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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

TT: Goings on about (and out of) town

January 9, 2007 by Terry Teachout

On Saturday I went to DC Moore Gallery to see the Jane Wilson exhibition about which I blogged last week. I was so taken with one of Wilson’s watercolors, “Breaking Light,” that I bought it on the spot–the first time I’ve ever bought a piece of art that was hanging at a show. You can’t view “Breaking Light” on line, alas, but it’s still hanging at the gallery, and if you should happen to buy the catalogue, you can see it reproduced in the “Works on Paper” section.


Also included in the catalogue is the transcript of an interview with Wilson that contains this illuminating remark:

Although I was thoroughly intrigued and influenced by abstraction per se and, in fact, painted quite a few works in the ’50s that might be considered Abstract Expressionist, I finally realized that I really liked subject matter and that I really liked the history of art. I wanted to pursue the natural world in ways that were meaningful to me and not ridden by theory or “position-taking.” This meant going directly to traditional subjects and finding out how I might develop them. I became an avid museumgoer and liked looking back. I was beginning to realize that all of the artists of the past whom I admired in a bone-deep way had used the past as a source of the future.

On Monday morning I wrote two pieces, a “Five Best” article for this Saturday’s The Wall Street Journal and a twenty-minute speech that I’ll be delivering tonight at an Actors’ Fund of America dinner. I then met an opera critic for lunch at Good Enough to Eat, during which we discussed the opera libretto I may or may not be writing.


I spent the afternoon booking travel (about which more below) and answering my mail, including an e-mail from the press rep of a theater company in Maryland who saw this posting and invited me to come see one of her company’s shows in May. I accepted. Talk about cause and effect!


After dinner I strolled down to the ArcLight Theater to catch the opening-night performance of an off-Broadway show, Jonathan Leaf’s The Germans in Paris, which I’ll be reviewing in Friday’s Journal.


Today I write, go to the gym, and give my speech. Tomorrow afternoon I’m off to Raleigh to see the world premiere of Carolina Ballet’s Monet Impressions, an evening of dances by Robert Weiss and Lynne Taylor-Corbett, and take a peek at the North Carolina Museum of Art’s Monet retrospective.


I fly back to New York on Friday, then depart once more on Saturday morning to see shows in Boston, Washington, and Arlington. I plan to blog from the road, but irregularly, so don’t be surprised if I drop out of sight from time to time.


Over to you, OGIC!

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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