The $64 billion global art market is considered by many to be a world reserved for the wealthy, an environment unattainable for the average individual. However, Madelaine D’Angelo is launching a project that could change the narrative. How?

Arthena, a new startup founded by Madelaine D’Angelo, is aiming to help non-millionaires and non-billionaires enter the global art market — a world traditionally populated only by the uber-wealthy. The strategy is to allow anyone to invest in fine art via funds, using data analytics to get investors more reliable returns from their investments.

“Rather than just having a ‘good eye’,” says D’Angelo, “our software takes into consideration things like a work’s artist, year created, and auction results to create a quantitative strategy for the art market, grouping pieces into different funds based on risk tolerance, like traditional mutual funds.”

Continuing, D’Angelo said, “Fine art is an alternative asset class with the highest barrier to entry and strongest historical returns. In other words, it’s a strong long-term investment (the index of fine art sales shows an average annual return of 10 percent compared with the Dow Jones’ 8-9 percent average annual growth.”

To learn more, visit Arthena.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

A prolific and talented painter is the focus of a solo exhibition at Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona, this month, but for only a few more days! Details here!

Legacy Gallery’s Scottsdale, Arizona, location is exhibiting recent paintings by George Hallmark, who is renowned for luminous scenes of rural life in the Southwest and Mexico. Born and raised in Texas, Hallmark was an architectural designer and commercial artist before turning to easel painting. His fascination with buildings endures in his delineation of stucco walls and tile roofs, and the long shadows they cast.

Hallmark’s exhibition opened on March 18 and will continue through March 26. To learn more, visit Legacy Gallery.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

The Reynolda House Museum of American Art — located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina — is the current home of a brilliant exhibition of several masterpieces by this 19th-century painter.

A monumental painting titled “Gallery of the Louvre” by 19th-century painter Samuel Morse (1791-1872) is the centerpiece of a tantalizing exhibition at Winston-Salem’s Reynolda House Museum of American Art. On view through June 4, the new exhibition “offers a rare look at a historical painting as well as a unique presentation of the diverse talents that made Morse one of America’s first Renaissance men,” the museum reports.

Equally exciting is the fact that the museum secured another loan for the exhibition: Morse’s early Telegraph prototype, to be shown alongside “Gallery of the Louvre.” Together, the two objects give audiences a more comprehensive view of the life and career of Morse as both an inventor and an artist.

Via the museum: “‘Gallery of the Louvre’ was one of Morse’s last paintings. Disheartened when the tour he envisioned [for the painting] did not materialize, Morse turned his attention to a new means of communication: the telegraph. He used wooden canvas stretcher bars from his studio to construct his earliest versions, a selection of which are on loan for the exhibition from Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

“Over the years, ‘Gallery of the Louvre’ has seldom been exhibited. It was last purchased in 1982, setting a then-record for an American work of art. The Terra Foundation, which owns the painting, commenced a national tour in 2015, the much-delayed culmination of the creator’s intent. The installation at Reynolda House Museum is the only venue that has included both of Morse’s greatest creations: ‘Gallery of the Louvre’ and the telegraph.

“The Reynolda House Museum of American Art exhibition of Gallery of the Louvre also includes 19th-century paintings and prints from its renowned collection of American art along with Old Master prints on loan from Wake Forest University.”

To learn more, visit the Reynolda House Museum of American Art.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

The California Art Club (CAC) is poised for another year of fantastic art and fun during the 106th Annual Gold Medal Exhibition. All you need to know for 2017 is just one click away!

The California Art Club (CAC) is presenting its 106th Annual Gold Medal Exhibition, again hosted by the Autry Museum of the American West. On view from April 9 through April 30 are nearly 200 contemporary-traditional paintings and sculptures. The show kicks off on April 8 with a ticketed gala reception, followed the next day with demonstrations by painter Alexey Steele and sculptor Béla Bácsi. On April 22, scholar Jean Stern will discuss “the art of looking at art” before leading a gallery tour.

Meanwhile, at San Marino’s Old Mill until May 14, the CAC is highlighting the Golden State’s long romance with cinema and television through an exhibition of nearly 30 paintings during “Lights, Camera, California: Starring Roles for Scenic Sites.” Curated by such talents as Peter Adams, Karl Dempwolf, and April Raber, most of the works depict sites that have made appearances in films and TV programs. Among them are iconic landmarks like the Hollywood Sign, Golden Gate Bridge, and Griffith Park Observatory. Exhibition coordinator Kate Plumley says this project “makes perfect sense for the California Art Club, as the year-round sunshine and natural beauty that attracted our organization’s early artists to paint throughout the state have also enticed filmmakers with ideal settings and scenic backdrops.”

To learn more, visit the California Art Club.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

When extremely talented artists are involved, the sizes of their linens, panels, and canvases don’t matter, especially during a gorgeous display coming up at this Midwest Art Center. Don’t miss this exciting show!

American Plains Artists is set to present its annual Signature Member Show of Small Works at the Ole’ #1 Firehouse Art Center in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, this spring. Opening on March 24 and continuing through May 7, the exhibition encompasses roughly 55 works, including landscape, wildlife, and figurative subjects that highlight the Great Plains way of life past and present.

To learn more, visit American Plains Artists.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

The next few weeks offer collectors several outstanding opportunities to grab that next prized piece. From New York City to Los Angeles, there’s no excuse for not looking here!

Although its March 16 Spring Auction has passed, there remain two opportunities to acquire works by contemporary American masters via New York City’s Salmagundi Club. On March 24 and 31, the club will again host auctions featuring nearly 200 works by its members, who include (among many others) Kathy Anderson, Lou Lalli, James Magner, Stephanie Marzella, Sharon Pearsall, Edmond Rochat, Sergio Roffo, Thomas W. Schaller, Carole Teller, and Christopher Zhang. Organizers welcome absentee, online, and phone bidding.

Another fantastic opportunity awaits collectors on April 11 in Los Angeles, California. Collectors of significant California and Western American paintings and sculpture should register for Bonhams’ next sale in this field. Among its highlights are historical and contemporary works by Laverne Nelson Black, Maurice Braun, E. Charlton Fortune, Anna Althea Hills, Ed Mell, Howard Terpning, and Marion K. Wachtel.

To learn more, visit the Salmagundi Club or Bonhams.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

The Holton Studio Gallery will soon showcase a new body of beautiful landscapes by accomplished painter Richard Lindenberg this spring. Along with the exhibition is an insightful artist presentation and reception.

Located in Berkeley, California, the Holton Studio Gallery has a national reputation for representing some of the finest contemporary painters alive today. One of them, Richard Lindenberg, will be presenting a new body of landscapes during a solo exhibition this spring.

The exhibition opens March 25 and continues through April 22, and the Holton Studio Gallery will host an artist presentation and reception on March 25 beginning at 3 p.m. The topic of discussion should be incredibly entertaining and insightful as Lindenberg discusses the influence of photography on his paintings.

To learn more, visit The Holton Studio Gallery.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

Using her densely populated urban environment as a source of inspiration, this ascending West Coast painter continually takes unremarkable subjects and transforms them into breathtaking oils. You can come here to witness her latest display of creative genius.

STUDIO Gallery in downtown San Francisco, California, is the proud host of a dazzling solo exhibition of new paintings by ascending painter Lindsey Kustusch. Since 2009, Kustusch has been climbing the ranks as one of the nation’s premier representational painters, and her latest display is as beautiful as ever.

Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, Kustusch finds continual sources of inspiration in the densely populated streets and alleyways of her urban home, seeking to take relatively mundane and unremarkable views and transform them using her unique creative voice. “Every day I bring something unexpected back to the studio,” she says, “fueling the exploration of new ideas, tools and, techniques, while continuously questioning how, what, and why to paint.”

Kustusch’s works present a colorful and fragmented interpretation of reality, combining sharply rendered birds with expressive, abstract environments. A similar effect is found within her cityscapes, which have a blurred, dreamy atmosphere, but not without indications of acute observation.

Opened on March 16, “Lindsey Kustusch: New Paintings” will hang through April 3. To learn more, visit STUDIO Gallery.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.

Since November 2016, the Groninger Museum (Netherlands) has been showcasing the largest Rodin exhibition ever to take place in the country.  Time is running out to see for yourself!

Featuring more than 140 sculptures and 20 works on paper, “Rodin: Genius at Work” is a major exhibition on view through April 30 at the Groninger Museum, Netherlands.  In recognition of the modern sculptor’s death 100 years ago, museums across the globe have—or will be—opening significant exhibitions throughout 2017.

Via the Groninger Museum, “’Rodin: Genius at Work’ features plaster and bronze sculptures, including famous works like “The Thinker” and “Balzac”, as well as marble figures, ceramics, and never-before-exhibited photographs, illustrating the breadth of the artist’s creativity.  The show also reveals the unique working process behind several of his most famous works, such as ‘The Kiss’.”

To learn more, visit the Groninger Museum.

This article was featured in Fine Art Today, a weekly e-newsletter from Fine Art Connoisseur magazine. To start receiving Fine Art Today for free, click here.