Berlin, Germany -- A special exhibition retraces the steps of royalty with contemporary art. Through the end of October 2010, visitors to the Pfaueninsel nature preserve can view the exhibition “Luise: The Queen’s Island World”, which is taking place during the two hundredth anniversary of the death of Prussian Queen Luise. At eighteen locations on the island, international artists have installed works dealing with the life of the popular monarch. During the exhibition, park buildings on the Pfaueninsel such as the Kavalierhaus (used to house staff and visitors) and the nursery will be opened to the public for the first time. Follow this link for further information ....

London, England -- Available September Guided tours of the Houses of Parliament will now be available for 14 extra days, August 31st to September 4th and September 20th to 30th, following the Prime Minister’s confirmation of the length of the summer recess of parliament. The 75 minute ‘Blue Badge’ guided tours, which run throughout the day, have proven to be extremely popular with visitors. The tour guides describe the fascinating blend of history and politics that lie within one of the most instantly recognisable buildings in the world.

Berlin, Germany -- This year, the popular history festival “Historiale” is devoted to the 1920s, Berlin's golden age. From August 23 to 28, visitors can immerse themselves in the world of the “Roaring Twenties” with gramophone music, absinthe, and the Charleston. In the Nikolai Quarter in the Mitte district, the distinctive spirit of that era will be honored with suitable props and actors in period costumes. All of the important personalities from this time are represented at the Historiale, too,including such figures as Clara Zetkin, Thomas Mann, and Albert Einstein, helping to breathe new life into an era when Berlin lived by the motto “fast and fun”.
For further information, please follow this link .....

Bern, /switzerlland -- New Special Exhibition at the Historisches Museum Bern Three exploratory voyages in the still unknown expanses of the Pacific Ocean turned the British navigator James Cook (1728–1779) into one of the greatest explorers of all time. The lands he discovered included Hawaii. He was the first to survey and map New Zealand, Australia and the island world of the South Seas. His legendary voyages not only gave new impulses to navigation, astronomy, natural history and art in the age of the Enlightenment, but also prepared the ground for the new science of ethnology, since Cook’s interest was also aroused by the inhabitants of the lands he discovered.

A Swiss painter accompanied Cook to the Pacific
On Cook’s third voyage a painter of Swiss origin was also on board: John Webber, son of a
sculptor from Bern by the name of Wäber who had emigrated to London. John Webber was
24 years old when he boarded Cook’s famous sloop HMS Resolution in June 1776. He returned to England four years later, his health broken by the exertions of the journey. Shortly before his early death in 1793, John Webber bequeathed his collection of the objects he had brought back with him from the Pacific to his father’s home town, Bern. The result is that the Historisches Museum in Bern now possesses one of the world’s most prestigious collections of ethnographic artefacts from the lands explored by Cook before their first encounter with Western civilization. The exhibition combines the finest pieces from the Webber Collection in Bern with numerous important loans from Europe and overseas and thus brings together for the first time the most valuable objects brought back from the Pacific by Cook’s expeditions.

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London, England -- In 1937 the Spanish Civil War was rapidly destroying Spain's greatest cities, and along with them, the country's cultural heritage. The Republican government asked for international support. One of the first to come to their aid was James Mann, Keeper of the Wallace Collection. In recognition of the support given during the Civil War, in January 2010 the Wallace Collection was awarded the Order of Arts and Letters by José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Prime Minister of Spain. The Order, along with a display about Mann's work in Spain, is currently exhibited. Runs to November 2010. For further information please follow this link ....

New York, NY -- This exhibition will cover the period from 1215, the year of Khubilai's birth, to 1368, the year of the fall of the Yuan dynasty in China founded by Khubilai Khan, and will feature every art form, including paintings, sculpture, gold and silver, textiles, ceramics, lacquer, and other decorative arts, religious and secular. The exhibition will highlight new art forms and styles generated in China as a result of the unification of China under the Yuan dynasty and the massive influx of craftsmen from all over the vast Mongol empire - with reverberations in Italian art of the 14th century.

The exhibition is made possible by Bank of America. The exhibition is also made possible by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Dillon Fund, The Henry Luce Foundation, Wilson and Eliot Nolen, the Oceanic Heritage Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Florence and Herbert Irving, and Jane Carroll. It is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Dates: September 28, 2010-January 2, 2011 Accompanied by a catalogue.
For further information please follow this link . . .

Amsterdam, Holland -- After visiting Rotterdam, Den Haag and Utrecht de Parade will visit Amsterdam from August 6th through August 22nd 2010. With theatre, music, dance, film and visual art this travelling art festival de Parade is joy for the senses. In the four great cities, parks are transformed into temporary cultural streets with a spectrum of theatre tents and nostalgic giant strides. Each day offers dozens of performances, that are often made especially for de Parade. These performances vary in length from three to forty minutes. On the festival grounds of de Parade, the artists give a short impression of the performance that awaits inside the tent. Most of the performances are in Dutch, but still the Parade has all the necessary ingredients to entertain foreign visitors. Additional information: www.deparade.nl

Ravelo, Italy -- The Ravello Festival is the oldest Italian music festival, along with the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino. The Festival was originally dedicated to the music of Wagner, but as time went by editions evolved into their current form. The common theme for 2010 is "Madness". The Festival includes over one-hundred events organized in eight Sections, each in honor of one of the great artists who have stayed and who were inspired in Ravello: Symphonic music, Chamber music, Trends, Special events, Cinemusic, Visual arts, Musical promenades and Training. Runs to September 26th, 2010 Use this link for more information ......

London, England -- On June 22 2010 the Wallace Collection celebrated its 110th anniversary as a national museum open to the public. The 22 June also marked the 10th anniversary of the Centenary Project, offering the visitor a completely new dimension to the Collection, with over a third more public space and vital museum facilities, while enabling the integrity of the galleries and their special intimate and domestic atmosphere to remain intact.

By providing in the old basement five new galleries for exhibitions, conservation and the reserve collections, together with a studio, lecture theatre, visitors’ library and meeting room for education, capped by the stunning glazed central courtyard at the heart of Hertford House as a restaurant, the Wallace Collection was ready to meet the 21st century head on.

The Collection has been able to achieve more for the visitor, of all ages and interests, than it could possibly have dreamed of in 2000 (not least, when anticipated visitor numbers of 350,000 a year were not projected until 2025, a figure already reached by 2008). The Collection is immensely grateful to all those who through their generous philanthropy have made this possible and now looks to the next ten years to build on these successes.

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York, England -- The Yorkshire Museum reopens on 1 August 2010 following a nine month, £2million refurbishment project. Five new galleries will showcase some of Britain’s finest archaeological treasures and many rare animals, birds and fossils, in brand new interactive displays.

The Yorkshire Museum is set to be a must-see destination in a tour around the city of York. The redevelopment is set to create a truly innovative home for the museum’s collections – which include The Vale of York Viking Hoard, the most significant Viking find in more than 150 years, the head of the earliest portrait statue of Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, and the famous ‘Cawood Sword’, only the fifth Viking sword of its type ever to be found and by far the best preserved, with a mysterious inscription that has never been solved.

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