(ladybugbkt/Flickr)

Though the Dallas Museum of Art's offer last year to buy Leonardo da Vinci's Salvator Mundi (circa 1499–1512) was declined, plenty of other Old Master works will soon be on their way to the institution. The museum announced today a $17 million gift from Marguerite Steed Hoffman, a trustee and former chairman of the museum, specifically aimed at European art from before 1700.

The hefty donation allocates $13.6 million to a restricted acquisitions endowment and $3.4 million for an operating endowment targeted at acquisitions, shows and programs related to Old Master art.

“Marguerite Hoffman’s incredibly generous gift, in her name and that of her late husband, Robert, creates an extremely exciting opportunity for the DMA to build our collection of European art in unprecedented ways,” said the Dallas Museum of Art's director, Maxwell L. Anderson, who led the Whitney Museum between 1998 and 2003.

The work now attributed to Inness. (Courtesy Dallas Museum of Art)

The Dallas Museum of Art has announced that it has reattributed a landscape painting, which has been in the museum's collection since 1931, to the celebrated American landscape artist George Inness. At the time the painting, then titled In the Woods, was given to the museum, it was thought to be the work of Asher B. Durand, a leader of the Hudson River school of painting.

The discovery is the result of some careful sleuthing by Sue Canterbury, a curator of American art at the museum, who suspected, after careful examination of "the spatial organization and the techniques" (as per a statement issued by the museum), that the painting was not the work of Durand but was rather the work of Inness. When Canterbury stumbled on a pen and ink drawing from the Princeton University Art Museum that bore similar essential compositional elements to the painting at the DMA, like an eye-grabbing trapezoidal rock at the dead-center of the work, her suspicions were confirmed.

The work was then analyzed by Michael Quick, the author of George Inness's 2007 catalogue raisonné and a former curator of American art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. After inspecting some high-resolution images of the work, Mr. Quick confirmed that it was an autograph work by Inness, completed around 1850 when the artist did many of his Berkshire landscapes.

The painting has also been renamed to Stream in the Mountains to hew more closely to the titles that Inness gave his works at that point in his career.

“The confirmation that Stream in the Mountains is by the influential American landscape painter George Inness is a major discovery, and this exciting moment underscores the Museum’s focus on curatorial research in support of our mission,” said Maxwell L. Anderson, the director of the DMA. “This magnificent early work by Inness joins four additional paintings in the DMA’s collection that stem from the artist’s late career and, thus, will allow us to present visitors with a fuller understanding of the stylistic development of this superb American painter.”

Second (smaller) Bedroom, Suite 850, Hotel Texas, Fort Worth, Friday, Nov. 22, 1963 showing works by Thomas Eakins, Charles M. Russell, Owen Day/Danna Day Henderson Papers. (Photo by Byron Scott courtesy Dallas Museum of Art)

The Dallas Museum of Art has a peculiar show in store for the spring. In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the death of John F. Kennedy, the museum will present "Hotel Texas: An Art Exhibition for the President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy," which opens May 26, 2013, and features artwork that was in the Fort Worth hotel suite of the Kennedys, the last place they stayed before President Kennedy was assassinated.

In Suite 850 at the Hotel Texas, there were paintings by Vincent van Gogh, Thomas Eakins and Franz Kline, and sculptures by Pablo Picasso and Henry Moore. But this wasn't the normal fare for visitors to the Hotel Texas. It was a special collection pulled together by notable Fort Worth collectors during the days leading up to the president's visit and was conceived as a three-part show that would unfold from room to room—a little Claude Monet in the parlor, Impressionist masterworks in the master bedroom (as per the tastes of the First Lady) and some Marsden Hartley in the second bedroom—the president's room. This spectacular, and in retrospect macabre, private art show was culled from local art collections, both private and public.

“It’s not a story about death. It’s not a story about hate. It’s a story about art and love,” said Olivier Meslay, who curated the exhibition at the DMA, to The Washington Post. Art and love aside, conspiracy theorists need not feel left out. There will be plenty of photographs, videos and other archival materials on view of the suite before the arrival of the president and Mrs. Kennedy as well as material related to the the president’s 1963 trip to Texas and his assassination.

Maxwell and Jacqueline Anderson. (Courtesy Patrick McMullan Company)

Maxwell Anderson has run the Whitney Museum and the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and currently directs the Dallas Museum of Art. He's also a Dartmouth alumnus, Class of 1977, as it happens, and he recently explained in a Q&A published in The Dartmouth newspaper how he figures out what to work on when he arrives at a new institution. Here's his explanation:

"It’s fun. It’s like dating a new person — you try to figure out what motivates them, how you fit together and where the strengths are and largely about the history and culture of a place. That way you don’t come in with a head of steam of your own ideas that may not map to what the museum needs. After a while, you start to hear familiar refrains, and you start to see patterns of how that culture has manifested."

The complete interview is published here. Well worth a read.

Mark Leonard retouching Jean-Baptiste Oudry's 'Rhinoceros,' 2007 (Courtesy Getty Center)

The Dallas Museum of Art has named Mark Leonard its chief conservator. The position, which is newly created for Mr. Leonard, follows a $500,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon foundation, according to a report by the Los Angeles Times.

Mr. Leonard comes from the Getty Center, where he has served for 12 years as the head of the paintings conservation department.

From the story:

Leonard will begin his new post in July at what will be the museum's first conservation studio, which has yet to be completed. The news is said to mark a growth in a culture of conservation across the museum.

"The foundation of any successful museum conservation program includes rich, collaborative working relationships between curators and conservators," said Leonard in a statement released this morning. “I look forward to working with my new colleagues as we weave conservation into the daily fabric of the Dallas Museum of Art.”

"Untitled (In and Out of Darkness Face 43.01)" by Mark Grotjahn (2011) sold for $1 million. (Courtesy Two x Two)

Sadly for artist Mark Grotjahn, what happens in Dallas doesn't stay in Dallas, at least if it makes its way onto The Dallas Mornings News's Pop Culture Blog.

Today, columnist Alan Peppard brought us an unsettling scene from last night’s Two by Two for AIDS and Art gala, which was held at the estate of collectors Cindy and Howard Rachofsky.

As Patti LaBelle serenaded the crowd at the party, Mr. Grotjahn was outside, apparently very inebriated. Here is the story, according to Mr. Peppard:

“Grotjahn staggered down the Rachofsky's long driveway toward traffic, shouting obscenities at the hapless female assistant charged with protecting him from himself. ‘I will [present participial expletive] sleep right here!’ he ranted. ‘[Declarative expletive] you!’

“With rock star aplomb, he splayed down in the greenery next to a brand-new Rolls-Royce and right at the feet of a newspaper columnist holding an iPhone camera.

“Attempts to rouse him were met the same ferocious, ‘I said, [expletive] you!’”

The Pop Culture Blog has photographs of the artist horizontal on the ground.

On a decidedly more positive note, the painting that Mr. Grotjahn gave to the auction sold for $1 million, and the entire evening’s haul was $4.8 million, which will be divided between the American Foundation for AIDS Research and the Dallas Museum of Art. Maxwell Anderson, who was just named DMA director, can clearly look forward to some great parties.

Mr. Peppard signs off with class, telling the artist: “You can die the death of an Irish poet, if you want. But it hurts.”

Ed. note: A reader writes us from Dallas that the following morning, when accepting the AMFAR award for artistic achievement, Mr. Grotjahn gave what was characterized as a moving, witty, heartfelt speech that occasioned much laughter. Considering that artists get no tax deduction on charity auctions -- aside from cost of materials -- and that his artwork went for such a high price, it must be said that Mr. Grotjahn was not only charitable, but apparently bounced back admirably.