Stories of Ruler Portraits
Since (ugh) election time coming around once again, let’s look at some interesting portraits of people who were never elected (except for the last one). There are always interesting tidbits abou ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
A Beautiful Idea...and Building: Louis Bourgeois
Once, while on a plane landing at O’Hare when I lived in Chicago, the sun was going down and we flew in low over this spectacular building. I’ll never forget that sight. And, yes, it was i ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
German American Heritage Month: Pennsylvania German
The more things change, etc. I get really irritated with people who say in speeches that immigrants to the United States should “speak American.” For one thing, “American” isn& ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
A Bridge: Jasper Johns
The impression a reader gets from some surveys of art history, unfortunately, is that one artistic movement ends and another picks up in a totally different direction. We know this is not true when we ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
Gently Waft into Fall: Elizabeth Otis Boott Duveneck
Since I don’t know many people who enjoy seeing summer end, I use the words “gently waft” instead of “fall” for this post. What better way to mark—not celebrate&mda ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
A Consistent Concretist: Carmen Herrera
I recently learned about an artist who turned 100 this past may. Turning 100 is fabulous, and even more fabulous is discovering that this artist was ahead of her time stylistically in painting, but di ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
Smile of the Buddha in Art
The look on the Buddha’s face of serenity is probably what some of us acquired after having a three-day weekend for Labor Day. But, this image intrigued me because—as is the case with ever ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
Photo Phear: George Barnard and Gertrude Käsebier
I am Totally not into getting my photograph taken, especially while on vacation, so I am the last person on Earth who should criticize the way other people come out in photographic portraits. I don&rs ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
Vacation Blog: Provincetown Modernism
I’m off on a week’s vacation in Provincetown, which, as you may know, has been the home of a thriving art colony since the late 1800s. The Provincetown Art Association was founded in 1914, ...
Read More
Curator's Corner
A Realism Backlash? Modern Art Heads
After the horrors experienced by Europeans in World War I (1914–1918), the brakes were more or less put on to the prevailing trend towards modernism and abstraction, although certainly many arti ...
Read More