10 April 2006 | Uncategorized
Scrabble. “Anne Varick Lauder and Adam William Bye were married yesterday in Tucson … Dr. Lauder, 37 … is the Moore Curatorial Fellow in the prints and drawings department at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York … Dr. Lauder was so delighted to see that Mr. Bye had Scrabble in his apartment that [...]
10 April 2006 | Contemporary
“Allan Kaprow, the artist who combined painting, sculpture and theater in flamboyant events that he staged in unexpected locations and referred to as ‘happenings,’ has died. He was 79. A founding member of the visual arts department at UC San Diego, Kaprow died of natural causes Wednesday at his home in Encinitas, his studio manager, [...]
7 April 2006 | Architecture, Journals
In the March 2006 issue of the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, twelve academics from outside the field of the history of architecture explain “what they have learned” from it and what directions they’d like to see it go in. Editor Nancy Stieber notes: “We are accused of looking at buildings too closely, [...]
7 April 2006 | Career
Jeffrey Archer’s latest novel, False Impression, stars Anna Petrescu. “Smuggled out of Romania to escape the brutal regime of President Ceausescu at 17, she quickly masters [the] English language and after high school wins a scholarship to Williams University in Massachusetts to study art history, a subject she pursues for a Ph.D. even while shining [...]
7 April 2006 | Architecture, Conservation
“Italian authorities on Wednesday unveiled the final fresco restoration of the St. Francis Basilica here following a 1997 earthquake – but because of the quake’s devastation, only a quarter of the missing masterpiece remains … Rather than repaint or reconstruct the image from scratch, Italian art historians and restorers decided to painstakingly restore what fragments [...]
6 April 2006 | Journals, Renaissance
In the latest issue of The Burlington Magazine, a controversial drawing is attributed to Holbein on the basis of new technical examination, while another article argues that certain Figino drawings offer us a secondhand glimpse of lost Leonardo anatomy studies.
6 April 2006 | Architecture, Modern
Wolfgang Pehnt’s history of German architecture from the 1901 Darmstadt exhibition through the recent rebuilding of the Berlin Olympic Stadium is an old-fashioned, magisterial great-buildings survey, subtle and comprehensive — so find Dieter Bartetzko in the FAZ and Gert Kähler in the Süddeutsche. Jürgen Tietz (see NZZ and H-Soz-u-Kult) notes that Pehnt also manages to [...]
6 April 2006 | Teaching
‘Googling “Things To Do Before You Die” — as I did recently — is to be overwhelmed by what seems to be a unifying human obsession. I found no less than 880 million web postings dedicated to the goals people want to check off before taking the final dirt nap … Some appeal to those [...]
5 April 2006 | Books, Renaissance
In his new Michelangelo biography, expert restorator Antonio Forcellino reports a couple of modestly sensational discoveries — for instance, that the marble flame held by the Caritas figure on Pope Julius II’s grave would have been understood by the artist’s reform-minded circle as a symbol of salvation through faith — but its strength lies in [...]
From the L.A. Times: “In a surprise search Wednesday, Greek authorities seized 17 unregistered artifacts and a Byzantine icon from the vacation house of Marion True, the former J. Paul Getty Museum antiquities curator on trial in Rome on charges she trafficked in looted art.” From the N.Y. Times: “one of the largest donations New [...]
5 April 2006 | Contemporary
Recently deceased Australian artist Pro Hart — like Thomas Kinkade, Jack Vettriano, Norman Rockwell, Andrew Wyeth, and countless others before him — has generated controversy, as a beloved artist disdained by many in the art world. According to The Australian, “Barry Pearce, the curator of Australian art at the Art Gallery of NSW, was the [...]
4 April 2006 | Americas
From Artinfo.com: “The Frick Collection has announced it plans to establish a Center for the History of Collecting in America … In the works are five initiatives which include: the creation of an online directory of dealers and collectors, the establishment of a fellowship program supporting study at the Frick for six to eight weeks, [...]
4 April 2006 | Journals
The latest issue of World Archaeology is entirely given over to “race, racism and archaeology”: “race and racism have been subjects of much discussion throughout the humanities and social sciences, but archaeology has not participated in these discussions as fully as it might. This volume aims to aid as a spur to further discussion. Considerable [...]
4 April 2006 | Architecture, Books
G. Ulrich Großmann’s overview of castles in Europe betrays a fascinating subject with dry, uninspiring and didactic prose, finds the Frankfurter Allgemeine.
3 April 2006 | Baroque/Neoclassical
According to the Times of London, “The authenticity of up to 60 paintings attributed to Rubens has been called into doubt after the expertise of the art historian responsible for authenticating them was questioned. Ludwig Burchard was one of the most respected scholars of the 20th century, revered for his knowledge of Rubens. But almost [...]
3 April 2006 | Contemporary
From Artnet: “Kathleen Gilje … known for her mastery of Old Master technique, has convinced a host of art-world movers and shakers — largely art critics, but also curators and art historians — to pose in the costume of art history masterpieces. Thus, Studio Museum in Harlem president Lowery Stokes Sims is shown in the [...]
3 April 2006 | Journals, Medieval
In a richly illustrated article entitled “‘Muoz ich tanzen und kan nit gân?’: death and the infant in the medieval danse macabre,” in the latest issue of Word & Image, Sophie Oosterwijk writes: “relatively little is known about medieval infancy; as a phase of life it has largely been ignored by historians … it is [...]
