Denver - A woman who punched, scratched and slid her buttocks against a $30m painting by abstract expressionist Clyfford Still at a Denver museum has been sentenced to two years of probation, and will have to undergo mental health treatment, prosecutors said on Thursday.
Carmen Tisch, aged 37, pleaded guilty earlier this month to felony criminal mischief for striking at and leaning against the oil-on-canvas painting 1957-J No. 2 at the Clyfford Still Museum last year, the Denver District Attorney's Office said.
After causing an estimated $10 000 worth of damage to the painting, an intoxicated Tisch then pulled down her pants, slid her buttocks against the painting and urinated on the museum floor, prosecutors said.
A judge sentenced Tisch to two years probation and she must also undergo mental health treatment and receive help for alcohol dependency as a condition of her sentence. She may still face a restitution hearing.
The North Dakota-born Still was considered one of the most influential post-World War II American abstract expressionist artists, but he was not as famous as contemporaries such as Jackson Pollock.
Still died in 1980, and Denver officials worked for decades with his widow, Patricia, to secure a single-artist museum featuring his works. When she died in 2005, she bequeathed her husband's collection to the city.
Four of his works were auctioned by Sotheby's for $114m to endow the museum, which opened in late 2011.
Source: www.news24.com
Woman who punched, scratched and rubbed her buttocks on $40m painting avoids jail time - Daily Mail
Sentenced: Carmen Tisch has been sentenced to a two-year probation after damaging a $40million Clyfford Still painting in December
A 37-year-old woman who punched, scratched and rubbed her buttocks against a $40 million painting causing $10,000 worth of damage has avoided a jail sentence.
Carmen Tisch, from Denver, has been sentenced to two years of probation, and will have to undergo mental health treatment after she damaged the work by abstract expressionist Clyfford Still at a Denver museum, recently opened in the artist’s name.
Tisch pleaded guilty earlier this month to felony criminal mischief for striking at and leaning against the oil-on-canvas painting '1957-J No. 2' at the Clyfford Still Museum last December, the Denver District Attorney's Office said.
After causing an estimated $10,000 worth of damage to the painting, a drunken Tisch then pulled down her pants, slid her buttocks against the painting and urinated on the museum floor, prosecutors said.
'It comes across as pretty inconceivable that somebody would do that in the context of a museum,' Ivar Zeile, the gallery owner, told NBC news in January.
A judge ruled that Tisch must also receive help for alcohol dependency as a condition of her sentence and she may still face a restitution hearing.
After Tisch was arrested in December her mother said that Tisch was an alcoholic.
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Probation: Tisch, seen here in court in January, will also have to undergo mental health and alcohol addiction treatment as part of her probation
Painting: The iconic Clyfford Still oil-on-canvas, called 1957-J no. 2, which was damaged by Tisch on December 29
Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for the Denver District Attorney's Office, said Tisch pulled down her trousers and rubbed her buttocks against the painting while urinating on December 29.
'You have to wonder where her friends were,' said Ms Kimbrough in January.
The police report said Tisch struck the painting repeatedly with her fist and that the scratches and other damage were visible.
Scene: Clyfford Still Museum which opened last November to house thousands of the artist's works
The painting, which is nearly nine-and-a-half-feet tall and 13-feet wide, is estimated between $30 million and $40 million by the museum, according to the Denver Post.
CLYFFORD STILL
Born in North Dakota in 1904, Clyfford Still was an American painter, and one of the leading figures of Abstract Expressionism.
He was considered one of the most influential of the American post-World War Two abstract expressionist artists, although he was not as well known as others such as Jackson Pollock.
Still died in 1980, and the city of Denver worked for years with his widow, Patricia, to secure the single-artist museum.
Born in North Dakota in 1904, Still was considered one of the most influential of the American post-World War Two abstract expressionist artists, although he was not as well known as others such as Jackson Pollock.
Still died in 1980, and the city of Denver worked for years with his widow, Patricia, to secure the single-artist museum.
She died in 2005, and her husband's collection was bequeathed to the city.
Four of Still's works were auctioned by Sotheby's last year for $114 million to endow the Denver museum, which opened with much fanfare in November 18.
The museum's collection includes about 2,400 paintings, drawings, prints, and sculptures, much of which have never been on public display before.
Because Still closely guarded his works, most of the pieces at his namesake museum had not previously been displayed.
Court records show that Tisch was arrested in January 2011 on an armed robbery charge.
She was freed on $50,000 bond, then the charge was dropped on December 16 2011.
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Source: www.dailymail.co.uk
Stephen Lawrence profile: the ambitious teenager with a fun-loving streak - Daily Telegraph
Bright and ambitious, he set his sights on becoming an architect at the age of seven, a dream he was still pursuing when he was murdered at the age of 18.
At Blackheath Bluecoat School in south London, which he attended from the age of 11, he showed a flair for art and maths and was studying for A-levels in design and technology, physics and English when he died.
In 1991 he spent a couple of weeks on work experience with Arthur Timothy, an architect in east London. Mr Timothy remembers him as a “diligent and very enthusiastic" teenager with “enormous potential".
But to his close circle of friends, he was a fun-loving joker with the same taste for pop music, celebrities and designer clothes as any British schoolboy.
Elvin Oduro, one of his best friends, recalls how they used to go on “missions” to discover other parts of London.
"We used to go up to Oxford Street on a Saturday, window-shopping, getting up to mischief, looking for girls … it was always fun.”
He also displayed an entrepreneurial streak, setting up a business with Elvin designing and selling T-shirts and painting famous faces from rap musicians to political figures such as Malcolm X onto baseball caps and jackets.
The pair once landed some tickets to a live recording of the Channel 4 youth show The Word in which some of their musical heroes were appearing.
After the show they tracked down the American rapper Flavor Flav on set and presented him with a boiler suit emblazoned with a hand-painted rendition of his own face.
He greeted them with two “high fives” and thanked them for the unusual gift.
Stephen once made his own, brief, foray into the world of celebrity – landing a part as an extra in the film For Queen and Country, starring Denzel Washington.
Tall and athletic, he also excelled on the running track, and competed for local Cambridge Harriers athletics club.
“It was great having a big brother,” Stuart Lawrence, two years Stephen’s junior, later remembered.
“No one messed with me, Stephen was tall and cool and had loads of friends.”
Georgina, who was just 11 when her brother was murdered, remembers the how he would pick her up at her school gates when their mother was busy.
“He was always there, he never forgot,” she later said.
The Revd David Cruise, the former minister at Trinity Methodist Church, where the family worshipped, remembers his uncanny ability to charm himself out of trouble.
“Stephen was no goody-goody, he had his rebellious streak,” he later explained.
"Mrs Lawrence asked me to talk sense into him …. when I tried he just smiled his cheeky, knowing grin.”
On the night of April 22 1993, serious matters were far from Stephen Lawrence’s mind as he headed home after a night out with friends.
The last memory Leon Thompson, who saw him earlier in the evening, has of Stephen is of him standing at a bus stop recounting how he had been chatting up a new girl and was looking forward to their first date together.
“He was going to go out that Saturday and meet her, and he was really happy about it,” he later said.
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
Sir Anthony Hopkins artwork to help compensate Ponzi victims - WalesOnline
A vivid acrylic painting by movie star Sir Anthony Hopkins is being sold off by US Government officials to help compensate the victims of a bankrupt investment broker.
William E Schneider, 30, of Cleveland, Ohio, acted as an unlicensed broker from 2006 to 2008.
His company Estate Conservation Group (ECG) which lost investors almost $500,000 was described by federal prosecutors as a ponzi or pyramid scheme with no hope of success.
Schneider lived extravagantly for a few years frittering the money away.
But possibly one of his shrewdest moves was to fly to sun-drenched Hawaii in 2007 to buy a painting by the Port Talbot born Oscar-winning actor Sir Anthony at the Higgins Harte art gallery in Lahaina, Hawaii.
Schneider handed over $20,500 for the abstract entitled Sunset on Venus, a bright red, acrylic landscape painting.
He never opened it from its wrapping.
The work of art will now be auctioned on behalf of federal prosecutors who seized the art work from Schneider’s belongings in an attempt to compensate his long list of victims.
Like his famous character, the crazed psychiatrist Hannibal Lecter, Sir Anthony, 74, has an uncanny ability for painting.
He produces mainly landscapes, inspired, he says, by his many trips across the Californian desert or from his childhood in South Wales.
He calls his work “dreamscapes”.
Before an exhibition of his work in London in 2010, Sir Anthony said of his paintings: “'What you’re observing is my state of mind.”
One of the most bankable stars is Hollywood, Sir Anthony is currently filming Hitchcock, in which he plays legendary film maker Alfred Hitchcock and is about to reprise his role as king of the norse gods Odin in Thor 2.
He has branched out not only into painting but also music.
The Welsh actor, now based in Los Angeles, has composed a number of symphonies and in January this year Sir Anthony released an album of classical music, entitled Composer, performed by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra released by Decca.
Schneider, of Westlake, Ohio, eventually went bankrupt and pleaded guilty to mail fraud and bank fraud.
Last year he was finally sentenced to 37 months in a federal prison in Ohio in connection with the $470,000 fraud operated through his investment company.
Assistant US Attorney Alex Rokakis now aims to find a buyer for Sunset on Venus so the victims can get at least a small part of what they are owed.
Speaking of the acrylic, he said: “It’s colourful, it’s vibrant. But a piece like this is not something you’re going to sell through a major auction house like Christie’s.
“There’s not the market for it.”
The Hawaiian gallery where the painting was bought describes Sir Anthony’s work as “daring and free” and asserts that his paintings “forge new paths in the art world.”
Rokakis said because of his life style, Schneider left little behind to seize on behalf of the US government.
He only discovered Schneider owned Sir Anthony's painting through Schneider’s bankruptcy case, which listed all of his assets.
A federal judge approved a court order allowing the government to take the painting from the home of Schneider’s wife.
He said: “I spend a great deal of time trying to find these fraudsters’ money.
“Did they spend it or hide it somewhere we can recover it for the victims of the crimes?”
Schneider was sentenced to a total of 37 months last year after a court heard he convinced his investors they would get high returns.
However, instead of investing the cash, Schneider deposited the funds into his personal bank account and used the money for his own purposes.
Investors lost $470,558.44, according to court documents.
In addition, Schneider pleaded guilty to bank fraud in connection with a loan the defendant secured for $65,000 with Capital One on a 1957 classic Ford car.
The prosecution of Schenider followed an investigation conducted by the United States Postal Inspection Service and the Westlake Police Department.
Source: www.walesonline.co.uk
Painting a canvas of community voices - Oregonian
How could we best use the space to reflect the interests and concerns of a community defined by its agricultural history and dynamic growth? How could we assure regular readers of the Argus we would be mindful of the newspaper's long record of community leadership and its right-of-center political perspective? How could we reach out to occasional readers and non-readers to bring them into the discussion?
These were among the questions I asked myself when I began at the Argus in late January. With respect for the past, a sense of urgency about the present and musings about the future, I grabbed my brushes and went to work.
Now, four months later, I'm writing my first signed column on this page to report back to you, readers, and solicit your feedback. This isn't a report card, per se. Rather, it's a restatement of what we set out to do, a summary of what we've done, and an invitation to engage with us -- in print every Friday and anytime online.
Our goal is simple: to hold up a mirror to the greater Hillsboro community so that people from different neighborhoods, workplaces and walks of life see their issues and concerns reflected on this page. For some, those topics involve taxes, traffic and municipal services; parenting; politics; crime, health care, poverty, demographic change; education and school funding; jobs and economic development; land-use planning and quality-of-life issues.
Presenting a variety of viewpoints is central to that goal. That is why we have been proactive in soliciting guest opinions from regular citizens, along with elected officials and community leaders. That is why we created an Argus Community Writers program, currently featuring a retired teacher, a stay-at-home mom, and an information technology specialist, to assure a flow of grassroots perspectives. That is why we have continued to publish columns by longtime political commentator Jayne Carroll.
As promised, we have occasionally gone without a staff editorial in this space in order to devote more room to community voices. We did so most recently in early May, when we presented excerpts of more than two dozen commentaries on K-12 budget cuts and proposed solutions to Oregon's school finance crisis.
We also have conducted online reader polls to get a sense of community opinion on several issues, including support for minor league baseball in Hillsboro; the elimination of Native American mascots at Oregon high schools; and what to do about the composting "stink" near North Plains. We have excerpted online interviews with Oregon's First Lady, Cylvia Hayes, on poverty and hunger, and with Olympic soccer star Tiffeny Milbrett, a Hilhi graduate, on Title IX. And we have continued to publish letters to the editor, giving our critics room to sound off.
Knowing that space in the print newspaper is finite, we introduced the "On The Web" feature on this page to provide a distillation of guest opinions found on the Argus' web pages. And, to better connect with readers in real time, we poured new energy into reviving the Argus' Twitter feed and created an Argus Facebook page to make sharing of our editorial content as easy as possible.
Finally, I've ventured out four times in these four months to meet readers on their own turf. These "Fourth Friday" events have taken me to local coffee shops whose customers and overall vibes are as diverse as you might imagine: the Starbucks at the Civic Center Plaza, Insomnia Coffee Co., Maggie's Buns in Forest Grove, the Hillsboro Pharmacy & Soda Fountain. Obviously, these are but a handful of the micro-communities that make up the greater Hillsboro area.
Yet, it's been helpful to chat face-to-face with local officials, business owners, government workers, educators and retirees, especially those who've spent much of their life here. Aside from the opportunity to hear directly from area residents, I planted the seeds for at least two guest opinions that later appeared in the Argus.
As I look back at the 18 weekly issues published since late January, I see 18 canvases that I hope signal our commitment to community engagement. Are there areas where we could be doing more or doing better? Certainly. Are there topics we haven't yet addressed? Probably so. In either case, that's your cue to talk back to us. Write a letter to the editor. Submit a guest opinion, or steer us to a colleague. Send me an email or a tweet.
Each week presents a fresh canvas. With your help, we'd like to get paintbrushes in the hands of more people who have something timely and important to contribute to the community conversation.
-- George Rede, Argus Opinion editor
grede@hillsboroargus.com; @georgerede
Source: www.oregonlive.com
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