Paintings

Poor job growth and a large exodus of unemployed workers last month stifled weeks of upbeat economic data and marked a sobering reality check, signaling that hiring was likely to remain weak in the coming months. Employers added a paltry 88,000 net new jobs in March, the smallest number since June and just one-third of the gain in February. Retailers, manufacturers and finance companies shed jobs over the month, an indication that consumer spending may be softening as workers grapple with higher payroll taxes and sluggish wage growth.

Pop star Madonna is selling a painting from her private collection to benefit education initiatives for girls. "Trois Femmes à la Table Rouge" (Three Women at the Red Table) by Fernand Léger is worth an estimated $5 million to $7 million and will be sold by Sotheby's, the singer announced Wednesday on her official website. The painting, which dates from 1921, is an abstract work created in Léger's signature pseudo-Cubist style. The work is scheduled to be sold on May 7 as part of a larger Sotheby's auction in New York.

Swastikas and the word "skinhead" were painted at a Costa Mesa elementary school's baseball field, officials said Monday. Kaiser Elementary School Principal Deborah Granger said staffers first noticed the slurs when they got to school. Swastikas were painted on trash cans, and the word "skinhead" with a swastika had been painted on part of the backstop, Granger said. The tops of benches had also been painted white. Over the weekend, a usually locked gate that is used by other campuses had been left open, Granger said.

The can of spray paint sat on the ledge of a downtown Sacramento office tower. A tool for etching glass lay below. The body of Craig Fugate was tangled in some ropes about nine stories up the tower. Authorities on Tuesday were trying to piece together the bizarre death. They believe Fugate was somehow killed Monday while trying to vandalize the office building. "They found the spray paint where he climbed down" but no actual tags, Officer Doug Morse said. The Sacramento coroner's office is still trying to determine a cause of death.

A painting by Pablo Picasso is at the center of a recent lawsuit filed by descendants of a prominent German Jewish banker who claim the artwork was lost during the Nazi regime. The plaintiffs are suing the German state of Bavaria for refusing to return the painting. The descendants of Paul von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy claim that "Madame Soler," a painting created by Picasso around 1903, belongs to them. They maintain that Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was compelled to sell the painting during the Nazi regime as a result of the financial hardship he endured as a Jew.  Mendelssohn-Bartholdy was a relative of composer Felix Mendelssohn.

Tucked away and forgotten for years in a museum storage bin, the small oil painting held a great secret and was just biding its time, waiting for someone to notice it. And then one day someone did. So began the Case of the Curious Curator. It all started in 2000 (actually a couple centuries earlier, but that's getting ahead of the story) when a canvas in dreadful condition called "Venice: The Molo from the Bacino di S. Marco" was bequeathed to the Denver Art Museum from a deceased local collector's foundation.

In six new paintings, Brad Eberhard goes scuba-diving in the ocean and spelunking in caves. From the sea he returns with rapture of the deep (and perhaps a bit of decompression sickness), while the caves are filled with Plato's treacherous shadows -- which may or may not describe reality. “Way Out,” the most beautiful of the six, is a cave painting. Blood-red pigment was poured along the upper edge of the 4-foot-square canvas and ran down the surface, recalling methods used by Jackson Pollock and Morris Louis.

"Gimme the Loot" shouldn't be as appealing and exuberant as it is, it really shouldn't. It's set in the Bronx, the grittiest of New York City boroughs. Its larcenous teenage protagonists are introduced stealing spray paint from a hardware store; the world they live in is rife with drug dealing, robbery and all manner of hustles and petty scams. This could be the set-up for a sequel to "The Wire," but in writer-director Adam Leon's hands it is anything but. PHOTOS: Movies Sneaks 2013 In a feature debut that succeeded at Cannes after taking the best narrative prize at last year's SXSW festival, Leon, who himself won Film Independent's Someone to Watch award, has made a small-scale, warm-hearted film that is both upbeat and intimate.

Dan McCleary is one of the finest figure painters working today. Since 2010 he has also directed Art Division, an after school arts program for young adults. Now he is showing with Javier Carrillo and Emmanuel Galvez, talented former students at Art Division. Their recent paintings begin with a stylistic clarity and precision familiar from their teacher's example, while wholly transforming his precedent in distinctive ways. McCleary's three large genre paintings at Craig Krull depict simple scenes.

Has billionaire hedge fund manager Steven Cohen purchased Picasso's "Le Rêve" from billionaire hotel and casino magnate Steve Wynn? A story in the New York Post this week reports that Cohen has bought the coveted painting for $155 million . If true, the sale would be one of the most expensive single art transactions in U.S. history. A spokesman for Cohen declined to comment on the matter. "Le Rêve" is the painting that Wynn famously damaged by accident in 2006 when he punctured the canvas with his elbow.