Monster Mash: Zaha Hadid's Maxxi building in Rome; Glassell will is upheld in Texas; Ashlee Simpson on Broadway

-- Unveiling: Reviews are coming in for architect Zaha Hadid's National Museum of the XXI Century Arts in Rome, even though it is not quite finished. (Times Online) 

-- Legally binding: A Texas jury has upheld the final will of philanthropist and oilman Alfred C. Glassell Jr. against his daughter's attempt to invalidate it. (Houston Chronicle) 

-- Cultural debate: Experts wonder if antiquities really belong to their country of origin. (New York Times)

-- Red ink: The bankrupt Toronto-based Ritchies Auctioneers has $8.5 million in debt. (The Globe and Mail)

-- Real-estate hitch: The sale of a $5.1-million upstate New York home belonging to indicted art dealer Lawrence Salander hits a snag. (Bloomberg)

-- Outright theft: A former employee at Delaware's Winterthur Museum has turned himself in after spending more than $100,000 of the museum's money. (The News Journal)

-- Reserving judgment: Pop star Ashlee Simpson-Wentz will join the cast of Broadway's "Chicago" beginning Nov. 30. (New York Daily News)

-- New downbeat: The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia has named Belgian conductor Dirk Brosse as its new music director. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

-- And in the L.A. Times: Art critic Christopher Knight reviews "Collection: MOCA's First Thirty Years"; theater critic Charles McNulty reviews "Mary Poppins" at the Ahmanson.

-- David Ng

Photo: the National Museum of the XXI Century Arts in Rome. Credit: Max Rossi / Reuters

Monster Mash: Warhol painting fetches $43.8 million; Tate's new director; Operation Sophocles

-- Worth a fortune: Andy Warhol's 1962 painting "200 One Dollar Bills" has sold for $43.8 million at a Sotheby's auction, helping the auction house to beat estimates for the evening. (Art Info)

-- Moving up: Penelope Curtis has been named the new director of Tate Britain. (The Guardian)

-- Art of war: The U.S. government is bringing plays by Sophocles to military venues across the country. (New Yorker)

-- House hunting: The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is considering purchasing a damaged fire station as part of its expansion plans. (New York Times)

-- Filling in: Harvey Fierstein has replaced an ailing Topol in the national touring production of "Fiddler on the Roof." (Playbill)

-- Signs of trouble: Director Francesca Zambello has withdrawn from the musical "The First Wives Club," which is aiming for Broadway after an engagement at the Old Globe in San Diego. (Variety)

-- Slower sales: The Stratford Shakespeare Festival reported a drop in attendance for 2009. (Toronto Star)

-- Still recuperating: Conductor Leonard Slatkin has canceled a series of upcoming concerts as he recovers from a heart attack. (Detroit Free Press)

-- And in the L.A. Times: Work will begin on a scaled-back Orange County Great Park; the Ojai Music Festival reveals details of its 2010 program; Getty Leadership Institute moves from L.A. to Claremont.

-- David Ng

Photo: Andy Warhol's "200 One Dollar Bills." Credit: Mario Tama / Getty Images

Unused Beatles album artwork by Jim Dine up for sale

The graphite and watercolor artwork that you see on the left was created in 1968 and was destined for eternal rock 'n' roll fame. Hollywood's Capitol Records commissioned Pop artist Jim Dine to create a series of illustrations for a forthcoming Beatles album. But the project fell apart after the band decided to leave Capitol in order to form the Apple Records label.

The unused art ended up in the private collection of former Capitol Records President Sal Iannucci and his wife Aileen. Later this month, it will hit the auction block at Bonhams & Butterfields in Los Angeles where it is expected to fetch between $25,000 to $35,000.

The artwork consists of five individual pieces -- four depicting individual toothbrushes labeled for each member of the band plus a fifth showing all four toothbrushes together. Each item is signed and dated 'Jim Dine 1968' in the lower left corner, according to the auction house.

An acclaimed Pop artist, Dine used graphite and watercolor paints to create the works on vellum. Each piece stands approximately 17 inches by 14 inches.

"It's a lovely representation of how art and music can go together," said Sharon Goodman Squires, a specialist at Bonhams.

Monster Mash: Michael Jackson portrait beats estimates; 'Rent' controversy in Vegas; Met Opera's windfall

-- Sold / not sold: A 1984 portrait of Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol beat estimates by selling for $812,500 and a painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat went unsold at a Christie's auction in New York. (Bloomberg)

-- Shows must go on: A judge has allowed a Las Vegas-area high school to continue with its productions of "Rent" and "The Laramie Project" over the objections of some parents. (Las Vegas Review-Journal)

-- Windfall: A lighthouse keeper's daughter in Scotland has bequeathed $7.5 million to New York's Metropolitan Opera. (New York Times)

-- Possible deal: Iranian television says the British Museum has agreed to loan the 2,500-year-old Cyrus Cylinder to Iran for three months. (Bloomberg)

-- Repossession: Egypt becomes more aggressive about reclaiming antiquities from European museums. (BBC News)

-- Cinematic touch: Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami is showing a series of photographs alongside work by sculptor Parviz Tanavoli in a joint exhibition in Dubai. (Agence France Presse)

-- Cat fight: Is the public spat between Dame Edna and Michael Feinstein merely a publicity stunt? (Variety)

-- Honored: Eugene Pack's "The Headstand" has won first place at this year's Ellen Idelson One-Act Playwriting Competition in Comedy Writing in L.A. (Theatre West)

-- And in the L.A. Times: Art critic Christopher Knight on El Museo del Barrio; artist Jean-Francois Spricigo's animal photographs to travel from Paris to L.A.; the Getty Conservation Institute launches a five-year King Tut project with Egypt.

-- David Ng

Photo: The Andy Warhol portrait of Michael Jackson at Christie's in New York. Credit: Emmanuel Dunand / AFP/Getty Images

Milan's big showing of a Da Vinci notebook recalls L.A.'s Leonardo that got away

In light of recent controversies, most folks who care about art know that it's a really big deal for a museum to even think of unloading a masterpiece. (Consider Brandeis University's attempt to sell off the collection of its Rose Art Museum to rescue the university from budgetary woes, brought on partly by some of its major donors’ fondness for investing with Bernie Madoff.)

The Hammer Museum might wish for the case of the long-gone Leicester Codex -- Leonardo da Vinci's handwritten, illustrated notebook that’s primarily about the properties of water -- to be water under the bridge. But once you auction off Da Vinci's handiwork for $28 million, as the Hammer did 15 years ago this month in the granddaddy of L.A. deaccessionings, well, people tend to remember.

Especially when there’s news that a library in Milan, Italy, is going to get six years of exhibitions out of episodically displaying all 1,119 pages of its much larger Da Vinci notebook, the Atlantic Codex.

Plans at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, which opened in 1609, call for showing 44 or 45 pages at a time, for three months, then cycling in the next group of pages. That’s to save the light-sensitive work from potential damage from overexposure. The first set of pages went on display in September, divided between two venues – the library itself and the nearby Santa Maria delle Grazie convent, which also houses Leonardo’s “The Last Supper.”

Edward Ruscha print sets auction record

“Standard Station (E. 5),” a 1966 print by Edward Ruscha, was sold today for $170,000 — the top price in a Bonhams & Butterfields auction.

Paintings by the Los Angeles-based artist have commanded up to $6.9 million at auction, the sum fetched by “Burning Gas Station” in 2007, but “Standard Station” soared past its estimated selling price of $30,000 to $40,000, setting an auction record for a Ruscha print.

The crisp, brightly colored image of a Standard Oil station is No. 33 of an edition of 50 screenprints published by Audrey Sabol in Villanova, Pa., and printed by Art Krebs in Los Angeles. The previous auction record for a Ruscha print was established in 2007, when “Hollywood” was sold for $133,000.

The Bonhams & Butterfields sale, simulcast in Los Angeles and San Francisco, brought in more than $1 million from an eclectic offering of fine prints and multiples by Old Masters and modern and contemporary artists. But none came close to the Ruscha, the cover piece on the auction catalog.

-- Suzanne Muchnic

Photo: "Standard Station (E. 5)," 1966 screenprint by Edward Ruscha. Credit: Courtesy of Bonhams & Butterfields.  

Monster Mash: Leonard Slatkin recovering after heart attack; Houston museum in legal battle; Jesus as a transsexual draws protest

-- Stage scare: Conductor Leonard Slatkin suffered a heart attack mid-performance with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra in the Netherlands and is now recovering after surgery. (Detroit Free Press)

-- Money trouble: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, is embroiled in a legal battle with the heirs of oil millionaire Alfred C. Glassell Jr., who left about half of his estate to the institution in his will. (Bloomberg)

-- Tepid sales: A high-profile auction of Impressionist paintings at Christie's in New York failed to stir much interest from buyers. (New York Times)

-- Zealous: Protesters held a candlelight gathering in front of a Glasgow, Scotland, theater where a play depicts Jesus Christ as a transsexual. (BBC News)

-- Filling the void: The Chicago musical "Million Dollar Quartet" will open at Broadway's Nederlander Theatre in the spring, filling the vacancy left by "Brighton Beach Memoirs." (Chicago Tribune)

-- Speaking of which: Was a new advertising pilot program at the New York Times responsible for the premature demise of "Brighton Beach Memoirs"? (New York Post)

-- On the brink: The Honolulu Symphony could file for bankruptcy as early as this week. (Honolulu Advertiser)

-- Finale: The Willows Theatre Company said it will close its theater operations in Concord, Calif. (Contra Costa Times)

-- And in the L.A. Times: The NEA Opera Awards will bypass L.A. airwaves despite featuring artists with strong local ties; Times art critic Christopher Knight on the new documentary "The Art of the Steal."

-- David Ng

Photo: Conductor Leonard Slatkin. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Monster Mash: Banksy's graffiti defaced; Oregon Shakespeare Festival surprise; Caravaggio's self-portrait

--Everyone's a critic: A mural by British graffiti artist Banksy was defaced during a vote on whether the artwork ought to be preserved. (BBC News)

--Box office surprise: The Oregon Shakespeare Festival says it saw record attendance and revenue for its 2009 season. (Associated Press)

--A lot of Windex: A Jeff Koons sculpture cost a couple between $75,000 and $100,000 a year to maintain. (Connecticut Post, via Art Info)

--Big plans: Billionaire Victor Pinchuk said he will build a contemporary arts center in Kiev, Ukraine. (Bloomberg)

--Where's Caravaggio? Art experts say they have found a tiny self-portrait of Caravaggio hidden in his 1597 painting "Bacchus." (Telegraph)

--Setting a date: Sacramento's Crocker Art Museum says it will reveal its 125,000-square-foot expansion in October 2010. (Crocker Art Museum)

--Summer in the park: The Public Theater said it will stage Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" and "A Winter's Tale" next summer in New York's Central Park. (Playbill)

--Lucrative project: Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire is set to adapt an upcoming series of children's books by William Joyce for DreamWorks Animation. (Variety)

--In memory: Britain's Evening Standard Awards has renamed one of its annual honors after the late Natasha Richardson. (The Stage)

--Expensive wheels: Bicycles that Lance Armstrong used during the Tour de France have fetched $1.3 million in a charity auction for his cancer foundation. (Bloomberg)

--Invaluable documents: The Juilliard School announced the acquisition of manuscripts by Beethoven and Mendelssohn. (New York Times)

--Fast on their feet: The nominations and honorees for the Isadora Duncan Awards -- honoring the best in the Bay Area dance community -- have been announced. (San Francisco Chronicle)

--And in the L.A. Times: Researchers say that the ancient Nazca people of Peru hastened their own demise through deforestation; President Obama makes 25 appointments to his Committee on the Arts and the Humanities; Cirque du Soleil's "Kooza" extends through Dec. 20 in Santa Monica.

-- David Ng

Photo: The recently defaced mural by Banksy in South London. Credit: BBC News

Monster Mash: Broadway's 'Brighton Beach' closes; forgery case reopened; Ground Zero center in danger

-- Open and shut: Despite good reviews, the Broadway revival of Neil Simon's "Brighton Beach Memoirs" closed Sunday after just one week. (Newsday). Some thoughts on the reasons (Los Angeles Times).

-- F is for fake: The FBI has reopened a case involving a Louisiana couple accused of selling art forgeries. (Associated Press)

-- Spreading the word: José Antonio Abreu, the founder of Venezuela's El Sistema, discusses music education in Canada. (The Globe and Mail)

-- In danger: The proposed performing arts center at New York's Ground Zero could be axed before it breaks ground. (New York Times)

-- Classical prize: A musician tries to restore the luster to the once-prestigious International Tchaikovsky   Competition. (Fort Worth Star-Telegram)

-- On the move: Galleries in San Francisco are leaving the city's arts districts in search of cheaper rent. (San Francisco Chronicle)

-- Tale of two cities: Which is Asia's top cultural metropolis -- Hong Kong or Singapore? (Wall Street Journal)

-- Felicitations: French playwright-novelist Marie NDiaye wins her country's highest literary honor for her novel "Three Powerful Women." (Bloomberg)

-- Lucky find: A contemporary Egyptian sculpture that sat in a Cleveland man's garden for nearly 40 years has been sold for $118,000. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)

-- And in the L.A. Times: San Diego's Old Globe announces its 2010 summer season; the heirs of George and Ira Gershwin are at odds over foreign royalties; winners are announced in the First Annual Art Awards.  

-- David Ng

Photo: Laurie Metcalf and Dennis Boutsikaris in "Brighton Beach Memoirs." Credit: Joan Marcus / Via Bloomberg

Monster Mash: Forgotten Warhol self-portrait for sale; theater controversy in Israel; Rob Ashford promoted

-- For sale: A long-forgotten 1965 self-portrait by Andy Warhol is expected to fetch $1 million or more at an auction in November. (Associated Press)

-- Art and politics: A 20-minute, one-man play by a United Nations official is causing controversy in Israel. (The Guardian)

-- Moving up in the world: Choreographer-director Rob Ashford is appointed the new associate director of the Donmar Warehouse. (Playbill)

-- Stage whispers: Is Kenneth Lonergan's new off-Broadway play "The Starry Messenger," starring Matthew Broderick, headed for disaster? (New York Post)

-- Literary prize: Playwright Rajiv Joseph, whose "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" premiered at the Kirk Douglas Theatre this year, is among the winners of the Whiting Award. (Variety)

-- Anti-establishment: A parody of power lists ranks the 20 most powerless people in the art world. (Hyperallergic)

-- No thanks: Hugh Jackman, who is starring in Broadway's "A Steady Rain," has declined to host the Oscar telecast for the second time. (Variety)

-- And in the L.A. Times: Hollywood's Museum of Death features artifacts from serial killings as well as mummified heads. (Los Angeles Times)

-- David Ng

Photo: The 1965 self-portrait by Andy Warhol that will go on sale in November.