Art Authority Blog
The Art Authority Museum’s one-year anniversary
The groundbreaking Art Authority Museum opened to the public a year ago last month, on Apple’s groundbreaking Vision Pro. And we’ve been busy adding works of art, artists, galleries and features ever since.
For our one-year anniversary, we’re happy to announce that… The Art Authority Museum is now available for Macintosh! Same great lobby, period rooms, and 100+ artist galleries. Same great works of art. Same transcendent “Art Like This” and other features. A very similar look and feel.
We also of course have continued to make other additions. Newly available for both platforms:
- Henri Matisse, Frida Kahlo, André Derain and other rooms.
- Signs describe each room as you come in, and include a searchable list of all the works in the room. Just tap a title to move right to that work.
- When going from room to room, you’ll stay in front of the work you were just looking at if it’s in the new room.
- Your personal Member’s Lounge is shared through iCloud, including between Vision Pro and Mac.
- New member settings for “Art Like This” room size and Member’s Lounge.
Finally, we’re please to announce year fifteen (yes 15) of the Art Authority summer intern program. If you are interested, please check interns.artauthority.net or email us.
New Year’s Resolutions
Here at Art Authority we’ve made a number of resolutions, for 2025 and beyond:
- In 2023 we acquired Museum Store Products (MSP), which, together with our 1000Museums brand, has been providing museum stores with an expanded set of top-quality products, from magnets to mugs, postcards to giclée prints. We’ve resolved any remaining issues with the acquisition and passed a corporate resolution that merges the 1000Museums brand into MSP. As of today, MSP is the one-stop shop for museums and art lovers worldwide.
- In 2024, in concert with Apple’s groundbreaking Vision Pro, we opened the Art Authority Museum. Thanks to Apple and our collection of high resolution scans of the world’s most important works of art, we’ve created a new type of real-world art museum, accessible world wide. Art Authority will continue to concentrate on evolving this transcendent museum, in both size and function.
- In 2025, our New Year’s resolution is that we bring even more focus and resources to both our businesses: MSP as the go-to place for museum products, and Art Authority as the (literal) go-to place to Step into the Future of Art. Expect great things on both fronts in the year(s) ahead.
Happy New Year!
The Art Authority Museum’s first additions
When we announced the pre-opening of the Art Authority Museum in February followed by its Grand Opening in May, we promised future features that would “transcend those of traditional museums.” Today we’re pleased to announce a number of those features.
- An all-new Early Room complete with 3000-year old Assyrian Lamassu, 2000-year old frescoes, and 700-year old altarpieces. We literally (ok, virtually) built and curated this room from the ground up in the four months since our Opening! Access to the Early Room, as to all our major period rooms, is currently free to everyone.
- Member’s Lounges. Is there any other museum in the world that gives each member their own personal lounge? Or, better yet, that lets members include any of the museum’s works of art in that lounge? The Art Authority Museum now does.
- Other new rooms. While adding the Early Room and figuring out the magic behind Member’s Lounges, we also built over a dozen new rooms for major artists like Anthony van Dyck, Childe Hassam, Marisol and N.C. Wyeth. Again in less than four months!
If you’re a current member, simply update your Art Authority Museum app to take advantage of the new features. And if you’re not, please consider becoming one (a 7-day free trial is available) and supporting the future of art. Thank you.
Art Authority Museum Opening: The Million Dollar QuARTet
Last weekend was the very successful grand opening of the Art Authority Museum, introduced last February along with Apple Vision Pro. Although virtual in implementation, the grand opening of this full-fledged museum was a physical one, taking place at the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) trade show in Baltimore. Many of our partners in this groundbreaking effort were there: traditional museums, artists and even Apple themselves. The event harkened back to a similar one from another era.
In 1956, a jam session involving Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash was dubbed The Million Dollar Quartet. What took place at our Museum’s grand opening was a modern-day version, The Million Dollar QuARTet.
The Museum opening highlighted five major artist partners, each with their own dedicated gallery: 20th century color field painter Alma Thomas, pioneering sculptor Louise Nevelson, Baltimore artist Herman Maril, renowned photographer Frank Stewart and current-day abstract artist James Little. Mr. Little could not attend, but representatives of the other four made up the new QuARTet.
Million Dollar QuARTet galleries in the Art Authority Museum
The QuARTet was anchored by Frank Stewart and his family, which included his Emmy-winning daughter Sing Lanthan and her son William. Frank was often seen chatting with Maria Nevelson, granddaughter of Louise, whom Frank had met on a number of occasions. Maria spent a lot of time comparing notes with David Maril, Herman’s son. And they were joined by Lisa Chaplin-Hobbs, one of the heirs of the Alma Thomas estate. As far as ourselves, builders of the Art Authority Museum and curators of these great artists’ galleries, we very much enjoyed our role as flies on the wall and documentarians.
Frank Stewart looking at his self portrait in his Art Authority Museum gallery
One of the coolest aspect of the new QuARTet was that, unlike the original, it represented five generations: grandmother Louise Nevelson, father Herman Maril, the man himself Frank Stewart, his daughter Sing and his grandson William! Similar to the original Quartet, it remains to be seen the roll these four (and many others) play in the evolution of a new take on an old art form. With their help, the Art Authority Museum is sure off to a great start!
Frank Stewart and Maria Nevelson
David Maril (reviewing his father’s gallery), Maria Nevelson, Sing Lathan, Cheryl (Brandywine Museum), Frank Stewart
Lisa Chaplin-Hobbs immersed in the Alma Thomas Gallery in the Art Authority Museum
Another Major Art Acquisition
In July of 2016, we here at Art Authority announced our first major art acquisition, which was 1000Museums worth of art. Our success with that company has led to another similar acquisition.
1000Museums specializes in creating the highest quality archival reproductions for museum stores, as well as for art lovers worldwide. (It is also the basis of the “1000Museums Gift Shop” in the app line.) Over the past 6+ years, we have greatly expanded the set of museums we support, but our product line has remained solely focused on printed items.
We are excited to announce that, effective immediately, Art Authority LLC is now in joint ownership with the leading provider of all types of products for museum stores, Museum Store Products, Inc. The two will still operate as separate sister companies, but with the same owners, same mission to help museums thrive, and same commitment to quality and USA manufacturing (MSP is in New Jersey, Art Authority in Oregon). So now we are not just the leading manufacturer of print products for museum stores, but of all products for museum stores!
Art Authority for iPad ten-year anniversary
With the world, and our, attentions turned elsewhere, we missed the ten-year anniversary of Apple’s shipping the iPad, and our shipping Art Authority for iPad with it. Just as with the iPhone, we had an app in the App Store on day one.
Ten years later, Art Authority for iPad is still going strong. If anything, with art museums closed, it’s even more relevant today than it was 10 years ago.
Happy Holidays
In keeping with modern-day tradition, Art Authority and our 1000Museums brand of museum-approved archival prints would like to help you ring in the holidays with free apps and special pricing on our prints.
Our award-winning Art Authority for iPad and iPhone apps are FREE this weekend. So if you haven’t already, please go out and get them. You can then browse the collection of over 100,00 classic works of art from hundreds of museums worldwide.
And what do you do after visiting the museum(s)? Go through the museum gift shop, of course. The 1000Museums gift shop is built into the apps, or you can get to it directly at 1000Museums.com.
And did we mention everything at 1000Museums is 30-50% off this weekend? And shipping in the U.S. is free!
So what are waiting for? Happy Holidays!
Georgia O’Keeffe at New Britain
Art Authority, through our 1000Museums brand, is pleased and proud we were able to help out with a great show opening today (February 22) at the New Britain Museum of American Art. It’s called “The Beyond: Georgia O’Keeffe and Contemporary Art.”
NBMAA asked us to create a number of framed reproductions of this quintessentially American painter’s key works (along with prints and postcards for sale), and we were more than happy to do so. If you’re anywhere near Connecticut’s NBMAA, don’t miss this show!
(Just in case you couldn’t tell, these photos are of the reproductions in their gift shop, not the real thing!)
The show originated at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art before traveling to the North Carolina Museum of Art as well. We were privileged to work on the show at these too fine locations as well.
Be-Sure-You-Get-It-In-Time: Apps free this week
As part of our Be-Sure-You-Get-It-In-Time sale, the award-winning Art Authority for iPad and iPhone apps are completely free this week. We’re hoping all you last-minute Christmas shoppers will use the apps (or the 1000Museums.com web site) to take advantage of the last few days you can order our 1000Museums archival prints and get them in time for Christmas* at great sale prices (30% off through promotion code INTIME30).
So, if there’s anyone left on your gift list (and we’re betting there is), please download the apps (if you haven’t already), go to the built-in 1000Museums Gift Shop, and put in your orders. After that you can enjoy the apps for free throughout 2019 and beyond.
*See our holiday ordering deadlines page for details. Custom-framed prints should be ordered by Wednesday, December 12.
Celebrating giving back, part 1
As part of our ongoing 2-year anniversary celebration, the award-winning Art Authority for iPad and iPhone apps are now completely free through this weekend. Just another way we’re giving back to the art community. But free apps are just a very small part of on our giving back, so keep watching this space. Here’s a big hint for you:
