at Fakenham Racecourse.
Katy Perry unveils new single 'Wide Awake' artwork - picture - Digital Spy
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