FAMILY AIMS TO DISINTER ROTHKO

Artist Mark Rothko’s children are asking a New York state judge to approve moving their father’s remains from a small cemetery on eastern Long Island to a Jewish cemetery in Westchester County.

The East Marion Cemetery Association voted more than a year ago to allow the exhumation, but also wants a court order permitting the removal of the remains. Rothko, an abstract impressionist painter, committed suicide on February 25, 1970.

The children also want to exhume the body of their mother, Mary Alice, from a cemetery in Cleveland, and rebury her remains with Rothko in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, N.Y.

State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Pitts has three months to decide.

Associated Press

ELYSIAN TRUMPET IN NEW YORK

The Elysian Trumpet is blowing into New York. Insured by Lloyd’s of London for $1 million, this 24-karat, brushed-gold instrument was commissioned by New Orleans musician Irvin Mayfield Jr. to honor the memory of his late father, Irvin Mayfield Sr. The senior Mayfield died during Hurricane Katrina, and his body was found on Elysian Fields Avenue in New Orleans months after the storm.

Mr. Mayfield played the trumpet at the Blue Note last night, in the first night of a two-night engagement. It was the first time the trumpet — which was blessed by the Archbishop of Canterbury in September 2007 — has been played in New York City. The trumpet’s designer, David Monette of Portland, Ore., embedded semiprecious stones, a multifaceted ruby, and intricate symbolic motifs into the body of the instrument. An armed member of the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Department accompanies the trumpet wherever it goes .

Staff Reporter of the Sun

CRUISE AND CO. DELAY HITLER FLICK

United Artists announced yesterday it has pushed back the release of “Valkyrie,” starring Tom Cruise as a German offer during World War II, to President’s Day weekend 2009, from October 3. It’s the second time the movie has been pushed back. It was originally slotted for June.

The film, to be distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., is the second attempt by Mr. Cruise and his producing partner, Paula Wagner, to revive the once-moribund United Artists.

The studio’s first movie, a clunky think piece on terrorism, “Lions for Lambs,” which starred Mr. Cruise as a senator, was a critical and box-office flop. It is estimated to have lost about $30 million.

MGM said the “Valkyrie” move was made to take advantage of the holiday weekend. “When an opening became available for President’s Day weekend, we seized the opportunity,” the head of domestic distribution at MGM domestic, Clark Woods, said in a statement. “Having seen a lot of the film and how great it is going to play once it’s finished, moving into a big holiday weekend is the right move.”

“Valkyrie,” directed by Bryan Singer (“The Ususal Suspects,” “X-Men”), is based on a real-life plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Mr. Cruise, sporting his American accent, plays a high-ranking German officer named Claus von Stauffenberg, who orchestrates the plot in order to seize power of the military command and end the war.

Associated Press

ZHANG DAQIAN PAINTING FETCHES $1.1M AT SOTHEBY’S IN HONG KONG

An ink-and-color painting by Chinese artist Zhang Daqian fetched about $1.1 million, the top lot at the start of a four-day sale by Sotheby’s in Hong Kong. Zhang’s “Hengguan Mountain Road,” painted around 1964, had a pre-sale estimate of $770,000, according to Sotheby’s. Zhang’s painting was one of 265 Chinese ink pictures offered at the sale, which fetched a combined $19 million, with 219 lots sold, according to the New York-based auctioneer. Total proceeds, including a sale of Southeast Asian art, were $31.2 million.

“The mood is more subdued than last year,” an art dealer, Tian Kai, who flew in from Beijing for the auction, said. “People are more cautious with their bids.” Sotheby’s Hong Kong sale is among the first bellwethers of Asia’s art-auction market after an equity rout that triggered a 28% fall in China’s benchmark CSI 300 Index and a 23% drop in Indian stocks in the first quarter. More than in Europe and America, Asia’s art market tends to track prevailing financial-market trends, said Cai Mingchao, who paid a record $15 million for a Ming Dynasty bronze Buddha in October 2006.

Bloomberg News