Tuesday's Art Notes

_Mark Coreth begins work on his sculpture of a female tiger on the South Bank in London. The skeleton will be transformed into a tigress during a 5-day project to highlight WWF's "Year of the Tiger":http://www.worldwildlife.org/species/finder/tigers/year-of-tiger.html campaign. Photo by Ben Stansall/ AFP/ Getty Images_ * The Kennedy Center announced that this year's honorees will include Oprah Winfrey, musicians "Merle Haggard":http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/merle-haggard/learning-to-live-with-myself/1545/ and "Paul McCartney":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/jan-june10/mccartney_06-03.html, and choreographer "Bill T. Jones":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/entertainment/july-dec09/billtjones_11-24.html, via "The New York Times Arts Beat":http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/kennedy-center-names-annual-honorees/. * Meanwhile, the White House will honor choreographer Judith Jamison today with a special dance performance, via the "Los Angeles Times":http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/08/obamas-to-honor-dancer-judith-jamison-at-white-house.html. We'll have more on that performance -- plus an encore of "our recent profile":http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2010/01/monday-on-the-newshour-judith-jamison-and-the-alvin-ailey-american-dance-theater.html of Jamison -- tonight on the NewsHour. * Eleven Egyptian culture officials will face trial over security failures surrounding the theft of a Van Gogh painting from a Cairo museum, via the "Associated Press":http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jo_340hITFAeJxb-PDYzxmVs9YXAD9I2GQLG2. * The Vatican's museum director says some of their greatest art treasures are showing signs of deterioration due to the physical toll wreaked by their millions of tourist visitors each year, via "AFP":http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/news-and-advice/heavy-tourist-traffic-endangers-sistine-chapel-museum-chief-2072367.html. * Speaking of art treasures, how do we define or assign the term "masterpiece" these days? The Los Angeles Times "considers":http://www.latimes.com/la-ca-masterpieces-20100905,0,1220764.story how the meaning of the word has changed. * Actress America Ferrera will be the next host of PBS's "Independent Lens":http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/host.html for the new season starting October 19.