Saturday, July 23, 2011

Lucian Freud, the painter and grandson of the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, died Wednesday at his London home following a short illness. He was 88 years old.

Freud, the elder brother of the late comedic writer and broadcaster Clement Freud, was born in Berlin in 1922 and moved with his family to Britain in 1933 to escape the Nazis. He became a British citizen in 1939. He studied at the Central School of Art, then at the East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing with Cedric Morris. He also attended Goldsmiths, University of London. After finishing art school, he spent some time in the merchant navy. In 1944, he started exhibiting with a solo showcase at the Alex Reid & Lefevre Gallery.

In the 1950s, his style changed to exclusively paint portraits and nudes. The process of painting for models was intense: one nude painting took 16 months to complete and Freud demanded her turn up almost every day to pose. His work was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1989, and he was a member of the Order of Merit. Most controversially, he painted a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II which was described by The Sun newspaper as a “travesty”, and prompted Robin Simon, the editor of the British Art Journal to say that “It makes her look like one of the royal corgis who has suffered a stroke”. He also famously painted the glamour model Kate Moss nude, and was once named one of Britain’s best dressed men in the magazine GQ.

His work has sold for large amounts: Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, sold in 2008 at Christie’s in New York for $33.6 million dollars. In addition, he has had solo shows at some of the most prominent art galleries and museums in the world including the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Nicholas Serota, the director of the Tate in London, said of Freud: “The vitality of his nudes, the intensity of the still life paintings and the presence of his portraits of family and friends guarantee Lucian Freud a unique place in the pantheon of late twentieth century art. His early paintings redefined British art and his later works stand comparison with the great figurative painters of any period.”

Freud has at least thirteen children from a series of marriages and affairs: after an affair wth the Bloomsbury Group member Lorna Garman, Freud married her niece Kitty in 1948 and had two children (Annie and Annabel) before ending the marriage four years later. He had an affair with Lady Caroline Blackwood which turned into a marriage in 1953, although that was dissolved in 1957. He also had two children with Bernadine Coverly (Bella Freud, the fashion designer, and the writer Esther Freud), five children with Suzy Boyt, and four children with Katherine Margaret McAdam (Paul Freud, an artist, Lucy Freud, David Freud and Jane McAdam Freud, also an artist).

Thursday, June 29, 2006

The United States Federal Reserve has announced an increase of 25 basis points (0.25%) in the federal funds rate bringing it to 5.25 percent. It also announced its approval of a 25 basis point increase in the discount rate to 6.25 percent.

The federal funds rate is the interest rate at which depository institutions such as banks lend balances they maintain at the Federal Reserve (called federal funds) to other banks overnight. The discount rate is the interest rate that an eligible bank is charged to borrow short term funds directly from the central bank through the discount window.

In its statement, the Fed said that growth is moderating from its quite strong pace earlier in the year, which it partly attributed to a cooling of the housing market and the delayed effect of increases in interest rates and energy prices. The Fed noted that inflation measures were “elevated” in recent months and that while productivity gains have held down increases in labor costs and inflation expectations “remain contained”. However, it pointed out that high levels of resource utilization and high energy and commodity prices have the potential to sustain inflation pressures.

In its outlook over its future moves, the Fed statement said “Although the moderation in the growth of aggregate demand should help to limit inflation pressures over time, the Committee judges that some inflation risks remain. The extent and timing of any additional firming that may be needed to address these risks will depend on the evolution of the outlook for both inflation and economic growth, as implied by incoming information.”

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Wikinews reporter Iain Macdonald has performed an interview with Dr Isabella Margara, a London-based member of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE). In the interview Margara sets out the communist response to current events in Greece as well as discussing the viability of a communist economy for the nation. She also hit back at Petros Tzomakas, a member of another Greek far-left party which criticised KKE in a previous interview.

The interview comes amid tensions in cash-strapped Greece, where the government is introducing controversial austerity measures to try to ease the nation’s debt-problem. An international rescue package has been prepared by European Union member states and the International Monetary Fund – should Greece require a bailout; protests have been held against government attempts to manage the economic situation.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Chinese officials have said that their country’s exports surged last December to edge out Germany as the world’s biggest exporter.

The official Xinhua news agency reported today that figures from the General Administration for Customs showed that exports jumped 17.7% in December from a year earlier. Over the whole of 2009 total Chinese exports reached US$1.2 trillion, above Germany’s forecast $1.17 trillion.

Huang Guohua, a statistics official with the customs administration, said the December exports rebound was an important turning point for China’s export sector. He commented that the jump was an indication that exporters have emerged from their downslide.

“We can say that China’s export enterprises have completely emerged from their all-time low in exports,” he said.

However, although China overtook Germany in exports, China’s total foreign trade — both exports and imports — fell 13.9% last year.

Thursday, March 23, 2006

The new book Game of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Professional Sports, by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams of The San Francisco Chronicle, is being released today. The authors not only implicate professional baseball celebrity Barry Bonds in the use of performance-enhancing drugs, but also say Gary Sheffield received human growth hormone and testosterone from Greg Anderson, Bonds’s personal trainer.

The book goes on to claim that Jason Giambi also took performance-enhancing drugs from Anderson. Bonds continues to insist that he did not realize his trainer was giving him steriods. He claimed in his grand jury testimony that he thought he was receiving flaxseed oil and an arthritis salve. Sheffield’s response to the claims was quite simple: when asked if the allegations made against him were true, his response was “Nope.”

Despite the book’s accusations of Sheffield and Giambi, it centers around Bonds and the founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative or BALCO, Victor Conte Jr. Conte is currently serving four months in prison for distribution of steriods and money laundering. It appears that the steroid controversy concerning Bonds will only intensify as he continues to march on towards the career home runs record, one of baseball’s most sacred records.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Ferrari driver Kimi Räikkönen won the FIA Formula One 2009 ING Belgian Grand Prix at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Spa, Belgium.

Kimi qualified 6th, but jumped to second after a multiple crash in the first corner involving Jenson Button (Brawn) and Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) collided with the rookies Romain Grosjean and Jaime Alguersuari and all four drivers were out of the race. When the pace car turned off the lights and the race restarted Kimi overtook the pole-sitter Giancarlo Fisichella in Eau Rouge, who drove his Force India to the second place.

Sebastian Vettel finished third for Red Bull, while his teammate Mark Webber was ninth after a drive-through penalty for unsafe release from pit-stop. BMW Sauber Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld placed 4th and 5th respectively.

Rubens Barrichello finished after Hamilton’s teammate Heikki Kovalainen. Nico Rosberg closed the top eight for Williams.

Jenson Button did not score any points but still leads the championships with 72. Rubens Barrichello earned 2 points and is within 16 of Button. Sebastian Vettel is now only 3 points behind Barrichello and Mark Webber still has 51.5 points. Brawn GP tops Constructors’ standings with 128 points. Red Bull Racing is 23.5 points behind with other far behind.

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